by Paul Monette
He tilted his head as if to hear her better. Then he sighed and seemed uncomfortable. Perhaps he thought she was lying. Really, she wasn’t. It was just—
“Maybe so,” he said carefully. “But you probably wish you didn’t.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I guess because you think I’m not going to make it.”
It wasn’t what she expected, and she shied away from answering. She looked off into the tree that shaded the porch of the general store. There on a leafless lower branch she saw a monkey dangling by his tail. His lips curled back on his chattering teeth. He seemed to want to be fed. He clicked and clicked, getting crazier by the minute. How did Roy not hear it?
“You may be right,” he said with quiet irony, seemingly undisturbed by the silence that had gripped her. “I sure didn’t make it the last time. I was the first one over.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “We’re the survivors, aren’t we? Isn’t that why we make these plans?”
He shook his head. “The rest of us failed you, Iris. You were the only one who made it out alive.” He paused a moment, then added with an odd reluctant sorrow: “You and him.”
Of course, she thought as she watched two kittens chase about in the alley beside the store. He was absolutely right. She suddenly saw how the last days had gone, as if the missing piece of the diary had turned up whole at the back of a drawer. She remembered now: as the summer ripened, Michael had managed to draw them all into his power. Except for seven or eight, who stood with her and would not yield. In the end they had no choice but to flee.
“How do you know?” she asked in a whisper, as if to keep the animals from hearing.
“It’s all coming back,” he said with an easy shrug. “I figure, by Tuesday morning we’ll know everything.”
A Tuesday morning, was it? She recalled how they loaded their horses to go. They were heading up the meadow, just short of the crest of the hill—and inch by inch, the sky shut tight like a coffin. The horses reared. The packs worked loose and spilled to the ground. They thrashed around like cavalry. From far out on the point, they heard the sound of people breaking free.
It was irresistible. In a moment, her loyal few had turned to join the rest. They were terrified of being left behind. They galloped away downhill, racing against the moon. Just once before the world was done, they had this wish to fly. They dismounted and ran and leaped without fear, right into the black of the sun. All their screams were intertwined, like a choir on a final chord.
By the time the light came on again, everyone else was gone. Michael stood out on the lonely cliff. High up the ridge, she rode a spotted horse.
“Then what happened?”
“You mean afterward?” he asked, bewildered. “How would I know? That’s between you and him.”
Everywhere she turned, the shape of time came down to this: Michael and Iris all alone, in a world washed clean of years. She must stop thinking she had a choice. Life was tuned to an old idea, requiring only bodies. The animals stretched in the darkness. They fed on the grass and nosed about in the attics. What was she trying to win? She was just a puppet.
“I’ll deal with him tomorrow,” she said.
“Fine with me,” replied the ranger, smiling. He rolled his shoulders like an athlete, eager to go. Somehow he’d tossed off all the difficult talk. He was satisfied again. “Listen, I’m sticking as close to you as I can. I’m still planning to get out of here.”
She gave a startled grin, as if she’d finally got the drift of things. Without another word they turned and continued down the street. As she took his hand, she realized it was just ten minutes ago she’d dropped it. Ten minutes lost was costly here.
“Where will you go, do you think?” she asked.
“Me? I’m going to travel,” he said, snapping a sprig off a bush as they passed. “I’ve never been anywhere else but here.”
“Daytona Beach,” she said idly, snatching at what she knew.
He snorted a one-note laugh. “I’m talking about the world,” he said, and started to spin a voyage fit for Marco Polo.
Suddenly they walked along as if they had a future, as if nothing dark had intervened. She saw it was his nature not to look too deep. He had no more taken in the rough patch they’d traversed than he had the beasts that roamed the village. He went his way through life. Didn’t brood or hold a grudge. The wilderness inside him was sufficient.
It didn’t matter that foot-long snakes were swishing away in the gutter as they came by. That fledgling birds and field mice hid in the tufts of grass below the lampposts. She found that as long as she listened to Roy—as he laid out his vast itinerary, from Turkestan to Stonehenge—she didn’t have to see the nightlife whirling at the edges of the town.
