by JM HART
He watched Terry’s hand lift to his own face, rubbing his eyebrows, concerned. He was trying to comprehend what had happened.
Terry brought his hand back down and patted Casey gently on his back, and asked him if he was all right. “What happened pal?”
Casey’s torch was lying on the ground, shining down the right-hand tunnel; he thought he saw something move. He turned away and looked at Terry. He didn’t know what to tell him. He probably thinks I’m crazy anyway. That’s not fair, Terry’s not like that, he has always been there for me. What the heck. “It belonged to a young servant girl, the bone. Her arm was dislocated, ripped out of its socket. She was malnourished, her bones were frail. She was beaten and kicked to death because she was pregnant with her master’s child.” Casey watched Terry’s jaw drop. He didn’t blink but he shivered, and Casey could see his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.
Terry looked back towards the bone, then back at Casey, and studied his face. “How, how do you know this?”
“I don’t know. It has never happened like that before.”
“What has happened before?”
“You know, how like, when we were getting supplies at the baby store and I told you not to open the storage door. You did and the wolves were — well, you know. And then like, the book I gave you.”
“I thought you were just having a lend with the book, and I thought you must have heard something in the storage room that made you cautious. I don’t know much about this sort of stuff. Sorry, pal, Amy will know what to say. Hang on, does that mean we are really having twins? Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
Casey could see Terry was confused, but he didn’t see any look of sneering judgement that an adult has when they think a kid is lying. He could see the worry in his eyes, his teeth clenched, thinking hard. Terry hauled him to his feet and dusted him off and Casey felt the man’s strength and his need to protect Casey. He had never known his father, but he imagined him to be just like Terry. If Terry could’ve carried him, without embarrassing Casey, he would have. Instead, he looked down at Casey’s feet making sure they were both planted firmly on the ground.
“Let’s get you out of here to die another day.”
Casey had to smile. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”
“Uh huh. You right to walk?”
“Yeah.” He held Terry’s gaze, then at the corner of his eye he saw movement coming from the left passage and his eyes opened wide.
“What?” Terry said.
Casey leant closer and whispered. Terry bent down to hear. “We’re not alone.”
“The servant girl?” Terry whispered.
“No, don’t turn, let’s just go.”
Terry picked up Casey’s torch and handed it to him. Scared, they both acted as casually as possible, walking back the way they had come, trying to be rational and not run. Ducking through the entrance, back into the basement, they quickly dragged the old trunks across the floor and stacked them against the opening. They moved at a fast pace and raced up the stairs to the kitchen, locking the door behind them.
*
Amy was sitting in the sunroom on a daybed. Even though the windows were boarded up, her head was tilted towards them, as if the sun was shining and warming her face. Sensing she was no longer alone, she opened her eyes. It took her a moment to focus and they stood silently. She looked to Casey like someone had just walked over her grave. Casey started to feel sick, bile rising into his throat. He felt himself go pale and gagged.
Amy jumped up. “Sit down,” she said. She pulled him towards her and sat him down on the edge of the daybed.
His foot struck her book. He nearly tripped, accidentally kicking it open. “Sorry,” he said as he continued to gag.
“Lean forward, put your elbows on your knees and your head in your hands, take slow breaths.”
Casey did as she suggested. As he cast his eyes down they locked with the different letters of the open book. His mouth tasted of blood and he coughed violently, needing to spit. Amy passed him a tissue and he wiped his mouth, expecting it to be red with blood, so he was surprised when it wasn’t.
“What happened to you guys, Terry?” She breathed out slowly as if she had been holding her breath. “Guys, someone has to let me in,” she said.
Terry fetched two glasses of water, gave one to Casey and sat beside him. Amy was pacing the room. “What happened, what’s wrong? Are both of you going to just sit there and say nothing? I know something’s not right.”
