Collin and Cain’s breaths quickened.
Something finally clicked in Lara's head.
“Lara, please. I’m just trying to fix up my brother’s arm.” Collin said, he held both hands in the air, sending a bandage rolling across the floor.
Lara realized they were the two who sat on the bar stools at Wild Rye Dinner on her date with Johnathan. “I see that,” she looked at Cain. His young eyes blinked with the last trails of life, “Get him out of here, he’s gonna get an infection.”
Collin’s mouth hung open for a second, then he watched his brother’s mouth shiver. “Thank, you...” A pained smile lulled on his lips.
Lara knelt down and handed him the roll of bandages.
Collin grabbed it and nodded, “Has it happened yet?”
“Has what happened?”
“The big thing,” Collin scooped up Cain’s body into his arms. “Did she do it?”
“It’s really her?”
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ…” Collin mumbled into his shirt. “There’s no hope, she’s gonna sacrifice the whole place.”
Lara grinned. “I got this. Get him some help.” Collin nodded. He froze as he squeezed past her. A roar vibrated the building, shaking loose items and boxes onto the ground.
Lara spun her fingers together, building up a ball of sparks, then flicked through different versions of the basement. She landed in a variant where the entire floor was clean. She walked towards the side door, then shot back to her own timeline as she slipped upstairs.
The first floor was deserted. A fluorescent light to her right hummed as it struggled to stay on. The carpeted floorboards creaked as she crept. She needed a place to hide, just long enough for things to work out. Lara ambled towards the front desk and glanced out a window. The Elder One lumbered in the fog.
Thump-thump, thump-thump. It crawled on all fours, like an ape, towards town hall. Lara saw its cracked mask hover out of the smoke. Fog poured like water between its splits. Lara searched for a room to hide in, hoping for one in the center. She glanced out the front window.
The Elder One’s mask was in full view, half of it broke off, revealing a glowing white eye. Lucy’s eye. It careened as if were a puppet, “You’re trapped, you know?” it said inside Lara’s head. The being stomped behind her. Lara threw opened the door to a meeting room and jumped in. Lucy thrust her fist against the building’s brick wall. Lara heard the wall break in. Sparks shimmered up and down her hands, blooming blue light bleak black room. “You can’t hide.” It whispered.
The lights flicked with the random rhythm of Lara’s sparks. Lara watched the being’s fingers burst out the front wall and stretch down the corridor like a seizing five-headed snake, the glossy black skin reflected the flickering hall around it.
The wrist-stretched on and on, tossing tables, knocking corkboards, and flinging paintings. Lara ducked as the hand fumbled past. Its limb thumped against the floor and walls; It was like the hand of a child, clawing through a dollhouse.
Bolts built up on Lara's palms, she couldn’t wait forever. The hand fumbled back; its thumb knocked against the wall in frantic shivers. Lara bounded out of the room and spun towards the stairwell. The being’s hand had smacked off the exit sign above the door, leaving a spray of sparks on the ceiling. As Lara darted upstairs, she heard the being fingers tap up the building’s side in front of her.
A finger popped through the wall at the top of the stairwell and torn back the bricks, showering Lara with the drywall as she tripped up the second flight.
“Can’t you listen?” the Elder One whispered once more, “No runnin’, no hidin’.” Its massive slick black hand broke through a wall on her left, sending bricks flying ten feet down the hall. The fist slithered forward, its shivering fingers effortlessly crushed two filing cabinets, and exploded papers across a lounge. The fluorescent tubes strobed making the papers dance in their light.
Lara tumbled back as she tried to escape the stretching arm. The fingers shuffled towards her. Without thinking, Lara aimed her hand towards the broken wall, replacing it with a fixed version. The Elder One roared as the new wall severed its arm. The hand fell, its slick black skin reflecting flashbulbs of flickering light. A fingertip the size of her basketball thumped on her chest. Lara kicked away the flailing limb and fumbled around the corner.
“They are all dead, ya know!” the Elder One screamed. “No use runnin’!”
