The embankment collapsed above the bridge, nearly pushing Braume’s Subaru off into a ravine. He gassed the pedal on rubber tread, lurching forward in four-wheel drive. After years of drought the sudden wet season had wrought havoc on these mountain roads. A few giant boulders crashed behind as they sped over gravel salvation, toward a sign painted in red on yellow, ‘PARTY.’
Braume parked his beaten car next to a dozen others. Off-key singing filtered through shuttered windows as Fyrn stepped from the dirty vehicle. She didn’t know Braume well, but he seemed kind enough. She wiped her thumb along the edge of her sleek screen, forcing her phone into the fold of her pocket, just in case. Her boots crunched on pine needles as she walked towards a solitary porch light.
A dog trotted near her ankles. Fyrn liked dogs and relaxed a little, scratching its soft head as tears stung at the corner of her eyes. Thumps bounced beyond the twisted railing of the double-wide house. A kerfuffle of people were inside, singing to music.
“Need help?” Braume’s stocky form turned through the azure air, his curls pulled back into a bun so that the frizz of it framed his head.
“I got it,” Fyrn snapped, too quickly. I wish Lana were here. Fyrn missed her old dog to a point of anxiety. She ticked off her mental list of probable dangers like date rape or abandonment or social brutality.
“Thanks, though.” She added to be nice, trying to play it cool by swinging her brown Nalgene bottle. She was ready to smack anyone who tried something. Fyrn cultivated her skills in comfort with being uncomfortable. She knew how to expect the unexpected, having traveled many regrettable rides.
Oftentimes, Fyrn didn’t depart from a place in the same way she arrived. In her experiences, men were the culprits of common dangers. Deceit ran rampant in social scenes, so it was best to be prepared for the eventuality of trouble. That’s why she had adopted her canine companion. Never knowing what adventure might be a last laugh, she needed protection.
Since Lana’s heart had grown too big to breathe, Fyrn now navigated dire situations with only a few items on hand. She took inventory of the things she’d brought for self preservation: Her phone, to track her location; a water bottle, to stay hydrated; and a debit card tucked into the back pocket of her pants held tight with a heavy buckle that could be used as a weapon, if necessary.
Fyrn took a long breath. The crisp California night smelled of dry oak leaves on a chill breeze. Wind moving through the tall trees was building momentum. Soon, wildfire smoke would permeate the air again and turn the sun an eerie red. Come fire season, the woods would be crisp with dust, even after this most recent snowstorm when the melt froze, snapping branches and most of the topsoil washed away. It rooted up trees and covered roads with mountain slides breaking civilized borders with tempestuous destruction.
Climate catastrophes increasingly rocked the world’s end with unwavering chaos and yet, people moved through life in denial of an impending fate.
Surely, survival depended upon small nuances. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. These philosophies provided a false sense of control to cope in the day to day struggles paying bills, buying groceries, shopping every convenience while landfills overflowed into the rising oceans. Until storms inevitably overran distant lands with hurricanes.
“Coming?”
Fyrn nodded. Her boots creaked over weathered boards as she ascended the few stairs to the front door. Braume held open the rickety screen and ushered her inside. She clutched the solid weight of her locket to her chest. Encased in the silver heart were the ashes of her beloved dog. The cremains inside were still fresh from death, its metal felt warm on her skin. Not even an entire lunar cycle had lapsed since her dear beast had forfeited its life to old age.
Braume introduced her with staggering fist bumps to his comrades as they walked together through the narrow hallway. Patrons at the house party consisted of only a small circle of his friends in loose clothing, who stumbled around squinty-eyed in a haze of stoned oblivion.
Fyrn closed her eyes. Saw the pink tongue of her dog hanging slack from mottled jaw. Shaking the memory away, she looked behind her.
A lone figure wavered in the dim light, standing silent in a shadowy corner. They hunched dark against the yellowed walls of the room. But the pale complexion of the face glowed. Moon-like, round cheeks framed two cratered eye sockets that followed Fyrn’s movements as she backed away.
Fyrn whispered, “Wh-who is that?” Pointing at the lone figure.
“Where?” Braume peered through the gloomy house as a few residents tottered into a fluorescent kitchen, snacking on picked over appetizers and refilling their red, plastic cups with fresh drinks.
