Andrew Klavan - The Final Hour

I found the strength to rise.

Groaning, I got to my knees. I took hold of the edge of my cot. I pulled myself up and climbed slowly to my feet. I hobbled slowly to the steel sink in the corner and washed my face, watching the blood swirl down the drain. When I raised my eyes to the small square of mirror on the wall, the sight wasn’t pretty. My face was purple and swollen and cut, but at least the bleeding had stopped.

I went back to my cot and dropped down onto the thin mattress. I stretched out on my back and lay staring up at the white concrete ceiling. The faces of the people I loved and missed rose up before me again and then…

Then, with a sort of flash, there was something else.

A dark night. A torrential rain. A flash of lightning.

I blinked, shaking my head. This was more like a vision than a memory. For one flashing second, that rainy night had seemed real; it had seemed to surround me.

I breathed deeply, slowly, hoping that would be all there was. I didn’t think I was strong enough to go through a memory attack right now. But then…

Then there it was again. Another flash. The dark night on every side of me. The rain lanced down at the windows. They were the grated windows of a bus. A prison bus. It was rumbling and shuddering around me.

I understood what this was. Of course. I had been in prison once before. I had been convicted of murdering my friend Alex Hauser. I’d been convicted of plunging a knife into his chest after we had an argument over Beth. It was a frame-up, a false accusation, all part of Waterman’s plan to get me into the Homelanders, to convince them that I was ready to join their terrorist crew. After my arrest…

I remembered now. I had been in a local jail for about a week. Then they’d put me on a bus to transfer me somewhere else. Here. They were going to send me here, to Abingdon.

Reality seemed to flicker on and off. The past-that rainy night, the shuddering bus-seemed to flicker in and out of being around me.

“Yes,” I whispered to myself. “Yes, I remember now…”

I started to sit up on the cot.

But then I doubled over in pain as the full memory attack struck me.

It was so real. It wasn’t like a memory at all. It was just as if I was there, on the bus, in the night, in the storm.

I was the only passenger on the long gray-green vehicle. The only other people there were the guard and the driver. The guard sat in a cage up front, cradling a shotgun on his lap. The driver was almost out of sight, just the top of his head showing over the big seat before the wheel.

We were on a small road, a rough road. The bus rocked and bounced as it went over potholes. I was jostled back and forth, my shoulder hitting the window. For some reason, I couldn’t brace myself properly. I looked down to find out why. I was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit- and I was in shackles, my hands cuffed, my feet chained. My body was flung from side to side, striking the window grate just as lightning forked through the black sky, illuminating the slashing downpour for one trembling second.

I noticed something else now too: My heart was beating hard. I was nervous, excited, afraid. Something was about to happen. I didn’t know exactly what it was and I didn’t know exactly when it would begin, but I sensed it would be soon.

It came to me: Rose had told me the Homelanders were already working to break me out. He said they’d probably act fast before I was too closely guarded, surrounded by security.

This seemed like a good time. Out on this bleak, empty road. Alone on this bus with only one guard and one driver.

But even though I was expecting it at any moment, it was a shock when it actually happened.

Suddenly, the windows exploded with blinding light. I turned and saw headlights glaring at me like a beast’s wild eyes. An engine roared-also like a wild beast. The lights grew larger and larger and the roar grew louder. Something-a tractor, I think-some huge vehicle-was charging at us from the side.

The next second the bus was struck, a jarring, terrible blow. I heard the driver let out a ragged, guttural scream. The bus gave a stomach-turning heave under me and lifted up onto one side. For an endless moment it hung there, balanced precariously on two of its tires.

Then all of us-me, the guard, and the driver- shouted as the bus tipped over.

I was flung, tumbling through the air, my shackles rattling. I smacked down hard against the edge of the seat across from me and fell hard and painfully against the metal grate of the far window.

Every light went out. I heard glass shattering, a crunch of metal. Beneath the grinding roar of the attacking engine there came another sound: a series of short, sharp pops. The next moment, I smelled something sour and awful filling the bus.

I heard the guard shout, “Tear gas!”

It filled the air in seconds, thick and smothering. I gasped for breath, trying to bring my chained hands up to cover my mouth, unable to reach it. I shut my eyes, but it was too late. My eyes burned as if they were in flames. Tears poured down my cheeks. I felt myself fading into unconsciousness as the gas grew thicker.

Then hands were clutching at me, clutching my arms. There were deep, harsh shouts all around me. A confusion of voices. I was hauled upright.

The next thing I knew there was air-cold, refreshing night air-flowing over me. I was moving through the downpour-half stumbling in the small steps that were all the shackles would allow-half dragged by the unseen people on either side of me clutching my arms…

Then the scene was over, gone. It blew away like smoke. These memory attacks were like that. They were like dreams where time and place changed without warning.

I was in a car now. The shackles were gone. My hands and feet were free, but I could still feel the pressure of the fetters on my wrists as if they’d only just now been broken off me. There were people near me, bodies pressed close on either side. They smelled wet, sweaty, bad, and I smelled bad too. It was uncomfortably steamy and warm in the car and I could sense it was uncomfortably cold and damp outside.

“We’re here,” said a gruff voice.

The car had stopped. From the backseat, I leaned forward to peer out through the windshield. Lightning struck and in the flash, I saw a house, a mansion, standing on a little hill. It was a weird, spooky-looking place, an unforgettably bizarre building. It had a tall central tower in the middle with a lower tower on one side and an entryway beneath a pitched roof on the other. It had all kinds of frills and decorations, each a different shade of gray.

I didn’t know how far we’d come from the bus. I sensed it was a long way. I didn’t know what state I was in anymore. I didn’t know where Waterman and Rose were or any of the other people who had come up with this insane idea to recruit a high school student to infiltrate a terrorist cell. Did they know where I was? Were they even aware that any of this was happening?

In another flash of lightning, the crazy-looking house appeared again and sank again into darkness. I sensed that this was the crucial place, the crucial moment of the operation. This was the Homelanders’ headquarters.

I would be welcomed here-or killed-one or the other.

It was suddenly day, just like that.

My orange prison jumpsuit was gone and I was dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt. I was standing in a bedroom. The room looked like it had been decorated by some eccentric millionaire, with decorations so fancy they were almost comical. There were heavy purple drapes with gold fringes hanging in elaborate folds around the windows. There was a domed clock ticking away on a mantelpiece that was crowded with other, smaller clocks, all of them ticking away. A fire was burning in a fireplace so large it could’ve housed a family of four. There were elegant antique wooden chairs and tables crowding the floor. And the bed-the bed was an enormous four-poster and was hung with drapes as thick and colorful as the ones on the windows.