S02E04: Estranged from Grace

OLIVIA: I felt the grass beneath me, still damp from the night before. It was cooler now—not cold, but the early morning’s fresh air between a hot night past and a hot afternoon to come was refreshing. I wasn’t the woods, but in a soft yard stretching out for dozens of feet past each of my limbs; beyond my right arm stood a cherry tree, transplanted here a year before I was born. I could smell the blossoms that fell each spring. Past my left arm was a lilac bush, mom’s favorite, just past blooming season. Near my legs was a shed with a padlock, the scent of cut grass and spent gasoline pouring out under its flaking doors. And my head was a wide mulberry tree stretching its boughs over the rear of the yard. It had been there for a century, maybe more. Strong and ancient provider of berries for local wildlife and, yes, myself too, preserved in jars or fresh off the branch. I could almost hear my surroundings: the ebb and flow of cicada calls, kids playing down the street, a distant bark echoing from a few houses away. And I could nearly make out the songs the birds sang in my hair. Almost, then I was in another place.

***

ALEX, muffled, getting more clear: Hey, Liv, you still with us? Come on, wake up.

NADIA: Fuck, don’t tell me she’s gone, too. I can’t deal with this. I can’t do this.

ALEX: No, she’s breathing. Hey *snap, snap*

OLIVIA: Wh-what…where are we?

ALEX: Thank christ, can you see me?

OLIVIA: Kind of, that light’s super bright.

ALEX: Oh, sorry. Now? 

OLIVIA: We’re…back outside. How…what happened? Where’s…

ALEX: He’s…the uhh…the things in the building…

NADIA: He’s dead. The worms smashed open his skull, and now he’s dead. Gone. 

OLIVIA: Oh, god…that can’t be.

ALEX: It’s true. And there's more–

OLIVIA: No, that’s not possible. That’s not what you told me.

ALEX: Told you what?

OLIVIA: My head’s still all foggy, forget about it. I’m going to try my phone again. 

*phone flips open, beeps*

ASH: Jasmine, are you all right?

OLIVIA: Hell no! I thought we wouldn’t die, you said nothing could change. But Scarlet–Alex–never said Daryll died out here.

ASH: Oh. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s possible that she didn’t tell you the whole truth. Or maybe she doesn’t remember it quite right herself. Like I said, you’re not in the past, you’re in a memory. Memories are not like movies: they’re fuzzy, prone to change and exaggeration, full of holes; this isn’t a photograph, it’s a picasso. You’re in the realm of fiction. These things, this variance, it isn’t an intrusion into your life like you saw in the Department building, you’re the invader now. You’re the variance, the imperator of reality in a world of fantasy. Does that make any sense?

OLIVIA: Of course not, but I feel like you know that already. I think I get the general idea, though. The things I see and do here may not be literal representations of Alex’s past, it’s just how she remembers it. It’s a story.

ASH: Right, subjectivity reigns here. It’s like a dream, a real dream.

OLIVIA: Great. So, if I had been braver, could…did Daryll have to–

ASH: You did the best you could, Jasmine. And remember, if Daryll did in fact die, it happened more than ten years ago. There’s nothing you could do now. 

OLIVIA: God this is all such…I’m sorry, it’s bullshit. Why did I even come here? Why am I doing all this?

ASH: It’s for her. For Alex, for Scarlet.

OLIVIA: *sigh* Right, the bullet.

ASH: Yes. You tried to save her but you overshot, overextended. You bit off more than you could chew, and now you’re going to have to deal with the consequences of that. You saw what happened with Green, I would count myself lucky; you’re still you, and I believe in you, Jasmine.

OLIVIA: Sure. Lucky. But what now? We’re stuck in…Ohio? I guess? And it doesn’t seem like time is moving forward at all. How are we going to get out? Shit, Alex is coming over.

*click*

Olivia and her friends were going to have to find what was causing this and put a stop to it.

ALEX: Any luck with the call?

