The Surge

  It was like he enjoyed the chase.

  Joanna was panting and running out of breath. Her legs were hurting and she was still in pain from her broken rib. And she was so tired. So incredibly tired. The sun was baking from above, but there was still this odd darkness everywhere. Like someone had pulled the curtains, leaving all the light outside. It was nothing like the swamp she knew from home. And it was so cold, it hurt her lungs when she breathed.

  The animals she encountered on her way looked nothing like the animals she knew. When she was in the mud, fighting off Tang's tongue from her ankle, she was pretty sure she had seen a gator high up in one of the palm trees, looking down at her, smiling from ear to ear, like it was enjoying watching her fight for her life. There were also the strange claws grabbing for her feet in the mud that she tried to avoid. She fought hard to try not to imagine what creature they might belong to.

  Once again, she felt something grab her leg and she fell face first into the mud with a loud scream. She looked back and saw Tang. He had his tongue wrapped around her thigh and was pulling her towards him. She tried to fight him off, slamming her fist into his tongue, but his grip was too tight and it was actually starting to hurt her leg now. She grunted and moaned as she fought for her life, but there wasn't much she could do, and soon she was lying on the ground in front of Tang, his eyes staring at her like he felt great pleasure in hurting her.

  His thick saliva was sticking to her hands and leg.

  "Let me go, you beast," she screamed while kicking her legs, but that only made him squeeze harder.

  "You're hurting me!"

  Tang stared at her while his head was moving in small sideways pigeon-like movements. Joanna growled as he let go of her leg and she could feel the real pain as the blood finally was able to rush through.

  The tongue was pulled back fast like a measuring tape into its box, then shot right back out at her and wrapped around her throat. Joanna barely managed to move as she once again found herself being strangled. The pain was unbearable as Tang was quickly tightening his grip like he wanted this done with fast, so he could move on. He was done playing with her.

  Joanna closed her eyes, gasping for air, gurgling. She pictured Ellie Mae, hoping and praying that Josh would take care of her, or maybe Wayne, now that Joanna would be gone.

  Don't let her forget her parents. Don't let her forget me.

  Joanna felt her heart literally stop and opened her eyes one last time, at least what she believed to be one last time, expecting to look into the Devil's own face, when suddenly, the grip around her throat was loosened, very fast. Joanna didn't feel that she fell to the ground or that she hit it. Instead, she drifted away in a dark sea of stars.

  Chapter Seventy

  Somewhere deep inside the swamps of Florida

  The big truck roared towards him. Josh couldn't believe what he was seeing, or rather what he wasn't seeing because the lights were so blinding. He had forgotten all about the gator until the second the truck slammed right into it and it flew back into the water with a loud SPLASH.

  The truck came to an immediate halt and someone rolled down the window. "I think we hit something," a voice said. "Carl, you gotta go check what it was."

  "I ain't going out there. Who knows what sort of animals are lurking out there at nighttime?"

  "Mom? Dad?"

  The voices went quiet. Then Josh's mother said. "Am I hearing things? Is that Josh?"

  She poked her head out, then squealed. "What in tarnation…"

  Josh could hear the door open and someone jump out. Seconds later, he felt her arms around him, almost squeezing all the air out of him.

  "What the…"

  It's a dream. It has to be. I finally manage to fall asleep and I dream about my parents?

  "Come back inside the truck, both of you," his dad yelled. "Ain't no place to be hanging around at this hour, I tell ya'."

  "But…Dad…Mom…?"

  "I am so happy to see you, Josh," his mother said. "I have been so worried about you and Irene and Marley. Say…what are you doing all the way out here anyway? Are you alone?"

  "No, Irene is in the cabin, but…how…?"

  Martha took in a deep breath. "It's a long story, son. It's a very long story. All the roads were blocked. We figured the only way back into town was through the swamps."

  "You mean you drove through the swamps? How's that even possible?"

  "Boy, am I glad to see you, let me look at you, are you doing all right?" Martha said.

  "I'm fine, Mom, considering the circum…"

  "You said Irene is in the cabin?"

  "Yes…she's sleeping, but…"

  As usual, his mother only listened to the first part of his sentences and soon she stormed towards the cabin. He really wanted to ask her what the heck they were doing out there and why they were not still in the Bahamas, where he thought they had been all this time, safe from the invasion.

  "Was that a gator I just saw?" his dad said, still from inside the truck.

  "Yes, Dad. You hit it with the truck. I hardly think it survived."

  "Don't you ever think a gator is dead till its been eaten," Carl answered, then finally decided it was safe enough to come out. He walked, limping, up to Josh and put a hand on his shoulder. "Good to see you, son."

  "Where is Marley? All I can see in there sleeping is Irene. Isn't Marley with you two?"

  Josh turned to look at his mother, who was standing in the opening of the cabin, a petrified look on her face.

  Josh sighed. "She's with the sheriff."

  "You left her with that wacko?" she asked, sounding even more anxious.

  Josh sighed. "He's not crazy, Mom. How many times do I have to tell you he's a good guy?"

