by Alan Spencer
"It's best you let them talk it out and leave them to their business."
Mark whipped around as if caught with his pants down. Aimee Scott was standing in her white wire bra and cut-off jean shorts. Her long wiry hair was dripping with water, freshly washed, and she looked vaguely attractive, despite the wear on her features. A smile hadn't crossed that face in a long time, though she was in a place that provoked so many good feelings out of other people.
"What do you mean by that?" He turned back to the path, but the group was long gone. "I have a feeling the catch is about to come my way. So what's the catch about all this good stuff that's happening to me?"
"You're right, there is a catch." Aimee stared off as if remembering how it was for her. "What you just saw is a lot of people blowing smoke up each other's asses. Then it gets serious. Then they decide."
"Decide what?"
Aimee stretched her body, really trying to wake up. "They decide if you're able to commit. If you should be allowed to stay or leave."
Alarmed at imagining Richie's disgusting bones among the piles and piles of other bones in the ditch, he didn't mean to unleash a strong tone that caused her to jump in alarm. "They'd make me leave? Christ, they'd turn me away. They'd let me die horribly."
"You've unsettled some people. Having them think about what they've forgotten. You reminded them this place isn't reality."
Mark threw out an educated guess. "I talk about the man behind the curtain, running the show. I want to pull back the curtain, and they just want to watch the show."
"It's more than that, really it is, but it's not up to me what happens to you. It's up to the collective mind. It's not up to the individual."
"You're talking behind a smoke screen."
"I'm not the first."
"No, you're not. It's still very annoying."
Jackson's voice carried from another pocket of the woods. Something about breakfast being ready. "I've got to go, but listen, I wish you luck. I really do. I think you're a nice guy."
Aimee walked away without another word.
They're going to do with me what they're going to do with me, and there's nothing I can do about it. That's what it sounds like to me.
Mark kept hiking the trail.
Half a mile north, Mark found Reyna working on an abandoned house, one overtaken by vines and shrubs. Even an oak tree had smashed through the window on the second story, as if nature was trying to re-claim the land taken from it. Reyna was painting the outside to match the local woods, matching the leaves and trees and rocks to perfection. Having only painted half of the front, it was as if the woods were taking a bite out of the house.
She was on her haunches, dressed in a loose fitting top that easily showcased her ample bosom, and a pair of paint-covered jeans. Reyna didn't pause from her work. She addressed him with her back turned to him. She was a more polite version of Derrick Collins.
"Hello there, Mark. I suppose you saw them walking in the woods."
"Yeah, I caught them chatting about something. I'm a little scared, to be honest."
"They've been meeting up. Talking about you. Figuring your shit out."
"Figuring my shit out? I've been trying to figure out their shit."
"It's not them who's really deciding anything. Who's really in charge is listening to what they have to say. Then the boss decides, based on what they hear. It's not up to your friends."
Mark put his hands on his hips, noting how her jeans were slipping, and he caught her pink g-string panties poke out. Trying not to be rude, he kept talking, "Should I expect a mob with flaming torches ready to lynch me?"
"It's not like that at all. We're not brutish. But the decision will be final whether your stay or go. If you leave when the place isn't ready to let you go, you die like your old pal, Richie. If it's ready to let you go, you leave, and you'll die as you were going to naturally die in the world. So don't be so scared."
"Don't be so scared. That's priceless."
"It's not up to me what happens, Mark. Different things can happen for disrupting the peace here, like you have. The living shouldn't think of death, only living the good life."
"You sound like a fucking self-help book, or a book of stupid happy "life-isms." I've come closer to living a better life in the past few days than I have in years. But nothing, and I mean nothing, comes close to the life I had with Elizabeth. And I mean that."
"And I believe you." Reyna slopped her thick paint brush across another length of siding. "Maybe your conviction is the problem. You might not commit to our new way of life. Visitors don't always want that for themselves. The problem, you may disrupt what we've accomplished here."
"That's because you people act like a bunch of scary weirdoes. You make impossible things happen." Mark noticed she wasn't dipping her brush in paints. Reyna simply kept waving the brush in the air and out came the colors from the bristles, as if the brush was a vector to channel her imagination. No paint necessary. "Like painting a house without a single drop of paint."
Reyna went back to her work, ignoring him. His comment seemed to upset her. He'd done it again. Disturbed the happy people living their happy lives.
Mark gave up asking questions and left her to her work.
Mark wasn't sure where to go next. He'd been in this position before, feeling so lost, wandering aimlessly. Cassie and Peyton were his best friends, and they were now with that strange group walking in the woods. Who else could he trust and confide in?
Maybe nobody, he thought.
He caught the ocean line and the beach in the further distance after walking beyond the house Reyna was "painting." Ocean-goers relaxed, and others used boogey boards as the waves swallowed them up and spit them back out. He imagined walking out among them and soon receiving their scrutiny. Was he good enough to be among them?
One thing was for certain, they didn't like it when he mentioned his dead wife.
They were essentially asking him to let go of Elizabeth.
How could they anybody make such a request?
Out loud, "How can someone ask someone else to let go of what's in their heart?"
"You leave everything behind and commit to living here as a new person. You have to play by their rules."
