Going Gray

by Brian Spangler

  “So why can’t you just turn it off?” she asked, wondering if there wasn’t more to what her father was saying. He shook his head, peering over at the machine. And she began to think that maybe he was simply unwilling to leave the machine he’d created, to turn off what he’d started.

  “It isn’t that simple, Emily.”

  “But it is that simple, Dad,” she yelled. “Just leave the machine off!”

  As if to emphasize what her father was saying, the vibrations started. She saw the sands quiver, and then felt them shaking around her feet, burying her toes.

  “I need to go back before it’s too late.”

  “Too late?”

  “The reaction can only be turned off for short periods. I have to turn it back on, wait for a little while, and then I can stop it again.”

  “So you mean the machine was never meant to be turned off?” she asked, and pinched the emotion creeping in.

  “It—they—were designed to run perpetually,” he confessed, and in his eyes Emily saw the truth. She saw that this was forever. That it was always meant to be forever.

  And before she could say anything more, a detonating sound trumpeted from the coastline, rushing through them like a bullet, causing her to fall back. Her insides rattled and shook. The clouds trembled, and the sunlight shimmered.

  “What’s happening?”

  “You’ve got to get everyone back inside!” her father screamed. He staggered away from her, racing around everyone until he found Justin. Emily watched them, seeing her family together for the last time in her life. This is it, she told herself. We’ll never see him again.

  Emily ran to join her father and brother, taking hold of them, throwing her arms around them. And at that moment the sound died down. She heard none of it, listening only to her father’s words to her and to Justin. His voice cracked amidst broken sobs, telling them to be good to one another, to be good people, and to survive. Justin kept his ears covered, but fixed his wide eyes on her and then her father, terrified by what was happening.

  A shadow touched her arm.

  Cold.

  The blue sky began to fade, and the golden sunlight turned white, pushing gray rainbows high up above them.

  “Look at that!” she heard Peter yell. “Isn’t it amazing?”

  Gray rainbows jutted up from the ground, scarring the sky like a knife opening a wound. The colors vanished from the world, leaving behind stale shades that moved with the changing sunlight. The color of the sun was stolen too, becoming a white star perched on the end of a rainbow. The sightt was both beautiful and terrifying. The pot of gold.

  Emily glanced over in time to see Peter disappear in the fog. A blur of bright white rode the arch of a rainbow, their sun vanishing as more of the mist closed in. She glanced at the service tunnel, fixing her eyes on the direction. I can’t lose where it is. Commotion and chaos came with the sudden fog. Legs and arms flew in every direction, staggering, and trying to run in the loose sand. Her step was hastened by the screaming and crying, terrorized by the memory of the first time the clouds fell.

  “I’ve got to get back!” her father screamed. “I’ve got to hold off the storm!” She didn’t know when she’d taken hold of his shirt, but Emily tightened her grip on her father, refusing to let him go.

  “No. Please, don’t go, Dad,” she cried, but knew in her heart that he had to leave.

  “Em, you’ll understand one day,” he told her and hugged her until the fog completed its return. “Please remember: I’ve always loved you and Justin… I’ll always love you!”

  Her father pulled away, and immediately she lost him in the colorless cloud. Emily grabbed for her brother’s arm, gripping Justin until she heard him cry. Her father’s voice was suddenly in her ear then, startling her like a bee that had flown too close. The last thing she heard her father say was, “Whatever you do, don’t get lost in the fog!”

  “I won’t, Daddy,” she answered, but thought he’d already gone. “I’ll get everyone back. I’ll take care of them.” And that is what she did. That is what she always did. With Justin at her side, she found Peter and then used her voice to guide the rest of the survivors back into the service tunnel.

  Peter stayed with her, waiting in the remaining daylight, and again into the evening. Her father never returned. In the distance, they’d heard the great machine breathing, and she imagined her father working inside, twisting knobs and pushing levers. She imagined him watching a panel of blinking lights, his lips moving as he counted to himself, trying to keep the concentrations down so that their world might survive the storm.

