Chapters Shooting Towards The Moon
When I was young my universe was small, and I thought I knew it all.
As I grew up, I became smaller and smaller; that so called universe was no longer mine and all the things I thought I knew quite well, were actually huge mysteries.
I ended up knowing very little about myself, and even less about what I called reality.
The world can be a fascinating place when you stop looking for meanings.
The night felt dense. A layer of fog hovered over our heads, but now and then I could catch a glimpse of the stars in the sky above.
There was a rustle in the foliage, dead leaves and branches cracked under my brother's boots as he made his way through the woods.
He stopped, wiping out the humidity from his face. For me, his expression seemed to be a mix of boredom and impatience. But no one could ever figure out what Billy was thinking; not me, not my dad, not his friends. He just had this thick shell around his thoughts, and you couldn't pierce it even if you tried.
"Won't you shoot the goddamn thing?" He said. "C'mon Todd, you know that's the right thing to do, don’t you know?"
"But-"
"There’s no 'but', just do the freaking thing, will ya? Finish it." He pushed my shoulder. My skeleton felt like rubber. "C'mon boy... You wanted to bust a cap on its head — whatever it was. I’m talking to ya, boy. You said that, what's the fucking matter now?” He insisted.
"I’m not sure anymore." I muttered. My body trembled as I revised my reasons for being there, at night, crawling through the thickets. "I think we should just... just leave it alone, will ya? We can dump her on Heck's sugarcane field, they’ll never find out anyway-"
"Her?" He gasped. "This is not a her! God, I don't even... It's a goddamn monster, I tell ya." He shook his head.
"I changed my mind."
"What’s wrong with you? You've put me into this, okay? It was your idea kid, and you’re messing up again." Billy was getting nervous; he'd get all shaky and sore before loosing his cool. Under pressure I was just like him, but our triggers were in different places. "Those shitheads will find it. You gotta finish this, jungle boy — your words, not mine!"
"I know what I said, for Christ's sake! But I don’t feel like doing it anymore, alright? Just leave her alone — please dude — just leave it." I turned around to face him.
"Leave it? Leave it, Todd? You're out of your everloving mind! This freak is a square peg in a round hole! What if the feds find out? What if they do, Todd? We’ll become the bad guys, that's it. They’ll take us to Guantanamo and force you to eat your own shit- or something worse." Billy was sweating like a pig as he talked, I could barely see his expressions in the dark, but I could definitely feel the heat emanating from his body every time he walked past me.
"They won’t do that! We can just leave the thing there for god’s sake, and- Billy listen to me!" I shouted, grabbing his arm as he started to walk towards her; his veins throbbed.
"Get off me!" He shoved me away, my hands groping for a place to hold as I fell on the muddy ground. "Are you insane? What the hell ya think ya doing?" Billy stuck his hand under his tattered plaid shirt and drew out an old 9mm. "You keep messing up again dammit!" He muttered, shaking like the leaves as he tried to load the gun. "You promised me Todd, you fucking promised! When we crossed the border into the forest for the first time, you said you'd take care of the thing by yourself." I sat down, my fists clenched. "Look at us now! I gotta finish your own shit!"
I jumped, clutching his arm. He pushed me again, but now I had a tight grasp, so he dragged me through the vines and dead trees. I felt my shirt being ripped apart as wet chunks of moss splattered on my face. "Billy stop! You ain’t killing her!" I yelled. "Please Billy, let’s go home, please, just let-"
"I said get off me, asshole!" He grabbed my arm to pull me away, but I managed to cling on his collar. "Get- off! " I felt a punch straight on the stomach, I doubled over and fell on my back, curling myself in a ball as I breathed for air. "Look what you made me do to you!"
He groaned something about our father, but I wouldn’t listen to him. I was tired of always listening to Billy, tired of always doing whatever Billy wanted. As I struggled with the pain, he turned around and walked away, stopping right in front of the unicorn-like creature that I had been tracking down for weeks; she was unconscious, just lying alongside the dirt road.
Her body was covered in a thin coat of velvety fur, and a pair of wings curled around her chest as if trying to protect itself from harm. She had in her flank a very odd color pattern; it looked like a crescent moon insignia engulfed by chunks of darker fur. Her long mane was half-lit by the headlights of our truck, blurred shadows danced on the cornfields as my brother passed in front of the car.
But he noticed none of that. Blinded by his fear and anger he was also unable to notice as I rose up from that disgraced place and crossed the road.
I never meant it, I swear, but it happened.
I never meant it.
Billy rubbed his neck, he had this nervous habit. I knew he was scared; he was a crude and stubborn guy, but he was scared as hell anyway.
He stared at the creature for what seemed like ages, maybe pondering, maybe deciding where to aim, maybe in a silent fight against his own guts. I never figured out, because right when he was about to fire I jumped on his back, wrapping my arms around his neck. Taken by surprise, he turned on his feet, but his boot got stuck into an exposed root. It all happened very quickly; my brother lost balance and stumbled over the root. I landed on top of him, but by the moment we hit the ground a loud gun shot echoed through the fields.
I looked around in panic, afraid someone else had heard our struggle and followed us. Down the road there was nothing but fog. When I turned back to look at Billy he was pale as a ghost; his eyes focusing on something above our heads, mouth half open. “What’s wron-” Then he dropped the gun he was holding so tightly.
I crawled to the side as he looked down to his chest. A large red blotch covered half of his shirt. In a few seconds, there was blood all around him. I was unresponsive.
On my knees, I stared at the body right in front of me – I don’t know if I said it aloud, or if I merely repeated the thoughts to myself: I didn't meant it – My eyes darted from one place to another, from the truck to the towering crops beside, and the forest edge shrouded in mist. Trying to find something — anything.
Billy stuttered an unintelligible sentence, he coughed two or three times and fell silent. I was alone.
My brother was dead.
There was something in the air that night.
Something ominous, just lurking around the edges of the map. I felt it as I dragged the body of my brother onto the backseat, I felt it as I drove back home.
I felt it as I looked at the empty windows of the farmhouse.
I felt it as I crouched beside his makeshift grave.
It observed me through the crops — you couldn't see it — but you could feel its presence. It was playing with me, smiling down at the scene as I stood petrified in front of that bent wooden cross I had pinned on the ground.
Another body remained on the backseat though. And it was still alive, somehow. It woke up frightened, and I wasn't wise enough to predict its reaction.
The marked one, as I came to call her, burst the door open and trotted away towards the woods. But she didn't knew that buried deep inside the flesh of her hind leg, lied a bullet. Right under the crescent moon.
She collapsed on the grass before reaching the undergrowth.
In a way, I could feel her pain as she contorted on the ground. My presence scared her, and it just increased her agony.
In a single day, life had ripped apart my family, my home, and my peace. I wouldn't let it take away the marked one as well. She was the only thing that was left for me.
As I approached, she tried to kick me, and one of her hooves missed my face by inches.
"Stop! I'm just trying to help you!" I said, dodging from her kicks. She tried to flap her wings in vain; they were far too small for her body and seemed to be plainly useless.
"What did you do to me?" She yelled. "What your folk did to me?"
My emotions overflowed, I let myself crash on the grass, in shock, tugging my head between my bruised armpits.
Under the moonlight, the lost unicorn cried in pain. And I in sorrow.
"Y-you're a monster." She muttered.
Maybe I was.
Shooting Towards The Moon
"Bedford Police Department, how can I help you?"
"Chief Stevenson?"
"Yes... Who is it?" A fairly recognizable voice asked.
There was silence on the line.
"Todd- Todd McRaven, sir." I replied hesitatingly.
"What's the matter Todd? Anything wrong?" He asked.
"Sir... My brother is dead."
That wasn't a good morning. Not that I expected it to be.
My eyes were heavy like two pebbles, dark patches underneath. The bruises and scratches ached under the slightest touch. I had not a minute of peace since the night before; I was tired, hungry, hurt, there was a dead body buried on the front lawn, and a unicorn hiding somewhere inside the old storehouse.
A firetruck was parked sideways between me and the farmhouse. They arrived shortly after the police. We lived in an isolated place, there were only crops for miles and miles. Bedford was the nearest town, I hadn't many choices.
"So... You buried him?"
Chief Stevenson was a very respected man; his grizzly hair and deep blue eyes reflected the experience of decades. Time was quite generous with him.
"I didn't know what to do." I replied, observing as the firefighters carried away a white body bag, the shallow grave now empty again.
"You should have called as soon as you arrived at home. Do you see how suspicious this whole thing looks like, Todd?" Stevenson asked, taking off his hat.
"With all due respect sir... do you think I'd have b-buried him, right there in front of our house, if I was planning to hide the body?" I replied, biting down my lower lip, the memories of what I've done finally sinking.
"It's not a matter of what I'm thinking or not, Todd. I don't make the laws-"
"He was the only thing I had, for Christ's sake!" I yelled, rubbing my face vigorously. "I hated him at times, but for all that's sacred- he was my brother." A dense silence fell over the fields, pierced only by the cowing calls of a lonely crow perched on the weather vane. "You worked with my father for thirty years — you know my family — or what remained of it. I'd never-"
"I know Todd." He sighed.
"We were looking for the thing in the woods, Billy had one of his panic attacks again, but this time he had a loaded gun. I tried to take it away from him, he freaked out, his foot got stuck into something, we crashed on the ground, the gun fired." I said, stumbling over the words "You can arrest me, honestly, I don't care anymore. But the forensic guys will prove my words in the end. There will be gunpowder particles under his fingernails."
"I'm not arresting you. Perhaps I should, I have enough reasons to do so. But I'm not." He said. "Accidents happen. But son... Your life has been this huge accident since your father died. That's not normal; you know it's not."
I nodded slowly.
"You'll have to sign a few papers. Bedford has no forensic department, we'll just check the body, and that's all. I'm not sending this case to the capital; I'm taking your word here." He looked at me, I did not flinched. "You'll have to provide a proper burial to-"
"I can't. I barely have money to put gas on my truck." I muttered.
"The state can only provide a cremation service." The chief said, watching as the firetruck drove away down the dirt road. "I'm sorry."
"No... It's alright, that's what he'd prefer." I said, recalling a conversation I had with my brother about a year after our father passed away. "We all turn back to dust, Chief Stevenson."
"It's on the book."
Behind the farmhouse there was an old building where generations of McRavens tossed anything that wasn't useful enough to be around the farm, but still useful enough to not be discarded permanently. After a few decades the place became a museum of dust, junk, and ironmongery.
"I know you're there."
My voice echoed through the storehouse, I coughed, blowing a thin cloud of dust. I pushed the front doors open as far as I could, but even then there wasn't enough light to fill the place. One could tear the walls apart, and still there wouldn't be enough light. The storehouse had become almost a black hole.
"Shit..." I muttered.
"Please come out... I ain't doing anything to you." I sighed, sitting on an old rocking chair. I knew she wouldn't come out; I wouldn't, If I was in her skin.
I grabbed my flashlight and started to point it towards random objects and cracks, hoping to see that anomalous blue color.
Rising from the chair, I slowly made my way into that damned place, my shoes leaving deep impressions on the dust-covered floor. If I left footprints as I walked, she would leave hoof marks too.
