The World Without Flags

by Ben Lyle Bedard

  I feel Eric’s drool against my hand, but I hold him firmly. If he makes a sound, we’re dead. I look around on the shelves for a weapon, but there’s only jars full of dark liquid.

  I stretch my neck to see what the Doctor is doing. I see his clean leather shoes in front of the chair. I watch his feet turn as he sits down on the chair where they shackled me before. I can’t see what he’s doing. Then I hear him groan a little. My heart beats, and I’m shaking. I hear him sniff then, and I think, he’s crying. Is he crying? Somehow this frightens me more. I’m trembling, holding on to Eric. I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping that Eric won’t make a sound. The Doctor makes a strong sound, like a growl or a moan. He coughs.

  “Bill!” he cries suddenly. I just about jump out of my skin. “Bill!” He’s shouting for Squint. He makes a sound and heads for the door toward the prison cells. For a terrible moment, when he reaches the door, all the Doctor has to do is turn his head. Just a little bit. Just a fraction. And he’ll see us here on the floor, me beneath Eric, with my hand around his mouth. I see him clearly in that moment, his long black hair, his long, pale face, turned toward the door, his corduroy pants, leather shoes, his immaculate robin egg blue shirt. And then he swings the door open and vanishes, crying out, “Bill!”

  The minute the door closes behind him, I scramble to my feet. I tug at Eric, my heart racing wildly. Any moment now, he’ll find Squint in the cell, and he’ll know we’ve escaped! Eric has no sense of urgency and goes “Unh” as he gets slowly up to his feet. I shove him forward more violently than I mean to, the adrenalin pulsing through me so hard I can’t think of anything except getting out of the warehouse. My shove sends Eric into the shelving and glass jars topple wildly off and crash to the floor.

  “Run!” I plead. “Please run!”

  I take Eric’s hand and pull him roughly forward as I hurl myself toward the open door. I push the handle and then Eric crashes into me from behind.

  “Unh!” he exclaims. He has me pinned against the door so I can’t open it.

  “Back up!” I cry. I arch my back and push him backward and then throw the door open.

  “Stop!” I hear, and my heart falls. I turn around and Doctor Bragg is standing in the middle of the hallway. He’s got a gun in his hand pointing toward us. “Stop!” he says again. He pulls the hammer back on his gun. His aim is steady. My mind is running too fast to think. I can only stand there terrified. We’re so close to freedom! So close!

  Suddenly there’s a tremendous shattering sound and the Doctor falls to the ground. Standing over him is the woman from the prison, holding the remains of a jar. Next to her is the little girl, looking dispassionately down at the Doctor. The woman looks at me for a moment without emotion. She just stands there. We all just look at each other. Suddenly my heart races to life, and I grab Eric and we bolt outside into the cool, night air. I leave the door open, in case the woman and the little girl follow, but I can’t think of them. I can still feel their eyes on me, but I don’t understand what they want. Standing in the cold, fresh air, I see their eyes gazing at me, the hollowness of them, the darkness.

  88

  Finally I take Eric’s hand and lead him down the bank toward the river, trudging through leaves and mud. It feels like I’m dragging Eric forward, which I practically am. He doesn’t act any different as he always does, oblivious to the fact that we’re fleeing for our lives and that if anyone sees us, we’re dead. There are several loud gun shots that seem so loud, the sky seems to crack in half. I stop and look back, but I don’t see anyone charge out of the steel warehouse as I feared.

  “Please, please, please run!” I beg Eric. I realize I’m crying again as I drag him forward toward the sound of the river.

  And then he is running. He’s running faster than I’ve ever seen him run, even before he had the Worm. I’m gleeful for a moment, thinking it’s a miracle, until I realize he’s running for the water. I bolt after him, thinking that I have to stop him from drinking himself to death, when I run out of the trees and almost die from terror.

