Authors: P.K. Tyler
Shadow on the Wall: Superhero | Magical Realism Novels (The SandStorm Chronicles | Magical Realism Books Book 1) (30 page)
Pavarti K Tyler is an artist, wife, mother and number cruncher. She graduated Smith College in 1999 with a degree in Theatre. After graduation, she moved to New York, where she worked as a Dramaturge, Assistant Director and Production Manager on productions both on and off Broadway.
Later, Pavarti went to work in the finance industry as a freelance accountant for several international law firms. She now operates her own accounting firm in the Washington DC area, where she lives with her husband, two daughters and two terrible dogs. When not preparing taxes, she is busy penning her next novel.
Throughout history, literature and the art of story-telling have influenced politics, religion and culture. The power of the epic tale is universal. Why is it that those who never read The Iliad know Helen of Troy? Her story, Homer's story, transcends the written word and has become a part of our human lexicon. The power of the written word is undeniable and Pavarti is honored to be part of the next wave of literary revolution.
You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter or her blog.
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Prologue
Nilafay ran, slipping on the unfamiliar terrain, desperate to reach water. The rocks dug into the thin flesh of her webbed feet, cutting her skin. This place was so foreign despite being only miles from her home. Never had she seen the sun so bright or felt the moisture evaporate directly off her skin; she was sure she would die from the cruelty of the atmosphere.
It was difficult to navigate her way through the wilderness, but now she breathed in the familiar briny scent of home. She licked her lips, seeking relief from the dryness before stepping out of the tree line and onto the rocky beach. The sun overwhelmed her sensitive eyes. She slid thin, clear membranes over her eyes. She had always considered them vestigial, before coming above water to the Erdland.
She moved forward, wincing as the heat of the sun burned her delicate forehead. Her irises retracted and for a moment she was blinded, but she could smell and taste the salt in the air, leading her to the water. The rest of Nilafay's senses were on high alert, her eardrums straining to feel the vibrations of distant voices.
Frantic to reach the surf, she slipped and ripped open her shin. She bit down on her lip, refusing to cry out or shed a tear. She was done crying. Nilafay heard them calling from further back in the forest; the hunters who had seduced her with offers of friendship and a world unlike any she had seen before. They were closing in, the creatures they commanded following her scent, leading their masters closer. She shivered at the memory of their strange hair covered bodies. At first she had been intrigued by the animals with the eyes of men, but when she learned that they were there not to befriend her but to guard and cage her she resented their tracking gaze.
Nilafay stood and resumed her pitch toward the coast line, pressing through the throbbing in her leg. The sensitive myomere muscles of her body were unaccustomed to impact injury. The hunters approached the tree line noisily, making no attempt to hide their arrival. She dropped to her knees. Her iridescent white flesh shone in the morning sun, its lack of pigment reflecting the bright light beating down on her. The rocky beach offered no asylum.
The men grew louder, closer with each passing moment, speaking their gruff language. She understood only a few words. But what she did understand terrified her: "net, experiment, animal, project, cage..."
Please, just let me get to the water…
16 Years Later
The sand softened my impact when I landed; jumping from the tree I'd used to climb over the rock wall separating my home from the outside world. I released a shaky breath. I'd ventured further out into the forest today, further than I would have if my mother had been around. Without her here I didn't bother sneaking back in like usual. I'd spent the day exploring as much as I wanted, and I longed to know about everything outside the small cove I lived in.
I'd never been beyond the mountain range overshadowing our home; only through the forest leading south toward the villages. The danger of discovery, or worse, capture, kept me from going too far. I didn't know what would happen if the Erdlanders found us. My mother's stories about needles and tests and tortures from before I was born were enough to keep me on a tight leash.
The water beyond the cove led north, into the ocean; where the Sualwet people lived. My mother's people. We were refugees from that world, too. They exiled her, because of me.
My world held me tightly, like too-small clothing which refused to adjust as you grew. I was stifled and frustrated and lately I found I wanted to venture further, risking capture if only for a glimpse of an Erdlander. Mother said they had hair on their heads like me and some even had it on their faces. They walked like us and spoke words as we did, although the language was different. They didn't have gills and didn't absorb oxygen through their skin and they used their mouths to breathe. I wasn't like them and I wasn't like my mother's people. I was an anomaly, an accident of science, not supposed to exist. But my mother's escape from her prison before my birth meant I was here, alone on the shore.
