Twenty Four

bolted out the door and fell to the ground after missing the last step.  Kaitlin scrambled up and ran from the asylum, leaving behind the bracelet Danny had given her, its magnetic clasp sprung from the force of her tumble.

“Come on!” screamed Danny, standing fast and holding out his hand, beckoning desperately to Kaitlin. “They’re right behind us!”

Kaitlin risked a glance back into the darkened hallway of the abandoned state asylum and heard what she feared most: the aching moan of the Lost, the Tormented, the Insatiable.  She knew they must keep running, keep running until the air in their lungs burned and their legs threatened to collapse beneath them.  If they stopped, they would be devoured by the darkness. Forever.

Danny grasped her hand firmly and pulled her along, his stride never faltering. He didn’t look back. He knew what he would see if he did, and he knew it would lead to madness.  He must get them as far from the grounds as possible, and never look back.

But he failed to account for the determination of souls longing for the sweet taste of Life.  They yearned to engulf the two in their icy grasp; Danny and Kaitlin would never leave the grounds.

Twenty Three

So Branches and Francois shambled down the street toward their home. Hopefully Susie and Billie would be waiting, dog biscuits and cat treats at the ready.

Branches looked down at his reluctant friend and said, “You know, kitty…I had an awful lot of fun today!”

Francois stopped, sat down and began to lick his paw. After a moment of quiet he looked up at the big dog and said, “Y’know something? I did too.”

The sun settled into the west as the two companions wandered onto the front lawn of 225 Maple Street. There, sure enough, were Susie and Billie, treats in hand. It was a Good Day.

Twenty Two

The planet spun slowly in an elegant ellipse around the dying sun, the only remaining witnesses possessing neural nets so primitive they would never register the beauty of the dance.

As Petra and her crew shunted their ship across a million paper-thin quantum universes, she fought a loneliness that permeated her being. She had left three of her crew behind; frozen bodies buried in shallow graves, each topped with a marker no one would ever read. She had disobeyed orders which, had she carried them out, would have left more behind.

What troubled her most was what she would do next. Her orders from Starmada were explicit, and if she failed they would cancel not only her life, but those of everyone under her command. Then they would find some other heartless bastard to carry them out anyway.

Safely ensconced in her own quantum universe, she prepared to activate the Superstring Engine; a heinous device which would collapse every other parallel universe to a quantum singularity. Starmada had enough enemies to contend with; they would brook no trouble from elsewhere.

As Petra contemplated the horrific and unforgivable crime against the Universe she was about to commit, a thought presented itself: What if a Petra from another continuum was about to do the same? She smiled quietly to herself, deactivated the Superstring Engine, and reengaged the Shunt Drive.

She may end up dead in another universe, but she didn’t care.

Twenty One

and the clowns!  What the hell were all these clowns doing here?  I just couldn’t look at them.  With every ounce of will I had, I wished them away.  As I’ve told you before, clowns make me itch.  Just the thought of them.  I mean, who the hell goes around in white makeup and baggy pants scaring innocent children at birthday parties?  Psychopaths, that’s who.

I said my goodbyes to Jennifer, patted Sparky on the head, and made my way toward the Valley.  I could only do so much for these people; now it was up to them.  My right arm still hurt from the beating it took, my pants were irreparably torn, and for some godawful reason my left shoe was covered in honey.  I never did find out how that happened.

As I increased the distance between me and the small group gathered outside the Langston Bar & Grille I thought to myself, “This wasn’t such a bad day; not such a bad day at all.”

Then I saw Billy.  Shit.

Twenty

He watched the strangers scud past his building far below, and wailed silently. He would move among them, but never be a part of them. After all he had been through for them, all the pain, all the sorrow, all the triumph, they would never know how his sacrifice had spared them.

Lost. Lost and alone. Lost and alone in a world he must always keep at arm’s length. They shunned him now; if they knew what he truly was, they would destroy him. He loved the world almost as deeply as the woman he had given up to save it, yet would never feel its comforting embrace.

He turned away from the window, lifted his gangly form off the stained, threadbare ottoman and scuffed across the carpet to the kitchen. Mac & cheese. He loved mac & cheese.

Nineteen

and Troy set the wand down at Athenea's feet. He shed a tear for his sister; she had died saving him. She looked as if she were merely sleeping. Luther would never forgive him, but that mattered little right now.

Druelle knelt down beside Troy, placing her arm comfortingly around his shoulder. There had been a time where her touch would have repulsed him; all that had changed. If not for Druelle, none of them would be alive. The tears kept coming, and they would never stop.

Eighteen

crying out, "For the love of God! If you run any slower, you're a dead man!"

