Making God

by Stefan Petrucha

  *

  Not one of them stopped smiling when they saw the gun in Keech’s hand. In a way, it seemed so natural. Molloy even let out one of his famous, room-shaking bellows. But when Keech fired twice, hitting the red-haired giant first in the throat, then in the chest, all at once, the smiling stopped.

  Mannon, still sprawled on the couch, covered his chest with his arms, thinking they would stop the bullets from tearing into his heart. They did not.

  Bensen rose and raced towards the elevator. Before he could reach the call button, Keech shot him three times in the back.

  Only Bud Bean remained. He thought about running, but knew there was no place to go. Instead, he calmly walked up to Keech, and asked, “Why? No one else could hurt us except you.”

  “Ah, Bud,” Keech answered softly, “You were always my favorite, but, you know, when they finished building the pyramids, in order to ensure that all the secrets were kept safe, the slaves had to be put to death.”

  “You just killed three men. Why take the chance of getting caught?”

  Keech shook his head, “There is no chance of getting caught, Bud. You, of all people, should’ve guessed at least that much. This afternoon, a gentlemen, carrying this very gun, will turn himself in. You see, God told him we should die.”

  Bean nodded.

  Keech said, “I’m disappointed you don’t recognize the genius of this maneuver. You see, old friend, there was a backlash coming from the other institutionalized religions, from the governments. The signs were all over. It might have crushed us – dancing moon and all. Now I’ve pre-empted that. I’ve made the Church of the Ultimate Signifier, grand and large as it is, the victim of oppression. Once I’ve killed you and Calico, then wounded myself, I will have become the lucky survivor of a beleaguered religion. We will surge like blood in the polls.”

  “Calico, too?” Bean asked.

  “Oh, that was an eventuality,” Keech answered, “Didn’t you read When Prophecy Fails? We’ll peak soon, and still be only the fiftieth largest religion in the world. With her death, we’ll be headed for the top ten.”

  “But, Keech, we’ve won. What more could you possibly want?” Bean said.

  “Haven’t you read the book? I thought for sure you knew. Whatever we’ve won, we’ve won in this world. I’ve got my eyes on the next.”

  Bean scrunched up his face, perplexed, “What are you talking about?”

  Keech looked at him aghast, then, with great sympathy tucked him under the chin with the barrel of the gun and said, “You do disappoint. I want to become an Aeon.”

  With a little laugh, Bud Bean resigned himself to death, “Well then, my lord and master, I guess there’s nothing else to say.”

  “I appreciate your cooperation, as always,” Keech said, smiling.

  Bean shrugged, “Oh, I’ve already done everything I wanted to, thanks to you. What will it be, sir? In the back or in the chest?”

  Keech waved the gun, “Running away. I think that would be best. Otherwise they might suspect you knew the killer.”

  “And it’s so very clear that I don’t,” Bean said. He looked around the suite, at the bodies, at the walls, “Elevator door or window?”

  Keech nodded, impressed, “Window. Shows more of a sense of panic.”

  “Window it is,” Bensen said, turning, then he added, “A shame about Michael.”

  “Don’t worry about Michael. He’ll live forever, now, with me,” Keech said.

  “Hm. I hadn’t thought about that,” Bensen said, preparing to run, “Great Keech, will you think of us from time to time?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Bean shrugged, then made a few exaggerated leaps towards the window. The first shot hit just below the rib cage. A second severed his spinal cord. A third missed completely and shattered the window he was racing for.

  Down below, when the tiny pieces of glass rained for a moment on the pavement, those in the crowd close enough to see them, thought they were manna from heaven. Some fell to their knees and thanked Calico for the gift.

  Bean’s torso twitched a few times, then stopped. Keech was about to prod him with his foot when the sound of the elevator door opening made him whirl.

  Beth and Hapax stood at the edge of the suite, looking in, staring speechless at the bodies.

  “Who are you?” Keech hissed.

  Hapax looked up first.

