by S. J. West
We are sitting on a red and black plaid wool blanket in the middle of my parents’ land. On the night of their disappearance, my parents and I had been looking up at the sky because we were actually going to be able to see the Aurora Borealis in the Deep South. It was supposed to be an event caused by the after-effects of a large solar storm, which no one would ever see again for a thousand years.
December 20, 2012, just before Santa had a chance to visit seven-year-old me, is the date I lost my parents.
At exactly seven o’clock in the evening, the ripple appeared in the sky and opened to reveal two planets, one blue and one orange. When I reached out to my parents for comfort, thinking the world was about to end, I found only empty warm spots on the blanket where they had been lying only moments before.
Every year since then, the ripple has opened at the exact same time and date that it first happened. Sometimes those who were chosen from our planet return to the spot they were taken from. So, every year, I come back to my parents’ home, hoping to win the lottery of their safe return.
I glance down at my phone and see it’s a minute until seven. I reach for Faison’s hand. She clasps mine tightly, neither of us knowing if one, both, or neither of us will be chosen to travel through the Tear this year.
The Tear opens, showing only blackness on the other side. For 15 years, we have seen various worlds and distant constellations through the ripple, but never absolute darkness. The other side of the Tear looks void of anything, a great expanse of nothingness. I suddenly consider the absurd possibility that we won’t have to deal with any new Tearers this year. The idea almost makes me laugh. The odds it would take for us to get that lucky don’t exist in the real world.
“What do you think is comin’ through?” Faison asks, her hand squeezing mine tighter with justifiable worry.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I say, reaching for the plasma pistol in front of me with my free hand, “but you’re safe with me.”
“I know I am, Jess.” I hear the tease in Faison’s voice just before she says, “Even if you are 120 pounds of nothin’ and can’t scare a fly.”
I shake my head in feigned disappointment, keeping my eyes on the Tear as it closes. “Geez, no respect for Watcher agents these days, not even from the best friend of one.”
“Well, if you actually ate something every once in a while, maybe you wouldn’t look like a bag of bones. I don’t know how Tearers are supposed to be frightened of someone who looks like a brown-haired Barbie doll.”
I just sigh and stand up, pulling Faison swiftly to her feet with a jerk of my arm.
“Listen, I know you don’t like me being an agent, but it’s what I’ve chosen to do with my life. Mama Lynn understands why I have to do it. I don’t know why you refuse to.”
Faison crosses her arms over her ample bosom. If I look like Barbie, Faison’s curves make her look like a Playmate of the Year.
“Mama Lynn thinks the world rises and sets just for you; of course, she wouldn’t second-guess what you decided to go and do with your life. I just want you to know that you’re not foolin’ me, Jess. I know you think working for the Watchers will help you find a way to get your parents back.”
“You don’t know it won’t,” I say defensively.
It’s an old argument between Faison and me. I know she doesn’t think working for the Watchers will help me find my parents, and I can’t deny she might be right. But the odds are 50-50 as far as I’m concerned. As long as there is a chance I can get them back, I’m going to take it, no matter the cost.
“I need to get back to the station,” I tell her. “I’m lucky they let me come here this year as it is. Rookies don’t usually get to take time off on this night.”
Faison bends down and picks up the blanket from the grass, folding it into a neat square.
“Call Mama Lynn and make sure she’s ok first,” Faison instructs. “Then you can drop me off at the hospital. They asked all the nurses to come in for the first few hours after the Tear opened.”
I scroll down my contact list to Mama Lynn’s number, and tap her name twice to place the call. She picks up on the second ring.
“Jess?”
“We’re both fine,” I immediately reassure her. “Are you ok? Did anything happen at home?”
“No, I’m fine. George came over to keep me company while it opened. You two be careful out there,” Mama Lynn says, “and tell Faison to call me when she gets to the hospital.”
“Yes, ma’am, I will.”
“Love you kids. You watch your back tonight, Jess. Who knows what came through this time.”
“I know. I’ll be careful. Just make sure you stay inside and keep the doors and windows locked. Don’t let anyone try to come into your house until the Agency is able to do a threat assessment. In fact, why don’t you get George to stay with you tonight? That way I won’t worry about you.”
“You tell me that every year,” Mama Lynn says, with a smile in her voice. “I’ll ask George to stay with me just so you don’t worry. I love you girls.”
“We love you, too.”
“Oh, Jess?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t forget we’re all supposed to go see Uncle Dan tomorrow evening. They don’t think he’ll be with us much longer,” I hear the strain in Mama Lynn’s voice, as if she’s trying not to cry. “I sure would appreciate it if you and Faison would go up there with me this time and say your goodbyes.”
“All right, we’ll go with you,” I tell her, even though I feel like the loss of Uncle Dan is simply granting us one less asshole in the world.
“I know the two of you had a falling out before his accident,” she says, “and I still don’t need you to tell me what happened, but maybe you could find a way to forgive him for whatever it is he did to you before he passes away.”
That’s never happening, I say to myself but not to Mama Lynn.
“See you tomorrow, Mama Lynn.”
