Talitha Koum

Chapter 06

TALITHA KOUM

CHAPTER 06

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“Hey, what’s that sound?” Tom bent his ear to listen.

Julie shrank back from the window. “What?”

“I think I heard something…” Tom tilted his head. “…sounded like an animal…dog, maybe…?” He turned to Mr. Fong.

Mr. Fong shook his head. “Hear nothing.”

Julie scoffed. “Whatever…” She turned and tried the window again.

A long howl cut through the night.

“There it is again!” Tom grinned at Mr. Fong and pointed out the window.

Julie was already halfway out, with only her legs sticking out this side. “What?!”

“Julie!” Tom jumped and tried to grab her leg to pull her back in, but only managed to swat her foot.

“Tom!” She began kicking her legs.

Tom lost his balance. He stumbled to the table, and then rolled onto the floor.

Mr. Fong jumped off the table. He crouched down beside Tom. “You okay?”

Tom nodded. He coughed. “I’m okay…I’m…” He reached behind and rubbed his back.

Meanwhile, Julie had already squeezed past the window to the outside. She glanced behind her. “Crazy loon…” Clapping her hands off for dirt, she took a few steps away from the window, turned her eyes forward to survey the scene before her and froze.

“What the…” She blinked.

“Julie, you okay?” Tom shouted from beneath the window.

Julie didn’t answer. She was too busy being stunned. Her mouth was a big ‘o’ and her arms hung at her sides.

Nothing could have prepared her for this.

Everything immediately in front of her was recognizable enough—the paved parking lot, with its space markings and chain-linked fence and the little slip of lawn that stretched out beside it. All of these things fanned out for about fifty yards in a circle from where she stood. So that was fine. This part she expected. This she understood. But beyond that point, that sharp cut-off point at about fifty yards or so and it was so sharp like it had been cut with a knife, the landscape was completely different.

It was sand and wilderness.

She was standing in the middle of a pizza and everything beyond the pizza’s crust was desert.

There was soil and sand and rocks and dried up, dwarf bushes. It was like someone came along, set up a curved blue screen in a circle around her in the parking lot and projected onto it, a panoramic shot of the Grand Canyon.

Downtown Toronto was so gone!

Julie turned to her left. Off in the distance, about a hundred yards away was a rise in the ground, leading up to a ridge of sorts. Beyond this ridge, miles down the way, she could see rolling landscape and cliffs way out there in the distance, though making them out clearly was getting more difficult now in the coming of the night.

Like a zombie, she waddled out further, deeper into the parking lot and then stopped. A light wind brushed through her hair and called up goose bumps on her legs. Nearly beside her now, was parked the Honda Civic Mr. Fong used for his deliveries. The sign attached to one of its rear windows read, ‘Fong’s Gigantic Chicken Wings and Shrimp’.