Chapter 102: [19] Close Encounters of the Bus Kind 19 [From Beyond Arc]

Close Encounters of the Bus Kind

[19]

Just simply calling what burst out from Eva screaming felt desperately short of what rippled through the group like an emotional earthquake. Pain, in human sounds and inhuman ones, tore through the air.

Mothers separated from their children for the last time knew that sound. Children sitting with the eerily cold and still bodies of their parents knew that sound. The sound of lives ripped apart. The sound that could launch hundreds of tears. Anguish and pure, untempered agony. It erupted from Eva followed by blasting fury.

Anything that happened now didn’t matter to her anymore. She stomped into the darkness with her hand out, willing some tiny measure of what her volleyball coach had done with that tile to overwhelm and tear apart the beast, spill out its unholy entrails and give back the person who mattered most to her, no matter what was left.

Focusing every molecule of air within her lungs, Eva burst out words that shook everything.

“GO TO HELL, YOU PIECE OF SHIT, AND FUCKING BURN FOR ALL ETERNITY!”

All the girls felt a strange, ruthless wave wash over them as though a miniature explosion had been summoned through Eva‘s words.

Moments later, a fire to push back the shadows erupted from the nearest tendril and flowed to the central mass. Everyone looked on in wide shock as the beast twisted and shrieked with animal ferocity diminishing to hopeless wails. Several messy wet sounds cascaded down, along with billows of smoke and the oppressive smell of sulfur and brimstone. Not much remained when the chaos finally settled.

Breathing raggedly, Eva bent against the wall, not caring right then about how hopelessly dirty it looked and felt. Luna flashed wide and curious eyes. Trying to hold on to a breath with her voice ragged and cracking, Eva simply said, “Oh my God. My God….” She coughed long and hard, yanking the handkerchief away from her mouth and bending over against the wall like she was about to throw up. A second bout continued as she struggled to catch her breath.

Clearing her throat, Erin was the first of the others to manage words. But, even then, she had no idea how she was doing it and whether she might break down in the next few seconds. She stated simply, “We… need… to get… out of here.”

Eva vigorously shook her head. “Not without her. No way. It didn’t have her for very long… Whatever happened. She might be wounded over there. She might. Just some scratches just just… she could be okay. I can’t leave her I can’t leave her. I have to take her back, whatever there is, whatever whatever they… for her mom, for her family, for everyone. I have to see…”

With Erin’s careful support, Eva staggered towards the wretched, ruined darkness full of unknown horrors. She tried her best not to breathe through her nose, but the aromas were already fading with only a faint sense of sulfur remaining. Holding her recovered handkerchief to her mouth did very little to help. Despite Nadia offering up as much light as she could, it was still desperately difficult to see anything. Tears flowed freely from Eva’s face. She didn’t bother wiping them away, and she struggled to see what remained of Gina.

“I finally found you guys, on my gosh. I thought I was done for, but I lost it. Come on, let’s… what’s going on?”

Turning back the other direction, the girls were greeted with an impossible sight: Gina standing there with her phone at her side projecting a diffuse beam. Her head and golden hair were streaked with a splash of blood dripping down to her eyebrows but beginning to dry. Her forearms looked scratched and oozing as she fussed and glanced around the group.

Breathing harshly through her nose, Eva swung around and hurled hissing spit at the new arrival. “Who the hell are you and what the hell are you?!”

This second Gina looked back with wide, terrified eyes and stumbled as though struck. “What? It…it’s me. What happened? How long was I gone? Time skip? My name is Regina Louise Ferris, like the wheel and like Bueller. You’re my best friend. At least, you used to be. I think you are. I hope you are. I remember all about the clay willy in third grade. If you need proof. I hope…Eva?”

Eva‘s hands dropped. Her eyes were wide and unblinking. She shook slightly and her hands moved about as though she had forgotten how to use them. Odessa looked similarly shocked with her hand poised over her stomach. Erin felt like a statue but also a leaf that might blow away at the first sign of a breeze.

Nadia was the first to say what everyone was holding inside, “You…died.” Gina glanced over in confusion, as though uncertain if Nadia was talking about her, to her, or to someone else that she hadn’t noticed yet.

“What? Dead? No no no no no no no. It looked kind of crazy, and I probably fell over everything completely covered in tetanus along the way. And it felt like I ran off the entire world, but I somehow got away from that horrible creature. Like it just went blink and was gone without a trace. Dimensions, I don’t know. I don’t ever want to see it again. But not dead. I’m not gonna be the second person in the area to die in a Sears. Nothing against Liz, I’m sure she was happy to work here… when she was alive. Here in this… Wait, what?”

