New Title 15

by Douglas, P. A.

  WATCHERS

  P.A. Douglas

  CHAPTER ONE

  Kyle Turner’s life was about to change.

  Sitting in his living room one mid-afternoon, a loud hum interrupted his favorite show. It was faint at first, and off in the distance. Perhaps, there had been a wreck a few blocks away, or maybe a horn was stuck in one of the colliding vehicles. On second thought, it didn’t sound like a horn at all. The noise was getting closer, even louder.

  “…but, Jerry. He just don’t get me. I ain’t about to be with him if he’s gonna be with that skank,” the obese black woman said to the host, as Kyle turned up the volume.

  However, the effort to drown out the sudden annoyance didn’t work. The buzzing noise increased to the point that he couldn’t hear the Jerry Springer Show any longer.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” Kyle wondered.

  Pressing the off button on the remote, Kyle clambered out of his Lazy Boy, clearly irritated.

  “So much for an entire day of Jerry.” Kyle belched, the stench of warm beer filling the air.

  Wiping Cheetos onto his already orange stained wife-beater shirt, he reached into his pocket for a cigarette, only to find two remaining. Lighting one up as he reached the living room window, he made a mental note to run to the store before dark. Pulling the blinds to one side to check the weather gave him a surprise.

  What time is it? There is no way that it’s already after six.

  Outside, it was getting dark, and fast.

  A large cloud forming in the western sky was heading straight for Kyle’s apartment complex. He wasn’t much for guessing, but the storm appeared to be still quite far away. Maybe even a couple of miles or more. Although, if he did have to guess, he had an hour at best, before the rain started pouring. Looking from his third floor window, Kyle was amazed at what he saw.

  The sky had become darker than dark. Something unnatural about the way the clouds rolled in, made them seem almost as if they had life. In all of Kyle’s twenty-six years, as a local resident of Lake Charles, which had been his entire life, this was the first time he had seen anything like it.

  This looked like it could be the biggest storm ever.

  Well, he would be ready. Other than smokes, he pretty much had everything covered, if or when the power went out. The odds were definitely in favor of that happening tonight. Worst-case situation, he could just walk a few blocks to the local grocery. It was definitely not the neighborhood to be caught alone in the dark, but that was to be expected, living in the hood. Kyle had no major complaints though. Aside from the occasional gunshots that went off at night, the neighborhood was pretty quiet. After all, no one really ever bothered Kyle or his neighbor who lived under him. Maybe it was his gender or age, but fortunately, no one ever messed with him. At least not so far. The rent was great, too. Low-income housing was the way to go. The lower prices on the rent and utilities package allowed for what he considered one of the finer things in life. Laziness. He hadn’t had a job in months. Filing for unemployment was one of the best things he had considered doing.

  Money was tight, but so what.

  Taking in a lung full of smoke, Kyle finally lowered his eyes away from the sky. His cigarette had almost burned to the butt. He hadn’t realized he had been standing there that long.

  “Son of a… Might be making that trip sooner than I wanted.”

  Kyle exhaled a gray cloud of satisfaction, put the butt out in the ashtray on the windowsill, and reached for his last smoke. Tucking it behind his left ear, he crumpled the empty pack in his fist, tossing it to the floor. That’s just how he lived. What did it matter? He didn’t have roommates. Didn’t need them either. Littering the floor were fast food wrappers, coke cans, partially eaten plates of microwavable dinners, and more. It was a mess. It didn’t matter that the place smelled, he was desensitized to its ripening odors. Catching his eye were the contents of a large ashtray laying bottom side up on the carpet next to his Lazy Boy.

  Haaaa… Nice.

  He smiled, remembering he had one too many Pabst Blue Ribbons the night before.

  Not at all concerned with the clutter, he gingerly grabbed his house keys from the wall beside the front door. The jingle of metal against metal faintly filled the air. He stuffed them into his front pocket, silencing the clink of dancing keys. Entirely unfazed by the condition of his living space, Kyle locked up, before making his way outside. He may have not owned much, but in this apartment complex, he could never be too cautious.

  An unexpected obstacle rolled between Kyle and his quest for smokes.

