Ms. Twist is on the phone, wearing a t-shirt and sweats. "Some nights I'm woken up by the sound of my own voice, you know, inside my head, going, 'No, you know the whole French thing. Get on the plane.'"
Moving boxes are stacked in the living room, an organized disarray of relocating. The house is old. It's been in the family forever. Dust marks the walls where framed photos and artwork were once displayed.
"Everything here reminds me…of sending Mr. Russel back on the plane." She pauses, letting the person on the other end speak, then continues. "Right, I'm hoping a change will help." Another pause. "I lived here my whole life and where ever I looked were great memories, you know…but know all I can see is Mr. Russel…those kids. Just looking out my own front yard…makes me feel nothing but fear."
Ms. Twist peeks out of the front curtains and looks sadly upon her front yard. Her expression altered, alarmed. A figure stands outside. It's Cody Jackson.
Ms. Twist steps unsteadily away from the curtains. Quickly, she says, "Laura, I gotta call you back." She immediately hangs up the phone and speed dials. "This is Jory Twist. I need Agent Fujimoto."
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Jackson has moved closer to her house, remaining in the shadows. He checks for and passers-by. Being sure there are none, he creeps toward Ms. Twist's car. He visually inspects the interior.
As he kicks the tires, and unmarked sedan screeches up, doors opening.
Startled, Jackson turns to find special agents Fujimoto and Marin, standing in the street, back lit in the strong headlights of their car.
Fujimoto asks Jackson, "What are you doing?"
Jackson is nervous, but determined. He tells the truth. "Checking the airs in her tires to make sure they're safe."
The agents pause a beat of incredulity. The Fujimoto says, "Get in the car."
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Ms. Twist is watching, peeking out of her front curtains. She sees the car doors close and the vehicle rolls off. She releases the curtains and steps back, feeling somewhat better, but still rattled.
The curtain billows, as if blown by a breeze.
Ms. Twist appears puzzled as she moves the curtains aside to find the windows closed. She is tense and uneasy.
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Jackson sits behind a table in the cinderblock room painted police station green. Sitting across from him, with a good cop tone, is Agent Marin, while Fujimoto stands with a hard posture.
"I believe that…Ms. Twist's next."
"Next?" Marin repeats.
"Yes," Jackson said. "See, there's this…pattern…that's occurring."
Sarcastically, Marin says, "Oh, you've noticed it, too?"
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Ms. Twist moves to a closet door, opens it, and clicks on an overhead light. Kneeling down, she tugs on a heavy box and opens it to check the contents. Her expression warms, as if recalling a far off memory.
"Oh…mom's favorite."
She slides a vinyl record album out if its sleeve and moves to the turntable on a shelf, thick with dust. Jory places the record on the stereo and sets the needle on the album.
Although spinning round and round, the bold letters on the center label of the record can be read. 'John Denver.' The opening acoustic of Rocky Mountain High has never sounded so eerie.
She listened closely to the music.
"He was born in the summer of his twenty-seventh year," she heard. Pleased with the feeling of a pleasant memory, Twist moves off.
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Fujimoto moves closer to Jackson. "Where'd you get this 'pattern' from? You have another 'vision?' Maybe saw it on some television static?"
Jackson is insulted by the condescending tone.
"I didn't ask for what happened to me on the plane. You can make fun of me. You can think I'm a nut. I'm used to it. I saved six lives but the entire school acts like I'm a freak. Fine." Jackson takes a nervous breath. "I'm not suffering from post dramatic stress. I haven't developed a narcissistic deity complex. I'm not going Dahmer." He pauses a beat. "This just is. There's a pattern in place for you. And you. There's a design for everyone."
The agents study Jackson, who sighs.
"And I'm sure how yet…but I intend to break this one."
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A set of cutlery knives held in a wooden block sits atop the kitchen counter.
Jory removes the chrome teapot from the stove and moves it to the sink.
John Denver continues in the next room.
Ms. Twist turns on the faucet, and pours water into the kettle. As she wipes the pot with a blue checked hand towel, she sees her reflection.
A dark shadow appears to cross behind her.