Focusing my attention on the floor it didn't took long until I found the marks I was searching for. There was only one way in; she couldn't have escaped through another path.
Judging by the way the hoofprints were arranged, the unicorn was probably crawling or hobbling when she entered the building. It'd make sense.
I stopped on my tracks, the flashlight pointed at a small trickle of blood.
"Crap."
Near the very bottom of the storehouse, an ancient-looking harvester blocked the way. The hoofprints and blood marks continued through a narrow gap between the machine and the wall.
A muffled gasp broke the stillness of the air. I held my breath. The only sound I could hear was the rhythmic pounding of my heart. But there was something else...
I squeezed myself through the gap, now there was definitely noise; she knew I was there, and she knew I wasn't leaving without her.
"Nghh" She whimpered in pain, trying to crawl away.
"You're not going anywhere." I jumped over the loose tire of the harvester, landing behind it with a thud. The unicorn shrieked, pushing a pile of boxes towards me.
"Go away!" She yelled, as a mountain of rusty hardware crashed between us. A thick dust cloud filled the air, I leaned against the wall nearly coughing my lungs out.
I groped the surfaces near me, covering my face with an arm. I could feel the grainy taste of rust in my tongue.
When the cloud settled I realized what had happened to her. One of the boxes had tumbled over her bruised leg, she was lying on a corner, silent, tears running down her dust-covered cheeks.
As I pointed the flashlight at her she raised a hoof to cover her face. The place where the bullet had entered her leg was swollen; it didn't look good at all.
"I know you're in pain." I said. "I can help you, but you need to stay calm."
Hearing not a word in response I approached the large box that prevented the unicorn from moving. She wriggled, trying to pull her hoof, letting out a cry. "Don't-" I stopped. "Don't try to move it, you're hurting yourself even more." I approached again, grabbing the box and pushing it to the side.
"Leave m-me alone, please!"
"That's not gonna happen." Before she tried to escape again, I wrapped my arms around her body, lifting the marked one from the floor. Of course, it didn't happened without resistance.
"Nghhhh" She groaned, twisting her form as I squeezed myself through the harvester gap. "G-get off me!" Boy, she could scream.
"If you kick me-" I dodged from her hooves. "If you kick me I will fall — you don't want to fall together, do ya?" I asked, she only groaned in response.
She was surprisingly lightweight for her size, I had carried deer before and they were heavier.
"Look, I don't know what the hell you are, and I understand why you'd try to run away from me, but if I leave you here you'll die. And I don't want to deal with any more deaths around these parts." I said, carrying the unicorn back to the entrance of the building, we both covered in ash-like dust. She stopped kicking, most likely because it was hurting her, not because she didn't wanted to carve a hoof mark on my face.
I kicked the backdoor of the farmhouse open, making my way through the kitchen and the living room.
"Put - me - down!" She grunted.
We had a very comfortable couch, so I gently laid her body there before deciding what to do. She looked quite surprised.
I raised my hands, letting out a sigh.
"Alright, listen, I'll be very honest with ya now." I said, staring at the freaking unicorn in the living room. I pointed to her leg, she looked to the wound and back at me. "This thing in your leg — it won't heal. There's a bullet inside."
"W-what?" She murmured.
"We need to pull it out. The longer it stays there, the worse."
I needed alcohol.
"You did this to me!" She argued.
"My brother is dead because of you, alright?" I shouted, rubbing the dust out of my face. "You're not dying under my care." I ran to the kitchen, opening the hot water tap and filling a few pans.
Alcohol. My brain reminded me.
I opened every cabinet, tossing things aside as I looked for a bottle of alcohol. We had kerosene, but not alcohol. Fantastic; I could refuel an airplane, but burning the unicorn alive wasn't part of my plan.
"Dammit!" I kicked a chair. It bounced and hit the counter, making something on top of it clank.
My problems were solved.
I returned to the living room with the pans, some clean towels and a bottle of California Vodka. It was that or the kerosene. I knew I had a med-kit upstairs in my room, so I brought it down too.
"W-what are you going to do with that thing?" She asked, pointing to the bottle of vodka.
"Well, firstly- I will save your ass. We need to clean that wound, so it won't get an infection or something worse." I noted. "Then we can drink the rest and pretend this whole thing never happened."
Shooting Towards The Moon
After scrubbing my hands for nearly half an hour — even using a toothbrush to clean under my fingernails — I made my way downstairs to check the pressure cooker jiggling on the stove. Judging by its hissing, I presumed it was already about to explode.
I turned off the heat, placing the cooker under the sink faucet, the cold water turning into vapor as it ran over the lid, the pressure quickly being released.
It wasn't on my plans to make dinner; instead of food, I had placed all sorts of tweezers and other potentially useful objects I could find inside. I had never cleaned a bullet wound from a living being before, and all the information I had was from an old survival magazine, where a guy who had been in Somalia explained how he treated gunshot wounds during the civil war.
The unicorn's case certainly wasn't as serious as the things I saw in the magazine, I hoped, but I wanted to make sure she wouldn't get an infection.
After a few minutes, I checked the cooker again; it was cold. There was no more sound of escaping steam, so I opened the lid. With a gauze, I retrieved each one of the metallic instruments, placing them on a clean cloth. That was the best sterilization service I could provide.
"Alright." I said to myself, entering the living room and placing the instruments over a coffee table, alongside with the bowls of water and a bottle of iodine I had found in the medicine cabinet. I still had some packages of gauze and bandages; leftovers from the treatment of a broken arm. "Time to fix ya."
"W-what are you going to do with these things?" She asked, pointing to the neatly arranged scalpels and scissors.
"Hopefully, we won't need those." I said, kneeling beside the couch and soaking a piece of gauze with warm water. "I need to clean the area around your wound before trying to take the bullet out."
She said nothing, merely stretching her leg and looking away from me. I approached carefully, slowly wiping the dust from her fur, she flinched at the touch, but relaxed after a few minutes.
"So... Do you have a name?" I asked, in an attempt to break the silence. She stared at me with an odd expression, as if I had asked the number of atoms in her body.
"Luna." She finally answered.
"Luna? That's an interesting name." I cleaned the fur over her crescent moon mark, revealing it again. "It fits you quite well."
She kept her gaze on every move I made, watching attentively as I replaced the now grayish gauze with a clean one, this time soaking it with iodine instead of water; that'd be way better than using booze. At least on the wound, that's it.
"What about you?" She asked. "Who are you?"
"I'm Todd McRaven."
"What does that mean?" Luna cocked her head.
"It means... I'm Todd. Just Todd. As for McRaven, I have no idea what it means, honestly. There are lots of ravens in these woods, I guess. " I shook my head at my ignorance. "It's just a name."
"You have a bizarre name." She noted plainly.
"Thanks." I chuckled at her sincerity.
"What about California?"
Now it was my turn to get confused.
"Sorry?"
"That bottle- it says California." She pointed to the vodka. "What is it?"
"Oh, I don't think I'll need to use that anymore; I've found this." I pointed to the iodine.
"No, I mean the name. What does it implies?"
"California? Ah... It's a state, on the west coast." Luna looked puzzled. I wasn't an etymologist, I barely knew the meaning of my own name. "I've never been there, but I know they make some cool stuff."
"W-what?" She coughed, suddenly alarmed. "Is it near?"
"Why- no- I mean... California is like... thousands of miles away from here." The smell of iodine started to fill the air, her leg looked clean again as I discarded another piece of gauze. "What's the matter?"
"Northern Borealis Railroads. California, New York."
After hearing such a sentence I paused for a minute, trying to conceive what Luna could possibly mean by that combination of words. What the hell was Northern Borealis?
"Wait; you was in a train traveling across the country? How did you got-"
"I was in a box." She frowned, her eyes staring at the floor. "There were small holes on the wall; they let in only a negligible amount of light. Northern Borealis Railroads — It was written on the back. California, New York... On the cage door."
"Who did that to you?"
"My sister is still there." She spaced out for a moment.
"Luna... Who placed you on that cage?"
"I woke up there. I was just... there. I can't remember." She sighed in frustration. "They gave me something before. I was in some sort of room. A white room. I need to remember - ughh" She groaned.
For some odd reason, an excerpt of Californication crossed my mind — 'First born unicorn...' — I guess Red Hot Chili Peppers couldn't be more prophetical. Of course a unicorn could only emerge from a place like California.
"Don't strain your mind. You will remember... Eventually." I hoped.
I certainly had many questions, but they could wait for a while. The things you don't know can't hurt you. Most of the times. Besides, I had to finish what I had started. Treat her, treat me. Have some sleep.
We needed that.
Turning my flashlight on, I approached the wound on her leg carefully, touching the skin around it, trying to get a better look at the small entrance hole.
She wriggled at the touch. I expected to find something worse, but apparently, her muscular flank had absorbed most of the shock. Suddenly, as I pressed around, something sparkled.
"What the hell." I muttered, focusing the light beam on the exposed flesh.
"What happened?" She turned her head alarmed.
I looked closer, just to make sure I wasn't imagining things.
"That can't be possible. I've skinned dead animals before; the bullets, I've found them in incredibly absurd places. They can travel through organic tissue very easily-"
I stopped, noticing the terrified look in her face.
"I'm not a dead animal!" She exclaimed.
"You bet you aren't!" I said. "Are unicorns made of kevlar or something? That thing is barely an inch inside you." I stated. Her leg was slightly swollen, and she'd probably need some sort of antibiotic — although I wasn't even sure if I had that. But those things aside, I was surprised to find the remains of a 9mm bullet so easily.
"I presume that's a good sign?" She asked.
"It's a fantastic one." I picked up a small pair of tweezers and dipped a cotton ball in the iodine flask. It returned brownish and soaked. "But this is probably going to hurt a little..." I added.
I squeezed the cotton ball, drizzling some of the liquid over the wound as I began to clean it.
"Hnggghh." Luna flinched, biting down the pillow.
"I'll b-be quick." I hurried up, holding the flashlight with my mouth so I could use both hands. I pressed a gauze over the wound and as I lifted it, the metallic surface of the bullet sparkled again. I couldn't miss that.
With precision, I clutched the damned piece of lead; It hadn't fragmented inside of her, and I was fucking thankful for that. I don't think I'd have the stomach to retrieve another part. I pulled it out at once, hearing a soft clink as I dropped it on the tray.
Luna whimpered something as I poured more iodine into the now empty hole. I wrapped the bandages around her leg the best I could, not too tight, but not too loose. Just like the guy from Somalia.
I was the guy from Iowa, with a Californian unicorn.
"That's it." I said, tossing the flashlight aside and crashing on the couch by her side. "You'll survive."
Luna raised her head, inspecting my job. She had a very peculiar way of looking at things, I couldn't describe it exactly, but it was the kind of look of a kid who had just figured out what a can opener was. A hint of curiosity intermingled with uncertainty.
"Humans are strange." She said.
"Are we?" I chuckled, rubbing my forehead.
"Yes." She nodded. "Your kind can go to great lengths to achieve something, only to change all the plans when they reach the summit."
"Yeah, my plans are not very reliable as you may have noticed." I sniggered.
