by Steven John
“It doesn’t concern me? Doesn’t concern me, Kirk? I’d say it does. I think it concerns me very, very much. Profoundly, even.”
He stood looking down at me, his face cold. In his dark eyes, there was no flicker of compassion. There was only the hard gaze of a scientist working out an equation. “Perhaps my word choice was poor, Vale. But we’re out of time. So go ahead and be concerned, but stand up. I didn’t have to tell you a thing, but instead I told you everything. You want to find out what’s next? Let’s go.”
I stood up and faced him. My heart began to beat more rapidly as I stared at Kirk, the slight hint of a sneer on his calm, composed face. His suntanned face. All that I had just learned churned in my head, and my anger grew. Turned to fury. It was academic for Anthony Kirk: just facts and problems to be solved with hydroelectric power and fog stacks and glowing orbs and all the rest of it. Not so for me. Not so for all of us. He held my gaze. My parents. My time. Any chance for happiness. My life.
I slowly pulled on my jacket. As I did, Heller’s cassette slipped from the pocket. Chopin. The tape bounced off the carpet and came to rest between my rough brown leather boots and his polished black wingtips. He looked down at the tape, bemused. I knelt to pick it up, my eyes on his face.
Something deep inside me cracked as my left hand closed around the tape. Kirk smiled down. My chest tightened, and before I knew it, my right hand had curled into a fist. The backs of my fingers trailed across the carpet. My torso began to twist as I rose. Fifteen years of stumbling through the gray compressed into one action as my fist began its arc up from the floor. Kirk’s eyes widened the instant before I hit him. I struck with every fiber of my shaken soul.
My hand connected just below his cheekbone. The punch was so hard, his feet left the floor and he hung parallel with the ground, falling, eyes rolling back, until he landed in a pile, head first, then feet, then the rest of his dead weight. I stood over him and then heard the crackle of Callahan’s prod. He jammed it into my back. I went down to my knees and then it was on my neck. Then my cheek, my knees, my balls. I was curled into fetal position, screaming, howling, mucus flowing from my nose and blinded by tears. He just kept coming. Nailed my crotch again, the bastard. Then he kicked me savagely in the back and I rolled over, my face inches from Kirk’s.
He was conscious, but just barely. His eyes focused briefly on mine, and even as Callahan jammed the shocker against me one last time, I smiled at Kirk. His eyes closed.
* * *
They had cuffed me before leading me from the house. Kirk was unsteady on his feet as we walked past the lengthening shadows on the soft green grass. Callahan shoved me roughly into the back of the helicopter, handing Kirk his prod once he was seated across from me. Already his face was swollen and bruised. I hoped I had damaged his teeth. Better yet a concussion. He kept his jaw shut tight, his eyes on mine.
Callahan got the helicopter powered up, and in a few minutes we lifted off. I leaned against the window and looked down at the verdant fields as we rose ever higher. Kirk leaned forward and whispered, “Take your last look, Vale.”
“Oh, let’s not let a little thing like your jaw get in the way of our friendship, Tony.”
He leaned back again, looking away. Through clenched teeth, he rasped, “I said we needed you for one more thing. That thing is your corpse.” He faced me again. “Take your last look.”
Maybe he was right. I pressed my face to the window and took in the beauty below me for a good long time. The sun shone through the glass and warmed my face. From above, the trees formed a palette of orange, red, and yellow. The sky was still deep blue. The fields were vast and green, and far off in the distance I saw the familiar sprawl of houses and shops and offices—of life. If it was going to be my last look, I was determined to make it theirs too. No going softly into that dark night, Tom. I smiled to myself, squinting in the sunshine. The anger and bitterness I felt just minutes before were replaced by profound resignation. At least there had always been a world out there. At least others had felt the sun on their shoulders or the grass beneath their feet. I took what was possibly to be my last look and then turned, calmly, deliberately, and faced forward.
Kirk was looking out the other window, paying no attention to me. The soldier was nodding off. It was time. I took two deep breaths. Then I leapt forward, slamming one knee into Kirk’s chest as I threw my arms around Callahan’s neck.
