You, Human

by John Skipp

  (or waking up in a town i haven’t thought of in years with no memory of getting there)

  Movement flickered out of the corner of his left eye and he turned to look down West Front Street.

  A figure stood at the far end, where the street curved to the right.

  Or, more accurately, a boy stood at the far end, his green shirt and blue pants the brightest thing in this gray area, so small that McIntyre could’ve blotted him out with his pinky-nail.

  (where the hell have you been jimmy)

  (you need to come home jimmy)

  He started after the boy before he even knew he was moving. “Don’t you move! ” he yelled. The rain sapped the strength of his words. “Don’t! ”

  It was like running in a nightmare, his effort to move faster unmatched by the distance he covered. He winced when he approached the edge of the intersection, his nerves anticipating the crunch of another impact.

  But his shoes splashed through puddles and he kept going. He passed brick commercial buildings to the left, a blocky medieval structure that according to the sign was the Traumen Public Library to the right. The idea that this was a set, that this was all fake, persisted. These were all wooden constructions—hollow inside, something the art department and production design teams whipped together.

  And then, crossing the intersection of West Front Street and Center Avenue, the world flickered again.

  It wasn’t like before, but instead like the curtain of the world had been tugged back to reveal … nothing.

  Darkness.

  McIntyre’s foot came down, but his nerves pulling his weight back, certain he was going to plunge into darkness, and he went sprawling. He hit pavement—tumbling and rolling, the world com-pletely solid again, shredding the elbows of his shirt, pain flaring up.

  He raised his head, but the boy was gone.

  “No he isn’t,” McIntyre muttered, getting to his feet, and running again, battling the pain in his joints. The boy wasn’t gone. The boy had moved out of sight. McIntyre would find him. He had to. He had nothing else at the moment. That boy

  (where the hell have you been jimmy?)

  was the only straw he could cling to.

  (unless you’re having a nervous breakdown unless you’re strapped to some hospital bed)

  He reached the corner of State Street and West Front and zipped across—the idea of checking for traffic was a joke no one laughed at. He glanced and to his left was the Veteran’s Memorial Bridge, wide and slightly curved, with no buildings or trees to hide the view of Traumen’s east side and the gray, dead Ohio sky above. The name came to him with no fuss whatsoever, and he recognized the view before him, but none of it held any context beyond a minor tug at the back of his aching mind.

  He ran in the opposite direction, up State Street. The boy hadn’t gone over the bridge.

  (presuming there is a boy)

  (there is a boy goddammit)

  (how do you know and how do you know you’re heading for him?)

  He passed a commercial building with a bar-and-grille called the Ven-Bar on the corner and something ping-ed in that dull throb in the center of his brain: he’d taken a date here once. They’d had the dining area to themselves, which was good because the girl had had the loudest laugh—

  “You guys have fun tonight?”

  The man’s voice was a gunshot next to his ear. McIntyre jumped, bouncing off the wall of a PNC bank—and did he feel the building give a little bit?

  (never mind)

  He spun a full-circle, even as he knew he was alone.

  (nervous breakdown sounding any better?

  But he knew that voice; he knew it.

  But he didn’t know how; like Traumen, like its streets, it lacked context. Lacked depth. Errant puzzle pieces. How can you remember something, but not remember it at all?

  And then, as if his brain was trying to taunt him—

  (i’m glad you’re getting out jimmy it’s what she would have wanted—)

  He smacked the heel of his hand against his temple, like his head was an old television on the fritz, even as his feet began moving of their own accord, turning him down 2nd Street. “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” he said.

  His shoe scraped against something metal.

  He looked down to see a large tin sign reading BAKER’S MARKET—half-obscured by a faded Coldwell Banker sign. He wasn’t terribly surprised at the now-very-loud ping of memory it brought.

  (a trail of mental breadcrumbs)

  (to what?)

  McIntyre looked up at the little building the sign had fallen from. Through the front window, he could see the wooden counter to the right, Ohio Lotto scratch-offs sealed beneath old shellac; the squat ice-cream case catty-corner beyond, as if someone had made an apathetic attempt at removing it; the corkboard back wall, metal display hooks half-torn away; the comics rack lying in the center like a dead dog.