  The river is not a calm thing, gently gurgling its way to the ocean. It's a roiling, boiling mass of white water, churning up river stones and tearing whole trees from the banking, roots and all. The flooded river has cut a swathe through the area, and there’s a huge, granite outcrop on our side--Eric is sprinting straight for the edge! I hurl myself forward, bursting forward with every ounce of energy I can find. I race toward him, reaching out, hoping I can get to him before he reaches the deadly river. I hammer forward with my legs, expending every bit of energy I have. I sprint forward and reach out for him. I feel my fingers graze his back and then he drops away from me. I skid to a halt and watch with terror as Eric falls, falls, falls, his body turning strangely below me until he vanishes under the white water.

  “Eric!” I scream. My whole body goes cold and distant. I look over to see Eric’s red shirt downriver, impossibly far away already.

  Time seems to slow. My heart beats once, languidly, like it has to pump ice through my veins. I am stunned he’s gone. It doesn’t seem possible or real. I can see my hand out there, still reaching for him. My heart thumps again. I can get him, I tell myself. I look down at the boiling river and I think it doesn’t look bad. I can jump. I can still get him. I feel myself begin to jump, and then I stop.

  “Think, Birdie!”

  It’s like a voice. Like his real voice. Like Eric’s in my head talking to me.

  My heart thumps again.

  Think.

  If I jump, we’re both dead. I see it. It’s obvious. Below me, a tree passes, shuddering as it shoots by. If I had jumped, the tree would have struck me. I turn away from the bank and start running downriver, following the pounding water on its course, racing into the dark forest as the light of dawn begins to brighten the sky.

  89

  I dash through the forest downriver as fast as I can.

  I see him sometimes, up ahead, in the river, usually only a glimpse of his red, plaid shirt, bright as blood in the white water before he vanishes in a maelstrom of roiling water.

  I have to concentrate on the run. I jump over rocks and duck under tree branches. When I can, I turn to the river to see if I can see him, to see if the river hasn’t washed him up on the shore, or if some overhanging branch hasn’t snagged him. But the river is moving too fast to stop him. The water is all I can hear now, a thundering, rushing noise in my head.

  I breathe. I run. I concentrate.

  I look for signs of him and I think I will probably never see him again. The river will take him away from me, tear him apart as it crashes downstream, leaving me nothing, nothing.

  But this doesn’t come to me as a thought. It’s just a feeling of doom, of loss, of horrible, aching emptiness. In the end, after all I’ve gone through, I lost him to a river! I lost him because I didn’t think about the sound of water and what it would do to him. I lost him because I forgot what he has become.

  I run longer than I’ve ever run before. I notice that the sun is up. I see the sun shining, the blue sky, the rays of bright light striking the white water, sometimes highlighting the blood red shirt that surfaces for just a moment.

  The sun is high when the river widens and slows and darkens. I see Eric floating face down. Turning in the river. Spinning slowly under the sun.

  90

  I splash into the water, grab him by the shoulders, and drag him to the bank where I turn him over. The bandage over his eyes are gone. He stares up at the sky, up through a pale face, through eyes black with blood. His chest is unnaturally large, bloated with flood water. The force of the flood has stripped the boots and socks both from him. His feet are white and pathetic in the light. He doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t move.

  “Eric,” I whisper. I reach out and touch his face. It’s cold. Cold and stiff like leather in the morning. The touch sends shivers up my arm. For a moment, I think I’m going to break. I’m going to shatter like glass. And then I feel a shudder come over me. It
’s followed by a complete absence of feeling, like I’ve stepped into death. I don’t feel anything. I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to move. I don’t even exist. I’m not even here. Everything is unreal, distant, and I don’t care at all. I feel like the river has hollowed me out, leaving nothing behind. It’s worse than death, it’s a living death because I’m here to experience it. I can feel all the nothing around me, cold and horrible. It’s in the blackness of Eric’s eyes. It’s in the brittle, senseless rays of sun that strike us. It’s in his frigid skin and his strange, swollen, fish-like feet. It’s in my body, which can’t feel anything, and in my heart that won’t work.

  It finally happened. Eric’s dead. I am suddenly in a world of nevers. A world I can never share with him. Never ask him questions. Never hold his hand. Never feel how I always felt when he smiled at me and called me Birdie. A never world, hollow and cold. A world entirely without.

