The Ashes of Around Twenty-Three Strangers

by Jeremy Packert Burke

  She is scared that without these salvage trips, without these damaged walls, she will lose her brother for good. That the ashes, and their burial, will not be enough, that she is erasing him forever from the earth. But she knows that if she tests her luck too much it will eventually run out.

  The stairs are a waterfall. Lucy kneels below them, at the border between rain and air, between the first floor and the second. She cannot feel the tears sliding down her cheeks, loses her sobs in the thunder above. Maybe, if she went upstairs, it would be enough. Maybe she would feel able to go out into the world. But she cannot. Cannot give her own body over to that torrent again. Noel’s hand in hers, their ten fingers glazed with rain. She cannot.

  She stays kneeling, though. She doesn’t want to be afraid, doesn’t want to flee the dark and damp like a child running out of a basement. She wants to believe, as Noel did, that she is safe—not because the walls will not collapse, but because, if they do, it will not matter. She closes her eyes, and all the world is a pounding roar, and she does not move.

  When they are again in the car, Lucy peels off her wet socks and Carve grips her shoulder, his strong hand a tether to the world. “I’m sorry,” he says.

  As they pull away, Lucy watches the house in the side mirrors. She is convinced that at any moment it will fall in on itself, will erase its own small emptiness. The spray of glass and plaster, the shedding of shingles like dead skin. But it stays standing, and soon disappears from view.

  * * *

  Lucy and Noel were lucky enough to see the storm as it formed in their childhood home. No midnight surprise of torrential rain, no sudden onslaught of thunder and light. It began as a twisting, an accumulation of dust and vapor inches below the low plaster ceiling.

  Carve picked up on the first ring. “You guys can come stay with me,” he said. He had made this offer before, claiming that his house felt empty and he’d be glad for the company, but Lucy had never taken him up on it. She was sure he did not mean it and was only offering out of pity.

  With the storm brewing above, she didn’t hesitate. “We’ll be there soon.” The clouds came darker and darker. The endless blue of the sky obscured as the dark folds smothered windows. She grabbed a plastic bag and raced to Noel’s room. The door banged open as the small clouds opened up and rain began to pelt them both. Noel lay prostrated before one of the church’s abstract icons, dragging a blunt bronze needle across his bare arms and chest. It drew no blood but left pale red marks, bright and inflamed beneath the tumbling dark. The overhead light shone muted through the mist.

  “Noel, come on, we have to go.”

  He looked at her with half-lidded eyes. Rain fell harder. The plastic bag that Lucy held began to fill, and she dropped it, and it burst across the floor like a bird on a windshield. “It is the will of the divine that the storm come,” he said, “and I must tend to it.” Noel’s chant continued, barely audible beneath the drumming of rain.

  “Oh, for fuck’s—” Lucy pulled her jacket over her head, a canopy that did little to keep her dry. She found another bag and threw things into it at random. Her binder of CDs, her practice mute, a photo of their parents. She tossed in the urn that held their ashes; it spilled immediately, and they formed a damp paste. Lucy raced back upstairs, the flashes of lightning barely visible through Noel’s cracked door.

  Noel asked the room, “What could this be but the will of the gods.”

  “Noel.” She tossed an empty bag at him and it plummeted, plastered to the floor. “Grab what you can, we’re not coming back.”

  “There were no walls in the old world, and there will be no walls in the new. We exist in a temporary hell of barriers.”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay. We’re going to a different temporary hell, and then you can come back here. Okay?”

  “Lucy.” He stared at her. The cheap paint of his icon was running, pooling on the floor around his knees. The bronze needle held up like a lightning rod. “It takes ages for the walls to crumble. It’s okay.”

  There it was: that childish certainty, the know-it-all-ness that their parents had seen as feature not bug.

  “Noel.”

  “It’s okay, Lucy. I’m safe. We’re safe.”

  He held out a hand to her. Water pooled and spilled out of his palm, endlessly renewed. She took his in her own, felt the brief vacuum as water displaced. Lucy wanted it to be enough, to stick them together forever. She thought of the first days after their parents had died, the car crash that had killed them. She and Noel slept in the living room, awkwardly sprawled on the couches, for fear of being alone and what childhood memories their bedrooms held. They sat on the floors and curled into one another and felt emptied out in turn. She wanted to pull him back to then.

  But she knew it would be selfish. His teeth were wet and shining in the flashes of light, his eyes soft and bright.

  So when he let go, she did not reach again for his hand. She knew he was right—it was unlikely the house was going to collapse around them, even as the floors shook beneath the weather’s fury.

  Lucy will come back to this moment often. Will wonder what she could have done differently, and know that there is nothing. When she stepped out of the house and heard it crack and groan behind her, she regretted immediately the things she had chosen to take. She regretted not staying, not knocking Noel unconscious and dragging him from the stormy halls. When she watched the collapse of the walls, felt the expulsion of air as it all settled into itself, the water gushing from its jagged wounds, she stood shivering in the too, too quiet day, no more certain than ever.

