She wasn’t sure how long she lay awake listening to it, but sometime during the night it abruptly ceased, and Alex knew that in the morning she’d find herself alone in the house.
• • •
Alex stepped out into bright morning sunshine. She didn’t have her backpack. No reason to go to school if no one else was there. Before leaving the house, she’d worked up the courage to check on Renee. She hadn’t been surprised to find her bed empty.
The weather was exactly the same as in her dreams, and she wondered if she’d somehow found a way to cross from one world to another, from reality to nightmare. Or maybe there never had been a difference between the two, and only now she was aware of it. And of course, there was always the chance she was insane, that she was only imagining all this. That seemed a surer bet than the entire world changing around her. But whatever was happening, she knew she wouldn’t find any answers staying inside.
She walked out into the street, picked a direction at random, and kept going.
She had no idea if she’d managed to get any sleep last night. If she had dozed off, she hadn’t stayed asleep long enough to dream. That was one thing to be thankful for, she supposed. As in her dreams, the world was silent. It was weird, but she had dreamed of being here so many times that, in a way, it almost felt comfortable.
She’d had a lot of time to think last night, and she’d decided to do what Ms. DiPietro had talked about. She had to come to terms with her fear. Understand it. Embrace it. So, instead of running from the Whisper-Whisper Men, today she intended to seek them out. She was scared at the prospect, downright terrified, in fact. But she could think of no other way out of the living nightmare she’d found herself trapped in. So, as she walked, she listened closely for soft whispers, kept a sharp eye out for quick, shadowy movements. But she heard and saw nothing. Had the shadow-things abandoned her too? Yesterday, she would’ve felt relieved to find herself free of them. But today? Without them she was truly, utterly alone.
Tears came then. Tears of anger and frustration. And despite her earlier determination not to run, she found herself walking faster, then jogging, then finally running all out. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought that maybe if she re-created the circumstances of her dream, the Whisper-Whisper Men would come. Maybe they were like cats, attracted to an object if it moved like prey. But still she detected no movement, heard not a single whisper.
She released a loud cry of anguish, slowed, stumbled, and went down on her hands and knees. She remained that way for several moments, gulping air in between sobs, but eventually she looked up and realized where she was. She’d stopped directly in front of the house she always ran to for help when the Whisper-Whisper Men began to approach her. There was still no sign of the shadow-things, but Alex rose to her feet and started toward the house anyway. This time when she reached the front door, she didn’t bother knocking. Instead, she tried the knob and found it unlocked. She took a deep breath, then opened the door and stepped inside.
It was dark, and when she closed the door behind her, it became pitch-black, like the inside of a deep subterranean cave, a place where light could never reach. It had been warm outside, but in here it was cold, so much so that she immediately began to shiver. She stood there, shaking, heart pounding in her ears, trying to decide what she should do next.
“Hello? Is anyone here?”
At first there was only silence, and then she heard it: the whispering. Dozens of voices surrounded her, all speaking at once. And this time she thought she could make out what they were saying. Part of it, at least.
Alone . . . alone . . . alone . . . alone . . .
Is that what the Whisper-Whisper Men were? Her greatest fear brought to shadowy life? But then the whispers became louder, more distinct, and she realized they were actually saying two words.
She’s alone, she’s alone, she’s alone. . . .
The words struck Alex like a punch to the stomach. She knew what they meant, and she understood that her greatest fear wasn’t for herself, but for someone else. Someone very important to her.
I’m afraid of being alone. Like Mom.
You need to get to the root of a fear, the place where it all started.
In the darkness she spread her arms wide, and the Whisper-Whisper Men glided forward to embrace her.
• • •
Alex’s vision cleared, and she found herself looking at a rain streaked windshield, wipers swishing rapidly back and forth, making a sound like whispering. It was night, and the headlights from oncoming traffic were bright distortions viewed through running, rippling water. Their light threw shadows onto the side of the road that looked remarkably human shaped. The car was moving, not all that fast from what Alex could tell, but there was a strong wind outside, and it pushed against the car, making it hydroplane from time to time.
Alex turned to look at the driver. The woman behind the wheel appeared to be in her thirties, and she had curly brown hair, just like Alex’s. She wore a dark jacket—Alex couldn’t make out the color—and she gripped the steering wheel tight, hunched forward as if it would help her see better.
“Mom! It’s me! Alex!”
Her mother frowned, but she didn’t turn to look at Alex.
She can’t see or hear me, Alex thought. No, that wasn’t entirely true. She’d frowned when Alex had spoken. She reached out and tentatively touched her mother’s elbow. Her mother reacted with a start, causing the car to swerve. She got control of the vehicle, and then turned to look at the passenger seat. She squinted, as if trying very hard to make out something that she couldn’t quite see. After a moment she shook her head and faced forward once more.
So Alex was here. Kind of.
She next tried to touch the steering wheel. If she could grab hold of it just before the accident, maybe . . . But her hand passed through it as if it weren’t there. She tried to grab her mother’s arm, and the same thing happened. Gentle touches she could manage, but that was it. There was nothing she could do to change things. Her mother was still going to die. But then Alex realized there was one thing she could do.
