In the Shadows of Fate

by Rick Jurewicz

  There were several items that had been in the apartment before she took it and made it her own; old lamps and newspapers, a box of books that had been stored in the empty rooms, some kitchen pots and pans laying scattered about, and so on.

  Miranda's heart was broken once more, and she could not get out of her head what Daniella's father had done to that poor, innocent little girl. What the world had done to that little girl. What this world had done to her.

  Miranda sat on the floor cross-legged in the middle of the apartment. The windows on both sides of the room were open, but no breeze came through the room. Just heat and thick, humid air was all anyone in the small city was feeling on that mid-June day. She was wearing her faded blue jeans and a white tank top which revealed the tattoo that she had gotten in the days after Daniella had disappeared.

  It covered her entire back; the tops of the feathered angel wings rising high on her shoulders, with the feathers stretching down the sides of her back, transforming from feathers to a scale like design, on down to the tips of the wings resting low on her back, where they now had the appearance of leathery, bat-like wings with single horned claws.

  She looked up at the four televisions before her. She was thinking about Daniella, and then she thought of Lorri...standing in the kitchen, smiling at her...and Robert, carrying her bags from the car every single time she had come home...and Steven, young and full of so much more life to be had.

  The first television came on. The stereo Miranda had found at a resale shop boomed Moby's cover of Joy Division's “New Dawn Fades”.

  "Thirty-three people were killed today in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan..." the TV muttered as she stared at the screen. The second television lit up.

  "And the police questioned friends and neighbors of the man who held the two young women for the past six years since they were 14-year-old junior high school students from the Boston area. The man, Joseph Stone, was found hanging in his bathroom when the girls were found, an apparent suicide after police received a tip."

  Miranda’s heart began to beat faster and faster, and she clenched her fists tighter...the third television clicked on...

  "Walked in to the elementary school and started shooting, killing four 3rd grade students and a teacher before taking his own life. Authorities can find no motive for...

  She didn't even realize that she had stopped breathing. Tears were running down her face, and her hands and arms were shaking. She closed her eyes tightly and the fourth television sparked to life...

  "The young girl's uncle was taken into custody. Sources from the sheriff's department had indicated that the girl, Melody Parker, age 8, had been raped repeatedly over the past several months. Her body was found buried beneath the family home's back porch after an extensive search..."

  The room was hotter inside than the temperature had reached outside by several degrees. The chair, the coffee table, the pots and pans, and books, even all four televisions were floating several inches off the floor, and Miranda's body trembled as she squeezed her fists so hard now her nails cut through her skin and blood seeped from her palms. The stereo lifted up as well, and the entire room began to shake, not violently, but enough for those in the store below to notice something was not right in the rooms above. Everything had a vibration to it in the building, and the floating items around Miranda started to crash and spark, and the plastered walls cracked all around the rooms in the entire apartment.

  Miranda let out a loud gasp, and then opened her eyes wide, revealing the blackness like it had come that night at the tower. The tremors stopped cold, and everything in the air around the room that was hovering seconds before came crashing to the floors around Miranda. Powerful winds that came from inside the apartment blew out every window and door around her, sending shattered glass and splintered doors flying out onto the streets and back alley around the building.

  The winds whipped through the streets of the Gaslight shopping and dining district of downtown Petoskey. People stopped in the streets, looking to the skies to see what was happening all of a sudden in the town that was only humid and still just moments before.

  The outdoor patios of the Roasted Renegade and the bar and restaurant a few doors down cleared quickly as the winds rose steadily more, and onlookers were pointing towards the sky over the bay. The sky was quickly darkening, and where there were blue skies a few minutes before were now billowing, black clouds that rolled across the entire skyline. The thickest of the clouds roared with a low rumbling, not like a single instance of thunder, rolling into another; this was more like a slow, steadily building eruption climbing to its climax.

  The winds caught a plastic tarp that was hanging from scaffolding outside the corner building where construction work was being done. The scaffold was three stories high, and the winds were strong enough now to push the tarp against the highest scaffold section, causing the entire structure to crash down across three cars, setting off car alarms to ring loud throughout the streets.

  People ran for cover and safety in every direction. One mother tucked herself and her stroller with her twin toddlers into a doorway of a locked apartment building, wrapping her arms around the children, while another man was waving people from the street into the storefront of a clothing store. The man looked to the sky over the bay as the thicker, blacker cloud was at least as large, if not larger than, the entire bay itself, stretching for miles. A loud boom echoed through the atmosphere as the cloud erupted with fire from within, filling the thick darkness with flashes of orange, red and yellow.

  The men and women on the street that saw this stopped in their tracks, staring into the vast black behemoth that roared in the sky above. Another blast came, even louder than the first, shaking the ground and causing an even greater panic as everyone who had looked at the last fiery burst went running up the street, desperately seeking somewhere to hide for some semblance of safety.

  Day had become night, until the entire canopy of darkness above ignited with a barrage of lightning-like blasts the color of fire that hammered at once into a single spot in the now vacant park near the intersection of two main streets that connect the eastern and western sections of the city. The resulting force of the impact of the blazing lightning sent a shock wave outward from its center, firing power and light poles like rockets in all directions, and sending mounds of earth up from the point of impact that acted like shrapnel, cutting through road surfaces and buildings in the immediate proximity of the blast.

  Dust rose high in the air after the mighty wave had subsided, and the blackness above the city dissipated within minutes, back into the hazy blueness that dominated several minutes earlier.

  There was silence in all directions. Electricity was out, and no voices could be heard in the city streets. The damage and devastation was incredible surrounding the impact site; the buildings closest to the blast looked as if a bomb had taken off the entire backsides of the structures, exposing rooms and hallways from inside, and no recognizable features or items could be distinguished within.

  As the dust began to settle, the scene of the destruction was slowly and painfully being taken in by the residents and tourists of the proud northern town. No one took notice of the figure that appeared down on hands and knees in the center of the massive crater that now took the place that had once been a lush green park at the core of the city of Petoskey.

  The man's hands lay upon the ground, first a stark white, but filling quickly with color against the pale gravel surface.

  He stood up, and started to brush the dust from his white suit jacket and pants. His movements were fluid and precise; he adjusted the collar of his black, button down shirt that he wore beneath the white jacket.

  His head was bowed to the ground, and finally, he lifted his chin to the sky, eyes closed at first, then opening them to the bright sun overhead that radiantly reflected the color of his thick blonde hair. His eyes were as black as the deepest midnight black, but soon changed in a seemingly relaxing manner
to a pleasant, deep blue hue that likened to the color of the sky itself that hazy, humid afternoon.

  The man gazed out across the bay, seemingly unaware or uncaring of the brutal destruction that was surrounding the very spot where he now stood.

  He breathed in, tasting the air, licking the moisture that formed on his lips, and then he smiled. He took his first step forward...

  ...and the Devil walked the Earth once more.

  The End