Everything was spinning in Dillon’s head. He felt an unbearable emptiness. A hollowness. He had been crammed tightly with seething, horrid creatures, but now they were gone, and the emptiness they left behind was strange and terrible. He heard the voices of the other kids around him—the ones who had tried to kill him.
“They’re getting away,” one of them said.
“We can catch them!”
“Don’t just sit there, run!”
He heard feet running off, then saw the black kid who had fired the gun standing over him.
“You dead?” asked the black kid.
“Yes,” groaned Dillon.
“Good,” said the black kid, and he took off with the others.
Dillon closed his eyes again. And tried to feel something . . . anything. He could feel the blood pulsing in his hands and feet, he could feel the pain in the back of his head, but he couldn’t feel anything inside. The events of the past few weeks were slowly coming back to him, like the details of a nightmare . . . he remembered Boise, and Idaho Falls, and Burton, and the many other people and places he had carefully destroyed, but with those memories came a fog of numbness. No feeling. No remorse. No sorrow or joy. Nothing. He had no feeling inside him at all. No heart. No soul.
“Dillon?”
He opened his eyes, and there beside him knelt Deanna. She helped him to sit up, and as he shifted, he felt something hard against the small of his back. He reached behind his back and pulled out the gun that should have killed him. Deanna gently took it from him and exposed the barrel.
“Four chambers; three bullets. We fired the empty chamber hoping we could scare them out of you. If it hadn’t worked, we still had the three full ones.”
Dillon felt weak, feverish. He realized he hadn’t eaten for days.
“Where are we?”
His eyes had adjusted to the strange harsh light, and he looked around. The sands were vermillion red, the sky an icy frost blue. A much smaller tear, ten feet in the air above him, marked the passage back to their own world.
And all around them was despair.
Downed airplanes and crushed ships littered the sands. Rusted cars with crusty skeletons lay strewn every few hundred yards like a great garden of death. All the people and things that had ever disappeared without explanation were well accounted for in this unnameable place, having fallen through tears in the fabric of time and space. And yet this was not quite another world—it was an unworld—an unloved, unseen, unattended-to place. A place between.
Dillon turned to see a solitary mountain looming behind them; it seemed as out of place as everything else. At the top of this peak stood what appeared to be a castle carved out of the rock itself.
Dillon’s beast was climbing this mountain. So was Deanna’s. The other four kids had taken off in various directions across the sands after their demons, but Dillon’s and Deanna’s were getting away.
And still Dillon felt nothing.
He turned to Deanna.
“Deanna . . . I want you to look at me and tell me what you see.”
Deanna looked him over, and tried to hide the grimace on her face. “It’s not so good . . . but the weight is already going away, and your skin . . .”
“No,” said Dillon. “That’s not what I mean.”
He gripped her tightly and looked into her eyes. “I mean . . . what do you see . . . when you look at me . . .”
Deanna peered into his eyes, as she always did. He could almost feel her probing inside of him . . . searching . . . and then a tear trickled down her face.
“They’ve killed me, haven’t they?” asked Dillon. “Those monsters left my body and my mind, but they killed my soul . . .”
“No . . . ,” said Deanna, smiling gently though her tears. Dillon could now see that these were not tears of sadness; they were tears of joy. “The other day,” said Deanna, “I thought you were gone forever, so I ran . . . . But I was wrong . . . . You’re still alive, Dillon, body and soul.”
Deanna leaned forward and kissed his blistered, swollen lips. And for a moment Dillon felt a twinge of feeling coming back to him.
He glanced up at the rift in space just out of their reach, remembering the extent of their situation.
“Slayton,” he said weakly. “I launched him toward Tacoma . . .”
Deanna calmly helped him to his feet. “First the beasts,” she said. “They’re too powerful—they have to be destroyed.”
Dillon couldn’t keep his eyes off of her. After everything he had done, she still cared for him—and after all the terror, she could face this new challenge with fortitude and peace. “How can you be so strong?” he asked. But Deanna only smiled. What a wondrous gift, thought Dillon. To be so strong. To be so brave.
