The Fall: The Rift Book I

  The girl stopped her convulsions and turned her head. She stared at him with terrified eyes, and the moment Josh saw those eyes he felt the undeniable urge to wretch. Again those five letters escaped his lips in a hoarse whisper.

  “Marcy.”

  It can’t be, he thought. She looked older than he remembered. Of course she would, you dolt, Sane Josh nagged, you haven’t seen her in seven years. He braced his palms against the windshield and forced himself to look on. There was something else wrong here. Bruises covered her face. One eyelid was puffy, almost closed. Blood trickled from her nose.

  Josh yelled to her, the full of his voice finally escaping his throat’s prison. For a second time he pounded his fists into the glass, this time drawing blood. She acted as if she didn’t notice his struggle. Instead, she held thing cradled in her arms out to him. Josh’s attack on the window ceased and he stared at it, wide-eyed.

  It was a baby girl dressed in pink. It lay splayed out and motionless in a filthy receiving blanket dotted with streaks of blood. Its skin had taken on a bluish hue, with swollen lips and blackened craters for eyes. Toothless gums colored green were exposed through a gaping hole in its cheek. The need to wretch overtook him again.

  He wrapped his fingers around the door handle and yanked as hard as he could. It wouldn’t budge. The woman who looked too much like his post-high-school sweetheart slapped her hands on the window. Her lips mimicked words—Please help our baby, please help our baby!—with soundless fury.

  “I’m trying!” Josh pleaded. He continued to tug on the handle and then resumed pelting the window with his fists for good measure. Then the Marcy look-alike pitched her head back, her body once more thrown into spasms. Josh was frozen stiff. Her face bulged and rippled, and agonized screams suddenly pierced his skull through the vacuum of sound. The skin on her throat peeled back and a bony spike poked through. Bloody spit bubbled on her lips, but her eyes never left his. She pleaded for help again, even as the spike kept growing, moving farther outward. He could see it was segmented, insect-like. Then another, larger obstruction burst from her chest, bathing the interior of the SUV in red. The baby tumbled from her lap and fell limp into the unseen area beneath the seat. Blood seeped through the seams in the doorframe.

  Josh spun around and ran, pushing his legs as fast as they could go. He heard the sound of glass shattering behind him, followed by the dull thump of something heavy landing on the automobile’s aluminum hood, and thrust on even faster, heading for the corner from which he’d come. When he rounded the bend, the road inexplicably ended. He tripped over the embankment and tumbled through a narrow line of demonic trees. Their branches reached out for him and rocks gouged his elbows. His head struck a stump.

  Finally, he came to rest in a thick patch of ferns. He waited for the world to stop spinning—which it did, eventually—and lifted his head. Despite the darkness, he could make out the silhouette of a small figure in profile, standing with one leg propped up on a tree and arms crossed like a miniature James Dean. It lowered its leg and turned, creeping gradually toward him. A thin beam of light caught it for the briefest of moments and Josh stopped breathing. Huge, skeletal mandibles snapped open and shut. A long, serpentine tongue lolled to one side. The beast leapt into the air. Josh screamed.

  Josh awoke with a start and began crying. His body ached all over, a sensation he would have, if he’d been in a better state of mind, attributed to the coming hangover, but he was in no condition to think logically. Instead he shivered and pulled his knees to his chest, chanting, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” until sleep—a relatively peaceful one this time—claimed him.

  * * *

  Josh ended up saying ‘Wednesday morning be damned’ for real the following day. He was in need of some healing, so he called into work at seven-thirty, long after his alarm had gone off, and crawled back into bed.

  He awoke for good a little past noon and tooled around the house for a few hours, eating a lunch of dry Cheerios and listening to music. When the nightmare and thoughts of Marcy wouldn’t leave his mind, he threw on his coat and took a walk in the unusually frigid late-afternoon air, heading for the place where real recuperation would take place.

