by Jay Nichols
* * *
Hector took off his shirt and threw it into the forest, where the wall of fire swallowed it in an orange and yellow gulp. He stumbled blindly through the billows of soot, resignedly inhaling the noxious vapors and coughing out the pungent efflux. Since beginning this final stretch of his journey home, his throat had seized on him twice, forcing him to stop and wait for it to reopen, only so he could take another gulp of poisoned air and have it clamp shut on him again.
He tried to swallow but couldn’t.
I’ll get there. Even if I can’t see jack shit now, I know I’ll find my way home. Somehow.
He kept his head down and followed the white stripe on the far right side of the road. It was barely visible under the blowing, black fog. Pritchard Street was four intersections away, a distance he approximated to be about half a mile. He’d get there. He knew he would. The pull had already begun in his solar plexus, a steady, easy drag, like a fishing line being reeled in, and if he were to fall and die right there in the street, he’d be surprised.
Because I’m meant to go home. God, or whoever has been yanking my chain these past seventeen years, has decided to let me live. If he wanted me to die, he’d have killed me by now. I see it all. This summer hasn’t been a real summer. It’s really been some sort of test to see how much shit I can take, and the whole rabies thing was the final question. And I got it right! I don’t have rabies. Well, I might have had it once, but it’s completely gone now. I’m almost done with my shots, and the doctor says once that’s over, I won’t have rabies anymore—if I ever had it in the first place. Lola’s dead, but so is Mike. Justice has been served. And other than that fire—which looks like it is about to destroy the whole town—everything else is all right. Because I’m going home, and then I’m going to bed. The voices I’ve been hearing and the visions? Stress, stress, stress. Every time one of them popped up, I was under a shitload of stress. I’m not crazy and I’m not sick—
[You know exactly what you are and so does everybody else. You’re just too scared to admit it.]
La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la. Stress, stress, stress. I don’t hear you! I’m going home, and when I get there, you’ll be gone, Mr. Voice-In-My-Head.
Hector shuffled through an intersection.
Three more to go.