Divine_Scream (26 page)

Then, piercing through the wailing wind, his cell phone rang. It startled him and his heart leapt into his throat. He closed his eyes and tried to calm down. A laugh, so dry it might have been a cackle, came from the depths of his chest. “Lettin’ that one go to voicemail.” He tittered for a minute more, feeling desperation shroud his mind. What if the call had been Kaitlin again?

Don’t risk it. You’ll do her more good unsplattered.

The building hummed beneath his hands, tickling his flesh. It was almost as if it
wanted
him to fall, but then the humming turned to quivering and trembling and shaking. Large blocks of concrete and rebar pushed out, surrounding him. He thought to grab one of these wide platforms but he feared the structures might be too tentative—here he was on this little ledge and the building around him rearranged itself like a backwards game of Tetris—a disassembling Transformer—a live action version of an oscillating sound graph.

From above, the sky warped in and out. Jared clenched his eyes. He didn’t want to look at it—he didn’t want to think that the atmosphere might pop and something unimaginable would rain down on him, washing him off the side of this Rubik’s Cube Mount Everest he’d found himself trapped on.

The crack in the concrete slowly started to seal. He pulled his fingers out with a curse. Large portions of the building glided back inside. A falling sensation bloomed in his stomach. The building lowered itself, steadily. This brought little relief, however, because the tiny ledge under his feet began to retreat inside the building as well. He searched around for something else to climb on, but everything had tucked inside the face of the building.

“No,” he breathed.

He stood on his tiptoes and hugged the flat surface with all his strength. Wind rushed around him. The ledge vanished from under his feet and he dropped at once—

Four feet into the planter of island bush poppies below.

He screamed and sat there, wild-eyed for a moment. He thought for sure he still had hundreds of feet to fall. Through the office window he could see a balding dentist, drill in hand, staring at him, along with his patient in the chair, open-mouthed and confused.

Jared scooted out onto the planter’s brick border. He surveyed the surrounding area. The building was no longer in the dead center of the street. All the cars sat in the parking lot rather than parked in a circle. Nothing moved. Nothing reshaped. Nothing appeared and then vanished.

The Disturbance Paradigm had ended.

He swung his legs off the planter and hopped down. There wasn’t any time to lose. If he could get a cab to the beach he’d maybe get there in time.

Before
they
showed up.

He took out his phone. MISSED CALL.

There was a voicemail. He didn’t recognize the number but the area code was local.

“Banch?” he whispered. She knew everything about him, so it would stand to reason she memorized his cell number. She must have found a phone somewhere.

He went to the voicemail and selected the message. It started loading. The streets were still quiet—people probably trying to get their heads sorted out.

Why was this phone taking so long to load the message? What if Banch was in trouble?

You’re the one in trouble, dummy. She’s immortal. She’s fine.

The cruel possibilities dominoed through his head. There could be all kinds of things happening to her—things he’d caused—and he had no way to know.

“Stupid shitty service!” He smacked the phone’s screen. “Load, damn you!”

He aimed his phone to the sky, to the ground, left and right—he got another reception bar. He followed it, moving with his phone extended like some divining rod.

The bandwidth wasn’t improving. He walked faster, phone wagging back and forth, trying to catch that sweet nectar of signal. He passed a parked gray Audi with a man sitting there, staring ahead, stunned. An upset disc jockey on the radio stammered, “For all these events which are being called… spatial… is that… hold on folks. Yes, a
spatial interruption,
says NASA, anyway. There haven’t been many reported deaths. Plenty of injuries, but few deaths reported so far. This thing seems to have only ended fifteen minutes ago, so it’s way too early to say for sure. Let’s pray its over for good. No other reports have come in yet. But as stated, if you’re just joining us, these spatial events have—”

Jared lowered himself and looked at the man in the car. “You okay?”

The man, sandy-haired and sunburned, dragged his beaten eyes over to Jared. “I was inside a pyramid made of tinfoil. The sun was in there with me.”

