Page 53 of Etched in Stone
“I know it’s a cool ghost town, but getting someone to fly back here isn’t going to be as easy as you think. You got a sat phone?”
“Yes,” Jesse lied. She’d left her phone with Tommy in Pennsylvania. There was no use in carrying it to space, unless she wanted to play games on her phone, and then she imagined she’d have a hard time finding an appropriate charger for it. “Don’t worry about us. We’re more experienced than you think. He’s a very good climber.”
“Why the hell isn’t he even wearing a jacket?” the pilot grumbled.
Jesse shrugged, knowing that Ray hadn’t wanted to program in a jacket just for a short encounter with the pilot.
Despite his misgivings, the pilot gave her his phone number and left, shaking his head.
Ray told her to stay put while he scouted the town. She wanted to object, but he literally flew off.
Jesse had to admit that he looked majestic finally able to spread his wings in the open air.
Jesse stamped her feet and rubbed her hands. She’d handled a winter in New York but it was nothing compared to this. She didn’t think she could put on enough layers to keep warm. Jesse decided that waiting still in one place was for suckers. She grabbed the heavy duffel’s strap and slung it over her shoulder. With a bit of a wobble, she walked toward the first cluster of buildings.
The cold had killed off much of the plant life, but it had apparently not stopped it from overtaking
the roads in the summer. There were no sidewalks but the houses and the street were clear enough as she headed down a street.
She’d gone about three houses down when she noticed that her toes were no longer cold. In fact, they felt like they were burning. The flames were licking up her calves and getting higher. Her knees too now felt like they should be steaming. There was no pain, just an over warmth that made her want to peel her clothes off and take a run in the nippy air in just her skivvies.
Jesse knew there was no one there. There couldn’t be anyone there, but modesty at least prevented her from taking off her pants. Her coat though, that could come off. She swung off the duffel and unbuttoned her parka. The heat had reached her hips now, and it was still going upward. She pulled off her sweater and unbuttoned the top few buttons on her blouse. What was this? Was this a hot flash?
Was she going through some sort of early menopause?
She felt the heat climb through her body and when it reached her teeth, her eyes, she felt like the were going to explode. She clenched her eyes closed hard and when she opened them again, the world was different. Jesse could see a blazing new set of colors. They defied description and the whole thing was too overwhelming. She bent over double and collapsed onto her knees.
She must have screamed because the next moment, she felt Ray’s arms around her, lifting her into the air. He carried her into the town and landed, bringing her into a room that smelled like burnt hair.
It was the smell of a power generator cranking through a system that hadn’t been turned on in over a year.
Ray put her down on some sort of couch and began to bundle her with blankets but she didn’t need the heat. She needed the world to become less brilliant.
“I’m hot, Ray,” she said, blindly shoving at the blankets he’d mounded on her.
“You shouldn’t be. You were standing out in freezing weather without your coat. Are you sick?”
“This doesn’t feel like sick, this feels like, whoah, I’m trippin’ balls and there’s swirly colors and lights everywhere.”
Ray lowered the lights and Jesse opened her eyes. She could see everything, every little detail in near complete dark.
“Is this what you see in the dark? It’s like I’m a cat with night vision.”
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Ray said from a few feet away. In the dim light, she shouldn’t have been able to see anything.
“Three. I can see your fingers. Is that my new super power? Immunity to cold and night vision?”
“Like I said, it’s different for everyone. I just didn’t expect it to take so long to kick in.”
There was relief in his voice though, as if he was talking with a child whose tooth had finally fallen out on its own. She was relieved, but she kept checking all of her extremities to see if she'd grown any new parts. So far, nothing had sprouted from anywhere.
With the lights dimmed, the world was not such a spectacle and Jesse could actually spend time wandering around, looking at objects with new found appreciation.
The need to peel off her clothes dissipated, and the burning slowly settled and weaned away. She was not hot, but she certainly wasn’t cold. There was little to do but sit and wait to see if any other changes were on the way.
“Will I get fangs? Or wings? Or a stony exterior. Or is this it?”
“Sweetheart, I told you, I don’t know, but if this was it, I think we’ll be in the clear.”
