And It Arose from the Deepest Black (John Black Book 2) (33 page)

21

I landed amid flashing lights, still dozens of feet below Alpha’s height, but closer.

Close enough to call to her.

Screaming up at Gorgol Alpha, I let my two sword-spears hang to each side. “I’m here now. Come on.”

The swords fell limp, nothing but the simple belts they’d always been. Then they dropped away, tumbling down between the wooden supports of the roller coaster’s main incline.

Alpha still twisted and evaded Bobby and Pip, so I reached out.

Bobby, pull back. My turn.

Below, I didn’t see so much as feel the two of them separate. I was certain they were exhausted.

Phew, yeah,
Bobby said
. Okay, give us a breather, then we’re back at it
.

I only need a minute
.

It must have been something in the way I said it. Friends know each other. Friends read between the lines. Bobby did.

What are you doing?

I was silen
t
.
Yet he must have seen me, weaponless atop the garishly lit hill.

Johnny, no. Whatever it is you have in mind, cut it out. There’s
three of us
now. Work with me! We said we were a team!

I shut him out. He said more, but it was like a muffled voice from a phone you hold away from your head. I could hear he was talking, but I wasn’t listening.

A voice came nonetheless. Because I didn’t expect her to speak. Because she’d never been able to start the conversation before.

Johnny. Sto
p
.

I sighed.
I have to, Hol. For our family. For you, and Mom.

I don’t want you to die for me, Johnny. Neither does Mom. We need you. Just — I don’t know — just do anything. Run away.

Holly, I have to.
At last, my anger broke, and beyond it was emptiness.
I let myself turn bad, Hol. I used these powers and killed, and I can’t just ignore that anymore. But Alpha is not from this world. You know that. You brought her here by accident. Despite what Jake says, the Earth and this creature can’t live together. And I can’t let her hurt you. I have to do this.

There was a long pause, and I thought we had finished.

Johnny?
Holly asked.

Yeah, Hol?

It’s true that they aren’t from Earth.

Holly, I know. You opened up that hole and they came through. And now maybe Alpha wants you to send her back, but you can’t, right?
Or maybe Alpha just wanted Holly, if I could believe what Jake had said.

No, I can’t.

Then there’s nothing else to talk about.
I tensed. Without Bobby and Pip fighting, Alpha had turned toward me. Her eyes glowed and burned. She paused, maybe relishing the last moment, her chance to get revenge for the deaths of her children.

Holly spoke in my mind again.
I can’t send her back, because she didn’t come from anywher
e
.

What? What does that mean, Holly?

Alpha is
me
, Johnny. They all were me.

Something shattered inside. Because it made sense? Maybe. Holly had shaken the world before my battle with Sol. She could do things I couldn’t understand.
What do you mean?

When you saved me before, from Sol, I was so angry. So angry and so afraid. I had to put that stuff somewhere or else I’d never be free.

I don’t understand, Holly. What did you do?

I asked myself how to get rid of those things — the anger and fear — and all I could think of was throwing them out the window. And a window appeared.

The window in space, where the three things had fallen. Where the Gorgols had come through.

But Johnny,
she said,
there’s nothing on the other side of that window except me. I made the Gorgols. Me. They’re my anger and… and my fear.

My head spun. The monster lumbered toward me, raging, roaring eminent death. Holly
made
the Gorgols.

LOST. MOTHER. HOME.

Jake had told me the truth. The Gorgols weren’t trying to get to Holly to find a way home. She
was
their home.

I couldn’t focus. Alpha would be upon me in moments.

I had killed two parts of my own sister.

My heart fell and my stomach rolled. Staggering to one knee, I nearly threw up.

Johnny? Please come back
, she said.

Holly, I — I don’t know what to say. I killed Omicron. And Sigma. And they were
you
. I have such a terrible anger inside me that I let myself do those things. I killed two parts of you!

No, Johnny, no! They came from me, but they’re just things I don’t want back. I don’t want to be angry or scared. And now I know why they’re burning me. The Gorgols are like a poison I pushed out. And now my body is all itchy and weird because that poison has come back.

That still doesn’t let me off the hook for the things I did.

Johnny, the Gorgols are my anger and fear. And you’re my brother. Just being near them, I think, changes you.

It was all too much. I reeled. Could it be true? My own sister’s anger had fueled
my
uncontrollable anger? Even if it was true, a question burned at me.
Why monsters? Why three monsters, Holly?

That’s the part I just figured out, Johnny. It was those movies we watched. The monster movies. Those monsters looked so angry to me. I thought that was what anger looked like.

Okay, fine. But why three?

I don’t want to tell you,
she said.

Alpha swooped close.
Please, Holly.

Seeing my plight, that I might be destroyed by Alpha at any moment, she relented.
There are three… a mother, a brother, and a sister, because…

Because they’re us
, I said.

Holly didn’t respond, and Alpha was so near, I thought I’d never hear Holly’s voice again.

Johnny, yes, but it’s more than that… they’ve killed people. Something that I made
killed
people. Come back, so we can figure out how to stop it, together.

