by Rio Youers
“I can’t do this.” The weight across her shoulders was terrible.
You can, Mother Moon replied, sharp and clear. You will.
“This isn’t me.”
One instant of selfless bravery is all it takes. One instant, and you’ll forget how grief feels.
There was another option, a surefire way to forget grief, relieve darkness. Shirley wiped her mouth again, then got to her feet and grasped the puffer jacket’s zipper. She felt Mother Moon recoil—it was like a twitch in her brain—then nuzzle closer. Shirley closed her eyes. She yanked the zipper down one inch, then three more.
No, girl. Not yet.
Shirley’s hand trembled, then jerked away as if someone had tied a string to her wrist and pulled.
There’s nothing we can’t do. No light we can’t reach.
“I’m so scared.”
She started walking, dragging her feet. The jacket was so heavy. She managed only a hundred yards before having to stop and rest. Snow melted against the sweat on her face. She groaned and walked on.
She saw the mall a short time later.
* * *
As Nolan skimmed across the water to Halcyon and his meeting with Mother Moon, Martin raced east toward Fisherman’s Point. He didn’t plan on stopping—or even slowing down—until he reached the marina in Oswego. It wouldn’t be buzzing with activity like it was in the summer, but he counted on there being at least one hardy fisherman willing to take him out. The snow had worsened, but the lake appeared calm enough. Scattered whitecaps, nothing more.
The one traffic light in Fisherman’s Point turned red as Martin approached. He nearly ran it—heck, there were no other cars on the road—but caution got the better of him and he stepped on the brake. Waiting for the light to turn green, he looked from the deserted marina to the bar farther up the street. It was called The Hull, a surprisingly popular spot, judging by the number of cars in the parking lot. Martin looked at the marina again, at the few boats bobbing in their slips, and imagined the owner of one of those boats returning from a morning’s fishing, then tying off to the dock and crossing the street for a cold beer.
“Good chance you’ll find a fisherman,” Martin muttered, “in a bar called The Hull, in a town called Fisherman’s Point.”
The light turned green. Martin drove sixty yards, then made a right into The Hull’s parking lot. He found a space around back. His left knee throbbed again as he got out of the car and crossed the lot. The wind had picked up, skimming off the lake.
Hurry, the voice in his mind insisted. He imagined the flashlight expression that went along with that voice and quickened his step, despite the twinges in his knee.
The Hull was warm and smelled of good food. The dining tables were mostly full and a phalanx of broad bodies surrounded the bar. A single flat-screen TV flashed Quick Draw lottery numbers.
Martin checked his wallet. Sixty-three dollars. He found an ATM in the hallway leading to the restroom and withdrew one hundred and forty more. He returned to the bar with the money in his hand.
“I need to charter a boat,” he announced in his clearest Dad Voice, which had been known to cut through sisterly caterwauling and other family clamor. A few diners looked up from their meals, and several of the bodies perched at the bar swiveled on their stools.
“In this weather?” one of them asked, an old-timer with whiskery jowls and a lazy eye. “Good luck, fella.”
Martin flapped the money. “Two hundred dollars to whoever stops drinking and takes me to Gray Peaks Island.”
His offer was met with amused mutterings and curious stares. Gradually, the clientele returned to their conversations, to their food and drinks. Martin stood for a moment, wondering if he had “crazy” written all over his face. He lowered the money and glanced around helplessly.
“Don’t look like you got any takers,” a voice said. It belonged to another old-timer sitting at the bar. He wore a battered baseball cap and military surplus jacket, looking for all the world like Quint from Jaws.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Martin agreed.
“I’ll take you for three hundred,” Quint said. He dropped a wink and held up a glass with two fingers of whiskey still inside it. “But I’m finishing this first.”
* * *
Fifteen.
In the past there’d been as many as forty people on the island, and thank Jesus H. Christ that wasn’t the case now. Fifteen was still a handful. Motherfuckers would scatter like lambs if he wasn’t careful, but he could track them down. Fifteen was doable.
