Future Imperfect (20 page)

My head clearer than it’s ever been, like it’s floating up into the sky, gliding over the treetops and scuffing roofs.

And then we leave.

On the doorstep to Vaux’s house, I don’t try to kiss her. I just hold her hand and look her in the eyes and tell her I’ll see her soon. I tell her to sleep tight. I say, “I’ll never leave you.”

An hour later, at home, lying awake in bed, I’m trying to will every cell in my body to remember the feel of her, the weight of her, against me.

My pillow is a terrible stand-in.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ONE

Dark Lord von Ravengate,

Cool spell. Thanks for sending it over. Not sure exactly what it’s supposed to do, but if I am ever threatened by anything spooky while I’m out, it’s good to know I’ve got backup. Supernatural or not.

You know, you raised some good questions. Here I’ve been asking all these experts to help explain this thing to me, why I can do what I can, and all the answers I get are vague. You’re the only one so far who’s given me any “definitive” answer, even if it’s not what I was expecting to hear. I suppose you’re right: It doesn’t really matter how I got the ability or if anyone believes me. I need to just accept that.

What if it really is a parallel dimension? That’s a new suggestion. Not even the physics prof came up with that one. It’s a good idea, but I don’t like it. Not because it doesn’t make sense but because, in the long run, it means that I will just end up a vegetable. If what I see is just another me in another, parallel place, then that’s jacked. I’m jacked. Let’s hope that’s not true.

I wish I could help you more, Heinz. But my schedule, what with school (I know, I know) and my mom and this whole new blossoming romance, I just don’t think I could man the booth at the mall with you. Thanks for asking, though.

And if I ever do see crimson, enflamed sigils, you’ll be the first person I call. Seriously.

Rock on,

Ade

TWO

Not even Garrett can disrupt my good vibes.

Swim practice is like bathing in energy. The pool is warmer than it’s been in years. Decades maybe. I ignore Garrett’s stares. He even has the gall to point at me and then make that finger across the throat slashing gesture like he’ll really do it. The guy’s a shell of his former stud self. I’ve knocked him back to grade school.

Coach Ellis has pretty much given up on me.

Already. But still he lets me practice with the team because it gives him someone to hate. Someone to compare and contrast his best swimmers with. Me, I’m his foil. I’m his example of how not to be.

For me, swimming’s just a super-nice workout.

I get home and want to take a nap, my body aching from the tension of the past few weeks, but Mom’s beaming and tossing her car keys up in the air and catching them. Something I don’t think I’ve ever once seen her do.

“Want to go out to dinner?”

“I’d love to.”

On our way out, we pass four people walking up to our front door. They’ve got folding chairs and a cooler. These freaks are going to wait it out, it seems.

Mom, she sees them but says nothing.

“Where do you want to go?”

“I’m fine with anything.”

Mom shrugs. “A friend at church recommended a place on Colfax.”

We have dinner at Good Friends. I just talk. Words stumble out. Mom listens intently, bits of her salad falling off her fork as she leaves it shivering just below her chin.

At one point she’s nodding to herself not talking to me.

Not listening.

Eyes glossy and her head nodding rhythmically. It’s like she’s had a stroke. I ask her if she’s okay and she says, “Ade, I really do think it will happen soon. Can’t you just feel the energy in the air?”

“Yeah. No. What will happen soon?”

“The rising up. The end of our earthly bonds. I am so looking forward to seeing your grandmother again. I’m sure she’s excited as all get out to see you too.”

“Sure, Mom. It’ll be swell.”

By the end of the meal Mom’s eaten maybe a third of her salad. Most of the time she’s just spent mumbling to herself, pointing at my plate, telling me to eat up, and laughing at awkward moments in response to something funny only she can hear.

I haven’t seen my mom like this before.

I imagine Mom before the divorce, when Dad still loved her. When she still loved him. I remember her laughing and having fun, her not concerned about eternal salvation but about how I was doing in school and what movie I wanted to see on the weekend. This mom, the one rambling and lost in front of me, it’s clear why Dad vanished.

The ride home we’re going slow because I’m tired.

It’s raining hard. The road is a river and I can barely see.

But I’m so tired on top of it.

I want to pull over. I want just take a break.

I think about asking Mom to drive, but figure we’re close. We must be only a few blocks from home. That’s when it happens, my eyes close down. We’re somewhere just past Eighth Avenue and I stop seeing.

I hear the crash before I wake up.

This, me crashing the car on accident, is completely new.

The sound is like a wave and I imagine it rampaging down Monaco and sweeping over cars and ripping hedges loose. The night sky sparking as the streetlamps topple over and split. Next comes the crunch. My head meets the wheel despite the seat belt, despite the fact I’m only going thirty. I can’t see her but I know Mom’s hands are clasped in prayer, her face as content as when she’s fast asleep. For her, this wreck could be a one-way ticket to salvation.

The tunnel.

The lights.

The swirl.

The darkness.

The exit.

My eyes open again to night and stars.

I know immediately it’s the future. Same waxy sheen. Black-light blues. I’m guessing it’s soon, though. Maybe weeks away. I’m not focused on anything, not expecting anything but darkness.

I’m on a beach. Maybe the north end of the Cherry Creek Reservoir.

I get the fact that it’s the same place the gruff old man on the phone mentioned.

The obscene phone caller, maybe he wasn’t just a nut.

I’m thinking now that maybe I should be worried.

Should have been stressing earlier.

Could it be he knew what would happen?

The smell is strong. Strong like a marsh. Still, I can smell the rubber on the tennis courts above the reek of water. And I home in on it like the million moths that crash through the night to the phosphorus light of the courts. I follow the rise and fall of the water. Just the sand. The soft collapse of the lake. The wind in the reeds. The buzz of insects. The moon is only a sliver, just a scythe.

