The blast had knocked Washburn and his team to the ground. They slowly staggered to their feet but were even slower to recognize the encroaching danger.
Trevor gathered his senses and screamed as loud as he could into his radio.
"Danny! Danny, run!"
Too late.
The expanding vortex enveloped Washburn and his team. Trevor heard Danny’s confused voice over the radio, barely audible beneath the moaning, crying maelstrom.
"Wh-what? What is this?"
Stone watched his friend warp and stretch…
"What is this? Oh God, Trevor! Help us!"
…and disappear into Hell…
"What is this place? It hurts! TREVOR! HELP US FOR CHRIST’S SAKE! YOU CAN’T LEAVE US! TREVOR! HELP ME! HELP ME! WHAT ARE THESE THINGS? GET OFF OF ME! GET OFF! OH GOD OHGODOHGOD…"
The vortex collapsed and disappeared, its shriek silenced. The radio frequency cut.
The cold snow of a December afternoon fell fast so as to fill the wide round crater where a part of the Earth had once been.
– Trevor sat alone in the dark on the top floor of Hunter hall.
Outside, the storm had stopped shortly after dusk leaving behind a tranquil, snow-covered campus with drifts pushed high against walls. A first-quarter moon glowed above and white grains of snowy powder gusted in and out of the moonbeams while the wind whispered amongst the dead buildings. The temperature had dropped dramatically with the setting sun. A cold, dry air hovered overhead.
Several hours past since Danny Washburn and his men were dragged off into some other dimension. Yet despite the demolition team’s grisly fate, Stone’s surviving soldiers considered the mission a success.
Of course, they were right. Certainly the Old Man would agree. A small price to pay for walking the path.
Trevor closed his eyes.
Help us for Christ’s sake! You can’t leave us!
He pounded a fist into his forehead, leaned against the corner of the room, and slumped to the floor. He purposely ignored the blanket there, shunning the warmth it offered as if he did not deserve such comforts.
He heard her footsteps in the hallway. He did not want to see her. He did not want to be seen by her.
Nina entered the room with a flashlight in hand. She spotted him huddled in the corner exhaling short puffs of frosty breath.
"Trevor? You okay?"
He did not respond.
She walked to him.
They had not spoken since the end of the attack. She had been busy organizing everyone for the night. They would start the return trip in the morning.
Nina knelt next to him. She saw him shiver.
"You getting sick?"
She placed a hand to his forehead. He felt cold.
Nina realized she had seen him like this once before: the time he had cried next to the body of Sheila Evans.
She turned off the flashlight, sat on the floor next to him, and whispered in the dark: "It’s not your fault."
"Yes it is," he insisted in a monotone voice. "I should have known better. I should have known that it wouldn’t be that easy. I should have spent more time watching and waiting. Or maybe…maybe I should have sent Stonewall’s men to get Danny. Why didn’t I do that? I wasn’t thinking!"
"Listen, the longer we would have waited the more chance it would have spotted us or that other hostiles would have stumbled on us. As for Stonewall, from what I heard his men couldn’t have done anything. They would have been killed, too. It was a tough call. That’s what leaders do. They make the tough calls."
His voice wavered, "Leader? The same leader that had us raid the airport and pull all of our manpower off the estate. That went great, too. This leader just sent a bunch of people he knew to something worse than dying."
He clenched his teeth. "I…could…hear him…on the radio…crying for help… begging for me to do something… anything!"
Nina searched for words.
"You have to make those decisions. You can’t possibly know everything that’s going to happen. I’m just saying that you can’t be angry at yourself because of this."
"Angry? You think I’m angry? Where’s your flashlight? Shine it on me! Look at the great leader! See who I am, Nina. See the fraud! See the man behind the curtain! See him curled up in a ball crying like a two year old and wishing he could go crawl under his pillow and wake up from this damn nightmare."
He shivered again. She grabbed the blanket and tried to place it around his shoulders. He pushed it away.
"I…am tired of this game! I don’t want to be the leader anymore. I don’t want to have peoples' lives depending on what I say. I don’t want to fight anymore. I want to go hide and cry myself to sleep. I don’t want to be strong and sure and none of that shit ANY-MORE!"
Nina said nothing. What could she say?
"There’s your great leader, Nina. I’m not the man you think I am. I’m Richard Stone. I sell Chevrolets. I live at home with my parents. I don’t know who this Trevor guy is. I don’t think I like him very much."
Nina forced an arm around him. He tried to pull free but she would not let go. She tugged him close. He started to push free again but instead began to sob.
"Let it out…you can…you can let it all out with me. You can try and chase me away but I’m not going away."
He buried his face in her lap.
Nina stroked his head and told her lover, "I know Trevor Stone. He’s got a tough job but he does the best he can; better than any one else could do. I know it used to be a lonely job but that’s not true anymore. Trevor Stone is never alone as long as I’m here. As for this Richard Stone guy, I’ve seen him from time to time. And you know what? I love him, too. So I don’t care who is here next to me, Trevor or Richard. You don’t have to hide from me. But when you need me to, I’ll hide with you…in the dark."
Without thought, without planning, Nina found that, yes, she could give comfort to another human being. She could do more than kill; she could deliver mercy, too.
She felt complete.
Richard Stone cried for the loss of his life. He cried for the horrors he had seen over the months. He cried for the soul of Danny Washburn.
And he cried most of all because he knew when sunrise came, Trevor would be back.
Outside the windows, lazy flakes of snow rode the cold December wind.
28. Sweet Dreams
The return trip from Binghamton should have lasted a few hours but the knee-deep blanket of white covering the landscape turned the trip into a journey of three days.
Snowdrifts devoured the roads, eliminating the difference between lane and shoulder, sidewalk and front yard. Road signs pointed to nothingness. With every tree, wrecked car, road, and parking lot covered in snow, navigation became an exercise in frustration. Travel at night in such conditions was impossible.
The convoy inched along during the day. Drainage ditches swallowed vehicles; ice patches sent others careening into trees and guardrails. One rolled Humvee resulted in Rhodes breaking his collarbone.
However, several survivors joined their ranks during the trip, including a family of four living in a camper at a highway rest stop.
In the end, the convoy found its way home, arriving at the estate exhausted, hungry, suffering from all manner of wounds and sickness, and generally resembling more a defeated army than victorious heroes.
Trevor Stone labeled the mission a success and proclaimed that those lost would never be forgotten. This held particularly true for him; Danny's screams became a part of his soul.
Even as they grieved for missing friends, the survivors realized the "Holiday Season" loomed. Evan Godfrey proposed a gala New Year’s Eve Ball. Preparations for the party became the talk of the estate.
The Rheimmers trucked in a seven-foot blue spruce for the mansion’s Christmas tree.
Everyone either found or made an ornament including paper stars cut by children and sparkling jewelry. However, Shep set the new standard for ornaments when he placed Sal Corso’s cap on the tree.