by Poss, Bryant
20
Time passed as it always had, regardless of what state the world was in for whatever species happened to be dominant at the time or if there was nothing ruling at all, or nothing to rule. The universe cared naught for it, this quark in the center of a quasar, this Planck time some link in the chain of an age. But here the time was, nonetheless. He couldn’t care about the time if his life depended on it. All Cillian O’Malley cared about was finding the man who had taken his love away from him, the love of someone who had replaced the love of another, but his love nonetheless, and now that was all that occupied his brain. He sat on the edge of the bed that belonged to the man at the top of the stairs, and he looked through that man’s DVD collection.
There were sporadic gunshots, the glow of the burning gas station coming through the window, and Cillian sat there sifting through so many movies he remembered, some he couldn’t, and tried to piece together the chain of events that brought him to this point. He remembered Lotus in the tub, remembered watching her undress at the pizzeria the first time he had really laid eyes on her. He saw Devon at the lockers looking for something impossible. He remembered the smell of Alice’s breath as she leaned into him and told him not to speak before she kissed him. He remembered again that breath in the teacher’s office while the others were asleep. So many smells then, but he couldn’t remember specifically, perhaps because his brain didn’t work as it should at the time. He saw her blonde hair then stained with crimson, painted in blood, the harsh gray metal of the machete blade offsetting it. Cillian couldn’t help but see it now as he looked at the light glinting off the cheap plastic of the DVD. No noise coming close to him because his perception had been all but cut off. The creaking of the bed didn’t even faze him as he stared at his hand. Several more minutes passed, more gunshots, voices from far away, the fire from the gas station never wanting to die. To his left, he rubbed his hand over the decorative ball of wood on the post of the bed’s footboard, cloven almost in two with the force of something very hard, very sharp.
“She was my favorite one, you know.” There was no question in the voice behind him. Cillian didn’t even bother to turn in his direction. The voice was gruff, but soft now, like a sullen giant. It sounded as if it were aimed toward the floor. “My whole life I’ve had a problem with my temper, with impulse control they used to call it.” The voice neither grew louder nor shifted, but Cillian still looked at the cut in the wood, picking at it with his fingernail.
“I used to get her to read books to me until I went to sleep then she would take herself right down to the basement and lock herself up right by herself.” There were sniffs and coughs now between his words. “Sometimes I’d wake up in broad daylight and she’d be there.” Cillian felt where the finger was pointing behind him. “Right there at the foot of the bed. Sleeping like a little dog or something.”
There was a moment of silence that filled the room, came in like a curious father and sat between them looking to see if there was some wrongdoing to attend to. It sat there keeping the both of them still for some time. There was breathing in the room. The shifting of feet, the occasional gunshot from outside, but neither moved to acknowledge as this father watched them, bore down on them like the mischievous children that they were. When he grew bored or satisfied with the situation, the silence up and left. It was Cillian who took the first opportunity to see him out.
“Then why let her go out with the others?” He asked without turning around. At this point he’d pulled the slide back on the Glock and let it rest on the mattress beside him. “You say she was your favorite, that she was something special among the rest, yet you let her go out. Wasn’t that how she left you, by fleeing the truck like the others?”
“She didn’t have to flee that truck,” Marshal’s voice grew ever so subtly as if he were actually getting defensive. “She could come and go as she pleased.” The mattress shifted, and Cillian could tell that he’d gotten up, the soft soles of his work boots falling on the floor with noticeable mass. “No, I believe it was that other one was the reason she left, that mixed boy.”
“Devon,” Cillian said flatly.
“Yeah, that’s the one.” Marshal leaned against the wall beside the television, but Cillian didn’t look up at him. He just fumbled with the Glock in his hand, picking at the lettering on it like a hangnail. “He’s soft, that one. Couldn’t take anything, and she babied him. She had a natural maternal way about h—”
“Alice,” Cillian hissed, and Marshal looked over at him, their eyes meeting for the first time.
“I know her name.”
“Then say it,” Cillian’s words still hissing.
“Is that gonna bring her back?” Marshal turned his eyes back to the wall, his voice settling. “Anyway, I never told her where she could and couldn’t go. She only slept down there with them to comfort them. I didn’t like her being around Slayton though. I’ve been wondering what to do about that one.”
“You don’t have to worry about that anymore,” Cillian said, pointing the barrel of the gun at Marshal like it was a finger. “You’re about to not have to worry about anything anymore.” Cillian stood up and took a step away from the bed. “Whole world has gone to hell. Most of the people left in it are now what used to be people. Spazzos and pokies. Runners and walkers, whatever you want to call them. Try to tear you to pieces if they can get their hands on you. Can’t even walk down the street anymore. Can’t do anything. And what happens? We have to worry about people like you. Idiots who take advantage of the situation just like Jack and Roger. Just like Kurtz.”
“Who?” Marshal asked, but Cillian ignored him.
