The Scales

by Paul Sating

  Broken bodies littered the area, some torn in half. In between pieces of waste metal. On top of beams. Splayed across aircraft wing panels. Dozens impaled on old building struts. So many dead.

  The Screecher moved in even more rapid, angry gesticulations now. It thrashed about, picking up a Jeep with its tail and slamming it into the sand repeatedly. A tire popped off and sailed over a pile of scrap metal forty yards away. The frame of the Jeep snapped and the vehicle broke free of the assault in two pieces. Then the Screecher charged into a small pile of metal serving as a shield for a handful of fighters. They scattered just before the beast hit the scrap metal head-on, sending pieces flying in every direction. Ripping. Tearing. Destroying. Nothing was safe from its warpath, and it didn’t appear to be slowing down. Someone tossed a grenade from behind one of the last piles of metal in this open area. It hit the dirt underneath the Screecher before exploding. The desert floor erupted, sending the ancient terror flying, wiggling as if it was trying to stand upright before crashing back to earth. It slammed into a smaller pile, beams and bars flew in every direction, exposing three cowering people.

  Patch!

  Blood streamed down his cheeks and neck as he knelt on the ground, holding himself up with one hand. The other held a rag against his head. Power flowed through Serenity at seeing her old friend. He had been battling the Screecher for well over an hour and was still okay.

  This time the Screecher regained its upright posture more slowly. Those bolts of…life?…zigzagging through its body less often. Was it possible? If it tired, if it could be injured, then why couldn’t it also be killed? If they could kill it…maybe, then…maybe I…

  She had to remain focused. The Screecher was still alive and getting angrier as it pulled itself out of the wreckage of the scrap metal heap, some of which was falling back on the creature. A beam was bent around the Screecher’s torso until the beast straightened, bolts firing more regularly, larger, inside its body. Serenity watched with fascinated horror as the bolts compressed into a large ball, easily ten feet in diameter, at the point where the beam was caught around the Screecher’s body. The concentrated ball of electricity pulsed, doing so more rapidly with each iteration, sending smaller tendrils of white electricity spider-webbing all along the beam. The metal reddened as it was heated and within seconds began melting, dripping off the Screecher’s body. At the same time, the Screecher’s tail caught under an industrial dishwasher, a twenty-foot long conveyer belt with a large box in the middle that housed the steam-cleaning components. It had to weigh a thousand pounds. But the Screecher flung its tail free, as if the industrial dishwasher was made of paper. Freed, the beast didn’t attack or move. It remained where it had freed itself, the upper half swaying back and forth as its head pivoted, assessing the threats that still existed, especially those closest to it. Like Patch.

  Guns fired on the Screecher the moment it showed the fight wasn’t over.

  “No!” Serenity screamed. A panicked reaction or not, those people firing at the Screecher were putting three others in harm’s way.

  “I need to get closer,” Deputy Rodgers said, turning to them. “Stay here.” He was off, running across the sand.

  “Go!” she yelled to Patch, knowing there was no way he would hear her over the gunfire. They had the chance to get away, yet weren’t doing anything. Serenity bounced on the balls of her feet. Why?

  Maybe connecting with Atsidi was possible. She reached. Searched. Feeling for that sense that hadn’t left her since she was part of an army of citizens marching toward the Scales to confront the Black Suits. The moment on the mountainside. The first interaction at the Scales. A prick, a flicker of something. There! Deep in the recesses of her mind, the Screecher’s presence. Like a smell from a long-forgotten memory, she almost felt its experience while falling short of grasping it. The foggy sight. The intense sounds nearly shattering her mind. The power. What power. Was this what it meant to be a Caller? What was she supposed to do with it? She could hear the battle, not from her own ears, but from those of the Screecher. She saw murky images. Rage boiled in her, bordering on uncontrollable. George and Patch hadn’t told her what to do with this. They didn’t know. Atsidi had been the Screecher for generations and any knowledge of how to interact with it was lost in vapory stories. Nothing she’d done before had called to the Screecher. It was all about feeling.

