MirrorWorld

34.

Eight mothmen swarm toward me. I brace myself for their attack, but then they’re beyond me. My eyes track them over the parking lot, where they merge with a cloud of mothmen circling the Neuro building like the Wicked Witch of the West’s flying monkeys around a volcano. At the center of the Dread cyclone is the centipede thing—Ōmukade—which angles itself downward and falls. The impact shakes the earth in all dimensions as the massive body strikes the oscillium frame. While the building is well defended against the Dread, I don’t think anyone planned on facing such a colossal specimen. How could they? It’s never been seen before.

But Ōmukade isn’t just a heavy hitter. It’s a transport. Bulls, pugs, and Medusa-hands jump from the thing’s sides, where they’d been clinging. Lyons said that the Dread are driven by a territorial nature, that they’re ruled by emotions, feelings, instincts. But what I’m seeing looks like a very well thought out and coordinated attack plan. Military precision and forethought. This isn’t purely instinctual behavior. We already know the Dread are highly intelligent, but Lyons has underestimated their capabilities and intellect.

They’re ignoring me. I’m the guy who can move between dimensions. Who can kill them. Reveal them. But they’re not interested in me. Not right now.

They’re after something else.

Someone else.

This leaves just one possibility in my mind. They’re here for Lyons. Like me, they’re ignoring the foot soldiers and aiming for the guiding mind. It’s a strategy as old as warfare. Cut off the head, kill the leader, and the enemy no longer functions. Definitely intelligent.

I rev the engine and speed off. The long driveway is empty now, not a person or Dread in sight. The mob has either served its purpose or the Dread met their human quota for how many people are required for a successful assault. The security gate is in ruins, ransacked by the mob. I work my way through the debris, hit the road, and speed south, pushing the ATV toward its fifty-mph top speed.

The thickly treaded wheels buzz over the pavement. I keep an eye on the woods to either side of the road but see nothing of concern in either dimension. And for a moment, I breathe. The air smells of pine. And water. And deep-woods rot. My body relaxes. I haven’t forgotten the stifling chemical scents of SafeHaven. Despite all that’s happened and is about to happen, I’m still pleased to be free of that place and smelling real air again.

With a clear mind, I turn my thoughts to my route. Follow route 202 south for three miles. Turn right onto Old Pine Road. A mile farther, the road ends at the Old Pine Memorial Cemetery. I’ll be there in four minutes, tops. It’s not a lot of time, but it might be too much. I’m in a race with the Dread, but the odds are stacked against me. They have two armies, human and Dread, one on each side of the mirror. I have me. Both sides are vying for the other’s leadership, and whoever reaches that target first and kills it wins. Though the stakes are higher for humanity. Should Lyons and Neuro be taken out today, the war will essentially be over. After my four-minute journey, the plan gets shaky, but it’s basically “find and kill anything that looks in charge,” with the hopes of disrupting the Dread’s psychic network of communication, which out here, in the woods, is silent.

The windy road bends to the right. I take the turn fast, tires screeching and then biting, keeping me in my own lane, which is good. If I’d slid across the double yellow lines, I would have plowed right into a brown state-trooper cruiser heading in the opposite direction.

When he speeds past me, driving equally fast in the opposite direction, I’m positive he’s heading for Neuro. He’ll probably just become part of the problem when he gets there, but at least he won’t be my problem.

A surge of whispering fills my head.

It’s followed by the sound of screeching tires.

As I round the bend, a look back reveals the cruiser, in a cloud of tire smoke, spinning back around. There’s a Medusa-hands half in, half out of the car, very close to our frequency of reality, its yellow-tipped tendrils buried in the officer’s head. Two bulls bounce around the vehicle, filling the roadway with intense fear. They’re coming for me, and they’re using the policeman as a weapon.

Then I’m alone on the road again, speeding down an empty strip of New Hampshire. Movement to the left catches my attention. Deer fleeing the ATV’s loud buzz. Movement to the right now, a bull, running just inside the tree line, keeping pace, but not attacking. Lines of green veins covering the world and tall black trees appear as my vision shifts into the world between. The solid road continues here, as well, its solid, unmoving nature stretching between frequencies. The ache in my eyes is dull, like a fading headache. It hurts, but the severity has dulled, reaffirming my belief that the parts of me that are Dread just need exercise. The bull is alone, but not for long. The roar of the approaching police cruiser grows louder, and the car will soon overtake me or smear me across the pavement.

I jerk to the left.

The cruiser flashes past, doing at least eighty.

Momentum carries me off the road to the left. I swerve around three tall pines and then crank the ATV back toward the road. A bull is there, charging alongside me, staring at me with its four round eyes. For a moment, I feel a connection to the thing. Then its face implodes as a .50 caliber round punches through. I holster the Desert Eagle on my chest.

Brakes squeal.

The rear end of the police cruiser races toward me, or me toward it—either way, the effect is the same. I veer right, racing up a bumpy, root-covered incline as I round the cruiser. While I would love to enter the woods and speed away, the tree line is too thick. Following gravity’s pull, I angle the four-wheeler back down to the pavement and skid to a stop. I draw the Desert Eagle, twist back, and fire into the police cruiser. Three rounds. The heavy bullets pass through the glass like it’s not even there, each one hitting its Dread target.

Tires squeal as the cruiser brakes hard and spins around to face me.

The officer leaps out, gun drawn, aiming over the door. “Don’t move!” He’s no longer being directed by the Medusa-hands I shot. He’s just doing his job and is hopped up on fear.

I look around the cruiser. The Dread fell back through the car and now lay twitching on the ground. As it dies, it fades out of the world in between and returns to its mirror world. I look for the remaining bull, but it’s nowhere in sight.

“Hey!” the officer yells.

He’s lucky my lack of fear is sometimes kept in check by my strident moral code. Instead of simply shooting the officer, I blow his mind and shift fully into the mirror dimension. To him, I’ve just winked out of existence.

I crouch down, holding my side as the invisible sadist goes to work again. The ache fades faster, though, and I’m able to stand a moment later, feeling more normal, or at least the new normal, with each breath of the tangy, ammonia-scented air. The earth around me is soft and moist. Puddles of liquid with swirling, oily rainbows seep into my footprints as I walk toward the cruiser. Once I’m sure I’m past the car, I slip back into reality. I’m just five feet behind the officer, and he doesn’t hear me coming. Three pressure points later, he’s unconscious. I lay him in the backseat, steer the car to the shoulder, put on his hazards, and leave.

As I return to the ATV, the whispering in my head grows louder. Almost frantic. But I don’t think it has anything to do with me. It’s Neuro, I think, and understand what the suddenly excited and frantic tone of the hissing voices means: the Dread have made it inside.