Kill Switch by Jonathan Maberry

legs trembling, faces pale with sickness. Nerves absolutely shot. Burned out like bad wiring.
    â€œHoly Mary, Mother of God,” breathed Top. And he crossed himself. I had only ever seen him do that once before.
    Bunny wiped pain-tears from his eyes and sniffed in a chestful of air.
    The machine sat there, cold and silent and dark. Around us the impossible city loomed, mocking us and everything we believed in. Top’s prayer faded into nothing.
    Bunny coughed, cleared his throat. “What … what…?”
    â€œI know,” said Top.
    Bunny’s head snapped around. “Top, did you…? I mean…”
    â€œI don’t know, Farm Boy,” said Top, but he was clearly in distress that ran deeper than the physical. “This is some voodoo shit right here.”
    â€œIt’s nuts,” said Bunny, shaking his head, “but for a moment there I…”
    Once more his words trailed away, and he shot me a very strange look. A suspicious and horrified look.
    â€œWhat?” I asked cautiously. “What did you see?”
    â€œNothing. I didn’t see nothing.”
    â€œBunny … look, I saw something, too.”
    His eyes widened. “What?”
    â€œI saw something, too,” I repeated. “For a couple of seconds after that thing went off I saw…”
    And I stopped, too. How exactly do you have that kind of conversation? You need to hear that someone else shared it so that it’s not just you. And you’re afraid that it is just you. But at the same time what if it’s not just you and stuff like this is possible? You see the problem? There’s no way to Sudoku your way out of it.
    â€œSay it, Cap’n,” said Top. “What’d you see?”
    I wiped sweat out of my eyes and took a moment. “I saw two things and neither of them make any sense,” I began. “I saw me—my body—kneeling a few feet away, looking right at me.”
    â€œYeah,” said Bunny, nodding but not looking anything but scared shitless about it.
    â€œThen for a second I was somewhere else,” I continued. “I was in your cottage, Bunny. Lydia was there and…”
    I let it tail off. Bunny’s face went from a greasy mushroom white to a livid red.
    â€œWhat else did you see?” he asked in a low growl. A frightened dog growl, but definitely a growl.
    â€œThe fuck does it matter what else he saw?” barked Top. “He saw it.”
    Benny wheeled on him. “What makes you so sure?”
    â€œBecause I saw my ex-wife,” he snarled. “Clear as motherfucking day. Sitting at the kitchen counter drinking that shit mint tea she drinks and reading stock numbers off her damn computer. Want to know where Apple stock is right now? I can still taste that son of a bitching tea.”
    He dragged a trembling hand across his mouth, which had become wet with spit. He looked at the moisture, shook his head, then they both looked at Bunny.
    â€œWhat did you see, Farm Boy?”
    â€œWhat,” exclaimed Bunny, “so we’re all just going to accept that this stuff just happened?”
    â€œWhat did you see?”
    Bunny cut a look at me and then he looked up at the ceiling far, far above us. “I had a nightmare,” he said.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œI didn’t see Lydia or your ex, Top. I didn’t see anyone I know.” He shook his head. There was a quaver in his voice that made his teeth start to chatter. It wasn’t the cold, though, and we all knew it. He was simply that scared. “It couldn’t have been anything but me freaking out. It was this weird place … like the beach, except the ocean was black and oily, and the sky was wrong. Not our sky, you know? The stars were wrong. And … and there were monsters.” He stopped and shook his head, unable or unwilling to continue. “There aren’t words for it, you know?”
    They both