by David Beers
Chilras looked on for a few seconds, her aura still not having recovered from the imprisonment. Morena knew she was dying; anyone that looked at Chilras had to understand that her days were growing shorter and shorter at a rapid pace.
You did that, Morena’s voice scolded. You made her aura fade.
And what of it? She would do it again, right now, if she had the chance.
“You will receive the same treatment that you lent The Council,” Chilras said.
The tug came then. The Knowledge that had been mostly denied her but flowed so strongly through her mother. It was in those words, where the slip would come, where hers and Briten’s chance would arise. It felt like someone was screaming the answer through a heavy, heavy curtain, and Morena could only make out noise, but not the actual instructions. That didn’t matter though, not really. The Knowledge told her that something would change, something would reveal itself. She didn’t have to know what right now, she only had to pay attention, because it was coming.
She looked back to Veral.
“That’s bad news for you then, because you’ll get the same treatment.”
79
Present Day
The goddamn ground wouldn’t stop shaking and Wren was sure he couldn’t take another moment of it. It felt like some kind of funhouse, where the floor moved under your feet at a constant, maddening rate.
Everything that happened today, every little piece, and this fucking earthquake was going to be the one that made him break. He saw people with holes in their heads and managed to hold it together. Yet one hour into this constant shaking and he might have never felt a stronger urge in his life to march back into the Yetzer’s house and grab whatever liquor was stashed in their cabinets.
The five of them sat in the yard, outside of the house, which took them a good five minutes to decide on. For some reason, sitting there with the entire structure of the house vibrating and shaking like some kind of sex toy, they didn’t think the whole thing might collapse around their ears. Finally, Julie brought it up and Wren latched onto the idea. He wanted out of that house, out of the noise of shaking plates, silverware, and pictures.
Now they were in the yard and neither Glenn nor Rita could think, apparently.
The two of them were in shock. He didn’t know how these things usually came on, but in this case, it had been slowly, because an hour ago they were in the house chit-chatting like school girls in first period on the first day after summer. Now they were silent as corpses. Neither of them spoke and neither of them touched each other. Looking at them, Wren wasn’t sure they had any idea how despondent they appeared. Staring at the green grass in front of them, Wren thought their minds most likely blank.
Christ almighty, what am I going to do? he asked himself. He didn’t want to say it aloud, though he didn’t think either Glenn or Rita would notice. It might take a slap in the face to get them to pay attention at this stage.
Wren’s eyes went to Julie. He had known this girl for a long, long time, but when was the last time he laid sober eyes on her? And what did he see now? A bruised face that looked like she lived in their trailer park instead of the house on the other side of town. That looked like she had settled down with one of those rare men who liked to use their hands as a sledgehammer instead of a feather.
Her parents were dead.
Christ almighty, he thought again.
The only other person here was his son, who wasn’t sitting on the grass with the rest of them, but stood at the edge of the yard, looking across the street at one of the neighboring houses. Was he in shock too? All of them, the original four, had been operating perfectly fine in the truck, but now they seemed separated. Quiet, scared, and with no idea what to do. With the world shaking around them, they all froze. Including Wren, at least in action if not mentally.
Go talk to your son, Linda said. He’s the reason you left the house yesterday, isn’t he?
Wren stood up, noticing that no one around him looked as he did. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at Michael’s back. This wasn’t the time to commiserate or apologize or say how much Wren loved him, and yet, he couldn’t find the willpower to walk over there and see if Michael was thinking on the same wave length.
Wren was cut off from his son and he didn’t think he had truly realized it until this moment. A decade in the bottle, and with the world collapsing around them both, Wren couldn’t speak to him.
Humbling wasn’t quite the word to describe the feeling that swept over him. Crippling, maybe?
Go to him, or stay here with your legs barely able to stand beneath you, Linda said.
He started walking, forcing each step. How many times had he barged into his son’s room without a care, and now, clear-eyed, could barely say hi?
“Michael,” Wren whispered as he drew closer.
His son didn’t turn around, but looked halfway over his shoulder. He said nothing.
“They’re in trouble back there,” Wren said. “I think the three of them are in shock. Glenn and Rita aren’t even talking about where to find Bryan.”
“We need to head to the field, I think,” Michael said, his voice quiet as well. “I think we’ll find Bryan if we go that way.”
“What? Why? That’s where the thing crashed, right?”
He watched his son stare straight across the street. There were three houses in this cul-de-sac and Wren held no desire to understand why the rest of the yards were empty. He imagined that when the people finished ransacking the Yetzer house, they might have decided to peek into the neighbors' as well.
“Yeah,” Michael said. “I don’t know, but I think…I just think we’ll see him.”
“Are you okay?” Son was how he wanted to finish the sentence, but couldn’t bring himself to.
A lifetime passed between his question and Michael’s answer.
“I don’t know, but we need to go get him.”
