The Awakening of Darrel

Part 1

There is a moment in every man’s life when he discovers the true measure of his influence on the universe. For man, this is a moment of terrible realization – a destruction of the delusion given them by the promise of childhood and the defiance of their teenage years. But for a few, the enormity of their fate brings about its own terrible truth. These few, having grown with such a narrow scope of understanding and comprehension, are ill equipped to understand the magnitude of their destiny.

For this select percentage of the population, the occurrence of depression and injury are highest amongst any demographic. For those who embrace this shinning light of their future, they are as suns among a star strewn sky, overwhelming the world with their light. To those of us who know, they are as gods amongst men.

-Agent Carl Filteau

The rain continued on that night as it had for three days: cold, relentless, driving. Darrel swore as he struggled to pull the seatbelt through the insane loops of the child seat. The effort was made near impossible by two overwhelming factors: one was the frigid water soaking down the back of his shirt and pants. The second was the effort of his little sister trying to reach past him to turn on the seat-mounted DVD player he’d won in a school raffle.

“Angie, you have to be still so I can get this thing on you. We’ll be late again,” he grunted. They were late anyway, he knew. He simply did not understand how or why evening activities insisted on starting classes at 5:30 in the evening. How anyone got their children to any of the events was a major mystery to him.
Angie sighed with frustration, sat back and allowed her brother to strap her into the car seat. He checked her belt, grinned at her, then reached over her to switch on the DVD player.

“Vamanos!” the large-eyed, pink shirt animated girl exclaimed. Darrel shook his head. Yeah, he thought, vamanos.

In theory, Darrel liked the rain. He enjoyed watching the trees sway beneath the weight of the water and influence of the wind. He loved the sound of the raindrops on a window or roof. And he appreciated the way the world seemed to slow down beneath the water.

In reality, Darrel hated all weather phenomena that did not include the words “sunshine” and “clear skies” for the simple, clear reason that no one in the history of mankind knew how to drive in any wet weather.

Hazard lights on and eyes squinted in the futile effort to peer through the sheets of rain, Darrel inched forward while the animated girl asked “Do you know where the castle is?” Then the pause. “Where?” Another pause. “There?” Pause. Then an animated computer click, “Yes! That’s the castle on the hill! Let’s go!”

He glanced at his sister who had fallen asleep in her seat, and then at the clock. It was six-thirty. There was no use in continuing the journey. By the time they got there, the dance class would be nearly over and he’d just have to turn around and make the return trip. Angelica would be outraged and would be angry at him for the rest of the evening incapable or unwilling to acknowledge that, well, traffic was a nightmare.

So he did what any other loving, tired brother would do. He switched on his right turn signal, looked, and pulled into the McDonald’s drive through. Bribing a young child was terrible and when he was in his mid-teens he’d made the noble declarative statement that he would strive to follow for the rest of his life:
“When I have a kid: no TV, no computers and no junk food.”

Now, he marveled at how any parent before the advent of fast-food restaurants and 24-hour convenience stores managed. With the smell of fried potato product and nuggets of chicken wafting through the cabin of the car, he knew that no amount of good intentions could compare with the relief of an evening without a tantrum.

As he turned the car onto the main road to return home, his thoughts drifted to his homework and where it rested on the dining room table at home, dry and warm. There was a Calculus test the next day that he hadn’t had the time to study for, a literature report due on the insanity of Ophelia, busy work assigned by his nemesis of a history teacher, and a short paper from a class he thought would have been an easy A: play writing. As it was, play writing had been the most difficult of his academic career. Mostly because he didn’t understand it. Or he was misunderstood.

A car beeped at him from the left side as he passed through the intersection and he turned his head to search for the cause of the warning or alert. And that was all it took.

In the short time it had taken Darrel to retrieve the meal, the road had buckled and crumbled into the ground leaving a ditch that filled rapidly with water, obscuring its danger. The car plunged into the ditch, splashed into the water and slammed into the murky far side of the sinkhole. Water surged up from the engine compartment, covering his feet and legs within seconds.