  How do I get to it?

  She looked at her mother for some idea, but Ida looked as perplexed as Serenity felt. Jerrod gripped the handrail. His jaw bulged. They were all equally clueless and helpless.

  Serenity would never rest knowing she was the one who woke it. This was hers to finish. The next set of Black Suits wouldn’t return to the Tri-Counties if there was nothing to come back for.

  “Momma,” Serenity gave her mother’s shoulders a shake. “We need to go. Momma?”

  Ida didn’t move, didn’t answer or react. She continued staring at the scenes before her.

  “Momma?!” Serenity shouted. “We need to go!”

  Still nothing.

  Concern etched Jerrod’s face, an intense look dancing over their mother.

  “Come on, Jerrod,” she said. “I need your help distracting the Screecher. We can leave her here. It’s safer.”

  “You ready?”

  Serenity kissed her mother on the cheek, soaking in her mother’s smell for the last time. “I love you, Momma,” she whispered, “but I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to help everyone. I’m sorry. I love you.” Blinking away her tears, she stood and leapt up the stairs, over-taking Jerrod.

  Finding cover closer to the Screecher was the priority, then she would figure out just how to get closer without putting Jerrod in danger. She had to get closer so it would recognize her, smell her, to complete their connection and let Atsidi finally rest. Fifty yards away lay a beam, a casualty of the fighting, thrown off to the side. It was easily large enough to lay behind. Not the perfect cover, it would get them close. Serenity pulled Jerrod in its direction.

  Halfway there, the Screecher roared in a mix of anger and pain and lashed out as bullets pelted it. Small wisps of haze puffed out at each impact. White lightning danced inside the Screecher’s body near each fresh wound. The Screecher thrashed wildly, the electrical currents becoming clearer, pushing away the cloudy fog that had dominated its misty form. Serenity watched helplessly as it thrashed more violently, as if Atsidi were losing control of himself. Instead of smooth, swaying movements, the beast was whipping its upper torso around in jerky circular movements, lashing out at everyone near it, including Patch.

  The old man still cowered to shield himself from flying metal and bullets. He didn’t stand a chance.

  Time slowed to a standstill. Serenity was running, breathing deep through the exhaustion and ignoring her burning thighs as her legs pumped through the sand. Jerrod screamed. Bullets popped. Her legs became heavy, as if the sand were sucking her feet.

  The Screecher released a searing cry as it slammed into the sand, just missing Patch, but sending him flying. Serenity’s lungs refused to expand as her old friend slammed into the ground twenty feet away. Dust billowed, shrouding him momentarily. When it cleared, Patch didn’t stand.

  She willed him up, to brush the sand off that disgusting, smelly jacket he constantly wore, and get to safety in defiance of the Screecher’s vastly superior power, just as he’d done at every downturn in his life.

  But he didn’t move.

  The Screecher’s head lowered over Patch, hovering twenty feet above his prone body. Patch couldn’t save himself, but she could. George had told her what Atsidi needed.

  Serenity ran, not to Patch, but toward the Screecher. Before she closed the distance though, the Screecher aimed its rage on Patch, pulling itself fully upright again, its head wagging in quick side-to-side jerks. Serenity couldn’t get there in time to save him from the same monster he’d saved her from.

  Like a lawn dart, the Screecher aimed its head at Patch and drove it down
against the old, homeless man with the force of a thousand elephants. It was vicious. Unrelenting. It was determined to kill, and she could do nothing to stop it. Her legs carried her forward. Her exhausted brain couldn’t form a connection with Atsidi before he struck. Her heart shattered.

