Contrails
by Michael C. Keith
Genre: Horror/Supernatural
Swearwords: None.
Description: A boy sees words in aircraft contrails that lead him to dark behaviour.
_____________________________________________________________________
Miles and miles distant though the last line be . . . – Dante Rossetti
Before Billy Wyler’s eyes had even opened for the first time, some part of his infant brain registered vivid white lines crossing the primordial darkness behind his closed lids. By the time he was four years old, similar streaks in the infinite western Nebraska sky drew his attention.
“Mommy, what are those?” asked Billy, pointing upward.
“Those are jet fumes,” replied Marion Wyler.
“Well, not exactly,” corrected his Uncle Frank. “Those are trails of condensed water from aircraft . . . jets. They’re called contrails.”
“I stand corrected,” said Marion, poking her brother-in-law in the arm.
“Contails?” repeated Billy.
“No, contrails. There’s an ‘r’ in the word.”
“Contails,” blurted Billy.
“Close enough, little man. Now I’d best be getting home.”
“Thanks, for fixing the bathroom tank, Frank. Really appreciate it. Wouldn’t know what to do without you.”
“Well, maybe Kevin will get out soon, and . . .”
Marion’s expression darkened, and Frank dropped the subject. Her husband had been confined to the state mental facility for two years and the prospect of his being released anytime in the near future was remote as far as she was concerned. In all honesty, she felt unprepared to deal with his return, especially if any of the behavioral issues that had caused him to be committed still existed. His manic delusions about extraterrestrials and consequent camping out on the roof naked while awaiting their arrival had been the last straw.
“See you guys day after tomorrow for the cutting,” said Frank, heading to his pickup.
Billy remained on the front porch staring at the sky as his mother disappeared inside the house. When she returned a half-hour later, her son’s gaze was still fixed on the heavens.
“Well, you sure like to look at the planes, huh? They go far off and none of them land nearby. No one’s coming here on one of those big jets. Maybe Denver, but I think if a plane is really high up in the sky, it’s probably going much further. Like that one there,” said Marion, pointing to a glimmering silver speck in the firmament. “It could be going to San Francisco, even Hawaii.”
Billy’s intense interest in the passing aircraft began to concern Marion. Day after day she would find him looking upward as if hypnotized. The vacant expression on his face added to her anxiety.
“Honey, what are you looking at? There are just some white lines . . . ah, contrails, like your Uncle Frank said. Can’t be all that exciting. Come on. Go collect some eggs. Besides, looking up at the sun will injure your eyes.”
“They’re funny,” mumbled Billy.
“What’s funny?”
“The contails.”
“Why?” asked Marion, feeling unsettled.
The fear that he might be following in his father’s footsteps began to enter her thoughts.
“’Cause,” answered Billy, skipping off to the hen house.
* * *
What was capturing Billy’s interest were the words, even phrases, and short sentences he saw forming in the vapor trails left by the passing aircraft. Indeed, his vocabulary was advanced for his age. His mother had read to him nightly, insisting that her son learn basic written language in advance of his attending school. Billy now believed the sky was communicating with him, and he was delighted with the very idea.
“Happy boy,” he said to his mother as she found him sitting on the porch steps.
“Yes, you are a happy boy,” she repeated, sitting down next to him.
Billy pointed to the sky. “Good boy.”
“Yes, a very good boy,” said Marion, looking into her child’s eyes.
“Play with the bunnies,” Billy mumbled.
“Do you see something up there, honey?” inquired Marion.
“Going to play with the bunnies,” he said, disregarding his mother’s question.
What is going on with him? Marion wondered, feeling as if some invisible force was directing the actions of her son. Oh, God, please, no. Not like his father.
Kevin Wyler had behaved similarly on several occasions. Marion had encountered him talking to something unseen when he was in the wheat field and in the livestock pen behind the barn. This was in the early stage of what hadn’t been recognized as his breakdown. In the months that followed, things got decidedly worse. Kevin had begun to insist that he was communicating with beings from another galaxy. He claimed they had chosen him to come visit their planet, and they would soon take him there.
