The Great Forgetting

by James Renner

  6 “There’s the Gate House,” said Sam as they turned onto a gravel road. She pointed to a castle-like building on the water, attached to the shore by a stone bridge. She parked the car in the lot across from it. Neither of them noticed the Franklin Mills cruiser that stopped at the turn in the road and slowly backed up into the shadow of a giant oak.

  Nils climbed out and stretched his back, feeling vertebrae shift into place. The air outside was warm and fragrant with the honeypollen of early summer.

  They crossed to the Gate House, walking under the rock canopy of the bridge, the kind of bridge trolls hid under in fairy tales, all the way to a heavy wooden door with wrought-iron fixtures. Sam tried the handle and, finding it locked, tried the knocker. But no one answered.

  “Let’s walk around a bit,” she said. “I don’t know why, but I can almost feel him here. You know? Like Jack was standing right here a minute ago.”

  They walked the length of the reservoir road, about a half mile, then down its slope. They tried a jogging path that snaked through the woods and then around the edge of the water to a section of pavilions and restrooms where fishermen cleaned blue gill on a sheet-metal table. By the time they returned to the car, Nils had sweated through his vintage Star Wars tee and was huffing loudly.

  “Take a breather,” she said.

  “I should call Debbie,” he said, leaning on the fender.

  “Need my phone?”

  He nodded.

  “It’s in the cup holder,” she said, tossing him the keys. She stood there fidgeting for a pace. Finally, she said, “I’m going to check the Gate House again,” and started back up the hill.

  The call was brief and heated and mostly pointless. “Where the hell are you?” “Pymatuning.” “Why?” “I’m keeping an eye on Sam.” “You should be keeping an eye on your wife.” “She needs someone. I’ll be back soon.” In the end, Debbie loved him. He knew this. And there were times she could be so kind, twisting her manicured nails through his nappy red Viking hair while they watched The Walking Dead.

  When Sam didn’t return after another five minutes, Nils walked up the hill. She wasn’t at the Gate House. He walked across to get a look at the shore. But she was nowhere to be found.

  7 “What now?” the Captain asked over a bowl of lentil soup. They were in a truck stop somewhere in Delaware. They hadn’t talked much on the drive out of the city. All they could do was listen to the news reports on the truck’s lousy speakers. Obama had reappeared at the White House around three for a brief press conference. He vowed a “swift revenge.” There were no more updates about Jack’s flight from authorities. Nothing except more footage of the attack on Deepwater Horizon. The nation had forgotten Jack Felter.

  “I don’t know, Pop,” said Jack. “What do you think?”

  “Everything Cole said was true.”

  Cole smiled around his sandwich.

  “So, what, then? The island?”

  The Captain nodded. “Where else can we go, Jack? Eventually this will die down and the feds will remember us. If we’re lucky, we might have a week of relative anonymity. We best use our good fortune to get to Alaska.”

  “And Jean? Sam? What about them?”

  “They’re safer where they are. Better they don’t know about any of this.”

  “It feels like we’re running away just to save ourselves.”

  “For Christ … listen, there’s nothing we can do. And, frankly, I’m not keen on living in a world that controls the minds of its citizens. I want to keep my memories, as fucked up as they are. My memories are what make me, me. Now, I’m too old to join any crusade. I’ve been through the hell of war. But maybe you should start asking yourself if you shouldn’t be helping Cole and your old friend Tony. Maybe you should get to Mu and help him tear this thing down, stop all this, stop whoever is deleting history.”

  “If something could be done, don’t you think Tony would have done it by now?”

  “We won’t know what happened to Tony until we get there,” said Cole.

  “I can’t just leave Sam behind.”

  “You can and you will,” the Captain said in a tone Jack had not heard for many years, that I-am-your-father commandment voice. “If she and your sister know nothing, the Hounds might leave them alone. If they come with us, they’re going to get hurt. Or worse. And I don’t even want to think about carting Paige across the country. Do you?”

  Jack relented. This was the safest choice, to leave them behind. He was being selfish. But it tore his goddamn heart to shreds.

