The Only Human

by Rick Mofina

  “No.”

  The air filled with the diesel grind of a sight-seeing bus that stopped near the cathedral. Sight-seers on the upper deck took pictures.

  Ty and Ella moved to the central pillar with the image statue of St. John the Divine. Professor Blair had written that the carving of the four riders on horseback under St. John’s feet were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

  “Listen to this,” Ella read from the notes. “They symbolize conquest, war, famine and death, and will ride in advance of the Last Judgment and the end of the world.”

  “That sounds bad.” Ty said, scanning the building with the goggles.

  “Are the goggles showing you anything I can’t see?”

  “No.” Then Ty pointed to a pillar with a carving showing the collapse of the Brooklyn Bridge and cars tumbling into the East River. Near it, the Statue of Liberty appears to be sinking into the water.

  “See that one?”

  “Yes,” Ella said.

  Then they saw the carvings of the New York Stock Exchange in chaos, the skulls atop heaps of bones, a skeleton.

  “These represent the destruction of New York, according to the professor’s notes,” Ella said. “Look at this one, Ty.” She pointed to a carving of an old man shrouded in a robe. The hood covered his head allowing one eye to stare out.

  “This is the ‘One-Eyed Man’. According to the notes, he’s some kind of mystical wizard or prophet. That big amulet hanging from the chain around his neck, do you see it?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s supposed to possess incredible powers. Oh, now the notes point to a fountain beside the church over here.” They went to the south lawn to a garden section filled with small sculptures done by children but it was dominated by a huge one called ‘Peace Fountain’.

  The sculpture showed Michael the Archangel, with his glorious wings extended as he kills Satan by cutting off his head with a huge sword.

  “Whoa! That is so wildly gruesome!” Ty said.

  “Can you see anything at all that’s different with the goggles?”

  “No.” Ty lifted them off and replaced them a couple of times, testing them while looking at the sculpture. “Nothing. So what does this one mean?”

  Ella studied the notes and the plaque mounted near the sculpture.

  “This one is about the victory of good over evil. It’s about the opposing forces of light and darkness in the world. Listen, the professor’s notes add, and I’m quoting the words: ‘And the battle continues in this city with the curse and the awakening in the struggle to bring us to the end of all days’.”

  Ty looked at Ella as she continued paging through the notes.

  “So now what? What are we supposed to do?”

  “I’m looking, I’m looking.”

  “What did Professor Blair mean when he said: ‘They’re everywhere, they’re watching; we see but we don’t see’?”

  While Ella studied the book Ty slipped off the goggles, letting them hang around his neck. They were getting hot on his face.

  “Gargoyles!” Ella said.

  “What?”

  “I think I found a piece of the professor’s puzzle! It’s gargoyles!”

  “Those weird, creepy statues and faces on buildings?”

  “Yes!”

  “I don’t get it.”

  Ella held her finger on a page of the notebooks. “I’m so stupid for missing this. I did a short history paper on gargoyles!”

  “So you know plenty about them?”

  “They’re these ugly carvings of people, animals, or demons, high up and sticking out of old buildings with spouts in their mouths to shoot out rain water. There are all sorts of myths and legends about them, like how they can come to life and stuff, but here!” Ella tapped the notebook. “The professor writes about seeing something strange going on with gargoyles here at the cathedral! Look on this page!”

  Ty and Ella studied the sketches and notes.

  “Hey, his sketches look like creatures I saw at the fire! But I didn’t see them here, even with the goggles.”

  “That’s because we’re not in the right place. Read his note:

  “In my monitoring of the cathedral I made a disturbing observation earlier this year. One day I noticed that two gargoyles had mysteriously appeared on the building. They were never there before. My study of the archives revealed no record. The officials I consulted could not explain this disturbing phenomenon but more alarming, they advised me to remain silent about it! I am gravely concerned as this is linked to my other research, which I’ve kept in a secure location.”