"Serafay!" My mother called emerging from the water in time to see me walk out from the tree line. Her frown gave away her displeasure but she'd returned from scavenging with treasures to show me.
"Mother!" I waved my hand before reaching behind me and pulling my long chestnut hair into a knot.
"Always playing with that hair."
"Just because you don't have any doesn't mean you should be so jealous." I teased.
She laughed.
I splashed into the water so I could help carry the bags she dragged behind her.
"These were a lot lighter underwater."
"Give me one." I offered, holding out my hand to take some of her burden.
"No, you'll cheat and look." Her mock scowl was playful as she pretended to hold the bags protectively from me.
"Fine then, carry them yourself!" I dove under the surface and kicked off, letting the thin webbing between my toes capture the water and propel me forward.
I loved being underwater, the weightlessness of it surrounded and held me. The shallow cove was wide and I could swim out quite far before the ocean floor dropped off and I was in open sea. The call of the expanse was hard to deny but I couldn't go out today. It made my mother worry, like everything else, and I was anxious to see what she had brought home.
I could stay underwater for hours, as long as there was oxygen in one form or another, and I longed to lose myself in the sea. Eventually, I needed to resurface and use my lungs but the time I stole in the darkness of submersion soothed my dry skin and my lonely heart. Breaking the surface, a thin membrane, a gift from my mother's genetics, closed over my eyes protecting them from the sun's intense light. I paddled back to the shore in time to help her heave the bags up to the rock and cloth enclosure we called home.
The fire in our makeshift hearth had died, so I used the fire stone we'd salvaged in another treasure hunt to light a spark. I tried to be patient while Mother pulled a loose shift over her head, the thin cloth hanging down to her knees. We found or made most of our clothing, in keeping with the loose-fitting Erdlander style. Underwater people wore very little and what they did wear was always tight. It looked so uncomfortable to me. Mother said it helped her swim faster. I always swam naked because the fabric of clothes impeded my movement.
The makeshift home we'd built on the cove was comfortable. We had the supplies we needed and hammocks hanging between the sparse trees to sleep in. Recently, I had even separated the space into rooms, using the taut-weighted cloth the Sualwet used as walls underwater. Mother had scavenged it from an abandoned home. Further back, a small cave in the rocky incline offered us shelter when we needed it, but we both preferred to stay outside.
A smile brightened her face as she approached where I sat next to the fire. "There was another attack." She sat on one of the woven chairs we'd made and began pulling something out of the bag. "The war seems to have gotten worse; there were a lot of bodies. It must have just happened and the sharks kept the other Sualwet away."
"Sharks!" I leaned toward her, terrified and excited by her adventure.
"Yes! Big ones, too. The water was red with gore."
"You shouldn't have gone near them!" My scolding tone was betrayed by my smile, I longed for anything half as exciting as what my mother described.
"They weren't interested in me, too busy gorging themselves on Erdlander blubber!" She laughed again. In her eyes, the misfortune of others paled to the misery of her life, it was hard for her to find sympathy. Some might call her cruel, but she was gentle under her hardened exterior.
"Besides, if those beasts hadn't died, this would've never been there for me to find." Out of the sack she pulled what appeared to be a butterfly made entirely out of stars. I reached forward; wanting to touch the sparkling thing to make sure it was real.
"It's a hair piece. They use it to decorate themselves." Taking the object in my hand, I was surprised by how its sturdy weight made it feel trustworthy. The other side was a simple metal mechanism which opened and shut on a lever. Not much different from the animal traps I made.
"It's amazing," My voice was just a whisper. I turned the gift over and over again before running my fingers lightly along the sparkling decoration.
"Let's put it in." Mother didn't usually like to touch my hair; she said it irritated her skin. Tonight, she jumped up and walked to the baskets I kept my personal things in and grabbed my small comb.
"When you were born, there was no hair on you anywhere, just as it should be." She began with a chuckle pulling the comb through my long locks. "And you were pink. Nothing like the other hatchlings I'd seen."