  “I have to say goodbye.”

  “You’ll say too much,” the Captain said. “Don’t.”

  “That’s the deal. I can’t let Sam think I left her without a second thought like her husband did.” He didn’t look at his father before he walked away.

  Five minutes later he had a cheap prepaid phone from the rest stop boutique and was cowered in a corner by the restrooms, trying to look inconspicuous. Sam’s cell rang three times before a voice came on that wasn’t hers.

  “Hello?” It was a man’s voice, familiar. His tone was anxious.

  “Hello?” said Jack. “Who’s this?”

  “Jack? Shit. Jack!”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Nils.”

  “Nils, what are you doing with Sam’s cell phone?”

  “Jack, I have some bad news.”

  He didn’t think his mind could hold any more, but he asked for it anyway.

  “Sam’s gone, man,” said Nils.

  FOUR

  BACK THERE

  1 Jack ended the call and put a hand on the grimy wall of the truck stop atrium to steady himself. There suddenly was not enough oxygen in the air. He fought for breath, for clarity.

  “What happened?” the Captain asked. Cole bounced on his sneakers a few feet away.

  It took Jack a minute to relay the news. When he finished, nobody said anything for a beat. They could all feel the flow of time pulling opportunity away from them.

  “The Hounds took her,” said Cole.

  “You don’t know that,” said Jack.

  “Well, it’s either the Hounds or the police.”

  “We have to go.”

  “No fucking way,” the Captain said. “You may be old and ugly, but I still outrank you. Driving back that way only gets you thrown in jail. I’ll end up in hospice or something. Cole will end up in the nut ward by nightfall.”

  “I’m going,” Jack said, his jaw set.

  Cole raised a hand to draw their attention. “If it’s the Hounds, I know where they’d take her and we wouldn’t have to drive all the way back to Pymatuning,” he said.

  “I’m listening,” said Jack.

  * * *

  Cole’s father took the exit into Jersey. They were in his work car, that light brown thing that looked kind of like a jet and hummed like a vacuum cleaner. He parked it in front of a warehouse in Newark. Antolini’s Bookshop, the faded red-and-white sign out front said. Inside were aisles of books on corrugated metal shelves stretching so far the rows appeared to curve. Boxes of paperbacks were stacked on endcaps. A dozen people milled about with shopping carts full of hardbacks. Cole followed his father to the counter, where a man with a corona of white hair sat on a stool.

  “I’m Jonas,” his father lied. “I called about the book?”

  The octogenarian raised a finger, then bent and pulled a small tome from under the desk, which he placed on the counter. It had a funny title and on the cover was the image of a man on fire. It was listed for $2.50.

  “Is it a good book?” the old man asked. “I haven’t read it.”

  His father handed him exact change. “I don’t read them,” he answered. “I’m just a collector.”

  Cole opened the novel as his father drove north on 87. He read the first sentence out loud: “It was a pleasure to burn.” He blinked and looked at his father. “That’s a funny thing to say.”

  “That’s the problem. Some of the books from before the G
reat Forgetting are just nonsense. They upset people. Why would anyone want to remember a story that upsets them?”

  “I don’t know,” said Cole. But he was curious. Why was it a pleasure to burn? He had to read a little to find out. Except when he read two pages, some more questions popped up. And so he read a couple more pages. And then ten. And then he was halfway through already and so he might as well just finish it. It was a short novel anyway.

  Cole finished the book before they arrived at Big Indian Mountain.

  “Was it any good?” his father asked.

  He wasn’t sure what to say. “I think so.”

  “You think so? If you have to think about it, it must not be very good.”

  On a dirt road that wound up the side of the mountain, a sign with three arrows informed them that they were approaching a large bog called Grimpen Mire. There was a drawing of a hiker inside a red crossed-out circle. His father parked beyond the sign and they got out, Cole clutching the misbegotten book.

  “This way,” his father said. “Walk in my footsteps. You step into the mire and we’ll have to work to get you out. A couple riders have lost horses in here.”