He stood on wobbly legs like a dead man refusing to give up the ghost and tapped into Deanna’s will, borrowing it for his own. Then they set off toward the mountain to face their demons.
TORY HAD BEEN THE first to realize that these beasts could be destroyed. She knew by the way the beasts moved. They didn’t zip across these sands like shadows; they ran, they crawled, they slithered, like beings of flesh and blood. Indeed, in this unworld these beasts were creatures of flesh. That meant they would have weaknesses and could be hunted! The creatures raced off in different directions, and the kids took off after the beast each recognized to be their own.
In this world, Tory’s beast appeared to be an amorphous gray blob, continually shifting and changing shape—but as she drew closer she realized it was not a blob, but a swarm. Millions of mutated bacteria—a colony of pestilence—buzzing in perfect formation, like a single being with a million minute bodies all following a single will.
Like a swarm of bees.
It was that thought that made her realize how she might kill it.
The swarm, only a dozen yards away now, took off, darting through strange leafless trees and bulky derelict vessels until reaching the wreck of an old propeller plane. When the swarm disappeared into the side of the plane, Tory knew she’d be climbing into a hive.
The wreckage was filled with rotted airplane seats and skeletons of passengers long dead. Toward the front of the cabin, the beast waited; a buzzing horde that had taken on a new formation complete with arms and legs, roughly in the shape of a human body.
Tory stalked closer, and the buzz in her ears grew as the creature advance, then attacked. Hideous ugly bugs surrounded her, crawling over every inch of her body. They stung and bit; they gnawed and drew blood; they burrowed under her skin. The pain was unbearable, and Tory cried out in horror. She was being eaten alive by these things! She would die right here. With her body burning from the stings of the swarm, she reached deeper and deeper into it, hoping beyond hope that she’d be able to carry out her plan before the swarm killed her. Then, in the center of the buzzing mass, she found what she was looking for. There was a creature hovering there, twice the size of her fist, with a grotesque bulging body, tendrils, and insectile eyes. It seemed half mosquito, half jellyfish. The thing’s segmented eyes stared at her in fear and fury, while all around her the swarm continued to bite—raising welts, burrowing into her, fighting to make her their hive.
The colony of disease—this ugliness—had once found a place in Tory, but she had no room for such ugliness anymore. Now as she gripped the queen of the swarm, she pumped all of her anger into her clenched fist and drove out her own revulsion, replacing it with determination. This thing had turned Tory’s own unique power against her . . . but now the creature was on the outside, and it had no defense against Tory’s cleansing touch.
The filthy thing writhed in her grasp, the disease draining from it, its flesh fading from sickly gray to jelly-clear. Its swarm fell to the ground one by one, pattering like a fall of rain, until the queen was alone and unprotected. Without her guardians and without her filth, Tory knew this creature in her fist was nothing . . . . So she hurled the thing to the ground and crushed it beneath the heel of her shoe, the way she would c
rush any bug that became a nuisance.
MICHAEL CHASED THE BLUE-BURNING beast of many hands toward the shore of a violent sea, where black water lapped like oil upon the vermillion sands.
As he dove on the beast, bringing it down, he felt himself overwhelmed by a tempest of emotions so powerful he thought it would tear him apart. Sorrow, slashed by anger, scalded by desire, and each emotion was so extreme, Michael felt the turbulence alone would destroy him. He flipped the creature around to face him—but it had no face; only eyes. Turquoise, hypnotic eyes, and many burning hands, each stronger than his own.
Then the creature did grow a face around those deep, deep eyes. It was the face of a beautiful girl; somehow a mixture of all the girls he had known and wanted—and its many hands no longer clawed him but caressed him. Those soft hands tingled across his chest and his legs. His arms slipped from around the creature’s neck to its shoulders. He felt hands on his head pulling him closer into a powerful embrace, and all his battling emotions were flooded by something more powerful than all the rest. It was the old familiar feeling; the brutal passion that ruled his days and nights.
