172 Hours on the Moon Read online

  “Unfortunately, I can’t let you go, you know,” the voice spoke again. “That would be … wrong.”

  Something moved in the corner.

  The doppelgänger crawled out of a maintenance duct under the floor, as if she were a giant spider.

  “Who … are … you?” Mia stammered, jumping away from the capsule.

  The doppelgänger grinned repulsively at her.

  “I’m Mia. Don’t you remember? I’m you.” She emerged from the dark corner, moving toward Mia. An identical copy, down to the smallest detail. Except her eyes. The bottom portion of the doppelgänger’s irises were pitch-black.

  Mia’s eyes flitted wildly back and forth between the evacuation capsule and the doppelgänger.

  It came closer. In a few seconds it would be close enough to grab her.

  Mia looked around, desperate for something to hit it with. But aside from the capsule, the room was empty.

  She only had one chance.

  Please, she said to herself. I’ve made it this far. Please let me make it home. Let me do that so …

  The doppelgänger lunged toward her.

  Mia struck out blindly with her arms, feeling herself hit it hard in the face.

  Hands grabbed hold of her and pulled her down to the floor.

  Please.

  She struck again, not sure if she hit, but still managed to get up — run to the capsule — tear open the hatch. The doppelgänger was standing right next to her.

  She flung herself into the capsule, shut the hatch again, and sealed it.

  The other Mia screamed. She hammered on the door with the fierceness of a wild animal.

  Mia frantically stared at the control panel.

  Which one is it?

  Which one?

  A desperate face was pressed onto the window. The look was one of pure hatred.

  Fingers clawed at the glass.

  Mia feverishly pressed random buttons.

  There was hammering on the walls of the capsule.

  Voices.

  Footsteps.

  Screams.

  And inside the capsule, there it was! A red button to the far right:

  EMERGENCY LIFTOFF

  She pushed it, and the panel lit up. The rocket engines started rumbling. It took mere moments for her to strap herself into one of the seats.

  More screams from outside the capsule, more hammering hysterically against the hull.

  Mia heard the blast of the rocket engine igniting. The capsule shook violently, and Mia clung to the controls and closed her eyes.

  She was going up. She was going up!

  Seconds later, the capsule lifted off from the platform. The cables ripped loose, and the capsule was launched out into space with ferocious force.

  3

  AFTERWARD

  THE ATLANTIC

  NORAD — the North American Aerospace Defense Command — picked up the evacuation capsule on its radar a few minutes after noon. Since NORAD couldn’t immediately confirm what type of object it was, for a few minutes officials thought it was a meteorite. Or an enemy rocket. The secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were contacted, and they considered shooting the object down. But closer scrutiny showed that it was moving too fast to be an enemy missile. It had to be something from space.

  NASA also detected the capsule, and although the agency couldn’t immediately confirm what the object was, there was reason for hope. Hope that the team members NASA had lost contact with five and a half days ago had survived, and that they had made it back to Earth on their own. If that were the case, it would be nothing less than a miracle. But that was exactly what NASA needed right now. A miracle from above. Something that could silence the noise from all the TV channels, newspapers, and talk radio programs that were reporting incessantly on the tragedy and turning it into an international scandal, claiming that the organization had been reckless, greedy, and inhumane to put young people’s lives at such risk.

  But now all that could change. Instead the media would be full of tales of heroism. There would be interviews with and news bulletins about the brave astronauts who had managed to bring them home again. There would be footage of sobbing mothers and fathers hugging their sons and daughters. In the best-case scenario, all the attention might even boost the support for space travel.

  The NASA bigwigs were aboard the U.S. marine rescue helicopter that took off from its base an hour later, heading for the waters off Newfoundland, where the capsule had apparently landed. Even before the helicopter reached cruising altitude, the NASA team members had already started working on the speeches they were planning to deliver to the press once the crew was safely aboard.

  Mia slept most of the four days the trip took. It wasn’t until the capsule entered the atmosphere that she was jolted completely awake again. Then the parachutes released to slow its descent. The capsule swayed gently as it sailed downward and touched down somewhere on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

  Mia undid her seat belt and made her way over to the window and looked out at the water. The sight of the seemingly infinite blue ocean was overwhelming.

  She walked stiffly over to the exit and released the emergency opening. The explosive bolts in the hatch made the hinges release and the door fall off, disappearing into the ocean. Mia sat in the opening and felt the wind on her face. She turned her face into the sunlight and felt the salty sea spray wash over her each time a wave hit the capsule.

  She sat there rocking for several hours without thinking of anything in particular, as if all the stress had wiped her mind clean. She just sat and stared, as if she had never seen water before.

  Late that afternoon the first fishing boat showed up nearby. Astonished, weather-beaten, bearded fishermen were standing on the deck of the Sea Harvest trawler, looking in awe at the girl sitting motionless in the capsule’s door opening. Captain Tyne ordered the crew to launch the tender, and a few minutes later they raised Mia aboard. She was wrapped in blankets and brought to the captain’s cabin, where Tyne himself kept her company.

