by Steve Berman
But he suspected not. With shaking hand he reached into the far corner of the box, where a variety of handkerchiefs and lacy napkins lay piled. He peeled them off slowly, until finally he reached that faint outline beneath a swatch of dress lace, a short thing curled onto itself, faintly moving with a labored rasp.
He could have stopped then, and thought he should, but his hand was moving again with so little direction, and just nudged that bit of cloth, which dropped down a bare quarter inch.
Nothing there, really, except the tiny eyes. Tissue worn to transparency, flesh vanished into the dusty air, and the child’s breathing so slight, a parenthesis, a comma. Jacob stared down solemnly at this kind afterthought, shadow of a shadow, a ghost of a chance. Those eyes so innocent, and yet so old, and desperately tired, an intelligence with no reason to be. Dissolving. The weary breathing stopped.
In the family plot, what little family there might be, there by Alma’s grave he erected a small stone: “C. Child” in bold but fine lettering. There he buried the cabinet and all it had contained, because what else had there been to bury? Two years later he joined them there, on the other side.
THE END OF EVERYTHING
Steve Eller
A priest, talking about World Without End, that’s all I have left from a childhood of Sundays. Sweating in my miniature black suit, clip-on tie dangling from a starched collar. My family’s voices, singing and testifying, were just background noise for those three words. Yanking my wayward mind back from daydreams of chasing goldbugs or sharpening knives, fixing me to the pew like cold metal through the heart. Just like the nails in the glistening Christ above the priest. I remember raising my hands, to see if I was dripping blood too.
If that priest was here with me now, I’d carve those words into his face, and see what dripped out of him. Not that it would do any good. Not for me, and certainly not for him.
When was the last time I saw glass that wasn’t broken? It’s nothing but spiderweb cracks now, or jagged shards like teeth. I wonder if there’s one smooth pane left anywhere, to gleam like a sheet of fire in the sun. Or rim the world in frost.
The city street below me is empty. Unless there’s some word beyond empty. Everything gleams a greasy grey. There’s no sun peeking through the constant clouds, which isn’t unusual for Ohio in wintertime. I’m just not sure it’s still winter. It might be early morning or midnight. It could be tomorrow or yesterday.
I lean through the window frame, looking straight up. With so much grey I lose my perspective, slipping toward vertigo. It would be so easy to just let go, surrender my balance and tumble out. It’s not the first time I’ve thought about it. But I’m afraid of what might happen. Almost as much as what might not.
Just like the rest of the world, the sky is dead. A fragment of a song pops into my head. Three words again. Dead Ohio Sky. I can’t remember the rest.
Ninth Street runs straight to the lakefront, where the horizon is all water from my twentieth-story view. Lake Erie is choppy and frothed with white, though there’s no wind. If not for the waves, there’d be nothing to distinguish water from sky. I used to stare out this window-hole, wondering when a ship would sail up, full of experts who’d climb on shore. Soldiers and scientists who knew what went wrong, people who could help me, in more ways than one. But they never came. And the world never got fixed.
This building used to be offices, and the walls are lined with roll-front bookcases. They were full of binders, some kind of financial records. I took them all out and threw them down the stairwell, replaced them with food and water. I grab a random can and pull the zip-top. Whatever’s inside is orange as clown hair. It could be chili or soup, maybe dog food. The electricity is still on in the building and there’s a microwave down the hall in a break-room, but that’s too much trouble. It’s just food, after all. Fake-colored chunks of slimy meat. Warmth won’t make it taste good. I grab a plastic spoon.
When it all started ending, I stocked up on water and canned goods. Everyone else was busy panicking, getting their stupid selves killed. But I can’t criticize them too much. They can’t be as used to death as me. I’ve spent my life around it. So while they were screaming and running, I was looting stores and lugging crates up twenty flights, making myself a safe and secret place. I figured I’d be Vincent Price in that old movie. The last person on the planet, with all the monsters out to get me.
