by Mike Duran
She swung toward the bent man/boy and studied him. He looked tangible, real, unlike a dimensional veil or a garden gnome. In fact, he appeared humored by her scrutiny and stepped closer to accommodate.
“May I?” she asked.
“So you're staying?”
“Don't know.”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
She tapped his shoulder, cautiously at first, and then squeezed his bicep, as one would test a loaf of bread. Then Eunice took a step back, her eyes pinched with puzzlement. “Who are you? And where the heck am I?”
“I’m Joseph. And this—” he nodded toward the savage highway and the flaming orb on the horizon, “It’s her world—the wreckage or, better yet, the ripening of everything she’s chosen. And for whatever reason, you’ve been granted access.”
His words were so matter-of-fact, so void of guile and deceit that her disbelief deflated. A terrible alignment was happening, an awakening that Eunice dare not stop. She turned and looked again at the black hole sun. It was bigger than before, a monstrous globe radiating molten spires, bathing the world in its crimson fury. The vision, in its enormity, seemed to swallow the siren and the babbling Lexus man. In their place rose the sounds of desolation, the low moan of wind sweeping across the blighted afterworld.
Eunice faced the boy with a chilling sense that she had not lost it, that something far more than a hallucination or flashback had encroached upon her.
“Joseph.”
“Yes.”
“What do you want?” she said. “Tell me again.”
“Me? I’m just a trekker, a tweener. It’s her, your mom. She’s the one who called you.”
“And she wants…”
“She wants you to free her, Eunice. You know, gather loose ends, cut ties. All the stuff that people do when they, you know… when the end is near.”
Eunice peered at him, but the brightness of his bad eye had not dimmed. His words rang with the same unnerving honesty.
“Free her. Maybe I can heal her of cancer while I’m at it,” she said in mock bemusement. “Listen, I’ve got enough problems of my own and I’m supposed to… free her? How?”
“Well, for starters, by conceding.”
“Concede. Right.” She nodded blankly. “And what, exactly, am I conceding?”
“Everything.” Joseph opened his arms wide. “Conceding to this. And to that.” He pointed to the wound in the sky. “And to fight.”
Fight. The word made her spine stiffen. Yeah, she knew about fighting. It’s what she’d spent the last three years doing. Fighting the lies, the fear, the self-loathing, the compliance to generations of dysfunction and addiction, the infernal hunger that seethed in her genes. Always teetering near complete disintegration and ruin, she had clung to hope. If Eunice Ames could do anything, she could fight.
Staring into that surreal borderland, she said, “You’re going with me, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“And I can go back whenever I want?”
“Yup.”
Eunice nodded. “Concede, huh?” Then she turned to him. “Okay, Joseph. Then lead the way.”
Without a word, he turned and began limping toward the boiling horizon. She watched him for a moment and thought about the world behind her, on the other side of the weird dimensional doorway—the world of sirens and Lexus men, the world of cancer and crystals and drug addicts losing their jobs and their families, shivering in alleys and under overpasses where they would inevitably die alone; the world of broken dreams and bitterness, where mothers sell their souls and fathers are nowhere to be found.
“Free her,” she said to herself. “Lord knows she needs it.” And with that, Eunice caught up and followed Joseph along the blasted highway, into that ominous inner world. She did not look back, or want to, for a very long time.
THREE
Joseph’s pace was unhurried, but swift. He swung his leg as he walked, a motion that reminded Eunice of an odd dance step. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, trying to grasp where she was and trusting that his proximity would somehow tether her to sanity. But their descent toward the fiery vortex had tweaked her equilibrium and become an exercise in perspective.
Everything seemed to radiate from the volcanic sun, as if it were a womb and the highway itself was the afterbirth of some hideous cataclysm. But just how far away it was, Eunice could not ascertain. At once it looked both near and distant, an immense mirage in the atmosphere that fluctuated with the slightest of ones' motions. Ghost flames swirled off the tarmac, complicating the view, and shadows jittered along the landscape like spastic marionettes. Her eyes stung from the parched air, but she remained fixated, curious, and not a little skeptical.
