by
Al Bruno III
…it began as it would end, with an abrupt transfiguration and a sound like the fluttering of wings…
* * *
The
air in Mitchell and Michael’s Tavern was thick with cigarette smoke.
The patrons were college students and middle-aged bohemians; both groups
were lured here by the promise of cheap beer and easily ignored
acoustic bands. Barry Moore tried to look casual as he directed Jimbo
and Mike to a corner table.
When the waitress brought the menus,
Barry watched while his friends debated over the exchange rates between
American and Canadian currency. They didn’t have a lot of either after
pre-paying for the motel room and they still had to have enough left
over to make the trip back from Montreal to the River City University
Campus. Barry grimaced a little at the thought of more hours crammed
into Jimbo’s Dodge Charger.
“Well?” Mike Proctor straightened his
glasses. He was the tallest of them; his face was far too small for a
head so large. He preferred to wear tie-dyed shirts and heavy boots.
Barry liked to say he looked like the Frankenstein monster had collided
with a hippie commune, “Where is she?”
Barry made a show of
scanning the crowd; he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror
above the bar; plain looking with shaggy hair and an easygoing smile. “I
don’t see her. She must be running late.”
“I can’t believe
you’re making us do this man.” Jimbo Zot wore mostly black, because he’d
learned that black was slimming. He never listed when Barry and Mike
told him that diet and exercise were even more slimming. “I mean we’ve
come all this way, can’t you just admit it?”
Barry shook his head, “Admit what?”
“You’ve
been telling us about this girl for almost a year.” The waitress
brought over a bowl of popcorn and Jimbo dug in, “This perfect girl.
Come on. Admit it so we can drop this charade and hit some strip clubs.”
“Topless…” Mike half-spoke, half-sang, “…and bottomless. Oooooo yeah.”
“Guys she’ll be here.” Barry said. The waitress came back and took their drink orders, two beers one soda.
Mike looked over the menu again, “What are the wings like?”
Barry
shrugged. The door opened with a long drawn out squeal as another group
of college students filled the air with raucous laughter. The band
finished their first set to scattered applause and made their way to the
bar.
“I thought this was your little love nest?” Mike asked, “How can you not know what the wings are like?”
“I never tried them all right? They’re her thing. She gets wings I get a burger.”
Jimbo shook his head sadly, “Look. Just repeat after me… There. Is. No. Ophelia. Boggs.”
“You can tell her that soon enough.”
“Lord have mercy. We have got to break you of this.”
Barry took a drink of his soda, “Break me of what? She’s real.”
Mike
shook his head, “I need evidence. We have not seen one picture of this
girl and you have not received one phone message in all the time you
have been telling us about her. Not even an email and believe me we’ve
looked.”
“Guys…”
“How far do you think he’s going to take this?” Mike wondered aloud, “Should we settle in and order something?”
Jimbo nodded sagely, “Even in the midst of an intervention, there is always time for curly fries, and wings.”
Mike smiled, “You’re like the Sun Tzu of junk food.”
“What intervention?” Barry scowled, “I don’t need an intervention.”
In
his third year of college Barry had moved off campus, of all the
applicants he’d looked into for a roommate Mike Proctor had seemed like
the one least likely to murder someone in their sleep. Jimbo Zot had
come to help Mike move in and he’d never really left; when he wasn’t
working or trolling for ‘babes’ on the Internet, he was planted on their
couch. It didn’t take very long for them all to become friends, and it
didn’t take Mike and Jimbo long to figure out that their newest friend
didn’t have much luck with the ladies.
When the waitress returned to their table she asked, “More drinks?”
Mike and Jimbo ordered curly fries, hot wings and more beers. Barry ordered a burger but he wasn’t hungry.
“You know what I think?” Mike smiled, “I think what you need Barry, is a night with a professional.”
“Hey!” Barry said.
“Hang
on a minute here.” Mike continued, “I don’t mean some skank, I mean a
night with one of those high class hookers you always see dead on CSI.”
“So many things were wrong with that last statement...” Barry said.
“Look,
you’re among friends here.” Mike frowned and looked around the bar,
“Friends and Canadians. Just admit you made her up so you wouldn’t seem
so lame.”
“Yet in doing so you became lamer.” Jimbo said.
