Chapter 8

I couldn’t tell how dark the barn was anymore because my vision had completely adjusted. In the chaos, I forgot my wristwatch in my pocket and pulled it out. I never wore it because I didn’t like wearing things on my wrist. I considered getting an old-time pocket watch like conductors had during the early railroad days, but I was just too lazy to shop for one. We’ve been here for a couple of hours now as it was nearly eleven o’ clock.

I peeped through the crack and didn’t see any more lightning, nor did I hear any thunder. Outside was so dark that I couldn’t tell if it was still snowing or not. On the far side of the barn Steve sat on the ground. He wrapped one arm around his knees and held his head with the other. I came over and sat beside him. I thought of what I wanted to say. I wanted to comfort him. That look on his face made me wonder what was going through his mind. Once again, I said the first thing that came to mind.

“So, what game were you playing earlier?”

“Su-Super Mario,” he said in a trembling voice.

“Oh, that’s a good game,” I smiled. “Back in the day I used to play Super Mario. Did you beat it?”

“I beat it a while ago,” his eyes squinted. “Just played it again to past the time while we were on the road.”

I wanted to say more but nothing else came to mind. Holding conversations wasn’t really my thing. Steve began to tremble. His bottom lip shook. I thought as hard as I could to find anything to say to him, but I couldn’t, nothing that would help anyway, or make him feel better. What should I have said? What could I have said? He took his hand off his head.

“Why are all these weird things happening?” he asked. “Earthquakes, storms, killer birds. All these things happened. We can’t go for help. We can’t call the police. We’re trapped here in this rundown barn thing.”

“Steve-,” was all that I could say.

“I’m not trying to sound like everything is bad,” he cocked his eyes at me. “For all we know everything could be back to normal tomorrow or later tonight. But that’s just it, we don’t know why these things are happening or when it will stop and there’s nothing we can do.”

He placed a hand on his forehead. His eyes were glossy, and his lip continued to tremble.

“I just feel so helpless,” he said. “I don’t want to just sit here. I’m so used to letting people do things, taking charge and getting things done. I never had to worry as someone was always there to make the right decisions. But now that we’re on our own I just feel that we’re waiting to die, and I don’t want that. I couldn’t even do anything for Rhoda. God knows what happened to her. You were right about none of us standing up for her. I should had done more. I should had gone out there with you and Kate.”

“Hey,” I said. “There wasn’t anything you could’ve done. We couldn’t find her. I wasn’t really thinking when I said that. We did what we could, and I doubt it would had made a difference if you came out with us. Even if we did find her, Kate somewhat had a point about Rhoda’s mental state. I don’t know exactly why she was acting funny except maybe it had something to do with her mentioning that she didn’t feel good right before she started flailing her arms about.”

I looked him in his teary eyes.

“Steve, I don’t know why this is happening. There has to be a reason for it even if we don’t know what it is. I just know for now we’re safe here. I don’t know what happened to Rhoda, but we have to focus on what’s happening now. Yes, we can’t reach out for help so the four of us have to rely on each other. For now, we just have to stay strong and let this come and pass.”

“Honestly, Stanford, no lie, I’m scared as hell. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t want to die but before this is over, I feel that something bad is going to happen.”

“Steve, listen,” I licked my lips. “I know you’re scared but understand we all are. Me, Eric, Kate, we’re all in the same boat. I just don’t want you to feel like you’re alone in your feelings.”

I didn’t claim to understand because I didn’t. Being the oldest among us I felt that I needed to take care of everyone and keep their morals high. I didn’t want them to get discouraged. When going through rough times it’s best to keep everyone’s spirits up.

“Someway, somehow, we’ll get through this,” I said. Steve slowly nodded.

I patted him on the shoulder. I let him be to himself and headed back to the wall. Eric peeped through the crack. His eyebrow raised as he stared into the darkness. He glanced briefly at me and spoke as I sat down on the other side of the crack.

“You know, ever since humanity dawned upon the world their greatest fears have always been a lack of understanding. What is first introduced to them and what lies beyond the world that they understand often throws them for a loop. Humanity strives to find explanations for everything around them to make the world more understandable. When they can’t explain or understand something, they gain various emotions of fright, confusion and doubt. No matter how advance human technology advances or how smart they believe they are, humanity will never know everything about everything there is in the world. But even still, I wonder when there is an event with no clear explanation, what caused it? Perhaps circumstances, or was it fate?”

He caught me off guard with what he said. I’ve never heard him speak like that before. “Eric, when did you come up with that?”

“Just something that was in my mind,” he smirked.

“But that was quite philosophic,” I raised a brow and cocked my eyes at him. “I never knew you thought that way.”

“Why? Is it because I spend my free time playing video games?” he asked.

