Copula Chronicles: The Complete Collection: Origin, Descend, Ascend, Legacy Read online

  Her coy smile is unnerving as hell and I’m paying little attention to her banter as I concentrate on my growing anxiety when she touches my hand. “Hey, earth to Jesca.”

  I download the day’s craziness to her, detailing the green jacketed and baseball capped guy with the blackout out eyes and the drug trafficking princess and groping dealer in the side alley by Starbucks.

  “Jes, you’ve always been ‘out for justice’. Maybe today was the token vigilante day of the week for you. This crap goes on around us all the time. Maybe you’re just sensitive to all of it today. You may be looking for it in some weird way. I mean, you’re weird when it comes to scoping out the not so obvious. It’s like you’ve got radar for it or something.”

  I don’t want her to explain it away that easily.

  “What about the freaky face on that guy? Do you think I wanted to see Mr. Hottie turn all demon spawn?”

  “Wait, he was hot?”

  “Licia!”

  “Okay, maybe something you watched on TV last night triggered that image. It popped into your pretty, little head this morning because you’re so sleep deprived. By the way, your mom and dad are concerned about your lack of sleep. They keep calling me and poking around to find out about their baby girl. You need to give them a call ASAP. Apparently, you haven’t called them in a week.”

  I bat my hand at her. “Yeah, I got it! I’ll call them tonight!”

  I start to walk to the back room and turn toward her once more. “And I haven’t always been ‘out for justice’!”

  Licia responds with a half laugh. “Okay, Super Girl.”

  The Art History and Economics sections need restocking so I get to work on the boxes of books stored in the back. I vaguely hear the chime of the front door opening. I figure Licia has it and go back to unpacking the books.

  A clicking and humming sound surfaces and grows louder. It sounds like an air-conditioning unit turning on, but too loud to just be air passing through vents. I turn toward the whooshing sound and search for the origin, the sound growing louder in my head. Rising up, I stand beneath the vent above me and listen as the whirling blast fills my ears. Feeling Licia’s heavy stare, I turn to see her leaning head first over the counter watching me.

  She mouths, “You okay?”

  I move a few steps toward her and whisper, “Can you hear that humming sound?”

  She stops chewing her gum and appears to be listening for the sound. “Uh, no.”

  Suddenly, the humming sound disappears. I look up at the vent, then back at Licia. She stares at me curiously. I shake my head to avoid any questions. “Nevermind, I thought I heard thunder.”

  Lame excuse, but I needed to get that look off her face. It’s one thing for me to worry, but when laid-back Licia starts to question my sanity, that’s a sign things must be heading south in the sanity department.

  All of a sudden, the whooshing air sound rebounds, filling my ears. It settles into a low hum that makes my stomach flutter. It moves from my ears to a physical presence in my chest, arms and legs.

  “She knows.”

  As I look back at Licia standing oblivious at the front counter, I’m aware that the thick voice saying she knows is an echo in reality only I can hear.

  The hair on the nape of my neck shifts direction when the sensation of someone coming near takes hold. I turn around to the feeling quickly, but nothing is there. I can still hear whispers, but it’s far away now, below an echo. It has to be those guys. I slowly walk to the other side of the aisle and peek between books to try to find them.

  “She won’t say anything.”

  The heavy echo comes in a different voice than before. It must be the other guy. I can’t see either of them from where I’m standing. As one of them laughs, it sounds like the hiss and crackle of pure evil tunneling through my head.

  I close my eyes and try my hardest to wipe the laughter so I can hear the whispering below it. The hair on my neck shifts again as the feeling of two forces fill the empty space around me. Whipping my head to either side of me, my sight comes up empty, no one there.

  “It’ll destroy her if she remembers who they are and what she is.”

  I rise and move around stealthily to the next aisle, holding onto the hum and echoing whispers with complete focus. Destroy her? What did they do to her that she can’t remember? Every aisle I rush to turns up empty, the echoing whispers and hum one-step ahead of me always.

  “What if he finds her? He’ll tell her everything. Tell the girl.”

