by Rena Mason
“It’s always good with you,” I whisper heavy and move my hand down between his legs.
He reaches for my hand then moves it back up to his chest. “I’m a little tired tonight, too, and you need some rest.”
I have to catch my breath. Sixteen years and he’s never done this.
“You’re right.” I exhale slowly and move away. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
No I love yous. Not tonight.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Somewhere between sleep, dreams, and consciousness, they come. Their music is lucid words and voices calling out—willing me to wake—desperate for me to hear. “Come back.” “You will kill us all.” “You will kill them, too.” “You will See.” “It has begun.”
My eyelids pop open and I gaze out across a terrain of ruffled linen, the peaks glowing in the bright sunlight. I wonder again…could there be some truth to what they’re saying? Will I be responsible for the extinction of two separate life-forms? And when exactly did it begin?
After a minute, I realize Jon is gone. Does it begin with?—Jon! I flip the covers back, leap out of bed and rush into the bathroom. The closet is open and the light is on inside. For a moment I breathe easy. Then I go in and see articles of his clothing draped over the chaise but no Jon. Where could he be? Maybe he’s downstairs making coffee. But why would he need to get dressed? I find a pair of his clean slacks on the closet floor in a crumpled mess. Something must be going on. I pull on some jeans and a T-shirt, put my hair into a ponytail then leave the master bedroom.
First, I check the office. The door is open but it’s empty, and I’m sure he isn’t in Patrick’s room, so I trot downstairs. My mom is on the couch in her robe, holding a cup of coffee and watching TV.
“Hey Mom, have you seen Jon?”
She jumps a little and the cup bumbles in her hands. “You startled me.”
“Sorry. Did you spill?”
“No.”
“Where’s Jon?”
“He and your father went golfing.”
“Really?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“No. When did they leave?”
“Early. I think your father said they were playing eighteen holes.”
“Oh.”
“You two came home early last night. You weren’t arguing were you?”
“No. Why?”
“I guess Jon has seemed, well, out of sorts to me lately. That’s all.”
“Which is understandable considering the circumstances.”
“Not in the way that you’re thinking, dear. A mother just knows these things, but if you say you haven’t been fighting then I’ll have to believe you.”
“I promise. We haven’t. A mom knows what kind of things?”
“I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“No really, what? Tell me.”
“How was the party?”
“It was fine. Nice.”
“Are you going somewhere dressed like that?”
“Nowhere…”
“Come back.” “Please!” “Now!” “No time!”
“Mom, do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Suddenly, their tones become high-pitched squeals, forcing my eyelids and jaw to clamp shut. I clench my hands into tight fists not wanting to cover my ears in front my mom.
“Stacy, what is it? Are you okay?”
It stops, and the muscles in my face immediately release their grimace. “Yes. I’m fine.” I open my hands then raise them up to my head and tuck loose strands of hair behind my ears. All the while, a faint static noise tunes in and out of my head. “Actually, I think I might step out before the guys come home and finish up some shopping.”
“What? Oh no, I don’t think that’s a good idea at all. Maybe I should give Jon a call. What just happened?”
“Nothing, I told you, I’m fine. Don’t interrupt them. I won’t be gone long.”
“Well, in that case, I think I better go along. Give me a minute to get dressed.”
“No Mom, really, I’d like to go by myself. I’ll be okay.”
“But Jon told me not to let you go out alone.”
“He did?”
“Don’t be upset with him. They still don’t know what’s wrong, and he’s worried.”
“Fine, then. You’ve got thirty minutes.”
She gets up from the couch and heads for the guest room. “What are you going to do while I get dressed?” She watches me from her doorway.
“I’m going upstairs to wake Pat.”
“That’s a good idea.”
Her eyes follow me as I go up and disappear from view—unbelievable. Now I’m most definitely a prisoner in a home that no longer feels like mine.
When I get to the end of the hall, I open Pat’s door quietly then tiptoe in. I walk across his room and step into his bathroom. Even in the daylight shuttered darkness, I see bloodied tissues flowing over his little bathroom garbage can. They’re spilling out onto the floor. Icy daggers stab me all over, and I quiver uncontrollably in response. No!
I rush over to him lying in bed and rest my hand across the top of his blanket. Underneath, his chest moves slowly, rhythmically, up and down. He’s still breathing—good. I lean over him and move away a pillow he has covering his head, exposing one side of his face. He’s still sound asleep. I hunch over and kiss his temple, mouthing, “I love you…I’m so sorry,” into his head. I know somewhere in there he hears me. I sniffle and then inhale deep. I fill my lungs with his human smell that is always strongest in the morning. I kiss his temple again then sit up before my tears roll onto his face and wake him. Maybe there’s still something I can do to stop this.
I leave his room and head straight into the office thinking I can Google Dr. Light’s address. I move the mouse and Jon’s email account is open on the screen. There’s a sealed email envelope from Jordan in his inbox. I move the mouse over it and click. It says, “If you don’t tell her about us, I will.” My sinking heart bottoms out. I know Jordan intended for me to read that, and maybe Jon did, too. What Tara said at the party last night hits me now. Even my own mother suspects something. I leave the office and creep down the stairs. Along the way, my right shoulder swipes family pictures hanging on the wall. They’re black and white photos I took of us on our European vacation. I had them custom framed in natural carbon steel. One swings back and forth, making a scraping noise. I put my hand out and stop it. It’s a photo of Patrick when he was five. His smile was radiant—infectious. I have to save him!