Evening settled around us and sun peaked from behind the ragged mountain top in the distance.
"But then, you weren't a hatchling were you?"
"No," I smiled, relaxing into her memory. It was nice to feel loved.
She laid the comb down and began running her fingers through my hair. It was an unusual moment of intimacy.
"Mom..."
"You scared everyone else, but I knew… I could see in your silver eyes that you were something worth protecting." She pulled my hair back from my temples and fumbled with the strange hair piece for a moment before it clasped with a click.
"Beautiful," she declared.
"Thank you." Looking behind me, I saw the wistful expression I had grown up with on her face. We had moments of happiness here in our little oasis, but my mother existed with a shroud of sorrow covering everything she did. Being away from her people was painful and I hated being the reason for it. "What else did you find?"
Dismissing her musings with a shake of her head, my mother came back around and reached into her bag.
One after the next, she pulled out treasures and necessities. She had recovered paper for me to dry in the sun, jars full of sea water (and one with a crab!). There were cooking utensils, ropes, clothes and even music on melodisks.
I sorted her loot into piles of things needing to be dried, repaired or cleaned while she inserted one of the new melodisks. The tonifier was old, but its power cells still worked.
Music rose from the box, low and vibrating, thrumming against me with its slow beat. Mother stepped back from the sound as if it somehow offended her, but didn't reach for the eject key. The music was like nothing I'd heard before. It was neither danceable, nor sing-able. I could make out no words and when voices finally joined the cacophony I was overcome with the need to move.
Taking her hand I pulled my mother out of the small enclosure and under the evening sky. The two moons above us shone in the dim light, one slightly larger and further away than the other. They gazed down upon us as our bodies took in the visceral intonations moving us.
In the corner of my eye I saw something flicker, as if the fire had somehow followed us and sparked in the night air. When I turned to look, it was gone.
excerpt from
Amina Foxx
Stage 3
CDC Alerted – Awaiting Pickup
KGR-13 ND#7431
Amina moaned as she woke. The pain in her back had receded to a dull ache, but the glaring light seared through to her brain whether her eyes were open or closed.
She couldn't remember how long she'd been here; even her name eluded her. The pain, which had been her constant companion for so many weeks, blurred out all rational thought. Instead of thinking about her job and the days of work she had missed, she spent moment to moment in a quest to alleviate her agony.
White-blue light greeted her as she awoke, blinding her and making her lift an arm over her face.
The motion distracted her from the ice pick of light boring into her brain and brought her attention to the convulsion lashing through her shoulder. A scream ripped from her dry lips, an alien sound consisting of a gurgling, guttural voice Amina did not recognize as her own.
Muscles screamed as she pulled her aching body up into a sitting position, each movement ripping through her muscles and nerves. As the sheet fell away from her body, she felt as if something was peeling her skin away in slow, methodical movements. Sandpaper scraped against every surface of her skin. After an agonizing show of endurance, Amina rested back against her pillows, eyes still closed.
Falling back into what she had prayed would be a more comfortable position, Amina moaned. The desired relief that inspired the movement did not appear. The cool air chilled her; the delicate skin on her arms prickled with goose pimples, the flesh pulling against the atrophying sinew connecting it to her body.
She opened and closed her mouth, unable to form clear enough thoughts to realize she was thirsty. Dry and cracking skin broke her lips, the flesh around her mouth discolored and sore. One of the many enigmas about this disease was that the patients seemed to be dying of dehydration even as their bodies oozed fluids without restraint.
The light behind Amina's eyelids dimmed, allowing her a momentary reprieve. Sighing, she lifted a hand, cautiously this time, without knowing what she reached for. Pain and thirst twisted her mind, leaving her moaning and moving without direction.
"Amina?" A muted voice asked from across the room as light slashed through the darkness. Amina's body reacted to the light and she rolled to the side and pulled her head as far away from the invasion as possible.
"Amina?" it repeated, closing the door. The speaker seemed to expect some kind of reaction from the husk once named Amina. She moaned and gestured, her movements lacking all meaning, lolling her head toward the sound. A small movement compared to before. The brain learns quickly to minimize actions that cause pain.