By the time they reached the boardinghouse they were arm in arm again. He had started to whisper adolescent passion in her ear. She stopped on the porch and sank against him, then looked up at the shatter of stars. They kissed till they could hardly stand. Till the clock in the tower of the church struck twelve.
“Sunday,” she hissed in his ear, with a pang of wild desire.
It was like a game. They had to be naked before the last bell rang. They tore into the house and chased up the stairs. By the seventh stroke they were safe in her room. By the tenth, he had stripped her sweater over her head. They were fumbling at one another’s pants when silence fell on the village again. They did not ask how long they had. They owed nothing to anyone, alive or dead. The midnight hour was upon them, and they thrived.
VII
THEY BEGAN TO GATHER in the dew-soaked grass beside the church at a little after six. By six-thirty-five they were over a hundred. Just then, a certain glow in the sky tipped the color from pearl to palest blue. A shiver of excitement seemed to touch them, though their voices never rose above a whisper. It was what they called “false dawn”—a trick of the light on the water as the sun crawled up to the rim. They shifted and searched the distance, as if they could hardly breathe before the new day broke. When the tower clock struck seven they formed a line, the oldest at the front. There would not be room for all of them inside.
Michael had no idea it was time for the morning service. The moment the first gray tinged the dark he had gone out into the cemetery to rid himself of years. He threw off fifty stones in as many minutes. He would have kept working—he wasn’t tired—if the bell had not reminded him. Forty-eight hours, he thought, when the seven chimes were done. Then he turned and headed back, zigzagging through the chilly mist that smoked beneath the pines. He was as naked as he had been the previous night.
He could see the crowd building before he reached the gate. He stopped, shrank back, and moved under cover of mist to the side door. He let himself into the robing room at six minutes after. He realized now he was meant to start at precisely 7:11. He went to the rector’s closet and poked among the vestments. The heady odor of mildewed serge had a marvelous tang. He pulled out a black wool gown, then a starched white smock and a goldworked hood. He slung the outfit over his arm and turned to the rosewood box where the rector kept the wafers.
These he’d been eating compulsively for the last two days. It was only after he’d emptied the box that he knew what he had to have it for. He had taken it down to the harbor with him the afternoon before. There, in the hollow skull out in the bay, he filled it full of fungus—scooping the spores from the nooks and corners, brushing them out of Joey’s eyes. He carried the little casket under his arm now as he ducked through the curtains and into the church proper.
He stood on the altar steps a moment, wishing the room would stay empty. Then he dropped his garments to the floor and sat on them, thinking to rest while he still had time. As the din outside began to build he let his eye wander over the beams and stone-work, the narrow deep-set windows. The sleepless night must have finally hit him. He began to think he was in a fort, and no one would ever get in.
The mayor saw to it that the doors at the rear were opened right
on time. They creaked back ceremoniously, and the congregation filed in. Michael watched. From the way he hunkered down, he might have been peering in through a chink in a wall. He’d completely forgotten to dress, but ceased to care. All they wanted was a little fix. He needn’t waste his time on speeches.
But a curious thing began to happen. The first ones had hardly reached their seats when they started to take off their clothes. Just seeing him sitting there—elbows on knees, chin in hand, like a cloistered satyr—seemed to let them know what the next step was. The old ones looked like the damned in hell, with their wattles and sags and swollen joints. Michael was shocked. He stood up as if he would cast them out.
The more he saw, however, the more he felt a certain fascination. The wreckage of flesh, as the villagers stood revealed, showed him just how merciful he was. They were like a race of slaves that wanted leading out of bondage. There was something almost wonderful about the way they threw aside the past. Everyone followed without a word: stripped off everything, folded it neatly, and made a little pile. The seats were all full. They were jammed three deep at the rear, and the rest craned in at the door. Apparently, there wasn’t any limit to what they’d do. Whatever he liked.
