Now of course my mind is racing around in circles. Who knows what that freak Darius can do to someone. I am quite sure that shaking Ricky’s arm had a lot to do with why he was throwing the ball thousands of yards with enough force to stick glass into the wall across a room when it finally makes contact. Here we are again at another one of those places where the average mind simply ignores the unrealistic, because Jake does not find that weird. When I was younger a bunch of my friends dragged me off to a baseball game in Kansas City because a pitcher named Nolan Ryan was pitching. From what I heard he was a freak of nature himself, and he threw the ball hard, especially considering he was at the end of his career, and I can tell you that he could not have done this. The world is so small and new before you get jaded huh?
I would have done cartwheels around logic this time last week if I had seen Ricky throw the ball so hard, so far and so fast that it did this, so I can’t fault Jake for not picking up on it all, actually I am rather happy he doesn’t because I am running out of my quota of lies for this week and I just don’t have it in me anymore today at least. Jake has the glass all cleaned up at least and he seems more focused on getting the TV on in the living room. Usually, I would tell him to get cracking on his homework, but the truth is, I need some personal time to gather my thoughts. Lord knows what my thoughts are, but I am going to gather them all the same. I need to figure out a way to separate Jake from Ricky until I know that Ricky is safe to be around. It never crossed my mind that a normal person would have just gathered her child and gotten out of town either, or that was not only because I could not afford to do that, but also because I was starting to buy into the whole theory that I was part of this. The world includes everywhere, and the entire world is on the line and not just this crappy tiny town.
Jake startled me when he called to me from the living room, “Hey mom, you’re on the Wichita news!” and it did not take a rocket scientist to realize that somehow, they had footage of the explosion and there I was lying on the ground. I was disinterested in seeing my highlights so I got up and wandered over to the door separating the two rooms, so that I could smile at him. He was serious when he said, “Seriously mom you’re going to want to see this.”
I walked over to the couch and dropped my butt into the cushion next to Jake who barely got his feet out of the way before I hit. The person on the news was going on about the suspicious nature of the explosions and cueing around the sights from the helicopter footage. I didn’t really know what Jake was talking about until it went back to the restaurant wreckage and then showed a picture of myself walking around the wreckage with the idiot sheriff, keeping in mind that it was like watching a television show with someone else in it, since I had skipped this part of the day, but then the reporter started talking about me, “After questioning the lone suspect related to both explosions, Sherriff Walter G. Miles has allowed Anastasia Jones who had many issues with the derelict father of her son, who was one of those killed in the Skillings factory, and coincidentally was the only waitress at Ferguson’s Diner, which was the scene of today’s explosion,” and I sat there incredulously watching this since I didn’t really know any of the details myself.
Wonderful little conundrum I have myself in now. I mean I knew as it was going on that I did not have anything to do with either of the events, but that idiot WGM III never let a good piece of evidence get in his way. He has never actually solved a real crime if my memory serves me well. This is just insane since I could not have even gotten inside the Skillings complex without identification and I was almost killed in the diner explosion, but again I did not expect anything logical to pass through the minds of these bozos. Jake for some strange reason was very level headed as he watched this and then he added, “Don’t know when you had time to do either, I was with you both mornings,” and then he changed the channel before he said, “You don’t vote for that moron do you?”
Nothing spectacular happened between the times we changed over to prime time, and when Jake finally went off to bed. Thank God Jake was raised on the crime dramas that I watch or else I would have needed another television in this house, which I never could afford. It had been a long enough day without having to try and deal with Mary while Jake was awake. I never considered that Mary might go to bed a lot earlier than the normal person, because face it she is not a normal person. In any regards, I would rather not talk to her than need explain more things to Jake than I had to. I did not really have a clue what Mary wanted to talk about anyway. For all I know she wanted to know how I got away with my rash of arson. That was nothing compared to the long argument I had with myself as to whether I really should call or not. In the end my curiosity over what she knew and could help me with won, and I grasped the phone from the wall.
This entire process would have been silly say yesterday since I have spent every morning with her and never thought twice about talking to her. Now it was almost childish how I had nothing but a sinking feeling when I picked up that telephone and held it up. I stared out the window in amazement at what little I knew. The creatures that really do make the bumps in the night out there and what are they up to right now. Mary had seen the Devil in absolutely everything for as long as I had known her. She even went as far as to start ranting about plots on the backs of cereal boxes that made that weirdo on the AM radio in the afternoons ranting about the New World Order seem almost sane. The scary part as I stood there swearing that I saw something out there, and then another something, was that if we all didn’t just assume everything Mary did was strange and took the time to know what she was saying, she usually made sense with only a few things that were “out there” and out of the mainstream. What did I know of the mainstream now anyway?
