6:55am – Friday, October 7th/2016
Walking down the concrete slabs, Wade looks ahead of him at his metallic black car parked in the gravel driveway. He can see the shape of the clouds on his roof, the forest around him on his doors, and the raindrops trickling down the windows. The morning sky reflecting on the paint reminds him of a dream he had after falling asleep earlier with Andrea. This moment is usually met with a glow of feelings. Today is different. Today, he slowly walks to his car in a post-coital numb with calm breaths.
"Drive safe!"
Andrea says, closing her front door as Wade approaches his car. Wade sarcastically says to himself, unlocking the vehicle,
"Yeah.. thanks for mutilating my fuckin' face.."
He looks into the reflection of himself against his door's window. He pauses to stare for a moment. Quickly noticing the scratch on his face, he squints in a subtle rage and reaches for the handle on the door.
“This better not leave a scar..” he mutters, disgusted by what he can see through the glass.
The reflection slowly fades into an unfocused image in his head of Andrea, pressed up against the wall, grabbing his face with her black nailed hand.
“I should tie her up next time..” He says, smirking to himself.
He gets in the car, slams the door shut, turns the key and stares out the windshield at her front door. The fluorescent headlights shine on the wooden house buried in the woods, and he can now see the rain trickling through the beams of light in front of the car. The dashboard glows a violent red on his muscled arm as he grips the steering wheel with his right hand. He's tired. He's weak. His eyes are dimming as the morning light gets brighter. He relaxes his arm while dispassionately staring at the house. Letting out a sigh, he grips the steering wheel tightly and imagines himself driving straight into the walls of her home.
“It would be like it never happened..” he says to himself out loud, feeling the guilt in the pit of his stomach. He laughs with mild sadness on his breath and stops after a moment. Images start flashing in his head of earlier when he had Andrea pinned beneath him. He had her on her stomach, face buried in a mess of blankets, her hands gripping the mattress harder with every move he made. Suddenly his mind starts imagining firmly pressing her face into the bed, cutting off her air supply. Her limbs flail as her moans turn to desperate screams. He pushes harder until she can't fight anymore, and her body falls limp under his weight.
Wade looks into the rearview mirror and catches his eyes lighting up at that idea and says,
“So this is what I've become.. A fucking psycho..”
Looking closer into the mirror at the left side of his face, he whispers,
“What will I tell her?”
He looks behind him, in front of him, and lets out a quick breath. His heart flutters in fear at the thought of Leah finding out. Sitting up in his seat now, he puts the car into gear and drives out onto the country road as he drives away, heading for home.
Drive safe.. ha!
You piece of shit.
I knew you lied.
You weren't going to work.
I could feel it in my gut.
I tried to warn you.
You try to burn this witch,
and you'll be eaten by the flames.
The storm clouds are passing. Wade can see the blue sky starting to come in over the horizon. The rain has stopped now, and the air is rich with the smells of the forest around him. He looks at his stereo and sees the time is '7:06am' and wonders if he timed this out correctly. His drive home is twenty minutes long, and Leah will be awake soon.
“Yeah! Mark just threw his goddamn pen at my face 'cause he said I measured it wrong!”
Wade recites the lie to himself while looking in the rearview mirror. He reaches into his pocket for a smoke and pops in the car lighter. Waiting for the lighter to heat up, he catches himself looking at the mark on his face again. He becomes distracted by his eyes and begins to lose himself in them while not noticing his car veering to the left lane. They seem to be losing their colour.
“Weird.. where the hell..”
He hears a car horn and looks down from the mirror to see a car in front of him, nearly colliding. Wade jerks the car back into the right lane.
“Holy shit..”
Sitting up sternly in his seat now with both hands on the wheel, the lighter pops out of the socket. Pausing for a moment of relief and question, he grabs it and lights his cigarette. With his hands shaking, he tries to stay focused on the lines of the road. He's getting close to his subdivision and is wide awake now.
Your brother wasn't the only one
who gave you advice on this.
Everyone around you told you
what you weren't doing right.
You never listened.. to anyone.
This is no longer about who you are.
This is now about what you will become.
You've wronged the wrong people, Wade.
Beware.
The time is 7:17am and he is nearly home. This is when he usually gets home from work on a night shift. He takes one last drag of his burning cigarette. Tossing the butt out the window, the smell of the air changes. Wade questions if he dropped an ember somewhere in his car or if he ran over some road kill and hadn't noticed. It smells putrid.
“What the fuck is that smell?” he asks himself.
He turns on the stereo to distract his senses. He hadn't realized he's been driving in silence this entire time. The song on the radio comes on, blasting through the speakers.
♪ ..I CAN'T GO HOME.. ♪
The intense blast of volume shook Wade's entire body.
He immediately turns off the radio in a panic.
Shaking again, questioning his decisions, he calms himself and looks at the sky peering overhead of his subdivision. The colour of the sky is turning into a bright blue as he drives around the corner. The lights of the town shut off in the distance as he approaches the last long strip of road. The smell is intensifying, and it's making him gag. Wade closes the window in hopes it will soon go away, but it just gets thicker. He pulls over and stops at the side of the road to get out and check if something is burning inside his car. When he gets out, the wind amplifies. He looks over at the nearby houses and notices a large flock of birds flying above. Wade's mouth drops open, staring at the sky as the birds cast a black shadow over the strip of road in front of him. The flock begins to fill the sky above him. As they pass overhead of Wade, it makes his car shake. The loud flapping sounds bring chills up his spine. Wade bends to the ground beside his car, his mind frozen in fear. He turns to the forest behind him. The deafening flock of birds flies over him into the dark clouds looming over the forest. As the sound grows louder, he covers his head and closes his eyes. Wade is petrified they will start to fly into him, so he hops back into the car in a panic. After a chilling moment, it is over. The sound and shadows have disappeared. As he opens his eyes, the sun creeps back into the car and starts flickering against the silver coin he has hanging from the rearview mirror. Wade looks at it in question as it spins in circles.