  “My name is Hapax Trigenomen,” Hapax said, “I wrote the book.”

  19. Guns & Nutters

  Seeing the gun in his hand, Beth shot at Keech. He was the first human being she’d ever fired a gun at. She never dreamed in a million years that he wouldn’t fall down. The bullet caught him in the right shoulder, jerking his chest back and his arm forward. His gun flew across the room, landing near Molloy’s body on the couch. Keech twirled a bit from the force, but quickly recovered his balance and faced the two intruders with a wide, happy grin.

  “You know, my son would say that your presence here at this particular moment was an act of fate. A woman – FBI, perhaps? – whom I can now blame for the murders and, of course, the final piece of the puzzle, Mr. Trigenomen!” Keech said, shaking his head, almost laughing.

  Beth tried to sound authoritative, but her voice shook as much as her hands.

  “Don’t move, Mr. Keech,” she said, wondering why on earth she was being so deferential. She turned to her ex-boyfriend and shrilly barked, “Hapax, call the police!”

  Hapax didn’t move, instead he looked at Keech and said, “If it’s not fate, what is it?”

  “My will,” Keech said, shrugging as if it should be obvious.

  “Hapax, stop it!” Beth said, “It’s over. We saw him kill his entire Board of Directors. Call the police!”

  “Where’s Calico?” Hapax asked. He knew that once the police arrived he might not be able to see her. He was too close now to give up.

  Keech, taking a step forward, nodded towards a door at the opposite end of the suite, “In there. Not that she’ll do you much good. She hasn’t had much to say since I fucked her. I will still have to kill her, just the same. A shame, really, she was an excellent lay.”

  Though rattled by his tone, Beth was growing annoyed at being ignored. She was, after all, the one with the gun.

  “You’re not killing anyone,” she said, finally managing to hold her hand steady, “Stand right there. Hapax, the phone!”

  Keech took another step forward. His eyes darted back and forth between them, gauging the distance. At one point, his eyes met Hapax’ and paused. Keech smiled widely, showing his teeth. A glimpse of something in his eyes, or rather a glimpse of something missing in them, brought Hapax to his senses.

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Hapax said, “I’ll call the police.”

  As Hapax scanned the room for a phone, Keech’s eyes settled on Beth. He was still smiling, broader, if possible, as he watched her shaking hands.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name, my dear,” Keech said, stepping closer still.

  Beth was about to answer when, cat-like, Keech closed the distance between them. He slammed his good arm into the gun, sending it to the floor. Before Beth could react, his right fist hit her jaw, sending her sprawling to the ground, unconscious.

  Mid-way in his journey to the phone, Hapax turned towards the sound of the scuffle and discovered that he and Keech were now the only ones left standing.

  Keech seemed perfectly calm, almost gracious, as he bowed towards Hapax.

  “Mr. Trigenomen, I really must thank you. Your book is a true diamond. A cultural pinnacle. Quite a feat. Must have taken you ages to complete,” Keech said, adjusting his suit.

  “About a decade,” Hapax said numbly.

  “That’s all? It was 2500 years before the Bible was complete, if you count both testaments,” Keech said.

  “Yeah, well, I had a deadline,” Hapax said, “Unlike most, though, you seem to have understood it pretty well.”

  “Well enough,” Keech said,
looking around, “to get this far. But there is one thing I don’t understand, one question I believe only you can answer for me.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  Keech stepped close to Hapax. Keech was taller, and Hapax naturally slouched, so he had to look down to stare into his eyes.

  “How do you become an Aeon?”

  Hapax, terrified, turned nervously away in a manner that made him look as though he was lying.

  “Become an Aeon? That’s ridiculous. No one becomes an Aeon any more than a brick can become a house.”

  “Don’t play with me. I’m not one of the filthy masses. Calico’s becoming an Aeon. She lives in the minds of her followers,” Keech said.