Lara thought about what Lucy said, ‘this town is going nowhere’ and grinned. I’m gonna make it go somewhere. The sparks were lightning bolts up her arms. She watched them bounce across her body and along the ground. They were scarring even more. She sprung into a central meeting room and slammed the door. What would happen if I push this to its limit? Lara studied the chairs seated around a wooden table, the maps pinned to the wall, and the assorted mugs and papers across the counter. She knew exactly what to do, one thing at a time.
“Lara, what are ya doin’?!” The Elder One shouted, beginning to sound more and more like Lucy.
— — —
Michael and Harvey sat in the pale blue light of the Hathway waiting room. They kept the hospital open for anyone seriously hurt, which was just about the entire population. The meager parking lot was flooded a foot high with water, and full of cars. Three vehicles had slid too fast downhill and rolled off into the ditch—emergency lights still blinking in the dark.
Harvey expected everyone to be crying over their lost homes. And while a few people were, the group was near silent. He studied their rugged faces, watched a tear fall off the edge of a fifty-year-old woman’s face, like a stone silently rolling off a cliff; he noticed the muddied cap of a man too shaken to move, leaving his lip to twitch; he felt sympathy for a little girl seated alone, her bowl-cut hair clamped together with dirt and twigs, a gash curved below her left eye; he gazed at a young woman sitting at the other corner of the room and her bleak expression as she watched a child draw on the floor. For the first time in his life, he felt connected to them. Connected to humanity. Harvey clamped his hands together and soaked in every sight under the pale blue glow of the hospital lights.
Michael struggled to sleep as he twisted and turned in the plastic chair. The room felt too cold, and he couldn’t drain out the muffled sobbing, no matter how hard he tried. He wiped his nose on his shirt and curled towards Harvey. The crinkles of rain against the window silenced them. Michael’s eyes snapped open as he heard a roar far off outside. He thought he only imagined it, but Harvey’s face said the opposite.
Harvey tiptoed to the window, then pressed both hands on the glass, “Holy shit…” A couple others joined in, trying to comprehend what was on the horizon.
“What?”
“Just come…” Harvey saw Michael slumping further on the chair. “Get up.”
Michael dragged his feet towards the window. He shook awake as he saw a bundle of bright blue light in the distance. A thin body of sparks—Lara’s light. “No, that’s, that’s…” Michael’s words were stolen as he watched the light bloom, shooting mile wide ripples of electricity. The buildings around her vanished into a black star sprayed void. Structures flicked away one by one, widening the opening. The lights inside the buildings brightened, then flick with each ripple ring of electricity. The hole expanded at a steady pace, the lights in each building awoke and then flicked off as neon blue waves replaced them with unmeasurable stars.
They both wanted to say something as if conversation would divert the inexplainable sight. However, they both knew nothing could be said.
A sorrow-soaked smile faded onto Michael. That’s Lara, he thought. A light in the universe. He rose a sore hand to wipe off a tear. A paradox of sadness swept him, she did it…
— — —
Wind flicked the ends of her hair as the static blossomed across the floor. Her teeth chattered at the pain.
Lara heard the Elder One tear through the building, “YOU CAN’T!” A potted plant flicked out of existence, then a mug, an oak ca
binet, each chair surrounding a round table went out one by one, then the round wooden table itself. Soon the walls disappeared.
Lara began to float. Sparks flocked in vivid circles around her body. She watched pieces of the office flick out one by one. The hand’s Lucy controlled, dug through the building, tossing office supplies in her wake. “I made this for you.” Lara watched the broken mask shake with its sobs, “You can’t do this, please!” the entire town hall disappeared, leaving Lara floating above the torn land. She looked at the cracked streets, the glowing fog flooding between buildings, and snapped it away.
The Elder One sobbed. Smoke tapered off its lips. Its glowing white eyes, Lucy’s eyes, were squinting. It beat a fist into the cracked pavement, sending a four-foot slab of road flipping through the air, “Why!”
Lara forced her head to look at her arm. Her hand splinted into glowing, teal chunks. She wouldn't fully fade away, the structure of her body remained. A bolt of lightning shot out her open wrist. Her arm cracked apart at the vivid azure lit scars.
