by Bera, Ilia
I tried to speak, but he beat me to the punch again.
“Low mileage, no accidents—original owner never left Ilium, hated pets, and never smoked a cigarette in her life. What do you say we finish our drinks and take a look?” He leaned in close and raised his hand next to my ear. “We can even take it around the block. I won’t tell if you don’t.” He winked.
“I just got a new car, actually,” I said.
Crazy Dave’s expression dropped. “You did?” he asked.
“Maybe in a couple of years, when it’s time for an upgrade.” I forced a smile.
“Well, Ms Parker, it was nice chatting with you. I should probably pack it in for the night.”
I watched Crazy Dave return to his lonely booth of shattered dreams. When Crazy Dave was a child and his grandfather asked him what he wanted to be, did he say used car salesman?
CHAPTER FOUR
WELCOME TO THE MACHINE
The rest of that night is a blur, scattered in snippets, lost in a haze of drunken dreams.
I remember the bar’s bathroom, the cold tiles against my knees, the hard toilet seat against my arms.
I remember staggering to the bus stop. A man held me, stopping me from toppling to the ground. He did a bad job. I stumbled and hit the side of my face against the graffiti-marked glass.
I remember the smile from the man from upstairs with his hands on my hips. “I’m sorry,” he said to me with his deep voice. I remember the feeling on his hard chest against my face. I remember him laying in his bed, reciting the lyrics to Come Sail Away, the thick muscles of his arms flexing as he held me, played with my hair, caressed my body, undressed me—sadly, a dream.
I remember those bony hands guiding me towards my apartment and the smell of cheap cologne. I drunkenly broke away from his grasp towards my door, but he stopped me, spun me around, and looked into my eyes. The memory of his face is a blur—blurry yellow teeth, awkward blurry body. A warm plume of humid breath against my skin. The smell of garlic yam fries, cheap beer, and cheaper cigarettes. I remember his lips against mine—thin, dry—aggressive, like a suckerfish gasping for air. I remember throwing up all over the suckerfish’s chest.
I remember the man from upstairs, his strong arms holding me tight. He rolled on top of me and spread my arms out, pinning them at my sides. I remember his laugh, and his stubble tickling my chin as we kissed. His bulge pressed against my inner-thigh. His heart beat against my chest—another dream, unfortunately.
The next morning, my brain throbbed against my skull. The sun was a twenty thousand watt stage light, blasting through my window, through my closed eyelids.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
My phone alarm was shouting at me from a hidden location. It was louder than I knew possible, as if it had been plugged into the speaker system at a Who concert.
The smell a hint of cigarettes and cheap scotch still lingered on my body. I could still taste those papery lips—cheap beer and garlic yam fries…
I ran to the bathroom and hugged the cool porcelain. Never again.
My TV had been left on, still displaying the message: Are you still watching? It was time to make my decision.
No.
I would not like to watch my life slowly spiral down the toilet, to a place with all the shit and piss and used car emporiums and summers at Morgan Insurance. I’m not some helpless bug in the gutter, trapped inside a candy wrapper.
I put on the news as I dug through my closet. Hidden under a pile of dresses I never wore was my hiking bag. It was nearly a decade old, and so was the tag that was still on it. I going to fly to India after school, take the train across the country, and hike the mountains of Nepal. My first big adventure, the first of many.
I chickened out. The trip would have eaten up all my savings. I would have been left with nothing.
News playing in the background, I cut off the tag. Maybe I couldn’t afford Nepal, but that wouldn’t stop me from having an adventure.
I stuffed the hiking bag with everything I could think to stuff it with. My throbbing head was only a minor inconvenience that morning. If anything, it was the final motivation I needed to finally go out and do something—anything.
As I stuffed my bag, I listened to the news.
A local farmer was convinced aliens had been visiting his fields. He stared into the lens of the camera and yelled, unsure of whether or not the camera could hear him.
“Do they come down in flying saucers?” asked the interviewer.
“Flying—what are you on about?” the farmer said.
“Have you seen their spaceships?”
“No, there ain’t no damn saucers or teapots or any of that nonsense.”
“How do you know that these people are aliens?”
“Have you been listening to a damn word? They aren’t no people! They’re aliens. I’ve seen three of ‘em. One of ‘em looked like a big old cat. Big old black cat, like you see at the zoo. Yellow eyes, black fur, and big old teeth—like a panther cat. Saw another one the other day. Looked just like a man—all covered in orange hair. Son of a bitch must have been eight-feet tall.”
“Like an orangutan?”
“An orangu-what now?” I turned the TV off.
Bag packed, I left. My usual bus stopped across the street, filled to capacity with empty, expressionless souls. The little nook between the two businessmen where I would normally cram my body would stay vacant. The bus rumbled away and the street became quiet.
