The Followers

Chapter Three

A kaleidoscope of piercing colors.  

It sounded like gulps. Like something was downing portion after portion, in great thirst. But it couldn't have been me? Was it me?  

But I wasn't thirsty. I was nauseous. God, was I nauseous.  

I came to seconds later, vomiting on the ground. It came out, a sludge of half-digested turkey, bread, and horseradish. It was gunky and smelly. It was terrible. 

I turned my head back. I was lying on my back. The world swirled before my eyes. Somewhere above, bark and leaf filtered the great bulb of the sky. But I was alive. I exhaled, relieved, as I felt my toes twitch. I moved my feet. I moved my arms. I moved my chest and shoulders. The tingling was like a toxin, through my nerves, but it was dissipating. And I was alive.  

Or was I? 

I moved myself. I was on my feet, rubbing my head. Everything seemed a little fuzzier. Somebody had pulled a film over my view; colors were dimmed, somehow less real. Angles seemed a little off. But I couldn't tell-how could I? Maybe the world was the same, and I had changed? Maybe everything was as it always was... and I was finally just noticing... 

There was a gate on the right. It led out from the yard; its metal latch was undone. I rubbed my head. I had forgotten all about it. How the hell had I forgotten it? As I moved toward it, I pushed through.  

I stepped onto a sidewalk. It shot straight down the road in both directions as far as the eye could see. As did a continuous line of fence. Every yard had a fence. Cars whizzed by. And there was a dog across the road. Every passing car would warrant the strained yelps of this harmless little Beagle. He roamed back and forth, presiding shamelessly over his tiny 10 foot cross section of the sidewalk.  

The dog faced me. Its snout twitched. But it didn't bark; it merely stared. And I realized that above it, there on the fence, fused again with the fence as with the tree, was the creature. 

I was crossing the road before I was thinking. I didn't look left and right like parents were always telling you. I simply went. The dog was situated like a sphinx. He didn't do anything. And so I walked right up to him, laid my fingers down, somewhat discolored from the fall, and gave a firm rub.  

I was walking again, seconds later I suppose. Or maybe it had been minutes. But I was walking, because I was following. The creature drifted above me. A woman in a sports bra and baseball cap jogged by me with her unstained white New Balances. 

She looked at me with a twinkle and a smile, but she didn't look up. I couldn't hear the birds, but I could see the bees. They were flourishing amid a tangle of honey suckles that stuck through the spaces in a fence. They buzzed merrily, courting the flowers, mingling. I walked to the fence. The creature drifted and lowered on the other side. I could not see, but I knew, I absolutely knew, that it had landed on the roof of this latest house.  

I felt along the fence as I went, across the silky coolness of the honey suckles. But I was not the only one. A click came from several feet ahead. I caught a fleeting glimpse of black fingers trailing inside the opened gate. They were not the fingers of a man. They were black and long; a most soulless black. But they were already gone, and so I jogged forward. The gateway to the yard was unlocked 

So I entered.  

Sometimes we see things that need to be explored. They might be corners that we've passed day by day without thought. They might be bushes, or pathways, or a small crevice between tight homes. But they're usually something we always see. And we usually don't care. But when we do... 

I entered the yard. It was just like my own yard, except for the garden. There was a small garden along the left and back sides of the fence. Mostly the honey suckles, but some beautifully interwoven roses and tulips as well. It was a marvelous chaos of floral proportions; like somebody took a giant bouquet and planted it, and fed it, and nourished it, and allowed it the creative freedom to bloom to its own tune.