Ascent

I

It was already dark, past eight o’clock on Monday night. Fall had by this time of the year announced its firm intention to stay put, as proven by the frosty mornings, barren trees, bouts of cold rain, and chilly nights. In a car traveling north on vacated and pothole-ridden State Highway 33, navigating amongst the curves of forested Ozark hills, sat Audrey Parrish, hands at ten and two, eyes focused intently on the road illuminated by the dim beams of her old car’s headlights. Every so often she would glance in the rearview mirror, hoping to catch Elijah’s eyes staring back at his mother’s and asking him things like “So grandpa said you two had a fun time at the park today, hmm?” and was met with talkative responses at first: “Mhm! There was this girl there with her grandma and they were giving food to the geese. It was bread and the girl’s Grandma Jill said ‘now let the nice boy help you,’ so she gave me some bread and we tore it up in little pieces and threw them on the grass and the geese at it all up! Then we played on the swings.” Eventually Elijah’s excitement waned and he grew quiet and monosyllabic with his answers.
Currently, his head was bowed and his small frame was slumped in his car seat. Audrey knew he wouldn’t wake for anything now. Her own eyelids felt weighted and she found herself blaming it on her own regular lack of sleep and that goddamn second job she’d taken at Ferndale Laundromat just to make enough money to support herself and Elijah. The fact that her father had continuously acted as babysitter while she worked days (and now three evenings a week) helped immensely, but funds were getting tighter and now the medical receptionist thing alone couldn’t do it. She sometimes thought about returning to college to complete her bachelor studies through night class. Or maybe just to get an associate’s. Audrey imagined what it would be like for her to have a husband, Elijah a father. She thought about getting back into the dating scene and her stomach churned with anxiety and disgust. She felt nervous laughter bubbling up despite it and quickly decided that returning to school would be the simpler of the two.
The car was going faster than the speed limit suggested, but Audrey didn’t mind so much, as the highway was rarely patrolled and she considered herself a good safe driver now. She’d been in her very early twenties the first and only time she was involved in any sort of accident, and that was just a fender-bender.
On a hill up ahead, a car in the oncoming lane came into view, its high beams on, apparently oblivious to Audrey’s car and common driver’s courtesy. Audrey swore under her breath at it, and then reminded herself to stop doing that for Elijah’s sake. As the vehicles neared, however, she realized that there was not a hill up ahead at all, that in fact it was a bit of a valley more than anything else. It also seemed to have only one supercharged high beam. Wincing from the brightness and barely able to see the highway, she braked, and when she saw that the intense light was floating in the air, she felt her heart plummet into her stomach. Her car jolted automatically and the check engine light flickered on, followed by the oil light, brake light, and others in sequence until the entire dashboard glowed its myriad green, orange, and red. A second later, the engine itself squealed and died. The object slowed and came up even with the car. Audrey jerkily cranked down the window to plainly see the mass of light hovering in complete silence not thirty feet above the ground past the fence line, over in the open field, three globes of glowing white light arranged in the shape of a triangle underneath, and a single high-powered searchlight shooting straight out from an unseen source at the tip of the corner pointing in the direction opposite Audrey’s northern route. The triangle of lights moved languorously past the car, and then picked up acceleration and altitude until it swept away in a great arc and disappeared behind the line of trees. Audrey realized that she had been staring out the open window for some time now and quickly rolled it up and restarted the ignition. She whipped around to see her son still slumped motionless in his seat. Now more awake than ever, Audrey drove home at speeds that would have unquestionably had her arrested.

