Kyle woke up with a migraine the size of Kansas. For a moment, a tiny instant of hopeful uncertainty, he was prepared to believe that he had spent the night drinking, and that his recollection of the immediate past was just a bad alcohol-fueled fever-dream. However, then his headache’s solo act turned into a chorus of bruises, cuts and scrapes, over which hung the sharp soprano agony of his fractured arm, which felt like it was on fire. He yelled in pain. Someone yelled back.

 

“JESUS H. TAP-DANCING CHRIST!!”

 

Kyle swung at the source of the voice instinctively with the arm that hurt the least. He didn’t hit anything, but he was nonetheless rewarded with another string of swear-words, far longer and more vulgar than the last. He ignored it, blinking ferociously to clear his vision while sifting his immediate memory for a point of reference to try and make sense of his current situation. 

 

Spencer; he’d been fighting Spencer and the bastard had broken his arm. Then...nothing. No, wait; he’d been kicked. He recalled the metal surface of the door lurching back behind him as it parted company with the frame. He had followed it down, only for it to bounce back up as it connected with something else. There had been rattling and bouncing, then blackness. Shit, had he been knocked out?

 

“Jesus, fuck! You wanna warn me next time!?!” the voice said as it cut into his thoughts, having concluded it's blue-streak with a spiteful ‘Mother-fucker!’ Surprisingly, it was one he actually recognized.

 

“Mark!?” Kyle coughed, finding his throat dry, “Jesus, is that you?”

 

“Yeah, dumbass! Who do you think put your arm in a damn sling!?”

 

Kyle looked down, then realized he was not lying atop metal or a hospital bed, but rather propped up awkwardly against what felt like a low wall. More details sank in, and he realized there was a staircase to his left. Directly ahead of him, an empty sidewalk marked the border of a small street, across which an identical slice of pavement lay. Beyond that, he could see nothing, the ever-persistent fog smothering everything except for the glow of the lamp-posts. 

 

“Where are we?” he asked, looking over at his friend. Then he squinted, realized something was amiss and added: “And what happened to your shirt?”

 

“Oh for-, come on man! Don’t tell me you have a concussion too!” The Cloud star frowned as the pale glow of the streetlamps washed over his naked upper body, then reached towards Kyle with one hand, thumb outstretched. Kyle immediately swatted it down, regretting it even as he did so. More pain pulsed through his restrained arm, and he coughed, feeling like broken glass was shifting beneath the skin of his left shoulder.

 

“The fuck are you doing?” he snapped, unable to keep the pain from coloring his words.

 

“Checking your pupils. My mom’s a nurse. I’ve forgotten more about first-aid than you’ll probably ever know.” Mark retorted harshly, withdrawing quickly from the blow before it could land.

 

“Well...don’t bother, I’m fine.”

 

Mark snorted. “That’s a bad lie.” He nodded over his shoulder and into the street, where a rectangular object sat illuminated beneath the street lights. The fog, dense as ever, obscured the details, but Kyle’s memory was quick to put two and two together, which made his next question all the more ironic.

 

“What- FUCK! OW!!” He hissed, freezing in place as his attempt to shift his weight produced more pain from the rear. “Fuck! What happened?!”

 

“You tell me.” Mark answered, his previously irritated expression taking on a subtle undertone of fear and confusion. “My auto stopped short of the station, so I was walking the rest of the way. Then a door busts out and you come body-surfing down the stairs on it.”

 

“Shit...ow.” was all Kyle managed in response. Mark snorted again.

 

“I’ll say. I thought you were dead there for a second. Or at the very least you’d broken a ton of bones. Just a lot of bruises though...and a fractured shoulder and arm.” He gave a wan smile. “Still, better than dead, right?”

 

“Oh, definitely!” Kyle snarled, trying simultaneously to figure out how he was going to stand up and discern where exactly his final teleportation (for bullshit teleportation it could only be) had landed him. His memories of the police station and associated events should’ve had him paralyzed with terror, especially about the possibility of whatever had come over the place spreading. After all, the mysterious fog was still here, ominous as ever and more menacing now that it held the potential to hide unspeakable monsters from the fourth dimension (or whatever it was that had been going on back there). And yet in spite of everything, Kyle found it easy to put all the dread implications and dark possibilities of his situation aside for the moment in favor of his pain...all except one, anyways.