I started towards the great forest behind Ilium.
CHAPTER FIVE
INTO THE WILD
I had no plan.
I had no idea what I wanted to accomplish out into those woods. It was an impulse—an impulse I’d pushed away for years. Something called to me, and I don’t mean a voice, or some radio transmission.
Everyone’s heard the voice: the voice that said to put the Sea Monkeys in the microwave; the voice that told us to dig for treasure under the rosebushes.
There had to be adventure still in the world. Not just timeshares in Tampa, investment portfolios, benefits packages, three-speed vacuum cleaners, r fixed-interest rate mortgages, Christmas bonuses, suburbs, white picket fences, HBO subscriptions, IKEA summer catalogues, ergonomic chairs, Meatloaf Mondays and Taco Tuesdays…
I refused to believe that Ilium was it. There had to be more out there—and who knows? Maybe it was on the other side of those mountain?
The woods were cold and the treetops made the cloudy sky invisible. Gobs of rainwater fell from drooping branches, splashing into the ankle-deep mud. Heavy plumes of grey mist lingered between the ancient oak trunks.
Songbirds sang to the metronome of the groaning trees. Occasional breaks in the treetops gave me direction; able to see the peaks of the distant mountains, I knew I was still headed in the right direction. The woods became silent, the rain stopped. Suddenly dry, I knew I’d ventured far from Ilium.
My first major obstacle came in the form of a steep ledge. Carefully, I planted my feet down on the thick roots that protruded from the mossy dirt, and I climbed up to a sunny clearing. I could feel the sun’s rays lift the moisture from my clothes—the first sunlight I’d seen in months.
To the north I could see the mountains, to the south, the grey smudge of rain and pollution of Ilium. Tall smokestacks made Ilium resemble the Titanic—rotting and rusting on the ocean floor, while the ghosts of her passengers still aimlessly walked the sunken halls.
In my bag I packed a bag of rice, a flashlight, two boxes of meal-replacement bars, a sleeping bag, two water bottles, a small tent, some toiletries, and a change of clothes. Sitting on in the clearing, I pulled out a meal-replacement bar.
I didn’t rest long. With my snack finished, I continued racing the sun.
Past the clearing, a deep valley divided me from my destination. There was no way around it. Carefully, I scaled down the steep rocky ledge into the ancient depths.
The valley was damp, dark, and silent—no singing birds, no babb
ling brooks. Dead and dying trees arched and lurched overhead—contorted skeletons, frozen in the eternal night of the forgotten piece of wilderness. Only my thoughts were audible between the groaning of the dying valley.
The valley had no shortage of obstacles, including small, deep valleys of its own, difficult to navigate as their ledges were coated in slippery mud. Slipping, I caught onto a root. My bag wasn’t so lucky. It plummeted down, into the dark depths.
Finding my way into the pit was a challenge. Finding my bag was the real challenge. My eyes took fifteen minutes to adjust before I could find my fallen belongings. Somehow, my bag lodged itself between two rotten logs. I reached for it. As I did, something with more legs than I cared to count scurried across my hand.
“Jesus!” I screamed.
Reaching for my bag a second time, I noticed a small red welt on my hand. At first it was itchy, then it became sore. I didn’t think much of it—I didn’t feel anything bite me, after all. Maybe my hand brushed up against a patch of poison ivy at some point.
Out of the pit, I continued towards my destination. Then, I saw a familiar, contorted tree—then another, then another. Was I going in circles?
My head became light and my skin became cold. My heart fluttered. I didn’t know which way the mountains were. I didn't know which way Ilium was.
I stumbled; my legs were weak. My knees hit the mossy forest floor and a sharp pain shot through my body. Through hazy eyes, I looked down at the little red welt on my hand.
It was now a swollen violet lump, throbbing, infected.
My face hit the ground and the forest receded into a black abyss.
CHAPTER SIX
THE VALLEY OF THE DYING
They say you see a light when you’re dying. And all of your dead relatives are there waiting to give you warm hugs, and your childhood dog runs up and licks your face and everything is happy and perfect and there’s ice cream.
There’s no light, no dead grandparents, no Mr. Muffins—just cold, black silence—total silence, save for a voice, reminding you of all the things you didn’t accomplish, the experiences you never had, the opportunities you passed for short-term comforts. The voice of regret.
Regret had a face—a familiar face, a nameless face. The man from upstairs’ face. Why didn’t you just talk to him?
His warm hand slipped under my neck and he smiled. He gently kissed my lips, tickling my face with his stubbly chin. He came to save me—but how did he find me? How did he know where I was? He pulled a warm blanket over my body. “You’re okay,” he said.
