“I’ve always thought of it as self-loving. The old world had its chance and they settled for less. I can make a perfect world. I can do it. I demand it.”
“How can it be perfect without my baby in it? There is no such thing as perfection. There never was.”
“Your thinking is too emotional and narrow. I’ll heal you and we can get away. Without me, who can kill Misericordia? Think, man! You want to save the world? I’m your best chance. Without me, you’re dead.”
“Shiva…you were closer to perfection when you were weak.”
She covered herself with the blood-soaked bedsheets. She pulled her long hair out of her face, leaving a streak of crimson across her cheek which reminded Sinjin-Smythe of warpaint.
Shiva managed a smile. “It feels so good, Craig. You’re going to love it. Come over here and let me kiss you.”
“I think…I think all those times we kissed before? I think I was always kissing you. You let me, but you never initiated a kiss," Sinjin-Smythe said. "You never really kissed me. You never came to me.”
“Come to me now, one last time. I promise, I’ll be the one kissing you. In a few minutes, your eyes will shine white. You’ll see everything differently.”
Sinjin-Smythe struggled up to his knees. “Maybe I’ll gather up your teeth after I blow your head apart and stick myself with the magic venom. I’ll rewrite some DNA without you.”
“Craig, you don’t mean that! You’ve spent your whole life afraid. You thought solving medical puzzles would kill your fear but studying pathology just fed your terror. I can offer you a long life without fear.”
“I’m tired, Shiva. You always did that. I can’t think of a single argument we ever had where you apologized or even let me have the last word. You were always telling me what I really meant. Here’s what I mean.”
He raised the pistol. He pulled the trigger. The Walther bucked in his hand. Shiva fell back onto the bed, her arms outspread, white eyes open. The slug had torn through her brainstem.
Sinjin-Smythe sighed and let his muscles relax. Hot wind blew smoke from the ruins in through the shattered window. He wanted to sleep, but, with the sound of the gunshot, he was sure he’d have company soon.
He hoped Jaimie would come, but the silhouette at the top of the stairs was Vigilax. In the dim light, the doctor could just make out the glint of the scythe’s blade. The tall vampire’s white eyes glowed.
“Ah,” Sinjin-Smythe said. “The Grim Reaper. I always thought that was a silly metaphor. Until now.”
“I watched you kill her. You didn’t take her up on her offer,” the Alpha said, puzzled. “You might have even grown that arm back, buddy. Who knows? If you'd seized the opportunity, you might have got past me and been up and around, feeling chipper by morning.”
Sinjin-Smythe coughed, cleared his throat and spat. “I’m not a morning person. Mornings are for new beginnings and I’m done with beginning things. The last thing in the world I want, at the end of the world, is to become one of you.”
“Dude! She offered you a long, pain-free life for one kiss.”
“The price was too high.”
Vigilax stood still and watched the doctor for a moment. “I see very little fear in your aura. You seem awfully certain. It’s stupid not to be afraid. You know what I’m going to do to you.”
Sinjin-Smythe raised the pistol. He smiled. The pistol bucked in his hand again, but this time it clattered to the floor.
Before the bullet made red and white and gray mash of his head, Dr. Craig Sinjin-Smythe felt not one iota of fear. His war was over.
The messenger told him he’d been fighting the wrong war all along. He understood now. Righteousness felt good.
In the last second of the doctor’s life, his anger was greater than his fear. Rage wasn’t the answer to death, but it was one answer. He chose it. His fear vanquished, Dr. Craig Sinjin-Smythe had not won the war for the future, but he had conquered his past.
Season 3, Episode 5
Love is a risk. To admit your love puts you in the power of another. That imbalance can cut you in half. But if the object of your affection loves you back, your power is doubled. Mathematically, love is worth the risk.
*
The answer to Where? It's Wherever You Are. Why is more important than How. The answer to Who? You. The answer to When? Now.
And all most people ask is “What?”
