Obscura Burning

by van Rooyen, Suzanne

We navigate our way out of the dancers, taking refuge behind a string of food stalls.

  “You looked happy enough dancing,” I say.

  “Until he tried to grab my ass.” She folds her arms across her chest.

  “Sorry, I should’ve stayed.”

  “Nah, it’s just Nick. He’s always been like this. Sometimes I think I should’ve pushed him into that rock and not Benny.”

  “That bad?”

  “He can be.”

  “Why did you date him, then?”

  “You’ve seen him.” She looks a little embarrassed. “I was fourteen and he was a god. Badass and charming.” She shrugs. “I know better now.”

  The wind tears through town. This time women shriek and men curse as plates of food and decorations go flying.

  “Storm’s coming.” Mya leans into the wind, her dress thin as gauze against her skin.

  “Maybe we should head out now before the weather makes it more difficult.”

  She swallows and nods.

  “You don’t have to come with me.”

  “I want to. Moral support.” She takes my hand and gives my fingers a reassuring squeeze. “Car’s this way.”

  Shira’s leaning against Mya’s car, dressed in her usual funeral attire.

  “Shira, I didn’t know you were coming to the dance.” Awkward, considering Mya’s holding my hand.

  “Having fun?” she asks with pursed lips, eyeing my sombrero.

  “We were just heading out to Ghost Town.” Mya’s super casual, shrugging out of our handhold to unlock the car.

  “I was hoping to catch you before you went.” She digs in a pocket and hands me a leather thong. Danny’s St. Anthony medal is cold between my fingers.

  It worked. Danny actually did it. I can’t stop the smile spreading across my face.

  “What’s that?” Mya asks.

  “Danny’s St. Anthony medal. They buried him with it, in this world. But I asked him to drop it through Shira’s window in the other reality.”

  “That’s creepy,” Mya says with a lopsided grin.

  Shira wraps her arms around herself and shivers. “Did you give him my message?”

  “I did.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That he was sorry too, about everything.” I’m not really sure what they’re so sorry about, but I’m just the conduit for these two ghosts.

  The St. Anthony medal feels good around my neck, the silver disc dangling above my heart beneath the rosary. I close my fist around the medal. Thanks, Danny.

  “You’re going to choose him, aren’t you?” Shira asks in a whisper, her bottom lip trembling.

  “I don’t know.” The wind whips hair across my face.

  “Daniel loved me too, more than you know.”

  “What does that mean?” Mya asks.

  Shira ignores her and gives me a meaningful look I have no idea how to interpret.

  “I loved you too,” I say, because it’s the truth and Shira needs to know.

  “You will choose him.” Her smile is so sad, looking at her and those wet brown eyes make tears prick at the back of mine.

  “I—”

  “No, it’s OK. What you two had… I was always fifth wheel.” She shrugs.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Mya’s maintaining a respectful distance, but this still feels weird.

  “Good-bye, Kyle. Maybe I’ll see you in another life.” She gives me a little half wave, before stalking off between the cars. Part of me wants to run after her, sweep her up into a hug…the larger part of me is happy to let her go. It was always going to be Danny.

  “Really? You’ve made up your mind?” Mya stands hands on hips.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. As if you really think I’ll get a choice in this. I’m just hoping to avoid Armageddon. And even then, it’s arrogant to assume I have any control over what’s happening.”

  “True. Should we go, then?” She raises an eyebrow at me and opens the door.

  Chapter Thirty

  Armageddon

  July 4. 23:47.

  I don’t know who I am anymore, slammed back into the world of needles and nurses. Shifting in and out of myself has left me feeling more like a spectator than a participant. Those other Kyles are there, inside. I feel it all, their hopes and fears, their desperation and anger, but none of it matters. Not anymore.

  The world’s on fire and no one’s going to save me.

  I’m standing in a hospital gown with fluid rising in my lungs, drowning in my own skin. But in thirteen minutes it won’t hurt anymore.

  At least I’m not sitting in a stinking holding cell or driving out to ruins in the middle of nowhere; at least I’ve got front-row seats to the end of the world.

