The Vanished

Sitting on his front porch, Ray Bates watched the orange sky ignite the sawtooth peaks of the Rockies, then gradually turn navy blue, twilight ending the summer solstice of 1984. He pulled the tab on a can of Coors and thought the snap—pisht!—was the best sound of summer, that and the chirrups of the cicadas’ evening love songs. But the snap seemed to have flipped a switch. The insects hushed, and the air crepitated. Smeared by heavenly hands, flickering bright lights spread across Ray’s horizon, undulating like shimmering opals.

Few in the town of Lipton, Colorado (population 3,019) saw the ephemeral aurora. Ray did not know what to do but gape.

Absorbing so much light became unbearable. Though he marveled at the beauty and grandeur of the sight, he instinctively went inside his tri-level home, not forgetting his beer, preferring to marvel through the presumed safety of the big picture window. The light show lasted only minutes—then nothing. Ray heard a siren’s blare a few blocks away and noticed not a star twinkled in the blackest cosmos.

He rushed into the kitchen, exclaiming, “Did you see that, that—the sky? The sky, the colors, on fire to the ground!”

His wife was talking on the wall-mounted phone. “Ray, please,” said Claire, twirling the long, coiled cord. “Nan, are you there? Hello?” She wondered how her sister got disconnected and redialed. “Yes, Ray, I saw the bright light. Are you sure it wasn’t a car’s headlights? Now the connection is all clicky.”

“Honey,” said Ray, “ask your sis if she saw anything weird just before your call dropped.”

“I can’t. The line is dead.”

Ray flew downstairs, but instead of bursting into his teenage son’s bedroom, he knocked on the door, a grudgingly agreed upon parental compromise. With no response, he pounded on the door and yelled his son’s name.

Colton emerged wearing a Duran Duran hoodie and earphones synced to a video game exploding behind him. Ray noticed his 9th grade son was almost tall enough to look him in his eye.

Colton unplugged and said, “Dude, my tee.”

“Dude, my dollars.” Ray did not like his son’s familiarity, but though it was tight, did like wearing his Daffy Duck t-shirt.

“What do you want?” asked Colton. He was impatient to end a space invasion, and his room looked like the aftermath of a losing one. 

Ray chose to pick that battle another day.

“Seriously,” said Colton, pointing behind him, “the aliens are winning.”

Ray asked if anything strange had occurred in the last few minutes. Colton answered no, then noticed his Atari console had crashed. He rebooted, but the drive was just spinning and he was not happy. Father told son not to stay up too late—son gave father a roll of eyes—and to remember to take out the trash for collection.

Ray turned on the TV, catching the news anchor in mid-sentence, his lips moving without sound sporadically. “—massive solar flare pushed solar winds—force of a billion hurric—Earth’s star, penetrating our weakened atmosphere. Opponents say this is not proof of climate ch—ing satellite send—dramatic pictures.” An astral film depicted a solar flare exploding off the sun’s surface, licking the dark space around it like a titanic, far-flung tongue of fire. The anchor segued to a grinning sportscaster, appearing for a minute before he could be heard. “—kies insurmountable deficit in the ninth inning—fifth loss in a row. Desperate to hang on—winning secret of the team is—” The screen went black, the secret unrevealed. The floor lamp flickered but remained lit.

Later in bed next to Claire, Ray felt her warmth and the air, charged and quiet. After lying awake for hours, he kicked off the covers, heard another siren, faint and far away, then fell asleep.

The next morning Ray prepared his son’s lunch. Before leaving for her beauty salon, Claire’s Hair Affair, his wife gave her husband a peck on the cheek.

“Is that all, Mrs. Bates?”

“For now, Mr. Bates.” She smiled, smoothed a strand of blond hair, grabbed her purple bag, and entered the garage.