*
In the war between blood lust and humanity, we must remember that our nature is not warlike. If it were, so many soldiers wouldn’t suffer PTSD and commit suicide. No, our nature is to cooperate. If it weren’t, we would have stayed in the caves and would never have survived to evolve.
*
Even if it's fleeting and untrue, happiness is the only lie worth believing.
*
Lectori salutant. Salute to the reader.
~ Notes from The Last Cafe
You are the Reader, divinity in disguise
The sameness of the trees formed a hypnotic tunnel through the province of New Brunswick.
Anna wanted to pick out a new luxury car for the rest of the journey to Maine. However, older cars’ ignition systems were easier to hot-wire. The rusty Chevrolet’s engine hummed but the scenery changed so little, it was easy to imagine they were not really traveling. It felt like the big car’s wheels turned on a treadmill going nowhere. The Spencers drove in a trance that might have induced sleep had their hunger not kept them sharp.
Anna sat at the wheel. The hulks of odd wrecks, now tombs, reminded her to drive slowly. “If we get a flat, have you ever changed a tire, Mom?”
Jack shook her head. “I always just called the auto club.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Anna said. “If it happens, we’ll figure it out.”
“I was just going to say that,” Jack said, but she wasn’t. Since the ordeal in the tunnel and the gift of the book, she’d been thinking more about her friend Brandy, dead and decomposing in a bathtub filled with feasting flies.
Jaimie had, of course, proved impenetrable to questioning. Jack had always found people who talked about their dreams tedious, but she very much wanted to know more now. She’d asked her son a dozen questions before she felt Anna’s grip on her shoulder. “Mom. It’s Jaimie.”
Since Montreal, the boy sat in his seat, head down, devouring The Art of War.
Jack’s thoughts drifted back to the little girl. Lane. The child had waved to her sadly as Mitch took her hand and walked North. What kind of future would that child face? She had crooked teeth. How long until orthodontists were back at their trade?
“I didn’t like Mitch much,” Theo said, intruding on her thoughts. “Mitch much. Mitch much. Mitch much. That is fun to say, though. Just a little jealous of all that blue-eyed testosteroney sex appeal, I guess,” he added.
Jack pushed that thought away.
“Everybody’s in much better shape all of a sudden, don’t you think?” Theo persisted. “All this exercise in the great outdoors and stark, raving terror and rationing of food. We didn’t know how soft we were.”
When his wife made no answer he sat farther back in his seat sulking. “Mitch much. Mitch much. Mitch much.”
“Pestinstant,” Jack said.
* * *
Jaimie closed The Art of War and stared out his window as rain’s rivulets formed patterns on the Chevy’s window. He traced their paths with his fingers. One trickle of water joined another and slid into a bulbous flow before stretching thin again.
He pondered what he’d learned. The Art of War. The Way of Things. All single syllables. Shared letters. Same feel in his mouth, like holding cold metal with sharp edges on his tongue. Same blue-black and purple hue to the words, like a bruise rising from a deep, crushing blow.
The rain eased and the Spencers were joined by more cars on the highway, all traveling East. Jaimie welcomed the distraction.
Past the juggernaut of Montreal, they had notice
d a trickle of fellow travelers in vehicles. Farther on, the trickles became streams. Traffic moved well and, wary of accidents for which no help would come, no drivers were reckless. Perhaps to conserve fuel, none sped, either. Most drivers made no eye contact so no interaction could be invited nor implied.
“This is somewhat more civil than The Road Warrior led me to expect,” Anna said.
The cars and trucks were usually packed full. Once they spotted a tiny car with a huge piano strapped to its roof.
They followed a farm truck with a group of young women huddled against the wind in the open back. The women all wore long dresses and bonnets.
“Saviors or slavers, do you suppose?” Anna asked.
Jack shrugged. “I’m uncomfortable with that question. But it makes me think we have to somehow get hold of guns.”
“Dad has a rifle and shotguns at the farm, for deer and pheasant hunting seasons,” Theo said.
