Visions

A young teenager sees the truth in people in an interesting yet frightening way. His way to cope is through sarcasm and pushing away his problems. This is still a work in progress.

Amanda Pabon

 

Visions

 

Zachary Diaz turns sixteen today and he has been having some weird symptoms; his eyes itch and burn; he experiences excruciating headaches to the point where he feels his brain might explode and splatter onto his walls, he hasn’t slept at all in these past few weeks, his memory is better than ever, and he sees things he does not want to see. Zack has no idea what’s happening to him but all he knows is he wants the pain to go away, and to know what it’s like to sleep again. His dad and older brother have been replaced by some demon-like creatures.  Zachary’s summer has definitely been strange.

The only normal people left in his house are his mother and sister. They seem to embrace these weird creatures invading their home. What the hell is that about? Was there a memo that everyone got except Zachary that said, creatures from hell invade Earth but we can treat them like family? Zack shrugs it off and stays locked in his room, staring at each tiny crack on the white ceiling, probably caused by s****y architecture and the neighbors upstairs with seven kids who jump and roller skate all over the floors. What the hell is it that always makes so much damn noise and cracks ceilings? An alarm clock buzzes and Zachary extends a hand to hit the snooze button but his hand just waves in the air, so close but so far. When he finally reaches it, frustrated, he throws the alarm clock across the room. He groans and turns his attention back to each crack on the ceiling…

He hears a knock at his door, picks up the baseball bat from underneath his bed, puts it behind his back, and slowly opens his bedroom door. He sighs in relief when he sees that it’s his mother and she eyes him with her suspicious, confused, hazel eyes.

“Niño, que tu hace? Es muy oscuro aqui!”  She yells and opens the shades in his room exposing all the sunlight. He squints and uses his hand to shield the intense light he hasn’t seen in weeks.  Zachary’s mother always comes in asking what he’s doing, and why it’s always so dark in his room, but she sounds extra angry today. Zachary’s mom begins to lecture him about how if he stays cooped in his room, he’ll get depressed. That logic makes no sense at all… Eventually, Zachary’s mother urges him to go to the mall to meet with his friend Sue Ann, and advises him not to push his friends away reminding him that that she’s a decent young lady with goals in life, and that he should try to learn a thing or two from her. Zachary can hardly pay attention to what she’s saying, but soon he ends up in the passenger’s seat of his mother’s minivan, and now he sits at the food court in the mega mall.

Virtually millions of creatures with white stringy hair and sunken gray faces pretending to be normal humans flood the mall. Even the stores look affected. Zack remembers when the McDonald’s across from him was brightly lit with the red and yellow logo. Now the “M” is hanging on its last limb ready to fall onto someone’s head and the menus are no longer lit. Surprisingly there’s a demon cashier who attentively takes everyone’s orders. Everyone has to make a living, Zachary guesses. He shudders when he notices a demon’s fleshy mouth bite into a burger. He averts his eyes.

Zachary’s hands tremble and shake as he raises his water bottle to his mouth. Water spills out. He gulps loudly, desperately, and frantically as if he were drinking in his last breaths. He really hopes Sue Ann ditches him because he’s in no condition to be out, anything could trigger that weird affliction he has…

“Zacky!” a high pitched squealing voice greets him. He turns around, cringes, and closes his eyes hoping she goes away.

Its face is hideous and he knows he’s probably insensitive because apparently everyone in this town accepts these disgusting creatures, but not him. This creature’s face makes his stomach churn and what makes it worse is that somehow it imitates Sue Ann’s voice. Poor girl, he thinks to himself. That creature probably ate her. The creature with Sue Ann’s voice has a gray face with its mouth pulled into a silent scream permanently etched on, shark-like teeth, black eyes, and where Sue Ann’s blonde hair would have been are stringy strands of white.

Zachary turns around, puts his hood over his head, and pulls the strings tight so all you see is sweatshirt, eyes not visible. He puts sunglasses on, indoors, as if that will scare away this creature.

Sue Ann’s expression turns from giddy best friend to wounded puppy instantly. Sue Ann passes by a polished, mirror-like, window that reveals her true figure�"an innocent lanky, skinny, blonde, teenage girl. Her hair is down with a single small braid on the side that she pushes behind her ear. Sue Ann calls her friend’s name louder and louder, and she is confused as to why he’s ignoring her. She pushes her friend.

The creature pushes Zachary and he gulps loudly, scared for his life. The creature then takes the sunglasses off his hoodie covered face, and unties the hoodie drawstrings. Zack’s eyes remain closed.

“If you didn’t want to talk, you could have said…” the creature says and crosses its arms over its chest, careful not to make eye contact with him; he wasn’t keeping eye contact either, so it isn’t like it matters anyway.

What really annoys Zachary is how this creature mimics her exact mannerisms.  Zachary just squeezes his eyes shut tighter, silently praying. The creature calls him an a*****e just like Sue Ann has called him countless times, and pushes him harder this time.  His eyes pop open and he sees the creature in its ugliness, but now sees the white strands on fire. He hears its voice decrease in pitch, and it demonically says, “What’s your issue, man?”

