Experiment in Terror 09 Dust to Dust (8 page)

“Ada!” I yelled, knowing that I’d already attracted enough attention already. “Ada I’m here, I’m going to come through.”

But try as I did, I could not get the air to shift. I closed my eyes, concentrating until my head felt like it was going to explode. I focused off and on, pretending I was looking at one of those Magic Eye painting that were everywhere in the nineties, but even that didn’t work.

Shit, shit, shit. Why wasn’t it working? Was I just not trying hard enough?

I took in a deep breath and attempted to count backward from ten. When I came through from the other side earlier, I felt I had time on my side. Here I didn’t. I needed to relax and trust that it would happen. I needed to calm the fuck down.

I only got as far as four though when I heard the scratching sound of overgrown spider legs, a sound I hoped I’d never hear again. I looked over my shoulder to see five of them coming around the corner, heading straight for me, all their eyes on their prize, their pincers clicking against each other as if they were imagining eating me already.

Fuck this shit. I let out a small cry, knowing that it would be impossible now for me to escape. I swatted at the air, tears threatening to spill down my face. I was so close to Dex, so close to my world, our life, and I was going to get stuck here.

The spiders began to give off a low, guttural growl, like a drooling dog on the attack. I looked behind at them again. At their pace, they’d be at me in ten seconds. I glanced around for plan B – did I even have enough time to find a weapon to fight them off? – when I saw yet another problem.

A creature emerged from the side of one of the buildings. She might have been a woman in another life, but here she could barely be called that. She pulled herself along the sidewalk, the lower part of her severed off, guts trailing behind her like a flowing tail.

Her head was on backward. I could see bald patches through her ratty, dark hair, as she crawled toward me, skeletal arms and fingers reaching my way, worn down to the bone.

I would have probably thrown up at the sight of her if it wasn’t for the fact that I was about to be eviscerated by giant spiders in a few seconds.

“Perry!”

I whirled around in time to see Ada emerge from the shimmering air, across the park, near the coffee kiosk we had gotten our lunch.

I couldn’t afford to be mad at her for coming through, not now. She was saving my ass.

I yelled back and quickly ran past the spiders, trying to avoid them. One leaped straight for me, tackling me from behind. Hairy legs tangled in my hair and the sheer weight of it threatened to pull me down.

Screaming, I ripped around, stumbling wildly in an attempt to get it off. Somehow it did, painfully taking out strands of my hair as it did so, and let out a high-pitched whine as it fell to the ground. There was no time to dwell on it – I kept running and running, now keenly aware that the spiders were in hot pursuit, coming faster now.

Just when I thought Ada was about to disappear – she was growing fainter before my eyes – she ran forward and grabbed my hand. I could barely feel her grip in mine, her body somewhere between solid and liquid. Her eyes darted over my shoulder and widened. I didn’t dare turn around again.

She yanked me toward her with all her might and in an instant I was being sucked into the shimmer, the familiar pressure kicking out from the inside of my brain.

My ears popped and there was a moment of blinding light and screams before I found myself tumbling forward and falling down into the dirt.

Dirt. Brown, smelly, earthy dirt under my hands and knees. I breathed it in deep, taking a moment to be grateful for this world.

Then I looked up – remembering what this world was willing to accept. There was old lady on the bench across from me, reading a book and staring at me with her mouth open. I quickly looked around. Ada was standing beside me, offering her hand, her face both worried and sheepish. Behind us was the coffee kiosk, blocking our view from most of the park. It seemed that only the lady had seen me materialize out of thin air.

I let Ada help me to my feet, her grip solid again, and I dusted off my jeans before I gave the stunned lady my most winning smile.

“Magic trick,” I explained to her with a slight shrug. “Looks like we got it right this time.”

Then I led Ada away from her and to the other side of the kiosk. In seconds we were joined by Maximus, breathing hard from running across the park.

“What the hell did you do, Perry?” he asked, though he put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it affectionately. “I told you.”

“I know you did,” I said. “But it worked! I found Dex! Quick, we have to hurry.”