Billy had not seen his father in two years and by now had mostly forgotten what he looked like. Marion had resisted taking her son to visit him in the institution, because he continued to behave bizarrely. Kevin’s brother, Frank, had mixed feelings about keeping the boy from his own father but kept his views on the subject to himself, sparing Marion further stress.
* * *
Two hours had passed since Marion had seen Billy. He had failed to respond to her calls, so she went to look for him in the barn where the rabbits were kept.
“There you are. Didn’t you hear . . .?”
Next to her son lay a dead rabbit that had apparently been crushed by the rock next to its bloodied body.
“What . . . what happened, Billy?”
Her son slowly turned to her and the look in his eyes caused her to gasp. They appeared detached from his being . . . alien.
“Oh, God, Billy. What happened? Did you do this?”
His body was rigid and cold to the touch as she put her arms around him.
“It said to,” Billy muttered.
“Huh? What said to?”
“The contails.”
“What are you saying, sweetie?”
“It said ‘kill the bunny.’”
“Oh, baby . . . what’s the matter with you?” whimpered Marion, lifting Billy and running from the barn.
“Look, mommy. See . . . kill bunny,” said Billy, pointing upward.
Two sleek contrails crisscrossed the cloudless sky. They reminded Marion of a crucifix, and the thought made her shiver.
* * *
“Kids do crazy things, sometimes damn mean things cause they don’t know better,” replied Frank when Marion told him about the rabbit incident.
“I hope that’s all there is to it.”
“What else could it be? Don’t worry. I’m sure he knows he did something bad.”
Frank had arrived to begin harvesting the small field of wheat he had planted on his sister-in-law’s property. In return for his handyman help, Marion had allowed him to cultivate five acres of her farm for his benefit. They both thought it was a perfect exchange.
“Thanks for everything, Frank,” said Marion. ”It’s been tough with Kevin gone.”
“I know it has, but thank you for letting me seed the field. How about Billy riding with me in the tractor?”
“He’d like that. I’ll go get him.”
Marion found her son in his room peering out the window at the sky.
“Uncle Frank wants you to ride with him in the John Deere while he cuts the wheat. That’ll be fun, huh?”
Billy did not respond, so Marion tapped him on his shoulder to break his reverie. After a second he turned and looked at his mother expressionless.
“Are you okay, honey? Why do you keep looking at the sky? There’s nothing out there.”
“Yes there is,” responded Billy, moving past her toward the door.
“Wait . . . what do you see?”
Billy let out a giggle. “Things . . . words.”
Marion looked out of the window at the blank sky.
“I don’t see anything. Are you pretending?”
Billy shook his head and ran from the room. Marion returned her gaze out of the window and suddenly felt the weight of the world descend on her. Oh, God, she moaned, watching her son being lifted into the tractor by his uncle.
“You okay?” asked Frank, as he started the motor.
After a long pause, Billy turned to his uncle. “No,” he said, smiling, and turned away.
“What’s the matter, son?”
“Look,” said Billy, pointing to the sky with sudden enthusiasm. “Contails.”
* * *
Several years passed and Billy exhibited no further fixation on the vapor trails of passing aircraft. After the rabbit event, he’d stopped staring trancelike at the sky. As time passed, Marion began to think of it as an aberration of childhood, and she was profoundly relieved. Although her husband remained institutionalized, her life had settled into an easy rhythm and she had attained a level of contentment she thought would never come. Everything seemed right . . . and then it quickly didn’t.
A week after Billy graduated from high school, Marion found him staring at the sky and mumbling to himself in the back yard. Her heart sank. Not again, she thought. Please, not again. She decided not to confront him, hoping it would be an isolated episode, but over the next few days, the scene repeated itself. When she finally asked Billy what he was doing, he giggled as he had fourteen years earlier following the same question.