“Well sort of,” I smirked. “Who ever knew you could become a philosopher by playing a game of Mario.”

His eyes widened and his face slowly contorted into a smile. He chuckled which caused me to chuckle with him. He looked back through the crack.

“So what do you think is the real reason behind these storms? Are they random or is there another reason behind them? Do you think someone built a machine that makes storms in winter?” he asked.

“What are you saying? You’re asking are these storms manmade?” I asked.

“Come on, Stanford,” he said looking back at me. “You can’t seriously think that nature had anything to do with this. Since when do earthquakes and thunderstorms happen in the winter simultaneously? I heard what you said about thunderstorms in winter but the birds and quake. What was all that?”

Come to think of it that was a bit coincidental how all of that happened right after another. My mind was so heavy that it never occurred to me that maybe there was another reason for all these things.

“Stanford, do you think it could be aliens?” Eric asked.

“Aliens?” I scoffed. “Really? Aliens?”

Eric shrugged his shoulders. “Well when aliens appear in movies strange things like these happen.”

“I don’t think its aliens.” I said. “It might be unnatural but not extraterrestrial. I don’t know why these things are happening, I really don’t. Maybe it is aliens, who knows. Or maybe some kids found an ancient book about magic. They were playing with the magic, but it backfired on them. Or for all we know it could be the end of the world.”

I spoke without thinking again. We both went silent. I saw his eyes widen and his brows slant.

“Let’s just hope that’s not the case.” he quietly said while getting to his feet. He leaned his back on the wall and placed his hands in his pockets. “Around the time the ground shook didn’t you say you weren’t feeling good?”

“Yeah I did,” I nodded. “I had a bad migraine that came out of nowhere. I felt sick and weak.”

“You also said Rhoda wasn’t feeling good either, right?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s what she said before she started throwing her arms around.”

“Hmm, maybe you two are connected to this.”

“Hu?” I blinked twice.

“Well think about it. Both you and Rhoda said you weren’t feeling good around the same time all this happened. It can’t be a coincidence. Maybe whatever caused this affected the both of you as well. Maybe the cause of those disasters carried a virus that made you two sick.”

“Hmm, that’s a good point. It may be true.” something came to mind. “The birds. What the hell about the birds? They definitely have to be tied in all of this. They just don’t attack people randomly like that or even gather as they did back in the woods. Do you think the reason they were acting like this is because they’re rabid?”

“Rabid?” Eric raised a brow. “Do birds even get rabies?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I kind of thought so or at least got some sort of sickness that affects them mentally. Like you said, maybe a virus made me and Rhoda sick. Maybe the same thing affected the birds.”

“Maybe they did it all on their own. They seemed pretty damn focused on attacking each other and us,” Eric stood firm and looked hard at the wooden wall. “I think they knew what they were doing.”

“Yeah, they did,” I nodded. I thought about when we were near the woods. “When the vultures were head-butting the SUV, one of them looked right into my eyes. It then made this pointing gesture with its wings like it was signaling to the others.”

“Are you serious?” he asked in a high voice. “Well with all that’s happened today why does that surprise me?”

“Maybe they really were being controlled by something. If it’s not rabies, then maybe it’s some other kind of sickness or mutating virus controlling them like in the zombie movies,” I said.

“Zombies?” he scoffed. “You don’t believe in aliens, but you believe in zombies?”

“Just finding answers,” I smirked.

“Do you think this could be supernatural?” he asked.

“Not a clue. Possibly,” I took a deep breath. “In biblical times they did have similar events happening. Look at all the plagues Moses said would happen. Locus, frogs, death. This could be a modern version of those plagues.”

“Moses was dealing with a sadistic pharaoh. We didn’t do anything wrong or at least not to that degree,” Eric said.

“Maybe we didn’t do anything wrong but what if someone else did and we’re paying the price for it,” I felt my eyes widen. “Well, it could also be the government. They do a lot of shit they don’t want normal people knowing about so it’s possible they’re responsible for this.”

“I guess,” he said. “I don’t really know much about the government.”

“They do all sorts of things,” I said. “They hide conspiracies by blaming them on other reasons. Just look at the J.F.K. assassination and 9/11. I guess it could also be celestial.”

“Celestial?” he asked. “Like in aliens again?”

“I mean like a phenomenon from space, like solar radiation,” I propped an elbow on my knee. “That quake could be from a crashed meteor made up of some special space mineral that gives off radiation or some other unknown space force. Maybe a mini black hole is affecting Earth’s tectonic plates, climate, and poles, which could explain the weather and quake.”

