The shelves stretched into the black above us as we came to a stop before them, Travis’s light snaking down the aisles in thin beams of yellow.
“Here,” Travis growled as he handed me the light he had been holding onto for the past few hours. I took it from him quickly, the surface hot and painful against my hand, waiting for him to explain when he removed another light from his pocket and clicked it, the small disk erupting in light as bright as the one I held, the two beams joining together until it almost seemed as bright as a summer day. At least the summer days I could remember.
“You take those three aisles. I’ll take these ones.” Travis motioned to the shadowed alleyways before us. “Look for anything that might have cans—waffle irons with blueberry waffle mix or some such nonsense. There is always something.”
Suddenly, the reason we had come to this store made sense. It wasn’t for the possibility of a lone can of green beans. It was for the larger possibility of product placement that marketing had once brought to the middle class. Stuff the Tar would have missed.
There would be food here.
That didn’t help the ripple of fear that moved up my spine when he suggested that we go into the shadowed passageways separately, however.
I wasn’t scared to be alone. I had been alone for years, living in silence. But, since I had left my house, I had only found danger in tight, enclosed spaces—places where you couldn’t see what lurked on the other side of doors.
“You want me to go in there?” I asked as I fought the shiver that moved up my spine.
“Yes, Alexis. You’re not scared, are you?”
“No!” My voice came way too loud as I turned to him. The parental scowl that Travis gave frustrating me. “I’m not scared, Tee,” I mocked, using his silly nickname against him, “I just haven’t had much luck with dark, enclosed spaces.”
Travis glowered at me as I spat his nickname so rudely, the disdain on his face quickly smoothing into a low bearing concern that made me uncomfortable. He didn’t look at me as if he was upset; it was more as if he was concerned for me.
I swallowed and straightened my spine at that look. I didn’t want him to worry. I didn’t want him to think I was weak. As it was, the fact that I was getting so worked up about simple shadows was kind of embarrassing.
I clenched my teeth and met the look in Travis’s eyes with a hard look of my own, needing him to understand that I was strong enough to take care of myself. That I wasn’t afraid.
Even though I was.
“It’s okay. We are going to be quick. Just keep your light up, and if you want, we can talk, or sing ‘In the Meadow There was a Lamb’.”
I tried not to cringe at the mention of the lullaby Mom had sung to us. Instead, I settled for scowling at Travis and moving into the darkness, the thump of fear covering up the painful pulse that the mention of the family we had lost was giving me.
“Three aisles over, then meet back here.” Travis’s voice echoed behind me before I heard the soft pads of his feet as they moved through the dust, the bright light he held fading away and leaving me in the somewhat dim glow of the one I held.
Three aisles. I repeated the instructions to myself as my muscles tensed, my hands clenching around the gun and light that I held in each of my hands.
I knew at once that this wasn’t going to work.
The boxes and displays stretched a good three feet above me, and with my hands full, there was no way I was going to be able to reach them all, let alone one. Being short never had its benefits—I don’t care what anyone said.
I sighed and set the light down on the shelf in front of me, the sounds of boxes rubbing against metal shelving echoing from somewhere far behind me as Travis scoured his own aisles. I tucked my gun into my pocket in an attempt to regain use of at least one hand. It probably wasn’t the best place to put it, but it was all I had for now. I was going to need to find a holster or something. I’ll have to put it on my shopping list. Right next to dusty waffle irons.
With one hand free, I began to shift boxes around, scanning the aged containers for some form on content label, or cheesy ‘also included’ advertising. I had been bombarded by that type of product placement for years, my mind becoming so used to it that I barely noticed it. Of course, now that I was looking, I couldn’t find it anywhere. All I saw were promises of Teflon and dishwasher capable, both things that meant very little to me. Well, to anyone really.
I wiped away the dust that covered the boxes, the thick layer gritty under my hand as it stuck to my skin and flew into the air. The tiny particles erupted into little clouds that got into my nose and mouth, making it hard to breathe. My throat tickled and burned as I moved away from the ever growing wall of dust I was surrounded by, my lungs aching as they fought for air, desperate to be rid of the gunk that I had accidentally swallowed. It was all I could do not to cough.
I moved quickly to the next aisle, desperate to escape the poisonous curtain I had created, even though I hadn’t checked all the boxes. I knew at once I needed to either move slower, or I would have to retrace my steps. Neither of which I was really interested in doing. I was already feeling far to jumpy from being in the claustrophobic space the high selves provided, my eyes darting around wildly as if I expected something to be there.
As if I wanted it to be.
I moved to the next aisle, this one full of a vast array of what I was sure had once been top of the line cookware, now it only looked like blobs of grey in differing shapes and sizes.
I held the light before me as I walked, the long beam casting over the dust covered relics, the layers of dust sparkling and shining. In some ways, it looked like a layer of snow. Well, the snow you see in movies anyway. I had never actually seen snow, and unless the black world suddenly decided moisture was a good thing, I never would.
I knelt down to inspect the boxes that were lined up below the displays, sure I was wasting my time when the rhythmic noises of Travis moving boxes around stopped. All there was, was silence. A void that rippled through the air and tensed in my chest in cold, hard fear.
