In This Together

2500 words

In This Together

It had been one month since Kali had quit drinking, cold turkey—and she was about to crack.

            She and Joel walked side-by-side down a quiet street. The pavement radiated gentle warmth and traffic hummed softly in the distance. Buildings on either side of them faded into growing darkness. They were celebrating the one-month anniversary of her promise, and all Kali could think about was the single bottle her roommate had obligingly left for her.

            Joel’s voice came from beside her, distant. “Look, Kali, if you don’t want to be out—”

            “No.” She tossed him a smile over her shoulder. “I’m just tired. I’ll feel better soon.”

            Whatever she did, she couldn’t let him know how close she was to breaking her most important promise.

On their right, an empty stretch of parking lot lay in half-shadow. In the middle stood a collection of giant machines, their skyward-reaching arms black against the lingering orange in the sky. A Ferris wheel occupied the central space.

            “Look,” Kali said, pointing. “A carnival.”

            “Funny place for it,” Joel said.

            “Let’s go look.” Kali pivoted and strode across the asphalt.

She had reached the metal fence, hung with tattered flags, before she heard his footsteps behind her, then saw his white shirt beside her, luminous in the twilight. She scanned the carnival. Metal arms and pieces of rides lay everywhere.

            “Where are the people?” Kali asked. She leaned on the fence. Some of the lights were on—a spoke on a wheel here, an arch over a slide there—but most of the rides were dark. Long shadows entwined with each other.

            “Kali, are you mad at me?”

            “No,” she said lightly. She grabbed the barrier with both hands and hoisted herself up, swinging her legs over one at a time. “Come on. Let’s check it out.”

            “Wait, don’t you think it’s closed for a reason?”

            “Oh, come on. You could at least try to make this fun.”

            Joel hesitated, then followed.

            Kali grimaced at her attitude as she walked. In the empty aisles between the rides she could envision a throng of people, laughing and shouting. She stopped at the foot of the Ferris wheel.

The operator’s chair was empty, the gate unlocked.

“Someone could just...get on,” she said. “And start it. Look, the lights are even on.”

“Maybe the motor is busted,” Joel suggested.

“Maybe.” Kali looked up at the bright spikes of light outlining the wheel. She could almost smell the carnival food. Sickening.

Joel pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the Ferris wheel against the orange sky. He spoke as he typed a caption for the picture.

“Remember when we ran into each other at that carnival? It was just like this one.”

It was hard to forget waking up from an alcohol-induced daze to someone you’d had a crush on for months. Later, she’d started to recover for him. Made promises to him.

Promises she could no longer keep.

“Yeah,” she said. She shoved her hands in her pockets and headed for a racing slide with four lanes. She felt sick—less with the thought of what she had planned than the thought of Joel’s reaction if he found out.

“Come on, Joel!”

She scaled the stairs leading to the top of the racing slide in seconds. She was going to enjoy herself right now. She owed it to him, to leave him with a good memory.

The sun had gone down, leaving the carnival lit by the few random lights that on the rides and the faint glow of faraway streetlights.

Joel stood at the bottom of the slide. “Kali, do you really think—”

“One slide, Joel, come on!” She grabbed a piece of carpet from a stack.

That’s when the lights clicked on.

Kali froze. “What did you do?”

            “I—did not do that.”

            Kali looked up at the rainbow of twinkling lights above her. They blinked rhythmically. “That’s weird, right?”

            “You should come down!”

            Kali dropped the carpet and kicked it into place. She tried to shake off the creeps as she settled onto it and bumped down the slide to the bottom, skidding into the padded plastic wall.

            “Look,” Joel said, pointing. Another spear of lights shot up into the now-dark sky—one spoke on the Ferris wheel that hadn’t been lit before.

            Kali shivered.

“Let’s go,” she said, tugging his sleeve.

            He didn’t resist. They struck off. But they’d only been walking for a minute before Joel hesitated.

            “Where’s the exit?”

            “We can go over the fence again.” Kali pulled him. The carnival was much larger than it had looked from across the parking lot, with many more machines. It shouldn’t be taking this long to get to the edge.

            Something clicked behind them. Kali jumped. Another scattered set of lights had flicked on—another spoke of the wheel, another ride.

            As if a switch had flipped in Kali’s body, her heart started racing. She needed out. Not until Joel gently pried her fingers loose did she realize how tightly she’d been holding his arm.

            “Glad we’re on the same page,” he muttered. He lengthened his strides. “It takes freaky abandoned carnivals to get you to hold my hand?”

            “Just keep going.”

            “They’re here!” someone shouted.

            Kali could have sworn the voice came from behind them. “Did you hear that?”

