Dead Religion

by David Beers

  Daniel didn’t answer and Brittany understood why. Understood skin didn’t turn that shade and tongues, generally speaking, remained inside of mouths. She turned back to the ceiling as memories began pushing their way through the pain. Her head felt this way because of Daniel, because Daniel had seen…

  All of it came in a wave, where she was and why she looked at a ceiling different than the one in her house.

  “Alex?” She asked, ignoring the pain emanating from her words. Where was her husband? Why wasn’t he with her now?

  No answer came, just as nothing had from Daniel. She sat up, pain pulsing through her head as she moved. She scanned the room with her good eye, not having to look far to find Alex on his side with his eyes closed.

  Brittany’s entire world collapsed with the one glance toward her husband. Panic didn’t describe it, neither did full-blown fear. Walls inside her psyche, built to hold her life together, crumbled; she felt her entire personality imploding, destroying itself as she looked at her dead husband.

  She stood, tried to walk, fell over the dead body next to her, and then stood again. She felt no pain, only an irrepressible need to get to Alex, to see that he was alive—not dead, not gone.

  Brittany fell to her knees next to him; her hands finding his chest and her ear his mouth. Her own heart seemed to stop beating as she listened for her husband’s breath. Joy, relief flooded Brittany as air hit her cheek. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead. Those were the only words that mattered—her fear and breaking life both forgotten. She went to the floor, her legs sliding across the carpet as she hugged him in much the same way he had her a short while ago.

  “He won’t leave you.”

  Whatever spoke, moved too; Brittany twisted frantically so that she could see what was behind her.

  Daniel was sitting up—not in any zombie sense of the phrase, rising straight up from the floor with the world’s strongest abs. Instead, he sat up like someone living, using his arms to push and bending his knees for leverage. He scooted back against the wall, leaning against it.

  He moved as if his blood still circulated, except his face remained that sickening shade of purple—fruit beginning to rot. His eyes, even as they blinked, bulged from his face as if searching desperately for something. Dark, nearly black, circles ringed his neck. His chest remained still, not moving up and down even as the rest of his body took on tasks.

  Brittany wanted to turn away, to show the battered side of her face to this dead psychiatrist—but like the rape earlier, she couldn’t. She only stared, wondering how this was possible, wondering what existed in front of her. Her hands tightened on Alex’s shirt and her body tensed, but that was in the background; commands from a distant part of her mind caused those movements—she had forgotten about everything except for the moving dead.

  Daniel sighed as he leaned against the wall, his chest inflating and deflating before coming to a stop again. “Your husband, Alex, he is not willing to leave you. After all this, the son-of-a-bitch still fights me. Still thinks he can win. I looked through him, thinking something in his DNA might be different—might have changed—as opposed to the humans I have known. That is not it. He is the same as the rest, yet he does not submit.”

  Daniel looked at her then, a scared woman clinging to her unconscious husband. “I am sorry for my rambling. You look in need of an explanation.” His eyes, big, puffy, and blackening, found Brittany’s. “I know the human race better than any historian ever could, know the world better than any satellite could photograph it. People from every part of this planet, and animals that have scoured every inch of the ocean floor, live in my consciousness. Many of these beings were remarkable, but all of them similar in their subservience to me. Your husband, the one you huddle next to now, might love you more than any human has loved another. They talk of the Helen of Troy, who a thousand ships sailed for, but your husband would go much further than that. He would face anything, for any length of time apparently, to keep you. It is…meaningful, I suppose.”

  Brittany turned away, back to Alex, leaving the corpse to continue talking. She put her face next to his, breathing in his scent and feeling his skin on hers. She wrapped a leg around his, her arm already across his body. They could have been at home, in bed, if not for the rest of their lives.

  “I have him in a dark place right now. I might keep him there forever, if he does not give. More out of anger for this insolence than any practical reason. If he never breaks, keeping him there will do nothing for me. Still, he will stay if he decides this life—you—are so important to him.”

  She squeezed her eyes together, fighting back tears as her face lit up in pain from the effort.

  “That will be fine, too, but I will have one of you. That’s all I need to begin, to make people see me as they are meant to. Make them understand why they are here, why I chose this world—to glorify me. But I need one more and it is up to you who that will be, Brittany. I could allow you to walk the hotel, finding phantoms that you do not even want to dream about; but why waste time with that? A yes or no, this or that, will end this quickly. I will let you walk out of this place now, the clouds outside will part, and the world as you know it will return. You just find the elevator and ride it down.

  “If you choose that, Alex stays with me. You can take his body or leave it. If you leave it, he will probably be hospitalized down here and can spend the rest of his days in a bed, eating through tubes. His mind and soul, those stay with me in the darkness. He will stay until his sanity is gone, and then past that. He will stay until his body gives out and his soul returns to the beginning. We both know it will take a while for that to happen though; people can live for years as long as food and water are supplied.

  “Most likely, he will give up and come to me. He will fulfill his purpose that his parents gave to him. Either way, his life is mine.” Daniel crossed his arms over his chest. His face was blackening rapidly now—the light purple turning dark. “But you get to leave. I will not follow. You can live your life, just without Alex. Pay attention now; here is the important part.”