 

“Shit...where’s the book?” he hissed, looking around as rapidly as he dared. He reached back with his good arm and tried to grip the rim of the low wall, which he quickly discovered was a patio of some sort with wrought-iron railings. However, his efforts only won him more pain, and he sank back to the ground, gasping in agony. 

 

“Fuck, I need painkillers.” he spat. He looked over at Mark who looked as confused as ever. “Have you seen...fuck, was I holding anything when you found me?” Sweat dripped off his brow as he asked, and not entirely because of his physical stress. If the book had gone missing, they were all so very fucked. He didn’t need a degree in magical nonsense from that damn thing to know without it, there could be no fixing whatever the fuck Olridge had caused with his innocent (and extremely fatal) mistake. 

 

“You mean-...wait, book?” Mark said, his expression as nervous as it was baffled, “There was something. I didn’t look too closely when I was dragging you over here.”

 

“You moved me even though my shoulder was broken?!” Kyle snarled, causing the other man’s face to immediately flush red with embarrassment. He opened his mouth to apologize but Kyle waved his hand vigorously, pushing aside the pain with the help of his panic. “No, shush! Fuck it! Never mind! Was. There. A. Book??”

 

“I...hang on.” Mark said, hastily rising from his crouch and dashing over to the street, where Kyle now saw the remains of his unfortunate session of body-surfing, bent and twisted. At the sight of the mangled door, he silently thanked whoever was listening that the results for his flesh had only included severe bruising and not broken ribs as well as a damaged shoulder and arm. He grunted, deciding to try his luck again, then reached for the twisted and battered iron railing of the stairs next to him. This time he was able to get a good grip and pull himself upright, though he still had to bend over the warped rail and try not to scream as pain shot out in a spider-web of invisible nails from his injured bones. Just as he was considering collapsing again, Mark hurried back over, a familiar gold and brown rectangle in his grip.

 

“Oh thank god!” Kyle wheezed, snatching the object as it was held out. Mark nearly recoiled from the speed with which he grabbed it, and he read the man’s expression as now containing worry that his friend might be manic as well as injured. Slowly, Kyle breathed in deeply and held the book to his chest. “You have no idea how lucky we are.” he said, keeping a death-grip on the small volume.

 

“You, uh...you wanna tell me why?”

 

Kyle hesitated. Logic dictated that he make up an excuse. Protocol demanded he not share case details with a civilian. His sense of personal relations told him that it was unlikely he’d gain more trust from Mark by making himself sound even crazier than he already looked. However, of the three only the last one made any sense to cling to right now...and it was a weak excuse at that. If the laws of the physical universe were breaking down and monsters were roaming the streets, Mark deserved to know. 

 

So he told him.

 

---

 

Mark had known Kyle for five years, having met him through a room-sharing ad back when he’d still been hopping from government contract to government contract working rebuilding the national power grid. During all that time, he’d never once come off as someone prone to letting his imagination run away with him. His job required him to think and deduct, but it seldom called for wild speculation, at least from what Mark knew of it. Which was why, as he began to explain what was going on, he was ready to believe him.

 

That changed very soon after.

 

“Okay, so lemme see if I’m still with you.” he said, trying not to sound condescending, knowing it would do nothing to help. “You went back to the station to see some video they found of Nate wandering around town, acting weird. Then you decided examine the stuff from his apartment to make sure there’s no narcotics-”

 

“I didn’t say that.” Kyle said harshly, leaning against the railing of the steps he’d rode in on. He’d refused to sit at any point during his explanation, instead looking jumpy and nervous, as if staying in one place was putting him on edge. Mark wanted to put it down to the pain he was in and the desire to get a move on finding help, but given what the detective had just told him, he very much doubted that was the case. “Fuck, I don’t even know what I expected to find. I just wanted to see the stuff...maybe...I dunno. Shit, it feels like forever ago. What time is it actually?”

 

Mark held up his arm to check his Band, a twin of the one worn by Kyle, but stopped when he remembered he’d tried that already and gotten no response apart from a brief low-battery warning. He also aborted a subsequent urge to look up at the sky, knowing it would serve no better. Instead he shook his head and shrugged, before folding his arms.

 

“No idea. Continuing, you went down to evidence and met the guy there-”

 

“Olridge.”

 

“Yes…” Mark said, trailing off briefly, hesitant to say the next part for fear it would...what? He wasn’t sure, but somehow repeating the explanation felt wrong, as if saying it again would make it more true, when every sensible part of him was telling him it was absolute nonsense. But then he looked at the mangled door, which looked nothing like the splintered frame at the top of the chipped and scratched stone steps, and those little voices of reason that had guided him through academia and work suddenly seemed to get very quiet. 

