I walk back up the street and turn. Her dad has his hand on her shoulder, pulling her up the drive toward their little door.
I’m walking like a cowboy because the heat rash burns with each step.
Eleven
I spend the rest of the walk lost in my thoughts, so I don’t see the guy on the bicycle until he’s nearly on top of me. He’s coming fast down the hill that leads up to my house and he’s looking at his screen as he rides. I’m right in his path as he comes around the corner, so I have to jump to the side.
He skids—his wheels slide sideways and the rear one goes over the curb backward—but he gets control before he spins into traffic. His screen doesn’t stop. It escapes his hand and falls into the gutter. He comes to a stop facing me, blond hair falling out from under his helmet, dismounts and picks up his screen.
“Damn, you okay?” I ask.
He looks at me, a little surprised, then smiles, checks himself out, turns to look down at his bike before scooting the whole thing back onto the sidewalk. “Yeah, man.” He looks down at his screen, then holds it up to show me. “These Live-Tech screens’ll survive anything.” Then he smiles. “Really sorry I almost hit you, dude. I had a delivery at the top of the hill and got carried away coming down. It’s my bad.”
I shrug. “T’salright.”
He taps his helmet and rights his bike. “You take good care of yourself, man. All sorts of things can happen.”
And then he leaves, biking down the street back the way I came from. I watch him go, feeling weird about the whole thing. When he turns the corner down Echo Park Avenue, I start up the hill, still anxious.
The lights are on at my house and the gate is open. My dad’s truck is sitting on the driveway next to my mom’s rosebushes. I take a deep breath and let it out before I walk to the front door. I search my pockets for my keys, but when I get to the door, I see that I don’t need them. The door is open. The TV’s blaring in the living room.
“Mom?” I call as I push the door. “I’m home.”
There’s no answer.
“Dad?”
Nothing.
I look in the living room. There’s no one watching TV. Something smells bad, like an unflushed toilet. I wrinkle my nose and sniff again. There’s something else, too. Something sour.
I go to call them again, but there’s a package on the table next to the door with my name on it.
My letter said that there’d be a package, that I should open it.
I pick it up. It’s about the size of a book and it doesn’t weigh much. It’s the Live-Tech. My mom ordered it before I fucked everything up and it’s here now.
I open the package as quietly as I can. I’ve watched the videos about them already, so I know how it works. All I need to do is put the pod in my ear and it does everything else—even contacts my carrier to make the switch.
In the package the screen is on top, folded tight and small so it’s the size of a Post-it. The pod is nestled in packaging under it. It’s a bright green–colored lump right now, the top side identified by the Live-Tech logo, and a pentagon with a triangle inside it along with a bunch of starlike dots are etched in black. When I activate it, the logo will disappear and it’ll change color to match my skin, making the pod nearly invisible. I lay the screen on the table and pick up the pod. It’s attached to a piece of thick paper that says: “KEEP THIS DEACTIVATION CODE WITH YOUR RECORDS,” followed by a long series of random words.
I put the paper back in the box and put the pod in my ear, tapping it three times in the middle. It vibrates, then the lump begins to shift and change shape. When it’s done, I have to reach up to touch it to make sure it’s still in my ear.
It vibrates again. This time it sends a tingling sensation down my neck and arm that makes me shiver slightly. It passes.
Call Mom, I think.
The screen lights and unfolds even though I didn’t do or say anything. Mom appears along with a picture.
It rings.
My mom’s phone rings at the other end of the hall. I walk to the kitchen to find her.
The bad smell gets worse as I enter the kitchen.
At first, I think they’re playing a game when I see them both on the floor. My mom is curled up like a baby and my dad is spread out on his stomach like you do when you get a big bed all to yourself. But they’re not playing—my dad’s shirt is stained red with blood so thick that it’s hard to tell where his clothes stop and the pool on the floor starts. My mom’s shirt has ridden up on her back to where I can see her bra strap.
My mom’s phone is ringing on the counter.
They’re not moving. They’re not breathing.
I think they’re dead.
Adrenaline sends shooting pains down both arms. My fingers burn and tingle.
“MOM!” I’m just bending down to touch her when something moves off to my right. I redirect myself away from whoever’s there, turning to size them up as I do.
What I see doesn’t make any sense.
It’s tall. Dark. Not black or brown, but dark—like a hole. Almost impossible to see. Its head is pointed, shaped like a pin, but I can’t tell what part of its head has the face on it—there are bumps and spaces and light spots, but they don’t make any sense.
It moves again, but not the way anything should ever move. It’s dead silent, a shadow without a body to block the light. The legs are long and there are more than two, but I can’t tell how many because it looks like it’s wearing a cape that covers it nearly to its feet.
Incursion. This is an Incursion. They are real. That’s a bug. An alien. The thoughts all happen as I’m backing away, half squatting.
I’ve been in enough fights to know what to do. I rise slowly, keeping my knees bent so I can jump if I need to. It’s circling back toward the hallway to the front door and I turn, too, keeping my eyes on it.
An arm comes out from under the cape, pushing it aside just a little bit. There are a lot of arms under there, but they aren’t paired up. They seem like a collection of options, like if people were utility knives.
