Shadows Across America Page 46

  Ari went on shakily, her arm bouncing off her side like an annoying flap. Every step hurt. She dove to the ground next to 4:20 and reached for the Kalashnikov, but the clip was empty. Foam was bubbling from his lips, and he appeared to be talking to someone, his eyes bulging. His hand wouldn’t let go of the grip. The man who had ambushed him in the passage took aim, and she sheltered as best she could against his body. The smoke and dust prevented the shooter from getting a good shot. She raised the assault rifle at the only target that occurred to her and pulled the trigger, praying that the grenade launcher was loaded. An empty click was her answer. Shots from behind her pushed her attacker back. Ethan had recovered and came over to give her covering fire. Ari pulled a grenade from 4:20’s belt, loaded the GP-25, and fired at a window. They heard a metallic ping and were then shaken by the blast. The windows exploded, and they felt the force of the shock wave. Everyone was deafened, and the guns fell silent. Thick smoke came from inside.

  Ethan pulled her forward. “Through the window!”

  Lucas was trying to talk things over with the Jackal when they were shaken by the sound of an explosion. They could see smoke rising in the distance. Flocks of birds rose into the air. Lucas turned to the source of the noise in shock, then back to the Jackal, blinking. The situation had spiraled out of his control. The attendant reached for something, and the Jackal didn’t think twice: his unit gunned down those present in an instant, their shots ringing out through the forest. The guards had no time to react; they were cut to pieces by machine gun fire while another attendant sought shelter in the guard post, which was quickly riddled with bullet holes, some as large as a fist. It soon collapsed. Lucas stayed standing for a couple of seconds, kept upright by the shots, then fell back with the others. The shooting lasted for only a few seconds, but blood flowed down the gutters until it formed a puddle around the drain, which was blocked up with leaves. The plaza had been stained with a crimson flower, opening wider and wider at the killers’ feet. They regarded it with indifference. Several hundred feet away, children screamed in terror. Their teachers hurried them away, confused at what was happening. As a precaution, they led them into the church, next to the greenhouse. Some of the community came out to see what was going on while others hid in their homes. The entire compound descended into chaos.

  The Jackal picked up Lucas’s walkie-talkie. “This is Andreas Schwindt. The compound is now under my control. What was that explosion?”

  A voice gulped before answering. “We don’t know—reinforcements are still coming.”

  “We’re going to continue with the removal. Issue precise orders. I want a clear path.”

  In Vienna, the fire was spreading, and the neighbors had called the fire department. Twice, Michi tearfully said, “I’m still alive,” and something about her effort interfered with what was happening. She found herself back in the present, looking to the future. Now she saw the cell where she’d been sedated at one end of a dark corridor. Ethan was walking down a corridor in a basement several floors below ground, while on another level the creature, which was both one and several, was still surrounded by smoke and stuck between timelines. The refraction reduced its power on her plane. It was because of Ethan. Michi sensed that she shouldn’t involve him, but she was too scared to react. Her childish selfishness overcame her resistance. Ethan turned to a window onto nothing and answered a voice only he could hear.

  “No, it isn’t. She’s alive, right now, trapped in that prison.”

  His face was bleeding. Michi cried when she heard him because she knew she shouldn’t answer; she didn’t want to doom him, too, but she was afraid. She called to him like a little girl calling her father in a dream. He walked down the corridor, unaware of the approaching danger. Michi tried to warn him, confusing reality with her imagination: “Don’t go any farther, or they’ll catch you.”

  Ethan looked toward her, but he couldn’t see her. The creature reacted to his presence.

  “Your voice, Michi. They’ll hear you.”

  “They can’t right now. For now they’re blind, worried about the fire.”

  The conversation went on, although she didn’t understand it herself. She was confused by the different experiences bombarding her all at once.

  “Are these the men that kidnapped you? Are they the men you’re afraid of?”

  “I’m afraid of the other one. Very scared.”

  Michi knew this was wrong, but she couldn’t help it. She was just a girl. Her reality flickered. Ethan turned back to the window, to the place that didn’t exist, to answer a question no one had asked.

  “I’m there right now. With them.”

