Storms of Future Past Books One through Four

Chapter 6-1

Chapter 6

Anne fell to her knees, hugging herself, tears streaming down her face. Not again.

Please, please. Not again.

She was in the same library, the same one she’d been dreaming of for weeks now. Sometimes the building was normal sized, like the one she never went to in town anymore. Sometimes it was gigantic, big enough to hold the whole planet.

Lately it had been tiny, making Anne feel like the room had been built with her flat on her back, close enough to keep her from drawing a deep breath. Books no bigger than her pinkie fingernail lined shelves pressed all along her whole body, and the ceiling pushed against her nose and stomach.

None of that mattered, not once the movie started. Realizing she was dreaming didn’t make any difference at all. The moving scenes showed up no matter where she went, and they were getting worse.

The black and green computer screen the librarians used had revealed hand to hand fighting with knives and bullet impacts from the guns, all in close-up nauseating color and detail.

The encyclopedias had changed the shriveling people into starving people, and they weren’t just getting thinner. Their flesh wasted away and sores grew on every part of their bodies. Their hair and then their teeth fell out before they finally fell. Horses, cows, chickens, even dogs and cats, joined the horrifying scenes, drinking the poisoned water with the same heartbreaking result.

In the claustrophobic space compressing her entire body, the white ceiling tiles with tiny black dots transformed into a screen. Anne was forced to watch people eating poisoned food, sometimes the poisoned animals, then throwing up until blood came out, then parts of their bodies followed. That smell, forced into her compressed nose, was by far the worst.

Anne had written down and tried changing all of her bedtime routines, but nothing had helped. At least a few times each week, and sometimes every single night, she was in the dreadful library.

“I have to change something in here,” she whispered, wiping her eyes. “I’ve tried everything else.”

She got to her feet and looked around, but today every section in the regular sized building looked exactly the same. The children’s section was gone, the computers were gone, even the TVs that seemed to appear from nowhere were nowhere to be seen. Shelves and stacks of books stretched away from her, all of them dull and grey without any writing on the spine at all.

Anne looked to the right, where she’d found the TV screen book. She hadn’t seen it again after that first dream.

“Maybe that’s the problem,” she said with courage she did not feel.

She walked toward that long, scuffed up table, trying to ignore her shaking legs. She had to do something to get the dreams to stop. Her schoolwork was suffering from the lack of sleep. She knew that even here. Her parents kept asking her what was wrong, though Evan had given up after a couple of weeks.

She knew she wasn’t fooling anybody just as well as she knew she couldn’t explain this. And she was afraid this dream was going to drive her crazier than she was already feeling.

She saw the original book, The Future, on exactly the same high shelf where she’d first found it.

Anne pulled it out, managing to get it onto the table without too much noise. Her stomach was twisting inside of her before she even got it open. The same screen was there, and the same touch of her fingers activated it.

Maybe it would be different this time.

Maybe it wouldn’t be the ever worsening nightmare that wouldn't leave her mind all day long.

When the swarming bees appeared on the screen, Anne cried out and sat back in her chair. She knew she wouldn’t be able to move or look away. She never could do that here.

The scenes played out again, each just a tiny bit more gory and graphic. The starved people and animals and war dead were piled up and burned in giant pits, and the smell and sound and even heat rose all around her.

By the time the blue letters appeared, declaring the world population at less than five hundred thousand this time, Anne was swallowing convulsively to keep from throwing up all over herself.

This had to stop, please.

“When is this going to happen?” she said, her voice trembling. “Will I be alive then?”

The letters faded before scrambling all over the screen, moving too fast for Anne to read. She waited, afraid to see the answer but afraid to turn away.

If she blinked, if she looked away for just a second, she could miss it. She could miss her chance to know what was going to happen and when, and maybe her only chance to stop the dream loop. The letters finally stopped moving.

You will be long gone, Anne Fincastle.

Anne tried to breathe deeply to stop the tears that kept welling up into her eyes. So many people dead. So many animals. So many children. No water to drink, no food to eat.

Deep down in her belly, Anne was relieved she would never see it. At the same time, she was terrified, and anger knotted up her face and her muscles.

This thing knew her name. This thing knew the way into her sleep.

This thing never left her alone anymore, even when she was awake.

If the dreams started happening during the day, too, Anne knew what little life she had now would shatter into useless pieces.

“Can I do anything about it? Can I save them?” She paused, then shouted loud enough to hurt her own ears. “Why do you keep showing this to me?”

You are the only one who can stop it. You are the only one who must. If you fail to act, all of humanity will perish.

The letters faded, and the outlines of the continents were again bright and clear. A few scattered dots on each land mass showed the pitifully few humans left on the Earth. Anne closed her eyes for a second, but when she looked back, she was sure some of the dots were missing.

Yes, one just went out, somewhere in Australia. They were going out on the other continents too, one after the other.

When all of the dots in Australia were gone, the outline turned red.

Anne gasped. The people were dying, all of them were dying. She tried to close the book, not wanting to see any more, but the screen now weighed a ton. She couldn’t move it an inch.

The dots continued to go out, all over Europe and Africa, in China and India, then throughout South America. Anne kept trying to close the book, sweating and straining with the effort. It still wouldn’t budge.

She watched, helpless, as each continent went red, one after the other, even the islands all around the oceans turned crimson. North America was last, with the lights fading from the coasts inward.

“No! I don’t want to see this!”

When only two dots were left on the whole planet, one in Illinois, where Chicago should be, and one to the southeast where Evan went to visit his family in Virginia, Anne could finally move the book. She dug her fingers under both sides and pushed as hard as she could.

The book closed with a tremendous boom, far louder than before.

The floor shook underneath her, and she heard the other books rattling on their shelves.

The awful movie was finally gone.