 

“Look...I’m not going to waste time trying to make you believe me.” Kyle said, leaning against the twisted black iron and rubbing his temples furiously with his uninjured hand, all while still holding the mysterious book.. “I’m not fucking Fox Mulder. We both know that. So just take me at my word when I say that this-” He raised the small brown tome and shook it vigorously for effect. “-is important. More important than probably either of us know. Spencer has something; something I can’t even describe, and the longer he has it, the more likely he is to mess with it, because that’s the kind of asshole he is. Meanwhile, the after-effects of whatever happened when Olridge touched it are obviously widespread.” He raised his arm and looked ready to pull down his sleeve with his teeth before apparently realizing the Band he usually wore was not present.

 

“Wait...shit! I forgot. I took the damn thing off before I went in-” he began to grumble.

 

“No, it’s fine.” Mark interjected, “I get what you’re saying.” He held up his own dead Band as proof of his words, then gestured back down the road in the direction of the disabled auto that had left him on foot earlier.

 

“Good, because that’s just the start of it.” Kyle snapped, looking frustrated now as well as nervous. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the weird shit like teleportation and...whatever else was going on in that damn place is limited to ground zero. But some of the things I saw and heard, well...I’m kind of betting they’re not going to stay contained.” He looked back up the street into the murk as he said this, and Mark found his own eyes drawn in the same direction. 

 

There was nothing there of course, but the dense mist was enough to amplify the deeply-unsettling voice inside him now warring with the others that told him Kyle was just making shit up. The truth was, he didn’t WANT to believe him, even though Occam’s fucking Razor kept slicing his own arguments to ribbons, because if he was telling the truth, that meant that the world was now a nightmare; the kind of twisted, unreal hell he’d stopped believing in at age seven when he’d stopped using a night-light. And if that was the case...

 

Somewhere deep inside, Mark could feel a well of horrible uncertainty starting to open beneath him; a pit of questions never asked and answers never sought, because to do either would open doors he’d spent his whole life slowly closing, or else ignoring entirely. He realized he was looking straight into Kyle’s eyes as he felt the dark pulling at him, and quickly diverted his gaze. It was like looking into a mirror.

 

“Shit.” he said finally, “Shit...alright. What do we need to do?” He was glad Kyle’s response wasn’t a request for confirmation, because he did not feel he could give it. Instead the detective looked around.

 

“First off, where are we? I can’t see shit in this fog”

 

“Maple Street.” Mark replied swiftly, nodding up to the house next to them. It was a duplex, with a ‘For Sale’ sign almost rendered invisible by the swirling vapor hanging by the entrance. Mark knew from past experience that identical duplicates of the serene and unusually urban structure lined both sides of the street, all with identical signs in their windows, as they had since the day they’d been completed six months ago. This was because nobody in their right mind bought real estate for private use past the northern border of Oklahoma unless they had to. The great ‘American Sahara’ was the domain of almost exclusively public investment. However, one especially optimistic group of developers and salespeople hadn’t gotten the message, and the result was Maple Street, possibly the only non-socialized housing in town.

 

“Oh...” Kyle replied, almost as if disappointed by such a simple answer.

 

“Actually everybody seems to be staying indoors today.” Mark commented, but yeah, of all the places to teleport to, you...kind of picked the one where it’d cause the least problems.” Kyle’s face immediately darkened at the non-joke.

 

“Nevermind that. Maple Street is east of City Hall and the main plaza, right?” 

 

“Yeah, about half a mile I think.”

 

“You were gonna walk half a mile to the station?” Kyle said briefly, giving him a puzzled look. Mark rolled his eyes, but still felt himself blush.

 

“Hey, not like i had another option!” he said defensively, but the detective waved him off.

 

“Shit, never mind. That means the city hospital has to be...what, twelve blocks from here?”

 

“Fifteen, I think.” Mark replied, “I actually had doubled back there before you sent that text about what I’m guessing is that video you mentioned.”

 

“Fuuuuuuck.” snarled Kyle, wincing as he did so, “And we gotta walk all the way…”

 

Mark looked back down the street in the direction he had come from. He wasn’t all that hyped about retracing his steps himself, but regardless of what he thought about Kyle’s story, it was obvious that going back to the main police station wasn’t going to be an option. He briefly wondered if it might be possible to stop at a store for some splints or something else to try and ease Kyle’s pain, but quickly discarded the thought. After all, why make more stops than necessary?

