by Randall Pine
“Simon! Move!”
Simon found his footing and pushed himself upward. Virgil leapt up behind him, grabbing a rung that was about three feet higher than his head. He clutched it and held on tightly, dangling for a second over the floor of the tunnel as the lightning bolt broke through the refraction and slammed against the back wall of the tunnel, just beneath Virgil’s feet.
He planted his feet on the ladder and scrambled up the chute behind Simon, out of the tunnel and back into the dismal woods.
Chapter 9
“Well. We lost her,” Virgil said.
“Your ability to state the obvious never ceases to amaze,” Simon said dryly.
They were back in the Pontiac, driving down the interstate back toward their apartment. “Do you think Llewyn’s going to be mad?” Virgil asked.
Simon snorted. “I don’t think he’s going to love it,” he said.
Virgil thought about the ripple fern and the lightning in the tunnel as the white lines flashed by on the road outside the car. “Maybe he’ll be so grateful that we didn’t die, he’ll forget to be mad.”
“I think it’s possible to be both glad that we’re alive and mad that we lost our only lead at the same time.”
“Yeah. That’s true.” Virgil sighed. He pressed his head against the passenger window. The glass felt cool against his skin. “I wish he didn’t have that black magic in his chest. Just seeing what he can do with half his magic tied behind his back…can you imagine what he’d be able to do at full power?”
Simon nodded. “It sure would make our lives a whole lot easier.”
“He’d have shut that lightning bolt down.”
“Yep,” Simon nodded.
Virgil cleared his throat. “I guess what I’m saying is, it’s his fault we lost the ripple fern, really, and we should be clear about that when we tell him.”
“Oh, yeah,” Simon nodded, feigning enthusiasm. “That’s a bang-up idea.”
“Good. I’m glad we agree,” Virgil said, satisfied.
Simon sighed.
They drove the rest of the way to the apartment in silence, each of them thinking his own thoughts and processing the extraordinary events of the day. When they finally pulled up outside their building, Simon threw the car into park, but he didn’t shut off the engine.
“You coming?” Virgil asked, unbuckling his seat belt.
Simon smiled bashfully. “No,” he said.
Virgil raised an eyebrow. “No?”
“Nope.”
“But you live here.”
“I know that,” Simon replied.
“So why aren’t you coming inside?”
The tips of Simon’s ears burned pink. “Because Abby’s shift is almost over,” he said.
Virgil’s face lit up with understanding. “Oh ho ho ho!” he cried, clapping his hands together excitedly. “Oh ho ho! I see!”
“Virgil…” Simon began, rolling his eyes.
But Virgil held up a hand, silencing him. “Say no more!” he said, popping open his door. “I heard what she said. ‘Simon, come find me after my shift! I need you! I want you!’”
“She didn’t say that,” Simon pointed out.
“Never let it be said that Virgil Matter got between his best friend and a date!”
“It’s not a date,” Simon said.
“Oh! Take her to Lookout Point!” Virgil gasped.
“I’m not taking her to Lookout P—”
“Take her to Lookout Point, and tell her you wanted to give her the best view of Templar, because she’s new to town and probably hasn’t seen the whole city yet!” Virgil shook his head slowly, in total awe of his own brilliance. “I should go on more dates. I am so good at planning them.”
“Will you get out?” Simon asked, his patience starting to wear thin. He glanced at the clock; Abby’s shift at Squeezy Cheez would be over in ten minutes.
“You get out,” Virgil grinned, stepping out of the car.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Simon pointed out.
Virgil stood on the curb, and his grin grew so wide, his teeth looked like they might fall out. “I won’t wait up,” he said with a wink.
“Go,” Simon instructed.
Virgil hovered in the doorway a few seconds longer, smiling that smile, then he stood up and closed the door. Simon threw the car into drive and pulled away from the curb. He saw Virgil waving wildly in his rearview mirror.
