Eighty-Sixed: Chapter 89 - Hasty Apologies

Photo by Shelby Bauman on Unsplash

“And here you are,” Frankie called as he ran toward his wife. “I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here. I shouldn’t be at all.”

Becca’s face streamed with tears. She ran into his arms so forcefully that he nearly tumbled. At that moment, Becca felt as if there had never been a fight on the telephone over Frankie leaving with the dogs, as if she hadn’t sequestered herself in this building ignoring his voicemails — all twenty-three of them. As if she hadn’t caused the greatest disaster in the history of the world.

Frankie was so caught off guard by his wife’s sprint into him that he clutched onto her in return — not as an emotionally loving response to finally finding his wife amid the chaos of the last few weeks — trying to steady himself and keep from falling flat onto his rear. Becca took advantage of Frankie’s panicked embrace. She grabbed hold of her husband even more firmly, more fiercely, burying her face into his chest, and took in his smell, which was surprisingly malodorous and indicated a deep need for a shower.

But Becca didn’t care. For that moment, before he said anything else and reminded her of all that she’d done, she didn’t care.

In contrast to Frankie’s now unpleasant aroma, despite her days on the road from Key West to Chicago, a scent came up from Becca’s hair that, even as he struggled to regain footing, set Frankie even further back in time. He’d forgotten how good her hair smelled when they both were forty years younger.

Stable upon his feet once more, Frankie held Becca at arm’s length, gripping her by both shoulders as he peered with a scowl into her face. It was so young again and wrinkle-free. She was smooth-skinned and dark-haired — no silver streaks had yet appeared. Her dark blue sapphire eyes were nearly black. Seeing each other this way was another time warp in which they found themselves, somehow giving everything happening even more gravity as if seeing his wife made the last twenty-four hours of getting shot, finding himself at ENH, and now constantly running from black holes even more real.

Yet, Frankie couldn’t stop looking at his wife even as a monstrous-sounding black hole seemed to be bearing upon them again based upon the blaring thunderous pulsing that pounded invisibly through the walls around them every few seconds.

“And you drugged this fellow?” Frankie asked angrily, pointing to Gordon on the utility cart. “Really? What’s wrong with you?”

“We don’t have time to talk,” Tabitha interjected. “We have to move.”

“Everything,” Becca said. “Everything is wrong with me. This is all my fault.”

“It most certainly is,” Tabitha agreed.

Clutching one of David’s hands with hers, Olivia nervously eyed the concrete walls as they vibrated all around them.

“We need to go,” she echoed.

“Your fault?” Frankie said to Becca, ignoring Olivia. “No kidding? Your fault? Really? You mean you took something too far? The all-knowing Dr. Becca Watts? I find that hard to believe.”

“Don’t mock me, Frankie.”

“Being mocked is the least of your worries, my love.”

Another echoing crack — loud as thunder yet sounding just inches away — boomed through the tunnel like a subway train.

“Stop talking and move!” Tabitha commanded. “We’ve got another black hole about to rear down on us. We have got to move.”

“How do you know that?” Jeremy asked as they started to run. “How do you know it’s one of those black hole things?”

“Trust me,” Olivia said. “It wouldn’t be the first today.”

“For us, either,” David said.

“Now, what have you done?” Frankie yelled to his wife over their footsteps and the pounding thunderous noise from the walls.

“I’m so sorry for everything,” Becca said, and her rushed apology was immediately met with a panel of lights exploding overhead and sparks flying, just as the light had done minutes before in the stairwell.

From behind them, the right side of the passageway melted away, swallowed in blackness deeper than night, obsidian and ink, pulsing on the edges and rounded, cutting into the ceiling and floor as it pulsed pulsed pulsed and cut into the world like a scythe slicing away at reality. It was at least thirty yards down the hall, but pulling at them like a vacuum cleaner. The air sifted out of the room as if through a straw, leaving them all gasping for air. Their legs moved as if running through water.

“No time for apologies!” Charlie called out from the rear of them as he feverishly pushed the utility cart down the middle of their tiny band of refugees, seeking sanctuary or some semblance thereof. His skinny old legs were sinewy but muscular, and he moved with surprising speed.

Lying atop the cart, Gordon twisted his head backward and looked behind them as Charlie pushed, and the group ran. He stared directly into the heart of the black hole as it grew, a giant black orb that moved out of the right side of the wall and, within moments, completely blacked out the passageway from where they’d just escaped. It quickly moved toward them with each blinking second. Down the entire length of the cavernous passage, lighting panels on the ceiling exploded one after the other as if set to a pre-programmed sequence of firework detonators. Sparks filled the tunnel with a muffled pop and then a hiss as shattered glass showered them in tiny shards.

The small squadron sprinted, leaving apologies and accusations behind. There was no time for that now, and chances were there would be none later. But for now, all there was to do was run. Olivia and David refused to release their hands from each other as they pushed forward while the blackness simultaneously pulled them back. Jeremy ran alongside Charlie and helped push the cart with Gordon on top. At the same time, Becca and Frankie finally relinquished their argument and rushed forward wordlessly, nearly catching up to Tabitha at the head of the race as the woman in the small girl’s body barreled down the hallway back to where they’d left James and Tony.

“What about the EMP?” Olivia called out, pointing to the cobbled-together weapon in Tabitha’s hands.

“This won’t work on that!” Tabitha yelled back. “The black hole’s too big now. We’ve got to get to James!”

With the cart roughly vibrating like a wooden rollercoaster beneath him, Gordon couldn’t take his eyes from the iris of the blackness behind him. For a fleeting second, his breath caught in his throat.

Marie.

He saw Marie. Maybe he was still delusional, but he strained to look again, convinced he saw with precise clarity what looked like his beloved Marie, dead and gone for more than forty years. He had seen her standing amidst the blackness of the pulsing and destructive orb. Her arm stretched out toward the group as they ran in the opposite direction.

She seemed to be mouthing words to Gordon, but he could hear nothing except for the roar of the black hole bearing down toward them all.

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