The one that comes out ends like a knife blade, and unlike the rest of the bug, which seems to just suck light away, the knife blade is covered with something reflective, slick and wet. When it moves, flecks come off, spattering red on the white of the wall.
Blood.
My dad’s body is between us now. There’s a gash in his back, and his shirt is bunched up into it. There’s another in his thigh.
“Get the fuck away from me!” I shout at the bug, but it doesn’t care, it just keeps circling me. “Why don’t you just leave me the fuck alone!”
I’m near the knife drawer now. It’s closed and I don’t know if I can open it, grab a knife, and get ready before it comes at me, but I also don’t think I have any other play here. I shift my movement a bit so I’m backing straight up to the drawer.
The bug follows, keeping the space between us the same.
I bring my hand up slow. The bug stays still.
When my hand’s on the drawer, I slide it open. The bug’s knife hand begins to twitch, and another appendage comes out the other side. This one looks like a crab claw.
I reach into the drawer. My hand is just grasping the handle of a knife when the bug launches itself at me.
I scream, pull the knife from the drawer, and swing it wildly at the bug with my eyes closed.
My knife slashes the air in front of me, but there’s nothing there. I open my eyes.
The bug stopped bare inches from the edge of my reach. It’s not moving any closer and its head is moving slowly up and down. I can’t tell if it has eyes, but it feels like it’s looking at something.
I move my hand. The bug’s head moves, but then it stops tracking the knife. It seems to refocus on me.
On my head.
On my Live-Tech.
/> The bug makes a sound, like buttons being pushed, then another that sounds like sandpaper against metal. Together, the noises sound like frustration.
I stand up. It doesn’t move. I step forward. It steps back, its arms doing something I don’t understand, then the air to my side begins to wave and turn dark.
The bug leaps into the dark air and disappears.
I stand up, look around again. I’m breathing hard and my fingers feel like they’re on fire.
Something cracks in my mind. The drain I was trying to open before begins to leak as I look at my dad.
I hear my Skywriting Voice. She breaks through, loud:
“YOU BETTER RUN AWAY, BOY! RUN AWAY.”
I look back down at my parents. I hear what she says and part of me wants to run away. I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want to be anywhere. I want this to stop, to go away, to go back.
I’m on my knees now, between them. I reach out for my dad, but when my hands get close to him, I stop. I don’t even want to touch him because I’m afraid he’ll be cold and I can’t handle him being cold.
I force myself. My hand brushes his shoulder. His muscles give and he feels normal and I get a hope that he’s not dead, but when I roll him over, it goes away.
His face is gray.
I stand up and step back again. I think about trying to touch my mom, but I can’t. I don’t want to roll her over. I don’t want to see.
“RUN! THEY’RE GONNA SAY YOU DID IT, CRAZY-BOY KILLED HIS FAMILY.”
“It was a bug,” I tell her. My voice is just a whisper. “A bug killed them.”
“THEY WON’T BELIEVE YOU, CRAZY-BOY. TROUBLED-TEEN. NOT GONNA BUY IT SO YOU BETTER RUN!”
“I can’t leave them . . .” Then: “I gotta call the police.”
“JUST RUN!”
Something shifts in me when she says it this time. A sudden clarity that shatters into blind panic because I know she’s right. I stand there for a moment longer, not sure what to do or where to go.
“RUN!”
I stop thinking. I run. I see my dad’s key fob in the bowl by the door and grab it on the way out.
I’ve driven my dad’s truck before. We went out to the desert to shoot guns last summer. It was just me and him and we’d never done anything like that just the two of us. My dad hadn’t done anything fun like that since Pete died, and it felt like my family was being reborn. We spent two days riding around in the Mojave talking and hiking, shooting and driving.
The memory sticks to my mind and even though I’m running to the truck, what I’m seeing is my dad sitting next to me while I drove on some deserted road up beyond Joshua Tree. He’s smiling and trying hard to look relaxed, but I can tell he’s stressed about me driving his beloved truck.
It was the best part of the best day of the best trip I’ve ever taken.
The image crumbles when I unlock the truck. Now all I can see is what I’ve just seen inside. Mom. Dad. The bug. The blood.
My parents are dead.
The truck starts, a high-pitched electric whine the only sign it’s on, and I press the gate button on the visor. It opens very slowly. Part of me wants to back over it so I can get out faster, but that would make a lot of noise. The guitars are back a little, grinding quietly in my head, but my Voice has gone quiet. I know what to do even without her, though.
I have to get to the bus station.
Twelve
I grab my backpack and leave my dad’s truck on a warehouse street away from the bus station. I wipe down the steering wheel and the driver’s door. It looks easy on TV, but I don’t know if I did it right. I’m not a criminal.
Before I leave the truck, I find the key for the toolbox in the back and rescue my old pod and screen. It’s not useful for anything but music, but that’s what I need right now.
I wish I’d brought my guitar.
“Bye, Dad,” I whisper before I turn around. It doesn’t feel like enough to say, but I can’t think of anything else. All I can see is the look on his face this afternoon when I was running away from him. I always thought my dad was strong, but he looked so weak and sad.