She scooted close to her mother and gently laid a hand atop one of hers. Her mother stiffened for a moment, and then relaxed, a small smile on her face.
“I have no idea how I got here. But I am here, Mom. You’re not alone. Neither of us is.”
Alex increased the pressure on her mother’s hand, smiled, and waited for what was to come next.
Tim Waggoner has published over thirty novels and three short story collections of dark fiction. He teaches creative writing at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio, and in Seton Hill University’s MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.
Website: timwaggoner.com
Twitter: @timwaggoner
Facebook: facebook.com/tim.waggoner.9
* * *
Non-player Character
NEAL & BRENDAN SHUSTERMAN
* * *
It was not an alarm, but the incessant beeping of a microwave that woke Darren up. He could sleep through the sounds of battle and the wails of the dying—but a relentless microwave was hard to ignore. It was still dark outside, and the faint smell of burned food filled the entire apartment. He looked around. His mattress, which sat like a beached whale in the center of the kitchen, had a green energy drink spill near his feet that looked like toxic sludge, and beside it the refrigerator door was ajar. From the other room came the sound of swarming zombies and the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire.
“GET THE KIDS! SOMEBODY SAVE THE KIDS!” shouted a voice he didn’t recognize.
He crawled up on his spindly legs, raising himself to his feet. There was no kitchen table, or at least, not anymore; what was left of it sat in a broken heap of tangled wood in a corner, a bed sheet draped over it as if it were a corpse. He carefully stepped across the floor, trying to avoid bugs of various species traveling from one Doritos bag shelter to the next. He kicked aside a half-eaten bowl of mac and
cheese that had more larvae than mac or cheese, and made his way to the beeping microwave, which was smoking. Inside, Darren found an inedible mélange of blackened foodstuff. The kind that comes frozen—the kind any idiot can cook. His mother or his father must have set it for fifty minutes instead of five and had promptly forgotten about it. Eating, after all, was only secondary to them now. He pulled the corpse of the TV dinner from the microwave and threw it into the overflowing trash. What time was it? It was dark, and the clock on the microwave was no help; it blinked a perpetual midnight. In this house it was always the witching hour.
From the other room came more gunfire.
“OH GOD! SOMEONE HELP! THEY’RE EVERYWHERE!”
“TAKE COVER!”
He found his parents in their usual spots in the living room. The springs in the sofa had long since given up their battle against gravity, and the two of them sank into the cushions as if rooted there. His father held a weapon that wasn’t there. His mother moved her arms as if directing airplanes on a runway. Both wore immersive headsets that put them into the world of the game, but it also played on a huge TV screen above the web filled fireplace and on smaller screens in every other room, so they wouldn’t miss a thing, even when they took bathroom breaks.
Ever since Mantra of Madness was launched six months ago, it had consumed his parents like a stomach slowly digesting a heavy meal. The game’s previous expansion packs had cost them their jobs, their friends, their bank accounts. This one had consumed what was left of their lives. The apartment was different before Mantra. Things were functional. Darren had a bedroom. But that bedroom had quickly become a storage space for all the stuff his parents didn’t need anymore—which was everything. His parents had talked to him before. But now snarls and gunfire had replaced their conversations. Anything that didn’t involve blowing away satanic alien zombies wasn’t worthy of their attention. They treated Darren like an NPC in the real world. A non-player character. Computer generated, and soulless.
“Mom? Dad?” The first intrusion. He knew they wouldn’t respond until the third or fourth.
“Mom? Dad? Can you hear me?” They shifted their shoulders uncomfortably, aware they were being summoned from somewhere outside of their current reality—but it probably only registered subconsciously.
“You burned your food, and you have to eat!”
“Did you wake him up?” his father said to his mother.
“No, another NPC must have woken the sleeper,” his mother said. “Damn computer.”
“That’s why I hate this level. Too many civilians to protect,” said his father.
Darren tried again. “Did you hear me? Your food is burned.”
“There’ll be rations at the next checkpoint,” his father said.
And so Darren gave up. Only once their mission was complete, and they realized that virtual food could satisfy only virtual hunger, would they leave the game long enough to gorge themselves. Right now they would eat only if he cooked it and put it in front of them. And as much as he hated doing that, he knew he would, because the only thing worse than watching them play was watching them starve.
He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry, he wished he could just bawl his eyes out at what his life had become, but the tears just wouldn’t come. How had their lives come to this? The change had been gradual and insidious, like the weeds that had strangled their yard. Suddenly, this was the new normal, and there was never a moment to cry. He figured someday he would, and it would feel good. It would make him feel better. He would cry himself to sleep and have dreams without the sounds of an apocalyptic war.
