The sea of bodies parted as Everette Barbarie returned with an ax and hurried up to the door. The wood flew in chips and splinters as he hacked away. The crowd watched in silence, wincing again and again every time the ax banged into the solid wood. After an eternity, he managed to cleave the wood so the door dangled on its remaining hinge. They pushed it in the rest of the way and the bravest of them rushed in; but most lingered just outside the door, peering over one another to get a better view.
Everette Barbarie took a wide first step, attempting to maneuver around the lower half of Tate Novak's body, but it was nowhere to be found, in fact, there were no bodies of any sort within, alive or dead.
It was cold. It wasn't just cold it was freezing. The change in temperature was startling on the summer day, and the men hugged themselves for warmth, and exhaled plumes of visible breath into the polar air.
All around the courthouse was dark. The electric lights refused to operate and the windows were smeared with a greasy film that allowed little sunlight to penetrate it.
Their boots left deep prints in a thick layer of dust as they walked. The dust was everywhere as if the courthouse had been abandoned for centuries like some forgotten Egyptian tomb newly rediscovered.
Oliver Gladwyne stumbled over the remains of Arthur Beasley's mother's wheelbarrow, the bottom completely eaten through with rust. And what was more, when he touched one of the pews it came away in chunks, crumbling in his hands, spongy and soft, as if it were rotten and waterlogged.
They came across the rusted remains of Corrigan's machine, all the glass tubes busted, and the rubber hoses eroded. They didn't know what to make of it. They didn't know what to make of any of this.
The men hurried out into the warmth, into the light. They had been inside for less than a minute and didn't dare to stay any longer. They had no explanation for what they found inside, and barely had the words to describe it. After they left, no one ever set foot inside the courthouse again.
Some were for burning it, others for tearing it down. In the end, they left it standing. No one ever said it out loud but they feared destroying the courthouse. They feared knocking it down and they feared burning it because it was believed to contain a great evil. And even though they had no way of knowing it, they felt that destroying its walls would release the doomed spirits of those that had perished within onto the town.
And so it stood. The years passed and it sagged with neglect and creaked and swayed when the wind picked up. It became a legend. The kind of place kids dared each other to visit. To run up to the windows and look inside.
And the old courthouse still stands, the rotting corpse, the skeletal remainder of those days, with this grim epitaph carved into its side:
There is no rest.
There is no peace.
NOTHING BUT THE BLOOD
The thing he remembered most about his father would probably be his entrails hanging from the ceiling fan. There were other memories, of course, pleasant memories, but there were none more insistent, nothing that gnawed at his thoughts like this one. To recall those thick, dangling cords, dark red and dripping, reminded him who he was now: a little boy with no family and no one to take care of him. So he had to go away.
Maura waited at the platform for the train to arrive. Her little nephew Przemek was coming to stay with her. Her brother, the boy's father, was dead. They didn't tell her how. All she knew was that he was dead and so was the rest of his family; the boy's mother and younger sister.
The train rolled in slow, accompanied by the hiss of the pneumatic brakes and the clamorous grind of metal on metal. The doors opened and she watched passengers exit the train. So many of them were greeted by family, friends, and lovers. All around her was a torrent of affection; a tide of the anxious crashing against a shore of the relieved. There was longing and familiarity in their embrace. She couldn't help but feel her meeting would be absent of such affection. She had only met him once and he would have been too young to remember. Still, would he be even the least bit excited to meet her? She wondered. Probably not.
She recognized him immediately. He was tall for his age and he had his father's dusky blond hair and freckles. She waved to him as he stepped off the train. He saw her, but didn't wave back. He ambled toward her, dragging his suitcase behind him. It had wheels, but they were stuck or busted and they scraped loudly against the concrete platform. His expression was closemouthed, lips pressed tight together, his gaze never meeting hers.
“Hi, I'm your auntie Maura.” She didn't know how to talk to kids and her voice was patronizing and sounded too much like a children's television host. He picked up on it right away.
“You don't have to say auntie, you can just say aunt. I'm not a baby.”
Her face flushed, only one sentence in and she had already committed the mortal sin of trying too hard. “Why don't you just call me Maura,” she suggested.
“I will.”
“I'm sorry you had to ride here all by yourself,” she said. “I wanted to go to the funeral, too, but...”
“That's okay. I know you weren't allowed.” His words were guarded, careful not to betray too much to this stranger. “It was sad, the funeral. I cried. No one else was crying. I thought people cried at funerals.”
“I cried,” she told him, “when I found out. I still cry.”
Przemek nodded. “Me too.”
They walked through the terminal and out to the parking lot. There was silence between them and the only sound was the boy's suitcase as it dragged along the asphalt.
They found her car and she opened the trunk and loaded the suitcase inside. As they drove away from the parking lot she asked, “Are you hungry or anything? I could make you something to eat when we get home, or I could go through a drive-thru or maybe pick up a bucket of chicken, if you want.”
“No thanks,” he said, “I had something to eat on the train.”