* * *
“Come on, Julie,” Michael said.
Julie looked up at him from her place on the grass and saw his hand reaching down to her. She didn’t know where they were going, couldn’t remember anyone speaking, but she raised her hand up anyway, almost automatically.
She would go with Michael, wherever he asked her to.
Julie realized, haphazardly, that she was flirting with shock. She walked the thin line that separated her mental state from being somewhat normal to simply deteriorating. Her mind kept saying that her mother was going to be angry—no, pissed—when Julie showed up with her shorts looking the way they did. They were filthy and how would Julie explain it?
Mom’s dead, she told herself, as she stood up. Dad too.
“Hey, are you okay?” Michael asked as she reached her feet. They looked each other in the eye for the first time in hours, and Julie remembered that she had forgotten something. An hour ago, maybe a bit more, she thought something about Michael, and now she couldn’t remember it. Because she was losing herself and didn’t have the capacity to focus on both of them.
“No,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes. “Where are we going, Michael?”
“We’re going to go get Bryan.” He reached for her left hand, so that he held both in his own.
“Bryan?” she said, barely able to comprehend the name. “He’s alive?”
“Yes, I think so. He’s in trouble, though.”
She had forgotten about Bryan, completely. His name lived in another life, one that existed before her parents died, one that existed for another person.
Michael stood in front of Julie, and other people were here on this lawn, but none of them knew her like he did. They were all part of that past life, but he was the only one right now that could bridge the gap to this new life, to the one where her head felt like it might fracture. Could Bryan bridge it? Oh, God, could he?
Tears spilled from her eyes but she didn’t reach forward for Michael. “You can find him?”
He nodded, and she believed him. She didn’t know if this had
to do with what she forgot, or if she would have believed Michael if he told her they were about to ship off for the moon—but when he nodded, and then started walking again, Julie followed, because she needed another bridge back to that life if she was to keep from breaking.
* * *
The five of them piled into Rita’s SUV. Michael sat in the very back, his father closing the hatchback on him before climbing into the driver’s seat.
When was the last time he drove me anywhere? The thought passed through Michael’s head like clouds through the sky, he noted it, but found no anger in it. Only truth.
Michael stared out the window, watching the world fall away as they rolled forward. His father was right, the other three in the vehicle were in shock or heading there.
Is that what’s happening to me? he wondered. He thought it might fit, clinically, but his heart told him that wasn’t true. That this Zen-like level of calm had nothing to do with shock or post traumatic stress. It was something different, something he couldn’t understand.
As the car moved on, heading to the field, Michael saw more people on the street than he had seen in the past two days. People scared, holding each other, as this endless earthquake shook the town. Michael looked at them, innately understanding that these weren’t enough people to make up the entirety of Grayson. Michael knew that a lot of people would never be walking outside again because of what had already happened here.
The five people in this car may be going through different levels of stress, but they were beyond lucky. Michael didn’t think anyone understood that besides him right now. He was lucky to be sitting here watching these clueless people on the street hug those they loved.
Because Thera was dead.
He didn’t know how he knew that, not anymore than he knew that they would find Bryan if they headed to the field. It still felt true though, in his bones, his soul, like religious people that speak of their faith in God.
Thera was dead.
Michael had seen a lot over the past week. Had seen a lot over the past forty-eight hours. This drug-like state of mind he now floated in created a cold detachment from everything around him, but Thera’s death plunged through that separation in a way nothing else could. She died out there near the field and Bryan had been around when it happened. That’s why they would find Bryan but not her.
He wanted to cry but couldn’t.
He could only stare out the window and think of her. Of his friend that he would never see again. Michael didn’t understand a lot of what was happening. He didn’t understand why the ground continued its rumble, and he didn’t have any clue what the aftereffects would be when it shuddered its final throes. He didn’t understand why his friend died. But it was all connected, all of it stemming from that thing he watched fall from the sky.
And all of it unavoidable now.
He thought—the same way he thought about the people in this car, detached—that there might have been a time when they could have stopped it. That time had passed, though. Thera’s death. This earthquake. Whatever fell from the sky now walked on earth, that’s what Michael thought.
Bryan was still alive though, and that was something.
When Michael saw it out the back window, the rest of his thoughts ended. It came on quickly, and though he wanted to deny it, primarily because he had never seen anything like it before, there was no denial in him, only acceptance.
Blue smoke.
Except that wasn’t right. Close, but not right.
Smoke billowed, rising like clouds. Smoke made it hard to see when it was thick enough. That’s not what he saw out the back window. He could see through the blue, easily, and it didn’t form clouds or any type of circular shape. It…stretched out in tiny points, not floating up as smoke would, but moving fluidly forward. It moved up too, but primarily reached out horizontally, stretching across the land. The color was beautiful. It was happiness.
“Do you see it?” he asked.
“Huh?” Wren said from the front seat.
“Do you see it?”
