by Platt, Sean
Will had just left the Air Force the year he met Boricio, and hadn’t been looking to raise a family. But something about the lost boy in himself connected with the broken kid inside Boricio.
The boy’s mother had died, and his stepfather, Joe, had been thrown in jail for 14 counts of being a monster. Boricio was sent to live with his aunt in New York. He stayed with her for a short while, but ended up being nothing but trouble. He was suspended from school twice before finally getting expelled for creating a cardboard gambling shack in the park across the street from the school. Boricio’s fledgling, but already thriving, business catered to anyone K-5 willing to pay for a play, but also to any passerby in the park. Authorities confiscated $211 from Boricio when they broke up the game and took him into custody.
Boricio was passed from home to broken home, until he became a file on Sissy’s desk. She said that Boricio was the scariest and most fascinating kid she had ever seen. Will thought she was grossly understating both.
Boricio was highly verbal with off-the-charts intelligence. But he needed roots and stability, someone to encourage him, tell him how good he was so that he would learn to slay the demons that would otherwise eat him alive.
Boricio was placed with a family, and Will was content to let the boy fade from his thoughts. Then, on a lark, Will did a background check on Tom Chambers, the patriarch of Boricio’s new family. Will didn’t like what he saw, so he dug deeper. The next layer of dirt had Will tailing Chambers, for two weeks straight until the monster killed again. Or almost killed until Will caught him in the act.
Boricio lived with Will from then forward, even though Sissy never did.
Will managed to pull Boricio from the depths of darkness, and spared no expense in finding him the finest therapists, teachers, and support systems. Will was there for Boricio every day, teaching him to channel his anger, or at least bury it in a safe place.
Then, a couple of years ago, Boricio and Will were kicking back some beers watching a baseball game when a news story flashed on the TV: A family visiting New York died in a freak car accident, killing everyone, including the cabbie, except for six year old, Luca Harding.
The boy had miraculously survived the crash, though he shouldn't have, and no one could explain why he had. He was found 50 feet from the crash site, without a bruise on his body. Just one paper cut, barely visible on his pinky.
Boricio felt drawn to the boy in the hospital, like sun to morning.
Luca lay in the hospital for two weeks, comatose, off the front page for 11 days and under the fold for 13, before Boricio finally decided to have Will call someone at the hospital to get him permission. He wanted to sit a spell inside the child’s room, though he didn’t know why. When Will insisted he needed a reason before he could make the call, Boricio said, “Instinct is the nose of the mind, Dad,” then added, “just make something up. Please!”
Will did, then the two of them went to the hospital together. Boricio sat in the boy’s room for 15 minutes of nothing, then stood to leave, not quite sure how he should be feeling. He was one step toward the door when the monitor beside Luca switched rhythm and the boy slowly opened his eyes.
Boricio had wanted a son forever, to help him heal from the thousand lashes across the broken body of his childhood. Will had never considered adopting another child, but Boricio wasn’t ready to be a custodian on his own, not without a wife, and Will couldn’t bear to refuse Boricio when he had the chance to finally close the painful loop. So he adopted Luca, though it was as much to help Boricio as it was to help Luca recover.
Will shook his head, staring at Barry’s email, wondering what life would have been like if he had met someone when he was younger, or maybe taken a chance on love. Perhaps, Will figured, fate hadn’t meant for him to fall in love. Fortunately, fate had allowed him to find the love of family, and not a day went by that Will regretted adopting either Boricio or Luca.
Will leaned back, then lightly shifted left to right in bed before leaning forward to read Barry’s email again.
“Hey there Will. Would love to get to know you better. Had a great time at dinner, but I feel like there’s so much more Will to see. And I’d love to see it! So take a chance. Call me. Or hit reply. :)”
Will deleted the email.
**
Will fell asleep and was woken just a few hours later by the shrill sound of his house phone.
What in the hell?
The sound was especially startling since Will couldn’t even remember the last time he’d heard it. When someone called Will, they called his cell. He usually thought about his landline once a month, each time he was stupid enough to sign another check to the phone company.
The phone rang three times before he managed to grab the phone from his nightstand.
“Hello?”
“Good morning, Sir. Is this William Bishop?”
“Yes.”
“Are you the father of a Mr. Boricio Bishop?”
The lump in Will’s throat was as big as a golf ball. “Yes.”
“Were sorry to inform you, sir, but there’s been an accident.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 5 — Boricio Bishop Part 2
Other Earth
Paddock Island, New York
Sunday July 10, 2011
night
Boricio woke up feeling like he was trudging through the desert, knee deep in sand, pulling a fat bag of hammers by the thin of his neck.
It took him a moment to realize where he was — a hospital in the city.
How did I get here?
His throat was raw and his head was pounding. His earlobes felt like they were on fire. Even his teeth hurt. The coppery taste of blood coated his tongue and the roof of his mouth. Below the neck Boricio was nothing but numb. Whatever was working to kill his pain from the shoulders down, wasn’t working on the top floor, though.
