by J M Hart
Cars suddenly screeched to a stop, drivers and passengers jumped out yelling obscenities. Sophia and Father McDonald hid in the shadows. The brawl escalated, affecting oncoming traffic. Another car screeched to a halt. Men and women jumped out of their vehicles and randomly started beating into each other. Bystanders watched; some seemed to enjoy the violence. A few horrified people looked down at their shoes and walked briskly away. No white flags were raised, no sirens wailed.
“Maybe we should go back to Joe’s and wait till morning. It’s harder to see the swarm in the dark. We can leave at first light?” Sophia said.
“Agreed. Let’s go.” They headed back to Joe’s cafe, but the sign said “closed”. Sophia and Father McDonald turned to leave when Joe flicked on the lights.
“I figured you might come back. It’s a little rough out there. It smells a hell of a lot worse than usual. I have an apartment upstairs, come.” They followed Joe into the back of the cafe, up an old narrow staircase that led into his apartment above.
“May I use the bathroom, please?” Sophia asked.
“Second door on the left, hen.”
“You can sleep on the couch if that is okay. I’ll make up a bed on the floor for your granddaughter. She is very gifted,” Joe said as Sophia closed the bathroom door.
“Sophia is very blessed. The couch is more than enough, thank you.”
*
Before first light, they delicately walked downstairs trying to avoid any squeaky steps, careful not to wake Joe. They wanted to evade any offer for them to stay for breakfast. Father McDonald left a thank-you note and promised to keep him in their prayers. The bell on the front door jingled when the door opened and they closed it behind them. The street was quiet and an early morning fog was lifting. A few yards away a crow was walking over a dead body, a victim of the night. The crow behaved as if inspecting the carcass before purchase. Another crow landed on the dead man. The two crows cawed at Sophia and Father McDonald’s approach, making their claim, eyeballing them. The empty street intensified the noise of the birds. Father McDonald couldn’t walk past the body. He stopped, shooed away the birds and prayed for the man’s soul. He took his Bible out and opened the book randomly. Sophia stood next to him with her hands by her side. “The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Son of man, set your face against the Ammonites, and prophesy against them; And say unto the Ammonites, Hear the word of the Lord God; Thus says the Lord God; Because you said, Aha, against my sanctuary, when it was profaned; and against the land of Israel …”
A light began to glow around the body and the crows took flight. An ethereal body slowly, painfully, separated from the man’s physical being, crouching on one knee and ripping itself away from the body. Sophia, feeling the man’s pain, allowed her aura to expand and her energy to feed his soul with her light. The spirit of the man broke free from the chains of his physical body and his spiritual essence stood tall. He looked back at his body lying in the street, beaten, bloody, discarded. He turned to Father McDonald and nodded thanks and floated into the sky.
They watched him ascend, his soul sparkling like a million stars. It soared up into the gorgeous colors of the morning sky. Suddenly, a swarm of blackness appeared from behind the buildings and descended on the man’s ascending soul. She felt the pain of the man’s soul, as they dominated it, pulling it apart, fighting each other for a piece of its light until his spiritual essence was completely absorbed.
“Oh God, don’t let them see us. Quick, Sophia, help me with the body.”
Sophia broke away from the feelings of pain and helped prop the body up off the road next to the storm water drain, where they wriggled under it to hide between it and the gutter, praying the corpse would restrict their light.
The demonic entities had finished devouring the soul and Sophia peered through a gap near the man’s armpit, watching the swarm hover. The mass was turning, searching below, and began to unite: the winged entities were imp-like, forming, defragmenting, reforming, shapeshifting until they became one giant monster with the head of a bat, the torso of a man with leathery wings, claw feet, and a long, sharp, jagged scorpion tail. It was a giant of a beast. It dropped from the sky onto the street and the impact rumbled like thunder through the ground; the buildings shifted and windows exploded as cracks opened wide along the street and the road collapsed, creating a sinkhole.