We peeped outside through separate cracks. The darkness appeared as an empty void. Who knew what else was out there? We only saw birds and the weather. For all we knew there may had been something else more sinister. Despite the things Eric and I spoke of we didn’t consider maybe the darkness itself was the source of the phenomenon. The feeling of someone being near, was that the darkness? After all, being outside with Kate, I found myself surrounded by darkness all around emitting from the woods. Could something have come from the woods itself? I did feel as if there was something there deep within the darkness beyond the withered trees.

A few minutes went by and I left Erick to himself. I went to the SUV and saw the large, bloodied stains and dents caused by the birds from earlier. It was amazing how the doors could still open and close from sustaining so much damage from the vultures bashing themselves into the sides. I entered through the front passenger door and saw Kate looking at her phone. I flopped in the front passenger seat and looked down briefly. I took a deep breath, sighed, and glanced to the side at Kate. There was silence between us. I didn’t know why but her outfit caught my attention. Red Christmas sweater, black leggings, and tan boots. For a while, I wondered if she knew I was sitting beside her. She had this dull look on her face, like she was lost in thought. As I reached over to tap her shoulder she softly spoke out.

“I still have no service. I wanted to call my sister, Beth. She and her husband live nearby, and I was hoping we could go stay with them. But I can’t get in contact with anyone. I can’t text my parents, my other friends, no one. We can’t even call for help, the police, fire department, anyone.”

“You know, you shouldn’t be so connected to that thing,” I said in a low voice. “The problem with cell phones is that people no longer speak face to face anymore so there’s a huge lack of social communication in society today.”

I wanted to ease the mood. Kate’s eyes were teary like Steve’s. She held her head with her other hand while resting her elbow on the driver’s door. She continued looking down at her phone. I nudged over and peeped at the screen. There was a picture of her smiling and hugging a little girl in a hospital bed. The little girl wore a pink, floral scarf around her head and a blue, spotted hospital gown. All around the white colored room were stuffed bears, flowers, and balloons.

“Hey, mind if I ask who’s that you’re with?” I pointed at the screen. Kate went silent so I figured it was none of my business.

“This was my little sister, Brie,” she said in a low voice. “She died about two years ago from cancer. She always said I had anger issues and I needed to control them. So you’re not the first one to say that.”

I choked a bit. “Listen, earlier when I said that I was just joking.”

“No, you were serious,” she slowly looked at me briefly before looking back at her phone. “But you were right and so was she. Before she died, I promised her that I would stop getting angry all the time. Guess I couldn’t keep that promise.”

“Kate…,” I sat there motionless.

Kate went quiet again. I couldn’t tell if she was scared, worried, or both. A moment later, she trembled. She looked at me with heavy, glossy eyes, and her bottom lip rattled.

“Look, I’m sorry about Rhoda. I didn’t mean to toss her out like that. All I wanted was for her to stop acting weird. I was going to let her back in, I swear. I wasn’t going to just drive off and leave her there in the woods,” she turned away and looked down at the floor pedals. “If I knew all that crazy shit was going to happen, I would had never done it.” She looked back at me. “You said she wasn’t feeling good. At that time, I didn’t know that. I know I get mad and I overreact sometimes,” she closed her eyes briefly. “But I swear, I swear on Brie’s grave, I never meant to put Rhoda in any kind of danger.”

Kate turned away again. She started crying and covered her face with her hand. I didn’t have any words. I knew she never meant any ill harm to Rhoda. I reached my arm around Kate’s shoulders and pulled her in closer. She rested her head on my chest and I wrapped my arms around her.

I held her until she cried herself to sleep. I slid her over gently and rested her head on the driver’s window. I exited the SUV and felt something stick me from underneath the seat. I found it was a hairpin.

‘This is one of Rhoda’s. It must have fallen off when Kate threw her out,’ I thought.

I took the hairpin with me and closed the door gently so as not to wake Kate.

I walked over to check on Steve, who was asleep on the ground. I headed over to the crack in the wall where Eric was and saw that he too was asleep. I sat down near the crack and held Rhoda’s hairpin. I twirled it around in my fingertips.

‘Rhoda, where are you? Are you alright? Are you safe? Are you even still alive?’

A bright white colored light shined through the crack and reflected on my face. I shielded my eyes with my hand and peeped through the crack. I thought it was coming from a vehicle, but it shined like sunlight. The outside was finally visible.

It no longer snowed but the area looked different. There was just a barren snow-covered wasteland. The hills we saw on our way to the barn were gone. A heavy wind whistled and blew a rolling mist across the landscape that glowed with a hue of black and blue. There were no sounds from any people or birds. Everything just seemed so dead out there.

There was light coming from the sky. It shined like moonlight but there was no moon out. I ducked down and looked up. There were rays of white and blue-colored light breaking through the sky from a circular hole in the clouds. The light hitting the ground shimmered like an aurora borealis. It was like a ghostly curtain flowing in the wind.

‘That light,’ I thought. ‘What is that light?’