It was Gibbs. The man regarded Mark with heavy and bloodshot eyes. He reeked of hard hooch. "It's hard to assimilate at first. But don't over think it, Mark. We're not living in Orwell's 1984. That's a great book. I've read it eighteen times."
"This would make a great book."
"I agree," Gibbs said, removing a fifth of sour mash from his jacket pocket. "I'm here to tell you you're not banished yet. Nothing's been decided. You just have to tone down the talk of, you know, dead people. And stop questioning things. Live your life, and go along with it. All of us do it. It's easy."
Mark remembered the other day, and their heated conversation. "You wanted to hear about my father and how he died, and now you're saying do the exact opposite. You went off on me, man. Your advice makes no sense."
Gibbs seized Mark's shoulders and drove him up against a tree so hard the bark scraped him through his shirt. "Take me seriously!" His breath could remove the paint off a house. "My books, my stories, everything I live for, Mark, were almost taken away from me for such blasphemies. I made a mistake. Count your blessings, because it's so very easy to take them for granted. Forget what I asked you to tell me about your father. I don't need to know. I'm alive. I'm living. I love my life now. And you can too, if you enjoy what's in front of you right here, right now. Fuck Cassie to the ends of the earth. Shoot the shit with your buddy, Peyton. Sneak funny things into people's houses like you used to, or drink and walk the drainage ditch and remember the old times. Be fruitful in your pursuits of happiness. Live life to its fullest and don't you dare stop."
Gibbs sobered up instantly. "Take me seriously, Mark. You do not want to turn your back on this gift. They turn you away, you go back to how things were before you came here. Going back means you die of y
our cancer. It's the same for all of us."
"Was everybody meant to die of their cancer?"
"Not exactly. Most of us, yes, but some of us are here because they happened upon Meadow Woods on accident and fell right into its way of life."
"I still don't understand where this town gets its powers from."
The question sent an eek of fear out of Gibbs's throat. The man hobbled from him, the fear of something overtaking the poor man. Gibbs was gone in seconds. The trees hide him from sight.
Forget it. I'm not chasing that idiot.
Mark stared at the ocean from far out, and Gibbs's words kept repeating in his mind like a metronome. On beat, and not skipping a single note, doubts filled him one after the other, and he wondered just how good this place really was.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Mark was thirsty, hungry, and very tired when he reached the main road. Had it been hours he stalked the woods? Maybe he was delirious with fear. Was he really considering if he should do what Richie had done (though Richie had done it unwittingly) and get it over with and just be dead? Why face the consequences of being banished? Why risk taking the chance of not being accepted by these people?
Walking onward, his destination the edge of town, he was heading closer and closer to town's end. The way out of town was just ahead of him when The Blue Beast roared up next to him. Peyton screeched his brakes. Stopped beside Mark, his friend rolled down his window.
"Hop in. Let's take a ride."
Mark tried to read his friend's face, but that was impossible with those damn sunglasses on. He was a highway patrolman. Will he write me a ticket? Won't he write me a ticket?
"No funny business."
Peyton sighed. "I know you saw us in the woods."
"I didn't hear a word of what you guys said."
"Did you see where we came from?"
Did it matter? "No. I didn't."
Peyton was relieved. "Forget it, man. You're not in trouble."
"I'm not in trouble? Yeah right. I'm being judged every step of the way. I feel like everybody hates me."
"Cassie's not judging you. I'm not judging you. I don't hate you. She doesn't hate you. Nobody hates you. But you're going to have to change your mindset a bit if you're going to stay. Cassie's a mess. Threw a bitch-fit like no other during the meeting."
"Meeting? Christ, you people are a fucking cult."
Peyton seemed amused by the word "cult." "No worries. You're not going anywhere. We brought you here for a reason. We're the ones who have faith in you. They never have faith in the new visitors, at first. It takes a bit of debating, and it's easy in this case. Consider me the state's district attorney. You're not going anywhere if I have something to say about it. Now get in the Goddamn truck."
Mark got in. "Fine. So where are you taking me?"
Peyton turned the truck back towards town. "I'm taking you to Cassie."
"What else is on your mind? You seem keyed up about something."
"It's going to be tough keeping you here, that's what's on my mind. They don't think you can commit. I'm beginning to wonder myself. Don't tell them I said that."
Mark looked on at the park and the kids playing soccer in the fields and baseball in the dirt diamond. They'd all been through what he'd been through, maybe worse. They committed. Chose this place. Abandoned thoughts of death and the memories of the dead for Meadow Woods.
"We can still think about our deceased loves ones, can't we?"
"Of course. And talking about them a little bit is fine, actually, but going on about it, dredging up mortality in the face of immortality, isn't going to make you many friends here."
"You're immortal?"
Peyton couldn't restrain his smile. "We go when we want to go. Immortality as long as you want it."
"Am I going to be immortal?"
Peyton peeled open the top of a bag of salt and pepper flavored beef jerky and chewed on a piece. "Not until you commit."
"Do I sign a permission form? Sign a contract? How does committing really work? I'm being inducted into a cult, I swear to God. You're a bunch of Druids."
