Prompt. Sticks and Stones.
FADE TO GREY.
Leonard Berlin, a successful screenwriter, walked barefoot along the lit path to his lap pool. In seven years, he had earned success in his profession, esteem in the community, and most of the creature comforts he could have hoped for in the foothills above Los Angeles. Leo had just finished his final draft of a futuristic new screenplay due to the studio in the next three days. He was mentally and physically exhausted and needed to clear his mind before sleep. There was a pervasive smell of burning wood in the air. It was like that from a campfire. He glanced over the low wall that enclosed the pool. In the distance, he could see the seasonal fires slowly eating away at some of the most expensive real estate in Southern California.
The sunset to the West was an eerie orange-brown. On a clear night, the moon would have been visible. He remembered the beautiful orb reflected on the pool's dark waters when he first bought the house in the hills. It had taken his breath away. He never used the pool lights when he swam laps, preferring to imagine himself swimming through space to the stars! He walked down Grecian marble steps into the water. Ripples radiated out from where his feet broke the surface. It felt refreshingly cool and clean.
Leo slipped his swim goggles over his eyes. “Let’s go with the flow,” he said aloud to himself, pushing off from the side of the pool. First extending his right arm forward, his hand leading like the tip of a spear. He rolled his body to the left, kicked once with his legs. Then he rolled his body to the right, extending the left arm as he stroked and kicked. On the third stroke, he rolled again and took a breath. All the while, his body was mostly underwater, moving forward magically as if being pulled to the opposite wall. Leo loved the beautiful efficiency of this style of swimming. He moved with the grace of an aquatic mammal.
His girlfriend Nadia loved to watch him swim laps. “You swim like a seal,” she would say, teasing him. Nadia was too much of a distraction. She was plenty of fun down by the pool or up in the bedroom. But, earlier in the week, she had agreed to stay with her actress roommate down in the valley so that he could concentrate on the script.
While Leo swam, he focused on his breathing, one breath every third stroke. It was a meditation. He felt his mind release the pressure along with the constant stream of bubbles from his nose and mouth. The deep end of the pool was ominously dark this evening. There were no stars to be reflected.
How long had he been swimming? Half an hour? An hour? He had lost track of time. His watch and phone lay upon his writing desk in the den. He stood up in the shallow end and walked back to the steps. His muscles were deliciously tired now. His cold, wet skin longed for the warm towel draped on the back of the patio chair.
The smell of smoke hung heavier in the air now. There was a boom in the distance, and all of the lights went out. Perhaps it was another transformer? Someone would be up late working on that tonight. Leo coughed, toweled off, and then made his way back to the house in the dark.
Wet feet kissed a path across the kitchen’s terracotta floor tiles imported from Spain. Leo poured a tall glass of filtered water, followed by a shot of vodka still cold from the silent freezer. “Cheers,” he said to himself in the dark kitchen. Leo slipped off his speedos in the bathroom and felt his way to the unmade bed, still smelling of Nadia. In one fluid motion, he rolled forward onto the bed, his head nested on his pillow, and he was asleep.
In the middle of the night, Leo startled in the dark. In his dream, he heard a low rumbling outside the bedroom’s glass walls. At first, it seemed like thunder, but it repeated like slow footsteps. To his horror, he saw the back fence, the lemon tree, and the flowering hedge in the back yard covered in sparks and smoking embers. And then he saw it!
It was monstrously big. The legs, thick as large tree trunks, were as tall as the house's first story. The beast walked past his windows; its long tail suspended high above the ground, slowly following the body. The only sound it made came from the impossibly large feet.
As Leo lay on the bed watching the enormous creature pass, he felt his spine freeze in terror. He had not experienced this kind of fear since he was a child, down in the basement of his family’s modest home, watching scary monster movies late at night on a Zenith black and white TV. His animal brain wanted to run, but his legs wouldn't move. He tried to scream, but he had stopped breathing. He squeezed his eyes shut and gasped for air. He wept and curled into the fetal position until he fell back asleep.
The roar of a low-flying helicopter woke him. A man’s voice, exasperated with urgency, called over a PA, "This area is in the direct path of the wildfires. You must evacuate your homes immediately. This is an emergency! All residents must evacuate now!”
Leo watched helicopter overhead through the bedroom window. The backyard was not on fire… yet. He saw no large footprints or evidence of a large creature. But there was ash falling from the sky!
He threw on some jeans, a t-shirt, his loafers. He put his computer and back-up drive in his backpack, along with his phone and chargers. He scooped up his grab-and-go bag. He took a quick pee and grabbed his speedos off the sink. There was still no power. He got a banana in the kitchen and pulled a warm bottle of water out a silent refrigerator.
The air outside now was almost unbreathable. On the way to the beamer, Leo passed the pool. He stopped by the patio table and picked up his swim goggles. The rectangle of water was now covered with a fine, grey ash.
Leonard Berlin, the successful screenwriter, took one last look at his pool and the house he had lived in for the last seven years. He put his gear into the trunk of the car, and then in one fluid movement, he slipped in behind the wheel and pulled out of the driveway. He joined the line of cars and trucks full of evacuees and their quickly chosen belongings. Smoke filled the view in his mirror. “Fade to grey,” he said aloud to himself. On route to the valley, he made a quick call to check on Nadia. Then he left a text for his agent “Hey Stanley. The script is ready, but I want to talk to you about a new story idea and this one is set many millions of years in the past.
THE END.
Copyright © ℗ 2021 by Ken Oguss
1201 words.
FADE TO GREY. edited, rev 3.
