Fear (Gone 5)

Connie and Abana looked at each other. A look full of fear and sadness and guilt: they had brought these people here to die.

Connie looked at the MPs. The chopper pilot, a woman with blond hair and captain’s bars, had joined them after roundly cursing the damage to her craft.

“I’m sorry,” Connie whispered. “I’m sorry I did this to you.”

She heard a cracking sound. Like slow-motion thunder, or like a world-size eggshell breaking open. Everyone fell silent and listened. It went on for a long time.

“It’s opening,” Abana whispered. “The barrier, it’s cracking open!”

Too late, Connie thought. Too late.

Connie went to Darius and they waited, side by side, for the end.

The baby. It was no longer in Diana’s arms. It stood. All on its own, a glowing, naked two-year-old, by all appearances.

Caine flew back. He was pressed against the barrier, in full contact, yelling at the pain, then barely making a sound at all as the pressure grew stronger, relentless.

Sam could see him being squashed; he could quite literally see Caine’s body flatten as if a truck were pushing against him, squashing him like a bug against the barrier.

“Make her stop!” Sam yelled at Diana.

“I…” Diana looked stricken. Like she was coming out of a nightmare into a worse reality.

“She’s killing him!”

“Don’t,” Diana said weakly. “Don’t kill your father.”

But there was a determined look on the child’s face. Her cherub lips drew back in a weird snarl.

Sam raised his hands, palms out.

“Get back, Diana,” Sam said.

Diana did not move.

Sam glanced at Caine. A bug against a windshield.

Sam fired. Twin beams of murderous light hit the child dead center.

And the entire world exploded in blinding light.

Caine slid to the ground. Diana reeled back, covering her eyes. Drake used his tentacle to cover his eyes.

Sam was blinded by it. It was not the light of his hands. It was not the light of the baby.

Sunlight.

Sunlight!

Brilliant, blazing, Southern California midday sunlight.

No sound. No warning. One second the world was black, with only the pitiful light of a few Sammy suns. And the next instant it was as if they were staring into the sun itself.

Sam squeezed open one eye. What he saw was impossible. There were people. Adults. Four, no five, six adults.

A wrecked helicopter.

A Carl’s Jr. The same flash of the world outside Sam had seen for only a millisecond once before. But now the vision lingered.