Through Glass: Episode Four

by Rebecca Ethington

  I could only gape at him. My spine tensed as my mind slowly began to process his words, the heavy beat of my heart moving into a frantic race at the memory of my best friend changing right before my eyes. I cringed at the memory of the dark, thick blood seeping over her face as the razor sharp feathers pushed their way through her skin, as she became a Tar.

  I had seen it happen, yet I still did not want to accept it. Not for her, not for the seemingly unmarred people back at the compound. And certainly not for Cohen.

  I swallowed hard, wishing that the lump that had suddenly grown in my throat would disappear, but it stayed, thick and heavy.

  “So those men can change?” I barely got the words out, trying to keep my focus off Cohen but knowing it wasn’t working.

  Travis’s jaw tightened as he fought the answer that both of us knew, the answer that neither of us wanted to accept. “Those men that you turned to ash have been there since the beginning. They were the ones who barricaded the school and kept us safe. They were the ones who figured out the generators and the cell towers, and discovered how to keep us safe and a society running in the dark. They aren’t Tar.”

  “Then what are they?” My body tightened as I asked the question, my muscles tensing as my eyes darted out of the bright light we stood in, the bubble of security that we had clung to.

  The shadows seemed to ripple as we walked, the same as they always had, shadows that lay just out of the corner of my eyes. This time they almost seemed to taunt me, screamed at me that they were more than shadows. That they we were no longer safe, not anymore. Not with men that stood in the light and monsters that could change back and forth at will.

  I swallowed hard and pulled my eyes from the shadows of the old craft store we walked by, my mind already putting large, winged creatures where only the dark fingers of shadows on top of shadows were.

  “They must be something that Abran has created,” Travis said, the muscles in his neck pulling in his discomfort. “We just need to find out what.”

  “By getting Cohen back.” My voice was little more than a whisper as I pushed it out of me.

  “The Tar take the humans to a large warehouse in Arkansas. That’s what Abran is going to raid.”

  “Arkansas?” I gaped, fully aware that not only were we in Texas, but with where he had described our destination to be, we were already headed in the wrong direction.

  “They take them there and change them.” The shock I had felt at where we were going vanished as Travis’s deep voice rumbled around me, my heart seeming to stop as my limbs became heavy.

  Where they change them.

  I wished I could un-hear his words. I wished I could get the image of Cohen’s limp body as that thing took him away from me out of my head.

  But it was already there.

  I had accepted him as dead, turned into another of the army of black monsters that had taken over the world. I had vowed to rescue him from that. I had vowed to release him from that prison whether it was by my gun or someone else’s.

  I knew they would send him to me, just as they had Sarah.

  But Travis wasn’t talking about trying to find the man that I was still desperately in love with. He wasn’t talking about releasing him from the tormented hell that I was sure he was trapped in. He wasn’t talking about killing him, not like I was.

  He was talking about saving him, about keeping him alive; about finding something that was a little of both—both man and Tar. Something I didn’t think existed, that I didn’t want to exist.

  Not at all.

  And not in Cohen.

  “But if he has been gone for weeks… he’s gone, Travis. You said so yourself.” My mind struggled to flow around the words, the images blocking thoughts as I wrestled the mental picture that was slowly growing inside of me. The desperation and the panic that was still taking hold and growing.

  “Yes.”

  I had already accepted him as dead. I had already mourned and cried and held onto him, but for some reason—thinking of his eyes always full of so much expression, dimmed into that of a monster… a monster that Travis obviously had other plans for than what I had originally thought.

  Pain seized through my chest as if I had been shot again. I might have been.

  “But if we find him—” Travis began, his voice suddenly rising in an excitement that only cut through me, “if we know which one he is—if we find him, then maybe we can find out what Abran has done to those people. If they are monsters—”

  “You mean you want to experiment on Cohen,” I finally interrupted him, my words clipped in shock and pain.

  “No.”

  “Just the way they wanted to experiment on me.” I could feel the panic, the temper coming back and it scared me.

  “Not the same way—”

  “Exactly the same way! You want to open him up and see how he ticks—”

  “No, Alexis!” he interrupted me with a snap, the anger in his voice jolting through me. The muscles in his jaw flexed as he looked at me with the same hard look as before, the childish gleam that I had seen in him all but gone now, leaving only my older, powerful brother.

  I didn’t want this. I didn’t want this for Cohen, for the image of what he was in my mind, in my heart. I wanted him, but he wasn’t there anymore.

  “I will not do that to him,” Travis said, his voice almost a whisper as he tried to calm the angry panic I was sure he could see move through me.

  “Then what, Travis? You want to manicure his talons… his…” My breath caught as I said it, an iron vice closing over my heart as I felt the burn behind my eyes, the burn I wanted so hard to ignore, the tears that I wanted to pretend I could no longer shed.

  I knew it wasn’t that easy, though.

  It couldn’t be.

  Just saying the words had let a tiny part of me out; the part that still clung to that final image of Cohen, the part that still remembered his kiss, the warmth of his hands…

  Without thinking about it, I lifted my arm, the sleeve of the over-large, leather jacket rolling back to reveal the ink pen drawing I had spent so many years tracing. The drawing that brought back so many memories of his smile.