  “She’s generating an Aeon, maybe, but she isn’t becoming one,” Hapax tried to explain, “What did you think, she really would be immortal? The whole point of my theory is that immortality, perfection, all that is an illusion, a mistake…”

  A flash of anger lit Keech’s face, derailing Hapax’ train of thought.

  “From the looks of you,” Keech said, “all you did for ten years was work on that book. Tsk-tsk. You shouldn’t have neglected your body so. How old do you think I am?”

  “Uh, I’ve never been very good at that sort of thing. 40?” Hapax ventured.

  “Thank-you. Fifty-five.” Keech said, “And you are?”

  “Pardon?”

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-one.”

  “Thirty-one. My, my. There you have it. I’m twenty-four years older than you, and I’ve taken a bullet in my shoulder. Under normal circumstances you should be able to mop the floor with me. Instead, seeing my physique, sensing my calm, you’re trembling at the thought that I might attack you,” Keech said.

  Hapax tried his best to look this way and that, but in the end, all he could see was Keech’s face and those dead, angry eyes.

  “We’ve made some different choices,” Hapax said.

  Keech punched Hapax in the stomach with his left hand. As the pain radiated, Hapax doubled over and sank to his knees. Keech grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head back so he could once again look him in the eyes.

  “And who do you think made the right choice?” Keech said, snarling.

  Before Hapax could respond, Keech punched him in the face. The force of the blow sent Hapax backwards, into an end table.

  As Hapax slid from the table to the floor, a cold wind hit him. Turning, he saw that the glass in the huge picture window was missing.

  A brass lamp, it’s shade torn, fell from the end table and into his shoulder. It almost rolled out the window, but the torn shade caught and held it, inches from Hapax’ hand.

  Keech kneeled down and whispered into his ear, “Now tell me, how do I become an Aeon?”

  Hapax gurgled in response. His head was on fire. Two teeth were rolling around freely in his mouth.

  “I’m not sure,” Hapax said. He grabbed the brass lamp, and as hard as he could, swung it at Keech’s face. The pathetic blow caught the Master of the Church on the edge of the chin, but left not so much as a mark.

  “What do you think you’re going to do with that?” Keech laughed.

  Hapax scrambled to his knees. Knowing a bit about physics, he moved his grip on the lamp to the wire edge.

  “I, uh, hope to break your skull with it,” Hapax said. Pulling as far back as he could, he swung the lamp in a wide arc towards Keech. This time, at the apogee of its arc, it caught Keech in the center of his right cheek. His face jerked to the left, and he dropped to the floor.

  Panting, Hapax struggled to his feet, using the lamp to prop himself up. He was hurt, badly, but functioning. Keech was still down, mostly from shock. Hapax staggered over to him, debating whether he should grab one of the guns on the floor or smack him again with the lamp. When he heard a strange half-growl come out of Keech’s mouth, he dropped the lamp and scrambled for the closest gun.

  Something approximating a howl rose from the throat of Albert Keech. In a single, animal movement, he snapped to his feet and turned towards Hapax. Hapax, grabbing the gun, fired and missed. It was the last chance he had to shoot. In seconds Keech grabbed Hapax by the shirt and hurled him bodily across the room, into the wall next to the open window. As the gun slipped from his useless hand, Hapax was convinced that at the very least, his right arm was broken.

  Before he could open his eyes, Keech was above him, lifting him, holding him sideways above his head, carrying him towards the window. He didn’t know if it was an after-effect of all the medication he’d been subjected to in the hospital, or if Keech’s eyes really were glowing red.

  Down below some of the followers made out a figure in the window. A cheer went up.

  “Now, piglet,” Keech said, “The source of the Aeons – it’s not some sort of mystic coalition of the spirit of the culture, it’s men, individual men – like me. One in a million, maybe one in a billion, who dare to step out from the comfort of the familiar and break the mold. When one man speaks a new word, the rest fall in line like chattel. They whisper it in fear and awe, over and over again, making the one who spoke it immortal. I am one of those men, piglet, and I will speak that new word.”

