Christmas Trees & Monkeys

by Keohane, Dan

  The outside daylight faded. Carl looked across the floor to where his harness hung empty. He wasn’t going to make it.

  The sound, reflected in the screaming face of her oldest daughter, was the sound of surf magnified a million times. Katie gripped her neck so tightly Margaret gasped for breath. On her lap, Robin’s mouth moved calmly in song. Margaret wished she could hear it. She stared at the child’s lips and watched her sing to the wind.

  Behind the fire station a wall of uncountable leagues of salt water rose from the western horizon. The sun reflected off its face in immense ribbons of swirling color. Ahead of it all came the wind like a trumpeting angel, and the deafening sound of a thousand million high tides rolling towards shore but never cresting.

  As Carl ran for his harness and Margaret stared transfixed at her baby’s song, a shadow passed over the common. Then, like so many chess pieces, the trees and buildings and people were swept away.

  * * *

  Arms flailing wildly, Carl hovered in the middle of the ark as it rolled over and around him. The darkness was nearly complete, except for the occasional shadow whirling overhead. He could make out voices. Some were screams but others were calm, directed to children and pets alike as everyone hollered or barked or mewed in terror. Carl felt as if he’d been tossed into a madman’s carnival ride. He expected to be deluged in water, but felt nothing but an icy wind tearing through the gaps in the hull.

  He sensed the beam before he actually hit it, a dark foreboding shape rising from the gloom below. He raised his left arm. When they connected, it was the arm that gave way. A bright flash filled his vision. His body went limp and rolled away from the beam in time with the tumbling of the ship. He landed on someone’s chest. Two heavy fists gathered him up by the tee-shirt and pulled him close. His legs tumbling behind him, Carl reached for his left arm. Something hard and jagged protruded just above the elbow. Touching it sent a vibration coursing through his body. He realized what he held between his fingers was a jagged edge of bone. Feeling on his face the hot breath of whoever held him, he passed out.

  * * *

  Gravity pulled at the heaving surge of water as if to reclaim a lost toy. By the time the ocean reached the Rocky Mountains it was no more than a mile higher than the tallest peak. As the wave rolled across the mountains its underbelly tore open. The wave crested. Miles of sea, rock and ice curved in on itself and fell to earth, like a giant on a toppling beanstalk.

  * * *

  Bernard Myers stared at the sky. Clouds raced by, stretched thin by the wind. Though nothing seemed to be pinning him down, he could move neither his legs nor his arms. The house he’d glimpsed before the lake cast him down was gone. Shattered beams and even a bathtub rose in his peripheral vision. He wondered if the wooden stake protruding from some numb area of his lower body was once part of the same house. He also wondered if his back was broken.

  From his vantage, Bernard could see the Rocky Mountains to the west. They rose high over the trees that once blocked his view. A blurred gray bank of clouds rose quickly over the snow-capped peaks. It spread north and south as far as his paralyzed gaze could see. So the final storm approaches, he mused. Thunder rolled steady and unending over him.

  The rising cloud bank draped over the mountains. Bernard watched brilliant streaks of white rip into the gray blanket. What he had originally took for thunder intensified, then he understood. The cloudburst everyone had waited for was come and gone. The flood waters left in their wake advanced with a speed Bernard could not begin to measure.

  God, I’m sorry for every bad thing I did. I’ve never been to confession, as you probably know, but... oh hell. He sighed. Air gurgled in his lungs. Forget about me. Take care of Aggie. Please. She can be a royal pain in the ass sometimes, but she’s a good woman. He watched with resigned dispassion the approaching monster.

  * * *

  Agnes stumbled across the yard, fumbling with her lighter. When she finally ignited the cigarette on the ninth try the smoke burst from her mouth only to be whisked across the empty lake. Fueled by the nicotine she ran towards the cottage shouting, “Bernie? Bernie?” No one paid her any heed. They gazed through their own fearful stupor at the lake or the sky or each other.

  Sanjiv stood at the edge of the grass, one foot tentatively on the dock. He stared down its length to Nicole, who hung awkwardly from the edge. The ground shook in chorus with the baleful roar approaching from behind. He bit his tongue to keep the growing hysteria from showing in his face. He felt betrayed, but could not understand why. Somehow all of this, foretold in her god-forsaken premonitions, seemed to be Nicole’s fault. She was making this happen.

  He never believed in God, no more now than when Nicole first started her religious ravings. Wrapped up in the sound and wind Sanjiv wanted to believe in God and heaven and hell more than he remembered wanting anything before. He began walking towards her. It was then, in the last five seconds of his life Sanjiv knew what he had to do. Kill the woman and stop the madness.

  Nicole watched Sanjiv watching her. She wondered if he noticed the vomit on her shirt. Her husband’s face twitched with an effort to appear emotionless. She’d seen him do this so many times before. Now, though, a thin line of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. Sanjiv’s eyes never wavered from hers. Nicole’s hands ached. She now slipped past the edge of the wood, keeping her head above the dock as if treading water. The mud at the bottom of the pier sucked at her ankles.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. Like Agnes’ smoke, Nicole’s voice tore away behind her. Sanjiv must have seen her lips move for he spoke as well. She was grateful not to hear him. He reached the end of the dock.