Nolan attached the suppressor to his Glock 19 pistol, adding seven inches to the barrel. Tricky to disguise a gun that length, but it wouldn’t do to have gunshots ringing across the island. A suppressor wouldn’t “silence” the report—that only happened in James Bond movies—but anyone within earshot would be close enough to take the next bullet.
“Fifteen.”
He sighted down the barrel, then ran the magazine into the grip. A fifteen-round mag, and there was something very fucking propitious about that. Even so, Nolan wasn’t foolish enough to believe he could make every shot count. He grabbed a fully loaded spare and tucked it into his jacket pocket.
“Corporal Nolan Thorne reporting for duty.”
Mission time: twenty minutes, absolute max. Efficiency and accuracy were critical. He’d start at the dock—adios, Jake Door—and make his way north, checking the utility buildings and farms, the recreation hall and canteen, then bouncing from one cabin to the next. If it all went smoothly, he’d finish somewhere near his cabin, where he could replenish his ammo before going to get Martin.
“I’ve got this.” Nolan closed his eyes for a second and drifted. You can have everything, Mother Moon had said to him. Is that what you want? He nodded, touched his mouth where she’d licked him—fucking licked him, like a goddamn popsicle. He wasn’t sexually attracted to Mother Moon, never had been, but something about this gesture—the fucking bizarreness of it, perhaps—had given him a premium-grade boner. He’d probably jerk off later thinking about it, but right now he had work to do.
He lowered the pistol, stepped across his living room, and looked out the front window. Brooke and Jordan were still in the meadow, but had stopped playing and were heading back to their cabin. He couldn’t see anyone else, although visibility was limited by the snow. This would affect his long-range accuracy, but that shouldn’t be a factor. The main advantage of the weather was that it herded his targets inside, where they could be picked off point-blank.
“Got this,” he said again, then tucked the pistol beneath his arm and stepped outside. He started down the path toward the orchard and dock beyond, walking swiftly and with the memory of Mother Moon’s tongue on his mouth. He saw nobody on the path or in the orchard and didn’t expect to. Jake Door would be the first person he saw. Jake fucking Door, who spent his days, rain or shine, fishing from the dock and shooting the stink eye at passing boats. A little snow flurry wouldn’t faze Jake. No, sir.
Nolan passed through the woodland where the ground sloped to the water, moving with the surefootedness of a wild animal. He emerged from the trees and stepped onto the dock, pulling the gun from beneath his arm. Jake Door was in his accustomed place, not fishing, but pissing in the lake. He was side-on, so Nolan couldn’t get a clean chest shot. He aimed for Jake’s head, a smaller target. Nolan could probably hit it at this distance, even in the snow, but he wanted to be sure. He stepped closer.
Either the movement or the vibration along the boards alerted Jake. He looked up, dick in hand. “Whoa, shit,” he said, and flinched just as Nolan pulled the trigger. No muzzle flash, just a deadened pok sound from the suppressor. The bullet scored Jake’s right cheek and tore off his ear. If he hadn’t flinched, it would have killed him instantly.
“Christ, man!” he said, letting go of his dick to touch the raw place on his head where his ear had been only seconds before. “I said, Christ.”
Nolan shot Jake in the chest. He flew off the d
ock and met the water with a foamy splash. Two fucking bullets, Nolan thought. He stepped to the edge of the dock. Jake was still alive, swimming lame, bleeding into the water. He looked at Nolan with frightened dog’s eyes. “Fuck,” he said. Nolan parked the third bullet into Jake’s shoulder or maybe his arm and the fourth into his skull, which broke like an egg and leaked. Jake turned in the water and settled face-up. Waves rocked him.
Nolan grunted and marched back along the dock, through the woodland and orchard, toward their happy little community. The snow danced, spurred by the lake winds. Nolan wiped his eyes and saw the cabins in the distance. Some had lights burning, chimneys pouring smoke.
He touched his mouth.
“Everything.”
37
“Are you cold?”
