Gimme
by Nicholas DeNardi
Gimme, Arizona. The State-Unrecognized village sanctuary embedded deep within the Chiricahua Mountains. “Astronomer’s Gate,” as it was called by those settled in the nearest town of San Simon (Population: 165), 27 miles to the east. Occupied by a handful of retired engineers, physicists, and yes, astronomers, Gimme had only one rule: preserve darkness.
Closing in on these isolated badlands were Sarah and Tommy, Doctoral candidate and carpenter. Sarah’s phone showed 07:10 pm as Tommy slowly traversed the single-lane path of compacted dirt that clung to the mountainside. The early October wind rustled against the side of their 2002 Jeep Cherokee, pushing them into the rock for miles at a time, then suddenly pulling at them like a rip-current. While Tommy white-knuckled the steering wheel hard enough to pop a baseball, Sarah put her phone aside and rummaged through her bag once more. “I don’t understand, Tommy. It has to be here,” she said.
“It’s there, it’s there. I saw you put it in there.”
“You never used it?”
“Sarah, why the hell would I use your shoehorn?” he said with a grin.
“Exactly. You’ve always thought it was stupid so you decided to throw it away while I wasn’t looking.” She tossed everything in her bag from side to side, creating an enclosed hurricane of hands, paper and pens.
“Maybe my dad secretly stole it. Still building houses, but takes him 15 minutes to put his shoes on. Actually, I wonder if those fittings came in for our window frames.”
“No, I had it at the motel.”
“Well okay, our little neuro-helper is definitely in here then.”
“Can you be serious for one fucking second, Tom?”
“Okay.”
He stopped the Jeep to the side and pulled the bag away from her. “Okay, let’s find it then.”
Tommy exited the car and opened the door behind his seat. The wind caught his wavy brown hair as he plopped the bag down.
“Babe, Sue made me promise to get there before sunset. I was handling it.” Dust began to flow through the vehicle, freckling her olive skin.
“Won’t take long,” he replied.
Tommy dumped the entirety of Sarah’s bag onto the back seat and spread the items like a flea market showcase. Among them were numerous scrunchies, an extra pair of shoelaces in a tiny baggy your local pot dealer would give you, a copy of The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking, an actual tiny baggy of pot, notebooks, pens, a phone charger, and finally, clinging to the inside of Sarah’s bag for dear life while Tommy shook it about one last time, a 4 pound tome with the words “Nonlinear Physics” in basic type across its cover. And with the textbook came the elongated metal clamp they were looking for. The shoehorn.
Tommy picked it up and smiled for a moment, waiting for Sarah to say something. In the silence he noticed his reflection in the metal and behind it the sun setting over the truncated plateau in the distance. But then it moved.
“What?” He turned around quickly and gazed over the ridge to the mesa beyond.
“I said, ‘great, can I have it please?'” Her hand was still stretched back to him in anticipation. “What is it?”
“Did you see something?”
“Babe. All I see is a 10 minute apology to Sue for being late and 15 minutes of us having to put everything back in my bag in complete darkness. But it’s my fault, okay? Let’s go, I’m sorry for yelling. Tom, let’s go!”
Tommy returned to the vehicle with the shoehorn in hand but never looked away from the fading horizon. The incoming darkness acted as a force upon the rocky mantles. An agent of its own design, revealing its nature not as absence, but overwhelming presence. The sun, half-gone, was running away. The full moon hung proud and victorious in the desaturating sky. Like a reticulated python the night began to grip. Soft at first, a hug. Then heavier, darker, until inevitably its weight registered and it was too late to scream.
#
The high-beams struggled to power through the thick and heavy black of the night. Every turn for the last quarter-mile was hairpin, and the edge of every road was infinite abyss. Beyond the paltry reach of the headlights existence seemed to phase out. For the final stretch into the flattened valley, it was as if the lights themselves created the path before them, for a darkness such as this convinced the logic that nothing could be hiding within. This must be pure void.
“I see something!” Sarah said, cutting through the long silence. Tommy said nothing, only eased on the brakes and took the Jeep to a recreational crawl over the loose rock. “Up there,” she continued, “those might be buildings.”
“God damn it Sarah, why did you make me come to this place. Is anyone even out here?”
“I told you, they keep it dark.”
