by Hamill, Ike
“I did it from memory,” Robby said. “I have a really good memory, always have. There were two-hundred-and-seventeen shapes on the wall. I think I’ve got almost all of them perfect, but a couple on the edges are still a little fuzzy to me.”
“How can you know you have it correct?” Brad asked.
Robby ignored the question—“See this one here?” he asked. “It’s almost the Japanese symbol for god. And this one is almost the Egyptian hieroglyph for god.”
“So who drew it in your neighbor’s cellar?” Brad asked.
“I think Mr. Dyer drew it there using the blood from his dogs,” Robby said.
“Ugh, no,” Brad said. “That’s terrible.”
“I know,” Robby said. “My dad didn’t want me to see, but I think that’s what it was.”
“Why did you draw it here?” Brad asked.
“Well, I put it on a sheet of paper, but it has to be big. I believe the relative size of the shapes to each other makes a difference, but more than that, I think the actual size of the shapes themselves is important,” Robby said.
“That’s impossible,” Brad said. “Size changes with perspective.”
“I know,” Robby said. “I can’t quite explain it, but I think that if the characters aren’t the right physical size and shape, they have no meaning or perhaps the meaning changes.”
“So you have a really good memory,” Brad said, sweeping his hand at the mural, “and a you’re able to exactly judge and reproduce the size of things.”
“It was trial and error,” Robby said. “I used that.”
Robby pointed to a milk crate in the corner of the basement. On top of the crate, sat a projector. Next to the box, Brad saw a coiled extension cable.
“I drew the symbols on a laptop, hooked it up to the projector, and then blew it up until it seemed like the correct size,” Robby said.
“And all this means what? What meaning have you found in all this? Mr. Dyer draws a bunch of crazy scribbles on his wall with dog blood, and you call it reconnaissance?” Brad asked.
“Yes,” Robby said. “I haven’t figured out the whole thing, but I think that somehow Mr. Dyer came across information about the attackers.”
“And instead of just leaving a note or telling someone, he used this crazy writing to communicate this information?” Brad asked.
Robby looked at the wall, scanning the symbols, like they held the way to convince Brad.
“Look, I’m not questioning your belief in this stuff,” Brad said. “I’m just a logical person, and I need to see logical explanations for things. Show me what you’ve figured out. What does it say?”
“I’m not sure,” Robby said.
Brad took a step closer to the wall and let it fill his whole vision. He felt bad about grilling the kid. Clearly Robby was trying to make sense of the end of the world, and the disappearance of his whole family, and he needed something to hang his hat on. The boy, young man really, needed a puzzle to figure out. He needed some kind of riddle to occupy his mind so he didn’t go crazy. Brad could respect that.
Brad took a deep breath and blinked his eyes hard. His breathing and his heartbeat began to slow as he stared at the wall. The edges of the mural were fuzzy in his peripheral vision, but that was just fine. They needed to be fuzzy, he thought. It only made sense that they were fuzzy. The whole mural just seemed to make perfect sense as Brad stood, swaying slightly, and stared. Brad forgot about the snow, the rock creatures, the killer vines, the casual government guys, and the black hole under the bridge. That hole was the last thing he forgot about, but he forgot about the hole too.
The next thing Brad knew, someone shook his shoulder.
“Brad? Brad?” Robby asked.
Brad shook his head and turned towards Robby.
“What?”
“What were you thinking about?” Robby asked.
“I don’t know, what do you mean? Nothing, I guess,” Brad said.
“For ten minutes?” Robby asked.
“What do you mean?” Brad asked.
Robby held out a camera. Brad had a question on his brow as he reached out and took the camera from Robby. The display showed a single video stored on the camera. When Brad started playback, he saw a ten-minute movie of himself, standing and staring at the mural. During the course of the video, Robby circled Brad with the camera, filming his blank stare from every angle. Brad never moved except for the gentle sway of his balance.