Twist turns. She looks about the room, only to find she is alone. Unsettled, she absently tosses the towel on the edge of the counter, which catches a knife blade held in the cutlery block.
Ms. Twist turns the stove gas on, adjusts it, however, the flames blow out. She pauses, nerves on edge. Her eyes cautiously move about the room, but find nothing that could have blown the fire out. She grabs a pack of nearby matches and strikes one.
She hears John Denver singing. "He left yesterday behind him. You might say he's born again."
She puts the lighted match next to the burner.
The flames re-ignite.
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Marin sits across from Jackson, sympathetic, but professional. "Cody, you got our attention, at first, because you were under suspicion in the plane explosion."
Jackson tenses, but Marin shakes her head.
"I know you didn't blow up that plane."
Jackson sighs and eases.
"I don't believe you have magical powers. No one has any…control over life and death…unless…that person is taking lives and causing death." Marin leans forward toward Jackson. "Cody…can you promise me that no one else will die?"
"No…I can't. As long as I'm in here, it's outta my control."
The agents are taken aback by his answer, unnerved by his sincerity.
Marin sighs and looks to his partner, who sighs, frustrated, and turns away.
"Alright," Marin says. "Go on. Get outta here."
Jackson stands and, with no urgency, moves off. He exits the room.
"Kid gives me the creeps," Fujimoto says after Jackson is gone.
"We got nothing to hold him."
"I don't mean that." Fujimoto pauses a beat. "There's a couple of times, there…I almost believed him."
Marin considers, yet remains skeptical. "Sometimes, you give me the creeps.
________________________________________________________________________
The teapot whistles.
John Denver sings, "When he first came to the mountains, his life was far away."
Two tea bags are dropped inside a coffee mug of steaming hot water.
Ms. Twist picks up the cup, raising it toward her lips. She pauses, her expression turning tragic. On a reflex, she spins toward the sink and throws the hot contents into the drain. She sit's the mug displaying the logos of the Mt. Abraham Fighting Colonials down.
Ms. Twist trembles. She takes a deep breath, getting a hold of herself. "You gotta stop this! Stop this! It's just a stupid mug." Composed she continues assuring herself. "You're outta here. Pretty soon…you'll be gone."
She opens the refrigerator freezer, grabs some ice and a bottle of pure Polish vodka, then deliberately turns back toward the same mug.
The ice cubes plunk. The cold alcohol pours into the hot mug, which slightly cracks, vodka slipping out of the base.
Twist picks up the mug, oblivious to the crack. She moves off toward the living room, leaving a trail of alcohol.
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Jackson exit's the police station, walking. He checks over his shoulder to see if he is being watched and increases his pace, legs whipping.
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Jory Twist tears of a piece of plastic bubble wrap. She stands over her desk, placed against the wall. On her desk is her desktop computer monitor.
John Denver is still heard. "It's the Colorado Rocky Mountain High."
She pauses to take a swig from her vodka. Alcohol drips from her mug.
Unnoticed by Twist, fluid drips inside the circuitry.
Ms. Twist sets the mug out of the way on the back edge of her desk.
The remaining vodka oozes from the crack, pools, then drips off the edge of the desk.
Rocky Mountain High continues. "I've seen it rainin' fire from the sky."
The monitor cable is inserted into an electric wall socket. The vodka drips…drip…drips.
Ms. Twist pulls the monitor plug, creating tiny sparks at the connection.
The alcohol ignites.
Her back to the desk, Ms. Twist pours Styrofoam peanuts into the box.
Behind her, flames, almost supernaturally, leap up the wall and toward the computer monitor. Through it's vents, the interior catches fire, causing an electrical POP!
Ms. Twist turns, holding her sheet of bubble wrap, shocked by the flames.
On the screen of the computer monitor, the reflection of the approaching shadow passes before the monitor explodes.
A large jagged shard from the monitor flies into Ms. Twist's throat. Blood squirts from her neck onto the bubble wrap.
Her stunned expression is sickeningly numb from shock.
John Denver continues singing. "Rocky Mountain High. Colorado-oh."
