FORECAST: Chapter 5

EDITOR’S NOTE: Forecast is a novel by Shya Scanlon that is being serialized over 42 different literary websites in the span of 21 weeks. For a full serialization schedule, visit www.shyascanlon.com/forecast, and to read chapter 4, go visit John Madera.

The storm had passed, and a heavy fog was already weighing in on the paned skylights, bending them toward the bed, Helen noticed, as if craning for a better view. What they saw was Jack, still on his knees before his wife. Helen let a breathy gasp escape as he lifted her feet from the floor and backed her to the bed. She let out another as his skin began to darken into the damp earthy tones she’d always loved, as his hands went rough and smooth against her back, her belly, as they sprouted new fingers when needed, as they changed shape to suit what they touched. She closed her eyes. Jack was crawling around under the covers, between her legs, tangled and untoward. She felt him poke and prod, she felt him trace strange patterns on her skin. She heard his muffled moans.

Throwing back the covers did not, however, reveal the sexy beast she’d been with only moments before. Instead, her husband was in what looked like a painful position, tangled not only with her appendages, but in his own. His arms and legs were balled up and his head was partially hidden, bent backward behind his shoulders. She pulled her legs up, away from the fleshy knot, and he began to moan louder. With some difficulty, the form opened itself up, unfolding its layers like a deck chair until it was supine, if still bent, and exposing the source of its misery. Helen gasped. If her astonishment had been kept in check until then by the AS-Mask hallucination she’d fallen into upon hitting the bed, not knowing where it ended and where her husband began, this next sight, this invasion, woke her up entirely. There, where Jack’s Re-Membered™ member was supposed to be, stood a small woman with quick short auburn hair, large eyes, and a huge grin. It was her mother.

“Mother!” Helen cried.

She leapt from the bed to the floor, backing away from the miniature monster until her back was pressed against the wall.

“Zara, dear, what on earth has gotten into you?” her mother scolded. “Come give your mother a hug.” She held out her tiny arms toward her daughter, and beckoned with hands the size of match heads. Helen looked down at her in disgust, and at Jack, whose eyes had rolled behind their lids. She made a motion to speak, but no words would come.

“Zara, your father and I have been worried about you.” She paused. “And frankly, so has Jack. Have you two been getting along okay?”

Helen shook her head slowly, too startled to dodge the question.

“How’s your sex life?”

“Mother!” she barked again. She wasn’t in control of herself. The lights in the room had burned out, and it was mostly dark again. Ads ran rampant over most surfaces, crawling over the bed, over Jack, on the walls.

“Well there’s no need to raise your voice with me, Zara.”

“Mother,” she began, words coming more easily now, “I don’t know what you’re doing here… here… on Jack, like that, but you have no business being—”

“Zara, you wouldn’t believe what I bought for Rocket!”

“Rocket?” Helen was confused. She squinted at the figure on Jack’s crotch and noticed it seemed to be blinking, going in and out of focus. The hair was growing, going blonde, and the form kept growing taller, shorter, gaining and losing weight. The whole thing was in flux.

“I think we’re going to be so happy!” it said.

It began to rub itself, arms wrapped around the body, bending and standing up, mother neighbor mother neighbor mother neighbor mother. Helen began to back away from it, towards the door, then grabbed her clothes and ran out of the room. The lights came on as soon as she entered the hallway, following her along like a spotlight. It pressed her against the wall, the floor, whatever surface she touched, and peeled her skin back to reveal the vessels underneath. Her house shifted as she pushed her way through it, squinting; doors that led nowhere opened before her, and those that led out were locked. Blenders buzzed. Fans flattened the furniture. Helen ran through the rooms nimbly, dodging all obstacles, and eventually found a door she knew would lead outside. She slipped into the night, her old name still ringing in her ears.

She breathed deeply. There was an unusual spot of calm in her section of the block, and she lingered for a moment, looking back at her house. Its lights were still blinking on and off, unsure what to do with themselves; her abrupt departure had left them confused and over-excited. She smiled. Frowned.

Around her were the remains of a hailstorm she didn’t remember, big balls of ice melting against the heated street. She kicked a couple of them across the pavement and heard a low growl. She leapt back, thinking Jack had follow her out, but noticed a patch of snow moving toward her, signature yellow legs sticking out underneath. It was Rocket. She knelt down as the dog shook away some of the snow that had collected on its fur. But as soon as the silly beast regained the use of its eyes, it crouched and began to show its teeth.

“Rocket?” Helen asked, surprised. “Rocket it’s me, Helen!”

The animal was unconvinced. It whined a bit, her voice familiar, but wouldn’t let her near it.

“Rocket, don’t be stupid. C’mere, boy.”

The dog didn’t budge.

Helen stood up and ran her fingers through her hair, perplexed. As she did, she heard the close, crisp tap of plastic, and brought her hand away from her face. Of course. She laughed to herself. She reached up and grabbed her AS-Mask from under the chin, pulling it away from her head with the suction slorp of a vacuum seal. Of course. She kept forgetting it was on.

With the mask off, Rocket wasted no time in running up and licking Helen’s sweaty face, and his innocent admiration calmed her. She put the mask in her bag, folded her fingers in the dog’s fur, and kissed him back.

