RB 01 Through Flesh & Bone

by Frederick S dela Cruz

  At the center of the otherwise empty expanse of the dust-layered wooden floor, a deep, black, empty space is opened. From the floor to the ceiling, it extends. At its edges, arcs of fiery electricity attempt to outline its undefined form. The stale air around it awakens and blusters in random directions, and then quickly becomes drawn into the glowing, flickering edges of the black space.

  It is a rift in space and time, a tear in this world that bridges into an incomprehensible realm of both wonder and fear, millions of light years away.

  In front of the tear, the young woman Crystal extends her hand, creating it, sustaining it. As her shapely form stands confident, her long, black hair lifts from her neck and shoulders, being pulled by the rush of the passing air. Her eyes peer into the deep, dark space with anticipation of the completion of her work, of the end to her planning and hunting, and of the finality of the execution of her designs. The surging blood-power within her has made possible the arrival of a terrifying being.

  She says with anxiously awaiting eyes and a voice devoid of her tender southern accent, “After centuries of planning and decades of toil, now it will happen quickly.” As she scans into the rift, she adds, while finding it difficult to restrain her excitement, “I feel its turbulent energy approaching. I feel it coming closer!”

  A few steps away from Crystal is a dark figure, the silhouette of the man who stood atop the Golden Gate Bridge. The hood of his long black coat conceals his face. This hooded man, having the role and position of a pawn, has nevertheless orchestrated events to lead to this moment, moving the other pieces of his game and positioning them through his masterful manipulation. But, even though this night is pivotal, he stands unaffected. Watching Crystal, he thinks, Her desire is about to be fulfilled, and it is I who has granted it.

  Soon, the dispassionate eyes of the hooded man catch a swift and sudden movement from within the rift. Unemotional and detached, he says in his thoughts, It will overcome them all, enslave them all, and destroy them all. Who can stop this bringer of desolation?

  With a deep, thunderous, and thrashing roar, a powerful red being - a destroyer in the form of red agitated light, the Essence - is about to enter.

  * * * * * * *

  SIX WEEKS AGO

  It was early evening on Sunday. The longhaired goateed man sat on the couch in his apartment. He had already drunk a bottle of cabernet wine and was affected by it. Now, he was ready to continue to the next. The second bottle stood on the coffee table in front of him. He leaned forward and opened the bottle with a corkscrew. Then, he turned on the TV but kept the volume off. After drinking a few swallows from the bottle, he set it down, and pushed himself back onto the couch.

  With his eyes at an angle looking down at the television, he stared at a commercial for toilet paper. His eyes began to droop, and realizing his sleepiness, he popped them open and blinked several times in order to keep himself awake. Then, as he sat straight up, he lifted the bottle and took a deep swallow.

  Turning his head to the side, he gazed at a picture of him, his wife, and son that sat atop the small stereo system underneath the window. The three of them stood in front of the Eiffel Tower, and that vacation was one of the happiest and most memorable times of his life. It was a time in which he felt that what he had - his family - was all he wanted life to be.

  Both the gold frame and the glass over it were usually clear and free of dust and fingerprints, because he took the time to regularly clean it. But now, he noticed that dust began to settle on it. “Gotta clean it,” he said drowsily, while he slowly stood, took a couple of steps, and then balanced himself in front of it. Picking it up, he used the hem of his white t-shirt to carefully dust the frame and glass. Next, he cautiously set the picture back down. As he looked at it once more, his body teetered. He then glanced to the side of the picture and looked at the digital clock.

  “Whoa!” he suddenly exclaimed. “It’s almost five o’clock. I’ll miss church.” He slurred the words “miss” and “church” into one long protracted pronunciation.

  Turning around, he picked up the wine bottle and took another drink. He staggered into his bedroom and stood in front of the closet. Picking out a white long sleeved shirt, he put it on and struggled with the buttons. Almost two minutes later, he finished with the buttons, rolled up the sleeves, and kept the shirt tucked out.

