POV: Detective Kennedy
Everything has unraveled. In a matter of days, society has almost completely collapsed. And there's nothing I can do. I feel so useless. I can't even help one woman find her daughter. I will find answers. But the answers aren't here. They're where Carol is. And Carol is no longer in this world. I believe that her father found a way to time travel. I think Carol may have stumbled upon it and got lost.
"Poor Janette..." Meg says solemnly. "She was always there for Carol."
I grip the steering wheel hard as I swerve around a sharp bend. "I think you were right before. I think that your husband did find a way to time travel."
Meg blinks in surprise, wiping a tear away. "You think this portal he mentioned to me is real?"
"Yes. At this point, I'll believe anything is possible. I think that's why your husband went missing and I also believe that Carol stumbled upon it too. It can't be a coincidence that she disappears when this zombie stuff begins. It's connected, somehow," I explain, my knuckles white.
"What do you think we should do then?"
"We're going back to your house. We've missed something."
Minutes later, I pull back into Mrs. Tyson's driveway. The town has dissolved into chaos. We hurry inside, and before I do anything further, I make sure the house is secure.
"The last night you saw Carol..there was no way she could have left the house?" I walk up the stairs to her daughter's room, gun in hand.
"I don't think so. I've told you all this before."
"I know. I'm just trying to rule out possibilities."
Carol's room is just how we left it. But something is off. "Anything look different to you?"
Meg observes every inch of the room very closely for several minutes. With a frown, she nods.
"Yes..." She walks up to the bare wall beside Carol's dresser. "There was a poster here, of a man. It's gone."
Staring at the bare wall, I gently touch it. Just feels like a regular wall. Nothing out of the ordinary. I shift my stance, and my foot knocks against something on the floor. I glance down. There's a book on the floor, a brown, leather bound book with gold trimming. Cautiously, I pick it up.
"Do you recognize this?" I turn and show Meg the book.
She shakes her head. "I've never seen that before."
"Maybe it's Carol's private diary or something?" I open it to the very first page. Something is written in the far right corner in black ink, but before I can make it out, it disappears.
I skim through the pages, more black, swirling ink covering the cream colored surface. Meg stands at my shoulder, staring at the book intently. Whenever I stop on a page to read the scrawled words, they vanish before my eyes.
"Are you seeing this too?" I ask Meg so I don't feel like I'm going crazy.
"The words disappearing? Yes," she confirms.
I pick a random page and stop there. The words vanish, but I remain on it. Meg and I stare at the page very hard. The longer and harder I stare at it, the more and more a picture seems to appear. It gets clearer and clearer until all of a sudden, I'm falling. It's like that falling sensation you get sometimes when you sleep, except I'm awake.
I yell and Meg is next to me screaming. The feeling lasts for several seconds until I find myself on the ground, surrounded by trees. A cold wind blows. Next to me, Meg struggles to get up, going into a coughing fit. Slowly, I rise to my feet, brushing the dirt and dead leaves off my clothes. I pat my waist, making sure my gun is still there, in its holster. Relief floods through me when I feel the cool, hard metal of the handle. Wait. But where's the book? I spin around wildly, head down as I look for the brown book. I find it, but just barely. It blends in very well with the leaves. I lean down to pick it up, but before I can, it sinks and melts into the ground, disappearing.
"What? No!" I drop to my knees, scrambling for it, running my hands back and forth through the dirt and leaves. But I find nothing.
"Where exactly are we?" Meg's voice breaks me out of my trance and I stand up again.
"I don't know." It's just the woods, in the middle of nowhere. One second, we're standing in Carol's room, and the next, we're outside. Did we teleport? But that's impossible. Unless...did we find the portal? Was the book the portal?
"Where's the book?" Meg sharply eyes the ground below her.
"It's gone. It melted into the ground," I tell her, still trying to get my bearings.
"What?"
"It disappeared."
"So what now? Are we in the future or something?"
"I have no idea. But I don't think we should stay here. If this is the future, then...I'm assuming it's worse than what we just left," I surmise, plucking my gun from the holster. I luckily have a few more ammo cartridges in my coat pockets. I just hope that I don't have to use them.
The two of us start walking, side by side into the woods. Meg stays very close to me, her eyes wide with confusion and fear. I can only imagine what this must be like for her. Losing her husband years ago and then later losing her daughter. I know she must want to break down every second. But she hasn't. She's a strong woman. Stronger than me. I hope we can find Carol. Despite everything else that's happened, finding Carol is the only thing that matters now.
Suddenly, Meg halts in her tracks. "Did you hear that?"
I stop, falling still. Meg grabs my arm as we both listen closely. Several seconds pass. Nothing. And then, softly crunching through the dead leaves, the sound of footsteps. Muffled voices. They're close.
"Run. Go," I hiss, and the two of us take off. It could be zombies. It could be anything. But I don't want to wait around and find out. Nowhere is safe in this place.
"Stop," says a very sharp male voice, followed by the click of a gun being cocked. Meg and I halt in place. I grip my gun tighter, prepared.
A man emerges from the trees, followed by many more. All of them have guns. Black masks cover their faces and all I can see are their eyes. I carefully slip my gun back into the holster, realizing that I have no chance of winning.
"Where is it?" one of them asks, approaching me. He points the barrel of his firearm at my forehead.
"Where's what?"
His eyes narrow. "Don't play dumb. We know that it was here...our readings showed that it had appeared here again. Now it's gone."
I gulp. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Oh, so you just happen to be here?" He presses the gun to my head so hard that I feel an ache in my temple.
"Actually, yes," I say slowly. "I don't know how we got here."
