I knew from the first time I saw Laurie Morning that something was different about her. That was last August—the first day of Freshman Orientation at university. After some initial sign-ins and assemblies, we’d been funneled into different buildings across the campus for various mini-classes on keeping up with the college workload, being a responsible dormmate, and work-study opportunities, among several others. Most of the classes were boring, and by mid-afternoon my schedule sent me to an old chapel at the edge of campus for a class just called “Getting to Know You”. My anxiety and excitement was starting to fade by that point—this was fun and all, but I had no illusions that I was making real friendships or learning anything vital to my college experience, and I was heading quickly toward fatigued boredom. Steeling myself for another slow hour, I entered the chapel.
I was in a small sanctuary, but the pews had been replaced with a circle of metal folding chairs occupied by a dozen freshmen that looked the same as I was sure I did—anxious, hopeful, and awkward as hell. Even the one older woman—a lady in her forties that had to be the teacher—looked a little nervous. She gave me a weak smile and nod as I took the empty seat that was left.
Clearing her throat, she began by introducing herself and telling us that the point of this group was to just give us a chance to be open and meet other people in the incoming class. That we were going to go around and answer a series of questions one at a time, that if anyone didn’t want to answer a question, that was perfectly fine, just to say “pass” and it would move to the next person.
I could feel myself getting more nervous already. What kind of things were they going to ask? I didn’t have anything to hide really, but I didn’t want to play truth or pass with a bunch of strangers. It was embarrassing.
But the first questions were really mild. Name and where you’re from. Favorite hobby. That kind of stuff. We’d go around, giving answers that were probably half-bullshit, and then the teacher gave us the next question. It was pretty boring, but I didn’t mind. I was spending all my time trying to not look like I was staring at the girl across from me.
She said her name was Laurie Morning.
At first, it was just because she was beautiful. She had a maturity and delicate grace that made her seem several years older than the other gawky boys and girls in the room. Then it was her voice. It was husky and rough while being smooth at the same time, like silk being drug over coarse granite. Her answers weren’t remarkable in and of themselves—She liked painting, her favorite movie was some German film I’d never heard of—but it was more the way she talked about them. Always with a slight pause and small smile, as though she knew a joke she wasn’t quite ready to share.
I didn’t want to look like a creeper, but I kept sneaking glances at her as we went around the room again and again. She met my gaze briefly a couple of times, causing my heart to flutter, but for the most part she seemed to be paying attention to what people were saying. I tried to do the same, but between my own anxiety and her presence, it was easy to be distract…
“Tony, are you wanting to answer, or do you want to pass on this one? Either is fine.”
I turned in confusion toward Mrs. Krefler. Shit, it was my turn again and I didn’t even know what the question was. Seeming to pick up on my embarrassed panic, the teacher repeated the question.
What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?
What the fuck? How did we jump from “where do you want to go on your dream vacation” to this shit? My first instinct was to try and give an answer, and my mind was already crawling down into the mines of my memory, looking for the deepest, richest veins of pain and sadness and shame. I could already see flashes of my grandmother, of Richie, of the time…
No. None of that was for these…strangers. I didn’t want to stand out or not seem cooperative, but shaking my head slightly, I told the teacher I passed. She gave me a smile and moved on.
Some people did actually answer, though most of their responses didn’t ring very true, either because they were so mild that it seemed unlikely that was actually the worst thing they’d been through or because they looked like they were making it up as they went. Not that I blamed them. What a weird, prying question to ask people, especially at orientation. Maybe the teacher was figuring that out too, because the next time she spoke, her voice seemed to tremble slightly.
“Laurie? Do you want to respond?”
Laurie looked at Krefler and then turned to stare at me for a moment. “Yes, I do.” She looked down at her hands with a sniff, and then she began.
When I was ten, my family went on a family vacation. We were traveling from Virginia and heading west—no particular destinations in mind, but with the loose idea that we would try to reach the Grand Canyon before turning around the following week. It was a lot of driving, all of us stuffed into the family SUV for hours every day as we zig-zagged across highways and back roads looking for various points of interest advertised in brochures my mother had found at the latest gas station or visitor’s center. My parents seemed to be having a good time, but my brother and sister looked as over it as I was.
Historical sites were boring, and the biggest or smallest whatever? That was just sad. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel— a mini-golf place in Texas that had go-carts and laser tag. Dad had found it for us the day before, and I could tell by his expression that he thought this was something to keep our low-level grumbling from becoming a full-on whining chorus of bored children. He wasn’t wrong—we were all excited about doing something that might actually be fun, and by the time we reached the parking lot of “Dirt Devil Dan’s Miniature Golf and Fun Track”, we were climbing over each other to get out of the car.
