--== Chapter 3: Now Isn't The Time--==

Jon flicked on the lights and siren and began pulling into traffic, going the wrong way. He started slowly, and we extended our arms out of the window, waving for the traffic behind us to follow him.

As cars began to fall in behind him, he gradually sped up and pulled people in his wake. Soon, there was a stream of cars following us. There were a few southbound cars, but they had to pull off the road when they saw the caravan coming.

“Jon, look," I said, pointing ahead where we could see the hospital coming into view. The vortex wall was coming right down on top of it. The vortex was getting low; it was only 8 or 9 stories above the ground now. Jon sped up.

More flashing lights were in front of us, past the intersection near the hospital. This patrol car was abandoned too. Beyond it, a jackknifed semi-truck with a flipped trailer blocked most of the road. A disordered line of cars was driving on the shoulder to escape town, but it was narrow and slow and backed up northbound traffic.

Our caravan was stuck.

“I don’t know if you have to deal with this,” Titus said. “But if so, you can let us out here; the hospital is right there.”

"We're further away than it seems–you'll never make it," Jon said. "You can practically see the vortex lowering. What's left, six stories? Five?"

"We'll take our chances," Titus said, trying the door as Jon slowed to stop. "Can you unlock the doors, please?"

"Sorry, those handles are disengaged; the doors only open from the outside," Jon told Titus.

“Isn't there a bike path behind the hospital that leads north to the nature preserve?” I asked. “We could drop them off on the way.”

“There is, but there’s a locked gate blocking it.” Titus said.

“I might have a way to open it," Jon said.

“Please drop me off first; I need to get my daughter and wife.”

The traffic following us north struggled to merge into the unblocked right lane, but it was slow, and Jon felt responsible for them. He had turned off his sirens as they approached the intersection and the abandoned patrol car. But he turned them on again and waved for cars to follow him. "Sorry, Titus, these people need me to guide them to that gate. I'll let you out when we get to the gate. I'll have to cut that lock anyway."

Titus didn't look happy, but Jon was already turning left into the hospital parking lot. The bike path was behind the hospital but further from the hospital than the intersection.

“Why don't we drop them off there?" I asked, gesturing at the Ambulance bay we were approaching on the right.

Jon kept his voice low. “When we round the corner, look at the vortex—it’s speeding up. I bet we’re down another story already.

"Chances are, their family were the first ones evacuated. Part of the hospital isn't even inside the boundary. His family's fine, but I'm not about to let him get himself, and that little girl killed because he's afraid they aren't."

I could see his point, but I wasn't convinced the decision was his to make for them. He was probably right, though. I didn't know if the vortex was actually lowering more quickly or if it was just easier to tell its speed as we got closer. Either way, time was depressingly short.

We passed the side of the building, and I could see Jon was right―if anything, he'd underestimated how fast it was lowering.

“Jon," I said, "I don't think we even have time to get out and cut a bolt. We need to get past that vortex. Now."

“How?” Jon snapped. “We’ll just have to drive through or around the barricade.”

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“Won't work," Titus said. "The crossbar is solid steel connected to a cement pylon. You can't just ram it."

“There!" Nia called and pointed at the entrance to the parking lot Jon was about to pass. "That parking lot connects to another parking lot past the vortex!"

Jon whipped the wheel to the right, causing the tires to squeal as we rounded the corner. “Fingers crossed,” he said as we leaned into the turn.

Fewer cars had followed us this far than I’d expected. Only about a half dozen cars took the turn to follow us, but I doubted all of them would make it in time.

Did they realize it was suicide to drive through the vortex? Then again, would it be better to be trapped and face a month of certain doom or die quickly in a desperate escape attempt?

Jon was speeding across the parking lot, sirens going, racing toward the bottom edge of the vortex a football field away.

The problem with going behind the hospital was that we'd been forced to go uphill. The vortex's descent really was speeding up as well. We were too late. There was no way we'd make it out.

"Jon, we're not going to make it," I said, sighing in defeat. "You have to stop." We'd thought we had more time.

“No, we can make it. We'll drive straight through."

“Jon, no!” I said. “I’ve seen what it does to people. It eats through anything in a second.”

“Everyone, get low—it’s our only shot.”

Instead of slowing down, Jon accelerated, trying to beat the vortex.

There was no chance. The vortex was already too low for anything but a quick death. Suddenly, 30 days to search for a solution didn't seem too bad.

I grabbed the wheel and twisted it left, steering us into a parked van feet from the vortex wall.

The noise was deafening as the van buckled and the car spun almost 180 degrees.

The crash tossed us around as we skidded and spun, still headed toward the vortex wall.