  Obscura’s risen bold and blue, suffusing the night with gleaming azure. The clouds part for her, don’t dare stand in her way as she wreaks havoc upon Earth.

  For two hours the earth’s been quaking, pulled apart at the seams. Out beyond the parking lot, the lightning illuminates great rifts in the sand, gaping wounds in the ground.

  People are screaming. Hospital staff yell volleys of instructions, and patients keen, their wails drowned out by the intermittent siren screech calling for an orderly evacuation. It’s chaos beyond my door. I stay rooted at the window. There’s no way to stave off the inevitable.

  Obscura’s pristine face is made a watery halo by the lashings of rain. Despite the torrential downpour, a hungry fire still rages across the scrubland, devouring the parched flora and melting the sand. I’m waiting for the fire to reach me, for those voracious flames to leap at my window, burst the glass, and envelop my flesh.

  23:52.

  The ruckus in the corridor is louder for a moment as someone opens and closes my door. Amy the psychologist joins me at the window.

  “What are you still doing here?” Surely she has family she’d rather die with.

  “It’s beautiful.” She smiles up at Obscura before her gaze drops to the flames engulfing the line of juniper across the road. “And terrifying.” She swallows hard, slipping her hand in mine.

  “Do you think anyone will survive?”

  “I’m not sure anyone is meant to.” She squeezes my fingers.

  Together we watch the world disintegrate. Great chunks of scorched earth break off behind the flames like asymmetrical puzzle pieces scattered by a careless toddler. Some turn to ash, lost to the storm; others fold in on themselves, pushing the fire closer.

  23:58.

  The flames lick across the parking lot, lapping at the building in searing waves.

  “Are you afraid?”

  “Should I be, Kyle?”

  “I don’t want to die.”

  “You’re not alone.”

  The glass bursts, showering us in a million biting shards. I suck in a final breath, inhaling smoke and ash and burning dust coughed up from the earth. The flames leap at the curtains, snarling beasts bent on destruction as they open their fiery jaws.

  In the end, there’s no pain, just impossible heat, and bright blue blinding light.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Danny’s dead

  My cheeks are flushed; my forehead and upper lip are peppered with sweat.

  “You OK?” Mya asks, keeping her eyes on the road as she navigates the Chevy along the uneven ground. Rain lambastes the windshield; the wipers can barely keep up. The storm blew in fast and angry.

  “I saw it.” My voice is strangled.

  “Saw what?”

  “Armageddon.”

  “In the other world, right?”

  I nod when she glances at me.

  “What does that mean? That this is it, the only reality left?”

  “No.” I sigh and drag fingers through my sweat-damp hair beneath the sombrero. “I’ve been shifting between multiple realities.”

  “More than two, you mean?”

  “At least three, maybe four. It’s hard to tell.”

  “So all that chiral bullshit from the profess
or?”

  “I think each time I make a decision, another reality spins off from it. Each one is a worse mirror image than the last.” Given my limited comprehension of quantum physics, that’s the best I can do.

  “How are you keeping track of it all?”

  “I’m not. There’s no point.”

  “Because we’re about to become toast?” Her voice rises an octave.

  Ghost Town appears ahead of us to the left; dark, shrunken shapes against an even blacker canvas. An abandoned old village like so many others dotting the state, Ghost Town’s just a vague memory of a bygone era. A few buildings teeter on their foundations, a storm away from falling over. They creak in protest against the wind. Lightning splits the sky, casting brilliant white light across the wreckage. The barn is nothing but a few charred logs.

  Mya stops the car. We both sit staring through the rain at the remains for a few minutes, neither one of us eager to walk around out there on the scarred ground.

  “If someone had asked me how I’d spend my last day alive, or what I’d do if I knew the world was ending, I doubt it would be this.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be, this isn’t your fault. It’s Obscura’s.” Mya drums her fingers on the steering wheel. “How does it feel, being back?”

  “Sometimes you really sound like a shrink.”

  “Sometimes I think you could do with one.”