The person spoke again. "Baby, are you in here?"
Amina's eyes burned, forcing her to close them. Thick mucus ran down her face, pooling in her ears where it blended with another, darker fluid that dripped from her inner ear. Tubes connected to her body, blood thinners and saline, plus other untested drugs that may or may not slow the progression of the disease. No one knew the final outcome.
Amina had been one of the first outside the large cities to become ill. Her work had taken her to New York City just before the CDC announced a spreading contagion and warned people to wear masks and gloves whenever in large crowds. In the beginning, when she sneezed, she attributed it to the usual spring cold. She didn't connect it with her trip or the increasing number of stories on the news about the burgeoning pandemic.
Now everyone she knew, everyone she had touched or stood next to on an elevator, had been exposed. By association, everyone they knew suffered. So far, little hope of a cure remained.
Rumors spread in Flushing, Queens, of a man who had made a complete recovery after receiving an antiviral medication for meningitis, but no one could verify or repeat the results. A hospital in Wichita claimed to have cured an ill child by introducing small amounts of mercury into her system. But the child soon died from the poison so many had hoped would cure her.
The light dimmed again and Amina sighed in relief. The stinging blue glow had been her constant companion. Now, without the initial intensity, Amina was learning to endure the pounding in her head. Thoughts tangled her mind, unable to congeal into coherent meaning beyond minimizing pain and seeking relief for the burning in her throat.
"
Fadlik
," Amina moaned, speaking in the mother tongue which she had not used in twenty years. "
Fadlik, Ummi
…"
"Amina, baby, I'm here…"
Eric Foxx rushed into the dark room containing his wife. She was one of three patients crammed into a small triage room. It should not have been used for admitted patients, but there was no where else for them to go. The hospital overflowed with the sick, both real and hypochondriacs who feared infection.
The number of infected had escalated and no one could get accurate information from the CDC anymore, if you reached them at all. Nine days had passed since the hospital admitted Amina and she barely received enough treatment to keep her alive. Or maybe she received all the treatment anyone could offer.
Eric had met his wife during the first Gulf War. She had been too young to realize that falling in love with a white American soldier would end any ties she had with her Kuwaiti family. Still, Amina had always been strong, stronger than any of the women he'd ever encountered. Strong enough to challenge his heart and mind and always win.
When they met, Eric had be twenty-three and Amina seventeen, too young for marriage by American standards, but with the consent of her mother, they wed in Kuwait and she came to America as his wife. The day after they left her home, she had received a call from her older brother. Her mother had been punished for going against their father's wishes by allowing Amina to wed an
alshit'an a'bi
. She died in a small medical clinic three days later.
Amina never again spoke Arabic or mentioned her family unless an unsuspecting acquaintance asked her about them. Few people asked a second time. Eric's wife had a quick and vicious sense of humor few wanted aimed at them. It was one of the things he loved most about her—she never ceased to surprise him with the way her mind worked; she was insightful and cutting.
Eric sped across the dim room, maneuvering around the cots and IV stands. He couldn't imagine how the nurses managed to get close enough to the patients to take care of them. Especially the guy in the middle. He was crammed in so tight no space existed between the cots. Between the overworked staff and overcrowded patients, conditions in the hospital plummeted. Soon, instead of being a safe haven from disease, it would become an incubator.
The room smelled of cleaning solution, sweat, and another, more primal and less recognizable scent. It singed the hairs in Eric's nose and made him breathe through his mouth.
At the foot of Amina's bed, Eric made out the shape of his wife and heard her soft moans. The light from the hall filtered in through Venetian blinds, providing the illusion of privacy in a public place.
"
Ummi
," she moaned, startling Eric.
"Mina, baby…I'm right here…" he took a step around the edge of her bed and flicked on the small florescent light above her.
Her screams began just a second before his. Agony echoed in her brain as the light pierced her eyelids, scorching her retinas and dissolving the thin membrane holding her eyes together. Then the viscous fluid that once filled her optic organs washed down her face, leaving behind only the hollowed out sockets.
The shocking torment reverberating within her skull dulled, and the blue light disappeared. Amina opened her lids, unaware she would not be able to see. She sat up, her body still resisting movement, but now something more important than pain held her attention.
