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s-harpermarcel · 1 year

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Blue, green, yellow, orange, red.

Funny how fluorescent lights made every color neon and dull simultaneously. Flashy advertisements, bright colors, bold fonts screaming look, buy, buy, buy, until it all blended in with the humming of the lights and the fridges. Or maybe Amos had just been staring blankly at the shelves for too long. It was always a sign that he needed to shut up and go to bed when he started waxing poetic like he was in middle school again.

Blue, yellow, orange.

He had worked at this gas station outside of town on the side of this middle-of-nowhere highway for most of high school now, and though he just switched over to the night shift, he found that the graveyard wasn’t any different from the day. It was preferable, honestly. His boss, an annoyingly peppy 50-year-old man who peaked in high school and was still chasing his varsity football glory days, didn't put up a fuss about rescheduling. In fact, he barely let Amos finish talking before enthusiastically agreeing. His boss definitely viewed it as “protecting the sad disabled Jewish girl from the big mean jocks that tried to jump her that past July,” instead of actually listening to anything that came out of Amos’ mouth, but frankly he was past the point of caring enough to be annoyed. His boss never came in this late, and neither did anyone else, so it was a win in his book.

Yellow, red.

Even when the animal mutilations turned into serial murders in the tiny town of Whitewater, working graveyard was a breeze. Technically he wasn’t supposed to be working this late, especially not alone, but Buddy System be damned! Amos had propane and shitty off-brand chips to sell! Besides, it had been a whole two months since the murders began, and Amos hadn’t so much as caught a glimpse of the so-called “Whitewater Ripper.” So, he closed up the store, shut off the lights, locked the door, and hopped on his bike to ride back to his house on the edge of town without a second thought.

Black, blue, purple, green.

He rode his bike along the highway past the soybean fields, completely barren save for him. There were no streetlights, only the dim light of the stars and half-moon, and the light on his bike. His headphones were busted, so there was no sound except for the wheels against the pavement. Not even the crickets sang.

Black, blue, purple, yellow.

Amos was crossing the bridge over the Whitewater River into town when a light caught his eye from beneath the bridge. Assuming it was freshmen smoking under the bridge, he barely turned his head before dismissing it. He was halfway across the bridge when the rock struck his front wheel, causing him to lose his balance and fall. Whispering curses, Amos sat up and looked around, finding not a rock, but a whole chunk of concrete lodged in the spokes. Okay, what the fuck. This wasn’t him being clumsy; some asshole definitely threw that at him on purpose. He stood and turned on his phone’s flashlight and walked to the railing. “Hey man, what’s your fucking problem?” He called out, leaning over the railing.

Blue, yellow.

He barely registered that something gripped his ankle before it yanked, sending him crashing onto the pavement, dropping his phone and hitting his head. He only had time to gasp before it pulled him off of the bridge and into the shallow water below.

Yellow.

Amos coughed and sputtered, splashing and stumbling to his feet, blinking through the throbbing in his skull and the sudden yellow light. Then, he saw it. A woman a few inches taller than him, completely naked, dusty white skin clinging to her bones and wet greasy yellow hair tied in a tangled ponytail. She didn’t hold a light, she was the light, her entire skeleton glowing neon yellow through her skin as she stood there, legs bent and crooked like she didn’t know to stand. She stared at him and she smiled, a big, toothy grin illuminating her face, corners of her too-large mouth pinned to her ears. She began to laugh, and Amos ran.

Yellow, yellow, yellow.

Amos stumbled through the ankle-high water, letting out a cry of panic as he stepped off the concrete platform, the water suddenly coming up to his knees. He made for the bank, hoping, praying that if he made it back to the road, this thing wouldn’t follow him into town. She laughed, louder. A hand seized the back of his hair.

Red, blue.

He was shoved down into the water, splitting his forehead open on the rocks.

Red.

He pushed himself back up, gasping for air.

Red, red, red.

It bashed his head into the rock, over, and over, and over.

Red, red, red.

His eye caught a jagged corner of a rock. He screamed, only to be muffled by the water as he was shoved back under.

Red, red, red.

This was how he was going to die.

Black.

He remembered when the angel first fell into his backyard, the dazzling kaleidoscope it left as it streaked across the sky and plummeted down, down into the earth.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

Its body was alabaster white, limbs scattered across the lawn, the charred outline of wings burnt into the grass and glowing.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

He remembered watching as it opened its eyes, all of them, streaked diagonally across its body, glowing that same neon yellow. He remembered watching it string itself back together, like a ball-jointed doll with invisible joints, air between body between arm between elbow between hand.

Yellow.

It wasn’t the same yellow. The angel was good. The angel was kind. The angel was strange, and frightening, but not like this. The angel ate the cicadas in the yard, not the bone marrow from his body.

Red.

Dear G-d, this was how he was going to die. They were going to find him on the bank, ripped open and discarded like a candy wrapper.

Black.

Amos didn’t feel the Whitewater Ripper tear his flesh. Instead, he felt the cushion of the chair, the leather of the upholstery. He didn’t smell the blood, only tobacco.

Black, brown, grey.

He opened his eye to find himself in what looked like a 1920’s jazz lounge. What an odd way for his life to flash before his eyes. He had seen the inside of the town bar before, but it didn’t look like this.

Black, white.

“What a nasty little thing. Sorry about your eye, by the way. Not much I could really do about that.” A voice, low and smooth, came from his left. In another armchair sat a tall, handsome man with smooth black skin like obsidian and piercing white pupils. He was dressed in a simple black suit, and his locs were braided down his back. “You look tense. Go ahead and make yourself comfortable, you’ll be here for a minute. Want something to drink?” He held out his hand, and a glass of dark liquor materialized in it.

“G-d?” Amos finally stuttered out.

The man laughed. “No, but I understand your confusion.” The whiskey glass disappeared as he stretched out his hand. “You can call me Don.”

Hesitantly, Amos shook his hand. “I’m Amos.”

“I know. Good choice for a name, it suits you.”

“…Am I dead?”

“For now.”

Amos fell silent.

Black, brown, white, grey.

Don took a drag of his cigar, and quietly sang along to the jazz playing from an unseen gramophone.

“Where am I?” Amos asked.

“Limbo,” Don said. “Did a little bit of redecorating before you arrived, though. Thought my current decor would be a little overwhelming for you, so I downsized back to something a little more comfortable.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’d love to explain, but there isn’t enough time left. Maybe next time.”

“What?”

White.

Amos woke up in a bed, staring up at white ceiling tiles and cringing in the sudden light. Something was beeping, and he opened his mouth to ask what it was, but all that came out was a sputtering cough that made his chest ache and his head pound. Suddenly there were voices shouting for him, and two more soft-spoken voices chiming in.

Red, blue.

His sister’s head popped into view, eyes rimmed with red and still in her rumpled pajamas. She was talking, but Amos wasn’t listening. A latex-gloved hand on her shoulder gently pulled her away to give him room to breathe.

Yellow, green.

His head rolled to the side, and he saw the angel sitting in a chair beside the hospital bed wearing one of his mom’s sweaters. He stared into its yellow eyes, and it stared back, knowingly.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.

His three friends flooded into the room, all still in their pajamas, crying and talking over one another. His friend’s mother and a man in blue followed behind, notepad and pen poised for questioning. Amos closed his eyes. All he knew was that it was time to quit his job.

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