You know, when I woke up I kept trying to figure out who we looked like, convinced they were rooted in actors. Like Sarah from Lost (Jack's ex wife) mixed with the girl from Warm Bodies, and then a really pale Robert Downey Jr crossed with Jack. O.o then I looked up pictures and I'm not sure where I got those impressions from.
My name is Sarah, I have been friends with Stephen since we were children. I see us running a silly kind of race with five other
children, where we team up and one person runs carrying their teammate on their shoulders. Stephen always insisted on being the runner, even though at that age I was a lot bigger. Then, he was a little thing with slightly round features, his black straight hair in a bowl cut around a pale face with black rimmed glasses. The only person without a partner is a large girl to the left of us, the top of her head is even with mine even when I am on his shoulders. He makes for an amusing figure, his little face red with effort, swaying back and forth trying desperately to stay upright and to keep me on his shoulders. He is wearing a gray sweatshirt with a circular panda face on the chest.
Then I am nineteen. When we finished school a few of us got together and rented a house. We even all work at the same place,
employment opportunities have been scarce since the end of things. Still, we are content with our lives. I am leaving work with Stephen, he has grown into a solid broad-shouldered man, none of the roundness of boyhood left. His grandmother has come to give us a lift home. The drive home is terrifying, mostly because Granny can not keep her eyes on the road for more than a few seconds at a time. Stephen obviously thinks that it is hilarious, I might have laughed with him if we were not constantly on the brink of death the entire way home. She goes on about her difficulties in finding a clear path to our place of employment.
"I finally made it! You have no idea what kind of trouble I had. I even cut through a road blocked area!" She exclaims.
I groan and cover my eyes with one hand while Stephen cracks up in the back seat. "And then, there was a car blocking the road!" "What did you do then, Granny?" Stephen says with a little too much enthusiasm.
"Stop encouraging her." I hiss at him, he just laughs at me. Granny does not hear me but karma pays me back for the
comment anyway since Granny is clearly oblivious that our lane merges with another and haphazardly sails past a line of angrily blaring horns before wedging her SUV between two cars. I find that I cannot handle anymore and I duck down in the seat with my arms over my head. I have a moment where I think that I need to be paying attention because it's my dream, and I'm driving even if my character isn't watching the road. I risk peeking out the windshield just in time to see her run a red light and speed past a cop car that's sitting across one lane, and narrowly missing one that hurdles in the opposite direction.
We make it home alive. Finally. The scene cuts to us walking through the front door where I live with Kenna, my brother, his girlfriend Beth and Stephen
. The walls are all dull gray metal and the doorways are rounded off at the tops and bottoms. The dining room is a large wide open area with a big rectangular table, to my left is the living room and on the same wall as the door is a little alcove with bunk beds, my brother Roe sits in the chair crammed between the bed and the door frame. Like me, Roe is tall and athletically built with pale blonde hair and blue eyes.
"Hey, little sister."
"Hey yourself, brother."
"Just a little bit of a warning..."
Little Kenna storms in from the living room, like a tiny angry cloud of red curls and green skirts, and slams a long chain of pill packets onto the table.
"They wouldn't do that, I said. They wouldn't keep drugs, I said. WELL! It looks like they were right!" She growls, glaring at me. My
brother lounges placidly and regards us expressionlessly.
"Did the sisters tell you that?"
"It doesn't matter who told me! I found these in the dryer and they melted all over my clothes! Now I have drug laundry!"
"Kenna, I really don't---"
"Don't you try to turn this around on Double H!" Kenna is so busy ranting that she does not notice when I look at Stephen who mouths
'Double H?'
Kenna keeps going, "You're the one with the drugs, I'm leaving. I'm going to go live with Haddie where I can do my laundry in a non-drug-caked dyer."
"Yes ma'am." I agree and give her a slightly sarcastic salute.
She scowls and rages her way out of the house, leaving her laundry basket behind.
"Does anyone else think that was incredibly weird?" I ask, frowning down at the pill packets. My brother shrugs and Stephen can barely
contain his amusement.
