The Living

by Isaac Marion

  Nora gives the woman her name without thinking about it. She is wondering what her own face looks like. She can’t remember the last time she saw a mirror. She wipes her hands on her pants, but the blood is dried. She touches her hair and finds a few leaves in it.

  “Nice to meet you, Nora,” the woman says. “Is this your brother?”

  Nora nods. “Addis.”

  The woman bends down and leans on her knees. “Hi, Addis!”

  Addis stares at her blankly.

  The woman gives Nora a sad smile. “How long has Addis been Dead?”

  Nora stiffens.

  “It’s okay,” the driver says, holding out a hand as if to stop her from running. “We’re totally cool with the Dead. We welcome all kinds of people, wherever they’re at in life.”

  “Anyone who’s willing to listen,” the woman says.

  Nora looks from face to face. All three of them—even the man who hasn’t said a word—watch her with sincerity pouring from their eyes like there’s nothing in the world more important than befriending her.

  “Who are you guys?” she says.

  “We’re part of an outreach group,” the woman says. “We’re going across the country looking for people in need. Especially Dead people in need.”

  “He’s not Dead,” Nora says.

  “I’m so sorry,” the woman says with a wince. “Nearly Living? Is that the term he prefers?”

  “We’ve heard all about the changes,” the driver adds hastily. “The ‘cure’? We respect that. We think it’s great. It’s a wonderful thing God’s chosen to do.”

  “To bring the Dead back so they can witness the Last Sunset with us?” The woman closes her eyes. “Such a beautiful gesture of grace.”

  Nora feels the impulse to recoil from their gooey enthusiasm, but she’s so exhausted, all she can manage is a skeptical squint. “So you’re like…missionaries? Out to convert the heathens?”

  The driver laughs. “I guess you could put it that way if you wanted to. But we let God do the converting. What we’re really about is community.”

  “Community,” Nora repeats.

  “The world is fucked up, Nora.” He says it like he’s confiding an intimate fear. “And it’s only going to get worse. How do we respond to it? What’s our purpose in these last few days?”

  “We believe it’s a test,” the woman says. “God’s showing us the emptiness and ugliness of the world because he wants to see if we have the courage to let it go. To abandon ourselves and let things fall apart…so he can scoop up the pieces.” She smiles.

  “But it’s hard,” the driver says. “It’s confusing and painful, and that’s why we need our community. We need to gather together and support each other, because the world is full of traps.”

  “False loves and false hopes,” the woman agrees.

  “And no one should have to walk through it alone.”

  Nora watches their beautiful faces straining with conviction. Her first instinct is to laugh at them, but something deeper inside moderates her response. “No offense,” she says, “but you guys sound kinda nuts.”

  They laugh uproariously, even the quiet one.

  “We get that a lot, Nora,” the driver says.

  “Sorry if we come on too strong,” the woman says. “It’s just hard to play it cool with something you’re really passionate about, you know?”

  Nora nods. “Right. So is your cult the kind where no one has names? All are one within the Community?”

  “Oh shit!” the driver laughs. “Sorry, Nora. Got a little distracted there. I’m Peter.”

  “Miriam,” the girl says as she and Peter take turns shaking Nora’s hand.

  “And the guy who never talks?” Nora says, jutting her chin toward the taller man.

  He smiles. “Sorry. I’m such an introvert.” He offers his hand. “I’m Lindh.”

  “So Nora,” Peter says, “we’re not a cult, and we’re not trying to sell you anything. But you did say you needed help.”

  Nora’s posture softens a little at this reminder.

  “And please don’t take this the wrong way…” He looks her over, from her finger stump to her blood-spattered clothes to the dirt and sweat and scars that cover her body, and then to the ashen boy at her side. “…but you and Addis look like you’ve had a hard time out there. Like the world hasn’t been kind to you.”