  “I remember this,” he whispered and the glass shimmered like an old-movie-flashback effect. The interior was now well-lit, the ice-cream case humming, the hooks stocked with single-serving chips and gummy candy, the comics rack standing and flush with an early-1990s run of Marvel Comics: Uncanny X-Men, Spectacular Spider-Man, What If …? All as he remembered it.

  As he remembered it.

  He reached out—

  —and his fingertips touched not glass but dry, papery skin.

  McIntyre screamed and staggered back, holding his hand by the wrist as if he’d burned it. He could feel that skin, and that familiar, loathsome—

  —nothing.

  His hand felt only cold and wet. Rain filled his palm.

  Something in his head teetered, close to just falling over with a crash. His thoughts, half-formed, crashed and entangled together.

  (no memory)

  (a trail)

  (no backstory)

  (of mental breadcrumbs)

  (to what?)

  (you’re getting out jimmy it’s what she would’ve wanted—)

  His will broke and he bounded down 2nd, his feet working on automatic and turning him up Imperial Avenue. Old Sears & Roebuck catalogue houses marched along the street, guarded by older curbside trees, their root structures upsetting the sidewalk plates.

  McIntyre saw none of it. This was white-out time, broken-will time. A yellow stitch unzipped down his side, but he’d run forever, not even after the boy now, just to get away, get away, get away—

  He stumbled and there was time for a single thought to zip across his head—It’s my day for falling down, all right—before tired flesh met old cement. Pain bit into his elbows and knees like hot wires.

  When he came to a stop, McIntyre opened his eyes and saw a pebble, a loose bit of the sidewalk, an inch from his nose. Extreme close-up.

  He lifted his head and saw, diagonally across the street, home—the fact, like all the rest, came unbidden.

  305 E. 3rd Street.

  What little breath he’d accumulated escaped in a rush. “Shit.”

  It had been an old home when he’d lived there, stuck onto the corner of Imperial and E. 3rd, and the intervening years since he’d left—

  (when DID i leave?)

  —hadn’t been kind. The second-floor windows sagged in their frames like dead eyes. Aluminum siding peeled from the house like flecks dead skin. The front lawn was an almost-neon-yellow.

  The air between him and the house shimmered, like quicksilver in the distance, and the knuckle of pain in his head grew more pronounced. McIntyre sat up before it could get worse, before another one of those damned pings—

  —and saw the boy, the boy, barely three feet away, standing beside a fire hydrant and flickering—not once, but continuously.

  McIntyre recoiled, covering his eyes. The glimpse of the boy had only been for an instant, but it was like trying to look through thick glasses when you had perfect vision.

  “Not very pleasant, is it?” the boy said and it was the voice from the phone, the voice that had called him back home. />
  (where the hell have you been jimmy?)

  “What are you doing to me?” McIntyre yelled, driving his fists deeper into his aching eyes.

  “What are you doing to yourself,” the boy replied flatly and McIntyre heard something much older buried beneath that I’m-not-yet-in-puberty voice.

  He grunted.

  “Look at me, James,” the boy said and the youthfulness was completely gone, replaced by something akin to gravel grinding together. “Look at me, James McIntyre.”

  Something outrageously hot slammed into the backs of his hands. He screamed, throwing them out, his shoes digging in and shoving him away. His back fetched up against what felt like a stone wall.

  (???what stone wall???)

  He opened his eyes and saw

  (jump cut just like a movie)

  they were no longer on the corner of E. 3rd and Imperial anymore. Old Victorian houses with manicured lawns marched away to their left and right.

  (bissell avenue holy christ i’m on bissell avenue)

  His eyes tracked the houses, the intersection a few yards away, each sight bringing with it another ping.

  His eyes landed on the flickering boy standing at the curb. What made looking at him hurt wasn’t the flickering itself—how many goddamn science fiction films featured a flickering hologram?—was that he changed. One flicker, the boy’s hands were at his sides. Another, he held a heavy hardcover book with a red-and-white dustjacket. Still a third had the boy grasping a softball of creamy light.

