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Chapter Seventeen: Enter Thus, The Third Wheel| | "The exit rows are clearly marked in the front, middle and rear of the plane. If you would open your manuals..."
Fairly
sat uncomfortably next to me, wishing she could truly feel the plush
exterior of the larger than life, black leather seats, or be able to
lean back in the chair and boss around a stewardess for drinks she
would only sip on twice before letting them become stagnant. Nothing ever was what it should have seemed, but the fact
that we weren't alive probably had the most to do with our discomfort.
Lacey
sat on the far end, skipping through her music player lackadaisically as
her father stretched back in the chair, slightly smiling at the
amenities I'd come through with. "A cocktail sir?" "Club soda with
lime... ooh wait! Two limes and a cherry on the side please? Thank you
so much." Mark said politely, adjusting his pants as he finally looked
toward the both of us, seeing the disbelief on our faces.
"You finally get a chance to taste steak in the front, laugh at the poor people in the back, have any drink you could imagine and you get club soda with two limes and a cherry?"
I said, nearly laughing at the thought. Mark wiped away invisible
specks off of his pants again, sitting awkwardly in the seat as if to
speak incognito to two people that weren't there. His hand covered the
top of his mouth.
"I stopped drinking when my wife died." He
said plainly, looking around at the storage areas above and the
windows. Upon my raised eyebrow to his anxious movements, he lifted his
hand up slowly, taking a quick look around to spot on-lookers. "I hate
flying. Hate flying, hate driving, really hate boat rides... I'm not a traveling kind of person." "So why the hell would you be in Lisbon?
Sounds like without the other modes of transportation you're teleporting everywhere." Fairly said, chuckling at the thought.
"My
wife was an archaeologist and had some account here in the city. I have
the box in my suitcase; the inside contains some things she dug up
while in South America, Egypt and other sites. Arlene always..." Mark
stopped, catching himself before he became emotional. "Look," I
started, leaning forward in my seat as he rubbed his chest "You don't
have to tell me anything that's going to make you that uncomfortable,
really. Fact is, it's your business and doesn't matter in the current
circumstances."
"Here is your drink sure, be sure to buckle up,
take off is only a few minutes off." The stewardess added, sitting down
the square beverage napkin under the tall glass, dropping the fruit
aside the drink. "Thank you kindly." Mark replied, setting a five in
her hand before picking up fruit to drop it in. Once she was out of
sight, he lifted his left hand to cover his mouth, right hand squeezing
the lime and dropping in the cherry. "Can we wait until we're in the
air to talk about this, I don't know if my stomach is going to make
it." he pleaded, picking up the drink quickly to swallow the contents
in a matter of moments.
Letting all of the power leave my body,
I closed my eyes, trying to imagine weightlessness. Being dead and
flying I thought would have been synonymous, but I apparently wasn't
worthy of wings or a halo. Opening my left eye, I noticed Fairly who
happened to be staring at me, and I rolled my eye, closing it back up
before the sound of the jets deafened everything.
___________________________________________
Once
at cruising altitude I looked over at the sleeping Lacey, realizing
that Mark had risen up, probably to go to the restroom. Her long brown
hair was indented by the over sized headphones that blocked out all
forms of communication. "You think she can see us?" Fairly asked,
looking over at her as well. I shook my head, looking down at the seat
below to make sure I wasn't making an impression. "I doubt it. I think
she would have said something if..."
Mark came back, sitting
back down with a newspaper that he propped up on the table in front of
him, covering most of the views of his face from the front. Fairly and
I were both silent as he reached into his pocket, pulling out a small
locket attached to a fairly thin chain. Opening it, he showed us a
picture that included him, his daughter Lacey, and another woman. She
stood in the middle, slightly smirking at the two that leaned in to
kiss her with faced scrounged up. It was an unbearably cute picture.
"She
was always in the middle. Arlene was always the mold that held the
family together. I was always out on business and my daughter had a
life of her own, but she managed to bring us all together for dinner,
holidays, and movies. It wasn't until she died that I realized how much
I had dropped the ball in being a father. I can barely speak to my
daughter now, and I feel like everything I've tried to do..." Mark
paused, watching the flight attendants walking by with beverages and
snacks for the poor folks in be back.
