THE CHANGE - CHAPTER ONE

PART ONE: WELCOME TO ECHO COVE / FIRST MIRACLE OF THE MORNING

PART ONE

WELCOME TO ECHO COVE

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22

THE MORNING SHIFT

ONE

Dr. Emily James swerved and took a hard left on Manitou Ave., avoiding the screaming pillar of light that used to be a man.

“Whoa,” she said, screeching to a halt at the curb. Another car was slamming on the brakes and skidding sideways on Whitsend, mid-intersection, like the driver had been looking at their phone and almost missed it.

“HOLY FUCK!” someone yelled from up the street, and she was inclined to agree, hopping out of her Toyota hybrid with the engine still running. Then she was running, too, through the cold December dawn, in the direction of the impossible thing before her.

There wasn’t a lot of traffic at 5:40 in the morning in Echo Cove, Oregon, as a rule. It was a tiny coastal town, about 90 miles from Portland, tucked away from the more scenic or touristy stretches. Maybe three thousand people, tops. Enough for a gas station, a diner, a gun shop and a weed dispensary at one of its three main intersections. (As Dale from Security liked to say, “This town clearly has its priorities straight.”)

Normally, Dr. Emily could roll into work from her rental cabin on Timber Lane in 15 minutes, no muss, no fuss. But clearly, the word “normal” no longer applied.

Welcome to my world, said a voice in her head. But she didn’t need to say it.

These poor people were scared enough.

By then, Gus the owner and his niece Patrice were freaking out on the sidewalk in front of the diner, their iPhone cameras a-jitter in their hands. Likewise, Bernardo the elderly pump jockey at the Space Age Gas & Go was joined by his lone customer, a tall willowy non-local who shivered, wide-eyed, despite her thick winter coat. She looked like a woman who had never seen a ghost, and was now being forced to bear witness.

Behind them, the kid in the gas station toll booth was just staring through the glass: talking, as if hypnotized, to someone on his phone. Other than that, the sidewalks were empty; it was waaaaay too early in the day to buy guns or weed legally.

And then there was the car that had nearly skidded into the light, still sideways in the middle of Whitsend Ave., its high beams looking pale and weak in comparison as they blared off into the pre-dawn darkness. The driver was half-in, half-out of his car, clearly in shock. Understandably so. She recognized the guy from work, but did not know his name.

In the middle of the street, the pillar of light was still there. As for the man? She was not so sure. He was still screaming, though, or at least the sound of it was still clawing its way through whatever the fuck now thoroughly encased him. From thirty feet away and closing, she could barely see his silhouette pulse inside the glowing beam.

It was like the poor fellow was trapped inside the base of a rainbow, except the light went straight up, and it was not multi-colored, and it appeared to have no end, cutting through the dark December clouds like the world’s largest, least festive Christmas decoration.

And the craziest thing – the thing that spooked her most – was that it wasn’t like this light came down from space to claim him, Like he was being beamed up on a Star Trek episode.

In the second before she swerved, she had seen very clearly that the light came out of him.

Dr. Emily slowed down to a stop, took a moment to let the overwhelming strangeness sink in. She was, as she described herself, a “tiny little slip of a thing”: five foot three and 107 pounds in her business suit and sneakers. With her blonde hair pony-tailed back, and barely a stitch of makeup, she came off cute as a button and nice as pie.

But her bright blue Texan eyes missed nothing. And while those eyes had seen insane amounts of inexplicable shit – as part of her job now, yes, not to mention life in general – she had to admit this was a new one on her.

She took a deep breath, took out her phone, grabbed a couple quick pics and texted them to Henneger. Then she dialed the Institute switchboard, saying, “Hey, Phil. It’s Dr. Em. Please tell Coco and Priss I’ll be just a couple minutes late. Then tell Butch and Dr. H. they might wanna skedaddle on up to the Space Age real quick and run some tests…yeah, the one right up the street. Yeah, exactly. No, I’m not kiddin’. Yep. Another phenomenon. Thanks.”

Dr. Emily hung up, saw her hand was shaking slightly, slipped the phone back into her pocket, and listened to the pillar scream.

Yep, she thought. Just another phenomenon. Shouldn’t be more than a couple minutes late.

And that, she realized, was the thing that was fucking with her hardest, here in the first days of The Change.

That less than 48 hours since the first reported miracle, what they used to call impossible was already starting to feel routine.