The Edge of Madness Cafe (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 2)

by Mark Reynolds

  Then again, it might not.

  Hammerlock had found an Indian blanket for him along with a thermos of coffee to ward off the cold. The robot had also built a fire in an old oil drum, a vagabond’s beacon burning silently in the night. But Jack preferred the dark, lit only by the screen and the passing moon, constant and full. For the moon, time did not pass here on the edge of madness. Maybe it passed for no one. Maybe he was simply reliving the same day over and over, trying to get it right—or simply refusing to let it go while it was wrong.

  Oversight likened the Wasteland to Purgatory. Not Hell because in Hell you were attended to. In the Wasteland, you were forgotten. Like time, or the face of the moon, or the derelict machines that served as mute witnesses while slowly rusting away, becoming one with the world of dust.

  Nothing lasts forever; not even here.

  Sleep crept over him like a shadow. He caught himself once on the verge of nodding off, and snapped his head back violently to pour out yet another hard-won paragraph. But it happened again, head dipping, fingers slowing. A part of him yearned for it; sleep a sweet reprieve, a chance to dream.

  Sometimes he saw Ellen.

  Sometimes.

  They were no closer in dreams. No closer to freeing her. No closer to freeing himself.

  But the sweetness of the deception, while short-lived, was its own reward.

  Jack’s head tipped forward, chin nearly on his chest, and the will to resist failed. His fingers slipped from the keys like things made of rags, and his eyelids became too heavy and hard to open.

  He long ago stopped seeing what was in front of him.

  * * *

  Ellen read until sunset, stopping long enough to turn on a light, and twice more to use the bathroom. She had already finished a pot of Serena’s specially blended tea, and was using up the last of it on a second.

  Nothing lasts forever.

  The second pot of tea went down faster than the first; the distraction meant to keep her from falling asleep had the opposite effect. She found herself reading and rereading the same page from The Sanity’s Edge Saloon, some passages read four or five times without any recollection, her eyes losing their ability to focus, mind unable to concentrate.

  Finally she surrendered, turning off the light and walking in darkness to her bedroom.

  Through the open window, Ellen could still hear activity up on the roof: Jasper’s ongoing project.

  It would work. Against all reason, against all common sense, Jasper’s flying contraption—her Dreamline—would work. It would work because Jack’s reality was starting to take hold.

  There were other realities than this one, other worlds she had known, remembered only in disjointed glimpses. There was Jack’s old reality, the one they shared briefly at the Sanity’s Edge before she understood her feelings for him, before Jack sacrificed himself to save her. And there were the hazy frames of reality from before that, long wondrous rides aboard hallucinogenic trains inter-stitched with black ice come-downs that saw her in rehab, in jail, in an asylum, blood under her nails—sometimes hers, sometimes not. And of course, this reality, this strange plane once so normal, so plain, so numbing, which was revealing itself to be anything but. Her neighbor’s slow-witted grandson was an aerodynamics savant; her boss an enigma with a shadowy past; an insane garbageman; a dead shrink concealing secret desires. So many realities, what was one more?

  Jack had given up everything to make sure she was not forgotten, not abandoned to the emptiness of the Wasteland. No one else cared about her the way he did.

  Through the fog of memories, her distant and hazy past that existed with no more solidity than passages read from a book, there was that single, common thread. If she disappeared tomorrow, scarcely a handful of people would be left behind who might even acknowledge her absence, casual acquaintances that knew little if anything about her. They would miss her out of politeness, but little more. And after a short time, the hole she left behind would be filled, and she would disappear completely, forgotten in memory as readily as she was forgotten by reality.

  All except for Jack. Jack would always remember her. He had never forgotten even when she doubted his existence, started to forget, believed in the façade of this world, this reality. Jack remained her salvation.

  Her apartment sweltered in the breezeless night, the day’s wind disappearing as if the world had simply stopped, forgotten to move, or maybe just fallen asleep, everything still and sticky and grasping. She peeled off her clothes, leaving them where they fell before dropping naked upon the coolness of the bed. She did not bother with the sheet; it was too hot. She simply lay there, feeling the thick night air settle over her.