Zack keeps repeating, “Stay back…you aren’t Sue… Stop acting like her…go away!” but the creature keeps coming closer and closer.  “Stay back,” he repeats but it sounds more like a growl.

Sue Ann flinches never hearing her socially awkward, wouldn’t hurt a fly, best friend, talk like this. She reaches a small pale hand to touch his face but Zack looks purely disgusted and yells for her to stay back again.

Zack was not going to let that cloven, black, hand touch him, so he yells louder. His eyes turn pale blue, his hands ball up into fists, he extends his arm, opens up his fist to reveal a huge burst of glowing light, and closes his eyes. When he opens his eyes, he sees the creature on the ground, black eyes burned out of their sockets, coughing.  Zachary hears crowds of people screaming faintly and sees them running for their lives. Zack pulls his hood over his head, picks his sunglasses up from the floor, and runs out of the mega mall.

Zachary continues his sprint and he bumps into any creature he sees on the way. He doesn’t apologize when they shoot him piercing looks of disapproval. He just keeps going. The sun beats down on him harsher than before, and his head begins to throb again. A piercing ringing floods his ears and he’s forced to run into an alleyway. He stops and catches his breath. The pain grows stronger, the ringing gets louder, he clenches his teeth, grabs his head with both hands, and yells. A warmth that begins from his toes to his head forces him to slump down on the wall behind him. The warmth feels like it’s ready to burst from his eyelids. He holds it back. He groans and his vision begins to blur. He starts to see flashing bright spots through his eyes and the next thing he knows it’s all dark.

A hand touches Zack’s shoulder and he automatically flinches. His eyes pop open and they begin to glow. The owner of the hand steps back cautiously. He swallows hard.

“Are you alright, Zack?” the man asks. His hair is black that is graying on the sides due to years of stress and age. His bright green eyes look at Zachary with a mixture of confusion, worry, fear, and awe. The man is wearing a white dress shirt with a name tag that reads “Arturo” and a white apron wrapped around dark brown corduroy pants.

“How the hell do you know my name?” Zack asks. In his eyes, the man is another fleshy, gray demon with a permanent scream etched on its face. Zack shrugs the creature’s branch-like hand off of his shoulder. He stands up and brushes himself off and his eyes widen when he looks at the nametag on the creature. Oh f**k, he thinks to himself, of course it’s him. Of all the places I end up running to. It’s the alley behind his restaurant.

The man sighs and looks disappointed. He puts his arm on the teenager’s shoulder again, to which Zack throws a disgusted look but does not seem to push him away this time.

“Zack, you can’t keep pushing me away. I’m your father for god’s sake!” Arturo’s voice rises. Zack looks noticeably startled at the change of tone. Arturo exhales loudly realizing his mistake.

“Well, Ugly. I don’t know what you really did with my father. But ever since you came around with your fleshy face I don’t really see why you insist that you’re my father.” Zack growls. The creature tilts its head to the side. If Zack didn’t know any better, he’d think the creature gave a s**t about him.

“Why do you insist that your brother Tomas and I are creatures? Maybe your mother is right, maybe you should see a psychiatrist.” Arturo speaks softly with much concern. He knows why Zack hates him but this creature thing has gone too far. Maybe it is an underlying problem.

Zack opens his mouth to make a snarky comment but no words come out. His mouth feels dry, for some reason. The creature in front of him starts to vanish and it feels like the alleyway in front of him is starting to appear as another setting�"kind of like a transition in a movie from scene to scene.

The original Arturo appears, but it’s not current Arturo. He’s much younger, maybe about eight years younger. He’s in his car with a young girl who’s about seventeen. Arturo cups the young woman’s cheek and kisses her passionately. Her hands are not visible in the angle that Zack is watching from, but he knows where at least one of them is. Zack notices a young boy next to him watching the scene from behind a bush. The boy looks disgusted, distraught, and disillusioned. Zack turns away from his young self and shuts his eyes in shame. He does not want to live through the pain again.

When Zack opens his eyes, he is back in the dark alley with the creature that replaced Arturo. When Zack comes to think of it, the real Arturo was just as ugly as the creature that stands before him now. Suddenly, Zack feels extra tired, the kind of tired that constitutes a sort of apathy towards everything. He shrugs the creature’s hand off his shoulder and walks away. The creature yells a “Wait!” but Zack just ignores it all together. He doesn’t even look back.

Author's Note

(Please do not try to pass this off as own, but if my writing sparks an idea, Please request for contact info, so you can give the proper credit!!)

Need some help in trying to come up with a scene in the beginning with interactions between Zachary and father/brother. Any comments are welcomed.

Reviews

[Daniel Seward]

Good narration. I had fun following the story. Perhaps for an opening scene you could have Zach attempt to play a board game with father and brother to see if father is really a creature and then conclude in first few minutes of play that he must be a creature and that he (Zach) really has ability to see creatures.

[Amanda Pabon]

Thank you! That makes sense I'll take that into consideration.