  The boy’s green tee was long, with an embossing of the Tasmanian Devil. Faded jeans, worn along the back heels. Knock-off Jordans. His hair was a shaggy, dirty blond.

  McIntyre locked onto the boy’s eyes, recognizing them without any sort of ping. Didn’t he see those same eyes—cradled in stress-wrinkles, it was true—every morning in the mirror?

  James McIntyre was face-to-face with Jimmy McIntyre, eleven years old, still two years away from the growth spurt that would give him his adult height of six-two.

  He had called himself—brought himself back home to Traumen, Ohio—or whatever this place actually was.

  He started shaking. “Why are you doing this?” he asked and his voice was a croak.

  “Why are you doing this to yourself, James,” Jimmy said, his hands ever-changing.

  McIntyre bared his teeth. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “You’re fighting me,” Jimmy said. “That’s why it hurts. You always fight me.”

  “I’m not fighting anything.”

  “Oh?” Jimmy said and McIntyre didn’t think so much mockery could fit into such a small word. “Why does your head hurt, James? Why do you keep having these pings whenever a memory escapes from that goddamned graveyard you have in your head?”

  McIntyre looked up, suddenly numb. “How—”

  Jimmy turned so McIntyre could see across the street. “Do you remember waving to the hearse?”

  It was another Victorian House, but a cloth canopy extended from the front porch to the sidewalk. An ornate wooden sign with REINSEL FUNERAL HOME & CREMATORY dominated the extravagantly landscaped yard.

  “What—” McIntyre started to say, and—

  (—you’re walking past men in black suits who don’t want to put their hands in their pockets but don’t know what else to do with them. you hear soft and not-so-soft sobbing but you can’t respond to it; you feel numb. you turn right, into the first viewing room and start down the row made by the folding chairs, all directing you to the front, where—)

  (NO NO I CAN’T I WON’T THINK OF THAT)

  (—you’re on the curb, and you’re waving at the hearse as it drives past, turning onto Harriot Avenue, but you don’t know why and you stop. a man—who?—has a hand on your shoulder, as if you might bolt, but you won’t. the only thing you’re feeling is your itchy rented suit. the man behind you says, choked up, “christ, jimmy, i don’t know if i can go up there, don’t know if i can see—”)

  —McIntyre’s stomach revolted, lurching him onto his hands and knees and expelling bile onto the rain-slick sidewalk. The knot of pain in the center of his head felt like a cluster of diseased teeth.

  “I saw what you did there,” Jimmy said. “It’s what you’ve always done. Whenever you get too close to it, you bolt.”

  McIntyre rested his feverish forehead against the blessedly cool concrete. “I don’t understand. I don’t know what any of this is.”

  “Of course you don’t,” Jimmy said and the contempt turned his words into little knives in McIntyre’s ears. “But now we’ve run out of time. I can’t be a ghost forever, any more than you can be a dream forever.”

  McIntyre raised his head. Oh, his head ached.

  “I have hope for you,” Jimmy said. “But maybe that’s because you’re our last chance.”

  He raised his hand and flicked it, like someone working out a kink in his wrist. The world around them flattened, became as two-dimensional as a matte-painting seen up close. The rain stopped.

  Fissures zig-zagged down, top to bottom, like a child using black marker to draw lightning. The world blew apart in a thousand pieces, revealing a blackness that was the apotheosis of black. No up-down, left-right, north-south-east-west. The kind of black that ate light. It rang, beginning like the hum he’d heard back in California, becoming the ringing that had pulled him conscious here. It was constant and consistent.

  Neither McIntyre nor Jimmy plummeted or stumbled, although McIntyre’s entire body clenched, nerve-endings anticipating a drop. They stood on nothing McIntyre could feel, but they did not fall.

  “This is the core of everything,” Jimmy said and he no longer flickered. He held the softball of creamy light, its illumination throwing his face into stark relief, making him appear both ridiculously young and unbelievingly ancient. His voice had given up any pretense of sounding like a boy. “Our universe. I don’t know how it is with other people, but this is ours. It was once filled with light, each one a different life, following its own path. Ever hear of quantum physics? Like that.”