Dazed, he unbuckled his seat belt and made to pull open the door but it would not budge. Now, Angelica was crying. He spotted the meal he’d bought for her swirling in the murky water that now reached his waist. Even chicken nuggets wouldn’t console her tonight.

He climbed between the passenger and driver’s seat to the back of the car, his legs freezing from the submersion, and worked at the childproof seatbelt. As he worked at it, he felt the rise of panic in his chest, a sense of urgency that made his head and neck itch with effort.

“Darrel,” Angelica whined, her voice soft with equal parts fright and fatigue. The jolt of the impact must have awoken her.

“Heya, Angie,” Darrel breathed, working at the belt. “Just trying to get us out of here, okay?”

“Okay…”

Cold climbed up his leg and the sense of panic increased. He felt the car shifting around them, the front slipping downwards so that now he stood atop the back of the driver’s seat battling against the seatbelt. His eye caught the glimmer of dancing lights beyond the rear window. Flashlights. And there were voices calling, but he couldn’t make them out.

He nearly sobbed with relief as the seatbelt clicked and Angelica fell into his arms, clutching at him.
“Vamanos!” exclaimed the animated girl before the rising water silenced her.

He pulled at the door, trying to open it, but he could see now that the car was wedged tight against the sides of the pit. Darrel punched at the rear window and pain sliced through his arm and up into his shoulder. He could feel his sister crying into his shoulder, repeating that she wanted to go home. Repeating that she’ll be good and clean up her toys and go to bed when told. She cried for her mother and grandma and auntie. Inside, he cried for the same things.

Blood covered the rear window as he slammed his fist into it over and over again. The water rose, and with it his desperation. Beyond the lip of the hole he saw figures standing and all that was between them and he was the thick pane of impact resistant glass. Glass designed not to shatter. He heard large thuds and spotted small spidering cracks appear on the window. They were throwing rocks, trying to break the window, but it was too little too late.

“Close your eyes, sweetie,” Darrel whispered as he did the same. He prayed, wished, hoped. After all his efforts and sacrifice for the child in his arms, now he was powerless to do anything. The water covered his neck and mouth and he lifted his sister up to breathe, the shivering cold of the muddy water growing unbearable.

Then, silence. He felt the air burning in his lungs and for one, delirious moment, he wondered if he could breathe water. He felt Angelica struggle in his arms and tears drifted directly from his ducts and into the murky water. His head felt heavy and full and he noted that with each passing second the sound of rocks hitting the window diminished as they hit water before hitting the glass.

Angelica went limp in his arms and the pressure at his temples surged. She was… cold. Everything was… cold. It was dark and silent and cold and but for the agony in his chest, he could imagine that he was already dead. He screamed into the water with his last breath.

And the world erupted around him.

He lay his sister on the ground near the twin cracked craters at his feet. He was no longer cold and his mind felt…clear and quick as if he’d been running on two cylinders all his life and suddenly revving on twelve. he dismissed the feelings and observations as he knelt next to his sister. Her dark skin had grown a blue tinge to it. He leaned down, forced her mouth open and blew.

Voices filled the air around him. Running feet. Shouts to call 911. He ignored these, too, and clasped his hands together, pumping at her chest. He leaned down, blew, then pumped, blew, then pumped. Angelica coughed, spluttered then gasped. He pulled Angelica into his arms and held her, tears running to join the rain.

More shouts and, finally, the low, loud sound of an eighteen wheeled vehicle’s horn. Darrel turned as the lights blinded him. He threw out a hand and the cacophony that ensued nearly deafened him. It was as if the truck had slammed into a wall. He watched as the engine compacted and windows shatter and the airbag explosively deploying against the bulk of the driver.