Fyrn nudged her jaw toward the strange apparition, but Braume had already trudged off into another room, mingling into a fog of bong smoke. Fyrn tiptoed over the stained carpet that apparently served as a stage. She tried to ignore those sooty eyelids resting half closed as they peered at her through the circulating crowd.
A scattered audience chatted amongst themselves, intermittently singing along to the popular karaoke tunes. Braume moved faster than she could squeeze past a tight-lipped lady who gasped in her face.
“I don’t sing.” The woman leaned toward Fyrn, gray curls and loose eyeglasses slipping from her face.
“Neither do I, usually. In front of people anyway.” Fyrn was shaking hands with the stern older lady apparently called Beth. “I like to write songs,” she added.
“My husband, Paul, acts intolerable if I don’t bring him,” Beth hissed loudly over the fast-paced baritone of her husband, who was leaning into a microphone. Fyrn observed him through the doorway as he danced, reciting the words shifting on the screen.
His silhouette flickered in front of the spotlight. Fyrn laughed as Paul tilted the mic stand, dipping its metal body like a long lost lover over the final notes of his performance.
“Fyrn!” shouted Dale through his long, unkempt hair. He was the house party’s host. “You’re on after Braume.”
The lone figure took a step forward, their macabre shape shifting in the pallid light. Black eyes gawked from below a rumpled hood that hung over a milky forehead. Their dark sight fell on Fyrn’s solitary vantage, casting a shadow over the drooping feature of its fig-like nose. Heavy fabric sagged from their boxy shoulders, loose threads unmoving in the draft, despite the boisterous movement of the party. Folk mingled nearby without making contact.
“You have to pick a song,” ordered Beth.
“Oh, I hadn’t thought about it,” Fyrn stammered, dizzy with nerves. She didn’t want to be here, amongst strangers at a house way out in the deep woods of a cold winter night with a storm beginning to rage outside.
Wind smattered rain against the metal roof. A clap of thunder boomed over the bass pounding from the amp. Tree branches scratched at the window panes, screeching against gutters hanging from the house’s eaves.
“Hang on, I want to do a Portishead song. One that begins, ‘It’s a fire,’” she said the words into her tiny computer. The Google screen blinked with the obvious title, ‘It’s a Fire.’
Lightning illuminated the walls in a flash. Thunder boomed overhead. Fyrn jumped, hair on end. She pulled the static cling of it off her neck to secure a knot with a bendy-straw plucked off the countertop.
“Oh, okay. I guess that’s what it’s called!” she shouted over the crowd to Dale at the karaoke screen who gave Braume a high-five.
“Ooooh, Portishead. Okay, go!”
Braume and his friends smiled at Fyrn as the cursor bounced over the words on the screen. Imagining how the words sounded, hot shivers pricked her damp skin. Her throat felt raw as she moaned into the space, frowning at the interpreted lyrics. Her height on center stage hunkered over the short stand of the microphone she felt too foolish to hold. Fyrn worried that the foreign contraption might squeal and she’d drop it. She clung to her locket instead. Her voice quavered into the metal cage with her hands cupping the long chain at her neck. Her voice cracked.
The hooded apparition stood erect and motionless, only a few yards in front of the mic and now facing the stage in the center of the room. In the hazy space, it seemed like folk were passing through his rumpled sweatshirt sleeves without impact. Fyrn avoided the ghoulish figment but it blocked her view of Braume. The entity watched her so singularly, she tried not to think of the soft foot pads of her dog’s limp body as its lifelessness flashed through her mind.
Fyrn unbuttoned her wool top when she finished her song. Goose pimples tickled her neck. She wiped wet bangs off her face, ignoring the mark still emboldening her name on the board. Soon, they shouted for her again.
“I didn’t sign up for another song,” she argued. The eerie figure so close now it nearly touched her arm. Fyrn clutched her silver pendant between fore-finger and thumb then whispered, “Hello?” She hesitated, about to extend her hand.
Braume’s buddy, Tercel, cut between them. The horned-like shape of his hat fluttered as he leaned close to her and shook his head, saying, “This is Outlaw Karaoke. Your name stays in the loop.”
This time, Fyrn held a can of hard kombucha in one hand as she grasped the cone handle in her other. The microphone felt warm from Braume holding it all through his song.
“Kate Bush, Wuthering Heights,” Fyrn gulped.
