by Hamill, Ike
Down on the road, the bus creeped by.
Carrie heard the brakes again and tried to find an angle where she could see the bus between the trunks of the pine trees. Someone had been hiding in the woods. They came out from their spot and boarded the bus.
Carrie tried to imagine the conversation they would be having on the bus. Surely, the person had seen her and would be informing the others. She wanted to run away from the road—it would only be a matter of time before they came looking.
Instead, the door shut and the bus began to roll once more, leaving her alone.
She watched from her vantage point on the small hill as the bus disappeared.
Carrie was tired. She sat and thought. There weren’t a tremendous amount of people in the world. With the three buses she had seen, packed with passengers, she must have witnessed a good percentage of the residents of Donnelly. She still had no idea where they were headed.
Before she could move, she had the answer.
The sound preceded the flash of yellow.
The bus must have turned on another road that came back towards her position. She saw it pull to a stop and then realized that it wasn’t the only yellow shape she could see in that direction. Other buses were stopped there as well.
Carrie began to creep towards their parking place.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
The people filed off the school bus and formed small groups before they started up the trail. Carrie was shocked by their demeanor. One the bus, they had all appeared lost in thought—almost vacant. Now, they were smiling. One young woman looked to the sky, took in a deep breath of the sweet air, and practically beamed happiness.
Carrie watched the last group form and head out on the trail.
They were parked in the gravel lot of a campsite, like busloads of summer tourists out in the wilderness for the day.
When she was sure they were out of sight, Carrie ran across the lot and climbed aboard one of the four buses. The keys were in it. She swiped them and moved on to the next one.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
With three sets of keys in her pocket, Carrie climbed the stairs into the final bus and thought about her strategy. If someone knew how to hot wire a bus, they wouldn’t be stranded. She wasn’t trying to strand them, only delay them enough that she could get away. Now that she had a pretty good sense of where they were, she felt pretty confident that she could hide from them.
Before she moved behind the wheel, she saw a yellow pad of paper on one of the seats.
The top sheet contained someone’s doodles. The artist wasn’t half bad. In the drawing, two people sat on a rock that overlooked a calm body of water. The expression on the woman’s face was perfectly captured by the artist’s pen. She was calm and content. The man appeared happy, but his shoulders told a different story. The drawing showed that the weight of the world hung on the man’s tired frame.
“Huh,” Carrie said. She tossed the notepad to the side. When she did, one of the earlier pages flipped back over. Carrie bent down and picked it up, studying what was written as she straightened up.
“I’ll see you soon, up on the cliffs. I went and checked it out earlier. There’s a tree, off to the right after you get to the end of the trail. I know there will be a lot of people there, so we can meet over near the tree. I can’t wait to see you again. We can finally get on with our lives. If you wouldn’t mind, I think that…”
The rest of the line was scribbled out. Carrie flipped the page again. That version of the letter had been a discarded first draft.
Carrie looked up from the letter at the sound of an engine.
“Shit!” she whispered as she ducked down below the level of the window. She crouched and then crawled towards the back of the bus. Another bus pulled to a stop alongside. She could see the yellow roof through the top of the window. Carrie put her hand on the emergency release of the rear door and waited.
The door of the other bus opened and people began to clomp down the stairs. Carrie heard a familiar voice. She couldn’t help herself. She peeked up over the window and peered down. She recognized Romie, and by association, Lisa. The two men grouped with them were unfamiliar. Those four moved off together and found the trailhead.
Carrie shrank back down and waited while everyone else made their way off the bus. When she didn’t hear any more feet, she risked poking her head back up over the side.
…You know what they’re going to do, right?…
“They think they’re hiking up there to reunite with friends and family. I’m supposed to believe that Jannie is going to meet me up there.”
…That’s not what they’re going up there for…
“Of course it is. If I let that man’s voice back into my head, that’s what he would tell me. He would say that Jannie is going to come on the next bus and she will meet me up there at the overlook. I’m sure it’s a beautiful place for a reunion,” Carrie whispered.
Carrie checked one more time through the window before she snuck down the steps and infiltrated the new bus. She stole their keys. When she got out to the road, she would turn north, just in case another bus was on its way.
Carrie strapped herself into the driver’s seat and held her breath while she listened. She didn’t want to be leaving right when another vehicle was arriving.
…You can’t leave them…
Somewhere north, she would find a place to ditch the bus for something less conspicuous.
…Someplace with ghosts. There will be a lot more of them soon…
And then she could hide until The Origin gave up on her. If he couldn’t find her, then she would remain a firm tether and he would have to give up on his plan. His grand plan for the world had an expiration date, she was pretty sure about that. All she had to do was hide until his expiration date was up and then she could come out of hiding and the world would be back to normal. All it would take is one person to remain a firm tether and The Origin wouldn’t be able to…
…Convince everyone to kill themselves…
The thought made Carrie’s hand stop before she turned the key in the ignition. It couldn’t be true. They weren’t all going up to the cliff to die. Maybe one or two wouldn’t be able to live with themselves once they realized that the dead weren’t coming back, but there was no way that everyone in the whole world would give up on life.
