The Conformity

by John Hornor Jacobs

  “Watch it, chubs,” she responds.

  Tap looks at me, then Ember, then spits. “You fuckin’ guys.”

  Then he leaps into the air and rises, halting at first, then faster.

  Faintly, I hear laughter. Madelyn peals, “And away we go!”

  twenty-nine

  CASEY

  “We’ve got to go,” Shreve says, pushing himself up and standing. For the past hour he’s taken in sips of water and cold, freshly untinned tomato soup and not much else. The fire has died so low.

  I need to understand. It’s hard to just turn the reins over to him without even questioning why. Yes, we wouldn’t be alive now but for Shreve, but I can’t, I won’t, follow blindly.

  “Why, Shreve? Why can’t we wait at least until Jack and the rest of them come back?”

  “It’s coming. The Conformity. It can’t sense us yet—it can’t sense me yet—but it will soon. Even if I’m running silent.”

  Shreve moves his arms and cracks his back like an old man waking, trying to stretch out the kinks. With the water, he’s lost the hard angles in his face but he’s still weak.

  “What about the others?” I ask. “Jack and Tap. Ember. The ghosts, Dani and Kicks—”

  Shreve perks up. “I didn’t dream that?”

  “You mean you didn’t send them?”

  His face clouds, and he thinks for a long while, standing there like he’s lost something, his keys or his phone, and he’s trying to puzzle out where he might have put them. Everything’s become strange now, after the Conformity, and there’s a disconnect between the urgency of our situation and the everyday normalcy of our bodies’ habits: it’s almost as if we should act more desperate than we truly are. The world is in jeopardy, yet Shreve looks simply like he’s forgotten his keys.

  “I thought they were a dream. And I thought of Reese. We’ll need him before the end. But we can’t wait here for them to find us. They could be dead and will be dead if I try to contact them. Or anyone else.” He shakes his head. Holds his open hands before his face.

  “Won’t the Conformity target them if it can’t sense you?” I ask.

  “If it gets near enough to sense them, sure.” Then he shakes his head. “If it’s not nearby, I don’t think so. But it can see me from far away. It’s always been tied with Quincrux, and I’ve been marked by him. It’s like …” He pauses here, thinking. “It’s like I’m a beacon.”

  “You’re a challenge,” I say, thinking about Shreve. “You draw people to you the same way it draws people in.”

  The look on his face is disturbed, brow furrowed. “Like I’m a Conformity, myself?”

  “Yes,” I say, taking his hand with my invisible one. “You joined us, all of our minds.”

  “It wasn’t to create some kind of … of … collective.”

  “I know,” I say.

  He’s quiet for a long while. “It’s been so long since I’ve just been me, me solely. But I know this.” He turns to stare at me, his face so intense I feel like something in him is about to break. “We’ve got to go. Now.”

  Negata says, “I found a stable yesterday. Enough horses for us to ride. But where do we go?”

  “To where it all began,” says Shreve. “We go east.”

  The snow’s stopped falling, and the world stands hushed as we make our way down the mountainside, following Negata. Shreve’s too weak to carry anything, so the pack-mule duties fall to Negata and me. We’ve rigged hobo bindles out of the slats from beds and bedsheets. Not a lot of food, but we have enough of the canned stuff from the lodge’s larder to keep us for a while. A single small pan to melt snow. Matches. A small can of lighter fluid we found under the sink.

  Before we leave I rummage through the last of the armaments from our hasty flight from the campus—two M9 pistols, multiple grenades on bandoliers, and an M14 with three full magazines. I offer Negata the M14, and he just shakes his head. Negata’s a strange one. Shreve stands looking at me and then shrugs. “I’d carry it, but I never managed to get to any weapons training.” He grins and looks sheepish. “Quincrux and Ruark weren’t really keen on the idea of me with a gun. I was looking forward to shooting stuff.”

  “It’s not that great, really,” I say and hand him one of the M9s. “Don’t stick it in your pants or you might shoot your dick off.” I grin. “We wouldn’t want that.”

  Surprise on Shreve’s face is a wonderful thing, it happens so rarely. “No, we wouldn’t want that.”