  Reflexively Nicole released her grip. She sank to her knees, wondering if she would go right on sinking, falling away from the man leaning over her. The trees, cottage and earth holding them all in place erupted. Sanjiv never looked back. The world seemed suspended in that final moment as he leaned further and reached towards his wife. The destruction whirled behind him in a quickly descending backdrop. Then the Pacific Ocean slammed them all into oblivion.

  * * *

  The first crest rolled over the Rocky Mountain valleys. In a mad game of leap frog the next wave tumbled over the malay. Torn between gravity and momentum it found its mark sixty miles further east. In this manner the water moved from town to town and state to state. Each cresting wave surged lower than its predecessor until the sea, its initial enthusiasm spent, rolled slowly across the Plains. It settled miles deep, then less, then simply spread as a level of rising salt water that broke and fell back against the first significant obstacle in its path.

  At its furthest point, just east of the Mississippi River, the flood became a playground for children who understood little its source. They danced in the salty puddles; scooped mud into red plastic buckets. Trembling on porches their mothers and fathers stared westward and wondered why they had been spared. They sat in folding chairs and watched increasing numbers of pale green helicopters thumping with an angry urgency towards the distant western hills.

  * * *

  The sail flapped uncertainly in the wind. On his knees, Carl leaned against the railing and stared at the sea. Now and then the sleek body of a dolphin broke the surface as it swam westward, following the receding tide. Not for the first time, Carl wondered why it was Margaret he searched for among the waves, rather than his own family. He tried to imagine what his parents went through in those final moments, but all he could summon was a still image of his front yard. The only reality he could imagine at the moment was Margaret, and he knew now she was gone forever. He thought about a discussion they had two weeks ago. Did she believe in the Rapture, when God would take his chosen ones body and soul to heaven before sending his punishment? She laughed at the question. The way she saw it, why would God choose so many people for this grand adventure then spoil their fun at the last minute?

  Now Carl wondered once more. Milling around the ship, the passengers gazed across the water, or kept
their children busy with games and stories. No one prayed. No one seemed to know what they should be doing. At that last moment before he dropped the ramp, Carl looked at Margaret and her children sitting on the grass and thought They’re the only ones who deserve to be on this ship and they’re sitting on the ground waiting to die. Now they were gone, leaving the survivors to sort things out for themselves.

  Maybe the Rapture had come after all.

  “You should sleep for a while. If there’s anyone out there they can get you to a hospital and set this arm right.” She didn’t say the rest (“If there are any hospitals left”) but he could hear it in her voice nonetheless.

  The baby lay on its belly and sucked on the edge of a blanket. The woman checked the splint on Carl’s arm. She had been a nurse after all. When the ship stopped its rolling and broke into daylight, she immediately took charge of setting the bone back into place. Since then she hadn’t left his side. She even fed young Connor on her breast in front of him. It was a fitting penance for taking the Carboneaus’ place, Carl assumed. He turned from the railing. The deck was still wet and soaked his pants when he sat. With the baby at his feet, Carl tried to sleep.

  Across the new landscape, the makeshift fleet turned its bows toward the sun. They followed its burning light as it fell behind the eastern horizon. Reds and yellows spread like fire across the water. The people sailed the ships as best they could against the wind, and waited for someone to come.

  — — — — —

  About “The Storm of Generations”

  I love Ray Bradbury. OK, so I’ve never actually met Mr. Bradbury, but I love his writing, both in content and style. I keep one particular non-fiction book of his on the fireplace mantle beside my bed. It’s a tiny collection of essays called The Zen of Writing, a must-read for anyone who strives to do the fantastic-fiction thing.

  In one particular essay, Bradbury talks of how he would think of a word or two and let it roll around in his head. He would type the word on a piece of paper. Then, he would type a few more related words, seeing what comes of it (go buy the book and read it yourself before I completely bastardize the Master’s essay).

  One night I decided to try it. It was literally a Dark and Stormy Night, lightening flashing behind the window shades, Big Booms of Thunder, rain, rain, rain. I typed “Rain”. I typed “Storm”, then “Clouds”. I wrote an introductory paragraph about a young couple sitting on a hillside watching a storm roll towards them. Since I’m a mondo Spielberg fan, I had the boy mention that something was coming for them in the clouds. The storm rolls over them, and I continued with a twisted alien abduction scene which never made it into the final draft of the story. I stopped when the girl wakes up on the hillside and the boy is gone.

  I had no idea what came next, except that I wanted this to be a quiet story about a quiet invasion, so I shelved the story and waited. One day, out of the blue, I think, She’s Pregnant. All the men are gone and all the woman are pregnant. I eventually changed the concept to only having sixteen-year-old girls being pregnant, because otherwise there would be mass chaos nine months later.

  Like “Lavish,” I have a feeling that this story might someday become a novel. For now, though, here it is:

  The Storm of Generations

  Distant electricity turned the grass a shimmering green. On the hillside, the young couple sat among the foot-high blades. Clouds bulged, rolled and collapsed, perhaps a mile out.