  Nora’s eyes fall to the ground. It’s an obvious statement and an understatement, but somehow, she has never really spoken it to herself. Never phrased it quite that way. She feels a sudden lump in her throat.

  “If you need a place to go,” Miriam says softly, “well…you can come with us.”

  “Where?” Nora mumbles.

  “To our community in South Cascadia.”

  Nora looks up.

  “It looked like you were heading west anyway,” Peter says. “I’m guessing you ran out of fuel?”

  Nora answers with silence.

  “So why not ride with us? Check out our little town. Get some dinner and a hot shower and meet some great people. All we ask is that you keep an open mind.”

  Nora stares hard at the three youths, but she finds nothing in their eyes but radiant sincerity. There’s a bang against the wall of the horse trailer and she seizes the disruption, trying to recover her footing. “So on top of being smooth-talking hipsters, you’re cowboys, too?” Her flippancy rings hollow in her ears, but she holds onto it. “Coolest cult ever.”

  Three more bursts of laughter.

  “I like her!” Peter says to Miriam, then turns back to Nora. “But no, I’m afraid we’re not that cool. Have a look.”

  He gestures to the window slits along the side of the trailer.

  Nora peeks through a window. Then she jumps back, gagging.

  There are no horses in the horse trailer. Dozens of metallic gray eyes bulge at her in the shadows, and a stench far worse than horse shit smacks her in the face.

  “What the fuck,” she says. “What the fuck.”

  “Just people in need,” Miriam says. “Just like your brother. We find them out here, lost and confused, and we bring them home to our community.”

  “What are you doing with them?” Nora watches the trailer rock on its squeaky hinges as the Dead stir from their standing sleep.

  “We take care of them,” Peter says. “We give them a home and treat them with respect, until God reveals his plan for them.”

  “We can help your brother,” Miriam says.

  Nora instinctively grabs Addis’s hand, and Miriam’s demeanor adjusts.

  “Nora,” she says, tilting her head with a look of deep empathy. “I know you just met us. We don’t expect you to trust us that quickly. But just so you know, in a few minutes a train will be pulling up to this station. We’re going to get on it with all these sick people, and we’re going to ride it all the way to South Cascadia. And if you want to, you can come with us.”

  “Our community is two hours east of Post,” Peter says. “It’s a beautiful little town. We have everything we need there. And no pressure at all, but if you decide you want us to…we can help you take care of Addis. We can make a life for him.”

  Nora’s feet are embedded in the ground. She looks at Addis, but his open face gives her nothing. She can’t tell if he knows they’re talking about him, or if he even understands a single word. The decision is hers.

  In the silence of this hollow town, she hears the distant chug of a train. It’s a sound she hasn’t heard in a very long time, a storybook sound, and it makes her feel that she is dreaming. In this dream, she is stranded in a desert, and a magical mystery train is coming to take her away. In this dream, beautiful friendly people are offering her everything she needs. And outside the dream, people are pursuing her. People who have hurt her and people she has hurt. People whose faces will dest
roy her if she lets them get close again.

  A speck appears on the tracks. Peter and Miriam and Lindh smile at her and wait.

  Nora grabs her brother’s hand and closes her eyes. She will let the dream decide.

  I

  I remember what it felt like to set the fires. It felt good. All of us had grown up powerless, reminded over and over that we were dirty, broken dolls that should be grateful to be played with by God’s hand. We were to withdraw from the world, to barricade ourselves in our homes and wait patiently for God to pull the plug, and if we emerged it should be for one reason: to drag others in.

  The fires changed everything.

  We were no longer refugees; we were warriors. We had been a small circle of saints persecuted by the mob of the world, but it was remarkably easy to turn the tables. With the flick of a lighter, we could preach a sermon that no one could ignore. We could transform centuries of human endeavor into a blazing reminder of its futility. We didn’t have to wait for God’s timing; we could nudge him along, push him to do what we knew he wanted to do anyway, and it wasn’t pride, it was prayer. Every city we burned was an eloquent orison urging God to act. Our message was for Earth, but it was bright enough to be seen from Heaven: let it end.

