Vision2
Vision2
Kristi Brooks
PegLeg Publishing, LLC
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
PegLeg Publishing, LLC
PO Box 75409
Oklahoma City, OK 73147
www.peglegpublishing.com
Vision2
First Edition March 2006
Kindle Edition March 2012
Copyright © 2006 by Kristi Brooks
Cover art by Carol Gravley
ISBN: 0-9777660-0-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2006901029
For information regarding bulk purchase, please contact
PegLeg Publishing at 405-525-0439 or [email protected]
This is a work of fiction. All characters, locations, names, and incidents in this book are either fictional or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales of the same name or names is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office of PegLeg Publishing, LLC, PO Box 75409, Oklahoma City, OK 73147 U.S.A.
Printed in the United States of America
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Acknowledgements
First, I want to say that none of this would have been possible without my parents. I know we’ve had our problems over the years, but you’ve taught me about love, acceptance, and perseverance.
I also want to thank my Nene, who gave me every possible tool to believe in myself. There have been times when no one else thought I would be able to accomplish my dreams, but she never believed in anything except me. I want her to know that her acceptance gave me everything I needed to make it.
To Matt, my tireless editor, I want you to know that I appreciate every word change, every comma that was replaced, and every grammatical mistake that caused you to pull out your hair and cuss into the night. I would never have gotten this far without your support and your unflinching (okay, maybe a little flinching) belief in this book.
I want to thank all of my friends and family that I haven’t mentioned before now: Leah, Stephen, Connie, Gail, Anita, Mary Jo, Stacey, the other Kristina, Shorty, Donna, Elaine, Jennifer, Justin, Joy, and Susan. My two little muses, Daymean and Zina. And my tribe of adopted pets, Smokes, Wickett, Cosmo, Sloth, Muffin, and Buddha.
Finally, I want to make sure that I recognize everyone out there with a dream. All of you reading this have helped make it possible. Remember that sometimes you need to take a chance in life, and sometimes you need to support those who do. And, in buying and reading this, you have done just that.
Thank you.
This book is dedicated to my husband, Dooney.
I could never have done any of this without you.
I don’t know of anyone else who’s ever been as supportive and accepting of who I am. For all those long nights of me hacking away at the keyboard, the support you gave me while I went to college (financially and emotionally), and for putting up with my refusal “to get a real job,” I love you.
Prologue
The stool tipped as Roger leaned forward and grasped the bathroom counter, pulling his entire body onto its slick Formica surface. He’d scraped his leg down by the river, and his mom would freak out if she saw how bad it looked.
Shouldn’t have listened to that stupid Jimmy Bowen, huh? His mother’s voice echoed in his head while he plugged the sink and watched the basin fill with cool, clean water. Turning his head, he inspected his face for cuts.
His mirror self looked okay, just a little dirty. But it wasn’t the dirt that caught Roger’s attention. He’d heard stories about people whose eyes changed colors, and they even made fun of Susie Garris because she had two different colored eyes, but this wasn’t the same thing. His eyes were still the same color, they just looked different, older somehow.
The water splashed out of the sink and onto his pant leg, momentarily distracting him. He shut off the valve and barely noticed how much his skinned leg stung as he plunged it into the water.
They have to be the same.
He looked back at his reflection, tilting his head as he absentmindedly rubbed the dirt and skin off his knee. He couldn’t explain why it bothered him so much, and perhaps that bothered him even more. Even at seven, Roger liked knowledge; knowledge provided answers, and the people who had the answers were always better off.
Without realizing what he was doing, he put his hand against the cool, reflective surface and flinched. He sat there for a moment, his dripping palm pressed firmly against the bathroom mirror while his breath came in shallow pants and his heart thudded loudly in his ears. Nothing.
Roger inwardly shrugged and tried to pull back his hand so he could finish cleaning off his knee, but he couldn’t. No matter what
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his brain told his hand, it wasn’t moving. He pulled back one last time and gasped as the mirror’s surface shimmered like a wave of heat rising off a summer sidewalk.
Beneath the dirty reflection he saw a barrage of images. A shrill noise, like fingernails on a chalkboard, filled his head and caused him to grind his teeth until his jaw hurt, but then it was cut off as the image focused on a man. There were several small, dark creatures scuttling around the poor man. The mysterious forms darted in and out of the picture in a line of giant blurs, as if they had been sped up while the agony of this man was frozen solidly in time.
Something flickered and Roger noticed that parts of the poor man’s body were hooked into large tubes that fed into a cylindrical machine. The machine looked like the giant shimmering squid on the cover of his 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea comic. The tentacles snaked into the man’s arms and legs, leaving his skin red and puckered where each one sank into his flesh. The steel beast began to hum, and the tentacles were immediately filled with a jittery, glowing, blue light which seared a haze across Roger’s eyes so powerful he was forced to squeeze them shut and peer through water hazy lenses.
