“What the fuck Amber!” He yells as I walk away like a Frankenstein monster, feeling like tears should be stinging my open eyes with embarrassment even though none come.
I need to find Jenny.
The maître’ d flags a taxi for me, clearly thinking I’ve shown up wasted and realized I was too drunk to stick around. When the car arrives, I do my best to fall into it and sit like I’m not burning up.
The shop is dark when I arrive, and I barely make it out of the taxi without screaming. One knee made a horrible popping sound as my right leg fell toward the curb and I used the car door to pull myself out. Instead of walking down the steps I manage an awful crab-like hop to the bottom. My eyes are burning, still stuck open, and my body is making a sound like tearing paper.
I hammer on the door with my wrist as my hand struggles to make a fist. The wooden beads rattle against the glass and a light comes on inside.
I see Jenny slowly shuffle toward the door and when she sees me, she smiles.
The door opens.
“You are so dressed up, what’s happening?” She says with a knowing grin.
My mouth is so dry I can hardly pull my tongue off the roof of my mouth. I feel like I should be sweating but I’m not.
“I…feel….sick,” I manage. “I…need…water.”
“No, no,” she coos softly. “I help you in, I make it better. I told you two months you come back, has it been that long? We go downstairs.”
She reaches for my arm and pulls me toward her, starting a long and horrible journey to the back of the store. I feel a rush of relief as she puts her other arm around me but notice that there are no age spots on her hands anymore.
“You are so cold! Too much urushi, huh?” She laughs.
I don’t respond because of the effort and instead focus on moving forward. The palm frond screen is gone, and the door to downstairs is already open. She must have been down there when I knocked. The crab walk gets me down the next set of stairs but the pain is becoming unbearable. I let out some awful muffled yelps while trying to get air into my lungs.
Once in the downstairs room, she fusses about with a bottle of water and some herbs, before pouring the contents in a small cup and holding it to my parched lips.
“You drink now.”
There‘s a smell in the air again, not paint this time but something familiar. It’s lacquer. I try to spit the herbal drink out but everything starts to go black and brown around the edges as my consciousness slips away.
When I wake up, everything is dark. My eyes are still stuck open and so dry my vision blurs as I make an attempt to focus on the distant light. I can hear far away voices, voices of women.
“She took all of it?” A familiar voice asks.
“I’m not sure,” says Jenny. “But she is done. I thought it would take longer but I don’t’ think she eats. Skin so cold and hard, she is skinny and barely can walk. She is so orange now, looks like amber! I put her in lotus and she is stuck there.”
I’m confused for a moment, then realize they are talking about me.
“Funny enough, that’s her name.” I know the voice. It’s Professor Grey!
Jenny laughs. “I told her not to take so much. I told her bad things would happen. That always makes them want to do more. Dangerous men, dangerous car, dangerous drug.”
They both laugh out loud at my misfortune.
I try to call out to her but my lips and tongue won’t move at all. I start to take in my surroundings. As my eyes adjust, I see the small shaft of light is coming in from a hole in front of me, and a thin chain is hanging down from it. I move my hand very slightly and realize the cool metal of the chain is wrapped around my wrist. Aside from small movements in my hands, only my eyes can move. I’m aware of one leg crossed over the other and feel my heart racing. Then I see the dried flowers. My arm lurches back a few inches.
A bell rings.
I’m in the hole behind the shelves! They have walled me in!
“She’s not ready yet but soon,” Professor Grey says with an unimpressed tone. “Why am I surprised? She can’t even make it to class on time. Every year one of them thinks they’ve found eternal life, but Jenny, we know what the secret is. How many moons have passed since we first had the mummy’s powder? Let me know when it stops ringing and we can begin.”
