Never Never Stories

by Jason Sanford

  Mom was happy to see me, but then she was always happy now that she was a thorn. I told her about Elleen and the grove being attacked, and how Brad and his father were dead while Seanna was in the hospital. At that point I broke down and cried. Mom held me tight and told me everything would be all right. She talked as if I was a child suffering from a terrible nightmare.

  However, once I finished crying Mom quickly grew confused at my pain – confusion which meant she'd already forgotten everything I'd told her. She again asked how Brad and Elleen were doing. I stared into her deep-beautiful blue eyes, and saw myself reflected back as the child she'd known before she died. To Mom, I'd never grow up because she couldn't change, her memories and soul burned hard and static into the tree's crystal structure. No matter what happened in life, Mom would forever be the same person as when she died.

  Even though I hated to lie, I couldn't stomach telling her about Brad and Elleen again.

  “They're fine,” I said, praying she didn't sense my dishonesty.

  “That's good,” she said with a final hug. “Every one needs best friends.”

  * * *

  Dad and I spent the rest of the day shoring up injured trees in the grove. By lunchtime, a large crowd of townsfolk had gathered, with people checking on the trees of relatives and friends or trying to help me and Dad. A National Guard Captain stopped by at one point and almost started a riot when he suggested people pull back to the center of town tonight – where it'd be easier to protect against the next attack – instead of defending the memorial grove. Several townsfolk actually pulled guns on the Captain until Sheriff Koffee calmed things down by saying we'd defend everyone in town, including the thorn trees.

  When dusk was a few hours away, Dad loaded our tools in the truck and said we needed to go. Sheriff Koffee urged us to stay in town, offering to let us room in her house. Dad thanked her but said we'd be fine at home.

  As we drove away we passed neighbors and friends preparing to defend the town and the memorial grove. I felt so ashamed at leaving that I sank down in my seat to hide. I asked Dad why we couldn't stay. I wanted to defend Seanna, who was still unconscious in the hospital. I wanted to defend Mom's tree. I wanted to stand with my neighbors.

  But Dad said sometimes it was best not to do what everyone else did and left it at that.

  * * *

  Over the next few days the thorn die attacked the town two more times. Dad and I took turns guarding our house at night. In the morning we drove to town and worked at saving the trees. Sheriff Koffee said the security nets reported attacks on memorial groves in several nearby towns. Once the thorn die destroyed all the groves in a town, they'd leave the remaining townsfolk alone.

  On the third day I finally was allowed to see Seanna, who was recovering from a nasty hit she'd taken to the head. For once her mother didn't shoo me away. I blew a kiss at Seanna and told her to get well. Seanna smiled from her hospital bed and reached her bare hand out for me, missing my arm by a hair. Her mother giggled nervously and told me Seanna was still delirious. “She'll be all right,” she muttered over and over. “She'll be all right.”

  When Dad and I returned home, I ran to the greenhouse to check on Elleen. She looked much better, with a number of needles budding from her trunk and remaining limb. I carefully pricked my palm.

  “She's infected,” Elleen said with a frown.

  “What?”

  “Seanna. She's infected. That's why she tried to grab you.”

  I nodded. Obviously, Elleen knew more than I did about how newly infected people acted. I tried to feel sorry for both Seanna and myself at the news, but after all the death and pain of the last few days I couldn't move past a weary numbness. “How are you feeling?” I asked.

  “Better. It's funny how all that hacking and cutting didn't hurt. Just left me confused for a bit.”

  I smiled. I'd been helping Elleen remember certain things like Brad, giving her some of my own memories to replace what she was missing. Each new memory expanded the buds on her body. Elleen and I also talked about Brad's burial. She was trying to create words for his tombstone. I told her I'd carve the stone once all the craziness calmed down.

  Before I left, Elleen mentioned that she'd spoken with Chance, the numbered thorn die who'd hacked her to pieces. “He was extremely sad at hurting me, but said one day I'd understand. He also asked for your forgiveness. I was a little confused by then, but I'm pretty sure he asked for your forgiveness, not mine, even though I was the one being torn apart.”