  He bent down into the closet and picked up a pair of socks from the floor. He didn’t know if they were clean or used. Next to them were his black leather casual shoes. He carried them out of the room and zigzagged his way to the couch.

  “Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go,” he chanted hurriedly, as he put on his socks and shoes. Then, he stood up and stared at the bottle of wine for two seconds. Deciding what to do, he said, “One more for the road.” He picked it up and took a long drink. As he set down the bottle, the wine inside swished around with less than a quarter of it remaining.

  He picked up his keys from the coffee table. He wasn’t going to drive; he just needed it to lock the apartment door. With the church close by, he always tried to walk, and it allowed him to drink as much alcohol as he wanted before he left.

  As briskly as he could, he walked out the door and down the stairs, holding the handrails of the stairs for support as he descended.

  The church that used to meet at the high school gym, into which he rambled when he was a teenager, had since built its own church a short distance from his apartment. It was where funeral services were held for his wife and son. For the five years after that day, he had attended their Sunday night services, rarely missing a Sunday but always arriving drunk. Subconsciously, he had never said good-bye to his wife and son, and he returned to relive the last moments he spent with them in the place he perceived they were at peace.

  Minutes later, he walked through the open church doors. Pastor Jason, whom he liked to call “Preacher Man,” had already begun speaking. Preacher Man was the same pastor he had seen at the church in the gymnasium when he was a teenager.

  “Where’s my regular seat?” he asked himself in a haze, as he stumbled to find it. It was the very last seat, in the very last row, at the corner of the room. Two empty rows were between him and the closest person. As he staggered behind the last row and turned to sit at the corner seat, he kicked his foot on a leg of the chair.

  The chair clanged into the empty one beside it. One or two people turned to look, but most of them knew it was he once again.

  Pastor Jason continued to talk uninterrupted.

  At his seat, the longhaired man put his elbows to his knees, clasped his hands, and leaned forward, resting his head down on the seat in front of him.

  His head began to spin.

  “Ooo…whoa,” he said quietly, as he tried to keep his head still. Nevertheless, he tried to pay attention to Preacher Man. It took several minutes for him to catch the theme for the evening, but when he heard Preacher Man say, “We settle in the role the world has given us, not the role God has purposed us to have,” it became clear. He nodded his head, and in his daze he thought, Amen, brother.

  Now and then, he dozed off. This night was the most alcohol he had ever drunk in such short time before coming to church. He woke up whenever Preacher Man inflected his voice to make a point.

  As the message progressed, another sentence made it into his consciousness: “You are chosen by God not because of anything you have done, but because…” The remaining sentence trailed off, melting into the ringing in his ears. He tried to listen to the rest, but it proved too difficult to continue concentrating.

  Once again, he fell asleep with his head resting on the top of the seat in front of him.

  He woke up when he heard the shifting of chairs and people speaking to each other on their way out of the church. The service was over. Still facing down, he peered from the corner of his eyes. People were walking through the aisle, down the center of the church, to exit through the back. He took in a deep breath, and then exhaled a heavy plume of alcohol. After a fe
w seconds, he rotated his head in order to face the line of exiting people.

  Apart from the pastor, it was the first time he had ever looked at anyone’s face in the church. He was always drunk while in that building, and even though he didn’t care what people would think about him, he never wanted to see their reaction to his presence.

  He saw that Paige was among them.

  She moved forward slowly, step by step, with her young son Isaac holding her hand behind her. She was angled slightly facing him.

  He gazed at her with his eyes partly open.

  She noticed him, and their eyes locked.

  With his head throbbing, he blinked and took his eyes off of her. Slowly, he turned to face the ground. Exhaling, he sank his head through his hands. In a whisper, ashamed, he sighed, “Crap.”

  Later, he was alone in the church, still sitting at the very corner seat. Everyone had already made their way out.

  Finally, he lifted his head and leaned back against his seat.

  Preacher Man Jason walked towards him, and then greeted him with a handshake. “Thanks for joining us tonight. How are you this evening?”

