River: A Novel (3 page)

 The cloud
cover was flat gray, the embodiment of winter sky
.
I shivered and
decided to attempt standing. Overwhelmed by dizziness, I lost my balance. Something
else besides a really crappy hangover was going on—I just felt way too strange;
almost as though I’d
been
asleep here for days. I’d always had horrible insomnia, even when I was a kid. Apparently
another side effect of being in the system. Never knowing when “home” would be
taken away tended to make a person paranoid.

 Insomnia
had also been what started my whole drug-phase. I hadn’t slept for three days
after the injury before I swallowed what Dan declared to be a Magic Potion. He
hadn’t exaggerated; I was out within minutes and had slept for twelve straight
hours. The feeling I had now was similar to when I’d woken up from that
slumber, only then I’d known where I was. At the moment, an intense feeling
of foreboding portents took
over. I glanced around the way Dorothy must have, eager to spot a yellow brick
poking through the tufts of snow and dead leaves. Somewhere I was, though lacking
rainbows. After a couple of minutes turning in circles, I decided to take a
left and follow the edge of the lake in what would hopefully be the right
direction.

Having been
a dancer for many years, memorizing music at lightning speed had become routine
for me. While I walked, a certain irritating, annoying,
maddening
song became
stuck on repeat in my head, until I was ready to bludgeon myself with a thick
tree branch just to be rid of it. Whenever I tried to get a different song in
there, those damned munchkins wormed their way back the moment my concentration
lifted. After their voices had hi-jacked the score of my thoughts for the
thousandth time, I had been trudging forward for so long that I’d begun to
think civilization was just a myth—some past hallucination.

 Though not tired
after my extended nap, thirst was becoming an issue. My stomach had become
unbearably acidic. Food didn’t sound good at all, but a glass of water would
have been ambrosia to my parched throat. Luckily, all the walking had warmed up
my muscles and the shivering finally ebbed. I’d also noticed something else—my busted
knee felt fine. Not better, but perfect. What had happened to me the last… couple
of days? What day
was
it? I had to find my way back to Dan’s. 

 The first hope
of reaching some sort
of
destination emerged when the little dirt path I’d been following became wider,
almost a road. Marching along with burrs stuck to my jeans and chafing boots, I
could see my surroundings a little better. The hilly vista was thick with
winter trees. It still looked like upstate, though I had spent little time in
this area and usually with Danny, which means never sober. 

 After a
lifetime of horror movies, hitch-hiking had never been a viable option of
transportation for me. Yet in my desperation, I was pretty sure I was going to
thumb-it if any vehicle passed. If someone did stop, I would talk to them a
minute, and if I got any sort of psychotic vibe… well I would probably run like
hell if my knee allowed. It felt as if an hour had gone by, and I thought it
was damn strange not to have seen a single car. I had to still be in New York after
all, and there wasn’t enough space for everyone to begin with. Sure, I’d been
out of the city at a party Dan had thrown, but there was still a decent
population, even if people weren’t piled on top of each other.

 More time
passed, and my throat became so dry
that
I almost couldn’t swallow. In reaction, I swallowed so
frequently that the reflex was all I could focus on doing. My gut twisted.
Something was very, very wrong. It was too
quiet
. The looming silence
was unnerving, as if realizing you are the last living being on Earth. My spine
chilled. Was there some new terror threat that had happened when I was out? Had
everyone been ordered not to leave their homes by the military?

 I felt fine
though, all things considered, except for having the worst panic attack of my
life. Wouldn’t I have at least felt sick if a terrorist organization had napalmed
us? I thought about the dizziness that had made me stumble when I’d first woken
up, but that had long passed with the nervous adrenaline surges I was having. It
was probably a time-release thing some madman had come up with that carried on
the wind in an invisible gas cloud, and it just hadn’t reached me yet. Panicked
again, I covered my mouth and nose with the scarf I was wearing. It made me
feel a little better, more prepared for napalm, at least. As a plus, it warmed
up my frozen nose. When the gas cloud from hell drifted toward me on the breeze,
I would probably
still be
a goner
,
but at least I’d
have another minute to hope heaven exists, and that maybe I was good enough for
the sentinels on duty to enter the gates.

