Centralia
[title type="subtitle-h6"]Rebecca Kyser[/title][vc_row][vc_column width="11/12"][vc_column_text]They left for Centralia early Saturday morning.It had been Carver’s idea, as were most of their more dangerous day trips. Carver had always been a thrill seeker. Ever since he’d jumped into the deep end of the swimming pool just to prove he could back in 1st grade he’d been tethered to the addiction of adrenaline. From riding his bike without a helmet to taking two stairs at a time, Carver went out of his way to experience little thrills from his everyday existence. Big thrills, on the other hand, were rare for the lanky teen whom had broken more bones in non-contact sports than any of his classmates. So when Carver learned that there was a ghost town less than a few hours away when they were still in middle school, it was clear a trip was going to be required. And when Marvin got sick they ran out of reasons for putting it off.Danni took care of the logistics. She was good at these types of things. She commandeered her cousins’ van for the event. The van, a white monstrous thing that Danni’s cousin bought from the bad side of town, was the ideal vehicle for such a trip. Sure, it smelled like weed, and sure, there were a few stains on the upholstery that looked questionable, but it had space, and for any trip that included Marvin, space was required.Ever since Marvin had gotten sick, real sick, their bi-weekly Saturday trips began to require more and more planning. They couldn’t go to places that were too populated in case Marvin immune system wasn’t up to par. Activities that required intense physical fitness were out of the question. They needed to have a car big enough for a wheelchair incase Marvin was having an off day, or if they needed to bring an IV bag with or if he was still nauseous from a round of chemo. And some days, they needed to prepare themselves for giving up a trip all together. Marvin hated all the fuss but he understood the root cause of it: concern. While his type of cancer had a high survival rate and Marvin was showing marked improvement, no one wanted to take risks. So Marvin didn’t complain when his friends pulled up to his house in one of the ugliest vans he had ever seen.Sneaking out was easy. His parents could sleep through anything, so they didn’t stir when Marvin trudged through the house at 6 in the morning getting ready. He’d dressed for the occasion, placing an oversized sweatshirt over his skinny frame. It used to fit well back when he played soccer, but chemo had sucked all the muscle mass out of him. The googly eyes on his knitted frog beanie bounced as he pilfered snacks from the kitchen cabinet. Danni had made it for him, a present for when his hair started falling out. It looked pretty stupid, a green monstrosity with giant felt eyes attached to the top, but Danni put effort into it, so Marvin wore it all the same. They managed to leave his house with no problems, and while Marvin was sure he’d get hell for sneaking out later, the cool air that brushed against his face as they soared down the highway was more than worth the future hassle.“What do you think of the theme music?” Carver asked from the front seat. He’d put in his AC/DC tape into the cassette player (which was one of the many reasons Marvin considered the van as utter shit) and it was currently playing “Highway to Hell.” He wasn’t blasting it, the cassette player couldn’t go that loud, but it could be heard in the backseat. Marvin poked his head back into the car.“Not a huge fan, but it’s fitting. What do you think, Danni?”Carver reached up to adjust the rearview mirror so he could make weird faces at Marvin without taking his eyes off the road. The gesture forced his shirt sleeve down his arm, revealing his tattoo sleeve, which featured a plethora of band names, a skull and a snail playing a saxophone. Carver was the tallest of the gang, a good two inches taller than Marvin. He tended to loom over people, which was unsettling to some given his multiple piercings and arm tattoos, but in reality he was a huge softie, a true pacifist. The school regarded him as the coolest weirdo to grace their class in a decade.“I think you’re an idiot to even consider dumping on such a classic,” Danni said. She was seated in the front as well, her feet up on the dashboard. She was in her normal weekend getup, contacts forgone for glasses, jeans abandoned for sweats, straightened hair discarded for messy braids. Her varsity cheerleading sweatshirt was far too big on her, thought Marvin knew she preferred it that way. She always complained that tight fitting clothes were too uncomfortable. She grabbed the edge of her seat so she could push herself up enough to look at Marvin. The light shown through the windows onto her brown, freckled face. The markings had always reminded Marvin of paint splatter, the type that they sold on blank canvases in indie art museums for thousands of dollars. Danni was often a terror in the morning even with coffee, but when it came to their Saturday morning trips, she did her best to be in a good mood. Well, at least since Marvin was diagnosed, which to be honest, bothered him a little. He missed her bitter commentary. “You ready to embrace the fires of hell?”Oh, he was. Carver had explained the place when they were still at his house. Once a thriving small town, Centralia had been abandoned entirely in the 80’s when residents became aware of the underground fire that simmered underneath the place. Since then, it’d become an inspiration to horror writers and a tourist destination for the less wary. Most people called it “The Entrance to Hell.”