“This thing did that?” Brad asked, holding up a hand to block his vision of the mural.
“Yes,” Robby said. “It seems to only happen at this distance. See the mark on the floor?”
Brad looked down and saw that under his own feet was a little cross of electrical tape stuck to the concrete floor.
“So you maneuvered me down here so I could experience it for myself?” Brad asked.
“Yes,” Robby said. “I thought it would be the only way you’d believe me.”
Brad thought about this for a second, and then turned his back on the mural.
“Do you mind if I get out of here?” he asked. Brad started to walk for the stairs before Robby could answer.
“It won’t hurt you,” Robby said. “As long as you don’t stand in that spot, you’ll be fine.”
“I’m guessing it won’t do anything to me when I’m upstairs then,” Brad said as he climbed the stairs.
Robby shut off the lights and then followed him up. Brad pulled his chair back up to the island while Robby shut the door to the basement.
“So that’s one of the reasons why I think there’s something special about this series of shapes,” Robby said. “It seems to hypnotize anyone who looks at it from that exact spot.”
“Awesome,” Brad said. He ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. “So what connects it to the apocalypse?”
“It tells the story of the aliens,” Robby said. He pulled a sheet of paper from his back pocket.
Brad held up his hands—“Whoa, is it safe to look at that thing?”
“Yes,” Robby said, “perfectly safe. The story starts from the center. They’ve got a multi-pronged attack. This describes the center area, where they’d prepare the ground and then cover the whole thing with snow. In that area they purged the animals. I think that was supposed to include us. Then, outside the center area, they describe converting big patches to resources.”
“Resources?” Brad asked.
“Yeah, like an energy harvest area,” Robby said. “When the time comes, the resources will move to the center. I think this part mentions the liquid cleanup crew down south. Snow in the center, then a ring of corpses, then a ring of clear area.”
“Where are you getting all this?” Brad asked. “All I see is random symbols.”
“It’s not all in the shapes themselves, it’s the relationship of the symbols and their physical dimensions,” Robby said. “I don’t know if I could explain it.”
“So why are you showing it to me?” Brad asked.
“Because I still think you have information you’re not sharing. That information might be crucial to figuring this all out,” Robby said.
Brad let out a big sigh. “Still? What is it? Why do you think I have information?”
“You were there,” Robby said. “You were there in the middle of the deep snow, and you’re the only one to come out of there since Thanksgiving Day. Everyone else either fled that day or just disappeared. What did you see?”
“I’ll tell you about two more things, and that’s it. And I don’t care if you believe me or not,” Brad said.
Robby nodded.
“I didn’t tell you about the vines and the rock monster, and that’s it. Wait, well three things,” Brad said, “because I also had the casual government guys for a while. And the hole under the garage. Okay, let me start back with last summer.”
Brad started at the beginning and surprised himself with the amount of detail he recalled from months before. He told Robby all about his
first walks when he discovered the vines, and then even backed up to tell him a little about the contract he’d been working on before the whole vine thing had started.
When he’d made it up to Herm showing up for the first time, Judy entered from the garage and took a seat. Brad started to greet her, but she motioned for him to keep talking. She smelled of cigarette smoke. Brad continued his tale and told them everything right up to the explosion from under the garage. Then he found himself repeating parts of the story they’d already heard. He trailed off.
Robby was looking at the counter, propping his head up in his hands.
Judy rose and fetched the three of them soda from the fridge.
Brad pulled the tab on his can and held it to his mouth before sipping. The carbonated bubbles felt good bursting on his upper lip. He drank and the soda tasted good—complete.
“Thank you for telling us that,” Judy said. “It must have been difficult to share.”
“It actually feels good,” Brad said. “But does it really help? Are you any closer to understanding the riddle of the end of the world?”
He directed this question to Robby, who still sat silent—focusing on the countertop.
“Robby?” Brad asked.
“He’s in his deep cycles,” Judy said. “It doesn’t happen often, but when it does you have to let him come out of it on his own.”