The Elder One reared its head back, then heaved it towards Lara, like a lumberjack hurling an axe over their head. A wave of electricity pushed the mask back, bursting it into more pieces. The mask was nearly off, all except for a few white shards that stuck to the sides of its face, “WHY, GOD DAMN IT!” it grabbed a chunk of road and slammed it on Lara.
The pavement disappeared. The ground below vanished, reliving a mystical void of stars. Neon blue rings rippled across the town as buildings flashed into a different timeline. The white string of light faded. The Elder One’s face stretches into an ugly, desperate cry. The smoke cleared, revealing its entire body.
It stood from its hunched position and lifted its arms in an eagle spread. The severed right arm shook as it regrew itself. The Elder One swung both hands on Lara’s sides. A ball of electric energy swarmed Lara as the Elder One tried to wrap its tendril-like fingers across her. The sparks clung to the Elder One’s hands and flung its arms back.
The more Lara’s body split, the further the radius spread. Each building had a burst of life, then vanished. Lara felt her cheeks warm up as they split apart. The void of stars stretched as far as she could see. A confetti of self orbited her like stars to a brilliant blue galaxy. She glanced towards the horizon and watched the forest succumb to the void.
“Lara, you can’t! Stop…” Lucy pleaded from her shambling body. She blended into the celestial void like paint bleeding into water. Eroding her into the great beyond.
Lara’s mind faded as if sleep stole it. Her thoughts were a haze. Every bit of her body was now to dust, swirling in the void with Lucy’s form. What remained was a blue brilliance where consciousness once was. For a moment, there only was silence, a shivering in a casket of rain, a place that belonged nowhere.
A space owned by slumber.
An afterglow of death, love, life,
and the thin walls that split their meanings.
Holding the trailing echos of belief.
Chapter 16
Side D Track 16
To Wake From Thunder
A title wave of energy raced towards Michael and Harvey. The buildings disappeared closer and closer. Michael watched a neighborhood glint with an electric spur of life only to die an instant later. The air felt thick as it raced. A child screamed. A couple gasped. They all stepped back. Every light in the hospital spasmed as if they were about to burst.
For a fraction of a second, the hospital windows were filled with that celestial expanse.
Michael felt the air push and tug around his body as if he had sunk twelve feet into a pool only to shoot back up. The town and land around it snapped into view.
Harvey’s glanced at his hands, “Did, did we just die?” He moved his fingers as if he discovered them for the first time in his life.
Michael trailed his hand along the front door’s barred glass window, “If we ain’t, then where are we?” his fingers slid down the glass and onto the metal bar. He opened the door, stepping out of the hospital white and into the colorless night.
“Michael?” Harvey turned to find him gone. Three others trailed behind.
“Ya gonna get killed out there!” An old man shouted behind the protective glass.
Harvey wondered towards the door then pushed it open, sending it smacking into the wall outside, “the hell are you doing!?” He tried to step forward but shuffled back at the sight of the rain.
Michael laid on the wet pavement a hand reaching for the sky, “She did it.” He said as he felt the cold air, cool droplets slid down his arm. He couldn’t tell where the rain began, and his tears ended.
Harvey stepped forward and slid off his hood. Rain tapped down his combed-back hair. The crowd basked in the rain till sunrise.
Michael went to bed in the living room the next day. His parents set out a pallet below him and slept together there. At dinner, Michael told them everything he could, all except for Jude and the underworld; he didn’t want to sound too insane. The fireplace crackled close by. His parents and sister watched TV with him till they fell asleep on the couch. That night, by the warmth of the fire, he dreamed of Cassiel. His body became clearer.
“You’re gonna leave, aren’t ya?” Michael focused on Cassiel. He was beginning to see the form of his face, rigid and strong. His hair was dove-white and draped back.
“I have a world to attend to,” Cassiel glanced at Michael then turned away. “I did not want to leave you so sudden. Just know I’m proud of you…”
Michael reached out to hug him but only felt a hollow space carved from his chest.
