Porter's Bookstore - Final Chapter

Chapter 5 - Ashes to Ashes

Brandon went still as a statue, his eyes wide with fear. He swallowed and tried not to shake as Alan carefully shoved the end of his shelf between the two boards, pressing the edge of the book, pushing it back towards the middle of the shelves.

“There,” Alan whispered. “Let’s get it out of here, okay?”

The other two nodded and stood slowly, carefully, and began to walk the hallway to the incinerator. They were hit by the heat spilling from the open door of the huge metal furnace as they entered the room. The furnace’s body and piping writhed with blue-white arcs of static and twining snakes of light, the entire thing crackling and snapping at them.

“Okay,” Alan started. “Put your boards up across the incinerator’s opening, but don’t touch the furnace, and don’t let go until I can shove the book into the flames.” He looked at each of them in turn, they nodded. “I’m not sure if it will burn completely up if I can’t get it all the way into the flames. And I don’t think I’ll be able to do anything about it once it’s in there.” A large crackling arc jumped from one furnace pipe to another, emphasizing his point. “Don’t touch the furnace,” he said again quietly. “I’m not sure, but I think the book might be able to kill anything that touches the incinerator once it’s inside.”

“Yeah,” Brandon muttered and Angela nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

They stepped up to the open door.  Heat flowed out from the furnace in hideous waves, the interior a flickering orange and white hole of fire. All around them the furnace snarled and snapped, the static charges reaching out and biting their arms, their faces. Against pure instinct to run, they held the boards up to the door, the book sandwiched between like the dark, horizontal pupil of some demonic eye.

Alan set the end of his board against the spine of the book and shoved with every once of strength he could muster. The furnace gave off an incredible flash of light, electric charges flew from every surface to every piece of metal in the room - buttons, belts, necklaces, doorknobs, hinges, screw and nail heads, everything. The fire within flared, the heat climbed to an intensity that could not be withstood and Brandon, Angela, and Alan threw up their hands, dropping the wooden shelves to the floor and falling backward away from the inferno. The air filled with the smell of burning paper, glue, and leather; and then by the smell of burnt flesh, hair, and bone.

~ ~ ~

Jessica took the martini off the beach-side bar and placed it on her tray. She carried it out to the patio and set it on the small round table next to one of the deck chairs.

“Here you go, Mr. Porter,” she said, her voice light and pleasant. “I think John has finally figured out how to make them the way you like.”

She glanced at the older man. He was sitting with his eyes closed, his head resting on the back of the deck chair, his mouth slightly open.

“Mr. Porter,” she said quietly, a soft smile on her lips. “Your table will be ready in just a few minutes.”

He didn’t respond. She watched his chest for a second, felt a little silly for doing so, but he wasn’t a young man anymore.

“Mr. Porter?” she called again and took a step toward him.

“Mr. Porter?” she called louder and placed her hand on his arm.

The arm beneath her fingers crumbled away, leaving a large divot of empty air where skin, muscle and bone should have been. Jessica screamed, stepped back and caught her foot on the chair leg, jostling it. Mr. Porter disintegrated into a pile of ash and dust on the chair’s cushion and the cement patio. An evening breeze swirled around the screaming waitress, picked up the remnants of the old man, and spread him out over the beach in front of the Island Paradise Hotel, dispersing the subtle scent of brunt paper, glue, and leather with the old man's ashes as it passed through.

~ Peace and finality

Porter's Bookstore - Chapter 4

Chapter 4 - Descent

 Brandon set his foot on the first iron step and flinched. A static charge raced across the twisting scrollwork under his shoe, but all he felt was a mild buzzing beneath his foot. He took another step, pulled gently, but firmly against Angela’s weight.

“I’m good,” he said by way of encouragement. “Come on. You can do it.”

He took another step and felt the boards shake as she followed him onto the stairs. He could hear the high-pitched whine of her voice as it hummed from between her lips.

“You’re fine. Take another step.” The shelves shifted and twisted slightly in his hands. “Angela…”

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered, “but I can’t. There’s too much twist in the stairs. I can’t hold on to it like this.”

He looked over his shoulder and saw what she meant. He was three steps down, trying for the fourth, and she was on the top step trying hard not to lose her grip while avoiding the railing.

“Okay, okay. Just carefully walk your hands down the shelving, maybe six inches, and try from there.” She blinked and then started to inch her fingers forward, toward the book.

“OhgodOhgodOhgodOhgod,” she mumbled as she moved forward.

“Good,” he said when she took a step down and closer to him. “Let’s try again.”

“It’s in my face. I can’t see where I’m stepping,” she said.

“Try to put it more over your right shoulder, sort of over the railing.”

He felt her shift the boards and then started to lose his footing on the step. He tried to lean the other way, over compensated and his elbow touched the center support. White lightning flew up his arm to his shoulder and down to his hand.

“SHIT!” he snarled and recoiled.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry!” Angela cried out.

“It’s all right, just don’t let go.” He took a breath and blinked a few times. “Okay, the bad news is touching the metalrailing hurts like hell. The good news is you don’t get sucked into the book.” He peeked up at her. “You all right?”

“Yeah.”

Brandon started down the stairs again, tilting the shelves slightly to the right to help Angela maneuver behind him. There was a sharp snap and she cried out, “OW!”

“What happened?”

“I hit the railing.” There was a pinched quality to her voice, pain and fear combined. “I’d like to avoid doing that again,” she said softly.

“I know. Come on.”

They slowly made their way down the remaining stairs, turning counter-clockwise around the sizzling center support pole; each of them sucking in sharp breaths of air as the stairs reached out covertly and singed a knee, a hand, a shoulder. A minute later Brandon touched the wood floor at the base of the staircase. He walked forward, Alan stepping to the side of the shelves again, his board raised, watching. Brandon turned toward him.

“Where are the stairs to the basement?” he asked.

“In the back corner, next to the bathroom,”

“Please tell me they’re wooden and straight,” Angela said softly.

Alan nodded. “The incinerator isn’t far from them, either.”

“Where’s your manager?”

“He’s up front counting the till. The barista is probably doing the same at the coffee counter. When they’re done they’ll switch and count the other till to be sure there aren’t any mistakes. It’ll take about ten minutes before they switch. We can make it down there before that.”

“Okay, wait,” Brandon muttered, “I need to turn back around.” He set the boards on his head once more, pirouetting underneath as he repositioned his hands. He nodded at Angela as she lowered her end to a more reasonable height. “Let’s go.”

There was a loud crack behind her as the stairs threw out another arc of static. She saw the bright flash of it reflected in Brandon’s eyes and flinched.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “Just a little further.”

“I know,” she said through clenched teeth. “Let’s just get it over with.”

He nodded and started to walk backwards toward the unisex bathroom at the back of the store. She followed and grimaced, her steps uneven and clumsy.

“You okay?” Alan asked her.

She shook her head, but kept walking. “I think I twisted my ankle when I ran down the stairs for the water bottles. I didn’t really notice until now.”

“Do you want me to take the boards?”

“No. I’ll be fine, it just smarts, that’s all.”

Alan gave her an unconvinced look as she stepped gingerly on it again. “You’re sure.”

“Yes. Besides, I’d rather keep that damn thing where I have some control over it, no offense.”

“None taken.”

They walked in silence for several steps and then Alan shook his head. “Did you see the dust?” he asked softly.

“Inside the book?” she asked.

“Yeah. On the ground. What do you think…”

“People,” Brandon said quietly. Alan looked at him. “Maybe insects, maybe a mouse or two, but mostly people.”

“But how?”

“Whoever touched it before me must have knocked it out of the shelf. It was on the floor when I found it and I was going to put it back.” He looked at Angela. “I didn’t see anyone when I was pulled in. Just the pages, the words, and dust all over the ground.” She blinked a few times and swallowed. “It must have been a while before I touched it. Hours.”

“Christ,” Alan whispered. “How the hell did it ever get in here in the first place?”

“I don’t know, but we need to get it out,” Brandon replied, looking over his shoulder at the “Staff Only” sign on the door behind him. “Do you have a key to get us down there?”

Alan jammed his hand in his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. “Yeah, here.” He turned to the door and unlocked it, pushed it wide open and flipped on the light. “Be careful, the steps are a little steep.”

There was a menacing sizzle and snap along one wall. He looked back at the stairs and cringed as static leapt between the metal brackets holding the wood railing in place. “Don’t touch anything,” he muttered.

“Why?” Angela demanded. “I thought you said they were wooden!”

“The steps are and so is the banister. But the brackets that hold the banister to the wall are metal. And they’re throwing sparks.”

“Jesus! I can’t do this!” she wailed.

“Are there railings on both walls or just one?” Brandon asked.

“Just one.”

Brandon turned to Angela. “Okay, we can do this. We’ll just lean on the wall without the banister and stay as far away from the railing as we can. It’s what, twelve steps? We can do that. Come on.” He backed toward the basement door. “Alan, go down there and get the incinerator ready. Once we get to the bottom I want to throw this damn thing in and get the hell out of here.”

“Right. Be careful,” Alan said and disappeared down the steps. There was a loud snap followed by a curse.

“All right. All in one go,” Brandon said to Angela. “No stopping unless we absolutely have to. Remember, lean on the wall without the railing and go for it.”

Angela nodded. “Okay.”

They started down the stairs and pressed their shoulders into the blank wall. The way was steep and narrow and as Brandon reached the first bracket it flung out a spark and struck him in the thigh.

“Damn it!” he growled. Angela hesitated. “Don’t stop!” he shouted. “Just go! All the way down, go, go, go!” They stumbled and half fell down the remaining steps; both of them turned broadside to the wall to stay out of reach of the static.

Brandon came down hard on the basement floor, the last step taller than all the rest. He stumbled, lost his balance and fell backward, dragging Angela down the steps. She fell into the railing, right on top of a bracket, and screamed. The static charge flew up around her and sent her hair out in all directions, lit her face in an unearthly bright light. Brandon pulled the shelving with all his strength and she fell forward and to the right, still clinging to her end of the boards.

“Angela!” he yelled.

Alan came running from down the hall. “What happened?”

