Shadows Over Main Street, Volume 2

by Gary A Braunbeck

  “Dreams?” Keira asked, emphasis on the “s.” “So, how many are we talking here?”

  “At least one a night for about… well, almost two weeks. These past few nights though, it’s like I’ve actually been doing things inside my dream. You know, I’m working all day at the school, then moving around through the dream all night. I fall asleep easily, but I’m not rested.” I picked up my glass and put it to my lips, but realized it’s empty and instead rolled it between my palms. “Dreams were supposed to be manifestations of the subconscious mind. What is it that I’m not resolving during my waking hours?”

  Keira eased herself up, padded over to her adjoining kitchen and took two wine glasses from the cabinet, holding them upside down by their stems between her fingers. She pulled a dark green bottle from the wine rack, then returned to her seat next to me. After breaking the wax seal, she filled both glasses halfway, leaving the bottle open to the coming night air.

  I touched my glass to hers and we both sipped. The taste of the wine brought me back to my childhood: running around at the edge of the woods with Keira, stealing sun-warmed blackberries, heedless of whose property line we crossed. Those sweet berry vines pricked our fingers, and we sucked in tiny drops of our blood with their dark juice.

  “Do you think it’s because I moved away from here?” I asked. “The unresolved issues, I mean. There was so much Mom and Dad expected from me… I just couldn’t take it. Work and church and looking after Gran while they went off to prayer meetings.” The memory of it weighed on me even now, stooping my already hunched frame.

  I didn’t have… I couldn’t do what I wanted—my family wouldn’t let me. They had plans. So I left home right after graduation. But I was back now. I should have laughed at how ridiculous this all was. I was back home five years later, with debt up to my eyeballs and a twice-broken heart.

  Keira’s smooth, dark locks swayed as she shook her head. “Naw, I don’t think so. But only you can answer that.”

  Nodding, I continued recounting my dream. “Anyway, the next time I fall asleep, I see the key again. Except this time, the picture—that network of vines on the key’s head—is open and there’s an image of the gate to the stone city. That… that means something, right?”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but I held up a finger, asking her to wait. I had to get this out; the feel of these images in my mind pressed deeper, rooting into my every waking moment.

  In a flash, I’m back in the city, but it looks deserted. I know it isn’t, though. I feel it. As I walk through the streets, there’s this eerie sound, like when you sit at the bottom of a pool. I try to catch any sign of movement, but there’s none. Instead, I see an obelisk in the middle of the city, all these unknown symbols carved into one side of the rock. So I walk over to it and study it, but I have no idea what any of it means.

  I folded my legs under me and sat back, pressing my shoulders into the cushions. The wine slowly relaxed me and I rushed the next part of the story.

  “But I’m determined to figure it out. I touch the rock all over. Nothing. By this time, I’m upset, frustrated. I go to walk away, trailing my hand over the face of the stone and it warms under my palm, turning into full glow, like the beam from a lighthouse. There’s a silhouette in the distance.

  “This time, I think it’s a man. He comes closer and with each step, I think I know him, but I’m not sure. I almost have it, then it’s gone. He embraces me, his fingers in my hair, loosening my braids, which then turn into… these tentacles. I shake my head and it feels so good for them to be free. I stretch them out and they reach so far...

  “He lowers me to the bed and I slide my leg over his, situating my body upright on top of his prone one. And it’s like… I’m riding him. But I’m also… I’m looking at us together on the bed as well. I hear this sloshing of water as we do it. And I’m panting and he’s pumping and I know it’s us churning this water into a thick maelstrom.

  “My tentacled hair is waving around wildly, growing longer and thicker, then the stalks shoot upward, out of the dream and into… like… real life. I grab something, someone, with the tentacles.”

  I can smell her almost, taste her. She’s trembling, petrified. A whimper. She twists onto her back and tries to kick free, but I’m too strong. Then she screams. It sounds like nothing to me, so I cut off her terrified wail with the dripping slap of another limb across her mouth. Suckers constrict around her jaw until I hear a resounding crunch.

