The sun was rising toward midday by the time Ellis got his second glimpse of the buildings. He guessed he was only a mile away and could see a brick wall over which the roofs of several houses rose. He had expected futuristic plastics, steel, and glass creating fantastic geodesic dwellings, and once more he was disappointed. The buildings were old-fashioned two-story Colonial-styles. Not just old-fashioned, but genuinely old. They looked like the back lot of a period movie set in the nineteenth century. Climbing out of a gully, he spotted the clock tower rising above the trees that was a perfect replica of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. Only Ellis wasn’t in Philadelphia, but he did know where he was—Dearborn, Michigan, and he was looking at the Henry Ford Museum.
He hadn’t been there since his sixth-grade class had visited on a field trip. They had toured the largest indoor-outdoor museum complex in the United States in a matter of hours. All he could remember was the Wright Brothers’ shop, a replica of Edison’s Menlo Park lab complex, and the fact that Anthony Dunlap had lost Ellis’s favorite Matchbox car and offered to replace it with one of the crappy new Hot Wheels. He also remembered a parking lot, and the roads to get there, none of which appeared to exist anymore. Ellis didn’t know the area well, but he was certain Michigan Avenue had come in there somewhere. A major six-lane divided freeway was gone without a scar, but the turn-of-the-nineteenth-century wooden buildings of Greenfield Village were still perfect. Something was out of whack, but Ellis was glad for it. If nothing else, he’d have a house to live his final days in.
The brick wall that circled the museum—that sealed off the attraction—was formidable, and Ellis walked around it, looking for a gate. He was hot but not sweating anymore. His feet were sore, his legs tired. His shoulders ached with the press of the pack, and he had a terrible headache. He wasn’t hungry, which surprised him. Most days he ate little, but most days he didn’t hike five miles. He also had a bad case of time-machine lag, and if no one was home, he hoped to find a nice house where he could put down his pack and perhaps take a nap. He was still circling the wall when, for the first time since he’d left Warren at the bar, he heard the sound of voices.
Chapter Four
Killing Time
The voices came from the other side of the wall, which was too tall to climb or see over. Ellis stopped to listen and was pleased to discover they were speaking English. Well, sort of—the voices exhibited an odd accent, but it was most certainly English and surprisingly easy to understand. Only two hundred years had passed, but Ellis had anticipated more differences. He even thought there was a good chance that Spanish or even Chinese would dominate.
“…to put it bluntly.”
“I don’t care about that.”
“So why did you ask me here then?”
“To show you the future.”
The two voices were oddly similar, almost as if one person was speaking to themself. The pitch wasn’t high enough to clearly indicate women, nor low enough to ensure men.
“You’re lying. This is all about the Hive Project.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I’ve done research. I know who you are—or rather aren’t.”
A chuckle. “Then why did you come?”
“I came to find out why—why me?”
“You don’t know anything—or you never would have come here…alone.”
“What do you mean?” The voice was less confident.
“You see, I asked you here to get you to help me.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
A pause, then. “What are you doing?”
Ellis felt the hair on his arms rise. The words were spoken in fear.
“This is also part of the future.”
The screams that followed were the worst sounds Ellis had ever heard. High-pitched and horrible, they went from cries of fear to shrieks of terror, and littered in the middle were desperate pleas for it to stop. Only it didn’t stop. Ellis heard sounds of a struggle, grunts, and the thump of something falling.
Ellis wasn’t a hero. For the most part he preferred to steer clear of trouble. About the closest he ever got was stopping to help people with disabled cars. Peggy used to warn him that he would get shot by some lunatic, but he couldn’t just drive by.
After hearing the screams on the other side of the wall, his first instinct was to call 911. His hand actually moved to his phone before he realized his stupidity. Maybe it was the gun on his hip, or perhaps the chilling effect of the screams, but it certainly wasn’t a conscious thought that sent Ellis running to find the gate.
The screaming had stopped before Ellis reached the entrance, which was unattended. He navigated around a big oak tree and trotted past a pretty clapboard farmhouse with a split-rail fence and a prairie-style weather vane. Already Ellis’s lungs were giving out. He could feel the crackle, like breathing through broken glass. He slowed down, dropping back to a walk, realizing he’d overextended himself. The all-night hike, the heat, and finally the sprint was too much. He wanted to fall where he was, but he forced himself to keep going. When he cleared the house, he could see the inside length of the wall. His blurring eyes caught movement—two people on the ground. Only one was moving.
Ellis didn’t find what he had expected. The voices had sounded youthful. He had imagined teens with leather jackets, chains, spiked hair, nose piercings, tattoos, and drooping pants. Dated images, he knew, but he had no idea what else he would find. What he did see wasn’t on the list.
They were both naked.
Neither wore so much as a bandanna, and both were bald—not just bald, hairless. Such a sight would normally have been the focus of Ellis’s attention if not for the blood. Blood had a way of making anything else trivial—and there was a lot of blood. Both were covered, sprayed and splashed with rivulets dripping. One was crouched over the other, who lay prone, twitching. The one on top worked intently with a blade on the other’s shoulder, cutting it apart, butchering the meat with both hands. The knife wielder grinned, then stood up.
Their eyes met.
Ellis, working to fill his shattered lungs, reached for the handle of his gun but didn’t pull it. The naked, hairless, blood-covered butcher made no move. They peered at each other for an instant. Ellis still couldn’t tell the person’s sex. The killer had no genitalia—no breasts, no obvious curves. Slender and willowy, a perfectly androgynous figure like a prepubescent boy or a 1970s supermodel, except that the face was dripping in gore. Their expressions were a mirror of shock and puzzlement. Without a word, the murderer reached out and picked something up off the grass. Ellis spotted only three fingers. He thought of all those alien movies where extraterrestrials groped with three bulbous digits, but then noticed the two stubs where the pinky and ring fingers ought to have been. A spark of light appeared beside the figure like the flash of a camera, making Ellis blink. Then the murderer stepped through a hole in the air and both the killer and the hole disappeared with a snap.
Ellis was stunned for a second and just stared, wondering what he’d seen. Then movement on the ground caught his attention. The one on the grass continued to twitch. Cuts and puncture wounds were visible along the torso, and a vicious slice had cut away a large section of the victim’s shoulder. Ellis couldn’t tell if this one was male or female either, being as indistinct anatomically as a Ken doll. More than that, Ellis was surprised to notice that aside from being wrenched in pain, this person could have been the twin of the killer.
Ellis dropped to his knees beside the victim and searched for a pulse. He didn’t find one, and there was no chest movement, no sound of breathing beyond Ellis’s own labored efforts, which were desperate enough. Ellis needed oxygen but couldn’t pull in a deep breath. Efforts to draw in more air threatened a cough, and he knew he couldn’t afford that. He was already dizzy, the world blurry, and a strange darkness gathered at the sides of his vision. Ellis planted his palms on the grass and lowered his head between his knees. He struggled to block out the blood and the body beside him and focused only on sucking in air.
Relax, goddammit!
In and out, he felt like he was trying to inflate a new pair of balloons and growing light-headed with the effort. He squeezed his eyes tight and realized he was rocking slightly. His whole body was in the fight, struggling to bring oxygen to his brain. Maybe this was it—respiratory failure had won. What an odd moment to go.