“We slid down the stairs…the electrical charges…I fell and dragged her into the railing,” Brandon stammered as he tried to kneel and still hold the shelving in place. Alan smacked the boards hard with his own, the vibration from the strike sending a different kind of electric jolt through everyone’s hands.

“Jesus! What the hell?!” Brandon shouted.

“The book!” Alan yelled back. “Look!”

“Oh God,” Angela managed to whisper as she also tried to kneel. “Brandon, don’t move. It’s almost to your fingers.”

 
~ Peace and vigilance

Porter's Bookstore - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - Alan

Angela hit the wooden floor at the bottom of the stairs wrong and twisted her ankle. With a muttered apology she pushed past a woman and her daughter and hobble-ran towards the rear of the store where the tiny coffee counter was hidden in a nook between the romance novels and the literary fiction. She headed for the cold case and grabbed two water bottles. Without slowing down she pushed her way past customers to the counter, slammed the bottles down and dug in her purse for her wallet. The man who had been next in line stared at her in complete disbelief.

“God, I am so sorry,” she stammered as she struggled to disentangle the faux leather billfold from the neon pink address book taking up way too much space in her bag.

“I swear I never, ever do this. It’s an emergency.” She grabbed a ten from the wallet and threw it onto the counter. “Keep the change,” she said as she thrust the wallet back in her purse and grabbed the bottles. “I am so sorry, really. I swear I will never do this again. I swear,” and she ran for the stairs.

Never in her life had she felt as slow running up a flight of stairs as she did now. Every step seemed to fight her, twisting out of her reach just enough to slow her down.

“Wait!” she yelled as she made it to the top. “I’m here!”

She ran around the corner and found the haggard man kneeling near the book, staring at it as if it would leap at him if he looked away. He glanced up at her as she reached him, dropping her purse on the floor at her feet and struggling with the bottles’ screw-on caps.

“Here.” She handed him one and went back to twisting the cap on her own. “Open it!”

He twisted the cap; the safety ring snapping in resistance as the top finally came free. She stepped as close to the book as she dared and tipped her bottle over the back cover, emptying the entire thing onto it. The man did the same and they watched in horrified fascination as the water spilled into the cover and disappeared, leaving no trace. There was no sharp crack of electricity, no ozone filling the air in front of them, no man.

Angela shook the last drops out of her bottle as if they would some how be enough to fling him into existence again. “I was so sure this would work,” she muttered. “So sure.”

“It was a good idea.”

“Yeah, well it didn’t work!” she shouted and threw the empty bottle at the book. It bounced off and rolled away.

“Here,” the man said and opened the cardboard box. Two rat faces, one white and black and the other all white, poked up from inside, noses and whiskers twitching. He reached in and grabbed them both, handing the white one to her. It squirmed in her hands, wrapped its tail around her wrist to keep from falling. She pulled the tail off her skin and shivered as she tucked it in next to the rat’s body.

“Oh, God. Do we have to do this?”

“I can’t think of anything else to do!” he shouted at her.

“I know, I’m sorry. Okay, let’s just get it over with.” She shivered again but wasn’t sure if it was because she was holding a rat or because she was about to kill it.

“Okay. On the count of three drop it on the book.”

She nodded and held the rat next to his over the back cover of the book.

“One. Two. Three!”

They dropped the rats at the same time and the air filled with ozone, the hair on her head lifted and stood out. There was a bright flash and Angela threw herself backwards, felt the man close his hand around her leg and follow her motion. The crack that immediately followed was sharp, nearly earsplitting this close. They landed in a heap against the bookcase behind them and were pressed to the floor by a sudden weight. Someone groaned and gave a hoarse cry.

“Holy Mary full of grace…”

Angela opened her eyes and stared at the drawn face of the sales associate she had spoken to just twenty minutes early. “He’s out! He’s out! We got him out!” she shouted and pushed him off her side.

Brandon pulled himself out from under the sales associate’s legs and nodded, rubbing the side of his head.

“We got to get rid of it.”

She nodded and then touched the sales associate. “Are you okay…” she glanced at the name tag pinned to his sweater, “Alan?”

“Yeah. Jesus. Yeah, I think so.”

“I’m Angela and this is…” She looked at the man sitting next to them with her eyebrows raised.

“Brandon. Listen, we got to get rid of that thing.”

“How?” she asked.

The intercom broke in again. “Porter’s Bookstore will be closing in five minutes. Please bring your selections to the front registers and have a pleasant evening.”

Alan sat back against the bookcase and then thought better of it and leaned forward. “Burn it.”

“Okay, but where,” Brandon asked.

“The store’s got an incinerator in the basement. Porter runs it all the time to deal with the unsold extra copies.” Angela looked at him, incomprehension in every newly acquired deep crease in her face.

“What?”

“When you have extra copies that don’t sell right away, and if the publisher won’t take them back, you either keep them and hope someone eventually buys them or tear off the covers and throw them out. Either way you take a loss. Porter burns them to save the space they would take up in a landfill.”

“That’s awful,” she whispered. “No wonder the thing tried to kill us. It’s fighting back.”

“It’s a book!” Brandon shouted. “Books don’t fight back!”

“Well they don’t eat people either, but that one sure gave it a helluva shot!” she yelled back, her eyes wide and bulging.

Alan ran his hands across his face and then looked at his palms, the white, dry lines etched into them crying for moisture.

“We need to burn it,” he said. “Completely. It’s gonna keep doing this until it has enough moisture stored up. We need to burn it.” He stood up and headed for his cart, sidestepped the book and grabbed the metal handle to wheel the cart into place.

“Jesus!” Brandon yelled. “Not the cart you fool! It’s metal! The damn thing will just suck you back in if you’re touching it with the cart and the cart is touching you!”

Alan jerked his hand away and stared at the book and then the cart. “What do you mean?”

“The static electricity…I think it uses the static to draw in its victims. The current’ll flow from it, through the cart, and pow, you’re gone.”

“Yeah, thanks man,” Alan stammered.

“No problem,” Brandon said and pulled Angela to her feet. She looked at him hard.

“How old are you?”

Brandon blinked, glanced at his aged hand and muttered, “Twenty three.”

She nodded. “I’m twenty nine. How old do I look?”

Brandon squinted. “About fifty.” She looked over at Alan.

“You look about forty.”

He laughed. “I’m thirty one.”

She looked back at Brandon. “He was only in there, what, five minutes?”

“Yeah, and the rats are probably dead, so we need to get rid of this thing before it snatches someone else.”

“Right. How?”

Brandon looked around and then walked two stacks down the aisle and jerked hard on a shelf. The board came away from the case sending the books on its surface to the floor. He jumped aside and then used the wood shelf to plow them against the opposite case. He handed the shelf to Angela and reached for another. More books hit the floor and were plowed to the side. “Alan, get a shelf, too.”

The sales associate nodded and yanked a shorter one off the end-cap next to him. The marketing poster and carefully arranged books fell, smashing into the ones beneath and dragging a few to the floor with them. He pushed them into a pile just as Brandon had done.

“Okay, now what?”

“Now we try to get the damn thing on one of the shelves, sandwich it in between it and another shelf and get it to the basement as quickly as possible.”

“Yeah, okay, I get what you’re talking about,”

Angela nodded and walked around the book and slid the end of her shelf up against its spine.

“Put you end on the page side and let’s see if I can tip it over onto your shelf,” she said.

Brandon moved forward and jammed his shelf against the floor and the cream colored pages. “Okay.”

Angela turned to Alan. “Come over here and help keep it straight.”

Alan stepped around the fallen books and stood to her right, ready to beat the book into pieces if necessary. Carefully Angela tilted her shelf, tried to tuck the edge of the end under the spine and raise it enough to slide the shelf further under. The book shifted a little and they all jumped. It fell back, flat against the floor.

“Okay,” Alan breathed. “Let’s try it again.”

This time Angela managed to flip it over so that it was leaning fully against Brandon’s shelf, the front cover exposed. The three of them stared at it.

“There’s no title.”

“Nothing on the spine, either.”

“Well, there were words inside,” Angela whispered. “I remember the words. They were huge and sharp and wicked.”

“Yeah, okay. Angela,” Brandon nodded at her, “keep the bottom end of your shelf where it is, but hand me the rest. I’m going to trap it. Alan, don’t let it fall.”

“Right.”

Angela tipped her shelf forward until Brandon was able to reach out and take it from her, slowly bringing the two pieces of wood together on either side of the book. He slowly lowered the two shelves while Alan kept the book from sliding out with the end of his shelf. They all let out the breaths they were holding when Brandon was able to finally lay the shelving down on the floor, the book safely sandwiched between them. Alan knelt down near the book and tapped the end of it with his shelf, sliding it inch by inch down the length of the longer shelves until it was resting near the middle.

“Take your end, Angela, and we’ll carry the whole thing down the stairs,” Brandon instructed.

She licked her lips, her thick tongue doing little to wet the cracked skin. She knelt down and slipped her fingers under the bottom shelf, clamped her thumbs across the top and nodded.

“Okay.”

“You got it tight?” he asked as he did the same on his end.

“Mmhmm. Yeah.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

They stood up in relative unison, Alan watching the book and holding his shelf like a cudgel, ready to smash it if it should fall away. Slowly they stepped over and around the books that had spilled to the floor near the end cap. Alan pushed the outliers into smaller piles to make a clear path.

Angela grimaced. “Wait. Stop. I’m losing my grip.”

Brandon stood still in mid-step, his eyes wide as she clasped and re-clasped the boards, balancing the ends of the shelves against her stomach.

“Okay,” she said.

They continued, Angela walking backward, peeking over her shoulder to be sure of her steps, Brandon steering from his end, Alan beside the book, but a few steps out of reach if it should slip. As they neared the stairs the air took on a decidedly electric odor. The hairs on Angela’s head began to stand out.

“It’s happening again,” she said, the pitch of her voice suddenly higher than it had been.

“Don’t let go,” Brandon replied, his voice as firm as he could make it.

The floor beneath their feet creaked and Angela jumped, the shelf boards and the book shifting in her unsettled grip.

“Don’t let go,” Brandon growled, his eyes bulging, his teeth clenched.

