They were obviously frightened of me. It bothered me, but I understood their reaction. After all, it was people like me that were causing all the problems. What did Mollie call us … fleshers? I didn’t have time to consider this because I heard more people returning down the stairs. Several of them revered me the same way that the man and woman had, while some were quiet pleasant, smiling and speaking and asking how my trip was. There were none as friendly as Abe Lincoln who showed up a few minutes later with Seth in tow.
But before Seth and the president made it back, I was surprised when I felt the strange cold and warmth sensation as I had so many times when Seth took my hand. I looked down expecting to see him smiling up at me, but instead of Seth it was the little boy I had seen earlier with the green Lego Star Wars shirt.
“Hi,” he beamed with a broad, toothy grin that stretched his freckles from ear to ear.
“Hi,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Patrick,” he said maintaining his goofy kid-like smile.
“Well, Patrick,” I said, shaking his hand up and down. He had not released his grip. “Where are you from, young man?”
He shrugged. “Around.”
“Are your parents around?” I asked.
He didn’t say a word, just shook his head in the negative, his smile drooping slightly.
I didn’t know what to ask him. Did your parents move on? Are they alive and moved to another part of the country? Did you run away? The book of etiquette would need to have a new chapter or two written as a result of this phenomenon. In the end, I decided not to push it.
“Well, I am glad you are here Patrick,” I said. “Have you met my son, Seth?”
He frowned and shook his head. It was at that moment that I heard Seth and Lincoln coming back down the stairs. I looked up for a moment and when I looked back down, Patrick was gone. I glanced around and did not see him, but I had little time to look as Seth ran up and grabbed my leg, the sudden cold sending shivers up my spine.
“Daddy, you should see all the animals! There’s horses, cows, and a whole bunch of doggies!”
Abe Lincoln walked up behind Seth with a nostalgic grin on his face.
“Yep, I haven’t seen that many critters since my days on the farm when I was a lad. Of course, we only had one dog because that was all we could afford to feed.” He frowned with a puzzled look on his face. “I still can’t understand this eating thing, though.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, I get hungry as a horse, just like I did before, before, well …” his voice trailed off distantly.
I nodded my head in understanding.
“Well,” Lincoln continued, “when I eat, I get full.” He shook his head disconcertedly. “And chewing … I guess our teeth are more solid than the rest.” He said this in such a tone I couldn’t decide if it was a statement or a question. He chuckled loudly, drawing stares from several others in the cavern.
“And then there’s squenching,” he said between snorts. He leaned close to my ear and whispered confidentially, obviously not wanting Seth to overhear.
“What is squenching, anyhow? Ghost scat?”
He let loose with another echoing belly laugh. No, Mr. Lincoln was not melancholy; he was as jovial as good old St. Nick and as crass as my great uncle who had an affinity for potty humor. If my uncle had decided to remain when he passed 15 years ago, I could only imagine the field day he was having with squenching.
He furrowed his brow and frowned slightly, trying to put the humor aside, at least for a moment. He extended his index finger and made a circular motion.
“I guess it’s kind of a circle of life thing. We eat the food, we purge the food, and the animals clean up. I just don’t understand why we souls need to eat; we obviously don’t need it, at least as nourishment, anyhow.” He shook his head dismissively. “I know that’s not what you want to talk about. Tommy and I could go on all night and not understand it a bit better in the morning. I guess we should just go on and accept it, cause we sho’ can’t change it,” he said with a wink.
He pulled up a chair at one of the tables and beckoned me to sit across from him. He leaned back and crossed his hands over his slender belly. It was surreal talking to this man who was not only an American hero and my personal hero but he was also famous around the world. He was an icon to say the least, but still he was not what I expected. I expected a serious and deliberate man, someone who demanded respect and reverence, in short I expected a stiff. But his light-hearted personality took me by surprise. I was pleasantly surprised and instantly felt at ease, like I was talking to a lifelong friend. That was a good thing, but it only enhanced the fantastic nature of our conversation each time I thought about who I was actually speaking to.
“Well, Tommy, I know you want to know where we are. All you have to do is ask.”
I did ask.
As it turned out, the cavern that we were in was the end of a very old tunnel system that had been started and finished prior to the Civil War and reinforced in 1862. The tunnel was around three miles long, and was designed for the sole purpose of sneaking people and supplies in and out of the city. Primarily for the safety of the president because of what happened when the British invaded the capital city in the War of 1812, and the reinforcement was done years later because of the potential threat of a Confederate invasion.
“The other end comes out in the basement of an old townhouse a few blocks from the White House. I managed to elude my pursuers the night I made the decision to leave the place I had dwelt in for the past 150 years. I got into the basement and into the passage which has been sealed for years now, probably a century. I was fortunate enough to find a kind heart like Mollie’s on the other end, and the rest is history, as I believe that is the expression nowadays.”
I nodded and started to stupidly ask how he made it through a sealed passage. I guess I was getting tired. I smiled when he demonstrated how this was accomplished by slowly pushing his hand through the table.