  Ty and Ella saw a tiny, concise sketch with an arrow noting the location of Professor Blair’s gargoyle sighting on the cathedral. The extreme south east façade. They hurried there and scoured every inch of the structure. Minutes passed in vain.

  Ella tapped Ty’s shoulder.

  “Use the goggles.”

  Ty positioned them on his face and continued the hunt scrutinizing the upper reaches of the enormous cathedral.

  “I found something!”

  Ty adjusted the aperture on the goggles and the image grew clear, large and near as he stretched his neck to look up.

  There, among the rooftop spires, he saw a great horned demon carved in stone crouching high above. It had large, pointed ears and a lion’s nose. Fangs shot from its taut, stretched, ravenous mouth. Huge reptilian wings folded against its back, its scaled legs ended in huge talons that gripped its perch as its lifeless eyes stared with undying hatred and arrogance into infinity.

  The tiny hairs on the back of Ty’s neck stood up.

  I swear its chest heaved! It’s breathing!

  Droplets of water splashed on Ty’s face. He turned his head to shake it off. Was it rain water left from the storm?

  Or was that thing drooling on me?

  A chill coiled up Ty’s spine, filling him with the sudden knowledge that he was facing an old enemy.

  Ella grasped his shoulder, startling him.

  “Ty?” She asked. “What is it?”

  Catching his breath, he passed the goggles to Ella, helped her put them on and showed her where to look.

  “I don’t see anything,” she said.

  Ty adjusted the apertures.

  “Still nothing.”

  Ella passed the goggles back. Ty put them on and continued studying the gargoyle high above them.

  “Ella, it’s one of the most frightening things I’ve ever seen!”

  As Ty looked at the beast he froze.

  Suddenly, it leapt from its perch, diving with the speed of a missile straight at Ty, its hellish jaws gaping, its eyes enraged with scorn as it bore down on him.

  “Noooo!”

  Ty screamed and grabbed Ella yanking her with him to the ground.

  “Ty!”

  People near them stared in bewilderment as Ty tore off the goggles to see a small sparrow fly off after darting near their heads.

  An older man and woman helped Ty and Ella to their feet.

  “It’s just a little bird, kid,” the man said. “Why get so freaked out?”

  His heart racing, Ty stared back at the location of the flying demon rechecking it with the goggles on, then with them off.

  He saw nothing.

  “Let’s get out of here Ella. Now!”

  11

  Ty and Ella got off the subway and surfaced in Chinatown.

  Less than an hour had passed since they’d fled the great cathedral to run off through the city, worried by the disturbing clues they’d seen. Still shaken by his ordeal with the gargoyle, Ty began walking across the Manhattan Bridge.

  “Where’re we going?” Ella asked.

  He said nothing. His face was taut. He walked with the determination of a soldier leaving the horrors of the battlefield behind him.

  “Why are we walking across the bridge to Brooklyn?”

  Ty didn’t answer as the span began rising over the fringes of Manhattan. Ella saw buildings and rooftops belo
w, then the graffiti sprayed on the fenced walkway to encourage joggers, stuff like, “Go Go Go;” then “Heart and Mind.”

  “Ty, you realize we’re going up?”

  He didn’t answer. As traffic pummeled the bridge and subway trains clattered by, Ella had to work to keep up with him. He walked fast, indifferent to the occasional walker or runner. He stared straight ahead, as if he were in a trance. Fifteen minutes later, when they’d reached the center of the bridge, he stopped.

  Was the city really facing impending doom? Ty thought.

  He looked at the mighty Brooklyn Bridge.

  Was it really going to collapse sometime soon?

  And was he – a thirteen-year-old kid – supposed to stop it all?

  No. No way! Because it was all too stupid to make sense!

  As Ty fought to get a grip on his situation, his misgivings were overshadowed by his growing refusal to believe any of it. He seized Professor Blair’s notebook and goggles from his bag and wound up to throw them into the East River.

