38. Fear the Voices
She could feel herself falling into the abyss again. Weak bones rattled
against the ground. It was three days before her twelfth birthday. For hours she
crawled along the cement, searching for anything. Anything that could go inside
her mouth and be eaten. She felt sick. Her eyes went dark. But they continued speaking
to her.
They were her only friends. They taught her everything about the sinful
world and the sinful people in it. Only they understood how special she was,
how all she needed to do was bring God into her heart to be saved. She was
different from her mother and the disgusting people that woman brought into the
house.
Then, she realized. After hours and hours of scraped concrete and broken
nails, Naomi finally realized who the voices were. God and His angels had been
speaking to her all along.
God was inside her now. God gave Naomi the power to free herself. Mother
wanted to kill her, but God helped the girl heal her bruises and cuts. God kept
Naomi alive and allowed her to live through hell. God saved her.
Naomi closed her eyes and listened. Noises from the floor above trickled
down to her darkness. Noises of her mother. Noises of other people. Echoing on
and on, deep into the night.
She clenched her bloody fists together and walked up the stairs. Naomi
banged on the door many times before, but she always got tired and stopped. This
time, God would give her strength. Naomi threw her body against the door and
let out an obnoxious, uncivilized wail, so ear-splitting that it made her throat
ache in pain. It was just the sort of wail that would send her mother into a
rage.
Moments later, Naomi heard footsteps creaking across the wooden floorboards.
The kitchen door flew open.
"Shut up!" Mother screamed. "Stop screaming,
dammit!"
Naomi reached out for her mother. Her mother shut the door, smashing
Naomi's arm between the wood. Naomi didn't scream.
Naomi's mother pulled the door open a bit wider, and the girl could see
more of her mother's naked flesh. Then, Naomi felt the door smash against her a
second time, sending sharp, invigorating pain up her arm.
When her mother opened the door a third time, Naomi launched herself
down and sank her teeth into the tanned flesh of her mother's ankle. She bit
hard and held on, feeling the blood trickle down her lips. Naomi's mother screamed
and pulled her leg back, dragging Naomi across the ground. She stumbled backwards
against the kitchen, but Naomi held on.
"What the hell's going on?" A man entered the kitchen with a shirt
bunched around his crotch. "What are you–"
"Stay in there!" Naomi's mother screeched as she tried to
smash Naomi against a cabinet. "I'll be done in a minute!"
The man scurried away as Naomi sunk her teeth deeper into her mother's
raw flesh. Her mother's other foot hit the ground, and Naomi reached out to
grab it. Wriggling against the counter, her mother’s feet slipped, and she fell
to the ground.
Naomi stood up, blood dribbling from her chin. She ran out of the disheveled
kitchen, through the rotting hallway of their withering split-level, and
through the door to the garage. Inside, she found a plastic container of gasoline.
She pulled it down, twisted off the yellow nozzle and stared at the shimmering liquid
within the case. God told her about this, and what she could do with it.
Naomi splashed gasoline all over the garage, its walls, and the door.
Soon, her mother would be here, and everything would be purified. She dashed behind
the door and took a box of matches from a nearby table. Her mother was never
good at keeping the house clean. Naomi stuffed the matches into the pocket of
her shorts and stood in the corner, waiting.
A few seconds later, Naomi saw the door open, and the flash of her
mother's hand appeared around the handle. She stood still, watching carefully
with desperate eyes.
"Naomi..." her mother whispered. "What do you think you're
doing?"
Naomi lit a match with the small thumb of her hand, and a small orange flame
appeared at its tip.
"God is angry with you." Naomi crouched and touched the
lighter to the gasoline. The flame spread.
"Naomi!" her mother shouted. "You stupid bitch!"
Naomi climbed up the metal shelf in the corner and opened the small
glass window on the wall. They told her exactly where to go. She knew she would
survive, and her mother would not.
"Naomiiiii!" Her mother's screams rose high above the flames,
but Naomi paid no attention. She kicked the window out. Shards of glass stuck
into her legs, and God said it was good. She'd need those later.
Naomi hopped out of the window and fell to the grass. Then, just as she
was about to escape her house forever, she heard the creak of the garage door. Her
mother was still alive.