“I’m pretty pumped,” Marvin said. “I’ve never been to Hell before. Think they’ll have a free buffet?”“Probably not, smart ass,” Carver said. Marvin chewed on the bottom of his chapped lips, relishing the comment. Smart ass. He rarely got called that anymore. Back when he was in school (back when he was normal) he’d been one of the prominent comedians on campus, the popular witty kid who could make girls laugh and teachers steam. Now, he was lucky if he could get an authentic chuckle. His mere presence seemed to make people depressed.It hadn’t done wonders on Marvin’s mood, being a waking reminder of how fucked up the world was. At the hospital, there was a sign in the oncology ward that had around six cartoon faces on it. At the bottom of the scale there was a young boy grinning from ear to ear, the number 0 drawn underneath. The picture in the middle was one of the same boy, except he looked unfocused, his face a fine shade of grey. As the faces progressed closer to the face with the 6 underneath, the child’s expression grew more and more bothered right until it hit dejected. The nurses pointed it out a lot during his appointments, gesturing to the slogan at the top “Feeling blue? Let a nurse know if you feel worse than a four.” Marvin didn’t feel worse than a four (he hadn’t since he was bed bound during a too harsh week of chemo) but since school had started up, he felt himself settling into a mood that was best described by the picture on three. The world was too cold, his house was too empty, he was far too pale and he found himself unable to really care. It was the start of the school year and the absence of his friends had sucked all the energy out of his body. It was like some metallic mosquito had come and sucked out his bone marrow leaving a hollow skeleton, functional but lacking substance. His mother was worried he was depressed. Marvin disagreed. He was just bored. And maybe the slightest bit lonely.He felt better by seeing his friends. Carver reached into his backpack, ruffling around through the contents before pulling out a large manila envelope. He passed them to Danni, who in turned passed them to Marvin.“Here’s your newest round of fan-mail, man,” Carver said. Marvin’s nose crinkled in distaste and he ran his thumb across his name that was scrawled across the top of the envelope. The ink didn’t even smear. Back when he first started receiving cards from his classmates, they’d been a relief, a way of knowing that everyone still remembered him. But when none of his supposed fans ever visited, he picked up on how much anyone actually cared. There was one in the first batch he received he remember in particular. Instead of being addressed to Marvin, it was addressed to “the cancer kid.” Marvin had no idea how his teachers didn’t catch that screw up, but he thought it was oddly fitting. That was who he was now to the Junior class of his high school. Not Marvin the soccer player. Not Marvin the popular kid. Not Marvin the funny guy. Just “the cancer kid.”Marvin threw the envelope to the side. It fell off the seat and slipped underneath the seats. He had no intention of retrieving it. Danni watched the scene with mild concern, the corners of her mouth turning down. Marvin tapped Carver on the shoulder. The other teen hadn’t even noticed.“I can hear from my adoring fans later,” Marvin said. “You got pictures of this place? I’d look them up but my phone is crap.”Carver shuffled in his seat, trying to access his back pocket. Soon enough, he pulled out his phone. He tossed it back to Marvin who caught it well enough. “Yep. Saved ‘em on here. Take a gander at Centralia, the entrance to Hell.”Marvin knew the passcode, all of them did, and typed in Ferris when the lock screen appeared. The screen lit up and Ferris himself, a small pit bull puppy, appeared as the background image. He found the pictures easily enough. It didn’t look like the entrance to Hell to Marvin, unless hell was unmanaged infrastructure. The first picture was that of a road with the biggest cracks he had ever seen. Miniature ravines ran through the concrete, snaking across the pavement like veins. The next photo was of a similar looking road except it was covered in graffiti. It wasn’t the best quality, but Marvin could make out some of the clichés of graffiti like a peace sign or a swear word. The next photo was a side by side comparison of a street, though Marvin could only tell they were the same location by the caption. On the left, the street was heavily populated, small stores and houses lingering on the side. On the right, the street was the only attraction, the yellow dying grass the only sign of life in the picture.