The Seventh Day

by Scott Shepherd

  Laura was a different story. If she had her way, she’d be riding right beside him. Joad had to convince her to stay by the campfire.

  “There’s always a chance Fixer could find his way back here,” Joad had told her. “It’d be good if someone were here when that happened.”

  Laura had countered by suggesting that Sayers remain behind while she accompanied Joad. Joad thought this a bad idea, for no other reason than if the brothers were still alive and he caught up with them. Laura had tempted fate enough, having already slipped through their grips three times. Joad wanted to make sure the girl still had a few cat’s lives left before reaching adulthood. As impetuous as Laura was, she was going to need them.

  He finally pointed out Doc was under the weather and it would good for Laura to tend to him. In the meantime, he’d give himself a couple of days to find Fixer and they should hang tight.

  “What if you don’t find him?”

  “I come back and we push on as planned.” There was enough firmness in his voice that the girl didn’t argue the point.

  “And if you don’t get back?”

  Leave it to Doc Sunshine to look on the bright side of life.

  “You go to Nemo without me,” Joad told Sayers. He reminded them of how to get there, but could see Sayers wasn’t listening. Something was definitely up with the man; Joad only hoped it wasn’t contagious.

  But Laura hung on every word and he knew she’d remember. She didn’t look happy.

  “I don’t want to go to Nemo without you.”

  “I’m hoping you won’t have to. Not after traveling this long and far.” These were maybe the truest words he’d ever spoken. Joad gave her a slight smile. “But in case I don’t …”

  “Joad …”

  He didn’t let her finish the thought. “In case I don’t, make sure and find Becky. Tell her I did my damnedest trying to get there.”

  Tears formed in Laura’s eyes.

  Joad left before they started to fall.

  Now, riding toward the setting sun, he realized he was once again heading away from his ultimate destination. He wondered if he was meant never to make it home, if maybe a reunion with his dear Rebecca was something Fate wasn’t going to allow.

  It wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed his mind.

  When he rolled onto the beach, he wasn’t sure it was the same one. It was pitch black, the moon doing its monthly disappearing act behind the sun while the aurora borealis was lost in the clouds that hung above the shore.

  For all he knew, Joad had drifted south instead of northwest—he could have been somewhere low in the Southern Hemisphere. He’d done his best trying to calculate direction by following the sun, but days upon days of clinging to a broken boat’s planks had started to mess with his head. Living on rainwater and the few fish he caught had sapped most of his strength and what was left of his sanity. He could be forgiven for being a lousy compass.

  He’d been able to make out the island shortly before sunset—it was the first land he’d seen in almost half a year. By the time he made it to shore, the sun had set behind him and he crawled far enough up the beach to avoid being sucked back into the ocean by the riptide. He fell fully asleep for the first time in ages, finally not worrying about turning the wrong way and drowning before realizing he’d fallen off the planks into the ocean.

  Naturally, he dreamed of Becky.

  And of all things, their wedding.

  They hadn’t actually eloped. But Joad knew his father didn’t approve and would do anything to stop their union.

  So Joad surprised her with two tickets and they flew on a whim to the Big Island.

  They walked the long white beach, and he got down on his knees and asked for her hand. She cried and said yes. When he took her to the point and she saw the Hawaiian minister framed against a tropical sunset, amidst a circle of tiki torches with gardenia petals strewn all around, she cried some more. When asked by the minister if she’d take this man’s hand in holy matrimony, she said yes again.

  They sat on the hotel balcony for a week overlooking the massive white beach. They watched the bright turquoise surf crash on the shore in the morning, rode it with glee in the afternoon, then returned to their honeymoon perch to wait for the sun to sink behind it, drinking mai tais and making plans for a future.

  A future that lasted a blissful while, until the Purple came.

  The morning sun beat down on Joad’s face. He awoke on land for the first time since shoving away from the Southeast Asian jungles so many months before.

  When he sat up and looked around, he was astonished to see it was all still there.

  The long crescent-shaped white beach. The hotel on the rocks above it.

  He could even make out the balcony on the upper floor, where he’d spent the happiest week of his life.

  Everything was there. Except Rebecca.

  Or a single living soul.

  What else was new?

  He spent the day wandering the property. The hotel, once a brilliant white and orange, had faded to okra rust. The restaurants, where they’d sat for hours reading papers in the morning and eating fresh fruit, were shells of themselves, completely abandoned. The golf course, which had surrounded the hotel like an emerald necklace, had returned to the lava base from which it had been carved; with no greenskeepers to water it three times a day, it resembled a black moon with pockets of sand in which golfers once flailed away.

  Even the promontory where they’d been wed had lost its green luster, although it still overlooked a beautiful bay and manmade seawall above which foursomes used to play their games.

  Joad made his way to the top floor of the hotel. Back to the balcony he had sat on so long ago, when circumstances like these were the musings of fantasy writers and doomsday conspirators.

  He sat on a chair and thought about cruel irony. Five years had passed since The Seventh Day, and his reward for trying to get back home? A tease of what was once paradise but now was nothing more than a way station thousands of miles and an ocean away from his true love.