  Another aisle empty as I stalk the shelves for them. What girl? A different girl?

  “Her name is Jesca.”

  They’re talking about me. How the fuck do they know my name? As they banter back and forth and cackle the sinister laughter creeps along my skin and crawls deeper into my head.

  “She can’t know.”

  I duck low and look through the bottom shelf as I move along another aisle. Shit! Where are they? I can’t know what?

  “We won’t let her.”

  Won’t let me what? I look through the shelf to my right and see their feet moving quickly toward the front of the store. “Hey, stop!”

  “Jesca!”

  The call of my name blasts into my head like a sledgehammer, making it spin and knocking me into the shelf.

  “Jesca!”

  The sharp call of my name hammers again at my head as I stumble forward, holding the shelves for balance. “Licia.”

  I barely mumble through onslaught of the two hissing voices calling my name repeatedly.

  I close my eyes, making the spin and nausea worse. My body has a mind of its own and it’s pulling me down to the ground as I slide against the shelves, I try to open my eyes but the flashes of light blind me. “Stop them Licia.”

  Her urgency is only for me as her voice cracks with panic. “Jesca!”

  My voice sounds wonky as I try to tell her, “Don’t let them leave.”

  I know it comes out completely wrong because she isn’t stopping them. She is coming closer asking me what I’m doing as the bell above the front door chimes signaling their escape.

  I feel Licia’s hand rest on my head. “You’re burning up, Jes. Hold on.”

  She leaves me for a minute, the sound of her footsteps just as rapid as my breathing. My eyes stay closed as her footsteps return to me. She places something wet on my forehead. I’m guessing a wet washcloth. “You’re so pale, Jes. Keep that on your head. I’ll be right back.”

  The cloth on my head is helping and my knotted stomach and dizziness is going away.

  Pushing my hand against the ground, I try to stand, when Licia gently pushes me back down. I blink wide-eyed and look at her as she kneels in front of me. I see the worry as she sighs deeply.

  “Licia, those guys, they were talking about me. Saying that I can’t find out—”

  “Find out what?” She asks. “We haven’t had a single customer since you got here.”

  Her curiosity suddenly turns to a panic-stricken look as she rests her hand on my shoulder. “Jes, the only reason I’m saying this is because I’m your best friend and I love you more than Snickers.”

  I’m prepared for her to tell me I’m losing my mind, which I can’t deny with the way I look sitting here in the aisle of the book store, sick from some phantom illness and telling her that two non-existent guys just harassed me.

  A shit-eating grin spreads across her face suddenly.

  “You’re acting really cray-cray! I mean like Jack Nicholson, the Shining type cray cray.” She stifles a laugh and I push her arm away from my shoulder and scoff.

  “Thanks Licia. Thank you for making me feel so much better.” I rise slowly to stand on my own two feet ignoring Licia’s offer to help me up.

  “Look Jes, I’m sorry. You really need to go home though. You put in extra hours last week.
I’ll cover for you. It isn’t as if Todd Jr. is going to make a surprise appearance. We’re cool. I got this.”

  I feel physically drained like I have just run a marathon, but my dizziness is completely gone. I listen for a second; so is the humming and whooshing sound.

  “Jes, I know the nightmares have come back full force. Your mom and dad told me.”

  Licia has known about them as long as I have had them. She kind of discovered it when I spent the night the first time in second grade. Hard to avoid when your best friend is crying out that she can’t move during a sleep over. She took it in stride and held me until I could move again.

  “Go home. I don’t want my bestie put away in a loony bin at the ripe age of nineteen. You’re at your sexual peak for God’s sake.”

  Licia’s snarky comment gets the reaction she was hoping. “Hardy har har.”

  Sex is a non-issue when you have bigger, more terrifying, things occupying your mind. Like your very sanity and possible split from reality.