  We both chuckle and it’s strained, but gets the blood pumping through my veins again. Thunder peals above us, a booming cacophony.

  “I never thought I’d come back here.” I slip the rosary off my head and wind it around my other wrist. Now I’m holding both Shira and Danny close, but it’s Danny’s medal that’s lying above my heart.

  “You think it’ll work if you stay in the car?”

  “No idea.”

  “Your medicine man leave out specifics?”

  I told her all about Niyol on the drive over. She wasn’t as skeptical about the possibility of restless spirits trying to communicate with me as I’d anticipated.

  “He just said go back to where it began.”

  “But this isn’t where it began.” Mya peers out the windshield into wet darkness. “It started with your fight with Daniel, and then with you shagging Shira.”

  “No.” This feels right. I’m meant to come back here. I know it down to my very core even though I can’t explain it. “This is where I need to be.”

  “If you say so. Not much time left.” She taps the digital clock on her dash.

  “You stay here; I’m getting out.”

  “Thank you for being a good friend, Kyle.” She catches my hand before I open the door.

  “I should be thanking you for not thinking I’m insane, and for all your help.”

  She leans over and kisses me on the lips, as gentle as a dying breath.

  “Good-bye,” she whispers.

  * * *

  23:47.

  The storm tears at my clothes with wet talons. I’m still wearing the sombrero in the vain hope it’ll keep some rain off me. The wind has other ideas and rips the hat off my head, sending it spinning out over the ruins.

  Reluctantly I force my way through sheets of water, spitting out rain as it lashes my face, until I’m standing where the barn doors used to be.

  What the hell am I supposed to do now?

  “OK, I’m here,” I scream into the wind. “Daniel! Shira!” My ghosts don’t answer.

  For the briefest moment, the clouds thin and Obscura glares down at me, casting her cold light on the ash and splinters turned to mud at my feet.

  Shivers race up my spine, and maybe that’s because of the chill in the rain, or maybe it’s because my ch’iindi have finally joined me. I imagine wraiths dancing through the curtains of water, shifting tendrils of mist between raindrops.

  The rain stops as if God just turned off the tap. I blink to clear my vision and the world before me shifts. It’s like I’m watching a movie sequence sliced from my life. I see myself, jeans and faded Nirvana T-shirt, strolling down the path to Shira’s trailer.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Memories

  April 6.

  I know what I’m about to do. I don’t want to watch this; I don’t want to feel it all over again. But I can’t tear my eyes away either.

  It’s so surreal. I’m watching myself, but at the same time, I can feel everything Kyle in the movie does: the sun on the back of his neck, the dust between his teeth, and Danny, knocking on Shira’s trailer door.

  That’s different. A glitch in my memory maybe, but it feels too real.

  Kyle slows his approach, about to call out in greeting when Shira answers. Danny steps up, crushing her in an embrace as he kisses her, pushes her back into the trailer and slams the door shut. It feels like a blow to the gut.

  Betrayal.

  Kyle stands stunned in place, not sure if what he saw was real or imagined, some trick of the heat and dehydration. After a minute, he cocks his head, listening to the telltale sounds of creaking bedsprings and soft moaning.

  Trepidation prickles across his arms and up the back of his neck. His insides churn as he takes slow and careful steps toward the trailer. He has to see it to believe it. A glance through Shira’s window confirms his worst fears.

  He recognizes the boy above her, all dark hair and broad shoulders. Danny. His head thrown back in ecstasy as Shira giggles and gasps.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, clenching my hands into fists. Danny’s crucifix cuts into the palm as tears burn in my eyes. The medal above my heart is ice-cold. Rage and hate vie for control as my attention returns to that other Kyle.

  He backs away from the trailer, rage trickling in to fill the sudden emptiness. But rage quickly succumbs to hate, and nothing will make that feeling go away…except fire.

  There’s one of Danny’s cigarettes in his back pocket. He lights it with matches he found in the kitchen. The Throbbing Strawberry Motel, the lettering in garish pink.

  “Do you love me?” Shira asks, seeming not to care who hears because no one’s supposed to be within a mile of the trailer.

