Authors: Stephanie Judice
Theresa had stumbled
into the room, speechless.
Without any
command from Dr. Malcolm, she programmed her digital camera for low light and
began to work.
She methodically zoomed
in on each individual pictograph and snapped rapidly, panning from left to
right.
However, she quickly realized
that the glyphic stories were not in chronological order from left to
right.
Seeing a kind of pattern, she
mentioned her finding.
“Dr. Malcolm,” she
interrupted, “I believe these are in order from bottom to top.”
“Your assistant is
correct,” said Dr. Hernandez, “the stories seem to be in order from the bottom
going up.
There is a certain fluidity in
the connection of each pictograph as you scale up the wall.”
Theresa edged closer to
the wall for a better look.
In one
pictograph, a bald man had dropped his staff and was crouching in a fetal
position.
A looming figure with a
darkened face had a skeletal, cylindrical arm that jutted out several feet,
like a long, sharpened blade.
He pointed
his appendage at the crouching figure.
“How amazingly detailed
they are, but what could they mean?” asked Theresa.
“Well, the Egyptians
lived and recorded their lives for thousands of years through hieroglyphics,”
said Dr. Malcolm, “but there is nothing the likes of this.
How old does your carbon dating tell you this
place is, Dr. Hernandez?”
“That is the most
remarkable thing of all.
My dating puts
this wall before 7,000 B.C.”
Theresa recalled her
undergraduate anthropology classes, knowing full well that any discovery older
than 1,000 B.C. was an historic event.
She had successfully begun from the bottom left corner, snapping
detailed shots of each pictograph.
She
found herself at the very edge where assistants continued to whisk away dirt
from the crevices in the wall.
In an
effort to capture every detail, she zoomed in on one of the pictographs toward
the right side.
A sudden horror struck
her.
The many crouched and stricken
figures reminded her of her visit to Pompeii, where ancient Romans had been
frozen in time by the lava and ash of Mount Vesuvius.
These cowering humans had the same look of
fear and horror upon their paralyzed faces.
Theresa roved the scene, staring in awe at the delicate drawings of the
dark figures with sword-like arms.
She
zoomed in on one of these dark creatures, standing in a dominant posture above
a kneeling woman and snapped a picture.
Bleep.
Her camera gave the
warning signal that her memory card was full.
“Of course,” she
mumbled under her breath.
She had no one
to blame but herself after having photographed every city and small village
they passed through into this vast jungle.
“Abraham, will you hold this for a minute?”
She ejected the memory
card then buttoned it into her shirt pocket.
She looped the strap off of her neck and passed the camera to
Abraham.
It had been cumbersome enough
climbing down with the swinging, bulky camera; she did not want to haul it back
up unnecessarily.
“I left the camera case
in the Jeep.
I need to get another
memory card,” she explained.
“No problem,” said
Abraham, listening in on Dr. Hernandez and Dr. Malcolm interpret an unusual
scene at the bottom, depicting several of the dark figures with thin, slanting
eyes.
Theresa traced her way
back down the long corridor toward the exit.
She passed the many workers in the niches.
As she passed one darkened corridor, where
men had been carrying out large volcanic-looking rocks, she heard vehement
whispers bouncing from one digger to the next.
She peered down the hall, seeing workers arguing near two tall pillars
of stone about ten feet apart.
It looked
like they had uncovered an entryway of some kind.
Something made her shiver.
She thought she heard a slight humming
sound.
Dismissing it as being too long
in this unbearable heat, she moved on quickly.
Climbing the ladder,
she stepped onto the shaded formation where workers excavated remnants of a
bygone people.
As she walked briskly
along the well-worn path toward the vehicles in the clearing, a ghastly sound
quaked from deep within the pit.
Theresa
stopped short and turned.
The deep sound
of a throaty growl bellowed forth with a deafening din.
The sound reverberated louder and louder
until Theresa was forced to cover her ears.
She could see workers on top of the pit in anguish from the bestial
sound, then suddenly she saw no one.
They vanished as the earthen floor gave way and collapsed.
A sudden blast of wind blew Theresa backward.
She flew off the path into the underbrush,
knocking her head on a gnarled root twisting out of the ground.
Then darkness.
Silence.
Awakening dreamily, a
faint breeze brushed her cheek.
With
closed eyes, Theresa sensed a strong wind rising. The trees shook their
branches in defiance against an oncoming storm.
For a moment, she had forgotten the noise, the explosion, the fall.
Her eyes fluttered open, unable to comprehend
what flashed and floated nearby.
At
first, she thought her mind still lingered in a dream.
No, a nightmare.
The etched figures in stone had somehow come
to life in horrifying forms—streaks of shadowy men; giant, menacing figures
with long, sharpened limbs; and dozens upon dozens of ghastly, willowy figures
lurching behind the others with gaping, hungry mouths.
1
GABE
The road was open and empty.
The wind whipped around me in the Jeep,
waking my senses after a fitful night’s sleep.
Morning mist rolled over the blacktop from drowsy fields of
sugarcane.
I glanced at my watch,
aggravated that I was running late for 1
st
period.
Again.
It was these nightmares that had been haunting me.
I could never remember any details, only
fleeting images—lightning splintering the sky, a field of sugar cane, a burning
black stone in my hand, and an eerie creature in the distance.
