Remy stood beneath the overhang of the building and watched the snow drift and spiral down, almost hypnotized by the patterns he could see in all the whiteness. The park across the street was almost obscured in the shifting white curtain but the occasional sight of an ice-streaked tree still startled him with its darkness against the lack of colour. He blinked a few times and rubbed at his eyes, telling himself to get inside before the snow dazzled his eyes any further, and found that the flickering light remained even behind his closed lids.
He shook his head a few times, waiting for it to fade, then turned to go back into the building—City Hall, with its thick walls and its heavy, easily barricaded front doors. His feet slipped on nothing and he went down on his knees, feeling suddenly dizzy and queasy. He braced himself on the cool flagstones and took deep breaths, feeling his arms tremble just with the strain of keeping him from collapsing on his face. The skin of his bare hands looked pale and washed out even where it wasn’t stretched over his knuckles.
He tried to get up and fell again, landing on his side this time. Lights flashed in front of his eyes and he had time to wonder if he’d caught it, if he was finally going to become one of them, before all his muscles spasmed, arching him like a fish caught on a hook. He heard someone saying his name and felt hands trying to hold him still, then darkness swept him away.
It was still dark when he woke, a near-complete darkness that frightened him into thinking that he’d gone blind. Gradually the room began to come into focus and he realized he was lying bundled up in blankets on one of the mattresses in what had once been an office. The blinds had been dropped and the only light that leaked in was the silver gleam of the stars and moon. He lay for long minutes, breathing deeply and taking inventory of himself, then gingerly sat up. His body felt like he’d gone a few rounds with a professional boxer but his head felt much clearer and he didn’t feel dizzy when he carefully got to his feet.
The lights, powered by a generator in the basement, hurt when he opened the door and a jolt of fear spiked through his belly. Shading his eyes with one hand and using the other to touch the wall and guide him, he made his way down the hall to the office where his sister and her fiancé had set up their own mattress. Just outside the door he heard them talking and paused to listen, unconsciously breathing shallowly so they wouldn’t hear.
“He’s not... He’s just not, okay?” That was his sister’s voice, sharp and angry. Remy had to lean in to hear more than the bass grumble of her fiance’s voice, willing himself not to stumble and give himself away.
“He went out into the light and had a seizure, Emilie. Who knows what he’s going to do if and when he wakes up? Try and eat our brains?”
“Not yours,” Emilie said shortly, “you don’t have any.” Remy heard her get up and scrambled back, looking for a quick place to hide before she called out, “I know you’re listening out there, Rem.”
“Just walking past,” he said after a moment, poking his head around the door. “I’m starving though.” He raised an eyebrow at Emilie’s fiancé, Zaidin, and grinned at the sour look he got in return.
“Don’t push each other’s buttons.” Emilie got up from her seat on the mattress and came to look him over, catching his chin and studying his eyes. “You look... How are you feeling?”
“Kind of tired still,” he said honestly. “I was just going to the bathroom, maybe grab some food, and go back to bed. And no, I don’t feel like eating anyone’s brains, whether they exist or not.”
“We’ll see,” Zaidin muttered.
“No,” Emilie said in response to Remy opening his mouth. “You need to take a look at yourself in the mirror. I’ll make you some soup.”
“Okay.” Remy followed her out of the room, puzzled, and ducked into the bathroom. He leaned on the sink and counter, and stared at himself, eyes wide—eyes which had gone from their normal brown to a blue so pale it was almost white under the fluorescents. He reached up to touch the skin beneath one eye and jumped at a sudden static shock, absently shaking his fingers out.
Tearing himself away from the mirror, he went to empty his bladder and then left after one last glance at his changed eyes. Emilie gave him a slight smile as he met her in the employee break room and handed him a bowl full of hot tomato soup, ushering him to sit at the folding table shoved against one wall.
“What the hell happened to my eyes?” he asked between mouthfuls. “What the hell happened, period?”
“I went out to call you in for lunch and you were having some sort of seizure. Then you passed out until just now.” She laid a hand on his forehead. “No fever, good.”
“Uh-huh, and Zaidin immediately thought I’d gone all, ‘raar, argh, brains’.” Remy hooked his fingers into claws and stretched his arms out in front of him. “Yummy brains...”
“He’s stressed.”
“And he hates me.”
