The Purge

THE PURGE
Fire burned down from the sky, scorching the land and incinerating everything within it.  Animals ran, eyes wide in terror but the blazing inferno caught and returned them to the dust.  The flames covered the earth and killed everything.  It came shooting down from a point in the sky and moved out over the land like a flood.

A small village in the hills stood silent as the morning sun rose over the dewy hills in the east.  I sat overlooking the little valley, watching as the western sky grew light, at a seemingly second sun, opposite its brother, rising over the hills.  It grew brighter, and soon a red haze filled the entire sky, stretching the entire expanse, casting a red glow throughout the valley.

A sense of dread was filling me.  I wanted to turn and run, where, I don't know, but I knew, somehow, that behind me was safety.  My mind told me to run, but I couldn't.  My legs were wooden blocks, and I couldn't tear my eyes away from the horror I was seeing.  A wave of fire was sweeping towards me; a flat, sheer wall of flame, the reds, blues and yellows all swirling together within it, tendrils shooting in front of it, grasping and twisting, reaching for something to devour.

I raised my arms to cover my face.  The fire, the flame, the horrible death coming towards was all I could think about.  I tried to scream, to utter some form of words from my mouth, but it was dry and moved without making a sound.  The intense heat hit me, the force of it knocked me backwards and I fell.  I fell and fell and fell.

                                    *            *            *            *

I woke twisted in my sheets, beads of sweat rolled down my forehead, and my heart beat to a fast, uneven rhythm.  My breath came in gasps as I sat up on my mattress, blinking the sweat from my eyes and looking around the room.  Swinging my legs out from the tangled covers, I set my feet on the cold, hardwood floor of the little apartment.

How many times? Does it mean something?  Am I supposed to be warned for some coming catastrophe?  Three times in the past week.  It can't just be coincidence.  I shuddered, remembering the heat, fear, stench and horror.  That first night I had been so scared, I had hurled in the flowerbed outside the London flat.  It would have been fertilizer for my Carnations.  Except that they were dead.  Scorched.  The dirt in the bed was dry and hard; the flowers themselves were nothing but blackened ashes.  That had scared me even worse then the dream, and I locked myself in the bathroom for hours, wide eyed and barely breathing, trying to convince myself that I was still dreaming.

I never really talked to myself before then.  Now I do it all the time…I'm doing it now!  I stood and moved to the small window, opened it, and looked at the iron stains from the metal bands that had held the flowerbed to the sill.  The dirt had blown away, but the wood still lay in splinters where they had fallen after I had slammed it into the brick wall across the narrow alley.  The strength.  I don't know where it had come from.

What is happening to me?  I wondered.  I held out his hands, palms skyward, and looked down at his forearms.  Bruises, or at least that's what they look like, lay there in perfect circles, growing larger as each day passed.  By tomorrow they'll probably cover my entire arms.  What is happening to me?!?  Am I dying?  No, I can't be.  Not if what She said is true.  But why should I believe her?  She's just some old hag, trying to make money.  Right?..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

My eyes glazed over, and I sank into memory.





"Peter!  Come on!  I still have to pick up Nikki!"  Theodore Simeon Franklin III yelled, sitting out of the window on the driver's side of the fire-red Camero.  He honked the horn, for the third time and revved the engine.  His impatience was always there, just like the hair that almost matched the car.  His Irish temper was always short, and his patience shorter, a fact that had gotten him into trouble often.

"I'm coming!" I shouted back, poking my wet, shaggy blonde head out of the window of the apartment and looking up the alley. Shooting a glare at me, he sank back into the car, and turned the radio up.  The banging of rap filled the little alley, and every beat of his sub echoed up and down the street.

A towhead of just below average height, I'm athletic, and strong, but not body builder big.  What I don't have in height I make up in breadth, having wide shoulders and thick legs.  A towel hung around my tall, thick neck, unevenly matched by a square jaw and cleft chin.  Staring in the mirror as I ran a comb quickly through the mop of blonde, I stared for the millionth time back into my eyes, eyes that used to scare me as a kid, and startled everyone that I met.  Even my friends took some time to get adjusted to them.  Burning like fiery orbs, were the red, yellow and orange eyes that had haunted me all my life.

The pupil sat still and black, an empty hole that absorbed light.  That was the only normal part.  The iris swirled with the colors of fire.  Reds mixed with yellows, and oranges in an ever-shifting pattern.  It was even noted that when I got really frustrated, irritated or angry, strands of purple would join in a swirl that spun and twisted faster.  On more then one occasion in my childhood had I scared my brothers with my sudden anger.  My brothers still carried scares, both mental and physical, from the fights.  It was because of this that I had learned how to withhold my anger and why I made such a good friend with Teddy.  Having learned to control mine, I had changed into a quite, reserved adult with patience that bordered on stubbornness.  Teddy's quick temper went with my air of indifference, and many times I had had to restrain him from engaging in a fight or brawl.

My revere was broken like a pane of glass with another blast from the car.  Shaking my head and blinking the glaze from my eyes, I decided to stop trying to tame my hair and grabbed a baseball cap off the nightstand by my bed.

I threw my keys into my jean pocket, grabbed a T-shirt from off my bed and locked the door as I leapt into the hallway with my shirt half on.  By the time I had hit the second floor landing, I was still getting my arm through my sleeve.  Skipping the seventh step, which always sounded off like a firecracker, I launched myself to land on the final landing and skidded around the corner, almost knocking over Mrs. Creacher with a full load of laundry.

"Are you ok?" I asked breathlessly, one hand on the banister, the other stretched out to help if I could, the rest of me ready to continue down the stairs.  Blinking through her coke bottle glasses, she adjusted the basket on her hip and squinted at me.

"Who is that?  Oh, Peter?  Where's the fire?  I know where you're going.  That place of the devil.  Don't go to the Fair, a young lad like yourself shouldn't go polluting yourself."  As she spoke, the hand that had held her to the banister slowly moved to the small wooden cross that hung from a silver chain around her neck.

"I'll be fine, I won't let the devil get me.  Besides, I have to watch out for Teddy, other wise, who knows what'll happen to him."  I laughed and gave her a quick smile before taking off again down the stairs again.  When I looked back over my shoulder as I pushed open the door of the apartment complex, she was still standing there on the landing, her hand twisting the cross over and over.  Oh how I wished I had listened to her.