Armageddon House
Michael Griffin
First Edition
“Armageddon House” copyright © 2020 by Michael Griffin
Cover artwork (trade) copyright © 2020 Vince Haig
Cover artwork (hardcover) copyright © 2020 Vince Haig
Cover design by Vince Haig
Interior design, typesetting, layout by Sam Cowan
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons—living, dead, or undead—is entirely coincidental.
Undertow Publications, Pickering, ON Canada
[email protected]
http://www.undertowpublications.com
Also by Michael Griffin
Far from Streets
The Lure of Devouring Light
An Ideal Retreat
Hieroglyphs of Blood and Bone
The Human Alchemy
ONE
Sleep Chamber, Lake View
Mark wakes at 6:20 this morning, the same time as every morning, alone in a tiny room. The mural opposite the bed offers a view of a blue lake surrounded by trees. The image seems real enough to convince him briefly, at least while his mind is still partly blurred by sleep, that he’s looking at a beautiful scene outside an actual window, not just a photograph on a wall. For a moment, the lake is a tangible place, very near.
As he rises into consciousness, Mark realizes it’s impossible. So deep beneath the ground, there are no windows.
Every other room on this level is identical, other than the murals, all of which feature different nature scenes. That wall is always unobstructed by furniture, broken only by the door. The hallway outside makes a curve so long and gradual, it nearly completes a circle. Doors along both sides open to these rooms. A bed, a metal box to contain clothing, and a wall-sized image of a lake, a mountain, an ocean or a forest, serving in place of a view. Placement of the image opposite the bed ensures it’s the first thing seen every morning.
This may help alleviate the sense of confinement. This whole place has a smell, or at least Mark believes it does. He’s never mentioned this to the others. It’s an odor of intrusive wetness, not unpleasant, but incongruous in such a deep, dry place. It’s the kind of damp that might settle out of a pile of leaves in a grass field, or rain-soaked pine needles on a forest floor. Outside, that smell might suggest organic processes, a chain of life. Here, it makes no sense.
Mark isn’t sure he remembers selecting this particular room. He can only guess his choice might have been driven by affinity for this particular flat, clear lake. Certain details persist when his eyes are closed, sometimes when he’s not even in his room. The way the trees bounding the lake lean inward, conveying a sense of yearning, of striving to become unanchored and slide into the water. Though on some level Mark never completely forgets it’s only a large photograph, often his subconscious operates as if he really might be living on the shore of some nameless lake, water teeming with life below the surface. A perfect plane of blue, bordered by living trees, encircled by walking paths of dirt and gravel, overlooked by other houses or cabins similar to his own, structures whose presence suggest the existence of others living nearby, strangers, potential friends, each living in their own distinct milieu of images, smells, memories. He’s not alone.
Of course Mark doesn’t live in a lake cabin. He lives down here. It’s not that he’s actually forgotten.
Another consideration in selecting this particular room may have been its placement near one end of the hallway’s broken circle. The location offers proximity to one of the bath facilities at each end, as well as being the farthest point from where Polly and Greyson reside at the opposite extreme. That distance, the conscious decision to separate from the others by the greatest possible gap, demonstrates mutual respect and understanding of the individual’s need for privacy. He and Jenna at this end, Polly and Greyson at theirs.
The others still seem to believe that Mark and Jenna share a single room, though Jenna sleeps across the hall now. He and Jenna go to some lengths to encourage perpetuation of this idea of themselves as an ongoing pair, but at the end of each day, after they return to this level, and to their end of the hall, they part and live separately. Without ever crossing paths, they share the bath and shower facility, designed to accommodate a much larger population, hypothetical residents of many rooms never occupied. Partitions, stalls and enclosures exist that would allow both to utilize the space simultaneously without coming into contact at all, without any chance of one embarrassing the other in the middle of some private or intimate act. To be safe, Mark and Jenna have worked out a schedule so as to absolutely avoid any possible conflict during use of showers, bathtubs, toilets, sinks and mirrors. It’s best this way, a perfectly frictionless arrangement.