They rode in uncomfortable silence. She stole occasional glances at him. His head rested on the window and he stared blankly ahead or sometimes turned slightly to watch the crucifix hanging from her rear view mirror swing back and forth whenever she changed lanes or rounded a curve. Maura racked her brain trying to think of something to ask him, but there was only one question she could think of, it surfaced to the forefront of her thoughts and overwhelmed any other line of inquiry: How did my brother die. She didn't think he was ready to answer that question yet. In any case, she didn't think she was ready to ask it.
When she could stand the silence no more, she reached out and pushed on the car radio. She had it tuned to a gospel station and she cranked the volume. The speakers blared an up-tempo oldie that Maura recognized immediately: Dorothy Love Coates belting out That's Enough. Maura pounded the steering wheel in time with the song's simple beat and sang along. She glanced over at Przemek, he was still slumped down, staring out the window, but Maura noticed his finger absently keeping time on his arm rest. She wasn't certain, but she could almost see the beginning of a smile on the boy's lips.
And then Przemek snapped bolt-upright in his seat, hard enough to draw the shoulder strap tight against his chest. He went pale and his hand shot out to the stereo. He frantically mashed at every button until the tuner landed on a dead station, blasting a continuous roar of static.
Maura was so startled that she veered across lanes and jerked the wheel back too hard, over-correcting herself. The car fishtailed and she steadied it. She looked at Przemek, “What's wrong? Do you need me to pull over?”
The boy was sitting back again, he had his thumbs under the safety belt, trying to loosen it. “Nothing. You don't have to pull over. I just... I don't like that song.” He still looked rattled, but he managed a wan smile.
“Okay,” Maura said, feeling her heart rate return to normal. “If you don't like the song, you can just tell me. You scared me half to death. Is there anything you'd prefer to listen to?”
Przemek watched the crucifix swing back and forth. “Is it okay if we don't
listen to the radio? I don't feel like hearing music right now.”
“That's fine, honey.”
They endured the long drive, made even longer by the almost caustic silence that hung between them. Half a dozen times she was tempted to turn on the radio. She thought better of it, she didn't want to risk upsetting Przemek, afraid he might freak out and cause an accident. She still couldn't think of anything to say. She didn't want to ask him about his friends, who he'd probably never see again, or his family, who he definitely would never see again. He didn’t seem to be in the mood for small talk.
Finally she pulled into a rest stop just to rid herself of the monotony of listening to nothing but the car wheels and the rush of wind blowing past her on the interstate. Maura got out and stretched, it felt good to be out of the car. She leaned in the window. “Do you want to use the bathroom or stretch your legs or anything?” She asked.
The boy shook his head.
“I'm going to get a Coke from the machine then. Do you want one?”
“Can you see if they have grape?”
“Sure. Wait here, okay? I'll be right back.” She walked over to the vending machines. They didn't have any grape soda. She bought a purple sports drink, probably grape. She got him a root beer, too, in case he wanted something fizzy, and walked back to the car.”
She climbed back into her seat and handed the drinks to Przemek. “They didn’t have any grape soda, so I got you--” She looked out the windshield. Something was wrong. “What happened to my crucifix?” She demanded.
Przemek shrugged, looked down at the floor board. “I don't know.”
“You didn't take it down? It was hanging on the rear view.”
“I didn't take it.”
“You had to have. It was right here a second ago. Its okay if you took it. I would have given it to you if you asked.”
“I don't want it. I didn’t take it.”
She studied him as he turned away from her to resume staring blankly out the window. He seemed unconcerned one way or the other. “Alright, I believe you,” she said, not believing him at all. “It probably fell off under the seat. I'll look for it later.”
She drove the car back onto the interstate. For the first time she really started to wonder who this child was. There was something wrong with him. Something that ran deeper than the obvious depression that would accompany the loss of his family. Something behind the sorrow in his eyes. He was haunted by something she didn't comprehend. He was afraid.
She had a lot of time to think on the rest of the drive home. She thought about the first time she had met Przemek. Her brother Darion had stolen away with the boy for a too-short rendezvous, no more than an hour. Darion had risked a lot, she understood, and she was grateful. She remembered the worried look that never left his face, the frequent glances out the window of that greasy diner where they met at the edge of the North-East expansion. The place where the world ended for most. Przemek seemed happy. He was barely three-years-old and he seemed very bright, rattling off question after question, more concerned with the asking than the answers he received. Darion had promised her there would be other meetings, but there weren't. She never saw her brother again after that. He disappeared into the lonely lands and never came back.
They had been raised religious, Maura and Darion, by parents who weren't hysterical zealots, but earnest people with a devotion and reverence for their creator. They didn't instill their values with beatings and punishments meant to purge them of a perceived sinfulness inherent in all men; for theirs was a god of forgiveness, of compassion, a god of love, and their duty was to him. They grew up with the church. And as they grew, the restrictions and moral obligations of Christianity that would disenchant so many and force them away from religion entirely, only inspired and strengthened the two of them. So it was no surprise when one day Darion announced he was leaving to become a missionary. Maura was seventeen, and Darion a bright-eyed and optimistic twenty. He claimed it was his life’s pursuit to spread the gospel beyond the ancient barrier, in the unnamed lands. His family was mortified, they begged him to reconsider, but Darion was firm; the convictions of youth are hardly swayed.