II

Audrey played with strands of her long dark hair habitually while the other hand held the telephone up to her left ear. “Yes dad, I’ve got the whole thing set up. You can take Elijah out for ice cream or something tomorrow, and if you want you could allow him just one of the presents you bought him. After I’m done with work I’ll come by and get you both and we’ll head to Chuck E. Cheese’s and open the rest of his presents there. Just make sure you don’t mention that to him. I want it to be a complete surprise. Oh, and don’t let him have too much ice cream. I mean it.”
She heard her father laugh. “Alright! I got it, Audrey. Sometimes you really remind of your mother,” he said, still chuckling. “That’s definitely something she’d have said.”
Audrey went silent. She never knew how to approach the topic of her mother. Her sudden death all those years ago still managed to upset Audrey.
“It’s just amazing to think that my little man is already turning four,” her dad continued. “Has it really been that long?”
“Yeah, he’s growing up quickly. It scares me sometimes.”
“What scares me more is that my daughter is already twenty-four. I’ll be middle-aged before long.”
Audrey grinned as she thought of her father’s white mane of hair. He looked even older than his sixty years. “Ha! You wish you could be forty again, buddy.” Her dad chuckled and she heard him flip on the television.
She had finally come to the thing she least wanted to mention to him. “Dad, I saw something strange on the way home tonight.”
She hesitated, doubting her own sanity and the risk involved in such an admission. Flying saucers were no more real to her than Bigfoot or foolish superstitious practices or some God up above controlling everything. But if there was anyone she knew who would believe her wholeheartedly, it was her father.
She swallowed hard. “I was driving, and these lights appeared. At first I thought it was a car but as I got closer –”
“Touchdown!” her father bellowed. The stadium audience on television cheered. “Sorry, Audrey, touchdown Chiefs. What were you saying?”
“Oh, I was – it was nothing. So I’ll come by the house tomorrow when I get off work at three, okay dad?”
“We’ll be ready! And I’ll be sure not to let the P-A-R-T-Y slip to Elijah!”
Audrey grinned. “Ok. I’ll see you tomorrow dad. Love you.”
She set the phone back on the receiver bit her nails in consternation. What was that thing I saw tonight? She shrugged it off and walked down the short hall of her mobile home into Elijah’s room, which was dimly lit by his SpongeBob nightlight. Kneeling next to his bed, Audrey lightly stroked the sandy brown hair on the back of his head and patted the boy once on his back.
“You just wait until tomorrow, little guy.” With that, she kissed him at the crook of his small neck, rose, and walked out of the room.

Audrey felt her body convulse involuntarily and her eyes flew open to see the dark ceiling of her bedroom. She rolled over and, squinting at her alarm clock, read 1:06 a.m. Sighing aloud and momentarily plunging her face into her warm pillow, she kicked off the covers and rose clumsily out of bed. Her bladder felt full and she groped in the darkness for the bedroom door. Unable to see anything but blurs, her hands moved over the nightstand next to her bed, fishing for her eyeglasses, and she immediately recalled leaving them on the bathroom sink. Audrey saw the bright outline around the window curtain, probably from that damned streetlight that shined all night long, and flung the curtain open in an effort to guide her way to the bedroom door.
The piercing light that emerged struck her directly in the eyes, temporarily blinding her. She remembered the same sensation from that thing she thought was a car earlier that night. Before she could react to the light, her ears registered a noise that, in a fraction of a second, went from the numbing intensity of a helicopter’s propeller to a mind-shattering reverberating screech. She felt a bursting from within both ears simultaneously, then her body locked up and she collapsed to the floor.

Audrey felt her body convulse involuntarily and her eyes flew open to see the dim ceiling of her bedroom. She rolled over and, squinting at her chiming alarm clock, read 6:00 a.m. Sighing aloud and momentarily plunging her face into her warm pillow, she kicked off the covers and rose clumsily out of bed. Her bladder felt like busting and her body ached horribly, as if she had had no sleep during the night. There was a slight annoying ringing in both ears.
She stopped in mid-step toward the door and turned to face the closed curtain of her bedroom window. A distant memory begged for her attention, but she couldn’t quite remember. Audrey traipsed to her window, her body creaking in protest, and flung the curtain open. It was just before dawn; the sky visible as a shade of pink over the rooftops of the other mobile homes. She looked down to see dark stains on the carpet. It appeared to be dried blood. What had Elijah done?
Audrey left the bedroom and struggled into the bathroom, calling out “Wake up, birthday boy! Time to get up and eat breakfast before we go to grandpa’s!” Her joints felt inflamed, her throat raw. She sat on the toilet and rubbed her sore belly, which felt as if though had been kicked. She lifted her shirt, expecting to see a bruise, and saw instead a neatly cauterized incision across the width of her abdomen. Her breath caught in her throat. Flushing the toilet and using the sink top as a crutch, Audrey stood and slipped her eyeglasses on. The face there in the bathroom mirror looked like hers, but contained innumerable tiny cuts and several huge gashes across the cheeks and forehead. Trails of newly-dried blood crept down from both of her ears and connected to her shirt, the shoulders speckled with dark drops and the collar caked crimson. Audrey heaved the contents of her stomach onto the sink and blacked out.

