You Can Never Go Back, But Neither Can You Leave—Part 9

One day, Emory was in the bath. Melanee had a sweet bathroom setup, Emory thought. There was a television mounted to the wall so that you could watch easily from the clawfoot soaker tub. The room wasn’t very large, but the back wall was all windows, so lots of light came in on sunny days. Soaking in there was just about heaven for Emory.

That day she was watching Alice in Wonderland, the one from the Fifties, when the news cut in to alert all viewers of another outbreak. It didn’t frighten her, but it kind of killed the mood, so she grabbed the plug chain with her toes, pulled it, then hung the plug over the faucet, stood up, got out, and dried off.

In Melanee’s room was a corner vanity with loads of cool makeup and perfumes. Emory had been reluctant to touch any of it, but after her last conversation with Melanee, she felt like it would probably be all right. So she played in the makeup for a bit, then smelled different perfumes.

One of them was in a hookah-looking bottle that had WHO R U? written on it in black permanent marker.

Emory giggled and said, “Oh now way, man. Far out.”

She picked it up, removed the cap, and smelled the atomizer. Her face scrunched up not at the smell but at the absence of smell. So she sprayed a bit on her wrists and neck, behind her knees.

But there was still no smell.

“Weird,” she said. “I wonder if it’s just, like, water or something.”

She replaced the cap and put it back, tried another by Yves Saint Laurent, which she liked, then got dressed, and wandered around the house, until going outside to smoke.

On the back porch, Emory sat and smoked while reading her Meltager feed. Rathna was on another antivax tear, which made Emory sigh, and mute her again. She liked Rathna fine, but there were some areas where Rathna was simply wrong and would not admit it, Emory thought.

In the way that was very familiar to her when on social media, she became aware that she’d been looking at it for awhile but wasn’t sure when she started, so had no firm idea of how much time had elapsed. The sun was beginning to set, though, and she’d smoked at least three cigs and was lighting another.

“I spend too much time on this fucking site,” she said aloud to no one, then sparked the lighter, lit her smoke.

Then came a sound, like a scratching, from the bomb shelter.

Emory hopped to her feet and craned her neck. As though that’s going to help, she thought. She set her smoke down on the edge of the step, then went inside and got a broom–which she held like a jo staff–returned outside, picked up her cigarette, put it in her mouth, and approached the shelter, broom-staff readied.

The grass felt strange under her feet. Softer, she thought. Can grass get softer? It felt almost like silk. Little strands of emerald silk.

The handle to the shelter looked the same as it had before, and Emory recalled why she’d left the effing thing alone in the first place. Since there was no indication of entry, she looked around the edge of the backyard to see if there were an animal or lurker or something.

She briefly had an intrusive fantasy that it was a lurker who had been watching her for days, and who watched her bathe and get off and have sex with Johny. It turned her on to think about, but she forced it from her mind and tried to focus on the situation at hand.

Everything is probably fine, she thought. She’d learned that if her mind felt safe enough to fantasize, that usually meant deep down she believed everything was okay.

Then the scratching came again, and Emory saw a white blur dash pass, which caused her to whip around with the broom, bringing it down in an arcing slash, but stopping at waist level in empty midair.

“What the fuck …” she mumbled.

A sparkling white lingered on the edge of her left eye’s field, near the property line. But when she looked there, it went away.

Emory put a palm to her head. “Okay, what the hell. Did I hit my head or something?”

She knew she hadn’t, but didn’t know what was happening yet.

“I should lie down,” she said. But when she gave another look to the bomb shelter, she could see it open.

Her heart rate spiked, adrenaline rushed through her veins, and she brought the broom around again, held it at waist level ready for a thrust, and eased toward the opening.

Inside was pitch black. She could see nothing. There was no smell, either, which she found odd.

“Shouldn’t it be hella musty?” she mused aloud, though in a whisper.

Again, the sparkle in her left eye occurred, but she ignored it that time, and after a few blinks she no longer noticed it.

Emory raised the broom like a sword, held high over her right shoulder, and leaned in slightly to look inside.

Then, it was like the ground became an incline–a steep hill or something like that–and she lost her balance, toppled headfirst into the dark of the shelter.

End of Part I

End of Part I

Go back to Part 1 > 2 > 3 > 4 > 5 > 6 > 7 > 8

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