  It wasn’t the noise setting him on edge. It was that annoying hum and the crowd. Making his way down the steps and into the complex’s parking lot, the street was flooded with people. They weren’t packed like sardines, but there were definitely more people out, than lived on his block. It was a little overwhelming.

  More than a dozen Hispanics poured out of a first floor apartment in Kyle’s complex. A car with thirty-inch rims stopped in the street. Its passengers were looking to the sky, while others filed into the road from their homes across the way. It was a sight to behold. The low thump of Triple Six Mafia blared from the parked car. Everyone was talking with one another, with many of them pointing to the dark clouds coming in from overhead.

  The buzzing steadily increased becoming all the while louder.

  “…na, dawg. I ain’t seen nothin’ like that shit before, yo!” A white guy wearing his cap sideways was saying to one of his friends. The hat still sported its sale’s tag in the back.

  “Man, you think that noise is coming from them clouds, dawg?” Another guy replied. “What the hell you think it is?”

  With the grocery store in sight, Kyle kept to himself. He didn’t feel the need to linger outside with all the people. He just wanted to get in, get the smokes, and get home before the rain really started to fall. With the darkness and that those clouds were moving, it was going to be one for the books. Still, what the hell was that noise?

  “Hey, Kyle… hey… Kyle! Where you headed, man?”

  Kyle didn’t even have to take his eyes away from the sidewalk, watching one foot in front of the other. He recognized the voice right away. How could he not have? Ben Love was an idiot. At least, that’s how Kyle felt about the guy. One of those dudes that thought they knew everything and liked to let you know.

  Kyle pulled his last Lucky Strike from behind his ear. Lighting it to hide his agitation, he acknowledged Ben Love with a nod.

  “What’s up, Ben?” A hail of smoke fluttered from Kyle’s lips.

  “You seeing this, man?”

  “Yeah, I’m seeing it, Ben,” Kyle grimaced. “I’m kind of in a hurry, dude. What’s up?”

  “Where are you headed?”

  Still briskly walking toward the store, Ben was clearly not going to leave him alone. Catching up to Kyle, Ben Love kept pace, patting Kyle on the back. Ben lived in the same apartment as Kyle, living on the second floor directly under Turner. Ben worked in town at Best Buy. The guy was something of a techno geek. Loved the gadgets. Always loved showing them off to Kyle. He wasn’t sure if it was because Ben was close in age, or the fact that they were the only two white guys that lived on the block. One thing was obvious; he was hard up for friends. A bit of a neat freak that talked too damn much. He was still wearing his blue work shirt and dress pants, with a large digital camera in one hand, and the strap around his neck. His haircut was short and clean, a sandy brown in color. The bottle cap glasses sat snug on his nose making his mustache a bit much. It was an oddity to Kyle that Ben’s place hadn’t been broken into. Everyone knew the geek had some good stuff worth taking. People in the neighborhood probably didn’t mess with him, because he looked like that type of guy. You know th
e one. The kind of guy that would turn you into a lampshade just for looking at him wrong.

  Kyle couldn’t stand the man.

  “Hitting the grocery for a carton of smokes. This is my last one.” Flicking ashes to the curb, he continued, “Going to get that and get back before the rain really starts falling.”

  They both looked up at the sky as they walked on. The grocery store was close. The convenience of living near the store, even if it was a hole in the wall, was his favorite part of the neighborhood.

  “Rain? Rain, really? You don’t hear that noise, Kyle? I don’t think this is rain headed our way. The clouds are moving funny. You see how low that cloud is? I think that hum is coming from those clouds!”

  “Really, Ben? Then what is it? Do tell…” Kyle immediately regretted the remark.

  “Well, I’ll tell you this much…”

  Kyle rolled his eyes, dropped his butt to the cement, and stomped it out under his flip-flop.

  “I’ve seen this kind of thing before. Weather is driven by density, temperature, and moisture differences between one place and another. These differences can occur due to the sun’s angle at any particular spot, which varies by latitude and so on. I wouldn’t doubt if those clouds are as low as they are because of the temperature. It has been pretty muggy lately. Surface temperature differences in turn, cause pressure differences. I think the noise that we are hearing is just that, pressure!”