Brad raised his eyebrows and took another sip. The sugary soda was going straight to his head.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Portland, Maine - WINTER
ROBBY AND TED convened a meeting of all the people who lived within radio distance of Portland.
“I want to hear what the new people have to say,” said the smelly guy sitting next to Brad.
Brad couldn’t remember the smelly guy’s name, so he focused his attention on Ted, who stood over near the row of stools.
“I do too,” Ted said. “I’m sure we all do. But I believe it’s important for you all to hear what Rob has to say. He told me what he’s been thinking about, and I think we should all hear his ideas.”
“Facts first, then conclusions,” the smelly guy said.
“I agree,” Judy said. “Let’s hear from the new people.”
That startled Brad—he thought that Judy would automatically be on Robby’s side. Brad looked around the room. Most of the two-dozen people seemed to agree with Judy and Smelly.
“Fair enough,” Ted said. “Brad? You want to start us out?”
Brad scanned the room before he realized that Ted was talking about him.
“Oh, sure,” Brad said. He glanced at Robby and asked—“From the beginning?”
Ted said, “Yes,” and Robby nodded.
Brad started his story from the walk where he’d first seen the vines. A tickle started in the back of his throat when he told the people how he’d found the hole under his garage. The tickle turned into a cough as Brad told of the casually-dressed government guys and how he’d boarded up his house from the inside. His voice was overworked—virtually no use for months followed by days of non-stop talking took their toll. Brad stripped several details of his story near the end so he could finish and sit down.
“Thanks, Brad,” Ted said, rising to his feet again. “Who else? Frank, could you introduce us to the new person at your table?”
Brad followed Ted’s eyes to the guys sitting just beyond Smelly. Brad hadn’t met any of these people yet. When everyone arrived, Brad was busy with Robby and Judy in the kitchen, preparing pancakes for dinner. Now, the guy behind Smelly pushed back his chair and pushed himself up, not quite all the way to his feet. He wore a blue tank-top, camouflage pants, and serious black boots.
“This is Luke,” Frank said. He motioned to the man on his left. Frank started to sink back down in his chair and then rose up again. “He’s been traveling down south awhiles, and then he appeared up’ta my ranch last week.”
Luke cleared his throat. He looked like the template from which Frank had been cast. Like Frank, his head and face possessed no hair except a couple days of stubble. But Frank’s shave looked new—the skin of his scalp in the lantern-light glowed pink. Luke’s head glowed with a deep tan.
Luke didn’t stand. He pushed back his chair and relaxed down into the seat a bit before beginning his speech.
“Things are diff’rent down south,” Luke said. “Not like up here a’ tall. I mean further south than the eye poppers.” Luke hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Down there you got things that hunt.”
“From the beginning,” a woman said from the next table. A couple of people mumbled their agreement.
“Settle out, Tib, I’m gettin’ there,” Luke said. He took a deep breath through his nose, flaring his nostrils. “I didn’t actually see the begin, not like most folk. I had some time off work, so I headed out in the hills, tryin’ to get a deer. I live down-state Mare’land. Western edge.”
He folded his hands on top of his belly. Luke looked up at the ceiling. He seemed to be aware that everyone was looking at him, but he avoided locking eyes with them.
“I set out ’round three or four. Good and dark out there. No big towns around or nuthin’. No light pollution a’ tall. All I had was my gun, a six-pack, and the brightest goddamn spotlight you’ve ever seen, but I wasn’t using any of them at the time,” Luke said.
“I was just hiking in the dark. I got about half-aways up Brandette hill when I heard some rustlin’. Sounded like a buck thrashin’ his rack, marking out a spot, so I got down low. But the noise, it just kept getting louder and louder, like there wasn’t just one buck, but two or three or four, and they were having it out with each other. Pretty soon, thrashin’ turned into a pounding, like a stampede. That’s when I used my light,” Luke said.