  “No!” she cried as bullets flew around her, some so close she heard the air rip open as they passed. There was nothing to run toward any more. Standing in the middle of the Scales, unmoving and helpless, Serenity watched as the Screecher lifted its featureless head back out of the sand and into the desert sky, this time with Patch in its grasp. She sobbed at the sight of her old friend’s limp body, reaching into the recesses of her mind to find the spot where she felt Atsidi, to tell him she was here to help if it would let Patch go. She fought through the fog and panic as it loosed a mouthless roar, its ancient wail against a lifelong misery. George told her all Callers had a connection, a spot beyond senses and emotion, a place they must stretch to reach. If she found it in the next few seconds, there might still be a chance for Patch. The noise, the chaos, her own frenzy; so many barriers to finding the connection. Tri-County residents came out from their hiding places to fire on the Screecher, their guns popping ceaselessly in a feeble attempt. Their assault added to her own mental blockage.

  She reached. She stretched. Searched.

  The Screecher roared one more time, shaking its head violently, up and down. Up and down. Patch’s ragged body flopped.

  Tears of pain, hurt, and rage poured from her eyes. Rage washed away every sense. The world dulled, leaving just her and the Screecher now, and she was determined to end Atsidi’s reign of terror.

  Her heart and spirit broken, she could search for all eternity and never find the voice to call the Screecher. In the unfairness of it all, Serenity could hear the human inside, and she understood his pain. Atsidi was telling her. His voice softer and calmer than she imagined it would be.

  I want to rest. Give me rest, and I’ll give your people peace.

  Atsidi’s voice was surprisingly androgynous. Serenity didn’t know what to expect because no one was able to set those expectations for her, but she hadn’t expected that. She breathed deep at the realization that he was talking to her, maybe the first person he’d talked to in generations. And now she understood why it was doing what it was doing.

  She wanted the same thing.

  The end.

  Someone yanked her arm back. Serenity spun, a fist raised in a ridiculous and harmless threat. Jerrod released her arm and put up both hands in a gesture of surrender. George stood beside Jerrod, his face was bloody, the red trails turned a shade of pink when mixed with tears.

  “Hide, young lady,” he urged.

  She stared at him.

  “Porkchop,” Jerrod begged. “Come on!”

  “You can’t help him,” George said. “It’s too late. I thought you could Call him, that you were the one. I’m sorry, Serenity. So, so sorry.”

  But he was wrong. She connected. She was connected right now.

  Through Atsidi’s eyes, Serenity saw George. They were staring at him, even as he stood before her. They seethed in recognition of a traitor, a man who turned his back on his people to help the white man. They wanted to kill George more than anything else. They wanted to rip him apart, to tear out his innards and hold them on display as a sign of justice served against those who would betray. They knew…and she wanted to tell him.

  But before Serenity said a word, Atsidi executed his sentence.

  “Move!” she yelled, shoving George, who toppled over, landing on his back. Jerrod leapt just as the Screecher slammed its head into the spot where George had been, scattering the trio. Serenity felt her feet leave the ground. The sky fell to meet her, and a second later she was sliding through the scorching sand, its gritty grains scratching at every inch of her exposed skin. Everything wobbled in a haze of pain and disorientation. Piles of metal and rubble became fuzzy, and shapes that might have been other survivors lost all detail. Her blinking slowed. Rest called out.

  And then the world faded.

  41

  Serenity blinked against the wave of black.

  She had to fight off the darkness. Had to. For Momma. Jerrod. George. For people like Mitzie, Ricky, the people of Rotisserie. For everyone still trying to hold back the thing that tore apart their lives and those hiding in their homes, hoping to see their loved ones again. For the future. And for Patch, so that everything he’d done for so many others wasn’t in vain.

  The sun was a piercing orb on a mural of blue. Serenity rolled over and pushed herself up. Grit lined her lips.

  The last remaining people flooded out from behind their barricades. Jerrod was on a knee, a rifle in his hands, firing at the Screecher. George, conscious, was trying to push himself away from the beast, speaking to it in their common tongue. The Screecher, back to its full height, paused, listening. George’s mouth continued moving, though the gunfire drowned out his words. As bullets coursed through its body, the bolts of electricity flickered. First one, then another, then a third. The fading vibrancy repeated as the individual bolts collectively weakened. George struggled to his feet, gesticulating like he was shouting at Atsidi.

