He traced Orion in the air. “Right there. The line of three and then up and to the left.”
“Oh, yeah, I see it.” She leaned back on her hands and her arm touched his. He felt it, like electricity, through his whole body.
A hollow pang of nervousness caught him in the gut. He started talking to fight it back down. “That m-m-middle,” he winced at the stutter, “middle star isn’t really a star. It’s the Orion n-nebula.”
“It looks like a star.”
He licked his lips. “Because we c-can’t see it all from here.”
“Oh.” She looked away at something down the beach. Maybe back at the car.
Afraid to lose her, he pointed again, this time to Jupiter. “It’s going to happen there.”
Almost before he’d finished, glitter streaked across the sky. Sparks, like distant fireworks, scattered from Jupiter’s gaseous shell. He wanted to turn to her, to see if she’d seen it, but he couldn’t look away as the light faded. A once in a lifetime event—him with her and a meteor crashing recklessly through a planet.
“Was that it?”
He finally broke away as the last of the imitation stars trailed off into space. Her head was tilted and she bit her lip. Like someone who had been promised a diamond and given glass. He looked away, his cheeks burning. “Yeah. That was it.”
“I thought there’d be more.” She stood and dusted off her dress. “I’m cold.”
He got up after her and slipped out of his jacket, but she was already out of his reach, shrinking as she walked down the beach. He trotted to catch up, kicking up sand that caught in the cuffs of his jeans.
“Can you give me a ride? Clyde’s at the drive-in with the others and said I could meet him there.”
He forced a smile and nodded. “Sure.”
~ ~ ~
It took the fallout two years to hit Earth. Graduation night, class of ‘54, and the beach was alive. When the sun went down, they lit the bonfire. Embers rose up out of the tower of sticks, defying gravity to join the stars. Thomas’s gaze followed them to the sky where the broken meteor made coppery streaks as its pieces broke the atmosphere.
Jupiter held fast in the sky, unchanged to the naked eye. Thomas had gone down to the museum and looked at it through the telescope. The surface looked stirred, the colors no longer streaking around the core, but looking like ink dropped in water.
He imagined them raining down on the world. Not like fire, but something magical that would change everything. That the sparks from the fire were transformed when they met the rock in the stratosphere and they both came back to the ground, different and better than when they left.
He wandered away from the crowd, from the sound of Perry Como’s voice coming out of Clyde’s father’s brand new Crestline, down the beach to where he’d watched the meteor when it was still whole and crashing. Even at the end of spring, he missed the warmth of the fire as the cool air nipped at him.
There were two figures sitting by the water. He could barely make out Elise’s voice over the groan of the waves. Moonlight shone red on her satin dress.
“That’s the Orion nebula,” she said, her silhouette pointing at the sky.
“That star?”
Clyde.
Thomas swallowed the lump in his throat.
“It’s not a star, it’s a nebula.” She giggled.
Thomas shook his head, wanting to be rid of that sound. It wasn’t meant for him and it never would be. He turned and walked perpendicular from the water. Back to the empty road to find his car. He followed the white lines, like stars, back home. To the sagging floor and squeaky door. To his father, passed out on the couch and reeking of Pabst.
Thomas lay on his bed and watched out the window. The dark blue was still striped with the space debris. This time, when he closed his eyes, he imagined the world catching fire as they landed, molten and dripping flame.
~ ~ ~
He woke up to his father banging on the side of the TV. The black and white picture lurched between horizontal lines and snow.
“Go up and fix the antenna, would you?” he said as if he’d already asked five times.
Thomas went outside and climbed the peach tree to the roof. The antenna was bent and lying flat against the shingles. When he got closer, he could see cracks in the metal where it looked like it had melted and cooled. He got down on his hands and knees and peered over the edge. A rock, no bigger than his fist, was lodged in the dirt below.
Quickly, he righted the metal apparatus and scrambled back down to get a better look at the rock. Something in the center seemed to glow. He hesitated to touch it, afraid it might still be hot, so he moved his hand slowly around its orbit, searching for heat. When he decided it was safe, he dug with his fingernails until it came loose and took it back inside.
