The Unfortunate Expiration of Mr David S Sparks

by William F Aicher

  “Jesus,” said David, spitting a piece of shell on the ground. “You’re not much older than I am.”

  “City boy, huh?”

  “Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know. Don’t know much about myself, or have any idea what the hell’s going on. One day I woke up in a field and a crazy bastard with a chainsaw saved me from a snake. Ever since, I’ve been kind of coasting along, going with the flow of things—along for the ride—while my memories seem to be coming back.” David tapped his right index finger on his temple. “It’s a mess in here. But supposedly the people in that fishbowl city you mentioned are working on fixing things for me. I’m hoping when I finish whatever the hell I’m out here for and can finally go back, they’ll have some answers for me. In the meantime…” David held up his hands and shrugged.

  “Pretty laissez-faire way of looking at things.”

  “Pragmatic.”

  The old man nodded. “Where again did you say you was going when you went down?”

  “Chicago. At least that’s what they told me. Said we were going home. About all I could get out of them.”

  The man took another bite of eggs and through his full mouth asked, “Who’s this them you keep talking about.”

  David hesitated. “Not sure if I should tell you.”

  “Boy, we’re out in the middle of nowhere. Don’t you think if I was gonna do something nefarious I’d-a done it by now?”

  “Well, probably… but you also don’t know anything about me. I could be evil.”

  “Ain’t no way you’re evil. Ain’t no evil man ever come out this far west by himself. No, not without a whole company of fellas and not without better supplies and …” he paused, “… travel arrangements. Way I figure, if you were on your way to Chicago, you were on your way to the settlement at Garfield. Probably the only place anybody’d ever want to go in Chicago.”

  David grabbed a final handful of eggs, stuffed them into his mouth, put his bowl back on the ground and washed the bite down with a drink of water. “You know anyone by the name of Calvin? Or Bethany?”

  At the mention of the names, the man jumped from his seat. “Calvin, you mean Calvin Simon? And Bethany Trask? Well I’ll be goddammed! You are on your way to Garfield!”

  “I take it you know them?”

  “Hell, everybody out these parts knows them. Least, anybody who cares a good god damn about anything,” said Ghost. “Well, well. A man of The Cause. You are lucky I found you—both lucky I found you to help, but also lucky I wasn’t some man of evil myself. You go saying those names so nonchalant in front of a Progressive and you’d find yourself right back in that city of yours. Right back in there locked in a little glass bowl all your own!”

  David stood and faced the path toward the lake where they watched the sun rise. He scratched absently under his hair at the port in the back of his head, pausing when his fingers touched the spot where the cold metal met his scalp. He fingered the port gently, probing to discover what might still lie inside, waiting to be uncovered.

  “They’re not gonna be so welcoming of that,” said Ghost.

  His right index finger still prodding the hollow of the empty port, David turned his head to Ghost. The man had turned around on the log and was poking at the remaining coals of the fire, separating the logs from one another and smothering the last licks of flame so the wood could be used again—not wasted on a fire that served no purpose.

  “Felt it last night when I was checking if you was still alive.” Ghost scraped the red coals from what remained of a piece of firewood, separating them from the wood so they could burn out on their own without further consuming their host. “Don’t worry—everything’s clear in there. Ain’t no way for a worm get in—those ports seal up full tight—only open when they sense an incoming input with matching decryption keys. No—nothing in or out you can be sure of that.”

  “It’s not what it looks like, Ghost,” said David.

  “Don’t look like nothing but a hole in yer head, far as I’m concerned. ‘Course, given where you says you’re going to, I ain’t the one whose concern you need be worried ‘bout.”

  David took a seat next to Ghost. The old man smelled of dust, smoke and fish—but underneath David found a sweetness that reminded him of dinners in Little Italy. Rosemary. Oregano. Thyme. Something natural—something good.

  “Where am I going then? What’s this Garfield and why do you think I was headed there?”