Peyton chewed on his jerky. "It's a great deal of pain in a short period of time. That's all I can say on the subject of committing."
Mark rubbed his aching head. "God, this place is starting to get to me. One mystery after the next. Today, I kept having people jump out at me in the woods telling me I should get my act together. This place is in The Twilight Zone. Fucking Twin Peaks."
"You should get your act together. For your sake, and for Cassie's."
"She really loves me, doesn't she?"
"You should've been her first love. That's the way she puts it. I'm being serious, Mark. You leave, you leave here for good. And that means your life goes back to how it was before you arrived here. This place has a magic coursing through its veins. A special person is watching over us, who loves us. We've been wronged, Mark, and this person, thing, entity, whatever you want to call it, loves us unconditionally. All of us here almost died prematurely, and our watcher, our caretaker, came to save us.
"Many of us were doomed by cancer. That goddamn battery factory was the cause of all of this. The owner of that factory disposed of waste by simply dumping it in the lake. The town's water supply was contaminated. We all drank from it and here we are inflicted with as many cancers as you can name. This new life is our salvation. Death isn't fair. It was never fair. Cruel, malicious, and so impersonal. Our protector was tired of that unfairness. They cured the wrongs. To leave here would be to pass up on the biggest miracle known to humanity.
"I'm not going to lie to you, Mark. The problem I have is that if you go, I'd have to move on without you. I'd be hard, Mark, and you know I'd miss you. Cassie, on the other hand, wouldn't fare so well. She's threatened to go with you if you're banished. I can't let that happen." He sobbed. "I can't lose two of my best friends."
"Let them judge me," Mark said, refusing to give in to his friend's emotions. "I can't force myself to change. I can't stop talking about the dead, and I can't stop honoring my wife's memory. They're out-of-line by asking me to forget Elizabeth. I won't forget her."
Peyton's eyes were heavy with dread. "It's not like that exactly. It's hard to make you understand. You kind of just have to go with it. If you can't, I can't make you. Whatever you decide, Mark, I guess we'll see what happens, won't we? There isn't a damn thing I can do to convince you. So have it your way. I guess it's always been up to you."
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The rest of the ride was driven in silence. Peyton kept sobbing softly until he calmed down. He drove on, taking them back into town. Peyton dropped him off at a place called "Debbie's Cake Creations." Cassie was inside eating a German chocolate cake. She was dressed in a black tube top and blue Capri's.
"She wants to see you," was all Peyton said.
Mark couldn't think of anything else to say. "Okay."
He got out of the truck. Peyton didn't say anything else, so he walked inside Debbie's without anything else. The truck screeched down the road. Peyton was off on another errand.
Fucker's got anger issues. The magic of this place can't erase that.
Cassie was at a table entranced with her cake. She pointed at the front display of thirty some cakes and Debbie who was frosting a three-tiered cake.
"Anything you want, you can have it." She patted her belly. "You won't gain a pound."
Cassie sensed what Mark had been through today. "I'm not worried like Peyton is about all that's going on. Not now anyway. I have you, Mark, and that's all I've wanted for as long as I could remember. You haven't been banished yet. They rarely banish people. People who've run their mouths more than you about the past have still stayed here in the end."
"I'm glad to see you're so confident in me."
"If you go, I go with you."
"You can't make that sacrifice for me. I care about you, Cassie, but the kind of love you feel for me, I'm not on that same level as you."
"But you want to be with me, and that's what I wanted. I'm not asking for your hand in marriage. I'm only asking for you to be here with me. Have fun with me, you know. Be with me."
Mark couldn't live down the oppressive nature of their conversation and be surrounded by beautiful cakes. It was like having a child custody battle in a bakery. "Can we talk about this somewhere else?"
She stopped their exchanges and finished her piece of cake. Then throwing the plate in the trash, she took his hand and guided him out of Debbie's, the woman who everyone called "Little Debbie" because when she was younger, all she'd eat were packages cupcakes, Twinkies, and Snoballs. The woman didn't stop frosting cakes long after the door swung closed and they made their exit.
Cassie had an idea, but she didn't share it with Mark. She had him follow her up the street, past the fountain where Bruce Parnell's face was active with a twitching grin. He kept chuckling under his breath, mumbling, "Iditiots, they're all idiots." The guy was sipping from a 2-liter of soda and dipping his hand elbow-deep into a large bag of corn chips and chomping away.
They took in the smells of Chuck's late morning meal. He prepared eggs and bacon sandwiches and omelets chunky with sausage, pork, and onions.
The library's windows weren't tinted at this time of day. He caught the outline of women standing at the entrance, waiting for their chance to live out their fantasies through books.
Lindsey Browne was chasing everyone down in the area, including him and Cassie, as she shoved a flyer in their faces. "Have you ever had watermelon wine? Try it out tonight at the Watermelon feed. We'll have a dance-a-thon, and a watermelon toss, and then..."
Patricia Lake was walking out of the hospital with four suckers stuffed into her mouth at once. She had a cartoonish look of relief pasted on her face. Out from the church, a group of people walked out worn looking, sweat-stained, and weary, yet they beamed with a glory unknown to anyone but themselves.