  Sleep came easily; blame the tea. Sprawled atop the coolness of her bed, she surrendered to the exhaustion and the dreams and the insistent darkness, its touch feather-light against her bare skin, soft as an imagined breeze.

  Somewhere on the far side of the river, across a night sea as cold as winter ice, was a café on the edge of an unbounded desert where night winds blow cool and constant, and dreams exist for the taking.

  * * *

  From the confines of Ellen Monroe’s closet, behind a sparse collection of seldom-worn outfits hung carelessly on wire hangers, Gusman Kreiger emerged, passing silently into the darkness of Ellen’s bedroom from places darker still.

  The staff was the first thing to appear, a jagged line of blue-white like the briefest flash of moonlight on chrome, leading him through the dark. It was growing stronger, once more drawing power. Old as it was, separated from the Nexus and replaced by Jack with something of the Caretaker’s own devising, it still functioned—not well, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. The power in the staff grew as the worlds turned, drawing ever closer to the Nexus and the Caretaker, the point of convergence when Ellen would learn of her true self and her place in reality, and finally flee this world in favor of greener pastures offered elsewhere. The old focal lens he had stolen from Jack’s predecessor—stolen right off the roof of Algernon’s idiotic saloon before chasing the man into that other reality and killing him—was again drawing power from the Nexus. It would never again prove sufficient to brace a Caretaker, but it might be enough to find a way out. All he needed was for Ellen to lead; a dreamer capable of flying might follow her while the way lay open between this world and the next.

  Soon, he promised himself. Soon.

  He walked easily to Ellen’s bedside, footsteps as silent as moonlight, movements as gentle as a breeze. He drew the sheet up over her nakedness, considering her with a light, sardonic smile. “I gave you a kick-murder assassin, sexual savant, angel of death in biker leather. And in return, you give me a dream junkie with a sense of decency.”

  He was unconcerned that she might hear. She was far beyond the reach of his voice. The only one who might notice him was likely not paying attention; at least, not to the likes of him: Gusman Kreiger, the last of the Tribe of Dust, the upstart who dared overthrow the Caretakers and failed. Derelict. Lunatic. Cast Out.

  “You know who I mean, don’t you Jack?” he carried on. “We’ve traded places, you and I. Passed our souls around to each other like favorite books, shared bottles in discreet paper sacks. You haven’t forgotten, have you? She was a child born knowing, raised from the dust and kissed with my knowledge. She could kill you in the blink of an eye, or love you enough in a single night to last a lifetime. A dark angel with eyes you couldn’t help but surrender to, even if you didn’t trust them, and a body that hugged leather like a second skin. She made all of you pause, made you question your convictions. That was what I sent to you. That is what you took from me. And what do I get in return? An innocent heart and a dreamer’s stare, a waif’s body with smallish breasts and mousy hair whose only functional talent seems to be her unswerving faith in you; a belief in what has no basis to be believed in.”

  He looked upon her, Ellen’s sleep-tousled hair covering her forehead and hanging over her face, though too deep in dreams to notice. Kreige
r thought the shape of her eyes pleasing, but more than that, he would not concede. He finally shook his head in reproach. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you to share?”

  The Sanity’s Edge Saloon sat at her bedside. He picked it up, examining it in the darkness. Jack’s book; reality’s late edition that left him trapped, powerless, a victim of this mind-numbing world made to suffer all manner of indignities. It was Ellen’s most prized possession, her only physical link with the Caretaker, cherished as a holy relic or lost love’s keepsake.

  Kreiger looked around, struck briefly by the sensation that he was being watched, even baited. Was it possible? He had put down the watchers, skewered them like animals and stolen their dreams, consuming them to heighten his own awareness. And the avatars would not concern themselves with the likes of him; a small thing in a small world, beneath their notice.