The beautiful creature pulled Michael into a fiery kiss.
You can’t imagine the pleasure I could give you, he felt it say. All the Joys you could imagine . . . if only you stop resisting . . . if only you feed me . . .
Michael could feel the intensity of its passion mingling with his own.
Take me back, he felt the creature say. Invite me back in.
Michael could feel it trying to slide beneath his skin and dissolve into his blood.
Invite you in? thought Michael. Is that how it had happened in the first place? Did it have to be invited in?
He thought of the girl in Baltimore, and then the one in Omaha. This thing had now become so powerful that it could steal a soul with a kiss. Was he going to invite this thing to rule him?
Michael knew he could not let it happen, so he turned everything off—and was amazed to find that he had the power to do it. He shut down the fear, he closed off his anger, he doused his lust. He made himself feel cold, calm, and unaffected by the grip of this sensual creature that clung to him.
The air around them began to chill and fill with flurries of snow, but there was no icy wind of fear.
The creature wailed, its hands becoming claws again, digging into him, its face melting away into those burning blue eyes. It thrashed as if each snowflake were made of acid, and the snow kept falling heavier by the moment.
Only now did Michael realize that he was killing it—but he didn’t allow himself to feel excitement.
Cold. Calm. Unaffected.
Michael pulled away, standing above it, feeling the snow grow stronger; feeling himself feel nothing for this creature.
For all the spirits we destroyed, for all the girls whose souls we invaded together, I leave you cold. I will not be your accomplice. I will not be your slave. My body will not be your vessel. And I will walk away feeling nothing for you.
The snow was like a mountain of sand around his wailing creature now. With a hundred flaming blue hands it tried to free itself, but could not. Michael watched as it sunk into the snow and drowned. The snow itself flowed a bright blue for a few moments as the creature dissolved into it, but then the hot, black waters of the unworld sea crashed upon the glowing mound, melting it. In a moment, nothing was left but a thin blue foam shredded by the dark, churning surf.
LOURDES STRUGGLED WITH HER immense, slow-moving beast, but as strong as her muscles had gotten beneath all that fat, this beast was far stronger. It was like an octopus; a great boneless jet-black thing with tentacles as thick as her thighs and a singular, hateful eye.
But the worst was its mouth—a great toothless maw that stretched itself open wide as the tentacles pushed Lourdes toward it. She tried to dig her feet into the sand, but it was no use. It pulled her in and swallowed her whole with a mighty roar.
Lourdes took a last gasp of breath before the mouth closed around her, forcing her into a wet, airless darkness. She pushed her elbows against it, she scraped its gullet with her fingernails, she felt her heart pounding, using up the last of the oxygen in her lungs . . . but she heard the beast’s heart beating. She was inside it now, rather than it being inside of her . . . and it dawned on Lourdes that this made all the difference. She fought to stay conscious and concentrated on the sound of the creature’s bloated heart, until she saw it in her mind . . . . Then, in the same way she had made Carter and the squirrel sleep, she forced her will into the nervous system of this beast.
And she shut down its heart.
The creature began to thrash as its heart seized into a heavy knot. It violently spat Lourdes out onto the sand, and Lourdes, wet and slimy, but very much alive, gasped for breath, feeling her head spin. She kept the creature under her control, clenching her fists, imagining its heart clenched as tightly, until finally the thing quivered and fell to the ground, its life slipping away with the steamy breath from its swollen mouth. Lourdes watched the hatred in its awful eye vanish into the indifference of death.
WINSTON CHASED HIS BEAST into the looming shadow of a steamer ship that listed dangerously in the sand, its rusted hull wedged between two boulders.
Winston’s creature was small—even smaller than he was, and it surprised him. It loped on all fours, with stubbly legs and long arms. Winston could have caught it easily, if his ankle hadn’t been twisted in the fall, but now he had to limp after it, grimacing with every step.
In the shadow of the listing steamer, Winston got close enough to grab the beast’s furry leg; to Winston’s surprise, the creature did not resist. It turned to Winston and gazed into eyes.
