In the Lone and Level Sands

by David Lovato

“So, whose idea was the town’s name?” Ben asked.

  “Ben!”

  “Oh, it’s perfectly all right. I’ve lived here for quite a few years now, it’s a pleasant little town, peculiar name aside. Not much goes on here, and we don’t get too many visitors, either.” He pulled into a parking space in front of a dark brown building and shut off the pickup. “We’re here. Let’s go meet Dr. Barnum. He’ll patch you up in a jiffy, Mr. Hopper!”

  Dr. Barnum, who was every bit as nice as the man in the pickup had been, was able to see them immediately. It took about an hour for the doctor to give Ben some stitches for the gash in his chest and treat his other cuts, check for internal bleeding, and search for any other damage. Unfortunately, he had little information to offer on the topic of amnesia. Dr. Barnum moved on to Charlotte, and when all was said and done, both of them had walked away from the accident with only minor physical wounds.

  The two left the building and were surprised to find the truck driver still outside, leaning on his truck. He straightened when he saw them.

  “Say, you both should stay at my house for the night,” he said. “We have plenty of room, and it’s not far.” He pointed up the dirt road. “Look, with the lights on you can see it from here. I think the Mrs. is making her famous beef stew! Mmm-mmm!” He rubbed his stomach. Charlotte waved her hand.

  “Oh, we don’t want to impose! We can just stay at the motel across the street.”

  “It would be no imposition. I insist.”

  Charlotte looked at Ben, who made no protest.

  “Okay. Thank you very much!” Charlotte smiled.

  The three got into the truck and drove down the street.

  “The name’s Frederick Samson, but you just call me Fred.” The smile he flashed showed his tobacco-stained teeth. His upper lip was occupied by a big gray caterpillar mustache that curled upward when he smiled.

  “I’m Ben.”

  “Glad to meet you. I just wish I could do something to help you guys out more.”

  “Your hospitality is just fine. You don’t need to do anything else. We’re glad you came along when you did.”

  “It’s nothing, really!”

  It wasn’t long before they pulled up the gravel driveway before the farmhouse. To the left of it was a corn field, and to the right was a big red barn, faded from the sun and chipping from the rain. Fred parked to the right of a minivan and killed the engine. When they got inside, Fred hung his keys on a little plaster barn by the front door, then led the couple into the sitting room. The air was thick with beef, broth, and a multitude of vegetables. There was a candle by Mrs. Samson, who was rocking in a squeaky chair and knitting a pair of socks. The old woman looked up, set her project down, and wiped a strand of white hair out of her face.

  “I brought some visitors, Sara.” Fred took his hat off and threw it onto the couch behind him.

  “Why, hello there!” Sara said, but her face flushed when she saw the bandages and bruises decorating the two. “Oh my gosh! What happened to you?”

  “We had an accident,” Charlotte said. “Your husband was nice enough to help us out, and he’s invited us to stay the night.” Charlotte suddenly wondered if Fred’s wife would be as happy to have them as Fred was.

  “Well, you both will definitely be staying here tonight. I’m Sara. I hope you’ve come with an appetite!” She stood up, pointed at the big pot of stew in the kitchen, and winked.

  “Yeah, I’m starved!” Ben said.

  “I’m Charlotte.”

  “And I’m Ben.”

  “Where are you from?” Sara asked.

  “We actually only live about an hour away from here, in Ashton,” Charlotte said.

  Sara smiled. The sound of paws on mesh drew all eyes toward the screen door in the kitchen. “It’s Angus’s dinnertime, too. When we have beef stew, we usually mix some in with his regular food. He adores it!”

  “I can imagine,” Charlotte said.

  “Come on! Let’s get eating!” Fred said.

  Sara let Angus inside and led him to the pantry, where his food dish resided. It looked more like a bowl for Charlotte’s standing mixer at home, but Angus was an eighty-some pound German Shepherd with a big appetite. Sara filled the bowl with dry food, mixed in some steaming beef stew, and set it down. Angus went to work on it right away. He was finished before Sara could set bowls for everyone else, and as they sat down to eat, Angus curled up on a large bed in the corner of the room.

  “So, in the accident, you lost your memory?” Fred asked.

  “Yes,” Ben said. “Some things are coming back, but I don’t remember a lot of other things. Dr. Barnum says it all might just come back to me.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Me too,” Charlotte said. Ben smiled.

  “You two seem good together,” Sara said. She stabbed a piece of beef and dropped it for Angus.

  Ben ate his stew mostly in silence, looking at Charlotte from time to time. A smile crept onto his lips, and he felt a little uneasy, but in a good way. He didn’t remember who Charlotte was, but there was nothing stopping him from trying to get to know her again.

  The sun was setting as the four friends sat around the table enjoying each other’s company.

  6

  Alone

  Zoe Isaacs rode the bus to and from school every day. The stop was about a mile from her apartment, and she would walk in silence, and it didn’t bother her. She would often repeat that to herself.

  Zoe had lived in the apartment all her life. Her father had died when she was young, leaving her mother to care for her. When Zoe got old enough, the roles reversed. Because her mother had been prone to illness, Zoe got a job at the age of fourteen. The local grocery store didn’t normally employ people so young, but they had made an exception upon hearing her case.

