The Emerald Tablet: Omnibus Edition

by JM HART

  Shaun smiled back, then turned and ran towards his father. “Dad! Dad!” he yelled. “I’m over here!” He wrapped his arms around his dad’s waist and hugged him tightly. “Where are the others?” he asked him. “What happened? You were gone for so long!”

  His father pushed him aside. “Stop talking.”

  He looked at his father’s face that was screwed up with anger and hatred; a stranger’s face. “But where are the rest?” he asked again.

  His dad dropped the backpack at Shaun’s feet and ran over to the truck. “There was an accident,” he yelled back to Shaun as he lowered the tailgate and climbed on.

  Shaun was glued to the spot. He watched his dad jump off the back of the truck carrying a wooden box and rush back to the cave, where he emptied the contents on the desert floor.

  “They’re not coming. Now, move! Pick up the backpack and get in the Jeep!”

  Recognizing the symbols marked on the box, Shaun felt he was going to wet his pants and vomit. He had such a strange feeling in his tummy he didn’t know what to do. “That’s dynamite!”

  His dad just kept ignoring him and jamming the sticks into the cracks in the wall.

  Shaun ran up to him and pulled at his belt to make him come away from the cave.

  His dad slapped him hard, flinging him like a rag doll.

  His face stung.

  “Stop blubbering!” his father demanded as he wedged more explosives into every crack he could find. Then he set a timer.

  Shaun jumped to his feet, bolted past his dad and yelled into the cave, “Rachel, get out! You have to get out!”

  His dad knocked him to the ground then picked him up until they were eye to eye.

  Shaun’s face stung, and through his shirt he could feel his dad’s fingernails. His dad’s breath smelt stale and hot.

  “Who the hell are you talking to?” he bellowed. “They’re all gone! They’re all dead!”

  Shaun couldn’t catch his breath. He started crying and couldn’t stop. Suddenly he could see around his dad’s head a cluster of parasites clashing with an invisible force field. Shaun became transfixed. It’s the tiny beasts. He started to feel itchy all over. He wished his dad would put him back down on the ground. He could see the parasites were getting smaller as they move closer and closer to his father’s head. One of them pierced the invisible force field, and the cluster streamed into his dad’s left ear.

  His dad, irritated, stretched his mouth so wide Shaun thought it would become unhinged. His dad became more anxious and angry, as if the parasites were urging him on.

  Shaun leant back, away from his father’s face. “What? The others can’t be dead!” Shaun tried to pull away.

  “What are you doing?” his dad yelled. He pulled him close, flipped him under his arm and used his other arm to pick up the backpack.

  Shaun kicked and screamed, struggling to get down. His dad carried him to the Jeep and threw him into the back of the vehicle. Shaun heard the old Jeep grind into gear, and hung on to the seat as he looked back for Rachel. He saw the cave getting smaller and became afraid he’d lose sight of it. Then he saw Rachel emerge. As the vehicle bounced over the unsealed road, he willed Rachel to move: Run, Rachel! Run!

  Frozen, she just stood there.

  He continued watching and waiting for her to flee. He thought he saw her move away from the cave, towards him, and let his shoulders relax a bit. She’ll make it! His dad was driving fast, and Rachel was getting further and further away. The sky was lit up by lightning, and in the distance, he thought he saw her raise her hand and wave. He raised his too, but the simple wave, the simple gesture, was lost: the cave exploded, and Rachel was no longer visible. The explosion was brighter than any of nature’s fiery storms, brighter than any lightning bolt.

  Shocked, Shaun allowed his hand to slowly drop. He didn’t know what else to do, except cry.

  “Turn around!” he heard his dad command him. “Wipe that stupid look off your face and open the luggage bag — quickly! Get the backpack! Reach in and you’ll feel something wrapped up in cloth. I want you to take it out. It’s heavy — be careful. But don’t unwrap it! That’s it!”

  Shaun took some short, sharp breaths and felt his body jerking. He lifted an artifact out and tried to speak: “What … what … is … is it?”

  “Never you mind!” his dad replied. “Bury it among the clothes in the suitcase, and lock it!”

