MirrorWorld (27 page)
Nothing like a little external motivation,
I think, and look back through the scope. Medusa-hands is no longer moving. Its broad head is turned up toward me. I pull the trigger. The gun coughs. A massive oscillium round pokes a clean hole in the front of Medusa-hands’s triangular head, right between the eyes. The round mushrooms inside the beast, expanding and creating a wave of pressure of flesh, bone, and yellow blood, all of which exits the back of the thing’s head through a basketball-sized hole. But the pressure wave also moves outward in all directions, and the explosive force shatters the thing’s head like a stick of dynamite inside a pumpkin.
I slap in a fresh magazine and shift my aim to the next target, a bull, now looking back and forth. I pull the trigger. The thing detonates as the round moves through its thick body, front to back. The pressure is so great that gushing wounds erupt from its torso, outlining the round’s path through the monster’s body.
A second bull fills the lens as I turn to the right. This one has spotted me. It takes a step forward and then ceases to exist, its head folding in and then erupting out—explosive red gore and green blood.
I find my next target already charging, which means the others are, too. But it’s not stupid. The bull ducks and weaves as it runs, slowing its charge but making itself a harder target. Too bad for the bull; it’s big as hell. I pull the trigger. It loses a leg and falls into the mud, trailing a luminescent green streak of blood. It moans in pain, drowning out the frenetic whispering now filling my mind.
I look back. The mothmen are closing in. The thing with them now looks like some kind of bus-sized flying centipede, undulating up and down while gliding on pterodactyl-sized, fleshy wings. Maybe this is the Japanese, man-eating centipede Dearborn mentioned?
Ō
mukade. But with wings. Could this, as he guessed, simply be a different race of that species? Maybe in Japan this thing doesn’t have wings? Or maybe the poor souls who saw it just couldn’t remember the wings? It pulses with veins of color—green, yellow, red, and purple. Four wide eyes stare at me. I have no idea what this thing is, but, fear or no fear, I don’t want to find out.
Back in the parking lot, two bulls rush toward the building. The rest stay put, pushing their fear into the mob outside Neuro. With little time to spare, I abandon the rifle and step out of the mirror and back into reality.
I’m back for just a fraction of a second, recovering from the painful shift, when Allenby shouts, “What did you do?”
I look out over the parking lot, expecting to see the remains of people whom I’d mistakenly shot with bullets from the mirror dimension. But there are no bodies and no blood. Even the Dread remains are gone, back in their home dimension. It’s the living who have Allenby spooked. The mob is marching forward, just one hundred feet out and closing.
“You need to get back inside,” I say to Allenby and Dearborn before turning to Katzman and the two Dread Squad soldiers. “Hell is about to rain down on this place from the north. If you’re out here when they arrive, you’ll all be shooting each other or jumping off the building.”
“Back inside,” Katzman says to his men, who eagerly obey.
Allenby lingers. “What’s coming?”
“Bunch of mothmen and some kind of giant flying-centipede thing.”
Dearborn gasps. “
Ō
mukade.”
“I think so, yeah.” I grasp Allenby’s arm. She doesn’t want to leave. Probably thinks she’ll never see me again. And she might be right, but if she stays here, distracting me, we’re both going to die. “Go. Now.”
When Katzman takes her arm and pulls, she relents. With one last look of concern cast in my direction, she flees past the immobile helicopter and toward the rooftop elevator doors.
Without watching to make sure they make it, I pick up the bow, cinch the assault rifle’s strap tighter, and leap over the side of the roof. I land on the slanted windows and quickly pick up speed, doing a repeat performance of my previous escape, this time with more guns and a clearer purpose. Nine stories slide past in seconds. When I near the bottom, the crowd is within thirty feet. I splay my arms and legs, pushing my palms and boot soles hard against the glass.
My drop off the edge is controlled, and I land on my feet. The mob is upon me, just fifteen feet. Running now. Arms outstretched, eyes angry.
Or is it fear?
If it is, it’s a kind of fear I’ve never seen before. Afraid or angry, the violent intent of this group is impossible to miss. Their fingers are either hooked or clenched. Some hold weapons—bottles, tools, whatever happened to be nearby when the Dread tore them out of their lives and sent them on a rampage—but all of them look ready to kill.