He woke with a gasp. Michael patted his shirt and kept a hand on where Cassiel once was. He sat up on the couch, with a hand pressed on his chest, for a long while.
The wooden wall clock ticked, the fire crinkled and popped. He tried to go back to sleep, but it was hard to breathe, his lungs could feel the unbalance. His parents were still asleep on the floor. He glanced towards the mantel and studied the photos on top of it. Family, his family. The pain within himself subsided as he let that thought ring through his head.
A door clicked open.
Michael crept into the kitchen, lead only by the pale-yellow sink light. The bulb blanketed the marble countertop in a glossy white-yellow light. A closet door opened in the hall behind the kitchen. A beam of gold light flickered from its open slit. The ray shot out of the door, over the dining room table, and cut through a picture on the left wall.
Michael tiptoed towards it. He listened but heard nothing. There were only the footfalls against the linoleum tile and the tick of the clock behind him. Michael gripped the nob and closed the door. The light flicked off. He let out a sigh and stumbled back into the kitchen. The tip taps of his feet sounded louder; the ticks of the clock became more defined. Click. The closet door opened once more. The door creaked further, filling the dining room with golden light.
Michael stumbled back and marveled at the hall that appeared where the closet once was. Antique candles hung on ivy print wallpaper. A black door stood at the far end of the newfound corridor. Michael turned back at the living room then stepped into the hall. He walked on the hallway’s thin scarlet carpet. The candles and wallpaper looped around him as he walked further and further down, yet the door seemed to remain the same distance away.
You’ve been through this before. Perspective. Get a good perspective. The door is close, no it’s right in front of me; if I just reach out, I can touch the knob. Michael gripped the knob, then opened his eyes. The door was right in front of him. He saw a set of filing cabinets in the open crack of the door.
“Yes, he remembered!” Jude stood in the center of an antique office room. Michael felt the buttons on Jude’s vest poke his face as he hugged him.
“What, what are ya doin’ here?” Michael squinted his tired eyes towards Jude’s blur of a face.
Lilith leaned on the back wall. Her red hair shone in the light, “I allowed him to see you one last time.” She turned to Jud
e and lowered her eyebrows, “Once.”
“I know, I know, lemme have em for a bit,” Jude laid a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “So I-”
“Where the heck are we?”
“It’s a liminal space, like how your town used to be. I know it’s confusing. The point is that I’d like to offer you a chance to, well, stay over here!”
“Like forever?”
“I know that sounds bad, but people would give anything to live like that.”
“Hey,” Michael pointed towards Lilith. She looked left and right as if Michael was noticing something else. “Uh, Lilly, weren’t ya tryin’ to kill me by shootin’ me back up?”
Lilith shrugged and folded her arms, “What’s done in the war times, stays in the war times. That’s beside the point, Jude is offering something that has been offered to about 12 beings out the infinite am out of creature, are you going to take it or not?”
Michael looked at the closed door, then back at Jude, “I can’t,” He sighed. “I’m sorry to disappoint ya, but I’m fine with where I am… I got a family. Things I’ll never get back. I’ll can turn up somewhere, but now… now’s all I got.”
Jude rubbed his hands, “It’s alright… a lot to drop on ya, wasn’t it? Right, may the best of luck out there.”
Michael paused to take in Jude and Lilith’s face.
“You can leave wheneva’ ya want,” Jude said, “Time isn’t a thing to us.” Michael turned towards the door. Without looking back, he walked to the dining room. The door made a soft click as it shut behind him. He reclined back to the couch. He slept long, well, and without a dream.
Side B Track 16
Box of Rain
A small slate stone leaned on the moldy house in the woods. Fresh-dug dirt sprawled below the rock. On the soil was a dog bowl with the word Abe scratched into brass plating. Harvey toss his shovel and draped his cigarette scented, chambray work shirt around the makeshift grave. He lifted a handful of dog food from a sack and watched it seep between his fingers like sand. He sprinkled a few nearby the grave, then sat the bag beside it. Wind hushed through the trees, causing an ensemble of raindrops to tap upon leaves.
Out There: A Rural Horror Story Page 32
