The Chardon Chronicles: Season Two --- The Winter

by Kevin Kimmich

  Chapter One

  Matt called out, “Hey! Oy?!” It was the first time in three years that he saw anything that wasn’t a faceless shadow wandering through an enormous dingy gray city. The city had wide, regular boulevards, and driverless cars puttered around aimlessly and busses dutifully stopped every twenty feet, forever lurching around city center after city center where an enormous six faced clock monotonously ticked away.

  The bright, fresh face of a girl startled him. He’d been steadily losing his mind and his ability to speak or form coherent thoughts. She was very happy to see him. He was dim, pale, and his clothing was dingy and worn out. She threw her arms around him. He embraced her and wept and she started crying as well. The shadows milled around them.

  “I’ve, I’ve been stuck for a long time.” He said. The words felt strange in his mouth. “This place is awful. Who are you? How did you get here?”

  “I’m Stephanie. Hobbes threw me into a stone pool of murky water, and I lost consciousness for a time, then and woke up here.”

  “I’m… I’m…. Ugh… Oh, I’m Matthew, Matthew Wells. I’m really sorry, I’ve been going completely crazy since I’ve been stuck here.” Matt looked around at the place and felt its weight dragging him down. He covered his face.

  She squeezed him hard. “I am so glad to see you! Matt, you’re Tracy’s father.”

  “Oh yes! Yes I am! How do you know that? Am I just going completely insane, now?” He studied her face frantically, looking for signs that his mind was playing tricks on him.

  Stephanie kissed him. Her lips felt very warm and real. She reassured him, “I know Tracy. I met her. I know Samantha, too.”

  He breathed out and stretched and looked at the dreary sky and the dumb white face of the clock towers. The sun’s deep roaring bass tone was absent. There was only a 60 cycle hum of electric light punctuated with the occasional mechanical grunts, whines, and moans of engines. “Oh, this place is awful. I’ve been looking for a way out for what seems like eternity. It must not be very long, though. How old was Tracy when you met her?”

  “She’s about my age, I think.” Stephanie said. “I am, well, was seventeen. I’m not really sure how old she is.”

  He nodded, “OK. So I guess it’s been about three years. Wow. Well, that’s not so bad, at times I thought maybe it was centuries or millennia.”

  “What is this place?” She looked around.

  He said, “Well, Samantha, Owen and I did battle with this enormous black cloud-like serpent. I channeled the power of the Sun, but something happened, it actually cut me off from returning to my body, which felt very, very strange. This serpent basically swallowed me, then I woke up here.”

  “I can’t feel the Sun in here.” She noted. She thought a moment and said, “I wonder if the pool and the snake are really the same thing. It seems like that can happen a lot over here. Things have multiple manifestations.”

  It had been such a long time since he’d used his mind to think of anything sensible that the concepts felt very novel and strange. Stephanie noticed that he became brighter, and she did, too. She felt his mind working. He said, “You are certainly onto something.” He pointed up at the dreary gray sky and said, “It could be the surface of a dark pool, or the hide of a giant snake.”

  She sighed, “I’ve usually been in a nice meadow and forests. This place is awful.”

  He looked around and said, “I think we’re basically stuck in the dull consciousness of the drudgery of day-to-day life of millions, maybe billions of people. I never really fully understood the geography or navigation through the other world, Samantha took us everywhere.”

  She patted his chest and said, “Don’t worry! Demetria and Samantha will come for us. We should try to brighten this place up a little bit. Make due with what’s here.” She sighed at the lack of material for the task.

  He glowed a bit brighter, and she did too. He said, “This whole time I only sought to get out. What if this were the worst mistake the Beast could make: swallowing us.”

  She shone, too. “Yes! Indeed.” She spoke syllables of the ancient language, “Foul creature! You will be torn to shreds!”

  He understood her and was amazed. Some of the shadows that milled around them endlessly stopped and turned toward them. He saw their faces, ordinary men and women, like ghostly apparitions, they could hear the language. Then they continued on.

  He asked, “What was that? That language. I’ve heard Samantha speak it. I didn’t understand it before, but I could understand you.”

  She had a puzzled, searching expression on her face. “I just knew it. I mean, I think I was just excited and found the words. Did you see them react?”

  He nodded thoughtfully, “That was very exciting. That’s the very first time I’ve seen them react. It must be how Samantha influences us.”

  She kissed him on the mouth and probed with her tongue. She pressed her mound against him, but felt nothing there. She was startled. He said, “I would really love to, but since I’ve been here, I’ve gone sort of Ken doll.”

  “Oh!” She said, “Sorry. I got carried away. Do you feel anything? I mean do you feel desire?”

  “All my feelings, including desire, everything was really muted, but now that you’re here, it’s returned a little bit. I feel more alive, more vital.” He said. He smirked, “You are gorgeous. You really remind me of a centerfold I had when I was a kid. I forget her name.” He laughed. “I think Robbie still has it hanging in his shop.”

  She laughed and held his hand, “Yeah, I know who you’re talking about, I think she’s related somehow. Her name was Connie Kreski. I’m Stephanie Junger, by the way.”

  She could feel his mind working. He said, “Perhaps our task is to recover as much of this language as possible. It seems like we can’t really do it by concentrating or probing with our rational mind.”

  She nodded, “Yes, that really came from down deep. Demetria tried explaining this to me many times, but whoosh, in one ear and out the other.” She stepped a few steps away and growled and mimed a tiger paw swipe.

  He laughed, “What are you doing?”

  “Play along!” She chided. “Get out of your own way.”

  He understood what she was getting at. He paused a moment, then started doing the Kevin Bacon footloose angry dance down the sidewalk. He heard her laughing. She tried laughing like a tigress, staying in her new character, and she followed him. He threw up both hands and shouted in the ancient language, “Everybody, let’s dance!”

  Their antics had an effect on the milling forms. They heard a few chuckles and saw faces emerge from the milling shadows, but almost all of them returned to their shuffling. One of them paused. A man looked around in confusion.

  Stephanie approached him in her tiger pose. He stammered in the ancient language, “What am I? What am I doing?” She was astounded. She kissed him and licked the side of his face and purred in his ear.

  A man in an insurance office in a strip mall on Route 20 in Mentor felt startled. He’d been surfing the web all day, killing time. His ass was sore. His back hurt from sitting in the creaky faux leather chair, but he felt like a little child afraid to get up in class to go outside and play. He blurted out, “What am I doing?” He took his tie off and went outside and felt the wan winter sun on his face. His coworkers watched through the picture window.

  Stephanie felt the muted hum of the sun percolate through his soul. She was startled. “The Sun!” She said in the ancient tongue.

  When she said that word, more shuffling shadows stopped in their tracks. The muted hum of the sun grew to a low roar, then receded as they returned to their humdrum life. All the shadows returned to their miserable paths, a few shades lighter, but still very dark and dull.

  She did a little dance over to Matt. “Did you see that?”

  “I heard it, too.” He said in wonderment. “Maybe we don’t need a rescue party after all.”