Sophia and Father McDonald lay under the dead man’s body not daring to move. Sophia held onto her necklace, her precious family heirloom, for courage. She squeezed her eyes tight and imagined being at home, when she began to feel a gentle summer breeze ruffle her favorite dress. Then she saw the wind touch the tip of the tall blades of grass; she feasted on the familiar fields and flowing river, the place she called home. She felt at peace and took a deep breath and breathed in the beauty of the day.
Father McDonald, too, felt a breeze, a gagging stench, as the beast sniffed and snorted at the dead man’s body.
Sophia kept focusing on the gentle breeze in the fields and her image was getting stronger, panoramic. She felt her hair whipping across her face, the wind building around her, bursting with energy, changing to gale-force. Suddenly her hair and her clothes froze. Her state was shifting: flashing between the fields and lying under the dead body. The states merged into one existence and storm clouds from the fields appeared in the sky above the beast and lightning flared. The wind intensified. Debris went flying as a twister developed and traveled towards Sophia and Father McDonald; Sophia had become the eye of the storm. Her inner storm, which had been building up and up, exploded from her solar plexus and the two storm cells emerged and blasted the demon into a million pieces again, back into its weaker viral state. It was scattered in every direction for miles and miles. The ferocious storm lasted less than half a minute then the wind disappeared leaving a few leaves floating in its wake. Father McDonald and Sophia rolled out from under the body and staggered to their feet.
Sophia held her head, feeling groggy and unsteady. “I don’t drink alcohol, except for a sip from the chalice, and I certainly never will if this is what it feels like. Maybe, if this ever ends, I can teach teenagers how to get high on light. I can start up a club.” Sophia rapidly blinked, trying to clear the fog from her eyes. “Focus! What am I thinking, what was I doing?” Her vision was blurry and her ears were ringing. She waited for her blood pressure to return to normal as she harvested her energy. Father McDonald put his arm around her, to steady her on her feet. She felt the warmth of his body and looked up at his lanky frame. He was old and fragile, but nevertheless a tower of strength to her. “We have to run,” she said, pulling at his arm weakly, “before they regroup and come looking for us.”
The sound of a horn blasted from the alley. A four-door blue sedan sped around the corner, heading straight at them. Sophia jumped out of the way as the car braked and the tyres screeched while the car turned in an arc and came to a stop beside them.
The passenger side window rolled down and the driver leant across and shouted, “I had a dream! Get in.” He looked in his rear-vision mirror. “You did all this?”
Sophia smiled at Joe. “Not all of it.”
“Get in.”
Without further hesitation they jumped in the car. They raced along the streets as fast as Joe dared, dodging abandoned or burnt-out cars for about five minutes until he finally slowed down. “Heck, what happened last night?”
“Thanks, Joe. What was your dream?” Sophia asked, rummaging in her backpack. She opened a paper bag and pulled out a white sage stick. She broke off a piece and handed it to Joe.
“In my dream we were cooking in your family’s bed and breakfast and you were laughing and shimmying in the kitchen. The next scene was I had to get up and leave Glasgow immediately to find you both. So I did. What’s this?”
“It’s white sage and it will help keep you free of negative energies. If you are going to stay with us, you are going to need it for protection from the dead and the living.”
> “The dead?” Joe started chewing.
“We’d better tell you our story,” Father McDonald said. “You need to know what you are getting into. You might recognize me if I shaved off my beard and got a haircut,” Father McDonald said. “My name is Ian McDonald. I am a minister of the church and this is Sophia. Her family died years ago and she has been under my care ever since.”
“No need to shave, I recognized you both. Didn’t know where from. After a while I remembered watching the tube. I was about to turn it off, had my finger on the button when your wee smiling face popped on the screen. Yesterday I recognized Sophia first when she smiled. She didn’t look like she was being held against her will, and you, sir, didn’t come across as anything but a God-fearing man.”
Sophia sat back in her seat and closed her eyes. She visualized a reflective sphere around the vehicle, a cocoon of emerald-green, purple, yellow, orange, blue and, of course, a soft touch of red for vitality — a seamless mirror. Anyone or anything that looked at them would see no more than a reflection of themselves. Good would see good, and evil would see evil.
