The Rift

The Rift Tynan Gallagher

It is 1928. World War II ended ten years ago, but it is not how you remember it. Russia and a communist union of African countries teamed up and went after the United States and its growing democracy. America had no powerful friends at the time. Just scientists. All I know is that just before Africa and Russia took the capitol, their nations disappeared. They fell silent on June 4, 1918. After American troops crushed whatever troops were left, they went to investigate the two powerhouses. All that remained was rifts. That’s what we call them. Rifts.

Shortly after the war, America began to celebrate. America strongarmed other countries into giving us their resources; otherwise we would make what happened to the other nations happen to them. Nations agreed to the terms without hesitation, and the U.S. began to prosper. That is, until the rifts began to form back at home in 1924. They began to pop up as small as golf balls. But then they began to grow. Now some city blocks are just...gone. At least I can tell you what a rift looks like...space.

That’s where I come in, though. My name is Abraham, and I’m a cop in New York City. About five years ago, it was the easiest gig in the world. I would catch a few fellas having a bit too much fun, but that was about it. Nowadays, I’m in charge of the most fucked shit you’ve ever seen. I was tossed into the “Broadway Street Showcase” task force, named so lovingly by my partner, Herald, who was the first one to arrive on the scene of a rift victim. A man was hung up by his own organs, right in the middle of the street, over a rift. His blood was dripping into the rift when we arrived, and we could see the heart sagging out of his torn-open chest.

Today, I’m on Houston Street. Same deal. We just got the body down.

“24-year-old woman, stomach cut open. Eyes gouged out just like the last one,” Herald told me.

I looked over the corpse. Disgusting, I’ll tell you. You never want to see inside someone. It’s a child-like fantasy, wondering what makes you up inside. But when it’s in front of you, splattered across the pavement, you can’t help but think about what a monster you were back then.

“Any new details, Herald?” I asked.

Herald looked over the body, then ran his fingers along the incision line of the stomach. “It’s a bit rougher,” he noted.

I tilted my head and looked at him. “Ya wanna explain?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” he said, “so what I’m gettin’ at is this. Look at where the stomach was cut open. It’s more jagged, more crooked than last time. Last time it was like a doctor,” he explained.

I bent down, slapped on a pair of gloves, and ran my finger along the cut. He was right. It’s almost as if the knife itself, or the hand using it, had gone down in quality. “I see your point.”

We handed the body off to Joe Fort. He was our local doc, an expert in autopsies and all that. I wouldn’t

dare step into his shoes for a day. After a massive rift opened up in a hospital in D.C., nobody wanted to be a doctor anymore. It was in the papers for weeks. Doctors were taken into the rift, while patients sat there without any help. Even some equipment was pulled in without the patients. Two guys woke up during surgery, and it’s said that people heard their screams for weeks.

Herald and I went back to the office and looked over the case file.

“It’s no coincidence anymore,” I said.

Herald looked at me with a puzzled face.

“This is the fourth body we’ve found like this. Torn open stomach, organs stringing them up over a rift. At first, I know we said it was because nobody ever goes near the damn things, but maybe it’s more than that,” I said.

Herald rolled his eyes, “Not this again.”

“C’mon man—” I tried to explain.

“We both know it’s bogus. Rifts, even after all these years, scare the shit out of people. And when shit falls into them? It just disappears into the rift,” Herald countered.

I let out a sigh and looked back down at my notes. All four cases. Same brutal, disgusting way of displaying a murder victim. But there was also always that rift. Always large enough to make sure anything that fell off the body fell inside.

“A wager then!” I exclaimed. Herald raised his eyebrow.

“We set up cameras at all major rifts in the city, but not so major they get much eye-traffic. Then, we check if our murderer shows up. If he never does, I owe you 20 bucks,” I offered.

Herald sighed and stared at his computer screen. After some silence and thought, he shrugged. “I could use 20 bucks,” he said.

It was settled. We went to a few major streets that haven’t had a lot of foot traffic lately: Canal, Christopher, and Love Lane. Love Lane was included under Herald’s advice, although the place was just a bunch of apartments. Herald seemed a bit distant while we set up the cameras, but everyone tends to go quiet around rifts.

“Alright. This one’s good. We good to go?” I asked Herald, as we set up the last camera on Love Lane.

I glanced at him for confirmation, but he was staring into the rift. There was something very different about his eyes: his focus. He was looking at something in nothing.

