Fade Page 2

  Jan sat on the edge of a listing picnic table, lighting up another clove, sticking it between her black lips. She pointed at Cynthia, who rested against the wall across from her, "You, me. Hanging out tonight, ma'am."

  Cynthia suppressed the urge to frown. In general, that would have been good news, but she was tired and just wanted to go home, curl up with a French philosopher or two and get nice and baked. Still she’d been present for the event that was Jan’s mom that morning. The woman had been slurring her words before they even left for school. She knew Jan’s mom, and an early morning drunk almost always meant a late afternoon rage-a-thon. Leaving her friend to her mother’s drunken rant would be, in her estimation, a shitty thing to do. So, she agreed to go with a press-on smile.

  When they slipped into the gym again, which stank of glue and trying too hard; everyone else was gone except Mrs. Walker, who still stapled this and taped that with the ferocity of a middle-aged woman who defined her self-worth by how well a plaster Arc de Triomphe looked. The teacher called out preoccupied thanks for the girls’ help, maybe never noticing that Cynthia and Jan had been missing. The girls grabbed their bags and headed out to Jan’s car, which now sat alone on that side of the building.

  Jan breathed in deep. “Freedom!”

  “Just a day-pass, Jan-Jan. Hell continueth tomorrow, my friend!” Cynthia said.

  “Don’t be stealing my false sense of liberation! My self-delusion is all that gets me through the day.” Jan laughed, the two thin strips of black in her otherwise wrapping paper red hair danced into her face.

  “My apologies: Freedom!” Cynthia said, throwing a fist in the air like some suburban freedom fighter.

  As they made their way over to Jan’s car, Cynthia took in the lot. It was almost always full of cars and crowds of students milling around like fashionable zombies. It somehow felt wrong being there without them and the authority figures with their cheap ties and K-Mart dresses. It made her want to get a six-pack and do donuts on the football field, knowing that the only person who could stop her was a frantic English teacher trying her best to turn a school gym into some semblance of A Night in Paris. Then she shivered at the thought of prom.

  Cynthia figured prom was supposed to be some modern rite of passage. At best, it was the gaudy celebration of passing from learner to learned. But she could not find it in herself to feel as though that were something to be celebrated. Most of the kids, in her opinion, had it as good as they ever would. But, that might be as good a reason as any to have a party. Eat, drink and be merry while there were still cheerleaders, free rides and denial to be had.

  “I’ll call you at about six-thirty, chick.” Jan shifted her backpack to her other shoulder and dug keys from her purse. Smiling, she zipped her black and gray plaid tank top down several inches. “Ha-ha! No one can stop my inappropriate cleavage now!”

  Cynthia smiled a second too late, pulled from her thoughts. “Alright, you rebel, you. See you tonight.” Cynthia rolled on her heels as she passed her friend, walking backward, twirling her own keys as she talked. “Oh, can’t believe I forgot to tell you! Guess who asked me out yesterday?”

  “Dalen Young.” Jan gave a half-hearted smile and rested against her car, letting her bag drop to the blacktop.

  “Whoa. How’d you know that? And why, pray tell, do you seem so unimpressed by the news?” Cynthia crossed her arms. Her blue eyes, masked black with eyeliner, narrowed.

  “I heard him asking around about you. And I’m not unexcited. It’s probably just that my excitement seems like Cancer-ward gloom compared to yours.” She laughed, but it was empty.

  Cynthia pursed her lips and arched an eyebrow. “If you say so.”

  “I do, and you can tell me all about it tonight.” Jan stuck her tongue out and sat down behind the wheel. When she drove past her she honked twice, laughing and pointing to the other side of the school where a late Cynthia had been forced to park that morning. Cynthia flipped her off with a smirk, unaware that those would be among her last few moments of normalcy.

  ***

  Cynthia watched Jan’s car disappear and took a deep breath, letting it out all at once. She was glad the stupid gym was decorated for the stupid prom and all the stupid mandatory volunteering was over. Her pleated skirt was never intended for climbing ladders. And high school boys were predictable in their capacity for lechery. And changing was out of the question.