OLIVIA: N-not really. But we’ve got to look for something, and I’m guessing you have no idea what that might be, or where to find it?

ALEX: For…what?

Unfortunately, Olivia was the one experiencing it, and would have to figure that out on her own.

OLIVIA: Okay, okay. Fine. We just have to find the weird stuff and end it, then I can go back home. Well, back to the building, anyway. But…If this all already happened…how am I a part of this?

***

ORANGE: Walking the streets of Deerland, it’s a place that doesn’t leave much of an impression. An empty place, curdled milk, long past its sell-by date. It’s cold, or it’s hot, and what few people still here talk about how cold it is, or how hot. How bad mayfly season was this year, how many ticks they got on their walk through Maybury. It elides attention, the attention of the whole country slides right off. Nothing to see here, folks. But one thing did catch my eye, beyond the missing posters plastered all over town for one Olivia #%$&*, my target here. There was police tape over the shattered door of a crusty diner, glass shards arcing in a rainbow. An older woman, pushing 60 maybe, was shaking her head slowly while the voice of Dolly Parton floated out on the breeze through the hole in the glass. 

ORANGE: Hello, ma’am, do you have a moment?

MS FRY: Oh, sure, hun. Come on in, and watch yourself, that glass is mighty sharp.

*door opens, stepping on broken, paper pad flips, diner sounds*

ORANGE: So, burglary? Attempted Arson? What happened here?

MS FRY: No, no, nothing like that. Now this is gonna sound real queer, but I was here late last night cleaning up. We were closed, and the cook’d already gone home for the night, so it was just me here. I was counting out the drawer and getting things all ready, when I heard this noise, like a song was playing real quiet in the back. I thought maybe Eddy left the radio on back there, so I made my way to the store room to shut it off. I was gonna give Eddy hell next day, I’ve told him so many times not to leave on anything that’s plugged in. Electricity ain’t free up here. I swung open the door, and that dang song was louder, sure coming from back here, and there was someone in the room, too. I jumped a little, thought maybe Eddy stayed late. But that song…real weird, see? Almost like a spring bird, but different. And when this fella turned around, it sure as shoot wan’t Eddy. I was ready to skee-daddle, but for some reason I just couldn’t. This person–thing, I guess–turned my way…and this thing was huge, believe you, me, prolly a foot taller than Eddy and he’s no fawn himself. It looked my way and…well, this is where it gets real odd. It was all dark and slimy, like it came right out of the black swamp, arms as big as my torso. I’da thought it might be a real sasquatch or something of that nature–not that I’m a real big believer in that stuff, I walk with jesus on sundays like the best of us–but its head…there was this light coming out of its head. And darn it if I just couldn’t look away! It was saying something too, couldn’t tell you what though, didn’t make a lick of sense. I was just standing there, light simple, for god knows how long. Finally I came to my damn senses, grabbed the fire extinguisher near the stove, and gave that thing a face full of foam. It barreled on past me, out over the counter, and smashed through the glass door, which we just got replaced, I might add. And that’s what I saw last night.

ORANGE: That is interesting, Ms…what was your name?

MS FRY: Fry, Misty Fry. 

ORANGE: Ms. Fry. So that was all. Anything else you can tell me about last night? Or any other strange happenings in town recently?

MS FRY: No, not really. Jeez, well, there’s these group of kids always causing trouble. Loitering and making noise. *quieter* Think one of them’s part of some satanic thing or might be a *whispering* ho-mo-sexual, *normal volume* but other than that, that’s all. 

ORANGE: Could you tell me the cook’s name again?

MS FRY: Yes, that’s Eddy Zucker, with a Z. 

ORANGE: Anyone else see this…thing?

MS FRY: Not that I ken. You think I’m a real dingbat, don’t you.

*meow*

ORANGE: Uhh good kitty. No, Ms Fry, I’m just trying to get an account of what happened. Could it have been some local wildlife? A bear, maybe?