“Herald, you alright? What do you see?” I asked.

“My wife,” Herald responded, with a crack in his voice.

I squinted at him and placed my hand on his shoulder. “Shit happens. Move on,” I said, trying to comfort him in the only way I knew.

This wasn’t uncommon for Herald. It’s also why he’s on the taskforce. He used to be a soldier, serving with his wife. They put their lives on the line for some shitty, dying country, but went wherever they were needed as long as they were together. He was in transport back to the U.S. when Russia turned into the rift. He made it, she didn’t.

“Abe?” Herald asked. “Yeah man?” I responded.

“The rifts have more to offer than loss,” he said, as he turned toward me.

I didn’t like what he said one bit.

For the first time in a while, I wasn’t sure who I was talking to. “What in the hell does that mean?” I asked, standing up quickly.

He stood up as well and looked over at the camera.

“Abe, that thing isn’t even on. How are you gonna win the wager if you can’t confirm anything?” he said, as his shoulders relaxed.

I let out a small sigh of relief and walked over to the camera. “Ya know,” I began, “you really have a way of creeping me out sometimes man, like re—”

The camera light was blinking. It was recording. I reached for my gun, but it was too late.

The next thing I felt was a sharp pain in my back, followed by a loud crack that echoed against the tall buildings surrounding me.

“Everything is in there, Abraham. My wife, your sister. Everybody. We all belong there. We have to feed it. We have to feed it the color,” Herald whispered into my ear, as my eyes closed.

I felt the warm below me, and the cold above. Like I was leaving some really shitty day to come back home or leaving a cold room into a warm shower. Like I was coming home to my family. This peace, this warmth, was all I could ever ask for. But she wasn’t in there. She was gone. And if she was gone, there was work to be done. All I had to do was open my eyes.

“Hey, you son of a bitch,” I grunted, as I looked up at Herald.

I was handcuffed to a drainpipe, right next to the rift. I was bleeding heavily from my right side, where he shot me. I saw Herald toss the camera into the rift and then look over at me. His eyes were not his own.

“If I don’t get medical attention, I’m going to bleed out,” I said to the monster in front of me.

All it did was smile, looking right at me.

I clenched my teeth. It was just like before, with the murders. This thing needs blood for the rift. Right now, I was the unlucky supplier. I just had to stay calm. Just had to stay calm. “You’re not Herald,” I said, trying to distract it. I had to figure out a way out of the cuffs.

“Rifts, even after all these years, scare the shit out of people,” it answered. Its voice was the same as Herald’s, but it was not Herald. Just something that had a fucking recorder for a voice.

I turned my back to it, covering the cuffs. I quickly brought up my knee and jammed it into my hands. Luckily, all it took was one hit. Got my right thumb broken. I slid it out of the cuffs. The rush of adrenaline made the blood flow faster, but it was worth it. My vision started to blur, but I swung around, and raised my fist. It came in for a kick, but I brought up my hand and sacrificed a few fingers to take the blow. I pushed the foot to the side, causing it to fall to the ground. I slid out my other hand, lunged forward, and slammed my fist into its head.

“You really have a way of creeping me out sometimes, man,” it said, in my voice.

Shut up.

I started slamming my fists into its mouth, trying to get rid of Herald’s face. Once I couldn’t recognize him, there was nothing to stop me. I grabbed it by its hair, pulled it up, and threw it into the rift. Everything went inside. Everything.

Then I heard it.

It spoke to me.

Tonton Macoute (Uncle Gunnysack) after a poem by Natasha Trethewey Gigi Gaston

The Tonton Macoute, created in 1959, was the secret service in Haiti in charge of keeping François (Papa Doc) Duvalier in power and getting rid of his enemies. The nickname came from a bogeyman myth in which misbehaving kids are kidnapped and put in a gunnysack to later be eaten for breakfast. The group was made up of illiterate fanatics who believed in voodoo and used their new power to terrorize people.

The Doctor is leading them. Wake your kids and run away, our country is a stranger now. They threaten us with their voodoo.

Wake your kids and run away. Another person goes missing. They threaten us with their voodoo and feed off submission and fear.

Another person goes missing; They hate to be challenged. They feed off submission and fear and bruise and burn people for fun.

They hate to be challenged; take your boats and leave the country. They bruise and burn people for fun. We’re all afraid of the bogeymen.

We take our boats and leave the country, our country a stranger now. We’re all afraid of the bogeymen, and the Doctor leading them.