  She rounded the corner to the front of the building where she saw her car—a sight that sang liberty. Two trucks, both mud-caked Chevys, also sat in the lot across from hers. Three or four students stood in and around them. She gave a glance at the small, laughing group who seemed intent on something she couldn’t see. She imagined a rabbit or cat they were making life miserable for and frowned, but kept walking.

  “That’s at least a three-pointer!” One of them yelled, and they all cackled.

  At first, Cynthia continued to ignore them. She was certain she would not find whatever they were laughing at as hilarious as they. Then, as she got closer, she caught a glimpse of their target. It was the homeless guy—which summed up about all Cynthia knew about him. Hell, it was all anyone knew about him. He was the unwanted mascot of Black Oaks, who stumbled about town mumbling to himself, his long, oily hair always sticking to his pale, dirty face. Right then he was a ball on the ground, encircled by beer and cola cans, fast food cups. Someone threw a pocket full of change at him. At the sight, Cynthia achieved the high point in her righteous indignation and marched over.

  “Leave the freaking retard alone, guys!” She said.

  “We’re just having some fun, Cynthia. Chill out. Hit the bum, get a stuffed animal! I got a can with your name on it...” The guy, some senior whose name she couldn’t place, finished in a sing-songy voice, rattling a crushed Bud Light can at her.

  “Oh, does it say ‘slut’?” one of the girls asked to more laughter, which Cynthia ignored.

  “Karma’s a bitch, boys,” Cynthia said.

  “Don’t believe in karma,” a tall, square-headed blonde said and took the can, lobbing it at the homeless man. “But,” he looked around the bed of the truck, “we’re out of cans. Perfect timing on your holier-than-thou routine.”

  Cynthia rolled her eyes, turned her attention to the man on the ground, then gasped at the sudden, sharp pain just behind her ear.

  “Found one!” They laughed another team laugh and did leave.

  “Freaking jerks,” she said and crouched by the man’s side. “Sorry about that. Evolution let them down.” She waited for a response or movement. “It’s okay now. They’re gone.”

  She stared down at his filthy, ripped coat, and pretended the odor shooting out of him wasn’t as bad as it was. Then she reached out a hand. He rolled onto his back like a fresh wad of dough and stared up at her. Her hand fell away.

  “Don’t hurt,” he said in a child’s pained voice.

  “No, sweetie. You’re okay now.” Compassion overcame any fear of what slimy thing might be caked on his hand, and she took it to help him up. For a moment, Cynthia could feel the man’s weight against hers, making it seem that he understood what she was doing. Then he stiffened. His eyes fixed on hers and he jerked free of her grip, almost pulling her down with him.

  “Danna?” He asked what seemed like a nonsense question to Cynthia and groaned. He then dropped his head and gargled a scream as he began slapping his forehead—Thack-Thack-Thack!

  Cynthia stared unmoving, certain she was watching a man die.

  ***

  Aern, leader of the now defeated Fade, walked up the side of a mountain in which he and a scant battalion hid like frightened prey from the humans. Sweat glistened on his jet black skin, he narrowed his red eyes at the bright sun. But the heat did not bother him. Heat reminded him of home. But home was a place he’d probably never see again. This was one man’s fault. A single human had greedily lapped up the Fade’s hope. It had been pulled, unreachable, over some far-off horizon. Jonas. He’d wrapped thei
r hope around himself like a warm coat and leapt through space with it, chiding them with his circus smile.

  It had been fifteen years since their sure victory over the humans had been ripped from them. Now the Fade were no more than beasts, grazing on what the sparse land gave them, stranded on a strange planet they should have been ruling, knowing that any moment could bring with it the wild yell of a human army, clambering up and over them like a wave, ending them. They had already fallen so far, but Aern had fallen the furthest.

