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Lachlan

After Lachlan and Sam had both managed a few hours of sleep and found some fresh clothes and a jug of water to wash the worst of the blood away, they’d decided to search the houses in the town for supplies.

It was only getting harder and harder to make sense of this place. The building Lachlan and Sam had been in before and the wide concrete expanse on top had felt surreal–overly simplistic, abstract approximations of familiar things.

This town felt too real, too detailed. Trinkets and clutter were scattered through the houses, as though real people had lived there. The last house they’d visited had been full of photographs of a smiling family, and the table had been set as though the residents had just vanished in the middle of a meal.

“I’m picking up on a bit of a Pompeiian vibe here,” said Lachlan.

“What?” said Sam.

“A once-picturesque Italian city, frozen forever in time and left to decay?”

“Italian?” said Sam. “What makes you think this place is Italian?”

Lachlan pointed at a street sign.

“Well, for one thing, we just turned from Via Marconi onto Via Roma,” said Lachlan. “For another, every single street sign and shop name is in Italian.”

“I haven’t exactly been paying attention to whether the streets have Italian-sounding names or not,” said Sam. “That hasn’t really been a priority given every single other thing about our situation.”

“Point taken,” said Lachlan.

They headed toward a house with a gray-white stucco exterior that stood out among the pastel rainbow of tall narrow houses squeezed together along the street. Sam’s shoes made a schtick, schtick, schtick sound as he walked, the dried blood on his soles sticking to the ground.

Hopefully, there would be a fresh pair of shoes in Sam’s size in the next house. That sound was getting disturbing to listen to.

“There are two possibilities for this town,” said Sam. “This first is that it originated in this plane of reality. After all, parallel universe have infinite possibilities, so it’s virtually guaranteed that the Italian language would exist in some of them.”

“That seems unlikely.”

“There’s also the second possibility,” said Sam, “that it was pulled into this place somehow, through a massive-scale version of the phenomenon we both experienced. But an entire town disappearing isn’t exactly subtle. It would have been all over the news.”

An Italian town disappearing? Wait a minute…

“Interesting,” said Lachlan. “I can’t help but think of Borgo San Severino.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“You Americans really aren’t aware of anything that happens outside your country, are you?” said Lachlan.

“Are you going to tell me what it is, or are you just going to keep being a jerk about it?”

“There was a town in Italy that disappeared a few years ago.”

“An entire town?” Sam raised an eyebrow. “How does an entire town disappear?”

“Supposedly there was an explosion. A research lab accident.”

“Okay,” said Sam. “The issue with your little theory is that this town has decidedly not exploded.”

“Hence why I said ‘supposedly’,” said Lachlan. “They say the town was obliterated so completely, it was as though it vanished into thin air.”

“Hm,” said Sam. “It’s actually a compelling theory in that case. I’d be interested to know what kind of research that lab was doing.”

“I know someone who lived near enough to the town to hear the accident when it happened. She said it didn’t sound like an explosion. It was more like a ripping noise. Sound familiar?”

“Hm,” said Sam again. “That makes it even more compelling.”

They reached the stone front stoop of the narrow gray house. An arch of white stucco framed the entryway, with a dark green door in the right half of the arch and a window in the left half, both curved to match the arch’s shape. A black awning, deprived of its purpose in a place without sun or rain to shelter them from, hung over the front porch.

Something about the house felt strange, but Lachlan couldn’t figure out what it was. He opened the door.

“After you, Samurai,” he said.

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Sam

Sam sat in a chair in the corner of the bedroom where Lachlan slept, arranging his magnets into a cube shape with his good hand, idly picking clumps of blood from his hair with the intact fingers from his other hand, and trying to keep his eyes open.

Sam’s and Lachlan’s bodies were adjusted to different time zones, and given the danger around them, it made sense for them to trade off sleeping shifts. Still, after the day’s unbelievable and terrifying events, and without someone to talk to, Sam was finding it harder and harder to keep his eyes open.