  It took only twelve of us to destroy Helena.

  We had no fancy munitions then. No napalm or phosphorous grenades. We were just a few kids with Coke bottles full of gas and gym socks for fuses. We spread across the grid, positioning ourselves at the densest points, and when our watches beeped, we sprung. We tossed and ran, tossed and ran, pulling bottles from our backpacks like arrows from quivers, and by the time the first fires were called in, we had already set dozens. By the time the first trucks left the station, there were more fires than there were firefighters, and it was ludicrously too late.

  I remember thinking how strange it was, that it should be this easy. We could have done it anytime. Anyone could have. All it took to crash the system was enough people deciding to do it.

  I watch the last few razed houses fade into the distance as we leave DC behind. That’s who I was, then. A mad young man with a heart of hot coals, capable of winning minds and changing the world, but only for the worse.

  Who am I now?

  How much of that charred foundation is still under me, and can I use it for anything good? It’s much easier to burn a house than to build one.

  I hear a groan from the back of the RV. M is sitting up, cradling his head and wincing at the floor like each heartbeat is a boot to the face. Julie glances over her shoulder at him.

  “She packs a big punch in those skinny fists, doesn’t she? I learned my lesson the first time I tested her.”

  Tomsen looks shocked. “Nora punched you?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Why would Nora punch you? I thought you were friends.”

  Julie shrugs. “Sometimes friends punch each other.” She looks at the floor and a nostalgic smile creeps over her face. “That’s how we became friends, actually.”

  “Is that usually how it happens?”

  Julie chuckles, failing to notice Tomsen’s straight face. “I was out of my mind back then,” Julie says. “My boyfriend cheated on me and somehow that was Nora’s fault, this bitch who ‘stole’ my man, like he was an inanimate object. She didn’t even know me, the problem was between me and Perry, but I went running up to her room…” She shakes her head. “She tried to talk me down but I started swinging at her like the dramatic little kid I was…so she knocked me out. One punch.” She laughs and shakes her head. “When I woke up, she was sitting next to me holding some ice on my face. She shook my hand and said, ‘Hi, I’m Nora. You want some vodka?’ And that was it. Friends forever.”

  Tomsen stares at her like she’s not speaking English.

  “So Marcus,” Julie calls back to him as he stumbles toward the front, “try not to despair too hard, okay? These things find a way to work out.”

  He looks at her blankly. “I ate her brother.”

  Julie shrugs. “Yeah, well…not all of him.”

  Abandoned farms rush past us on both sides. Most of them are just fields of baked dust, but a few of the more high-tech crops refuse to die with dignity. The highway plunges between two fields of “Mayze” brand corn and the stalks tower above us like trees, their bloated ears breaking off under their own weight and littering the ground like lumpy cysts. The gnarled trees of a Rad Delish orchard cling to their fruits long after they should have fallen, masses of mealy pulp wrapped in leathery skin, left to rot on their branches. Even the birds know to stay away.

  I wonder if there are any crops left that were never redesigned by a board of directors, never stretched into transparency to fit the ballooning demands of population and profit. I wonder if these plants, with enough time and guidance, can find their way back and become food again, before the next generation starves.

  I feel an eye on my cheek. Sprout is looking at me, a faint smile on her face, like she’s reading my thoughts and finding them funny. Joan and Alex watch me from the other side of the little fold-out table, and it occurs to me that the next generation is sitting right in front of me. It occurs to me that they are different from any before them, stronger and stranger, and there is no way they’ll give up their turn.

  I release my anxious breath.

  “Do you see it?” Sprout asks, looking past me into the twisted jungle of a Durapeach orchard.

  “See what?”

  “The train.”