Finally, a thought arose, from the deepest black in my mind, beginning to clear my head. I slowly lifted off the roller coaster track, looking at the onrushing, toothy face of Alpha.
It doesn’t change anything, Holly. Because I already know what to do.
I pulled into myself and readied.

No, Johnny, don’t!

And I flew.

* * *

Reaching out with my mind, I began to feel every cell within Alpha. Something reverberated. The thorns, I assumed.

Tuned together, we fell together.

Sluicing wouldn’t help her. Sluicing rearranges the cells to avoid attack, but I wasn’t attacking with gross force. Not blunt force. Instead, I attacked every cell.

And the plan was simple.

Reach all of her cells, and do the one thing no living creature can overcome.

Blow it to pieces.

There was only one catch. An eye for an eye. A cell for a cell. The only way I could figure out how to make it work was for all of my cells to do it, like little magnets. To drag Alpha’s cells apart with mine.

We had to die together.

I flew closer. She gaped at me, still roaring. I would finally fly down her throat, just as she wanted. Fly into the belly of the beast made of my own sister’s anger. And fear.

Time crawled. I saw every detail. The spittle around Gorgol Alpha’s giant mouth, the shine it put on her long, jagged teeth.

The smell. I felt like I was bathing in eau de monster merde.

I flew.

For a second time, I pulled in, lighting the fire within me, lighting each cell, a billion little flames. I must have looked like a comet, blazing a trail to Alpha through the night sky.

Something warbled in the air. Maybe the air itself. Gorgol Alpha’s skin rippled and glowed.

I was almost there. Ready to explode. Every cell in me tingled, every cell in Alpha echoing.

And then, she was gone.

The world around the creature snapped open, sucking her in with impossible force. Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the rift collapsed like charged summer air after a lightning strike.

I was blasted away, sent flying toward the rocky outcropping.

As I tumbled through the sky, the night was quiet. Except for brash music and arcade sound effects.
I used to love the boardwalk.

I landed face first on the rocks, looking down to the sea, too tired to move for a moment.

Finally, I twisted and looked back at my family. Mom was holding one hand over her chest like she was in danger of a heart attack, staggering to recover, a line of fresh blood trickling from her nose. Next to her, Holly slowly tilted upward, like she was coming back from a fade. Finally, her eyes locked on mine.

You sent her away?

Yes, Johnny.
Even mentally, she sounded out of breat
h
.

But where?

I don’t kno
w
.

An idea came to me, a black and festering idea.
Not back into you, right?
She didn’t answer for the longest time, so I pressed her.
You didn’t send it back into you, did you, Holly?

I don’t know, Johnny.

Maybe I dreamed it, but I swear the earth trembled just a little, under my feet.

Epilogue

There was a sound behind me, up on the rocks, but I didn’t turn back. I was too tired.

“Hello, John.”

That voice…

I didn’t move. Didn’t dare turn around. I didn’t want to. “No. That’s impossible.”

“Any more impossible than your body shifting and healing itself, than your mind coercing others and moving things without touch? Than literally
anything
that just happened? I dare say no.” He chuckled.

Damn that chuckle.

“Come on, John. The fact is that the impossible is something quite different than you or I have experienced in our previous lives.
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy
—”

“Thank you, I know Shakespeare, too, okay?” I seethed.

The voice came closer. It was different, but the same. “John. The things inside us. They simply want to live.”

“And so, what? They saved you?”

“Well, no, I don’t think that’s entirely true. These things—“

“The damn thorns.”

“Thorns? As you like. In any event, they are living creatures. They wish to survive, to reproduce, to avoid the black, endless chasm of death that eventually awaits us all. They will do anything — anything at all in their power — to stay alive.”

“Okay, but that still doesn’t explain how you’re here,” I said, eyes shut.

“Do you know what a parasite is, John?” the voice asked. No, not exactly the same voice, but still with that same arrogance.

“Yes, of course. Something that lives off something else.”

“Right, yes. Often inside of that something else. And of course when something lives that way, inside another being, it can be said to
infect
its host.” The voice paused, waiting. For what?

“So? What's your point?” I asked, back still turned.

Another chuckle. Why this? Why this again? This should be over. Damn it. “My point is simply this, John. If the parasite infects the host, can the host not
infect the parasite
, too? If the parasite finds a way to live, why can’t the host…” He searched for the right way to put it. “Perhaps come along for the ride?”

“No.”

“Well, you can continue this absurd denial, if you like.”

“No.” I started to turn, eyes closed.

“Or you can accept the truth of the reality before you.”

There was nothing but silence as my body pivoted, but I could feel his bravado. He hadn’t just cheated me. He’d cheated death. Facing the place where the voice had been, I slowly opened my eyes and saw him in those same khaki clothes, Jake’s clothes. But the man before me no longer looked like Jake Weissman, the man they called Ranger. The strange lumps and oddities of his skin had fallen away, leaving something fresh and new behind. Now, he looked like someone I knew much, much better.

Sol.