Sand and Shadow

by Laurisa White Reyes

  No one spoke.

  The noise came again, loud and sharp. “What’s going on out there?” whispered Tink.

  Fess swallowed hard. “Sounds like someone’s smacking the shuttle with a crowbar or something.”

  The third time, the shuttle rattled as a tremor reverberated through its framework. Adán felt it through the soles of his shoes. Something had definitely struck the shuttle.

  “Meteorites?” he suggested.

  A collective, if not guarded, wave of relief washed over the crew, though they all remained fixed to their spots like petrified trees.

  “Yeah, meteorites fell all the time on Earth,” offered Tink. “The moon, too. That’s what made all those craters.”

  They all listened silently for a moment, waiting.

  There was harsh thump against the roof of the shuttle, followed by another and another. They came at precise intervals of three seconds apart. Adán counted, and with each thump his heart rammed harder against his rib cage.

  The door to the cockpit flew open. Adán had to admit Scott looked like a commander, tall and confident. Not like how Adán felt at the moment.

  “Are you hearing that?” Scott asked.

  “Yeah, we hear it,” hissed Jonah. “Now shut up!”

  The thumping went on and on, sending waves of movement through the shuttle hull.

  “What the hell is that?” asked Fess in a tight whisper.

  “Not meteorites,” said Adán. “Too regular.”

  Everyone stared at the ceiling as if they expected something to break through.

  Tink gripped the edge of the table so tightly his knuckles had gone white. “A sandstorm?”

  “Yeah,” said Fess. “Has to be.”

  “Of course, it’s a sandstorm,” Scott said. “What else would it be?”

  “The monster.” Jonah clutched his cross in a fist.

  When the thumping finally stopped, they all remained rigid for several minutes, but nothing else followed. Adán could hear himself breathing.

  “There’s no monster,” said Scott, running trembling fingers through his hair.

  “Creature, animal, alien, or devil,” said Jonah. “Call it whatever you want, but it’s out there, which means I’m staying in here.”

  Scott bore down on Jonah as if he was ready to take him apart, but Tink quickly moved between them and snatched up his E-Tab from the table. “Maybe something’s out there, maybe not,” he said, “but either way, we were right about the sandstorm. The wind velocity is steadily increasing. Adán, take a look outside and tell us what you see.”

  Adán hurried to the cockpit and peered out the window, which had been gathering a sheen of fine dust. Tomorrow he would need to clean it off again.

  In the distance, something was moving. He was tired, exhausted now. Adán pinched his eyes trying to clear his field of vision, then he looked again. There was definitely something out there, a shadow stretching across the entire horizon as far as he could see in either direction. Each passing second, it rose higher into the air as well.

  Adán tapped on the control panel and brought up the atmospheric readings. The air pressure was dropping, as was the temperature, but what caught his attention was the wind speed. Normally at near zero, the numbers were rapidly increasing. 40 mph. 45. 52. 67.

  In the distance but approaching fast was what he now realized was a massive wall of sand.

  “A storm!” he shouted, rushing back into the common room. “A gale-force sandstorm headed right for us!”

  “We have to get the equipment back in!” Tink was on his feet, shouting at Scott who stood with mouth agape against the wall. “Scott! Commander Dryker!”

  Scott blinked, his eyes slowly focusing on Tink.

  “Commander, that sandstorm will destroy everything! We need to retrieve the equipment immediately!”

  Scott nodded, taking a deep breath. He was himself again, and ready to take charge. “Jonah!” he barked. “Get your gear on and help Tink!”

  But Jonah wasn’t going anywhere. He leaned back against the shuttle wall, pulling his knees up and wrapping his arms around them. “If you want it so bad, you go out and get it.”

  “Fess?” said Tink.

  “Hello,” said Fess, indicating his still bandaged leg. “Temporary cripple here.”

  “Cripple my ass,” Scott shouted, grabbing him by the arm and thrusting him a little too forcefully toward the hatch. “You’re no more a cripple than my left nut.”