The loud noise coming from the receiver startled me as I got the message from the phone company that the phone had been off the receiver for too long. As I went to hang it up again I heard a faint noise coming over the phone, and quickly set it to my ear again just to hear, “…please hang up and try again …” which ended what was being said by the phone company then it was followed by a low hissing. No more of the faint whispering that I could have sworn I heard, so I chalked it up to the insanity that I have accepted will completely engulf me eventually. Within the next few days anyway, I expect a decent size nervous breakdown, from the bull and pony show that Walter the super trooper will put me through alone. I went to hang up the phone again and then brought it to my ear for a fresh new dial tone, which I now had. I went to hit the first number when a hissing “don’t do it” had come through the phone. It flat out startled me. I pressed the number 5 and after the number tone I heard that hissing “don’t do it” again and even more profound than the first time. I pressed the 7 and then the hissing said quite plainly “do NOT do it” and I defiantly pressed the 8. “HANG UP THE PHONE!” came blaring through this time in an echoing voice like the crazy guy on the radio when he is pretending to be Satan. I started pressing the last four digits quicker. 3 … 9 … 3 and then I heard a click before I could press the last one. “Tap, tap, tap” came from the door and I could have hit my head on the ceiling I jumped so high.
I did not even want to turn around at this time. I was simply listening to my heartbeat. It was a nice beat, and it reminded me of a song I had heard by Def Leppard, or some other band that did not have a particularly talented drummer. The Scorpions? I took a deep breath and simply hoped that it was my nerves and not an actual tapping at my back door. You never know I had heard of people’s imaginations driving them to a near heart attack and that matched the scenario I found myself in now. I had no such luck when the “Tap, tap, tap” came on the glass from my back door again, and I closed my eyes for a moment before I started turning around. The damn curtains on the window obscured my view from this safe distance and it was going to force me to walk over and check. I really did not want to.
I slowly walked towards the door. It was pathetic as I write this, but my nerves were shot, and I gently pulled the curtains apart, and then I very timidly peeked out the window to see Mary’s face looking back at me. As I reached for the handle to open the door the phone rang so I grabbed it while letting Mary in the door. There was a part of all of this that was getting rather silly in my mind as I was going through it all but I was back to the reality of my situation came shooting back to me when, “Don’t touch her!” shot at me through the phone and then there was a hang up. I looked at her to see if she had heard that and I did not have a choice in the matter since the very first thing she did when she walked in the door was grab my hand. She then simply walked past me and sat down at my kitchen table as if she had been over here a million times before. What made this particularly strange is that she had never been in this house before.
Those that are wondering how she even knew her way to my house would not think it so strange if you lived in a town this small. You do not even have to know everyone to know who lives in every house in town. Directions are given that way and nobody ever thinks much of it, except the new people in town when everyone scurries to find out their name so as not to get lost. I have it a lot easier than most being the waitress at the only diner in town and one of the only two restaurants in town, come to think of it, I get everyone updating me on these things. It is like I am the unofficial tour guide since eventually a stranger that got lost on the way out of Wichita is either going to find me or Reggie at the only gas station in town. I could tell you where Mary lives anyway and I have never been there, so it is fair, and now that I have explained all of that you know why it was only moderately strange and not strange. Strange is reserved for the voices barking out orders over the telephone at 10pm on a school night.
“So, what brings you out at this time of night Mary?” I asked trying to hide my shock at it all, “Would you like some coffee?” I then added as my manners kicked in. I did not want to bring up how odd it was that I was trying to call her but a spooky voice on the phone was trying to prevent that. Wouldn’t that have been a real conversation starter huh?
She looked at me rather strangely still and started talking as if I hadn’t even said anything, “I wanted to come over and talk to you about your friend Lou, since I have a feeling that you figured out who he actually is,” she said to me in place of a nice salutation and some small talk about the weather. How refreshing is that? Nothing like being a little blunt, so do not hold back Mary why not start offering opinions while you are at it? I did nod at her as I very cautiously watched where I stepped in this conversation. She decided to continue, “Do you really know who he is though?” she asked with a certain uncomfortable glare in her eyes. After I nodded again with a bit of an exasperated look on my face she asked pointedly, “Who?”