MS FRY: I suppose, but if it was a bear, it was a real odd duck of a bear. Well, it’s just like I said, anyway. And I already told your other buddies on the force about it this morning.

ORANGE: Oh, no ma’am, you misunderstand. I’m not with the police.

MS FRY: Huh?

*rewinding and splicing as ORANGE takes phrases and words from her story to make a sentence that erases any supernatural activity*

MS FRY: I was here late last night cleaning up…when I heard this noise…it was a bear…It barreled on past me, out over the counter, and smashed through the glass door…

ORANGE: One more time, Ms Fry, what was it you saw last night?

MS FRY: Well, I was here late, and I heard a noise in the back. And wouldn’t you know it if it didn’t look like a brown bear! Dang thing rushed past me and broke through the door. I think it was anyway, see there’s these kids always causing trouble. Coulda been something they cooked up. They make such a ruckus at the old VFW hall. Real shame what that place has come to. But it sure looked like a bear.

ORANGE: Fantastic, Ms Fry, thank you for your time.

***

ALEX: Are you talking to me? I’m lost here.

OLIVIA: S-sorry, just thinking out loud.

ALEX: Well, like I was saying, there’s something else. Nadia was…you passed out and…we had to carry you, which means…

NADIA: We needed both arms.

ALEX: So we couldn’t cover our ears while we got out. Not that it mattered much, anyway. That shit was so loud.

NADIA: Do you feel weird at all? Any headaches? Anything seem off?

OLIVIA: Besides this entire hellscape we’re in, no. I feel well enough.

ALEX: Fuck. Or wait, is that good?

NADIA: I don’t even know anymore.

ALEX: No headaches here either.

OLIVIA: What happened to me? How did I black out?

NADIA: About that…

Daryll lurched around the corner, holding his head. Alex, Nadia, and Olivia scrambled directionless while Erica held back her former friends with the fire ax. Bits of Daryll’s head fell to his feet, and out came several more tendrils, slithering and winding after the trio. One cracked like a whip and struck Nadia in the face, leaving a gash along her cheek. She stumbled backward and clutched at the wound, blood pouring through her fingers and onto the floor. Alex tried to rush to her side, but was intercepted by a singing creature that used to be Keith. Its eerie song gave her pause; it was so strange, but felt almost…familiar. Then Daryll was on Olivia, the wormlike tips of his new appendages gunning straight for her ears. Nadia saw Alex mesmerized, Olivia wrapped in slithering death, nothing left of Daryll inside himself. She threw her head back and let out a scream that shook the entire building. 

Nadia spread her arms and rose into the air as if floating in clear water. Blood dripped from each hand and a faint gold circle came into being over her head. Nadia exhaled smoke, which gathered at her back in formless wings. She hung in the air like a great and terrible star, then spoke a single crackling word. In her electric word was sleep—eternity, death, blood and bone and rest—that bowed everyone in the room, human and worm alike. Olivia passed out, Alex’s breathing slowed, and the creatures sat in place, dazed. Nadia’s feet returned gently to the floor of the planetarium, her wings and halo fading to nothing. She lowered her now-bloodied headphones and yelled for Alex to help her carry Olivia. Erica drove the ax into the torso of another thing that used to be Caplan. Alex moved to help her, but she refused. Nadia hoisted one of Olivia’s arms over her shoulder, and Alex took the other. They carried Olivia out just as the remaining earworms descended at once on the bloodied astrophysicist. 

OLIVIA: Oh my god…

ALEX: I…we still don’t know what happened, or how.

OLIVIA: I do.

ALEX: Bullshit.

OLIVIA: No, really, I do. Kind of. Because…Look, I’m not supposed to tell you, but screw it. Something similar happened to me.

ALEX: Bullshit. Come on, man, are you just trying to scare me more? You trying to fuck with us? Because now is not the time.

