by C R Langille
“Where am I?” Toby asked.
“A cave, man. Heh, caveman.”
“What happened?” Toby asked. He propped himself up onto his elbow.
“What do you think happened? It was better than a Donkey Kong kill screen. I got to show him that sometimes sharks get hunted too,” the man said.
He turned the meat on the fire and whistled. It took Toby a moment to realize the man whistled an old Metallica song.
“That was you?” Toby asked.
The man nodded. He pointed to the meat. “You hungry?”
His stomach rumbled, and he nodded. Toby took a deep breath and sat up. The process took a lot longer and a lot more energy than he thought, but he finally made it. The man passed him a piece of rabbit. Toby nodded thanks and took a bite. Juices escaped when his teeth bit into the meat, and for a moment, he was in heaven.
“Good stuff,” he mumbled.
“Thanks,” the man replied.
“Who are you?” Toby asked.
“Name’s Rusty,” the man replied and offered his hand.
Toby shook it and went back to eating. He flew through the rabbit as if it were nothing more than a bit of meat on a toothpick at a supermarket sample table.
“Thanks. And thanks for saving me,” he said.
“No problem,” Rusty took a bite of rabbit. The man’s face darkened, and he frowned. “You got a lot of hate in you, friend.” Rusty’s voice dropped an octave.
Toby looked up from his meal. Rusty sat cross-legged on the ground and stared through Toby as if he weren’t even there.
“You’re special, but I’m sure you know that by now. Not special like you can count how many marbles there are in a jar within seconds, but special as in you-can-blast-the-hell-out-of-something-with-your-mind kind of special,” Rusty said.
Toby remembered the chanting and the lightning show. “You’re no run of the mill drifter either, are you?”
“You should be a detective with that kind of observation skill,” Rusty replied. “Look, if you aren’t careful, you’re going to attract the wrong kind of attention or end up burning out. Until you find someone to teach you how to use that stuff, I would stay away from it. Especially with the ‘roid rage you got going on,” Rusty said nodding to Toby’s hand. “Some fireworks show.”
Toby flexed his fingers. His hand felt fine. He subconsciously reached for his chest. The spot was black again but didn’t burn anymore. It still hurt to touch, but it wasn’t near as bad as before.
“You keep throwing power around, and don’t be surprised if things start showing up at your doorstep wanting an autograph,” Rusty said.
“Can you teach me?” Toby asked.
“’Fraid not friend. Not my kind of mojo.”
“What do you mean?”
Rusty thought for a moment. “It’s like trying to have AC/DC teach you opera. Both are music but worlds apart. Know what I mean, man?”
“No, not really.”
Rusty laughed a warm laugh, which resounded through the small cave. He leaned against the rock wall and pulled his Chick Magnet hat low over his eyes.
“Are those things gone?” Toby asked.
“’Fraid not. No, I gave them a run for their money, but I wasn’t ready to meet up with them. I’m just passing through these parts. But don’t worry, they won’t find us here.”
“It seemed like he knew you,” Toby said.
“Yep, I’ve met up with that one before. A long time ago.”
“What does it want?” Toby asked.
“To consume you. Your power attracts it. It can feed off your energy, and you’ll make it stronger. It likes it best when you’re scared or angry. Which reminds me, don’t listen to its lies. It knows your thoughts and fears, knows how to push your buttons.”
Toby remembered. The memory alone was enough to stoke the spark again, and his rage started to boil. His hand tingled in anticipation.
“What did I just say? Get your shit in check or else they will find us, and I’d be halfway tempted to feed them your hot head.”
Toby took a deep breath and tried to focus on something else. The tingling in his hand faded away.
“Good. Your rage is going to be your undoing. He really did a number on your head, opened your mind to a dark place. It was there before, had to have been. People just don’t tap into that kind of emotion overnight. Keep it in check.”
Toby tried to process everything Rusty told him, but there were so many questions. He lay back down on the ground and stared up at the ceiling. Toby shut his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again he was in a glade. His things still sat neatly at his feet, but the cook-fire was gone, and so was Rusty. The sun shone down on his face and filled him with warmth. He sat up and found most of the soreness was gone. In fact, he felt almost completely refreshed.
The dark stain on his chest reminded him of what had happened the night before. The anger started to boil in his insides.
You keep throwing power around, and don’t be surprised if things start showing up at your doorstep wanting an autograph.
Toby busied himself with gathering his things. He had to find out where he was and figure out the best way home before Brock and Chuck found him again.
Chapter Twelve
The night was alive with the sound of sirens, screams, and occasional gunshots. As Evard turned onto the interstate, the low bass-infused roar of something big echoed through the streets and shook his core. It awakened a fear unlike any other.
“Mom, I’m scared,” Sebastian said.
Linda turned in her seat and looked back at the boy. She reached out and patted his leg but didn’t say anything
Evard sped up. He was scared too and didn’t want to know what could make such a roar.