  I tighten my grip on her and I…

  tear her apart.

  I sighed, worn from recounting the story. The sleepless nights had begun to catch up with me and I sipped the sweet-tart blackberry wine, as I wriggled my backside on the sofa.

  “Wow,” Keira breathed, her eyes wide. She hugged me, surrounding me in her earthy green scent. “It’s gonna be okay, girl. Don’t worry.”

  “I’m not going crazy, am I?” I asked, shaking my head. “This is… so surreal. I can’t wrap my head around it.”

  “You’re not going crazy.” She lifted the mass of heavy hair from her neck and tossed it over her shoulder. A circular stick and poke tattoo—maybe a snake or an eel—graced the flesh behind her ear.

  I frowned. “When did you get that? I’ve never seen—”

  “They the ones who gonna lose they minds, Randie.”

  I dragged my gaze back to her, searching her face for some sign that I’d heard her incorrectly. Her eyes were clear and alert, focused on me. “What d’you mean by they?”

  She ignored my question, instead leaning over to light the trio of candles on her coffee table.

  “Keira?” I asked, confusion evident in my voice. “What—”

  “All of them,” she said finally. “Those who doubt us and our power.”

  “Who is us?” I was frightened now. The candlelight was making unnatural shadows on my best friend’s face, putting her dark skin into even deeper shadow.

  “Your mamma didn’t think you’d be the one to get visions of the coming, but I knew.” Her self-satisfied chuckle followed her as she got up from the couch and pulled an old leather-bound book from a shelf. “I always know.”

  I tried to get up too, but my limbs were heavy, weighted. The urge to weep welled up in me and I no longer had the strength to hold back the tears. I couldn’t turn my head, but I could hear Keira moving around her tiny house on the marsh, humming to herself songs I recalled from my childhood.

  “You know,” she said, “It’s probably because you spent all those years away that it took so long for you to see. What did he look like?” Her usually modulated voice pitched up a level with her excitement. “No, no, don’t tell me. We’ll know soon enough.”

  From the candles, a deep scent rose, one of moss and smoke and steel. When Keira returned into my line of sight, she was holding another pillar candle, running a wicked knife back and forth through the flickering orange flame.

  I whimpered and she leaned close to brush my hair from my forehead, bringing the heated metal within a blink of my eye. “Shhh,” she murmured, kissing my temple. Footsteps skittered outside on the worn wooden planks leading through the salt marsh to my best friend’s door. She pressed the warm blade against my skin, then hers, letting the drops of blood form a network of swirling vines.

  Flickers of light caught my swimming vision. In the encroaching darkness, amongst the cicada song, wills o’ the wisp darted through the surrounding marsh. No… not darted. Traveled. What my mind knew were exploding marsh gasses—incendiary moments only—arranged themselves into a distinct pattern. A line that coiled through the waving sea grasses, filing toward the old slave cabin.

  “K-kay,” I managed through the paralysis invading my body, but she placed her cool fingertips against my lips and they managed no more.

  “Before the rest of the Order gets here,” Keira said, hugging my stiff body. “I just wanna say I’m so glad you came back. Proud of you, girl.”

  HOMEOWNER’S ASSOCIATION OF UNFATHOMABLE


  HORRORS BEYOND THE STARS

  Jay Wilburn

  Rachel Rathburn experienced the sense of dread settling upon her spirit as soon as she entered Scully, Alabama. The town lay closer to some major cities than others, but not truly within a reasonable distance to anything. At the final gas station, the ground was dry, making the grass wiry and crisp under her sandals. Seeds bit underneath her soles and irritated between her toes. Pollen assailed her nose and dried out every dark passage from her sinuses down throughout her body. Trailers spotted the forsaken land with men waiting for factories to reopen and women picking up odd work to close the distance between budgets and bills for their families.