  “Oh, so you’re finally admitting a weakness,” quipped Fess.

  Fist raised, Scott closed the short distance between him and Fess in two seconds, but Adán was faster. He wedged himself between them, holding up his hands like a referee at a boxing match. “Come on, guys. We’ve got more important things to worry about right now than your pride.”

  “Or Dryker’s balls,” chided Jonah from the safety of the far side of the room.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” said Dema. “You’re worse than a bunch of school kids!” In the time it had taken Scott to bark out his orders, she had suited up and reached the hatch. “Lainie’s already out there. Comm her to start bringing in the equipment. I’m going out to help. If any of you boys are man enough to come along. . .”

  Tink and Dema opened the hatch and slipped outside, quickly closing it behind them. As Adán helped Fess pull on his gear, Scott spoke into his comm. “Lainie, this is Commander Dryker.”

  A moment passed before Lainie responded.

  “I’m here,” she said.

  “There’s a helluva storm blowing our way. I need you to retrieve the generator. The rest of us are on our way to gather the remaining items.”

  Another pause. The signal was weak, broken by snaps and static.

  “Roger that,” said Lainie.

  “You realize that we have no idea how strong this storm is going to get,” said Adán. “It could destroy everything. We should take down the shelter before it gets shredded; it’s the only one we’ve got left.”

  Scott nodded in agreement, then shifted his helmet into place. “Everyone suited?” he asked into the comm. “All right, then. Let’s go!”

  Scott led the charge out of the hatch. The moment the door opened, the wind crushed against them, as solid as a wrecking ball. Fine grit exploded into the shuttle. Adán switched on his comm. “Get that door closed!” he called to Fess, the last one out of the shuttle. Fess nodded that he understood.

  The shadow that Adán had seen through the shuttle’s windshield seemed as tall as a New York skyscraper and was approaching fast. “How long before that hits us?” he asked Tink, blinking through the sand blasting his visor.

  Tink’s voice came in gravelly over the comm. He peered closely at the Tab unit strapped to his forearm. “The readings estimate we’ve got less than ten minutes.”

  “Wind speed?” asked Scott.

  “It just tipped eighty. The heart of that storm is probably twice that.”

  They leaned into the wind, pressing forward until they joined Tink, Dema, and Lainie who gawked helplessly at their shelter. The canvas whipped violently against its frames, like a frantic animal struggling to liberate itself from its bonds. One corner of it had already come loose and was flapping violently in erratic silver flourishes. The sound of it beating against itself was like the booms of a cannon.

  “We can’t get near that thing!” shouted Lainie. “It’ll cut us!”

  “The instruments!” said Tink. “The sand will destroy them, if they don’t get blown away first!”

  Scott scrutinized the shelter. “Cut the restraints,” he said.

  “What?” said Adán.

  “I said, let it go!”

  “But it’s our last tent!”

  Scott pulled his utility knife from his pocket and opened the blade. “The equipment is more important! But we can’t reach it like this!” Then Scott cautiously approached the tethered corner opposite the wildly flapping corner. A second later, it flew up and began twisting haphazardly in the
air.

  “Cut the other two restraints!” Scott’s voice sounded desperate, and Adán realized why. The loose part of the tent was now whipping around so ferociously that from where he was standing, if he got too close it would strike him. The wind was so strong now that Adán struggled to remain upright. Leaning his body fully into the wind, he moved slowly one step at a time until he reached one of the remaining secured ends of the tent with Tink beside him. Fess headed to meet Scott at the opposite corner.

  “Hold on!” shouted Adán. The sandstorm had gotten so close that the sky overhead had deepened to a murky black. The sound of the storm was deafening. He could hardly hear himself in the comm. “We’ve got to cut them at the same time!”

  “What?” shouted Fess.

  “The same time! Or else the free end will snap back, and one of us might get injured!”

  In unison, Fess and Adán set their blades to the restraints and began to saw at them. With the rest of the tent straining against them, the thick straps pulled taut, twisting and popping like snapping turtles. At one point, the edge of the strap bit into Adán’s glove, slicing clean through it like a razor. He jerked his hand back, the skin on the inside of his index finger burned from the sudden friction.

