Mostly, I just want to share my writing. It's what I love to do.
So, without further ado, here is the first story I'll be sharing. It is called "Before The Storm" and since it's a shorter work, I'll just be posting the whole thing. Please enjoy, leave a comment, and be sure to check me out on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/authoremilyblue/.
Before the Storm
This
was his fourth round with a new prescription and pretty soon he was going to
call it quits, face the inevitable.
Finch
stared at the laptop resting on his thighs, then blinked and rubbed his eyes
with his hands. His vision cleared,
though fog still clung to his peripherals.
Sighing,
he adjusted his glasses on his nose. A weather alert shrilled in his ear from
another tab, interrupting his work on a design for a client. Thunderstorms
approaching, an advisory for potential tornadoes. As if he didn’t have enough
to worry about, now even the damned outside conspired against him.
Maybe
he’d better give his eyes a break, check his cupboards to see if there was
enough to outlast the bad weather. At the very least, the pause would give him a
chance to mull over his next move on the project. In recent months, he’d gone
for a minimalistic, modern approach on his designs. That was “in” these days,
he told clients. Which was true, though the real reason he wouldn’t admit was
that it was just easier on his eyes.
But
this client had already pushed him through several iterations, each one
including more and more detail. It was getting to the point where he could
hardly see what he was working on anymore. The time he spent on this piece
already demanded more money than he would be paid. Maybe it was best to cut off
now, take his losses, admit he couldn’t do this anymore.
Shuddering,
Finch pushed the thought out of his mind. He couldn’t do anything if he had no
fuel to work on.
Standing
up, he staggered towards the kitchen. Dishes sat in the sink, fuzzy and gray;
he blinked, rubbed his eyes again, and realized the cloudiness was a mass of
fruit flies and not a result of his failing vision. The trash reeked, probably
encouraging the bugs to thrive.
He
stood for a moment, wanting to be stunned at the squalor he lived in and incapable
of it. Work took precedence over cleaning, or else he wouldn’t have a place to
not clean.
He
went to the fridge. A carton of eggs huddled in the door and he picked it up.
Empty shells rattled around inside Styrofoam. After tossing it in the trash, he
grabbed at the gallon of milk sitting inside on the shelf. A half-inch of white
liquid gathered at the bottom, looking fine and smelling questionable.
His
cupboards were in a similar poor state.
“I’m
lucky it’s not a snowstorm coming.”
Most
of the local businesses would have closed down already if so.
In
any case, a guy could make scrambled eggs without milk, but he couldn’t make
scrambled eggs without eggs.
A
glance at the microwave clock showed 5 p.m. exactly. Plenty of time.
He
headed out the front door and stepped into a gust of wind that carried an
unusual humidity for February. Illinois weather at its finest. No wonder there
were storm warnings. When the cold front hit this pocket of warmth, things were
going to be nine different kinds of crazy.
Leaves
skittered around his feet as he limped across the gravel of the parking lot,
heading in the direction of the nearby four-way stop. A short way down the street
was the school, and then there wasn’t much of anything for about half a mile
straight. At that point, a right turn would bring him to the store.
Usually.
He
didn’t get that far.
Every
other step sent a dull throb reverberating up to his hip. Sharper pain, like a
cramp, settled in at the joint there. Breath rasped in his lungs. His chest
could never seem to get full enough, even though before the accident he
considered himself to be in pretty good shape, never met a physical he didn’t
pass with flying colors. Now, exercise kicked his ass and he’d lost his driver’s
license.
The
journey stretched out before him, an impossible trek. Half a mile to the
grocery store, however many steps he took inside there from start to finish,
and then half a mile back while carrying groceries. God, how he would ache.
Aspirin couldn’t touch that pain, which seemed like a vine constricting his
bones.
Rather
than climb up the steps to the sidewalk running alongside the school, Finch
clumped his way over to the other side of the street. He checked over his
shoulder several times while crossing, a nervous habit he hadn’t been able to
shake off no matter how hard he tried to resist.
Having
reached the other side, he stopped and tilted his head back to try and distract
himself from the ache. Right overhead, the sky was pale with dusk and
completely clear. However, in the distance, brooding gray clouds approached at
a fast clip. The wind blew again, stirring more leaves, flattening Finch’s
clothes against his body. He shivered, rubbing his hands together. When had it
grown so cold? Wishing he’d grabbed a jacket, he got moving again.
There
was a park only a short ways beyond the school, abandoned this time of year at
this time of day. Nothing moved through the swaying shadows cast by
neighborhood trees, which were all far too large for the yards in which they
grew. No birds chirped, their evening song conspicuously absent. Finch couldn’t
hear any cars from the main road, only a short distance away. He couldn’t see
anyone.
A
muted thump broke through the quiet. Only one, followed by an unmistakable swish and a series of hollow bouncing
sounds.
