by Hamill, Ike
Frank ran forward to catch her as she started to sink towards the floor.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
“You got her here just in time,” Dr. Matthew said. He was wiping his bloody hands on a rag. “Her lungs were struggling to fill with all the blood in her chest. She’s patched up now, but I have to leave the hardest work to her.”
Frank let out a big breath.
Patrick put his hand on Mary’s shoulder.
“This was self-inflicted?” Dr. Matthew asked.
Frank nodded.
“We were all there, just a few feet away,” Mary said.
“She drove that thing in deep, but she managed to miss most of the good stuff. Why did she do it? Did she give you any clue?”
Frank looked at Mary.
“She was talking about her dead husband. I thought she was doing okay with it, but I guess it really hit her today,” Mary said.
Dr. Matthew shook his head and looked down at the floor. “Second one today. In vet school they didn’t give us any training for suicide attempts.”
“Second today?” Patrick asked.
The doctor sat down in one of the chairs of the waiting room. The four of them were alone in his outer office.
“Yeah,” Dr. Matthew said. “Everyone’s coming here since Ty and Tim took off. Some people brought in Brett Stilson this morning. There was nothing at all I could do. He shot himself in the head.”
Patrick turned away. He walked to the window and looked out across the hills. Dr. Matthew worked out of a small veterinarian’s office that had a nice view of the mountains.
“That’s terrible,” Frank said. “He was so young.”
Dr. Matthew nodded. “Almost the same story as poor Elizabeth. People say that he was talking yesterday about his cats and how much he missed them. I hope this isn’t turning into an epidemic. I’m supposed to meet with Cirie this afternoon. I heard she had some information.”
Frank stood up.
“No,” Frank said.
Dr. Matthew just looked at him with his eyebrows raised.
“Don’t meet with Cirie,” Mary explained. “Elizabeth went to see her yesterday.”
Frank interjected. “When she came back, she was all vacant and strange, talking about her husband.”
“How would the two things be connected?” Dr. Matthew asked.
“Who knows,” Mary said. “Better safe than sorry. That woman has formed some kind of cult, and it’s making people do weird things.”
“Like try to kill themselves,” Dr. Matthew said to nobody in particular.
“As far as we know,” Frank said.
“If there’s even a shred of proof to that, then we have to warn people to stay away,” Dr. Matthew said. “I’m not eager to see any more self-inflicted wounds.”
Patrick turned around and rejoined the conversation.
“We’ll get Gloria to call a special meeting. If we say that Dr. Matthew has a special announcement, tons of people will come.”
“Including Cirie’s people,” Frank said.
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that,” Dr. Matthew said. “I don’t have evidence to accuse someone publicly.”
“I’ll do it,” Frank said. “I’ll make the announcement. We just have to use your name to get people there.”
Dr. Matthew folded his arms across his chest.
“As long as it’s framed as a question and not an accusation,” Dr. Matthew said. “Get Cirie there and ask her what happened with Elizabeth and Brett.”
Frank nodded.
CHAPTER 19: LONG ISLAND
“I DON’T KNOW EXACTLY, but it’s not good. They made me talk to this guy who they called The Origin. He said something about my cousin, Janice,” Carrie’s voice said over the radio.
A second later, the boat’s radio chirped.
Romie keyed the microphone again. “Carrie? Carrie, are you there?”
She waited a few seconds and then called again. There was no answer.
Romie turned to the others.
“What happened?”
“Maybe she just went behind a hill or something,” Brad said.
“We’re too late. It’s happening here too,” Ty said.
“She was talking about the same group that might be coming after Robby?” Brad asked.
Ty nodded.
“Wait, wait,” Tim said. “There’s a difference. The group up in West Valley is called The Origins. The woman on the radio…”
“Carrie,” Lisa filled in.
“Carrie said that they made her talk to a guy called The Origin. There’s a subtle difference there.”
“Which would mean that Cirie is not the real leader of the group,” Ty said.
“Right,” Tim said. “And, we would have to assume that their leader is franchising to a new town. It’s hard enough to believe that a cult leader was able to rope in so many people back home. I don’t understand how he managed to come down here and duplicate that success.”
“Let’s not pretend that we don’t understand what’s happening here,” Romie said.
They all turned to look at her.
“This is some supernatural bullshit, just like last time. Maybe people aren’t being snatched up into the sky, and we don’t know about any vines or balls of light, but there’s definitely some fuckery afoot.”
“And Robby’s still out there,” Brad said.
“There are plenty of good people still out there,” Tim said. “I just don’t know what we can do about it.”
“See, that’s the problem,” Romie said. “We don’t have one single clue or piece of information, and damn Sherlock is off doing who-knows-what.”
“Wait,” Lisa said. “Maybe we do have a clue.” She pointed at Brad.
Brad turned his hands up and shook his head.
“The Woodstock thing. The historical differences,” she said.
“I don’t see what the two have in common,” Brad said.
