Flame (second draft)A Story by Karen Preston There is a fire that fuels the world...
Under the
ground around its edge was as dry and brittle as a fly’s wing caught in a
screen door. Further in a roadmap of cracks broke across its surface. If you
managed to get close enough its heat would strip you clear down to your bones
quicker than an atom bomb incinerating a city. Black moths of ash spiraled
upward and then they fell into its flames. This was the fire that fueled the
world. Everything in this world depended on it. Until now the fire depended on
nothing, but the fire was starting to die.
***
The house was haunted. At least that had been the rumor. There were
warnings of No Trespassing as well as old murder lore attached to it, he didn’t
really believe the thing about the ghosts and he wasn’t that afraid of getting
caught breaking in. What had bothered him about going into the house was he had
been having dreams about it. A rusted over tricycle lay on its
side in front of the porch. One wheel creaked, wordlessly preaching a child
used to live here. Through smashed window eyes the soul of this house had left.
A cage of chain link that he thought would best be climbed in high-heels
surrounded it. The boy frowned down at his black Converse high tops. A crushing
feeling the man was in there came over him. Hairs on his arms rose and coldness
slid into his body stopping only after getting inside his bones. The night before sleep had brought
him into the house. He had opened the door of bullet holes and chipped paint.
The scent of mildew and rot punched him. Inky blue darkness filled his
sight. Then slowly shapes of things had
begun to emerge, reminding him of when he was a kid pressing his fists into his
eye sockets and then letting go. A table frame lay turned over in the middle of
the room. There was a small electric stove in the corner covered in victimless
insecticide. His feet shuffled under brittle yellow newspaper pages. Dust rose
and settled in the cloth of his jeans. Popping sounds like a needle on tuneless
vinyl could be heard. His head turned as if he were on the moon. Weightless. Asleep in the corner of the room was a man,
his breath was coming out and going in short ragged shallow breaths. Curiosity
outweighed the boy’s fear by a hair and the boy crept closer to him. Under his
black felt derby, the man’s yellow skin sagged, there were scars scrapped and
branded into it and dark circles had been built under the lids. Every vein
showed through his skin like tree branches caught under ice. If the devil were
a man this was what he would look like decided the boy. Bending nearer, he
caught the scent of smoke, and old leather, mixed with urine and blood. He
recoiled then tangled in his shoelaces and went down. The boy’s face had met
the floor right in front of the old man’s. Volts of adrenaline charged him. The
man’s tissue paper eyelids tore open. Eyes black as beetles bore into the
boy. A whisper crept from the man’s lips to the boy’s ears. Flame. He woke
with a jolt that shook his bed. The house had always been there. He passed it
on the way to the bus stop almost every day. Even before he had ever been to
school his mother would take him with her to the market and they would pass the
house. Whenever he saw it he would feel a twinge in his belly. He would walk
with his head hung low eyes on the pavement and think of good things like
birthday cake or the home run he had hit earlier that week until he was safely
past the place. That morning he had walked down the street got to the house and
stopped. The fence and dirt joined from holding the weight of his
thirteen-year-old body. Shifting his feet back and forth his eyes focused while
his mind developed the image, and then stored it away. He curled his finger
around a link in the fence. The dream played back in his head like the first
part of a creature double feature.
*** Cartilages rubbed together like a pair of
birds cooing and necking. Absently the old man placed a hand on his knee. Just
one more job to do, and then he could cross it off the list with pen and be
done with this place. He raised his nose and caught the scent of salt and felt
the vibrations of an accelerated heartbeat, he breathed deep then licked his
lips. Despite his discomfort, a feeling of satisfaction rose inside him. The
boy had come.
*** Home now in the small but clean city apartment
he lived in with his mother and grandmother, he felt uneasy. After leaving the house the boy had spent the
rest of the day (playing baseball, buying comics, and eating ice cream) and
thinking about (kissing Jenny Baker,
steeling a beer from his uncle’s cooler, and punching Neil Tennamen in the
face). He took ham, cheese, lettuce and a tomato from the fridge, sat down at
the kitchen table and piled it high between two slices of Wonder bread then
ate. Usually he did not remember his dreams but if
he did they were the type of dream where he could fly or he would be in school
and realize he had no clothes on. The usual stuff folks dreamed about. The
dream about the house and the old man was different. It clung to his mind and
spoke to him when he was alone.