When her brother-in-law showed up to repair a torn window screen, she informed him of Billy’s odd behavior. This time he was not as certain that his nephew’s actions were as benign as they had been when he was little.
“Might have him see someone.”
“A psychiatrist?”
“Someone who knows about mental stuff. Maybe Kevin’s old therapist. What was his name? Dr. Berry?”
“Yes, it was, but he retired a couple of years ago. Do you think Billy really needs a shrink? I don’t know what I’ll do if he has what his father does.”
“Hey, don’t even go there. It’s probably some little tick that can be handled with some meds. He seems fine otherwise, right?”
“I guess, but when he starts jabbering to the sky, he reminds me of Kevin.”
“Find someone he can talk to. Things will be okay. Don’t think the worst.”
Marion made an appointment with a therapist in Scottsbluff and was relieved when her son did not object to going.
“I don’t know why, but if it makes you happy, I’ll talk with the guy. I want to get a pair of binoculars at the Sports Mart there anyway.”
“What for?”
“So I can see things better. You know,” replied Billy nodding skyward.
Marion smiled at her son while fighting back tears.
* * *
The messages that Billy saw in the contrails captivated him, especially the ones about things that wanted to harm him and his mother. Animals posed the biggest threat to their wellbeing and now the streaks were warning him about the dangers that his uncle posed––UNCLE FRANK WANTS TO HARM YOU. It upset him that his beloved uncle was a threat to him and his mother, and he resisted the directives from the contrails. Instead, he thought getting rid of the chickens and hog would avert any further contretemps.
When Billy knew his mother was in bed for the evening, he went to the barn and slaughtered the hazardous animals. When the dawn arrived, he was pleased that the message in the sole contrail he could see commended his actions. However, not long after, a new contrail reminded him that his uncle had to be dealt with next.
Not Uncle Frank, please! Billy pleaded, but the vapor trail insisted.
KILL UNCLE . . . KILL UNCLE! it commanded in huge letters from twenty thousand feet in the air.
Marion was horrified when she discovered the carnage in the barn and knew that it was the act of her son. She immediately called her brother-in-law, who agreed to come right over. She then confronted her son.
“They were going to hurt us,” he replied.
“The chickens and hog? Where did you get that crazy notion, Billy? What made you do it, for God’s sake?” Billy’s eyes moved upward. “Those things . . . those white lines?”
Billy nodded and smiled.
“They were going to hurt us, and Uncle Frank will, too.”
“Uncle Frank?” shouted Marion, her body shaking.
A cloud of dust appeared in the distance.
“It’s him,” muttered Billy, who then ran into the barn.
In a couple of minutes, Frank pulled up and was greeted by his frantic sister-in-law.
“Thanks for coming. He’s in the barn. Said the animals were going to harm us. He said you were going to also.”
“I’ll talk to him. Let’s get him to the hospital.”
“Okay,” replied Marion, following her brother-in-law to the barn
“Hang back, Marion. Let me have words with him alone.”
Marion watched nervously as Frank disappeared inside. Almost immediately, there was a scream, and her brother-in-law came stumbling out with a pitchfork in his thigh, blood was spurting from it.
“Get the sheriff,” he yelled, falling to the ground.
After she called for help, Marion ran back to Frank to help staunch the bleeding, but it was too late. The blow had struck an artery and he had quickly bled to death.
The deputy sheriff found Marion in shock next to her brother-in-law’s body. The lawman located Billy in a field a couple hundred yards away as he stood motionless with his head upturned.
* * *
Billy was committed to the state’s facility for the criminally insane. After assaulting two of his fellow inmates, he was placed in an isolated, windowless cell. Guards checked on him at designated intervals. When they did, they invariably found him curled up in a corner mumbling and giggling to himself with his eyes closed tightly. In the darkness of his inner world, contrails formed a thousand different words.
Swearwords: None.
Description: A boy sees words in aircraft contrails that lead him to dark behaviour.
