by Hamill, Ike
Liam played with his shoelaces. He hadn’t been wearing shoes in the tent, but she had stashed an extra pair in this hideout. Now, he refused to put them on.
“He wants to tell you himself.”
“That doesn’t sound like fun to me. Why don’t you tell me?”
“I’m supposed to talk to Robby. You’re supposed to stay just the way you are.”
“Liam, please stop talking like this. You’re not making any sense and it’s really bugging me, okay?”
“Please let me tell you a story? I promise that you’ll understand when I tell you a story.”
Corinna sighed and agreed. At least if he was talking, she might get him to reveal something useful. He was impossibly stubborn when he wanted to be, but he could be nudged in the right direction.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
“A long time ago, there was this man who never got anything that he wanted. He was too smart for school, so all the teachers hated him. He tricked them into giving him pretty good grades anyway, but they sabber-thawed him when…”
“Sabotaged.”
“Sabotaged him when he tried to get into college. None of the good schools would take him until he went to the thirteenth grade. That’s what his pop called the school down the street—he called it the thirteenth grade. He did well enough in the thirteenth grade so that he could go to the real school, but his pop said he didn’t want to pay for it.”
“Liam, why are…”
“Shut it,” Liam said. He cocked his head like he was listening to someone and then he started talking again. “So this guy a long time ago figured out how to pay for school and then he met this pretty woman who didn’t want to have anything to do with him. She said he was peculiar.”
He pronounced the last word so carefully that it had five or six syllables.
“But he knew he wanted to be girlfriends and boyfriends with her so he worked at that harder than anything before. It took him two years, but he wore her down. After they went on a date the first time, they were together from then on.”
“Was this the man from the bathroom?”
“Shut it, I said,” he whined. “So they went out and then they were together and then the man realized something.”
“What?”
“He realized that he wasn’t pretending anymore. All that time with his parents, and school, and his job, and her, he had been pretending to be a certain way so he could get what he wanted. He was doing a good job at pretending, but he always knew that it was pretend. But one day, it wasn’t.”
Corinna still had no idea what the point of the story was. She was surprised to find that she actually wanted to know what was coming next. Liam’s stories usually just got stranger and stranger until he was giggling too much to continue.
“And when he wasn’t pretending anymore, and when he was really happy, that’s when she said they were preganant.”
“Pregnant.”
Liam ignored the correction. “And they had three kids, and the kids started to grow up, and they had a house on a hillside, and everything. It was all even better than he had ever wanted. He woke up every day and as soon as his eyes opened, he was so happy that his heart could burst. He even started talking to his pop again, and they got along fine.”
Liam was quiet for a few seconds.
“Is that it?”
Liam shook his head. His eyes had started to fill with tears. Usually, Corinna got frustrated when Liam started to cry. His tantrums could last hours and hours, especially when they didn’t seem to have a logical origin. This time though, Corinna saw the pain in his face and she felt it too. She didn’t know why, but she felt it.
“No. That’s not it. That’s when the bomb went off.”
“Bomb?”
“There was a bomb in the next town over. He would have been vapor-sized except for there was a hill that blocked his house from the first blast.”
“Vaporized…” Corinna whispered. She wasn’t correcting him, she was just imagining it.
“But his family wasn’t at home. His wife had taken all the kids to school and they were vapor-sized. They even had the dog with them in the back of the car because the littlest kid liked to kiss her goodbye before he went into class.”
“They tried to take everyone away to get them away from the radiators or else they would get sick. The man didn’t care. He started walking through the hills. He knew a trail that would take him to the school even though it had been vapor-sized. He knew he would get sick, but that’s all he wanted. He wanted to be sick like his family.”
Liam lowered his voice, like the next part was a secret.
“He didn’t get sick.”
“No? Why not?”
“He figured out that all the people who were supposed to have died, had actually just gone to another place.”
“To hide?” Corinna asked.
“No, not to hide. They had…”
Liam cocked his head again—listening to some other voice.
“They had rotated.”
“Rotated? Are you sure that’s the word.”
He nodded his little head.
“The man’s wife talked to him, and told him how to rotate too. She talked to him from that other place and the voice showed up right in his own head because they were things she had always said.”
“Liam, what…”
“It’s almost done,” he said.
Something about his voice sent a chill down her spine. Prince must have heard it too. He started to growl and then he chewed on the end of the vocalization, turning it into a, “Woo, woo,” moan.
Liam made sure he had her attention before he finished.
“She said that the man could rotate too, and they would all be together in the good place as long as all the versions of him rotated at the same time. He wouldn’t have to worry about dying until then, because there would always be a version of him that didn’t die. The only thing he needed to do was to help all the other people rotate too. All the people who came into here to get away from all the bad things—all those people would have to decide to move as well because they were all making everything stick.”
“Stick?”
Liam nodded.