  Ben’s excitement crackled in his voice a little.

  Scratching his thick mustache and adjusting his glasses, Ben continued. “We are hearing pressure, man. To understand how your ears hear sound, you first need to understand just what sound is. An object produces sound when it vibrates in matter. This could be a solid, such as earth; a liquid, such as water or a gas, such as air. Most of the time, we hear sounds traveling through the air in our atmosphere …”

  God, is this guy ever going to shut the hell up? Where does he even get all of this crap? He’s like the freaking energizer bunny.

  Nodding at Ben, pretending to give a crap, Kyle crossed the street into the grocery store parking lot.

  Empty carts were scattered all across the lot. A man exited the store with a cart full of goodies. There were only a few cars. Sarah was working, and that made Kyle smile. He could spot her truck a mile away. It was the bright green rust bucket to beat all rust buckets. Aside from looks, the little GMC was a reliable one.

  Mr. Hardy and his friend were both sitting near the store’s entrance. There hadn’t been a day that Kyle hadn’t seen those two old black guys sitting on the bench, just people watching and talking about the weather. Kyle liked them a lot. They were both funny old farts, having unique traditions, but so did Kyle. Every time he stepped in to get a pack, he would trade a joke for a smoke.

  “How are you doing today, Mr. Hardy?” Kyle asked, interrupting Ben’s science speech.

  “Getting dark, yeah?”

  “Yessir. Clouds look like they are headed this way, too.”

  “Good thing I brought out my umbrella!” Mr. Hardy smiled from his spot on the bench.

  Kyle didn’t see any umbrella.

  “Oh yeah, Hardy? Why is that?” Kyle stopped at the door, looking down at Hardy with anticipation.

  Mr. Hardy nudged the old man sitting with him, and then leaned forward.

  “You see, boy. This guy went out in pouring rain with no umbrella or hat or anything. Not a hair on his head got wet… How come?”

  “I don’t get it,” Ben said, scratching his head.

  “That’s because you haven’t heard the punch line yet. You know, Ben. For a guy with as much useless information rattling around in the brain as you, you aren’t too bright.”

  Ben wrinkled his nose at Kyle.

  “I don’t know… how come, Mr. Hardy?”

  “Because, Kyle…” Mr. Hardy removed his hat and rubbed his baldhead. “He was bald! He didn't have a hair on his head!”

  Mr. Hardy and his friend both burst out laughing. Their laughter was joy to Kyle’s ears. It wasn’t just any kind of laughter. It was the kind filled with age, and filled with trials and tribulations, eager to enjoy the simple things in life.

  “Good one,” Kyle said.

  “Still not following…” Ben’s eyes went wide.

  “Nothing, man… Be right back, Mr. Hardy.”

  Kyle patted his pockets down to signal that he didn’t have any smokes on him.

  Mr. Hardy grinned. “Think that one was good enough for two?” His frail fingers went up forming a peace sign.

  “I don’t see why not, old man. We’ll be right back.”

  Hardy nudged his buddy on the bench again, having scored one for the both of them.

  Kyle and Ben left the two old men to their bench and entered the store.

  The grocery store was small, musty, and old. The walls were pasty white with watery leak stains and peeling paint. For some reason or another, it always smelled like vinegar. The place didn’t have a lot to offer, but had what mattered: bread, water, veggies, junk food, booze, and let’s not forget… Lucky Strikes!

  Sarah was at her station, operating register three, a register that didn’t carry cigarettes. In his opinion, she was the bee’s knees, the icing on top of the cake. Her dark brunette hair reached down just past her slim shoulders. She was short and he liked that. Petite was an understatement, probably not even five-foot-three and not more than a hundred pounds. Her skin was fair and those eyes were like fire, sparkling bright green against that dark hair.

  That’s what he saw when he looked at her. To others, not so much. She was worn and tired. Heavy bags of age and stress dragged under her lashes. Her wardrobe was ragged and unkempt. Sunspots from over-tanning ran up and down her arms. Like Kyle, she was a smoker, aging her beyond her years. She was only twenty-seven, but she could have been mistaken for pushing thirty-eight. Rough.