 It was incredibly
still. Too still, even for December… eerie, the way tornado weather transforms
the landscape into something strange and unearthly just before the storm hits. I
was so immersed in my apocalyptic daydream that the dim lights seemed as if
they were a trick of the dreary, gray scenery, or an optical illusion rising
from the gloom. I gasped, bucked up and began to run, fervently hoping no
zombies were in my future. 

 Zombies… no. 
Strange and apocalyptic… very possible. 

 At first, I
was elated.
People!
Human beings were walking on two legs without the
slow dragging of reanimated flesh to hinder them. I was so relieved that tears welled
behind my eyes, along with an unnaturally calm sensation. It was as if I’d
taken a tranquilizer. My limbs felt weak suddenly, and I became shaky on my
feet—wobbling like a drunk. It must have been all the weariness of the day
hitting me at once; I could have gone to sleep if I were to lie down. Chalking
it up to low blood sugar after the extensive hiking, I moved onward. After forcing
my legs to stagger, or fall really, down a sharp incline, I vigorously shook my
head to wake up, impatient to find a route home
.

  I detected
something was amiss after having been in the outskirts of the unfamiliar town for
about ten minutes. My heartbeat quickened with a jolt of adrenaline, kicking
out any calm feelings. When reaching a residential area, I was on red alert,
senses on overload. The only sound was violin music, ominous and low. The
people milling around before me appeared peaceful, walking here and there. No
one was rushing while immersed in a cell phone as an added appendage
.
For a second, I thought maybe I’d
stumbled upon a movie set, but that didn’t even seem right. Nothing seemed right
or normal. 

 Everything was
perfectly groomed, however, and no litter flapped around in the breeze. There
were flowerpots with actual ice sculptures in them on the stoops of low-rise
buildings, and doormen held doors wide for a pregnant woman, nodding their heads.
When I shuffled by, they nodded and smiled at me, and I repeated their actions
with slight hesitation. Avoiding eye contact was an old habit of submission. I had
grown up where speaking without consent, from adults or otherwise, resulted in
an occasional nasty bruise. So,
like my surroundings, I was nearly quiet as a mouse. 

 In the
distance, the lights grew brighter, and I thought I heard voices. Maybe this
bizarre suburbia had some kind of noise codes that could not be broken.
In
the lights everything will be normal,
I attempted to convince myself while
trekking toward several vibrantly lit structures.  Simultaneously, I wished a
car would go by with obnoxious bass or ear-splitting exhaust, things that had irritated
me in the past, to calm my paranoia.

 It was
difficult to keep the same pace as the passersby I encountered. It seemed everyone
moved with deliberate sluggishness, just shy of slow-motion. Well, I was borderline
frantic and needed to find normal before my head exploded. These sidewalks of
silence appeared to go on forever, with definitely no yellow bricks. My
illusions of otherworldliness were still prominent when the voices I’d assumed
I was hearing turned out to be calliope music. The odd and melodic tinkling
grew louder with the brightening lights. Nary a fast food chain in sight, I
knew I was no longer in Kansas. 

 “Crap, Toto,”
I murmured under my breath while my throat felt as though glue had sealed it
together. When I licked my cracked lips, my breath caught. The apartment
buildings dwindled and were replaced with striking white on white shops, with
their windows full of color. In addition to that odd sight, I noticed that
people were dressed very similarly, mostly white and black, with splashes of
color in scarves and ties. I wore black jeans, a white hooded sweater, and a
bright blue scarf. I hadn’t thought about my clothing since I’d woken up and only
then to wish that I’d been wearing a coat. No longer freezing, I was just
grateful to blend in. As usual, I wanted no more attention from these strangers
in a strange land than if I had been on the familiar streets of New York
City.