_____________________________________________________________________
Miles and miles distant though the last line be . . . – Dante Rossetti
Before Billy Wyler’s eyes had even opened for the first time, some part of his infant brain registered vivid white lines crossing the primordial darkness behind his closed lids. By the time he was four years old, similar streaks in the infinite western Nebraska sky drew his attention.
“Mommy, what are those?” asked Billy, pointing upward.
“Those are jet fumes,” replied Marion Wyler.
“Well, not exactly,” corrected his Uncle Frank. “Those are trails of condensed water from aircraft . . . jets. They’re called contrails.”
“I stand corrected,” said Marion, poking her brother-in-law in the arm.
“Contails?” repeated Billy.
“No, contrails. There’s an ‘r’ in the word.”
“Contails,” blurted Billy.
“Close enough, little man. Now I’d best be getting home.”
“Thanks, for fixing the bathroom tank, Frank. Really appreciate it. Wouldn’t know what to do without you.”
“Well, maybe Kevin will get out soon, and . . .”
Marion’s expression darkened, and Frank dropped the subject. Her husband had been confined to the state mental facility for two years and the prospect of his being released anytime in the near future was remote as far as she was concerned. In all honesty, she felt unprepared to deal with his return, especially if any of the behavioral issues that had caused him to be committed still existed. His manic delusions about extraterrestrials and consequent camping out on the roof naked while awaiting their arrival had been the last straw.
“See you guys day after tomorrow for the cutting,” said Frank, heading to his pickup.
Billy remained on the front porch staring at the sky as his mother disappeared inside the house. When she returned a half-hour later, her son’s gaze was still fixed on the heavens.
“Well, you sure like to look at the planes, huh? They go far off and none of them land nearby. No one’s coming here on one of those big jets. Maybe Denver, but I think if a plane is really high up in the sky, it’s probably going much further. Like that one there,” said Marion, pointing to a glimmering silver speck in the firmament. “It could be going to San Francisco, even Hawaii.”
Billy’s intense interest in the passing aircraft began to concern Marion. Day after day she would find him looking upward as if hypnotized. The vacant expression on his face added to her anxiety.
“Honey, what are you looking at? There are just some white lines . . . ah, contrails, like your Uncle Frank said. Can’t be all that exciting. Come on. Go collect some eggs. Besides, looking up at the sun will injure your eyes.”
“They’re funny,” mumbled Billy.
“What’s funny?”
“The contails.”
“Why?” asked Marion, feeling unsettled.
The fear that he might be following in his father’s footsteps began to enter her thoughts.
“’Cause,” answered Billy, skipping off to the hen house.
* * *
What was capturing Billy’s interest were the words, even phrases, and short sentences he saw forming in the vapor trails left by the passing aircraft. Indeed, his vocabulary was advanced for his age. His mother had read to him nightly, insisting that her son learn basic written language in advance of his attending school. Billy now believed the sky was communicating with him, and he was delighted with the very idea.
“Happy boy,” he said to his mother as she found him sitting on the porch steps.
“Yes, you are a happy boy,” she repeated, sitting down next to him.
Billy pointed to the sky. “Good boy.”
“Yes, a very good boy,” said Marion, looking into her child’s eyes.
“Play with the bunnies,” Billy mumbled.
“Do you see something up there, honey?” inquired Marion.
“Going to play with the bunnies,” he said, disregarding his mother’s question.
What is going on with him? Marion wondered, feeling as if some invisible force was directing the actions of her son. Oh, God, please, no. Not like his father.
Kevin Wyler had behaved similarly on several occasions. Marion had encountered him talking to something unseen when he was in the wheat field and in the livestock pen behind the barn. This was in the early stage of what hadn’t been recognized as his breakdown. In the months that followed, things got decidedly worse. Kevin had begun to insist that he was communicating with beings from another galaxy. He claimed they had chosen him to come visit their planet, and they would soon take him there.