  Josh’s parents lived in a nice little colonial two streets over from him and Colin. The white siding reflected sunlight a little too well and the well-manicured lawn was the only one in the surrounding neighborhood devoid of fallen leaves. Josh marched up the driveway, the lingering effects of the previous evening’s events started to fade. The expectation of a hearty meal began to break him of his mood. No ramen noodles for Josh Benoit tonight. Let the healing begin.

  “Hey, Dad,” he said, waving at his father, who stood with hose in hand, for some reason watering the side garden in the almost-freezing temperatures. Donald Benoit waved back and passed his son a goofy grin, his teeth glimmering beneath his thick mustache. Josh chuckled. At fifty years old, Don lived life with the fervor of someone half his age. In that way he was like Colin, only he stood six feet tall with a full beard that accentuated his active and restless brown eyes. He lived in a constant state of motion. “Stagnation is the next step before death,” Don was fond of saying. “Just look at sharks.”

  Josh entered the house to find his mother in the kitchen, peeling carrots over the garbage disposal. She glanced up from her task and smiled, not appearing the least bit surprised he was there.

  “How are you, honey?” she asked.

  “Not too bad, Mom. You?”

  “All right.” She lifted her hands—half-stripped carrot in one, peeler in the other—and offered them out to him. “Just cooking.”

  “I can see that,” he replied, feeling his heart lift. He so loved his mother. Gail Benoit had spent her whole life doting over her only son, and it was that unquestioned acceptance he longed for on so many of his lonely nights.

  The rapid patter of feet came from behind him and he whirled around, knowing what to expect—Sophia, his twelve-year-old sister, sprinting toward him with arms held out wide. She jumped into his arms and he held her there for a moment, fighting against her weight. She wasn’t a kid anymore.

  “Hey, Rascal!” he exclaimed. He gave her a big hug, one that she returned in kind. She buried her face in his chest and laughed. Josh’s heart picked up another few beats.

  Sophia had an energetic personality that bordered on exuberant and was the only person in his life who never considered him a failure. It had been that way since the day of her birth, when Josh began the habit of fawning over his happy-accident sister the way his mother had fawned over him. He adored her and they became best buddies, growing unusually close for siblings separated by that many years. Josh was her Daddy-Bro, she his Rascal, and no one in the world came close, not even their parents.

  They let go of each other and stood at arm’s length. Josh tousled her hair. “So, how’s school?” he asked.

  “It’s alright,” she replied with a hint of a frown. “The guys in gym keep bugging me. They kept saying I was a hottie and asking if I wanted to hook up with them. All during swimming. I keep telling the teachers it’s wrong to make us wear bathing suits in school. It’s like walking around in your underwear. I hate that place.”

  Josh squeezed her arm. “Well, you are a pretty girl, Rascal. You’re just gonna have to get used to it or tell them to back off.” He passed her a devilish smirk. “Or say you’ll sic big brother on them. That might rattle their cages.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “’Course I would. You’re always safe with me, sis.”

  She gave him another hug and said, “I know I am.”

  Dinner was tremendous, as usual. Josh devoured his food, laughing at the good-natured yet concerned expressions his mother shot him while he feasted on his roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans, and salad. It tasted delicious, and it wasn’t until his third helping of meat that his stomach barked at him.

  After supper, Josh and Sophia cleared the table while Gail washed the dis
hes and Don, ever the one to savor his food, sat and finished his meal with tiny bites, like a connoisseur of fine wine taking the slightest sips of some expensive Cabernet. It amazed Josh how every time he came over for dinner they fell back into old routines. How long had it been since he had left home? Five years? Six? This, along with the thought that came next, made him frown. You’ve never really been on your own, have you, big boy?

  When one tradition ended, the next began. Cleaning chores finished, the four of them made their way into the living room. His father sat in his recliner, using a handkerchief to dramatically wipe the corners of his mouth while his mom took her usual spot on the neighboring couch. Josh sat on the love seat opposite them with his sister on the floor between his knees. With everyone in their proper positions—the same way they’d sat after dinner since Sophia was old enough to be out of the high chair—the post-dinner conversations began.

