The Only Ones
Page 21
“What’s going on?” Martin asked her.
She looked up at him with red eyes. “Sick … dying,” she said. “All of us. Back door is locked. And you cannot get your way past him.”
Under other circumstances, Martin would have stayed with them, but moans from the lobby compelled him to keep moving. If the hall was an omen, it was a subtle one. For in the lobby, Martin found a horror show.
Kids were draped over the wicker furniture or spread out on the floor like slaughtered animals. Most weren’t moving. The ones who were appeared pained by it, and they didn’t move much. They shifted their weight so they were in more comfortable positions and then they stopped completely.
Henry was the only one who appeared unaffected. He was standing in front of the table of snacks, which had been moved to block the front door. One of the floral-print shirts was wrapped around his mouth and nose like a mask, undoubtedly to block out the foul smells. With one hand, he wielded his knife. With the other, he scooped cups of water from an orange plastic cooler. Martin watched as Henry hurried through the room, setting cups next to the ailing and then returning to his guard post at the door.
Tiberia attempted to get up, and Henry raced over and pushed her back to the ground. Violence wasn’t needed. She was so weak that all he had to do was nudge her, and down she went.
On hands and knees, Martin struggled his way to Darla. She was sitting in a wicker chair, completely upright. In both her hands were cups of water. She held them on her thighs as if they were columns from some ancient temple.
“Are we …? What are we …?” Martin coughed the words out as he grabbed the arm of the chair and pulled his head up to the height of her armpit.
Darla’s face trembled, but she wouldn’t turn to look at him. “I can’t move,” she whispered. “I can’t feel a thing.”
It was then that Henry spotted him. “There you are,” he said, pointing the knife at Martin.
“Henry,” Martin pleaded. “Please help us.”
“I am helpin’ you,” Henry said. “Keepin’ you all hydrated. I just need to know where that other kid is.”
“Which other kid?”
“You know, the … little … the …” Henry tapped the wall with the back of the knife and the sound made Martin feel like he was jabbing the knife into his chest.
“Henry stole the … keys to …,” Darla said, but her voice trailed off.
“Probably asleep somewhere,” Henry finally said. “Like you’ll all be in a few. Doesn’t matter anyway. He can’t stop us alone.”
“What do you mean?” Martin asked. “What have you done, Henry?” Nearly everyone in the room was now unconscious, and those who weren’t remained frozen in place, their eyes staring in blank terror.
“Mushrooms,” Henry said. “Just like you told me. Put ’em in the stuffin’ and let everyone chow down. In a few hours, it’s nap time.”
“Mushrooms?” Martin asked. “Which type?”
“All types,” Henry said. “Whatever we could find. It’s called playin’ the odds, dummy. Don’t worry, you’ll all wake up tomorrow and you’ll start building another machine.”
“I don’t think you understand,” Martin mumbled. “You have to know what … each mushroom … does. Some could … could … kill a …” It felt like there were fingers over his mouth and the heel of a hand pushing up against his chin, trying to hold it shut.
Henry brushed him off and faced the crowd. In a voice that sounded more innocent than it should have, he said, “Sorry, guys, but this is the way I gotta say goodbye. That’s my dad out there. My dad. You understand that, right?”
Holding a hand to the side of his face in obvious embarrassment, he shielded his view of Darla, shoved the table to the side, and went out into the nighttime air, not even bothering to close the door behind him. Martin could hear him for longer than he could see him. The jangle of keys in Henry’s pocket indicated he had taken to a sprint.
Giving up wasn’t an option. Even though his muscles were clenching up and his ankle was swollen, Martin got on his belly and used his elbows to propel himself through the field of fallen bodies. Hacking as he went, he snaked his way through the inflatable palm trees toward the door. Each time he came upon someone, he checked to make sure the kid was still breathing. They all were. He placed his head to their chests and listened to their hearts. The hollow spaces between beats told Martin he didn’t have much time.