  Brittany didn’t respond. She let tears flow down her cheeks, no longer fighting them. How did she end up here? Holding her husband and listening to a corpse? Whatever plans she had dreamed, this wasn’t in them. She couldn’t wake Alex and she couldn’t take him home. She could only hug him and cry into his shoulder.

  Hope was nearly beyond her, because she knew nothing about how this would work out—that maybe the whole thing had been doomed from the beginning.

  “The other option is you give yourself to me and I’ll let Alex go. He will return, wake up here, and can be the one that continues living. This is the ultimatum I give you: kill yourself, and for that sacrifice, Alex may live out the rest of his life. It is a simple you or him thing, Brittany.”

  Alex raged inside the blackness, fighting his surroundings—his cage. All for naught. The God, the other presence in this place, had left—was in the hotel convincing Brittany of the either or proposition. Alex, alone here, begged anything that might be listening to allow Brittany to choose her own life. Begged that she run from the hotel and let him sit in this darkness for eternity if need be.

  If anything heard his pleas, it gave no notice.

  Brittany pulled back from Alex, pushing up on her elbows as she did. Her face burned, but she didn’t care. She wanted to see her husband even if he couldn’t see her.

  He looked peaceful, like he only slept. She had watched him sleep like this countless times; she loved the way he looked: vulnerable, but hers. Was he still hers? Even hidden from this world, was he still her Alex? She nodded almost imperceptibly; he would always be hers—her love, her husband, her heart. She had said “I do,” and even now—her face busted and a God demanding a choice between her life or her husband’s—she didn’t regret those words. Not at all. Every second she spent with Alex, even the times in the hospitals, she cherished. She loved the man before her and that had made her life i
nfinitely better. Even here in this place. What would her life have been without him? One in which she might have lived longer, but not one worth living.

  She bent down and kissed his lips. Alex didn’t kiss back, but she held their lips together anyway.

  “You’ll let him go?” Brittany asked, rising to her feet. She felt herself flirting with collapse, but held herself up.

  “I will allow him to come back here and decide his life for himself. I will no longer seek him.”

  Brittany looked at the sitting thing she once had known. “There’s no way to trust you.”

  “I have no need for both of you and I prove it by letting you leave right now. Go to the elevator, get in. You will see me no more.”

  “But he stays then?”

  “He stays.”

  She had made her decision and no other questions mattered. If she could walk out, then so could Alex. He wasn’t weak, wouldn’t break like she would. Even if he wasn’t allowed to leave, he could survive in here—without her bogging him down. He might be able to make it out on his own, might be able to put a stop to this. No matter the scenario, her presence wasn’t necessary—was only a hindrance.

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  “There,” the dead man said, lifting a swollen hand and pointing.

  Brittany looked to where he pointed, to her hand. She held a knife, one she had never picked up or even seen before.

  “It will be quick,” the dead man said. “Drag it across your wrist. Everything will be done in a moment.”

  Brittany looked at the knife, feeling her decision waver—instinctual self-preservation trying to shine through. “What’s it like?”

  “The knife or after?”

  “After.”

  Daniel’s eyes looked away from Brittany to the wall in front of him. “It’s eternal. No worries, no fears, no hopes. Just eternal.”

  Brittany walked to Alex and sat down near his head. She placed the knife on the floor, and lifted his head into her lap. She rubbed her hand across his bald skin, feeling the smoothness of it on her own. The doubt, the self-preservation, drifted away as she looked at Alex. This world was his now; a place he must navigate by himself. They could not both live here any longer and if only one could go on, then it should be him.

  She moved his head from her lap and picked up the knife.

  Brittany brought the blade across each wrist. She stared at Alex until her world went black.

  31

  Days Past

  Alex & Maux

  Alex’s eyes opened and he was scrambling before he could think. Turning to his stomach, he pushed himself to his feet, searching for Brittany. He had watched everything through basically a camera lens, but now was back in his body, back with his wife.

  Except even as he fought to get to her, he knew that was a lie. His wife wasn’t here anymore.

  Alex pulled her body to him, blood smearing his hands and robe. Her head refused to stay up with her spine, no longer supporting it. He kept trying, struggling to position her so that he could look into his wife’s eyes. He was failing. When he reached for her head, her body slumped away from him. He kept pulling, trying to sit her up straight, to make her resemble the woman she had been.

  When he finally reached a position that allowed him to look into her face, her eyes couldn’t focus. They stared dully, blankly, as if seeing everything at once.

  Tears fell as Alex understood that his wife would never see him again. He cradled her head, looking at the beauty she still possessed, and cried for those eyes that could no longer love him. The other dead person in the hallway—the rest of the world in its entirety—didn’t matter. Alex didn’t know where he was and didn’t care. He was broken now, in some very primitive way. The person he had been, the person his wife had help make, was no more—would never exist again.

  Alex held Brittany, blood smearing across his body, and sobbed. Nothing spoke and nothing moved. He held her for a long time, hours maybe, not ready to move or release her. Even when his tears stopped, he stared at her as one hand absently petted her—blood covering his palm and spreading to her hair with each stroke.