“I’m trying not to,” she snapped and took another step backwards.

The ozone smell had grown stronger and Alan could see the hair on the backs of his hands standing straight up.

“God, look at this,” he muttered and turned his hand so they could see. “She’s right. It’s getting ready.”

“That’s exactly why we got to get rid of it,” Brandon snapped. The hair on his neck had lifted and was sticking out from his skin. “Keep going.”

Another step. The staircase threw out an elegant electric arc from the outside railing to the center support column. Brandon’s eyes grew wider and he glanced at Alan. The other man had seen it and nodded. Angela looked from one to the other.

“What? What?” She looked over her shoulder in time to see another white-blue flicker along the iron railing. “Oh shit.” She turned and looked at them. “I’m not going down those steps.”

“We have to get rid of this.”

“I’m not going down those steps!”

“Angela,” Alan started. She turned terrified eyes on him.

“I am NOT going down those STAIRS!” she snarled.

“Stop!” Brandon yelled. She looked back at him and he could tell that she was crying even though there were no tears sliding down her face. “Just listen to me,” he said softly. “Please.” She bit her lip.

“There isn’t any other way.”

She shook her head no.

“There’s an elevator at the back,” Alan threw in, “for people who can’t walk up the stairs or when we bring books up on the carts.”

Brandon shook his head. “No. I am not getting in a big metal box with this thing.”

“But it’s okay to get on the damn stairs and get sucked into it out here?!” Angela shouted.

“Listen to me,” Brandon started. The manager’s voice cut in once more.

“Porter’s is now closed. Thank you for stopping in and have a peaceful evening.”

He tried again. “I’d rather take my chances out here where we might be able to get away, than in a small space that we can’t get out of until the door opens.”

The stairs sent out another spark and Angela shut her eyes and started to shake. Brandon could feel it through the boards.

“I know you’re scared,” he said. “I’m scared. I don’t want to see the inside of that thing again. But I don’t want anyone to see it. Look at me, Angela.” She took a breath and opened her eyes. “The shelves are wood.” She looked down at the shelving in her hands, the dark stained grain swirling and slipping along the face of it. “Electricity doesn’t pass through wood. At least that’s what I remember from a first-aid class.”

“Yeah,” Alan muttered. “You use a broomstick to move the broken electric cord off the victim, right?”

“Yeah. The book is caught between two boards. It can’t touch us.”

“What about the stairs?”

He looked at them for a second. “I’m not sure, but I think we’ll be okay. I think it’s just static. I don’t think it can kill you, us, if the book isn’t actually touching the stairs.”

She didn’t look convinced.

“I’ll go first,” he said. “Let’s turn around and I’ll go down the stairs first.” He started to walk in a circle and she followed.

“What do you want me to do?” Alan asked. “I can’t go down next to you guys. There’s no room.”

Brandon looked over his shoulder at the stairs. “Maybe you could go down first, see if the static goes all the way down. Keep anyone from coming up or getting in the way if we have to drop it over the side of the railing.”

Alan didn’t look thrilled about this, but he nodded and walked to the top of the staircase. It snapped at him and sent a wriggling snake of electricity down the railing. He took a breath and stepped onto the first iron tread. Angela caught a cry in her mouth as she watched an arc of light dance right in front of him. He touched the railing with a finger and snatched it away, shoving it in his mouth.

“Try not to touch the metal if you can,” he said and took another step and then another. The static flew up and down the railing, arced behind him and in front, but he seemed to be doing fine. “I think it’s okay. Just try not to touch it.” He continued down the steps.

“Okay,” Brandon said and Angela looked back at him. “I want to turn around and hold this thing over my head as we go down. I need you to hang on and help me not drop the shelves.” She nodded.

He lifted his end at the same time that he bent his knees, trying to keep the whole thing as level as possible. He set the bottom shelf on the top of his head and began to turn around under it, switching hands as he went until he was facing the stairs.

“Follow me,” he said.

“Okay.”

Angela tried to step in time with him, her end slightly lower even though she had lifted it to chest height. They neared the stairs and Brandon hesitated. A thick, wide arc leapt from the center support to the railing, just missing his face.

“All right, here I go. Just try to keep up with me as best you can.”

“Mmhmm,” Angela replied, nodding, her lips pulled into her mouth and over her teeth to keep the fear inside.



~ Peace and a safe journey

Porter's Bookstore - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - Brandon

Brandon stumbled and ran his head into the bookcase in front of him. He had seen a woman in the bright flash of light, in the instant before he was free. He had tried to grab her, but she was suddenly gone, caught in the binding, slipping into the text, beyond his fingers. He looked down at his hands, the skin loose and dry and cracked. They looked like his grandfather’s hands, seventy not twenty-three. He blinked and rubbed his face, felt the skin cry out at the roughness of his fingers, the elasticity of the skin on his cheeks gone, begging for moisture.

He had to get out. He stood up and lost his balance, reached out to catch himself and jerked his hand violently away from the books on the shelves as his fingers brushed against the glossy dust jackets. He glanced feverishly around for the stairs and lurched toward them. The wrought iron railing produced a bright spark at his touch, the static following him down the twisting steps as he fled the second level of the bookstore. He hit the wooden floor at the bottom of the staircase and stuck his static burned fingers in his mouth. There was no saliva in it to soothe the pain. He bolted for the door.


“Hey, watch where you’re goin’!” a customer hollered at him as he careened off the man’s shoulder. Brandon turned his haggard face and grimaced an apology as he dragged the heavy door open and fell out into the cold December air.

He stood on the sidewalk and drew in huge gulps of outside air, freezing cold, and filled with the remnant exhaust of the traffic moving past the storefront. He coughed, the dryness of the air raking the back of his throat like sharp twigs and glass. He stood there trying to recover, his eyes closed, hand over his mouth, struggling for air when the woman's face flashed against his eyelids, so shocked, so amazed, on the verge of terror. He knew what she was feeling, knew that now she was ripping at the paper with fingers that were withering before her eyes, screaming and not being heard. He knew.

Shit!

He turned and walked up the block past Loaves and Fishes Cafe, past Step Right In Shoes, and Pet Depot. He shook his head trying to get her face out of his mind. He could hear the scream and put his hands over his ears, felt the loose skin along his jaw, wrinkled and hanging.

Shit!

He stopped in front of the pet store and squeezed his eyes tight. It didn’t help. He could still see her, floating behind the bright flashes of eye-stars and the twisting lights that spun faster the harder he pressed his lids together.

Shit, shit, shit!

He opened them again and stared at his reflection in the plate-glass window. He looked ancient, shriveled, a walking mummy. Beside his reflection the woman’s face appeared, her mouth open in a scream, her eyes wide with terror. Beyond her image, behind the glass and inside the store, white rats, tawny mice, fuzzball hamsters, and a litter of tabby kittens wandered around their display cages. Brandon darted inside.

He located a salesgirl and dragged her to the window display. “I want two,” he pointed as she stared at his face.

She forced her gaze to follow his wrinkled hand. “Kittens? What color?”

He shook his head violently, his stomach turning over. “God no. Rats.”

She gave him another long stare and then stepped over to the cages. “Boys or girls?” she said as she reached into the cupboard underneath and pulled out a collapsed cardboard carry box.

“I don’t care,” he replied. She glanced up at him as she folded the box into shape. He felt his face redden. “Girls. No! Boys. No! One of each. Really,” he muttered, “it doesn’t matter.”

The salesgirl stood back up and set the box on the counter. Brandon leaned towards the cage to watch her remove two of the occupants. They scrambled away from her fingers as she chased them around the cage. Finally she caught one and deposited it in the box. She looked at him again and he nodded. She grabbed a second rat and stuffed it into the box with its cage-mate.

“Do you need any bedding, a cage, some food?” she asked as she secured the top of the box. Two pink rat noses poked out of two air holes on one side of the box.

“No, I’m good.”

She pushed a few treat cubes into the holes before handing the box to him. “Don’t leave them in there too long and not alone. They’ll chew their way out in nothing flat,” she instructed as she stuck a barcoded sticker to the box.

“Right.” He lifted the box from the counter and felt the rats scramble on the smooth cardboard bottom, their claws struggling for a hold that wasn’t there. “Thanks.” He headed for the cashier and dug in his back pocket for his wallet while the rats danced in their box in tiny circles around each other.

He set the carry box on the counter and pulled out a credit card. The cashier looked at him, her mouth slightly open, and then at the box. A pointed rat nose covered with twitching whiskers was sticking out of an air hole on either side.

“Eighteen fifty,” the girl mumbled. He handed her the card and she took it, staring at his hand and then glancing quickly at his face. She ran it through the machine and got an error message. She tried again and got another one.

“Here,” he muttered softly and handed her his debit card. Same result. Error times two. She handed the cards back and he reinserted them before digging in the bill pocket for some cash. She glanced at his driver’s license and then at his face. He pulled a twenty out, shoved it across the counter, and jammed his wallet back in his pocket. Still darting looks at him, the cashier punched in the amount. The drawer dinged as it popped open and she pulled a one and two quarters from the till.

“One fifty is your change,” she said and set the bill, coins, and the receipt on the counter and slid them towards him. She snatched her hand back before he touched the money and then looked mildly apologetic.

“Thanks,” he stammered and grabbed the money, stuffed it in his front pocket and picked the carry box off the counter. The rats did their mad scramble dance as he hurried to the door.

“Wait, do you want a bag?” the cashier called after him as the door swooshed shut. He didn’t bother to wave off the question, just hurried back towards Porter’s with his rats.

The bells above the doors jingled as he pushed his way through and half-walked half-ran to the twisting staircase. He felt exhausted and in desperate need of a drink, but all he could see was the woman’s face as the pages closed in around her. He managed to take the steps two at a time, twisting himself around the center support, the carry box rocking wildly from side to side as he climbed, the rats skittering around inside.

Overhead, slipping quietly through the dry air of the store came the manager’s voice. “Good evening. Porter’s Bookstore will be closing in fifteen minutes. Please make your final selections and bring them to the front registers for purchase. We wish you a warm and comfortable evening and thank you for stopping in to see us.”