It might have taken an hour to reach the exit, or maybe only a few minutes. Martin’s brain was mud, and his eyes worked only well enough for him to see a blur of the door, so that was what he focused on. Prying it open with his elbow, he created enough space to slither through.
Outside, the glossy glaze retreated. Martin was given a single moment of clarity to watch the world’s fate unfold before him. There, in the middle of Town Square, was Kid Godzilla, coughing and spitting and ready to roll. It was sporting a tail made of thick chains, which were braided and attached to the base of the machine. Martin couldn’t see a trailer or even a set of skis below the machine. Still, the truck jolted and the pavement screeched as the machine was dragged behind it. A holler came from the driver’s seat.
“Make sure it’s moving back there, Hanky! This thing weighs more than a busload of nose tackles!”
Henry’s head hatched from the passenger-side window. “Keep it going, Daddy. It’s working. It’s not too far to the barge. We can make it.”
Sparks fanned out from the bottom of the machine as the convoy surged forward. Martin couldn’t move a muscle, let alone catch up. Stomach down, head tilted sideways, he could only watch as salvation screeched its way out of town.
Still, hope remained. Only he couldn’t hear it. Had Kid Godzilla not been running full bore, had the pavement been icy and slick, allowing the machine to glide soundlessly along, then he would have known that inside there had been a hum and a whir and a whistle. Now there was laughing.
Martin’s heart roared when he saw the evidence. The cracks and tiny holes in the shell of the machine had been filled and welded with due diligence, yet light still found its way through. Stiff threads of white sprouted from the base and moved up to the nose, until the entire thing twinkled like a galaxy. Gravity got its hands in and held the machine in place. It didn’t shake or spin or do anything but stay put and shine.
The chain tightened up as Kid Godzilla’s engine gave its all.
“Move, you hunka junk! Move!”
Like a mouth releasing rings of smoke, the machine shot a series of glowing billows into the air. There was goodness for a moment, happiness in Martin, even though he was nearly fifty yards away and his body had folded its cards. To see his creation persevere made him proud like a father might be proud. He didn’t care if he survived, as long as the machine made it. But as it released a final belch of light, the world went dark and the moment was gone.
The front wheels of the truck rose off the road; then it rocketed forward, yanking its massive captive by the chain.
The machine skipped along the surface a couple of bounces; then it crashed into the ground with a mighty wallop.
Howls rose from the fishtailing truck.
Martin tried to scream them down, but nothing came, not a sound.
The curtain fell on his eyes.
—— 40 ——
The Dream
Bubbles of light carbonated the sky. An umbrella of stars. The sea was flat, and the rowboat sliced it and turned the water over with the sound of pages flipped through by thumb.
When the sun came up, there was no fog. On the mainland, seagulls hot-stepped the roofs of cars and houses and lobster trawlers left to rot. Above the door to the Barnacled Butcher, Christmas lights were strung. Martin climbed from the rowboat and hurried down the dock. Inside the butcher shop, the kids of Xibalba were hung up by hooks, their stiff bodies encased in floral shirts. Their eyelids were drawn and they didn’t say a word. There was a scorching stink inside, so Martin escaped to the street.
A tiger emerged from the shadows of the stacks. There was a lobster in its mouth. It dropped the lobster and lunged at Martin, who dodged and slammed into the shelves. The books were launched into the air. When the books landed, they landed on their spines, stacked up, and built the walls of an intricate maze. The lobster led the way through the maze until the walls of books were walls of trees, and Martin was approaching a campfire.
Kelvin Rice sat by the campfire, a dollhouse in his lap. As he placed a bottle inside, he turned to Martin and said, “Oh God, don’t tell me you’re like him.”
“Like who?”
“Never mind,” he said. Then Kelvin pushed the dollhouse into the fire and Martin watched it crumble into embers.
