by Gord Rollo
Tyrone was just starting to wonder why he still had all of this stuff if he’d really passed on into the afterlife – shouldn’t it have only been his spirit or soul that made the journey, leaving all these material things behind with the husk of his body? – when a phantom voice spoke clearly in his mind.
That you Ty? That really you?
Tyrone stopped fumbling in his pockets and stood ramrod stiff. He wasn’t totally sure, but this seemed to be the same voice as the one who’d briefly spoken to him inside the tunnel only this time the message was much clearer. This time the words had more substance and he knew this was somehow really happening and not just part of his stressed out imagination.
And more importantly, Tyrone recognized the voice.
“Tommy?” he said, softly, almost afraid to speak.
He wasn’t sure what he feared most: this all being part of some messed up dementia he was suffering from, or it being real and his Tommy might actually answer back. He clenched his jaw and tightened his hands into fists at his side, waiting to see which way the teeter totter might tip – crazy or dead? Then again, perhaps he was both. Or neither.
Help me, bro, the voice came again, only weaker. Careful… sorry about…. scarlet…. locked up. Please…
But then the connection was lost, leaving Tyrone all alone again. He tried calling out to his brother several times but there was no further response. Was he cracking up here, or had he really somehow just had contact with his twin brother. His dead twin brother, the rational part of his mind reminded him.
“Yeah, well that probably makes two of us.”
Tyrone’s mind was spinning with questions and possibilities. For his entire life Tommy and him had shared a special link to each other; had always seemed to know what the other was thinking without having to actually speak the words out loud. Identical twins always seemed to share a fascinating, near psychic connection with one another and there were hundreds of documented cases where twin brothers or sisters had developed their own special languages and ways of communicating with each other that no one else could understand. There were even cases of twins so in tune with each other they claimed to be able to communicate telepathically, or at least on some unspoken level that normal siblings couldn’t fathom. Tyrone and Tommy had never made any such claims but there was no doubt the two of them were as close to being one person as you could find. Perhaps death opened a few more doorways and changed the rules in ways Tyrone had no knowledge of yet.
Or perhaps he was full of shit and simply losing his mind. That was a distinct possibility too, but with no more communication coming through for the time being he was stuck with trying to figure out where the hell he was. If this was death, and somewhere out there in this strange new land his brother needed his help Tyrone was damned if he was just going to sit around and mope about what might or might not have happened to him. Fuck death, and for that matter, fuck life too. All that mattered was that he was here now and come hell or high water he intended to find Tommy.
Tyrone stood up and brushed the dried dirt from his hands, looking in every direction to try figure out which was the best way to start walking. With no compass to guide him, and no sun in the sky to show him East and West, the only markers he could use at the moment were the dusty road heading to his left and the mysterious plumes of black smoke off in that same direction. His decision made easy, Tyrone took a deep breath and started walking.
“Hang in there, bro…I’m coming.”
7
Pretty much every muscle and joint in his body ached from his prolonged battle within the tunnel but Tyrone pushed past the pain and found a rhythm and lurch to his stride that was bearable and seemed to get the job done. After fifteen or twenty minutes his body began to loosen up and walk normally, the exercise doing wonders, the relaxed pace and cool breeze actually making him feel refreshed for the first time in a long while. It felt great to finally be standing fully upright again and being able to stretch rather than having to constantly stoop over or slither on his belly like he’d been forced to do in the confined spaces he’d been crawling through lately. If not for the eerie quiet and unsettling smell in this mysterious place, Tyrone could even admit that he was enjoying his little stroll down this road to nowhere.
And ‘nowhere’ was definitely an apt description of this desolate land because as far as he’d come, which had to be several miles at least, there was still nothing on the horizon to indicate any sign of civilization other than the spirals of smoke hanging in the air that seemed tantalizingly close but just never seemed to get much closer. Hopefully a town waited over the next hill, hidden from sight, but Tyrone was starting to doubt it. For the time being it was just more of the same: a winding dirt road, lots of grass on either side, a few scraggly short trees here and there, and the odd large bird circling so far overhead that Tyrone couldn’t even guess at their species.
The stench was getting undoubtedly worse though, causing Tyrone to start breathing through his mouth rather than his nose, as if the smell of rot and ruin wasn’t merely a scent carried on the wind but perhaps a characteristic of the land itself. The image in Tyrone’s head of him wandering endlessly through a dead, barren world was getting harder and harder to dismiss. Maybe his time down in the tunnel had driven him insane, this dusty trail only a figment of his imagination, a road that led to nowhere other than utter madness.
Periodically, just to break the building tension, Tyrone tried to make contact with his brother, shouting for Tommy out loud as well as trying to communicate with his twin in his mind, the way they’d briefly been communicating earlier. Tommy didn’t – or couldn’t - answer back, leaving Tyrone seriously worried his brother’s words hadn’t been real after all, as he’d hoped.
With no other options, the confused Marine walked on.