            Joel looked over his shoulder, squinting. “Probably someone across the parking lot.” He headed toward the admissions tent. It blocked the sporadic lights, so they walked through a shadow.

            “Wait, that’s the slide,” Kali said as they rounded the tent. She stopped. “We must have gotten—”

            They both jumped and stopped.

            At the top of the slide, silhouetted against the lights, stood a man. The lights made the wisps of greasy-looking hair around his head stand out like a halo. He was wearing baggy shorts and held one of the pieces of carpet in his hand.

            “It must have been him playing with the lights,” Joel said.

            The man spotted them at the same time. He tossed a carpet onto the slide and shot down. At the bottom, he stumbled off and staggered toward Kali and Joel.

            “He’s drunk,” Joel said under his breath. His tone was full of disgust.

            Kali’s hand loosened on his arm. Joel’s words cut straight to her heart. If he’d known what she had planned...

            The man stopped about fifty feet from them. “Hello,” he said. His voice was slurred and thick, but absurdly cheerful. “Welcome to the carnival.”

            Kali forced a smile as Joel responded slowly.

            “Uh, thanks. We’re actually on our way out.”

            “Oh no, don’t go. I love having guests.”

            “Are you the owner?” Joel asked. He pulled Kali to the side.

            “These rides are like a whole complex,” the man said. He smiled crookedly and staggered toward them. “Come and see.” He waved a bottle that Kali hadn’t seen before in a motion probably meant to be inviting.

            “We have to go,” Joel said. He pulled Kali aside and started walking.

            It’ll be a good story, Kali kept telling herself. A really, really weird story. Remember that time we ran into that random drunk guy in the empty carnival.

            Joel tensed beside her. She saw the man a split second later, sitting on a beam for the spinning car ride, leering at them.

            “Come on!” he called as they turned away. “Don’t run away again!”

            They got moving this time. Any hope of keeping a directional heading disappeared as they dodged a pile of crossbeams. Kali stumbled and dislodged one.

            Joel cursed as they turned the corner and saw him again, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the street. “Where is the exit?”

            They did an about-face again and ran for the Ferris wheel. Joel’s grip on her arm slackened until they were loosely holding hands, then running separately. Kali tried to keep an eye on Joel but he flickered in and out through random, pulsing streaks of light.

            Lights started to click out. Joel cursed again in front of her—the most profanity she’d heard from him since she’d met him.

            Then she lost him in darkness.

            “Joel!” she shouted. She couldn’t see him anywhere. She kept running, but in the dark she stubbed her toe on something and staggered. She hit something soft, like the canvas side of a tent, and fell through it.

            “You’re here!”

            Kali rolled to her feet, rubbing her sore shoulders. There was a soft click, and a flashlight propped on its end burst to life. Kali stood inside a small tent filled with trestle tables and boxes. Behind the flashlight, his face illuminated from below, stood the drunk man. He had a bottle in his hand and he was grinning.

“I never have visitors!” the man said. He left the flashlight and came toward Kali, grinning. He held out his hand for a handshake.

Close up, he didn’t look as threatening, Kali thought. He was probably friendly when he wasn’t drunk. She carefully shook his hand.

Had Joel heard her call for him?

The man was so close she could smell the bottle in his hand—a warm, familiar smell that she constantly fought thinking of. And she didn’t know where the door was. Had there even been a door? Or had she just fallen through the canvas?

The man carefully poured a small glass out of the bottle and held it out to her in a shaking hand. “Have some? We can talk.”

“I’m good, thanks,” she said cautiously. Her shoulders were so rigid her neck hurt. She wanted it. But she’d promised. She’d promised Joel.

The grin faded from the man’s face.

“Have some,” he said, shoving it toward her. Some slopped over.

“I’m...on a diet,” she lied. Even she didn’t believe it. He wouldn’t.

The smile slowly transformed into a frown.

She wanted to take it. Her fingers twitched. She was planning to have some later anyway.

She couldn’t locate the door without turning. She kept her face full toward the man, unsure how he would react. She hoped her voice wasn’t trembling too much.

“Kali!”

She didn’t dare call for Joel. What if the man flipped on her?

            “Kali!”

            “I need to go,” Kali said. “My boyfriend needs me.”

            “Have some,” the man said roughly, stumbling toward her. His grin had returned. He pushed the glass into her hand.

            Kali lurched backward, away from the man’s sudden nearness, and let the glass fall to the floor. It splintered. Her stomach dropped as she watched its contents slop all over the floor. What a waste, she thought, then stopped herself.

            The man watched it fall. Then his eyes traveled from the shards of glass up to Kali’s face. His own face contorted into something midway between anger and grief.

            “How could you?” he exploded. “How could you?”