  “You all right?” asked Tink.

  “Yeah,” said Adán. But Fess, unaware of what had happened to Adán, continued cutting. His knife severed the last strands of the strap, and the third corner of the tent broke free. Coming up from the ground, it struck Fess with such force that he flew back, hitting the ground with an audible grunt.

  The massive silver canvas now held on by a single strap. Adán gazed up at it, undulating and spinning, a silver flame reaching thirty feet into the air. It dipped and lashed out like a cobra striking its prey, only to rise again each time. The generator, radio transmitter, and other heavy equipment lay toppled onto their sides at the base of the snake. The cots, blankets, and lighter weight items flew off one by one like desperate birds. One folding chair spiraled directly toward Dema, who dove out of the way just in time.

  “Get back!” Adán shouted into the comm. “Everyone back to the shuttle!”

  Adán guessed that the wind speed topped a hundred miles an hour. Sand struck him from all sides and tore into his gear. Instead of obeying Adán, Tink lunged forward, throwing his arms around the remote transmitter. Above him, the silver snake curled and danced. A table toppled to its side, skidded a few yards, and then toppled again. It rolled over and over like a child’s toy and continued rolling until it was out of sight completely. Adán caught sight of Scott hefting the heating unit onto his shoulders. His back bowed with the weight, and his progress toward the shuttle was slow.

  Suddenly, the tent, which had been snapping at the air, dipped down and coiled itself around Scott’s chest. In half a second, he was tangled in it. Then the tent whipped back up toward the sky, taking Scott with it.

  Stay down! Stay down, you little turd!

  The kid is skinny and wriggles like a worm under my hand which has him pinned by the neck against the locker room bench.

  “Get off me!” he shouts from his gut.

  That’s what I like to see. Some fight in them. The more they resist, the greater the thrill.

  I push harder, and he squeals.

  Because I’m behind him, he can’t reach his arms back far enough to grab me, though he tries. His arms flail in the air, and his feet scuffle against the floor trying to get purchase. His skin is slick with moisture fresh from the shower, his bare ass white as whipped cream.

  I had first spotted him from the field during football practice at the beginning of the term. He wore green silk shorts and a yellow tank. Running along the track in those beat-up sneakers of his, some off brand I’d never seen before, he looked like a corn stalk with legs. Glasses, too, strapped to his face by a latex band. Nerdsville if I ever saw one.

  I nudged my friend Alex and nodded toward the kid on the track. I guessed tenth grade. Alex grinned and shook his head.

  I was wrong about the kid’s age because he turned up in my trig class. New student transfer, from Wisconsin the teacher said, and could we make him feel welcome. Turned out he was a brainiac, like me. Difference was I didn’t shout it out to the world, you know? He and I were assigned the same study group, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed. He must have noticed what I could do as well because he tried to talk to me after school once.

  “Hey, Scott, isn’t it? Scott Dryker?”

  When I didn’t look at him, he continued. “I’m Corey, from Trigonometry.”

  I was heading toward the parking lot where Alex and the others were waiting at the car. Fridays we always go to Vincenzo’s after school, grab a pizza and some coke, laugh off the shit of the week.

  I hitched my backpack onto my shoulder and walked faster.

  “Well, okay,” I heard Corey’s voice behind me. “I guess I’ll catch you later.”

  In class on Monday, he acted as if that little scene had never happened. When I sat down across from him at the study table, he said, “Hi, Scott.”

  There were four other students with us, and we had work to do.

  “Hey,” I said back. That seemed to satisfy the kid because he smiled and nodded. I guess he thought he was making some kind of headway with me.

  I admit that he seemed a decent guy. He was always helping the other kids when they got stuck on a problem. A couple of times even I got stumped. He’d patiently explain each step of the problem, how to work the equation, until I figured out the answer myself. The kid was smart. Smarter than me. Smarter than anyone I knew.

