The Last Mayor Box Set

by Michael John Grist

  She looked down at her palms.

  Fawn, she thought, as Drake lifted the microphone to her lips. Isabelline, she thought, as he clicked the button to transmit.

  Her voice came out. She didn't think she had the strength, but she did.

  She told them to come home.

  12. ROBERT

  In the RV she lay and stared at the ceiling. It was beige and plain. How many times had it been cleaned, she wondered? How many people had climbed up and dusted it, scrubbed it, rubbed away the marks that time laid everywhere like murky fingerprints?

  How many women had been prisoners here. How many men.

  Her fingers worked at the blankets. She couldn't lie beneath them, it was too hot. The smell of vomit was gone; she'd left that behind in the Theater, and there was nothing more for her to bring up.

  Fawn. Isabelline.

  She saw the defeat in Amo's eyes again, and repeated her betrayal as if on a loop.

  "Sacramento, this is New LA," she'd said. "We're all right. We're here at the Theater, everything is fine, except Amo. It was a false alarm, but he's sick. We need you to come back. We need a second opinion, Keeshom's done all he can."

  Tomas' response had first been disbelieving, then exuberant. Their celebrations had rung utterly hollow in Lara's ears, words she barely heard, because all that mattered was the defiance dying in Amo's eyes.

  "We're here," she'd said again, drawing them in. "Come on home."

  She gagged a little now. The need came and went. That she'd done this now, it changed who she was. It couldn't be denied. Drake owned her just as he owned the others, she'd walked right into his cage and there was no way out. She envisaged all her children to come, by him and the other men. She gave them names, with every name a lash upon her back.

  Zander. Gregory. Petitia. Galete.

  Four. Seven. Why not ten?

  It repelled her. No punishment could suffice for what she'd done, except perhaps for the punishment that awaited her. Ten children by different men. Ten children she would try to raise, and try to love, and try to keep alive, all the while preparing them for the half-life of slavery awaiting them under Drake's control. That was all the hope Drake brought.

  And she'd done it. She'd made the choice, because the alternative terrified her to the bone. Was she a coward to fear for Amo, and the wild madness in his rolling eyes? To fear for her children, while Drake's calm, insistent voice droned on above them, saying reality was a different thing to what she'd always known. Terrified at Tomas' happiness when he heard her lying, traitor's words.

  She gagged.

  She was a child again. She was picking up the paper and reading about the boys who had lynched Walter King, for nothing, and feeling that same rage, good for nothing, though now it was turned against herself. She was a confederate. She was an appeaser. She'd always thought she was strong, but that wasn't true. Walking up to Drake after the explosion, she'd thought she was so brave.

  But no. She just hadn't lost enough. Five people only, and hadn't she been bold to face the abuser? To look him in the eye and tell him no?

  She shuddered. The old panic came back and she was too tired to push it back. It came like the time she saw one of those boys as a man, walking freely on the street in New York. Had he been whistling as he went, not a care in the world? It seemed so, now. Her drained, aching body began to shake. Her breathing lapsed out of her control. She began to drown on air.

  * * *

  She stood on the beach looking out on the ocean, in the middle of the day. It was moments before or moments after the devastation of LA, there was no way to tell. The air felt charged, like the dust smell in the rain before thunder strikes. The waves lapped and she knew what was happening behind her. She'd seen it for months; the end of New LA.

  "Here again," Robert said from behind.

  Far above a flyspeck plane flew by, leaving a thin white contrail, which quickly faded.

  "We're in the plane," she said flatly.

  "You and me," Robert answered. His dark arm lifted and pointed. "Up there, always circling. Ringside seats. And here too."

  Lara snorted. Even in the dream it didn't make sense. "I don't want this."

  "No," Robert agreed.

  Lara walked toward the water. The hot sand scalded her bare feet. Down she went through the detritus line of old yoghurt pots and rusted cans, to the frothy warm shallows. She didn't bother rolling up her jeans, just strode right in.

  "You tried to saved me once," Robert called. "Out there, in the night. But it wasn't the point. You weren't there to save me, but for something else."

