by Mark Boliek
*****
JT's eyes felt heavy. He started a fire in the old fireplace and the resinous smell of smoke tickled his nose. The autumn sun in its passage across the sky rode just above the horizon. He passed the day reading his grandfather's journal. When twilight came, the empty house revealed its warmth. JT found an old lamp and plugged it in. Despite the slight—and no doubt somewhat dangerous—electric shock that tingled through the tips of his fingers, the artificial light filled the room.
JT stared at his grandfather's portrait in the wavering firelight. Just like before, the old man came alive. The flames, licking the outside walls, made his gray hair flow and his smirky smile dance. If only the old man were here, JT thought, flipping through pages of the journal to the month of June. JT pulled up his knees, resting the book on his thighs, and once again focused on the pages.
June 3
I cannot recall how I know it is June 3. I believe Mr. Lampe told me in passing this morning, but I cannot know for sure. My feet have labored the last couple of weeks, walking in the jungles. I have not taken any joy in my steps since we have come upon so many destroyed villages.
Our only hope to end this engagement has come from the return of our two able-bodied crewmen. After following the young messenger to his origin, they gave a most interesting report.
Dear reader, I am able to reveal what our two scouts have discovered. I am not one to mince words and I am sure that, up to this point, you have considered me to be somewhat cryptic in my telling of this adventure. There, you would be unfortunately correct. It is not by choice that I cannot delve into much detail. It has just been the nature of this voyage. I would be most excited and happy if someone could tell me what I may expect or uncover to me what it is I am pursuing. What I have found out, and what has been so true in every life, however clichéd, is that things aren't quite what they seem. The young messenger, I have been told, is the monster's own son.
The wind outside the house began to bawl. JT looked up from the journal. He was used to the sound of the dark. On the farm, the peace of the night could be deafening.
The silence by the edge of the water, however, was cold. He could feel the bite in the wind that snuck through the cracks of the aging roof and walls.
The little lamp beside him flickered and, though he knew the night, this one felt different than the others. Fear slunk into his mind and his body; he shivered with a quick jolt. He could feel his pulse speed up and his breath become shallow.
JT tried to shake the fear from his psyche. He felt a lump build in his throat. He ran his fingers through the pages of the journal. The anxiety that rushed him, made him feel as though he was up against a clock to finish the book. His chest pounded. His eyes became unfocused. The cool air from the wind howling through the room painfully dried the insides of his nostrils. He breathed through his mouth, hoping to relieve the sting of the cold flooding his lungs.
He tried to calm himself, but he had to know how his grandfather's adventure ended. He had to know what happened to his grandfather and his men. Why could he not remember?
The house shook.
“What in the world?” JT asked out loud.
He had felt that shake before.
He tried to focus on the pages, but the shaking became so intense that the pages only looked like a large blur.
“Say it." The words danced through the house and off the walls.
JT smiled for a second. He did not think that he would ever see the Essence of Bruinduer again. A page slipped out of the journal beside him. He picked it up and, on the back, he saw the dark poem Kali had written on the night they first came back to Warhead Dale. Seeing her handwriting filled his thoughts with the young girl with auburn hair and beautiful sapphire eyes.
“Say it.” JT heard again.
He tore his eyes from the piece of paper, because the words he heard had an unfamiliar tone; they sounded hollow, intense, ripping into his ears.
Billy had relayed the words forcefully the first time, but in his mind at the time, JT had heard them as sincere. These tones, this empty muttering of the same words, however, did not feel honest, but sarcastic. Someone or something was mocking Billy.
JT slammed the journal to the couch and leapt to his feet. The sky turned black. The old rotten shutters slammed against the exterior wall as the foundation of the house shook more violently. He snatched his cane tight into his hands and raised it in the air. He did not know why he did it, but the cane did not respond. Its red ruby eyes lay dormant in the ivory skull and crossbones. The lights of the house flickered twice and went out. The logs in the fireplace rolled about, extinguishing the fire. An eerie creaking sound echoed through the walls and the floor felt unstable beneath JT's legs.
A tremendous roar came from outside and above the house. It growled and shifted in the night sky, puncturing it like a bullet. Higher than the initial bellow, a screeching laugh fluttered and cut through. More laughs followed, not quite as loud, but of an even higher tone. The chorus of cackles turned evil.
JT's mind scrambled. He whipped his head back and forth, trying to gain his balance. He had no idea what was happening or what was causing it. He wanted to believe with all of his heart that it was not Billy. It couldn't be him, right? He remembered Billy's lumbering laughs, but they were never malevolent in character. JT always thought there was a sincere seriousness behind the essence's chuckles, no matter how sarcastic they might have seemed in the moment.
JT stumbled to the suddenly clouded glass, wiped it, and peered out into the late afternoon twilight. Rolling, ominous clouds gathered in the distance on the crisp clean day. The orange rays from the setting sun disappeared behind the collecting storm. Lightning flickered in the distance, flashing through the clouds. Something menacing came towards Warhead Dale.
JT shuffled around the room, his mind blank. The air grew colder with every passing second; he could see small plumes of mist with each breath. He could not think of anything to do. He had no control—a feeling he could never get used to.