“He has to unwind the tether balls.”
Prince started to growl again.
Corinna followed his eyes and saw movement on the door of the far changing room. It had just been a fraction of an inch, but it had certainly moved. She picked up her flashlight and added its beam to the light coming from their electric lantern. Prince sensed her nerves. He stood up.
She turned to Liam and whispered so low that her voice was barely audible.
“We have to go, Liam. Get your shoes on.”
Very slowly, Liam shook his head.
“He wants to talk with you.”
She reached for his wrist—they could find shoes somewhere else. Liam pulled his arm away before she could grab it. The kid darted like a bird when he wanted to. He slipped by her and ran for the far changing room.
“Liam!” she whispered.
She stood there as he pushed through the door. It swung inward and then banged back shut.
Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer, but she took a step forward to chase after him. She heard the voice. It was coming from the changing room with Liam.
“Come on in here, Corinna,” the voice said. “I want to talk with you.”
Liam’s voice said something she couldn’t hear.
A shiver went down her spine when he laughed.
Prince was already backing towards their secret escape door. Corinna followed the dog.
CHAPTER 44: NEW JERSEY
ROBBY FOLLOWED HIS INSTINCTS north. He stuck to major roads and stopped only when he found a place that had good visibility in all directions. In the giant parking lot of a shopping center, he took Gordie out and then cleaned up the dog’s wounds. He found a set of drugstore hair clippers and plugged them into the back outlet of the Hummer so he could cut away the bloody fur. None of
the injuries looked terrible. When he gave Gordie food, water, and antibiotics, he seemed to perk right up.
They got back on the highway.
Robby only ordered Gordie to the floor once. They approached a big toll plaza. Every lane was blocked by a car and there didn’t seem to be any way around the obstruction. They were too close to take another detour. Robby wanted to go back through the tunnel—if that’s what it took—and remove himself from the swirling madness he had discovered.
He pointed the Hummer at the smallest vehicle, ordered Gordie to the floor, and let the Hummer’s mass do the rest. The car bucked when its wheel hit the lip of the concrete barrier. Then, it scraped and ground against the lane of the toll booth. The Hummer pushed its way through and Robby accelerated fast on the other side.
Gordie climbed back into the seat to look through the window.
They were entering the land of cemeteries again. One or two popped up at first and then they seemed ubiquitous. Gordie watched, fascinated, as they passed rows of headstones. Robby tried not to look. There was movement in the cemeteries, and Robby didn’t want to even think about it.
He found his way back to the bridge that would take them back into Jersey City. Robby slowed as he examined the Lower Manhattan skyline.
“It’s there,” he told Gordie. “It may not be the same tower we saw before, but at least it’s there.”
Gordie didn’t seem concerned at all until Robby slowed at the tunnel. They were facing big Wrong Way signs.
“If everything is still the same, I’d rather go through the way we came, you know?”
Gordie’s ears perked up. He looked at Robby and then back to the dark hole that was cut into the ground.
Robby remembered cars down there—lots of them—blocking the way. He also remembered the path being almost perfectly clear. Either way, he was taking the Hummer in. The vehicle had protected them from coyote-things, giant cats, and all the cemetery ghosts. Robby and Gordie were comfortable in there, and had no intention of getting out.
If the tunnel was blocked, maybe they weren’t meant to go back.
Robby took his foot from the brake and let the Hummer roll into the darkness.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
Gordie started to growl. If he had to guess, Robby figured they were about halfway down the length of the tunnel. The Hummer’s headlights picked up the car ahead. Robby changed lanes and slowed down to be sure they would clear it. He saw the puddle of fluid under the vehicle. It looked like a wounded animal that had come down into the tunnel to bleed out and then die. He didn’t want to be close enough for that wounded animal to strike, just in case there was a little malice left in its waning heart.
Robby glanced at the vehicle in his mirror and didn’t like what he saw. There wasn’t just one vehicle back there. The tunnel was packed with cars. Robby reached up and pushed the mirror so it reflected only the interior of the Hummer. What was back there didn’t matter anymore. They were past it.
He couldn’t help but accelerate when they saw the daylight ahead.
The Hummer slowed to a stop as it emerged from the darkness. Robby pulled right up to the gate. There was no reason to push past it. The entrance beyond the gate was barricaded with vehicles. Even the Hummer couldn’t muscle through.
The idea of stranding the Hummer there made Robby a little sad. He shut it off and walked around to Gordie’s side to help the dog down. Even Gordie seemed hesitant to leave it behind. There were too many cars packed together there. It would take forever to move them all. Besides, even if he did clear the entrance, the Hummer wasn’t practical to navigate the city. There were other traffic jams, and even some tornado damage that required a much smaller vehicle to bypass. Robby and Gordie would do best to walk back to where he had left the Polaris. That thing was ideal.