  She waded deeper and the water rose up her thighs. Perhaps this way there could be relief.

  "I heard you were planning more children," he said, distant now, his voice echoey over the water. "You and Amo. Would it mean much if I tell you there's one already growing, a seed in your belly? That you're pregnant."

  She didn't slow down. There was so much noise now and she was too tired. She didn't want to see the world end another time. She couldn't watch fire and ruin and the great white eye take the city once more, even if it meant leaving her children behind. She only wanted to be away. She wanted to feel clean.

  "It's not real, you know," Robert's voice came over the water. "You can drown here and you won't die. You know that, Lara. It's not enough to die here."

  She kept on anyway. It was true she'd tried to save him in the dark, on the beach, or some vision of him; splashing in the depths, calling her name. Now he said that wasn't even the point. The water rose up her chest, up her neck, over her mouth and she kept on.

  This was what the zombies did. They walked right on in and they never stopped. The water covered her eyes.

  "It doesn't count," Robert said. "It's not why you're here."

  The water pulled away from her eyes, and she was standing in the Hollywood Hills, next to the sign that read Y O D, one of Amo's favorite places.

  LA around her was on fire.

  The decadent homes of the actors in Hollywoodland below burned like Roman Candles, all different colors as the fire found their toxic pool lilos and their rooftop solar installations, their carbon fiber scooters and four-man trampolines. The fire spread along Cahuenga Avenue like a snake as the asphalt itself caught fire, leaking out into an inferno.

  Hollywood, Central LA and Koreatown were a sheet of flames.

  Fairfax burned. The LaBrea tar pits burned. CBS Television City burned, and the Museum of Art, and Silver Lake and Echo Park burned, and Dodger Stadium was a bonfire shooting up like a booster rocket. The Walt Disney Concert Hall was a giant toasted s'more. The place where the Chinese Theater should be was a yellow knot of heat. Little Armenia burned. The Griffith Observatory looked lit in neon.

  Everything burned, even the YOD and the grass underfoot, her own skin, the sky. Her body cast a shadow on the fire, and the shadow burned too.

  "Come on," said Robert, at her elbow. "See."

  She turned. Griffith Park sparked and roared. Glendale had melted into a liquid soup of putty-wet cement. Burbank was the filament in a 100-watt bulb. Universal Studios to the west was one large blot of silver from all the molten celluloid. Toluca Lake and North Hollywood were a swamp of brilliant wildfire spewing noxious black fumes into the sky in wriggling, coded trails.

  The parks on hilltops burned, like signal-fires sending a message to each other. Pasadena was a dustbowl conflagration. Mt. San Antonio was a pillar of orange and yellow. Northridge and Reseda chewed angrily at the sky, like gangrenous wounds. Santa Monica and Redondo Beach fled to the ocean where they sizzled and sparked and the water evaporated, revealing coral and trash and the scored underground furrows of the ocean's bed.

  Lara watched. She'd seen the destruction of New LA before, but not like this. She held up her hands and saw her fingers drip wet skin like candlewax.

  "Come on," said Robert.

  She took a step, and she was down by the Chinese Theater. The RVs were there, lined up in their neat prison ro
ws, each burning white-hot like smoke off dry ice. Cries rang out but she saw no people, only the sooty shadows their bodies left behind on the bubbling forecourt. The theater's bright red façade came alive, as dragons of raw yellow fire weaved in and out of the great roof's eaves, gnawing their way through wood, brick and stone.

  "Look," Robert said. He was pointing up. Lara looked to the sky, and saw there the great white eye. It dropped her to her knees. Beneath it she was struck dumb; could only pray.

  Robert touched her shoulder. "Come on."

  The heat vanished, as did LA. Now she was sitting in a familiar place, deeply lodged in a slack, comfortable leather sofa. Lights in copper frames hung from the ceiling by colorful fabric-covered cables. The walls were teal and decked out with raw wood shelving, filled with books and bits of salvage art made from broken engine parts, bolts and tools. There was a wooden bar behind which hung large chalkboards, upon which were written the specials of the day.

