Part 23 (1/2)
I took a sip of soda. ”You're losing me here, Dez.”
”The darkness has infected other planets before ours. He invaded most of them, but a few planets invited him. They welcomed him. Wors.h.i.+pped He Who Shall Not Be Named as a G.o.d. The twin moons of Yhe and the fungal gardens of Yaksh. On Io. That big red spot in the middle of Jupiter. And on other versions of Earth, too. See, we're not the only Earth. There are many other Earths, just like ours-but a little different. Maybe on one of them, you don't live in Walden. Maybe you live in New York. Or maybe you have brown hair instead of blond. But it's our Earth's turn now. The darkness has come for us. It brought eternal nighttime-like a total, planet-wide eclipse. It's eaten up every living thing-all the people, animals, plants. It sucked up all their energy and left an empty husk behind, like a locust sh.e.l.l. Did you ever play with locust sh.e.l.ls? I used to when I was young. I remember that. I don't remember much, but I remember that. I used to pick them off the trees and put them in a jar. Then, when I had enough, I'd line them up and have them fight my plastic army men.”
”The darkness, Dez. Let's stay focused, buddy.”
”I'm sorry. You're right. Another thing the darkness can do is possess people. It takes control of their bodies and uses them to do things that it can't-like wipe out the sigils and seals. But it can't do that this time because some of the words I used keep it from doing so. It can nudge us. Make us fight each other. But it can't actually order us around like puppets. So now it's waiting. When the darkness is done, it will go somewhere else. But like I said, it can't yet, because I stopped it. Everything else is gone, but He Who Shall Not Be Named can't get into Walden. And that has made the darkness very, very angry. I'm sorry that I don't have any ice for your soda.”
”That's okay. It's fine like this.”
”Do you like it? I like ginger ale. It's fizzy and tickles my nose sometimes.”
Sighing, I set the can down on the pallet and ran my hands through my hair.
”Look,” I said slowly. ”Let me see if I've got this straight. You're telling me that the darkness is alive, and it goes from planet to planet, sucking the energy out of everything before moving on, and now it's here on Earth, which is just one of many different Earths, and it spread out over the planet, but you kept it from coming into Walden?”
Dez beamed. ”You've got it! I knew the words and how to keep it out. I did good, right?”
”Yeah, Dez, you did great. If things ever get back to normal, I'm gonna ask the mayor to give you a f.u.c.king giant gold medal and the key to the city.”
His smile vanished. ”But things aren't going to get back to normal, Robbie. We're all that's left. This is it. A key to the city won't open any doors-at least, not the kind of doors we need now.”
”Well, what happened to everyone else on Earth? Where are they?”
”Inside the darkness. Inside its belly. Gone.”
My stomach felt like somebody had kicked it. My hands shook and my feet felt cold.
”So...they're all dead? dead? What, you're telling me that the f.u.c.king Earth has been destroyed except for us?” What, you're telling me that the f.u.c.king Earth has been destroyed except for us?”
”No, not destroyed. The Earth is still here. But everyone on it-every living thing-is dead. Swallowed by the darkness.”
”Except for us.”
”Right.”
”Because of your magic f.u.c.king circle.”
”It's not a circle. It's a square. It goes all around the town and up into the sky.”
”You know what I mean, G.o.dd.a.m.n it!”
”Are you mad at me, Robbie? Did I do something wrong? Do you think I'm a witch?”
I sighed. ”No, Dez, I'm not mad at you. I'm just frustrated. This is a little hard for me to believe. Magic and darkness that's alive and f.u.c.king demons...”
”I told you, the Thirteen are not demons.”
”Whatever. It's just a little hard to swallow.”
”But you saw it for yourself. You saw what the darkness can do.”
”Yeah, I did. I'm well aware of what it can do. But even still. All this stuff you're telling me. Maybe it's too much at once, you know?”
”I've only told you a fraction. There's so much other stuff-the Great Deep and the Void, Heaven and h.e.l.l, how the Creator's soul is trapped in an endless cycle here on Earth, and the Labyrinth, with all those doors to all those different levels.”
I set the gun and the flashlight down and rubbed my temples. I was starting to get a headache. Luckily, it was just brought on by stress and not anger. One thing I'd noticed was that since the moment we'd entered Dez's shack, I hadn't felt my negative emotions getting out of hand.
”Levels?” I asked, trying to be polite and hoping that whatever tangent he was getting off on now would help me figure out how to save me, Christy, Russ, and Cranston.
”That's what they call all the different worlds. All the different realities. They're levels. Each level can be reached by going through the Labyrinth.”
”Dez, don't take this the wrong way, but what the f.u.c.k are you talking about?”
He sighed, clearly impatient with me. It was a full minute before he spoke again, and when he did, his tone was like somebody explaining something to a small child. My first urge was to tell him to stuff his condescending tone up his f.u.c.king homeless a.s.s-but I needed him. And in truth, it wasn't his fault that I wasn't schooled in Whack-a.s.s Magic s.h.i.+t 101.
”The universe is made up of different levels,” Dez said. ”You've got planets and solar systems and dimensions and alternate realities. Each of these is a level.”
”Right,” I said. Now I was the one growing impatient. ”You told me that already. I've got it.”
”There are other levels, too-places like the Great Deep and what you'd call Heaven and h.e.l.l, and the lost level that n.o.body ever comes back from. I used to be able to explain it better, but I can't anymore. It has something to do with strings.”
”String theory?”
He snapped his fingers, grinned, then nodded. ”That's it! String theory. Picture the planets-Earth or Mars or Venus. Each of those planets has different versions of themselves. Different levels. To get to them, you go through the Labyrinth. It's like a shortcut. It winds through s.p.a.ce and time to all the different levels.”
”So how come we don't use it?”
”Because most human beings can't see it. You have to know magic-or be crazy. But the Thirteen use it. That's how they get around to all the different levels. He Who Shall Not Be Named actually lives in the center of the Labyrinth. He squats there like a big black spider and sends out feelers through the Labyrinth.”
”Well, he's here now. And I don't care what form he takes or what his real name is. The only thing I need to know about He Who Shall Not Be f.u.c.king Named is how to stop him? How do we make the darkness go away?”
”We can't. Haven't you been listening, Robbie?”
”Yeah, Dez. I have. But it's hard to understand. You keep talking in circles and repeating yourself and going off on wild G.o.dd.a.m.n tangents. Work with me here, dude.”
”It's too late to banish it now. The darkness has eaten too much. It's too powerful. All we can do is keep it outside. It can't totally possess us and it can't cross the barrier, but it won't leave either.”
”There's got to be a way, man! You stopped it from coming in. You took away its ability to possess people. And what about out there at the edge of town? The salt and the symbols. You chased it away with that once before.”
”I kept it out. That's all. I confined it to the edges of town. But we can't make it go away. That's impossible. Early on, before it completely breached our world, we could have. It's been done before, on different Earths. But not now. The darkness is too strong now. It's consumed too much.”
”f.u.c.k...”
”Yes.”
”So, it'll just keep taunting us? Making itself look like our loved ones or something we're scared of?”
”I'm afraid so.”
”So we're screwed.”