The lights, smashed, went out and Darrel drifted into darkness for the second time that evening. This time, there was no cold.

Part 2

Tired and cold. Theses were the first sensations he felt when he again woke from not having remembered going to sleep. The last he did remember was cold, and his blue-tinged sister, and a truck with impossibly bright lights. A blaring horn. Then…

Darrel struggled to sit up but the process was like slogging through thick paste. The world around him came into focus. It was an unfamiliar room and apparently last designed in the 1960s. Next to him, an electronic machine beeped cheerfully with a steady rhythm. Across from the bed he found himself, a television hung dark and dusty from the wall. The windows were dark, lightly illuminated by streetlights outside. He was just beginning to get his bearings – that he was in a hospital – when a woman stepped into the room carrying clipboard and possessing a face colored by fatigue.

“Where am I?” Darrel asked quickly. “Where is my sister?”

The clipboard bearer seemed surprised at his words and her tired visage disappeared, favored by a wan smile. “You’re at St. Vincent’s. You had an accident two days ago. Your sister is nearby – your mother is with her.”

Darrel leaned back into the pillowed headrest of the bed. Panic and fear that had filled him the moment he woke drained from him and, with it, the strength he’d drawn from it. He felt as if the blanket itself was a very large weight, pressing down upon his body.

“I’m Dr. Emelda Sanders. How are you feeling?” With his eyes closed, he could feel her approach. A sensation that he wasn’t entirely sure was familiar. A sensation he contributed to fatigue.

“Tired, but I don’t hurt anywhere.” The effort it took to open his eyes was supreme. It was as if his eyelids were lined with sandpaper.

“You didn’t break anything. Nothing sprained or pulled. Near as we could tell you were just suffering from extreme fatigue. Hence why you’ve been sleeping for two days – I think.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean…” Dr. Sanders began slowly. “That there’s been some strangeness surrounding how you came in the other night. You, your sister and the trucker.”

“Are you really going to start asking me questions right now?”

She looked as if she wanted to, but through some effort – she looked as tired as he felt – she held off. “There will be questions later as to what happened. The police are really interested in what happened and there have been reporters looking to contact you and your sister.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what we would have done without your mother around.”

The grin, surprisingly, was not as much of a chore as simply blinking. Darrel imagined his mother warning away reporters and newspeople with swipes of her purse and sharp, cutting remarks. “So the reporters are gone?”

Dr. Sanders looked uncomfortable again. “Well… no. There are more of them.”

“More of them? Why?” Again, the surge of energy from anxiousness filled him and he pushed himself up sitting.

“Well…” Darrel was beginning to think that that ‘Well’ was more of a method by which the Doctor could evade outright explaining something. It felt like: “Well, the explanation is complicated, but”. “Some of the people who arrived after the ambulance said that some very strange things happened on the street.” She sat carefully on the side of the bed. “Said you flew.”

Whatever he was expecting, expose on underground landfills, on the sorry state of State maintained roads, an interview on near death experiences, on the kind of insurance he carried, anything, was definitely not this. Darrel stared at Dr. Sanders as she looked at him. Again, he could see the fatigue on her face – felt it reflected in his own expression, but her eyes, prematurely lined by the stresses of treating the sick and dying, glimmered with interest and, perhaps – he wasn’t sure – hope. “I flew? Bullshit.”

“That’s what they said. Your car fell into the sinkhole and just after the water covered the car, you and your sister floated out and landed on the side of the road. And then…” She pursed her lips, as if there was something more spectacular than the admission of flight. As if she wasn’t sure if she should tell him.

“What?” Darrel encouraged, his voice whispered.

“You-”

“Dr. Sanders?” A man stood at the doorway to the room dressed in dark slacks, shirt and tie though without the expected jacket. While he was addressing the doctor, his eyes were fixed on Darrel. The gaze made him uneasy. While he had never been arrested or, indeed, had ever interacted closely with any form of law enforcement, the man emanated waves of authority. Nearly physical.

