The Distance

by Jeremy Robinson

  “In his shoulder,” Mark says. “Not his heart. And it’s not as dark. You saw the others. His rash isn’t the same.” He waves his hand to a few of the nearby bodies, their rashes still visible, despite the blood. “He’s not one of them. Never has been. They tried to control him, but he’s too strong.” He glances back at me, and then meets Tanya’s eyes. “I’ve been watching him. He’s cool.”

  “You knew?” Tanya nearly slugs him, but Mark raises his hands.

  Mark points at the scar on my shoulder. “This happened to him the night he saved me. I owe him my life. Pretty sure most of us do. And while the rash has some kind of effect on him, he is still himself. Still August.”

  The way he says my name, as though it means something bigger than myself, is uncomfortable. Mostly they treat me like just one of the gang, but occasionally, someone reminds me that I’m not just August. I’m the August. Honestly, I’m looking forward to next month when there can at least be two Augusts in the world, if only for thirty-one days.

  The bonfire’s heat on my back and the darkness of night above weigh heavily. I lean around Mark. “Are you going to kill me?”

  No reply.

  “If you are, I would prefer you do it now and get moving. Poe will be giving birth in a few weeks. If I can’t be there, at least you all can. But you have to leave now.” I look up at the sky. They understand my tension. “Please, kill me and go, or let’s all go together.”

  Tanya’s shoulders drop. “You should have told us.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  She places her hand on the center circle of the bull’s eye rash. I know it’s hot to the touch. “I’m sorry, too,” she says, and for a second, I think she might actually shoot me. But then she steps back and adds, “It’s still your show.”

  “Everyone!” I shout. “Back to the—”

  A groan cuts me short. Laying amidst the bloody Rashes in the road, a body shifts. A survivor. A woman. Looks about my age. Asian descent. But one side of her face is stretched out. She’s bleeding from two bullet wounds, one in her abdomen, one in her chest. She’s wheezing. A lung punctured. No doubt bleeding internally, but she’s still trying to get up.

  When I step past Tanya and head for the woman, Mark says, “We can leave her. She won’t last long.”

  “I’m not going to kill her,” I say, and I stand above the woman.

  She looks up at me, her body shaking from the effort. “Brother.”

  I crouch in front of her. “You can stop fighting now.”

  Her body sags, giving in to the weight of her brethren’s dead limbs on her back.

  “What’s your name?” I ask.

  Half her forehead scrunches up. I don’t think she’s thought about her name in a while. “M-Meiko.”

  “Meiko,” I say, trying to sound calm yet commanding. “Sister. I have some questions for you.” I decide to start with something simple. “Where are you from?”

  “Pensacola.” Her voice is a whisper between hard breaths.

  “Did you have Hochman’s?”

  She nods. “Stage one.”

  “How did you survive?”

  Her eyes turn toward the sky. “The owls...saved me. From Hochman’s. From...the end. They kept us safe. Out there.”

  These people survived not just because they’d been abducted, but because they weren’t even on the planet when the end came. The Blur took them, or already had, and when the rest of the world went poof, they weren’t anywhere near the target.

  “And they gave us the gift.” Meiko reaches out a shaky hand. Puts it on my chest. On the rash. “Made us family.” A lifelessness fills her eyes, but she’s not dead. She looks past me, at my family. “But not them. They need to go. You need to make them go.”

  I feel a tingle in my shoulder, the connection to this woman and the others like her still active, but distant, like a radio wave from across the universe, detectible but spread out. Weak.

  “Who are the owls?”

  One half of her face grins, while the melted side remains flaccid. “Ask them...yourself.”

  And then she’s gone, both sides of her face flattening out as the muscles go slack. My stomach sours as I stand, her final words landing in my gut like rotten meat.

  Ask them yourself.

  I turn around to the others, standing in silence, silhouetted by the bonfire, blazing brightness into the night sky.

  “Everyone hide! The Blur are coming!” The group disperses quickly, some into the woods. Some into the houses. In seconds they’re gone. Only Mark remains.

  “August, let’s—” His eyes move toward the sky, and I know they’re here.

