The Dark Above

by Jeremy Finley

  “YEAR OF TURMOIL,” Time magazine proclaimed. The cover was split into four sections, displaying flooded streets of New Orleans, miles of burned trees in California, a hospital somewhere surrounded by hordes of people trying to rush in, and smoke from gunfire before the Supreme Court.

  In the center of the photos were words in stark white:

  RELENTLESS STORMS.

  FIRES.

  INCURABLE DISEASES.

  BLOODSHED.

  HOW THE NATION IS FALLING APART.

  William put the magazine back. He watched the news nightly and listened to NPR almost constantly during work, so he didn’t need a recap of the disasters. Was it any wonder he had nightmares every night? That he carried around the constant fear like a lead blanket?

  Hey, chill out, chili dog. Don’t get your panties in a wad.

  Roxy’s voice came out of nowhere, and William couldn’t help but smile. It’s exactly what she would say if she were standing next to him, followed by a twist of her finger to his rib cage or a gentle tug on his earlobe. While his parents showered him with compassion and his grandparents taught him resilience, it was Roxy who infused in him the importance of laughing—and making an obscene gesture towards—the face of adversity.

  Don’t try and fool me, Willie boy, he imagined her saying, picturing her in her favorite T-shirt, which read “Squad Goals” with a picture of the Golden Girls beneath. I know all you truly want to read is that magazine with the floozy on the hood of that Mustang. Just remember: Venereal disease is the gift that keeps on giving.

  The last was actually one of her favorite sayings to him, whispered both before he left for prom and when that picture of him passed out cold nearly naked in a girl’s bed on the third floor of his freshman dorm set social media on fire for a solid week. His family had been horrified. Roxy had simply set it as the screen saver on her phone.

  When three tabloid reporters were busted recording his high school graduation, Roxy had snuck outside to smear Vaseline on the inside of their door handles. After he was relentlessly taunted in the fifth grade by the Jolton twins for being the redheaded-stepchild-from-space, Roxy sat him down and made him repeat one saying until he got it right: “Hey Joltons: My other ride is your mom.” When he delivered the line while sitting on his bike after baseball practice, even the twins laughed. The teasing stopped.

  When he mooned an entire trove of photographers who showed up at his lacrosse tournament, Roxy taped the published photograph on her refrigerator.

  Find the humor, kiddo. Make ‘em laugh. Sometimes it’s all we’ve got.

  OK Roxy, he thought. What’s that runner’s magazine with the columnist that shares funny stories about crapping his pants during race day…?

  He scanned the covers and saw his own face.

  He flinched as if a snake had just dropped from the ceiling and landed on the pop star with whom he shared the cover of Hello! magazine. She got the full-page treatment, drunkenly getting into a car with the words, “Rock Bottom!” Tucked up in the right-hand corner, next to the magazine’s famous red-and-white lettering, a photograph showed him wearing a black tie with a solemn expression. “WILLIAM FOUND ALIVE?” the headline asked.

  The tie had been one of Grandpa Tom’s. “He’d have liked you to have worn it,” Nanna had told him, her age-spotted hands trembling as she helped him with the knot before the funeral. “Your grandpa had classic style.”

  He’d taken her hands in his own and held them until they had both stopped shaking.

  William hesitated, staring at the cover. It would be a mistake to look. After all, he’d managed to elude them all for a year.

  The most famous boy in the world is dead, remember?

  He snatched the magazine, flipping to the story and wincing at its two-page layout. The headline shouted across both pages, “The Disappearance of William Chance.”

  The first paragraph was equally cringe-worthy.

  “The most fascinating story of the century has taken another twist, as the young man, who many believe is proof of UFO abductions, has yet to be seen in public in a year. Sources say even William’s grandmother, Lynn Roseworth, doesn’t know where he is and fears he may have been abducted again. There have been multiple, unconfirmed sightings of him across the country, from New York to Los Angeles. One entertainment outlet has set up a toll-free hotline and a cash reward for any information leading to proof of his whereabouts–

  “Don’t I know you?”

  William looked up, his heart in this throat. He was still alone in the aisle.

  Then he saw himself in the security mirror in an upper corner, above a row of hand sanitizers. The checkout girl, leaning on the counter, was also in its reflection, staring at him. He’d been so preoccupied that he’d zoned out, failing to realize the store had emptied.

  “You work with all those Mexicans who mow the lawn at the Methodist Church in the Quapaw,” she said.

  Finally breathing, he picked up the Dr Pepper and a bag of Cheetos, slipping the magazine beneath the orange bag.

  “Yeah,” he said, rounding the aisle and sliding the magazine facedown on the counter.

  “I’ve noticed you after church. You always have that hat on. Your hair sticks out like duck feathers,” she said with a smile as she flipped over the magazine and scanned the bar code.

  “I need it cut,” he said, quickly sliding the magazine into a plastic bag and taking the chips to cover it up.

  “I just can’t get over how familiar you look.” She handed him the Dr Pepper.

  Make them laugh.

  He kept the brim of his hat low. “Not many gingers on the mow team. We burn too easily in the sun. We’re basically albino sausages on a grill.”