  "He has a heart of gold, but that don't matter if you're mad as a bat," Martha said, then continued under her breath. "Talking about things in the future and getting calls predicting the future, phew. Now, I know he has suffered a great loss, but still, when he started talking about those things, we all knew he had lost it, didn't we Carl?"

  Carl nodded. "That's the word around town."

  "You knew?" Josh asked. "About the hole?"

  "Well, yes. The guy came to us one day, babbling something about cars and an accident and whatnot. I don't know what it was all about."

  "He believed we were going to crash in an accident the next day," Carl said.

  "Yeah, well whatever. It didn't happen, now did it?"

  "Because we decided to stay home," Carl said with a sniffle.

  "Doesn't mean a thing," Martha continued. "Even Lydia knew the guy was crazy. That's why she left, right Carl?"

  Josh took in a deep breath. He suddenly felt very tired. He rubbed his forehead.

  "Listen, Mom and Dad, it's great to see you, it really is, even though I don't quite understand where you came from, but I have to tell you that things have gotten a little out of hand here. I don't know if you know it, but this country has been invaded."

  "By the Chinese, yes, we know, son. The Bahamas too."

  Josh nodded, a little surprised. "Except I don't think they're really Chinese."

  "What do you mean, son?" Carl asked.

  "Do you remember Karma?"

  "Why, yes, that was the chameleon you had, the one you named after that silly song from the eighties that you liked so much even though 'em other kids teased you about it," his mother said. "What about it?"

  "Well, I know it might sound crazy, maybe even crazier than something Sheriff Wayne might tell ya', but bear with me here. I have my own theory about these so-called Chinese people."

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Ridge Manor, Above

  Major General Li Xiaoyan was sitting by Wayne's desk. She had brought about fifty of her people with her into Wayne's small office and it was getting hot and cramped in there. Why they insisted on having so many of them around all the time, Wayne didn't really understand. But, then again, maybe he did. He had come to realize these people's skills weren't
in having big bombs or artillery or even in shooting since they didn't seem to be very good at aiming or even handling their weapons properly. No, their strength lay in their multitudes. The fact that there were so many of them all the time made them superior.

  "When phone ring?" Major General Li Xiaoyan asked for the tenth time since they got there.

  She had been visibly upset with the fact that Joanna had jumped into the hole after Tang and, for a few minutes, she had made this shrill screaming sound that made no sense to Wayne, but apparently did to the soldiers, because they had answered in a crying tone similar to hers. But once it had stopped, the woman seemed to have decided that Joanna was now Tang's problem and he would stop her eventually. And once he did, he would go after Arlene. That was their plan, one Wayne naturally prayed wouldn't succeed.

  He clung to Joanna as his last hope and, as the time approached midnight, he was starting to fear that the phone would ring and that it would be Tang on the other end.

  "Usually it rings at a quarter past midnight," he said.

  "Good, good. We wait."

  Wayne's heart was pounding in his chest as they stood in silence and waited. He was sweating heavily and every now and then he had to wipe drops of sweat from his eyes as they rolled into them and stung.

  He wondered about the two girls. Joanna had told him they were hiding upstairs somewhere, but he didn't know where or if they were all right. There were so many soldiers everywhere, he bet they were upstairs too. Wayne had a tendency to get claustrophobic when in small tight places, like elevators (he would usually take the stairs if he could) or when he used to go shopping in Orlando with Lydia before she left him, and he couldn't see the exits for all the people surrounding him. It wasn't so much the small spaces as it was the crowd of people, the thought that he couldn't run away if he had to, that he'd have to elbow his way frantically through the mass of people.

  That was how he felt now, worse than ever. He had looked out the open entrance door as they had walked back from the yard and seen an ocean of faces covering the entire Ridge Manor Boulevard and the fields surrounding his place.

  That had been the scariest sight of his life (except for the time he hadn't been able to spot Arlene in the yard and had walked out there to see the massive hole for the first time).

  The clock on the wall moved slowly, but steadily towards a quarter past midnight and, as it did, Wayne's heart started to race in his chest.

  What if it rings and it is this Tang person? Will that mean he got Arlene? And what about Joanna?

  Wayne felt awful. Not just because he feared for Arlene and Joanna's lives, but also because he wasn't there. Joanna had been the one who had done what he had dreamt of for two years. Every freakin' day, he had stared down that black hole, wondering what would happen if he jumped in, feeling its strong pull. And, every day, he had been too afraid, too much of a coward to dive in. It tortured him that it seemed to be an easy decision for Joanna. She had simply just done it, no hesitation or anything. She had done what he should have done a very long time ago but never dared to.

  Major General Li Xiaoyan sat still, her eyes fixated on the old Stromberg-Carlson on the wall. It was strange to Wayne how she could sit still like that for so long without moving at all, without even blinking. And all the soldiers with her. Not a sound, not even a cough or a clearing of the throat, not even a drop of sweat on their foreheads, even though they were wearing uniforms.

