by Dan Kemp
"Jesus."
"When you were with Martin, did you meet or hear of any others like you?"
"No," Jess said. "He seemed pretty desperate. But he was gone a lot, so who knows what he was doing."
"When I destroyed his Church, I found three women, pregnant by him. I worry there may be more. When I leave, I want to take all traces of him, and myself, with me."
Jess’s blood ran cold. “What happened to the others?”
James eyed her sideways. “I came here thinking I’d have to kill you too. But I don’t think I have the heart to do it. Not anymore.”
"Can’t you just take this away from me?" Jess asked, looking up at him with tears welling in her eyes. He simply stared at her for a moment. "I don't want any of this. I just want to be normal."
"I'm sorry, Jess. I can't," James said. "If I could, I'd just do the same to Martin. Maybe to myself. Believe me when I say I know what it feels like to resent your own existence. I've lived for a very, very long time, and I've suffered plenty along the way. I’m sorry that I can't take that away from you. But the hard truth is that one day everyone you love will grow old and die, and you'll be left here, alone."
The tears were streaming down her face now. "What am I supposed to do?"
"When that day comes you either move on, or you don't. You have the power to stay here, or leave this place forever. It's up to you."
***
A cool breeze was blowing in off the lake, and gentle waves lapped at the sand near her feet.
"It's really beautiful over here," Rachel said, squeezing Jess's hand. "I can't believe I hadn't seen it yet."
"It really is," Jess agreed.
The lake was a deep pure blue, unlike most of the water she'd seen these days, which tended to be a dirtier brown. Thick green forest hugged close to the shore along all of its curves for as far as she could see. The only gaps in the trees were from the handful of cabins that could be seen dotted here and there in the distance. Even most of those were beginning to get overgrown with tall grass. Jess could only assume they were all abandoned, though the thought of a single family still secretly living in one, despite all of this, intrigued her.
The walls of the city ran along both sides of the dam and extended right up into the water a few feet, leaving a small area of open beach on either side. The overhead netting ended about twenty feet back from the water. In all, if you ignored the handful of heavily armed men stationed there in two raised towers at all times, it was quite a peaceful scene.
They walked the short length of the beach on this side before clambering up onto the rocky dam. Jess stopped to give Rachel a hand up before proceeding.
As they crossed the dam side-by-side, they held their arms up and carefully chose their steps across the uneven rocks. Halfway across, Jess's foot slipped and she nearly fell, but for Rachel's hand suddenly grasping her own. Rachel laughed so hard that she nearly slipped herself.
Part of Jess wanted to blurt it all out, to unload everything she had discovered about herself, and the conversation she'd had with James. She knew that one day, when Rachel grew old and Jess did not, she'd have no choice. But not today. Today would just be theirs.
They weren't alone on this side of the beach. A young woman with blonde hair sat on the sand, skipping small rocks across the water. Jess intended to leave her alone, but the woman looked up as they walked by.
"Jess?" she said.
Jess recognized her from the meeting with James, Kristof, and Dorian at the town hall. "Yeah. Skye, right?"
She nodded.
"This is my girlfriend, Rachel," Jess said.
"Hi," Skye said, and Rachel smiled back.
"What are you up to?" Jess asked.
"Just thinking. You guys want to sit?"
"Sure." Jess sat down alongside her, enjoying the feeling of the warm sand on her thighs. Rachel, now sitting as well, grabbed a pebble of her own and lobbed it into the water. It sunk after a couple bounces.
"Are you guys going to stay here?" Skye asked. "I heard some people are heading for Richmond."
"Staying, for now. We'll see what happens. You?"
"I think I'll stay. Dorian said I could. And James said Richmond is probably a trap." There was sadness in her voice. Though Jess knew full well the sort of terrible things her Church had done, she couldn't help but feel bad for her.
"You should stay."
"Yeah," Skye said, absentmindedly spinning a round stone between her hands. "It's just hard, being here. Feeling like everyone knows who I am, and what I've done."
"Well, the only ones who know are James, Dorian, Kristof, and us. I can't make any promises for them, but your secret is safe with me, and Rachel."
"Thanks."
"You know what," Jess said. "I'm going to need a deputy soon. If you want to, you can work for me. Think about it."
Skye seemed taken aback by that, but after a moment she smiled. "I appreciate that."
"I think this could be a great place one day," Jess said.
"Me too," Skye said.
They sat for a little while longer before parting. Skye stayed there on the beach while Jess and Rachel crossed back over the dam. As they passed the guard tower, she could hear their radios erupt in a sudden frenzy of frantic chatter. Two men leapt down from the platform and sprinted off into the town.
"What's going on?" Rachel called, but she went unanswered.
"Come on," Jess said.
