The Only Ones

by Aaron Starmer

  Two days before, when Martin had asked Tiberia to guard Henry until the trial, she wasn’t surprised. “Send a brat to his room, you’re gonna want the biggest, baddest babysitter,” she said.

  When Tiberia showed Henry to his seat at the oak table, she stood behind him, her massive hands on the back of the chair, ready for any move. The eyes of the crowd practically spat at him. Details about the night of the fire were hard to come by. Darla and Martin had agreed to remain tight-lipped until the trial. Everyone just assumed it was all Henry’s fault.

  Darla spoke first. She was dressed in a business suit for the occasion, and her hair was held together in an elaborate bun by a pair of glass chopsticks. Taking a seat next to Martin at the table, she launched into her version of events.

  “First of all, I’d like to thank everyone for helping me organize an evening to remember. A truly magical time, until, well, you know.…”

  She went on to describe everything in lavish detail. The bowling. The meal. The movie. When she came to Felix and Henry and Nigel, she didn’t slow down one bit. She talked about the oily smell of Kid Godzilla, the phlegmy hack of the dying Komodo dragon, the warmth of tiger blood on her stockinged legs. And she didn’t lie or exaggerate. The only things she neglected to relate were Felix’s accusations regarding Nigel. She said the two of them were having an argument, and she left it at that. It was a curious omission, but Martin assumed she was simply trying to help Henry by not implicating him in some larger conspiracy.

  Everything else she said was accurate, or at least seemed to be to Martin. Yet with all the facts laid bare, it was hard for the kids to take her seriously. As she left the table and took a seat in the crowd, there were more than a few snickers and whispers along the lines of “The day I believe that girl …”

  Martin came next. His strategy was simple. Rather than confirm or deny what Darla had said, he would focus on Henry, and Henry alone.

  “What exactly were you doing in the Internet, by yourself, without Felix’s permission?” Martin asked.

  Henry leaned forward, and as if he had been rehearsing his response, he said, “I’d rather not answer that question.”

  “Were you only sneaking into my personal page, or were you sneaking into everyone’s personal pages?”

  “I’d rather not answer that question.”

  “When you burned the book that contained the coordinates for the machine, were you trying to doom us all?”

  “I’d rather not—”

  “And when you should have been protecting us, when you should have been doing your job, the one that provides you with your food, and your health, and your entertainment, when you should have been doing that, why were you letting this town burn and two boys die?”

  “I wasn’t lettin’ no one do nothin’. They did it all by themselves,” Henry said in a voice only a bit louder than a whisper.

  “Right. With your gun. On your watch,” Martin said. It was a nice touch. He had read enough courtroom novels to know that simple and understated worked best. No reason to linger too long on theatrics.

  A yell came from the crowd: “What do you have to say for yourself?”

  “Nothin’,” Henry said. “ ’Cept for sorry, I guess. For whatever it is ya think I did.”

  Martin took it upon himself to speak for the crowd. “We think that you tried to sabotage us. We think you don’t care about the future. We think you should be sentenced to six months in the Ring of Penance.”

  Darla leapt from her seat and to his defense. “A bit harsh, huh? I mean, Kelvin only got two months.”

  “Who here thinks six months is too harsh for trying to steal our hope and letting our home burn?” Martin asked.

  Darla’s hand was the only one to go up. Not even Henry budged. At first, her arm was rigid, its stubbornness doing its darndest to inspire a mass conversion. It wasn’t working, though, and as she lowered it, she raised her eyes and looked around, feigning innocent ignorance.

  Martin pounded a fist on the table. “Xibalba has spoken!”

  Tiberia reached forward and placed a hand on the back of Henry’s neck. If Henry made a peep, Martin didn’t notice. Most kids probably would have cried. While life in the Ring of Penance wasn’t pure torture, it certainly wasn’t pleasant.