  “No, Ty!” Ella grabbed his arm, stopping him. “What’re you doing?”

  “None of this is real, Ella!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s all just the scribbling and babbling of a crazy old man! It’s sad but none of it is true!”

  “But Madame Petrovka knew things about you, secret things.”

  “She made good guesses, that’s her job. Half of the married people in America get divorced and it makes their kids sad.”

  “What about the creatures you saw through the goggles?”

  Ty shook his head. “Some sort of optical illusions.”

  “Really?” She stared hard at him. “Are you seriously dismissing everything?”

  “Think about what actually happened: Bertram Blair was talking nonsense, then he died in a terrible accident. I panicked. I disobeyed police orders and took his bag. Now my parents have been arrested because of me, probably for leaving the scene of a crime, or taking the bag, or something like that.”

  He looked at the goggles and notebook in his hands.

  “That’s what really happened, Ella. None of this Harry Potter, demonic fairy tale crap, like the stuff little kids believe is true because they saw it in movies. All this my: ‘destiny’, my ‘patience and fortitude’, my ‘bloodline’ or ‘something my ancestors did,’ is just stupid. I’ve got to make this right and give these things to police. I’ve got to help my mom and dad. Then I’ve got to try to get back to school and back to my boring life so I don’t end up in jail.”

  Ella took the goggles and notebook from Ty, put them back in his backpack then looked at the view. A few strands of her hair lifted in the breezes.

  “I don’t agree with you, Ty.”

  “That’s how it all looks to me,” he said. “It’s getting late. We’ve been out of school all day. This insanity has gone on long enough. I’m going to go to police and give them Professor Blair’s things so my parents can be released. Then I’ll take whatever punishment I deserve. Let’s go.”

  As the traffic and trains clattered and thumped across the bridge Ty could feel the span spring up and down. At that moment he took a second look at the skylines of Brooklyn and Manhattan and realized where he was actually standing.

  His heart raced, he couldn’t breathe. He was suffocating, on the brink of an attack as the creamy wakes of boats swirled one hundred and thirty-five feet below his feet.

  His acrophobia hit him full bore.

  Ty sat on the walkway, gripping the webbing.

  “Everything’s spinning. I gotta get down Ella!”

  “Okay, take deep, slow breaths.”

  “Get me down! Just get me down!”

  He held out his hand. Ella helped him up and slowly they took the first few steps back to Manhattan. Trembling each time he tried to lift his feet, Ty strained to keep his balance as his knees turned to jelly.

  “Don’t look down. Look ahead, it’s only a sidewalk.”

  Ty tried to recall Dr. Marsha Green’s treatment; how she’d helped him by taking him to a parking garage, first, to the second level, the next day to the third, then the fourth until he got to the tenth level without an attack.

  But that was long ago and since then he’d failed to follow her advice to apply it himself by visiting tall buildings, allowing his phobia to come back full force. Now, as the traffic and trains roared by, he felt every vibration send a shiver up his spine.

  He relied on Ella to help him down every inch of the way.

  “You’re doing fine, Ty. Just walking on a sidewalk,” she said. “We’re almost there.”

  After thirty agonizing minutes they reached the street. Ty doubled over and took several deep breaths. Then he took a big gulp of water from his bottle, wiped the sweat from his face and thanked Ella. “Let’s go to police and get this over with,” he said.

  12

  The headquarters of the New York Police Department was at One Police Plaza, less than ten blocks from the Manhattan side of the bridge.

  While walking there, Ella broke down the details of their circumstances, analyzing them, intensely researching matters and events online with her phone until she’d come to a realization.

  “Wait!” she said as they neared the building, which looked like a concrete fortress.

  “What is it?”

  She pulled Ty back around the corner of another building, out of sight. From there they surveyed police cars and vans parked on the street amid officers and detectives who were coming and going.

  “Don’t go in.”

  “Why?”