  Negata’s a fine guide, taking us through the firs and pines, on and off roads, his slight figure moving silently through the trees. The snow makes some of the walking hard, and my feet are so cold it hurts to think.

  All the world is hushed except for Shreve’s labored breathing. After two hours of steady walking except for small breaks, we come upon a level pasture ringed in barbed wire and snowdrifts, some of them up to our thighs. The ground here is churned and brown, and fifteen or twenty horses stand steaming in the paddock, their winter coats furry. Beyond them is an open field with cattle and maybe goats walking on brown paths through the snow. It’s dreamlike, this little farm nestled in a mountain pasture.

  I took riding lessons when I was a girl and had both my arms. Now the sense memory of all that comes rushing back—Mom and Dad’s smiling faces watching me, the smell of hay and manure, and the heat of sun on my arms. The creak of leather and the ache in my legs from posting.

  I hope Mom and Dad are okay. And Jayson. Everything happened so fast, and I haven’t even had time to think much about my family. But now it all comes crashing back in on me at the sight of the horses steaming in the cold, the red-brown barn at the far end of the paddock. The dreamlike pasture beyond. Everyone I love could be dead. They could all be part of the Conformity. When it’s not right in your face, it’s so easy to forget your own personal stake out there. Your loved ones could be lost.

  “Hey,” Shreve says, putting his hand on my shoulder, right above the stump. “You okay?”

  So many people think tears are a weakness or an annoyance. But if you can weep without fear, you find they’re a strength. I let the tears stand on my cheeks and say, “Just remembering the world before all this.”

  Shreve grows still. His breath plumes in the air, and he says, “We’ll get it back. Maybe not exactly. But we’re going to get something worth having back.”

  Negata holds two strands of barbed wires apart and quickly slips through. Then he turns and holds them for us.

  “I hope you’re right,” I say, and follow.

  As we get near the barn, squishing and squelching through the half-frozen mud of the horse paddock, a man exits the shadows of the building and walks forward to meet us with a pitchfork in his meaty hand. He’s been spreading hay, maybe. He’s thick, blocky. With his head uncovered, it’s easy to see he’s bald with the barest hint of a neck—one of those guys who, due to their baldness, you think’s older than he really is. He could crush boulders in those hands.

  “Can I help you?” he asks. His tone is open and genial, and now that we’re closer, I can see that he’s got bright eyes and laugh lines.

  “I don’t know,” Shreve says, shaking his head. “We need your horses.”

  The man puts his hands on his hips and looks at us closely. “Is that so? You’re a motley crew to be coming onto my land, bold as love, and asking for horses. A boy, an unarmed man, and a one-armed girl with an assault rifle slung over her shoulder. This a robbery?”

  Shreve puts out his hands, gesturing for everyone to be cool. “Of course not. No. But we need them. We’re …” He stops, thinking. Since he’s awoken, some of what made Shreve Shreve has gone. He’s less assertive. Kinder, really. Vulnerable.

  “You’re what?” The man smiles, and I realize he’s enjoying the conversation. He’s probably not seen anyone since the Conformity arose. Close to the land, the fields. The end of everything might not have affected him much.

  “We’re on a mission,” I say, moving forward to stand near S
hreve.

  “Oh, ho! A mission? That sounds important.”

  “We’re going to stop what’s happening. We’re going to save the people caught up in the …”

  “The aliens?”

  Funny, but when he says it like that it startles me. Aliens?

  “It’s not aliens,” Shreve says. “But it is alien, if you get me. And we’re going to stop it.”

  The man chuckles. “I don’t get you. Way I figure it, big balls of … whatever … floating over all the major cities, destroying everything. Sounds like aliens to me.”

  He’s got a point. And to him, it’s probably easier to understand the workings of the entity and the state of the world by slapping a label on it. There’s a comfort to labels. There’s false but satisfying comprehension.

  “Whatever,” Shreve says, waving a hand to brush away his misunderstanding. “The point is, we’re going to stop it, but we need faster transportation.”

  “Where you going to?” the man asks, genuinely interested.

  “Maryland.”

