MirrorWorld

61.

When Lyons arrives, I’m still outside the SUV. Cobb starts to scream, but I shove him inside the vehicle and slam the door. A long-clawed arm swooshes down toward my head. I duck while shifting back into the mirror world. It’s just a momentary visit to confuse Lyons. When he pursues me between frequencies, I’ve already left. Back in the real world, the SUV peels away, Cobb swerving as he fights the wheel and the powerful fear instilled in him by Lyons.

Backpack slung over my shoulder, I run in the opposite direction, heading south. I glance back, expecting to see Lyons right behind me, but he’s not there. I switch to double vision, viewing both worlds fully. My mind once again reels from the dual input. I’m seeing and feeling the solid ground beneath my feet, but I’m also seeing four feet of swamp water. My brain is telling me that there should be resistance, but I only see the water and can’t feel it. As a headache catches fire behind my eyes, I see Lyons.

The monstrous form of my father-in-law is locked in combat with a Dread croc, that is perhaps just defending its territory or was sent by the matriarch—I don’t know. But its interference has bought me time. I don’t indulge the hope that the croc will stop Lyons. He’s too powerful and wields fear in a way few Dread can match. I don’t bother watching the results. Instead, I turn away from the fight and the mirror world, pouring on the speed.

Now that I remember myself, I’m aware of what I can do and the training I’ve received. I’m a little soft from my time in SafeHaven, but I know how to push myself to the limit, and I don’t worry about pushing myself right on past it. So when I pace myself, it’s at a sprint, aiming for the southern end of the park, where a bevy of tourist attractions will help delay what I think could be a losing fight.

My feet slap over pavement, crunch through dirt, and squelch through soggy earth as I make my way through the park. And when an immovable object blocks my path—a tree, fence, or wall—I leap into the mirror world, pass through the obstacle, and land in the real world in time to continue running, undaunted.

A minute later, I feel the first signs of Lyons’s pursuit as a ripple of energy. He’s broadcasting fear like a radio station, pumping it into the airwaves. The park, aside from the people who nearly ran me over, appears to be empty. But they were just passing through. People are either hiding in their homes or part of a mob, but if anyone is unlucky enough to be in the park, they’re going to feel him coming, no doubt spurring future reports of park hauntings. That is, if we’re not all cooked in the meantime. The heavy weight of the backpack over my shoulders is a constant reminder of what’s at stake.

The second sign of Lyons’s closing distance is a constant whispering. It fills my mind, but unlike the incomprehensible Dread language, it’s all in English. Despite recognizing the language, I still have trouble making sense of it as words and sentences overlap. What I do know is that it’s getting louder and is hard to ignore.

I take a look back into the mirror world, but all I can see is swamp.

The path ahead is thickly wooded in both worlds, so I plow straight through the real world, dodging trees and careening through brush. I nearly plow headlong into a chain-link fence but manage to leap up and pass through it in the mirror world. Upon my return to the real world, I immediately dive forward, soaring over the supine form of Snow White, awaiting her prince. I roll back to my feet, but the concrete walkway I’ve landed on is unforgiving and reminds me of the punishment my body has endured.

Three sets of wild-looking eyes catch my attention. I spin toward them, expecting an attack, but come face-to-face with human-sized Three Little Pigs. They’re dancing gleefully next to their house of brick, the wolf clawing its way out of the chimney. Strangely, stories like this, about hungry stalking wolves, were probably inspired by the Dread. How many fairy tales of trolls, ogres, and spirits were inspired by encounters with the mirror world?

Lyons shimmers into view behind the jolly pigs, swiping two aside and biting the eldest in half. Lyons overtook me and lay in wait, playing the part of the Big Bad Wolf.

“Really?” I say, “You want to do this in Storyland?”

Lyons roars and tosses the oldest pig’s eviscerated lower half, striking an oversize Humpty Dumpty. The egg-man’s bolts snap; his hooked cane, which is embedded in the concrete walkway, breaks; and he topples off the wall. But, I’ll be damned, he doesn’t break. I take it as a good omen, and then run. I’m not ready to face Lyons yet.

The clear walkway and smooth surface allow me to hit my top speed in just a few strides. Lyons is quick to pursue but opts to barrel through the brick house, buying me a few seconds and a fifty-foot head start. Running through a stand of weeping willows, I cut through the thick curtain of Spanish moss and make a hard left.

Lyons dives after me, mole claws outstretched to impale my back, but he can’t see me through the moss. He explodes out of the trees, covered in long coils of vegetation. Momentarily blinded, he clips the short stone wall of a fountain and spills forward, sending up a wave of coin-filled water. He tumbles through the water, crushing the fountain and far wall, sending a fresh river over the dry concrete. Then he’s up again, shedding moss and lunging after me.

Lyons has the clear physical advantage, but he’s not using his human mind to its full potential. He’s acting ravenous. Uncontrolled. He’s going to catch me eventually, but he’s going to destroy all of Storyland first.

I make like Jiminy Cricket, leaping a short fence into the Pinocchio exhibit. Lyons has gained again and is just a few strides away. I charge into the waiting open jaws of a large bright-blue whale, atop which Pinocchio is seated, and leap through its backside by sliding into and out of the mirror world. I continue my flight on the far side of the display’s tail, unhindered by the exhibit. A moment later, the whale explodes as Lyons charges into the mouth and out the backside, never shifting frequencies.

The four-foot-tall Pinocchio statue spins through the sky, flipping past me like Mary Lou Retton on fast-forward, and crashes into Little Bo Peep’s white sheep. I nearly laugh at the frozen, wide-eyed expression on her painted face. I suspect it had never been appropriate until that very moment.

As I round a carousel and consider running through it, a sharp beeping sound fills the air.

The microwave bomb.

It’s time to face Lyons.

I stop and turn around so quickly that it catches Lyons off guard. He flinches and slides to a standstill, fifteen feet between us. We’re framed by a unicorn-themed carousel and a pirate ship. Not the most epic of battlegrounds, but I enjoy the juxtaposition.

I hold my wrist up, revealing the beeping watch that I synced with the bomb’s timer when I was with Cobb. I reach up and push a button to stop it. “Do you know what that means?”

Dread Lyons’s seven black eyes squint. He’s still in there somewhere. “It means you’ve lost.” I take the backpack off, unzip it, and dump a tire-repair kit onto the ground. I don’t need to tell him that Cobb took the bomb, that he was going to find someplace to contain it or dump it in the ocean, which would reduce the weapon’s impact. Either way, the colony would survive. The war he longed for and the vengeance he craved—for the deaths he caused—would never come to pass.

Not against the Dread, anyway. The cold gaze in his seven eyes says he’ll be satisfied, to some extent, by reducing my body to pulp. The only question remaining is which one of us will take action first? The answer is never really in question. I make my move before the thought finishes.