What’s really weird is that I don’t feel like me.

I mean that my skin is mine. The muscles, the weight of me, it’s all the same. But inside, I’m angrier than I’ve ever been in my life. I’m seething. Furious.

My hands are fists. I’m walking to the tennis courts.

And then I’m not.

Like in a movie, there’s a jump cut. Like the reels got mixed up or the projector skipped. Suddenly I’m not walking to the tennis courts but kneeling in the sand, my knees in the cold water of the reservoir, and my hands, well, my hands are around Jimi’s neck. His face is under the water. His arms are thrashing. His legs kicking. But I’m bearing down hard. My arms out straight, locked. My fingers, they’re white from blood loss. Jimi’s face, it’s white too. His eyes are so bugged out.

There is surprisingly little noise. Just the kick of him in the sand.

Very little noise until he goes slack. His arms drop. His face stops contorting.

Me, I’m still raging.

I’m shaking. I’m so furious, so pulsing with hate, that I throw my head back and howl into the night like some kind of animal. I try to walk away and just fall over facing the lake. It’s as if there was never anyone else here but me. Just the hum of the lights, the buzz of the insects, and the slow lap of the lake. Jimi’s feet sticking up out of the water.

It’s weird, but I’m not surprised when the guy in the Mexican wrestling mask gives me a hand, helps me up. Jimi’s dad, he’s wearing a tuxedo and his mask is white. He helps me up, pats me on the back, and says, “You tried.”

I’m still shaking, ask, “Tried what?”

“To stop this. Storm’s here, Ade. It’s begun, you are almost ready.”

“Do you know the guy I just drowned? Is that what this is about?”

The luchador nods slowly. Says, “You don’t know the half of it.”

And then the vision ends.

Back to black and then white and then the now.

The road comes into focus first. The trees. The streetlights swaying.

Mom and I, we’re still on the road. Car idling. It’s late enough that no one else is nearby. We’ve hit a tree and the only sound is the steady drip of fluid from under the car and the hazard lights tick ticking. My body is vibrating from the high of the Buzz. And even though it’s a weak Buzz, it’s been so long I’m really feeling it.

Mom, next to me, is fine. Her head still bowed in prayer, hands still clasped.

The front of the car is dinged, but the tree, a thin pine, got the worst of it.

I tell Mom that we’re okay. I tell her to open her eyes. I say, “Look.”

She does it slowly, looks out into the darkness at the skinny tree I’ve made a mess of, and then over at me. She smiles, tears beading her eyelashes, and runs her hand through my hair. It comes back to her slick. Dark.

Mom says, “You’re bleeding.”

“I don’t feel it. Probably old.”

“It’s okay. We’ll get it fixed. Are you—”

I say, “I’m fine.”

She says, “I’m okay too.”

I say, “Let’s just drive home.”

Before leaving I inspect the damage and find only a few scrapes, one busted headlight, and the bumper split. Not bad. Getting back in the car is difficult because my legs are shaky. My body’s jittery with the Buzz though the infusion is slight. I put the car in reverse and as we back out into the street most of the tree comes with us. We drag this teenage fir tree down half a block before it’s cut loose.

At every intersection, every red light, I see snippets of the vision. I hear the phelgmy chuckle of the obscene phone caller, the guy who predicted this. Him telling me to avoid the reservoir. That sends so many little quakes down my spine that I look like I’m spasming for a few blocks. And, of course, I see Jimi’s face in every streetlight. His eyes in every pair of taillights.

And every time I hit the gas my stomach goes up like we’re on a log ride.

The way home, the night around us is pretty much silent, outside of the scraping of the bumper on the asphalt. Close to home there are a few scattered dog barks under the near-constant hum of the streetlamps, but I only hear the muffled screams of Jimi going under. Sometimes so loud, I jump.

When we pull in the driveway, the freaks on the porch notice and run over, but I gun the car and slip into the garage before they’re onto us. Nice thing we have a fast garage door.

Again my mom says nothing about them.

But getting out of the car, Mom asks, “Did you talk to baby Jesus?”

“No, Mom.” My heart is thudding and my head swimming still from the Buzz. It’s been a while since I’ve felt it this strong. It’s overwhelming. Like when I first tried chew and almost puked from the jolt of it.

“What did He tell you?”

“Nothing, Mom. I didn’t talk to baby Jesus.”

I realize I’m shaking. Goose bumps pebble my skin.

Mom puts her hand on my thigh and squeezes it. Just like I do when I’m mothering her. And she sighs and mumbles, “It’s fine to be humble. All comes out in the wash.”

I kiss her on the forehead before she creeps inside the house. She’s still crying when I leave. She just lets me know that she’s so proud of me for being who I am. For sticking to my guns. For my faith.

I hit the garage door button, pray I don’t hit anyone, and then jam the car into reverse and peel out. I’m guessing, just based on the sound of tires squealing, that the neighbors are all calling the cops.

A block away I call Vauxhall.

My voice, it’s shaking. Breaking.

She mentions that she’s out with Jimi, that they’re at Twist and Shout, and she asks if maybe I can meet them in front of East, just on the lawn there. She asks me if it’s okay that Jimi’s around.

And I say, “I’m guessing he’s going to want to know this anyway.”

THREE

Jimi’s leaning against a statue.

Something like a column in the middle of a fountain, only there’s no water in it. He’s leaning there as though he’s taking a break from filming. Lighting a cigarette and exhaling so slowly that the smoke just makes a cloud around his face. Of course, he’s got cowboy boots on and sunglasses and the neon lights are reflected in them as though he painted them there.