Nemesis: Box Set: Books 1 - 3 (20 page)

W
ren didn't shut
the engine off as he looked at the bar. He didn't know really why he was here, why he had pulled off the road to this place.
Cheers
. A silly name, trying to somehow utilize the television show despite this being Georgia and the whole bar looking like a lot of drugs were probably sold here late at night.

Even so, Wren parked and looked at the bar with his hands on the wheel.

Why?
Linda asked.

That was why, really. Because she had been speaking up a lot more lately. Because he didn't want to hear her voice anymore. Because it was too hard, listening to her day in and day out. Because today had been especially hard, with her talking to him like she was still alive, not just his mind trying to cope.

He turned the car off and took the key from the ignition.

You're going to go have a drink right now? Seriously? What about Michael? He's at home, by himself. He'll be expecting dinner, which is going to be hard for you to cook if you're sitting here.

She had never driven him to drink when she was alive. Even in their worst moments, he preferred a cigarette to completely altering his consciousness through liquor. Now though, now that she was two years dead, he couldn't think of anything he'd rather do than fill his mind with the sense that everything would be okay.

That's what alcohol did. It told you, that no matter what was happening in life, everything would be just fine. That your worries and your dislikes, they were all insignificant. Silly problems that didn't matter in the long run—and that's what he needed right now. What he had to have.

Wren stepped out of the truck and started walking across the parking lot. The black asphalt tried to suck up every ray of heat the sun spat out, and he was caught in the middle of that greed.

Linda was right, or whatever he wanted to call his brain's mimic of her: Michael was at home and would be waiting for dinner. It wasn't the biggest deal in the world, however. When Wren got home after a drink—a single drink—they could order pizza.

But was that the point? He could still give his son dinner, but did that make his trip to Cheers any better? Did it make this drink not matter as much? Did it justify him leaving his ten-year old son at home while he stopped for a beer? He didn't need Linda to answer any of those questions, but he didn't stop walking across the parking lot either. He was already in this thing, so he might as well get it over with quickly.

The cool air of the bar washed over him like God's holy grace. He stood at the door, his eyes adjusting to the dark. He scanned the tables and counter, seeing that the place had all of about five people drinking. Which was fine. Wren wasn't looking for a crowd; he was looking for a bit of silence, finally. A jukebox pumped music over the building's sound system, though it wasn't too loud.

Wren walked over to the counter, pulling out his wallet before sitting on the stool. The barkeep was busy pouring a beer but looked over. "Be with ya in just a second," he said.

"Sure, no problem," Wren said, looking at the beer selection on tap. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in a bar of any kind, looking over a beer selection—he was pretty sure it had been years and years since he'd been in a place of Cheers' caliber. When he and Michael went somewhere, there wasn't any sitting at a bar, and there wasn't any drinking. And Wren didn't go to dinner without Michael. He didn't go to dinner with anyone else, either.

After the bartender took the beers to the two other people sitting at a table, he made his way to Wren. "Know what you want?" he asked.

"I think a Budweiser will work."

"Sounds good," the bartender said, grabbing a mug and then turning around to the line of taps.

Wren watched as he poured, for the first time since he pulled into this place, not thinking about Michael. He stared at the golden liquid, truly wanting to taste it. A beer would make this whole day a lot better. A beer might even silence Linda from her endless chatter. Her questions. Her comments. A beer would make all of it disappear.

The bartender turned around yet again and placed the beer in front of Wren. "Three bucks," he said.

"Sure," Wren said, taking a five from his wallet.

He sat there and drank the beer, listening to the jukebox's music. It took him thirty minutes to get through the first one, because he drank it slowly, savoring the onset of his buzz. He had been right. The beer made everything else take on a different perspective. It drowned Linda out some.

"One more or you done?" the barkeep asked.

"I think one more will be fine," Wren said. It was too.

T
hings had moved
past the point of control, if there had ever been any control at all. This place, in all its gray-black darkness, had felt empty when Bryan and Thera first arrived. Even the horror of watching Morena attack both of their parents had been—and Bryan hated to think it, but it was true—mild compared to what they saw now.

This place, wherever it was, wasn't empty.

Bryan looked out of his eyes, through the window at the yard he had grown up in. The blades of grass were a dark gray, but even that no longer held his attention. What stood on that gray grass mattered now.

There must have been a thousand of those shades, maybe multiple thousands. Bryan couldn't count them all, though he had tried, sitting here with nothing to do besides look at them. He always lost count though, mainly because he could see through the damned things. Shades. He had heard the word before, when reading for school probably, but hadn't understood it until he saw those things outside. They were little more than shadows, like a tree's that darkens the surrounding landscape when the sun shines down. Except for their eyes, which were solid—the things were shadows that stood up rather than lay down on the ground.

Morena was gone, both he and Thera understood that without talking. Morena’s throne nearly abdicated, but what could he and Thera do in this place? Nothing at all. Nothing but wait. And hope.