It took longer than usual to get back to his house. The interstate was a mess, and he pulled off the highway and onto the city streets after a few miles. Hundreds of cars sat in the lanes or pulled off to the side. He ended up pushing one abandoned vehicle out of the way. Something had ripped the door off. He wanted to believe maybe another car hit it and caused the damage, but large rips in the front fender said otherwise. Blood and bits of gore decorated the inside of the car on the driver’s seat.
After two grueling hours for a trip that should have only taken thirty minutes, Evard pulled up to his house. The lights were off as he’d left them, and the fall leaves lay scattered about in chaotic patterns in the yard. The wind had damaged most of his trees, and several branches lay scattered about his yard. One large limb sat in the middle of the driveway and blocked their path.
Kelly would be angry if she saw the yard in such a mess. He would have to clean it up once he got Linda and Sebastian settled.
“We’ll stay here as long as we can. Try and wait for Toby or form a plan,” Evard said.
Linda nodded. Sebastian unbuckled his seat belt and crawled to his knees between the driver’s seat and passenger’s seat.
“We need to try and get in touch with Toby again somehow. Maybe we could contact the police or the ranger station or something,” Linda said.
“We can try, but I don’t think it will be much help. I have a feeling they are going to be busy with other issues.”
Evard killed the engine and put the car’s emergency brake on. He sat back in the seat and closed his eyes. The momentary respite helped him relax, and he thought he could fall asleep if it weren’t for the random gunshots. After a few moments, Sebastian nudged him on the shoulder.
“Grandpa, who’s at your house?”
Evard opened his eyes and looked backed toward Sebastian.
“What do you mean?” Evard asked.
Sebastian pointed toward the house. A light shone through a small set of windows. Kelly’s sewing room.
“It’s grandma’s sewing room. She’s probably worried about us,
” he said.
Linda gave him a look and brought him back to the present. Evard let out a sigh and put his forehead on the steering wheel. Linda set her hand on his shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze.
“Stay here,” he said.
“What’s going on?” Linda asked.
Evard kept his gaze locked onto Kelly’s room. “Hopefully nothing.”
He looked to the back seat and made sure Sebastian focused on him.
“Listen here,” he said. “You are the man of the car now. It’s your job to take care of your mom. Got it?”
Sebastian’s eyes flicked about the car, and he chewed on his lower lip. Evard reached out and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“It’s a big responsibility, but you can do it. No matter what you see or what you hear, you stay out of the house until I signal it’s safe. Understand?”
The boy nodded. Evard twisted in his seat and focused his gaze on Linda.
“I don’t like this. We should go in together,” she said.
“I don’t like it either. But I didn’t drive across the valley and back just to throw you into the fire.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“It’s Kelly’s room. No lights were on when I left.”
“Who’s Kelly?” Sebastian asked.
“Kelly was your grandma,” Linda replied.
Sebastian sat back in his seat, apparently satisfied with the answer.
“She was a wonderful woman,” Evard said.
He took a deep breath and got out of the car. Before he shut the door, he bent down and looked to Linda.
“Keep the doors locked,” he said.
Her eyebrow arced, and she thrust her open hand through the empty space where the windshield should have been. Evard let out a grunt in response. Before he walked toward the house, he reloaded the revolver.
The walk to the door took forever, even though the driveway was right next to the house. His feet didn’t want to let him get any closer, so he forced himself to move. Evard usually listened to his gut, but he had Linda and Sebastian to think about. There wasn’t anywhere else to go, and they couldn’t stay out in the driveway all night. Evard saw what lay in the shadows of the city, and it wasn’t pretty.
He fumbled with the keys until he found the one for the deadbolt. After unlocking the door, he jogged back to the car and handed the keys to Linda.
“Just in case,” he said.
Linda took the keys from him but didn’t say anything. As Evard approached the house, he held the revolver in his hand. Evard looked back to the car. Linda and Sebastian stared at him wide-eyed like a couple of barn owls.
He turned the knob and walked into the house.
***
Linda clutched the keys until her hand hurt. She watched Evard walk into the old house and disappear through the doorway. Sebastian shifted in the seat behind her, and the sound of his body as it scooted across the vinyl interior made her jump.
“You doing all right, buddy?”
Sebastian nodded. He over exaggerated, but Linda smiled regardless. The smile disappeared as she turned back towards the house.
The lights were all off with the exception of the sewing room. The neighborhood sulked in silence and held its breath in expectation. No one roamed the streets, and every house on the block was dark. It made the light in the sewing room stand out like a beacon.
She pulled her cell phone out. It still searched for phone service.
“Mommy?” The voice came as a whisper, but her fine-tuned, motherly senses picked it up.
“Yeah?”
“Are we going to die?”
Linda wanted to say no, wanted to reassure him everything was going to be okay, they would find Daddy, and all this scary business would disappear. She wanted say all those things, but the words caught in her throat, and she couldn’t follow through.
Sebastian’s eyes watered, and his body trembled as he sat back into the seat. He clutched Toby’s hat like it was a lifeline. Linda twisted her wedding band unconsciously. She thought of Toby and wished he was in the car with them. They both needed him. She crawled into the backseat and held the boy close. She needed him.