Maura clung to their remaining time together, but the days fell away like autumn leaves and she soon found herself saying her goodbyes to Darion, watching him walk away with his eager crew of fellow missionaries in their clean white shirts and chinos. He crossed the border and looked back just once to wave goodbye before he was swallowed up by that unknown and lightless territory beyond.
The barrier was not meant to segregate a population, or divide one nation from another. Whatever land there was past it was uncharted and no one had any claim to it. It was not some impenetrable obstruction rising into the heavens, but a shallow remnant of ancient architecture, a crumbling pile of stones in most places that stretched for miles from the edge of the Barrier Sea, to the ocean that defined the nation's coast. It served only to demarcate the beginning of an inhospitable wilderness of dense forest unsuited for urban settlement or any sort of mass industry. The unnamed land was not without its population, however. There were tales of antediluvian tribes of madmen and cannibals that dwelt within; savages that worshiped monstrous deities that demanded the blood of men as sacrifice. The lands also held an allure for those looking to abandon the civilized world; the modern-day hermits or adventurers trying to carve out a path in a world entirely their own. And those who ventured beyond the crumbling barrier were seldom seen again.
It was night now, and the headlights along the interstate were becoming formless blobs of bright yellow, blurring into one another. Maura wanted nothing more than to get home and shut her eyes tight for an hour. She was tense, and felt like she hadn't blinked since she pulled out of the rest stop. She moved the car into the far right lane, anticipating her exit. They were almost home. She looked over at Przemek, he was so silent that she had almost forgot he was in the car with her. One look at the empty rear view mirror where her little wooden crucifix once hung was enough to convince her otherwise.
She turned into the exit and they drove through the town. All around the city was ablaze with the bright signs of restaurants, bars, gas stations and office buildings. Przemek finally sat up, genuinely fascinated by the brilliant neon rainbow of the buildings as they passed by.
“This is where you live?” He asked.
“It's pretty close,” she answered. “What do you think? Are you going to like living near a city?”
“It's big. Do you ever get lost?”
Maura had to remind herself that this was probably the first time he had ever seen anything like this. What else would he not have experienced, she wondered, spending his entire life in the wilderness. Would she have to teach him how to flush a toilet, or what a telephone is? “It's not as intimidating as it seems, really. I'll show you around some time soon and we'll figure it out together. How does that sound?”
Przemek was still transfixed, staring out the window. “Okay,” he muttered, sounding as if he didn't believe her; as if he'd never get used to this big, loud place.
They drove on and they soon left the city entirely, passing into the less spectacular suburbs. Przemek noted how close together the houses were and wanted to know if she lived in a neighborhood like that.
“No, I live at the edge of all this,” she told him. “See those hills up there?” He followed her finger as she pointed up, through the windshield. “I live up there where there's more space between the houses. It's quieter, and they'll be more room for you to play.”
“I think I like that,” said Przemek, still gazing up at the dark hills. “There were hills where I lived. And trees. A lot more trees than up there.”
They finally arrived at Maura's house. It was a two storey duplex, boxy and set upon a steep hill. It had a rear-facing balcony with a view of the rolling hills and woods below them. Maura clicked the garage door opener attached to her visor. Przemek looked nervous as they rolled inside, like they were willingly entering the gapin
g maw of some gigantic beast.
“I made up a room for you upstairs,” Maura said, as they walked into the house. “There's a bed with clean sheets and a TV. I could show you how to work it.”
Przemek looked at her like she was crazy. “I know how to work a TV. Is there PlayStation?” He asked.
“You had video games?” Maura said, wishing she didn't sound so surprised.
Przemek rolled his eyes. “I didn't come from the middle ages, you know.”
Maura blushed, “I'm sorry, I just don't know a whole lot about, well, you know, where you're from. Most people here don't, actually. I'd like to hear about it, though, if you ever want to tell me.”
“It's not that different, really,” He shrugged.
Maura didn't think she believed him. He was hiding something. That made sense, though, she was practically a stranger to him and she could understand if he wanted to keep some things to himself. “I'd still be interested to hear about it. And I'll see about a PlayStation. Maybe one of my friends from church will know about a used one I could get for cheap. You'll meet them too. I think you'll really like them, especially Pastor Reynard. He used to be a youth pastor.”
That anxious look came over him again. “That's okay, you really don't have to.”
She didn't know if he was telling her not to bother asking about the video games, or not to introduce him to her friends. She was too tired to try to figure it out. “Anyway, I'm exhausted. It's been a long day and I need to go to bed.” She showed him his room, and told him where the bathroom was. “There's food in the fridge and pantry, if you get hungry during the night. That door is mine if you need anything else or... I know it can be weird sleeping in a new place, so if you need me...”
Przemek gave her a thin smile, “I think I'll be fine. I'm just going to go to bed, too.” Maura watched him close the door before she left to her own room. She was in bed, beneath the cool sheets, lying in the darkness with her eyes closed when she suddenly got up and locked her bedroom door. She didn't exactly know why she did it; it just made her feel safe. She wished it didn't, but it did.
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