There…there were cars in the parking lot. And we could hear people inside. People laughing and yelling and having fun. We didn’t see anybody yet, but it was two in the afternoon on a Tuesday, and while the place looked big, it wasn’t exactly in a thriving location either. Still, I saw an odd look pass between my parents before Dad gave a shrug.
“It looks kind of dead, but let’s just see. I don’t see how it could be closed with all those people in there. If we get a bad vibe, we’ll just leave, right?” He looked questioningly at my mother, and she nodded, her gaze drifting across the parking lot to a large yellow sign set up at the ticket booth. She glanced at us kids.
“Stay close, okay?”
We made our way to the entrance, and as we got closer, I was able to read the bright sign set up in the booth’s window. It said:
This week is kids’ week! In anticipation of our grand reopening, kids get in free! All children must be accompanied by one adult, and staff will collect payment for any adult visitors as you explore our attractions. Bear in mind, we’re expanding, so some rides and attractions may not be in operation at all times. Pardon our dust!
Another wary look passed between our parents, and while we kept heading in, Mom took my little sister’s hand and Dad repeated to me and Tom that we were to all stick together. I remember having a moment where I thought…I thought how strange this all was. How lonely and odd this place was—how forlorn and…well, creepy. But I…I couldn’t hold onto that thought, that feeling somehow. A wind was stirring, twisting along the parking lot and pushing lightly at our backs as though coaxing us inside.
When it passed…it was like it took our worries with it. I saw my father’s shoulders relax. Mom no longer looked anxious, and she’d loosened her grip on Kelly’s hand. And I felt my own nervous fear dissolving as we moved deeper in, heading in the direction of the laughter and screams.
Because I think even then we were seeking other people. That would show us everything was okay. If people were safely having fun, then we could too. If they were enjoying hot dogs and popcorn, it was likely safe to eat our first meal since an early breakfast on the road. If this place wasn’t empty, it would feel less like we were walking across a graveyard.
The park was larger than it’d appeared in the brochure, but the handful of stands and small carnival rides we passed were all abandoned, eaten up with rust and drowning in tall weeds and crawling vines. I know how this all sounds. We should have known from the start that something was wrong. I think we did, in a way. It was just that somehow, in that place, it didn’t matter. It was as if we were being driven by some deep, illogical instinct that said we had to keep moving, pushing forward, until we found confirmation that everything was different than it appeared. Until we found everyone else.
I was holding Tom’s hand tightly as we rounded the next corner. He was almost fifteen and liked to act tough, but I knew he was scared too. His face had that same placid expression I could feel on my own, but his hand was sweaty and trembling in mine as we came into view of the pit.
It was probably a couple of hundred of feet across and went down fifty feet or more, but the cracked, worn asphalt sloped gently down on our side, and we barely paused before starting down. The voices, the noises of life and people, were all coming from down in there, you see.
We were standing in cold, muddy water at the bottom, and I thought I could feel something move past my ankle as we headed toward a large outcropping of shattered concrete and orange-tinged rebar. I let out a whimper and Mom looked back, giving me a strange smile.
“I know you’re tired, honey. But I think we’re almost there.”
We were. As we reached the far side of the hill of rubble, we saw where the sounds were coming from.
An old, rusty speaker.
It was painted orange and red, though the patches of rust were far brighter than those faded swirls of color. And the speaker was small and didn’t seem that loud up close—I didn’t understand how we could have heard it from so far away. Didn’t understand why someone would be playing sounds like this here anyway…
That’s when the singing started, and I realized we weren’t alone.
There were shadows with us. Shadows that shouldn’t have been there in the grey sunshine of a Texas afternoon. But as I watched, they were growing darker, moving closer, and the singing that echoed across the pit seemed to get louder and louder until I thought I might shatter. I was hearing it inside, you see, and I could feel it breaking something in there. For a moment, I felt sure I was going to die.
But, of course, I didn’t. They weren’t there to kill us. Just teach us. Show us the flaws of our beliefs and the errors of our ways. Illuminate us with darkness and free us with binding. Show us a truer path lined with suffering and terror and the singular melody of something older and purer that wants to be new again.
So we learned to sing as they did.
I lost my family that day, and that loss was terrible in some ways. But at the same time, I gained a new family of sorts. They are riders in the storm. Eyes that whisper and wounds that bite. And they are still growing.
