by Hamill, Ike
If that was the man he intended to be, she would love him for it.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
As Charlie let go of her arm, the memory began to fade. Before it slipped away, Carrie grasped one of the memories and held it close. The baby in her arms was theirs. He belonged to her and Charlie, and in another life they had been good parents to their children. There was a shadow to that portrait though. It was too dark to look at, but it was there. The life she made with Charlie wasn’t always a good one. In some of them, he was a monster. Sometimes, that crooked smile came back and it brought death and chaos with it.
“You see?” The Origin asked.
“It’s not like that here,” Carrie said. This baby was hers. In this world, she had an idea of the big picture. A life with Charlie could be rewarding, but there was too much risk.
“It will be like that when we go back,” The Origin said. “All we have to do is leave together and the churn will erase this place.”
“What about all these people?”
“They’ll go back to where they belong. It was a fluke that they ended up here. It’s unnatural—that’s the correction that needs to be made to resolve the imbalance of energy.”
Carrie looked around at them—her friends and neighbors in this tattered world. They were all silent, hanging on every word. Some of them were old and struggling to hold onto the memories of their old lives. Some were young and already thinking of this life as normal. They might not belong here, but this was their decision too.
“You can’t decide the fate of everyone,” she said. “At your core, you’re selfish. I can’t live like that.”
“Life is selfish,” he said. “We all exist to be selfish.”
“Not me,” Carrie said.
She stepped away from him.
She pushed through the compressed circle of people and moved out into the churn.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
The baby at her chest squirmed and cried as the wind tore at them. She heard Charlie’s scream behind her as he moved to follow. Jackson held him back for a second, but the man was too slippery. His flesh had too many forms for Jackson to restrain.
Carrie saw others try to move with her and protect her. It seemed that only she and Charlie could resist the pull of the churn enough to move through it. It compressed the others into their circle as Carrie fought it and moved towards the end of the cliff.
She could barely hear his voice over the fury of the wind.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“You’re not the center of everything,” she said. “You just think you are. Somewhere, in one of our pasts, you told me that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. So was I. I don’t remember every time we came together, but I know it was a mistake every time. I should have seen through you.”
“You saw right to the center of me. You were the only one.”
“You’ve told yourself the same lies so many times that you believe them.”
“You’ll learn to love me again. You have before,” he said.
Carrie reached out with her foot. She couldn’t see the edge of the cliff. The wind moved so fast that it seemed to swirl the night colors together into a wall of pigment. But she could feel the edge. The smoothed rock dropped away to nothing. On the other side of that nothing was her fate.
“You can’t,” he said. “I know you too well. You might be willing to sacrifice yourself, but you’ll never put our baby at risk.”
Another memory swam to the surface of Carrie’s thoughts.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
Familiarity breeds contempt.
The thought kept running through Carrie’s head while she watched her husband. She was too familiar with the four walls around her. Her pregnancy had ended with bed rest. It was such an innocuous name given to such a confining sentence. Bed rest sounded like a luxurious reward that might follow a long hike. For Carrie, it was long, slow torture. Her only real connection to the outside world was Charlie, and he seemed to resent her incarceration as much as she did.
But he resented it for a different reason.
He moved around like he was shouldering an enormous weight. The baby pulled her forward, trying to make her fold to the ground. Charlie was being crushed from above by the weight of his disappointment.
She was part of that disappointment—she could feel it.
Somehow, even though he chose her, she wasn’t good enough for him. He had picked her only to flog himself with.
“What?” he asked, turning to stare at her.
Suddenly, the bed felt too small. The cocoon of bedding around her wasn’t going to be enough to protect her.
“Nothing,” she said with a sigh. She let out a breath that felt like it had been festering in her chest for a week. She looked down at her hands. “Nothing, Charlie. I’m just so bored. You know how I am. This is the worst for me.”
The cold front in her brain was colliding with warm air bubbling up from her chest. The result would be a popup shower of tears and they were coming any second.
She couldn’t look up at him. She would read the disappointment on his face again and she couldn’t take that.
“Hun, no,” he whispered.
She glanced up to see his face thawing. Genuine sympathy was condensing on his brow.
“We’re doing a thing that’s incredibly hard and yet billions of people have done it before us. We just have to keep that in mind. As difficult as these next weeks will be, it will all be worth it. It’s been this way since the beginning of time.”
“Not for everyone,” she said.
He didn’t ask what she meant. She continued anyway.
“Not everyone is given bed rest for a month. Suzanne walked into the hospital and practically shit her baby into her own hands. My cousin, Nicole, didn’t even have…”
He stopped her by laying his hand on hers. They were making a silent pact. His hand was on hers, and her hand was on her belly. Under thin skin and muscle, the baby was probably pressing up from inside of her.
