On Black Wings (5 page)

Scars right where my wings should have been.

“My God.” Brad stood behind me as he looked at them.

I felt my head go light. If he wasn’t there, I would have fell on the floor when I fainted. Everything faded away into gray.

CHAPTER VI:

It’s Hard to Breathe

Ash is in my hair, in my nose, and on the horse’s back.

I cough and sit up, rubbing my eyes. Oh my God, where am I?

No! No, I want to be home with Brad, back home in his arms. Oh God, why? Why am I here again, back in this dream?

Why am I falling in and out of these dreams? What does it mean? I want to be with Brad, I want to be home. I reach back and feel for scars, and I can’t tell if there are any or not.

Jesus, why me?

The city streets are choked gray with ash. It looks like a snowstorm, but the air stinks of smoke, and the heat makes me sweat. Ash piles up along the sidewalks, and I can’t see more than fifty feet down the road. Stoplights along the road blink red and yellow, creating luminous colored spheres of light in the ashen fog.

I’m going crazy. I have to be going crazy. I pinch myself, I beat my legs, and I scream, coughing on the ash. Nothing I can do can wake myself up from this nightmare.

The horse keeps walking, and I check myself. That same damn number seventeen shirt. My cheap sneakers. No socks. Gray cotton shorts. Dead phone.

And no wings.

“Where are we going?” I slap the black horse’s back. Just speaking makes me cough, as the air burns my sinuses and makes me gag. Jesus.

We pass by empty cars sitting in the road, covered with sheets of ash like piles of fresh snow. Headlights cast eerie beams of light through the ash, fading away in the storm of soot. Inside open car windows I can see people’s clothes where they last wore them on their seats. I’m covered in ash, and I shake myself off as I beat on the horse again.

“Answer me! What is going on?”

Here I am, alone in a dead world on a dark horse.

And I’m crazy enough to try and talk to him.

We ride by a park so covered in ash it looks like a winter wonderland. Awnings, porches, cars, steps, statues - everything is beautifully covered, and it almost looks like a magical, perfectly wintry scene of peace and joy.

If it weren’t so hot.

I’m sweating through my shirt, looking around for anything, any explanation, any reason, or any destruction or clue of what happened.

Nothing. Just a dead world covered in ash.

There’s no craters, no massive plumes of smoke in the sky, no atomic fireballs, and no rubble - just death everywhere. When the towers went down the streets filled with dust, but that was dust and ash, sort of like this I guess. Did something explode, have we been hit by a meteor, or has a volcano exploded?

Maybe there isn’t that much oxygen and I am hallucinating?

But why would I live and everyone else die?

Hallucinations, maybe.

Maybe I’m in a hospital bed somewhere, drugged up, I hit my head, and I’ll wake up and everything will be fine. Brad will say how much the kids were worrying about me, and I’ll be able to go home in a couple days after some x-rays or a MRI.

I remember the time I hit my head on a dock while I was water-skiing at camp. The next thing I remember my parents were by my bedside at the hospital, telling me it was just a mild concussion and everything would be fine. I was fourteen, and my parents wanted to get rid of me for the summer so they could go on a cruise. I always hated my mom and dad, I was the youngest and I never felt they had the time to love us, me especially.

I was in the hospital for a week, with endless tests, scans, and specialists pointing at computer screens and telling my parents what would happen next. I remember the smell of ammonia and alcohol, the hum of medical equipment, and the constant checking by the nurses.

I remember coming down the stairs when I was home and overhearing them blame me for the cruise they couldn’t take. I ran back up stairs and cried the rest of the night. I never looked at them the same way, didn’t they care about me? Didn’t they love me? The feeling they cared more about their stupid cruise kept me distant from them for the next few years until I left home.

At seventeen, with Brad.

I really messed up my life. Part of why I hate my teenage years was because I felt I wasted so much of it, got married young, and started having children because I thought that would make me more mature. I hated being young, and I thought children would make me an adult faster.

Did I let my children down?

I can’t, I can’t second guess myself. In the life I don’t have anymore I made decisions to live the way I did, and I should never think about the what-ifs that never happened.

Maybe this is all some hallucination from my water-skiing accident, some sort of damage that is just now coming up as I get older. I close my eyes tightly and pray, that my family is by my bedside showing me love and compassion.