No time like the present to test the crux of my plan. Rather than draw a weapon, I must become one. Same as the Dread. I siphon all of my anger, all of the frustration I feel about not remembering my past, and I channel it. My body tingles, and then explodes from the inside out. Or, at least, it feels like it does. The first and last time I tried this, the pain nearly dropped me. For this plan to work, I’m going to need to redefine the boundary of my pain threshold. The discomfort moves from my extremities to my core and then—outward. I don’t think the mob can “hear” what I can—the static whisper of broadcast fear—but they sure as hell feel it. The burst of fear is quick, snuffed out by pulsing agony that stumbles my feet and slows my pace, but the effect is powerful.
With a unified shriek of surprise, the leading wave of the stampede skids to a halt, fighting to go back the way they came. But they’re met by their still-charging counterparts and collide like two waves of human flesh. People scream. Limbs snap. Bodies are trampled.
Will any of them remember why they were here? Why they were crushed? Why they were propelled to violence, or why they collectively feared a single man? I decide it doesn’t matter and leave them to their self-inflicted turmoil.
Running along the side of the building, I continue pushing my own brand of fear on the encroaching masses, creating a ten-foot buffer between them and the building. I’m slowed by the electric, muscle-tensing pain brought with each output of fear, but my hobbling progress is, at least, steady. The trouble is that each push is harder than the last, the cumulative effect heading toward a crescendo that might rob me of consciousness. Thinking of the lives at stake and the greater threat to humanity, I grind my teeth and growl through it. Behind me, the mob has now reached the building and is pounding on its side, demanding entry. Those I pushed back have either rejoined the crowd or have been trampled by it.
Movement ahead focuses me. A garage door opens. A black ATV sits idling, waiting for me.
Soaked in sweat and near collapsing, I stop broadcasting fear as I approach the ATV. I’m going to need to recover from the effort if I’m going to have any chance of getting through the crowd.
The bow and quiver of arrows attach to the back of the ATV. I keep the rest of my personal arsenal wrapped, clipped, and strapped to my body. The four-wheeler is idling, so I just slip it into gear and pull out.
The vehicle’s engine draws attention from both sides of the mirror. Shifting my view between worlds, I see the crowd of people and the Dread nipping at their heels turn their focus to me. Here comes part 2 of the plan, or is it part 3? We never really broke it down like that. It was all just one long, crazy idea.
I speed toward the crowd, racing to meet the wall of humanity. Seconds from impact, I pour on the fear and push the mental whisper out in front of me like a tidal wave. That’s how I envisioned it happening. In reality, the automatic reflex of my body to undo intense pain turns the tidal wave into a sputtering garden hose. Screaming through the ache, I push harder. Something inside my body shifts, physically, like an organ has just slid out of place. The muscles in my gut spasm. My mind says that I’m killing myself, that something catastrophic is happening to my body, but my will ignores the screaming warnings. They don’t frighten me. Then, all at once, the coughing emotional engine roars to life, and I feel the wave of energy flow outward.
People scream as they’re sandwiched between the fear pushing them forward and the fear now rolling out in front of me like a pressure wave. They leap in the only direction that no longer terrifies them, to either side and out of the way.
A path clears. Mostly. The Dread don’t move.
But they should.
With one hand on the steering bar, holding the throttle, I draw the Desert Eagle from my chest holster. No longer concerned about noise, I aim the .50 caliber gun at the nearest Dread, a feisty pug. It all but vaporizes when I pull the trigger, the significant recoil absorbed by a special wrist guard developed by the military for a Delta unit that had a penchant for the big gun. A second pug snaps to attention, turning its body and four round eyes in my direction. It’s the closest thing to startled I’ve seen a Dread. Then I pull the trigger and wipe the look off of its face, along with the rest of its head.
The Desert Eagle’s kick sends a jolt through my body that intensifies the torment of pushing fear. It takes all my concentration to keep the ATV moving in a straight line. The fear flowing from my body flickers and ceases, the whisper fading, but the path ahead is clear of humanity. Unfortunately, the pain remains as whatever shifted inside my body slides back into place, moved by an invisible sadist stirring my insides with his hand.