Simon took some deep breaths as he maneuvered the old 6000LE across town. “It’s not a date,” he told himself in the mirror, desperately trying to manage expectations. “It’s not a date, okay? It’s definitely, definitely not a date.”
Ten minutes later, Abby was climbing into the passenger seat of his car. “Take me somewhere good,” she teased him. “Take me to the best date spot in all of Templar.”
Simon immediately sat up straighter in his seat, his eyes suddenly set on high alert. “Is this a date?” he asked, and his voice squeaked as he said it.
Abby laughed, but not unkindly. “I don’t know,” she said. “Is it not a date?”
Simon’s palms suddenly felt too wet to get a good grip on the wheel. “Do you want it to be a date?” he asked, trying to keep the hopeful tremor out of his voice.
“Do you want it to be a date?” she replied.
Simon set his lips into a hard line. He wished she would stop answering his questions with questions.
“I just—I don’t—” He tried to make words come out of his mouth in some way that made sense, but it wasn’t working. “You’re not—we could—I thought—”
Abby laughed again, louder, but sweetly, and gently. It was the sound of glasses clinking together in a toast. “Relax, Simon. I’m just messing with you,” she said, her eyes bright and warm behind her glasses.
“Oh.” Simon exhaled, and then he laughed, too, a much more awkward sound by comparison. “Right.”
“I already know you want it to be a date. I saw it on the big screen,” she teased.
Simon stopped laughing. His face flushed dark red with embarrassment. “That wasn’t—” he began.
She smiled and put her hand on his arm, just below his elbow. “Simon, I think it’s sweet. I think you’re sweet.”
Simon chanced a look over at the passenger seat. “You do?” he asked.
“Yes,” she smiled. “It’s a date, and I hope you’re taking me someplace good.”
Simon smiled. “Well…I do know this place called Lookout Point.”
Chapter 10
Abby looked out the window of the parked Pontiac, at the line of other cars that were also parked along the edge of the cliff that overlooked the city. “Did you just bring me to a make-out spot?”
Lookout Point was a scenic overlook high up on the side of a mountain about five miles east of Templar city limits. During the day, it was a tourist stop, a place for visitors and passers-by to pull off to the side of the road, park their cars, stretch their legs, and snap a few pictures of the sweeping vista. From the parking area, you could see almost the entirety of Templar, including both of the rivers that ran through the city, and the high green peaks of the Appalachians that curved to the south. By day, it was a state treasure…but at night, it was a hotspot for young couples to park their cars, shut off the lights, and spend a little time steaming up the windows.
Simon decided his face was just going to have to exist in a permanent state of blush now. “It’s a scenic overlook,” he said, answering honestly.
Abby pointed at the car next to them. “Their windows are fogged up,” she said. Then she pointed at the car next to that one. “And their windows are fogged up. And their windows are fogged up. And—”
“I get it, I get it,” Simon said. “It is a make-out spot, I guess. But that’s not why I brought you here,” he added quickly. �
��It’s just…you’re new to town, and I thought…you might like to see Templar.” He gestured through the windshield at the twinkling lights of the city below. “You know. All of it.”
Abby gave him a smirk. “Did Virgil give you that line?” she asked.
“No,” he lied.
A tendril of Abby’s purple hair had broken loose from her ponytail, and she tucked it back behind her ear. The moonlight coming in through the car window made her pale skin seem to glow. She looked otherworldly, like an angel sent to Earth to bring him both warmth and torment. He wanted to reach out, to touch her skin, to prove to himself that she was real, and that she was really there, with him, and that she was really Abby, and not a well-crafted string-monster facsimile of Abby knitted together by a pubescent redheaded teenager with a demon in his basement.
“What’re you thinking?” Abby asked him.
Simon snapped back into the moment. “What?” he responded.