  Cole followed closely, stepping where his father stepped along a thin band of moss-covered earth that snaked between pools of fetid water choked with bracken and black timber. After a quarter mile his father veered off the path and went around a large oak tree. He pushed at the bark and a panel set into the tree clicked open like the door to the entertainment center they had at home. Inside was a keypad.

  His father grinned. It was nice to see him smile again. He didn’t smile much anymore. “We are the music makers,” he whispered to his son. “We are the dreamers of dreams.” Then he softly said the combination out loud as he punched in the code, just like Willy Wonka had done in the movie. “Ninety-nine, forty-four, one-hundred-percent pure.” There was a hiss as a seal was broken. A door appeared in the oak tree and it opened on a hydraulic hinge.

  “Stay close,” his father said.

  When the door shut behind them, everything went pitch-black for a moment and then a rope of orange light flickered on overhead. It wound down a tight staircase, which his father descended. The stairs went on forever, it seemed. Ten stories at least. Eventually they came to a wide concrete tunnel lined with cables and pipes. The air was cooler down here, but regulated; a light breeze tickled Cole’s nose.

  “This way,” his father said, taking a right. A sign on the wall read SECURITY/GULAG/STORAGE. At a large junction they stopped for a moment. His father went to the wall and slid aside a metal panel, revealing an array of thin television screens. It was some kind of security system, the CCTVs showing different areas of the compound. Something that looked like a barracks. Another one showed a cafeteria full of men in boxer shorts and tees; hairy, muscular men.

  “Are those…,” Cole asked.

  “The Hounds? Yes. Don’t worry. They’re not close. But I had to check. They’d erase my mind for bringing you down here if they caught us. And when the Hounds delete your memories, they’re not gentle about it. Some of their victims end up with a good dose of dementia when they’re done.”

  They took another right. Some time later they came to a door set into the wall, the sort of door with a circular handle, like on a sub. His father unwound the wheel and it kicked open. They stepped inside.

  “Holy shit!” said Cole.

  His father sighed.

  It was a great big hanger, a domed concrete bunker ten football fields wide, and it was filled with all kinds of forbidden junk. They stood on a wrought-iron platform overlooking the whole mess: cars with three headlights; bins of shiny coins, whole rows of them; city signposts for places that had been wiped from memory—20 MINUTES TO CAHOKIA, one read. There were clothes imbued with some magic that illuminated the fabric from the inside. And stacks and boxes and cases and racks of books. His father led him down the steps toward the library quadrant. There, among a hundred more, he placed the book with the strange title.

  “Did you bring all these books here?”

  “Most of them were voluntarily turned in before the Great Forgetting. But I’ve brought a lot of them, yes.”

  “Why not destroy them?”

  His father shrugged. “It was part of the deal. A concession.”

  By the time they returned to the car it was dark.

  “That library,” said Cole. “And all the forgotten stuff. It’s sad.”

  “Is it?” His father reached over and squeezed his hand. “Try not to think about it.”

  * * *

  “If you can get me to Big Indian, we can find out if the Hounds have Sam,” said Cole when he finished telling his story.

  2 Jack walked to the map on the wall of the truck stop. They were just outside Wilmington. Big Indian Mountain, when he found it, was several hands away. “We’re looking at a four-hour drive,” he murmured, hands on his hips. “You,” he said, pointing at the boy. “Follow me. Dad, we’ll be right back.”

  “You going to jerk each other off in the bathroom? We’re kind of pressed for time if you haven’t noticed.”

  “I know it, Pop. Just give us a minute.”

  Jack pulled Cole along by his shirtsleeve, out a set of doors leading to a picnic area, then behind a row of snack machines. He looked into the boy’s eyes. He’d perfected this stare the last few years. He thought of it as the teacher’s version of a vampire’s mesmerizing gaze. Under its spell no one could lie.

  “You were not honest with me,” he said.

  “I know,” said Cole.

  “You knew more about the Great Forgetting than you told me.”

  Cole didn’t say anything.