Terry sat back against the sofa to lift his head towards the ceiling and then dropped it down, stretching it and rubbing his neck. “You’d better sit down,” he said. He then proceeded to describe the events as best he could, although it sounded strange. Casey spoke up to explain what he had experienced and Amy’s faced was mapped with confusion. She stood and paced up and down the room trying to comprehend what Terry had said. “Casey! You had a vision of a young woman’s death by touching a bone that was centuries old?”
She looks worried. Casey could see her thinking, while he sat quietly on the lounge studying her face wondering what she was going to do. Surely they weren’t going to keep him around once the twins were born; he was too creepy. They were probably regretting adopting him, and once the world got back to normal they would almost certainly send him to boarding school. Out of the corner of his eye, Casey saw a mist of energy move from the shadows and float into the hallway and up the stairs. The floorboard at the top of the landing sighed under some phantom weight, and they all looked in that direction, waiting, but there was only silence. Different smells wafted into the room, some pleasant, some not so. Amy looked like she was trying to focus on something that was hovering just out of sight. When the wind stirred outside, the windows behind the boards began to rattle.
“It’s a tornado!” Terry yelled.
“They don’t have tornadoes here!” Amy yelled back. The sound got louder as if a thousand pebbles were being pelted against the house.
Casey and Terry were on their feet and Amy was coming towards them. Casey witnessed the room fill with apparitions. Making a run for it, Amy scooped up her book from near Casey’s feet and a circle of light radiated from the book, concealing them. Amy, Terry and Casey disappeared, becoming ghosts. Huddled together in the gentle whirlwind they saw people forming silhouettes, then colorful auras, and clothing from different time periods, moving around as if they belonged. A young woman sat in the side chair across the room and a man opposite her was smoking a pipe, the smell of tobacco filling the room. They talked and laughed casually.
“That couple are from the photo in the basement,” Amy whispered.
Some of the ghosts look confused and lost, Casey thought. An old man kept repeating his movements, taking a book off the shelf and putting it back, taking it off the shelf and putting it back. A woman in a long black maid’s dress with a white cotton apron walked into the room, seized the doorknob and walked backwards and closed the door. The door flung open by itself. The maid again walked into the room, seized the door handle, and walked backwards out of the room to close it.
“Those ones are just memories,” he said pointing to the bookcase. “The people that keep repeating themselves are emotional memories. There is no stream of consciousness,” he said.
“How do you know that?” Amy said.
He spoke in a low voice so as not to attract attention. “It took me a while to work it out, but after the river and my mom I thought I was a complete basket case. Take the flight over, for instance. You felt sick, right?” He looked at Terry, desperate for him to understand. “What you felt was the emotional memory of the person in that seat on the flight before you. It was his fear, his emotional energy he left behind. Like an imprint of a sweaty palm on a bench, or footprints in the sand. You’re sensitive, Terry; receptive to other people’s feelings. See that one by the kitchen doorway, not moving; the one with a beard and a frown, well that one is a lost soul, and he thinks he’s still alive.”
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br /> The windows stopped rattling, the projectiles against the house had ceased, and the apparitions flickered in and out, like a lost signal, a fading hologram. “The thing I don’t understand is why I haven’t seen my mom.” Suddenly the room seemed vast as the apparitions vacated the space and went back into their reality. Casey stepped forward and the surrounding light disappeared. He looked back at Terry and Amy, scanning for a hint of what they might be thinking.
“They’re gone but …” Terry said, “… it feels like they’re still here.”
“I feel it too,” Amy said.
“That’s because they are, we just can’t see them any more. They’re in between the two worlds, ours and beyond.”
“What two worlds?” Terry asked, following Casey into the kitchen.
Casey went to the back door and called for the dog. She didn’t come. He called again, she still didn’t come. The ground was littered with insects and they were embedded in the door.
Terry knocked them off the door and brushed them back outside. Casey and Terry circled the property, checking the house for damage while calling for the dog.
“She probably sensed the storm and took off for shelter,” Terry said. “She’ll come back. Don’t worry about the dog. She will be all right.”