  Another wet cough shuddered through Ghost’s chest and he spat a wad of something green into the smoky ash. After several more coughs, he lifted his arm to his mouth and wiped a string of spittle onto his sleeve. “I could shut up ‘bout it right here and now. I don’t know you and I got no reason to trust you, other than that anyone with that amount of stupid about what’s going on probably can’t mean no harm. Can’t rightly mean no good, far as I can tell, neither, but if you says you was with Calvin and Bethany I got no reason to doubt ya. Don’t right care much one way or the other, to tell the truth. I’m what you might call a conscious bystander.”

  “You can trust me,” David whispered. “I need you to trust me.”

  “Bah,” Ghost harrumphed. “Like I said, got no reason to—but also don’t got no reason not to—so I’m-a help ya get sorted,” he continued. “If you was on your way to Chicago, an’ if you was traveling by Aeropod, which from the sound I heard before you came crashing down, sure sounded like to me, then the only place you was gonna land was the old Chicago Stock Exchange downtown. One Financial Place. And if you was coming on account of old Calvin or that pretty thing, Bethany, then your next stop was gonna be the settlement at Garfield. Only about five miles from one place to the other and given your company then that sure as hell be where I’d bet you was going.”

  “What’s Garfield?” asked David.

  “Garfield? Garfield’s one of the few settlements ‘round here. This deep in The Green Zones ain’t hardly nobody living—well, hardly nobody but damn fools like me. Organics took the place and made it into a self-sustaining sanctuary, safe from what’s left out here of the chemicals still killing knuckleheads like yours truly. Been living there for as long as anyone can remember. Few years back though, The Cause got wind of the place, set up camp there and converted a few to their philosophy along the way. People living there didn’t care none, seeing how they pretty much want the same thing. ‘Course Organics been fine living on their own, minding themselves and staying out of everyone’s way. Safe out here in The Green Zones they don’t got much ta worry ‘bout. No doubt some ‘em ain’t too happy about housing a revolution though—don’t want a bunch a terrorists bringing unwanted attention, but they keep their mouths shut all the same.”

  “So, where does that put me?” David asked.

  “Right about where you want to be, more or less. Off coast of Chicago. This place used to be called Northerly Island. Not sure what they call it now. I just call it home.”

  “I’m in Chicago? That building I saw to the north, was that … was that the Planetarium?”

  “Sure is,” Ghost continued. “To the south, way across that water where you saw the blinking lights of the wiggler plant? Used to be part of Indiana. Still is I guess, ‘course there ain’t no state governments taking mind of old borders. Place you was going is only a mile or two from here. Where we are right now all the trees grown up on this island are blocking yer view, but you walk yourself west a bit and you’ll see the skyscrapers of Chicago rising up in front of you soon as you break that tree wall. Garfield’s just a ways further west from here. Get off the island and you’ll be there in a few hours.”

  “Let’s say I go there. What am I walking in to? Are these Organics safe?”

  Ghost laughed. “Are they safe? They about as safe as anybody you’d ever come across. All they want is to be left alone and to let the land come back. Sure they’re holed up in their glass houses, but they all want same thing as me. Only difference is they got patience.” Ghost paused, then added, “Speaking of, s
un’s getting’ high—means you don’t have more than a few hours before it starts getting dark again. Building shadows make downtown darker sooner than you’d expect. You best be going.”

  Ghost picked up his worn canvas bag, knocked the dust from it with his free hand, and handed it to David. “Take this. It’s dangerous to go alone,” he said.

  Inside the bag, David found a few glass bottles, corked and filled with water, a small black handgun and a box of bullets.

  “Thanks Ghost,” David said, “but I don’t even know how to use a gun.”

  “Neither do I. But you come across anybody you don’t think is safe, you’re better off having it than not. Just waving the damn thing around saved my neck more than a few times.”

  Weighing the gun in his hand, David was surprised at the weight of the thing and how cold the metal felt against his fingers. He returned the gun to the sack and offered the bag back to Ghost.

  “I can’t take this,” he said. “I appreciate the gesture, but I can’t.”

