Merry Christmas, Passengers!
Thanks for the inaugural ride of Backwoods Driving/Windows Down. Your gift for sticking around is here. The long-awaited excerpt from The Light to Never Be Snuffed’s sequel.
We’re going back to the summer. Jack Grand’s a year into his new life with his grandparents after The Bad Week. Let’s sit under the weeping willow for now, sketch in our notebook, and watch the storm clouds gather…
It’s a year after The Bad Week and the weeping willow is my bastion of hope. My grandparents know that I like to hide beneath the cascading branches. They’ve been told that I seek out the safe places I need to be in and let me cope. Hours upon hours, in all the warm months, I get lost out here. My butt becomes rooted into the grass, like some sort of stump. I let bugs traverse my skin. Without a Gameboy, I imagine so many things. Monsters, characters, hell, I even attempt to make a plotline for the new Pokémon games. I don’t know what I am doing, but I don’t think that’s the purpose of all this. I need to feel like a kid, and act like a kid. So, it comes as no surprise that he returns to me.
I’m sketching a weird-looking monster when he reappears. It’s been a year since Jason was banished from my memories. He looks a bit different now. Antennae are cut down low to his head. Blonde hair darkens into a rusty brown. He wears all red. Like a drop of blood, he wavers among the branches. I see him in my periphery, but don’t want to lose sight of my nearly completed being. The clouds are forming and the wind picks up, but I can’t believe my creation. It has three protruding from its skull like flower bulbs. Two intricate horns line its head, shaped like a dog mixed with a rhino. It stands on two legs and has large spines on its back like a dinosaur. Hooves for feet, but no tail, I outlined a child next to it for scale. It towers over the little dude. I want to have him squished on the next page. I feel a gust of wind and the branches speak to me.
“Hey, cool Pokémon,” Jason says. He leans closer to inspect the details. “Is that a scar? On his tummy?”
“Yes,” I reply. “She’s been through many battles and two evolutions. I want her to have a baby when she hits level 100.”
“Whoa, that's neat.”
“Thanks.”
I feel Jason rise with another gust of wind. I’m shading the belly region to show what looks like two little horns poking up from within its abdomen. I start to hum, or maybe it’s him. One of the 8-bit songs from the original game. I feel like a wise professor or a game designer. The creator of Pokémon used to collect bugs as a kid. Maybe I can start like him but in different ways. Withdrawing and sketching and imagination.
“Why are you back?” I say, abruptly. Jason and I stop humming. The wind dies down and all is still.
“Because Jack,” Jason says, circling me. “Friends can always repair things.”
“But what if I don’t want you as a friend anymore?”
“Then that’s on you, not me.”
Jason sits back down and I swear I can feel his warmth. The black outline of his persona inches close to my real skin. “Do you know what happened to me? After The Bad Week?”
I resume my sketching. “No.”
“I thought I died,” Jason whispers. “I felt like I got pulverized by a giant machine. Like in a junkyard. But really, I ended up underground. In this place called, The Colony. Have you ever heard about it?”
“No, I don’t care,” I say. I sharpen my pencil with a handheld sharpener. It’s only an inch or so in length now.
“Well, it was marvelous. So many ant-people like me were all around. They had jobs and stuff. My mom wasn’t around, so I got scared at first, but a nice ant let me take a shower. It was kinda gross. The water was all muddy, but I felt like a new boy.”
I don’t respond, but the pencil tip drives into the paper.
“But then,” Jason continues. “But then, once I put on these new clothes, I was told that I had to go to a trial. I didn’t even know what that was, or even if I was in trouble.”
I stop drawing and hold the notebook up in the air. Try to get a different look at my creation. But another gust of wind catches me off-guard. The pages flap around and nearly pull away from the metal spiral. Jason doesn’t help me, just keeps droning on in a dark-sounding voice.
“But then, I get to the trial and it’s a group of large ants. Not ant-people, just ants. They talk in weird sounds and look like they can eat me alive with their pinchers. I plea to them that I don’t want to die again. Then, one spoke, called itself the Ant-God.”
“Stop it,” I yell. My hands barely hold onto my creation.
“He said I was a bad boy and couldn’t help you convert, or whatever. He then said I am to be punished. He just bit my antennae off, Jack! It hurt even more than The Bad Week.”
“Go away!”
“Now, I am back to make you listen,” Jason says. He stands up, rips the notebook from my hands, and throws it. “You must join The Colony. It’s your only hope.”
“My monster,” I yell, trying to face the headwinds and chase it. The pages tear and fly around the yard.
“Join us, join us,” Jason says. His words are louder than the wind itself.
Just then, I hear my raspy grandmother’s voice from the door. “Jack, get in. There’s a tornado warning!”
“No, I won’t, I won’t,” I say, still entranced from Jason’s ghastly spell.
I manage to get the notebook back, but the monster is tossed into the road. I dash the road, and I feel rain landing. I’m a step away from touching asphalt when I feel a firm hand on my shoulder. I snap out of my chase as my grandmother pulls me hard. I’m in tears, frantic and confused, as she pulls me into the house and locks the door.
“Jack! You scared me half to death. Come on, we need to go downstairs,” she says. The wind rocks the house, and the sound of little hailstones rap on the roof. “Poppop and Mipsy are down there already.”
“My monster, my monster!” I protest.
“I’m sorry,” my grandmother ushers me down the rickety stairs. “We can get another once it passes.”