 

He grimaced into the mist and shook his head.

 

“Best get moving then. You can walk right?”

 

“I can walk.” Kyle affirmed, taking a couple shaky steps away from the rail to test his balance. He winced, then added: “Still fucking hurts though.”

 

“Well they’ll have painkillers when we get there…” Mark said, shrugging even as he moved closer, not buying his friend’s tough-guy act and ready to step in if he should suddenly sag sideways. Kyle noticed the move and glowered.

 

“I said I’m fine.”

 

“Never said otherwise.” Mark said quickly, taking one and a half steps back, but not moving out of grabbing range should it become necessary. Kyle grunted and strode forwards into the mist, moving with a minor limp.

 

“Let’s just go.” he grumbled. Mark, seeing no other option, followed, though not without a backwards glance in the direction of his original destination. For a moment, just a sliver of a second, the dense wall of airborne moisture parted and he caught a glimpse of the far end of the street…

 

There was nothing there. Just more empty houses.

 

“Whatever.” he mumbled to himself, making a noise that he hoped sounded dismissive even if to him, it seemed extremely nervous. Then he hurried to catch up with Kyle. 

 

Initially it was a quiet walk as they made their way out of the empty neighborhood, but the silence was soon replaced by distant, indistinct sounds, made all the more menacing by the obscuring fog. They were not the everyday sounds of a town going about its business. They weren’t even the sounds of a town torn by strife and chaos like Mark half-expected. Instead, it was...empty. A vast, blank soundscape with disturbances that could’ve been the cheers of a crowd or a single person’s scream that had been worn out by the distance it had traveled. 

 

“You hearing that?” Kyle asked after a while, face inexpressive in that way it got when he was obviously keeping a lid on his feelings. 

 

“Yeah…” Mark said, nerves tingling with unease. “I don’t know...I’m trying not to think about it.” In an effort to do just that, he tried changing the subject.

 

“So, uh...you say Nathan got some weird box in the mail. And whatever was inside did all...this?” He gestured around at the fog.

 

“Must be. I don’t know when the fog rolled in exactly but thinking about it, I’ll bet if I checked it would line up with the time that power surge at his apartment happened.”

 

“So why wasn’t his place...y’know, like you said the police station was? Swarming with monsters or whatever?”

 

“He must’ve taken a peek at the book; it’s the only explanation.” Kyle said, holding up the small tome, apparently unwilling to trust it to his pants. The short overcoat and hat he usually wore while on duty were absent, leaving him with no choice but to hold the thing in his good hand until a solution could be found. “I only skimmed through it, but...I don’t know. I won’t pretend I know HOW it works, just that it does. If you look at the pictures, it’s like installing anti-viral software or something. Or a valve. That’s what killed Olridge. He had no filter, some when he came into contact-”

 

Kyle cut himself off, looking over at Mark, as if suspicious of whether or not the other man was laughing at him. As much as he hated to admit it, part of Mark was sniggering internally at the whole idea. But then he was pretty sure if he’d dared actually voice any actual laughter outside his head, it would be a nervous chuckle more than anything else.

 

“Right, right.” he said, trying to defuse Kyle’s insecurities in case he wasn’t just imagining them, “So Nate sees the book...touches whatever is in the box and...what? Teleports like you did?”

 

“I don’t know.” Kyle grumbled, “Maybe. Or maybe he disintegrated into a pile of soot. Or he...fuck, I don’t know. All I have to go on is that damn video. Maybe the fact that he only skimmed a couple pages means he got a botch-job when it came to mental defenses and-”

 

“The way you made it sound, it certainly didn’t seem like he was acting normal.” Mark cut in, not wanting to give his imagination space to think about horrible things happening to Nate. He might not have been his closest friend, but the idea of something happening to the guy was unsettling. When you were away from family as long as Mark had been, friends tended to fill in for their roles more and more. If Nat was the group’s mom, then Nate was the second child, and as such, Mark couldn’t help but feel like a big brother who was only now realizing how much his sibling’s presence meant to him. Abruptly, a horrible, insane thought struck him out of the blue, propelled by a random memory of the most recent outing the group had made to the town’s open cinema.

 

“You don’t think it’s...I don’t know, something that only LOOKS like Nate, do you?”

 

“What, like that John Carpenter film?” Kyle said immediately, suggesting it was a possibility he had been thinking on as well.