The
door squealed again and in the silence, everyone at the table looked up
at once. Barry felt his entire world tilt sideways. A woman stood in
the doorway, she wore jeans and a bomber jacket covered with faded
patches; her dark hair was pulled back in a knot. Her smile practically
glittered as she waved and headed over to sit down at their table. It
was Ophelia, there was no mistaking her.
But that's impossible, Barry thought. She doesn't exist.
* * *
…They
congealed in the forgotten places: those abandoned or given over to
entropy and solitude. Freshly scarred and squealing like newborns, they
meandered from burnt-out houses and empty storefronts through the alleys
and side streets. No one saw them, no one dared…
* * *
“Sorry
I’m late. You wouldn’t believe what it took for me to get here.”
Ophelia shouldered out of her jacket and bulky purse and sat down beside
Barry. She touched his arm with easy familiarity and kissed him on the
cheek. She extended her hand to the men across the table from her, “You
must be Mike, and you must be Jim.”
Mike shook her hand, “As I live and breathe… heavily.”
Jimbo kissed her hand, “Please call me Jimbo.”
Ophelia’s giggle sounded just the way Barry had imagined.
The
band made their way back to the stage, spent a few moments arguing
about a chord and then started playing. Several of the bar’s patrons
took this as a signal to leave, the door squealed again.
Both of
Barry’s friends had dated extensively through college. Mike tended to
specialize in damaged goods. He’d just recently broken up with a girl
with attention deficit disorder- in truth she hadn’t so much broken up
with him as simply wandered off. He’d rebounded quickly enough and was
now dating a bi-polar political science major with a passion for student
protests and flicking lit cigarettes at strangers.
“So you’re Ophelia…” Mike said.
The
waitress had brought over their food but none of the men at the table
seemed to notice. Ophelia looked over the hot wings before choosing a
particularly plump looking one, “That’s what it says on my birth
certificate.”
Jimbo leaned forward, “You didn’t happen to bring it along did you?”
Dating
was different for Jimbo, he found all of his girls on the Internet, he
used all the relevant dating apps and a few message boards to boot. He
frequently convinced women to come and visit him with his mastery of the
written post. Jimbo’s most recent conquest had presented herself as a
bi-curious nineteen year old African-American college student. When
she’d arrived she’d turned out to be a thirty-something white woman with
badly died hair and prison tattoos. Since Jimbo described himself
online as a ‘John Stamos-type’ he really didn’t have the right to accuse
her of being a liar. Somehow they really hit it off anyway and she
spent the weekend with him- everything was going great for Jimbo until
her husband showed up.
“So…” Barry watched her eat, “So…”
“Sorry.
I’m starving.” Ophelia spoke with her mouth full. She set the bones
from one wing down and grabbed another, “You know how I get when I’m
working Honey Angel.”
Barry flinched at the nickname he’d imagined her calling him, He’d never told anyone that, it seemed too silly.
Jimbo laced his fingers together, “And what do you do for a living again?”
For
all their misadventures at least his friends were out there in the
trenches, Barry tended to keep his head down and concentrate on studying
for his anthropology degree. Oh he’d tried his hand at meeting girls on
campus, but somehow they sensed his fear of rejection. The only girl
he’d managed to get two dates with had ended up trying to recruit him
into a cult- as if he had that kind of time and money.
There
were plenty of bars around campus too and Barry had tried the scene but
no matter what he did he seemed to just fade into the background. Except
of course for that one day he’d worn those new shoes on a rainy night.
Barry still cringed at the mental image of him walking into the bar,
slipping on a patch of wet floor and crashing into the trio of
stewardess at the bar. Sometimes he could still hear their bilingual
cursing.
“I’m a commercial artist, mostly boring stuff like ad
copy and signage.” She explained, “But I make a lot of extra scratch
doing Star Trek themed oil paintings and selling them at Sci-Fi Conventions and online.”
Mike gave Barry a disbelieving glance, “Really?”
The
lead singer of the band paused, his brow furrowing as he tried to
remember the next lyric of 'Stairway to Heaven.' The drummer launched
into an impromptu solo to try and drown out the heckling.
“Oh
yeah, and you would not believe what some fans would pay to have
themselves painted in as a member of the Enterprise’s bridge crew. I
mean I’m no Dru Blair but people seem to like my work.”
How could she know all this? Barry wondered Am I going crazy?