“Let’s hope we won’t need a gun before we get to Maine,” Anna said. “I was always against guns in the house. Now they’re so important, no one’s just leaving them around to be picked up. Damn hoarders. They only have two hands each! Why do some people have to have so many more guns than they can carry and we have none?”
“Because in the old world, the TV trained us. More is always better,” Theo said. “And what if your fifty-second gun jams? Important to have number fifty-three ready, even if it means you never could afford to take a vacation in your life.”
Jaimie eyed his father, annoyed. A rhetorical question answered with rhetoric.
Theo shrugged and turned away to look out his window. Jaimie tried to read his father’s thoughts and was surprised to find he could not.
They watched the women in the truck ahead, searching for some sign of a plea in their forlorn faces. Before long, the truck turned onto a dirt road and dust clouded their last look.
Anna gritted her teeth. “If this is going to turn into a misogynist Game of Thrones world, then I’ll have to personally go all Katniss and turn it into a Hunger Games planet.”
They passed a yellow school bus heading West. Young children — their hair cut very short — smiled and waved from the windows.
“Must have been some kind of camp, you think?” Jack asked.
“Leukemia,” Jaimie said. He saw it at the edges of their auras, but the disease was fading out, not coming in.
Soon, an old station wagon with Idaho plates pulled up beside them. The driver, an older man wearing a red knit tie, rolled down his window. He motioned for Jack to do the same. Anna considered slamming on the brakes so the stranger would shoot past them. However, his guileless, friendly smile disarmed her.
“A radio station is working!” the man said. “AM band! 540!” Just as suddenly as he had appeared, he dropped back in their rearview mirror.
The radio station was mobile, located in an RV broadcasting “somewhere in Vermont.”
“You hear that?” Jack asked. “We’re so close to Maine!” She pulled out a map. “Maine is South of us! We’ll see Papa Spence soon!”
Anna turned up the radio, concentrating on the thin signal.
Cat McCloud, the lone DJ, was a fellow with a booming voice that slipped into gravel when he was being serious. He wasn’t serious often.
“You want a weather report? Look out the window and there’s your goddamn weather report,” he said. “Excuse my Balinese but the FCC don’t run me no more.”
The signal came in, suddenly as strong as any nearby radio station. “The Powers That Be always were killjoys, censoring us and suckin’ the good outta you like a bad night’s sleep.”
The DJ cackled and his microphone picked up the sound of him swallowing a drink. “I can say what I want and this is what I’m sayin’ and if you don’t like it, well, you sure didn’t pay much for it, did you? Hey, haters! That there is a self-inflicted wound! Stop coming back for more and build your own radio station! And to you lovers? I love you back, all the way down to your toes!”
Cat reported where he’d been in the eastern United States. He said he’d ridden out Sutr-X’s first wave in a campground in Delaware.
“The lights are on in Delaware and there’s still plenty of food and gas around if you bother to look — at least there was three weeks ago. I guess what I got isn’t news since it’s old, but we all needed to slow down anyways, didn’t we? In honor of what was, let’s spin some more vinyl — that’s right, I said vinyl! Coming up, more Rush ’cause I love ’em and they play long songs so ol’ Cat can step out and take a tinkle off my front stoop without worrying about the cops spoiling the joy!
“Later on you can lick your chops over some Foghat, Grand Funk Railroad and a Pink Floyd marathon. Far as I know, I got the last radio station in these former United States of Dystopia so I’ll play what I like, long as I’m kickin’ and poppin’ garlic pills and smokin’ the magical herb of happiness! Commercial-free, brothers and sisters! Back atcha after side one of Rush’s album Caress of Steel from a good year, 1975, back when we still thought the apocalypse was coming in the form of nuclear annihilation. Right on!”
“The only radio station we’ve heard in weeks and the DJ is the last hippie on Earth, armed with a time machine,” Anna said.
“Oh, and to all the forces of good waiting for the messenger?” Cat added.
Jaimie went cold.