This was not the creature Winston imagined. Its eyes were large and friendly; its fur was soft; it’s face seemed innocent . . . inquisitive, and it resembled a cross between a monkey and a bear cub.
As Winston looked at it, he felt a sudden urge to hold it close to him, so he did. It wrapped its furry arms and legs around him.
It felt good. Comfortable. Safe. He felt as if he could take this soft thing beneath his arm, curl up, and fall asleep.
The soft creature did not slide beneath his arm, however. It slid around him, clung to his back, and held him tightly around the neck.
Winston felt its open mouth by his ear. He smelled its breath; it was clean, like a baby’s breath.
I can make everything like it was, it whispered to him. Just like it was before your father died. I can make it all go back, and you can feel the way you used to feel all those years ago.
The creature’s sweet smell and the softness of its fur was enough to comfort his doubt. Enough to paralyze his fear.
Paralyze?
The creature’s mouth opened wider and its fangs drove deep into the back of Winston’s neck, settling in his spine. He felt his days slipping away again; his life moving backward, his body growing down. Winston roared with anger. He might have once longed for time to take a giant step backward, but not anymore! He grabbed the beast and flung it from him so hard that it hit the side of the rusty old ship with a clang that echoed inside the hollow hull.
The creature was advancing again, long sharp claws on its fingers, fangs in its mouth, but those longing, innocent eyes never changed.
It came at him through the sharp nettles that had grown in the shade of the behemoth boat, moving much faster than Winston.
What am I going to do, beat it with a corsage? The words came slinging back through his mind . . . and then he realized that he could do just that and more! Without an instant to lose, he grabbed the gnarled hardwood stem of the bush before him, painfully gripping the thorns, and pushed life into it.
The ground beneath him began to rumble and undulate. Lines like mole tunnels pushed up the dirt, and shoots of thorn-laden branches sprouted from the ground. The furry creature found its fur caught in a sharp web of growth. It whined and cried and bleated like a lamb, as bright flowers sprung from branches, hiding the sharpness of the
thorns.
Winston fought his way through the malevolent shrubs until he found a branch that was close to the creature. He touched that branch, and immediately it sprouted new shoots that wove in and out of the dirt, winding around the creature until it was trapped in a prison of thorns.
The earth around them continued to undulate, as beneath them the roots grew deeper and stronger. The leaning ship creaked on its precarious bed of sand.
The creature bleated and cried, writhing in agony, its fur shredding on the barbs of the new growth.
“Cry all you want,” Winston told it. “But I’m growing up!”
A heavy root the width of a tree trunk forced up the earth beneath the steamer. The great ship let out a ghastly metallic moan as it was shifted by the massive roots.
Winston began to scramble away, leaving the beast in its thorny prison. He pulled himself across the sand, through the nettles, until he was out from the shadow of the ship.
Another ghastly moan and a heavy rattle.
Winston looked back to see the keel of the steamer finally lose its battle with gravity. The entire ship began to fall to its side and, beneath it, the screaming, bleating beast fought to get free of the thorns, until the mighty ship came down upon it. The ship shook the earth with a colossal rumble, crushing the small, deadly beast under a thousand tons of steel.
DILLON AND DEANNA HEARD the falling ship, and felt the shock wave shake the mountain beneath them moments later. Stones and pebbles, dislodged by the shaking of the earth, flew down the mountain toward them—but their only concerns now were the creatures climbing thirty yards ahead of them.
From behind, Dillon’s appeared half-human, but moved with powerful, otherwordly grace. Its skin was smooth, hairless leaden-gray over bulging muscles; both magnificent and repulsive at the same time—the very sight of it churned Dillon’s stomach. Deanna’s beast had no grace. It had no arms or legs either; it was a serpentine thing, flat and segmented like a giant worm.
They soon reached a plateau that was too smooth to be natural. It was, in fact, a grand stone court that led to the crumbling palace carved out of the stone, and the creatures disappeared into the dark recesses of this ancient acropolis. This was their home. Their lair.