The garage door rattled upward, and she saw flames escape from
underneath it. Naomi watched as the flaming body of her mother pushed it up
until the entire garage was wide open.
Naomi's mother stumbled into the driveway, burning like a torch. The
skin of her face had melted away to reveal large, green eyeballs that stared at
her daughter, mouth gaping open, screaming all the while.
"Naomi!"
The smell of burning flesh escaped into the air as her mother's body
fell into a crumpled heap on the driveway. She was dead.
Tears welled up in Naomi's eyes as the flames died down. As the drops
of happiness slipped down her cheeks, she thanked God and breathed a sigh of
relief. She was free. She moved into the street, a little girl with singed hair
and charred underclothes, sniffling softly to herself.
After hours of questioning from people who easily swallowed Naomi's
story about a freak accident in the garage, it was decided that she would be
sent to a Catholic boarding school. Naomi loved her new environment, and best
of all, she got to learn more about God every day. God would always be in her
heart, but she knew she wanted to teach others about Him, too. And since they
lived in the church with the other nuns, she got to spend a lot of time with
other people who knew all about God and his message. They told Naomi how she was
God's child, and how she needed to help Him. She would live her life as best she
could, reminding the heretics of how they would be punished, and showing the
other, less fortunate ones how to bring God into their hearts. She waited
patiently to be rewarded, and to receive the power she needed to cleanse the Earth
of all its sin.
Now, Naomi realized that she had that power. Four hardened psynergy
orbs rotated smoothly around her, each inscribed with the following letters: I,
N, R, I. She no longer had anything to fear. Grayson Lee, one of the few good
men left in this wretched world, had not only given her power, but knowledge as
well. In the past few days, he’d told her about the clocks, about God’s plan, and
also about the devils known as the Albavitreans who wanted to bring it all crashing
down. Victoria Vance was one of them, and she had passed on her unholy blood to
her son Vance.
The door to Naomi's chamber creaked open. Two orbs floated toward the
intruder.
Madeleine stood in the doorway, tapping her foot impatiently. "Grayson's
calling you. He's ready to send you off."
Naomi watched the girl leave, processing her words. "Yes. I'm ready
too."
"Well hurry it up then," Madeleine called from the hallway.
"I have my game on pause."
Naomi's nerves twitched, and a single orb flew instinctively toward Madeleine.
Naomi quickly tried to reverse her actions, but it was too late. The orb was centimeters
from the back of the girl's head.
In the next moment, Madeleine raised glowing fingers and effortlessly caught
the ball. She dropped it to the ground, fizzling, then looked back to Naomi.
Her beautiful brown eyes bled with malice.
"Don't test me, human."
*
Frank stepped out of his car and approached the Valley Construction company
office. The small building was located in Oildale, just on the edge of the
sprawling oil fields that contained the Zexaron headquarters. Behind the white
stucco building he could see a spacious supply yard surrounded by bulldozers and
other large pieces of construction machinery.
Frank pushed open the glass door and stepped into an office, adorned
with animal skulls and a dreamcatcher. An elderly man in a cowboy hat sat in an
oak armchair, sifting through papers in a file cabinet behind the front desk.
"Hello," Frank said lightly. "I'd like to speak with someone
about a building that was recently constructed around here."
"And what building would that be?" the man asked hoarsely.
"The Zexaron Building," Frank said slowly. "My name is Hank
James, I work for the Zexaron Corporation. Recently, I started up the council
to create a history pamphlet of the company and all its different branches. I
was referred to you by President McCarthy, since this is the company that built
the Zexaron Building a year and a half ago."
"You’re right." The man stood up, pulling his Levi's up a bit
as he did so. "You should probably talk to Lew. He's the fellow who
commandeered that one. Hold on a sec, will you?"
The elderly man got up and went down the rear hallway. After a few
moments, he returned and motioned for Frank to follow him. "He's in here."
The old man thumbed the third door down. "Just go on in."
On the door was a gold nameplate that read 'Lew McMagnus.' Frank took a
deep breath, opened it, and stepped into the man's office. Inside, Lew was
seated in a red leather chair, smoking a cigar with steel-toed boots propped up
on the center of his desk. The shades on his window were up, letting the afternoon
sun illuminate his room.