When I get downstairs, I grab my car keys off the counter and sneak out of the house through the garage. To keep the noise minimal, I simultaneously open the garage and start the car. It seems to work, there’s no sign of my mom. I pull down the driveway and head out.
As I’m waiting for the gates to open, I see her in the rearview mirror. She’s jumping up and down the middle of the driveway, frantically waving a phone in her hand. She starts coming toward me, and I push my foot down on the accelerator and crash past the edges of the opening gates. There’s no time!
I peel out of the neighborhood and get onto the beltway, confident I know where I’m going. It wasn’t that I was lost the other day. They just weren’t there or wouldn’t show themselves. They will be there today—waiting for me—I know it.
I can’t remember if I stopped at any of the STOP signs before I made it onto the beltway, but I do notice something strange about the brown ceiling of pollution that usually hovers over the surrounding mountains. It is gone. The sky is the sharpest hue of azure I have ever seen, and knowing what I know makes it the most dangerous kind of beautiful. It’s early still, so there’s no traffic. I’m not sure I’ve seen any other cars at all. A shudder moves through me and I grip the steering wheel to hold it back. Everything looks post-apocalyptic already.
—My son. He’s dying. I know this, too. Maybe I’ve known it for a while. It’s the bleeding disease from my nightmares, and if it is real, then th
ey are real, too. They have to tell me how to fix it—they have to tell me the cure! If I promise to go with them…they will know how.
As soon as I turn onto the paved circular drive, the office building stands tall against the backdrop of nothing else for miles. It is only the building. No parking lot, none of the shrubs or sidewalks. It looks weak and sickly. The image flashes in and out like a hologram run from an old projector.
I put the car into park in front of the building and stare through the windshield. “Help me. Help my son. Please.”
“There is nothing.” “Come back to us.” “Remember now.”
“That can’t be. Find a way. Save him.”
“It is.” “We are.”
“No! No! No!” I slam my fists against the steering wheel. Tears and snot trickle over my lips. I look up in the rearview mirror. It’s not just tears—it’s blood. Streaming from my eyes and dripping from my nose. It’s running down the side of my neck. I turn my head and look in the mirror. My ears are bleeding, too. I hack into the air. The taste of salt and metal erupts from my mouth, spewing blood spray across the dashboard and windshield. A white whorl of vapor billows out in front of my face. I reach up and my hand passes right through it. I exhale again and another cloud, thicker than the first one, rolls out. In a matter of minutes, the car is filled with a dry white fog.
“It has begun.” “Come back to us.” “See.”
“No, goddammit! Listen to me!” I grab the steering wheel and bang my head against it. Something on my face shatters into a thousand pieces. Frantic, I unbuckle my seatbelt, and wave the fog off. I move my head an inch from the rearview mirror so I can see what broke. It was the blood, the mucus, and the tears. It had all frozen. I move my hands over my skin and slap away the rest of the fractured ice. “What is this? What’s happening? Help me!”
I’m crying hysterically, blabbering, and I can’t tell if I’m talking out loud or talking in my mind anymore. Every sign shows it’s freezing in the car but inside, I’m on fire—searing—my lungs are on the verge of combustion. My God, the burning!
“Yes.”
“NO!” My mouth roars open. Bright white light launches straight out into the building. The next moment, I’m in the light—I am the light—in the building. The marbled veins in the floor pulse and the walls fold and collapse around me. Once again I’m moving through folds of slimy plasma, but it’s mostly clear. I can see through it. I push my way to the bottom and peer out.
Down below I see my car. A body is hunched over the steering wheel—my body. “Am I dead?” I say.
“Only in that form which was never yours to live through.” It’s his voice all around in rippled waves of blue—Dr. Light.
“No! How can I save him if I’m dead? Please! Help my son!”
A profound deafening stillness surrounds me. It encroaches and pervades. Then all at once, sound, lights, and fragmented remembrance come down in a viscous tidal wave of multicolored ooze. It takes me under and rattles my existence. At long last, I finally See.
“He, they, all, will die peacefully in their sleep to avoid suffering slow burning deaths,” I think.
“Yes.”
“What is it—an illness—a disease?”
“A viral form of radiation poisonings.” “We yield to the radioactive emissions of their light.” “They succumb to the radiation emanating from our darkness.”
From where I am in the slimy plasma bubble, the view of my car gets smaller and smaller. We are moving up. We are leaving, and I am seeing the entire valley through what seems to be the rounded end of a water droplet. I reach out into opalescent liquid light—afraid. My fear travels in ringlet hues of brilliant purple.
“I will miss it,” I think.
“What will you miss most?”
“Being human.”
I sense their confusion at my answer. I forget they don’t know what it means, so I explain. “I was an individual with my own thoughts, and I used them to make my own future. Humans are all separate beings in a vast sea of choices. Make the right ones and rise, breathe to survive. Survive to procreate. And the children…I will miss the children.
“Will I—I mean we…forget?”
Together we answer, “We do not know.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rena Mason is a registered nurse and worked in the operating room for over 12 years. A longtime horror fan, she currently lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, is a member of the Pacific Northwest Writers Association, and the Horror Writers Association. Her short story, “The Eyes Have It,” is in the anthology, Horror For Good: A Charitable Anthology from Cutting Block Press. Her novella, East End Girls, will be out June 2013 from JournalStone Publishing. The Evolutionist is her debut novel. To learn more about Rena and her upcoming projects, visit her website www.renamasonwrites.com