  “Go ahead and take it,” said Ghost. “I ain’t never gonna use the damn thing—and I ain’t come across no one out here on the island. In the city’s where you got be careful. And I ain’t never goin’ back to the city.”

  David took the bag and slung it over his shoulder, the glass bottles clinking loudly against the gun and each other. “So, where am I going?”

  “Back to the beach. Then head north up to end of the island, by the old planetarium. From there go west and you’ll find a road off the island. Should see some signs up there marking it as Solidarity Drive. Once you reach the end you’ll see an old aquarium and a big building. Used to be a museum. Cut between those two and you’ll see a big old road running north-south. That’s Lakeshore. Running th’other way between that aquarium on the other side of Lakeshore you’ll see another big road—not as big as Lakeshore, but still big. Roosevelt. Keep walking down Roosevelt a few miles. Gonna take a while, so don’t worry if you think you missed it. You’ll go deep downtown, and the old medical district. Eventually you’ll see a big park off left. Don’t go there—overrun bad. Not safe. Up ahead a bit more you’ll find Central Park Avenue. Take a right and follow north, past another park, between two little lakes. That’s where you’ll find Garfield. Big place—all glass. You’ll know it when ya see it.”

  David focused as Ghost gave directions, making mental notes of the turns and landmarks along the way. It sounded easy enough, but he didn’t look forward to making the trip on his own or the prospect of being alone in the abandoned remains of Chicago in the middle of the night. He reached out his hand to Ghost’s and shook it.

  “Thanks Ghost,” he said. “I appreciate everything you’ve done.” He held the bag and gave it another light shake, the bottles clinking again. “I do wonder though, why do you stay out here? It looks like it’s killing you. You could join me.”

  “No, no I’ve been there before,” he said, nodding west. “Not a place for me. I’m happier out here. It’s alive and it’s real and it’s beautiful—and if this beauty’s going to kill me, I can’t think of a better way to go than out here in God’s great green world.”

  THIRTY

  FOLLOW THE OLD BLACKTOP ROAD

  Go East at the road, Ghost’s directions echoed in David’s head.

  Where the hell is this road? Traveling north for what must have been an hour, David pushed on through the thick growth on the island. How far he’d covered was anyone’s guess, though at the rate he’d been moving it would have surprised him if he’d traveled a quarter mile.

  Stay away from shore—you can’t be visible.

  Well, at least on the shore he would have made some progress. One thing was clear though: no one had recently traveled through the thicket enveloping the island. If Ghost took any trips north, he must have ignored his own warnings and followed the shore.

  What good is a gun in this jungle? Be better off with a machete. He imagined himself a young John Speke, fighting his way through the wilds of Africa, in search of the fabled source of the Nile. Instead of Lake Victoria, however, David’s goal lay in a place much more traveled—though possibly just as wild—the heart of The Windy City.

  Through the brush, he pushed on. The occasional scrape of a branch adding to the cluster of cuts marring his bare arms. Occasionally he’d stop to pull a lump of burdock seed from his clothing or flick a wood tick off his skin. Drawn to the blood, mosquitoes buzzed incessantly around him, like a murmuration of starlings, leaving tiny mountain ranges as they bit and slurped happily along his arms and neck.

  Don’t go out at night. Don’t trust anyone who looks like me. Not until Garfield … as if anything larger than a squirrel, let alone another person, lives in this dense forest.

  A few miles… it sounded like a simple trip when Ghost described it. It certainly couldn’t all be like this, could it?

  Exhaustion threatened to settle in, so David rested and drank from one of the bottles Ghost had given him. He swallowed it down quickly and poured the remaining inch onto his head. The water soaked through his thick hair, and dribbled down the back of his neck, cooling the collar of his shirt as the fresh moisture replaced his sweat. Now empty, he threw the bottle off to his left, into the darkness of the pervasive wood.

