Murmuration

by TJ Klune

  He thinks, I’ve lived for however long I’ve lived. And I’m going to live a lot longer now.

  He’s happy.

  Right?

  Right. He made the right decision. Maybe he’s hallucinating and maybe his brain is slowly dying, but he made the right decision.

  Feel bad about Mike, though, he thinks. Feel real bad.

  And it’s the truth. Mostly.

  Two things happen at once:

  Another voice whispers, “You’re a liar,”

  and

  a horse walks out of the tree line onto the road.

  The horse startles him.

  The voice startles him more.

  He whirls around.

  There’s no one there. Aside from the horse, he’s alone on this spring morning.

  He thinks, Just hearing things. Settle down.

  The horse’s hooves clop against the pavement. It’s a deep chestnut brown with white on its forehead, shaped almost like a star. Its tail swishes back and forth, left eye blinking against a fly that buzzes around it.

  He says, “Hello,” because he’s unsure of what else to say. He knows Hester told him this is it. That there is no going back after this. He’ll touch the horse (and it’s one of those questions he never thought to ask and never will: why a horse?) and he’ll be grounded, ingrained into Amorea.

  The horse nickers at him lowly.

  He hesitates. He doesn’t know why.

  “Get on with it,” he says. “Just do this. Do this, and everything will be the way it should be.”

  He takes a step toward the horse.

  The horse shuffles its feet.

  His heart is pounding in his ears.

  He’s thinking about Sean, and he’s thinking about Mike, and he’s thinking about how he deserves this. Mike took everything from him. Granted, he didn’t do it on purpose (he wasn’t even real), but this is his now. Amorea is his.

  He reaches for the horse.

  “Don’t.”

  His hand stops right before it touches the horseflesh. He can feel the heat of the animal.

  “Don’t,” the voice says again from behind him.

  He closes his eyes and sighs.

  He should have known better.

  He curls his hand into a fist. Drops it back to his side.

  He turns.

  Opens his eyes.

  A man stands there. On the road. His mirror image.

  “Mike,” Greg says. “This is a surprise. I thought you were gone.”

  “Hiding,” Mike says. “And waiting.”

  It’s discordant, this feeling between them. It’s like they’re being stretched too thin, being shoved together and pulled apart all at the same time. He sees himself through Mike’s eyes, and he knows Mike’s feeling the same. They’re existing together, but in two separate spaces. It’s a paradox. It can’t be like this.

  “Waiting for what?” Greg asks.

  “This moment.”

  “Really. This moment.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah,” Greg says, and it’s mean, but he’s furious. He’s so close to having something that’s his, a life that belongs to him, and there’s this… this interloper. This false face. God, how hot the rage is when it just courses through him, quicker than he’s ever experienced before. “You’re not real.”

  Mike takes a breath and lets it out slowly. “Maybe not out there. But here? In Amorea? I’m real. I’m more real than you ever were. And I want to go home.”

  Greg shakes his head. “Didn’t you hear? They don’t remember you. They don’t know you. Happy and Calvin and Walter and Donald. Mrs. Richardson. They don’t know who you are. And Sean? Oh, Mike. Sean might have loved you, if love can even exist here. But he doesn’t know you from Adam. He’s gone. Everything you had is gone.”

  He knows he’s having an effect on Mike. He can see it in the set of his shoulders, the way his chest is heaving. How red his face is. “I know,” he says, voice trembling. “I know. But he loved me once. And he can love me again. Even if it takes the rest of our lives. No matter how short they may be.”

  And Greg is hit with it then, the memory, and it’s so—

  Didn’t you get tired of it? How long it took for me to… I don’t know.

  We did what we had to. To get where we are now. I needed to wait, just like you did.

  To make sure I was what you wanted.

  No, and you get that fool thought out of your head right now, big guy. I knew it was you from the very first day.

