by T. Wyse
Turning her attention back to the dot of the overpass, she circled slow and took in the globe below. The brightest news were the familiar shapes of the mountains, the unmistakable grey a jutting set of teeth with a set of brown gums, their white caps now absent.
Using the mountains to align herself, she found the remnants of the city proper. The vortex no longer marked the city limits, but there were dottings of familiar buildings below. They looked as strange and naked as the mountains, absent of that familiar quilt of asphalt and grass. She could account for several shops, at least one building she recognized as a church, and a peppering of houses that was hardly modest. Descending lower, but not gracing the flat earth with her feet just yet, she noted that the streets had been picked bare, the benches and traffic lights and pavement all replaced with raw soil. The town she had known presented itself like a jaw suddenly decayed.
A hollow sadness tickled at the back of her mind. There was something missing from both her accounting and the giant man’s requests, something slipped in the subconscious panic.
“People.” Amanda’s voice echoed. “You don’t see any people.”
Amelie flitted down between the houses, trying to satisfy that voice, trying perhaps to find that proper human feeling and bring it to light.
It was similar to the first time she had revealed herself, in the wake of a tornado that had stranded her family. Eerily similar given that they had taken shelter in an underpass then too. She hadn’t hidden then however, and had gone up to embrace it, the raw power of the thing drawing her in with that curiosity she had been punished for later.
The town the tornado had hit was like this, missing buildings plucked with some arbitrary disinterest. The rubble remained in the picture, but not even a single animal graced the faraway streets, not one voice cried out in panic or fear.
It was enough though, she affirmed as she realized that she was heading back to the sheltered area. There was food, shelter, water, all of the things the man had wanted. Surely he would be, not pleased perhaps, but at least satisfied that he had let her go.
The overpass sunk into her view, growing from a dot. There were houses beyond the overpass, and even the ghostly outlines that had once framed the highway below. The picture spread itself in her mind, the canvas switched into a dull brown, now blooming with a stilted and creaking dryness as buildings trickled into her internal map.
She descended gently, the same way she had come the first time, but landed on soft earth rather than spiked gravel. She sunk down, and a whirling cloud of dirt engulfed her as she fought to move forward towards the asphalt oasis, her pouches gulping a serving of dirt as they closed.
There was a conversation between adults going on, three figures now down on the road beside one of the vehicles. The words were quick from the two smaller shapes, and the large man was showing frustrated and tight breaths. The others remained above, shrouded in shadow, blank faces glowing in the light of their silent phones.
She squirmed a little getting out of the sand and onto the asphalt, managing to hoist an entirely soiled knee upon the flat surface.
“Useless!” The man boomed in rage, enough that she nearly fell backwards from surprise. He slammed a fist onto the bumper of the car, which fell to the earth with a mocking clanging.
Half stained brown, and looking more bat-like than ever, she waddled over to where they were, close enough to hear them properly. The ones who had joined the giant were a man and woman, arms clasped, their breaths still quick and frantic, but in a practiced duet of words.
“Hell of a dust storm then.” The smaller man muttered, a sarcastic bite to his breath.
“You don’t think it was natural, really?” The woman quipped, her words a half snarl. “Nothing else could’ve possibly…”
“You’re back.” The large man gave a great puff of relief.
The couple both locked gazes on her, speechless.
“It’s not all gone, it’s just hard to see from here. There’s houses and trees, well some houses and trees.” She corrected.
He gave a tired nod, a sense of relief washed over his breath.
“There were some shops still standing, but no roads. The mountains are there too, but I didn’t go up close. The shops are over that way, but it was up off the highway before, um in that direction.”
“That funny town you’re from, ‘Home’, right?” He nodded thoughtfully. “Yeah, I guess that’s about as close as anything.” He glanced at the blank faces of the other two, and added: “I used to do long haul, I still have nightmares about driving that mountain road, will actually be easier to walk.”
“People?” He added quickly.
“See?” Amanda’s voice echoed again.
“I didn’t see any, but I didn’t get too close.”
The woman broke off from the tether and knelt in front of Amelie, then turned to regard something in the distance. “What are you looking at?” She traced from Amelie and back into the distance.
“I…nothing.” She backed up a pair of steps. “The trees all seem stripped of leaves though, and a lot of the houses are in ruins, like after a storm.”
“You’re looking into the distance. Are you blind?” The woman waved her hand in front of Amelie’s eyes.
“Hello? I’m talking to you!” Victoria’s voice now, the same motion, only without the ignorance to excuse it.
“No.” Amelie bit with annoyance, backing up. She focused her eyes on the woman’s face.
“Then what was so int-“ The large man put himself between the two of them, cutting off the woman’s words.
“Ruins, better than nothing.” He nodded slowly, kneeling down and still managing to make her feel tiny. “We’re trying to get something together so we can move supplies, maybe walk in the soil easier. The cars aren’t running, not that it would help…”
“And they’re falling apart, it has to be some kind of corrosive agent.” The smaller man tapped the bumper. “That would point to man-made.”
