Rising (37 page)

“Ben!”

I ran over to where Gabe was examining
the gelatinous ooze snaking around Ben’s shoulder.
 
It had eaten through his thin t-shirt to the
skin.
 
The fabric had fallen away
completely.
 
Ben kept wincing in
pain.
 
Red welts were rising at the edge
of the black thing’s grip.
 
Gabe reached
out to try and pull it off with his bare hands then flinched back abruptly as
soon as his fingers touched the oozing slime.
 
Ben cried out again.

“Damn it!” yelled Gabe.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I don’t know.
 
It sent an electric shock through me.”

“A shock?”

The ooze had tendrils wrapped entirely
around Ben’s left shoulder, snaking around the bottom of the arm and up his
neck.
 
It moved of its own will, like an
octopus wrapping tentacles around its prey.

“Yeah, it feels like the sting of a
catfish, times a thousand,” Gabe said gravely.

Even after saying so, he grabbed at the
center mass again.
 
The jolt rocked him
backwards on his heels.
 
Ben screamed, rolling
his eyes in pain.
 

“Can’t you try to kill it?” I
asked.
 
“I mean, with your power?”

Gabe gave me a grave look, then shook
his head.

“I don’t have enough control,
Clara.
 
I could kill Ben in the process.”

One of the tendrils slithered across
Ben’s neck as if it were seeking to strangle him.
 
Ben’s bright eyes widened.

“No. You. Don’t.”

He reached up with his right hand and
latched onto the black mass, screaming as he tried to tear it away from his
body.
 
Then, something bizarre
happened.
 
The spidery tendrils flailed
crazily, shrinking back into the blob while smoke hissed and rose from the
mass.
 
Ben’s glowing white light faded in
a snap.
 
Within a minute, the viscous
ooze smoldered into a hard glob like charcoal, crumbling away from Ben’s bare
shoulder.
 
He pulled away a chunk of it
in his hand then fell backward, passing out.

“Ben!” shouted Gabe, shaking him, then
looked at me.
 
“What just happened?”

Before I could answer, Jeremy
reappeared above us.

“Did anyone check on the boy?” he
asked.

“Oh, no!
 
Hunter!”

I jumped up and ran back through the
house to Jessie’s room.
 
The door was
cracked.
 
Her bed was left unmade.
 
There was a stack of graphic novels on her
bedside table and a Blondie bobble-head next to her alarm clock.
 
Above her bed hung, in all its glory, a giant
British flag that she begged her mom to get her when we all went to the D-Day
Museum in New Orleans two summers ago.
 
Aunt Vanessa had asked her why she needed a British flag so badly,
instead of an American one.
 
Jessie’s
prompt reply was, “it’s more symmetrical.”
 
Secretly, I knew she had longed to run away to England and join one of
their underground punk culture groups.
 
Nausea stirred in my stomach as I stood there among all her things.
 
I leaned forward to look at the pictures taped
to her vanity mirror.
 
One was taken at
their lunch table at school—Gabe was peering over a book making that half-smile
expression; Ben was stuffing a
po
-boy into his mouth;
and Melanie was smiling sweetly between them.
 
Another was a picture someone snapped of her, probably Aunt Vanessa, the
second she took off the towel when she dyed half her head purple.
 
That was last summer.
 
I hadn’t known there was a hair dye that
bright.
 
The third was taken this past
Christmas in front of their fireplace.
 
It was me, Jessie, and our moms—the sisters who looked so much alike but
had nothing in common.
 
Aunt Vanessa was
sort of the wild child, while my mom was the prim and prettier one.
 
Jessie and I were wearing identical looks of
take-the-dang-picture.
 
I hadn’t realized
I was crying until I felt something wet fall on my hand that was propped on the
vanity.
 

“Clara,” said Jeremy gently behind me,
“the closet.”

I wiped my face with the back of my
hand and plucked that last picture from the mirror, stuffing it in my
pocket.
 
When I turned around, I saw the
tiny pale face of Hunter peering from the crack of Jessie’s closet door.
 
I opened it slowly, pulling the frightened
boy into my arms.

“It’s okay, Hunter.
 
I’ve got you.”

He wouldn’t speak, which wasn’t
normal.
 
Hunter was typically loud and
obnoxious.
 
I pushed passed Jeremy and
carried him into the living room.
 
Gabe
entered through the kitchen, sliding his cell phone back in his jeans pocket.

“There’s no cell service.
 
I think all the towers are knocked out from
the storm.”

I glanced around and noticed how little
light was left in the house.
 
Although it
was overcast outside, it was still darker than it should be.
 
It was late afternoon and
dusk
had settled in.

“Looks like all the power is out,” said
Jeremy.

“Ben’s still unconscious, and that
thing left burn marks on him.
 
We’ve got
to get him to Melanie at my Pop’s cabin.
 
Let’s pray they’ve made it there already,” said Gabe anxiously and
looked at Hunter in my arms.
 
“Is he
okay?”

“Physically, yes,” I said.

“Y’all go get in the Jeep while Jeremy
and I get Ben.
 
His breathing doesn’t
sound good.
 
I’m worried that that thing
did more damage than burns.”

“But, Gabe, what about our parents?” I
asked anxiously.

“As soon as we get Ben taken care of,
we’ll go pick all of them up.”

“We can’t wait, Gabe.
 
My parents don’t live far from here.
 
The reapers could already be there.
 