  Oh. Then—

  Because. I knew what it would mean. It takes me time, Mike. Sometimes a very long time, to get to the point where I’m ready to say out loud what I’m thinking in my head. I knew you were what I wanted, but I just had to get used to the idea of it. Because there’s no going back now, you know? This is it for me. I wouldn’t have been ready for this a year ago. Or six months ago. It happened because we were both ready for it. And I’m ready for you.

  I would do it again.

  What?

  All of this. To get here. If I had to, I’d do it all over again.

  Lucky for you, big guy, you won’t have to. I don’t know if you know this, but you’re kinda stuck with me now.

  You say that like it’s a bad thing.

  Eh, I guess we’ll see.

  —goddamn overwhelming, the sheer magnitude of it. He’s Greg, but he’s also Mike, and he has loved with everything he’s ever had. He can feel it down to his very bones, in every single beat of his heart. He’s Greg and he’s Mike, but he’s able to feel the difference. Greg has never had this. Mike has. Greg wants it. Wants it so bad that he can almost taste it. There’s a burning jealousy rolling through him that this fake version of him has had something he hasn’t. Has loved in a way he never has. He’s not going to—

  “I would do it again,” Mike says quietly. “For him. Over and over again. Three years. Six. However long it took. Whatever it took. To get back to him.”

  Greg believes it. Believes every single word. “We both can’t go.”

  “No. We can’t. He’s—”

  His fury overtakes him. “And you thought that… what? I’d just give up? That I’d just give in? Let you take over? You’re not real, Mike. You are a part of me. I made you. They took you from me and gave you a name but make no mistake, you are nothing but a copy. This is mine. This is my chance. After everything I’ve been through, this is mine. I’ll take care of him. I’ll take care of Sean. I promise. He won’t ever—”

  He doesn’t get the rest out because Mike runs at him, silent except for the smack of his shoes against the asphalt. Greg barely has a chance to brace himself before he’s struck by a wall of muscle, breath knocked from his body. He’s falling backward, a heavy weight on top of him.

  The horse rears back as they narrowly miss colliding with it. They go down hard, the air knocked from Greg’s lungs as he hits the ground. He’s dazed as his head raps against the road, little bright bursts of stars crossing his vision. He’s thinking, Of course, of fucking course this is what would happen. Nothing’s ever easy, nothing can ever just fucking work.

  And he’s so angry about that. So, so angry.

  He’s been in this position before, he knows. Someone coming after him, someone knocking him down, someone landing on top of him trying to hurt and take. He saw it happen to his mother time and time again, his father’s face red with drink and exertion, screaming that she didn’t do anything right, she never did anything right. He worked hard all fucking day and had to come home to this shithole. Can’t she see she’s killing him? He doesn’t want to do this, but she’s making him. This hurts him more than it hurts her.

  Greg thinks, Ain’t that right, bucko?

  And he fights back.

  They’re the same size, the same weight, the same everything, but he’s a dirty fighter when he needs to be. Mike’s face is inches from his own, and he’s got this wild look in his eyes, like he’s unsure what he’s doing but knows he has to do it anywa
y, and Greg’s filled with a sense of dissonance, of being in two places at once, but he pushes it away. He snaps his head forward, his brow smashing into Mike’s, and there’s a crack and a bright flash of pain. Mike groans and falls off to the side as Greg tries to clear his vision. He thinks it’s ridiculous that the first thing he sees when the stars stop flashing is a damn horse standing off to the side, watching him curiously.

  There will be a horse. You’ll see it when you begin to walk down the road. It will cross the street in front of you. You need to touch the horse. It acts to ground you in the world of Amorea.

  Fuck Mike. Fuck everything about him.

  He goes for the horse.

  He’s almost to his feet when a hand wraps around his ankle and yanks. He falls forward onto his knees, and there’s an arm going around his neck, a body pressed against his back, and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, and he’s—

  He’s Mike now, and he’s terrified, he’s thinking, I’m doing this for Sean, I have to do this for Sean, I can’t let him take this away from me, I’m not a killer, I’m not a killer, I’m not a killer.

