by Arlene Webb
At 5:30 AM, he slammed to a stop along the shoulder. He removed the tape from her lips last, twisted the top off a bottle of water, and handed it to her.
The plastic bottle smacked into his chest.
He wiped droplets from his face. “Settle down, luv.” He tugged his sopped shirt over his head, flung back his long tangled hair, and grabbed her. “Do I need to tie you up again?”
“Dan…ny.” Hiccup. “Patrick’s gonna leave me?” Hiccup.
She wilted in his arms, and the waterworks started. He dropped a kiss on her forehead.
“Sleep it off, before I strangle you for him.”
A murmuring eternity later, he settled her on her stomach on the backseat. He’d take a leak, truck back, and leave Shana snoring on the doorstep at St. Mary’s. Nothing like some quality time with the nuns. He left the keys dangling in the ignition, his sandals under the seat.
He jogged a quarter mile, uncoiling his rage. Another beautiful dawn, the dry air smelled thick with fire.
Daniel Connor had a second to register the flash across the horizon before he hit the ground.
Pine, Arizona
5:56 PMT
Friday, July 8th
Black sucked. The pines should be lovely shades of emerald, not stalks of charred ash.
Shovel in one hand, depleted source of caffeine in the other, the firefighter was the last volunteer to exit the bus. Early dawn slapped him in the face, but as the heat of the day progressed, it’d become intolerable in his heavy orange jacket. Without much talk, the group shuffled toward the glow to continue the firewall.
He wadded his coffee cup, shoved it into his pocket, and stooped to tighten his bootlace. He straightened. What…the—? His shovel fell to the side, and he ran.
Sprawled on his stomach under a dead pine, the soot-covered man wore only black jeans. His long unruly hair was fire engine red, and the skin on his back appeared to be burned a painful shade of crimson. The fireman placed a gentle touch on the man’s shoulder, and muscles flowed under his hand.
A red fist swung—pain slammed through the fireman’s jaw—black filled his vision.
Smelling salts jarred the fireman back to reality. He gaped up at his coworker.
“You must have tripped, bro. You were knocked out.”
“No, he hit me. A red…haired…man?” The fireman licked his cracked lips. Jaw intact, but it damn well throbbed.
They searched for a half hour before calling it quits. He spoke little. The excitement of a power outage, grid down on the western seaboard, stalled the teasing that continued throughout the day. Satellites had realigned in minutes. Restoring electricity took most of the morning. No way would he confide in that macho lot what he’d really seen. Only that evening did the words tumble out to the trusted woman in his bed. “Beams of red fire came from his eyes.”
“Maybe you fell and dreamed it.”
“Yeah.” Some dream. Demonic laser eyes filled with rage. There wasn’t a boxer alive or dead that could swing at the speed of light. And yet, he’d had the distinct impression Red had held back his wallop.
Long after she fell asleep in his arms, he lay awake. He kept feeling the tap of the fist sending shards of heat into his face. Had that power failure unleashed hallucinations for anyone else? He needed to attend church, get a shrink, carry a stake…something.
Chapter Two
Pine, Arizona
5:57 AM
Friday, July 8th
Red droplets on the creature’s face were so pretty.
The fragile thing had crumpled with barely a touch. He shoved it and its orange covering aside and reached for its broken lip. He brought his strange hand upward, sniffed metallic impurities, and found his tongue.
The beautiful fluid disappeared!
Rage pounded within him, and he bounced to his feet. He didn’t know what he was, where, or why he was here. Everything was wrong. The light sparkled unsteadily. It radiated from a small disc rising into an ugly vastness above him, an oppressive blue to which there seemed no end. On a much lower level, the currents smelled nice, but he felt vastly outnumbered—surrounded by unpleasant-green stalk creatures, reaching toward the equally unpleasant-blue.
He began to run. Bombarded by a multitude of sounds, anger jolted through him. Things, himself included, moved extremely slow. Bizarre surroundings blurred by, and he noticed a clearing with a structure nestled back from the safe-black pavement underfoot. It could bring shelter from the crushing weirdness. He slunk around it until an opening allowed him to peek inside—very ugly in there.
