Fireworks

by James A. Moore

  CHAPTER 8

  Karen woke in her own bed, uncertain how she'd gotten there. She had vague recollections of screaming, and recalled too well that her mother was dead, but that was all. There was nothing else to remember. Except her scalp, which stung with a frustrating heat and forced away her ability to focus on anything.

  Rain was falling heavily outside, dropping torrents of water on the roof of her small house. Downstairs there was only silence. Roughie looked at her from the foot of the bed, his soulful brown eyes seeming to say, "I understand your grief. I'm here for you." Karen crawled across the bed and wrapped her arms around the mutt's neck. His tail thumped twice, heavily, on the bed.

  A distant part of her wondered why she couldn't cry. Karen and her mother had never really gotten along all that well. She'd always been "daddy's little girl," and deep inside she knew her mother had resented their closeness. Still, the tears should have come.

  Eventually, she released the tolerant mutt from her embrace. She began to relax, letting her mind ease into consciousness. Karen started and the room shook as a blast of thunder roared close by. Even Roughie was upset by the sound, and he normally ignored thunderstorms with the very best of them.

  Having heard that lightning could fry a person while in the shower, Karen decided to play it safe and wait for later to wash her hair. She dressed herself in jeans and a T-shirt then went down stairs to let Roughie out. Roughie took one look out the door decided to answer nature's call a little later.

  Karen stumbled into the kitchen, where she found the Danskys eating lunch.

  "How are you, Karen?" Joan Dansky looked at her with genuine concern. "How's that head of yours doing?"

  "Hi, Joan. I'm all right. Just tired." Karen's voice sounded faded and weak, even to herself. "Good morning, Maurice."

  "It's afternoon, but good morning to you as well." Maurice smiled his same old sad smile, and promptly stood up, pulling out a chair for Karen. "Sit down. You should eat something."

  "Oh, I'm not really hungry," Karen protested.

  "Nonsense! You just don't know you're hungry. I'm gonna fix you a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches. Joan, darling, would you warm up the tomato soup for me?" Joan rose immediately, and reached for the pot on the stove. "You'll like the soup, Karen. It's homemade. I got some tomatoes from that nice Mister Feltzer down the road."

  Karen thought about protesting again, but Maurice was already halfway done with the task of putting cheese on rye bread, and the butter was already melting in her battered old frying pan. Before Karen could decide whether or not to risk hurting their feelings, Joan had already placed a fresh cup of coffee in front of her and promised soup within a couple of minutes. Despite her earlier proclamation, Karen felt her stomach begin to growl as the smell of toasting bread came her way.

  The winds outside picked up, sending a barrage of small tapping sounds against the house as the rain shifted course. "So," Joan said, speaking with the soft tones of compassion. "Would you like to talk about what happened yesterday?"

  "What's to talk about? My mother was murdered." Karen was almost surprised at how simple she made that sound. Almost appalled by the apparent lack of caring in her voice. She felt drained; an empty vessel that could never properly be filled again.

  Joan sighed, and Maurice set a warm bowl of cream of tomato soup in front of Karen, following it immediately with a perfectly scorched grilled cheese sandwich. He made a "tut tut" noise as he brushed past her. His face was set in a scowl of disapproval. "So now we're supposed to believe you have no feelings, Karen?" Thunder from the south rattled the windows, emphasized Maurice's question.

  "What do you mean?"

  Maurice shook his head. "You act like your mother's death is just another day in your life. We know better than that. You're a good person, a mensch. Why do you act like her death means nothing?"

  "It does mean something. It means that my mother was murdered by the town drunk. I just don't know how I'm supposed to feel about that, that's all." Karen felt old barriers she'd thought long gone begin building themselves around her feelings. The same barriers she'd erected when she and Pete were married. The ones she used to let the world at large know that everything was just fine, even when her beloved husband kneed her in the ribcage or forced himself on her like an animal. She seemed powerless to stop them from going up. Old habits die hard.

