by Riley Flynn
“Alex, my boy.” Levine talked like a priest after a sermon. Shaking hands and taking names. “Alex, my boy, what are we going to do with you?”
Standing still, rifle on the ground, Alex watched the muzzle of the revolver as the preacher walked towards him.
“It’s over, Levine. It’s all over. All your people are dead.”
“Kneel,” the preacher snarled, the warmth from his voice burned away in a moment.
The word washed over Alex, not having time to register.
Levine didn’t wait. He whipped the handle of the gun down hard on Alex’s shoulder, striking like a rattlesnake.
Under the skin, Alex could feel something break. A snap. His collarbone seared in pain.
“Kneel!” Levine shouted, kicking Alex’s legs out from under him.
Alex dropped to the ground. The wet snow soaked through the front of his pants. He raised his arms up in the air. At least, he tried. The broken collar bone protested and his left arm dangled at his side.
“Now,” Levine’s sugar tone returned. “We’re going to have ourselves a conversation. Do you have a moment to discuss our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ?” The man laughed without humor. A sneering, menacing lurch which lived in the back of the throat. “Of course you do. It’s time to talk, Alex.”
The revolver continued to point at Alex’s head. He didn’t have much choice but to listen. Levine laughed again.
34
“Welcome to the end of the world, Alex.”
Kneeling in the snow, Alex could see the outline of his rifle. Too far away to grab. Levine circled around him like a shark, drunk on the sound of his own voice.
“The last vestiges of humanity, the worthy, the god fearing. That’s what we are.”
The preacher was shouting, the words directed up at the heavens more than the earth. Alex kept quiet, trying to form a plan. He still had a gun, hidden by his shirt. A soda bottle full of gas.
“Empty your pockets.” Levine was in front of Alex, looking down the short barrel of his revolver.
“What?” Alex’s mind had been elsewhere.
“You’re not listening to me, Alex. You are not thinking. You and so many others. Empty your pockets.”
Don’t do it. It’s a trick.
“I said empty your pockets!” Levine screamed in Alex’s face, thrashing the butt of the gun against the broken collarbone. “Now!”
The pain was too much. Alex fell forward in the snow, his breath escaping as a whimper, a pained cry out into the night. Before it faded, Levine sprung on him, grabbing at his clothes and tugging anything he found. The bullets spilled out across the snow, followed by the soda bottle filled with gasoline.
“Ha!” Levine jumped back from Alex, a note of triumph in his voice. “You thought you could hide this from me! So many bullets, Alex. Not all of them for your rifle. And a bottle of water. Were you planning on starting a war? It is not a war you will win, my boy.”
As Alex squirmed and writhed on the floor, trying with a hand to set his bone straight, Levine kicked him in the gut, almost lifting him off the ground.
Alex hit the earth with a cold, dull thud.
“I-I-I… I’m sorry…” Alex stammered. His teeth chattered. He could feel the pain and the cold and nothing else.
“Alex, Alex, Alex. When will you learn? You. Do. Not. Win. You do not even try. This not a game for mere mortals, but for heavenly creatures. You think you can come up against me and play your wretched games?”
Scrambling in the snow, Alex pushed himself up on to his knees. He bent his head in front of Levine, every muscle movement sending a shock of pain through his body.
“I’m sorry, Pastor. I’m sorry.”
The cold of the handgun still pressed into the small of his back. Levine might have rifled through the pockets, but he hadn’t checked everywhere.
“Forgiveness? What a thing. A comfort for the weak, a crutch for the feeble. Pathetic.”
Levine began to stalk around Alex again, his heavy footsteps crunching through the layer of snow.
With a flourish, Levine sent a hail of bullets tumbling through the air into Alex’s face.
“And these? You thought you could stop me with simple lead slugs? You have learned nothing. I am not to be harmed by your pitiful weapons. The Lord protects me, Alex. I shall not want. I shall not want, Alex.”
The preacher bent down low, holding the revolver by his face, every word flinging spittle into Alex’s eyes.