  The man whistles in response. “Ah. Where the first one appeared. That’s a far piece to travel. You’ll never make it on horseback. Hell, with this snow, you’ll never even make it to Montana.” He sucks his teeth and thinks. “I’d be hard-pressed to give you one horse, let alone the six or seven you’ll need, just to get them killed.” He thinks for a moment. “Not even considering the nutjobs out there or the aliens, it’s gonna take you two or three months to get where you’re going.”

  The surprising thing is that he’s already calculated what it will take for us to make the journey. Which means there’s a possibility.

  He looks at us in turn and shakes his head slowly, shifting his grip on the pitchfork. “World’s all jiggered up, that’s for sure. And you folks seem in earnest, but I’m sorry, I just can’t give away my ponies to anyone who asks for them. But let me share with you some of my breakfast, if you would, and we can part as friends.”

  I look at Shreve and can see his jaw working. Something hard is setting in him. His eyes take on that intense, wolfish cast, and I’m worried he’s going to use his power.

  But he doesn’t. He points to me and says, “You called her one-armed. But she isn’t. Are you, Casey?”

  I understand now. I shake my head and say, “No, I’m not. I have two arms. One is very special.”

  I look around the yard for something—anything—to manipulate, but this farmer keeps a very tidy farm. There’s a bench, with a bucket nearby, and a curry comb. But none of those have the dramatic element I need. So I settle on the farmer himself.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, do you understand?”

  A smile curls his lips. His eyes are merry. “That’s good news,” he says.

  “Stay calm, okay?”

  He nods again, grinning fully now. “I’ve had some coffee but not too much.”

  I take a large breath and reach out with the ghosthand, expanding it in my mind to encompass the whole of the farmer’s big, blocky body, and grasp him in my hand. His smile fails and his eyes widen as I set my feet and hoist him up high. His pitchfork falls to the sodden earth, and I lift him up near the apex of the barn roof, right where the classic rooster weather vane sits. It’s a strain—I’m reminded of how light Shreve was when I lifted him to the top of the water tower—but I can manage it. I’ll be hungry later. Very hungry.

  He hangs in midair for a good long while but doesn’t struggle or thrash, and I’m careful not to crush him.

  “Okay, miss,” he calls from above. “That’s one doozy of an arm. You can set me down now, if you’re of a mind.”

  For a split second I’m tempted to call out, “So you’ll give us the horses?” before releasing him, but that would seem too much like extortion. So I set him down.

  He bows his head, scratches his pate. Looks at me again closely. “Don’t know what to think of that. It was …” He clears his throat. “Unexpected. Didn’t think I could be surprised anymore …” He gestures with his thick hands feebly. He looks pained. “Come on to the house and break bread with me, and we’ll figure out the best route for you to take.”

  “You mean you’re giving us the horses?” I ask.

  He smiles, but it’s more pained now. “I don’t understand how all of that works,”—he gestures at the weather vane—“but since it is beyond my understanding, I figure you’ll have a chance at stopping the aliens, since they’re beyond my understanding too. Like to like and like versus like, the missus always said.”

  Like to like and like versus like. It feels almost prophetic.

  “After all, what’s a few ponies for the war effort?”

  After a breakfast of eggs and cured pork, the farmer—he tells us his name is Nelson—takes us out and chooses the six hardiest ponies for us. He drills Shreve and Negata on riding basics for a long while. Eventually, they get it to Nelson’s satisfaction and we spend another hour or so rigging our “luggage,” as the farmer calls it. We’re riding western saddles, and all the long leather straps and things that seemed so foreign to me as an English saddle rider make more sense now—straps and ties for saddlebags and bedrolls and even a holster for a long carbine. The M14 fits poorly inside it, but it’ll do.

  “It seems like a lot, but believe me, miss,” Nelson says, tying down a bag of oats on one of the ponies along with a couple jugs of water, a pan, and a bag of pinto beans. “You’re going out there in a pitiful state. I wish I had more to give you.”

