American Elsewhere

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  “Yes, it is,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “Though I can’t imagine why you wanted me to come. There’s nothing for me to say.”

  “It’s a matter of propriety,” says one of the shadowy faces. It appears to be that of a ten-year-old boy. A pink Band-Aid is stuck to one brow, and he peers at her with a queerly solemn expression for a child.

  “Oh, propriety,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “We’re always so concerned with propriety. Even in total madness, we still stick to our hierarchies and chains of command.”

  “We have to,” says the housewife, a bit sternly. “We must. Especially in times of such distress. Are you not distressed, Mrs. Benjamin, by what’s happened?”

  The contempt in Mrs. Benjamin’s face decreases very slightly. “I am. Of course I am.”

  “Everyone is,” says another of the shadowy faces. This one looks like a rather handsome man with cleanly parted hair. He could almost be a model. “But you should be, especially.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “You’re the next eldest, are you not?” asks the housewife. “First Weringer, and then after him came Macey…”

  “Mr. First and Parson are both older than either of them,” says Mrs. Benjamin sharply. “And last I checked, they’re both fine.”

  There’s an awkward pause. Some of the faces glance around, as if seeing all the reflections in their own mirrors.

  “Mr. Parson is,” says the housewife. “He remains in his motel, like always. But as for Mr. First… well, that’s why this meeting was called.”

  For the first time, Mrs. Benjamin looks worried. “Why? Has something happened to him? I haven’t heard anything. And we would all know if he were hurt, wouldn’t we?”

  “We can’t confirm,” says the model. “Because we can’t find him. We went to his dwelling place, but… he has changed it. The canyon does not lead to him anymore.”

  “Then where does it lead?” asks Mrs. Benjamin.

  “It twists and twists, but never goes anywhere,” says a shadowy face. “It is like a maze. He may be within, but if so we cannot contact him.”

  “It’s a security measure, then,” says Mrs. Benjamin. “He’s worried like all the rest of us. I can’t blame him. But what do you expect me to do about it?”

  Another awkward pause. The model glances about, as if he’s searching through all the faces in his own mirror. He says, “Haven’t you noticed, Mrs. Benjamin, that the turnout for this meeting appears a little… low?”

  Mrs. Benjamin frowns and searches through the many reflections in the mirror. “I see all of us who live in town…” Her eye touches on a few of the vaguer reflections, those that do not resemble human faces in any way. A few of them buzz to her, and the twitches of motion increase. “But where are the children? Where are the young sleepers from the hills and forests? I only see a few here.”

  “That is what we’re worried about,” says the housewife. “When Mr. Macey went to speak to everyone, he found many of the young ones were gone, Mrs. Benjamin. He thinks—thought, I should say—that maybe they did not answer him. But we don’t believe so. We looked again, and found nothing. We think they’ve left. They’ve gone somewhere else. Without telling us. But where, we don’t know.”

  “Could they be in danger?” asked Mrs. Benjamin. “What happened to Macey and Weringer cannot have happened to them as well, because we’d all know…”

  “We searched their homes,” says the housewife. “The canyons, the caves, the glens. There was no sign of a struggle.”

  “And they can certainly fend for themselves,” says the model.

  “We don’t know what happened to them,” says the young boy. “We hoped you would.”

  “I don’t speak to them any more than I speak to any of you. I’ve no idea. What about the natives of Wink?”

  “The people of Wink, of course, know nothing,” says the young boy.

  “But one native was the last to have contact with those who dwell in the mountains,” says the model. “Mr. Macey talked one of the young ones into attacking the native. It placed its kiss upon him, set its many eyes dancing in his skin. We believe it was Macey’s idea of frightening the native off. Macey was convinced this man had somehow injured Weringer. But how, he did not say. He kept his counsel to himself in his last days.”