"What I mean is that for someone who placed a lot of effort into trying to annihilate me, you controversially placed the same effort into saving me. That doesn't make any sense." She stated.
I nodded in silence, grabbing the bottle of California Vodka.
"Life in general- It doesn't make much sense." I shrugged. "That's why we have so many kinds of booze."
Shooting Towards The Moon
I had this unsettling certainty that something odd wandered around the crops when I wasn't looking. And I wasn't the only one.
It almost a local consensus among the people of Taylor County, specially here in the south, that a 'thing' was crawling near the edges of their properties, furtively, never to be seen or heard, only felt, like a presence in the limits of your eyesight always fading into obscurity. Some dismissed it as mere fantasy, or a futile attempt to avoid the real problem: that an unknown disease was killing the crops, and no one had the money or the means to stop it.
With a steamy coffee mug resting cozily between my hands, I gazed through the windows of the second floor at my once vast corn field extending itself to the very limits of the forest. It was early in the morning, I woke up to check on Luna who was deeply asleep in the bedroom next to mine. It wasn't easy to convince her to come upstairs, but now that I was officially alone in the world, there were three vacant rooms in the house.
It took me a while to shut my eyes the night before, but I was sure that anyone in my position would stay awake with the eyes stapled open wide. I was stuck with a unicorn under my roof, if one had enough reasons to become an insomniac, this person would be me. Still, I felt somehow numbed, and the pains of the world were perceived vaguely, like the coldness of snow through stuffed gloves or poking embers with a fire iron. You know the fire is there, but you can't feel the burns.
I sipped my coffee for a moment, watching as the crows made circles in the sky, dancing around in dark swarms against the steely clouds. They drifted away, some finding comfort on the tree tops, where they stood perched up.
In silence, I returned to my room and closed the door with an elbow.
The curtains allowed the place to remain comfortably dusky, with only dim patches of light here and there.
My old computer hummed in a corner, I never turned it off — there were chances it wouldn't turn back on again. There in the corner it rested, just waiting for the right command to awake, like a person pretending to be asleep only to avoid questions.
I pulled a chair and sat in front of it, pressing a button on the side of the screen. Immediately I was presented my neatly arranged desktop; only two vertical lines of shortcuts and folders stacked at the left and right sides. The empty center revealed an old picture of Chicago set as wallpaper. It was dark, hazy, empty — it reflected the state of my mind late at night.
I clicked on the browser window, some tabs were already open. Google searches, odd websites with dubious conspiracy theories, very few concrete answers. I had started my 'research' the night before, but surrendered to sleep. There was just too much to know about, and too little information.
I had tried searching about unicorns, fantasy creatures in real life, and all the sorts of things, but only found some ridiculous videos and extensive Wikipedia pages about mythology and reported sightings of yetis. Needless to say, the search results for 'flying unicorns' was even worse.
Placing my coffee mug aside, I stroked my chin, trying to think about a better choice of words to drop on Google.
'Northern Borealis Railroads'
Yes, of course! Something in my mind finally sparkled. Someone would know about a massive railroad connecting the two sides of the country.
'No results found for Northern Borealis Railroads'
Other suggestions:
- Search for: Borealis Corporation - Rail transportation in the United States
- Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
I frowned at the results.
However, it turns out that the first suggestion returned me some intriguing information:
'Borealis Corporation, or as otherwise named: Borealis Research Laboratories, is a subsidiary of Life Corporation. Although divided into Northern Borealis and Southern Borealis, the company has its headquarters in Hartford, CT. Northern Borealis operates in North America, Europe and Russia. Borealis Research Laboratories is the branch of Life Corporation dedicated to developing and experimenting new chemical solutions and materials.'
I opened a drawer beside the computer table, empty bottles of pain-reliever pills and muscle relaxants clinked against each other. I grabbed them, placing the flasks in front of the monitor. Life Corporation; right there, in front of me.
I knew that name sounded familiar, Life is a pharmaceutical brand. A major one.
That was definitively creepy.
I didn't bothered to search about Life, but the pages about its daughter company, Borealis, were long and diverse. Apparently, they were widely regarded as one of the leading laboratories in terms of technology and patents. They produced many things, but nothing as absurd as unicorns... or railroads.
In fact, the only thing I could find with the terms 'Northern Borealis Railroads' together was a short YouTube video titled 'For Katherine J. Leibniz' . The terms were the description.
It was recent; only a week old. It had exact four views. Seemed like the person who uploaded the video accidentally turned it public, as the video itself was specifically directed at this woman.
I pressed play.
'Hi, this is Dennis Faraday... That's the fourth time I'm uploading a video. Ah- I hope you get a chance to watch this before it gets blocked like the others.
This is very serious Kate.
It's 3 am here, the helicopters have finally disappeared. Again. It's been like this for nearly three weeks. I can't shut my fucking eyes until they leave.
I don't know what the hell was in that train, but I'm telling you: It was anything but chemicals.
I've seen some crazy ass accidents before; toxins, chlorine smoke and all that shit. Nobody cleans chemical leaks with helicopters — at least not for three goddamn weeks!
They're looking for something.
That's not the first time Borealis has messed up, you know it's not... They've been moving stuff to and from, using the underground tracks to avoid exposure.
But they can't hide forever. Not when their shit start exploding right beneath our feet.
Three weeks ago nearly a square mile of my property was tossed into the air. I could've died, my neighbors could have died. That's just too much for me to handle. I don't care if they stop paying us.
They isolated the area with barbed wire and plastic walls. The government says it's a matter of security; I don't have access to my own land. What for Christ's sake Borealis has to do with the government?
They don't build planes, they're not into weaponry, they don't provide any sort of military technology. Borealis works with pharmaceutical and medical products — what sort of authority do they have?
I have no idea.
You do.
I'm leaving this place; I need to sleep — I need to think. But you know where to find me.'
"What are you doing?"
I jumped, my hand was splattered by burning droplets of coffee, I grabbed the mug before it could spill anything else on my keyboard.
"Jesus!" I spun on my chair, only to find Luna standing a few steps away. "How d-did you opened the- I thought you was sleeping."
"I heard this voice, and I thought someone else was here." She muttered, backing away a little.
"If that was the case, do you really think it would be wise to appear in front of a stranger?" I argued, cleaning my hand on my pants. "Damn."
"I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to startle you." Luna said, observing with a hint of curiosity the computer screen.
"It's okay..." I sighed.
"Who is this man?" She pointed to the pale looking guy of the paused video, his messy auburn hair tied in a bun. "That doesn't look like a portal."
"He's Dennis Faraday. And it's not a portal, it's a screen. Before you ask; he's not in there"
"I'm not an idiot. Of course he wouldn't fit inside such a small space." She rolled her eyes. "You haven't answered me."
"Yes I did. This man is Dennis Faraday, so far that's the only thing I know about him — that and the fact he probably knows someone who knows a lot about Northern Borealis." Luna's expression immediately changed at the mention of Borealis. She seemed truly bothered by that.
"Don't- Don't look for them... They are no good." She shook her head. "No good at all"
"I'm not saying they are." I said, turning off the monitor. "I just want answers."
"I once wanted answers, and this is what happened to me." She looked at her body with sad eyes filled with a silent anguish. "Borealis never gave us any answers."
"They only gave pain."
Shooting Towards The Moon
I was...
Laying on my bed, just resting, I wasn't sleepy or anything — maybe just a little. I had about three pillows under my head, they kept my neck in a sort of crooked position, in an angle of forty five degrees or so. That's the way I liked to rest anyway, it had always been like that, crooked, bent, tilted. My mother used to say I'd hurt my neck, my spine, strain my muscles or whatever — but none of that ever happened.
Sometimes when I fell asleep with all those pillows I'd wake up with my back all stiff and sore, but it never ached for much longer, and it never gave me a broken spine or anything of the sorts. I guess I got used to it.
You get used to certain kinds of things, and you can't get rid of the habit no matter how badly you want to quit.
I had my hands crossed over my stomach as I stared at the empty grey ceiling, you could see that the painting was cracking here and there, at the edges and corners mostly.
The window beside my bed was half-opened, the breeze pushed the curtains around, then it ceased, there was silence, and the breeze would start again, bringing with it a faint smell of wet earth or grass. The glimpse of sky I could see from my place was a solid patch of lead-colored clouds; it had been like that for days. The air was humid, it drizzled by the morning and late at night, It wasn't cold, just sick.
The weather didn't bothered me too much. It should, however.
It bothered my brother a lot, he was always checking the forecasts, next day, next week, next month, until it became vague. The weather mattered a lot to him because he was responsible for the harvest, he knew when the time was about right to reap and to sow. I had only a vague idea.
I had a vague idea about most of the things as a matter of fact, and that frustrated me a lot. It was very depressing to have only vague knowledge. I'd rather know a lot about very few things, than know very little about thousands of subjects.
By that moment it had been a week since I found Luna, and although I tried to expand my knowledge, I sadly realized it still remained very vague. As always.
She wasn't very helpful either. It was hard to extract a single useful word of her. It wasn't her fault for the most part; whoever held Luna in possession made a tremendous job in bleaching her memories before shoving her into a train to god knows where.
The whole condition worried me. It worried the fuck out of me.
How would I pay the bills, who would do the harvest, to whom I'd sell, for how much, and what the hell should I do to Luna — all that crap flashed before my eyes at once. It was a silent agony, that crawled day after day deeper into my mind.
I sighed, pushing the pillows away and sitting on the bed. I had a white sock on my left foot and a stripped one on the right, I felt the wooden floor with the tip of my toes from beneath the soft fabric. I sat like that at the edge of my bed for a while, staring at the window and feeling the texture of the things around me. People often forget to feel these things.
The computer hummed on a corner as it always did, and for a second I considered spending the entire day watching movies and feeling my stupid socks against the wooden floor, sipping coffee, pretending my life wasn't completely screwed.
Then I heard the easily recognizable sound of hooves downstairs, that muffled clip clop, and I couldn't ignore it.
In silence I made my way to the door, turning the brass knob slowly, so it wouldn't make a single creak. The corridor was brightly lit in a natural light that poured in from the large skylights in the ceiling. I covered my eyes with an arm, until they adjusted themselves to the glaring brightness. I walked to the stairs sort of dragging my feet until I reached the curved railing.
I could see part of the living room from there; the couch, center table, a corner of the hallway. Luna was nowhere to be seen, but I could hear the television.
I followed the sound, step by step, until I was on the ground floor. Luna didn't noticed me, or pretended not to. She was sitting on her haunches, staring at the images on the television like a cat — god, she loved that thing as much as I hated it.
"Awake, already?" She said, turning around. She took me by surprise.
"Yeah... Sort of half-awake." I replied, smiling blankly to myself. "Have you had breakfast?" I asked, knowing she obviously hadn't. Luna could barely open the door to her room without help. She controlled the television like a professional technician however. Her horn had some uses, it seemed — aside from killing things.
"No, I was waiting for you." She replied, standing up from her spot at the fuzzy carpet. The television went on mute by the moment she spoke. I did not asked how.
"Nice... thanks." I said, walking to the fridge. There was a wide counter with some stools between the living room and the kitchen. Luna wasn't tall enough to sit on the stools, so I usually prepared the food and carried it to the center table where we both could eat face to face.