“Whoa,” said Jared, unsure how else to respond.

“The sun!” The man smacked his steering wheel. “The frigging sun!”

The man twisted the key and stabbed at the window button, sealing Jared off from him.

After the car peeled away, Jared checked his phone again. Only two bars but he decided to check the voice message once more.

It came on.

“
Jared this i—”

He waited, but nothing else was said. The recording indicated a message almost a minute long. The voice sounded familiar but he couldn’t place it. An older man though, not Banch.

He shook his head in disgust, watching the message struggling to load. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Really?”

He attempted to call Kaitlin back. It rang five times before going to her message.

He took off walking again. It was really bizarre, but with his new outlook, he’d given up on fearing the Assembly. If they came, they came. He probably deserved it, but another part of him, a wiser part cultivated by Banch’s knowledge, knew they would use their last grant for direct passage to the beach; they wouldn’t risk trying to take him here and having him slip away somehow again. They’d avoided the beach as long as they could but now there was no getting around it. They would be cautious.

They’d also be extra-pissed at him for trying to kill their offspring.

He suddenly felt sick. “Got that to look forward to.”

The sun sunk in the sky. It would be dark in a few hours. He thought back to scheduling his doctor appointment last month, how he’d almost decided to go in late afternoon, rather than early morning. What a different day that would have been.

His thoughts swam languidly in his mind. Maybe in one of those other dimensions he got to be with Banch all day long in the hotel room, enjoying the food, the warmth and gift of their bodies together, and the appreciation of what they’d been given. Maybe the Divine Scream hadn’t slipped out. After he washed away his taint, maybe he saw her die on that beach.

Was that a better ending than what would happen today?

He grumbled and hurried on, stabbing his phone left and right, up and down. If service didn’t get better in the next minute, he was done with this. He noticed three bars and tried the voicemail message again. This time, success.

“
Jared this is Peter Revel, your dad’s primary care physician. Remember me? I used to come over and play poker at your house? You and Bob put me in the loop on all your medical stuff a while back. I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier, but I slipped and hit my head in the kitchen. If that’s not enough,”
he paused and chuckled, “
I ended up on a neighbor’s lawn just now. Embarrassing. Anyway, I’m heading into the county hospital to get checked out, but if you haven’t already spoken with your doctor, I needed to discuss your test results, buddy. This is critical. I’ll probably be in the waiting room for a bit, so do call me back when you can. Really, Jared. This is VERY important. Please call to discuss this.”

He gave his number and said his name again, then hung up.

There was a time when Jared would have ignored this message. He might have summoned the courage to have Kaitlin call back for him, but in reality he would have pretended there was no direness here. Would have pushed it completely out of his mind. Or written himself a note he’d never read:
Schedule with Doc.

Now, after everything that happened, he had to know. He had to know what took him that day three months from now at his office desk. That was the day he was supposed to meet Banch for the first time.

And the Assembly.

If those facts had changed, he didn’t see why knowing his cause of death would make a difference. The Assembly was likely to get him now anyway. So the whole thing was moot.

If anything, knowing would bring him closure.

Finally.

He put his thumb over the CALL BACK button and pressed it.

Banch’s feet buzzed from all the running. She had to slow down and shuffle them a bit; breaking connection from the ground even slightly had her legs shaking and her toes numb from the constant electric discharges. She considered whether she could risk taking some corridor shadows to the beach, but she had a feeling she might run into some people along the way who would best be avoided.

Ten-some people to be exact.

And “people” was a kindness not completely true to heart.

“Certainly, and we aren’t known for our kindness either, Utumm Resona.”

Banch flinched. “Who tastes my thoughts?”

She searched the alley and found no one.

“Your thoughts are mine. Your entire life is a play for me to watch. Over here, near the stairs.”