“Hold your position. I’m told Revelation, Mercy, Redemption and Power are racing your way in an old rust bucket Chevy! Jaimie Spencer is coming. Just make sure you come when you’re called when it’s redemption time! We’ve all had the dreams and heard the stories: zombies, vampires and the evil people who could be living as close as next door. The final battles are about to begin.”
Anna turned in her seat to look at Jaimie. The Chevy began to drift so much Jack grabbed the wheel to keep them on the road.
“Spread the word. Be ready. Watch the skies,” Cat said. And Rush began to play.
For the first time in a long time, Jaimie saw worry in his father’s face.
“Revelation, Mercy, Redemption and Power,” Theo mused. “I wonder which one I’m supposed to be?”
Allowing magic mirrors to hide the lies
The noon sun dried the black rocks on the shores of Poeticule Bay as seagulls wheeled and cried overhead. Dayo, Aasa and Aastha picked their way around tidal pools and slick, green seaweed.
The children knelt together by a large rock pool and Aastha almost fell in. Aasa saved her little sister from getting wet, pulling her back by one arm.
“Careful!” Dayo called. “That water’s still plenty cold, I’m sure.”
“We won’t drown,” Aastha said.
“I’m more afraid you’ll slip and bash your head on the rocks.”
Aastha smiled and held up a tiny, curled shell so Dayo could see.
“Pretty.”
“It’s a periwinkle,” Aasa said.
“Oh. How’d you know that?”
“I know things,” Aasa said. “Jaimie says I have to know the battlefield.”
Dayo frowned. “It’ll be here? Why do you have to know the battlefield, Aasa?”
“Jaimie’s got a book. Terrain is important.”
“What’s terrain?” Aastha asked.
“We’re standing on it, I guess,” Dayo said. “What else did Jaimie tell you, Aasa?”
“We have to wait here.”
“Why?”
“Stuff.”
“Why do I feel like we’d do better if our champion was more of an extrovert?”
“He wouldn’t be Jaimie if he was somebody different.”
“I can’t argue with that.”
“Dayo,” Aasa said, “I need to talk to you about something. I found the sign I’ve been looking for.”
Dayo stepped closer to see what the girl pointed at. “Oh, look, guys!” An orange starfish lay trapped in a deep rock pool, marooned by the tide.They gathered around, their faces reflected in the
surface of the clear water.
“What do you girls know about starfish?” Dayo asked.
Aastha poked the air with her index finger, counting. “They have five arms. And they’re weird. That doesn’t look like a fish at all!”
Dayo smiled. “That’s right. Did you know if they lose an arm, they’ll grow it back?”
“Yes,” Aasa said. “That would have been useful if it was the way we were made in the first place.”
Dayo didn’t like the look on the girl’s face. She seemed haunted.
“What did the messenger tell you, Aasa?”
“He asked me to talk to you about this. The starfish, but not the fish.”
“What?”
“From a long time ago. He was sure you’d know.”
Dayo stared at the girl, perplexed. Then, a small nod. “Starfish, but not the fish…there is…there is one thing. When I moved to London, they taught us something in school that has always stuck with me. During the Blitz — ”
The girls’ blank stares told Dayo she’d already lost them. She began again. “In World War II, German planes bombed England. The British came up with a brilliant idea. They put up mock towns and cities out in the country, a few miles from the real targets. They tried to get the bombers to attack the fake cities instead of the real ones.”
Aastha wrinkled her nose. “The pilots couldn’t tell the difference between a real city and a fake one?”
“Not at night, and they lit the fake targets with light boxes and explosions and fires so it looked like they’d already been hit by the bombs. With all the smoke and fire, I suppose the pilots went by sight instead of trusting their navigation. Maybe the smoke obscured the target enough…hm, I don’t really remember the details. Just that it was a decoy that saved lives. The bombers often dropped bombs where they were harmless.”
“What does that have to do with starfish?” Aastha asked.
This Plague of Days (Omnibus): Seasons 1-3 Page 85