And then he was dead before I could say I’m sorry.
My eyes blur and I have to cough against the lump in my throat.
I’m about to toss the fob onto the driver’s seat when the picture on the chain catches my eye. It’s a little photo encased in plastic from a photo booth at the Santa Monica Pier. We hadn’t gone for any particular reason. Maybe Dad just wanted us all having fun as a family one last time before Pete grew up. I was nine, so Pete must’ve just turned eighteen. There was a special photo booth there where they’d take the picture for free and then you could buy it, so we went in and took a bunch. The one Mom got for us was the one where Pete and Dad were holding me between them like a hammock and my mom was standing behind us. We were all laughing.
She got three: one for me, one for Pete, and one for Dad. I lost mine somewhere and Pete was buried with his.
I pull the picture off the key chain and drop the fob in the cupholder between the seats. I roll the window down, hoping somebody will steal the truck before the cops find it.
I walk away quickly, fingering the picture in my pocket, then catch my reflection in a window. My denim is streaked with blood. There are spots on my pants, too.
The pants I can’t do anything about, but I take off my jacket, examine the patches, the small rips, the soft spots on the sleeves, looking for some way I can tell myself it’s okay to keep it, but I know it’s not.
“Fuck.” I twist it up in my hands, curl it around my fist, and start walking again, feet moving to the rhythm of guitars. At the next bus stop, I drop my denim in the trash can.
“Plugzer’s losing everything, today,” my voice whispers. “Not done losing. Not yet.” She’s not playful now, not mean. She sounds so sad for me that it’s hard not to cry.
There’s a payphone on Alameda. I’ve never used one before, so I don’t know how they work, but when I pick up the handset and dial 911, it connects.
An operator answers and asks me to state my emergency.
“I heard noises like a fight . . . at a house . . . It was an Incursion.” My mind is racing. I can’t even think about how to say what I need to tell her.
“Sir, where is the house?”
“Uh . . .” I try and think of my address, but even that’s disappearing under the pressure. “On Laveta Terrace . . . It was a bug!”
“Can you describe what you heard?”
I can’t.
Instead of trying to describe it, I hang up and bang my head against the top of the booth to try and clear it. The pain cuts through the noise so I do it again hard. And again. And again.
There’s something wet on my cheeks. I’m sure it’s blood, but when I wipe it away, it’s clear.
Tears.
When I can breathe again, I use one sleeve to wipe my eyes, my nose, my chin. I use the other to wipe down the phone.
Tía Juana. I want to call her, too, but I can’t. Not now.
* * *
• • •
The clock on the wall of the bus station says 4:53 in the morning. Even at this hour the station is full. Kids are asleep on parents in the chairs, homeless guys mill around, and angry-looking dudes stare at each other and at me from their places against the walls.
Everybody looks tired.
The ticket is still in the envelope with the small stack of twenties. I pull it out to look at it more closely. It’s for a single passenger going to Seattle from Los Angeles. It’s a “standard fare” ticket, whatever that means, and it’s for today.
For a bus that leaves in less than an hour.
I try to come up with ways to explain how the bus ticket was prepurchased, mailed with a letter from me, for exactly one hour after I randomly ended up in the bus
station. My mind is fuzzy with sleep so instead of explanations, all I end up with is a panicky feeling that makes my chest hurt.
Tell my auntie I didn’t do it. I don’t know if my Live-Tech will send the message—I have no way of checking because the screen is still on the table by the door. Tell Juana I didn’t do it. I think it again. Then: I didn’t do it.
Nothing happens.
Images of my mom and dad cut through my thoughts like razor blades. Every time they flash I feel sick.
Every time I close my eyes, I see black holes that look like the bug.
The look on my dad’s face through the door at the student union. Him and Mom dead on the floor.
I make myself sit still in a chair until they call the bus. My seatmate opens her eyes when I sit down. She smiles, but doesn’t say anything. I smile back and she shuts her eyes again. I put in my pod and turn up Metallica as loud as it goes before I put my head back and close my own eyes. I’m asleep before the bus pulls from the station.
Thirteen
I dream about my parents. We’re together somewhere that isn’t our house. There’s a beach with a beach bar. Thatched huts like you see on TV shows about Florida or Mexico or the Caribbean. My mom is drinking a huge drink that she’s standing next to and it’s almost as big as she is.
I ask her where Dad is and she shrugs like she doesn’t know and doesn’t care.
I have his keys and he needs them or something really bad will happen so I go looking for him at school, and then at the grocery store, but I can’t find him. I go back to his truck and he’s sitting in the driver’s seat. In the dream, I know he’s dead and he seems to know he’s dead, too, because he whispers to me instead of talking and I somehow know that he’s whispering because dead people aren’t supposed to talk to live people and he doesn’t want to get caught.
“Watch yourself, Alex,” he tells me. “Bad things are coming. Strange things. Worse things than what happened to us. We were going to die, scared boy. Nothing to be done for it. Nothing could change it. Worse things for everybody, Alex, unless you stop it. Seen time is the only truth.”
Strange Days Page 5
