Divine_Scream

by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

  That’d be pretty.

  He tried to focus again. The shapes in the street looked like clothes. He shrugged and pushed the gas.

  Then one of the heaps of clothes lifted and he saw a young woman’s face, her mouth going in and out like a wounded trout washed ashore.

  “Oh shit!” He jammed on the brake with both feet and the Mustang fishtailed with a screech of its tires.

  Silence and jagged heartbeats. Hisses of stale air. The engine’s slow purr.

  He wanted to feel victory for stopping in time, but he’d almost killed someone. His head fell against the steering wheel and he blacked out. He came out of it right away though and searched around in a panic. Twenty or thirty people were scattered around the street. They must have left their cars and collapsed. There was no way he could drive around them all, even if he knew what the hell he was doing behind the wheel. He’d have to change routes.

  The car had stopped diagonally and he had to crank the wheel a bit to turn it—the cranking reminded him of his dad driving—he’d seen that before, that cranking of the wheel, and wondered how it might feel. Now he was doing it.

  “I’m doing this,” he said. A smile almost formed on his lips, but then his lungs collapsed in even farther and he wheezed.

  He took a side street ahead and floored the gas until the next crossing. Took a left and moved around parked cars with caution. Some affected people lay in the street here too, but most had made it to the sidewalk before subsiding. Jared kept driving, grateful for how wonderful the car handled, not that he had anything to compare it to. Impulsively he made another left and came back to Valley View Street. It wasn’t as bad over here. He looked at the sky and the crease had grown larger, gotten closer.

  Jared screamed.

  A plastic garbage can splintered and flew into the sky as though fired from a cannon. He’d veered off the road, and then overreacted and jerked the wheel. The tires skipped along and the Mustang went sideways. He righted the path but went into another left turn.

  Was that a mistake?

  He scanned dizzily outside. The air from the SCUBA burned his nostrils. Once again he wanted to throw up but the crease loomed over him now and that gave him focus. He sped up, made another harsh left, the car skidding, the engine growling.

  Then all at once he couldn’t see the crease anymore.

  He jammed on the brake and nearly smashed headfirst into the steering wheel. He tapped the buttons on the door handle, searching for the driver’s side controls. The window made a futuristic humming sound as he rolled it down. The silver crease, like a metallic spinal column of some invisible Godzilla sized robot, hung directly above this area. He breathed out in relief and also noticed his lungs felt full. Everything around him increased in color and the dreamlike state vanished. He was in a safe place, off of the choked streets. He’d soon have to return to them though, without the luxury of a car. This is only the first leg of your trip, he remembered Banch telling him.

  With that thought of her, he spotted her twin.

  The banshee sat against an old brick building with real estate signs plastered all over its façade. She pushed up from the wall and marched over to the car. It was Banch all right, but at the same time it definitely wasn’t her. Jared had to look away to keep from staring too long. This Banch had no hair and most of her scalp ran with waves of third degree burn scars. She had no eyebrows and her uniform looked different. The outfit was more revealing than his Banch’s, but in a sad way; her breasts were hardly covered in some type of quasi corset, and she had a black tutu on with silver glitter in its folds. She came to stand in front of the car, an unceremonious slump in her posture.

  “Are you my guide to the Fuse?”

  Jared swallowed, tried to keep direct eye contact, though it was extremely difficult with her bleak, bloodshot gaze.

  “Yes I am.”

  “I cannot step inside the vehicle. I’ll lose residence in this dimension.”

  “Oh yeah, duh, sorry.” Jared popped open the door. “I have to get the air tank because the streets—”

  “I know the situation, human,” the twin cut in. “The other and I shared some thoughts for a few minutes during the Fuse. Hurry on with your equipment.”

  “That makes this easier, I guess,” he said shyly. This version was intimidating for completely other reasons than what he had grown accustomed to.

  “She’s getting closer to the Atmosphere Javelin.”

  “What? Oh, is that what you call a Lung Spike where you’re from?”

  The twin leveled her hard gaze. “We must go.”

  “Right.” Jared ran around to get the tank. He hefted it out of the car, got down on his knees, and strapped it onto his shoulders. It was heavy enough to make him wobble a bit during the process. He attached the hoses and pulled up the mask he’d left hanging around his neck. He smiled at the twin, feeling goofy. “Lead the way, Banch.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, right, nothing.”

  The twin squinted as she started off. “Wait, you have given me—her—a name?”

  “Sort of, yeah.”

  The twin nodded in mild approval. “Nice. Too bad it’s a horrible fucking name.”

  Jared laughed and followed her into the street. His lungs tightened and he reached back to twist the valve. When he turned he noticed the twin studying him with her cadaverous eyes.

  “I remember you,” she said.

  “You do?”

  “Keep walking, human. Quickly now.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You were the kid I had to make a call for when you were ten. Your babysitter, Bella Boyd, got drunk and hit you with her car when you ran off to feed some stupid pigeon or something.”

  “What?”

  “The sitter got twenty-five years in prison. You hung in there for another five years but you were paralyzed the whole time. Then I had to make the call. Your folks were rightly insane thereafter as I remember it, but they weren’t my assignments, so I’m not sure what became of them.”

