“I think we need to figure out what’s going on with you.” He adjusts himself in the seat. “Who was your father?”
“Besides a bastard?”
“Meg?” He gives me a look now.
“His name was John Lewis.”
“But that isn’t your last name, Meg Clark.”
“No. He didn’t give me his last name. He told me because they weren’t married that the state put my mother’s last name on the birth certificate. He never attempted to change it. That’s probably a good thing.”
“I think we need to go back to his house. We need to figure out who you are.”
“I don’t want to go back there.”
“Don’t you want answers, Meg?”
“What are answers going to get us, Sparrow? You might get some of your memory back. But what about me? I left my father and never looked back, you know why? Because he was an asshole and I hated him. Never once in my life did he show that he ever cared about me. Those are memories I don’t want to live a second time.”
“Did you ever get the feeling that you were something more? Better than all of that?”
“No, Sparrow, I believed every word my father and the rest of that hick town told me. I don’t know why you think I’m something special, because I’m not.” I notice a feather fluttering behind him. “I’m not the one with wings,” I add.
“I think you’re wrong.” He settles one elbow on the door and the other hand in his lap.
“Well, since you’re still half-crazy, I’ll take you to where my father lives. If he’s even still alive.”
“I think I’m significantly less crazy than I was before.”
I glance at him from the corner of my eye as I drive. He’s right. He’s way less crazy than he was before. The quirks are gone and the odd motions as well. He’s not shoving his hands in his pockets every five minutes to stroke off to a bunch of feathers. I guess I could say, besides his memory loss, Sparrow is pretty much a normal guy now. Well, besides those wings. Those are definitely fucked up.
…
A dilapidated, single-wide trailer sits in front of us, looking darker and crappier than it did when I was a kid.
“This is where you grew up?” Sparrow asks.
“I know, you’re jealous. Don’t be.”
Sparrow gives a quick smirk before stepping ahead of me, one hand on his machete and the other reaching for the door handle, turning it and pushing it open.
“Well, it’s about fuckin’ time!” A familiar voice hollers as we step into the living room. “Look what we have here, the hero stripped of his wings and the little slut.”
I step around Sparrow to find my father sitting in his worn pleather easy chair, just where I remember him sitting almost every day of my life.
He stands and I can see that something has changed about him, he’s taller, his skin darker, tinted a red hue almost, and it seems as though the top of his head and backs of his hands are covered in rough scales.
“Daddy?” I ask, unable to control the quiver in my voice.
His eyes narrow on me, darker than ever. “No, sweetheart, you were never my daughter. A true daughter of mine would never be as weak as you are.” His gaze flicks to Sparrow.
“Is this about the money?” I ask, remembering how he tried to smother me in the hospital, when I… well, I guess I’m not sure what really happened when I went back to when everything was normal again.
He laughs. “It’s not about the money here, dear Meg. Your mother left you something very important, but it wasn’t money. Didn’t figure it all out ‘till I made it down here.” He takes a step towards us. “The Heavens thought that you were going to be their secret weapon.” He throws his head back and laughs. “But you’re weak, and still nothin’ but a piece of garbage.” He takes another step towards us, his laughter burning me deep. I remember the look on his face when he tried to smother me with a pillow. It’s worse now-there is no love there, and I can’t understand how this person raised me and can have no feelings towards me whatsoever. “Nothin’ but a stupid-”
“Hey!” Sparrow starts, taking a step in front of me.
At the interruption my father takes two quick steps, his hand reaching out, moving faster than I’ve ever seen him move before, faster than when he tried to smother me, grabbing Sparrow by the throat.
“It’s amazing that you’re the one who’s here with her,” my father sneers. “One of the Legion. Aren’t you the one who lost her in the first place?” He reaches for Sparrow’s wings, plucking a feather out and crushing it in his hand. “Looks like she put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Seems a fitting punishment, take the only thing from you that matters.” My father’s gaze flicks to mine. “All these assholes do is sit around and preen their feathers like a fuckin’ prized goose.” He focuses back on Sparrow. “Did you tell her why your wings were stripped? Or did they wipe your memories too? I hear those flying monkeys up in the heavens save that punishment for the worst offenders.”
Even though my father’s hand is gripping Sparrow’s throat, Sparrow’s head tips to the side, his eyes widen as though he’s trying to piece something together in his head.
“Have you remembered yet? This is your punishment for losing her.” He looks back to me. “If you want someone to blame for your life, Meg, blame him, the one who lost you in the first place.” He turns back to Sparrow. “And now you’re nothing but a crazy man, trying to piece yourself back together. This little slut isn’t going to help you at all. It doesn’t matter what you and your winged tribe think. She is nothing.”
I hear a gurgle escape Sparrow’s throat and his hands fly to my father’s arms. I run at them, throw myself onto my father’s arms, trying to get him to let go. “Leave him alone! You’re hurting him!” I yell as I try to pry him away.
In one quick movement my father backhands me, just like he’s done hundreds of times since I passed the age of twelve. Only this time, it’s harder, hard enough to send me flying across the living room. I hit the wall and roll, pushing myself to my knees just in time to see Sparrow reach for the machete at his side. It seems to glow in the dark trailer, illuminating the room in a golden shine as he twists his wrist and slices across my father’s arms.
