As Eva’s mind frantically catalogued the events of the evening and whether Alex would live and what she would do from here, her trance was broken by the screeching of tires. She jerked her head toward the commotion and saw a minivan – the minivan, from Community.

She expected to see Wes or Charles or Lacy, not caring to understand how they might have gotten here, simply happy to see them. But her stomach twisted in revulsion as it was Mitchell who emerged from the vehicle. He still had a rifle and was walking toward the hospital entrance.

Eva exited the rear seat and ducked into the front of the cruiser, hoping to find a weapon and saw a shotgun in a mounted rack. As she searched for the lock, she saw Mitchell stop halfway to the entrance. He swayed back and forth, and she thought that maybe he was dazed or in shock; he’d been shot twice. How the hell was he even alive?

Abruptly, the bastard did an about face, returned to the van and pulled off into traffic.

He can’t just get away.

I can’t let him get away.

Mitchell was infected, changed into something not quite human. Eva could not allow him to spread the contagion here. If she didn’t stop him, in her mind that would make her a moral accessory. She looked and found the keys, still dangling in the ignition. She inhaled deeply, started the engine and took off.

Jesus Christ, Eva. You just stole a police car!

Had to be done, she convinced herself.

Her heart pounding with the weight of tremendous responsibility, Eva trailed the minivan all the way into Sunset Bay. Her eyes wandered over the shore town. It was peak season; crawling with activity. Neon lighting advertised Mini Golf and ice cream shops. The streets were littered with hordes of people, some walking, some riding bicycles. There were more people than she’d seen in years and a wave of nostalgia clung to her. She recalled amusement rides and cotton candy, water ice and boardwalk fries, with vinegar. She remembered hanging out with Lacy here…and meeting Alex. Falling in love.

Returning from her reverie to the task at hand, Eva momentarily lost sight of the minivan, and her adrenaline spiked. Then, she saw it two vehicles ahead. She silently chastised herself for drifting off and focused. Adhering to the speed limit, Eva wanted to draw as little attention to herself as possible, especially from any other police.

The van eased through the busy district and wound around to the north end of town. It stopped at a wharf overlooking the ocean and Mitchell exited. A few lights illuminated the long pier, but it appeared to be vacant.

Eva pulled the cruiser over and parked a good two hundred feet behind the van, although Mitchell didn’t seem aware of her presence. He didn’t seem aware of anything, still stumbling along as if in a stupor. She got out, glanced around to be sure no one was in sight and walked with the shotgun at her side, hopefully not noticeable.

The wind coming off the ocean twirled loose strands of hair into her face and she tucked them behind her ear. Eva saw that farther down past the wharf, maybe another hundred yards north, was where the fishing vessels docked. There were bright lights and activity there. She would have to act quickly to avoid detection. As she stepped onto the wharf, she caught Mitchell’s scent and nearly gagged. It wasn’t body odor, but a sickening element of decay. Like meat that had been left unrefrigerated and had begun to spoil.

They were halfway down the pier and Eva glanced over the railing at the waves crashing over jagged rocks below. A fall here would likely spell death.

With Mitchell’s shambling gait, Eva gained on him quickly. When she was within ten feet, she stopped, took a firm firing position and aimed. He was there, right in her sights and yet she hesitated. To kill another human being was no small chore, as she’d learned in the past. To take the life of another, whether just or not, left a permanent mark on one’s soul. The crushing burden had never left her. It had eased over time, but she knew it would always be there.

*********

The child is her counterpart. Eva arrives at the gas station, bright sunlight catching her off guard as it reflects off the pavement. She runs and grabs the rear door of the attached store, but it is locked. She rounds the building, racing to the front door, all the while feeling the electromagnetic sensation that always precedes the appearance of an orb.

To her left, her mother – no, not her mother, but the girl’s mother - waits in the car as the attendant fills the tank with gasoline. The father is strolling back to the car, a mere fifteen feet away, unaware that eight-year-old Eva has gone into the store looking for him.

Heartache tears fresh wounds in Eva, but she turns away, ignoring the concerned looks from the crowded parking area, and focuses on the child. She yanks the door open as behind her an audible crackle fills the air, along with a penetrating vibration. There, before her, is the eight-year-old Eva…her counterpart.