Almost
one year ago he’d invented Ophelia Boggs to make his friends stop
trying to send him off on blind dates with girls they didn’t want. It
wasn’t that Barry hadn’t tried his luck a few times. The guys always
told him that at the very least he could look upon these as ‘practice
dates’; but after one of the girls brought him to her high school
reunion and introduced him as her fiancé, Barry had had enough.
One
winter weekend he’d gone to a science fiction convention in New York
City, a semi-annual ritual- weather and funds permitting. When he got
back home he told his friends he wouldn’t need any more blind dates.
He’d just met a girl named Ophelia, and his heart belonged to her. She
was the perfect girl. The only drawback was she lived in Canada but
Barry had told Mike and Jimbo that he knew he could make it work.
“... isn’t that right Barry?”
Barry started, “What?”
Mike smiled, “Earth to Honey Angel. Your sweetie was just telling us the story about how you met.”
“Oh?” Barry looked at her, at the quiet affection in her eyes, “Oh yes.”
“Love
at first sight.” She said, “And to think if you hadn’t held the
elevator door open for me I might have ended up going to dinner with
that fan-film guy.”
“Everything…” Barry paused, his mouth felt full of saliva, “…everything happens for a reason.”
Jimbo asked, “Barry said you were thinking of branching out into other styles of art.”
“Well I’ve gotten a few requests for Babylon 5 stuff but I can never get the spaceships right…”
In
a matter of a few months Ophelia Boggs became more than a cover story-
she became a talisman against the lonely grind of study and work. She
became an excuse to pull back from the dating scene for a while. So what
if the girl at the coffee shop might have smiled at him? She was no
Ophelia.
Well not really but he had the idea of Ophelia, the idea that the perfect girl was somewhere out there waiting for him.
But
she was here now; living, breathing and unconsciously running her
fingertips along the length of his arm. For Barry the whole bar had
ceased to exist, Jimbo and Mike were like phantoms. Ophelia caught him
looking at her from the corner of her eye and blushed a little; she
brushed a stray lock of hair aside and said in a stage whisper, “You’re
staring.”
“They didn’t think you were real.” Barry said.
Mike said, “And for that we apologize, we just thought you sounded a little too good to be true.”
“She is.” Barry stroked the curve of her chin, like he’d always imagined he would.
Ophelia caught his hand and nibbled on the ridge of his knuckle, “You’re sweet.”
Barry started, he hadn’t imaged that move.
Jimbo leaned back in his chair, “You two need a room?”
“We have one.” Barry said, dangling the motel room key before her.
* * *
…They
slowly found each other and began traveling in groups. The cool March
wind fluttered over the mutilated black wings that were nothing more
than gnarled fists of cartilage and bone that sprung from their backs.
They were dressed in tatters and rags; every scrap had been scavenged or
stolen. They were the Unfinished and their minds were as broken as
their bodies…
* * *
Mike
and Jimbo had been left behind. When Barry had held the door of
Mitchell and Michael’s Tavern open for Ophelia he had glanced back at
them, the envy in their eyes was almost physically palpable. They looked
like they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
Barry could
understand that, especially now when she was snuggled against him in a
cab, her hand on his knee. Her body was soft yet toned, a dancers'
physique- but not the kind of dancers Jimbo and Mike were planning to go
see tonight. Ophelia described herself as a ‘lapsed ballerina’, she
hadn’t taken a formal dance lesson in years but she still kept up the
routines of practice and exercise. It still made her sad sometimes that
she had never had the money to continue her studies.
But she never said any of this, Barry thought, I said it. I imagined her saying it! None of this makes any sense.
“Ophelia.” He said, “What was the name of that school in Europe you were going to go to?”
“We’re here.”
“What?”
The
cab slowed to a stop, Ophelia rummaged around in her purse until she
found her wallet. She overpaid the driver and flashed him a mischievous
smile, “I can’t believe I’m paying for your booty call.”
“Booty?”
Barry let her pull him from the cab and lead him back to his room. He
hardly felt the chill wind or the half ice, half slush that splashed
around his feet; he hardly felt anything except for the terrified
thudding in his chest, “I just wanted to talk.”
“Suuuure you did.” She steered him along to the side of the motel until they were at room number 77, “Open up.”
“How did you know what room I’m in?”
“You showed me your room key remember?” She gave him a little kiss
“Uh…” Barry blushed, found the room key and led her inside.
