Chapter Two: The Shattering Sky
Jack and Michael, Sawyer and Kate walked all through that day and into the night, as Hugo lagged behind. He ate nothing, barely drank, spoke hardly at all. He also was pretty sure he was beginning to hallucinate. For one thing, there was that big bird which swooped over their group and called out his name. Of course nobody heard it but him. Typical.
Now other birds were talking to Hugo, too. Not that anyone else heard that, either. Flocks of rainbow-colored parrots passed by, showering broken bits of phrases like, "Don't worry," or "Chin up." Songbirds like blue jewels cheeped, "Watch out," saving him a collision with a thick branch.
It could have been worse. Some guys' voices yelled at the, or told them how stupid and worthless they were. That had never happened to Hugo, though. Even when he and his imaginary friend Dave had capered around the Santa Rosa hospital, Dave had always been open and friendly. Some of the guys at Santa Rosa, though, they heard bad stuff, and they suffered for it.
So while twitters from bright little songbirds weren't that bad, it still didn't make Hugo feel any better. Because he was still hallucinating.
Then, in a moment so horrible that even the birds fell silent, Michael admitted to Hugo what he had done to Libby. For a few seconds Hugo didn't care what happened to any of them. He hoped the Others would kill them all. Better than Hugo's cold manic rage of yesterday to return. Better than Hugo squeezing out Michael's last dying breath through a broken airway.
"That's it," Hugo said. "I'm going back to the beach."
He couldn't, Jack argued. The Others already knew they were coming. There was nothing to do but go on.
So, with a soul shot full of novocaine, Hugo followed the group as Michael led them into a narrow valley ringed on both sides with soaring emerald cliffs.
Up ahead, in a clearing surrounded by what the castaways called "feather trees," sat a mound of black-and-white speckled composition books. Not just lying on the ground, either. Instead, the notebooks were stuffed into what looked like plastic bank tubes, the kind you use when you go to the drive-up window.
While Jack, Sawyer, and Michael bickered over how far Michael had led them from the sea-coast, Hugo and Kate inspected the notebooks. Hugo didn't care where the coastline was anymore, because he couldn't have found it on his own anyway.
The men's voices rose in argument, Jack's hard and insistent, Sawyer's loud and blustering. At one point Sawyer reached for his gun. Kate grabbed his hand to stop him, while Hugo turned away. Just because he had lost the desire to throttle Michael didn't mean he was going to stop Sawyer from blowing Michael's head off. He just didn't want to watch.
Over at the tree line, the birds were really shrieking, and now their wild caws and screeches sounded like, It's a trap, a trap.
The argument reached a fever pitch. Jack called Michael a traitor; Sawyer bellowed that Sayid had already known this, and why couldn't Jack-ass just admit it. Kate snapped at both of them to put it back into their pants; this wasn't a pissing contest and what were they going to do about it now? Michael stammered excuses and then fell silent.
It wasn't their shouting which terrified Hugo, though. That he barely heard, because a tidal wave of sound washed over him, drowning out everything else. The overcast sky split down the middle like a torn sheet, and out of that great black rip poured forth a flood of deafening whispers. Then the black hole in the sky broke into thousands of fluttering crow-like things which flew about like bats. And, oh Mother of Mercy, each one had a tiny, scrunched-up human face.
Hugo tore his glance away from the shattering sky to the people around him, who moved in slow motion, like a video being played at half-speed. No one else seemed to see what had happened to the sky as Jack and Sawyer screamed and waved their arms about. Kate flung herself between the two men before they came to blows.
Suddenly, burlap-clad men and women burst out of the dense underbrush nearby. Jack yelled, "Run!" but it was too late. The Others poured out of their hiding places with rifles and worse. The attack had begun.
Darts whizzed through the air, and Kate shouted in pain as she fell convulsing to the short dry grass. Brown-clad people ran at them from all sides, like sleek beautiful animals loping across a savannah.
What drove Hugo to his knees, though, wasn't the Others, but a thick flock of black fluttering shapes which filled the sky. Hugo couldn't believe that everyone else still ran about and fought. Couldn't anyone else see that dense cloud, hear their frantic shrieks?
Apparently they couldn't. Then terror shook Hugo even harder as the black fluttering things cried out in an irresistible chorus. He pressed his hands over his ears and shouted, trying to drown out the overwhelming voices.
The Others picked up Kate, then chased after Sawyer and Jack, while above the clearing the black things continued to flutter. Hugo could swear that they fed off the Other's cold anger and everyone else's terror. The bat-shapes clustered around everyone except for him and a lean, brown-skinned woman in a dark grey head scarf, who stood unmoving and calm at the edge of the fight.
Even though the flapping black things left Hugo alone, their whispers rose louder and louder, until they formed clear words of pure torment.
Elizabeth, the whispers said. Libby. Elizabeth.
The harder Hugo pressed his hands against his ears, the louder and more distinct the voices became. "No," he moaned. No, this isn't happening." He crouched as low as he could, trying to bury his head in his arms. Screwing his eyes tight only made it worse, because then all the black figures came into focus sharper than before, and even behind his closed lids he could see the lime-green phosphorescent outlines of the trees.
A flock of birds took off from the glowing trees. From behind his screwed-shut lids, Hugo saw that they had faces, too, but of beautiful women with skin green as grass. Their eyes glittered fiercely, and their black hair streamed behind them as they dive-bombed the bat-things, chasing them away, into the distant forest tree-tops.
Hugo knew that if he opened his eyes to look across the valley he would see all this and more, and that he would not be able to bear it, because that would prove that he hadn't just popped one gear, he'd stripped them all. Better to hide behind closed lids, and tell himself that this wasnothing but brain chemicals. Just brain chemicals.
But he knew it wasn't.
He collapsed into the grass with a small whimper. The screaming had stopped, but he still heard faint whispers and fragments of the Others as they conferred with each other.
Everything fell silent when a low-pitched woman's voice rang above the rest. Oh, man, he was good as dead, for sure. They had killed everybody, and he was next.
He stiffened, waiting for the gunshot, the blow to the head, and prayed from the bottom of his heart. Please, I'm sorry. For all of it, whatever it was. For wanting to kill Michael. For hurting Ma. For yelling at Dad. Everything. Just don't let it hurt too much.
When a hand touched Hugo's shoulder, he gave a great shudder. No ax-blow came, though. Instead, he felt a gentle touch, like the shake a sister gives her small brother when he's having a nightmare. When Hugo didn't move or open his eyes, the light prodding came again, more insistent.
"Hugo," the low voice said, and this time he opened his eyes into the dark sculpted face of the kerchiefed woman who had stood so calm at the edge of the crowd. She gazed down on him with an unwavering expression of kindness. "Hugo, get up."
(continued)