The Beautiful Land

by Alan Averill

  “Yeah, we’re good,” says Tak as she reaches over and yanks the wires from Samira’s head. He expects her to scream again at this, but she just slumps into a little pile on the floor.

  “Sam?” says Tak. “Sam, come on, talk to me.” When she doesn’t respond, Tak leans over and takes her in his arms. A tiny sliver of drool spills across the front of her dress, and Tak gently wipes her off before turning back to Judith.

  “How long do we have? How long until this thing destroys her for good?”

  “Maybe a day,” she replies. She is staring outside in a distant kind of way, watching as Yates prepares to throw himself against the window. “Maybe less.”

  “Goddammit,” mutters Tak.

  “There’s a garage in the basement,” continues Judith. “I looked in there earlier. Take her and get out of here.” She pauses for a moment, then reaches into her pocket and withdraws a piece of paper. “Here. I wrote down directions to the Machine.”

  “What?” says Tak. “Wait, hold on—”

  “I’m not leaving,” says Judith.

  “You’ll die here.”

  “Just get to Montana and activate the fail-safe. Then none of this will matter. Once you reset reality, it will be like none of it ever happened.”

  “You sure?” he says.

  “Yes,” she replies. “Yes, I’m sure. Go ahead. Maybe I can buy you some time.”

  “I’m sorry, Judith.”

  “Don’t be,” she whispers. “World ends for everybody, right? At least I’m done helping it along.”

  Tak removes the gun from his waistband and hands it to Judith, stuffs the directions into his pocket, then slings Samira over his shoulders. God, she’s so damn light, he thinks as he begins moving down the hall. It’s like she could blow away at any second. When he reaches a bend in the hallway, he pauses to take a final glance back. He’s hoping to catch Judith’s eye one last time, but she won’t even look his way; her entire focus is on the creatures lurking just beyond the lobby window.

  Two minutes later, the powerful engine of a police cruiser roars to life. As Tak crashes through the parking garage gate and out into the dim Seattle dusk, he can hear the sounds of the birds growing fainter. The last thing he sees in his rearview is a massive black cloud descending on the police station. Then he locates the highway, smashes through a wrecked ocean of abandoned cars, and heads east as fast as the cruiser can carry him.

  chapter thirty-three

  “I wanted to be an astronaut.”

  Judith is sitting in front of the windows with a pistol in her hand, watching Yates batter himself against the station’s bulletproof glass. Each time the creature slams against it, the pane shakes in its frame. One small crack has appeared at the top of the window, and she figures it won’t be long before that crack moves all the way down and causes the entire works to shatter.

  “My parents used to make fun of me for that. My parents, my brother, my friends. Everyone, really. They thought I should be something sensible…. Like a trophy wife.”

  She coughs once, spraying flecks of blood across the tile. At the same moment, Yates launch himself at the glass with renewed force, causing the crack at the top to expand another few inches.

  “Why aren’t your feathered friends helping you, Charles?” she says weakly. “Are they making you earn your revenge? That’s deep thinking for something that isn’t even alive.”

  Judith notices a stray cigarette on the ground and picks it up. She produces a book of matches from the pocket of her skirt and lights it with trembling hands. “Got these matches from a restaurant once. It was the night Tak first arrived. He took me out to dinner and told me I was hot. I told him he was an idiot…. That was the last date I ever had. Maybe that’s why I still carry them around.”

  Yates seems frustrated; he pulls his head back on its long neck and slams his forehead into the window with a loud caw. One eye is twitching open and shut with rapid speed, as if his blinking mechanism has suddenly gone haywire. “Kill…you,” he says in a voice that sounds less human with each passing minute. “Kill…you…Kill…Judith…Kill…”

  “Can you believe that?” continues Judith in a calm, almost serene voice. “Half my life spent building the machine that’s going to destroy the world, and I went on one date. What a goddamn waste. If I get a chance to do this over again, things are going to be different.”

