TIME BEING Chapter 8. THE MIDNIGHT
Chapter 8. THE MIDNIGHT
A dying woman travels through time to significant points in her life, but things are not as she remembers them. Accompanied by a handsome young stranger and her childhood cat, the fate of both past and future now lies in her aged hands.
Sylvan—the other Sylvan—was nearly a block ahead by the time Sylvan the Original had processed this new information. Sylvan wasn’t a common name, and that someone else, a crone from a time warp dream, had the same name as herself was baffling. Then her tension eased. That was it, of course. In a dream anything could happen.
From out of nowhere, she heard Aron’s voice. “Not a dream. How many times must I tell you?”
Sylvan swung around, searching for the source. Aron was dead. She had seen the body. But hadn’t Brie, the gray cat from her childhood, told her he would be with them again?
“Oh, crap!” Her thoughts were a tornado of non sequiturs. “I give up! I truly do!”
Other-Sylvan was still on the move, Brie trotting beside her. Taking one more gaze about in case she’d overlooked something that might clear up her confusion and finding nothing that even came close, Sylvan rushed to catch up with the only two entities she knew in this place called the Patch.
For a while, she tried to make conversation with her namesake, but the other woman was mum, solely intent upon her path through the convoluted streets and alleyways. She seemed to take her job as leader seriously, moving like a bulldozer through the winding borough. Her services had been bought with a single sequin, and Sylvan kept coming back to the fact that her motives might not be friendly. Yet the only other choice was to strike out alone, and she knew instinctively her environment was more hostile than her guide.
The crone paused every once in a while to look up at the sky or to search the far horizon. The sidewalk under their feet had grown increasingly decrepit, whole slabs missing, revealing the thick clay underneath. The buildings themselves were little more than sheds and shacks, broken wood fences claiming tiny territory. Streetlights had become fewer, leaving entire zones of dark between each feeble glow. The place was desolation incarnate. Since their trek began, they had not encountered a single soul.
“Almost there.” Other-Sylvan flashed a quick smile.
“Where…” Sylvan began, but she sensed it was useless. She would know when they arrived and not a moment sooner.
They moved down a slope, walking faster now. The crone scurried at a near run, and Brie cantered with her. A twist, a turn, and the pair was out of sight, getting away!
Sylvan hurried. Rounding the corner, she nearly bumped into them. Up ahead was something she couldn’t explain, a red cloud hanging low between the buildings, its center roiling with white light. There was a sound too, like an alien song—a choir of locusts, a symphony of cats. The glory of it was compelling beyond measure.
She felt a pull on her arm. “…get out of here!” someone hissed in her ear. But she didn’t want to go. The thing was so beautiful, so terrible. She could watch its incessant churning forever.
Then another pain.
“Ouch!” Sylvan looked down to see Brie staring up at her. Four perfect dots of crimson oozed from her ankle. “You bit me. Why…?”
But she knew. Pain was the only thing that would bring her from her trance. Glancing once more at the red vortex, Sylvan felt only fear.
“Run!” the crone called as she fled the alley. This time Sylvan followed without thought.
A few streets down, the trio began to slow.
“What was that thing back there? Some sort of figment? An apparition?”
“Nothing so simple, girl. You don’t want to know.”
“But I do,” Sylvan insisted.
“You’d be better off paying attention to your own needs than following dangerous will-o-the-wisps,” reprimanded the crone.
When they arrived at the banks of a river, the crone stopped and stared pointedly across the water. Brie hopped onto a fencepost, watching the boil of the dark flow with singular intensity. Sylvan took the hint and put the red phenomenon behind her to follow their gaze.
“Is this it? Is this where you were taking me?”
“Yep, here we are, the end of the line. Or the beginning, depending on how you look at things.”
“And how am I supposed to look at things? I see nothing besides a dirty old river and some foul-smelling huts.”
“And a boat.”
Sylvan squinted, Sure enough, tied to the rotten dock bobbed a craft, though she wasn’t sure one could call the hodgepodge pile of logs and boards a boat.
“So? What? You want me to get on that thing? It doesn’t look safe.”
The crone sniffed and shrugged inside her bulky coat. “Makes no matter to me. That’s your way out of the Patch. It’s yours if you want to use it.”
Sylvan huffed. “I don’t think so. Take me somewhere else.”
“There is nowhere else.”
“Then take me back to the Avenue, the place where we started.”
The crone looked left, then right, then square at Sylvan. “Too late now.”
Without warning, Brie let loose with a cry that curdled Sylvan’s blood in her veins, a cat wail that went on and on.
“What?” Sylvan cried on her own.
“The Midnight! Quick! You must go. Now!”
“But… I’m not going on that boat thing.”
“Suit yourself. It’s your funeral.”
Other-Sylvan was backing away. She turned and bolted, disappearing into the dark streets once more.
Sylvan went to follow but stopped when she saw something in the shadows. Undulating shapes, blacker than oil, fouler than anything Sylvan could have imagined. Was this the Midnight other-Sylvan had been so afraid of? What were they, those demons of the night?
The shapes were drifting closer now, resolving into beings, all horns and claws, blood and ripped flesh that hung from the white of bones. Eyes upon eyes, yellow and black, directed at the woman on the dock.
Brie, still wailing, sped for the boat. Sylvan was only a step behind.
Chapter 9. TIME BEGINNING, coming next Saturday.
For the complete story up to now, look here.