We must have talked for at least three hours, but it seemed like only ten minutes. I was fascinated to learn about his stay in the White House up until the time he left almost a week ago. It was then that he told me everything he had observed in the Oval Office since the storm arrived. He watched and observed what was transpiring and made the conscious decision to leave and get as far away as he could. Lincoln was and is an intelligent man, and he could see where circumstances were headed; he got out while he could.
“I knew they were following me every time I left,” Lincoln said. “I guess they suspected I was up to no good, because I would take my walks around an older, less visited area of town. The truth is I was checking on the townhouse, and quite frankly I didn’t want to be recognized and molested. Things aren’t what they were in my day when I could walk to the Capitol and back without anyone hardly noticing, especially when I left my hat at home,” he said pointing to the top of his head, which was completely devoid of eternal headwear.
Lincoln was relegated to his eternal existence in his classic black suit and tie, but his iconic stovepipe hat was not part of his attire. I have to admit, I found that small detail a little disappointing.
“Anyway, when I heard their plan to round up Impals,” Lincoln said then stopped and held up his hand with a wry smile. “It’s okay, Mollie’s in bed. Besides, I don’t find it offensive. Sticks and stones …” he trailed off with a wink and a grin.
“When I heard they were planning to start rounding Impals up and relocating them, that troubled me, but the reasoning scared the hell out of me.” He lowered his voice and leaned toward me, “They said the Constitution didn’t grant rights to the deceased, only the living. I guess their definition of living is different from mine. I feel pretty alive,” he said, patting his cheeks.
That had been my thought exactly, but to now hear it confirmed I felt like a hole was torn
out of my gut. I swallowed hard. My throat had started feeling better, as long as I was careful when I swallowed or didn’t talk too loud or too long, but that unprepared gulp set my throat on fire again.
“They said that we would soon have an overcrowding problem and we needed to take preemptive action for the good of the living and the Impals before it got out of hand. I knew it was only a matter of time before I was included in that.” He paused and placed his hands together in front of his mouth like he was in prayer. “Please understand, I didn’t run because of my own cowardice, although I do admit to being afraid. I ran so I could warn as many people and Impals as I could, because I felt it was going to get much worse.”
“How much worse?” I croaked, my throat still burning.
Lincoln shook his head and frowned as if he were considering the best way to couch his answer. After several long moments he spoke slowly, barely above a whisper.
“I overheard one of the president’s advisors, Garrison, he was a general or something. He was telling another man, a Dr. Winder, that they had come up with a way to get rid of the Impals, to send them back where they belong.”
CHAPTER 26
Historical Significance
“To pity distress is but human; to relieve it is Godlike.”
—Horace Mann
My heart sank into the pit of my stomach. The very thing I had been worried about, Seth and the other Impals leaving, the government was now trying to expedite.
“How?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” admitted Lincoln. “They had been discussing theories of how we were here. They had Einstein, trying to figure out the secret of our appearance.”
“He cooperated?” I asked incredulously, I couldn’t believe that to be true, not after the couple of times I had heard him on the radio; he had been clearly disturbed by developing events.
“Well at first, he had no reason not to. Everyone was curious as to what had happened, including Impals. But as time went on, his mood changed; he was less and less engaged in discussions, until eventually he stopped coming to meetings all together.”
“Did they take him off for relocation with other Impals?”
Lincoln shrugged.
“I don’t know, maybe, but … I hope not. I guess it’s possible if he refused to cooperate,” he said with a troubled frown.
I closed my eyes and focused on the background noise, the low murmur of Impals bedding down for the night, and the sometimes distant and sometimes very near drip of water echoing melodiously through the cave. It was not that melodious when you really honed in on it, it was maddening. I felt physically and spiritually ill, there was no other way to explain it. Refocusing did little to hinder my troubled thoughts. Things were much, much worse than I imagined.
After several long moments I reopened my eyes and looked at Lincoln. He was looking at me sympathetically.
“I know you’re worried about Seth,” he said. “I give you my word that I will do everything in my power to see that no harm comes to him.”
My mind was swirling with a cesspool of terrible thoughts, try as I might I couldn’t get a single positive thought to come to the surface. I looked over at Seth, who was sleeping peacefully with his head on the table. Jackson was curled up on his feet. This view of my sweet little son and his dog unhinged my mouth, and I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Why am I the only flesher here?”
Lincoln looked at me surprised; a slight hint of bemusement washed across his face.
“Because we knew you could be trusted,” he said.
“How?” I demanded.
He stroked his beard and smiled wanly.
“Because Mollie puts a great deal of stock in her friend Lizzie’s opinion, I guess. Plus, you have a son whom you love very much who is, forgive me, part of the oppressed class.”