THE ANSWER
Lou Rera
Sister Mary Claire scanned the room. She grinned to herself more than at the class and then asked Donna Pequella to answer the question again. Donna had been watching the erratic movements of a monarch butterfly and was caught not paying attention. The other students watched, some of them even holding their breath. With her eyes cast downward (perhaps thinking about the punishment she would inflict on Donna), Sister Mary Claire pushed her chair back and the rusty wheels screeched and wobbled in protest along the uneven green-and-white floor tiles. She then stood up behind her desk, leaned over, and placed her hands on either side of the desk blotter. The crucifix around her neck swayed like Poe’s pendulum of doom. Ticktock, back-and-forth, the gentle arc of a dying Jesus was hypnotic. Sister Mary Claire surveyed the class with a scowl that was downright intimidating in stark contrast to her expression, the nun moved gracefully to the front of the classroom. (Instead of walking, she seemed to glide without moving her legs under her billowy tunic.) There she paused, stuffed her white linen handkerchief inside the cuff of her sleeve and cleared her throat. Sister Mary Claire stood with her hands folded in front of her.
“Donna?” she said.
“Yes, Sister Mary Claire?”
“Please stand up and answer my question. You did hear the question, correct?”
There was a pause. Donna stammered, “Nah-na-no. I mean, no, Sister Mary Claire.”
Sister Mary Claire was an older nun in a school where all of the nuns were old. In 1957, the average age at the convent was north of seventy-five. Her face was thin and pale, and her skin had the translucence of a Thai spring roll. She spoke with a soft, but measured cadence. Her circular wireframe glasses were, somehow, emblematic of her authority, but there was also something else—a figure perhaps, from a war a decade or so earlier.
As the disciplinary action was about to unfold, the other students froze like ants in amber. This classroom was a serious place. Nothing fun or amusing ever happened there. The Catholic method of learning was conducted with clinical precision in a spotless environment (as “cleanliness is next to Godliness”). There was little room for actual open dialog or inquisitive learning.
An American flag hung to the right of the blackboard and another two-foot-tall effigy of Jesus hanging from the cross was dead center at the front of the classroom. A blue wooden crate (containing soon-to-be lukewarm milk cartons) had been placed on the floor near the front door. The school didn’t have a refrigerator (much less a cafeteria) and the students ate their bagged lunches at their desks. Today, the skies were unusually clear. The sun streamed through six large windows. On one of the sills, a dead fly appeared to have sunned itself into oblivion.
“Stand up, Donna!”
With her knees locked together, Donna swung her legs from underneath her desk. On their way, however, her ankles hooked a three-ring binder, her pencil case, and a stack of textbooks. Flustered, Donna bent down to pick everything up and bumped her desk with her derriere. It slid sideways into the aisle and the class burst out laughing. Visibly angered, Sister Mary Claire raised her voice, “SILENCE!” It was as if someone had hacked off the sound of children laughing.
Donna pushed her glasses to the bridge of her nose as she stood to face the nun. She was visibly shaken and a fine sweat covered her face. She tried her best not to move, but glanced to her left and then to her right. Donna could see that David Derrick was looking at her with his usual devious smirk. She knew everyone else was staring at her, too. During the school year, Donna did her best to shy away from attention and to stay out of everyone’s way. She was a quiet girl and only really spoke when spoken to.
/> Anonymity was easy to come by in Catholic schools, especially at Our Lady of Hopeless Victory. The Tiorunda neighborhood was dirt poor and no one student ever looked better dressed than another. All the girls wore the same brown plaid uniforms and the boys wore white short-sleeve shirts with brown plaid clip-on ties.
“Miss Pequella. What was the question?” the nun queried.
“I don’t remember, Sister Mary Claire.”
“Miss Pequella, that would mean you heard the question, but have forgotten what the question was, correct?”
“Er, I-I dunno.” It was clear that Donna was becoming more confused with each passing second.
“Miss Pequella, we don’t stutter in this classroom. Only imbeciles stutter. Remember our lesson about what an imbecile is Donna? God and the government prevent imbeciles from having babies. You DO remember that, don’t you Miss Pequella?”
“Yes, Sister Mary Claire,” Donna mumbled.
