Small Writing Start: Apoca

This past Thursday night, I had the most vivid and scary dream. Even when I woke up, I still felt a bit frightened. Bailey needed to go out before the sun came up. I made sure she never left my sight. Back in bed, I covered everything except my head, somehow thinking the sheets would protect me from the night.

The next morning, the details still stuck with me. I shared the dream with Mike and Terry over breakfast. Mike suggested I write the dream down. "May be a good step to get you motivated to start writing again."

The more I thought about that suggestion, the more I liked it. I am not a scary story teller. I don't like Stephen King novels and will rarely watch horror films. I won't watch them at all if I am by myself.

Since this is more an exercise in writing than it is trying to create a new genre for myself, I took his advise. My story is only two pages long, but it is the most (other than my blogs) that I have written in about three years.

I must say, I had such a good time writing it and it felt so good to do it. I felt whole, if that makes sense. Don't judge too harshly. Remember, this is not my typical style. Still, I'm proud of having done it and wanted to share. Some details I changed like the fact that in my dream, it was me, Mike, and Terry. We are all security officers. The names are a bit unusual, but they were the first names to pop into my head. May have something to do with the fact that I have been reading  "A Blaze of Glory," a Civil War novel by Jeff Shaara.

Apoca

By: T. Renee Albracht

                The three of us headed down the highway, Clayton at the wheel, Beauregard in the back, and I in the passenger seat, same as always. We left Nashville not long before, travelling to Knoxville for a job. We worked together, but more than that, we were friends.  There was nothing out of the ordinary about the night except the absolute calm in the air.

                Clayton and I chatted about nothing in particular while some singer from the eighties sang an upbeat tune in the background. Beauregard reclined in the middle seat directly behind us, talking to someone on his cell phone about something of great importance. My cell phone rested in my lap.

                The other cars on the highway drove by in silence, keeping a steady pace with one another. No honking horns or booming bass disrupting the stillness of the night. The three of us, content with each other’s company and the prospect of the work which lay ahead, were oblivious to the absence of chaos outside.

                Beauregard leaned forward after his phone conversation ended. He held on to the back of Clayton’s seat as if to steady himself even though the road we traveled was unusually smooth.

                “That was Eugene,” Beauregard said, his tone flat. Eugene was our boss, the man responsible for sending us out on this night.

                His mention of the boss man caused Clayton and I to quickly forget our present conversation.

                “What did Eugene want?” Clayton asked, shifting his focus from the road in front of him to Beauregard in his rear view mirror, his comic cynicism evident in his tone.

                “The electrical system in his car is acting up. He wanted to know what to do about it,” Beauregard answered, still showing no hint of emotion, no sign as to whether or not this phone call agitated him as much as it seemed to have agitated Clayton.

                “What does he expect you to do about it?” Clayton demanded to know.  “It’s like I said, we’re the end all for everyone, including the boss.  I work on houses, not cars, yet, everyone assumes that if I know how to wire a house, I know how to fix your car!”

                Beauregard stared straight ahead. I rolled my eyes. We had grown accustomed to Clayton’s angry tirades about the perceived injustices he endures.

                “What exactly is going on?” I asked after a moment of silence.

                “I’m not exactly sure.” The lines in Beauregard’s nose and eyes crinkled and his voice rose slightly, showing a hint of concern as he tried his best to describe the problem. “The display by his radio and clock started blinking on and off then made funny…” Words escaped him as he tried to use his hands to describe what was going on.

                He did not have to try to explain the phenomenon for long. In that exact moment, as Beauregard struggled to make sense of it for our understanding, the same happened in the vehicle Clayton drove.

                The music on the radio became nothing more than static noise. The digital display blinked on and off in quick succession for no more than a few seconds. When the clock and radio display came back on, the lines which had once formed numbers morphed into one large circle. The digital circle spun counter clockwise, stopped, then spun clockwise before blinking off for the final time.

                A nervous chuckle escaped from our mouths simultaneously. I hummed the theme song from the Twilight Zone in a soft voice, the only one who seemed to find any humor in this strange coincidence. 

                A few brief moments after the digital display blinked off in Clayton’s vehicle, bright flashes of light caused us to turn our attention out the windows. The billboards transformed into neon signs. The letters were too bright to read. The poles holding them in place disappeared and the signs seemed to float in the air. Some signs drifted closer to us while others hovered in place.

                Although these events were obviously unnatural, I still felt no sense of awe or trepidation. I turned to face the men inside the car and mocking a doomsayer ‘s fright, I said, “Apoca…”

                The rest of the word never made it past my lips. Before I could say “lypse,” the lights outside turned black and a hologram text shot out from my cell phone into and past me, causing me to scream in terror and Beauregard to leap back in his seat.

                The black hologram formed the image of a female child. Blood and dirt matted her curly blond hair. Bruises and gashes marked the right side of her face. The eyes of one possessed glared at us from the left side of her face.

                I looked Clayton in the eye and in a solemn voice said “home.” While maintaining complete outward composure, Clayton took the next exit and turned us around. We headed home.