by Lorn, Edward
Bobby, on his haunches, sat in the midst of the glowing green trees, crying until he could cry no more. Finally he stood up and went in search of help.
He’d become so used to the fireflies, he didn’t notice them leading the way.
12
Lucy and Officer Juan Vincenti rode in silence for the first mile or so. Due to the close confines of the squad car, it was revealed to Lucy that Officer Juan had a horrible habit of sucking at his teeth and a tremendous case of ass breath. Whenever she glanced in his direction, he’d look at her, smile, and then return his eyes to the road. A smile on Juan’s Elephant-Man-shaped noggin was a marvel of modern science. Only one side of the mouth rose. The other side, however, drifted down the chin, melting like a wax figure in an inferno. The dented nose crinkled as if its radar had picked up on a foul odor, and for a moment Lucy considered the possibility that, in her anxiety, she might have unknowingly crop-dusted her panties. When she realized that all this was simply the way Officer Juan showed contentment, or at the very least social awkwardness, Lucy let out an audible sigh of relief.
“I’m sure your friend is okay,” said Officer Juan.
“I’m not holding out a lot of hope for that outcome,” Lucy said. “I’m sure that what I saw on that door handle was blood.”
“You don’ think he cut himself and had to run to the truck to get a first aid kit?”
“He’s been gone at least five hours now. If a cut is holding him up, he must be performing major surgery to fix himself. Besides, he has a rook with him. I didn’t see the new guy out there either. Neither one of them answered me when I called.”
Trees rushed past with the cinematic flicker of driving past a picket fence at high speed. Here and there, Lucy saw dots of light—the eyes of nocturnal animals hunting, or fireflies seeking mates. Lucy had once watched a show on Animal Planet wherein the narrator informed the audience at home that California had eighteen varieties of fireflies. This sounded like an astounding number to Lucy until the narrator revealed that, in comparison to Florida’s fifty-plus species and the estimated twenty-two-thousand-plus species worldwide, California’s population of creatures with strobe lights in their asses was sorely lacking.
The headlights shot cones of illumination twenty yards ahead of the squad car. Lucy watched the cracked and pothole-infested road change from asphalt to gravel, and then gravel to dirt. Officer Juan dropped his speed significantly, and a glance at the speedometer showed Lucy they were barely hovering over twenty miles per hour. They rounded a curve and the chain link fencing of Palomar Observatory came into view, as did the chrome bumper of Chaz’s park-issue Ford Ranger.
“Tha’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“All this time and it’s not moved. Doesn’ seem good, does it?
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Pee-Wee Herman has a new movie coming out.”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Officer Juan parked behind the pickup, threw the shifter into park, and gruntingly exited the car. When he was out, he twisted and ducked back into the car. “You better stay here.”
“Yeah. You know what? I’d rather not. If someone’s out here, and they’ve done harm to my coworkers, I’d rather not be next on their hit list, if you see where I’m coming from. I’ve lived this long, and I intend to live a bit longer, if it’s anything to you.”
“Figured a locked police car would be the safest place for you.”
“Sure thing. Leave me your gun, and I’ll be happy to stay in the police-cruiser equivalent of a fucking shark tank.”
“You’re a firecracker, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question. Without another word, Officer Juan backed out of the open driver’s side door.
When Lucy got out of her side, she heard him calling in to police headquarters, updating them on his course of action. A deep male voice responded, giving him the go ahead and offering back up, should he need it.
“Roger,” Officer Juan said, and his hand fell away from the radio on his shoulder.
Lucy sidestepped between the front of the cruiser and the rear of the Ford Ranger to reach Officer Juan. Together they surveyed the rusty brown substance caked on the truck’s door handle.
Lucy could smell it again—old blood. But this time she didn’t think the odor was coming from the handle. It was much too strong a scent for such a small amount of blood.
“Wha’s supposed to hang there?” Officer Juan asked as he shone his MagLite through the driver’s side window, into the cab of the truck, and out through the back window.
Two L-shaped brackets, like a gun mount, were spaced about two feet apart and attached to the window suction cups. Chaz had complained about the crappy suction cups numerous times, and Lucy could still see the goopy leavings of the super glue he’d used to permanently anchor the brackets to the window. What normally hung from those brackets was currently missing in action. Lucy’s stomach dropped twelve stories into the basement of her bowels.
“Chaz kept a machete there.”
Officer Juan only nodded.
The officer swept the heavy duty flashlight around and forward, assessing the entrance to the observatory.
“Maybe a stupid question, but is that door supposed to be open?”
Lucy shook her head. She quickly realized he could neither see her behind him nor hear her head shaking, so she said, “No. It’s to remain locked at all times unless inhabited.”
Officer Juan engaged his radio. “Patrol two-two to Dispatch.”
“Patrol two-two, go ahead.”
“Be advised, I have a possible four-fifty-nine in progress.”
“Understood, Patrol two-two. Are you in need of backup?”
“Not at this time, over.”
“Over and out.”
Lucy waited until Officer Juan took a step forward before she asked, “What’s a four-fifty-nine in progress?”