  “Play dead!” I shout at him. “We’re both dead!” And I dive to the ground, still holding my rifle, but lying awkwardly. Just another body. I don’t see Mark move, but have no doubt he’s following my lead. The question is, what do we do when they arrive?

  The answer comes with a strange confidence.

  We kill them.

  Light floods the road, making the bonfire seem like a distant star in comparison. I keep my eyes locked on the woods, trying my best to not squint. Or blink. Or shift my vision. I probably should have closed them, but I need to see it.

  The light flickers in time with three hums. Just once.

  It came alone.

  Why wouldn’t it? These people were under its control. It had nothing to fear. A rancid odor washes over me. Chemical and sharp, like bleach. I nearly look toward a shuffle of movement, but then I don’t have to. The woods in my field of view are suddenly distorted.

  It stops, and though I can’t really see it, I get the distinct impression that it knows something is up. Its acolytes are dead. It knew that before it came down. But I think it had somehow become aware of us, hiding in the shadows, behind trees, and amidst the deceased.

  I can’t let it leave.

  If it makes it back inside the UFO, it will call for help, and how long will it take them to arrive? Seconds. We have fought these things before, and won, which is probably why they resorted to an army of Rashes, but I can’t risk some kind of an assault from above. What could we do against that?

  Mind made up, I turn my eyes toward the slowly retreating Blur. When it doesn’t react, I sit up, lift the rifle and pull the trigger. The cacophonous report is followed by a shriek and then a pulse of energy. I’m lifted off the pavement and flung away alongside the bodies that had been littering the road. I slam into a granite post, but the impact is dulled thanks to Meiko’s body, which strikes first. The dead land atop me in a naked, loose skinned and bloody jumble. But my painful and revolting position does nothing to diminish my hopes. Gun fire once again fills the air, drowning out the shriek of our enemy.

  I shove the dead away in time to see the UFO pulse three times.

  The gunfire ceases.

  I look for a Blur’s form in the road, but see nothing. It got away.

  The UFO flickers and shifts to the side. It lacks the usual surprising speed and straight trajectory. It’s out of control, slipping closer to the trees.

  I push myself up off of Meiko and get to my feet, shouting, “Run!”

  Mark rolls out from under the blue sports car as I sprint past, falling in beside me. I glance back over my shoulder as I reach a bend in the road. The UFO flashes like a slowing strobe light, each bright flicker interspersed with darkness. And that’s when I see it. The rings. They’re lit by the bonfire, and moving, but I can see them, both spinning, one inside the other. In the center of it all is an unmoving blurry shape.

  One of the rings strikes a tree top, shearing wood and pine needles with a sharp crack. The craft drops, its rings chopping into the forest before the forest returns the favor. The halos fly apart, sending shards of alien metal in all directions. I’m tackled to the ground, landing on the side of the road. Debris punches into houses, vehicles and trees. I hear a buzz pass overhead. And then, the night explodes. A shockwave kicks the air from my lungs, and I feel a temperature shift, like the sun
has just cleared a dense cloud. When I sit up and look back, the fuel truck is burning.

  “Well, they’re going to see that,” Mark says.

  “Thanks for the save,” I say, and we get to our feet.

  Mark shrugs. “It’s what we do.”

  Before I can shout to our people still hiding, they begin to emerge from the woods, led by Jeb and Tanya.

  “Everyone okay?” I ask.

  “We’re good,” Tanya says. “Some injuries, but nothing life threatening. What now?”

  She’s still looking at me for leadership, despite the rash. Her trust means a lot, but there isn’t time to tell her. “Where is your gear?”

  “Back with yours on the side of the highway.” she says.

  “You followed us?” Mark asks.

  “Couldn’t let you all die alone.”

  “Let’s get back to the bikes and find some place to spend the night. Tomorrow, we’re going to ride like hell, no matter how much we hurt. Poe is facing this, too.” I motion to the scene of destruction. “But she’s doing it alone.”