Hairs raised on his arm as the flypaper sound of the old man’s voice
came back to him. His gut looped then pulled. Pushing it out of his mind he
tried reading and then watching television. Relentless the dream and the cold
feeling held fast. Just go away. He thought at the voice. He heard the old man
laugh. The boy turned his pillows and shifted his
feet, curled up in a ball then stretched out and laid flat, he turned to one
side and then the other. When he finally nodded off he found himself on a hill
surrounded by knee-high grass. The shrill song of mosquitoes assaulted his
ears. Across the field he could see the old man walking and muttering to
himself. Parting the grass with one hand the boy cupped his other one around
the edges of his left eye and squinted. He could see that the man carried a box
when he opened it, a light burst from within. The man plunged a spade deep into the ground.
He removed a molehill of dirt. From the
box he took out a ball of fire that shifted and shimmered white, red, orange,
and blue, he knelt down and then placed it inside the hole and covered it. The
man rose in seconds that grew into minutes. Then as if Houdini himself had
waved his wand he vanished. The force of something pouncing on him pushed him
back to the waking world. The boy’s cat Mr. Beans stood white as the
moon and heavy on his chest asking impatiently with emerald eyes for a late
night snack. Blackness outside his windows said to him it was not time to get
up. The Greek monster Medusa had placed her fingers on his eyelids. Gently
shoving Mr. Beans off he rolled over and dreamed of flying over flames.
*** As soon as he crossed pavement to acorn
littered ground the old man stopped. The above world was so loud and hot. How
could they breathe up here he wondered. Ancient
pine trees stretched out their limbs promising shelter from the sun. The old
man breathed in their medicinal scent. His left hand rose up and passed above a
section of lush moss and needles, acorns rolled, soil spread a hole large
enough for a grizzly bear formed. One foot then the other went into the pit
followed by the rest of him. His right arm raised and passed over his body just
as the left had swept over the ground. He made these tricks look easy but in
truth they were a long practiced magic. A blanket of dirt covered him. The sod
was cool and soft. His muscles eased. As
the sun sunk below the tree line the velvet starless sky emerged. Fireflies lit
and unlit above his mineral fortress. Thoughts of the boy turned over and
around. He turned his internal hourglass over and rested.
***
Sitting up in bed the boy placed a hand over the spot in his chest where
the pain now lived all sharp and hot. He looked at his alarm clock. Seven
thirty. Still early, but he knew he would not go back to sleep. It was time to
find the old man. He dressed and headed towards the kitchen, grabbed the bread
and focused on spreading peanut butter on some slices and jelly on others then
put them together and tossed them into his bag, along with bolt cutters, his
wallet and his best flannel shirt. Silently he unchained his bicycle and headed
away from safety, light and warmth towards the house.
*** Light bounced over moss patches and
hit the giant pines surrounding his bed. The air was crisp and clean the type
you could make a million on if it could be captured and contained. Earth parted
and soil fell away as the old man unfolded his arms, then his legs. He rose up
out of his tomb. A rabbit sat a mile across the field beyond the pines. It
caught the old mans eye and bolted. In seconds he was across the field stroking
the small mammal in his hands. He closed his eyes and light wrapped around the
creature. The old man slowed its heart. The light dimmed then went out.
Greedily he drank its life force. He dropped the body. The light dimmed then
went out. The rabbit fell limp. With the energy of the rabbit inside him he
could go back to the house.
*** Sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit spoke the
temperature gauges up and down the street. Daylight fell warm against his back.
Peels of laughter from children playing near by shed in the boy’s ears. Besides
one or two stray moths in his belly he felt fine. He held the bolt cutters with
both hands, griped the link then squeezed. Rusted steel parted as if he were
cutting a construction paper Christmas tree chain. Before he knew it he had cut
a hole large enough to climb through. As soon as both of his feet hit the
opposite side of the fence the ground pitched beneath him; a wave of nausea
broke through his inside. He leaned against the part of the fence that had not
been operated on then placed his head on his arm. Pain sparked and flared.
His eyes glanced at the house. Its
windows stared straight through him. His hart scurried inside its ribbed cage.