  Over the next few weeks, I learned a little about Corey from bits and pieces of conversation that came up during the lull between lecture and study group. He was an accelerated student, so I’d been right about his being younger after all. And he’d been picked on most of his life. Things had gotten so bad at his old school, his parents had decided to move and start him fresh here. His dream was to get into Cal Tech and study physics. I was pretty sure he’d get in without a hitch. They’d probably beg him to enroll.

  Once, Corey got to class early and was waiting for me by the door. Before I went in, he handed me a sheet of paper printed in colored ink. It was a flier for Jet Propulsion Lab’s annual day for the public. I’d been once when I was kid, saw one of the Mars landers before it launched, took a tour of the engineering labs where they actually build the deep space probes.

  “I was wondering,” said Corey hesitantly, “if you and I—if maybe we could go together? I mean, I am from Wisconsin. What have I ever seen?”

  I said yeah, sounded like fun. I’d pick him up Saturday at nine and we’d check it out. He smiled eagerly and then went into class. I folded up the flier and stuck it in my back pocket.

  We never did get to JPL. We didn’t even get to Saturday.

  Corey ran laps after school a couple days a week. I saw him sometimes during practice. Most of the time I ignored him, but since that first day he’d shown up, Alex and the other guys had made it a point to notice him every time.

  “Look,” Alex would say. “There’s little dweeb again.” Or “What’s he playing at? He’s so skinny, how does he keep his pants up?”

  Wednesday, the day after Corey’d given me the flier, Alex and I and the rest of the team were heading to the showers after practice. Corey had spent the whole last hour running laps around us, and I spotted him getting out of one of the stalls just as we entered the locker room.

  Alex immediately zoned in on him.

  “Hey, scarecrow? Better hurry. You shouldn’t be in here with the big boys.” He gestured toward his own dick and laughed.

  Corey went red in the face. He reached for one of the towels on the rack, but Alex moved too quickly, snatching it away.

  “No, you don’t,” he said, spinning it into a rat’s tail.

  Corey’s jaw clenched. “Give me the towel.”

  In response, Alex snapped the towel at Corey. I could tell by the way he fli
nched that it had stung.

  “Give him the damn towel,” I said, forcing myself to laugh. This was Alex after all, and by now some of the other guys were watching, some hooting with laughter at the naked skinny kid.

  They didn’t mean anything by it. They were just being stupid. I was certain Alex would eventually lose interest and let him alone, but Corey’s eyes shifted from him to me.

  “Scott?” That was all he said. He was questioning why I was just standing there, as if he expected me to take his side. And frankly, I wish I could say I’d considered it. Even for a second.

  Alex turned to me with a fake look of surprise. “What? This kid knows you?”

  This next part has played itself over and over in my brain so often that I can tell you exactly how many moles Corey had on his back, and that the metal brace holding the bench was loose, that the air smelled so thickly of human sweat and testosterone that it stuck in the back of my throat.

  I can still feel the texture of Corey’s neck bones under my palm, those raised hard lumps underneath his soft, slick skin. I can still hear his gasping, terrified breath so close to my ear when he realized I could hurt him. I could kill him.

  I had moved quickly, grabbing him by the back of his neck and shoving him face down against the bench. He was much more fragile than I had imagined, not just thin but weak, like a child. His arms had no muscle tone, though his legs were lean and strong from running.

  He struggled violently as I held him down, such an easy feat.

  Stay down. Stay down you little turd.

  I hissed the words in his ear. I wanted to tell him it was for his own good, that once he’d given in, endured their ribbing a little, they’d soon lose interest and leave him alone. But he was a fighter, I could see that. He was the kind of kid who’d only make things worse for himself in the end.

  So, I intervened.

  He stopped flailing and went limp. I squeezed his neck harder, but not hard enough to do any damage. I reached out my free hand toward Alex, and he handed me the towel.

  When I let go, Corey slowly got up, but he didn’t look at me. His eyes were on the floor, and his face was a mess of snot and tears.