“You are not an imbecile, are you Donna?”
“No, Sister Mary Claire,” Donna said in a whisper.
“Speak up, Donna!”
“Yes, Sister Mary Claire.”
“Here is the question again since you seem to have forgotten it. Are you ready?”
“Yes, Sister.”
“That would be, ‘Yes, Sister Mary Claire.’ ”
“Yes, Sister Mary Claire.”
“What is twelve times twelve, minus fifteen?” The nun crinkled her nose. “Quickly!”
All eyes were on Donna. David Derrick leaned over in the middle of his desk and coughed out the word, dummy, into his cupped hands. Sister Mary Claire shot a furrowed glance at David and his face went slack.
“Well, Donna. We’re waiting.” Sister Mary Claire pulled the handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at the corners of her mouth. “Look around you, Donna. All of your classmates are waiting for your answer.” The nun turned around and looked up at the crucifix as she touched the one around her neck. She turned back to the class and said, “Jesus awaits your answer, Donna. He suffered for you. You understand that, don’t you? He suffered for every single student in this classroom. Jesus suffered for the sins of the world. I would think that the least you could do would be to solve the simple problem that I’ve presented to you.”
The thin red hand slammed, second-by-second, across the face of the General Electric clock. Audrey Bellows shoved her arm into the air, pulling her lips back into a frightful grin that framed her buckteeth like Halloween wax fakeries. She bounced her legs up and down waiting for the nun’s attention.
“What is it, Audrey?”
“I need to go to the girls’ room, Sister Mary Claire—please!”
“Put your hand down and stop squirming. Jesus suffered. You are not suffering!”
Whenever there was a burst of tension in the classroom, it was usually followed by a slew of requests to visit the restroom.
David once again coughed an obscenity into his hands. Sister Mary Claire moved with the stealth of a hyaena, grabbed his ear, dragged him out of his desk, and put him into the closet at the back of the classroom. Then she quietly shut the door. No one heard what the nun whispered in his ear. Whatever it was, though, made him as silent as a corpse.
Sister Mary Claire sighed, patted the white handkerchief against her forehead, and continued. “Please, Donna, for the love of our Lord—the answer.”
Donna’s face was etched with anguish. She stared beyond Sister Mary Claire, beyond the crucifix, and beyond the dying likeness of Jesus. She looked beyond the walls of the classroom and beyond the building. If there was a God, he would have seen the turmoil and overwhelming embarrassment that Donna was currently experiencing. He would have seen that she wanted nothing more than to vanish, to disappear into thin air or, at the very least, to find a seat next to an angel somewhere in the far corners of heaven.
The sound of something dripping echoed in the classroom before Donna let loose in a torrent. She peed all over her books, pencil case, and her brand new Howdy Doody three-ring binder. The urine trickled down the insides of both of her legs, into her white frilly socks, and on into her brown-and-white saddle shoes. Moans of disgust emanated from her classmates.
Sister Mary Claire looked down at the puddle and then up at the tear-streaked face of Donna Pequella.
“Who is going to clean up your unholy mess, Miss Pequella? Who?”
Donna kicked her books and screamed, “YOU!” She grabbed the wet binder and helicoptered the thing, missing the nun’s head by inches—the whirling notebook sprayed warm urine over everyone in the front row, dappled Sister Mary Claire’s starched-white bib and stark-white face, and misted her wire-rimmed glasses. Donna ran for the door, but then stopped. She turned toward Sister Mary Claire and yelled, “Jesus hates you. Jesus hates me. He hates all of us. He died for nothing!” before she fled into the empty hallway, sobbing and wailing like a screaming banshee howling through the bowels of hell.
From inside the blackness of the closet, the muffled voice of David Derrick sniggered as he asked, “Sister Mary Claire, does Jesus know the answer?”
THERE IS NO WIND THAT ALWAYS BLOWS...