I looked at him blankly for a long time. Deep down I knew he was right; how could you predict how anyone was going to react unless they stood to lose something, namely a dearly departed loved one? Even then, nothing was certain. This was uncharted territory in human history. I felt a bizarre mix of emotions swelling inside. I felt pride in what seemed to be acceptance from my hero and the Impal community-at-large. This mixed unnervingly with a gripping panic on the thought that my son could be taken away in any case, regardless of whether the phenomenon did or did not pass, taken away by mere human ignorance.
At that moment I heard the sound of the hidden door opening, and a minute later, the slow shuffling steps of Mollie gingerly traversing the stairs. I looked up to see her emerge from the shadows accompanied by Esther on one side and what appeared to be a family of Impals following closely behind. There were a man, woman, and a little girl who I guessed to be ten or eleven years of age. They all wore tired and frightened expressions on their silvery faces. Their clothing suggested that they were recently deceased, especially since the little girl wore Arizona jeans and a polka dot Tommy Hilfiger blouse.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Mollie said, taking special care not to wake the sleeping Seth. “This is the Lieblong family: Mark, Susan, and their daughter, Samantha.”
They all nodded sheepishly, their eyes darting nervously around the cave. That is, until their gaze seemed to fall on Lincoln at the same time. Their confused expressions melded into the same bewildered countenance of unified recognition.
“Hello,” Lincoln and I said together.
I’m sure Mollie saw their looks of celebrity infatuation because she quickly ushered them off toward the beds on the far wall of the cave.
“Don’t go, I’ll be right back,” Mollie promised with a wink as she took the silvery hand of Samantha and urged her to follow. I had no idea where I would possibly go.
She showed the Lieblongs to their beds and stayed to chat with them for a few minutes. Shortly they all took seats on their respective beds and sat there with looks of utter perplexity, occasionally casting a furtive glance in our direction.
The Lieblongs were clearly out of their element; they were frightened and confused. I guessed that it had been a short time, maybe a few hours, since they were separated from their mortal tether. Something terrible had happened to this family and it had not been that long ago. I suddenly remembered the family that Seth and I had seen the day we left on our trip: the victims of a terrible car wreck. They were Impals standing next to their bodies, which were covered on the side of the road. They wore the same bewildered expressions as the Lieblongs.
Once the Lieblongs were somewhat settled in, Mollie tottered back over to Lincoln and me. Try as I might, I couldn’t stifle an enormous yawn as she approached. It not only reminded me of how tired I was but also that my throat still hurt.
“I know you must be tired,” she said. She looked lovingly at Seth as he peacefully stirred in his sleep. “I know that little fellow is.”
“Well, this old fellow definitely is,” Lincoln proclaimed, stretching his long lanky arms into the air. “I think it’s time to hit the rack!” He turned and shook my hand and then delicately kissed Mollie’s hand, causing her to blush noticeably in the low light. “Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite!” he advised as he strolled toward the beds.
“Well, Thomas, I have a special place prepared upstairs for you and Seth,” Mollie said giving Lincoln a final wave before he reached his bed.
I looked over my shoulder at the rows of Impals, some sleeping, some sitting up and a few milling about, quietly visiting with fellow Impal insomniacs. Lincoln was already stretched out on his bed, his head underneath the pillow I would guess to filter out the ambient noise in the cave, or, maybe that was just his quirk. I felt guilty.
“Why do Seth and I get to sleep upstairs when they all have to stay down here?” I asked.
Mollie smiled.
“Lizzie was right about you. You are a good man,” she said patting my shoulder with a
gnarled hand. She looked at Esther and nodded. Esther gently scooped Seth up, taking special care not to wake him and headed toward the stairs. Mollie gently took my hand and led me in the same direction. “Sleeping down here is not very conducive to we fleshers’ good health,” she said with a suppressed laugh.
“I thought souls,” I said, taking special care to use the right word in the presence of our host, “I thought they felt much the same things we do.”
“They do, they do,” Mollie agreed, patting my arm. “But they are not susceptible to heat, cold, and wetness as we are. They don’t have to worry about such bothersome things as colds, flu, or pneumonia,” she said.
In our short walk out of the cave and to a second floor bedroom in Mollie’s impressively large home, I learned a great deal about the house and history of the tunnel, getting much more detail than I did in my discussion with Lincoln.
There was a small cave discovered in the early 1800s underneath the then fledgling city of Washington, D.C. A townhouse was built by a wealthy resident over the cave, and it was used as a wine and root cellar by the owner until just a few short years after the War of 1812. The traumatic experience of the British marching into the city and burning most of the Federal buildings convinced many in the government that an escape route was needed in case anything like that ever occurred again. The cave was a few short blocks from the White House, so it would be an ideal route by which to evacuate the president.
Construction was started sometime in 1815, funded by a secret measure passed by Congress. A newly formed coal mining company that had just started prospecting in the Appalachian Mountains was tapped to construct the tunnel. They began digging in the cave under the city, and in just a little over a year, they broke into another cavern system—the one under Mollie’s house. They were pleasantly surprised that the cave under Mollie’s was completely stable and had a natural exit, or entrance, depending on your perspective.
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