The Reddening | Theland E. Thomas

The horde of dragons swirled in the air, their gleaming, colored hues replacing the sky blue amid the thunderous cheers of the clan. They'd done it! They'd finally conquered the giants and ended the siege that had wrought famine and disease upon their people-

"What are you doing?"

Katie peered over the off-white pages of her book to see Emily brushing her hair over her shoulder. "I'm reading?"

"C'mon, you're supposed to be helping me!"

Emily smacked her gum obnoxiously and positioned herself on the table. Katie looked at her. In the summer between 6th and 7th grade, Emily had hit puberty. She'd grown taller and gotten a new bra.

"This is the last book in the DraconSphere trilogy, you know," Katie said. "Don't you want to read it?"

"Katie, I'm not a child anymore. I don't read children's books."

Incensed, she retorted, "500 pages is hardly a children's-"

"Shh! He's coming!"

Katie placed a pink bookmark between the pages. The sound of the boys' excited conversation preceded them through the hallway and burst into the classroom.

"...and then he slammed through the wall and took out all the vampires with his Sun-Ray sword! Dude, I'm telling you, Slade IV is the best movie I've ever seen."

Emily eyed the two as they approached. "Hey..." she said, turning as they walked right past her. "Hey, Nick."

Nicholas. Last year, he was suspended for sneaking worms into kids' lunches. This year, he was apparently the hottest guy in school. He sat hunched forward, making emphatic gestures to Owen, and offhandedly glancing up at Emily. "Oh, hey, Em. So anyway, it's Slade I and II that you need to see before the fourth one. The third one is a lame prequel."

"But, wouldn't I want to see the prequel?" Owen said.

"I mean, you can if you want, but I would prefer to just keep the action going."

Emily huffed and walked over to their seats, leaning on Nick's desk. "So, how was your summer?"

"It was pretty cool. I went to a summer camp..." Nick looked up at Emily, and a sudden rush of redness betrayed the realization that crashed over him. "I mean, it was chill. Just hung out, you know nothing really happened." He slung his arm over the back of his chair.

"Well, I had a great summer," Emily said, snapping her gum even more obnoxiously.

Katie met Owen's quizzical glance and returned to her reading. As she foraged deeper into the world of dragons and myth, Emily and Nick pioneered a new world of flirtation. More students trickled in, and as Katie looked around, she noticed something different about the girls. They were all noticeably taller, but, beyond that, they still looked different. They all wore trendy, form-fitting clothes. Their hairdos were different from last year - or rather, the same. It was as if they'd gone to the salon together and picked out one hairstyle for them all. Make-up made their eyes pop, their cheeks rosy, and their lips red. Was this change just in the girls? No. The boys all seemed to have gelled hair and styled t-shirts. Every single one of them wore similarly styled, flat sneakers. Except for Owen. He still wore velcro shoes. She glanced down at her own plain blue shirt and cargo shorts. Are we the only ones who didn't change?  Discomfort began to set in. That desperate, crawling desire not to be the odd one out. Her mom always said, "you're beautiful just the way you are," but her classmates looked a lot more beautiful right now.

As Katie walked to the busses after school, Emily skipped up behind her. "Guess what?"

"What?"

"Nick asked me out!" She made a little squealing noise.

"That's cool." Katie struggled to muster up some enthusiasm. "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know yet! What do you do on a first date?"

"I..."

"Maybe he'll bring me flowers! Do you think we'll kiss? What if we fall in love?"

"Love?"

"Well, bye, Katie!" Emily dashed off to her bus.

Hardly a second went by when another voice sounded behind her. "Em's going out with Nick?"

Brooklyn stood there with her, gripping her backpack straps with pink nailed hands. Her big eyes and mouth were framed by curly, blonde hair. Katie replied, “I guess.”

"You know he's a total player, right?"

"No..."

"Well, he is. I heard that he asks girls out just so he can go under the side stairs with them."

Katie raised an eyebrow. Nothing was making sense today. It was like she'd woken up in an alternate universe. "The side stairs?"

Brooklyn gasped. "Don't tell me you haven't heard about the side stairs. It's where couples go to make out and stuff."

