IS

Alley was hiding out on the balcony again–-alone. A place she chose to go many times before this night, when the visions had become too intense and she couldn’t be seen… not like that. She had also chosen her favorite spot. It was her comfort zone. This was what she referred to when she talked to herself, hidden into the thick corduroy cushions of her grandmother’s giant bean bag chair. It sat at the far right corner, next to the musty smelling air conditioning unit. The chair was so big that when she sat into its center and pulled her knees to her chest, she would virtually disappear into her own world; a world she could, some of the time, do without. And this night was certainly no exception to that.

“Al? Hey, Alley!” Shane called out, just before he stepped through the door, aware that he had also joined her presence, while she remained unseen, buried away from whoever, or whatever she tried to escape from.

“I just thought you might want to talk or something… if you’re out here that is!” He knew where she was, but for good reasons had chosen to give her space.

“Everyone’s gone but you and me… Okay, guess you’re not out here,” he said, when he turned and started to leave.

“What do you want?” A quiet voice spoke out.

“I just wanted to talk to you,” He answered back.

The air remained awkward and unresponsive, with only the ocean and the sound of a gull crying solo in the distance–-when the same timid voice spoke again. “About what?”

“Whatever you want to talk about!” he answered.

A few seconds later, just as a gust of ocean air blew across the balcony forcing a tiny set of wind chimes to dance their eerie song, a small, scared face peeked out from around the left side of the mammoth cushion. The breeze had blown her long dark hair over her face, and it wasn’t until she pulled it back again that Shane noticed her red nose and swollen eyes. Although they had their differences, and seemed to argue about everything under the sun, she was his sister, after all, and his heart couldn’t help but feel something for her. She looked as though she would start to cry again, when she disappeared back into the chair.

“You wouldn’t understand, Shane,” she called out, after catching her breath between the emotional strains of burden she was carrying.

“Try me!” he eventually responded, catching her off guard. She looked up to find him now standing in front of her, leaning back against the railing.

“Where’s everyone at?”

“Does it really matter?”

“Where’s everyone at, Shane!” she asked again, with a hint of anger in her voice.

“Grandma and Pappa took Mom to visit an old friend, or something… what’s going on, Al?”

She left that question to linger a few seconds, when she again pulled her hair away from her face, tipped back her head, and drew in a long deep breath of salty air, before lowering her eyes to meet his, and asked, “Do you believe in monsters?”

“Monsters!” he replied, with more a sense of acknowledgment than question. Although, any hope for understanding and, or future condolences to the mystery that stood with that question would surely die, as Alley watched a condescending smile grow on Shane’s face.

“See? I knew I should’ve just kept my mouth shut!”

“No-–wait a minute, wait a minute!” he quickly stepped in. “You mean like Frankenstein, or some crazy shit like that?”

“No, stupid! I mean real monsters! Creatures that are different. Things that are so scary, you’d pee your pants just looking at them!”

“Oh! Real Monsters!” he said, making light of the situation.

Alley hadn’t noticed, and continued on, wide eyed as the norepinephrine in her brain was surging at an exceedingly high level. “Things that follow you home in the dark when you’re all alone, or watch you from a dark corner of your bedroom while you sleep.”

“Okay, okay, I get it!” Shane said.

Alley still hadn’t acknowledged him, and continued. “Huge hideous white creatures that feed off of your fear, and play with your mind to the point that you start to get confused over where reality starts–-and where it-–ennnnds.” She held on to her last word as if she couldn’t let it go; falling into a hypnotic gaze to nothingness that left Shane cold and surprisingly uncomfortable.

“Alley!” he shouted, breaking her stare.

She looked at him as if he had done something wrong. “What?”

“You were freaking out!”

She had no response to his last comment. Maybe it was because she, deep down inside, had already come to terms with that. Maybe, it was something she knew he would have to eventually come to terms with himself, and accept it for what it was; a strange, but special gift that had matured his little sister beyond her years.

But even though she was mature for a nine year old, she was, in fact, nine years old, and the brief phone conversations to her dad were beginning to fall short of giving her the sense of security that she needed, especially twelve hundred miles from home.

She was still not all that keen on bringing her mom in on all of this, but maybe her older brother? Even if there was nothing he could really do, at least she would now have someone close to confide in. Assuming she could get him to believe her, that is.

“I need to tell you something, Shane. And I need you to believe me! Can you do that, Shane? Can you just listen to me, and believe what I’m about to tell you?”

In all of the nine years he spent on this earth with her, he had never seen her so serious about anything before. The tears started to fall from the watery pools that drowned her eyes. Shane was scared and curious, all at the same time. He could see by her frightened face that she was holding back something unbelievable. And that when he finally accepted the challenge of knowing what it was, he would then be knee deep, and there would be no turning back. But of course he had to accept. After all–-it would be heartless and inhuman not to. “I’ll believe you, Al.” he said, while his body began to quiver with fearful anticipation of what he was about to hear.

She then went on to tell him. She told him everything, and with grave detail about certain things she otherwise couldn’t have possibly known; that is, without having this special gift, of course.

During all of the stories, as he watched her explain, and even sometimes complain about certain things in general, he felt a strange sense of pride in her. How his little sister must have handled herself in the face of everything she was forced to go through, and if this were all true, what she would possibly have to go through still.

And then, there was his father. Yes, she may or may not have been experiencing insane visions of what was happening, but if he could find it possible to believe these things she was telling him, then those unbelievable and insane things that were happening? Were happening to his Dad! How could this be? Why?

He turned around to face the ocean, as the evening surf glimmered with the moonlight spilling across it, eventually chopping white and relentless into the shoreline. It was so beautiful and peaceful here, but somehow it had seemed more so yesterday, before Alley’s stories had poisoned the serene water and brought down an ugly blanket over what she feared would lay ahead. A part of him wanted to cling to denial; a big part. “I don’t know Al. I mean–-I don’t doubt that you believe all of this, but couldn’t there be a logical explanation? Couldn’t it just be a bunch of—”

He stopped talking once he turned back around to face Alley, and saw the horror in her eyes that looked past him, as she violently trembled, red faced and breathless. Another tear fell. It soon joined a reservoir of saliva leaking from both corners of her mouth. Shane was beside himself with fear for his baby sister.

“Alley! Breathe, Alley! he commanded her. He soon dropped to his knees and began to shake her. “Breathe, dammit!” he cried, as her face looked as though it would pop. “Alley, breathe!” he shouted a third time.

Her lungs finally sucked in a high pitched squeal and her eyes came back to her brother, falling immediately into his arms as she screamed sobs of relinquished pain and trepidation. He just held her tight without saying a word… when all denial and logic had just left the building.

Within minutes, the sound of a car door, and then two more brought them to their feet. Alley pulled at Shanes’ t-shirt to blot her face and eyes dry.

“Gross!” he whined.

She then looked up into his eyes as if to read what he was thinking. She then asked, “This is between you and me, right?”

“Yeah, I guess?”

“Shane!” she barked.

He looked into her eyes of desperation–-and fear. “Between you and me-–I promise,” he conceded. Alley gave him a reassuring look of thanks, and they both turned to face the awesome and vast limitlessness of the dark ocean before them.

“Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before” — Edgar Allan Poe.