Awake (24 page)

“I wouldn’t consider her normal to begin
with,” Andrew replied.

After they entered the house, Kevin helped
Andrew put the front door back on. It was missing hinges, so they
simply stuck it in place and tried to wedge paper in the gaps to
keep it tightly closed. Then Andrew turned around to see what the
inside of the house looked like. The whole house was simply one big
empty room. There was no hall or kitchen or anything other than
four gray walls and a few windows. The structure and layout was
simple. There was not much in the way of furnishings either.

“Now let me introduce you to my family,”
said Katie. When she said that, two people suddenly appeared in the
center of the room. Andrew had never even noticed there were other
people in the room with them.

Katie gestured to them. “Here’s my mom and
dad. Aren’t they wonderful?”

The father was tall and handsome. His hair
and eyes were dark brown. His skin was very tan. The mother was
beautiful but was much shorter. Her complexion was very pale in
comparison. Both parents had bright smiles, as if they were
extremely happy.

“Pleased to meet you, Sir,” said Andrew,
approaching the father to shake his hand. Smiling warmly, the
father shook his hand but said nothing.

Andrew yanked his hand away hastily from the
father’s grip. “Cold!” Andrew stared at his trembling palm. There
were cracks in his skin. “Frostbite?” Perplexed, Andrew raised his
eyebrows. “Kevin.” Andrew turned back to search for his friend.
Kevin was no longer around. Then he slowly came to a realization.
“This is not real.” He looked at Katie. “This is not real.”

Katie giggled. “What are you talking about?
Of course it’s real!”

“Your father is cold—freezing even. Kevin
just disappeared. This house,” Andrew caught a fleeting glimpse of
the walls changing color, “is doing things it shouldn’t be able to
do. And most importantly…my memory…my memory…” Andrew shut his eyes
tightly as though in pain. “I can’t remember what I did today.”

“What are you saying, Andrew?” Katie smiled.
“It’s real. Everything here is real.”

Katie moved toward the middle of the room
and a round table appeared beside her. Her parents sat around the
table, giggling gleefully.

“Come,” she said to him. “Come join us for
dinner.” With a sweep of her hand, the table was soon filled with
plenty of food: a large cooked turkey, mashed potatoes, and salad,
among other things. “Don’t be shy. Come here and eat.”

“Katie, are these your real parents?”

“You’re talking funny again,” said Katie.
“These are my real parents. That’s why they love me so much. That’s
why they’re here in my home.”

“But Katie,” Andrew said gravely, “you told
me before that you were in a foster home.”

Her eyes widening, Katie snapped, “Who told
you that?”

“You did.”

“No, I didn’t. I don’t remember that.”

“You did,” Andrew said again, this time more
firmly. “You told me that.”

“That was a lie,” she said softly. Facing
downward, she fell quiet and there was a long period of silence.
Andrew drew near to her, curious to see the expression on her face.
Then Katie pushed him back with all her might and screamed, “THAT
WAS A LIE!”

Andrew regained his balance and said, “Look
at this place. It’s rotting away. Look at your parents. They don’t
even look alive. This isn’t where you want to be.”

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP!” she shrilled. “Why are
you doing this to me? Please stop this. Please…stop this.” Katie
began to cry. Her tears flowed like rain and was unending.
“Stop.”

“Katie. You need to stop.” Andrew observed
the changing wallpaper and saw images of her memories. “You once
told me that your foster parents hate you. Now that I see inside
your mind…it doesn’t look like that to me. You’re the one who
doesn’t realize it. They love you, Katie. But they can’t give you
their love if you keep pushing them away…if you keep rejecting it.
You’re hurting everyone…even yourself.”

“NO!” Katie screamed. “If I trust them,
they’ll hurt me! They’ll love me and then abandon me! I hate them!
They hate me! That’s the way it should be!” Then Katie digested her
own words and fell to the ground, sobbing. “I’ll never get hurt.
Again. That’s the way…it should be…”

Andrew said, “How do you know if you’ll get
hurt again? They are not the same as your parents. They are
different people. You have to give them a chance. Katie, how long
have you been with this last foster family?”

Still on her knees, Katie looked up at him,
brushing away her tears. “I-I’ve been with them for…six months
now.”