“I am walking alone through the valley of the shadow of death, my friend. There is no evil to fear, here, only me. Shall I anoint your head, Alex? My cup runneth over, I assure you.”
Levine’s movements were sharp. Split second twitches. The smooth fluidity of the man was gone, washed away by the night. Instead, the man in front of Alex was erratic. Fractured. Split into a hundred million pieces and forged back together as something worse. Perhaps the night had broken him, dragged him face to face with his own mortality, his own ungodly ordinariness.
Picking up a handful of snow from the ground, Levine smeared it across Alex’s face, flattening his nose, leaving a finger scratching at an eye.
“I baptize you with spirit and fire, Alex. Rise up! Rise up!”
Slowly, Alex tried to stand, unfolding his knees.
Before he was halfway, Levine swung the gun again and knocked him to the ground.
“You are not worthy! You really think you are able to stand next to me? To walk next to me? I tell you no.”
Alex lay still. The pain was too much. He could feel every cell in his body. Every single atom of his being was on fire. The agony started just below his neck and spread. Every time he moved, it triggered, exploding down his spine.
“Oh, my boy, are you hurt? Has the Lord failed to protect you? Has the devil snuck in and had his wicked way, Alex?” Levine’s voice was filled with theatrical concern as he danced across the snow.
Alex rolled on the ground. He had to do something. He wouldn’t be able to last much longer. Already, he could feel the darkness at the edge of his vision creeping in, closing in. The world was turning black.
The pistol was still there. Still loaded. Maybe if he just…
Reaching his hand behind his back hurt. Alex bit his tongue and reached farther. He had to do it. He had to take the gun. The tip of his finger brushed against the metal.
“Oh, what’s this?” Levine jumped over to Alex and swatted his hand away. “A gun? How clever. How insidious. Hidden away. There is no hiding in the sight of the Lord, Alex.”
A firm boot kicked Alex in the midriff.
“No hiding at all. The arrogance. To try that very same trick as Krol. To hide away a weapon from me? You saw what happened to him. You really thought that would work?”
Writhing on the ground, Alex could hardly see. The world was a blur. All over his body, pain was making itself felt. The snow seemed to melt ahead of him, leaving only dirt and rocks to cushion his fall.
A hard object pressed up against Alex’s leg. Another stone, he thought. As he rolled away, it remained there. No, not a stone. Something in his pocket.
Krol’s lighter. That tarnished gold zippo which had struggled to light up the barn. it was still there.
Against Levine, Krol had fought and failed. Perhaps the old man was the only other person in the world who had known exactly what it was to hate Levine this much. And Alex had hated him.
As he tumbled across the field, Alex slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out the lighter. It had no real weight to it. Cold and firm. Smoothed by years of fingerprints. It was worthless, really. Not a weapon. Not anything that could do any damage.
But it felt comforting. Even amid all the chaos, as Levine beat him to a bloody pulp, Alex could feel the emotion which had been imbued into this object. It had a past. A history. Not just his own, but belonging to another person. Someone he had hated, sure. But a real human being. A connection in an otherwise lonely world.
Alex held the lighter tigh
t in his hand as Levine kicked him in the face and laughed.
“Ah, my friend. But you are in pain? Here, let me help you.”
Levine sauntered across to Alex, taking his time. Spitting blood on the ground, Alex looked up. The preacher was sweating, his skin shimmering by the light of the burning barn. The rest of the robe had fallen from his shoulder and hung from his waist, the man’s bare chest swollen with sinew and muscle.
“Here.” Levine rolled Alex on to his back, propped up his head, and made the sign of the cross over his chest. “Let me help you, my boy.”
The world spun in every direction. The only thing fixing Alex in place was the firmness of the metal lighter in his palm. An anchor, keeping him tied down and holding him steady.
“I… I…” Alex’s mouth was dry. “I…”
Levine propped Alex up on his knee, making sure to press a hand into Alex’s broken bone as he did so.