My wonderfully jaded mind started setting up the defense mechanisms required to deal with angels and demons, and a stranger named Lucifer. The wiseass tone in my voice was quite apparent, but this was my house and I don’t have to play schoolhouse rock with anyone in it, “I have an idea, why don’t you tell me what conclusions you have formulated Mary and I will tell you if you are right?” and let me tell you that the forced charm she came in with disappeared in an instant. I was happy to see what I was dealing with though even if it did not translate into my face. In all obviousness I had retorted this back at her with a warning tone in my voice and a bit of a grimace that would have made Jake cower from the mere sight of it. I know since he has told me that it looks like I am staring through him, and he hates it.
Mary was not impressed at all with the tone and the look. She just stared back at me expecting to add to what I had just said, and I defiantly did not, and more over I ended up crossing my arms to make it known that I was done talking. It does not matter who you are but when I woman in her late twenties crosses her arms like this it means that she is ready to take stubborn to a new level. It would not compete with my grandmother, but she was a trained professional at being stubborn having eleven older brothers and sisters. She trained me well. She then decided to speak and it was in a sing song sort of holier than thou speak that I expected all along, “I’m sorry but I had assumed that you had figured out that he was none other than the devil himself, but obviously you have been taken under his charms,” and trust me she made sure it was extra judgmental. She looked at me a bit fiercely as she then started in with, “I don’t know what brought him here among us, but I sure am not going to sit idly by while he takes apart the very fabric of our society!” and I have to admit there was a little too much Charlton Heston, in the way she said that, so I started chuckling a bit.
Now unfortunately in my mind I am the smartest thing since Einstein some days, and it is my downfall. Here was a perfect example of a time when I did not know crap aside from human nature. I was right in the way I surmised that something was off about her, and by “off” I mean far more off than usual. What I did not know could fill the Pacific Ocean and had I been as clever as I thought I was I would have played along a little less aggressively, and as I look back here, I feel like an idiot. If you are reading this, you might wonder why and that is simply because I know what happens next and you do not. I also know that at the time I knew nothing of what was going on and I had no real-world experience for all the out of this world experience I was getting. I did snap out of my false confidence for anyone that is worrying about me. Besides as I told you all, I am still here writing this so Lord does not need to tell you that I survive. I wish I could say the same for a lot of others though. Oh, forgive me as I go off like this, I am just trying to get the whole ordeal strait.
I stood there calculating what I was going to say next because seriously having Mary sitting here in a tizzy about Lou is not going to do the world any favors. I was worried about her in all of this now, because there are plenty of martyrs in this world to a variety of causes. I know Mary well enough to know that her favorite cause is dealing with evil, and she might know some things, but I might know more, and that is no place to be in this world. The looming apocalypse or whatever scenarios my mind was hashing up at the time did not allow for the assumption that it was going to be any better with Mary running around screaming about the sky falling. I hate the thought of lying but I had been getting so good at it as of late, so I attempted to make light of it all by saying, “If he’s the devil then where is his pointy tail, and the red horns then?”
Now I was about to get put in my place and I truly deserved it, “You should have paid attention in Sunday school, and you might have learned that Lucifer was the most beautiful angel. His beauty was what led to his extreme vanity and the God complex that resulted in that. Vanity is the deadliest sin after all Anna, and it all starts with the devil!” she practically shouted across my kitchen, and it pissed me off to no avail. Partly because I was shown up, and to be honest in my own mind I was the devil expert now, but mostly because my son was asleep upstairs, and I wanted to keep him that way.
I shot back under my breath, “You need to keep your voice down, because Jake is asleep upstairs,” of course my mind was still reeling from her stating that vanity was the deadliest sin and here I because it is my vanity telling me I was the devil expert. They should put that on my grave or something, “and don’t start with how everyone needs to know what you think you know either,” and that really cut open a vein on her because her eyes went wide as if she was offended to the very core.
She did keep her voice down at least when she started, “Nobody can know what I know Anna, I have seen far more than I ever care to, and I have learned far more than most will ever care to acknowledge,” I was really starting to get that Chronicles of Narnia feeling about all of this and was feeling rather justified in not wanting to talk to her, but she reached into her pocket and grabbed a folded up piece of paper with the seal of a crucifix on it pressed into melted wax, and the creepy factor went up about 10 notches in the room. She held out her hand with the palm up and the paper outstretched to me and said, “Go ahead Anna, and read this.”
