Distinct

by Hamill, Ike

  Tim backed up for the door to his hall. It had closed behind him.

  It was locked.

  And, of course, he had forgotten to grab his keys and phone. Normally, this would be fine. He had spare keys at Caleb’s and they had a strict rule of not looking at their phones during their shows.

  Tim had few choices. He could climb up and hope to find an open door, or somehow shimmy down the railing to the platform below. Neither sounded like a good idea. There was really only one choice—he turned to climb. Sure, he was barefoot, only wearing shorts and t-shirt, and the people upstairs all hated him. Jumping was ridiculous though.

  Relief flooded through him when he heard a door opening. Unfortunately, the sound came from below.

  “Hey!”

  Relief turned to happiness.

  “I’m stuck, Caleb!” Tim called. “Someone stole the stairs.”

  His musical laugh echoed in the stairwell. Tim grabbed the railing and leaned over the void to look for his boyfriend. He only saw Caleb’s shadow down there.

  “Just jump. It’s not that far.”

  “Are you crazy!” Tim yelled. He had a big smile on his face. The whole thing was starting to feel like an elaborate joke. Caleb must be behind it somehow.

  “It’s not that far. You can jump and still catch most of the show. I’ll tell you everything you missed.”

  “I’m going to stay right here. Take the elevator up and unlock the door for me, okay?”

  For the longest time, there was no reply from below. Tim opened his mouth to repeat the request, just to find out if Caleb was still down there.

  “Just jump, Tim. It will be faster and I can’t come up. The elevator doesn’t work.”

  “What?” Tim asked. He couldn’t get his head around Caleb’s response. “What? I just took it like…”

  “It’s broken, okay. I wish I could, but you’re going to have to come down here. Can you do that for me? Can you jump for me?”

  Caleb sounded desperate and a little sad. It hurt Tim to hear him like that. It hurt the same as when he had stayed up late and watched that TV show where they played clips of skateboarders falling down and people slipping on ice. It was a sore, sensitive feeling down deep in his guts. He would do almost anything to get Caleb to stop sounding like that. Still, jumping was insane.

  “It’s not even that far,” Caleb said. His voice modulated from frustration to flirtation. “I will totally make it worth your while.”

  “It seems like a terrible idea.”

  “Do it fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid. One quick leap and it will be done.”

  Tim tried to picture Caleb saying these words. His approach to life was to always move slow and steady. Hell, after a year of dating, they still didn’t even properly live together. And marriage wasn’t even on the table yet. How could Caleb advocate for such a risk?

  “Do it, Tim,” Caleb said.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  Pregnant or not, Carrie needed help. Brad watched her stumble, nearly catch herself, and then fall in slow motion over the edge of the rock. It was horrifying to watch. Brad was too far away to reach her.

  Much closer to him, another tragedy was unfolding.

  Brad was there for one reason—to verify the claims of The Origin. It never would have occurred to him that anyone in their group would be so despondent that they would consider walking off the cliff. That’s what Frank was doing. He didn’t look upset. His face showed only firm resolve as he strode forward.

  Brad lunged for him to hold him back. He grabbed a handful of Frank’s shirt and jerked. The shirt untucked from Frank’s belt and Frank was nearly pulled off balance. Brad though that he had won when Frank turned around. His grip eased for a moment and he realized that Frank was continuing to turn. The man actually nodded at Brad as the shirt twisted from Brad’s grip. Frank completed a full turn and took one more step. His foot found nothing but air. Brad fell as he reached for Frank again.

  A few yards south, Tim was backing up from the edge. Horror rose in Brad’s chest as he realized the purpose of Tim’s retreat. He was going to take a running start at his leap.

  “TIM!” Brad shouted as he ran at him.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  There was only once that Robby had felt so alone. He had been out on a boat, lost in the fog and barely able to control his own vomiting. This was worse. Jim had just been there. Then Jim had disappeared.

  Robby sat down to consider his options. His father traded in second-hand wisdom. One aphorism he was fond of misquoting was, “If you find yourself eating shit, put the fork down.”

  Sitting on the rock seemed like the best way of putting the fork down.

  His brain was chewing on some problem in the background—he could feel it. The computation was just starting to heat up. It wasn’t yet so bad that Robby felt the need to freeze up, but it might come to that.

  Robby stared out at the water as he tried to dig out the thought. It was a painful process, like extracting a splinter.

  The wind felt nice. Without it, the day would have been a little hot. The waves didn’t seem to notice. They were just minor swells on an ocean that had a glass shine. With a breeze like that, the surface of the water should have been textured and dark.

  “Maybe there’s no wind down there,” Robby mumbled.

  “Earl Ray is like a cloud…” his father would sometimes say. Earl was his dad’s boss on a lot of the ferry’s crossings. The cloud misquote would occasionally end with, “hot air and fumes.” Most of the time, it ended with, “when he goes away, it’s often a nice day.”

  Robby’s mother would always click her tongue and say, “Don’t you let Kirk hear you say that. He’ll rat you out quicker than snot.”

  “And how quick is snot, Dearheart?” his father would respond.

  His parents had a million routines. Sometimes Robby thought they were performing their skits just for him.