A minute or two, and they’d all sat down with their bundles on their laps. Treasure chest in hand, Michael came down into the aisle and watched them look over longingly. It seemed there could hardly be anyone left in the village. There were surely a hundred fifty here. This did not include the children, whom he’d already given leave to miss all meetings.
No one made any move to talk, though clearly they were clustered mate with mate, family to family. The bonding instinct filled him with fury. More than he loathed their pocked and wizened bodies, he recoiled from the homing sentiment. Why did they ever go to sea at all if they couldn’t stand the distances? It would take him the better part of an hour to feed so many. Then they would all go through the phase of drunkenness and dancing, till they drove him crazy laughing. What did he owe them fathering for? He didn’t need a crew. He wasn’t going back.
He opened the box and peered inside. His face lit up with delight. Then, not even thinking, he tipped it upside down and let the scum spill out onto the floor. He could feel them tense like a pack of dogs, but they didn’t stir. He stepped in the ooze and slowly stamped his feet till it gushed between his toes. He mashed it into the old stone floor. It slicked and then drank in, as if its truest medium were deep within the earth. The ocher stain against the slate made a pool like a spot of sun.
All through the room they panted for it. Spit rolled off their lower lips. If nothing else, he loved them for their hunger. Then he said: “Today is the day you rid your land of houses. You understand?”
In every row they nodded up and down, with a motion that was strangely slack. They didn’t have the energy. Their limbs looked rubbery; they slumped like dolls. They couldn’t say no to him, though they hadn’t the strength to swallow. He had tossed out their last hope of going blank. Some even cried, without a sound.
“I want it to look like nothing has ever been here,” Michael said. “The way it was before.”
With that he nodded back at them, in a kind of courtly bow. Then he drifted up the aisle toward the doors. It was all they needed. They surged from their seats and lunged at the spot he had spoken from. Those in the very first row, the aged, knelt in a circle around the stain and bowed and kissed it like a shrine. They tongued up the crumbs and swooned in a moment, before the next fanatic wave could come and pull them off. They fell aside in a fetal crouch, grinning from ear to ear.
The strongest were soon in front. They pushed their way through the others like troopers, straight-arming and using their boots. When they reached the place, they bent in a huddle—eight or nine men from the ranger corps. They scraped at the stone with their fingernails and lifted enough in chips and shavings to feed their immense desire. Their next impulse, as the others began to crowd them in and clamor for a share, was protection of the source. They turned to face the hungry, locked in a ring like warriors.
But they had no weapons, and the drug had begun to wear their edges off. They mauled and pummeled the nearest weaklings—one gouged out his sister’s eye—but they couldn’t seem to keep their minds on the violence at hand. They were full of seaborne dreams and the plunder of mountain empires. A break occurred in the circle. Immediately, a dozen parishioners swarmed about on the floor, tongues lolled out like crazies. They beat their fists on the stone, as if pleading to be entombed. The rangers soon surrendered. They clapped their arms around one another and wept for the wars they used to win.
Michael, for whom the crowd had parted like a wave, stood in the door of his temple and watched. For all the devouring madness of the crush, the only sound he heard was whimpering. Though the villagers threw themselves into the pile, groping and pulling, they’d already given up the notion of finding any morsel. They were in it as much for the fighting now, each one out to satisfy a hatred old as time. They seethed at their rotten neighbors. Went after their bosses and landlords. Naked to them was delicious, for all the nail marks showed, the welts, the bites, the bruises.
Before he knew it, Michael was swamped by lust. As he turned to go, he suddenly felt he was falling over. He looked down to find a whole family, four or five at least, slavering at his feet. They were trying to suck the residue off his toes. They reached their hands to caress his legs, and he teetered backward, seized with a fear of drowning. Arthur Huck had to pull him away and out the door to safety.
Rabid though they were, they didn’t try to follow. For the moment the world beyond the church was nothing. They spun around and waded into the fray. The pulsing mass of bodies pulled them forward. It seemed as if no one could leave till every spore was clawed from the ancient stone.