  91

  “No, Birdie. Don’t give up yet.”

  I speak aloud, from the emptiness. I have to hear it, have to have some hope.

  I lean over him and push down on his chest. Eric’s mouth, almost black, opens and water flows out. I push again and more water comes out. I know what I have to do, but I think of his dark mouth wriggling with Worms. But this isn’t the time for thinking. I plug his nose, take a deep breath, and then groan. I could get infected so easily. I really could. This is stupid, a great way for me to become a zombie just like him. Doing what I’m about to do is practically suicide. I imagine some Worm crawling from Eric’s mouth into mine, working its way into my stomach, through my body, up to my brain. I see it wriggling, slithering, creeping its way through me, attaching itself to my brain. But I can’t live thinking I haven’t done everything I can. I have to try.

  I take a deep breath and then, closing my eyes, I bend over, cover his cold mouth with my lips, and blow as hard as I can. I smell ammonia and urine and turn away and gag. I push down on his chest and watch as more water comes out of his mouth. I take another deep breath, plug his nose, and then blow the air into his lungs again, trying to ignore the cold feeling of his lips, the smell of the Worm that is so strong this close to him. I take another breath and blow it in, without waiting, without pausing to think about what I’m doing, how I could be killing myself. I pump down on his chest with my hands and watch as more water comes gurgling up from him. Then I bend over and again breathe into his lungs. Again and again. My head is swimming and dizzy, but I can’t stop, not until I’m sure, not until I’m certain that he’s gone. My mouth tastes sour.

  I lean over to breathe air into him again when Eric suddenly erupts. A fountain of dark, stinking water spurts into my face and inside my mouth. I leap away, rubbing away the stinking water, and then collapse to the side, vomiting. My stomach churns with revulsion at the smell of ammonia and the bitter taste in my mouth. I keep thinking I can feel Worms in my mouth, turning and twisting, and so I keep vomiting. Finally, my stomach begins to cramp painfully, and groaning in pain, I struggle to stop heaving.

  Somewhere through the pain, I’m aware of the dark fountain that continues to spout from Eric’s mouth. I want to help, want to turn him over, but I can’t do anything but hold my stomach. I’m so relieved, but at the same time, I’m completely overcome with nausea. Finally, between retching, I go over to Eric and roll him over. I watch in equal horror and relief as Eric vomits out enormous amounts of putrid water. I notice innumerable Worms wriggling inside the water. I stagger away and then go to the river to vomit and wash my face in the frigid water. I rinse my mouth with cold water and then vomit and then rinse again, trying to rid myself of the acrid taste.

  At some point, I can’t vomit any longer, and the cramps in my stomach lessen.

  “Unh,” Eric says as he sits up, his eyes turned up toward the sky.

  The sound makes me laugh out loud. Suddenly I’m on my knees in the water, weeping, and looking at him. I’m crying and laughing at the same time. From his eyes, long tendrils of white Worms are waving up toward the sun, like a host of angels, praying.

  92

  It’s not a cave. Not really. It’s just that the granite stretches over us a little, giving us a little protection from the rain, from the wind, but most importantly, from eyes. I dragged us here yesterday, and I bent over some trees and wove some branches together so that it’s difficult to see us. Then I dug down at the base of the rock. That’s where we are, sitting in a muddy, cold pit under a rock, waiting. Waiting for me to die.

  I sit shivering in the pit. There’s no way I didn’t get the Worm, I think. I keep checking my head for a fever. I can’t tell. Every time I cough, I think it’s coming. Every time I tremble from the cold, I think it’s the beginning of the sickness that will kill me. I think sometimes I can feel the Worms in my stomach, writhing, multiplying, sending its offspring to my brain where they will sink their hooks into me. Will I just die of the fever or will I turn into something like Eric? Or will it be much worse? Will I crack and run crazy through the forests, killing everything in my path, and passing on the disease?

  Eric is next to me, quiet. I look at him and wonder what it feels like to have the Worms in your eyes. I wonder what it feels like to be what he is. Is he in there? Is he distant, like he’s watching himself for a long way off? Or is he gone completely? What will happen to me when it comes? What will I become?

