Divine_Scream (31 page)

Kaitlin leaned in close to Jared. “She’s a looker. How long have you been going out?”

He coughed abruptly and his face flushed. “I haven’t—I’ve thought. But. No. It’s. We’re not. We haven’t, I mean.”

“You’re ridiculous if you don’t take her out. She’s married?”

“Divorced for three years.”

“What in the green hell, buddy?” said Kaitlin. “What
in the
hell?”

He shrugged again.

“Is it Banch? It can’t be right? You hadn’t heard from her since she left. That’s what you told me last Christmas. Did she come back to the states?”

Jared pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I won’t be hearing from her again, unfortunately.”

“Hey, I’m sorry and I liked that one, but I think three years is enough of a pining period. Don’t you?”

“It’s nice to see you’re jumping back into the position of my dating coach.”

“Don’t start with all that, nimcomshit.”

“Oh, that’s a new one.”

“I’m taking it for a spin,” Kaitlin laughed.

Jared sighed and put his thumbs through his belt loops. He looked more like a man, but still the boy who missed the bus all those years ago. “Thing is Kait, with Banch… some days you’re right. Three years should be long enough.” He glanced outside, past the workshop to the beach through the window. “Then some days, not entirely enough.”

“But—”

“Nah nah nah,” he cut her off and seemed to shift moods. “Enough on all that. How’s your hand doing?”

Kaitlin pulled her glove off so he could see the prosthetic fingers.

“Can you believe it’s given me an edge at auditions? It’s great for Hollywood bleeding hearts trying to prove their fairness.”

“You are a fingerly challenged American?”

“I prefer to call it the Luke Skywalker syndrome.”

“Yeah, but he lost his whole hand.”

Kaitlin struggled to bend down her fake digits so she could flip him off. Jared roared with laughter and brought her into another tight embrace. “So amazingly glad you’re here. Hey, I’m closing class in about five minutes. Want to help me see everyone out?”

“I’d love to.”

All the students and their respective guardians thanked Jared profusely. When it came time for Mi-Cha, she was very shy, but respectful to Kaitlin.

“It’s nice to meet you, and hey.” Kaitlin slipped an arm around the woman’s slender shoulders. “I’m getting married in a few months. This guy needs some arm candy to take with him. I can’t have my best man showing up alone. It’s embarrassing.”

The woman bowed her head and blushed deeply. Jared grabbed his face in dismay. “Kaitlin—you, what?”

Giggling, Mi-Cha reached out and patted Jared’s arm. “If he wants me to go, then I’m there.”

He pinched between his eyes, trying to let the redness in his face fade a little. “Oh, you’re so in for it, Kait.” Both women giggled. “Can I call you, Mi-Cha?”

“You know you can, Jared,” she replied. “And please do.”

He tried to compose his embarrassment and saw her and her daughter outside. When they were well into the garden, he fake–strangled Kaitlin. “Married? You never mentioned—”

“How could I? You were busy being some hermit art teacher with clandestine financial endowments.”

“Do I get to meet her first?”

“Shelly? If you’re nice.”

He rolled his eyes. The last two people walked up to leave. An older black man with his granddaughter, from the looks of it. “Kesha wants to tell you something, Mr. Kare.”

Jared took a knee before the seven year old, who twisted shyly. “Of course.”

“Mister… Mister Kare.”

“Yes?”

Her voice lowered. “You’re my favorite teacher.”

Jared cupped his hands over his heart and patted it. “And you’re mine, sweetheart.”

He stood, shook the man’s hand, and confirmed another session for next Thursday. They said their goodbyes and Jared shut the door.

“I guess I was pretty assuming,” said Kaitlin. “Thinking you’d be in the wedding after all this time.”

His eyes misted, looking at her. “Like you could ever keep me away.”

Hers misted as well. “Hey, your birthday is next week right?”

“Yep, the big 3-0.”

“Wanna do lunch at the Bayou Cat with Shelly and me?”

“Love that place,” he said with a wink. “I’ll definitely be there.”

* * *

When Jared was thirty years old…

He came home to a silent house. This wasn’t a change. He’d forced himself to become used to it. No more TVs and radios on, just the sound of the ocean outside. Tonight was somewhat different, however. Kaitlin and Shelly had taken him to the Bayou Cat and they’d all had a great time, stayed well over two hours after dinner talking. He didn’t know Shelly that well yet, but he got a great vibe from her. And with how Kaitlin gazed at her while she was talking… Jared recognized that look.

It was therapeutic being around friends, but now he was alone and had to give himself his injection and take his round of pills. His phone would alarm him to make an appointment with Doctor Saxon tomorrow; he was already way ahead of it and had several post-its placed strategically so he could call when they opened tomorrow.

Scarce was the night that passed when he didn’t think about Banch. Had she made it out of the corridor before disassociating? Three months had stretched into three years and he’d not died yet. He’d changed the death schedule by taking control of his life. The doctor said he could live into old age if he kept regimented. Would he live long enough to forget Banch? If she was no longer his banshee, would he think about her as he went on?

No,
he thought.
Not likely I’ll ever forget her.

He sat at the table letting the meds soak in before he retired to bed. He took a deep breath and enjoyed how great he felt. His heart no longer beat irregularly and he was in the greatest shape of his life—even better than high school. All those runs on the beach had helped him beyond measure.