  CHAPTER 2: SHADOWS

  Jesca

  I feel like I slept for days, but in reality it was only one, almost twenty hours. I woke up long enough to use the restroom and get a glass of water. The sound of the heater turning on is what finally wakes me up from my self-induced sleep marathon at 3 p.m. It’s so strange how the smallest, yet distinct sound catches my attention. Like the air conditioning at work. As my body wakes, my eyes remain shut, taking in the sound. I imagine being the heat moving through the aluminum, swaying from one side of the piping to the other, as if I’m on an inner tube on a crazy water ride.

  As I open my eyes, the first thing I see is the sun retreating behind the almost-barren trees outside my window. Surprisingly, I feel energized enough to head out for a run. Mom always said that running brought me to my center. It definitely helps me work things out in my head. I desperately need that right now. Leaving the apartment, I head northwest toward Kennesaw National Park and the lake. It’s a good distance, about seven to eight miles round trip. It’s a familiar trek, though. Running the trails by the lake reminds me of our family fishing trips. Mom and Beth would always find a way to get out of cleaning the fish, leaving the hard work to my dad and me. I didn’t mind getting my hands dirty cleaning the fish. Every time we cleaned the fish, I’d tell him I was the son he never had.

  The concrete turns to gravel, dirt and then rock as I enter a trailhead and descend into the dense woods. The sun shimmers on the fallen leaves and damp mulch. As sweat starts to run along my temple, the cool air hitting my face is refreshing. I focus on my breath, the ground, the music and the movement of my body.

  The sound of twigs breaking close by stops me in my tracks. Suddenly, the vibration I held in my body at the book store is filling me again, the humming in my ears returning. The dizziness doesn’t come, but my heart is pounding out of my chest and I can’t catch my breath. A flash of darkness out of the corner of my eye sets me on guard. Whatever it is, it’s not an animal; it stands upright.

  I turn my music off; pull my ear buds from my ears and start running again. My legs take longer, stronger strides, stronger than I have ever taken before. The leaves beneath my feet are a blur, yet the sound of them crunching beneath my feet is like crushing plastic in a trash compactor. My arms work quickly to push away the branches blocking my path. All of a sudden, the feeling something was following me, closing in quickly rushes through my body. The same feeling I get in my nightmares and in the bookstore yesterday!

  Still running, I turn to look behind me. A blur of darkness in the landscape catches my eye. It moves quickly, shifting around the wooded obstacles just as I am. The humming is even stronger now, clouding my thinking and my vision as I run through shrubs and branches, searching for an opening to clear the woods. Suddenly, there’s light piercing the darkness, a clearing. It has to be the one above the lake.

  I put more power into my pumping arms and stretching stride. The sunlight becomes brighter as the trees open their canopy, releasing me from the woods like a rock in a slingshot.

  As soon as I’m out, my body takes on a mind of its own and I turn toward the woods crouching low to the ground, as if I’m ready to combat this force stalking me. My heavy breathing is animalistic, unlike the panic I had in the woods, and for the life of me, I have no idea why I’m not getting the hell out of there.

  Forced to stare into the trail that expelled me, I fear that I’ll see some kind of monster any second, but nothing appears. Just rustling leaves on the rocky ground. My body, still detached from my mind, eager to flee, I pace in front of the opening to the woods as my breathing evens out as if I’m being held prisoner to the fear of what might attack me. The humming sound is diffusing quickly and the vibration is minimal compared to the tremor of my racing heart.

  Control returning to my body spurs my response to turn away from the opening in the woods, leaving me facing the lake. I find myself staring at a man in a boat. But not just any man. Professor Ezra Kahn from the university.

  I feel my cheeks get hot from embarrassment as I think back on my crouching like an animal. The way he’s staring, he must’ve been watching my predatory behavior for a while.

  I turn away from him as I think of something to say. Maybe he was baiting his line and didn’t notice my animal-like behavior.

  “Jesca Sera?”

  Damn it, I have to acknowledge him now. I turn back around and smile.

  “Oh, hi, Mr. Kahn.”

  Mr. Kahn tips his fishing hat to me, his light brown hair ruffling under it.

  “Are you okay?”