“Don’t they know we’re coming?”
“My grandma told me they don’t turn on a single light. For anyone, okay? That’s why we’re here. And Sue will know it’s us.”
“Tell me again when you met Sue?” he said, voice pitched up slightly.
“Facebook. Online.”
Tommy exhaled for a while. “Jesus Christ, I just saw someone,” he said as he stopped the car entirely.
“Are you sure?”
“Something fucking moved!”
“Okay, Tom, we need to calm down alright? There are people out here. They know it’s us.”
They sat and looked desperately into the slivered tract of land the high-beams afforded them. Then a man appeared.
“Oh my god,” Sarah gasped instinctively. The man walked toward them.
“Okay babe, these are your friends. Why don’t you roll down the window and say something?”
“Fine,” she said as she manually lowered her window. She called out into the warm, dusty air, “Hi! We’re the couple here from Rhode Island. Friends of Sue’s?”
The man said nothing until he reached the window and knelt down, revealing a thick, white mustache that was indiscernible in the spotlight.
“You were supposed to be here before sunset, and now you’re disrupting some of them who’ve already begun their research.”
“I know,” she replied. “We’re very sorry. It’s been-“
“It’s been very long drive, man,” Tom cut in. “We just wanna park the car and get on with the researching like everyone else.”
The chirping field crickets lifted the noise floor of the valley to a dull hum.
“Hey, look at that. You see that?” the man asked.
“What?” Sarah replied.
“Jackrabbit just made off with a forb. I’ll be.”
“Amazing what you can see with some light, right?”
“Tom.”
“No, it is amazing,” the man said, turning into the car. “The right light can show you things you never thought you’d see. You never thought you wanted to see. And then you can’t look away.” He kept his eyes on Tom. “Well, let’s get on with it then and get you up to meet my wife,” he patted the top of the Jeep and finally broke eye contact.
“You’re Sue’s husband? Dana?” Sarah asked.
“That’s me. Now if you wouldn’t mind shutting those disruptors off and letting me lead you to your spot.”
Tom killed the lights and for 10 minutes pressed neither gas nor brake, and steered with no sight or guidance save for a dimly shaded hand reached within Sarah’s window and the voice of a man he did not know.
#
“Here’s the spot,” Dana said. “And just a warning to ya, the first time you see it, all of it, you can get disoriented. But,” he said, looking up, “there really ain’t nothing like it.”
Tommy took the keys and stepped out of the Jeep into the dry, hot Arizona night. The ground beneath his feet was a black hole, so that each step was a fight against the body’s anticipation of inevitable fall. When he looked up, however, his body practically shrunk in its bones.
“Holy shit,” he exclaimed, suffering through a harsh vertigo.
“Oh my god,” Sara replied as she also stepped out of the car. “I can’t believe this.”
Above them was a cosmos so rich in texture it took on a 3-D effect, transcending its usual display of dots simply painted upon the celestial sphere. Nebulae exploded with color that seemed to drape over the expanse like Christmas tinsel 2 million light years across. Cosmic rays converged upon the galactic nucleus of the Milky Way, staging a brilliant dance between the governing constellations and their radiant backdrop of neighboring clusters. The full moon looked approvingly on the great painting from its partitioned corner. Andromeda waved hello and Pegasus galloped, as he always has, deeper into that unknowable nothing.
“Like some kind of heavenly fire,” Dana finally said. “That’s how old Jacob described it a few weeks ago when he saw something truly extraordinary. ‘Some kind of heavenly fire.’”
“Is it normal to be shaking?” Tommy asked, but was cut off immediately by Sarah, who asked, “when you say Jacob, do you mean Doctor Jacob Isaacs?”
“I do.”
“Oh, my god. He’s really here? What did he see?”
“Oh, just wait til you’re out here for an hour or so and your dark adaptation is at its peak. We’re all bound to see something different.”
“How so?”
“I’ll leave the explaining to the scientist types. They’re waitin’ for you in the basement.”
“Did you say basement?” Tommy asked, looking to meet the eyes of this strange man but finding only a cloud of dark below the starry horizon.
“Can get as bright as you want down there. No leakage. And,” he paused, “we have a special buffet for you both this evening, locally sourced. Sue’s idea.”