Brandon took a hard right at the top of the stairs and headed back towards the Self-help section. The air filled with the scent of ozone, the hairs on the back of his neck started to rise. He reached the aisle and watched in horror as the sales associate, his little corner cart sitting nearby, reached down to pick the book up off the floor. Even under the weight of his coat the hair on Brandon’s arms stood up.

“NO!” he shouted and the man turned his head, a question on his face as his fingers closed over the book’s spine. There was a tremendously bright flash, a sharp crack and the sudden appearance of a woman, who fell shoulder first into the bookcase across the way. The sales associate was gone.

Without thinking Brandon ran to the woman and grabbed her. She looked up and let out a strangled cry of relief. She looked twenty years older than she had when her face had flashed in front of him as he was flung from the book’s grip.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She stared at him and then nodded, blinking her eyes. She reached up and wiped her cheeks and then looked down at her hands. “I can’t cry,” she muttered and then looked back at Brandon. “There’s a man.”

“Yeah, one of the staff. He tried to pick the book up.”

“That’s what I did,” she said, her voice soft and perplexed.

“We’ve got to get him out.”

The woman looked down at her hands, turned them over and back. “My God. How long…”

“Ten minutes, maybe fifteen,” he said, helping her to her feet. She stared at him as she stood, reached out and touched his ravaged face.

“How long?”

“I don’t know, an hour, maybe.” He reached down and picked up the carry box. The rats were starting to chew the edges of the air holes. “We’ve got to get him out,” he said again. “Here, move over.” She stepped aside and watched as he moved closer to the book.

“Wait! What are you going to do?”

“Drop the rats on it. Them for you, I mean, for him.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Obviously the book grabs the next living thing that touches it and throws the used-up one out. At least it does if the used-up one is still alive.” He had an after image of the dust scattered all around his feet while he had struggled between the pages.

“No, God, don’t do that!” Her eyes were wide with horror.

“They’re rats, he’s human. What? Are you going to touch it again to get him out?”

She took a step away from him and shook her head. “No. Just…wait,” and she turned on her heels. “Just wait, please!” She ran down the aisle and towards the staircase. “WAIT!” she shouted and he heard her feet smacking the iron steps as she hurried towards the first floor.


~ Peace....

Porter's Bookstore - Chapter 1

Chapter 1 - Angela

The door to Porter’s Bookstore thumped shut behind Angela, the jingle bells hanging from the top of the doorframe tinkling softly. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the smell of paper, ink, and glue. The store was quiet like usual, the gentle beeps and chirps of the register tallying up purchases, the cashier sending the customer out the door with a warm good-bye the only extraneous noises. She took another breath. She loved the place, with its the twelve foot high, floor to ceiling, dark-stained, wooden bookcases and wrought iron spiral staircase that stood like a single helix of literary DNA, winding upward to the second floor. She glanced at the clock behind the counter. Forty five minutes to find something to take home and bury herself in while the rest of the city plodded around in the cold.


She headed for the Autobiographical section and walked the length of the aisle with her head tilted reading the title and author on the spine of each book, dragging her fingertips along the shelves, leaving soft anti-dust trails behind. She caressed the bindings of books that interested her, drew each one carefully from its place to peer at the cover, eased open the first few crisp pages to scan the table of contents or read the introductory paragraphs at the beginning of Chapter One. If it failed to grab her she would replace it and continue on, repeating the process, waiting with barely controlled tension for the book to catch her eye and demanded she read it from cover to cover.

Her search took her around the corner and down the next aisle, through Biographies. She shivered as the cold December wind blew in through the door as another customer entered and disappeared into the back of the store. The bells above the door continued to tinkle, jostled gently by the wind whistling through a crack along the top edge of the doorframe.

Angela dragged her fingers along the shelves and jumped when a large electrostatic spark bit her fingers. Instinctively she snatched her hand from the shelf and shook it, the sting of the shock still tingling on her skin. She looked at the spine of the book from which the spark had originated. Hitler: God or Demon? the title read and she snorted. She leaned against the bookcase behind her and heard the crackling of static electricity on the wool of her peacoat. The bookstore is too dry, she thought to herself.

A sales associate wandered up the aisle towards her, pushing his strange little corner shaped cart filled with new book. She reached out and touched him lightly on his shoulder. A spark bit her fingers.

“You need to turn up the humidity,” she said quietly and rubbed her hand, “or the books...”

The man smiled at her. “Yeah, I know. Several people’ve mentioned it. I told Jack. He’s going to see if he can do something about it.”

Angela frowned at him.  “Who’s Jack?”

“The new assistant manager. Porter hired him a week ago. He’s pretty good, but he’s been having trouble getting the humidifier to work right.”

“Is Mr. Porter all right?” Angela asked, her forehead still knotted together with irritation.

“Yeah, just took a couple weeks off. I guess his doctor said he needed to take a break or he would whither away into nothing from working so hard.” The associate placed his hand on a nearby shelf and quickly yanked it back following the loud snap of a spark. “Jeez! I better go remind Jack,” he muttered and trundled his corner cart away, shacking his fingers. Angela watched him turn out of sight at the end of the bookcase and found herself alone, once again, with the biographies. Book after book, shelf after shelf filled with the lives of other people, living in other places, doing other things. She sighed and continued her search.

From Biographies to Women’s Studies to Art and Photography and on into Fiction and Literature she searched. Aisle after aisle she wandered, breathing the paper and ink smell, running her hands over the bindings and jumping at the shocks and snaps that nipped her fingers. None of these stacks held the book that she felt driven to take home with her. Finally she entered the Science Fiction and Fantasy section and stood, transfixed in front of a newly released hardcover, a picture of a dragon in flight carrying a rider holding a massive rifle in his arms. Flight of Fire the title proclaimed, by J.P. MacDowel. She reached for it, hesitating a moment, stealing herself for the crack of a spark. None came and she pulled the book from the shelf and listened for the familiar creak of new glue snapping along the spine. Slowly, carefully, she read the inside flap of the dust jacket, imagining herself into the storyline.

"Flying had been Justyn’s dream from boyhood, but when the destiny of Blazenden teeters on the edge of disaster, flying becomes a dream he will have to wait to see realized. Joining his cousin in the ranks of the Army of One, following the lead of the Crystal King himself, Justyn finds more than adventure among the warrior soldiers he comes to call his brothers. In a battle in which everything seems lost he will find his true calling as a flyer, lose his greatest ally, gain the love of a she-devil, and find the key to saving his beloved Blazenden."

Angela took a breath and closed the cover, staring at the dragon and its rider. She could almost make out the face of the rider as he raised the rifle to his eye to sight and fire on an enemy soldier. He pulled at her. The dragon called. She could feel her place in the story and tucked the book into the crook of her arm.

Normally she would have left the shop, having found her book for the night, and return only when she needed another fix. But this evening something else seemed to be calling and she continued through the stacks searching for the source of her tension. Again she stroked the shelves and spines, snaps and bright sparks leaping in her wake.

She walked the Mysteries section without success, through the Poetry section where she received the largest of the shocks so far that evening, and then on to the end of the Music Appreciation section where she found herself facing the black, wrought iron steps of the spiral staircase. It had been ages since she had needed to climb them to find the necessary book to satisfy her need. She peered up through the intricate weave of iron to the second floor. The book was up there, somewhere. She could feel it, could almost hear it calling in her head. With a tentative hand she reached for the twisted, curving railing, sure of a shock that never came. Fourteen steps later she reached the second floor and the high freestanding cases there, sisters to the ones on street level.

It was quiet. Off in the depths of the stacks Angela could hear the few other customers sliding books off and on shelves as they fulfilled their own quests. She resettled the hardcover in her embrace and began to walk the cases starting in the History section. The crackling of static electricity was greater along these shelves, popping and flashing as she passed over the spines with her index finger, the sparks large enough to leave a subtle after burn.

She drew her brows together in a resurgence of irritation. That Jack had better fix the humidifier quick, she grumbled mentally, or the whole place will go up in flames it's so dry.

Nothing in the History section gave her pause except to snap and bite at her finger. She turned to the Reference section and perused her way through, pulling the occasional dictionary, ACT Test-prep guide, or book of lists from its place. Fewer shocks found her fingers here, somehow deterred by the onslaught of information filling the pages.

She turned a corner and started down the aisle of how-to and self- help books. Smiling, intelligent-looking faces stared back at her from the shelves. One copy faced out with six of its brothers stacked neatly against it, waiting to give solutions to those with unsolveable problems, hints on cleaning faster, ways to prevent pipe blockage or relationship failure. So many were new, crisp, and brightly colored to catch the eye. Without thinking she had pulled her hand into her chest and held it against the cover of the fantasy resting in the crook of her arm.  Her fingers lightly caressed the raised letters of the title and the author’s name. She had never found anything worth her time in the Self- help section, had never felt that the words within the pages were truthful. There was something unnatural about the multitude of plastic smiles and staged pictures that dripped with misleading hope. The book she was looking for could not possibly be one of these. She decided that the fantasy would have to be enough and took a right at the end of the aisle and started back to the staircase.

Halfway down the aisle lay a book, carelessly dropped or having fallen from its place on the shelf after clumsy hands left it unbalanced near the edge, a victim to the quiet puffs of wind as people passed it by. She wasn’t interested in what it was, but the fact that someone had just left it there, lying on the floor, irked her. She walked over to it and leaned down. The hairs on the back of her neck rose and she prepared herself for the snap of a shock as her fingers touched the back cover and cream-colored pages.

The sound of the spark was amazing, the flash brighter than any of the others, and, for an instant, Angela felt real anger at the new manager for putting the books in such jeopardy. The next instant brought nothing but terror as her vision cleared and she found herself surrounded by paper towering above her head, the black letters of gigantic words leaning against her, the sharp edges and points of the text like razors and teeth. She screamed and the sound disappeared into the paper, muffled and muted and lost.

 
~ Peace and good reading

A poem...

