all god's orphans
Chapter 10

The grey man had finally restocked the blood in his face and felt slightly better. He sat on the sofa in the living room staring out the back windows into the yard. It was a bright day and he felt emptier for not being able to enjoy it. He couldn’t stop thinking about the dead girl. He felt guilty that he had simply deposited her in a box, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do. He wanted someone to come and explain everything. To tell him it was okay, or at the very least, just sit beside him. He was lonely, but the thought of going into the street and talking to the people out there terrified him.

After a while, he decided he should eat something again. The pit of his stomach had relaxed considerably and now the adrenalin crash had left him tired. In the kitchen he found one of the small cylinders with a cat’s face on it. He peeled it open and began to eat. He liked the food with the cat on it. The smell felt as familiar as an old church hymn, though no details emerged from the fog of his mind.

As he ate, he began to notice a steady increase of people outside in the streets. He had noticed a few of them before, but now there were more, all walking in the same direction. Being careful to stay out of sight, he slid next to the large windows in the dining room and peered out, hoping to replace a clue as to what was going on. They didn’t seem to be in any hurry and he couldn’t remember having heard anything like an alarm to let them know where to go or when. He wondered what they knew that he didn’t.

He went back into the living room and found the small black rectangle that controlled the other, larger black rectangle. Earlier he had found that by pressing the colored buttons, he could make the pictures and noises go on and off. He pressed the red button and an image sparked to life, but it was the same one as before. The bird in a circle and a man simply repeating that this was an emergency. “Please stay tuned for an important announcement.” He turned it off again.

Outside, the throng was starting to peter out and he feared he was missing something important. For several minutes, he stood with his hand on the doorknob trying to work up the courage to open the door. Once, he actually turned the knob, but as soon as the door opened enough to let a little of the outside noise slip in, he shut it as quietly as he could. One of the people in the streets turned their head in his direction and he stood frozen behind the curtains until that person lost interest and continued on their way.

Defeated by his fear, he went back to the couch, sat down, and hated himself.

He had not moved from the sofa for what seemed like days. His food supplies had run out and he was not feeling well. He couldn’t remember when he had last left this room, but it had not been today. He had watched as the shadows moved slowly across the floor until night fell and painted everything blue. He was thinking how relieved he was that he would soon fall asleep when he heard the strangest noises coming from outside.

It began as a series of dull popping sounds, like lightning splitting a tree far, far away. They broke the silence quickly, and then just as fast, they were gone, echoes whispering in the wind. Some time later, he heard a wailing, something almost human but not quite.

At first, he thought it was just another of those animals that he’d seen wandering around, sniffing at everything. Dogs. Or cats. It was a yelping, panicked sound and he moved to investigate it more out of curiosity than concern. He kept close to the curtains and peered out the window into the night. After a few moments, he realized the animal was actually a person, and they were screaming for someone to help. He couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from, but then he saw a long shadow fall down the center of the street. At its feet was a young woman, half running, half stumbling in a more or less straight line.

“Help!” she rasped. “Anybody? Help!” Her voice ricocheted in the still air and the windows of the houses stayed dark. Suddenly, her head turned and seemed to stare straight into his heart. She dashed across the road and up onto his porch, pounding on the door. “Please!” She cried, her voice sounded as though her throat were full of razor blades. “Please open the door.”

He could hear her twisting the knob and as he considered letting her in, he heard a deep growl from somewhere outside. It was guttural and made the walls tremble with fear. At its approach, the frightened woman backed away and he could see the terror on her features. Her wide, dark eyes stared in the direction of the sound before she ran away in the opposite direction.

He shrank from the window but still wanted to know what was happening. As the sound grew, he saw its source. A shiny black beast had somehow come to life and was rolling slowly down the street. It was massive and held men riding on its back. Several people had come out onto their front porches to see what was happening and the men on the back of the leviathan did nothing more than note their presence.

He saw one of them writing something in a small book as they passed his house and it sent a shiver down his back that reached all the way to his balls. What were they doing? What did they want? In the distance, he could still hear the girl screaming as the rolling creature ambled lazily after her, but he no longer feared for her. He feared for himself.