  Joan smiled and ran her hands across Karen's shoulders, lightly massaging at the tension Karen hadn't even realized was squeezing her muscles into knots. Maurice sat across the table from her, reaching out with his warm, soft hands and wrapping her own hands within them. "Karen. Don't do this. Don't hide your feelings away. It's not healthy. I haven't even known you a week, and I can tell already that this is a bad thing for you to do." He smiled sadly, an expression his face seemed perfectly suited for, and continued. "When I was a young man I lost both of my parents to a drunk driver. They died horribly, pinned in a burning car and screaming for everyone around them to hear. I wasn't even there for them. We'd had a fight over me dating a young Catholic girl. My last words to my father were that he could go to hell for all I cared." Outside a flash of bright light flickered, followed a second later by a loud boom like the wrath of an angry god. The only sort of deity Karen could believe in at that moment.

  The smile left the old man's face, and Karen saw, for the first time, that he was much older than she'd thought. He was usually so active and happy, and that always made him seem like a man in his forties. Now she realized that he was at least in his late fifties, probably older. He spoke again, even as Karen was wondering if he too would die before the bastards in control of the town were done with them. "I can never take back those words, Karen. As long as I live I can never take back those horrible words.

  "I didn't think it was right that I should cry. I was a man, after all, and I had my brothers and sisters to look after. I was the oldest, and that was my responsibility. So I went on my way, and I got myself a job. I worked hard and I paid the bills. I spent all of my waking hours making money and listening to all the problems my family had to endure. I didn't cry when my parents were buried, and I never shed a tear when I had to sell the family home and move us to a smaller place."

  Karen listened patiently, working over what her boarder said. It meant nothing, had no connection to what she was going through. "I'm sorry, Maurice. I don't get your point."

  Maurice did that little half smile he was so fond of, the one that seemed to ask God above for patience. On most people it was an expression that seemed condescending. On Maurice it seemed somehow appropriate. "My point is that I held all my grief and anger inside for almost ten years. For this I got an ulcer and I got gray hairs years before I should have." Maurice shrugged. "Those things never bothered me. I ate less mustard and I wore a few more hats."

  He clasped Karen's hands more tightly and she was surprised by his strength; he normally seemed so soft and gentle. When she looked into his eyes again, she saw more than she expected. She saw his grief, and the sorrow he claimed he never showed in public. "I was wrong to do these things, Karen. That's what my point is. Not because of the hair or the stomach pains, but because I shut off everything. You can't just ignore the bad things in life and accept the good ones. It isn't that easy. God did not make us to live with pleasure and forget the pain. He made us in His image, and that means we must suffer to understand that others suffer as well."

  Karen pulled her hands away, crossing her arms under her breasts. "I don't want to suffer, Maurice. I've suffered enough already." She felt hot stinging flashes at her eyes and knew she was on the verge of tears. "I don't want to feel anything, because it all hurts too goddamned much." Her voice cracked, and Karen rose from the table. She was damned if she'd share her grief with people she barely knew.

  Joan Dansky blocked her way, and Karen tried to push past her without actually causing the woman to fall. It wasn't meant to be. As Karen shifted to her left, Joan countered, continued to bar her from leaving. When
she dodged to the right she found the older lady still blocked her path. Frustrated, ready to lash out, Karen threw her hands up in exasperation. That was when Joan made her move. Before she knew what was happening, the older woman had wrapped her own arms around Karen's ribs and pulled her closer.

  Karen stood ramrod stiff, refusing to move, refusing to give in. Joan pulled her closer still, until their faces were against each other, cheek to cheek as if they were caught in a dance. Karen felt her body sway, compelled by Joan's movements, and then she felt the burning at her eyes become a flood of hot grief.

  She tried again to force the tears away, but this time she failed. Her mother's face came to her, unbidden and unwanted. She thought of the times they'd spent together, the good times and the bad. She remembered her mother holding her in much the same way Joan did, comforting her after she'd gone through with the abortion. She remembered her mother's anger with Pete, and the list of names the woman had called him during the divorce. Mostly she thought of her mother's gende smile and cheerful laughter. She remembered them and realized she'd never experience them again.

