MirrorWorld (48 page)
Twenty feet from the colony roof, the mothman breathes its last. We drop together, striking the roof and rolling down over the edge, landing in the thick sludgy earth separating the structure from the swamp.
I’m out, but Lyons is on his way, and—I unzip the backpack and look at the timer—I have six minutes to get this thing someplace where it won’t do any damage. And that’s not going to happen in the mirror dimension. Time to go home.
I slip through the world between and back to New Orleans in a blink. I’m in the middle of a road. Tires screech on the pavement as the bumper and grill of a pickup truck stop inches from my face.
“Get out of the road, asshole!” The truck speeds up, forcing me to dive to the side. A second car speeds past. Both are full of people, armed with baseball bats and fire pokers. I see at least two guns and am lucky one of them didn’t decide to shoot me or run me over. A third vehicle, one I recognize, speeds up and screeches to a halt.
The SUV’s door opens. Cobb runs around to the front of the vehicle, seeing that it’s me. “Crazy,” he says, using the name he first knew me by, “sorry I left my position, but I saw these people head into the park and—” That’s when he
really
sees me. “Damn, man, what happened? Are you okay?”
I get to my feet. “We only have a few minutes.”
“Until what?”
I show him the backpack. “This is a microwave bomb.”
Cobb’s skin goes pale so quickly that I think God must use Photoshop.
“But we have maybe a minute before Lyons shows up.”
“Lyons?” Cobb says. “But he’s old and—”
“Not anymore.”
A distant roar punctuates my statement. Lyons has already reached the top of the colony and is now searching for me, probably moving back and forth between frequencies. I hurry around Cobb. “We need to move!”
A second roar, closer this time. Lyons is closing in. A quick peek into the mirror world reveals as much. He’s spotted us in the real world and is charging through the Dread swamp, a quarter mile off, planning on taking us by surprise. We have thirty seconds until his gruesome arrival and another few minutes until the water molecules in our bodies are sped up so fast that we cook from the inside out.
When Lyons arrives, I’m still outside the SUV. Cobb starts to scream, but I shove him inside the vehicle and slam the door. A long-clawed arm swooshes down toward my head. I duck while shifting back into the mirror world. It’s just a momentary visit to confuse Lyons. When he pursues me between frequencies, I’ve already left. Back in the real world, the SUV peels away, Cobb swerving as he fights the wheel and the powerful fear instilled in him by Lyons.
Backpack slung over my shoulder, I run in the opposite direction, heading south. I glance back, expecting to see Lyons right behind me, but he’s not there. I switch to double vision, viewing both worlds fully. My mind once again reels from the dual input. I’m seeing and feeling the solid ground beneath my feet, but I’m also seeing four feet of swamp water. My brain is telling me that there should be resistance, but I only see the water and can’t feel it. As a headache catches fire behind my eyes, I see Lyons.
The monstrous form of my father-in-law is locked in combat with a Dread croc, that is perhaps just defending its territory or was sent by the matriarch—I don’t know. But its interference has bought me time. I don’t indulge the hope that the croc will stop Lyons. He’s too powerful and wields fear in a way few Dread can match. I don’t bother watching the results. Instead, I turn away from the fight and the mirror world, pouring on the speed.
Now that I remember myself, I’m aware of what I can do and the training I’ve received. I’m a little soft from my time in SafeHaven, but I know how to push myself to the limit, and I don’t worry about pushing myself right on past it. So when I pace myself, it’s at a sprint, aiming for the southern end of the park, where a bevy of tourist attractions will help delay what I think could be a losing fight.
My feet slap over pavement, crunch through dirt, and squelch through soggy earth as I make my way through the park. And when an immovable object blocks my path—a tree, fence, or wall—I leap into the mirror world, pass through the obstacle, and land in the real world in time to continue running, undaunted.
A minute later, I feel the first signs of Lyons’s pursuit as a ripple of energy. He’s broadcasting fear like a radio station, pumping it into the airwaves. The park, aside from the people who nearly ran me over, appears to be empty. But they were just passing through. People are either hiding in their homes or part of a mob, but if anyone is unlucky enough to be in the park, they’re going to feel him coming, no doubt spurring future reports of park hauntings. That is, if we’re not all cooked in the meantime. The heavy weight of the backpack over my shoulders is a constant reminder of what’s at stake.