  “Perhaps that was wise,” says Mrs. Benjamin. She picks something green and pink out from between her incisors, flicks it away. “Perhaps I ought to do the same. Yes, I think so. Everyone who tries to help you people winds up dying, one way or another. It’s the only intelligent thing to do. So, I will choose to excuse myself now.” With a grunt she begins to get to her feet.

  “But you can’t!” says the young boy.

  “And why not?” asks Mrs. Benjamin.

  “Because if you don’t find those in the mountains, who will?” he cries.

  Mrs. Benjamin pauses. All the faces are watching her. She sits back down. “This is why you wanted me here, isn’t it?” she asks. “You want me to find all our missing brethren.” Her face curdles at the revelation. “For God’s sake, you come calling on an old woman in the dead of night for this… I can’t go running around the countryside, willy-nilly.”

  “You are famous for your strength,” says the housewife.

  “I am an old woman, thank you,” Mrs. Benjamin says angrily. “And that’s not the point! I don’t know what happened any more than you do. I can’t help.”

  “But you must know something,” says another of the shadowy faces. “You are older and more powerful than any of us. You have talents that we do not.”

  “Oh, goodness,” sighs Mrs. Benjamin. “I haven’t used any of them in years.”

  “I am sure you can remember,” says the housewife.

  “But I don’t want to. For so long I didn’t need to. I was happy where I was.”

  “So were we all,” says the housewife.

  “We were happy being people,” says the model.

  “Happy being small,” says one of the shadowy faces.

  “Happy being happy,” says the young boy.

  “And we can lose all that, if we don’t correct things,” says the housewife. “We must fix this, Mrs. Benjamin. We need your assistance.”

  Mrs. Benjamin eyes each one of them. It is clear, though nearly all of them appear over thirty, that each and every one is in essence a child. Sometimes she forgets that.

  She grumbles a little, and shifts forward in her chair. “Well,” she says. “I suppose I can see what I can do.”

  “You agree, then?” asks the model.

  “Yes, yes, I agree. I’m not going to lead your damn meetings, but I will try and find where the youngest ones have gone.”

  “We are so grateful for your help,” says the housewife.

  “Save it until I get some results,” snaps Mrs. Benjamin. “What I find might be very unpleasant. I expect it will be, honestly, considering everything that’s been going on.”

  All the faces in the mirror grow a little sober at that.

  Mrs. Benjamin sits up and coughs politely. “Now,” she says. “I am going to need someone to bring me coffee while I go to work. A lot of it. So which of you is it going to be?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Getting out of the house proves to be one hell of a lot easier than getting in, and Mona is quite relieved to hop back over the fence and climb up the brambly hillside. She’s got the key in her backpack, and she can feel it bumping around awkwardly in there. She’s wrapped it up in her gloves, since she was afraid that one of its delicate teeth might get bent, rendering it unable to open… well, whatever it’s supposed to open.

  She can’t help but feel that the key is hot, like it’s going to burn a hole in her gloves and her backpack and go sliding down the hillside. The item is forbidden, like the subject of Coburn itself. Like so many topics in Wink, she can tell that the lab on the mesa is always in the background of everything, present but unmentionable. The entire town was built around it, for God’s sake. Though it i
s distant and dark, she feels it is the heart of this town.

  Coburn did something, she thinks as she starts the Charger and begins heading back to the motel. And she cannot help but suspect that whatever happened on the mesa has something to do with what she just saw in that house.

  And what did she see in that house? She has no idea.

  When she was in elementary school in her podunk town in Texas, one of her classmates, Nola Beth, experienced a sharp drop in grades around the second grade. They quickly figured out that Nola’s vision had steadily become worse and worse: she just couldn’t see the blackboard. One day Nola came into school wearing a set of incredibly thick glasses, and though they did no favors to her appearance, Nola was ecstatic: she could see all kinds of things now, things she’d never known were even there. She’d had no idea trees were so pretty, she said. She could see every single leaf waving in the wind now.

