Rites of Extinction

by Matt Serafini

  I got on my knees, flipped my blond hair behind my shoulders while flashing the most confident half-smirk I could manage. Holy shit, my heart was beating so hard I thought it was going to explode, but I was also high off the action because I knew, just knew, this was real.

  “Get slicing, baby,” I told him. I really sold it, ’cause it’s easy to sell. “Now I know what it feels like to go to space.” But it’s even more impressive than that. People have gone to space. Nobody’s ever come back from the dead.

  It remained to be seen if I would, but I wanted it bad enough to try.

  Paul wasn’t some goony boy when it came to the opposite sex. Always got on well with listening. Just listen, and don’t deny a woman once you find out what they want. That’s the rule. He takes it to heart. I’ve been telling him what I want for months. He holds the glinting blade to my face, twists his wrist around, momentarily entranced by all the different ways the light glides off steel.

  And I can tell by the look on his face he’s having second thoughts. My fingers fall gentle on his knuckles. A smile breezes past my mouth. Too nervous to keep it there, but as long as he gets the assurance he needs.

  “Give it,” I say. “Go on and—”

  He makes a sound on the roof of his mouth like sprinklers chinking. Tears begin to nest, and I only have a second to notice them. Because then he starts sawing through my face like it’s a restaurant steak. Peels the strip all the way down to my chin and tears it off with a snap. The gushing blood’s incredible. Feels like . . . a mud mask. I’m too numb and too cold to feel any serious pain, but to watch my blood squirt him in the face like a water gun?

  Well, it’s always surprising when you find something so weird you can’t help but laugh. That’s right, I laughed as I was being murdered.

  That knife curves and slices wider. Cold steel moves beneath my face. It digs under my skin.

  The worst of the pain is my eyes. One strip of flesh peels up across the round of my forehead and traces down along the edge of my jaw. My teeth chatter like a freezing skeleton. Cherry red tears, Mom.

  The only thing I’ve got left is the nodding assurance in the eyes of the man I love. And I swear, it’s like he can read my mind because he’s nodding up a storm. And weeping, and before too long, even tells me how much he loves me.

  Paul cups the back of my head with his free hand. Hovers close, nose to bloody nose and says, “I love you so much.” Kisses my face. Exposed nerves explode like a handful of firecrackers.

  But I don’t care. That’s not what this is about.

  There’s too much blood loss. My shoulders loosen and pull me back to the floor. The world is going weightless. Eyes heavy.

  “Do it,” I tell him with mush in my throat.

  “Oh, I’m going to.” His knees are on either side of me. He speaks in pointed tongue, words that aren’t his. He always did study those secrets with more scrutiny.

  The blade slips in between my ribs and pierces my heart as he chants. It’s like dying in fast-forward. They always say time slows down as you’re on your way out. But that’s a lie. Everything speeds up.

  “I love you,” he says, trying to snuff out a demented laugh.

  “See you there,” I tell him and slip away. The last laugh is with me. I’m already going.

  My last thought, just before my body dies, is of you, Mom.

  Hoping you’re gonna be comfortable.

  And I gotta say, you are.

  29

  JAIME PULLS THE RINGING PHONE from Mom’s pocket, sees it’s Dad calling.

  “Hi,” she says in Rebecca’s voice. It’s difficult to not call him Daddy.

  “Becks,” Dad says.

  Jaime thinks for a second the signal’s lost because there’s a long pull of silence that’s only getting longer. Then she hears a half dozen little intakes of breath, realizes he’s become a sputtering mess.

  “This isn’t the best time,” she says.

  “You’ve made that real clear.”

  “Oh, don’t be too hard on . . . on me.”

  “Listen,” Dad says. “I’m at the end.”

  “I know. Everything is.”

  “The truth is this, all those times you needed me to keep your head straight . . . wanted my help to put you right . . . I needed you just as much. I’d wake up every morning waiting for that phone to ring, desperate for your voice.”

  “That’s . . .” Jaime doesn’t know what to say. She knows she should feel guilt over this. For the way she dropped her parents’ lives into a blender. But what’s coming is too great to care. She’s so stymied she clears her throat and says, “We need each other.”

