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  A claw swiped outwards, but I ducked. The creature swung so hard it went spiraling to the ground, flopping on the asphalt and screaming in protest.

  “Serves you right,” I whispered, wary of making too much sound even in triumph.

  I ventured a look back to see it wiggling on the ground. That was a bad idea. There were so many of them now. Even in the dying of the light I could see dozens, possibly hundreds more behind them.

  I spun my attention back around and followed the pulsating light. It was maybe a few hundred feet away.

  My peripheral vision kicked in as several shapes appeared in the shadows off to the left and right. Howls erupted in the forever night, and joined the group already raging behind. Now I had to be only fifty feet from the source, and the dream became a startling reality.

  An antenna stretched into the sky with a blinking light at the top. The transmitter itself pierced the clouds from its position on top of a concrete building only big enough for a small office. The building had a single bulb lit outside a curiously open door.

  There had to be hundreds of creatures behind me. I didn’t have to look back to know that. Their claws thundered on the pavement like the clouds above. If I slowed down just a little I might be overwhelmed by the mass. A death like that would be incomparably horrible.

  I crashed through the open doorway. I was going too fast to stop and close the door. I just saw my hand fly past the door handle, reaching but failing to grip the doorknob. It was like falling from the building again, letting time itself slow down, watching my hand miss where it was meant to hold. Back outside the screams were so loud they reverberated in the small room. The monsters were only a short distance behind, and all I could do was cover my head and wish it would be over quick. I hoped I wouldn’t feel much.

  But no attack came.

  Daring a look through the opening between my arms, I saw a mass waiting outside. Screams still howled through the crowd, but they refused to enter the room. Befuddled, I gathered myself and walked cautiously toward the entrance. I watched the hundreds of demons call from a few feet away. It was as if the light above the doorway kept them at bay. This light was my savior. Yet, it had to be more than that.

  “What the…?” I asked aloud.

  “It’s called the five thousand effect,” a voice answered from behind.

  I jumped and hit the doorframe, startled out of my skin. The creatures outside screamed in unison at the sudden sound.

  “Whoa, whoa, sorry, Jackson, didn’t mean to scare the bejesus out of you,” a figure said as he approached from the back of the room. It wasn’t someone I knew, or remembered seeing even in a dream. This person was a stranger, but one who knew me.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Still got the forgetfulness huh? Thought that would have worn off my now,” the man answered. He talked with a thick accent, one I couldn’t place. “No matter. We’ll get you back. Shut that door so we don’t have to hear them for the moment, will ya?”

  I simply nodded and shut the door, the creatures howling in protest.

  “I’m Vincent Hills,” the man answered my question before I asked it. He reached up and pulled a drawstring, turning on a single light bulb that illuminated the dark environment.

  “Wait a second,” I said with a gasp.

  “I know, I know. It’s the hair, isn’t it?” He laughed as he brushed what few strands remained on his balding head.

  “No. You’re so, so, so much older.” I felt myself searching my brain, trying to figure out what I was seeing. The man who stood in front of me, this Vincent, had to be in his forties, maybe even older. No one in this city was over the age of twenty-six. Everyone else had walked into the darkness, never to be seen again.

  “Fifty-one, that’s right.” Vincent smiled again. “It’s truly good to see you again, my friend. It’s been too long. Guess we estimated a little too short for your memory to kick back around huh?” Vincent sighed. “Here, sit down. We have, at least, a little time to get you caught back up.”

  I followed the order, taking a seat near a control console. It was alive with lights, sounds, and monitors that seemed to capture video all over the center of the city. No video feed linked back to the living part of town though.

  “So…” I started.

  “We need to break your chain,” Vincent cut me off.

  “I don’t follow.” I leaned back in my chair while Vincent took a seat opposite.

  “Of course not. Not yet, but you will. Let me start at the beginning, with the Alaco Cure. It should have been the miracle cure-all, but, well…” Vincent trailed off. “It infected the populous slowly at first. It gained a foothold after it touched the water supply. The first outbreaks came shortly after that…”

  “Whoa, slow down.” I sighed. “What the hell is the Alaco Cure?”

  Vincent paused and frowned, sliding his hand onto my shoulder.

  “It was a drug breakthrough. Developed and tested to cure cancer. It worked amazingly in the trials,” Vincent explained.

  “Doesn’t sound so bad,” I said. But I knew even saying the words felt wrong.

  “It wasn’t. Not… initially.” Vincent withdrew his attention to stare at a monitor. He keyed in a few commands and a few of the screens reset to a different period in time. The video showed a time when the city wasn’t dark, and a bright sun burned over the buildings. There were people on the monitor running about. Some were looting, others were running with guns in hand, while more just simply laid down on the ground, not moving.

  “It was a mutation. We didn’t find it until the first subjects showed signs of digression,” Vincent explained and paused the video. I refocused my attention on the person laying in the street, apparently dead from this mutated cure-all.

  “What happened then?” I asked.

  “It spread. Rather quickly too. The first few waves destroyed the east coast. Europe was wiped out in a blink. Communications went dark soon after.” Vincent keyed in a code and the monitors fell to black.