It was then that Roger noticed an oddly shaped jar jutting out of the steel like a crystal wart. A glowing purple liquid that strongly resembled grape Kool-Aid sitting in the sunlight began to fill up the clear container.
The man shrieked and the entire world shimmered around Roger, and although he knew that he was still safely perched on the countertop in his bathroom, the world split open beneath him and he found himself balanced on the edge of a deep and yawning void. Fear held him tight for nearly a minute before Roger clapped his free hand to his ear and pressed his head against his bony child-shoulder to block the pain-filled voice. Tears flowed freely down his cheeks, creating clean rivers on his grime-covered face.
The clammy palm couldn’t stop the scream from echoing through his head, bouncing around like a rubber ball. Roger grimaced as he raised his head and looked into the mirror. One of the scuttling creatures turned and stared at him, its violet eyes searing into him. It bared its teeth at him, hissing in a manner that made it seem like a beetle.
He hiccupped once and fainted, falling off the countertop and hitting his head on the edge of the toilet. When he woke up six hours later in the hospital, all he could see was his mother’s worried face peering down at him, and he could no longer remember what he had seen.
************************
Itckrelle stood over the human as the servant gnomes drained him. The man’s horrible peachy flesh was hooked into the machine that had always served him well. When the gnomes turned it on, the har
sh blue light sped across the darkened room. He raised his face to bask in it as if it were sunlight.
The human thing screamed, its agony rolling off the walls like a dark symphony. This was his favorite part. He leaned into the scream, allowing the torment to soak into his pores. He allowed its melody to roll over him, moving and humming to a rhythm that he felt only in his mind, and laughed a little at how the council members would be truly appalled if they ever saw him enjoying such torture, regardless of what kind of creature it was being done to. Most of them actually valued those texts they worshipped, keeping small versions of them tucked within their cloaks and consulting them whenever they felt any doubt.
He could see their scared green faces and pouting purple eyes now, all upturned to wait his decision. They were afraid of him, afraid of change, but mostly they were afraid of uncertainty. They wanted, no, needed, someone to tell them how tomorrow was going to be. He’d meant for it to be like that when he designed it, and he intended to see that it stayed that way.
One of the gnomes scurried past him, the dark brown cloak rustling at his feet and causing him to turn slightly to let the creature pass.
As he turned, he noticed the vacant space in the ceiling behind him. It wasn’t an absence of light, but rather a space in the roof where nothingness existed. He narrowed his eyes and studied the anomaly. He interpreted every unusual occurrence as an attempt to strip away his power.
Itckrelle raised his hand toward the darkness but jerked it back when the face appeared. It was as ugly as any human he’d ever encountered, maybe even more so because of its youth and innocence. Every muscle in his body tensed, and he felt ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. He licked his lips, savoring the taste of adrenaline.
Looking around, Itckrelle noticed that none of the gnomes in the room with him seemed to notice anything. He turned back toward the creature, lowering his cloak’s hood and widening his eyes to get a better view.
Then, the image opened its mouth. Itckrelle barred his teeth and hissed in a desperate attempt to keep the thing at bay. When he did, the image disappeared and the dirt green ceiling returned.
He stared at it for a few more minutes, his teeth barred and his crimson hair on end, but nothing ever happened. Itckrelle believed that he must have been the only one who’d seen the human child, but that changed as soon as he saw the captive’s putrid brown eyes staring at the ceiling. His chapped and bleeding lips kept moving as if reciting some kind of ritual, but Itckrelle couldn’t make out what he was saying.
Itckrelle barely noticed the gnome’s yellow glares as he pushed them aside; he was too focused on the human.
He leaned over the man’s face and caught the last word to escape his dying body, Roger, and then he was gone, unable to offer an explanation. Itckrelle stormed out of the room and into the hall, his morning torture session ruined.
By the time he finally allowed his body to sleep that night he’d convinced himself that Roger was nothing more than the unreliable memory of a dying man.
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One
It’s never anywhere I want to be.
Twenty years later…
The wind rocked the rusted 1978 Chevy pickup as Roger pulled up to his house. The bruised sunset met the flat Oklahoma horizon and feathered out across the sky, parts of it so dark it appeared to be heralding a summer full of tornados and chaos. He’d thought about moving somewhere else when his mother died, but on days like this, the subtlety and beauty of Oklahoma called to him, and he knew that he could never leave.
Roger got out of the truck and ran his hand over its rough exterior as he looked up at his house. The house had been his mother’s only real possession. Although it was in the same type of dilapidated state as the truck, he could no more bring himself to sell it then he could move out of state. The exterior paint was flaking off in large chunks, and it was in desperate need of new flooring and paint inside as well. Every few months he took on a new project in a desperate attempt to keep it from falling down around him, but it never seemed to hold back the inevitable tide of time.
