The Gods and the Builders

by Brandon Hale

  “Where are they located?” Lauren asked.

  “Junsten,” Jerry said. “So they’re about an hour away.”

  “It’s comforting to know there are other people nearby,” Lauren said.

  Jerry nodded and continued to listen to Donald.

  “I’m surprised by the amount of calls I’ve been getting,” Donald said. “I’m here all by my lonesome, so please be patient. And I have a favor to ask you. When you call, please avoid debating whether or not people should have stayed or gone. The decision’s made. Obviously, we all made the same decision, but every one of us has family that went with them. Debating whether or not they should have gone is pointless now, so let’s just drop that subject. I‘m not here to upset listeners. Not today.”

  “How many callers is he getting?” Lauren said. “Maybe we’re not as alone as we think we are.”

  “The snow’s really starting to come down out there,” Donald said. “Find a warm place to stay, folks. Shouldn’t be too hard these days. Judging from the information I’ve gotten from phone calls, I estimate that Junsten has a current population of about a hundred and fifty people. Considering the population yesterday was over ten thousand, that means there’s a lot of real estate out there. Find you a warm place and stay there. If possible, find a place with a fireplace.”

  Jerry pulled into the grocery store parking lot. “Let’s be quick,” he said. “Looks like we’ve got an inch already, and with no traffic, it won’t take much to make the roads deadly.”

  They stepped from the vehicle and began to walk toward the front door.

  “Look,” Lauren said, pointing to the ground in front of the sliding glass door. “Is that a footprint?”

  “Yeah,” Jerry said. “Several. Somebody’s inside.”

  They walked through the doors, and looked around the grocery store. If it weren’t for the complete lack of human beings, they would have thought everything was fine. All the lights were on and music was playing throughout the store.

  “They all just left,” Lauren said. “Apparently in the middle of a shift. Didn’t turn anything off.”

  “Why would they?” Jerry said as he grabbed a buggy. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Hello?” Lauren yelled. “Who’s in here?”

  “It could be people that are less than nice,” Jerry said.

  “Don’t be paranoid,” Lauren said. “Criminal types are cowards. I doubt many of them stayed. Crime will definitely be alive and well in the new world.” She looked around the store, and yelled again. “Hello?”

  “There,” Jerry said.

  An old woman stepped from behind row three.

  “Mrs. Salyers?” Lauren asked.

  “Hello, there,” the old woman said as she walked toward them. “Thank goodness it’s you, minister. I was afraid it was some hooligans.”

  Jerry smiled.

  “No,” Lauren said as they walked toward the little woman. “We’re not hooligans, Mrs. Salyers. Well, at least I’m not. What are you doing here?”

  “Cat food,” Mrs. Salyers said. “For my Missy.”

  “How is she?” Lauren asked.

  “Fat as ever,” Mrs. Salyers said. “She just eats and sleeps.”

  Lauren smiled, “That’s kind of a cat’s job.”

  Mrs. Salyers laughed. “Yes, it is.”

  “Do you need a ride back to your house?” Jerry asked.

  “No, thank you,” Mrs. Salyers said. “We live right down the road, over on Maple.”

  “Is Mr. Salyers with you?” Lauren asked.

  “He’s home,” the old woman said. “He’s getting the house ready for the snow. He thinks it’s going to be a big one. He says his knee is telling him.”

  “He’s always had a pretty accurate knee,” Lauren said with a smile.

  “Yes, he has,” Mrs. Salyers said.

  “Mrs. Salyers,” Lauren said. “Why didn’t you go with them? Why did you stay?”

  The old woman crossed her arms and said, “Because nobody is going to break up our family.”

  “Oh, no,” Lauren said.

  “I don’t understand,” Jerry said.

  “Missy,” Lauren said. “Their cat.”

  “They wouldn’t let me take her,” Mrs. Salyers said. “When they refused to let us take bags or even extra clothes, well, I accepted that, as stupid as it was.”

  “It was an emergency situation,” Lauren said. “I imagine they simply couldn’t allow anything extra. Even with all their ships, it’s hard to fathom the enormity of the task at hand.”

  “Wait,” Jerry said. “You stayed because they wouldn’t take your cat?”

  “Missy is more than a cat,” Mrs. Salyers said. “She’s a family member. I don’t know about you, but where I come from, we don’t leave family members behind. And I wasn’t going to have some six year old tell me the cat can’t go. I’m old enough to be his great, great grandmother.”

  “You know the little boy wasn’t the one refusing,” Lauren said. “He was just their voice.”

  “I don’t care,” Mrs. Salyers said. “I told them that if Missy isn’t good enough for them, neither am I. So we turned around and went home.”

  “What did Mr. Salyers say?” Lauren asked.

  “I think he was glad,” Mrs. Salyers said. “He didn’t want to go anyway. And now, I think he was right.”

  Mrs. Salyers began to walk to the front register. “I love not having lines,” she said. “That’s nice.” She placed the box of cat food on the counter and began to rummage through her purse.

  “What are you doing?” Jerry asked.

  “I’m paying,” Mrs. Salyers said. “I’m not stealing this cat food, you know.”

