The Assault: The Revealing, Infestation, Infiltration, The Fog Page 24

  “Certainly.” Krone dipped his head as if bowing.

  Brenda and Daniel moved to the refreshment area.

  “You know,” Krone began, “I’m having trouble remembering where we last met—”

  The professor didn’t let the man finish. No doubt he wanted to avoid the question Krone was going to ask. “I was just telling my friends that I had considered architecture as a career. I went another direction, but I still have a great interest in the art and the science you practice. I wonder if you would indulge me and tell me a little about the wonderful building models.”

  “Of course.” Krone looked around the room as if looking for someone to save him from a task he had probably done a dozen times already this evening. He was stuck with the professor. The two moved away.

  “That was slick,” I said to Andi.

  “The professor is nothing if not slick.”

  “What now?”

  Andi shrugged. “That ice cream sounded good.”

  I agreed.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Foggy Night

  How’s the ice cream, buddy?” I looked at two chocolate scoops in Daniel’s bowl. It was a real bowl, too, not one of those plastic things you see at most parties. Someone would be doin’ a lot of dishes when this shindig was over.

  “Good.”

  “Is that bowl for me?” I pretended to reach toward his little treasure.

  “Nope. Get your own.”

  “That’s my boy.” Brenda held her own bowl of frozen chocolate goodness. “You tell ’em.”

  I grinned and patted Daniel on the head. “I like a man who stands up for himself.”

  “He gets it from me,” Brenda said.

  “No doubt.” Andi moved to the counter, learned there was red velvet cake for the having, and asked for some. “I’m really starting to love this get-together.” She took a bite of cake and closed her eyes. I assumed that meant she was in cake heaven.

  When she opened her eyes, she asked Brenda, “How much of this stuff can we eat before our gowns come apart at the seams?”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  I have known these two women long enough to know that neither would overeat. They talked a good game, but always quit early. Me, on the other hand . . .

  “Sick.”

  It was Daniel. Brenda slipped the spoon from her mouth. “What is it, sweetie? Did you eat your ice cream too fast?” She reached for it, but had no more success at grabbing it than I had.

  Daniel shook his head and scooped up another bite. Apparently whatever was ailing him hadn’t affected his ability to down ice cream.

  Brenda lowered herself so she could look Daniel straight in the face. “You said sick, kiddo. Are you sick?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe he meant sick as in good,” I offered. “You know, ‘That car is sick!’ Is that it, little buddy?”

  This time he looked at me like my brains had just run out of my ears. “No.”

  Brenda took a deep breath. “You know, sweetheart, you can be real hard to follow sometimes. What did you mean when you said sick?”

  He nodded across the room. That wasn’t much help. There were several hundred people milling around. “Him. He’s sick. Bad.”

  I still don’t understand why Daniel does things like this. We know he sees what the rest of us can’t. He sees beings from another world. I believe they’re angels, and that ability has helped us many times. The problem was, Daniel did very little talkin’ about what he saw. Sometimes Daniel would string several sentences together, and for him that was being a chatterbox. Other times he did what he was doing now: one or two words at a time. Frustrating enough to make a Baptist preacher swear.

  “What man?” Brenda prompted.

  Another frown from Daniel. At times he acted like the smartest person in the room, the kind of smart person that frustrated lesser brains.

  He pointed with his spoon. I followed his point and saw the professor talking to Allen Krone by the models. Apparently, Krone hadn’t been able to escape. My gut wadded up.

  “The professor?” I meant my words to be more than a whisper, but that was all I could muster.

  “No. Him. Krone.”

  He pronounced Krone as “Croony.”

  I felt joy. I felt relief. Then I felt guilty.

  “Allen Krone? The man we were talking to a few minutes ago?” Brenda was showing remarkable patience. She always did with Daniel. I sometimes think that’s why she has so little patience with the rest of us. Daniel uses it all up.

  Daniel nodded. “Bad sick.” He walked away, bowl of ice cream in hand.