  Looking down at the pool of seawater, Robby saw the little world that Jim had commanded with his stick. Robby was the new overload. He picked up Jim’s stick and sloshed the water over the seaweed. He poked at one of the pods. Whatever senses the plant possessed, it couldn’t possibly understand what was happening to it. In its own way, it probably knew of sunlight, water, air, and predators. There was no way that a plant’s understanding of the world could include boys with sticks and bored afternoons.

  The analogy was obvious and unenlightening. Sure, he knew that he was being toyed with. A man had influenced Robby and forced him to trap himself in this world. That part wasn’t difficult to figure out. The question remained—how was Robby supposed to extract himself from it?

  In their brief meeting in Manhattan, Brad had mentioned movement. He had said that the only way he stayed ahead of the memories was to keep moving quickly. Somehow, travel kept him out of trouble.

  Robby stood up. He might be stuck in a dream, but he could still use his feet. There was something wrong with the idea. Robby’s eyes darted back and forth as he tried to figure out the issue.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  Brad wasn’t going to make it. He knew that before he even started forward. He might slow Tim down by grabbing his shirt like Frank, but Tim would fly over the edge and find out alone what was below.

  Still, he reached forward as he yelled again.

  This was going to be his undoing. He realized that as his heart sank. Because just beyond Tim, a woman was casually stepping over the ledge. The Origin was untethering these people and he was doing it without any real blood on his hands.

  The dog streaked across the rock like an orange blur. It grabbed Tim’s ankle before the man could get up to speed. Tim crashed down to the surface of the rock, flying into the path of Ty as well. The two of them had been tripped up by Cedric.

  Brad still continued forward. There were other people he could try to save.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  Jannie had run ahead and was sitting on the towel, unfolding the plastic wrap from her
sandwich. Carrie pulled up to a stop. Someone had dug an obnoxious hole between her and the towel. The hole went so far down into the sand that she could see water down there.

  As Carrie skidded to a stop, her feet threw sand into the wind.

  “Hey!” Janice yelled with a smile. “Don’t splash sand on my sandwich. That’s funny, right? Sand ruins a sandwich. I wonder if chips ruin a Chipwich?”

  “How did you get over there?” Carrie asked. She realized that it wasn’t just a hole, it was a moat that encircled the towels.

  “I jumped,” Janice said around a bite of her sandwich. Filtered through the bread, the word sounded like, “jumfed.”

  Carrie had to laugh, despite the circumstance. She was frustrated by the delay. She was hungry too and it felt bad to be separated from Jannie, even if it was only by a few feet. There was no way that she was going to crawl down into that hole and then back up the other side. If she did, she would be caked in sand by the time she got there.

  “Just jump, like I did,” Janice said.

  Carrie shook her head. Her landing would throw sand everywhere, and that wasn’t even the worst part.

  The worst part was…

  Jannie held up the other sandwich, wiggling it in the air. “I’m gonna have both of them,” Janice sang.

  Carrie shook her head. She needed the sandwich. The peanut butter was good protein and she needed it because she was eating for two.

  “You have ten seconds,” Janice said. She put Carrie’s sandwich on her lap and began to pick at the wrap. “Ten, nine…”

  “I can’t,” Carrie said. “You shouldn’t make me. If I fall, I might injure the baby.”

  Jannie pointed and laughed.

  “I’m serious.”

  “What baby? You’re just a baby yourself.”

  Tears sprang to Carrie’s eyes. With most people, she couldn’t care less what they thought of her. People could tease her or refuse to believe her. It was different with Jannie. Her laughter cut Carrie and made her start to wither as she stood on the hot sand.

  She saw herself as Janice saw her—she was just a little girl, and she always would be.

  …You’re not a child anymore…

  The voice snapped Carrie to attention.

  “I’m pregnant,” Carrie said. She wiped the tears from her eyes and stared at Janice.

  Janice unwrapped the second sandwich.

  “You have to have sex with a man to be pregnant. Don’t they teach that in school anymore?”

  “I’m not a child anymore.” Coming from her mouth, the statement lacked conviction. She tried it again, imitating the way the voice had sounded in her head. “I’m not a child anymore.”

  “No, you’re not, and it was wrong of me to say,” Janice said. She covered the sandwich again. “But part of being mature is knowing your place in the world and thinking carefully about the things that you say. When you tell me that you’re pregnant, and I know for certain that you’re still a virgin, it doesn’t paint you as the most mature person in the world. Do you understand?”

  It was smart to listen carefully when Janice talked this way. Stripped of all the joking and teasing, Jannie dispensed very thoughtful advice and Carrie had always benefitted from it. Every time she didn’t, it turned out to be a mistake.

  Carrie swallowed and thought hard about what Janice had said.

  “We’re not in the same place.”

  “That’s true,” Jannie said. “Jump over here and sit down. We’ll have a deep conversation about it while you eat. You look famished.”

  “I am,” Carrie said. “I haven’t eaten since…”

  She didn’t finish the sentence. She searched for a name for the place. When it finally came, it didn’t sound real. It was a made-up place that couldn’t exist in her teenage life.

  “Northam.”