JT froze, petrified by whatever the outcome might be. He simply could not move. His knee cramped. He suddenly felt like a trapped animal, helpless and scared.
A tremendous jolt shifted the house and the ceiling cracked. One of the topmost logs on the dead fire tipped out of the fireplace and rolled across the floor, beneath a chair. An ember lit the slipcover on fire. The heat rushed and filled the room.
“No! No!” JT screamed. “What in the world?”
The ceiling blew open.
JT fell to the floor and covered his head. Millions of pieces of roof covered him. The instantaneous rush of air extinguished the fire. Then there was silence.
JT peeked out from under his arms. Slowly, he picked his head up and looked directly above him. “You have got to be kidding me.”
He shrugged his shoulders and stared at the opening and the night sky beyond it. This couldn't have been Billy. Billy might blow the front door off its hinges, he would not deliberately do that kind of damage to the structure of the house. At least, JT thought so, but who could tell what the Essence would do and who could control it anyway.
The air turned to ice. Goosebumps sprouted on JT's skin. His joints tightened. He took another breath and a stream of steam rose from his lips. He could smell his dry, stale mouth. He checked to make sure his grandfather's journal was not hurt. It sat undisturbed on the end table by the couch.
He thought about Mary Catherine. He did not know why, but he did know that even this seemingly terrifying event paled in comparison to the pain she must have felt dying from a dreadful disease.
Something soft and cold hit his hand. A few seconds later, it vanished and a drop of water ran down his forearm, hitting the dusty floor with a small splatter.
A very short time later more soft coldness landed on his arms, head, and neck. The cold substance slid under his shirt and his body jerked; he wiped at his skin. Underneath the hole in the roof, the floor turned white.
The snow
floated downward quietly, peacefully, majestically. JT had rarely seen snow land at the Shorts' farm, though it had fallen on the fields. He remembered watching it fall and paint the ground so freshly white that he never wanted to see the ground tarnished with footprints or dirt again.
As his thoughts wandered, the laughter started again. It echoed from far off and then, before JT knew it, it was upon him. It sounded as though a thousand people landed on the roof and scurried about. He tensed and gazed up at the opening, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever was outside.
Just as the peaceful snow comforted him with its gentle fall, it changed, falling fast and heavy. The wind howled, creating a vortex of snow, a tornado dancing around JT on the floor.
Blackness engulfed the tornado, though the white of the snow made the room glow. JT could not make sense of anything happening around him or to him. He could not feel his arms, numb with cold.
The footsteps above trampled the roof with a deafening roll, faster and faster. The roof sounded as though it would collapse. It reminded JT of a herd of bulls rumbling over the plains. The stampeding noise narrowed, closing in on the opening.
JT's eyes went wide. He stood as firm as he could; fright coursed through his body. He did not want to be scared, but his breath came fast and his heart pounded.
“What you got?” JT finally yelled. “What you want?” JT lashed out with his cane. He sensed something jump through the hole in the roof, but could not make it out in the snow.
Something scraped his skin at the shoulder and he pivoted about. He took in a deep breath. The man in the purple suit from the courthouse stood in front of him, his smile large and white. He wore a hood with the head of a bull. JT could see the animal’s dark eyes easily against the blinding snow. Red fire shot from the nostrils and the horns curled away on top of the head, standing high in the vortex of snow and some three feet long.
“Boo!” The man lunged toward JT. JT's eyes blurred as the bull's head closed in. He blacked out and fell. JT heard the ring of laughter and a crowd whispering, though he only could remember seeing the one man. Concerned, cold, confused, and soon covered with snow, JT crumpled to the hard, frozen floor.
JT's eyes opened. He lay face down in thick white snow. He was bitterly cold, the tips of his fingers numb, and his toes tingling in his socks. He could taste melting snow as it touched his tongue. He took in a deep breath and realized he was not on the floor of Warhead Dale, but on the ground. Cold dirt has a distinctive smell.
He raised his head and looked out over a sea of white that ended in a tree line. Okay, I’m in a large field. To his left, leafless, snow-covered, and reaching to the sky, stood the large oak tree in the middle of the Ol' 22 on the Shorts' farm. How did he get there? More importantly, how long had he been there?
He struggled to his numb feet and took in a deep breath. Regardless of the situation, it felt good to be back…home. Smiling, he turned south to see the old farmhouse. It was not there.
He turned totally around and around, looking for the house, but it was not there. Then he realized he might not be on the farm at all. Was it possible he was in a—?
The ground quaked. The sky turned black and the stars that poked their light through the darkness swirled. A burly laugh blew across the empty field; the snow bounced and rolled across the earth, forming a large wave that launched to the sky, taller and taller. JT's heart hammered in his chest as the wave came closer. Behind the wave, came a large truck with an enormous silver tank on its back that read “WATER.” The truck pushed the mountain of snow. JT closed his eyes. A rush of cold drove through his body, then nothing. He lay still, frozen from fear, until he felt a soft tapping on his shoulder.
“Sleeper, wake up.” JT heard the words, distant but clear.
“JT! Wake up!” The voice sounded louder and closer. His shoulders shook back and forth. He opened his eyes. Michael stood over him.