  Brenda rose. “Maybe this is more than a retirement party.”

  “You mean like a going-away party?” Andi said. “A final going-away party?”

  “Makes sense.” Andi kept her eyes on Allen Krone. “You know, I thought I caught a yellow cast to his skin, but the lighting in this building is a little weird. Makes it hard to be certain about colors.”

  “That’s sad.” I meant it. I know we all check out of this life at some point, but knowing that doesn’t make it easier.

  “I have an idea,” Andi said.

  It must have been a good idea because she set her cake down and walked away. Brenda did the same with her bowl. I didn’t have anything to set down, so I just followed Andi.

  Twenty steps later we were standing in a small maze of five-foot-high partitions. They were covered with photos of Allen Krone through the years. Krone graduating architecture school; Krone at a drafting table with a drawing on the board; Krone at a computer, a floor plan on the monitor; Krone wearing a white hard hat standing in front of a large building under construction. There were wedding photos and pictures of him shaking hands with important people from around the world.

  “Do you see it?” Andi asked.

  “See what?” I guess that answered her question.

  “Krone used to be a lot heavier.” Andi kept moving from photo to photo. “Not fat. He looks fit in the pictures.”

  “He’s not young, you know.” Brenda leaned close to one of the displays.

  “He’s just sixty, Brenda,” Andi said. “The same age as Dr. McKinney.”

  I recalled Daniel’s little joke about the professor being ancient.

  Andi nodded. “I think Daniel is right. Then again, he’s always right. Cryptic, but always right.”

  “Ah, I found you.” The professor walked over. “Remarkable man, that Krone. His ability to see in three dimensions and translate those ideas to a set of two-dimensional plans is amazing. Did you know . . .” He looked at our stricken faces. “What?”

  “Krone is sick,” Brenda said. “Maybe terminal.”

  “Who told you that?” The professor had put on his I’m-ready-to-burst-your-bubble face.

  “Daniel.” The three answered in unison.

  “Daniel is not a doctor. How can he know if Krone is sick?”

  We stared at him.

  He raised his hand and aimed his palm at us. “Okay, okay, that was stupid of me. Did he have anything else to say?”

  Andi answered. “No. He just said that Krone was sick and then said it was bad. Look at the photos. He looks very different in his pictures, even the ones dated from just a year ago.”

  The professor, being the professor, did just that. He studied the photos like Sherlock Holmes studying a crime scene.

  Finally, he looked at us. There was a good deal of sadness in his eyes. “Maybe cancer. Maybe a degenerative muscular disorder. Maybe . . . no sense guessing. It doesn’t change anything.” He sighed. “I thought there was a sadness about him. He knows that his retirement will be short—”

  There was a rumble. It came through the floor. It spread to the windows. There were screams and shouts.

  The lights flickered, then went out.

  The building swayed. It moved so much I expected the skyscraper to break in half. I seized Andi by the arm to steady her and did the same to Brenda. The professor went d
own on his keister. The partitions around began to dance and slide on their chrome feet.

  “Daniel!” Brenda’s shout wasn’t loud enough to defeat the noise of the rattling building.

  “Wait!” I held her tight. “Wait!”

  Thirty seconds later, the shaking stopped. Emergency lights filled the open space with dim light. The decorative blue light we had first seen when we arrived was gone.

  “Andi, check on the professor.” I let her go. “Come on, Brenda.”

  We emerged from the partition maze into the open area. People littered the floor. Most were struggling to their feet. I heard the word “earthquake” a dozen times. I scanned the fallen crowd. Maybe I should have been concerned about injuries, but at the moment I could only think of Daniel.

  “Let’s split up. I’ll go—”

  “I see him.” Brenda pointed. “By the window.”

  There he was, still on his feet, or maybe he had just gotten up. It didn’t matter. We raced closer to him, stepping around, and on a few occasions stepping over people on the floor.

