The Mesmerized (11 page)

West Texas

2 PM

“Sir, we cannot allow you to enter the
area,” the sheriff repeated.

Ruben rubbed his nose and shuffled his feet
as he watched the news reporter attempting to stare down the local
sheriff. Having lived in the area his whole life, the young man
knew there was no way the uber-clean, uber-handsome man from a big
news network was going to convince the sheriff to do his bidding.
During Ruben’s wild high school days he’d had his fair share of
run-ins with the local sheriff department while speeding on the
county roads at obscene hours of the night. The deputies were all
hard asses, just like Sheriff Parker. The tall, eagle-eyed
silver-haired man in his severe brown uniform did not flinch when
the reporter bombarded him with a dozen reasons why he should be
allowed past the two vehicles forming a barricade along the two
lane country road.

Narrowing his eyes at the area just beyond
the police barricade, Ruben observed the flat expanse of the plains
covered in brush and populated by the transfixed people of his
town.

“Can you believe this?” Ruben drawled in his
thick Texas accent, folding his arms over his stocky chest.

Beside him, his best friend Chuck slid his
bony fingers through his thick blond hair. “This is all sorts of
fucked up. Do you think Esmer and Terry are out there?”

With a sick feeling in his gut, Ruben
nodded. “My sisters are in the affected area, so yeah. Luckily Mom
and Dad are still visiting friends in Eastland, so they’re
safe.”

“For now. The news is reporting this thing
spreads from here to California and up through Utah. This is some
serious shit.” Wiping his sunburned neck with his kerchief, Chuck
exhaled loudly.

Ruben and Chuck had just finished eating
lunch and were returning to their jobs on a nearby ranch when
they’d heard about the terrifying event gripping the western part
of the country. Then the somber news that their hometown nearby was
also affected reached the men and they had raced in the direction
of Ruben’s home to check on his sisters. The two sheriff cars
blocking the road had been a punch to the gut. Ruben surveyed the
area thoughtfully, trying to formulate a plan. He had to save his
sisters. With his parents away, he was in charge of his two younger
siblings. Though he didn’t feel like much of an adult at twenty, he
took his responsibilities very seriously.

Leaning toward Chuck, he whispered, “With
Sheriff Parker distracted, maybe I can scoot along the fence by
those trees. I need to get out there and find my sisters.”

“Dude, that’s all sorts of a bad idea. You
might catch it.”

“Catch what?”

“What they got, Ruben.”

Ruben snorted. “We’re already exposed,
Chuck. There’s nothing between us and them but fresh air.”

“That don’t mean it’s not catching, bro.”
Chuck shook his head reluctantly. “You can’t risk it.”

“I gotta save my sisters,” Ruben said, a
little more loudly than he intended.

Chuck shushed him, jerking his head toward
the two men. It was clear that Sherriff Parker and reporter were
not about to budge from their standoff.

“Have you tried to waken them?” the reporter
was asking.

“Sir, those folks don’t know what the hell
is going on and I can’t send anyone out there,” the sheriff
answered.

“Why not?” The reporter was intent on
getting his story and the lines of his face stood out sharply as he
clenched his jaw in anger.

“Because you can’t cross the line. I got two
deputies out there with the rest of the folk. Once you go twenty
feet down the road, you become affected.”

Ruben and Chuck glanced at each other.

“See?” Chuck said.

“Shit.”

Sheriff Parker walked to a Texas Border
Patrol SUV coming to a halt nearby. A deputy took the sheriff’s
place between the two parked vehicles and stared down the
reporter.

The man in the rolled up sleeves and tie
with the perfectly coiffed hair turned to his cameraman with
dismay. “How the hell are we supposed to get a story if they won’t
let us into the affected area?”

The tall, hefty cameraman with a shock of
red hair poking out from underneath his Rangers baseball cap didn’t
lower his camera as he answered. “We should just run for it. What
can they do to us?”

Ruben and Chuck side-eyed each other as they
listened.

The barricade was a bit of yellow tape
strung between the sheriff’s vehicle and the deputy’s. Though there
were fences on both sides of the strip of asphalt, past the police
line was an open road with only a few trucks crashed into the fence
posts.