  Ms. Parks joined them once, bringing food, and offering Emily a blanket and another one of her huge sweaters. She gratefully accepted, snuggling as close to Peter as she could, sharing the blanket while waiting for the unknown. Hours later, it was Mr. Halcomb’s turn to visit. And by then, he’d surveyed the mall and started a move back inside. The mall survived the storm after all. A tiny thought came to Emily, one that she’d find comfort recalling in the years to come—the survivors would remember her father as the one who’d sacrificed his life to save them.

  When the night came, and her breath turned white in the chilly air, Peter pleaded that they go back inside. He told her that he didn’t think her father was going to come back. Tears puddled in her eyes, and she said nothing, but instead laid her head on his chest, holding him. “I understand,” he told her, and dressed his fingers with her hair, staying with her for as long as she needed him.

  “Look, over there,” she said. A spark lit up in the blackness of the fog. Her heart lifted in anticipation. But the spark was far too high in the sky, and she understood then what it was. A star. In the dark, they couldn’t see the changes in the fog, and she realized that her father must still be working the machine, tuning it, trying to get it right. “It’s a star!” The spark flickered on and off, lasting for just a few moments, winking at them as if to say goodnight. And when it was gone, a pain settled in her heart. Loss. That was the last star she ever saw.

  EPILOGUE

  The sound of a breaking wave came to her, stirring a memory like a visit to a graveyard. Has it been another year already? More memories surfaced then, rising until she could taste them. Some sweet. Some bitter. And some, she’d hoped, would never come back. The walk to the machine this year was going to be an emotional one. They always are.

  Rubbing away the ache in her hip—her balance wasn’t what it used to be—Emily leaned against the service tunnel wall, taking care not to slip. She eased the first shoe from her foot, letting it fall with a quiet thud. But when she tried to grip the other, her fingers stopped. She squeezed her hands and felt them creak like an aged hinge. She winced. Getting old. Arthritis is worse. Emily glanced at the coverall shoes: tattered and worn, wrapped with linens that hadn’t covered the surface of a table in decades. Suppose everything is getting old.

  “They look like I feel,” she mumbled aloud, and laughed to herself. A thought of keeping the shoes on her feet ran through her mind, but she dismissed it. “The beach is for bare feet… you know that.”

  She managed to slip the second shoe from her foot, and placed the pair against the wall and side by side, just as she’d taught her children and her grandchildren to do. Only her shoes were all alone today and looked sad and small against the service tunnel wall. The graffiti she’d remembered was still there. The last of it hidden beneath years of grime as if it were some secret message that only a few of the elders in her Commune would recognize.

  Covering most of the wall was the mark of the Outsiders: a red swath painted in a long bowing arch that stretched above a large black oval. The oval was faded, which told her that it had been a while since they’d last been around her Commune. She’d always thought that the Outsiders symbol meant that they were watching… always watching.

  And maybe they are, she shrugged. But that didn’t matter to her: they’d already caused her and Peter a kind of pain that she’d never imagined possible. Le
t them watch. What more can they do to me?

  Her grandson had told her not to go to the beach today; and especially not alone. “Reports of Outsiders—” he’d started to say, but she quieted his words with an impatient wave, telling him that she’d be fine.

  After all, if given the chance, she’d take on a visit with the Outsiders. Emily reached down and felt the outline of her knife, hoping that if the need came to be then she’d have the element of surprise. I certainly wouldn’t have anything else.

  Cool air rushed over her toes, and the sand on the ground felt scratchy. But she welcomed the fresh sensation over the sweaty grip of her coveralls. She glimpsed a sight of her bare feet—crooked and gnarled—and tried to remember what they used to look like. An hour. What she wouldn’t give for an hour back in her bedroom, the window open, and the smell of nail polish, fixing to paint her toenails… only to clean them, and then paint them again. She wiggled her toes, letting some of the loose sand drift in between them, and tried to recall the name of the nail color she liked best. Color was glittery, and purple. Was it called Frenzy Sequin?

