MirrorWorld

35.

The rest of my drive is uneventful. Three minutes after leaving the officer behind, I pull to a stop, one hundred yards from the cemetery, and park behind a stand of trees. On my feet, I stalk a little bit closer, allowing the shadowy forest to cloak my approach. I keep track of both worlds by taking quick looks between frequencies, noting the ease with which I can now shift my vision. It’s not really a tactical advantage since the Dread can also view both worlds, but at least I’m not at a complete disadvantage, like most people. And if the Dread aren’t also monitoring both worlds, I might be able to walk right up to the front door.

Fifty yards from the cemetery, I lay at the fringe of a fern patch, totally concealed by the lush, three-foot-tall foliage. Of course, all this effort might be for nothing. I have no idea how the Dread see our world. While my eyes can see like them, I’m still human, and still have two eyes instead of four. For all I know, my presence might shine like a beacon, though I don’t think so since I’m still alone.

I put a pair of binoculars to my eyes and check out the real world first. If there are any human beings guarding the place, I want to know about it. The graveyard is ancient, the headstones smooth, slate-gray, worn by time and rain. The names are weathered, some of them erased completely. The remains of a church lay to the side of the cemetery, having been consumed by fire long ago but never rebuilt. Given the amount of graffiti and shards of broken glass, it’s probably been a teenage hangout for years. The graveyard is surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Black paint curls back from the posts, revealing patches of maroon rust. There isn’t a single flower by any of the graves. The dead here have been long since forgotten by whatever distant relatives survived them.

Keeping my body in the dimension it belongs to, I let my eyes gaze into the mirror. I feel my eyes shift, the pupils splitting and stretching. It’s like moving a colored lens in front of my eyes and then removing it. The pain is negligible. The clearing is still there, but the cemetery is gone and everything else has changed. The forest is now a moist, black jungle streaked with luminescent veins of color, not just green. And the sky is purple, casting its weak glow through gathering storm clouds. I haven’t seen the sun here. Maybe there isn’t one. Or maybe the strange sky just filters out different wavelengths? Could be why nothing grows green here, other than the veins. But really, who knows how this place works? No one, that’s who.

What I do know is that there isn’t a Dread in sight.

The giant wart that is the Dread colony sits atop the cemetery’s location. Closer this time, I can see that it’s a dry husk of a thing, like a beehive. It looks almost brittle, but it’s big, a diameter of two hundred feet, at least.

I sit still for a full minute, each second putting Neuro in greater danger. I consider some of them new friends, and, while I can’t remember her, one of them was—is—my wife. I’d like to think I’m honorable enough to fight for her, memory or not.

I stand from cover. Leaving the bow and arrows clipped to the ATV, I unsling my assault rifle and jog toward the nearest arched colony entrance. Armed with two trench knives, a machete, a P229, a Desert Eagle, and the Vector, I’m close to a walking arsenal, but there’s no way to know what I’m going to find in the darkness beyond or what it will take to kill it.

I step inside the colony without a second thought and let the rest of my body slip into the mirror world. The sudden pain staggers me, but my body soon adjusts to this distant world just beyond our reach and I’m moving. My eyes adapt to the shade with typical human efficiency—slowly. But it’s not entirely dark inside. Veins of color line the walls. It’s like everything in this world is alive, pumping luminous blood through exposed veins.

The floor is hard-packed, dry soil, not like the mush outside. Countless oddly shaped footprints litter the dusty top layer. It’s normally a busy place, but right now no one seems to be home.

Whispering rises in pulses powerful enough to daze me. Whatever is generating the mental “sound” is nearby. I can feel it, and I’m pretty damn sure it can feel me. Probably did the moment I slipped fully into this world.

The shuffling of scurrying feet confirms it. While most of the colony is away, probably part of the assault on Neuro, some pugs have remained behind. It’s a horrible defense, and the sound gives me a direction to head. Assault rifle up and against my shoulder, I head left, toward the scratching.

The sound of small feet ebbs and flows through the tunnel, but the small creatures making the noise fail to manifest out of the gloom. They’re just out of sight, darting away before I can see them. But I can hear them. The passage leads downward, following a subtly tightening spiral. Alcoves line the outer wall, each one filled with a variety of mirror-world brush twisted into nests. I take aim into each as I pass, but the chambers are devoid of life.

