The Man From Taured (19 page)

Ezekiel pointed the barrel of the pistol at the first child directly in front of him. It was a boy, maybe eight-years-old, with blond hair. The child's fingers were nearly touching Ezekiel.

Ezekiel pulled the trigger.

Shaw nearly dropped his packages. The sound of the gun was so loud that his head rang. The child's head exploded. Only, instead of blood a huge amount of black substance flew out of the wound and into the air. The rest of the body turned into some kind of black, tarry, substance and lost its form. A thick black puddle formed on the sidewalk and then vanished.

"Holy shit!" Shaw screamed.

Ezekiel did not pause, he pulled back the hammer, pointed it at a little girl and pulled the trigger. Once again the head vanished in a spray of black tar and then the body turned into goo. Ezekiel kept firing. His shots were to the head each time and soon there was a path through the black-eyed children and Shaw could see the van.

"Move!" Ezekiel shouted. "Get to the van!"

Shaw felt his paralysis break. His stomach churned and he felt like he was going to vomit, but he clutched the bags to his chest and burst through the door. The night air blew into his face and he focused entirely on the van across the street. He was wheezing after the first few steps, not from exhaustion, but sheer terror. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the children raising their hands, reaching for him. They moved slowly, like they were half asleep, shuffling toward him. He felt one of the hands grab one of the bags of clothing. Shaw yanked hard, pulling the bag free, and kept running.

Behind him Ezekiel fired his massive revolver again and again. Shaw could hear the explosion of the bullets and then the spattering of the black substance on the ground. The firing went on and on until he lost count, then there was silence, the sound of tinkling metal and Shaw realized Ezekiel was reloading. He pumped his legs faster, the van nearly within reach. Did it seem this far away when they went in?

Shaw reached the van and sprinted around to the passenger side. The street on this side was completely empty. He got inside fast, throwing the bags into the back of the van, and peered out the windshield.

Ezekiel did not appear to be in a hurry. Very methodically he moved from one of the black-eyed children to the next and put a bullet in their head. Shaw saw that the man had a sneer on his face, one that showed pure hatred and contempt, and he appeared to get angrier with each pull of the trigger.

The children walked relentlessly toward Ezekiel. One of them reached out and grabbed at the man's long coat and then recoiled in what looked like pain or fear. Ezekiel turned and blew that child's head off. Each time the bodies of the children turned into black goo and then disappeared. When Ezekiel ran out of bullets he backed away from the children and calmly reloaded. His fingers moved rapidly, eyeing the children as his fingers found the bullets within his coat and put them into each chamber. In seconds the gun was reloaded and Ezekiel flicked the revolver closed and he fired again. Six more children were gone in a flash.

Ezekiel fired until the street was nearly empty. Shaw kept waiting for the sirens to come screaming around the corner, but they never came. At this point, nothing should have surprised him, but this did. It was as if no one could hear the thunderous roar of the revolver. There were now only four of the black-eyed children left. Ezekiel stared at them and then bent forward at his waist and looked into the eyes of those children.

"Go away now, Void," Ezekiel said, loud enough for Shaw to hear across the street and through the windshield. "You cannot have Dr. Shaw. He's seen your real face and I'm going to show him more. Go away."

The children extended their hands toward Ezekiel, as if they had never heard him. Then they froze.

"You will pay for this Ezekiel," the children said at once. "Mark my words. There are things coming that will change everything. You cannot win."

All four black-eyed children turned into pillars of black goo and melted to the pavement. Ezekiel got back to his feet and holstered his revolver beneath his coat and walked across the street toward the van. He opened the door and climbed in, started the engine and pulled away. He said nothing to Shaw, but Shaw felt fear in every part of his body.

"What was that?" Shaw asked. "What the holy fuck are those children?"

"They are the avatars of Void," Ezekiel said. "There are things in place that prevent Void from fully entering this dimension. The first attempts to breach the dimensional barriers happened back during World War Two. Once it was obvious that Void was dangerous, IDEA was formed and technology was created to prevent him from entering this dimension fully. The only way that he can, it seems, is by creating those black-eyed children. They move slowly because our dimension is so far from where Void is. However, if they touch you they can open a portal that sucks you right into the void dimension. You vanish forever. There are limits to what they can do. They cannot enter a dwelling without being invited in, for example, which are part of the safeguards we have in place."

"Jesus God," Shaw whispered. "What the fuck have I gotten into?"

"You're about to find out, Dr. Shaw," Ezekiel said, "and don't think that Void is done with you. You're part of this now and you'll be haunted by those children forever. They'll go after your family and friends. They will show up at their door and ask to be let in. I'm sorry, but your life is never going to be the same ever again."

Shaw felt like he was going to sink back through the passenger seat and into the back of the van. He wanted, more than anything, to just melt away like those black-eyed children.

"I didn't need this in my life," he whispered. "I should be out dating and drinking. Why did I have to become a scientist?"

Ezekiel let out a short barking laugh. "Welcome to the club, Dr. Shaw. Now it's time for your indoctrination."

***

Ezekiel's van looked nondescript, but his base of operations was even more so. They drove and drove until they reached a long-abandoned industrial area and parked in the very back of one of the building. The warehouse looked like it had not been used since the 30s. The roof was barely there, rust on the doors and the windows were all broken. It hardly looked secure in the least.

"This is the base of your operations?" Shaw asked, stepping out of the van with the bags of clothes clutched to his chest.

"Just like everything, Dr. Shaw, looks are deceiving," Ezekiel replied, fishing into his many pockets to come out with a ring overflowing with keys. "After everything you have seen and experienced, I would think that fact is cemented firmly in your mind. All around us are other lives, other people, in other dimensions. All of it separated by the thinnest of membranes."