  Jared didn’t want to think about their fate, but couldn’t help wonder if his parents were still alive in another dimension, perhaps many different dimensions. They could have gone on to live longer without him. Conceivably they had a divorce and found someone else and they were happier without him. Or they actually loved each other in these different realities.

  “So I really died? That young?”

  “Almost twenty years ago now,” she said. “I’m glad to see you again, grown up. I remember thinking you were a nice kid, going after that chicken or whatever the hell it was. You actually cared. A lot of people, man, they just couldn’t give a shit about such things, even at five years old.”

  “Fatso,” Jared said through his mask.

  “The bird? No, you called him Feathers.”

  “If you say so.”

  This is beyond weird. Jared had a disturbing thought then. “Was I the Assembly’s gift at that young age?”

  “Gift?”

  “Yes, you know, how the Silent Kings allow them to take a gift every hundred years?”

  The twin shook her head. “Where I come from there is no such Kings. The Assembly rules all of the Deeper Unseen.”

  Jared’s blood went cold. “Really?”

  “So I suppose you could say that everyone is a gift for them.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s life. Nothing to be sorry about, Jared Halte.”

  “It’s actually Kare.”

  “If you say so, human,” said the twin Banch. A smile touched her gray lips.

  Chapter 12

  The Banshee

  Banch crouched at the dumpster and surveyed the scene around the Lung Spike. She moved her eyes to each of the Assembly, counting all ten. What was so important that they were standing around idle? As an answer, a wave of purple and cerulean sparks showered the air around them, all bursting forth from the spike.

  She grinned. “Technical difficulties, boys?”

&nbs
p; This was a good development. She observed the sky. Her twin could be felt but it made the situation more reassuring to see it with her own eyes. The crease had not moved much, which meant Banch needed to hang back for a while. It was fine though. The Assembly were having so much trouble with the Spike, she could hold out a bit longer and that would give Jared and the twin more time as well.

  But she’d need a better vantage for when she made her move. Turning, a flash of silver washed across her line of sight. Out of instinct she swayed back and a long sting went through her shoulder. The fabric of her uniform split down to her bicep. She protectively grabbed her arm and moved back.

  Standing behind her, one of the Assembly lifted a machete with a debase smirk on his waxy red lips. His pale body was wiry muscled, not in pants and suspenders as the others but naked as birth.

  Taking another backward step, Banch stole a glance over her shoulder. The other Assembly members broke away from the Spike with unsettling ease, as though it was never a concern. One fell to the ground, so much useless meat. He moved his head and she saw that his face looked too fresh, not imbued with the toiled misery of the Assembly.

  Because he’s a decoy. They’ve set a trap and you were the fool to fall for it. Banch retreated more and thought of possible screams to use—none of them would be powerful enough though after the Swell.

  The nine others drew closer. Banch could see nowhere to run. She was surrounded. The naked Assembly member’s lips moved but ten voices filled the alley with what he said.

  “He’s ours, banshee. You will never have him again.”

  Ten grins peeled back.

  Chapter 13

  Jared

  Jared’s face slammed into the brick wall. His jaw buckled and teeth lathed across each other. The air tank clanged loud enough to bring him back into consciousness. Someone caught his shoulders, yanking him upright.

  “You have to knock this off, human!” Disgust layered the twin’s voice.

  Jared tried to regain himself. The world flexed, expanded, dropped in and out, a mockery of what his lungs should be doing.

  “I can’t… help it.” Ripples of vertigo swelled through his head. The banshee wouldn’t allow him to stop, but he just wanted to pass out like the other huddled masses in the streets. He kept burping, trying to settle his stomach. It tasted like Eun Sun’s cold cucumber soup from breakfast.

  “Here.” The banshee shoved him into a cross-street. His lungs sorely ballooned and he bent forward, hands on his knees, enjoying the pull of oxygen into his unhindered core. “We can’t stay long,” she said. “Get your head on right.”

  He nodded. “Guess you probably don’t see the point… saving me. In your world I’m long dead.”

  “You’re talking, so you’re ready.” The twin tugged him back into the choked street.

  Jared coughed, gagged, and stumbled along. It couldn’t have been even half a mile since they left the car, but felt as though he’d been air deprived for hours. This Banch was even less forgiving and she’d not let him get away with any other resting so far. His brain kept chanting: How much farther? How much farther? After a while it became a twisted cord of nonsense sounds saw-cutting his mind. Howucharther? Howucharther? How-we-tar-ouch-ouch-ourch-far-far-far-terth-terth?

  “No!”

  The twin stopped and put a hand over her heart. Her grim face managed to dial in something even darker.

  Jared couldn’t ask what had upset her. He swayed there and checked the valve on the air tank—he’d been doing this habitually, although it never amounted to any new discovery; the air was flowing as it always had, but he just wasn’t getting enough of it, simple as that.

  The twin slowly edged forward, checking the sky.

  “The other has stopped moving.”

  “Who?” Jared was able to get through his mask.

  “Banch,” said the twin, giving him a sidelong look.

