Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy (33 page)

“Alice?” I stumbled forward as a phantom shape shoved
into me.
Alice’s
face
filled
with fear and her eyes
darted
around.

A heavy bass-thumping version of “Paparazzi” rattled
my head, making my ears hurt as the lyrics blasted in stereo
. Whiney, breathy vocals saturated the air and electric guitar riffs and drums reverberated beneath my feet.

Alice huddled close to me. I looked up. Huge skyscrapers surrounded us. Bright signs and storefronts glistened in the darkness.

I shivered. White puffs of breath escaped my lips. On the TV, we’d seen people bundled up in heavy jackets with hats. Gloves. Scarves. They’d known what they were doing. It was freaking cold in Times Square.

We weren’t dressed for this…

Chapter 16

S
hadowy human forms materialized all around us. We could hardly breathe amongst the crowd as we were jostled back and forth.

The punk band finished their performance and everyone
went crazy, screaming and cheering, jumping up and down, waving posters and colorful flags. I veered around and saw Kareena, squeezing her way through the crowd to get to us. No one could see her, either.

“I’m freezing!” she squealed, hopping up and down in place while pressing her short plaid skirt down against her thighs. “It’s so freaking cold here. What the hell?”

“We’re all cold, Kareena,” I growled, raising my voice so she could hear me. Alice shivered and I shielded her as best as I could with my arms, pulling her in close. “I don’t know what to do right now, but we’ve got to stay warm. Let’s head toward the stores.”

“Okay!” Kareena nodded and hugged herself, rubbing her hands up and down her arms briskly and hunching over.

We shuffled through the crowd until we reached an entrance with tall, rotating glass doors. A quick push and they started to move. We darted inside.

The department store had four different floors, glass walkways overhead, and escalators near the entrance. It was nearly empty inside because everyone had crowded into the streets to watch the performances.

It felt comfortable—warmer—and we were able to gather
our thoughts for a few minutes. You’d think with all those people shoved together like sardines, body heat would accumulate. It didn’t.

“We have to do something,” said Alice, groaning and holding herself. “I’m freezing.”

“You’re freezing?” Kareena sneered. “I’m wearing a freaking skirt. Jesus.”

“That’s not my fault,” Alice grumbled. “You shouldn’t be wearing a skirt in winter anyway.”

“I was in my house, you little brat! Besides, I can wear whatever the hell I want. It’s a lot warmer in—”

“Guys! Please!” I lifted my hands between them. “Stop it! I’ll figure something out. Just give me a damn minute. Okay?” I drove my hands through my hair and leaned up against a store display.

“Can we just… take something?” Kareena reached a hand
out to stroke her fingers down a black wool jacket hanging nearby.

“No! Don’t touch anything!” I pushed her hand away from the rack. “You don’t know how it will be affected by us.”

“Maybe we should try?” Alice said, shuddering. “We’re going to freeze to death out there if we don’t at least try to get something to keep warm.”

“That’s… stealing, though,” I stammered. “I don’t… I don’t want to steal anything. How do we know we won’t get caught? Or… I don’t know. Damn it!” I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans and shook my head. “Just give me a minute. Okay?”

“I’ve got an idea.” Kareena glanced up at a monitor showing feed from a nearby security camera. “Let me try something. I’ll be right back.”

“Kareena, please.” If she’d just give me a freaking minute…

“Guys!”

“What?”

She had slipped a shirt off a nearby rack and was holding
it in her hands. Alice and I watched as the security camera reflected the movement of the object.

I panicked, thinking people might see the shirt hanging in midair and freak out. “Put it back before someone…”

“Look!” Kareena shrieked excitedly.

I gazed back up at the camera feed and saw that the shirt had disappeared. But… it was still in her hands.

“We can take things,” she said, turning toward me. “It crosses over to where we are and people won’t even know we took it.”

“That’s still stealing.”

“Can we maybe pay for it?” Alice asked, rummaging through her pocket. “Shoot. I don’t have my wallet.”