His father was back on the couch, a brown glass bottle sweating in his hand. Thomas paused to watch the screen for a moment, finding it funny that right now, as he held something Jovian in his hand, his father had decided to watch Johnny Jupiter. “It’s working now?” he asked, mostly because he felt like he should say something.
His father grunted in response.
Thomas scurried to the bathroom, where he could close the door and it would be the darkest, and sat on the edge of the tub to examine the rock. A light was emanating from the cracks. Purple, blue, gold, and orange. His fingers tingled and he couldn’t tell if it was from touching it or his excitement. He imagined that inside there would be a tiny star system. Like he might find Orion in there, smoky and sparkling.
He closed his fingers over it and felt the heat-smoothed edges press into his palm. It pulsed softly, like something alive. Though he wanted to crack it open and see the source of the glow, he didn’t. He pushed it deep into his pocket where it sent waves of warmth through the thin lining, his skin, and straight into his veins. He turned on the light and caught himself in the mirror. His cheeks flushed and eyes brighter than he’d seen before. He remembered the lectures on bombs and radiation from school and rolled the small stone around his hand without bringing it back out. Before he could decide what to do with it, the pulsing, which had adjusted to match his heartbeat, reached his head, bringing feelings of protective safety. He removed his hand from his pocket and patted it once before heading out.
His father didn’t look away from the television as Thomas emerged. He sat, like a corpse, on the couch. Glassy eyes glued to the screen. Thomas stopped. His father’s skin looked waxy and slightly yellow, like there was no blood left in him. There was a barely audible sound of flies buzzing and a sweetly sour smell.
“Dad?” he asked.
His dad turned to him, face loose and expressionless.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m trying to watch a show.”
Thomas nodded and retreated toward the front door. “I’m going out, okay?”
His father snorted and took a long drink from the bottle. “Of course you are.” Before he could launch into another lecture that ended with violence, Thomas ducked outside and half-ran to the car. Since the accident, his father hadn’t been able to drive, giving Thomas the excuse to use the car as long as he never asked for gas money.
He spent his Saturday as he spent most of them—in the back room of Miller’s Groceries unpacking boxes and getting them prepared for stocking. Once, Mr. Miller had brought him out to the front to help with the registers during a rush, but Thomas’s nervous stuttering had made it too difficult for the customers to understand him. He’d been kept behind the scenes, like a hunchback in a bell tower, ever since. He didn’t mind. He liked the solitude. Especially today, with the comfort of the meteorite in his pocket.
Mr. Miller only came back once to get a crate of apples. Thomas had never seen him look so old. His white hair floated around his head in ghostly wisps and he almost seemed translucent. Still, he smiled warmly.
On the radio after work, they talked about the glowing rocks. The voices, sounding hollow over the car speakers, advised
people to stay away until more research could be done on them. To call if you found one on your property to have it removed by professionals. Thomas held the steering wheel with one hand and stroked the rock like a Thomasten. It purred back at him. He’d meant to drive home, but found himself at the beach again. He parked the car and walked down to the water.
The ocean had glowed before, but not like this. It was beautiful, but small, shining only along the shore where the waves broke against the sand. It was like a mirror to the sky, electric and starry. Tonight, the glow went for miles. Not just blue, but lightning up the ocean with nebulous colors. He could see shadows as schools of fish flitted from one place to another.
As he watched, he became aware of a sound. Low, barely in hearing range, it came and went with the waves, that matched the pulse of the stone, which matched his heartbeat. Slowly, the thrum, which had started like a moan, formed words. Eldritch, ancient words. Thomas could feel their age as they entered his head. His tongue fumbled over the syllables, unable to repeat the sounds.
He stayed on the sand until the moon had travelled from one side of the horizon to the other, listening to the song until it ebbed away with the tide. He walked back to his car, leaving footprints of light in the sand.