Sam had taken off his blood-saturated pants and undershirt as soon as Lachlan had fallen asleep, so now he just wore his boxers and the aviator jacket Nancy had given him. His legs were cold and he was sure he looked ridiculous, especially given that he’d chosen today of all days to wear his glow-in-the-dark dinosaur underpants, but he’d hated the idea of staying in those bloody clothes any longer than he had to. He never wanted to see or smell those clothes ever again.

Lachlan had passed out almost the second his head had hit the pillow. He was fast asleep now, with the blankets snuggled up to his chin in a way that seemed very at odds with his waking personality.

Man, he looked comfortable.

Sam checked his watch. 6:02 PM. Lachlan had been asleep for less than an hour.

“Guess I’ve still got a long night ahead of me,” Sam mumbled.

It wasn’t really night, though, he remembered. This place didn’t seem have a sun, or a day-night cycle. They probably weren’t even on a planet.

The thought made him wonder about how this place worked. Was it a planet, or a flat plane, or something else? If it was a planet, was it orbiting around a star? Maybe there was a day-night cycle, and it was just longer than the Earth’s. If it was a flat plane, did it go on infinitely, or was there some kind of boundary? If it was finite, what was beyond the edge or boundary?

He wanted to mention it to Lachlan when they were both awake. Lachlan would probably have some pretty interesting ideas about it. It was unusual for Sam to meet people he could have intelligent conversations with, and he always had great respect for those people when he found them. Not that he’d ever admit to Lachlan that he respected him.

Lachlan stirred, blinking his eyes open. His face knitted with confusion for a moment as he looked around the room, then he seemed to remember where he was.

“Awesome dinosaur undies,” he said.

Sam frowned.

“Not one word about my underwear.”

“Hey, I said they were awesome,” said Lachlan. “I have some like that, but they’re briefs.”

Sam wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He didn’t want to keep talking about underwear, so he changed the subject.

“Can’t sleep?” he said.

“Nope.” Lachlan’s voice was a low, drowsy mumble. “How long’ve I been out?”

“Not quite an hour.”

“Ughhh,” groaned Lachlan. “Ugh.”

“You were completely knocked out for a while there.”

Lachlan rolled over to face Sam, then closed his eyes again.

“Ugh,” mumbled Lachlan. “Sleep.”

“You still seem like you’re half-asleep to me.”

“Well, I wanna be wholly asleep.”

“Maybe you could try doing math problems in your head,” said Sam. “It’s what I do when I can’t sleep.”

“‘Course it is.”

“I’d offer to see if I could find you a sleep aid or an antihistamine or something, but we need to be able to stay alert if something breaks into the house and tries to kill us.”

“Thanks for bringing that up, Samurai. You really know how to help a guy relax.”

“Well, what would help you relax?”

“You want to help me relax? Awwww.”

“I want you to be well-rested so you don’t get us killed,” said Sam. “Don’t be weird about it.”

“Tell me a story, Samurai,” mumbled Lachlan.

Apparently, he was going to keep being weird.

“What?” said Sam.

“Tell me a story to help me sleep.”

“Seriously?” said Sam. “Are you five years old?”

“Story,” said Lachlan.

“I don’t know any stories,” said Sam.

“You can’t not know any stories,” said Lachlan. “Everyone knows stories. Didn’t your mum read to you before bed?”

Sam shook his head.

“No. She disappeared when I was a baby.”

“Oh, fuck,” said Lachlan. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay. You couldn’t have known.” Sam decided to shift the subject back to something easier. “My dad tried to read to me a few times, but he gave up when I kept correcting inaccuracies in The Berenstain Bears.”

Lachlan chuckled. “What?”

“Male bears don’t participate in the rearing of their offspring. Everyone knows that,” said Sam. “Sometimes, my grandma would sit by my bed and tell me scientific facts until I fell asleep, though.”

Lachlan smiled sleepily. “That explains a lot about you.”

“I’ll choose to take that as a compliment even though it most likely wasn’t intended as one.”

“If you don’t know any fictional stories, tell me something that happened to you,” said Lachlan. “Your dull existence is bound to lull me back to sleepy-land.”