“I love it,” Sarah exclaimed enthusiastically. “I can’t wait to finally meet her. And Doctor Isaacs.”
“Basement, though?” Tommy whispered under his breath so only Sarah could hear. She nudged his side as she arrived next to him. Kissed him on the cheek.
“Come on then, follow my voice and watch your step. Or, step slowly.”
#
The house was warm and smelled of stale coffee. Candles illuminated the corners, showing knick-knacks on tables and flickering photographs of Dana and a woman with curly gray hair and glasses. Tom noted with interest a silver metal shoehorn that looked identical to Sarah’s sitting next to two pairs of work boots next to the front door. Blackout curtains covered every window, and voices muffled from below the hardwood floor.
“Right down here,” Dana led them to a small hallway in the back of the house and opened a narrow wooden door that looked like it belonged to a closet. “After you.”
Tom looked at Sarah then moved down the steps. They were both relieved to see that the deeper they went, the lighter it became until finally, at the foot of another narrow wooden door, they could see each other’s faces again.
“Go on, then,” Dana snickered. Tommy took hold of the loose golden doorknob, turned and pushed. The voices stopped talking, then:
“Sarah! Oh my god, you made it! Come here!” Sue smiled hugely under her coke bottle glasses and held her arms out wide. A small group of scientists in plaid looked on wholesomely then continued to discuss and drink from their cups.
“Sue, so great to finally meet you!” They embraced.
“Even more stunning in person. Georgia’s daughter, excuse me, granddaughter! I can’t believe it,” she said as he held Sarah’s face.
“I know! This is Tommy, my boyfriend.”
Sue gasped. “Tommy! How wonderful. And you’ve met my boyfriend already too,” she said and winked. “I hope he didn’t give you too much trouble.”
“Oh, well. Only a little bit,” Tom said.
“Really? Dane, what did you do?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Sarah replied. “He very politely told us to shut our lights off so we don’t disrupt anyone.”
“Dana Harrison! Yes it’s true sweetie, earlier is better to arrive around here but I told him,” she paused with a hard look her husband’s way, “it was no big deal!”
Dana stood with his arms crossed and grin on his face. “I think I’ll help myself to a beverage,” he finally said. He walked past and Sue grabbed his arm.
“And?” she asked. He leaned in and kissed her, then left for his drink. “Wow, wow, wow,” she continued. “It’s just so great to see new people here! Why don’t you two grab a drink, introduce yourselves, and take a seat over there, and we can begin.”
“Begin?” Sarah asked.
“Yes, dear. Tonight is very, very special.” She looked them back and forth in the eyes. “Which is why I insisted upon it.”
#
“Good evening everyone. Pleasure to see most of you down here, even if some have already gotten started without us up there,” Doctor Jacob Isaacs began, with a light chuckle from the small group of nine sitting before him in folding chairs. “Although this is a big night for us, and we are rightfully excited, I thought… since we have two new faces here tonight, who are wonderful by the way, at least as far as I can tell, that we might hold a little ceremony before the buffet. To remember why it is we are here at the Great Intergalactic Mecca on Earth, or Gimme. To look at our project with new eyes again. To feel its power in the raw.” His dark, bald head reflected the fluorescent lights above. A man in his sixties, Doctor Isaacs looked no older than forty-five, the only hint being the shadow of gray in his finely trimmed beard.
“Tonight is, of course, the Cherokee Harvest Moon. As we know, a harvest moon in October occurs about every three years. However, this month will also house a blue moon. This lunar event, an October with two full moons, is a rare and patternless one. Last seen in 1974, and next seen in 2039. The rogue Cherokee that inexplicably embedded themselves in this Mountainous tract, somehow ignored or feared by the Apache who owned this region, made special note of this occurrence. They called it ‘Asduig Sdudi,’ ‘the opening of the gate.’ Tonight, we will experience with them what it is like to walk through that gate, staying up until dawn to witness the celestial transition to light. Timothy, son, if you would lift the lids from the hot trays, I think we can begin eating shortly. I’m seeing absolutely famished faces.” The group chuckled again.
A young black man, no older than 25, walked to the folding table with tin trays of food. He had pink mittens on his hands, and kept them on even as he attempted to unfold the foil lids from around the lip of each tray.