“When we’re all set up you can point us in the right direction, to those houses and shops right? Even the mountains would be good, I can’t say I remember the way myself.” The larger man ignored the biting man’s voice.
“Y-yes, no problem.”
“You think that’ll help at all? What are we going to do then?” The woman growled behind their separating wall.
“I don’t know, it’s a start though.” He hung his head slightly, and for the first time she felt his breath tremble a little. “I don’t know.” He whispered softly.
“I could, um, check the shops for things you need, things that’d make it easier for you. I can’t carry an engine or something, but I can get you some water or food, that shouldn’t be a problem. I could even go Ho-” Home, how had that slipped her mind?
“I bet my parents would know.” She grinned animated with excitement for the first time in a while. “They know all sorts of stuff, and my father makes loads of weird things from scratch. He doesn’t do electric things but he could make a wagon for you easily!”
“Your parents are…alive?” The man skewed his eyes, and then bit hard as if trying to catch the escaped words.
She backed away from him quickly. Of course they were. Her mind raced, thinking of the houses in shambles, the wasteland. Of course they were, how could they not be?
“Wait!” He roared, and tried to grasp after her, but she had already loosed the pouches.
“I’ll…I’ll come back, I’ll get them and come back just…” She skidded outwards, tugged by the wind and was pulled away from the overpass once more.
Her heart raced, and for the first time in recent memory she was truly unsure. Was this fear again, or just uncertainty? Her nostrils burned with the memory of chlorine seeping into them, chewing at her eyes, lungs.
The wind’s embrace dulled the feeling a little, the cool air soothed her eyes and cleared her nose. She lifted to the fastest winds, blowing directly towards the mountains.
Her eyes fo
cused through the tickling frost and onto the ground below. Familiar landmarks set themselves forth, that silly store that Victoria loved so much, the one where she had bought that blouse that had brushed Amelie’s skin like fiberglass, but she had forced herself to wear it for a week before confessing this fact.
The sandwich shop that Amanda enjoyed. The one that been a secret between the two of them, something never shared with Victoria for fear of being mocked.
Tabaka’s house, still standing, the shape of the neighborhood still intact. Still not a single soul below, not a speck of movement even hovering low to scrutinize it within the wind. Surely if that house still stood, then…
Finally, the statue in the park near her home, standing proud, the old bearded man still reaching towards the sky but the grand trees that stood nearby were picked bare. It was in that park that her father had taught her how to fly a kite, sometime around an eternity ago. The only apparatus left was a set of lonely stone benches that marked where the ends of the park had once been.
And then the truth. She hovered above, glancing at the landmarks. The statue stood there, the mountains were pointing correctly, but below her yawned an open void of brown. Still not believing, she circled back twice noting the old market that was down the road and the rumbled down ruins of an old post office that had sat blocks away.
She found her feet on the ground, sinking gently, her primer pouches still reaching towards the sky. The earth below gasped and a puff of the fine silted earth washed over her, stinging her eyes, drawing protective tears out of them.
There was simply nothing, even up close. It was a perfectly flat plain of earth. Not even a skeleton of the great hedge, the one that defined their entire property. Not the squat steppe pyramid or even their ramshackle garage.
Something tickled at the back of her neck, a trickling nausea bubbled forth as she surveyed the spectacle. It wasn’t simply the nothingness, there was something else here. The bubbling became more frantic, punctuated with a prickling numbness. With trembling fingers she wiped the silted tears from her cheeks.
What was it? Was it simply some vestige of normalcy seeping through? “No.” Amanda’s ethereal whisper agreed.
She turned to face the only landmark, the statue off in some distance, and the second her back was turned to the lot she saw it for the first time. A burbling blackness sputtered up from the ground, immediately finding form upon the wind. With a trembling turn she dared to regard the mass, and it burned her eyes worse than pure chlorine. A hot ache throbbed in the sides of her eye sockets, that numb sickness coming to such a point that she could feel her stomach rising.
The most grotesque thing about the rising, gurgling mass, was there was simply no footprint upon the blowing air. Bits broke off and fluttered around like ashen butterflies, and they cut against the wind but were both there and not. They flickered so like a static hissing television, a frenzied chaos of sound and light in an impassable world beyond.
In the centre of it, rising and inflating, there was a feeling of weight. Something felt vaguely familiar like a childhood nightmare long forgotten. Still slick with filthy tears she fumbled to open the pouches, and for the first time in her memory the fine string cut into her finger as the cloth heaved with life.
She rose quickly, but the sickened weight remained. She simply couldn’t take her eyes off of the black specks, swirling, rising, growing. It was almost reminiscent of the ways crows would sometimes assemble on the roofs of buildings, shrieking a shrill and unearthly chorus. This shape rose from the ground like some cheap firework for children, the black pellets that would hiss and stink and produce a lazy and porous worm. The shape was cylindrical, but the dotted figures were chaotic, a black static of frenzied movement.