Twist reaches up to reflexively pull the glass from her throat, creating a flood of squirting blood. She drops the glass and quickly stumbles toward the kitchen, blindly banging the turntable as she passes.
The needle skips, bumps, then settles, unmercifully at the start of Rocky Mountain High.
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Jackson walks quickly up the dark street. Smoke wafts before him. He turns to see a man burning leaves in the backyard.
The breeze intensifies, lifting the burning debris. The smoke swirls around him. J Jackson senses the Presence and looks ahead.
Two dozen leaves mystically float past him, each on fire.
Jackson feels the taunting message and breaks into full sprint, passing through many of the burning leaves that break up into the bright orange cinders against the black sky.
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The flames reach the coffee mug, igniting the trickling stream leading to, and away from, the crack in the cup. On the floor, flames ride the small trickle of vodka back toward the kitchen.
Jory Twist races in, desperately pressing her hand to her throat as she gurgles and chokes on the blood from the wound. She leans over the now red sink, turning pale from the blood loss.
The flaming stream shoots up the stove, lighting the burners.
Behind Ms. Twist, the stove erupts in flames. They jump, leap like a tiger, landing on her shoulders and hair, which catches on fire.
________________________________________________________________________
Jackson approaches the front of the house.
From here, nothing appears to be wrong, as he catches his breath, sweating, visually examining the house.
He hears a hoarse, macabre scream coming from inside. Jackson, stunned, races off toward the house.
________________________________________________________________________
Ms. Twist is on the kitchen floor, hair and sweatshirt aflame. She desperately rolls on the floor and manages to extinguish the flames.
On her back, on the floor, Ms. Twist is badly burned. Her open neck wound continues to bleed.
Blood pools on the floor.
In shock and moving on pure survival instincts, she reaches up.
The lower third of the hand towel dangles over the edge of the counter top.
Her hand grabs it and pulls.
The draped edge of the towel pulls over the cutlery box. The knives spill, out, entangled with the hand towel.
"Ms. Twist!" Jackson ruches across the threshold as Ms. Twist pulls the knives over the counter.
Half a dozen knives, from small, but small, cutting blades, to large butcher knives, cascade into Jory's body.
John Denver is still heard in the background. "They say that he got crazy once and he tried to touch the sun."
Her hands trembling, her expression horrified, Twist grabs the handle of the largest blade, trying to pull it out.
Jackson quickly kneels next to her.
She looks at him in shock, her eyes pleading.
Jackson gathers his courage. He places his hand on the handle of the largest blade. As he's about to remove it, a gas line erupts, creating a small explosion. The cutlery block is knocked off the counter. The block lands directly on the butcher knife handle, driving the blade further into Ms. Twist's body.
The shadow descends until her face, eerily peaceful, but lifeless gray, horrifically decays, flesh rotting, worms feeding on muscle until only a skull remains.
As Death arrives, Jory Twist's eyes are macabre focused above her.
Even as the blood squirts on Jackson from Ms. Twist's open wound, he appears to realize she is 'seeing' the moment of death. "Ms. Twist!"
Flames leap from the stove to the curtains, which catch fire.
Jackson grabs the knife and pulls it out. He quickly removes another, and another, yet there is no reaction from the woman.
Knowing she is dead, Jackson pauses with guilt. He looks at the knife in his hand., then realizes how incriminating this could appear.
In that moment, another small explosion from the stove brings Jackson quickly to his feet.
He drops the knife to the floor and races from the house.
His shoe prints are left in the mud.
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Jackson runs with all of his strength from Jory Twist's home.
Eric McGorrill is riding his bicycle in Jackson's direction. He stops and gets off his bike. "Hey, Jackson."
Jackson appears unaware as he simply runs past Eric, who curiously turns his head to watch Jackson race up the street.
Eric hears the crackling of fire. He turns his head back, reacting with shock to Ms. Twist's house.
From inside the house, and intense explosion propels glass from the windows. Flames engulf the entire house.
Even down the street, Jackson is knocked off his feet by the blast.
In the distance, sirens and approaching police cars and fire trucks are heard.
He stands and looks to the now suspicious Eric, then opts to run off away from the scene, escaping into the dark backyards of the neighborhood.