We scatter to the wind, you see. That dark, twisting wind pushes us across the worlds, down roads and fields, into the bright hearths of the home and the black halls of the heart. It carries us where it wills, and we always land where there is more work to be done. More family to find. People that are being hunted by a destiny far greater than they could ever imagine.
“People like you.”
Her eyes were focused on me now, pulling me down, and I…
“Are you with me, son?”
I blinked as bright light flashed across my face. “Wha…?”
“Can you tell me your name?”
My chest was on fire, my eyes full of burning water. Throat tight and raw, I croaked out my response.
“T-Tony.”
I could barely make out the man that was crouched beside me, but I saw him nod. “Well, Tony, you’re going to be okay. The ambulance is on the way. But…look, not telling you to lie or anything, but you may want a lawyer before talking to any police about this, okay?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, and as I wiped at my streaming eyes, I started taking in my surroundings. I was on a lawn at the edge of campus. Behind me was the old chapel, or what was left of it. It was burning down.
The next three months were very stressful. There was an arson investigation, a psychological evaluation. Suspension of my acceptance into the college and tearful, angry conversations with my parents.
The problem was that no one believed me. There’d been no orientation classes scheduled in the old chapel—the chapel hadn’t been used in over fifteen years and was actually scheduled for demolition in the spring. There’d been no sign of any other people there, and no records of a professor named Krefler or a student named Laurie Morning.
At first, there were rumblings of arresting me for property damage, but there was no real evidence that I’d done anything other than almost die in an abandoned building that was on fire. If that econ professor hadn’t been out jogging and pulled me out…well…I guess in some ways I was really lucky. My parents got me a lawyer that threatened a countersuit big enough that everything went away, but it still left me without a college or a plan until next fall.
I spent some time back at home, but I was restless there. I love my parents, but I don’t think they believe me either. They don’t say anything about it any more, but there’s a tension between us now that…well, I needed to get away from that.
So I moved to Austin. I’m already admitted for the fall, and I’m working in the school bookstore part-time, with the goal of converting it to a full-time work-study position in August. I haven’t made any real friends yet, but that’s okay. I’ve kind of wanted to be alone since…well, since the day I met her.
I know I’m not crazy. I didn’t have a psychotic break or hallucination. Whatever happened in that chapel, it was real. She was real.
Most of the time, I’m relieved that I escaped the fire. Most days, when I think about her bottomless eyes and her rough, tender voice pulling me in, my heart flutters with fear and I suppress a shudder. I try to push the thoughts away until I can breathe again.
But some nights…some nights I don’t sleep so good. I go out walking, my mind restless and my heart filled with some unknown thundering need. I travel aimlessly, roving miles from home at the whim of the ground beneath me and the breeze at my back. At first, I would just go for an hour and then return home, tired and finally able to sleep.
Then I started staying out later. Walking farther. Moving with some mysterious purpose I don’t understand as my eyes search the shadows and my ears listen for some sign of…what? For some time, I didn’t know.
And then last night, I heard people screaming and laughing.
It was faint—coming from a couple of streets over at least. It was past three in the morning and everything else was still, but I could hear the clear and steady murmur of people in the distance. Lots of people, all talking, yelling, squealing.
I moved toward the sound like a starving dog scenting its survival.
It took a few minutes, but I found where the noise was coming from. It was a dingy alley, piled high with garbage and broken crates from the restaurant and bar that were next door. There was no one on the street outside, let alone this alley, and yet I could still hear them all as I moved forward in the semi-dark. By the time I was halfway back, I had to pull out my phone to see anything. More trash—I thought I saw the furtive movement of a rat in one bag and forced myself to ignore it. I had to stay alert. I had to be careful. But also had to know what…
Resting on a pile of old liquor boxes was a speaker. It’d been painted red and orange once upon a time, but it was the patches of darker rust that caught my light. The sounds…the lure…was coming from that, though I realized now I wasn’t really hearing the crowd with my ears.
I was hearing it with my heart.
I caught another movement at the corner of my vision, and when I looked up, I saw her standing there. She smiled, and I found myself wanting to run to her, but somehow I didn’t quite dare. Instead, I just listened as she spoke. Told me where I needed to go and what I needed to do. Whispered things that were just for me.
I’ll end this here. The sun is coming up and I’ve found the gas station. My eyes burned with blowing sand as I crossed to the store, ignoring the cashier’s greeting as I headed to a little wooden stand filled with colorful pamphlets. At the bottom, tucked behind a sheaf of papers advertising a cowboy museum, I found what I was looking for. My heart was pounding as I went back to the car, and I can feel my excitement growing as I unfold the faded, greasy paper and find the map that points the way. I don’t think it’s far.
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