“And he hates you.” Emilie took one of the other chairs and stretched out her shoulders. “I don’t know why your eyes suddenly changed colour. You can still see all right?”
“I see fine. Maybe it’s like your hair going white when you’re scared. I scared all the pigment out of my eyes.” He grinned at her.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s how it works. I guess as long as you can still see, we’ll leave it.” She reached out to ruffle his hair, but jerked her hand back at another static shock. “Ow, Jesus, that actually hurt.”
“Sorry. I shocked myself earlier too. Hey, maybe I should—”
“No. He’ll punch you in the face.”
“Fine.” Remy picked the bowl up to tip the last of the soup into his mouth. “Back to bed.” He got up and leaned over to give Emilie a hug. “Sleep well.”
“You too.” She patted his hand. “Call me if you need anything.”
“Will do.” He gave her a salute and left the room, covering a broad yawn as he walked back towards the office he was using as his bedroom. It felt good to lie down again underneath his heavy blankets, and he was asleep almost as soon as he closed his eyes.
He dreamed of standing at the top of a great waterfall, watching the grey-green water rush down into the billowing mist at its foot. Whitecaps rose and fell through the river that fed the waterfall and the wind gusted hard enough to blow snow from the banks into his face. He looked down at his feet to see what he was standing on and saw that he was standing in the water itself, though he barely felt it around his legs. As though the thought had conjured it up, the rushing water suddenly struck him hard in the backs of his legs, knocking him off his feet.
He splashed into the cold water and felt it close over his head even as the current caught hold of him and spun him towards the waterfall like a bit of driftwood. He fought to swim against it but it twisted and spun him until he no longer knew which way was up. The cold sank into him and his lungs burned with the need for air, until the current flung him out into open air. He tried to scream as he fell but his mouth was still full of water and he only inhaled it, choking on it.
He jerked awake cold and shivering, wet clothes clinging to him. He scrambled out from under the blankets and shoved them down to the foot of the bed, pressing one hand to the mattress. It was as soaked as he was, water puddling in the depression his head had left in the pillow and stretching all the way down to the foot of the bed. More water ran down his spine, making him shiver violently, and dripped from the tips of his hair.
“One hell of a wet dream,” he said aloud, and had to clap a shaky hand over his mouth to stifle a burst of hysterical laughter. He stumbled to the wall and flicked on the light switch then hurriedly stripped out of his wet pyjamas, exchanging them for a dry pair from the cupboard in the corner of the room. Grimacing, he salvaged the top blankets, which had stayed dry, and took them into the employee break room to curl up on the couch.
Zaidin woke him again in the morning by punching him hard in the shoulder. Remy gave him a bleary look from his cocoon of blankets, trying to remember through his sleepy haze what he’d done recently to piss Zaidin off. “What?” he managed finally.
“What the hell did you do to your bed?” Zaidin snapped.
“Oh... that.” Remy sat up, wrapping the blankets around his shoulders. “I had a dream and then I woke up and everything was wet.” He took in the expression on Zaidin’s face. “With water, swear to God. Really cold water.”
“You know what?” Zaidin said after a moment. “I don’t care and I don’t want to know. Just get it cleaned up.”
“Yessir,” Remy said, sticking his tongue out at Zaidin’s broad back as he left the room. “You pompous ass.”
He got up and wandered back into the office, trailing his blankets behind him like a cape, and pulled some clothes on before spreading out the wet blankets and sheets to dry. He had just finished when the lights suddenly flickered and went off, dropping the room into a darkness broken only by the pale bands of sunlight creeping through the blinds. Remy made a face and made his way to the desk he’d pushed beneath the window, squinting to find the flashlight on it. The beam was dimmer than he liked but he still stuck it in the waistband of his jeans before leaving the room to go down to the basement.
It was cold and dark in the basement, and the flashlight did little to illuminate the various nooks and crannies between all the boxes of old files and piles of discarded furniture. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck standing on end as he approached the generator and paused a moment to smooth it down with one hand before trying to see what had put out the electricity.
A visible spark leaped from his fingers as he reached out to pull the generator away from the wall, bright blue in the dimness. Immediately the generator roared into life, running so hard and fast that Remy scrambled backwards, sure it was just about to explode. Instead the lights flickered and came back on, bright and steady. Remy looked up at them, his mouth hanging slightly open, then on a hunch checked the generator’s gas gauge.
It was pointing at empty.
No comments:
Post a Comment