Katie felt her face grow hot. "Really?"

"Yeah. Tell Em that she needs to stay away from him."

With that, Brooklyn hurried away, leaving Katie to meander to her bus, lost in contemplation. What was happening? Katie thought she'd gotten life down, but all of sudden, people were acting so strange. All of a sudden there was so much she didn't know. For instance, the next day, she noticed Brooklyn, Scarlett, and two of their friends chatting in the corner. "Hey," she stopped by with a smile on her face.

"Hey, Katie," Brooklyn said. The other three glanced at her and continued talking.

"...Yeah, he's a total hottie. Maybe I can get him to go to the side stairs with me," Scarlett said. Katie gasped, an audible testament to her confusion.

"Wait - you want to go to the side stairs?"

The group stared at her. The girl rolled her eyes. "Uh, yeah. Everyone wants to go to the side stairs. It's how people know you're cool."

"Besides," another chimed in, "that's how you know a guy really loves you. You don't go to the side stairs with just anyone."

Katie noticed she was red-faced and gaping. She clamped her mouth shut.

"Don't be such a prude, Katie," Brooklyn said. "Everyone's doing it."

Since when? What a stark difference this was from just last year. In 6th grade, kids talked about games, books, and cartoons. Now everyone was making out under the stairs.

"Uh... okay," Katie said, turning away with an uneasy feeling in her gut.

"What a weirdo," she heard them say as she walked away.

Soon everyone seemed to be participating. Guys would approach girls, their faces growing redder with every step. Nevertheless, they would try to maintain composure as they asked the girls on dates that usually consisted of a brief period of holding hands and a trip to the staircase. They used coded language in front of oblivious teachers. They spent lunch periods together and took excessive bathroom breaks so they could sneak off to the hidden places in the school for a few minutes, looking flushed and guilty when they came back. And day after day, Katie watched, wondering if there was something wrong with her for not wanting to join the fun. Wondering what was holding her back. Why she was so scared. Wondering if anyone really loved her. Emily was officially dating Nick. She spent more and more time with him and less time with Katie, leaving her friendless and alone. Katie told herself she was okay with it, but a simmering resentment grew inside, intertwined with a confusing jealousy.

So, Katie took a trip to the mall, intent on redesigning herself. Everyone else underwent makeovers over the summer. Hers was better late than never. She was going to change her hair, get trendy clothes and come back a whole new Katie. A Katie that could be popular. A Katie that could be loved. However, the clothing store was right next to her favorite bookstore. She stood in between the two shops, pondering the tantalizing adventures promised by book display and the intrigue represented by the blouse. Before her floated her own reflection. Her plain haircut, her chapped lips, her horrible fashion, and her flat chest. She gazed up at the white, plastic mannequin on her right. Its body twisted in an impossible pose, it's back arched, reminding her of Emily on the first day of class. She gazed between her reflection in the glass and the mannequin in the display, slowly reaching a distinct, piercing conclusion: That's not real. With heavy conviction settling in her gut, she turned her back on the mannequin and went into the bookstore.

The next day at lunch, she spotted Owen quietly eating by himself. She sat down across from him. "Hey, Owen."

His face lit up. "Hey, Katie."

She unwrapped her sandwich and started eating. "So, Nick ditched you too."

"Yeah." He frowned. "He used to be so cool. Now all he wants to do is hang out with Emily."

"I know. It's so gross."

"Yeah."

"I mean, what do we go to school for? To learn or to make out?"

Owen blushed. "Yeah, I mean... yeah. That's so lame." He stared at his food.

Katie continued. "Whatever happened to having fun?"

Just then, Emily slapped her hands down on the table, making them both jump. "Katie!" she shouted.

"What?!"

"Brooklyn-" she looked worried, confused, and angry all at the same time, her face painted with red splotches. "Brooklyn just told me she saw Nick under the stairs with Scarlett! With Scarlett! He's cheating on me!"