“What do you think?” Marvin didn’t answer. He flipped over to another photo, this one of the church itself. It looked like every other church in the area, white paneling, hand-crafted glass windows. If he didn’t know better, he would have sworn it was still running.“Marvin? Marvin you okay?” Danni asked. She was knelling in her seat so she could look at Marvin. Her seatbelt dug into her side, creasing her sweatshirt. “We don’t have to go, if you don’t want to. I’m up for movie marathons if you are. If we try hard enough, we can probably find something that Carver hasn’t seen.”Marvin looked up at his two friends. They had only been back in school for two week but Marvin felt they had already started to change. Carver seemed taller, Danni seemed more confident, and they both had probably started thinking about college tours. Marvin hadn’t even bothered to start looking. They’d been friends since 1st grade, every step perfectly in sync. Until Leukemia had come along and chained Marvin to hospital beds and his house. He turned back to glance at his front door, and thought briefly about how many times in the last week he had spent watching television in the basement. Alone. Was he really willing to do it again?He turned back to his friends and put on the widest smile he could manage. It felt like he was a fish and the hooks were stuck in each corner of his mouth, tugging at the corners.“Hell it is.”
Marvin had to hand it to Carver; this was the best idea he’d had in a long time.Centralia turned out to be one of the coolest places Marvin had ever visited. Their first stop was near the roads that were closed off after the town was officially abandoned. While the graffiti looked par for the course on Carver’s phone, in person it was entirely different story. The whole expanse of cement was covered in drawings and slogans, all in different languages and colors. There were some graffiti stereotypes but hiding within the depths of peace signs and “blank was here” there was a lot of originality. Carver demanded that Danni took a photo of him standing in front of a particular piece of graffiti that said “welcome to hell.” Danni went around taking snapshots of the more intricate drawings such as Pacman chewing his way down one of the cracks, or one of a worm popping out of a larger gash. Marvin almost fell over laughing when he stumbled upon a section of road dubbed “the penis trail” which featured crude drawings of dicks leading the way forward. After less than a hour of walking, they had used up most of the memory on Danni’s camera.“Can I find the genius behind the penis road and give him an award?” Carver said. His knees were covered in dirt from kneeling on the pavement so much. He insisted on getting a better look at some of the doodles. “You think I’m joking man, but I’m dead serious. That man deserves recognition.”“As does any boy under the age of 15 by that logic,” Danni said. Her camera hung around her neck and she walked forward, kicking one of the loose pieces of concrete. It bounced forward before landing in one of the cracks. “Do you guys want to keep going or should we head back to the van to check out the church?”“Don’t know,” Carver said. “You good, Marvin?” The teen was still pale, but the walking had brought some color into his face. He breathed in the chill air and smiled.“I feel fine, actually. I’m down for walking some more.”He wasn’t lying. The fresh air actually felt great, and while his legs burned, it wasn’t a bad feeling. He’d been going on walks in his neighborhood as of late when he felt the pressing need to get out of his house, but the empty streets usually ended up making him feel like he was still inside. Danni raised an eyebrow.“You sure?”Marvin walked past the two, spreading his arms wide. He twirled around in a circle, the movement lazy. “Positive.” He pointed up the road where the cracks in the road got wider, almost splitting the road into fragments. “I mean, we can’t leave without checking that out, can we?”“Right as always, Marv,” Carver said, rushing forward. He clapped Marvin on the back as he did so, and it almost tripped the smaller teen up. He jumped over each of the cracks, like he was playing a game of hopscotch. Danni walked up so she was standing next to Marvin. She was the smallest of their gang, but she carried a presence that made Marvin feel like she loomed over him. She was playing with her bracelet. Marvin didn’t recognize it.“Where’d you get that?” It was a nice bracelet, made with polished black beads, each of them hand painted. The paint was an amateur job, Marvin could tell with how it cracked off some of the beads, but it looked nice enough. Danni blushed. She pulled at the bracelet, twirling it around her finger.“Travis Park gave it to me. He asked me to Homecoming last Tuesday.”Marvin hoped that his surprise wasn’t entirely obvious on his face. “Travis Park? The skinny, shy guy?” Marvin didn’t know Travis well, but then again, no one did. He did his homework, and answered some questions when called on in class like everyone else. Marvin didn’t know he could paint.