Fire

by Alan Rodgers

  He found Andy Harrison by the left window in the front of the apartment — pretty much exactly where he’d been the last time Luke had seen him. “Are there more like that?” Luke asked him. He spoke quietly as he could, afraid that someone else might hear him. “That little kid — he needed so bad. And his mother thought what he needed was me. Maybe the boy thought that too; I don’t know. But . . . God. I can’t cope with that, Andy. I can’t.” Andy was looking at him cold and hard, poker faced. Luke wanted to stop talking, wanted to shut up and go away, but the boy’s silence was so icy that Luke found himself throwing more words into the fire, trying to warm the air. “That little boy was dying, and he was coming to me for help, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do for him, not a damn thing. If I have to go through that again . . . I don’t know. Alive or not, I think I’ll just curl up and die.”

  Andy just stood there, staring angrily at the wall, not looking at Luke at all. After a while he shook his head. “You got a lot of nerve, you know that, Mr. Luke Munsen.” He was looking at Luke now, and growing angrier as he spoke. “Being a miracle is a responsibility. You say you’re not Jesus — okay, you’re not Jesus. You say you aren’t some kind of a saint, like my Momma thinks, then you’re not a saint, either. You’re still special — something awful special happened to you. Something miraculous. How can you be like that? If Larry Jenks and his mom think that maybe it’ll help him to see you, how can you begrudge them that? Are you so afraid of seeing the mean parts of the world that you won’t do what you can to make a difference? How can you be that low?”

  “I — no. No.”

  “No what? You want to try to tell me that it isn’t so?”

  Luke started to raise his voice, caught himself, stopped before he’d said a word. The problem was that denying what the boy had said was exactly what he wanted to do. And . . . and much as he wanted to deny it, he knew that there was at least a measure of truth in the accusation.

  A large measure of truth, most likely. But the boy was just a boy, damn it. What did a boy — maybe he was twelve, maybe he was thirteen — know about life? What business did he have lecturing Luke about responsibility?

  What did it matter how old he was? He was right, and Luke knew it.

  “Yeah. I guess that’s what I was going to do.” Sighed. “And I would have been wrong. Don’t beat me up about it, okay? Let me think. I need to think.”

  Andy Harrison huffed. “Yeah — I know what you’re going to do. You’re going to sit around stewing in it until you can find yourself a bunch of good reasons for acting like a dog. You go ahead. I seen it before. I know about reasons: they don’t make anything right. They just make it easier to live with being wrong.”

  “Yeah. Well.” Luke was looking out the window, watching the cemetery. It was quiet out there now, empty and deserted. The graveyard almost seemed to call out to him, as though it wanted him to rest inside its bosom. “Okay, then. What in the hell do you want me to do? Pretend I’m something that I’m not? Mumble silly words and tremble my hands over their heads? You think that’s any better?”

  “No — but if they want you to care, if they want your attention, is that so much to ask?” He shook his head. “You owe that to them, if you ask me. God put you here for a reason.”

  There was a grizzled, unwashed old man standing beside them now, listening. Watching — waiting for a pause in the conversation. Luke turned to him guiltily. A man who looked familiar somehow that Luke couldn’t quite identify.

  “You cured that Jenks boy,” the man said. “Can you cure me too? I got no disease — not anything but getting old. I’m going to die soon. My bones say that; I can hear them. I bet you can hear them too, if you listen. Can you help me — please? I don’t want to die, Mister. Please don’t let me die.”

  I didn’t cure that boy! Luke thought. He held his tongue. He glanced across the room, looking for Larry Jenks, to reassure himself —

  And saw the boy playing tug of war with his oldest sister. Even from here Luke could see the change in him. His eyes were bright, pure white and healthy; his skin was smooth and clear the way a child’s skin should be. And for all that an hour before he’d looked too weak to carry his own weight now he was winning the contest with a girl who had to be at least twice his age.

  Luke reached out and put his arms around the old man, and held him and held him. And loved him, and to hell with the fact that the man’s clothes felt oily, that he smelled like old shoes mislaid in a brewery.

  And the man hugged him too, and he said, “Oh thank you Mister, thank you — God loves us all, he loves us, doesn’t he?”

  And Luke smiled and patted the man’s back and he thought Yes, I think he does.

  After that there were others, standing, waiting just outside arm’s reach. He took each of them in his arms as they came to him. Only a few of them seemed to have any disabling illness, but each of them seemed to have . . . something compelling in his eyes. A need, maybe. Or maybe it was only a desire.

  They want me to love them. Luke couldn’t have said for the life of him where the thought had come from. But he knew it was so as soon as he heard it inside his skull, and he knew that Andy Harrison was right.

  They drifted away and into their own conversations and lives when they’d got what they needed from him. When the last of them was gone, Luke looked up and saw the woman — the woman from the cemetery. She seemed less dazed now, and . . . there was something strong about her, as though . . . Luke wasn’t sure. She walked through the door and stood against the wall beside it, as quietly and unsettlingly in awe of him as every other person in the room. Not quite the same awe that all the others in the room were full of; somehow it was almost intimate and personal. She was dressed, now — in a wrinkled grey-cotton sun dress. She wore the dress well, in spite of the wrinkles; she managed, in fact, to make the dress look beautiful.