Let me go on my own, and y’all get Ben to Melanie.”

“No!
 
You won’t,” he yelled.

I flinched.
 
He’d never talked to me like that.
 
Actually, no one had ever talked to me like
that.

“Clara, we
need
to stay together,” he said more calmly, and I could see the
look of concern in his eyes.
 
“It’s the
only way to keep us all safe.
 
I can
drive fast.
 
It won’t take long.”

I was stung by his harshness.
 
I wasn’t about to admit that he was right,
even if he was.
 
I walked away toward the
front door to the Jeep, still parked practically on the front steps. I belted
Hunter in the backseat.
 

“I’ll be right back,” I told him.
 
“You don’t move.”

He nodded once, his blue eyes mirroring
his sister’s so much that it hurt.
 
As I
moved away from the Jeep, I stepped on something.
 
Looking down, there was my iPhone, shattered
beyond repair. A shattered reminder of our shattered lives.
 
My breath came quickly as I reeled from
everything that had just happened.

I left it where it lay and started up
the driveway to see if they needed my help, then something else caught my eye
behind Aunt Vanessa’s Durango, glinting in the half-light.
 
Next to a black spot of soot on the concrete
was a set of car keys.
 
My hands trembled
as I picked them up, knowing that the black spot was all that were left of my
Aunt Vanessa.
 
Who knows what she was
doing or where she was going, probably to get help, when the reapers surprised
her, killing her on this spot.
 
How
horrible to vanish into air, like you’d never even been here.
 
This would break my mom’s heart, even more
than mine.
 
My mom.
 
Dad.
 
The keys jingled temptingly in my hands.
 
My house was only a few blocks away.
 
Before I could think twice about it, I jumped in the Durango’s driver
seat and screeched out of the driveway.

Gabe would be pissed, but he’d get over
it.
 
I had to get to my parents before
those creatures did.
 
I could protect
them long enough to meet back up with the others at the cabin.
 
I didn’t know if I could keep my shield up
while driving, but I had faith enough to make it happen.
 

The wind was really picking up.
 
Tops of trees were bending unnaturally.
 
Leaves and branches rolled in the
street.
 
A stop sign waved and wobbled on
the street corner back and forth.
 
I
didn’t stop at the stop sign.
 
My tires
squealed as I made a left turn, and I felt the truck try to lift.
 
I had to admit that I wasn’t an experienced
driver.
 
I hadn’t been 16 long, and my
mom had promised to get me a car only if I made straight A’s all year.
 
That seemed like an insanely long-lost goal,
when it was only last week that I was sitting in class, thinking my life was
normal.

I screamed as something suddenly flew
through the air on my right, crashing into the passenger side window.
 
It was a mailbox, torn loose from its
post.
 
It cracked the glass, but didn’t
come through.
 
I hadn’t meant to stop,
but my impulse was to slam on the brakes.
 
Looking around, it was spooky quiet.
 
Only the wind was blowing things around.
 
A little red tricycle rolled down a driveway like a ghost-child was
taking it for a spin.
 
I didn’t see
anyone running hysterically from their homes or driving frantically for
help.
 
Where would they go for help
anyway?

I had to get home.
 
Darkness fell heavier and faster.
 
Two more streets then Gardenia Drive; come
on, come on!
 
Adrenaline was shooting
through my body so fast I could hardly think straight.
 
I had no idea what I was going to tell my
parents to convince them we were being invaded by monsters.
 
That is, if they didn’t already know.
 
My foot pressed the pedal even faster,
turning onto my street.
 
There didn’t
seem to be anybody anywhere.
 

Screeching to a halt in the driveway, I
sprinted up the porch steps and through the front door.
 
Everything was quiet.
 
This was frighteningly familiar to Jessie’s
house. Maybe they were in the greenhouse.
 
I crossed through the kitchen, seeing the stacks of bottled water,
batteries, and canned soup on the table.
 
My mom’s purse was turned over on the tiled floor, lipstick and cell
phone toppling out.
 
There was a heavy
sinking sensation in my stomach.
 
Slamming through the back door, I sped across the stepping stones to the
greenhouse when my mom’s voice stopped me.

“Clara!
 
Run away!
 
Hurry!”

She was pinned against the huge live
oak tree whose branches were so thick and heavy they dipped close to the
ground.
 
She was held tightly by two
shadow scouts.
 
Her eyes darted from me
to something else.
 
She was watching the
ghastly, black figure stepping toward the crumpled shape of my father near the
shed.
 
One shadow scout had his hand on
my father’s back to keep him still, but he wasn’t struggling.
 
He was unconscious, or worse.
 

“Dad!”

I ran as fast as I could, trying to cut
the reaper off before he reached my father.
 
A flaming anger shot through my body surrounding me in golden
light.
 
I didn’t even have to think about
it.
 
My power was up and ready.
 
The reaper hadn’t taken notice of me
yet.
 
When I leapt over my dad, the
shadow scout hissed then cowered backward quickly out of reach of my burning
aura.
 
This shadow scout had a strange
face.
 
Although it was taut and shiny
black like the others, it had a deep, greenish gash cut across the
forehead.
 
Glancing down at my dad to see
if he was breathing, I noticed the pruning shears he used for overgrown bushes
clutched in his hand.
 
I saw the slow
rise and fall of his chest then wondered what had made him fall
unconscious.
 
That’s when I noticed the
dark shadow looming largely over me.