The City That Slipped

My Wife Was There!

     He couldn't believe what he was seeing. He gripped the glass of whiskey with white knuckles, holding back his tears. The television that hung from the corner of the room was loud and everyone in the bar was watching the news in disbelief.

     "We, uhh...," the newscaster paused, not knowing how to put the event into words, "the, uhh, wall is closing in to the center of the city. Everything it has past is just, gone. It's gone. We have footage of people touching the wall and simply vanishing. We have never seen anything like this before."

     David threw his glass with vigor against the television, whiskey splattered on the screen and shards of glass showered over the drunken customers. He slammed his fist onto the table and jumped to his feet, "hey what's this all about, buddy," the bartender scolded through a painted scowl.

     "My wife was there! If whatever that is," he pointed to the whiskey covered screen, "is real, then I have to do something."

     The bartender raised his voice, uncaring of David's wife's fate and pointed his hand to the door, "I don't rightly care about your wife, get the hell out of my bar and don't come back," the bartender attempted to intimidate David by picking up a knife from the bar and pointing it his way, "go on, get!" While he was yelling at David, the footage had turned to static and the newscaster was explaining that they lost contact with the "news-chopper".

     David wrenched his head to the side in frustration, rolled his eyes and punched the door open. He sprinted to his car and sped away towards home. He had about an hour drive but he was going to try and cut it in half. Hopefully the police were distracted because he did not care. He had to get there as fast as he could. She couldn't be gone, Tabatha must have left town to get some supplies from the city over or something. He kept trying to convince himself that she was fine but frankly he wasn't sure what he was running in to. He ripped his phone from his pocket and dialed.

     "Hey, It's Tabby, sorry I couldn't make it to the phone. Please leave a message and I will be sure to get right back to you, byeeeee." The voicemail played mockingly, she sounded so cheerful in her recording. He remembered the day that she made that, he had tried to convince her to make it one of those joke voicemails where they act like they answered the phone just to later say that they "got ya!" and then go on to ask you to leave your message. He was glad that she didn't do that now, the torture it would have been for her voicemail to answer like that could have been too much to handle. Yet hearing her voice, the anxiety and fear worsened considerably still. She always answered her phone. He nervously fiddled with the flask of whiskey in his pocket and dialed again.

     "Hey, It's Tabby, sorry I couldn't make it to the phone. Please leave a message and I will be sure to get right back to you, byeeeee."

     He kept calling again and again and after the fifth time he screamed a tune of despair and slammed the phone against the steering wheel. He tried to force the accelerator further into the carpet-lined floor. After about forty-five minutes of driving he tried to look to the distance.

     I should be seeing the city by now. Oh dear God...

     Luckily he avoided the police the entire way. He took the exit that led to the town and drove for another few minutes when the road cut off in a perfect halt. Like it had been butter cut by a knife. He stepped out and looked across the field of grass. A large perfect circle of structureless ground. David dropped to his knees and screamed while taking in the horrible beauty. There it stood, he hadn't seen it the first time, maybe it had simply been a mirage or a simple overlook, but the shed stood as a stoic grave marker to the vanished city. He staggered to his feet, a look of confusion and hope plastered to his face.

     The old shed was normal enough, the light grayish tan planks that created its shape were rotting and waterlogged and the door was a simple cut out of the structure that had been hinged and a plank slapped on to hold it shut. He grabbed the piece of wood held up by two steel bars on each side of the door and aggressively ripped it off and flung the door open. The old door pounded against the side of the shed and recoiled back against David's shoulder as he entered its threshold.

     Inside was perfectly bare minus a shelf on the far side with a small and ornate silver box sitting patiently. Scrawled over its casing was etchings of a language he could not decipher. He approached it curiously and gingerly opened the clam-like lid. Inside was an old rusty skeleton key with some weird gem held in place by filigree twists at the base of the key. The gem seemed to have something inside, something blue with a smoky black substance swirling throughout. In a gust of wind the door behind him crashed shut with a loud bang. Startled, he wrenched his body around and ran to the door. He pushed on the door with all of his force and realized that his hand was covering an old fashioned deadbolt lock. That was odd to him considering the door didn't have a doorknob or any locking mechanism outside of the simple plank.

     He looked at the key that he held tightly in his hand and lost his focus while staring into the swirling blue-black

     Liquid? Gas?

     In the gem at the base of the key. David inserted the key into the deadbolt lock, it was a perfect fit, he turned it and heard the lock release.