Several minutes had passed since the creatures had entered my apartment and still, James did not attack them nor did they charge him. They truly were searching for only me. I sensed that their stomps and roars were displays of power meant to frighten James away. I did not know why they would want to spare his life. Perhaps the Reapers only had one kill in them. Perhaps after they murdered me, they would die as well, like two bees whose prized stingers had been sacrificed in a final attack.
It didn't matter. The paths out of the trap we found ourselves in were closing, slowly becoming just thin lines that no man or woman could pass over. I couldn’t sit there with my eyes and ears covered like a skittish child awaiting whatever foul beast lurked in the darkness of their closet. James had gone out of his way already to save my life and his chance against those things was almost nonexistent. I wasn’t going to allow him to face that ominous darkness alone just because I was afraid. Not a chance.
I jumped up and saw that James had grabbed a knife from the kitchen. Given the size difference, the sight of James staring down those two hulking masses made me think of a rabbit charging headfirst into a battle with a hungry, stomping bull, armed only with its thin, almost transparent claws. It would have been comical if we weren't charging headfirst into a fight for our lives.
“Brynna, get back down.”
The only reason James knew that I was standing in view was because the two creatures stopped stomping and hissing and jerked their heads sideways at an unnatural angle to look at me. As I stared into their bottomless black eyes, I could feel the wrath, terror, sorrow and loathing of every lost soul in the history of our race. The feeling enveloped me in blackness, swallowing me whole and sending me hurtling through time and space to the place where all evil must go.
“Snap out of it! Snap out of it, Brynna!” James screamed at me and it was hearing his voice that sent me flying back to earth and landing with a gratified thud. It was upon landing that something took over me; it was some inner beast I never knew existed to rival the real monsters in the room.
First, I hurtled over the couch. I lunged for the first beast’s throat, wrapped my arms around its meaty neck and forcefully spun so that I was behind him, tightly latched onto his back. My body was working completely at its own will and my mind was just along for the ride. When my ears heard another deathly scream behind me, my foot swung backwards to nail the second monster quite perfectly in the center of its hideous face. It flew back, gasping in an almost absurd display of surprise before putting an elephant-sized dent in my newly painted wall. Beastly bastard…
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched James rush forward in a blur, raise the knife over his head, and bring it forcefully down into the gasping beast’s right eye. Another prolonged gasp and then another scream filled my ears.
My monstrous opponent sunk its several rows of razor teeth into my forearm and instead of crying out in pain as I wanted to, I ripped my arm from its slobbering mouth. I was aware of a spray of my blood but was too focused on what I was going to do next to faint at the sight or from the pain that was beginning to burn through my body as though the blood in my veins had suddenly morphed into gasoline lit aflame.
I wrapped both of my arms around its massive head and drew in a deep breath of my own. During the seconds it took to gather such a massive inhalation, I unconsciously focused every remaining iota of strength into my locked arms. As soon as I felt the muscles swelling with fullness, I twisted, hoping to snap its neck but getting a result so much more satisfying. The beast's head spun around twice, bobbling like a top ready to topple off of its neck bone. It collapsed to the ground, face forward and I looked up while still perched on its back. James's arm that held the knife was plunged up to his elbow in the monster's chest. My head jerked downwards and from the way it was angled now, I could see that the knife had burgeoned out of the beast’s back. My head jerked up again as I took in the deep, wonderful, inexplicable smell of a nonexistent rain. Images of playing with my siblings in the dew-soaked grass at our family’s country estate danced in front of my mind’s eye, flooding my body with the strongest sense of euphoria that calmed my rapidly beating heart.
James ripped the knife out of the creature’s chest, sending a spray of black liquid in his direction that he smoothly walked sideways to avoid. The monster gave one feeble moan and fell forward to lie motionless once it had hit my living room floor with a ground-shaking thud.
I was aware that I was very slowly and slightly moving downwards. When I looked down at the beast under me, I found that it was no longer a beast, at all. Though its head was severed from its body, its face had transformed into one that was boyishly handsome once again. Its body was sculpted into the physique of a post-adolescent who spent far too much time at the gym. The monster was gone and all that remained was the unfortunate boy from the bar.
James was obviously experiencing a moment of joyous recollection similar to the one I had been intoxicated by earlier. He was facing the window, standing perfectly still, smelling the air deeply. After the moment had passed, he turned to see that his own adversary had transformed back into what I assumed was its true self. A sadness flashed across his eyes that I’m sure he would have seen reflected in my own. I had never killed a human being and I still hadn’t. What I had killed was a hulking, beastly creature hellbent on ripping me apart and devouring the pieces. I hoped that was the case, at least. I could not bear to wonder if the boy was actually human though I certainly did know for sure that he was. He had been, anyway, at one time.
When James's eyes finally met mine, I was stunned to find that they had turned over to a milky blueish-white, giving him the appearance of being blind.