“Sleepy-land?” said Sam. “You really are basically a five-year-old, aren’t you?”

“I like to think I’m young at heart.”

Sam scooted his chair closer to the bed.

“I’ll give you something better than a story. A saga of scientific advancement–“

“Yawn. I think I’m asleep already.”

“–the fascinating history of the dimmer switch.”

“Double yawn.”

“Now, a lot of people think the dimmer switch was invented in 1959, but that’s actually a common misconception. While Spira was the first person to introduce the dimmer switch for home use, it’s actually been around for much longer–“

Sam continued his story. It seemed to be working; Lachlan looked like he was slowly drifting off to sleep as Sam spoke. Sam talking for a while, getting off on more than a few tangents and changing subjects several times. By the time he finished talking, Lachlan was snoring softly.

“–and that’s why Thomas Edison was a fraud and a disgrace.”

Sam leaned back in the chair and picked up his magnets again.

In his general ed psychology class, the professor had told the class that love was a chemical reaction in the brain–that any two people, no matter who they were, could fall madly in love with one another if they were isolated together. At the time, he’d believed it was true of most people, but he’d been certain it wouldn’t apply to him. He’d been sure he was smart enough to overcome any chemical tricks his brain played on him.

Sitting here with Lachlan, he realized he wasn’t.

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Lachlan

Lachlan and Sam walked together toward the town, now without their dog in tow. Nancy had been so taken with the dog that it had almost felt criminal not to leave him with her. Besides, they’d agreed once they were out of Nancy’s earshot, a lone woman her age needed more protection than two young men close to their physical prime.

She’d been so grateful, she’d filled a tote bag with supplies and food, mercifully not including any of her homemade jerky.

Lachlan didn’t really want to know what kind of meat that stuff had been made of. In this place, there probably weren’t any options that wouldn’t have horrified him.

Nancy had also let Sam keep her jacket, albeit a bit reluctantly.

The food she’d provided wasn’t exactly a gourmet picnic, but the can of flat diet cola and bag of stale, painfully salty chips they were passing between them at least eased some of Lachlan’s hunger and got some of the taste of jerky out of his mouth.

“Do you think maybe you could stop hogging the chips?” said Sam.

“Nah,” said Lachlan as he tilted his head back and emptied the crumbs of the bag into his mouth.

“Seriously?”

“There are at least ten more packets of those crummy chips in the bag. Think fast.” Lachlan reached into the bag and tossed some chips to Sam.

He’d expected Sam to fumble and drop the chips–it was why he’d thrown the chips instead of just handing them over–but Sam’s hand snapped out almost automatically, snatching the chips from the air with surprising precision with his good hand.

“Nice catch, Samurai. Maybe I should be calling you ‘Ninja’ instead,” said Lachlan. “And here I thought you were one of those kids who got picked last in gym class.”

Sam was staring at his hand, a surprised expression on his face.

“Um, hello? Earth to Samurai. I was talking to you.”

“Huh,” said Sam.

“Huh, yourself,” said Lachlan.

“As much as it pains me to give you the satisfaction of being right, I got picked last in gym class every time,” said Sam. “I choose to devote my time to intellectual efforts rather than mindless physical pursuits.”

“I desperately want to shove you into a locker right now.”

“Whatever you say, Dr. Chicken,” said Sam. “Hey, can you throw me another bag of chips?”

“Tsk. And you said I was hogging them.”

“I’m not hogging them. I just want to see something.”

Lachlan reached into the bag and tossed another packet of chips. Sam snapped them out of the air without dropping the chips he was already holding.

“Impressive for a man who doesn’t devote his time to physical pursuits.”

“Impressive and unusual,” said Sam. “I usually can’t catch anything, let alone with my left hand. Once, when I was a kid, my uncle made the mistake of trying to play catch with me.”

“Oh? And what happened?”

Sam winced. “Let’s just say it was a mistake he never repeated.”

“Turn around,” said Lachlan.

“Why?”

“I want to try something. Call it a scientific experiment.”

Sam stopped walking and turned his back to Lachlan.