  I assume this is one of her “visions” and I follow her gaze mostly as a courtesy, but I’m surprised to see a flicker of movement behind the stooping trees. We emerge into another empty field and the trees sweep aside like a curtain, and there it is: four freight containers grinding along behind two silver passenger cars and a rusty green engine belching clouds of black smoke.

  “We’re pretty far from people and this is probably just a reality vacillation,” Tomsen says, “but is anyone else seeing a train over there?”

  The engine wears a fearsome mask over its front: a massive wedge of crudely welded steel, like an old locomotive’s cow catcher redesigned to catch bigger things: abandoned cars, blockades, and other modern obstructions.

  “I see it,” Julie says, her eyes narrowing.

  “Haven’t seen a train in years,” Tomsen says. “No commerce, no travel, no one coming or going. Rare enough to see cars.”

  “It’s got to be Axiom,” Julie mutters. “Another load of beige jackets to dump on Post.”

  “Or…” Tomsen says, shooting Julie an uneasy glance. “Could be specimens.”

  Julie’s eyes widen slowly, filling with hope and fear. “Follow it.”

  Tomsen hits the gas and Barbara lurches forward, sending the kids’ water cups tumbling off the table. The cabinets rattle and clang, the tires roar and the whole vehicle begins to wobble dangerously, but the train continues to pull ahead of us. Then we’re surrounded by alien crops again. The splotchy gray jungle obscures our view for several miles, and when we finally emerge into daylight, the train is gone.

  “No, no, no,” Julie growls, eyes darting. “Tomsen, can’t this thing go any—”

  “Do you hear that tinkly chattering?” Tomsen shouts over the cacophony. “Those are dishes. This is a house. Don’t ask if a house can go faster.”

  Julie grits her teeth and waits, diverting her anxiety into her white-knuckled grip on her armrests. And then she springs forward. “There!”

  She’s pointing at a small cluster of buildings on the rippling horizon. A plume of smoke drifts up from behind them.

  “They must be making a stop in that town. Pull off!”

  Tomsen takes the next offramp and we bounce and sway into the sad little rest stop of a town. But the smoke is already moving again, and we reach the tracks just in time to see the train dwindling into the distance.

 
Tomsen slams the RV into park with an air of finality. “We can’t catch them,” she announces.

  Julie digs her fingers into the dashboard, but she doesn’t argue. We are silent, watching the black cloud disperse into the atmosphere. Then Julie jumps to her feet. “Is that…?”

  She shoves the door open and runs to the railroad crossing. M and I follow her.

  Nora’s scooter is parked next to the tracks. The dust shows two sets of footprints walking away: boots and bare feet. They reach the rails and disappear.

  “She got on the train,” Julie says, mystified.

  M is examining the scooter, putting his face near the ground and scanning the dust for signs of struggle, sniffing for blood, perhaps dragging whatever’s left of his Dead senses back into service. But Julie stops him with a tap on the shoulder.

  “Marcus,” she says, and presses the scooter’s gas cap into his palm. “I think she went willingly.”

  M stares at the cap, then the empty tank. “So it wasn’t Axiom, then.”

  Julie shakes her head. “Even if she had a full nervous breakdown, I can’t see her doing that.”

  “Then who?”

  I run my eyes down the tracks to where they disappear in the distant mountains. I feel a brand-new anxiety begin to knot my guts.

  “Tomsen,” Julie says while our driver loads the scooter back onto its rack. “Do you know where these tracks go?”

  “East-west. Maybe a few squiggles.”

  “So if we keep following them, we’ll end up somewhere near Post?”

  “Close enough. Assuming we pass through the Midwaste undigested.”

  No one questions this last comment, so I assume it’s just another colorful Tomsenism and let it go.

  “Fire up the fryer,” M grunts, hopping back into the RV. “Let’s move.”

  With a roar and a rattle we cruise back to the highway and follow the tracks west. The train’s smoke lingers like a bad memory, staining the horizon black.

  two

  the attic