  What it amounted to was this: Henry was to be given a heavy-duty tent, a sleeping bag, some cooking equipment, a flint, a first-aid kit, and a few other odds and ends. He was also allowed to collect some pasta, some rice, some dried fruit. The tent was to be placed in the middle of a circular stone wall that adorned the rocky face of the mountain that overlooked town and was cheekily referred to as Alcatraz. The food was expected to last him about a week. After that, he was on his own.

  Henry could serve out his sentence in the Ring, and if his former neighbors were feeling neighborly, they could stop by and slip him some food or blankets from time to time. Or he could do what Kelvin had decided to do, and hit the road. However, hitting the road could mean he might not be accepted back into Xibalba.

  That afternoon, Martin watched from Town Square as Henry’s green-and-blue nylon tent took up residence on Alcatraz. At that distance, it wasn’t much more than a dot of color, but it gave Martin a guilty shiver of excitement.

  A few yards away from Martin, the machine was waiting in the snow, its conical tip pointed skyward. There were thirty-seven kids left in town. With their help, it could be ready in a matter of weeks.

  —— 25 ——

  The Hole

  At one point near the end of Martin’s reading frenzy on the island, he had counted the number of books he had finished. Five hundred seventy-eight. He wasn’t sure if that was a lot for a single person. He hoped it was at least average.

  He hadn’t finished a book since he’d arrived in Xibalba. With all that had happened, he’d hardly had a moment to relax, let alone to read. But he was living in the library now. His home had burned along with most of the others, and when they’d divvied up the houses and buildings that remained, Martin had chosen the library. A mattress on a table was his bed. An old wood-burning furnace in the basement gave him heat and a surface for cooking. Since so many of the solar panels had been destroyed, lanterns once again provided light.

  As Henry settled into his first cold night in the Ring of Penance, Martin returned to the warmth of the library. Restless from the day’s events, he wandered the stacks and pondered his next move. When he found himself in the science fiction section, he remembered a line from his beloved book, which had burned and sealed Henry’s fate.

  They piled aboard the vessel, fathers and mothers, and all of the children.

  Immediately, he began pulling books from the shelf, checking them for familiar text, and throwing aside the ones that didn’t satisfy.

  Within twenty minutes he had it.

  Amazing Tales from Beyond, Volume III.

  That was the title. All these years, he had wondered. He had imagined something elegant and grand—nothing so hackneyed, nothing so rote. Yet there it was. The name of the book that had been so important in his life. His first read, his first love.

  This copy was stiff. As he turned the pages, they crackled like gravel underfoot. He wondered how long it had been since someone had read it. Ages, it seemed.

  With the book, a pen, and a pad of paper, he sat on his mattress. The stories were just as he remembered them, but they meant something different now. He began to transcribe.

  The next morning, Sigrid was on the move. Thirty-six envelopes, addressed to the thirty-six kids, were in her shoulder bag. The letters they held all said the same thing.

  Dear Friends,

  The machine in Town Square is something I have been building in one form or another for as long as I can remember. It may not be slick. It may not seem sturdy. It is, however, our future.

  I ask you to believe this, because it is something I believe. It is also something Nigel believed. A few days before his death, he gave me a note to share with everyone. The recent tra
gedies have affected us all, but I hope that we can find inspiration in Nigel’s final words. I give them to you here:

  I haven’t spoken to some of you personally and I hope that you don’t take offense to that. I am a stranger in this place and I don’t exactly know your language. Yet I do know things. What I know more than anything else is that you have been blessed with a second chance. You wonder what happened to your world, how it became so flooded with fear and confusion. You dream of a place where things will return to what they were, where the water will recede and your lives will bloom again. That hunk of metal, that seemingly unworthy vessel, will bring you there. Heed my words. Step aboard.

  With Nigel’s message in mind, I will continue work on the machine today at noon. Darla has provided me with the materials necessary to finish it. Henry did not succeed in his plan to thwart its launch. The coordinates are safe in my memory. Those who join me are welcome to step aboard.