“Pay for it with what? Invisible credit cards?” I scoffed.

Kareena tossed the shirt onto the floor and we watched the camera footage for a few moments. I held my breath as the shirt materialized on the screen again and a store employee came over to grab the garment from up off the floor. We stepped back a few feet as the woman looked around, puzzled. She shrugged and went back over to her register.

“I want to go home, Brian.” Alice huddled close to me and took my arm. “Please? Can’t we just grab a few things so we don’t freeze out there? They probably won’t let us go home until we get this over with. Just like in Vegas.” She dropped her head down.

I groaned. “Yeah… I guess. Whatever we need to do. Let’s just get out of here as quickly as we can. All of these people are making me nervous. I don’t want any of us to get hurt.”

By the time I’d gotten the words out, Kareena had already
yanked a red leather jacket and a beaded scarf from a nearby display. My eyes darted toward the security monitor. Both items dissolved off screen within seconds. What we were doing was definitely going to weird out the security people later on, but we didn’t have a lot of options.

“Just don’t take the most expensive stuff, okay? Take what we need, but nothing else. Kareena!” I stopped her from plucking a rhinestone-studded purse from a counter top and shot her a dirty look. “Only what we need.”

Alice took a heavy wool coat from behind a display and shrugged it on. It fit well enough. I grabbed a black one from nearby and did the same.

I checked on Kareena again, who was now thoughtfully deliberating between a knee-length leather car coat, and an ankle-length one. Her mouth was screwed up to the side as she compared them to some gloves she’d grabbed.

“Come on, Kareena. This isn’t Fashion 101. Get something that fits and let’s get out of here.”

“Okay, fine!” She huffed and tugged the knee-length coat off the hanger.

Of course.
Too busy worrying about fashion to worry about comfort. It was probably below thirty degrees out and she’d picked out a knee-length coat to wear over a mini skirt.

I shook my head.

“Let’s go.” I gestured for the two of them to follow. As we approached the rotating doors, I glanced at the security camera video once more. We still weren’t visible.

The doors swirled around and popped us back out onto the sidewalk. A narrow walking path wrapped around the shops with large “no stopping” signs posted every few feet. I took Alice’s hand and followed the pathway up toward the c
oncert area. Another band started to play. I couldn’t distinguish
my own heartbeat from the pulsing bass vibrating through the soles of my shoes.

“Alright, Kareena!”

“Yeah?” She raised her voice, too. The crowd had become
boisterous again and the music was blaring at us from an insane 360 degrees.

“Let’s do this.” I motioned for Alice to start taking Kareena’s
cues and focused on helping her navigate through the crowd without getting crushed.

A person’s face when something they can’t see shoves them back several feet is something you don’t forget. Shock. Surprise.
Confusion. They don’t know what
to do with themselves. Some of them fell back even further and started retreating while others brushed it off and went right back to their excited, inebriated dancing.

. . .

Twenty minutes left until the ball dropped.

“Is that everyone?” I asked.

Kareena took a long look around us and then pointed.

“No,” she said. “There’s someone else over there. I think it’s the last person, though. I don’t see any others.”

Alice followed her lead and we came across a family bundled up in matching bright yellow puffy jackets.

“Which one is it?” Alice asked.

Kareena looked down and a grimace tugged at the side
of her mouth. “It’s… him.” She pointed briefly at the smallest
member of the family—a child—and then dropped her hand back to her side.

“The little boy?” Alice’s brow furrowed. “You’re kidding?”

Kareena shook her head and looked at her feet. “No,” she mouthed.

Shit… more kids?

I knew they’d infected Peter, but at the time I had hoped he was an anomaly.

Apparently not. This kid couldn’t have been more than three or four years old, tops. Just a little thing all wrapped up in a brightly colored scarf, waving a metallic streamer like his life depended on it.

“I… don’t want to touch a kid,” Alice whined, backing up and bumping into me.

“Well, just do it quickly and we’ll get out of here,” Kareena shouted, toppling forward as someone else shoved past.