Lisa gestured to Tim and Ty. “Tell these two what we found,” she said.
Brad shrugged.
“Shouldn’t we be figuring out what our next move is?”
“Tell them.”
CHAPTER 20: NORTHAM
WHEN CARRIE’S HAND TOUCHED his, she saw a flash of white light. She could feel its warmth on her skin. This wasn’t the same heat as the humid, thick air of the greenhouse. This heat was pure and clean. It felt like she had stepped outside into the spring sun after a long winter.
By the time she opened her eyes, she was already smiling.
Janice was there in that light.
Tears sprang into Carrie’s eyes and then flowed easily down her cheeks as she and Janice came together in an embrace that was decades overdue.
“I’m so happy,” Carrie said. She wanted to tell Janice that she was sorry, but the words wouldn’t come out. This embrace was about joy, not about apologies. It would be wrong to taint it with begging forgiveness. There was no need for that.
They pulled apart and she saw the same emotions in Janice’s eyes.
“I love you,” Janice said.
Carrie’s response, “I love you too,” was lost in Janice’s shoulder as they hugged again.
“I have the best news for you,” Carrie said.
“Shhh,” Janice said. “There’s no need.”
It made perfect sense to Carrie as soon as Janice said the words. They were one—cemented together by pure light. There was no need to tell her anything at all. Nothing was more important than this reunion.
…but there is something more important. There’s my baby…
Carrie almost spoke the thought aloud and then it was swept away by another swell of love and happiness. Her physical body was an afterthought in this moment. There was no pain, disease, or hunger in this moment. There was no drug that could inspire this level of fulfillment. Perfect was too subtle a word.
“Where did you come from?” Carrie asked. “Where have you been?”
She regretted the question
s immediately. As soon as they left her lips, the questions brought a million more thoughts to mind. Her wonderful bliss was being weighed down by the threads of doubt that crept in from every side.
“You and I can always be together,” Janice said. “Remember that.”
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
Carrie opened her eyes and saw that she was no longer touching the hand of The Origin. His skin looked fine. His fingernails were a little dirty, but there was no sloughing skin. There were no exposed bones where his fingers should be. It must have been a trick of the light.
His slow eyes met hers when she finally looked at his face.
“Where is she?”
“She’s always with you. All you have to do is accept it.”
“What does that mean? I accept it. Why isn’t she here?”
Carrie glanced around to make sure that Janice was really gone. She had just been there a second before. Her disappearance was impossible.
“You need help?” The Origin asked.
“Yes. Please!”
“I’ve always found that the best way to truly learn something is to teach it,” he said.
Carrie kept quiet. She hoped that he would begin teaching her now. He obviously knew how she could get back to bliss, and she was dying to know the secret.
“Go out and find someone who needs to know what you know. When you teach them, then you will understand even more.”
He didn’t have to say more. She understood. To reunite with Janice again, all she had to do was help someone else. It made perfect sense. By giving, she would receive.
“Yes,” Carrie said.
“We’ll be around to help you whenever you need it. Whenever you need to know what to do, you will understand.”
“Yes.”
She would understand because he would have already told her. She turned and left him.
Outside the greenhouse, the others were waiting.
CHAPTER 21: MARYLAND
BY NOON, ROBBY WAS already wiped out. They had turned west and veered into Pennsylvania so they could avoid Baltimore on their way south. Even the roads that weren’t blocked were bumpy and in poor repair. It seemed like half of his time was spent navigating around impediments.
Gordie was no help. Every time they stopped, the dog was enthralled with exploring the new territory. Robby had to drag him back to the SUV so they could get back on the road.
When they stopped to find lunch, Robby filled up the SUV with a hand pump from buried tanks. The fuel looked fine. The vehicle disagreed. A mile down the road, it began to buck and knock. Robby stole the battery and they walked until they found another vehicle that he could jumpstart.
They finally found a diesel Hummer, standing proud in the center of a median. When Robby hooked jumper cables to the battery he had been carrying, static blared out from the radio. Seconds later, Robby had the thing running. It was full of fuel and even had an extra can strapped to the back.
Robby and Gordie climbed up into the Hummer and bounced through the tall grass until they were back on the road. They were in Maryland and headed south, right towards Washington.
“I’m not sleeping in the suburbs again,” Robby said. Gordie looked up at him. “If we don’t make it to the burn, we’re going to find a nice big patch of nothing and park this thing in the center.”
Gordie jumped between the seats and began to sniff around in the back of the Hummer. Robby had checked it out before they got in, but the dog’s interest back there was unsettling. He wondered if maybe he had missed something.
Robby looked forward and slammed on the brakes. Gordie plowed into the seat and then scrambled to the front again.
They watched through the windshield.
Brad always referred to the group of deer that hung out behind the library. This wasn’t a group. This was a herd. The low rumble of their hooves sounded like a building wave that never broke.
