The Fifth Day

by Gordon Bonnet

  “Look.” Lissa pointed toward the nightstand on Jackson’s side of the bed. “His gun.”

  A chill shivered its way up Z’s backbone. It looked as if Jackson and Olivia had been snatched naked from bed, without even time to grab the gun—a response so ingrained in Jackson that it was hard to imagine his not doing it reflexively.

  “Whatever happened, happened fast,” Lissa said.

  Z glanced around. “Do you think they could have—could have disappeared? I hate to say it, because that opens up possibilities I don’t even want to think about. But could they have been, you know, taken? Like everyone else was?”

  “What about the blood on the floor?” Margo said.

  “That could have happened before they went to bed.”

  “We can check that.” Lissa pulled back the covers to reveal a pristine white sheet, no mark of blood anywhere to be seen.

  “He could have bandaged it,” Gareth said.

  Lissa shrugged. “Possibly. But I did notice that the blood spots led toward the front door. There were no bloodstains going the other way—from where the vase was broken up the stairs. So what seems to have happened is that one of them came downstairs, maybe after hearing something, without bothering to get dressed. The vase got broken, and whichever of them it was stepped on a piece of glass.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I don’t know. That’s all the evidence we have. It could be they came down together, or one came first and the other followed, perhaps drawn by the noise of the vase breaking. But we have nothing else to go on.”

  “Just like Ben.”

  “So it could be a second disappearance.” This from Margo. “There’s nothing to rule that out.”

  Z frowned. “No. No proof. But it doesn’t have the same feel. I know that won’t be convincing to you, Lissa, but I know in my heart this isn’t another event like the one five days ago. This is something different.” She swallowed, trying to force back the panic rising in her. “Something worse.”

  “Worse than six billion people vanishing?” Margo said.

  “Oh, yes. There’s something far worse behind all of this.”

  “What do you mean, something behind it?” Gareth’s round face was white in the dim light.

  “Whatever has caused it all. It’s one thing you and I agree on, Lissa. There is some underlying cause to all of this. And whatever it is—well, I never believed in evil before. But I think I do now. And I think you were right, earlier, Margo. We’ve tempted fate long enough. We need to get back to the other house.”

  Lissa went over to the nightstand. “Well,” she said, picking up the Glock and giving it an appraising look, “at least now, we’re armed.”

  —

  DESPITE MARGO’S PREMONITION of danger, nothing happened on their way out of the Acostas’ house and back to the Ingersolls’. Even Jeff seemed spooked, however, and unwilling to go off alone. He followed Z into the kitchen and helped her fix breakfast for everyone. Lissa, tired out from even that small amount of physical exertion, retired to the recliner, and she and Margo spoke in quiet voices.

  At least they were no longer shouting at each other.

  Ten minutes later, Z came into the living room and handed each a bowl of oatmeal.

  “Thanks.” Lissa set the bowl down on a little table next to the recliner. She rapped her knuckles on the open notebook in her lap. “You should know, this is the work of a profoundly disturbed mind.”

  “We knew Jackson was strange.”

  “Yes. That much was obvious from the start. But this goes beyond strange. The writing in this notebook goes back almost a year, and gives every evidence of being a continuation of earlier writing. And the contents are….” She frowned, looking for the words. “In another age he would have been burned at the stake for heresy, or his book would become the basis of a religion. It’s beautiful, in its own way. Listen. ‘Ragnarok will finish them, Ragnarok will take the weak and the foolish and the lame. Pity is useless; it only leaves you marked for destruction. When the wind comes, the frost, the fire, Skrymir and Surt, they will sweep the Earth clean of pity, leaving behind only the pristine starkness of necessity.’”

  “Jesus.” Z shook her head. Talk about crazy shit.

  Jeff stared wide-eyed, saying nothing.

  “I know. And it goes on and on. A lot of it is that sort of apocalyptic stuff, about the end of the world and being on the winning side and staying strong. But there’s some more personal stuff. There’s this section—” She flipped back to a dog-eared page. “‘Susan spoke to me again. She seems not to know that she can’t affect me anymore. She reached me once, almost turned me from the path with the promise of ease and pleasure, with the lure of love and the pull every man feels for what lies between a woman’s legs. It didn’t work. I grieved then, but not now. It is better this way. I take care of my own needs, feeding myself, clothing myself, giving myself release when the animal desire is strong enough to cloud my mind. I am honed into a diamond-tipped needle. It would be best if others survive, but if it is only I alone, I have crafted myself into such a man as could rule such a world.’”

  “God almighty, that’s creepy.”

  “Wait till you hear the end. We got special mention, you and I.” She turned to a page about three-quarters of the way in, a page that ended where the frighteningly neat print broke off into blankness. “If that creeped you out, listen to this. ‘The two women will have to be ended soon. They are a danger, they know too much, in that intuitive way women have. Zolzaya first. She is the more dangerous of the two. She leads the others, although they are not aware of it, and in her absence, the remaining ones will be that much easier to control. If there had been no witnesses, I could have let the monster with the golden eyes take care of Lissa, but it would have been suspicious had I left her. Perhaps she will die of her injuries yet, and save my having to risk the others knowing she died by my will.’”