As
a tall guy, no way could Finch ever forget that sound. Someone was shooting
hoops out on the concrete court at the park. He played out on similar courts in
his youth, as well as in the gym.
Finch
squinted, nose crinkling and upsetting his glasses. He could barely make out
two -three?- silhouettes running underneath the hoops. The streetlight nearby
illuminated them, though the orange glow seemed diminished in the face of the
clouds billowing ever closer as the seconds passed. The sky looked like a
stormy sea now, all clashing currents.
An
odd time to be playing but good for them, he supposed.
Faint
laughter fluttered through the air. Children. Two of them, from the sound. And
a third voice, an adult.
As
Finch came closer, a shapeless blob he’d believed to be a bush turned out to be
a police cruiser parked along the street. A cop was out in full uniform, various
badges and reflective pins outlined in neon.
The
cop dribbled a basketball at midcourt, passing the ball back and forth from one
hand to another. The two kids, small
boys, rushed at him from either side to gang up on him. As if this was a normal
day on the job, he picked up the ball, aimed while the boys bounced around in
front of him with their arms waving, and took his shot.
Finch
slowed down, watching. The ball sailed so straight and sure that even he could
follow its path, an umber comet, before passing through the hoop. Nothing but
net. Swish.
Not
perturbed at all, the kids cheered. Finch felt like cheering himself, his blood
racing a little faster through his veins. One of the boys peeled off, racing
after the ball. The ball bounced over the sideline, rolling into the street
right in front of Finch. The boy glanced over at him as if just realizing he
was there.
The
cop and the second kid were talking, although they turned as they noticed where
the other went. Finch glanced over at them, hoping the cop wouldn’t recognize
him as the weird guy who never left his house. He never got loud, never started
fights with anyone, never did much of anything, but that didn’t mean he was
anyone’s favorite.
Finch
bent down to grab up the basketball as it came to a rest at his foot. Jolts
shot up his leg as he bent his knee. He grimaced, feeling like fangs were
gnawing on his flesh. “Here,” he said, tossing the ball to the boy.
The
boy caught the basketball with both hands. “Thanks,” he said. Something
flickered across his face and then he hurried away again.
This
evening game, in such a peaceful little town, played in the face of an
approaching storm, made him wonder if there might not still be some innocence
left in the world.
Finch
looked out at the cop again, who waved at him. “Beautiful evening, isn’t it?”
The
wind picked up even more now, sharper, colder. “You could say that,” Finch
replied, raising his voice to be heard. He glanced over his shoulder and then
moved deeper into the road, straying away from the yard he was walking along
since there were no sidewalks here. “A little foreboding.”
“We
like it,” the cop replied.
We?
“When
you can taste the rain, the pressure, it’s the best time to be outside. Good
for the skin.”
As
someone who only ever felt sticky and uncomfortable in the face of humidity,
Finch didn’t agree. He hesitated, wondering whether just agreeing would get him
labeled as a brown-noser, when he finally figured out what had been bothering
him this entire time. Light dripped across the police officer’s cheekbones,
thick and yellow, the wrong color to have come from the streetlamp. His eyes bulged
from his face, immense and not nearly the size they should have been at all.
He
opened his mouth to scream, to call out to the kids, to tell them to run –the
one in the street might have a chance- but now he saw their faces glowing, too.
Pointed fangs spilled from between their lips, terrible, joyful smiles.
The
boy with the basketball stepped closer to Finch, nails long and hooked where
they jutted from his fingertips. They pressed against the rubber, on the verge
of puncturing through. “Want to try?” His voice slurred, words tangling around
his elongated teeth.
It’s my eyes, he
thought now, almost pleading with himself. I’m
on the verge of going blind. Everything is going. Blurring together.
“Sure,”
Finch croaked. He reached out one hand and took the ball, automatically
dribbling it on the street as he walked over to the basketball court. The cop
and the other boy watched him as he came up, and he could feel warmth filtering
from their eyes in sharp contrast with the approaching storm.
The
basketball felt good and comfortable in his hands, his body remembering what
his brain had forgotten. He didn’t need to look down to be able to dribble,
guiding the ball up to midcourt just like he was 16 again and trying out for
the team.
“Go
on,” one of the boys said, their voice overly encouraging. “You can do it,
Finch.”
There
were three people in this entire town who knew his name and none of them were
children. Feeling as if he had entered into some weird state of vertigo, Finch
caught the ball as it bounced against his hand for the final time. He lifted it
up, brought himself into the correct position so that his fingers skimmed over
the bumpy surface, and took his shot. He jumped automatically, coming down hard
on his bad leg. Pain shot up through his right side and he grabbed at his hip
with both hands.
“Dammit!”
Swish.
Overbearing
heat pressed up against his side. A pair of powerful hands gripped his
shoulders, steadying him. “Careful, there. Easy.”
