Anomaly Flats Read online

  Mallory’s brow furrowed. “Dimensional?” She wasn’t much for science-fiction.

  Lewis glanced at her uneasily. “The things I’m about to tell you…they’re not for everyone’s ears.”

  She snorted. “What, you think I’m gonna grab a beer with the Lord of the Flies in there and gossip away all your secrets?”

  Lewis nodded. “Good point. I just…this is sensitive information. I’d like it to remain between us. Can you promise that you won’t tell anyone else?”

  Mallory shrugged. “Sure.”

  This seemed to satisfy the scientist, at least a little. He nodded again, and began. “Anomaly Flats seems to be some sort of…well, I guess you’d call it a dimensional way station. Like a complex highway interchange—except the highways are other times and places. To be honest,” he said, lowering his voice as if he were afraid of being overheard, even over the clattering nickel rain that fell outside. “I’m not entirely sure that we’re actually in Missouri anymore at all.”

  “Someone had better tell Google Maps.”

  Lewis looked confused. “What’s a Google map?”

  The quaintness of Anomaly Flats was really starting to grate on Mallory’s nerves. “It’s just a map…thing.”

  “But you see, that’s exactly what I’m saying! Anomaly Flats isn’t on any maps. Not one! Not one that I’ve found, anyway.”

  Mallory shrugged. “So? This is Missouri. It’s like fifty thousand square miles of write-off. We’re lucky they even put St. Louis on maps.”

  “It’s more like seventy thousand square miles,” Lewis said. “But that’s not—listen, do you know, I’ve been here for over a decade, and not a single other outsider has so much as set foot inside these city limits. Not a single passerby, not a single visitor, not a single tourist.”

  “Well, hey, it’s not exactly Branson.”

  Lewis shook his head. “I’m serious. Do you understand the enormity of that? I mean, no one else has driven through. No one else has taken the wrong road. No one in town has family from out of town who comes to visit. No postal workers, no deliverymen, no county service trucks…nothing. I was the only person to arrive in Anomaly Flats for over twelve years. And now, suddenly, you.” He thought for a moment., “It’s almost as if you don’t access Anomaly Flats; Anomaly Flats accesses you.”

  Mallory had to admit, it was strange. But “strange” seemed to be the norm for this place. “Well, how did you get here?” she asked.

  Lewis smiled at the memory. “I received a letter. It told of a wonderful, extraordinary, scientifically baffling place where a curious mind could spend his entire life seeking out answers to improbable questions and never even scratch the surface. And it came with a map.”

  “But you just said it isn’t on any maps.”

  “Not on any regular maps, no,” he said, grinning shrewdly. “But it’s on this one.” He reached into the pocket of his lab coat and produced a folded sheet of paper, yellowed with age and lightly frayed around the edges. He handed it to Mallory. “See for yourself.”

  She unfolded the paper gingerly. On one side was a handwritten letter; on the other, a crude, hand-drawn map with directions to Anomaly Flats. The map showed the town surrounded by a body of water. In the estimation of whoever had drawn this, Anomaly Flats was an island. “I’m no cartographer, but this seems inaccurate,” she said.

  “Twelve years ago, when I arrived, this place was an island. In the center of a massive body of water that had no business being in the Midwest. Isn’t that strange?”

  Mallory looked doubtfully down at the map. “If no mail goes in or out of Anomaly Flats, then who sent you this?”

  Lewis smiled hugely. “I did.”

  Mallory blinked. “I’m sorry?”

  “Look at the signature.” Lewis grabbed the paper and turned it over. It was signed Lewis T. Burnish, Ph.D.

  Mallory stared up at the scientist, her mouth hanging open. “You sent this to yourself? From a place you’d never been?”

  “You can see why I was so intrigued.”

  “How is that possible?” she asked.

  Lewis shrugged. “I have no idea. A dozen years later, and I haven’t even written that letter yet, much less figured out a way to get it to myself in the past. But I’ll come up with something.” He snatched back the letter and waved it triumphantly in the air. “This is proof enough of that.”