“Who the hell is that?” a woman questioned, swaying over her beer.
“You know, Kate Bush?”
“Nope,” said Tercel in the dim light. His long beard moved up and down on his chin when he laughed like he was Pan, coming to mess with the forest sprites.
“Well, look it up. She’s on there,” Fyrn cleared her throat as the keyboard melody was joined by a drum beat.
A fella sat at the drum set in back, tapping sticks for effect. Braume moved over to the backup mike. She wavered her way through lyrics nothing like the words she usually belted out. The song was based on her favorite book by the least popular, but now most renowned Brontë sister. A romance most people called it, but Fyrn knew it was a hauntingly corrupt story. She squinted into the chartreuse air trying to see past the sudden fantasy of holding her pup in both arms again. Lana’s thick fur was wooly warm in her palms as she hugged her mane.
Fyrn shut her mind long enough to finish the song. The room was quieter now, emptied after she tried her best to hit the high notes. She shivered as she stepped from the stage, spotting the mysterious physique. Chills crawled up her back. Fyrn peered through the gloom, returning their glare.
“Death?” she mouthed quietly. Don’t be unkind, she told herself. Such morbid musings work dangerous spells. That’s just a creepy guy that no one wants to acknowledge.
The third time her name came around the loop, Fyrn considered hiding. Both from the stage and the grim lurker who stayed too close. But she chose a favorite classic by the Eagles with fond memories from her trip in the Caribbean. Remembering the sugary water from a green coconut as she took a gulp from her can.
‘Hotel California’ tore unexpectedly through the palm trees. Following the melody to the backside of a tropical resort where pool tables and a bar full of cerveza waited. Pulling some of the bright, foreign currency from her swimsuit, she enjoyed herself in the shade all afternoon and paddled back under sunset. Returning to where the palm trees laid on their sides, devastated by a recent tsunami during a rare cyclone event.
Weather patterns during climate crises were unpredictable. Like the catastrophe that occurred on the way here. Nerves tied tight, Fyrn’s mind rushed helter-skelter in a knot. She imagined lying beneath the weight of mud, the stiff corpse of her dog tangled in her limbs.
A swooning rocked through her chest, letting the music course over her skin as she sang along. “You can check in anytime you like, but you can never leave.” Fyrn’s hips swayed as she mumbled the melody. She dove into the malaise of smoke and noise in the dimly lit space, tension dissipating. The heat of her embarrassment faded under the pretense of having a good time, rather than care what her voice sounded like above the murmur of the crowd.
The sway of alcohol encouraged one patron after another to finagle their way through more hit tracks. “You look to be enjoying yourself.” Braume gazed at her, stroked her cheek. Fyrn nuzzled her nose into his neck. “I am—”
A clamorous roar usurped their conversation. She startled at the skeletal leer on the face that hovered over Braume’s shoulder. Its crooked stare expressionless, the eyes black saucers. Their straight lips clenched into parallel lines above a nubbed chin.
Fyrn’s words caught in her throat as everything went topsy-turvy. She flinched at the crush of dirty scenery outside. The forest toppled, smashing the hillside into rolling muck. Rough bark, splintered branches, scrub of lichens, a giant trunk shattering glass. Mother Nature’s wrath cast tree shadows through the gaping ceiling.
Another crack of plaster drowned the sound system. Water filled the floor from below as the roof collapsed, chiming like those cymbals earlier, ringing behind the heartbeat of her singing.
Moments were not spared as Fyrn’s wool cardigan pulled heavily in the rush of cold temperature drop. Braume tried to shield her from frozen raindrops splattering in long daggers, turning to wands of hail that stabbed her skull.
Colossal waves reached upward over fresh snowdrifts. Darkness pushed against the cold-blue, stretched over its sleek surface, wind knocking against the smooth barrier with percussive rhythm. Ambient beats of swift water rising deafened Fyrn’s mind as the landslide washed away the karaoke venue.
Screams rose out of the torrent of the earthquake that pushed in the mired terrain. More muddy waves hit the dislodged house as murky ice water flowed into Fyrn’s starving lungs. Her arms flailed, fingers brushing an icy caress, like filaments wavering in a coral reef. But the coldness was stone rubbed smooth in a winter’s rush. Lana’s stiff body blinded her thoughts. Her sixty pounds of flesh wrapped tightly in a blue bag. Away Death.