When he tapped the clear substance, it shattered into a terrible mess. A bitter grunt burst from his lips, and his muscles tensed. In a fluid leap, he cleared the broken space to enter.
The bursts of wrong color everywhere enraged him. Deadly strips of white outlining the room taught him fear. Nothing made sense, but somehow he remained pure and untaken.
A raised-structure was centered in the area. He flinched from the colorful and deadly images on the walls and came to a halt. Attached to a wall, a mass similar in size and shape to the orange clad creature faced him. Mimicked movements reflected back at him. This was him? Trapped in a strange form? He ran fingers through dirty-red tangled hair falling past his shoulders. His skin tone wasn’t right. Not bright enough. Nothing was as it should be, except the clean light shining from his optical units.
A facial image sat, propped on the dresser. The tiny creature’s optical openings had a dull blue center circled by dead-white. Short wisps of hair—ugly yellow—fell about its face. The moment he grasped it, the picture disintegrated into another disarray of broken glass. Frustration seemed a constant in this strange world.
He fixated on a pair of optical coverings. There’d been much terror radiating from the creature he’d hit, as if beautiful optical-units frightened it. He shoved them on his face, splintering them. Anger shuddered through him as he strode toward a much smaller area, the door ajar. Inside the comforting dark space, things hung in his way.
Intolerable had a solution.
He flung a green piece of clothing behind him, and it slid under the bed. More wrong followed, until finally only safe ones remained. He snorted. What kind of monster coexisted with such hues? He yanked the door closed behind him, cracking the frame, and shutting the weirdness out.
A soft black shirt clutched in his hands, he huddled. Time passed while his anxiety escalated. With billions of sounds to filter, his head hurt so badly his brain wouldn’t work. He rubbed his fingers, hard, along his temples. Not easy. But he pushed out the racket, lowered the pounding ache so he could concentrate on the immediate vicinity. He listened to two beings run into the shelter through a different opening than the one he’d made. A stream of noise with a mechanical pitch joined the chatter between the two creatures.
One of them sounded twenty-two steps away, twenty-one, twenty…
Let the unknown come to him. Every muscle coiled, he waited. Tiny feet treading in a clumsy pattern informed him its size would be pitiful.
The approaching being called out, “If you touched my new shirt I’ll kill you. Tell Mom I swiped it from the mall, and see what happens to you.”
Its high-pitched vocal tones were unpleasant. Had it threatened the other? Finally. Three more feet before its arrival. The door to his little shelter opened. It looked like the image he’d broken, larger but still much smaller than he was. Fear radiated from it. White deadly teeth in its gaping mouth made him twist inside the body entrapping him, frightened along with the little thing.
He grasped it, not allowing it to scream. His head hurt as it was. Had he taught it not to yell? He removed his large hand. Such pretty-red welts—he’d hurt it? His worry infuriated him. Being the cause of harm to the helpless thing seemed complicated, but he shook with the need to smash it into the wall.
This time while he silenced it, he adjusted for extreme fragility. The pathetic being collapsed, and he stomped to toss it on the bed. The creature’s heartb
eat pounded steadily, but it wouldn’t function.
He clasped his head, long hair in the way, and his foot smashed the floor.
The creature was too easily broken and unpredictable. He wanted to force open its sight, and poke out those dead-blue optical openings. Would that kill it? At the very least, it’d further confuse it. The fear before it went dormant had been awful.
Anger shivered through him. He’d been the cause of the terror. He’d seek another shelter before the second one, its airflow erratic, finally arrived to confront him. He brushed contaminated hands on his lower covering, cleared the window in an effortless skip, and ran.
The cool dry air felt good on his bare chest, and the optical covering softened the harshness around him. He heard the metal vehicle approaching slower than he could run, long before he saw it. To his delight, it was red, with only one creature in it.