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Eva recalls being in her exact position so many years ago, looking up at the stranger in the unusual attire. She had been frightened then, just as this young girl is frightened of her now. Eva is the stranger this time around and just as before, it is too late to save the parents.

The girl steps back from Eva. To the left, at the check-out counter, a police officer notices her bewildering behavior and the dome-eyed helmet, drops his coffee and reaches for his holstered weapon. As Eva darts for the girl, she catches sight of his name tag: Dash. She drops to the ground, shielding the young girl as the orb materializes, obliterating everything in the parking lot, then lifts her and sprints to the back door, shouldering through it. The force of the orb’s arrival hurls Eva and the girl ten feet, and they land and tumble. The girl ends up atop of Eva and calls out for her mother.

With her vision reeling, Eva informs the girl that her parents are gone, then leads her to the cycle, shots erupting. She straps the child in and as she is telling her to hold on, watches two armed men emerge from the parking lot, raising their weapons; Mo and Watley, sent to retrieve her and Alex for illegally jumping realities. Forced to do so by the machines. Once allies, she must now think of them as enemies.

Shots miss, hitting trees and sending splinters into the air. Then, one plunges into Eva’s side. The cycle wobbles, nearly crashes, but she gains control and races off. In no time, they are out of range. But Mo and Watley likely have cycles, too and will soon be after them.

When they arrive at a hotel, Eva pulls to the rear to stow the cycle in some shrubbery and is thunderstruck to find the young Eva unresponsive in the seat. She quickly realizes the child has been shot, her tiny top soaked with blood.

“No! No, no, no!”

Eva lifts the girls top and finds the bullet hole in her lower left abdomen. She tries unsuccessfully to resuscitate the girl. So much blood from such a tiny body.

She’s failed.

Her counterpart is dead because of her actions. She slumps to the ground, cradles the child and softly weeps.

The whir of approaching cycles comes to Eva and generates a surge of hate in her. She lays the child’s body to the ground and takes aim on the road, waiting for Mo and Watley to appear.

“No, Eva.”

She ignores Gray’s voice. He is standing behind her.

“You’re needed elsewhere,” he groans.

As she is whisked away, she says, “Promise me you will allow me to return again.”

“I promise,” says Gray.

They arrive at the gate of an abandoned airfield, a few cylindrical structures protruding from the ground. They look like bunkers. Gray tells her it is called Community and that she needs to be here to protect him. Gray departs and she is met by two armed guards, Mitchell and Watley. This Watley is younger and uncorrupted. She is taken inside.

*********

Eva raised her shirt and studied the scar left by the gunshot wound that day. The pain of the child’s loss still vivid, still a void inside her.

She glanced ahead and found Mitchell now staring at her. Where he had been shot now was glossed over by a hardened black crust, the edges still oozing a dark, syrupy fluid. He spoke, but not to her.

“No, Mitchell,” he said, in a dreamy, far-off voice. “We have no business at the hospital. Go to the ocean, see the waves.”

Eva stood poised with the shotgun. Mitchell’s eyes were unfocused, staring somewhere beyond her.

“Go see the waves, Mitchell. Big plans for you, there. Go.”

He stepped toward her but she held her ground. “Any closer…”

Then, in a strained version of his real voice, “Kill me. Pleeeeease.”

Eva’ heart skipped. There must be a part of him that was still in there, now pleading with her to end his life. She didn’t need to hear it again. She squeezed the trigger, punching a hole in the torso, then pumped the shotgun and fired again. The second shot all but obliterated the head and Mitchell rocked backward. He teetered, artificially held upright by whatever else he’d become, and slammed to the ground.

Eva tossed the gun over the railing into the waves and turned to leave. A wet, slithering noise caused her to look back and horrified, she watched black, glistening coils extend from the cadaver. They wrapped around the railing post, then pulled the body over the side. Eva scanned the crashing surf but there was no sign of the thing.

She ran off the wharf, past the police cruiser and kept on running back toward town. She wasn’t sure where she would go, but she had to get away from here before police arrived, as the gunshots may have been called in by the fisherman at the inlet.

Eva thought of Alex and prayed he was alright. She thought of Officer Dash and how he’d be held accountable for his stolen patrol car and the missing shotgun. She thought of Lacy, Mo, Watley, Charles and Grant. Even Laird, Kay and the Walker children, and hope all of them had survived.

She thought of the thing that had been Mitchell, out there bobbing among the waves.