  Black smoke billowed out of the shed, and the guns went silent. Ethan’s ears buzzed. Just like those of his enemies, he imagined. He went to the window and jumped inside. Several shards of glass stuck into his arm, but he didn’t feel it. Ari was right behind him. He took her by the armpits and helped her in. She grunted in pain and doubled over her left arm. Ethan saw the blood seeping through the bandage. The warehouse was full of dark smoke and the disturbingly sweet smell of burning flesh. The remains of a young man were plastered against the wall, framed by a charred outline. Next to him was an M16 submachine gun that Ethan picked up. He went to a window, but no one was in sight. Outside, the gunfire started up again around Caimão, but it sounded far away. Ethan inspected Ari’s wrist.

  “Are you all right? Can you use my pistol? We need to get out of here quick—this is a death trap.”

  “Yeah, don’t worry. It’s nothing. How about you? I saw you fall and get back up like a zombie.”

  “It felt as though I’d been hit in the head with a metal bar. I think a cartridge must have hit me in the temple.”

  Ari snorted and grabbed the gun with her right hand. “This time, my dear, we’re truly fucked.”

  The colony’s loudspeaker system broadcast a couple of warning notes followed by warbled instructions: “Go back to your homes. I repeat: go back to your homes, or take shelter in the church. This is an emergency. We are being helped by some visitors. You must cooperate with them.”

  The announcement spread through the air, followed by a siren that sounded like an air raid warning from wars past. Thiago sent out four of the 4x4s, which drove slowly, providing cover for the commandos. The path was mostly clear, but when they got to the main buildings, figures appeared. A silent group circled them slowly, looking like sleepwalkers. The loudspeakers repeated the warning: instructions from on high.

  “Move away! Listen to the pastor! Go to the church!” Thiago shouted in Portuguese.

  One of the onlookers finally stepped forward.

  “Kill him! Kill the monster!”

  Shots came from one of the windows.

  “There! On three!”

  Twelve barrels aimed at a window from which a small plume of smoke emerged. In a few seconds it was reduced to smithereens. The commotion was accompanied by the screams of the civilians, who were fleeing in all directions. Covered by the rest, two mercenaries ran along the side of the building and entered. A minute later, the radio crackled: “Pacified.”

  “Smoke,” Thiago ordered.

  The team put on infrared goggles and fired dozens of smoke grenades that covered the plaza in a slate-colored cloud.

  Michi was blinded by the flash. She repeated a few weak phrases that she knew would help Ethan. He stared up at her from a dark, indeterminate space, and a lifelong love welled up from her past. His being near was a comfort, but she knew that he wouldn’t be able to control it either. He’d be willing to sacrifice himself, and this knowledge was too much for her.

  The figure raised something like a claw, an image that existed only in her mind. Michi saw a nail coming closer to him. Ethan was entirely oblivious to it.

  “Don’t worry, Michi—no one is going to take you anywhere. I’m going to come find you.”

  She wanted to stay quiet, to put up with the pressure, to be strong and ignore him. She held her breath for a mo
ment, but her need for succor was too strong. “Are you coming to find me?”

  “Of course, but I need your help. I need to know where you are. Something.”

  Michi scratched herself, knowing that she was acting badly. Vibrations from another time disrupted the frequencies and disoriented the creature, which stretched out a claw through the bubble and into the hospital.

  “He’s coming now. You have to go.”

  “Michi, listen: nothing’s going to happen. You’re dreaming.”

  She wanted to warn him, but she knew that it was too late. The evil was trying to get to her, but it was lost; it didn’t know where she was. It was torn between her and Ethan. The room faded, as did the memory, and the shape drifted away, toward the hospital.

  “Get out!” she screamed.

  The entity, disturbed by this new presence, opened its eyes, scorching its pupils in the raw light of these different realities, trying to locate whatever it was that was getting in the way of the connection.

  Stobert woke up.

  Ethan told Ari to cover him and ran to the door that opened onto the passage. Ari aimed the P99, looking for movement. Ethan took a deep breath, raised his arm, and opened the door. There was no one outside. He pointed his weapon and ran. There were no shots either. He could hear a loudspeaker in the distance and tried to hear what it was saying, but he didn’t understand the words. It sounded like chanting or a call to prayer. He got to the next shed. The only noise came from the echoing sound system. Then he clearly heard shots coming from the same area, the center of the compound about half a mile away. Meanwhile, the movement around them appeared to have ceased. The situation was getting stranger and stranger. He leaned on the doorframe, gripped the handle, and opened it. The layout was a mirror image of the other shed, with the same door on the other side. Inside there were tools and machinery. It appeared to have been abandoned. He heard a whisper from behind. Ari had come out of her shed and gave him a questioning look. A few seconds later she crossed the space and joined him.