He didn’t smile at that, nor did he remove his hand. “Ada had to go after you. I couldn’t stop her. If she hadn’t, you might have been lost in there forever.”

I swallowed hard and looked them both in the eye. “I know. I wish you wouldn’t have,” I said to Ada. “But you got me out and you seem fine too. You feel fine, right?” Good lord, I hope she felt fine.

She nodded and gave me a crooked smile, though I had noticed she was being more quiet than normal. I forgot that a trip to the Veil can you leave you slightly shell-shocked for a while.

“Did you really find Dex?” Maximus asked, turning my attention back to him.

“Yes!” I cried out, feeling the hourglass tipping over again. “I saw him and I think he heard me. It was like a window opened up and I was able to see into this world, but not cross over. He was on the Brooklyn Bridge. Alone.”

“Just like your dreams,” Ada mused blankly, still sounding a bit out of it. “Or whatever they were.”

“Exactly. I should have known to go there, but it didn’t occur to me. But he’s there. And he’s alive. If we hurry, maybe we can catch up with him. At the very least, at least we know he’s in the city and he’s got to be looking for us.”

Maximus sighed, though he was relaxing a bit. “All right. If you ladies are both feeling okay to hightail it to the bridge, I reckon it’s worth a shot.”

He could barely finish his sentence. I was already on the run, heading to Dex.

“Excuse me, sir, are you all right?”

The quiet but concerned voice brought everything into focus. I found myself staring into the eyes of a hipster. That was my first thought, anyway. She was wearing a plaid, short-sleeved collared shirt, had close- cropped hair and lime green glasses that didn’t seem to have lenses. Oh and a septum nose ring.

I blinked at her a few times, stupidly. Behind her the brown buildings of Brooklyn gradually appeared, like the whole world was being painted into place. Well, Brooklyn certainly explained the hipster.

It did not explain why I was standing on the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, hands gripped to the railing of the pedestrian walkway like a fucking loon.

“Are you tripping?” she asked.

The polite, earnest way she said that made me laugh.

I most certainly was tripping. I had no fucking idea why I was in New York City. In fact, I think I finally,
finally
lost my damn mind. I’d been waiting for this moment for a very long time.

“Doctor put me on new meds,” I lied. “Can’t seem to figure out how I got here.”

She smiled at me, a lot warmer now. I’d wrongly assumed she was a lesbian, now she seemed to be into me. “Where are you from?” she asked slyly, which only cemented the suspicion.

“Seattle,” I said. “I’m on vacation with my girlfriend,” I added quickly as I felt the blood drain out of me. Jesus crackers, where the fuck
was
Perry? How the hell did I get here? I had way too many questions to keep inside my brain and I was afraid that if I spent another minute with this woman, I was going to say something that would get me committed. Unless being tits-up crazy was suddenly cool. It wasn’t when I was young.

She smiled still, though not as open as before, shot down. “Cool. Well, hope you enjoy the city. And I hope your new meds work out.”

She gave me a wave and continued on her way toward Brooklyn, lost in the stream of people walking to and fro.

Now that she was gone, I could breathe. AKA, not breathe, AKA freak the fuck out.

Think, you idiot
, I told myself, adjusting my cap against the glare of the sun. Why the hell was it so warm here?

And, once again, why the hell was I in New York?

I tried to think back and couldn’t remember anything except being in Portland at Perry’s parent’s house.

A flash of a familiar face came across my mind, but my instincts couldn’t be correct.

Why did I have the feeling that I saw my brother Michael at some point? That was as likely as Kim Kardashian’s ass being real. I hadn’t seen him since, well, since we were teenagers.

And yet I kept seeing him, as he would be today. A tall, dark, handsome asshole in a suit. Not as handsome as me, but close enough. And with the thought of him came this feeling that maybe I really was tripping out. Being alone in NYC, with no memory of how I got there, was bad enough, but it had nothing on the wash of dread that was sinking into my pores.

I shivered to myself and shook my head a few times, trying to shake it off, trying to shake some sense in. None doing. The feeling intensified, like it was just taking root and finding sunlight.

Before I really started to panic, I searched my pocket for my phone.