Boricio scooted himself up on the bed, then wiggled his toes just to make sure they could still dance. Sure as a sack of sugar they did, so Boricio wasn’t paralyzed. Just temporarily frozen from the pain.
He blinked again, then swallowed, wincing through the pain.
Boricio ran his fingers across his bandaged head as he looked around the hospital room, his eyes starting at the far right and the partition with all the silence behind it, then slowly grazing to the left, stopping at Will, sitting in a chair beside him with his arms crossed, waiting for Boricio to see him.
“Hey,” Will said with a smile. “Good to see you blinking.”
Boricio tried, but couldn’t smile back. Finding two pieces of what happened so he could put them together was hard enough. His memory was a blur. The naked recall, along with the ache and the pain, made the idea of a smile almost absurd.
Boricio forced a question from his raw throat. “What happened?”
“You were in a crash this morning. Do you remember the accident?”
Boricio narrowed his eyes, then rocked his head slowly back and forth, and ever so slightly left to right. He went completely still, looked down, then finally shook his head.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
Boricio tried to think back, but the only memory he could come up with had him back at Black Island, saying goodbye to Will, then stopping by the house to give Luca a high-five and tell him he’d see him after the weekend.
Boricio was trying to blink himself into the next memory when he realized he was only blinking from his right eye, and that his left was showing nothing but black. Boricio felt suddenly trapped in a vacuum of horror, gasping for breath as his fingers ran over the bandage covering much of the left side of his face, including his left eye.
Will was at his bedside a second before Boricio started to scream. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay.”
“What happened to my face?”
“You were in a car accident,” Will put his hand on Boricio’s shoulder.
Boricio felt a flicker of rage toward Will, seeing his face twitch the way
it did as he hesitated to deliver the news to Boricio as if he were a child. He wanted to snap at Will to just fucking tell him what was going on, because Boricio was imagining the worst case scenario lurking beneath the bandages.
Boricio breathed himself into calm, then said, “How bad is it?”
“You lost your left eye in the accident.” Will paused, rubbing his hand on Boricio’s shoulder, then said, “And your face and back of your head were badly lacerated, requiring lots of stitches, including one from your forehead to your left cheek which is gonna be pretty scary looking for some time. It’s too soon to say, but I believe the scarring can be minimized with cosmetic surgery, but not right away. Fortunately, your other injuries were minor.”
Boricio tried to swallow again, this time managing to push the lump all the way to the bottom of his chest. He wondered if he would ever be able to grow hair around the gash again. He couldn't care less. Boricio would be perfectly fine being bald as a baby. But Rose loved Boricio’s hair. “You realize most women would kill to have hair this thick,” she often said while running her fingers through it. He loved when she stroked his hair. It was second only to sex in the pleasure department.
He gasped, suddenly remembering everything: the drive, the look, the accident. Boricio shivered through the icy chill which chased the memory.
“Rose,” Boricio said. “How is she?”
Boricio didn’t like the hesitation on Will’s face a bit, even gave him a good goddamn three seconds to wipe it from his nose holder before he started yelling. “I said where is she, Will?!”
The word “Will” came out in a roar. He watched his dad swallow and take a step back, then Boricio breathed himself back into another calm. “Sorry,” he said. “You didn’t deserve that.”
Will said, “It’s okay, son. I understand.” Then he swallowed again and said, “We’re not sure how Rose is doing yet.”
“I want to see her.”
Will shook his head. “You know that’s not possible, Boricio. Not yet. You were both injured, badly. Rose worse than you. Right now the doctors need time and space to do what’s best for her. To do what’s best for you both. And we have to give it to them. Do you understand?”
“I want to see her,” Boricio said, nostrils flaring at the memory of their final seconds, exchanging one last look before he tore through the Schooner or Later patio and murdered his chance for the Happily Ever After which seemed an almost certainty when the day started.
“Soon,” Will said, returning his calming hand to Boricio’s shoulder.
Boricio shrugged the hand from his shoulder then started yanking wires and tubes from his body. He’d see for himself what Will was hiding in his eyes.
“Stop, son; it’s okay.” Will’s hand moved from his shoulder to press down on his chest, firm and urgent. “I’ll tell you everything I know, I promise. But you have to relax.”
Boricio’s nostrils still flared, but he managed to calm himself long enough to lie back on his bed. He kept his mouth closed, afraid of what would come out if he left it open.
“I don’t know of any other way to do this then to simply tear the Band-Aid.” Will pulled his chair closer to Boricio’s bed, then sat and leaned in, holding his son’s hands as he whispered, “Rose suffered significant damage to her spinal column. The surgeons were able to repair much of that damage, but there’s a good chance that Rose will never walk again.”
Will held Boricio’s stare.
Boricio asked, “Is that it?”
Will shook his head.
“What else, Dad?”
“Rose suffered significant swelling in the brain. And they’re not sure how bad it is.”
Almost too hoarse to hear, Boricio said, “What about my baby?”
He didn’t have to wait for Will to respond. The answer was written all over his face.
Boricio’s roar tore through the hospital.