After a few tasteless mouthfuls, I shoulder the fire-door open. Can and spoon go down the stairwell. I don’t hear them hit bottom. The meal sits in my belly like a stone, and I figure walking might grind it down to pebbles. The elevator in the hallway is open and waiting, since I’m the only one who uses it. I wish I had’ve known it was still working when I was carrying cases of water up the stairs. I tap the button for Lobby and the door shuts behind me. Machinery clanks and sputters inside the paneled walls, until the car jolts to a stop at the bottom. The elevator can’t be safe to use, and may kill me one day. But somehow, I doubt it.
“Hey, mister,” a soft voice said. “What’s your hurry?”
Staying still was hard. The night wind was cold enough to bite through wool and skin. Cold as God’s heart, I thought. There was a knife in my coat pocket, and I pricked my thumb. Penance, for thinking such a thing, no matter how true. Moving was the only way to keep warm. But the voice brought me to a stop.
A tangle of highway overhead, ramps and interchanges. Tires rumbled and whined. In the shadows beneath, people huddled around a trashcan fire. All scarves and hats, it was hard to tell them apart. Bits of metal and glass littered the ground, twinkling in firelight. The one who spoke stood away from the others. A thin, hunched figure, rubbing ragged gloves together. There was enough light to see it was a young girl.
“It’s cold out tonight,” she said. “Take me home.”
She had a knit cap pulled down to her eyebrows and the hood of her quilted coat was up. But I saw her face. She might’ve been born like that. Maybe she was burned, or her family threw her from a moving car like an unwanted pet. The ruined skin made her smile too beautiful, and I thanked Heaven for the strand of shadow she passed through. Her scent was unwashed flesh and the acid breath of an empty stomach, but her eyes were clear and hard like the icicles hanging from the guardrail.
I wondered what could’ve brought this child to Cleveland in the dead of winter. Her life story had to be a tragedy, like her face. But I didn’t wonder why she called out to me, instead of the other dark shapes along the street. Fate is a story all its own.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“What are you, a cop?”
“No. I’d just like to know.”
“Old enough to make it worth your while.”
It touched my heart that such perfection could exist in the world. In this tiny creature, waiting in frigid darkness, willing to trade herself for warm air.
“So cruel,” I whispered.
“Huh?”
“Creation without hope of redemption.”
“Hey, look. Do you want to take me home, or not?”
I wrapped her in my arms, and she didn’t resist. She raised her face, like offering me a kiss. One of my hands touched her cheek, so she didn’t speak anymore. Her spoiled skin was rough as corduroy. My other hand left the knife in my pocket.
“You are home.”
I’ve seen the lobby countless times, but it’s still a sight. Like a war zone, where the battle’s over but nobody’s left to pick up the pieces. There’s dry blood across the floor, ink-black. And more is sprayed on the walls. In places it’s like a stencil, an outline of the person who bled there, or more burst than bled, maybe. I heard there were stencils like this in Japan after the atomic bomb. People burned so fast they left a human imprint scorched in stone. Bloodstains would take longer to set. There are piles of leaves and trash in every corner, but no bodies. They either got dragged away, or stood up and left on their own.
The revolving door is nothing but a metal frame. I turn it, though I cou
ld just as easily step right through. The city is silent. I never realized, before it all ended, how noisy the world used to be. Now there’s no cars or buses, no airplanes humming overhead. No human voices chattering nonsense into cell phones. The silence was overwhelming at first, and I’d squeeze my head in my hands to keep it from splitting like a dropped pumpkin.
The lakefront is the only place worth going. Nothing happens there, but at least there’s movement. The quiet of the world is broken by my boots smacking the sidewalk. Every storefront I pass has shattered windows, and I catch my reflection in the fragments. My hair is long now, breaking over my shoulders. It must take months, if not a year, for it to grow to this length. I stop for a better look, amazed at how much white is creeping into my beard. The little eye in my head still sees me as the same person, but somewhere along the line I’ve been getting old.
