Chapter 53

  Eric and Heidi

  So Eric is pretty funny! He tries really hard to act all cool and aloof and stuff but really he’s just a goofy nerd like Isaac. But when he’s not trying so hard he’s really sweet. And he has dreams about being a hero and saving the world and fighting and even dying to help people. Which I think is actually pretty cool I guess ; )

  - excerpt from Kate’s journal

  “So yeah, I think you need like a special permit to buy ammunition in Chicago. Or something. You can’t just…like, buy it.”

  “Yes, I get it.”

  Eric tried not to smile. That poor cashier had been so confused.

  “So I guess you’re the ‘be prepared’ type.” Eric hefted the plastic bags up into the air. They had purchased a fair amount of potential survival gear. Also some hot sauce. Heidi was also the takes-pleasure-from-mouth-being-on-fire type.

  “Kate seems to know what is about to happen, somehow,” Heidi replied, “but we don’t. So yeah, we’re going to be prepared.”

  They exited the parking lot of the store and turned the corner. Eric had sent a text to Kate not long ago. She might be wondering what was taking them so long.

  “So Leah is good at math?” said Heidi. “You said something about that earlier…”

  Eric nodded. “Yep. We just found out not too long ago. She’s real good with numbers. She can…uh…did you hear that?” Something had happened in the middle of his sentence, something difficult to describe. A strange breaking, shifting sensation. It felt like a bone breaking, only throughout his entire body, and without the pain.

  Heidi whacked him on the arm. Eric glanced at her and saw that she wasn’t looking at him. Her attention was fixed upward, on the sky. There, across the partly-cloudy vista overhead, stretched a huge crack. Smaller cracks splintered off at the jagged edges. It glimmered with light. It looked a lot like Kate’s scar.

  “Is…this what she was talking about?” asked Heidi, still looking up.

  “No idea,” said Eric. “But I think we better hurry.” They picked up their pace.

  Isaac had said something about this too, hadn’t he? Something about a crack in the sky. Had it happened in Montana already? What in the hell was a crack in the sky, anyway? What did it mean? He made a mental note to message Isaac when he had a minute, after they got home.

  They turned onto the street of Eric’s apartment building, about a block down from the entrance. Heidi seized his arm, bringing him to a sudden halt.

  “What?” he asked.

  Heidi narrowed her eyes at something on the street. Eric saw nothing out of the ordinary. A few pedestrians, some vehicles, trees…

  “The vans,” said Heidi. She nodded toward a couple grey and orange vans parked across from Eric’s apartment building. “That’s October Industries.” She pulled him back, partly around the corner, out of sight.

  “The, uh, sinister industrial corporation Isaac was talking about?”

  “It can’t be coincidence that they’re here.”

  “Well Leah’s in there, and Kate, so we’re going in.”

  “Maybe we should call them first,” said Heidi. Near the end of her sentence, they heard a faint but distinct explosion, followed soon after by a number of other loud but distant noises. They came from the general direction of Eric’s apartment.

  Eric dropped the bags he carried and sprinted down the sidewalk.

  Danger? Hell yeah, I’ll take, like, six. He remembered that. Only days ago.

  But not Leah. No danger for her, thanks, and keep the fucking change. He looked up to locate the balcony of his apartment. Smoke billowed from the external door. He skidded momentarily to a stop when he saw a tiny figure up there, teetering on the edge. It was Leah, and she was about to fall.

  He kept his eyes up as he ran. This was why he saw a larger figure in a colorful lab coat come flying out the smoke of the apartment building, grab Leah, and heave her to safety just as the balcony gave way.

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  No. Eric felt an icy knife in his stomach.

  His feet failed him and he tripped to the ground. He didn’t care; he kept his eyes on Kate as she fell amidst a cloud of random debris, outpacing the balcony as it crashed on the balcony below, flipped, and crushed a car when it struck the street. Something bright fell with Kate; it flashed with light when they hit the ground.

  Even if he hadn’t tripped, he wouldn’t have been able to reach her before she hit the ground. And even if he had reached her, it may have done no good. Nine stories was a long way to fall. But the sound Kate made when her body smacked into the asphalt shocked him like a physical blow, and it haunted his dreams for a long time thereafter.