“Sometime in the years before years were counted on this continent, a small group of Cherokee migrated from the east to this region, sustaining heavy losses. Fearing for their extinction, they traversed these rocky passages and made camp right here in this valley, expecting to have arrived at their final resting place. Instead, they found one of our favorite little historical anomalies: broccoli.”
The first lid came off and the heavy smell of steamed broccoli filled the room. Tom looked to Sarah but she was transfixed by Doctor Isaacs.
“Despite being native to Asia, and supposedly brought over in the 1700s, these Cherokee found a broccoli valley of abundance. And not just broccoli! Every genetic strand of broccoli we know today! Calabrese, Destiny, Belstar. Chinese broccoli, Broccolini, Broccoli rabe, Romanesco Broccoli. All here. All in this valley. Planted, grown, available.”
Timothy removed more lids and different species of broccoli odor mingled and wafted across the warm, stuffy basement. Seven trays lay open on the table. Seven broccolis waited to be eaten.
“Tonight, we dine as those distraught Cherokee dined. On a mystery below, as we contemplate the mystery above. And of course, I expect it to be delicious as always, courtesy of our resident farmer, Dana. Thank you, Dana.”
“With pleasure.”
“And with that, I think we can eat!”
Tom and Sarah lined up with everyone else, grabbing paper plates and cutlery. Tom leaned into Sarah’s ear.
“So this is why you didn’t tell me anything about this place. I fucking hate broccoli.”
She giggled but pushed it down. “I didn’t know! It’s all so weird but kind of cool. How haven’t we heard about this?”
“Because we don’t want the wrong eyes examining us here,” Doctor Isaacs cut in from behind them. They paused hesitantly. “Oh, don’t worry, it’s not so serious. It’s broccoli. We just want our researchers to have a full opportunity to analyze the soil and flora here. When we’re ready, we’ll publish what we’ve discovered and the world can come say hello.”
The tension eased when he smiled at them. He was a sincere man.
“Of course. That makes sense. Yeah. It’s just so crazy to be here, with Doctor Jacob Isaacs, and hearing about…this.” They both chuckled.
“Sarah, I’m positive we’ll discuss what you came here to discuss. Physics, grand unification, many worlds, all of it. Broccoli rabe?”
Tom was at the end of the line with a mound of green on his plate that resembled one of the many mountains they were forced to navigate on their way here.
“Sure, thanks,” Sarah responded as Doctor Isaacs dropped a large spoonful on her plate.
“And in the meantime,” he started, “I would love to get a look at that shoehorn I’ve heard about.”
#
Dana sat in the front seat of his Chevy Tahoe with night vision goggles over his face. Cruising at a steady five miles per hour, the truck tumbled over a boundless stretch of black that, from Tom’s point of view in the bed of the pickup, looked no different from the ocean. The stars were fixed and real while the truck shifted aimlessly, floating through infinite space. He and Sarah sat across from Doctor Isaacs in the bed while Sue rode shotgun.
Doctor Isaacs laughed.
“I had a crush on her you know, on Georgia,” he said, eyes fixed above.
“No way! On my grandma? That’s amazing.”
“Yeah, I had just turned 30 when I found this place. She was already here. Older. Wiser. Beautiful.”
“Smart,” Sarah added.
“I said wiser!” Isaacs cracked up. “She was all that, and then some. It was terribly sad to hear of her passing. I’ll miss her.”
“Me too. Even if I am still angry with her that she never mentioned this place until she was on her deathbed! ‘Labratory in Tucson’ my ass.”
“Don’t be too hard on her. A lot of us find our work here very… personal. It becomes a part of us. Georgia was no different. She helped me come up with the Holographic Higgs model, you know.” He scoffed at himself. “‘Helped.’ She practically came up with the whole damn thing.”
“Are you serious?”
“She made my career. But even after I could’ve worked at any University I wanted, I chose to come back here.”
“For her?”
“Maybe at first. Your grandpa made sure I had no success with that. But it was more. Something about this valley, this little cut of sky that seems to promise answers.”
“The broccoli,” Tom added. “I feel sick.”
“I saw you chowing down Tom, that was a lot of broccoli rabe you ate,” Isaacs said, laughing.
“That’s what happens when your girlfriend accepts a heaping spoonful but spits out the first bite and is too shy to throw it away.”
