Chasing the Sandman

by Meyers, Brandon

  “Now what?” Veedle asked. Melkins coughed and cocked an eyebrow at him.

  “Now, we wait.” Melkins slid back in his seat and sighed.

  Veedle huffed and tried to test his safety harnesses. “Never was much of a poker player, Melkins. Don’t have much time for patience. Just how long you think we’re going to be waiting here?”

  “Until they come for us,” Melkins replied softly. “It could be minutes. It might be hours.”

  “Any chance I can get these restraints off, now? I mean, we are out of the rough waters and all.”

  Melkins sighed again. “You know the rules as well as I do.” Veedle noted how Melkins seemed to inch away as he said this.

  With a chuckle, Veedle stretched within the confines of his bonds, and the tiny compartment. He leaned back and rested his eyes, recalling each detail that had been pounded into his head by the bureaucrats in the fancy suits. It was a rather simple plan, actually. He smiled.

  It was going to be a hell of a good time.

  At some point, Melkins had dozed off, because he was awoken by forceful jerking movements of the ship.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead,” Veedle said. “I think they found us.”

  “So it would seem,” Melkins said. A bead of sweat had formed on his brow. “Can you hear anything?”

  “Nothing but running water,” Veedle said. “Say, do you think it might be a good time to make away with these, now?” Veedle nodded toward his restrained arms and legs.

  “Almost,” Melkins said. He unstrapped himself and stood up. The ceiling only cleared his head by an inch. The blue luminescence now highlighted his growing sweat stains. Melkins approached the keyhole and peered downward. The faint glow given off by their craft lit up the water in a five foot radius. Nothing was visible in the water beneath the viewing window but silt particles. As had been expected, their conveyance was being pulled manually toward the docking station.

  Melkins’s hands began to shake a little at the thought of what he knew was coming next. But thoughts of his family hardened his fears and pummeled them away.

  “Visual status,” Melkins stated.

  “DOCTOR EMMANUEL MELKINS. VOICE IDENTIFICATION ACCEPTED.”

  “Please give me a visual record,” Melkins said. In an instant the circular walls became invisible. Veedle jerked in his chair, having been unprepared for the sight of being completely surrounded by glowing water. Veedle had the immediate impression that he was floating within a large soap bubble.

  “Pressure status,” Melkins said.

  “PRESSURE IS WITHIN ACCEPTABLE PARAMETERS, DR. MELKINS.”

  “Can they see us?” Veedle asked. He was referring to the transport vessel that was hauling them in tow to Damascus City. It was a large, rugged-looking metal ship that coasted through the water without creating any disturbance. It had very few windows.

  “No,” Melkins said. “Their vision cannot penetrate these walls. If all is as it should be, they should be completely baffled as to the appearance of this vehicle. After all, it has been nearly a decade since any form of communication was attempted by the topworld.”

  “And we all know how well that went,” Veedle spat. Melkins rubbed at his chest blankly.

  “Locate Damascus and give arrival estimation,” Melkins said.

  “EIGHT-HUNDRED METERS IN DISTANCE. ESTIMATED TIME TO ARRIVAL AT CURRENT TRAJECTORY: TWO MINUTES.”

  “Maybe I’m just an ignorant asshole for asking, Melkins,” Veedle said, “but why didn’t they just blow us all to hell when they found our ship?”

  Melkins considered this with growing mental distance. “It was all up to chance. There was no way to calculate the expected odds of just such an occurrence. But ultimately, I knew they wouldn’t. They are too curious. I knew that they would want to know how anything had happened to find their means of transport to access the city. The process is really quite genius, exploiting the natural undercurrents of the ocean to create an underwater highway. Fitting that one of their crowning achievements will serve to bring about their own downfall.”

  “Sounds like someone took the Rains of November a little personally,” Veedle said.

  Melkins coughed and pumped his fists. “When nineteen-million lives are extinguished from the face of the planet, Mr. Veedle, there is not a single person still alive who should not take it personally.”

  And then Damascus City came into view as they floated over an immense cliff and into an oceanic valley.