  Mia didn’t say much. She told him where she’d been and that something had gone wrong. That was it.

  Captain Tyne gave her a concerned look.

  “I’ll explain everything later,” Mia said. “I promise. I’m just not feeling that great right now.”

  They set course for shore, and the coast guard helicopter that flew over them an hour later had no idea who was on the boat below. She stayed in the captain’s home in a little fishing village on the Newfoundland coast while they tried to make contact with NASA and wait for the representatives to show up.

  But when morning arrived and Mrs. Tyne brought a breakfast tray up to the attic room where Mia was staying, the girl was gone. The bed was neatly made and the curtains drawn. There was no trace of her aside from a note on the nightstand.

  Had to move on. Thank Capt. Tyne for me again.

  I’m doing fine now.

  Mia

  The helicopter hung quietly in the air less than a dozen feet over the capsule as the divers prepared and jumped into the water. They searched the capsule and did countless dives in the vicinity to find any trace of survivors. The NASA representatives took the announcement — “There’s no one here” — with somber expressions.

  Disappointed, one of the bigwigs opened his briefcase and took one last look at the various drafts of welcome home speeches he had written. Then he whipped open the side door of the helicopter and tossed the pages out. They fluttered down and floated limply on the surface like dead fish.

  Before they turned around to head back to the base, the two NASA officials stuck their heads out the opening to get one last glimpse of the space capsule.

  What was floating down there wasn’t the command module Ceres. It was labeled with another name.

  DARLAH 1.

  They were going to have trouble explaining this to the rest of the world.

  It was easier to get to New York than she had thought, although it took time.
That night, after Captain Tyne and his wife went to bed, she got dressed and snuck out the front door without a sound. At the pier, she hid among the cargo crates until morning came and then snuck on board the first ferry out. After hitching a few different rides to Ottawa, she managed to convince an older married couple she’d met in the bus station that her wallet had been stolen; they gave her enough to take an express bus to New York City.

  Mia arrived at Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan early the next morning. She asked a nice elderly woman for some change for the phone booth, and dialed the number of Johnson Space Center in Houston.

  It was a short conversation. Mia was happy about that. Her mother couldn’t get a coherent word out; she just sobbed, and her father had to take the phone. She told him where she had been found and about her stay in Newfoundland but didn’t mention anything about what had happened on the mission. She just repeated that she was fine.

  Her father yelled into the phone, as if he were afraid that she might disappear again any second. “Go to the Four Seasons Hotel. I’ll call right away and arrange a room for you. A suite! Your mother and I are in Houston. We’ll head to the airport and get tickets to New York as soon as we hang up. Don’t go anywhere, okay? Stay at the hotel, order whatever you want from room service. Are you sure you don’t need me to send a doctor to see you?”

  “No, it’s fine. Thanks anyway.”

  “Your mother and I will be there tomorrow night at the latest. Hopefully sooner. We can’t wait to see you —”

  “I ought to get going, Dad. It’s cold here.”

  “Cold? Well, okay — get going, honey. To the Four Seasons, you hear?”

  Mia hung up and walked the last little way to the hotel. Outside its front doors she passed a newspaper stand and noticed the headline in the New York Times.

  It didn’t faze her. No one would recognize her, and none of that mattered anymore. They didn’t even give her a second glance as she approached the counter to check in.

  CONEY ISLAND

  Her father had already managed to book her a room, and with a sigh of satisfaction she took the elevator up to the suite on the fifty-second floor with a fantastic view of the park. But Mia didn’t stay in the room and wait for her family, as she’d promised.

  She had already done enough waiting. After just a few minutes in the room and a quick shower, she left the hotel, heading for Central Park.

  Murray didn’t show up until close to eleven p.m. He came pushing his shopping cart and didn’t spot her until she stopped him.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He looked at her for a long time. It was as if he were running through a big library card catalog in his brain. And finally he found a card with her name on it.

  “Mia?” he said, astonished. “You’re back.”

  She smiled. “Thought I’d say hi.”

  “I heard about you on the radio,” he said. “Down at the Salvation Army. They said you all died. They said you didn’t have a chance.”

  “That’s true. But I survived.”

  “Yes, by golly if you didn’t,” he said, putting his arm around her. “And your folks?”

  “They’re coming tonight. At the earliest.”

  “Four Seasons, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right,” Mia said. “Same as last time.”

  “Great. I’ll walk you over there.”

  “I have another idea. Come on.”

  Murray left his shopping cart in his usual spot and followed her to the subway station on Lexington Avenue.

  “Do you have money for the fare?” she asked.

  “Are you kidding? Do I look like I have money?”

  They waited until no one was looking, crawled under the turnstile, and jogged down to the platform. She gave Murray clear instructions not to read any of the signs along the way so that he wouldn’t figure out where they were going. Every time the train stopped at another station, he held one hand up over his eyes and used the other and his shoulder to cover his ears so she could tell he really wasn’t cheating. They took the subway to the last stop, and Mia held Murray’s hand as he closed his eyes and followed her up into the warm evening air.