Banch glanced over to a door with four steps joining it. A corridor shadow stretched to the left, spreading out like an auburn starburst of darkness. A figure stood just outside of it. Long, flowing vermillion hair reached to her hips. Her eyes held such benevolence, but belied the eagle features of the face. Despite such fierceness, Banch was drawn to her—she really would follow this person anywhere, because this was her banshee, the one she’d expected to take her to the light at long last.

Her voice cracked. “What are you doing here, sister?”

A thin smile. “Not leading you forward. Well, not yet.”

“I must go. I haven’t the time to talk.”

The banshee folded her slender bronze arms and pressed them to her flat stomach. “I will be brief.”

“Please do.”

“Reconsider your plans. Now that the human knows your life through the Divine Scream, the death schedule has changed dramatically several times. It isn’t stable for you or for him.”

“How did it change?”

Another smile, this one coyer. “You know I cannot reveal that.”

“Of course.”

“I just took a chance to meet with you, to ask you to reconsider your plan.”

“I already have. I will not disassociate in the Paled Ocean. It means more to me to continue seeing my assignments to the light. My weariness is over, sister. I’m ready for my duty again.”

The banshee’s expression didn’t change, and why would it? Banch knew how they were raised: protect the schedule at all costs.

“That may be,” her banshee replied, “but I want to reiterate my suggestion to rethink your plans.”

“Which plans?”

“I cannot elaborate.”

“To END myself?” Banch snapped. “I told you. I only want to protect my assignment from the Assembly. You can appreciate that.”

“Indeed.”

“So what is this visit about?”

The banshee took a step back. Fluttering red shades touched her one exposed shoulder—her uniform was a different style and material from common banshees. She’d been around for a
very
long time.

“I cannot say more—”

“I know.” Banch groaned. “But you haven’t shown any reason to be here. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re obliging the Assembly.”

The other banshee’s eyes burned. “You
know
that is untrue.”

“Then why?”

“I don’t often lead other banshees to the light. It happens so seldom. Eons.”

“Even if my assignment is taken, I’ve decided against the idea. I’m not being deceptive.”

A short nod answered this. “The schedule shifts sometimes.”

“Yes, I suppose, but I’ve resolved to stay alive. I swear this to the Deeper Unseen.”

“Good, but be wary. I don’t have a firm schedule for you, Utumm Resona. It is in flux for you and for the gift.”

“Why?”

“Just… rethink your plans.”

“That again? What does that even mean?”

The banshee took a step back and was gone.

Banch looked at the wall where the corridor shadow used to be. She turned away and increased her pace, ignoring the blinding pain in her ankles and legs. She’d make her way to the beach, where this would be finished, once and for all.

When they finally got in touch, Doctor Peter Revel had to call Jared back. He’d made it to the hospital but the place was a zoo. This was double confirmed when Jared tried to call the hospital directly about Kaitlin and got a busy signal. He didn’t even think such a thing was possible anymore at a reception desk.

The good news was that a cab stopped when Jared flagged it down. The driver was an attractive black man with cornrows and a blue tattoo on his right bicep of Africa wrapped in barbed wire.

“Hospital?” he asked.

“No, the beach.”

He twisted around in the seat and lifted a thinly scarred eyebrow. “Which?”

“Seal beach.”

“Okay.” He started typing into the GPS.

“You take credit?”

“Sure do,” he replied.

Jared settled back in the seat, relieved but still anxious. “Did anything… weird happen to you today?”

Africa lifted with the man’s shrug. “Slept through most of whatever it was. Crazy stuff happened though. I get it.” The man seemed completely disconnected with the event, which Jared took as good news.

“Anywhere in particular at the beach you got in mind?” he asked.

“Just get me as close to the water as possible.”

“Can do.”

The cab took off with a promptness Jared appreciated. He decided to keep his further questions to himself; he didn’t want to press his luck. He tried Kaitlin’s cell phone again but got her message once more. He dialed the hospital. A frantic voice came on the line, “Can you please hold?”