by J L Forrest
She looked right at me.
I would write that my knees turned to water, but one should be careful with metaphors in worlds with magic. Similes could become realities.
I knew her, of course, at once recalled her name.
Cailín.
As she held my gaze, the world remade itself in silence, as if God had crafted it from dead brick, as if God had shut my ears too. Only slowly did I realize a Horned Lord was speaking, his voice booming across the schoolyard, rising to the walls, reaching into the city’s heart. He wasn’t shouting, no. He could have been whispering, but his every word travelled everywhere, as if to every onlooker at once.
LORD I: Red for power! Blue for order! White for mourning! Black for death! Remember these, Prince George—
LORD II: Prince George, you needn’t fear. Prince George, the Elder Gods have returned to us, will carry us into our future, will set right all things which man has ruined. Rejoice! The Earth will not die, but live on. Prince George, all you must do is renounce everything you believe, pledge everything you are to the Gods, and accompany us. Prince George, do this and nothing will ever again frighten you, nothing will ever hurt you, nothing will ever stand between you and Paradise on Earth.
LORD I: Resist us, deny the Elder Gods, and—
This first Lord gestured to the tongueless, eyeless, earless, armless herd. No one misunderstood his meaning. He clapped twice, and every one of the herd dropped to their knees. The dogs retreated and gathered behind Cailín.
RAY: Bett, we have to get the hell out of here.
From their robes the Lords drew road flares and, as if by sorcery, the flares erupted into red flame. The marshals and guards opened fire, riddling the Lords with bullets, lead tearing through leather, flesh, and bone.
Not enough, not nearly.
Before the Lords fell, those flares arced into the black-painted huddle of broken humans. Before they landed, a breeze carried a phosphorous sting to my nostrils, and I placed the scent of oil and pitch.
Flames rolled through the killing floor, the heat palpable. Standing at the fence line, the explosion kissed my face, singeing my hair and eyebrows. The pork stink of burnt hair overwhelmed me. The burning victims scattered, colliding with each other, scrambling, falling, rolling, rising again and hopping in every direction. Many crashed into the fences, rebounding from the chain link, spattering the grass with sizzling fire.
Others hit the old schoolhouse, Prince George’s customs house. Fire rolled up its brick-clad sides, caressed the window frames, and licked the eaves.
The marshals shot everything which moved, and the machine guns unloaded. The Horned Lords fell, Lord One laughing as he dropped to his knees, laughing until a round cleaved his skull, throwing the antlers from his headdress. Bullets ripped through the burning men, though most had already collapsed, squirming or merely twitching. More bullets came, and more and more, ricocheting from asphalt and concrete, pinging from the customs building, which joined the conflagration. Bullets sparked from steel posts. Bullets rattled. Bullets zinged.
Ray ducked, prone, to the grass. A bullet rang by my ear, and another clipped my cheek before I regained my senses, before I could pull my gaze from Cailín, who stood on the other side of the fray, the dogs at her feet with their tails between their legs.
I lay beside Ray. The gunfire continued in bursts, petered, and finally ended. Greasy plague-black smoke roiled across the yard, through the streets, into the sky. The crackle of burning bodies overtook all other sound, undergirded by a growing roar as the northwest façade of the building succumbed.
I spoke to Ray.
I shook Ray.
I compressed Ray’s chest.
I breathed into Ray’s mouth.
I pushed my hands to Ray’s bullet-torn side and his blood washed them.
I lay across Ray.
I cried on Ray.
I lost Ray.
I looked up, meeting Cailín’s unbroken gaze. Smoke thickened between us. The marshals took custody of her and led her away.
I crouched, alone.
I wish Ray and I hadn’t fought.
Not today.
XI. Visions, Part II
A dream—
RAY: Jesus, Bett, that didn’t go so well, did it?
ME: I’m so sorry, Ray.
RAY: Think nothing of it. Life is short.