III

The first thing Audrey noticed was the ringing in her ears. It was much louder than it had been before, to the point where it was now painful instead of simply annoying. When she opened her eyes she saw a blurred but smooth ceiling. This was not her bedroom, and she was not wearing her glasses. There were all manner of machines propped nearby, some of them beeping, some containing bags of fluid. A tube jammed in her nostrils released a constant stream of cool air inside her respiratory passages. The cobwebs of deep sleep still clung tightly, but her mind worked it out slowly and she soon realized she was lying in a hospital bed. She attempted to raise her head to look down at her body, but her muscles were loose and atrophied and the weight was too much. A blurry face came into view above her. It was a woman with a middle-aged face and red hair.
“Audrey? Can you hear me, dear?” The woman took her hand and squeezed gently.
Audrey tried to speak but only silent air escaped her dry throat. She swallowed forcefully. A cup was being pressed against her lips and she sipped the water.
“Where am I?” Audrey croaked almost imperceptibly. She already knew the answer.
“You’re in the hospital. There was an accident.” The woman stared down at her, her brows cocked to convey empathy.
“What happened to me?” Again, just a whisper.
The woman spoke careful words in a practiced tone. “You were in a car accident, Audrey. It was a week ago. You suffered a head injury. The doctors didn’t expect you to come out of it so soon, but I held out hope.”
Lies. Audrey remembered seeing her own face in the bathroom mirror covered with gashes and the sealed cut across her abdomen. There was no car wreck involved.
“Raise my bed up,” Audrey commanded the woman, who pressed the lift button on the bed while warily eying Audrey. The top half of the hospital bed lifted, raising her body to about a forty-five degree position. She mustered enough strength to pull up her covers and then her hospital gown, allowing a view of her lower torso. There, as she had seen before, was the slice across her stomach.
The woman gaped at Audrey’s discovery. “Please, dear –”
“What is that?” Her voice was stronger, but wavered with fear and barely-constrained anger.
The woman seemed to be on the verge of tears. “They had to cut you open. It was the only way to save you.”
“I want a mirror. Get me a mirror.”
“Audrey, you really shouldn’t be doing this. I know you’re very confused –”
“Get me a fucking mirror right now!” she spat through clenched teeth, while squeezing the woman’s hand with all her strength.
The woman’s resistance gave way and the tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she fumbled inside her purse. She pulled out her makeup compact and clicked it open. Audrey ripped it out of her hand and brought it close to her face. Staring back was a face covered in tiny cuts, blue and yellow bruising around the nose and several large gashes across the cheeks and forehead. She cried aloud and dropped the compact, which shattered upon the floor. The woman froze out of fear and uncertainty.
“What is going on!” Audrey screamed at the woman, her voice cracked as if moments away from sobbing. “Tell me now!”
“Audrey, you were in a car accident a week ago, and it put you into a coma that you just came out of today!”
“NO! I was at home in the bathroom when I saw all these cuts all over myself! I woke up in the night and saw that UFO outside my window for the second time and it made me go deaf and blind and then they took me away and mutilated my body! What is going on! Is it aliens? No, this is some sort of secret military thing, isn’t it? I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see, right? Now they’re trying to tell me I was in a goddamn car crash? You’re in on this too, aren’t you! Just tell me what the hell is going on already!”
“Audrey, where did you come up with all of that? None of that is true; none of that happened. You were driving home when you were jackknifed on Highway 33 by a drunk driver.”
Audrey shook her head violently. “Who are you?”
The woman stared at her, dumbfounded. “I’m Jill Parrish. I’m your mother. You don’t remember me?”
“You liar. My mother died when I was four years old. Get me my father. I want to see my father, Willard Parrish.”
Jill went pale. Her voice was a whisper. “Audrey, your father died when you were four. That was sixteen years ago.”
“Impossible. I’m twenty-four and sixteen years ago I was eight. I talked to him last night on the phone. I saw him yesterday when I picked up Elijah.”
“You have it all wrong, Audrey. You’re twenty years old. Today is November 16, 2002.” Jill’s watery eyes gazed directly into Audrey’s. “Elijah? Do you mean your surgeon, Dr. Elijah? But how could you have known that…”
“No, my son. Elijah.” Audrey went quiet. “I want to see my son.”
Jill put her face in her hands. She began to shake.
“I want my son.”
“Audrey, that’s not possible. When you had the accident, your abdomen took too much of the impact. He could not be saved.”
The incision. She understood now, but refused to believe it.
“Get me my son. I WANT ELIJAH!” Audrey cried out hysterically. She began ripping at anything her hands touched, her covers, the tubes in her arms. She lunged at Jill, but the red-haired woman jumped out of her seat before Audrey’s hands could reach her. Jill fled from the room, yelling for a doctor to come restrain her.
Audrey tore the oxygen tube out of her nose, the remaining needles in her arms, and the wired suction cups stuck to her chest, causing the various machines to either go blank and silent or flatline. Throwing her legs over the side of the bed, she hobbled up unsteadily, grabbed Jill’s purse from the floor, slung it over her shoulder, eyed the hallway outside her room and, when she saw no one paying particular attention, exited the room.