“No.” Alice shook her head and looked up at me with wide, worried eyes.

“Then forget it,” I said, shaking my head and moving away. “If we don’t start him, what’s the worst thing they could do?”

“Leave us here,” Kareena yelled over the noise. She was a few feet away now. “I don’t want to get stuck here!”

“They won’t leave us!” I shouted back.
Hopefully
. “That would be stupid! Screw it. Come on! Let’s get out of here.” We filed our way back out of the crowd.

An announcement boomed and a series of brightly lit numbers sparked to life on the One Times Square building.

Fifteen minutes to go.

Alice had started well over a hundred people tonight. More than we had in Las Vegas. I’d lost count after the first several dozen.

Our heads hurt from all the noise and I felt sick to my stomach. The ground wouldn’t stop shaking. The noises just kept coming, blasting at us. The screaming. The bass. The announcers. Advertisements. Colored lights.

I wanted to leave, but…

“Alice! Let’s stay here and watch the ball drop.” I tugged on the sleeve of her coat. “Come on, I have an idea. We’ll never get the chance again.”

We stopped right at the edge of an announcer’s platform,
a few feet from the large stage where the bands had performed earlier.

“Come on.” I climbed onto the platform and helped pull Alice up. I reached out a hand toward Kareena, but she ignored me and climbed up on her own, slipping a few times as she struggled to get a grip through her gloves.

We sat and dangled our feet over the edge of the platform.
The announcer sat behind us, oblivious to our presence. Looking up, we had a perfect view of the building and the ball.

“From this point on, there will be no more commercial breaks,” the announcer said after the ten minute mark had passed.

I reached an arm around Alice and pulled her closer. She shivered and rubbed her hands together. She couldn’t start people through gloves for some reason, so she had to keep pulling them off every few minutes and putting them back on.

She cupped her hands close to her face and blew hot breaths into them. Kareena pulled her coat tightly closed around herself and brought her knees up to her chest so she could tuck them closer to her body. Flimsy shin-height boots weren’t much good against the cold, but they were better than sandals or six-inch heels—her usual preferences.

We sat there for the next few minutes, watching our surroundings. I tried to take in as much of the scenery as possible. We would never be here again. Not like this.

All of the moving I’d done as a kid had made me hate traveling, but I had to admit, getting this close to something so outrageously popular was pretty cool.

Kareena pointed out a nearby cameraman who was infected. Alice
reached out and caught his ankle as he made a quick pass by us. The announcer ecstatically notified the crowd of the five minute mark. People went wild. My heart started to beat faster and I didn’t even know why. The overwhelming excitement was getting to me.

I held one of Alice’s hands in my lap and squeezed her shoulder in closer with my other arm.

I took a deep breath and exhaled a puff of white. I watched
the people around us as we sat there and waited. So much energy. So much life.

Then the glowing white-blue ball perched on top of the building began its slow descent. The TV screens plastered atop every surrounding store projected the countdown in sync.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Loud horns and whistles rang out and rainbow-colored confetti rained down around us. Colored sparkles clouded the air. I could barely see the people anymore. Cheers bellowed from the crowd. People, including the host who stood behind us, hooted and hollered from every direction.

I’d planned on stealing a kiss from Alice when midnight struck, but things had changed. She was pressed up against me, quaking from the cold, and Kareena was hunched over, trying to keep her bare legs from freezing off.

The excitement had ended in what had seemed like the blink of an eye.

I wanted to go home.

We all did.

Chapter 17

A
lice never touched the final sleeper in Times Square—the little boy. He and his family left several minutes after
midnight. He’d been perched on his father’s shoulders, waving
his streamer as he was carried through the crowd.

We sat for a while longer, until a group of people began dismantling the stage and announcement platform. People
scattered. Some stragglers were still burning their way through
miraculous stores of energy. I grew tired watching them bounce around, cheering and kicking at the piles of confetti littering the streets. A large clean-up crew rushed in once the majority of the crowd had cleared.