  I asked Elleen why Chance hadn't finished the job and killed her. Elleen didn't know. She then told me to be careful. “These thorn die are determined to finish their work,” she said. “There's nothing scarier in the world than determined people.”

  * * *

  That night Dad and I sat on the porch. There was only silence from town, the National Guard's full spectrum spotlights casting a hazy glow above the pines and oaks on the horizon. Dad was sitting quietly, counting his ammunition, when we heard a giggle from the darkness before us.

  “You don't want to do this,” Dad yelled. “We ain't in your way.”

  “I agree,” a voice called back, “and I don't want to do this. But I do want to talk. Will you kill your spotlights?”

  I started to say hell no, but Dad waved for me to go do it. I walked in the house and threw the switch for the front spotlights. However, I left the lights shining in the greenhouse out back. I didn't want these bastards to get near Elleen. I expected Dad to be mad at me for that, but he merely nodded in agreement when I returned to the porch.

  As our eyes grew used to the dark, we saw dozens of faintly glowing thorn die standing in the treeline. One thorn die walked forward. He stopped a few meters from the porch, glowing numbers covering his skin.

  “You're Chance, I assume,” Dad said. “You should know I'm pretty mad at what you did to Elleen, and almost did to my son.”

  Chance shrugged. “I tried to stop them from attacking your son, but they wouldn't listen. Anyway, I don't want to talk about all that. I'm wondering why you two aren't in town.”

  “Not our fight,” Dad said.

  “But I've seen you working in the memorial grove.”

  Dad thought for a moment. “I'm a gardener. I always have been. Helping the trees helps people feel better about those they've lost. But that doesn't mean I'm going to die defending the damn things.”

  Chance smiled and clapped his hands. “Exactly. That's what people miss. Those trees are just an unchanging echo of the person they used to be. Many of us thorn die believe the worst hell we'll ever experience is being trapped for hundreds of years as we are at the moment we die. Kept like an old photo or video. Only taken out when someone wants to revisit old memories.”

  Dad didn't say anything, but I could see he agreed with Chance's words.

  “What about your wife's tree?” Chance asked.

  Dad bristled at the mention of Mom and shifted the rifle in his hand. “My wife is dead, Mr. Chance. I don't appreciate you dredging up our private affairs.”

  Chance giggled nervously. “Quite right,” he said. “That's exactly right. We won't be bothering you or your son, assuming you stay out of the fight.”

  “We'll still be working in the grove each day,” Dad said.

  “I wouldn't expect anything less.”

  Chance thanked Dad and me, then turned and walked back to the treeline. He was already there when I jumped off the porch and ran after him. “Wait,” I yelled. “Why didn't you kill Elleen?”

  Chance turned. In the dark, I couldn't see his face, only the glowing numbers across his arms and chest. “Because we weren't trying to kill her,” he said. “We were helping her. None of us are the person we were yesterday – we're only truly alive as long as we keep growing. And sometimes to grow you must lose something. You, of all people, should understand that.”

  I protested, wanting more explanation, but several of the thorn die in the darkness around me giggled in warning. I r
an back to the porch as Chance laughed.

  * * *

  In the morning I talked with Elleen, telling her everything that Chance had said. Elleen seemed to have improved even more overnight, with dozens of needle buds sprouting and several of her larger needles thickening into small branches. I'd never seen a thorn tree bounce back so quickly from near death, and Elleen blushed at my compliment.

  “Chance might be right,” Elleen said. “I feel so alive right now. Like anything is possible.”

  However, whatever Dad and I were doing right for Elleen wasn't working for the trees in the memorial grove. Even though the thorn die hadn't attacked overnight, several more trees had succumbed to shock from previous injuries. Dad and I worked the best we could, splicing busted limbs and applying nutrients to gashes and cuts, but he told me few of the injured trees would survive. It was almost as if they lacked the will to live. I felt sorry for the dying trees and, when I realized one was the young girl who'd said hello to me the other day, I touched her needles. But her thoughts were so confused and diffuse that there was little consciousness left to comfort.