A bull closes in from the side, a pug scurrying close behind it. I fire three .50 caliber rounds at the bull. It takes the first two and keeps coming, despite the fact that half of its right side is trailing bright-green loops of entrails. The third shot caves in the thing’s domed skull and drops it.
The pug lunges for me, its jaws open wide enough to envelop my face. Its teeth are small but sharp, and the inside of its tongueless mouth is lined with small, undulating tentacles. Like the four eyes and external vascular system, some form of tendril seems to be a common trait among the Dread. It’s about to cling to my face like an
Alien
face hugger, so I lean to the side and let the thing sail past.
The path ahead is clear of anything large, so I aim for the far end of the parking lot. Pugs scramble out of the way. The remaining bulls keep their distance, focusing on fueling the mob, which is now behind us.
I’m in the clear,
I think, looking back at the now-fading mass of people and Dread. Then I turn forward and realize I’ve underestimated the scope of the assault.
Eight mothmen swarm toward me. I brace myself for their attack, but then they’re beyond me. My eyes track them over the parking lot, where they merge with a cloud of mothmen circling the Neuro building like the Wicked Witch of the West’s flying monkeys around a volcano. At the center of the Dread cyclone is the centipede thing—
Ō
mukade—which angles itself downward and falls. The impact shakes the earth in all dimensions as the massive body strikes the oscillium frame. While the building is well defended against the Dread, I don’t think anyone planned on facing such a colossal specimen. How could they? It’s never been seen before.
But
Ō
mukade isn’t just a heavy hitter. It’s a transport. Bulls, pugs, and Medusa-hands jump from the thing’s sides, where they’d been clinging. Lyons said that the Dread are driven by a territorial nature, that they’re ruled by emotions, feelings, instincts. But what I’m seeing looks like a very well thought out and coordinated attack plan. Military precision and forethought. This isn’t purely instinctual behavior. We already know the Dread are highly intelligent, but Lyons has underestimated their capabilities and intellect.
They’re ignoring me. I’m the guy who can move between dimensions. Who can kill them. Reveal them. But they’re not interested in me. Not right now.
They’re after something else.
Some
one
else.
This leaves just one possibility in my mind. They’re here for Lyons. Like me, they’re ignoring the foot soldiers and aiming for the guiding mind. It’s a strategy as old as warfare. Cut off the head, kill the leader, and the enemy no longer functions. Definitely intelligent.
I rev the engine and speed off. The long driveway is empty now, not a person or Dread in sight. The mob has either served its purpose or the Dread met their human quota for how many people are required for a successful assault. The security gate is in ruins, ransacked by the mob. I work my way through the debris, hit the road, and speed south, pushing the ATV toward its fifty-mph top speed.
The thickly treaded wheels buzz over the pavement. I keep an eye on the woods to either side of the road but see nothing of concern in either dimension. And for a moment, I breathe. The air smells of pine. And water. And deep-woods rot. My body relaxes. I haven’t forgotten the stifling chemical scents of SafeHaven. Despite all that’s happened and is about to happen, I’m still pleased to be free of that place and smelling real air again.
With a clear mind, I turn my thoughts to my route. Follow route 202 south for three miles. Turn right onto Old Pine Road. A mile farther, the road ends at the Old Pine Memorial Cemetery. I’ll be there in four minutes, tops. It’s not a lot of time, but it might be too much. I’m in a race with the Dread, but the odds are stacked against me. They have two armies, human and Dread, one on each side of the mirror. I have me. Both sides are vying for the other’s leadership, and whoever reaches that target first and kills it wins. Though the stakes are higher for humanity. Should Lyons and Neuro be taken out today, the war will essentially be over. After my four-minute journey, the plan gets shaky, but it’s basically “find and kill anything that looks in charge,” with the hopes of disrupting the Dread’s psychic network of communication, which out here, in the woods, is silent.
The windy road bends to the right. I take the turn fast, tires screeching and then biting, keeping me in my own lane, which is good. If I’d slid across the double yellow lines, I would have plowed right into a brown state-trooper cruiser heading in the opposite direction.