Ray walked to the living room and gazed out the big picture window at the bluest sky. He waved to his wife driving away in her ‘69 Mustang. She was still sexy, and so was the classic car’s growling muffler. Neighbor Marty Miller was wheeling his trash can to the street, the Bates’s was invisible, and Colton was not up yet. The leaves of Claire’s aspens flickered like green coins. The marigolds, mailbox, fence, pothole: His world was still there. A perfectly normal day. Except for a van a couple houses down crooked to the curb. He opened the front door and called to his neighbor, “Good morning.”

“Not if you saw the game.” Nodding toward the badly parked vehicle, Marty said, “Coop’s Dodge. His bowling championship was last night.”

“Hard telling if he won or lost,” said Ray.

“Coop’s got a problem all right,” said Marty. “Remember the Memorial Day picnic?”

“Hard to forget,” said Ray. “Say Marty, did you happen to see that big light show last night? About 8:30, big splash of rainbow across the sky.”

“Unlike you, I, the dedicated fan, was watching the massacre.” Gazing at the trash can, Marty scratched his deep red beard and adjusted his ballcap. “Should toss this hat.”

“Blasphemy, brother.” Ray knelt and yanked a weed.

“They were getting creamed like corn,” said Marty. “Outside got really bright. On TV, too, blacked out for a few minutes. Commentators said something about a power surge. Sound was awful. Showed nothing but stupid commercials. Game never came back on, and no paper today, but maybe—”

“They lost.”

“Hmmm. Well, thanks, Ray.” Marty tossed his hat in the trash. “Thanks for the update.”

“That’s what the news said last night. Last thing I heard.”

A teenage girl in tight jeans and a top with puffy sleeves came out of the Miller’s garage. “I need to get to school.”

“OK,” said Marty. “Get in the truck.”

“What?”

“Get in the truck.”

“Daddy, I’m right here, you don’t have to yell.”

“I did not—Say hello to Mr. Bates.”

Wendy grinned and rolled her eyes. “Hello.” She returned to the garage and got into the Ford pick-up, Marty staring after the mystery that was his daughter.

“She gives me a headache,” said Marty, rubbing his temple. 

Ray smiled. “She’ll grow out of it.”

“Has Colton?”

“Maybe today’s the day.”

“The princess wants braces and bras.”

“The prince wants a skateboard and ever since the Super Bowl, a Mac.”

“Like a Big Mac?”

“I don’t think he means a hamburger.”

“Then what’s a Mac?”

“Hell if I know,” said Ray. “I better see if my headache is out of bed. Leave without him if you need to.”

“Yeah,” said Marty, “we must not bow to the royals.” He picked out his hat from the trash, brushed it off, and put it back on.

“Colton,” Ray called downstairs, “time to go. And take out the trash. You forgot.”

He returned to the kitchen, spread mayo on white bread, and added cheddar cheese. He put the plastic wrapped sandwich, baggies of Cheetos and carrots, and a tangerine into a Mr. T lunch box, wondering if his boy was into some weird orange food phase. I pity the fool, thought Ray, chuckling, who tries to know what goes on in the mind of a teenager. “Colton! Mr. Miller is waiting.” No answer. “You’ll have to walk, and don’t forget your lunch.” Ray checked upstairs—“Colton?”—then heard the pick-up drive off. Mr. T still sat on the kitchen counter. That kid, he thought. Not a big deal, I guess. Mother Nature’s extravaganza, now that was a big deal. Odd, on the longest day of the year. He listened, didn’t move. He heard the wail of a far-off siren fade away. And the hallway clock ticking. So quiet. That was odd, too.

The phone rang, and he jumped a little. It was Claire asking him to bring her billfold. “It’s on the kitchen table. I forgot it.”

“Will do,” said Ray. “So … anything odd going on?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, anything.”

“Town seems deader than usual, if that’s possible. Barb didn’t show, but neither did her first appointment.”

“And that’s odd?”

“Not exactly. Barb’s chronically late, but Mrs. Valdéz has never no-showed. Why, what’s going on?”

“Nothing. I need to stop off at Colton’s school.”