  Z gave a convulsive shiver. “You called him disturbed. I don’t think that comes close to covering it.”

  “He’s being driven by the Evil One.” Jeff rubbed his face with his hands. “We have let minions of Satan within our midst. Mikiko, and now Jackson. It’s my fault for not recognizing it.”

  Z reached out and touched his shoulder. “You know, you might be right about Jackson being driven by the devil, but you can’t fault yourself for not knowing it. You’re only human, Jeff.”

  “You do know what this means,” Lissa said.

  “What?”

  “When and if Jackson Royce comes back, we have to kill him.”

  Z stared at her. “I don’t know….”

  “You don’t know?” Lissa’s voice was scornful. “You just read about a man who talks of eliminating the two of us, plans to cut us down to get us out of the way of his goal of being the leader, and you have second thoughts? This isn’t the world we grew up in, Zolzaya. There are no police any more, no restraining orders, no jails. You said a while back that we were going to have to learn how to fend for ourselves. You maybe didn’t think that statement through, not to all of its implications.”

  Z nodded, swallowed. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right. I’m not used to thinking that way.”

  “None of us are. But we have to realize that, on this planet, right now, we’re just another animal species. We have predators hunting us, we’re scraping for food, and some of our own kind, apparently, are ready to turn on us.” She nodded toward the Glock, sitting on the coffee table. “You can count on it. I see Jackson Royce, I’m putting a bullet in him. Probably more than one.”

  “You could do that? If it really came down to it, you’d pull the trigger?”

  For the first time, hesitation showed in Lissa’s face. “I—I hope so. You don’t know until you’re in the situation. Maybe I’ll freeze. But I have to tell you, Z, that he will kill me if I don’t kill him first. That much was clear from what he wrote.”

  “I can’t believe it’s come to this.” Margo cradled her bow
l of warm oatmeal in her hands, and her face looked mournful. “We’re becoming animals again. Whatever goodness and rationality there was in humanity is evaporating away.”

  “Not from all of us.” Z gritted her teeth and shook her head. “If all goodness and rationality was gone, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.”

  “You’re probably right. But it’s just so damn sad. We’ve been through losing everyone, everything we knew, and we band together, trying to survive, only to find that one of us is a crazy serial killer type.”

  “He hasn’t killed anyone yet.”

  “Yet.” Lissa tossed the notebook on the table “You don’t have to read much of this shit to realize that he is one insane motherfucker, as Gary might have put it.” Her face was solemn. “But Gary’s gone too, now. It’s only the five of us left. We’ve got to stay tough and stay together, or one by one, we’re gonna get swallowed up.”

  There was a sound of a clearing throat, and they turned to see Gareth’s round face peering into the living room. “Sorry. I overheard what you were saying. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop….”

  Lissa waved him on into the conversation circle. “We wouldn’t have kept this secret in any case. We have to be a united front, here.”

  “So you really think all the others were killed by the monsters?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Lissa said. “In the absence of evidence, there’s no way to tell. The only thing that’s certain is that they’re gone.”

  When Margo spoke, her voice was low and thick. “It’s not fair. Especially about Ben.”

  “No. But what about this has been fair?”

  Margo shrugged. She seemed near tears, and took a sip of her tea, her gaze dropping to the floor.

  “We need to keep the doors locked. Set a watch.” Lissa’s eyes met Z’s, and in them was something new, a desperate seriousness. “We are it, you know. Whoever else may have survived—they’re not here, and they’re not going to rescue us. It’s us and the monsters.”

  “I don’t want to die.” Margo’s voice cracked. “I’m afraid.”

  “We all are. Courage isn’t not being afraid, it’s being afraid and doing what you have to do anyway. I’m not going to go out without a fight.” She smiled. “That means it’s time for me to be honest. For the first time it seems real to me that I might be dead by this time tomorrow. If I am, I want to die with you knowing who I am, honestly.”

  Z gave her a questioning look.

  Lissa took a deep breath. “I’m a lesbian. My lover who vanished was a woman, Julia Alvarez. I have lied to you about myself and about her, and perhaps that has dishonored her memory. I know, in the reverse situation, she would never have lied about me. She had faults, Lord knows she did, but dishonesty was not one of them. I owe both her and you that much, to tell the truth about who I am.”

  Z looked at Margo. The other woman could only shrug.

  “And you thought we’d treat you differently?”

  “Some would.” Her eyes flickered toward Jeff.

  Jeff frowned, as if he were struggling to find the words. “I—I gotta say, it’s a sin I never did understand. But I’m a sinful man myself, and I’m not going to judge you. The Lord said to remove the beam from your own eye before you tried to get the splinter out of your brother’s. Rejecting you now, that’d be a sin against charity, and my guess is that Jesus would say, that in that case, I had more to account for than you do.”

  Lissa gave him a slow smile. “You know, Jeff, I don’t know that we agree on much, but you might be one of the most honorable people I’ve ever met.”

  He blushed, and looked down. “I try to live as the Lord commands. Nothing more to it than that.”

