by Glen Krisch
Either the sun was dimming with the coming night, or his vision was failing. Either way, he would never see it again. Each time he blinked he was surprised when his eyes opened again.
"Dwight."
"Hmm?"
"Your father. We should name him after your father."
"I like that. Thanks."
"I love you."
"Love you--"
3.
Maybe it wasn't so bad. Wounds heal in time, don't they?
Thea Calder fell to her knees inches from a glass-still pond with clear water that revealed her face.
Sure she felt the sharp rocks crashing into her as she attempted to escape, but certainly it couldn't be this bad.
Blood flowed from her flowing locks across her forehead, drying in a morbid inverted crown. She touched the wounds on top of her head and pain shot through her eyes and her vision dimmed. She leaned closer to the water and wished she had her fancy brush and its matching comb.
She closed her eyes and tried to remember her escape. All she saw in her mind's eye were falling rocks, and brash sparks flashing across her vision when she was struck, and the walls, the very walls were coming in. And then she was running. Running blind and scared and with no hope of escaping. But then somehow she did. Somehow, she'd found a pathway to the living world, a world where people aged and wore down and eventually died.
She opened her eyes and her reflection had somehow worsened. The fugue of shock was lifting. Left exposed in its place was a lightning bolt gash in her right cheek. Her nose was also shattered, both flattened and swelling at the same time. And when she opened her mouth to scream, she discovered the splintered remains of her front teeth glaring back at her.
She shoved away from the pond. Her hand encountered a good sized rock. Hefting it as she stood, she threw it at the water and shattered the image. She turned, retracing her steps from where she'd emerged from the earth minutes earlier.
Ethan. Ethan will help me. No. Don't count on him. You can never trust a man to help.
But the Underground. She craved its curative touch with a growing intensity that bordered on lust.
Gray dust still billowed from the small hole in the ground when she crawled inside. It choked her, clinging to her lungs and clogging her sinuses. She closed her eyes and pushed deeper inside. Her heart was beating crazily and she tasted blood as she moved. But she was moving. And soon the healing would begin. And then she would never age again. Would never suffer the indecency of wounds or scars or pronounced leers from nosey neighbors. Because once she was Underground, she would never leave ever again. With or without Ethan.
After several minutes, her grasping fingers encountered a solid wall of tumbled in stone. She began to panic as she searched for an opening.
There wasn't one.
No. No, not now.
She couldn't go this way.
She knew of other tunnels.
But she could never face the world above.
What if someone sees me?
She fell to the floor and begged the Underground to stretch its powers to reach her. She sat like that for a long time. Waiting, feeling phantom healing tingles that she quickly dismissed. Her tears flowed. Long after the dust settled, her tears flowed.
4.
It felt like Ethan was back in the Everglades, slipping in and out of consciousness. The weight bearing down on his chest was reminiscent of the pressure from his wounds inflicted by those damnable Seminoles. The poisonous infection running riot throughout his system had swollen his tissue, making him nearly choke on his own blood and phlegm; that's how he felt now, but in this case, the weight on his chest was countless tons of rock.
He inventoried his senses. He couldn't see, but his years belowground accustomed him to the heft of this sensation. The sounds of rocks grating, falling, finding a place to settle for the coming millennia came from all directions.
Otherwise, he could blink, wiggle his nose, lower his bottom lip. His left index finger budged a fraction of an inch when he tried with all his might to move… anything. Boulders sandwiched his body practically flat. His limbs ached dully, but he was helpless to do anything about it.
This was hell. No doubt. He closed his eyes, let his mind drift. It didn't take long for his thoughts to coalesce, and as they did, they found a focal point. Thea.
Thea, Thea, my lovely Thea. He would never see her again.
The stones pinning him shifted, crying like a lonesome animal searching for one of its kind. His bones crumbled under the weight, compression fractures networking through his limbs, his chest. He'd never felt a more intense pain. In all the world, there had never been a deeper wound. Never in existence had such a hapless soul been less able to simply let go of the mortal coil.
The damned Underground.
Tears formed at the corners of his eyes, but they didn't fall. Instead, they were absorbed into the crusted rock and dust pressed into his skin.
If I cry long enough, will my tears dissolve these stones, freeing me?
He opened his eyes to blink, but he never finished the task. What he saw kept his eyes open and once open, they remained.
The shifting stones revealed a two inch shaft through the innumerable layers above him. Two inches opened to sunny daylight. Motes of fine debris filtered down into the hole, but he didn't blink. He couldn't take his eyes off the sight of the sun above him. He could never look away. Never was going to be a long time, indeed.
Twelve Years Later
"Hold still."
Jacob frowned as his mom fussed with his collar.
"It's fine, Mom. Straight as an arrow."
A whirl of gray streaked the hair over her left brow. Her face was tan from working around the farm. She smiled up at him.
"I can't have you looking disheveled. It's a big day, you know."
Through the kitchen window he could see their guests dressed in the their finest Sunday attire. It seemed like everyone in Coal Hollow was in attendance, and certainly most of the town had been invited. They stood on either side of an aisle leading to the edge of the peach orchard.
