by Sean Platt
Even walking at a half sprint, Mary had time to love the way Desmond asked, not skeptical, just curious.
“I just do. It’s like being hungry or remembering where you left your keys or getting turned on by a brush on your skin or a whisper in your ear. You just know — the feeling is there and as soon as it is, your body knows exactly how to respond and what to do next. Mostly animal, I suppose. Never noticed it before Paola, but I was so tuned into her patterns as an infant, I think I somehow learned to tune into the world around me. With Paola, tapping into the feelings and just knowing things has always been as easy as breathing. But now I find myself knowing other stuff, too, and with an almost terrible certainty. It’s great when I’m lost without the GPS, terrible when it makes me know stuff like my husband is sleeping with Natalie Farmer.”
“It’s instinct. Everyone has it,” Desmond said. “Sounds like you listen better than most, though.”
An explanation so simple, Mary felt stupid. “Yeah,” she nodded. “Instinct, that’s exactly what it is. But it’s more than that, too. Especially lately. For the last year or so, I feel like I’m picking up on Paola’s actual thoughts every now and then, and before you call me crazy, I fully admit it might be my imagination. But I don’t think it is. Sometimes I feel like I can hear her thinking. And she’ll say stuff which confirms what I thought she was thinking.”
Desmond nodded, still interested.
“Things have been different since the divorce, obviously, but I think it hit us harder than most families. I know that sounds arrogant. Divorce sucks for everyone. But we were happy. Ryan was a good husband and a great dad. We were married for 15 years and best friends for five before that. What he did was really, really stupid, and it made me hate him ... no,” Mary shook her head, “ ... not trust him, enough to end it, but that’s the only thing I can put on his list. Otherwise, he was a great guy. He even left the seat down 95 percent of the time. I have one unbreakable rule, and he broke it. Since the divorce, things have been a lot rougher between Paola and me. She’s gone from my sweet, little angel girl to my ultimate foe half the time. Her attitude is endless, and most days, I wake up and fall to sleep feeling like I’m fighting a losing battle. She knows what her father did to me and to us, but still blames me for breaking up a happy family. Half the time I think she’s right.”
“I’m sorry,” Desmond said, not seeming to know what else to say. So he improved the subject without changing it. “I believe you about hearing Paola’s thoughts if it makes you feel any better. Makes perfect sense. Other species communicate with one another through psychic transmission. Makes sense that we would, too. It’s no different than instinct. I imagine we must have relied on something like that in earlier incarnations of our species. Before the Internet, before TV, before radio, hell, before the written word.”
It was Desmond’s turn to look at Mary. Mary suddenly turned her attention from Desmond to a tire depot on the next corner across the street and pointed.
“She’s down that way.”
Down that way was a narrow road that dipped below a billboard advertising: MAC - DADDY’S –– > The BIGGEST Burgers In TOWN!!
They walked faster, and Desmond continued. “Let’s say brain waves left a signature? Who would know how to recognize and read Paola’s signature better than you?”
A cold shock rattled inside Mary.
Ryan.
Suddenly she was certain that he did have something to do with this. The feeling was as strong as the others which led her this far. He was the only person, or thing, who could’ve possibly pulled Paola from the hotel. As certain as she felt, though, something was off.
No, it wasn’t Ryan, but rather the thought of him.
Or a dream.
And then she remembered the dreams that Paola had of her dad, frequent ones she’d had since she was in preschool. Then Mary remembered one time when Paola was 6, and Mary couldn’t find her anywhere in the house. Just as she was in full freakout mode, Paola came out of the closet, yawning. Asking what was wrong. She had sleepwalked in one of her hiding dreams.
Maybe she had done the same thing again. But out here, so far from home, there was no telling where she might be. Or what might find her if they didn’t.
“Shit, Desmond. I’m scared.” Mary’s voice wound its way to a higher note.
