by Tony Burgess
“Mike?”
The outline of a hand. Someone. Is that you? Are you turning the page? Are you shutting this dreadful book, finally and forever? I close my eyes, waiting for the squeeze of pages against me, the weight of either side of this wretched thing to crush me, squish me and pop my brain out the top like a cork. Is that what’s happening? Is my brain lying on the floor near you? A little toy for the cat. A bug for you to squash. Oh, please, throw me in the trash, would ya?
“Hey. Hey.”
Who’s that? I can see Alex, her face is close. She’s wiping tears from her cheeks. She looks worried. Worried about me.
“Can you hear me?”
I can. Yes, I can. But I can’t move my mouth. I’ve been dealt a severe blow. I got too close to Madison. Wow. That’s really powerful. Wow. I try to tell Alex. Try to speak, but I can’t. I can’t seem to clear my mouth of mumbles.
“That’s okay. You don’t have to talk. Eric, let’s move him right outside here.”
Don’t have to talk. I can’t. I can talk to you, dear reader, but I feel like our relationship has gotten so messy that we’re not particularly good for each other anymore. Also, I’m more than a little embarrassed that you’re still here. You’re probably enjoying this, watching me lose control of my book. My characters. And now, it looks like I’m quite capable of losing control of myself. We’ve come to crossroads, me and you. We should part ways. You should go that way and I should go the other. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to push you away.
“We’ll need a rope to lower him down. He can’t walk. He’s lucky we got him out of there.”
Alex leans me against a rock from which I can see all the people below.
“They all hate him,” Eric says. “That’s the sum of their memory, of their history. They don’t think anything is strange here. Because they are strange. Alex and I don’t really even know who he is.”
It seems to me now that anyone I wrote into the book, anyone I endowed with a name and a purpose, with an interior, has evolved into deformity. There’s Cull, the janitor. What’s happened to his skin? It’s slathered in starchy foam.
“We used to live in Ravenna up on the mountain, we went to school up there. Eric is my brother; we lived on a farm. With my mom and dad and we had sheep and some chickens. A few rabbits. My dog, Biggy. And our school bussed over to Cashtown one morning to compete in track and field with . . .”
Alex closes her eyes and leans into her brother’s shoulder and cries. Eric continues for her:
“We didn’t know much about the folks in Cashtown, but man, something had stirred them that morning. They were all running around chasing each other. There were dogs barking and guns going off. It was like a riot. And everyone, I mean, everyone was involved. We never got off the bus, Alex and I. We just stayed put. Wasn’t until later that we found out the whole town had gone berserk trying to get at this one kid. And at some point, well, things got very bizarre. We heard this big crashing sound coming from a house half way up the hill. We looked over and there he was. It was him.
“His back had come up through the roof of the house. He must have been sixty feet tall. There were explosions around his feet. He must have been kicking gas lines and electrical stuff because a fire shot right up both his legs and into his hair. He ran off. You could see the flames coming off his head at the horizon for quite while. And what he left behind. Things went out of control. The head appeared on Ms. Joost’s back. The Mom-bats. That was just the beginning.”
Did someone call me Mike? Remind me to ask you my name when I get a moment. It’s on the cover somewhere. And, I’m sorry, but those did not look like italicized pronouns back there. I don’t know what to worry about any more.
A long shriek tears the air overhead. The people down here ignore it. The pterodactyl is hunting another Mom-bat. I glance up to see the wig battering itself against the ceiling to escape. Look at these people. So hideous and deformed. Mr. Finchy — his eyes have been completely taken over by the strange yellow tapers that coil up out of his face. He coughs and, I swear, I see a red dust puff in the air around his head.
“People were running everywhere. I don’t think they really knew what they were running from. While they ran, they changed. And we heard that girl, Madison, crying. She was being carried down the river by the current and people just started following her cries. Along the river into an open culvert. Underground. To here. We live here now. With her.”
