skonen_blades

He reeled out of the stinking alley into me. I’d never seen anyone like him and I live in Manhattan so that’s saying something.

For starters, he was nearly eight feet tall and looked too skinny to stand. His hair was several different colours but as I looked at it more closely, it appeared to be made of metal. It sparked just after he bumped into me and the colours in it shimmered and changed like the wings of a beetle before returning to the colours it had been before.

I was fixated on that until I noticed his two extra arms and his tail. I say ‘his’ because his genitals were exposed. He was wearing what appeared to be tight chaps and a red cellophane cardigan.

His backpack was made of metal and smoke plumed out of it. If he hadn’t been staring into my eyes and grabbing my shoulders, I would have backed quickly away from like everyone else on the sidewalk did.

“Pour gras que serachi marta kursk trench ma jakatra, triestin?” he screamed at me. I heard something like a car crash happen deep in the alley. The stranger flinched and looked at me, waiting for an answer.

“Uh, what?” I said.

“Oh. I see. English. Okay. What day is it?” he said to me. His breath smelled like over-ripe strawberries. I noticed his skin was mottled with bruising. He was missing a tooth.

“Uh, Wednesday?” I answered.

He looked at me with that expression like he didn’t understand my language again. He looked at a device on his wrist. I guessed it was a translator. He acted like it was broken. He spoke again, louder and more slowly this time,

“What day is it? Centrus? Martus?” he said.

“Wednesday.” I said back to him.

He shook his head and looked behind him into the alley. There were sounds of a struggle and some impossible sound. If I had to describe it, it was like a sheet of glass being ripped in half. It sounded like something pivotal to reality was being split by force.

“What the DATE, then? The DATE? It’s supposed to be the 46th! Is that correct?” he yelled.

“46th? That’s not….it’s the 13th. March the 13th.” I answered.

“Maaaaaarch” he said and looked at me as if to confirm that he’d pronounced it correctly. I nodded. He looked at his wrist translator in terrified frustration. I realized that his eyes were different colours and that they never blinked at the same time. First one, then the other. Every time.

“Posska DAMMIT!” he yelled and let me go. He seemed to realize that even though I’d spoken to him in the correct language, my information was useless to him.

It was like he was a time-traveler except his frame of reference was useless at his destination.

There was a blue glow from the alley. The traveler who’d accosted me tucked in all four of his arms and ducked into the crowd. It didn’t help.

Tentacles of transparent metal shot out of the alley and entered the traveler's back. He was dragged backwards to the alley’s entrance. He spread his arms wide and grabbed the bricks on either side of the entrance with his impossibly long arms, forming a giant X. He was sweating. He looked at me with clenched teeth. His watch device broke and fell off his straining wrist. He glanced at it and nodded towards me.

“Remember-” he said but a charge of energy came through the tentacles and he shuddered. He was lifted into the air for a moment before disappearing quickly into the shadows of the alley.

There was the sound of thunder and then a sound of reality zipping itself up.

People around me kept on walking, already erasing the parts that had not made sense. I would have been one of them if he hadn't actually grabbed me. I lay on the sidewalk looking at the entrance of the alley. I looked at the wrist device the traveler had dropped. I scuttled forward, picked it up and brought it home.

I’m looking at it right now, daring myself to try it on.



tags

It’s raining in the alley and she’s running. The broken heel on her left pump is making her gait all lopsided and she’s getting more and more off balance with each panicked long-legged step. The cobblestones are leaping up and kicking the bottom of her shoes unevenly and her shoes don’t have any grip. They’re the shoes she wears in the restaurant. Her feet skitter and tangle and she’s down hard, slamming into the wet night-time stone with a shallow splash. She hurts her wrist. Her purse spills. Her wet hair splays down to kiss the ground like a whip and slaps the concrete. She’s sobbing. There’s a keening coming from her that she can’t control. She knows the end is near but like most people, she begs anyway. Under her breath, to herself, a litany of pleases. She’s never been this scared. She is a hunted animal. The human in her is fading. Her language is reduced to repeated syllables. She can feel herself becoming Prey.
She can see a night time street not ten feet away. A person walks past the opening in front of the theater lights from across the street. She can’t scream. She knows she’ll feel something grab her ankle and pull her backwards at any moment. She can only beg the night behind her for mercy.
It’s fresh out.
There’s a scrape on the pavement.
With strength she didn’t know she had she flips over onto her back and looks back into the gloom of the dead end.
There’s a horsebeat footstep clump and a snort. There’s also a jangle of chains. Two points of light like reflections off of cutlery dance in unison in the darkness. The dead end of the alley might as well be miles underground. There’s a blackness there that is total. Like an ashcloud. Like the end of a movie’s credits. Like the bottom of a well. This is a darkness a blind person could sense.
Tendrils of it creep forward, amplifying the shadows and then making them bleed together, pushing obscenely into this reality.
She made a deal. She has not held up her part of the deal.
More time. All that she needs is a little more time.
She’s not going to get it.
This is an Agent sent to this plane to collect the debt in case of forfeit. She turns white and freezes in horror. Slowly, horribly slowly, a tendril of the darkness caresses her ankle, getting a good grip. It tenses.
Her scream is still a whisper as she’s dragged into the dark. The sounds of her half hearted struggles mix in with the rain around her.
All that’s left in the alley is a soggy purse that will make some lucky soul thirty six dollars richer.
The blackness retreats, coalesces, and closes with a small pop.
The streetlight in the alley stutters and comes back on.



toe