  He held a single raspberry. He had found a sprawling bush of them at the edge of the tree line and collected a handful for the trip up the mountain trail. Rocking it in his large, black fingers, its juices wet the tips. He wondered, as he did almost every afternoon when there was not enough food for his people, and they were no closer to finding a way off this world, what would come of them.

  Aern had held himself up as the greatest apostle to their Queen. For centuries she was worshipped from afar, respected by an ever dwindling few. But he returned deference to the utterance of her name. His planet’s government had even come to fund the research which led to the eventual journeys to find her. But, when Aern’s army had lost, their home planet had ceased communication with them. They did not want Aern’s righteous war spreading to their coward shores. So when they believed Aern’s crusade crushed, his own people had left his bones to bleach on a foreign world. The Queen would not be pleased. But their retribution could wait. It was this world that he would ask that she shattered first. He opened his wide maw and laid the red coal of a berry on his gray tongue and crushed it against the roof of his mouth.

  The horizon dimmed at the end of another day and, once more, it was empty of human armies. The thought occurred to him that they had given up; they no longer thought the Fade enough of a threat to search out. In part, the thought angered him, but it also let him breathe for the moment he let it live.

  For those almost fifteen years he had evaded the human's revenge, he and his scant remaining warriors. He wondered if the others, scattered across the globe, had fared so well. Not long after every piece of their technology had failed, and they had been forced into hiding, word had still filtered down from the braggadocios humans that the man, Jonas, was to blame. Aern knew the name. It was a name the Fade holding this continent knew well. So part of him was not surprised that even after they had ripped his powers from him, this Jonas still found a way to hand them defeat. But—and this was the part that had confused him for years—not before scampering off with a few other humans to another world, using the Fade's own technology. It did not make sense that he would leave, knowing victory was at hand. Unless, Aern had decided, it was to guard the final thing which would reignite the Fade's power—their Queen.

  For so many years his people had tried to bring life again to useless tools with the hope of finding Jonas following him. For so long they had all but failed. Three years before, they had seen the blue gate again for the first time, but a crackling, miniature version of its former glory, refusing to form into the calm sea that would let them leave. And in those three years it refused to be repaired—still a mutilated, hectic light that no living thing could pass through in safety. Perhaps a Wraith could survive, but it did not matter. To go home would mean shame, and all other addresses had been lost to the human’s trickery. Besides, his only interest was in finding Jonas. And Jonas would not let himself be found.

  Until he was.

  An oxidizing shell housed one of the limited numbers of gadgets they had managed to get working, using parts scavenged from human technology. It sat in the rear of Aern's cave, its cracked screen flickering but reliable. It had been set on the task of finding where the human, Jonas, escaped to from the moment it had buzzed back to life. But it was silent all those years. Aern feared that Jonas had found the device which they had secreted into his skull so many years before. But, now, the machine was lit up in greeting as Aern trundled into the cave's entrance. The long, droning noise it gave confused him before he realized what it was—what it meant. He rushed to it, wiping a thick layer of dust from its screen. Something like a mathematical formula began to appear and Aern widened his thick, gray lips.

  Something sparked in him, deep, a strange thing he had not felt in so many years—hope. He called out for one of the Wraith. The name was something he had picked up from the humans. The technology that made them special was something they had taken from another conquered world—and so, not obliterated by the human’s attack. Now that they had a place to go, the Wraith might be the only one among them who could survive a trip through the mangled portal. From the other side it could be stabilized. Their time of testing was over now. The Queen was calling them to her side.

  ***

  The homeless man sat on his knees, bent over, his face on the ground. A thick, pink snake of a scar sat coiled on his head, just visible through his hair. Seeing it scared Cynthia even more. He gave a guttural moan, and she let out a yelp of her own, tripping backwards a few feet. Her head whipped around hoping to see anyone nearby. Then, he began to convulse, and she sank a hand into her pocket for her phone. She hammered out 9-1-1 and shook, waiting for him to fall over dead.

  “Hello?” her voice broke. “There’s a homeless man at my school having some sort of seiz—” She stopped as she watched him settle, take in a long, gasping breath, and get to his feet. He looked at her, trembling. Then leapt at her, grabbed her. The phone jumped from her hand.