“You didn’t have any, Sarah?” Isaacs looked across the bed to a dim outline of her face.
“Tom!” she exclaimed. “I guess I’m busted. Not my thing, Doctor Isaacs.”
“Did you have anything?”
She hesitated for a moment, caught off guard at the speed of the question.
“Well, no. I ate just before we pulled in. I didn’t mean to offend anyone, it looked great.”
The truck bobbled along in its matte black sea. Dana slapped the roof above his window.
“Timothy’s Patch! Up on the right!” he yelled out over the engine and crickets.
“Thank god, I need to lay down,” Tommy moaned.
“Doctor Isaacs,” Sarah said, trying to make out any expression on the face across from hers, “what did you see a few weeks ago?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Dana, he said you saw something a few weeks ago. Something that looked like, ‘some kind of heavenly fire.’ What was it?”
There was a long silence.
“Doctor Isaacs?”
“There is a famous horror story only two sentences long. ‘The last man on earth stands in his living room. There is a knock on the door.’ I never understood why this was considered to be in the horror genre. It’s another person, right? He’s not alone. The real horror story is one sentence long: ‘The last man on earth stands in his living room.’ Because that’s us. We can examine the cosmic plane, we can even figure out how this whole thing works. But we’re still standing alone in our living room, all but practically begging for someone to knock on our door. That night I told Dana about, I saw the same thing I see every night. But for a moment, I heard a knock. I felt connection. Not to the cosmos, or to God, but to myself. To myself in another place.”
The truck forked right and came to a stop. Two chairs sat adjacent to each other next to a tent.
“This is you,” Isaacs said. “My son’s spot. Where I used to take him almost every night.”
Sarah and Tom stepped off the bed with the help of Isaacs and sat in their chairs.
“Enjoy it sweeties!” Sue exclaimed through the truck to them.
“Thanks, Sue” answered Tom.
“We’ll be back to get you in the morning,” Isaacs said. The truck started as Tom asked one last thing.
“Hey doctor, Timothy doesn’t mind us using his special spot?”
“Doesn’t need it anymore,” Isaacs answered. “He refuses to look at the night sky ever again.”
The truck rattled forward and disappeared into the vacuum, its low rumble blending in with the crickets and the snakes.
#
Sarah and Tom lay outstretched on their backs on the bumpy rock and grass. They held hands and got lost in the universe, which, although filling a finite section of earthly sky, hinted at its amorphous eternity in the darkness beyond its most radiant lights. Every millimeter of that atmosphere the eye could scan was filled with galaxies, clouds, storms and electricity likely no man would ever behold up close. It was a strange feeling. Seeing something definitely, but in seeing it, witnessing the proof of its inability to be seen.
“Hey,” Sarah said quietly.
“Hey,” Tom returned.
“When they come get us tomorrow, I think we should leave.”
“What? But, you wanted-“
“-I know, but…”
“Is it because of me? I like it.”
“No, you don’t.” She chuckled to herself.
“What do you mean! The dinner was delicious, amazing variety, all the food groups available. The pitch black conversations definitely weren’t unsettling 100% of the time. And Dana, seems like one hell of a dude. Great man.”
They laughed together.
“This night was fucking weird!” she screamed to the heavens.
“But look at this, Sarah. This is what makes it worth it. This is what we came for. What you needed. We have to stay. I’m happy we did this.”
“You really mean it?” she asked, tenderly.
“Definitely.”
“Okay. One more night. I’ll take studious notes, talk to Doctor Isaacs about his research, and then we can go the next morning. I feel bad for taking you away from Nate, anyway.”
“What?” Tom turned over to Sarah, whose silhouetted profile looked part of the landscape. “Old Nate? Trust me, my dad is happy to be building our house alone. No idiot like me with the audacity to use power tools to deal with. I wish he could see this right now, though. I just want him to see something, to escape or… I don’t know what I’m saying. The man is getting older.”
“He enjoys his life,” Sarah rebutted. “He likes it the way it is.”
“No. He’s just scared. When our house is done and you and me are married and everything is settled down, I’m taking him to China.”
“China? Why?” she laughed.
“He always makes fun of those poor people, gotta show him how much more advanced they are than him. He’ll get a kick out of it.”