            Kali let out a stifled scream, afraid he was going to come at her, but he grabbed another glass and poured the rest of his bottle into it, shoving it into her hands.

            “Have some!” he yelled.

            With nowhere to go, Kali took a deep breath and raised the glass to her lips. There was no sense getting hurt for a silly little promise she was going to break anyway--

            As soon as the contents hit her tongue she knew she was a goner. The old longing came rushing back. She felt like crying. She’d let everyone down. It hadn’t been very long ago that she’d thought she could beat it all by herself.

            The drunk man watched her. Slowly, his anger melted, but he didn’t recover his cheerfulness.

            Kali stopped, desperately trying to hand the glass back. She backed away from the man, conscious of the stink that filled the place and the dim light and suddenly afraid.

He followed her, refusing to take the glass back.

            “Have some more. Come on. I don’t have friends in often.”

            The worst part was that she wanted to so badly. She stopped moving and raised the glass again.

            Everything happened quickly. There was a rush of air behind her. A pair of arms wrapped around her body. The glass flew from her hand, slinging liquor everywhere, and smashed into the ground. She stumbled sideways.

            And then Joel had ahold of her and he was pulling her out, dragging her away from the tent, toward the fence.

            “The police are coming; are you okay?” he yelled as Kali got her feet under herself. He shoved the crowd barrier aside and pulled her out into the dark parking lot until his momentum faded, and then he tried to hold her. “You scared me, Kali. Don’t you ever—”

            “I’m sorry,” she said, swallowing a sob. She pushed him away, repulsed by his touch. He’d come for her instead of waiting for the police. Suddenly her plans for the rest of the night hung on her like a forty-pound weight around her neck.

            “Shhh.” He took her hand instead. “It’s okay.”

            “No, it’s not; I took it; I wanted it so bad and I took it—”

            “That’s okay. That’s normal.” He rubbed his finger back and forth over her knuckles. The lights of the little carnival winked out one by one.

            At his touch, she knew she had to tell him. “Joel?”

            “Yeah.”

            Kali took a deep breath and told him everything.

When she was done, he held out his arms and wrapped her in them. “Baby, thank you for telling me. It’s okay. It’s a process.”

            Kali shook her head.

            “I’m here for you, remember? We’ll figure it out. I’m proud of you. And I’m glad you’re safe.”

            Kali pulled away and crossed her hand over her stomach. He was too good for her.

            “Kali.”

            Kali wouldn’t verbalize it to him. But she had failed. Failed him, failed her counselors, failed everyone who’d worked so hard to get her out of her addiction and all the problems it had caused her. She’d have to start over.

            “Kali. I’ve worked too hard and you’ve worked too hard to give up right now.”

            Kali listened to the soft pleading in his tone. She’d heard him like that one too many times. She’d had headaches and taken her anger out on him because she couldn’t have what her body craved. She’d kept him up till the small hours, video chatting her, to keep from going out or going crazy.

            “One sip and some craving doesn’t change how I feel about you,” he said.

            It didn’t change how she felt about him, either. It only changed how she felt about herself.

            She turned back to him. He was a shadowy figure in the dark and he looked forlorn. She went to him and let him wrap his arms around her.

            “I’ll always be here,” he said into her hair.

            “I don’t deserve you,” she said into his chest.

            “We’ll beat it.”

            It was Kali’s one-month anniversary of swearing off alcohol, and she was going to beat the addiction.

The Burning (Jan. 2021)

 Word count: 1200

The Burning

Another monotonous gray twilight deepened, thickening the shadows around diaphanous filaments that stretched from building to building, building to ground, spider webs covered in icicles of ash that became thick black ropes as the darkness built. The webs became nearly impossible to navigate at night, their growing period, as they crept through the streets. Thick, twisted trunks of them crawled through windows and doors, into homes hopefully long abandoned. The air hung thick, oscillating as though with a breath or a pulse. A storm was brewing.

In the midst of it, John padded down the street. Mouth and chin covered by a bandana, a shapeless hat slung low over his head, his jacket too large, he moved slowly, carrying two white plastic bags in one hand. He stepped carefully over thin filaments that covered the sidewalks in a sort of web. His ratty running shoes crunched softly on pieces of broken glass. 

Once in the middle of his journey, he misstepped. He froze while the air and the webs silently pulsed around him. The plastic in his hand rustled lightly. A tremor ran through the air. And that was all. He resumed his slow way, plastic rustling, glass crunching, the soft sound of sneakers on pavement.

On the edge of the city stood a small church with webs growing up the sides like ivy. They coated the walls in a thick twining coat, except for the steeple, which thrust upward yet bare. The webs were growing, though. They would be up the steeple soon. The yard was covered in them, kudzu and soot, and filaments of them hung in the air. 