She ate fruits, mostly. Vegetables, bread, pasta. Anything but meat. I wasn't a carnivore myself; if I were to eat meat, I'd choose fish. It didn't bothered her, as long as I kept it away from her plate.
I prepared eggs and toast, as always. It never gets old, and we were both pleased. We were running out of juice — that worried me too, because we were also running out of everything, money included.
With our dishes in hand, I knelt down in front of the center table, placing the silverware and glasses. It never ceased to amaze me how she managed to lift the fork and knife without even touching it. I once asked her how she did that, she shrugged — she just did it — it was a natural thing to her, lit her horn and make things float around. She couldn't explain, neither could I. It was very weak during the first days, if not completely absent, but now the thing was strengthening again.
Luna had her 'fascinations' too. One of the things that amazed her the most, was the television.
It was shocking indeed, because Luna wasn't impressed at all by the normal channels and those never-ending ads — no — she watched that white noise static between the channels. She was truly hooked by that. I found it pretty disturbing at first, it was one of those things she couldn't explain in words I'd understand. Her horn seemed to glow very faintly while she watched, and for days to come that was all I'd know.
"So, how's the television today? Anything new?" I asked, just for the sake of doing it.
She nodded with her head.
"They are making searches. But in the wrong place, I believe." Luna said.
"They? They who?" I paused, my fork frozen in midair.
"Those with the black cars and the flying things."
"The feds? I mean, did you saw them on the news or something?" I turned my head to look at the television, but it was just static.
"No, not on the news, you can't see them. They are using the signals."
"Then how do you even know the color of their cars?" I asked, caught by surprise.
"Sometimes... I can- I don't really know how... I can catch a glimpse. But not for too long, or else..." Luna stopped, looking down at the reflection of her glass on the table.
"Or else what?" I said nearly whispering, as if someone else could hear me.
"Or else they can look back."
Silence reigned over the room as we finished eating.
She scared me — not her — but the things that could come looking for her. It gave me shivers only to think about. For a moment I thought about the guy on the youtube video, complaining about helicopters and the military.
The idea of ending up like him, a refugee in his own land, it disturbed me deeply.
I dropped my fork.
"Can you hear that?" I asked, a heavy wave crashed somewhere inside my body. A distant hum made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I stood up, staring at the window, the old porch, the lawn, the road far beyond.
"Hear what?" Luna rushed to my side. Her ears moving up, trying to catch the sound.
"Car, there's a car." I said, cold sweat drenching my hands
"I can't see it."
"Not yet, it's behind the crops." I replied, closing the curtains as fast as I could. "C'mon, upstairs!"
"W-what?" She backed away.
"Luna, cars don't come here, unless they really — really — need to." I panted. "Go upstairs, hide in your room."
The sound of diesel engines was clearer now, it was definitely a car, a big one. I opened a crack in the curtains and peered outside; there was a black SUV making a turn.
"Shit!"
"Go to your room, stay there — no matter what the fuck happens — you stay there." I said, looking down at Luna.
"But Todd-"
"I said go! Now! " I shouted.
Shooting Towards The Moon
"Chief Stevenson?"
I looked to the car and back to him. It definitely wasn't his old truck.
"Good morning Todd. Do you mind if I come in?"
The old chief of police had a way of talking to you that made it practically impossible to lie, or even say no to him. He was just the kind of person that'd make you feel ashamed without even saying a word.
"S-sure- I mean, come in." I muttered, stepping aside from the door. The man tipped his hat as he made his way into the living room.
For the first time I noticed the mess that my house as a whole had become. There were dishes everywhere, dirty clothes and magazines littered the floor, I tried to push some of them out of the way, but it was a useless effort. The place looked terrible.
I looked to the coffee table where Luna and I were having breakfast and saw that our plates and glasses were still there with the remnants of bread and eggs.
It didn't took very long for Chief Stevenson to notice that — the man had the eyes of an eagle — I guess that's something you develop throughout the years when you're the only detective of the whole county.
"I'm sorry sir, I didn't know you were coming- if I did I'd have-"
He placed a hand on my shoulder and brushed my worries aside.
"Why don't we have a seat? I just want to say a few words, no need to worry." I nodded slowly. We sat on the couch, which aside from an iodine stain, was clean. It was then when I saw that the chief carried with him a small box with a cross stamped on the lid. I instantly knew what that was, but I remained in silence.
"I won't lie Todd, I've been worried about you." He sighed, taking of his hat and scratching his hair. "There's just so many things happening in the town lately... I wish I had visited you sooner."
"Don't worry sir, I've been- ah, I've been adjusting a few... things too." I scratched my neck.
"I see." He looked around, his eyes stopping on the static-tuned television. "Having problems with the signal too?" He asked.
"Oh, that- yeah well, sometimes." I nodded.
"You're not the only one; they think the rust has finally worn out that old tv mast. Truth is; there's interference everywhere, and I don't believe the mast is causing it."
I thought of Luna, and the things she felt in the static; those things made me shiver.
"Then what is?" I asked. The chief shrugged.
"I don't know, but it's a nuisance that's been troubling Bedford." He stopped to think for a second. "It's not the only complain though, just yesterday Mr. and Mrs. Hopkins came to my office, they were very concerned about their animals. It seems that one night, Mr. Hopkins was feeding his cows when he noticed that four of them were missing, he grabs a flashlight and goes after them, only to find their carcasses near the fence. No bite marks, no holes — and no blood in their bodies also."
"Jesus..." I muttered.
"And that's not all; the next morning their dogs tried to attack his wife, he managed to lock them in the barn until a veterinary arrived. When they get back to the dogs, they're nowhere to be found. They had opened a hole in the wall — with their teeth — and escaped. Later that day one of his neighbors found the corpses in a pond, not only Hopkins' dogs, but also a horse, pigs, chickens, and even wild animals."
I remained in silence, thinking about all the times I ventured into the forest by myself.
"They ran all sorts of tests, but none of them found a thing. Those animals were perfectly healthy as far as we know, until they ran away to die. And that's just one of the things that's been unsettling everyone."
"I haven't seen anything weird around here for weeks." I lied.
"It's good to hear that, but that's not the reason why I'm telling you these stories. Todd, as a chief of police, and also as a friend of your family, it's my duty to warn you; unusual things are happening, it might just be a series of unfortunate coincidences, but it might also be something else. The fact we don't know, is what makes me worry about your safety."
It was then when I heard a muffled bang upstairs. The chief looked at me and to the chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Luna.
"The cat." I said. "I thought I'd be good to have some... ah, company"
Stevenson stared at the floor, one of his hands supporting his chin, the other one resting on his knee.
"Consider this Todd; you live in one of the most isolated properties of this county, it is very, very difficult to reach you. It's not up to me to decide what you should do with your life, but I just think it might be time for you to contact your mother. Billy was her son too, after all." The chief handed me the wooden urn; it was very light and minimalistic.
I touched that tiny cross on the lid, feeling the contours. I knew that sooner or later I'd receive an urn with Billy's ashes, but I didn't realized how surreal that'd be until I felt it in my hands.
My older brother, turned into dust, kept in a box.
Stevenson was a good person, I knew he cared about me, but he never knew how to proceed in situations such as these. He wasn't cold or anything, he was just a man that had seen way too much.
"I'm sorry..." He said after a long pause.
"No, it's okay. Thank you for bringing it, I don't think I could do it on my own." I placed the urn on the coffee table as I hadn't decided yet what to do with it.
"You see Todd, Mr. Hopkins happens to be a preacher, he even had a bible with him when he went to my office. He is very... convinced that the devil is doing those things, to make us falter, to lead us into sin." For a moment Stevenson seemed to be telling that more to himself than to me.
"Do you believe him?" I asked.
"I don't know." He said. "Lately I've been seeing so much evil in the heart of people. And I'm not talking about Bedford alone, but the world as a whole. Some blame the devil, others blame the government, the corporations — you name it — it doesn't really changes the fact that something is wrong, and we must be vigilant."
I agreed with him. The chief let out a long sigh; that was the sign he had said whatever he wanted to say, and was done with words.
"Take care, okay?" He patted my shoulder as he stood up from the couch.
"I will." I said, following him to the door. It had started to rain outside, and the dark SUV glistened under the scattered sun light. "New car?" I asked.
"Oh that — I thought you'd notice — there's this company working with the city government to find a way to stop that disease from spreading to other crops. They made a 'donation' to the state; twenty of those. I got one."
"A company can do that? Which company?" I got a very bad vibe.
"Well, I guess they can. It's a chemical one, Borealis. Have you heard about it?" He asked, closing the door as he got in the car.
"N-no, I haven't... Have a nice day sir."
I locked myself in the house. I had an odd certainty that something wasn't right.
"Luna!" I called her. "Luna, where are ya?" I ran upstairs, bursting into her room. She wasn't there. I felt my head spinning.
"Luna!" I yelled, turning around to face the corridor. The door to my room was half-opened and a faint light flashed inside.
"Crap..." I pushed the door open. "W-what the hell! Luna!" Several objects had been scattered on the floor, creating an empty space in the middle of the room that went from the computer to the bed, forming a stripe. Luna was sitting uptight in the bed, her eyes looked empty as she stared at the computer screen, she trembled and muttered things, but her body was frozen in place.
"Jesus Christ!" I shook her. "Answer me!" As I looked around to the flashing monitor, I saw what resembled a security footage, from different places which I recognized as being in Bedford, and others I'd rather not know. White chambers, blurred corridors with numbered doors, metallic shelves filled with surgical instruments. She was hooked into that thing, she was in there.
"T-they are n-near." She stammered. "T-take me out." A spasm ran through her body. I was panicking.
"W-what the fuck have you done!"
"Take me out!" She screamed.
I jumped from the bed and plucked out the computer cables. The connection between her horn and the static was broken. Luna gasped, collapsing on the bed crying and trembling.
I hurried to her side, Luna had buried her face in a pillow. I would try to calm her down, but I wasn't calm either. That was the scariest shit I had ever seen.
"A-almost... They almost t-touched me." She squealed. "I saw them. I remember..."
"I-it's okay, we'll be okay-" I said, touching her face. "We'll be okay." I repeated, lying down by her side. She sobbed, curling against my chest as I pulled her closer.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't meant to do that... I just f-felt something, and it happened." She said. "They have her — my sister. I saw them, in the concrete caves underground."
"We'll find-"
"No Todd! You can't, you don't understand."
"Maybe I can't, but I know someone who can. And we'll find her — whoever they are — they're not taking anything from you. Not anymore."
I looked at the gray ceiling, hearing the rain as it splattered outside, and Luna as she breathed by my side. The world was once noisy, but suddenly it was quiet.
I would find out about Borealis, and they would pay for it.
"I promise."
Shooting Towards The Moon
While There's Still Light
Some nights were cold as death, and the roaring wind seemed to knock on the window panes as a beggar asking for shelter. The muffled sound of rain on the roof induced a trance-like state, in which I delved into dreams and reveries. I was then allowed to flow away with the tiny droplets of water, to any sea they carried me.