  I could still see him, but now I saw something more. I saw golden claws where charcoal-stained fingers used to be, and slick, black skin covered with razor sharp feathers instead of the scruff that had so taken my heart.

  I didn’t see Cohen anymore.

  I saw a monster.

  “He’s gone,” I said, trying to keep the break out of my voice and failing.

  “And yet, you saw Sarah,” Travis whispered, his voice soft as he tiptoed around my heart break. “You saw those men walk and talk and interact before you revealed what they really are. You saw hope.”

  My head snapped up to look at him at those words, my wrist still frozen before me as I tried to process what had been said.

  “I need to find him, Lex. He may be the only person who can help us figure out the extent of what Abran has done. Of what the Tar really are. And what Abran is planning. Will you help me?”

  I could only nod.

  Chapter Two

  An old department store was not the place I would have thought to search when Travis had announced we needed to look for food. I would have gone right to a grocery store, someplace where they actually sold food and not an endless array of dusty clothing that I would have seen Cohen’s grandmother wear.

  In fact, I didn’t hold onto much hope of finding anything here at all. Except for a little dust, it all looked too perfect. The clothes still hung on rows of racks, cash registers were un-touched with partially packaged purchases laid beside them. Faceless mannequins posed in moth eaten clothing that hung from their dust covered bodies, the vacant spaces of their eyes leering at us as we walked in front of them.

  I tried not to look at them as we strode past, but I couldn’t help it. My heart thundered in my chest as I waited for the blank eyes to flash black, the motionless bodies to spring to life. It was a
thought wrought by years of old horror movies, the possibility only made more real by the terror of the world we were currently living in.

  I tightened the grip on the gun I held before me and moved closer to Travis while the loud slaps of my shoes against the dust covered linoleum jolted through the silence, making my spine tense and curl.

  I said nothing as we walked side by side, his strained breathing echoing through the general stillness of the expansive room, making it uncomfortable to say much. It was almost as if someone was waiting in the black that surrounded us, just beyond the grey line of light, hidden behind doorframes and the endless racks that were suddenly beginning to feel more like a hazard.

  I had quickly learned to fear open spaces, and the sheer enormity of this one was somehow only heightening my fear. It wasn’t like a street that held the tight corners that you could hide in, here it was simply open.

  I knew I shouldn’t look into the massive black space that surrounded us, but I couldn’t stop myself from peering into the endless nothing. My heart pounded in my ears like a drum, the enormity of the space somehow making it feel like it was caving in, the sky falling and shattering.

  “Stay close,” Travis whispered the unneeded instruction to me, his voice tense and strained as he changed course, plunging off the angular linoleum path and onto the dusty carpet that stretched between the racks.

  I picked up my pace and moved right behind him, the pulse that echoed in my ears escalating as the clear sightlines began to disappear, covered by dusty clothing racks and faded and torn advertisements for sales that had never happened.

  I wished we could go back to the seemingly safe footing the main path had provided us, to the open space that, while haunting, had given us warning to what was around us. Here anything could be lurking. It was a forest of clothes and lifeless figures, the haunted wood that would take us to the witch instead of the yellow brick road that would lead us right to the wizard. Besides, didn’t Glenda—the good witch—say to stay on the path?

  I swallowed heavily and banished the thought, my muscles tensing the farther we moved away from what I perceived as relative safety. The expanse of this space was feeling more and more like a prison the farther we moved into it.

  The farther we moved away from the only exit I knew of.

  Our steps were shallow thuds in the thick layer of dust as we moved amongst the old relics, the heavy thunder of my heart pounding against my chest painfully. I kept close to my brother as I tried to keep the fear at a gentle simmer, the emotion just enough to keep me alert, a feeling that was all too necessary.

  The silence made everything seem more desolate, more dangerous, it made every sound that much louder in my ears. The reverberation of the thunder in my heart loud enough that I was sure Travis could hear it.

  The deep, heaving breaths of my fear caught as we moved past yet another pair of forgotten plastic people, the light Travis held reflecting against the grainy texture of their skin. I glanced at them, only to feel my heart dive to my toes, my stomach twisting in horror at something that I wasn’t even sure I had seen.

  A dark shape had moved behind them, something had darted out of my line of sight the second I turned toward it. It was black like the world that surrounded us, but too close to be a part of the shadows that threatened to swallow us up.

  My heart screamed the word ‘Tar’, my grip on my gun digging into my hand as a ripple of fear devoured me. I stepped toward it wildly, desperate to see, desperate to fight. However, whatever had been there was gone, just a shadow that had sparked out of the corner of my eye.

  At least that was what I tried to tell myself.

  Even though I knew it was a lie.

  My heart beat heavy against my chest as another icy sliver of fear ran up my spine. My body frozen in place as I continued in my attempt to convince myself that it had only been a shadow, but I knew at once that was wrong. The motion had been too quick. It had looked like more than a silhouette cast by Travis’s light. It had been as though the darkness itself had gotten too close to the light and was trying to get away.