  “The Alaco Virus…” I whispered.

  “You know it’s been over two years seen we last spoke?” Vincent asked, driving the conversation in a different direction.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Truly. Can’t say I’ve really enjoyed my stint in the darkness, but hey, if this helps then so be it.” Vincent leaned back in his chair, wrapping his hands behind his head.

  “Why are you here then?”

  “Well…” Vincent stopped short. “Because you asked me to.

  I looked into Vincent’s sunken eyes. Along with his balding head, he wore a pair of thick-framed glasses. A pair of earplugs sat on his shoulders that I was sure he used to keep the creatures’ screams out.

  “It’s all part of the five thousand effect,” Vincent explained. “It kicked in two years ago, activating when it was deemed necessary for humanity’s continued existence. It was our best shot.” Vincent rose to his feet and strolled to the center of the floor. “This particular installation was built long before the outbreak, meant for some sort of military base, or something like that. We retrofitted it with the needed matter to activate the effect. And wouldn’t you guess it? It worked.” Vincent smiled. “Look at your sphere. I’m sure you have it.”

  Vincent looked me up and over. The device sat in my hand, and no longer pulsated with its blue glow. Strangely, it remained dead.

  “I’m not following at all,” I said.

  “You’re not meant to. You said our best shot for you to regain your memories was to overload your subconscious. How is it working?”

  “Definitely overloaded,” I said and managed a smile.

  “Good. Because, to be frank, we need you back now.”

  “You’re telling me,” I sighed, thinking of the timer.

  Vincent shook a finger in my direction, as if suddenly realizing something all at once.

  “Exactly!” Vincent exclaimed. “More precisely, you’re running out of time. And if that timer of our
s is still up and running…” Vincent moved to a monitor and keyed in a few strokes. The timer set on top of that building flashed on the screen. “There isn’t much time left. Is there?” The clock read only an hour remaining.

  “What the fuck?” I shouted.

  “You placed it before the five thousand effect, that timer. Said it might jump-start your memory when you came to. But I couldn’t get it to work until a month ago.”

  “What the hell is the five thousand effect?” I asked.

  Vincent paced back to his chair and plopped down heavily. He didn’t appear to be stressed or flustered, just tired. Tired from all the time he’d spent in this room.

  “It draws them in. Keeps them out,” Vincent explained.

  “Them?” I asked, looking back. I stared at the door like it would suddenly burst inward and the screaming creatures would flow over us.

  “Correct. Only you know how it works. Couldn’t tell you how it draws them in and holds them like a net. But it does.”

  “Why can’t I remember any of this?” I asked.

  “It was part of the effect. Everyone has the virus. It somehow works with the virus. But the side effect was a complete loss of memory. No way around that.” Vincent leaned back in his chair and grabbed what looked like a packet of freeze-dried food. He offered some, but I waved it off.

  “So… why use it then?” I asked.

  “A last resort. Those things are dangerous. They attack on sound. Any part of them that was human was lost in the turning process. With so few remaining after the virus took out most of the population, we strove to protect the rest that were left.”

  “So they were humans after all…” I whispered. I mostly already knew this, had witnessed Eve just begin the process.

  “Those that didn’t die…” Vincent explained. “They mutated along with the virus. Don’t know exactly how it works but…”

  I cut him off and said, “The antibodies reformatted the living cellular structure. They corrupted the white blood cells and destroyed the immune system.” The words came streaming out of my mouth without thinking. “Most died from their systems shutting down. Those who didn’t die saw their DNA transform, twisting them into something completely different.” My chain finally started to snap, but not fully yet.

  “Atta-boy,” Vincent said with a nod.

  My memories were forming, piecing together hints of the past. The process of the turning fit into place. I remembered how the subject would reject the drug treatment harshly, and a violent change occurred. The entire transformation only took a matter of days. The subject’s body would crack in places, bleeding internally, until soon after a black ooze would drip from the wounds. It was some biological reaction to the mixture of drugs in the system, corrupting the blood, turning it a dark color.

  Their bodies would twist and mutate, losing all semblance of who they used to be as they lost hair, teeth, and all their senses. Not long after, they were screaming lunatics and walking beasts.

  “It was meant to help…” I started. “I didn’t mean for any of this.” Visions flashed inside my skull, burning pictures of what happened into the back of my eyes.

  “It wasn’t your fault. It was an accident, you know,” Vincent insisted.

  “An accident?” I asked. I couldn’t recall how it happened, but the virus must have leaked through somehow. Though anything that caused a pandemic, and a shift in human nature, was far more than a mere accident. Vincent returned to the monitors, switching away from the ticking numbers and to another channel.

  The monitors flashed with our history. The city we lived in was suddenly rebuilt, restored, and shining with brilliance. This I remember being Chicago. I recognized the Willis tower, John Hancock Center, and even Lake Michigan. The transformation of the desert must have dried up the entire lake. I remembered this city from my past. On the screen was a picture of the center of the city, one with a mass of buildings, and people still living normal lives. In the middle was Bennis Industries headquarters, exactly where I was ready to jump off and end it all. It was where the outbreak began.

