Jeremy Robinson - MirrorWorld

Katzman’s kicking legs suddenly disappear, leaving a gaping wound behind. The bull splashes into the water, dying slowly, mewling pitifully. I feel a moment of pity for the thing and then turn to the fourth bull, already injured by Katzman. It has pulled up short, shifting its four eyes between the most recently slain bull and me.

Whispering fills the air.

I take aim and fire, emptying the clip. The bull flinches back, turning to run, but then a round hits something vital and the monster falls limp. The whispering stops.

Katzman hasn’t returned, so I chase him back to the real world. He’s on the ground, coughing and sputtering, panicked and furiously wiping at himself. He’s covered in bright green gore, viscous slime, and chunks of Dread organs. When he left the second time, he took a lot of the Dread with him. I note that he’s not writhing in pain, either. They’ve trained for this but, unlike me, lack the ability to push fear. I volunteered to be the first guinea pig. I remember that now. The rest of Dread Squad must have received a more-refined batch of the DNA-altering retrovirus, leaving them more human than Dread, not fully both like me and not able to do everything I can.

“Calm down,” I tell him. He flinches when I stand over him but slows down a bit when he sees it’s me. “They’re all dead.”

I don’t know if he hears me. The foul-smelling guts covering his body have his undivided attention.

“Katzman!”

His eyes lock onto mine, wide with fear and drug-induced focus.

“You can leave all this behind when you slip between worlds.” I’ve been leaving the blood of dead Dread behind. Katzman, it seems, needs a little practice. “Just focus on what you want to take with you. Everything else will stay behind.”

He stares for just a moment, then gives just a hint of a nod.

“Go to the world between first,” I tell him.

“I—I don’t know if I can.”

I crouch beside him. “I trained you better than this. I remember that now. Just focus.” I shrug. “Or you can stay covered in gore.”

Strands of florescent-green slime dangle from his arms as he lifts them up, inspecting his situation. His stomach lurches. He’s about to wretch. I put my hand on his back and do the job for him.

Faster than you can blink, we’re in the world between for just a moment, and then back home, leaving the gore behind. Katzman is dry again, patting his body down with his hands. We’re surrounded by lush green willows.

“Thanks,” he says. “For helping.”

I move my hand from his back to his shoulder. “Tell me what’s going to happen.”

“I can’t.”

“I could have left you,” I say. “I saved your life.”

After a beat, he says, “It’s a weapon.”

“What kind of a weapon?”

He looks unsure for a moment, but a word bubbles out of him when I lean a bit closer. “Microwave.”

“I thought microwave weapons in the field were a no-go.”

“Not guns,” he says.

“A bomb,” I say, finishing the thought. “A microwave bomb.”

I knew that microwaves and radiation affected all frequencies of reality, but I never considered what that really meant. I don’t really consider them now. They kind of just barrel into me. “When we detonate a nuclear warhead, the effects are felt in both worlds.”

“You have a point?” Katzman asks.

“They’re bluffing,” I say, more to myself than Katzman.

“What?”

“They don’t want to push the president into nuclear war with Russia. It would kill them, too.” I want to believe this, but I’m not sure. The Dread, and the way they think, is still a mystery. “But if they’re pushed… If we leave them no choice…”

His forehead scrunches up, the depth of his wrinkles exaggerated by the drugs flowing through his veins. “You think they’d kill themselves, intentionally?”

“Maybe the World War Two Japanese analogy is more appropriate than Lyons knows? We really know nothing about the Dread. Who’s to say they wouldn’t rather burn with us than let us win?”

“What’s the alternative?” he asks. “Let them win? Screw that.”

“Can you stop it?” I ask. “If you had to?”

He shakes his head. “There are five of us carrying microwave bombs. Only one of us actually needs to make it inside.”

“That’s what’s on your back?”

He nods. “But it’s really just a backup plan, in case the assault goes FUBAR.”

Assault? Lyons is out of his mind. “Why?”

“Honestly…” He looks me in the eyes. “I’m not entirely sure.”

That Lyons hasn’t shared all his plans with the man in charge of Dread Squad is a little disconcerting. What could he be planning that a loyal soldier like Katzman might not carry out?

I look at my watch. Eighty minutes until the president’s deadline. This is going to be tight.

“How much longer?” I ask.

He points to the sky just as a faint whine begins to tickle my ears. I look up and to the north. A massive black Boeing C-17 Globemaster III flies toward our location. The huge transport plane is capable of transporting over a hundred paratroopers, dropping them into a battlefield with precision.

Then I see another.

And another.

Lyons’s covert, black operation is about to leap into the light of day and into the arms of the Dread.

“Can you delay the assault?” I ask, already suspecting the answer. He barely gets a chance to start saying no when I wave off the question and sprint across the traffic circle.

As I leave the macadam behind and enter the lush Couturie Forest, he shouts to me. “They’re going to shoot anything that moves! Don’t be in there when they arrive!”

I don’t doubt his warning. Amped up on BDO he very nearly shot me. Probably would have if he hadn’t recognized me. The potent mix of chemicals might help a human being overcome the Dread fear, but when there’s nothing to be afraid of, the drug sends the user into a manic state. Facing the Dread without it allows me to think more clearly, which is essential, but it also leaves me more susceptible to their effect, not that the drug did wonders for Katzman’s performance.

My pace is slowed by the thick vegetation growing everywhere, but it’s faster than slogging through the mirror-world swamp. I speed up when I come across a footpath headed in the right direction, but I only get thirty feet before I’m struck by an invisible freight train. I’m lifted off the ground and thrown into a marsh.

I’ve pulled my body and armor fully out of the mirror world. They shouldn’t be able to strike me, unless… They’re pushing themselves into this world, just for a moment, just long enough to strike.

I stand, dripping wet, and ready my weapon. Then I slip between worlds, ready to put another Dread out of its misery.

Nearly waist-deep in water, I spin, searching for my target and finding absolutely nothing. I’m just a hundred feet from the curved wall of the colony. Like all the others, a series of arched entrances lines the outside wall, one every fifty feet, raised up just above the waterline by an earthen ramp. Like the city of New Orleans, the Dread colony is barely keeping the water out.

After ten seconds of searching for whatever struck me, I lower my weapon. I’m alone, and the entrances to the colony are unguarded.

A sudden fear clutches my insides.

I spin again, ready to pull the trigger, but am still unable to find a target. With my back to the colony, I search the black, hanging tree line. I see no motion, just bunches of dangling, wet foliage.

A ripple of water rolls past. I spin and fire three shots—into the water.

I’m being toyed with, my fear increasing with each close encounter.