"How long before they come for us?" he asked, knowing Thera had no answer just as he didn't.

"I don't know," she said, staring out her own window in her house. It was the same over there, just a different landscape for the shades to fill.

"They're going to come, though, right?"

"I don't know, Bryan. It's clear they know we're here, but I don't know why they're waiting, if they want us."

"Because of her?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you think they know what she is? Like they can sense her and know that she's not human, that she's something more than human. Maybe they're scared?"

Thera was quiet for a few seconds. "Look at them, Bryan. Do they look frightened to you?"

Nothing out there on that lawn looked like it had ever heard of fear, not even as a concept. Those things out there, they didn't appear to be capable of thought. They looked like something that was singularly focused—resembling a piranha, maybe—except Bryan didn't know what the focus was on.

"No," he answered her.

"They might be waiting because she's different, but I don't think they're scared at all."

"She'll come back, if they come. She'll have to," Bryan said. He spoke the words, but it was more about hope than actual belief. If she didn't show back up, he and Thera were dead, as well as their parents. The three of them still lay sprawled out across the ground, breathing, but not moving. Bryan was beginning to wonder if time was different here, because even if they were knocked out, they should have come to by now.

Those things outside, when they came, Bryan wouldn't be able to protect himself, let alone his mother.

"Is there anything we can do?" Thera asked.

Bryan searched through the dark hole of his mind, and felt Thera doing the same, both of them looking for some answer to the question. What could they do in here, in this place of gray? Even if they were to gain control of their bodies, neither of them had the first clue as to how to get out, let alone get their parents out.

Bryan finally quit and went back to the windows that were his eyes. "Look at them. Just look. Those white eyes, do you think they see anything at all, or do you think it's all black for them, and they just feel us?"

"They see us," she said. "Their bodies are turned so that their eyes face us. They might even see through the walls of the house."

"What is this place?" Bryan felt panic seeping in, clouding the clear calm that he managed to hold onto since arriving here.

"It's the opposite of home. The other side, I think."

Neither of them spoke; they went back to staring, looking eerily like the dark ghosts outside.

"Where the fuck is she?" Thera said. "She brought us here and then just disappeared. She might not ever come back. She might have left for good."

"I…I don't think so," Bryan said. "She's here, just, somewhere else. She hasn't left completely. I think that if we die here, she's going to die too."

"Maybe. That still doesn't give me much relief."

It didn't for Bryan, either.

M
orena had to leave eventually
, though she didn't want to. She would have been happy to stay with her children forever, would have been content to hear their voices and to use her own when talking with them, instead of the voices she used through these two humans. She couldn't stay though, because her children needed her on Earth. Not down there with them, not in the Ether. They needed her to bring them forward, out of the core they now multiplied inside.

Morena rose to the surface, finding the controls of Thera and Bryan easily. She looked out the eyes she had grown accustomed to, seeing the gray area around her for the first time in hours. Bryan and Thera were near panic, as they had both been gazing out of the windows Morena sat their bodies in front of.

It took her a minute to come forward, regaining her senses, seeing the world instead of the darkness her children had brought her to. She looked out the window, not moving her muscles, and saw what scared the two hosts so badly.

The shades, they were everywhere. Huge dark patches stretching across lawns, and roads, and porches. All of them staring at her with those blank, white eyes. Staring at
her.
In both houses, though they had no pupils, Morena could tell that they were all trying to look directly through the window, trying to lay those sightless eyes on her. Even the positions of their bodies said so, with all of them turning as necessary to get a better look.

Power lived outside these windows, a power that Morena hadn't seen before. Even when she had gone to the Tower back on Bynimian to talk with her mother, that power was nothing like this. Even as a Var, she couldn't sit here and deny what she felt. If she faced off against one of these things, she would destroy it easily. Their power didn't come from individuals like hers, but from the group. That's why more kept coming in, walking slowly, but with purpose. To increase their power, to grow it to such a degree that nothing inside the house could possibly resist.

They were speaking to her as well, though Bryan and Thera couldn't hear it. They spoke a language that few probably understood, certainly not those like her two hosts, those with such little evolutionary potential.

"Stay. Stay. Stay," the shades said. They spoke in unison and they spoke only one word. It was an invitation, a command with no question. It was their will, the power growing great as the group increased in size—the word radiated off them just as light from stars. There was too much energy outside these walls, and what these shades wanted was clear.

No one inside the house should leave.

They should stay here, forever.

Had they found Briten, these creatures? Or had the screams brought them to these two houses? Had simply showing up here alerted them, or was it more?

Makers, let it be more
, she thought.
Please let him be okay.

She found herself, even in the midst of the threat outside, unable to stop thinking about Briten. Unable to let him go, even when she clearly saw what he might have faced. He had to live. He was the reason they were here, the original reason, even if she now had a chance to recreate all of her home planet. He had been why.

"MORENA!" The two creatures inside shouted at once, doing their best to break through her thoughts. She heard them, ending her focus on Briten. They were right, she didn't have time for that right now.