It was dark already outside, with the damp air and strong breeze threatening rain. Audrey stood on the blacktop of the hospital parking lot, the northern winds chilling her skin under the loose, thin gown. Her eyes scanned the multitude of cars, their rooftops gleaming orange from the intermittent lampposts, while her thumb continually pressed the unlock button on the remote entry device chained to the keys she’d found in the purse. In the distance ahead, the headlights of a car flashed in synchronization as Audrey thumbed the button, and she bolted for it, her bare feet smacking against the surface of the cold blacktop. She neared it and was able to make out, despite her blurred vision, that the car was small, white. Her legs ached from disuse, her lungs strained for air, the taste of blood in her mouth. She entered the car, shut the door, and jammed the key into the ignition.

In a small white car speeding north, tires squelching on the rain-slicked asphalt of State Highway 33, snaking amongst the curves of forested Ozark hills, sat Audrey Parrish, hands slippery with cold sweat as she gripped the steering wheel. Her eyes peered intently through the windshield, though obscured by a combination of poor eyesight, torrential rainfall, and the flurry of wipers. Every so often she caught herself staring into the rearview mirror, hoping to glimpse Elijah in the back, slumped in his car seat. Realization struck her time and again that he was no longer here, all the while she felt utterly compelled to race home, in the hope that he might be there, still asleep in his bed. Today is his birthday, she repeated over in her mind.
The tinnitus in both of her ears had grown into a permanent and torturous ringing and Audrey was unable to hear the rumbling of the car, the continuous slosh of rain, or even her own sudden outburst of crying. Her head felt heavy, and she closed her eyes in an effort to regain composure.
The ringing simply ceased. She heard the quiet rumbling of the car. When Audrey opened her eyes, she immediately found that the rain had also stopped entirely, as the highway was perfectly dry and not a single cloud was present in the brilliant starry night sky. A quick glance in the mirror showed her own face minus all traces of the hideous scarring and bruising; totally replaced by her own smooth, natural complexion. She gaped at herself in the mirror and looked down at her body whenever she felt movement within. Her belly was huge, distended, and tight against her clothes. I’m pregnant?
“Mommy!” Audrey heard from the backseat, and she whipped around in her seat to see, to her delight and horror, Elijah, his eyes wide and his index finger extended forward. “Look out!”
“Wha–” caught in Audrey’s throat, and she turned back around, her dashboard aglow in its myriad colors, then a moment later a supercharged headlight directly ahead flashed on. Audrey saw only piercing white light, and instinctively cut the wheel hard to the right. She felt the car buckle under the inertia and floored the brakes. The wheel jumped out of her hands, spinning wildly. Her own weight shifted to her head, then came the successive rush of blood – she was upside down and airborne. The noise of grating metal against the highway asphalt erupted overhead. The skidding mass of the vehicle struck the fence-line, immediately halting the car’s movement. The old car lay steaming, the back end busted through the fence, the middle nestled in the ditch, and the hood resting on the edge of the highway.
Audrey moaned. She unbuckled her seatbelt, her head resting upon the crushed roof of the car. Blood trickled up across her cheeks and forehead, and up inside her nostrils. She raised her hands to her face, touching shards of glass imbedded in the skin throughout. Her nose was numb and far too flexible. She tried to turn her head to look in the backseat, momentarily saw the roof caved in where the seats used to be. Her neck seared with hot pain she could turn no further.
“Elijah?” No answer. She heard slight moaning, and then realized it was her own.
Audrey struggled against the broken and jammed door, eventually freeing one of her legs from beneath the steering wheel and kicking the door until it creaked open. She crawled out through the space on her stomach, which had gone flat again. Her body free from the wreckage, she rolled onto her back in the middle of the highway, exhausted and in incredible pain and confusion.
Hovering in absolute silence not ten feet directly above her body, hung three motionless globes of glowing white light arranged in the pattern of a triangle. Audrey held her breath in disbelief and stared. Positioned in the center directly between the three white globes, a red light powered up, extending down a shaft of light of the same color, engulfing her entire body. Her pain and fear dissolved, replaced by the abundant dryness and warmth of a bulky comforter and the sensation of floating on the surface of a swimming pool. The lights drew nearer, and she looked down to see herself quite literally suspended in the beam of red light, the highway now many feet below. It didn’t matter, though, as Audrey felt only euphoria. Everything would be ok. She grinned at the thought of Elijah’s joy with his presents at Chuck E. Cheese’s. Tomorrow is his birthday. Audrey fell away.
The red central light powered down when the cargo was on board, and then the triangle of lights picked up altitude and acceleration until it swept away in a great arc and disappeared behind the line of trees.