When he looked up from the flames, Martin was no longer in the woods. He was by a campfire in the Ring of Penance. Keith and Henry were there too, poking at the burning logs with the muzzle of a rifle and the blade of a knife. At Martin’s feet, he found a series of letters written out in pebbles. They were the first initials of the names of all the kids from Xibalba. Without realizing what he was doing, Martin arranged burnt bits of wood into a message.
I’M SO SORRY.
“You built somethin’ powerful there. More powerful than you know,” Keith said, and he pointed down the mountain to the river, where the machine was sitting on a barge, shooting rings of light into the sky.
Martin sprung to his feet and sprinted down the mountain. In no time, he was in Chet’s backyard, then in his house, where he found a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence and a scene both gruesome and surreal—Chet crushed beneath a giant peanut in the living room.
Through the living room window, Martin spied a marching band that had taken to the street to play a rouser of a tune. Trumpets and snares and fiddles ablaze. The band consisted entirely of the zombified kids of Xibalba. They looked exactly the same as they had in the butcher shop—floral-shirted, eyelids drawn. Only they were moving now, parading toward town.
Martin left the house and joined them in their march, but they halted when they reached a sign that read ZOMBIES KEEP OUT, NO BRAINS HERE. They would go no farther. Still, Martin soldiered on, and Trent, Tiny Trent, provided him with a sound track in the form of a buzzing kazoo.
Alone in Xibalba, Martin visited the church and the bowling alley and the movie theater. Nothing had burned, but nothing was occupied. Xibalba was a ghost town, no different than the ones he’d encountered when he’d first left his island. It frightened him beyond words, so he decided to find solace in the forest. He proceeded to a trail. He followed it to the mine shaft.
Guarding the mine’s entrance was Felix, clothed in a glimmering jacket made from firefly lightbulbs. “Use the string,” he told Martin. In the middle of Felix’s forehead was a perfectly round hole, and out of the hole came a string. The string was taut and it led straight into the mine. Martin held the cotton between his thumb and forefinger and he followed it, zigzagging through the tunnel of puddles and stone.
Ahead of him he heard the voice of Darla: “Everyone was gone and if it had been a dream, then I would have known it was a dream and pinched myself awake ’cause it was all so crazy. But I was awake and afraid and alone.”
And he heard the voice of Marjorie: “This was supposed to be the meeting place if we got lost, for me and Daddy and Kitten. All of us, together for once.”
And he heard the voice of Lane: “Thought it would have at least burnt us to a crisp, Captain. But you didn’t have the guts, did you?”
He didn’t see any of them. The string only led him to a glowing door. On the door, there was a message, written in fire:
Greetings, Martin! Come in.
Have a seat in the living room.
You will find the red chair to be lovely.
In Nigel’s living room, Martin sat in the red chair and waited. The dogs and cats and goats and pigs swirled through the room in organic chaos and then dropped to their bellies one by one. When they all were lying down, someone entered the room.
It wasn’t Nigel. It was Martin’s father. He was accompanied by a deer, a live deer. He approached his son cautiously.
“What happened on the Day?” Martin asked him.
“I think you know that,” his father said to him as he stroked the back of the deer.
“I don’t think I do. Why don’t you tell me?”
“You used your machine,” he said matter-of-factly.
“No I didn’t,” Martin said just as the tears started coming. “I was on the island, waiting for you. It was my eleventh birthday, and you were supposed to be home. But you left, just like the rest of them.”
“I left because you used your machine,” his father said again. “Not the one we built. The one you built. And you will keep using it and they will keep coming. There will be more and more of them, until the place becomes a theme park.”
“I don’t understand. I never understand anything you say. Why me? Why us? Why were we left behind? Why were we the only ones?”
“Because it couldn’t have happened any other way,” his father said. Then he leaned in and hugged his son and his chest covered Martin’s eyes and splashed darkness over his world.
