by James Sperl
Warren forced a meager smile, tears dripping down his cheeks. “Truthfully, I’ve had better days.”
“You...and me...both.”
Josh squinted viciously as a sudden surge of sharp pain rippled through his body. Warren stepped forward and reached out then, coming to his senses, withdrew his arm angrily. He turned away and screamed at the sky. “Goddamn it!”
Panting slowly, Josh stooped and placed his hands on his knees. “Tell Shelby...thank you. She’ll know.” Drool mixed with blood streamed from his mouth into the sand. “And tell Abby, Tamara, I...” Another sharp pain wracked him. A pair of tears fell from his eyes and disappeared with a puff into the earth. “Tell mom...tell her...”
Warren nodded furiously, anticipating Josh’s final words. “I will.”
Josh’s head sunk. He spat a string of bloody saliva into the dirt. Then he looked at his father.
“Do...it.”
Warren slammed his eyes shut. The time had come. He’d thought of this day often. Of having to say goodbye to one or all of his family. He just never expected he would have to do it face to face.
“Josh, I...” Warren began. But words escaped him. For what does a father say to his son before firing a bullet into his skull? “I never...I never knew what pride was until the day you were born. And for that...I thank you.”
Josh angled his head to get a better view of the man he had known as his father. This man who had simultaneously existed as hero and tormentor throughout his life. Who had challenged him when he was complacent and berated him when he was stubborn. This man—who stood before him now with his gaunt features and hollow eyes, weeping tears of anguish—this man was his father. And the pride was all Josh’s.
“You’re...welcome,” Josh said.
Catherine could fight no longer. It was fruitless. She’d expended any remaining fuel grappling with the guards and finally her body had had enough. So she lay on the floor at their feet, staring at the colored and varied pipes that protruded from the drab gray cinder blocks in front of her.
Warren was outside the shelter with Josh. At least he was with family, she told herself. At least the last face he would see would be of somebody who loved him. That was important. Nobody should die alone, least of all in the manner in which Josh was about to succumb.
Catherine closed her eyes and shuddered at the thought of what this parasite would do, how it would ravage her little boy’s body. She wished she would’ve never seen how it destroyed Sean so unapologetically, so violently. Then she’d have nothing to compare it with. But she had. And the imagery was as fresh as summer rain.
She traced the pipe contours with her finger, closing one eye for better accuracy. And as her mind retreated from the present she recalled better days. Happier times before their lives had been so rudely interrupted. Back when petty family arguments were the only drama. Back before Warren had taken his cursed job. Back when all of her children were born and the euphoria that accompanied each child’s arrival into the world.
And she thought of Josh.
She remembered how he felt as she birthed him, a searing pain one moment followed by pure exhilaration the next, the disparity in emotions something for which she was ill prepared. She remembered the toddler who had found crayons and doodled on the freshly painted walls of the living room, inviting the short-lived fury of Warren, but filling her with new depths of love. She remembered the second grader who’d brought his pet gerbil to class for show-and-tell, only to lose and never find it again, the subsequent tears reaffirming in her the compassion she’d known was there. She remembered the sixth grader who’d crashed on his bicycle, slicing open his calve on the rusty chain she’d warned him to oil. She remembered the doctor visit that followed and the nine stitches sewn into Josh’s leg serving as a test of her maternal endurance, each ensuing medical visit prompting irrationally heightened fears of negative prognoses. She remembered the high school freshman and the first morning of school spent vomiting over the toilet and the next year sophomore asked by his peers to run for student council, a request he ultimately declined. She remembered the friends he made, the girls he pined for and the teachers who raved about him. She remembered his spirit, his resoluteness and his determined attitude, all of which, at one time or another, had contributed toward the multitude of head-butting arguments routinely held around the dinner table. Most of all, though, she remembered how she had loved him, unfalteringly, unwaveringly.
Catherine never heard the shot. She was too busy encapsulating her son’s life, compartmentalizing it for future visits. For she knew she would be a constant guest and the details of his existence demanded preservation. She was his mother. That was her job.
She followed the snaky pattern of a blue tube along the wall. She never even noticed the natural light it was bathed in incrementally dwindle, it replaced by fluorescent only illumination. Nor did she acknowledge the pair of legs that walked up slowly and stood, eventually kneeling beside her.
No, she was aware of none of these things. At the moment—and for some time thereafter—Catherine Hayesly would be aware of not much at all.
Epilogue
The room smelled. A contradictory odor of antiseptic staleness. But then it had always smelled that way since the first day. She’d had the dream again and for whatever reason, the scent seemed especially pungent upon waking.
Catherine rose and sat on the edge of her bed, a luxury she had come to learn over time that was afforded only to those in positions of authority or importance. Warren, it appeared, was the latter.
It had been like every other time. She was back in the quarantine room, sequestered away from her family and left to deal with the emotional onslaught of Josh’s death on her own. In the dream, Josh would visit her in her room. He would ask her questions, many of them accusatory, as if he blamed her for his demise. Then, as quickly as he’d arrived he’d disappear, his body transforming into a column of sand and dissipating into the floor.
Catherine knew the dream was about guilt. What she didn’t know was how she was supposed to deal with it. The counselors had valiantly tried to reassure her that none of what had happened was her fault. That she couldn’t hold herself accountable for things—and species—that were beyond her control. But she knew she wouldn’t be able to turn off that part of herself that felt responsibility and regret. At least, not yet.
As she dressed, she thought about that day in quarantine, or the “Q” as it was called. It was the most difficult twenty-four hours she’d ever had to endure. If there had been a means to take her own life she wasn’t so sure she wouldn’t have tried. But she had resisted the urge. Instead, she focused her emotions and railed against the new reality she would face when she emerged. Specifically, that Josh would not be there.
