Window in the Earth Trilogy

by Fish, Matthew

  Off in the distance, Jack hears a loud howl of pain. He rushes past a few bushes and there he finds his father—his father’s leg is caught in a bear trap. Landon cries out in pain as blood rushes from the vicious clamp. Jack raises his gun as he approaches even closer. He is momentarily amazed at the convenience of the entire situation. He reaches down, ripping away the wolf’s face and exposing Landon’s eyes. They look vacant, almost like those of a blind man’s. His eyes dart around as his nose sniffs the air, as though he is trying to use his sense of smell to gauge the current situation.

  Jack waves a hand in front of his father’s face—a bad move, as Landon catches his arm with a swift claw, leaving three bloody streaks down his arm. Jack reaches down quickly and retrieves the fox’s body from Landon’s belt. He cradles the dead body in one arm, and holds out the gun in his other. He aims his gun at his father’s head, but then thinks of a more suitable target. He aims for his father’s crotch and fires of a single shot. Blood shoots forth and Landon doubles over, screaming out in pain.

  “That’s enough!” a man shouts as he jumps down from a hunting stand affixed to a nearby tree. The man is wearing a camouflage hunting outfit, with brown overalls. He has a budding brown beard and tired eyes—the look of a man who has not slept nor taken care of himself.

  “Who are you?” Jack asks, his gun still pointed at his father, who is doubled over and crying like a whimpering dog.

  “Just a father—well used to be,” the man replies as he points his hunting rifle toward Jack. “Just someone who was minding his own business, living my own life, till this man here came and killed my son. The police from Springfield, they said it was wolves, but I always knew better. They took me for some retarded country hick and told me it wasn’t murder, yet I saw the footprints. They tried to tell me I couldn’t tell the difference, when I’ve been hunting all my life. Now, put that gun down, slowly.”

  “I am sorry,” Jack replies, lowering his pistol. He backs away and then bends down to the ground, placing the pistol on the damp earth.

  The man makes his way to Landon, who, remarkably, is still conscious. He strikes Landon fiercely in the side of his head with the butt of his rifle. Landon lets out another annoyed growl, and attempts to strike back, but is restrained by the trap.

  “What a fucking piece of work,” the man in camouflage replies with a laugh. “Listen here, you crazy fuck. I want you to see what I am going to do. Do you understand me?”

  Landon growls in reply.

  The man slaps Landon in the face. Then makes his way over to Jack and places the rifle against his head.

  “Please, I…,” Jack begins, astounded by the turn of events. He holds out his hand, showing that he is unarmed.

  “Shut up!” the man shouts as he strikes Jack with the barrel of the rifle, hitting him right in the temple. “Landon, I want you to see what I am going to do to your son. You killed mine—I figure this makes us square. Right? Of course, I’m going to shoot you afterwards, so if you don’t find that part of the deal fair, you can take it up with Satan in hell.”

  Jack begins to dig with his bare hands. He finds it easy in the soft earth that has been soaked by the torrential rain.

  “What the hell are you doing, digging your own grave?” the man announces with a laugh. “Stop it…”

  “Please, just let me finish this, I don’t care if you shoot me afterwards,” Jack begs. He does not know why he feels this way, yet he knows. Somehow, he knows. “I have to do this.”

  “Take off your clothes,” the man shouts to Jack. “You don’t deserve such comforts.”

  Jack slowly peels off his wet jacket, and then his shirt. The rifle to his forehead all the while, he strips down until he is completely naked. His body is shivering from the cold of the rain. He begins to dig once more, ignoring the laughter of the man with the rifle to his head.

  “You see this, don’t you?” the man says as he looks over to Landon, who watches blankly, without any expression or words. “I know you do. I know you can see what I am doing, you fucking piece of shit.”

  Jack continues to dig, his hands bleeding from clashing with hard rock, yet still he continues. Bent over in the cold and the rain, he even continues when the camouflaged man forcibly places the front end of the rifle into his anus and pushes in hard. Tears stream down from Jack’s anguished eyes. He continues to dig. The man withdraws the rifle from Jack’s rectum and brings it up to his nose.