Just when Tyrone felt the need to run, to dance, to scream – to do anything different to break the monotony of his new existence – he crested another small hill and was relieved to see he was approaching a crossroad a few hundred yards ahead of him and saw a child sitting on a bench beneath another of the short twisted trees that seemed to grow randomly around here. Tyrone saw no other people in the area and wondered why a boy would be out in this desolate place all by himself. Not that he appeared scared or worried in any way. In fact, it was the opposite; the child appeared completely at peace, as if he was waiting patiently on a bus that might rumble along the crossroad at any moment. For all Tyrone knew, perhaps that was exactly what was happening.
“Hey there,” the Marine shouted down the slope, waving to catch the young lad’s attention. He didn’t want to startle the boy by sneaking up on him unannounced. He took off down the hill at a run, a burst of joy in his heart now that he realized he wasn’t alone in this strange place. Had he been given a hint of what trials and tribulation lay in his immediate future he would have sprinted in the opposite direction but Tyrone had no way of knowing that the time he’d spent on his own wandering the dusty road would end up being the last extended period of peace he’d have in a long, long time.
8
“Excuse me, kid, but can you…” Tyler started to say as he approached the crossroad, but the words died on his tongue as he pulled to a stop. “Oh shit. Sorry.”
It turned out the small person now standing beneath the gnarled tree branches wasn’t a child at all, but a short, four foot tall fully mature Caucasian man with none of the telltale facial or stubby body features which might indicate they suffered from Dwarfism or some other growth issue. Whoever this was, their body was fully proportionate and developed, only on a smaller scale. The little man had red hair and was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a ragged dark blue wool sweater. His feet were bare, his pale skin stained as dark as Tyrone’s probably from standing so long in the dirt.
“Hold it right there!” the diminutive man yelled, a hint of a British accent in his angry tone, his fists up and ready for a fight if Tyrone decided to come any closer. Small as he was, there was a hard edg
e to his gaze and he held his body as if he were well schooled in hand-to-hand combat.
Tyrone didn’t want any trouble, holding his palms up and showing he wasn’t going to hurt the little guy. “Whoa up, dude. Everything’s cool. I’m just trying to get some help.”
The stranger eyed Tyrone’s soldier clothing; his gaze lingering on the Marine’s .45 auto in his shoulder holster longest, then dropped his show of aggression. “Right, who are you, then? And where did you come from? Nearly scared the bejesus out of me, sneaking up on my post like that. Thought you were one of the bloody Lost Patrol, for Christ’s sake!”
That comment made Tyrone smile. The Lost Patrol was a fairly recent myth in the Marine corps, one not even started by any of the men themselves. For a few years now, rumor had it that a platoon of fully armed Marines had been ambushed and wiped out by Vietcong troops somewhere in the jungle but instead of dying the U.S. soldiers had risen from the early morning mists and set about killing all the troops who had laid in wait for them. The stories persisted as the war progressed, rumors morphing into legend somewhere along the line until every few weeks a captured Vietcong soldier or villager would be telling tales of the Lost Patrol still out there wandering around in the dark, still hunting down those who had murdered them. It was just a scary campfire story the Marines liked to tell new arrivals but it was incredible to hear just how many of the enemy actually believed the stories and sightings were true, and that somewhere out there the Lost Patrol of dead Marines was hunting them to this day.
“Let’s see if you’re on the list,” the small red-haired man said, clearly still not thrilled with the soldier’s unexpected arrival. Beneath the bench he’d been sitting on, the little man grabbed a thick notepad and started thumbing through the pages.
The list? Tyrone thought.
“My name’s Tyrone Banks. Lance Corporal Banks, U.S. Marines, if that means anything anymore.”
The little man laughed cruelly. “Not here it doesn’t, mate. I take it you’re coming from ‘Nam, then? Had a lot of you grunts showing up lately.”
“Umm…yeah. Listen, I’m a little confused here. Well, actually a lot. I don’t even know where I am. I mean, I think I have a pretty good idea but--”
“Your dead, soldier. Get over it. Welcome to the afterlife. The only thing I can’t figure out is why you were coming from up the hill. All your other war buddies come stumbling from this direction here.” The little man pointed with his notepad along the crossroad to our right. “What’d you say your name was again?”
“Banks. Tyrone Banks.”
Searching through the last several pages again, he finally sighed and tossed the notepad to the ground. “Nope. Don’t know why, but you’re not on the list.” He took a closer look at Tyrone, again eyeing up his gun and Ka-Bar. “Did you find those weapons here? I’m not so sure you should have those.”
“Man, I don’t even know where here is,” Tyrone shot back, avoiding the question. There was no way he was giving up his gear. “Is this Heaven, or hell?”
That question really made the little man laugh.
“Neither, Mr. Marine. Things aren’t quite that simple here. You’ll get to one of those places eventually but unless you were a real big shot like a Pope or a serial killer, you’ll be hanging out for a while with the rest of us trash.”