“A little. My face is cold. And my feet.”
“We’re almost there.”
They walked through the woods, sheltered somewhat from the snow, but the wind was shrill and sharp. Valerie had wrapped them both in winter clothes. The girl’s were too big, of course. She trudged with her head down.
“Is it warm where we’re going?”
Valerie’s eyes glazed momentarily. She thought of the slowly fading sun, how it touched the skin, and how the wind encouraged her to expand rather than huddle.
“Very.”
They ducked beneath a half-fallen tree and pushed through yellowing ferns. To the left the woods thinned to marshland and the northwestern ridge, to the right they deepened. Valerie tapped Edith’s shoulder and directed her that way.
“Where’s my sister?” Edith asked a moment later, for perhaps the tenth time. “You said I could see her.”
“I told you, she’s doing something extremely important,” Valerie replied. “Something amazing.”
They walked on with breaths pluming. Valerie fished the watch from her pocket and glanced at it. Time was on their side, although she needed some of that time to persuade Edith to open the portal. Valerie didn’t know if it would act like a lightning rod, or a magnifying glass in the sun, but this would be the focal point. This was where it would happen.
And not a ghost in sight, she thought. No Rhapsody or Jesus or whatever the fuck else it’s called.
“Dead to me,” she whispered.
“Huh?” Edith stopped, regarding her with deep eyes.
“Nothing. Keep going.”
Valerie had been alone on the island for three years before the first ghost appeared. Not the tiger. The rooster. He came in the night, laid hands on her while she slept. He only disappeared when she screamed.
The goat was next. He stood at the edge of the woods and watched her work, saying nothing. She ignored him, but later, in her cabin, she saw his goat face at the window, breath fogging the glass.
“You’re not real,” she said.
“Have you found it yet?” he asked calmly, as if she hadn’t buried a cleaver in his skull.
Locking her cabin door didn’t stop them. She’d walk into the living room and the ox would be sitting on the sofa; the rabbit would be crouched in the corner of her bedroom, his ears poking up over the dresser; the pig and snake would hide behind doors or underneath her bed. She’d open her closet and see one of them in there.
“Have you found it yet?” Always the same question.
The tiger kept his distance to begin with, as if his pride had been hurt, but gradually edged closer. One night, he slipped into bed beside her, ran his hands through her hair.
“You don’t even want to get rid of us.”
“Maybe I’m just lonely.”
“That’s not it.” He pressed against her, hard and cold. “You know.”
“Know?”
“You can’t find it without us.”
Valerie feigned ignorance, and went about her life on the island as she always did. When she thought the animals weren’t watching, she had what she called Skyway Ceremonies, in which she meditated by candlelight and touched her scars, hoping to open a seam between up and down. On her trips to the mainland, where she sold firewood and produce for money, she often traveled to the sites of recent tragedies and looked for a thinness in the air.
Nothing.
“One word,” the tiger said to her, finding her at her most hungry, most desperate. “Rhapsody.”
“It’s a simulation,” Valerie responded bitterly. “Besides, you said it was only available to the upper echelons of society.”
“We are the upper echelons of society.”
“You were.”
The tiger laughed. His stripes shimmered faintly. “Come see us. You know where we do business.”
“I’m not going back there.”
But she went back, of course. The fat restaurateur was still alive, fatter and wheezier. He looked at her as he might a revenant or vampire, and bowed to her every need. She went up to the room where the ghosts were waiting, where they were strong, and she revisited her pains.
It wasn’t enough.
“You can’t come empty handed,” the dog said.
“There’s always a price to pay,” the rooster said. “And you know what the price is.”
“Yes. The end of pleasure.” Valerie regarded them hatefully. “What do you want me to do? Cut off my arm?”
“You can be more creative,” the tiger said. “And it doesn’t have to be your pain. Think scientifically: shifting energy signatures … the universal consciousness.”
“We’re distilling pain from the atmosphere,” the goat said, spinning the ring on his finger. “The greater the pain, the more potent the drug.”