  “I think it’s okay to just go,” Jerry said. “Really.”

  Mrs. Salyers just shook her head. “I don’t steal.” She placed several dollars on the counter and walked toward the door.

  “I’ll call you and check on you, later,” Lauren said.

  “Thank you, honey,” Mrs. Salyers said. “You take care of yourself, and get warm.”

  “You too,” Lauren said.

  As the old woman stepped into the snowy parking lot, Lauren said, “She goes to my church.”

  “She’s willing to die for a cat,” Jerry said.

  “Don’t be so judgmental,” Lauren said. “I bet there are a lot of people that stayed for animals.”

  “That’s just nuts,” Jerry said.

  “And your reason for staying makes so much more sense,” Lauren said.

  “Shut up and shop,” Jerry said. “That snow isn’t letting up.”

  The Angels

  Alice stood alone in the small room.

  She hadn’t touched the wall since the first time, but her relationship with the ship had grown stronger. It became obvious that touching the wall was only a means of hearing the ship. The ship heard her at all times. Every time she wanted something, it seemed to happen before the thought was complete.

  Already, she had successfully opened several doors to the other passengers. In all, there were forty other people on board. It was impossible to memorize the layout of the ship because the ship continually changed, based on the needs of the passengers. The rooms apparently moved and the walls changed shape whenever it was desired.

  They had found or created several restrooms and they had now eaten twice. The food had arrived when the wall pushed out an object shaped like a drinking glass. The glass was full of a flavorless brown liquid. While not enjoyable, the substance wasn’t bad. To Alice, it was very much like drinking water, except she was no longer hungry after drinking it. Arthur had theorized that it was pure nutrients.

  She had asked Arthur if she could have some time alone, and he seemed almost eager to comply. He had found some other passengers that had attended the college, and they were happily trading theories back and forth.

  Alice reached out her right arm and pressed her palm against the wall.

  The whispers returned. Again, it seemed
like hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Just as overwhelming as before, she had to fight the urge to pull away.

  She closed her eyes and opened her mind.

  Like before, the voices came from two places. The first whispers were close and they seemed very aware of her presence. She had the distinct impression that they were enjoying the new sensation. To Alice, they acted very much like a recently released prisoner, smelling flowers for the first time in over a decade.

  “Is that what you are?” she whispered. “Are you prisoners in there.”

  She knew instantly that wasn’t the case. She knew they were there because they chose to be.

  But where were they?

  Alice understood Ivey’s difficulty in understanding. They were inside the ship, but not in the rooms. Really, they weren’t even in the walls. It was more like they were the walls. And the floors and ceilings. They lived inside these ships in the same way that Alice lived inside her own body.

  As before, the second whisperers were farther away, and did not seem to notice Alice’s presence at all. They were again busy, sending the ship images of suns and planets. Alice was sure Arthur was correct. They were the actual aliens, elsewhere on the ship. And they were driving.

  With a start, Alice realized why they didn’t notice she was connected.

  “They’re not jacked in,” she whispered.

  The aliens were driving in the same way she had created the doors. They were sending, but they weren’t receiving. They weren’t directly touching the walls of the ship.

  “That’s why you’re enjoying this,” Alice said. “Because you don’t have company very often.”

  She instantly knew she was right. She was also beginning to understand the children’s descriptions of communication. This ship was most certainly communicating with her, but it wasn’t doing so with words. She knew when she was right, and she knew when she was wrong. As long as her hand was on the wall, there were no questions about the aliens, because the answers came faster than the questions could be asked.

  Because, she thought, you’re telling me the answers. You’re telling me at the speed of thought.

  Alice understood the profundity of the moment. She could communicate with them. It would take some time, but she was sure this ship could and would answer any question she asked.

  “I can speak your language,” she whispered.

  Yes, you can.

  They didn’t answer with those words. They answered with the meaning behind those words. They communicated in meaning. Alice thought of the millions of times people would have arguments, saying things like, “No, that’s not what I meant at all!”

  These aliens never had that problem. They only heard meanings. They had progressed beyond something as crude as language. She wondered if they had ever used language.

  Probably not, she decided. It was like Arthur had said. Language was simply too foreign for them to comprehend. Too primitive.

  “What can I ask you?” Alice said.

  Anything was the answer she immediately knew.

  Can I go outside?

  Yes, she knew.

  Will it hurt me?

  No, she knew.

  The moment she knew that outside was where she wanted to be, the floor began to rise. Alice looked up to see that the ceiling was gone. She sat on the floor, sliding her hand down to the floor with her, never breaking contact with the wall.

  Within a few seconds, she was sitting on the outside surface of the ship. She looked over to see the rest of the pyramid. She was on one of the lower shelves.

  In all directions, she saw only stars. Some were blue, some were yellow, and some were white. There were millions of them.

  No, billions.

  Without an atmosphere to obscure the view, the sight before her was beyond anything she could have ever hoped to see.

  How am I still breathing?

  The walls came up with you, she knew. They’re just not visible.

  Alice sat back and watched the stars. She tried her very best to spend at least a few seconds looking at each one.

  Hopefully, she would glimpse that perfect world.