  “And you haven’t left?”

  Lewis laughed out loud. “Leave? Why would I leave? This town is a scientist’s dream! The research I’m doing is completely unparalleled! I’m the first person ever to study inter-dimensional anomalies in a setting this intimate,” he said proudly.

  Mallory gripped the milk crate beneath her with both hands, so hard the plastic dug into her skin and made her fingers go numb. “So you’re telling me I drove my Impala into…another dimension?”

  Lewis smiled. “Well. Not exactly. Whatever Anomaly Flats is, it does seem to be at least rooted in Missouri. Most of the soil and water samples are consistent with what you would find in this part of the state. There are just…some additions.”

  “That’s absurd. You know that, right?” She shook her head. “That all of this is completely absurd?”

  “It is, isn’t it?” he said, his voice filled with glee. “But that doesn’t make it any less true.”

  “So a dimensional nexus. That’s where we are; that’s what this town is. A place where dimensions mash themselves together.”

  “It explains the tentacles, doesn’t it?”

  “Does it?” In spite of all she’d seen, Mallory couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it. “Sorry, Poindexter. I don’t buy it.”

  Lewis fiddled with the buttons on his lab coat. “You don’t have to buy it,” he said. “It’s empirically true, whether you recognize it or not.”

  Mallory closed her eyes and rolled her head around, stretching out her neck. “Look, Lewis—” she began.

  “Listen,” he said, cutting her off. “I know it’s difficult to believe. But think about what you’ve experienced since arriving. Have you noticed any time jumps since you arrived?”

  Mallory’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by ‘time jumps’?”

  “I mean, does it seem like time has gotten away from you? In a very real and literal sense?”

  She squinted suspiciously at the little man. “Time did seem to move really fast last night,” she admitted, letting her thoughts trickle out slowly through her lips. “But I just lost track…”

  “And your hotel room,” Lewis said, interrupting again. “Did you use the chalk to draw the runes on your door? You did, didn’t you? You must have.”

  “I did,” she said, nodding gently. “Why do you say I must have?”

  “Because you’re still alive.”

  “Oh, come on. You’re saying I’d be dead right now if I hadn’t drawn those stupid circles?”

  “Or something worse than dead,” he confirmed. “I bet the runes were smeared when you woke up this morning, right? Like something had spent the entire night trying to wipe them away?”

  Mallory noticed her palms had gone clammy. She wiped them on her jeans. “How do you know that?”

  “Because this is Anomaly Flats, and that’s the sort of thing that happens here.”

  “This is the dumbest dumb thing I’ve ever heard,” she decided. Even so, there was no denying the complete otherworldliness of the town. If it wasn’t a dimensional nexus, something was wrong with it, all right. She shook her head in disbelief at what she was about to say. “All right; so suppose this is all true…it’s not, but let’s just suppose we’re actually in the middle of a time-and-place tornado. Supposing that’s true, when my car is fixed and I’m finally able to leave…will I drive back into Missouri? My Missouri?”

 
; Lewis thought about that for a bit. “Yes, I think so,” he finally decided. “As long as you take the right dimensional off-ramp.”

  “Great,” Mallory groaned. “And how do I find that?”

  “In theory, it should be the same road you came in on. If it brought you in, it should take you out.”

  “Should?” Mallory asked pointedly.

  “Should,” Lewis confirmed.

  “And what if it doesn’t?”

  Lewis frowned. “Then given the evidence of what exists beyond some of our borders…you’ll probably wish you’d stayed.”

  Chapter 8

  Eventually, the onslaught of deadly rain subsided, and Mallory peeked out through the Winnebago’s window. The parking lot was covered by almost a full inch of little bits of nickel.

  “It does this every time?” she asked. “How do you get rid of it?” She pictured a small army of masked men storming in on Hummers, sweeping the metal away, giving all onlookers a threatening hand gesture and swooping out just as quickly and mysteriously as they’d come.