“Not so shy anymore. He grew out his shell over the summer apparently. He’s a big guy on campus now.”Marvin blinked. Travis Park, big guy on campus? Could things really change that fast?No, of course it could. Marvin knew that. He looked down at his wrists, with their pale skin and blue veins. He could barely remember when they looked healthy and it had only been four months since his diagnosis. If he could fall into the pit of the forgotten in that time, it only made sense that Travis could climb up into his place to make a claim.“We’re just going as friends.” Danni said, not noticing Marvin’s distraction. “Carver has his eye on another guy in his art class, but personally, I think he’s an ass. He’s a transfer kid so you wouldn’t know him, but trust me, you’d hate his guts. When you get back to school, you’ll see. He thinks he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.”“You’re so judgey!” Carver called from down the road. He was perched on top of a rock off the road. Danni rolled her eyes, and grinned in a way that reminded Marvin of a lion ready to pounce. She darted towards Carver.“I’m judgey? I’ll show you judgey you-“Marvin wasn’t listening. Danni’s words echoed in his head. When you get back to school. She said it like it would be so soon, like he was out for a cold. Like he’d come waltzing into school a week later, good as ever, ready to make fun of Carver’s newest crush. Like when (if) he did come back, he’d slot back into his old place the same as before, like the world froze while his body waged war on itself.God, his life was fucked up.Danni and Carver were chasing each other now, jumping and bounding across crevices and fissures. And here he was, frozen in place. For the first time since Marvin left his house that morning, he felt tired. He kicked some of the pebbles underneath him out of the way and sat down on the pavement. It was a spot with as much graffiti as the others, though this patch wasn’t particularly original. Marvin placed his pointer finger on top of a peace sigh and traced over it. The pavement was cold to the touch. The place looked full of life, yet at the moment, Marvin saw nothing but an abandoned road that people visited to gawk at. Like a graveyard. Pathetic. He traced another line, than another, until he reached one that skirted near one of the cracks.Marvin stopped, jerking his hand away. The pavement near the crack was hotter than he expected, the same heat that could be felt on blacktop during the summer months. He held his hand close to the crack to make sure he wasn’t imagining it. He wasn’t. Warmth pressed through the crack like breath of air.He moved closer to the crack, getting on all fours to get a good look. He had to bend his head at an odd angle, but soon enough he was able to see down the crevice. It wasn’t a great view, not by a long shot, but hiding in the hollow darkness were the smallest of embers. It was like they were small red suns that heated the cold universe they lived in. Marvin held his hand over the crack for a second, then spread his fingers wide. The hot air pressed against his palm, sliding between his fingers into the air.Carver’s words from earlier sunk in. An underground fire. Marvin couldn’t really believe it. The fact that such a large thing could keep on living under so many layers of dirt and concrete seemed almost foreign. He sat back, and held his hand over the crack again. This time he moved his hand across the crevice, crawling so he could keep moving. The warmth was strong no matter where he went. He made it a couple feet before he was forced to stop, confronted with the crevice separating into five smaller ones. It was then Marvin noticed that each crack connected to one another, red embers flowing though them all like a network of veins in the dirt. They spread across the expanse of the isolated road, twisting and turning on one another, all spreading the heat that hummed below the surface. And they would keep doing so for 250 years, whether Centralia was remembered or not.“Marvin!” Marvin looked up to find Danni rushing towards him, Carver close behind. Her eyes were wide, and she grabbed his arm with unnecessary force. “Marvin, are you okay?”Marvin looked at his friends, his friends who had dragged him to the middle of nowhere and back at the cracks. They looked less sinister now, like they were natural to the road itself. He placed his arm over Danni’s and squeezed it.“I’m fine, I’m fine. Just wanted to get a better look at the cracks. You can see embers in them.”“Seriously!” Carver dropped to the ground and stuck his face right into the pavement. He moved his head a little before letting out a small gasp. “Holy shit, you totally can! Danni, you gotta see this.”Danni glanced at Carver but it was fleeting. She turned back to Marvin and stared at him. Marvin looked at her eyes, her smile, her ears, and decided no matter how much Danni changed, he’d always be able to recognize how her freckled face creased when she was concerned. “Are you sure you’re okay, Marvin? You’ve been crying.”Marvin reached up to swipe at his cheek. Sure enough there were tears. He hadn’t even realized. He smiled and this time, it felt natural. The feeling of phantom fish hooks were gone.“Honestly,” Marvin said, placing his hand back over one of the cracks. “I’m great.”The fire that burned under Centralia breathed into his palm.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]