ME: It was a good plan you had, trying to make it to Fairbanks.
RAY: The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.
ME: You weren’t the one with an English degree, Ray. I’m thinking this is my dream, not yours, and you’re only a version of myself.
RAY: Maybe, but it was still a fine plan.
ME: It was.
RAY: Head south, Bett. Go with Robert, Faith, Garret, and Sadzie. They’re goodhearted people.
ME: You think there’s really a space elevator in San Francisco?
RAY: I know there is, baby. I can see it from here.
XII. Prison Bars
Day 162—
After I buried Raymond in the fields west of Prince George, I agreed to trek south with Robert’s group, though it might be more accurate to say they agreed to take me in. Fifth wheel. Fifth dimension. Fifth column. Fifth to a party of four. They need to arrange vehicles, fuel, and other details, but they mean to leave tomorrow.
At noon, I wandered Prince George by myself. Once I stopped crying—I wasn’t sure I could cry these days, but it turns out I can—I sorted Ray’s possessions, repacked what I needed with my own gear, then bartered the rest of his trappings for dried fish, ammunition, and more tampons.
The marshals brought the Horned Lords’ sheepdogs to the city kennel. One had been injured, so they shot it. A local shepherd bought two. The fourth cowered in a corner, curled up on a pad of cold concrete. I traded six Big Turk candy bars for the dog. I fed him and he decided I was his best friend.
After that, I visited the jail, on Queensway. Only one marshal guarded the cells, which held a few drunks and Cailín. The marshal let me enter the jail, though this broke all the rules, and to convince him I gave him more than I wanted.
On one side of the prison bars, I sat in a chair. On the other, Cailín rested on a cot.
The kohl had smeared from around her eyes, trailing her cheeks. Her irises were a stupidly bright blue. Her lips were dark violet.
CAILÍN: Bettina.
ME: How is this possible? I even know the smell of you—
CAILÍN: The Horned Lords weren’t lying about the Elder Gods, and with the Elder Gods come miracles.
ME: You were in my dream.
CAILÍN: Was it a dream?
ME: Yes.
CAILÍN: Shame, it was sexy, you’re sexy.
ME: Is your accent Scottish?
CAILÍN: Don’t be silly. Irish.
ME: How did you get here?
CAILÍN: Long story. When Blight hit, I was in Canada for work.
ME: What’re the marshals going to do with you?
CAILÍN: Torture me, I expect, try to learn everything about the Horned Lords that I know, make me spill my secrets.
ME: Why don’t you tell them now?
CAILÍN: I’ve already have, but they didn’t believe half of it, and to be sure they’ll torture me regardless.
ME: Then what?
CAILÍN: Hang me. Burn me? I couldn’t see that end so clearly.
ME: Did you do those horrible things to those people? Cut off their arms? Take out their eyes? All that?
CAILÍN: Would you believe me if I said no?
ME: Yes.
CAILÍN: Then no.
ME: Why did the Horned Lords tie your wrists and ankles?
CAILÍN: Because they didn’t want me to escape.
ME: Why did they bring you along?
CAILÍN: Because the Elder Gods give women different gifts than men, and ours are rarer.
ME: What gifts?
CAILÍN: The future, the past, the distant, the different. We see, hear, and
speak what the men cannot.
ME: I don’t understand.
Her smile was like an Irish sunrise in July.
ME: Honestly, I’d get you out of this if I could.
CAILÍN: You can.
ME: How?
She told me. Then a raven landed on the window of her cell.
No shit—she called him Nevermore.
XIII. Going South
Day 163—
Yesterday, before the market closed, I traded Raymond’s rifle to the town. Prince George’s monarch forbids arms trading between private citizens. Only the town can trade in weapons.
The town gave me gold, and I exchanged the gold to a silversmith who gave me polished earrings, a necklace, and a shiny belt buckle. Following Cailín’s instruction, I left the silver on a tree stump in Connaught Hill Park. As the sun set, I observed the stump from a park bench.