Was there?
…We already know the answer to that…
CHAPTER 56: FARMHOUSE
“WHY ARE THINGS CHANGING?” Brad asked. He couldn’t remember if he had already asked the question. It seemed like time had just had a hiccup and he had re-lived the same few seconds more than once.
The Origin smiled with perfect rows of even teeth, stained pink from his bleeding gums.
“That’s the really interesting part,” The Origin said. “As I said before, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The place that I had accidentally walked into was the true center—it was the real origin of everything that went wrong with every world.”
Brad watched as the man searched for words. His eyes moved very slowly as he blinked and then looked back to Brad.
“Every possible version of our planet and every possible outcome were all pivoting on this one point. That’s the point that I had stumbled across. At that one precise location in the world and in time, I was simultaneously every version of myself. I was sick from radiation. I was stabbed and bleeding. I was pummeled and I was healthy as a horse. There were versions of me who had never had a family. There were versions who had languished in prison after killing my wife and children with my own hands. One shouldn’t ever have to realize what they’re capable of in the wrong circumstances. I knew all those things at once.”
“How could you possibly…” Brad started to ask.
“I’m not able to see the depths of infinity, of course. There’s simply too much information to process, but that’s the magic of the human brain. If you stopped to think about every tiny detail of information in your perceptio
n at this very moment, your intellect would drown in that madness. Fortunately, we’re able to tune out everything except what is most important to know. You don’t bother with analyzing the movement of every leaf—you only see the tree. That’s how it is for me. When I see you running for the door, I don’t see every version of Brad who might take that course of action, I only pay attention to the one that may or may not come true. Do you understand?”
“Of course not,” Brad said. “You can’t expect me to.”
“And in some version of the universe, you said that to me yesterday. It occurred to me to write it down in case your own words would be useful to this version of me.”
The Origin reached in his front pocket. He pulled out a slip of green paper and held it up. Brad’s own words were written there. The Origin smiled and dropped the paper. Brad watched it flutter to the floor and saw that there was a small pile of dozens of slips of paper there. Brad was certain that they hadn’t been there before.
“It’s not magic. It’s simply the complexity and simplicity of the infinite. It’s beautiful if you allow it to be.”
“And what’s the point of telling me all this?”
“You’re one of the last people I have to convert, Brad. More than most, you’ve already coped with a lot of your grief. You told me once about your wife, Karen.”
“Ex-wife,” Brad said.
The Origin tilted his hand in the air. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The majority of Brad divorced the majority of Karen, but he still held onto a part of her. You still write to her, don’t you?”
“Sometimes. Not like I used to.”
“That’s right,” The Origin said. “Or, I should say, that could be right. You used to write to her once a week and tell her how you were doing. You started the practice even before the divorce and you kept it up even after she died.”
“I wasn’t writing to her,” Brad said. “I was writing to myself under the guise of writing to her.”
The Origin smiled. “I think it was a little of both.”
“Back to what you said before—where is the wrong place that you were at? Where was the true origin, as you put it?”
“I’ll answer in a moment. I know that’s what you really want to know, and I know why. You don’t have any reason to believe me, but if you would trust me one last time, please know that I will tell you precisely what you want to know even though you would like to thwart my plan. First, let me finish telling you why I’m spending so much time explaining this to you.”
Brad had no reason to believe the man. Then again, he couldn’t think of a good way to compel the information from him. He simply had to wait and hope that The Origin would keep his word.
The Origin continued.
“Because of your connection with grief, loss, and your coping mechanism, you’re not so easy to convince. You saw how fast Robby fell to the spell of his dead friend, didn’t you.”
Brad nodded.
“And Cirie, the intrepid scientist was swayed immediately by the notion that she could find proof of her deep religious conviction. Some people could be lured immediately, despite the strength of their character, skepticism, and will to survive. But you were already managing quite well. You hadn’t suppressed or let go of your feelings. You keep them alive, like a pet parasite.”
“So I’m immune?”
The Origin smiled and shook his head. “Nobody is immune. If you lacked the urge to recover what you once had, you would hardly be human. It’s one of the basic driving forces of our kind. Even if something is hopelessly unrecoverable, we work to produce a facsimile. That is at the base of our survival.”
Brad shook his head. The concept didn’t resonate with him at all.
“Fortunately for me, you’re a very logical person. So, although you’re stubborn and you require a lot of persuasion, I know that you’ll eventually understand and accept my reasoning.”
“Tell me where.”
