American Elsewhere

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  Mona feels nothing—there is nothing she can feel, not anymore, especially at this insane suggestion. Is this thing really suggesting she is like the vague, shadowy monsters lurking in the mountains of this town? That she is connected to those horrific, fleshy, wheedling beasts occupying the skulls of Parson, and Mrs. Benjamin, and whoever else besides? Or, worse, the things that operate them, those beings and shapes she glimpsed in that place with the red stars and the barren earth?

  It’s impossible. That can’t be right. It can’t. She’s just an unemployed drifter, for Christ’s sakes. She’s not a… a…

  Then Mona remembers the dream she had the last night in her mother’s house: walking down the hallway and seeing the mirror-version of herself pluck the light from the bulb in the ceiling and shove it down her throat, its radiance filtering through all her tissues and membranes in a soft pink glow…

  And she understands now: that dream made sense. It was a sense Mona could not articulate, could not even name, but the dream acknowledged a deep, sad feeling that has, over time, pervaded every part of her life:

  She is empty. And that emptiness makes her monstrous.

  She thought she felt this way because of her lost daughter, all the promise and hope of a new life and new love wiped away in a burst of chrome and glass. But perhaps not. Perhaps she had always been this way, always monstrous, always alien, always hollow, always gutted.

  Kelly’s words feed a fear of Mona’s she has tried to ignore for so long: that she, in some sick, twisted way, was relieved to lose her child, because how could she, a cold, angry tomboy, whose own mother had been (as she once thought) suicidally schizophrenic, ever make a good mother in her own right? Was it not better that her child died, rather than living and being so thoroughly failed by her parent? She is a creature poorly made, half-made, a distorted, deformed thing created by distorted, deformed things. It is not too far a step to go from thinking of her mother as a maddened, sad schizophrenic to thinking of her as something very much… else.

  “Then why am I here?” she asks softly.

  “Here in what manner?” asks Kelly. “Here in existence? Or here in Wink?”

  Mona doesn’t answer, not just because she finds the question stupid: she just can’t find the will to speak.

  “Well, I think I know one answer for sure,” says Kelly. “Let me ask you something, Mona—how did your mother die?”

  Mona has no desire to slip down the slope into this topic any further. But she says, “She killed herself.”

  “I see,” says Kelly. “And I’m willing to bet that her death coincided with a certain date—the day my family arrived here. Didn’t it?”

  Mona blinks slowly. She is too tired, too worn out to process this.

  “Yes,” says Kelly. “Mother, of course, had to return back to our world when She deemed it time to get things started. And there’s really only a couple of ways to do that, the death of the medium being the easiest, I’d imagine.” He rubs his chin, thinking. “I remember… when She projected herself into this world—into Dr. Alvarez—it was as if She fell into a deep, deep sleep. It seemed like She slept forever, dead to the world as it fell apart around us. But then, one day, without warning, when I had almost given up all hope, She awoke. She did not explain anything—which was typical—but made us promise two things: one was to wait for Her there, in the place we were going, because She would be gone for a bit—just a bit. And the second was to always obey the next eldest, and never hurt one another. We, terrified, confused, quickly agreed, and then there was lightning in our skies…

  “Well, of course, the next thing we knew, we were here. Yet She destroyed herself in the effort. I had never seen a member of my family die before—we are, in so many ways, beyond death—but then, none of our family had ever done what Mother did. But perhaps She knew something more… perhaps She knew that, if She were to perish, it would release enough destructive energy to bridge the gap between our worlds. Like punching a hole in a wall, I suppose. Perhaps we would have never gotten here, if She had not died.

  “She was gone far more than ‘a bit.’ I thought She was gone. Truly gone. Yet not too long ago I heard of three events that seemed highly coincidental. First, Weringer died, which did get everyone in a fluffle, but to me it seemed much less impossible, after Mother and all. But then I began to see lights on the mesa again… as if the laboratory—the one with the mirror that had, in essence, brought us here—was up and running once more.

  “And then, finally, you came, Mona. Doesn’t that all seem quite odd to you?”