  Vision flickered. They were staring down at George. The Screecher roared, the sound rattling off the metal wasteland, knocking people to the ground with the invisible force of its soundwave, they dove at George, plowing into him, driving him down into the sand.

  Vision flickered and Serenity saw her fellow Tri-Countians unmoving. Jerrod unmoving. The head of the Screecher buried below the earth. George’s fate was sealed. The Screecher pulled its head back out of the desert floor slowly, shaking off sand and only bringing up George's limp lower torso dangling from the place where a mouth should be. Serenity's throat bulged with vomit.

  The Screecher had exacted its vengeance on the leader of the original people of the Tri-Counties.

  The traitor has paid, Serenity heard. A thought, but in Atsidi’s voice. She recognized it, and it knew she heard.

  The connection was unbroken.

  It turned in her direction, loosing a horrible scream that sounded like a thousand hawks’ calls echoing down through a canyon.

  Through her haze, Serenity’s vision flickered back to Atsidi, seeing Jerrod on the ground between her and it.

  “No!” Serenity screamed.

  Atsidi didn’t react to her command, but she couldn’t allow him to execute another death sentence. Jerrod had so much to live for, and someone needed to stay behind to help their mother. Someone besides Jerry Johnson, who was never there for her anyway. It had to be Jerrod.

  The Screecher roared.

  Serenity scrambled to her feet, staring at it as she lunged in front Jerrod. She pressed into the darkness, to send Atsidi the message he’d been waiting to hear for generations. Vision flickering, she now only saw through her own cloudy eyes. She felt blocked, though the sliver of the connection was there intermittently.

  The Screecher didn’t attack. It paused, the tip of its head pointed at the pair. Brother and sister. The Screecher waited. Serenity’s connection had slipped, close but disconnected. She scrambled, searching on the fringes. It was close, but unattainable, like eye floaters, constantly slipping away.

  Something changed. Without a word, Serenity knew Atsidi wouldn't kill them.

  It’s time you are free, the androgynous voice came.

  Serenity knelt, reaching behind to feel for Jerrod without taking her eyes away from the Screecher. She didn’t understand what it was telling her. She needed to be free? Why? Free of what?

  Yes, it is, said the voice.

  Let’s begin, the voice replied to itself.

  Confused, Serenity rummaged through her mind to find that place again. It constantly slipped. Because you’re distracted, Serenity realized. Confused by Atsidi’s conversation with himself, Serenity was hurting her own ability to focus on the connection. That’s why it kept slipping.

  Me! She screamed at it,
wishing her vision would clear.

  The Screecher didn’t answer.

  It’s me, she yelled. Come to me. Let me release you!

  She stopped, took a calming breath, letting it drape over her and the next words flowed from her easily. I’m here to release you. My spirit is yours. Let go.

  Atsidi just had to accept her offer and rest would come for him. Giving up dreams of Pepperdine would be worth releasing Atsidi from his prison and the Tri-Counties from his terror.

  Yes, came the reply.

  Serenity nodded through her last selfish tears. Her sacrifice would allow the Tri-Counties to mourn the hundreds of people it lost today. Her family could carry on even if it was without her. They would be alive to heal, at least.

  First, allow me to say goodbye, the voice said.

  Serenity watched the Screecher. His head was aimed at her, but without eyes, she couldn’t be sure who he was looking at, who he needed to say his farewells to. Who did he even know? Or was it a sentiment, a general term to recognize the end?

  After it is done, the voice said.

  What was Atsidi talking about? Had the century of solitude made him crazy? Was he so detached from humanity that it was impossible to carry on a conversation?

  Panic slammed into her. She could hear Atsidi’s self-talk, but she couldn’t see through his eyes any longer. She hadn’t been able to. The connection wasn’t full. She had no influence. Atsidi couldn’t hear her.

  Serenity relaxed her failing grip on the connection and rejoined the world. The sensation of the world spinning, a loud whoomping sound filled her head. She squeezed her eyes, trying to stay conscious, and failing. The world blinked out of existence.