“Thank you,” Martin whispered.
“Boris!” Nigel yelled.
The dogs stopped licking the blood and all the animals’ heads shot up in attention. Their ears stiffened. They sniffed the air. In the other room, there was a steady click that was building to a crescendo.
Like that, the animals were on their feet. Behind Martin, there was another doorway. A mad rush to that exit ensued. Within a couple of seconds, the only ones left in the room were Nigel, Martin, and the head of a recently departed deer.
Until Boris joined them.
Boris’s face peeked through under Nigel’s armpit and Nigel gave him a squeeze around the neck and a healthy pat on his furry chest. Boris snorted through his giant black nose in appreciation.
“A Russian circus bear,” Nigel said proudly. “He can balance on a ball, but he would prefer not to.”
“Are you joking?” Martin said nervously, looking down at the deer’s head in his arms. His lap was now soaked with blood.
“What?” Nigel said. “I don’t joke about circuses. They’re too insulting to the dignity of these majestic beasts.”
“He’s dangerous, Nigel,” Martin pleaded.
“Only to you,” Nigel said, raising his arm and letting Boris go. Boris sat down on the floor next to him, but he didn’t take his eyes off Martin.
Martin thought of tossing the head across the room, then making a dash to the back exit and joining the other animals, but his luck with racing bears was sure to run out sooner rather than later.
“Do you have faith in me?” Nigel asked.
“I …?”
“Boris and I have a deal,” Nigel went on. “As long as you sit in that chair, he won’t lay a paw on you. Then, at the end of our session, Boris gets that tasty head. But if you get up …”
“He …?”
“Do you have faith in me?” Nigel said again, his voice now serious. He took a step to the side, leaving Boris to his own devices. Boris remained still.
“I do,” Martin said. Regret choked every inch of him. What had he agreed to?
“Fantastic, then. Everything will be fine,” Nigel said, flopping himself down on the love seat opposite Martin. “Ask away.”
Martin assumed that if he didn’t look at Boris, this would be easier. So he concentrated on Nigel, who had planted his hands behind his head and appeared the picture of comfort on the love seat.
“What should I ask you?”
“Anything,” Nigel said.
“Okay, then. Ummmm … what happened on the Day?”
Nigel sighed. “Always the first question. Answer’s obvious. They all left.”
“Where’d they go?”
“Where they ended up.”
“Where did they end up?”
“Where we’ll meet them.”
“We’ll see them again?”
“Well, yes. Though not all of us will.”
“Why are you being so vague?”
“Your questions are vague.”
“Are they dead?”
“No.”
“How do we find them?”
“I think you know that.”
“I don’t think I do. Why don’t you tell me?”
“You’ll use your machine,” Nigel said without missing a beat.
Martin just about dropped the head. Boris reared back to pounce.
“Careful there,” Nigel warned.
“I—I … How …,” Martin stuttered, gathering himself and getting a firmer grip on the head. “How did you know about the machine?”
“A little bird told me,” Nigel said, and he clucked his tongue.
“And the address? Do you know about that too?” Martin asked. He hadn’t thought it was possible, but he was now even more scared than he’d been when Boris entered the room. Boris seemed to sense it too and let the tip of his tongue peep out between his teeth.
Nigel nodded. “I know about the address. But you’re not going to find what you’re looking for there.”
Martin paused. His sinuses began to throb, and he reached up to rub his eyes, but he stopped when he realized his fingers were covered in deer blood.
“Faith,” Nigel said. “It gives back, doesn’t it?”
“It …” Martin lowered his hands.
“Time to go,” Nigel said.
“I have more questions,” Martin said quickly.
“Didn’t you learn enough for today? Besides, Boris is hungry.”
Martin turned his gaze back to Boris. The bear lifted himself from his sitting position and opened his mouth. The low rumbling growl, a sound Martin had last heard in the library, made the room shiver.
Martin tried to joke. “I think I would have preferred it if you’d brought the tiger.”
Nigel smiled and shook his head. “No you wouldn’t. There’s no bargaining with that tiger. Now give Boris the head. He kept his promise.”
With that, Martin flung the head to the bear. Boris was quick, springing to his feet and catching the head in his jaws. As the bear tore into the flesh, Nigel motioned with his chin, coaxing Martin to stand up.
Slowly, he did. Careful not to slip on the blood and flesh that were now being strewn violently across the floor by the overly enthusiastic Boris, Martin tiptoed to the exit.
PART II
“Give him a push? We’re still talking about intergalactic travel, right? Or is it swing sets?”
“You can joke if you want. I’m simply telling you what needs to happen.”
“And I’m simply reminding you that a girl with a quick wit is a girl who gets things done. Nothing to worry your furry little heads about.”
“We don’t worry.”
“Of course you don’t. So tell me. Is this the guy right here?”
“The guy?”
“Who bit the doctor? Poisoned my B?”
“It is.”
“Relay a message for me. He’s a real snake.”
“Not exactly. See the legs?”
“Whatever.”
“Anything else?”
“As a matter of fact, there is. What do you make of this? Do you know what it does?”