  “I prefer my hideouts not to have dead bodies in them.”

  “They’ve gone. Something’s happening. Whatever it is, right now that’s good for us.”

  But she put her hand over his mouth, pointing to the door. They saw a shadow pass by in the crack between the wood and the floor. Ethan moved to the next window, and Ari covered the entrance. The intruder had to pass him by to get to the door. Ethan stood behind the glass, ready to pounce.

  The most prominent roofs of the community were hidden by the clouds of smoke, imbuing the air with a ghostly gray tint as the smoke swirled around objects like a living creature, distorting their outlines like fluctuations of a miniature hurricane. Children watched from the church windows as the commandos ran quickly through the fog, helped by their infrared goggles. Thiago climbed the stairs to the greenhouse. They dragged out the last two guards, who threw themselves to the ground, whimpering without putting up any resistance. They were taken to the Jackal, who was waiting by the vehicles, and forced to kneel at his feet with guns at their backs.

  He looked down at them disdainfully. “So? Where’s Armando?”

  “In the greenhouse. It was our duty to protect him.”

  “In the greenhouse? He locked himself in with Aspiazi?”

  Meanwhile, Thiago burst into the minijungle. With the space superheated by the immense tanks of propane, it was impossible to distinguish body heat. He took off the goggles and let his eyes adapt to the light. He made out a shadow waiting for him at the back of the room.

  Outside, the guards who had surrendered were being interrogated.

  “No, Herr Aspiazi isn’t in the greenhouse. He was taken to the hospital with the girls.”

  They pointed to the imposing building in the distance.

  The Jackal was stunned. “That was his brilliant plan? To hide a little farther away?”

  In the greenhouse, the soldiers surrounded the person waiting calmly with his hands placed submissively behind his head. Thiago came closer and saw that it was Armando. He looked at his cheeks: he was crying. He was about to ask why.

  “Detonator!” one of the commandos shouted. “He has a—”

  The explosives connected to the heating system and gas tanks under their feet exploded, setting off a chain reaction.

  Ethan was crouching by the window waiting for the intruder when he was blinded by a flash. The sky turned white, and a second and a half later he was deafened by a huge explosion while a powerful shock wave shook the ground like an earthquake and smashed the windows, blowing the glass into his face. He fell back, bleeding profusely.

  Ari jumped on top of him. “Ethan!” She took him in her arms and turned him over, but when she saw his face, her mouth went dry, and her bottom lip started to tremble.

  Ethan opened his eyes. When he saw that she was about to lose it, he forgot his pain. “What . . . what happened? Did they blow up the whole jungle? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Ari, a lump in her throat, ignored his question as she stroked Ethan’s cuts with her finger. It was as though she were tracing out a shape. “Ethan . . . my God. Ethan, those cuts you made in your sleep. What were you dreaming?”

  Ethan seemed distracted; he had difficulty answering. “I don’t know, Ari. Fuck, I already told you—you want me to remember it all right now?”

  Ari didn’t know how to describe it, so she took out her phone and held up the screen so he could use it as a mirror. The shards of glass had cut up his face, following the scars he’d made with the razor exactly, as though it had been an act of prescience. Ethan didn’t know what to say either.

  Ari took his wrist and looked at him in a way she hadn’t looked at him in years. “I’m sorry—I never believed you, not in all this time. I’m sorry. I . . . don’t know what’s going on. Forgive me, please. I’m so scared.” She kissed his hand, gripping tight.

  Ethan stood up and kissed her back. Ari moaned in shame and let him hug her, but he felt something different inside of him. Images were all jumbled up in his head. He felt himself go into a strange trance that took him a long way away from her.