Katie frowned. "Um, well... I'm-"

"I can't believe it!" Emily shrieked, "I'm going to kill her. I'm going to kill her."  She pulled at her hair, huffing and growing redder by the second. People were watching. "Oh, that girl is dead. Nick's mine. Nobody goes to the side stairs with my man!"

Katie stood. "Hold on, you don't know anything for sure, Em." She grabbed Emily's hands. "All you have is Brooklyn's rumor."

Tears poured from her eyes as Katie escorted her away from the crowd and into the bathroom. "C'mon, calm down. It's okay."

Emily sobbed into her hands. "It's not okay," she blubbered. "You don't understand. I gave him everything. Everything! And he doesn't even love me!"

"Oh, Em, I'm so sorry." Katie embraced her shaking, sobbing form feeling nothing but guilt for simultaneously thinking this was the logical conclusion of rushing into things with no forethought. They stayed like that for a long time until, gradually the heaving sobs died down to the occasional shudder and Emily finally broke away. Katie's shoulder was soaked with cold tears and snot.

Emily sniffed. "I'm not feeling well. I think I need to go home."

"Yeah," Katie agreed, "you don’t look too good."

Emily frowned, tearing up again. "Yeah, I've been red for days and a little itchy. I hope it's just an allergic reaction or something."

"Yeah, me too," said Katie, noticing a little tickle in her throat.

Emily stayed home from school the next day. She skipped the day after that too. And the day after that. And the day after that. But Katie seemed to be the only one who noticed. Kids continued giggling, flirting, and exchanging fleeting glances with flushed faces. That was an odd feature Katie noticed. Everyone involved in this new culture was constantly red of face, as if they were trapped in a state of perpetual embarrassment. Maybe they were. Nick and Owen never hung out together anymore. Nick, who spent his days perched between Scarlett and Brooklyn, had left his friend far behind, but Katie, on occasion, observed Owen's accusing, rueful stare. She would have preferred to lose herself between the pages of books rather than pay much attention to others, but she just couldn't shake the disturbance squirming in her gut.

After over a week, Emily finally came back to school. Katie sat in silence, across the table from Owen, reading in the empty, early-morning classroom when she walked in coughing and hacking. Dark rings around her eyes stood out from her peeling, red skin.

"Holy smokes, Em!" Katie ran toward her, "What happened to you?"

"I'm sick," Emily rasped.

"Okay, with what?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. They just put me on antibiotics and said I could go back to school." She looked at Katie, a desperate plea in her bloodshot eyes. "Can I sit with you?"

"Of course."

To her surprise, the other kids shuffled into the classroom with the same peeling, red faces. The coughing was a cacophony of phlegm and rasping. No one talked. No one made eye contact. They just piled into the desks, flecks of skin dusting the tables as they scratched. Half the kids weren't there.

The teacher walked in and laid his shoulder bag on the front desk. Amid the constant coughing and scratching, he took his papers out of his bag, uncapped his dry erase marker, and squeaked an equation onto the board. Finally, he turned around and addressed the noise. "What is going on in here?" He surveyed the class from right to left "Are you guys all sick?"

The class' silence hung heavy like a damning admission of guilt.

With a grunt, the teacher packed his materials back into his bag. He pointed at them. "You know what? I don't get paid enough to catch your disease. I'm calling the nurse up here." The whole class shifted as they watched him go.

They sat in silence for a minute. Then, Scarlett, who was staring daggers at Nick rasped, "You bastard. You did this to me."

Nick started to reply, but choked out a dry, grating cough first. "What? I know you've been going to the side stairs with Joey, you slut."

"Hey!" Joey stood up, "You went to the side stairs with my girlfriend?"

Katie watched with bulging eyes as the class transformed into an angry, bickering mob. It wasn't clear who threw the first punch, but the students soon converged in a slowly churning circle of rasping, hissing, kicking, and coughing. One person would slap, but the other lacked the strength to retaliate, so the would-be brawl quickly dissolved into winded, frustrated participants returning to their seats.

Nick huffed. "Say whatever you want, man, but I didn't start this."