Andrew said, “In those six months, I bet
you’ve tried to make their lives miserable. But regardless of what
you’ve done to them, they’re willing to make an effort. So
please…give them that chance.”

Katie sniffed. The tears stopped flowing.
She knelt there for a while, trying to regain her composure.

Then she stood up, ran to Andrew and
embraced him.

“Maybe…I should. Thank you.”

Andrew beamed. “Don’t thank me. I didn’t do
anything. But I’m glad you’re feeling better because we’ve still
got a lot of work to do.”

“They’re breaking through!” a dog
barked.

Raising his clenched fist high, Tom yelled,
“Push them back!”

Musing, Helios sat on Tom’s shoulder. “We
can’t hold them back for much longer. And it’s already been two
hours since Kevin last spoke with us. Maybe it’s time we formulated
a backup plan.”

Tom nodded. “But what kind of backup plan
can we have? We don’t have options.”

“Fighting on two fronts was a bad idea. Even
if the areas are narrow, we don’t have enough soldiers to handle
both sides. We should pull back and hole up inside a
department.”

Tom frowned. “You saw how those bears tore
through the first barricade! It won’t—”

“It’s just a matter of stalling time,” said
Helios. “We have to pull back.”

“If we pull back now, we’ll be trapped.”

Helios made direct eye contact with Tom. “If
we don’t pull back now, we’ll lose too many soldiers. We won’t last
much longer like this.”

Tom bit his lip. “But…I don’t know…I don’t
want to pull back.”

Helios snapped, “What you want doesn’t
matter! We have to hold them off for as long as we can!”

“Tom! Tom!” the computer shouted. “More
creatures are approaching! It’s a new wave and much larger! They’ll
reach our position in approximately ten minutes!”

“Again?” Tom’s jaw slackened. “But they’re
already crushing us! Why would they need more reinforcements? Oh
gosh…this is getting worse and worse.” Tom considered passing out
at a time like this, but Helios gave him quite a reproachful and
intimidating stare.

“If you don’t want to run, we can always
fight,” said Helios.

Tom raised a brow. “What are you talking
about?”

“They don’t know what’s going on here. They
have no idea what Kevin is doing. We could hide Kevin’s body
somewhere inside. Then, with our full force, we could make a final
push to the surface through one of the exits. We could pretend like
we have the solution and lead the animals away. If we do that—”

Tom finished, “Then they won’t even bother
with this place and Kevin will have as much time as he needs.” He
added quickly, “Let’s go with that.”

Helios said, “You won’t even think it over?
I know I suggested it, but I’m asking you to put your life on the
line. I won’t make you—”

Tom said reluctantly, “Let’s do it. If I
think it over, I’ll change my mind.”

Helios grinned wryly. “You’re braver than I
thought.”

Tom shouted to the end of the hall, “Fall
back! Everyone, fall back!”

Almost immediately, a small group of dogs
and cats rushed to Tom’s side. Tom gestured for them to follow him.
With his trashcan lid in hand, Tom plowed through the smaller
forest creatures that blocked the door to the exit. As the enemy
tried to pounce him, he deflected them with his makeshift shield.
The larger dogs went ahead to make open a path for their group. It
took them a bit of time and effort, but they managed to reach the
short ladder that led to the outside. Tom quickly closed the door
behind them and helped the pets up the ladder. Then he followed
them out.

Their small group was surrounded on all
sides. The Forest Army had mustered all their remaining forces and
gathered them to this one spot for their last stand. Compared to
all that surrounded them, the small force of the HPC was like a
tiny dot in the landscape.

For a moment everyone hesitated. The Forest
Army simply stared at the small force of the HPC. It was amazingly
quiet.

Tom gulped, afraid to give any commands that
would disturb the eerie, yet calm, pause. Then he decided to take a
slight step forward, hoping to inch his way to a running start. Tom
accidentally stepped on a branch.
Crack
. Once the noise
echoed through the park, the bears began growling and the wolves
started howling. The silence was broken. The Forest Army rushed in
for the kill. Vibrations of their frenzied charge shook the blades
of grass tremendously. Tom screamed as he tried to shield himself
from the attack.

