The Rift

by Skn Hammerstone

  “Hello?”

  “Get out of that school now!” The voice was unfamiliar and as I glanced at the phone, instead of a name it said “number unavailable.”

  “Who is this?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. Get out now!” Then there was a click as whoever it was hung up. I looked down the hallway and immediately saw one of the creatures moving towards me. I dropped the phone and began to run the other way. What was going on? Why were these things after me? I ran into a freshman, knocking his books out of his hands but I couldn’t stop to help even if I normally would.

  I looked back as I ran. I could just see her, shoving people out of her way and stepping on the freshman’s books. Where was Jesse when I needed him? I turned down another hallway and ran into the math teacher.

  “What is going on?” he stopped me.

  “Please, I have to go…”

  “There is no running in the hallways, Ms. Taylor!” he admonished, refusing to let me keep going.

  “You don’t understand! The people who attacked me in the woods are here! One of them is behind me and I have to get away!”

  “Where?” he asked. I turned and saw her a few feet away.

  “There!”

  “Hey. Sorry it took me so long to find that paper,” she handed him a worksheet.

  “No problem.” He told her. She walked away but turned to look back at me, a glint of red in her eyes along with a satisfied smile.

  “You need to go to the nurse,” he informed me, leading me down the hallway.

  “No. I’m fine! I just need to leave! I’m in a lot of trouble…”

  “That is where you are right,” he shoved me into the nurse’s office, “Take care of this one.”

  “You don’t understand!” I insisted.

  “Oh I understand perfectly,” a red glint flashed in his eyes as he smiled and shut the door.

  23

  I walked away from the nurse’s car where she had dropped me off at home. My mom’s car pulled into the driveway a few minutes later as I went to unlock the door.

  “What is wrong with you?” she demanded. The nurse, not wanting to get involved, quickly pulled away.

  “Do you think I know?” I asked. This was one of the many problems I had with her. She thought everything was my fault no matter what it was.

  “Can’t you at least pretend you are normal?” I turned around now, ignoring the fact that my keys were still in the door.

  “No, Mom, I can’t. As much as you would like me to it’s not something I can do,” I informed her.

  “Is it that hard? If it doesn’t look normal, then it probably isn’t there!”

  “Stop blaming me for everything! It isn’t my fault!”

  “It’s not your fault that you jumped off of a bridge? It’s not your fault that you can’t remember your own life?”

  “No. Because when I jumped off that bridge, I was expecting to die and it looks like you would have been happier if I had!” It was a strong accusation but I knew I was right.

  “You have no idea what you have put me through!” she didn’t even try to deny it. “I have to constantly live with the realization that my daughter isn’t sane!”

  “Did you ever stop to think that maybe you made me this way? You wouldn’t tell me about my father, you sent away my brother and he died, you blamed me for not only Avery’s death but for Josh’s as well!”

  “It was your fault!”

  “You tried to tell me he was still alive when you knew he was dead! You lied to me over and over again just so you could avoid the truth!”

  “Maybe a lie is better than the truth you have caused!” I didn’t even know what to say to her anymore. I was just some reminder to her that her husband and son were dead. I was worthless to her.

  “You’re right,” she continued, starting to walk towards the door. “Sometimes I wish you had died.” She walked into the house but I stood in the driveway. Thinking something horrible and then hearing someone say it out loud were two different things.

  “You’re mother doesn’t wish you were dead,” Jesse started to walk up the driveway.

  “Really? Because she just said it!” I pointed towards the house to emphasize how recent the encounter had been.

  “Rachael…” I didn’t let him finish.

  “Where were you today? You just left me alone right after a bunch of weird things attacked me. Do you even care?” I was too angry and too hurt by everything to choose who actually deserved to be the receiver of my words.

  “I would have been there if there was any way I could have been and of course I care,” he sounded hurt as he stopped walking towards me.

  “You’re a teenage boy! There could not have possibly been anything that could have completely cut you off from everyone else.”

  “You don’t understand…”

  “No one tells me…” it was his turn now to interrupt me.

  “There are things that you don’t know!” he snapped. He had never gotten angry with me before but even this warning sign wasn’t enough to stop me.

  “You think I’m not aware of that?” I didn’t want to hear his excuses. I just wanted to be left alone. “Obviously I’m not important enough to you to care.” I started to walk back towards the house when the sound of ambulance sirens began close by. Jesse got out of the driveway as it pulled up to the house.

  “Are you Rachael Taylor?” one of the paramedics asked.

  “Yes,” I wished I had gotten into the house sooner.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”

  “Why?” I started to back up towards the house. If I could get inside I could lock the door because I had a feeling I knew why he was here.

  “We are going to help you,” he explained.

  “I don’t need help! There’s nothing wrong with me!” And my suspicions were confirmed.

  “Rachael, you are not well,” another paramedic got out of the ambulance, holding a straitjacket.