  And the tears flowed, and the storm locked within Karen O'Rourke's heart and soul finally broke free, raging as surely as the wind and rain that assaulted her tiny home and carving trenches of agony across her very being with the same intensity as the lightning that raped the heavens above.

  In time both storms calmed and faded. Maurice and Joan led Karen back to her room, settling her into her bed just as her parents had done when she was younger. Exhausted from her crying fit, Karen fast fell into slumber. She dreamed of vengeful gods and burnt women; her sleeping mind conjured up ships that rose from dead lakes and struck her parents down. Her mother died again, caught by a powerful light that incinerated her very soul. Her father died as well, crushed by the hand of the God he'd forsaken.

  And while she slept, her father died seeking vengeance against the new god he'd found and come to idolize in his own bizarre fashion. From there on, Karen's life only grew worse.

  INTERLUDE

  1

  The storm over Collier only faded for a short time before coming back with a vengeance. The winds tore at the trees with the force of a small hurricane, and the rain fell in sheets, spraying the sides of houses and cars, swept by the wind hard enough to wash through open windows, drenching furniture and unsuspecting people. Those who dared the weather and were close enough to see the fallen starship saw the bottom of the lake's bed fill with water as the torrential downpour continued. Certainly there wasn't enough falling to fill Lake Oldman again, but there was enough to soak the cracked, blistered dirt at the bottom, and to soften the dry pan back into mud.

  Most people sought shelter from the storm, especially those who actually lived in the town under normal circumstances. Only a year ago they'd lost four people to lightning strikes in less than a month-Kyle Waters, who'd been fishing on Lake Oldman when the weather turned sour; Tommy Prescott, who'd just plain been in the wrong place when the storm broke and managed to fry him even before the actual rain started; and Louise Finnegan and her boyfriend Mark Walton, who'd been trying to get intimate when the lightning struck and fused them together at the hips-and even with all that happened in the span between, the memories were fresh enough to keep Collier's citizens wary.

  There was only one victim of lightning during the storm. Corporal Rick Carlisle learned the hard way that Kevlar weave over ceramic pads and steel-toed boots don't make a person indestructible. The hard rubber soles of his boots might have afforded him some protection, but the thoroughly wet socks on his feet couldn't possibly have helped him out. He was calling in to command center to report that all was clear when the fork of electricity tore through his right foot and leaped towards the heavens by way of the top of his helmet. All command heard was "This is Corpor-" before the shriek of feedback half-deafened two of the radio technicians. A few moments later, the very shaken voice of Private Lance Monteleone reported that Carlisle was dead and called for help as he couldn't, at the moment, convince his legs to work. Monteleone was fine by the time a detail came out to the site, across from the Hav-A-Feast Diner. When the soldiers and medics arrived, they found Monteleone walking around in a dazed fashion. Carlisle was a differently story entirely. The soldier's helmet only came away from his skull by taking a sizable chuck of crisped flesh with it. The oxygen tank built into his armor had opted to explode along the way, so the soldiers knew there was no chance of reviving him. Several broke regulations and tore off their helmets before losing their last meal across the lawn in the Town Square.

  Colonel Anderson took the breach of protocol personally, verbally tearing every last one of the "weak-stomached pansies" a new asshole for their troubles. Ever since the ship decided to half haul itself out of the ground the day before, his orders were very strict about any of his people removing any part of their gear without prior permission. True, the radiation in the area had only increased while the cause of all their recent grief was trying to move, but the surge in the energy readings was nasty enough to present a serious risk down the line, if it should happen again.

  None of the men were happy about the tongue-lashing they received, but they took it anyway. It was just plain foolish to piss off Anderson these days. He was acting absolutely manic.