  For some reason, this terrified young Mona. It wasn’t that Nola’s vision had changed: it was that her vision had changed without her even knowing it. There were all kinds of things happening around her that she’d never known about, that she was blind to. Though her experience of the world had seemed whole and certain to her, in truth it had been marred, filled with blind spots, and she’d had no idea.

  That same terror comes burbling up in Mona now. She wonders, What am I blind to? Is there more to the world that I could never see before? And why can I see it now?

  But all these thoughts go flying out her head when she hears the bang and the Charger starts weaving out of control.

  Mona immediately knows she’s got a flat, which would normally not trouble her, but this time she’s going about fifty along a mountain road with a two-hundred-foot drop on her right. She can feel panic rising up inside her, but she mentally slaps herself and swallows it. She gently pushes down on the brake and turns the wheel so the car puts pressure on the remaining three tires and comes sliding to a stop.

  She does an internal check. She is not hurt, and though all the items in the car have moved about a foot, none of them seem damaged. Then she reviews the last ten seconds…

  Did she see a sparkle in the road, just before the wheel popped?

  She grabs her flashlight and the Glock, steps out of the car, and locks it. She shines the flashlight ahead up the road, sees nothing, then shines it behind.

  There’s a sparkle again. She walks to it—it is farther away than she thought—and stoops down.

  They’re tire spikes. Homemade ones, welded together out of wood nails. They look a little like big, crude jacks from a ball-and-jacks game.

  Mona doesn’t say a word. She just takes out the Glock, makes sure there’s a round in the chamber and the safety’s off, and shines the flashlight around. She sees nothing but red stone cliffs and the odd juniper. But she remembers that it’s not wise to be out in Wink at night.

  She turns out the light and stays there, not moving. If someone put down the tire spikes, then it’s likely that person was waiting for someone—possibly her—to come by and hit them. Which means she’s probably not alone out here, so she doesn’t need a light telling anyone where she is.

  She silently moves to the side of the road and hunches there, waiting. She waits for nearly a half hour. She debates abandoning the car and heading back to the motel on foot, but she remembers the multiple warnings she’s received about going out at night in Wink, and after seeing what she saw in that house she now thinks those warnings weren’t idle. Eventually she decides that the smartest thing to do is get to the car, get the tire changed, and get the hell out of here.

  She creeps back to the car, turns it on in case she needs to jump in it quick, and goes about the business of jacking up the car and putting the doughnut on. If she weren’t so confident in her ability to change a tire quickly she wouldn’t be so cavalier; but since this is a dance she did about a million times in her previous career, she doesn’t panic and her pulse doesn’t rise a single beat, and soon she’s got the last lug nut tightened.

  It’s then that she hears the footsteps. Wooden-soled shoes, walking down the road behind her at a slow, steady, almost thoughtful pace.

  She rises, steps behind the car, and turns both the flashlight and the gun in the direction of the footsteps. “Whoever that is, come out slowly,” she says.

  The cadence of the footsteps doesn’t change one iota. After a few more steps there’s a pause, then a tinkle of metal—brushing the tire spikes out of the way, she guesses—and then the footsteps resume.

  A pale figure enters the beam of her flashlight, walking in the middle of the road. She sees it is a man dressed in a blue-gray suit and a white panama hat: the Native American from Chloe’s, she realizes, the man who was watching her. He still has his hands in his pockets, and he stares at her with coal-black eyes as he approaches, his two-tone shoes clacking against the asphalt.

  “Stop,” she says. “Hands where I can see them.”

  The man pays no attention, but just keeps walking toward her.

  “Stop, goddamn it,” she says. “I am armed.”

  He keeps walking, but finally halts when he’s within about ten feet of her car. He looks at her, then at the doughnut, then at the torn, ruined tire, and then back at the road behind him. “Looks like you had some trouble,” he says. His voice is quiet and calm and a little high-pitched. It’s also a little mush-mouthed. He talks like a deaf person, Mona thinks. “I thought I heard something.”

  “Please get your hands where I can see them, sir,” says Mona angrily.

  “Tire problems are common on these roads.”