“A scientific experiment requires a hypothesis and a control and–“

Lachlan tossed another packet of chips at Sam. Sam reached behind his head and caught it.

“Fine,” said Lachlan. “My hypothesis is that something very weird is going on with you.”

“That’s a terrible hypothesis. It’s imprecise, it doesn’t have empirical basis, it–“

“I’ll be more specific then,” Lachlan interrupted. “Your fingers were fucking eaten off, you drenched both of us in your blood, you passed out, I thought you were in a coma. Now you’re up and walking around like everything’s all hunky-dory, catching packets of chips like some kind of chip-catching wizard? None of that is fucking normal.”

Lachlan’s sudden burst of real annoyance caught even him off guard. Up until this point, Sam had annoyed Lachlan in kind of an amusing way, but for some reason, he didn’t find any humor in this. He’d been trying to show a little bit of genuine concern, and Sam was nitpicking about the scientific method.

“Whoa, okay,” said Sam. “Excuse me. What do you care, anyway?”

I care because I don’t completely hate you as much as I thought I did. I care because even though you’re annoying, I don’t want anything else bad to happen to you.

“I don’t care,” said Lachlan. “I’m just saying.”

“If you don’t care, then don’t say anything,” said Sam.

“You have to admit that none of what I said was normal.”

“Nothing in this place is normal.”

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to figure out what’s going on with you.”

“I thought you didn’t care.”

“I don’t care, I just think it’s a good idea to–“

“If you don’t care, then why are you still talking?”

Lachlan felt another rush of irritation. He placed the diet cola can on the ground and closed the distance between himself and Sam, grabbing the other boy from behind with one arm. With his free hand, he reached into Sam’s pocket, retrieving the notepad and pen. He let go, holding them above his head, just out of Sam’s reach.

He was kind of surprised that had worked. After all, he’d watched Sam struggle free of Falcon’s creepy brothers without much trouble.

“Hey!” said Sam. “What gives?”

“A scientific investigation starts with an observation,” said Lachlan.

Still holding the notebook high above his head, he craned his neck up and wrote as he spoke.

“Observation: In a matter of hours, Sam healed from a traumatic amputation of two of his digits and developed vastly improved reflexes and coordination.”

“Give that back!”

Sam turned around reached for the notebook, and Lachlan stood on his toes and stretched his arms to hold it farther away. They were close enough together that he could feel the warmth from Sam’s body, and standing in the frigid air with his shirt in tatters, it wasn’t the worst feeling in the world. One of the bags of chips brushed the notebook.

“You know, you’d really have an easier time taking back the notebook if you put the chips down, short stack.”

“Shut up,” said Sam, reaching for the notebook again, still holding the chips. “You’re barely taller than me.”

“Oh, please. I’m not even wearing shoes and I have at least two inches on you. Anyway, the next step is to formulate a question. Question: What the fuck is going on with Sam?”

Sam stood on his toes and reached for the notebook. He probably would have been able to take it if he hadn’t been holding the chips.

“That’s a very unscientific question.”

“Okay, Mr. Smart Guy, you try formulating an appropriately scientific question whilst someone’s getting up in your face, waving chips around, and trying to grab your notebook.”

“Fine,” said Sam.

Still not letting go of the chips, Sam leaned into Lachlan and reached up, snatching the notebook and pen from Lachlan’s hands.

“Let’s see. An experimental question should be specific and testable.”

Sam frowned at Lachlan expectantly, almost as though he wanted him to try taking back the notebook. Lachlan returned the expectant look with one of his own.

“Well, Samurai?” said Lachlan. “Go on. Let’s hear that earth-shatteringly brilliant question.”

“Um,” said Sam. “Specific and testable. Your observation was actually surprisingly half-decent, so maybe building off of that… something like ‘are my advanced healing and improved reflexes the result of exposure to an alternate reality?'”

“Perfect. Exactly what I would have said had you not been rudely distracting me by waving chips in my face.”

Sam smirked and rolled his eyes.

“Of course it was.”

“So, what’s next? We need a hypothesis. Any bright ideas, Samurai the Science Guy?”

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