They stepped into the kitchen and Amy pulled her cardigan tight, as if a chill had passed over her body. “Close the door, Casey. We can’t go anywhere, we have to stay here.”
The thought of staying was terrifying to Casey, but the idea of leaving was worse. There was no hiding.
“Who’s hungry?” Terry said.
Casey watched Terry rub his hands together and pull out pots and pans. Cooking was Terry’s way of dealing with stress. The conversation about what had happened and what they saw was over. To be fair, they were handling it better than any adult he could think of. But he still didn’t know what they thought about him being able to see beyond this world. He wanted to show them what else he could do. How he controlled the flow of energy, whether it was the lights, Amy’s hairdryer, the stove or the car.
Amy stood next to the old wood-burning fireplace and watched Terry get the gas stove going. She moved towards him and held his arms softly, and turned off the gas. “I couldn’t think of eating now. I can’t believe what I just saw. We have to talk and Casey —”
She sat at the old wooden kitchen table and studied her fingers and nails. Terry hadn’t moved. She turned to Casey. “What else do you see?” she asked him. “Do we survive this?”
Casey saw her eyes glaze over. “Amy, you’re scaring me.” He had never seen her look vacant, but Terry had and was scared too. Terry sat beside Amy to slowly rub her back. Casey leant against the sink and crossed his arms.
With tenderness, Terry said to Amy, “Look at me. Look at me, Amy.”
She didn’t take her eyes off Casey and said, in a robotic tone, “I know you can see things, Casey, and I want you to talk to me, I do. I want to help you make sense of what is happening to you. But the truth is, I don’t really understand. It is so overwhelming, I don’t know how to help you.”
Casey had never seen Amy as anything but a tower of strength. He searched within himself for the right words to lift her from this dark place she inhabited. She moved slowly, like she was caught in mud, and it was encasing her. What could he say? He opened his mouth and let the first thing come out. “People have died and people are going to die. Maybe we all die tomorrow, I don’t know. What I know is my friend Sophia is real and she is coming. Whatever happens, it will be the right thing.”
Amy tumbled into the black hole. She said condescendingly, with a slight tilt of her head, “Your friend Sophia is a figment of your imagination. You conjured her up after your mother died so you wouldn’t be alone. I get it. At best, after today your friend Sophia may be a ghost. I’ll give you that.”
Casey had wondered about it himself from time to time, thinking maybe Sophia was a ghost, or part of his own creation. “She is real, Amy. I thought that you of all people believed me.”
“I believe you are emotionally sensitive and caring. Like when you took hold of that little kid’s hoodie, seconds before he stepped in front of the car. His mother should have been holding his hand, and you knew that, and that’s why you held him back. No other reason. Not that you saw the car before it came, or that he was about to step in front of the car, but that you were aware he was not being cared for by his mother, because you were missing your mom, and you are emotionally sensitive.”
“I can’t believe you, Amy. That’s a load of crap, and you know it!” Casey’s head started to hurt, his throat felt tight. His hands gripped his head, trying to stop the pain. “So that’s what you thought,” he yelled. “And you pity me.” Shocked, Casey felt his energy as a river that dragged him to its murky depths which then surged up and pumped through his veins. The kitchen lights started to flicker and the bulb overhead blew. Amy and Terry jumped out of the way as the shards of glass fell on the table.
Casey pulled the back door open and ran outside.
“Casey, stop,” Terry yelled after him. “Casey, where are you going? Come back.
Amy, stay inside and shut the door behind me.”
Terry saw Casey pass the barn and as he did the car and motorbike roared into life. Terry, confused, didn’t know if he should stop and turn them off, or keep chasing Casey into the woods.