"Stay. Stay. Stay. Stay."

The voice didn't stop, the shades all somehow speaking at once, a hive mind. It was gaining slowly in intensity. As more of these dark creatures arrived, the words grew louder. They were building up to a breaking point, to a time that they couldn't hold back that insane will—that
stay
.

Morena stood from both chairs in both houses, and walked forward to the windows. She peered around and saw that these things had completely surrounded each of the houses. They were wrapped around; Morena couldn't see them all, but she saw that even when the house blocked her vision, the shades continued.

"We have to leave!" Bryan shouted.

Morena heard a noise behind her, in Bryan's kitchen. She turned from the window and walked across the living room, stepping over the host’s mother as she did so. Morena didn't have to enter the kitchen to understand the noise though; she only needed to look through the window in front of the kitchen sink. The shades were there, directly in front of it, blank eyes looking straight through her. They stretched back into the yard for what appeared to be forever. They might have stretched all the way back to Bynimian.

"STAY. STAY. STAY."

It was time to go—the boy was right. She would come back for Briten. She'd kill every one of these things if need be, but she would have to find him when she returned.

T
hera heard
Morena's thoughts and immediately understood what was about to happen. Morena had returned, her force like a tsunami washing across a town—nothing could stand up to it. Thera couldn't tell where she had gone, but she kept hearing a name, Briten, once Morena returned. That person, Briten, Thera thought he must be here—or at least Morena believed him to be here. Morena had never showed concern before, never showed anything but an innate confidence that knew no boundaries. Until now. Until Briten came to her mind. Not even the shades outside scared her, though Thera could tell Morena understood the danger. Still, she was only concerned with Briten.

Screaming broke the alien out of her thought process, and now Thera felt a new fear—one perhaps even more raw than the shades had brought on.

Morena was going to leave, and she was going to leave Thera's parents here when she did. Morena understood what these things meant to do, perhaps on a level that Thera and Bryan didn't. She meant to head back to Earth, wherever that was in relation to this place. Nowhere, in any of Morena’s thoughts, did Thera's unconscious parents or Bryan's mother surface.

"Morena!" Thera shouted, feeling the alien's preparations. It felt similar to when they first came over to this place, though Thera hadn't known what was happening then. Morena was getting ready to step forward, not physically, but…and that's where Thera lost the ability to describe it. Stepping forward was all that she truly could think to describe what was happening, though it wasn't as easy as taking a step. It seemed as if Morena had to dig into herself before attempting it. "You can't leave them! You can't leave our parents!"

She was shouting, trying to be heard, trying to bring Morena back from this precipice. If they left now without their parents, they would never see them again. Even if they were hurt right now, it was better than having those things outside get ahold of them. Infinitely better.

Thera felt Morena pause, the gathering of her strength momentarily stopping.

"Please. Please don't leave them," Thera said. "Bring them back. Don't leave them here for those…things." She whispered now, because it was clear that she had Morena's ear. "This Briten. We feel the same about our parents. You don't want to leave him here, right? You don't have to leave our parents here. You can bring them back."

Thera saw Morena then, for the first time. Or, she saw a shadow of the being. A massive, dark shadow, that looked like smoke floated around her solid shape. Morena was looking at her, had turned to her for the first time, in whatever place they both inhabited. Morena wasn't allowing herself to be seen fully, but even so, Thera couldn't look elsewhere. The creature was massive like a god—her shadow alone dwarfed anything Thera had ever seen or known. Worlds would bow to this being.

"Please. Help them," Thera said, unable to keep from pleading for her parents just as she was unable to turn from Morena.

"The word is love. Is that what you use to describe this feeling?"

"Yes. I love them."

Morena's shadow stood in front of Thera inside their shared consciousness, but her head turned to the people lying on the floor.

"You're their child? And Bryan too?"

"Yes," Thera said. Bryan was silent, listening to the two of them.

Morena didn't move, but stared down at Thera's parents, and Bryan's mother as well. Thera understood she was thinking, weighing what Thera told her with—what Thera thought was—her cold nature. Her dislike for this place, her wishes to conquer, or whatever reason she had arrived here.

"Love…" Morena said. Thera said nothing back because Morena wasn't whispering the word to either her or Bryan. Did she understand? She had to, because she thought of that man, that Briten. Thera didn't understand all of the thoughts, not fully, but Morena felt longing. She missed the other creature, whatever relationship they had. So maybe she could understand this. God, Thera hoped so.

"I didn't come here to save your people," Morena said. "Life or death, it doesn't matter to me with your kind."

"They matter to me," Thera said. "Surely you can see that. Do you have a mother? A child?"

Thera felt Morena turn from her then, casting her away like a King might a peasant that dared touch his garments. She didn't turn from the situation though, and that was all that mattered. She still looked down at their parents.

Finally, the alien nodded, as if to say,
Fine.

Thera watched as Morena reached down and put her hands on Thera and Bryan's parents, and then Morena stepped forward.