Age 12:

Sandy stood in front of the television, swaying in time with the show's theme song. Her young body, trapped in the era where childhood energy and the beginnings of puberty's chemical influences both constantly battle for supremacy, twisted lithly. Shoulder length brown hair swished about with a carefree abandon that she would consider childish in just a few years. Her thin arms flayed around like yielding helicopter blades.

Her eyes were closed.

The glowing images of the flashing credits imprinted themselves upon the outsides of her eyelids. The credits radiated through the flesh, appearing as bold swaths of thick light, completely obscured. Trying as hard as she could, she tried to contort the electric mist, untwist it, to be able to read the words. She wanted desperately to be able to read them all without actually seeing them: a force of will, using the hidden powers of her mind.

Filling her mind with the sounds of the show, visualizing what she wanted to see, believing in her ability, opening her senses -- all of these techniques she utilized. The television show, which specialized in the paranormal and occult in a highly stylized, almost lavish fashion, had taught her how.

Her jaw clenched; her molars grinded together roughly, the enamel silently squeaking. Veins on her twisting neck leapt out, almost jumping out of her skin. Her arms starting falling against her torso harder, harder with the effort; slamming. The twisting form became a derverish, like the Tasmanian devil she so liked to watch on Saturday mornings.

Within her mind, one thought: read the words

read the words

feel the words

Total concentration focused on the thought. The Words. The words.

The song continued, and the names of the 2nd assistants emanated from the cathode ray tube. The transmission of the credits and the song was easy, technologically speaking. The ability to transmit sound and light to the audioisual receivers was an ancient technology to her. As magical as a car. Pull the knob and it works.

The ability to read the words without seeing the words was real magic...

magic that the television show proclaimed was possible...

Magic that she could find no knob to pull, no switch to flip. Sandy kept twisting, sightless.

Age 15:

"JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!!" Her voice screamed through the closed bedroom door. A series of slams as books, mostly library books about the occult and the paranormal, repeatedly thrown about in rage, hit walls, ceiling, each other. She stomped about, thrusting her feet down as hard as she could. Maybe I'll punch through the floor and knock a piece of wood on their heads. Yeah! Knock them out with their own house. That'll serve them right. Not in their house. Huh! I live here too. This is my room. If they don't like what I like, then fuck them. Yeah! Fuck them and their rules! It's my room and my rules!

Covering the walls were posters from the most successful and influential horror movies of the last 30 years: Night of the Living Dead, Hellraiser, countless others. A menagerie of similar images containing black backgrounds, faces hideous due to their outright terror or due to the terror they felt, bloody writing, jagged knives held menacely, and the conquest of despair over love, of the futility of hope, met her eyes every day. Sandy felt a kinship with these faces, with the worlds they lived and died in. The struggle of common people against entities with immense power called to her when she was quiet, introspective. The seemingly chaotic and randomness of her life, and the lives of everyone else, with the accidents, disasters, wars and hatred, had no clear path to victory. In the movies, the innocent victims were able to discover a magical tome, or a powerful weapon, or the single weakness that would slay the beast. In her life, she could never find the key, the answer, the power.

Her parents chalked Sandy's obsession with the morose up to the 'perils' of the teenage years. They both constantly told her how they remembered no one understanding them, how all adults were either stupid or uncaring, and how they were the only ones alive who were persecuted so.

Sandy would sit there on the living room couch and think explodeexplodeEXPLODE as she stared at her parents heads. Her teeth would clamp shut tightly. Her head would lean towards them. Her thoughts would jump out, fly across the room, and push her parents' skulls apart. Two warm showers of flesh and blood, blood filled with brain matter diseased due to a lack of use, would splatter in the air like ghoulish fireworks.

Her parents, heads intact, would continue to lecture until she ran for her room. Running from her failure. Running from the monsters she could not stop.