Though, it might have also been the badge clipped to his belt.

Dr. Sanders glanced over her shoulder, then back to Darrel. She frowned and wrote something on her clipboard. As she spoke, she showed it to him: Be careful.

“Yes, Mr. Filteau?” she said as she rose from the bed. “How can I help you?”

“Dr. Sanders. I really make an effort to address people by their titles. You’ve worked hard for-”

“Who are you?” Darrel interrupted. The man looked as if he was going to start into a speech, and he really didn’t have the patience for it. Least of all if the speech was to be about innane titles.

“You’re awake,” the man called Filteau said.

Darrel also didn’t have patience for audible observations of the obvious. He repeated himself: “Who are you?”

There was silence during which the man eyed Darrel with some measure of apprehension. It took further long seconds of the long seconds for Darrel to realize that, unlike the doctor, the man was afraid of him. He wasn’t entirely sure why that was, nor why he knew this with the conviction that the sky was and had always been blue. At the moment, he didn’t particularly have time to consider all of the implications of this knowledge. Right this moment he needed answers. But god, he was so tired.

“Agent Carl Filteau,” the man said finally.

“Agent of what? The FBI?” The thoughts were slowly coming to him. If there were reports of a person flying anywhere in the world, not only would the press swarm on the story but any government with any inkling of national security would investigate the validity.

“No. A different organization. Dr. Sanders, I think your check-up is done. I’m sure you have other patients in need of attention.” He moved into the room but only far enough as to not bloc the door for the doctor’s exit.

“I’ll let your mother know you’re awake,” Dr. Sanders said as she moved towards the door.

“That won’t be-”

“I’d appreciate it. Thank you, Dr. Sanders,” Darrel spoke over the man. The agent looked irritated, but said nothing. Dr. Sanders glanced back at him, paused, then left.

“You have questions. I have questions-”

“Why are you here?”

Again, the agent looked irritated, as if he wasn’t accustomed to being interrupted. “I’m with the NSA, the National Securi…” He drifted off at seeing the raised eyebrow that was clear enough evidence to indicate that the patient already knew what the NSA was. “I’m here because of the reports the witnesses submitted to the police at the scene.”

“Which were?”

Perhaps this pushed the last of the Agent’s buttons. “Will you listen or will you continue to interrupt me?”

“I want to know what the hell is going on, why there are reporters outside and why someone from the NSA is here acting like some kind of movie villain.” The long sentence felt as if he’d run a marathon.

The Agent nodded, deciding something to himself. He dragged one of the nearby chairs and dragged it over to the side of the bed. He sat, rubbed his brow as if to flatten whatever stress or fatigue afflicting him out physically. “They said that you flew.”

And here it was.

Darrel watched the man carefully. The doctor had considered the thought amusing, maybe a little hopeful. This Agent, this Carl Filteau believed it. He believed it without question. There was no hint of skepticism in his voice or his manners. His slate grey eyes spoke honesty. He was NSA. Things could only go downhill from here.

__

At first, Darrel thought that he didn’t appreciat the way the doctor and the agent had started out tiptoeing around the issue, but as the pieces of that evening came together, he realized that he really appreciated the way that they tried to ease him into this realm of craziness. “Even if I believed you – which I don’t – what is with the reporters?”

“Well,” and there was that damn word again. “They are here to find the truth. Same as anyone else.”

“So they believe the story?”

“There was video of it. It’s on the internet already.”

“Show me.”

Agent Filteau had to hit the computer tower several times before it powered on. The screen was dusty and the picture held a yellow tinge, but, surprisingly, it was able to play the video the agent produced on a thumb drive. “The video on the internet has been edited. Made hazy, cut, sharpened in some places. I’ll show you that first.”

The world was water. Sheets of rain poured down onto the headlight illuminated scene. The camera shook and, from its quality, Darrel could see that it was a cellphone camera. It was focused on a massive hole in the road nearly ten feet wide. The camera jostled  and the hole neared.