  Daniel was inches from the window, his bowl of ice cream on the floor next to him. Chocolate was spattered on the carpet, window, and Daniel’s pant leg. If that window had shattered during the earthquake—I still can’t think about it. What I could think about was an aftershock.

  Daniel gazed out the window.

  Then he began to scream like a siren.

  I charged forward, hoping no one got in my way.

  No one did.

  I scooped Daniel up and hugged him tight. I barely glanced out the window, but even that set my teeth on edge. I ignored what I thought I saw and, at a slower pace, moved away from the glass wall. I hadn’t made it more than six feet when Brenda reached me.

  “Let me have him.”

  “In a sec. Let’s get someplace safer.”

  She started to argue, but saw the wisdom in waiting a few moments. We walked around people, most of whom were now on their feet. Some of the women were crying. Some of the men were swearing. To be fair, a good number of women were swearing, too.

  I found an empty spot and released Daniel to Brenda. She was on the verge of tears. If you knew Brenda the way I do, and if you’ve faced danger with her the way I have, then that statement would surprise you. She took Daniel in her arms as if she would never let go.

  “Hey, buddy.” I began to look him over, best I could. “That was kinda scary, huh?” I kept my voice calm. He had stopped screaming, but he hadn’t stopped staring at the window. “Are you hurt? Did you fall during the earthquake?”

  He shook his head.

  “You sure. No bruises. No ouches?”

  When I said “ouches” he looked at me like I had lost my mind. Sometimes I think that ten-year-old is older than me.

  “Is he okay?” The professor joined us. Andi was with him.

  “I think so,” I said. “I can’t find anything wrong, but he got a good scare.”

  “We all got a good scare.” The professor moved closer to Daniel. I noticed he limped.

  “Are you hurt, Professor?”

  He waved me off. “I bruised a butt cheek.”

  Then I heard the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard. In the middle of all the confusion, I heard Daniel giggle.

  “Butt cheek.” He giggled again. The sound of it was better than music. “He said ‘butt cheek.’”

  Andi stepped to Brenda. The two bickered constantly, but at this moment, all voices were quiet. Andi wrapped her arms around Brenda and Daniel. Where Brenda was holding back tears, Andi let them flow.

  The professor and I helped people to their feet and checked on injuries. There was nothing serious, although the professor wasn’t alone with his butt cheek injury.

  Then I heard a man’s voice: strong, loud, and filled with terror-laced obscenities. I’ve spent a lot of time on a football field so I’ve heard everything, but never in such rapid order.

  I saw the man near the window.

  He was staring out and down.

  He vomited.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Somethin’ Ain’t Right

  The man’s outburst quieted the crowd for a few moments. No one approached. I can’t blame them. For a few moments there was a hush. I glanced at my friends. All the excitement and my fear for Daniel’s safety had forced the glimpse I had out the window from my brain. Now it was trying to worm its way forward.

  “Tank, where are you going?” Andi sounded terrified. That just meant she was like the rest of us.

  “Stay here.”

  “Tank?”

  “Stay here—please.”

  I worked my way through guests. It was like pushing through a forest of small trees. I lost sight of the man at the window, but reacquired him a few steps later. He had turned. His mouth moved as if he expected words to come out, but apparently he had run dry. The smell of the vomit filled the air. The stain of it clung to the front of his tux.

  Unable to speak, he pointed out the window. Out and down.

  “Take it easy, sir.” I tried to sound calm and in control. I never was a very good actor. “Maybe you should step away from the window.”

  “L-l-l . . .”

  “Easy, buddy. We’ll get through this. We just gotta stay calm and focused. We all need each other now.” I kept a slow pace toward him.

  “L-lo-lo . . .”

  I smiled and motioned for him to walk toward me. He turned his back to the window, then to me. “Look!”

  I did, and my mind started to overheat. Now I felt like vomiting, but I’m pretty sure that a dozen other people with sensitive stomachs might follow my lead. So I kept my last meal.

  And I gazed out and down.

