Why Don't I Shut UP?

The Seven

As I stumbled over the reeking metal trashcan a thought came to my head. The metal bin clanged on the damp brick alley with a shrieking crash as I flew ass-over-tincup. But still I had one coherent thought.

I'm going to die tonight.

I knew they were still behind me. Hell, they'd been back there since I stepped off the subway. I couldn't see them then, but I knew they were there. It was more of a gut feeling...the kind that crawls into your stomach on ice-cold hands and knees.

And as my body, tired and bruised, made its final descent into the mountain of oily-black garbage bags I knew that I wasn't going to see morning. I lay in the huge pile of trash that cushioned my fall and stared up blankly. I was giving up.

I'm done, I thought as I stared up between the buildings. The sweet sickly smell of garbage found my nose and for some odd reason it comforted me. Soon I'd be in a box smelling much like the odors currently taking up space in my nostrils. I simply lay there waiting for them to find me. They couldn't be that far behind, could they?

But as my eyes touched the night sky and the stars seemed to shudder in their black blanket my thoughts turned to her. The girl with the ice-blue eyes. The girl who stopped them in their tracks...if only for a moment. But as time can be, the moment was enough to put some distance between them and I.

Them.

The stars reminded me of her and that feeling that ran up my spine when I recalled her face. She was the answer to this. She could stop them from coming. She could make them go away.

The first time I'd seen her was up on the corner of 5th Avenue. Before any of this began...or maybe that was the start of it. Its all a blur now. I would've passed right by her only something odd caught my attention. She was standing by a newsstand. Another person browsing for a read between jobs or commutes or wherever those faceless people went. She had a magazine in her hand. The act was convincing except for two things. She was reading a Penthouse, and she was reading it upside down. Second, of course, was her eyes. Those piercing radiant blue eyes that reminded me of a glacier. So cold and yet so hot at the same time. She stared at me as if she were trying to will something to me. Trying to burn a thought into my head.

It was all I could do to keep my jaw from gaping open. I couldn't avoid eye contact and when our eyes met the metropolitan noise faded away. No buses or horns honking or screeching tires. No jackhammers or sirens or even footsteps. It all faded and I heard her voice.

They are coming. The seven are coming.

My head felt light and my stomach did that little flip-flop thing that only happens on roller coasters.

The seven are coming.

Then the world did a flip-flop thing and the city rushed back into my ears. She stood nearly twelve feet from me but I felt as if she had me in a bear hug. I didn't mind. It felt safe. I could drown in her eyes and not complain. But before I could sink into that nothingness I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was like someone yanking me up out of the deep end of the pool. And there she was, right infront of me.

I threw a quick glance back over my shoulder as if I'd see two of her, one here beside me and one across the street. I turned back to her smiling, ready to introduce myself like a goon at a singles bar.

"I've been looking for you", she said. Her voice was barely a whisper yet I could hear it over the street noise. I tried to reply, confused. But my words would not form.

"You're lucky I found you before they did," she said.

"Who?" I managed to croak through uncooperative lips.

"The Seven are coming and you must not let them catch you. You have something of theirs. They won't stop until they get it back."

Suddenly my head was spinning. This was a practical joke, right? My brother was getting me back for the time I shaved half his head. He always sucked at practical jokes. I mean, if this was the best he could then...

My thoughts where shattered by the shrieking of metal. A lady across the street screamed and somewhere a man shouted something...Get the fuck out of the way...or Fucking get out of the way...I cant remember anymore. But I do remember the bus as it veered across traffic headed directly for us. The huge vehicle slammed into a taxi in the opposite lane and glass exploded in a rain of twinkling shrapnel. The bus driver spun the wheel in back and forth trying to get control of the vehicle. His face was a mask of surprised terror as the city bus plowed over a pedestrian who was too stunned to move.

"They've found you," she said as he grabbed the front of my jacket.

"Buhhh..." That's all that I could muster. Stunned by the violence. Stunned by her beauty. By her eyes.

"YOU HAVE TO RUN," She shouted, tugging ruggedly at my jacket. The volume of her voice snapped me back into some level of consciousness. What she did next brought me back one-hundred percent.

She turned on her heal and raised up her hands, palms toward the bus that was bearing down on both of us. For a moment I was sure she was going to try and stop the moving behemoth with her own tiny frame. But then a noise rose from her throat and she spoke. Only this time her voice was nowhere near the wispy tones I'd heard. Even now I can't recall what she had said, only the sound of it. Like a low rumble of a tiger's growl. And as she spoke I could feel her voice. The vibrations clattered my teeth together and made the litter in the gutters stir. The bus took another hop, bouncing off a parked car with a loud crash.

The girl thrust her hands forward with a guttural cry. What I saw could only be explained as an air wave. The wave shot from shoulders, down her arms, and out her hands. It rocketed across the thirty or so feet between her and the bus and enveloped itself around the vehicle.

The bus stopped dead.

I could see the passengers onboard lunge forward at the sudden stop. One man lost his footing from the forward momentum and collided with the huge windshield of the bus. As his head struck the glass and crimson blossomed where the two connected.

"YOU HAVE TO RUN!" She cried, straining to hold the bus back, its back wheels smoking and screeching on the pavement as it tried to regain its forward motion. I could hear the engine of the bus wailing as the RPMs rose towards redline. She didn't stop the bus, she merely delayed it.

"RUN," she screamed, her voice was complete pain.

I may be a slow learner but I decided it was time to take her advice.

posted by Michael Witmer @ Friday, December 17, 2004