“As soon as my eyeballs dialed in, I could see more than a dozen of ‘em, and they were barreling down the hill right at me. Usually when a big light hits them and they stop dead and just stare at me,” Luke said.
“Jacklighter,” Brad heard someone mumble, but Luke didn’t seem to notice.
“But they just kept coming—bucks in front, does in back. You never see them all herded up that time of year. I slid over so I was mostly blocked by a big oak tree and just watched ‘em run. I shut my light off after they passed by. Didn’t even take a shot. I figured I wanted to hike up the hill, figger out what was drivin’ ’em. I guess they wasn’t the only ones, too, ’cause on the other side of those deer I didn’t hear nuthin’ in those woods. No birds, raccoons, squirrels, possums, nuthin’. Honestly? I didn’t even know what I expected, but I didn’t expect such a … such a void.
“So I kept climbing. I kinda gave up on looking for some monster, chasing all the sounds away, but I wanted to get to the top. All them hills are covered with trees, but on the south side of Brandette, there’s a little cliff where you can see a ways. I had to move real slow because I was coming from the other side and it was dark—just starlight—and I didn’t want to fall over t’other side of the cliff. Took me almost ’til dawn to get all the way up there.
“I don’t know how all the deer knew it was coming,” Luke said, “but when I got up there, I saw what scared them away.”
Luke folded his hands behind his head as he talked. He still looked up at the ceiling while the eyes of everyone else were locked on him and his story. Brad glanced over at Robby; the young man leaned forward, perched on the very edge of his chair.
“Up above me, the sky was full of stars, but in the distance… It looked off in the distance like the sky was disappearing altogether. Looking into it almost hurt my eyes,” Luke said. He shut his eyes, like they still hurt now.
“Was it black?” asked his compatriot, Frank.
Brad rolled his eyes—when Frank prompted for an answer he must already know, this seemed more like a sermon than a story.
Luke might have sensed he was losing his audience. He lashed out at the interruption—“No, Frank, you asshole, I already tole you it weren’t black.”
Luke
sat up straighter, put his hands on the table, and glanced around to a few people in the room, locking eyes with them for a brief second to recapture their trust and then he looked down at his hands.
“It weren’t black,” he repeated. “The sky just weren’t there. It’s like a TV in the ol’ days. When you didn’t get signal, you’d get fuzzy snow, ya know? Not black, just no signal. What was worse—it weren’t just the sky. The ‘no signal’ was starting to creep down over the hills across the valley. Down the slopes it spread out in these little fingers. Least I think it did, coulda just been the terrain that made it look that ways. It was almost like watching the sunrise, but in reverse, and slower. We’ve got a tall ridge out to the east, so the sun always lights up the peaks first and then rolls down the hills. Well that morning it looked like the hills were being eaten from the top down. I just stood there watchin’ with my jaw hangin’ open.
“When a couple of big black shapes passed overhead, I got movin’. At first, I crashed down the hill like the deer, but then I remembered what I was standin’ on,” Luke paused while everyone wondered about his statement. He once again controlled their full attention. “Those hills are made of nuthin’ but pure limestone—all shot fulla holes. I turned west, and ran up hill for a little bit until I found the entrance to a cave they call ‘Fat Man.’
“They call it that because you have to be right skinny to fit in the entrance. It’s like about this high,” Luke said, spacing his hands about a foot apart, “for the first five feet and then it turns straight up. It ain’t too hard to find ‘cause it’s right at the base of a big maple what’s split at the base—looks like a female with her legs up in the air.
“I went in rifle first and shimmied all the way in. I didn’t stop until I got to the first room, where you can stand up. When we were kids we called it the ‘Altar Room.’ We’d go in there to drink beer and have herbal picnics. I turned on my light and found it pretty much how we’d left it back when I was in high school. There’s some candles on the ledges on the wall, and in the middle there’s a great big flat rock—the altar—with a bunch of bat bones on it,” Luke said.