“Of course.”
“So? What does it do?”
“Whatever you want it to do.”
—— 12 ——
The Diary
It was impossible to sleep. Martin threw out his bloody clothes, wrapped himself in covers, and searched the house for a pencil and paper. Something had been roused in him. He couldn’t fathom how Nigel knew about the machine, but honestly, he didn’t care. The machine suddenly mattered again, to one person at least. That person was a slightly sadistic boy who got his information from animals, but he was also a boy who looked to the future. So few in Xibalba did.
Martin quickly found a sketchbook in an upstairs bedroom, but he couldn’t locate a pencil anywhere. Sparked by a memory, he descended into the basement. He hadn’t been down there much. It was the dollhouse that bothered him most. It imbued the basement with a strange, almost holy significance, though the exact nature of it was impossible to decipher. Of course, Martin knew whose basement this had once been, whose house in which he had chosen to live. The others reminded him of it daily. Some shrugged it off as coincidence, but most seemed committed to a cautious unease. Whenever he told one of them his address, eyes sent him the same message: Who the heck do you think you are?
Martin thought he was a person who would change things. At least, that was what he thought now. He needed a pencil to prove it.
The coffee table in the basement had a thin drawer. Martin pulled it open. Just as he’d remembered from the last time he’d snuck a peek inside, there was a pencil sitting atop an instruction booklet about how to build an ant farm. When he snagged the pencil, he knocked the instructions to the side, revealing a book beneath them.
Martin set the pencil down on the table and fished the book out. It was a small leather-bound book, not much bigger than a pack of cards. It had no title on the cover, but what it
did have was a sticker, the same sticker Martin had seen on the trail on his way to Xibalba. Skull, crossbones—the Jolly Roger. Martin opened it to the first page, where he found an inscription, written in ghostly graphite.
The Life and Times of Kelvin Rice
He nearly dropped the book. This was a diary. This was Kelvin’s diary! Outside of the Internet, it was nearly impossible to find information about Kelvin. People rarely wanted to talk about him. Yet here was an unedited view into his mind.
Doodles of knights, monsters, curvy women, and aliens dominated the opening pages. The first entry was only a couple of sentences.
Tyler said that diaries are for girls. I don’t think that’s true, but I’m still going to keep this one to myself.
After that, the entries were longer, but not by much. And there were no indications of when they were written. They were simply a series of thoughts and observations, scribbled out dusty and quick.
Skipped school today. Aunt Bonnie doesn’t care. She’s got her mysteries and “a bottle to get to the bottom of.” Spent most of my time in the basement carving a talisman out of wood. A talisman is like something that keeps demons out. Hang it up and scare them off. People have been doing it for tons of years, so it’s got to work.
I’m killing myself over what I could have done today, cuz Tyler was smoking behind the shed after last bell and he didn’t know I was hiding in the bushes and I really wanted to get some dog crap on a stick and jab him with it, but I knew he would pummel me. I bite the side of my lip sometimes cuz I get so angry and even if it bleeds at least it’s something.
Marjorie still treats me like a kid, like we’re in the Land of Neverseens or whatever. Sometimes she says, “The hole beneath the quarry leads to the heart of the world and it’s where we should meet if we get split up.” It makes me know her meds are low. I think she says it cuz her dad got lost and died in there and that kind of stuff sticks with you forever. Anyway, I’ve checked it out. It’s blocked up with bricks and wood, but I bet a pickax would do. I don’t believe her, you know, but I think it’s cool that one of the entrances to the Mayan underworld was a cave, and it’s sort of like a cave in there, and so I wonder if it might hold something. Secrets. The stuff they don’t tell you about in books.
There are girls in my classes who I look at and I wonder how it is that someone kissed them or that someone will kiss them someday. I know you only have to have a party and invite them and play those stupid bottle and closet games. There have to be other ways. I don’t write poetry. I don’t throw baseballs. If I die and I haven’t kissed a girl, is there a place they send guys like me? Ha!
In submarines? Through caves? By rocket ship? Somehow …
That was where it ended. Martin checked the binding for remnant bits of paper. He ran his fingers across the blank pages, feeling for indentations. He searched for anything that might indicate there had once been more to the diary. It was a worthless endeavor. This was all there was. A few pages of writing and nothing else. Still, the last entry, the last words, struck him hard.
When the morning arrived, it found Martin sitting at the kitchen table, sketching. He hardly left his chair that day. By evening, his notebook was full, and he began tearing pages out of it and stuffing them in large envelopes. With a Magic Marker, he wrote a name on each envelope. Then, weary and a little nervous, he put the envelopes under his arm and left the house.
He went straight to Sigrid’s. When she opened the door, she was wiping sweat from the back of her neck with a hand towel.
“Sorry to bother you,” Martin said.
“No worries,” Sigrid said. “I am enjoying my new treadmill, that is all. Thanks to you, of course.”
“Can you deliver some messages for me?” Martin asked, presenting the envelopes.
“It will be my pleasure,” Sigrid said, grabbing them and looking at the names.
“They’re … top … secret,” Martin explained. “And urgent.”