Eric is swallowing hard and sighing. He seems to be recovering from our visit with Madison. What a strange world I created. Well, I didn’t create it, not really. But I have something to do with it, don’t I? I wish I were a smarter writer. I wish I understood morals and lessons and things of that nature better than I do. In a way, these are my people now, and maybe I have been sent down here to lead them out. Yes. That must be it. The author leads his characters back to a better book. A more thoughtful book — in a generally realistic setting. I buy that. Eric and Alex are looking at me. They wonder who I am, but sense a danger in asking me. I must think of what it is I must do. What is the golden key, the lofty revelation, the thing that brings these people home? It has to have a symbolic dimension. It can’t just be a place on a map. I can’t just take them to a place and say, “Here, you’re free. Here, look on the map, that’s the end of the book.” No, it has to have meaning to them. Soon, I think, I have to declare who I am. I have to take control.
“I need a band of willing warriors,” I say.
Alex shoots a look at me, a look of shock. I shrug.
“I can lead you to freedom, but I’m going to need help. I need brave souls.”
Eric is looking at me funny. He leans in and speaks in a hush: “To do what, exactly?”
I stand up and face the crowd below. “People, listen to me. My name is Tab Tannington and I come from outside your world. I come from a place where you can look into a man’s heart and see more than the man knows is within him.”
Oh, brother, that’s rich. I see Alex flinch a little at the highfalutin speech.
“What has happened here, my friends, is a hitch: the mind of your world cannot reach the heart of your world. The mind has gone mad and the heart has turned miserable. I can bring them together again, I can heal your world, but I will need help. Who is willing to join me on an adventure? Who wants to save this world?”
Wow, I’m speaking really, really loud now. In a big throaty voice. Who do I think I am? Bobby Pop stands suddenly, both of his hands straight up.
“There’s one! There’s a brave soul!” I yell.
Bobby Pop’s arms make a funny noise then fall off.
“Thank you! But we’ll need someone else. Look we’ve all got things we’re dealing with, but this adventure will require people with working arms. Who’s with me?”
Eric grabs my arm and turns me from the crowd. “What are you talking about? What do you mean the heart and mind?”
Honestly, I don’t know how I’ll answer this, but that doesn’t seem to stop me anymore. “I can’t tell you everything. I don’t know how safe it is. This world is unstable. That much I know. I can’t put it any more simply than this: we must take Madison to Idaho. They belong together. You’re going to have to believe me.”
I’m kind of making sense, aren’t I? They are supposed to be together, that’s how the book ends. If we bring them together, then maybe at least we can wrap this up and get out of here.
Eric looks skeptical. Alex lowers her eyes and gives me a serious look.
“I think you do know something,” she says. “I think you’re dangerous, but I’m not sure we have a lot of choices down here. So, okay, we’ll get your band of merry men and go up there.”
I rise again and wheel around to see who will volunteer for my army. Ms. Joost is up and stabbing her arms into the air. I wait a moment to make sure they aren’t going to fall off.
“I will
go! I want to go!”
From behind Joost comes Oncet’s voice: “Joost volunteers her services, as does her trusty deformity. The stranger welcomes them to his war.”
I can hear Eric clearing his throat behind me. I turn, annoyed. I hate it when people do that. If you want my attention, just ask for it.
“Not him.”
“Not him?”
“Not Cull.”
Cull has his arm in the air. I mean: he is holding his dismembered arm, and waving it in the air. Finchy says something. His tongue is thick with what seem to be sprouting seedlings.
“Oncet, history will say: he has chosen to liberate your people even if it means he will perish. Join us, my valiant soldiers.”
My valiant soldiers? Where exactly am I picking up my diction from? I watch as Joost makes her way through the crowd. She rolls Mr. Finchy aside. Mr. Finchy’s arms and legs are gone and his body is a kind of lumpen mass. Out of the side of my mouth, I say to Eric: “What exactly is ailing these poor people?”
“We think they are becoming potatoes.”
Of course they are.
Okay.