“Alex, the end is near. These are interesting times and I am truly sorry that you will not stick around to see them. Shall we pray?”
“W-w-water, please.” Alex could taste the blood in his mouth. He had to try one more time. “Water…”
“But of course, my boy.” Levine looked around the ground. “Here. Why, I can even bless it. Have you ever drunk holy water, Alex? Do you think it will send you straight to heaven or hell? Shall we find out?”
Levine began to unscrew the cap from the soda bottle. Alex adjusted Krol’s lighter in his hand.
“Drink, Alex, drink.” The preacher began to pour the gasoline into Alex’s open mouth. “Let us see how quickly we can send you straight to hell.”
Alex waited and waited, closing his throat. The gas pooled in his mouth.
As Levine tipped the bottle back further and further, Alex spat.
The gasoline spewed out of his mouth in a mist, covering Levine’s face. The preacher staggered backwards. Alex flicked open the lighter, saw it catch, and threw it into the man’s face.
The flames erupted, burning hard and fast.
Levine screamed, his head at the center of a ball of fire. Two hands clawed at the burning face before the preacher fell to his knees, his hands outstretched, looking up to the heavens.
Alex staggered to his feet and found his pistol half-buried in the snow. The gun kicked back, sending painful shivers down his spine as he emptied the clip.
Each bullet ripped through Levine’s chest. The flames began to die. Alex looked the preacher in the eye. The flesh was scorched and melted, muscle and bone shining through. Levine looked almost surprised, as though he was seeing something for the very first time. He fell forward into the snow.
As the body hit the ground, Alex dropped the pistol and tried to stand. A knee gave way; the dirt hit his body hard.
Rolling on to his back, allowing the pain to wash over him like a wave, Alex felt the snow on his face. It was falling all around, heavier than before. In the distance, the barn burned. Closer by, the horse scratched at the earth and waited to be ridden away.
Everywhere was settling under a flat white blanket. Alex turned his head to the side, could see the snow forming on top of the fields and the preacher’s body. This was the world, now. Everything changed, everything stayed the same. Jamie and Krol, Jenna and Timmy and Joan and all the others, they’d all played their part. Essential actors, remembered as the stage cleared.
He was alive, Levine was dead. The snow fell on them both just the same.
35
The sun rose over a broken farm. Alex rubbed his eyes and remembered the pain.
For almost an hour, he’d lain down in the field. His family’s farm. Every memory had drifted past him, swirling and merging into one. His father, his mother, Sammy, Eames, Timmy, Joan, Cam, Krol, Levine, and all the others.
Only Finn licking his face had brought him back to the world, the dog finding him before he froze to death. Timmy had led the search, had found Alex almost unconscious in the field, and had carried him home. Along with Joan, he’d tended the wound, wrapped bandages around arms and shoulders. Sleep was the best healer of all, however.
As Alex woke up, the sun on his face, he tried to figure out where he was. The light was creeping in through thin gaps between wooden boards placed over a small window. A thin mattress on a single bed had held him for the night, a huge stack of blankets had kept him covered.
It was one of the rooms in the house and Alex was alone. Finding his sneakers next to the bed, alongside his filthy clothes, he got dressed and began to walk through his house.
It was a ruin. Bullet holes speckled every wall. Dust and debris were piled everywhere. Bloodstains had soaked into the floorboards. But there were no bodies. Alex went looking.
Arriving at the entrance to the house, he felt the fresh air before he reached the room.
“Oh, yeah.” The sight of the old car crashed into the house, now sitting quietly under a pile of rubble and snow, brought back all the memories.
“Alex!”
A voice was calling from outside. He looked up and saw Jenna running toward him, stumbling over broken bricks and burned beams of wood. The barn, behind her, was still burning. Smoke was rising up from a blacked pile of charred remains.
“Alex,” she called again, coming towards him. “You’re up?”
“I’m up.” Confirmation and repetition seemed about all he could manage.