  Hapax stared down at a twenty story drop. The cheering crowd seemed to whisper in his ear.

  “Listen, you’re really wrong about this,” Hapax said, wheezing, “You’re thinking the old way. You’re caught in the Aeon that says “I” and thinks that speaking its own name makes it eternal. What you call your “self” is only a reflection of what you really are. What you really are is made up of pieces that have lived long before you and will live long after you. Unless and until you let go of the part of you that says “I”, you are and always will be nothing more than a point of intersection to forces you can’t even guess at…”

  “Wrong answer,” Keech said. He shifted back and prepared to hurl Hapax to his death.

  “Wait!” Hapax screamed, “Okay! Hey! You’re right! There’s a way! There’s a way!”

  Smiling, Keech lowered Hapax to the floor and patted him on the cheek.

  “Where there’s a will, there’s always a way,” Keech said, “What is it?”

  Hapax wiped the blood from his mouth, “Well, uh, your image, your voice have to be known by more than one hundred thousand people.”

  “Got that.”

  “And, uh, you have to die.”

  Keech glared at Hapax.

  “Hey, not everybody can do it. It requires that you associate yourself purely with your will. And you can’t just die, you have to die in such a way that you have the time, while you’re dying, to maneuver your consciousness, to make it reach past its senses, to transcend the body and the mind. You’ll see a color you’ve never seen before. There’ll be a tunnel. Get to the other side, you’re an Aeon.”

  “And then?”

  “Hey, I don’t even think you can get there from here. I mean, I can’t, you know what I’m saying? You, maybe you can.”

  Hapax motioned towards the open window.

  “You think I’m going to jump out of the window?” Keech said.

  “Me? I don’t think anything. You think everything. You’re the man,” Hapax said. He looked out at the crowd, “You’ve got at least ten thousand people out there now, all feeling a lot of love for Calico, for the Church, for you. Imagine the power that would be unleashed as they watched you, not fall, not die, but fly into a new world,” Hapax said. He gave Keech a little glance and saw that he was looking down at the crowd.

  Keech laughed. He turned to Hapax and laughed some more. Hapax smiled back, then, still smiling, he nodded towards the window.

  “Yes,” Keech said.

  “Yes,” Hapax repeated, nodding.

  “But…”

  “But?”

  Keech grabbed Hapax and pulled him towards the edge, “You’re going to come with me.”

  “Hey!” Hapax said, trying to pull away, I already told you, this isn’t my gig!”

  “As we fall
you will talk me through it. You will guide me to the next world. In exchange, when I am immortal, I will think of you from time to time,” Keech said.

  “No!” Hapax screamed. He felt his body lift slightly up. He felt Keech crouch about to leap. Down below the cheering grew louder. In a moment, there would only be falling, and then it would be over.

  Suddenly, Hapax heard a dull, rhythmic sound. Keech’s hands relaxed their grip. Hapax fell an inch to the ground, free. The expression on Keech’s face changed. The surviving head of the Church of the Ultimate Signifier seemed surprised. Curious at the strange sensation in his torso, Keech looked down towards his chest and saw blood soak through his shirt and start to drench the sides of his jacket.

  Hapax straightened himself and looked Keech in the eye.

  “By the way,” Hapax said, giving Keech a little push, “I lied.”

  As Albert Keech tumbled out the window, and felt the rush of air against him, he forced his mind to calm and reach inside itself. Desperate, he guided his soul through the inky blackness of consciousness, trying to find a way out. At the edge of his inner sight, he saw what he thought was the glimmer of a color he’d never seen before, but when the shadows came up on all sides, enveloping him with darkness, he realized he was wrong. As he tumbled, or the shadows rose, Keech caught a glimpse of a vast eternal pageant, a legion of more than men and more than women, to whom he was no more than a point of intersection. They were looking down at him, some smiling, some sad, but he wasn’t sure why. Had he made it? Was he one of them now?

