White Space

But it’s also real. How could that be? His right hand closed around Tony’s handset. That’s real. The others are real, and so is Emma. This has to be real. Or he was going crazy. The fear was an acid burn, eating its way up his throat, and Eric thought he might actually scream if he wasn’t careful. Oily sweat lathered his back and neck and face, and he pressed the back of one shaking hand to his forehead, the way he used to do when Casey had been little and got sick. Don’t, don’t do it. His lungs were working like a bellows. Come on, calm down. Sipping air, he breathed in, held it, let go … in with the good, out with the bad … Just hold it together.

What if … what if this was limbo? Maybe he was being punished. Could that be it? God sent him here because of Big Earl? What kind of justice was that? Big Earl was the adult; he hurt people. Big Earl shot at him; he would’ve killed Eric if he had the chance. The beatings had gone on for as long as Eric could remember. Yes, but how long was that, exactly? A day, a minute, five years, ten?

He. Did not. Remember.

No. Eric’s heart knocked in his throat. No, no, no, how can I not know? He remembered how careful he’d been in high school changing for gym, always slipping into a stall or coming in with just enough time to spare so that the locker room had already emptied out. I have scars on my back, my stomach. Every beating’s written in my skin. Why don’t I remember? How could his memory be scrubbed clean like that, as white as all that snow?

Because … because … because it never happened?

Before he could talk himself out of it, he bit the inside of his left cheek, very hard, wincing as his teeth sank into his flesh. There, that hurt. A moment later, there was the warm, salty taste of blood on his tongue, and that was good, and so was the pain. Swallowing a ball of blood, he savored the ache, grabbed the feeling, held it close. See, Ma, I’m real. I feel pain, so I must be real.

Unless the pain was just for show. Or—and this was a truly strange thought—he was real … but only here and nowhere else.

That’s crazy. What are you, nuts? His shirt, sticky with sweat, clung like a second skin. There’s got to be an explanation that makes sense. This has to be a dream, or I’m sick and I’ve got a really high fever and I’m delirious or something.

Or maybe … oh Jesus, oh God … maybe Big Earl hadn’t missed. Maybe that bullet blasted into Eric’s skull and drilled into his brain, and now he was lying in a hospital somewhere, his ruined head in bandages, a tube down his throat, IVs in his veins: hooked up to machines that were breathing for him, keeping him alive—and it was only a matter of time before someone pulled the plug.

Maybe I’m only one step away from dead.

“Oh man.” Chad’s sharp gasp cut through the maelstrom of his thoughts. “Man, you see that?” Chad said. “Off to the right?”

“What is it?” Eric asked, hoarsely. Really, he was grateful to have something else to worry about.

To his right, the night wasn’t exactly there anymore. Instead, an anvil of thick white fog extended from the ground and rose all the way up and across the dome of the sky.

“Oh my God,” Eric said, and felt the sudden kick of his heart in his teeth. “It’s getting closer. Jesus, it … it’s moving.”

“Bode? Bode?” Chad said, his voice rising. “Bode, we got to turn around, man. We got to turn around right now!”

“I hear that.” There was a sudden lurch as Bode jammed the brake, then muscled the stick into reverse. “Hang on.”

“What? No, wait, Bode. Stop!” Eric clamped a hand on the other boy’s shoulder. As frightened as he was of this thing gathering itself in the sky—and freaked out by what might be wrong with him—he loved his brother more. “We can’t turn back now. What about the others?”

“Devil Dog, I’m sorry, but we are bugging out PDQ.”

“But my brother’s still out there!” If this isn’t a fever, a hallucination, a last gasp … But even if it was. Because Casey is here, with me, in this, and that’s on me. “We can’t just leave him.”

“Yeah? You wanna watch us? We get ourselves killed, won’t do him no good anyway,” Chad said, as Bode swung the truck around. “Go, man, go!”