The movies and the books promised of numerous people with power and the will to use it. As she trudged around her square room, picking up the cherished books and replacing them on her cinder block and plywood bookcase, she remembered the scenes. Madmen wielding knives, swords, anything sharp and hard, swinging them about easily and surely, as if the weapons were extensions of their own bodies. In some movies, the weapons were their bodies. The training to use them took years; the implementation of the training took seconds. Placing a small black book, covered with a red pentagram, upon the shelf, Sandy marveled at her own hand. Her fingers straightened and she chopped the air, imagining her arm turning into a sword. Swish!

The power of destruction had been her secret desire for years. She remembered trying to read people's thoughts, staring at the back of their heads while in school. She would focus, her sight and attention narrowed to a single point on someone's skull, usually where the neck muscles connect to the thick bone. On that point, in the slight indentation, she would concentrate, trying to pick up the faint thoughts like whispers through walls.

Sandy could never hear anything.

Walking around, straightening the creases her book flinging tantrum had caused in a few posters, her thoughts fell back to demonstrations of psychic powers. She untacked a poster and folded out a crease resting under the Bates house; her memory played back the image of a woman sitting in a white room. A microphone was on a table next to her. Her eyes were closed. She seemed tranquil, at peace. Covering her ears, a pair of headphones projected the voice of a test subject in another room, who looked at special cards and thought. Thought of the simple geometric images imprinted upon them; three blue wavy lines, a red circle, a green triangle. When he had looked at the image for a few moments, and thought, he said, "Ready." The woman, remaining calm as if she understood something Sandy could only guess at, would speak one of the symbols.

Sometimes her voice and the thoughts of the card reader matched.

Sometimes they didn't.

Sandy thought of the symbols, of the power, and of skulls flying apart.

Age 18:

"Sandra Thomas"

Smiling under her graduation cap, an orange square with a black tassel falling in her eyes, she strove up the steps to the platform. The high school's principal stood there, dressed in a black graduation gown, smiling, holding out a diploma in a cloth-bound sheath. It was orange, like her gown, but did not actually hold her diploma. School policy held that the actual diplomas would not be passed out during the graduation ceremony. Only the holders, with the school seal embossed in gold paint, would be passed out. The diplomas would be mailed to the students within the next week. Sandy did not mind the charade. It was just one more false wall, filled with rotting wood, infested with bloated termites. The entire ceremony, with school bands playing, the three highest-ranking students giving insipid speeches about the joy that the future will hold now that they all were entering the world, and all the high praise for this year's class, was a joke. A building about to collapse, with demolition signs posted on the doors written in gibberish. No one cared about the students. They had no power over the world; their diplomas were as strong, as mighty, as a blade of grass. There were no hordes of people waiting outside the school's gymnasium, holding flowers and crying in joy, eager to cheer the new graduates.

The only thing waiting for Sandy was her black Ford Escort and her daily shift at the video store. Her manager couldn't give her the day off. His own son was graduating from the suburb elementary school today. Someone, she remembered him telling her as her hand grabbed the empty holder, has to watch the shop, keeping the latest hot videos in stock.

Well, I guess that will be me, the walking pumpkin. Her smile dropped, replaced by her usual black painted sneer. She stood for a moment on the first step down, staring at the assembled orange group that she had spent the past four years trapped with in high school. An orange field, fidgeting within itself, topped by hundreds of faces. Most of the faces she knew; few she liked. Fewer still that liked her.

Their joy at being out of high school, of being free, of striving up to the challenges the "real" world held, almost made her sick. Sandy knew what secrets the world held. She heard them at night, when the stars were the only illumination in the darkness. Lying in her bed, her black sheets up to her chin, she listened. Through her open window the sounds of the world came in, and within them she felt the world's emotions. Seeping up from the ground, riding the sound waves which came from cars and radios and other people, she felt the feelings the world was afraid to loudly admit to itself.

Death, betrayal, ripping out the heart of your best friend just seconds before they tried to tear your flesh off, loneliness, a lack of hope. Cold in her warm bed, Sandy heard what the world had to say in its hissing voice. She heard the words praising betrayal, congratulating actions and beliefs beyond evil; she heard the call of weakness. The words were real, vibrant, true.

