Chasing Corruption

Chapter Two: The Cumulonimbus of Death

A loud bang arouses me from my light nap. My eyes flash open and I jump up from my bed. I run over to the single window in my black room. In the distance, a huge swirling black cloud advances towards our town. Lightning lights up the tall clouds and every once in awhile a rumble of thunder makes it far enough for me to flinch. My first thought it is a hurricane, but this far north and west inland? Highly unlikely. Plus, the cloud is too black and not normal.

I walk to the bathroom again and reapply my eyeliner. I have prominent bags under my eyes. That short nap is all the sleep I’ve got in the last thirty-six hours. I was up all last night with Bo and Frankie getting ready for the fight with Paul tomorrow evening. We have a punching bag set up in an alleyway near the high school and sometimes we go train. It’s important to win these fights, especially since the finals are approaching on Halloween. Whoever wins that fight will be named the Champion until we start up again January first. That gives us time to recover. I’ve never been Champion before, but I’ve come close. Last year I was fighting Paul, but he won by a punch to the gut. I had the stomach flu that day, so the odds weren’t in my favor. Tomorrow I plan to beat Paul to a pulp, and continue on until I’m named Champion.

When I’m done with my makeup, I walk back to my room and grab my favorite black leather jacket. It’s a little long on me, but that’s because Braen bought it for me for Christmas and he’s horrible at finding right sizes. That explains why nothing seems to fit him right. Speaking of Braen, I realize I haven’t seen him for awhile. When was it—two days ago? He’s not usually gone that long, but maybe he came to the house while I was out. Maybe I should call him…Nah.

Some hard hits my room window. Thinking it’s a bug, I choose to ignore it as I slip my jacket on and walk to my laptop. As I open it up, something hits the window harder. I hear yelling outside, but it is muffled by the glass. I sigh and walk over to the window and push it open. I look down the side of my house and see Frankie and Bo with a handful of pebbles, prepared to through another one.

“What do you guys want?” I ask, kind of annoyed.

 “We wanted to know if you’re alright,” yells Frankie, a bit too loudly. Bo just stands there awkwardly, and I can see his cheeks turning red. He’s standing oddly, his knees together and slightly bent over. Not that I feel bad, because he totally deserved it.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I respond and rub the back of my neck, “Want to go to the alley to practice?”

“Sure,” wheezes Bo, and Frankie nods in agreement. I close the window—having to push harder to get it to go down—and jump down the stairs and fly out the front door. I think I heard Lilly say something, but I didn’t pay attention.

We meet in front of the house and walk down the street towards the high school. The trees are starting to change color and fall off the huge, aged trees. A light breeze pushes them down the road, and they scrape and crumble into smaller pieces that keep moving.

We don’t talk a lot, except for a few comments. I think we’re all just enjoying the quiet. It feels out of body to be calm. I’m usually angry, pumped up, or laughing my head off. It’s kind of… nice.

We approach the dark, humid alley. The ripped punching bag hangs from a hook connected to the factory’s window’s sill. The old shoe factory has been abandoned along with the alley. The old brick building is pretty rough; the window panes broken, cracks in the walls, and bricks chipping and falling off. Not many people venture down this street, because most of the buildings aren’t in use and it’s the old part of Morhollow. The 13MART is across the street, but people rarely go there. It’s a convenience store, minus the gas station and it sells really weird things. I one time got a bag of barbeque chips, but they were made out of sweet potatoes. Nasty.

Frankie strolls in front of us and reaches the bag first. She grabs the torn boxing gloves from a rusted hook attached to the wall, and beats them together to rid the dust. She slips them on with ease—she has smaller hands than Bo and I—and takes the first swing at the bag. She gets a round going and a perfect beat projects from the bag. Boom, boom, boom, boom. When it’s obvious her arms are tired she passes the gloves to Bo. He starts punching the bag and the beat is louder. When his arms start to slack, he—while avoiding my eyes—tosses the gloves to me. I shake my hands out, pop my knuckles, and walk up to the punching bag. I take my first hit, and my fingers ache in protest. We haven’t been here for a couple days so I’ve lost some of my resistance to the impact.  It’s always like this. It’s a like a tradition we have. Frankie, Bo, me. Frankie, Bo, me. Hard, harder, hardest. Like an impatient person knocking on a door.

After a few rounds, all of us are pretty tired. We walk to the 13MART and buy a few Cokes and sit outside on the stairs in front of the store. A cold breeze moves in and I wrap my arms tighter to myself. Rumbles of thunder carry through the wind and ring in my ears. Above us, dark, thick clouds swirl in the dusk sky and light up as lightning courses through them. It looks like they are above the cemetery, about five blocks away, but it’s hard to tell because the store is blocking it.

“Do you guys see those clouds?” Bo asks, looking up.

“Yeah, they’re weird,” says Frankie, taking a swig of her Coke, “But it’s probably nothing. Worse it could be is a tornado, but they never tough down here. Nothing to worry about.” She leans back and rests her elbow on the step above her. But I’m not so optimistic. The clouds are starting to freak me out, and I have an urge to go and find out what they’re doing.

“Hey guys, I’m going to walk down the street a little bit, and figure out where the clouds are coming from. Cool?” I say, standing up. I set my bottle down and brush the dust off my pants.

Frankie and Bo look up at me with bewildered looks, because I’m not usually the one to go investigate. Usually I’m just like Frankie and blow it off. But these clouds; they seem so… important like I need to figure out what they are doing. The clouds are turning a rusty red, and are the starting to spin faster, almost if they know I’m coming.

“Well, sure, Scar,” says Bo, “If you really want to. I mean, we can’t stop you. But you don’t have to go either. It’d be alright for you to stay. But you can go if you want.

“Sounds like someone doesn’t want you to go,” laughs Frankie, and Bo blushes. “Just come back soon so we can practice for tomorrow night more.”

“ ’Kay,” I say, and turn and head around the store, stepping on fallen leaves and stumbling over raised concrete. My legs are quivering uncontrollably, but mentally I feel fine. The closer I get to the clouds, the windier it gets and the harder to stand up. I grab on to anything I can to keep myself vertical; a fence, a windowsill, the side of a building. Paper and wrappers fly past me, occasionally hitting a limb.

Finally, I approach the cemetery. The clouds seem to extend down into the yard, blocking my view of what is happening inside. Light is flashing inside, illuminating the clouds. I can hear some sort of high-pitched laughter escaping from the wall of clouds, and deep, strangled, gasping sound. Braen.

I want to scream, but I can’t. The sound is stuck down there, way before my windpipe, way down deep in my soul. All my screams are stuck there, for it is where I confine them because Scar Foster does not scream. She does not show cowardice or any scared emotions, because she is brave. She is strong. She is bold. Nothing stops her; nothing can stand in her way.

I take a couple of deep breaths and prepare myself mentally and physically in the short time I have, before I take my chances and run through the extending billows of gray clouds. For all I know, the gas could have nothing to do with my brother, and it could be completely poisonous and I could enter into my immediate death. Ugh.