"Drug laundry!" He snorts, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. His amusement makes me feel better about the situation.
Haddie and her older sister Haley had been giving us trouble since we were children. The tormenting had settled down for the others, but Haley somehow intuited that I knew her secret: she had lied to Haddie about how their parents had died.
Haley had practically raised Haddie and based her methods somehow on their parent's death. Once I had considered telling Haddie about the lie, thinking it would drive a wedge between them and end their rampage of villainy, but Haddie would never believe me.
The sisters only ever said things when others were not looking, then I would explode and they would see my disproportionate reaction. Recently they had been hanging around the house, Haley was trying to get at Roe despite the fact that he had a girlfriend and pointedly ignored her advances, and one day Stephen had said something funny to them. Instant approval! I think he hoped that if they spent more time around me they would stop trying to enrage me. So far they tolerated my presence because they wanted Stephen around and he had made it clear they he would not ditch me for them.
Now Haley and Haddie arrive at the house and Beth welcomes them inside. I don't remember the conversation but Beth said something,
Haddie replies, and when Beth turns her back Haley says something behind her hand about me to Haddie. Instantly I'm angry, I'm standing right here. I make an angry retort and roughly shoulder myself between them to get outside. Behind me I hear Haddie say "What was that about?"
Followed by Haley muttering, "Crazy bitch."
I feel so angry and frustrated. The outside looks like the house in MA that I grew up in. I run to the left side of the house where there is a hill and Beth follows after, ripping into me when I turn to face her. She tells me I am being childish, that I need to grow up. I say something rude, she tells me to just get over it. My sudden rush of rage has actually made me feel faint, so I move around to the massive oak at the corner of the driveway, it will hide me from view. As I'm dropping to my knees I see Stephen stalking toward me.
"What, you too?" I ask, I could not help myself.
"Excuse me?" His jaw tightens and he says stiffly, "I came out here to tell you that the things they say don't matter, to remember that
I care ab---"
"Well I don't care!" I snap. Then seeing the look on his face, I realize the mistake I have made, how he must have taken that.
"Stephen...I didn't mean--I only said..."
"I know what you said, Sarah. Just...take some time to cool off before coming back inside." He shakes his head at me and retreats
to the house.
I don't go back inside immediately, I take his advice and circle the house twice before I've calmed down. I see Haddie and Haley
talking, there's a long staircase along the side of the house that does not exist in waking life. They stand near the top by a narrow door, conspiring. Once again I contemplate how I could arrange for Haddie to overhear that her sister has lied to her. They open the door, I hook around to the front of the house and go back inside.
I am in the living room. Haddie, Haley, Beth and my brother Roe sit on the couch while Stephen sits on the floor. They are watching a
movie. Haddie and Haley make a joke about me. Something about The Six. When we were children there was a group of children (myself and Stephen included) that were outcasts and generally made fun of, we called ourselves The Six. I stand beside Stephen. He hands me a beer and smiles a little.
"Conveniently you forget that I was one of The Six." He interjects smoothly.
"Really? I don't...remember that." Haddie says politely embarrassed.
"Oh yes, I have pictures if you need proof." He replies, this shuts Haddie up. He seems to have the talent for pointing things out or laughing without making a person feel stupid.
Stephen keeps his eyes on the television and asks me absently if I feel any better. When I shake my head and sit down next to him he pats his leg. I settle my upper body across his lap and he lays his arm across the front of my shoulders. This is immensely comforting and very slowly my nerves calm and I am no longer sad or angry with the H sisters. I sit up and arrange myself in his lap with my arms around his neck. He is still distractedly watching the movie and we have known one another so long that such closeness is not beyond us. While the everyone else is otherwise occupied, I make a decision.
I see us from a foot away, the clean line of my jaw and one sky blue eye, my hair is back in a ponytail. His hair hangs straight to his
ears, it's fine and black, like his eyes. He has stubble on his cheeks, when did that happen? I down the rest of my beer, set the bottle on the floor with a clatter, and before I can lose my nerve, I press my lips to his temple.