“I love it. And he’ll love it.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I have to vomit up some broccoli rabe. Two portions’ worth.”
“I’m sorry!”
He laughed under his breath as he stood up. “It actually tasted decent. That’s the annoying part. That’s why I kept eating it.”
“I’ll be right here, okay? Have fun.”
“Fuck you,” he said.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
He stood up fully and walked behind the tent. The firmament shone so brightly he had to cut it off from sight and wait for his eyes to adjust to the blackened ground. The nausea never really went away but it was hitting full force now. Dizziness consumed him and his head filled with liquid weight that sloshed from one end to the other.
“Not good, not good,” he repeated to himself and closed his eyes. It felt like someone with an iron glove was squeezing his play-doh stomach.
“Sarah, it might be awhile.” He could barely get the words out before trying to catch his breath. All of gravity was now located in his chest.
“One, two, thr-“ and suddenly his chest expanded all across Arizona and the continental United States and the Atlantic Ocean, out into the starry sky which had so captivated him. When he opened his eyes, he was disappointed to see a clear broth where a mountain of green goo should have been. He stood up straight and wiped his face, but the sky moved. He didn’t know which way it faced any longer. When he looked down he saw stars. When he looked up, there they were again, in equal number.
“Babe? Can you get me some water?” he heard Sarah say sharply close to his ear drums.
“Are you in the tent?”
“Where else would I be?”
“I can’t, I can’t see you,” he said while holding his arms out like a mummy. He fell to the ground.
“Oh man, oh man, oh man.”
“Do you hear that?” he heard her say. “A moaning, or chanting? What is that?”
“I don’t hear it,” he answered cheek first in the gravel. “Wait.”
A vibration.
“Are you bringing my water?” she asked. He stood outside the tent with a glass filled to the brim.
“I have it right here,” he said, unzipping the tent from the bottom. When open, he saw her faded outline reach out for the glass.
“Babe? Is that you? Are you going to sleep?” she asked from her spot on the grass. Tom felt his heart in his throat when he turned to see a second outline adjusting its posture in the sandy grass before him.
“What the fuck? Wait. No, no no. There were, three. No, two of us.” He remembered a girl in the back seat of the road trip. “Three of us.” Water poured from the bottle he held into the open tent.
“Tom, just give me the fucking water,” she said.
“Are you okay?” she said and touched his back which soaked through his shirt.
“I hear screaming,” she said within the tent. He heard it too. Loud, vicious screaming.
Blades of grass rushed underneath and a cool breeze emanated from them as if they were breathing. He saw clouds puffed with the projection of astral lights. His breathing was fast and his heart was awake and he was sprinting. The sun had risen but night refused to leave, and he chased that pointed light on the horizon while the screaming grew louder. The tiny candle flickered gently until it became hot and large, and he could see people circling around it, thrashing, dancing. Doctor Isaacs was there and Tom crouched behind a desert broom bush.
“Sue, god damn it will you put that out? Put it out!” Doctor Isaacs waved a garment at the fire while Sue and three men held hands and collapsed one by one.
“I see it,” she said from the ground, “I finally see it.”
Tom looked up and saw a face waiting in the sky.
“No Dana, she ate it. They all did,” Isaacs yelled into his phone. “No, no, you will not put this on me. I told everyone, everyone! That it was for them, not us. I’m trying to put it out now. Her? Keep her tied up and bring her to the house.” He hung up. “Ungrateful prick. Sue, sweetie, come on, get up now.”
“NO!” Sue screamed from the ground then stood up. “You are not Jacob. Jacob is in the truck. He’s in the truck!” She grabbed Isaacs, shaking, wide-eyed. “Who are you?” She pushed Isaacs to the ground and undressed rapidly, ripping cloth and lace.
“Is this what they saw, Jacob? They gazed into the void and saw the other iterations of themselves? Many worlds? They ate broccoli and scribbled equations into stone? Or did they just fuck? I may be old, Jacob, but I can still fuck, can’t I? You did this to us. You gave us the best research any of us have ever done, but it only makes sense when we’re not looking, doesn’t it? I see the ‘heavenly fire’ Jacob. It’s right fucking here.”
