In Through The Outdoor: Stories From the Beyond

IN THROUGH THE OUT DOOR

Stories from the Beyond

By

Michael W. Garza

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including

photocopying, recording, or by any information and retrieval

system, without the written permission of the author, except

where permitted by law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and

incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or

are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,

locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2020 by Michael W. Garza

All rights reserved.

Proofread by Karen Robinson of

INDIE Books Gone Wild.

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something

we do not understand.

- Frank Herbert

Also by Michael Garza

The Decaying World Saga

The Hand That Feeds

The Last Infection

Tribes of Decay

Season of Decay

Cult of the Elder Mythos

The Elder Unearthed

(A collection of tales)

Vision of the Elder

NeverHaven

Children of the Mark

Rise of the Elder

Drums in the Abyss

The Shadow Gate Chronicles

The Last Shadow Gate

A Veil of Shadows

Table of Contents

In Through the Out Door

It’s a Girl

Red Horizon

Return to Sender

The Harbinger

The Long Way Home

A World Apart

Varian Crossing

In Through the Out Door

Greg tossed his legs off the side of the bed and tried to focus. He was sweating, his thick, brown hair matted to his face. He had had the dream again and was determined to write down what he could remember. He was sure some extraordinary things were happening, but he could not shake the intense feeling of déjà vu.

He grabbed his glasses off the nightstand and fumbled for the lamp switch. Tinfoil covered the lone window in the room, blocking out the afternoon light. Greg’s hands shook, and it was difficult to breathe. He wiped his hand across his face and felt warm blood trickle from his nose.

The notepad was where he had left it. A glass of water rocked slightly from the weight of his arm as he grabbed his pen. Greg scribbled away on the small piece of paper with fury.

The dreams started six months ago. The first simple symbols grew more intense over a short period of time, and now they were connecting from one dream to the next. Once he could handle the images, his dreams shifted to complex algorithms far beyond anything he had ever seen.

For most people, math was a lifelong struggle. Greg was no exception; his checkbook made a worthy advisory. The dreams did not contain simple everyday math; they were the complicated problems most people never intend to have anything to do with. This was the kind of math two and a half semesters of community college did not prepare you for.

Damn it.

There was a pattern forming with each dream. He wrote down everything he could remember as soon as he woke. The memories lasted for a few minutes, and then everything went blank. Greg did not bother looking over what he wrote. The room was quiet, and he did not want to know how long it was before he had to get up for work. He tossed the pen down and finished off the water. Not bothering to turn off the lamp, Greg slid his legs back under the sheet and tried to go back to sleep.

♦

The alarm came early, and Greg had to drag his short, overweight frame out of bed. He combed his hair, brushed his teeth, and squeezed his potbelly into the mandatory Philmore Security standard-issue uniform. The matching dark blue pants and coat did little to hide his growing waistline. He tossed the notebook by his bed into his backpack and headed out.

The Cyclotron particle accelerator facility was in the northeast area on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. Greg knew the campus traffic was light because of the upcoming winter break. He pulled off Centennial Drive and onto Cyclotron Road, flashed his badge at the gate, and pulled into the parking lot.

It was eight o’clock by the time he finished his rounds. Greg found his way to the employee lounge. There was only one other person in the lounge as he smiled, tossed his bag down, and pulled out the notebook.

I had another one, Greg said.

Marcus smiled and motioned for Greg to let him see it. Marcus’ afro was particularly big tonight. Marcus was a second-year grad student helping with an ongoing high-energy beam experiment at the Cyclotron facility. His afro was a self-proclaimed show of respect to his idol, Dr. J.

Marcus and Greg met a little over a year ago; the two formed an unlikely friendship. In truth, Greg was just about the only other person within the facility after six o’clock, which left Marcus’ options for conversation limited. Greg opened the notepad to last night’s page and laid it on the table. Marcus looked over the algorithms like he was trying to memorize them.

What do you think it means? Marcus asked.

Greg shrugged.

Are you going to work on it tonight? Marcus asked.

Sure am.

Marcus grinned and stood up. He pulled his lab coat around his thin frame. I have some of the new data from the linear accelerator to work on. I want to see something from you when I get back.

Greg nodded; he pulled the notepad back over to his side of the table as Marcus strolled out of the lounge.

Marcus felt responsible for Greg’s sleeping problems. The dreams started after an unfortunate accident in the vacuum chamber in Vault Three. Greg could not remember much of it. He knew he was in the main vault area when it happened, in between Cave Five and the Isotope Production Lab. Marcus was supposed to start up the Cyclotron just enough to push the high-frequency, alternating voltage across the electrodes. Greg had a bruise on both of his temples for two weeks.

The first dream came the day after the accident. In the beginning, they were too abstract for him to understand and write down. When Greg woke, he could not find the words to describe any of it before the memory faded. Eventually, he found that as he concentrated on the dreams, gradually, they would take shape.

The fire at the church on 16th Street was the first he figured out. The images in the dreams were only of a building and fire, but it was the algorithms that pulled it all together.

Greg wrote them down though they did not mean anything to him at first. He went with Marcus over to the Berkeley library to find out what any of it meant. It was apparent to Marcus from the beginning that the complexities of algorithms were far beyond his capability. It was the dreams that followed that showed Greg how to apply the algorithms.

Greg was able to take the long lines of numbers and attach alphabetical meanings.

16th, holy, fire.

That first message did not make much sense until he read in the paper a day later that the Baptist church on 16th Street burned to the ground. That was the church he attended whenever he woke up early enough on Sundays.

Marcus was terrified that Greg would fall over dead one day and it would be all his fault.

Maybe you’re possessed?

That was Marcus’s first response when Greg told him about it. Greg still was not sure.

♦

The second message was more confusing than the first. After Greg managed to piece it all together, he was left with three new words: work, fall, cream.

Both Greg and Marcus were convinced that the message pointed at an accident two days later. A few kids made their way onto the facility compound, and Greg was chasing after them. They managed to spray paint along the south side of the main building before he found them.

Greg knew he did not stand a chance at catching them, but he had to give chase. One of them, barely a teenager, got into the lobby of the main building trying to hide. Just as Greg found him, the kid slipped on a spilled jar of sanitizer hand cream and cracked his head open on the hard floor.

Greg did not understand how he was supposed to have put those pieces together. He was not sure if he was missing something or not. An entire month passed, and neither the images nor the algorithms returned.

♦

Greg removed a larger notebook from his bag and laid it on the table by the notepad. As he had done the last few times he had had one of his dreams, Greg focused on the numbers he wrote down. With his hand gripped tight around his pen, Greg allowed himself to write. His mind got lost on the numbers from his dream, and his hand wrote as though it had a mind of its own.

He did not notice Marcus coming back into the lounge and taking the chair across from him. By the time Greg snapped back to his surroundings, two and a half hours had passed.

That freaks me out, Marcus said. It’s like you’re stoned or something, just staring at that paper.

They both looked over at the larger notebook.

U = e(w’ + a2d)(9 + x’ + ad)[x + y’ + 6v(t - s)][y + bv(t - s)]U + h’ + z’

Fish

It looks like Riemann’s, maybe Collatz, Greg said.