 

“Yeah...except less...I don’t know.” Mark said, trailing off. He shook his head. “Fuck, never mind.”

 

“Like I said, I don’t know how any of this works. All I know is that unless we get that box back, shit’s going to get even more crazy...either that or Spencer’s going to end up like Olridge.” Kyle grumbled. As they approached a nondescript intersection, he looked up at the lamppost  occupying it, squinting to try and make out the street name through the murk.

 

“Have you tried reading more of the book?” Mark asked nonchalantly. “Maybe it has some solutions?”

 

“I don’t know if it’d work like that.” Kyle replied, shaking his head and looking back down at the street. Briefly he looked both ways, then stepped down off the curb onto the crosswalk. Mark followed, and soon they were across the street. Kyle held the tome up to his face and tried to open it with one hand. “Still, I guess it’s worth a try…”

 

“Here, can I-?” Mark began. Kyle momentarily recoiled as he reached out, wincing as he did. Mark frowned, raising an eyebrow. 

 

“Sorry.” the detective said upon spotting his look. He gave Mark a sheepish look. “Uh, yeah. Here.” He untensed and held out the book. However, even as he did, the engineer noticed a residual unease, like he was handing over a grenade with no pin. His fingers, dark as they were, still managed to look pale in the cold air. Gently, Mark took the book and flipped it open.

 

“Huh.” he said, “Interesting design. I want to say it’s Tibetan-” 

 

“It’s not.” Kyle said quickly, “Trust me on this.” Mark’s eyebrow rose again.

 

“You know that?”

 

“I know that whatever made that book is old. Really old. Like, maybe Mesopotamia-old. Or older. I don’t know. I just know it’s not exactly...natural.”

 

“Hmmm.” Mark replied. A notion struck him as he gazed at the odd spiraling tessellation on the first page. Carefully, he took a corner of the supposedly flimsy material between his fingers and pulled. He did it subtly, so as not to alert Kyle to what he was doing, but in the end it didn’t matter, because nothing happened. The material, whatever it was, felt like old parchment between his digits; wafer thin and flexible to the point of crinkling just from his touch. Yet when he attempted to twist or tear it, it reacted like a sheet of plastic, his fingers slipping off its surface before they could get a purchase on it. 

 

His frown deepened, as did the well of uncertainty now pulling down his thoughts. Still, he didn’t give up; experimentation required repetition, right? He flipped to the next page and tried to tear it as well. No luck. Page three? Same result. On page four, he gripped as tightly as he could, to the point that it was easy for Kyle to spot, and pulled, bracing the tome awkwardly against his chest. Even as the detective spotted his intent, his fingers were already slipping right off the strange image printed within like ice, so that he nearly dropped the book and had to steady himself and his grip.

 

“Whoa, what!? Hey, cut that out!” Kyle said quickly. Not wanting to draw things out Mark quickly flipped through a few more gaudy and psychedelic pages, then snapped the covers together and held it out, arresting the detective’s lurch towards him.

 

“You’re right.” he said, frowning into the face of Kyle’s annoyed glower. “It’s not normal.” Kyle grunted and snatched the book back, before opening it to check for damage. When he found none, his eyebrows furrowed.

 

“I’m not saying it’s magic or anything, but it’s definitely not normal paper.” Mark turned and started to walk again, forcing the detective to follow after, now once again holding a death-grip on the book.

 

“Huh. And you don’t feel different?” he asked, now looking more puzzled than angry.

 

“If you mean ‘Do I feel like you were granted spooky secrets about the nature of reality?’, then no. No, don’t.”

 

“Well I don’t think it works like that…” Kyle muttered.

 

“Like what?” Mark snorted. He shook his head, a tightness he hadn’t noticed before building in his throat. “I mean, seriously man. You bust out of an empty house and tell me the town’s in danger of being overrun by things from another dimension, and that it all has to do with some little package Nate got in the mail. Do you not see the problem with this?”

 

“You okay?” Kyle said, tone now shifting from confusion to worry, his voice ironically similar to the one Mark had tried to avoid using with him just minutes earlier. Somehow it just made him more frustrated.

 

“No, no I’m not.” Mark growled. “Are you? Cause I don’t see how you could be.”

 

Kyle glared.