  “Wow,” Veedle said. “I never imagined so much…light.” Spires of shining rock stood out amongst the layout of the vast city, which was composed of innumerable smaller structures that were unmistakably dwellings. Glowing blue light radiated from the very core of the city, all the way to a barrier that, without the light’s reflection, would have been invisible.

  “APPROACHING DAMASCUS CITY,” the computerized voice said.

  “We stopped,” Veedle said. “Why did we stop?”

  “The retaining barrier,” Melkins said. He urged under his breath, “Keep going. Let us in. Let us in.”

  A light flashed from the hauling vessel and engulfed Melkins and Veedle’s orb.

  “INTERNAL SCAN IN PROGRESS,” the computer said. The light switched off, and they once again felt their vessel begin to move forward.

  Melkins let out the breath he had been holding. They were very close now. Both ships lowered to ground-level. The white orb was pulled beside a docking bay of the larger ship.

  “What’s that?” Veedle asked.

  “Dry-dock barrier, Mr. Veedle. You see, the creatures live in a relatively dry environment, even though they are not aerobic beings.”

  “They don’t work out?”

  “No…They do not breathe oxygen. But our autopsies have determined that their bodies are well-adapted to dry environments. I think now might be a good time to prepare our air supply.”

  Veedle watched as the water surrounding them began to lower in level and finally disappear. It took him a moment to figure out that they had been sitting in a kind of air-lock that allowed the large ship to enter the confines of the city on solid ground. Water dripped down the sides of the drying orb.

  Melkins placed a mask on Veedle’s face, fastening it behind his head, as he had his own.

  “Just breathe naturally,” Melkins said in a muffled voice.

  “How long is it good for?” Veedle asked.

  Melkins did not reply.

  “Well, Mr. Veedle, it would appear that the time is near for your grand entrance.”

  Veedle nodded, smiling beneath his mask.

  “The famed Timothy Veedle,” Melkins said. “You make me sick, sir.”

  Veedle continued to grin.

  “I don’t mind telling you now that the time is near. I think you know how this is going to end for the both of us, and I believe that the time for fear has just passed. May those who you have massacred be avenged this day.”

  “Do it,” Veedle commanded.

  Melkins looked over his shoulder to watch as the ship was set down on the face of the keyhole, the only truly flat surface on the vessel. Their surroundings, like everything else in Damascus City, were made of smooth, glowing, natural stone. Melkins watched as the creatures began to disembark from their ship.

  They looked eerily like humans, but with aqueous indigo skin, and eyes as black as the midnight sea. They wore no clothing, which revealed other dissimilarities, but Melkins had seen them before and was not surprised.

  “Ugly little bastards, aren’t they?” Veedle huffed.

  Melkins nodded in silent agreement and turned to face Veedle. He reached inside his shirt collar for the key that would release his traveling companion. He slid the key into the slot just below Veedle’s neck. The restraints released their hold and Veedle stretched his arms.

  “Guns,” he said simply.

  Melkins spoke again to the computer, “Weapons release. Security code: Tidal Devil.”

  Melkins’ seat slid upward to reveal a hidden com
partment filled with weaponry. Hunched over, Veedle raided the cache, arming himself with two of the largest guns that Melkins had ever seen.

  “Release hatch,” Melkins said, a small tremble in his voice.

  The top and sides of the ship exploded outward, leaving Melkins and Veedle standing directly over the keyhole, looking at the shocked creatures.

  Veedle took advantage of their surprise, mowing into them in an ear-shattering spray of gunfire. Bodies toppled to the hard ground in tatters while others began to flee. Veedle laughed.

  When none were left standing, he looked around for Melkins, and found that his portly traveling companion was kneeling on the ground.

  “No need to be scared of a little noise, Doc.” He pointed the business end of one of the guns at Melkins’s chest and squeezed the trigger.