  She worked at the salad bar, and by the time she was seventeen, was promised a manager position. Zoe hated the job but needed the money, so she accepted the offer, apathetically waiting for the day she’d turn eighteen and be given a nicer nametag in celebration of the glory that came with the promotion.

  In Zoe’s senior year of high school, her mother died of a cold. It couldn’t have been cancer or complications from surgery or some freak accident; just the common cold, a case the medicine couldn’t shake, and Zoe’s mother was gone one morning.

  After her mother passed, Zoe decided to just carry on. She’d stay in the same apartment, work the same job, and attend the same school, at least for a while.

  A while turned into years, and at the age of twenty, Zoe found herself in the same situation she had spent her entire life in, only more alone.

  She couldn’t seem to find a reason for anything. No reason to get up and move out, no reason to find another job, no reason to go to a different school. She was getting by, with a little extra money every month, and school wasn’t difficult.

  Zoe would work her shift and then come home and do homework or sleep, whichever took precedence. In the rare occasion that she found free time, she would read or write. Always she would listen to music.

  It was time that could’ve been spent with other human beings, had Zoe not been so shy. Throughout her life, in the rare instance that she was able to make a connection with another human being, whomever it was inevitably ended up on the backburner, eventually driven away by Zoe’s lack of contact. And of course Zoe didn’t have a boyfriend. She didn’t have any friends. She knew the names of her co-workers and her classmates, she knew the driver and the regular passengers on her bus, and she got along well with all of them, but she didn’t truly let anybody into her life. She didn’t know how.

  If there was one thing Zoe had learned from what felt like a life already too long, it was that everyone who gets close eventually goes away. Zoe could take care of herself, it seemed, but no one else.

  It didn’t bother her at all, and she repeated that nearly every night as she cried herself to sleep.

  7

  A Death in the Family
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br />   A small picture frame rested on a nightstand next to a bed. The picture within was old, taken in Washington, and featured a couple just married and standing before a ‘57 Bel-Air. The couple in the picture was Charlie and Martha James, and at the time the photo was taken, they were in love.

  Glass littered the floor beneath the nightstand, mixed with food and blood. The food was meant to be Charlie’s lunch, the blood was slowly trickling from Martha’s knees. She didn’t care, didn’t feel the pain as she knelt with her face in her hands, crying and begging.

  On the bed, Charlie James lay dead.

  ****

  Emily James-Espinoza had written a list of things she needed to grab from the store. She looked it over and then set it down. Emily passed through the living room, where her daughter Francine sat on the couch reading a book, and headed down the hall to get ready to leave. When she returned to the kitchen to retrieve the list, there were a few extra items on it. Her husband, Billy, was rummaging through the fridge. “Billy!” Emily said, trying to stifle a laugh. “What is this?”

  “What?” Billy said.

  “You know exactly what. You always add things you don’t need to my list.” Billy turned from the fridge and looked at Emily with one eyebrow raised and a big smile.

  “Stop leaving it out and there won’t be any unexpected items on there. Besides, I need all that stuff.”

  “You need Heineken? And potato chips?”

  “Yeah!” Billy said.

  “And a Monster energy drink?” Emily asked. “Since when do you drink those?”

  Billy pointed to Francine, who had been engrossed in her book until the energy drink was mentioned. She was laughing as she set the book down.

  “Come on, Dad!” she said. “Selling out your own daughter?”

  “We can both take the rap,” Billy said. Emily looked at Francine.

  “Those drinks are nothing but sugar.”

  “I’m not worried about the sugar, Mom.”

  “All right,” Emily said. “But don’t expect me to cave so easily all the time.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” Francine said before returning to her book.

  Billy closed in and tenderly flipped Emily around. They met in a kiss, which she hadn’t been ready for. She smiled when the kiss ended.

  “You still meeting Beverly for lunch after the store?” Billy asked.

  “Yeah,” Emily said. “I still don’t know where we’re going. I’m not that hungry. Might go to Barnes and Noble, get a coffee or something. Depends on what she’s feeling.”

  “You can walk around Hendrick’s Square, just make a day of it.”

  “I shouldn’t stay out too long. I have like thirty thousand papers to grade for the summer school kids, plus the laundry.” Emily sighed.

  “I can help with the laundry, you know,” Billy said.

  “It’s okay,” Emily said. “We haven’t been able to do anything together all week. I can see Beverly anytime.”

  “No, you go. Your kids can wait another day for their papers. They probably don’t care much anyway, if they have to go to school in the summer.” Billy chuckled. Emily frowned at him. “We can still do something tonight. Maybe go out to dinner? Just the two of us?”

  Emily pondered the choice for a moment, looking up at Billy’s face. He had red cheeks accentuated by a short, clean-cut, graying beard. The hair on his head was thin on top. Light shined where there was no hair.

  “Thanks, honey,” Emily said. “That sounds great.”

  “All right, I’ll see you when you get back,” Billy said. “I love you.”

  “Love you,” Emily said. She pecked him on the lips, then walked toward the front hall.