Ten minutes later, toward the end of what I believe is my fourth full revolution around the colony, at least fifty feet underground, the incline levels out. The air is like a giant’s armpit: warm, moist, and rank. The smell is hard to describe. Part ammonia, part rotten egg, part decaying flesh. There’s nothing redeeming about the odor.

The whispering surges and then stops.

The scampering quiets.

They’re waiting for me.

A large arching entryway looms on the right. I stalk toward it, glancing into the last empty alcove as I pass. There are a number of tactics for entering a defended space. I ignore them all, waltzing out into the open, weapon ready. And while I don’t fear what I find, I can’t say I’m not surprised by it.

There are twenty of the little black pugs. They’re holding their ground, bodies stiff, jaws sprung open to reveal writhing maws. The little veins webbed around their bodies pulse with green light as the luminous blood circulates quicker. Behind them are two bulls, their posture similar to that of the pugs, their hippolike mouths agape and ready to swallow me up. None of this is what’s strange, though. It’s the mound of undulating flesh rising from the earth at the center of the circular chamber that catches me off guard. Tendrils, similar to those of Medusa-hands, but thicker, rise out of the ground. Hundreds of them, writhing and dancing like charmed snakes.

But the rubbery tentacles aren’t the only thing coming out of the ground. Veins, pulsing with color—red, green, yellow, and purple—rise out of the earth around the fringe of tendrils, stretching across the floor and rising up the walls, disappearing into the earth. Whatever this is hidden beneath the colony seems to be supplying the blood, for lack of a better word, to the veins covering the floor, and possibly the land surrounding the colony, maybe for miles in every direction. I glance at the nearest pug. Small veins of green rise up from the floor, commingling with those on the pug for a moment. The pug brightens and the veins fall away. This thing controls the Dread and sustains them, at least in part. While individual species of Dread might have varying degrees of intelligence and sentience, allowing them to do things like fight, direct people’s fear, and understand English, this thing is the mastermind. It’s the source of the big whispers, linking its mind with theirs. I can feel this truth as much as I can logically deduce it. I’ve found my target.

“Well,” I say. “What are you waiting for?”

The tendrils twitch. A pulse of whispering makes my mind whirl. While I don’t understand the various sounds and syllables moving through my thoughts, I somehow feel the message in my core.

Don’t… Or is it, wait…

Either way, it’s feeling a bit of trepidation.

And it should be.

I’m firing before I know it, sending quick bursts of sound-suppressed automatic gunfire into the pack of pugs. Five are down by the time they react. Half dive for cover. The rest lunge for me. Those that hide are the smart ones; the others are quickly cut down, the last of them twitching to death at my feet.

I eject the spent magazine and slap in a fresh one.

The tendrils writhe frantically. Frenetic whispering fills the chamber.

It’s panicked.

It’s afraid.

The irony of this isn’t lost on me, but there’s no time to dwell on it. The two bulls charge while the remaining pugs flank me.

Focusing on the clearest threat, I turn the Vector toward the nearest bull and introduce it to a barrage of oscillium projectiles. The monster bucks and shrieks but never stops. It lowers its head, preparing to ram me. But it can no longer see me. While firing the vector left-handed, I draw the machete from my back with my right hand and sidestep the beast. As it passes, I swing hard, chopping the machete into the bull’s squat neck. I’m not sure what Dread anatomy is like, but it appears that severing the spine behind the head has the same effect it does on creatures in my home dimension. The bull slumps to the floor, silent and still as green fluid pours from the external veins severed by my cut.

High-pitched shrieking fills the air as the pugs launch their assault. Some jump; some come in low. There’s no way I can defend against them all, so I don’t. While four fall to gunfire and two meet the end of my blade, the rest make contact. I feel the pressure of their powerful jaws latch onto my body, three on the legs, one on my waist. The squeezing on my legs is painful, but the thick plates of oscillium armor on my limbs do their job. My waist is a different scenario. While the pugs’ teeth fail to puncture the oscillium fabric, the sharp points and high pressure are still puncturing my skin. I can feel the hundreds of short tendrils in its mouth, writhing against my side.

I cleave the pug at my waist in half, but it remains clung to me in death. Green blood and bright-red innards spill on two of the pugs attached to my left leg. They spasm away from the gore, revolted by it, shaking their little bodies as they stumble oddly away.

I’m about to shoot the fourth pug when I realize the pint-sized attack was never meant to inflict harm. It was a distraction. I turn around in time to see the remaining bull leap clear over its fallen comrade, land in front of me, and throw its armor-plated head into my already-bruised gut.