The Listeners

Kyle didn’t dare breathe. The listeners were there. He could not see them in the darkness, but he knew they were there somewhere, craning their necks- their ears- waiting for him to make the slightest sound. He felt them nearing, the usual crisp tickle to the air was dampened as if by a warm, lazy seat cushion. He had to find his brother.

Kyle’s brother, Ned, was reading a book about motorcycles. Little Neddy was passionately interested in thirty-eight of the fifty Lemmington Motorized Bicycles in the technical journal clasped in his small hands. Soon, Neddy would be passionately interested in thirty-nine (as he progressed to the thirty-ninth illustrated page). Twenty minutes ago, he had not really been sure what a motorcycle was. Now, sitting on a tree stump protruding from the floor of what once was a public school, he was becoming a Lemmington enthusiast.

I need to warn Neddy. Kyle had slipped away quietly, but he wasn’t sure he had gone unnoticed. He had been told the listeners were so sensitive they could hear thoughts. Not in the sense of reading one’s mind, but actually hearing the sound of someone thinking. Kyle grew more terrified imagining each thought that raced through his brain creaking like traitorous floorboard. He wondered for a moment if he should run home and get help. He already felt like a coward. He had sat in a locker for fifteen long minutes after he had first glimpsed the listeners. Please, let Ned be ok.

Neddy was focused intently on page forty-three. It was more detailed than the others, describing a controversy about one of the bikes. Ned couldn’t quite read or understand much of the small article, but he sounded out the words and slowly began to piece together a few facts:

The bike on page forty-three was a popular bike. (”Popular” was a word Neddy had heard used by his parents, he was pretty sure it meant the bike was very large). Neddy gathered that the Lemmington bike makers had sued (yelled at?) another bike maker for copying the sound their bike made. During the argument, the bike makers had together chosen a word that they felt best imitated the sound of the bike.

Kyle rushed into remnants of the school library. He had left Ned in the main hall, he knew his brother had the propensity to wander among the shelves. Sometimes there would still be a book in tact for him to take back home. Kyle stepped over a few toppled computer desks and saw Ned. Kyle froze, and then everything happened at once.

Neddy had felt a change in the air. At first he just thought it was just getting late in the day, or that a cloud was passing over- but it was too muffling. And then suddenly, they were there. The large wiry forms were right next two him. Three of them. He knew the stories about the listeners, he didn’t like them. A sob quickly formed in his throat. Then he saw Kyle step from around a corner, eyes wide.

Neddy exploded out of the hall in a rush of loose paper and shrubbery. Kyle jumped back as Ned soared over a computer monitor and ran headlong down the connecting hallway. Kyle only bristled for a moment, watching the three listeners writhe and cock their spindly heads, before he joined Ned in the sprint.

Neddy was running as fast as he could, but it was not fast enough. Kyle quickly caught up with Neddy and scooped him up into his arms. Something ripped at his shirt, but Kyle did not stop or look back. He was going toward the water, toward safety.

Kyle burst outside through the deteriorated front door of Samuel Ellins Elementary and leaped down a row of stairs. He hit the ground hard and kept running. He could see the bridge to town, there would be police there, soldiers, who would help them.

“Kyle…” Neddy’s voice was a slight whisper. He knew they wouldn’t make it, the listeners were fast and getting closer. Their heads oddly askew, watching the two brothers with one eye. They began to reach with long spiny fingers, clasping at Kyle’ shirt. Kyle struggled fruitlessly as the air grew still and thick around them.

“POTATO POTATO POTATO POTATO!!” Ned’s voice seared through the air in the distinct piercing tenor of a petrified toddler. The listeners cringed, their fingers ripping from Kyle’s back to their own ears. One listener tumbled to the ground, tripping from the shock while running.

“POTATOPOTATOPOTATOPOTATOPOTATOPOTATO!!!” Ned relentlessly continued to scream the word faster and faster like an engine, until the world itself was lost within it’s own repitition. Kyle stumbled and redoubled his efforts, startled from Ned’s outburst. The air around him swirled to life and with it he could hear the deep, confident calls of the men on the bridge.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 6:05 am and is filed under Story-a-week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.