Never Never Stories

by Jason Sanford

  I still wonder about the hell she was stolen away to.

  I pray it's a nice place.

  * * *

  I cried until I fell asleep and woke in the late afternoon. To my surprise, Sammy wasn't in her room or the backyard. Instead, I found her in the basement studio, painting on my wife's smart canvas. I almost yelled to get away from the canvas, but caught myself. Carie didn't need the computerized art system anymore, and if Sammy was still interested in painting, I should encourage her.

  I walked over to see what she was painting, but Sammy raised her hand to stop. All through Sammy's youth, Carie had spent hours each week painting with our daughter. Sammy had always kept her paintings a secret until they were finished, at which point she'd reveal her work with a dramatic flourish of her hands. I smiled at the memory, and assumed she was about to do this again.

  Instead, I heard a computerized click, followed by the stylized swish of the canvas' trash being deleted. Sammy yanked the memory sliver from the canvas' control board and threw it to the floor, crushing its crystal shape beneath her right boot.

  I screamed and shoved her away from the canvas. Part of me heard Sammy hit the basement wall, but I didn't care. I touched the smart canvas with my finger, pulling up the memory. Where before there had been hundreds of paintings created by Carie and my daughter, now there were none.

  “What did you do?” I asked, my body shaking. That's when I noticed Sammy's nose bleeding from hitting the wall. Ever my daughter, she stood up as if she didn't hurt and smirked at my anger.

  “It'll be over soon,” she said nonchalantly, wiping her bloody nose with the back of her hand. Her blood sparkled starry highlights in the canvas' blue light.

  “What'll be over? Your painting?”

  “The rippers. They'll only be here a few more weeks.”

  I chuckled nervously as I remembered my daughter's talks with the ripper outside her window.

  Sammy walked up the stairs, leaving me with the blank canvas. I tapped the controls and accessed the recovery program Carie had installed after a crash deleted one of her paintings. The canvas began rebuilding what was left of its remaining memory as I climbed the stairs to tell Sammy dinner would be ready in a half hour.

  * * *

  Our department ran on modified Kelly schedule, meaning I worked forty-eight hours straight with four days off. Even though I always slept soundly in a noisy firehouse, at home I couldn't rest. Every few hours I'd obsessively pace the house, making sure the windows and doors were closed tight.

  Some time well after midnight I passed Sammy's door and heard her whispering. I didn't wish to disturb her privacy. But I also needed to apologize for what had happened in the basement.

  I knocked on the door, which creaked open. “Sammy, I wanted to ...” I stopped, fear slamming the words from my mind. The spotlights I'd rigged outside Sammy's room were off and her window stood wide open with a ripper filling half her room. Its flat body hovered like a shadow swollen on pain.

  I grabbed Sammy, hoping to throw her into the hallway before the ripper took her. But instead of taking my daughter, the ripper inhaled deeply – for lack of a better word – and sucked its shadow back out the window. For a fleeting moment I saw the ripper's portal. Saw its light-gone world, where shadow nightmares flickered and howled – creatures which my body felt more than saw. Then the ripper was gone.

  I slammed the window and latched it shut. Sammy turned the bedroom lights on as the worst shakes since Carie's abduction hit me.

  Fury ran Sammy's face. “You dumb asshole,” she screamed, kicking me hard. “That was Mom.”

  “Carie?” I stammered. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Sammy looked at me like I was slow, and maybe I was. “That ripper is Mom,” she said. “Or what's left of Mom, after the rippers changed her.”

  “Sammy, it's trying to trick you. It wants to snatch you away.”

  Sammy kicked her bedroom wall, leaving a dent in the plaster. She took a deep breath to calm herself. “Do you know why rippers take people?”

  I waited for Sammy to say what she knew. After all, why rippers kidnapped people was the only question worth asking in today's world.

  “Well?” I finally asked.

  “Well, what?”

  “Why do they take people?”

  Sammy giggled. “You'll just have to find out.”