 

“Look, I said I’m not asking you to believe any of this-”

 

“But that’s exactly what you’re asking!” Mark threw up his hands in irritation. “You’re asking me to believe that we’ve stepped into one of those old screwy Hollywood action films with too many special effects and not enough story! This started out as a normal day, and now you’re telling me on top of one of our best friends missing, potentially due to supernatural circumstances, the world as we know it is being turned upside-down.” He didn’t raise his voice much during the tirade, but as he finished, Mark felt he could hear his words bouncing off the buildings before being absorbed into the melange of distant and obscure noises. Kyle continued to glare at him, but it was a patient glare, emphasized by his next statement.

 

“You done?”

 

“For now.” Mark grumbled.

 

“Good, because this is not a movie.”  Kyle repled, his tone harsh but controlled. “I’ve already watched one person die today because of things I don’t understand. I don’t know how many more are dead besides because one idiot decided to fiddle around with a thing nobody could’ve expected. We are off the edge of the map, yes. But the way I see it, if we stop paddling to think about how we’re lost, we’re more likely to be eaten by dragons than find a way back.”

 

Mark opened his mouth to issue a retort, but upon finding he couldn’t think of one, the empty space left behind was filled by the begrudging realization that Kyle was right. He grimaced, the epiphany sparking a blush of shame as he also subsequently realized the questions filling the deep, dark well inside himself were not chiefly about the implications of the detective’s story, but how they might affect HIM.

 

“Fuck…” he cursed, sighing as Kyle’s expression turned into a familiar smirk. “Fuck, I’m doing it again.”

 

“Well you don’t become a Cloud star without a bit of ego.” the detective snickered, “But we both know that’s not what makes you good at it.” Mark grinned weakly.

 

“Thanks.” he chuckled, “For the speech I mean.”

 

“Less trouble than smacking you out of it.” Kyle replied, still smirking. He started walking again.

 

“That only works in movies.” Mark retorted, moving to keep pace. Both paused however when the door of a nearby building burst open, disturbing the fog enough to clear it away a bit. That was how they were able to spot the man that hurried out. 

 

His face pale with shock. He looked around, eyes visibly afraid even at a distance. No sooner had he spotted the pair, he was hurrying towards them. As he got closer, Mark noted that he was covered in sweat, which visibly stained the majority of his dress shirt. He seemed unperturbed by Mark’s lack of a shirt

 

“Everything alright?” Mark asked as he got close enough. Sadly, the words sounded as stupid coming from him as they had from Kyle. His only reward was a look of mixed fear and annoyance from the stranger, who looked like a store-watcher at one of the smaller high-end boutiques that served the part of the population that had spare cash to spend. 

 

“What!? Fucking-, no!” he panted, “Listen, you gotta get out of here!”

 

“Why?” Kyle asked, the tension from earlier returning full-force, though somewhat spoiled when he winced and cursed under his breath, probably thanks to his shoulder. As he said it, several more people filtered out of the door and rushed onto the street, some fading into the fog as they took different routes from the stranger in their flight. Of those that were visible, all had looks of fear and confusion. Nobody screamed, but everyone spoke in a nervous jabber of raised voices. A couple of people hung around the front of the building, looking back towards the door. Distracted by the sight, Mark did a double take when he realized the stranger had said something else.

 

“Wait, what? Say that again?”

 

“Th-there’s...there’s something in the shop.” the man panted, “It’s...I don’t know what it is. We thought it was a practical joke or something but then…” He shook his head. “Jesus, I don’t know! That’s-...it’s-...” He trailed off, words failing whatever his diatribe his emotions were trying to convey.

 

“Sir, I need you to calm down and explain to me what happened.” Kyle said, slipping the book into his sling with another wince, marking the second time he had willingly let go of it since Mark had encountered him. He reached into his pocket and fumbled about, prompting a couple of curses as his arm and shoulder were again disturbed, before fishing out his backup badge; an accoutrement of his position that even thirty years of massed police reforms had not seen fit to eliminate. He flipped open the small black wallet to display the physical ID and shiny copper disc within that marked him as a member of the Hobbs P.D., which seemed to put the other man somewhat at ease. “I’m Detective Kyle Shin-Young. This my friend Mark. We’re kind of in a weird spot, but we can still help. Though I need to know what’s going on first.”

 

“Oh thank god.” he wheezed, “Oh thank god.”

 

“Sir?” Kyle pressed. The man straightened up, nodding as he recovered, preparing himself to speak. 