  Back in the cab of the truck again, Rachel’s father drove the U-Haul through the gates of their walled community, situated between squalor and vacant lots. As a small plane buzzed toward an unseen landing strip behind the back wall of their subdivision, Rachel wondered if the wall was high enough to keep out a determined redneck who might decide he wished to scale the fine brick to see how the one-percenters lived. She also thought she should have spent more time studying rather than drinking, to avoid moving home at the moment her family relocated to Alabama.

  She cut her eyes at her brother to her left and her mother in front of her. Rachel thought if word got out her father was here to close down more factories and sell off the pieces, one truck and plane load at a time, she would be even less likely than usual to make friends.

  They pulled into one of the driveways with a rumble that jostled everything packed into the back. Rachel leaned up far enough to see over the seat and her mother’s shoulder. The cloth upholstery was hard and smelled of absorbed sweat and grease.

  Sod clung to packed clay in unnaturally green squares. Mulch so brown and crisp that it appeared to be dyed with blood lined the curves of beds along the walk with perfect precision and organic geometry. Saplings stood erect aided by support twine in the midst of the slaughter-colored beds.

  Her father had purchased a pink house in the midst of lime green, baby-powder blue, and shades of white that defied description. Every neighborhood seemed to have one tacky, pink house and the Rathburns were moved into this one.

  Men in jeans cinched too tightly under their paunches set aside fast food cups and bags along the edge of the garage before they stepped out into the unforgiving sun and humidity. The Rathburns climbed out of the U-Haul, and the heat in the air punched Rachel in the face. She circled around the edge of the drive, keeping her mother, brother, and father between her and the men.

  They were an unusual breed of humanoid. Shoulders slumped in a way that hollowed their chests within their dirty tank tops and humped their backs. Their eyes took on a wrinkled squint that would not suit them for any work other than their current condition in Alabama. It would be impossible to transmute them into suits and northeastern law firms. No amount of soap or schooling would disguise them as anything other than what they were. Open mouths showed misaligned teeth and gave the sound of wet, phlegm-clogged breathing. There was no other word for these dirty, dusty creatures than that of redneck.

  Their eyes drifted as if it hurt to focus upon people or concentrate on any one idea for long. Paint-spotted boots scuffed along the driveway and then the creatures peeled open the accordion door at the back of the truck.

  Rachel’s brother wandered into the house without looking up from his phone. She could not fight the impression that the place had consumed him and he had wandered into its jaws willingly.

  A plane took off behind the neighborhood with a claw-like scream against the sky. As the private jet lifted away from the scorched earth of Alabama, Rachel dearly wished to be in one of those seats sipping whatever they had on ice.

  The workers tromped about the truck and hauled off oaken antiques clutched between their digits, balanced upon the tilted wheels of dollies. One creature with a sunken chin and a prominent Adam’s apple stepped by carrying a box marked: Rachel’s delicates. His fingers disappeared into the darkness of the slots on both sides, hiding what he might be feeling. She swallowed as she watched and made note to be certain that box was still taped and all the contents intact once it was left inside. What she would do if she found it tampered with, she was not sure.

  “Come inside,” said her mom.

  Rachel blinked. The sun left her dizzy and seeing purple and green spots wherever she tried to focus. Her mother called it glistening, but Rachel felt downright greasy between her clothes and her skin. She had not tanned while away at school, so she had no base in place to protect herself from Alabama sunburns. She might quickly become leathery and shriveled like these creatures her father had hired.

  She turned for the shadows provided by the empty garage, but the line of movers stepped back out from the cavern darkness into the light again. Rachel moved aside to give them a wide berth. They lumbered forward with heads down, forming ridges with the protrusion of their spines from within freckled and scaly skin.

  Rachel swallowed and looked away. She spotted the outline of her father within the garage, fiddling with hooks upon a pegboard. She had not seen him personally use a tool since she was a child, so she was not sure what he intended to hang upon the wall there.