  “It melts. Then it washes away and runs into the storm drains, like any other rain would. It eventually makes its way to the town’s treatment plant.” He paused. “You…might not want to drink the water while you’re here.”

  “The water is made of nickel, the coffee makes you sterile…”

  “Only the regular,” Lewis quickly pointed out. “Not the decaf.”

  An awkward silence fell between them. Mallory checked her watch. Unless it was somehow really 1:37 in the morning, the stupid thing had completely stopped working.

  “Listen,” said Lewis, fiddling with one of the Bunsen burners. “It usually takes Rufus a day or two to work out a new alternator…and I don’t know if you…I mean…do you want to…maybe…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Mallory, would you like to come with me on my rounds today?” He nodded toward the notebook with the holographic cover. “Help me cross a few things off the list? Just tag along? Not in a romantic way,” he blurted, a little too quickly.

  Mallory grimaced. “Why would I think it was romantic?”

  “You wouldn’t! And I wouldn’t! I don’t! It’s not! It’s just…science!” His hand slipped, and it knocked into the starter mechanism for the burner. A blue flame whooshed to life out of the pipe, nearly singeing Lewis’ lab coat.

  Mallory sighed. She did have time to kill…lots of it. And if her choices were to spend it with the locals or spend it with another outsider, she should probably stick with the outsider. “All right,” she said, throwing up her hands in defeat. “Where to?”

  “Excellent!” Lewis beamed, jumping into the driver’s seat. “First stop: Plasma Creek!”

  X

  The lime green creek of plasma ran along the western edge of town, about ten miles beyond the downtown strip. “It curves down to the south after Rubber Rock,” Lewis told her with a weirdly high level of enthusiasm. “That’s this huge outcropping of rock, and the tests all say that it actually is rock…but guess what it’s really made of, primarily?”

  “Uh…rubber?” Mallory guessed.

  “Yes!” he squealed. “It’s a rock that is also rubber! My tests show that it’s both things at once! Isn’t that bizarre?”

  Mallory blinked far too many times. “I had a tentacle in my drain last night, and this morning I saw a woman exhale a swarm of flies, just before the sky rained metal…but yeah. Sure. That’s bizarre, too.”

  Lewis beamed. “So bizarre!”

  He pulled up alongside the creek and took the Winnebago off the highway, through a drainage ditch, and into a grassy meadow. As they bumped and bounced along, Mallory held on for her life. “I think you missed the road!” she shouted.

  “Less walking this way,” Lewis said, holding tightly to the wheel and jerking it to maneuver the RV around the larger rocks. “It’s best to spend as little time outside the lab as possible, generally speaking. There are all sorts of neat things that can kill you out here.”

  Soon, they came upon a few dozen circular burn marks in the grass. Lewis slammed his foot on the brake and threw the RV into park. “This is really exciting stuff,” he informed her, squeezing into the back of the truck and gathering an armful of supplies. “Now, be careful out there, okay? Step where I step, and don’t go wandering.”

  He opened the back door and stepped out of the RV, holding a small plastic wand in front of his face. Mallory glanced nervously over at the Jansport. It was still tucked safely next to the milk crate, but the thought of leaving it behind made her palms itch. She wasn’t sure that taking it along was such a good idea either, though; as a rule, burn marks and things you didn’t want to burn weren’t a great combination. She chewed indecisively at her bottom lip.

  “Are you coming?” Lewis called.

  Mallory picked up the milk crate and dumped out the flasks inside. A few of them cracked. One of them even shattered. She didn’t care. She flipped the crate over and set it down on top of the backpack, so it was caught safely inside Jansport jail.

  “There. Camouflage.”

  She squeezed out of the RV after the scientist. “What is that?” she asked, nodding at the wand.

  “It’s a thermometer. Highly sensitive.”

  Mallory squinted over his shoulder and read the digital dial near the base. “It’s broken,” she observed.