  “They’re coming,” Jared muttered as he bit off another chunk of bread. An avalanche of crumbs fell into his lap.

  “No one’s coming. It’s a thunderstorm. Nothing special about it.”

  Jared didn’t reply, but stared with a growing restlessness at the thunderheads. They loomed closer, a moment later seemed to pull away. A vague sense of vertigo washed over him. He looked at Serena, wanted to touch her again. Just her shoulder, hard skin through the cotton blouse. No sense starting something he couldn’t finish. Not with whatever lurked inside those clouds getting closer.

  He shook his head and took another bite of bread.

  The air smelled faintly of iron. It reminded Serena of the time she licked the end of a C battery. Living metal. According to Jared, a ship sailed in those clouds. Maybe more than one.

  “I was right about passing the physics final,” he said, “wasn’t I? Same way I know about this. Dreams, Sen. Dreams don’t lie.” He leaned back in the grass, as if offering himself to the approaching invaders, and folded his arms behind his head. “Don’t you smell it? I can feel the things from here.”

  Serena couldn’t tell how serious Jared took his premonitions. She pulled her legs up, locked them in place with her arms. The act wasn’t born out of any insecurity around her boyfriend’s prediction, but, rather, from a sudden gust racing up the hillside. It was the middle of June. The humidity atomized from the approaching electricity, the barometer crashing into its bulbous cellar.

  Jared had a dream he would be taken away this afternoon. Serena’s father woke up last night. He may have shouted. Layers of sheets and the half-closed door muted her parents’ voices. She thought she had heard her father crying.

  Gooseflesh on her arms. What made pre-thunderstorm air so cool, so clean? The two sat in silence on the grass, waiting for the first blade of lightening to break their reverie and send them scurrying for cover. She rested her chin on denim knees and stared at the storm. It dropped down on them like a rogue ocean wave.

  White.

  A blank wall. Or a ceiling.

  She’d been hit by lightening. This was a hospital. But where’d she been three minutes ago? One, six. No existence before this. Was it only a dream, sitting on the hillside with Jared, watching the clouds? The room spun. Serena watched herself come apart, fall back together.

  She was sixteen. What did that have to do with anything?

  Fuzzy shapes flittered about. She tried to kick. Nothing moved. She had no legs.

  “Serena.” Jared’s voice. She couldn’t feel her hands. Had they been stolen, too?

  Jared was close.

  As soon as this thought came to her, the sensation disappeared forever.

  * * *

  “Grandma?” Serena looked up. She’d been dozing again.

  Lucille stood on the single step leading from the porch to the front yard. Her dress already bore three new stains since breakfast. Serena checked her watch. Church started in twenty minutes and Alice’s little girl already looked unkempt. Serena smiled at her great-great-granddaughter and shuffled forward in the wicker chair.

  “Come here, Cutie.” She smoothed the dress over her lap. Lucille skipped onto the porch and clambered up. Serena held her close. Reverend Corinne wouldn’t be happy, seeing the Daws clan skulk into their pew, once again after the procession was already up the aisle.

  Nothing to do about it now. Lucille snuggled against her Grandma’s neck. Down the sloping lawn, the silver spaceship sat all but ignored at the bottom of the hill. It crouched, an echo of a nightmare never fully dissipated. Six legs jutted in right angles from the body, straddling Barber’s Brook. A massive bug forever poised to strike, unchanged in every way for the last fifty-one years.

  “Grandma?” Lucille referred to all her grandparents that way. Everyone did. “Grandma” or “Nana.” Serena preferred “Grandma,” so that’s what they used. “Grandma Serena,” “Grandma Jane.”

  “Grandma Maura.” Maura had marked the half-way point in the line. Little Lucille’s grandmother, Serena’s grand daughter. Maura died in a plane crash when she was eighteen, finally taking her belated post-natal vacation. She’d chosen Washington. The government complied, even paid her way. A small price for her contribution to the population. Fate, however, did not comply. Fortunately, the Line wasn’t severed. Baby Alice, then two years old, was the continuation. And continue it did. Lucille was talking. Serena looked at her and tried to recall what the girl had just said. No use. She smiled instead.

  “Hmm?”

  “I said, are you comi
ng to my recital? Mommy bought me a new dress.”

  * * *

  Cool grass on her face. Rain drops across her back. Dizzying, this sensation of water falling in minute explosions on and around her. She lay prone on the hillside, among tall blades of grass, taking inventory of her body. Jeans in tact. No socks anymore, white tennis sneakers. Had she worn socks today? Maybe not. Muscles felt heavy like her wet clothes.

  Details of the clouds blurred to an undefined haze as rain stretched across the town.

  “Jared?”

  How long had she been out? Hit by lightening. Yes, of course. But not dead. Serena squinted away the rain and looked behind her, up the short distance to the rise. Two intertwined hemlocks offered futile shelter from the storm. She looked back down through the haze. Something long and silver squatted in the distance, near a cluster of trees at the curve of Devonshire Road. Something fluttered in her belly, like the loose edges of nerves she tried to tie before each year’s dance recital. Serena looked once more around the hillside, trying to remember what she was looking for.