Wren’s eyes flashed to the back for a second, catching Michael’s before Michael looked out the window.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You mean the people on the streets?”
“Yeah,” Michael said, and then went silent.
The blue was there just like Thera was dead. None of the others knew about her and none of them could see this ephemeral substance spreading across their town.
Only Michael.
* * *
Bryan’s mind worked, but only at a very basic level. A bit greater than a reptile, but not much.
Scratches ran across his face, some large and deep. Blood trickled down his brow and cheeks, some of it moving across his open lips and sticking to his teeth. He didn’t notice. The pain was far away, deep in some recess of his mind that he couldn’t access. Even the different parts of him that split up when the mirror broke, they were all silent.
His feet kept moving and his lungs kept breathing, and he somehow walked in the general direction of his home, but that was it.
He was two miles into his trek. Forty minutes, not even realizing the world shook around him. The roads he walked were main roads, and no one was on them.
Bryan knew he had to get away from the woods, and once he entered the field, he knew he had to get away from it as well. Once he was away from the field though, his ability to process what came next slowed way down. Home was the only word that seemed to make much sense.
That and Morena.
But that wasn’t a word from this planet. It came from somewhere else, just like she did.
His mind saw her. He saw her over and over as she looked down at him, shoving him deeper into the pit of her creation. He saw the green color wrapping her. He saw the creature that killed Thera.
And then what little processing power his mind had would turn to Thera.
And back to Morena.
And he stepped forward, one foot after another.
He didn’t notice the SUV that stopped, nor the people that jumped out, crying—showing emotion for the first time in hours. He didn’t notice them pulling him into the car, the petting, the fawning, the questions.
Bryan saw green and nothing else.
80
Present Day
“Get everything you need,” Will said. He opened his own door and got out of the car, leaving it running, though he couldn’t very well turn off a hot-wired car—not if he wanted to leave quickly again. It took them a mile of walking to find it, a Honda from the mid-nineties that looked like it might have sat through a few hurricanes.
Will was already walking toward his hotel room when Andrew finally got out of the car.
Cuts laced across both their faces from the branches that slapped at them, though they tried to stop the bleeding the best they could.
“Will,” Andrew called from the door. “Will, hold on.”
He stopped and turned around. He didn’t want to yell across the parking lot though he knew it didn’t matter in the slightest. Everyone in this place not involved with his group was dead, but the training held root. He went back to the car, hating every step he took because it was one step away from where he should be going, which was up to that hotel room.
“What?”
“I mean, what are we doing here? What the fuck is going on?”
Will’s legs shook. The whole world shook.
“You feel that right?” he said. “I mean you feel what the ground is doing beneath our feet?”
Andrew said nothing. He wasn’t lost, no deer in the headlights look, but he didn’t move.
“This is it, Andrew. This is the end. This whole town will be rocks and nothing else very soon. So we have to get the hell out of here. Standing here talking about it isn’t helping.”
“That’s just it, man. Where are we going?” Andrew said.
Will turned around and started walking again. Andrew could follow if he wanted, and if he didn’t, he could
sit here and just get in the car when Will got back. After a few seconds Will heard Andrew’s feet catching up.
“What am I grabbing?”
“I don’t know. Leave your computer. Don’t take anything with any electronics in it. As soon as we’re on the road, we’re ditching the phones.”
“You’re talking about going dark?”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Will said. He pulled the key from his pocket and swiped it through the door lock.
“Hold on, man. Just hold on a second. Going dark? You can’t go dark, not from this. I certainly can’t. They’ll find us.”
Will opened the door and turned half way around. “You’re not getting it. It’s already dark. Everything that happened here, they’re going to burn it all and anyone involved will die. People higher than Rigley, higher than anyone either of us will ever meet. Your only chance to live is to leave now.”
Andrew stared at him for another second and Will saw it was finally sinking in. He understood that the world he once knew no longer existed. He felt the rumble now, for real, and saw that this wasn’t fixable.
Andrew walked away without saying anything and Will turned back into his room, letting the door close behind him. He scanned the contents of the place quickly. Clothes, he needed to grab those. There wasn’t any cash in this place, but he thought his cards might still work. They would need to get out of town and then pull out all the money possible before ditching the cards the same as they ditched everything else.
Will moved with a speed and grace that belied the seriousness of the situation surrounding him. He moved with the same touch as a dancer might, grabbing what he needed and throwing it into his one suitcase. He didn’t think outside of the realm of what was needed and what could be discarded. No reminiscing. No wondering what if. Just movement.
His phone rang as he walked his last piece of clothing from the closet to the suitcase.
It vibrated in his pocket like some kind of bomb that he knew would go off eventually, though he had wanted it to wait. He wanted to get out of this room and throw the phone out of the car as he left this forsaken town. The bomb was exploding though, right now in his pocket, vibrating against his jeans and leg.