“Stop,” she said.
Robby was still holding Gordie’s leash as he turned and put his hands up in the air.
Her sword was steady and pointed right at his neck.
Gordie wagged his tail and sat down.
“Corinna?” Robby asked. He was pretty sure he remembered her name correctly, but not completely sure that it mattered. The details of reality were too fickle to trust.
“Get back in that thing and go back where you came from,” Corinna said.
“We came from Connecticut. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do.”
“Then find another way around. You’re not fucking with me and Liam anymore.”
Robby shook his head before he could even find words. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, Corinna. If I upset you before, I apologize, but I don’t see what I did wrong.”
As she approached him, her face transformed. The anger faded and she seemed to be really turning over the problem in her head. The sword stayed pointed at his neck. Robby didn’t move a muscle as it drew closer and closer to him. When it was within cutting distance, she asked a question.
“What did they say to him?”
“Who?”
“Your people. They told Liam that you were coming back today and they must have said something else to make him act so strange. What did they say?”
Robby swallowed as the tip of her blade touched the collar of his shirt. He could feel the honed blade cutting into him with just the slightest pressure. He took a half-step back.
“Listen to me—nobody, except you, knows that I’m here. I don’t think that I was followed. If someone said something to Liam, it has nothing to do with me.”
“How did he know you were coming back today?”
Robby shook his head. “I didn’t even know. Gordie and I were chased up the coast by monsters and ghosts. I’m only trying to get back to Connecticut.”
Ignoring the tension, Gordie pulled at the leash so he could sniff at Corinna’s shoes.
“I don’t believe any of that.”
“Look at the Hummer. The damage to the front end is from where we had to crash into a visitor’s center in order to get away from these strange coyote monsters. They also bit the rear left tire—you can see the tooth marks. The blankets in back are from when Gordie and I had to sleep back there because of the ghosts. I’m telling you, I’ve been dealing with my own stuff. I didn’t have any time or reason to messing with you and Liam.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “Let’s see if your story changes when you’ve lost a little blood.”
She punctuated her statement with a quick jab of her sword. It caught Robby’s shoulder.
CHAPTER 45: BOSTON
IT WAS SIMPLE TO lure the stragglers in. Some people gravitated to cities because of the concentration of supplies. There were so many houses and apartments where families had opened their doors and walked out into nothing. For years, a person could wander from house to house, living off the dry and canned food in the pantry and sleeping amongst the memories of the dead.
But that was a depressing way to live. It felt temporary. It felt unsustainable.
Carrie knew it. She had tried to live that way.
All they had to do was stop the truck in the middle of Ashton Street and start unloading the boxes from the back. They had fruit and vegetables in the boxes—some of the best that Northam had produced.
According to The Origin, there were three people living in the area. Before they had unloaded the second box, Carrie saw a curtain twitch in a house down the street. One of the residents had already been enticed.
“We should split up,” Carrie said. “We might be intimidating as a group.”
Mike looked at Terry.
Terry looked at Abe.
They were confused by her knowledge.
“This is just an opinion based on human nature, not something I understand,” Carrie said with a bright smile. That put the others at ease. They nodded to each other and then everyone picked a separate direction to move. They didn’t have to coordinate when they would come back, or which areas they would cover. That was something that they would simply understand when
the time came.
Carrie started walking towards where she had seen the curtain twitch. There was a certain amount of danger in what she was doing. If The Origin had foreseen that she would betray him, maybe he would allow her to walk right into a trap. Maybe the three residents of Ashton Street were crazy people. Maybe someone would chop off her head and eat her tongue.
She didn’t think so.
The Origin didn’t seem to know anything about Carrie’s looming betrayal. In fact, Carrie was just beginning to work it out for herself.
Carrie leaned up against a car and looked up at the sky. The car probably belonged to the person who was hiding in the house. There was a gas stain down the side of the vehicle. Someone had been sloppy when filling it from a can.
The house looked decent enough. It was small and probably easy to heat. It wasn’t the type of place she would have picked. Given the choice of anywhere in the city, there would be tons of houses with better sight lines to watch for approaching danger. Then again, some people enjoyed the anonymity of being tucked away in a cluttered neighborhood. All they had to do was stay indoors and they could hide indefinitely.
Carrie shook her head and pulled an apple from her pocket. It was pretty old, but still good. It had been picked before it was ripe, waxed, and then stored in a cool, nitrogen-rich environment. Carrie polished it on her shirt before she took a bite. The person in the house had likely not seen a fresh apple since last fall.
She took a big bite, crunching the apple theatrically.
The person she was going to meet was watching her closely. This wasn’t something that she observed, it was something she understood. Carrie was just beginning to get a feel for the process. The other voice inside her had helped her figure it out.
The Origin wasn’t a clairvoyant or a psychic. He was merely a man who had seen a lot of things.