  But such assurances failed to allay his fears. He nearly put Jack’s book back where he found it, afraid it might be a trap he could not yet fathom; once bitten, twice shy. His hands and legs were laced with scars from his last misstep with the Caretaker.

  He paused, stretching out his senses, listening to the universe, to the rhythm of the sounds buried in the silence. But no one was watching; no one cared enough to. He was very much alone, abandoned.

  And the need to know eventually overruled his misgivings.

  He eyed the cover, trying to peer through to the words within. But while he could shred the walls of this reality, the book thwarted him, too complicated for such methods. Still, it did concern him. Perhaps Jack left some kind of message in it for him. Maybe that was the point of the book all along. Maybe it had never been intended for Ellen at all.

  You don’t really believe that, do you?

  He should not pass up the opportunity to avail himself of Jack’s secrets. The Caretaker would never talk to him directly, and his signs were vague and largely subjective. Maybe it was high time he learned how Jack’s mind really worked.

  And fuck him if he didn’t like it. It was his fault for leaving the book in the care of someone like Ellen Monroe.

  Ellen Monroe.

  Kreiger reached down and smoothed the hair away from her eyes—eyes darting furtively beneath closed lids, locked in dreams; about whom, Kreiger could likely guess. She has very pretty eyes.

  A soft moan escaped her as she slept, a thin, charming sound that endeared her to him.

  Kreiger jerked back his hand, retreating as if from a dangerous animal, or an open flame. Clever, Jack. Very clever. He backed away, never taking his eyes from her as he retreated to the window, perching on the sill as neatly as a raven over the doorframe, and opened Jack’s book to the moonlight.

  And there in the darkness, he began to read.

  And after a time, he began to understand.

  And Ellen he left to her dreams.

  * * *

  It began as it always did, the repetition of a path worn over time, a rude verisimilitude, a feeble attempt at imitating a life Ellen Monroe had not lived, … but might one day. Again she stood on the roof’s edge, looking down an impossible distance into a thick, swirling bank of clouds that hid all reality from her: the building, the city, the thick coils of the surrounding river all displaced.

  It must be a dream.

  Her feet bare, toes curled over the edges of the stone, her body a naked cross, the stance of a diver preparing to make a leap of faith. The cold against the soles of her feet made them ache, and the chill wind boiling the clouds below her raised gooseflesh across her bare skin.

  Only a dream. Otherwise the wind would tear her from this precarious stance and fling her into the air like a scrap of paper. Just a dream. Dream wind. Dream roof. Dream Ellen.

  So jump, she thought. It won’t get any easier than this. The thing about dreams is how easy it is to change the rules; reality is seldom so forgiving, but dreams are all about forgiveness. As is Jack. And Ellen knew that somewhere, far away from this place and this world, Jack waited for her. Each needed the other desperately, a codependence that should have been worked out in therapy, but wasn’t, and now they were all each other had. And what he expected of her, she still wasn’t sure. She wondered absently if she would ever know for certain.

  You’ll know. When you find Jack, you’ll know.

  She leaned forward, gravity doing the rest. The world fell away beneath her, releasing her into the air, entrusting her to fate. Sinking into the thickening clouds, she felt them slow her descent. One moment falling, the next drifting, until finally she was flying through the ether with the practiced grace of a bird taking wing. She knew where she was going this time. No more distractions, no sea creatures or night-fishing cats or ghost ships, no long slow forays across the Wasteland, looking through windows upon times past and times that never were. She knew where she needed to go.

  Would he be expecting her?

  She moved with the speed of thought, the speed of dreams, the clouds becoming ocean, falling becoming flying becoming floating. Bubbles curled gently along her skin, the caress of ghost fingers against her back and neck. Gravity somersaulted, her descent now a climb towards the surface, directions meaningless. Ahead of her—below her? in front of her? over her?—a light separated itself from the watery darkness, growing larger, brilliant and alluring, spreading across her field of vision, both blinding and beautiful.