Her bony frame illuminated by the crackling flames, the naked men lifted Sue up, showing entrenched scar-tissue through and connecting the toes of both feet. Red and swelling. Bleeding. They spun her around, their own bloodied stumps prancing in the dirt and making a rightful red mud.
“I can feel my toes,” she screamed. “I can feel them!” She dismounted from the men and stared into Doctor Jacob Isaacs’ eyes. “And now I want to feel everything.” She jumped into the flames without saying another word and dropped onto her back like a limp doll.
Isaacs backed away on all fours as the men screamed into the flames and the sky and rolled in the rocks until they became indistinguishable from the ground beneath them.
Sue only moaned. Slow and raspy, in a way that one could not distinguish if it was pain or pleasure.
“The house, Tom,” he heard a shiny star whisper in a voice much different than his own, and he ran.
#
The dark village stood quietly and empty. One house revealed itself as if under a spotlight and Tom sprinted until his hands touched the siding and it was daylight again. His father held an outstretched hand and asked for a nail. Another hand reached past Tom’s face and gave it to him. It was him.
Tom watched himself hammer home a nail of his own and take a swig of water. The afternoon Rhode Island air was crisp and birds chirped aimlessly on the neighborhood roofs.
“Tom, come inside, I want to show you something,” Sarah said from the window. “Come on! I need your help.”
He walked around to the front steps and jiggled the door knob.
“It’s locked,” he said.
“Then break it,” she replied from inside.
“What?”
“Break it Tom, I need your help!”
He shouldered the door a few times, then kicked it in. As he did, the sunlight went out and the house went silent and dark. A figure sat at the dining room table facing him, a glass in its hand.
“The orange juice is sour today, Tom,” his father said solemnly. “Could you pick up a new carton? It’s sour today.” The figure sipped from the glass. ‘The orange juice is sour today.”
“It’s always sour, pop. You do this. You don’t like orange juice but you keep forcing it because she loved it. It’s always sour!” he yelled with tears in his eyes. “It’s always sour, pop. It’s always sour.” He broke down sobbing as the figure took another sip.
“Maybe you should pick up a new carton,” it said again.
“Tom! I need you!” Sarah screamed into his ears.
He looked up and saw Timothy standing next to the table, mittens still on and nervously holding onto a chair.
“Hey Tim. Hey big guy. Mind telling me where they have Sarah locked up?”
Timothy analyzed him, said nothing.
“Timothy,” he continued, wiping the last tears from the corners of his eyes, “I know she’s here, okay?”
“Tom!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“I know she’s here!” he bellowed and charged Timothy who threw the chair down in front of him and ran to the basement door.
Tom tripped over the chair and looked frantically around the room. He jumped back over it and lunged to the front door, where he grabbed the shoehorn laying next to the two pairs of work boots and raced to the basement door. Bursting through the bottom door and slamming it shut with chaotic violence, Tom saw Timothy just reach a cabinet in the back of the room.
“Stop!” Tom said as he approached him rapidly.
“Tom, I want to leave, please,” Sarah cried into his heart, his mind, his everything. He would die for her. He would die for her. That’s what he said calmly to himself as a statement of fact when he yanked Timothy away from the drawer and plunged the shoehorn into his neck. The hard textured resistance of Timothy’s throat proved that the shoehorn was not meant to be utilized as such a weapon, but pure force made sure it was sent all the way home.
“Sarah?” he looked around the room dizzyingly while Timothy bled out. In his right mittened hand Timothy held a plush, stuffed sun. In the drawer lay dozens of stuffed planets, moons, and rocks. Tom looked down into his eyes.
“Timothy… Timothy, oh my god. I’m gonna take it out, okay? I’m gonna fix you.”
Timothy shook his head. He removed his mittens and reached up to touch Tom’s face. Tom grabbed his hands which were horribly scarred and deformed and pressed them against his cheek. Silence became the room.
Tom stood up and realized he had no idea who he was. He looked up at the fluorescent lights, and to the shoehorn in Timothy’s neck, and all but practically begged that someone would knock on the door.
Special Thanks to:
Corey M. for the title.
Matthew D. for “Some kind of heavenly fire.”
Scott T. for the shoehorn.
Erik C. for the basement.
Donald H. for the broccoli.
Daniel S. for the doppelgangers.
Chris R. for “The last man on earth.”
Nick Denardi 