  “Why?” he wheezed.

  “I don’t know, but I’m still here, so she is too, let’s go.” The twin pulled harder at his underarm, almost making him trip. Her footsteps slowed and she shook her head. “Oh shit…”

  Jared groaned. “Please tell me.”

  “Something’s really wrong, human. She’s in very bad trouble.”

  “We… help… her?” Jared said through grunts.

  Once more the twin led him on. “I have to get to that Fusing location. That’s all we can do for her, besides hope… damn it all!”

  Jared hated every word this banshee said, but right now he couldn’t resist or voice any objection. Everything pitched sideways, a deity grabbing the earth and twisting it like a doorknob. Where does the door lead? He blinked and tried to focus.

  “You’re okay, you’re okay,” the twin whispered, almost sympathetically. Her tone wasn’t normal; it was far too reassuring and patient. Perhaps she knew the end was near and, like most people, thought if she was kind she might bypass a worse fate.

  Banch! thought Jared in a panic. Banch, you can’t do this to me!

  Their pace had slowed again. He lifted his head, fighting the shifting, gyrating, colliding distortions of unsteadiness and nausea. Before them a six car pile-up sealed off the road. The path had no openings through, at least none that the banshee could get over. It would involve climbing, which she couldn’t do, or trying to move the cars, which there wasn’t time for.

  Hopeless and pointless—all of this!

  Jared fell to his knees. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “Get up.”

  He pressed his hand over the burning in his chest. “It’s done.”

  The twin pinched the flesh at his tricep and he winced. “Up!” she shouted.

  Jared scrambled to his feet, but he spread his hands out at the futility. “Why? What for?”

  “Don’t piss me off. Come on.”

  “Can’t.”

  For another time that day, Jared’s jaw buckled. This time it was because the banshee had slapped him.

  Very hard.

  His face mask went sideways but she quickly adjusted it so he could look at her in the face. “Human,” she told him, eyes fiery and clear, “you don’t ever get to use that word again. Can’t is not part of your vocabulary.”

  In another moment, they were moving again.

  Chapter 14

  The Banshee

  Banch couldn’t turn this around, but hadn’t accepted it yet. It was both good and bad the Assembly knew not to get too close to her. She could avoid some of their thrown machetes and rocks, but she couldn’t get close enough to touch any of them and thus destroy the Spike.

  Infuriating to her. Fun for them.

  They’d won and knew it, so why not chase her around and scare her, throw rocks and daggers and machetes? And then they brought out ball and chains. One of them impacted her lower back and sent her sprawling. There were so many angry thoughts racing through her mind. How could she let Jared down like this? This outcome had been expected, but not here, not now. At the beach she wouldn’t have felt so surprised.

  She tasted blood on her tongue. It was saltier than what she’d tasted after the Swell. That had been old blood—this, well, this tasted closer to the vein, a bitter, cold, iron, copper tickle.

  The bowling-ball sized end of the ball and chain smashed into the concrete near her face—she realized then she’d fallen and lay completely prone before the Assembly. Chips of concrete bit into her face and she pushed up, startled and overcome.

  A chorus of laughter.

  For her pain.

  And humiliation.

  It didn’t change her mood. She knew how they were. She knew what they were.

  She struggled but got to her feet. They wouldn’t take her lying down like a weakling.

  Jared, I hope the car gets you to the beach—I hope the Silent Kings don’t grant them a direct corridor shadow to head you off—I’m so sorry. Why did I not approach you sooner? Why did I not do so many things differently?

  Because I wasn’t meant to win
, I guess.

  That’s okay though. The universe works that way. I’ve tried many times to Fuse only to find out that me, the so-called Banch, never existed. Because in some realities, the Deeper Unseen is missing, and there are no transfers of energy after death—in those places, when the soul dies, the body still remains, a living dead, and those concepts are the implanted memories of such worlds in our dreams—and nightmares—for those realities are closer than we think. I know you cannot hear my thoughts, Jared Kare, but if you could, I would implore you to fight, because you are still here, in this world. You’re still alive. Hear me.

  On the second impact, the ball and chain dislocated Banch’s shoulder. The pain made her sick to her stomach but she ate it and refused to change her expression of defiance. In the distance she saw a foggy red-scored figure drop the ball. With a tall red Mohawk and a scandalous, hungry leer, he stood off the sidewalk in a planter full of only dirt. The ball struck the ground and a dust cloud lifted around him like honey vapor. The chain cinched up and rattled, and she wondered if it happened across all realities because it seemed SO LOUD.

  She bit her lip.

  Maybe she was wrong.

  Maybe the other Banch would remain here.

  And get him to the beach.

  You’re fooling yourself. You know how it works. It’s done for you and the twin.

  The ball smashed into her stomach and the impact made her think of puking out her organs. Her head slammed to the ground and she heard her own scream, but it was magic-less, only filled with pain instead.

  But she stood again.

  Damn it.

  She got up, ignoring the growing ache through her side, because the hell with them. They would not do this easy!

  The Assembly giggled. It still didn’t bother her. She kept her face locked in one expression for them: end it if you like, but I’ll be here until then.