My hand froze in front of me as my breath caught, the sound of my heart in my ears increasing as I waited for the sound to return.
Click.
The noise shot through me like a million volts of energy, the memory of the sound of talons against wood stitching my heart together in fear and pain. I didn’t dare move. I only froze in place, my focus on the light I held in my hands, praying it would be enough as I waited.
Click.
My head jolted toward the echo of sound that ricocheted through the dark, my heart tensing and pulsing until it pulled at my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
Click.
This one was closer. So much closer. I fought the need to call out to Travis, fought the fear that I didn’t want to accept was so prevalent in me. My body uncoiled slowly as I pulled myself to standing, my free hand twitching as it slowly moved toward the gun I had tucked in my pocket.
Click.
Closer still. I couldn’t pull my eyes from the blackness at the end of aisle where the sound was coming from, the abyss that swallowed up the light.
I didn’t dare breathe as my fingers tensed around the handle of the gun, waiting for the sound to come again, to echo through the dark, waiting for the sound to become something more.
Waiting to attack.
Time seemed to stretch on, a second turning into an hour, when, instead of moving, everything stood still. My whole body tensed in raw fear in a strength that I had never felt before.
My breath picked up all on its own, fearful and heaving, as a grey mass shifted into the shadow at the end of the aisle. It moved into the edge of grey and black where my light barely touched, where the shadows lived. It was a mass that moved and shifted through the light and the dark, in a blur of shadow and smoke, yet somehow dense like fabric. Like the strips of black I had watched fall from the sky so many years before. It didn’t dance like those had, though; this one onl
y seeped into the light, the color so much deeper than the darkness that lived just beyond where the light could touch.
A scream swelled in my throat, the sound fighting to escape the tense coil of fear that held it there. The sound grew inside of me, only to have the murderous sound stolen into silence as the shadow seemed to grow, a dark mass that moved closer to me, swallowing up the light that I held. The sound of fear and blood flowed through my ears as I tried to look away, tried to run, tried to scream.
Anything.
“Lex!”
The shadow moved as the voice rocked through the dark, leaving me panting, gasping in frantic breaths that poured out of me.
“Lex!” Travis’s voice was a yell of panic as it shot through the dark behind me. The fear, the depth of it, sounding so unfamiliar that I jumped. The painful tension that had grown through me rocked my joints painfully.
My eyes darted away from the now empty darkness that stood before me as I looked toward the sound, seeing only darkness before Travis bolted down the aisle toward me, his eyes wild as he grabbed at me, his hands pressing awkwardly against my body as if he was checking for injuries or weapons.
The brightness of Travis’s light pulsed through my head as I looked at him. The fear on his face was as bright and apparent as I was sure mine was. The haunted look in his eyes almost scared me. He looked at me like he had expected me to be dead, the pale look on his face haunting as he panted.
“Are you okay?” he asked as he held me in front of him, his chest heaving. “I heard you scream.”
Had I screamed? I had felt like I was going to, but I had never heard the sound.
Not the sound of a scream.
“I heard clicks…” The words were dead on my tongue, the look on Travis’s face making it clear he hadn’t heard what I had.
“Lex?” he asked, his hands shaking me a bit as his panic seemed to grow.
“I’m all right.” I could barely get the words out, the fear that still raged through me closing up my throat.
The words didn’t seem to calm him, however; he only swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he looked away from me toward the light I still held in my hand.
“Your light is out.”
The words quaked through me as I looked down to the now dead disk in my hand, the once warm light cold against my fingers.
It had obviously been out a while.
My heart thundered painfully as I slowly turned, the pressurized fear that ruled me growing as I faced the blackness behind me.
The space where the shadow had been.
The expanse of space stretched before me with nothing more than the dust covered relics of a once pristine world.
A world that, I was sure, was full of more than just the Tar.
Chapter Three
The fire sparked and flared as it ate away at the old bookshelves and dining sets that we had meticulously ripped apart and dragged from different corners of the department store. The store that had once looked like an old, untouched, relic; now looked just like everything else in the dark world.
Destroyed.
Travis had carefully placed several metal filing cabinets in a triangle, moving everything around it away in the hopes of giving enough of a barrier that the flames couldn’t spread over the dozens of dust covered mattresses we were surrounded by. The makeshift fire pit had seemed like it wasn’t going to be enough after we loaded it with shards of wood and paper, but the stuff was so dry that it burned down to nothing before Travis had finished arranging it. We kept loading and organizing the wood and tinder until it built itself into a blaze, leaving us with a low, simmering fire. The flames were still high enough to illuminate everything around us, keeping us safe.
Or so was the belief I clung to.
I could still see the rolling movement of the way that thing had moved. I could still feel the ice that ran down my skin. It was enough to make everything feel dangerous, not that anything was safe.
I clung to the gun in my hand as I stared into the flames, letting the bright red and yellow light burn through me, my eyes aching. I felt the pain, felt the heat that seemed so unfamiliar against my skin, but I didn’t look away. I didn’t move closer to the shadows. I was almost too scared to.