“You mean, Purgatory?” Tyrone had grown up in a Baptist family, but nearly all of Tommy and his friends had been from strict Catholic homes and their parents were always warning them about getting stuck in Purgatory forever and never having judgment passed against them so they could move on to Heaven.
“Sure, but different people call it by different names. There’s a lot of religions out there, mate. All that matters is that you’re bloody well stuck here until one side or the other comes calling for you.”
“That mean my brother might still be here?”
“Shit, I don’t know. Maybe. Depends when he died. Was it recent?”
“About seven weeks ago.”
“Probably is then, but what do I know?”
“I need to find him. Where do I go? Is there a town or something that--”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa…slow down a second. If he’s here, he’ll be in Tartarus but I haven’t a clue where.”
“Tartarus? Is that a city?”
“Something like that, yeah, but look I’m just a greeter here; a nobody. I give directions; that’s all. Everyone wants answers but I don’t have any. You want to know about your brother or anything else, keep walking down the way you were headed.” He pointed in the direction of the rising black smoke. “That’s the way to Tartarus. Five or six miles down that way you’ll meet some guys who can give you all the answers you need. Just follow all that damn smoke.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Tyrone began walking down the dusty road again. He still didn’t know what was going on around here but at least if felt good to know he wasn’t alone and that there was a chance he might run into Tommy soon. With that in mind, he picked up his pace, leaving the little man in his wake without a second glance back.
***
Once the Marine had moved out of sight, the small greeter let out a huge sigh of relief and quickly ran over to grab a walkie-talkie off one of the lowest branches of the nearby tree. He’d tried his best to appear calm and cool in front of the soldier but it had been difficult, his heart literally pounding within his chest. Now that he was gone, the little man was on the edge of panic.
“Jacko! Come in, mate! Hurry!” he shouted into the mouthpiece. A few seconds later came the crackled response.
“That you, Freddy? We’re ‘bout to have lunch here. What do you want?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Listen up. Get those clowns you’re with up and at it. I just sent a guy your way…a thin black dude, a Marine, packing a gun and a big ass metal bar--”
“What? Where did he get those?”
“I don’t know. He wouldn’t say, but be on your toes with this guy. There’s something not right about him…something unusual. I don’t know where he came from and he’s not even on my list. Pretty sure you-know-who is gonna want to see him, pronto, so don’t let him slip past you, okay?”
“No worries, Freddy. We’re on this.”
“You damn well better be. It’s your ass if you dickheads screw this up. Hold him ‘til I can get there.”
9
Now that he was alone again, Tyrone was thinking about his brother as he jogged and for the first time began to worry about what might happen if he actually found him. As much as he loved him and desperately wanted to see Tommy again, what if his twin brother didn’t feel the same way? He’d taken his life from him, after all. Shot the top of his head off in a senseless, stupid act. Hadn’t meant to, of course, but would that make a difference when they were finally face to face again? What could Tyrone possible say or do to make things up to his brother? Simply saying he was sorry just didn’t seem to cut it. Tommy deserved better than that. For the time being, Tyrone didn’t have any answers. He’d find his brother then worry about the rest later.
First things first, he thought. Keep it as simple as you can.
Tyrone double-timed it along the dirt road, knowing he was getting close now. The black smoke hung thick in the sky in front of him, huge clouds of it billowing into the air from somewhere nearby. The source of that terrible stench must be in this direction as well, perhaps whatever it was that was burning, the pungent smell becoming worse the further he ran. Over the next rise in the land Tyrone finally saw the group of men the tiny man had instructed him to find and although it was nice to meet some other people in this barren place, he couldn’t help but be disappointed. He’d been hoping to find a small town, or better yet Tartarus itself, where he could start asking around about his brother but all that lay before him was a ramshackle wooden hut on the side of the road and five men standing over near what looked like a large crater or open pit in the ground. At least Tyrone had finally found the source of the smoke; the black vapors rolling
out of the massive hole the men stood beside. Chances were he’d found the source of the stink as well. Whatever the men were burning was producing a nauseous odor that was nearly making Tyrone gag.
How can they stand so close to that awful pit? he wondered.
Instincts kicking in, Tyrone dropped to the ground to survey the scene before him, his strict Marine training dictated his behavior and second nature by this point. He wasn’t going to charge into any situation without taking in the lay of the land first. Of the five men; four of which were black and well-muscled, the clear leader of the group was a tall, thin white man with a thick head of wild blonde hair. He walked around barking orders to his men but the mood in the makeshift camp seemed light enough, all of the men taking verbal jabs at each other while they worked, pushing each other around amicably in the way close friends usually do.
As Tyrone quietly watched, taking several minutes to catch his breath from his run, one of the black men eventually approached the lip of the chasm, gave a wave to his friends and then slowly descended out of Tyrone’s sight. Obviously there was a path or a hidden staircase Tyrone couldn’t see from his current vantage point, leading down to whatever it was that burned below. The man had been laughing and joking with his buddies before walking out of sight, the terrible smell not seeming to matter much; either that or they were all so used to the stink that it didn’t bother them anymore.