In these rare moments in which the duality of the world fused into a single state of being, I would not fight or complain, for my body was a feather, and the evening breeze pushed me away.
For each day the troubles of its own, and for each night a foggy numbness to help us forget.
I woke up when the sky was still drenched in purple, the trees could be barely distinguished from the rest of the world, as all but a thin violet lining gave them a shape. The sun still hid under the horizon, and clouds that would soon be lead-gray awaited above.
I turned on the bed and my hand fell upon a warm velvet, I felt the texture with the tips of my fingers, allowing them to slid quietly into the shadows of her mane. Luna breathed softly, her chest rising and falling, the rhythm of a life I could've easily taken away.
But still here she was against all odds, asleep in my bed after a thunderstorm. Quiet, silent, safe, at least for the time being.
Neither of us wanted to be alone; no more emptiness, no more cold blankets, no more pain.
What Chief Stevenson said the day before had disturbed me almost as much as seeing Luna trapped in the computer screen. Something about those animals running away to drown themselves in lakes was as terrifying as it sounded like. If Luna escaped from the train, who knows what else could've done the same?
Mr. Hopkins had been talking about the devil, it seemed. It's scary when you think you know the nature of your opponent, but it's even scarier when you don't. If it was truly the devil, Hopkins already had the church, his faith, and a bible under his arm. He was prepared.
But what if it wasn't? It seemed to me that mankind could be its own most heinous enemy. Worse than the supernatural, worse than the idea of the devil himself lurking around.
I had nothing to defend myself.
Luna moved softly under my arm, and I was brought back to reality. I met her eyes in the violet-tinted darkness of the predawn; those big blue eyes reflecting shapes I couldn't discern.
"Hey" I whispered. "Sorry" I said, noticing I had started to cuddle her too closely at some point in the night.
"No-" She held my arm with a hoof as I tried to move away. "Don't..." She muttered, holding her gaze on me. "Just for a little bit more. Please."
"Alright." I relaxed, letting my arm slowly rest over the contours of her body. "I'm not going anywhere."
Luna closed her eyes again and let out a deep breath, her muzzle was close enough to my neck for me to feel the warm air brushing against my skin.
I couldn't fall asleep again, but her presence was so comforting that it didn't bothered me at all to stay there just hearing and feeling the rise and fall of her breaths.
And for a second, I could swear we were infinite.
By the time the sun finally rose over the horizon I had to get up and close the curtains. Luna barely moved a feather. Yesterday's incident seemed to have drained her, physically and emotionally.
As she slept I started to put the things back on their places, starting by the computer cables and the scattered books and objects that still remained on the floor. Finally, after placing the chair back on its spot, I sat down on it and turned around so I could face the bed. I wouldn't plug the computer back on the socket, not yet.
Instead, I grabbed my wallet and went on to meticulously count the money. I had twelve bucks and a few cents. That was all there was. I didn't know where Billy kept his wallet, but in any case, I hardly think there'd be much more, except maybe for a couple of lousy cigarettes.
I let out a sight and tossed the wallet on my desk.
We would need money. Soon.
I couldn't stay locked inside that house forever, and I definitely couldn't keep Luna in that area for much longer. I wanted to go to Bedford and see with my own eyes what the hell was going on in the town.
While Luna was still lost in her dreams, I took a shower and went downstairs to fix breakfast. With a sandwich in hands, I stopped in front of the television; it was on mute since the day before, but for the first time I was glad I hadn't turned it off.
It was tuned to some local news channel; I lived closer to the border with Missouri and Nebraska than I did to Des Moines or some other major city in my state, so it wasn't uncommon for me to bump against this sort of transmission.
These two journalists were talking from St. Joseph — which wasn't very far — the cameras switched from them to a panel on the wall, where a map of the Midwest was shown. A highlighted area encompassing half of the border between the two states flashed in red and white colors.
I hushed to grab the remote and unmute it.
'So all residents are supposed to evacuate the area until 6 PM today, when the decontamination operation is scheduled to start. Is that confirmed by the authorities, Sarah?'
'Yes Paul, it is confirmed, I have just contacted the secretary of the department of health and human services, Mr. Andrew Stones, and the order is indeed, to leave the area until further notice. He also reminds us in his note that — open quote: "although the decision may seem unprecedented, measures such as these are fundamental for the safety and well being of our citizens, as we have yet to identify the main leakage in the pipelines."
"Bullshit!" I said aloud.
There was no goddamn pipeline of any sort down here. Some deep shit was going on, and I knew that Borealis had something to do with it. I just knew it.
"It's them, isn't it?"
I turned around to find Luna standing near the kitchen counter, you could tell by her eyes that she had just woken up. Her disheveled mane fell all over her face.
I turned off the TV.
"It's a possibility." I said. "Are you feeling anything weird?" I asked. She shook her head negatively.
"You don't have to worry about that, okay?" I crouched in front of her. "We'll be gone before they arrive. Whoever they may be — we'll be far, far away, okay?" I didn't know what I was saying, but something told me it wasn't time yet to surrender. A voice in the back of my mind kept telling me we would be fine.
And for the first time I trusted it.
Luna nodded.
"Great, now listen: there's food on the coffee table-"
"I'm not hungry."
"Luna, you need to eat. You haven't eaten since yesterday." I softly moved the strands of hair away from her eyes. "It's fruit. Just a little bit, okay?" For a second she seemed taken aback by my gesture, but that feeling dissolved itself quickly in the air.
"Okay." She said. "But where are you going now?"
"I have to pack a few things in the car, we'll be leaving by noon." I said, standing up again. "It's going to start raining again, the road gets messy pretty quickly."
I hadn't the slightest idea of where I was supposed to go, or what I'd do once I got there, as a matter of fact, I had never left Bedford in years, and even when I did, my brother or father would come together.
The world used to be this tiny little place for me; the farthest I had been from home was a school trip to Chicago when I was twelve years old. I thought lake Michigan was the sea, and to this day it is still the closest thing to an ocean I've seen.
But now it was different. Staying wasn't an option anymore — I don't think it ever was.
I unlatched the door and stepped on the front porch, the wooden beams squealed under my feet as I made my way down the stairs. I walked slowly, because I wanted that place to know I was leaving — all the dusty windows and bricks, all the walls with their crackled paintings — all that land and the dying crops. I wanted all of that to know I wouldn't come back.
I had Billy's urn under my left arm, he used to be the one who bound me to that place. Now he was just ash in a box.
All of a sudden I felt like talking — I knew he wouldn't listen; he never listened to me even when he was alive — but I felt like talking anyway.
"You know that pond where dad used to go fishing with us?" I said, walking past the lawn and making a turn around the storehouse. "We haven't been there in years. It used to seem so far away when we were little, but the thing is just down the back road." I chuckled.
Without noticing, I left the house behind and pretty soon I was pushing dead bushes aside with my knees, crossing the thicket that separated our farm from the pond.
Daylight was scattered by the trees creating a mosaic of light on ground, I followed the path of the wind, where leaves whirled around my shoulders and passed me by. It wasn't long until that particular scent of water and wet bark filled my nostrils.
"Like I said... Just down the road." I murmured.
The place looked like a time capsule, a bubble of past in a world that never ceased to change. As if stuck in a loop, the dark waters of the lake reflected the same trees, the same cloudy sky, year after year — even the ropes that once kept our boat tied to the shore retained the same knots.
"You've always liked this pond. I could never figure out why." I said, leaning against a tree. I could feel my father in every inch of that place, I could feel him in the very own silence that hovered around me. "I think I do now."
I opened the urn and without much effort leaned it over the water. The particles of ash flowed with the wind, it all fading like a childhood memory kept for too long.
I let the wooden box fall on the lake after it all was over, the wooden cross carved on the lid disappeared underwater as it sank.
"Goodbye brother."
Shooting Towards The Moon
Luna didn't asked me where I had been, and I was sort of glad she didn't. Sometimes I felt as if she knew more about me and my innermost feelings than I'd ever pour out.
I was an introverted person — there was much inside my head I'd rather keep to myself — but she could read me like the pages of some novel, if she wanted to.
"Sorry for taking this long." I said, placing my mud-stained boots aside before stepping into the living room. "There was something I needed to do before leaving." Luna eyed me with a hint of curiosity, noticing the signs of my short incursion into the thickets.
"I hope you were successful in doing so." She said. It made me pause and think for a second.
"Yes... I guess I was." I nodded. "It's all fine."
"Very well then." She stood up. "What are we supposed to do now?"
I looked at the clock on the kitchen wall; it was already ten in the morning. I grabbed a pair of backpacks that were hanging in a corner and tossed one of them to Luna.
"What's that for?" She asked. Surprisingly, her magic was already strong enough to hold objects as large as that.
"We gotta pack a few things before we go — a lot of things, actually." I ran up the stairs, Luna following me like a shadow.
"What sort of things?"
"Clothes, blankets, medicine, food. Make sure to open the drawers, you'll be surprised with the kind of stuff that pops out in this house." I said. "I'm gonna get my computer files — or at least part of them — and check my room for anything else that might be useful. You think you can handle the weight of this thing?" I asked, pointing to the floating backpack. Luna made a positive sign with her head.
"Alright then, but don't strain your horn, or whatever."
"I won't." She rolled her eyes and moved on.
I went inside my room and pushed the door with my elbow, leaving open just a small crack. I could hear the muffled clank-bangs of Luna as she scavenged the other chambers.
That'd keep her busy for a while.
I hushed to my computer and plugged back the power chord. Now it was a matter of luck.
"Come on..." I muttered, giving the CPU some slaps on its sides. "Just one more time, please."
A green light flashed. My digital prayers were answered.
"Yes!"
While the whole thing loaded, I grabbed a pair of pen-drives I had found on Billy's room. One I recognized as being mine — I hadn't seen it in months — the other one had 'Black Mirror' scribbled on it with a permanent marker.
My desktop appeared on the screen, and I was glad to find all of my files intact, in special an untitled folder where I had been saving all sorts of information I could find about Borealis, including Dennis Faraday's video — which as I imagined — was deleted from YouTube not a day later.
I wasn't going to erase my personal archives to save all of that, so I was forced to delete the contents of the Black Mirror pen drive. There was some irony in doing that, I thought.
While the files were transferred, I took my time to stuck an armful of clothes into the bag, alongside with my toothbrush, soap, and anything else I could find in the medicine cabinet that wasn't either expired or broken. All the apparatus I had used to remove the bullet from Luna's leg , and also my old survival magazines. I got all of that in the bag.
It was almost like preparing your backpack for a family trip. Only that time there was no way back, and I could be killed or captured by an unknown entity, and I also had a flying unicorn with me. So it was kind of different from a family trip... But not too much.
My bag was nearly full, but something was still missing. Something that once belonged to my father, and for many years now I had been keeping for myself.
I lifted my mattress and stared at it; a huge .500 S&W Magnum. The thing was almost the size of my forearm.
I grabbed it with both hands and inspected it under a beam of light that escaped from the curtains. I heard the door opening, and before I could think of a place to hide that goddamn revolver, I saw Luna.
The unicorn backed away when she saw the gun in my hands, her backpack falling on the floor with a muffled thump. I looked up and saw the expression in her eyes as I wrapped the revolver with a white cloth.