  “I’m just here because my father died, and I inherited a goddamn house here.”

  “Yes, yes. But it’s almost like—what is that quaint expression—the stars aligned to bring you here. Isn’t it?”

  What now? thinks Mona. What else could there possibly be?

  “I don’t contest the idea that the death of your father brought you here,” says Kelly. “But I do wonder if his death—like the death of your own mother—coincides with something that happened in Wink. In this case, Weringer’s death.”

  “Are you really telling me,” says Mona, “that someone from Wink traveled all the way to a shithole in Texas just to give my father a stroke, which would get me to inherit the house, which would get me to Wink?”

  “No,” says Kelly. “But what I am suggesting is that the death of one of my family members seems to release a terrible amount of energy, causing ripples in existence. Mother might have even used Her own death to bring us here. If Weringer were to die near a—a focal point for this sort of energy…”

  “The lens,” says Mona.

  “Yes. Then someone could have used it. It could change the very nature of reality, like the finger of a god. A death, an inheritance, an impetus to return… that would be easy. Probability itself could realign to ensure that what the focal point wanted to happen happened. I can see the way fortunes and potential futures fade, merge, emerge, broaden. It is much more shapable than you imagine, Miss Bright. The possibilities of such a focal point—and such an energy—are limitless.” Kelly stands, stiff and erect, hands clasped behind his back. “Personally, I think it was used as a beacon.”

  “A beacon for what?” asks Mona.

  “For all the pieces of Mother that were missing,” says Kelly. “To pull in all the missing bits beyond Wink. Or the one, really. You, of course.”

  “What the fuck do you mean?” asks Mona.

  “Most everyone here of note has an anchor, don’t they, Mona?” says Kelly. “My kin in the town operate from afar, anchored to this place by those awful little creatures buzzing in people’s heads. Some physical part of ourselves must remain on this side, holding us down, acting as a window into this world, while their true selves remain sealed up in not-quite-heres and inaccessible facets of reality and… what have you. It’s all very complex, but the more I realized exactly how Mother had set up our existence in this world—and She had set it up, micromanaged it to the tiniest possible degree—I began to wonder why She hadn’t thought to do something similar for herself before She died.

  “But when you showed up, I realized She had, of course. I mean, why else have a relationship with a man? Why else have a child? She had to leave some piece of Herself behind, some tiny, living part of Herself to anchor Her being to this world. Having a child, of course, would be the easiest possible way to do that.”

  “What the fuck are you saying?”

  “It’s easy enough,” says Kelly. “You’ve seen those fleshy, reedy little creatures swimming in the backs of peoples’ eyes.”

  “So?”

  “Well, what do you think you are?”

  “What? I’m me. Just me.”

  “No. You know you’re much more than that. The question you asked remains quite valid, Miss Mona—why are you here? The answer, I think, is because Mother is bringing Herself back. Before She died, She designed a way for Her to reenter this world, to return from death. For though some of us—like Weringer, like M
acey—are not quite as beyond death as we’d assumed, Mother, well… Mother remains a very different sto—”

  Kelly stops. The screen flutters, like the film has just run off its track. Yet what lies behind the film is not a bright, white space, but what looks like a dark, shifting abyss…

  It’s only for a moment, for Gene Kelly’s handsome, smiling face quickly returns, but Mona realizes she didn’t see an abyss, not really: she saw a face, long and dark and bereft of most conventional features—mouth, nose, ears, etc.—but one surrounded by coils and coils of writhing arms and feelers, as if the face of that thing in the screen was at the center of a monstrous tangle of tentacles… yet at the top of that long, narrow face had been two black, bulging eyes, like the eyes of a shark, facing outward.

  Yet now there is only Kelly, who says, “Whoop! Looks like we had even less time than I thought.”

  Mona, who is still shocked by what she glimpsed, tries to focus. “What? What do you mean?”

  “We’re going to have to cut this short. Someone is about to try to kill me,” says Kelly cheerfully.

  “What?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it,” says Kelly. “I’ll be fine. You already saved my life. And thank you, by the way.”