Because she requires more time to prepare, Jenna wakes twenty minutes earlier, showers first, then returns to her own room, where she finishes getting ready. On her way past, she knocks once on Mark’s door so he knows it’s his turn to use the washroom.
When he’s ready, Mark waits in the hall outside Jenna’s door, until together they climb to the next level, a common area called the Square Lounge. There they meet Greyson and Polly for breakfast and coffee every morning, and return some evenings to the tavern on that same level.
As Mark showers, the spray echoing within one of many indistinct tile partitions, steaming water spraying down from the shower head, he feels confused, even irritated, as to one specific matter of recollection.
When did he and Jenna stop being an actual couple, and start pretending?
Maybe they were never truly together. He worries their love affair, their physical and emotional intimacy, might be something he only ever imagined. A shared past once seemed solid, definite beyond question. He knows aspects of Jenna, intimacies he could never have discovered otherwise, but now worries he’s only imagined this private catalog of images, tastes, smells, textures and sounds. Increasingly Mark wonders back to the beginning of his time here. He envisions days when he and Jenna were closer, his mind seeking back toward a time when existence made sense, when their interactions were natural, not made awkward by pretense. Without any need to worry about how they might appear to others, they enjoyed simply being together. His belief in this reality feels as true as anything he knows. Why, then, does he often fear these memories are nothing but a pleasant-seeming invention, a backstory his mind created to help explain the loneliness he suffers in his solitary room? Some actual cause must exist that would justify his pangs of longing for a woman who is always near, but separate.
To believe it was once an actual relationship that somehow ended makes more sense than any alternative explanation. While life may have shifted to become strange and bewildering, the solidity of matter and persistence of events and relationships used to be constant, solid, never questioned.
Mark wakes alone. He showers alone, returns to his solitary room, and dresses alone.
Then he steps out his door, takes four steps, and waits outside Jenna’s room. His wristwatch, a bulky gold antique he himself repaired and restored somewhere else, a time long ago, says 6:53. Experience tells him she’s nearly ready. In two minutes, maybe three, her door will open, she’ll emerge, and together they’ll make the short trip upstairs to Square Lounge. Side by side they’ll come into view of Greyson and Polly, creating the impression of being a connected pair. Greyson and Polly will assume this couple spent the night together, just as Mark and Jenna assume Greyson and Polly did, despite not actually seeing them go into the same room, or climb into a single bed. The beds are so small, it’s not impossible to imagine Greyson and Polly might prefer to sleep apart, but, crucially, there’s no reason to assume so.
This cycle repeats. Mark wants to bel
ieve each day is exactly like previous days have always been, and it’s only his mind that ever changes.
An Interlude
Two Climbing Stairs
Footfalls echo in the concrete stairwell. Mark leads while Jenna walks behind. Accumulating echoes create an impression of many footsteps overlapping, sounds of more than two people climbing. He knows she’s still here. Less than a minute has passed since she emerged from her room to join him. This meeting and their departure together occurred so recently that although she’s out of Mark’s sight, and the sound of her behind him is disguised by an illusion of many conflicting steps echoing from different angles, he hasn’t yet begun to doubt that she’s actually still here.
Despite this tenuous hold on certainty, and only to pre-empt its breakdown, he pauses and bends as if to re-tie his shoelace. This brief delay allows Jenna to catch up. Her presence, though expected, does soothe and reassure him. His anxiety diminishes. Though Mark is closer to the inner rail than the outer, Jenna easily sneaks through the narrower gap to his left, and slips past him. Always petite, Jenna is lately thinner than ever before. For some time now—months? years?—she’s been doing additional exercises, well beyond the required regimen. These changes in her body obviously please Jenna, judging by the form-fitting tops and tights she lately prefers. She often remains in workout clothes all day. If she becomes sweaty from exercise and needs another shower, she changes afterward into a new outfit, clean and dry but otherwise identical, as if another round of focused exertion is always likely.
