The Living

by Isaac Marion

  The underbrush grows thicker with each step. Gnarled roots tangle around my ankles and I trip into the sage and fireweed. Sharp leaves scrape my lips; I taste their bitter spice. I get up and keep walking.

  Come get what you’ve earned. Come collect your inheritance.

  The voices are in the whirlwind. There are many of them. They talk over each other, every statement an interruption, one trailing into the next. My father, then my grandfather, then a voice in a strange accent, then one I can’t understand at all. And then grunting. Growling. Hissing. Buzzing.

  I look past the whirlwind at the dark skies to the east, and I glimpse the outline of something behind the stars. The curving edge of a maw too vast to comprehend, approaching slowly, inexorably, yawning around the universe to swallow every hope and struggle.

  I move toward it.

  And then someone tackles me. I topple onto my back and before I can right myself, a small but steely fist hammers into my jaw. My thoughts burst in flashes like a fireworks finale—and then it’s over. My mind is an empty night sky.

  “Are you back?” Julie says between hard breaths, crouching over me with her fist cocked. “Or do I get to hit you again?”

  I rise shakily to my feet. “What was I…?”

  My question dies on my lips as I take in my surroundings. The RV is flashing its headlights and honking its horn, but it’s so far away it looks like a toy. And in the other direction, just a few steps from where Julie stopped me…

  A cliff. A ravine of jagged rocks, like shadowy teeth in the darkness.

  “We have to hold on, R,” she says, half accusing, half pleading. “Tomsen warned us. Our thoughts can change things. We have to hold on or we’ll fall apart.”

  Her face is twisted with distress, but she doesn’t stay to hold me together. She heads toward the road with stiff strides, like she’s done all she can for me and can’t bring herself to look back.

  I follow a few paces behind her, but I look back constantly. And I see nothing. The sky is empty. The wind is warm and silent. But my cheeks still sting from a dozen tiny scratches, and when I brush a hand through my hair, a few white fragments shake loose.

  No one says anything as I step into the RV. Julie’s back is to me in the passenger seat. Tomsen starts driving without a single I-told-you-so. I retreat to the bedroom before M can break the silence, and I find the kids watching me with secretive smiles. It’s not amusement or mockery. It’s not about me at all. They did something they’re proud of, and they’re waiting for me to notice.

  And then I notice. The wind buffets the coach as we hurtle down the highway, but I hear no off-key singing from the hole in the rear window. Because the hole is no longer there.

  WE

  Nora and Addis are watching the sunset. Their heads are nearly touching, but their thoughts are far apart. Nora is wishing she could reach outside and clean the train’s windows. Addis is wishing he could live inside the sun. Nora wants a clearer view of the scenery so its beauty might reach her brother. Her brother wants to swim through miles of plasma and curl up in the sun’s unfathomable core, to listen to its secret dreams and ask it all his questions. Why do you keep giving? Why do you pour out your light, showering the universe with warmth and receiving no return from the processes you fuel, not least of which is life?

  Why do you want life? Why did you spark us and feed us and raise us to these heights? Is there something we can offer that nothing else can, despite our hideous flaws? What are we here to do?

  “It’s pretty, right?” Nora says, always underestimating her brother’s remote stare. “Wish the windows were clearer, but still…look at that.”

  A deep green valley spreads out below them as they climb into the mountains. There are no stations or service roads along this ancient track, no capillaries to civilization; it was built before civilization was required, cutting through a primal wilderness that has changed little in the centuries since.

  “We should be getting close,” Nora says in a tone somewhere between anticipation and dread. “Just over these mountains.”

  The forest is thick, and though humans have swarmed over the planet for two hundred thousand years, voraciously mapping and cataloguing, there are places in this valley that have never known their footprints. There are stones no one has seen. Caves no one has entered. Secrets no one has found.

