Friendly Outreach to Alternate Realities

“Can you understand me?” The man with the white hair said. The man with the white hair is called “Rabbi” in my head.

“Yes, I seem to speak English.” My voice cracks and is too small. He nods in understanding but I’m not sure he could hear me. Other people are stopped in front of the fireplace. Stretching their shadows across the floor.

“Very well, it would seem so,” “Rabbi,” said. “The others, I mean, do you know anyone? Any of these people?” He pointed in a short arch at some of the stragglers. The people that had not made it far from where we had awoken.

They are either weak in body, hurt, or just emotional FUBAR.

We sit next to a fireplace that is ten feet tall and twelve, maybe fifteen feet wide. On each side stand rows and rows of books. The books are on shelves and in piles on the floor. From where I am sitting I can see three ways into and out of this room. Only one leads outside and the others are to further into this Library or possible compound.

A group of four got together and left out the side exit going deeper into the building. Rabbi had already gone to each of the remaining people to speak. He tried his English, Spanish, and a broken French that I knew was wrong. Come to think of it, If you had asked me in Spanish I could have responded in kind. Rabbi's hand swept to the back of his pants in a hurried motion. My eyes widened to watch him and he slowed his movements to show me his wallet.

“Just excited we can communicate, I don’t remember who I am, but this wallet, my wallet, I guess. It has picture identification and a driver’s license, it says I am Dr. Jacob Williams”.

“Wait, who am I?” Looking away, checking my back pocket for a wallet. My other hand reaches for a heart shaped locket atop my cleavage. The man with the white hair, this Jacob Williams, reaches out his hand and it lands on mine. I pull away, rotating my side and hip into him. Then drag his body weight over my smaller female frame while pushing off the wall. He comes down and I spare the good doctor the broken arm and neck I could have levied against him. I’m not sure how I know this or why I understand this is a hip toss but I do.

He lets out a yell that fills the room and tries to scramble to his feet but I hold him with an arm lock. “Jacob, calm down.”

He does and I release the pressure lock. We both regained our feet.

“You almost broke my arm.” He sat down and rubbed his elbow and the side of his head like he did not know which to comfort first. “You might not know who you are but you seem like you could be dangerous … if you wanted to be.”

The others in the room leaned to look, a couple even stood, ready to run out the room screaming about the angry black woman that assaulted the good doctor.

“I should not have grabbed you. I apologize,” Jacob said. “That is an understandable reaction, I suppose. Maybe linked to trauma or intense self-defense training, likely both?”

“What kind of doctor might you be?” My hand extends out as I ask the question, he grabs it. We don’t shake as I thought but he uses my hand to stand up. “Apology accepted,” I said.

“What should we call you? Red?”

“Because my hair is wrapped in red?” I roll my eyes. A satin cloth wraps around the top of the head holding on to short locks.

The exterior door flies open and a man that went out before runs through it, “Shut the Door.”

Jacob and I ran to the doorway. We look out into the gray haze of twilight. Fog flowing through a city skyline I am unfamiliar with and a mass, a woman comes barreling to the door. She shoots past just over the man that slammed the door open. She lands at a rolling stop at the foot of a bookshelf. Shaking it, landing tomes on her like predatory birds.

This was not the result of any leap a human can perform more like a high-speed motorcycle crash.

None of us move.

“Shut the door,” the man said, even and clear as he headed to help push.

“How did that happen?” Asked Jacob turning on his heels to run to the woman who had flown past.

At the door and I peer out. What silent thing may she have been riding but I see nothing but fog rolling down the street?

A sound like the earth shedding its mantle slammed into my head. Not just through my ears but from inside as if my chest was a speaker. The sound is a deep guttural growl. The vibrations in my head made the windows of the library melt rather than shatter. A growling of a creature so massive the fog of its breathing blocks the sun and leaves a city bathed in twilight.

2 The Thunder of Gods, Tore Me Apart

A woman standing at the door turns pale and her skin breaks out in goosebumps. She pulls the door back to slam it. Keeping it open as the fog in the twilight crawls up the steps.

My foot is faster than any words my kick made a gentle thump as it met the door. We lock eyes for a second and I pull my foot back and grab the door. Looking at Her pale face and vacant eyes. My hand finds hers, we close the door together.