  That made no sense, like so many of my conversations with Sammy since her mother disappeared. In my mind I laughed, I cried, I screamed. I wanted to embrace her in a massive hug until some sense entered her mind – to tell her it wasn't her fault or mine that her mother was gone. But I also knew that to Sammy, everything she said made perfect sense, which only frustrated me even more.

  I looked out the window. The ripper had disappeared back into the dark. I also noticed both outside spotlights lying on the ground. Sammy must have knocked them down after opening her window.

  I told Sammy to leave the bedroom light on until morning so the ripper wouldn't return. Sammy bit her lower lip. “I suppose you're mad,” she said.

  “You suppose?”

  Sammy sighed. “Mom wouldn't hurt me. She simply misses me.”

  I hugged her gently and told her to go to bed. As I walked down the hall to my bedroom, I heard Sammy say in her soft, low voice, “I can't be here forever, you know.”

  I didn't know if she was still talking to me, or if she was again muttering at the ripper. But I didn't stop to find out.

  * * *

  By the start of my next shift, Arlene had gotten a few good nights sleep and was in a better mood. “It's not the lack of sleeping that burns me,” Arlene said. “It's the stress of knowing those things are out there – and that Sammy doesn't realize how dangerous they are.”

  I thanked her for all she'd done for me and Sammy, and showed her the key locks I'd installed on all the windows so Sammy couldn't open them. Arlene seemed satisfied by that, and said she'd see me when my shift was over.

  At the fire station, Miker, Karl, and Helen sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee. I told them about the ripper and how Sammy had opened a window for it. The only thing I left out was Sammy believing the ripper was Carie.

  “Sammy's lucky,” Helen said. “Most rippers, they get a shot at someone, they take it.”

  “I know. But I keep thinking about what Sammy said, that this ripper wouldn't hurt her. You ever hear of a ripper taking a special interest in someone? I mean, Sammy's been talking to the damn thing for weeks.”

  Helen lowered her voice. “One of my friends is high up in the FBI. She told me there have been quite a few cases of rippers talking with people. The problem is these people eventually jump into the ripper. So while most rippers are content to simply steal people, a few want to talk you into doing the deed.”

  Miker and Karl nodded knowingly, as if the two idiots hadn't been as clueless as me. From the limited interactions scientists had with rippers, we knew they were intelligent. But actually conversing with them was difficult. Most rippers wouldn't speak, and those few who did rarely made sense, sometimes claiming to be friends and family, sometimes spinning lies as easily as truth. Sort of like when Sammy and I talked about anything deeper than what I was cooking for supper. Half the time we didn't understand what the other was truly saying.

  Karl, being a typical probie and needing to be the center of attention, mentioned a neighbor who'd been taken a few days back. “People heard his screams up and down the block. What makes a person scream like that?”

  We all shrugged. Whatever the rippers did to people, it hurt like hell.

  “I think rippers have been here before,” Helen said. “That's why our religions have so many depictions of devils and hells.”

  “Nonsense,” Miker said. “Hell's a place of fire, not darkness.”

  This was too much for me to ponder. “Maybe I should put more spotlights in my backyard.”

  “False security,” Helen said. “There's always going to be shadow
s those things can hide in.”

  “But why are they doing this?” Karl asked.

  Helen muttered how better people than us had failed to understand the rippers' motives. Before she could say more, the fire bell rang, pushing our minds onto nothing but work.

  * * *

  During the day, the runs felt like old times. Car accidents. Heart attacks. False alarms at the few schools still open. But as the sun sank and the civilians rushed home, the fire station lost its timelessness and became a great smoldering stack of now. We closed the front doors. Flipped on the spotlights. The station beamed like the heart of the sun, illuminating several city blocks in our false security of hope.

  I think if people could, we'd light the whole world so there'd no longer be night. But lights can't remove every shadow.

