Andrew says, “We’ll go when you are ready.”
“I’m ready now.”
“Sabrina is still out there somewhere, and she has her weapon. I’m out of bullets. There’re more in the trunk. One of us has to carry Wen.”
“We’re not leaving her here.”
“Never. She’s coming with us. Wherever we go.”
Eric says, “Okay, come on, I’m ready.” Eric presses his body against the door and grinds himself into an upright position.
Leonard says, “Wait, please, wait! Before you go, you have to turn on the TV. Listen: Adriane’s dead so we have to turn on the TV and see what’s happening. See if there’s anything happening. Like we did yesterday, after Redmond. He died and we turned on the TV and we saw the cities drowning like I said we would. So we have to turn on the TV now. We have to see if—” Leonard pauses with his mouth open, like he cannot believe what came out of his mouth. Then repeats, “We have to see if—” and stops again.
Neither Andrew nor Eric asks for further explanation. Andrew’s head is down again, making a hermit’s cave out of himself.
Leonard continues. “We have to see if what happened here in the cabin stopped what is supposed to happen out there next. We have to see if Wen’s death is enough to stop the end of the world.”
Andrew rocks back and forth on the couch. He says, “I’m going to kill you if you say one more goddamn word.”
Leonard says, “If you do, you’ll still need to watch and find out if her death is accepted as the . . . the required sacrifice. A willing sacrifice. It has to be a willing sacrifice. That’s why we kept asking and begging you both to choose. We couldn’t sacrifice one of you. That wasn’t allowed. We told you; it was you who had to choose. It had to be a choice. I’m afraid she might not, um, might not count.”
Andrew shouts, “She doesn’t count? She doesn’t fucking count?”
“No, no, no, that’s not what I mean. Of course she counts, she counts more than anything in the world. I’m saying you were supposed to choose. The sacrifice was supposed to be a willing one. And it wasn’t. It was an accident, a terrible accident. No one chose this. Maybe it’s enough but I don’t know. It—it doesn’t feel like it’s over. Turn on the TV and we’ll know. Just turn it on . . .”
Leonard rambles on about the television and how sorry he is for everything. Eric closes his eyes and sends out a general please, God in the name of your son Jesus Christ, help us prayer. He feels an oddly focused heat radiating through the front door along with the chainsaw sound of a mass of gathering insects. No, this—whatever this is—doesn’t feel like it’s over.
Andrew stands up, turns around, bends, and gently places Wen’s body on the couch. His right hand lingers, resting on her covered head.
Eric wanders away from the door and into the cabin. He says, “I’ll take her, you can give her to me. I won’t drop her,” and he holds out his arms. He isn’t sure Andrew hears him over the flies and Leonard’s continued, voluminous pleas.
Andrew hovers over Wen for a moment, and then he leans sharply to his left and grabs the dual-tipped weapon propped against the far end of the couch and wall. He spins and limps to Leonard, brandishing the sledgehammer end.
Leonard says sorry once more and goes quiet. He doesn’t beg or plead or ask for mercy. He doesn’t flex or strain against the ropes. He doesn’t close his eyes. He lifts his chin, neither defiant nor proud. He breathes audibly through his nose, and his body tremors and quakes.
Eric says, “Andrew? What are you doing?” and slides in front of him. His arms are still held out for Andrew to give him Wen’s body. “No, you can’t.”
The sledgehammer wavers as though caught in an irresistible magnetic field and itches to dart forward, and then Andrew drops that end of the weapon to the floor. Leonard jolts in his chair at the thud of metal and wood. Andrew says, “I already killed one of them,” and he motions at Adriane’s body. Then he looks over his shoulder at Wen on the couch. Tears glisten in his glassy eyes and he lifts the weapon again. “So I’m going to kill him, too.”
“You’re not a killer. Adriane attacked you with a knife and you defended yourself. He’s tied up and helpless.”
“He’s not fucking helpless.”
“This is different. You can’t.”
“Wen is dead because of him! Eric, he fucking squeezed my hand and when he did . . . and when he did . . .”
Leonard sobs and says he didn’t mean to even though he promised nothing would happen to her. More flies leave Adriane’s body and orbit around Leonard like they are pets called to their owner.