  The other birds watch Yates as he spins in an angry circle. They are motionless, save for the occasional tilting of the head or a thin fluttering of wings. Once in a while, a smaller bird will stare inside the station as if trying to figure out what the big deal is, but otherwise, their attention is completely focused on the twisted thing that used to be a man.

  “Maybe I could have been a chef,” she says, as the cigarette burns in the dark. “That’s even better than an astronaut. At least then I’d be making people happy instead of…Well, instead of whatever it is that I do now.”

  Yates walks backward until he’s almost at the end of the block, then runs and leaps into the window with full force. The frame gives way with a sickening crack, sending shards of metal and wood raining down to the white tile below. Seeing this, Judith takes a final drag on her cigarette before letting it fall to the ground.

  “I don’t know how many bullets are in this gun, but I intend to use them all on you. I know I should probably save one for myself, but that wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying.”

  The birds begin to shuffle together, closing in on the station like children smelling pie on a windowsill. Yates rears back and kicks the window once more; as soon as the talon makes contact, the weakened glass shatters inward into uncountable shining shards.

  “You want to hear a secret, Charles?” asks Judith, as a thousand pairs of wings suddenly leap into view. “I never did like you.”

  She smiles to herself, then raises the pistol and begins to fire.

  control/alt/delete

  chapter thirty-four

  The police cruiser pulls into the gas station with a rattling wheeze. It’s been traveling at top speed for nearly seven hours, and despite its powerful engine and finely tuned mechanics, it simply wasn’t designed for such abuse. The smoke coming out of the exhaust has a vaguely burned smell, and the hood is hot enough to cook a full lumberjack breakfast on in a matter of minutes.

  “Easy there, girl,” says Tak as he guides the cruiser next to a set of pumps and shuts off the engine. “Just stay with me. Only two hundred miles to go.”

  He’s talking to the car, but he could just as easily be speaking to the young woman strapped in the passenger seat. Samira hasn’t moved since they left Seattle, save to occasionally tilt her head from one side to the other as she mutters something nonsensical. Tak tried to keep the drool to a minimum, but once they passed through Spokane and into Idaho, he decided it was a losing battle. As a result, the front of her sundress is stained with saliva and blood—the latter resulting from a near-constant nosebleed that Tak is unable to staunch.

  Before he gets out of the car, he tears off a small piece of shirt and uses it to dab at Samira’s face. Once she’s reasonably clean, he balls up the cotton and places it inside her left nostril, which has started to spout blood once again. As the flow begins to congeal around the shirt, Samira reaches over and gently places her hand on his arm.

  “No people are allowed inside,” she says in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “What, Sam?” asks Tak.

  “Are there going to be robots at the wedding? Because the last time I tried that, the crust just fell right off.”

  “Yeah, Sam, we’ll have robots. Don’t worry. Just try to rest, all right? I have to go pump some gas.”

  “Spider, spider, spider, fly. Underneath the starry sky.” She looks directly into Tak’s eyes and smiles wide. “We’re not supposed to be here.”

  “Just hang on, Sam. Just a little more.”

  He slips out of the cruiser and over to the pump. Overhead, the moon provides a glimmer of light a
round the otherwise darkened station. Tak takes the lack of lighting as a sign the place has lost power; if true, it’s going to make fueling up a bit of a challenge.

  He pulls a nozzle from the pump and clicks the handle up and down a few times. When nothing happens, he drops it and jogs over to the main building, which is little more than a ramshackle hut with a wooden door and a pair of smudged windows. It’s hardly the most attractive place, but when you’re the only station for fifty miles in any direction, looks probably don’t mean a whole lot.

  I wonder if anyone’s alive around here, Tak thinks as he tries the door and finds it unlocked. Did the birds make it this far north? Or did everyone hear about the end of the world and decide to leave before management threw them out on their asses?

  Tak’s route is taking them across the top of Idaho and onto the northernmost highway in Montana—a barren two-lane stretch known simply as the Hi-Line. The road is dotted with small farm towns and whistle-stop train depots, most of which passed their glory days long ago. Between the interstate to the south and the gradual fading of the family farm, what was once a thriving trade route is now little more than a ribbon of pavement connecting one nowhere to another. But for Tak, the Hi-Line is perfect. The birds seem to be attracted to noise and light and energy; if their plan is to destroy the world, this part of the country should be way down on the list.