  I spent lunchtime with Mom, telling her how well Elleen was doing and what Chance had told us. Of course, Mom forgot my words shortly after I'd spoken them. I wondered if I should do as Chance had and cut off some of Mom's branches and thorns. Force her to grow new memories and life. But I was too weak; I couldn't do that to Mom. As she hugged me farewell and said to watch after Dad, someone yanked me off her thorn. I fell backwards and stared up into the angry face of Mrs. Blondheim.

  “Get back to work,” she yelled. “How dare you waste time when my trees are dying.”

  I tried telling her the injured trees were going to die no matter what we did because they'd stopped living years ago, but my backtalk only made Mrs. Blondheim angrier. She hit me with her cane over and over, telling me to go to work, until Dad and the Sheriff walked up. Dad calmly grabbed Mrs. Blondheim's cane in mid-air as it was about to strike me again.

  “How dare you,” Mrs. Blondheim spat at Dad.

  Dad yanked the cane away from her and handed it to the Sheriff. “We're done here,” he said. “Sheriff, if you need us we'll be at our house.”

  Mrs. Blondheim stared in horror at Dad. “You will get back to work, or I'll have your wife's tree dug up. I'll hack it down like those scum did to the other trees.”

  Dad glanced at Mom's tree, and nodded sadly. “My wife died a long time ago,” he said. “There's nothing you can do to hurt her.”

  He then led me away. Mrs. Blondheim screamed at Sheriff Koffee to arrest us, but the Sheriff ignored her.

  * * *

  Two days later, the thorn die attacked the grove a final time. A few townsfolk still fought back, but the Sheriff and the National Guard kept their people away from the grove, instead making their stand between the thorn die and the living part of town. As the Sheriff told us later, there comes a point when you have to decide what's worth dying for– and for Alice Koffee, the dead weren't worth any more dying.

  The next morning Dad and I walked through the splinters of the memorial grove. We found Mom's tree missing most of her branches. I tried talking to Mom, to see if she was still inside, fighting for life like Elleen had done, but all I felt was silence. We dug up her bones from beneath the roots and buried her alongside Brad and his father. Dad said Brad's old backyard would make a good burial ground. I agreed and drove back to our farm, where I found Elleen's bones. I carried them back and buried her next to Brad.

  I then drove to the hospital. Seanna was in a darkened isolation room. Her mom was talking to Mrs. Blondheim about planting Seanna in the rebuilt memorial grove. I tried to convince Seanna's mom not to do that – to instead let Seanna out of isolation to enjoy her remaining months of life. “And when she's dead, don't let her stay the same. Cut off her branches. Force her to grow and change. She'll thank you for it one day.”

  But Seanna's mom and Mrs. Blondheim glared in horror at my suggestion, as if I'd told them to murder Seanna in her sleep. I started to argue, but realized there were people you didn't waste time arguing with. So I stood beside the isolation door and told Seanna I loved her before walking away.

  * * *

  I finished carving the tombstones for Brad and Elleen the following spring, taking extra care with the letters of Elleen's glowing tribute to her first love. Because Elleen refused to create words for her own grave, I wrote “A friend” on her burial marker. I could tell she was pleased with that.

  Even though the thorn die continued to attack memorial groves across the region, none ever again bothered Elleen. When she was big enough, I planted her beside our porch so I could talk with her every day. Elleen once again glowed a faint blue luminescence. And even though I hated the idea of doing so, I promised Elleen that if she ever became stuck in who and what she was, I'd cut off some of her branches and thorns. “Just so you can grow again,” I told her with a smile.

  But I didn't have to worry about that for now. As I sat with my palm on Elleen's needles, we shivered to the faint chill wind, listened to the crickets humming, and watched the stars washing the sky. Feeling bold, I asked Elleen what made her want to live on and on. She laughed and hugged me, then kissed me on the lips of my mind until I forgot all about my question and simply kissed her back.

