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Chapter 16: Parallel
🕑 Added 2022-12-17 04:28:24 +0000 UTC“Ah! Damn it!” Dan jumped from his warm sheets, rushing into the bathroom all while trying not to drip blood on his carpet while ignoring his phone.
It took a few minutes and a plenty of toilet paper, but his nose eventually stopped bleeding. As he slung back a few antihistamines, he idly thought about the change of season and allergies. If the sinus headache he had currently was any omen for what kind of winter he was going to have, it was going to be a long holiday.
Dan smiled to himself as he bundled himself back up. He had a few more hours until his alarm, sleeping off the remainder of his headache was a given at this point. As he drifted back to sleep, the thought of hot coffee in the morning was a godsend. It was the bliss of the situation-
His phone rang again.
Dan cursed before answering it, no caller id. “Hello!? Hello?”
Wake up.
Again, nothing but static. His nose started bleeding, this time green ooze akin to mucus poured along with the blood.
“What the hell,” Dan said as a statement rather than a question.
As he ran into the bathroom, his phone went off again. This time he didn’t answer it, instead finding his back sore and arm and leg stiff. He groaned, stuffing toilet paper up his nose and rubbing his forearm.
What is happening, he thought hearing his phone vibrate again.
Luckily, that was the last time someone attempted to call, and Dan was easily able to get back to sleep after turning off his alarm. No way was he going to wake on time after all of that, the spike of pain in his back a clear indication something was wrong.
A few hours later, Dan was awake and sipping coffee like an elderly person. Every movement hurt, even something as simple as leaning forward to take a sip. He checked the time, noting it had been twenty minutes since he took ibuprofen. The painkiller wasn’t helping.
A haphazard shower later, Dan was in his driveway starting his car. A few minutes after that, he was on route to an emergency room. He tried not to focus on the pain, listening to the radio go on about an unusual earthquake. The radio host kept making jabs at the confused scientists, often playing a soundbite of an airhorn after a particularly hot “burn.”
“I see on your chat you told the nurse that you’ve never broken your back… is there something you would like to tell me, Mr. Walton? Perhaps you are afraid of informing your work?” the doctor asked, sliding an x-ray into the light screen.
Dan eyed the picture of his spine, not knowing what he was really looking at. “What do you mean? I think I would know if I broke my back previously.”
The doctor crossed his arms and tapped his fingers rhythmically along his left elbow. “I would understand, especially as you said you work a physically demanding job. Can’t be easy on the rig. Maybe you hurt yourself there? When was the last time you were there? Earlier today?”
“No, six days ago. What are you trying to say? Is my spine broken?”
They locked eyes for a long minute, the doctor trying to get a read on the young man. “Yes. In fact, it is nearly healed. See here? It's already fused.” He pointed to a particular spot on the x-ray. “Snapped in half, like you were hit by a car or something… a year ago.”
Dan stammered, “What?”
“What indeed. Is there something you would like to tell me? Just know there are laws set in place about confidentiality and-“
“What about my arm and leg?”
The doctor removed two more x-rays, slotting them into place next to Dan’s spine. “Same story for both appendages, although they look fresher.”
“Fresher?”
“Like they were broken five months ago, rather than a year.”
Dan frowned, his eyes locked on the photos of his bones. “I don’t understand. What are you trying to tell me?”
“Were you in an accident about a year ago? Maybe you hit your head? Does that ring any bells?”
“No.”
“What about, say, you were horsing around drunk with a buddy of yours. Things got a little heated, and you were thrown through a coffee table?” The doctor maintained a concerned face through his statement. “Maybe you were trying to cover for him so he wouldn’t get in trouble?”
Dan shook his head, a gesture that sent waves of pain through his back. “No. I was perfectly healthy until last night. I got a phone call, then my nose started bleeding thick mucus, then my back felt like… like…”
“Like you were hit by a car?” the doctor supplied.
Dan stuttered for a moment, a memory on the tip of his tongue. “Like… I was thrown through stalagmites and into a cave wall…?”
Wake up.
“That is, uh, very specific,” the doctor said. “Is that what happened, Mr. Walton?”
Dan looked at the man. “Uh, no?”
