The Waiting Room

“Where are we?”

Chance and Dylan walked side by side, surfing on their silent footfalls. Streetlights bowed overhead, spraying frigid light across the tarmac.

“My neighborhood.”

Dylan stooped to pick up a small white rock. He aimed and chucked it at an garbage can. The rock glanced off the aluminum drum without complaint and bounced away, out of sight. Sky here was nothing than a black ceiling, devoid of light or ornamentation. The air was bland and still as a headstone. This place was wrong footed, like a waiting room without a doors.

“No, Dylan.” Chance stepped in front of the kid. “It may look like your neighborhood” although Chance felt no chill, she shivered. “but it isn't.” She looked around. “Where is this place?”

All told, Dylan didn't know really where they were. So much had happened tonight, he still struggled to piece it together. Light from the bathroom, deep in the night. His tender ears throbbing in time with the dripping tap as he lay in his parents' bed, next to his mother's soft pastel shape. How could he describe the pain the insistent noise caused him? He'd tried so many times. Battles lost. Words that never came and if they did, didn't serve him, anyway. Over and over until he couldn't stand it anymore and snapped, punching and kicking in the bed like a boy possessed, striking his sleeping mother. His dad suddenly filling the doorway, blocking the light but bringing a noise all his own. Then the two of them, from the bed to the floor, arms locked around each other in a rough embrace. Dylan was a big boy now, thirteen years old and roundabouts 197 lbs. But dad was pretty big, too. In his father's arms, Dylan saw stars explode behind his eyelids like dull red fireworks. The sight seemed to take his breath away. Dylan gasped for air. Darkness covered him like a cloak, put a shadowfinger to his lips.

After that, this place.

Dylan seemed to consider the question. He frowned lightly and shrugged. One hundred percent teen aged boy all over.

“Dunno.”

Houses paraded up and down the street in the dark, lit from within yet flat as magazine pages.

“I mean, it looks like my street.” Eyes wide, he looked all around “But I could be wrong. Hey, I need to tell you something.” The pair sat down together on the curb. Chance stuffed her hands in her pockets and watched Dylan expectantly. As he spoke, he cast his gaze upward, reading the matte black sky.

“Not sure why I know this” he laughed under his breath “but you need to understand some things about that guy chasing you.”

Chance blanched in the sodium vapor moonlight.

“Patrick? Oh, he's harmless...probably.” she added sotto voce.

Dylan shook his head. Blonde hair folded over his eyes like a veil.

“Not Patrick. It's a weird name. Wuster? Western?”

Goosebumps flocked Chance's arms. Who got chills in an inter-dimensional vacuum, anyway?

“Westerna?” The name rang softly in the air, sharp as fiberglass on the nonexistent breeze.

Dylan nodded. “That sounds right. Anyway, this Westerna guy, he's a stalker, right?”

Dylan's choice of words was almost funny. Why contradict him? This was more than she'd ever heard him speak and the buzz of this realization rang through her limbs like an sudden alarm. It was true. Dylan was a different boy in this place.

“Yea.” Chance kept it short and sweet. “Kinda.”

That was good enough for Dylan. He nodded and carried on. Chance watched his lips moving, his animate affect, crippled with amazement.

“Ok, so this Westerna guy is, like, a big deal. Is he rich or something? Anyway, the deal is, he wants you back. He told me to tell you he's looking for you and he'll find you whether your new boyfriend with the sunglasses hides you away or not.”

“Alex isn't my boyfriend. He's my....”

“Did you used to date this Westerna guy? Seems like an asshole” stated Dylan philosophically as he perused his cuticles, cheeky with newfound ease. He stood and stretched. “Welp, I gotta go.” In no particular hurry, he strolled away from Chance, towards the corner of the street.

Chance powerwalked behind him. “Where are you going?”

Dylan glanced at her over his shoulder and flashed Chance a smile that she felt right down to the bone. Tears clogged her throat. “Y'know. People to meet and stuff.”

“How did you know about Westerna?”

“I saw him. Alex told me about him, too. He's pretty cool, sounds like that guy from 'Shaun of the Dead.'”

“So how the hell can you see Alex?”

Reese smirked benignly and essayed an elegant shrug.

“Some people just see better at night, I guess. Take it easy.”

Arctic glare from the streetlight outlined Dylan like the pop of a flashbulb as he turned the corner.

“Dylan! Wait up!” Chance ran behind him, stumbling into the warm breeze and distant dog barks of an empty suburban street after midnight. Stars shone through the clouds like sparks overhead. She called Dylan's name once more, turning in a full circle. He was gone. In a yard nearby, crickets woke up and chirruped.