Hollow – chpt 4.
by: J.A. Carlton.
No Don't!... he heard inside his head. With his ears however, he heard the gasp that rushed from his throat. He looked around quickly, his eyes seeing so much more than the drugs had let him know was there. He caught sight of the little gray-black wisp gliding out of the room and knew it had been feeding on him. The trouble was he couldn't remember what it might have been feeding on precisely. He'd had a bad dream, that much was certain, he was trapped in a blue world peppered with limbs and person pieces like a bad blend of Dali done in Warhol's vivid colors with a splash of Pollock's anarchy just for fun. A tremor shook him and he wrapped himself tightly into his blankets wondering how long it'd been since his last shot and how much longer before he was due for his next one.
I wonder why I'm so clear headed? I haven't felt this lucid in a long time… how long have I been in here? and more importantly… have I been outside yet today? he wondered. The memory of daily excursions outside into the sunshine was clear and warming to him. This of course was dependent upon the weather. I have to get out of here…but I can't let them drug me anymore… how am I going to get them to stop it without fighting? and if I fight they're just going to up the dose… and… no please not that anymore… he could feel the fiery numbness that lasted for an unknown and interminable amount of time after shock therapy sessions. He hadn't had one in a long time and that was a true blessing, nor did he want to go through it again. He closed his eyes and thought hard, trying with everything he had to remember what had been going through his mind when the nurse last came in to give him the poison that kept him malleable.
As he wondered grasping for the information, the images he hoped would help him ward off the effects of his next medication he began to drift back to sleep, deep into the blue world where he felt himself comfortably hidden in the depths of a different consciousness, buried deep in the body of a woman he thought he might know, or might have known once. Or maybe it was just in a dream that he knew her. Still, it was better than being prisoner in this asylum.
--
Something's not right here…yeah you keep saying this but what can be right about limbs scattered like leaves? I don't want to see this… she acknowledged but walked toward one of the limbs in the street, it looked like it had been run over by a truck, in fact she could almost see tire tracks in the flesh and her brow furrowed. This is sooo weird… she looked around, the city, its buildings, its sidewalks and streets, the lamps, trashcans, everything right down to the parking meters all looked like they should, aside from the blue of course… No! Your blueness… she thought wishing she was on her couch watching the blue meanies trying to take over Pepperland… but there's no vehicles… nothing parked, no busses, trains, trucks… not even a single stinking bicycle! and yet… yeah… I can almost see the tread marks in the skin… thank God for forensic shows! and she looked around for something to get hold of the limb with, a piece of newspaper or something. She looked down wondering if some clothing had materialized yet and caught a glimpse of something shiny against her skin. What the hell? she wondered and realized her belly button was pierced and had a really cool… thingy…decorating it. Yeah cause I'm so the belly button piercing kind… it is pretty cool though… maybe I should get mine pierced when I wake up… huh… nah… but other than that she was still naked.
Ah to hell with it… it's just a dream anyway… I think…she thought grimacing and biting hard on her bottom lip as she grasped the limb by the spongy and fresh fleshiness of the hand, wrapping her fingers around it and lifting it off the ground. There was a strange 'scheeoup' feeling more than sound that moved through her as she pried it from the blue tarmac and felt the skin peeling away, Eew, ew, eeewwwWHA! she moaned inside but soon she was holding the limb and long habit forced her to get off the street, well long habit and the sight of tread marks despite the lack of motor vehicles present, Something ran this over, she felt wet splash against her leg and looked down to see vivid rose red running out of the elbow portion of the limb, some splashing on her leg.
She shifted her grip and held it further away from her while trying to get a better look, but with everything the same color, detail was hard to come by. Gritting her teeth she ran her hand over the extremity and nodded confirming what she knew. The arm was covered in thick wooly hair and yet it was substantially smaller than her own. One of the wee people? Are these Wee people parts? How? Why? and an even more disturbing thought came to her then, What if I'm not dreaming per se… what if I'm in the Wee People's world? They've never really let me look at them before, none of them has ever stopped and got my attention through stillness…what if…oh God what if something is terribly wrong here? What if this IS their world? What could I do? This is… she felt her heartbeat picking up in her chest and her breath coming short in her throat as blue started to creep up her hands from her fingertips, spreading slowly along the extremities of her skin toward her core.
