Riser (Teen Horror/Science Fiction) (Book #1 in The Riser Saga) ((Volume 1)) (9 page)

The fire was alive with what could only be described as ecstasy. Flames were jumping and leaping into the darkened sky. Turner’s voice was hoarse and crackling as he said, “The mother and child will die.”

Turner’s wound closed like an imaginary zipper, zipped his skin back together, forming a large white scar. Both Geoffrey’s and Roberta’s eyes cleared.

WHOOSH!

The flames instantly extinguished and we were all plunged into darkness.

THUMP!

Ow. Seriously, ow.

Mom and I were in a delivery room. My delivery room.

There she was, dead on the gurney, and me, the baby me, dead in my father’s arms.

The doctor was there. He placed one hand on my father’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

When my father didn’t respond the doctor shook his head in sympathy, “I’ll give you a few moments.”

The doctor left the room.

I was stunned by the memory. I turned to my mother. “But how?”

“This is how it happened,” she said and looked at me. Her eyes were filled with tears and then she turned back to the memory.

As soon as the door swung shut my father took a deep breath and placed my corpse on top of my mother. He leaned down and kissed mom’s lifeless body.

I gasped as my own father’s eyes rolled back in his head and when he stared down at the two of us, they were solid red like a nightmare. He grabbed a scalpel from a nearby tray.

“I give my life for theirs.”

And he slashed his arms and throat, dropping on top of our cadavers with a thud. His blood sparked and cracked as it seeped into our skin and clothes.

SNAP! The baby me’s eyes popped open and she breathed in life.

As the last vestiges of life left my father, his eyes began to swirl black, like the holes I could see in dead people. Faster and faster it spun until it twisted its way out of his eyes and into mine.

In that moment, my mom of the past, gasped for air underneath my father’s dead body.

“That was how you got your power,” Mom said quietly next to me. I could see this memory was the most painful for her to watch. There were tears in her eyes as she saw herself on the gurney screaming at the sight of my father’s corpse.

Doctors rushed in, shock on their faces. They quickly removed my father and grabbed the crying baby to make sure I was okay.

The scene froze in an eerie melee of chaos and blood.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” So many things were racing through my head. If she knew all along what happened, why was she just now telling me? And in
this
freaky way, and getting back to the original topic,
how
was she showing me this? What was happening?

“I’m not done.”

THUMP!

I really wished the thumping would stop already. I could handle the visions, but the thump, thump, thump, was going to make my head explode, literally. The environment began to transform once again, colors melting into each other like an impressionist painting until our trailer slowly came into view. We were inside and I gasped at what I saw.

We were in the memory of the day when I first used my gift. Bruce threw my mother of the past into the trailer wall. I almost started to panic when I knew that I was about to watch myself kill him. The seven-year-old me was screaming at the top of her lungs and suddenly Bruce was being taken down by the black widow. It was sickening to watch. It was one thing to reflect in a memory, but seeing it in front of me like this, like a voyeur watching some gruesome snuff film, was unbearable.

“Stop it, please,” my voice was barely a whisper.

It was as if she hit pause again. She froze the scene just as Bruce was dropping to the floor from the spider’s poison.

“You knew I brought him back?” I could hardly believe it. My self-imposed prison was all a lie. She knew and let me do it anyway. I felt betrayed and hurt.

“It was necessary.” Mom still wouldn’t look at me. She just stared at the frozen memory in front of us.

“Necessary?! Why didn’t you tell me you knew? You know I have to stay near him, or he’ll rot.” I still couldn’t believe that she truly understood the facts of the situation.

That’s when she looked at me. Her eyes were filled with sadness and regret. “Just trust me, Chelsan. It was necessary.”

“Mom. What is going on?” I couldn’t take this anymore, and I needed to know what was happening.

THUMP!

“MOM!” I cried out from the pain.

And we were back in her garden in front of the trailer. The green smoke was layered in a thick fog blinding my view of the park. All I could see was my mother on the ground, choking. It was surreal standing next to a ghostly version of her and watching as her body on the ground was writhing in agony.

“I’m dying,” she said.

I looked around in panic. “No. I can save you!”

THUMP!

“I can’t take that noise anymore! Make it stop!” I screamed.

“It’ll stop soon enough. It’s what’s keeping us linked together right now.”

“MOM! I’ll go back to the park, I’ll save you! Let me go!” I was sobbing now. Keeping us linked in this strange way was stranding me under that damn tree. I could be half way back to the park by now.

“Promise me something, Chelsan.” Mom looked at me as seriously as I’d ever seen her.

“Anything, Mom, just let me go help you!”

“Promise me you won’t bring me back.”

I caught my breath. And that’s when I knew; she was really dying. “The thumping…” my voice broke from emotion.

“It will end soon.” She tried to comfort me.