Julianne Snow
The lucky got used to the constant wail of the wind. Maguire Redding could call himself one of the lucky few, but considering what the world had turned into, luck was a relative term.
It’s been said that if a butterfly flapped its wings in Paris, the gentle disruption would become a gale force wind by the time it reached New York City. What if a hundred butterflies all fluttered their wings in unison? A thousand? A hundred thousand? What manner of chaos would befall the world if conditions lined up for an actual test of the theory?
It’s been one thousand, six hundred and eighty-nine days since the winds started. The landscape bore the marks of the great scouring that took place. No one knew the true extent of the destruction beyond what they had seen with their own eyes. Buildings were damaged, many of them brushed off the face of the Earth forever by the sheer force of the never-ending winds that buffeted and howled around each corner.
It was an eerie sound; like a scream. It settled deep within the subconscious and if it couldn’t be blocked out, it drove you mad. Maguire had seen it—the look one got before the wind broke them. It started in the eyes with a hollowness that drew you in, culminating in a subtle smile that tugged at the corners of their mouths, before erupting in a violent wave of aggression that could kill if you got too close. Once the insanity took hold, there was no coming back. Better to let the wind take them completely.
Many were lost that way: shoved past the outer doors of the compound into the thrashing arms of Mother Nature. Their screams would sound for a moment, before being replaced by the rush of the air currents as they were stolen away. It was always sad, pathetic really, but there was nothing that could be done. The wind had robbed them of so much already, and for those who fought tooth and nail to survive, they were willing to sacrifice the weak for another day.
Back in the beginning it had started with a persistent wind that experts couldn’t explain. A quickening of the currents that defied all logic, becoming stronger with each passing hour. It took only a few weeks for communications to break down, the towers that held the dishes and receivers in place succumbing to the force of the wind one by one. Some remained standing, their support rooted firmly in the ground, but now they leaned, their signals silenced.
Anything simply placed on the ground was fair game to the winds that eddied across the land. Garbage pails, bicycles, benches, hot dog carts, cars—if it wasn’t bolted down, the wind picked it up and took it away. Buildings began to buckle under the steady assault: trailer parks disappeared, slums disintegrated as their makeshift walls sliced through the air, roofs were torn off their walls, and walls were separated from their foundations. All of the debris swirling and whipping around pock-marked the facades of larger, more substantial buildings before blowing out to sea, lost forever to the depths.
As the wind worked to
strip the planet of what was built upon it, it was unsafe to venture outside. Those who had not been caught completely unaware and in the open hunkered down, reinforcing where they were with what they had on hand. Basements became havens, the subways home to those who could hide themselves from the deadly currents that occasionally snaked the tunnels, and the inner rooms of many well-constructed buildings housed those who found their way inside before it was too late.
With windows boarded against the assault, and supplies of food and water dwindling, some had to venture outside. It took forty-one days before that was a necessity for Maguire and the twenty-six other people who had hidden themselves in the basement of their office building, located in an industrial park just outside the city. Housed in the same building with them was a sporting goods store with a few pallets of bottled water and more than enough protein bars and packages of trail mix to get them through the early days.
Across the street from them was the distribution center for a large grocery change, but they had no idea what condition the building or its contents would be in. The only thing they were sure of was the direction that building laid from their door to the outside world.
Their first plan failed. Six people went out into the winds and none of them returned. It was their first clue to the strength of the windstorm that had taken control. More planning went into the next time they ventured outside, and while it was a success overall, they still lost one to the gusts.
The trip was an eye-opening experience for those that could see what was beyond the concrete walls they now called home. Getting across the expanse was a difficult feat, made harder by the ropes that anchored them to their building, and the necessity of securing a line between them and the warehouse they sought. Bowing light standards became landmarks, lengths of rope wrapped around them before moving to the next solid structure they could find.
Getting to the warehouse took hours, the wind throwing them off balance more than once and sapping their precious strength. But they got there and found the warehouse to be the hub of a much greater group of people.
Group Hex Vol 1 Page 19