  She took a breath.

  "Sir Clowdesley," Robert said. He was sitting opposite her. "Lara. Are you comfortable?"

  She looked around, hoping perhaps to see Amo here somewhere. Maybe if he was there they could sit together one final time. He'd be working on his comics, and she'd go over, intending to possibly flirt, to spy on him a little, to see what he was typing away at. It would be a fresh beginning.

  "Yes," she said. "Robert, it's just right."

  He smiled. "Sweetheart. Lara. Come on."

  The place changed. The light bulbs died and some of them cracked. The blackboards fell away, moved to where they partially blocked up the windows. One had tipped backward and on it she read a large, sun-faded L. The tables and chairs were scattered randomly and there were books and pages lying all around, mixed in with the detritus of old sandwich wrappers, magazine papers and plastic water bottles.

  There were bones too, and dried, leathery corpses, their eyes no longer glowing. Bullet casings glinted copper and rust in the narrow channels of light sneaking in through the half-covered windows. The air smelled old and dry.

  She let out a sad breath. "Ah."

  "Ah," Robert echoed. "But all things die, Lara. It's part of life. We both know that. What good does fearing it do? What good has your panic done you, all these long years?"

  She looked at him. Even here, in this place, she knew he was only a ghost.

  "Am I?" he asked. "Only a ghost? Maybe. But then why am I afraid, Lara? Afraid of what comes next, just like I was afraid in that pit? Nobody wants to die. Nobody goes to their death with ease, but those that go, who face it and find a way to use it, they have a chance at being remembered. Wouldn't you want that chance? Isn't that something good you can do?"

  She wasn't sure. Who could say. "I don't want this."

  "No. But who does, Lara? The world is not the place you think it is. At once it's warmer, kinder, more loving than you could ever believe. At the same time it's full of terrors you can't imagine, terrors you don't even see coming."

  "What terrors?"

  He smiled. "The white eye. All you can do is run, and run, and keep on running."

  She let her hands drop in her lap. She knew this was a fever dream brought on by the panic attack. Her brain was short on oxygen and it was throwing up random images from the past, perhaps to help shock her back into her body, perhaps for no reason at all.

  "You've always had this choice," Robert said. "Live or die. And you tried. So many times you tried, but sometimes it's not enough to try, Lara. Sometimes you just have to lose, and do that as well as you can. Because it's happening again, and again you're allowing it. Walter King. Everything is a choice, Lara."

  She started at the name, coming from Robert's mouth. "What choice? I've never had a choice."

  Robert leaned closer. "I made that choice. In Julio's pit with the demon's infection tearing through me, I chose to die well. I earned minutes only, but enough to buy New LA a chance. If I did it, you can too."

  Lara shook her head. "I don't. I can't? What choice, Robert? There's nothing here, only death. Slavery. There's nothing."

  "That's the choice. Sweetheart, aren't there things worse than dying? Aren't there fates we need to embrace, faith we need to hold onto tight? Isn't there a path to the future, even if you'll never be there?"

  She was crying. He pressed a rope into her hands, and without thinking she found herself ascending to the bar top. The rope felt comforting in her hands.

  "That's my girl," Robert said.

  She strung the noose round one of the ceiling girders, then tightened the loop around her neck. Nothing was clear, but perhaps this was her fate. This was the death Walter King had faced, and why should she be any more fortunate than him? Life was life, and not one person got out of it alive. At least she wouldn't be alone. Even Sophia hadn't been alone, with her chorus of the ocean gathered at the door to her semi trailer.

  But she was alone. Robert was gone.

  Around her the decrepit coffee shop was silent. All of New York was a mausoleum, and a light wind rustled through the yellowed pages of old comic books. She'd delayed for too long already. Perhaps Robert was right, and this really was the only choice, what he'd been guiding her toward all this time.

  "Goodbye," she said to nobody, and jumped.

  * * *

  In the RV she gasped awake. The covers around her were damp with sweat. It was dark, though from outside there came the sound of a high, sweet voice singing quietly to itself.