OLIVIA: I’m not trying to upset you, Alex. I can do…something. I don’t even know what to call it, exactly. Telekinesis? I can bend space? Or like…memories? I don’t know, it’s all a bit undefined. But there’s this wild state agency whose job it is to deal with this kind of stuff–what I told Hecks was called “variance.” And I guess some people have it in them as well, or it changes them. It seems like that just happened to Nadia, and it recently happened to me, too. I don’t know if it’s contact with the supernatural, o-or mental defenses, or just being ostracized, but like–

ALEX: She’s broken, Nadia. This place took Daryll’s body and now it’s taking Liv’s mind.

OLIVIA: Look at me. Look me in the eyes, Alex. No, don’t turn away. Seriously, look. Hold my hand and look at me.

ALEX: *surprised yelp*! Okay, okay, your hands are freezing, let go. I’m looking, so what?

OLIVIA: I promise you I’ve never been more serious in my life. Nadia, have you had anything like this happen before?

NADIA:  I read this book in sixth grade about like willing stuff into existence. I tried to move pencils with my mind in class. But not like that.

OLIVIA: That noise we heard, not just the whipping tendrils, the other sound. It’s called Birdsong, and it’s bad news. If you listen to it, you might turn into one of them. I bet that’s what infected Dr. Mori’s coworkers. But those things we saw in the planetarium, they don’t create the bidsong, they just channel it. They’re kind of like little nodes.

ALEX: Okay??

OLIVIA: I’m telling you this because I think that’s what’s causing our problems here. I think that whatever makes the sound, whatever sings to the worms, it’s probably nearby. 

ALEX: I can tell you think this is all true, Olivia, but like…can you show me? Can you do something like Nadia did? 

OLIVIA: I don’t think I can right now. 

ALEX: I’d love to see you try, though.

OLIVIA: *strained effort as she tries* I can’t.

ALEX: Just a bit harder. Really put your back into it.

OLIVIA: *sigh, more effort* It’s not–wait, are you making fun of me? I told you, I can’t right now.

ALEX: Got it. So, just your word then. Just your insane word. That’s all we’ve got.

NADIA: For what it’s worth, I believe her. I don’t know what happened to me, but…I was lucid the whole time, I was in control. I knew what I was doing, and it felt…incredible.

ALEX: Great. Liv, you can throw shit around with your mind, Nadia can knock people out and grow hot wings, and I…what…nothing? My hands are shaking, is that some “variance” shit? Is this pain “variance?” Is Daryll dying some “unexplainable phenomena?” Even if you’re right, so what? How does that help us?

OLIVIA: If I’m right, if the birdsong is causing this, and if something in these woods is producing the birdsong, then it seems to me that if we find it and get rid of it, the birdsong will stop, and things will go back to normal.

ALEX: You know what? It’s like midnight, 100 degrees, my entire body hurts, we’re apparently in fuckin Ohio…I just don’t care anymore. I don’t want to hear anymore of your theories, or explanations, or whatever. I just want to hunt down whatever did this to Daryll, and do the same thing to it.

OLIVIA: We’re on the same page then. 

NADIA: Hell yeah.

OLIVIA: Let’s catch our breath, drink some water, and find this thing.

***

ORANGE: Ms Fry was right, I heard the kids practicing a block away from the VFW. A piercing squeal, a blossoming, ululating tone called from the place. Sounded like someone strangling a computer. I knocked, but there was no breaking through that wall of sound. Door handle was loose, so I let myself in. The old hall hadn’t seen a single bristle of a broom in damn near 5 years. In a state of suspended disrepair, much like the rest of Deerland. How long could this town balance on the knife’s edge, how long could the house of cards stand with more and more of its base stripped away to be stacked on top? How long until someone noticed even if it fell? I made my way through the plastic covered furniture and sports memorabilia old enough to be my kid if I’d had any, and stepped down the gaudy carpeted stairs into the screaming mouth of hell. 

The feedback set off a synesthetic vision. It shimmered and droned, it rose and spiraled down like a golden hawk in descent. They were close to replicating what I later heard called Birdsong. Lucky for them, they had a lot more work to do, and I wasn’t affected beyond my own peculiarities.