  “No!” They moved towards me, preparing to force me to come with them.

  “Stop!” Jesse also began to move towards me to protect me.

  “She’s got to go son,” one of them said.

  “There isn’t anything wrong with her,” Jesse got to me first and grabbed my arm.

  “She isn’t sane,” they told him.

  “Yes she is!”

  “We’re going to need some help,” one of them spoke into an intercom. Two more paramedics stepped out.

  “No! You can’t take her!” Two of them pulled me away from Jesse while the other two held him back.

  “Stop! I’m not crazy!” I tried to escape but they drug me towards the back of the ambulance.

  “I’ll get you out Rachael!” Jesse told me. “I promise!”

  “Don’t let them take me!” I begged. He was the only one listening to me. Then my mom came out onto the porch. For a split second I thought I was saved.

  “Mom! Make them let me go!” I begged her. She ignored me, watching in silence as the forced me into the ambulance. “Mom!”

  “Easy Rachael, we aren’t here to hurt you,” They strapped me down as the doors of the ambulance shut.

  There was one more paramedic in the ambulance. He turned around holding a needle and my heart jumped. It was the leader of the creatures who had attacked me.

  “This won’t hurt at all,” he smiled in satisfaction as he sank the needle into my arm. My scream was cut short when everything around me faded into black.

  24

  Everything was blurry and moving slowly as two paramedics guided me into the asylum. Patients moved by me, soundlessly. Some of them were talking but most of them seemed to be talking to themselves. A few nurses roamed the asylum, but it was mostly patients. One woman gave a terrified shriek when she saw me before she ran into another room. The paramedics took me through a hallway and a nurse unlocked one of the rooms before they pushed me inside and slammed the door shut.

  I fell onto the floor, the w
orld spinning around me. A few seconds later the woman who had screamed was shoved into the room as well. She cowered in a corner, as far away from me as she could get, watching me like some kind of snake. Another wave of whatever the creature had given me came and I fell asleep in the middle of the floor, the woman still whimpering in fear.

  25

  I woke up after being out for several hours. The woman in the corner hadn’t moved. I slowly sat up. Somewhere along the way they had taken my clothes and put me in some sort of white uniform. It was the same one that the other patients were wearing.

  “Who are you?” the woman whispered.

  “Rachael,” I answered. Why was she so afraid of me?

  “You have brought evil with you Rachael,” she informed me.

  “That’s just great,” I said, sarcastically. She was insane. Just like everyone else here. I was just an unfortunate person who they also deemed as crazy.

  “They followed you here,” she added. That caught my attention.

  “Who did?”

  “The ones with the red eyes.” She saw them too? “They want you. They want to torture you. They want to feed on you.”

  “How many are there?” I couldn’t quite believe that I was finding comfort in the fact that another crazy person believed me.

  “Only one stays here. The others come and go,” she told me.

  “They put me here because I saw them following me,” I didn’t quite know why I was telling her this.

  “They put me here because I saw them following me,” so now I was being mocked by a crazy person.

  “Thank you for that. I think I’ll just mind my own business now,” I got off the floor and moved to the other bed.

  “I wasn’t mocking you,” she said. “I’m here for the same reason as you.”

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “Two years. My daughter put me here. She didn’t believe what I was telling her. She’s about your age,” the woman’s thoughts were slightly random but she didn’t really seem crazy.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Do you know what they are?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Didn’t your guardian angel tell you?” and she was back to being insane.

  “I don’t have a guardian angel.”

  “Yes you do. He’s been looking out for you,” the woman smiled. “My name is Anna.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” And yet again with the random thoughts.

  “Your guardian angel didn’t tell you because he didn’t want to scare you. They are demons Rachael,” Anna told me.

  “Demons?” I didn’t know whether or not I should believe her. Sometimes she seemed sane and others she didn’t.

  “They are after you for some reason that I don’t think any of us could know.”

  “What do you mean by us?”

  “The angels dear. Myself and the other winged protectors.” Yeah, she was nuts.

  “Oh,” Should I play along and humor her or just ignore it altogether?

  “You will see soon enough,” she caught my sarcasm.

  “I’m sure I will,” I was just going to humor her.

  “Here they come now,” Anna said.

  “Who? The angels?” I asked.

  “No,” she tilted her head to one side as the door was unlocked. “The demons.” The door opened and he walked in. The strange creature that had become my tormentor. How had she known?

  “Your case is so far along Ms. Taylor. We need to start your treatment right away.” Two more of the creatures walked in with him as Anna cowered against the wall.

  “Hello Anna,” he acknowledged her. “I’m sure we can find time for you too.” She shook her head vigorously.

  “No. I’ve learned my lesson,” she said. Her voice trembled in fear as she began to rock back and forth.

  “It’s time for Rachael to learn her lesson.”

  26

  They took me to an old section of the asylum where there weren’t any nurses or patients. It was just me and them.