  Getting in line at register three, they waited. In front of them, a heavyset woman unloaded her cart onto the conveyer belt. The buggy was nearly full to the brim. As he watched the woman unloading one unnecessary item after another, Kyle couldn’t help but remember the Jerry Springer episode that had been interrupted by that odd sound.

  He chuckled.

  “Register one is way shorter, and besides, you can’t even get smokes here, anyway.”

  “This one will do,” Kyle said, not taking his eyes off Sarah.

  Ben shrugged. “Dude, if you have a thing for her, then why don’t you just talk to her?”

  “Look at me, Ben. I’m a mess.”

  “And whose fault is that?”

  Kyle glared at Ben, hard.

  They stood waiting for a while in awkward silence.

  Kyle started to mention that he had never heard Mr. Hardy’s friend say anything. He had only ever heard the old man laugh. He had been giving those two men smokes at least once a week for the last year and he had never heard that man say a thing. He wondered if the old man was a mute. However, before he had the opportunity to bring it up, Ben went back to being Ben.

  It was to be expected though. That buzzing hum was getting louder, and from the looks of things, getting much darker outside. The clouds were moving faster than Kyle had anticipated. And when there was something for Ben to blabber about, he was sure to do just that.

  Ben started up again, but Kyle wasn’t listening.

  So much for keeping dry on the way back to the apartment, Kyle thought, as he looked out the large glass entryway of the store.

  All preexisting sunlight in the parking lot began to evaporate. People in the parking lot, including Mr. Hardy and his friend, stopped what they were doing and began focusing on the sky. A man younger than Kyle, packing his car with grocery bags froze, motionless. Looking up into the progressively growing darkness, fear held him in its icy grip.

  The hum grew unbearably louder.

  What the hell is that noise? Kyle shoved the tip of his pinky into his ear, wiggling it violently.

  “… and then wh
en something vibrates in the atmosphere,” Ben had been saying, “It moves the air particles around it. Those air particles in turn move the air particles around them, carrying the pulse of the vibration through the air. So it makes sense that the buzzing sound is getting louder, the closer those clouds get. The pressure is vibrating the crap out of our ear drums.”

  “Oh yeah, man. The pressure of what exactly? You saying the ringing noise is just in our heads, because the clouds are so dense or something?”

  “Spot on, dude. Look at it this way, until a wave reaches the fibers in our ears with a resonant frequency, it doesn't move the basilar membrane a whole lot...”

  That was when it came. The first scream. It was loud and guttural.

  Kyle watched in unanticipated horror.

  The clouds came down consuming the parking lot in a blanket of blackness. People were screaming bloody murder outside. Everyone inside the store watched as the thick fog reached the ground, separating, proving not to be a cloud at all. It was something much worse.

  Like thick burning acid, Kyle watched with disbelief as the young man packing his groceries into the car dropped to his knees. In agony, the man’s face began to boil and burst with sores. Pulpous growths began to grow and form, distorting the young man into something else. Something hideous. One of the large sores popped. Blood spilled out onto the parking lot from the dying man’s face. He began scratching violently at his blisters and boils. Skin and flesh peeled from bone like melting butter.

  “He’s dying!” Someone in the store shouted.

  “What the hell is that shit?” Kyle breathed.

  “Someone do something!”

  “Biochemical warfare! World war three!”

  “I think that guy is right,” the fat woman said pointing at Ben. “Terrorists dropped a bomb or something!”

  Instantly the store broke out in a volley of verbal protests. Shouting over one another, they all stood stunned. What else could they do, but watch the horror unfold before them? They waited for the blackness to settle.

  Suddenly, Mr. Hardy crashed against the grocery store’s main door. Bursting one of the boils on Hardy’s face, blood sprayed against the door’s windowpane upon impact. Startled, many people jumped, letting out short whimpers of angst and terror. His face was mangled beyond recognition. Blisters and abscesses expanded on his face and arms. Writhing in pain, Mr. Hardy screamed. The back of his shirt began to inflate like helium in a balloon. Then the balloon burst. Blood and dark skin exploded from his back, obliterating the shirt’s cotton fabric. Mr. Hardy slumped dead to the ground outside. His body lay motionless for all to see right there in front of the store.