American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,215

word. It can mean so many things. You remember when I said that, to beings such as myself, physical existence is mere construction paper and pipe cleaners?”

“Yeah?”

“Well,” says Kelly, “I am about to break you down into paper and glue, and put you back together again somewhere much safer. So hold on.”

“Wait. Wait!” says Mona. “You’re going to do what to me?”

“There’s that word again!” says Kelly. “Relax, Miss Mona. Back in the old days, some found this experience very enlightening. It’s just a matter of…”

Things slow down. Then they stop.

Then Mona’s body begins to report many disparate sensations.

First her eyes freeze in her skull, which makes it impossible to confirm any of the other sensations: her skin begins to crackle, as if waves of static electricity are crawling along her arms and legs; her hair curls like slashed harp strings; her fingernails, like switchblades, recede into her flesh; some bones lengthen, others twirl into corkscrews, while still others dissolve into powder; her brain turns to water, which washes down the back of her throat, drips down her spine, and puddles on the floor; her teeth turn to fire in her head, and wither into ash; and so on, and so on, and so on, and she cannot even find the voice to scream.

But one thing stays constant: that wry, smug grin on the shimmering screen, and those dark, crinkled eyes…

Somewhere a voice says: “… place.”

Then everything is lost.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Mona’s only been gone for what feels like five minutes when Gracie hears the footsteps from the canyon behind her. This should surprise her: since the beginning of their relationship (which was so long ago Gracie can’t even remember it now), this canyon was utterly secluded, unreachable for everyone except her and Mr. First. But then came Joseph, and Mr. Macey, and then Mona, until finally it started to seem as if this place were some kind of bizarre town square, with everyone showing up and bumping into one another and sharing the price of vegetables.

But what Gracie does find troubling is that Mr. First never mentioned anything about a second visitor tonight. So Gracie, remembering the flashes of gunfire and old Parson on his knees, drops to the ground and crawls away to find cover behind a long, flat rock. She is not sure what is coming, but she knows it could be dangerous.

What comes strolling down the canyon completely flummoxes her: it is Velma Rancy, a sophomore at Gracie’s school. Gracie has no idea what she could possibly be doing here, especially dressed so strangely in a powder-blue suit and a white panama hat. And she appears to be bearing a blood-covered cigar box like a holy relic, and her hand is horribly injured…

As Velma approaches the thick white fog at the end of the canyon, there’s a sound like a whip crack; then the fog begins to swirl around one point, and then it begins to draw back, like dirty water circling down the sink drain, until it reveals…

Nothing. No Mona, no figures, no nothing. Just the empty end of the canyon, which is about sixty feet across in all directions… but there is, just maybe, the soft sound of fluting.

This does not dissuade Velma, who just keeps walking straight ahead with the bloody cigar box held out. Finally, at a point that seems fairly random to the naked eye, she stops.

There is a silence. Then the canyon fills with a low, soft hum, a hum that is so deep Gracie’s ears can hardly register it: it is like thousands of yogis softly murmuring the om mantra, building and leveling off until the tissues just behind her eyes begin to vibrate.

Gracie knows this sound: it is the sound Mr. First makes when he wishes to communicate. It is not, she knows, the sound of him communicating: it is simply a noise that is produced, perhaps by accident, when First speaks.

“Stop that,” says Velma in a voice totally unlike hers: the words are mealy-mouthed and ill-formed, like a deaf person’s. “If I am stuck in this vessel and I speak this way, you should have to do the same.”

The bass hum swells slightly. Tears well up in Gracie’s eyes.

“No,” says Velma. “I won’t listen. Speak. Speak like I do. It’s only fair.”

The hum tapers off. Something invisible moves in the canyon: the gravel on the ground shifts in huge piles, as if, perhaps, two enormous, invisible feet have risen slightly, and fallen.

Then there is a voice like enormous stones