  “Now you can look,” she said. Murray opened his eyes.

  “Coney Island,” he exclaimed. “You brought me to Coney Island! I haven’t been here in … all these years.”

  “Do you remember telling me how you guys used to sleep on the beach here?”

  “Yes, I remember. They don’t do that anymore. No one sleeps on the beach anymore.”

  Mia pulled him along, down toward the water. “But tonight is different. Tonight someone is going to sleep here on the beach at Coney Island.”

  Murray’s eyes went glossy. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you. This is the best gift anyone’s ever given me.”

  The path down to the beach was littered with trash. Around them were the remains of what had once been an amusement park — ruined carousels, parts of old trucks, and a lone, motionless Ferris wheel.

  They found a spot next to an old wooden boat on the beach, and Murray spread his coat out on the sand so they could lie on it.

  “Welcome back,” he told her.

  “Same to you,” she replied.

  Murray fell asleep faster than anyone else in New York that night. Just over a minute after he laid his head down on the sand he was out. But Mia didn’t sleep.

  She sat up the whole night, staring straight ahead, until the sun came up out over the water. I’m on Earth, she thought. I’m home.

  * * *

  Murray was groggy when he woke up. He didn’t know where he was at first and yelled a couple expletives at no one in particular until he noticed Mia and remembered the previous night.

  He got up and ambled down to the edge of the water to stand next to her.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  She turned to him. “It’s going to go great. For me.”

  And then she sneered at him. A repulsive sneer.

  He studied her face more closely now, and suddenly he didn’t feel right. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “Your eyes,” he said finally. “You ought to get them checked, I think. It looks like there’s something wrong with … uh … with … them. They’re … totally black.”

  She shrugged, her sneer deepening. “Unfortunately, I can’t let you come with me back to Manhattan.”

  “I … yes. Wait, what do you mean?” Murray replied, confused. Instinctively he took a step away from her and stumbled backward.

  Mia was instantly standing over him. He felt himself begin to panic.

  The sun rose out of the ocean and shone on them. It lit up the whole beach and sort of gave Coney Island its color back.

  Murray had just enough time to see her hands coming at him, and then he felt an intense, blinding pain in his head, as if his skull had cracked just over his eyes and split in two.

  Then everything went black.

  * * *

  She left him like that, without batting an eye. She slowly turned and walked toward the Ferris wheel and what was left of the once-famous amusement park. Far away, on the other side of the East River, she could see the Manhattan skyline, just as the first rays of morning sunlight struck it.

  She stood there watching the city for a little while before she started walking toward the entrance to the subway station.

  THE DISTANT ONES

  The doorman at the Four Seasons bowed to her and opened the door as she entered the building. Without saying a word to anyone, she walked through the lobby and into the private elevator and took it up to the fifty-second floor. She slid her key card into the lock and stepped into the luxurious suite.

  It wasn’t so much a hotel room as an enormous apartment: the Ty Warner Penthouse suite, with nine rooms occupying just over four thousand square feet, taking up the entire fifty-second floor of the hotel. The biggest room had a panoramic view of Central Park, and any human would have been absolutely enchanted to see the crisp morning ligh
t filtering through the trees in the park. But she didn’t even notice. She just walked from room to room, and then into the library, where she found a red armchair and sat down.

  She waited.

  Sat motionless and waited.

  The hours passed.

  And if anyone had been there in the room to see her, they would have been terrified. Because she wasn’t just sitting still. She was completely immobile, staring blankly ahead.

  The phone rang six hours later. As if just a couple of minutes had passed, she got up, walked over to the little table, and answered it.

  “Miss Nomeland, this is the front desk. Your parents are here.”

  “Send them up,” she replied.

  “Of course.”

  She went to the door, looked in the mirror. Her eyes were dark, her hands looked gnarled, as if her body had aged fifty years. She studied her features with interest and then turned attentively to the door.

  There was a knock. One knock, two knocks.

  Then she heard a key card being put into the lock, and the door opened. There they stood. Three people: a man, a woman, a boy. Her parents and brother.

  Her mother dropped her bag and ran to her, flung her arms around her and wailed.

  “We were so afraid for you, Mia. We’ve been so dreadfully afraid.” The mother only just managed to get the words out. Days of not knowing whether her daughter was alive or not had clearly left their mark on the mother’s face. It was gray, dry, like a newspaper with only tragic headlines, and her hair was messy and unwashed. She obviously hadn’t slept for days. “I love you so much, do you know that?” her mother sobbed, hugging her again even harder. “I thought we’d never see you again.”

  The father was just behind the mother, also hugging her with tears in his eyes. And then this kid.

  Sander, his name was. He was standing a couple feet away, watching her with a distrustful look. He was clutching a tattered stuffed lion in his hands.