“I’m
okay.” He replied as he naturally would, then froze as it came back to him how
odd this situation was. Those hands holding him up felt like twin vices, bones
of iron beneath thick leather coverings. Sharp, curved talons pricked through
his shirt, dimpled his skin. “Sorry. I think I should go.”
“That
was real cool!”
Finch
turned his head to watch the boys race off after the basketball, pushing and
shoving and laughing like children should. That sense of vertigo crashed
against him again, and the subsequent gust of wind nearly finished him off and
knocked him over. He might have fallen anyway, if not for those preternaturally
strong hands.
“Looks
like you’ve still got it,” the cop said. “Old injury?”
“I
should go.”
“Where
are you headed?”
Finch
bit his tongue, trying to keep himself grounded. “The store. I wanted to get
there ahead of the storm.”
“Hmm.
No car?”
“No
license.”
I can’t be having this conversation
with this creature.
He
couldn’t bring himself to look at the cop, feeling as if he would certainly go
mad if he looked at those bulging, predatorial eyes again.
“That
hasn’t stopped people in the past. But good for you, following the law. Not
many humans like you anymore.”
He said humans. Oh, my god. He said
humans.
The
cop tilted his head back. Finch witnessed something horrible out of the corner
of his vision, which seemed now to be betraying him with its clarity. There
were folds on either side of the police officer’s neck, crusty jowls that
twitched and pulsed, seeming to open and close like flower petals without ever
showing what lay underneath.
He
felt as if his thoughts were slipping, like he was standing poised with one
foot crashing towards the ground, where he had noticed too late a snake was
lying in wait.
“The
weather front is moving in pretty fast,” the cop said. “Can’t you feel the
lovely pressure?”
Finch
needed to look at this guy’s badge, pay attention to his features so he could
remember him later. He couldn’t. Just couldn’t. Instead, he watched the kids
taking free throws at the other end of the court.
“You’ll
never make it to the store and back home, not with that leg of yours. I’ll tell
you what I’ll do. Hop in my cruiser. I’ll save you some time, get you the rest
of the way to the store.”
“I…
I couldn’t,” Finch said. “What about the…”
Boys?
Kids? Monsters?
“They’ll
be fine on their own.” There might have been some sort of underlying meaning to
the cop’s statement. “And we won’t be gone long. Only a couple minutes. Come
on.”
And
that was the pity of it, the part of this whole terrifying situation he hated
the most, was that the drive with the cop would only take a few minutes. By
foot, Finch would take so much longer. He couldn’t even try to run away. He was
at the mercy of these creatures.
One
of those hands returned to his shoulders, clamping down. Impossible force
turned him around, pushed him in the direction of the cruiser. All he could do
was stagger along where the cop wanted him to go, his legs shaking, his heart
quivering in his chest.
The
cop reached out with his free hand, opened the passenger side door, and pushed
Finch toward the seat. “Go on,” he said. His voice was pleasant, but Finch
thought he could detect that strange undercurrent again. Cold claws scraped
down his spine.
Finch
lowered himself down, hardly feeling the pain that shot through his hips. The
cop closed the door, then walked around to the other side and let himself in.
He brought keys out, stuck them in the ignition, and turned them. The engine
snarled to life, sounding like a monster itself. Finch clutched his hands tight
into fists, struggling to keep his breath from speeding up and showing his
fear.
The
cop started driving, making a pleasant humming sound in the back of his throat
that was nearly consumed by the rumble of the engine.
Finch
looked down at the door handle.
“I
wouldn’t, if I were you,” the cop said. “After all, we’re almost at the store.
Isn’t that what you want?”
I don’t know anymore.
30
seconds later, the police car pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store.
The cop brought the cruiser all the way up to the front door, from which
filtered a comforting light the likes of which seemed heavenly.
Finch
grabbed for the handle. His fingers slid, slick and damp, over the metal.
At
the same moment, five sharp points pressed against the back of his neck. “Now,”
the cop said. His voice lost the pleasant edge, become a hissing and gnarled
thing that barely held a distant resemblance to anything human. “I’m going to
let you go. But if you tell anyone about what you’ve seen here tonight, it
won’t be good for you. Do you understand?”
Finch
looked at those mad yellow eyes in the reflection of the side mirror and
nodded.
“I
need to hear you say it, boy.”
“Yes,”
he whispered. “I understand.”
“Good.
Now, get out of my car. I’ve got places to be and little time to get to them.”
Finch
gripped the door handle again, pulled on it, felt the latch click. The door
popped open. He stepped out, set his aching legs down on solid ground, and
thought that he had never been so glad to be in pain in his entire life.
Reaching
back, he shut the door. The cruiser pulled away, working in a long circle
around the parking lot before going back in the direction of the park.
Not
knowing what else to do, Finch went shopping.
The End
©2018 Emily Blue
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