“What’s wrong with Colton? Is he OK?”

“Relax, he forgot his lunch, then I’ll bring your—” Ray heard static and a click like a hang-up, then a dial-tone. “Hello? Honey?”

He dialed his wife’s work number, and after six rings, voice-mail answered, but he hung up. He thought Mrs. Valdéz had probably arrived. He grabbed Claire’s billfold, Mr. T, and got in his Corolla.

Passing his neighbor’s white van, Ray slowed down, then pulled into Coop’s driveway. Trash from a knocked over bin littered the sidewalk and gutter. The front door was open; through a screen door a small dog wiggled and wagged its tail like a frenzied metronome.

“Hey Moxie, where’s your daddy?” Ray rang the doorbell and called loudly, “Coop!” Not wanting to alarm his neighbor’s wife, he announced himself. “Marilyn, it’s Ray! Anyone home?”

The mutt whined and bounced, upset about something. As soon as Ray opened the screen door, Moxie sniffed his feet and jumped up to his waist. “What’s the matter, girl?” The dog ran, and with the car door open, hopped into the front seat, yawning, licking her lips, and panting. “OK, then.”

Ray headed to Colton’s junior high school. Traffic was light. He stopped at a truck half in the right lane and half on the sidewalk. It was Marty’s Ford pick-up. The engine was running, but no one was around. He got out and shut off its ignition. 

“Colton! Marty!” Within seconds of hearing a screeching siren, he sprung back when a cop car roared past him. “Jesus!” He called again and again, and for his neighbor’s daughter, for anyone, receiving no response.

Ray ran stop signs and red lights getting to his son’s school. A few bikes were chained to the stand; several lay on the grass or sidewalk, one in the middle of the street. He parked in the student drop off lane, against the rules but a rule he felt like breaking, and rushed to the front office with Colton’s lunch box.

Miss Kinney greeted him in her clipped and feminine formality. “Good morning, Raymond.”

Twenty years seemed to evaporate, and he was embarrassed he wore a juvenile’s t-shirt. “Good morning, Miss Kinney,” said Ray. He thought the school secretary wore the same blue, ruffled blouse buttoned up to her chin as she did when he was a student. Today, she looked ancient and weary. “Have you seen Colton?”

“Why, no,” said Miss Kinney, “I’m sorry.”

“He left with Marty Miller,” said Ray, “but I saw his truck and it was, uh, never mind. I brought Colton’s lunch. Would you please let him know?”

“Of course, dear,” said Miss Kinney. 

“Thank you,” said Ray. “And have him call home as soon as he gets here.

She looked at the lunch box distractedly. “Quite a few absentees today, not to mention teachers. The phones … unreliable, crackling noise if anything.”

Ray was about to ask to use one to call the police about his missing son, but maybe there was a simple explanation. “Did Wendy Miller come to school?”

“Who?”

“Wendy Miller, my neighbor’s daughter.”

“I’ve not seen her either.” Miss Kinney shook her head. “I don’t know what the world is coming to, Raymond. And those lights last night.”

“You saw the sky?”

Miss Kinney leaned into her former student and looked over her glasses. “Oh, yes, about 8:30. I was making popcorn on the stove—I always do when I watch movies on TV—and suddenly the popping stopped, and so did Carole Lombard.”

“Your TV stopped?”

“Hmm? … oh, yes. Stove, too. Such a talented lady, so beautiful,” sighed Miss Kinney with a smile. “And tragic. From a different world,” she said softly. “Oddly, the lights stayed on. But outside. That’s when I saw such a bright light. Astonishing, like I was witnessing a spectacular event that was also inexplicably distressing. I’m tired, Raymond, very tired. This world … yes, she and I … ”

“Who, Miss Kinney?” asked Ray. “This Carole person?”