  Before the sound arrived, a white light spread over everything. It was as though the sun had suddenly intruded on a moonless night or the earth’s atmosphere had burned away. An unimaginably loud roar spread out in a wave, flattening the earth, knocking down walls and smashing all the glass within a radius of a couple of miles. A whirlwind swept along, lifting, tipping over, and annihilating everything in its path. The greenhouse was utterly destroyed, the mercenaries flung dozens of feet away, breaking necks and backs, crushing internal organs, and squeezing blood out of every orifice. Flames razed everything they touched before rising into a mushroom cloud several hundred feet high while a rain of burning shrapnel fell all around, drilling holes through roofs and flesh alike. The main building was reduced to a melted volcano crater from which flames spurted intermittently. It sank into the ground as the foundations melted, becoming a shapeless hole spouting black smoke and sulfuric steam. It looked like nothing so much as an open mouth into hell itself.

  Forty feet away, an ashen body shook spasmodically until it got its limbs back under control and tried to stand up amid the shower of ash. It fell back down three times in the aftereffects of the shock wave before it was finally able to get upright. There was a painful ringing in the man’s ears. He tried to shout but couldn’t hear himself. The Jackal felt his ears, which were wet with blood. Several minutes later, when a modicum of hearing had returned, he realized that his right ear, which had borne the brunt of the blast, would never be the same again. A few feet on, the remains of the soldiers and surrendered guards, who had shielded him from the worst of it, saving his life, lay on the ground. He sat down and looked for the SUVs, which had been piled up on top of each other. Only one was left intact. The drivers of the vehicle that had been in the rear came to him immediately. Covered in ash and splinters, they started to help him.

  “Sir! Thank God you’re
alive!”

  He made them say it again; he couldn’t hear a thing. They were signaling wildly, but he still didn’t understand.

  “Shout, damn it!”

  “Sir! We haven’t found any other survivors!”

  He nodded more calmly.

  “We’re bringing up the other vehicle. We have two still working!”

  He tried to compose himself. They handed him a bottle of water, and he used it to rinse his hair and wash his face before he drank. His scorched trachea throbbed. “What a disaster . . . this is the worst . . . how many do we have left?”

  “There are six of us, sir. The two guarding the entrance and us!”

  “Get the engines running! We’re going to the hospital—the old man is there! We fell into his trap like a bunch of fools . . . we’re going to get that son of a bitch!”

  A coal-black cloud blocked out the sun like an eclipse. The ominous orange light that was left had an apocalyptic feel while the landscape had turned nightmarish. It was filled with abandoned buildings covered in thick, leaden particles. Fires burned everywhere, and the air had become hard to breathe.

  The reflective glass shuddered, and some of the putty came away, but it remained intact. Stobert took a deep breath, returning to reality—or rather switching to a new one. He was back in the old hospital, in the present, although he was finding it hard to tell the difference. His agitated breathing slowed his reaction time. He pressed the call button several times, but no one came. He’d been left alone. The bastards had run off, probably scared by the explosion. “Your sacrifice has not been in vain, my children,” was his only thought for the victims who had served him for half a century. His mind was headed elsewhere. “The girl has torn you away,” declared a voice from the void. He knew it was right. One of the creatures inside of him had grown extremely anxious. “How could she be powerful enough to attract an outsider, to eject us?” The parasites were squirming. For the first time, Stobert was conscious of them. He was suddenly in communication with them. He could feel them inside of him, and all the horrors of his previous life were nothing compared to the terror of this new discovery. The failed transfer had filled him with knowledge; everything he’d learned throughout his life now made sense: that night in Vienna had been wiped from his memory because it had in fact occurred this very morning, and one cannot remember their future. He realized that death was a release, that the transfer would only occur when his end was nigh, and it was approaching. His whole life had been no more than a rehearsal, an apprenticeship, a parenthetical aside before the return to this very moment. The girl wasn’t the host; he was. He had played host to his uncle until he’d brought him to her. But what did it matter? He’d been so close! And yet he smiled; she was still sedated just a couple of floors above. He knew exactly where she was, and nothing could now come between them. He had to release the ghosts so they could hunt her down. He checked the IV bag with the solution and, with great effort, was able to apply a lethal dose. It would take him hours to pass away but only ten minutes to possess her. Then he would fade away and finally rest, free of nightmares for the first time ever. He needed to get to sleep. Sleep . . .