  Melkins dropped in a heap. Veedle stooped to examine the fallen doctor, and that was when he noticed the electrical wires that attached Melkins to the luminous stone floor. Pulling the man’s shredded shirt open, Veedle saw a rugged-looking box that displayed the word ACTIVATED in a digital readout. The wires ran from the box to the strangely glowing stone upon which he stood.

  “We all died…” cough, “the second they let us inside the barrier,” Melkins sputtered. “The whole goddamn city. And we used their own power source to do it.” He smiled painfully and rubbed at the device strapped to his chest. Red digital numbers began descending steadily. “It was the only way we could do it.”

  “The hell are you saying, Doc?”

  “You did your part… bought me a few moments to charge the bomb. You cannot stop it.” He tried to laugh. “Remember the Rains of November. This war is over.” His eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped over lifelessly.

  The clock had just sunk under the two-minute mark.

  Veedle laughed hysterically.

  Apparently the noise from his weapon fire had caught the attention of others, because a flood of armed guards were making their way out of the nearest building, as well as from the ship.

  “Two minutes,” Veedle said. “Better make it count, then.”

  He steadied both of the enormous weapons and charged forward towards Damascus City, laughing all the way.

  Seeking Shade

  Martin slipped through the playground unnoticed, stealing shadows in his wake.

  Each step he took sunk halfway into the crunching gravel, his body bobbing up and down as he moved. Sounds of laughter and squeaky swing hinges filled the brittle autumn air around him.

  The other children, lost in games of hopscotch and tetherball, hardly noticed when Martin Rodriguez moved in their raucous midst, taking pieces of their shadows along with him. He couldn’t help it. Besides, it wasn’t as if he was hurting anyone. Like fingernails, shadows grew back. And the act certainly wasn’t one of malice. The simple fact was that his own patch of lightless reflection was in need of a snack.

  Without the tidbits of shadow it garnered from the surrounding classmates to keep itself harmlessly sated, bad things would happen. Martin’s shadow could never be allowed to know hunger. That, he had learned long ago.

  Martin stared down at it. When among other people, as always, the lanky shadow followed his own form with loyal attachment.

  “Hey, creepo! Get out of the way!”

  Martin, so far successful in his meandering anonymity, had walked off the playground and stumbled innocently into the middle of wide-sprawling game of schoolyard football.

  “Move it!” Paul Wingo shouted. One of the bigger boys, he seemed to be the only person who ever acknowledged Martin’s existence. Not that that was a good thing. It usually meant he shot spitballs at Martin during class and intentionally tripped him in the hall at any available chance.

  So surprised was he at his own ignorance that Martin backpedaled out of the grass…and right into the path of Susan Milton, who was flying through the air at full speed in an upward arc on the swing set.

  Four painful hours later, Martin sulked in bed, staring at the pile of comic books that propped up the bulky plaster cast on his arm and shoulder. It was a cumbersome trophy of his survival of a broken collarbone. The fading sunlight outside his window taunted him. As per Dr. Higgins’ orders, he would not be allowed outdoors (nor to school for that matter, young man) for two weeks. He thought of Paul Wingo’s chubby, grinning face and scowled. This was his fault.

  What will I do? Martin thought with mounting worry. Without the classmates at school, without being able to even set foot outside the house for two full weeks, he worried about the hunger of his shadow.

  Martin raised his good arm and watched the dark swath ripple softly beneath it on his bedspread. Everything looked alright, for the time being. But, he guessed that by the end of the week, something would have to be done. He watched the shadow with a nervous stomach. While their connection was physical, only Martin could feel the single pulsing thought of his companion, which was simple: a varying scale of hunger. When it needed sustenance, Martin felt an itch in his own body, one that would steadily increase to match the shadow’s need.

  There was a tickle in his stomach. He dismissed it. It would just have to wait. There was no other choice.

  On the third day, Martin learned the inaccuracy of his estimate. He had been reading the final pages of an action-packed Batman issue when his mother burst into his room on her hands and knees.

  “Lumpy? Here, kitty kitty.” She crawled around for a full minute, inspecting the cavern of books beneath Martin’s bed and even daring a peek into the calamitous depths of his closet.