  49

  POE

  My connection with August lost due to the broken satellite phone and my clumsiness, I wait for birth in animal stasis, days slipping by, in one hundred degree humidity. A typical New England summer. Rotting food from weeks of previous meals cover the kitchen table, flies buzzing around like they own the place. I recognize my state, now. Not crazy but not quite all there. Hanging on by a thread, my breath in and out every day, sweat rivulets pooling around my burgeoning body parts. It’s so hot, and I am so big. Many days I languish in the tub for hours, pouring water over my enormity, watching it run down the sides. It’s the most I can manage.

  After the Blur attack, the summoning power to clean, nest and organize slipped away from me. I’m focused on my mental health, instead, doing my best to keep my thoughts neat and orderly. Even Luke won’t touch the rotten piles of dirty dishes on the table. I walk up and down the stairs, counting, doing odd little math equations, the best I can manage to keep me at a minor level of physical and intellectual activity, the birth so imminent. The naked body tracings continue, one per day. I’ve doubled up on the paper, tracings on either side, now, sometimes fractured, sometimes whole, frequently completed without memory of the work. I keep eyeing the walls and the broad side of the barn. So much space on which to draw.

  I talk to my parents a lot, and hear their voices. Mostly conversations from the past, but it’s better than nothing. Sometimes a newness will emerge, and my mother will lecture me about my failure to sweep up all the dog hair. Or rather, any of the dog hair. Tumbleweeds of the stuff roll across the floors with the slightest breeze through the broken windows.

  Occasionally, my father will send me a metaphor or simile, a perfect one.

  ‘Silence like a star’s core.’

  Mmm, you’re right, Dad.

  Or a warning.

  ‘Collect your marbles, Poe.’

  Yes, Dad.

  Other than the body tracings, I create no art. Too busy creating a baby…and sanity. Songs fill the house, though, music I remember and music I make up. My singing voice is terrible, and even worse than terrible after waking up.

  One morning, I wake up and feel like I can’t stand it another second—I need to get out of the house, and I need to get out now. Since my last, humungous trip to the grocery store, I’ve managed to eat through a lot of my provisions, but there’s still quite enough to get by. My yearning is different. I need freshness. I need something alive.

  The orchard, I think. How had I forgotten it?

  Against my better judgment, Luke and I haul our sweating bodies into the truck and drive away like nothing unusual has ever happened. The closest local farm is less than three miles away. As we drive, Luke sticks his jolly head out the window, panting tongue and everything, the very image of a cliché retriever on a normal, summer day. I join him and trail my left hand against the wind.

  Nostalgia nearly knocks me backward. I pull my arm in from the breeze and focus on driving. The things I miss: the radio, other drivers and people on bicycles, totally in the way on the road. Almost there, my uterus tightens in a walloping contraction that I have to gasp through, my breath short. Must practice breathing, relaxing. We’re getting close.

  The truck’s wheels crunch over the pebbled farm driveway, and I almost hit the farm dog, half-starved, who runs alongside us, barking with joy. I alternate between oh no not another one, and oh look, another one! She’s a pretty little mix, maybe beagle and something dark and furry. I hope she’s fixed, and will be more of a platonic friend for Luke, because if she’s nice, I’ll be taking her home with me. Luke could use the company as much as me.

  We park the truck and the sweet dog puts her front paws up on me, barking and happy. Luke jumps out of the truck with a flourish. The two of them race off into the orchard together, immediately in love.

  Good for you, luckies.

  Another contraction and I need to lean against the truck. Maybe I’m not drinking enough water, in this heat? I’ve been having these false contractions for weeks now. August called them Braxton-Hicks contractions. Know it all. I call them a pain in the ass. Or rather, uterus. I’ve lost track of when I’m actually due, but I know it’s within the next few weeks. Which I guess technically means now.

  August.

  My connection to him, in my heart, is still potent. But by now, I’m used to loneliness. I don’t remember anything else, my emotional amnesia a protective device.

  Will he ever arrive, I keep wondering.

  The orchard smells wonderful, and as the two dogs circle back to me, tails wagging happily, I let myself relax a little bit. Perhaps August’s sinister Blur have gone for good? I grab a wagon and the three of us venture out into the peach trees, still too early for apples here in northern New England. Crickets and other insect life thrives despite the lack of humans. Or because of.

