by Blake Crouch
They reach the bottom of the staircase and stand on the dirt floor amid the dim labyrinth of stone rooms.
Rufus chuckles.
"That’s gasoline, Beautiful. Old Horace is gonna get his wish after all. It’s a Christmas miracle!"
# # #
Winter on Ocracoke Island is a season of desert beauty—the lonely beaches ravishing and ravaged by the cold belligerent sea. The village streets are empty, the tourists having long since fled, wanting no part of a truly wild place. Nor’easters blow through, one after another. There is only wind and rain and skies of slate and the ongoing defiance of these eroding ribbons of land called the Outer Banks, daring the great Atlantic to consume them.
In February, two men walk up the beach north of Ramp 72, amid driving rain and spindrift and the deafening crush of surf. No other soul has ventured out into this raw gray madness, and on such a morning this barrier island feels like more than just the fringe of eastern America.
The slower of the two men stops walking, stoops down, and pries an enormous conch shell out of the sand. He turns it over several times, finding it perfectly intact.
"Here." Rufus hands the shell to Luther. "We’ll take it back to Mom."
They continue on up the beach, the wind to their backs, whipping the sea oats, the old man musing on what it will be like after the Great Regression. Luther has heard it a thousand times, and what he once suspected, he now wholeheartedly yet secretly believes: his father is full of shit.
But Luther dutifully listens.
The wind reverses, now howling out of the north, spitting rain into their faces. They turn and walk back toward the access road.
"I love it like this," Rufus says. "Look at the chaos."
He points out into the rabid sea, pulverizing the beach.
"How’s your treatise coming?"
"It’s good, Pop," Luther lies.
"Can’t wait to read it. See what four years in those Manhattan libraries taught you."
Rufus playfully bumps shoulders with his son. Luther musters a dead smile.
They walk awhile without speaking, over kelp and driftwood and the footprints of sandpipers and myriad shells and all that the waves have flung ashore. Rufus puts his arm around Luther and grins against the knowledge that he’s losing his son.
# # #
They’ll have no linear memory of the winter they are spending in the belly of the house. Only slivers to haunt the people they become. Slivers of darkness and silence and faceless voices and hilarious violence. They won’t remember the space between injections and gas, when the fogginess lifted just enough to let the inhuman horror of it all sink in.
# # #
"Breath deep, young lady." Vi inhales the gas. The world floats down and sinks through her and woooooooooooow.
"Now I want you to watch this tape."
"Okey doke."
As Vi fixates on the home video, the television screen begins to pulsate. It’s the funniest thing she’s ever seen. The star hangs upside down by his feet, and he keeps screaming and screaming.
From the other side of the room, Andy yells, "How meaningless!"
Another shot of NO2 and now Vi laughs hysterically.
That quiet man with the long black hair is in the movie, too, and he’s the one making the star scream. When the screaming stops, the movie ends.
Vi tries to give a standing ovation but keels over on the dirt floor.
"I see you enjoyed that."
"Oh, so much. Can I watch another one?"
"Of course you may. We have many. But first…"
Here comes the mask of joy.
# # #
Sometimes the three captives watch the movies together, filling the basement with their strange laughter and rolling around like idiots in the pile of spent whippits.
Their favorite is Headless Harry. Luther graciously plays it for them again and again.
# # #
One night, Luther sits on an old couch in that dim screening chamber of the basement, watching Beth and Vi, sprawled out on the floor, engrossed in the tape he made of Horace Boone.
Andy sits rocking in a corner. The gas hit him wrong tonight, so he’s shaky and panicky and having a conversation with his dead brother.
Beth turns suddenly and looks up at Luther as Horace’s screams reverberate off the stone walls. Even through the fantastic haze, she registers the black absence in his eyes.
"Can I have one?"
She points to the bag of Lemonheads in Luther’s lap. He hands her one.
"Here," she says cheerfully and offers him a condom swollen with nitrous oxide. "Why don’t you come down here and watch Flamin’ Boone?"