"W-why do you still k-keep that thing?" She asked, standing at a safe distance from the doorway.
"For our safety." I said, placing the wrapping in the side pocket of my bag. "I'm sorry... But we need something to defend ourselves in case-"
"In case of what?" She said, her voice tinted with a mix of fear and anger. "This kills people."
"Borealis kills people, Luna." I walked to the door and grabbed her backpack and the pen drives. She didn't moved. "We are prey, and they're out there looking for us. I'd carry a dozen guns in my truck if only I had that many." Without saying another word, she yanked her backpack from my arms and walked down the stairs.
"Hey, wait a sec. We're not done yet, I still need to get the food." I said, following her to the ground floor.
"Go on, It's not like I'm stopping you. As if I could, anyway." She sat on the armchair, her face twisted in a frown.
"It's cute when you do that, you know?" I said, making my way to the kitchen.
"If my suffering amuses you..." She turned away from me.
"Not your suffering; your face. Makes me want to boop your nose or something." I didn't hear a reply.
I opened the dispenser and got a little disappointed with the sight; we had some canned food, cereal bars, corn flakes, and a few minor things here and there. Not counting the cobwebs, of course. Those weren't edible. I had found in the old storage house one of those huge flour sacks, which I used to put the cans and stuff inside. The sack wasn't even half-full when I finished emptying the entire dispenser.
'Crap.'
I sat on the couch, dropping the sack beside me; I couldn't say for sure which one looked more miserable. Luna had been quiet for a while, not turning her face away, but still avoiding contact. She didn't bothered me — my lack of funds did. I found myself counting the same $25 bucks again and again, as if expecting the dollar bills to magically duplicate themselves in my wallet.
"Is there anything troubling you?" I looked up and found Luna's attention focused on me. There was a hint of concern in her voice that made me realize I hadn't been able to hide my own insecurities.
"I.. It's just that- This." I sighed, dropping the wallet by my side. "This money won't do. We'll barely get to Bedford with this, and we'll need to buy food, and water, and possibly shelter."
"Let me see it." She said, jumping out of her chair and stopping in front of me.
"Why?"
"Just show me."
I protested for a second, but handed over the wallet. She retrieved the bills with her glowing magic-thing and made them float at her eyes level, she turned the $20 around and stared at it for what seemed like ages.
"What are you trying to do?" I asked.
"Ah... This may or may not work." She said.
"Luna, whatever it is — no." I tried to catch my floating money, but it flew out of my grasp. "Don't try to do any kind of-"
*poof*
"Uh, oh..."
I covered my mouth, noticing in shock the absence of my small fortune. Her magic still swirled in the air like a blue mist, but the bills were gone.
"I told you! I told you not to try any-"
*poof*
The micro-explosion was louder than the first one. I found myself instinctively covering my face when the static noise in the air finally dissipated. And together with it, a rain of paper started falling over our heads; not any kind of paper, but dozens, maybe hundreds of copies of that damned $20 bill.
"What the hell!" I stood up, loosing balance as I stepped on a small pile of duplicated dollars. "How did you do this!?"
"I- I thought you needed more, so..."
"You are freaking fantastic, you know that? Jesus Christ!" I laughed. As long as no one checked the serial numbers, that'd do. Oh, it would certainly do. "C'mon; help me get all of this into the flour sack. We need to get the hell outta here anyway."
"Are you okay back there?" I asked, helping Luna with the seat belt. "Try to not entangle yourself with this thing, alright?"
"I'll be fine here, thank you." She said, stretching her wings before lying down like a sphinx.
"Good."
The last time Luna had been in my car, she was a muddy, unconscious mess of fur and feathers. I thought it'd be harder to convince her to hop back in that car, but it wasn't. Her eagerness to flee from the presence of Borealis fueled her inner strength like no other thing could do.
"Now... Before we go." I closed the door, making the automatic locks click. "About that spell you mentioned a while ago. What's the name of it?"
"Now you see, now you don't. It's a showpony spell."
"Yeah, yeah; that one. How can we be sure that it works? I mean, it's not like I don't believe in your skills or anything — you've spawned two thousand dollars, for God's sake — but a selective invisibility spell is something else."
"Oh, well, we can't be sure. At least not until some other human sees me. Or not — that's the plan. I can't become invisible for you, I ought to remain in sight of at least one pon- one person. That's how the spell works." She said.
"Yeah." I sighed. "Anyway. It's a risk, but we need to move on. If they see you, they see you. I'll tell them you're like... one of those rare horse breeds, or something."
"Very funny." She rolled her eyes.
"You get used to it." I chuckled, starting the car. "Say goodbye to the McRavens fields." I said to myself. I had good times in that place. I had a family there, and I saw them drifting away.
Then, when the good times were gone, so was I.
"See ya."
Shooting Towards The Moon
"And... Welcome to Bedford." I proclaimed as we drove into the urban perimeter. Bedford was one of those negligible towns that folks often pass by while heading somewhere else, the sort of place that makes anyone from the big cities ask themselves 'what sort of people live in a hole like this?'. Well, people like me do. People with unicorns in their backseats and shit like that.
"What is this smell?" Luna asked, sniffing the air like a dog.
"It's the old pet food factory; it smells different each day of the week." I said, remembering my school years, when my friends gathered to make bets on what smell would bug the town the next morning. After a while it became quite predictable, but sometimes the factory released some exotic odors that'd surprise even us; the smell connoisseurs. "Today is Thursday, so it must be lamb and vegetables." Luna made a disgusted face as we passed in front of the rusty-looking factory, with those greasy brick chimneys that could be seen from practically anywhere.
"You get used to it — actually, you don't. I don't expect us to stay long enough in this town for your nose to make amends with the smell."
"That's good to hear." She said, leaning back on her seat.
We went down the lengthy Madison Street, which was one of the three major streets of Bedford. Keep in mind that 'major' is a generous adjective to describe any street that isn't just copy-pasted suburban houses with overgrown lawns. Everything we could possibly need was on Madison Street, and it would be easy-peasy to get things done if it wasn't for the crowd of gas-masked soldiers patrolling the place.
"Shit."
Assembled in the middle of the street was some sort of border checkpoint and all cars funneled into a line. The good news is that there were more tractors than cars in Bedford, so it was a short line. Bad news is that we'd get inspected anyway.
"Alright Luna, here's where your so called spell will be put to the proof. I don't think these guys are looking for unicorns, but I'd stay very, very quiet if I were you. If we pass them, we are free from this hell." I said, glancing at the backseat to find Luna curled in a corner.
"They are not from Borealis." She said.
"How do you know they're not?" I asked — although I was quite sure those fellas were as clueless as us regarding the situation.
"Oh Todd... You would recognize a Borealis officer if you saw one. I just hope you never do."
The line moved on.
I lowered the window as we got to the checkpoint, and one of the gas-masked soldiers nearly shoved a flashlight on my face.
"Documents please." His voice escaped amidst a coarse breathing sound.
"Here." I handed over my driver's licence, looking at him and discretely at Luna. We remained frozen in our places as they moved over to pass those squeaky geiger-counters all over the truck — I hoped to god Luna wasn't radioactive. Few things could be worse than a radioactive invisible unicorn.
As far as we were concerned, none of them had seen her. That was so until one of the guys opened the door and bumped against something. Luna let out a gasp of surprise and crawled to the other side of the seat.
"What was that?" He asked, pointing his flashlight at the seemingly empty space.
"What was what?" I saw his squinting eyes behind the mask. "Anything wrong, sir?"
The man paused for a couple of seconds — possibly pondering if he had indeed felt a presence, or if the incessant hours of repetitive action were finally eroding his sanity.
"All clear." He concluded, closing the door and returning my license. "You have three hours to leave the town. Anywhere north of Gravity is out of the evacuation zone."
"Thanks, I'm going to Corning." I said, trying to sound like a normal guy.
"That'll be better. Have a nice day." He nodded.
"You too."
I rolled up the window and drove away, not stopping until the checkpoint was out of my field of view.
"Jesus, that was close!" I gave a nervous laugh.
The sound of my voice started to fade into a very welcome silence that embraced the interior of the car. It was just me, Luna, and the the humming of the engine. My world had been compressed into that truck, all the relevant remnants of my existence were now contained into a single moving chunk of space. That was a shocking, but comforting realization.
No more past — just the solid grasp of the present time — and a vague idea of a future that refused to sink in.
"Where is Corning?" Luna asked, bringing me back to Madison St.
"It's a town some twenty miles north." I said. "It's just a possibility, to be honest. It was the first name that crossed my mind when we passed by those guards. I thought about taking us to Des Moines, but it's far too crowded. We could attract unnecessary attention."
Luna divided her focus between my words and the store signs hanging from the buildings.
"Besides..."
"An old friend lives there. He's a good guy — tinfoil hat insane — but good." I noted. James was an oddball, one couldn't deny it. "He knows about this sort of stuff, I mean. He could help us track the YouTube video guy."
"Why would you want to find that man, anyway?" She asked.
"That dude might be our key to the railways. You remember what he said on the video? The thing was right under his property; he must know something." I replied. "Look, we both have suffered because of Borealis — who knows what else he might have seen. If we find a way to the railroads, we might as well find a way to your sister."
"And there's that woman too. What's her name — Kate. Whoever she is, the video guy trusts her."
Although the idea of finding her sister seemed — at first — crucial to Luna, there was a heavy uncertainty in her words now that we were finally moving away from the suspicious shade of the corn fields.
"I don't think I'm ready to put my trust in somebody we've only seen in a screen." She said. "I need to breathe for a while Todd."
That was the first time Luna had spoken with so much meaning in a sentence. She wasn't too fond of sharing 'feelings' or anything.
"Alright. I guess we can wait some more once we get to Corning." I tried to sound reassuring. "I'll wait as long as you want, but keep in mind that we can't hide forever; at least not if we wanna take you and your sister home. Something tells me we are not the only ones looking for a way to wreck this goddamn company."
"There must be a way out of this, after all."
After spending nearly two hours between the gas station and the supermarket catastrophically-sized lines, I stopped by Walmart's parking lot to make sure we had bought everything we needed — and it seems like everyone did the same — because Bedford's evacuation forced even the most deeply rooted clans out of their lands.
That meant I've got the rare chance to see some of our local mythical figures outside of their natural habitats.
"You see that guy over there?" I said, pushing a water gallon into the truck bed. "That one with the weird nervous tic."
Luna poked her head out of the window to look around.
"What's the matter with him?"
"Oh well... Where do I begin?" I chuckled. "That's Pepperoni Joe — I don't know his real name — but that's how we'd call him, anyway. A friend of mine used to do the night shift on this convenience store not too far from here, once per month or so Pepperoni Joe would come just after midnight and buy 'bout a hundred dollars worth of pepperoni sausages, mayo, and wrapping paper."
"So what?" Luna rolled her eyes.
"So w-what?" I muttered. "Is that a normal behavior in unicornland or something?"
"The name is Equestria — and I've seen worse." She said with a hint of pride.
"Jesus... I don't even want to know. And I thought it was weird enough for ponies to-"
"Todd."