Bubbles of light carbonated the sky. An umbrella of stars. The sea was flat, and the rowboat sliced it and turned the water over with the sound of pages flipped through by thumb.…
—— 41 ——
The Bottle
On a nightstand, by his bed, Martin saw little bits of metal—copper handles and thumbtacks and bolts. There was also a line of tiny bottles, nine in all, warped and blistered brown. Next to the nightstand, a series of medical machines beeped. Or they clicked. A couple flickered.
“He’s awake,” Darla squealed.
The rumble of a generator filled the room and tickled Martin’s muscles through the mattress. He couldn’t sit up. He could only lift his head to see Darla bouncing excitedly on her knees in a chair at the foot of the bed.
“Yeehaw!” she hooted. “Martin Maple. Back from the dead!” Wild and loose-limbed, she came at him and kissed him all over the face.
The sheets were tight, and he wished that he could push or kick them loose, but he was far too weak. He turned his head and gave her a cheek to assault. On the floor, he saw extension cords and wrinkled balloons. Outside was a leafy flutter, but he couldn’t feel any breeze, because the windows were closed.
“Am I …?” he whispered.
“Hospital, room 112,” Darla said, backing away and catching her breath. “Your home for almost three months. Man, is it good to hear your voice. Or to hear it outside of your crazy dream world. You wouldn’t wake up, but you kept mumbling those same questions, over and over again. Hope you found your answers.”
For now, Martin needed only one answer. “How?”
“You got here like we all did,” Darla said. “Trent and his mom. Thank God that kid doesn’t like stuffing. But I mean, really, what kind of weirdo doesn’t like stuffing?”
Martin rubbed his face and pulled together his last waking memories. “That night. He was …?”
“In the machine, bringing his mom back,” Darla replied. “Flipping switches and cranking cranks, like he’s doing right now. Kid pays attention.”
“But Henry and …?”
“They couldn’t even get past the bowling alley, the amateurs,” Darla said, laughing. “Once Trent summoned his mom, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber got all freaked out and ran into the woods. We haven’t seen them since.”
“They’re still … out there?”
“Lots of people are out there,” Darla said. “ ’Cause lots of them
can’t handle it. Not our concern. We summon them. Hopefully they learn to deal.”
“Y-you …?” Martin stuttered. “I’m … I’m sorry, but what … what … has been happening?”
“Tons,” Darla said. “Dr. Bethany was lucky enough to get the combination to Tiberia’s safe before the big girl went all comatose. Then the doc got us all on medicine, got us healthy, and most were up and at ’em in a week or two, saving the world. You, Martin Maple, were a heckuva lot more stubborn.”
“Three months?” Martin shook his head. “But … everyone’s okay?”
“Well,” Darla sighed, “when you’re feeling up to it, I’ll show you around.”
For the next two days, Martin worked hard at recovery, to prove that he was feeling up to it. Dr. Bethany, a small and stern woman, visited him every couple of hours to take his vital signs and ask him questions. She was shocked to find that Martin could stay awake for long stretches and that he had a big enough appetite to eat three full meals a day, considering he’d been fed by a tube and a syringe for the past three months. His body was weak, but his motivation made up for it. He shunned all visitors for fear that they would only encourage him to rest. He needed to get up and see for himself what had happened out there.
Three days after he woke, Martin pleaded with Dr. Bethany to release him for a quick tour of town. She relented but wanted him back in bed in a few hours.
“Not everything at once,” Dr. Bethany advised Darla as the two hoisted Martin into a wheelchair. Darla flashed her the OK, then swept an arm across the nightstand, knocking the little bottles and bits of metal into a shoe box.
“What are those for?” Martin asked.
“Had a scavenger hunt at your old place,” Darla said as she slipped the box onto a shelf beneath the seat of the wheelchair. “Thought we’d dig up something you could use. Hope you don’t mind, but we also picked your pockets. Found a piece of paper with an address on it. Sorry, but I haven’t had a chance to get to that place yet. You tell me what’s there, and when I’m out that way, I’ll fetch it.”