Ten after ten, Wednesday AM
The sun is out
the kids are bussed
my hair is combed
no longer mussed

The stuff is placed
my breakfast et
Jeff's out the door
the garbage set

The house is quiet
then my cell rings
my Love's stuck in traffic
I'm checking bing

Reroute the husband
from central command
switch back to my email
and other demands

The dog starts barking
another ring on the phone
I start to panic
"They" know I'm alone

How much will I accomplish
how much can I do
if the phone keeps on ringing
as I try to wade through

as the dog barks a warning
of garbage can crime
as the computer freezes up
as I lose all my time

The sun is still shining
it's 10 after 10
the day seems it's mine
but it's really all "Them"

A deep breath, another
I’ll muddle on through
and keep checking things off
of my list of  to do.

~ Amy Graves 9-08-10

Final Chapter of Stewart and Joshua's Story begun 11-24-09

Here is the final installment of Joshua and Stewart's story.  It's been a long time in coming, I know, and I have appreciated your patience and support as I have written my way through to its end.  It is my hope that you have enjoyed the crazy little journey I, they, and we have been on.  I welcome your comments, insight, and thoughts about the ending, the story, the proces, etc.  For those new to the blog, this story began on 11-24-09 and ends here.  Please use the tag cloud to navigate back to the beginning and read from there.

Without further ado...


Chapter 14 - Freedom

Before he knew it Joshua had run right into the heart of the chaos filling the hall. There were people dressed in orange bio-hazard suits carrying black boxes on straps and wielding long black wands over a pile in the middle of the floor. The air was filled with an irritating clicking that grew in intensity the closer a wand was brought to the pile. Near the door, the door he wanted so badly to reach, were police officers and paramedics, several of whom were in the process of putting on orange suits.

On instinct Joshua headed for the nearest doorway and pressed himself into the shallow depression. The door behind him had been shut, but not latched and, as he pushed back to avoid the searching eyes of the men who had been chasing him, the door gave way and he stumbled backwards into an office. The door swung slowly shut, but stopped short of closing, coming instead to rest on the latch and leaving a thin window between the doorframe and the door.

Joshua looked quickly around himself. The office held a desk, a file cabinet, a computer, and a several chairs, all of which were turned this way and that, one was tipped over completely. There were papers on the desk and also on the floor beside it. The handset of the desk phone was dangling off the edge of the desk and making nasty buzzing sounds over and over again. He felt Stewart wrap his body tighter around his neck and patted the salamander on the back.

Shouting out in the hall drew the boy back to the door and he peered out through the crack left by the latch. Across the hall was another doorway, the familiar male stick figure on a black square posted next to it. People in orange suits were walking in and out, some carrying the black boxes and wands, some carrying red bags with white crosses on them. Eventually a silver cart with silver wheels and a mattress on it came into view and was steered into the men’s room.

All around his door Joshua could hear the voices of men and women, all of them speaking fast and a bit too high. Someone in regular clothes walked by and then another person, a woman, stepped up to the door.

“We can talk in here,” the woman said and Joshua watched in horror as the doorknob began to turn. He stepped back but there was no where he could dart to hide.

The woman took a step into the office and caught her breath as her gaze fell on Joshua in the stolen lab coat. “You…” she whispered.

Joshua swallowed. It was the woman who had grabbed him the other day. He decided that he would run right at her and kick her in the shin to get away.

“John,” she said and turned her head to look over her shoulder, “there’s not enough room in here for the officers. Let’s try the conference room instead.”

“Yeah, all right,” a man answered.

The woman turned back and looked at Joshua. “I imagine the emergency crews want us out of their way while they take Mason out to the ambulance,” she continued. “The conference room would be better.” She held Joshua’s gaze and then whispered, “Leave the coat here and wait until they take him out.”

“What did you say?” the man asked.

The woman started to close the door. “I said the coast will be clear once they take him out.” Her voice grew softer as the door came back to rest against the latch.

Joshua let out the breath he had been holding. She hadn’t told on him. She had looked right at him and then left without telling. His knees felt weak.

“Gggggoooo lllloooookkk,” Stewart growled from under Joshua’s chin.

The boy walked back to the door and peeked out the slit once again. The silver cart was sticking out of the men’s room door and two paramedics in orange suits were holding on to it. The one nearest the hall stepped on a pedal near one of the cart’s wheels, then both paramedics disappeared into the bathroom. There was a lot of scuffling and grunting before they reappeared, each one carrying one end of a stiff board with someone lying on it.

“Careful…up and over…” someone said as the board and person on top of it were lifted onto the cart. There was a thump as they set it down followed by a deep groan.

“Mason,” one of the paramedics said, leaning close to the head of the person on the cart. “Mason, can you tell me where you are?”

“Hell,” came the weary reply.

The paramedic looked up. “Let’s get him out of here.”

The other paramedic finished fastening straps across the man lying there and then flipped the pedal near the wheel with his toe. The cart started to roll and the two orange-suited men maneuvered it out into the hall.

After the cart came clear of the bathroom and they pushed it down the hall toward the outside door. Joshua caught a glimpse of the man lying on it as it passed. His face was white with red patches on it and his mouth was hanging open. The sight of him sent a shiver all the way through the boy, one so deep that it made his stomach turn. More people in orange suits came out of the bathroom. The ones that didn’t have the clicking black boxes were carrying other things: pieces of clothing, a pair of shoes, one had a clear plastic bag that had a wallet and some loose change in it.

All of these people turned and headed for the outside door as well and the hall grew quiet. Joshua opened the door a bit wider and looked out. The only people left were near the door at the end of the hall. He could see the flashing red and blue lights on the police cars and the ambulance just feet beyond it. He took a tentative step out when Stewart hissed in his ear.

“Lllleeeevvvv tthhhhhe ccccoooooattttttt.”

Joshua pulled his foot back into the office and let the lab coat fall from his shoulders. He put his hand over Stewart’s back to make sure the salamander didn’t fall and then he peeked out the door again. Now the hall was silent and empty. He stepped out and started walking fast for the outside door.

“Hey!” a gruff voice rang out behind him. “What the hell are you doing in here?”

He took another step.

“Hey you! Who the hell said you could come in here?”

Joshua peeked over his shoulder. A policeman was just coming out of a room at the far end of the hall, his face stern and angry. “This isn’t a playground!” the cop shouted.

Joshua swallowed hard and started to take another step.

“Rrrrrruuuuuunnnnnnnn,” Stewart growled in his ear and the step became a leap and the leap turned into pumping legs.

In less than twenty feet Joshua was out the door and dodging through orange-suited bodies and surprised cops. The summer air hit him like a wave, filled his nose with the scent of fresh grass and car exhaust. Adults shouted at him as he ran, but he didn’t stop. With his hand firmly over Stewart he ran flat out until he could no longer hear the angry voices, until he could no longer see the flashing red and blue lights, until he could hardly breathe for the stitch in his side. He ducked between two dumpy houses and skittered across the alleyway behind them, rounded a corner and slipped through a thin copse of trees. In front of him was a pond that he nearly fell into. He slid to a stop and sat down hard on the bank and breathed in great gulps of air.

Stewart uncurled himself from around Joshua’s neck and looked out at the lake from the boy’s shoulder. He lifted his glossy black head and smelled the warm air. Satisfied, he crawled down Joshua’s arm and stood on the boy’s knee.

“This might be a better place to live, Stewart,” Joshua said as he regained his ability to speak.

“Yyyyeeeeesssssss,” Stewart hissed.

“I don’t think they’ll be able to find you here.”

“Ssssaaaaaffffeee.”

Stewart climbed down off Joshua’s leg and made his way through the grass to the waterline. He stepped into the pond, felt the cool, soothing water as it caressed each of his six legs and then turned and looked at the child, his child.

“Ttthhhhiiissssssss iiiiisssss gggggooooooodddddd. Ggggggoooooo hhhhhooooommmmmme. Ccccccoooooommmmmmeeee bbbbbaaaaacccccckkkk.” He turned and faced Joshua, rearing up on his hind pair of legs, his tail curved in the water behind him for support. “Ppppplllleeeeeeesssssseeee ccccoooooommmmmeeee bbbbaaaccccckkkkk.”

Joshua smiled and nodded at the salamander. “K. Don’t get eaten before I can get back here.” Stewart stared at Joshua for several moments, his bright red eyes unblinking and clear.

“Iiiiiii wwwiiiilllllll bbbbbeee ssssaaaafffeee. Ccccoooommmmmeeee bbbbbaaaccccckkkkk.” Then he lowered himself into the water and swam off.

Joshua watched the expanding wake as the salamander slipped away. After ten minutes or so he tossed a few handfuls of ripped up grass and twigs into the water, then he wiped his eyes with the back of his hands, the dust on them mingling with tears and leaving brown smudges on his cheeks. He stood up and looked out over the pond.

“Bye, Stewart,” he whispered and walked back the way he had come.

~ Peace and completion

Chapter 13 of Joshua and Stewart's harrowing tale started on 11-24-09

Chapter 13 – Hello, again

Joshua’s heart was in his throat. He had no idea where the gravely, hissing voice had come from, but it had been too close to his ear and it scared him. When it said to get out he had wasted no time fleeing from the room he had been hiding in. When it said run he had run, down the hall and into the first room he found with an open door. He held his hand over Stewart, terrified the salamander would fall to the floor and die. Images of those bright red eyes staring down at him from high above his mother’s head filled him with fear.

Stewart. Stewart was here, with him, in this crazy building. He should be out in the pond where he had left him a few weeks before. Joshua stroked the salamander through the collar of the white shirt he still had on.

The room he had run into had a short twisting hallway that ended up being a bathroom. There three toilets, each with its own little room, and two sinks backed by a long mirror. Two towel dispensers hung on one wall and there was a tall mirror that reached from the floor to the ceiling beside the dispensers.

“It’s a bathroom, Stewart,” he told the salamander. “There’s water.”

Joshua walked over to the sink and turned the faucet on. The water was icy cold, but as he added hot to the flow it grew warm and comfortable. He reached over to the towel dispenser and pulled a handful of paper towels out, stacked them together and then held the stack under the water until they were soaked. He squeezed the extra water out and then set them on the counter between the two sinks.

“Stewart,” he said and patted the salamander. “Come out and get wet. The towels are warm. You need the water or your skin will crack.”