I push myself to my feet, hearing my father roar in pain, staring at the stumps for arms which end just below his elbows. Sparrow brushes the lifeless hands off of his neck and assumes a fighter’s stance, feet apart, knees bent, ready for action. I can tell by the hard look on his face, that he’s remembered something.
A dark chuckle escapes my father’s chest as he holds his arm nubs up. “Nice try,” he laughs as his arms begin to grow and reform new hands.
Sparrow raises his machete and in one swift move he slices my father’s head clean off. It hits the floor of the trailer with a resounding thud, and I swear I see the face flinch. Sparrow moves to stand over the wobbling head.
“Killing just me can’t help you, bird man. More will be coming for you.” The eyes from my father’s decapitated head flick to me. “They’ll be coming for you too, slut!” The head gives a deep, horrific laugh just before Sparrow kicks it down the hallway, holsters his machete to his hip, and starts towards me.
“Meg…” His hands reach out for me, but I step back, trying to process what just happened. “Are you okay?” he asks. I blink hard, but it doesn’t clear my vision. All I can see is my father’s lifeless body on the floor and hear his head still making noise from down the hallway. “Meg?” Sparrow asks again.
I step back, move my eyes to his face and see that he’s changed, again. All that uncertainty Sparrow has always had is now replaced with a true knowledge. I can see it in the hard lines of his face, the angles of his jaw clenching.
“Is what he said true? You remember now?” I shake my head and clutch my hands to my chest.
“A few more things,” Sparrow replies with a low voice. “That’s all. Not everything.”
“I don’t understand what just happened. What he said.
..”
“What didn’t you understand?”
“What makes me so special?”
“I can’t remember.”
“But you remembered something! And you need me for something. That’s… that’s what he said.”
Sparrow presses his lips together and nods.
“And the reason why I grew up here, why I experience all of those years of… all that shit was because you lost me? What the hell does that mean?”
“I-” Sparrow starts, but something feels like it’s going to explode inside me. All the grief and pain of realizing my entire life has been a lie, wells up so strong I can barely contain it.
“I need air,” I gasp, pushing Sparrow away from me and running out the door.
“Meg, wait!”
I push open the screen door and leap off of the small porch, just as I did when I was a kid. My feet hit the gravel driveway with a satisfying crunch and I have the memory of watching the dust swirl around my feet when I did this as a kid. The only difference is it is night now and I’m an adult.
There are lights on in the other trailers, casting an eerie glow over the pebbled gravel road. Just as I hear the sound of Sparrow’s footsteps run up behind me, the sound of screen doors squeaking open fill the night. As I look around the trailer park at all of the neighbors, I realize they are not the neighbors I remember and they are not truly human any longer. They are something else.
“Meg!” Sparrow grips my shoulder and pulls me behind him as he draws out his weapon, ready to defend us.
“What are they?” I ask.
“Demons.”
“Demons?”
He nods, bending his knees and gripping his weapon in front of him. I peer around the edge of his left wing and step aside from him.
“How do I know you’re any different?” I ask.
“This is not the time for this conversation,” he informs me with a stern tone that I’ve never heard from him before. “Get behind me,” he orders.
Seeing my neighbors, the demons, descend their porches and walk towards us, I move behind Sparrow wishing I had some type of a weapon to help defend us. I curse those bastards who took my guns.
“What are you going to do?” I ask.
“Cut their heads off.”
Before I can ask him how or what the hell or run screaming into the forest because all of this is so fucking crazy, all six of the neighbors run for us, their skin changed to a leathery red hue, some have horns, protruding teeth, scales, and odd patches of hair on their bodies. My heart gives a few hundred rapid panicked beats in my chest.
Sparrow steps forward, his machete in hand, swinging it and lopping off the heads of the first two. He moves fast, with a skill I never knew he possessed, and as the second two run for him, their teeth bared, he repeats the same action. Two more heads fall to the ground. The last two look at each other, then back at us, before they run off into the woods behind the trailer park.
Sparrow turns and takes my arm. “You’re coming with me. Let’s go.”
“Screw you.” I rip my arm away from him. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Then where will you go, Meg? Are you going to run off and scamper up into a tree like the last time you ran away from me?”
“Fuck off! I am so sick of people bossing me around and treating me like crap. I don’t need it from you too.”
“No. You don’t.” He takes one long step towards me, stopping when our chests are almost touching. “Two more of those things are still alive. You think they’ll stay away? As soon as they sense you are alone, they’ll come back for you. Now come on. You’re coming with me.”
Sparrow reaches for my arm again but I step back. “The hell I am. I don’t understand this. Any of it. What happened to my father? How are there demons running around in this place with the walking dead? This doesn’t make sense.” I point a finger at him. “And you’re different. I liked you better when you were crazy.”
“There’s still time for me to go back to crazy.” He tips his head, a motion that reminds me of the man he was just a few days ago. “We need to get out of here.”