They had been driving for a while and were entering the center of the waking city of Edinburgh. Sophia leant her head against the window, watching people with half-open eyes. They walked without purpose along the sidewalk like zombies. No hint of emotion, just moving machines, religiously following a well-worn path. There was a man with a briefcase in his hand, his eyes hidden behind black, police, frameless glasses. He reminded Sophia of some of the characters in an old classic movie, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Joe wanted to put his foot down and hightail it out of there, but he knew it would only attract attention. He held the steering wheel tight, gripping and un-gripping. Rubbing his sweaty palms on the leg of his pants and mopping the perspiration from the side of his face onto his shoulder, he looked into the rear-vision mirror at Sophia. “Can you see if they’ve got the virus?”
She wondered about telling him. Is ignorance best? Maybe not. “Yes.”
“Are there many?” Joe asked.
“They’re all infected, Joe. Their souls are hanging by a thread to their body. The demonic entities can’t take up a hundred per cent residence because the body will perish. A fragment of the soul is trapped, tethered to the body while it’s used as the devil’s puppet.”
“What does it look like? Oh, my god, did you see that guy’s face at the lights? It just transformed and snarled like a monster as we passed. Why aren’t they attacking? Why are they still driving?”
“Robotic behavior. They can’t see us, they can only see a reflection of themselves. The virus looks like a grey cloud filled with tiny metallic flies. They are passing in and out of people’s noses, mouths, eyes and ears. Some latch on and hang off the body.”
Father McDonald scratched the side of his head, his skin crawled. He wanted to run and dive into a body of water. He rubbed his back against the car seat feeling uncomfortable at the image conjured by Sophia’s description. He pulled his Bible from his jacket pocket and prayed.
Joe ducked down a side street before realizing it was a bad idea. A few feet away he saw three men in suits attacking a woman lying next to a Vespa bike. He wanted to jump out and help. He slowed. The men stopped, as if listening, and turned towards them. Satisfied there was no one there, they leant over the woman. One man unhinged his mouth, covered the woman’s bloody lips and sucked. Her cheeks collapsed. The other man pushed him aside and did the same thing. They seemed to grow taller, wider. Finished, they picked up their briefcases, and started moving closer to the car. Moving purposely towards them, running. Joe put the car in reverse and swung back out into the main street.
“Calm down, Joe, don’t speed, it will be okay. They can’t really see us. They’re not sure what they see,” Sophia said.
Father McDonald stopped praying and made eye contact with Joe. “God is with us. Just don’t panic.”
The stream of cars thinned out and they slowly made their way out of the city. It seemed like a lifetime to Joe. Sophia gave him a fresh piece of sage and he shoved the dried head into his mouth and chewed. He opened the window to clear the car of his stale perspiration.
“Let me drive for a while,” Father McDonald said.
“No, it’s okay. I need to drive,” Joe said.
“That reminds me,” Father McDonald said, “of when I was a kid and we were driving to the seaside, a place called Saltcoats, for a holiday and my dad …”
Sophia tuned out, having heard the story a hundred times, and closed her eyes. “Casey, can you hear me?” she whispered in her mind, then a little louder. But there was no answer.
4
S = k log W: Jade. Australia
“Where’s your dad, how did you get here?” Callie asked. Kevin pushed his ear against the door trying to hear a little clearer. His dad walked up the stairs with Molly asleep in his arms.
“Psst, what are you doing?” Daniel whispered.
Startled, Kevin jolted back from the door. His face turned red. He lifted up his shoulders and dropped them.
“Get away from the door. Give them some privacy.” Daniel slapped Kevin gently on the side of the head. Kevin’s hair flicked up and dropped back into place. “Go downstairs and watch your brother.” Daniel disappeared into Molly’s room. He turned on the rotating light which cast a production of colored ponies on the walls and into the hallway.
Kevin tiptoed past the room, dodging the odd squeaky floorboard. He stopped at the first step and looked back down the hall to his mother’s room. He was resisting the urge to go back and listen when his dad came out of Molly’s room.