  He fell asleep on the balcony and dreamed of Nemo.

  But not the hometown he remembered: the one with a Main Street, an actual band shell, block parties, and library functions.

  He dreamt of a home decimated like the rest of the world he’d seen.

  He was relieved when he was wakened by a squawk.

  Joad opened his eyes. Two feet away, perched on the balcony, was a parrot with a coat of twenty vibrant colors.

  He suddenly remembered years before, walking down each morning to breakfast and seeing a similar bird on a tree limb, ruffling its feathers and squawking its limited vocabulary at the guests.

  Joad wondered if this was the same bird and if it had survived all this time, like him.

  Whether it was or not, its appearance did something else.

  It wiped the melancholy from his heart.

  In that moment, he believed the arduous journey had been worth every painful mile. It was like getting a message from Becky, who was beyond his reach. Becky, who he had to keep heading for on hope alone.

  The bird (it couldn’t be the same one, could it?) stared at him, and fluttered away.

  Later that day, Joad made his way into the bowels of the hotel and found what had once been the gym. The glass had been broken but there was still one Nautilus machine shoved up against a wall. He struggled to pull it outside onto the cobbled stone, so he could watch the ocean while using it to regain his strength.

  For the next few weeks, he lived off fruit from the trees and pumped iron to prepare for a journey he was loath to take. Each night, he sat on their balcony, wondering if Becky were still home waiting for him.

  He’d fall asleep and hope to be awoken by the parrot.

  He didn’t see it again for a month.

  He’d been taking his daily walk on the white beach. Back and forth, until he’d done five miles. He almost stepped on the bird as it washed ashore. The ocean critters had
been busy. Most of its plumage was gone.

  Joad buried it where he had fallen asleep his first night on the beach.

  He said a silent prayer, grateful to it for giving him strength to move on.

  He found an old paddleboard in the back of the surf shack. The next day, he waded into the turquoise sea and headed east.

  Back toward Nemo.

  To Becky.

  It hadn’t been the last detour on the way home. He’d been thrown off the path more than a few times. But he’d somehow always managed to get back on it.

  Looking for Fixer was one more obstacle on the road to the beautiful reward that he prayed lay at the end.

  When he made it back to the crater, Joad wasn’t surprised to see it deserted. Neither was he taken aback by the absence of the dirt mound—it had exploded and shiny rocks reflected the moonlight streaming from above.

  Joad sat on the edge of the crater, wondering what to do next.

  He thought about the parrot on the island, and wished for a similar omen pointing him in the proper direction.

  But the bird had probably just been a bird. Joad had been a desperate man looking for some sort of hope to cling to.

  He smiled to himself. Look where that had gotten him.

  He became aware of a rhythmic bumping.

  It didn’t sound like thunder. Certainly not the kind Primo made. No, it was something else.

  Joad’s eyes went to the spacecraft. Which appeared as dead as when he’d first seen it. Before Fixer had gotten the Retriever doing his bidding.

  The Retriever.

  Joad edged closer to the ship.

  The thumping sound came from it.

  Joad thought it must be a hangover effect from the workout Fixer had given it. But then he noticed the Retriever’s fingers moving—beating gently on the ground in a steady rhythm.

  Beating a pattern. A repeated pattern.

  A familiar one from his army days.

  Morse code.

  Four letters. Pause. Two more. Pause. Then, repeated.

  The first four letters told him he wasn’t crazy.

  J-O-A-D.

  It was the other two that confused him.

  S-W.

  But only for a moment. Then he got it. S-W was actually one word.

  Southwest.

  25

  He was shocked that they didn’t kill him on the spot.

  It wasn’t until the next morning that Fixer got an idea of what they had in store for him. By that time, they’d traveled dozens of miles, Secundo having draped him over the front of his horse; clamping down on Fixer’s neck with his meaty hand, Secundo did not allow him to budge an inch. Not that he was in any shape to try anything. It was true they had spared him at least for now, but the brothers had gotten in more than their fair share of licks. Each time Fixer had been close to passing out, Primo would order his blond brother to ease back on the pounding he was doling out. Fixer would roll over in the dirt, coughing up whatever was left of his churning insides. And then the moment he straightened up, the deluge of fists would start all over again. After a while, Fixer got smart and decided not to get up anymore.

  He had poked his head up when they reached the crater housing the Strangers’ spacecraft. For a moment, he was certain they’d reached their destination, as the brothers halted their horses and Primo dismounted. The oldest brother moved to confer with Secundo, but kept his voice low. Fixer strained to hear what they were saying, but could only make out a few words. They seemed to be debating the direction to head, and when Primo finally uttered the word “southwest,” Fixer knew he had at least a little while longer to live.

  It was then he came up with the idea of leaving a message for Joad.

