The Convoy
By: Drew Bell
Copyright 2010 Drew Bell
Prologue
“Dear Journal,
I had the most bizarre dream again; this time it was different from the rest. I woke up a few times to shake the image out of my head, but each time I closed my eyes I found that sleep overtook my consciousness. Again I was floating weightlessly over some sort of vista; below me rolled endless hills and structures. I had feathers, all over my arms, like I was a bird. I took a perch on a tree and looked through a window; in front of me was something strange, something alien. I try as hard as I can to see clearly what this monster is, but then suddenly my dream shifted. This is where it was different; there was a white flash and I could see nothing. I don’t know what it all means, but these nightmares have been getting more and more severe, I can only pray that the clarity of the dreams mean that I am gaining control over them. I pray that I won’t lose myself to these dreams. I feel a tugging at my heart, as though I am being magnetized towards something, I only hope that this time my heart isn’t being prepared for disappointment again.”
I need a rekindling of excitement in my life,
Lalia Tarrus
Chapter 1
Miles felt cold; he stood in an enormous empty room. The floor beneath his was tiled green and red. The walls were made of large grey bricks, but what caught Miles’ eyes was the tapestry before him. The tapestry hung against the brick, the weave seemed to ripple and move, as though it were liquid. Miles reached out to touch it. His alarm sounded and he woke.
The day began like any other for Miles Hearst, he first heard the alarm go off at 7:10, a good 20 minutes before the time he actually needed to be awake, allowing him plenty of opportunity to stretch and scrape the crust rimming his eyes. Ordinarily he would wallow deeper into his comic-book based comforter, then eventually (always before 7:30) force himself out of his captain’s bed into the time-worn slippers waiting at the bed side. Miles typically gave himself approximately five minutes to make his bed, the pillows do not touch the ground, and to go pee (this is occasionally first, depending on how thirsty he was at 9:30 before he went to sleep the night before). Miles usually splashed water on his face, change into the shirt and associated shorts (always the ones on top) and because it was a Tuesday he still had a red shirt (his favorite color) to wear. He would take to the stairs, running the first several steps and jumping the last three steps to the bottom, (last time he jumped four steps he nearly twisted his ankle and stepped on his dog’s tail). He would pour approximately five cups of cereal (usually a raisin-bran or healthy alternative) into a bowl that usually can hold four cups of cereal (but hey, he is a growing boy). He ordinarily would run up the stairs (after he have sipped the milk at the bottom of his bowl) then brush my teeth, failing to spit out the toothpaste at the end; simply because he felt that if he were to die by toothpaste then that was simply fate he could resign to. He had sort of resigned himself to an obituary reading “He had a little bit too much fluoride in his system”. The mirror showed a mostly average-in-appearance seventeen-year-old; he had just begun to grow out of his awkward lankiness. To his satisfaction his fair-skinned complexion was clear of the acne that had plagued it for the past two years, one of his teeth hung crookedly from the top at an angle. Miles’ mother had insisted he get a haircut, his bangs hung loosely against his forehead, he probably would give in to her demands after school. Regardless, he would run a few wet fingers through his thick brown hair, twist the few hairs he had on his chin (he prided himself on growing a beard, in high school this is a really big deal). Miles was by no means handsome; once or twice he had been called cute, but not lately. Miles blew himself a kiss in the mirror and headed back downstairs. He grabbed his backpack, and yes, he did forget to grab his Biology textbook, and no, he did not finish his Spanish homework.
Miles lived in Pyschque, California which was conveniently located close enough to Los Angeles to get horrific smog but not close enough to make Christmas shopping any easier for his parents. Miles sat in his afternoon Spanish class, slowly dying of boredom (which was really little more than a veil for his lack of understanding and the frustration beneath that), his best friend Seymour is picking at particularly gross pimple on his shoulder. He was in the back corner; it was safe for him to look out the windows wishing that somehow he could better appreciate the cool autumn weather, to be more precise; he wanted to enjoy the weather outside of the classroom. Actually, he just wanted class to be over. As he sat next to the window, slowly banging his greasy head against the perfectly clean window, he noted a small glimmer of light. A black bird, probably a crow, and perches it’s self on the branch right outside the window. The bird turns its head towards Miles, its eyes unmoving from their target. Miles pressed his face against the glass, in the light it looked as though the bird had blue eyes. He tapped his friend Seymour to get his attention; certainly a blue-eyed crow was more important than the armpit stain he was checking out.
“Seymour, look at this. Seriously, this bird has really sweet eyes. They’re blue.” Miles said in amazement, he pressed his fingers harder into Seymour’s back.
He turned back towards the bird; it looked back at him, and then fluttered its wings.
The crow took flight, and it chose to kamikaze into the window next to Miles. The bird’s impact broke the monotonous voice of Miles’ teacher. Miles jumped in his seat, his teacher turned from the blackboard to eye Miles;
“Miles! Is there a problem?” She asked with an eyebrow arched.
Miles nodded “No.” He turned to look out at the window.