“A mall shooting would work,” the pig offered.
“A bus explosion,” the rabbit said.
“You can bring down a plane.”
“Set fire to a hospital.”
“I get it,” Valerie said, holding up her hands. “I just don’t know if I can do it.”
“Why?” the tiger asked. “Too many victims?”
“That’s not it,” Valerie replied, and it wasn’t. Her country had done nothing for her—had turned its back on her, in fact, when she was down. As far as she was concerned, the whole goddamn shithouse could go up in flames. “It’s a massive undertaking. I’d need money. Lots of money. And people.”
“Then get people,” the tiger said. “You have a preternatural talent for persuasion, not to mention an entire island to yourself. Bring in the lost and forlorn. Take their money and promise them heaven.”
She did, and it proved easier than she could have expected, a succession of embittered Americans—victims of crime, of industry, of government. She brought in Nolan, who helped her recruit for and expand their community. Halcyon flourished. Valerie manipulated.
Robert Dander: car bomb, Hanover Street, Boston.
Jeffrey Myles: vehicular assault, Central Park West, New York City.
Jose Mazara: mass shooting, Riverside bus depot, Philadelphia.
On and on, and with every success she returned to the room above the White Lantern where the animals were waiting, growing in realness at the same rate as her addiction. The little pink capsule would be delivered to her, infused with pain.
“Can you feel it?” the tiger asked. “The shift in energy…”
“Yes.”
“A nation hurting.”
She took the drug.
“Fly away, sugargirl.”
Thirty-one attacks over eighteen years, some big (Garrett’s Buffalo bombing), and some small (Dana Jackson’s Lombardo Museum fire, which killed only three), all engineered to satisfy her craving, although she never took her eye off the big prize.
“The White Skyway,” Valerie muttered.
The wind knifed through the trees, pulling in more snow, making the leaves whirl. Edith stopped walking again. She looked at Valerie.
“The White Skyway?” She resembled her father when she frowned. “What’s that?”
It’s between here and there, Valerie thought. Between up and down.
She said, “Do you know what an
Einstein-Rosen bridge is?” And then shook her head. “Of course you don’t. You’re ten years old.”
“Ten and three-quarters.”
“Do you know what a portal is?”
“I think so.”
“A way of traveling vast distances instantly. A gateway between dimensions.” Valerie wiped snow from her eyes. “The White Skyway is the same kind of thing.”
Edith’s breath plumed.
“The place you visit,” Valerie said. “The garden you supposedly built in six months…”
“What about it?”
“It’s Glam Moon. I know because I’ve been there. I recognize the mountains and trees. You connect to it by way of your psychic talent, but that doesn’t make it yours.”
Edith scowled at her. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“Silly girl! We’re going to create the White Skyway: a portal between this world and Glam Moon, with an exotic matter—a certain secret ingredient—added to keep it stable.”
“We?”
“We: me, you, and your sister.”
Edith shook her head. “I won’t help you. You’re crazy if you think I will.”
“I guess I’m crazy, then.”
“Where’s my sister? You said she—”
“Help me and your sister lives forever,” Valerie cut across her, sharp as the wind. “She’ll be immortalized in the Skyway.”
Edith opened her mouth to say something, but only a little cloud of white air escaped.
“Do you know what immortalized means?”
Tears welled in the girl’s eyes.
“It means that she’ll always be remembered. Like Cleopatra or Joan of Arc. Isn’t that beautiful?”
“What have you done with Shirley?”
“On the other hand, if you choose not to help, she’ll die for nothing.” Valerie sneered. “Is that what you want?”
Edith blinked and the tears spilled onto her cheeks.
“Keep walking.”
The girl turned and trudged on. Valerie saw her thin shoulders shaking even through all the warm clothes.
They came to the clearing soon after, thirty feet across at its widest point. Snow speckled the ferns and branches of the surrounding trees. A cardinal—male, beautifully colored—took shelter in a cracked boulder. It stood out like blood.