WIZARD: Almost got it, Boris. Almost. We’re close. Kara, can you make some noise on the mic?

KARA: I guess. 

BORIS: We getting there?

WIZARD: I can hear it, but I can’t feel it, you know? It was more…more natural, less like…electric.

BORIS: Wiz, we can’t exactly do acoustic feedback.

WIZARD: I know. Hold on. Kara, can you whistle?

KARA: Kind of.

WIZARD: Sick. I’m gonna hook up your mic to Boris’ amp. I want you to whistle into that thing.

*click, click, whistle, feedback*

BORIS: This sucks.

WIZARD: No shit, it sucked out there too. But we almost got it. Kara, less like a song and more like a bird, you know? Like a dog whistle.

KARA: I don’t know what that means, but okay.

WIZARD: Boris, crank the reverb.

BORIS: Got it. All the way?

WIZARD: All the way.

KARA: This double sucks. Like bass-boosted garbage.

*feedback, clank, noise stops*

KARA: Shit, Wizard, you all right?

WIZARD: That’s it. That’s the noise. That’s the noise it made. That thing out there. It’s so close. I saw the light, guys. The big thing. In the woods. That’s the song.

BORIS: I don’t know if we should be doing this. You look sick.

KARA: Yeah. I mean, it was a fun experiment, but I kind of want to sing? And write poems?

WIZARD: All right, but let’s get a recording of this sesh just in case.

ORANGE: ‘Scuse me, mind if I cut in, folks?

KARA: Shit.

ORANGE: They all jumped and tried to start putting their gear away when they saw me. I held up my hand. 

Just looking to talk. No, I’m not with the police and I’m not here to shut you down. Good for kids your age to have hobbies.

Asked them about the break in–or out–and any other strange happenings. This little guy, went by Wizard. I said he, they said they, and I assented. And so we went, Wizard and I, down the psychic corridors of teenage damage. They weren’t like a lot of the kids in town, and that made it hard for them. Couldn’t tell their parents about their life, unless they wanted to be on the street by next week. Ungodly, unchristian they’d be called. An affront to The Word, an abomination. I am something of an abomination myself, I said. I deal in the ungodly every day. Now I don’t think there is one myself, but if there were a god or some numinous force out there and all it took to be forever estranged from grace was a little variance, well then may we all be damned.

That was true, and it was enough. 

WIZARD: A couple weeks back, I went out to the woods with a friend…maybe more than friend actually. 

ORANGE: Teenagers are always looking for somewhere to smoke or make out, I won’t push you on which you were doing. 

WIZARD: I went out there, and I swear I saw some huge dripping…thing. 

ORANGE: Big arms? Black ink? Funny lights? 

WIZARD: Yeah. 

ORANGE: Same as Ms. Fry. 

WIZARD: The diner lady? Then I…I looked into the light. 

ORANGE: Now here is where memory and fantasy mix. Wizard said they saw the past, or a jumble of spliced memories that approximated a past. Images, words, songs, all repeating, a simulated nostalgia. They half remembered wandering all over town before someone flashed a light and they came back to themselves in the woods.

ORANGE: You know Olivia?

WIZARD: The missing girl? Nah.

KARA: I think she’s like…a prep?

BORIS: What Kara means is we’re not really in the same friend group.

ORANGE: All right then, would you be willing to tell me where you found this thing? I promise I won’t rat you out for whatever it was you were doing. 

Yes, even if it’s illegal. Yes, even if you were hiding a body, I wouldn’t have any interest in that. Wizard couldn’t remember exactly but they told me where to look next. I revised their thoughts just a little, told ‘em not to use the sound anymore. You’re disturbing local wildlife, says EPA officer Me. Their friends would forget this whole episode soon enough. I left Wizard my card. 

Wizard, I’ll see you in hell at the greatest kegger the universe has ever seen, and god won’t be invited.