The Sabbath Read online

  The

  Sabbath

  Arthur Nsenga

  &

  Shaunakay Francis

  Copyright © 2015 Say La V Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 0-9947946-1-1

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9947946-1-1

  IN LOVING MEMORY

  OF

  BIENAIMÉ SHEMBO

  1991-2013

  Acknowledgments

  To God be the glory

  Amen.

  1

  “I’m calling in sick tomorrow,” Lana whispered as she shivered into Cory’s car and fumbled with the heating. “There’s no way I will make it to work in the morning. I’m drunk, and it’s already four a.m.”

  Cory started the car and lowered the music. “Yeah, you should have just given your shift away,” he teased.

  Lana gave him a look, too tired and full of Denny’s late-night pancakes to respond. If not for him, she would have been spending this cool Saturday morning in June snuggled up in her bed; instead, she had her arms folded, staring at the side-view mirror, wondering how she’d let Cory persuade her to go to a house party on a work night.

  Truth is, it took little convincing; Lana had been nursing a small crush on Cory for quite a while now. The only problem was she valued their friendship more than the prospect of romance, so she never acted on her feelings. Plus, Cory hid his emotions so well Lana did not know if her feelings would be returned. Rather than pondering their relationship for the hundredth time, she turned up the radio, losing herself in the music as Cory sped down the calm and quiet main street.

  “I’m sleeping over; I’m way too tired to drive home,” Cory announced as he pulled into Lana’s apartment driveway.

  “Yeah, sure,” she replied, half-asleep, although she wanted her bed to herself. She yearned to crawl half-naked into crisp clean sheets and sleep until three in the afternoon.

  Lana got out of the car, dropping her purse as she did so.

  “Ugghhh,” she muttered, stumbling like a dipsomaniac to pick it up, her little black dress and six-inch heels added to the difficulty.

  She stood up and sighed, then glanced up at the sky, wondering if the sun was rising already. It was a little too bright outside, considering it was before dawn. She froze, unable to speak or even move.

  The sky was on fire.

  Amazed and confused, Lana stood there, trying to remember if any meteorite showers were scheduled to happen today, when her thoughts were interrupted by the flash of a large flaming object sailing through the air, followed by another, and another.

  Soon the sky surged with huge fiery rocks crashing through the atmosphere. There were thousands of them. The entire sky was a blazing inferno. Lana sensed danger, but she was in a trance - too terrified and astonished to do anything but stare in wonder at the beauty of the dancing shades of red, orange, and blue.

  There was a thunderous bang as fireballs erupted like Fourth of July fireworks, becoming more horrifying than entrancing. Another rock exploded, disintegrating into millions of pieces - some mere dust, while the rest came crashing down like fiery hailstones. A few splinters, no bigger than a handful of broken eggshells, struck Lana on her forehead almost knocking her down, but the alcohol in her system rendered her numb to the pain. She sensed a quick burst of warmth as they bounced off her and onto the ground.

  A howling wind picked up, throwing burning hailstones down harder and faster.

  BOOM!

  Another enormous bang, followed by yet another burst of blazing stones, filled the heavens. Lana panicked as one by one, the fireballs transformed into deadly projectiles, piercing the night sky.

  “Lana…Lana…Lana”

  Even through the roar of the smoking skies, she could hear Cory and turned to see him running toward her, nostrils flaring and eyes bulging. Lana had never seen fear from Cory, but still, it did nothing to tear her from the theatrical display in the night sky. She looked back up to the bleeding sky, glued to the spectacle.

  “We need to - to go - inside!” he stuttered, his voice loud and trembling. “These rocks will kill us!”

  Unable to find her voice, Lana let Cory drag her by the arm into her apartment, not sure whether what she had just witnessed had been real or not.

  2

  Something was wrong. Lana’s body felt too heavy. It was an immense struggle just to open her eyes. She sat up in bed, surveying her surroundings. Lana’s table was still stacked high with expensive chemical engineering textbooks; her papers and current assignments teetered over her laptop, which was peeking out from underneath the mess.

  Her closet was neat and organized; clothes and shoes lined up in order of color. Everything appeared to be just how she left it, but she couldn’t shake the visceral feeling something wasn’t right. To make matters worse, Lana couldn’t remember what she had been doing before she went to bed.

  She took a calming breath as she noticed Cory stretched out asleep beside her. At least now, she knew she had been well looked after, but Lana didn’t remember him sleeping over either. Again, she tried to recall what she had done the night before. She wanted to wake him for answers, but she checked her phone instead. The time on her phone read 4:45 am.

  That’s odd, she thought. She had never awoken at five o’clock in the morning before, but she felt rested and full of energy, as if she’d slept for days. Lana chuckled; her grandmother always complained about her not getting enough sleep. I wonder if Grandma is up jogging yet, Lana questioned while scrolling through her phone calls.

  Lana’s grandmother had raised her since the tender age of nine. That’s when her mother decided pursuing a successful career took precedence over a relationship with her daughter. Lana’s father was a chief commander in the army, but knew nothing about being a father. He would not spend more than a few days at a time with Lana, and as she grew older, he stopped coming home altogether.