 

“Me and-, sorry, Sheryl and I were holding down the counter like we always do on Wednesdays.” he began, voice still unsteady as he tripped over his own grammar in his haste to explain. “There were only three people in the store, but one of them, this lady-, I think she ran off.” He looked back over his shoulder as if expecting to see the woman, but the other figures that had emerged from the building behind him were all long gone. Mark cleared his throat, gesturing for the man to continue. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kyle glare at him for stepping onto his turf, but the look quickly disappeared as the man turned back to them.

 

“Right, sorry.” he said, rubbing his head, which was bald and covered in sweat...or maybe it was moisture. In this weather, who could tell? Mark hoped it was the latter. Even though he’d gotten past most of his personal qualms about the ‘reality’ of this situation, there was still no way to entirely deny that part of him that did not want to be a part of it. It was just human nature; a desperate attempt to divorce one’s self from the crisis in the face of a massively out-of-context problem. At the back of his mind, a minute part of his consciousness briefly wondered, just for a second, if this was what it was like to be Nate. He’d known the guy long enough to be aware of his condition, but even after he’d had it explained to him ad nauseam, he’d never quite gotten a hold on the details. 

 

In the theatre of his memory, the seldom-talkative younger man  looked at him with a gaze that was simultaneously unfocused and extremely intense as he parsed his words in an effort to explain.

 

“Imagine, just for a minute, that every day, you wake up in a world of people you don’t know. Imagine that every interaction is new and dangerous, and every conversation is a minefield where you have a malfunctioning detector. And when you inevitably get blown up, because you will, no matter how hard you try, it always feels like it’s your fault, even if you know it’s not. There’s no real safe points of reference either, because everything is based on reaction time, and if you take too long you get bounced back to square one.”

 

The explanation, while rambling and somewhat messy, managed miraculously to capture Mark’s feeling’s perfectly. Thrust into an alien situation he’d never dreamed he’d have to deal with, he was at sea; afraid and confused. To quote Kyle and his more recent rebuttal, they were indeed off the edge of the map. It took a nudge from said detective to shake him from his reverie and realize he’d missed most of the explanation.

 

“Alright. Thank you, sir. And there’s no chance that it followed you, you think?”

 

The man shook his head, though the way he did it made it seem like it was intended to disguise a quick glance back over his shoulder to confirm that he was not in fact being chased.

 

“Pretty sure. It didn’t look like it was moving very fast in any case. But then it didn’t really need to-”

 

“That’s fine.” Kyle said, cutting through his nervous chatter before he could talk himself back into a panic. “So long as nobody else is in immediate danger.” Then he turned to Mark.

 

“Fuck, I’m sorry to do this man...but I need to deputize you.”

 

“What, seriously?” Mark said once the implication of the almost nonchalant declaration reached his forebrain. “But-, I mean-...I’ve served on civil protection groups before but-” He floundered, unsure of what else to say. Kyle shrugged.

 

“This is going to be a bit more intensive than being part of neighborhood watch.” he replied, before nodding, as if to reassure himself as much as Mark. “Don’t worry. You’ll do fine.”

 

“I’m sorry, what’s going on?” the man asked, “Shouldn’t you be calling for backup?” His tone was getting edgy again, suggesting the urge to run was returning.

 

“Sir, I need you to listen closely.” Kyle said, adopting the voice of authority that Mark had only ever heard him use on a couple of occasions, both of which he did not recall fondly. “There’s been an...incident. I can’t get in touch with the rest of my people, and as far as I can tell, all electronics are out.”

 

“Oh...oh shit. I thought it was just us!” the man said, looking increasingly frantic. “At first I thought it was a fault with the power. I know they’re still doing work on the big plant-”

 

“That’s not important right now.” Kyle said, “You don’t need to be concerned with the cause. I’m working on that, and I’m pretty sure all my fellow officers are too. What I need YOU to do is get out there and start spreading the word. Something’s up. I’m not going to speculate on what, because the important thing is to keep everyone safe.”

 

The tone of his speech was calm yet firm, with only the barest hint of the pain and deep-rooted fear that lay behind the mask of control. It was an unusual sight for Mark, who had only ever seen his friend on the job three times in all the years he’d known him. This was like none of those mundane encounters however. This was...something else. The bald man took a moment to compose himself, nodding at Kyle’s words as if repeating them in his head to steady his nerves.

 

“Right, right. Everyone needs to stay indoors?”

 

“What’s your name?” There was the briefest of hesitations as the man looked bewildered by the sudden interrogative. 