"That's well and all,
Mark, but what does that have to do with your..." "Ability? I honestly
don't know." He looked over at his daughter, making sure she was unable
to hear, and leaned in to whisper to the both of us, eyes frowning with
thought. "It didn't happen immediately. She had been dead for a month
when I went to the grave, without Lacey to just sit there. I..." Mark
bit his lip, leaning down with an anger and sadness that was so
familiar that it made me move back unconsciously. "I hated her. She
left me when I needed her. All of Arlene's promises to have more
children, to see the world with me without having to sit in the back of
a van with dusty artifacts... It was taken from me, and I hated her.
I'd been cursing at her grave, so loud that you thought I would've
awaken the dead."
"Did you?" Fairly asked, me looking back at
her in surprise that she was so into his story. "Something like that.
There was a girl, probably thirteen in age, that walked up to me
silently and looked at the grave. I tried telling her to go away, but
she insisted on staying, and so I let her, grieving over her tombstone.
Every time from then on, for the next few months, she came and kept me
company, sitting on her knees with sad, comforting eyes."
"About
a month ago, I'd came to the cemetery after work, doing my ritual of
setting the flowers out and staring at the locket. The same little girl
walked up to me, and actually spoke! She pointed out her tombstone and
explained her death, and I was well... I didn't believe her at all. It
wasn't until a few days later I went online to see her obituary with
her face on it that I felt the horror sink in." Mark sipped on the
melted remnants of his drink and Fairly leaned over me, trying to make
her point heard.
"Were you able to speak to her? Arlene, I
mean?" she asked, slightly jumping when Mark lifted his head quickly to
answer. "Oh, if I could have spoken to her I'd have cussed her out,
hugged her, kissed her, yelled at her...anything! No, apparently
whatever happened with me cursed me with the ability to see the dead,
but not her. Every other dead person, through a bit of concentration, I
could see, but every time I tried to look at her I came up with
nothing." "Just like Brice... Josh, you think they're connected?"
I
had been staring at the ground the entire time, imagining my own
feelings through Mark, through Fairly, how the hatred and love bonded
us in such a caustic way to our loved ones. As much contempt I had felt
for Alley, I realized how lucky I was: she was still alive and their
loved ones weren't.
"Mark, I'm through believing in circumstance
and coincidence, and you should too. If it's true what you say about
the girl speaking to you, it probably had to do with my ability to
speak. I could explain it all, but the short of it is that..."
I
went on to tell him about our stories, explaining everything up to the
Harpyes and ending up in Portugal, making sure to keep the main points
in perspective. It was surprising how much didn't phase him, Mark
basically accepting the words completely as truth and nodding the
entire time. Once I concluded, he flipped down the newspaper, looking
straight forward before letting it back up to cover himself.
"The
same demon... you say you saw him walking in to the restaurant after
your girlfriend went in to work?" Mark asked, words intent. "Yes, tall
guy... I couldn't get all of the details of his face, but he wore a
trench coat and was being taken over by some dark spirit from the feet
up." I answered, trying to keep from sounding too worried. "Do you
think the demon followed her? It could just be a..." "I told you Mark,"
I intervened, lifting my hand up to make a point. "I don't believe in
coincidences anymore."
It was then that I'd began to realize the
clouds were closer to us than they should have been. A fasten seatbelt
sign came on overhead as the two of us watched Mark click his on,
staring worriedly at the door to the cockpit. The voice overhead was
deep, almost soothing but with a slight shakiness that made the three
of us slightly panic. "Well it seems we are experiencing a few engine
difficulties..." "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit..." Mark repeated,
putting a piece of ice in his mouth to chew on to keep himself calm.
"Come on man, what could..."
The oxygen masks dropped from
above, plane dipping down violently to the point of tossing Fairly and
I both out of the seats into the air, and upon my fall back to the
floor all I heard was:
"We'll be experiencing some turbulence from here on out. If you could please... buckle your seat belts."
(Next, Chapter Eighteen: I Don't Know Why I'm Panicking) | | | Posted 1/24/2008 8:42 PM - 21 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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