  “Hi, Preacher Man. Thanks for having me.” His exhale contained a noticeable amount of alcohol, but it didn’t bother the pastor.

  They exchanged more pleasantries for a few moments. Then, with his Bible in his hand, Pastor Jason sat down on the chair in the next row to face him. Jason asked, “Any thoughts about the message tonight?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know, Preacher Man,” he responded, with a slow shake of his head. “In my condition, I don’t know if I can really answer what role in life God has for me. Ya know?” He paused and looked down for a few seconds. Then, slowly, he stood up, using a hand to steady himself on a seat. Keeping his head down, he stared at the ground. “Maybe, when I’m less toasted, I can share some of my not-so-wise wisdom with you.” He lifted his head up and grinned pleasantly at Jason.

  Jason smiled back. “Have I ever given you a Bible?” he asked. “Here take mine. I’ve got plenty of them. Unfortunately, too many…and I’m trying to give some away.”

  The longhaired man took it. Staring at it for a while, he placed his forefinger on the book and began to trace the letters on the front cover. A few seconds later, he gave it back to Jason. “Thanks, Preacher Man. But I’m covered. I’ve got my own, and I’ve been struggling to make time to spend with it.” Finally, he raised his head, turned, and walked away. Waving at Jason behind him, he said, “Good night, Preacher Man.”

  As he watched him leave, Jason responded, “You have a good one too, my friend.”

  * * * * * * *

  The still and stagnant midnight air hung about the perimeter of a six-story condemned building. Of the few streetlights that were staggered on the all-but-forgotten city block below, only one remained lit, flickering with waning life.

  From a broken window on the fifth floor, a faint sound of someone seemingly in pain could be heard. It came from past the sharp edges of broken glass, down over the creaking wooden floors caked with damp dust, and then closer towards the center of the wide floor. There, the darkness kept a figure from being completely seen, but the sound certainly came from it.

  The figure was on its hands and knees, retching in the agony of a painful vomit. Long, flowing, black hair draped from the figure’s head, wading into the putrid substance spewing from its mouth. It gasped, and then feebly tried to breathe in, while heaving its head up and down with each terse gulp of air.

  The figure was that of a woman.

  Once more she quickly hunched forward and painfully vomited the contents of her stomach and intestines. Her fingers writhed, and their nails dug into the decaying wooden floor. Tears began to fall from her tightly closed eyes.

  Something in the shape of a large sphere spun and hovered in the air two steps away from her, emitting its own dull faint light.

  She stopped to breathe. Her gasp turned into a pitiful weep, and immediately, she vomited again.

  Momentarily, her toil and labor ended.

  Exhausted and physically spent, she rolled gingerly to her side with her arms lifelessly extended in front of her. With her long, blood-pasty hair clinging over her neck and black clothes, she faced what she intended to be her bloody gift.

  From the spinning, hovering sphere, pale white ooze began to fall and drip down onto the floor. As it fell, it separated itself from the sphere, decreasing the sphere’s size. Several minutes passed as the ooze continued to drain from the spinning object.

  Once completely on the wooden floor, the pale white ooze coalesced and formed into a faintly luminescent, gelatinous mound. It became the only source of light within the expansive dark room.

  The mound, almost a meter in diameter and one-third as high, began to form what looked like two short, weak appendages. Using them, it struggled as it moved and slid toward the puddle of blood offered to it.

  The young woman on the floor was Crystal - the same woman who had visited the Lexington County Coroner’s Office. In anticipation, she witnessed the pale entity’s emergence. With her voice and her eyes, she urged it, saying, “Drink. Feed.”

  In time, the pale entity reached the thick, dark, pool of blood. Slowly, it began to form another extension from between its two appendages.

  Soon, as Crystal’s ears began to hear the distinct sound of a primitively formed mouth lapping up blood, a smile began to form on her face. Watching, she said contentedly, “That is your first. And this night is the night of your awakening. Your destiny is entwined with that of the Essence.” As her satisfaction grew, her smile widened, cracking the dried, deep-red, coagulating residue around her lips and layering her chin.