She caught his hand as he reached for the wall switch, “Do we really need lights?”
“Do you want a drink?” Barry asked as she moved closer, pushing him against the door, “We fridge.”
“There are just two beds in this room. Was one of you boys going to double up?”
“I brought a sleeping bag. I was going to sleep on the floor.”
Ophelia
pulled her blouse over her head; the bra she wore was powder blue lace.
The clasp was on the front, she took his hands and led them to it, “Did
you miss me?”
Barry was shaking, he felt like a teenager again, all clumsy and cornered. She kissed him and pulled him down onto the bed.
They didn’t pull the covers back; they barely thought to nudge Jimbo’s luggage onto the floor. “Why are you here?”
“How could I stay away?”
* * *
…the
Unfinished knelt clumsily in the melting snow and ice. Their faces were
like smeared paintings, somehow wizened and beatific at once. When one
shuddered from the cold, they all shuddered. They waited for the last of
their numbers to arrive
Soon they would hunt. Soon they would find the rogue thoughtform…
* * *
The
first bar they had gone to had left Mike wondering if Canada had a
Better Business Bureau he could complain to. The gaudy neon signs had
promised 'EXOTIC DANCERS' but none of the women that had graced the
stage had been able to dance very well and neither Mike nor Jimbo
considered stretch marks or missing teeth to be exotic.
The wind
and the cold were even worse than before; it battered them as they
crossed the street to the car. “Where to next?” Jimbo asked.
“Let’s call it a night.” Mike waved his hands, “The only person having a good time right now is Barry.”
“I still don't believe it.” Jimbo said, “No one can be that... that... Wow.”
Shivering
and miserable they climbed into the car. Mike sat in the passenger
side, trying to warm himself by flapping his arms. Jimbo started the car
and turned the heater and defogger up full blast.
“Man, that girl had the prettiest eyes didn’t she?”
“The stripper? The one with the razor burns?”
“No! I mean Barry’s girl. Jeez, it doesn’t even sound right saying that…”
“Yeah.” Mike smiled, “I’ve always been a sucker for green eyes.”
“Blue.” Jimbo corrected, “Her eyes were blue.”
“No. Green. You colorblind or something?”
“They
were totally blue, they had bits of gold in them. They almost shone, it
was like…” Jimbo frowned, “… like they weren’t even real.”
* * *
Barry
stirred with a smile. He had forgotten about this part, about the good
part after the other good part; to fall asleep holding your lover close,
to gently doze off feeling someone’s heat radiating back at you.
I
can’t let this end. I’ve got to get an engagement ring. I’ve got to
find a justice of the peace. Do they have those in Canada? He smiled and reached across the bed to draw her in close again. Hey! Where is she?
Barry
sat up and saw her in the bathroom, standing naked before the mirror
and preening. She kept turning on her heel, trying to examine the
reflection of her back. Her skin was smooth and flawless; it reminded
Barry of a statue. The perfect girl cast in marble. Remember this, Barry thought to himself. Keep this memory it someplace safe where nothing can tarnish it. Remember this.
“Awake?” Ophelia grinned at him, her dark eyes flashing, “You’re beautiful when you dream.”
“Come back to bed.”
Switching
off the bathroom light she climbed back onto the bed and draped herself
over him, “You know, we should get dressed before your friends come
back.”
“Maybe they won’t come back.” Barry kissed her shoulder, “Maybe they lucky.”
“Lucky?.
From what you’ve told me I wouldn’t be surprised if we have to bail
them out of jail tonight,” She started to laugh and then stiffened, “Did
you hear something?”
“Hear what?”
Ophelia got out of bed and peered out the motel room’s bay window, “What was that?”
“I didn’t hear anything.” Barry got out of bed and put his arm around her, “What’s wrong? Hey you’re shaking like a leaf.”
“Too soon,” She crossed her arms over her chest, “Too soon.”
Ophelia
started to cry, Barry tried to hold her but she pushed him away. Hurt
and a little stunned he watched her rummage around on the floor for her
clothes. She got dressed quickly.
“What’s wrong?” Barry asked again.
She sat down on the bed and drew her legs up to her chest, “Do you know that saying about being careful what you wish for?”
“I like the one about dreams coming true better.”
“I’m not real.”