  “I… I what?”

  “I do wish we could have talked longer, little sister,” says Kelly sadly. “I am sure we have so much to discuss. And I wish I could prepare you for what’s about to happen. But don’t fret. It’s my experience that it’s best to sit back and allow the tides of fortune and fairness to take you where they wish. Though it can be a little confusing, sometimes.” He winces a little. “You may especially want to relax now, considering what I’m about to do to you.”

  “Wait. Stop. You’re going to do what now? To me?”

  “You do love the word what, don’t you?” asks Kelly. “It is a good word. It can mean so many things. You remember when I said that, to beings such as myself, physical existence is mere construction paper and pipe cleaners?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well,” says Kelly, “I am about to break you down into paper and glue, and put you back together again somewhere much safer. So hold on.”

  “Wait. Wait!” says Mona. “You’re going to do what to me?”

  “There’s that word again!” says Kelly. “Relax, Miss Mona. Back in the old days, some found this experience very enlightening. It’s just a matter of…”

  Things slow down. Then they stop.

  Then Mona’s body begins to report many disparate sensations.

  First her eyes freeze in her skull, which makes it impossible to confirm any of the other sensations: her skin begins to crackle, as if waves of static electricity are crawling along her arms and legs; her hair curls like slashed harp strings; her fingernails, like switchblades, recede into her flesh; some bones lengthen, others twirl into corkscrews, while still others dissolve into powder; her brain turns to water, which washes down the back of her throat, drips down her spine, and puddles on the floor; her teeth turn to fire in her head, and wither into ash; and so on, and so on, and so on, and she cannot even find the voice to scream.

  But one thing stays constant: that wry, smug grin on the shimmering screen, and those dark, crinkled eyes…

  Somewhere a voice says: “… place.”

  Then everything is lost.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Mona’s only been gone for what feels like five minutes when Gracie hears the footsteps from the canyon behind her. This should surprise her: since the beginning of their relationship (which was so long ago Gracie can’t even remember it now), this canyon was utterly secluded, unreachable for everyone except her and Mr. First. But then came Joseph, and Mr. Macey, and then Mona, until finally it started to seem as if this place were some kind of bizarre town square, with everyone showing up and bumping into one another and sharing the price of vegetables.

  But what Gracie does find troubling is that Mr. First never mentioned anything about a second visitor tonight. So Gracie, remembering the flashes of gunfire and old Parson on his knees, drops to the ground and crawls away to find cover behind a long, flat rock. She is not sure what is coming, but she knows it could be dangerous.

  What comes strolling down the canyon completely flummoxes her: it is Velma Rancy, a sophomore at Gracie’s school. Gracie has no idea what she could possibly be doing here, especially dressed so strangely in a powder-blue suit and a white panama hat. And she appears to be bearing a blood-covered cigar box like a holy relic, and her hand is horribly injured…

  As Velma approaches the thick white fog at the end of the canyon, there’s a sound like a whip crack; then the fog begins to swirl around one point, and then it begins to draw back, like dirty water circling down the sink drain, until it reveals…

  Nothing. No Mona, no figures, no nothing. Just the empty end of the canyon, which is about sixty feet across in all directions… but there is, just maybe, the soft sound of fluting.

  This does not dissuade Velma, who just keeps walking straight ahead with the bloody cigar box held out. Finally, at a point that seems fairly random to the naked eye, she stops.

  There is a silence. Then the canyon fills with a low, soft hum, a hum that is so deep Gracie’s ears can hardly register it: it is like thousands of yogis softly murmuring the om mantra, building and leveling off until the tissues just behind her eyes begin to vibrate.

  Gracie knows this sound: it is the sound Mr. First makes when he wishes to communicate. It is not, she knows, the sound of him communicating: it is simply a noise that is produced, perhaps by accident, when First speaks.

  “Stop that,” says Velma in a voice totally unlike hers: the words are mealy-mouthed and ill-formed, like a deaf person’s. “If I am stuck in this vessel and I speak this way, you should have to do the same.”