  The buzz of the next plane took on a lowering tone which told her the craft was small and descending upon them. She knew the sun would impact her eyes again, but she could not resist the urge to look anyway. Small and silvery, the craft reflected more sunlight into her face for her troubles. She imagined the plane serving some drug cartel, looking to feed the despair and desires of the unemployed dregs of Scully. Some of them probably worked distribution and sales for the illegal drug trade now that men like her father had closed the factories. She thought most of their drugs were of the variety cooked in sheds and closed garages and probably not imported.

  Scrapes and shuffles closed behind her, so Rachel sidestepped into the rough squares of sod to avoid physical contact with the creatures that labored for her father. Two hauled the kitchen table and a third carried a box of plates with his dirty fingers in the slots on both sides once more. She would not be able to picture anything else other than these beings touching the table and plates as she ate her breakfast in the mornings.

  “Why did we have to ride in a U-Haul, if you were hiring movers anyway?”

  Her father cut his eyes from the work at the peg board. “I do not trust them to drive with our things.”

  But to touch them, she thought.

  As the noise of the cargo plane died behind the wall, more light and motion drew her attention to the street. These creatures dazzled where the movers disgusted. Their skin was like porcelain and in the sun they appeared to lose their edges. They were almost impossible to view directly or comprehend. They seemed to be somewhat feminine and wearing pantsuits. The new, glowing procession mounted the driveway carrying casserole dishes.

  Rachel’s mother stepped out of the house fanning herself as she glistened heavily. “Hello. Welcome.”

  The leader of this line of high creatures said, “Welcome to you and your family, Mrs. Rathburn.”

  “I use a hyphenated name for business purposes,” Rachel’s mother said. “I sell candles and facial creams.”

  The women exchanged looks over their casserole lids. “Not from your home, we hope, dear. That is most definitely against the bylaws.”

  The smile wavered on her mother’s lips. “No, not really. It is all on-line.”

  The women turned to one another in a tight circle. They muttered among themselves all at once either in a language that Rachel’s ears and mind could not process or in a tone that did not carry over the air so thinned by the oppressive heat. They turned out once more. “We will have to check with the HOA board to see if such a thing is allowed.”

  “Using the Internet in our own home?” Her mother forced a chuckle. “Surely.”

  The women’s frowns seemed to dull the blinding glow of their pure skin.

  “We shall see.”

  “Very well.”
Rachel’s mother extended her hands accepting one casserole after another in a precarious balance, one upon another, on both hands and the forearms.

  The women exchanged another look. “Your fence is over the property line. It will need to be removed.”

  They turned away and filed off the driveway without awaiting a response. A plane roared upward, and through purple spots, Rachel longed to be upon it.

  Her mother glared at Rachel’s father and he turned away before she could say anything. “Gentlemen, would you mind terribly taking a break from the move to see to our boundary violation? I will compensate you handsomely, I promise you.”

  The creatures exchanged looks and one of them translated. “He will pay us to tear down the fence.”

  They slouched toward the fence and began their destruction. The white plastic rocked back and forth under their assault with the look of flimsy weakness, but the hold of something much more stubborn. The sections and supports split into sharp tears that threatened to eviscerate flesh, but the fence collapsed piece by piece as the obedient creatures pressed their attack on the barrier.

  A plane hummed in and Rachel tracked it through a floating green spot. Some doctor was probably accumulating his flying hours in his small plane on his day off, she decided.

  A man cleared his throat and Rachel spun about to see a white polo shirt, khaki shorts, and skin tanned beyond bronze to orange, marching toward her. She glanced back long enough to see that her mother had retreated inside to deal with the onslaught of casseroles. The house had consumed once more. The man seemed deliberately muscled to leave an impression in his shorts and polo.

  Her father exited the garage and extended his hand. As he bowed his head to the blaze of light from above, it gave him a submissive stance that Rachel was not certain her father meant to portray. The new fellow locked hands with Rachel’s father and turned his hand about a quarter inch over the top of Mr. Rathburn’s hand. Their hands remained clasped and her father squinted as he glanced from the handshake to the neighbor.