Thunder growled and
dark clouds strobed between platinum whips lashing over the beharmed
farm house. The powerline between the barn and home moaned and swung
side to side. The telephone poles leaned and the wires strained.
Leaves and debris smacked the windows of Elysia’s bedroom. The
wallpaper wrinkled with sweat. The ceiling fan slowed the fog on the
windows. Dozens of spotless lady beetles herded in upper corners. The
retired man unbuttoned his shirt and faced a fan towards him. Three
ran in the room. He ran others in every room. Still he felt too hot.
A knock fell at the front of the house. He reached for his gun, and
wiped the condensation away from his window. A man dressed in a
yellow neon vest stood by. Elysia opened and shut the bedroom door
quick. He walked through his array of fan blades down the hall,
passed through and out another door as fast as his muscles carried
him, then into the parlor where he kept several more fans spinning.
His shirt flared, his sagging flesh drooped like rotting milk from
holes in the container. Shrapnel scars and old burn marks decorated
his chest. One nipple burned off years before. Ever since his first
electric shock as a teenager, no body hair grew below his neck, but
his aged skin toughened like ash tree bark, and darkened with benign
cancers.
He opened the front
door. Warm gusts blew into the house. Elysia pulled the utility man
inside. “Get in god damn it, you’re letting the cool out!”
The utility man took
his fogging glasses off. Elysia recognized him. “Jasper, what are
you doing here? Doubtful the plant wants me back.”
“We’re shutting
down power. The storm is coming and it will cause damage.”
“yeah right. When
I was in your place I never shut down people’s power- no matter a
few sprinkles.”
“There’s record
flooding in the South County. Three tornadoes spotted around Milton township.
You should be in the basement.”
“I'm not afraid of
any tornado. And if you shut my power down I’ll hook my own
generator up.”
“You do that, your
circuits will blow.”
“Damn it, I was
rewiring with the neighborhood power grid before my wisdom teeth came
in. I’ll be fine. Fine.”
The utility man
shrugged. “Yeah, I remember. But you're out here living by yourself
now- What are you going to do when the windmills or solar panels
start powering your house?”
“Over my dead
body.”
The utility man
shook his head told him to be careful. His radio came in and out of
static. The voice on the other end battled through the noise to get
his message through. Thunder collapsed against the ceiling. Dust and
asbestos fell to the hardwood. Elysia held the door open and told him
to hurry out. Bits of moisture peppered the dirt. Frothing clouds of
black and purple strangled the sky and rolled onward. Pebbles of hail
struck the dirt and bounced from the siding to the weed garden. The
utility man covered his head as he ran out to his truck. The flood
beams illuminated a carpet of fog growing over the muddy field.
Elysia slammed the door shut. The storm grasped the property like a
crane claw and broke open.
A blinding
spearhead of lightning out-burned the lights in the house. Shadows of
galloping war steeds rushed across the floor and walls in the brief
flash. When the windows dimmed again, the house remained dark. The
fans ringed. Pins scraped against plates. The motors whined. The
wheels slowed, and the rotating air sunk to the floor. Elysia
grumbled, and blindly felt around his home, taking short steps to
every drawer in search for flashlight.
As a boy, he was
known for two things. Possessing a prodigy level understanding of how
electric power worked like most astronomers know the stars- and
persisting rumors that he stole small pets, cats, puppies, tied them
up in the barn, and attached battery chargers to them and then buried
them alive when bored of them. Neighbor’s pets frequently went
missing. Strange lights and smells came from the barn late at night
until early in the morning. Once he moved away to study electrical
engineering, the strange noises and lights stopped. The barn smelled,
but the family never let anyone inside. Pets stopped vanishing.
Elysia went through
a drawer, but he found no flashlight, instead he found all the
missing pet posters. He lifted the grainy photos of cats, rats,
little golden retrievers with their eyes still shut to the window
light. He made a fist and squeezed hard. His tests never provided
results. Elysia put them back, and went back to rummaging. Once he
recovered a flashlight, he found the switch did nothing. He grumbled
about the heat as he passed through the hall, and the kitchen again.
He smelled something in the rain. Metallic- freshly minted dimes. He
went through drawers, through old fur and knives made from deer
hooves. Shotgun shells and boxes of .22 bullets. Loose wires and
cords. Then at last, batteries. But the pack didn't have four he
needed. He tossed the flashlight inside and cursed as lightning
flashed again. This time he saw phantoms standing outside staring in.
When the lightning flash subsided and shallow gray resumed, rain
drops started to wash down the windows and rail against the ceiling. Fruit sized hail shells sized dented
the siding. Among the rushing of storm waters and winds, he heard
screaming rise like fog from the dirt. He listened a little, because
the screaming did not arise from the bottoms of human lungs. He knew
the sound well, so he took out his hearing
aid, and when into the pantry. Mice scurried away from the trap he
set from them. Old piles of spilled rice squirmed with small worms.
