by Joel Varty
The pain is agonizing, yet not so bad as I imagined. It will be, tomorrow, but I will probably be dead by then, so who really cares, right? What’s a bit of pain now, when that’s all there is left, anyway? I find myself almost enjoying it, knowing that this is how it will end.
As time resumes its normal course, we are both splayed out on the floor, the man and me. Both of us are panting, and the blood from my wrists and the blood from his broken face mingle in two red streams. Like a small river, I think to myself.
And then I notice the terrible cold mistiness of fog floating in through a new crack in the doorway. A thick black fluid starts to seep along the floor, and ceases only when it encounters the blood.
He’s already given the order. They’ve let it loose. We’re all dead.
My consciousness begins to fail me. The darkness becomes more pronounced and the pain in my shoulder dulls away to nothing. The fog retreats a bit though, and the door creaks open a little more. A small boy pokes his head in.
He is an angel. I know it. I have never seen an angel, but I know that this is one. I can’t stop from shaking with fear, or with the knowledge that I am either dead or saved, and either one is terrifying at the moment. And yet he is such a small boy, only a few years old. He can barely push the door open.
I recognise him. He was the boy holding Steven’s hand earlier, back at the clearing where they came for me. Yet he seems even younger, and he is crying.
“I wanted to save you, but I’m too little. I wasn’t meant for anything but sending messages, and even then you never listen. Why won’t you listen to me?”
I reach out my fingers, but I can’t pull them from the chair legs. I try to speak, but I can’t get my voice to work. I don’t understand it, but I feel I know this being that has come to save me, yet doesn’t have the might to accompany the strength of his heart.
And then a strange thing happens. The door opens the rest of the way, and a white robed figure stands there, silhouetted in the bright sun. He is tall, and sad looking, and strong. He steps quietly through the door, walks over to me and pulls me to my feet. The chair drops away, the bonds cut by some unseen force, and I know I must be dead. But I walk to the door anyways, and as I do the boy takes my hand, both of us nearly crying now, though him more than me, I am sure.
And as we pass through the door, and into the mist, I hear a faint voice behind me saying, “Geron, Geron. Why did you think you were like me?”
…
Rachel
I watch Aeron. He is a good boy – in some ways older than his years, and in other ways still with less confidence than a child. He isn’t good with the kids; he doesn’t have the patience for them. He doesn’t understand a normal parent-child relationship, since he doesn’t remember his mother and his father was eternally absent. He has been raised mostly with others – sometimes with us, more still here, with Jonah’s parents, and the rest of the time at boarding schools or child-care facilities. Not the way to show your child what a stable life is like.
It’s all out the window for that kind of thinking now, anyways. Our family has been completely uprooted and Jonah is gone – maybe for good, who knows. We have people in and out of the house now like it’s a military headquarters. There are arguments over land, tools, fuel, building projects, housing – everything a local government might be asked to look after.
I keep thinking to myself, especially as I am put to the task of sorting through all of these people’s problems, that there used to be governments, that we had several levels of democratic representation, which seemed to just evaporate into the proverbial mist that has everyone so frightened.
And that’s another reason why everyone clings to this farm – it has suffered no ill effects of the blight which any number of the folk passing into the area speak about. It makes me wonder if somehow we are at the center of a strange natural phenomenon, something that science or logic cannot explain, but that human nature can sense. Somehow the spirits of the living are drawn here, and the surrounding area, as an innate reaction – all part of the will to survive.
I think about Jonah’s parents for a moment, and of their strange passing several months ago. I remember the funeral as if it were yesterday – Jonah and Ruben standing side by side, each struggling not to cry in the other’s presence as they dug the deep hole at the foot of a massive beech tree in the woods. Most of the neighbours and relatives were a little perturbed at this, and at the fact that there was no formal funeral service to speak of.
Bruce and Cybil hadn’t attended the local church in many years, and they had been very eccentric about many things – the evidence of which was the large amount of antique tools and machines about the place. These machines are still mostly in good working order, which is ironic, since they will likely prove useful again as our fuel supply runs dry. And there was another oddity: what sort of people have no tractor or other motorized vehicles, yet house a huge tank of diesel in an underground container?
My only thought is that someone told them – someone told them what was going to happen and how to plan for it. And someone else killed them because of it. It is the only explanation that makes sense to me – and it is for this reason alone that I know Jonah had to leave us to do what he needed to do. I know that someone has told him something, too.
“Aeron!” I call out. “Let head back to the woods. I want to show you something.”
He pounds in the final nail of the repair he has been doing on the side of the barn and drops the hammer and spare nails into the box of tools on the ground nearby.
The day is clear and breezy, exactly as a late spring day ought to be. Everywhere is the sound of activity, and I have to get away for a few moments – I figure Aeron can probably use the company, even if he won’t willingly provide it.