Two blocks from the lake, I hear them, stirring nearby. Who knows how many. A warning jangles down my spine. It’s an instinct as old as time, rational mind giving in to the ways of meat and bone. There’s nothing to be afraid of, but the ancient part of my brain, the lizard-jelly, will never be convinced.
Maybe it’s because I’m not carrying a knife. That’s something I haven’t been able to say since kindergarten. Hiding a knife on me was part of getting ready to go out into the world. The sure weight of a switchblade in my pocket. The chill of an eight-inch carver up the sleeve of my overcoat. Before the world ended, I had it all worked out. A knife was part of me. Cold, hard metal was the perfect complement to soft, warm skin.
They don’t make any sound. Not with their mouths or throats. But with the city so silent, I hear them coming closer. Feet dragging on asphalt, liquid spattering from their sodden clothes. With no wind, it’s hard to smell them until they’re near enough to touch. My skin tingles, the muscle underneath bunching to run, to save itself. But all I do is turn around and look.
The girl warmed herself by the radiator while I heated milk on the stove. She peeled off clothes as she lost her chill. First her gloves, then her coat. A flannel shirt, several sizes too big, fell onto the pile at her feet. It was a man’s shirt, and I wondered how she bargained to get it.
“Do you like marshmallows with your cocoa?”
“Sure,” she replied. “Whatever you got.”
Her back was to me and I watched long, straight hair tumble down when she removed her cap. Too black to be anything but from a bottle. And recently dyed. Such a slice of the human heart, that she was capable of vanity while living under a highway.
I poured steaming milk into two mugs and stirred until brown powder dissolved. I couldn’t find any marshmallows, but didn’t think she’d care. I took the two mugs and carried them into the living room. She was down to a threadbare tank-top and jeans. Toes obvious through worn-out socks.
“Thanks,” she said, cradling her mug in hands barely big enough to surround it. “This is a first.”
“How so?”
“Usually somebody just hands me their . . . ”
“We don’t need to talk about that,” I said.
She sipped, and I heard her stomach gurgle. It takes a while for a belly to get that empty. I couldn’t tell which she liked more, the taste of the chocolate or the heat of the mug. I was barely started with my drink when she slurped the dregs of hers.
“That was good,” she said, turning back to the radiator, still holding the mug.
I saw a ring of bruises around both her arms, the pattern like fingers. But there was no damage, like to her face. Her breathing was heavy and I wondered if there was a disease eating away her lungs. I could hear her heart. Or maybe it was just my own.
She was such a symbol of how callous God was. To make life and let it go its own way. Then let it end. But what does God know about dying? He leaves that to his children.
“So do you want to get started?” she asked.
“Like you said to me, what’s your hurry?”
She turned around, locking her eyes to mine. Her shoulders were so thin, almost pointed. She seemed fragile, hollow-boned as a bird, like I could crush her in my bare hands. But life is never so easy to take.
“What are you,” she asked, smiling gently, “one of those nice guys?”
“Far from it.”
“You’re not gonna try and help me, or save me?”
“I’ll help you. Who knows if it’ll save you.”
“Not even gonna offer me a sermon?”
“Nope. Just a hot shower.”
There’s a line of them, maybe a dozen, coming out of an underground parking garage. I can’t imagine what they were doing down there. At the head of the column is a young woman. She’s coming straight at me, left hand raised, the other cradling her belly. Her eyes are gazing off toward the sky. It’s unnerving, like interacting with a disabled person who uses senses in a different way.
She’s in good shape. All her limbs attached, her clothes intact. Her skin is a pale grey, so she must’ve come back recently. The line behind her is a chronology. The further back, the older and more decayed they are. Maybe they move slower, or maybe they have less reason to approach me. On the shadowed ramp, the ones at the back are already turning and heading down again. They must’ve been through this before. Some of them look familiar. The girl must be new in more ways than one.