“I say people like you because there have got to be others. Instead of reestablishing order, or trying to make the world right again, let’s take over a military compound built brick by brick for everyone’s safety and use it for ourselves. Let’s make a kindergarten room to play out our sick ideas. Let’s—”
“You talk like a damn grown man, you know that? You talk like the world was right to begin with,” Marshal stood up straight from the wall, his size becoming clear to Cillian for the first time. He wondered if one bullet would even stop him. “You know what I did in the world, boy? I was a correctional officer. I did that while in the reserves. You know what I saw every damn day of the week?”
“Criminals,” Cillian raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah, I saw criminals all right. I saw murderers and rapists. Child molesters and drug dealers. Bank robbers and pimps. You want to know what I didn’t see?” He walked to the other side of the bed and looked out the window where the glow of the gas station still shone. “I didn’t see not one banker. Didn’t see the first politician. Saw one lawyer but that’s only because he was a child molester who was too stupid not to get caught. Didn’t see any of the people most responsible for the lovely world that was so right as you describe it. Almost every single one I saw was in there for one thing, not all of them but most. They were in there because of money for one reason or another. You know who had the money? All those people I didn’t see in there. It was all a joke. Tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and all that jazz. Money was the axle on which this dirt ball spun. Green paper, red, yellow, blue, purple depending on where you were at, a symbol of fairness that only legitimized slave labor. Funny thing is wasn’t but about one percent who wasn’t the slaves. Only a kid would talk about how fair the world was and keep a straight face.”
“There was law,” Cillian raised his voice. “There was order.”
“There’s law now,” Marshal grinned. “There’s order. There’s a pecking order. But it ain’t based on how much paper you’re worth. Not anymore. It’s based on how much you’re willing to take.”
“At the expense of others,” Cillian raised the gun to the level of Marshal’s head.
“There is no other expense!” Marshal turned on him with rage in his eyes. “That’s the way it was before, and that’s the way it is now! The power has simply changed han
ds! You don’t get it.” He calmed himself and went back to looking out the window. “It’s not your fault you don’t get it. You’re just a kid. If you’d lived as an adult in that world you’re so fond of you’d have learned different.”
Cillian thought he saw a shadow move outside the door to the hallway, but he couldn’t be sure. With the light coming in from the burning gas station, there was no way to follow anything. He stepped over to the window on the other side of the bed and glanced out, but he quickly looked back at Marshal who was standing across the bed from him. The gun he let rest by his side.
“It sounds like you’ve even convinced yourself,” Cillian said, watching him.
“I don’t need any convincing. I’ve believed all that for a long time. The world was broken, and even though the money hounds gave everybody just enough scraps from the table to keep them from rising up, it was eventually all gonna crash. It was all gonna fall apart. It just happened to be this shit storm that done it. If it hadn’t been this, it would’ve been a revolution.”
“Yeah,” Cillian snorted. “This is exactly like a revolution. Except for the part where the random majority stops what they’re doing and try to eat everybody else.”
“You still think it was random?” Marshal asked casually, still looking out the window. “Were the people who turned random? I’ve got a theory about that myself. I think it was a mutation saved those who lived, the ones who can think. Notice anything about everybody’s eyes? Anyway, I’m just saying that something was eventually going to happen, and this is it.”
“So now people can just swim in the id, is that it? They can have people treat them like gods, keep sex slaves,” Cillian motioned toward the door on the other side of the room. “Make little kid classrooms for role play.”
“It’s simpler to say that now we can just dispense with all the bullshit,” Marshal turned and faced him head on for the first time. “Everything’s changed, but everything’s stayed the same.”
“Famous last words,” Cillian said, and he raised the Glock to Marshal’s head.
The big man snapped his fingers seemingly without moving a muscle, and that’s when the shot came. It came from the door, or it seemed like it came from the door, but Cillian couldn’t tell. There seemed to be a concussion from that direction. It was either a flash from the door or whatever hit him, but that was it, the flash. After that, there was only darkness.
Mumbling, shuffling of feet, pressure. No dreams came to Cillian now, so deep was he that there was only the darkness. Someone arguing, a scuffle. Light from the fire in the window. Another light came on, this one brighter. The hand rough and strong, turning it this way and that.
“What the hell is this?” Marshal asked, his green eyes squinting at the thing in his hand. “A golf ball? He turned it over then placed it in his shirt pocket. “Get up, Gordon. Why’d you shoot him in the goddamn head? You know you can’t do that shit even with a rubber bullet.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
“I’m sorry, Marshal,” the man’s voice was shaky, a goose egg already rising on his forehead. “He’s still breathing. He’ll be alright.”
“What’s the situation downstairs?” Marshal asked with tears in his eyes, completely ignoring the man’s apology. He rubbed his knuckles on his right hand.
“Emily’s still there. Looks like they couldn’t get her out. All the rest are gone. They shot their way out, the young ones and Ben.”
“That sonofabitch,” Marshal hissed. “Take this one down there too, Gordy.” His voice started to quiver, and he dropped his head. “Y’all get the front sealed and stay alert. I want everybody on shifts, half on half off until I say otherwise. Let that fire burn itself out or take the world with it. Hell, let it burn. It’ll attract the sumbitches long enough to secure the fence.”
“Sure thing, boss. About this one,” He motioned to Cillian, and ducked his head as if ashamed.
“Are none of the cells usable?”