  Where will I be?

  I’m hungry, but I don’t want to eat. I think now I’m just feeding Worms. When I think this, my appetite vanishes. But it always comes back, more vicious than before.

  I put my head on Eric’s shoulder. I’m not afraid of touching him anymore. I’m not afraid of his smell. I’ve tasted it now. It doesn’t have the same power over me as before. Soon I will smell like that. What a pair we’ll be. Out here in the forest, sitting under this rock, wasting away to skeletons. But it’s better that we go together. I couldn’t watch him go, I couldn’t do that. I had my chance to live and I chose him. I chose Eric. I will always choose him.

  Although I get close to Eric, there’s no real heat in his body. Since he came from the water, he seems better somehow, clearer. He doesn’t drool as much and his breathing is clean and easy. I haven’t replaced the bandages on his eyes, although I thought about ripping up a part of his shirt. What’s the use? When I see the waving Worms in the corners of his eyes, I’m not as disgusted as I was before. That’s what I am going to become. That’s going to be me. There’s nothing I can do about it. The Worms have lost their power to disgust or frighten me. I feel like I’m ready for the end.

  I’m so tired. So tired.

  I get closer to Eric and put an arm around him. I touch him as I haven’t really touched him since he got sick. I miss him. I reach up and kiss his frigid cheek.

  “I love you, Eric,” I whisper. I’ve never really said that to him. I comb his hair back with my fingers. “I’m not going to leave you. We’re just going to wait together.”

  “Unh,” he says, and I smile through some tears. He looks better, almost like the Eric I knew. His face is lean and so pale, it’s almost blue, but I see him. I see the man who has taken care of me my whole life, who has made me what I am.

  I put my head on his shoulder and cry.

  I have a feeling that if I fall asleep, the fever will come, and the Worm will invade me completely, and I will never wake up again. I’ll just slip away and be wherever it is I go.

  But I close my eyes anyway.

  I’m ready.

  93

  I wake up shivering. My teeth are clattering together so violently, I’m afraid of biting my tongue. I get up and jump up and down, trying to warm myself, but I’ve been sleeping in a muddy hole, and my body is resistant. The cold is like a stiff, painful weight all over my body. I put a hand to my head to check for a fever, but I can’t tell, my hands are too numb from the cold. But I’m still alive, I’m still here. It’s been a full day. A day and a half, I think, looking up at the sun through the bare branches of the trees.
I should be dead. Gone.

  Unless I’m lucky. Unless somehow I didn’t get the Worm.

  I look down at Eric. He’s sitting in the mud, his arms at his side. He reminds me of a picture I saw in one of the history books that Eric made me read, a solider dead in the trenches of the first World War, dead in the mud, with his hands in the cold water. I can’t stand the idea and I climb back into the muddy hole and pull at Eric.

  “Unh,” he moans.

  “Get up now,” I tell him. “We have to move.”

  “Unh,” he says. He stands then. For some reason, he rises onto his tip toes like a ballet dancer in a painting and stands there stiffly.

  “What’re you doing?” I ask him, smiling.

  His jaw clenches and his dark tongue laps at his lips. “Unh,” he says, and begins to walk forward on his tip toes. I put a hand on his chest gently to keep him from falling. I can’t help but laugh a little.

  “You’re silly this morning,” I tell him. Eric doesn’t say anything. He just shuts his jaw with a wet clapping sound. He turns his head away from me and then back to me. The white Worms are receded this morning, but his eyes are almost completely black. His dark gaze eradicates any feeling of humor in me. When he looks at me like that, with those eyes, I feel a knot of emptiness in my stomach. That black gaze is the Worm, studying me. I shiver and prod him slightly backwards. He comes down from his tippy toes and then looks away from me.

  In the quiet of the forest, I hear the birds sing, and I begin to think. We’re alone. No food. No supplies. If I’m not dying of the Worm, then I have to find food or we’ll die of hunger. When I look at Eric, I see now the sharpness of his features, his skin thin and tight over his cheekbones. I see the loose way his clothes hang from him. There isn’t much left of him. The Worms are eating him alive.