She cried for hours on end, pounded the walls with her fists and screamed until her voice disappeared. She yelled at God, cursed his name and waited joyfully for the brimstone to rain down upon her. But she was met with only silence. And that had been the loneliest moment of all.
She had a lot of time to think about the events that led up to Josh’s death and the maddening, inexplicable reason for the prolonged duration of his incubation. It defied logic and flew in the face of every thing they knew. With enough time, she discovered, even the most vexing problems were presented with a solution.
On one of many sorrowful days following, a thought suddenly struck her. There was a unique element. Something Josh had used that no one else had, at least none that she’d seen.
Sunscreen.
She remembered making him apply generous amounts to his skin, so much so that she’d noticed creamy white streaks still visible on his arms even after he’d rubbed it in. The sole purpose of the block, she knew, was to prevent harmful penetration of UV rays onto the skin—the very thing the New Humans craved. By using it, the block must have acted as a buffer. But rather than prevent the actual process, it appeared to have only delayed it.
Walking along the concrete corrido
r in her navy blue, shelter-provided jumpsuit, Catherine thought of the conversations she and Warren had had on the matter. About life, death, Josh and God and how each played a part in the final mix. They each tried to view Josh’s passing as prolonged rather than premature. That perhaps some sort of Divine Intervention had allowed him to survive just long enough to do what he did.
This was the faith-based logic Catherine preferred. Any other scenario would only submerge her already sinking theological quandary further into an ocean of doubt, perhaps never allowing it to resurface. She wanted to believe his sacrifice had been worth it. But each day that passed only seemed to accentuate his absence, time doing nothing to heal the rift in her heart.
It had been weeks before she could bring herself to speak again. Warren had been exceptionally patient and Catherine often had to remind herself that her husband was grieving as well.
It had taken a note from Tamara to draw her out of the darkness. Adorned with butterflies flittering among a green field with a bright orange sun that beamed down on lush green trees, the card had read simply, “I miss you mommy. Love, Tamara.”
Catherine didn’t know whether it was her daughter’s forthright tenderness or the images of a world they would all probably never see again that resonated with her. Regardless, the gesture had jolted Catherine back into an awareness she’d attempted to bury: This was her life now. And it wasn’t going to change. From that day forward she forced herself to get out of bed.
Strolling along the corridor and passing by the cafeteria, Catherine waved to the other residents she’d come to know. Mostly military and their families with a few random survivors that had been scooped up or found their way to the shelter in the weeks before the bombs.
It was a peculiar thing to think about what the world must look like outside. Warren had taken her to the monitoring stations and let her catch a glimpse of the mountainous region surrounding the shelter. Even to the discerning eye, the landscape didn’t appear all that different. But she knew better. Warren had shared reports with her fresh from other locations around the world proclaiming total annihilation. These same reports had also deemed the nuclear action a success, and Catherine had never wavered so dramatically between emotions, unable to decide whether to laugh or cry.
The med ward seemed to materialize in front of her and the butterflies from Tamara’s picture quickly took residence in Catherine’s stomach. She could feel her step quicken like it had for the past few days, the walk from her chamber to the ward one filled with excitement and anticipation. God, how she missed those feelings.
“Good morning, Catherine,” the nurse on duty said as she approached.
“Morning,” Catherine replied, casting a smile she was pleased to discover originated naturally. “Everything okay?”
“Like clockwork,” the nurse grinned.
Catherine nodded and continued down a hallway until she came to a door with the letter “E” stenciled on it. She peeked through the adjacent window into the room and felt the earth move.
“You’re up early,” she said as she pushed open the door and entered the small recovery room.
“I wasn’t tired,” Tamara said, her long hair hanging like tangled drapes over her face. She sat cross-legged in an uncomfortable looking metal chair, a pad of paper and colored pencils in her lap. Mr. Sniffles was tucked under her drawing arm. “Plus, I wanted to finish this drawing while it’s fresh in my head.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Catherine said. She turned to the girl lying in the bed. “And how are you feeling this morning?”
Abby looked up at her mother and smiled, the color in her exhausted and drawn features already returning. In fact, Catherine would say Abby possessed a veritable glow.
“I feel better. Sore, but better.”
“I’m glad.” Catherine’s eyes trailed from her daughter to the bundle in her arms. “May I?”
“Of course, mom,” Abby said, her face scrunching in a look that suggested a combination of ridiculousness and puzzlement. “You never have to ask. You know that, right?”
“Well...I never like to assume.”
“Mom,” Abby said, lightly scolding. She gently scooped up the sea of blankets in her arms and handed them over to Catherine.
Cradling the wadded assortment of coverings, Catherine backed into the chair beside Abby’s bed like she’d done so many times before. She settled back and stared down. A pair of fresh eyes peered back.
“Well, good morning, Miss Renata,” Catherine cooed. “I almost didn’t notice you there, sleeping so soundly.”
The baby in Catherine’s arms squirmed and gurgled, its jeweled eyes staring up at the alien being above her. Catherine could have spent hours gazing into those eyes. All the promise that was contained there, all the hope. The months shuttered in prior to the birth had begun to wear on her, making recovery a long, uphill trudge. But the baby, seeing it in all of its unaffected perfect glory, lit a spark in her soul.
As the ash swirled outside and with the sun on temporary vacation, Catherine realized that she could have cared less. For she held new life. And in this baby’s eyes Catherine saw the universe and knew that the pillars of hope had begun to be erected. And in her arms was the foundation of all good things to come.
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Thank you for purchasing an ecopy of my book, The Sleep of the Gods. I hope you enjoyed it. If you know others who might also find it entertaining, please mention it to them. Your support is invaluable and most appreciated. For more information about me, visit http://www.jamessperl.com
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Book design: James Sperl