  “You smell that, boy?” he announces with another mad laugh. “Smells like fear to me.”

  Jack ignores the comment and keeps digging. He reaches over for the carcass of the dead fox and places it in the shallow grave he has managed to dig into the earth. He begins to pile the mud over the fox’s body. He continues his work, unmolested, until he is finally finished.

  “Worth it, then, was it?” the man asks.

  Jack sits against the wet ground, his body shaking uncontrollably.

  Landon watches, not speaking a word. Jack is unsure if his father can even see what is going on. He does not expect any sympathy, not from either of the two monsters, one of which Landon himself created. He stares into the camouflaged man’s eyes, stares down the rifle. He recognizes the look in the man’s eyes; they speak of only one concept—retribution.

  “Just as crazy as your father,” the man says as he steadies his rifle in his hand. He looks to Landon one last time, almost as though he is hoping for some kind of reaction—almost as if he needs to see some kind of reaction. However, one does not come. He shakes his head for a moment, and then turns his attention back to Jack. He fires two shots to Jack’s chest.

  Jack falls back instantly. The world spins away, like video from a dropped camera. He can see the trees above him, and the sky—for a moment, the sun peeks through. A single beam of light fills the air. The storm is finally passing. A soft wind blows in the new spring air. A single green leaf falls from a branch. It dances in the air for a moment, falling down beside him. He looks at it for a moment, and then closes his eyes. He can no longer breathe. He no longer needs to. Like the passing of so many others before him, Jack Wolfe, too, passes.

  William Walker II

  Bill rushes toward the sound of the distant gunfire. He arrives just in time to see the end result of the camouflaged rifleman’s rage. He sees Jack Wolfe’s body, and two bright red explosions erupting like twin fountains from his chest. He quickly turns his rifle to the man he recognizes, the father of the boy who was killed earlier.

  “What have you done?” Bill asks, looking down to Jack, and then back into the man’s eyes.

  “My right as a father,” the man replies as he begins to raise his rifle to Bill.

  Bill fires a quick shot, hitting the man in the head. He falls dead instantly.

  Another large earthquake hits Pine Hallow. Bill is almost forced to the ground once more. He grasps on to a nearby tree as the ground rolls beneath him. This one lasts for nearly five minutes. Trees come crashing down around him and a fissure opens up in the ground off in distance, steam venting out of the opening. He wonders if this is the end of Pine Hallow—maybe even the end of the world, for all he knows. After all he has seen and been through, he would not be the least bit surprised. Finally, the earthquake ends.

  Bill rights himself, regaining his footing. He walks over to Landon, who is still trapped and crumpled over. The blood from his crotch fills the ground beneath him. Still, he is alive, clinging on to his madness. As Bill approaches, rifle raised, Landon attempts to strike out at him, but each blow falls hopelessly short.

  “Can you talk?” Bill asks as he steadies his rifle in his hand.

  Landon looks to Bill and then he opens his mouth, but only allows a low rumbling growl to come forth. His face is bare, his eyes vacant. He looks inhuman.

  “Figured as much,” Bill adds as he fires a shot into Landon’s arm. Landon howls out in pain and writhes about, attempting to free himself. Bill takes his time as he reloads his rifle, allowing Landon to experienc
e as much pain as possible. He readies his rifle once more and fires another shot to Landon’s leg. The shot erupts in blood and the bone in his leg is exposed to the air.

  “This is for Jack Olen,” Bill speaks as he aims another shot, “This one is for your son as well. For all the others, too… for your wife….”

  Bill squeezes the trigger, hitting Landon in the head. The bullet enters through the front of his skull and exits with a larger explosion from the back, staining a tree red with blood and brain matter. Landon falls to the ground—there are no more growls, no more attempts at escape.

  Bill reloads a single bullet into the chamber of his rifle. He looks up to the sky. All the clouds have passed and the sun is shining once more. It is turning out to be a beautiful day after all. He refuses to look down. He pushes the thoughts of the three dead bodies surrounding him as far away in his mind as he possibly can.

