American Elsewhere

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  But as she approaches, a small figure comes running down the street to her. Mona stops: though she has the baby in her arms, the rifle is still slung around her shoulder. She wonders how to bring it up and use it safely when the figure cries: “No! Miss Bright! Stop!”

  Mona grabs her rifle with one hand, but does not bring it up. That voice is somehow familiar, but she cannot understand why: as the person gets closer and Mona sees him better, she is positive she has never seen this young boy in the bunny pajamas and the huge glasses before in her life.

  “You do not recognize me,” says the young boy as he stops in front of her, panting.

  “No…” says Mona. But as he looks up and pushes his glasses up his nose, an absurd thought comes to her. “Wait a minute… Parson?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re in that… in that little boy?”

  “Yes. I have been since last night. Though you are not aware of it, I have been attempting to assist you since my, well, death.” He looks her up and down. She realizes she is still covered in blood. “Though it may not have been particularly effective…”

  The dark giant pulls its other leg free of the earth. Mona gauges the distance: it can cross the valley to Wink in only about three or four more steps.

  “What the hell do you want, Parson?” asks Mona. “We don’t have fucking time to sit here and talk!”

  “We do,” says the little boy (who Mona tries to remember is Parson). “She is about to be delayed. I assume you wish to run?”

  “Well shit yes, we do,” says Mona.

  The giant’s next step is slowed very slightly by the uneven terrain, but it is not much of a delay, if that’s what Parson was talking about.

  “You cannot,” says Parson. “The child is linked to Her. She can see it—She will always know where it is. And She will not permit it to leave Wink. You cannot run from Her.”

  The giant’s next step toward town is totally unhindered, and its massive leg moves so quickly they can hear the air being split from here. It is like low thunder, a crackling in the air.

  “Then what the fuck do we do?” cries Mona.

  “There is another way,” says Parson. “You must wait for Her. And meet Her.”

  Both Mona and Gracie are stupefied by this. In unison, both shout, “What?”

  “She does not control everything in Wink,” says Parson. “Not everything here has happened as She intended. There are flaws. One, in particular.”

  The giant’s foot crashes down on the highway out of town. Chunks of asphalt go flying up. Its yellow eyes are fixed on where the three of them stand before the Charger.

  The baby shrieks in her arms. Mona is so anxious she thinks she might faint. “Will you kindly get to the fucking point!” she says. “We are about to die here!”

  Parson says, with infuriating calm, “No. We are not.”

  Mona screams, “What the fuck do you mean b—”

  The giant is taking another step forward when it is suddenly thrown off balance: it is like it has been pushed by some invisible force, staggering backward and falling (with the astonishing enormity of the Titanic falling out of the sky) onto the ruined mountain behind it, accidentally crushing a sizable number of the children. A squeal rises up from the mountain as all the tiny horrors try to get clear of their progenitor.

  The giant itself seems no less surprised by this than Mona or anyone else: it stares around, bewildered, before looking up at something on the outskirts of town.

  There is a shimmering there, like a crinkle in the air. If Mona looks at it just right, it looks like a huge… well, a huge something standing on the edge of town, something extremely tall, but not half as tall as the giant: in comparison to the behemoth lying on the mountain, it is about the size of a toddler. Mona thinks she can discern long, thin arms, and many wriggling somethings, as if the top half of this creature is wreathed in tentacles…

  Then she hears the fluting. It is hauntingly beautiful, yet also alien.

  Beside her, Gracie gasps. “What?” she says softly. “No. No!”

  The buzzing in Wink tapers off. The children, who are trying so desperately to get free of their Mother (who, in turn, seems to hardly notice them), stop struggling and stare.

  A second noise begins echoing through the valley: a deep, resonant om, like thousands of monks beginning to meditate.

  The giant cocks its head, and slowly starts to rise to its feet.

  Gracie bursts into tears. She tries to run forward, but Parson grabs her by the hand and holds on. “We cannot let her go!” he shouts.