The second sign of Lyons’s closing distance is a constant whispering. It fills my mind, but unlike the incomprehensible Dread language, it’s all in English. Despite recognizing the language, I still have trouble making sense of it as words and sentences overlap. What I do know is that it’s getting louder and is hard to ignore.
I take a look back into the mirror world, but all I can see is swamp.
The path ahead is thickly wooded in both worlds, so I plow straight through the real world, dodging trees and careening through brush. I nearly plow headlong into a chain-link fence but manage to leap up and pass through it in the mirror world. Upon my return to the real world, I immediately dive forward, soaring over the supine form of Snow White, awaiting her prince. I roll back to my feet, but the concrete walkway I’ve landed on is unforgiving and reminds me of the punishment my body has endured.
Three sets of wild-looking eyes catch my attention. I spin toward them, expecting an attack, but come face-to-face with human-sized Three Little Pigs. They’re dancing gleefully next to their house of brick, the wolf clawing its way out of the chimney. Strangely, stories like this, about hungry stalking wolves, were probably inspired by the Dread. How many fairy tales of trolls, ogres, and spirits were inspired by encounters with the mirror world?
Lyons shimmers into view behind the jolly pigs, swiping two aside and biting the eldest in half. Lyons overtook me and lay in wait, playing the part of the Big Bad Wolf.
“Really?” I say, “You want to do this in Storyland?”
Lyons roars and tosses the oldest pig’s eviscerated lower half, striking an oversize Humpty Dumpty. The egg-man’s bolts snap; his hooked cane, which is embedded in the concrete walkway, breaks; and he topples off the wall. But, I’ll be damned, he doesn’t break. I take it as a good omen, and then run. I’m not ready to face Lyons yet.
The clear walkway and smooth surface allow me to hit my top speed in just a few strides. Lyons is quick to pursue but opts to barrel through the brick house, buying me a few seconds and a fifty-foot head start. Running through a stand of weeping willows, I cut through the thick curtain of Spanish moss and make a hard left.
Lyons dives after me, mole claws outstretched to impale my back, but he can’t see me through the moss. He explodes out of the trees, covered in long coils of vegetation. Momentarily blinded, he clips the short stone wall of a fountain and spills forward, sending up a wave of coin-filled water. He tumbles through the water, crushing the fountain and far wall, sending a fresh river over the dry concrete. Then he’s up again, shedding moss and lunging after me.
Lyons has the clear physical advantage, but he’s not using his human mind to its full potential. He’s acting ravenous. Uncontrolled. He’s going to catch me eventually, but he’s going to destroy all of Storyland first.
I make like Jiminy Cricket, leaping a short fence into the Pinocchio exhibit. Lyons has gained again and is just a few strides away. I charge into the waiting open jaws of a large bright-blue whale, atop which Pinocchio is seated, and leap through its backside by sliding into and out of the mirror world. I continue my flight on the far side of the display’s tail, unhindered by the exhibit. A moment later, the whale explodes as Lyons charges into the mouth and out the backside, never shifting frequencies.
The four-foot-tall Pinocchio statue spins through the sky, flipping past me like Mary Lou Retton on fast-forward, and crashes into Little Bo Peep’s white sheep. I nearly laugh at the frozen, wide-eyed expression on her painted face. I suspect it had never been appropriate until that very moment.
As I round a carousel and consider running through it, a sharp beeping sound fills the air.
The microwave bomb
.
It’s time to face Lyons.
I stop and turn around so quickly that it catches Lyons off guard. He flinches and slides to a standstill, fifteen feet between us. We’re framed by a unicorn-themed carousel and a pirate ship. Not the most epic of battlegrounds, but I enjoy the juxtaposition.
I hold my wrist up, revealing the beeping watch that I synced with the bomb’s timer when I was with Cobb. I reach up and push a button to stop it. “Do you know what that means?”
Dread Lyons’s seven black eyes squint. He’s still in there somewhere. “It means you’ve lost.” I take the backpack off, unzip it, and dump a tire-repair kit onto the ground. I don’t need to tell him that Cobb took the bomb, that he was going to find someplace to contain it or dump it in the ocean, which would reduce the weapon’s impact. Either way, the colony would survive. The war he longed for and the vengeance he craved—for the deaths
he
caused—would never come to pass.