Shaw felt humbled. He looked around at the broken warehouses and buildings all around them. How close were the others? Could he reach out and touch them? The thought made him feel nauseous.

They entered the broken down building. It was dark and dank. Water dripped from somewhere. There were broken pallets and other debris piled up against the walls and Shaw could hear something skittering and running around in there. Great, he thought, rats.

Ezekiel and Shaw walked through the empty warehouse. There were stains on the ground where machinery had once stood, open sockets and holes in the floor for wiring. There were holes in the ceiling and what seemed like tons of bird shit all over the floor and the beams that still remained to hold up the roof. They headed for a door at the back of the building. It looked very much like the door to an office, perhaps for a manager or bookkeeper. Ezekiel was still rooting through the many keys on his ring and just as they reached that door, he found the key he was looking for.

A moment later the office door opened. Inside was not an office, but a bright white cube with a handrail along the side and back of the cube. It was an elevator. Ezekiel got inside.

"Are you coming?" He asked.

"In for a penny, in for a pound," Shaw said, thinking that either the rats or the black-eyed children would get him if he was left out in the warehouse.

They got into the elevator and Ezekiel inserted another key. The lift descended. It moved fast and seemed to take only seconds for them to get deep under the ground. Shaw's ears popped and he knew that they had traveled very far below. It finally came to a stop and the doors opened to reveal darkness beyond. A moment later the lights turned on and the room came into view.

It was like something out of a movie. There were banks and banks of computers. The walls were lined with devices that Shaw did not recognize. There were benches and tables loaded with tools and parts of equipment scattered about the room and the tables. It smelled of disinfectant and cleanser. There was also that familiar scent of ozone that Shaw had come to know so well tanks to his experiments.

"This is my lab," Ezekiel said. "I guess you could call it IDEA headquarters. This is where it got its start. Be careful, this was originally built by the government and the hallways and corridors go on for miles. You could get lost easily, although there's food down here to last forever, most of it
freeze dried. Even so, if you got lost we’d probably never find you again."

"How the hell do you pay for all of this?" Shaw asked, walking through the lab and putting his bags down on one of the tables.

"We have a lot of private investors," Ezekiel said. "There are ways to raise money if you know the right people to ask. Plus, as I may have mentioned, I have been alive for some time now and that means I have invested quite well. Trust me, there's plenty of money to keep things going. There are IDEA labs in several of the other dimensions and they all have men like me working for them. So, imagine being able to invest in things across dimensions. It's just one of the reasons others want to find ways to punch holes into the walls holding things together."

Shaw sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

"OK, fine, I get it," Shaw said, "punching holes into dimensions is bad. What were you going to show me?"

Ezekiel headed for a door off to one side. He pushed a button a clothing rack shot out of the wall. On that rack were dozens and dozens of coats just like the one that Ezekiel wore. There were also wide-brimmed hats and red goggles.

"These outfits were created in one of the older dimensions," Ezekiel said. "I was once like you. I was curious about the possibility of other worlds, and then I started seeing the shadow men. They approached me and told me about Void and Whitten and what was at stake. I joined up and, before long I had the money I needed to set up this place. They gave me these coats and equipment and instructed me in how to use them. Now, I am going to do the same to you."

Shaw felt tingles running up and down his body.

"OK," Shaw asked.

A moment later Ezekiel produced a long coat that would fit Shaw's body. He put the coat on and was surprised by how heavy it was. There was a momentary humming noise and it felt like the coat came to life.

"The coat feels a bit like leather, but it's not," Ezekiel said. "The material is not from this dimension and it took a tremendous amount of energy to get it through to this side, let me tell you. There are electronics of all kinds within the lining of the coat and billions upon billions of nanobots are infused within the material. As soon as you put it on, it turns on, and it is now tuned to your biorhythms. That means that only you can wear it. It also helps keep you warm, supplies oxygen to your body when needed and protects you against the elements found when walking between the dimensions."

Shaw nodded like all of that made sense. A moment later Ezekiel handed him a pair of red goggles. He put them over his head and adjusted them until they were in front of his eyes. The world looked very red for a moment and then there was another electronic hum and things came into focus. Digital readouts and information began to flutter across the periphery of his vision.

"Those allow you to see when between dimensions," Ezekiel said. "The stats there give you an idea of how long you've been there and how much oxygen has been used. It also gives you readouts of other living beings in the area. Those of us within IDEA can also transmit text messages to one another as it's very difficult to talk in between."

Ezekiel reached back and grabbed a wide-brimmed hat and stuffed it on Shaw's head. The hat was too big and it fell over his eyes. Just as he reached up to adjust the hat it moved without him touching it at all, shrinking down until it fit perfectly. There was that odd humming again and it felt as if the hat were probing his mind.

"Why do we have to wear these ridiculous wide-brimmed hats?" Shaw asked. "And what the hell are they doing to me?"

"More nanobots," Ezekiel said. "They are reading your brain pattern and adjusting the hat. The hat is a machine that extends a force field that protects us. The coat is where the power is and where most of the computer equipment is. The hat generates a field that circulates the oxygen. Walking between the dimensions is very much like being in outer space. Not a true vacuum, but very little air and atmosphere. It also varies depending on which dimension we're trying to view. Some of them are worse than others."

Ezekiel looked Shaw up and down and nodded in approval.

"OK," Ezekiel said. "On your left wrist is what looks like a really big watch. In fact, it's part of the computer. You can input the texts to me or others within IDEA. It's also where we enter the coordinates to get into and out of the in-between areas. I'm going to enter the coordinates for where we're going right now. First, I am going to show you something amazing and then, well, then I'll show you what Void really is."