  Her grandmother had been both her mother and father for as long as she could remember. Despite their age difference, she and Lana were best of friends. When Lana moved for college, they’d vowed to each other to speak every day, even if just to say good morning or goodnight.

  Her grandmother lived in British Columbia, which was several days’ car travel away from Lana. Her grandmother looked too young to have a twenty-year-old granddaughter, or at least, that was what she told everyone. Truth is, at sixty-two years of age, she was an active and vibrant woman. She looked more like forty-five, and every chance she got, she reminded everyone she had middle-aged women beat. She knew how to keep her looks, but that’s not enough to keep a man.

  Giovanni was her fourth and her current husband. He was a rich Italian, who owned a chain of offshore oil fields. Lana hated the man for the way he threw his money around, but for the sake of her grandmother, she played nice and went along with his irritating ways. He made an effort, but Lana swore he tried to hard to connect to her grandmother’s nationality. Taking them on trips to Jamaica did not win Lana over - even though she loved going there and wished she could just stay there all winter long.

  Lana’s heartbeat accelerated as she noticed the date on her phone. She was missing a whole day of data. On the twenty-fifth, I spoke to Grandma at 9:06am before I went to class. I didn’t get to say goodnight to her because I closed at work and then went to the party with Cory.

  She gasped. Oh yes, the party with Cory. I should have spoken to her on the twenty-sixth. I should have spoken to Jay, Lisa, or any number of people. But there’s nothing here. It’s as if I didn’t use my phone all day.

  She had to work on the twenty-sixth. Did I even call off of work?

  Lana checked her call log and realized she hadn’t.

  There’s no way I could have sle
pt for twenty-four hours…

  Running her fingers through her hair, she winced as her hand brushed her forehead. Shaking her head, she took a deep calming breath, then fumbled with the screen as she checked her social media sites. Other people should have posted something yesterday.

  The world can’t just not do anything for a day! It’s hard enough to get people to take part in Earth Hour. They can’t survive without being socialites for a day.

  Her mind raced as she strove to convince herself that everything was normal. However, she found the same thing happening on her social networks. It was now the 27th, and none of her friends or followers had any posts from the 26th until now.

  It must be my connection. Pinning her hope on that logic, she dialed Cory’s number.

  Within seconds, his phone rang near the bedside. After the first ring, she hung up. Jumping to grab her laptop from the table, the paper stacks went sprawling onto the floor. Her computer’s date read the 27th and so did every website she visited.

  So she had slept through a full day.

  She called her grandmother; she needed to hear her as well as get confirmation. Her call went straight to voicemail. Something was wrong.

  Cory needs to wake up now.

  She called his name, but he seemed just as fast asleep as he had been a moment ago, so she shook him instead.

  “Cory, wake up. Something weird is going on.” She tried shaking him again. “Cory. I think the entire world fell asleep for a whole day. Wake up. Cor…” She stopped. A cold chill crept up her spine and rested on the nape of her neck. She froze. Memories flooded back, and she recalled those final events, right before she had lost consciousness. Lana stumbled to the window; she pulled the curtains away, her jaw dropping at the sight.

  “Cory. I swear if you don’t wake up…” she yelled, turning back to Cory as he stirred in bed.

  Lana surveyed her lawn again. Even in the dim light of dawn, she saw it was covered with chunks of shiny, dark, metallic-looking rocks, piling deeper where they had cascaded off the roof. She knew where they came from—the combustible meteorites that had shot out of the sky.

  But that was twenty-four hours ago - what had happened during that time? And did everybody else lose a day? Not just those who kept a social media presence, too?

  Lana, now annoyed with Cory, climbed onto her bed and from a standing position, gave Cory a hard kick that knocked him onto the hardwood floor with a loud thud.

  “Ow! Fuck!” His 6-foot-4 physique sprawled across the floor. His brown eyes and mocha skin looked refreshed, a lot more defined than usual.

  I wonder if my skin looks that good right now… maybe sleep does make you look better and healthier… She caught a glimpse of herself in the dresser mirror, but then her mind trailed off as she sat down on the bed and stared at Cory.

  He turned to glare up at her in utter disbelief.

  “Are you serious right now? Was that called for?” he boomed, still half-asleep.

  “You need to wake up. Something is seriously going on. We’ve lost the last twenty-four hours of our life, and there are black rocks scattered everywhere - not to mention the shower of meteorites that started the whole thing.” She was becoming hysterical. “Don’t look at me like that. Get up, right now.”

  Cory blinked a few times, trying to gather his thoughts. He sprang up from the floor in one fluid motion, and took several steps toward the window, then walked back to Lana.

  He traced his finger around the lump on her forehead, his eyes gazing into hers, opened his mouth to speak, but to no avail. Lana just shrugged her shoulders, and Cory, in his speechless state, froze, his expression wearing concern as if it had been etched into his core.

  As everything began to sink in, Cory became consumed by the many thoughts running through his mind. Finally, he spoke.

  “Either the world is about to end, or the Government is about to fuck up our lives. Either way, I need to get home to my mom; she’s probably terrified and prophesying that we’re going to start hearing trumpets and the coming of Christ.”