I knew in that instant that the thumping was her heart beat. It was the only thing that would tie us together. No! I could barely keep it together.

She just nodded and then smiled through tear-filled eyes. “I love you, Chelsan. Promise me.”

I could only nod in response.

“You must keep safe. Your Grandfather will be coming, and he
will
try to kill you. You were meant to die today. He won’t stop until we’re both dead.”

THUMP!

And I was back under the willow tree.

I gasped for breath as I was slammed back into my body. The pain to my head was gone as soon as I returned. And I screamed for it to come back again. The alternative was far more excruciating. She was dead. My mother was truly dead. I could feel it with that last thump of life.

Feeling returned to my body and I ran as fast as I could through the willow branches, across the field of flowers and straight into…

…A nightmare of unimaginable proportions.

The whole park looked as though it had been hit by a tornado. Trailers were smashed, overturned, destroyed beyond recognition. The green smoke was gone, dissipated by the time I got back to the park.

But only
my
eyes could see the most terrifying picture of all. A sea of swirling black holes of everyone I ever knew and loved. My heart nearly stopped when I saw
her
just as I left her in the vision, my mother, lying dead amidst her demolished garden. A garden I had kept flourishing and alive for the last ten years. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t stand to see her like that.

I raced past the twisted metal and corpses to reach her side.

All I had to do was reach into her chest and bring her back. She’d be with me, forever. I couldn’t live without her. I didn’t want to. I needed her.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I have to,” I whispered in her ear.

Every part of me was fighting the compulsion to break my promise and use my gift, but grief does terrible things to people and I couldn’t think clearly anymore. In less than an hour I lost everything. She was my everything. I could barely breath. I could barely function. And then I did it.

Mom’s eyes fluttered open and she looked at me. There was nothing there, just emptiness.

Her soul was gone.

I had violated her soul.

I immediately dropped my connection with her black hole and she fell to the ground once more. I quickly turned my head and puked all over the smashed petunias. I collapsed in a heap on top of her and something inside of me broke. I couldn’t stop crying. My eyes felt like they would swell shut from the amount of tears pouring out of them.

Then I heard a noise that disturbed the agonizing silence. Sirens and the whizzing of hover-cars were coming my way. I peered up from Mom’s body to see what looked like a swarm of over-sized bees heading straight for the trailer park. It was the press and emergency crews. I looked down at the crushed flowers and plants of my mother’s garden and I knew she wouldn’t want anyone to see her pride and joy like this. I concentrated as hard as I could in my heartache and slowly began to repair every inch of Mom’s legacy. I made every flower bloom whether it was their season or not, every tomato was the richest red, yellow and orange, every peapod was bursting with marble–sized peas, every tulip, petunia and azalea were the most vibrant colors imaginable. By the time I was finished the garden was more gorgeous that it had ever been.

The onslaught of hover-cars reached their crescendo as they came to a halt a hundred feet outside the park. In a matter of seconds, I was surrounded by reporters, paramedics, firemen and police. Cameras flashed, people’s voices melded into one loud shout, the buzz of hover-gurneys moving around from victim to victim. My head was going to explode from the assault on my senses. There were about two hundred camera crews all crowding around the most news worthy sight there.

The lone survivor. Me. Fantastic.

That’s when the voices started to separate from each other in an annoying attack.

“Were you here when the tornado hit?”

“Is this your trailer?”

“Do you know the woman you’re standing over?”

“Are you the only survivor?”

Too much. Too much. I instinctively scooted in closer to Mom as if she could still protect me from all this. But I was truly alone.

“She’s my mom,” I said and found that when I spoke every single person in the area quieted down to hear my response. “What tornado?” Mom didn’t show me any tornado. It was some kind of green smoke. Tornados don’t give off smoke.

“Clear the way. Clear the way.” Two paramedics swooped in and before I could respond they had hovered Mom away in a gurney.

“WAIT! That’s my mom!” I cried out. I stood up and tried to take on the crowd full force to get my mother back.

“We’ll take good care of her,” one of the paramedics called over his shoulder and they were out of my view.

The pack of reporters closed their ranks, making it impossible for me to cut through.

“How sudden was the tornado?”

“Did you hide somewhere?”

I wanted them to all go home and leave me alone. “There wasn’t a tornado. Something else killed them. Some kind of green smoke.”

And there was a roar of chatter almost like a rhythm.

“What kind of green smoke?”

“Are you suggesting that
smoke
caused this kind of damage to these trailers?”

Their voices became a single chatter yet again and I couldn’t tell one reporter from the next.

“I don’t know… I… my mom…” My head was starting to spin. Go away! Can I see my mom? Leave me alone! All the things that I wanted to say, but found that my tongue was locked in place from being overwhelmed.

“Were you close?”

Did he really just ask me that?

“THAT WILL BE ENOUGH!” a voice came roaring from behind the press.