“Is that a question?”
“No…”
“Well, regardless of how it happened. I can prescribe you some painkillers. From there you are going to have to see a specialist, but since it's nearly healed, I suspect whatever you’ve been doing is good enough for rehab.”
“But it’s not. I’m not,” Dan was at a loss for words, the situation too bizarre.
“It’s out of my hands. I don’t need to know the reason why. Not with everything going on at the hospital lately. Do you need a work note?” the doctor’s face hinted at a smile.
“Work note? Uh, yeah, I guess.” Dan swallowed. “What’s happening here?”
“The earthquake. Lots of damage near the water, or so I’m told. Military is apparently coming in to help. That reminds me, actually. We were told to expect a large influx of hurt rig workers. Something about an evacuation. But that was hours ago, and we’ve heard nothing. We even called in a few extra surgeons expecting a lot of patients. Have you heard anything?”
Dan recollected the best he could. “I’ve heard nothing at all… Unless those phone calls this morning were from my… my… Excuse me a moment.”
Dan squeezed his phone from his jeans, flipping through the call log. The number listed from earlier was a string of mismatched characters and numbers. He pressed redial and instantly an outward call error told him the number he was trying to dial was out of service or turned off. Dan grunted, calling his manager and getting the same error.
A few calls to a few others left him speechless. Finally he called a coworker, who didn’t answer, then his wife, who did.
“Sherry! Have you heard from Theo?” Dan asked, his voice rushed.
“You have some nerve to call, Dan!” Sherry yelled through the speaker. “You slept through an emergency call, and Theo had to head in instead of you. I hope you get written up.” She hung up.
Dan blinked a few times, looking back to the doctor who heard the call. “I guess those calls from this morning were from work…”
The doctor slowly shook his head. “Look, I’m not going to tell your employer about our conversations, but you need to get your story straight. Missing an emergency call because you broke your back, and tried to hide it, is not a good look.”
Dan didn’t respond to the doctor and was quickly swept out of the room for other patients. He waited by the pill counter for his prescription of oxycodone to be filled. Honestly, he thought about popping one right away, but chose to wait until he was home.
Back in his car sitting in the parking lot, he listened to the radio a bit more intently while scrolling for more info about the rig on his phone. He found literally nothing. The radio host didn’t speak once of the rig, nor were there any updates online.
Dan had lived through a few emergencies on the rig, hurricanes, wounded men, lobbyist, all of which received extensive enough news coverage. Instead, in a situation that alerted the hospitals of potential bodies, there was nothing but conspiracy theories about the quake.
He eyed the white paper bag holding his pills and thought about the warm blankets of his bed.
“Ahh, damn it!” Dan grunted, driving out towards the rig’s land offices. As he did so, he called Sherry again.
“Sherry! Don’t hang up- w- what’s wrong? Sherry? What’s wrong?”
A hysterical middle aged woman cursed out Dan in between heavy tears. She called him every name in the book and where she hoped he’d go when he died. Before she hung up, she yelled, “They don’t even have a body!”
Wake up.
That kicked Dan into high gear, likewise his car. He sped down the freeway only to be slowed to a near stop half a mile down the road. A triplet of police cruisers were out in force, blocking all but the two far left lanes from progressing. Suddenly, a high pitched fog horn broke the stationary traffic.
A convoy of military vehicles sped by in the open lanes. Tactical full unit trucks, Humvees with mounted machine guns, and a truck van hybrid that looked like it could go camping in a mountain desert rushed by.
Dan’s phone rang, this time labeling the caller as “Unknown.” He answered instantly. “Hello?”
“Dan Walton?”
“Yes?”
“This is Corporal Preston with the Coast Guard working in tandem with the National Guard. You are a senior electrician working for Offshore Electrics and currently stationed on the Hybrine Drilling oil rig, is that right?”
Dan’s heart sank. “Y-yes that’s right.”
“We need you to talk our men through the electronic blueprints on the rig. Can you come to your land office? We have taken it over as a temporary headquarters.”
“I’m already heading there now, but why do you need my help? Do you not have engineers that can read that stuff better than me?”