He hated this place. From habit he sighed a deep calming breath and
touched his dark brown hair, then he opened the door. Sunlight pierced through
the cracks around the shades drawn over the windows lighting a path for a
universe of dust. He left the door open to let more light in. At first look the
house appeared just as it had in his dream, so much so that he expected to hear
the sound of the old man breathing, he didn’t. He began to see small
differences in the waking world of the house that were not in the world of
dream. Flies buzzed and raced here to nowhere then back again in front of the
windows and behind the shades, bumping the glass searching for a way out, one
had landed on the floor, he stepped on it and turned his heal. Unlike the dream
house the real one had floorboards. As he ground the insect the boards
screamed. He held his breath close. Surely the man would appear and devour him.
When several minutes went by and the man did not eat the boy he continued
across the floor. A hollow sound accompanied the creaking of the boards. There
must be a room bellow him. The pain in his chest dragged across his chest
towards his shoulder. Once his uncle told him about how it felt to get a
tattoo. He had said it was like a heated knife dragging across sun burnt skin
over and over again. At then end the pain subsided and you were left with a
wonderful piece of work. The boy thought that was what the pain inside him felt
like. Would there be a reward at the end of his pain? Assuming the pain came to
an end.
*** While the old man waited he thought about his
work. The light had taken root inside the boy. These beings of the above world
could be so fragile. If the boy fell he would probably crack and spill yolk. It
was a shame that they were needed to carry the light. Dirt fell from the
ceiling and onto the man as the boy walked across the topside of the house. He
peered through spaces in the stairs and waited for the moment when they would
meet.
***
The boy had found the door to the basement. Blood, muscles, bones and
brains said very clear and very loud don’t go down there. Only the pain told
him to move forward. The stairs were steep and narrow. There was no rail; he
put his hand against the wall. It was damp and cold. He winced as the pain
twisted and nagged in his chest. He was at the bottom step when the old man
grabbed him around his ankle. He felt himself fall, and then there was an
explosion inside of him, as he hit the floor a mushroom cloud of dust rose up.
He screamed.
*** When the boy had fallen unconscious and he had
gone still the man let go of him. There was probably a softer way to show the
boy but he preferred to shake them up a bit. He started to draw in breath, as
he did this he turned into mist, and then entered the boy through his ear.
*** Wherever he was it was cold. His
eyes were closed but he could see light, the kind of light you see when you
turn a flash light on inside your mouth. He opened his eyes and jumped the old
man’s silhouette sat next to him. He closed his eyes again; then opened them
and asked, “ Who are you?”
*** Always
starting with so many questions who, what, where, why and how? He sighed a sigh
as long as the ages, and then said, “I am The Keeper. We are inside your mind.
You must find the fire”. Out of his pocket he pulled a key. The boy looked like
he wanted to ask more questions. He raised his hand as a sign for the boy to
stop speaking. Then he grasped the boy’s hand, pressed the key into it and
closed his fingers around it. He closed his own fingers around the boy’s and
looked all the way inside his eyes. The boy felt the weight of the key
and then the burning. The key glowed red. It felt like the time when he was a
small child. He had placed his finger on the wood stove, a thousand years hot.
His eyes were locked on the man’s. The burn ignited his mind. A fast-forwarded
film played. Snap, snap, snap, snap he saw zombie like wasps floating, then
landing then rising and floating again tiny flesh eaters above a hole that led
to a footpath at the edge of the world. There were cracks as wide as the length
of his arm. Heat warped the air.
Charred human remains piled high on
top of black ash stood in towers everywhere. Snap, snap, snap the pictures went
while the pain forced its way across his shoulder and down his arm. A black
tide washed over him. The old man released the boy, and
put the key back in his pocket. Then he stood and withdrew. On the other side
he reached up and grabbed the derby off his head. He took down a cube of black
tin with small holes punched into all sides of it. He placed it inside the boys
bag, and left the house.
*** Hot angry sounds escaped through the holes of
the box. It had no true opening. The holes were big enough for something the
size of salt crystals to fall through or sand to pour out of but the tin
contained neither of these things. The boy’s hands went to his head and he sat up
and opened his eyes. Fragmented
flashcube memories went on and off. He took a hand from his head and placed it
over his hart. The pain in his chest had calmed. In that moment his freed ear
detected the buzzing box. The cellar
lights flickered. He starred at it. When
he kicked it a little with his foot it buzzed louder. He bent over and poked it
with his finger. The box quieted and then buzzed as his finger withdrew. He
picked it up. Compass symbols slowly appeared on top of the tin like someone
was scratching it into the metal with a razor blade. When the shape was fully
drawn out it glowed bright like the end of a stick in a campfire. It felt warm.