“Not right now, boss.”
Marshal glanced at the door at the far side of the room. “Leave him with me. I’ll secure him. And Gordon, I don’t want to be disturbed.”
With that, the man made his way out, securing the door behind him. Marshal wiped at the tears he now let slide down his cheeks, looking at Cillian with both disgust and longing. After a few minutes, he pulled a chain from underneath the bed and used it to secure the boy’s feet and hands, a slender chain, one used in the old world to secure a swing to a tree limb or perhaps protect a bicycle. After that, he locked the door to the school room with Cillian secure behind it and made his way to the locker. Several things were missing he saw. The hatred in him was acidic, nothing he wouldn’t do to have Ben in the room with him, but he soon let all that go. He reached to the back, past all the familiar orange bottles filled to the cap with prescription drugs and grabbed one of the glass vials. With his teeth, he opened one of the disposable hypodermic needles and spit the plastic wrapping on the floor. Drawing out a generous dose of Demerol, he gently eased the needle into his naturally protruding vein inside his elbow. There was less than a pinch, a nurse he could’ve been in a former life. He then palmed two white pills and swallowed them with the remains of a bottle of wine beside the bed. Falling on top of the covers, Marshal let the events of the day sweep him away. All his loves gone, his favorite by his own hand. He saw Ben with the horns of a devil and glowing eyes come in and take them away. He saw the boy Cillian.
After that, darkness for so long. A man came to him; it looked to be Frank. His face was painted like a clown, and he did cartwheels around him, mocking him it seemed. This image melted, becoming one of Gordon juggling apples and knives, throwing each at him, seemingly alternating at random. A crowd formed behind the entertainers. They were all there in the crowd. All his lovies. All those he’d trusted to get him through the agony of a day. Doug came in too, but he could no longer stand, dragging himself along the floor almost like a man who had melted. Beyond him the wall faded away at one section, one glassless window that appeared out of nowhere and without shape. Through here he could see the ocean, the beach. He could hear it, smell it, all the fantastic sensations associated with that place, even the heat from the sun on his face seemed real.
Seagulls sang against the backdrop of rolling waves, blowing wind, shifting sand. The man Marshal looked up and down the beach, noting now that he was barefoot and shirtless, his usually hairy torso now bare and smooth with youth. Not a melanoma to be seen, not a wrinkle, or a belly, only a few freckles. So new was this skin, and nothing hurt. Nothing hurt. His heart beat so easily in his chest he knew that if he were to take off at a full sprint down the beach, it would take very little out of him, recovery but a few breaths away. So blessed was youth, and he was so happy to feel it again. Others came from down the beach now on both sides, silhouettes appearing out of nowhere like specters. They came to him, some running and skipping, doing cartwheels without a care in the world. Alice led the way from one direction and Slayton from the other, Daja just behind him. They were all there. All his lovies, and they were happy, happy to see him.
“Do you have it?” Alice asked, out of breath from her run. She looked up at him, the sun bright in her eyes, her hair washed and beautiful.
“What?” He asked, his high voice hilarious in his ears.
“Do you have it?” Slayton asked after, his voice nervous and excited.
“Have what?”
“Do you have it?”
“Do you have it?”
“Do you have it?”
They all asked him now, their voices blending together. Pointing at him in unison, pointing at his hand, he raised it up slowly out in front of them and opened his tightly clasped fingers to reveal the ball, the Luck as it was labeled. The eye was bright in the sun, and they all looked at it with awe, gasping first then laughing, jumping around him now, cartwheels and flips all around like a tiny car burst forth with clowns in the middle of the big top. Joining their jubilation, he jumped too
, he flipped, he cartwheeled, and they were all so pleased like they’d accomplished some magnificent feat set forth in front of them, something that wasn’t supposed to be done. Then he stopped. Alice came down from a handstand now with blood spewing from her nose, from her mouth, down her chest like a mouthful of fruit punch, and she looked at him, the machete in her head, almost comical like a fake arrow one places on the head in class for a laugh. She looked at him smiling while the blood flowed, and they all stopped to look at him. They came at him like slow ones now, like pokies, and he turned to run, but first he reared back his hand and threw the ball, the Luck. He threw it at Alice, but it only passed through her and into the water, sucked out to sea by the first wave that crashed on it.
After that, Marshal became uneasy. It seemed he could feel the sweat beading on his forehead and his chest. The room didn’t carry the same comfort as it normally did. Somewhere in the night, between the shades of darkness, he saw the outline of a woman, the figure of one on the mud flap of a semi but in reverse. She was darkness against the light, a shadow where one should not be, and he looked at her longingly, as if she would come to him and make it all better. These drugs were good he thought. He would stay on them until the pain subsided, until he could begin again, but it was then that the shadow spoke to him, roused him from a dreamy slumber that he was barely aware was part of him.
“Hey,” her voice said. It seemed to be in his ear, but echoed from far away. There was heat emanating from it, feverish. There were several attempts before he bothered to respond.
“Hey, you sack uh shit,” this time it seemed closer. Her lips were touching his ear, and they were hot, the breath had the smell of sickness on it. He smelled sweat.