  It’s dark inside the building, so he produces a police-issue flashlight and clicks it on. As if drawn by some macabre fascination, the beam immediately lands on the headless corpse of a man. At first, Tak thinks that the birds have come and gone, but then he examines the body and sees an ancient two-barrel shotgun wedged between its knees and a congealed splatter of red on the wall behind. The body is seated next to a long wooden counter upon which rests a cash register, a plastic tub filled with beef jerky, and a small metal bowl. There is a sign taped to the bowl that reads: GOT A PENNY? LEAVE A PENNY. NEED A PENNY? GET THE HELL OUT OF MY STORE. Tak can’t decide if this is supposed to be funny or not.

  He pans the light around the room and finally finds what he was looking for: a small red switch labeled with the words shut-off valve. He dances gingerly around the station’s former proprietor, leans over the counter, and clicks the switch up and down a few times. When nothing happens, he spins and exits the store, but not before taking a piece of jerky from the bucket. Gotta keep fueled, he thinks as he downs the jerky in three massive bites. Besides, that guy won’t miss it.

  He strides back to the car and peeks in the side window, where Samira is slowly moving her mouth in little O shapes. Tak doesn’t bother listening; he knows it will be more gibberish, and that will only serve to further upset him. Instead, he opens the trunk and roots around until he finds a roadside emergency kit. He removes a small piece of tubing from the kit and heads off in search of a plug vent that will let him access the underground storage tank.

  He jogs around the side of the station and plays the beam around. Someone has dumped a small army of beer bottles in the weeds, and from the looks of the cobwebs, they’ve been doing so for some time. Tak has a brief vision of the man inside the station stealing a beer from the cooler and ducking back here during the slow days. Hope you went out with a cold one in your hand, buddy.

  The flashlight moves past the bottles, over an ancient milk crate, around a rusted tank that used to contain propane, and to another thigh-high cluster of weeds. Tak is starting to wonder if the station is too old to have a proper plug vent; if so, he’ll have to find the access hatch for the underground tank and pry it up. This is not a promising plan: opening the hatch is a two-man job, and Tak’s scrawny arms probably couldn’t budge the thing.

  He feels an instant of panic at this thought and tamps it down, focusing on his search as he circles the station and pops out on the other side. Taking a moment to collect himself, he begins sweeping the flashlight beam across the ground near the pumps. After a bit, he finally spies a small round knob at the edge of the concrete pump island. Soon he’s unscrewing the cap and dipping his hose inside. The smell of gas is strong, and when he shines the light inside, he’s pleased to see that the tanks are nearly full. This discovery sets off a round of lively conversation with himself.

  “Okay. Gas can. Need a gas can…. Actually, I should get a couple and put the extra in the trunk. Then we don’t have to stop again. Soooo, yeah. Back in the store? Fuck, I don’t want to go back in there. That dead guy’s there.”

  In the end, the dead guy gets one more visit. Tak enters the store at a jog and emerges a minute later with two large cans. Dropping the hose as far into the tank as it will go, he sucks on the other end until he feels gasoline well into his mouth, then quickly places his end of the hose inside the can. He spits a few times to clear the fuel, but even after he’s sure it’s gone, the smell and flavor are overpowering. He briefly considers going inside the store a third time for more jerky or a warm soda, but rejects the option. He’s seen all the headless dead people he can handle for one day.

  When the first can is almost full, Tak hears a shuffling noise behind him. He whirls around with the flashlight raised over his head, ready to smash the intruder across the face. But it’s only Samira, who somehow managed to unbuckle herself from the car and is walking toward him with ragged, drunken steps.

  “Ah, hell,” says Tak. He scrambles to his feet and scampers to her side, placing his arms under her shoulders to prevent her from falling. She looks up at him and grins.

  “Oh, hey,” she warbles. “I needed to leave. We had a vacation day back in March that I never took.”