Maybe this one would last a long minute before it broke.
* * *
Strawberry ice cream. Yep. That’d be the flavor du jour. Jaylynn pressed her foot down on the gas pedal.
The sun sparkled and heat reflected off pavement. Good ol’ boring I-87, where one could go the entire drive to civilization without seeing a soul. Perfect for DWD—driving while daydreaming. The pressures of an empty fridge had encouraged her to flip the “open” sign on her bookstore door and head out on a mission for something tasty.
Jaylynn rounded a familiar curve and blinked. A man at the edge of the road? She blinked again. A red man wearing dark shades and no shirt?
Red? She eased up on the gas pedal and took off her sunglasses.
He still looked—he looked damn good. Bright, unruly crimson hair fell past his shoulders. Over six foot in height. A shade of continuous red, his chest appeared marred by streaks of black soot. Tight jeans clad the body of an athlete. He not only looked hot, he sprang with ninja grace.
Slamming on the brakes, she swerved off the shoulder. A seatbelt would have been smart.
No frickin’ airbag? Her face smashed into the steering wheel.
Spots of bright vermillion faded.
* * *
The vehicle stopped moving, and he strode to it, relieved to see the creature inside wore safe-black coverings.
The door handle crumbled in his hand. He shrugged off his annoyance, eased the metal open, and leaned in. Pretty. Droplets beaded on the lower part of the creature’s face, just like the larger orange clad one had before he licked them away. This creature had soft curving differences, and for some reason it’d shutdown. The vehicle had harmed it? He snorted. The organic beings were too fragile. He could protect it. He streaked the pretty fluid over the creature’s face and lifted it aside.
Metal crumbled with his slightest touch. In the control seat, he scanned the area. Tiny knobs disintegrated in his hand, making a mess, without communicating anything!
How to make the vehicle cooperate proved difficult. He pounded on the maneuvering wheel, and just like that, it snapped off. The angry noise burst from him, and he tossed the broken wheel behind him. He didn’t like the metal. He’d continue killing it if it tried to harm a fragile creature again. He drew a deep breath. Optical coverings sat beneath the glass. Very carefully, he replaced the smaller, crushed pair.
The assault of sounds pounding into his head included a warning something approached. Should he confront it? He sighed. If he interacted with more than one at a time, he might snap off heads like they were a wheel control. He’d find shelter. If the creature beside him was no good, he’d take another and another until he had answers. He scooped it up and exited the vehicle.
One leap and he cleared the ditch. He dodged trees, fury twisting in waves within him. He couldn’t achieve the velocity he wanted. Maybe the thing he carried knew why. He wished it’d wake up.
A pathway ahead led to a structure tucked in a clearing. A sharp kick and the door fell. He strode inside. The resulting noise startled the creature in his arms. He dumped it onto a raised structure and took in their surroundings.
Another ugly shelter. He could fix that problem.
He yanked a picture off the wall and hurled it over and out the broken door.
* * *
Pain ricocheted through her skull. Jaylynn’s eyes snapped open. She lay on a couch. Where was she? Even more important, who—that man from the road! God. So stupid thinking things like this would never happen to her. Why listen and carry a weapon, mace, anything? She sat up. A cabin in the woods? Fear jolted through her. Not a phone in sight.
His back to her, the man stomped toward a chair. Whoa. Talk about seeing crimson. Coiled power radiated, rippling through his shoulders. Native American? Gang member that dyed his skin? Mutated guy who’d escaped a vat of red dye?
He grabbed a blanket off the chair, snarled, and leapt over the broken door to fling it outside. Long hair swirled, a cloud of fire around his thin face. He wiped his hands on his jeans, headed for a framed print on the bookshelf, and jettisoned the picture outside. A colorful silk floral followed. He ignored the books and turned.
She drew back and a scream rushed up her throat. He reached above her and snatched a quilt from the top of the couch. Energy and suppressed violence rolled off him in vibrant waves. The blackened-red hair on his chest glistened inches away from her, before he whirled to the doorway, and tossed the quilt.
