A Child Alone with Strangers by Philip Fracassi

Author:Philip Fracassi
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781945863752
Publisher: Talos
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Henry sits on the cot in the locked bedroom.

He’s removed his T-shirt, suddenly hating the feel of fabric on his skin. His shoes are on the floor, tossed carelessly along with the shirt. The air is frigid and still; there is no breeze, no ventilation. The room smells like urine. Henry’s pants and part of a blanket are damp with it, and the stink mixes with the ripe smell of preadolescent sweat and filth from two days of not showering. He sits with his bared lower back against the cold, coarse wall, feet dangling over the edge of the cot. He rocks slightly, clutching his bare elbows in the opposite palms, pressing his arms against the small bulge of his stomach.

“You don’t think I see you but I see you,” he whispers. “You don’t think I see you but I do yes I do.” His eyes are closed. His breath comes fast and ragged, his chest expanding and sinking like a frightened animal.

In his mind’s eye he sees what she sees.

His view is from high above them, a short distance from where they all stand in a circle, talking, branches and leaves obstructing his clear view, but he can see them regardless. He hears them talking, their words not decipherable, just broken murmurs on the wind mixing with the paper chimes of leaves in the surrounding tree. The tree where she hides, and watches.

Henry can read her mind because she allows it. Because she has welcomed him and—in a way only a mother can—taken him into her care. But her child is also in danger. Grave danger.

He senses the power within her, the blinding power of her mind, the forces of the earth she’s tapped into, that are hers to control.

Her and others like her.

The ones who wait in the dark beneath the cities and the people and the stink of humanity, the poison of man.

In his room, shirtless and cold, stinking and hungry and exhausted and terrified, Henry sees all this.

He knows what’s coming.

His hitching breath slows, his heart rate steadies.

And he smiles.

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