"What?" I closed the trunk door.
"Them..." She pointed with her eyes to the right.
I turned to face a trio of kids staring at me from a nearby parking spot.
"Uh, who are you talking to?" One of the boys asked.
"Don't y'all have imaginary friends or something?" I said. "I'm talking to my unicorn. Can't you see her?"
"You're crazy." They giggled.
"Yeah, I'm totally nuts."
We were perhaps, on the last block of the northern part of the town, when a red light forced me to stop quite abruptly. A long line of black SUV's crossed the street ahead and disappeared behind the corner, each of them leaving a fleeting shadow behind as the setting sun reflected for a second or so on their roofs. The light turned back green.
"That's something I don't see very often." I murmured. Luna didn't say a word about it.
Not too far from there I spotted the first — and the last — friendly face of Bedford. Stevenson was leaning against his car, staring at an empty space in front of him while the smoke of a cigarette made his face partially disappear every now and then.
"Ain't those some weird days, sheriff?" I said, a little sorry for blocking his patch of sunlight with my truck.
"McRaven." He replied, with one of those far away smiles on his face. "I can't say you're lyin', son. Mighty weird ones." He tossed the cigarette aside.
"Any idea of what's going on for real? I'm not buying that pipeline story."
Stevenson moved over to stand beside my window, random words intermingled with static escaped from his radio. After a long pause during which he stared some more into nothing, the sheriff spoke.
"I wish I knew." He said. "I don't like these people. Not at all. A private company acting as a law enforcement agency. It's ridiculous to even imagine."
"What do you think they want here, anyway?" I asked.
"The government says some toxic chemical has leaked into the soil. Supposedly, Borealis should be responsible for it, since they've assembled the whole pipeline thing. That might even be true, but I think there's more."
"More?" I frowned.
"They're looking for something big and I don't think it's cracks in the pipes." He paused for a while. "And before you ask; I have absolutely no idea about what it is."
I allowed the silence to settle, as I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. Luna sighed on the backseat.
"Listen, which route are you taking?" He finally asked, taking another cigarette from his pocket.
"The 148. I'm heading to Corning."
"Well, if I may suggest an alternative — I'd take the old Lake Road all the way up to the J35. Go west from there, it should take you to Gravity, then just head north towards Corning. There's another border crossing on the 148 operated by Borealis, and I don't really trust them."
"Thank you." I said, meeting Luna's eyes through the rear-view mirror. "I'll take the Lake Road." I nodded, starting the car again.
"And Todd—" The sheriff said. "Take care out there, will ya?"
For a second I felt as if Stevenson had just perceived the existence of Luna, but I shook the thought away.
"I will sir. I will."
Shooting Towards The Moon
There was an aura of calmness, an entrancing peacefulness hovering above that wet parking lot. You'd expect magic to be hiding in ancient stones and fairy circles, but I've come to realize that the less you try to find it, the more present it becomes.
Rain splattered on the concrete forming shallow puddles that spread in between the cracks, reflecting the blurry red and white lights of the junk food signs. Across the street, a liquor store had its ceiling covered in green neon, it tinted the low rain clouds in a radioactive-looking glow. Iowa's finest aurora.
It was a beautiful night in the outskirts of Corning. I'm not being sarcastic; you see, that was the closest thing to freedom we had ever experienced. Out of town, out of sight — at least temporarily — we were safe. And boy, it felt good.
The town wasn't overly crowded, but the cheap-ass motels by the highway had no vacancy whatsoever. The evacuation zone had been expanded by a few miles, and people were gradually moving upstate. Although Corning wasn't anywhere near a major city, it had a fair share of amenities.
It didn't felt wise to spend our money in a hotel room considering we'd be heading to James house the next morning, so we both agreed to park the car somewhere safe, preferably with bathroom access, and stay there until sunrise. Walmart seemed far too busy, so we moved over to a quieter rest area, near the shade of a Wendy's sign.
"The girl with the red hair creeps me out." Luna said, sticking her head out of the window.
"She creeps everyone out." I noted. "The burgers are good, though. It's a shame you don't eat them." The pony's expression made further words unnecessary.
"We'll find something for you. There must be eggs, or some vegetarian menu — crap, I bet even butcheries have vegetarian options nowadays."
"I'm not that hungry. Just tired."
Luna tried to stretch herself on the backseat, but our bags blocked nearly half of the space. Whenever she unfurled a wing, the other one got stuck somewhere else. When she rolled to the side, a seat belt wrapped itself on her hind leg. The pony let out a muffled groan.
"This won't do." Luna sighed. "I'll end up stabbing you with my horn."
"Ah.. Well, that'd be quite undesirable." I chuckled. "Here, come. I have an idea."
We hopped off the car while I tried to make the cabin more alicorn-friendly. Luna's hoofs clip-clopped on the drenched asphalt as she walked around.
"Todd, it's cold!" She whined, shaking the tiny droplets of water from her curled wings and mane.
"I won't take long." I said as I pulled up the reclining handle to push the back of the front seats down. After struggling with the rusty hinges for a while, they finally receded.
"Alright, so — it's not a California king bed, but that'll do for tonight." The cabin interior had been partially turned into a flat space; the seats serving as a makeshift sleeping surface, bags as pillows. I grabbed some covers I had packed for the night, and that was it.
"Finally!" She said, crawling back into the car.
"Whoa whoa whoa, not so fast miss! I don't want your muddy hooves on my covers. Dry 'em first."
"W-what? My hooves are not muddy!" Luna groaned.
"No, but they are drenched and dripping parking lot water everywhere."
Luna rolled her eyes, but agreed to cast a drying spell on her body — which as a matter of fact — made the fur around her neck and chest particularly floofy.
"Satisfied?" She asked.
"Very."
Floof is always satisfying.
The lights had been off for quite some time, wrapped in my sheets I stared at the foggy window, at fragments of clouds, starry sky, and distant lights; yellowish floating orbs, dim white flashes, red blurs. They reflected on the low ceiling creating a phantasmagorical show.
I liked it; it calmed my nerves.
"Todd?"
I knew that kind of whisper.
"Hmm?"
"Are you awake?"
"Yeah" I said, turning around to face her.
Luna was cuddling the pillows she brought with her from the farmhouse. It was hard to see anything else in the dark — but her eyes — boy, they shimmered. I had the impression that some of her physical traits were becoming more vivid as the day passed by.
"I was wondering... It's something you told me, actually."
"What is it?" I asked.
"Why did your brother — uh — why he tried to kill me?"
One couldn't possibly lie to Luna. Not for too long.
"Well..." I sighed. "It wasn't his plan, to be honest."
"How come?"
"Because it was me, Luna. I wanted to hunt you, I gave the idea and he agreed to help." It felt weird to admit that. Mostly because she was the one that should be dead. "But I didn't know it was you back then — I mean, I knew it was you, but not the-"
"Don't worry about that. It's alright." She touched my arm with a hoof.
"No, it's not alright. It's not alright to hurt other beings — It's a fucking shame I only came to realize this after I killed my brother."
"You shouldn't blame yourself for that, Todd. It wasn't your intention." Luna said almost in a whisper, moving closer to me. I could feel the warmth of her chest near mine.
Her eyes gazed into the empty space between our bodies.
"I had a misunderstanding with my sister once. Actually... It was way more than a misunderstanding." She had one of those smiles with a hint of melancholy; one of those that makes you wonder about the all the untold stories responsible for that specific expression. "I was imprisoned on the moon for a very long time."
"On the moon?" I raised my eyebrows at that.
"Yeah, but not your moon — you have to understand that most of the places I've been, and the things I've experienced, are not from this world." She stated.
"I know, I know. But... The moon, though?" I shook my head.
"Yes." She nodded. "Other ponies couldn't possibly survive there, but I could. I did." She let her head rest beside mine, as we both quietly appreciated the spectral light show in the dark ceiling. "If there's anything worse than death itself, it's the endless grasp of eternity. Alone."
"You don't look eternal." I told her.
"Not on Earth. You should see me in Equestria — I'm way better than this." She chuckled.
"I like 'this' the way it is." I admitted. It was hard to conceive an 'enhanced' version of Luna, anyway. "And I don't think ponyland would be too fond of me anyway."
"Of course they would!" She nuzzled my neck, eliciting a startle reflex that made my body shiver. "Ponies can be very understanding."
"Yeah... sure." I chuckled. "Who knows, maybe one day I'll take you home in a magical rocket, powered by rainbows, glitter, and radioactive stuff."
The morning urged us to keep moving. After a quick breakfast that I retrieved from Wendy's drive-thru, and a much needed visit to the restroom, we were both ready to hit the road.
Luna finally agreed to come with me on my quest to find James. We had nowhere else to go, after all, and since we were already in Corning, it shouldn't be a big deal to knock on his door.
If we could find him, that's it.
"All these houses look the same, how are you supposed to find a specific one?" Luna asked.
"James is a quite- well, he's a quite peculiar person. It won't be hard to find his place, be sure of that." As far as I knew, he had never left that neighborhood, and chances were that he had only moved from the basement of his mother to the house upstairs. I had to be hopeful.
It's not that hard to get lost in the suburbs, specially for people like me who learned how to drive in a corn field. It took us nearly an hour to spot a suspicious house.
"What about that one?" Luna said, pointing to an anomalously secluded property ahead. Truth be told; the house was an eyesore.
"Jesus... It has to be that one." I turned off the car.
The house was covered in a gray substance; some kind of foam used for thermal isolation which had been sprayed all over the structure, from the porch to the roof tiles. But it didn't stop there.
All windows seemed to be sealed from inside with metal sheets, and its once lovely balconies were now decorated with a dense layer of barbed wire. A decoration that was also present around the porch, where it featured some lovely warning signs.
"Uh, I'm not sure... I mean — it doesn't seems like this man wants visitors." She stared at the electrified barbed wire fence with a concerned look.
"I guess we'll have to find out." I let out a nervous chuckle. "Just make sure your invisibility spell is running. You know the rest."
"Don't touch anything, don't speak to anyone, and stay as quiet as possible." Luna rolled her eyes, mocking my usual combo of recommendations.
"Yeah, that's my unicorn!" I petted her head. "Come over."
I started to make my way through the lawn, which unlike the house itself, didn't had any visible security ornaments. Still, before I reached the front stairs a raspy voice spoke through an intercom planted between the shrubs.
"Don't you fucking move."
I halted, still a few steps away from the porch. I felt Luna's breath on the back of my hand.
"Come on James, already forgetting your old pals?" I said, showing my open palms. "Todd." I told him.
"There are many Todds."
"Todd McRaven — dude — what the hell — I was the one who found you crying on that bathroom stall after the prom night!" Some memories never fail. "Camille Brooks, remember? You tried to ask her out, but only managed to puke a mix of diet coke and Doritos on her stupid dress."
"Enough!" The voice said.
There was static coming from the intercom. If I knew James, he was staring at his microphone calculating which words would be spoken next. The cameras around the house moved on their bases and focused on me.
"Approach the front door carefully."
We did so, but stopped on our tracks when the electric fence dry-fried an unsuspecting squirrel. Luna covered her mouth and looked away.
