Nemesis: Book Four Read online

  Michael knew he could go back whenever he wanted, that crossing back over would be easy, but he didn't know if he could ever return here. Once back in reality, on the other side of this gray place, he might be stuck there, and might lose whatever was here. He didn't question or worry about his need to figure out the mystery of this place—it pulled him as naturally as the colors on the other side had grabbed his attention.

  Michael saw the creature turn its face from the corner of his eye.

  He stopped walking, but didn't turn to look. He didn't want to move because if he looked toward the gray, toward the one that now faced him, he thought that they would all turn to him. They would all see him and fall upon him like lions on an antelope. He would die out here, in this wilderness of no color.

  He couldn’t do anything else, though. Walking or turning to look was all the same—moving. He hadn't felt fear the entire time this… change... occurred. Until now. Something about this place and these grays was different than reality. Yet, here he stood and if they ripped him apart, then he could do nothing about it. His whole life had been the same, his father’s unpredictable sea of vodka instead of gray, but still, he had come to realize that he controlled very little, and the only way to ride the sea was to not fight it.

  He turned and looked at the gray. It faced him fully, the only being not looking toward the house (though Michael was too far away to see it now). The thing's eyes were white, and were the only truly solid part of it, like smooth golf balls sitting inside an ephemeral head. Its face was emotionless, its skin with no blemishes or wrinkles.

  "Why are you here?"

  The words came out like a cat's screech, loud and echoing across the entire expanse of its brothers. They sliced through the air like blades, attacking everything that they touched, making Michael wince as his eardrums vibrated from the noise. No one moved though; no one turned to see either the creature screaming or the person it screamed at.

  Michael swallowed but didn't drop his eyes.

  "I'm looking for something." His own words sounded weak, pathetic, in response. He felt certain that they reached the gray, but he sounded like a child talking to a god. It was the truth, though, even if he didn't know what he was looking for, or why.

  The creature said nothing, only stood staring.

  And then it started walking, its feet moving across the pavement just as Michael's had moments before. It didn't need to pass through the other grays, though, because they moved out of its way. Stepping forward and backward without averting their eyes from the direction of Bryan's house.

  Run! The thought flooded his mind.

  No, another came, a calmer one.

  Michael didn't move, not even when the gray reached him, its face a mere inch away from his own. No breath moved from the thing's mouth; the body was completely still, like that of the dead.

  "You need to stay," it said, its voice now a whisper, but still somehow holding on to the scream’s edge—like metal being dragged across concrete.

  Michael stared at it, unsure what to do or say.

  The gray turned, facing Bryan's house. Michael kept on looking for a few seconds, sure that it would speak again, that something else had to happen.

  The gray made no more noise, said no more words. It took Michael a few minutes to gather himself, to find the strength in his legs to keep moving forward, to turn his back on the goddamn thing. The pull, though; it was too great, and eventually, he did start walking.

  * * *

  Time passed, though Michael didn't know how much. Time existed here, but not the way it did in reality. Michael was miles from Bryan's house, a distance which normally would take an hour to walk, but yet he didn’t know whether he started a minute or a decade ago. He wasn't tired and not a drop of sweat appeared on his body. Perhaps he was already dead, walking forever because forever was the time he had left.

  No, he thought. That's the panic again. It's not real.

  He wasn't dead and if he needed to remember, he only had to think back to the gray that told him he needed to stay. He could think back to Bryan and the conversation they had in the house. He was alive and here because he wanted to be. He wasn't lost; hell, how could he get lost in this place, he grew up here, if only a much more colorful version of here.

  You can still cross back over. He could feel the the statement’s truth, but an unsaid portion was there as well. That time was running short. He would have to cross back soon, or live here forever. Like everything else, he shouldn’t know this, but he did. He could try to deny it, walking through this land of the non-living, but it wouldn't matter—this place's end was coming toward him whether he believed it or not.

  It's close, though. Much closer than when I started.

  And it was. He could see markers that told him where he was, but the further he walked, the more the world seemed to change. White, semi-soft cords were underfoot now, and getting thicker the further he walked, covering more and more of the ground beneath his feet. That, combined with the innumerable grays, stole much of his surroundings’ relevance. He wasn't following any known path, but only the draw of the other. He felt it growing too, like a magnet getting closer and closer to its opposite. He could leave right now, and was beginning to think that if he didn't leave soon, he wouldn't be able to—but the pull kept him moving.

  Michael reached the crest of a hill, the road no longer asphalt beneath him, just white cords covering everything now. Michael looked down the hill and saw what he had searched for, maybe fifty feet from him. He paused for only a second, and then started walking again, heading directly for it, crossing through the gray shapes like water through a cloth bag.

  He stopped just outside the outer ring, and that's what it was, without a doubt. A ring of grays, of the non-living as Michael had come to think of them. They created a circle with a circumference of maybe thirty to forty feet, all of them facing the direction of Bryan’s house, as if they didn't recognize the beauty of what they stood around.