They weren't the only curious onlookers, and Jess followed the crowd to the main gate, which was open. It seemed that Dorian's convoy had just returned. The man himself was jumping out of the back of a pickup truck, another man's body in his arms.
"Where's James?" Dorian was screaming into the crowd. His clothes were tattered, and his face was streaked with dirt and dried blood.
Jess pushed her way forward. "He's gone," she said.
"Fuck! Somebody get the doctor! Fucking move!" One of his guards sprinted off in the direction of the clinic.
Another man ran up with a stretcher, and Dorian laid the man down on it. It was Kristof, she saw now, unconscious but with his eye wide open. The front of his shirt was shredded, deep gashes in his chest visible through the torn fabric.
As quickly as he'd come, Kristof was gone, whisked away down the street on the stretcher.
"We've got more injured!" Dorian was shouting as he threw open the back of a van.
All around her was a frenzy now as the healthy carried the wounded. Jess gave her shoulder to a now one-legged solider whose tourniquet-strapped knee still dripped blood behind him as they hobbled toward the medical clinic. In all, there were at least ten seriously injured.
When all had been transported to the clinic, now in the hands of the exasperated Dr. Brandt, Jess made her way back to the gates. People had begun to gather inside the town hall, and Dorian was already up on the stage, shouting for order amongst the raving townsfolk.
Jess took a spot along the side wall, where she could keep an eye on the entire crowd. She was no longer just a passive observer, she realized. If things went sideways, she'd have to keep order. And it felt like the throng was on the verge of exploding.
Searching through the rows of people, she finally found Rachel toward the back. Skye was also nearby. Dorian's calls for quiet finally worked, and he spoke into the microphone.
"As most of you probably know, I took my men out to raid one of the Church's last compounds in the area. After we had overtaken them, their leaders detonated a large explosive that killed ten men and injured several more. We also lost half our caravan of scavenged supplies and equipment. On the way back, we were attacked by dinosaurs. In all, I believe we lost fifteen men."
The crowd, which had remained quiet as he spoke, erupted once again. Jess heard cries of "Enough is enough!" and "So you didn't even get the supplies?"
"Please," Dorian said, but the furor only grew stronger.
"Quiet!" he shouted, his voice venomous this time, and the noise abated. "This isn't w
hat any of us wants," he continued. "But we can’t forget the world we’re living in. It's dangerous out there. We can't lose sight of that just because we're safe behind these walls."
"Yeah, and we should stay behind them!" somebody called out from the crowd.
Dorian quickly found the speaker with his gaze. "You want to get up here and say something, Saul?"
It felt like some of the energy was sucked out of the room, but then the man stood up. "Yeah, I do," he said.
"Come on, then." Dorian stood aside and handed the microphone to the man, who wore dirty overalls and boots.
"Now, everybody here is very upset, me included. I may be an old man now, but if I were twenty years younger I'd be one of these boys going out there with you. And we all appreciate everything you've done here, Mr. Black, but I think we're all getting tired of seeing young men coming home dead." Calls of agreement from the crowd. "All I'm sayin' is, we got a good thing here and I say we take care of ourselves first."
"Anybody else?" Dorian asked. More shouts rang out, but Jess walked forward to the microphone. She shot Dorian, who looked confused, a smile and a wink.
"I may not have been here too long," Jess said. "But I've spent time talking to almost every single one of you. I know that we're all worried about what's going to happen when we send our brothers, our sons, or our husbands out beyond those walls. And I know that in our passion we don't mean to insult all the work Dorian Black has done building and protecting this community."
Her almost admonishing tone managed to elicit a few guilty stares at the floor. "But Dorian is right. This is a dangerous world, and we can't forget that. We need men like him, now more than ever before. And, yes, maybe now, especially after what we've been through lately, we need to have a greater focus on what's inside our walls than what's outside. But should we forget all those who suffer out there? I know we aren't those kind of people."
Silence. Rachel, in the last row, was beaming at her. Jess took a deep breath before speaking again. Her heart was racing.
"We need a balance. And it's obvious that right now, that balance is off. We have a lot of great people here in Black Creek, and a lot of different ideas on how to move forward as a town. I say, let's not fight amongst ourselves. We need to work together to find the right path for us. We need a free, open, and fair election."
The crowd erupted once again, this time in cheers and whistles. Jess stepped back from the microphone and turned to Dorian, whose jaw was hanging slightly open. When he narrowed his eyes at her, she smirked back at him.
James
James couldn’t recall the last time he had been truly nervous.
Here and now, as he stood on a hill in the outskirts of Richmond, Virginia, his heart was beginning to race and his breath was slightly short. The feeling was not entirely unpleasant.