Billy had not seen his father in two years and by now had mostly forgotten what he looked like. Marion had resisted taking her son to visit him in the institution, because he continued to behave bizarrely. Kevin’s brother, Frank, had mixed feelings about keeping the boy from his own father but kept his views on the subject to himself, sparing Marion further stress.
* * *
Two hours had passed since Marion had seen Billy. He had failed to respond to her calls, so she went to look for him in the barn where the rabbits were kept.
“There you are. Didn’t you hear . . .?”
Next to her son lay a dead rabbit that had apparently been crushed by the rock next to its bloodied body.
“What . . . what happened, Billy?”
Her son slowly turned to her and the look in his eyes caused her to gasp. They appeared detached from his being . . . alien.
“Oh, God, Billy. What happened? Did you do this?”
His body was rigid and cold to the touch as she put her arms around him.
“It said to,” Billy muttered.
“Huh? What said to?”
“The contails.”
“What are you saying, sweetie?”
“It said ‘kill the bunny.’”
“Oh, baby . . . what’s the matter with you?” whimpered Marion, lifting Billy and running from the barn.
“Look, mommy. See . . . kill bunny,” said Billy, pointing upward.
Two sleek contrails crisscrossed the cloudless sky. They reminded Marion of a crucifix, and the thought made her shiver.
* * *
“Kids do crazy things, sometimes damn mean things cause they don’t know better,” replied Frank when Marion told him about the rabbit incident.
“I hope that’s all there is to it.”
“What else could it be? Don’t worry. I’m sure he knows he did something bad.”
Frank had arrived to begin harvesting the small field of wheat he had planted on his sister-in-law’s property. In return for his handyman help, Marion had allowed him to cultivate five acres of her farm for his benefit. They both thought it was a perfect exchange.
“Thanks for everything, Frank,” said Marion. ”It’s been tough with Kevin gone.”
“I know it has, but thank you for letting me seed the field. How about Billy riding with me in the tractor?”
“He’d like that. I’ll go get him.”
Marion found her son in his room peering out the window at the sky.
“Uncle Frank wants you to ride with him in the John Deere while he cuts the wheat. That’ll be fun, huh?”
Billy did not respond, so Marion tapped him on his shoulder to break his reverie. After a second he turned and looked at his mother expressionless.
“Are you okay, honey? Why do you keep looking at the sky? There’s nothing out there.”
“Yes there is,” responded Billy, moving past her toward the door.
“Wait . . . what do you see?”
Billy let out a giggle. “Things . . . words.”
Marion looked out of the window at the blank sky.
“I don’t see anything. Are you pretending?”
Billy shook his head and ran from the room. Marion returned her gaze out of the window and suddenly felt the weight of the world descend on her. Oh, God, she moaned, watching her son being lifted into the tractor by his uncle.
“You okay?” asked Frank, as he started the motor.
After a long pause, Billy turned to his uncle. “No,” he said, smiling, and turned away.
“What’s the matter, son?”
“Look,” said Billy, pointing to the sky with sudden enthusiasm. “Contails.”
* * *
Several years passed and Billy exhibited no further fixation on the vapor trails of passing aircraft. After the rabbit event, he’d stopped staring trancelike at the sky. As time passed, Marion began to think of it as an aberration of childhood, and she was profoundly relieved. Although her husband remained institutionalized, her life had settled into an easy rhythm and she had attained a level of contentment she thought would never come. Everything seemed right . . . and then it quickly didn’t.
A week after Billy graduated from high school, Marion found him staring at the sky and mumbling to himself in the back yard. Her heart sank. Not again, she thought. Please, not again. She decided not to confront him, hoping it would be an isolated episode, but over the next few days, the scene repeated itself. When she finally asked Billy what he was doing, he giggled as he had fourteen years earlier following the same question.
When her brother-in-law showed up to repair a torn window screen, she informed him of Billy’s odd behavior. This time he was not as certain that his nephew’s actions were as benign as they had been when he was little.
“Might have him see someone.”
“A psychiatrist?”