“You’re beautiful and fun and the greatest sex of my life.” Barry fell to his knees, “Please don’t be crazy.”
“You
wished for me, you believed in me, you prayed for me until I was real.
Some people call what I am a Tulpa, others call us Rakshasa.”
Barry felt dizzy,“Hold up. Hold up.”
But she didn’t “My Poppa called me a thoughtform.”
“I
don’t want to hear this,” Barry kissed her hard on the mouth. She
responded to his touch losing herself in the moment just like he knew
she would.
When the kiss broke she said, “You were so different. You believed so much. Usually one dream means so little.”
“You’re real,” Barry said again.
She
pressed herself against him for a few moments more and then began to
hurriedly get dressed, “You know better than that. Until tonight I was
just a story you told yourself at night before you fell asleep.”
“But you’re here.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Barry ran his fingers through his hair, “This is insane.”
“At
first I was just going to make my own way in the world, loose myself in
it, but as soon as I had this flesh… it ached for you.” Ophelia said,
“I put you at risk. I should have run far away.”
Barry started
pacing the room, “All right. Let’s say this is true. Let’s say that my
wanting you to be real made you real. Then who cares? I love you. You
love me too… right?”
“From my very first breath but do you really think the Unfinished will allow this?”
“Unfinished?”
There
was the sound of a commotion outside. It almost sounded to Barry like a
crowd making its way up the street, bickering and laughing as it
toppled trash cans and clamored over parked cars. But this commotion was
punctuated with strange howls and stranger curses.
“Barry.” An
edge of panic crept into her voice, “Walk calmly out to the street and
then start running. Find your way back to your friends and your old
life. They don’t want you.”
He approached the window and parted the curtain, “If someone’s trying to hurt you I won’t let them.”
Ophelia
pulled him back, shaking him in her urgency, “No. No. I didn’t even
exist until tonight. Run away. Run away home and find a girl that loves
you a little more than you love her and be happy.”
Barry stared
disbelievingly at her. The tears in her eyes were genuine enough but was
she really just a ghost created from his loneliness?
The howls
were louder now and he could make out whole words. Vows of cruelty and
lust. The motel room door started to shake and rattle. The glass of the
bay window squealed and cracked, it bowed out pushing the curtains
aside. Barry saw them, saw the desiccated bodies and empty faces. If
Ophelia was birthed in a single dream then these creatures could only
have been pieced together from the choicest nightmares.
Barry
grabbed her by the hand and dragged her back into the bathroom. There
was a window there made of frosted glass and painted shut. He locked the
bathroom door as he heard the bay window give way to a chorus of eager
howls.
“Please don’t do this.” Ophelia begged.
“These monsters…” Barry grabbed a towel off the rack and hefted the plastic trash bin.
“Unfinished, They’re called the Unfinished. They’re half-imagined and jealous. My Poppa thought they were gods.”
“These things- what will they do to you if they find you?”
Ophelia looked away, “It doesn’t matter.”
The
bathroom lights flickered and faded in time with the voices of the
creatures. The bathroom window was shoulder level, Barry smashed out the
glass, clearing the fragments away as best he could and laid a towel
over the sill. “Come on.” He held his arms out to help her, “Climb.”
She
climbed up, for a moment she was close enough for an embrace; the scent
of her fresh sweat and fading perfume wafted over him.
How can she not be real? How?
The
bathroom door was shuddering on its hinges, pushing away from the frame
with a riot of cracks and snaps. Filthy, misshapen hands tore at the
air. Barry watched Ophelia slip from the window and land on the ground
below with a pained yelp. He moved to scramble after her, and felt the
damaged edges of the window bite at his clothes and the skin beneath.
For
a moment he was tumbling end over end, then he hit the ground and there
was a flash of light. Barry’s vision swam in and out of focus. His head
ached; his body was alive with a cold itching. He had landed in a snow
covered shrubbery, crushing it.
Ophelia pulled him to his feet, “We have to keep running.”
Barry started to move, his first footstep was wobbly. “We need to find help.”
Snarls filled the air; Barry looked back to the broken window. Ophelia said, “No one can help us. No one dares.”
They started running.
* * *
…outrage
knotting their faces the Unfinished threw themselves out the window,
ripping out sections of the wall in their zeal. They were used to
Thoughtforms that were weak and terrified. The Thoughtforms never ran.
The Thoughtforms never had the chance to hope.