  “So, Josh, any word about the UCLA application?” asked Don.

  Panic set in. “They’ll probably get back to me in a couple weeks,” he said. It was a complete and utter lie, but one he hoped his parents believed. If he could, he would have slapped his own face. Gotta get on that, he thought. Don’t want to let them down again.

  Sophia looked up at him, a frown on her face. “You moving away?” she asked.

  “Of course not,” said Josh as he caressed her shoulder.

  “I hope you don’t.”

  “Don’t say that, Sophia,” Gail said as she looked down on her daughter with obvious disappointment. “You don’t mean it.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  The discussion of Josh’s furthered education reached a fever pitch after that, until he successfully swayed the conversation by using the secret weapon, the one thing that piqued his father’s interest even more than his own family’s business: current events.

  “So,” Josh said, “what’s up with health care?”

  Don took off, as he was wont to do. They talked about everything from the situation in the Middle East, whether it had reached time to bring the troops home for good this time, to the polarization of the political system. This was the biggie, the grand mal of Donald Benoit’s emotional epicenter. He ranted on and on about how the States had become a nation divided, with left and right sitting in opposite corners of the ring, waiting for the bell to chime so they could come out swinging, using barbed words disguised as philosophical ideals for weapons.

  “Little do those bastards know,” said Don.

  Gail interjected, “Watch your language, Donald.”

  To which Don replied, “Sorry, darling, but anyway, little do those toadies know, but they’re working under the same trainers.”

  Josh smiled as his father seethed. It gave him a sense of completion to talk with intelligent people, individuals who would offer their opinions and still listen with interest to his, no matter how far-out and radical they might seem. It was family at its greatest…or at least at its most encouraging.

  “Did anyone hear about what’s happening in Mexico?” asked his father, his breath regained after a particularly heated tirade blasting the oil industry and their squashing of the electric car.

  “A little bit,” Josh said, “but my cable got shut off last week, so I’ve been kinda in the dark lately.”

  “Well, it looks like they’re having a revolution down there,” said Don, looking excited to be spreading word of the unknown to a rapt audience. “It’s been all over CNN the last few days. It’s some pretty disturbing stuff.”

  “What happened? Drug wars?”

  “Not sure, but I don’t think so. In fact, saying ‘what’s happening in Mexico’ doesn’t really give the situation justice. The news said there were outbreaks of fighting that started down near the South American border, and then it spread up and down the coast, into Mexico and Brazil. Guess we’d be sending troops in if they weren’t already tied up over there.” He paused. “I don’t know. Maybe it is a civil war. It’s possible. From the looks of it, it’s pretty well organized.”

  “Jihadists?” Sophia asked.

  Don squinted at his daughter and looked like he was making every effort to smile. “I really don’t know, honey.” He glanced back at Josh. “I really don’t know anything. It’s all been very hush-hush. Little details started coming out a week and a half ago, mixed in between long-winded history lessons on Central American politics. It was weird. Big stories with little exposition, if you know what I mean. I can’t decide if it means anything or not.”

  “Should we be worried?” Gail asked.

  Don cleared his throat. “Maybe. Yesterday they were saying conflict had broken out along the Texas-Mexico border. Then nothing.”

  “What do you mean nothing?” Josh queried.

  “Just that. Nothing. When I turned on the television this afternoon they were talking about some bill that will potentially reverse Roe v. Wade. Not a word about Mexico, not a word about violence leaking onto our soil. It’s like the whole thing never happened.”

  “Maybe it’s all over,” said Sophia.

  “Perhaps,” answered Don, “but somehow I doubt it.”

  Family time finished up soon after that. Josh gave hugs all around, the strongest one for Sophia, before starting for home on foot. Disquieting ideas of disturbing events on the southern border melted away with each step. Those events were so far away. There was no way anything bad could reach as far north as New England, not with two-thousand-plus miles of prime U.S. real estate to cross. It was somebody else’s problem, something for the military to take care of. That was their job, after all.