  “Is that a food, event, or a place?” Jannie asked with a smile.

  Carrie put her hand on her belly.

  “I won’t jump.”

  Janice frowned.

  “Someone will have to jump for you then,” Janice said.

  Invisible hands grabbed Carrie and dragged her towards the moat.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  When her mother didn’t answer, Romie grabbed her and started to drag Momma backwards. It felt weird. Momma was a solid woman. She felt way too light and thrashed around in a very un-Momma way.

  Romie glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see a slope. In Romie’s experience, the ball of light was always surrounded by an upwards slope. It should sit in the bottom of a depression. Here, there was no downward slope. If anything, the ground dropped away.

  She took the next step as carefully as she could. It wasn’t easy to keep her balance as Momma tried to twist from her grip. Her foot found nothing but air. One of Momma’s fists crashed down on Romie’s head.

  “Momma!” Romie yelled. “Fight all you want. I’m taking you away from this thing.”

  Romie slipped and managed one more good pull.

  CHAPTER 59: AWAKE

  BRAD HAD MET MARY once. Now, he was practically feeling her up as he groped for flesh to hang onto. Patrick had just jumped and Mary was trying to follow him over the edge. He whispered an apology to her as he kicked her leg out from under her and Mary started to go down. With any luck, the fall to the hard rock would knock her out of her trance.

  A familiar shape was moving nearby.

  Brad turned when Romie yelled, “Momma!”

  Romie was dragging Carrie towards the edge. She wasn’t the only one.

  Abe was pulling at both Lisa and Ty. He leaned out over the cliff as he tried to pull them. Lisa was crying and Ty was simply staring up at the sky. If not for Ty’s mass, all three would have gone over.

  Brad abandoned Mary and ran for Romie.

  There was a dip in the rocks and Romie’s foot danced over it for a second before she lost her balance. She said something and pulled at Carrie before they both started to go down. Brad dove on top of the two of them.

  He freed Carrie by pulling her to the side and then he was straddling Romie. She was strong and nearly threw him free with one good push. Brad slapped her and yelled in her face.

  “Romie! Wake up!”

  “Get off me, Momma.”

  He reached back to slap her again. His hand stopped—it was too absurd. He felt like he was in a movie from seventy years ago. Lisa always picked them for her movie night. She would scour drug-store racks and DVD collections in abandoned houses, looking for old black-and-white films.

  Instead of slapping her, he appealed to her sense of duty.

  “Lisa needs you. Robby needs you. I need you. We have to get back to Gladstone and finish rebuilding our lives. Hell, the place is probably burned down. We might even have to move.”

  “Momma?” Romie asked.

  “No, I’m not your fucking mother. What woman your age still calls her mother, ‘Momma,’ anyway? Wake up, damn it. We have shit to do.”

  Romie blinked up at the sky and then her eyes found Brad.

  “Brad? Did you find Karen? I think I saw her.”

  Brad was rocked back. He believed her.

  “Where?”

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  When Carrie was thrown free from the invisible hands, the voice spoke to her.

  …Only you can save them. The others are too fragile…

  She saw everything clearly. The situation came back to her in a torrent of information. She was up on the cliff, and she had nearly been sucked into the fantasy that The Origin had told her about. Standing in the greenhouse on the day of her indoctrination, hot and sweaty from the stuffy air, he had whispered to her about the beach and how she would be reunited with Janice.

  The whole thing had been his invention. The only reason she had believed it was because she had so desperately wanted it to be true. Carrie got back to her feet. She felt triumphant for a fraction of a second. Then, she saw Terry tumble over the edge of the cliff. A weary, delirious smile was
pasted on her face as she walked. Terry’s foot reached forward like she expected to be stepping up, and then she fell.

  “No!” Carrie screamed.

  She saw Brad slap Romie and then heard him make his plea.

  For a moment, Romie snapped back to reality and then Brad slumped on top of her.

  It was enough to click everything into place for Carrie.

  The Origin offered them the past. Brad had almost revived Romie by demanding that she consider the future. More people were moving towards the edge of the cliff. Most appeared to be lost in their own little drama, unaware of the real world around them.

  Carrie thought she knew what to do, but she needed allies.

  Brad and Romie were closest, and she knew what had just worked on Romie.

  She threw herself at them just as Brad was starting to get up off of Romie. He spilled to the side.

  “Romie, you wake up. You have to shit to do in Gladstone.”

  Romie’s eyelids fluttered. Worry lines appeared on her forehead. This was the Romie that Carrie was accustomed to seeing. Romie turned to Brad. This time, she didn’t remind him about his ex-wife. She hauled back her open hand and then clocked him across the cheek. Brad’s head rocked and he blinked himself back to the real world.

  “You have commitments here, Brad,” Carrie said. “Wake up and help us.”

  He said, “Oh, shit!” and pointed to Abe, who was trying to drag Ty and Lisa over the edge.

  The three of them scrambled to intervene.

  ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

  By pulling on Ty, they managed to leverage Abe and Lisa from the edge. Carrie spoke to each of them, imploring them to snap out of their trance and honor their obligations. It seemed to work. Each awoken person became their ally and they wrestled more people from the edge.