Only Cracks in the Earth

Jake 1

Jake

I don’t know how it happened. I really don’t.

 One minute I was sitting on a barstool, the warm smell of stale cigarettes and sweat all around me like a fair-weather friend, drinking a watered down excuse for alcohol, and the next I felt something slam onto my back. It was a bit of a thick thud. There were angry yells all around me and suddenly the silence of a roomful of eyes. I heard something hit the floor. I left then. I hate when people look at me.

 A battered blue truck waited for me outside. The paint had mostly worn off years ago, but it had belonged to my father, so I kept it. I threw myself into the familiar comfort of the torn leather seats and relaxed. Jamming the single rusty key into the ignition, the comforting growl of the engine purred like an old cat. I pulled onto the highway to go home.

An hour later, I could smell smoke over the mountain tops. Another half hour later, I was covering my truck in dense spruce and pine branches. You can never be too careful.

After fifteen minutes of watching dragon’s breath coming through my nose and freezing through my work boots and leather jacket as I walked, a small, proud, wooden cabin stood in front of me. Wasting no time in the cold winter air, I brought out a scratched silver key and jammed it in the door, my fingers locking from the cold. Pushing my shoulder into the old door, I burst through the threshold and into the warmth of the heated cabin.

By the fireplace, my sister was crouched feeding the flame. She looked up, and her straight white-blonde hair whipped wildly around her face. Standing up, she glared at me. Her light blue eyes made to shoot daggers at my head. “You shouldn’t have barged in here like that. It’s called knocking.”

She sat down next to the fire place. I yanked off my boots and threw them down next to her. She shoved them away in disgust. I dropped onto the faded blue couch by the window. “You should be more careful. Always be ready for attack.” I sighed. “Will you get me a beer? “

She twisted her mouth but stood and walked to the fridge. “I can sense everything, you know. I know when someone passes by. Chill.” Staring at the fridge, she made the door open and a beer flew out past her head toward me, opening mid-air.

I grunted. Ever since birth, my sister had been a bit… different. It wasn’t that she liked skirts over jeans, or that neither of us looked anything like the other, despite sharing a mother.  My sister, Naomi, could control anything she wanted through her mind. It was amazing. There were no limits for her. She could look into the future and the past at the same time, or rearrange all the furniture by just thinking about it.

But it was dangerous for us. We never knew if someone would find us, or try to separate us.

That was why on her thirteenth birthday, our mother had given me a key and a slip of paper with the coordinates to our small log cabin. She gave me my father’s truck that day, too. She disappeared after that. No one ever found her.

Two days later, Naomi and I left our house with as much as we could carry. I went back for more of our things, but alone.

I finished high school online, and my sister opened a portal every day to go to a rural school with a graduating class of six. I’m proud to say that she is one of those six.

I zoned back in to Naomi waving her hand in front of my face. “Hey, you! Did you hear what I said?”

I blinked at her. “What?”

She huffed. “I said,” she glared pointedly,” why are you all bloody?”

I blinked slowly again. “What?”

She raised an eyebrow. “You’re covered in blood. It’s all down your back. What happened?”

I stood and took of my jacket. Thick tears led all the way down the middle of the jacket. Not normal. I turned to hang up my jacket. From behind me, I heard my sister stop breathing.

“Jake, don’t panic, but you need to go look in a mirror.”

I did. What I saw freaked me out more than a little.

Where my spine had once lay under my skin, twelve large hooks stuck out like thick white claws. I looked at them. They were like bone. They were bone. A rust coloured stain outlined each hook. Naomi stood behind me. “I’m guessing that’s your blood around your spikes, but your jacket… did you kill someone? Jake?”

“No,” I whispered. “Someone got pushed onto my back. That’s why everyone was staring at me. We have to be careful for a few days, lay low”

She nodded and looked at me with a sad, but hopeful smile. “I guess if I’m not alone… then… I know we’re not alone.