I could only curl up and try to pull away from the vortex in the chaos. In the side-view mirror, I saw the back passenger side of the car skid into the vortex, taking Titus with it. Finally,The car stopped with a lurch. The front end hopped as the back right tire vanished before finally settling back on three wheels.

Nia was screaming, and I was half curled into the fetal position—I had raised one arm to shield my head and lifted my leg away from both the door and the vortex wall. I was inches from the deadly barrier—close enough that I felt a growing static pull on my arm and the back of my neck. With a snap, energy pierced my hand, the tinfoil hat, and my head. Light flashed in my eyes, and I felt a pulse surge through me like a bass drop just before I blacked out.

I couldn’t have been out for long; as I blinked awake, I saw the cars that had been following us. Through Jon's window, I watched helplessly as our desperate caravan of half a dozen cars drove unwavering, one after another, to their deaths in the vortex.I shivered and pulled myself away from whatever that glowing haze actually was.

Nia was keening in the back, a high-pitched whine following ragged inhales. I didn't know what to say. I was sorry, and my heart ached thinking about what Nia must be feeling. Her dad had been right there moments ago. Mostly I was pissed. The only reason I didn't start yelling at Jon was that this wasn't the place.

"Dammit, Sam!" Jon swore, apparently deciding this was the place.

“What," I said, looking him in the eye and squaring up from my seat.

Jon turned his head to better glare at me but only said, "We could have made it."

“No,” I said, “we couldn’t. But now isn’t the time. Let’s get out and away from this thing."

The car had settled at an angle to the vortex, with most of the trunk, half the back seat, and a portion of my door extending past the boundary's edge.

Jon exited as dramatically as he could, slamming the door behind him after getting out. I scooted across the center console and added a little drama to my own exit.

Jon opened the door to let Nia out and crouched down. “Nia, I’m sorry about your dad— Is that..." Jon's voice got shaky at the end. "Oh my god," he said, then he turned and vomited.

As soon as he was out of the way, Nia got out and began to run, crying and clutching something to her chest. After a few meters, she tripped and fell, dropping what she had been protecting. her dad's severed arm flopped across the pavement, and I immediately understood why Jon had vomited.

I had known Titus didn't make it, but this... this would be traumatizing. Nia scrabbled up and hurried to grab the arm and hug it to herself, crying. I couldn’t decide if it would be better to take the arm or let her hold onto it. It can't be healthy for a child to carry their own father's severed arm, right?

A flash of light from the vortex blinded me, and we all cried out. It was followed by a low rumble in the air, like thunder so deep that it was felt, not heard. It left me feeling disoriented and dizzy. I lost my train of thought, and then the blinding green light flashed several times in a row, followed by more inaudible thunder. I fell to my knees, and my world spun. A dense fog had appeared from nowhere, muffling both sight and sound.

From where I knelt, I tried to brace myself for more waves of light and sound to disorient me more. I felt like the fog was weighing down my arms and legs, both keeping me from standing and holding me in place at once. I could see Jon and Nia were also down and still. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't brace myself in any way.

The light and silent thunder came again, and when the flash ended, a portion of it lingered in the fog. A web of light danced in empty air, its form shifting like light dappling the bottom of a pool on a sunny day. It looked like a wire frame model of an anorexic cloud, made of light. It started to grow, it's branches of light extending, splitting again and again, like cracks in the fabric of reality. As the web expanded, its light also dimmed, and I wondered if the phenomenon was disappearing as quickly as it had formed. Instead,it split and rebounded into 3 distinct light-webs that quickly grew to the same size and brightness as the original. Then they began to drift like seaweed in the tide. They weren't move quickly, but they were coming directly toward us.

I’d like to say that, not knowing what would happen if those ethereal lights touched us, I doubled my efforts to stand. The truth is, I didn’t even think to be scared of the strange lights. Then a tendril of energy shot from one Web like a whip and pierced Nia’s head with a sizzle and hiss that sounded like metal being quenched. I would have screamed, but I couldn’t get air.

Nia’s body, though already unmoving from to the invisible weight holding us down, seemed to relax. Jon, on the other hand, tensed. It was the only sign of his struggle, but I had no doubt he was fighting with everything he had.

A light web got to him next, and I could only watch as the back of his head was pierced by another light whip with another snapping hiss of cauterized skin and bone.

Nia's innocence hadn't protected her, and Jon's struggles hadn't saved him.

What a random existence

Breathing out a last breath, I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to watch the glowing web drift ever closer.

I stopped struggling, accepting the inevitable—only to find myself back in the car, flinching away from the vortex wall.