In the valley below him was a massive military complex, unlike anything James had seen since the cataclysm. Much of it had clearly been re-purposed from existing homes and businesses, but there was ample evidence of new construction as well. The entire place was surrounded by two fences, between which heavily-armed men patrolled. Inside, there were warehouses and barracks and yards lined with tanks and other military vehicles. In the middle, the American flag flew high above the largest building.
It was real then, and not just a fabrication of Martin's. The realization only made his stomach sink as he watched the cars lining up at the gates and the constant stream of refugees arriving on foot. This was certainly a trap.
Let's get this over with.
James started down the hill. He held the roar of voices at the back of his mind, aside from the one he needed. Martin was close; James could sense him.
It began before he even made it halfway down the slope. At first it was no more than a dark, distant shadow in the sky, steadily growing larger and closer until James could see it for what it was: a massive ball of rock hurtling toward the earth, trailing fire behind it. The air was filled with a painfully loud sound as the meteor came down, and James could only stand and watch as it hit.
The earth recoiled against the blow, the ground shattering and rolling out in waves away from the impact. James tried to keep his feet, but then he was flying, hitting the ground hard, and blackness overtook him.
He awoke face down in the dirt, half-buried in little bits of rock and other debris. His battered body protested every motion as he pulled himself free and then finally staggered to his feet. James sputtered, blowing a puff of dirt out of his mouth and nose.
The military base was gone, replaced in an instant with nothing more than a crater and a wide field of rubble stretching as far as he could see. The sky was a dark brownish-red, the sun obscured by a fog of ash.
James started toward the center of the crater, his hesitant steps growing more steady as he went. He passed by crushed and burning hunks of metal which had once been mini vans. He averted his eyes rather than see the gory scenes which surely lay within. He couldn’t avoid the carnage, though. Limbs and unrecognizable bits of flesh littered his path as he climbed over the uneven ground.
The destruction was only worse as he worked his way toward the middle. Thick smoke gagged him, and fallen pillars and burning chunks of structure lay across his path. James just kept moving forward, no doubt in his mind about what, or who, awaited him when he reached the center.
James dropped down from one final ledge and the ground went flat once again. His feet burned as he walked across what could only be the remnants of the meteor, now flattened and embedded in the earth. Millions of tiny orange embers glowed underfoot. It was a surreal, beautiful scene in its own way, but James pressed on.
Finally, there he was. The air around him seemed to suddenly clear, and out of the haze he saw Martin's face, hateful and scowling as it ever was. He was, to James's surprise, sitting down. Martin didn’t react as James walked over to him, standing at the other side of a short metal table which sat inexplicably in the middle of the crater.
"What is this?" James asked.
"I figured it's been a while since we really just talked. Sometimes it gets tiresome just always fighting, don’t you think?"
James pulled out the chair across from Martin, and sat.
"Sorry to ruin everything again," Martin said, almost flippant, gesturing at the scene around them.
"It was obviously a trap. You're very predictable."
"Not nearly as much as you," Martin said with a sneer. "Why come then?"
"Because I've given up on trying to stop you."
He appeared perplexed at that, and didn't respond right away. "Why?" James went on. "Why could you never just leave me alone?"
"What else was I supposed to do?"
"What?" James said.
Martin leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. "It was you who trapped me in this contemptible world. This place never held any happiness for me, no value other than twisting it just to watch you squirm."
"This has always been about us. But you killed so many others. Why? They were innocent."
"I've never understood why you cared. But no, they aren't so innocent. I think we both know that. They've never done anything other than hurt you and me both."
"That's not true," James said. "There’s good in them, too."
"Good? Humans are nothing more than a virus, feeding off this planet, raping it as they multiplied. You and I, we remember when the earth was clean and pure."
"I remember when it was," James said. "Before you."
"Now whose fault is that? But does it not anger you?" Martin grew more animated now, gesturing as he spoke. "I remember when the rivers were clear. When the forests stretched across entire continents. When men were strong, not preoccupied with the empty minutiae of their petty, miserable lives. Surely you saw it as well. The world needed a course correction."
"I thought you didn't care about them."
"I don't," Martin said, with an air of finality which James found less than convincing.
"I found them," James sa
id. "The women you impregnated."
"I assumed so. What did you do?"
"I made sure the children will never be born," James said. "I found your daughter, too. Jess."
Martin smiled, though this seemed a forced gesture. Could he actually be upset about that? "I thought I was the monster."
"Maybe I am, too. I’ve certainly done my share of wrong," James said. "But I'm nothing like you. Are there others?"
"Not yet. But there’s plenty more time."
"Your time is up."
Martin laughed. "I thought you had finally accepted our arrangement. Did I give you too much credit? It's not hard to understand. You're trapped here with me, forever. And when the blight that is mankind has finally withered away to nothing, we will still be here. You, the hapless god who wasted his existence caring for a species who did nothing but punish you for it, and me, your own personal devil."