“Hold,” the voice cut off for several minutes as Dan continued through traffic. “We require visual confirmation.”
“Visual what?”
“We need you to confirm whether or not our men are pushing the right buttons to get the rig’s lights working.”
Dan nearly slammed his brakes. “You want me to go to the rig?”
“No,” the voice said. “Remote, through point of view from our go team.”
“Look, I’m just getting off the freeway, but why am I needed? Shouldn’t engineers be going in after confirming the emergency is safe enough to proceed? There’s standardized practices for this kind of thing.”
The voice went silent for a moment. “The rig itself is not the problem. You will see after you arrive and sign an NDA.”
Dan scoffed, causing his back to throb. “An NDA? Really?”
“Yes sir. We await your arrival.” The line went dead.
Dan’s mind instantly went over the list of possibilities, especially ones surrounding an earthquake. An unusual earthquake, one that already had the reporters up in arms. Terrorist attack? A nuclear detonation? Maybe even aliens. Then there was the call with Sherry? Was Theo dead? What did she mean there was no body?
He stopped when he felt blood leak from his nose.
Dan cursed pulling into the office parking lot, It had to bleed right as I arrived?
Staving off potential embarrassment, he quickly cleaned himself off and took a painkiller, pocketing a handful as well. It was going to be a long day, he could feel it. Before he could get more than a dozen paces from his car, a man in full military garb intercepted him.
“Dan Walton?” he asked.
“Yes, where do you need me?”
The man signaled to follow and passed over a clipboard. “This is a standard military NDA, you have seven minutes to read it before we declare you as noncooperative and look for someone else to assist us.”
Dan slowly took the papers, looking at the man like he had just spoken French. His nose took this moment to burst, again.
“Ah!” he shouted, getting blood all over the papers. It took a few minutes for him to get clean tissues rolled up and into his nose. “Does the blood count as a signature?”
The joke fell short, the man looking unimpressed. “Four minutes.”
There were only three pages, two of which explained the punishment Dan would receive if he broke the contract. Everything else seemed reasonable, almost aggressively so.
“This seems too simple to be an NDA,” Dan said.
“Yes, time is of the essence.”
Dan signed the pages, and the man showed him into the temporary headquarters. The room had been redone. Tables and shelves were moved out of the way for computers and monitors. Personnel filtered through news stories and social media, flagging items or scrubbing reels. Blueprints were strung up on the walls, infrastructure and electrical both through different elevations, views, and planes.
“Right this way,” The man said, pushing Dan before he could fully grasp his bearings
Inside one of the side offices, a dark viewing room had been set up. A quick round of introductions placed Dan with the military’s highest field personnel. They were quick to point, ushering him to a set of monitors with POV camera feeds of six men in a hovering helicopter.
“They already have their orders from our people. All you need to do is confirm they did everything correctly,” a Chief Warrant Officer explained.
“A-and what are their orders?” Dan asked, the situation finally making a mark in his mind.
“Restore power to the whole rig, primary and main.”
“The emergency power is out? Okay, that may require tools and/or a laptop if parts are fried or unresponsive.”
Someone from the side answered. “They have everything. Let’s get this going.”
The man who interrupted was obviously irritated. He was military, his shirt tight, camouflage pants, and high top heavy boots confirmed as much.
Dan, however, felt a familiarness about the man. Was it the man’s gauze-wrapped arms? Did he see him at the hospital? Was it his wet hair that smelled salty like the ocean? Was it the… the…
“Mr. Walton?” the Warrant Officer snapped. “Are you alright?”
Dan swallowed. “Yes, sorry.”
Nods echoed through the room, and someone gave the men in the helicopter a go ahead. Dan held his breath as the six men grappled down to the rig, guns out and scanning for threats. They moved off the helipad, past open fires and damaged railings.
“W-what happened there?” Dan whispered. No one answered him.
The team progressed mainly outside, sticking to the edges of the rig’s steel maze of staircases and walkways. They passed by a released lifeboat housing, the orange vessel nowhere to be seen in the water below. As they entered the room adjacent to the primary electrical controls, the leader of the team held up an arm, stopping his men dead.
“One target. Morphed, no discernible wounds. Hybrid, it looks like.” Came through from one of the monitors.