  He felt the Jeep toss and turn, and twice he nearly dropped his dad’s precious cargo. He did as he was told. The object was curved like a Roman chest plate covered with ancient writings and drawings. It was heavy and difficult to hold. Shaun struggled as he buried it deep in the suitcase and zipped it up. He used the back of his dirty hand to wipe the tears and snot from his face.

  The Jeep screeched to a halt just outside the airport. His dad lifted the suitcase out, roughly turned Shaun around on the back seat, put the backpack over his shoulders. “Come on! Out of the car! Keep up! You’re so weak it’s pathetic! I’ve never noticed how soft you are — you’re just like your mother!”

  Shaun jumped out and, closing the door, spotted a leather pouch on the car floor. He picked it up and opened it slightly and saw oddly-shaped, multi-colored stones.

  He pulled the straps tight and shoved the pouch deep into his pocket and followed his father. Shaun hid his feelings behind the shadows of the night and as he ran to catch up, he felt the rain upon his face merge with the tears spilling down his cheeks. Everything seemed different. He was afraid.

  Once inside the airport, his dad flashed Egyptian passports. They passed through Customs unquestioned and were allowed to board the plane immediately. Shaun sat next to the window and, looking around, saw the small plane was only half full. It shook and vibrated as it screamed down the runway. The storm had become violent, lightning hammered the tarmac. The ground shook with each strike, each blast reminding Shaun of the exploding cave. Some of the passengers screamed. He could see out the side window that the ground had cracked open. Like a sinkhole, he thought. The plane accelerated towards the hole and the lightning illuminated the crumbling ground. We’re not going to make it, we’re not going to make it! The heavy machine’s wheels were inches from the abyss below them as the plane launched into the storm. The aircraft ascended into the terrifying turbulence created by the merciless clouds of micro- beasts released less than an hour ago from the cave. They’re following us. It sounded as if the plane was being pelted with bullets.

  As Shaun gripped the seat, his knuckles turned white. Oxygen masks sprang from their sockets. The plane continued its sharp rise to the heavens. They shot through the clouds and leveled out above the storm. They removed their oxygen masks and left them dangling. Shaun leant into his dad, “I’m scared.”

  “Everything’ll be okay now, we have the tablet,” his dad assured him. “Get some sleep; you want to be fresh to see your mother when we land.”

  Shaun felt exhausted, confused, frightened and mistrusting. “Dad, is Mom coming home? Is she better?”

  His dad didn’t answer; he stared vacantly past him and out the window. Shaun shivered.

  Shaun tried to sleep, but found himself tossing and turning in his seat, unable to stop thinking about Rachel…

  “Wake up, boy!” he heard his dad demand. “Drink this!”

  He saw his dad’s eyes were black marbles — he was gone again. His dad shoved a clear plastic cup and a little yellow pill into Shaun’s hands. He wanted to please his dad so he took the tablet.

  Shaun fell into a deep sleep and awoke just before landing at home. He wanted to look out the window to see the beaches that stretched along the coast; he wanted to see the land of the sun and surf, his home — Australia. He felt groggy, and his body was heavy. He turned to his dad and saw him rummaging around in his backpack and wearing a different set of clothes. The couple sitting next to him unlocked their seat belts and reached up for the overhead compartments across the aisle. Shaun felt his empty stomach do a somersaul
t and his head spun. There was no window; they were in the middle aisle, and it was six seats wide. Where am I, he wondered.

  His dad looked at him, he heard him say something he couldn’t understand as he handed over a vomit bag. Perfect timing. He buried his head in the waxed bag and puked. He came up for air, looked around the plane and saw it was full. That was when he realized he was on a different plane — a jumbo! He felt his dad pull him to his feet and push him into the aisle.

  His head hurt. Everything was a blur as his dad kept him shuffling forward down the aisle, off the plane, and through Customs. Feeling fuzzy, and as if he was going to puke again, he tried hard to understand the Customs officer, who said to him, “Not much of a holiday for a young fella — a business trip to Dubai with your old man!” The man then handed back the two passports.

  Shaun was focused on his passport, feeling confused. He fixated on its cover, the coat of arms. He ran his finger over the images of the kangaroo and emu: an Australian passport; his passport. What happened to the Egyptian passports? He looked up at his dad.

