MirrorWorld

A chill runs up my spine, warning of unseen danger, urging me to turn around.

I look back not really expecting to find anything, but a Medusa-hands is right behind me, tentacles outstretched.

With a shout of surprise, I lash out, burying the trench knife in my right hand into its skull. The body falls slack, pulling me down to the ground. I try to pull the blade free, but it’s stuck. I slip my fingers out of the knuckles and stand, leaving the weapon behind.

Movement catches my attention. The tunnel behind me is alive with motion. An army of Medusa-hands writhes toward me, their external veins and eyes glowing in the semidarkness. All around me, the veins that fill this world pulse with frantic energy. I turn away from the Dread stampede before they can paralyze me with fear and run.

The slow incline frustrates me as the rumbling grows more violent. Whatever was buried in the chamber below is rising.

Coming for me.

A warm, wet breeze makes my cheeks sticky. The smell of rot tickles my nose. Almost there.

Feeling a presence behind me and a chill on the nape of my neck, I draw the P229 and fire blindly. Shrieks fill the tunnel. I don’t know if I’m killing them or just injuring them, but they don’t catch me.

The entrance is just ahead.

A bull appears, its head twitching back and forth, no doubt summoned by whatever is still rising from the earth. Its eyes lock onto me, but before it can react, I act, driven by desperation and guided by instinct and skill. The remaining trench knife stabs up through the Dread’s chin and into its brain. I slip my fingers out of the oscillium knuckles and continue running, leaving the blade behind. The bull mewls and staggers away, not quite dead, but on its way.

I run out into the swampy clearing, slipping in the muck.

As the mob of Medusa-hands charges out behind me, I slip back into my reality and partially out of their grasp. But not completely. If they get their tendrils in my head, who knows what kind of thoughts they’ll put in there. If there is pain from the frequency shift, I don’t notice it. Fear, and its by-product, shock, can numb the mind from physical pain—I’ve heard.

Back on firm ground, adrenaline pumping, vision narrowed, I cover the hundred yards to the ATV in twelve seconds. I jump on the seat, turn the key, and rev the engine. One last peek into the mirror world reveals eight Medusa-hands, twenty yards back and closing fast. Behind them, the lobotomized bull staggers but can’t chase.

None of that fills me with as much trepidation as what happens next. The colony bursts open like an overfull aluminum-foil Jiffy Pop pouch. Massive flakes of the hivelike walls burst into the air. A giant limb, the size of a thick tree trunk, rises from the ground. Its foot, a triangular-shaped pad with long, thick, hooked claws descends to the ground. I can’t feel the impact in this dimension, but I can see the Medusa-hands stagger.

Having seen enough, I blink and see only the cemetery. I know the Dread are still there, coming for me, but not seeing them allows me to calm down. Focus.

I turn the ATV around and tear down the old road, back toward route 202. Despite my escape, return to reality, and speedy retreat, I can’t fight the building fear gripping my chest. Whatever that thing was rising out of the ground, it’s coming for me. Dammit, I think, it’s coming for me.





38.

Trees blur past as I speed north on 202. I’ve got the needle pegged, but the speed now makes me nervous. I brake around the same corners I tore around on my previous journey. I stay locked in my lane. I think I should have brought a helmet. A helmet! In New Hampshire! Where almost nobody wears a damn helmet!

I am not a fan of fear.

It might be the most powerful force I’ve ever felt. It controls the body despite what the mind thinks. But the mind isn’t unaffected, either. I’m thinking things I never would have before. I’m considering driving north until the tank empties, stealing a car and driving until the world freezes. Part of me is a coward, and it shames me.

I don’t run away. It’s not who I am, fear or no fear.

I repeat the thought like a mantra, trying to keep myself on course for Neuro. They might be screwed, too, in which case I probably will head north and not look back. But they’ve also got weapons. And if I die, it won’t be alone.

Why do I care about dying alone?

In the past two years, the subject of my death, immediate or future, never crossed my mind. The topic just never held my interest. I knew it would happen. That life is finite. Quick, even. But now, thoughts of death, dying, and ceasing to exist—or not—threaten to undo me.