“Cleared for elimination. Low caliber. Don’t ruin any of the electronics behind it,” the Warrant Officer replied.
The team leader didn’t respond, instead he pulled out his side piece along with one of his men. They peaked around the corner, lined up the shot, and counted down.
Dan hardly reacted to the two shots ringing out through the speakers. Instead he focused intently on the thing they shot. It was bipedal, caked in tar, and bloated like a patch of mold. Blood spilled from his head and hands, drenching the floor in disgusting red excrement.
It dropped after six more rounds.
“Stay away from the windows. It was turned from line of sight with another,” the leader declared to his men.
The team pushed through, entering the control room. They followed a list of operations, each time pausing for Dan to confirm. He hardly watched, however, his mind reeling in shock.
He… he… knew the dead thing from somewhere. It was familiar, just like the man with wet hair beside him. A crack splintered through his mind, a dull pain forming. He was used to the pain, however, not finding much issue with the churning inside his skull. He did, however, want to scream for some reason.
He wanted to scream and shout, hide in the closet, and forget this day. He wanted to remember George. He wanted to go back to bed, nurse his broken back and sore arm and leg. He wanted to call Sherry, talk to her, figure out what happened to Theo. He wanted to… to…
Who is George?
Wake up.
The words boomed in Dan’s head, ending all previous thought and pushing him to a frozen husk of living organs. Drool fell from his mouth as blood came to his mind. Blood, infection, beasts, claws, Lambert. Lambert. Lambert. Lifeboats, why did lifeboats smell so horrid. What was a siren? Why did the image of three stars in a dark sky keep coming to him?
“Bob,” Dan shouted, blood draining from his nose like a gutter during a rainstorm.
He turned to the military man with wet hair and wounds across his arms. He smelled like the ocean, he smelled like, like, like, like, iron. He was blood, he was a survivor.
“Where is Lambert?” Dan asked the man.
The man cursed, flipping the table he leaned on. Retreating behind it, he pulled a gun on Dan, sending the whole room into panic.
“He’s infected,” the man spat. “One of them made it to the mainland.”
Bob, Bob, Bob, Dan’s mind repeated.
A memory came to him. It was of a man, a government worker without any equipment. Dan remembered showing a small locker full of gear. Gloves, knee pads, anything the man might have needed for working on a rig as a temporary visitor. The man’s name was George and he was dead.
A hand holding a tissue box reached out. Someone was trying to pass Dan something for his bleeding nose. The military man, Bob, with the wet hair yelled at the room to get back, switching the safety off his pistol.
Wet. Wet. Wet. Wet. Wet. Why wet hair? Why salt- ah.
“You made it to the lifeboat,” Dan said to Bob, stepping closer. “You made it out, while I had to endure… endure… endure what? What did I have to endure?”
Bob fired, the room went cold.
Wake up.
Oh that’s right, Dan thought. I endured hell.
The bullet caught against a pane of golden light inches from Dan’s chest. A second one impacted a moment later, then a third, and a fourth.
“ETHEREAL ROUNDS!” Bob yelled at the door, hoping some outside the viewing room would hear.
“Why am I here?” Dan asked, watching the crumbled bullets fall to the carpeted ground below.
His mouth tasted of blood, his nose finding more places to drain than just his nostrils. He blinked, his vision turning slightly red. His ears muffled, like water in the canals while swimming. Warmth streamed down his face and neck, but Dan didn’t care. He was focused on more important things.
“What happened to Sully? The high priest?”
Wake up.
It was then Dan realized he wasn’t speaking English. He was speaking some alien language, one he knew rather well. How did he know it? Three voices came back to him, one shouting, one whispering, the last singing. He clutched his head in pain, the voices were too much.
Wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up.
Someone kicked open the door, taking aim at Dan. He didn’t care, he was remembering. He, he, he-
Reality shifted, everything came back. He wasn’t meant to be here. He was meant to be in the caves.
Dan didn’t put up any defenses to guard himself from the ethereal bullet. He let it hit him, splattering his blood across those unlucky to be nearby. As he crashed to the floor, his vision going dark, he smiled.
Then, he woke up.