“Oh … oh, um, no … Elinor, um Miss Glenn, my, my companion …” The old woman took off her glasses, frowned, and shut her eyes, whispering with incredulity. “So sudden … mere seconds … and she just wasn’t there … but that’s lunacy … so confused, so tired. Sweet Elinor. And I keep seeing flashes of light, and hearing static like an old radio, and I don’t want to!” she shouted. 

Ray had never known Miss Kinney to raise her voice. 

She looked through the office window, puzzled and upset, then, through tearful eyes, said, “She’ll return; she must.” Miss Kinney pulled out a lace handkerchief, daubed her eyes, and replaced her glasses. “Heavens to betsy, I probably just need bi-focals and hearing aids.” She began writing names on small, pink papers. “Lots of absentee slips to fill out.” 

Squished by the steering wheel, Moxie nestled in Ray’s lap, whimpering and shaking. Ray started his car and turned on the radio, hearing Time After Time wane to nothing. He tuned into another station, but the sound kept cutting out. “—creating auroras all ov—at the poles, but close to the equator, as near as Hawaii and Singa—ding to General Ohrman, NASA spokesman, sa—est in space, witnessing a geomagnetic storm of unprecedented size and destru—sing interruption of worldwide satellite commun—til scien—spheric activation of a viral disease of instantaneous disintegra—” And then silence. He tuned the dial along its band, receiving only static a couple times. 

Ray shut off the car, stared out the windshield, and didn’t move. He ached for his son, his wife, himself, everyone. He scratched the dog’s ears for mutual assurance. “Sweet Moxie.” In the eerie quiet, the sound of his own voice creeped him out. Colton had to be somewhere. “Where are you?” whispered Ray. 

He ran back inside the school, searched for Miss Kinney in the office, but found no sign of her. He stepped behind the counter and called 911, getting sounds like the crinkling of a sheet of cellophane and a recording. “What the hell?” He called Claire again and got her recording again.

Ray walked down the hallway. A few students passed him slowly or stood immobile at lockers, staring at him. Some classrooms had a teacher and several desks occupied by students; others were empty of anyone. In Room 13, a teacher noticed him, turned her head, wide-eyed with mouth open, and seemed about to speak, but he had already rushed by the door.

Colton played the trumpet in the school band; so had Ray. He hoped his son might be in the rehearsal room. Sheet music and black stands littered the floor. Halfway up staggered risers, he recognized Kyle Bings, a tall, skinny student with acne and a crew cut. He sat next to a tuba, gaping at his weirdly distorted reflection in the curving brass.

“Kyle?”

“Ah!” Startled, the kid said, “Oh, hi, Mr.—” He seemed to know Ray’s face.

“Bates.”

“I didn’t see you.” The kid chuckled.

“Kyle, have you seen Colton?”

“Who?”

“My son.”

“I thought I saw—” the kid began, returning to stare at his distorted face in the brass mirror, “Mr. Wolfe.”

“The band director?”

“But … sooo freaky.”

“What is?” asked Ray.

“He was here—I was waiting for—and then he wasn’t. The invisible man.” Kyle let out a goofy scoff, again hypnotized by his own grotesque reflection. “I heard snaps like that cereal with the elves, then I think I saw … freaky, man, and I haven’t smoked a thing, I swear, and then he—” His voice stuck and he swallowed hard, incapable of finishing his thought. He picked a pimple on his cheek, and it started to bleed, but he kept picking.

“Kyle?” said Ray. “Let’s get you to the nurse, then Miss Kinney. She’ll know—”

The boy lurched up, kicking back his chair and knocking over the instrument and music stand with a loud clatter. He ran out of the room, Ray after him. He thought he saw a flash in the hallway, looked left, right, but didn’t see a trace of Kyle. “Where the hell did he go?” He thought he’d talk with the teacher in the room he had passed, but when he looked through its window, no one was there. He called for Miss Kinney, but got no response.

Ray trotted to his car and heard the school’s front door open, then his name and brief noises like bubble wrap reports. He turned around and saw a rainbow streak for seconds. Small pink papers fluttered to the sidewalk. As soon as Ray opened the car door, Moxie growled, barked, ricocheted off the back seat, and bolted.