  Mona, who is juggling just a hell of a lot of shit right now, manages to free a hand and grab Gracie’s other arm. “Stop, Gracie!” she shouts. “Just stop!” Gracie fights for a bit before giving up and crumpling to the ground, sobbing in terror.

  Mona looks down on her for a moment before glancing back up at the shimmering thing on the edge of town. “What the hell is that?”

  “That,” says Parson, “would be the rebellion of the obedient son.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  The fight begins.

  It is a fight beyond nearly everyone and everything in the valley, save for the two fighting: it is a fight that takes place on many invisible fronts, using methods and modes undetectable to nearly everyone’s senses; and it is a fight that only rarely intrudes into the physical realm and its rudimentary dimensions. To nearly all onlookers, each blow and each small victory has completely random results throughout Wink, while First and his Mother stand almost utterly still, staring at each other across the ruined southern end of the valley.

  The first effect of the fight—a warning shot, a glancing blow, perhaps—is the sudden appearance of a river in the sky, stretching from north to south along Wink. It is an immense rope of water, suspended about seven hundred feet above them all, and were it to fall it would surely drown them.

  Thrust.

  First shifts his feet. The river in the sky dissolves, and there is a sudden deluge, a blitzkrieg of a torrent that comes howling down, even though the sky is completely cloudless. It rains for six seconds before it halts as suddenly as it started.

  When the rain stops, it is, without warning or reason, night: stars twinkle above them, and the pink moon is there as always.

  Parry.

  On Grimmson Street seven homes abruptly burst into flames, which turn bright green before going out, with no structure showing any aftereffects of a fire. As the fire dies out, the sun returns, and it is day again.

  A riposte, perhaps.

  In eastern Wink, buildings and roads and the ground shatter in a straight line across a city block, as if an enormous blade has swung down out of the sky. Several family members who gathered there to watch the fight are crushed, obliterated: as there are no more human hosts available, they are gone from Wink forever.

  A lunge—most certainly.

  A pinhole appears in the space behind the giant, which grows and grows, sucking all nearby matter into it: earth, broken trees, chunks of asphalt, and several dozen of the children, who tumble into its nothingness with tinny screeches.

  A definite coup d’arrêt.

  The giant cocks its head, and the hole slowly shrinks and disappears, sending a bolt of pink lightning arching across the skies. First shifts his feet again, and the lightning bolt disappears, though another massive, invisible blade goes slashing across the city, vivisecting homes, trees, and several people: it is as if an enormous, imperceptible force has been captured and diverted into purely physical energy, which is far less dangerous than its original state.

  Perhaps—a croisé?

  And does it succeed, and throw someone off their stance?

  The skies quiver. Suddenly there are two suns above the town, one large and pink, the other small and blood-red, like an infected eye.

  Thrust.

  The skies quiver again: now it is night again, and the skies are filled with eight moons of many sizes and many colors. Some have rings; others have tiny moons
of their own.

  Again, a thrust.

  The skies quiver again: they are now filled with a cold, frigid mist, and there are no mountains on either side of the town—only huge blue ice shelves, as if the town lay in a valley in the Antarctic. But there are buildings or colonies among the icy peaks, blocky, gray, ancient-looking structures that do not align to any building principle on earth.

  A riposte, but a desperate one…

  The skies quiver again: the ice is gone, the mist is gone; above the town is nothing but black, solid black: no moon, no stars, no suns or clouds, just… nothing. Just abyss.

  A lunge, and—perhaps—a touch?

  Slowly the streetlights of Wink flicker on, as if someone somewhere has flipped a switch. The streets fill with white, fluttering incandescence. The many figures standing in their front yards cast stretching shadows like a line of fence posts.

  An attempt, possibly, to disengage?

  Then there is a series of bursting lights at the south end of Wink, like soundless fireworks; with them, the streetlights die, and the world is bathed in darkness.

