THE ENORMOUS SCALED CREATURE EXPLODED out of a circle of green fire, and Fort couldn’t move, couldn’t even speak, he was so terrified. Someone, somewhere near him, began to speak in a low, ugly voice, saying things he couldn’t understand. Finally he screamed, but the voice didn’t sound like his. It was just like the one in his mind, the girl that he’d heard yell in pain—
And then Fort woke up, and this time he recognized his own terrified shouts. Something grabbed him, and he screamed even louder, trying to break free of whatever had taken over his body.
“It’s okay!” someone said, and strong hands grabbed his shoulders and squeezed, trying to hold him down. “Quiet now. You’re safe!”
Fort fought back for a moment, still screaming, only to slowly realize that he wasn’t on the National Mall anymore. Instead, he was surrounded by various medical machines and screens beeping and glowing around the sterile white room. A middle-aged nurse stood over him, still holding his shoulders and looking concerned.
“I . . . where am I?” he asked, his head feeling like it was full of cotton. “Where’s my dad?”
“You’re at George Washington University Hospital,” the woman said. She let go of him and moved to his side. “You were brought here when someone found you passed out over by the Einstein statue. You’re lucky to have escaped without a scratch.”
“Where’s my father?” Fort asked, his panic growing. Images began filling his head, a woman carrying an older man down crumbling stairs, his father holding an older woman, a monstrous hand closing around him. . . .
“We’ll find him,” the nurse said. “Everything’s chaos right now, and no one knows anything, but we’ll find him. I’m sure he made it out okay.”
Fort slowly shook his head, his mouth dropping open. “No,” he whispered. “He didn’t.”
The nurse frowned and sat down on the bed. “Can you give me your name, and his? He’s probably somewhere else in the hospital right now. We’ll get you two back together in no time.”
In his mind, Fort saw his father being pulled down into the earth before something took him away, a voice in his head that forced him to run. But had there been a voice? A girl, screaming in his head? Or had he just heard someone shouting on the street, and he’d just run away in fear, leaving his father to . . . to be taken? He felt his eyes grow wet, and he had to dig his fingernails into his palms to keep from sobbing. “Fort,” he whispered so quietly the nurse had to lean in. “Forsythe Fitzgerald.”
“That’s a bit unusual,” the nurse said, smiling gently at him. “Is it a family name?”
Fort nodded. “It was my . . . my grandfather’s, my mother’s father. He’s not alive anymore.”
“Was your mother there too, on the Mall?” the nurse asked.
Fort shook his head again but didn’t say anything. The nurse waited for a moment, then stood back up. “And what’s your father’s name? I’ll go see if I can’t track him down.”
The tears flowed down Fort’s face freely now. “John,” he said slowly. “J.D., sometimes.”
“John or J.D. Fitzgerald,” the nurse repeated, jotting it down on a clipboard. “Got it. Now you get some rest, Forsythe. Nothing bad will happen to you here. Whatever it was that happened down at the Mall, it’s over now. Everything’s going to be okay.”
The nurse smiled once more as she left. But the smile was a lie, just like everything else. Whatever had happened, nothing was going to be okay. Not anymore.
For a while, Fort found himself alone, and every so often he would drift into sleep, only to wake up screaming from the memory of the creature, or his father yelling his name. After one of these outbursts, two police officers passing by his room glanced in to make sure he was okay, then sat down outside.
“How’s the National Security Agency building doing?” one of them said.
“One side of it is completely gone,” the other said. “Another of those creatures came up right out of the ground.”
“What are those things? It’s like something out of Godzilla.”
“Whatever they are, this was an attack. The National Mall and the NSA at the exact same time? This had to be planned.”
“You think those monsters planned this? They can think for themselves?”
“I don’t know. But what are the odds that they just happened to pick those two places in particular? Out of the whole country?”
“Are you kidding? What are the odds that they even exist?”
“I’m just saying, someone was making a point. I don’t know who, or how they did it, but we better find out soon. I was down there, at the Mall. The military was using rocket launchers against that thing, and the creature didn’t even flinch.”
“Yes it did. It took off, went back into the ground.”
“Not because of anything we did,” the second officer said. “It started coming out right in the middle of the Reflecting Pool, only it stopped and retreated all of a sudden. Something was controlling that one, same as the one at the NSA.”
“If that’s true, we’re in huge trouble.”
“Shh,” the nurse said, stepping back into Fort’s room. “There’s a child in here. Go talk somewhere else.”
The two officers nodded, then stood up and walked away, though Fort could hear them continuing their conversation a little way down the hall. The nurse gently closed the door behind her, cutting off all outside noise, then approached the bed, looking like she dreaded sharing whatever she had come to say.
“I haven’t located your father yet.” She sat down on the side of the bed and held Fort’s hand. “But it’s only a matter of time, I’m sure. I hate to ask, but do you remember where you saw him last? Do you . . . do you know what happened to him?”
Fort bit his lip, his eyes filling with tears as he looked away.
The nurse paused, then nodded. “I see. Do you have a way to get in touch with your mother?”
Fort shook his head. “She . . . she died years ago. When I was born.”
The nurse swallowed hard. “Oh, Forsythe, I’m so sorry. What about . . . do you have aunts or uncles, or someone—”
“It took him,” Fort whispered. “It took him, down into the ground with it. When it left, like the policemen said. It took my father with it.” The tears rolled down his face, but he didn’t care. He just wanted to let the words out, to let the images free from his head so he didn’t have to keep seeing them. “I tried to save him, to follow.” The memory of the voice returned, and he grabbed ahold of it like he was drowning and it was a life preserver. “But something . . . something made me leave. I couldn’t help myself. It was like I wasn’t in control, couldn’t even move my own legs. I . . . I could watch, but couldn’t do anything!”
“You were afraid,” the nurse said quietly, squeezing his hand. “Terrified, with good reason. Everyone was, including people much older than you. I’m not surprised you ran. I would have run too. Your father would have wanted you to.”
“No!” Fort said, his voice getting louder. “I didn’t just run. Everyone else did, but I stopped. I was trying to help. I couldn’t let him . . . I couldn’t just leave him there. But something was in my head and it made me leave! It was there, I know it was!”
But even as he heard himself, he had to wonder if there really was a voice. With everything that had happened, how did he know it wasn’t just fear making him get away from the creature? What if he’d just made the voice up to justify leaving his father?
The tears wouldn’t stop now, but he fell back against the bed, not sure what to even think anymore. The nurse sighed, then stood up and began fiddling with a needle and some tubes leading into Fort’s arm. “I understand, Forsythe. We all have that voice in our head telling us what to do. But you can’t blame yourself. You did the exact right thing, getting away. For now, just sleep, and we’ll find out what happened to your father in the meantime.”
“You won’t find him,” Fort said as the room suddenly began to get fuzzy. “He’s gone . . . down into the earth . . . with the monster. . . .”
“Don’t you worry about that creature, whatever it was,” the nurse said from what seemed like miles away. “There are people who will keep us safe. They’ll protect us from the bad things. You’ll see.”
And then the room went dark, but even as he passed out, Fort knew she was lying.