“Ok,” Mama Lynn sounds disappointed, but I know it’s better than her knowing the real reason I can’t mourn the loss of Uncle Dan.
When I end the call with Mama Lynn, I tell Faison, “She wants us to go pay our respects to Uncle Dan tomorrow.”
“Pfft, the sooner he dies, the better off we all are,” Faison says. “Especially you.”
“Sometimes,” I say, pausing to pull my thoughts together, “I want to tell her what her brother did, but then I realize it wouldn’t do any good. It would only cause her pain.”
“But maybe you need to tell her,” Faison urges. “Maybe it’s time you told someone else besides me.”
“You know the only reason I told you was to make sure you never went over to his house alone.”
“I know, Jess,” Faison puts her free hand on my arm, “and I know what you did to protect me from him.”
“I love you,” I tell her, “and if he had laid a hand on you, I couldn’t have lived with myself.”
“I wish we had told someone back then what he was.”
“We were kids,” I say by way of an explanation. “You don’t expect someone you trust to hurt you on purpose.”
“I know, but…”
“Let’s just forget about it,” I say, putting one of my arms around Faison’s shoulders. “Come on; we both need to get back to work.”
By the time I drop Faison off at the hospital where she works, I’ve already received a call from the head office in Memphis about disturbances caused by the new Tearers in the northern part of Mississippi, where I’m stationed. I’m given directions to a home in Tunica where a man reported a Tearer holding his daughter hostage, demanding to be sent back home.
It isn’t uncommon for Tearers to become a tad psychotic when they reach their final destination. Being taken completely away from your own reality against your will can do that to a person. Most Tearers end up accepting the government’s assistance with setting them up in a home of their own and finding jobs for them. It isn’t much different from the witness
protection program. Some Tearers never acclimate to their new homes, though, and have to be dealt with by Watcher agents like me.
Being an agent is a fairly thankless job. The general public fears us because we are a law unto ourselves. All Watcher agents are placed under the jurisdiction of one Watcher. There are five Watchers in the U.S. alone and 174 more stationed around the world. No one knows where the Watchers came from or who or what they are exactly. All we know is that the governments of the world trust them completely. They look human, but we all know they aren’t. Some speculate they’re demons bent on destroying us, while others think they’re our saviors sent in a time when the world needs heroes. All I know is that they’re different, just like the Tearers are different, and that they were living on our planet long before the ripple ever appeared.
Since I was a small child, I have unknowingly been aware that there are people living on our planet who don’t belong.
My father is one of those people.
I didn’t realize what I was seeing at the time. I just thought the faint golden halo which perpetually surrounded my dad meant he was special. When I was old enough to ask him why he glowed and no one else I knew did, he simply told me it was because I could see the truth of things. He asked me not to let anyone else know what I could see and I never did, not even Mama Lynn or Faison. It was our secret, and I was thankful he advised me to keep my peculiar ability to myself.
It wasn’t until I saw my first Tearer and Watcher that I realized my father was right; for some strange reason, I could see the truth of things. Tearers don’t glow blue like Watchers; those who are brought to Earth through the Tear glow red, making them stand out in a crowd for my eyes. As a Watcher agent, my unusual talent comes in handy. It helped me rise through the ranks of the organization faster than any other agent my age. No one else in my class has a class-one rating in identifying Tearers; only me. Some of my colleagues think I am a Tearer, but the Watcher I work for knows better.
When I reach the house on Bankston Street, I park in the driveway and make a quick survey of the surrounding area. The house is a regular ranch-style brick home. There’s a cedar playset in the lot beside the house, a red F150 double-cab parked in the garage, and a white steeple church across the street. I can hear frantic yelling coming from inside the home, but the voices are too muffled to make out the exact words.
I step out of my Watcher-issued black Dodge Phoenix when I hear the distinct pop of a Watcher phasing in behind me. All Watchers have the ability to teleport wherever they want, whenever they want. It comes in handy.
“So what’s the situation exactly?” I ask, turning to face the Watcher of my jurisdiction while I put my Kevlar vest on over the black leather jacket of my Watcher uniform.
Isaiah Greenleaf stares in the direction of the house before answering me.
The first time Faison saw Isaiah, I thought she was going to faint. She called him the prettiest black man she’d ever seen. Mama Lynn said he was pretty enough to be a movie star. But the strange thing is, if you were to round up all the Watchers in one room, you would have a hard time deciding which one of them was the most gorgeous. They all have an unearthly beauty that would have separated them from us regular humans anyway.
“Jonas Hunt, his wife, and daughter, were gathered around their dining room table, holding hands and praying when the Tear opened,” Isaiah tells me as his gaze finally turns in my direction. “When it closed, the wife was gone, and a Tearer sat in her place. The Tearer freaked out, like most of them do, and put a knife to the little girl’s throat, demanding to be returned to his home. That’s all I know.”
I grab my plasma pistol from the passenger seat and slide it into the holster on my right thigh.
“Ready when you are, boss.”