  The bass hum swells slightly. Tears well up in Gracie’s eyes.

  “No,” says Velma. “I won’t listen. Speak. Speak like I do. It’s only fair.”

  The hum tapers off. Something invisible moves in the canyon: the gravel on the ground shifts in huge piles, as if, perhaps, two enormous, invisible feet have risen slightly, and fallen.

  Then there is a voice like enormous stones being ground against one another:

  HMM.

  Gracie is shocked. She never knew he could talk, if he wanted to…

  “It’s not so pleasant,” says Velma, “having to talk in such a manner.”

  The gravel shifts again. I DO NOT HAVE MUCH EXPERIENCE WITH IT, says the huge voice contemplatively, BUT I HAVE NOT YET FOUND ANYTHING TERRIBLY OBJECTIONABLE ABOUT IT.

  “And you wouldn’t, would you,” says Velma. “You never find anything to be terrible. You’ve never had to struggle.”

  There is a silence.

  “Do you know who I am?” asks Velma.

  I KNOW, says the voice, THAT YOU ARE MY KIN.

  “Then what’s my name?”

  Silence.

  “You don’t know,” says Velma. “There are so few things that are unknown to you. Yet I am one of them.”

  I AM SURE YOU KNOW MANY THINGS THAT I DO NOT, says the voice.

  “Stop it!” says Velma. “Stop being so…”

  REASONABLE?

  “Be quiet! Don’t… don’t you understand how shameful this is for you?”

  WHY SHOULD IT BE SHAMEFUL?

  “Because you’re going to die here today. And you won’t even die knowing the name of the person who killed you. None of them did. They never even knew I was there.”

  THEY?

  “Yes. I killed Weringer. I killed Macey. I figured out how.” Her words are gleefully, hatefully mad. “Because Mother wanted me to. That’s what She wanted me to do. There was another way. One you didn’t know about, one you ignored. You aren’t so perfect. I don’t know why She loved you so much.”

  The voice sighs. I AM AFRAID I MUST TELL YOU THAT YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT THERE.

  “Shut up!” snarls Velma. “You always pulled
Her away from me! She was always leaving me! Any time we were together, when I brought Her beauties and delicacies and wonders for Her amusement, you always came in and ruined it! You never let Her love me!”

  DELICACIES? the voice says. AH… I THINK I REMEMBER YOU. YOU WERE THE LITTLE ONE… HER SERVANT?

  “I was more than just a servant!” screams Velma. “She loved me! She would have loved me more if you hadn’t been there! And you don’t deserve Her love! You’re not even… not even First! Do you know that? She didn’t make you first at all! There was one before you, one that went wrong, one bigger and stronger and meaner than you! Did you know that?”

  The voice sighs. YES, I KNOW THAT.

  Velma appears taken aback. “You… you do?”

  YES. I FOUND THAT OUT LONG AGO. AND I MADE MY PEACE WITH IT.

  “How… how can you… how can you know and not care!” cries Velma.

  THEY HAVE A VERY GOOD SAYING HERE, says the voice. IT GOES—FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTEMPT.

  “What does that have to do with anything!” says Velma. Her voice is almost a screech.

  IT MEANS, ONCE YOU COME TO KNOW A THING—ANY THING—YOU TEND TO DESIRE IT LESS. AND IF YOU WANTED MOTHER’S LOVE, BROTHER, I WOULD HAVE FREELY PASSED IT ON TO YOU. BECAUSE, TO BE FRANK, I HAD HAD ENOUGH OF IT.

  “What!” says Velma. She almost chokes. “How… how dare you! How dare you say such a… a blasphemous thing! How could you be willing to throw such a blessing away!” Velma sputters for a moment, incensed beyond words. “You don’t deserve to live! And it gets to be me who does it, me who kills you! It’s here, did you know that? The wildling’s in Wink! Why don’t… why don’t I just show it to you?”

  Velma flips the top of the cigar box open, then swoops the box up.

  Something small, round, and white flies toward the center of the canyon.

  Then it stops, frozen, hanging in space as if it’s been grasped by an invisible hand.