As if he were intuiting her thoughts, Joseph said, “There’s no getting used to it. Things change here, and depending on where she’s at, they can change pretty drastically. So don’t try to figure it out all at once. The stuff you really need to know, you’ll learn along the way. But the important thing is that we keep moving.”
Eunice nodded to herself, but his words did nothing to satisfy her growing perplexity. It’s her world, Joseph had said. The wreckage, the ripening of everything she’s chosen. Eunice could easily imagine her mother’s interior life looking something like this—dark and blasted and inhospitable. But how had Eunice gotten here, and where exactly was she—inside her mother’s thoughts, inside her mother’s soul? Or was this some type of psychographic arena where scores were settled? Either way, Eunice would have a hard time explaining this to her support group.
They hiked under a collapsed overpass, zigzagging through rubble and twisted rebar. Angry vines choked the pillars and drifts of ash clung to their base. High above the crumbled arches, a vortex had started churning in the clouds, as if someone had pulled a plug and the stormy ocean was being drained into the sky. Nearby, a green freeway sign lay crumpled. Despite gouges and rust wounds, she could make out the word Winterland on it. Eunice had commuted the 210 freeway through Pasadena for years, but she had never seen an exit named Winterland.
“Joseph,” she finally said. “How do I know this place is real?”
He glanced at her, and kept plowing forward without a response.
“Maybe I bumped my head back there,” she mused, “got a concussion or something, and now I’m… I’m delusional.” She jabbed her finger into the air. “That’s it, huh? I’m suffering from shock.”
Joseph shook his head. “I thought we already covered this.”
“This is a hallucination, isn’t it? Or some type of flashback. I’m still on the freeway—the cars, the Lexus guy—they’re still right here. But this—” she motioned to the apocalyptic landscape and then tapped her temple with her forefinger. “It’s all inside my head.”
Joseph clucked his tongue and looked away.
“I bumped my head,” Eunice continued, “and now I’ve got this journey to complete. Something to resolve. But it’s all psychological. My mother’s dying and I’ve got some personal issues to work out. And this is, like, the subconscious manifestation of that. Kind of a catharsis where I battle my demons, forgive my Mom, and resolve to go on living without her. Mm-hmm. Now I get it.”
If her imaginary adventure failed, Eunice was suddenly convinced she might have a career in psychotherapy.
Yet Joseph seemed unimpressed with her reasoning. He continued limping down the highway. Eunice watched him, hoping for a reply, some confirmation of her muddled thesis.
Finally, he said, “Do you always over-think things?”
Eunice wrung her brow, feeling slightly offended.
“Look,” she said. “I’m just trying to make sense of this. It's not every day that you get in a car accident and then... and then this snowy space opens up in front of you and, and this guy that no one else can see, he—wait a second! You're the one who started this! You ran out in front of my car. This is all your fault.”
“Hey, you’re the only one who saw me. So whose fault is that? Besides
, you agreed to come.”
“Well, yeah. But the least you could do is cut me some slack.”
“Okay. Just don't over-think things. That’s all I’m saying. Around here, that can be dangerous.”
She knew about the danger of over-thinking things, becoming fixated upon an idea or emotion to the point of collapse. In fact, the very suggestion of over-thinking sent her mind wheeling. It was symptomatic of meth users. The brain couldn’t run that high without risking a complete flameout. An addict could be going along just fine, a thought is triggered, and suddenly everything snowballs. The next thing the person knows they haven’t eaten for three days, they’ve picked every scab on their body raw, and they are an emotional wreck. Madness was not the result of not thinking, she came to believe, but thinking too much.
In fact, as Eunice pondered this, she caught herself gnawing her fingernails. It was a disgusting habit.
Joseph looked at her and scowled.
She brought her hand to her side and felt a flush of shame.
After a moment, Joseph said, “Eunice, have you ever thought that she might be right?”
“Who?”
“Your mother. Do you think the only reality is the one you can see?”