  A touch. A touch.

  (In the dark, Mona feels a small hand grip her wrist. It pulls her down, and there is a voice in her ear: “You know that the wildling is in Wink?”

  “Yes,” whispers Mona. “I know.”

  Parson asks, “But do you know where?” And Mona listens very carefully as he continues speaking.)

  Blue pinpricks appear in the darkness above Wink. They flare like magnesium, and light slowly returns to the sky.

  What they illuminate indicates that though things went queerly dark and silent, the fight continued: for example, huge, twisted, oddly fleshy trees have sprung up through the streets and even through a few homes, crinkling the asphalt and foundations like paper; stretches of the lawns and parks have become flats of black volcanic glass; the western end of Wink now features a mammoth, leaning tower of five-sided basalt columns; and the ground between the two combatants—the giant at the southernmost end of the valley, and First at the southern edge of the town—is now a reeking, bubbling, black marsh.

  First, though mostly invisible, appears tired: though he stood stock-still before, now he sways like a willow in a storm. The giant, though it has been barred from entering Wink, does not appear winded by any of this exertion, nor is it irritated or angered at all: it is as if this has been an interesting, diverting little game, but no more.

  The giant studies First coolly, then cocks its head again. Immediately a fierce buzzing rings out over the whole town, as if a hive of hornets a billion strong has just been punctured with a rock.

  The people standing in their yards and in the street turn all at once, and begin marching toward First.

  The giant cocks its head in the other direction. First becomes a little more corporeal: the crinkle in the air becomes slightly gray and filmy, though still translucent. He turns to see his brothers and sisters approach him.

  The giant cocks its head once more. The crowds of people begin to sprint.

  First waves a shimmering hand at them: No, no. Do not do this. But they pay no attention.

  First flickers, and seems to melt off in one direction, as if he is sliding through the air, attempting to get away. But the giant’s fingers twitch, and it is as if First strikes a glass wall.

  He attempts to transport himself away again, but meets the same obstacle: Mother has trapped him.

  The crowds of people—and, now, many of the children—swarm down to surround First. They ring him in completely, staggering across the black marshes to contain him.

  Then, without a word, they charge.

  Mr. First, of course, cannot kill any of his brothers or sisters in Wink, nor can they kill him: this is the agreement all of them made before making their home here, and it binds them like a law of physics. But his brothers and sisters do not seem intent on killing him as much as holding him down, grasping one of his many invisible limbs and pinning it to the ground. Though First is quite strong, and is capable of resisting for a time, their numbers grow too great, and he, shrieking, bellowing, is brought to his knees.

  They pile onto his shoulders. He tips forward, and falls onto the ground.

  The giant approaches. It bends over the prostate First with a vaguely self-satisfied air, as if to say—Now do you see what that sort of behavior gets you?

  First bellows and tries to stand. The pile of people—there must be several hundred on him—billows up, then falls back down. First moans, weeps, screams.

  The giant bends its knees, and begins to reach down to him.

  As its fingers near him, a shout rings out across Wink:

  NO! NO! I WAS HAPPY! WHY CAN’T YOU LET ME BE HAPPY? WHY CAN’T YOU EVER LET ME BE HAPPY?

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Throughout all this, Parson speaks.

  Mona tries to listen. It is almost impossible, as the geography of the town keeps changing so wildly and abruptly (at certain points Mona is not even sure she has ears, feeling as if her physical being has, again, been disassembled and reassembled), but the words start sinking in, as if she is listening without knowing she is listening.

  When everything comes roaring back, Mona is sitting on the ground with her baby sleeping in her arms. Gracie has her head on Mona’s shoulder, and is weeping silently, shoulders trembling. The rifle is on the ground beside them. Mona has no idea how they got into these positions. She especially has no idea how her daughter managed to fall asleep during all that.

  “I’m sorry, Gracie,” says Mona, though she is hardly aware of what’s going on.