This ghost-faced woman kept a hold of my hand. Her gripping with cold thin fingers is painful but not unwelcome. Letting out a shaky breath pass through my fingers on my free hand I realize I trapped a scream. Even in this state, I noticed the pile of books and the person hiding near them. Makes 9 of us or 10 not counting the two that have not come back. This ghost of a woman locks eyes with mine, she squeezes my hand, and between us passes understanding. She confirms this when she puts a single finger up to her lips and downflow her tears. Being quiet might be what saves us from the attention of whatever is outside. Seeing the gesture allowed the riot of screams inside me to go back to their cells. I jerk my hand away from my face and flicking the sticky crawling substance away and wiping my hand on my jeans.

Nothing makes a sound like that.

Rabbi was leaning over the women that flew into the room. Rabbi and two others buzzed over and around her but no one touched her.

“What happened out there?” Rabbi said. He is looking down at the woman she is not breathing and has a broken back and neck. He questions again but looking at the wall. His hands shake over her like he is mocking voodoo.

“I don’t know,” The man that had left with her said. He was sitting with his back to the wall and crying into his hands.

“What's out there?” I ask, walking over.

“I don’t know, we couldn’t see. I couldn’t see.”

“Was the mist too thick?” I ask.

“There was no mist. No fog. Fake town outside goes right up to a forest edge.”

Rabbi looks at me. “The fake town?” was not what I saw when I looked out that door.

“We left out of here into a hall that houses periodicals. We figured we must be on a movie set, they didn’t make sense. The dates wrong. All wrong!” He began to dry heave.”She read an article about mass disappearances but not like from planes to ships… whole towns at night. That place out there all staged.”

Long white spurts came out of him as he leaned over a trash can I never saw there. We saw the major metropolitan cityscape because looking through the fog were buildings that reached the clouds. Nothing like that would be in a small town.

My breath is caught in my throat, the woman whose neck is broken is getting to her feet. She grabs a book from the shelf, looks at it, and tosses it aside. The thump of the book is missed by the others under the retching of the man that left. My voice leaves me but I point at her with a shaking finger.

“She couldn’t be…” He started to say, putting a hand to his head. Two people that were over next to her begin shaking and twisting their hands in the air and marching in place.

The woman switches shelves. Looks at the cover and throws the book away. She is reading each title aloud before tossing them. One is “Belief Systems of the Inner Congo Before Belgian Christian Influence and the Natural Evolution of Undiluted Pantheons…” There are few like this dealing with Pan African religious texts. She stops at one and begins to flip through it.

Everyone is held in place watching this display of a broken madness. The woman begins to scream and the walls of the library shake as a rumble from the ground hit the building. Not hard, only a few books lean or fall but no people. “Shut her up,” the vomiting man said.

“Mommy wants wrong with the woman why won’t she stop screaming.” A child said. One standing next to a woman I saw was hiding just out of view of the door in a shelf behind a pile of books.

“Shut her up” said someone.

From the corner, the little person also begins to scream. She and mom went back under a bookshelf. They disappeared into the dark when the chanting began.

The rumbling gets louder as she moves from just screaming to chanting.

Rabbi is looking at the floor and the books that have been tossed there. I step around him and grab the woman by the throat. Her skin is clammy with sweat that makes it easy for my arm to slide around her neck. Her insides feel wrong under her skin. The pressure applied stops her chanting as her body begins to convulse. Her movements did nothing to address the hold on her body. Her body lays limp in my arms. There is a scape across the back of my neck timed with the gasps from onlookers as the woman in arms body went from rigid to a rag doll. The book she was holding falls but is caught by Rabbi. A glint of gold catches my eye. As I lower the woman to the ground.

They are going to be afraid of me now that I have killed someone in front of them. The darkness behind my closed eyes protects me from their disapproving stare. Taking a deep breath I open my eyes and look at the woman’s chest still breathing.

Everyone's eyes are glued in our direction but they are looking at a projection hanging in the air coming from my locket. It’s scrolling Through and giving so called mission objectives. To a letter To: Alpha Team Lead Agent [redacted]

The [Redacted] Program has summoned an [Redacted] intelligence to the earth. That seems to because people to disappear when [Redacted]

Symptoms include:

Fever

Nausea

Amnesia

Speculation: Our current data suggest that after [Redacted] hours those with memory loss have their personalities over written… [Redacted] never to be found.

RECON ONLY

SAVE NO ONE

STAY HIDDEN

*No identification will be taken with you because those who don’t recover their identity after memory loss [Redacted] pass the 48 hours.

—————

Delta Team: Contact Lost

Bravo Team: Contact Lost

Alpha team: Transmitting…