Darren shuffled back into the kitchen. He looked at the wall clock, which had fallen from the wall and was now a baseboard clock. Its plastic face was cracked, and the hour hand was stuck at five o’clock, although the minute hand still ticked around the dial, as if in denial that anything was wrong. It wasn’t only the digital clocks in his home that had lost their sanity. He considered putting the broken clock back up on the wall, but then considered the rest of the mess and realized that any cleaning he could do would just be large quantities of zero. Best not to demoralize himself by trying. So, ignoring the squalor, he found a pan that was only slightly crusty, scraped it off, and cooked some larvae-free mac and cheese for his parents.
Back in the living room he gave them each the first forkful. Only after tasting it did they respond by taking the bowls from him. Then they would eat it in between the major action.
Before becoming entirely immersed in Mantra, his parents had gotten him his own headset. For his birthday. That’s what they called it—a birthday present, even though his birthday had been two months prior. He had opened the box. He had looked at it. He had thanked them.
“Now you can play with your friends,” his father had said—as if the only way to play with one’s friends was in a virtual RPG.
They had seemed satisfied. But he had never put the headset on. Seeing a window into that world on the TV was more than enough. Why would anyone want to be immersed in a satanic alien zombie apocalypse?
“Aw crap! Holloway is down!” his father shouted, nearly dumping his bowl.
On the screen one of their teammates had been taken out by something unthinkably evil. Darren had no idea who Holloway was in real life—this online game was global. The players could be from down the street or halfway around the world.
“Damn good player,” his mother lamented. “Gonna miss him.”
“Maybe he’ll find us in his next iteration.”
Then on the TV, red eyed rats flooded from a sewer and chowed down on Holloway like piranha until there was nothing left of him but bones, armor, and weapons.
“Waste not, want not,” his father said, and their characters scavenged Holloway’s belongings. Such was the way of the game.
Darren was about to leave and fix his own dinner when he chanced to spot something in the corner of the screen. A girl. Pale blue shimmering hair. Almost silver. She was looking out of a broken window of what should have been an abandoned suburban home. The weird thing about it was that Darren could almost swear she was looking at him.
• • •
Darren went to school the next morning. Darren came home from school the next afternoon. Darren avoided his friends, because what would be the point? It would be too awkward. He had to take care of his parents. Keep them from starving, or setting the house on fire, or leaving the water on, flooding the house out. You can’t have friends with those kinds of things on your mind.
“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad,” he said each time he returned home. It was more like a joke than an actual greeting, because they never responded unless they were on their way back from a bathroom run or had taken off their headsets for some other reason. Then they would look at him with bloodshot eyes and slur something like “OhHeyHowuzSchool.”
“Good” was always his response.
On the TV was a long city avenue of high-rise apartment buildings. A different landscape from yesterday. Some skyscrapers had toppled, others were leaning into one another. His parents had split off from their team, or the rest of the team had died. They now walked down the street precariously, because death and dismemberment could be around any corner.
And from distant places, civilians wailed for help, or just wailed.
“OH GOD, LET IT END!”
“PLEASE! PLEASE DON’T EAT MY BABY!”
All part of the ambience.
But then, as Darren watched the scene, he saw her again. The silver girl. How could she be in two different landscapes? This time she was peering out from behind a pillar. And she was beckoning to him. She wore a glistening gown that was tattered and shredded like everything else in that world.
“Mom, Dad—do you see that?”
“Keep your wits about you,” his father said to his mother. “We could be walking into an S.A.Z. ambush.”
“The girl—do you see her? There on the left with the silver-bluish hair.”
“Huh? What? Just an NPC. Stop d
istracting me.”
But still she beckoned. So Darren did something he had never dared to do before. He put on his headset and turned it on.
The effect was instantaneous. The retinal projector erased all visual cues from the outside world. He was immersed in the dark, fiery, terrifying world of Mantra of Madness. He felt dizzy and nauseated. He wanted out—but he fought the feeling. When he turned, he saw his parents. He had seen their avatars before, but had never really paid attention. Now, in three dimensions, they were impressive. They looked like his parents, and yet not. His mother had larger breasts, a slimmer waist, and her hair, which had gotten tatty and mousy, now bounced like a model’s. His father looked like a steroid injected bodybuilder version of himself.
“Well, look who finally decided to join the party!” his father said proudly. “About time you checked out the character we made for you! I’ve been leveling him up for when you were finally ready to play.”
“Stay behind us,” his mother told him. “This place can be dangerous. We’ll protect you.”
It was the first time they had actually noticed him for weeks.
He looked around. The girl was still there. She had moved to a different pillar farther away, but she was still beckoning to him.
Darren willed himself forward. The game obeyed his mental commands.
“No!” his father shouted behind him. “Don’t go after that! You can’t get points for killing that!”
But Darren ignored him.
“If we have to come rescue you, I’ll be really pissed off!” his mother said.
He rounded the corner to see the torn fringes of her gown slipping into a dark doorway. He followed. The doorway opened on a set of emergency stairs that led up and up and up, until finally he emerged on the top floor of a skyscraper. The view was startling. All around him a city was on fire. Non-player characters were hurling themselves from rooftops to keep from being torn apart by satanic alien zombies.