The orange mass squirmed, happy, eager, blissful. The sight sickened her; she imagined it burning. A giant red wave of flame, washing down from her soul, pooling upon the walls of the gym, swirling and grasping. Orange pieces of cloth and slightly cooked flesh flying into the air, carried aloft by the intense heat currents. Flame washing back and forth, swaying within its own self, occupying every available inch of space, turning all the graduating seniors into smoldering skeletons. Blackened skulls shrieking in unbearable agony, with eyes unharmed, looking up through the human ash at her, seeing the truth. Sandy, with her arms extended, the empty diploma falling into the fire, watching her power, smiling.

"If only you would listen," she said softly as she stepped down.

Age 21:

"Well, then maybe we shouldn't see each other again....Ok, fine. Goodbye." She slammed down the phone and stormed off. Walked determinedly to her car. Thrusted the key into the starter. Twisting harshly. The tires squealed as she drove off, putting as much distance from her and her apartment as she could.

She drove along the interstate, with no clear direction or destination. Sandy just had to get away, get away from him and his lying self, her apartment, her everything. Nothing had been working right lately. Her job was just a drain on her soul, she felt. Managing the video store gave her as much satisfaction as working in a sweat shop. Her latest relationship was a disaster. She had found a man who was sensitive, caring, not some guy who longed to play football and act tough all the time.

And it was he who said that she was not open enough for him. Her? Not in touch with her feelings? What a fucking crock. He was such a wimpy, bleeding heart jerk. Oh, I need to know what you are feeling.

"I'm not feeling shit, ok?!" Her voice screamed out the window to the passing grey cement barrier. "And I really don't care what in the fuck you think! If I did, then I would shoot myself." Her mind pictured him standing in front of her car, as if he was magically summoned. Then she saw his body bend forward as her car's front bumper plowed into him. His arms flew up as he bent, then started to rip. His head slammed into the hood, denting it and spraying blood all over the windshield. The car kept driving through him, cutting through his torso cleanly. The back of his head slipped up the hood, tossing his severed body upwards, spraying a red rainbow over her. His skull then smashed into the windshield, forcing a bloody spider web of safety glass before her.

She softly smiled.

The speedometer reached 60 and kept rising, slowly.

The wind galed in her ears. A slight headache began behind her eyes.

She pictured his face, cheeks with a slight rosy glow, smiling pleasantly. The first time they met was at the video store. He was checking out two movies, the latest Stallone action adventure and an children's movie called The Forest Beast. Liking both, she started flirting, and he responded. They spoke for a while and made plans for dinner. He was handsome, stable, with a good job and a sane family life. It just did not work for her.

Why?

Flying past other cars, she thought of how she never understood him. She could never get into his head, as she could with many others. She couldn't hear what they thought or see what they saw; she just understood most people rather easily. Sandy had learned that most people were not as noble as they would like to think. They were mostly concerned with their own survival, their own pleasure; concern for their own skin, in keeping death far away. It was society's driving force. Knowing this, understanding what everyone wanted, helped her to associate with people.

With this last man, she just couldn't get it. He seemed to put others first, especially her. For a while.

It didn't make any sense. Why should he care?

The car kept roaring down the road, its speed nearing 70. An interchange approached suddenly. One road went out of town; the other road looped back to where she came from. Still thinking deeply, she drove straight. The wind blew her brown hair about frantically.

No one else is concerned for anyone but themselves, she thought. Her hand clenched the steering wheel, her knuckles whitening from a lack of blood. Her experience with people had been dismal for her entire life. Someone would show compassion to her only when it suited their interest first. What mattered to Sandy, her feelings, her cares and fears and hopes were not a part of the equation. Her happiness, she felt, was only an accidental bi-product of someone else's.

"Nobody cares," she heard herself say.