* * * *
CHAPTER 6 — Brent Foster Part 2
They moved cautiously through the dark maze, listening intently as the towers of cars creaked and swayed with every intermittent gust of howling wind blowing over the highway. In the moments of silence, every step was echoed and every breath exaggerated, every inch forward a blend of exertion and relief.
“What did this?” Billy whispered to Brent, who was walking beside him. Ed was to the right, while Rojas followed in the rear, ordered to make sure the “prisoners” didn’t escape — not that Brent had any desire to do so. Brent had his eye on Ed, waiting for a sign. But Ed kept his plans close to the vest, sewing his lips as his eyes scanned the towers.
“I dunno,” Brent said, wondering if The Prophet would say God, or maybe the Devil. But The Prophet, who was walking behind Lisa in the front of their formation, was also keeping his lips sewn shut. His eyes were wide as he held his air horn like some sort of magical battle axe which would ward off any evil.
They’d gone no more than a tenth of the way through the pile when a thick fog rolled in on a cool breeze, so fast it seemed almost sentient.
“We should be careful,” Brent said. “The aliens use the fog to attack from above.”
Lisa looked back, but said nothing.
“Maybe you should take off our handcuffs and give us guns,” Ed suggested.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Lisa said.
“Do I need to remind you that I could’ve easily left you in the store if I wanted? But I didn’t, did I?”
Lisa didn’t say anything, too stubborn, or too suspicious, to cede to Ed’s valid point. Maybe she was right not to trust him, Brent figured, but Ed was the best prepared of all of them to handle the threats. The guy was like Rambo by way of Jason Bourne or something.
The fog grew thicker, and obscured the top halves of the towering cars, which did nothing to lessen the sense that they might topple on them at any moment. If anything, it added to Brent’s claustrophobic fear. The car’s creaking seemed to grow louder in the fog, as if the mist were reaching around with its wispy tendrils to purposely rattle the towers.
Everyone seemed to step up their pace, but no one said a word.
Suddenly, a loud thump thundered above, like something had flown down and landed on one of the crooked steel piles.
“What was that?” Billy shouted, his voice five octaves higher than normal.
Rojas aimed his rifle up and rolled the barrel back and forth, scanning the fog for a sign of whatever made the noise. A sudden, second thump came from above, closer. Then another. And then something dark fell in front of Billy, who screamed as he fell back on his ass and hands.
Brent stumbled backward as Ed thrust himself in between Billy and the fallen thing, twitching on the ground and gushing blood — a giant crow in the spasms of death.
Another thump from above, and then another, until the horrible scream from thousands of wings flapping tore through the air. Swarms of cawing birds careened through the maze assaulting the group with bruising force that could easily kill them.
“Get on the ground!” Ed screamed, pulling Billy — who had gotten up — back to the asphalt.
Brent fell to the ground and curled to a fetal position, covering his face with his handcuffed arms as seemingly hundreds of birds pelted his back on their way by. Brent cringed through the battery. Some hit his body so hard they were injured and fell to twitching lumps all around him.
Billy screamed, though his scream was barely audible over the swarming caws and flapping wings.
Another sound grew suddenly louder above the chaos, though — something that sounded like a train barreling toward them.
The assault on Brent’s body eased as the sound of birds began to fade. But the sound of the train grew louder. Brent raised his head and peered past his bruised and bloody arms in time to see a swirling vortex of dirt and debris that looked as wide as a city block churning toward them. The towers of cars started to buckle around them in the monstrous tornado’s wake. Lightning pulsed from its middle, and struck out from its center.
And then the towers began to tumble — cars raining down upon them.
Lisa screamed, “Run!”
They scrambled and ran, slipping on and crushing the corpses of hundreds of birds as they raced their way back through the maze toward the opening of the car maze. Streaks of lightning arced out, crackling loudly in the air, above the sound of the swirling mass. Chunks of dirt and rocks swirled through the corridor, assaulting them with the same ferocity the birds had brought just a moment before — stinging Brent’s eyes and clogging his throat as he spit and then closed his mouth and tucked his chin against his chest. He kept running.
Brent, Ed, and Billy were close to catching up with Rojas, who was in front of them by 20 feet. Brent didn’t dare slow long enough to look back and see if either The Prophet or Lisa were keeping up.
Lightning flashed above, close enough for Brent to feel its heat. The flash that followed was so bright, Brent felt as if it tore something in his mind. In that flash, Brent saw Rojas disintegrate into debris, slightly larger than the dirt swirling en masse around them.
Brent gasped, thinking he’d never see anything so terrifying again. He was right . . . for two seconds.
A car soared overhead, faster than a jet, and slammed into the highway a hundred yards ahead, then bounced and rolled. Brent heard another vehicle slam into one of the towers. He glanced back to see the dark shape tumbling down into another tower. As Brent braced for the dominoes to fall, Lisa pushed past him. Brent screamed and followed, as Ed and Billy raced toward the railing, barely visible through the storm of debris.
Something exploded behind them as Brent reached the railing and hurled himself from the overpass, hard onto the grassy incline, and rolled down to the street below. His body was stunned and his breath ragged as he spit dirt from his mouth. Rain and debris continued to pour down on them all.