  And sometimes she’d forget that she was an old woman; the oldest in all the Commune. Emily grabbed the wall, clutching the coarseness until her fingers hurt. She had a secret. Her mind was slipping—had been for a while. But I remember everything from back then. She traced the old graffiti, recalling how beautifully detailed and intricate the artwork used to be. And like the graffiti, she thought that it wouldn’t be long before age stole the details of her life, too.

  Images of Peter came into her mind, and she thought of the day they’d married, and the first time they’d made love. Their bodies—young and beautiful—wrapped up as one. But that was a long time ago, and in this world, you wore your age hard. She peered down again, and her hands and feet looked youthful and pretty. She waved at the air, pulling a streamer of fog, and then made fists with her toes, enjoying the lie that her mind was telling her.

  “Well, I got some of my faculties, enough anyway to get through today.”

  The beach was where she came to remember the tragedy. It was where she came never to forget, and then to respect what came from that tragedy. A new way of life. A new world was born.

  In the gray daylight, she struggled to focus past her cloudy eyes, but adjusted just enough to see the sands. That is what life became after the tragedy: adjustments. They adjusted how they lived and how they ate. They even adjusted how they produced energy. She didn’t know what they would have done without having Jerry, the nerd, with them. While nobody ever browsed the Internet again, Jerry fashioned a dozen exercise bicycles to generate electricity. Within months, they had the fittest group of survivors in all the world.

  She smirked, knowing that she could very well make this walk blind. Playfully, Emily closed her eyes and let the sound of the ocean guide her. After all, she’d walked the same path the last fifty years. She knew every step. Peering down, she watched the sand pass beneath her feet. The image of her toes blurred, and she squinted, but it didn’t help. If she had known any better, she would have grabbed more from the pharmacy that day in the Food-Mart. A pair of reading glasses maybe: the kind that magnifies everything. She laughed then, trying to remember the last time that she actually read anything.

  Her toes disappeared into the black sand, and she longed for the days when the beach was bright and the sands were hot. They’d lost a partner in life: the sun. The fallen clouds had changed a lot of things, including the beach, turning the sand darker with each passing year. Within a decade, they were as black as coal. She wondered if it was the dead: the world’s population having turned to ash, washing up on their shores.

  Emily rubbed the knobby swelling in her hands. Her skin felt warm and ached. There was enough of a seasonal chill in the air for her to feel it today. The pain was harsh, biting and making her wince. But it was better than most days, and she took her mind off of it when her fingers landed on her wedding band. She turned her mother’s ring, and whispered her father’s name, thanking him for having tucked it into her shirt pocket.

  It would be time soon. Time to give her granddaughter the wedding ring. She’d hoped for a daughter of her own to give it to, but three sons were her contribution to their Commune—hers and Peter’s that is. Pride swelled in her heart when she thought about the Commune. How many people were there? By now, she’d lost count. Her heart swelled even more when she pictured Peter and her sons working and leading the great expansion west.

  Was it Johnny or Eric? She wondered, struggling to remember which of her sons had invented a way to help them travel between buildings. The service tunnels only went so far, and eventually the buildings they’d recovered spanned further than the tunnels. It was Peter… Peter invented the morse lines. Or was it Eric? Emily stopped and pressed her feet firmly against the wet sand.

  “I should know this,” she groused, annoyed at how her memory was failing.

  Would she remember how to get to the machine next year? Water rushed over her feet, washing away the black sand. Pasty and white, her skin seemed to glow like the white morse lines painted to connect the buildings of the Commune. “It was Peter.”

  There were some things that she’d never forget.

  “James,” she whispered, and then let a familiar pain pass over her like a shadow.