I hope.

More ash hits my face, and I brush it away. There is a lot of ash falling now, huge clumps hanging together like huge puffs of slow falling snow. Maybe this is a volcano. But people just don’t burn up, do they? With that much heat, the houses would all be set on fire. There would be fires everywhere. We would hear things, there would be an alert.

It’s so quiet.

I brush more of the ash out of my hair and off the horse. We’re getting covered riding out here. Where are we going?

A red glow to the left catches my eye. I make out the red glow of a DINER sign, and I pat the horse. “Whoa, stop.” I point. “Over there, I’m hungry, and thirsty. I could get us something to eat.”

I don’t know what horses eat? Grass? Oats? Maybe there’s some oatmeal inside, and I could get him some water. If the horse is my only ride, or the only thing alive, I need to take care of him. Just like the kids I never used to have. It kills me to think about them, but I am so young now, and I could never imagine myself having children.

Yet I did.

The horse, remarkably, obeys. He clops over to the front of the diner, lowers his head twice, and waits. I jump off into the fluffy gray ash, and I land on something beneath it and nearly fall. I kick the ash off of whatever it is.

Clothes, shoes, jackets, pants…there must be dozens or hundreds or pieces of clothing under the ash. The soft lumps all over the parking lot must be even more. Cars sit in the parking lot with open doors, blinking lights, and some of the engines are still running.

I walk towards the diner, and I have to kick ash away from the front door to get it open. I slip inside. The diner is empty, but I still smell the incredible scents of food.

I am so hungry, and parched too.

“Shut the door!”

The voice startles me.

“Shut the damn door!”

CHAPTER VII:

So They Live

People emerge from behind counters, under tables, and from out of the bathroom. There’s an older waitress, a farmer with a tractor hat, a businessman with his tie undone, a Middle-East guy in a turban, and a state trooper.

“Oh my God!” I’m so happy to see people. “People! What are you doing here?”

“Jesus Christ!” The businessman pushes past me and looks out the door. “She rode here on a horse. Do you think it’s safe? Is it safe now? Can we leave?”

“I, I don’t know.” I blink, brushing the ash off myself. “I lost everyone, my husband, my kids.”

“You look a little young for that, girlie.” The waitress deadpans. “You sure you’re feeling all right?”

“I’m thirsty, can you get me something to eat?” I sit at the counter, looking at everyone. The waitress nods and pours me some coffee, and also a glass of water. I chug down the water.

“Slow down, hun.” She reaches over and dusts me off. “Jesus, how is it out there? How far have you been?”

The businessman grabs my shoulder. “Tell us what’s going on! Is it safe? I need to get to my family, is it safe?”

“What’s with the horse?” The farmer keeps his distance, sitting at a booth. “Where do you come from?”

The Middle-East guy sits at a booth near my horse, staring out at it, quiet.

The trooper pushes the businessman away, and puts his hat on the counter next to me. “Give her some room, let her answer. Miss, this is very important, what did you see?”

“I want to know if it’s safe!” The businessman is frantic, pulling on my shoulder until it hurts. “Answer me!”

I turn at him and glare. “I don’t know.”

His eyes dart around me and he spits and turns away, looking out the front doors. “If she could ride here on a horse, it must be safe.”

“Sir,” the trooper says in a commanding voice, “sir step away from the doors, we don’t know. We all saw enough people die this morning, we don’t need to be rushing to judgment.” The trooper puts a hand on my arm. “Miss, please, I lost contact with the station an hour-and-a-half ago, I need to know what’s going on. I need to get in touch with emergency services.”

“Last I hear there was some state of emergency declared,” the farmer says, sipping a cup of coffee, “people are dying everywhere and no one knows why.”

“All of you, I have no idea,” I say, cupping my eyes with my hand. “I wish I could give you answers but I can’t.”

“Start with the horse,” the Middle-East guy says, the room going quiet when he speaks, “where did you find the horse?”

“I thought we told the towel-head to stay quiet. Who cares about the horse?” the businessman says, wrestling with the door. “Is it safe to leave now?”

“It walked up to my house,” I say, “and I got on. It took me here.”