  Reaching into the light, she felt the world fall away around her like a thin liquid membrane, a mantel of water drawn up from the surface as she pushed higher and higher into the air. Finally it surrendered, falling like old skin, releasing her just as the wind and clouds had released her.

  She stood upon sand as fine as dust, brilliant white and warm against the soles of her feet. Sunlight blazed down upon her, agonizingly bright, forcing her to squint and shield her eyes. Where the wind once turned her skin to gooseflesh, the heat now made her body prickle with pinpoints of sweat. She was standing upon the edge of a junkyard, its features never quite there, objects appearing and disappearing, existing on the periphery then disappearing when she turned her attention on them, shimmers of heat, indistinct or nonexistent, hallucinations, ghosts. There was a defunct amusement park ride shaped like a tall rocket ship, its metal surface stripped of most of its paint by the sun, the sand, and the wind. Lobster traps were left lying about, soul cages empty and waiting to be thrown back into the sea. A windmill turned lazily, neglected gears and rusted shafts squeaking softly. The bones of an enormous dinosaur, or perhaps a whale, lay half-buried in the sand where the creature rested for its final time. Chevies and Fords from the era of classic muscle cars lay abandoned, decaying, ruined hulks rusting into powder and memories. A red pickup sat in the shade of the Buck Rogers rocket, the paint old and faded, the truck’s skin bruised with dents, blemished where the sun had burned through to primer and even bare steel, a wound rubbed raw and painful. But it looked roadworthy, as if someone had cared for it. The axles were raised to accommodate heavier tires, the kind of truck a teenage boy would like before he discovered girls. Powerful saurian legs replaced the back tires, the gate descending into a stout lizard’s tail; moving through the dream, she did not find this unusual.

  She saw someone sitting in the truck’s bed, hunched over something on his lap. The sun, brightly reflected off the whiteness of the sand, the bare metal of the rocket, the web-fractured windshields of the derelicts cars, blinded her, eyes tearing as she strained to make out the features of the person in the truck, the details of his face. But she didn’t really need to see him to know who it was. She had felt it from the moment she laid eyes on him, a tingling in the base of her spine, a deep thrill in her chest, an urge in her throat to laugh or cry without knowing which one or why.

  Jack!

  He sat cross-legged in the truck bed, writing on his laptop because it was what he did, what he was best at, what he was born to do. He wrote while he waited, and he waited for her.

  She stepped towards him, joining her shadow into his own. But when he spoke,
there was no trace of longing; his tone was simple conversation, polite interest about matters of little or no consequence, as though they had last spoken only that morning and not months before when they were torn from one another.

  “I understand you’re going to a tea party,” Jack said, looking up.

  “Yes. Serena invited me. She’s very nice … but strange.”

  Jack simply nodded. “Fate can be that way.”

  She waited for him to elaborate, but he never did, saying instead, “The problem with living in the land of the dead is that eventually death comes and asks you for your papers. He can’t abide the living in his realm. Stay away from the Garbageman.”

  More insensibilities.

  “You shouldn’t stay too long,” he added. “It only makes it harder.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t go.”

  He looked up, his face a mix of emotions. Ellen turned slightly, hands held behind her back, displaying herself. “Or maybe you could come back with me.”

  “Neither would work,” he said sadly. “You and I aren’t really here. You’re alone in your apartment. I’m alone in the Wasteland. It just happens that we’re both asleep and dreaming; our dreams are sharing a seat on the bus. But you’re still back in your bed, and I’m still here.”

  “So we should make the most of the time we have,” she suggested.

  “It’s an illusion,” he answered.

  “It’s a dream. Why should it end?”

  “Because it never truly began. The river still stands between us.”

  “As wide as the night-sea,” Ellen replied, beginning to understand.

  Jack nodded.

  A moment passed, empty and silent. It was a dream filled with a dream’s limitations, a dream’s inconsistencies. More than that, it was filled with hers. Jack was not really in front of her; she was in her head, the only place where Jack truly existed. He did not speak to her; his voice spoke out of a recording of the past, or some concoction of him that she invented. But he wasn’t really here.