  David pictured Ghost, content in his encampment here on the island, and sighed at his thoughtlessness. While it was unlikely he’d come across a trash can, let alone a recycling bin, any time soon, he couldn’t leave it here. He hadn’t noticed earlier, but this place bore no suggestion of man. Unlike the nature hikes of his dreams, no trash tainted the environment—not even a cigarette lurking amongst the leaves of the forest floor. Whatever had cleaned this place, be it time, Ghost, or Mother Nature herself, David couldn’t allow himself to become its vandal.

  After about twenty steps and five minutes of additional cuts and scrapes, David found the bottle, isolated in a small clearing. A sugar maple lay broken to the side—the likely victim of a recent bolt of lightning. Baby plants already filled the space where its canopy previously blocked the sun, but the growth was in its infancy, happily filling the void, each youthful shoot unaware that soon it would be fighting a battle of life or death against the others, in a struggle for the limited sunlight filtering through the opening above.

  Stepping into the clearing, David recoiled as his footsteps crushed the young vegetation beneath him. Until now he cursed the foliage as an impediment, a stubborn mass of thorny brown and green that did nothing but block him from reaching sanctuary. But here, seeing how each of these individual shoots strained for life, aching to have the chance to simply live, a wave of regret swept over him with every footstep. They’ll grow back. Something always grows back, he thought. As he reached down to pick up the bottle, David’s eyes surveyed the length of the fallen maple. Its leaves, though brown, had not all dropped from the tree. It had fallen recently—this season at least.

  He took a deep breath, swallowed the fresh oxygen of his environment and tasted the earth and rot and damp of life all around him. Climbing onto the trunk of the downed tree, he followed it north into an opening of prairie the tree’s crown had fallen into.

  Oddly-shaped triangular hills peeked out from the tall grass to the north, bordering the prairie to the east and west. Beyond them, as the prairie sloped down to the north, stood the remains of raised platform surrounded by a crisscrossed skeleton of metal beams and the tattered remains of what must have at one time been some kind of roof.

  Now free of the restraining tangle of forest, David’s progress improved. Although tall, the grass was markedly easier to travel through, and David smiled at the gentle swish-swish of their stalks as they swept over his jeans with each step. As he gained ground, the odd triangle mountains took a clearer shape, until David saw them for what they were—overgrown remains of bleachers. David was hiking through what must have been an amphitheater at some point long ago. The platform ahead, an old stage.

  As he marched onward between the sets of ancient
bleachers, the field opened to the northeast, bringing into view the large dome of the old planetarium. The road to Garfield must be close. He broke into a run, past the sagging remains of the stage, barely noticing the extent to which vines took over the structure after decades of disuse.

  As he cleared the amphitheater, a wide expanse of gray, broken intermittently with patches of green and brown, opened ahead of him. Trees sprouted up sporadically throughout the old parking lot, finding their way through the cracks of weather and time. A few shells of abandoned cars remained, burnt out long ago, now victim to rust and the ever-encroaching march of nature. A wall of old-growth trees closed in around all sides of the broken expanse of asphalt. Putting his hand to his forehead to block out the sun’s glare, he searched for the road Ghost mentioned. To his left the tree line opened, revealing what looked like a road hidden behind it.

  Bordered by more thick woods to the west, and the overgrown parking lot to the east, the road gave him a clear view to the north. There, where the road ended, was what looked like the remnants of an intersection. David sprinted north along the road, leaping across the cracks where growth had pushed through, careful not to catch his foot and trip. There it was. A double road, running east to the planetarium and west into the towering expanse of a shattered city. East Solidarity Drive.

  David turned left, faced the sun, and continued onward into the jungle ruins of old Chicago.

  THIRTY-ONE

  DINOS AND DARKNESS

  AND CORN, OH MY

  Traveling down Solidarity, past the burnt-out remains of the building that had once been the Shedd Aquarium, David pressed on through the scrub that grew through the sunbaked cracks of the pavement. Ahead, in the distance, a vista of Chicago’s skyscrapers loomed, dead and empty, their spires long ago abandoned to the ravages of weather and time. But closer ahead, where Solidarity took a turn, a large, stately structure spread out, bursting through the surrounding forest.