On the radio, they warned to stay away from the shore. Scientists were studying the meteorites and why they lit up the water. Right now, they just didn’t know. It could be anything. It could be dangerous. It could be nothing.
He went by Mrs. Dee’s next door to borrow her telephone. The woman had always been nice to him, but today, she seemed to emit her own sunshine. Through the wire, Elise told him that they were all going down that night to see what the rocks had done to the ocean. She heard it was beautiful. She asked him if he knew why. He stumbled over a brief explanation of bioluminescence and oxidation but stopped himself before he could tell her that it was a probably a result of red algae getting stirred up by the impact and suffocating the other sea creatures.
He knew she’d be with Clyde when he got there. Clyde had his arm around her waist and his letter jacket hanging on her shoulders. It went down, past the waistline of her skirt, making her look small. Her fingers stuck out of the sleeves like tiny twigs. She normally painted her nails in shiny and pearlescent pinks, but tonight, they were deep red and long. Like talons. When Clyde, with his weasel’s snout and sharpened teeth, leaned close and made her laugh, Thomas caught sight of a forked tongue in her mouth.
The fallen star in his pocket kept the fear at bay as he took in the others around him. People he’d known—acquaintances all, never friends—turned monstrous and strange. Laura Gibson who was known to trick people into telling her their secrets only so she could be the first to hear and spread the gossip, had a crack forming down the center of her face. One side seemed to be laughing while the other was sincere. Skip Peterson’s hands were too big for his arms were too big for his shoulders were too big for his body. Every movement he made was a violent lurch that seemed to just barely avoid shattering the ground. The beach was crawling with monsters. Thomas guessed maybe it always had been, only hidden until now.
He held the rock in his hand and looked past the people to the ocean. The thrumming linked up to the sea and he heard the song again. The strange words. This time, he could understand them. Soon. Calm. We’re coming.
Elise sat next to him and asked if he thought it was aliens. Others joined the conversation, wondering if the aliens were more dangerous than Soviet nukes. Worrying that maybe they wouldn’t. Everyone knowing nothing would be the same.
Thomas looked past them, barely listening. Watching the darkness on the horizon as it moved closer, extinguishing the glow in the water. Bigger than anything he could have imagined. Quiet, the song urged him.
He told them, the people he’d known his whole life who never wanted anything more than to copy his homework or make his walk home more miserable, that it wasn’t aliens. As they listened, eyes on him and backs to the darkening sea, he explained everything about red algae and how there are creatures in the ocean that glow to attract prey. Just like a fisherman with a lure. He kept their eyes on him, his stutter stolen by the confidence he found in the fallen star he held in his hand. He gripped it so tightly he could feel the surface cracking in his palm, cutting into his flesh.
From the water, the thing rose silently except for the sound of water falling, like a soft rain, from its oily black skin. He couldn’t see it exactly—the only indication of where it was being the absence of light.
He paused in his speech and swallowed hard. Fear fluttered at his heart like a moth crashing against a lantern, but the warmth of the cracked galaxy chased it away. Finally, Elise followed his gaze. She was the first to scream.
LUCY’S LIPS
MADELEINE SWANN
Lucy: the girl was ugly, this skinny creature who sat at the back of class wearing a faded peach sweater and long dress in the sweaty days of summer instead of a pretty blouse and skirt. Her eyes were plain brown and her black hair long, and she never pin curled it like the others. Why would someone want to look that way, I wondered? Most girls smelled of perfume stolen from their moms but whenever Lucy walked past all I got were images of a forest I’d gone to as a kid. I’d sneak peeks behind me all through the geography class we shared just trying to figure her out. I got so obsessed one afternoon, watching her collect her things real slow like someone who didn’t want to set foot in the outside world, that I didn’t notice my buddies enter the classroom. “Hey, Bill, working up the courage to ask out your date?”