"Lew McMagnus. And you are?" Lew stood up and outstretched
his hand. He was a tall, burly man who looked to be just barely in his 40s, and
he wore a ten gallon hat.
"Hank." Frank smiled and quickly shook the man's hand. "Hank
James."
"Well, Mr. James, what may I do you for?" Lew pulled a cigar
out of his pocket and sat back into his chair.
"I'm looking for information on the Zexaron Building. You managed the
construction of the building, I hear?" Frank asked.
"You betcha," Lew replied, "but who's askin'?"
"I work for the Zexaron Corporation, and I'm trying to gather data
on the history of the new building. I just want simple things – how much it cost,
the time it took to build, how many rooms there are, just minor details like
that."
Lew looked at Frank silently for a moment, puffing his cigar. "You
work there, huh?"
Frank nodded.
"Alright." Lew shrugged. "You wanna see the
blueprints?"
"Yes, please." Frank said, sitting up eagerly.
"Here we go..." Lew dug through a drawer and pulled out a
thick manila folder that was bursting with papers. "This's the one."
"Thank you." Frank leaned over
*************
the front desk of the Valley Construction building. "Excuse me,"
Cecilia said, "I’m looking for my husband."
"Your husband?" the elderly man asked. "You mean the fellow
that just came by here?"
"I believe so," Cecilia responded. "Do you know where he
is? This is urgent."
"Third door on your left." The old man grunted and motioned
down the hallway.
"Thank you very much."
Seconds later, the woman swung open the door to Lew’s office and waved
casually at Frank.
"Hi, honey."
Frank blinked in confusion. Cecilia stared at him affectionately with a
large smile on her face, as if they were good friends or something more.
"And who might you be?" Lew hefted himself up with a bounce
and took the woman's hand. "A friend of Mr. James, perhaps?"
"Why, yes." The woman smiled fondly at Frank. "I'm Mrs.
James!"
Lew stared wide-eyed at Frank, then let out a short guffaw. "Why, he
looks as guilty as a coyote in a chicken coop! Don't you worry a bit, Mrs.
James, he ain't up to nothing bad, no siree. We were just going over some building-related
topics, weren't we, Mr. James?"
"Yes. Yes we were." Frank replied, looking up to the strange
woman with wide eyes.
Cecilia spoke to Frank in a caring voice. "Honey, would you mind
stepping outside with me for a moment?"
Frank coughed, then looked to Lew. "I-I don't know this woman. I..."
Lew raised an eyebrow. Cecilia frowned.
Frank grabbed the window behind him and lifted it up. Hot desert air seeped
in from the cracks as Frank shoved it up as high as he could. Lew stood by,
dumbfounded, and watched the strange man leap out the window from his office. He
glanced over just in time to see Cecilia raise her hand toward his stomach.
"What are you–" Lew was quickly silenced as an invisible
force rammed him backwards. He crashed back into the wall and rolled to the ground.
Smoke hissed from Cecilia's hand, and she held it up to her face
curiously, adjusting her glasses to get a better view. I won’t be able to go
over 1,000 Gs in this dimension, I suppose...
Cecilia stared at the fallen body of Lew as he clambered to his feet. Let's
see. He probably weighs around 100kg...Earth's standard gravity is 9.80665 m / s2,
so with the appropriate adjustments, that means...
Lew stumbled, struggling to figure out what had just hit him. He
suddenly collapsed to his knees, then to the floor, completely immobilized.
"Don't worry," Cecilia said. "As long as you stay still,
you won't be hurt."
"What the hell?" Lew sputtered.
"Curious, are you?" Cecilia asked with wide, enthusiastic eyes.
"I’ve just changed the gravitational force surrounding you. So right now,
you're probably experiencing somewhere around three to four times the original
gravity you live under every day. Understand?"
Lew merely stared at her in horrified silence.
"Well." Cecilia glanced to the window. "I’ll be off now.
I need to take that man back with me."
With that, she exploded through the window, continuing her pursuit of
Frank Arazia.
Next: A Grey Area