With that, the class fell back into relative, wheezing silence. The nurse arrived and, startled, called the CDC. They quarantined the entire building. No one was allowed to leave until they identified and attributed a source to the illness. Which meant everyone had to report what they'd been up to the last few weeks. If not for their already splotchy faces, Katie imagined that they would be blushing as, one by one, they all repeated that they'd taken trips under the side stairs. One boy buried his face in his hands as the hazmat aide asked through his suit, "So how many girls did you... take under the staircase just last week?"

"I don't know, man. Four? Maybe five?"

The gas mask distorted the aide's breath as he turned to his coworker. "Jesus, Bob. If I was getting as much action as these kids, I'd have a disease too."

"No kidding," Bob replied as he scraped a skin sample into a dish. "When I was in 7th grade, I was still putting worms in girls’ lunch boxes. I don't know what's gotten into kids these days."

The Reddening turned out to be a non-deadly, but very contagious disease. The doctors informed worried parents that their children would probably endure periodic outbreaks of flaky, red skin for the rest of their lives. In contrast to the adults' subsequent outrage, the kids accepted the news with subdued sobriety. The fun, while wild and enthralling, had come to a jarring halt.

The Black Deluge | Theland E. Thomas

It's one of my earliest memories. My feet dangled above the ground as I sat staring at the faded, yellow paint on the wall and inhaling that sickly hospital smell. I remember the inexplicable feeling of dread churning inside of me. It was the kind of feeling I could only place upon reflection years later. The memory is full of confusion. I knew something big was happening. We were leaving, and the car was full of packed bags. Daddy stood at the desk, checking us in. He wore a black and red striped polo and those tan, leather shoes he always wore. Next thing I remember, Daddy was leading me past the door frame into the hospital room.

I was crying because I knew we were leaving Mommy here. Why couldn't she come with us? I didn't want to leave her there alone. I didn't want to go away from her! I sat on the bed, and she held me and stroked my hair and told me how much she loved me. Her face was pale, her head bald, and there were tubes coming out of her nose.

I asked her, "Mommy, why can't you come with us? I want you to come with us!"

She smiled softly and said, "I want to come with you too. But Mommy needs these machines to breathe. It's not safe..."

I cried, burying my face into her body and clutching her gown with both hands, holding on with the intention of never letting go. I would do anything in my power to stay with her.

"I'll still be here when you get back," she said. I should have known she didn't believe it when her smile melted and tears flowed from her eyes. Both of her hands grasped mine, and she said, "Whatever you do, just know I love you. I love you so much, Noah. I want you to grow up big and strong and be the best person you can be. The most important thing you can do for me is live a wonderful, happy life, okay?"

It wasn't okay. I nodded through the sobs, hot tears rolling down my cheeks and snot filling my mouth. She said goodbye, and I screamed, "NO!"  and Daddy carried me out kicking and screaming.

I  couldn't understand why we had to leave her there.But, I remember staring desperately out the back window and seeing that pitch black cloud in the sky.

The next thing I can remember was Daddy and I in a dark room. He sat me down, wringing his hands. I asked him what was wrong. Then I asked him when we were going back for Mommy. He looked up at me, light glistening off the tears in his eyes. Seeing him choke up sobs made me cry too. What he said next was imprinted in my memory forever: "Noah. Mommy... mommy's gone."

Just like that, half of my world vanished.

They called it a tar shower. The thing that killed my mother. They thought it was just a hurricane at first. The evacuations were precautionary, but mother knew she wouldn't make it if the power went out. The world was shocked as news media broadcast footage from the affected area. It looked as if the entire city had been razed by some sort of explosive that deposited black soot everywhere. The buildings had been flattened, and only skeletons remained, reduced to their innermost structure and plumbing. Cars, street signs, mailboxes - everything left in open was completely evaporated under the thick layer of black. The world stood captivated by 24 hour coverage as the hazmat specialists announced their findings: the storm was worst case of acid rain in history - a mixture of oil residue, noxious material, and condensed greenhouse gases gathered in the clouds and poured down upon my mother and ate her alive. The thought of her screaming and thrashing as the tar poured in through the ceiling has always haunted me. My mother died terrified, suffering, and alone.

I never forgave my father for that.