“You must punish them, master,” the mayor said, inching close to speak in his ear. “They defile this holy ground.”
Michael shook off the other’s damp hand where it clung to his upper arm. Then he swatted at Arthur’s half-swelled organ, and the mayor blushed and stepped away. “I want it stripped,” said Michael savagely, jerking a thumb at the church. “Benches, prayer books, candles—everything. Rip out the woodwork. Burn the linen. When I get back, I want it empty.”
“Can’t I come with you?”
The prophet looked over coldly. “What?”
Arthur shuffled backward toward the door. Poor man, he only meant to serve. He’d have given almost anything to be his captain’s bodyguard. Yet he had no choice but to turn and fight his way back in, wincing at the chaos that had torn his people open. The fire of his wrath grew huge as he bellowed for order and beat at the herd. In his heart he would have gladly made a throne room of this chapel, but his master wanted a naked cell, so a monkish air possessed him. He pulled down the cross off the altar. He swept away the communion silver. Then he turned to flog the rabble, to rid the place of sin.
Michael lingered a moment more, bedazzled by the madness framed in the open doorway. It was easy to make a room in hell: the people were so ready. Those who’d had the barest taste of fungus were doubled up with laughter, slumped against the walls. The wounded were down on their hands and knees, bumping about like blinded pigs. A few spilled what blood they could, one-on-one, like dancers—riddling all their partners’ flesh with a crazed bare-handed hammering. Arthur grabbed up the window pole and drove them into the corners. He shrieked like a foreman, threatening a string of tortures. By noon, thought Michael, the exorcism would be over with. His fort would at last be purified of hope.
The village was wonderfully quiet now. He loped up the street and turned to count the number of his houses. Of the twenty he could see along the knoll, sixteen were already his. Two stood firm on the other side, and two more remained no-man’s-land, with the holdouts locked in the basement. He started up the nearest lane and tried to think what he wanted. A woman? A man? Did he wish to claim more property? Dozens of laws still wanted breaking. Some sort of killing, p
erhaps.
No, nothing. He wanted nothing.
He turned to gaze at the aimless sea. The long gray years of the future stretched in ripples to the far horizon. If she wouldn’t go with him, he might have to live alone forever. The country of his dreams was just another exile. His voyage had no end but her.
“I love you,” she whispered behind him, so close he could feel her breath on his neck.
As he turned to claim his kingdom, his eyes swept the cliffs like a skimming bird. The light was blinding clear. He gathered her in his arms and bent and kissed her throat. Her yellow dress, soft as the fall of summer, stirred him so deep that he began to sob. He grasped her close and ran his hands all over, as if to make sure there was nothing broken. He fell to his knees. He buried his face against her. As she held his head and stroked his hair, she hushed his dread with a murmur low as the wind in the pines. He drank in her smell. Dragged her down.
“Michael—darling.” She gasped as he rolled on top of her. She gripped his hair in both her hands and arched her hips against him. “Let’s go now,” she whispered. “Trust me, Michael. We can fly.”
He froze as if at the hiss of a snake. The sweat sprang cold across his neck. One hand was already under her dress, ripping her pants off. Now he let go like a priest come back to his senses. He shifted his weight to the elbow on the ground and lifted off her. He knew who it was. He turned his lonely eyes and raked her face. It was Judith Quinn, the doctor’s wife, and she stunk like death itself.
“What is it?”
He didn’t answer. He merely came to his feet and sniffed the morning air. The woods beyond the town were winter ripe. They beckoned him in with secret trails. As he lurched away and stumbled up the grass, he didn’t even recognize the name she sang out after him. He was sure he was no one she’d ever heard of.
He ought to have known they’d mock him with phantoms. He covered his ears and leaped from rock to rock across a stream. He didn’t so much as glance over his shoulder to see it with all its streets intact. He couldn’t bear it, not till they made things wild again. He staggered up the mossy bank. It was only there in the old world that his dream would come to earth. Only when they were all alone would she see him for who he was.