He could feel the salamander uncurl himself from around his neck, Stewart’s tail and claws tickling as he moved. In the mirror Joshua could see the broad glossy black head rise up under his chin, the bright red eyes staring out at him.

“It’s okay, Stewart. Come and get wet.”

The salamander blinked and then crawled back down Joshua’s arm the way he had climbed up, tickling and wiggling as he wormed his way down the shirt’s sleeve and onto the back of Joshua’s hand. He stopped at the end of the sleeve, his head out, his front legs on the back of Joshua’s hand and looked left and then right before he pulled the rest of his body out from inside the sleeve.

The salamander had grown a lot. He was nearly as long as Joshua’s forearm and it took several seconds before his tail cleared the end of the shirt sleeve. But it wasn’t the length or breadth of him that startled Joshua and made his mouth open in wonder. It was the extra pair of legs that had grown between the front and rear pair.

“Stewart,” Joshua whispered. “You grew two more legs.” He reached out and gently touched one of them. Stewart glanced back at him and then walked onto the counter and sniffed the wet paper towels. He placed a tentative front foot on the wet pile and then, satisfied that they were safe, crawled onto the stack and lay down, belly flat on the moist towels, legs, all six of them, stretched out along his sides, and his tail flat out and hanging over the edge of the pile. If he had been in a tank of water he would have seemed to have been swimming.

“Do they hurt,” Joshua asked, stroking the other extra leg.

“Nnnnnnoooooo,” Stewart said, his head barely moving from the towel’s surface.

Joshua snatched his hand back. He stared at the salamander and then looked up, into the mirror, afraid someone had walked in when he wasn’t paying attention. There was no one there. He looked back at the salamander resting on the warm, wet paper towels with his eyes closed.

“Did you just say, no,” Joshua whispered.

“Yyyesssssssss,” Stewart hissed.

Joshua stood there, his mouth open, his eyes wide, warm water still running in the sink, and stared at Stewart. Slowly he reached his hand out and let the water run over his palm. He cupped some of the water and gently let it spill over Stewart’s back.

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Gggoooooooddd,” Stewart replied.

Joshua gently laid his warm, wet hand on Stewart’s back and could feel the salamander humming with pleasure.

“That’ really cool, Stewart. That you can talk.” He stroked the long smooth red spotted skin. “That’s really cool.”

Stewart opened his eyes and looked at Joshua. “Yyyesssssss,” he hissed.

The intercom crackled in the ceiling above them. “Access to the south entrance temporarily restricted. Please use alternate routes,” a woman’s voice told them. “Access to the south entrance temporarily restricted. Please use alternate routes.”

Stewart stood up and looked at Joshua. “Dddaaaanngggrrrrooouussssssss,” he hissed. “Gggeeetttt ooouuuutttttt.”

“You said that,” Joshua nearly shouted. “That was you back in the other room!”

Stewart put his front feet on Joshua’s right hand. “Gggeeetttt ooouuuutttttt.” Then he scrambled back up Joshua’s arm under the shirt sleeve and curled himself back around the boy’s neck.

Joshua laid his hand along Stewart’s back. The salamander was warm and damp from the water, but his grip on the boy’s skin was sure and firm. Without really thinking about it, Joshua grabbed the wet paper towels off the counter and tossed them in the trash and walked quietly down the twisty hall to the doorway.

The main hall was empty, though quite a bit of noise was coming from his right, where he thought the door to the outside should be. He looked that way for a long time and then decided they had better go left instead and try to find another door. He took several steps down the hall in this new direction when three men turned a far corner and came rushing towards him. Joshua froze for a second and then Stewart’s gravely voice filled his ear once more.

“Rrrrrruuunnnnnnn.”

Joshua turned and ran back down the hall, the three men right behind him. He held his hand over Stewart’s back and headed for the place he thought the door should be – just a little further and then down the next hall.

Behind him he heard one of the men call out.

“Hey! This area is restricted! Didn’t you hear the announcement?”

Another voice joined the first.

“Stop, damn it! You’re heading right into the hot zone!”

Another man appeared around the corner Joshua was headed for, his eyes wide and filled with confusion as Joshua ran at him.

“Grab him,” another man shouted from behind. “He’s going the wrong way!”

As Joshua ran past him, the man who had just appeared reached out and snagged the lab coat Joshua was wearing, pulled the boy towards himself and reached out to catch him in his other arm. Joshua felt the floor shift under his feet as he lost his footing, felt the fabric of the coat go taut and pull against his forward momentum. Along his throat he felt the pressure of Stewart’s body, felt it vibrate and the salamander’s head rise up under his own chin. He stepped down, put his free hand on the rising ground, let his other arm slip free of the coat, twisted to the left and spun out of the shirt. Beneath his chin Stewart opened his mouth, the bright flame red of his mouth and throat flashing at the man who had grabbed them, and hissed as loud as he could manage.

The man jerked back at the sight and sound of Stewart. “What the hell is that!?” he shouted and threw himself against the wall.

Joshua righted himself and rounded the corner. The door outside was where he remembered it, right there at the end of the hall – a hall filled with people in orange suits and uniforms.



~ Peace and courage

Chapter 12 of the Stewart and Joshua story started on 11-24-09

Chapter 12 – Suddenly

He had barely reached the next depression, barely caught his breath when another voice called out.

“Stewart!”

For an instant Stewart panicked, fear gripping his entire body. Now the voices knew who he was. Then, from somewhere deep in his mind he realized…he knew that voice. He opened his eyes and forced himself to look in the direction his name had been called. There, beneath a long ledge, behind shining silver sticks and branches, was the child.

The boy shoved some of the shining sticks aside. “Stewart!” he said again, his eyes wide and compelling.

Before he knew what he was doing Stewart turned and ran at the child. He no longer cared about the long whiteness, or the disembodied voice, or the people running around carrying things. Here was his child. Here was the one he wanted to find. Here were warm hands and kind eyes. Here was home.

The child reached down, spread his fingers on the floor and Stewart found speed in his legs that hadn’t been there before. His front feet touched the child’s palm, carried him up the boy’s wrist, and pulled him under the long white cloth that covered the rest of the child’s arm. He ran upwards until he found the child’s neck, to the warm, soft place where the boy's shoulder made the perfect spot to sit, and there Stewart stopped. He pressed himself tightly against the child’s throat, wrapped his body, his tail, everything, around the boy’s neck and clung to him.

He could feel the child’s heartbeat, could feel every breath the boy took, and the warmth, the safe warmth of him through his skin. The child reached up and laid his hand on Stewart’s back.

“Stewart, you’re so cold,” he said softly, his voice sending vibrations into Stewart’s body. The boy took the sheet he was wearing and pulled it up against Stewart and hid him from the cold air. “You’re too dry,” he said next. “You need water.”

He felt the boy look around, his chin brushing over Stewart’s head as he looked to the left and then to the right.

“There’s no water in here,” the child told him. “We’re gonna have to leave.”

At first Stewart didn’t say anything. He would stay or he would leave with the child. Where the child went he would go. As long as he was with the child the rest didn’t matter. Then he remembered the empty shadow and the man who had worn it. And he remembered the word the woman had used only moments before.

From deep in his throat he pulled the word out. “Ddddaannnggrrruuussssss.”

The child’s whole body went rigid. Stewart could feel the tendons on the boy’s neck stand out. He took another breath and tried again. “Ggggeetttttt ooooouuuutttttt.”

The child bolted out from under the ledge, shoving shining sticks in all directions. Several fell over and made a tremendous crash that rang painfully in Stewart’s head. The child stumbled forward, caught himself on his front legs and then got up and ran for the door, one hand held against Stewart, the other waving wildly in front of himself as he ran. A dozen steps and they were out in the bright white of the hall and Stewart closed his eyes in response to the painful light. He could feel the child look right and left and then run again. Running was good. Running meant leaving. Leaving meant grass, and fresh warm air, and water. Running meant life.

“Rrrruuunnnnnn,” he hissed and held on.


~ Peace and motivation

Chapter 11 - Where Joshua and Stewart are in a tight place - started 11-24--09

Chapter 11 – Red Spots

The cereal bar had helped. Joshua was no longer starving, but he still had to pee. He glanced around himself trying to figure out how he could take care of that pressing problem. While he ate he had figured out that if he risked sticking his hand out from under the counter and waving it quickly the lights would stay on. He had forgotten to do it one time and the room had gone dark. On instinct he had shot his leg out, the lights flashing back on with his movement and he had worried that someone in the hall would notice. Nothing had happened, however, so he relaxed a little and tried not to think of anything having to do with water.

There was no other way out of the room except the door he had come through. There were no other doors at all, besides the ones that fronted the cabinets above the counters along one wall. They weren’t going to lead to a bathroom. Cabinets never had bathrooms inside of them. There were windows on the back wall, but he couldn’t see the latches and didn’t think he could open them anyway. In desperation he pressed his hands into his crotch and squeezed his legs together. There had to be some place. He didn’t want to have an accident.

That’s when he saw it. Sitting on the floor between a counter and the front wall was a wastebasket. A round black can with a white plastic bag lining it and tied around the rim so it wouldn’t fall in. If he was quick he could pee and be back under the table before anyone came. He stuck his hand out and waved it frantically to keep the lights on, then pulled it back under the counter. The wastebasket was three counters away. And there were stools pushed in around them like a forest of silver trees.

Joshua leaned forward and rested on his knees. His bladder didn’t like this new position and he pressed harder with his hands to keep from going right in his pants. He stuck his head out and listened for anyone coming down the hall, but it was quiet for the moment. He pushed past the stool and realized that if he didn’t make a run for it he was going to be very wet and very miserable. He scrambled to his feet and, with one hand still clutching his crotch, bolted around the counters and ran for the wastebasket. He was so desperate that the urine hit the crumpled up papers in the can before he was fully stopped.

He thought about how angry his mother would be with him for peeing in the trash. Then he thought about how much angrier she would have been if he had soiled himself and decided this was a better choice. Besides, he wasn’t going to tell her that he had done it. She would never know.

“Code seven, south entrance. Code seven, south entrance.”

