The possibilities only increased her terror.
“How does this happen, Donny? We entered a passage into the side of a cliff on Norum Hill and came out here. That’s not possible. And yet…here we are.”
“It’s not possible by our rules, but maybe those rules have been superseded by others.”
“That’s not an explanation. And why should new rules start to apply?”
“Remember I told you I tapped into the Septimus Foundation’s servers and culled through their emails? They’re obviously expecting something apocalyptic to happen when the frequencies align. They have this mantra they repeat to each other over and over and—”
“It wouldn’t be a mantra unless they kept repeating it.” She waggled a finger at him. “I was raised in a Hindu household. I know these things.”
“Pardon my pleonasm. Their mantra goes something like: It will begin in the heavens and end in the Earth, but before that, the rules will be broken.”
“What’s that—a prophecy? We’re dealing with a prophecy? When did I fall into a Tolkien movie?”
“This is real, Hari. And when you think about it, the rule that says you can’t drive an SUV between planets has been broken.”
“But-but-but…it’s more than a rule. It breaks all the laws of physics…”
“A law is another name for a rule. By the way, it’s getting awfully hot in here.”
Was it? She was too chilled to notice. She turned off the engine.
“You’ve become awfully calm about this.”
He shrugged. “I was anything but calm at first. I’m not prone to panic attacks but I was on the verge of one out there, but you brought me down. Thanks for that.”
“Any time, but…I did?”
“You were taking a rational approach and so I did too: Put the emotions on hold. Plenty of time to panic later. Do some critical thinking first.”
She touched his tablet. “Come up with anything?”
“Maybe.” He turned the screen toward her. “From what I can tell, someone assigned numbers to the signals. The one on Norum Hill is designated two-thirty-seven. I’ve gone back through the lists and it seems that since the frequencies started changing, someone from a place called Williamstown—I assume it’s in the neighborhood—has been reporting any variation in the two-thirty-seven frequency every time the signal occurs, which seems to run every eighteen to nineteen hours.”
Hari said, “Soooo…if we go by that, dare we assume a periodicity somewhere in the neighborhood of, say, eighteen hours?”
“We can dare. The trucks made a delivery here yesterday afternoon and again this morning. I don’t know the exact times off the top of my head, but the interval seems like roughly eighteen hours and—hey, wait. Uh-oh.”
“Don’t do that.”
They were already trapped on an alien landscape. She didn’t need to hear Uh-oh.
“My tablet downloaded the latest signal report right before we entered the passage. It says all of the reported signals, including two-thirty-sevens, have synchronized their frequencies with the Prime Frequency.”
“Why does that rate an ‘uh-oh’?”
“What if synching with this Prime Frequency means two-thirty-seven won’t open the passage anymore?”
Hari’s heart clenched. “Now who’s Debbie Downer?”
“Sorry.” He pointed to the dashboard clock. “It’s noonish back in our world. We’ve been here, what, half an hour? That means—if signal two-thirty-seven still opens the passage—”
Hari whacked him on the arm. “Do not mention that again. I’m serious.”
“Okay, okay. If we’ve got the interval right, that means the mountain wall will open at five or six a.m. or thereabouts.”
The wind rocked the SUV.
“Let’s just hope we don’t freeze to death before that.”
He stared at her. “Seriously?”
“Very seriously. Because I can’t see how we have eighteen hours of running time in the gas tank.”
He held up the foil packet. “But we do have this super-duper reflecting survival blanket. We can turn on the engine and the heater intermittently and maintain our body heat under this.”
Hari watched askance as he began unfolding the foil blanket. “You’re talking about snuggling under that?”
He laughed. “Well, we don’t have to ‘snuggle,’ exactly, but we should stay close. Shared body heat is a tried-and-true method of surviving the cold. They say Eskimos sleep with their huskies on cold nights. On a regular cold night they use one dog; when it’s colder they bring in a second dog; and a three-dog night is the coldest of them all.”
She couldn’t resist. “So I’m a dog?”
“No-no-no! I didn’t—”
She waved off his explanation. “Kidding. I guess it’s a good thing then this Tahoe has a bench seat up here.”
“You haven’t asked, but yes, I have heard of Three Dog Night.”
“Name one song.”
“‘Joy to the World,’ so there’s hope for me yet.” He handed her a corner of the foil. “Get under this—up to your chin and tuck your feet up under you while I skootch over.”
As their shoulders bumped, she said, “Don’t get any ideas.”
“Oh, believe me: Being stranded on another planet is not my idea of a first date.”
“Yeah, you really know how to show a girl a good time.”
FRANKIE
P. Frank Winslow pulled page sixty-two out of the typewriter and added it to the pile, then leaned back and considered the stack of pages he’d typed. Averaging two hundred-fifty words per page, that came to 15,000 words. In less than one day! In all his years of writing he’d never done that. Never even come close.
Admittedly, it hadn’t been a typical day. He hadn’t slept a wink, hadn’t eaten a morsel since his arrival in whatever and wherever this was. With no fatigue and no hunger, he’d surrendered to the Disease and kept on typing.
He’d taken breaks to stretch his legs and use the bathroom and give his fingers a rest. The tips were sore from the extra pressure required by the mechanical keys.
When dark had fallen he’d flipped the wall switch and lights came on. Frankie used one break to go up to the roof and scan the city for another lighted window, but couldn’t spot a single one.
Earlier in the day, shortly after sunrise, he’d wandered the streets around his building looking for another soul but found no one. Completely deserted. No shops, either. Block after