Ellie stood under a white lattice archway, holding a bouquet of flowers. He remembered that day so many years ago, the day of her brother's funeral. Her biggest concern had been trying to find the most beautiful wild flowers to pick for his mom.
Ellie's father never surfaced after the incidents in Underground. As far as Jacob knew, she never learned about the dark turn his soul had taken. Some things were better left unsaid. On a larger scale, an official story was created to explain the loss of twenty-two residents of Coal Hollow. Since Jimmy's body was never recovered (at least in the official story), the devastating loss was easily explained away as a tragic accident. The story described a search party valiantly combing the abandoned mines for any trace of one of their own. How inopportune for a cave wall to collapse during their searching and an underground lake to sweep them away.
After escaping the Underground, and with no evidence that her father survived, the Fowler's had taken Ellie in for good.
"Are you ready?"
"Just a minute, Mom."
He took a deep breath, trying to gather himself. The last time he could remember such stress was on the beaches of Guadalcanal. The white sands washed red with American blood, the air thick with smoke from weeks of artillery bombardment. He'd seen bloodshed before, but this battle changed his friends. Their vengeance had turned them into something unrecognizable, but still somehow all too familiar. Once the momentum turned in their favor, they scourged one tunnel after another with flame throwers at close range, and when their enemies still wouldn't submit, they would enter the dark burrows with bared bayonets, killing anything that moved. They'd become monsters. Jacob had already seen too many monsters. He would never again raise his weapon.
"Where's Cooper?"
"He's by the orchard, right where we should be, I might add."
Even as Jacob became a man and soldier, even later when his life took a decidedly
unexpected turn, he missed Jimmy. He wished he was here by his side, jabbing him with funny barbs, but ultimately putting everything in perspective. Simply thinking about his brother tended to put his mind at ease, and right now was no exception.
He could do this. When he exhaled a deep breath, it came as a long, calm gust of air.
"Okay. So everything's ready?"
"Absolutely." She offered her arm. They hooked arms and walked out the back door.
Jacob leaned over and whispered, "So, you don't think it's weird, us walked the aisle together?"
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
He reminded himself to walk as slow as reasonably possible. He took in the guests as they walked, trying to smile and make eye contact. People sighed and a polite round of applause greeted them.
"See, everything's perfect."
Many of the faces in the crowd were new to Jacob--spouses of Coal Hollow residents he had never met, or people with whom he had grown up but no longer recognized after being away for so long. A few faces never changed, though.
Arlen Polk stood at the end of an aisle. Now an old man, a spark lit his eye that showed his wits only grew stronger with the years. Shortly after surfacing from the Underground, he opened the grain elevator just outside of town. After his elevator enterprise took off like gangbusters, he imported stone masons from Chicago and opened a school to teach select local boys their skills. Though still in its infancy, the school was gaining a national reputation, while keeping quality jobs in town. Arlen had an uncanny knack for business. Some people claimed his higher functioning resulted from injuries he received during the search party accident. Some people claimed he had been touched by God. Some other's knew the reason, and they kept his secret.
At the end of the aisle a small gathering: Ellie, Hank Calder leaning on his walking cane, Cooper.
Everyone counted Cooper as one of the victims of the mine disaster. Jacob's mother only learned of his survival when he showed up at her door a year ago, his beard now mostly gray, but his eyes warm and inviting. At the time, Jacob was finishing up his studies and only learned of the reunion through his mother's weekly letters. Through the weeks, Jacob saw their relationship evolve.
"Nervous?" his mom asked in a whisper.
"A little. You?"
"No. Not when I'm this happy."
Jacob handed his mother over to Cooper and he took his place under the arching flowers, facing the crowd. His collar felt tight on his neck, but he didn't allow it to choke back his words as he began the wedding ceremony.
THE END
The Nightmare Within
by
Glen Krisch
Chapter 1
The memory of heat and burning, of smoke and searing pain, shaped every moment of Maury Bennett's life. When he was eight years old, fire gutted his family's apartment building, killing seven people before the firefighters, some from two towns over, could contain it. Maury was lucky enough to regain consciousness in the hospital, thirty percent of his body charred black and nerveless, his skin as crisp as fried chicken. He had been the first of his family to smell the smoke and to see the flames as the living room curtains caught fire, the first to feel the raging heat bursting down the hallway, throttling his body like a malevolent spirit. Flames quickly engulfed everything, forcing Maury, his younger brother, and their parents to run with their heads covered with soaked bath towels through a gauntlet of swirling flames to reach the front door. The shared hallway outside their apartment was little better, the old faux-wood paneling a mass of tumbling embers and seething smoke.
Upon reaching the sidewalk outside the apartment building, the fresh air was intoxicating. But Maury was on fire, his Incredible Hulk pajamas combusting, his throat hoarse from smoke and screaming. Shocked neighbors stood on the trampled courtyard grass, their glassy eyes reflecting the shimmering fire consuming their homes. Maury's father pulled him into an unyielding embrace. He rolled on top of him, smothering the fire.