  “You’re manipulating me. You still have me on a gradient, don’t you? You’re giving me crumbs to follow and I don’t know where you’re leading me. No more gradients, Cole. You don’t have to do that anymore. Aren’t we starting to be some kind of friends?”

  “Are we?”

  Jack laughed. “Yes,” he said.

  Cole blushed.

  “Is there anything else I need to know? If so, tell me, now.”

  Cole didn’t say anything.

  What was this boy after, really? Jack sensed another agenda, something other than finding Mu.

  “You don’t have to play it so close,” Jack said. “I’m on board. I’m a believer. Why won’t you trust me?”

  For a moment it seemed like the boy was about to say something, but then he just stood there, staring back at Jack, the way so many of his students had.

  This was leading nowhere. And the Captain was right. Time was running out. “Let’s go,” he sighed.

  “Let’s buy a gun,” the Captain proposed as they walked back to the car.

  “No,” Jack said. “And fuck no.”

  “What if those Hound things come after us?”

  “Then it’s over anyway. We don’t need to bring a Saturday night special to this rodeo.”

  “That’s good,” the Captain said. “That was good, Jack. You’re learning.”

  Jack smiled. “Besides, I still have that woman’s atomizer.”

  “You took it?” Cole asked, his eyes wide with newfound respect.

  “It felt wrong to pitch it in the trash for the cleaning lady to find.”

  “Can I hold it?” the Captain asked.

  “No.”

  On the highway again, Jack called Nils and relayed their plan. And though he tried to dissuade him, in the end Nils couldn’t be talked out of meeting up with them at Big Indian. When he was done, Jack pitched the phone out the window.

  3 Sam was in another interrogation room, not unlike the one she’d shared with the detective in Franklin Mills. Beige concrete walls, a wide mirror that must be one of those see-through-from-the-back kinds she’d seen on Law & Order. She was cuffed to a metal chair in front of a colorless table where two cups of coffee sat, long since steamed out. Sitting across from her was a man in a charcoal suit. At least she thought it was a man. But the man w
as, well … weird-looking. Like no cop she’d ever seen. Like no human she’d ever seen. He was a hairy motherfucker, dark coarse hairs sticking out from under his shirtsleeves and the top of his collar. And his fingers! Prunish things, long talons that looked like they’d sat in water for a week. She couldn’t look at his face. That squashed nose, like it had been pounded into his skull by a brick; that thin, patchy beard, the kind high school freshman try to grow; beady eyes. He sat there looking at her, a smile playing at his mouth where there was but a hint of an upper lip.

  After she’d left Nils in the parking lot at Pymatuning, she had gone back to the Gate House and found the door open an inch. She went in. Then she heard the voices below. The sound was coming up a winding staircase in the middle of the floor. She’d gone to find out who was there, knowing it must be Jack, had to be Jack, because who else could it be? “Hello?” she had called out. And then the voices stopped and she felt the first tingling of apprehension. When this man’s wrinkled face appeared around the curve, she screamed. In a flash, he grabbed her, dragged her down to this dungeon room that looked like something out of a seventies cop shop. Ever since, they’d just sat here.

  Finally, the door opened and a man—a real, recognizable-as-a-man man—entered, carrying a thin manila folder. He was dressed in a suit and tie but no Panama hat. His hair was blond and cut short, military-style. He appeared to be in his midthirties, the sort of rugged Texas-handsome guy Sam liked to dance with at the Boot Skoot in Brimfield on occasion.

  “Afternoon, Ms. Brooks,” he said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” He took a chair beside the man in the Panama hat and set the folder on the table. Sam could see her name written on the tab.

  “What the hell is going on?” she asked.

  The man smiled. It was an honest, friendly smile, and she felt herself relax.

  “My name is Greg Carr,” he said, uncuffing her wrist. She rubbed it, hesitantly. “I work for the NSA, the National Security Agency? Probably you didn’t know this, but the Gate House is federal property. You were trespassing. This is Scopes. He’s in charge of security for our small department.”