“Well, no. But—”
She scrunched her lips and surveyed the barren landscape. It sure looked real enough. The ground under her feet was solid, her eyes and nostrils stung from the acrid air, and Joseph’s body cast a shadow across the ground. If this were an hallucination, she’d have a hard time disproving it.
“So…” Eunice said cautiously, “let’s say I’m not delusional. This is really her world. And this quest—it has real consequences. Let’s just say all that's true. I'm still gonna need some help.”
“That's why I'm here.” He half-bowed.
“Okay. So where we’re going—tell me again—what am I supposed to do?”
He appeared to be mulling the question. Finally, he shrugged. “Free her.”
“Right,” Eunice drawled. “But she's dying—at least, back there she was dying.”
“Oh, she's dying here, too. Only, it’s a different kind of death. A second death, you could say. When she dies, night falls, and her world will stop changing. It’ll crystallize. She’ll be crowned queen. And when that happens, no one can save her. She will be enthroned forever.”
“So…” Eunice struggled to make sense of his words. “How am I supposed to change that?”
“That depends on where your mother’s at. Could involve a game of wits, maybe even blood sport.”
“Blood sport? Against who? I’m not killing anyone!”
“Or anything?” Joseph lingered on the word, as if to draw out its implications. “Each person’s different. I’m not sure what’s in her world. All I know is that you need to reach her. Because if you don’t, she’ll be stuck.”
Eunice squinted, and looked sideways at Joseph. “So is this—” she had to force the word out, “hell?”
“Well, it isn’t Kansas.”
She scowled at Joseph, taken aback by his bad humor as much as its implications.
“Sorry,” he said. “That sign we passed back there. Remember?”
“You mean the one that said Winterland?”
“Yeah. You don’t remember seeing that sign before, do you?”
“Not on the 210. But we’re not on the 210. Are we?”
“Sort of. Now that you’re here, you’ve brought your own reality—which should brighten things up considerably.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“You can take it as one. Anyway, by the looks of it, I’m guessing you came this way a lot.”
“The 210? That’s an understatement. We lived in San Fernando, and then Pasadena, both off the 210. And then I got a delivery job serving that whole corridor. I practically lived on the freeway.”
“Well,” said Joseph. “Then that explains it. You’re partly seeing what you’re used to seeing. Only this freeway—your mother’s—is populated by her: her regrets and beliefs, her inner voices and imaginary friends; the things she’s let grow. Which explains the sign.”
“I’m getting a headache.”
“Druids and Wiccans believed that when they died, their souls went to a place called Summerland.”
“Okay, Mom,” Eunice said sarcastically.
“They referred to Summerland as The Land of Eternal Summer.”
She laughed aloud. “Well this is hardly a land of eternal summer.” Then she suddenly understood and said somberly, “Which is why she named this place Winterland.”
“Exactly. If Summerland was a land of bliss and heavenly delights—”
“Then Winterland would look like a highway to hell.”
Joseph nodded. “Now you’re catching on.”
They crossed over some skid marks and sidestepped a pool of oil. Further on, a length of guardrail dangled from its post and they crunched over a field of shattered glass. So was Eunice making this up? Did this glass and oil—did this very freeway—even exist? Or was it simply a part of her mother’s fading reality? Despite Joseph’s efforts to enlighten her, she felt as confused as ever. And having mentioned that word again…
“Joseph,” she finally asked. “Then is this hell?”
“Let me put it this way—it’s becoming hell. A very personal kind of hell. Right now it’s kind of a crossroad, an intersection between eternities. What it becomes, in the end, is up to us. I mean, you can’t water weeds your whole life and expect to harvest roses. Well, this is the eternity your mother’s watered.”
She stopped and put her hand on his shoulder—it was as tangible as the first time she’d touched it. He turned and they stood looking at each other.
“Joseph? My mom doesn’t believe in hell.”
He snorted, “That doesn’t mean it isn’t real!”