  He tightens his hold around Greg’s neck, and Mike knows there’s no coming back from this. If he does this, nothing will ever be the same. But there’s Sean, okay? And maybe he’s standing in front of Mike, arm outstretched, and maybe he’s wearing that just-for-Mike smile, and yeah, sure, the rational part of Mike Frazier knows it’s not real in the traditional sense. Knows that Amorea isn’t real, not like the place where Greg Hughes comes from. But he’s made his peace with that. He’s accepted that. It doesn’t matter to him. He knows what he is. He knows what he has. He knows what it will take. Even if he has to do this, even if he has to choke the life out of the man in front of him, even if he has to spend the next three years doing it all again so Sean will love him just the same, he will. He has no other choice. There is no other choice. He can’t stop now, he can’t—

  —think clearly because he can’t breathe, and Greg knows he’s in trouble, knows if he doesn’t find some way to get out of this, it’ll be this doppelganger, this thing created from his mind that’ll have the life he wants. He reaches an arm out toward the horse, muscles straining, fingers extended. But the horse is too far away, and it’s just fucking standing there on the side of the road, tail swishing, ears flicking back and forth. It watches them with dark eyes and he can’t fucking reach it.

  He brings his arm back sharply, elbowing right into Mike’s side. There’s an explosive breath in his ear, and the grip around his neck loosens slightly. He pushes back as hard as he can off his knees, falling backward on top of Mike, who grunts underneath him. He’s staring up at that Technicolor sky as he sucks in a breath. It burns his throat, but his vision clears and he—

  —can’t move, he can’t fucking move because the bastard is on top of him, and he’s having a hard time catching his breath and Mike thinks, no, no, nononono, and—

  —he can get up now. He can get up and just fucking fly to that goddamn horse, and maybe if he gets there first, maybe if he’s grounded first, Mike will be nothing, and Greg can have the life he’s owed and—

  —all he can think about is the smile on Sean’s face, the way he says hey, big guy and he is real, goddammit, all of this is real and—

  It goes on like this. For a time. One gets up and the other takes him down. They both move for the horse, but they are vicious in the way they attack each other. They both know what the end result of this will be. They tire, but they push on, and Greg says, “You can’t take this from me, oh my Christ, you’re not even real,” and Mike says, “You don’t know that, you don’t know that, maybe it’s you, maybe it’s you who isn’t real.” Greg’s incredulous and Mike’s determined, and blood is spilled on the ground, on this blacktop and this dirt that don’t exist outside of the mind of a dying man and a supercomputer. Greg thinks that this is all Hester’s fault, that his flaw in Amorea was trying to take the horrors out of the people he used to make them something different. Maybe Amorea wouldn’t be as it is if he’d kept them as they were—a rapist, a child murderer, drug users and dealers, a wife killer; the list probably went on and on. He’s one of these sins, he is part of that, and he understands why Hester did what he did.

  Mike doesn’t care. Mike doesn’t care about any of that. Because he knows how these people are. He knows what they’re capable of. He knows them.

  It keeps on spiraling.

  Eventually one man is on top of the other, fingers wrapped around his neck, and he’s squeezing, and he’s telling himself to just do it, finish this, and it’ll be over and he won’t ever have to worry about this again. He thinks of his mother and he thinks of his father, and he thinks of Sean and it’s all combined in his head, like they’re almost one again, like they’re almost the same goddamn person, and he says, “No. I am not you. You are not me.”

  The other’s eyes are bulging and he’s struggling, bucking his hips, trying to gouge with his fingers, but he’s getting weaker. His face is turning purple and he’s panicking, because he can’t let it end like this. He’s waited for so long for this, to be here, to be in this moment, and this can’t be it. It can’t.