It irritated me more than anything, breaking
my night into chunks of unsatisfying sleep.
Swerving into my parking spot, I jumped out of
the Jeep and hooked my backpack swiftly over one shoulder.
Instantly, my other sense threatened to
overwhelm me with someone else’s heartache.
I honed in on the source to my right.
A whimpering sophomore with puffy eyes was leaning against a car with a
posse of clones surrounding her, all wearing the exact same clothes with the
exact same make-up and the exact same hair.
They corralled around the weepy one, commiserating the loss of this
week’s boyfriend.
I was in no mood to
deal with someone else’s issues on Monday morning.
I tried to give them a wide berth, still
catching clips of their absurd conversation.
“It’s his loss, girl.
Don’t you worry,” said Clone 1.
“Yeah, you’re too good for him.
I always told you that,” said Clone 2.
“We’ll do a girl’s night out this Friday and
make him regret he even thought about leaving you,” said Clone 3.
Their insanely melodramatic feelings were
draining me dry, giving me a headache from trying to block them out.
I couldn’t get away from them fast
enough.
Close proximity with anyone in
distress amplified my other sense so much that I couldn’t even think
straight.
Teenage girls were the worst
at setting it off.
I couldn’t wait to
graduate this year and get the hell out of high school to escape all of this
adolescent angst.
I tried to imagine
what life would’ve been like if I hadn’t been born with this ability to sense
the emotions of others, this curse that made me want to bang my head against a
wall around foolish, infantile girls.
It
would even be comforting if I could just tell people to stay away from me when
they were feeling emotionally volatile, because their erratic feelings made me
want to commit myself into an institution.
Of course, that’s exactly what people would do to me if they knew I had
this so-called gift.
When I first discovered that I could sense the
emotions of others at age six, I also realized that it was an ability I had to
keep hidden.
It was at the Sugarcane
Festival Parade on Main Street.
I had held
my grandfather’s hand as row after row of baton twirlers flashed by in a blur
of red and gold.
The booming drums and
blaring trumpets of Beau
Chêne’s
High School band
followed them.
What I remember most of
all was a sudden overwhelming feeling of anger.
A jolt of fear shot through me, and I couldn’t help but find the man in
the crowd that was giving me this feeling.
He was just on the other side of my grandfather, wearing a bright red
shirt.
There was no emotion at all
written on his face.
All the same, I
felt a tingle of fury vibrate from him toward me.
I had squeezed my grandfather’s hand, partly
afraid of the man and partly afraid of what I had sensed.
“He’s very angry, Pop.”
Pop had peered down at me, furrowing his bushy
eyebrows.
He followed my gaze.
“Who, Gabriel?
Who’s angry?” he asked, picking me up to eye-level.
“That man there,” I said, pointing with a
crooked finger then quickly tucking it into a fold of my grandfather’s jacket.
“He’s very, very mad.”
That was when the angry man had lost all
control, suddenly hauling back and punching the man behind him.
Pop pushed backward out of the crowd as
people moved toward the brawl.
Three
policemen were breaking their way through the mass.
Pop carried me quickly toward Rue de Rouge
and away from the scene.
At the center
of the bridge that crossed Bayou Rouge, Pop stopped and knelt before me.
He peered into my eyes which I knew reflected
my guilt and confusion, feeling like I’d caused the scuffle.
“How did you know that man was so angry?”
“I don’t know,” I had shrugged, looking down at
my shoes.
“I just felt it.”
Pop had stared intently down at me, causing me
to shiver.
“Why did he hit that man?” I asked.
“I don’t know, son.
Sometimes people act without thinking,
especially when they’ve got bad feelings all built up inside them.”
As Pop had walked on, pulling me by the hand,
he gave me a bit of grandfatherly advice.
“It may be best if you don’t always share your
feelings with everyone in the future.”
“Yes, Pop.”
I took his advice.
Knowing that my senses were abnormally
heightened, I chose to wall the world outside of me, disguising this strange
intuition with a mask of indifference.
It was so weird for me to feel emotions so intensely from those around
me and to always camouflage my own.
It
was better than them knowing the truth and thinking me a freak.
I spent a lot of free time wondering at this
irony, way too much free time, which might’ve been where my brooding nature was
born.
I learned over the years that
hiding my ability kept me safe from ridicule, though I did share my secret with
one other person.
“Dude, did you see that fight last
night?
Clovis tried one of his
jiu
jitsu
moves, then BLAM!
Spencer knocked him to the ground with one blow under his jaw.
Rocked his world, man!”
“No, Ben, I missed that,” I said
casually.
Benjamin LeBlanc was my best
friend.
To see us together was probably
like seeing two polar opposites, in looks and personality.
Ben had sandy blonde hair and was insanely
upbeat, often whistling or humming some ridiculous tune wherever he went.
He smiled easily and always seemed to be
laughing about something. You know those people.
The ones who make you wonder what happy pill
they took or what they drank to be in such a good mood all the time.
That’s Ben.
Only he never drank any mood-altering substances, unless you count Red
Bull.
Of course, no one would describe
me as depressed or anything, but I’m definitely his opposite—more serious, more
studious, and undeniably more sarcastic.