text: A card clicked against the spoke as Jackie chased her brother down the hill. The blacktop was hot and the handlebars wobbled as she sped up, sweat dripping from her forehead and slicking the handles. Jason whooped beside her and attempted to remove his hands from the bike, each try dilating her heart beats before he snatched them again. They both laughed loudly and nervously, letting the wind carry away their concerns as it whipped past. The sun shone high in the lapis Texas sky, burning itself away above an indifferent people. Jackie and Jason flew past a man getting into his car and he swore at them but they didn’t hear. A woman with her hair tied behind her head and a skirt that shifted like wheat in the breeze was walking up the hill and the brother turned to watch her go and stopped pedaling as he passed. She smiled at the kids and Jason smiled back but Jackie had started barking at him to watch where he was going. He just guffawed like a fool. After they reached the base of the hill they slowed and rode down the street idly, watching the birds and waving to cars as they passed. They stopped at the intersection and looked at the gas station before running across the street alongside their bikes. There was a middle aged man there getting gas in a beat up truck the color of rust, and Jackie could not tell where the oxidized metal ended and the paint began. “Hey Mr. Miller. Sure is a day out today,’ said Jason as leaned the bike against his leg. “Oh,” he said as he turned and saw the sweaty kids, greeting them with a warm smile. “Yeah, I guess it sure is. Hotter'n hell yesterday, though. Nice to have a break.” “Yes sir it is. What do you got going today?” The man gestured to the bed of his truck that was full of cement blocks and 2x4s. “My shed is sinking on me, figure I better fix it before it gets too bad. No better way to spend a Saturday like this than cooking in a crawlspace. No rest for the wicked, I suppose.” “No sir,” Jason said and they both chuckled. Mr. Miller hung up the gas nozzle and opened the truck door. “What about you kids? What is your pops up to?” “He’s at home sleeping, the refinery has him on nights the next two weeks. Like a graveyard at home,” Jackie said. They all waved at a car that was pulling out of the gas station and Mr. Miller hopped into his truck and shut the door. “Well, I know what that’s like,” he said as he cranked the window down. “My father worked the refinery when I was your age. Not too much time left for family, but they pay you to be there.” Jackie squinted at the sun and Jason nodded. “Alright, I’ll catch you kids later. Say hey to your dad.” The truck came to life and rumbled away and the siblings waved as they turned and walked up to the gas station. Their bikes were dropped haphazardly by the door while they went in to rummage amongst the wares. Jackie grabbed a bag of chips and ripped them open, crunching with her mouth open as they opened every cooler again and again in search of the perfect drink. A few minutes later they slammed assorted coins and crumpled bills on the counter and then they were laying in the grass by the road, partaking of their convenience store feast like royal successors that were made to be attended. Jason gnawed on a piece of jerky and Jackie gulped an orange soda that perspired in her hand. She looked around at nothing and listened to the cars stop and go at the four-way. “What do you want to do next?” Jason said as he stuffed an empty wrapper into a plastic bag. “I don’t know.” She chewed and took another drink. “Maybe ride down the hill again?” “Sure. Figure it’s about two or so.” “Man, I hate having to ride back up that hill.” She tossed the expired bottle towards the bag but missed and it hit the ground by Jason. He frowned at her and set it in the bag. “Well, I suppose we could ride the hill one more time, then just go the long way home.” He popped a twinkie in his mouth and washed it down with a swig of tea. “Take Spencer or something,” he chewed. Jackie laughed, “Whatever. I know you only want to take Spencer cause that Livingstone girl lives out there.” “The Livingstone girl has a name, and it's Mary. Plus,” he pointed at her with the remainder of the twinkie, “we both know I am out of her league.” “You got that right,” Jackie scoffed, “she ain’t even cute.” Jason looked offended but tried to hide it as he put the rest of the trash in the bag and busied his hands. “Here, I’ll take it. I gotta pee anyways.” Jackie stood and wiped off the butt of her pants before she took the bag and headed back towards the gas station. She threw the trash into the stinking black can and yanked the door open, the timeless sound of a bell dinging as the only greeting. Looking along the back walls until she found the sign that read ‘RESTROOM’, she headed that way. Knocking once at the door she opened it without reply. The mirror was old and dirty and bore inscriptions that made her blush, but her pale cheeks were already red from the midday sun. She splashed some water on her face to wash away the sweat, leaving behind ruddy freckles and the taste of salt on her lips. Her hands dried in her hair as she pulled her ponytail through again and fixed flyaways that would never be made right. She used the bathroom and rose, washing her hands and thinking about Mr. Miller covered in spiderwebs beneath his old shed. Before she reached for the paper