Luther reaches forward, pinches the lips of the condom above Beth’s fingers, and leans back into the couch. After hyperventilating for twenty seconds, he brings the mouth of the prophylactic to his lips and inhales the gas. When he’s done, he flicks the limp rubber across the room, and his eyes fix on Horace, now charred, smoking, and softly groaning.
Beth still eyes Luther, so high on gas that the sounds from the television throb through her like waves.
"Quit looking at me," Luther warns.
"Why are you so sad?"
"I’m not sad. I’m not anything. Watch the tape."
# # #
Maxine Kite unlocks the door and enters the small, dark cell. She sets the candle on the floor. Its flame throws shadows and light upon the stone.
Vi sleeps on the floor. Maxine kneels down beside her and jams the needle into her backside. Vi stirs, moans softly, and turns over to face the old woman. Her eyes barely open. She’s hung over horribly from the nitrous oxide, as she has been every night for the last two weeks.
"What are you doing?"
"I came to read to you while you sleep," Maxine says. "Rufus thinks it helps."
"Will you promise me something?" Vi asks.
"No promises here."
"Please."
The lucidity of the young woman alarms Maxine. Rufus would be furious. She should’ve injected the sedative into a vein.
"What is it?" Maxine asks.
"Don’t give me the drugs when I have my baby. I want to feel it. I want to remember it. Please. You’re a mother aren’t you?"
The old woman hardens, her weathered face beautiful and haunting in the candlelight.
"I said no promises here."
# # #
Once more, Andy’s eyes close at the urging of the hypnotic drug. Though he’s conscious, he doesn’t feel Rufus slip on the headphones and the light frames. The soundtrack consists of a binaural beat—two pure tones, close in pitch, one amplified into each ear. Every seven seconds, the diodes emit a burst of red light. This goes on for nearly an hour, seducing his alpha waves. Then he sees things.
# # #
Orson occupies a rocking chair on the porch of his cabin in the desert. Andy approaches, having walked here from some great distance. The day is brilliant, sweltering. He’s sunburned and thirsty.
"Hello, Orson," he calls out.
No answer.
"Could I have some water?"
No answer.
Andy steps up onto the porch. Orson is beyond still. Andy reaches out and palms his brother’s shoulder. Orson’s entire frame shifts slightly—he weighs nothing, a rigid dried-out shell, as hollow as the exoskeleton of a cicada.
# # #
"Mom, me and Orson want to play in the woods."
Jeanette stops cutting the onion and wipes her eyes.
"Orson’s dead, young man. But you’re welcome to go."
# # #
The rapist, Willard Bass, chases little Andy and Orson through the tunnel. In the distance, the circle of light at the end grows larger and brighter. Andy stops suddenly and spins around. Willard stops running, too. Filthy, wide-eyed, and breathless, he stares at the boys.
"Our turn!" Andy yells, and now the twins chase Willard back into the darkness.
When running in this direction, the tunnel has no end.
# # #
Andy stands behind a lectern in an infinite bookstore. The crowd goes back for miles and miles. Every face in the audience glares at him. He looks down at the page he will read from, but the words are gobbledygook. He turns the page. More nonsense.
"I can’t read this," he says into the microphone. "It doesn’t make any sense."
"Read it anyway," someone shouts.
"But it’s meaningless."
Several boos emanate from the crowd.
"All right, all right, I’ll try."
Sweat beads on his face. He looks down at the page and reads aloud, slowly and with great difficulty.
"smf ejprbrt ,idy nr s vtrsypt om hppf smf rbo;. brto;u. jr ,idy gotdy nr sm smmojo;sypt smf ntrsl bs;ird/ yjid yjr johjrdy rbo; nr;pmhd yp yjr johjrdy hppfmrddz’ niy yjod od vtrsyobr/"
The crowd roars with affirmation. Now people are standing and clapping and shouting, "More! More!"
# # #
A giant onion stands in a kitchen, chopping up Andy’s mother, its eyes watering profusely.
# # #
Andy enters the study of his lake house. A man sits at his desk, typing on his computer. Andy stands behind the writer, listening to the patter of fingers on the keyboard and trying to read the text on the monitor. The writer glances back, just a small boy now.