The voice startled Joshua so badly he missed the wastebasket and peed on the wall.

“Code nine, men’s room, south entrance. Code nine, men’s room, south entrance.”

Joshua stuffed himself back inside his shorts and then pressed his back against the front wall. There were footsteps in the hall coming closer. Women’s voices floated into the room as they passed.

“Code seven?” he heard one of them ask.

“Yeah, that’s for the HazMat team. Someone’s had some kind of biohazard accident.”

Their voices grew softer as they walked further along the hallway and he could no longer tell what they were saying. He stared at the counters and wished the women would leave. He wanted to duck down under the counters and hide, but he didn’t dare move. They were still out in the hall. They could come back and find him. Then that man would try to take him away again.

“Yes, but I’m alive and I plan to stay that way,” one of the women said, her voice growing louder and clearer as she walked quickly back past Joshua’s room. The other woman clicked past, too, and then the hall was quiet once more.

Joshua waited a few more seconds before he stepped away from the wall and peeked at the doorway. No one was there. He ran for the nearest counter and shoved his way through the stool legs and underneath. As he turned around so he could watch the door from his new hiding spot he saw something small and dark run into the shadow of the door, just inside the room. His heart thudded in his chest and he strained to see what it was.

He could just make out small red spots along a smooth glossy black surface. He squinted. There was a head, flat and broad, with big staring eyes, and a long glossy black tail tucked tight where feet should be.

Joshua leaned out from under the counter, completely forgetting where he was. “Stewart?” he whispered.

The glossy black head ducked and then turned slowly in Joshua’s direction bringing sharp, clear red eyes to look into his own.

“Stewart!”



~ Peace and surprise

Chapter 10 of Joshua and Stewart's adventure started on 11-24-09

Chapter 10 - Urgency

Stewart reached the end of the hallway and turned the corner. For a brief instant he was in the dark and then the entire world flashed into brilliant existence. Out of pain and fear he slammed his eyes shut and pressed his body to the floor. Nothing happened. He slowly opened his eyes and realized he was in another long, never ending whiteness. This one was a bit different, though. He could see several depressions along the sides that held tall pieces of trees with no branches and no leaves. He skittered along the floor toward the first one and slipped into the depression as a person came striding into view.

The person carried a bundle in his front legs and never looked down where Stewart was trying desperately to hide. He walked by so fast Stewart felt the breeze the man made with his back legs. Three heartbeats later the man disappeared into a different depression in the white wall and the hall was deserted once again.

Stewart lifted himself off the floor and peered in both directions. Just as he stepped away from his hiding spot a voice crackled through the air.

“Code seven, south entrance. Code seven, south entrance.”

Stewart looked frantically around to find the mouth the words were coming from, but he was alone. His heart raced and his legs shook with fear. Where was the voice coming from?

“Code nine, men’s room, south entrance. Code nine, men’s room, south entrance,” the disembodied voice continued.

Not knowing what else to do, and filled with an extreme need to run, Stewart scurried out into the hall and made for the next depression. As he reached it he heard the slap – tap of shoes coming toward him. He pressed himself into the base of the strange flat tree and tried to look like a rock. Two women passed by him talking to one another, their voices tight and clipped.

“Code seven?”

“Yeah, that’s for the HazMat team. Someone’s had some kind of biohazard accident.”

“At the south entrance?”

“I guess.”

“But there aren’t any labs by the south entrance. And what’s code nine?”

“That’s the medical team.”

One of the women stopped. “They’re going to the south entrance…”

The other woman turned and looked at the first. “Yeah, the codes are probably related.”

The first woman raised her hand and pointed in the direction they had been walking. “That’s the south entrance,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere near it.” She turned away from her companion. “I’m going back and head upstairs from the main tower.”

“It’s probably fine, Ann,” the other woman said. “They would’ve closed this section if it was dangerous.”

Ann shook her head. “Nope. I want children someday. I’m not taking chances. If you want to go this way, fine. I’ll meet you in Lab 38 in ten minutes.” She started to walk back the way they had come.

The first woman shook her head and then sighed. “Fine, fine, we’ll go the long way. You’re so paranoid.”

“Yes, but I’m alive and I plan to stay that way.” Ann walked quickly down the hall with her companion hurrying to catch up. Stewart didn’t move until the clicking of their shoes was gone.

The word dangerous sat in Stewart’s head like a sharp stick. He knew what it meant and a blurry image of the hunting rock crossed his mind. He swallowed and ran for the next depression.


~ Peace and urgency

Chapter 9 of the tale of Stewart and Joshua started on 11-24-09

Chapter 9 - Hunger

The room was still dark when Joshua woke up. He had no idea how long he had been asleep, though the ache in his knees and the cramp in his neck made him think it had been a while. He rubbed his eyes and grimaced as his stomach growled. It had been lunch the last time he had eaten. Now he felt famished and had no idea what time it was or where he would find food.

The hallway was filled with continuous noise. The lights just outside his room turned on and then off as people traveled the corridor. He could hear them, their shoes slapping or tapping as they walked, their voices carrying into the room in snatches and clipped sentences that didn’t mean anything to him as they passed. Eventually someone walked by with a bag of popcorn, the thick butter smell spilled into his room, and it was all he could do not to leave his hiding spot and beg for a handout.

And he had to pee. That realization came on fast and sudden as he tried to shift his limbs in the tight little space. How was he going to pee when the lights came on every time something in the room moved? And where? He stared out at the stools and counters and wished for an answer.

For several long moments he considered unfolding himself and running for the nearest counter. Doing that would set off the lights, but being under the counter would mean space and the ability to see better. His view from the tight little cubby was limited to the back third of the room and an awkward line of sight to the door. If he could see better then he might be able to figure out how to escape. He started to reach his foot out when the room lights flared on. A man had entered and began shoving a few of the stools around. Joshua pressed himself as far back into his hiding space as he could.

“Well crap,” the man shoving the stools muttered. “What the hell did I do with it?”

Joshua watched as the man glanced under one of the counters and then walked closer to the file cabinet.

“I could have sworn I left it in here…”

A drawer was pulled open on the file cabinet and then pushed shut. Joshua held his breath. Another drawer was pulled out, rifled through, and then shut.

“Huh,” the man muttered. Joshua could just see the tips of one of the man’s shoes. “Maybe I left it upstairs.” The man turned and walked out of the room and Joshua started to breath again.

After a few seconds of quiet Joshua peeked around the file cabinet. The lights were still on, but the room was empty. He unfolded his aching legs and stretched them out in front of himself, rubbing his knees and turning his head to take the kink out of his neck. The sounds of voices and shoes in the hallway sent him scrambling for the nearest counter and he pulled a stool in behind him. He was not hidden under the counter like he had been in the tight space between the file cabinet and the wall. If he moved too much at the wrong moment someone would notice and come take him away.

Shortly a woman in a long white coat walked past with an armful of books and papers. Joshua pulled his knees in tight against his chest and let the shirt cover his legs again. He hoped it would make him look like part of the floor. She never once looked into the room and after she passed he relaxed a little.

In the light of the room he was able to see the pockets on the shirt near the top and along the sides. He reached into one and found a pen and a small pad of paper. In another he found a tiny screwdriver, paper clips, and a black rubber stopper with a hole through its center. There were a few tissues in another pocket and in the last one he found a strawberry cereal bar.

Eating it was a challenge. Every time he took a bite or opened the wrapper a little it made crinkling noises. He had to stop each time someone walked by the room and it took almost ten minutes to finish it. In the end he sat with his legs tucked up, a smear of strawberry on his fingers, and an empty wrapper that he repeatedly dumped into his wide-open mouth hoping to get the last few crumbs still left inside.

~ Peace and sustenance

Chapter 8 of Stewart and Joshua's adventure started on 11-24-09

Chapter 8 - The long whiteness and the empty shadow

Everything was so bright. And cold. The sun was no longer the right color and it wasn’t warm like it should be. The ground beneath Stewart’s feet was wrong. It was too flat and too smooth. And there was nowhere to hide. He hadn’t noticed that right away. The light had been so sharp that he had stumbled through the sneaky hole several feet before he started to wonder what was wrong with the grass. With his eyes half closed to shade them, he could finally see there was no grass, just flat, bright white, on and on and on. He turned and looked back the way he had come. The man wearing the shadow was still thrashing about in the pond. Between the pond and the sneaky hole was grass and rocks and dirt. He looked forward again. Everything beyond him was…different.

In the distance he could hear slapping sounds, voices talking too fast for him to understand, clicks and buzzes and clanging. All of it made him nervous. All of it made him want to hide. The only place that seemed possible was a shady spot beside a tall, thin wall so he scurried towards it.

His claws made tiny clicking, scratching sounds on the ground as he ran. His tail swished back and forth with the undulations of his long, narrow body. Once he made it to the shade he curled up and watched. It wasn’t nearly as dark there as he had hoped. He still felt very exposed with no grass hanging over him and no dirt and rock to blend in to. He looked at his front foot. It stood out against the white ground like a deep red-brown clump of mud. He looked up, searching for birds. There weren’t any and that was good.

After resting a few moments he peeked out and looked further down the long whiteness. He breathed in and out and it irritated him. Breathing in the water was so much easier. The water just flowed into his mouth, over his gills, and back out into the pond. Now he had to pull the cold, dry air into his lungs and push it back out again. The more he moved the harder he had to breathe, and his gills were beginning to stick to his sides. He hated how that felt. He looked back at the sneaky hole. It was still open. He could run back out and hide, then scurry his way back to his pond and be safe.

The man from the high, clear place climbed out of the pond and started back. He was dragging the two nasty sticks behind him and water glistened off the shadow he wore. He was not walking very fast. His steps were heavy and each time he raised his back feet water sloshed out of his legs. As he got closer, Stewart could see his face inside the huge clear eye and it made him shiver. The man was breathing hard, Stewart could hear it, and every breath he took seemed to hurt him. The man’s mouth was a long, straight line and he had deep grooves over his eyes. He stepped through the sneaky hole and the wall slid shut behind him. Stewart felt a deep sense of panic as he watched the grass disappear.