  Her youngest son was one of the first to be taken by the Outsiders. Just two at the time, and still more clumsy than not, he was at her side, and then he was gone. A hundred or more from the Commune searched, but he’d never been found. Rumors—horrific rumors—came then. Rumors that the Outsiders ate the children they stole, or used them as bait to catch feral dogs and other wild animals. Emily shook and felt weak from the rush of emotion that came when thinking about her baby boy.

  After that, Commune children were tethered, keeping them close to their parents when outside. It was a simple idea, and one that she’d wished had been thought of sooner.

  “Gray rainbows,” she mumbled. She saw the image of it in her mind, sending the memory of her baby boy to that special place. How many had seen the gray rainbows? She considered the faces on the beach that day. Who of them might still be alive? One… two, maybe? Most who had seen the gray rainbows had long since passed, including her Peter. In his final breath, holding her hand, he’d reached up and traced the shape of a rainbow over her heart. He’d died a breath later, but she nodded anyway. The image of the gray rainbows was as lasting as the lifetime they’d shared.

  When her father disappeared into the fog, going back to the machine to stop the storm, the clouds fell again just as he said they would. But this time, the vapors from the machine caught the storm, creating an odd light and casting wondrous gray rainbows into the sky. Those that had ventured from the service tunnel were suddenly struck by the beauty of the sight, becoming frozen in place, standing on the beach, their mouths agape. But the clouds continued their collapse around them. Peter was the first to pull away, grabbing at her arm and then grabbing others. She remembered yelling at Mr. Halcomb, and even slapping Ms. Parks to break her trance. An echo of the screams played in her mind then, sounding like the cries of those that had died outside of her home.

  “Almost got them all back inside, Dad. Almost,” she told her father, hoping that he was somewhere listening.

  Over the years, teaching the history of what had happened, she’d drawn the gray rainbows a hundred times. A charcoal writing stone and a piece of parchment, she thought, were perfectly fitting for drawing gray rainbows. She could still see the colorless bands crossing the sky, the remains of the sun riding on the curvy end before disappearing forever.

  Emily pulled a penlight from her pocket—a gift from her little brother—and playfully shined the faded red beam onto the fog. A fresh battery charge, she thought, wondering who’d charged the thing. She hated the bikes they used to recharge batteries. Of course, she’d become too old, but still took a turn now and again. She dangled the light in front of her, swinging it like a pendulum, imag
ining one of her cats darting after it. Thank you, Justin.

  At one time, Justin had lead all the reclamation projects, traveling blindly into the fog, going farther than anyone else dared. He brought back food and medicines, and technology. Emily shook her head and put the penlight back into her pocket when she thought about what had happened. A third of his team suddenly disappeared during one of the expeditions. The loss devastated Justin. It devastated their Commune.

  Her little brother was never quite the same after that. Some claimed that the Outsiders had struck, but Justin believed that his team had been lost in one of the buildings. And one day—when he was far too old to go out on his own—Justin decided to take on one last expedition. He wanted to bring something back: something that was special. That is what he’d written in the note that he left behind.

  Emily swiped at a tear, annoyed. Justin would have told her she was a silly old coot for crying over his death. After all, it had been nearly fifteen years. But how she missed her little brother. He did love his expeditions… he just didn’t know when it was time to stay home.

  When Emily came upon the great machine, she stepped from the fog, leaving the mist behind her just as she’d done every year since the first. The machine straddled the ocean and the beach, looking like a beached whale as Jeter had said. That was a name she hadn’t thought of in decades, and she was glad about that.

  Someone’s gotta pay, Jeter’s voice rang in her head.

  “Mr. Jeter, we all paid—every damn one of us.”

  The machine was enormous, stretching the height of a skyscraper, laying across the beach and jutting into the ocean. She squinted, trying to find the end of the machine, but it was too far. And if she didn’t know any better, she thought that the machine had gotten even bigger since her last trip.