  Luke looked the boy in the eye. “Did you tell her to come here too? Do you know her? How — ?”

  The boy looked at the woman, then looked back up at Luke — looked at both of them hard and careful. “I haven’t ever seen her before. I can tell, though. There’s something . . . some kind of a connection between the two of you. Isn’t there? Something important.”

  “I —” Luke felt himself growing afraid again, without understanding why. “I don’t know. I know her, yes, but . . . that isn’t what you mean, is it?”

  The boy shook his head. “No, that isn’t what I mean. It’s like — look at her. Look at you. I didn’t have to tell her where to go to find you. Even if I knew her to tell her, it wouldn’t have made any difference. She’s going to know where you are, no matter where you go. Can’t you tell that, just seeing her?”

  Luke looked at the woman long and careful as he could without staring at her, but hard as he tried he couldn’t see what the boy had. He saw something, all right, but whatever it was he saw wasn’t as sayable as that. Something powerful, something frightening. Nothing he could put a name to.

  “I’m not sure,” he said, and there was something more he meant to say, but the words evaporated away before he could say them, and before he realized what he was doing Luke was crossing the room toward her. That was rude, a small voice inside him said. Rude to the boy. It wasn’t right to walk away in the middle of a conversation. Luke only barely heard that voice.

  He was beside the woman, now. Not looking at her, not exactly, but not looking away from her either. She seemed to watch the floor as though it were a bonfire that might consume her; for just an instant she glanced up at him shyly, but before her eyes even had a chance to focus she looked away again.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said. That sounded strange to Luke; it hadn’t been a full day since he’d last seen her. And her voice — he’d never heard her voice before. In all of last night she’d never spoken. Her voice was beautiful, he decided; rich and melodious and elegant; it had the slightest trace an
of exotic accent.

  He smiled. “It hasn’t been that long,” he said. “A little while before sunrise, maybe? I think I remember dawn creeping out around the edges of the sky.”

  “A day? Only a day, really?” She was looking out the window, now, focusing on something off beyond the street lights. “So much has happened. Too much. This world . . . I don’t know it. There were times when I thought that only you were real.”

  Luke flinched. “Don’t say that. Please. I’m hearing too many things like that tonight.”

  She smiled, nodded; she even almost seemed to understand the problem. “It happened to you too, didn’t it? You were . . . not alive before too, weren’t you?”

  He nodded.

  The fingers of her right hand teased the cloth belt of her sun dress.”I think I knew that from the moment I first set eyes on you, even in all that awful confusion. It’s like a bond somehow. I feel it when I see those others out there, all those ones who are still confused. It’s much stronger when I look at you.”

  “What is it — what do you think it is? What makes that feeling?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe we all knew each other in heaven, and don’t remember any more. Is there a special tributary of the Lethe for people who return to the living?” She smiled when she said it, and Luke knew that she’d told a joke, even though he’d missed the punch line. “I don’t know. Maybe it is . . . something like that. It has to be, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess it does,” Luke said, and then the both of them were quiet for a long while. “Who were you — back before? Who are you? Did I know you, maybe, or know of you?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’d remember if we’d met. And all of that life is behind me now. Let it rest.”

  “I don’t remember very well — a lot of things I don’t remember at all. I think it might be because of the way I died. Andy Harrison told me about that.”

  “You said my name,” the boy hollered from across the room. “I heard that.”

  Luke turned, looked up at him. “You did, huh? Didn’t know I’d spoke about you loud enough for you to hear.”

  “I heard. What you saying about me, Mr. Luke Munsen?”

  Luke smiled. “Horrible things, you can be sure of that.”

  “I bet. I bet.” The boy turned away, fell back into heated conversation with his father.

  “He’s a good kid,” Luke said. “A little unsettling, but good. He’s the first living soul I saw after . . .” And the words fell away again, as though he’d never had them. After what? God knew what; Luke didn’t.

  After he was alive again.

  “Yes,” she said, as though she understood more than he’d said. “That’s important, isn’t it?”

  As soon as she’d asked the question, Luke realized that it was important. “I think it might be. God only knows what that means.”

  She nodded; so gravely that it almost seemed silly. And before he could stop himself Luke was laughing — not quite out loud, but it shook his expression and shook his shoulders even though he tried to stop them. After just an instant she was laughing too, and then there wasn’t any need for Luke to hold it back. The two of them doubled over laughing so hard that the room was watching Luke again. And Luke didn’t even care.

  ³ ³ ³

  TUESDAY

  July Nineteenth

  Broadcast over the ABC

  television network on

  the afternoon of July 18.

  (Theme music.)

  Stay tuned for a special live bulletin from ABC news.

  (Twenty-seven seconds of silence.)

  This ABC News special bulletin is coming to you live from the headquarters of ABC itself, in New York City. Violent protesters, as yet unidentified, have attacked this building and are at this very moment heading toward the studio from which this broadcast emanates. Their intentions are still uncertain, but we have heard gunfire, and we are no longer able to reach the security personnel on the building’s ground floor.