  Nora reads this thought in us and takes it for her own as the train rattles on the decaying tracks. Maybe her brother has discovered such a secret. Or maybe he is one. She watches him watching the scenery until a tunnel swallows the train. The lights are all burnt out so the darkness is total, and it goes on and on. The tunnel must be miles long. She leans her head against the glass and the vibrations begin to lull her. The darkness doesn’t change when she closes her eyes.

  Her family is celebrating. Something good has happened. Her father has accomplished something important, in spite of the doubt and discouragement from everyone around him—his friends at the grocery, his withered, shrunken father, and the pale, plump woman by his side. Nora sees the anxiety in her mother’s eyes, the fear that she’ll be left behind as her husband climbs the ladder, since she has no intention of following him up. But for the moment, she hides it well. For the moment, they’re all together, happy and even proud, and Nora’s father is doing something he rarely does: talking about where he came from. That dusty little village in that drought-stricken country that he’s always claimed he doesn’t remember.

  He says he wants to mark this day with a ceremony his mother used to perform, and he empties out a bag from the habesha grocery. He pours green coffee beans into a skillet and puts it on the stove. He fills a mug with incense and lights it. As the coffee roasts and the incense burns, the apartment’s atmosphere of musty desperation blooms into a rich perfume. He pestles the coffee with the handle of a screwdriver and brews it in a bong. Nora assumes this is not the traditional method, but it feels right enough. The aroma fills her head and seems to lift her off the floor like the hand of a benevolent giant, raising her from the life she thought she had and carrying her up to a better one.

  “Nora,” someone whispers in the grating clarity of the present. “Hey.”

  Nora has had this dream before, this home movie of memories, and she knows it’s reached its high point. If it continues to its ending, it will shit all over this sweet moment and she will lose every bit of this warmth. So it’s a bittersweet relief that Miriam is waking her up.

  “We’re here, Nora,” Miriam says, gently shaking her shoulder. “We’re home.”

  Nora hears freight car doors slamming and trucks driving off amidst a low murmur of wheezes and groans, but she can’t find the context for these sounds. Zombies? Ridiculous. No such thing. She opens her eyes but she doesn’t feel awake. Her brother is by her side and that’s all she cares to know. The world is blurry and dark as Peter and Miriam lead them up a steep hill into a quiet town. Peter is saying something about family and community and something called “God’s House,” but Nora isn’t listening. She still smells frankincense. She still tastes coffee, bitter and syrupy sweet. She sees Addis’s eyes widening as the caffeine hits his brain, sees him running and crashing around the apartment, laughing like a demon cherub.

  Peter takes them to a building he calls “Redemption Hall” and says something about keeping the Dead safe while they wait to learn God’s plan, and Nora doesn’t ask what that means, doesn’t care. After a decade of carving her own path, she is relishing the sensation of letting others lead her. Releasing her grip. Being cared for. The less she listens to what they say, the longer this can last.

  But then they go and ruin it.

  “…so as much as I’d love for Addis to hear tonight’s sermon, it’s best if we keep him here at Redemption Hall as long as you’re with us.”

  The world comes rushing back in. “Excuse me?” Nora says.

  “It’s just
community policy,” Peter assures her. “I’m sure you understand we can’t have our Dead friends wandering loose in the—”

  “He’s not Dead,” Nora snaps. “He won’t hurt anyone.”

  “I believe that,” Peter says, holding his hands out. “But we have children here, and no matter how close to Living he is…it’s just safer if you leave him here. It’s safer for him.”

  Nora grabs her brother’s hand and walks out. No one stops her. She walks down unlit streets past the dark lumps of empty buildings, shuttered storefronts. Is she still in the dream? Is this some new ending her brain wrote, and will it be any happier than the old one? She has often wondered if with enough sheer will, she could pull things out of dreams and into the real world. She tried it with Addis many times over the years. But maybe this time…

  She grips his hand tight and starts to jog.