Howie and Bennie stood over me grinning, flannel shirts and short hair matching mine. Howie was chewing gum, which no doubt would get him in trouble with Mr. Bellham again. “Dummies,” I grumbled, standing up. I yelped in surprise when something knocked into me from behind. It was Lucy and I thought her face was going to burst into flames it was so red. She scurried out with her head down like some kind of goddamn cockroach. It made me feel sick. “Hey,” I yelled, but she was already gone.
We shrugged it off and headed out to the school parking lot, taking a minute to watch the gang rev their hot rods. “Assholes,” muttered Bennie with more than a little jealousy. They were rich kids playing tough in jeans and white t-shirts, their hair coiffured to perfection. Mike drove the fastest, his recklessness and easy nature making him an obvious leader. He was even nice to me. I hated and loved it.
I opened the gate outside my house and called out to my parents as I went inside. Mom answered from the kitchen and pop grunted from the armchair, the sound of gunshots from the Western he was watching following me upstairs. Once my door was shut I listened for a few minutes before pulling the Gal-O-Rama magazine out from under my bed. It was getting dog-eared; I’d have to take better care of it. I pumped away over Bettie’s jugs, almost reaching ecstasy but fading into frustration. I was about to give up when I thought of that tatty peach sweater and skinny ankles at the bottom of long skirts. What lay underneath them, what was she hiding? I pictured her peeling them off slowly and within a few seconds I was covered in gunk, exposed and embarrassed. I tried to forget it and got ready for dinner.
The next morning I woke with those images still in my mind. I was still thinking about it when I strolled across the road beside the school gates and heard a car screech. “Watch it!” a voice yelled. I looked up, ready to give the driver hell, when I saw Mike’s worried face. “Hey, Bill,” he said, his light brown quiff and red jacket catching the reflections of his pale Cadillac. He lifted a few fingers in a small salute before screeching past. I waved and grinned goofily, stupidly happy that he’d remembered my name. I turned to make sure the other kids had heard, hating myself for it.
I got to my locker and Howie and Bennie were there with a bunch of other kids, including that little square Ted, with his receding blonde hair, pockmarked face and third hand jacket. It took me a minute to realize it was him who was the center of attention. What had he done this time, peed his pants as a gag? “Bill,” said Howie, his
face pink, “Ted says he’s been dating Spooky this past week.”
I could have pulled out the rest of the kid’s hair for making up that kind of crummy lie about Lucy, but instead I shrugged. “Well, whatta ya know?”
“No, it’s really true,” said some kid I knew from math, “I seen ‘em together only last week. Go on, Ted, tell ‘im.”
I yanked open my locker door and pulled out my books. “Well, what’s the big story?” I fumed. “Some creep dates another creep, who cares?” I enjoyed the fleeting look of doubt on their faces; was it really a big deal after all? Had they made themselves look dumb?
“I’m not a creep,” said Ted, almost sticking his bottom lip out. “I asked her on a date last week and I swear on my life it only took her two nights at the drive-in to play back seat bingo.” I wrinkled my nose; the thought of Ted feeling anyone up let alone Lucy in that beat up old heap of junk made me want to hit someone. “She was real eager, I mean peachy keen,” I could see the others trying not to laugh, “but then when I got down to it, you know, checked what was under the hood, boy I was almost sick!”
At that the fury leaked from my innards. I was shaking. “Why?”
Ted was smug now that he had my full attention, looking like a weasel with an oversized chicken. The others shared looks like members of a lousy conspiracy. “At first I just thought she was real wet, you know, but then when I looked down I saw all these marks around her crotch and the top of her thighs.”
“What marks?” I snapped.
“Like little sores, a bunch of ‘em, all red and weeping. I told her to get out and went right home.”
I didn’t yell at Ted for letting a girl walk home at night by herself, or for the joy he took in telling his “buddies” what happened. Instead I just shook my head and walked away, looking at myself in the bathroom mirror. My face was pale and my lips tight. What was the matter with me? Why was I so riled up? She was just a weirdo chick I didn’t even know. I couldn’t figure out if I felt bad for her or disgusted by her.
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