  Travis’s light flickered as he moved away from me, obscuring the area with long strips of light and dark over the clothing racks. It sparked against the once reflective metal. It stretched the mannequins of the people to inhuman sizes. Still, they didn’t move.

  Not like what I had seen.

  My fingers clenched around the gun as if I expected to have to use it, expected a monster to rise up into the light, but nothing happened. Only the steady movement of the lines of light and dark. Only the steady beat of my heart as it sounded in my ears.

  I stared ahead of me, my breathing picking up as Travis’s light began to dim, but still I remained motionless. I could only stand still as I stared into the dark, waiting for another shadow to move on its own.

  “Lex?” Travis whispered through the dark, the bright light growing as he rushed back to me. “What is it? Did you hear something?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered slowly, still unable to look away from the darkness in front of me.

  Travis’s breathing seemed to pick up from beside me, as if something in my answer disturbed him. I don’t know why, but his reaction flared inside of me, and I inhaled, finally pulling my focus from the space off in the distance.

  My nerves must be shot.

  My heart continued to pound in my chest as I looked into the wide eyes of my brother, his own fear hidden behind the dark brown shade of his eyes.

  “Come on,” Travis growled, his temper rumbling through his voice.

  He didn’t wait for an answer, he only continued down the small aisle we walked through, the light fading until I finally pulled myself away from the spot I had been stuck in, my body feeling heavy as I moved. It felt as if something was keeping me there.

  Dust clouded around my feet as I caught up with Travis, his pace still slow as he reached the end of the aisle and came to another main walkway, this one even more dust covered than the last.

  It was times like these that I was grateful for the heavy work boots I had taken from my father’s closet, the leather thick enough that I couldn’t feel the waves of dust that settled and flowed around our feet. It was already bad enough that I could smell it.

  I had gotten used to the smell of dust in the house I had been trapped in for so long. I had gotten used to the way it stuck to everything in the world, even the stagnant air outside couldn’t take it away. It was simply always there.

  This dust smelled different, though. It was sweet and acrid and hung in my nose heavy and unwanted. Perhaps it was the smell of old clothes, the moth eaten cottons that hung limp and lifeless around us mixing with the dust. My body rebelled against it, my stomach twisting uncomfortably, as though it was an allergy or a poison.

  I almost ran into Travis as he came to a stop half way down the wider aisle, his bulking frame tense as he slowly lifted his hand above his head. The bright light he held seemed to stretch further into the darkness as he lifted it above him, the beams stretching over rows of clothes, casting the blank faces of the mannequins into shadows that made my skin crawl.

  I gripped the gun, needing to hold onto something that felt safe, looking away from the haunted lines on the dust covered forms, only to be met by another shapeless grey mass. It looked like a shadow, hidden behind a towering display, just as the one had before, but this one moved differently; it seemed to float in front of me before it darted into the dark, the movements so quick that I almost missed it.

  Just a grey silhouette out of the corner of my eye. Except I could have sworn that this one had a shape. Like a man.

  My body froze in horror as I blinked; part of me desperate for the thing to return while another part was horrified that it would. Everything was tense and tight as I stared into the darkness it had disappeared into.

  My chest moved in slow, pained inhales as I tried to control the frantic fear that I wanted so much to let rule me.

  “Do you see a sign that says ‘
Kitchens’?” Travis asked from beside me, his voice making me jump as I finally pulled my focus away from the nothing before me to face the light and shadow world that Travis’s lantern had created.

  I knew at once what he was talking about; we had obviously come to the main thorough fare of the store. Large metallic signs hung from the ceiling, some dangling wildly from rusted wire, each one identifying the aisle.

  Men’s, woman’s, children, electronics, and there at the end, kitchens.

  I turned toward Travis and lifted my brow. He still stood next to me, squinting into the darkness, trying to find the sign that, to me, was as clear as day.

  I wanted to make fun of him for not having seen it, to say some quip about him needing glasses, but I already knew why I could see it and he could not. I lived in the dark for eight years; he had lived in light. I guess in some ways, living so long in a grey tinted world had changed me enough that I could see through it.

  Maybe that’s why I was seeing specters in the dark.

  I moved forward without saying anything, walking toward the sign that still hung perfectly level from the ceiling. Travis followed behind me until he could see the sign, his pace quickening as he bee-lined to the tall shelves that had begun to spring up around us.

  My heart clenched at seeing them there, the fear I had just tried to banish coming back full score. These were not like the low lying clothing racks we had just come from; these were high, towering shelving units that were still full of boxes containing kitchen mixers, pots and pans.

  Not only did they not have food, they also didn’t have a clear sight line.

  One step inside of those and you might as well be a sitting duck.

  Normally, I would have considered these safe. Normally, I would bask in the relative security that the hiding place would provide. But one look into the towering shelves and my heart rate seemed to accelerate, my eyes darting around for shadows that I desperately hoped would not be there. I couldn’t stop the fear and the shiver from running through me, a warning that I didn’t quite understand.