She swallowed hard. “Who-who are you? Why’d you bring me here?”
No reply. He stalked toward an end table with a vase.
She scrambled to her feet, took a step, and choked.
He pivoted to block the doorway. His snarl directed at her, he gestured her back with a rough flip of his fingers. Arrogant bastard. “You can’t keep me here. What do you want?” Another exit, there had to be a back door.
Lip curled, he lunged, grabbed and tossed her. The couch slammed into her back, her arms tingled where he’d grasped her, and—Jesus, blood on her lip?
He stomped to reach for the vase on a small white doily. He jerked back, paused, and then spun away, moving faster than she would have thought human. In the doorway, he lurched to a stop. He looked at her and motioned—impatient, aggressive.
No time to understand, let alone cooperate, before he loomed over her. He yanked her up, sending sharp currents radiating into her.
“Don’t touch me. Please!” Unable to help herself, she began to cry.
He drew a sharp breath. The sunglasses hid his eyes, but his jaw twitched with anger. His hold on her arm was hard enough, the threat implied any tighter and he’d crush bones. But he touched her cheek gently. Ripples of heat spread through her face, and soft breath flooded her with a sweet pure scent.
He lifted a tear with a whispery, butterfly touch, sniffed, and then licked the droplet off his finger.
Could she get in a groin kick before it was too late? She couldn’t move her arm, but her panicked gulps brought his study of her to an end. He spun her around and propelled her to the end table. With shaking hands, she picked up the vase. Smash him with it? He wasn’t that much taller than she was.
As if he could read her mind, he grabbed the vase and flung it. Glass shattered outside, echoing from her confused and terrified head to her toes. He thrust her toward the sliding doily. When she caught it, he dragged her out the door, and forced her to drop the lace on the shattered picture. He stopped shaking her arm, which now felt broken, yanked her back inside and pushed her toward the couch. Crouched down, he slowed his ragged breathing.
While she stood frozen with panic, he straightened. Ungodly fast, he pulled another blanket from the corner of the couch. Oblivious to her panic, he pushed her down and dropped the black fleece on her lap.
The throb in her arm settled to a dull ache. She hadn’t heard, nor could she feel, a snapped bone, but the way he injured her with such ease—what in God’s name was he?
A harsh grunt and he stormed for a blue ceramic bowl. It joined the colorful graveyard outside the door. A wrap hung on a hook in the corner. He flipped his hand at
her. Should she save him from a killer shawl?
Fear fogged her brain as she inched across the room to pick up the ivory shawl. He backed away, the doorway cleared. She fled outside, let go of the wrap, and covered twenty feet. Like an idiot, she’d thrown away her weapon.
One large hand cut off her scream, and her feet left the ground. Without looking at her, he dropped her back inside, and she scrambled away.
He bit his lower lip and sighed. He seemed relieved that wood décor, without a hint of color, now surrounded him. As if he lifted paper, he smashed the broken door back into place. He then squatted and pushed long hair aside to rub his temple.
She drew a shuddering breath, and it took him a fluid second to reach her as she backed into the couch. He picked up the fleece and tossed it on her—like the blanket could calm her? He stepped back and stomped to pat the end table next to the couch, causing it to wobble.
“Do you want me to throw the table out, too?”
He again smacked the table. Its legs cracked in front of her astonished eyes.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “It’s a stupid table, and you broke it. Why won’t you let me go?”
His harsh voice spoke for the first time. “It’s a stupid table? Table.” He stepped closer and patted the couch.
“What kind of monster are you? What do you want?”
“Monster?” One tap of his closed fist—the couch dropped, its legs shattered.
“No, it’s a couch.” She choked back the sob.
“Couch.” He closed in, and she burrowed into the damaged couch.
He leaned over her. With a delicate stroke of his finger, tear droplets sizzled from her face. He picked up the corner of the blanket, and raised his eyebrows over his sunglasses, which looked just like hers.