The man took three more steps into the long whiteness, dropped both nasty sticks on the ground and began to peel the shadow off. He pulled the shadow’s head off his own and let it fall to the floor, then he pulled on a loose piece in the front and tore open the shadow from beneath his neck all the way to his back legs. The whole thing made Stewart shake. The man pulled the shadow from his shoulders and let the shadow fall to the floor in a heap. He stepped out and then walked slowly down the long whiteness, his back feet leaving small puddles of water with each step. He turned and suddenly disappeared into the wall.

Stewart looked from the wall where the man had been to the lump of shadow he had left on the floor. Curiosity got the better of him and he crept toward the shadow with slow, tentative steps, swinging his head from side to side to be sure he was safe. All of a sudden a part of the wall further down flew out from the face and the long whiteness was filled with voices. The woman and two men poured out and began searching for something. Stewart scuttled into the folds and hanging down places made by the shadow and hid.

“Mason!” the woman shouted. “Mason where are you?”

Stewart watched from under an overhang of orange as one of the men started down the long whiteness in his direction.

“Look, he left the biohazard suit.”

“Don’t touch it!” the second man yelled and the first one stopped ten feet from Stewart and his hiding place. “Natalie, call the HazMat team to come take care of it. One casualty is more than enough, Rob.”

The first man nodded and then glanced at the floor. “He’s gone in there,” he said and pointed to the place in the wall the man had disappeared into. “Call the medical team, too, Nat. Send them to the men’s room. He’s gonna need them in a hurry.”

The woman nodded and tuned back the way she had come. She pulled the broken piece of the wall back into place, leaving the men alone in the long whiteness.

“What do we do?” the first one asked. “He’s a dead man. What do we do?”

“We go in there and make sure he’s there, we don’t touch him, and we wait for the med team. They know what to do. That’s their job.”

“I’m right, though, aren’t I.”

“Yeah,” the second man said as he carefully stepped around the water on the floor. “He’s a dead man all right. He’s got maybe 36 hours at best.”

“Shit,” the first man hissed and followed the other one into the open space in the wall.

Stewart stayed hidden for a few more moments before he realized just where he was. Slowly he crept out from under the shadow and then crawled onto its skin. He peered at the pile left by the man and he shuddered. There was nothing in there. The insides of the shadow were gone. No bones. No meat. No fat. Nothing. Stewart looked at the place where the sneaky hole had been and wished it would come back. He wished it would let him out. Then he remembered why he was in the long whiteness in the first place. The child. The warm hands and big eyes. If this is what the man had done to the shadow who knew him, what would he do to the child who didn’t? Stewart climbed down off the shadow’s skin and scurried down the long whiteness, hugging the base of the white wall as he ran. This was no place for a child. Not for his child.


~ Peace and spirit

Chapter 7 of Joshua and Stewart's dilemma started on 11-24-09

Chapter 7 - Decision

The pond was filled with a strange sucking, whining noise that hurt Stewart’s ears. It drew him out of another dream, this time about the hunting rock down in the beyond. The noise was just like the noise in his dream, the same eerie sound the hunting rock made when it had caught something and was eating it. He hated that noise. He wrapped his tail around his feet and pressed himself tight against the rock shelf.

The sunlight no longer filtered in through the algae. Now the surface was a dull green nothingness and the water below it was hard to see through. The sudden splash and descent of the nasty stick made Stewart bolt to the surface and into the hanging grass along the edge of the pond. The shadow was back and it was angry. It was growling and snarling as it jabbed the stick over and over into the pond. The horrible clicking box was there, too.


“You’ve got to move whatever it is blocking the outflow pipe, John. Now. The pressure’s building. The entire system’s bound up because of this.”

“Yeah, well who the hell missed the indicators, huh?”

“What was that?”

“I said, who the hell missed the indicators!” the shadowed yelled.


Stewart blinked. He had understood the words.


“Don’t yell at me,” a woman’s voice squawked back. “That was Mason’s job. Not mine.”

“You got the email just like the rest of them, Nat. You could have done something about it.”

“Me? Me? I’m trying to keep an eye on the kid! This is Mason’s fault! He’s the one who told me to grab the child in the first place! Hell, if he hadn’t forgotten to check the fence line the boy wouldn’t be hiding in the bio lab.”


Stewart blinked and cocked his head. He understood what the voice was saying. He knew what the growls meant.


“You know what,” the shadow snarled back, “I don’t want to hear it. All day long you people sit in there and mess with the conductivity of this and the electron balance of that and when the damn system you guys built starts sucking in things it’s not supposed to I have to come out here to the this mini hellhole you idiots created and fix it!”


“Mmmm,” Stewart tried as he pressed his lips together.  “Mmmmmeeeee,” he whined softly.


The shadow jabbed the stick hard against the bottom and yanked it back and forth.

“What ever it is down there it’s stuck good. You’ll have to reverse the flow and maybe then I can shift it,” it said.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”

“Excuse me?”

“We can’t do that, John,” a man’s voice crackled into the air. “The containment pond won’t be able to handle that type of flow and we have nowhere to send the backflow when the water level in the pond gets too high.”

“You’re joking.”

“Ah, not so much.”

The shadow backed up and leaned on its nasty stick. “Who the hell designed this system?”

“Mason.”


Stewart hissed and rolled his tongue against his front teeth. “Hhhhlllllll. Hhhhelllllllll.”


“Well you better tell Mason that his system is screwed.”

“John? This is Mason. Listen you have to unclog the outflow pipe. It’s extremely important.”

“Can’t do it.”

“Well you have to do it. Everything we’ve been working on will be affected if the system gets fouled.”

“I’m telling you that I can’t unclog it with this pole. It’s not possible.”

“Then get another pole! Get a pitchfork! Get something that will unclog it!”


The shadow threw the nasty stick on the ground and turned toward the high white wall. Stewart scurried forward and hid himself under a clump of weeds. It was harder to move on the ground. Not all of his legs seemed to work quite right. Swimming was much easier. Swimming was smooth and precise. Running was awkward and tiring. He watched the shadow disappear into the sneaky place in the white wall and then return with a new stick. This one was longer and thicker. It had two long claws on the end and the sight of it caused Stewart to press himself close to the ground.

“This is not going to work,” the shadow snapped.


Stewart watched the shadow pierce the pond’s surface with the new stick. It went through the same motions as before and got no where.


“How’s it coming?” the woman asked.

“How do you think? Are your readings any better? Has the pressure changed?”

“No.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so. I told you it wasn’t going to work.”

“It has to work!”

“How? How do you want me to make it work, Mason?! Get an even bigger pole?”

“Get in the water and pull whatever it is off the grate.”

The shadow stood up and turned toward the high white wall. There was a different sort of hole up high that Stewart had never noticed before. He could see people there. A woman and two men.

“Are you out of your friggin’ mind?!?” The shadow threw its hands out to the sides, the new stick flashed in the late evening sun. “I’m not going in there! The radiation levels alone are too high, and the toxicity is off the charts! No way!”


Stewart watched as one of the men in the high up hole grabbed his head and turned in a tight circle.


“Shut the system down, Mason!” the shadow yelled. “If it’s that critical then shut it all down!”


“Ssshhhhtttttttttttt.” Stewart tried. “Ddddddwwnnnn.”


“I CAN”T SHUT IT DOWN!”

“WHY NOT?!”


One of the men in the high place looked like he was going to fall. His front legs were held in front of himself like he was trying to jump out of the high place, but he stayed right where he was. Stewart’s stomach grew taut waiting for him to fall and he couldn’t understand why he didn’t. Then he remembered. Before the pond there had been clear walls that kept him in one place. He had tried to climb them, but it hadn’t worked. He had been able to see everything around him, but he couldn’t get to any of it. Maybe that’s what kept the man from falling.


“Do you have any idea how much money this project is costing us? Do you know how much money this project will generate if it succeeds?!” There was a dull thud as the high up man hit the clear wall. “If I shut the system down it’s a complete wash. A complete wash! It can’t be done over! It can’t be restarted!” He hit the clear wall again. “CLEAR THE DAMN PIPE!”

“CLEAR IT YOURSELF!” the shadow roared and threw the new stick on the ground. It landed not five feet from where Stewart was hiding and he pressed himself as close to the ground as he could to keep from being seen.

“JOHN!”

The shadow turned away from the high clear place and walked toward the sneaky open place below.

“JOHN!” 

The high up man hit the clear wall again, the thud was louder this time, ringing and angry.


The shadow disappeared inside the white wall and the sneaky place slid shut. Stewart glanced up at the clear wall. The two men were thrashing their front legs at each other and the woman was trying to back away. He looked at her. He knew her. She was the one that had yelled the other day. She was the one who said she had taken the child. He remembered the angry, frightened screams. He knew those screams. He had heard them before. The child with the warm hands and the big eyes had made them. Those had been the hands that had put him gently in his pond.

Stewart looked at the place where the opening had been. The child was in there. He scurried towards the high white wall and ducked behind a rock that was resting against it. The sneaky place slid open again and the man who had almost fallen from the high place came out. He was wearing the shadow on his body and carrying the shadow’s head. He looked around and then put the shadow’s head over his own.

Stewart could see his face through the big, clear eye and he shuddered. The man’s eyes reminded him of the hunting rock. They were not right. The man walked to the new stick, picked it up and plunged it into the pond. He jabbed and jabbed and twisted and yanked. It made Stewart’s skin hurt to watch. Finally the man shouted and stepped into the water. He slid as his back legs lost their footing. When he stopped sliding he was into the pond to his middle and the new stick was thrust back into the water and twisted some more.

Up in the high place the woman watched and another man Stewart hadn’t seen before stepped up next to her. She gestured with her front legs and the new man shook his head. She put her front legs over her head and sat down. Stewart glanced at the man wearing the shadow and then made a decision. The man hadn’t closed the sneaky place. The woman had said the child was hiding in there somewhere. He was going to go find him. This was no place for warm, gentle hands.

Stewart took seven halting steps towards the opening, glancing between it and the man in the pond. When he got to the opening he was dazzled by the white light inside, but he blinked, half closed his eyes, and scurried inside.


~ Peace and determination