“There’s a place in the hills, south and west of here. It’s a park that’s by a lake and then you hike up to a beautiful view from the top of a cliff. I believe it’s fairly similar to a place that you and Karen used to like to hike.”
“Bradbury Mountain?”
“That’s the one,” The Origin said with another chilling smile. Most of his teeth were gone this time. “Picture this—there’s a version of the world where Karen lived and the two of you never divorced. There’s a version of me who is talking to her there and I’ve just told her the same thing that I told you. She’s going to that pivot point right now. If you go too, you’ll be able to see her for yourself and verify everything I just said. I’m not lying, Brad. I know some part of you believes me.”
“What do you get out of it?” Brad asked.
The Origin stood.
“Think about it. You can verify for yourself. Romie is there. Lisa, Robby, Pete, Judy, Ted, Nate, and even your old friend Stephanos. They’re all there. But most importantly, it’s where you’ll find Karen.”
Brad still needed a moment to think about it.
The Origin moved towards the door and patted Gordie’s head on the way by. The dog shrank from the man’s touch.
Brad stood up as the door closed. He wanted to ask where the place was, just in case he decided to go see for himself. It was certainly a trap, but there had to be a way that he could see for himself. If there was even the smallest chance that any of it were true, he had to know.
He looked at the dog.
Gordie would be overjoyed to see Robby, if that were true too.
Brad looked down. He was holding a slip of paper. It was the name of the park with the scenic overlook.
CHAPTER 57: OVERLOOK
“THERE’S NOTHING I CAN do,” Carrie whispered.
She turned the key and the bus fired up immediately. It took a second for her to figure out how to shift the giant vehicle. She knew stick, but the pattern was worn off the knob. The gears ground and an alarm beeped as Carrie backed up and then pulled out of the gravel parking area. She turned north.
…Once everyone else is dead, how long do you think it will take for him to find us?…
“Shut up,” Carrie whispered to herself.
She drove for a mile, feeling completely conspicuous in the big yellow bus. When she saw a sign for Snow Pond Camps on the left, she turned right into the parking area.
“There must be another car around here,” she said as she cranked the giant wheel. Trees scraped at the roof of the bus. The driveway went up over a hill and then down into the parking lot. It was completely empty. Carrie drove down one row and began to turn around when she realized that the road was completely obscured by the hill and the woods. Nobody would spot the bus if she left it there.
“Those camps had access to the lake and I’m pretty close to the General Store. This could be my hiding place,” she said.
…We’re too close…
“Every second that I’m driving around in that giant yellow contraption, I’m begging to be found. I can hide out in a camp and then leave on foot after dark.”
The voice inside her was quieted by the logic. Carrie took that as a good sign. Before sprinting across the road, she made sure that there were no obvious tire tracks leading into the parking area. Satisfied, she jogged to the biggest cabin, prepared to force the door. There was no need. The door didn’t have a lock.
Carrie moved through to the back, where the screened deck had a view of the lake. She sat on the edge of a pollen-dusted chair and looked across at the southern shoreline. Cliffs rose tall from the water’s edge.
“They could be up there,” she said. “All those people could be up on those rocks, waiting to meet up with people they’ve lost.”
The voice inside of her remained quiet. Carrie felt alone.
“I suppose I better get used to it,” she said.
She realized that somewhere on her short drive, she had made the shift. Before, when she was stealing the bus and running away, she had thought that there was no w
ay that everyone would kill themselves. Now, minutes later, it seemed all too possible. The Origin had swindled them all. He had promised to restore lost happiness, but he would only deliver emptiness.
“I can’t know that for sure,” Carrie told herself. “Maybe they’re not going to kill themselves. Maybe they’re just going to…”
She couldn’t even come up with a believable alternative. The Origin made it clear that they had to eliminate all the firm tethers, and those tethers were the unbelievers. Once people were indoctrinated, The Origin had the control to eliminate them himself.
“Shit,” Carrie said.
She stood up.
“It’s not going to do me any good to be the only surviving person in this world. There has to be a way to snap the others out of it. If I woke up, then they can too.”
She pushed through the door, leaving the main lodge of Snow Pond Camps behind her.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
Brad cut the wheel to turn into the parking area. He saw a woman walking up the road and slammed on the brakes.
It took him a second to place her.
“Carrie?” he called.
When he opened his door, Gordie jumped over the seat and squeezed past him.
The woman pointed at him and broke into a jog.
“Brad,” he said. “From back in…”
“Gladstone,” she said.
Brad whistled for the dog, but Gordie was already gone. He ran to the school buses and then took off up a trail.
“Why are you alone?” Carrie asked.
Brad pulled the slip of paper from his pocket.
“I was given this. I just came to see if I could verify what he said.”
“He’s a liar,” she said. “You can’t believe anything.”
Brad nodded.
“I think you’re right. This is where the action is though, right?”