  His eyes became wide and crazed. They seemed to stare into her, not comprehending what they were seeing. For a moment, it seemed that he might not let go; he might drag her into the woods. Then, his hands were off her, like touching her burned him, and he took hold of his own head. Moaning again, he careened to his right and ran into those woods alone.

  Cynthia scrambled for her phone, cradled it between shoulder and ear and raced to her car. “Ma’am? Ma’am! Are you there?” A voice called from the other end.

  “He…” She swallowed hard. “He grabbed me. Then he ran off.”

  “Are you okay? Do you need help, ma’am?”

  “I’m, um, not sure where he is now.” She landed in the seat and the car roared to a start. “Somewhere in the woods next to Black Oak High School.”

  “All right, ma’am. We’ll send a car out that way to—” she didn’t hear the rest. She snapped the phone shut and chunked it and her bag into the seat next to her, pulling out of the lot. “No good deed and all that,” the words came out like crumbling bread, her hands shivering.

  She had gone about a mile before pulling into a Get-N-Go and resting her head on the steering wheel. Her hands buzzed. She clenched them, blew out a frustrated breath and yanked her phone from the seat where she’d thrown it. Holding it with both hands, Cynthia scrolled until she found the right name and stuck it to her ear.

  “Hey, babe,” a relaxed voice answered.

  “Hey, Joey. I need a fix, man,” Cynthia said.

  “You already go through that stuff you bought?”

  “Nope. I just need something harder. Tough day. Some homeless guy tried to kill me.”

  Joey was quiet. “Mm-kay. Well, c’mon over, make more sense out of that story and you can have a pop on me.”

  “Really? You freaking rock, Joey.” She still held the phone to her ear with both hands, her leg chugging up and down like an oil derrick in fast-forward.

  “I know that,” he said, laughing.

  She tried to laugh back, but all that came was an odd shudder. “Be there in fifteen.”

  It was close to one in the morning when she stumbled into her room. There was a folded piece of notebook paper stuck to her bedroom door with a giant exclamation point drawn on it. She pulled it off, flipped it open. It read: CALL NEXT TIME! The word call was underscored three times with an angry pen. She sighed and tossed it on her dresser, letting her bag slip from her shoulder.

  Her phone tumbled out onto the floor and she almost didn’t reach for it, but saw the flashing light indicatin
g that she had a message. As soon as she saw the name she went cold. There were three missed calls and seven texts from Jan.

  “Crap,” she kicked a shoe across the room. “Crap, crap, crap!” The other one. Harder.

  Sitting, she stared at the floor and ran her fingers through her hair thinking she might just pull it out. Cynthia read the texts. They grew from worried to frustrated rather quickly. She thought about calling Jan, but dropped the phone, falling onto the bed. “Crap!”

  THREE

  Lucy eased the front door open and stepped in, giving as casual a look around as she could muster. The room was empty. She closed the door behind her like it might explode were she to close it too hard. Walking stiff, straight-legged, as fast as she could, with no noise, she stopped outside the kitchen. There, she craned her neck, trying to see into the room. It seemed empty, but she’d been fooled before. She moved from one side of the entrance to the other, making sure she saw it all before speeding through and to the left where her room was.

  A smoldering heap of fear and accomplishment sat in her chest as she landed on her bed. She wasn’t sure where the jerk was, but she’d managed to make it through without seeing him, which meant no made-up chores or humiliating questions about how her day went, like he were some good step-father just checking in on his little girl.

  Lucy lay there for a while, holding the end of the comforter balled in her hand, resting her head on it. Finally, she let it go and stood, making herself calm down. She had a few math problems to do, but that could wait. Lucy slipped down to the floor with the remote and flipped on the TV. Talk show, talk show, bad sitcom, news, news, cartoon. She stopped at Dora the Explorer, who was talking to her backpack in slow, well-enunciated English, and Lucy smiled.