  In your confidence,

  Martin Maple

  Less than an hour after the letters had been handed off to Sigrid, Lane arrived at the library. Martin had returned to the book, seeking out other passages he remembered, but as soon as he saw her, he tucked it beneath his mattress.

  “ ‘Noah Redux,’ ” she said, and she lobbed a crumpled piece of paper at him.

  “Excuse me?” he said, catching it.

  “I’m a sci-fi junkie,” Lane explained. “Of course I’ve read ‘Noah Redux.’ ”

  This was not something Martin had foreseen. There was no answer he could think of to explain what he had done. It was better to gauge the degree of his miscalculation. “Has everyone read that story?” he asked.

  “Probably not,” Lane said. “Plagiarists are pretty safe in this crowd.”

  “It’s the message that’s important. Not where it came from,” Martin offered.

  “You do remember how ‘Noah Redux’ ends, right?”

  “That’s not important either.”

  “They die, Martin. The astronaut who gives that speech, he locks all the aliens in a submarine and sinks it, so he can have their planet to himself. Real sunny story there. I think you missed that it’s a metaphor. Missionaries, politicians—”

  “They went aboard, didn’t they? That’s the message,” Martin said firmly. “You’re welcome to stay behind if you want.”

  “Giving out hope can be dangerous, that’s all,” Lane said. “It has consequences. I know you’re dedicated, Martin. But you need to see what being dedicated can mean.”

  The snow had almost completely melted. The rain and a balmy couple of days had relegated it to an ashen slush. Lane carefully chose the driest path she could, hopping from curbs to tree roots as she led Martin past a row of blackened, gutted homes. The puddles, however, were unavoidable when she and Martin set off down a narrow trail into the forest.

  Martin was busy watching his feet, trying to keep them dry. So it wasn’t until they reached the hole that he realized he had been on this trail before. It was the same one he had followed Felix down on his first morning in Xibalba. He hadn’t thought of it since. There were countless trails in the woods surrounding town, and this one seemed no more special than any other. The only difference was the hole in the side of the ledge.

  “You might think we’re callous, the way we react to death,” Lane said.

  The thought had crossed Martin’s mind. They hadn’t even bothered with a funeral for Felix or Nigel. Even to mention Felix’s name made the kids uncomfortable and defensive. Still, Martin had no idea how to react to such a tragedy, and he doubted anyone else did either. He borrowed George’s words, hoping they’d provide wisdom. “There are all sorts of people in the world. With all sorts of ways of seeing stuff.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “For us, we’ve seen death before. Plenty of it.” Lane stepped closer to the hole and placed a hand on the rutted and warped wood that formed a frame around it. She didn’t look inside. Instead, she pointed to the ground at Martin’s feet.

  There was another piece of wood there, only this one appeared to be newer. Its grains were fierier and it was cut into a perfectly square block. Martin lifted it from the sludge, brushed it with his sleeve, and saw that it was covered in Felix’s unmistakable handwriting.

  THE DIGGERS

  Allison Swain, Gemma Parsons, Felicia

  Carmichael, Lee Kim, Kendall Ferris, Amanda

  Tate, Yusuf Halim, Dave Forbes, Carla Rizetti,

  Malik Kahn, Eloise Dubois, Mikael Stupinski,

  and Kelvin Rice.

  The Diggers were a group of kids from

  Xibalba. It was their belief that on the Day,

  everyone escaped to hidden bunkers beneath

  the ground. Led by Kelvin Rice, they

  embarked on a journey into the mine shaft

  beneath the Popol quarry. Kelvin convinced

  them they would find a whole civilization

  down there.

  “Felix was pretty upset when we made him remove that page from the Internet,” Lane said.

  “Why did you?” Martin ran his fingers across the writing, which was beginning to fade due to exposure. There were dents in the wood where the present tense had been changed to the past. The only name he recognized was Kelvin’s.