"You better not read it," Orson warns and then goes back to typing. Andy leans forward and squints at the computer screen. The words are gobbledygook.
"What are you writing?" Andy asks.
"It’s a story. About you."
"What happens in it?"
"You go insane."
# # #
They lower me into a squeaky leather chair. The warmth of a fire laps at my face.
"Thank you, son. I’d like to talk to him alone now."
A door closes. The quiet pandemonium of the fire fills the room. I cannot recall the last time I’ve had such presence of mind. The recent past holds all the clarity of a coma, and the shards of memory I do have are not worth keeping. I wonder if it’s Christmas yet. I wonder many things.
As I lift my head, the textures of the room begin to materialize and vivify.
It’s night. Beyond the windows, I hear the tinkling of ice pellets. I recognize this room—the empty bookcases, the hearth, the satellite photograph of the Outer Banks, the oil painting of Luther Kite. I don’t remember when or why, but I’ve been in this room before.
Luther’s father sits across from me in an identical leather chair, legs crossed and stately in his black, satin robe.
"Don’t be afraid, Andy," Rufus says, smiling. "It’s my great joy and privilege to be sitting here with you."
I manage to home in on the details of his face. Rufus Kite must be at least seventy-five years old. But aside from a field of wrinkles and a few liver spots, he appears to be in phenomenal physical condition. He possesses the eyes of a young man—hard, vital, and thrilled with his place in the world. I can see the reflection of flames in them. His white hair is combed back and damp, as though he just stepped out of the shower.
"When is it?" I ask.
"You mean what month?"
His voice echoes. I wonder if it’s the room or my brain.
"Yes."
"It’s late March."
"No, but…" It takes a great effort to speak, and I have difficulty keeping my eyes open. "How long—"
"You’ve been with us for a hundred and forty-one days."
"No, it can’t be that—"
"You know what they say. Time flies."
I suspect he’s lying to me. It seems impossible that almost five months have elapsed since I came to this island. It feels more like a week.
"Where are the girls?" I ask. "Did I dream they were here?"
"Andy, let’s hold off on the questions for now, okay? Humor me, and I’ll fill you in on everything afterwards. Agreed?" I nod. "Wonderful. So how are we feeling?"
"Like I’ve just woken up from a long nightmare. But I feel like I know you very well."
"Oh, you and I have spent lots of time together."
Rufus reaches down and lifts a piece of paper from underneath his chair.
"I’m going to show you a picture. I just want you to react."
He holds the photo up in front of his chest. For some strange reason, laughter wells up inside of me. But I stifle it, because the photo shows Luther, tearing into someone with an ax. Rufus sets the photograph facedown in his lap.
"Answer me honestly, Andy. When you saw this picture, did you fight the urge to laugh?"
"No."
"No?"
"No."
He grins. "Bullshitter. May I assume you believe in good and evil?"
"Yes."
"And to whose value system do you bow down?"
"I don’t bow down to anything. A universal standard of behavior exists, and whether or not you choose to follow it, everyone who isn’t insane knows there’s an accepted right way and wrong way of treating each other."
"Accepted? I don’t accept it. Just because the majority of human beings believes something, does that make it so? Let me ask you this. Do you believe in God?"
"I um… No."
"No? Well, then if you’re an atheist, please explain to me who created this ‘universal standard of behavior’ as you call it?"
"I don’t know."
"Let me help you. I’ve spent my life probing this question, and far as I can tell, a person can honestly believe one of two things. Either that there’s a God who created in all of us this innate universal standard of right and wrong. Or that there is no right and wrong except that which you fashion for yourself."
"And you believe the latter."
"Oh yes."
"Because that helps you rationalize the disgusting things you and your family do to people?"
Rufus smiles.
"Sadly, I speak only for myself when I say this. The infliction of pain is hardly the goal. What you would deem evil—the taking of life, the creation of suffering—these things are not the goal. Recreating values, thinking beyond good and evil, overcoming illusions so that we as a species can continue to evolve—that is the goal."