  “Of course it was,” I said. I had created the Alaco virus after all.

  I suddenly thought of how the timer had died outside my jail cell, just a little while back. How those creatures came into the living part of this city.

  “Why is the power failing?” I asked.

  “Now that is why you’re here. Well, besides the turning too, I believe. The lights suddenly flickered inside the small room, and the screams outside picked up. Vincent stared at the roof, as if trying to look through the concrete walls and focus on the antenna above.

  “The problem is when the power goes out the barrier drops. The five thousand effect will no longer protect the city, or me, I suppose,” Vincent sighed. “I think that is why the other installations went dark.”

  “The others? Like this one? Where?” I asked.

  “South Carolina, Russia, China, and a few other places. I lost communication with them a few months back. It’s been quiet ever since.”

  Another memory snapped into place. The five thousand effect was launched two years ago at most of the installations through an aerosol blast that treated the atmosphere. The effect was what caused the barrier, the memory loss, and the darkness that surrounded the city’s center. The antenna above us was the launch platform for the aerosol.

  The aerosol itself triggered a certain synapses in the brain when the host turned twenty-six and the dormant virus would mutate.

  “Why didn’t you ever lose your memory?” I asked.

  “We believe that the virus didn’t react with the five thousand effect in a host that doesn’t mutate after twenty-six.”

  I was more than confused.

  “Why is the number twenty-six so important?” I asked.

  “We honestly never figured it out. We just didn’t have enough time. All we know for sure is that the virus can still kill a person at any age, but the mutation doesn’t occur until twenty six.” Vincent shrugged.

  “Why would a virus even, or how…” I stuttered. A virus couldn’t determine age, could it? It must have been some physiological change.

  “I don’t know,” Vincent answered.

  “Well, the power…” I started.

  “Right. But I haven’t a clue where the source lies. There are no cords or electronics showing a location. In fact, the power flows through the ground. That’s why the building’s still lit up outside,” Vincent explained.

  The chain finally snapped and everything came flooding back.

  “The serum! The serum I injected into myself before the five thousand effect was enacted. That’s why I remembered more,” I said out loud, not knowing what to do with all the memories that were suddenly available.

  “Exactly lad. The serum didn’t fully block the effect, but it partly worked. Are you back now?” Vincent asked.

  “Yes.” Everything from this past life flooded back. All the bad stuff was now lingering in the back of my mind.

  “Here, I won’t need this,” I said as I gave the sphere to Vincent. “The five thousand effect surrounds the installation.”

  I got up and paced to the middle of the floor. Finding a groove in the tile, I lifted the slab and pressed the revealed button. A small rumble shook beneath our feet, and a trapdoor lifted a few feet away.

  “What are you planning on doing?” Vincent exclaimed.

  “First and foremost, I need a weapon. If people were still in the installation they may have turned, and they may have adapted to the five thousand effect since they had nowhere to go.”

  Vincent walked to a shelf and grabbed a pair of handguns and five clips, along with a flashlight. I wished I had those kinds of reserves just laying around back in the city.

  “The installation is down there. The power supply is down there as well. We need to fix that right now, because if we don’t then the barrier falls,” I explained.

  “But, you didn’t build the power supply,” Vincent replied.


  “I’m no engineer, but we have to do something.” I took just one handgun and a couple of clips. Shoving one clip in, I cocked back the arm and put one in the chamber, making sure the safety was on. I put the gun in my belt, the clips in my front pockets, and twisted down toward the ladder that led underground.

  “Be safe down there, Jackson,” Vincent advised.

  “Be back in a few,” I said. I stepped onto the ladder and paused for a moment, looking up at Vincent. “You know, I can feel the turning coming. How did you know you were immune to it?”

  “I didn’t. Lucky I guess.”

  “Luck.” I said. “Don’t think I’ll be so lucky.” I knew I wasn’t going to be immune. Fate wouldn’t be so cruel as to have the person responsible for the fall of humanity be immune to his own plague. “I should be going.”

  Chapter 24: Into the Core

  It was strange feeling. I remembered everything, as if nothing had changed. It was like reliving a life that hadn’t existed for two years, though I didn’t know if I really wanted the memories back. It was so much easier not knowing, to not remember what I did, or didn’t do. The thought of killing countless people shook me to the core.

  These installations were built years before we’d arrived to transform them into delivery systems for the aerosol spray of the five thousand effect. The facility was built deep in the ground, and was comprised of several corridors and labs.

  I reached the bottom and turned to see only one corridor leading in the opposite direction. It would eventually split off and deviate from there. Electricity would be running, emitting from the power source, but I would still use the flashlight. Everything was made of concrete. I followed the corridor and it ran only a short distance.

  Soon I arrived at the central hub. Computers and instruments lined the walls. They still hummed with numbers blinking on the screens. This wasn’t where I needed to be, but it would help. Every installation was built different, so when the reactor was placed, it was always somewhere else. And even though I had the full capacity of my memories, I didn’t remember where the power source would have been.