"Ah... You might want to turn that off." I said, hoping he'd hear me.
There was a beep.
"Keep moving" Said the intercom.
Step by step, we walked into the porch. Aside from the huge spherical camera planted above it, the front door was plain white. Nothing out of the ordinary. So normal-looking in fact, that it made me uncomfortable.
Then I heard it; this heavy, deep sound — of metallic grinding or dragging. A rustic chimney planted on the wall coughed a puff of black smoke. The wooden beams on the floor started to vibrate to the easily recognizable hum of a diesel generator.
Something massive slid behind the walls. You could feel the weight shifting.
It lasted for about fifteen seconds, before it all wheezed back into silence.
James opened the door.
"Dude." He said. It was a long and boringly-tuned word. That was the way he spoke; as if he either didn't cared, or didn't felt like talking to you. Good guy, James. "Don't talk about Camille Brooks again. My therapist said I developed post traumatic stress disorder because of that incident." He scratched his eyebrow.
"Man, you ain't ever been to a goddamn therapist in your life." I reminded him.
"My point still stands." He said. "Look, the blast door is scheduled to close in twenty seconds, you better come in."
Luna didn't seemed convinced about James yet, and I couldn't blame her. But that was our chance, so we hopped into the suburban fortress and hoped it was as alicorn-friendly as my car.
Shooting Towards The Moon
I met James in middle school, back when his family still lived in Bedford. He used to be quite an average guy, by all means. The transition between that state of apparent normalcy, and his subsequent paranoia-bound mentality took place over a summer. How — and most importantly; why — that happened, I never got to know for sure, but I do associate that drastic change, at least partially, to his parents' divorce. Having no other means to cope with that, James avoided the external world by plunging himself into the depths of internet conspiracy groups.
I thought, at first, that it was just a momentary thing — that he'd eventually let go of the fad, and come back to his senses. But he didn't.
Most of the times it didn't bothered me — he was just a weird guy with an odd way of interpreting things — and of finding connections where anyone else would find absolutely nothing. Who'd have guessed his skills would serve a purpose so much time later...
The first question that crossed my mind as soon as I was allowed into the house, was 'why? '. It's not like I was expecting to be welcomed into a fancy suburban home, by a happy family with two kids and a golden retriever — but I wasn't expecting to find myself locked up in a tinfoil cave either.
The house was cryptic. Most of the walls had been shielded with sheets of some copper-like material, which glimmered under the lights of a dozen reflectors scattered around. Wires, power cables, exposed circuitry, fans — hundreds of them — computers of many sizes and shapes; the place had a hum of its own, it made me feel inside the guts of a mechanical beast.
Luna tiptoed around me, dodging every now and then from stuff that could easily get stuck on her horn. I definitely wouldn't want to know what could possibly happen if one of those cables got ripped apart.
"I gotta say Todd; I'm surprised." James said, pushing a sliding door aside to reveal a small living room. "As you might have guessed, I don't get many visitors."
"To be honest, I'm quite surprised as well." I exchanged glances with Luna. "That goddamned evacuation zone split my property in two halves. I had to leave Bedford. Not like I was planning to stay there any longer, anyway." I said. "The place is doomed."
James started to nod — his sequentially boring nods — as he spoke.
"I presumed it had something to do with that. But I'm not buying it, Todd. That's not how evacuations work." James played with the curls of his hair as he paced around. "It bothers me deeply to see those things happening so close to my safe-house."
"What do you mean?" I asked. James didn't answered. Maybe he didn't cared enough to answer.
"Tell me, why are you here? Of all the places you could've fled; why Corning — why me?" James rested his arms on top of a wrinkled leather chair. He didn't seemed annoyed or anything, I guess he was just genuinely surprised to have another human being nearby.
"Believe me James, I'd rather be somewhere else as well — I'd love to — but there's something I need to deal with before moving on." I said. "And you're the only one I know that may be able to assist me with that."
"What is it?" James asked, a cloud of uncertainty seemed to drift on the back of his eyes.
"You better have a seat" I said.
"Why?" James stepped back a little.
"It's hard to explain — you need to see it for yourself — but you ought to promise not to freak out." I told him.
"Dude, nothing in this world freaks me out anymore." He let out a chuckle, but even that couldn't hide the underlying uneasiness in his voice.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that." I insisted.
"C'mon Todd, I've already let you in. Nobody comes here unless they have a good reason to — I know you're probably in deep shit bro, so spill the beans." James said.
"Alright... Alright." I nodded. "Luna, come out."
"What's happening to your friend?" Luna asked, approaching carefully as I made my way towards James. His pale face seemed devoid of any blood.
"He's gonna be fine — give him a sec, alright?" I said, preventing Luna from walking any closer. "I'm so- so sorry bro."
James had been wheezing into a paper bag, clutching the thing as if his life depended on it. I made no opposition. No one is truly ready to see an alicorn.
A few minutes later, when we were all spread around on the floor, James opened his mouth to speak.
"Yeah... I'll be." He gasped. "Todd, be a gentleman — there's mountain dew in the fridge, bring it over. I need to relax." He muttered.
"What is a mountain dew?" Luna asked me in a whisper.
"An awful drug, you don't want it." I said, making my way to the kitchen, and back to James, who took the soda can from my hands as a gift from the gods.
There was an odd silence as he gulped down the whole thing. I'd rather not know what Mountain Dew did to his brain over the years.
"There you go." James sighed, tossing the can aside. "Now..." He vaguely pointed to Luna. "That's something I wasn't expecting. Congratulations."
"It's a long story." I mumbled. Boy, it really was.
"You can bet your ass it is." He chuckled in disbelief, covering half of his face with the palms of his hands. "A unicorn, for god's sake!"
"Alicorn, actually." Luna added.
"Oh yeah, my bad. Still getting used to the nomenclature, you know?" James said. "So lemme get this straight; by the time you finally leave goddamn Bedford behind, you bring an alicorn under your arm. I mean — dude — I'm really missing out. Your brother knows about this, I presume?" He asked.
"Billy is dead."
Death always brings with it a certain heaviness. Even if it's not intended; there's no escape from the weight of the hand of fate, who manifests itself whenever it's mentioned.
"I shot him by accident. We were in the middle of nowhere — I couldn't help him." I did my best to control my nervous tic. The one with the neck-rubbing. "James... things are very bad — you need to help me."
There we were; me, my alicorn companion, and my paranoid friend. Sitting on the carpeted floor of a dim lit living room, which vibrated and hummed a thousand hums of unknown processors and machines. That was our sanctuary.
"Alright." James nodded, his expression was then of concern. "Tell me what's going on."
Luna curled herself on a spot beside me. "It's okay." She said, nuzzling my cheek softly.
I sighed. That would be tough.
"Some time ago — I don't know — about a month or so, we've started to notice some things around the farm. Nothing big at first, but you could tell they were out of place." I said.
"What kind of things?" James wrapped another curl of his hair around his index finger.
"Stupid things, like — we had this old wooden cart behind the house, one morning we went outside and the thing was gone. As simple as that. No tracks — no nothing; just vanished in midair. A couple of days later Billy found the cart in the middle of the fucking crops." I shrugged. "Stuff started to vanish and appear in random places — then it kind of transitioned to very specific locations — like the forest edge, or near the road."
"That's a bit creepy." He noted.
"It wasn't at first, but the feeling started to build up, you know? It felt as if... we were being mocked. Things were mild until Billy saw a fucking 'blur' in the woods — then I saw it too — and it became an almost daily occurrence. Whenever we saw the blur, something disappeared, or moved, or burned — or hell knows what."
"So the alicorn was messing up with your heads?" James asked.
"I wasn't—" Luna snapped. I placed an arm around her shoulder, and that seemed to be enough to assure the pony I wouldn't blame her.
"That's what I initially thought." I said "We saw her on the forest one night; I instantly associated her with the blur. Billy helped me to set up a hunting strategy; a plan. And that went on for some time, until I started to realize that it wasn't her. It couldn't be her."
"How could you be so sure — I mean..." He pointed at Luna, who frowned a bit. "No offense, but we have no idea."
"That's the thing; I wasn't sure. Not until I planted a bullet on her leg. It didn't felt right. And it also didn't stop the mockery. The thing — whatever it is — was laughing at our expenses. It was playing with us. Billy didn't wanted to admit it, because he had put so much effort into that plan, but deeply, he knew it." I stated.
"And what she thinks about the so called 'thing'?"
That was a peculiar question; I felt stupid for never having asked Luna about her own perspectives. But again, she seldom shared anything with me.
Now she had our mutual attention.
"Well I — I'm n-not sure — I am not very... Uh- reliable." She looked at me with a puzzled expression, not unlike a cat begging to be saved from a tall tree.
"It's alright; you can talk, it's safe." I reassured her.
She pondered my words for a while, but eventually agreed to speak.
"I don't know for how long I've been lost in that forest." She said. "I was confused — I couldn't seem to find a way out — it felt as if every time I was close to the edge, something dragged me back. I was scared."
"But did you saw that thing? The blur." James insisted.
"I couldn't see anything, but I don't think I was alone either. Before I ended up in those woods I remember being in this train — and I definitely wasn't the only one there."
"I don't think it matters that much now. Borealis is chasing us — I'm not worried about the 'thing' anymore." I said.
"Whoa — hang in there McRaven — that's too much data for me. Let's follow the sequence of events."
I sighed. I couldn't let anxiety take the best of me.
"Anyway. Like I was saying; Billy wouldn't let Luna alone. One night we found her unconscious by the road. He wanted me to finish her... But I didn't. We struggled, the gun fired." I said, as if the rest was self-explanatory. "It was then when I had the certainty that something odd was looming over that place. There's a bunch of fucked up shit happening in Bedford; Billy's death was just my share of it."
"You mentioned Borealis. I heard they're involved in the — 'operation' — around Bedford." James asked.
"Yeah, they definitely are." I said. "Do you know anything about them?"
"Not much, to be honest. Just enough to be suspicious." He said, lazily dropping his body on a chair. "You, on the other hand, seem to know a bit more."
"Just chunks of information here and there. Mostly stuff that has happened to Luna, or the YouTube guy." I told him.
"Ah — so you're a Borealis child?" James said to Luna.
"They held me and my sister in possession. I am no child of them." She said.
"Well, so it seems, I guess." James reclined further on his chair, letting out a sigh. His bored undertone had acquired an inquisitive quality. Knowing James, I'd tell he was gathering pieces of information; theory fuel.
"Have you considered the possibility that Borealis main goal is not actually capturing Luna, but rather something else?" James postulated. "I'm not saying that they aren't looking for her — they definitely are — but like Luna said; she wasn't the only thing in that train."
"It might be true — but what do we know about those people anyway? If it wasn't for the wreckage, we wouldn't even know about their shady-ass business" I said.
"Actually, we kind of would." He said. "I don't know much about them — but that doesn't means no one knows. You mentioned there's a YouTube video. Please tell me you downloaded that."
"I actually did. I was kind of hoping you could tell me who is this person." I handed over my USB drive.
James inspected it under a lamp, as if the object itself could reveal its stored secrets.
"We'll see about that..."
Shooting Towards The Moon
Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter. 