  And then she hears a bell. Not a real bell but a recording, its sonorous depth rendered shrill by an overdriven loudspeaker. Then a high male voice singing in Latin:

  Deus magnus est…Non est deus praeter Deum…

  For a moment, Nora is terrified. Is this an alarm? Will these people finally drop their facade, lock her up, burn her at the stake? But as the loudspeaker falls silent, she hears laughter. Bubbling conversation. People begin to appear in the streets, families and groups of friends, all strolling in the direction of the bell. They give her genial nods as they pass.

  She feels foolish. She feels lost. She walks a little further to the edge of the hill, and she stops. All down the slope, the windows of houses are glowing warmly. People filter out at a casual pace, merging into the line that’s ascending the hill like a leisurely pilgrimage. And out beyond the town, shining dimly in the waning moon: the highway. It wanders off toward the coast, pale and twisting like an empty snake skin. Nora recalls her years alone on highways like that. The hunger, the cold, the constant fear. She looks down at her brother, who is watching her patiently. She looks at the groups of cheerful townsfolk on their way to church. She sighs and turns around.

  “I’ll stay here with him,” she tells Peter and Miriam, who are waiting in Redemption Hall exactly where she left them.

  Peter nods. “That’s fine, if that’s what you want to do…but tonight’s service is starting soon. Are you sure you don’t want to attend?”

  “I think you’d find it really inspiring,” Miriam says. “And we all get together afterward to hang out and talk about what we’ve learned.” She folds her hands in front of her as if in prayer. “It’s so fun, Nora, please come!”

  Nora tightens her grip on Addis’s hand. “I’m not leaving him.”

  “Nora,” Peter says, “this is the safest place he can be right now. It was made for him.”

  He gestures to their surroundings, and Nora perceives the building’s interior for the first time. It looks like a day care. A day care and a school, with traces of a hospital. She sees Dead children staring at toys. Dead adults staring at TVs. In the kitchen, an elderly woman is making dinner, mixing crushed Carbtein and what can only be human blood into a bowl of pork cutlets. Nora thinks of Auntie Shirley. Corned beef and cabbage…

  “God’s House is only four blocks away,” Peter says. “The service is barely an hour. Do you think you can trust us for one hour?”

  Nora looks down at her brother’s hand. It’s turning pale in her grip.

  “Not everyone is trying to hurt you, Nora,” Miriam says gently. “Maybe out in the world, but not here.”

  “Why not?” Nora mumbles. “Why not here?”

  “Because God lives here,” Peter says with surging conviction. “And whatever God does, it’s always for our good.”

  A large group passes by the open door, and their laughter is infectious; Peter and Miriam smile. Nora hears the pop of tiny knuckles and Addis whimpers, tugging against her vise grip. She hears the bell again, so much like the bell of her mother’s old church despite its electric harshness.

  She lets go.

  I

  No one speaks as we leave the Midwaste and climb into the mountains. The road is absurdly steep and narrow, bounded by rock walls and dizzying drops, and the only sound is Barbara’s engine roaring against gravity. Finally we summit the peak, the trees open up, and I see the sky yawning above us. We have crested the final ridge, and a grassy plain stretches below us. For a moment the RV seems balanced on the apex and I feel a disconcerting tension, like a decision waiting to be made. Then we tip over the edge and plummet toward the coast.

  I hear breaths being released throughout the RV. I remember I’m not alone.

  The sun still glows faintly below the horizon but the moon is already up. The view is both beautiful and oddly menacing. There’s anger in the reds, fear in the blues, and the crescent moon is a sharp hook. I see the silvery line of the train tracks winding down from the mountains and into the plain, and up ahead: buildings. Houses. A town.

  “R,” Julie says. “Put that away.”

  I notice I’m clutching a wrench in front of me like we’re charging into battle.

  “Whoever these people are, she went with them by choice, remember? No reason to assume they’re hostile.”

  This is true, but it doesn’t feel like it. It’s never even occurred to me that the drivers of the train could be allies. Am I letting the new world get to me? Am I buying into its infomercial of paranoia and panic?