…
Aeron
The sun beams down on us as if from heaven, and the light is reflected off of the innumerable leaves, branches and rocks that encompass the low foothills that make this valley basin so unique. I hear the rustle of a squirrel nearby. I hear the stamping of horses’ hooves from far across the fields. The earth provides so much stimulation of the senses that, when we slow down enough to listen, we can be overwhelmed with the very being of nature’s presence. I feel cocooned by a buffer between myself and the outside world – the real outside world, beyond the natural world – where the real reality lurks, waiting. I feel as if the natural world has ensnared me and is waiting to see what my reaction will be.
I have fought against authority my whole life. I am only happy when I can turn what passes for truth and meaning on its head. It’s funny to look at everything backwards – like the devil’s advocate. He doesn’t sound so bad to me. Why would it be wrong to question the accepted ideas and concepts that we might otherwise take for granted? But nobody wants to hear that. Especially from me.
We walk through the most peaceful place on earth. The presence of God is so strong here it nearly creeps me out of my own skin. Why must we be possessed of such a spirit? Why can’t we be free of it all, just for a few minutes? Denying it used to work for me, but that isn’t the same as escaping it. I wonder what’ll happen when I die.
I know where we’re going. Auth Rachel always goes the same way. She winds us through a narrow path that I would like to have forgotten by now, and it is beginning to be overgrown, making it nearly concealed by the ferns and horsetail that have renewed their attack on the open spaces. Aunt Rachel walks with one foot in front of the other with perfect balance, and I struggle to move as silently as her.
The woods are possessed of many spirits, and many of them beat upon my fragile thoughts as we pass under the tall trees. Over here there’s, oak, beech, black cherry, ash, a few elms hanging on to life. Over there is pine, hemlock, cedar, balsam: they all sway in a complex rhythm of breeze and light. The place is positively enchanted, and Aunt Rachel doesn’t help – she walks silently ahead of me and appears no less ethereal than a forest nymph as she twists and turns throu
gh the bush. The trees seem to welcome her presence.
Finally, she stops and looks at me, although it is still a ways before what I figure is the intended destination.
“You never came to your father’s funeral, Aeron,” she says calmly and quietly, standing perfectly still.
I don’t respond. We stare at each other for a little while. What does she expect? I hadn’t spoken to dad in a long time – what difference did it make to me if he was dead?
“The only reason he never went after you was to keep you safe,” she continues. “He regretted that fact more than anything. More than you can possibly imagine.”
“That’s a load of crap,” I say, unable to resist. “He was glad to be rid of me. He never wanted me around. All he cared about was his research.”
“That’s not true. I’m going to show you why.”
“What could you possibly show me that would convince me my father was any different from how I think of him? There’s nothing in the world that can change how my father was. He didn’t care about me, about you guys, anyone! He was completely taken over by his work. That’s all he cared about.”
“But think about why, Aeron,” she says, more gently than I deserve, much more composed that I wish her to be. “Why would he dive so deeply into his work?”
“To get away from me, I guess. He hated me.”
“No. He didn’t hate you. He did more to protect your life than you can possibly imagine.”
“Then why? Why did send me away all the time?”
She waits for a second before answering. “Because he didn’t want to you to suffer like your mother suffered. He wanted to protect you from what happened to her.”
“My mother died in a house fire when I was two years old.” I don’t even sound convincing to myself. The story is one that I have been told, and have been telling myself for my whole life. But the look on Rachel’s face has already been quashed this story – I can feel it – and I know the real one is coming.
“Your mother died in one of your father’s experiments.”
I say nothing.
“It was an accident,” she goes on. “He dropped a phial of something toxic and it killed your mother when it smashed on the floor, but not you.”
“And not him.”
“No. You both survived. And he spent the rest of his life trying to undo what he had created.”
“This isn’t what Uncle Jonah published on the internet. He said that Dad was working on a plague technology that would create life at increased rate. At an unnatural rate.”
“That’s somewhat true. I don’t understand all of it – I think only Ruben could – but I believe he was only trying to counteract the effects of his earlier work.”
His mistakes.
“But what difference would it make?” I say, worried a bit now, beyond the very news that my father killed my mother was something even more sinister, and I was anxious to discover it while I was still angry. “My mother was already dead – why didn’t he just destroy the formula that killed her?”
Aunt Rachel just looks at me sadly. Then she turns and walks straight into the bush, directly away from the path. “Let’s go see your parents, Aeron.”
Chapter Nine – A Journey into Darkness
Lucifer
I feel only pity for Geron and for his misfortune of coming across a mind as brilliant and troubled as Ruben’s. It is often too much for us when we encounter things beyond our comprehension that we cannot deny. It was that way with me, though I tried hard to deny for a very long time, preferring exile to the truth of the Word.
I do not stand and watch. I imagine that his remains will be rotted and pitted into nothing by the very mist that he has embraced to create his vision of the world. His spirit must already be gone, and there is nothing for me to do but turn away and try to remember. His anger is nothing to me – only sadness remains of his passing. I try to think back to a time when I was confused about ending and beginning, but I dare not linger in such memories.