In the pit of her belly she could sense the truth though she couldn't bring herself to face it just yet. Something was horribly wrong in this world and they were crying out for the one person they knew could see them. They needed help but she had no idea what she could do, if anything. This is too big… that can't be right… it's a dream, that's all… I have to be wrong, PLEASE I HAVE to be wrong…what if I'm right? What if there's something in their world… God only knows what these things can do… if the demons can steal souls and…animate dead bodies… who's to say these guys can't…I don't know…NO… No! I won't let it! It can't mean that if I don't want it to… but she knew she was trying to fool herself.
In this angled perspective on reality she could feel her head shaking, this was too big for her to handle. If she was right she needed information, she needed to know about this world of theirs, this extra dimension and if there was something that had caused this horrible rain of parts, "I can't!" she felt her mouth call out and sat bolt up right in her bed clutching the sheets to her chest, her eyes delving deep into dark brown pools of liquid sadness. She gasped and jerked backward but to her amazement, the wee one stood his ground on her bed and this time did not flee.
"Uhh… no…" she pleaded in a small voice while shaking her head though her eyes were filling with tears.
Even in the darkness she could see his eyes were also full, communicating his heart rending sadness in the most universal of ways. He opened his mouth and she thought she heard the sound of rushing water, then he closed it again and looked around the bed, his gaze on the floor, making Alex look even though a split second before she did, she knew what she'd see.
Oh my God… they're really here… she could see half a dozen of the wee people and though every nerve was stretched as tight as it could go, she felt herself stiffen and become completely unable to move though not from anything they might have done as they climbed lithely onto her bed and stood before her. Their expressions belied their pain. Her instincts had been right. Something in their world had gone horribly wrong and they needed help.
"But I can't do anything… I don't know the first thing about your world! Beside that it's blue!... I'm not a fighter… and honestly… you guys know me well enough… I'm a chickenshit!..." she protested but cocked her head to the side as the one she figured was the leader came forward, a plea for his people plain to see.
Alex caved.
"We're gonna have to find a way to communicate cause that… rushing water thing you do… that doesn't cut it… but you understand me don't you?" she asked.
He nodded once and all around her, the murmur of a thick stream filled her bedroom as the others seemed to communicate their relief and, she sensed a kind of faith in her. Oh man… what if I let them down? They need a hero, not a…a…tin man…
--
"…well can you draw it?" she asked and demonstrated by drawing a smiley face on the corner of a piece of paper. So far they hadn't been having much luck, the wee leader was trying hard. They'd spent at least the last two hours online looking at sketches and renderings of mythical creatures, devils and demons in the hopes of finding the one that had perpetrated such a horrible massacre on his people. Unfortunately none of the images they'd found were ones that were familiar to him, and Alex came to understand that part of the problem was that most of these things were never locked into a standard appearance, though in many cases they apparently did have favorite ones they assumed.
The Wee leader got the point but frowned upon picking up the pencil. He called to one of the others who were all sifting through the books on her dining table. She was impressed with the care they took, and respect they showed to the tomes she'd collected over the years. On the dining table stood rows and rows of hard to find copies and a few insanely rare original works, all of which dealt with realms and beings and the existence of other worlds and worldly creatures. The labyrinth of bookcases that propped each other up and occasionally lost shelves due to the weight of her collection was her biggest weakness. Anything she found that she hadn't or wasn't sure if she'd seen before was subject to purchase so long as it seemed to hold something new, something that might somehow one day tell her why she'd been born the way she was. What purpose her ability to see what she could, might possibly serve. So far she hadn't had much luck finding those answers, but she never stopped looking.