  “To forget,” Lane said. “It was three days before Kelvin came back all covered in dirt and soot. Three whole days and we didn’t bother to go looking for them. So we took an oath to forget, rather than dwell on what we could’ve done.”

  “They went in there?” Martin asked, motioning to the hole. “This is a mine shaft?”

  “This is a grave,” Lane said. “Twelve kids are buried in there. The mine collapsed on them. Kelvin was lucky to get out alive.”

  Martin remembered reading references to the Collapse. He recalled the series of letters he’d found written out in tiny stones in the Ring of Penance, the message of I’M SO SORRY that accompanied them. The pieces were starting to fit together.

  “And Kelvin took all the blame?”

  “He did,” Lane said in a shaky voice. “During his trial, he told us that Nigel had warned him this would happen. And he had kept those warnings to himself.”

  “Everyone believed it?” Martin asked.

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Lane gulped. “Nigel was right every other time. He always gave his prophecies to Kelvin, and Kelvin would deliver them to us. Nigel was right about Tammy Green. He predicted that she’d get sick. And she did. Our first death in Xibalba. Not even Tiberia’s pills could save her. Then there was the plague of swallows. Even Felix was amazed by that.”

  “Did I read about that on the Internet?” Martin asked.

  “You might have,” Lane said. “But reading it and seeing it are so different. Imagine the sky completely black with little birds. Nigel told Kelvin it would happen and it happened. And when Kelvin began to wear that cloak that everyone thought was so silly, they went away. Like Nigel said they would.”

  It was almost too much for Martin to process. “Who exactly does everyone think Nigel was?”

  Lane forced herself to smile, as if she was embarrassed by what she was about to say. “Think about it. I mean, he killed Felix. Good old Felix. And you know what they’re whispering to each other? That it was all part of some cosmic plan. They … they think he was God.”

  “What do you think?” Martin asked.

  Lane sniffled. “I think God is dead. And I think you may be in over your head, Martin Maple.”

  Placing down the block of wood, Martin stepped up to the entrance of the mine shaft and eased his head inside. The air felt delicate and appealingly warm. It was impossible to see anything. He wondered how far they had gotten before the ceiling crashed in on them.

  “We go back to work at noon,” Martin stated as he pulled his head out. “With or without you. I hope it’s with you.”

  Lane bit her top lip. Then, with regret tinging the words as soon as they came out of her mouth, she said, “It’s with me. As long as we’re on th
e same page. Kelvin didn’t understand the consequences. You do. There’s a difference.”

  —— 26 ——

  The Trust

  They all showed up. Whether it was fear or hope or some combination of both that got them didn’t matter to Martin. They were there, and they were ready. He regretted not having enlisted everyone sooner, but circumstances had been different when they’d started. Back then, Martin didn’t have such a grip on their trust.

  The exterior of the machine was basically complete, but Martin wanted it airtight. His first order of business was to weld all the cracks shut. What would have taken him days with Lane and Chet was accomplished in a matter of hours by a well-organized army of welders following Martin’s every command.

  Next came the interior, where there were gear trains to align and belts and fans to mount and sync, not to mention the knobs and levers and switches to attach. The work wasn’t drudgery, like hauling the machine back on the sleigh, and there was a healthy amount of curiosity among the workers.

  “What does this thingy do?” someone might ask.

  And Martin would hold up a gyroscope or a pendulum and he’d give them all a quick lesson in mechanics and physics and they would listen intently, as if he were telling the most riveting story imaginable.

  For nearly six weeks that was how things went. Outside, the air was cold, and flurries blew strong and sideways. Inside, they were cramped together, but they could move well enough, and the pace of their work kept them warm without requiring extra heaters. With Chet dead and Henry gone, there was little fresh meat and few veggies to go around, but Wendy could bake, and they had an adequate amount of packaged provisions to last them until the launch. They weren’t thinking much further than that.