“James…” I whispered in a trembling voice.
“Go look in the mirror.”
I jumped up and hurried to my dining room where a wall length mirror hung beside the sliding glass door. What I saw made my heart leap tremendously forward as a curiosity unrivaled by anything I had ever felt took hold of me. My own eyes were the color of blindness, of death. I became aware that I could see every pore on my face and every color around me down to its basis of black. I could see every different follicle of hair on my arms, every different shade of color in my irises that were still visible just behind the blue and white.
I walked to the sliding doors, pulled them open and walked out onto my balcony where the magnificently colored lights of dawn were beginning to descend on a city so intricately designed, so infinite and unending, that it surely could not have been my own. When I felt James reach his place by my side, we stared in silence at this dying world, seeing it clearly, in all its intended but failed goodness, for the first time.
We were both covered in the black substance that flowed through the bodies of those creatures that laid dead on my living room floor. Blood was seeping from the gaping wound in my arm and I could hear the drops exploding against the pavement in front of our feet as clearly as I could hear the summer rain against the greenhouse roof of my parent’s estate all those years ago. Despite the severity of the injury, I felt no pain. I slid my injured arm around James’ back, feeling a brilliantly comforting onslaught of warmth spread through me as his own draped over my shoulders.
Words I never believed would be spoken by me fell from my lips before I could understand how sadly profound they were:
“I will miss this world.”
He didn’t break his gaze from the fantastical realm that was our earth in its true form when he replied softly:
“I will, too.”
Quinn
Alice was starting to lose it. We had been running from that thing for too long. I can’t think of any other way to describe it but by calling it a “thing.” It definitely wasn't human.
Were we still human then?
I won’t spend time recanting all the conversations we had on the subject. We spent hours trying to decipher the situation and still, we couldn't make sense of it. We would sit behind our barred bedroom door, draw the shade
s as soon as we saw the darkness of night beginning to come our way and brace for its awful presence.
I had never been brave enough to open the shades to see her again after the first time. I had never been brave enough to face her. But was Alice? I think so. She had always been braver than me. I was her boyfriend who was supposed to protect her with no thought of my own safety. If I were to die for her, it wouldn’t prove my bravery. It would only prove that I had done one of my duties. She was genuinely fearless and always had been.
The first time the thing appeared, we had only graduated two days earlier. Her parents had gone out of town (which couldn’t have been stupider, given that we were newly graduated from high school and looking to party), leaving us to our own devices in their modest house. The summer had arrived and we were free of school, our parents and the restraints both had put on us.
Our parents are a story for another time.
While all of our friends were heading off to nearby Ocean City for a week of drinking and the stupidity said drinking would bring about, we decided to hang for the duration of her parent’s vacation at her house. Our high school friends found us dull once we decided to date and we didn’t feel we had much in common with them after that, anyway. Her parents told her that I was by no means allowed in the house, not even to thwart a burglary, which was one of the scenarios she had presented to them sarcastically.
We spent those first two days of independence swimming, going out at two in the morning just because we could, and eating all of the food in her house.
“They’ll know you were here.” She told me one hot afternoon, “They’ll know that I couldn’t have eaten all of this food by myself.”
We spent time talking about how we had gotten together and how much our parents hated our relationship. Like typical rebellious kids, we found their protests to our love thrilling. We talked about how we had been friends for so long and how the feelings had evolved. I told her that it took years for me to realize that I loved her in a different way than the way I would love a girl who was only my friend. She went further than that, telling me she had loved me that way all along.
I still get a weird feeling of intense happiness and also, bewilderment, when I think about her telling me that. I hold onto that moment when it gets too dark to see clearly anymore.
We had both just dropped off to sleep on the second night when an ear-splitting scratch jerked us both awake. I sat up, thinking that someone was trying to break in; she had jinxed it when she had suggested the possibility to her parents in derision.
“What is that?” She whispered to me, her doe-like brown eyes appearing strangely contorted in the darkness.
The scratching sounded again and we both looked at the window. Whatever was just behind the closed blinds was running its claws down the windowpane. Somehow, I knew that it wasn’t normal. I knew that it was not of our world. But our minds tend to rationalize, to keep us grounded in reality when we should be bracing to face the abnormal.
“Quinn, what is that?” She whispered again as she jumped up to grasp my arm in both of her slender hands.
“I don’t know.” I tried to keep my voice steady for her sake. “I’m going to open the shades and see. Maybe it’s a…” I stopped, searching for a plausible explanation, “…squirrel.”
Yeah. I thought that was plausible.
“That’s not a squirrel!” She gripped my arm tighter to stop me from walking forward.
“I have to see what it is.” I told her. “I'm sure it's nothing, babe.”
“No. Quinn, please don’t open the shades. Don’t…” She stopped and looked up at me again, tears glistening in her eyes, “Don’t let her in.”
I looked at her, seeing a look of shock on her face that I’m sure mirrored my own. How had she known that it was a woman?