Tears blurring his vision, Casey tripped. He never realized Amy pitied him. All this time she was just humoring him. He couldn’t believe it. He screamed and released his anger into the forest. The crows took flight and sticks and leaves started swirling around his feet, moving up and outward. The debris around him spiraled faster and faster. He didn’t see how dangerous and out of control his behavior had become. A bad smell hung in the forest, the same smell that was in the house, but Casey was blind to his environment as he pushed his energy further and further away from him. He pounded his fist into the trunk of a tree and a shock wave vibrated into the ground, lifting the soil. It rocked fear into Casey.
Terry watched amazed at the growing force and chaos. He was worried Casey was going to get hurt unless he got himself under control. “Casey!” he called out. Terry hid behind his forearm, protecting his head and face and pushed through Casey’s personal cyclone.
Casey faced Terry. A flying branch hit Terry on the side of the head, knocking him down. Casey heard the dog bark in the distance and everything went still, hovered in mid-air, and dropped. Casey felt electrified and exhausted. Then his senses focused on Terry and, horrified, he ran to Terry’s side. He had never lost control in this way before, never hurt anyone. He had never wielded such power. He had felt detached and it terrified him. He bent over and brought up his lunch. Sophia was right — he had more power than he ever would have believed and he couldn’t handle such power. He wiped his mouth and slid down by Terry’s side and started crying. Terry wasn’t moving. “I’m so sorry, Terry, please, Terry, I am so sorry. Please, please wake up.” The dog and Amy came running.
“I am so sorry, Amy. Please wake him up.” Amy was quick to act. She checked his breathing, running her hands along the top of his head. “He’s got a bit of a gash just above his ear.”
Casey sniffed back the tears, and nodded.
Amy resumed checking Terry’s body from head to toe. “He’ll be alright, Casey,” she said. “He’ll have a big lump on his head and a massive headache, but he will be okay. I’m sorry about before,” she said. “You are my first child, and you’re hardly a child. I have only had a year to get to know you and how to be a parent. I love you, Casey. This is very new to me and I handled it poorly. I am frightened, and I am sorry I hurt you. I saw what you just did and we will help you. You will learn to control it, or shut it down.” Amy wrapped her arms around him and he dropped his head onto her shoulder and cried.
All the pain over the past year came flooding back. Terry started to stir and sit up. He gently placed his hand on Casey’s arm. Casey felt the touch and
lifted his head from Amy’s shoulder to see Terry smiling at him.
“My head feels like it’s being squeezed like a ripe tomato. And since I’m the one that was knocked out here, what about saving some of that loving for me?” Terry said in a mock-dejected voice. Casey let go of Amy and threw himself at Terry.
The dog started to bark at the sky. They followed its gaze and saw the dense metallic cloud that appeared to be made up of tiny winged creatures swarming, moving like a snake with purpose, towards them. They hadn’t noticed the sky turning charcoal, or that everything around them had darkened into shadows. An intense sickly smell was getting stronger.
“This isn’t good,” Casey said. “I think I attracted them.”
Amy and Terry in unison asked, “How?”
Casey and Amy helped Terry to his feet. “Negative energy. I think it’s the virus.” They started running back towards the house, the dog leading the way. The beastly swarm came closer. The air thickened.
Inside, Terry dragged the table across the floor to jam it against the closed door. All the windows simultaneously started to rattle, and the wind whistled between the cracks. There was a crashing sound in the living room. Casey ran towards it and as he stepped into the living room, the boards against the windows moaned and distorted, bowed and splintered, yielding to the force of the wind. The windows erupted, the boards went flying. The stench magnified, and the swarm entered the room. It stopped, searching; it rippled like the movement of wind on the surface of a lake. It banked left towards Casey; it wasn’t random they were heading straight for him. Amy grabbed his arm and dragged him back into the kitchen. Terry was right behind them, leaping down the basement stairs. The dog, thinking way ahead of them, barked at where the hole had been blocked.
“You’re right, what choice do we have?” Terry said to the dog.
“Give me a hand, Casey.” Terry’s head pounded, trying to push the cases away to uncover the hole.