The interstate out of town curved towards the mountains, to paths carved out of million-year-old rock by men with picks and explosives. She kept driving.

Age 24:

Sandy sat in the movie theatre, a bucket of popcorn in her lap. She could hear the projectionist in the booth above, changing the movie reels. A revival of 50s science fiction films were being shown. Them had just ended, with the giant ants losing their conquest of the western U.S. She was not sure what the next movie was, The Amazing Colossal Man perhaps? It was a treat to see these movies in the theatre, with her shoes sticking to the floor just like the shoes of the people who saw these movies 40 years ago.

Looking around, stretching her neck, she saw about a dozen other B-film patrons. Most were young, teenagers seeing these bad movies with their bad special effects, laughing, enjoying themselves. Making fun of what in the 50s was considered serious topics for discussion. She remembered reading about nuclear explosion drills in the schools: crouching under desks until the blast wave ended, covering yourself with wet newspaper. Sandy smirked at the thought of surviving a nuclear explosion, with the godlike power crushing everything without mercy. More devil-like than godlike, she thought.

That level of power, of destroying a city with a single missile, with the fire melting and the force of the explosion ripping the burning flesh off people, instantly killing everyone, softly threw her into awe. The blast wave, slamming into buildings and destroying them like kicking a house of cards, sending tons of concrete and metal flying for miles, played through Sandy's mind. She could see the power clearly. It was sharper, more real than the movie theatre itself. Than anything:

The power imposed itself through the white movie screen, bending it, pushing like a gigantic finger. It then ripped through, burning the plastic fiber, forcing the screen to flap away. It advanced as a solid wall, kicking into chairs, pummeling the ones that remained bolted to the floor into a melted mush. Others that were knocked free flew over her head like rockets.

The other people in the theatre, frozen into their chairs by immeasurable fear, sat until the wall hit them, disintegrating their bones, burning their flesh and clothes, silencing their laughter with its roar. Their lives instantly stopped, but their bodies needed a few incinerated seconds to process this. The remnants of their bodies slumped into the charred and smashed chairs, turned into burning, formless blobs, losing their human physique. The blast wave turned them into amorphic beings, dying, dead, long dead before the wave hit them.

The wave then hit her.

Sandy sat there, her eyes glazed over, her mind in obvious thought. When she pictured the fiery wave hitting her like the fist of God, her flesh melting as her body was destroyed, she jerked backwards in her chair. She pushed forcibly on the armrest as she kicked out with her feet. Her head instantly screamed in pain. She visualized her skin melting, with flames rippling and dancing over her. The impact of the wave thrust the air from her lungs, collapsing them. Fire jumped in her open mouth, charring her teeth, reaching down her throat. Her eyes disintegrated, filling her ocular cavities with ash. Her ribs audibly cracked to her imagined smoldering ears, snapping like dead twigs. Pieces of bone pierced her lungs, heart. As the wave washed over her anonymously, her body just another thing to smash, to destroy, her arms snapped in countless places. Burning bone fragments shot themselves out of her fiery body.

Two teenagers in the back row of the theatre saw Sandy slump forward, then heard a thump as she hit the floor.

Her body, shattered, dead yet still chemically alive, fell forward like a sack filled with gelatin. She hit the floor wetly, as the heat turned the trod upon candy and spilled soda into a bubbling swamp. The wave passed, leaving only fire and desolation in its wake. She lay there, the life actions of her body stopping. As the world ended for Sandy, her mind, in the pieces not fully incinerated, played her a song. A simple song from a television show she had watched a long time ago. A song forgotten until now.

Lying on the floor, blood flowing from her nose and ears, the song played. It promised of strength, of power, of her being able to do anything she desired, of the power deeply contained within everyone. All that was needed to release the power, she heard the song whisper to her between its notes, was the desire. A desire she had never before found.

The two teenagers, concerned, walked over to her to see what was wrong. They heard Sandy humming, curled upon the movie theatre floor, her flowing brown hair and face covered in blood, as the lights dimmed for the next movie.