“Someone who knows about mental stuff. Maybe Kevin’s old therapist. What was his name? Dr. Berry?”
“Yes, it was, but he retired a couple of years ago. Do you think Billy really needs a shrink? I don’t know what I’ll do if he has what his father does.”
“Hey, don’t even go there. It’s probably some little tick that can be handled with some meds. He seems fine otherwise, right?”
“I guess, but when he starts jabbering to the sky, he reminds me of Kevin.”
“Find someone he can talk to. Things will be okay. Don’t think the worst.”
Marion made an appointment with a therapist in Scottsbluff and was relieved when her son did not object to going.
“I don’t know why, but if it makes you happy, I’ll talk with the guy. I want to get a pair of binoculars at the Sports Mart there anyway.”
“What for?”
“So I can see things better. You know,” replied Billy nodding skyward.
Marion smiled at her son while fighting back tears.
* * *
The messages that Billy saw in the contrails captivated him, especially the ones about things that wanted to harm him and his mother. Animals posed the biggest threat to their wellbeing and now the streaks were warning him about the dangers that his uncle posed––UNCLE FRANK WANTS TO HARM YOU. It upset him that his beloved uncle was a threat to him and his mother, and he resisted the directives from the contrails. Instead, he thought getting rid of the chickens and hog would avert any further contretemps.
When Billy knew his mother was in bed for the evening, he went to the barn and slaughtered the hazardous animals. When the dawn arrived, he was pleased that the message in the sole contrail he could see commended his actions. However, not long after, a new contrail reminded him that his uncle had to be dealt with next.
Not Uncle Frank, please! Billy pleaded, but the vapor trail insisted.
KILL UNCLE . . . KILL UNCLE! it commanded in huge letters from twenty thousand feet in the air.
Marion was horrified when she discovered the carnage in the barn and knew that it was the act of her son. She immediately called her brother-in-law, who agreed to come right over. She then confronted her son.
“They were going to hurt us,” he replied.
“The chickens and hog? Where did you get that crazy notion, Billy? What made you do it, for God’s sake?” Billy’s eyes moved upward. “Those things . . . those white lines?”
Billy nodded and smiled.
“They were going to hurt us, and Uncle Frank will, too.”
“Uncle Frank?” shouted Marion, her body shaking.
A cloud of dust appeared in the distance.
“It’s him,” muttered Billy, who then ran into the barn.
In a couple of minutes, Frank pulled up and was greeted by his frantic sister-in-law.
“Thanks for coming. He’s in the barn. Said the animals were going to harm us. He said you were going to also.”
“I’ll talk to him. Let’s get him to the hospital.”
“Okay,” replied Marion, following her brother-in-law to the barn
“Hang back, Marion. Let me have words with him alone.”
Marion watched nervously as Frank disappeared inside. Almost immediately, there was a scream, and her brother-in-law came stumbling out with a pitchfork in his thigh, blood was spurting from it.
“Get the sheriff,” he yelled, falling to the ground.
After she called for help, Marion ran back to Frank to help staunch the bleeding, but it was too late. The blow had struck an artery and he had quickly bled to death.
The deputy sheriff found Marion in shock next to her brother-in-law’s body. The lawman located Billy in a field a couple hundred yards away as he stood motionless with his head upturned.
* * *
Billy was committed to the state’s facility for the criminally insane. After assaulting two of his fellow inmates, he was placed in an isolated, windowless cell. Guards checked on him at designated intervals. When they did, they invariably found him curled up in a corner mumbling and giggling to himself with his eyes closed tightly. In the darkness of his inner world, contrails formed a thousand different words.
About the Author
Originally from Albany, New York, Michael C. Keith has paternal family roots stretching back to Clan Keith of Caithness and Aberdeenshire. A leading scholar in electronic media in the United States, he is the author of over 20 books on electronic media, as well as a memoir and three books of fiction. Much more about Michael and his publications can be found on his website: http://www.michaelckeith.com