"What in the fuck was that?" he says with a heavy breath.
Looking into the rearview mirror, he notices that his eyes are now void of all colour.
“What in the fuck? What the fuck is going on? What happened to my eyes?”
Wade looks down at his feet in contemplative measure as a dark fear takes hold of his body.
Everything happens for a reason, Wade.
If this isn't a sign you've done me wrong,
and the things you are about to encounter,
then you are as blind as the dead bird's
that circle your sky.
He looks up from his feet and moves his body back into position to drive. Knowing he needs to rush home now, Wade lets out a huge breath of terror and starts the car. As he starts to move, he looks above the houses that are roughly one hundred feet in front of him and notices a cloud of golden sand in the sky. It looks as if something has blown up or been disturbed. Driving slowly up the road now, the storm rises above the rooftops of the subdivision. The sight gives Wade a sense of urgency. It boils his blood. His heart beats faster than ever. He speeds up the road to the entrance of his neighbourhood. Slowing down to the first stop sign, he looks up above him to see this monster in the sky seemingly ready to consume the neighbourhood. Pressing hard on the gas pedal, Wade speeds to the next stop sign. Reaching it, he screeches his car to the right without stopping.
“Two more streets to go,” he tells himself, out of breath.
As he turns right, he is faced looking at the incoming dust that looms high over the houses. Both hands clenched on the steering wheel, Wade drives towards it, about to turn onto his road.
“JESUS CHRIST, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?”
Skidding his tires as he turns onto his street, he looks in between the blurred houses and sees the wall of sand moving toward his car. He's close to home, but he is terrified he won't make it.
At that moment, I wish it took you.
I could see the sand drifting into
the sky in my mind's eye,
and my sunken chest already knew you lied.
I knew where you were that night.
I could see it in my dreams.
You are the fool I figured you were,
and I had you cornered.
Now only a few houses from his house, Wade peers up through his front window and sees the sand creeping over the top of his home. He straightens his view of the house in front of him and leans back in his seat. Slamming his brakes, he skids his car onto his lawn. With hardly any breath, he rips the keys out of the ignition. Trying to open the door, but the heavy winds push it shut. He heaves it open and lunges out of the car. The wind whistles an alarmingly high pitch as he runs for the front door. His body is being forced backwards as he reaches his hands out to his front door. He manages to get a hold of the handle and pushes it open. He jumps inside and slams it shut. The sound of the door closing was like changing the channel on a static radio station. The screeching sounds disappeared. The sound of his breath is loud and fast. Wade falls back against the door, and fear starts to boil beneath his shaking body.
Is this a dream? Am I dreaming?
What a beautiful dream this is, isn't it?
I can't wait for you to wake up, Wade.
I can't wait for you to sit up beside me in hell.
His body is shaking, and he is leaning his back against the door. Wade drops to the floor and covers his face with his hands. A moment of time passes while his breath settles. He uncovers his face and looks down the beige hallway into his kitchen. He can see the blinds above the sink bouncing slowly off the glass. The kitchen window is open a few inches, and underneath is a trail of sand that stretches to the adjacent wall. Slowly standing up with his eyes fixed on the kitchen, Wade's pupils dilate at the blinding sun that begins to seep into the hallway. With erratic breaths, he starts moving slowly down the hallway, shaking. Reaching the doorway to the sand-covered room, he takes a slow look around. The strange golden sand stretched across the kitchen floor to the opposite wall. It trails beneath a picture of him and Leah. Wade lets out a huge fearful breath and walks to the half-opened window above the sink to close it shut. As he is pulling it down, he hears a gasp from behind him. He turns around to see Leah fresh out of the shower, a towel on her head and another wrapped around her body. Her jade-coloured eyes scan the room left to right, from the window to the wall. In utter shock, her eyes find Wade's.
They both stand staring at each other with no words. Her mouth is open. His jaw is clenched tight as if trying to sew the words in that want to spill from his mouth. He stands in the kitchen sand, guilty, with arms at his side. The spiteful power of silence fills the room as they hold their stare. Wade sees the burning emotion in Leah's eyes, Leah burning holes into Wade's soul. Before Wade could say anything to distract the obvious conjuring thoughts that Leah had, she expels with a resonating tone,
“This is it.. This is exactly what
I said was going to happen..
You fucking asshole.
You mother fucking, piece of SHIT!”
Leah pauses after her piercing words reverberate off the kitchen walls. She turns back around and runs upstairs, screaming in anger. Wade is expressionless. He stands in one spot, feeling himself nearly drown in guilty emotion. He starts to tremble. Leah slams the door upstairs, and the blinds fall off above the sink. Every sound causes Wade's heart to beat faster and faster. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, looking down, covered in sand, he starts to break. Wade falls to his knees and lets out the loudest cry he has inside himself, and his whole body falls to the floor.
There you were, lying face down
in the mess you created.
You always said you wanted to
make my dreams come true.
Thanks, Wade.
Thank you very fucking much.
8:28am – Friday, October 7th/2016