***
Evard stepped through the threshold, and the hairs on the back of his neck straightened. A tingle crept through his chest and out toward his fingers. His living room was a mess, but that was normal. The dark of the house didn’t bother him, but the noise from Kelly’s sewing room did.
The steady growl of her old, Singer sewing machine echoed through the hallway. The light seeped out under the door of her room and beckoned him. He found himself in front of the room’s door and couldn’t remember walking there. In the back of his mind, a faint voiced screamed at him to treat the light as if it was a lighthouse, a warning of dangerous rocks ahead.
“Kelly?”
The noise stopped, and a shadow of movement danced in the light of the doorway. Evard took two steps and then leaned against the wall. He brought a hand up to his head and rubbed at his temple. The gun in the other hand weighed a thousand pounds, and Evard wanted to drop it, but his fingers wouldn’t let go.
The machine roared to life once more, louder than it should have been, and screamed from inside the room. As the Singer continued to work, the soft sound of a woman’s hum caused Evard’s ears to perk up. He stood in front of the door and whispered the words to the tune.
“I’ll be yours through all the years, till the end of time.”
Evard knocked on the door. The machine stopped, but the gentle humming continued.
“Kelly, Linda and Sebastian are here. They’ve come to visit,” he said.
He knew something didn’t sound right the moment he said the words, but he couldn’t remember what was going on, not exactly. Things went fuzzy again in his mind. He remembered something about needing to find Toby and keeping Sebastian safe, but the details refused to surface.
“Kelly?”
The sewing machine droned in the background. She always ignored him when she worked in the sewing room. Evard growled and opened the door.
“Kell—” He stopped short.
Kelly was dead.
The lights were off, and everything was untouched since Kelly’s death. No one worked the machine. Nothing seemed out of place except the faint smell of vanilla in the air, a scent he hadn’t smelled in years.
Evard slid the gun into the waistband of his pants. He rubbed at his temples to soothe an oncoming ache when the lights turned on. The sewing machine buzzed and rattled, and Kelly’s humming bounced off the walls.
Evard stumbled back through the doorway and into the hall. His heel caught the doorjamb, and he fell to the floor. The door slammed shut as he went through. Then the lights shut off again.
Evard tried to stand up, but a wrecking ball slammed into his chest. His lungs refused to function, and the hallway tilted on an axis.
For what felt like hours, he lay on the floor and focused on getting oxygen into his system. The wrecking ball turned into a twinge, and he could move again. Evard got to his feet and pulled the pistol out. The doorknob was warm and covered in a film that stuck to his hand. It left his skin itchy and irritated. Evard threw the door open and raised the revolver up. Even though the lights were off, a dark figure sat at the sewing desk.
“Kelly?” As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew it wasn’t her. The vanilla scent still wafted in the air, but underneath was an acrid stench that stung his nostrils. “Who are you?”
“My poor, Evard.” The voice sounded like Kelly but with strep throat, raspy and full of phlegm.
Her voice pushed through his mind like a dull blade. It ripped and tore his rationality away with each syllable. She made it hard to concentrate and blurred the already fuzzy lines of reality in his mind.
“You’re dead,” he sai
d. “Aren’t you?”
He remembered the funeral. Or was it someone else’s? The gun lowered a fraction of an inch. The yard was a mess, and Evard needed to get to work cleaning it. Kelly hated a dirty yard. The gun lowered even further.
“My poor, poor, Evard. Come here, and I’ll ease your pain blossom.”
Pain blossom. The words she always used when his headaches emerged. Kelly used to warm a hand towel and lay him on the couch. She’d hum old Elvis songs while she stroked his head.
The gun now pointed at the ground. Evard shuffled closer to Kelly’s figure.
“I’ve been so confused lately,” Evard said.
“I know, honey… I know.”
The vanilla scent overpowered his senses, and it was all he could focus on. It brought back so many memories. He couldn’t help but cry. All the loss, the lonely nights, the empty house, and his failing memory slammed into him like a charging bull. He fell to his knees and put his forehead to the back of the chair. The gun slipped from his hand.
“My poor, poor Evard. Let me take care of you,” Kelly said. Her voice scratched his mind, but he welcomed it. Evard savored even the slightest chance to be next to her.
Kelly put a hand on Evard’s head, and all thoughts stopped in the wake of the pain. Her touch burned. He reached up to swat her away, but the hand remained fused on his head. Evard tried to stand, but Kelly kept him down. She stood from the chair, and the shadows swirled about her body like a living mist.
“Let me take care of that pain blossom, honey,” she croaked.
Her grip tightened on his skull, and blood ran from his nostrils. He let out a cry of anguish. With one hand latched onto Kelly’s wrist, he used the other hand to search for his discarded pistol.
Kelly started to hum again, the same tune as before but discordant. She hopped up onto the sewing table and pulled Evard along by the head. His fingertips brushed the edge of the gun, but when Kelly jumped, the movement jerked him forward.