  “Now, I’m sure you are familiar with shock therapy,” the leader began to talk as they strapped me down on a table in a dark room. Unfortunately I was very familiar with it.

  “The belief behind it is that the electric currents could force the human mind to go back to normal. However, it was deemed inhumane and ineffective. It’s a good thing that I’m not human then and that I’m not going for effectiveness,” he took out the ECT and handed it to another one of his followers to put on me.

  “This might hurt just a bit,” he smiled to himself and hit a switch. Immediately a searing, agonizing electric current began to pulse through my mind. I couldn’t control anything as I began to scream and my body began to convulse.

  “Higher did you say? Alright,” he turned a dial and the current intensified.

  Wave after wave of pain rippled through my head. The pain was soon joined by something else. Memories that I had forgotten.

  “She’s my sister! You can’t do that!” Avery was whispering, but I could still hear him from where he was out on the porch with Josh.

  “You knew this was going to happen Avery,” Josh told him. “It isn’t my fault.”

  “Yes it is your fault! You can’t control your own selfish desires?” Avery’s voice grew louder as he got angrier. I watched from the doorway, neither one aware of the fact that I was there.

  “Selfish desires? It wasn’t me who decided this! It was her!” Josh shot back. I didn’t understand what they were talking about other than the fact that it involved me.

  “You are not going to drag Rachael into this!”

  “She’s already in it!”

  I screamed again, pulling against the restraints as the leader of the group turned the ECT up once more.

  Josh stood in the doorway in his uniform, a set of dog tags in one hand and his hat in the other.

  “I’m so sorry Mrs. Taylor,” he handed Mom the dog tags. They were Avery’s.

  “No,” Mom put a hand over her mouth. “This isn’t happening to me. Not again.”

  “I tried…” Josh tried to talk but she cut him off.

  “You couldn’t have saved him? After all of your training and experience? This is your fault! If you hadn’t convinced Avery to join the Navy with you he would still be here, alive with me and you would be the one who was dead!” It seemed I wasn’t the only one she blamed for things that were no one’s fault.

  “Mrs. Taylor…”

  “Get out! Go away! I never want to see you again! I hope you die!” she slammed the door in his face and began to tear the pictures of Avery off of the wall.

  “What did I ever do to you?” I asked, struggling to rise above the pain.

  “Your little guardian angel didn’t tell you?”

  Several members of Avery’s platoon fired off their guns as his flag-draped casket was lowered towards the bottom of his grave. Mom wasn’t there. She wasn’t at Dad’s funeral either. She was never there. Josh moved over to me, where I stood alone as the only member of Avery’s family present, and wrapped his arms tightly around me.

  We were it. We were all that Avery had. How sad was it that Avery’s own mother didn’t even come to his funeral?

  “I don’t know what you are talking about!” that was the second person who claimed I was being watched by some guardian angel. Well if I was, where was he? Why was I still alone?

  “You will soon enough. When you’re dead.”

  I sat by myself on the playground. I always did. None of the elementary students wanted to play with me. I was too different. They didn’t like me. I laid back on the slide that I was sitting on and looked at the sky. There weren’t very many clouds today. There were many little ones and one huge one that looked like a set of enormous wings. It was like my brother had taught me. Angels in the sky watching over us.

  “Hello,” was someone talking to me? I sat up and saw another student with dark hair and blue eyes, a smile on his face.

>   “Hello,” I answered.

  “My name is Jesse, what’s yours?” he asked.

  “Rachael,” I told him.

  “It’s very nice to meet you Rachael,” He was like an adult saying it was nice to meet someone.

  “You’re weird,” I decided.

  “Am I too weird?” he questioned. “What am I doing that differs from the remainder of the other children?” I laughed. He did sound just like an adult.

  “I like weird people,” I said.

  “Good,” he smiled again. “I like weird people too.”

  I struggled not to scream, not to move. I couldn’t give them the satisfaction. But keeping it held in was even worse. I felt like every cell in my body was being pulled in a different direction.

  I sank slowly beneath the water, a feeling of relief coming over me. It was finally over. I was finally free. I stopped breathing and my heart slowed before it stopped beating. But I was still in the river. Confusion replaced the relief. I was dead. Why was I still here? Suddenly the water around me began to bubble and seethe. Was this the end than? A figure moved towards me in the water. It looked like… but it couldn’t be.

  Nicholas grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the river bed. What was happening? I was supposed to be dead? He carried me out of the water and put me down on the bank. After a few minutes he left, like he had never even been there.

  I tried to move, but I couldn’t. My heart still wasn’t beating and I still wasn’t breathing. Was I dead or wasn’t I? I laid there for a good many hours before the sun began to rise. The instant its rays touched me, my heart began to beat violently and my entire body rose as I took in a huge breath. I was alive.

  I couldn’t keep it in any more. I screamed and tried to pull my body away from the table. I couldn’t move very far. The restraints on my ankles and wrists saw to that.