This second Gina’s puzzlement soon rippled to the entire group as they looked around and realized the long spooky hallway they were in had suddenly changed. It looked far more like a human structure, like the hallway as they first approached it. The ceiling was still torn to heck with wires and insulation showing but the grime was not quite as thick. Scattered papers and dusty fragments littered the ground at their feet and… not too far behind Gina appeared a simple emergency exit doorway with the bold warning that an alarm would sound if opened.

Exuberantly, Gina dashed towards it. Everyone else was locked in place by what felt like a dozen different confusions and fears. Nadia well remembered how things turned out with the last emergency door. She couldn’t face that again. Too many disappointments in a row. It was like the universe had designated her its chew toy. The love of her dreams lost in terror about unseen monsters, lives rewritten, new siblings vanishing immediately, bewildering sights, ghosts, and things far worse. The kind of horrible fantasies she just wanted to sink into on a quiet drive, without any fretful thoughts. What would this next threshold bring?

Turned out that it brought an absolutely overwhelming blast of light as though they had just stepped onto the surface of the sun. For a brief moment, Nadia contemplated that it was a door opening right onto the sun and they were all about to be vaporized. But, despite cries of discomfort from Gina about the sudden brilliant blast, she and they remained. Furthermore, the oppressive, musty, choking air around them cleared somewhat with the faint traces of a breeze.

That felt like enough. All the girls rushed to their feet and scampered towards the opening with their hands sheltering their aching eyes. And this time, she gladly embraced Luna’s insistent tugging.

The brisk, overwhelming, cleansing outdoors was awash with pure light. The sky still had several overcast patches and a general haze that somehow still hadn’t burned off from earlier, but it was brighter than anything any of them had seen in what felt like ages. They coughed and cleared their lungs while whipping off their makeshift facemasks. Eva hustled around to a planter at the edge of the walkway and finally emptied her stomach. The others felt balanced on the edge of queasy, ready to tumble off, but the fresh air soon brought calm.

It was easy to tell that they all look like a mess. None of their white or pink tops looked the color they were supposed to anymore. Odessa‘s boots were messed up and her jeans were developing holes. In fact, the only one of them who looked close to normal was Luna. She just had some stray smudges on her cheeks. Nadia felt more like Lara Croft at the end of the game than any kind of fashionista. The white cardigan was probably a total loss but at least the stretchy jeans had served with honor.

Things got ever so slightly weirder when everyone checked their belongings and was bewildered to find that none of their phones had diminished batteries lower than 90%. Eva clung to her massive, now-weathered purse, and shook her head as she gazed over at Gina. She handed out both bottles of water for everyone to polish off. Erin urged her to take the first sip, but Eva waved her hand and gestured to the mess she had made amongst the plants. She promised that the first water fountain and bathroom on this side of the shopping center would get her full attention. Each of them gave a little sigh of contentment imagining that as they drink.

The last one to partake of a bottle was Gina, who gladly handed back a generous portion for Eva to finish. Restraining a cough, Eva clasped her hands and looked friend deep in the eyes for a long time. She had just seen the light in those eyes go out, and yet here they still were. Bright, bewildered, concerned, and uncertain. But absolutely the eyes of the girl she knew her entire life. Somehow.

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Eva looked around at the other girls. Just as broken and exhausted, as though they’d been through a secret war that no one else know. She coughed once more and cleared her throat before saying, “Let’s get cleaned up. There should be some bathrooms down a bit that aren’t usually too busy.” The shaking that Nadia and Erin both felt was finally beginning to ease. They all gladly left the shadow of the abandoned Sears while Eva said one more silent prayer for what lives may have been lost in there and forgotten.

They stuck together in something resembling the volleyball rotation they used to keep safe in that horrible place. The friction and separation of before were firmly forgotten. The only tension was the uncertainty of the Gina they had brought back versus the one they left with.

The crowds regarded them like the oddest form of discarded hobos and gave them a wide berth. They didn’t care. The girls practically sprinted the last couple of steps on their way to the bathrooms, first holding down together and liberally using the water fountains at the front. Some of them splashed their faces but most waited until later to really wash up. The dripping wrecks they had become provided endless, strange amusement. They were here, they were alive.

The camaraderie and closeness lingered as the decorum of the women’s restroom settled in. Nadia lingered back and held her breath. This was the first time she’d properly been in a public one outside of cleaning it and, even then, her shift manager had a certain thing about Paul cleaning those restrooms and often assigned it to Big Ruth.