This wee one was another male who approached smiling gratefully and bowed just a bit before her. Instinctively Alex bowed her head at him and motioned him to join her on the floor between the couch and the coffee table. He listened to the leader and nodded his head taking the pencil and sliding the paper in front of himself. He thought for a moment, the eraser tapping gently against the tip of his pointed nose then put the graphite tip to the paper and began to sketch. It took several minutes before he adapted properly to the instrument, it either popped out of his hand or snapped under the pressure he applied, but once he got it just right his motion against the paper was a flurry of developing image in varying shades of gray so precise and artful she found it stunning.
There was something childlike in the little warrior's pose as he smiled shyly and presented her with the rendering of the being that had brought war into their world. Alex looked at him with a gentle smile and couldn't help herself, she cupped his cheek drawing a gasp and grin from him as she looked down and felt her skin crawl. The paper had several different images on it, one or two were conceptually recognizable creatures, another three were distinctly human visages all with one distinguishing feature that betrayed the nature of the inhabitant, and the last few were something she couldn't wrap her mind around except to say amorphous as the first descriptor that leaped to her lips.
At the window side of the dining table she squeezed in between a couple wee warriors who shifted their attention to her, watching carefully exactly what she did as she put the picture into the scanner. Step by step she showed them how she was doing what she was doing, even though she was relatively certain they had a very limited understanding of English or computers or any other technology, she didn't know why she felt that way since they'd been around her all her life, but either way. She showed them how to scan the picture, how to access the internet and how to upload it on a few message boards with instruction to use one of her 'ad' e-mail addresses if anyone could tell her the name of any of the creatures represented in the picture. She then isolated each image and started the computer searching the whole of the internet for any information possible.
She leaned back, her head throbbing and her eyes burning in the late hours. She rose and looked at the leader, "I have to work tomorrow… you know that place I go all day… you've been there…" he nodded, "…so I'm going to bed… you guys help yourself to anything you need okay?"
The leader bowed curtly then spoke to two of his warriors who escorted her to the bedroom and were obviously supposed to stand guard over her. A fact which did nothing to set her at ease regarding this whole situation, in fact, if she let herself feel what was demanding attention, she wondered why she was going to bother going into work at all.
Because I might be wrong? she thought sliding back between the sheets, yeah… okay ostrich, you just go ahead and stick you head in the sand there and ignore what you know, SOMETHING IS COMING! You just screwed yourself so royally by agreeing to help them…I have to try…there's so little left of me anyway what does it really matter? the inner voice had no come back. It lay quiet inside her mind for the time being, but it had been right and she knew it, but she was moreso and she knew that too.
--
Jeremy couldn't remember feeling so alive ever before. He still had no idea how exactly he'd managed to overcome the effects of the drugs they'd kept him so full of, but he wasn't looking this particular gift horse in the mouth. That they'd turned their back on him, thinking him pliant and nearly catatonic at just the right moment was also a blessing. He'd slipped away much like the little gray and black demons, unnoticed by those around him and once in the parking lot he'd quickly found the car that belonged to the keys he'd lifted from an orderly and driven out without a hitch. What else could go right? Okay… now where did she say she lived? Chicago? Ahhh Hog Butcher of the World… here I come Chi-Town! Ready or not.
--
When Alexandra Bentley awoke in the morning, the sight of the two tireless wee warriors at the foot of her bed made a decision for her. She did the one thing she hadn't done since the day she started her job. Alexandra Bentley called in sick, and said she also hedged her bet for the following day as well. She needed time to do some research, and she needed to be able to focus.
She couldn't say exactly what had made up her mind, but somewhere during her sleeping hours she'd come to realize the belief, that whatever had happened in the realm of the wee people was only the start of something. Whatever it was, it was the kind of something that could bleed through to her world, and if it did that and she could've found information or ally, or some means of deterring this threat then missing a couple days of work was going to be really so very NOT important.
The warriors looked at her and nodded approvingly as she rose and shooed them out of the room so she could get dressed. Why that even matters I have no clue… oh man… whatever… she thought frustrated and looked over her shoulder, "Can you… nevermind I'll be right out," she shook her head smiling and closed the door behind them. The images drifting through her mind like so much ash were a jumbled mess of fear and desperation. Those pictures the warrior had drawn the night before had settled hard into her mind, a couple of the human-esque countenances in particular that made her think she might have seen one or two of them at one time or another. She couldn't be sure, but there was someone who might be able to help her.