Is he talking about the book? Well, I'm not certainly not going to give up any information to these guys. You can't trust anybody.
"You'll talk. Sooner or later." He lowers the gun. "Take them."
There's a sudden, sharp piercing pain in my back and my entire body goes numb. I fall to the ground, immobile. I can't move! Meg falls to the ground next to me, her eyes wide and bewildered. I try to form words, but my mouth won't move. All that comes out is some strange, slurred speech. My throat burns with the want and need to yell, to scream, but my body isn't listening. Someone lifts me off the ground, and I am thrown into the back of some van or truck. Are we seriously being kidnapped? I once again try to speak, but there's nothing. I can't break out of this paralysis. I am whacked on the back of the head, hard, and everything fades to black. ...
It feels like I've been in the backseat of this vehicle for a million years. I'm gagged now, tied up and for the past hour or so I've been drifting in and out of consciousness. I still can't move and my head is pounding. The rumbling of the vehicle beneath me is uncomfortable as it jolts back and forth, hitting all the bumps. We've been driving forever, it seems. I've got to piss really bad. I'm unable to assess the condition of Meg. She's just been lying there on her side, unmoving. Who are these people? What do they want?
The vehicle grinds to a halt, lurching me forward. I hit the side with a bang and groan. The engine shuts off, the rumbling dying down. A door opens, flooding the inside of the van with blinding, white light. I squint, blinking my eyes rapidly. I am dragged out by one of the men and thrown to the ground with a heavy thud. Gravel and dirt digs into my cheek as I lie there, too tired to move. There's too much pain. I'm sore all over. Every small movement makes me ache.
"Get up," someone says, kicking me in the side. I grunt in pain, the sound muffled by the gag. I watch as Meg is dragged from the van, perfectly conscious. She lands on her feet, her eyes squinted and tired. The man pulls me to my feet, not caring if they hurt me or not. Once I'm standing, I feel the butt of a gun shove me hard in the back. I stagger forward.
"Move." I start to walk, but very slowly. My legs feel weak, like jelly.
"Walk faster." He shoves me harder this time. I nearly trip, and I turn to glare at him.
"Face forward." He shoves a gun in my face, and I turn back around. I'm barely able to make out my surroundings. We're in a place that appears to be some sort of town, a city. But everything's too bright, too loud. Overstimulated, my body crumples to the ground in front of the men.
"Goddammit, move! Get up!" The men kick me over and over, but I'm too tired to move. I just want to lay here. So that's what I do. They keep shouting at me to get up, but I don't. The sounds and shouts fade around me, and soon I faint again from exhaustion.
"Kennedy!" a voice jolts through my mind. "Kennedy, wake up!"
There's the glare of light behind my closed eyes. It's red and painful. I open them with a grimace, immediately squeezing them shut again. Where am I and why is it so bright?
"Kennedy, you have to wake up, come on," the voice says again. Something strikes me hard across the face. Pain laces through me and my eyes pop open wide. Meg is staring down at me, her brown, doe eyes huge.
"Finally."
I blink a few times, rubbing my head as I slowly sit up. "What's going on?"
"I don't know. Those men just dumped us in here."
I take a look around at my surroundings. Everything is white and empty. Just a large, padded white room. There's a singular white door, no windows.
"Where exactly is here?"
Meg shakes her head. "I don't know."
The door opens and a tall, blonde haired man with ice blue eyes walks in. I scramble to my feet as fast as possible, and Meg hides behind me. The man stares hard over my shoulder at her before finally looking at me.
"Where is the book?" asks the man calmly.
My mind swirls with apprehension and confusion. Is he talking about that book? The book that brought us here?
"How do you know about that?" My voice hitches.
"Where is the book?" He repeats himself.
"It's gone. After we...came through, it disappeared. Into the ground," I tell him.
The man lets out a deep, irritated breath.
"It was an accident," Meg pipes up from behind me. "We were...looking for my daughter."
"Your daughter?" He raises a brow.
"Yes." She goes up to him. "Maybe you've seen her?"
Meg pulls a picture out of her pocket and shows it to him. "This is my daughter."
He takes it from her, staring at it for a long time. "Lovely. What is her name?"
"Carol," she answers with a gulp.
"She was here. Just yesterday." Silently, he hands the picture back.
Meg beams. "That's great! Did you hear that, Kennedy? We're close!"
The blonde haired man takes a deep breath, taking Meg's face in both hands. Her face turns white with astonishment, her throat bobbing.
"What are you...?"
"Megara..." He strokes her hair.
She gasps. "How do you-"
"Shh. Listen to me," he whispers, cupping her face gently. Frantically, I pat around on my body for my gun. But I don't find it. All my hand finds is the empty holster, and my stomach drops.
"Get your hands off her," I say, my voice wobbly. The man snaps his head towards me, his cold eyes glaring.
"Quiet, worm."
I take a step towards him, to get him off of her, but I barely get an inch closer before I am thrown against the wall. With a grunt, I land on the ground on the other side of the room. How did he do that? I barely saw him move. My entire body aches, and I can hardly move without pain lacing through my muscles.
"Listen to me, Meg," he says again, softly, gently. "I want you to know that this isn't personal. I promise it will be quick. I promise you won't suffer. You'll feel nothing."
She opens her mouth to say something, but before she gets a chance to say anything at all, the man twists his hands, snapping her neck like a twig. The soft crunch echoes in my ears, bounces around my head. Eyes glassy, Meg's body falls in slow motion before me, collapsing in a graceful heap. My jaw drops.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" I yell at the top of my lungs. Without thinking, I charge him, my body full of rage and adrenaline. The last thing I see are his cold, blue eyes glowering and everything fades once more into darkness.