  Pleasant memories of time recently passed drifted through his mind during the rest of his short journey home, and by the time he reached the front door he felt totally at peace. He walked in to find Colin sitting at the kitchen table, car keys dangling on his fingers.

  “Where you been?” he asked.

  “Went to see the folks.”

  “They doing okay?”

  “No. They’re all sick. In the head.”

  “Ha-ha. You ready to go, clever guy?”

  “Whenever you are.”

  The nightly trek to The Pit followed: two friends ready for another evening of drunkenness in their not-so-futile pursuit of eliminating coherent thought. “Home again, home again, jiggidy-jig,” Josh sang as he entered the dim space beyond the door. Someone bumped into him as he passed through the entryway, a man who looked much too pale. The guy glowered back at him with eyes that said this dude isn’t to be fucked with.

  “Yo, no harm, no foul,” said Josh, backtracking.

  The man flipped him the bird and then stormed out the door, heading for the oil rig parked outside, coughing the whole time, without offering a rebuttal. “Asshole,” Josh said, loudly, when the man was safely out of range.

  “That’s right,” said Colin with a laugh. “No need for fighting when there’s beer to be had!”

  They laughed, ordered pints at the bar, and drank the night away.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE FALLEN WOMAN

  KYRA HOLCOMB FUMBLED with her keys while a gust of bitterly cold wind caused goose pimples to rise on the nape of her neck. The rain and sleet from earlier in the evening had long ceased, but her hands were still numb from scraping frost from her windshield. She moaned and her teeth chattered, causing a verbal staccato she might have found funny if not for her physical discomfort.

  She wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed and pass out after yet one more night of drunken townsfolk coming at her with hollered demands and inappropriate advances. This didn’t even take into account the nine hours on her feet running back and forth. Bartending sucks, she thought. I should’ve become a secretary.

  Despite the promise of home, she was offered no comforts, not even the cold kind. She climbed into her car in The Pit’s deserted parking lot and turned the key, listening to the soft rattle as the old engine idled. It would take a bit for the car to warm up. At least her belly felt toasty.

  ??
?Thank God for tequila,” she whispered.

  All the places she’d rather be performed their annual roll call in her mind as she sat there: in Massachusetts, living with her sister; Galveston, Texas, where her old high-school friend Heidi had moved so long ago; northern Saskatchewan, a place where not a soul would know her. Anywhere would be better than good-ole Dover, New Hampshire.

  “This town sucks,” she muttered. It depressed and annoyed her as much now as it had during her childhood days in the seventies, when she watched her father slowly unravel after the textile mill closed. Through her adulthood she saw the locals seek redemption through liquor, weed, pills, and happy powder, just as he had. Kyra, herself, had joined the party more than once, spending many a night drowning her sorry apology of an existence and pretending to be happy, just like her father, just like the rest of them. She’d been stuck in the same bad marriage for going on twenty-three years and felt trapped: too young to hang ’em up, too old to start over, too reliant on the familiar to change a thing.

  When a rush of hot air burst through the dashboard vent she threw the car into drive and pulled out of the lot. She took the long way home as usual, uttering the same old lies about how lovely the street looked at four in the morning—empty, pitch-black, and quiet, with most sane folks tucked away in their beds, awaiting the alarm clock’s bleating. Deep down she knew this was furthest from the truth. There were many reasons for lingering by her lonesome in an empty saloon for three hours after she’d closed it down, and the ability to cruise the back roads in silence wasn’t one of them.

  After fifteen minutes of a slow crawl she arrived home. On instinct she tied her red hair back in a ponytail, got out of the car, and glanced at the upstairs windows. No lights on, not a sound to be heard but trees ruffling in the breeze. She closed the door carefully, gently nudging it with her hip until it clicked shut. After that she walked up the driveway, measuring each step: twenty-four to the edge of the grass, thirteen around the walkway, and five up the steps to the front entrance. She opened the flimsy screen door—I wish he’d get off his ass and install the winter glass—and winced when the rusty hinges squealed.