Scared of what I would see.
It was different than being afraid of what was hidden behind doors, or afraid of monsters that would do anything to kill you, to take you. This was the fear of the unknown, and in a world ruled by creatures that were more myth that anything else, it almost seemed silly.
Yet it was there.
I blinked my eyes to get rid of the pain, and finally pulled myself away from the fire, moving toward the dusty beds we would sleep on once Travis returned from his bedding search. The tired springs of the mattress collapsed under my weight as I sat, sinking me into the soft pad. Even though I had cleaned off much of the dust, a small plume of it still erupted around me, the tiny motes glistening in the firelight as they became air born. I watched them fall for a moment, the tiny things glistening like fireworks and fireflies. Things that didn’t exist anymore. I listened to the crackle of the fire as it ate its way through the wood, the sound loud and somehow relaxing.
My body ached, throbbed and begged for sleep as though it had been days instead of just hours since we had run from Abran and his men; days instead of just hours that I had run with the heavy backpack pounding against my spine. I could feel the throb from the bruises I had received from the so-called trial I had been forced to endure earlier, my back aching as they had grown and swelled with each step. Part of me wanted to sleep so that I didn’t have to feel the pain, but another part feared the torrential ache I knew would come with the morning.
I set the gun beside me and swung the backpack off my shoulders, my hands feeling strangely stiff as I reached for the zipper, my heart already thundering with the knowledge of what I was reaching for.
It had been so long since I had looked at his picture, the image of the boy I knew so well had been taken from me when I had been captured. I didn’t even know if it was still in the backpack. Everything tightened in tense heartbreak as I searched for his photo, part of me not wanting to see his smiling face considering the new plan that Travis had come up with.
Not with the image of him turned into something worse so fresh on my mind.
“Do you want Nintendo Power or Princess Castle?” Travis’s voice pulled me from my search just as my fingers rubbed against the soft rolled portrait Cohen had painted of the two of us. His voice bounced awkwardly around the large, open abyss, the abrupt arrival of his voice sending my heart into a thunder, causing me to jump.
The loud slaps of his shoes drowned out the soft sounds of the fire as he came back to the small campground we had made, obviously glad to be back. His hands were full of what I recognized at once as two bedding sets, the kind that had matching sheets and blankets in an assorted array of trademarked characters. Sometimes they even had a duvet. I had always begged my overly frugal mother for one of these as a child; it seemed strangely ironic I would get one now.
“Nintendo Power,” I answered, knowing it would piss him off—Travis had always loved his video games.
“I’m not sleeping on pink ruffles, Alexis.” He scowled at me as he spoke, the dark light in his eyes so menacing that I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or bordering on joking.
Either way, something deep inside of me had ignited, a shadow of older sister playfulness that I hadn’t felt for years springing to life. As much as I knew I should probably leave it, I really didn’t want to.
“Then why did you give me the option?”
“I don’t know. Obviously I was trying to be nice,” he grumbled.
I gave him the biggest smile I could muster and grabbed the plastic bag bearing the wide, cheesy grin and perfectly coifed hair that the vapid princesses usually had, the stiff plastic all but shattering under my rough grip.
Travis only rolled his eyes as he moved toward the twin bed I sat nex
t to, using the large, plastic bag to scoop as much of the dust that lined the surface and throw it to the ground.
“Just like old times,” he said, and I couldn’t help hearing the rolling laugh in his voice.
The sound was a mixture of the annoyance I had always been so good at pulling out of him, and a joy that made my stomach spin, the same emotion running through me.
“I guess,” I said as I ripped open the brittle plastic bag, spilling the once soft cotton on the dusty mattress. “Although I don’t remember ever having to scrape off the dust when I changed my sheets.”
“You obviously didn’t share a bedroom with three boys.”
“I don’t want to know.” I tried my hardest to fight the eye roll. “I am just gad I finally get my over priced, perfectly matching bedroom set.”
“Why do you think I picked them?” Travis asked, a playful grin spreading over his face in a way that only made the wild joy inside me grow. It was a feeling that I hadn’t felt in so long that I clung to it, in desperate need of the way my soul seemed to swell like a balloon, the way the fear didn’t seem quite so real.
“They did have the old patchwork quilts that Grandma used to make, but I thought for once in our lives we could splurge a little bit. I am disappointed you don’t like princesses anymore.”
“Yeah, well, princesses are a little bit twenty-thirteen…”
“Giant monsters, however…”
“They are all the rage.”
“I think Jason would have a field day.” Travis said the words so casually, but I couldn’t stop the painful twist of my stomach, the way the pleasant balloon deflated into an angry thump that ripped through my chest as he threw the name of our little brother around so casually.
It was a name I had tried my hardest never to think of, a name that I had locked away deep down inside, though I could never rid myself of it forever. I couldn’t because I could still see his little face so clearly. I could see the menacing smile he always had, the way the evil glint would light in his eyes right before he did something that he knew he shouldn’t.
Through Glass: Episode Four Page 3