  “This one is for me…,” Bill whispers as he brings the rifle beneath the base of his chin. He squeezes the trigger, and everything fades away in an instant.

  The Fox and Old Wolf II

  The sun is shining brightly—it is mid-afternoon. A gentle breeze that smells of fresh spring flowers fills the air; it flows through the high grass. Each blade of grass dances back and forth in the calming wind. Beneath a tall ash tree, a red fox sleeps.

  An old grey wolf approaches the tree. He sits on his hindquarters, next to the fox.

  “You can stay here if you like, old wolf,” the fox says as it stretches its long body out and lets out a short yawn. “We are not the enemies we thought we were.”

  “He knew my instincts,” the wolf says as he lies down, exhausted. “I do not know how, or what he did to so many of my kind to gain such knowledge, but he became aware.”

  “I know,” the fox sleepily and apathetically replies. “It was its persistence. If there is one thing that man is, it is persistent. Men will come, they always do. They all have their own ways, some of them wicked, some of them pure. I made right on my threat to deluge them in flood, yet they saved themselves. A few in particular surprised me.”

  “I find it hard to believe this same man tricked you, sly fox,” the wolf says as he rests on his side.

  “It was cooked chicken,” the fox admits.

  Act IV

  Earthquake (A Love Story)

  Chapter 1

  Alexander Hawke was a tall boy of tall height—at the age of seventeen he stood at six-foot-one. He had dark brown eyes and black hair that he wore short and spiked in the front. His black, skinny jeans were torn at the knee, and beneath his grey hoodie he wore a solid black V-neck that allowed his silver chain to be visible. Half of a cigarette that he had found earlier hung from his mouth as he reached into his pocket to find his lighter.

  “Mr. Hawke,” a voice announced from behind him. “You’d best be putting that out, unless you’d like me to place a call to your mother.”

  “Fuck,” Alex replied, tossing the cigarette to the ground and kicking it to the sidewalk. He turned and got to his feet, giving his economics teacher, Mr. Arrow, an annoyed look.

  “And watch the language,” Mr. Arrow added, “You are still on school property, after all.”

  Alex kept walking, entering the side door to Bailey Alternative High School. He kept his back to Mr. Arrow as he walked on, hand raised, flipping him the bird. He slammed the door behind him, entering the school’s busy hallway. A month and a half ago he was at Central, a beautiful old brick school downtown, where he had a small group of friends and a somewhat normal school career going. At least, up until the fight. It was a simple and straightforward affair: another asshole, a shorter guy—Tim Feldman—made some comment about seeing his mother drunk at the bar the night before, saying what a whore she was. It was true, of course. Alex’s mother was a fall-down drunk. It was the fact that this piece of shit announced it to everyone that got Alex’s blood boiling. Tim had most likely expected a mere exchange of insults, a pushing match at the most. Instead, Alex, not being the type to follow conventional ways, planted his fist firmly into Tim Feldman’s nose with enough force to cause a break. The effect was so severe that Alex was actually held down by the lunchroom monitors until the police arrived. Embarrassingly enough, he was led out of the front door of the school in handcuffs and placed in the back of a squad car.

  That incident, and a prior history of skipping class, led Alex to his new school. Bailey Alternative, a school for those “off-track” or “who have been failed by traditional schools”. Alex did not see this as fair at all—after all, it was not his fault that his mother was a drunk, or that an underage person was at that bar that night—nor was it his fault that Tim Feldman’s nose was so easy to break. Regardless, here he was. In a school of new faces that looked at him as though he was some kind of freak from another planet, enrolled in classes he gave less than two shits about—worst of all, if he skipped, the police would find him and bring him back. He was constantly annoyed at the absurdity of it all. His only choice was to endure.

  Alex stopped at his locker. He stashed the lighter in the back corner of the messy interior. He grabbed his remedial math book, and, as the bell rang, he headed off to class. He was already late by the time he arrived at his seat.