  Michael had never seen anything like it before.

  The creature was male, though definitely not a man. He hovered in the air, perhaps three feet off the ground. His arms were out to his side, as if on an invisible cross. His eyes were closed and his face looked completely at peace, not like death, but only a dreamless sleep.

  And around him, in air containing no wind, the color red rippled to the creature's right. Color wasn't the exact word though, because it held some substance as well, had even more depth than the colors Michael saw on the other side of this world—and it emanated from the creature, as if attached to him.

  Michael stood just outside the ring, looking on at the being’s majesty.

  After a minute or two of watching the red whip around the creature, Michael stepped inside the ring of grays.

  They all turned and watched as he approached the creature hanging like Christ.

  6

  Present Day

  Bryan held Julie’s hand, but only because she wouldn't let go. His mother sat to his left and his father in the front passenger seat. Wren drove and Michael lay in the back. Bryan knew all this only because his senses brought it to him. He didn't actually care about any of it in the slightest. To him, the people in this car were little more than dolls that someone had shoved into his life. He couldn't find the energy, the emotion to reach out to them in any meaningful way.

  Bryan had been able to come back—for just a bit—when he saw Michael in the Ether, as (don'tsayhername) that other being thought of it. For a moment, he was himself. Bryan had focused, perhaps out of fear or perhaps because Michael was there. It didn't matter now. That part of him, one of those broken shards, had fallen away and back into the pile with the rest of the glass.

  He stared ahead as the car rolled forward, all of them trying to exit this death-trap. Only white lay behind them now, a growth that they barely missed. Bryan saw it, but didn't care. He knew that it would most likely cover the house he grew up in just as it did the one's he watched through the c
ar windows. He didn't care.

  Thera.

  That's what he cared about.

  Because he thought that white substance most likely covered her now, too. It had found the hole and grown into it, then found Thera and probably filled her open mouth with its perfect white. She was lying out there all alone, buried beneath a substance that no one understood.

  And he was alive.

  He was riding in the car next to his family.

  Bryan swallowed, but no tears rose to his eyes.

  You have to go get her, he thought. Once Michael is safe, you have to go back in and you have to get her out of there. No matter what it takes.

  The thought was as much him as any of the other pieces, just another shard of glass reflecting light for a single second. And still, the light it reflected caught in his mind—because he made a promise, and now he was running from it.

  Michael, then Thera. He needed to see Michael safely back here; he needed to make sure that Michael would make it out of this alive, if anyone could. Once that was done, or as done as Bryan could hope to make it, then he would go back to Thera. Go back and lie down next to her, and let the white that consumed her consume him as well. They had been one for a little while, and they could be one again.

  "That's him!" Julie said.

  Bryan's mind snapped away from the shards of glass reflecting thoughts into his mind, coming to the present. Fear rose up in him like some great monster from a deep ocean.

  Julie finally let go of his hand and was reaching over the back of the seat, pointing.

  Bryan turned around and looked, seeing a man walking as stiff as he and Thera had just a couple days ago.

  "That's the man. The one that held us!" Julie shouted.

  Bryan let out a sigh and turned back to the front of the car.

  "No. That's not a man any longer."

  * * *

  The first coherent thought from Will was, It's a female.

  It didn't take long for him to have that thought, but for a few moments, fear the size of planets gripped him. The creature, the she, had entered him and taken control. As colloquial as it sounded, there wasn't any other way to put it. Will felt her enter, felt her grab hold—not slowly, not gently, but with a raw strength that said simply his wishes had no place inside his body any longer. He tracked her entering, tracked her beginning to take over, and then the fear of rape grabbed him, shook his whole core.

  His training brought him back. The training always brought him back, wherever he was and whatever happened. God Bless the USA and God Bless the Training.

  It's a female, he thought with not just a little awe. He realized it when he stared at her, when she spoke with him and then with Marks, but to have her enter him relayed even more information about her. She… she was a monster and at the same time, something different too.

  Will knew he wasn't safe. That regardless of this thing's gender, normal stereotypes didn't apply to her. She would murder him, was going to murder him the moment she finished what she set out to do—and there wasn’t any doubt about what she wanted, either. Her focus was singular, a bright light that honed in on only one thing. She wanted Kenneth Marks.

  And part of that made Will happy.

  Because this thing, this she, didn't want to sit down and converse with the man. Will couldn't tell with any specificity what she wanted, but he knew it wasn't a chat. She was dangerous, and if she could hurt Marks, that would be just fine in Will's book.

  He could still feel the poisoned capsule in his mouth, though he couldn’t control his muscles. He hadn't even thought about using it, mainly because he had been so enraptured with her. And now, he really didn't want to. He would die before this was over, and though he had thought that for much of this ordeal, perhaps he had also hoped that he wouldn't. He saw that wasn't a possibility any longer, that however this creature had taken him, when she was done, she would dispose of him the same as Marks.