He sped to Claire’s salon, but driving by the Shamrock station, he saw a gas nozzle laying on the cement, pulled in, and re-hooked the hose. Owner Bart didn’t greet him, and wife Sandy wasn’t minding the register, open with cash spilling out. Behind the counter, Ray put the phone receiver to his ear and pumped the hook switch to clear the landline and connect. He needed to find his son. “C’mon, goddammit!” Dial tone—“Jackpot!”—the loveliest droning note he’d ever heard. Ray dialed 911 … ringing …  recording. He dialed again. Continuous ringing. “Somebody answer!” And again, busy signal. Ray thought maybe he had dialed wrong, but how can you misdial 911? He redialed. This time, nothing.

Ray called Claire. Same results: connected, voicemail, redialed, ringing over and over, then busy signal, no dial-tone, dead. “I don’t believe this.”

Ray slammed the receiver down on its cradle and ran to his car. He laid rubber pulling away from the gas pump, but braked hard when he heard the fast approaching crescendo of a howling ambulance, a blur of red and blue lights rushing by on its way to save someone somewhere, he hoped.

On Jackson Avenue, more derelict vehicles splayed across the lanes and onto the sidewalk. Pedestrians meandered drunkenly or ran crazily as though fleeing something. Ray opened his car window and called to them, but either they fled or stared mutely, and he knew some of them. County Clerk Molly Semple screamed. He screeched up to his wife’s salon just off Lipton’s main drag, not bothering to parallel park. Like Coop, he thought. The front door was wide open, too, but no bouncing dog.

“Claire!” No answer. No Mustang, no purple bag.

The portable TV was on with jumbled pictures and scrambled sound: Witness accounts and weird happenings, the president’s and world governments’ responses, stocking up on food and water and guns, fires and wrecks and riots, the military running amok. But in some areas, not a movement, not a sound, not a person. Then the screen changed to the emergency broadcasting test with its annoying, grating alarm, then to noisy, fuzzy gray dots. And then to black.

The world had collapsed.

As Ray backed away, he turned to the full length mirror by the shampoo station. Scruffy, eyes bloodshot, he looked like a crazy man in a Daffy Duck t-shirt and sweatpants.

“Ray?”

He’d recognize that beautiful alto voice anywhere. Claire smiled at him in the mirror. He saw himself smile and then a flash of colorful light. He heard static and pops, and then … she disappeared. She was there. Then not there. He blinked, turned around, and saw no one. He ran to where his wife had stood. No clothes, no blood, flesh, bone. No wedding band. Nothing. No Claire. No love of his life. She was gone.

 Ray dropped to his knees. “GOD!”

The salon’s phone rang loud as a cathedral’s bell—“Jesus!”—scaring him so hard he jerked, shook his head in disbelief the phone was working, and lunged for it. “Hello!”

“Dad!”

“Colton, thank God, are you OK?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are you?”

“Home,” said Colton, panting, his voice terrified. “Dad, we were on our way to school, and then Mr. Morris and then Wendy, they, they—I’m going crazy!”

“You’re not.”

“Why is this happening?”

“I don’t know, son.”

“Have you seen Mom?”

“Yes, yes, I saw your Mom.” Ray didn’t know what else to say. “Stay put, you hear me?”

“Yes! Hurry, Dad, please, I’m so scared and I don’t want to—”

Click.

“No, no, NO!” Silence. So quiet, his ears rang. “Colton? Colton!”

Ray ran out of the salon, shouting into the bluest sky, “I’m on my way, I love you, and—”

The last thing he heard was the roar of sharp crackling before he crossed a warm and dazzling shaft of rainbow light. 

And then, he too, vanished.

This short story features in OFM’s Freaky Fiction: Suspect Press Takeover issue. Photo courtesy of Ivy Owens and Void Phlux