  Fixer knew he was taking a lot for granted. He wasn’t sure Joad would even come looking for him; he and the others probably thought Fixer ditched them for a better offer. But he remembered Joad saying something about a tank and the army, so Fixer assumed he must have studied Morse Code at some point. (Fixer had picked it up as a child when he got into ham radios for a little while. The radio craze lasted only a short time but the Morse stayed with him). He knew he had to be subtle, lest the brothers get a clue as to what he was doing. As a result, he latched onto the Retriever while Primo and Secundo were figuring out which way to head. Fixer concentrated on the spacecraft’s arm that had split their brother Trey in two. He was willing to bet the brothers weren’t Morse aficionados, and that even if they noticed the sudden rhythmic movement coming from the Retriever, they’d think it was due to some half-life from Fixer resurrecting the thing the day before.

  As far as Fixer could tell, his actions escaped their attention completely. He hoped Joad—should he come that way—would be a little more aware.

  A lot to count on, but it was the best Fixer could come up with on such short notice.

  They rode through the night and Fixer actually fell asleep along the way. He didn’t realize it until he heard Primo repeatedly calling him, shortly after the sun rose in the east.

  He thought it best to feign sleep, but that lasted all of a few seconds. Secundo grabbed hold of his neck and squeezed tight. “My brother’s speaking to you.”

  “What?” Fixer mumbled, acting fuzzy.

  “How do you do it?” asked Primo.

  Fixer thought about pretending he didn’t understand what Primo was talking about, but then realized he’d probably get another slap to the head. And Secundo didn’t pull his punches.

  “I expect the same way you make it rain whenever you want.”

  “Not so easily,” replied Primo.

  “You oughta see the nosebleeds I get. Sometimes, I feel like my head is gonna tear right off.”

  “Splitting headache, right?” Primo actually cracked a smile. “Guess every Gift comes with a price.”

  Secundo chuckled.

  Fixer stayed silent. Which turned out to be a good thing.

  “Shut up!” Primo yelled at his brother.

  Wow. Talk about blowing hot and cold, thought Fixer. No wonder the guy’s self-made storms seemed to be always on the verge of spinning out of control.

  Primo continued to ride in silence for another mile or so. Fixer, thinking the conversation might be over, shut his eyes and tried to will the whole situation away.

  “So. You make stuff work.”

  So much for peace and quiet.

  “Not just anything. It has to be electrical.”

  Primo thought about it for a moment. “Does size matter?”

  Fixer didn’t like the sound of that. “Guess that depends. What are you thinking?”

  This time the smile was just plain wicked.

  “You’ll see.”

  You gotta be shittin’ me.

  That was the first thought that flew through Fixer’s head when they reached their destination.

  A graveyard.

  Not your normal headstones-with-dead-people-stashed-beneath-them type of graveyard. It lay next to a small muddy pond and looked like a burial ground for abandoned machine parts. Discarded pieces of any type of junk imaginable lay scattered across a field of red-loamed soil, pointing toward the heavens. It reminded Fixer of pictures he’d seen of the Cadillac Ranch—deep in the heart of what used to be the Great State of Texas—with vintage Caddies sticking out of the ground, their grills buried deep beneath the surface. It looked like someone had blown them up and let them land wherever the heck they wanted.

  “What is this place?” asked Fixer.

  “A dumping ground,” answered Primo. He motioned for Secundo to dismount and bring Fixer off the horse with him.

  “No kidding,” said Fixer, continuing to look around.

  “For the Strangers.”

  The idea had never even occurred to Fixer. But once broached, he comprehended it immediately.

  “The stuff they didn’t want.”

  Primo nodded. “The things they couldn’t make work.”

  Fixer could see the way this was heading. And he didn’t like it o
ne bit.

  “Probably with good reason,” Fixer suggested, hoping to dissuade Primo from whatever plan he was hatching.

  “You’re called Fixer because that’s what you do. Fix stuff, right?”

  “Well … it’s been a while.”

  “Not what you said when you were hanging upside down on our ship.” Primo leaned closer. The smile was gone, replaced by implicit threat. “The ship I was forced to burn because of you.”

  “Now, that’s not technically true,” countered Fixer. That was all he got out. Suddenly, he was back on the ground, courtesy of Secundo’s clenched fist, which had swiped across the side of the head.

  Primo continued acting like Secundo had just swatted down a fly. “You told me you rebuilt engines for a living.”

  Fixer remembered telling Primo almost everything while up on the grappling hook. He’d spilled out his life story. Well, everything except his Gift. A lot of good holding out had done.

  “I did. But there’s nothing to make things go now,” explained Fixer.

  “Except for people like you and me.” Primo’s shadow hovered menacingly above him. “I need a replacement for my ship. And you’re going to build it.”

  Fixer sat up and rubbed his aching head. He took in the debris: abandoned wheel rims, steering wheels, brake drums, crunched engine parts. “Never gonna happen. Half the stuff you’d need isn’t here. Plus, I wouldn’t have any idea how to make a sail.”

  Primo grabbed Fixer by the neck and shook him, a rumble of thunder accompanying the outburst.

  “Did I say anything about making a boat? I said a replacement.”

  Fixer, struggling to breathe, managed to squeak out a response.

  “Okay! Okay! Like what?”

  Primo released his grip, leaving Fixer gasping for air.

  “A car.”

  “You want me to build you a car?” Fixer pointed at the debris field. “Out of this shit?”

  “I don’t care what it looks like. Just build it for speed and make sure it can handle a kick-ass engine.”