“Miss,” the trooper says as he takes off his glasses, he’s a younger man with blue eyes, close-cropped hair, and a face marred by acne-scars. Still, he looks nice enough. “Miss, please. Tell me everything that happened. Why were you out there? How?”

“I don’t know how. I’ve been seeing things all morning, visions, I don’t know. I’m not who I am anymore. I had a family,” I say, the tears welling up in my eyes, “and they are gone now. And now I’m half my age, I left myself in that house. I walked away from my body, and it was still alive.”

The trooper backs up a step, and the Middle-East guy begins praying in almost a chant-like voice. The room is quiet.

“If that isn’t the strangest thing I ever heard,” the farmer puts his coffee cup down.

“She’s been through a lot officer, all of you,” the waitress says, “give her some room and a chance to rest. Everyone is pretty stressed out.”

“She was out there, she rode here on a damn horse, and it’s safe,” the businessman says, forcing the door open a hair.

“Sir, don’t open the door!” the trooper turns away from me, and I rest my forehead in my hands.

The waitress slides a grilled cheese sandwich in front of me, chips, soda, and a pickle. Oh my God, it’s the best thing I ever saw. I’m eating before she ever says, “Enjoy.”

The trooper keys the radio mike on his shoulder. “This is 546 to HQ, are you there HQ?”

“Can you get some water for my horse?” I say, looking over at the waitress, my mouth full.

“Your horse?” She almost laughs. “Okay, I’ll find something, I got a bucket for the mop back here I can fill, but you’ll have to take it out to him.”

“Here we are standing around like idiots and you’re talking about feeding a horse,” the businessman says, “if we can be playing stable hand to some dumb animal I’m sure we can be on our way.”

He forces the door open and steps outside.

The trooper takes a step towards him, his hand on his gun, but doesn’t get near the door. “Sir! Sir close that door!”

The waitress screams.

The businessman is a pile of hot ashes blowing away in the wind before I turn around. His clothes fall to the ground. Red hot cinders blow away in the wind.

The waitress hides behind the counter. The farmer stands up. The Middle-East guy sits silently.

“Close the door!” The trooper has his gun drawn, and is pointing it at the door. “Close the door now!”

I get up and walk over to the door. I step out, at least as far as the businessman was, reach over the pile of smoldering clothes, sigh, kick them away, and pull the door closed.

“You can’t leave,” I say, but from behind I’m grabbed by the farmer, spun around, and my face is slammed against the lunch counter. I scream as my cheek beats against the counter-top, and the older man has my arm behind my back, and a revolver against the side of my head. He’s twisting my arm so hard I think it’s going to break.

I’m crying and screaming, “No!”

“Who the hell are you?” The farmer screams at me, his eyes wild, his voice scared, his finger on the trigger of his gun against the side of my head. “Who are you?”

“Jed!” The waitress screams. “Jed let her go!”

“Sir!” the trooper orders, his own gun drawn and pointed at the farmer. “Sir I’m ordering you to put the gun down now! Drop it!”

My arm feels like it’s breaking as the farmer presses the gun so hard against the side of my forehead I can feel it press into bone. It hurts. “Tell us who you are! Tell us who you are! Are you the Devil? Are you the Devil? Tell me if you’re the Devil!”

I’m crying, my tears falling onto the counter as he manhandles me, my lunch is ruined and on the floor, my soda spilled, my arm numb, and I can just scream and cry. “I don’t know! I don’t know!”

He shoves the barrel of his gun so hard against the side of my head it hurts and I see stars. “So help me God if you are the Devil himself I will-”

“Sir drop the gun now!” the trooper orders, edging closer. “Let her go!”

My horse kicks the window, four huge cracks spider-webbing the glass.

“If I may speak.” The Middle-East guy sits calmly. “I don’t think her horse will appreciate her being hurt. I would humbly suggest letting her go. And possibly consider an apology.”

The farmer lets go, and I retreat to the end of the counter away from everyone.

The farmer turns his gun on my horse, pointing it through the window. He’s screaming. “Back off! Tell the animal to back off! I will shoot! I will shoot him if he doesn’t back away!”

The waitress stands up. “Jed if you shoot him you’ll break the window and we’ll all be dead.”