Not against the Dread, anyway. The cold gaze in his seven eyes says he’ll be satisfied, to some extent, by reducing my body to pulp. The only question remaining is which one of us will take action first? The answer is never really in question. I make my move before the thought finishes.
The handgun hidden among the tire iron, jack, flares, and orange cones is a 9 mm recovered from the SUV. It lacks the punch I’d need to kill Lyons, which is unfortunate, but it’s a good start. The weapon comes up in an unflinching two-hand grip.
I pull the trigger. Just once. The black orb on the side of Lyons’s head erupts, spewing a mixture of oily white and glowing red fluids.
His head snaps back, his jaw drops open, and tendrils whip the air. A roar warbles over the quiet Storyland walkways. When he’s done, he turns the remaining six eyes toward me. I can feel his loathing for me. Like the Dread whispering, it’s in my head, wordless, but clear.
And without effect.
My second shot bursts the Dread eye on the left side of his head. He shrieks again, and this time charges blindly, head turned away to protect his remaining eyes. This is it. I can end him right here.
I slip into the mirror world intending to reenter the real world, inside Lyons, just long enough to create a me-sized hole in his chest. Storyland disappears, replaced by a dark, green-veined swamp. With an eye still tuned to the real world, I watch Lyons charge. I visualize my attack, picturing the few simple steps. Eyes closed and breath held, I’ll arrive inside his body. Just for a second. Then I’ll slip back into the mirror world. Carried by his forward motion, I’ll be flung into the swamp, the landing buffered by a foot of water. Simple.
But that’s not exactly how it works out. Not even close.
Lyons turns his ugly head forward at that last second, slips fully into the mirror world, and swipes out with one of his big clawed hands. I manage to squeeze off three more rounds before I’m struck, but they just get lodged in the thick armor that is now his forehead.
The one bit of luck is that the curved tip of his long, mole claw misses me. While I’m not impaled or severed in two, the result is close to being lifted off the ground and flung by a rock-solid, oversize lacrosse stick. The impact catches me below the arm. I feel my ribs flex and then break. Three of them.
Snap, snap, snap
. And then I’m doing a repeat performance of Pinocchio’s acrobatics, soaring through the air. As I reach the apex of my arc, I’ve got to make a few choices. Lyons is already chasing after me, so there won’t be time to think once I land. He might just kill me, but I suspect he’s going to toy with me. I’m a mouse to him now, and, like a cat, he’s going to play with me until my body simply gives up.
Luckily for me, I’m a mouse with world-class military training, a killer instinct, and fearless nature. Mind made up, I finish my fall in the Dread world, letting the water soften my landing. I take the hit on my left side, protecting my freshly broken ribs, and waste no time getting to my feet. I’ve still got one more challenge to overcome before avoiding this immediate danger. Injured and soaked through, I need to jump at least three feet up.
I bend my knees and shove hard, three seconds until Lyons’s arrival. The wet earth squishes beneath my feet, absorbing some of my energy. The water clings to my legs, not wanting to let me go. But then I’m free and rising. Two seconds to go. I lift my legs like a frog and, with no time left, return to the real world. Lyons follows and reaches for me but grabs a large plastic horse instead.
I land on the carousel floor between a unicorn and Cinderella’s pumpkin chariot. Lyons is in a slightly more precarious situation. While his right arm is free to move, the rest of him is embedded within metal bars, a double set of Pegasus, and the floor of the ride. He wrenches the interfering horse out of the floor and tosses it aside. His free arm swings out, gouging a trough through the floor where I’d been a moment before. Even with my quick backward roll, he nearly catches me.
But now I’m on my feet and he’s trapped.
“This could have gone differently,” I tell him, reaching over my shoulder. “You were naive when you destroyed the first colony. I can look past that. And we lost nearly everything, you and I.” Lyons stops struggling against the carousel. Actually appears to be listening. “But it could have stopped there. It
should
have stopped there. Both sides drew blood, but if we’re honest, you and I, and the rest of humanity, have done far more damage. I didn’t know fear until a few days ago, but in that short amount of time, I learned that it can be conquered, like any other emotion.”
