MirrorWorld

33.

I look out over the parking lot, expecting to see the remains of people whom I’d mistakenly shot with bullets from the mirror dimension. But there are no bodies and no blood. Even the Dread remains are gone, back in their home dimension. It’s the living who have Allenby spooked. The mob is marching forward, just one hundred feet out and closing.

“You need to get back inside,” I say to Allenby and Dearborn before turning to Katzman and the two Dread Squad soldiers. “Hell is about to rain down on this place from the north. If you’re out here when they arrive, you’ll all be shooting each other or jumping off the building.”

“Back inside,” Katzman says to his men, who eagerly obey.

Allenby lingers. “What’s coming?”

“Bunch of mothmen and some kind of giant flying-centipede thing.”

Dearborn gasps. “Ōmukade.”

“I think so, yeah.” I grasp Allenby’s arm. She doesn’t want to leave. Probably thinks she’ll never see me again. And she might be right, but if she stays here, distracting me, we’re both going to die. “Go. Now.”

When Katzman takes her arm and pulls, she relents. With one last look of concern cast in my direction, she flees past the immobile helicopter and toward the rooftop elevator doors.

Without watching to make sure they make it, I pick up the bow, cinch the assault rifle’s strap tighter, and leap over the side of the roof. I land on the slanted windows and quickly pick up speed, doing a repeat performance of my previous escape, this time with more guns and a clearer purpose. Nine stories slide past in seconds. When I near the bottom, the crowd is within thirty feet. I splay my arms and legs, pushing my palms and boot soles hard against the glass.

My drop off the edge is controlled, and I land on my feet. The mob is upon me, just fifteen feet. Running now. Arms outstretched, eyes angry.

Or is it fear?

If it is, it’s a kind of fear I’ve never seen before. Afraid or angry, the violent intent of this group is impossible to miss. Their fingers are either hooked or clenched. Some hold weapons—bottles, tools, whatever happened to be nearby when the Dread tore them out of their lives and sent them on a rampage—but all of them look ready to kill.

No time like the present to test the crux of my plan. Rather than draw a weapon, I must become one. Same as the Dread. I siphon all of my anger, all of the frustration I feel about not remembering my past, and I channel it. My body tingles, and then explodes from the inside out. Or, at least, it feels like it does. The first and last time I tried this, the pain nearly dropped me. For this plan to work, I’m going to need to redefine the boundary of my pain threshold. The discomfort moves from my extremities to my core and then—outward. I don’t think the mob can “hear” what I can—the static whisper of broadcast fear—but they sure as hell feel it. The burst of fear is quick, snuffed out by pulsing agony that stumbles my feet and slows my pace, but the effect is powerful.

With a unified shriek of surprise, the leading wave of the stampede skids to a halt, fighting to go back the way they came. But they’re met by their still-charging counterparts and collide like two waves of human flesh. People scream. Limbs snap. Bodies are trampled.

Will any of them remember why they were here? Why they were crushed? Why they were propelled to violence, or why they collectively feared a single man? I decide it doesn’t matter and leave them to their self-inflicted turmoil.

Running along the side of the building, I continue pushing my own brand of fear on the encroaching masses, creating a ten-foot buffer between them and the building. I’m slowed by the electric, muscle-tensing pain brought with each output of fear, but my hobbling progress is, at least, steady. The trouble is that each push is harder than the last, the cumulative effect heading toward a crescendo that might rob me of consciousness. Thinking of the lives at stake and the greater threat to humanity, I grind my teeth and growl through it. Behind me, the mob has now reached the building and is pounding on its side, demanding entry. Those I pushed back have either rejoined the crowd or have been trampled by it.

Movement ahead focuses me. A garage door opens. A black ATV sits idling, waiting for me.

Soaked in sweat and near collapsing, I stop broadcasting fear as I approach the ATV. I’m going to need to recover from the effort if I’m going to have any chance of getting through the crowd.

The bow and quiver of arrows attach to the back of the ATV. I keep the rest of my personal arsenal wrapped, clipped, and strapped to my body. The four-wheeler is idling, so I just slip it into gear and pull out.

The vehicle’s engine draws attention from both sides of the mirror. Shifting my view between worlds, I see the crowd of people and the Dread nipping at their heels turn their focus to me. Here comes part 2 of the plan, or is it part 3? We never really broke it down like that. It was all just one long, crazy idea.

I speed toward the crowd, racing to meet the wall of humanity. Seconds from impact, I pour on the fear and push the mental whisper out in front of me like a tidal wave. That’s how I envisioned it happening. In reality, the automatic reflex of my body to undo intense pain turns the tidal wave into a sputtering garden hose. Screaming through the ache, I push harder. Something inside my body shifts, physically, like an organ has just slid out of place. The muscles in my gut spasm. My mind says that I’m killing myself, that something catastrophic is happening to my body, but my will ignores the screaming warnings. They don’t frighten me. Then, all at once, the coughing emotional engine roars to life, and I feel the wave of energy flow outward.

People scream as they’re sandwiched between the fear pushing them forward and the fear now rolling out in front of me like a pressure wave. They leap in the only direction that no longer terrifies them, to either side and out of the way.

A path clears. Mostly. The Dread don’t move.

But they should.

With one hand on the steering bar, holding the throttle, I draw the Desert Eagle from my chest holster. No longer concerned about noise, I aim the .50 caliber gun at the nearest Dread, a feisty pug. It all but vaporizes when I pull the trigger, the significant recoil absorbed by a special wrist guard developed by the military for a Delta unit that had a penchant for the big gun. A second pug snaps to attention, turning its body and four round eyes in my direction. It’s the closest thing to startled I’ve seen a Dread. Then I pull the trigger and wipe the look off of its face, along with the rest of its head.

The Desert Eagle’s kick sends a jolt through my body that intensifies the torment of pushing fear. It takes all my concentration to keep the ATV moving in a straight line. The fear flowing from my body flickers and ceases, the whisper fading, but the path ahead is clear of humanity. Unfortunately, the pain remains as whatever shifted inside my body slides back into place, moved by an invisible sadist stirring my insides with his hand.

A bull closes in from the side, a pug scurrying close behind it. I fire three .50 caliber rounds at the bull. It takes the first two and keeps coming, despite the fact that half of its right side is trailing bright-green loops of entrails. The third shot caves in the thing’s domed skull and drops it.

The pug lunges for me, its jaws open wide enough to envelop my face. Its teeth are small but sharp, and the inside of its tongueless mouth is lined with small, undulating tentacles. Like the four eyes and external vascular system, some form of tendril seems to be a common trait among the Dread. It’s about to cling to my face like an Alien face hugger, so I lean to the side and let the thing sail past.

The path ahead is clear of anything large, so I aim for the far end of the parking lot. Pugs scramble out of the way. The remaining bulls keep their distance, focusing on fueling the mob, which is now behind us.

I’m in the clear, I think, looking back at the now-fading mass of people and Dread. Then I turn forward and realize I’ve underestimated the scope of the assault.