7.11
Cole had never ridden on a Harley, as far as he could remember. He had no idea what model this was, or how old it might be. But it was clean and seemed to be well-maintained, and had saddlebags in which they could pack their meager belongings, including the food that Vince had given them. It wasn't much, that extra food, but it didn't need to be. A couple of last fall's apples. Some jerky. Water. A small bottle of what Vince called "fortifier," which Cole assumed was some nasty tasting form of alcohol. They were only an hour's drive or so from Boothbay. A straight shot south on 27. They'd be there before nightfall. And there would be more help, and more food, when they arrived. As long as Cole didn't have one of his damned "hops" while riding on the back of a motorcycle going sixty miles an hour, they'd be okay.
"I've put the word out, Stranger," said Vince to Cole, handing him the key to the Harley. Sam and Pauly stood slightly behind him on either side, looking down toward the ground. Dizzy had disappeared into the house. "The electrical grid's a bit flighty here these days, but many of the Church folk have generators and ham radios, and the cell system is still pretty robust. Helps to be so near the coast, where a few of the rich folk still hang out." He glanced at Stan, then back to Cole. "Things're better here than most places, I expect."
Cole passed the key on to Stan and reached out to shake Vince's hot, sweaty hand. "Thanks, Vince," he said, smiling gently. "We'll get this bike back to you just as soon as we can. Your President will appreciate how you've helped us."
Vince held Cole's eye. "Wish it had a full tank, Sir," he said. "We didn't know you were coming. Here... I mean." He looked down at the ground, as if was disrespectful to stare at their savior.
"So your Church is active in these parts, I take it," said Stan, inserting the key into the ignition and pulling his sunglasses out of his shirt pocket. He gestured toward the leather bag hanging on the side of the Harley where his pistol was stored. "Can your people help us out with... you know... thieves and such? Or am I going to need that gun?"
"Highwaymen, Mr. Walsh? Brigands? There are some, but we Church folk try to maintain some sense of law and order in this county. The Burners are getting more active around here, but they don't bother the rest of us."
"Burners?" asked Cole.
"Pastor Clinton's Church," explained Vince. "Bunch of morons, if you ask me, burning things down like that. No doubt you've heard the good Pastor on the TV."
Cole nodded. "Just a bit," he said.
"So there's not much danger on the road?" asked Stan, cutting in.
Vince shrugged. "Nowhere near as much as you might expect," he said. "In any case, yeah, we'll be helping with that too. There's a couple of young men down Wiscasset way already out patrolling the road between here and there. We're lining up a couple more. We'll clear the road for you, don't you worry."
Stan bowed his head in appreciation. "My thanks to you all," he said. He wiped the heat and humidity from his face and neck with a handkerchief he kept in his pocket.
"And there's somebody to meet us in Boothbay Harbor, you say?" asked Cole.
"Ken Swathers,” said Vince. “Pauly just raised him on the radio. He'll meet you at the Thieving Seagull Cafe on McFarland point, like I showed you on the map. Got a place down on Pig Cove. Put you about as close as you can get to Squirrel Island without being in a boat. Nice guy, too. You'll like him."
Cole glanced up at the late afternoon sun, then at the Harley, before returning his attention to Vince. "You folks need to get going, I know," said Vince.
Cole sighed heavily. "I sure wish I knew as much about what's going on as you seem to, Vince," he said. "I mean... I appreciate the help and all. I'd just prefer to know what it is you're helping me to do."
Vince chuckled softly. "Maybe that would just get in your way, Stranger. Knowing, I mean. Seems like sometimes we get where we're headed more quickly when we follow our guts rather than our heads, if you know what I mean."
"You said I'm not from around here," said Cole, finally asking the question foremost in his mind. "Do you mean...?"
Vince glanced up at the sky, then back to Cole, raising his eyebrows in amusement. "Is it really so hard to believe, Sir?" he asked. "After all you've seen?"
Cole frowned, thinking back over all the strange things he had seen. "It's just that..." Cole shrugged, looking Vince straight on. "I'm just me, you know? I'm not some..."