  “Hands,” says Mona again. “Hands.”

  He smiles and takes his hands out of his pockets. They’re empty. “Hands. Hands,” he says, echoing her as if it’s a joke he’s still getting. “I came to help you.”

  “You can help by leaving.”

  “Are you often so brusque with those who try and help you?”

  “No, but I’m often brusque when I hit some fucking tire spikes and nearly wrap my car around a tree.”

  “Tire spikes?” he says. He looks back down the road. “Is that what those were?”

  “Yes,” says Mona. “And to be honest, sir, I find it highly coincidental that you happen upon me right after I nearly drive off the fucking road.”

  He smiles at her, his eyes glittering in the ruby-red glow of her taillights.

  “What are you looking at?” she asks, disconcerted.

  “We’ve met before,” he says.

  “No, we haven’t.”

  “We have. I know the curve of your face and the light in your eyes. I know you. And you know me.”

  “I fucking don’t. I’d remember you.”

  His eyes thin, but his smile doesn’t leave. “Perhaps not… perhaps you were described to me by someone, long ago… I never thought I’d meet you here, wandering these roads. These dark roads. They go a lot of places, the roads. You find a lot of things, if you keep walking.”

  “Then please keep walking.”

  “What are you doing out here?” he asks softly.

  “Go away,” says Mona. “Just turn around, walk, and go away. It ain’t hard.”

  “What’s your name?” he asks. “Where are you from? You’re not from here. So where?”

  “Turn around. And walk.”

  “You were in his house, weren’t you?”

  Mona swallows but does not answer.

  “Yes,” he says. “Once I knew a woman who was brave and strong and beautiful. We lost her to the horizon. She went a-walking and I saw her only once after that, one sad little moment. For then she died. She died for you. For me. For us. For everyone.”

  Mona tries to ignore how her flashlight beam is trembling a little.

  “I want to bring her back,” he says. “And I think you do too.”

  “Get the fuck out of here,” Mona says.

  He leans forward a little. “She whispers to me, from deep in the earth,” he says. “Wrapped around the mountain�
��s spine. Do not lose hope. She is not gone. She is only sleeping. She is waiting for you. She’s been waiting for you from the beginning.”

  “You have me mistaken for someone else,” says Mona. “Now get the hell out of here, or I will shoot, and it will fucking hurt.”

  “I can show you,” he says. He extends a hand. “Take my hand.”

  “Mister, did you not just hear what I said? I am going to fuck you up like no tomorrow if you don’t get moving.”

  “You can’t hurt me,” he says. “Nothing can hurt me. I’ve died so many times. Gone walking through so many starlit fields. I lie rotting in so many barrens, even now. Nothing can hurt me.”

  “Then you won’t mind me putting a round in your knee,” says Mona. She points the Glock at his leg.

  “I can show you,” he says again, voice still soft and even.

  Mona’s grip tightens on the Glock.

  “I can show you so much,” he says. The man takes a step forward, eyes shining strangely.

  And in the split second before he takes a second step, Mona swears she sees something in his eyes—or maybe behind his eyes—squirming, many little tendrils flicking about in the pools before his brain.

  She’s so horrified by this that she almost doesn’t notice the gun go off. Even though she is transfixed by what she sees, Mona’s aim is as straight and true as ever: the flesh above the man’s knee, just where the quadriceps tendon connects to his kneecap, completely erupts. The man grunts slightly (and Mona can’t help but notice that it’s not a grunt of pain, but of surprise, as if the man is saying to himself, Well now that’s inconvenient) and falls forward to the ground.

  Yet he does not fall completely. He supports himself with the other knee, steadies himself, and then lunges forward and grasps her right wrist.

  There is the crash of lightning, and the world fills with blue, and she hears his voice say, “I can show you.”

  She stands on the road, but the world is gray and thin and flimsy, as if made of fog and mist. There is a dark form beside her holding her hand, but she has no attention for it: her eye is immediately drawn to the countryside around her.