  McIntyre felt warmth in his palms and looked down to see his own softball of creamy light, flashing and dimming, a bulb about to die. He couldn’t feel the object that made the light, the tangible thing he was holding, couldn’t let go or collapse his hands.

  For the first time, the pain in his head took the backseat. “What happened?”

  “What always happens. A car accident. A fire. A mugging gone bloody. A suicide. A heart attack. Sometimes our minds simply can’t take what it’s been shown and gives itself an embolism, which is so funny, given the circumstances, I want to shriek. The light dies and there’s one less version of us.”

  He hunkered down in front of McIntyre. “It’s because our universe is broken. Incorrect. Filled with false versions sparked by a single instance of understandable cowardice.”

  His eyes locked with McIntyre’s. “James, what happened when you were eleven years old?”

  A switch might’ve been thrown and the knot of pain in McIntyre’s brain exploded, drenching his head in pure white-hot agony. He shrieked, and fell onto his light, hugging it to his stomach.

  Above him, he heard Jimmy: “Stop this! We don’t have time for this! Stop fighting this! ”

  McIntyre’s lips peeled back from his teeth.

  “I’m not … fighting … anything.”

  “Bullshit! ” Jimmy yelled. “Do you know how many versions I’ve had to go through to get to this moment, over and over again, just to go rocketing back when you can’t take it? It takes me twenty years to reach you each time—and not just on any day during that twentieth year, but a special day. Do you remember?”

  McIntyre opened his mouth, but—

  (—whiff of hospital cleaner—)

  —he shrieked again.

  “We don’t have any more chances, James!” Jimmy yelled. “What happens after we’re gone, after this last chance is wasted? I don’t know. I’ve never been able to know.”

  H
e put a hand on McIntyre’s shoulder. “I’ve run out of lifetimes,” Jimmy said. “You’re my last shot—our last shot—or it all ends. I brought you back to Traumen. I made it like a movie, hoping you’d see how fake it was. I pulled you off the soundstage and brought you here, to the core. I am out of options and out of time. You need to remember.”

  McIntyre hugged his ball of dying light. “But I don’t … remember … anything.”

  Jimmy’s hand left his shoulder.

  “James,” he said, softly. “Look at me.”

  He did, gingerly, and Jimmy’s face was inches away. Liquid arcs from their respective lights stretched towards one another.

  “You don’t have that luxury, anymore,” Jimmy said, and shoved his light into McIntyre’s.

  The world exploded white, swatting the blackness away, and McIntyre—

  —is sitting in that goddamn orange vinyl chair, and you’re holding your mother’s hand as she lies comatose in the hospital bed.

  You are Jimmy McIntyre. It is the evening of November 21, 1996, and you have to watch your mother die.

  (NO NO NO NO YOU CAN’T MAKE ME YOU CAN’T MAKE ME SEE THIS)

  But you can’t shake yourself free. This is what you’ve hidden from yourself for twenty years, what you’ve buried, what you’ve built multiple lifetimes to avoid. The moment that separates you from the boy.

  Oh god, the weight is crushing. Sitting there, holding your mother’s hand, your fingertips over the prominent bones, the papery skin, it hurts to draw a breath. Your throat is narrowed to a straw. Your eyes boil, but you do not cry. You’ve promised yourself you would not cry. To cry out, to show the grief, would make it true. Your mother is dying.

  Sitting there, marveling how the woman who was as close to god as a small boy could understand could make such a small impression under the sheets, you hold her hand, and she seems to hold yours back and you think of crossing busy streets. An I-will-protect-you-grip. An I-am-not-letting-go grip.

  But you want to scream as the doctor pulls the breathing apparatus from her lower face, showing the damage that the hemorrhagic stroke, and the subsequent two-week coma, has wrought. Her skin looks waxy and taut under the fluorescent bar of light above her bed, rendering her eyes deep purple eye sockets. Her hair, already thin, looks like a tangle of old spider webs.