  At breakfast we discuss our route. Nelson retrieves a relatively new atlas, opens the book to Idaho, and jabs his finger at the map. “You’re here, and you’re gonna want to follow highways. Might be more dangerous that way—I’m sure there’ll be more and more nutjobs the closer you get to cities—but there’s no way you’ll make it cross-country. So …” He rubs the stubble on his chin and then traces a line north. “I’m gonna lead you out of here, east, to 95. Then your best bet is to go north until you hit Highway 12 and then take it north all the way to Missoula. Once you’re there, go east on Interstate 90. That alone will take a couple of weeks, understand? Horses can only travel in this weather around twenty miles a day, and you’ll need to switch horses once a day or at least every other day. Horses get tired, they’ll put their heads down and start heaving air. They’ll stagger about like they’re drunk, so keep a lookout. I imagine you’ll see it soon enough on our trip to 95.” He sucks his teeth. Thinking. “Damn, folks. It’s gonna be a long ride. My ponies aren’t shod, so keep their hooves clean. Stick to the grassy medians, don’t be wearing out their feet on the asphalt.” Nelson looks as if he is overwhelmed. He stares at his home, a nice, small farmhouse decorated with photos of him with a lovely woman—strained and thin but lovely—and photos of young men in military uniforms. His sons, I imagine. But none of us ask, and he doesn’t offer. “I should go with you, but all my livestock … my home.”

  Negata, who has remained silent in all of our dealings, places his hand on Nelson’s shoulder and says, “We will manage. Do not abandon everything you’ve loved and worked for. It is a long journey, and we cannot see what help we’ll find on the way.”

  “You can’t know that. And you’re not horse people,” he says. “It’s a good ninety miles to Missoula. It’s thousands of miles to the east coast!”

  “We will have to take it slowly. But surely. And we will make it. Do not fear for us.”

  “It’s not you I’m worried about so much,” he says, glancing at me. “It’s the horses.”

  “We’ll take good care of them, Mr. Nelson,” I say. “I promise.”

  He sits down at the table, the atlas open before him. “I believe you mean that, or I wouldn’t be giving them to you. But, again, it’s not you. It’s everything out there.” He waves at the window. “If you’re really going up against … against the aliens, there’ll be danger.”

  “Of course,” says Negata. “As you said outside, this is the war effort. And there will be war.”

  Nelson g
lances at one of the pictures of the young men in uniform. He stills.

  “Okay. So you got the plan. Once you’re on I-90 heading east, at some point you’ll start passing rivers. The Missouri. The Mississippi, if you get far enough east. I suggest you trade the ponies for a boat and float downriver when you can. There’ll be dams, but you can always portage whatever boat you get or find another on the other side.”

  It’s now that the enormity of what we’re setting out to do hits me like a cartoon anvil. I look at Shreve, and he has a sick expression spreading across his face. “We’ve gone back in time, Casey.”

  Nelson nods. “That’s right. Two hundred years or more. And you’ll be backtracking Lewis and Clark, believe it or not.”

  It is Shreve’s turn to whistle. “This is impossible,” he says. “I should just face it.”

  I don’t know if Shreve is referring to facing the impossible truth or the Conformity itself.

  “Nothing is impossible,” Negata says gently. “You and Casey and the rest of the extranaturals are proof of that.”

  We sit there staring at each other, thinking about what lies before us, until Nelson clears his throat. “We’ve got to get a move on before the morning’s gone. Long way to 95. Got some of my boys’ old winter clothes for you all. You’re gonna need them.”

  With the horses packed and tied, us sitting in the saddles while the snow comes down softly all around, everything seems far off and dreamlike. We’re in a line, and I can tell—what with the new winter coats and heavy underwear and down pants Nelson has given us—Shreve’s having a hard time staying in his saddle. But when I come alongside him, leading my second pony, he gives me such a fierce look that I decide it might be better if I didn’t give him any pointers on riding.

  Nelson waves a big gloved hand, whistles, and hollers, “Ho!” And he spurs his horse forward, down the road from his farm.

  I feel like I’m rising and falling all at once, in slow motion. My heart feels too big for my chest. When I was a girl, I dreamed of riding a horse in the snow, of being on an adventure. Now that it’s here, it’s such a hard road in front of us, and these few steps are just the beginning.