“It’s not a competition and you’re going to be fine. Both doctors said so.”
Charlie didn’t seem to realize that there was fine and there was fine. The valedictorian of her high school class had been fine after his accident. He had to carry around a handkerchief to wipe the drool that would leak from the corner of his scarred mouth, but he was technically fine. Charlie always got his way. Things were always fine for men like him.
“Hun?”
“Huh?”
“You went away for a second. Are you sure you’re going to be okay? You want me to ask my mom to come stay with you tonight?”
“No,” she answered immediately. Carrie could smell the stale cigarette smoke from just the mention of the woman.
Charlie turned away before she saw his face harden. He had heard the disgust beneath the single word.
“Fine,” he said. There was that word again. There was fine and there was fine.
After he left, she felt a tiny amount of relief. For so long, she had told herself that he was a good person who had been warped by bad circumstances. Lately, she had imagined another explanation for Charlie’s behavior. What if he was essentially a bad person who had a thin veneer of good pasted on top? What if that veneer had been sanded away by time and stress? What if the bad was starting to show through?
She drifted off to sleep while trying to convince herself that it wasn’t true.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
The phone woke her up. Carrie glanced at the display and didn’t recognize the number. In an instant, adrenaline surged through her and she sat straight up. Her skin stretched and pulled, making her want to settle back into the bed. She forced herself to stay upright and answer the phone.
“Hello?”
“Baby, get out of there,” the voice said.
It only took a moment to place it.
“Jannie?”
“He’ll be home any second. Get out!”
Carrie’s hear
t was pounding. She knew that Janice was talking about Charlie, but a million questions flooded into her head, each one demanding attention. Carrie’s mouth refused to work.
She woke up at the sound of a slamming door.
Charlie was home.
Carrie blinked and realized that her head was still on the pillow. The phone hadn’t rang. Her heart slowed back into a reasonable rhythm. Charlie’s feet crossed the floor. A light clicked on—the dim one, near the bathroom—and Carrie rolled over.
Charlie was wearing his yellow raincoat.
She smiled.
“I just had the weirdest dream,” she said. Her lips clicked and smacked as she spoke. Her lips were still stuck together from sleep.
Charlie unzipped his coat and turned one of the flaps to the side. He looked like a cross between a fisherman and a gunslinger. Carrie started to push up from the bed as she realized what he had tucked into his belt. Charlie gripped the tool, withdrew it from his belt, and slapped the handle into his other palm.
It was a hammer.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, blinking his slow eyes. His crooked smile made her scream.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
Carrie fought the memory away. It was from a different time—a different version of her. It could only tell her what she already knew.
“It doesn’t matter,” she screamed at Charlie. “No matter how hard I try to protect him, you’ll find a way to fuck it all up. You always do.”
When he reached for her, she took the baby from her chest and held him out over oblivion. Beyond that swirling pigment of night sky, the cliff dropped away to nothing. Death waited down there. It waited for the baby and then for her.
“That’s not true,” Charlie said. “There is one version that works. That’s where we’re going.”
She believed him.
In his slow eyes, she saw the truth. Every color of Charlie wanted this. He wanted her and the baby, even though all her memories of him felt like movies projected on mist. This was the real version of him as much as it wasn’t the real version of herself.
“Then go,” she said.
She dropped her baby into the void.
CHAPTER 63: ROBBY
“I KNOW IT SEEMS impossible, but we have to stabilize this world if we can,” Robby screamed. Ty leaned in to hear him. Romie nodded and put her hand on Robby’s shoulder. The three of them formed the first triangle. Gripping each other, they found a solid structure of entwined arms.
Behind him, Robby felt someone brace themselves on his back. He saw Brad put his back to Ty. People were trying to form another triangle. Instead of being compressed into a formless mass, they were building a structure to combat the force of the churn.
Robby’s right arm hyperextended and then buckled inward when he tried to straighten it again. Ty braced him until he found his strength again. The momentary instability caused one of the other triangles to collapse.
Someone cried out and then Robby felt pushing and shoving behind him as the people tried to rebuild their structure.
It wasn’t working. Robby looked up at the swirling black above them and saw that the churn was unaffected by their efforts. Robby’s arm began to vibrate. It wouldn’t be long before it buckled again. His muscles were no match for the strength trying to crush them. At the center of the chaos, Robby wasn’t strong enough to resist.
From the darkness, the wind carried a scream.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
All around him, Robby heard people gasp and moan. At first, he imagined them to be the sounds of defeat. His heart sank until he realized that the pressure was abating. Looking up, he saw the swirl of stars slowing and then coming to a stop. The wind died down, leaving them in silence.
Ty released his horrible grip on Robby’s shoulder.