  Noticing his perplexed look, his dad put his arm over Shaun’s shoulders, as if he cared. “He’s jetlagged and misses his mom,” he said to the Customs officer.

  That’s true, Shaun thought.

  They walked out of the airport, with the backpack only, not the suitcase.

  “What about the suitcase?” Shaun asked his dad.

  His father opened the door of the silver taxi and blankly asked, “What suitcase, son?”

  Shaun climbed into the taxi and swore he’d never trust his dad again. Was it all a dream? They climbed into the back of the taxi. The air was so thick you could’ve cut it with a knife. Neither of them said a word as they headed for home.

  2

  Ten years later: Casey. Utah, USA.

  Casey was skinny and had wild curly brown hair, and a tiny gap of prosperity between his two front teeth. He was tad short for his age, but he was a bright boy and was about to use parts of his mind Einstein would have only ever dreamed about.

  He was walking home from school, happy. The wind was gathering strength and the leaves started spiraling around him and were swept up into the air and across the mountain road. Thunder echoed across the valley, heavy raindrops began to slap the sealed road. Like paint flung from the brush of an angry painter, dark clouds suddenly blacked out the sun. He shivered. Something was terribly wrong — there was an atmosphere of foreboding, and a churning sensation in the pit of his stomach.

  The rain multiplied, and the howling wind pushed it diagonally across the deserted road. He peered into the dense forest, towards the shortcut, thinking of how it always looked downright eerie. He decided he’d stay on the road, but an uneasy feeling crept up his spine. He shouldered his schoolbag and started jogging.

  He felt his woolen school blazer become heavy because it was soaking up the rain like an old sponge. It was two sizes too big, but his mom had said he’d “grow into it”. Casey knew she’d felt bad about having to buy it from the school’s seconds shop, but he also knew the scholarship hadn’t included the cost of his school clothes. He didn’t care, not really, and especially not today, because today was his thirteenth birthday and he was officially a teen.

  The wind pushed him backward, and he could no longer see the road through the heavy rain. He had to go into the woods to get home quickly. He wouldn’t think about the spooky stories the other kids told; he had to get home to his mom. She was alone, and the storm looked as if it was going to get bad really fast.

  Casey darted off the road down the slippery embankment and entered the woods. He distracted himself by imagining his mom baking a delicious mud cake. He held the vision within his mind, his senses filled with the smell of warm chocolate. His mouth started to water and his tummy rumbled as he pictured the warm glow of the kitchen light and cooling cake. He smiled. It was as if the clouds had opened up above and a summer sun was now shining down on him. He continued to battle the rain, feeling washed with new energy.

  Ignoring the whack of the squeaking “WARNING!” sign as it banged against the barbed-wire fence post, Casey crouched down under the wire, ran through the first stand of trees and headed for the stream, which on any other day would have been placid. The kids never mentioned a “warning” sign, he thought, maybe this was a bad idea.

  He seemed to have jogged for a long time before he spotted the entrance to a footbridge. Its wooden entry posts were covered with green moss that was only half- concealing the termites. Nobody uses it regularly! he thought. All the stories were lies!

  Having come too far to go back, he timidly held on to the worn rope balustrade and carefully put his weight down on the first plank. He rocked back and forth to test its strength. The other side of the bridge was cloaked in sheets of rain.

  He sensed something moving behind him. What was that? He turned around quickly, checked behind himself, and saw a little off to the right was a storm water drain; the wire mesh covering its entrance was torn away. The gap was wide enough for someone — or something — to pass through. He started to freak out, and his consciousness started to flood with a medley of schoolyard stories. He pushed his wet hair out of his eyes, as if he were able to push the images away.

  He stared past the rain and into the dark tunnel, but he couldn’t see beyond its entrance. He strained to hear anything above the rain. Usually Casey loved the fresh smell of rain, but not today: he smelt something metallic in the air and a terrible taste in his mouth.

  The thunderclaps continued shifting; moving closer. He looked down, between the slats of wood, and checked under the bridge. Although he knew it would be impossible for a meaty claw to pull him into the depths of a beast’s lair, he couldn’t help looking — just in case. The bridge was old and neglected, and when he stepped forward, he heard the pillars moan. Feeling unsure, he looked for another way across. Everything looked grey and lifeless, the color had been sucked out of the day and there was no golden light, no summer sun.