  He saw it all. Shit.

  I ran into Mr. Kahn last semester, literally. I bounced off him as if I were running into a brick wall. He quickly caught my fall and asked if I was okay. His concern and my embarrassment then was just as poignant as it is right now, but for a very different situation entirely. He taught in the physics department and teaches the class I was going to the morning he caught my fall: Introduction to Astrophysics and Cosmology.

  I scratch a phantom itch on the back of my head to avoid his eyes. “Hey, have you seen anything or anyone before I came out of the woods?”

  Looking more concerned for me now, Ezra says, “Yes, I did see a jogger heading into the woods about ten minutes ago. Is everything all right?”

  My anxiety rises. “Yeah, yeah, everything is fine. Well, it’s nice seeing you. I better head back.”

  Ezra smiles. “Nice to see you too. Be careful.”

  On my return home, I head along the edge of the woods, not wanting to get too deep into the forest, and stick to the well-trafficked sidewalk in town.

  Back at the apartment, I take a hot shower to warm up after the run home. The air turned frigid quickly after exiting the foothills. On a whim, I decide to head into town to see Licia at the store. Dressing quickly, I bundle up with a scarf and hat for the short but chilly walk. I haven’t talked to her since the scene at the bookstore. I owe her a big thank you and at the least let her know I’m feeling better.

  As I walk toward the store, I call Mom and Dad, but it goes to voicemail.

  I leave a quick message telling them that I am doing fine and sleeping well. That’s not completely a lie, as. I did sleep for almost twenty-four hours. Now, everything is fine except for the chase in the woods and apparent supernatural, high-velocity speed I seem to now posses.

  I make it to the store just before Elicia locks up. “What’re you doing here? Shouldn’t you be home sleeping?”

  “Yeah, I did. I just wanted to say thanks for covering for me.”

  She tucks the key to the store into her purse and smiles.

  “We don’t need you collapsing at work nor falling asleep during lectures, do we? Did you call your mom and dad? I love your parents, Jes, but you need to talk to them. They’ve left me eight messages and four texts in the last twenty-four hours.”

  Ro
cking back on my heels, I disclose, “Already done.”

  Walking side by side, she asks, “Where are you heading now?”

  “Back home. I wanted to make sure you knew I was okay. I think you were right about all the stress and no sleep thing. I’m good now. Feel like I’m a brand new person.”

  Licia’s face relaxes as she puts her arm around my shoulder, pulling me into her. “I’m so glad to hear that girl. You had me worried there for a while. Almost as much as your parents.”

  My intention was to get that worried and tired look off her face and it worked even if I don’t believe what I’m saying.

  Licia sighs with relief. “Well, my parents have requested I come over for dinner. Hope they aren’t going to spring another surprise on me like the one about them renting our house and traveling through Europe for a year. Seriously, I don’t know how they can be so spur of the moment.”

  I laugh a little. “Hey, I’ll be in tomorrow at noon after class, all right?”

  Licia pulls me into a warm welcoming hug. “Sounds good.”

  When she releases me, she points at me demandingly before walking away. “Go home and rest.”

  I salute her and with full sarcasm I say, “Yes, ma’am,” before turning and walking in the opposite direction.

  As I walk on the busy sidewalk, I come to the realization that I’m in a rut. Life has been full of averages—average family, home life, grades. Yeah, so I’m having these strange things happening to me. It’s just a bump in the road setting me off balance. I just need to keep pushing through this rut. Granted, most ruts don’t include hallucinating or the hellish nightmares I’ve had more and more of lately. But, the point is, it can all go back to average as long as I keep it together.

  The distraction of the people passing me on the sidewalk is nothing for the blindsiding hum that slowly creeps into my ears. More than before, the vibration hits me like an electric surge running through my feet, up my spine, and into my head. The vertigo is coming in pulses threatening to bring me to the ground as they did in the store. I slow my pace to keep steady and on my feet. I have to get home! I look up in front of me hoping that Licia is in earshot but she’s disappeared through the small crowd of people ahead of me.