  All at once, he was back in his body, watching the crowd and the concrete rise up to meet him at a dizzying speed. Feeling wet and cold and as lonely as Creation, he whispered “Michael.” And then the terrible burden of Keech’s head, and all the myriad worlds it contained, shattered as it hit the pavement, at one, at last, with God.

  Above, Hapax turned and saw Beth, standing, shaking, tears in her eyes, the smoke from her gun still rising.

  20. Anxiety of Authorship

  When Beth helped Hapax back towards the center of the suite, he did not sit down and rest as she had expected him to. Instead, he started to hobble towards Calico’s room.

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Where do you think? Calico. Have to tell her I wrote the book,” Hapax said.

  Beth was aghast. He hobbled halfway across the room before she came up with something to say.

  “What if she doesn’t believe you?” she asked.

  “I can recite that book line for line,” he said, “She will.”

  “And when everyone knows she’s not the source of the Great Word, that’ll bring the Church down?” Beth asked hopefully.

  This time, Hapax paused and turned back towards Beth, his brow furrowed in a familiar fashion, “Bring the Church down? Little late for that don’t you think? Look outside, listen to the shouts, the chants. The world saw the moon move, remember? I’m going in there because I intend to take my place at Mother Calico’s side.”

  “Hapax,” Beth said, “Haven’t you learned anything from all this?”

  “Like what, that it’s better to give than receive? Get real. Yeah, I learned something, I learned that I was right. My book started a religion. Ergo I should, at the very least, be a fucking millionaire. Don’t worry, I’m bound to be more benign than Mr. I am that I am, down there,” Hapax answered, nodding towards the broken window.

  “This isn’t about money, anymore, Hapax.”

  “You’re right. It’s about a dream I had.”

  “Look, maybe we are all made up of meta-personalities or Aeons or whatever, and maybe that’s a useful tool for understanding certain facets of human existence, but goddamn it, so what? It isn’t the beginning or end of all things. When you get up in the morning, you’ve still got to make coffee! Hapax! It’s over. Let it end. Just walk away and forget it. Get a life.”

  Hapax shook his head, and pushed his body forward. He paused when he reached the door and laid his forehead against it.

  “You know,” he said, “after we made love, while I was lying there in my post-coital glow, I really thought about what it would be like to let go of this, forget about it, pursue a different kind of life, maybe one with you, with struggles and hardships and loyalty and betrayal and love and hate and children and old age and death and all that bullshit. For a little while there, I thought it would be good. But, I don’t know, maybe I’m too damaged to change, or maybe I’ve led too much of my life to turn back on it now.”

  “Of course you can, it's up to you,” Beth said, “Switch Aeons.”

  She walked up to him and put her hand on his shoulder. He smiled, picked his head up from the door and looked at her.

  “Yeah, and maybe if I’d just joined Adult Children of Alcoholics none of this would have happened. But this is the way the world came to me, attics and books and ideas. Maybe it broke me, or maybe it just made me into something a little harder to recognize.”

  “You could decide...” Beth began.

  “Beth, Beth. This is my decision. There’s no conflict between free will and destiny here. I want to go through that door. I love you. I’ll see you again, if I can – but I am going to claim what’s mine.”

  Above the chanting crowd, Beth heard sirens. She was surprised they’d taken this long.

  “Hapax, there’s still something I don’t understand. Why would someone continue believing in something when all the evidence contradicts it?”

  Hapax smiled again.

  “Why do you believe in me when I’m obviously insane? Why believe in your own mundane existence when all the evidence indicates that it’s pointless?”

  “Because I don’t have a choice.”

  “There you go. Now ask yourself why you don’t have a choice and you’ll have the answer to your question.”

  The sirens grew louder.

  “Better go in,” she said.

  As he stood at the door to his dream, she noticed he hadn’t quite lost his self-conscious demeanor, but he did seem oddly calm.

  He opened the door, stepped inside, then gently closed it behind him.