  “Dios mio, yes,” Danny says.

  “Does it feel good?” She drags her nails down his shoulders.

  Kyle can’t look away.

  “Better than with Kyle?”

  Danny rolls over and now it’s Shira on top, her long black hair swishing around her hips as she grinds away at the boy beneath her. Danny just smiles.

  There are no words to describe the tar-black feelings clawing at Kyle’s heart. He presses the smoldering cigarette against his flesh. Only fire will bring an end to the ache deep inside him.

  The images fast forward: Kyle siphoning gas from his dad’s truck, calling Danny and Shira, arranging the get-together out at Ghost Town. Those details, I remember. Only now I know the gas was never intended for a bonfire. It was always going to be a funeral pyre.

  Danny and Shira. The two of them look so innocent. Danny kisses Kyle; Shira plays with his hair as they amble into Ghost Town, as if nothing’s happened. They’re the worst kind of sinners, pretending they’ve done nothing wrong.

  Shira’s carrying a bag concealing a bottle of tequila, Danny’s got a pack of beers, and Kyle’s carrying a jerrican full of gasoline. He fingers the book of matches in his pocket, taking comfort in their presence.

  The scenes skip toward midnight, to that drunken party. Beer and gasoline. Danny and Shira don’t notice the jerrican spilling its contents as it completes a circuit around the old barn in Kyle’s hands.

  Kyle’s lips are numb from the tequila. The booze burning in his belly makes him brave.

  “I saw you two fucking today,” he says.

  Danny and Shira share a nervous look.

  “Kyle, it didn’t mean anything.” Danny has the grace to look guilty.

  “It didn’t mean anything?” Shira looks furious.

  “Please, Shira.”

  “No, Dan. Kyle has a right to know.” She turns
to Kyle. “Your boyfriend here has a fight with you, says you don’t love him. I tell him I love him, like you never will, so what does he do? Whips off my clothes and starts making love to me.”

  Danny tries to shut her up, but she won’t be hushed.

  “That’s right. Making. Love. That’s what Dan called it. Now you tell me that doesn’t mean anything.” Shira’s battling to stand; she keeps teetering backward, about to fall over.

  Kyle turns to Danny. “That true?”

  “Kyle, it’ll never happen again.”

  “Has it happened before?”

  “Of course.” Shira cackles like a coyote as she falls to the floor.

  “No, of course not. It was because of our fight, because you…” Danny chokes on his words.

  “So it’s my fault you went and shagged our best friend? And I’m supposed to believe this is the first time?” Kyle is hurting, every moment driving a nail into flesh.

  “You didn’t want to be with me.”

  “I said I wasn’t ready to marry you.” Kyle’s hand closes on the matches in his pocket.

  “Dan’s going to marry me.” Shira folded in a giggling heap of black lace, on a bed of gasoline-soaked splinters.

  “Well, congratulations. You deserve each other.” Kyle pulls out the matches, strikes once, twice, lighting three at the same time.

  “What are you doing?” Danny’s eyes goes wide as Kyle kicks over the jerrican. It dribbles dregs of gasoline.

  It happens in slow motion. Kyle flicking the matches as Danny dives for his hand. Intoxication makes Danny slower than usual. Too slow. Kyle’s already standing a few feet from the door.

  The gasoline ignites in an instant and Shira screams.

  Kyle hauls the barn door shut just as Danny reaches it. His fists bash against the wood; he’s screaming for Kyle not to do it, begging him in breathless sobs.

  Kyle secures a crossbeam so that the doors are locked to those on the inside. He staggers backward as the barn bursts into flames, as Danny’s and Shira’s screams rip through the night.

  Rough hands haul Kyle away from the barn, shoving him to the ground. Kyle’s laughing and crying, gagging as a fist hits his solar plexus. He doesn’t recognize his assailants until he hears Gabriela shouting Daniel’s name. Angel drags her away from the door as the wood splinters and flames reach greedy fingers toward the sky. Obscura peeps blue above the horizon, the first sighting of the unwelcome visitor.