  The stream below was a raging body of water. Knowing he had to move, Casey held his breath while testing the next plank. He kept going, never putting both his feet on the same plank at the same time. He pushed on into the wind.

  When he reached the middle of the narrow footbridge, the wind lifted the whole bridge up as if it were a sail. Casey held tight on to the side ropes. The strong gust of wind dissipated and dropped the bridge back down. Seizing the moment, he pulled himself along, feeling the old rope fraying in his hands.

  The heavens released their fury on him. Hail slammed into his backpack and into his shoulders, arms and head. He let go of the ropes and raised his arm to protect his head. He imagined his nightmarish phantom was under the bridge waiting for the last sliver of light to vanish. The bridge swayed dangerously.

  When the hail stopped suddenly, he reached for the rope, but the wind drove him back. He pulled his heavy blazer tight around himself and pushed on, keeping his head down. He paused and looked upstream. He heard what sounded like a hundred wild horses racing towards him, getting closer and closer. He turned to run, and slipped. Torrents of water were rushing around the bend in the river below, and in an instant, in one surge, the water shot up over the riverbanks.

  Casey scrambled to his feet, immediately he knew it was too late to make any difference. He reached for the rope as a tidal wave of debris slammed into him. The bridge was torn away from the posts and dragged down into the murky water. Casey held on as he sank into the river.

  Underwater, he struggled out of the harness of his school backpack and felt himself being dragged down because of his sodden blazer. He slipped his right arm out of it and then his left, and let the deadly soaked garment sink to the bottom. He breeched the water’s surface and inhaled air. He used his hands to search for something — anything — and felt the velvet moss of a plank from the bridge. The current was relentlessly pulling at his body, dragging him downstream. He dug his fingers into the wooden plank as it sailed past him, but he couldn
’t get a firm grip. He slipped, and felt his fingernails snap back. He let go, screaming in pain, slipping further into the swirling water. The river was moving around and under his body, pulling at his legs, and the debris felt like the sharp claws of a giant lizard. “Help!” Casey screamed.

  But nobody was there to hear. Bolts of lightning were splitting the sky, and the undertow was dragging him down. He slapped the water’s surface, searching for something, anything, to hold and keep him buoyant. The flood continued violently surging down from the mountain.

  Suddenly, he felt his hand brushing against a passing branch that was tangled up with rope and rungs from the bridge. He threw his arm over it and clutched on to it.

  The hail returned and smacked painfully into the back of his hands. He lost his grip, the branch floated out of his reach. Casey was pulled under. He was exhausted but continued struggling up to the surface…

  He thought he glimpsed a kid on the other side of the river watching him, and screamed, “Help! Help me!” Spotting the long thick branch of an old tree coming his way, Casey fumbled for it, used it to pull himself up, and felt hope. He searched for the kid but no one was there.

  A piece of rope that was tangled around the branch and parts of the footbridge suddenly went taut, snapped, and whipped up into Casey’s face, slicing open his right cheek. He let go of the branch, in surprise and exhaustion. Blood poured from his gash, but it was instantly diluted by the rain.

  He used his foot to search for leverage below, and felt a rock. His foot slid on the moss, but then he managed to push himself up. He pushed again, using both feet, and lunged at the branch. Reaching for the rope, his foot slipped. His head went under, and his leg became tightly wedged between two rocks. Casey saw the light from above disappear, his heart raced as he endured the river’s claws moving around his leg and latching on to his knee. He wrestled with his leg in an attempt to free his wedged foot. The rain-fueled water was getting deeper and deeper. He kept his eyes focused on the surface and struggled to escape. The light had disappeared completely; he was surrounded by darkness. It’s not fair! he thought as he struggled. This was supposed to be a good day! This isn’t supposed to happen! It’s the first day of summer, the last day of school, the best day of the year! It’s my birthday damn it! This is bullshit! I’m in control of my reality! Whose crappy idea is this? Or maybe I’m supposed to die today! Righteous people come into the world and leave the world on their birthday, don’t they? The stars were all lined up last night in the shape of the Star of David — it was all over the media — I can’t die today, I’m not righteous!