With care, she took his hand, worried about aggravating his broken bone. Jenna led him through the buildings around the farm, showing him what was left. It wasn’t much.
The burning barn had taken most of the exterior buildings with it. The stables and the sheds and the lean-tos were all gone. The house was still standing, somehow.
Jenna explained how they had found him in the field. How they’d taken him home and wrapped up his wounds. How Timmy had taken over, leading the clean-up, talking about how “that idiot had gone out alone without backup,” about how his tone had been annoyed and reverent and worried, all at once. The bodies had been moved away from the house, ready for burial. Special time had been taken over Jamie and Nelson. The teenager’s enthusiasm seemed to dry up as she talked about the dead. Alex didn’t care. He just listened.
Together, they walked behind the house, to the spot where people chopped wood on the old tree stump. Standing there, Alex looked out across an empty field. The snow had stopped falling, leaving behind a half foot thick blanket. It lay pristine over the open space.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Jenna muttered. “I remember seeing clouds out of airplane windows. It’s like that. It’s amazing. Oh–”
She turned around, her hand over her mouth.
“I didn’t mean to… I meant… I’m sorry, I just-”
“It’s fine, Jenna,” Alex managed. “It’s beautiful. You’re right.”
Across the field, Alex could see a shape. It started out as a dot and grew and grew. He stood and stared, watching the figure get bigger. Soon he realized that it wasn’t a man. It was a person on horseback. As they finally came into sight, he recognized Timmy, straddled atop Levine’s pale horse, grinning like a fool.
“She’s a beauty, ain’t she? Proper quarter horse, built like a wonder,” Timmy shouted from way out in the field.
He encouraged the horse to move faster, switching up from a trot to a canter, aiming for the spot right in front of Alex.
“We brought her in after we got you taken care of. She’s amazing.”
Timmy dropped down from the saddle and patted the horse on the flank.
“I never knew you could ride, Timmy.”
“Plenty you don’t know about me, man. Plenty.”
Jenna walked away, mumbling something, making excuses. Timmy and Alex stood in silence for a long time, only the snorting of the horse intruding on the peace.
“So,” Alex said eventually, “what the hell do we do now?”
“Now?” Timmy seemed surprised. “Now we actually start enjoying ourselves.”
“What? Here?”
<
br /> “Yeah, man. Where else? I didn’t come all this way not to give it a shot.”
“But Joan, and the baby, and all the damage to the house, and–”
“We’ll fix it. Of course we will. Did you see what we did last night? This is the easy part.”
Alex turned to look at the ruined farm.
“But what the hell can we do here now? Most of our stuff’s been destroyed. We’ve got no food, no supplies.”
Timmy was shaking his head and smiling.
“Alex, man. We already talked about this. While you were sleeping. Once we’re cleaned up here, once everyone’s feeling human again, we’ll take the cars into that town and take a look at what Levine’s people had. You said they had plenty, right? Well, now it’s ours.”
“What?”
“Yeah, come on. They’re not going to be using it.”
The idea hadn’t occurred to Alex. His brain was still numb. Maybe Levine had hit him one too many times. It didn’t feel right to be lagging behind Timmy’s thought process.
“I think I took too many blows to the head, Timmy. That sort of makes sense.”
His friend grinned from one ear to the other.
“Yeah, man. Exactly. And then, in the spring, we’ve still got all the seeds from the seed bank I had. We’ll get planting. Actual, proper farming.”
“You’ve got it all figured out, huh?”
“Man, you were sleeping for ages. What else was I going to do? Besides, it was mostly Joanie’s idea.”
Alex spun around on the spot, his eyes fixed on the house. Timmy grabbed his shoulder. It hurt like hell.
“Hold on, there. Don’t worry. She’s fine. The kid, too. She’s resting, is all. Let her sleep. We let you sleep.”
“They’re fine?” Alex ignored the pain in his shoulder.
“Yeah, both of them. Bit shaken up, but still breathing. That applies to all of us, really.”
Alex stood next to his friend, the thoughts arriving slowly in his mind.