Eventually, a conspiracy of ravens, twenty at least, collected the silver and flew away.
Today, I recovered my weapons from Prince George’s marshals, joined with Robert’s group, and we began south on Highway 97. I wasn’t the fifth wheel but the seventh. Robert had hired two heavies, Cuth and Frank, who provided three trucks, six drums of petrol, and weapons. Tall and overweight, Cuth and Frank struck me as Albertan countryside-hayseed rednecks, but they came as a package deal with the vehicles. They drank accordingly, snoring away the night before our departure.
Before dawn, I did two things—
First, I watched the ravens gather at the jailhouse.
Second, I repacked a trunk in the bed of the third truck.
It’s two thousand two hundred kilometers from Prince George to San Francisco. Before the Third Pulse, we might have made the drive in two days. After it, with disintegrating road conditions and detours at Bellingham, Everett, Seattle, Kent, Tacoma, Olympia, and Portland, the trip might have taken six. After Blight, it’s anyone’s guess. Robert hopes we can make it in ten.
Truck one—Cuth, Faith, and Robert.
Truck two—Garret and Sadzie.
Truck three—Frank, me, and the dog.
On the way from town, as we eased onto the highway, Frank played music on his truck’s sound system. The first tunes I’d heard in five months, dreamy and digital, far too polished and high tech for seven grubby survivalists on their way into to the Wastes. I’d assumed Frank would be a country-and-western guy—people can surprise you.
I told him the music was nice and asked him what it was.
“When the World Ends,” he said, giving me the track title.
“Catchy,” he said.
“Kind of pulls you in and won’t let you go,” he said, looking down the road.
Won’t let you go.
I wondered if he was still talking about the song, or about this world which is chewing itself up and us along with it. I sort of wished it would chew faster, to save me from what was coming next.
XIV. Priestess
Day 165—
We’re lucky to be alive, but any dreams I had of safety in numbers have melted down like any no-longer-maintained uranium reactor anywhere on Earth. I had hoped my stage-magician trick would go over better, but instead it ended more like Roy Horn in the tiger’s mouth.
Is this making any sense?
Let me back up.
Humans need to pee and will continue producing urine even when they’re not drinking. Between urination, respiration, and perspiration, the body can lose two litres per day, more with exercise. That goes on for more than a couple of days, and your average person is in a lot of trouble. Assuming you want to keep someone alive, this makes human trafficking more difficult than, say, smuggling cocaine.
Eventually, I had to unpack the trunk from the bed of truck three. From the start, I hadn’t been able to store more than a days’ water in it, not if I was going to leave room for a body, and I hadn’t found anything like a catheter for trade anywhere in Prince George.
Let me back up again.
A raven brought the jail key to Cailín, while scores more distracted the guard. By the time he raised the alarm, by the time marshals would have searched the town, we were navigating the potholes of Highway 97 southbound. All seven of us, as far as six of us were concerned.
That was two days ago.
Earlier today, at the junction to the Trans-Canada Highway, besides a burnt-out town once known as Hope, Cailín and I spent twenty minutes on our knees with Frank and Cuth holding pistols to our heads. Garret shouted that they couldn’t kill me, I shouted that they couldn’t kill Cailín, Frank shouted that I was a lying hussy who needed to pay, Cuth shouted that Cailín was a goddamned witch who had to die, and Faith implored us all to accept Jesus into our hearts.
Robert listened quietly, which was weird, because he exudes more leader mojo than the rest put together. Sadzie sat on the wrecked-out foundation wall of a razed suburban house, smoking a cigarette, studiously ignoring us.
She looked over her shoulder only when Robert made the declaration:
“We’re not killing them.”
It’s cold tonight. I’ve wrapped myself in every layer I own, and I’m still shivering. They’ve tied Cailín to the tree beside me and, while they’ve left me my pack and my hands, they’ve taken my guns and cinched my ankles together. Frank watches us, sitting in a foldout chair with his pistol in his lap. In a few hours, Frank will turn in, then Garret or one of the others will take watch.