I started towards her with a bit of a pissed off distaste in my mouth to snatch the paper from her hands. My mind was yelling at me from within as I heard the venomous whispering hiss only menacing more like yelling “don’t!” and my outreached arm stopped. She pressed forward with her own hand as if she just wanted it in my hand. My mind was also replaying the way she so piously said my name repeatedly, but then it hit me like a ton of bricks even as I snatched my hand back moments before she got the paper into my hand. She had been saying my name far more than she has ever said my name and more importantly she had said the wrong name all those times. How do I lose track of these things? I have been so transfixed with the number of times I have heard Lou call me Anna and how much I adored the sound of it when he did. There was some truth to what Mary said in all of this?
I started reaching for the paper again, as if my own doubts about what is and is not the truth were taking on a life of their own again and it was starting a battle within me. The only thing that saved me in this instance was a very curious thing, that I would not have noticed a less jaded day ago but was screaming at the new and improved me. That wax seal on the paper, was unbroken, and that is very strange to say the least, I have seen wax seals before, because I am only part hick on my mother’s side, but here I was faced with a fact that I remembered. Things are sealed so you know if someone else read it or not. You reseal something without ruining the seal, and that left two conclusions here. Mary had not actually read the paper, or she had put that seal on it herself so that nobody else would have read it. I did not like either so again I withdrew my hand.
Mary was not happy about this in the least. She had not expected such a battle to get that paper into my hand, and more over she was thinking up ways to get that paper into my hand as I finally had decided I did not want it. She was not looking like the sweet old lady I had gotten to know that had a few quirks that people tended to tease. She looked like anything but any of that. She was turning cunning and shrewd, and it did not fit her since she was always passive and resolute in what she knows. She was also now starting to walk towards me and if memory serves I only had about two feet of back up space before I was against a wall, and I did not want to know what was going to happen then.
“Hello Mary, what brings you here this evening to wake me up?” Jake said as he idled by me to attempt to grab the slip of paper from Mary, which made her jump about two feet backwards and about trip over the chair she had gotten out of to start menacing me the way she had. I was instantly scared for Jake’s safety and sanity, but I would be lying if I told you that there was not a ton of relief that he had walked in. There was a certain self-assuredness in the way he walked, and I will be damned if for some reason his very presence did not terrify Mary. I could not put my finger on it, and I simply stood there in amazement waiting to see what happens. I was feeling quite comfortable in the fact that in this little kitchen I could get to her quick enough if she did anything that threatened my son. Mama hen gets brave when there is a chick around.
“This is for your mother and not for you Jake,” she hissed back at him, but Jake just kept walking towards her making her back up very strangely and looking almost terrified as she did it. “This is adult stuff Jake, and I don’t think you need to be involved in it,” and I even noticed a bit how her voice started very randomly getting sweeter, as if she were forcing herself to be as such. I sidled myself around the wall until I managed to get myself between her and the door. I do not know why exactly I did that, but I knew instinctively that I did not want her leaving here just yet. Of course, it was a stupid decision in retrospect since that was when she knocked me over trying to get to the door.
With a maniacal look on her face she lunged through me and that was the last thing I remembered when my body hit the floor with a hard thud even though I did get my hands in front of me. I was dazed at what had just happened and my eyes were locked closed out of survival instinct. Reflexes are strange that way, and I took a quick moment to listen for one of their voices to see what was going on. I was not worried about what was going on above me because it was obvious that Mary was gone the second her feet crossed the threshold of the back door. I did not hear it slam shut after she made it through and the spring holding that sucker onto the frame is as strong as they come. Tornadoes you see do that to a construction job in these parts. I figured I better get my eyes open and see what is going on; the lack of screaming did not make it any easier in fact it made it scarier.
On my hands and knees, I did not see the floor like I should have but I was staring at the pavement. My hands hurt as though I had just scraped them on the pavement as well and looking up again, I could see down the road in front of the diner, and the sounds of firemen going crazy all around the street were fresh in my ear. I should have quit while I was ahead, but it was daylight out and to the left of me I could see the smoldering remains of my diner. I knew instantly that I had just hit the ground from when I had charged into Darius but thank God he was nowhere in sight. I was going to find out what happened to the 12 hours I lost; the hard way even though I wished to know about what was going on at my house. I have this bad habit of wishing the worst on myself, don’t I?
I propped myself up on my knees and assessed the situation. The diner did not just lose its windows this time, but I could tell by looking at it that it had imploded as opposed to exploding. The way everything had blown into itself and then somehow flew upward is amazing to see. I had seen some of those skyscraper and hotel implosions on the Learning Channel, but it is far more impressive in person. I should be ashamed of myself for kneeling here and admiring the handiwork of a lunatic, but you must give credit where it is due regardless. Now that I think about it that is borderline foolish, and it played into a lot of what happens next ... To be continued.
Comments
Post a Comment