Rufus leans forward and pats my knee.
"I want to share with you my vision. We may never see it in our lifetime, but it will happen. I call it the Great Regression.
"Imagine: suddenly, unexpectedly, war breaks out on every level. International. Interstate. Intercity. Interfamily. Madness, hell, horror, and all that constitutes evil erupts and overspreads the globe like a virus of rage. Most of the world’s population dies as mankind unleashes every urge that has been suppressed over the span of its civilized evolution. Cities burn. Men murder their families and themselves. Armies attack their citizenry. The Regression could last years, but I have a hunch that the rage will be such that a month’s time is sufficient to bring mankind to the brink of extinction.
"But in the end, when the smoke has cleared, a small core of human beings will remain. They’ll have survived not only the malice of others, but the malice of themselves. They’ll have been the hardest, sharpest, cruelest, wisest. And amid the devastation, they’ll start a new world, no longer based on the fear of what lies in man’s heart, but on the elevation of man and his ideas. They will be magnificent, they’ll be gods, and the things they do will be wondrous and beyond our understanding."
Rufus leans back, glowing.
"Think you’d survive the Great Regression?" I ask.
"I’ve thought about that, and I don’t think I would. I’m not hard enough. But I want you to know that I’m very hopeful for you, Andy. I think you have it in you to see beyond the illusions. You know, as much as I tinker with your mind, I really can’t reprogram your value system. God knows, I’m trying. But I’ve got a good feeling about you."
Rufus puts in his teeth and pulls a pipe from his breast pocket. Then he rises and walks across the room to a small bookcase beneath the windo
w that I hadn’t noticed before. He stoops down, lifts the glass lid from a jar of tobacco, and pinches just enough to pack his pipe.
"I’m surprised you haven’t asked about these," he says, motioning to a row of leather-bound journals. "Orson’s treatise is here. I should let you read it some time. You know, your brother was my only success story."
He’s puffing away, blowing smoke rings through smoke rings, as he returns to his chair. The room fills with the rancid sweetness of tobacco smoke. My heart pounds.
"What are you talking about? Orson—"
"Happened to Luther? Oh, no. We most certainly happened to him."
I straighten up in my chair. The grogginess evaporates. My hands tremble. Head throbs.
"I can see this is upsetting you, Andy. Should we talk about it another time?"
"Don’t fuck with me."
Rufus exhales a long stream of smoke.
"It’s been almost twenty years," he says. "It was summertime. My God, Luther was only fourteen. Maxine and I were walking along the beach south of Ramp 72, headed toward the southern tip of Ocracoke. It was windy. Sand blowing around like crazy, the sun liquid red as it sank into the dunes. It’s gorgeous out there. Soft white sand, far as the eye can see.
"At the end of the island, we came across this young man sitting in the sand, staring out across the inlet toward Portsmouth. He looked thoughtful and lonely, and I walked up to him and asked if he’d take a picture of Maxine and me. He obliged us. Your brother was such a sad young man, Andy. We got to talking. He told me he’d just quit college. I don’t know what was wrong with him. Depression probably. Whatever it was, I don’t think he’d have lasted much longer.
"I asked what he was doing on Ocracoke. Said he didn’t know. That he’d just been driving around from place to place, had never seen the Outer Banks, and so decided to come here on a whim.
"My wife, being the sweet angel that she is, invited him for dinner. He said no at first, but I could tell he was desperate for the company. We finally convinced him.
"Had a lovely dinner that night. Afterwards, Orson and I retired to this room. Sat in these very chairs. We were drinking black coffee and he was telling me about your father dying of cancer.
"Of course Orson’s coffee contained a substantial dose of Rohypnol. Boy, it’s always fun to watch them realize that something’s not quite right. Orson was chatting away, and all of the sudden he stopped and jumped to his feet. His legs just turned to milk chocolate and he staggered back into the chair and sat down, his chest heaving away. I explained that he would be staying with us indefinitely. He pissed in that chair you’re sitting in."