Romie withdrew her hand and rolled her wrist, making it snap and pop. Robby fell to his knees. Winding through Ty’s legs, Gordie found Robby. The boy pulled the dog into a hug.
“It’s over,” someone said.
They were quickly shushed by another voice.
“Listen,” someone said.
Gordie perked his ears, obeying the order. Robby listened too. They both turned towards the sound of the weeping woman.
One by one, the members of their group began to migrate towards the sound of crying. Someone found a flashlight and clicked it on, revealing the shape of Carrie, hunched over.
She was on her knees at the edge of the cliff, bent in sorrow.
“Carrie?” Romie called.
The woman didn’t look up. Mumbled into her own hands, Robby could barely make out her words.
“I killed him. I threw him over the cliff and Charlie jumped after him.”
Nobody spoke for a while. Carrie sobbed alone. Lisa moved forward but stopped short of putting an arm around Carrie. The woman was too close to the edge of the cliff. It looked like a stiff breeze might take her away.
“The Origin?” Robby asked.
Carrie turned. She blinked at the light until it was moved away from her face.
“Yes,” she said. “He was the origin of all this. In another world—another life—he and I were together. We had children. I sacrificed my baby to stop that from happening again.”
“Sacrifice,” a woman said.
Robby looked over as the flashlight found Cirie. With eyes turning towards her, Cirie had the sense to put her hand over her own mouth and take a step backwards.
“And Charlie jumped?” Robby asked.
Carrie nodded slowly. She pointed over the edge. Nobody moved to confirm her statement. Nobody got close enough to point a flashlight over the edge. Robby was curious, but held his ground.
“Come back from there,” Lisa said. “Come back and tell us exactly what happened, okay?” She extended a hand.
Carrie shook her head and looked out into the night. Beyond her, the void was pure black. Lit up by the flashlight, Carrie was at the edge of the world.
“I know how selfish it is, but I chose myself,” Carrie said. “I can remember how happy I was. I remember how fulfilling it was to have children. It’s the biggest challenge and the biggest reward I had ever felt, but it also used me up. I mean that it would have.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I mean.”
“I understand,” someone said. Robby looked for a face to match the voice. He didn’t see who said it.
“I thought I could live with it, but I can’t,” Carrie said.
She started to push herself up from her knees, but she was also pushing herself back, towards the void. With one more inch, she would overbalance and be lost. Only Lisa was close enough to grab her, and Lisa seemed to be paralyzed by the moment.
“Wait!” Robby yelled. “Make one more choice. Choose us.”
Robby felt lights swing over to his face. He could barely see Carrie through their glare. He could sense her, though. He imagined her perfectly balanced on the head of a pin. Any tiny movement, or maybe even a breath of air would sway her one direction or the other. Robby opened his mouth to try to coax her. He closed it again when he realized that he couldn’t be sure if saying something else would help or hurt.
He realized that it didn’t matter.
With each passing second, having made no decision at all, Carrie was actually making up her mind to not jump. Robby could see the weight of the circumstances settling on her face. At least she was bearing it and not collapsing underneath it.
Finally, when Lisa reached out her hand again, Carrie took it.
Several people helped her to her feet and led her away from the edge of the cliff.
Murmurs broke into shouts on the other side of the group. Flashlights turned to see someone arguing with Cirie and other people holding her back. Carrie turned and the group quieted.
“What?” Carrie asked. Her voice was sad and tired.
“I just wanted to thank you for your sacrifice,” Cirie said.
The people holding her back let go. Despite their efforts, her message had be
en delivered.
“Fuck you,” Carrie said.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
The lights were spaced down the line of people and they walked carefully down the path towards the parking area. Robby kept his head on a swivel, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He watched the moving shadows in the woods and tried to listen beyond the tired feet and murmured complaints from the group.
A halfhearted effort had been made to look for survivors at the bottom of the cliff. Some people went so far as to descend several feet into the darkness on ropes. No sign of life was discovered. The dead were left for daylight. Abandoning the search was the cue for people to start mourning friends they had lost.
Robby stopped at a tree and let others pass him. He saw Corinna leading Liam by the hand. The boy held Prince’s collar tight. The dog stayed pressed to Liam’s side—not pulling at all. Brad walked with Romie. They were both limping and supporting each other. Lisa followed behind, herding them silently.
Ty slowed as he passed.
“You think we need to spread out?”
Robby shook his head. “I don’t think so. I think that’s over now.”
Ty nodded and continued on. Most of the group looked too tired to worry about such things. Robby tagged along with the end of the line and followed the group down to the buses. He heard the engines and saw the headlights through the woods. A few people were working. The rest were standing around in a big group near the edge of the woods. Robby made his way to the front just as the reverse lights came on and one bus spun the other out of the way. A man waved and the people began to file towards the vehicles.