Andrew says, “He made me shoot. The bullet came from the gun in my hand, my finger on the trigger. I shot her—”
“It’s not your fault.” Eric pushes the weapon down.
Andrew doesn’t resist and lets Eric guide the weapon until the rake-claw end is on the floor. He says, “It is my fault. I’m so sorry . . .”
“No, it isn’t.” Eric hugs Andrew. “It’s not your fault. I will never allow you to say it is.”
Andrew doesn’t drop the weapon to return the embrace, but he leans into Eric and rests his head on his shoulder. “Eric, what the fuck are we going to do?”
“We’re going to leave like you said.” Eric holds on for another moment and listens to Andrew breathe in and out. He releases Andrew and steps back, noticing they are standing in Adriane’s blood. He says, “Take the weapon in case Sabrina is out there waiting for us. I’ll get Wen.” For an irrational moment, Eric fears their feet will be forever stuck to the floor, the blood as amber. They’ll be fossilized, frozen in time, and not be found for millions of years.
Eric lurches to the couch, not so much dizzy as lacking any sense of equilibrium. Every step must be thought about and planned or the whole cabin will tilt like an unbalanced seesaw. Each correction he makes teeters into an uncoordinated overcorrection that threatens to topple him. He anchors himself by standing with the tops of both feet under the couch’s low frame. Now that he’s not concentrating on walking, he closes his eyes and prays, hoping God can parse the loose and stretched-out thoughts in his head. He asks for the strength to be able to carry his daughter away from this place. Away from this place away from this place away from this place becomes an interior mantra, and with its harried, manic repetition, the syllables and beats transform into unrecognizable noises not of language.
Eric opens his eyes, and the sheet covering Wen’s body is blackened with flies. They hover and they crawl over and weave between one another. Eric cries out and waves his arms frantically over her body. The flies ignore him. They are fat and drunk. They are greedy. They are cruel and fearless. They are the darkening knots and threads of her shroud.
Andrew says, “Eric! Eric? What are you doing?”
“I’m getting them off her. I want them off her.”
“Getting what off her?”
“The flies. They’re all over our baby.” The enginelike roar of their collective wings is deep and guttural, a growl that turns into derisive laughter. He would be willing to spend an eternity crushing the flies’ bodies, one by one, between his fingers, if it’ll keep them away from Wen.
“I don’t see any . . . hey, if you can’t lift her—”
“There’s just so many.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? How about you hold this thing and I’ll carry—”
“I’m fine. I can do this.”
Another voice worms into the cracks between the buzzing and Andrew and Eric’s conversation. Leonard says, “Eric, turn on the TV.” He says it twice. He says it like it’s nothing more than a hey-try-this friendly suggestion.
The television. It’s there on the wall in front of him. The black screen is not quite a mirror, but it reflects his face and the cabin behind him, filtering the images in dark, muted tones. There’s color in the reflection, but at the same time there’s not. The rope around Leonard is white, Andrew’s long hair is black, and the pooled blood is a black red, so opaque the floor appears to be
full of holes.
“Eric, turn on the TV.” Leonard’s patient request sounds like his own thought verbalized. Yes, he could turn the TV on. It would take very little effort and would not prevent them from leaving. He could turn it on and see whatever it is they might see. Maybe it would be an answer. Maybe it would be nothing. He remembers yesterday’s tsunamis and the filmed drownings and devastation. He can’t remember what promised calamity is supposed to be next. What could he see that’s worse than what he’s already seen in the cabin? He remembers his shame and guilt while watching the rising ocean swallowing the Oregonian coastline and its denizens and fleetingly believing the four strangers were who they said they were. Does he believe them now? Does he believe it enough to turn on the television? What if the screen stays blank and dark? Would that mean it’s all over, that everything and everyone is gone? Would he be relieved? What if the screen flashes on and bathes the cabin in light? What if the void isn’t darkness, but is instead a sea of burning, unrelenting, unforgiving light?
Andrew shouts at Leonard, only inches from his face. He tells him to shut up and he doesn’t give a fuck about the TV.