“Close your eyes.” I whispered to her before turning back to the window.
How had I known to say that?
There were several galloping footsteps, like something heavy running on all fours. Whatever it was stopped in front of her other bedroom window.
It was a cool night and we had left the windows open instead of turning on the air conditioner. So when we heard soft, slow breathing, we both ran forward to slam the window shut, knowing now that it was a person outside trying to force their way in. We both stopped, however, when we saw the shade blowing towards us and then retracting with each slow breath the mysterious being took. We looked at the other window to see if the shade covering it was moving the same way; that would prove that the wind was to blame and our imaginations were running away with us. But we got no such relief because the other shade was as still as the sudden silence outside of the window.
Just as we began to calm down, believing whoever it was had gotten bored and moved on to another house, we heard:
“I… smell… you…”
Alice gasped and grabbed the phone to try dialing 911.
“Quinn, it’s not working!”
But I was in a trance. At the same time my mind was screaming at me, begging not to see what was out there, my body continued forward, moving at the accord of the tiny part of me that needed to see, that still believed that we were imagining it all. Or was it just a need to see whatever grotesque creature was out there? I still don't know.
How did I know it was grotesque?
My legs were resisting now, refusing to move me forward, but I was already close enough to reach the shade on the window. I reached out, just needing the relief of knowing that it wasn’t real, that we were in a waking dream. I needed the relief that came with realizing a bump in the night was just a neighbor slamming a door in their house. With my breath held tightly in my chest, I threw open the shade.
It was a woman. But it certainly wasn’t human. Her eyes were too large and all white, with thin flecks of black like someone had sliced at them with a sewing needle or erased her iris and pupil in a hurry, I couldn’t decide. Her hair was long and as white as her eyes and her jaw jutted outwards at an impossible angle. When she opened her misshapen slash of a mouth for every slow, tedious breath, she immediately snapped it shut and ground her pointed teeth together.
As soon as she saw me, she raised her arms, shrieking in rage, her head shaking back and forth rapidly. She slammed her hands on the window hard, trying to break the glass. Even as an icy fear seized me, I did take a moment to marvel at the fact that the force with which she hit the window didn’t shatter it into pieces. A gargling noise was escaping her, followed by another loud shriek that forced Alice to finally uncover her eyes and look.
Alice drew in a gasp and before the words, “Don’t let her scream” could pass completely through my mind, I turned backwards and grabbed a hold of her, trying to cover her mouth. But she had already covered it with both of her own hands, forcing the scream back down.
I let go of her and rushed forward, pulling the shade down again. As I stumbled backwards to put as much space between me and the window as I could, I tripped over my feet and splayed out onto the floor. Alice knelt down beside me and wrapped her arms around my neck, staring at the window with wide, alarmed eyes. I looked at her and then back at the window where we heard the thing grunt in frustration and then go silent.
“What is that? Quinn…” She whispered, her voice trembling along with her body.
I shook my head, feeling as though my heart was lodged in my throat, blocking any words that I could possibly say to explain away what we had seen.
We sat up for the rest of the night. I had to be driving her crazy with the way I was opening my mouth to say something that would rationalize what was happening, only to come up short on words. The thing stayed out there all night; though it never spoke again, we heard its steady breaths until the first light of dawn began to break. As soon as I could see light starting to leak through the crack between the shade and the window, I jumped to look outside.
She was gone, galloping over our heads on the roof away from the rising sun. An ear-splitting howl wrecke
d the quiet of the early morning and I scanned the houses across the street to see if anyone came running, searching feverishly for the source of such a strange noise. No one came, nor did I even see any curious faces appearing in the windows.
Because no one knew of her presence, no one would know the reasoning behind it. Alice and I were, horrifyingly, alone in the mess, left to decipher it by ourselves before cleaning it up, if we ever could.
It took precisely an hour of daylight before we began to excuse away what had happened.
“Maybe it was like one of those group hallucinations that Dr. Meyers was telling us about in AP Psych. Do you remember?”
“A group hallucination? Caused by what, exactly?” She asked as she twirled the glass of orange juice in front of her but never brought it to her lips for a drink.
“I don’t know. Maybe there was something in our food last night.”
“I don’t remember reading anything about Burger King suddenly adding LSD to their food, Quinn.”
“Do you have an explanation, then?” I was frustrated now. I just needed to know that what we had seen wasn’t real. I needed to believe that. If that thing was real, then the world as we knew it didn’t make sense anymore and that was more dangerous than I could fully understand at that young age.
“I do, actually.” She told me. “It was probably one of your stupid friends.”
“They’re all in Ocean City!”
“Says who? They said they would call when they got there. They never did.”
“Just because they’re too drunk to pick up the phone doesn’t mean that they’re still here, trying to freak us out, Allie.”
“They probably went to the new Halloween store and got a mask. You know it’s open all year round now.”
The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) Page 5