  Dad sighs. A scraping laugh that sounds more like incredulity. “That’s why I pushed you so hard to stay . . . I mean, the hospital . . . I’m sorry I forced your hand. Only wanted you to get better. For us. For me. Shit, mostly for me.”

  “I love you.” That part’s true enough, doesn’t matter who’s responsible for saying it.

  “I love you. But now that you’ve . . . there’s no way we can go back to the way it was. I’m all alone.”

  “Paul’s dead,” she says.

  “Oh god.” Dad can’t get another word out. Tears have washed everything away. There’s just sniffles.

  “Relax, I didn’t kill him.”

  “. . . That’s . . .”

  “I think what you’re looking for is ‘That’s good news,’” she says.

  “. . . That’s . . .”

  From this distance, Jaime sees the road. The flashing blue and red treetops where Mom’s stolen car blocks the Fork Connector.

  A string of vehicles are beyond it, each one sloped ever slightly inside the dirt gulley running parallel to the pavement. People have begun to pour down the hillside in a steady drip of unsure footing and awkward, mutual assistance.

  On the phone, Dad has been talking. Jaime needs to tune him back in. If there was more time and less tension, she’d have summoned Mom back from the void and let her say a few final words to her dawdling husband. But the amassing bodies say to Jaime that it’s happening, and soon. Her heart flutters with that realization. Dad’s already an afterthought.

  “So . . . you’re coming home.” For the first time since the funeral, he’s got a tinge of hope in his voice. It’s painful to hear. This was never about hurting them, though Jaime supposes parents should bleed for their children. And she knows Mom agrees with that . . .

  “I don’t think so,” she says.

  “Why?”

  “You know I can’t.”

  “. . . Yeah.”

  Jaime pauses and searches the moonlight for inspiration. There’s no magic bullet here. The pain she’s heaped upon the Daniels Family has already done its damage. She just closes her eyes and mutters, “Live, Dad.” Realizes with horror what she’s said.

  “Wait, what?”

  She pulls the clothes from her body as she starts toward the gathering at the base of the hill. She lets the cool spring air breeze her like a sail, moving in a leisurely zigzag.

  “I love you.” She kills the call and flings the phone into the tall grass.

  30

  REBECCA FEELS TRAPPED ON A theme park ride. She glides on rails across the moonstruck field. The distance seems more manageable on the walk back.

  It’s silly to worry about modesty, though Rebecca can’t help but think about how awkward she must look as Jaime strips her. By the time she reaches the others, she can barely stop her teeth from chattering.

  A tent sits at the hill’s base. The farmer’s girl, Danielle, stands beneath it, presiding over rows of homemade pies and unloading stacks of paper bowls at the far corner. She watches Rebecca’s approach with spring-loaded apprehension.

  It’s Jaime who diffuses the tension. “It’s okay,” she says. Points a finger at the crowd and flicks her wrist around. “This here’s all for me.”

  The farmer’s girl cocks an eyebrow and then her head drops to one side. “You’re . . .”

&
nbsp; “The Veil,” Jaime says.

  Danielle leans in on the table and smiles, gives Rebecca a slow once-over. Around them, other women begin to disrobe. Rebecca is ashamed to find relief. Lots of older, less shapely bodies help offset her insecurities.

  The men keep their distance, pushing torch sconces into the earth and spacing them evenly all the way down to the far tree line—hundreds of feet away.

  “Okay, ladies,” Danielle says. She drops a plastic Solo cup on the table stuffed with plastic utensils. “Spoons up . . . dinner time.” She uses the pastry cutter to slice every homemade pie into evenly divided pieces. The hearty aroma wafts up through the broken crusts before soupy red goulash rises through the cracks.

  Jaime makes sure they’re first in line, takes the largest portion.

  Hell no, Rebecca thinks. She does everything she can to drop the bowl into the grass. Jaime chides her for the wasted gesture. “Come off it,” she says. “We’ve got enough food for ten rituals.” Jaime reaches for another bowl, tightens her fingers around it and concentrates on keeping them in place. “You drop this one, I’ll just eat another. I’ll eat this right out of the grass if I gotta.”