He has gone very still in response. He is quietly shocked, I can tell, still he tries to give me an out.
"Well...that was fun." He says with a fleet meeting of the eyes.
"Fun isn't the word I would use." I say softly.
"Sarah, what was that for?" I sweep my eyes over his familiar features and realize that I love him. I answer by bending gracefully to
touch my lips to his. I can feel the pressure of them against mine and the weight of his arms tightening around me.
There's a lapse and we are in his room, laying together on his futon. We're both wearing pale blue jeans and gray sweatshirts, my
head is on his shoulder and my hips rest between his legs. I lean down to kiss him again, then trace my fingers over his abdomen where his shirt has ridden up. I shift my weight to my knees. I know he is savoring how my waist feels under his hand, I have always been fit but hidden my figure with shapeless shirts. With a sinuous move I kiss his chest---
---and that's where my consciousness separates from Sarah. I am vaguely embarrassed that I am watching them. This is a private, intimate moment for them. It is the look on his face that makes me turn away. I should leave them alone with each other. ((I censor my own dreams, how lame is that?))
Next I am following Stephen. There is a large metal grate in the floor of the dining room, he has dropped down into the tunnels that run
underneath the house. He is crossing to another area of the house, the tunnel dips down into a lower level. The side he is on is higher, the other side has two regular steps going into a bare metal room. As he is walking to the opposite side he glances up to the small round mirror above the tunnel hole. In it he sees a figure standing with its face in the corner. He freezes and only just keeps himself from cursing aloud. It looks like a boy, with a long t-shirt and shorts, but is dripping with toxic green ooze. It mumbles under its breath, smacking its forehead into the wall.
"He..." SMACK, "He...killed..." SMACK, "He...killed me." SMACK.
Stephen knows he only has a small window of opportunity to kill it before it obliterates him. This is a Shade, the spirit of a person who has killed themselves and cannot come to terms with the action. Some of them can be reasoned with, the worst ones are hard to kill.
"He..."SMACK the boy begins again.
"Jesus." Stephen thinks, "He doesn't even know that he's the one who did the killing." He raises his handgun, it has a laser
pointer. He aims up at the mirror and sees the laser appear on the back of its head. He has to time it between the smacks. He firmly squeezes the trigger but at the last second the thing intuits his action and stands very still, thus taking the bullet in the back of the neck instead of the head. This time Stephen curses as he whips around to dodge the Shade. He manages to catch it off guard twice, the second time it rushes toward him he stumbles past it and hits the low stairs hard. He scrambles backward into the corner and unloads the clip into the Shade's back and head while it still faces the other way. It refuses to die. It will kill him, he knows. That's when I, as Sarah, fly into the tunnel and pin the thing face-first to the wall. It struggles wetly against me, oozing and issuing
raspy whimpers.
"RUN!" I cry over my shoulder.
"Sarah, what are you doing? Get out of here!"
"Are you stupid? Run while I distract it!"
"NO!" It's clear we won't be leaving each other. About then the Shade's oozing face reforms out the back of its skull and it clacks its
teeth horrifyingly close to my ear. I recoil in revulsion and release it.
"HEY over here!" Stephen shouts. It advances on him, a jittering sort of stalking. I will die before I let it take him. With a fierce yell I grab it by the
arms and swing it like I am ringing a gong. I slam it against one side of the tunnel and then the other as hard as I can, yelling on impact. Its wrists are green slimy bones in my hands. It breaks into pieces and when all that is left are the arms, I drop them between Stephen's splayed legs. He's staring at me in awe.
"That...was the most awesome thing I have ever seen." He says into the sudden calm. I let out a shaking laugh.
"Are you alright?" The three remaining fragments of Shade quiver violently startling us badly. I bring my heel down hard on the largest
piece and grind it into the floor until it stops moving.
"Let's get out of here, yeah?" He says, I offer him my hand and pull him to his feet.
Recent Comments