“Burglary. It was the best I could do righ’ now. Oddly enough, we don’ have a simple breaking and entering code ou’ here in the moun’ains.” He shrugged. “Don’ get a lot of vandals in Pauma Valley.”
Lucy didn’t comment.
13
Tony ran his hands over the nearest vertical surface, which was colored lime green by the glowing pool at his back. The walls were damp and made of smooth rock. He surmised that he was in a cave. Somehow, he’d been transported to this cold, wet place. Teleported like something in a science fiction movie. But how? And by whom?
Not a who.
A what.
Tony spun on his heel. His mind replayed the last few minutes. He and Bobby running through the woods. Him collapsing. Bobby telling him that they needed to get back to the waterfall because the green fireflies were... Were what? Fuck. He couldn’t remember.
Tony crushed his palms into his temples and struggled to recall what Bobby had said.
They had to get back to the waterfall because…
Because what, goddamn it!
Because the bugs were following them?
Close but no cigar.
Because the bugs were chasing them?
No.
Wait…
Because the bugs were leading the creature to them?
Yes! That was it.
Still, that information didn’t help him now. He focused on the present situation. He’d seen something disappear into the pool. He’d only seen it from the corner of his eye, but he hazarded a guess that it was the same butt-ugly fucker that had snatched him up into the tree: big, swinging sandbag titties; a bean bag for a belly; a slightly-human, slightly-Wicked-Witch-of-the-West face, but far more hideous and more gray than green; four extra appendages sprouting from its back, each one tipped with a green light bulb. Definitely butt ugly.
Okay. Staying here would be the stupidest thing he could do. It was time to gather his thoughts and find his way out of this cluster-mug and back to Bobby. First he needed to find a way out of this cave.
The pool was to Tony’s right.
He had curved rock walls to his front and back. To his right, the green glow the pool gave off died in total darkness about twenty feet from where he stood. Nothing but quiet darkness beyond. As much as Tony didn’t want to admit it, he was almost certain the dark was the way out.
He took a tentative step in the direction of the darkness. He stopped. Glanced around. Nothing moved. He half expected the creature with the sandbag titties to explode from the pool, but the surface remained still.
He took another step.
And another.
His neck strained as he tried to both move away from but not take his eyes off the pool.
Silence.
No movement on the surface of the emerald water.
Three more steps in rapid succession.
He allowed himself to begin walking. Walking changed into jogging. Jogging became running.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tony knew that he should be in the dark by now, that the glow of the pool should not have stretched this far, but on he ran, until he tripped over an outcropping of rock and went sprawling. The rough floor of the cave shredded his hands. He rolled over onto his back, screeching in pain and clutching his hands to his chest. His knees where he’d landed on them pulsed with a dull heat, but they were a lesser matter, a pain behind the pain of his hands.
Several moments passed before Tony could compose himself. He raised both of his raw hands to eye level and assessed the damage. His left hand was slightly abraded. Tiny gems of blood dotted his palm, sparkling black in the glow coming from the walls around him. His other hand was another story. A horror story.
The flesh of his right palm was torn open from the middle finger to the wrist. The cut was deep enough that Tony could see white beneath the angry red of muscle and dripping blood. He didn’t want to believe that the white was bone, but he knew it to be true.
The cave came alive with the sudden grinding of a blender set to mix. Tony was torn between nursing his shredded palm and slapping his hands to his ears. He ground his teeth together, willing his ears to close by sheer force of willpower.
The sound lessened.
Then it brightened.
Dissipated.
Returned.
Rose and fell like a breathing thing.
“Leave me alone!” he screamed.
Something screamed back.
The walls began to move. All around him, the green fireflies fluttered away from the inside of the cave. They swirled before him. Encircled his head. Their dark bodies twisted and turned inside their eerie green glow like erotic dancers performing behind a lighted veil. They were all at once awful and fascinating. Each thin, emaciated body showed prominent ribs and jutting pelvises. Between each pair of legs dangled tiny penises; some erect, some flaccid, each one as thin as a toothpick.
Earlier in the evening, when the green bugs had first appeared, Tony had assumed that these creatures were like fireflies, that their hind ends were the source of their light, but that was not the case. The glow came off the wings.
And that glow was tangible.
It carried weight.
Like dust.
Like fairy dust.
A fairy—for lack of a better word—drifted down onto Tony’s pants leg. It flapped its wings, slowly but with great effort, and lime-colored dust floated down onto his jeans. The creature buzzed away as quickly as it had come.
In his stunned amazement, Tony reached out and ran a finger through the accumulated dust. It was soft. Warm. For a moment, his injured right hand, which was smashed against his already blood-soaked shirt, was forgotten; the pain of it a distant memory as he gazed upon the shimmering dust on the tip of his finger.
A distorted shape moved into the blurred distance beyond his finger. The thin figure lingered just out of focus, swaying. The camera of Tony’s eyes could not zoom in on it. Instead, his gaze locked on his green-tipped finger. The shape ahead of him fanned out, and in that moment Tony had total recall.