  “You should sit, Sam. You’re gonna fall over.”

  “I once read a book about a haunted cemetery. That’s what the man in the video store said. But it’s not like he would know or anything.” She sways on her feet again and slumps into Tak. He can feel her heart jackhammering in her chest, and curses himself silently for ever agreeing to such a mad plan.

  “Dammit, Sam,” he whispers in her ear, “I never should have brought you here. I should have tried to do it all myself, but I was just so goddamn lonely. I…I missed you. I wanted you with me.”

  “They’re coming,” says Samira suddenly. Her mouth is buried against Tak’s shoulder, but the words come out clearly enough. “They’re coming to eat the world.”

  “What? Who’s coming?”

  “Caw,” she says in a ghostly whisper. “Caw, caw, caw, caw, caw.”

  She turns her head until she’s looking over her shoulder, then giggles. Hesitantly, Tak follows her gaze and notices a large, pale shape in the dark. He closes his eyes and tries to convince himself that it’s not really there, but when he opens them again, a new pair of shapes have joined the original.

  “Fuck a duck,” he says quietly.

  The fluttering of wings grows louder as more birds begin to land around the station. Tak sprints back to the gas can, which has overflowed and is now spilling fuel across the concrete and toward the pumps. Tak snatches the can in one hand and races to the car, then begins pouring gas into the cruiser with abandon. Fuel sloshes over his hands and down his pants, but he doesn’t care. Right now, his only thought is to get as much gas in the car as possible before the birds decide to make them a snack.

  “Sam!” he screams. “Sam, come on! We have to go now!”

  Whatever sense of urgency he feels is completely lost on her; she just stands in place and wobbles back and forth. Glancing at the building where the owner took his life, Tak sees dozens of birds beginning to mill about on the roof. Their talons click and scrape across the tar paper like the warm-up strokes of a washboard player in a jug band.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” mutters Tak angrily. “I am so tired of you ass bandits!” He can hear them talking now, a kind of click and chatter that simultaneously sounds like nonsense and a language. Hungry, they seem to say. Hungry. So hungry. Caw caw caw.

  The cruiser’s tank is maybe half-full when Tak decides they’ve run out of time. He throws the can to the ground and runs
back to claim Samira. Picking her up in his arms, he races back to the car and dumps her unceremoniously in the back before leaping into the front seat and slamming the door behind him.

  The moment the car starts, the birds scream to life. They begin flying overhead in large, swooping circles, cawing and shrieking until their cries become a massive wall of sound. As Tak slams the car into reverse and turns on the high beams, Samira starts to laugh. The tires spin against the gas-slicked surface of the road for a moment before finally catching. Tak backs up about fifteen feet and stops, watching in horror as a shaggy black cloud suddenly descends on the station. It’s like ants, he thinks wildly. Like watching ants come to a piece of candy.

  The birds are landing all around the car now. He can hear at least one on the roof, while another begins to peck gently at the rear window with a long, pale beak. He’s about to slam the accelerator down and try to just plow through them, but then he pauses. Though every fiber of his being is screaming at him to just put the pedal to the floor and book, he can’t stop looking at the gas-soaked concrete and the fuel that continues to pour from his makeshift siphon. With unsteady hands, Tak clicks the cigarette lighter under the dashboard and waits. More and more birds are arriving by the second, and somewhere in the writhing black cloud, he catches a glimpse of a white lab coat and a torn argyle sweater.

  “Oh, hell,” he says. “Is that Yates?”

  “Grandpa?” asks Samira from the backseat.

  As they watch, the cloud parts and Yates emerges. His transformation from man to bird has progressed at horrifying speed, and there’s almost nothing recognizably human about him anymore. He raises one gnarled, shriveled arm and points it at the cruiser as if he’s about to make a divine pronouncement—but all that comes out of his mouth is a thin, watery scream.

  At Yates’s signal, the other birds refocus their attention on the car. Tak sees a few leaning on their claws as if preparing to pounce, but before they can move, the lighter clicks into the ready position.