  Gracie only sobs, despondent, and buries her face farther in Mona’s shoulder. Soon she’s infringing on the baby’s space, much to the baby’s dislike.

  “It’ll be okay,” Mona says. “I promise, we’ll figure out—”

  Then the intense buzz fills the air, many times louder as it was before. Even Parson looks up, disturbed, and Mona’s daughter wakes and begins crying again.

  They watch as all the people of Wink—if they could be called such—turn and begin encircling Mr. First.

  “No!” cries Gracie. She stands. “They’re going to trap him! We—we can’t let them do this!”

  “I am afraid we can,” says Parson.

  “We can’t! We have to do something!”

  “There is nothing to do,” says Parson. “He knew this would happen.”

  “How do you know that?” Mona asks.

  “Because he discussed it with me.”

  Gracie turns on him. “He what?”

  “When you left him to go fetch Miss Bright’s car,” says Parson, “I returned to him in his canyon. We knew what was happening, and tried to think of something to do. This was our solution.”

  “You… you planned this? You’re letting him do this? Letting him die?”

  “It was the only way,” says Parson.

  “The only way what? The only way you could get what you wanted? The only way to win another one of your f—your fucking family tiffs?” It seems to take some effort for Gracie to swear.

  “No,” says Parson. “The only way that you would live.”

  Gracie blinks. Mona can see her reviewing the statement in her head. “What?”

  “First has known something was coming for some time. Not this, precisely, but something. He has taken steps to prepare.” Parson’s small, boyish face grows queerly intense. “You understand this. You know what steps he has taken.”

  Gracie shrinks a little, as if some inner part of herself is collapsing. Whatever steps First has taken, she is clearly not keen to discuss them.

  “Yes,” says Parson. “These steps, these choices, limited his options later on. And he was most specific that you should be spared.”

  Gracie is so shaken by this that she cannot answer. Mona says, “So you’re saying that we’re going to live?”

  “No,” says Parson. “First is never quite sure of anything, temporally speaking. He does not predict, he estimates. But th
is provides the greatest chance for succe—”

  A deafening scream echoes through Wink: NO! NO! I WAS HAPPY! WHY CAN’T YOU LET ME BE HAPPY? WHY CAN’T YOU EVER LET ME BE HAPPY?

  Gracie wheels around. She sees the giant bending down to something trapped on the ground. She clasps either side of her head, falls to her knees, and screams.

  None of them quite sees what the giant does to First. It looks like nothing at all: there is no light, no noise, no gore or blood of any kind. They can just see First’s translucent form struggling under the masses of people, and the giant seems to brush something with its fingertips, and then…

  The mound of people collapse as if they had all been piled on top of a balloon that’s just popped. It’s as if First was there… and then he wasn’t. As if the giant has simply wished him out of all realities altogether.

  For the first time, Mona begins to understand exactly how powerful her Mother really is.

  Yet the moment First is gone, Gracie begins to change. She doesn’t notice it initially: she is bent over on the ground, sobbing… yet then her hair begins to rise, as if she is holding on to a Van de Graaff generator. Her sobs taper off, and she looks up, confused.

  Mona jumps slightly: Gracie’s eyes are now coal-black.

  “What’s happening to me?” Gracie asks. “What… what’s going on? Mona?”

  Mona, in turn, says, “Parson?”

  “A transfer of power,” says Parson.

  Gracie starts breathing very quickly. Then, as if suddenly, terribly pained, she begins screaming. She stands up, but there’s something unnatural about it—something in the way her arms appear limp, and her torso is slumped forward—that makes Mona think she’s not standing, but being pulled…

  Could it be, thinks Mona, another of Mr. First’s puppet tricks?

  Gracie flings out her arms to point to the sky. She stops screaming; then, slowly, she begins to levitate, rising about nine feet into the air and turning to face the giant. The air grows shimmery around her, as if her body is radiating immense heat, and her skin loses color until it’s as white as paper…