Abby laughed and shook her head, rolling her eyes playfully. “Never mind,” she said. She reached down and popped open the car door. The interior of the Pontiac flooded with light, and Simon had to squint against the sudden glare in the darkness. “Well, we’re here to see Templar, right? Come on, then. Show me Templar.” Abby stepped out of the car and closed the door. She walked up to the front of the car and sat on the hood.
Simon joined her after fumbling with his own door handle, and he leaned against the bumper, misjudging the angle and nearly sliding right off the grill. Abby stifled a laugh.
“This is going well,” Simon mumbled.
But Abby placed her hand on his shoulder and said, “It is going well.”
Simon smiled gratefully. He looked down at her hand and noticed she wasn’t wearing her gloves. “Is that…uncomfortable? For you?” He didn’t completely understand the ins and outs of what it meant to be an empath, but he was pretty sure she couldn’t turn it off.
“You mean touching you? Feeling your emotions?”
“Well, I mean touching anyone, I guess. Is it…hard? Do you always feel them?”
Abby withdrew her hand and placed it in her own lap. She looked down at her open palm thoughtfully, and, Simon thought, a little sadly. “Almost always, when I’m not wearing the gloves. Clothes dull it a little…skin-to-skin contact is the most intense. A lot of times, it’s too much. But through clothes, it isn’t bad. I actually almost can’t feel anything through wool,” she said, nodding at his jacket.
“Really?” Simon asked, surprised.
“Really. And I can’t feel anything at all through metal. So if you ever want to hide your feelings, armor plating is your best bet.”
Simon laughed. “I can’t even begin to guess how you figured that out.”
Abby smiled and nudged him with her shoulder. “You’d be shocked, the circles I used to run in,” she teased.
They sat quietly on the hood, breathing deeply of the cool mountain air and enjoying the silence of the night. The teenagers in the cars around them were being surprisingly quiet for co-eds locked in the throes of high school passion.
“It’s nice here,” Abby said.
Simon smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”
Abby squinted down at the city skyline. It had been foggy earlier in the evening, and some of the mist still remained. The specifics of the city were still a little obscured. She pointed at a tall building to the northwest. “Is that the Grimsley building?” she asked.
Simon nodded. “Yep. And over there is the library, the one with the white torch-shaped lights on the corners. You should go there sometime when it’s open...it’s a really cool building.”
“I like libraries,” Abby said.
Simon grinned. “Me too.” He scooted a little closer, so that the outside of his right arm was just barely touching the outside of Abby’s left arm. She didn’t pull away. “And that bridge, way over there, with the green light on top, that’s the Pullman Avenue bridge.”
Abby followed his finger with her eyes and peered out toward the general direction of southwest. “So then the next bridge down from there is Llewyn’s bridge?”
“Yep, that one right there,” he said, moving his hand half an inch to the left.
“So where’s your apartment?” Abby asked.
Simon squinted out toward his neighborhood. “It’s back there,” he said, pointing west of the main downtown area. “Our neighborhood is blocked by that skyscraper with the flashing light on top. Actually…” He craned his neck and looked out over the back of the car. The slope of the mountain across the road was dotted with trees, but they weren’t so thick he couldn’t see through them. “I bet we could see if it we went up the hill a bit…”
Abby hopped off the hood of the car and brushed off her jeans. “Well, what’re we waiting for?” she grinned. “I was promised a full view of Templar, and I aim to get it.” She ran across the street, and Simon followed, checking both ways for oncoming traffic.
“Cars come really fast around these curves, you shouldn’t just run across,” he called out, hurrying to the other side. But Abby was too far ahead of him to hear; she had scrambled up the hill and was already lost among the trees.
Simon climbed up after her, plunging in between two small fir trees. It was dark beneath the branches, and his eyes were taking a few seconds to adjust, but even though he couldn’t see Abby, he could hear her crunching over fallen branches and pine boughs. He followed the sound, his pulse racing, his heart swelling. He couldn’t believe that he was here, on a date with a girl as smart, as sweet, as beautiful and magical as Abby, and that she actually seemed to like him. She was playful, she was powerful, and she was fearless. Simon wanted to reach out and take her hands in his hands, to pull her close, to share her warmth. He wanted her to feel his emotions through his skin, to prove that what he felt for her was real. He wanted to sink with her into a mountain clearing, smell the honey-spice smell of her skin, and kiss her in the moonlight, with the city spread out at their feet like a carpet.