  2

  Mark Anderson listened to the voice on the other end of the phone line. He'd heard the same deep, rich voice for the last twelve years. He'd never had a face to go with the voice. As time went on, he'd simply come to imagine a tall, stocky man in an immaculately tailored three-piece suit. The sort of man one would expect to wield substantial power on Wall Street. The only name he had for the voice was Hardaway.

  At the present moment, Anderson was dreaming about his hands around the neck of his imaginary businessman. He was dreaming about how red that pampered face would grow, and the feeling of a heart thundering between his hands. At times like this, he understood why the man preferred to remain anonymous.

  "I understand your trepidation, Colonel, I truly do. Nonetheless, you have your orders."

  Mark sighed. "When are these… 'conditioning experts' of yours due in, Hardaway?"

  There was a slight hesitation, and Mark imagined the cultured mouth of his direct supervisor scowling at the lack of a "Mister" before his last name. The idea brought a smile to the Colonel's face. "They should be there by twelve hundred hours. You are to give them any assistance they require, Colonel. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yes, sir. I understand."

  "Colonel?"

  "Sir?" Mark hated when Hardaway added a note at the end of their conversations. It was never a positive thing when the bastard wanted to continue talking. Bad things happened to people when Hardaway felt the need to elaborate, especially after he'd confirmed that Mark understood who was in charge. Anderson felt his stomach churn, and felt the vise grip of pain around his temples tighten another notch.

  "This is the last recourse open to you. I know that doesn't make you happy, but if the conditioning experts should fail to accomplish their goals, the people of Collier are to be taken out of the equation."

  "Yes, sir. I understand, sir."

  He half-expected another response from Hardaway. Instead he got a dial tone. Mark Anderson very calmly set the headset back into its cradle and walked away from the desk he all but called home, before he started his rant of profanities. Steve Hawthorne made a point of looking unaffected by the tirade, an expression that had taken him years to perfect.

  When Mark finished, Steve poured him a cup of decaf coffee and sat down in the chair facing the Colonel's. A few moments later, Mark sat down as well.

  "What's up with Hardaway?"

  Mark snorted. "The fucker wants to bring in a group of 'conditioning experts.' If they can't get the job done, everyone in this town is as good as dead."

  Steve whistled a long, low note. "Guess he hasn't liked the reports too much, hunh?"

  "No. He says we've had 'unacceptable losses.'" Mark slurped
down half his coffee, looking at the only man he could trust in the entire town. "How the hell would he know about our losses, Steve? What gives him the right to just decide what's acceptable when he hasn't looked the area over, when he hasn't seen the faces of the people here?"

  Hawthorne shrugged, reaching for his own coffee. "He's the big guy. He's the one who arranges our finances and makes sure we have what we need. That's all the right he needs, Mark."

  "Yeah. Well, I don't know if he'd feel the same way if he had to meet with people like Frank Osborn, or even that little candy-ass, Fitzwater."

  "Mark," Hawthorne set down his cup and shook his head. "There's a reason the man hasn't met with you personally. There's a reason you've never spoken except over a secured line."

  "Yeah? Why?"

  "Because he's just as human as you are. If he met you in person, he might hesitate to have you removed from the scene in a permanent way, if he decided you were expendable."

  Anderson looked over at his second-in-command. He scowled and shook his head. "I hate it when you say that stuff, Steve. You know why?"

  "Probably, but tell me anyway."

  "Because I know you're right."

  The two men stared across the desk at each other for several seconds. Neither spoke and neither needed to in order to understand what was next on the agenda. A group of specialists was due in only a few hours, and those unique talents would decide what happened to every single soul in the entire town.

  "I sure hope those fuckers are good at what they do." Steve spoke out loud, but he didn't really direct the comment towards Mark. "If they aren't, this is going to get very messy."

  Anderson snorted. "Yeah, and it's been such a neat operation until now."

  "In comparison to what it will be? Yes. Yes, it has." Hawthorne rose from his seat and reached for his helmet and face mask. Anderson couldn't help but notice the black gear's resemblance to a modified executioner's hood.