  Lana rolled her eyes. Cory could be so dramatic, and always made his mother seem more spiritual than she was - but Lana thought she was pretty cool. She wasn’t like those crazy religious women who found God and thought they didn’t need a man. And right now, if Cory’s mother was preaching about the coming of Christ, she might be right.

  Something was coming. Lana sensed this. It might not be Christ, but whatever it was, it was most definitely not anything good. There was no mistaking the persistent chill she felt creeping up her spine.

  Still doubtful about what she had said, Cory looked at his own phone to check the date, and his heart dropped. Lana was right. An entire day had gone by, and they hadn’t even noticed. He checked to see if his mother attempted to contact him since the day of the party. Not a text or call – nothing. He dialed home in a hurry, expecting to hear the voice of his sister, Isabel, who should be there taking care of their mother.

  No answer.

  He tried his sister’s cell phone, but his calls went straight to voicemail. Cory was apprehensive, and rightfully so. His mother had been going through chemotherapy to treat breast cancer this past month. The treatment made her very weak and for the last few days, she had been confined to her bed. Had it not been for Isabel, Cory would be at his mother’s side, making sure she was okay. But it was wrong to blame Isabel for his absence. She had convinced Cory to go out because she feared that Cory’s depression was progressing at a much faster rate than their mother’s illness.

  Cory feared what this strange extended sleep could do to his mother’s body. What if she didn’t have the strength to wake up after twenty-four hours? She could be in a coma or worse, he thought.

  “I’ve got to go home,” he told Lana.

  “I’m not staying here by myself. I’m coming with you.”

  3

  An awkward silence hung between the two as they climbed into Cory’s car. The wall of tension had become so high that neither of them were willing to overcome it to comfort the other one. Cory did his best to keep his composure, but he felt his life hanging from a thread, ready to snap free at the slightest disturbance. He didn’t know what he would do if anything bad happened to his mother, and that thought alone tore him apart inside. Sensing his frustration, Lana gave in and placed her hand on Cory’s shoulder, offering him her support.

  “Cory, everything will be all right. I bet they’re still sleeping,” she said.

  Cory ignored her and kept driving. His windshield had a jagged crack starting to run along its base, and bits of black dust and small pebbles clattered hard against it as they drove off. He made a sharp right turn then stomped on the brake. At least twenty cars rammed into each other; and dozens of people injured in major collisions now blocking the intersection. Smashed windshields became deadly glass projectiles, and many passengers were laying unconscious on car hoods, thrown about like rag dolls. Others stood in confusion, trying to make sense of their situation. The wind carried the sound of agony of broken bones, burnt skin, and mothers crying out for help while holding onto their motionless children.

  Shards of glass covered the road like Christmas snow. A burning smell lingered in the air, meeting any oncoming traffic. Lana rolled down her window and waved at a knot of people on the sidewalk.

  “Hey, what happened here?” she hollered.

  A young lady, no older than eighteen, made her way to their car. She was slender, her pale face streaked with dried blood from her cuts, framed by blonde hair tied back into a scraggly bun. Her unblinking brown eyes were open wide, and she shivered as the strong breeze blew right through her dirty blue sweater.

  “Nobody knows what happened,” she said, her voice choking. “I was sleeping on the bus when all of a sudden I woke up to everybody screaming. I didn’t realize how serious it was until I saw my own blood. That’s when I panicked… I got out of there so fast, but it's even more chaotic out here.”

  Her body trembled as she
took a calming deep breath.

  “You all right?” Cory asked.

  “Yes…but everyone here is paranoid, things don’t make sense…”

  “All right, okay,” Cory interrupted.

  Cory knew where the conversation was heading, and he didn’t need the added stress. Without a second to waste, he turned the car around and took a different route home. As they got closer to his house, it became evident that something was dreadfully wrong. Car accidents jammed the roads at major intersection, and people staggered about, their cries echoing through the streets.

  “What the fuck is going on,” Cory cried out.

  Lana stared at him in disbelief, while gnawing her fingernail. She had lost the certainty everything would “be all right,” and her thoughts raced a mile a minute. She didn’t know what to say.

  It was still early in the morning when they reached Cory’s house. Lana couldn’t shake the sense of something not being right, and was hoping his mother and sister were inside sleeping.

  “Mom…Isabel?” Cory yelled as he entered his home.

  No response came.

  “Go check my sister’s room,” he ordered Lana, as he took the stairs two at a time up to his mother’s room on the second floor. Stopping at the door, he knocked, his voice quiet and cautious, “Mom, are you there?”

  There was still no answer.

  He wanted to rip open the door to check on his sick mother, but he feared what he might find. He took a moment to prepare himself for the worst.

  Why aren’t they answering? What if mom is in a coma after sleeping for that long…can that even happen?

  Footsteps creeping up the stairs interrupted his thoughts. He turned to find Isabel and Lana coming toward him. Despite everything, Isabel looked well rested in her large purple robe, with her hair tied up in a silk head wrap. He let out a sigh of relief and in that moment, relaxed a little. Seeing his sister awake gave him the confirmation he needed to believe everything was all right.