The low moan had become a distant wail, an omnipresent air-raid siren on an endless loop. Eunice listened to its lonesome bay echoing across that wasteland and pondered his words. She had reached the end of her rope a long time ago with her mother, and traded in their religious debates for civility and tolerance. Besides, hell was for serial killers, pedophiles, and preachers that swindled money from little old ladies, not for aging hippies who attended séances and environmental rallies.
Nevertheless, there she was, in this infernal Oz, commissioned to free her mother from a place the woman didn’t believe existed. And all the logic in the world couldn't seem to change any of that.
Maybe Joseph was correct—she should stop trying to over-think everything.
“You’re right,” Eunice said to herself. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”
As she spoke the words, a stench drifted by that yanked her gut into her throat. It may have been the most awful stink Eunice had ever encountered, an odor more akin to toxic contamination than anything. She flung her arm over her face, barely able to keep from vomiting. But behind the smell, something loomed; a presence more vile than anything Eunice had ever encountered.
FOUR
Eunice doubled over dry-retching. The smell was so bad the air seemed to thicken with its rottenness. Gulping back the rising nausea, she turned toward the skyline, in the direction of the awful smell.
A massive twisted object now lolled on the highway just ahead of them, perhaps three stories high, black and brooding. Root-like tentacles grappled for traction like some long-dormant subterranean beast rising from the asphalt plane.
If she hadn't been in shock before, she was now.
“That part about not over-thinking things,” Eunice stood gaping. “I think this is it.”
“We gotta hurry!” Joseph began marching straight for the colossal form. “C’mon!”
But Eunice stayed put. Where had this thing come from? Only moments before, the highway had been barren. She stayed with her hand over her nose, watching Joseph limp toward the tangled monstrosity.
Suddenly, he turned back and yelled, “You said you’d fight. Now come on!”
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The exhortation burrowed into her mind like an ornery splinter. Fight. Yeah, she had conceded to fight. Yet this was not playing out how she expected. What exactly was she supposed to be fighting here? If it came down to sheer willpower, Eunice might have a chance. But by the looks of things, this battle might involve physical dexterity. And if that was the case, she had about as much chance as Tinkerbell versus Megatron.
She remained with her hand cupped over her nose, contemplating the immense beckoning shape. Then she sucked air through her teeth, set her face toward the awful black menagerie, and lurched forward. And the moment she took that step, the mysterious object crystallized in her vision.
“A tree!” she exclaimed. “It’s a tree.”
“That’s it,” Joseph shouted over his shoulder. “A tree! That’s always the first thing.”
But this was unlike any tree she had ever seen. It lay across the highway like a dying sea serpent, mangled limbs sagging earthward, cancerous digits spread in appeal to a waterless sky. Oily sores marred the tree’s flesh and withered translucent sacks dangled from its leafless branches like foul ornaments. Its roots had caused a great upheaval, leaving the highway cloven with gaps and buckled concrete. The earth was charred and blasted there, as if nuked into infertility. And the stench—
She hurried to Joseph's side, unable to look away from the decrepit thing. “What kind of tree is this?”
“Not a healthy one, that's for sure.”
“Can’t we go around?”
“You can never get around it. Not in a hundred years. You’d just keep goin’ in circles. Besides, there’s someone waiting.”
“A person?! Here?”
But Joseph kept slogging forward.
The odor became more oppressive as they went, a gaseous haze rising from the earth and blanketing the area in a thin veil. Eunice gagged. “Joseph, please!”
“If you stop, you'll lose her. I’m telling you—you will never wanna come back. No one does. When they see the truth of it, no one ever wants to come back.”
She pulled her shirt up over her nose and, afraid to get too near the pestilent tree, angled her way toward the periphery of its branches. Splattered fruit had stained the ground under its umbrella, leaving a demented abstraction on the blackened earth. The spilled juices had flowed together in spots and turned to tributaries forming a single black stream that sludged its way into the distant basin. Only then, under that baneful canopy, did Eunice realize the aura of death that clung to that place. Something malignant grew there, something so diseased that the very earth was tainted by its sickness.