Leonard says, “Just turn it on, please. We have to know if we stopped it, or if we didn’t,” and he says it as though there’s only him and Eric in the room, using the minimum amount of volume to be heard, to be understood.
Eric says, “We’re leaving now,” but he doesn’t move to pick up Wen.
Andrew says, “Eric? You’re not listening to him, are you? Hey, are you all right? Maybe you should sit down for a minute.”
One fly lands on the TV screen’s lower right corner and crawls in looping, sideways eights. Eric says, “We’re going to leave right now,” or maybe he doesn’t and only thinks it. He reaches out and the fly guides his hand to the power button on the inside edge of the almost invisible plastic frame. The button is hidden and half the size of his finger pad. He presses it.
After a second or two delay, a confusing, bracing collage of colors and images fills the screen to its borders, accompanied by the sound of an authority, a narrator talking offscreen. Eric squints and is initially unable to focus on what’s happening: the scrolling text banners with blurry words and numbers, images changing from overhead shots of an airport to a hospital with doctors wearing hazmat-esque shields and gowns, crowded sidewalks, bustling markets, and packed-beyond-capacity subways, many of the people wearing surgical masks over their noses and mouths, and quick cuts to iconic images of a metropolitan city Eric would normally recognize instantly. He succumbs to the withering onslaught of sight and sound and slinks away from the TV and the couch, and he bumps into Andrew.
Andrew puts a hand on Eric’s shoulder and turns him so they face each other. He asks, “Why’d you do that?” and he gives Eric a confused look of betrayal.
Eric doesn’t recall deciding or deliberating whether to turn the television on or not. He says, “There was a fly . . .”
“A what?”
“We’re going. I’ll get Wen,” Eric says. His voice is a decayed echo.
Leonard cries out. “We didn’t stop it! We didn’t stop anything! We’re another step closer to the end.”
Andrew says, “Shut up,” but there isn’t much oomph behind it. His head is turned slightly to the television, giving it the same distrustful side glance he gave Eric.
Leonard sniffles and coughs and shouts between deep, shuddering breaths. “Remember, I told you yesterday. Oceans would rise and drown cities—which happened, you can’t deny that, you saw it—and I said then a plague would descend—”
Eric interrupts and says, “Then you said the skies will fall and crash to earth like pieces of glass and then a final everlasting darkness.” He didn’t plan on reciting that doomed litany, just like he did not plan to turn on the television.
Leonard appears nonplussed at having his words repeated back to him. “Yeah. Right. Um, yes, I said that—yeah, a plague, a plague would descend, and it’s here, it’s happening.”
On the screen is a slideshow of images from Hong Kong. Among them: the Blue House in Wan Chai. Andrew’s favorite building from their trip, it features a museum on the ground floor called the Hong Kong House of Stories, which was where they spent their last morning in the city before heading north to Hubei Province. Back home, hanging on the wall above their computer desk are two framed photos: one with the two of them standing in front of the Blue House, their chests puffed out in Superman poses, their smiles equally heroic; the other is of the Jardine House, a beanstalk-tall skyscraper with windows shaped like giant portals, or holes (this is Eric’s favorite building and Andrew playfully teases him that he only likes it because it’s full of bankers). The collage of this-is-the-city images ends with a field reporter in the middle of the bustling Kowloon City Wet Market, her surgical mask pulled away from her mouth so it hangs limply around her neck.
In the lower left corner of the screen, stacked above the omnipresent news scroll, is a red, rectangular box. The text inside the box is the name of the program: City Zero: Hong Kong and the Fight Against Bird Flu. The reporter talks about the surging number of human cases of H7N9 in Hong Kong since January with a mortality rate at almost 40 percent. The government has ordered millions of chickens and ducks culled throughout the region in recent months, and within Hong Kong there is the growing probability of quarantines for the hardest-hit neighborhoods and would include the closing of open-air markets. In recent weeks, dead birds with the avian flu strain have turned up in Suffolk, England, Germany, and at a Grayson chicken farm in Tennessee, increasing fears of a possible pandemic.
“Why did you turn it on?” Andrew asks again.
Eric shakes his head even though it’s not a yes or no question. He wipes his eyes with the backs of his sweaty, bloody hands. He repeats his away from this place prayer in his head.