  “It would be a huge mistake.”

  “Ella, it’s the only way I can help my parents.”

  “Look!” She passed him her phone showing the current online edition of the Daily News and a headline: ‘WHERE DID THEY GO?’ She scrolled down so they could read the story.

  More than 150 people have “disappeared” in Queens after a boiler explosion forced their evacuation yesterday morning.

  “No one knows yet which shelter the buses took them to,” a city official said late last night. “Everyone was safe when they were transported. I’m sure it’s a glitch. They may have been taken to the Bronx.”

  The confusion follows several recent ongoing cases of hundreds of evacuees or tourists apparently ‘vanishing’ after being transported from a neighborhood disaster, or, in the case of tourists, embarking on a two-hour tour of Manhattan.

  For their part, police are unconcerned with the rash of bizarre incidents. One official played them down, suggesting that they are the result of ‘human error.’

  Ella peeked around the corner, keeping an eye on the police vehicles and cops near headquarters.

  “People are disappearing Ty and the cops don’t care. What’s up with that? Why isn’t somebody doing something? The army should be in the streets! Something’s seriously wrong!”

  Ty said nothing.

  “You want to give up to police because you feel guilty about your mom and dad,” she said, “but the real problem is that you’re afraid. I get that.”

  Ty said nothing and Ella continued.

  “I’m scared too. Real scared because I think Professor Blair and Madame Petrovka were telling the truth. Something frightening is coming.”

  Ty looked off, swallowed hard and said: “It can’t be true – because I can’t be the person to stop it! I don’t know what to do!”

  “But you are the person to stop it, Ty. That’s just it. Professor Blair knew it, so did Madame Petrovka. She predicted that you would overcome your fear of heights and you did! Look!” Ella pointed to the Manhattan Bridge in the distance. “You just walked on that bridge!”

  Ty looked at the gigantic breathtaking span.

  “Ty, if you give up to police now and they arrest you, there’s no guarantee it will free your parents. You can’t help them if you’re in jail, or no longer have the goggles and notebook.”

  Ty was thinking.

  “Our only chance,”
she said, “is to keep searching for more answers.”

  “I don’t know, it’s all so crazy, it just, just can’t be true.”

  “Okay, okay. Just do one thing for me to prove this is real. Put the goggles on and take a good look at the cops and the police building.”

  “What? No. I admit it, okay? It creeps me out to look through those things. What I saw at the fire and the church –” Ty stopped, shook his head. “It was horrible. No, I won’t put them on again.”

  “Ty please just do it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because whatever’s going on, I think police are involved.”

  “What?”

  “Remember, Madame Petrovka said that some forces would be disguised, that they could transform themselves to keep their real identities hidden?”

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  Ella reached into Ty’s backpack, got the goggles and held them out.

  “These are supposed to help you see the truth,” she said. “So put them on and look at the police here at headquarters.”

  In the time that passed Ella got another text from her father. She told him she’d call him soon and resumed pressing Ty to take the goggles.

  “Put them on. This could be our only chance to know if this is true.”

  He stared at the goggles in Ella’s hands while absorbing her request. He was apprehensive but took them from her, slid them around his eyes and adjusted the straps. Then he turned to the police building. Through the tinted lenses he watched cops arriving and departing.

  “You see anything strange?” Ella asked.

  “Nope, looks normal. The same as it looks without the goggles, only everything is shaded in light purple.”

  “Try using those little button things at the top of the eye part.”

  Ty reached up to the circular caps. Keeping his attention on two uniformed officers approaching a police car, his fingers found the small controls for the apertures and slid them.

  Everything turned yellow.

  “Oh my God!”

  The officers vanished. As they moved toward the car, their forms were surrounded by translucent spheres of liquid light, ever-changing in color and intensity. They were akin to thermal vision with blending and bending wavelengths of color. Within the two auras, Ty saw the flowing shapes and details of two forms emerge.