When she’s an arm’s-length away, she’s the only one left. The others have all turned away, disappearing into the garage. This near, I see the cuts inside her arms. Long-ways, from wrist to elbow. She knew what she was doing. There’s not even any blood on her t-shirt. Her wounds tell me all I need to know. She lived for a while, then ended her own life. She wasn’t one of mine.
The girl stops, leans toward me. Her right arm, tight against her body, must be broken. There’s nothing spilling out of her belly to hold inside. Maybe the arm was paralyzed while she lived. Her left hand comes close to my cheek and I feel the chill of her fingers. Mouth open, she tilts her head. Her gums are the color of dough. She has no breath, but her smell is old meat between teeth.
I’ve seen them kill so many times. The sudden burst of violence from their seemingly brittle bodies, fingers and mouths ripping chunks of meat they chew but never swallow. Driven by some strange instinct, or simple desire.
Her eyes could belong to a steamed fish, white and gelid. They roll down from the sky, meeting mine. But it’s not sight, just coincidence. She doesn’t move away, but her mouth shuts. I hear a sharp click where her jaw closes wrong. There’s no blood in her, and her brain must be a puddle in her skull. But she’s made her decision, and it’s the same one all the others made.
“What am I to you?”
My voice doesn’t keep her from turning away. They don’t hear or see. No breath, so they don’t know scents. I saw one of them without a tongue continue to eat, so they don’t taste. But something draws them to people, and makes them walk away from me.
“What are you to me?”
When she’s gone, I finish my walk to the waterfront. There are benches facing the lake and I pick one solely by proximity. The waves beat against the pier, moved by a power as mysterious as the dead girl’s judgment. Sky and water, grey on grey, seem like one solid mass. I wonder if I stepped onto the waves, if I could walk across like Jesus. But even a messiah needs somewhere to go.
“I was wondering when you’d get here.”
Her outline was a blur through the shower curtain, but her intent was clear. Steam billowed over the rod, clouding on the ceiling, smudging my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I figured she was enjoying the hot water. That’s why she was gone so long. But she was waiting, certain I’d come in and join her. Like she needed to get this done now, so she could sleep under a ramp instead of in a warm bed.
When I slid the curtain back, she didn’t so much as flinch. Her hair was soaked to a point at the small of her back. Her skin was pink as smoked pork. Eyes like gems in a stark desert of a face. Her starved body was flawless. Her only damage was to the thing all the w
orld could see. Maybe that’s why she was so eager to show the rest.
“Get your clothes off, already. And hop in. You’re letting in a draft.”
“I just want to look,” I said. At God’s Work.
“If you like to watch,” she whispered, fingers moving over her skin.
My fingers moved, too. Into my pants pocket, around the handle of the knife. And it was over before she could raise a hand. She slumped and I caught her, helped her down into the tub. She curled like a child about to be born. I closed the curtain. The hot water would wash her blood clean, then away.
On my way back, I stop at the mouth of the parking garage. Staring down the dark ramp, listening. There’s no sound of them moving, no sign of the dead girl. The rest must’ve followed her before. Now she’s learned her lesson.
I take a few steps down the ramp, curious what could be below. Are they milling in the dark, waiting? Are they curled up, resting on the asphalt like sleepy babies? Do they need to save what remains of their rotten muscle for the next living thing to pass by? They could be sitting in cars for all I know, dreaming.
Relief sweeps through me as I walk back up the ramp, but it’s only instinct. A basic need to be safe. My rational mind knows I could stop and sleep in the middle of the street. I wonder if I should look for someplace else to live. Closer to the water. Maybe I will, when the food is gone. That way, I won’t have to carry it all back down. There’s no reason for me to live in a hideaway, behind locked firedoors. I’ve never seen them climb stairs. And even if they could, they have no interest in me. Maybe I never needed to leave my ground-floor apartment.
Next time I walk to the lake I’ll make a trip along the shoreline, and pick one of the abandoned mansions. There could be a comfy king-size bed to sleep on, instead of a carpeted office floor. There could be champagne and gourmet food. And a bucket and mop, in case the previous owners left a mess.