Chuck-57

As one, we turn.

A… child stands on the sidewalk, pointing at us, mouth open wider than should be possible. The screech comes from… it? Do they even have genders? An adult runs out from a yard, sees us and grabs the child, pulling it to them and making them drop the teddy bear it had been holding as they both screech and back away from us.

I can’t take my eyes away from the bear.

It’s utterly normal. I must have seen more like that in every toy section I’ve walked by. It’s not the only thing that’s normal here. But that one, as something one of them held, is too jarring. Why would something so alien hold something so normal?

“Move!” John yells, and snaps me out of it. More adults appear on the street, and they look angry. In the distance, a distorted sound approaches, and while it doesn’t resemble anything I’d heard before, my mind screams ‘sirens’ and ‘police’, and I’m running after the others as we cut through a backyard.

We make it through two more. On the next one, the door to the house opens as we jump the fence.

“Down!” John yells just before the shotgun fires.

The impact sends me into and through the wooden fence. I lose way too much health from a shotgun slug until I remember my health is lowered here. I cast a heal on myself as I push to my feet to stop the bleeding.

Al’s there to help. “You good to move?”

The doorway’s filled with ice; the shooter isn’t visible.

For an answer, I run to join the others.

Terry grins. “Ice might not hurt them much, but they can’t walk through it.”

We’re running again.

Then we hit a street.

Cars are parked at each end, those things stand behind them, using them and the open doors for cover, pointing guns in our direction.

“How did they drive those things here?” John asks. The cars look half-melted.

Again, the whole thing screams ‘police’ to me.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” All replies and he’s running to the other side.

Terry gestures as gunfire starts and a wall of ice forms on one side. The ice chips and cracks under the impacts, but we make it across without being hit. The backyards are unoccupied as we cross them, but alien faces watch from the windows while pointing some device toward us…

“Are they recording us?” Elizabeth asks.

“I guess they have social media here too,”

“So, technology works for them?” Terry asks.

“Why not?” John replies. “Everything else is different from what we’re going through.”

“We’re going to be their version of bigfoot, aren’t we?” Albert says.

“Then let’s hope we’re as elusive as it is,” John replies.

We’re out of the backyard and onto a parking lot. On our left is a building, on the right, a road. On the other end of the lot is a street with trees across it.

“Are we sticking to the trees?” Elizabeth asks.

“That’s the road we came in on,” Albert says.

“You sure?” John asks.

Albert points to the building. “Oh, I remember that Salvador Dali piece of art, alright. I say we stick to the road so we don’t get lost.”

“It’ll be faster too,” I add, “and we’re going to see anyone approaching.”

“That’s not going to do us any good if they drop the army on us.”

“Does Winchester have an army base?” Terry asks.

“We can’t stay here.” Albert says.

“Okay, we take the street and run as hard as we can.” John takes off, and we follow.

Car windows shatter as we pass them, accompanied by gunfire from the building. In each door of the businesses stand more of those things shooting at us.

“Does everyone in this God-forsaken place have a gun?” John asks, firing back once. He hits the wall between two sets of drooping windows, and it blooms instead of exploding. Then, it pops like a balloon, and where the pieces hit one of them, it’s like they pack the punch of a bullet.

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It clears the doorway on each side, and gives the other shooters pause.

We put cars between us and them, then we’re on the street.

Ahead, a dozen of them step out of the street to the left, each carrying a firearm.

“This was a bad idea!” John yells and fires ahead. Terry throws balls of ice.

“I’m putting one of them here,” I yell.

Don’t!

“Don’t—” John echoes, but I’ve already tagged my target.

I sweep my bar around on appearing and send those closest to the ground. I’m peppered with shots, but it’s nothing compared to the slug, and each one I strike drops, then one of them falls without me hitting it, and another is hit with a ball of ice.

The one that turns to aim at the others gets a bar at the back of the head, and down it goes. I get shot twice by its neighbor in response, but those left are focused on me. I get shot once, then John and Terry have the rest down.

“Are you out of your mind?” John yells.

Doesn’t he know the answer to that already?

“I took their attention off you. That is what a tank’s supposed to do, isn’t it?” I ask Terry.

“That works better when we have a healer to support you.”

“Or you have the other tanks go along with you,” Elizabeth adds.

“Can we argue about how we should have done this after we’re out of this place?” Albert asks, then starts running.

I cast heal on each of my injuries as we move. It makes no difference to my health, but the close and the bleed debuffs go away.

“When did you pick up healing?” John asks.

“In Mount Jackson.”

“And it didn’t occur to you to mention it?”

“No.”

We don’t slow where the road on the right intersects. No one jumps out of it, or the facing parking lot.

“I don’t like this,” Albert says, as the next road on the right is also devoid of anyone.

“Maybe they realize they can’t stop us and are doing the smart thing,” John answers.

He lives to jinx you, doesn’t he?