  There were no calls during the next few hours. Feeling daring, I opened the station's side door and stepped outside. As my eyes adjusted to the spotlights, I noticed a tiny sliver of shadow between two parked cars on the street. Holding my hand before my eyes like a shield, I walked toward the cars. Sure enough, the shadow there squirmed and quaked as a ripper tried in vain to reach me. The ripper smelled of musk and sandalwood, like the incense my wife used to burn while painting.

  “Carie?” I asked.

  The ripper floated around its box of shadow as the word Yes caressed my mind, a word mixed with the sensation of Carie hugging me tight. I wanted so badly to reach in and touch the ripper, to find out if it was really her. But I knew the ripper was merely trying to trick me.

  “Why don't you like the light?” I asked, leaning over for a closer look. “Why don't you enter our homes?”

  The ripper merely stared – if a faceless shadow can stare – before opening the portal to its world. As always the ripper world was pure darkness, but while my eyes couldn't see anything, my mind saw all too clearly. I watched helplessly as a woman fell through the ripped dark – red hair blowing, her screams building louder and louder as a thousand cutting shadows sliced in and out of her skin, twisting and tearing her to pieces. As a vomit taste slicked my mouth, I realized this was Carie. This was what had happened to the woman I loved when the rippers stole her away.

  But Carie wasn't dead. As the ripper caressed my mind, I felt my wife's lips on my own. Why don't you and Sammy join me? she asked softly, her thoughts merging with mine. I miss you something bad.

  I stumbled back, falling to the sidewalk as the ripper squirmed to escape its shadow prison. My legs wouldn't work – except to run toward Carie, to join her in darkness. Ignoring my wife's haunting needs, I crawled away, each inch and foot toward safety a battle as Carie begged me to join her – the imagined smell and feel of her body beside mine smothering my every rational thought. Finally, I reached the firehouse door and crawled inside, slamming it shut as I shook and cursed.

  * * *

  Unfortunately, Helen happened upon me a few moments later and instantly knew I'd had a close call with a ripper. After letting me move past my shakes, she blessed me out, yelling that I'd better not be on a suicide trip. “You will not put this squad in danger,” she warned.

  “I won't,” I said. “I was just curious about the damn things.”

  “And did you learn anything?” she asked sarcastically. I remembered her comment about better people than us not knowing what the rippers wanted. When I didn't answer – not daring to mention that my wife might now be a ripper – Helen walked away shaking her head, obviously irritated.

  Once I was alone, I called Arlene to check on Sammy. Arlene said Sammy had already gone to bed, even though it was barely ten o'clock. I thanked my mother-in-law and told her I'd swing by the house in the morning. While I didn't mention it to Arlene, I wanted to talk with Sammy about this ripper. About whether or not it might truly be Carie.

  The entire squad felt squirrelly that night, so around midnight we boarded our engine and drove the traffic-emptied streets, the only vehicles we passed an occasional police car or ambulance. We responded to a heart attack call shortly after 2 a.m. but otherwise the night was quiet.

  We were driving back to the station when Sammy called my cell phone. It was strange for Sammy to call in the middle of the night; more so when she didn't speak. I listened to the silent phone and heard crickets chirping and the wind blowing. Then my mother-in-law screamed, “Get away from her!”

  They were outside. I knew from the shiver which ran my nerves that Sammy had gone outside to talk to that damn ripper.

  Helen asked what was wrong. I couldn't talk. I couldn't say what I knew. “My house,” I gagged. Helen motioned for Miker to crank the lights and sirens as we raced to my neighborhood.

  “Don't be mad, Dad,” Sammy whispered over the receiver. Her phone hit the ground. I heard my little girl scream in horrible pain, a sound which echoed far longer than any parent should be forced to hear.

  “It's okay,” I whispered, even though Sammy was no longer listening. “I'm on my way.”

  We arrived to find my mother-in-law crying on the front lawn, oblivious to the dangers around her. We lit the scene and I asked where Sammy was. Arlene pointed to the grass beside my boots.

  There lay Sammy's cell, the line still open and connected to my phone.

  * * *

  How do you grieve for those who might be dead, or might be alive? Who might return, or might never be seen again?