He yawned and moved a salt shaker next to the pepper. He stared at the little glass jar for a mundane moment. Something bright passed over his vision. He blinked and glanced lazily around. A streak of auburn slid to the floor and puddled there, just hardly the size of a fist. At first he couldn’t move, thought perhaps he’d nodded off at the table and was consumed by dream, but he pushed up from his chair and staggered into the table, feeling the reality of its solidness. It was there. A corridor shadow had opened in his house!

He got down on his hands and knees and examined the watery brown-red color. Something thin stuck out from the center of the shadow. He reached inside to pinch it between his fingers but his nails were too short. He brushed his thumb over it.

Paper.

If he reached into the shadow completely, he’d run the risk of losing the paper, but he hadn’t come three years this far to let this chance go.

Jared plunged his hand inside.

And pushed the paper out of reach.

“No!” he cried, his brow suddenly dappled in sweat. “No!” he shouted again when he lost hold once more.

Not thinking, he rammed his arm inside, almost to the elbow. Electricity flowed into him, spiked micro-insects chewing on the nerves in his hand and sending messages of fiery pain into his shoulder and brain. He bit his lip and cold iron flooded his mouth. The feathery touch of paper between his fingers—he caught it and pulled his arm out.

The pain was too much to do anything but lay there clutching his arm for a while. His mind kept going to the paper in his hand and what it would say—what he
wanted
it to say. When his arm finally numbed and tingles ran out of his fingertips, Jared rolled over and looked at the thing he’d pulled from the corridor shadow.

The envelope had an impression of the first syllabary symbol from the Statemen’s district in the Free Zone. From Banch’s visits there as the Assembly’s currier, Jared recognized the quality of the stationary. It was from Felderman’s wood pulping facility. There was an invisible seal on the back, one of Felderman’s most recognized inventions: transparent wax. Jared almost felt bad pulling the substance away, but this wasn’t a letter he would think of leaving unopened. Whoever sent it had to go to great lengths to ensure opening a route here. It had to have been sent outside the Free Zone somehow, since no known routes led to this world. Dangerous. But he’d received the missive. It was in his hands and there was a single card inside.

After he read it, Jared felt dizzy. He started laughing and shouting and fought to stand up. He took the card and ran to the front door. He shoved his feet into his tennis shoes and bolted outside to the beach. In only minutes he was hip deep in the Paled Ocean, the one place they shared in common. It was the only thing he could think to do in response to this, the only way he could feel closer.

To her.

Still giddy, he sloshed back toward the shore. He held the card up to read it in the moonlight, but it slipped from his fingers and blew away. He yelled out in panic and tore toward the place the card had landed. Luckily the wind carried it no farther and he snatched it up in time.

He let himself drop down and sit there on the sand, looking at the card: the lipstick imprint of Banch’s lips on the boiling white surface. He recognized the shade of lipstick immediately and the memory warmed him, made him feel like he’d found something ancient inside himself, lost even before Banch, something primeval in his thirty year old mind.

Then he read her note under the painted lips once more.

I’m with you, Jared.

He couldn’t go to sleep that night. He’d promised the students his chicken tacos tomorrow and wondered how he’d get through the crosshatching lesson and still have time. He could grill the chicken now and warm it in the oven tomorrow. That would give him a buffer. He had to do something productive anyway since he couldn’t very well sleep right now.

So he took the chicken out to the grill, along with a bottle of his dad’s favorite Dark Heineken he’d had in his fridge for the entire time he’d lived on the beach. It was the first beer he’d ever try. He’d never understood what occasion he’d been waiting for, but there could be no other more important than this night and the soaring in his heart.

The flames on the grill were the same brand of red as the setting sun. As he flipped the chicken breasts, he’d occasionally pull out Banch’s card from his shirt pocket. He pressed his lips into the impression—and somehow it felt just like kissing Banch’s full moist lips. Another one of Felderman’s creations, the sensory responsive parchment paper.

“Love you,” Jared whispered, and tucked the note back into his pocket.

He opened his beer then and took a long swallow. It actually tasted a lot better than he’d expected. He continued then to cook and sip beer, a smile stretched on his lips. Everyone he’d ever loved seemed to be present at that moment. Kaitlin, his mother, his father, the Kangjuns. They were his energy, and Banch was the racing world beneath him.

He hoped every Jared in every dimension had a moment like this one.

A pair of seagulls squawked and took to the sky. Jared watched them, his heart filling with an exaltation he’d never expected to find in his lifetime. The gulls, soaked deep through their feathers, flapped away, crossing over and trading flight plans with each other, merrily calling, back-dropped against the copper dome sinking behind the remaining stupor of sapphire sky. Night had fallen, and after a long harsh day, with all of its trials behind them, it was clear the birds had found themselves ready for what would come next. Without a doubt, they were heading for an unseen brilliance beyond the dark, and they were finally content.

THE END

Benjamin Kane Ethridge is the Bram Stoker Award® winning author of the novel BLACK & ORANGE, NIGHTMARE BALLAD, BOTTLED ABYSS, as well as countless short stories and articles on writing and being human. Benjamin lives in Southern California but would very much love a corridor shadow to take him to Florida whenever he chose.