  There’s a cool breeze that blows through the trees, causing the branches and the new leaves to sway. The horse grazes, no longer interested in the men on the road. The sun is shining, and the only sounds are the harsh panting coming from the man on top, and the death rattle coming from the man below.

  Eventually, one of those noises stops.

  The hands fall to the sides.

  The body falls limp.

  The chest does not rise.

  His eyes stare sightless up at the Technicolor sky.

  And somehow, life goes on.

  HE THINKS, I would do it again. If I had to.

  His back hurts. His hands are bleeding from where he’s spent the last hour digging a hole in the earth back in the trees, away from the road.

  The horse hasn’t left, is just standing there, like it’s waiting for him.

  It probably is. Because that’s what it was created for.

  The hole is probably deep enough. He doesn’t think anyone will stumble across it, but he’ll make sure to cover it with leaves and brush just in case.

  The body is where he left it, eyes still open. He’s unnerved by the sight of it, knowing it looks like him, that it could have easily been him. He should have expected this, should have seen this coming, but he didn’t plan it this way. He didn’t want this to be the end result. Because this person, this man, was a part of him, even if they were nothing alike.

  “What do you know about schizophrenia?” he asks the sightless man.

  He gets no response, of course.

  He puts his hands under the man’s arms and begins to drag him into the trees.

  It’s only then that he notices they’re dressed the same. White shirt. Jeans. Gray Chucks.

  He laughs. It comes out broken.

  He knows that at funerals, one is supposed to say something nice about the dead.

  He says, “I’m sorry it had to be this way. I wish we could have… this is my life. This is my life. You… you weren’t real.”

  The sightless man says nothing.

  He thinks he should close his eyes, but he can’t stand the thought of touching him again. Especially since he can see the vivid bruises in the shape of his fingers around the dead man’s neck.

  Instead, he begins to fill the hole with handfuls of dirt.

  It takes a while.

  When he’s almost done, when all that’s visible is the tip of a nose, the tips of shoes, he thinks, I would do this again if I had to.

  He doesn’t know what that makes him.

  HE CLEANS himself as best he can. There’s a little brook running along the road. He washes the dirt and grime from his hands. Splashes his face. Wets his hair. It feels good. It feels real.

  He doesn’t look at his reflection in the water. He’s not ready for that. Not yet.

  T
he horse is still standing off to the side of the road. It watches him as he approaches. It doesn’t try to flee from him, even though it just witnessed him murdering a part of himself.

  He thinks he’ll hesitate. That he won’t be able to do it.

  He doesn’t.

  Sometimes, he can still surprise himself.

  He touches the horse and it’s—

  LATER, WHEN he comes across the sign, his breath hitches in his chest and his eyes start to burn. He lets himself cry, just for a moment, before he pushes on.

  ☺ Welcome To Amorea ☺

  Happiness Lives Here!

  THE LITTLE road changes. There’s a hill ahead. It’s not steep, but it’s big enough that he can’t quite see over it, can’t see what’s on the other side. But he knows.

  He knows.

  He begins to run.

  HE TAKES the final steps to the top of the hill.

  And there, on the other side, is Amorea.

  stack

  XXV

  HE HAS a house.

  There is a sign out front that says SOLD!

  In this house there is a cat named Martin.

  There are clothes and furniture and a radio.

  There are jazz records too. Dizzy Gillespie.

  He has a fenced backyard.

  He has a shop.

  There are books inside.

  And comfy chairs, perfect in case anyone wants to start a book club.

  People greet him with smiles on their faces.

  They are curious about him, this new man in Amorea.

  They introduce themselves.

  He does the same.

  He shakes their hands and thinks, I know what you did. I know what all of you did.

  He meets Happy first, who comes by Bookworm to introduce himself.

  He shakes his hand. Smiles and thinks, Your dog ate your feet while your kiddie porn was locked away.

  Donald is next. “Big guy, ain’t ya?” he says with a smile. He tries not to think about what this man is capable of.