towel there was a loud crash, something heavy and unmovable that had never been heard in all the earth one hundred years past. Unsure if the sound was from the building itself, Jackie opened the door and walked up to the counter where the gas attendant was clutching her shirt with mouth agape and eyes locked out the window. Jackie tried looking through the window by the door, long obscured by stands of cheap candy and old stickers peeled and discolored. “What in the world...” she said to herself as she pushed outside. Immediately she looked to the grass where the bikes lay like some adolescent detritus. Jason was not there. Jackie became acutely aware of the ding of the bell behind her and the fact that her hands were still wet and her mouth was not. She was a moment frozen in time, where all prospects of horror became fixed, the fear in her mind a hound cut loose. The sounds of someone shouting and another crying thawed her as she looked up to see Jason among a growing crowd in the middle of the road, surrounding two blasted and damned shapes of metal that were once vehicles but no one would have ever known. Even now the knowledge seemed irreconcilable to Jackie as she approached the desolate scene. Closest to the gas station was a dog that was ejected through the window of a vehicle, and it was not dead but she knew it would not live and she continued by its whimpering and ground form. The air was cloudy and tasted like plastic and dust that was meant to stay buried but was now exposed among the street, and when she got closer she saw bits of a young woman that were both unknowable yet unmistaken. Jackie looked upon the pieces that no eye was made to look upon and she saw the face of a dead woman who looked at peace with her indecency. She heard crying but knew it was not from this demolished machine, so she turned to the other. Following the noise she came to the overturned truck and crouched among some others that had come rushing to the accident. A man was hanging there by his seatbelt but his face was grim and quiet and he held onto an arm that ended in an ostial spike dripping blood like the first weapon used against man. “I have to help them,” she muttered to herself as she sought the source of the crying, a caretaker roaming the wreckage for none. She found Jason kneeling by a person spread out on the pavement as clay waiting for the furnace. His white v-neck was more red than not and his hands were covered in blood and his forearms bore tiny cuts from glass where he had laid to pull the unconscious man from the inverted cabin. His arms pumped and he counted somberly as he stopped to blow air into the hewn effigy. People stood around and watched the boy pump and count off - a living metronome. Jackie knew he was dead and maybe Jason did too but the crowd did not stop him and nor did she. The crying was growing louder and soon it was wailing, and Jackie turned back and forth looking and she yelled for someone to shut the dog up but the dog had already expired on the hot asphalt. Soon Jason was holding her and telling her that it would be alright, and she saw that a white corner of his shirt still pure of blood was soiled now with her tears. Someone placed a coat over the dead man in the street and the man with the shattered arm was out and laying in the grass sobbing. He had met Jackie’s gaze as they both cried and neither of them would look away and she knew him then as well as she knew Jason or would ever know another. “I got you Jackie, I got you baby,” Jason repeated. \` \` \` Jackie wiped her flyaways with blood streaked hands, the revolver shaking in her white grip. She looked at the chamber she knew only held two shells and swore. Jason was propped against the wall holding insides that hung with macabre inversion. A bite on his thigh pumped blood onto the moldy floor and the door slammed time and time again. She squeezed her eyes shut and put her head against his and could feel his forehead burn with fever already. Guttural roars and chiropteran clicks sounded down the halls and another gunshot went off somewhere that Jackie did not know or care. “Listen to me. Look, Listen to me,” Jason eyes rolled beneath his gas mask as he fought for consciousness. “Jackie, you gotta. Don’t let me turn.” Jackie heard crying and knew it was not her and she held Jason close. She tried to speak but her voice betrayed her. Jason coughed and blood coated the inside of his mask so he pulled it off and Jackie did not try to stop him. They sat there for a moment looking at each other through the acrylic visor like a screen bridging the afterlife and Jason took her hand. “Don’t worry. I am right here. I’m right here with you.” Jackie began to sob and the pounding at the door continued. “I got you Jackie.” Jason said as he dropped her hand. He fell unconscious and she knew she only had a few moments. Through tears she set the pistol down on the floor and took off her jacket that was tattered and rank and bore a host of stains whose originators lay dead or forgotten. She placed it over his face and picked up the revolver and cocked the hammer before bringing it back down. The gun bucked and filled the room with smoke, tasting of iron and burnt powder. A blackened ring was singed into the jacket, forming some necromantic eclipse worshipped by pagans that once walked the earth and then were gone, now to return again.