Bobby had said the creature in the woods, the one with the four extra appendages on its back, looked like a hand. And it did. But the fingers were out of order. They went, from left to right: pinkie, ring, thumb, middle, and index. Because the creature was only a blurry darkness wavering beyond his dusted finger, Tony could only guess that the short, centered thumb was actually the creature’s head. The legs dove downward like a wrist, and even when they scissored open, they resembled a forearm more than extra fingers. The effect was odd. It made Tony’s head spin.
Without taking his eyes off his own finger, he asked his hand, “What do you want?”
I grow old and tired.
The voice was a thought, a whisper, but at the sound of it, Tony’s head thrummed like a plucked string as if the voice were a thousand times amplified.
I cannot train another.
“Huh? Wha’?” Tony mumbled.
My children suffer.
“Children?” Tony asked, drunk on something more than fear and not entirely hating the feeling.
They hunger.
“Why don’t you feed them?” Tony couldn’t be sure he’d even said the words. For a second, they might have simply been a thought, but then the voice answered him.
I cannot. But you can.
Tony realized that the voice he heard sounded an awful lot like his own, he pulled his torn hand away from his chest and offered it to the swirling creatures with the skeletal bodies and glowing wings. One alighted on his hand. It pulled at the torn flap of flesh on his ragged palm as if waiting for someone to sweep something under a rug. It bit down on the ragged skin. Its head snapped back and forth and snatched a small hunk of flesh away. Its small mouth smacked and the little thing gave Tony a rictus grin.
“Hey, little guy,” Tony breathed. His head felt full to the brim of vibrating bugs, but the feeling was not entirely unpleasant. He likened it to a trip to the dentist, when the pretty lady with the charcoal-colored hair and jade eyes placed a mask over his face and told him to breathe deeply. Tony breathed deeply and the fuzzy vibrating increased.
The first creature flitted away and another landed on his ravaged hand. It dropped to all fours and the talons on its feet and hands dug into the soft meat of Tony’s wrist. It crawled tentatively forward—a hungry stray sneaking a meal from a rubbish bin.
One creature became two. Two became five. Five grew to ten. And then Tony’s entire hand was covered in tiny feasting creatures.
Tony lost time after that. He was vaguely aware of a distant tugging. Then he was on his back and watching the glowing creatures capering on the ceiling of the cave. A comforting warmth came over him and everything became green. All things emerald and sparkling. And he was Dorothy. And he had arrived. And the Wizard would see him now.
For a moment, Tony could not breathe. His mouth was full of a substance the thickness and texture of clotted cream. The substance filled his lungs. Bubbles rose from his mouth as the last of his air fled him. He was descending, suffocating, but really couldn’t be bothered with drowning. He was removed from it all—a passenger in his own car as it plummeted, driverless, to the bottom of an endless green ocean.
As his oxygen deprived body convulsed, the hand-shaped creature floated around and into view.
Black dots appeared and burst in Tony’s vision.
The creature folded in on itself and grabbed each foot in a long-fingered hand.
Tony bucked and sucked in more heavy green fluid. Though his body was frantically trying to draw breath, his mind continued not to care.
From between the creature’s stick-figure legs burst forth a cloud of what seemed to be black ink. From this inky cloud swam hundreds of tiny beings the same shape as the fairies from the forest, but much, much smaller.
As Tony died, he realized that what he was witnessing was a spectacle seen by none other. Proof of God personified in each little swimming, winged creature. A true miracle.
The miracle of birth.
14
Lucy followed Officer Juan into the pi
tch black of the observatory. The policeman had his service piece out; both gun and flashlight lead the way.
The smell of old blood was much stronger here. The air was thick with it. Lucy had a hard time drawing breath without gagging.
Officer and park ranger passed the podium in the foyer. Lucy didn’t have to read the plaque to know what was written upon it. She’d been here over a thousand times in her decades-spanning career with California Parks and Rec. Not to mention, her Peter had been a researcher here. She could clearly recall bringing bagged meals—one for him, one for her—during her lunch breaks. They’d sit under the Hale telescope, eat and chat. But now, surrounded by the heavy aroma of blood, she couldn’t imagine having an appetite ever again.
They found the bodies in the machine room, where the lab rats responsible for this observatory kept all their spare equipment. Both Chaz and the new guy (thinking of him as “the new guy” seemed careless and rude now, but that didn’t change the fact that she couldn’t remember the man’s name) lay in pieces.
No, that wasn’t quite right. Saying they lay in pieces denoted there were pieces to be found. This? This was nothing but bloody torsos devoid of appendages.
While Officer Juan vomited in a dark corner, Lucy stood in the doorway to the machine room and surveyed the scene for clues. She expected bloody writing on the walls, some kind of note etched into the victim’s flesh, but there was nothing. Not so much as a “STAY AWAY!” was scribbled on the floor. Wasn’t that how all the crime scenes in detective novels went? Wasn’t there always a message behind such a horrible slaughter of human life? To think that someone had done this to poor Chaz without reason or need for attention seemed hideous to Lucy. She wanted a reason, goddamn it.