I’m pulled into the kitchen and the smell of roasted ham and potatoes pleased me. Then, there is cherry pie. The lights are out. It’s a strangely calming smell despite the panic and darkness. I stumble toward the basement, and I fall into the door. Shoulder first. The pain is immediate. My grandmother exudes a heavenly grace to lift me back to my feet. She is a water angel, sensing danger and putting me in safety’s warm hug.
“Lord, help us,” my grandmother wails. “Here, get down, Jack.”
She ushers me through the open door. From one void to another. I try my balance on the rickety stairs. I don’t need to take many, for I’m soon met with my grandfather’s arm. It’s tense and muscly. An assuring feeling on my forearm. He doesn’t have his oxygen. He has dog tags around his neck. A Purple Heart medal is pinned on his flannel. He is no fire demon, but a wind warrior. He possesses unseen awareness and swift reaction. I must listen. It’s the only thing I could do at this point.
The basement smells like old grass and oil. Mipsy has her tail between her legs and is trembling. She’s a tiny mutt they got at the pound. She’s mostly for me, but she’s always with my grandfather. She has to be brave with us all. I pet her on the head and she licks my hand.
“Jack, stay away from the window,” my grandfather says.
“I will Poppop,” I say and glimpse at the basement window. “I will be brave, like you.”
My grandfather ushers my grandmother down. She’s crying. “C’mon now, dear, you need to be safe, too.”
Mipsy goes into the corner away from the window. My grandmom joins her on a hay bale. My grandfather takes it a step further. He flips the table and dust flies all over. It makes me sneeze. The top is facing the window.
“Take cover, soldier,” my granddad shouts at me.
My stomach throbs as I see all this happen. The light from the window above our heads vanishes. Just a sheer carpet of purple sky. That’s when the full terror hits me. I still realize the notebook is still in my other hand. It’s my fire demon strength that keeps the most important things safe. I plop into the dirt and lean into the table. My shoulder bears the pain again, but the mighty wooden shield will keep me safe.
I hear what sounds like a train whistle.
I blame the monster I sketched. The harbinger of our untimely deaths. The wind sounds like I imagine the monster would sound. Painful, apathetic. For a moment, I wish I took Jason’s advice. All I want to do is burrow deep underground and into The Colony. The Ant-God could protect me from this, right? But I can’t.
My grandmom screams as the noise surrounds us. Unknown words and unknown feelings happen all at once.
Glass shatters.
Lumber snaps.
The room goes blank.
A Fire Demon has been growing inside of me for a year. My head explodes in fire. I unleash the most demonic scream I can muster. My hair is sucked into the air, embers flinging off into the eye of the tornado. I am fire and the cyclone combined. Everything around me is ash and gray. I squeeze my eyes shut as I feel the weight of the world on my body. Yet, I still scream hard. I will win. I will survive.
Then, it all stops. Almost at once. My brain immediately shuts off like a computer at school. I was a body with the cord ripped out. But somewhere deep inside, my fire wasn’t out yet. The Colony, Jason, my sketch. It all didn’t matter anymore. What did matter was the light that surrounded me. And what felt like my soul floating back into my body. The table was cold and wet against my cheek. Then, Mipsy’s snout against the other cheek. I unclosed my eyes to a light-filled maze of unknowns and new beginnings.
The basement was a warzone. The floor was broken up and leaking from above. Light poked through like we were sitting in Swiss cheese. Labored breathing and moans. My grandparents are injured. Mipsy trots away. Her fur is matted and darkened. She limps with every step. I stand up and I feel the glass crunch beneath my feet. My knees are bloody. The side of the table is punctured by glass, tree limbs, and other debris. It was the best shield a boy could ask for.
I see my grandmother on a knee. She calls for me. My notebook is nowhere to be found. I want to cry about it, but instead, I swore that I’d never lose another notebook again in my life. My legs step over a rake and some boxes are torn apart by the wind. Darkened photos spill out of picture books. It looks like our entire family is here as well. I like to think they played a part in keeping her safe.
“Thank the heavens,” my grandmother says. She is weak but still sounds okay. She has bruises and cuts all over her arms. Blood trickles from her head. Despite her damage, an angel can never be deprived of their beauty. She makes the same, distraught face as my mother gave me a year ago. “You’re alive, my dear, Jack.”
“Is it safe now, Mommom?” I say. Sniffling follows soon after. The dozens of small injuries pile up on my morale.
“I think so.”
Mipsy moans in the other corner. I help my grandmother up as best I can. She’s wobbly on my good shoulder. We make our way toward the sounds. A gasp, and repeated, “No, no, no.” The smell of blood lingers around the corpse of my grandfather. Garden sheers are embedded in his chest. His limbs are strung out over tins and cement bricks. He looks like a fancy art piece in a textbook. Mipsy nudges her body under one of his arms and barks. My grandmother falls to her knees at his side, holding his head and saying she will call 911. I think that it is too late to help.
I climb up the stairs as carefully as I can. There are no remains of the kitchen, just a wide-open hole in the wall. The house is a skeleton after wolves and buzzards are done eating. The dinner has been swallowed by the tornado and replaced with mud and plants. The only thing that catches my attention is the tree. Split in half, it looks like a spike on a dungeon door. All the branches are torn down or fallen on the grass. My ears hear my grandmother yelling at me. She tells me to get back here and help my grandfather up the stairs. She tells me that Mipsy just collapsed and needs water. But they refuse to listen. I just keep walking toward the tree. I must get as close as I can.