“You’re not — seriously?” his dad said.
“What?”
“You know what, eavesdropping, that’s what,” he whispered.
Kevin pushed his hand up over his forehead, running his fingers through his hair and feeling the softness of his hair. He was frustrated he didn’t know what was going on and what Jade might say. Kevin started down the stairs with Daniel on his tail. Once out of earshot of Molly’s room, Daniel probed Kevin.
Daniel pulled out an assortment of ingredients for their pizzas. “Start grating,” he said, handing Kevin the cheese.
“So, Kevin, what’s her name? And what did you mean, you found the girl?”
Alex ran into the kitchen and pulled at Kevin’s arm. Kevin shook him off, and continued grating the cheese.
“Alex, what did we say about running in the house? Go back and come in again. Without running!” Daniel said.
“Sorry, Daddy.” Alex spun around and slid on his socks across the kitchen floor and out of the room, but re-entered the kitchen slowly, marching up to Kevin again. He stamped his feet and said, “Come play with me. Come on, come play with me. I’m at level five, about to fight the evil monster. Come on, it’s on pause.” Alex had his hands in Kevin’s back pockets. He tugged and tugged. “Come on.”
“Okay, okay,” Kevin said, grateful that Alex was being a pest. “Dad?”
“Go on. We can talk when your mother is ready. But first, what’s her name?”
“Jade.” Kevin went into the living room and plonked himself on the floor next to Alex. He watched Alex battle the animated monster, but his mind was miles away.
*
“What happened to you? How do you know Kevin? I have so many questions, Jade. But you look like you need a warm shower right now,” Callie said, turning on the light in her en suite.
Jade followed her into the bathroom with the pile of Kevin’s clothes. Callie hung a fresh towel on the rail for her.
Jade sat on the edge of the bath and massaged her feet on the bamboo mat. Jade had had sleepless nights thinking of all the questions she would ask Callie if she ever had the opportunity. In a barely audible voice, not making eye contact, she asked, “Where did you go that night? Why didn’t you come and see me? You were the last person to see my mom, and you ran.” Jade pushed her hair back behind her ears and looked up at Callie. She raised h
er voice. “You came to our home and ate at our table. I thought you were more than just another one of my mom’s post-grad charity cases. I thought you were my mom’s friend, my friend, but you just left us.” Jade’s face contorted in anger and resentment. She stood up, grabbed her shoes and headed for the door. She stopped at the bathroom threshold and said, “Within hours of her going missing, you were on a plane, and out of the country! Where were —” Jade’s throat tensed with anger and she couldn’t speak. She choked on tears and confusion and she felt suffocated with emotions. The room started to spin. Jade believed that Callie knew something about her mom’s disappearance. “Why won’t you tell me?”
“I’m sorry, Jade, I’m so sorry. I had to think about my own family, my own life. There are people that wouldn’t hesitate to hurt my family, or kill you if they thought your mother had shared her knowledge with me.”
“Did she?” Jade asked.
“They would have taken me too. It has haunted me. Believe me, I regret it every day.”
Jade stood still, flecks of silver light dancing behind her eyes. She no longer paid attention to what Callie was saying; she had cheated herself, allowing anger to control her. Behind her eyes, Jade’s inner night sky was filled with diamonds splashing across her consciousness. She had an overwhelming sensation to just drop into infinity, endless space. Her legs and body felt heavy. Spots swam before her eyes. She knew logically what was happening, and it was controllable in her mind, but still her body was reacting, which made her even angrier. She fumbled for the edge of the bath and dropped her head into her hands.
“Jade, you okay. Just breathe. Where’s your puffer?”
“I lost it.”
“Wait there.” Callie ran into her bedroom, and Jade could hear her opening and closing drawers before returning with a Ventolin puffer. Callie shook the puffer so it was ready if Jade needed a dose. “Relax, Jade, it’s a panic attack, it will pass — breathe in slowly, 1 … 2 … 3. Breathe out to the count of three.” Callie spoke while Jade struggled to regain her composure.