He caught up to her at the edge of a clearing, but something was wrong. She wasn’t moving, and she wasn’t smiling anymore. She was standing as stiff as a board, her fingers stiff and curved like talons, her shoulders high and tense.
“Abby?” Simon asked, all of his elation draining from his chest in one slippery motion. It was replaced with the cold, free-fall feeling of unknown dread. “Abby, what—?” But he didn’t finish the question. He didn’t need to.
He saw for himself what had made her freeze.
In the center of the clearing was a circular burn mark of scorched earth. Just like the one the energy column had left behind on the football field.
“No…” Simon whispered.
Abby stepped forward. Against Simon’s protestations, she held out her hand, lowering it over the burn mark in the grass. “Simon,” she said, all the blood draining from her face. “It’s still warm.”
Simon stepped forward and placed his hand over the scorched earth, too. He could indeed feel heat radiating off of the charred grass. “This just happened,” he said, puzzled.
“Probably in the last couple of hours,” Abby replied.
They both stood up and jumped back from the circle, as if the energy column might return at any second.
“How is that possible? We would have seen it! Look where we are, all of Templar would have seen it!”
“Not if they’re not looking,” Abby replied. “We’re miles away from town, and the fog was a lot thicker earlier. We missed it. Everyone missed it.”
The flesh on the back of Simon’s neck prickled to attention. His whole body convulsed in a shiver. “Why would she attack here? In the middle of nowhere?”
The answer came to both of them at the same time, as crystal clear as a window pane.
In perfect unison, they said, “The cars.”
They turned and ran back down the
hill, dodging trees and shoving aside the scratching branches. They burst out onto the road, not stopping to check for traffic this time, and barreled across the street. They ran up to one of the cars, a dark blue Camry with all of its windows covered by a thick coating of steam. “Hey!” Simon called, slapping his hand on the driver’s side window. “Hey!” There was no response from inside the car. He reached down and tried the handle while Abby ran over to the next car and started beating on that car’s windshield. The blue Camry was locked, and Simon moved to the next car, in the opposite direction of Abby, and they knocked on each car they came to, getting more and more desperate, trying every handle and coming up short.
Finally, Abby pulled at the passenger door of a truck parked near the end of the row, and it opened. She gave a short, sharp scream at what she saw inside.
Simon ran over and joined her next to the truck. He looked up into the cab.
There was a girl in the passenger seat. Or what used to be a girl. Now she looked ancient, mummified, her long hair mottled and gray and plastered to the side of her skull. Her skin was yellowy, and stretched taut over her skeletal frame. She wore a St. Gerard High School letterman jacket that had been four or five sizes too big for her before she had withered away; now it draped across her shoulders like a blanket.
In the center of her chest, framed by the burgundy curtains of the jacket, was a circular, black burn mark.
Chapter 11
“All twelve of them?” Virgil asked, his face a pale mask of discomfort.
Virgil, Simon, and Abby were sitting at a corner table in the Dixie Diner, a little coffee-and-pie shop a few blocks from Simon and Virgil’s apartment. Simon was stabbing at a piece of pecan pie with his fork, and Abby was sipping quietly on a cup of decaf. Virgil had ordered a hot chocolate and a slice of apple pie, and even though he was uncomfortable with the story Simon and Abby had relayed to him, he still seemed to manage to stomach the late-night snack fairly well.
“All twelve of them,” Simon confirmed, frowning down at the dark brown mush that his pie had become. “Six cars; two people in each car. Every single one of them shriveled up. Every single one of them with a burn mark on their chest.”