  Jaime takes a big bite, and Rebecca’s mouth fills with warm hunks of white meat. Every bite is succulent, juicy, and mixed in alongside fresh potatoes and carrots. It’s not bad. And the next bite is almost pleasurable. Cassie had just thrown innards into a dish like a savage, so desperate to belong without ever understanding why. But this . . . it’s doable.

  “You’re doing good, Mom,” Jaime says without a trace of sarcasm. Her tone is nurturing. Rebecca finds a dozen memories where she’d given her little girl similar treatment.

  It’s Rebecca’s turn to plead. Anything to stop this. But Jaime’s too eager and determined. She does all of this with a sense of pride Rebecca’s never felt. You really believe in this, she thinks.

  “I do.”

  Jaime wolfs the pie and takes a second helping. The other women are busy complimenting Danielle while exchanging muted whispers about what to expect from tonight. Everyone looks to Jaime like she’s in charge. But she’s not in charge.

  She’s a bundle of nerves. Jaime is about to see Paul again. Two long years imprisoned inside someone else’s head, hiding at first, marinating in the unnecessary grief. Pleasantly surprised to discover just how much her mother loves her.

  It is the only way.

  And yet, Rebecca thinks, you’ve never even said you’re sorry.

  “Of course I am,” Jaime snaps. The others look at her and take skittish steps back. Jaime puts the empty plate on the counter where the farmer’s girl takes it away. Jaime is already moving out of earshot. “You think I wanted this?” she says. “I had no choice in the body I take. Needs to be blood.”

  Fine, Rebecca thinks. But tell me why. You owe me that much.

  “Why?” Jaime whispers. “It’s real. That’s why. I think of all those mind-numbing masses you and Dad used to drag me to . . . you know, on the holidays when you pretended to be Catholics or whatever. And all the talk about faith and feelings, some higher power that’s beyond us. Too good to touch our lives on the reg. Because, why? To be rewarded later. Maybe?”

  So just be an atheist, Rebecca thinks. What the fuck do I care? You’re grinding this axe because of Christmas Eve?

  “You’re not listening. They expelled Him on this spot hundreds of years ago. And I’m about to bring Him back.” She cannot stop herself from smiling as she speaks. Pride overfilleth. “I’m about to wake up the world.”

  They’ve moved so far out of earshot they’re standing roadside.

  Rebecca thinks, You really do love him, don’t you?

  “You can feel that?”

  . . . I can.

  “That’s good. That’s the truth. And just . . . once He parts the Veil, He will be whole again. Think of the fortunes He will give to us, the devoted.”

  You knew I needed to carry you out here, Rebecca says. And the closer we got, the more strength you found.

  “Be proud you solved it.”

  Didn’t solve anything, Rebecca says. This whole awful case collapsed down around me.

  One of the cars up ahead has its door ajar. It’s the only chance Rebecca has and she’s been moving toward it. Now, she seizes it. She’s able to wrestle control away from Jaime just long enough to throw herself into the seat.

  Jaime realizes what’s happening, uses Mom’s lungs to scream for help.

  In the distance, rushing bodies start toward them.

  Rebecca doesn’t need that long.

  Just a second . . .

  It’s a struggle to reach the mirror. Rebecca’s trembling hand reaches up, and Jaime fights for control of every finger—some of them wiggling while others remain part of a gnarled claw.

  Rebecca reaches it and turns the mirror down just as Jaime flings her arm back against the seat, keeping it pinned against the cushion.

  It doesn’t matter.

  “Take us,” Rebecca screams while every last muscle goes into lockdown. Her eyes swing up to the thin slice of rearview glass, already turning into a pool of midnight ripples.

  A tri-pronged hand with nails the size of railroad spikes reaches from the side mirror, thick tar running off its forearm as it stretches into this world.

  Now it’s Jaime screaming for help. She’s too close to give up now.

  Somewhere in the night is the sound of footsteps on pavement.