“It’s okay.” Desmond took her hand, walked beneath the billboard, and onto McFadden, a narrow road of cracked concrete with a trail of sprouts leading to a small service station.
Mary tried to swallow her whimper, but it fell out anyway.
And then a horrible thought came into her head.
She’s in pain. Terrible, terrible pain. And Ryan was there. He did this to her. Now she’s on the concrete — cold, alone, stripped of memory, and dying.
Mary pointed to the gas station, and her heart sank into her gut. “She’s there!”
Desmond squeezed her hand and pulled her across the street, running.
Paola lay on the ground, under flickering canopy lights cutting through the morning fog. She looked mostly dead. Mary lost herself in a primal cry, fell to her knees, and cradled Paola, holding her close to her chest. Her daughter looked like a corpse, white as a sheet and altogether hollow. Mary felt the girl’s neck, and for a moment, couldn’t feel a pulse.
No! No, no, no.
She moved her fingers around, desperately searching for movement. And finally, it came, and Mary closed her eyes, thanking God.
Paola’s arms moved, twitched, like that creature on the side of the road and the one she left with a crumbling face just 20 minutes before on the third floor of the Drury Inn.
Desmond kneeled, cupped Mary’s chin, and pulled her eyes toward him. “We’ve got this, okay. Everything will be fine, but we have to go right now.”
Mary nodded.
Desmond tried two locked cars at the pumps before hitting a jackpot with the third parked behind the station. He was in the driver’s seat for three minutes before whatever he was doing got the engine to turn. He pulled the car beside them, stepped from the car, opened the back door, kneeled down, scooped Paola’s withered body into his arms, and placed her gingerly into the back seat.
“We’re going to the Drury now. Everything will be fine.”
Mary got in the back seat with Paola and placed her daughter’s head in her lap.
“Everything will be okay,” he repeated.
Mary echoed her vacant nod as she felt her world circling the drain. If Paola died, Mary would follow her into the darkness.
Thirty-Two
Edward Keenan
Cape Hope was named in irony, at least the way Ed saw it.
The coastal community had seen better days, probably by at least a couple of decades, judging from the aged infrastructure, beaten homes, and general civic decay. Ed had seen hundreds of towns like this. Typically, they went one of two directions — slum, or a yuppie “renovation” that transformed the community into thriving strips of overpriced commerce and exclusive gated communities. Given its proximity to the ocean, Ed would’ve bet his every dollar on the latter.
“It used to be a nice place,” Teagan said, as if reading his mind.
“Hard times all around,” Ed said, noting that they wouldn’t have long before the violet sky gave way to darkness. Fortunately, the clouds had parted, and the full moon hung fat in the sky, casting the world in a milky-blue haze.
“I’m in here,” she said, pointing to the trailer park community yards from the beach.
“Well, location, location, location, location, right? You’ve got that,” Ed said.
When Ed first found Teagan, he pictured her living in the suburbs somewhere, not a trailer park. Not that she looked like she came from money. But in his experience, kids who grew up in trailer parks looked tougher. They had to deal with a lot of shit from their peers blessed enough to live in nicer homes. But Teagan didn’t have that raw exterior. She was soft, perhaps from a lifetime of paternal oppression. Despite her si
milarities to Jade, they could not be more different in this area.
As they climbed out of the SUV, Ed realized the trailer park wasn’t nearly as bad as he initially guessed. The property was well-maintained, and the quality of the campers above average.
“That’s mine,” Teagan said, pointing to a sky-blue double wide with a vibrant flower bed around the porch. A small, tasteful cross was affixed to the door, just above a plain knocker.
She realized too late that she’d left the keys in her mom’s purse in the SUV.
“I got it,” Ed said. He pulled out the wallet he lifted from the home he’d broken into, retrieved a credit card, then slid it in between the door and the frame. “You coming?” He held the door open for Teagan and smiled.
“Wow, it’s that easy to break into someone’s home?”