“I’m alive?” I asked.
“Yes.” He nodded and smiled.
“Kiss me again,” I said.
“What?” he said.
“Kiss me. Please.”
He was silent. I didn’t understand—why wasn’t he responding? What did I say? I reached up and placed my hand on the side of his face and let it sink down, running my fingertips along his abs.
“Open your eyes,” he said.
A girl with long blonde hair stared down at me. I couldn’t tell if she was a child or an adult. Her green cargo jacket was far too big for her little body. Who was she?
“Can you see me?” she asked.
“Huh? Yeah,” I said. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the woods—about twenty miles from Ilium.”
Something squeezed my hand. It was her hand. Why was she squeezing my hand? I didn’t have to ask. “You were bitten by a wolf spider. A baby wolf spider, by the looks of it,” she said. “They’re everywhere out here. Pretty dumb place to go for a hike, if you ask me,” the girl said. She pulled away her hand to check my wound. Between our hands was a small bundle of thin, scraggly roots. The swelling of the spider bite had gone down. “It’s meadow lily root. It can neutralize venom—temporarily, anyway,” she said. Her long hair rested on my chest as she reapplied the plant to my wound. “Long enough to get you out of here.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I make sure I know what can kill me before going out into the wilderness.” She didn’t look at me.
“Is that how you found me?” I asked.
She ignored the question. “Can you sit up?” she said.
I sat up and a bout of nausea fluttered through my body.
“Don’t throw up on me, please,” she said.
I looked towards the girl—towards my saviour. I didn’t know how she found me, but damn was I lucky she did.
“Thank you,” I said. “How can I repay you?”
“The kiss was plenty, thanks.”
My face quickly changed from green to red like a cheap Christmas ornament. “D—Did I—”
“You kissed me, yes. You told me that you wanted me so badly, and then you started to rub my belly. It was weird. Don’t do that again.”
“I—I’m sorry. I thought you—” I tried to say.
“I don’t care. It’s fine. You’re alive. You’re fine. Let’s get you back up to the surface. Think you can stand up?”
She helped me to my feet.
“C’mon,” she said, releasing my hand and turning away. She walked into a patch of fog. “If the sun goes down, we’ll be stuck down here.”
I struggled to keep up. The only source of light in the valley was the fog’s ethereal glow.
“How did you find me down here?” I asked.
“I could hear you screaming. You were having a fever dream. Fevers are common with spider bites. Watch your step.” As she said it, I tripped over a root and fell on my face. She pulled me up with impressive strength, considering she was so young and small. “I’m starting to think you just want to hold my hand.”
I couldn’t see past my knees through the low-lying fog. I didn’t know how the hell she could.
We came upon a tall, steep ledge. She stopped and helped me up.
As we emerged from the forest valley, the sun was creeping below the mountain horizon, one hundred different shades of pink and orange. The mountain range was a black silhouette. We stopped in a clearing.
“Jesus. What are you carrying around in that thing?” she asked, dropping my bag down.
“Um—a tent, a sleeping bag, water bottles, a bag of rice—”
“A bag of rice? Why the hell are you carrying around a bag of rice? Who carries around a bag of rice?”
“You can get a lot of meals out of a bag of rice. I saw it in a movie.”
The girl zipped open my bag and began to throw aside my things.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You said you had a tent. I’m setting up the tent.” She tossed my bag of rice aside.
“Hey—I need that.”
“There’s no way I’m lugging a bag of rice for twelve hours, tomorrow.”
“What?” I asked.
“It’s a twelve hour hike back to town, and believe me when I say that you’re going to feel like you’ve got the worst hangover of your life in the morning—once that venom runs its course.” She pulled out the tent and started setting it up. “Gather up some wood for a fire—nothing damp. The dryer, the better.”
A sharp pain stung the back of my head as I stood up. I tried to muffle the throbbing pain with my hand.
“The headache might take a day or two to pass,” the girl said casually.
“How do you know so much about this stuff?” I asked again, hoping for a less sarcastic response.
She continued to set up the tent. “I was the leader of my girl scouts’ group,” she said.
“Are you from Ilium?”
“Yeah.”
“Aren’t your parents going to worry if you don’t come home tonight?” I asked.
She stopped and narrowed her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know whether your parents were expecting you home or—”
“—I’m twenty-nine, for your information,” she snapped, still scolding me.
Twenty-nine? She looked fifteen. I didn’t know why she was so angry. If I had
genes like that, I wouldn’t be upset. “What’s your name?”
“Maddy,” she said.
“When did you graduate?”
“Why?” Why? Why dodge that question?
“We were probably in some of the same classes in high school.” Ilium only had a single high school.