Alex tossed on her favorite pair of worn old jeans that were soft as butter, then put on her Tweety-bird t-shirt and slid into her gym shoes, not the newer ones that weren't quite broken in yet, but the ones that had that bit of sole that flapped off the ground with each step. At the tiny spot on the dining table that was reserved for the computer she quickly checked her e-mail boxes for any response to the queries she'd put out regarding the pictures. She smiled tentatively noting half a dozen hits and took a deep breath to steady herself before opening the first one.
Whoever had sent the e-mail had done so anonymously, they'd copied one of the human-ish pictures and written a glaring, vicious red scream to, "LEAVE ME ALONE!"
"Well that's not good…" she shook her head and looked at the shaking and empathetic head on her left. The wee ones were watching intently, three to a chair on either side of her while the leader leaned against the wall behind her so he could get a look at the screen.
She opened the next one, "Sorry… Never saw anything like these before…Thai sources…Looks kinda Thai to me…" this response highlighted the two amorphous ones.
The next one was labeled 'barkeepsupreme' and it was a photograph of a charcoal sketch that was hanging on a wall in a bar, and it matched one of the human faces almost exactly. "This was purchased at a Gallery in Pennsylvania… the artist is locally cited as a purveyor of 'images that stick with you' I call 'em Haunting… but this one struck me for some reason. The woman who did the drawing is also a sketch artist for the police…if you're ever in the area… come on in and take a look, the picture doesn't do it justice.
Silas… yes that's really my name…."
and he'd followed it up with an address in a small town about three hours away called Galena. Alex hit reply and typed quickly.
Thankfully Silas appeared to be a computer junkie. He responded to her query almost instantly with the name and address of the woman who'd done the drawing. She smiled and wrote the information down as a long series of beeps hit her ears and she leaped to her feet with her eyes on the clock.
"Shit! I gotta move the car!... I'll be right back…" Damned street cleaners! Seventy five dollar freaking ticket… please don't let them have come through already… it's only five after….
She flew down the stairs and out the front door, down the walk and fled past the cop who was ticketing a car just a few away from hers. Please let him have started back there… please let him have started back there…YES! she grinned slipping her key into the driver door and buckling in. In the rearview mirror the cop was grinning and actually waved to her as she pulled out of her spot and started circling the blocks looking for a safe place to park.
Lucky lucky lucky little me… she thought after finding a new spot only a few blocks from the apartment.
She turned her head to the left, and then to the right and frowned. That's not right… that's bad…what the hell? she thought and followed the invisible line between the muzzle of the gun and the man walking down the sidewalk. He was distracted by someone on the other side of the street and didn't see the primer red Monte Carlo approaching from behind him, he didn't see it slowing down and he didn't see the torso that leaned out the window, but she did. She also saw in her minds' eye, another of the golden aura'd people stolen from this world, but what she saw that terrified her and made everything come crystal clear was the image she saw when she looked at the man in the leather coat. She knew it, she felt it, he'd been touched by evil and survived. He'd been chosen and now she knew exactly what her life had been meant to do.
Everything had come to this moment. As she ran across the street, in front of the car, toward the man, the force of her body impacting with his turning them both as the bullet tore through her body from the back, she saw over his shoulder 7 wee warriors watching and nodding their approval. She looked into the stricken face that had just a second ago been in front of her but now seemed to be hovering over her. She looked into a set of beautiful green eyes and touched the man's cheek. She tried to tell him, to explain to him that it was alright now, that he could live because she couldn't anymore, and as she looked into those eyes one last time, she let go her life and gave the last of herself to this sorrowful stranger with a destiny.
--
End.
If you are interested in continuing this story please move to: Legacy… where the saga continues… just from a different perspective.
If you liked, if you didn't please R&R
Thanks. Oh yeah... please excuse type-o's fingers freaky tonight. :D
sifi