  Inhaling Julie’s optimism as deeply as I can, I set the wrench down as the town rolls into view. The tracks disappear into a crumbled brick industrial zone at the bottom of a steep hill, atop which is a shocking sight: illuminated windows. I do my best to imagine friendly faces behind them.

  We park at the train station and approach the platform cautiously. The freight boxes are all open and empty, but I see a few figures moving in the passenger cars. Julie pokes her head into one of the doorways and knocks on the wall.

  “Hello?”

  The muffled noise of activity stops. Then a set of footsteps. Julie backs up as a tall young man emerges from the doorway, looking at her blankly through black frame glasses.

  “Uh, hi,” Julie says. “We’re looking for a friend of ours. A girl named Nora?”

  The man smiles but doesn’t say anything. His eyes glide over each of us, and I feel a distinct sense of being scanned. Apparently not finding whatever he’s looking for, his posture retracts inward.

  “We’re pretty sure she got on your train somewhere around Ohio…” Julie continues.

  “Brown eyes?” the man says like he’s digging deep in his memory. “Curly hair?”

  Julie gives him a flat stare. “She’s black.”

  He nods cheerfully. “Yeah, Nora! Nora’s great. She rode with us for a couple days. You’re friends of hers?”

  “Yeah. We really need to talk to her.”

  “What do you need to talk to her about?”

  Julie cocks her head. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m just not sure Nora wants to see you right now. She’s had a hard time lately and she came to our community to learn about God’s truth. I’m not sure you’re here to offer encouragement.” He gives Julie an apologetic smile, sorry I can’t be of more help!

  Julie glances back at the rest of us in disbelief. I shrug, but I feel my shoulders tightening. Something about the man’s demeanor feels familiar to me. Intense friendliness with an undertone of threat.

  “Listen,” Julie says, “we don’t have any problem with God’s truth, we’re not here to break up your club, we just need to talk to our friend. Are you going tell us where she is or not?”

  The man hesitates, then smiles. “Of course.” He points up the hill. “Peter and Miriam took her to God’s House for the service. Why don’t you go join them and hear the word God has for us tonight? We welcome seekers from all walks of life.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Julie says, turning on her h
eel. She whispers in my ear as she moves past me: “I might’ve been wrong about that wrench.”

  She’s joking. Annoyed, but not truly worried. M looks tense, but he has another, more obvious reason to be. And Tomsen just looks confused. Am I the only one feeling this churning unease? I have plenty of reasons to recoil at the scent of church, a natural aversion to all things corporate. Even in the blankness of my second life, I shrank away from the Boneys’ sermons and schools, their instinctive attempts to reinstate the hive mind. But there are many kinds of communal effort, many ways people come together to build and share and connect with something higher, and they can’t all lead down the dark path I took. If I can’t believe that, then what future am I fighting for? A world of solitary animals feeding and mating and dying alone? A world like Abram’s?

  I have to believe there can be more. Despite the faint alarm rising in my head, the sirens of distant fires, I have to believe.

  • • •

  We drive up the hill slowly, hoping to avoid attention, though attention may be unavoidable in our bright yellow moon rover. I watch the windows. I see no one watching us. The lights are on, but I see empty rooms. Very empty—no bookshelves, no televisions, no stereos, no art or decorations of any kind. Only a few chairs and dishes indicate occupancy. The exteriors are on par with most rural ruins: peeling paint, clogged gutters, rotting roofs and wild lawns, a lack of maintenance so extreme it almost seems like a statement.

  I see no one in the houses or on the street. The town appears deserted. And yet I hear music.

  “Tomsen,” I say.

  “Yes?”

  We crest the hilltop and roll into the town center. The shopfronts are boarded up. We are the only vehicle on the crumbled road.

  “I think we should park here.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t want to…get trapped.”

  “Trapped?” Julie arches her eyebrows at me. “Do you know something we don’t?”