The bird continued to attack the window. It began to shed feathers and scraped its bird feet against the thick glass, the scratches were deep and frightening. Miles cried out loud;
“Mrs. Hoffman, there is this crow and he keeps hitting the window.”
“Miles Hearst, stop distracting the class. I have had enough.” She replied sharply.
Miles looked to Seymour for support, he gave him a look, this look frightened him the most; he didn’t understand what Miles was talking about. The crow was squawking loudly, it’s scraping echoing throughout the room, but not a single one of Miles’ classmates turned to face the attacking bird. Miles was alone; he anxiously began to shuffle in his seat.
He blurted out loud; “Doesn’t anybody see the crazy bird attacking the window?”
A few of his classmates whispered; “Anybody see a crazy kid?”
He had enough and threw his textbook, Spanish: A Simple Language for Simple People, at the student who mocked him, and because he spent more time (a lot more time) playing Risk than Football, Basketball, and Baseball combined it hit the girl sitting behind the intended target. Unfortunately the girl it hit was the really hot blonde girl who moved to Psychque from Australia, she had a sweet German accent.
“Wait, its Australia isn’t it?” Miles had once foolishly asked her, trying to impress him with his broad expanse of linguistic skill.
Either way, he managed to completely make a fool of himself, so he ran for the door and out of the classroom. Mrs. Hoffman huffed loudly; she clacked her heels as she quickly picked up the phone and dialed for the school’s disciplinarian.
“Shit!” he said out loud, figuring that if he was going to be in trouble he might as well say his first swear word.
Miles ran towards the street, thinking perhaps he could hide in the mall.
“The community college just got out for lunch, and I am gaining some muscle by playing Wii Fit, I could easily be mistaken for a college student.” Miles thought.
The Crow intercepted him. It began.
“Leave me alone!” He shouted at the blue-eyed crow.
The crow flew at him, its feathers scatte
red, and Miles flailed his arms to swat it away. His whole vision went black; feathers covered all that he could see. He didn’t feel any pain, but the fear when it unleashed its claws and dug deep into his arms brought him to hysterics. He continued to scream and move all around, flailing his arms. The bird was constantly squawking in a noise that most closely resembled a child screaming. Miles’ tears streamed and his mouth gaped open. He swatted at the bird to no avail; the bird moved quickly enough to be everywhere at once. Then the attack stopped. The feathers settled, Miles could finally see something other than the black. He gingerly felt his face, which had been attacked, yet felt nothing, he was fine. He looked down at his hands expecting blood and feather fragments.
Miles was made of translucent crystal.
“I’ve completely lost it.” He thought.
He turned to face the direction from which he had run. Mrs. Hoffman and the Disciplinarian were standing in the school’s courtyard looking for me; their eyes wandered over past the direction where he was standing. They saw nothing, he was invisible to them.
Miles shouted to them: “Mrs. Hoffman, Mr. Droidt! I am over here. I’m sorry.”
They didn’t hear him. He tried to move towards them, he looked at his feet, looking for an explanation for why he couldn’t move; there was a pile of black feathers weighing him down. He tried to lift his foot, but the feathers began to solidify into crystal as well, he couldn’t move.
“Move, move.” He tried to will his foot into motion.
“What is going on?” He asked the air, between sobs, his eyes rimmed-red from the fount of water streaming from them.
His whole invisible body began to crystallize; he was going to die a human chandelier. The school bell rang, signaling students to be let out for lunch.
“This is my last chance.” Miles realized.
“Someone help me!” He cried to the students who passed him.
Miles tried to turn my head, but his neck wouldn’t give. He tried to wiggle his fingers, and then he realized that neither his fingers nor his eyes would move.
He prayed out loud; “God, I’m sorry for swearing. I’m sorry for looking at that blonde girl’s butt-crack. Don’t let me die like this.”
Miles focused all of his being into that next five minutes; he strained every part of his body that could move, he willed that somehow my crystalline form would give way back to his freckled and oily skin.
The other students looked through him, he was envious of one guy’s blank stare, his bulging eyes were a perfect round representation of something Miles was certain he would never have again. One girl ran past him, a red homecoming balloon succumbing to its master’s will, her elbow made contact with Miles’ and caused a shockwave of pain. If he had tears left they would have streamed, if he still had a voice it would scream. They taunted him with their freedom.
“It will end this way. At least I tried, I was so close.” He resigned, wishing with all his being that he could escape this crystal tomb.
“I had always envisioned myself dying with my wife like they do in “The Notebook”. Miles thought as he looked outward at all the other students milling around, one of his peers used a Fruit-by-the-Foot as an Indiana Jones whip.
He didn’t close his eyes; he simply stopped seeing as his eyes crystallized over.
Miles was left with one chance, his lungs began to quiver inside; he knew, somehow, what was about to happen. He knew that he would want his eyes to be closed for what was about to happen.
Based off of CLERGY 1’s radiation scans, a planet just went supernova. There was a flash, the radiant light spread from a single point and eradicated all life from the face of the Earth. It was nearly instantaneous (.06 Seconds for the elimination of a planet), and its point of origin was a seventeen-year-old glass boy in what used to be called Psychque, Ca.