Paths

by David DeSimone

  Tucked between the spare and the compartment wall was the tire iron.

  Heading back into the car, Eva noticed the little blonde boy sitting in the car nestled in the parking space by the side of the building, his head popping out of the window staring at her. He watched with fascination, unblinking, with knitted brow and mouth slightly agape. Such a pensive expression on his little face was too much for her to hold back a grin. With tire iron held to forehead Eva gave the boy a quick salute and a smile.

  The boy, unsure how to reply, returned with a tentative wave of the hand.

  His bathroom run now finished, a new drama was revving up between the mother and the teenage daughter in the front seats. Eva couldn’t follow their argument except that it had to do with the girl skipping babysitting so she could attend a concert with friends.

  After climbing back into the car, Eva knelt on the seat cushion, turning an about-face toward the rear seats. She stretched forward and held the phone steady while touching the tip of the tire iron to the cellphone’s home button. She slid her hands towards the back of the tire iron slowly, carefully, making sure the tip of the tire iron didn’t slip off the phone.

  Needing only to press slightly downward, the weight of the iron bar did the rest. There was a soft click. After a while, the phone came to life with a beep. A visual representation of a sound wave appeared on the display.

  The phone was ready to take voice commands.

  It worked!

  Hallelujah! It worked!

  Stupefied, she croaked, “Uh-”

  The phone beeped followed by a pleasant fembot voice. “I’m sorry,” it replied. “I did not understand you. Could you please repeat that?”

  “Shit!”

  Fembot voice: “I do not appreciate cursing.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me!”

  The phone beeped again and did a Google search on the phrase: “You’ve got to be shitting me!”

  “No!” Eva cried, tire iron raised. “You bitch!” At the last second, she jerked her hand away and the tire iron missed the phone, striking the seat cushion instead.

  She paused to get control of herself.

  Chill, Eva. Just chill.

  She felt eyes on her. She looked out the window and saw the boy, arms resting on the window ledge, head leaning out, staring mouth open, amazed.

  “Yes,” she muttered, “grownups are screwed up.”

  Sadly, she half-meant what she said. Jackknifed over the front seat, brandishing a crowbar and shouting at something on the floor didn’t exactly qualify her as role-model material.

  And she wanted kids, babies? Eva snorted at that. First waving crowbars and yelling at back seats, then what? Coat hangers? She felt a knot in her stomach. She didn’t like where this was going.

  Suddenly, a memory came to her. Last year Candace phoned her while she had been showing wealthy clients, a husband and wife, both lawyers, a five bedroom Georgian in Greenwich. Middle-of-the-day calls like these usually meant boyfriend trouble, a lover’s spat. She never understood how Candace could put up with a verbally abusive jerk. She told Candace time and again to dump him. “I try,” she tells her. “But then he begs for forgiveness and I just cave.”

  Eva gave up trying to help years ago. Now it was just listening and nodding in all the right places.

  This time, however, it was different. Candace not only sounded distraught, there was also a note of despair in her voice that was new to Eva. For the first time in years, Eva felt concerned for her sister.

  “I know you’re busy, Eves,” Candace had said between sniffles. “I’m busy, too. I’d fly out but I’m the only one running my shop. I can’t afford to leave it. But I really need to see you.”

  “I’ll come out,” Eva said. “But I have closings to deal with. I’ll need-.”

  “This can’t wait!” Candace burst into a sob. It was so loud Eva had to pull the phone away from her ear.

  “I need to see you now!”

  “Okay.”

  “And don’t bring Drew. I want this just between the two of us.”

  “Okay, Candace.”

  “I’m so sorry to do this to you.”

  “No, that’s all right,” she lied. “I’m assuming this has something to do with-”

  “Yes. And we’re finished, this time it’s for good.”

  Eva doubted that, but didn’t say anything.

  Although Eva didn’t know it yet, it would be the last time she would ever see her baby sister again. On that four-day trip to New Mexico something had broken between them.

  Since then, they rarely spoke over the phone, and even then their conversations were brief. Eva always found an excuse to end the calls early. She hadn’t gone as far as “unfriending” Candace on Facebook, but she also never bothered to look at her page. She had long given up on Facebook anyway. There are only so many stupid animal videos clips you can take before wanting to blow your brains out.

  Candace invited Eva to come out two more times after that, but Eva politely declined. No amount of tears would ever make her go back.

  Turning her attention back to the cellphone looking sad and abandoned in the back seat of the Acura, Eva leaned forward, reaching for the phone with one hand while holding up the tire iron with the other. As the free hand got closer, the phone’s display went out. That was okay. She knew what to do now; there were no more surprises - she hoped.

  After repeating the same steps she’d done before, placing the tip of the tire iron over the cellphone’s Home button and then lightly pushing down, the phone once again beeped to life and listened for voice commands.

  This time there would be no groping for words. Eva knew exactly what to say. “Call nine-one-one!”

  The phone beeped one more time, and the word ‘dialing’ appeared on the screen.