Maury had lost all sense of reality. Only momentary fragments rooted him to the conscious world. His father, still struggling to choke out the flames feeding on Maury's flesh, whispered repeatedly into his ear: "I never should have left you alone, never should have left you, never should have left…"
Rosemarie Clement reclined her ample body on Maury Bennett's leather office couch. She was staring into a panel of drop-tile ceiling, not focusing on anything in particular. She was trying to probe her soul, searching for a meaning to it all, trying to figure out why she had to be such a perfectionist. Why did she have to iron her bed linens? Sure, a small segment of the population ironed their bed linens, but she felt worthless if she didn't strip the bed naked before it had a chance to cool after her husband got up for work. Why did she incessantly wash, iron, buff, shine, scrub, boil, sanitize? Does asking that question lead to answers that she didn't want to face, that she couldn't face even if she wanted to?
Maury wondered how a woman could let herself become so insignificant.
The couch hadn't been a part of his practice during the early years. But he learned the hard way, that even when he wanted to, he couldn't accomplish the simple act of looking at his patients as they spoke. His palms would become clammy, and he would wait for the subtle hint of pity in their eyes. They would twitch after glancing at his melted-wax scars and then look away, ashamed. Their self-consciousness offended him more than if they gaped without giving it a second thought.
"I'm on the edge of this cliff…" she was speaking about a dream she had the night before. As if it were interesting enough to bring up in a meeting with her psychiatrist.
Maury closed his eyes and thought of his younger brother, and the night of the fire. Little Dale, with his dark brown hair covering his eyes, cowering in their mother's lap as she tried to soothe him. Maury remembered hearing the shrieking sirens and seeing flashing lights washing across the slate gray apartment building in chaotic waves. His father was resting his cheek on Maury's forehead. He cried as he held Maury, rocking him against his chest. The flames were gone; the searing pain attacking his skin was nearly gone, too.
Maury heard his skin crackle under the pressure of his father's touch. When he looked down he saw the scorched flesh of his arm crack and split, saw blood seep and bubble from his wounds. The worst part was that he felt nothing.
Though Maury was in shock when they loaded him into the ambulance, he clearly remembered and had since become haunted by the image of Rocky, their mangy pound cat. Before the ambulance doors closed, Maury saw Dale pointing at the building. Maury looked up in time to see Rocky jump from their third floor balcony. The cat was a ball of flames streaking across the grass until the fire stole the last ounce of his life. As the ambulance doors closed, Maury drifted from consciousness.
Countless surgeries, skin grafts, and physical therapy patched together Maury's body until he looked as normal as someone recovering from his condition could look. That's what the doctors said, at least. They always told him how lucky he was, how some people from his building didn't make it out alive. Until he was ten years-old, he spent more time in hospitals than not. At first, his left arm was little more than a dead limb. Whorls of pink and brown scars ran up his shoulder and melted across his ear. He went through the torture of his formative years wearing ball caps to hide the spots where his hair wouldn't grow back. Long sleeves hid the easy target of his disfigurement from the other kids. By the time he received a new prosthetic ear, he had learned how to conceal the worst of his remaining frailty.
Through all of his struggles, he learned a valuable lesson. Doctors possessed true power. They could salvage the unsalvageable; they could extend life and raise the level of comfort for those in their final days. Doctors looked at Maury with an unflinching eye. They saw his ravaged body as a canvas--their medium of choice to practice the highest of intellectual arts. Maury watched these people wield their power and learned from an early age what his calling would be. But he soon discovered, that even with his impressive
academic record, he had to give up his dream of becoming a surgeon. His left hand carried with it an invariable impairment. He would never be able to practice surgery. Instead of salvaging the flesh, Maury turned his attentions to salvaging the mind.
"Can you understand how I have trouble sleeping at night?" Rosemarie asked from her reclined position.
Maury blinked away the memories of his childhood. "Hmm… yes, I think I do." He opened a desk drawer and took out his script pad. "Your time is almost up, and from listening to what you've said, I think I have something that might help you with your sleep issue." He scribbled something slightly legible on the pad and handed it to her.
"You really think I need to go on a prescription?"
"I think it would help you find the root of this problem," he said. "You need to look at this issue from a new perspective. This script will help you unclutter your mind and lead you in the right direction."
She looked at the paper doubtfully. "Are we through for the day? I thought I still had more time left?"
"If you use the rest of the time to get the prescription filled, that will be part of your therapy," he said, getting up from his chair. Rosemarie followed, a confused look on her face. Maury handed her the slip and walked with her to the door.
"So… same time next week? Good. It was nice seeing you again, Mrs…" Before he could fumble with her name, he rushed her out the door, the prescription fluttering between her fingers as the door shut behind her.
Maury leaned against the edge of his desk and exhaled slowly. He didn't know how he was going to keep up this hectic pace. His practice was a safe bet; he would never be out of a job, but ever since meeting Nolan Gage, his whole outlook on life had changed. Dr. Edwardson, a family physician, had introduced him to Gage at a fundraiser for the Loyola Children's Hospital. Dr. Edwardson knew that Maury specialized in the treatment of patients suffering from traumatic dreams, and that Gage desired to fund a research project in a similar field. When they met, Gage had spoken about groundbreaking research with dreams, and particularly, the transmutation of dreams. Nolan Gage didn't know what he was getting himself into.