  "Frère Jacques, frère Jacques, dormez-vous, dormez-vous?"

  It was the voice of a child, and it was beautiful. It pulled tears from Lara's stinging eyes, and she rolled from the bed to her knees. Her body was full of stiffness and pain but she managed to crawl closer to the door, where she pressed her head low to the stairs, to the crack under the door where the sound leaked in like fresh air.

  And she listened.

  "Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines! Ding, dang, dong. Ding, dang, dong."

  Ring the bells, Brother Jacques. Ring the bells and wake up. She'd been asleep for so long, and at last she was awake.

  How old was the child outside, set to guard her door? Six, perhaps. No older than seven. A child with a gun who sang to herself on guard duty. A child beholden to Drake, perhaps one of his direct progeny, perhaps a stepdaughter. All were his, though. All lived by his grace, all carried his bombs within them, at any moment fit to be used for destruction, all expendable at the altar of his grand dream.

  It wasn't living. It wasn't really surviving. What world would these children inherit, shaped in this way? For all the horrors Amo had committed, he'd always raised his gaze to a higher ideal. The love in what he'd done had been so apparent, and she'd been proud to be a part of it, standing by his side. He was her husband, the father of her children, and of that she could be proud.

  So she could not stand for this. If dying for a dream was all she could do, the only message she could send, then wasn't that better than endorsing the nightmare? It was a choice that wasn't a choice, a protest that wasn't even a protest, but it was the only weapon she had left.

  The child started singing again.

  It was time to face her demons. Walter King had done it. Robert had done it. Perhaps everything in her life had led up to this point; just the world showing her the depths she would have to plumb.

  It made things clear. It was an example Amo had set a long time ago in Iowa, for which she'd loved him from the start. All or nothing, in or out, that was what he'd taught her and it was a debt long due. Some things were worse than dying.

  She lay there and cried and listened to the little girl's voice. So beautiful. So sad.

  13. WITZGENSTEIN

  Witzgenstein came.

  It was early afternoon. Outside the RV there was movement and sound; raised voices at times, vehicles moving, wood being cut, hammers driving in nails. Through the RV's one side window she saw Drake's children playing hopscotch on the Theater's forecourt, skipping over the numbered blocks scrawled in t
heir childish hand in red and yellow chalk.

  Their guns rested nearby. Their soft toys lay in a jumble.

  They were just children.

  Even sitting was painful, but she sat. Lydia had brought her food with the dawn, a large bottle of water, and she'd poured it away. She'd left the food untouched. She wasn't even hungry.

  It was all right. Amo was out there and he'd understand. It wasn't a question of giving him strength, trying to remain strong so he could be strong too. What remained for either of them, now, other than this?

  What mattered was their children. She'd seen the crowd before the fire, as Drake whipped them up. They'd been turning. These would be the new educators. This would be the new history, with the old history erased.

  She imagined the lines of Drake's cancer stretching back along the cairn trail like poison pumping into a Death Row inmate, driven by the full weight of an entire State, a government, three hundred million people.

  It couldn't be stopped. Her and Amo's legacy would be erased. She couldn't know if her death would even have any impact. Becoming a martyr in a meaningful way seemed so hard. But it was her choice.

  Outside the children skipped and teased each other, and she wondered at past civilizations who had all raised their children to believe a certain thing. The mind was so flexible, so easily shifted. Perhaps that was Lars Mecklarin's greatest mistake; not allowing childbirth in his MARS3000 bunker. Maybe then there could have been hope.

  But now? Her mind drifted on an ocean of past examples.

  Hitler had raised his nation's children. The Hitler youth, they were called. They were shown videos that told them a particularly cruel form of 'the truth', and they believed it until the war ended and the Hitler youth was no more, because Hitler was dead. In the years that followed, after the downfall of his eternal Reich, these 'Hitler youth' were shown more videos of another 'truth', one that heaped them with guilt and responsibility, but what was this de-programming other than replacing one form of propaganda with another? Who had a direct line to what was right and just, really, and how did you know for sure what was really true, when you were in the thick of one type of 'truth'?