  She smiled, biting her bottom lip.

  “So how much?”

  “Oh, sorry. Eight twenty-five. That your Jeep out there? You live just down on Ripper, right? I seen it parked at that trailer.”

  “I stay there when my home in the Hamptons is under renovation. Have a good one.”

  “See ya.”

  William tried not to scramble out of the store, even though he would smash through the glass if it meant getting out quicker. No more coming back to Uncle Steve’s.

  He jogged past the pumps and set the soda and the bag on the floorboard, cranking up the Jeep and gunning it out onto the road.

  She was just flirting. He downshifted to second gear. She’s bored and likes guys in Jeeps. Nothing to worry about.

  Third gear and dust started flying. It hadn’t rained in a week and a half and nothing was tamping down the grit. The handle of the plastic bag whipped out the absent door, and he reached down quickly to throw the bag in the back to keep it from blowing out. He wanted to pull over and tear open the magazine inside, but the trailer was just a quick left away on Ripper Road.

  The beat-up and heavily leaning sign on the corner actually read “Lee Road,” but the Little Rock police never came out this far, and everyone drove it like Bristol. William tore around the corner.

  As cotton on both sides of the dirt road rushed by, the Dr Pepper twelve-pack thumped around on the floorboard in the back. He’d have to let it settle before he cracked one open. If he stepped it up, he might beat Carlos and have a few minutes to read the speculation about where he was.

  When the cotton briefly broke and the trailer came into view, he saw an old F-150 on the gravel driveway, hitched to a large trailer carrying two mowers. So much for beating Carlos.

  At the Jeep’s approach, a Hispanic man, his already dark skin made leathery from constant sun exposure, slid out of the truck cab, a notebook in his hand. Carlos still did it old school: He liked to write down all their yards for the week and who was assigned to which address. He kept a special red pen for the people who hadn’t paid.

  “Where you been Nick?” he said as William came to a stop.

  “Got hung up at Uncle Steve’s.”

  “Ticktock Nickie! Mrs. Goff wants you there at 6 a.m. tomorrow, and we’ve got
a shit ton more after that to schedule.”

  “Why don’t you take Goff and I’ll take the Lion’s Club?” William grabbed the soda and the bag.

  “Because she doesn’t like Mexicanos!” Carlos grinned and then spit out his chew. “She wouldn’t even use us if that nice little Caucasian wasn’t part of the crew. She thinks you’re mute. Always gives extra tip for the white boy because she’s convinced you’re special needs. Why else would you mow lawns with a bunch of illegals?”

  “I never see that tip.” William jangled his keys and opened the trailer door.

  “These mowers don’t run on air, my man.” Carlos followed him in.

  The window air-conditioner hummed as William headed straight for the fridge, sliding in the twelve-pack and tossing the chips and magazine into one of the cheap wood-paneled cabinets. Maybe Carlos will need to take a leak and give him a few seconds—

  “Throw me one of those DPs.” Carlos sat down at the table, sliding over the stack of books piled on top, and flipped open his notebook.

  “All shook up from the ride. Unless you want to wear it.”

  “Why don’t you get a decent car? Something with doors. Something with air-conditioning.”

  “My boss doesn’t pay me enough.”

  “You know, I don’t get it Nick,” Carlos said, holding up his pen.

  Here it comes. “Can you save me the same old speech—?”

  “You’re smart.” Carlos pointed the pen at him. “My best worker and my accountant—”

  “We agreed not to talk about that.”

  “I’m not planning on telling the IRS. You’re a freakin’ whiz with numbers. And look at this place.” Carlos waved to the books stacked on anything that wasn’t moving. “It’s a damned library in here. East of Eden? Never Let Me Go? You should be in college. Getting laid by sorority girls. And yet here you are, living in this shithole and making minimum wage. I don’t get it.”

  Because my name isn’t Nick Peters. Because I am not from Lonoke, Arkansas. Because I needed a job where I wouldn’t talk to or see anyone. Because no one would ever think to look for me here.

  “You trying to get rid of me?” He forced a smile.

  “Hell no. Just trying to finally figure you out. Remember when you first stopped me and asked if I was hiring? You didn’t talk again for about four months. Just nodded all the time, wouldn’t even look me in the eye. Then I had you hold my notebook that one time, and you quietly pointed out that I was double billing Ron Neil. You failed to mention you’re a genius with numbers.”

  “Hardly a genius.” A Catholic school education with accelerated math is all it was.

  “Ok, let’s see who gets a trim tomorrow.”

  William sat down and looked over at the notebook. “Right off the bat, this is wrong. We did Eddie three days ago. His grass will burn if we cut it again.”

  “No, that was Mrs. Hoffman—”

  “Hoffman lives down the street. We did her two weeks ago. She’s due. You’re off.”

  “Just do it.” Carlos slid the notebook across the table. “Hey, I hired those two guys from the Pancake House.”

  “I don’t suppose they have papers.”

  “Just focus on getting us on track please.” Carlos stood and walked over to the fridge.

  He’d been on Carlos to hire the two young men who hung out in front of the restaurant. They were obviously fresh off the truck that had successfully snuck by Homeland Security to transport them from Texas to Arkansas. That ride, and getting across the border, had certainly cost them everything they had.