  Out and down almost fifty floors to the street below, except I couldn’t see the street. Instead, I saw a fog. There was no way for me to be accurate about my guess, but the fog looked to cap out at just about five feet above the street. I came to that conclusion because hundreds of people had spilled from surrounding buildings and into the streets. I don’t know how good an idea that is after an earthquake, but I didn’t have any better ideas.

  The fog was everywhere. I couldn’t see cars, just the heads of a few people and the noggin tops of a few shorter people.

  Then I saw why the man had cursed. I realized what made him empty his stomach. Somethin’ was moving in the fog, and it wasn’t even close to being human.

  What people I could see were running in different directions. They seemed to be running in slow motion. I caught sight of one man—I knew he was tall because I could see his shoulders. He wore some kinda baseball cap. He was doing his best to run up the street. As he ran he looked over his shoulder. I don’t know what he was seeing, but it had him scared. Really scared.

  Ten steps into his sprint something broke the surface like a shark in the ocean. I couldn’t see it clearly. Fifty floors is something like five or six hundred feet. What I was looking at didn’t seem large, but I had a feeling it was deadly.

  It was.

  The thing moved through the fog with ease. It seemed to be swimming. Ridiculous, I know, but I’ve become used to seeing and believing the ridiculous.

  I do know one thing: what I was seeing wasn’t human. People say there ain’t no such thing as monsters, but tell that to a seal being chased by a killer whale. Monster is in the eye of the beholder, and I was seeing something monstrous.

  And it wasn’t alone. Another breached the surface of the fog, then another. Before I could draw a deep breath, they caught the tall man with the cap. He went down, replaced by a mist of red.

  My knees threatened to betray me. I rested a hand on the glass, bent forward, and wished for amnesia. “Dear God. My dear Jesus.” I’m the religious one of our group, so those words were prayer. If not for them I might have used the same language as my vomit-tinged friend.

  Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Slowly. Slowly. Exhale. I forced my heart to slow. I resisted the urge to scream. I was determined not to lose control. I cou
ldn’t let others see that. Most of all, I couldn’t let Daniel see it.

  I straightened. “Professor. I need to show you something.”

  “We’re coming.”

  “No! Just you.” I turned. “Leave the girls behind.” My voice came out an octave higher.

  “But Tank—” Andi began.

  “I said no!”

  That was a first. I had never snapped at Andi, or any of the others. Odd what watching people die could do to a man.

  The professor looked shocked. “Tank, what is it?”

  I couldn’t put enough syllables together to make words so I nodded to the window. The professor annoys me a great deal, but once you get past his arrogance, he’s an okay guy. I hated doing this to him.

  “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  “No, sir. I’m sorry.”

  He exhaled noisily. I couldn’t help noticing the unblinking eyes fixed on us. No one spoke. No one moved. It was group-wide paralysis. Wives hung onto husbands, dates hung onto each other. All of them were looking at us. Better they look at us than what was on the street.

  The professor, always calm, always logical, always with a straight back and packing lots of extra superiority, forced himself to gaze into the darkness lit only by moonlight.

  He stood as rigid as a goalpost. His breathing slowed. His back bent. His hands shook. He sniffed like a person about to burst into tears.

  Then came a whisper. “Those poor souls. Horrid.”

  I slipped to his side and watched the carnage below. I saw another man go down and the red smear rise where he had been. Then a woman. Then several young women, best I could tell, then—dear God—a parent with a child on his shoulders.

  Both—

  I closed my eyes. After everything I had seen. After the dangers we have faced as a team. After all the impossible weirdness, this terrified me more.

  “Steady on, lad,” the professor whispered. “Everyone here is taking their lead from us. We lose it, they lose it. Understand?”

  “Yep. I know. I was going to say the same thing.”

  The professor nodded. “You might have to remind me.”

  A familiar voice came from my left. Allen Krone was there. “Not to worry, gentlemen. This building is designed to withstand earthquakes. It has the latest features. We’re safe here. However, it might be good if you backed away from—”