  * * * * * * *

  The longhaired man woke at noon the next day. He showered and shaved. Then, he put on jeans, black shoes, a casual blue long-sleeved shirt, and folded the sleeves over. Wanting to find a different place to have lunch, he decided to head out to downtown San Diego.

  After getting into his Mustang, he inched the car backward and turned his head to search behind him.

  Suddenly, a car zoomed by with a rev of its engine. The bright sun reflected from the car’s silver door and momentarily blinded him. Immediately, he stepped on his brake pedal. Irritated, he turned his head to follow the vehicle. He could hear the loud music resounding from it, as it trailed further away.

  The driver was a junior in high school named Allen, and the car he was driving was his mother’s new silver BMW. He was short for his age and his red hair was unmistakable. He was the erratic, high-octane teenager of the apartment complex.

  “Crazy, dumb teenager,” the man mumbled.

  Neighbors frequently saw Allen speed through the apartment complex and out into the street. He regularly raced toward stoplights, and then came to a screeching halt at the last moment. Music always blared from the car, and Allen was always seen bobbing his head up and down, singing, snapping his fingers, and waving his hands into the air. He always sported a wild smile on his face. Nevertheless, aside from his crazy driving, Allen could be any kid’s friend. He was generous with the money, buying the younger kids in the neighborhood candy and little toys.

  The Mustang inched once again in reverse, and then the longhaired goateed man made his way out onto the street, and about a half-mile down, he reached a lighted T-intersection. Before making his right turn, he looked down to the left and saw Allen’s car speeding away. As he swiveled his head back to the road in front of him, he briefly glanced at a short, concrete wall with steel bar fencing on top of it. The wall gave an abrupt end to the T-intersection. At the other side of the wall was a short slope that then sharply plunged down to a ravine created by a tributary of the San Diego River. It was at this particular intersection where Allen performed his most ridiculous turns and usually as he attempted to beat the red light.

  As the man made his turn, he said under his breath, “Hope you’ll never need this wall, kid.”

  Reaching downtown, he stopped his car a
t a parking meter on Seventh Avenue and walked his way to Fourth, looking for a new place to have lunch. Downtown San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter had moderate foot traffic that afternoon. The day was cool, and the sun was directly above his head.

  He passed an Italian restaurant, a sports bar, an Indian restaurant, and a French restaurant. None of them sparked an interest. So, he thought, Well, I’m not hungry yet. Why don’t I just walk around for a bit? With that, he began to aimlessly and casually stroll the streets for the next thirty minutes.

  Turning down another street, he directed himself towards a bus stop. At that point, he had gotten a little disinterested in lunch. A few feet from the bus stop, he stood and leaned his back on the wall of a building. After watching a handful of people file into a bus, his eyes followed it as it drove away.

  With earbuds in his ears, he paid attention to the song. The player on his phone was set to random-play, and sometimes he could guess the next song. With a success rate of an impressive 50-50, he even joked with himself that he could almost always pick the next one. As the song ended with a short gap of silence, he tried to guess the next.

  “Spooky,” he said out loud.

  A song by Daniel Ash began to play in his ears: a remake of an old song called Spooky.

  Quite pleased with himself, he smiled and nodded, “Cool. Got it right. And I like this version.” But then strangely, he got a sensation that told him the playful tune was a harbinger of what would soon occur.

  A few seconds later, he took his eyes off of the bus and shifted his gaze to a red and black oval sign on his side of the street that read, “Sushi & Sake.”

  Sake! he thought. Never tried it, but I’m now in the mood for it.

  He began to walk in that direction. As he reached the sign, he noticed that the complete front wall of the restaurant was made of two very large panes of glass. It allowed people in the street to look in, but probably more importantly, it gave the guests inside a view out. When he reached the sign, he turned to enter the restaurant’s glass doors. Then, he stopped his phone’s music player, disconnected the earbuds, and stuffed both of them in his pocket.