Breathing in, she tasted something familiar in the air, something enticing that awoke an unexpected hunger. Her guts roiled and gurgled within, begging to be filled.
Eric's screams continued as he stared, mouth agape at the form that not a day ago had been his wife. His beautiful, exotic wife. Now before him sat something barely recognizable as human. Bits of her outer layers of skin peeled off, leaving her covered in raw red and fatty yellow chunks of flesh.
Beneath her skin had formed a transparent membrane, which held her organs and muscles in place. Her skin was sloughing away and being replaced with a substance more similar to the vitelline membrane that protects the yoke inside an egg.
Moisture was the single thing that would alleviate the intense pain of patients who progressed to this stage; morphine proved ineffective even in euthanizing dosages. Water wasn't enough. They tried emerging patients in tubs only to find the membrane would dissolve, leaving the patient exposed to the air and infection until a new layer grew back. Untreated, the patients oozed enough fluid from their orifices and through their remaining flesh to coat them with a slick slime. This appeared the sole thing to offer relief.
Amina tilted her head, searching for the enticing smell. The pain in her body decreased as her focus sharpened. As she moved, leaning toward whatever called to her with the power of a siren's song, her muscles and skin no longer tormented her.
Eric backed away from the creature before him, unable to reconcile the monstrous creature with the beautiful woman he had married. The black holes replacing her eyes gaped at him, sludge sliding down her olive skin, discolored with the tinge of death.
"Amina?" Eric asked, his back against the window, Venetian blinds bending and snapping out of place as he pushed as far away from her as possible.
A low growl came from her as she opened her mouth, almost like she was smiling at him, if not for the stench of sulfur emitting from her.
Eric inched toward the door, but each movement he made carried his scent through the air to the Amina-thing. Her tongue flicked out as if tasting him, and the empty orbs followed his movements. She growled again, a low predatory sound, before moving forward on the bed on all fours.
Naked and crouched like a wild animal, Amina allowed her instincts guide her. She couldn't see, but she didn't notice, instead perceiving her surroundings in sharp, clear contrast. The smells were distinct: two bodies registered as familiar, like brethren, and a third, enticing smell. The heat of Eric's body drew her in, and the scent of his skin called her. He spoke, making a sound she couldn't decipher, but the cadence appealed to her.
She rocked forward a bit, her need growing, creating a near-painful cramping in her body. Whatever gave off this smell was something she craved, something she needed. She needed it to survive, to exist. It had something she did not and without it she would cease to be. Biology demanded she act, that she consume and absorb this thing before her.
She sprang from her crouch. Eric fell beneath her, slipping away from her grasp. He screamed. To Amina's new form, the sounds meant nothing. The vibrations excited her, her body quivering with the anticipation of something she could not name.
Eric shrieked as the distorted face of his wife sniffed at him. She held him down with a strength she'd never possessed and should not have after so debilitating an illness. When she inhaled against his chest and moaned, Eric's cries became frantic.
The hallway outside of Amina's room was empty; the shift changing, the nurses exhausted and understaffed. Orderlies and technicians kept things running as best they could, but the small triage room down one hall of the ER had been forgotten in the chaos. No one heard Eric's wails except for the patients in adjacent rooms, too possessed with their own pain to register the sound as external.
A bloodcurdling howl ripped through the hospital as Amina consumed the source of her attraction. She crawled out of the room, still naked and on all fours. Eric's claret blood covered her, the arterial spray coating her face and torso. She stalked down the hall, looking for another victim, someone other than her brethren who might have the same intoxicating smell. Addicted, her need overwhelmed any remaining self Amina might have retained.
The triage room door closed, leaving Eric's lifeless body on the floor in the dark antechamber. His blood pooled around him, sections of skull and gray matter lay like forgotten puzzle pieces.
In the middle bed, John Petersen sat up, inspired by the scent of nourishment. The pain in his body receded as his eyes throbbed. Desperation to relieve the pressure surged through his limbs. Pushing the heels of his hands against his face, the ocular membranes burst. Soon he crouched on all floors and began the search for something to relieve his hunger