  Within moments an Emergency Services dispatcher answered. From where Eva knelt a few feet away, the woman’s voice sounded weak, tinny. “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

  Eva craned to hear better while trying not to get too close to the phone, lest she break the connection from the mysterious invisible field that has been surrounding her since the MRI accident.

  “Yes! Hello!” She said speaking loudly to be heard but not quite shouting. “Please can you help me?”

  “Okay, ma’am. What is your emergency?”

  “I’m sorry,” Eva said, “ I can barely hear you. Can you please repeat that?”

  As the voice repeated its question, Eva stole a glance at the clock. Eight minutes had passed since Drew left to go into the Food Mart.

  To the phone: “Listen, there’s a man with a gun. Can you please send the police here as soon as possible! We’re at a gas station on the corner of U.S. 1 and Pratt Street. We’re right before the turn onto I-95.”

  The dispatcher spoke again. Eva leaned a little closer, caught the words “...in immediate danger” before the connection started to break apart. She pulled back. “I’m not in immediate danger,” she continued, “but I might be if you don’t send the police here soon! Please help!”

  She heard the tinny voice of the dispatcher asking for a description of the person with the gun. Eva described a large man with a beard wearing a red baseball cap. She tried to read the license plate on the F150 but the gray Mustang blocked the view. Instead, she described the maniac’s truck as a large gray Ford pickup.

  The police were on their way.

  Eva thanked the dispatcher, and was about to close the conversation with a few more pressing words when she noticed how dark it was getting outside. Her weather app never said anything about thunderstorms today. She grew mildly curious.

  As she began to speak on the phone, her words stopped dead in her throat.

  The light was going away. There was no doubt about it. Everywhere she looked, Eva saw people stopping what they were doing to take notice. All heads were tilted skyward and all mouths were drawn.

  She slid toward the driver-side window, following everyone’s gaze
toward the sky.

  The sky was going away. A widening black void separated the gray cloud cover much the way a strip of film burns away when the projector lamp gets too hot. It spread with extraordinary speed.

  The tinny voice of the dispatcher still clattered on from the cellphone. Eva was no longer aware of it. She, the blonde little boy, the arguing mother and daughter, the man in the skin-tight Lycra outfit, the road crew, and everyone else froze in awe and terror as they watched their familiar sky turn black.

  Eva initially thought it was a solar eclipse, though she hadn’t heard or read anything about that.

  She then recalled her husband pointing earlier to a shadow in the sky, the anomaly. What the weather experts called a fallstreak.

  It wasn’t a fallstreak, a solar eclipse, or a cloud. She had no idea what it was. She watched helplessly as clouds were torn apart upon contact with the dark mass, giving its edges a shredded cotton-candy look.

  And then everything disappeared in a blinding flash of light.

  9

  DREW

  Drew approached the clerk, opened his mouth to speak but his mouth went dry. He swallowed and felt his throat click. He held out his credit card trying to keep his hand steady.

  The clerk was a thin young man of olive complexion with a five-o'clock shadow and a large Adam’s apple. He noticed that the man standing across from him wasn’t looking well. His breathing seemed too fast, his skin pale and clammy. Could this man be having a heart attack? He hoped not. He wasn’t trained in CPR.

  The clerk looked around for help and saw that the only other person in the store was a large bearded man in a red baseball cap with a faraway look in his eyes. He wouldn’t be much help. Damn!

  Noticing the look of concern on the clerk’s face, Drew raised a hand and said, “I’m okay” in a shaky whisper.

  But he wasn’t.

  “I just thought I lost my wallet is all.”

  The clerk accepted his answer with a single nod, but his eyes said otherwise.

  “Bathroom,” Drew croaked.

  To his right (Drew’s left), the clerk pointed to a badly chipped wooden door and Drew took flight.

  A quick flick of the thumbturn and he locked himself in.

  He leaned against the door, closed his eyes and paused to catch his breath. Though the smell was awful - fermented waste and industrial hand soap – he was alone at last. He quickly began to contemplate his next move.

  Nothing was coming to mind. His brain was in a complete lockdown.

  Drew crossed to the sink and splashed cold water on his face. It felt good, refreshing. He drank from his cupped hands.

  Above the sink was a small rectangular mirror. He looked into it and didn’t like what he saw. Staring back at him was a tired, pale face, a face with dark circles under the eyes and drawn mouth. It was the face of a defeated man. Sorry, Eva. You’re husband is a coward.

  Not able to bear his reflection any more, he looked away.

  He crossed the short distance between the sink and the door, placing a hand on the doorknob. He stopped, checked his watch and decided to give himself a two minutes countdown before going back out. That should give his pounding heart time to slow down, and also time for the maniac to pay and leave.

  Drew turned back facing the mirror over the sink, once again meeting his sickly reflection.

  He turned away.

  A few feet from the left sat the toilet.

  Above the toilet was a casement window set into wall in the shape of a large microwave oven. The daylight streaming in somehow made the room feel bigger, airier. Placing a hand on his chest he found his heartbeat had slowed, and he felt calmer.

  He checked his watch again. A minute and a half left.