It all happened fast. Kirk coughed for air, and again I hit him with my knee, this time in the face. Callahan’s fingers clawed at the short length of chain between my wrists, and I leaned left to slide my right leg between the seats, firmly planting my foot on the stick and jamming it forward. The aircraft shuddered and then began dropping violently, rolling forward and to one side.
The soldier came to in a panic and fumbled with his rifle.
“Too late, asshole!” I shouted with joyful madness. Too late. A grating whine filled the cabin as the motor strained and then failed. Then only the sound was men shouting dampened by howling wind. The ground rushed up to meet us. I looked back and saw Kirk’s eyes wide with terror, and then there was a dull crunch and then silence.
10
Gasoline—its odor curling around me. All was silent save for an occasional drip. I was in no pain. I could see nothing. The fetid smell grew ever stronger. Liquid dripped onto my forehead. Slowly the world went from black to dull red. Rust colored. Then a bit of pain. Just in two places, really: both wrists. Then I snapped awake.
I was hanging by my wrists, the cuffs still wrapped around Callahan’s lifeless neck. My feet hung past the back bench. I stepped onto the backrest to ease the pressure on my wrists and then gingerly raised the handcuffs off Callahan’s corpse and over his seat. Slumping down onto the back of the bench seat, I was very near Kirk. His body was bent double at the waist, neck twisted, and one leg stuck out at a horrible angle. Not that it mattered. He looked good and dead.
The skin of my forearms was ragged and bloody. Everything worked, though; I made fists and wriggled my fingers. The helicopter must have rolled at least twice—the tail section was gone entirely and the cabin was resting with its windshield pointed directly up at the sky. The glass on the right half of the cockpit was all missing, as was the soldier who had presumably been thrown clear.
I was still in a daze, my thinking cloudy, but the gasoline worried me. I had to get out. Again my eyes fell upon the man in the dark suit. “Are you dead, Kirk? Huh?” I kicked at his torso, my toe connecting roughly with his ribs. It felt divine. I kicked him again. And again. Ribs cracked. “Are you dead, asshole?” He was. Very much so. I dropped back down onto the seatback, coughing and sucking in ragged breaths.
I tried the cabin door but the latch was bent and it wouldn’t budge. After a few solid kicks, I got the door open and crawled outside, lowering myself gingerly onto the grass. New pain seeped in. Both legs, the left side of my chest and my neck. I had a dozen little cuts where shattering glass must have caught me. But I was alive. I walked in a circle around the destroyed chopper and was amazed to be so.
The rotors were gone. The tail lay a good fifty feet away. The skids were bent, the engine nearly ripped off the top. It was bent, cracked, and dented all over. I found the soldier lying facedown about thirty feet away. The massive patches of crimson on his gray fatigues left little doubt that he was dead, but I turned him over anyway. He still bore the shocked expression of his last living moment; his eyes were wide open, mouth agape. Poor son of a bitch. It could just as well have been me if things had been different. He was just doing what he was told.
I could see Callahan’s round, dead face through the glass on the side of the craft. His eyes bulged out and his yellow teeth were bared beneath curled lips. His neck was ripped to shreds where I had hung from it. There was blood on my jacket—must have been his. I wiped at my face and my hands came away streaked with crimson. The handle on the pilot’s side door was just within reach if I stood on my tiptoes. I tugged at the latch,
and the door popped open. Carefully placing one foot on the open frame of the rear door, I pulled myself up to stand eye to eye with the dead man.
His body was stiff beneath his clothing as I dug through his pockets. I found the keys to the handcuffs in his pants and jumped back down onto the soft grass. I freed myself and tenderly massaged my wrists, looking up at the purple blue sky. The last rays of sunlight were just leaving the distant hills. The air was cool, fresh—amazing.