“Then I must go now, yeah?” she said with a smile.
Martin thanked her and returned home and slept for more than twelve hours.
—— 13 ——
The Team
The next morning, Martin entered the church. He hadn’t been inside since the night he’d arrived in Xibalba. It looked as though no one else had either. All the chairs and sofas were in the same places as before. The stool was still positioned in the center of the room.
To make things more inviting, he removed the stool and began to rearrange some of the furniture into a tight circle. He found a small table tucked away in the corner and made it the centerpiece. He tossed his notebook on it.
During his quick redecorating, he also found a cloth bag filled with dozens of Bibles. Martin had read the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. Even though he thought they were a bit monotonous and repetitive, he knew they were beloved books, because he’d seen them in almost every house on the island.
To pass the time, he eased back in a chair and cracked one of the Bibles open. He remembered the stories almost immediately. They were an endless string of life and death and lessons handed down from the heavens. Reading them now, Martin found himself surprisingly engrossed. They were ancient tales, true, but they were also things to which he could relate.
“Hate to spoil it for you, dude, but he comes back in three days, good as new.”
Martin looked up from the book to see Chet standing in the doorway, holding one of the envelopes.
“Old Testament,” Martin said, showing him the book.
“That the one with the boat?”
“It is,” Martin said, setting the book down.
“So, you angling to be the new Kelvin Rice?”
“I don’t think so,” Martin said. “Why do you say that?”
“I dunno. Living in his house. Delivering doodles. Calling secret meetings.” Chet heaved his bulk down into a chair.
“Kelvin was your leader?” Martin asked.
“He liked to think he was. Hard to take your leader seriously when he insists on wearing a cloak and playing spin the bottle all the time.”
“I’m not trying to be a leader,” Martin said. “I’m only looking for help.”
A voice came from the doorway. “Martin’s a Spacer, that’s what he is.” Lane had entered the church, her own envelope in hand.
“Oh man, a Spacer?” Chet said. “That’s what this is about?”
“Hello, Lane,” Martin said carefully. “I’m delighted you could make it.”
Lane sauntered across the room. Her outfit of all black from two nights before had been replaced by a blue police uniform. On her head, she wore a madras bandana. She reclined on a sofa.
“Why do you think he’s a Spacer?” Chet asked.
“Did he give you the same drawings?” Lane took the notebook pages out of her envelope and tossed them on the table.
“I gave everyone the same thing,” Martin said.
“Expecting more people?” Chet asked.
“One more,” Martin said.
“And we’ll all wear moon boots, eat freeze-dried ice cream, and have a big Spacer party, is that right?” Lane said. “I don’t know why I bothered to leave the house.”
“You came here because I wanted your help,” Martin said. “As for being a Spacer, I don’t know what that is.”
“You think the answers are in the stars,” Lane said. “So you drew a friggin’ spaceship.”
“I thought it was a popcorn popper,” Chet joked.
In all the years of working on the machine, there had been plenty of times when Martin wanted to believe that it was a spacecraft. His father would never confirm or deny what it was meant to do, but he would often say, “There’s a different world for us than this one, Martin, and you’ll see it soon.”
“Do you think it will work?” Martin asked Lane as he nudged the drawings to her side of the table.
“Beats me,” she said. “I’m not a Spacer. Never will be.”
“She’s a Vapo
rist, like me,” Chet said.
Martin’s silence revealed his ignorance.
“There are the Spacers, of course,” Chet explained. “And there are, or were, the Diggers. You know, kids who think everyone went underground. And the Parallelodorks, like Felix. Believe in alternate dimensions and all that junk. There are the Reapers. Think we’re all dead and dancin’ the limbo or something. Then there are the Vaporists. Vaporists believe what they see. Everyone is gone, gone, gone. Vaporized.”
“They’re definitely not on Venus, having a picnic and waiting for us,” Lane said.
This didn’t deter Martin. He couldn’t ignore what he was feeling. “I believe we need this machine,” he told Lane. “I believe it more than anything.”
Lane didn’t answer. Instead, she shoved the drawings back across the table.
“Lane. Tell him what Nigel told you,” Chet blurted out.
“What? No,” Lane said quickly.
“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” Chet badgered her. “Didn’t Nigel tell you that someone was coming to town and it wasn’t gonna be Santa? You thought it’d be Kelvin, and you—”
“Shut your mouth,” Lane snarled. “I never should have told you that.”
“You understand how to build things, both of you do,” Martin said calmly. “That’s all I care about. That’s why I need your help.”
Lane turned away.
“This is complex stuff, dude,” Chet said, pointing at the papers. “How do you know we can build it?”
“ ’Cause I’ve built it before,” Martin said. “I spent my whole life building it. Now we just need to build it bigger.”
The floor began to vibrate ever so slightly. Across the room, someone’s throat cleared.
“Him?” Lane exclaimed. She sat up and shot an accusatory finger toward the door. “He’s the other one?”
Henry took a few steps toward them, his rifle slung over his shoulder.
“Can we help you, Henry?” Martin asked.
The Only Ones Page 8
