Chapter Text
Andrea stood silently, looking over the corpse that used to be her grandmother’s home. If she squinted, she could just imagine it the way she remembered as a child. Tall and sturdy, if a bit sloppily painted from the many hands of her and her young cousins sloshing the pewter blue paint along the lower half of the house. The shutters were a bright and cheery off-white that her father spent weekends wiping down after mowing the grass in the summer, while she clambered monkey like between the three large oak trees that framed the back of the house.
Blinking destroyed the illusion. It barely had anything resembling walls anymore. The roof was gone, and those clean off white shutters Andrea had found so happy lay scattered along the ground, smoke stained and splintered. Not even those beautiful trees had been spared from the fire’s devastation. Their trunks bore scorch marks, the uppermost branches that had been her childhood playplace were gone.
Her beloved childhood home was a shamble. And there wasn’t any reason for it to be. At least, none that made sense to her.
The sound of gravel crunching returned her to the present. She turned toward the drive, long brown hair whipping sharply in the cool February wind. The man making his way slowly over was vaguely familiar to her--young, maybe his early thirties--with a classic rock t-shirt. He smiled sadly at her.
“Hey, you Andrea, right?” The accent was just local enough to put her at ease. It had the strange bounces of an energetic barn dance, the dips and low sounds still energetic despite the quiet tone.
“Yeah,” She nodded. “Sorry, you seem familiar, but…”
“I wasn’t here too long before you moved out,” He flashed a sympathetic smile. “Sam Richard. I live just down the way,” He pointed to the house several doors over. “Saw your car here, and I thought I’d come see if you needed anything.”
“Thanks.” She nodded. “I just came to see the damage.”
“Not much left.” He mused, coming to join her. “It was a big fire. Got bigger then them trees.”
“Doesn’t make any sense…” Andrea scowled at the husk. “It shouldn’t have been able to get the out of control without someone seeing the smoke…”
Sam grimaced. “What they tell you happened?”
“Electrical.” She shook her head. “But that wiring wasn’t that old…And Dad kept the accelerants in the shed.”
“That’s what they told you huh…” Sam glanced about guiltily. “Look, I probably should keep my mouth shut, but I know if it was my daddy, I’d want to know,”
Andrea glanced sharply at him. “Know what?”
“Thing was, the wife was home. She says there was some kind of gunshots and a bunch of airplanes flying real low.”
Instantly Andrea dismissed that information. This was the country, and this was the south. There was a private airport not but a few miles off, and shooting guns out here was as common as driving a car. That wife of his must be from up north--didn’t know much about the area.
“Now I know,” Sam put his hands up. “But she said heard it, looked outside and saw a plane light the place up.”
“Uh-huh…” Andrea looked back towards the house. “She tell the first responders that?”
“Yeah…” Sam sounded guilty. “They told her she was crazy.”
“You believe her?” She asked.
“I know it sounds crazy, but my wife’s honest to a fault. And your daddy was a bit crazy himself. We used to see him haul all kinds of junk over the yard, out there tapping away at dirt and coming and going at ungodly hours.”
“Occupational hazard.” Andrea responded automatically. It was the phrase her father had loved to tout whenever someone--usually her mother--complained about his odd habits.
Sam grunted. “Working for the government’ll get you dead quicker than anything else.”
Andrea frowned. Her mother used to say the same thing. “He hasn’t--wasn’t working for the government anymore. He retired out of that when I was in Highschool.” She gave him a sideways look. “Mostly he liked earthworms.”
“Strange thing to work on.” The man scowled. “You sure he didn’t piss off the police? You know they’re corrupt as hell around here.”
“Yeah.” She did know. All too well. “But he didn’t.”
“Well somebody had it out for him,” Sam pointed to the streetlights. “He had them all over the place.” Andrea squinted up, catching sight of the security camera mounted just under the light source. That was new.
“I see…” She looked back to Sam. “How many would you say he had?”
“Least ten of `em.” The neighbor shook his head. “Saw him take them out of the box and put `em out like they were Christmas lights.”
“I see.” She looked back to the house. “Guess they don’t work anymore.”
“Damn shame.” Sam sighed. “Might’ve proved who did it. Then again, cops being what they are, they probably would’ve destroyed the footage too.”
“Hmmm.” She hummed noncommittally.
“Well look, I’ve gotta get back.” Sam shuffled. “But I just wanted to see if you needed anything.” He glanced away awkwardly. “I’m sorry for your loss. He might’ve been a bit kooky, but he was a good guy.”