  A second hand reaches from the opposite side mirror. In the rearview, yellow eyes appear in the rippling water, reaching the glass and bending the frame outward.

  The commotion arrives in the form of panicked party guests. They tear open the doors and drag Jaime to the pavement, even as the gnarled fingers swipe at them. The claw locks onto the closest guest, yanking him back against the side mirror. He goes screaming, his body folding, bending, breaking all at once, sucked through the tiny square hunk of glass at the speed of a vacuum.

  Jaime goes rolling across the tarmac as the panicked people drag her away from the mirrors, several screams erupting around the car. Disorder she can no longer see.

  They’re dragging her back down the hill and Rebecca has no more strength with which to fight.

  “Now I’m pissed,” Jaime growls. “But that’s fine. ’Cause what’s coming next is all that matters and I can’t wait to get you out of my head.”

  31

  NIGHTGOWNS BILLOW THROUGH THE AIR in the distance like a bunch of erratic ghosts. The grass at her feet is tamped into patches of brown weeds. And the earth grows darker as she stomps over it, steps becoming charred crunches as the ground blackens.

  The world’s dead. Graveyard gray as far as the eye can see. There’s only those fluttering sheets of loose fabric.

  She shambles on, following in a dream.

  A flute haunts the distant night. Who’s playing it? Is anyone? It reaches her ears in short bursts of random tone and fuzzy air.

  Then the virginal gowns fling into the sky like graduation caps. The wind catches them and sends them spiraling high over the countryside.

  The liberated bodies find rhythm in the random notes, bending in spastic motions to accommodate them.

  She stumbles toward the blackened hilltop, behind the other naked bodies, racing now for that ring of circular stone dildos. Each of them enthusiastic to embrace The Plowing Fields.

  Twelve women.

  Twelve phalluses.

  Spread legs. Squatting torsos. Sculpted heads slip inside each of them, one at a time, as if this has been choreographed. Insatiable moans pass from their mouths, flying around the entire ring like an orgasmic echo.

  She pauses in the center. The other women turn to watch. Their heads swivel in a slow, circular motion. They reach for her, desperate for affection she cannot give. She watches them grind away on the cold, unmoved organs and finds their undulation as painful as it is arousing.

  The flute falls silent because now it’s the constant bursts of elation that are
going to summon Him.

  The stone slab is cold. She sits on it, leans back on freezing hands. It’s not at all the way she imagined it.

  It’s better.

  The women get themselves off, stretching themselves wide in order to prepare. Their faces flash with fleeting jealousy. She’s so turned on by it she barely feels the night chill.

  The field slopes to one side and she spots a figure moving toward them in the far-flung distance. Misshapen, with shoulders burdened by weight she cannot see.

  She feels strange and uncomfortable watching it approach and the way it moves fills her with the kind of dread she’s never felt.

  Because whatever that is, it isn’t human.

  The surrounding moans reach crescendo and begin to drop off. Detonating orgasms turn the group over to exhausted silence, leaving crumpled bodies gasping for air as they prepare to witness the arrival.

  The figure moves along the planted torchlight, following it all the way from another world. The women—all shapes, ages, and sizes—shriek as if they’re watching a rock star take the stage.

  The shape changes as it nears. It sheds shadows and emerges in human form, coming with a familiar gait. Somebody she’s seen. A slim torso hardened by muscle.

  She begins to weep.

  Reaches out.

  Spreads her legs wide.

  He steps to her.

  It’s about to work.

  His lips lean in and find hers. He grins and she loops an arm around his neck in order to hold him in place. Just wants to look at him.

  Remember him . . .

  There’s the little appendix scar that runs from his belly to his ribs, but even that’s faded and almost non-existent now.

  He runs one hand over the smoothness of her belly, prowling up to her small breast and giving it an unfamiliar squeeze. Unlike her, he has nothing to remember. Jaime’s body is all bones, long buried.

  Paul isn’t exactly Paul, either. He smiles and the torchlight finally gives her a full view. It’s Rebecca’s mind, nearly extinguished, that catches this. Here’s the priest from St. Cecilia’s.