  “Um, Mom?” Martin said. “Are you alright?”

  “It’s Lumpy, dear,” she said. “He’s missing. I can’t find him anywhere. And you know he can’t go outside without claws.” Her usually prim demeanor was frazzled. A mess of bobby pins poked out at odd angles from her hair, as if her head had been fitted into places it shouldn’t have in the search for their slothful calico. “It was your father. I just know it. It’s all his fault, always leaving that door wide…”

  Martin chuckled and stopped her in the middle of her nervous rant. “But that’s silly.” He blankly stroked the lazy cat’s warm fur. “He’s been here with me for…” A look down at the pet froze his words. Though he could still feel him resting beneath his hand, Lumpy had disappeared from sight.

  Martin tried his best not to draw attention to Lumpy’s chubby body, now invisible, lying at his side. He cursed his shadow. It had fed, and he hadn’t even felt the itch within him subside.

  “Martin?” his mother asked. Her face was a tight mess of worry lines.

  “I mean…I think he was in here earlier. But now…he’s not.” Martin gulped. “Nope. Definitely not here.”

  His mother gave him a worrisome look. “Are you feeling alright, dear? Do you need your pain medication?”

  “What? No. I mean, thanks, but I’m pretty tired now. Good night.” He smiled awkwardly and attempted to roll over to his side, covering the disappeared form of the cat as he did so.

  Apparently, being crushed by Martin’s cast was not Lumpy’s idea of a leisurely comfort, and the invisible feline bolted from the room with a screeching yowl.

  Martin’s bewildered mother spun and ran from the room, giving unsure chase to the sound of the fleeing pet, even though she couldn’t see him.

  Martin sighed. It had happened. Hunger had overtaken his dark self. Martin could feel its sleepy glee. And while he knew no harm had come to Lumpy, the cat would likely remain in its invisible state for at least a week, until its own shadow had grown back. It had happened before. In fact, that was how he discovered his aberration in the first place. He remembered the astonished revelation made on his seventh birthday, when he’d watched the cat disappear before his very eyes, swallowed by a hungry flicker of darkness. That was the day the shadow had found a life of its own.

  He had spent most of that summer making small neighborhood animals disappear from view. That had been fun for a while—a short while. He still
laughed to think about his bathrobe clad neighbor, Mr. Wallace, fainting in the lawn at the sight of his invisible Labrador fetching a floating newspaper. Martin had quickly given that shadow back after having a good laugh.

  With a grin at the memory, Martin just hoped that Lumpy’s shadow would serve as an adequate meal for the coming days. He still had more than a week to go being cooped up in the house.

  He worried about his parents. What would he tell them if parts of their bodies started to disappear from sight? Or, perish the thought, what if one of them was actually rendered fully invisible? Anger rose in him, making his throat feel too full to breathe. Why him, Martin wondered. Why did his shadow have to be alive? Nobody else he knew had an even remotely similar affliction. It was unfair. And, even though they wouldn’t have been able to explain why, people could sense the darkness living in his periphery. That was why others tended to avoid him, and the very reason he had no friends.

  And, while most days he had learned to live with the presence of his shade-snacking twin, an occurrence such as this (one that should have been avoidable), brought the extent of its burden to light.

  An unbearable itch under the cast demanded attention, breaking his thought. When he pulled the clothes hanger out of the open end of the cast Martin watched the thin shadow mimic his movement. He lowered his hand to the blanket top, letting his fingers drift just above. After a moment, his shadow shifted. It slid slightly to the side. It wanted to be acknowledged. Martin felt a prickle when he looked at it.

  “I hate you,” Martin said. He balled his hand into a fist and struck the surface of the bed. The shadow did not flee; it could not be harmed. Yet it had, on some level, understood Martin’s intention, for it retaliated.

  The patch of shadow became painfully frigid beneath his fingers. Martin jerked his hand back with a grunt. His skin burned as if he’d punched a block of ice. He grimaced at his dark reflection.

  “You ruin me,” he said.

  The following morning, Martin’s shadow did something it had never done before. It disappeared.