I took the rifle and, rejoicing at my luck, three packs of cigarettes from the soldier. Thanks, brother. I nodded as I straightened out his limbs so that he could lie in some manner of repose. He had a small kit that I looked through briefly—some water, ammunition, a pocket knife, a walkie-talkie that had cracked nearly in half, and a few protein bars. Not much, really, but better than nothing. I peered into the ever-darkening cabin to see if there was anything that looked useful, but the acrid stench of fuel was much stronger now. I could see a small pool of gas collecting on the back windows.
I retreated to a safe distance to light a cigarette. I smoked about half of it, staring at the shattered tomb of a helicopter. Then I ratcheted back the bolt on the rifle and clicked off the safety. It was the same model they’d handed me a decade and a half ago. Aiming into the air, I let fly a single round: a salute for all of us these bastards had left behind. Then I trained the rifle on the ruined helicopter and began firing. The engine exploded on the eighth shot, and flames engulfed the craft. I took one last drag from the cigarette, threw it down, and set out walking toward the hills.
The sky was now a brilliant canvas of colors, stretching out from the western orange purple end of day to the eastern blue gray of night’s approach. I started humming Beethoven’s Ninth.
One by one, stars crept through the shimmering canopy above.
* * *
True darkness. The sky between the thousands of stars was black. I could scarcely see my hand in front of my face, much less the lay of the land. As night had taken over, I picked a cluster of stars as my beacon and followed them diligently for hours as they crept away across the night sky.
As it had gotten darker and more stars winked to life above me, I nearly lost my little constellation many times before the firmament once again grew familiar. The sky that I had not seen in fifteen years was helping me along my way. Before it all, I had never once navigated by the heavens, never even thought to. Now after all these years, I was back to the elemental ways of things. For all that time, the stars had hung above me, waiting for the chance to help.
It must have been horrifying, I thought while stopping to rest, to have journeyed through the night in the past. The sailor adrift in the middle of the ocean at the mercy of the wind and guided only by the brilliant map above must have lived in constant fear. He too could be ruined by fog. If mist obscured the stars above, he was lost. If he strayed too far from his course, he may never have found his way again.
But I had emerged from the fog. I had my stars before me and I followed them on my course. It was a cold night, but it was an honest cold. The chill wind was biting but crisp. There was no moisture in the air, and even while shivering I relished the night. But my fingers were growing numb and my joints tight, and I knew I could neither stop for long without a fire nor continue on all night without rest.
I decided to walk awhile longer before settling in for the night. I had no idea if others would come looking for me. The thought of being missed was darkly amusing—no one had much thought of me in … ever. Now here I was, as alone as I could possibly be and surely more sought-after than ever before in my life. Watley was probably sitting at a large oak conference table right now, discussing Kirk’s failure to return. I expected to hear helicopter blades slicing through the air any minute.
I passed through a small copse of trees and paused to pick up a few of the branches that cracked beneath my feet. The treetops—some barren and leafless—reached up to the sky like skeletal hands. I ran my palm along the rough bark. When I had gathered a large enough load of wood to last me for a few hours, I selected a grassless patch of soil under a towering oak and began to make a fire.
It was a calculated risk to have this beacon burning in the middle of such a dark night, but I was too cold to rest without fire. I broke twigs into roughly even lengths and made a small bier on which I set larger sticks. I had no paper for kindling, so I crouched low and shielded the lighter from the wind with my body. Finally a few small embers turned into a feeble, dancing flame. I gently blew on the little fire, urging it to spread. Stick by stick, the licking flames crept upward and grew into a warming fire. It came to life like an orb in the haze, starting as a pale yellow and soon changing into a warm orange.
I wondered how many thousands were, at that very moment, walking along in the gray guided by glowing orb posts. Maybe it was better if they never found out. Just let them live out their lives and die thinking they had made the best of it. “No. No!” I said aloud. No. They had been robbed. I had been. If the whole of the last decade and a half could not be returned, at least there was a brighter future if all those in the city could be freed.
It was academic thinking, and I gave myself very slim odds. But even if this night were my last, I was glad for it. I had never cherished the stars and the cold air and the dancing tongues of flame so much as I did now. The air was sweet and the ground felt good under my back. Soil and grass. I had felt nothing but concrete for so long.