I once left the world to be what I was. I am lucky that the few who listened intently to their calling had the chance to find the quiet center – that place in the soul where things are possible – and changed how things were back then. And they brought this world to a different point of view, though they were killed for it – usually horribly. That was mostly my fault, in a way. I could have helped – but was I intended to help?
It was ever my job to fight – to be the warrior – to do battle against the forces of destruction – to assail the blight of spirit with the forces of heaven and earth that are imbued into my very being. Is it my job to do that now? Am I meant to destroy this vaporous death that is spreading throughout the land, wreaking havoc with the very nature that supports the life and spirit of this world? Could I?
The questions are my battle now. They bring me about-face with my own personality, as if I must first destroy myself to destroy the end of the world.
It comes down to the actions of simple people, again. I step outside and see a darkness slide across the sky that starts to block out the sun, whose last rays are spent on a small stretch of ground between my doorway and my brother’s tiny hand, holding onto the index finger of Bill Thomas as he marches forward into the very heart of the shadow.
I waver for a few moments. Should I follow? Should I fly in front of him, striking all from his path? But his path is open, it seems. His only danger is slipping in the black mud that has been left behind from the passing of all life into this gloom of afterlife. I finally decide, and take up a position beside him, and my brother grows back to his normal height and we walk, the three of us, through a dark route as close to hell as I have ever known.
…
Bill
I’m not alone. I don’t know why I have two angels with me; I must be important, all of a sudden. I wonder why they waited so damned long to do anything – a little while earlier and we might have prevented this crap from being let go into the air.
I should have known that prick Geron would wait until he got me into a closed room before he released his biggest dose of whatever-it-is on the world. This stuff is more potent than the rest of it that I have seen before – it seems to be eating the very essence of whatever is alive from everything it encounters. Only the path that we walk seems to hold any semblance of reality, although it is a weak likeness to the world I remember. What has changed? Why is this world so different now?
We struggle to keep three-abreast as the path narrows and we move out of the industrial park where I have been held into the deserted streets of some town that used to be alive and is now a mass of hanging husks and ruins of structures that once represented prosperity and solidarity. They now represent a lost world that has surely ended.
It amazes me to see the life sucked out of everything. Everything that was alive – and everything was alive a little while ago, I am sure of that – is now dead and rotting. Wood, rock even concrete is not infallible to the power of the mist. The breeze seems to carry this haze to and fro and the light of the sun does not penetrate it. The path is a bitter darkness that is there in spite of the light that must surely be shining without it.
The angels walk behind me, now.
The path stretches out before me. I can feel the blood of Truth tugging at my veins; this is what gives me the strength to thwart this non-death, but I don’t resent the irony of it. I embrace the chance handshake that made me a brother, in a way, with the only other soul that could fight this atrocity. Or whatever it is. I find myself not caring much. At least I don’t have to watch my back. Everyone’s dead and gone in that direction anyways.
The path ahead is all I see as it stretches its way into darkness in a long line of almost-light. It is as if there is one lifeline left on this earth, one last artery between me and Jonah Truth. I will find him. I will find him and our people and we will fight this darkness together.
…
Aeron
I don’t believe it, but I can’t stop it from
being real.
We stand there, looking at the carved letters in the tree, the first set almost illegible after so many years, the other new and in a different hand – standing out like a new scar on old flesh.
OT+RT
Olivia Truth and Ruben Truth.
“My mother and father,” I say, almost unconsciously. “Together at last.”
“Yes,” says Aunt Rachel, looking somewhat older now in the fading like as the sky clouds over. “Something like that.”
We both look up with alarm at the sky, as the incoming clouds encroach on the late-morning sky with remarkable quickness.
“That doesn’t seem right,” I say, trying to keep my voice even.
“No, I agree. It feels completely wrong. Let’s head back to the house. The kids’ll be scared.”
“I though they loved thunderstorms.”
“This doesn’t feel like that. This feels more like the day Jonah didn’t come home from work.”
“He probably isn’t coming home now, either.”
“Yes,” she says. “I know that. But he’d better make it back here eventually.”
The first drops of rain begin to fall as we clear the last of the trees and reach the edge of the wheat field that separates the woods from the barns and house. We begin to run, skirting along the edge so as not to trample the grain, which is about eight inches high.
“Did you know my mother very well?” I ask, raising my voice a little above the sound of the rain and the gathering wind.
She doesn’t answer. We run all the way back to the house, and when we get there I go straight to the barn to check on the animals and Aunt Rachel goes into the house to check on Gwyn and Jewel.
I stand there in the barn with the sound of rain pattering on the roof and the door open. I watch the drops of water bounce as they hit the ground, and the gravel slowly gets saturated and little streams form along the ground. Finally the streams flow together, running along the side of the barn. Eventually, they fall into the old cistern that has been there since the old days when grandpa used milk the cows.