Vince laughed again. "'He'll find his way in the end, as he always has,'" he quoted. "That's what the book says, Stranger. It's just as it has to be. You are the Wayfaring Stranger, after all." Vince looked back down at the ground underfoot, clearly embarrassed to have spoken so boldly. The back door slammed and they all looked up to see Dizzy running around the corner to the front yard, their dog, Bullet, now as friendly as could be, loping happily behind her.
"Stranger!" called Dizzy as she ran. In her hand she carried a piece of paper, rolled up like a scroll. She came to a stop in front of Cole and held out the paper, glancing for only a moment at the man before her. "This is for you, Sir," she said, catching her breath.
Cole took the scrolled sheet, tied with a length of red ribbon. "What is it?"
"It's from a coloring book I got last summer at Church School," she said. "It's your picture."
Curious, Cole slipped the ribbon off the end of the scroll and unfurled it. It was a page from a comic book, sure enough, one obviously photocopied many times, and bound at home by hand. At the top was the legend, "The Wayfaring Stranger Loves Animals." And underneath, a crude line drawing suitable for coloring, depicting a man who, when you already knew the connection, looked just like Cole, and who was kneeling next to, and scratching the neck of, a dog that looked just like Bullet.
7.12
"It's a beautiful day here in Augusta, Maine, boys and girls," intoned Mihos in his best radio voice as he steered the flying carpet high over the city. "Drive time temperatures in the upper-nineties and falling slowly, promising an evening low of eighty-five. Better get those sweaters out! And just look at that sunset. If you dip down into the physical, you'll get a good glimpse of that wonderful purple glow that hangs above the western horizon, courtesy of the uranium oxide left in the atmosphere from the nuking of Beijing. Whoever said apocalypse couldn't be beautiful, am I right?" Mihos stood near the leading edge of the carpet, his face to the wind, his anus waving back and forth in front of Dennis's muzzle as the dog sat in Grace's lap. He turned, smiled, and flashed his eyebrows. "You guys seen enough?" he asked.
"I have," said Emily. It was she who had requested that they go back to the beginning, a strategy she remembered from one of her favorite old movies. She held tightly to the edge of the carpet, a rectangle maybe four feet by six, just large enough to hold them all, shoulder to shoulder in sitting position, but far too closely packed for Emily's taste. The design was not classic Persian, as she had anticipated, but looked instead like a screen shot of a Pac Man game. Both the size and the design were jokes on Mihos' part, no doubt. But Emily was not yet sure what to think of the Son of Bast.
Emily glanced up at the Grid, the network of purples lines and bright stars that caged them in from horizon to horizon. "Can you get us through the Grid?" she asked.
Mihos spoke without turning around. "Not me, Nancy Drew," he said. He sat and flicked his tail back and forth. "I can get through, but there's no way I'll risk trying to break the Seal with you three. They tuned it for monkeys, you know." He turned and winked at Emily. "On purpose. You know what I mean?"
"I think-" started Emily.
"Besides," continued Mihos, turning back to face forward. "There's no need. The President Monkey ain't out there, am I right? She's down here."
"I think Emily was wondering if we could get around-" said Iain.
"- the Murk," finished Mihos. "Yes. I got that." He turned to survey all three of the kids. "I think you'll find that the Murk is, by nature, a sphere, extending out from this Squirrel Island place on all sides. Even were we to somehow slip up through the W
atchers' Seal and then back down through it to our destination, we'd still have to deal with His Murkiness. The only way in is through."
"How big a sphere?" asked Emily.
"Now don't get all geometric on me, Emmy," said Mihos. "He's probably more of a blob. Most Murks are. Like a... a... oh, what's that creature you guys always refer to when talking about blobs?"
"An amoeba?" said Grace.
Mihos pointed at Grace with his paw. "Right. An amoeba. Only big. And dark. And ornery. And designed to resist the very thing we are going to attempt to do."
"Which is...?" asked Iain.
Mihos rolled his eyes. "Uh... go through it? Hello? Did you miss the first episode?" The cat closed his eyes and started licking his front paws, back and forth.
Iain frowned, annoyed. "Any reason you keep licking your paws, Mihos?" he asked, his voice confrontational.