Lately Greyson teases about “the new, skinny Jenna,” remarks she clearly enjoys, despite pretending to be irritated. Mark hates Greyson doing this. He can’t stand the idea of Greyson looking at Jenna, thinking about her, evaluating her body’s shape. Worse, Mark’s own reaction to this makes him cringe with awareness that he himself is thinking of Jenna in exactly the same way. It’s a form of possessiveness, no better than what Greyson’s doing, but Mark can’t stop.
A few stairs ahead, Jenna glances back. Straight blond hair falls across her eyes, and she pushes it back with one hand as she breaks into a run. “Come on,” she says playfully.
Mark hates the idea of letting her get away. He doesn’t want to enter Square Lounge alone, after she’s already gone in. They’re supposed to arrive together, or at least that’s how routine and repetition have made it seem. He runs to catch up, feeling a desperate, almost painful urgency.
Two
Square Lounge, Fires Never Lit
Square Lounge is an enormous five-by-five grid of sitting areas, surrounded by an outer wall comprised of large kitchen modules and a tavern. Each of the twenty-five discrete squares for gathering is delineated by a lounge in the shape of a broken circle, capable of seating twenty people. At the heart of each is a concrete island, serving as both table and enclosure for an open gas fireplace, whose fixtures are covered by translucent stones like milky, polished agates.
Only once has anyone ignited a fire in the fourth circle, the one at which they frequently sit, nearest their shared kitchen. At the time, Polly expressed anxiety about combustion within this locked, air-tight environment, and though Polly voicing worry has always been an occurrence so common as to usually be ignored, Greyson and Jenna must have agreed. The fire was extinguished. The subject has never again been discussed, though Mark might like to try the fire again. He imagines gathering around the flames for warmth, some chilly evening, leaning in close. If Polly and Greyson were elsewhere, had other things to do, he and Jenna might sit alone.
The problem has always been, there are never any cold evenings. The temperature here is always exactly the same.
As Mark and Jenna enter, Polly stands at the food counter along the far wall, making something in a blender. Mark is about to say good morning, when Greyson comes into view from behind a pillar, holding a glass of ice. Greyson is squat and stocky, heaviest of the four despite also being shortest. He’s thick in the torso, all compact muscle, like an Olympic wrestler. His curly mess of dark hair, his swaying, bow-legged walk and perpetual crooked grin makes him look, in Mark’s judgment, like an oversized toddler always on the verge of knocking something over.
Polly glances up, eyes pink and watery, as if she’s been weeping. Her eyes often look this way, not only when she’s just finished crying, or verging on doing so again. With a frown she lifts the blender lid, peeks in, then continues what she must have been saying to Greyson. “It’s not isolation. Why do you keep saying isolation? There’s four of us here.” She fires the blender briefly.
On a cutting board on the countertop rest a paring knife and several apple cores. Polly is blending apples.
“What the hell?” Jenna gapes. “Where’d you get those?”
Mark has no idea how long it’s been since he’s seen fresh fruit or vegetables. Long ago, Polly abandoned her hydroponic greenhouse as a waste of effort, saying they could never manage to eat all the stores of frozen foods, enough to last the four of them a thousand years. Mark has always believed, and wanted to say, there’s quite a difference between the frozen stuff and a crisp, fresh apple.
Greyson fills his glass with cola from a tap, as indifferent to what Polly’s making as to Mark and Jenna’s arrival. “I’m saying isolated because we’re apart from humanity, like, no contact with anyone we knew before. Do you remember your family?” He sips. “I’ve pretty much forgotten mine.”
“Isolation means something specific.” Polly opens a drawer and pulls out a mesh strainer. “This ain’t it.”
“No,” Greyson says definitively. “Even four people can definitely be isolated.”