In the deep distance, a faint orange glow lit the cloudy horizon. It was like daylight, except it never faded. He squinted into it. Had it come closer? Would it ever come closer? They said the fires, when once they came, burned for weeks, licking slowly along the endless spidery webs until all was dust and ashes...

After a few moments he took a deep breath of musty air, then shut the church door behind him.

Out of a confused jumble of old pews piled at the front of the sanctuary like a forgotten barricade, a dark head rose. Bryce, a young man in a ragged eclectic mashup of clothes that reminded one of a priest without the collar, came sliding across the room through the dim light of two camp lanterns. 

“Thank heaven.”

John cast Bryce a quizzical look, and Bryce pointed.

Behind the confused mass of smashed pews and pulpit, once there stood a stained glass window that twisted light into brilliant streams of blue and purple. But now, where once colored and leaded glass tesselated through the figure of Christ on the cross, black filaments stretched through jagged holes. Pieces of colored glass made glistening islands in the dust on the floor. 

Among the islands of colored glass in the dust sea, a single set of footprints and a fallen, cracked kitchen knife.

“When did--”

“Two hours ago,” Bryce said, relieving his friend of the grocery bags.

John let Bryce have them and studied the webs. He had seen them growing through the windows of the shops and municipal buildings, of course. But somehow, this was worse.

“We’ll have to make a fire.”

John stared at Bryce. “Don’t you know--”

“We have to risk it. Once the big fire gets here, we’ll have to deal with it anyway.”

He hesitated, and in the pause Bryce’s voice was flat and even. “You weren’t here to see it.”

Silence hung between them. 

Initially, the orange glow on the horizon had bounded nearer every night. Now, they wondered if it would ever come to burn away the dark presence, to bring purification. And what if it never did? Perhaps the other had started in just such a way, two companions desperate not to let them wrap their tendrils around their lives…

Bryce held out his hand. “If you’re too afraid--”

With a final glance toward the ruined window, John took his firestarter from his pocket and bent to the tinder Bryce had laid for him. A tiny spark, a tiny flame. Maybe it would be too small to notice. 

The tinder was very dry. It caught, spurted upward--

“Crap,” he said, and then they were upon it. 

Thick, fibrous tentacles writhed out of the darkness, splintering wood, thumping as if feeling their way--the whiskers of a living organism. A deep stench followed, like death on the move. John nearly choked on it.

A long black fiber shot out of the darkness, the tip of a tentacle, into the fire before either man could shield it, and a harsh, shrieking groan shook the walls of the church that before had only been shaken in prayer.

Bryce dropped to the ground, sobbing out something that sounded like a prayer laced with profanity. Shards of colored glass rained down around both of them. A tiny ember from the fire--all that was left in a darkness alive with menace--floated down and winked out softly on the floor.

After that there was nothing but darkness alive with movement, harsh creaks and splintering wood and the occasional near-human groan. The world was made of the noise and movement, like sitting blindfolded in a pit of snakes as they hissed and slid around you. John covered his head with his arms and prayed.  

Morning dawned gray and cobwebbed.

Sometime during the small hours, the webs had stopped growing, leaving John nearly encased in a bower of sooty fibers, tangled above his head. They filled the church, festooning from the vaulted ceilings and trailing through new cracks in the wall. The broken fragments of pews and pulpit were enmeshed in webbing.

Bryce was gone.

John slowly rubbed his head, afraid to breathe too deeply in the moist, rancid air. He was tired. So tired.

Time to move on, he told himself, without moving. He could not stay. He did not look up, afraid to look too closely at the webs. Afraid of what half-rotted abominations lurked there. An acrid taste lingered in his mouth.

When finally he stepped his way through the forest and stepped outside, the air was thick and heavy. Black fibers covered the churchyard and road like a mat. The air was full of a sharp, gritty scent. Smoke. 

He looked up at the sky.

In the distance, the orange glow had grown stronger. A light breeze blew in.

The first flake fell as he stood in the doorway. Gray, glowing lightly, it grazed his nose and landed, sizzling, on the stunted grass. It glowed, went out.

Another fell, and then another--the air was full of them, tiny orange glimmers of light that materialized out of the murk and fell silently to the ground. The smoke smell grew overpowering. The orange glow was much stronger--almost blinding--and advancing.

The embers fell thick, fast, silent. Beneath them, the webs began to curl and buckle, writhing, creaking, shrieking. Like demons out of hell.

But the rain of embers kept coming. The man sank to his knees as tongues of flame sprang up around him, hissing, and drove back the dark. A single tear glistened on his cheek.