Mihos opened one eye to scrutinize the boy. "Yes. It calms me. Sorta in the same way stuffing my face with mutant corn and fake sugar and deadly pesticides might calm me were I a monkey, only not quite so self-defeating." He closed his eye.
Iain pulled his feet around as if he meant to stand up and push the cat off the rug, but Grace reached out and put a hand on his arm to stop him. She spoke to the cat. "So what's our plan, then, Mihos?" she asked. "How do we get to Linda?"
Mihos stared for a long moment at Iain, then slowly turned his attention to Grace. "I've drawn us a map," he said at last. "We've got our carpet. We've got the sun at our backs and the wind in our hair. We've got life, sister. Seems to me it's time to make like Michael Jackson and beat it."
"We've got a map?" asked Emily.
Mihos sighed. "You're sitting on it," he said, shaking his head.
Emily studied the pattern on the carpet. A Pac Man screen shot, yes, but also what maybe looked like a route through a maze. And there, woven into the fibers under where Iain's tennis shoe had been, a small icon that looked, a bit, like a magic carpet with people sitting on it, with one of the "ghosts" in hot pursuit.
Mihos shrugged. "My first rug," he explained. "Got the scale all wrong. And there wasn't room to draw all of us. But it'll work." He looked at Grace. "I think we'll get there," he said, almost as if he was trying to comfort the girl.
Dennis, sitting still in Grace's lap, reached up and licked Mihos' nose. Mihos, shivering in disgust, turned back to the front and began to wash his face with his paws.
7.13
"So we're dead then?" asked Ted.
"I think so," said Carl.
"Heaven is a Scrabble game?”
"Whatever this is seems to be a Scrabble game," answered Carl. "For us." He stared at his tiles, then glanced up at his opponent. "Maybe this is more like Purgatory."
Ted leaned back in his chair, folded his arms over his chest, and scrunched his eyes tight. After a long exhale he opened his eyes. "So this is about purging," he said.
Carl shrugged.
"The life review. The lessons learned. Sin and redemption. All that bullshit."
Carl turned his attention back to his tiles. "You okay with it, if that's the case?"
Ted wrinkled his nose, shook his head. "I don't know. I guess. Are you?" He looked at Carl. "I mean... maybe you killed me."
"Maybe you had it coming," said Carl.
Ted picked at his teeth with his tongue. "Maybe. Or maybe you're a real bastard. Maybe that's why I feel so angry with you sometimes. Maybe I'm supposed to kill you now."
"Maybe it's somebody else you're angry with," ventured Carl
"You trying to get me to talk about Mummy and Daddy, Doctor?" asked Ted in a snotty tone.
"You brought 'em up, Bro," said Carl. "Not me." Carl picked up some tiles and laid them out on the board, then looked up at Ted. "Twenty-two points," he said.
Ted looked down at the word. "Singer," he said. "Too bad you missed the double word." He pointed toward a pink square on the other side of the board. "Would've fit there just as easily," he said with a smirk.
Carl nodded. "I guess you're right," he said. "Your turn."
Ted looked down at his tiles.
Chapter Eight
8.1
A light sprinkle fell on the park, dampening the trees and bringing a note of coolness to the warm evening. Eventually a few drops slipped from the leaves and fell to the ground. One of them spattered onto Gabrielle's forehead. Another hit her chin. And another her eyelid. This third drop caused her eyes to fly open. With a gasp, Gabrielle awakened.
She sat up. Night had come. Judging from the line of tiny solar patio lights she could see through the foliage, Gabrielle was in a small gully ten yards or so off the path she'd been following. She was alone.
"Not alone," said Zacharael in her head.
Not alone. Yes. Not at all alone. Not for a very long time. Years. Seconds. Ages. Minutes. Decades. Eons. Judging by the darkness, the storefront lights in the distance through the trees, and the traffic she could hear on the road, it appeared that a few hours had passed without her conscious awareness. But she had not blacked out. In those hours, Gabrielle had lived the life of the entire planet.
She would have expected to be traumatized. Distraught. Doubled over in sobbing sorrow. She was not. Grief she had felt in full. She remembered that. And rage. And blame. And shame. Joy she had felt as well. Awe. Gratitude. Peace. Communion. Zacharael had not spared her feelings. As he had told her, he was trying to break her heart. But curiously, now, with her heart broken wide open, she was not filled with grief at all. She was filled, instead, with relief. Purpose. Even power. She had lived through the decimation of the life of the Earth and she was still standing. Still here. Still able to draw a breath. Still able... to choose.