There were already people nearby, throwing rocks down onto the car below trying to break the rear window. “The pressure in the sinkhole strengthened the rear window,” Filteau explained.

“I was there.”

Filteau didn’t try to narrate again.

The shadowy form of himself and his sister banging against the rear window. Muddy, dark water submerging the car. Still more rain. There was lightning and thunder in the far distance. Then the rear window shattered and he rose through the air. There was something strange about the way he moved, holding his sister, rising from the water before finally reaching the street and landing. He resuscitated his sister, then, the truck came, swerved and slammed into the nearby lightpost. The video ended there.

“That’s what’s up there out on the internet. We put in a comments and, pretty soon, the word will spread – it was someone’s film project. You noticed how you moved?” Filteau asked, reaching to change the video playing.

“Like I was on wire I those martial arts films,” Darrel said. He was disturbed by the image of himself on the tiny sepia screen. “It looked fake. Like a good fake.”

“Right, so this was the original that we worked off of.”

Darrel felt the fatigue wash across him as the video played the impossible.

Part 3

Darrel hugged Angelica as she sat in his lap in the waiting lobby of the hospital. Nearby, there mother spoke with a hospital administrator. They seemed to be getting well on as they spoke but Darrel could not hear their conversation – not that he was particularly interested. Rather, he had his own thoughts to deal with.

Angelica stirred and he loosened his arms so she could move without restriction. It was Sunday morning and the waiting room was half full with others preparing to visit patients. The mounted television was silent and the black and white closed captioning text scrolled across the bottom, often obscuring the television network’s own running ticker of text, news stories and icon.

The anchor of the twenty-four hour network placed a hand to her ear and listened quietly for several moments. The black and white captioning disappeared as whatever poor typist responsible for transliterating the spoken word into text live caught up to the anchor. There was another few seconds of silence as the anchor listened to whomever was on the other end other earpiece.

She began speaking slowly and Darrel looked down at his sister, who was staring quietly out of the nearby window, watching birds peck at grass and squirrels rush about. He was glad to be able to see her outside of a hospital room. The over-bright colors of cartoon kittens, puppies and elephants had been wearing on him and now they would very shortly be home.

He’d never considered how much he’d preferred being home among his things. He’d gone to camp while he was younger but it didn’t have the same effect as being in the hospital for several days. For one, the entire place felt tense where camp had been filled with distractions and new friends. For another, the hospital was filled with strange silence at night. The vents hissed with moving air and every now and again, he heard the sound of a ringing telephone from the nurse’s station down the hall. But beyond that the quiet of the hospital at night brought strange visions to his mind. Imaginings of a figure clad in dark ropes, of death with gnarled dessicated fingers reaching out to pull life from sleeping patients. Or else simply waiting. Standing silently.

After he’d awoken from the exhaustion sleep, he’d had trouble getting to normal sleep. Coupled with the disturbing images of the video Filteau had shown him, the nights left him longing for the familiar comfort of his own home.

A gasp brought him from his internal thoughts. Darrel looked around the waiting room. Several years ago, a homeless man had died while being ignored in a hospital’s emergency waiting room and, while this wasn’t an ER waiting room, he still looked for someone possibly having health trouble. His eye was drawn to a nurse fumbling with a remote and pointing it at the television. All other eyes in the room were glued to the screen. As he turned, the volume came on.

“…shocking footage of the destruction near Crowston, Maryland.” Shaky cellphone video of what appeared to be a growing mushroom cloud rising over the forest line of the highway. Men and women had stopped and gotten out of their cars, staring at the sky. Over the video, a trembling man’s voice spoke.

“Oh my god.”

“What is it?” A female voice.

“It looked like a nuke, like from that old footage.”

“Is this it? Russians?”

“Don’t be stupid, it’s the North Koreans.”