Why should this
one be different? Why should this one dare to escape the same cruel
indoctrinations they had been inflicting upon each other for a thousand
lifetimes?
They would not allow this…
* * *
Two
blocks later their bare feet were numbed by the snow and ice. They
tried to flag down a car but the drivers wouldn’t even slow down for
them much less stop. Barry jumped in front of an oncoming care but it
wouldn’t slow down and he had to dive out of the way, “What the Hell is
wrong with people?”
“Its the Unfinished, they’re too close.” Ophelia said, “The human race prefers to look away from its broken dreams.”
“This is nuts.”
“Just go, leave me.”
“I said no.” Barry offered her a quick desperate smile, “I meant no.”
Ophelia smiled back, “I never could win an argument with you.”
The streetlights began to flicker and fade, familiar snarls filled the air.
Suddenly
a tan dodge Charger screeched to a halt half on and half off the
sidewalk. Mike opened the passenger side door and leaned out, “Get in!”
“What are you doing?” Barry pulled Ophelia into the backseat the Dodge. She slammed the door closed.
“What am I doing?” Mike scrambled in beside her, “What are you doing?”
“There
were these things at the motel. They were tearing everything apart,
even the people.” Jimbo hit the accelerator and sped off, he kept
glancing back in the rearview mirror. “Especially the people.”
“I’m sorry.” Ophelia was hunched over in her seat, “I’m sorry.”
Barry
looked from her to his friends. He clenched his fist and stared at it.
He knew what he had to do. “Jimbo. Remember that parking garage where we
got pulled over?”
“What is happening here?” Mike demanded. “What are those things? Why are they killing people?”
Ophelia said, “They’re getting closer.”
* * *
…despair
had made them relentless, loss had made them cruel. Their prey was
being helped when no human in their well honed blindness should have
been able to do more than cringe and swoon.
The Unfinished vowed they would pay, humans and Thoughtform alike…
* * *
“I said what are they?” Jimbo sounded hysterical.
The
ride had been brief; no police cars gave chase even though they had
abandoned the rules of traffic lights and speed limits to the wind
blocks ago. “They’re monsters.” Ophelia explained, “That’s all you need
to know.”
“This just gets better and better.” Mike said, “I knew you were too good to be true. I just knew it.”
The
parking garage was a long rectangular structure of worn gray stone; the
lights were dimmed and the gates for incoming traffic were locked down.
During the day the garage handled the overflow of cars from the nearby
hospital but at this hour of the night it was deserted.
“We’re here.” Jimbo stopped the car and turned in his seat to stare, “Barry?”
Barry was still staring intently at his clenched fist; his mouth was a thin bloodless line.
Ophelia touched his shoulder, “Honey Angel?”
He glanced at her, his expression softened, “I was thinking.”
Mike said, “We’re here. Now what?”
“Ophelia and I are getting out of the car and you guys are going to get back home.”
Jimbo breathed a sigh of relief, “Sounds good to me.”
“Shut up!” Mike snapped, “That does not sound good.”
“I don’t have time to argue.” Barry opened the car door.
“I don’t know what’s going on but I don’t trust her or any of this.” Mike said.
“Save
yourselves.” Barry took hold of Ophelia’s hand and dragged her from the
car; she winced as her back brushed the upper part of the Charger’s
doorframe. There was a patch of red between her shoulder blades. It was
slowly expanding.
“Guys, I have to do this alone.” Barry said, “You can’t help me.”
“We’re
not leaving you.” Mike walked around to Jimbo’s side of the car and
pushed him aside so he could retrieve the tire iron from under the seat.
Jimbo said, “Are you sure about this? He sounds pretty serious.”
“God damn it.” Mike said, “He’s our friend.”
The
Unfinished burst out of the darkness around them, shadows bleeding in
their wake. Howls filled the air. Barry pulled Ophelia towards the
parking garage. “Run!” He shouted.
A gnarled hand caught Jimbo on
the bare flesh of his arm. He mewled and tried to twist away but it was
already too late. They clawed at him drawing blood, so much blood. His
voice rose for a brief piercing moment and then became silent.
Mike
swung the tire iron catching one of the Unfinished on the side of the
head and hitting another in the chest. Each blow brought a satisfying
crunching sound. He made his way towards the parking garage. One of the
creatures caught the sleeve of his jacket, tearing it all the way to the
shoulder.