But the wild animals didn’t attack them.
Instead, they parted and scattered, yelping as they fled. The
ground turned into a moving sea of brown, black and white.
Astonished at the sight, Tom looked at the strange ground. It was
then that he discovered the small furry creatures scurrying about.
Rats. Swarms of rats were all over the place. They were climbing up
benches, telephone poles and streetlamps. They were clinging off
the backs of bears, gnawing at their skin. They were covering up
entire wolves and deer with a blanket of their bodies.

A rat met up with Helios and bowed down
before him. “My liege! You’re safe! The Queen was so worried when
she discovered that you were still alive!”

Helios exclaimed, “I don’t believe it! Did
my mother tell you guys to come?”

“That’s right,” said the rat. “We are the
Korgen Vermin Militia, at your service. What is your command?”

Helios smiled. “Let’s mop up this mess and
get this Forest Army out of our city!”

The rat nodded. “As you wish.”

-
Denial -

Kevin walked along a road of candy-coated bricks. It
was kind of sticky and hard to walk across. Even so, it was easier
to walk through that since the rest of the landscape was covered in
giant scoops of melting ice cream.

“Somebody sure loves their sugar,” he
said.

Who dares interfere?

He stopped as soon as he noticed a black dot off in
the distance.

“What is that?” he wondered.

As it drew near, he got a better look at it.
It was a mass of black sludge that was soaring over the land…and it
was headed for him.

Kevin jumped out of the way and rolled along
the surface of hard candy. Another pile of black sludge, resembling
a giant hand, popped out of a scoop of ice cream. It caught Kevin
by surprise and snatched him off the ground. Then the giant hand
dragged him down beneath the ground, deep into a dark tunnel.

Hundreds of images flashed before his eyes.
He was being pulled through dream after dream.

Then, when the giant hand finally released
him, Kevin fell facedown on the floor. He picked himself up and
looked around. He was in another dream world. This one was in outer
space. But before he could gaze at strange planets and stars in the
distance, he noticed that a group of giant dark creatures had
surrounded him. Coveits.

Kevin grunted, “I don’t like the look of
this.”

A man was standing by the side of the
Coveits.

“The guy from the boat ride,” said Kevin,
recognizing him.

“Yes,” said the man. “And you’re the kid
stirring up trouble.”

Kevin felt frightened at this man’s
presence. “Who are you?”

“I go by many names,” said the man. “If you
like, you can call me the boogeyman.”

“Ah, Mr. Boogeyman,” said Kevin. “So I take
it you’re the one who made the Dream Wave?”

The man laughed. “No, the humans have done
this to themselves. I just…make the experience smoother for them. I
am the oil in this engine. Humans sometimes just want to get away
from it all…and I steer them in the right direction.”

“I can’t let you do that,” said Kevin. “I’ll
put a stop to you!”

“You’re welcome to try,” said the
boogeyman.

The Coveits lumped themselves together like
clay, molding and bending into a huge massive body. The boogeyman
jumped high into the mouth of the creature as it continued its
weird transformation. Then, when the transformation was complete, a
new monster was formed.

The hulking beast stooped down and roared.
Its skin was a sickly red, almost the color of rotting raw meat. In
addition to its two legs, it also had six arms and crawled down on
the floor like a spider. On its back were ten horns, which
protruded from its spinal cord. It had an eye on its forehead and
an eye on its chin, and right in between, where people would
normally have a nose, it had a giant mouth. Its head would twist
and twist around like an owl’s.

“Okay…” said Kevin. “I still don’t like the
look of this.”

Andrew and Katie exchanged wide-eyed
glances. Her house was experiencing powerful tremors. The floor
sheared apart, creating a huge gap between them. Andrew pulled her
over to his side and they ran for the door. When they reached the
street, Andrew pointed to the sky. The clear blue sky was long
gone, now hidden by overlapping gray clouds. Aside from the bolts
of lightning that flashed far and near, the land was covered in
sheer darkness.

“We have to leave this dream,” shouted
Andrew. “It’s getting dangerous!”

“But how?” asked Katie.

Andrew said, “There must be a way out—like a
door or something. Since it’s your dream, you should know where it
is. Think. If you think about it, maybe you’ll find it!”