A silent agreement must have passed between
the reporter and the cameraman because they both burst into a
sprint and darted around the far side of the deputy’s car.

“Idiots,” the deputy declared, but didn’t
follow. He turned to watch the two men racing up the road.

“Let’s go,” Ruben whispered to Chuck. “I
need to get my sisters.”

“Wait!” Chuck said, grabbing his arm, his
eyes widening. Following his friend’s gaze, Ruben saw the two men
shudder to a halt. The heavy, expensive camera toppled from the
shoulder of the redhead and smashed against the blacktop. In unison
they started a slow walk after the other affected people.

The deputy chuckled.

“What the—?” Ruben exclaimed. “How?”

“We need to get out of here,” Chuck said
turning toward the old work truck. “We need to go now!”

“But...that...how...” Ruben gripped the
sides of his head, his spiky hair pricking his palms. “How?”

A second later Ruben’s terrified thoughts
were drowned in a vast, icy void. Dropping his hands, he staggered
forward and through the yellow tape. It caught on his belt buckle
and held him for a brief second before dislodging from the
sheriff’s car and trailing on the ground like a long snake. Along
with the deputy, sheriff and border patrolman, Ruben joined the
mesmerized.

Las Vegas

2 PM

Ava slipped from Simone’s grip, landed on
her feet, and pivoted toward Minji, pulling the air filter from her
mouth. Pink lips straining, Ava appeared to be attempting to speak.
Minji stumbled toward her daughter, hope gripping her heart until
she realized that Ava’s eyes were doll-like: empty and glassy.
Replacing the face mask over Ava’s mouth, Minji realized the other
mesmerized had come to a halt. Eerily, their lips flexed and
twisted in perfect synchronization.

Arthur and Simone remained paralyzed, their
eyelids fluttering. It reminded her vividly of the tourist woman
and her male companion in his tennis whites in the seconds before
they started to hemorrhage. Fearful her two acquaintances were
about to suffer the fate of so many others and bleed to death in
seconds, Minji drew Ava away from Simone.

In terrible anticipation, Minji waited.

A low whistling emanated from Simone’s
throat, and then she blinked several times.

“Heeeeee...” Arthur exhaled, sounding like
he was trying to form a word. Then he stumbled forward, one hand
rising to his face. “Ugh, that sucked.”

Simone winced, shaking her head while
pressing her fingertips to her temples. “That was quite
painful.”

Minji had been so convinced she was about to
witness their deaths it was jarring to see them shaking off the
effects of their paralysis. Both had been immune to the earlier
attacks, so why had this one affected them differently? Could she
be certain that she hadn’t been caught in the grip of this newest
attack when she’d gone blind briefly? Had that moment stretched
longer than she believed?

“You were frozen again,” Minji said, her
words roughened with fear.

“I don’t think so,” Simone said after a few
seconds of awkward silence.

Both Arthur and Simone regarded Minji with
disbelief stamped on their faces.

“I didn’t go blind or blank out,” Arthur
said defensively.

“It just hurt like a bitch,” Simone
added.

“No, you both stopped moving and your eyes
rolled up.” Minji cautiously touched the back of Simone’s hand.
“Your skin is really cold.”

Pressing her palm to her cheek, Simone
frowned, uncertainty settling into the lines around her mouth.

Arthur shook his head. “I know I wasn’t
affected.”

“But you were,” Minji insisted.

The mesmerized staggered into motion,
resuming their march, but Ava didn’t stir at Minji’s side, or
attempt to join the others. She continued to stare at Minji, her
mouth contorting into odd shapes.

Meanwhile, Simone took a sharp step out of
the way of several seriously wounded mesmerized, grievous burns and
gashes inflicted on their bodies. The group appeared to have come
from further down the Las Vegas Strip. Arthur scuttled around to
hop onto the hood of a car. From the scared look on his face, it
was evident he expected the mesmerized to turn into cannibals and
attempt to eat him. Visibly trembling, the man watched the gruesome
parade pass by.

Minji kept Ava at her side. She wasn’t
afraid of the mesmerized, but she felt helpless in the face of
their suffering. With firm pushes of one hand, she redirected the
affected away from the stretcher. In her peripheral vision, Jake
strained to gaze at her, his lips stretching and twisting beneath
the face mask as though he were struggling to speak.