  “You’re running a booming enterprise,” William said.

  “My vast empire is growing, thanks to you.”

  Grandpa Tom would be proud of his miniscule efforts for job creation. “The Democratic party has lost their way, Willie boy,” he often said, pointing his finger at William. “We’ve got to return to the working class. Focus more on creating good jobs and realizing people are desperate to get here because of what America stands for. Sure, we need strong protection at the borders, but do people really think that illegals are sneaking in and taking all the well-paying jobs?”

  Nanna would usually tried to change the subject then, and his brother, Brian, would announce, once again, that he was voting Republican. And the kitchen would erupt in chaos.

  William closed his eyes. Is it always going to hurt this bad—?

  “You got ice?” Carlos opened the freezer. “Damn, this is frosted over!”

  “Told the landlord about it two weeks ago.”

  “Can’t drink hot Dr Pepper,” Carlos walked back over to the table. “You got us figured out?”

  “You were just off on addresses. You’re good now. Ready to take on the overgrown lawns of Little Rock.”

  “Good man, Nick. Then I’m out. Mrs. Gonzales told me to come by and see her after work. I got just enough time to take a shower and shave. She likes a clean workspace.” Carlos winked.

  “Go on with your bad self.”

  “What are you gonna do? Sit in here and read? No man is an island, Nick.”

  Not true. “Cards play the Reds tonight.”

  “I’m gonna see if Mrs. Gonzales has a daughter for you.” Carlos swatted him on the shoulder.

  As soon as Carlos closed the door, William walked to the cabinet and pulled out the magazine. The badly needed shower would have to wait.

  He leaned against the counter, flipping to the article.

  William’s last appearance in public was at the funeral for his grandfather, former U.S. Senator Tom Roseworth. Since then, sources say, William failed to return to Belmont University, where he was to finish his senior year.

  “He no doubt moved to a smaller college and is laying low,” said a source close to the family. “He just needed time to grieve.”

  If only it were that simple.

  He looked up from the magazine, sliding open another drawer. The Cricket phone inside was dark. It would need to be charged before he could send the texts.

  Afterwards, he’d quickly destroy it. Using a ghost number, he would text his parents, brothers, and Nanna. I’m OK, he would type. Just need space.

  He’d add that he loved them too. They’d all know it was definitely him, as the message was an inside, morbid joke. “The boy back from space just needs space,” William would quip to his parents when he was in a rotten mood.

  When he sent the monthly texts, they were always followed by a flurry of calls and texts. Where are you? This has gone on long enough! Just call us! We’ll come get you! Don’t you know that you’re making this worse?

  Nanna’s texts were less demanding. Please come home.

  He’d then immediately smash the cheap phone so it couldn’t be traced. Even the sight of it brought on a familiar unease in his stomach. He slid the drawer shut and resumed scanning the article.

  The piece picked up as they always did, with the same damn recap.

  How the world watched him grow up, clamoring for details of how he’d been found by his grandmother, Lynn Roseworth, the wife of a US senator and vice presidential contender, who hid from her own family that at one point in her life she was a researcher of UFOs.

  The paragraph broke to feature a screen grab of the now-infamous video of his grandmother meeting with extraterrestrial researchers in Illinois. Once, a few years ago, he’d gotten on YouTube to see how many views it had received. At that point, it was more than two hundred million.

  The article went on to detail how his grandmother never publically discussed how she found him or what happened in the town of Argentum, only saying at a brief news conference afterwards that a great government conspiracy was hiding the truth from the public about extraterrestrial abductions.

  Almost immediately, the man suspected of abducting and killing William, Dr. Steven Richards, was released and was never seen in public again. His alleged accomplice, Barbara Rush, was also freed, but refused to talk to reporters.

  The world held its collective breath after th
e town was locked down for three months by the Department of Homeland Security. Despite the isolated and brutal conditions of the area, the network news divisions set up temporary bureaus outside. Families of missing people arrived from across the globe, holding an almost constant vigil.

  When the government finally allowed the media in, the experience for the reporters was a disappointing and resounding thud. No spaceships, no alien bodies, no Roswell. Only a sad little broken-down town, with hardly any residents, who knew nothing about what had occurred. In interviews, they were mostly agitated that their streets were lined with satellite trucks and just wanted to go back to living off the grid, thank you very much. Their main complaint was that after the military occupation, the only hotel in the town had shut down when the well-liked front-desk girl skipped town.

  “How she did it when the rest of us couldn’t leave is really the only mystery we’ve got,” grumbled a former occupant, who said he was forced to move in with his girlfriend and now had to clean his own room.

  The government encouraged everyone in the town to do interviews, including the staff at the hospital, who claimed William was simply never there. Despite rumors that other abducted people were brought to the town, the doctors explained they were basically a small research clinic for people with amnesia and had very few patients, given the dwindling population of the town. They preferred the isolated location because the quiet and calm was soothing to their troubled clients. They’d considered shutting down for years after their prime source of income, a private donor whose wife had suffered from amnesia, had died.