Mike brought the tire iron down on the attacker’s
skull and slipped around to the other side of the Charger. He could see
Barry and Ophelia receding further and further into the parking garage.
It looked as though they were making their way to the stairwell.
“What does he think he’s doing?” Mike wondered aloud.
One
of the Unfinished scrambled across the hood, tackling Mike from behind.
He felt the creature’s hand grasp the back of his neck. He struggled
but to stay on his feet and fight but more of the things swarmed him.
* * *
…the human’s head came away from his shoulders easily. The Unfinished whooped as the blood sprayed across.
There was only one more rebellious human left to cull, then they would turn their attention to the Thoughtform.
The
Unfinished were already shuddering in anticipation of the torments and
degradations it would suffer. Those delights would only be surpassed by
the moment when it began to crave that suffering as much as they did…
My friends are dead. Barry thought as the sound of Jimbo and Mike’s screams faded. The realization was enough to slow Barry’s pace on the stairwell. My friends are dead.
He
looked ahead to Ophelia, her pace had slowed as well, but that was
because the wound on her back was spreading and swelling. Barry knew
what that meant and it gave him the strength to keep moving. He hurried
to her side and gingerly slipped his arm around her waist.
“Come on.” He said, “Almost there.”
“Something’s wrong.” Ophelia said, “…it hurts.”
“I know.” Barry said, “I know.”
The door to the stairwell crashed open two floors below them. Impossible and hateful voices echoed up after them.
“It’s not too late.” Ophelia said, “Just leave me.”
Barry
put one arm around her back and another lifted her up by the legs.
There was another flight of stairs to go, could he carry her that far?
I have to. He thought as he felt the swollen, weeping mass between her shoulders pulse and shift.
“Something’s wrong.” She said again, her voice a whisper.
Barry
thought to tell her not to be afraid but he choked on the absurdity of
the words. Instead he kept his breathing steady and counted the steps
until he reached the topmost level of the parking garage, the rooftop
level. The voices of the Unfinished were close behind them now. There
was a smugness in their cries and taunts now. Was it his imagination
that made him hear Jimbo’s and Mike’s voice in that chorus?
Don’t look back. Keep moving. Almost here. Concentrate.
Ophelia
looked around, the dark cloudless sky seemed to press down on them;
this entire level of the parking garage was empty and full of
shadows.“What are we doing here? We’re trapped. Why did you-”
Barry
reached out and tore her blouse off with a single tug. She started to
protest but then a spike of pain robbed her of her breath. The
ever-swelling growth began to split apart.
It was just a few more
yards to the edge of the parking garage’s roof. Barry was carrying her
now. Twin appendages folded out Ophelia’s back and clawed feebly at the
air.
“Don’t fight it,” Barry risked a glance down at the sheer
drop from the upper level. It was nothing spectacular but enough to kill
a man.
The pain began to fade, but Ophelia was still gasping, “Fight it? Do you know what’s happening to me?”
“Of
course.” Barry kissed her one last time before standing up and
shielding her. The door to the stairwell crashed open and the Unfinished
spilled out. They moved forward as one; their certainty made them slow,
made them relish every footstep.
Ophelia’s new wings stretched
wide and shook the moisture of their birth away with a single shudder.
“What is this?” She whispered.
“If I could imagine you in the
flesh…” Barry began, “…then I can imagine more. If I can call you out of
longing then I can long for something better than these monsters for
you.”
“Honey Angel.” She breathed. Barry felt her arms touch his back.
“I think you’re the angel now.” Barry laughed, it was a crazy sound, a sound he had never heard himself make before.
“I can try to carry you.”
“No you can’t. Just go. Otherwise this was all for nothing.”
Barry
stepped away from her moving towards the Unfinished. He needed to buy
her just a few more moments. He was empty handed but he wasn’t afraid.
He
had aways thought he would just dwindle away and die in a hospital bed
or drop dead in the street of a sudden heart attack or aneurysm.
Wasn’t it better to be in love and die on a night like this?
He
found himself surrounded. Barry thought of Ophelia in the bathroom,
staring at her reflection in the mirror. He gave the Unfinished a grim
smile and told them, “Nobody messes with my girl.”
* * *
…it ended as it began, with an abrupt transfiguration and a sound like the fluttering of wings…