“If you don’t lock your top lock,” he said. “Though I normally have tools for those.”
Ed handed her one of his two lit flashlights as he held the door open for her.
“Hello? Mom? Dad?”
No answer.
Shit.
Ed stepped back outside, scanning the trailer park for signs of anybody else being home, but the place felt as empty as the rest of the world. He went back inside, looking around Teagan’s home. It was small, but immaculately neat. Ed wondered what kind of taskmaster her father was, lording over his womenfolk to keep the place so tidy.
“I’m sorry they’re not here,” he said.
“I knew it, already,” she said, “I saw them vanish.”
“Yeah,” Ed said, not sure what else to say, his mind trying to accept the new reality of caring full-time for another person. Maybe two people, if Jade were still alive.
Alive? Maybe everyone’s gone, but that doesn’t mean they’re dead, does it?
Come on, Ed. What else would it mean?
“This is my room,” Teagan said, opening the door to a pink bedroom that looked like it belonged to a girl far younger than her.
What kind of job did your dad do on you?
Ed checked himself, before allowing his judgmental side to run rampant. He’d not even met her father. And the man obviously had issues with his eldest daughter who killed herself, so a lot of things were in play other than him being a control freak and religious nut job.
Two other rooms were in the trailer. One was the master bedroom. The other, Ed assumed, was Teagan’s sister’s. The doorknob had been replaced by a deadbolt. Though he couldn’t see the other side to determine if it had a thumb turn, he would bet money the deadbolt was a double cylinder.
What the hell?
Ed had to swallow hard to keep from asking Teagan about the deadbolt.
“Want a drink?” she asked, opening the door to a warm fridge.
“Thanks,” he said, as she passed him a bottled water.
They both drank, neither saying a word about the elephant in the room — what to do with Teagan.
Though he’d been driving to North Carolina under the illusion he had a choice, truth was, he didn’t. He was her guardian, like it or not.
“You can come with me; we’ll drive to my daughter’s.”
“Are you sure?” she asked; a child afraid to piss off a parent.
He hid his disappointment behind a smile and casual wave of his hand. “Yeah, you two will get along great.”
Neither highlighted the growing certainty that Jade would be gone, like everyone else. But still, if the two yokels at the gas station had survived, there had to be others. Maybe whatever happened hadn’t affected Georgia or Florida.
“Go ahead and get whatever you want to bring and we’ll head out in a few minutes.”
Ed stood in the doorway, enjoying the sound of ocean waves and the smell of saltwater. It was the first time the world felt close to normal since the crash. He considered walking the path to the beach and sitting in the sand. It had been forever since he’d just sat on a beach and let the sound of waves, wind, and gulls set him at ease.
That’s when he realized there weren’t any gulls, or birds of any kind.
That’s weird.
As he strained to hear over the waves, he picked up on the undeniable sound in the distance.
A helicopter.
They’re coming for her baby.
Thirty-Three
Brent Foster
Three quick knocks followed the first set as Luis and Brent traded glances.
“Do you think it’s the aliens?” Luis whispered.
Brent shrugged his shoulders, uncertain what to do. If they didn’t answer, the person, whoever it was, would leave. But was it a person, or something else?
Another knock, followed by a whisper, “Hello?”
A man’s voice, familiar, but Brent couldn’t quite place it.
“Hello?” Brent asked.
“Mr. Foster? Is that you?” a vaguely Jamaican-sounding voice asked.
“Yeah,” Brent said, trying to match the voice to a face or name.
“It’s Joe from maintenance.”
Joe was the elder of the building’s two maintenance men; a tall, thin man who had to be pushing 65, though he looked 10 years younger. He was always super-nice to Ben, who called him Mr. Joe, whenever Joe came to the apartment to fix something.
Luis and Brent pulled the fridge away and unlocked the door.
Joe was in his red maintenance uniform, like always. But he looked 100 years older.
“Come in,” Brent said, “This is Luis from across the street.”