Did you do something? Did you put the book down or something? Go to sleep? Because, now, unless I talk directly to you, everything is in the past tense. So either stuff kept happening while you went off somewhere or the book is fixing itself. Anyhow, for now, we’re in the past tense, and I don’t know if that means a moment ago, an hour ago or a week ago, because this book does not seem to think that I, its erstwhile author, should have any say in it or even know what’s going on anymore.
We gathered together on the balcony at the mouth of the cave that housed young Madison. There were five of us, six if you counted the poor girl. Oncet looked unwell, very wan and tired. The gagged mouth looked sore and red. It’s possible that some sort of infection was draining him. Still, it was important that he be part of the team. Oncet seemed to have a slightly larger frame of reference than us, being able to see around corners, for instance. As an added bonus, he could see in the dark, somewhat like night-vision goggles. He could also anticipate things, sense a tension or building anxiety that usually meant something scary was about to happen. He, the head, was akin to a crude literary device; if we read between his lines, as it were, we might possibly learn a thing or two. The problem, as Ms. Joost had pointed out, and she should know, poor woman, was that listening to Oncet for long periods of time could cause us to become too passive, to stop doing things for ourselves.
I announced my plan and we quickly set to work. We needed a rope of some kind, so we removed shirts and socks from the people below. The rope we made needed to be at least fifty feet to keep us out of range of the overwhelming despair cast by Madison in her bed. Alex and Eric were clearly the most industrious, knotting sleeve to sleeve, then fashioning a hook from Joost’s heavy rimmed glasses. After several tries, we managed to hook the end of the bed and began to drag Madison out of the cave. Kyle and Evan, the boys at her bedside, stirred when she got far enough away from them, then proceeded to follow her out.
We dragged her along a path that led up to the surface. Occasionally we could feel her power: Alex would sob suddenly, or I would, remembering sad things, or imagining sad things. I didn’t know what to think of Kyle and Evan. It was difficult to gage how damaged they were. They kept getting too close to her, then collapsing, then getting up to start over again. It was very disturbing — repetitive behavior that reminded me of bears pacing in cages at the zoo.
The opening at the surface had been covered with branches. Alex and Eric stopped for a moment and turned to me.
“We should prepare you for what’s out there,” she said.
I glanced back at the bed and the little girl under the covers. I felt tears hit my cheek.
“I know. Dinosaurs and punk rockers.”
“Well, yes. And Mom-bats. But there’s something else. There’s a darker force and a darker being.”
This was intriguing. Did they mean Idaho?
“Nobody’s ever been very close to him. Except those he’s snatched away. He looks like a preacher, very heavy black clothes. In fact, all around him everything is sort of black-and-white, like an old movie. And there’s an owl and moon that follow him. You can hear him singing, just before he appears.”
“He snatches people?”
“He’s got a few. Anyone who wanders off on his own. If I were to walk away from the group, you’d hear him whistling and in a few seconds he’d appear. Owl and moon and all. Big long arms would come out and snap me up,” Alex said.
I shuddered. It sounded so terrifying. Who was this mysterious man?
“We must stay together, then.”
Alex looked back at Kyle and Evan lying behind the bed. “They’re already lost,” she said.
Silently we lifted the makeshift rope over our shoulders and began to pull. We didn’t know whether Madison was too close to us, or too far. Too far, and she’d be at risk; too close, and we would be.
Tense!
Above, the sky was enormous, especially compared to the claustrophobic world below. I could tell it was my sky, the one I’d described, because it had no real distinguishing characteristics. Blue, a couple of generic clouds. But it looked wonderful, believe you me.
“Down!” Eric yelled and pulled me low into the undergrowth as a dreadful squawking drowned him out. A shadow passed overhead, darkening the ground around me. “We can’t be in the open. We are prey.”
I couldn’t help but notice that this world was indeed prehistoric with its lush plants and bizarre, hostile-looking flowers. Spiky and sweet-smelling stalks tangled in the humid air.