He moved through the bottom shelf. Behind the ice cream maker that
almost took off his ring finger, and the cotton candy machine jammed
with locks of hair, he found a lantern.
He held his breath as he
opened the oil pan. A shiny layer floated at the bottom. Triumph
filled his lungs. When he turned the pin, oil reeked, but no flame
ignited. He tossed it into the trash, and opened the doors to let
light move. He kicked the fans out of his way. His white hair strands
fuzzed into plumes of pillow stuffing. Thunder cracked over the
house. Nova light emitted through the windows once more. A shadow
stood in the middle of the window light, but faded back into the
dimness like smoke. The beetles dropped from the ceiling one by one-
and crunched under Elysia’s feet.
His steps fell gentle in the
dark. He left the tiny shells pop beneath him, until one bug bit him-
he barked, and inspected the bottom of his foot. A bulb of blood
swelled by the head of a loose nail sticking from his heel. Blood
stayed in until he pulled the nail out. Warm drips flooded the
peeling layers of white, dead skin on his soles. He held the wound,
but felt no pain. He only felt wet.
He dragged his bleeding foot to
the cellar door. The knob felt like ice against his sweating palm. He
turned the handle, and the door fell open. Cold air rose up his pant
legs. Then he felt the snare of the nail, and pain throbbed his foot.
He fell back to the kitchen sink, where he wrapped a dishrag around
the wound to suffocate the bleeding, but he saw by the window light
that he held only half the nail in his hand. The end broke off in his
foot. He scowled, and swallowed the nail head. Limping, he took his
way down the stairs, one by one, descended down steps nailed to
narrow support beams screwed into cracked cinder-blocks. They creaked
and bent under his weight. The dark floor smiled at him. It held its
arms out to catch him. He held onto the railing, the bleating of
animals grew louder with each step. He heard the blood in their
necks, the vessels straining, the suffocation in their lungs, the
tearing of voice boxes and the constriction of neck muscles- until
his foot touched the basement floor. All the sounds of upstairs
muffled. Chills rode up his ankles.
He tried the lights out of habit,
but nothing turned on. He went through boxes under the stairs,
tossing aside old clothes and pictures of people he didn’t
remember, until he found wax sticks. He took them to his work table,
where he used his OA torch to cast a light he used to ignite the
wick. He shut the torch off, and covered the candle in a tag to keep
the wax of burning his hand. He followed the aura to where he kept
the generator- inside of the old bathtub. He hooked it to the house,
and when he snapped the lights on again the basement lit up. He blew
out the candle, and felt accomplished, but exhausted. He looked
beyond his work bench to his antique. It warmed his heart, he went
and sat inside of it. The heavy chair felt like a throne of
carpenter’s wood. Peels of leather wore from the arm straps. The
burn marks from previous inmates remained strained in the seat and
back rest. He carved every name executed in the chair on the arm
rests. He bought the chair from the prison once the state outlawed
use of the chair. He kept it in working condition, though he kept
nothing connected to a source of power. He patted it like a trophy,
and cleaned the dust from the headcap. Distant memories came back of
the brief year he spent as the state’s secretary of energy. More
people fell into the electric chair than ever before in that year. The best day, he recalled fondly, when he got to pull the switch on John Joubert.
His generator
roared. He went upstairs- took pliers from a drawer and stuck the
needle head into his wound, picked away clumps of red clots. Blood
poured out as he dug the pliers into his heel. He bit until a tooth
cracked, and out he pulled the point of the nail- one inch long. He
limped to the bathroom where he put two fat, pink band-aides on his
heel. The pain idled, but the animals screamed to out perform the
wind. The storm passed over head. He saw it flash across the county.
They kept screaming. He smelled melting copper.
Elysia buttoned up
his shirt, repossessed his gun, and went out into he trickles of
rain. The fog began to rise as he walked to the barn, and covered the
entire farm before he made it to the door.
The fog didn’t
clear until the next morning. The utility man came because the power
lines from the house to the barn fell, and when he stepped into the
yard he saw bare feet sticking from the mud, and pale cheek bones
gawking, steam drifted from his mouth, and his eye sockets burned to
blistering scabs. The utility man called for the coroner, but only
after they bagged Elysia's body up did he notice that no power
ran through the downed wires. He went into the house, and found no
power inside. He found the fuse box in the cold of the basement and
saw them all burned out. The generator ran, but its power went
nowhere. But a source of heat radiated in the basement, along with
the smell of cooked bacon. He turned and followed the heat. Warmer,
warmer through drying sheets hanging from the ceiling- until he found the antique. Fresh ashes rested on the seat.
Melted flesh dripped down the backrest. The headcap simmered. When the utility an touched it, a shock caught his finger tips, and he yanked his hand away as the sensation tingled his hand. He never grew hair on that hand again.