He and I would have solemn, silent dinners, only communicating through the scraping of our utensils. Occasionally, he would try to start up a conversation. Ask how my day was. How school was going. Sometimes I obliged him with one word answers. He wanted me to become an ecologist. To find a way to end the tar showers for the good of the world. For my mom. To this, I responded with dead silence. I always finished my plate first, and, before I stood, he would look up at me with desperate eyes, hoping today would be the day we finally had a real conversation. The day I granted him absolution. Then I would stand, take my plate to the sink, and give him the same, "thanks for dinner, Dad" with a flat, hollow tone. No matter how many hours he spent in the kitchen, it would never be my mother making those meals.

The Black Deluge in California was only the first of many tar showers our angry mother Earth unleashed upon her rebellious children. Tar showers increased in frequency until they were a constant summer threat. They cropped up in routine storms and laid waste to whole towns. No shelter could shield from the wrath of the storms, the black acid eating through the sturdiest of buildings and burrowing deep into the ground. I always shuttered seeing the harrowing images on the news. The dyed bones of a little arm clutching a miraculously preserved doll, young storm chasers with death wishes attempting to live stream the destruction from inside the storms. All their videos ended the same: unbearable shrieking as the acid ate through their skin, bones, and phones.

Naturally, the fashionable thing was to become an ecologist, or anything related to the environment. But I wanted to stay as far away from the tar showers as possible. I refused to become an ecologist, but my mom's last words to me always rang in my ears. Whatever it took, I needed to survive. At the job fair, when all of my friends went to the ecology booths, I stopped by a business school. I moved across the country for college, and I never came back.

The years flowed on. I graduated and got married, and I got a job at a big oil company in the Gulf Coast. Rachel was so excited to move to Florida with our little girl. "We can go to the beach every day! It'll be great."

I tried to suppress the jolt of panic as I replied, "Yeah, you'll just have to be careful. Always check the forecast to make sure there are no storms."

"Ahh, Noah..." she said, reaching for my hand across the table, "We'll be careful. You know only 1 in 800,000 rain storms are tar showers."

I smiled then, even knowing that she worked for a conservative think tank. I thought she was right though. There was no use blaming the energy sector for tar showers when the leading ecologists' data was inconclusive at best. So, we moved to Florida. Tahlia was so fascinated by the sand and the shells. She frolicked in the teasing waves as I watched with my wife laying next to me in the sand. I remember grinning and thinking, This is it. I'm living a wonderful, happy life.

I worked on the rig a month on, a month off as a field engineer. My days there were spent in my office drawing up plans, printing blueprints, and bouncing strategies off coworkers. It was basically my job to prevent a second Deepwater Horizon. I failed.

One day, one of our ultra-deepwater pipes exploded. I watched my computer screen in horror as it, and all the pipes around it, flashed red. Later, the report said that a minor earthquake on the seafloor bent the pipe until it could no longer maintain pressure. Soon, through the madness and scrambling on the rig, I saw the black cloud of oil billowing to the surface of the water. As I stood there, one of our disaster analysts informed me that we had an estimated 10 days until the oil began to wash ashore. 10 days because an incoming tropical storm was going to accelerate the spread.

My hands shook as I tapped my phone to call Rachel.

"Hey baby," She answered cheery as ever.

"Rachel, you need to get out of Miami. There's been a..." I stopped, suddenly remembering protocol.

"What? What happened?"

"You have to get out of Miami. Cause... there's a tropical storm coming, and I'm afraid there's going to be a tar shower."

She sighed. "Noah, I know you're concerned, but we're going to be fine."

"You don't understand," I said panic rising with a fluttering urgency. Panic is a funny emotion. It's the emotion of the powerless. "The storm is going to pass through the Caribbean Islands and wrap around and hit Florida!"

"I can't fly out of town every time it rains, Noah! We're staying here, and we're going to bare the storm with everyone else."

There was nothing I could do. "Okay."

A brief moment of silence.

I added, "If they call for an evacuation, please just go. I love you."

"Love you too."