“There’s a river that way. We’ll have to travel along it. Maybe we can make something to float on.”
I nodded to Alex that, yes, I thought her idea was good. It was nearly impossible to drag the bed along the overgrown jungle floor. We slung the rope over our backs and crawled in a line. I began to wonder if we’d ever find Idaho in this world. Could I even be certain that he was still here? I was supposed to be the leader, but so far Alex had been doing most of the leading. I felt as if I had to come clean, to confess that I didn’t really have a practical strategy for moving things forward. I had a plan, sure: bring the heart and the mind of this book together by bringing Madison and Idaho together. That was the literary plan, but I needed something a little more concrete on the ground.
We pulled the bed for some time. It snagged occasionally, and we managed to wrench it free. We arrived, exhausted, with bruised and bleeding hands and knees, at the river’s edge. It was a wide river, fast-moving, with the massive points of submerged boulders poking up in the powerful current. The foliage was so strange. The trees weren’t really trees; they were more like bizarre oversized vegetables. Giant stalks of purple asparagus and monstrous clusters of Brussels sprouts grew and a hot wind buffeted about fruit flies big as hand grenades.
We released the rope and lay on the fuzzy bank. I told Alex that I wanted to have a word in private. We crawled to some stones near the water and sat, hunched beneath a wide frond of spinachy bush.
“I don’t know where he is, Alex. I’m not sure where we should go.”
Alex sighed and rolled a stone into the water with her big toe.
“He may be everywhere. It may be that we have to say his name.”
“Is that true? If you say his name, he appears?”
“It seems to depend on who says his name and under what circumstances. I don’t know what would happen up here, though.”
“I think maybe we should just get somewhere first. We need some perspective. We need to see what’s around us. I don’t want to do anything too risky just yet.”
Alex smiled encouragingly. She wanted me to be right. She wanted me to succeed. I felt grateful to her and, for the first time, quite scared — scared that I would lead these people nowhere, that we would all p
erish in this brutal world.
A shriek. A hideous shriek. Then came a cackle of shrieks, like crows almost, but louder. Alex and I dove for cover.
The noise was coming from where we’d left our gang. I crawled quickly along the underbrush. Soon they came into view, the monstrous beasts, the Halloween hair and bloody teeth flying in a frenzy tight to the ground. I started to rise, but Alex stopped me.
“I can’t let Mom-bats attack our friends. I’m responsible —”
“They’re not attacking. Look!”
I could see Eric’s back, and the arm he’d placed over Oncet. They were flat to the ground; above them, the Mom-bats were snapping fruit flies into their mouths. The Mom-bats were feeding on insects. I got an idea. I pried a long rock out of the earth and lobbed it back toward the river. When it crashed into the brush, the Mom-bats became frantic. They rose to just above the level of the vegetable canopy, then zoomed off.
“What happened?”
I smiled ruefully. I had so little to be proud of. “If the Mom-bats have entered the food chain, then they’ve got predators.”
Alex gave me a serious look. I was impressed by how much real worry could sit in this young woman’s face.
“I wonder where we fit in,” she said.
We spent the rest of the day rolling and crawling through old growth, gathering wood and lashing it together. Making a raft for the five of us was easy enough; figuring out how to get Madison’s bed to float behind us was another matter. None of us could get near her. Nothing we could do in this situation was even remotely straightforward. First we fashioned a new rope out of vine, then we released our makeshift raft downriver and secured it to a large red stump. We dug two deep parallel grooves in the river’s edge. Into the grooves we dropped two large logs, each with two holes in them, one hole at the front and another at the back. According to our plan, these holes would hold the feet of Madison’s bed. We figured we had to stand in the water and pull her forward until her bed was held by the slots in the log, then we’d have to pull the logs free of their moorings and into the current. There would be great danger in this, of course, and we would have to get much closer to Madison than was safe, but we calculated that if one of us did become incapacitated by grief, then the current would carry him or her from Madison and hopefully he or she would recover soon enough to swim to the safety of our craft.
