You're Not in This Alone

I watched Ebony lead Sarah, Nadia, and Miranda away from me. I looked over at Lance and Ethan, who were waiting patiently for me to give orders. “Unfortunately, we got stuck with the fun and easy job while they got stuck with the hard job. I don’t know about you, but I would do almost anything to protect Ebony – and Sarah – from seeing another dead body,” I assured them.

“There’s nothing we can do about it, really,” Lance pointed out. “They’re best cut out for the job.”

I shrugged in mild agreement. Turning to Ethan, the shy one, I asked, “So you can teleport us places?”

“You don’t believe me, do you?” he mumbled, downcast.

I laughed. “I would believe almost anything by now,” I admitted. “Just tell us how it works, and we’ll try to find the best houses for us.”

Ethan didn’t even warn me or Lance. All he did was reach out his hands and touch our arms. One second I saw the gazebo in front of us, and the next I saw a street lined by stores stretched in front of us. The soft grass under my feet suddenly felt as hard as cement. Although I felt no forced pushing against me, I felt dizzy as if I had just been spinning around. I stumbled, and once I regained my balance I saw that Lance had fallen to his knees.

Ethan watched us warily, standing perfectly straight as if we hadn’t just moved through space in a millisecond. “Showing you is easier than telling you,” he stated.

I smiled at him, saying, “That’s for sure.”

“That was so cool,” Lance breathed in awe. “I can only talk in people’s heads!”

“Which is what brought us all here in the first place,” I reminded him. “Anyways, let’s find come houses to live in. We can pick any, so let’s find the best.”

“Agreed,” replied Lance. “Let’s get going.”

Ethan reached out and touched us again, and we were a hundred yards down the road. I stumbled again, and Lance fell to his knees once more. “Sorry,” Ethan apologized. “I can’t help it. It just takes getting used to.”

It only took us a few minutes to find the perfect street. It was long and consisted of about ten or twelve huge, nice houses with big yards. It was also close to the river. We picked the house that we liked least to be our storage house, which we would stock with as much food and supplies as we could. After that Ethan took us to the local Walmart store.

We found everything we thought we could use and put it in a big pile in the front of the store. “If we get it all together, can Nadia teleport it to the house?”

Ethan nodded. “It’ll take her less than a minute,” he assured me.

Maybe it would take her seconds, but it took us hours to collect everything we thought we needed to. At last, we had a huge pile of everything from bottle of water to board games. We decided it was time to find Nadia and the rest of the girls. I was glad. I felt like a piece of me was missing with Ebony so far away.

It took us a few minutes to find them. When Ethan teleported us to a field on the outskirts of town, I couldn’t believe what I saw with my eyes. Miranda stood at the edge of the open space. She didn’t move her arms or even her hands, only her eyes. And still the dirt and grass was slowly moving to the edges, creating a massive hole.

Even more disturbingly, part of the hole that was already dug was already being used. It looked like thousands of bodies were strewn across the open earth. Every few seconds, a new one appeared out of thin air.

Ethan looked sick. Lance looked concerned. Miranda looked emotionless. Very slowly, Lance inched his way to Miranda’s side and slipped his arm around her waist. Other than leaning into him a little bit, she didn’t respond. Her gaze and concentration didn’t move from the earth she was shifting. Maybe it was more difficult than she made it look.

I knew Ebony was out there locating each of these bodies with Sarah while Nadia was teleporting them there. I didn’t want them to be alone. Maybe it had been a mistake to give the girls this job. Especially Sarah and Nadia, the younger ones.

Lance would stay with Miranda. I turned to Ethan. “Can you teleport us to the rest of them? We don’t know where they are.”

With difficulty, Ethan tore his frightened gaze from the pit. “Not normally,” he answered. “I can’t go to a place I don’t know I’m going unless Nadia is there. So this time it will work.”

I nodded and let him touch me. When the landscape changes before my eyes, I barely stumbled. I got less and less disoriented each time Ethan teleported me.

We stood before a small, cute century home near the center of town. The door was wide open. I guessed that the girls had already entered. Ethan and I went in. “We’re upstairs,” Sarah called to us. She must’ve heard us.

We went to a little boy’s bedroom. Ebony, Sarah, and Nadia stood around the bed. A young boy about Sarah’s age lay lifelessly under the covers. As soon as we got up, Sarah turned away from the body and came to stand by me. Her eyes were red and glassy, and I knew she was trying her hardest not to cry.

Nadia didn’t even twitch a finger, but the body disappeared right before our eyes. She shifted her haunted eyes to Ethan, who walked over to stand by her. Ebony turned her head away from the bed as if she was trying to erase what she has just seen. I held out my hand to her, and she took it gratefully. Sarah grabbed my other hand without invitation, but I didn’t mind.

“We need Nadia for a different job,” I said quietly. “Let’s come back to this tomorrow and worry about other things for the rest of the night.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ebony answered, her voice thick with emotion. We may not have been human, but we surely weren’t monsters. We felt bad for these people.

Nadia teleported the rest of us back to Lance and Miranda, while she joined hands with Ethan and he got them there. When I looked around, I saw that Ebony and Sarah were getting used to the dizzying feeling just like I was. Nadia barely swayed at all.

Lance looked at us, but Miranda was still shifting dirt.

“We’re going to finish this up tomorrow,” Ebony told Lance.

He nodded and turned back to Miranda, who was in a trance so deep she hadn’t heard Ebony. He must’ve used his mind to speak to her, because none of us heard him. Even so, the dirt settled a few seconds later, and then her knees buckled with exhaustion. Lance caught her before she hit the ground and slipped his arm around her to support some of her weight. She leaned into him gratefully.

“Did you tell her we were done for today in her head?” I inquired curiously. When he nodded, I added, “We should let everyone else know there are more of us here now. The same way you let us know you were in Catskill.”

Before anyone could answer, we all heard in our heads, If there’s anyone still out there, there are now seven of us waiting in Catskill. If you’re too far away, just head towards New York City. We’ll do our best to find you.

After a few minutes of silence, Nadia asked, “What now?”

“Let’s pick our houses and teleport our supplies from Walmart to our supply house,” I suggested.

“Then we’ll eat dinner and go to bed,” Ebony added. “We’re all tired, some of us more than others.” She glanced at Miranda worriedly. None of us knew it would take so much of her energy to dig the huge hole. She had implied that it would be easy.

I pecked Ebony’s cheek and murmured, “I missed you.”

She leaned into me in response. Her eyelids flickered, telling me she was having a hard time keeping them open. She was right. We were all exhausted.