One man hobbled past her on what appeared to
be a broken ankle. His face and hair were charred, his skin
cracking and oozing. After walking several paces, he stopped, then
twisted about in his tracks to look at Minji. Eyes wide but empty,
his mouth opened and closed, once again reminding her of a gasping
fish.

“Why is he doing that?” Arthur nervously
scrambled off the hood he was perched on and attempted to hide
behind a cluster of palm trees on the boulevard median.

“Heeeee...” the man said hoarsely.

Minji cautiously approached the man. “I
think he’s asking for help.”

“They’re making the same noise,” Simone
said, gesturing to Ava and Jake.

“And they’re looking at you, Minji. Why are
they looking at
you
?” Arthur aimed an accusing glare at
her.

“I don’t know, okay? I have no idea.” Minji
was very unnerved by how the man’s eyes tracked her movements. A
rapid glance at Jake and Ava revealed they were also observing her
with those strangely blank stares. “Do you want help?”

“Heeee...” the three chorused.

Simone roughly shoved the man on his way.
“Move it.”

“Simone!”

The burned man stumbled from the momentum of
Simone’s thrust, then recovered his balance. Minji fully expected
him to turn and stare at her again, but he trudged after the rest
of the horde.

“Minji, we can’t deal with anyone else. We
need to get Jake and Ava to the medical center and hope there’s
someone that can treat them. We can’t help everyone!” Simone
briskly walked to the end of the stretcher and took up Arthur’s old
spot. “Let’s move before more of them decide you’re the greatest
show on Earth.”

Running on the balls of his feet in an
attempt to be quiet, Arthur rushed over and grabbed the hand holds
in the front of the stretcher. “I say we go fast, because this is
getting really, really disturbing.”

“Agreed. Let’s go.” Simone forced the
stretcher into motion. “I don’t want to be out in the open if this
is going to get any worse than it already is.”

Tugging on Ava’s hand, Minji hurried behind
Simone past the tangle of cars to a more open part of the
northbound side the boulevard. Both sides straddling the median
were heavily congested with traffic heading southward. It was
evident from the many police cruisers that all lanes had been
redirected away from the event.

Continuing toward the tall free-standing
tower at the end of the Las Vegas Strip, the three people lapsed
into a disquieting silence. Whenever one side of the boulevard
became too difficult to traverse, they’d find an opening in the
median and cross to the other side. Weaving back and forth, they
trudged toward the Stratosphere. The white and faded pink big top
of Circus Circus loomed just ahead. Through the gray haze, the neon
sign for the casino with its creepy clown glowed menacingly. There
was a lot of construction underway in the area before Circus
Circus. The older casinos were giving way to new, swankier
structures.

“I hate clowns,” Minji said, nodding to the
circus-themed casino.

“But it’s a good sign that we’re almost to
the Stratosphere. You said the medical center is close to it,
right?” Simone stumbled in her high heels, caught herself, and took
a second to shove her foot back into the shoe. “By the time we get
there, I’m going to need medical attention for these blisters.”

Not only were Minji’s feet aching and
feeling bruised in her wet boots and socks, her back hurt from the
backpack. Watching the mesmerized stumbling along the boulevard,
she found it difficult to feel sorry for herself. At least she
still had control of her faculties. It hurt to see Jake and Ava
under the control of the event, but at least they were alive. How
many were dead? How many were dying? These thoughts she kept to
herself. It was easy to do. Simone and Arthur were very quiet on
their long hike past construction sites, and buildings with flashy
neon lights glowing on the glass facades.

The Stratosphere loomed ahead, barely
visible through the murky air. With relief, Minji spotted the white
brick emergency care center with large teal glass windows. An
ambulance had struck the exterior wall, but was now abandoned.

“There,” Minji said, pointing.

Stark lettering read, “Boulevard Emergency
Care.” There was a portico on one side for ambulance arrivals and a
parking garage tucked behind the structure. The entire building had
the aura of new construction from its freshly planted flora and
fauna in triangular shaped flowerbeds outside the front door and
the “Now Serving Your Medical Needs” neon sign flashing on the
corner facing the road. Minji supposed it was impossible to escape
the lights of the Las Vegas Strip.