  The old grandfather clock made a sound and Wayne looked up. Exactly a quarter past midnight now. His eyes fell on the old phone on the wall, while he could hear nothing but the sound of the blood rushing through his own veins.

  Please, don't ring. Please, don't ring.

  Barely had he finished the thought before it did.

  Part Five

  Karma Chameleon

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Ridge Manor, Beneath

  At first, it felt like she had died. Not and gone to heaven, because nothing about this place seemed anything like the heaven she had imagined. But she really thought she had died.

  "Where am I?" she asked.

  A small face appeared and she sat up and looked around. The place looked old, abandoned even. But it was big, like a big wooden house, a very dirty one. The floors were filled with dust and dried up mud.

  The place was depressing, the face wasn't. Joanna immediately recognized it from the pictures at Wayne's house.

  "Arlene?"

  The young girl smiled. "That's me."

  "How? How did you get me here?"

  "Well, I knew you were coming. I kind of saw it…you know…saw you jump. And I also knew that guy in the black jacket would jump in, so I set up a trap. He went straight in it, legs first and everything. And when he went up, he let go of your throat so I could take you away. Guess he is still dangling out there from the tree."

  Joanna blinked her eyes to make sure she was seeing correctly, that it wasn't some dream. Did you even dream if you were dead or dying? Who knew?

  It didn't matter. The girl was there, so was she. She blinked again.

  "You get used to the darkness," Arlene said. "It's like that all the time here. It's like the sun never really gets through. Like there is a fog or something. Anyway. Welcome to my place. This is where I stay."

  Joanna shook her head. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you, Arlene. Your dad is going to be so excited…"

  Joanna stopped herself when she realized she wasn't even certain how they would get out of there. If Arlene had been there for two years, she probably didn't know either. Arlene could see it in her eyes and handed her a cup.

  "Water?"

  "Yes, please," Joanna said and drank from the cup. The water tasted dirty but would have to do. She emptied it and asked for more.

  "So, where exactly are we?" she asked while Arlene filled her cup again.

  "I don't really know," Arlene said when she handed her the cup. "All I know is I fell into the hole in the backyard and ended up not far from where I found you. I thought I was still in Ridge Manor, in the swamps somehow, so I started to run. I found this house and have been hiding here ever since."

  "So, how do you get food and water?"

  "There is a spring right behind the house where I get the water, and the food, the others bring me."

  "The others?"

  Arlene nodded. "I call them the drifters. They come here now and then and sleep here, but then they leave. They're people like you and me, people who have been trapped here, sucked into holes just like you and me. Well, you jumped on your own, but most people don't do that. Most people get sucked in or fall in, like in sinkholes." Arlene laughed awkwardly, then continued. "We're all looking for a way out, but no one has found one yet. I'm the only child here, so they told me to stay put and they bring me food. They say it's way too dangerous for me to go outside except to get water. So, I don't. Well, not much at least. I mean, I do when it is necessary, like when I knew you were coming. Instead, I usually go to the attic and look out. It's a strange world out there. Nothing like what we have at home." She shook her head as she spoke. "Nothing at all."

  Arlene sniffled. Joanna noticed her clothes were too small for her, they were also ripped in places and very dirty. She guessed they were the same clothes she was wearing when she fell into the hole in the backyard two years ago. It was amazing to her how the little girl had managed to survive.

  "I have some bread," Arlene said and showed it to Joanna. "I bake it myself. Susan, one of the drifters, taught me how. You'll meet her later. She promised me she'd come tonight. I like it when she spends the night. She likes to talk, just like me. Most of the other drifters don't. They can be really boring."

  Joanna took the bread and ate greedily. She looked at Arlene as she ate, thinking of all the questions she wanted to ask the girl, but also knowing how important it was to take her time with an eight-year-old. To not overwhelm her. Ellie Mae was still a very young child.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

&nbs
p; Ridge Manor, Above

  "Martha? Carl?"

  Mayor Stephenson stared from one face to the other. Josh and Irene were there too. All four of them were standing by Mary's back door. Mary had been trying to sleep for hours, but not been able to. She hadn't stopped thinking about Wayne and Arlene and what was going on out there at the farm. That was when she heard the knock on the back door leading to her yard. It was raining outside, and all four of them were soaked. Mary looked around but saw no soldiers in her yard. There were tons of them in the streets still, but they didn't seem to be very interested in any of the townsfolk anymore. They all stood in a line in the streets, or in people's yards, and hadn't moved for hours. They stood like they were waiting for something, but there were so many of them they filled the entire town. And more had arrived. All day, she had heard the sound of them marching into town. Just as she thought there couldn't be more of them. They stood like fish in a barrel, so close together it seemed uncomfortable to Mary, in the longest lines she had ever seen, all the way through town and through the fields outside of town. As more and more had arrived, the townsfolk could no longer get around and now they were all stuck inside their houses. Luckily, there was a curfew, so everyone had gone home in time. They were no longer just being invaded, they were being overrun, and everything was being trampled down. It reminded Mary more of a biblical plague than a military coup. And the ground kept vibrating from their marching boots, telling Mary that more were still coming.