The sheepdog has curled up between us, and he’s warm.
Whenever Robert, Faith, Garret, Frank, or Cuth talk, they whisper. Sadzie brings us food, but she doesn’t say anything.
They’re still trying to decide what to do with us.
Frank has closed his eyes and he’s snoring.
ME: What’s the dog’s name?
CAILÍN: He doesn’t have one.
ME: Are you a witch?
CAILÍN: A witch is something people call uppity women they don’t like.
ME: That’s one definition.
CAILÍN: I’m a priestess.
ME: Of?
CAILÍN: These days I serve many Gods, but Nodens most of all.
ME: Nodens? Who’s that?
CAILÍN: The Horned Lord.
ME: You mean like those men you were with back in Prince George?
CAILÍN: No, nothing like them. Nodens is not a man. Nodens is nothing like a man.
ME: Why didn’t you go back north?
CAILÍN: You’re going to California, aren’t you?
ME: I suppose so.
CAILÍN: Then I’m going to California too. I dreamed my path, and my path is with you.
ME: Why me?
CAILÍN: Ask Nodens.
Frank woke up, snorted, and told us to shut up. Far above us in the night sky, a StratoJumper boomed, taking another load of rich people to orbit.
XV. Fire in the Sky
Day 167—
Her taste is like licorice or marshmallow.
An odd, pleasant, lingering flavor.
Last night was as cold as the night before, but I was much warmer. The sheepdog slept to my right, against my sleeping bag. Cailín slept inside the bag, pressed against me, so warm that after she felt asleep I unzipped the side of the bag to cool down. Before that we had sex on the blankets, under the stars, with the forest breezes caressing our skin.
The sex felt like the most natural thing in the world. Of course we were going to have sex. We’d already had sex.
Except we hadn’t.
Except we had.
Hadn’t we?
In the trees around us, the ravens roosted, imbued with their own particular spook factor. Nearby slept Nevermore, biggest of them all, a bird as large as a Maine Coon. Between the dog and ravens, I figure no one can sneak up on us, which is fortunate because Robert and company absconded with my guns and ammunition, even my knife.
Assholes.
“Was all this in your visions?” I asked Cailín.
“It doesn’t work that way,” she answered. “I t
hought I would hang in Prince George.”
Long before dawn, the southern sky turned orange. I woke Cailín.
ME: Fire.
CAILÍN: The wind is blowing south.
ME: It could turn on us. Shouldn’t we pack up camp?
CAILÍN: The land says it’s going south.
ME: Okay.
CAILÍN: How happy are you right now?
I didn’t know how to answer. Happy, in a sense. Ray hasn’t been in the ground a week, but I knew him for less than five months, and I’ve cried for Ray already. Before Blight, I had parents, siblings, and lovers, all of whom I knew for years. Those tears came early and dried themselves out.
How happy are you right now?
Is that a metaphor?
She’s right—the wind is northerly. If we strike out overland in the dark, we’re likely as not to either run across the fire’s path or blunder into some other problem.
I kiss her throat, her chin, her peculiar-tasting mouth.
Wildfires lend the southern horizon a romantic glow.
XVI. Burnt Offerings
Day 170—
Would we have died too? We’ll never know.
Following the railroad from Hope, we walked two days without sighting another human, though yesterday we spotted a military drone patrolling nearer the coast. It paid no attention to us.
Best we can tell from the map, north of Abbotsford we’ll have to cut across overgrown farmland. From there, rails cross the completely inconsequential U.S. border.
Build a wall, they once said.
Stop immigration, they once said.
Nearing the former United States, we entered the gravitational pull of Vancouver’s ruins, and the abandoned vehicles and burnt-out buildings multiplied. We would have appreciated off-road bikes or other practical vehicles, but no luck.