How deftly he had drawn her along, this being from who-knows-where. Contrasting the countless millennia of burgeoning, exploding, branching lifeforms as they peopled the planet with the tight, cramped, spiteful activities of her own species as it had tried, and failed, to rule the Earth, he mixed beauty and horror like a master filmmaker, adding an epic, heart-wrenching score to bitter scenes of destruction and despair. From the ruins of oil refineries to the putrid bogs of animal waste, from the crumbling tundras and bursting methane pockets to the burning forests and the cramped cages of desperate chimpanzees and factory chickens, Zacharael escorted her on a grand tour of suffering and loss, continuing the work he had begun on their nighttime journeys, but taking it to a whole new level. No longer was Gabrielle an observer. This time, Gabrielle was the water, the soil, the tree, and the chimpanzee. This time, the pain was hers.
It seemed they visited every corner of her dying world. And always the message was the same. Muttering from the slag heaps, whispering from the irradiated soil, moaning from the smoking mountainsides, crying out from the stagnant waters, came the voices of those still living. We're not dead yet, they said to Gabrielle, over and over, in the languages of life. We remain. We remain.
Yes. It was that which was inside of her now. They remain. And Gabrielle remains. And where life remains, hope remains. And now, in some way she did not quite understand, they had all become one. She. The planet. Zacharael. All one. Not yet dead. And yearning. Longing. Wanting. Because that's what life does on the physical plane. Zacharael had taught her the most simple thing: he had taught her to care. Gabrielle was in love with the living world.
She rolled to her side and pulled herself up to one elbow. The light rain had stopped, as if, having done its work, it could move on. She pushed herself to her knees, then got to her feet. She gazed down where she had lain. There, illuminated dimly by the lights of the busy commercial strip just up the hill, was Zacharael's body, looking just as it had when she left it back on the campus sidewalk.
She felt a pulse of sadness move through her. Zacharael had shown her his life as well. His being. His people. How they'd been with the Earth for so long. With humanity. Guiding and helping as they could. Their interactions with humans across the span of history were mostly forgotten now, remembered only as the inte
rcessions of angels and the visits of messengers. But Zacharael remembered. He had dedicated his almost immortal life to the severance of attachments and the act of letting go. At a time when his people had all but withdrawn from the Earth, hesitant to interfere any further and unwilling to cross the Interdict, Zacharael continued on with his attempts to correct the mistakes made in the ancient past. He was motivated by his deep love both for the life of the planet as a whole and for the human species in particular. Gabrielle knelt down to touch Zacharael's leg, but as she did so he began to fade away. In a moment, the body had disappeared like a wisp of fog. It was gone.
"Zacharael?" asked Gabrielle, her voice hoarse and meek. There was no response from the presence in her head. He was gone from her mind as well. Glancing up toward the road, Gabrielle picked her way through the shadowed undergrowth to the park's trodden, lamp-lit path. There lay her backpack along the edge. Surprised that no one had taken it, Gabrielle hoisted it to her shoulder and headed up the hill.
8.2
Ness surveyed the pile of supplies she'd hidden in the closet. Private Burns hadn't been able to find a laser pointer yet, but maybe that was okay. She didn't know what the pointer was for anyways. And she had the feeling her cell phone would work in a pinch. It was all magic, as far as Ness was concerned. Something coming to her from the Great Beyond. ‘Twasn't up to her to think it through. She was like Noah. "Just tell me how many damned cubits, Lord!" she muttered to herself, smiling at the thought. That Bill Cosby had been so funny.
A quiet knock sounded and the door opened. Light from the hallway spilled into the darkened room. "Will you need anything before sleep, Ms. Abernathy?" asked the night nurse, a tall, thin, young man with unusually large, almond-shaped eyes as black as space. His scrubs sported a name patch that read, simply, “Jack.” Something about him reminded her of Keeley.
Rumi's Field (None So Blind Book 2) Page 25