“That’s not right,” Robby said. The herd was nearly a dozen across and they were moving in a constant stream from west to east. He hadn’t even seen the head of the herd and hundreds must have passed by.
“Impossible.”
Gordie’s head turned left and right, left and right, as he followed the progress of the multitude.
“Does and fawns and bucks, all together, and it’s not fall. It doesn’t make sense. I thought they moved around in small bands. I thought they didn’t come together until fall.”
Finally, the column began to thin. Robby thought they were seeing the end of the herd. He rolled forward, easing towards the stragglers, not wanting to scare them. Brad had scared one of the deer behind the library one time and it had snapped its leg like a dry branch. The thing had run off, limping and bleeding, and they had never found the carcass. Robby imagined the animal suffering for hours until it eventually died of blood loss, exhaustion, and pain. He didn’t want that to happen to any of these deer just because they got freaked out by the giant black Hummer coming down the road.
The deer spotted him. They didn’t seem freaked out at all. They kept moving, trying to catch up with the rest of the herd.
Gordie sniffed at the window as Robby pulled up at the spot where they had crossed the highway. On either side, they could see the damage the deer had left behind. Grass was stomped down, small trees and bushes had been toppled, and the dirt was churned up.
“My father said he saw deer stampede on the day everyone disappeared, and I saw a herd cross the road like this back in Vermont. Both times, they were being chased.”
He and Gordie both looked the direction that the deer had come from.
“You see anything?”
Gordie sniffed at the top of the window.
“Me neither.”
They drove on.
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Robby crossed a long bridge into Virginia, trying to not look over the sides as he drove. If he was right, years before, Luke had given up on his trek to Washington near where Robby was currently driving. It was hard to say for sure—Luke was a damned liar.
As he drove south, he studied the sides of the road, looking for charred trees or houses. Luke had talked about fire driving him north. Robby couldn’t find any evidence to back up that story.
“Of course, there’s a chance that it wasn’t actually here,” he told Gordie. “I mean, here, but not exactly here.”
Gordie glanced at him.
“I know how it sounds, but hear me out. When we came south, we saw the Freedom Tower. The plaque was wrong, but it was there. I never doubted that it would be. It seemed too outlandish to expect that things could be that different. But from this side of the tunnel, it wasn’t there. Given that change, who knows what we’ll find down there.”
Robby stayed on the beltway that circled the city at a safe distance.
“We might have to go as far south as Richmond,” he told Gordie. “I hope not, but it’s tough to say.”
They passed over some big stretches of highway where the road had five lanes in either direction. It was tempting to ramp up his speed on the big ribbon of asphalt, but he didn’t. There were too many things that could go wrong. They drove for an hour until the beltway split off with I-95 going south again.
Robby wiped sweat from his brow. Gordie was panting.
“You need a water break?”
Robby slowed to a stop in the middle of the road. It was a good, flat area, with embankments that separated the highway from the landscape on either side. Robby shut off the engine. Standing on the hot road, just in front of the Hummer, the only sound was the wind and Gordie lapping at his bowl. Robby took a long pull from his bottled water. It tasted like warm plastic.
Gordie’s head came up and his ears perked just before Robby heard it.
The first yip was followed by a long howl. After that, the chorus started. The sound of coyotes filled the air.
After they stopped, there wasn’t a breath of air stirring. It seemed like even the wind was afraid to move.
“Get in the car
,” Robby said.
In a flash, they were back in the Hummer. Robby peered through the windows as Gordie sniffed at the air coming through the gap at the top.
“We didn’t have coyotes on the island, but there were some who lived behind my grandmother’s house. They made that sound at night. My grandmother said it was either a call to a kill, or a roll call.”
Gordie looked at him and then returned his nose to the window.
“Either way, don’t fall for it. She said they would send one of the females down to the house and try to lure away dogs. Then, when they had him surrounded in the woods, they would attack.”
Robby started the Hummer again and they rolled on.
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They didn’t make it to Richmond.
Robby made a mark on his map between Richmond and Fredericksburg. Just beyond a sign that read, “South Anna River,” the road dropped away to nothing.
“Stay here,” Robby said. He left the engine running. As soon as he opened his door and began to step out, Gordie was whining and trying to squeeze past him. Robby pulled the door shut again.
“Fine,” he said. He looped the leash through his own belt and then clipped it on the dog. “You can come, but you have to listen, okay?”
Gordie whined again as Robby shouldered his backpack.
Robby opened the door and they stepped out together.
They could smell the charred ground on the other side of the chasm. To Robby, it smelled like the grill when his father would clean it out in the spring.
Gordie sneezed.
On their side of the chasm, where trees still grew and the world looked perfectly ordinary, a pair of birds fought with angry tweets.
Robby saw a squirrel bounding through the underbrush.
“I’m guessing there’s nothing poisonous or radioactive,” he told Gordie. Robby reached in and shut off the Hummer, so he could take the keys. With the vehicle shut and locked, they inched towards the chasm.