  “Bye, Mom,” Francine said. Emily flashed her daughter a smile as she grabbed her purse.

  “See you, Francine!”

  ****

  “Did you get here all right?” Emily asked Beverly as they waited in line at Starbucks.

  “Yeah, just fine, Emmy,” Beverly said. “Tylor dropped me off, think you can give me a ride home?”

  “Sure.”

  A child running by tripped on her shoelace and said “Whoa!” as she fell forward, crashing face-first into Beverly, who quickly caught her and gently stood her back up. “I’m sorry!” the girl said. The girl’s mother promptly appeared.

  “Beverly!” the woman said. “I told you to make sure your shoes were tied before we came inside. You didn’t listen, and now look.”

  “It’s okay,” Beverly said. She looked down at the little girl. “My name’s Beverly, too. Isn’t that funny?”

  “Really? That is funny!” The girl’s mother looked at the interaction between the two and smiled.

  “Did she apologize to you, miss?”

  “She did,” Beverly said. “It’s fine.”

  “Good,” the mother said. She turned to her daughter and smiled. “All right, now tie your shoe, and get your tiny straw!”

  The little girl nodded and looked from her mother to Emily and Beverly.

  “It was nice to meet you, Miss Beverly!”

  “You too, honey! Have a good day!”

  After tying her shoe, the little girl scampered off.

  “It’s not every day you meet another person with the same name,” Beverly said, followed by a chuckle.

  “Yeah,” Emily said.

  They went to the register, ordered their coffees, and sat at a table near the window. Emily felt great. She loved spending time with her best friend, whom she’d known since early childhood. Beverly had been there for all the boyfriends, the parties, the break-ups, everything.

  Emily’s phone rang. She saw one word on the screen: Mom. Emily answered.

  “Hey, Mom, how are—”

  “Honey, I-I have some bad news,” Martha said. Her voice was hard to hear.

  “Mom, you’re really quiet,” Emily said. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, dear, but your father…”

  “Oh my God,” Emily said. Beverly looked at her. She brushed a strand of black hair from her eye and mouthed something.

  What’s going on?

  “Your father passed,” Martha said. “I don’t know what else to say. I feel like I should say more… I just can’t find the words. I’m so sorry, honey.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Emily said. “Are you okay?”

  “I’ll manage. I have others to call, but I thought you and Angela should know first.”

  “Have you told her yet?”

  “Not yet,” Martha said. “Next on my list. I love you, Emily. We’ll make arrangements soon. Goodbye.”

  “Bye.”

  “What happened, Emily?” Beverly asked.

  “My dad, he’s gone. He died.”

  “I’m so sorry, Emily. That’s terrible. I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t need to apologize, but thanks,” Emily said. Her eyes began to water.

  “I’m here for you, no matter what.”

  “I think I—” Emily said. A sob interrupted her, and tears flowed down her cheeks.

  Around Emily and Beverly, people stared. Ignoring them, Beverly stood up and moved to Emily to offer her support in the form of a tight hug.

  The Hex

  When he did it, it was like a very large weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Norman was surprised it hadn’t killed him, but that didn’t matter.

  He had learned how to do it from the hidden people, years ago. Finding them was difficult, but not as difficult as learning their ways. They dealt in forgotten arts, what they knew as a dark magic (but was, like all magic, only a science they couldn’t understand), lost to the rest of humanity. At the time, he had no idea if the myths about them were true, or if their arts even worked. Worse, he had no idea if they would teach him. In the end, they had taught him. Perhaps they had felt some sort of kinship toward him, as he was already well-learned in similar dark arts. Or perhaps they had grown tired of his presence and knew they could not outsmart him, had taught
him what he needed to know to get rid of him. Whatever the case, they had taught him, and they would never repeat that mistake again.

  Soon after, he was able to test his new art, and he quickly learned that the myths were true. The hidden people had the knowledge he had sought so long and been unable to learn on his own: How to change people. Could they have known he would one day be capable of inflicting the hex upon the entire world?

  It would happen at random, and it would happen all over the world. Several million people would change in the U.S. alone, and it would spread. He wished he would have been able to control who it was; he had a few people picked out, but in the end it too would not matter. The hex would spread until it consumed the world. Whatever came after that didn’t matter. His work was done.

  Part Two

  The Beginning of the End

  8

  At the Belmont

  Evan and Cynthia were all smiles as they watched Mal dance across the stage, both proud of their daughter. Cynthia turned to Evan and whispered.

  “She’s a natural.”

  “She sure is.” The lights came on, and Evan was among the first to stand, clapping. Cynthia whistled. Mal looked into the audience with a broad smile. The curtain dropped, and Mal disappeared.

  An old woman leaned into Cynthia and asked, “Which girl is yours?”

  “Mallorie. She was the one in front just before the curtain fell.”

  “She was lovely. She could really be a star someday.”

  “Yes she could,” Cynthia said, and smiled as the audience began clearing the room.

  ****

  Mal was washing her hands in the bathroom with her best friend, Richelle, while their parents waited outside.

  “That was great!” Mal said. She looked at Richelle, who had been all smiles up until then. “You were really good out there!”