  Alice spent what felt like hours looking at the stars. The ship seemed to enjoy her peace. It felt as if the ship was experiencing her awe, much like parents experience the awe of childhood through the eyes of their children.

  She wondered if the aliens still didn’t realize she was connected to their ship.

  No, she knew instantly.

  She wondered if they would care if they found out.

  No, she knew.

  Can they communicate with all other aliens at any time or any place?

  No.

  She now understood that their communication had limits. They could hear the voices of other aliens over great distances, but it wasn’t infinite. The further they were from each other, the harder it was to hear their voice. Alice didn’t know the exact limits because the ship didn’t know the exact limits. When necessary, they could scream, but even that was limited. They couldn‘t, for example, reach the aliens on other planets, no matter how hard they yelled.

  Can they hear aliens from other ships?

  Only the closest ones, and only if they yell, she knew.

  Again, Alice wondered exactly what the ships were. The ships and the aliens seemed the same, yet different. Was it simply a new level of maturity, like Arthur suggested?

  Instantly, the ship pushed the answer into her mind.

  “Take me to Arthur,” she whispered.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Arthur said. “You’ve been gone,” he looked at his watch, “well, according to my watch you’ve been gone about thirty seconds, but that’s bullshit. You’ve been gone a long damn time.”

  “I was talking to the ship,” Alice said. “Where’s Ivey?”

  A door opened and Ivey was in the next room, sitting with her mother.

  “Really?” Arthur said as he followed Alice into the next room. “What did they say?”

  “Hi, Ivey,” Alice said.

  “Hello.”

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure,” Ivey said.

  “What happens when we die?”

  Arthur looked at Alice and said, “That’s kind of a deep question to be asking a six year old, don’t you think.”

  “Hush,” Alice said. “Can you answer my question, Ivey?”

  “Yep,” Ivey said. “You go to heaven.”

  “And in heaven,” Alice said, “what happens to us?”

  “We get to be angels,” Ivey said.

  “No way,” Arthur said.

  “Yeah,” Alice said. “Turns out, she wasn’t talking about religion at all. Well, she was, but not in the way we thought.”

  “The ships don’t have steering wheels,” Arthur said, “because the angels are driving.”

  “I said that a long time ago,” Ivey said.

  Arthur smiled. “You sure did, kiddo.” He turned to Alice. “Are you seriously suggesting--?”

  “Yes,” Alice said, her eyes wide. “This is where aliens go when they die.”

  Loneliness

  The ground was covered by at least six inches of snow, with more pouring down from the sky every second.

  “At least we still have power,” Jerry said as he looked out the window. “I really wish it would slack off.” He glanced at the clock, then back outside. “Ten o’clock and it’s still coming down. At this rate, we’ll have a foot by morning.”

  “Yeah,” Lauren said. “I wish I was sleepy. It’s going to be a long night.” She was again on the couch, watching Arthur’s recordings of the news. “You know,” she said, “the President’s kid really gave us almost no information.”

  “I know,” Jerry said. “I wish you would turn that down. I like hearing Donald on the radio. At least it’s live.”

  “I think he’s asleep,” Lauren said. “It’s played nothing but music for the past two hours.”

  Jerry sat on the couch beside her. “Do you
have any board games?”

  “Dozens,” Lauren said. “Do you really want to play a board game?”

  “Not really,” Jerry said. “Just in need of distraction.”

  “I doubt that would help,” Lauren said. She sighed. “Are you feeling as lonely as I am?”

  “Yes,” Jerry said. “I’m the kind of guy that generally hates people. I never expected to feel this way. In my mind I expected to be rummaging through every department store, taking all kinds of neat things. And I expected to have a DVD collection to dwarf all DVD collections.”

  “We can ransack the stores tomorrow, dear,” Lauren said.

  Jerry laughed humorlessly. “Are you regretting the decision to stay?”

  “Of course I am,” Lauren said. “And if I had chosen to go, I would have regretted that.”

  “Yeah,” Jerry said. “Same here.”

  “I miss Arthur,” Lauren said. “And Alice. I’m actually surprised by how much I miss Alice.”

  “I miss them too,” Jerry said. “Surprisingly, both of them. I had forgotten how easy it is for me wallow when Alice isn’t around. She was annoying, but she never allowed me to wallow in my own self pity.”

  “Believe it or not,” Lauren said, “Arthur was very much the same. When I had my first laser treatment on my eye, I went swimming in an ocean of self pity. During that time, he took very good care of me, and he did not tolerate any attempt on my part to feel sorry for myself. He was compassionate, and he wasn’t preachy. He just stayed positive. He countered every negative thing I said with something like, ‘That’s true, no doubt. But we’ll get through it.’ And he was right. We did get through it.”

  “I guess we needed them more than we thought,” Jerry said.

  “I knew that before they ever left,” Lauren said. “But I also knew I couldn’t ask him to stay. Or her.”

  “So here we are,” Jerry said. “Sitting on a couch, hoping for a tomorrow that might not come.”

  “That’s always been true,” Lauren said. “Before this alien business, we still had no guarantee that tomorrow would come.”