It was gone.

Shitballs.

I was alone in NYC, I kept feeling like the world was going to end at any moment, and I didn’t even have my phone, or a wallet. I only had my wits and I was starting to think those were in short supply.

“Dex!”

It was Perry’s voice, soft as satin sheets. I turned around, my eyes scanning the aloof people walking past but I didn’t see her anywhere.

Had I even heard her? I looked again, harder, searching each person, my ears trained for her voice. Suddenly I was hit with an overwhelming sense of urgency. It wasn’t that my situation wasn’t scary – it was. Ask any drunk the next morning when they don’t know where they are.

But in the back of my mind, I’d already been rationalizing everything. I must have blacked out for one reason or another but I had to have come to New York with Perry. I don’t know why we came here or when but we would have come together.

We would have had to. The girl just agreed to marry me – the crazy fucking girl – and I know I would have not let her out of my sight for a second. She was more precious to me than life itself.

And yet, she wasn’t here. I felt her presence, heard her voice, but it was about as substantial as the air in front of my face. She was nowhere to be seen just as I probably was for her.

My heart decided to take a nose dive.

What if I couldn’t find her?

What if something horrible had happened to her, to us? Every second that ticked past on that bridge, I was getting the feeling that some horrible
had
happened and the world was just waiting for me to catch on.

I put my hand to my chest and kneaded my knuckles along it, hoping to dispel the nervous energy that was building up. I needed a cigarette to clear my head. I needed a drink to calm my nerves.

I needed Perry just to get by.

I breathed in deeply through my nose, willing the pain in my ribs to go away. I had to have a plan of some sort if I was going to get anywhere. Staring at the throngs of people as they walked past, their attentions utterly focused on the space in front of them, I wondered if anyone would be nice enough to let me borrow their phone to call Perry. I contemplated running after the lime green glasses girl but she was long gone.

Lady luck was smiling at me however. I asked two twenty-something girls in sundresses with cigarettes dangling from their lips if I could bum a smoke. After one of them did, rather begrudgingly, I turned my charms onto the nicer, plumper one and asked if she wouldn’t mind me borrowing her phone for a minute.

This time, mentioning a girlfriend came in handy and once she realized the guy with the ’stache wasn’t getting potentially rapey on her, she gave me her Samsung. I actually had to correct myself and tell her my girlfriend was actually my fiancé now. Man, did that sound both weird and awesome to say that out loud but it seemed to win me a few points, which I hoped would turn into a few extra minutes on the phone.

Turns out I needed them. Perry didn’t answer her phone, even when I called three times in a row. The girl was starting to sigh and look put out, the subtle way to say “dude, get the fuck off the phone” and I grinned nervously at her. “Just one more person to try.”

Actually I had more than a few people to try but since the last place I remembered was the Palominos, I figured that was my best bet. I hated having to ring her parents but hey, I guess they were going to be my parents too one day. They better get used to it. And so should I.

But there was no answer at their house either, which struck me as odd. Usually her mother was home, if not Ada. I left a long, yelling message on the machine.

“Hey, so it’s Dex and sorry to bother you, but if Perry is there I would love to speak to her. I’m in New York City. Not sure how that happened. Anyhoo, I would be much obliged if someone, anyone…Ada…Mr. Palomino…dad? I guess I have to call you dad soon, right? Maybe not. Anyone really, if you would pick up the phone because I think this will be my last call for a while and I can’t seem to find my phone. Or my wallet. Or know what’s going on or how I got here. So yeah. Answering the phone would be great. Hello? Bueller?” Pause. Waiting for them to pick up. “But you won’t do that because you’re not home. That’s fine. I’m busy too. I’m on the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s awesome. There are two young ladies here, one I’m sure has something against mustaches and the other who is giving me a look like she’s sorry she lent me her phone. Well, if I don’t hear from you guys…It’s because I don’t have my cell. I told you that, right? Anyway, I’ll call back. When I can. I might not be able to.” Another pause and this is when I noticed both girls look like they are ten seconds away from blowing their rape whistle and bringing out the pepper spray. “Okay, bye.”