  Helen told me to take all the family leave I needed, but there was nothing for me at home but tears for a daughter and a wife who might still be alive on the ripper's dark-hell world.

  Arlene told me she'd checked on Sammy in the middle of the night and found her asleep. She'd then gone to the bathroom, at which point Sammy ran outside to talk to the ripper. Arlene chased her, but the ripper only wanted Sammy.

  I told Arlene it wasn't her fault, but she didn't believe me. After she'd gone home, I wandered my empty house, feeling Sammy's lingering presence. Her bed covers turned down. The slight indention from her head on the pillow.

  In the basement art studio, the smart canvas glowed its usual blue light. A message said the retrieval system had recovered the last painting viewed, probably whatever Sammy had been looking at before she'd deleted and destroyed everything else.

  My finger hovered over the ‘view' button, but I couldn't handle the past right now. I told the canvas to save the painting and walked back upstairs.

  At the start of the next shift I returned to the fire station, grateful to be around my only remaining family.

  * * *

  The next two weeks passed with numbing speed. Helen kept a close watch on me, afraid I'd go suicidal, and to my shock I considered it. On night-time runs, I obsessively watched the rippers flickering just beyond our spotlights. I found myself edging toward the damn things, wondering if I had the guts to follow my family. Wondering if Carie and Sammy were among the rippers prowling around us.

  To keep me safe, Helen stuck me with routine tasks like manning the apparatus controls. She and the squad also refused to leave me alone for even a few minutes.

  Then came the shelter fire.

  The fire broke out in an abandoned megastore converted to a shelter for people with nowhere to escape the rippers. Because it was night, the people inside were afraid to leave the building, even with the fire beating down on them. They stampeded to rooms not filled with smoke and flames and waited for us to save them.

  We were the second engine to arrive. After setting up our spotlights, Helen ordered Miker and Karl to enter an emergency door and do a quick check. Less than a minute later, they dragged two young men out.

  “We heard more people yelling,” Karl said as the EMTs began working on the victims.

  Helen glanced at me, trying to decide if I was together enough to risk going into the building. “Okay, we four go in, find as many people as we can, get them out.”

  Karl and Miker nodded and walked back in. Helen checked my air supply and facemask and muttered, “Don't screw us up.” I breathed a cool swallow of bott
led air and followed her in.

  The billowing smoke was so thick I couldn't see. I heard myself breathing, always breathing, and heard the roar of the fire, a raspy Sammy, Sammy which boomed louder and louder the deeper we walked. Just when I thought we wouldn't find anyone, a faint cry echoed across me. I grabbed Helen and pulled her toward the sound. We entered a new room to find five people huddled beside an emergency exit. They crouched against the tile floor, breathing what little good air was left.

  Helen reached for the emergency door release, but one of the women stopped her. “Rippers,” the woman yelled. “Just outside. They already got one of us.”

  Helen waved me closer as she radioed in our position and situation. The smoke was building, the heat rising. This spot wouldn't be safe much longer. “We can't take them back through all that smoke,” Helen yelled.

  I pushed against the door release to test it, opening it slightly and closing it again. “We wait,” I yelled. “Let them bring spotlights to this side of the building.”

  But waiting is hard with hell screaming over your shoulder. We passed our facemasks around, letting the men and women take turns breathing clean air. But the smoke built up more and more, and the fire burned nearer and nearer. The spotlights still hadn't reached our door when an explosion knocked us flat. A flash of flame washed over us and smoke filled the entire room.

  “We go now!” Helen yelled as she grabbed a woman beside her. One of the men screamed that he'd take his chances here, but I pulled him to his feet and aimed my spotlight at the door. Helen kicked the door open and we pushed the five people out as we shone our lights around, looking for rippers.

  “Stay close,” I yelled as we coughed in the chilled outside air. Each tree and bush and blade of grass cast a flickering sliver of dark. An engine's spotlights sliced the smoke from around the corner of the building, barely a hundred feet away.