Unavoidably, he had to become the rescue party venturing into the other side to recover female relatives who couldn’t be left long on their own without risk of breaking a hip. He deeply and desperately apologized each time and kept his head down like a reverent monk averting his eyes from God. No one ever really cared. But he needed to do it.

That was a very hard thing to break from Nadia’s psyche. She immediately kept her head bowed and felt quietly but hotly flush. I didn’t take Erin long to notice, soon asking if she was alright. Nadia explained as much as she dared, while stumbling over every single one of her words. It definitely felt like a return to form for Paul’s high school years.

Erin actually worried that Nadia‘s averted gaze may have had something to do with her or the ability she appeared to have infected the others with to suddenly see the skulking terrors of the world. She let loose chuckling relief that it was something as mundane as this. Of course, she still felt sympathetic to her girlfriend’s nerves about being in a place that she didn’t often go and offered to stick close, if it helped. Nadia reached over and squeezed her hand before venturing towards the nearest open stall.

The private business was no different than usual, except for the shocking chill of the seat that left her already shaky legs feeling like they were about to dance out from under her. Everyone took their turns. Scrubbing the ruined parts of their outfits was a hopeless cause, but they each did their best. It barely seemed like several soaks in the washing machine would even do the trick. For the rest of their excursion, they would just have to suffice with looking like scruffy urchins. Heaven knew what Gina‘s mom would think of it. Perhaps they could convince her it was a new fashion trend?

From the restrooms, the next course of action was food. Food and enough energy to stop the lingering shakes, even though Erin doubted that food alone would help. The fashionable ramen restaurant had several sizable booths and a sparse crowd, as well as its own restrooms along the side. The servers at the restaurant had perfect poker faces that didn’t betray any emotions about their new guests other than an attentive interest in their orders. Eva waffled between a veggie bowl and the biggest meat mass they offered before settling on the latter. The other girls followed similarly.

After they received and inhaled their drinks, the air around them was left with so many things to say that they didn’t have words for. Gina excused herself to the restroom again as Eva pressed her hands into her chin and watched her friend scamper off.

Nadia took a deep breath and laid out her key thought. “What happened the other night… Seems to have changed more things about us than it even looked like.” Luna peered directly at Nadia.

Odessa nodded and gazed around. “Clearly. I mean, I’m grateful that whatever happened fixed my injury, but if I could’ve decided between this and like six weeks of rehab, then I would’ve just done the time. And I’m scared of Coach Janice. Almost as much as that whole thing that just happened.”

Eva planted her hands firmly on the table. “We’ve all been changed. Me too. What happened with that creature and whatever I did… That wasn’t natural. My scariest thought of all is that I willed it to some unspeakable place…and it actually went there, and that place exists.” She shuddered and vigorously rubbed her hands against the table.

Erin nodded but continued to hold her tongue. They apparently each had abilities, even though it was sharply confusing about what exactly they were. She appeared to have telekinesis, even though it wasn’t on demand, like in movies and shows, but rather during unconscious moments and instances of high emotion.

There was also the ability to see monsters, which had inexplicably passed to the group despite Nadia not seeing anything previously. Maybe it had to do with the type of entity or location? Nadia appeared to speak other languages, although she wondered if that was an alien universal translator, or some quirk of the way reality shifted. Odessa, she had no idea, but noticed she was faster than usual. However, that could just be from how the aliens repaired her. And Eva.

Whatever it was that Eva had clearly troubled her. She spoke a curse upon a terrible monster, and seemingly condemned it to an even more terrible fate. And what about Gina?

“Oh, what a relief, I was still all tensed up before, but now I’m ready for anything!”

Gina emerged from the bathroom with her hands gently wrapped around her taut tummy and relief on her face.

Then, Gina emerged from the bathroom a second time.

“Oh, what a relief…I was… what?”

Both Ginas stared at each other and regarded the other skeptically. Eva clutched her forehead. After turning around a few times, Gina and her doppelgänger immediately pointed at the other and proclaimed, “Alien copy! Jinx! Double jinx! Rocky mountain fountain coaster cloister oysters!” Only the last bit was simultaneously stumbled over by both girls.

Yes, indeed, they had all been changed.

[I have a question at the end of the chapter again to help with suggestions for where the story should go. I'm actually not that far ahead this time and I am wide open for possibilities for this particular story. Feel free to add an idea which doesn't show up in the options. Also, if you see any random typos or uncapitalized starts of sentences, please pass them along. I have to cut down on my editing due to release speed and my programs don't seem to be catching lowercase sentences. Thank you for reading!]

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