 The
calliope music waned and morphed into concert piano. I struggled with the
strangest waves of complete exhaustion mixed with being wired to the brink. Scenarios
were circulating my mind of what had happened to me… last night… last week? I
needed to make myself focus on what to do next—to find out where I was and how
to get home, for starters. Money. I had nothing on me. When I’d woken up, after
feeling grateful that at least I could see, I’d noticed quickly that my backpack
was nowhere near the lake. I’d always kept it with me; my security blanket that
hardly ever left my shoulder, even when high. Without its familiar weight, I
truly felt lost.

 Before
leaving the woods, I had frantically looked for it, but without knowing what
direction I had come from the search quickly became futile. I must’ve forgotten
about it in my haste to get out of that party.
The party.
I remembered
something… a flat open space. Moonlight. Why couldn’t I have just held it
together enough to have grabbed my backpack! Clenching my teeth and fisting my
knuckles, I was feeling screwed. I realized just then others had noticed my peculiar,
angry stillness, and I began a slow gait to catch up to the unknown.

 Once again,
my eyes widened at the scene in front of me; it was right out of a science-fiction
channel. Everything was white and metallic, except for the shop windows, which
were a carnival of color. Some were filled with what looked like elaborately
decorated costumes. For some strange reason, the scenery gave me the impression
that I was in another country. Had Dan deposited me in Sweden? I’d always
imagined Sweden as whimsical, cold, and white. Dismissing my own absurdity, I
continued to gape at the beautiful fairytale shops. Every third window was a
bakery, and my stomach snarled at the sight of pastries. I was hungry, but not sure
if I could swallow food with the gluey feeling in my throat. The road was split
on two sides with storefronts, and something that looked like a stage a little
ways off, followed by a bigger building. Closer to the entryway, which was lit
up on both sides, I froze again in more shock than before. Utter and complete
shock.

 I tore my
glasses off and rubbed them clean.
Trick of the lights, that’s all,
I
consoled myself. After slipping my glasses back on and blinking to be sure my
vision worked, there was no denying it. There I was. Smiling and perfectly
posed in relevé. A Spanish-style costume fluttered around me. There was a
poster in the window of
me.
Where in the hell
was
I? Definitely
not in Manhattan. Probably not on Earth. Possibly in Sweden. What had Danny
given me at that party? Either I had ingested something monumentally weird, or I
was in some very, very realistic dream. I’d had dreams of lucidity before, when
I could control my surroundings to some extent, and then wake up at will. Shrugging,
I pinched my arm. Harder—willing my dream self to wake—to no avail.

 Continuing
the hopeless effort to get a grip on my surroundings, I looked around for
something familiar. The buildings resembled an institution of some kind, almost
as if they were models of the future, but I really didn’t think Danny had invented
time-travel-in-a-pill, although that would have been extremely impressive. I
whirled my head around to look for a sign of where I was, only to find there
were no street signs, but picture symbols and dots indented into concrete. The
dots reminded me vaguely of something, although any mental link at the moment was
fuzzy. My eyesight must’ve been getting worse because the dots didn’t form words;
they resembled Morse code. Shaking my head at that
impossibility, I concentrated on the
pictures. A metal plaque with an outline that looked like a cross between a
sleek train and a bus was across the street, near the building with the poster
of… me. I cringed.

 Afraid of
being noticed, I decided to cross the street, which was very narrow with a
metal rail down the middle. Attempting to control my increasing alarm, I skipped
over
the line and headed
toward the potential train station. A group of people had filed out, and I
spied a familiar head with spirals of dark brown hair. I froze with one foot
attached to the curb. The frame came into view as tall, lanky, and quite
possibly the most beautiful sight in the world. Adrenaline coursed through me,
making my heart race and legs numb. No sound came out as I started to say his
name, so I forced my hollow legs forward. The toe of my boot struck the curb
just before I crashed into him. When I was flinging my arms around his back,
all terror washed away from me.