I watched embers wheel and swirl in the night air, spiraling up from my fire to join the stars hanging above. For thousands of years, thousands of peoples had looked up to the sky and prayed to the many gods for rain. They burned offerings or let blood or danced, begging rain to fall so that they might live. Now we could throw a switch and fog in an entire city. For millennia, we gathered close around the fire so that we would be warm, that the night would not be so dark. Now our mighty power plants electrified the world, and when one failed, we could always build another.
How horrifying but pure it must have been to live for rain and crouch by flames. There was no design flaw in rain or fire. No meltdown possible. If it rained, crops would grow and you would eat and thrive. If it was dry, you would not eat and you would perish. If the fire went out, you would freeze. As long as it glowed, you would be warm. It was perfect for the sole fact that people had no part in it. You can make fire, but you cannot make fire exist. Fire has always and will always exist whether or not we start it. Rain will fall when it chooses to and cares not if it is upon our fields or far away. We had come much, much too far. Decisions such as these were never meant to be made by man.
The fire burned low, and I added several larger branches. I lit a cigarette off the glowing embers of one of the dying logs. Just before putting the pack back in my pocket, I looked down at it. The white box with the simple block letters reading CIGARETTES across the front … Other people all this time had been walking into stores and selecting myriad brands of smokes, and all I had were CIGARETTES.
I put the pack away. My fingers brushed against Salk’s pills. I had forgotten all about them. I pulled one out and rolled it around between my fingers. Then I threw it into the fire and dug out the other two. I burned the second, eventually slipping the third and final pill back into my pocket.
Sleep took me gently. No pills. No drinking. Just clean air and the fire burning low. It was the first time I had slept beneath the stars in sixteen years. It was deep and pure. I didn’t even dream.
* * *
I awoke with a start but immediately remembered where I was and all that had happened. It was just before dawn. There were still a few stars in the gray blue sky above me, and a pale golden glow crept ever closer from the east. The fire smoldered and I was cold and stiff, but my head was clear and I felt healthy, vigorous. Alive.
I rose and stretched, my body popping and cracking all over in the chill morning air. With my foot, I dispersed the remnants of the fire as well as I could. Then I set out walking in the soft morning light.
I could see the group of hills where I was headed. They looked to be only a few miles farther. I kept my pace brisk, not knowing if I would be quickly apprehended or if I would never be thought of again.
The sun crested the horizon and began its brilliant ascent, warming me as it rose. Gradually the blue fields turned deep green as the light crept across them. Soon I took off my jacket and threw it over one shoulder. I’d covered a lot of ground the night before. It was less than an hour of walking before I stood at the long winding driveway that ran up to Ayers’s house.
I started up the hill, cavalierly walking in the center of the gravel driveway. If anyone had been looking out across the land, I would have been visible all morning. When I drew near the top of the hill where the house sat, I stopped short and leapt behind a large bush. There was a red pickup truck parked next to the house. Someone was home.
After lingering behind the bush and looking for anyone in the windows, the rifle cocked and ready in my hands, I approached the house. There was no cover in the yard, so I moved swiftly until I was pressed against the porch, down on one knee. Crouched low to the ground, I made a slow circuit all the way around the house. The backyard was largely taken up by a garden of fresh vegetables, and I momentarily forgot where I was and went for a planter boasting several ripe tomatoes. My mouth watered, and a memory of Salk flickered through my mind, his pocked face cast downward, moaning in his sorrowing baritone about tomatoes. Hopefully I’d get a chance to have a few later; I had to keep focused now. I eased around a large cylindrical tank—likely for sewage or gas—and slowly raised just my eyes above the porch floor.
There was a long bank of windows across the back of the house and I could see a figure moving within, but the rooms were dark and my eyes were used to the bright sun. Not that it much mattered—I was going in anyway. I continued around the house and then, without pausing a bit, rose to stand fully erect and quietly but casually walked up the front steps and tried the door.