  “Good to see you today, Alex,” Ms. Carol said as she folded her arms. “Next time, let’s try and be on time, all right? I’ll let it pass today, but I believe that we can make more of an effort next time, can’t we?”

  “Yes,” Alex replied in a monotone as he placed his book down on his desk. As Ms. Carol began to teach the basics of mathematics, Alex brought out his notebook and sketched away on a picture of an airplane falling apart in mid-air. He worked in all the little details: the screaming passengers, an engine on fire, a man impaled by a shard of fiberglass from the wing. The scene is rather violent, yet highly detailed and rather impressive.

  Alex quickly turned the page and pretended to be working on a simple math problem as Ms. Carol walked by, dropping off his math quiz from the prior day. It read “D” in a large red ink. Alex folded up the paper, shoving it into the center of his math book. He knew that he should’ve cared more; after all, he did not want to end up like his mother. However, he found most of the subjects that he was enrolled in so boring that continuing his love for art was all he could do to pass the long hours of the school day. Ms. Carol had begun to talk more about problem solving, so, in turn, Alex returned to his art. He added a few more fine details: trails of smoke, falling luggage.

  Thankfully, the bell rang and remedial math ended. Alex collected his books and headed out the door. As he made his way down the glass hallway to lunch, he spotted a girl sitting on the railing against the glass. She was watching people as they passed by, busy with their own lives. Alex had spotted her a few times before. She was much shorter than he was—he would guess about five-foot-two. She had medium-length black hair that curled out aimlessly, and large blue eyes that were accentuated in thick black eyeliner. She had a cute face, almost pixie-like, with a small nose and a wide smile—a single piercing in her bottom lip, a small silver ring. Her body was waifish and thin. She wore black track pants that had a single line running down the side and a grey T-shirt of a band that Alex had never heard of before. She wore black leather bracelets on each wrist, and a yellow cancer support bracelet only on her right wrist. Alex studied the girl as their eyes met for a moment. She looked at him as though she found something of interest in him, although this thought could just have been in Alex’s head. Perhaps it was actually the other way around.

  Alex sat alone at a table at the far edge of the busy cafeteria. He preferred to be alone these days. After all, his experience so far with the students there was that everyone was either troubled with their own bullshit, or causing bullshit for others. For example, three days ago, another short guy had bumped into Alex in the hallway and demanded an apology. He was not in the mood to offer one. The short guy got bent out of shape and threatened to beat Alex’s ass after class. Alex had th
ought of ending this encounter the same way before, but thought better of it. Instead, he apologized, although it was not his fault. He did not want to be led from this school in handcuffs, not again. The short guy only replied by calling him a “faggot”, and then a “pussy”. Alex did not give a shit—after all, they were just words. Perhaps it was his height that others found threatening. Maybe it was a pride thing—short guys showing that they could take on the tall guy who looked as though he had been through some shit. Word had spread that Alex had backed down and the short guy’s friends had taken up the hobby of calling him “faggot” as they passed him in the hall. Once again, he did not care. His entire view of the school was that the entire student body could go and collectively fuck themselves.

  Alex pushed aside his half-eaten macaroni and cheese and uneaten salad. He brought out his lined notebook once again. He had wanted a proper sketchpad, but his mother felt that it would have been too much of a distraction, so all of Alex’s art had to be done on lined paper. He did not mind; after all, he had no plans to do anything with it. It was more there for his collective sanity. Alex began to sketch the girl in the hallway, beginning with her small form, and then her hair. He added the way that the light had shone brightly behind her, casting a long shadow that he had passed through as he walked into the cafeteria. He started the intricate details of the folds of her shirt, and then the process of shading in her delicate features.

  “It’s a good likeness,” a soft female voice whispered over Alex’s shoulder.

  Embarrassed and caught off-guard, Alex quickly shuts the notebook. He turned and saw the same girl from the hallway, the one he has seen a few times before. Instead of watching her from afar, he was now face-to-face with her. She pulled out the chair next to Alex, sitting on it with her legs folded up and her feet hanging off of the edge of the chair. She brought her hands to rest beneath her chin and stared down at the closed notebook.