  The peach trees brim with fruit, rosy and fertile. They feel like a gift. I allow myself to feel safe and whole, while I reach up, again and again, twisting the peaches away from the branches into my hand. Sunlight through leaves, I want to cry, it’s so beautiful and normal. The dogs join me on the grass, and I bite into a peach. Gratitude fills me.

  In my periphery, a visual distortion. One of the trees looks a little different than the others. In my calm, I fail to recognize what I’m seeing. I chew, watching the bent tree, its leaves flickering light and dark in the wind.

  But they’re not just blowing. They’re bending. Unnaturally.

  A Blur.

  I stand up as quick as I can, another contraction rippling over me, vice-like, and I grab the dogs by their collars. Luke pulls at my hand, barking. He senses it, too.

  We wait together, my breath held, a breeze waving the branches around us. What will the scent be?

  It’s doesn’t really matter. I have no fight left in me.

  I thought I was done with this.

  The scents of peaches, ripe on the branches, rotting on the ground, mingle with traces of rose.

  Rose.

  Interesting that my first thought is, my old friend, revealing the depth of my loneliness. Despite being invisible, the Blur is not trying to hide. It hovers nearby, quiet and unmoving.

  Perhaps it’s the beautiful day, or the new dog, or the intoxicating peaches, but I feel emboldened. I let go of the dogs, who run over to the Blur, sniffing, and then run away again into the orchard. Interesting. The first time Luke met this one, in the grocery store, he was terrified and immediately peed. The new dog must be following Luke’s lead. Again, I sense acquiescence from this Blur, like in the woods that day. Not exactly submission, but a concession. Allowing us to be what we all are: dog, human, peach trees.

  Like a philosopher.

  Not a soldier, I tell myself. But maybe not a scientist, either.

  “Are you following me?” I call to it. “Are you protecting me?”

  I think back to all the events, the many tim
es I’ve been spared, the demolition of any who would try to harm me. The plan, from the parent-made pod until this day and everything in between. Leila. The Blur in my home, carrying me off.

  “What do you want? Why are you here?” I take three steps closer to it. It doesn’t move. I wonder, for a moment, if it can even understand English. Advanced, but not infallible, not without limits. An alien worm in a suit.

  I decide to use my other language, my deeper language, the voice of my artist self. I’ve been ignoring it for weeks now, with only the robotic tracings as evidence of my talent. Looking at my materials around me, the leaves, the fruit, the grass, I begin forming a circle on the ground with fallen peaches. At first I feel ridiculous, like maybe I’ve cracked up for good, but the rhythm of making soothes me, and the Blur just remains there.

  What symbol can I construct that would get through to it? Perhaps every move I make seems like the movements of an ant, or microscopic elements, meaningless and primal. To this Blur I might seem like primordial ooze, schlepping about without reason, just instincts for reproduction and survival.

  I finish the circle of rotting peaches and start another, interior shape, fractals, with leaves I find on the ground, squatting like a tribal woman around the fire. What I imagine to be Squirt’s skull presses hard and deep on my bladder. She’s very low now, my walk just a waddle.

  Crouched down, I pause and look up at the motionless Blur. What is it waiting for?

  An invitation, I decide.

  I walk close to the Blur and reach out my hand, filled with peach tree leaves. I think at it, join me. Doubting it can read my mind, but feeling like my intentions are obvious, I place the leaves on the ground at the bottom of the shimmer.

  I turn back to my work, connecting lines with twigs, a mandala pattern of sorts, on all fours, my belly dangling beneath me, so heavy, contractions every once in a while. When I stand up, a real struggle, I stifle a scream. The Blur is right next to me, a tall, silent, fragrant presence.

  It bends over, its invisibility warping the tree behind it. It holds the leaves I left plus many, many more in a dark hand, no pointy fingers. And then, amazement. The Blur quickly arranges the leaves in a complicated pattern, weaving them throughout my lines and circles.