She took the winds upwards and finally managed to avert her eyes. The body of the worm whipped itself out to meet her, to cross her path in midair. The dread rose up, and she flitted down, attempting to reposition and move away, to make a better arc to avoid the fluttering darkness.
They were birds, moving as a singular mass, but having distinct bodies of their own. Their forms snapped into light as they crossed before her path, wings flapping, beaks shrilling resonant and guttural tones. In a braced instant she tore through the flock, and left the cylindrical body behind. The moment she was away from them however the worm lifted its way from the ground, and in one unified motion glowing reddened eyes shot open, enough blooded stars to fill the night sky, each and every one turning to her in a single lurch.
Whatever they were, whatever they had wanted, they had seen her.
She didn’t hesitate, didn’t allow herself to think. She turned her ugly eyes away from them, shutting them tight. She could outfly them. She rose, seeking the sanctum of the quiet and chilled higher sky. She opened a single eye against the frost, and saw that the things had shifted their path, the head of the worm more pronounced, and dotted with focused blistering red eyes.
They had moved to chase her.
Enough distance now, and enough denial in her mind, she forced the sails limp and allowed herself to fall downwards only exerting control to keep her back to the earth so she could still see them. Surely it could still be a coincidence of some sort, and the speed of the descent was greater than anything other than the most practiced hawk could match.
The head of the worm forked into two streams, one following her directly and the other moving to where she had been. They quickly merged with one another and locked eyes, narrowed red to frosted and trembling blue.
Another feint, she twisted and headed along an enthusiastic warmer wind. It was enough to cause another forking moment in the mass, and she gained some distance before it angled to chase once more.
Still deeply chilled, she felt the church pass below. The black bodies were on the wind now, fatter than any crow, with wings that seemed to flail and bend as if broken. They were also fast, too fast.
Without realizing it she had begun heading back to the overpass.
They were closer, wings moving with a surreal chop. A legion flapped and flailed without a single sound to indicate their existence. There was a crackling half-present sound to the shrill cawing.
Their paths crossed for the second time, a single one of the creatures zipped by her. It shrieked a singular, guttural tone, and looped back into the body of the worm. Strangely it was alone, and with the overpass within reach she allowed herself the foolish idea that they had simply been curious.
Her cheek burned and another pair of the creatures passed her. Not just curious. Everything about them was asymmetrical, ugly, and would have certainly prohibited flight. She dove, and managed to avoid a few of them. To her relief the head of the swarm hovered pensively above as she landed gently on the soil.
A great puff of the silt rose up once again, and she felt a stinging itch on her face.
“Go back up the hill, hide!” She began to shout at the people, all of them now stood looking aghast at her, wading beyond her knees in the silted earth. “Sorry, there’s something…”
“What happened to you girl!?” The huge man sprinted towards her, and then staggered, his hand reached out.
“It’s okay I don’t think they’re following…” She wiped away the dampness that the frost had left on her cheek, and then realized how stupid she had been. Her hand was covered in slick red, one of her eyes shut closed with the warmth of it trickling down from the gash on her forehead.
“Oh…no.” She whispered, and looked behind her, the head of the swarm yawning open and now resembling a striking snake.
They were eating her.
“Run…hide, I…” she stuttered, and her hand trembled.
“RUN! Get aw-“ She pointed desperately at that huge man, that kind man, that brave man that had reminded her so much of Mr. Ellis.
They were upon her like a river, so many oblong wings flapping and tearing that it even had the roar of rapids. She was enveloped in that familiar blackness, a thousand ripping beaks biting and tearing, drownin
g her with force. Their shrieking poured into her ears as they were shredded, her nose and lungs burned with the salty scent of her own blood.
Light, shining light cleaved a crescent moon against the darkness. Whoosh! Something glinted like a beautifully kept silver sword, it tore at the wall around her. Whoosh. A great shrieking crack echoed in the enclosure. They cleared away again, and she was being pulled out, dragged up the slope.
Her bloodied eye wouldn’t open, and she sputtered on her own breaths lungs growing slowly dark as liquid trickled in. She lay in strong hands however, being torn safely away from the river. It wasn’t enough though, her mouth gulped at the air, but not a single spark of light made it into her.
“I-s-s…” she tried to form the words, but the breath simply wasn’t there. Her mind trickled down into darkness, the choked breathing of the huge man her bitter lullaby.
3
Meldice’s House
Most children dream of doing impossible things, of flying and of magic, so what did the girl who knew flight and had tasted the impossible dream of?
Mundane things to most: Days of school spent without argument from Victoria or chastisement from Amanda. They were dreams of balance, of moving forward. There was one difference, one key thing that she clutched tightly against her soul. It was such a sense of aching desire that she would often wake with a soreness in her throat and a pillow damp from tears.
In her kindest dreams the wind brushed across the textures of things, and drank in their colours. In that shadowed world she saw all of the beauty of colour, all the chills and warmth that others saw with their eyes, but she saw it in three dimensions married perfectly with her own special sight. Her dreaming self knew a wholeness, a comfort that she would scramble and claw desperately to retain as she realized the waking world was coming, but she never could.