Its contents spoke loudly and knocked about so much it almost fell out of the
boy’s hands. By then the glowing had
stopped except for one letter. S. The boy picked up a foot and moved
it in front of the other one while he concentrated on the compass. He repeated
the movement with the second foot. Then
went up the cellar stairs and out the back door then onto the porch. Curtains
of steel grey clouds drew closed above the house. A snake had come up through a
starburst-splintered hole in the porch floorboards, looking to dine on the
spiders in their galaxy of lace webs. The boy had taken no notice of the
spiders or the snake. He barely noticed when his face passed through the spun
cotton like fibers of one of the webs. His sight was cemented to the
compass. Then just as he was almost off
the porch his foot went through it. Splintered wood pierced the side of his
leg. At first what had happened did not register. He still held the compass the
S for south glowing bright. Surely it knew where he had to go. As he started to lift his leg he felt a
tearing pain. The compass fell. A rush of agony flew in and around the wound. The pain in his chest dragged hot needlepoints
down his other arm. He stood for a long while. Tears of pain and anger flowing
down his cheeks. Splashes of rain hit the brittle grass beyond the porch. His
body trembled uncontrollably. In his throat a low moan hatched. He let it
loose. There was a rumble of thunder and
then the sky above the house split open. Rain fell hard and heavy. It pushed his heart
down and sat on it. He had shivered on the porch while trying to slowly free
his leg from the wood but the house did not want to let him go. He gritted his
teeth and counted one, two, and three. In one swift movement he yanked his leg.
Sickness from his guts heaved onto the wood boards. The pain in his chest
burned sharp. Despite the chill sweat seeped from his pours. The porch’s hole had bitten a jagged wound
into his upper middle calf. He pulled the larger shards of wood out slowly so
that they came out whole. He had read once that if a splinter got to your heart
you’d be done for. Could whatever the pain
was from kill him? Probably. If I am
going to die from this thing he thought it isn’t going to be here. He had
cleaned the wound as best he could then he tore off part of his shirt and
wrapped it around his leg. The compass
was shaking and rattling on the porch. He picked it up. Opening his bag he placed the cube
inside. As soon as he did this he remembered his bike was in front of the
house. As he limped in the opposite
direction he had been heading the buzz started again. He spotted the elementary
school blue frame and the white sparkle of the banana shaped seat lying in the
grass where he had left it. The rain had stopped. It had left behind coolness
in the air. He took his red plaid shirt from his bag. The flannel hugged his
arms and wiped away the rain that had stuck fast to him. He turned the bike
south and left the house. The boy pedaled slowly up a large
hill. His lungs burned. He got off and walked but pushing the awkward shape
caused him to move even slower. More than once he banged his shins into the
pedals. He neared the top a switch flipped and the streetlights shot their rays
out across downtown. Coasting to the bottom of the hill grateful for the free
ride his tires kicked up gravel from the sidewalk. He stopped in front of a pay
phone. He thought by now his mom would be at work but his gram would be home.
Headlights of passing cars slid over him. He dialed then listened and waited.
When his gram answered a gray wave of homesickness washed over him. He could
almost smell the roasted potatoes and garlic chicken she always made Saturday
nights. He tried to make his voice sound cheerful. Lying to his gram was tough.
She was the only person who knew when he wasn’t talking straight. As he told
her the classic story of how he would be staying at a friend’s house that night
and would not be home until the next day he could feel her disapproving eyes
crossing miles of telephone wire and stopping at his hart. Not wanting to hear
her worry any longer he hurried off the phone hoping she would believe him at
least a little bit. The box started to shake with noise again urging him
forward. He pulled it from his pack and held it in both hands. The whole
compass was lit again. He watched as the letter S dimmed followed by N and then
E. Until letter W glowed alone. Gingerly he placed the compass back
in his bag he turned his bike around and headed west. After awhile his stomach began
to speak to him about fried chicken and onion rings until hunger was all he was.
Neon beacons of light proclaimed one million served on every corner. He opened
his pack to get out the sandwiches he had made before leaving for the house. They
weren’t there. Angry frustration shot down his arms as he realized he had torn
his pack. Hot words tumbled through his lips into the polluted city air. © 2012 Karen PrestonAuthor's Note
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5 Reviews  Last Updated on October 16, 2012 Tags: Fiction, fantasy, magic, youngadult Author
Karen PrestonBoston, MAAboutI am an artist. Most of my work is digital collage. I just started writing as new way to express myself. more..Writing
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