Suzie’s House 249: Across a Sea of Asphalt

Everything here stretched and contracted like elastic. Drew knew for sure the grimy bakery window wasn’t really a rippling stream and the grit riding on top of the cracked sidewalk wasn’t really quicksand. He wasn’t sinking into the ground. He wasn’t.

As to the two men speaking Spanish, he suspected they were real, but until this episode passed, he couldn’t be sure.

It was just a flashback. If he could keep himself together long enough, it would pass and he would be back to normal.

Normal. Now there was a word. Just a few months ago he was so sure he knew that word inside and out. He lived a normal life with normal people. Well, all right there was a tendency to take his work home with him, which had necessitated tighter security than what might strictly be called normal.

Standing in front of a place called La Panaderia while trying to decide if the pretty red and orange shapes reflected there meant the building across the parking lot was on fire might not be normal. For sure, listening to the two Mexican men argue with each other in a language he couldn’t understand when he was supposed to be looking at geysers shooting out of snow banks wasn’t normal.

Nor was that odd shape moving inside the bakery. It looked human, only with an elephant trunk. Like a face mask someone on a SWAT team might wear. SWAT team? Drew had been on a SWAT team a time or two.

“Huh. That’s weird.” Drew put his hand on the cool glass. The sensation of rippling water went away, but the monster on the other side of the glass remained.

The two Mexicans stopped talking and looked through the window. They swore. Drew might not have been able to say exactly what the words meant, but it was clearly cussing. Each of them grabbed one of Drew’s arms, and tried to run off in opposite directions. The pain of having his arms wrenched certainly seemed real.

The equal and opposite forces cancelled each other out, and sent all three tumbling to the ground just in time for the air to explode in shards of glass. Drew saw the spray go over his head like a super-slow motion picture. The men on either side of him scrambled to their feet the instant the glass settled.

“Levantarse!” The man who had been talking with Drew earlier shouted. “Quickly!”

Following their example, Drew bolted first one way, then another. Everywhere they turned, more people in masks came out. Someone threw a canister that promptly put out smoke. His companions put handkerchiefs over their faces. Drew didn’t have one, and just held his breath as long as he could.

As they labored across the parking lot, running as fast as their legs would carry them. Bits and pieces of the asphalt jumped into the air, but Drew wasn’t sure if it went with the bang of gunfire or if his mind simply imagined it that way. He tried not to think too much about it while they took refuge in the enormous building next to the one that was burning.

He was pretty sure now that the flames were real. He could feel the heat coming off of them as they dove through the yawning opening that had once been a doorway.

The two men dashed up a broad staircase with Drew right behind. They passed empty shelves and scattered debris. This must once have been some kind of department store. Except the debris looked like tiny sombreros and doves made of straw and key chains with Mexico written on them.

The two men slowed down on the third floor. They went into a small room with one wall made of glass and what looked like a glass blowing operation – long metal tubes, an oven, water basins, all covered in dust. They slouched to the floor, and the one Drew hadn’t talked to before started laughing.

“What’s with him?” Drew settled more slowly along the wall with them.

“He say you are his good luck charm.” The man took out a cigarette and lit up.

The way they flung their arms over bent knees and slouched into the wall made Drew think they were settling in, like they thought they were safe or something. It was hard for him to be sure, but if they really were under attack, it wouldn’t be long until their assailants came for them, would it? Maybe he should get moving again.

“So,” he said to the one who spoke English, “… um… which way did you say was North?”

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