 

“Sorry? It’s Jim. Jim Pasca-”

 

“Jim, I’m going to have to deputize you too...sort of.”

 

“Oh.” The response was flat and emotionless, suggesting that the statement hadn’t quite registered. This was confirmed when a couple seconds later he shook his head. “Wait, what? But I’ve-...I mean, I’ve never served on a C.P.-”

 

“Look, I can’t do this alone.” Kyle snapped, the mask briefly falling for a second. It was enough for Mark to spot, but thankfully, Jim seemed too wrapped up in his own miseries to grasp it. Mark couldn’t help but feel slightly ashamed that not five minutes ago, he’d been exactly the same. Decided he should probably step in as a deputy and at least TRY to help, he held up a hand.

 

“He’s right. We’re all in this together. If the town’s network is out, then it’s up to us to get shit done.”

 

“But, I-...I mean, I don’t know what to do!”

 

“That’s why I’m deputizing you.” Kyle said, recovering control of the conversation. “I need you to go out there and spread the word. Look for police officers. Give them my badge number; it’s one-two-five-four-eight. You can remember that right?”

 

“Yeah, yeah I think so!” Jim said, looking like he was warming to the idea, “What else?”

 

“Round up your other employees; everyone that just scattered. Get them somewhere else, somewhere indoors with no weird shit. Shelter in place, you got me? We don’t need any ‘everyone-for-themselves’ crap. The more people wandering the streets, the more problems and missing persons we’ll probably have.”

 

“Right, indoors and secure.” Jim replied, “What should I tell the police if I see them?”

 

“Tell them we have a town-wide blackout. Don’t mention the weird stuff unless they look receptive. No talk about white cubes sprouting arms is going to get them to listen to you; got me?”

 

“Right. Uh...then what?”

 

“Then...then we’ll see. I’ve got to get to the hospital. Once I’m there I can speak with whoever’s on duty there. The important thing right now is to avoid chaos. Once we’ve got at least a bit of a handle on things, we can try and get in touch with the nearest town...if they don’t know already.”

 

“You think it’s the fog?” the man asked, suddenly and dangerously nervous again, “Shit, it’s just like that old film they were showing at the cinema three months back. Weird mist cutting off-”

 

“Jim, the more we speculate, the less time we have to head things off.” Kyle replied, elegantly heading off the man’s own traumatized rambling before it could carry him away. “Remember; find your co-workers, find some cops. Hell, get in touch with some civil protection members if you run across them. I know at least a few of the leaders so they might listen. But always keep moving. If you run out of places, check back at ones you’ve already visited.”

 

“Right. Okay. And it was one-two-five-four-eight?” 

 

“One-two-five-four-eight; Detective Kyle Shin-Young” Kyle confirmed. “Now go. Mark and I are going to get to the hospital.”

 

“Stay safe.” Jim answered, then set off, giving his workplace a wide berth as he did. They watched until he vanished into the fog, calling the names of his co-workers.

 

“Wow...not bad.” Mark replied, “You do improv?”

 

“What do you mean?” Kyle grunted, beginning to walk again.

 

“I mean, I don’t think you told a single lie during that, but you didn’t say anything about what’s really going on.”

 

“Would it’ve helped?”

 

“Well...no.” 

 

“Exactly. He doesn’t need to know that headquarters is now a live-fire zone or that there are things worse that living cubes of jelly going around. His imagination will do that for him. What he needed were directions.”

 

Mark opened his mouth to reply, but then realized that again, Kyle was right. Just as he’d needed to be smacked out of his own ego-driven hand-wringing, Jim had needed someone to tell him what to do next in the face of a crisis, not ladle on new fears to supplement existing ones. Fear could paralyse as well as propel people. Mark couldn’t help but be a bit awed by how carefully, and indeed, callously the detective had manipulated the store-keep’s fears to get him to do the right thing. Briefly the Cloud star wondered darkly if this was not the first time his friend had dealt with a wide-spread crisis. He’d never asked too much about Kyle’s past police-work, but he seemed very good at it... 

 

“So uh...what’re ours then?” he inquired.

 

“Now we get to the hospital. Then?” Kyle grumbled, “Then we find Spencer.” 

 

An abrupt peal of thunder rolled out of the distance, low and menacing, bringing a very light drizzle of rain with it. Mark looked up in bewilderment.

 

“Huh...that’s...weird.”

 

“C’mon, keep moving,” Kyle said, hunching over with a wince and shuffling on, “before it gets weirder.