  “It isn’t!” Lewis said excitedly.

  “Yes it is. It’s not 109 degrees out here.”

  “Oh, yes it is. It just doesn’t feel like 109 degrees. But it’s definitely 109 degrees. The thermometer says so.” Then he cried, “Science!”

  Mallory rolled her eyes.

  Lewis continued. “The sun may feel temperate here, but it’s actually surprisingly strong. Haven’t you noticed how tan everyone is in Anomaly Flats?”

  “Oh, come on,” Mallory said. “That’s absurd.”

  “You want proof?” Lewis turned and stuck the tip of the thermometer into his mouth. He bobbed his head a little as he waited for it to read the temperature. After about twenty seconds, he pulled it out and showed Mallory the display.

  It read 97.9 degrees.

  Mallory shook her head. “How can it be 109 degrees but feel like 70?” she demanded.

  Lewis shrugged. “Who knows? It’s an—”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Mallory interrupted. “It’s an anomaly. You know, for a scientist, you don’t seem to know too much about science.”

  “Hey, come on,” Lewis said, clearly hurt. “Cut me some slack. I’m the first scientist in the field of anomalogy. There’s bound to be a learning curve.” He cut in front of the RV and headed away from the creek.

  Mallory stopped. “Hey, the creek’s this way.”

  Lewis turned, confused. “Yes, I know.”

  “Why are you going that way?”

  “Because that’s where the science is happening.”

  “Okay, first of all, I’ve taken biology, okay? Science happens everywhere. And second, are we not here to study the plasma?”

  Lewis frowned. “Why would we study the plasma?”

  “Because it’s plasma. In a creek.”

  “But I’ve already studied it.”

  “All right,” she said, taking a few deep breaths and crossing her arms. “Unravel for me the mysteries of Plasma Creek.”

  “It’s a creek,” he said, nodding toward the slowly flowing, neon green channel. “And it’s full of plasma.”

  Mallory ran her fingers into her hair and pulled, just a little. Maybe I was wrong about going with the other outsider. “Are you really a scientist?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Of course.”

  “Where did you go to school?”

  “Look, do you really want to hear the minutiae about the plasma in the creek�
�that it’s an electrically neutral semi-solid medium of unbound positive and negative particles? That its density is 1032 m-3 in particles per cubic meter? That its average daily temperature is 273.16 Kelvin? That its velocity distribution is non-Maxwellian? Is that the kind of thing you want to know?”

  Mallory blinked and thought for a second. “Science is boring.”

  Lewis rolled his eyes. “Fine. How about this: Any organic material immersed in the plasma turns into a completely different collection of organic materials.”

  “Well, yeah, obviously,” Mallory said.

  “Obviously,” Lewis agreed.

  They stood in their shared obvious knowledge for a while before Mallory finally asked, “And that means…what, exactly?”

  Lewis smirked. “Here, look.” He plucked a long blade of grass from the meadow and cautiously approached Plasma Creek. He leaned over the edge and beckoned Mallory forward. They squatted on the bank as the plasma bubbled and gurgled below them. Lewis held the grass by one end and dipped the other end into the creek. When he drew it back out, the grass that had been submerged was no longer grass, but had become a flopping, silver-scaled fish tail instead.

  Mallory’s eyes popped open wide. “Holy shit!”

  Lewis nodded. “Fascinating, isn’t it?”

  “It turns things into fish?” Mallory cried.

  “Well, not always fish. Other things, too; eggplants, worms, cedar trees, gasoline, bark. You name it. One time, Emily Bainsbridge dipped her feet in, and they turned into a pair of miniature dachshunds.” The color drained from Mallory’s face as the neon green creek burbled happily along. “Oh, and it’s hard to see in this sunlight, but the plasma also makes the matter glow. Which is pretty neat. Still, though…best not to get any on you.”

  “Don’t touch the plasma,” she said, backing away from the bank. “Got it.”

  “Now are you ready to do some new science?”