  More time passed with nothing moving besides Alex’s hand.

  Eventually even that went still and then he only sat looking at his dead wife. He blinked sometimes, but other than blinking and the steady movement of his lungs, he gave no signs that he lived.

  “Where are you?” he whispered, looking at Brittany but speaking to something else. His life was at its end and he welcomed it. Craved it, even. Everything that he cared for, lived for, lay deceased in his arms. Why should he continue on? He finally broke, but for a different reason than his parents. Not because his mind could no longer take the assault, but because he had no reason to continue taking it. Not anymore. The world, the existence of mankind, mattered nothing to him as he held his wife.

  Which was the point, wasn’t it? Something inside of him, watching and recording without emotions attached, understood that. This God had been unable to break him, to convince him, to take him—so, instead, it took the only thing that mattered to him. He was free to leave now, to live—only Alex didn’t want to anymore. He only wanted the same thing he had always wanted: to be with his wife.

  He moved Brittany to the side, lying her down gently. He brought her right hand, her slit wrist, to his lips and kissed it. He pressed it to his cheek, blood covering much of his face. Alex placed her arm back down and then stood—his eyes clear. No tears. No haziness. “Where are you?” he asked, no longer looking at his wife.

  “I am here.” The voice came from the walls—coming from everywhere at once.

  “You knew I wouldn’t leave,” Alex answered.

  “You are free now.”

  “And where would I go?” His voice still a whisper.

  The walls fell silent, leaving Alex with the two bodies.

  Alex went to the door he had walked through earlier, the one he woke up next to and found his dead wife. He twisted the door knob and pushed: only a hotel room. “Don’t leave now. I don’t have anywhere else to go.” Alex turned from the door, back to the hallway. “But you knew that, didn’t you? Showing me the fucking beginning of THE GODDAMN UNIVERSE!” The last three words ripped from him.

  He waited a few seconds, closing his eyes, before speaking again—his voice subdued. “It was all bullshit. Just a way to get me from her and now she’s gone. She’s with you, along with everyone else I ever loved. So why the fuck wouldn’t I join?”

  “The knife then,” the voice boomed from the walls.

  “No. Not that way.” Alex looked to the knife lying under one of Brittany’s legs. “I want to see you when you take me.”

  Silence followed, minutes stretching on and on. Alex’s eyes found Brittany. He glanced at Daniel sometimes, still sitting up against the wall—but his eyes always went back to his wife, looking like Snow White with her pale, almost flawless skin.

  “I’m not leaving,” Alex said, below even a whisper. “Come take me.”

  The green sludge started seeping from the floor, oozing out of the carpet. Alex saw it around Brittany first, but as he allowed his vision to expand, he saw the entire hallway was the same. That dark, forest green liquid—which had covered, or been, this God since its birth—was now bubbling up from the floor, covering Alex’s shoes.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Alex said.

  He watched as his wife was enveloped in it—she didn’t float but remained at the bottom as the cold liquid approached Alex’s waistline.

  It continued rising, but Alex held no fear. Whatever instinct should have wanted him to keep breathing had died with his wife; death loomed and Alex felt at peace.

  It rose to his neck and covered his mouth. He looked out ahead, still able to breathe from his nose, and saw the entire hall filled—nowhere to run, but that was fine, wasn’t it?

  It entered his nose and he breathed the liquid in, welcoming it even as he began gagging.

  Maux entered the m
an. It could feel his lungs heaving, trying futilely to repulse the fluids filling them up—trying to find the air that would never come. Maux knew nothing of emotions, only feeling the need of constant expansion, of more death at Its feet—but had It been able to, perhaps It would have felt satisfaction at this conquest. The last of the blood line now with It, giving It the ability to make Its return, to make the world see.

  When this human’s heart stopped beating, the world would be delivered to Maux. It understood from the humans who joined It recently, that communication had changed drastically since Maux ruled last. It would be able to infect anyone, anywhere—almost at will; distance no longer mattered. This planet would be a dead rock soon.

  The human was joining Maux now. His soul, or essence, being eclipsed and brought into Maux’s. The intricacies of the man collapsing and being rewritten so that Maux could continue with this other entity a part of It.

  Almost there. Almost time to reclaim what It had let slip away.

  Something…

  Something was wrong.

  This experience, what It felt now, was entirely new. Hundreds of thousands, even millions of beings had melted into It and none felt like this. Maux felt…tearing? Ripping? Did those words describe what this fucking human was attempting? The connection, the overlaying of Maux across this being, was halting. Not completing. Rejecting? How was it even possible?

  Not only possible, but happening. The human was rejecting the rewriting of his soul—even dying in the hallway, he fought. If the sacrifice wasn’t completed…what else did It have? One woman who had seen her daughter die? That was all, the last string in the web It had created—and did Maux even have the strength to progress to her after this? The questions were endless, things Maux could not know, had not even fathomed because this goddamn human was not going to flee. It had not been a possibility, not even a thought, but Maux was being refused—and Alex was still dying. No more time for thinking, only action.