“Well,” she asked, “what now?” Rocket kept at it, unconcerned. “Jack seems a bit preoccupied.” She looked around, up and down the block, and back at her own house. A small fog system was caught under her car. She watched it curl back and forth, trying to push out between the tires. It reminded her of the early weather days, the first signs. The heavy rains, and unremitting heats, and fog so thick that all travel came to a halt. Fog that you could literally cut away with long sticks, with knives: one of the first new weather conditions. Her first date with Jack wound up in fog like that. Right before Asseem had shown up. She remembered Asseem’s sad, angry voice, like he was speaking from under a pillow. His words had blundered their way through the air, were whittled down to little rough approximations, not loud enough to stand up straight, stand for something. She remembered hearing him say her name, Zara, and how it had sounded so small.

He’d been so powerless then, yet still so sure of himself. He’d told her that she was his, that he’d get her back. It was absurd, of course, both at the time and perhaps even more so now. But having just witnessed what she only considered a romantic apocalypse, it seemed unbearably sweet to her just then.

“I think it’s time to take a little drive,” she announced. “Let’s go pay a visit to your mommy.” And with that, Helen marched across the street to the house she’d seen Jack emerge from only an hour before.

As they approached the house they ran into some low floating clouds and it began to rain at Rocket’s level. He held back, staying dry, and sat at the sidewalk, tail smacking the cement in expectation of her return. “I’ll be right back, little man,” she assured him. The house announced her presence as she climbed the stairs, and by the time she’d reached the door it was flung open, Joan’s face riveted to the screen between them.

“Helen!” she exclaimed.

“Hi Joan. I just wanted to ask a small favor.” She looked through the screen at Joan’s skin pouring into the tiny little holes. Joan’s smile faded a bit, but it was obvious she was fighting for it, the corners of her mouth quivering, her eyebrows raised as if in demonstration to her wayward pie hole. After an unusually high count of silent seconds, it opened.

“Helen I know what you’re thinking and believe me I won’t have them for long but I just couldn’t help myself and you know how sometimes on late night TV I mean Helen they just make it so easy!” Helen noticed now that Joan was rocking back and forth, stepping side to side like she had to pee.

“Joan, I don’t know what—” began Helen, but then she saw them. Two small black children, naked, trying to make their way past Joan’s legs to the door. Seeing that her secret was out, Joan switched gears and allowed them access to the screen. They looked up at Helen with their hands outstretched.

“Isn’t that adorable?” Joan was delighted. “They still think they have to beg!”

“Joan, where did you get them? I mean isn’t there some sort of process…”

“Yes of course there is—” now in hushed tones, “—you have to turn on and off your porch light at a particular time of night, and this man comes to—”

“Joan.” Helen cut her off, not wanting to hear any more. It was amazing how appalling this woman could be. “Joan, do you happen to know where your hus—”

“Absolutely not!” Joan cut her off. The kitchen came alive. Helen realized she’d have to be a little more assertive. She drew a deep breath.

“Joan, my husband’s penis just turned into some weird combination of you and my mother, and I’m going to borrow your car now to go hunt down my ex-boyfriend.” She waited for a response. Little black hands pushed against the door.

Joan smiled. “No you’re not!” she said. She let Helen in. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Great, Joan, thanks a lot.” Helen made her way into the kitchen, with her neighbor in tow, followed next by the naked boys. “I’m going to leave you my keys in exchange. I just don’t want Jack to follow me around, or, you know—” she flipped up some finger quotes to make it easier for Joan to deal with, “know where I am.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” repeated Joan, having found a line that worked. Helen put her keys down on the counter and picked up what she hoped were Joan’s. Joan watched her and, when their eyes met, quickly looked away. Helen stepped past her neighbor, then dug in her pockets for some change and gave it to the kids.

“Oh Helen, you’re not going to tell anyone are you? I only have them for a day I promise!”

“Well I guess we both have our little secrets, don’t we.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Joan was in heaven. She was probably powering the whole block. Helen stepped through the door and turned around just as it was being closed.

“Oh, and I’m taking Rocket,” she said before the slam.

Rocket bounded up the walkway toward her, the low rain system long gone, but slipped and slid past, hitting the steps. There’d been a freeze. Helen walked to Joan’s car and let Rocket in, inexplicably wet. The car fogged up until the air-adjust kicked on and adjusted the air. The seat formed to fit her back. The radio scanned for her station. The dog barked. They were off.

They swerved along the streets on the way through her Neighborhood™, circular drives to either side, and Helen began to enter a state of elation. Or actually, re-enter. She was familiar with this sensation, which curled from her stomach outward into each appendage and sung like a steely buzz. She knew this. But it was not an easy reunion. When she’d made her decision so long ago, Jack at her side and Asseem somewhere out of sight, caught and calling through the uncarved fog, when she’d opted out of the unpredictability and into the long slow sameness of her new life—when she’d finally rebelled—she thought she’d never feel this way again. And it had been a relief. Now, these stirrings, the energy that might normally have made her senses spin, instead made her a little uneasy.

Helen frowned at the thought that her parents would rejoice the minute they heard she’d left Jack without explanation. “Back to her old, true self,” they’d say proudly. But as she approached the Neighborhood™ gate, Rocket in the backseat barking barks of approval, Helen calmed herself by calling her little errand a holiday, an aside, a brief respite from the life she’d chosen and would surely return to, right after she got one last look at the brown, ironic rolling eyes of her old, sweet Asseem. Besides, as any idiot could tell you, it’s not the destination that’s important. It’s the journey.by

by Shya Scanlon

Read Chapter 4 on John Madera’s blog

Chapter 6 available on Tuesday, August 3rd at Lamination Colony.