Fyrn kicked hard, violently attacking submerged furniture. Something sharp smacked her thigh as splintered debris rushed past. A cracked soda cup spinning toward a whirlpool sliced her shoulder. The thickening current swirled with deepening crimson blood that swallowed her whole.
An inept understanding of mortality was woven with strands of determinate survival. Fyrn surfaced, wide-eyed for air. Her frown caught the brilliant morning sun gleaming against icy panes. Above the ridgeline crept huge glimmering mountains of ice, steaming in passage.
As the glaciers scraped closer, the flooded land shook. Fyrn noted her wan face reflected by vibrating broken glass. Her skin startlingly white, shadowed eyes above her long nose smudged in dirt. So like the shallow pits of dying eyes.
Poor Lana. Fyrn pictured the vacant brown stare as it dimmed toward the afterlife. An oracle gaze like that of her uninvited guest: The lone figure who had followed her here tonight now swam into her sight. His wet clothing loomed gray on the water’s surface like fate’s shroud it wiggled within the wicked torrent.
Fyrn looked forcibly away at the heaving pool of the broken house. Dale had scrambled atop a floating platform holding Braume by an arm. The water rushed from the cul de sac of the submerged yard. A waterfall poured through the forested valley below. She spied Tercel’s horned hat, the spikes turned downward with damp like a jesters cap, clutched in the branches of a tall Pine. Beth and Paul screamed, trying to grab hold of its trunk. But the rapid’s pull snapped its rough bark.
Fyrn lost sight of them and kicked quicker. The glinting curve of her ash-locket broke free from her neck. Its silver links sparkled under water. Mid-stoke, she reached out but her grip faltered. The charm was sucked away through the deluge where that unwelcomely gaze found Fyrn’s and locked limbs. Fyrn shuddered. Her wrists bound in their burning grasp.
Her fears amidst this upheaval dissipated in the terror of their breath. It smelled fouler than septic churning in the putrid water with discarded waste. Their grin spread taut across swollen flesh, mirroring Fyrn’s grief with tears wet as everything.
Despite having avoided dangerously possible demises gleaned from past reckonings, Fyrn knew this stranger. She scrunched up her eyes to blur the heart-like outline of Lana’s muzzle from her memory. She pulled away, muttering, “Don’t I know you?”
Even though Fyrn’s voice was muted by the roar of weathered hierophant’s curses, it was in the way that Death’s face turned upward to her words, she knew he heard her.
Like an ink blot against stark white, Death’s saturated hood fell away. Its absence exposed a bare skull, bone-naked with arched spine, they let loose a howl.
The snow shaved from the massive wall of ice fluttered through the sky and stuck to her lashes. The flakes of it dusted her cheeks then floated serenely down onto the freezing water. She observed the treacherous gliding of the glacial masses had shifted from her view of the mountain peaks, but she heard the dire movements.
Fyrn needed to cover her ears. But Death had her hands. She couldn’t turn away. This close, their puckered skin hung loose and wrinkled. Death’s voice puffed clouds into the cold. “I am here! I am here! I am here!” they barked.
Fyrn bent against the chill embrace, welcoming their hug with fright. Death’s presence became almost comforting. A familiar pressure amidst the ominous creak that pierced the tumultuous night.
A high pitched crack snapped beneath the roar of an avalanche, loud as siren screams. Huge gales bled outward, coming so close her skin felt on fire.
Death cupped Fyrn closer, plucking the pink straw from her hair. They forced her to taste their molten mouth. The heat of the kiss cooled her burning.
Death let her go. They lifted their outstretched arms high, shouting, “Now drink!”
Fyrn gulped as she sank, numbing fluid filling her nose and throat. Death reached down through the water, placing the bendable end to her tongue. Fyrn sipped at the narrow tube, tasting sweet surface oxygen. She sucked hard for her life, pulling fresh air into her lungs.
Death’s robe swirled in the wet, gracing her shoulders with coarse fiber. She felt the sting of its weave scratch her flesh as the world rumbled by the weight of the ghostly glacier.
It rolled, groaning over a frosty brow of the ridge as it cut over the loud landscape, pressing everything dark. The great icy mass slipped down like a cerulean glove, obscuring the golden sky of dawn with an iceberg thick shield, trapping all beneath its grind.