  Suddenly, he registered a change that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He went to the window and stared out. The sky was getting darker.

  He checked his watched again, focusing on the hands, waiting for the final seconds before it was time to leave.

  He turned back to the window and noticed again how dark it was getting.

  Drew leaned closer to the window ledge.

  That was when the room went white.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE BURST

  1

  There wasn’t a boom, blast wave or ground tremor. Only light, blinding light, filling every corner of the room.

  When the flash struck, it was like two fists slammed his eyes.

  Drew dropped to the floor screaming, palms cupped firmly over his eyes. He rolled into a fetal position while continuing to scream, joining the chorus of screams coming from all around him, unseen behind the shroud of whiteness.

  Folding his arms over his head, Drew braced for impact.

  Outside brakes squealed, horns blasted, glass shattered and vehicles collided. Despite the pandemonium happening around him, there was still no boom or heat following the blinding light.

  He waited...

  Minutes passed.

  Still no boom.

  No impact.

  The light began to weaken, decreasing in brightness and becoming a rapid flicker, creating a strobe effect. Still bright enough to penetrate his closed lids, he used the diffusion to judge when it might be safe to open his eyes again. Vision impairment wasn’t the only reason he kept his eyes closed. The flickering could harm him in other ways. It could give him a seizure, triggered by an effect known as flicker vertigo.

  2

  At last the flickering came to an end. Drew hoped whatever it was, was over. He found it strange that the real explosion, the one he expected to take him to Lalaland, never happened.

  Drew opened his eyes, and unfolded from the fetal position. His hands and feet ached with pins and needles. He sat up, rubbed his calves and looked around dazedly, as though waking from a deep sleep.

  As he waited for the blood to return to his extremities, waiting for the tingling to subside, he became aware of the silence.

  The screams had stopped and so had the sounds of crashing vehicles.

  He listened for sounds, normal, everyday sounds: birdsong, dogs barking, human voices, the purring of engines, the hum of machines, generators, anything. But his ears were met with only silence, dead silence.

  Leaning against the door, he felt blood finally returning to his arms and legs.

  The tingling stopped.

  An odd greenish tint settled over the room. He stared out the window and discovered the tint extended beyond the room, throughout landscape outside.

  Sounds reappeared, but they weren’t what he had hoped. Instead they were sounds of carnage: walls collapsing, fires licking the air, groans of metal under stress, the firecracker claps of small explosions.

  But where were the voices?

  He climbed to his feet with considerable effort, knees feeling stiff and achy.

  With one hand he unlatched the lock, and with other he slowly turned the knob.

  He hesitated, butterflies fluttering in his stomach. He wondered nervously what he’d find on the other side of the door.

  His hands shook.

  Was there a world left?

  Was everybody dead?

  Will there be corpses strewn across the floor of the food mart? Gas station?

  A part of him just wanted to stay put and wait for rescue, but what of his wife?

  What about Eva?

  As he became more and more convinced everyone was dead, Drew heard voices. They were coming from the front of the food mart, drifting through the door into his ear as soft murmurings.

  His relief was palpable.

  But as Drew continued to listen, he noticed something was off about the murmurings. He could not make out words, only strange, guttural vocalizations. As he listed further, it became horribly clear to him that the murmurings were actually the sounds of growling and barking, primitive sounds, shortly followed by moaning.

  Within this hellish choir were the insufferable cries of pain and rage.

  A chill ran through him.

>   His mind kept revolving around the question of Eva.

  Was she safe?

  Or was she a part of that hellish choir?

  What is wrong with them?

  What’s going on!

  He pulled out his cellphone, turned it on.

  Nothing.

  As before, the screen was awash with random shapes and colors. The interference he was causing hadn’t abated. He couldn’t even see numbers on the screen to dial. Shit.

  She was out there. Eva was out there. Now, instead of fear holding him back, he was stricken with new urgency.

  He had to leave.

  Drew turned the doorknob.

  He pushed the door open, looked around, took a few tentative steps toward the checkout counter.

  He stared at the all-glass entry door across the room and beyond. He was struck by what he saw.

  People, perhaps a dozen or more, crowded around his Acura, not in a quiet huddle either, but in a frenzied mob.

  These were the same people who just ten minutes earlier had been quietly going about their daily routine.

  Now they were acting like savages, pushing and shoving each other, pounding and clawing at the windows trying to get in.

  It was alarming.

  Was Eva still in the car?

  He couldn’t tell, too many people were blocking his view.

  She had to be in there because she was too afraid of the maniac to get out of the car.

  And she had to be alive. What other reason for them to want to break in?

  She was alive, but she wouldn’t be for much longer.

  Drew started to hurry toward the door.

  Something caught his right ankle.

  He pitched forward and stumbled.

  With arms held out he stopped his fall.

  Drew turned to see what had tripped him.

  The maniac stared back at him, his eyes wild and hair disheveled, clambering to his feet grunting like the goddamned ape he was. Somehow the red baseball cap managed to stay on his head, as if glued on.

  He had been lying somewhere in the back corner, out of view from anyone who happened to be standing by the bathroom door.