The Lights In the Sky

Chapter 27

I woke up and I was shivering. There was static in front of my eyes. I shook my head slightly, holding my eyelids tight together. When I opened them again, bits of my living room floated in front of me. I panicked, believing I was still in the cage. Piece by piece, the television set and back wall came together. The small windows at the end of the room. The snow-covered tree outside. Sunlight.

The couch was empty. My head was throbbing. My mouth was dry.

Something was different. Something inside my head. I was angry. Confused.

There were voices in the kitchen. Human voices. I struggled onto my feet. Took long, stumbling steps toward the doorway. Frank was sitting in one of the chairs at the kitchen table. Deborah was standing with her back to me at the sliding door.

I froze. They turned to me. Feeling like I had a bad hangover, I pulled the nearest chair away from the table.

"Listen," Frank said, "you should come over today. The three of us can hang out. Mom's gonna be upset about Uncle Ashton, we can all keep each other company."

Deborah looked at me in a way that told me she knew what happened. Frank told her.

"I can't leave," I breathed. I kept thinking about what the other one said to me. How they knew everything about Frank and Deborah. How they knew my whole life. Everyone was in danger of being dragged into this insidious thing, and still there was a longing to go with them. To put it all away and pretend like it wasn't real.

That's what I did. I drove them to Frank's house in the green truck. Dad must have gotten a ride into town with a coworker or friend. Maybe he was at the bar by now, too. Or working in the cold on some wheelchair ramp for the nursing home. Or doing something he didn't really want to be doing.

We sat in the living room at Frank's house, nobody saying much. Wendy's eyes were red and sagging. She didn't sleep the night before. She made us cheeseburgers on the stove. I usually only like them on the grill, but they tasted pretty good. They were juicy and covered in ketchup and cheese and pickles. Mostly, I just watched Deborah and Frank. Watched them like they were always being watched. Watching her long, dark red hair hang down over her chest. Her sad eyes that stared back in comfort and love. His wide-eyed gaze across the room, which looked at nothing but probably dreamed of the days when his dad would be sitting at the table with us. I think he's probably going to play football in college if he can. I bet every time he steps onto the field he'll think of his dad.

Maybe he'll think of me, too.

I went to the bathroom after we ate. Went to wash my hands, as always. Have you heard those statistics about how many guys don't wash their hands after taking a leak? It's upsetting. I always do, whether I touch anything or not.

As I was washing my hand, there was a sharp pain in the webbing between my thumb and pointer finger. I looked down to see a flake of skin running down the drain. Rubbing the spot where the skin peeled away, I suddenly became lightheaded. Underneath the skin was a moving cloud. Like ash. Like swarming gnats.

I picked at my hand, at the skin surrounding the wound. More skin peeled. More static. More sandpaper static.

There was another pain, a dull lurch in my abdomen. I took a deep breath. Closed my eyes for a few seconds. Lifted my shirt.

To the right of my belly button, there was an opening in the skin about two inches long. Before my eyes, a piece of skin peeled back, hardened, and drifted to the floor. Inside the cut, the gnats mixed with red guts underneath. I almost puked. When I did, the area undulated like a sausage casing over a festering of worms.

I dropped my shirt. My fingers reached up to the back of my neck. To the scar. I pressed on it. The pain was immense, blinding me. I slammed my hands against the counter and gritted my teeth. Looked at myself in the mirror and saw the whites of my eyes turning gray.