“Yeah…” She gave him the barest of nods.
“Nice talking to you,” He waved. “I’ll see you around.”
He was several paces away when Andrea let out the long sigh she’d been holding in, along with the quiet and bitter wish. “I hope not.”
It wasn’t fair of her, she knew. But she’d been in no mood for people the past week. Had she not seen the devastation, fire wrought on human flesh she might be tempted to light the next well wisher. It wasn’t their fault, she supposed. Societal expectations demanded to be fulfilled. People had to remind her of her loss, give her their platitudes and various anecdotes--some worthy, some not--and the “You look just like him” and other insulting reminders. She had looked like him. The same full eyebrows, just a bit too thick for convention, and comically expressive. Their eyes the same wide shape, hazel and Kaleidoscopal, the way they could twitch their noses at people, and their long nimble fingers.
The memory of his dying moments haunted Andrea. He was rasping, too dehydrated to sob from the pain. His eyes were all the wrong colors too. Dark and wild, not the calm calculating ones, or the wide eyed curious ones. His dark skin was gone, left with only patches of it along his knees and palms. He’d looked less like a human than a nightmare.
“Andrea,” He croaked. “Andrea you shouldn’t see me like this…”
“Daddy…” She’d fought back tears. “Your my dad. It doesn’t matter.”
It shouldn’t have. These were his final moments and she knew it. But it still haunted her.
“Baby,” He’d whimpered. “I’m sorry...I’m so sorry...They’ll be after you.”
The doctor had warned her he wasn’t talking sense.
“It’s okay, Daddy,” She’d tried to reassure him. “I’ll be alright.”
“You’ve got to get to the Prime…” He begged. “Promise me you’ll go straight to the Prime.”
“I promise,” She lied.
He seemed to relax some at that, the manic terror in his eyes falling into a cloud of listless pain. “I’m so sorry…”
“It’s okay, Daddy.” She repeated.
“I love you,” He rasped. “More than the stars or the sea…”
“Or the mountains, or the trees,” She continued the rhyme. “That’s how much I love thee.”
“Mountains…” Her father hissed. “Mt. Saint Helen.”
“Daddy?”
His eyes flicked back to her, tears forming. “The Prime.”
“I’ll find it.”
“Andrea…” He hiccuped. She couldn’t tell if it was the expression on his face, or the lack of skin and eyebrows that made him seem so mournful.
Moments later she’d been ushered out so the doctors could work. She’d wanted to believe in miracles. She desperately wished with all her heart, on every star she saw painted in the gift shop windows, and the four leafed clovers being wheeled in for Saint Patrick’s day.
There was no miracle.
Now she found herself wandering the burned out hull, tapping the few whole items. The old organ her father had loved to plink on, and had taught her to play was a charred mess. Her father’s favorite chair, and her grandmothers, which they had refused to throw out after her passing were gone. The pictures of their life together gone. Her foot crunched on a pane of glass.
She almost sobbed in relief as she stooped over to scoop up the crisp photograph. It was half burnt and reeked of smoke, but there was her father, years younger and looking up at the camera, a bundle in his arms. Andrea tucked it neatly into her wallet, thanking whatever god had given her this small piece.
Andrea continued through the house, crunching over broken glass, and wondering if there was anything else worth salvaging. After fifteen minutes she moved out to the shed, unable to take the smell any longer.
She took out her keys, thumbing through for the ratchet shaped one. Her father’s personal sense of humor shining through. Part of her was hoping to find some of his specimens. While she wasn’t much for science or worms, she wouldn’t mind releasing her father’s subjects back into the wild. Perhaps thanking them would help her let go. At least her father’s work wasn’t a total loss.
But as she opened the door and flicked on the lights she saw no signs of earthworms. None of her father’s equipment sat out. Andrea’s shoulders slumped. Not even the worms had been spared.
Something in the corner flickered. She looked up to see a mounted camera. It whirred softly. There was a series of clicks. Was the damned thing still active?
“Great…”
“Voice recognition: Confirmed.” A mechanic voice chimed. “Welcome to the lab, Andrea.”
“Uh…”
She nearly leapt out the door as the floor shifted. She was briefly reminded of a ride she’d taken with her parents. Her mother had screamed in horror, while Andrea and her father cackled in sheer delight at the slow descent.
Now as the floor crawled down, Andrea could see the lights coming on below. There was a concrete tunnel going through to another room. And at the end, waiting for her, was a bulky, human sized robot--one she realized she recognized.
“Sparky?”