  * * *

  The man at the military checkpoint hands back their IDs. Lucy wonders if this is normal, if the military always protected this area, or if—as with grocery stores, shopping malls, and riverbanks—this is a new protection the world requires.

  The god stretches before them like an uneven range of mountains. It rises above the trees, scaly skin ugly where it meets the sky. The car bucks on the gravel road, pebbles clicking where they hit the underside. “I can’t believe you’ve never come here,” Carve says.

  “You know how it is.”

  “You’re lucky, I mean. It gives me the creeps.”

  As the car traces the road, the world becomes emerald bright. Thick trees stand at attention, crowned with topaz lemons and ruby apples. A few children chase each other, feet sinking into the luxurious carpet of grass. Lucy feels enshrined. The world is closed off, the horizon banished. It is terrifying; it is safe.

  There is a blur of grave markers as they go—brass, copper, iron. They look like yardsticks, enameled in yellow and purple, painted with names or crude images of houses. Some are draped with scarves, or garlanded with tinsel from recent holidays.

  How would it feel to walk among them if Noel were already here? Lucy had gone back to the house, waded through the shattered glass and unspooled home movies, looking for the hand that rain had stuck to hers, desperate to give her dead brother a new home in fire and earth. But the fallen house was too heavy, the spaces between rubble too narrow. She left with nothing.

  She tells herself she will come back here, one day. Will visit whatever marker she leaves for Noel. She hopes she feels better then.

  They park in the handicap row. There are hardly any other cars—mostly the Jeeps favored by apocalypse preppers. She retrieves Carve’s chair from the back and he settles into it with some relief. “My trusty steed,” he says, and smacks its wheels with both palms. The car looks duller here; shabby. A path cuts through the dense greenery and Carve and Lucy follow it toward the god.

  * * *

  The markers come denser and denser, sticking up like hands from the loamy ground. Some are marked with names in small letters, or painted with crude images of houses or butterflies. Somewhere is one marked Carver Compson—Legs Only. She asks where it is. Carve gestures at the world.

  They’re silent for a while, and he says, “After the accident, they gave me my legs—what was left of them—in a big sil
ver bag. Like they were trash. They used to be a part of me but now they’re coffee filters and banana peels.”

  Lucy has heard this story before, but is happy enough to hear it again; Carve always seems to like telling it. She looks everywhere but at the god’s body before her as she pushes along. It, regardless, slowly fills the field of vision.

  “It freaked me out, having them lying around, but I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of them. I kept them in the deep freeze, between lemonade concentrate and links of sausage.”

  “You were still gung-ho for god, right? Why not just burn and bury them?”

  “That silver bag bothered me. All its disclaimers in tiny font, its biohazard symbol. The idea that simply because this thing was not a part of me any longer it was somehow disgusting, somehow meaningless. I didn’t want to dispose of them.” Carve pauses for breath. The ground is lumpen and ill-suited to the legless. Lucy takes a turn pushing his chair. “You get it into your head, growing up in the church, that the body is sacred. That it’s going to be put back together someday soon. I couldn’t just give them up.”

  “What changed?”

  “The deep freeze broke. I lost all the sausage and lemonade and the legs started to stink. So I thought, ‘Okay.’ I thought, ‘Take ’em away.’”

  “And now here they are.” Lucy gestures at the verdant field. “And here you are.”

  Carve grunts. “Together again and it’s not even the endtimes. We should do this every day.”

  They break out of the trees and there is the god, like an enormous gray wall between this world and the next. In its shadow stand more markers, a confetti of bright points. Lucy gasps when she steps off the path and onto the grass.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah it’s just—I didn’t remember it being so soft.”

  There are more people here than the cars would suggest. She spots picnicking lovers, children doing cartwheels. A man, woman, and child lead a lethargic Golden Lab toward the god. “You could almost forget,” she says, “about everything else.”

  “I know, it’s awful.”

  They catch up to the family and slow dog. “C’mon, Ripley!” the father calls. “A little closer, Rip!” Ripley’s muzzle is speckled gray and she shakes her legs as she walks. The young girl is not helping, hanging from her dog’s neck like a bandana, muttering in her ears.

  “What are they doing?” Lucy asks Carve. “What are you doing?” she says more loudly.

  The man stands and wipes his sweaty hands on his jeans and strolls over. “Fine day, isn’t it? Not a cloud in the sky.” Lucy winces.

  “You folks enjoying the shade?” Carve asks. He beams at Lucy, restored by the chance to mess with someone. Ripley continues on her way, dragging the child as she goes.

  “Sure as shootin’. It’s always a good day in the shadow of the divine. Isn’t that so, honey?”

  His wife has dark circles under her arms and eyes. “You betcha.”

  “What are you doing?” Lucy repeats. The Lab is in the world’s slowest game of chicken, waiting for the god to flinch.

  “Oh, uh.” He looks at his daughter. She does not stop whispering to Ripley. “Old Rip’s on the way out,” the man says softly. “You know how it is.”

  “Sure do,” Carve says.