“Tell me what the shit is going on first.”
Sparrow’s eyes flick to the forest where the last two demons ran. “I think… I think we are in Hell.” He looks around us. “Or something like that.”
“So I’m dead!”
“No.” Sparrow shakes his head. “Not dead. Before you were-”
“I was dead before?” I almost scream at him, freaking out.
“Before you were in a coma, your soul teetering on the edge. And then in the church… your birthmark…” He presses his fingers to his forehead. “There’s something special about you. I just can’t put together all the pieces right now.” His eyes flick to the bodies on the ground. “Come on, we need to go.”
“No! I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Why?”
“Because, you are nothing but a liar!” I raise my hand to shove him away from me, but Sparrow moves lightning-fast and grabs my arm.
“Not being able to remember doesn’t make me a liar.”
“Then what were you doing at Noah’s? Huh? Just waiting for me to show up?”
His grip on my arm loosens. “I just had a feeling and then everything happened.”
“Yeah, and now you remember.”
“Only a few things.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m supposed to protect you and bring you somewhere.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Yes, you are.” Sparrow reaches down, grasping my hips and tossing me over his shoulder.
Spewing a stream of very unladylike words, I pound on his back with my fists and twist my hips. “Let go of me, you royal dickweed.”
I feel him chuckling as he walks. “You know, you shouldn’t talk like that. I’m pretty sure I’ve told you this before.”
“Oh yeah, how would you rather I talk? You want me to whisper sweet nothings in your ear?”
“Can’t hurt. I kinda liked the things you whispered to me back in that church.”
“I don’t think so.” I cross my arms and press my elbows into the firm muscle of his back, just underneath where his wings connect.
“Could you move your arms? That’s very uncomfortable.”
“Screw you and I’m never talking to you like that again, ever.”
Sparrow stops, drops me to my feet, and bends down so his face is just in front of mine. Nose to nose. I can see nothing but his clear green eyes boring into mine. “Tell me you didn’t like it.”
I lean away from him, pressing my lips together, refusing to talk. I don’t need him to explain what he wants me to tell him. I know exactly what he means; the sex, the best sex I’ve ever had in my entire life. Just the memory of it makes my lady parts tingle.
“Tell me it was bad, Meg.” He presses on. “Tell me it was the worst time of your life. Because from what I saw, it looked like you were enjoying yourself and everything I was doing to you. Every second of it.”
I narrow my eyes.
“Yeah, you can’t even pretend.” Some cocky smile appears on his face as his eyes trail down my body.
“Fuck. You.” I mouth to him.
“Hm.” Sparrow turns with a satisfied grin and starts walking.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
He keeps walking.
I turn in a circle and take a look at the four bodies lying in the narrow road that runs through the trailer park and a tiny part of me is thankful we didn’t live in one of those fancy parks with their own zip code. A shudder runs through me as I realize he’s right, I have nowhere else to go and no one else to go to. I run up next to Sparrow and catch a glimpse of the smile that starts across his face.
“Shut up.”
“Told you so,” he responds triumphantly.
“Fu-”
Sparrow turns so fast I barely see him move, I just feel his finger on my lips, silencing me. �
��Don’t you even say that to me. I swear to God, Meg, if you use that word one more time in front of me that’s exactly what I’m going to do. To you.”
Now, even though I’m pretty mad at him right now and confused and pissed at this whole situation, I put a pin in that shit to remember later.
He stands up straight and looks down the road. I see that we are almost to the Jeep I parked on the side of the road. Sparrow starts for the driver’s side door.
“What are you doing?” I ask him as I skip a few steps to follow him.
“Driving.”
“I thought you didn’t drive?”
“I just remembered how.” He slams the driver’s side door. “Get in,” he tells me over his shoulder.
“I think I liked you better when you were balls-to-the-walls crazy,” I grumble on my way to the passenger side. Sparrow turns and stares at me as I buckle my seat belt. “What?” I ask.
“I was just thinking I like you better naked.”
I want to tell him to fuck-off, but I remember the warning he gave me just a few minutes ago. So instead, I let my cheeks turn a nice shade of red as I cross my arms over my chest and stare straight ahead. And just as though Sparrow has been driving this entire trip, he turns the Jeep on, shifts it into gear, and accelerates down the road.
…
“Why did those men target you?” Sparrow asks me as he speeds out of town.
“Why would you care?”
“Because I need to know. I think it might help figure out where we need to go.”
“I don’t know why.”
“Think.”
“You know, that is the same question the people in Kingston asked me. Why is it that everyone wants to know the things I have no knowledge of?”
“Think, Meg. There has to be something.”
“How about, instead, you tell me something. Like how you said that what happened to me should have killed me, but it didn’t, and now you think we’re in Hell with all the demons and shit. So that must mean I’m dead. That must mean I did die. Those men and Jim did kill me. So I don’t really care anymore. If I’m dead right now then it doesn’t matter. The only question I have is how are there people here? Noah and his group, the old guy at the Country Store, everyone we met in Canada. That doesn’t make sense that they’re all here if this is Hell.”
Sparrow Man Page 15