Joshua couldn't run any faster. He was an emaciated 57 year old Jew with the remains of his left lung and a kidney ready to shut down should anyone of authority give the word. His heart threatened to rupture, even at this shambling pace, sweat as he had not seen in 30 years drenched his forehead, and spots of light kept flashing in and out of his field of vision. He was a dead man.

Dash pulled to a stop once he saw his boss ready to keel over. Rolling his eyes, hands on his hips, he hurried back to save his life. Grabbing Joshua, he hoisted him up into a fireman's carry, and trotted off through the field.

Coming upon an enormous chestnut tree, Dash grabbed the lowest branch and nimbly gamboled up to the higher ones, Joshua no more bother than a winter scarf. He finally came to light on a wide horizontal branch, barely winded. He looked quite proud of himself, and his face showed his glee.

"Well," he beamed, "At least bears don't climb trees!"

Seventeen

Frederick M. Spalding...why now, of all the times, would that name choose to enter my head? At the top of the Empire State Building in mid-January, no shoes, an appreciable bulge in my left jean jacket pocket (it's so freakin' cold up here!) and a bright yellow umbrella bearing a rather large burn hole near the edge? I feel I've led a good life; I've looked after my friends, been kind to animals, and never killed a soul. That should earn me a little...I don't know...leeway? Maybe...I was never very eloquent in our Mother Tongue. Tongue. Now there's a weird word. Jesus! I think I've lost the feeling in my pinkie toe.

I'm outta here.

But no, I had promised. Me and my stinkin' promises! I wish I could be like the people I'd hidden away from for all those decades. People like...Frederick M. Spalding. Frederick M. Spalding. He is not smiling. His face is smooth behind the oversize glasses. Can you hear me, Frederick? Can you hear me in your dreams forty years ago? Can you hear me whispering in your ear?



GodDAMN, it's cold.

Sixteen

How did I know what she wanted? How could I possibly understand the forces that had driven her to such despair? How could I…? How could I…?

The body of Santo lay at her feet, his face in peaceful repose. His arms were crossed over his chest, his one heel tight against the other. I wasn’t sure what had killed him, but I was sure it wasn’t Leela. She was incapable. Her mind simply would not be able to wrap itself around the very concept of killing. So who?

As it turns out, I never did find out. Leela raised her warm brown eyes and stared deep into my own. I felt the pull of her tormented soul, grasping for life as a drowning man clutches the arm from inside the lifeboat. Why wouldn’t my mind send words to my mouth? Why was I frozen in impotent wonder? I wanted…no, needed…to run to her, to clutch her in his saving arms, to make good all that was torqued inside her.

Then she killed me.

Not with any tangible weapon, but with an almost imperceptible shake of the head. Just once, but enough to feel her spirit release its grip and slip into the icy cold waters. As she turned and left I knew she had committed herself to the depths, and I could not follow her. I could not…

Fifteen

As I look upon what used to be Soupy Sales Fountain and was now a hideous metallic sculpture, I find myself musing about my time in the mediocre town of Huntington, WV, and those items that so affected my brief time here; my iPod, my Roomba, and, of course, my Wii.

The technology severed my connections with the real world, and when I at last returned to that world, I found it profoundly changed. 10 years makes a big difference. When we are away from a place for so long we tend to cement it in our memories; we freeze it in Kodachrome. How ego-centered we are that we believe the world, devoid of our influence, does not change.

When I killed that man just for snoring, I guess in a way I knew it was wrong. But he had it coming. The Law wouldn’t find me, not here. I looked too different, my identity was carefully crafted, and let’s face it: people in West Virginia weren’t the sharpest bulbs in the box. I moved among them like the proverbial fox in the hen house. My only problem was getting used to the goddam accent. It curdled my stomach.

I would lay low, planning my next move as carefully as an architect designing a cathedral. My next kill would be a work of art. Not one of these cow-faced nobodies. They would never appreciate the beauty of what I do. No, it would have to be someone special.

But who?

Fourteen

I was finally in a land of unicorns; a land of yellow horizons. Angels lovely as one could imagine at last looked down upon me and smiled, while dragons thorny and crusted as old barbed wire drew angry circles in the sky, waiting for tacit permission to swoop and burn.

Gone were the cubicles, the blue fluorescent bulbs humming their torturous 60-cycle tune, the insipid Nothing on the other end of the tumorous Blackberry, the smell of mold and chemicals blotting all else out. I may be nothing more than a meat packet, an organic support system for a brain now infected with lesions of wire and crystalline circuitry, but I was free. I was free.

Adelynn may never know what became of me. I hope she doesn’t.