Without another word, Isaiah and I make our way to the front of the house and ring the doorbell. It’s standard protocol to announce our presence before actually entering a situation involving a Tearer. Taking a newly-deposited Tearer by surprise isn’t wise, because you never know what you’re dealing with until you meet them.
We don’t wait for someone to answer the door. That would be ridiculous, considering the situation. Isaiah opens the door a crack and yells, “Watcher Greenleaf and Agent Riley coming in!”
Isaiah pushes the door completely inward, revealing the entire situation in one glance. Directly across from the front door through the living room, the dining area of the house is in plain view. The Tearer is a man of average height and build, with brown hair, wearing jeans and a plain white T-shirt under a thin blue jacket. An ominous red glow only I can see pulsates around him, yet something seems odd to my eyes; the red is a darker hue than usual for some reason.
The Tearer is holding a girl of about five in one arm, while pointing the edge of a long kitchen knife against her throat. The father of the girl stands anxiously on the opposite side of the table, helplessly watching his daughter sob uncontrollably.
“Please, help her,” the father begs us, chancing a frantic glance in our direction.
With the cool assuredness only Watchers seem to possess, Isaiah walks through the living room to stand beside the distraught father.
“Everything will be all right,” Isaiah says. His silky voice is like a healing balm meant to bring calm to the tense situation.
“Send me back home,” the Tearer demands, the hand with the knife visibly shaking. “I want to go home now!”
Isaiah looks at the man. “You know we can’t do that. You’ve more than likely had this type of thing happen on your world, too. The same rules apply here. No one controls the Tear.”
“My wife,” the man’s voice trembles with grief, “my kids. They need me!”
“What’s your name?” Isaiah asks.
“Owen.”
“Owen, if there was any way we could return you home, we would, but holding this man’s daughter hostage isn’t earning you any points on this planet. I’m not sure where you come from, but I feel sure if someone was doing this to your family, you wouldn’t stand for it.”
Owen’s eyes fall to the knife in his hands, just before he lets it drop to the floor and releases his hold on his hostage. The girl immediately runs to her father.
Owen sits on the kitchen floor, completely dejected. “What am I supposed to do now?”
I step up to his side to do what I’ve been trained for.
“Come with me; we can help you start a new life here. You’re not alone.”
Owen looks up at me, his eyes devoid of hope. “Without my family, what’s the point?”
“Maybe someone from where you came from is here, too. You’ll never know until we get everyone’s information into our database.” I hold out my hand to him. “Come on; let’s see if we can find your family.”
A spark of hope lights Owen’s eyes. He takes my offered hand and stands to follow me out of the house.
Isaiah stays behind to make sure the Hunt family is all right, and gives them our number if they want free counseling. I know from experience that the counseling will be useless; no one can help you get over the fact that your family member was sucked through a wormhole to points unknown. At least if they had died naturally, you would have something physical to prove they once existed, a body or ashes, something to mourn over. Having someone ripped from your life without explanation, and not knowing where they are or if they are even still alive, is a hundred times worse.
I help Owen into the backseat of my car and head towards the Tunica Watcher Station. When I glance in my rearview mirror, I see him staring out the window at the flat farmland on either side of Hwy 61. During the winter, most of the Delta looks like a barren landscape in some post-apocalyptic movie. With the trees bare of leaves giving the illusion of skeletal figures, I can only imagine what our unearthly guest thinks of his new home.
“Do you mind me asking the name of your planet?” I ask. It’s the first question all Tearers are asked. That way, we know whether or not they are alien or simply from a para
llel universe.
“Earth,” he replies, never taking his eyes off the world outside.
“This is Earth, too. What was your Earth like?”
“Nothing like this one.”
“What’s different?”
The man meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. A passing car’s headlights illuminate his face for a fraction of a second, but that’s all I need to see that his eyes have turned completely black and glossy, like pieces of marble.
“They weren’t as gullible as you.”
Before I know what’s happening, he thrusts his arms through the Plexiglas which separates the front seats from the back, passing his hands and arms through the inch-thick plastic like it isn’t even there. I slam both feet on the brakes just as his fingers are about to wrap around my neck. The force of my rash move causes the car to skid off the road, slamming us into a power pole along the highway. The airbag deploys and slaps my face like someone just kicked a soccer ball into it. As quickly as it inflated, the airbag deflates, giving me time to unlatch my seat belt and stumble out of the car.
I feel disoriented from the impact, but have enough sense left to draw the plasma pistol from my thigh holster and point it at the car.
The back passenger door blows off its hinges, soon followed by Owen.
“Hands over your head!” I yell, trying to keep the gun steady while I try not to pass out.
“Now, why would I do that?” Owen walks steadily towards me, no hesitation in his steps.
“Stop where you are or I’ll shoot! This is your last warning!”
Owen doesn’t stop; I know if he reaches me, I’m dead. I shoot.
The ball of plasma bounces off his face and dances off into the night sky, exploding into a shower of light like a sparkler on the Fourth of July.
Before I even have a chance to get off another shot, Owen has one hand around my throat and uses his other hand to yank the pistol out of my grasp. I desperately try to pry his hand away from my throat, but it’s like his fingers are welded to my skin.