A deafening screech erupts ahead of us on the left, and a mob of them rush out of that road.

“Stay behind me!” I yell.

“Don’t teleport!” John yells back. “Al, Liz, on each side of him. Make a wedge for me and Terry.”

No one fires at us. They’re arms with bats, what might be garden tools, and, I swear to God, pitchforks. Throw in torches, put this at night, and we’re on some medieval horror story.

I hunch down before impact, and I make it a few layers in before I lose enough momentum they can grab on to me. Pain erupts in my back. Right, those things have claws. I throw them off me and summon my bar. Its appearance takes them by surprise and I have the seconds I need to widen the space with a swing.

“Terry!” I call. On my right, Albert swings his hammer to force them away. Elizabeth’s cutting them down with her sword rather indiscriminately.

Good to know one of you knows how to deal with creatures like those.

“We’re here,” John says behind me. Terry is with him.

“Stay close.” I set my bar before me at chest height, and walk, then run. Bodies impact it as they don’t get out of my way and slow me more than I’d like, but Elizabeth and Albert have our sides. I shove to get them out of my way, and more take their place. It’s like they’re desperate to keep us from moving forward.

Things pelt me, but don’t do damage. The screeching intensifies and the numbers in front increase. With a yell of my own I shove hard, then nearly trip as they get out of my way. Another shove and the three still clutching onto my bar fall back onto the road.

Something’s different about the air.

“Guys?” Terry calls.

I turn, and standing in the road, screeching at us, the mob isn’t moving forward. They’re staying on their side of…

I look around. The trees on our side aren’t drooping as much as on theirs. The sky is lighter, the air… sweeter?

“We crossed the boundary,” Terry says. “Whatever that is, it only extends that far.”

“Okay, but why aren’t they chasing us?” Albert asks. “We’re just a few steps away.”

“We should widen that distance before one of them gets a gun,” John says.

The screeching behind me turns to a gurgle and I pivot, ready for anything… except that.

The forms on the ground convulse and change. They lose some of their meltiness, some of their alienness, as limbs straighten and shorten. Claws shrink, and faces become recognizable as something that could be human. Even the clothing changes to be more like a suit on one, a dress on the other and jeans and a t-shirt on the third.

“Are they…” Elizabeth trails off.

“They’re human?” Albert asks.

“Not entirely,” I reply.

The woman is the first to come to her senses. Her face is more human than the other two, but it’s not quite… solid. She sets eyes on us and screams something that I want to say makes sense, but I can’t wrap my mind around the words. Like they’re playing backward. I can tell they’re words, unlike the screeching from the others, but I just can’t understand them.

“Ma’am,” John says softly, approaching her. She scrambles away, then stops to look at her deformed hands. Her scream isn’t quite the screeching of the others, but it is even worse for it. John lets out a string of curses and shoots her.

“John!” Elizabeth yells.

“She’s just unconscious,” he replies, then shoots the other two. “We can afford to struggle with them. We’ll carry them back.”

“Stop,” Albert said. “What the hell just happened?”

“John stunned them,” I reply.

“I mean before that. They were like them, now they aren’t. How is that even possible?”

“Shape shifting?” Terry offers.

“Wouldn’t that be under their control?”

“A curse?”

“Different laws of reality?” Elizabeth asks.

“That would explain a lot,” John says.

“Not how it’s even possible,” Albert replies. “How come we didn’t change?”

“I don’t know.”

“The how has to be whatever we saw,” Terry says. “That glitched space. I’m willing to bet that if we can find a map of the city, that’s going to be the center. And that line is going to mark one of the zones within it. Although that might not match the city. I don’t know how the system is dividing them.” He looks at me. “You saw the map for Harrisonburg. Did it match the city map?”

“I never saw a city map from before the system.”

“And I’m guessing that the other line, by the highway, is where its influence ends.”

“What happens to them if we take them on the other side?” Albert indicates the unconscious people.

“We’re going to find out soon enough.” John takes the teenager and puts him over his shoulders. “Grab the others.”

“Terry, why do you think we didn’t change?” Albert casually throws the man in the suit over his shoulder. Elizabeth picks up the woman.

“I don’t know. Maybe it only affected the people who were here whenever that happened.”

“So the system changed the whole… what, state, country, world, and it made this place like that? Are there others?”

“I don’t think the system made this,” Terry says. “If it had, it would still be here.” He looks over his shoulder and I do, too. The mob is dispersing. “I think that whatever caused that glitch area was an accident. It caused the change and pushed the system out.”

“How do you cause that kind of thing accidentally?” Elizabeth asks.

“I don’t know. Harrisonburg and Mount Jackson have a control system at its center. Maybe someone pushed it too far and….” He makes an explosive gesture.

“And I expect it’s the entire world that’s been affected,” I say.

“Why do you think that?” Albert asks.

“Because I’m not so egocentric as to think everything revolves around me or my country.”