  She didn't hate Marks; Will didn't feel that from her, but she wanted something from him, just as she did Will. He was the vehicle that she would use to get to Marks. The same end for both though, yet Will would open his doors and let her ride if it meant he got to watch Marks get what he deserved.

  The creature, Mona? Maureen? He was close to knowing her name, but still couldn't quite grasp it—she figured everything out easily enough. She searched through his head with an efficiency that Will envied. She had done it before though, hadn't she? Yes, she had experience in this matter.

  And a thought broke through the dirt of Will's mind, like the first piece of green a flower shows as it pushes from its seed out into the sunlight.

  How had he forgotten about her? The girl that looked out at him from the door, staring with dead eyes and not a single thought of panic running through her head.

  Yeah, I forgot, he thought. I forgot because I was going to kill her anyway. I was going to kill everyone in the town if it stopped this infection.

  But what happened to her? Where is she now, because she certainly wasn't flying in those clouds.

  Morena knew where to go because she searched through his mind to find out exactly how he got here and how he planned to get back. She would take him back to Knox and Marks would show up to meet this creature.

  But what about that girl?

  Will had been so content with stopping this thing that it really didn't matter who got in the way. Collateral damage.

  Her name was Thera.

  He remembered that.

  I was going to kill her. But she did instead.

  Did anyone else remember her? What about her parents? Were they alive or had this creature gotten them to? What about the boy and girl he kept in the motel room? Did they remember, or was Will the only one alive, the only one that her memory still lived with?

  The world moved in front of Will, much like it might move before a paraplegic being pushed in a wheelchair, yet he didn't panic. Maybe the training kept it at bay, or maybe the thought of the girl he saw briefly at the door. The girl that he had been willing to kill, and yet the creature that now controlled him did it instead.

  7

  Present Day

  The wind blew as the Georgia winter decided that it was time to make its annual appearance. Knox wore no outer jacket, but his fatigues had long sleeves, which was enough for now.

  He preferred the cold anyway. He had been in hot places, places that the Devil would be jealous of. This chilliness? God was good.

  And there would be enough heat here, very soon. He stood just outside the boundaries of the camp, binoculars to his eyes. He saw the white strands, closer now than when he spoke with Marks. He could see his men spreading out too, each of them holding a flamethrower in their hands and a backpack full of diesel. They would burn the shit, all of it, until they saw that green creature flying around like a new version of the Silver Surfer, and then they would retreat. Knox couldn't let this stuff spread, not like it wanted, but he wouldn’t send his soldiers on suicide missions either.

  His men stood at a distance of two hundred and fifty feet from each other, going completely around the perimeter of Grayson, encircling it. They were in the woods, on the streets, and everything in between. He had made men burn through briars and cross creeks, but they were finally all in position now. Just waiting on him to give word.

  Knox peered through his binoculars, as he took one hand away and brought the radio to his mouth.

  “Burn it.”

  * * *

  The strands were an interesting group of life. They were individuals, each of them capable of stopping their growth if they wanted. Each of them could refuse to grow the Bynums. None would though; none would even think of it. Their happiness depended on their spreading, on their ability to help Bynimian—though it didn’t occur to them that Bynimian, their home world, was dead.

  And even though they lived individual lives, they also had a singular consciousness that each one dipped in and out of. The strands crossed each other, grew into one another and ba
ck out again. They knew each other's thoughts and also had their own. No other Bynum had this ability; it was unique to the strands, just as their job in the birthing process was unique.

  The first part of the blaze didn't touch all of them at once; it couldn't have. Some had decided that they would grow tall and thick, traveling up trees and branches, then wrapping and rewrapping themselves around the trunk. Some went underneath creeks and rivers, liking the darkness because it reminded them of the Earth's core. Bynums could grow in water as easily as they could in the open air. The majority of the strands protruding from the earth were too far away from the soldiers to experience the weapons they carried. So only the strands at the perimeter's forefront felt the fire.

  They had known that men were arriving, had felt them getting closer, the vibrations from their feet telling all. This was, of course, transferred to every piece of strand erupting from the core. Whether or not an individual strand had been born of the core, through the connections with others, it received its energy to grow and birth Bynums. So the further away from the heat the strands grew, and the more Bynums sprouted, the longer it took them to continue spreading. This was simply the cost of using an energy source not right next to them, and a cost that would continue to slow their growth. They would use the heat they gathered from the core and the rays which beamed off this planet's star to fuel their growth, even if it would continue slower than in the beginning. Growth was growth, after all.

  They didn't know what the beings' wanted, only that their mother would keep them safe if danger came.

  And when the fire erupted, the frontline knew why their mother had not shown up when these men did. Because there was no danger. Only joy.