Joe smiled, and walked in, limping.
As Luis locked the door, Brent asked, “Are you okay?”
“Do you have any rice?”
“What?” Brent asked confused.
“Rice, I need some rice. Right away.”
“You’re hungry?” Brent asked, thinking Joe was injured and confused.
“No, not to eat, to keep them away.”
“To keep what away?” Luis asked.
“The jumbees. Rice will preoccupy them. You pour it outside your door.”
“What are jumbees?” Brent said.
“Do you have rice or not?” Joe asked, raising his voice, though it was edged with fear, not anger.
Brent grabbed a bag of white rice from the pantry and handed it to Joe, who asked Luis to open the door. Joe poured half the bag onto the ground just outside the door, then turned to Brent and said, “Do you have another bag?”
“Yeah,” Brent said.
“Good,” Joe said, pouring the rest of the first bag on the ground. He came back inside. “You can lock it now.”
Luis did so.
“What are jumbees? And what’s with the rice?” Brent asked as he ushered Joe to the couch to get off his injured foot.
“Jumbees are evil spirits. I used to think they were just old island folklore that my mother would go on and on about, but then I saw two of them tonight.”
“What do they look like?” Luis asked.
“Jumbees can take different forms, but the things I saw on the street tonight, were dark, deformed, monstrous jumbees. They came after me, but I got away.”
“You ran?” Brent asked, surprised Joe was able to get away.
“Yes. But they were also distracted. They saw someone else on the street and … they … ” Joe looked down, like he might not finish the sentence. “They tore her up.”
“Her?” Brent asked, fear stirring in his guts, “Who did they get? Did you know her?”
“No,” Joe said, “A young Puerto Rican girl, maybe 20, I don’t know. Nobody from this building, I don’t think. They ripped her apart, though, limb from limb like some kind of wolves or something. Eating her.”
Brent released the breath he’d been holding.
“How does the rice distract them?” Luis asked.
“The rice is supposed to slow them down. Jumbees are like kids passing a candy store. If they see a bunch of stuff spilled, they have to stop and count it. By the time they’re done counting, daylight comes and they have to return to th
e spirit world.”
Brent and Luis exchanged a sounds-like-bullshit glance.
“I don’t think those things are jumbees,” Luis said. “Because we saw some during the day. And they killed my friends in the apartment across the street earlier.”
Whatever wind Joe had beneath his sails, evaporated. “So, if they can walk in the day, then the rice might not work.”
All three men stared at the ground as if it were harboring answers.
“Have you seen anyone else?” Brent asked, “Gina or Ben?”
Joe’s eyes widened, “You mean they’re not here?”
“No, I woke up in the morning, and they were gone, just like everyone else.”
“I’m so sorry,” Joe said, his lips trembling, eyes red and glassy. “Other than the girl, I haven’t seen anyone else. I went door to door. Nobody answered in your apartment earlier. I wasn’t even gonna come back, but something told me to try again.”
Joe turned to Luis, “You said you had some friends who were killed?”
“Yeah,” Luis said, “Two friends.”
“So there might be more people?” Joe asked.
Brent told him about the radio broadcast they heard earlier and that they’d be going to Black Island in the morning, once the streets were safer. They invited Joe to go with them. But first, they’d need to get some sleep.
Brent took the first shift, sitting in the recliner. Joe slept on the couch and Luis on the floor, which he swore he didn’t mind at all.
As the men slept, Brent reached into his pocket and pulled out Stanley Train. Its big, goofy smile greeted him.
Brent prayed he’d be able to give the train back to its rightful owner soon.
In the morning, the men loaded supplies into duffel and grocery bags and prepared for the trip.
Brent wrote one last note to Gina, telling her where they were going. He doubted she’d ever see the letter, but it still pained him to write it. He imagined her showing up an hour after they left, stuck in the apartment with the jumbees, aliens, or whatever the hell the monsters were.