Sighing, he opened the gate, the hinges squealing in protest. He immediately made a mental post-it note to get the gate oiled after dinner, but he knew that it would be lost amidst his other reminders before then. However, there was something on the kitchen table that was even more intimidating than his latest rounds of home improvement projects.
It had been waiting for him in his mailbox at lunch, its rose-covered envelope belying its true nature. They hadn’t spoken to each other since that horrible night in the car three years ago. It was hard for him to believe she would want him anywhere near her after the horrible things that had been said then.
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Bear, his only faithful friend and companion for five years, bounded for the door as soon as Roger opened it, jumping up and putting all his weight on Roger’s chest, demanding to be petted. Roger scratched him behind his ears until he was content enough that he let Roger cross the threshold and enter the house.
After a dinner of microwaveable Salisbury steak and ramen noodles eaten while leaning against the kitchen counter, Roger grabbed a six-pack of beer and headed towards the living room. If anyone doubted Roger’s bachelorhood, all they had to do was look in his living room. The stark white walls held no decoration, and a crooked entertainment center stood opposite of the black and tan plaid couch and matching rocker.
He flipped on the television and twisted off the cap on his first bottle. Bear stuck his head through the doggie door and softly padded towards the couch, pausing to sniff the beer before lifting his head and issuing a low rumbling whine at Roger from the back of his throat.
“I know boy, I know.” Roger stroked the top of Bear’s head and thought of how sad it must be that the dog knew what a six-pack of beer sitting next to the couch meant. “I promise this won’t last long.” He put his two fingers of his right hand against his forehead, imitating the salute from his old days as a boy scout. “Scout’s honor this time. I wouldn’t be doing this anyway if it weren’t for that,” he said, pointing to the table where the invitation still lingered.
With that, Bear grumbled and settled himself on the floor, watching Roger for a few more minutes before placing his head between his paws, feigning sleep. Roger tilted up the bottle and drank, hoping that he would end up on the other end of oblivion.
***************
“You’re not going to be pleased if we have to bring him here, are you?”
The two figures sat on the flip side of Roger’s world and looked back at him with such intensity that it was almost possible to mistake them for some kind of grotesque, new age sculptures. The only exception to their stillness was the slight flicker of their eyes as they followed him, intent on studying every move.
A faint silver glow covered their harshly engraved forest green faces as they peered into an ornately designed five-foot tall mirror. The older of the two figures leaned heavily on an old, twisted walking stick that stood two inches taller than the top of his wild crimson and silver-streaked hair. His face was full of deep and unforgiving creases.
This one’s name was Firturro; the younger was his apprentice, Tigaffo.
Tigaffo was still looking at Firturro, waiting for an answer. His face was far less worried. Instead, it was open and eager, full of youthful curiosity.
“No, but the council believes it’s necessary because Roger has not responded to anything concerning the direction of his life. It is our duty to reach him, and he is refusing.” Firturro sighed while he repeated the Obawok mantra concerning undirected humans, his great malformed shoulders heaving underneath his royal watcher’s cloak.
Roger Fulright was presenting quite a problem. If they brought him into their world, he was going to have to do something no other human had managed to accomplish: live. Those humans the council decided to bring through the division and into their world were never strong enough to make it out again. Their weakness was part of
the overall reason they were brought here, and ultimately, it was what condemned them.
Firturro turned his violet eyes away from its slick surface. The council was waiting for their report, and Tigaffo was right; he wasn’t going to be happy with their decision. For the first time since Firturro had been named a watcher, he was purposely not going to tell the council everything. If he were to tell them the truth, he would have to mention the fact he believed this one was different, that this one would be able to live, and that would feel like a betrayal to Roger.
As long as he’d been Roger’s watcher it had been obvious that something was different. There were times in Roger’s life when he almost seemed aware of Firturro’s presence. Tigaffo and the council tended to think rather poorly of Roger, looking upon his drinking binges and disregard for the normal human goals and accomplishments as a sign of a self-destructive person. But Firturro knew better. If Roger survived the test, Obawok society would drastically change, and this created a conflict within him. It was not one he looked forward to resolving.
Instead of waiting for more of Tigaffo’s questions Firturro turned and headed towards the great chamber where the council was waiting to demand Roger’s participation in the Mezoglike. Tigaffo trailed after him, leaving the soft glow of the mirror to illuminate a vacant wall.
It was 2 a.m. when Roger finally awoke to a continuous and heavy pressure on his abdomen telling him of his immense need to piss. He peered at the room through half-lidded, half-drunken eyes. He sat up, struggling to find the remote so he could turn the damn TV off. During a drunken moment of uneasiness, Roger had turned to MSNBC so he could measure his life by the bad acts of others. Now the talking heads didn’t seem like such a good idea. In fact, they were annoying him, and the volume seemed to be exceptionally loud to his already ringing ears.
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