  “We figure the end is coming soon. Not just hers, you understand. And we wanted to make sure, well, if she goes before we do—we wanted her to be able to find her way home from here. After she’s put back together and all.” He wipes his forehead with a handkerchief. “Bit unorthodox spreading her ashes here, but I believe it’s what the Gods would want, don’t you?”

  His wife says “Silvie, don’t hang too hard. You’ll drag her down.”

  The man points to the jar, still lodged under Lucy’s arm. “Who ya got there?”

  “What? Oh.” She cannot say It’s the ashes of around twenty-three strangers. She does not want to say My brother. But what would be a better lie, a better truth?

  “It’s legs,” Carve interjects. “A whole bunch of legs. There’s a commune of us and we’re going to bury them so that when the end of days comes, we can kick the devil.”

  The man startles, grins. “Right on, brother.” He fist bumps Carve but does not look at him. “Silvie,” he says, “let’s go press our faces against the God. Doesn’t that sound nice?” He lifts Ripley over his shoulder and carries her off. Silvie follows, whispering still.

  Carve says, “Fucking jackass.”

  “They’re just trying to do what’s right.”

  “No, I hate that. Mourning something before it’s happened.”

  As they come closer, Lucy keeps hoping to get some greater sense of the god. Every time she thinks she can picture it, something changes. The limbs do not bend in predictable ways. The dips and hollows do not match the shape of the human body. She tries to map it to the old, blurry photos she remembers and cannot. She wants to feel resolution, or change, or hope, but feels only tired and afraid. She keeps thinking of Carve, wild-eyed after his mountain car rides. Thinking of the houses she has promised she will no longer explore. She and Carve come ever closer to the god.

  Lucy looks at her smeary peanut butter jar and wonders at the limbs contained there. What were they before they were ash? The index finger by which a woman grabbed her lover’s collar. The legs that burned with the rising sun, jogging every day. The nose that relished the scent of buttercream, forever the smell of childhood. And what do they add up to? A lost brother? Some kind of peace?

  She imagines the dog, Ripley, resurrected suddenly in this enormous shadow, far from home. She stops pushing Carve. “Look, let’s go.”

  He looks at her and she fiddles with a marker, dragging her thumbnail over its coppery green.

  “Lucy—”

  She hefts the jar. Its plastic catches the sun marvelously. “Don’t you think it’s fucked up? Bringing these pieces of strangers here without asking?”

  “Who would you ask, Luce?”

  “You know what I mean. You chose to leave a part of yourself here and you still hate it.”

  “Lucy.”

  “I need you to tell me. Tell me it’s wrong.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Tell me it’s fucked up, Carver!”

  Carve looks at her and Lucy thinks Pity or disgust? He opens his mouth but stays silent. They might wait like this forever.

  Their standoff is interrupted by the ringing of bells. Men and women dressed in white come out of the forest in twin lines. A woman leads the way, her own bell aloft. Perhaps these are the people from the relo camp they passed, perhaps they are something else entirely. This is the way the world is.

  “Is this what you did as a kid?”

  Carve shakes his head. “Apostates.”

  Lucy and Carve watch as they arrange themselves in horizontal rows, a plein-air imitation of church pews. The woman makes a sign and all drop to the ground, prostrated before the god. She is barely audible as she speaks. Her words almost private, small. Lucy catches scraps here and there:

  “Dear Gods, who command the cycles of the world—

  “—the ancient storms that washed filth away—

  “—these promises belatedly made—”

  Instead of listening, Lucy stares at her jar and thinks of the pharmacy. Noel’s final sermon in a house of storms. Carve is clearly discomfited by the apostates. But he stays by Lucy’s side.

  The leader holds her bell up like a sword. Her voice rises in volume. She speaks as though making conversation across a crowded room. “What you have taken from us, oh Gods. We who would do whatever you ask.” Her eyes are wide and god-gray. “Tell us to take down our walls—we will. Tell us to flatten the world—we will.” Tears in her eyes shine despite the shadow. “But our children, Gods. Our memories. Our homes. We would give anything, willingly, if you’d only ask. But instead of opportunity you give us whim.” Her arm falls. The bell yields a harsh clang. “Tell us what you have planned. We cannot stand long in your bl
inding light.”

  Carve looks at Lucy, and takes her hand.

  The woman says, “Dear Gods. We ask for forgiveness. We ask for a new form of absolution. We will remake the world as you desire, but first, send us rain. Take the clouds out of our homes and return them to the skies.” She rings the bell, arm snapping like a pitcher’s. “Send rain.” Ring. “Send rain.” Ring.

  The apostates stand, arms stretched high like one hundred enameled grave markers. They echo: “Send rain.” Ring. “Send rain.” Ring.

  The sky is blue. As they turn their faces toward it, Lucy finds her eyes following the apostates’, hoping to see some blot on its expanse. Waiting—if only for a moment—for something else.

  About the Author

  Jeremy Packert Burke is a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and an MFA candidate at the University of Alabama. They have had stories in the Indiana Review, Puerto del Sol, Quarterly West, and Hayden’s Ferry Review, among other places. You can find them online at jeremypackertburke.com or on Twitter @jempburke, or sign up for email updates here.

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Begin Reading

  About the Author

  Copyright