  The protest started about twenty-five minutes ago, and at first it was raucous but fairly conventional. Fifteen minutes ago this office received frantic calls, when our security personnel first sighted machine guns among the crowd. New York City police were called at that time, but we are unable to tell whether or not they have responded, since the phone lines to the security desk died almost immediately.

  What?

  Dear God, they’re in the hall.

  The newscaster stares away from the camera for fourteen seconds, terrified, until finally we hear the sound of a door shattering. We hear the sound of a machine gun —

  No!

  — and the newscaster screams before the channel goes dead.

  From the Good News Hour,

  broadcast on the Voice of

  Armageddon Television Network,

  7:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time,

  Tuesday, July 19.

  Bust-shot of anchorman; behind him is a map of Russia. Superimposed over the map are a red hammer and sickle and the words GOG AND MAGOG.

  The forces of evil continue to gather strength in the nations of Gog and Magog, which still insist on referring to themselves as the Union of Russian Socialist Republics. Armies are massing in the South and Central Asian portions of that fearful nation.

  A window opens up in the upper-right corner of the screen — inside it is grainy video footage of a riot in Red Square.

  Those few of the righteous who live captive within the confines of the evil empire have taken to the streets in an attempt to bring down their evil leaders. So far their efforts have only succeeded in shifting the power among the heathens.

  Meanwhile, at the gates of the fair city of Jerusalem, Arab surrogates for the evil empire continue their relentless attack on the forces of the righteous. This report by our Good News Hour reporter Carl Tappan, live from the city of Jerusalem. . . .

  Footage of jet aircraft taking off from a desert runway; as the jets fade into the distance cut to a dead battlefield — smoking hulls of Russian tanks in the foreground. Off in the distance we see a long, steady series of explosions.

  Can you tell us, Carl, exactly how it is that the infidels are already within fifteen miles of Jerusalem? How is it that Israel has fallen so far and so quickly?

  A new voice — this one is thick with an drawl that sounds like Kentucky, or maybe southern Indiana.

  David, the Israelis were caught off balance by the direction the attack came from. Their border with Jordan is a long one, and for better than twenty years it’s been peaceful. They didn’t expect the Jordanians to attack — and as a matter of fact, they didn’t. Even if they had, the Jordanian army isn’t large enough to pose much of a threat to the state of Israel. Who could have expected the Syrians and Iraqis — who’ve long been bitter enemies — to mount a joint attack? And even more unexpectedly, to mount it not by way of the Golan Heights, but by first attacking the Jordanians? The fact is, David, that no one here even considered for a moment the idea that there might someday be Syrian soldiers crossing over the Jordan River. They managed to make that crossing less than three hours after they blitzed over the Syrian border with Jordan, and managed to catch the Israeli Army so badly unprepared that most of the West Bank was lost before the Israelis could rally back. The Syrians and Iraqis aren’t gaining much more ground right at the moment, but the fighting here isn’t over by any stretch of the imagination. There’s some fear, in fact, that the Saudis or possibly even some of the gulf states may reinforce the Arabs. Colonel Qaddafi, in Libya, has already offered them his help — though so far his offer has been ignored. Right now the fighting is so intense and the outcome is so unsure that any new forces on either side could tip the balance completely.

  The scene shifts again, to a small town in the rural south. Clearly visible in the foreground is a microphone marked with the letters abc.
/>   Thanks, Carl. Now to Dean Grant in Tylerville, Tennessee, for this report.

  David, strange things are happening down here in the South. Frightening things, that seem to indicate that we are indeed on the threshold of apocalypse. There’s a cemetery here in Tylerville where people are rising up out of their graves even as I speak. Crippled children are healing spontaneously. And the whole town is waiting for translation expectantly — absolutely and unshakably certain that it’ll come any moment.

  And David, I think they may be right. Billy Wilson, here, is one of the ones who lived through this miracle.

  The camera pans again, to focus on a brown-haired, freckled boy. He may be nine years old; he may be ten.

  I was an awful mess, the boy says. He bends down, rolls up the left of his blue jeans. There is nothing in any way remarkable about his leg. My leg was all knurled up and twisted around inside. He put his arms around me and now I can run just like I was any boy. Even been swimming a couple times. I tell you, boy, it’s something.

  Who’s that, Billy? Who put his arms around you?

  I can’t tell you. Kind of like a creature, kind of like an animal and kind of like a man. With a weird face like a goat’s, and hair all over him, and he stood up and walked just like a man would. He was kind of like Jesus, all . . . holy like that. He told us he wasn’t any Jesus, and how can you not believe somebody like that when he tells you something? I can’t, tell you that. Jesus or not, he was somebody special. He put miracles on all the people here, on me, on everybody sick in this town. Even did that for the dead ones in the cemetery: when he was gone a few hours they started rising right up out of their graves. Resurrection! Boy, it’s something.

  Superimposed over the boy’s forehead, now, are the numbers 666.

  We cut momentarily to a clip of a manlike, goatlike creature. When we return the boy is looking at a photograph.

  Is that the one who healed you, Billy — the Beast from Revelation? The Antichrist?

  That’s his photo, all right. I wouldn’t never have called him that.

  Return to studio.