Polly strains the blended apple puree into a glass. She sniffs, unconvinced. “What are we even doing here, anyway? There aren’t going to be any bombs, after all this time. This is so pointless, hiding.”
“Bombs?” Greyson almost laughs, seeming to expect Polly to admit she’s joking. He glances at Jenna and Mark, noticing them for the first time. “Poll, we’re not hiding from bombs.”
“Oh, really.” She peers into her glass and sips. “What, then?”
Greyson answers with exaggerated slowness, as if speaking to someone dimwitted. “We. Are part. Of an experiment.”
“Polly!” Mark shouts, trying to get her attention. “Where did you get the fucking apples?” He starts toward the refrigerators, thinking even if there aren’t any more apples, he at least wants his usual coffee and protein drink.
Jenna registers mild surprise at Mark’s forcefulness, but she too turns to Polly, clearly interested in this recently arrived fresh fruit.
Polly leans against the refrigerator and tries a playful kick toward Mark’s thigh as he passes. “Just forget it, okay?” She takes another sip and seems satisfied, if not too excited. “If we start having to explain things to each other, there’ll be no end to it.”
Mark dodges Polly’s kick, unsure what her remark is supposed to mean, and opens the second refrigerator in the row of eight. He and Jenna share the second, Greyson and Polly share the first, and the other six are unplugged, as are all the other refrigerators in the rest of the food prep counters lining the outer walls. Even though there’s plenty of electricity to keep everything running, Mark long ago suggested shutting off redundant items in case spares are ever needed. In addition to thirty unused commercial refrigerators, they have a vast reserve of small appliances, kitchenware and utensils of excellent quality.
Avoiding Polly, Jenna circles the counter island in the opposite direction to join Mark at their refrigerator.
“Polly?” Mark insists. “It concerns all of us.”
Polly glares down at her own feet and mutters, “Grow your own apples. Don’t shake my tree.”
“Just back off, dipshit,” Greyson growls at Mark. “You drink that protein slop every day. What the fuck do you care about apples?”
Mark repeats himself, more slowly. “It concerns all of us.”
Greyson shoves his way between Mark and Jenna, knocking Mark back into the re
frigerator door.
“Jesus,” Jenna says conspiratorially to Mark.
“Don’t you love trying to coexist like this?” Mark whispers, intending only Jenna to hear.
“Everything’s an argument,” Jenna whispers.
“Or a contest,” Mark adds. Greyson laughs.
“Contest, be glad it’s not a fucking contest! The only contest you’ll win is the wanking in your bunk contest.”
Lately Greyson has been full of suspicious questions and accusations whenever Mark returns to his room during the day. In recent weeks, or maybe it’s been longer, Greyson has begun raising the subject frequently, even when Mark hasn’t mentioned the possibility of going anywhere. Guess Mark’s heading back to his room again, hoping nobody’d notice, eh, Mark?
Mark glares, shaking his head. “What I work on in my room isn’t for you to worry about, big guy.”
“We all need our solitary pursuits,” Polly says to Greyson, as if trying to calm him down. “Like my music, or your poems.”
Polly transcribes music on paper, but because she possesses no instruments, nobody knows how the music sounds, except when Polly tries to hum or sing the melodies, at which times it seems she’s unable to read her own notation.
Greyson scribbles thousands of short, experimental poems, entries in a numbered series he describes as “Meditations on Rage,” which he leaves lying around the common areas, apparently hoping someone might read them.
Greyson tilts his head and gives Polly a nod, as if conceding the point. “Maybe, maybe so. Poetry does help me work through my antisocial impulses.”
Mark makes an undignified snort.
“How lucky for us,” Jenna observes brightly, “you working through those impulses. Otherwise, we might have to deal with your endless bullshit posturing.”
“Posturing?” Greyson asks, seeming unsure whether to be hurt or angry. “What am I posturing like?”
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