  “It’s enough, apparently.” She glanced around at the others, making eye contact with each. “How about the rest of you?”

  “Doesn’t matter to me.” Gareth looked more embarrassed than Jeff had, his freckled cheeks turning scarlet. “I couldn’t care less who you like to sleep with. None of my business, honestly.”

  Lissa looked over at Margo, her eyebrows raised. “And what about you?”

  Margo grinned—the first honest, full smile Z had seen on her face since their meeting over a Tarot card reading, the day everything had gone so badly awry. “Me? My brother was gay. Your move.”

  Lissa laughed, shaking her head at the same time. “You have no idea how many knots I’ve been working myself into over this. One does, you know, imagine the worst. I’ve lived all my life like that. And sometimes it was justified. More often than not, though, it’s been a head trip that hasn’t been worth the cost.”

  Z stopped herself as she was about to say, “Let’s hope that whatever society we build here, it will leave behind all of the old prejudices.” It was a hollow statement, full of unwarranted optimism. She gazed around her at the others in the room. Were they really all that was left? It had seemed for a while that they were rebuilding some kind of community of survivors—an odd one, granted, but at least their numbers were growing.

  Now, they were down to five, their group cut in half in the passage of one night. And the monsters were still out there, waiting.

  It was no longer a matter of what kind of society they would like to rebuild. It was a matter of whether there were enough of them left for humanity to survive at all. Right now, they were remnants, back to our ancestors’ fear of what might be lurking in the shadows. All of the modern scientific certainty wiped out in one blow.

  Because—somehow—all of the rules had changed. If they reinvented science at all, it would be entirely different from what Lissa had studied, devoted her life to, what she thought she knew about the way the universe worked.

  8

  TELL US A tale of the time before the Forest, the children said.

  Had the children been there when they entered? Did any of them remember passing through the gate? Or were these pale-skinned, light-eyed children born there in the Forest, and knew nothing else?

  None could remember. To some, it seemed that only days had passed, and to others, that it was an entire lifetime. But to all, the denizens of the old world were like characters in a story, unreal, like fairy tales of the Will-of-the-Wisp and the lycanthrope and the maiden who lives in the river, waiting to drown beautiful young men who have come to swim. Tales to frighten and enchant, nothing more. Tales when they are finished, the children look around and smile, seeing that the familiar real world of trees and shadows and the path stretching out, limitless before them, is still there.

  —

  THERE WAS NO sound but bare feet striking the ground, the breathless gasping as lungs cried out for air, heart thundering in his ears. Muscles and tendons ached, pleading for Jackson to stop running, but he kept on plunging through the dark, heedless of branches drawing scratches on his naked skin.

  He had failed. The Voice said it. He had blundered, once only, but it was fatal, as he had known all along it would be. He had pushed himself closer and closer to the cliff’s edge, peering over at the rocks below. One misstep, and those rocks that lay there, inert and changeless, would break his body into ruin, and for thirty-five years he had kept his balance. Through physical and emotional abuse at the hands of his brute of a father, through war and destruction and carnage in Afghanistan, through the more subtle danger of Susan and the desire for ease and pleasure she represented. And now through sheer carelessness, he had lost his foothold, and he was plunging through the empty air.

  His mistake had been letting Olivia distract him. They had fought that afternoon. She started it, insisting he tell her what his plans were, pressing him to say why he treated Z and Lissa with such disdain. He had responded with mechanical answers, knowing that to give her more would open him to questions he didn’t want to answer.

  Then something changed, with the suddenness of a switch flipping.

  “You hate Lissa, don’t you?” she snarled. “I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t hate anyone. It’s
a waste of energy.”

  “Don’t lie to me. I’m not stupid.”

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  “I can tell. Is it because she’s gay?”

  This took him by surprise. Not good. She shouldn’t be able to surprise him, not someone as weak as Olivia. That she knew something he didn’t, made a surge of anger rise in him.

  He forced it away.

  “Lissa is gay?”

  “Yes, you didn’t know?”

  “How would I know that?”

  “Watch where she looks. She acts like the cool-headed scientist, but she’s not.” She frowned. “She barely looks at Gary or you. There’s something different when she’s looking at Z or me. You really didn’t realize?”

  “No.”

  “I probably shouldn’t have told you, then.”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t make any difference.”

  “If you don’t dislike her because she’s gay, what’s the reason, then?”

  “I don’t dislike her.”

  “Don’t lie. It’s Z and Lissa both. You don’t like either one of them. You’re playing let’s-pretend just as much as Lissa is. You act like a machine, like the, I don’t know, Military Leader Robot or something. But you….” Her cheeks suddenly flushed scarlet.

  She sees it. She sees me. Stop it. Look away from me, you bitch!

  “What?” His voice was still level.

  “You’re afraid,” she said, in a hushed voice. “That’s all it is. You’re afraid of not being in control. You’re afraid because Lissa and Z are the only ones you can’t push around. You’re just—you’re just a little boy.”

  He was on his feet so fast she recoiled, but then she broke out in a mirthless grin.