  “No,” he whispered. “No.” A bad dream. It had to be. He had seen Kate in his dreams, right? This whole day—just a nightmare. Maybe he’d fallen asleep in Lincoln Park and everything from Shade on…

  He scrambled to his feet and stumbled over to Kate—to what used to be Kate. She lay face-up, her head tilted away from him, presenting the shattered-glass-like scar on her cheek and neck. Her glasses had broken. Blood gathered under her head, seeping into the upper part of her lab coat which fanned out around her like the wings of a snow angel. Or a butterfly, one that had fallen into a puddle of red ink. Her colorful dress had bunched up around the knees.

  Eric dropped to one knee. Everything about this was wrong. Something drifted down on top of the body: Kate’s reddish-purple snowflake scarf. One end of it landed in the blood; the other trailed over to a stuffed red dragon that lay on the broken glass.

  The footsteps of someone else came up beside him. Heidi. “Kate…” she whispered. Eric felt a hand grip his shoulder, hard enough to hurt. He hesitantly reached out and, following no impulse he was aware of, took hold of the scarf. He gathered it in one hand and squeezed it tightly. This couldn’t be happening.

  If she falls…

  The memory acted upon Eric like a bucket of cold water. He jerked to a state of alertness. The phone call from this morning. It had been a warning. No, not a warning. But the voice, maybe himself from the future, had told him what to do if she fell. Check the pockets.

  He reached out toward Kate, but hesitated.

  “Eric,” said Heidi, her voice shaking. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  Eric’s hand hovered in the air, shaking. This couldn’t be right. Kate could see the future or something, couldn’t she? He suddenly remembered the look she had given him just before leaving with Leah. A look of sadness? Fear? Had she known this would happen?

  He saw that among the debris lay a broken metronome.

  Eric’s hand became a fist. The voice on the train, on the other end of the mysterious phone number. It had claimed to be himself, from the future. Kate could see the future. Jim could paint the future. Shade had called him “the time guy.” What the hell did that mean? The pockets. He had to check the pockets.

  “We need to go,” said Heidi, suddenly sounding concerned.

  “Just…just a minute,” said Eric. He swallowed and reached out, but could not make himself touch Kate’s body.

  He closed his eyes and breathed a deep breath. You can do this. She’s not here anymore. Just check the pockets.

  “Eric! What are you doing! We need to go, now.”

  “Hang on,” said Eric. Kate’s dress, he discovered, had no pockets. Her lab coat…

  He heard the sound of a handgun being cocked from Heidi beside him. “Eric!”

  Her lab coat, on the other hand, had too many fucking pockets. In one he found a notebook and a scrap of paper; in another, her cell phone.

  Gunshots exploded nearby, seemingly directly next to his ear.

  Okay.

  He removed the broken shades from the pocket of his jacket and put them on. He stood, holding the scarf, and looked at Heidi. He almost turned to see what she was shooting at, but he remembered what Shade had said. He could only see the reactions or intentions of people. In the shaded vision of his left eye, he saw Heidi reel back as a something struck her shoulder.

  He grabbed her arm and yanked her aside. Not a second later the sound of a gunshot came from the direction she had been shooting. Her jacket twitched as a bullet tore through it.

  In his left eye he saw himself grab Frisby Wiser and run. Had he been about to grab Frisby? Apparently, although he had not even been thinking of it. Yes. Yes, he should. When he saw Leah again, she would want it. And he would see Leah again.

  He and Heidi ran, and Eric stooped to snatch up the stuffed red dragon on the way.

  “This way!” he shouted. He had never gotten a good look at who was shooting them, how many there were, or their exact location. But maybe he could lose them. And if he could get the hang of these crazy sunglasses…

  That thought almost led back to Kate; he stopped it brutally in its tracks. Time for that later. For now: he and Heidi had to live, so that they could go back for Leah.

  Tears in their eyes, Eric and Heidi sprinted around a corner, then down an alleyway.

  Somewhere overhead, the sky splintered like pressured ice.