There was no evacuation. Some speculated that the oil spill might cause a tar shower, but the general public believed that they were completely unpredictable. So, the citizens of Florida hunkered down and waited for the tropical disturbance to pass. My thumb compulsively tapped refresh on my newsfeed until I saw the first report.

My heart plummeted as I read the words, "Tar shower wipes out Southern Florida", my chest tightened and breathing constricted. My stomach coiled as panic shot through my veins. I remember screaming. And falling. And nothing after that.

I'd had a heart attack. The doctors got it pumping again, but I still don't feel anything but the cold, dead, loneliness of loss. My wife and little girl are gone, and I can't even see their bodies. I can't stop thinking. Why? Why me? Why my family? Why did Rachel not listen to me? Why didn't I just tell her? Why did we even move down herethere in the first place? I keep having nightmares of Tahlia sitting next to my mother in that hospital room screaming for me to come save her. Those shrill, grating screams that can only come from pure agony. I twist and turn through the yellow halls, but I always arrive too late, and the black slush has already taken them away.

After I got out of the hospital, I went to Colorado. My dad moved there after I moved away. Back when they used to think that the tar showers only happened on the coasts. We quickly learned that there was no refuge from the merciless waters of Hell. He lives close to the mountains, on the edge of town in a little, beaten house with overgrown weeds. I give his door three sharp knocks. There is some shuffling and clanking inside, and soon the door opens. I gaze upon my father for the first time in years. His ample belly stretches his now faded black and red polo. Grey hair and stubble do little to cover the wrinkles in his yellowed skin. A spark of hope lights his eyes as he looks at me. It was the same look he'd given me at dinnertime for all those years. He gasps, "Noah? Is that you?"

"Yeah, Dad. It's me."

He invites me in. I try to ignore the bottles of alcohol strewn about. He gets a beer from the fridge and gives me one too, and we finally sit down at the kitchen table to talk.

"Noah," he starts, "your mother… I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I’m so, so sorry." Dad falls silent, focusing on the label of his beer.

I stare across the table, realizing that even though I'd lost my mother, I'd pushed away my father. "I know, Dad. I'm sorry too..." There are no words I can say to make it better. Years of bitterness and estrangement won't go away with words. Tears well up in my eyes. "I... I lost my family." I start sobbing, hot tears rolling down my cheeks and smacking the table. "I lost my family to the damn tar showers."

My dad gets up and embraces me. He's sobbing too, sharing all the same pain, grief and loss. Years of bitterness and sadness are washed away by the mingling of tears and the sharing of suffering. We stay that way for a long time, father and son finally reconciled.

Then, he breaks away, saying with a heavy voice, "Well, you should go. There's a storm coming, and... I think it's going to be a bad one."

The tears burn a little as they dry on my face. I wipe them away. "I'm done running."

Dad looks at me and smiles, then he goes and sits down on the sofa. I open the door and feel the cool air that precedes the storm. The cloud of darkness comes racing over the mountains, blotting out the blue like a million strokes of black paint obscuring an already finished portrait. Lightning strikes overhead as the black cloud overtakes us, filling the air with the acrid stench of burning tar. I look to my dad. He puts his feet up and lays back, not even as much as glancing toward the window. Fat droplets of tar now splatter on the cement and grass. The wind picks up, and a few drops are blown onto my skin. They burn, just as I thought they would. I wipe a black dot from my arm with my shirt. It's left a deep red sore. And there are several holes in my shirt where the rain has touched. I see the sheet of heavy rain approaching - the black curtain that's ended the story for so many people is now about to end mine. I can't breathe for the acid in the air. I step back into the doorway, as if it matters. The first pools of black appear through the ceiling. Then they pour right through, a black deluge of destruction. The ceiling splits over my dad, and the acid washes away his skin. The muscles on his face peel and disintegrate as his bones are dyed a ghastly black. Now the tar pours on me. I scream as it burns my head and shoulders. I hold out my hands before me as the horrible, dark water eats my flesh to the blackened skeleton that dissolves into nothing. As the acid washes me, I go completely numb. My feet are gone, and I fall into the acid, the splash of the rain blinding me. It eats into my head and body from all ends until all I am is blackness.