  Where Away You Fall

  I was dozing in the aerostat's pilot chair, sleeping for the first time since entering near space two days before, when Bee whispered “weapons lock” in my ear. I woke confused – Was I back in my F-35? Had I blacked out from excessive g-forces? – so I yanked hard on the control stick before realizing my old fighter jet was long gone. Instead, I floated in a balloon just below the blockade line. Fortunately, Bee overrode my stick commands. The computer didn't need to remind me that aerostats couldn't do evasive maneuvers 60 km above the Earth, not when the only thing holding us up was an envelope so thin I could literally see through it.

  I cursed myself for falling asleep in the pilot chair as Bee repeated that a targeting laser had locked on us. I glanced out the pressurized cockpit's window. Below, Earth's blue atmosphere curved serenely away. Above, the star-spotted blackness of space. Only seven other balloons were in sight. None of the aerostats in this part of the mesosphere carried defensive systems, so Bee's warning meant someone manning the blockade had discovered our little ruse.

  How long does it take a hypervelocity slug to find you? One second? Two? I breathed deep and muttered an awkward prayer, hoping Brother Donald Page would be proud at how I faced death. I remembered his beaming face from two decades ago as he'd affirmed my destiny with tears in his eyes – telling this short, skinny girl that if she worked hard, she'd reach outer space. Now I was the closest I'd ever get and my heavenly reward was to be shot down.

  But as the seconds and minutes ticked by without me actually dying, I realized someone up above was yanking my chain. A very unspiritual fury clenched my fists. I yelled at Bee to call up the blockade frequency so I could curse those fools out. But before Bee could do so, the computer intoned the best news I'd heard all day: “Dusty, the target lock has switched from weapons to tightbeam. Do you wish to receive a NASA transmission from Major Johnie Acaba?”

  “Patch him through, Bee,” I said, angry at Johnie for rattling my cage. I forced a fake smile as his handsome, square-cut face floated before me. He'd tightbeamed in a proxy program, a semi-intelligent computer simulation of himself. The jerk was probably too busy to actually talk with me.

  “Hey wannabe, you're nearing no-go territory.”

  I bristled. Johnie knew how serious Seekers – even a not-very observant Seeker like myself – took our destinies. “The Beatrice couldn't reach 80 klicks if I wanted to,” I said, which was the United States' definition of the edge of space and where the blockade officially began. “And where the hell you get off lighting me up with weapons?”

  “Only a joke, Dusty,” Johnie's proxy said with a grin. “I wanted to welcome you to near space. I know how much it
means for you to be there.”

  I started to smart back to the proxy, but bit off my words. Johnie was so dense he'd never understood my sarcasm, and that no doubt also applied to his computer double. “Gee Johnie, are we still on joking terms? Seems I remember a bit of awkwardness back at the Outpost?”

  To Johnie's credit, his proxy frowned – he'd obviously prepared it for this very topic. The Outpost Tavern was a replica of a 20th century astronaut bar that used to exist in Houston. Johnie and I had been best friends during our time in the Air Force so when I applied to NASA, I convinced him to go with me. We spent two years training with the space agency, graduated at the top of our class, and were preparing for our first trip to man the blockade when someone – and my money was on Johnie – spilled the beans about me being a Seeker. Never mind that I'd lapsed so far from the faith my parent's annual holiday card included a guilt-inducing “Are you still living in sin?” letter extolling my spiritual deficiencies.

  But NASA wouldn't listen. Over the last few decades Seekers had carried out a number of high-profile bombings and attacks. There were also rumors that the last cascade event – a chain-reaction debris sprawl caused by too-many satellites and too much junk in orbit – hadn't been an accident. That maybe a Seeker sent a satellite tumbling into another in an attempt to obtain the faith's goal of returning humanity to a simpler way of life.

  As I'd packed my gear, Johnie said how sorry he was at me getting kicked out. I screamed at him, wanting to know if he'd told NASA my secret. He swore he hadn't but I didn't believe him. A few months later, I showed up for his launch party at the Outpost Tavern, intending to let bygones be bygones. But my former colleagues protested my presence, causing Johnie to play peacemaker instead of sticking up for me. I stormed away cursing his name.