Andrew leans in and whispers, “Are you starting to believe him, Eric?”
Eric wants to say no. He yearns to. But he is in so much pain and grief, and he is confused and fatigued and he wants to lie on the couch next to Wen and close his eyes, and he’s afraid if he says no to Andrew’s question, they’ll never be allowed to go away from this place. He says, “I’m sorry.”
Andrew stutters through saying, “Eric—what are you, what are you saying? You can’t. You’re not, you’re not thinking clearly.”
Leonard says, “Guys, look. You didn’t choose to make a sacrifice. Wen’s death was an accident so that won’t stop the apocalypse from happening. I said a plague would come next and here it is. Don’t you see it? Everything that’s happened—you have to see it now. The only way to prevent the end of everything is for you to willingly sacrifice one or the other.”
Andrew dives at Leonard, throws both hands forward, and hits him in the face with the wooden handle, connecting at the bridge of his nose. Leonard’s head snaps back with a grunt and blood gushes from his nose and down his already stained shirt.
Eric grabs Andrew’s arm and pulls him away from hitting Leonard again. He points at the TV and says, “He said there would be a plague.”
Andrew’s voice goes high pitched, filled with the helium of incredulity. “This? I’ve been reading about these bird flu cases for months already. This isn’t a fucking plague—it’s, what, a news report. It isn’t even being broadcast live.” He stalks to the TV and points at the red title-box on the screen. “It’s preprogramming. It’s a TV show. It has a fucking title for Chrissakes. Breaking news doesn’t have a title. Leonard, Sabrina, all of them knew this bird flu show was going to be on and knew what time.”
Leonard says, “Come on, Andrew. How can you—”
“Shut your fucking mouth or I’ll bash it in.” Andrew swivels his head, looking around the room. “Where’s the remote? Find it, and hit the guide button. You’ll see the title show up in the menu. It’s a fucking preprogrammed show. They knew about it before they came out here and made it part of their narrative.”
Eric has both arms around one of Andrew�
��s. What Andrew is saying is rational, but it sounds desperately rational.
Andrew says, “So God drops a couple of earthquakes but then had to wait for us to eat dinner and get a good night’s sleep before dialing up the slow-moving-already-been-in-the-news-all-summer plague? Eric, they were all checking their watches this morning; all of them were, just like Leonard was yesterday. Do you remember them doing that? It was so obvious. They weren’t even trying to hide it.”
Leonard says, “I check my watch when I get nervous.” He sounds sheepish, like he’s apologizing. “I don’t even realize I’m doing it most of the time.”
Eric says, “The others were checking their watches, too.” He doesn’t remember them doing so, but assumes that Andrew isn’t lying or misremembering. Eric says this because he wants to still be on Andrew’s side.
Leonard says, “I’m sure they were nervous, too. And the thing is, we all felt it, felt the time coming, you know. And we were made to know that your choice had to come soon. So, like anybody would, we checked our watches.”
Eric is beginning to believe Leonard, yet even to his ears that explanation is awkward and clunky.
Andrew says, “Who even wears a watch anymore? You all just check your phones. Especially people your age. You’re telling us you four all show up and just happen to be wearing watches? No. You knew you were coming out to this cabin and there’d be no cell reception and you had to be able to tell time.”
“That’s not it at all, I swear . . .”
“Listen to him, Eric. Can’t you tell he’s lying? They knew this bird flu show was on today at this time just like they knew the Alaskan earthquake and the tsunami warnings had already happened before they showed up to the cabin . . .”
“I know. You’re right.” The buzzing is all around Eric. He thinks he knows what Leonard meant when he said he felt the time coming, like it was a physical thing made of presence and purpose. He remembers the figure made of light and maybe what he was saw was time made manifest, and that’s not right but it feels closer to the truth, and he wants to tell Andrew about it. Instead, he says, “But there was another quake after the Alaskan one. That was the one that killed all those people. Leonard and the others didn’t hear about that one before they showed up. That one happened live, while we watched.” Eric silently prays that he’s wrong and that they will be allowed to leave.
The Cabin at the End of the World_A Novel Page 19