“Crowston?” one of the nurses said, picking up a phone, face pale. “That’s only forty-five minutes away.”

The waiting room was silent for several long moments as the images on the screen were replaced by the anchor. “Again,” she said, her eyes pained, but continuing on. “There appears to have been an explosion in Crowston, Maryland at approximately ten thirty-seven this morning. We are still receiving information, but the source of the explosion is not known at this time.”

As Darrel looked on, shocked, his heart sinking as it had that fateful day in September, he felt a sharp pain stab through his head. It was as if someone had struck him on the top of his skull and the pain swam along his temples to his jaw. His vision swayed, then all went dark and silent.

A pinprick of light appeared in the darkness. He felt nothing, as if suspended in space, but there was a sensation of drifting forwards, towards the source of light.

It swelled into a raging inferno of orange and white. In the center of it a man no older than himself screamed defiance upwards. He stopped screaming, his chest heaving. The details of his nude body were obscured except for his eyes which blazed, very literally. Tongues of flame licked upwards from his eyes sockets towards his eyebrows which were blazing white. His hair swirled upwards, white  and long as Darrel looked on, none of his flesh or hair affected by the flame.

The figure turned its gaze towards Darell and spoke. Though the flames themselves did not seem to emit heat, it was as if the sun shone upon him when the eyes rested on him and a furnace opened before him as he spoke.

“Who are you?” the man on fire demanded, waves of heat washing over Darrel. Darrel then felt an overwhelming sense of fear and panic, not only from himself, but from the man before him, caught eternal fire and infinite darkness. The man was afraid of him.

“Ouch!” his mother’s voice cut through the vision and it melted away. He was back in the hospital waiting room but staring at the ceiling with a nurse and his mother standing kneeling next to him. His mother rung her hand, “He’s burning up.”

“What happened?” he managed as the pain faded from his head, leaving only a dull ache and the lingering fear, as if from a nightmare. But he felt it was perhaps more than a simple daydream simply for how vivid it was.

“You fainted,” his mother said, staring at her hand , her lips pursed in thought.

“He’s still exhausted,” the administrator his mother had been conversing with elaborated. “You all get home and call the rest of your family. And you,” the pointed to Darrel, “Get some rest.” She looked up at the television again, another video from a different cellphone played on screen. This time, blown out car windows were visible and several people were staring at the rising tower of black smoke with hands on head in disbelief.

The ride home was slow as people who lived in the Nation’s Capital began to drive west to the center of the country. He, his mother, and his sister drove home in silence. The radio was turned on briefly for more information, but after a few moments it was turned off again as the host fielded hysterical listener calls.

Angelica was silent in the car seat behind him, eyes wide as she stared out of the window. As the awkward drive continued, she began singing softly.

Darrel was lost in his own thoughts. The video, the explosion, the vision. Things, odd things, were happening that he couldn’t make heads or tails of. Things that made no sense however he looked at them. He’d hoped that after recovering from the sink hole things would simply return to normal. But he knew better than that now. Just like with September 11, things would never be the same.

They pulled into the driveway after a drive an hour after a drive that should have taken twenty minutes. His mother didn’t move after she put the car into park. He didn’t either.

“Darrel, check the bikes and get them on the truck. While you do that I’m going to the store. Angie, sweetie, I want you to start packing for a trip, okay?”

“Where are we going?” Darrel asked as Angelica looked on.

“Nowhere… not yet. Darrel, you call everyone. If we’re going to need to leave, we’re going to do it right.” He knuckles were white as she gripped the steering wheel. Darrel climbed out of the car, helped Angelica out of the car seat and watched as his mother pulled out of the driveway on her way to the store.

He moved into the house and, out of habit, emptied his pockets at the hall table. Along with his keys and a McDonald’s receipt, he found a business card. He looked at it carefully. It read:

Special Agent Carl Filteau

Department of Homeland Security