by Alan Spencer
Peyton popped the tab of a bottle of beer. "And I can't tell you everything just yet. I want to, but not yet. Somebody did that to Richie, telling him too much too soon, and that's why he stormed off. It's why I didn't stop him from crossing the county line. His mind was made up. Yours is not."
"My mind's not made up about what?"
"Staying here."
"Why would I stay here?"
"Because you haven't lived here long enough to understand what it can do for you. Meadow Woods is a wonderful place."
Finished with his beer, Peyton helped Mark up from the chair and urged him towards his blue truck. "Let's go for a ride. Nothing crazy. We'll take it slow. I promise I won't kick your ass again."
"That won't be happening again, pal. That I promise."
They were driving now.
"Ask me some questions," Peyton said at the wheel. "I'll answer them if I can. I don't want to scare you off before you know everything you need to know, okay? Is that fair?"
"I guess that's fair," Mark said. "Then again, I have no choice. You'll tell me whatever you want. It's all up to you, huh? I'm glad I'm not a smoldering pile of death. I'll say that for starters. Should we report Richie's death?"
"It's the choice he made. There's nothing nobody can do. The rules are different here, Mark. Ask me some other questions."
"I'm staying on topic here. If Richie turned into a cooked skeleton crossing the county line, how come you didn't when you left this place? I'm assuming you were here before you met up with me, right?"
"The reason I didn't turn into Richie was because I had a job to do. As did Cassie. We were to bring you here. To show you the good life. It was planned. We can leave if we're allowed to leave. We had permission. Richie did not."
"But if I leave, I die."
"Yes, you die. But let me say what I'm going to say first. If you have a job to do, you get to leave Meadow Woods with no harm coming to you. Simple as that."
Mark threw up his hands in frustration. "Is that supposed to make sense to me? Fine, fine. You can only tell me so much. Then what does it mean to be committed?"
"Can't answer that."
"How come you look younger than you did before we arrived?"
"Can't answer that."
"How come there are houses missing in the neighborhood? And why's the cemetery gone?"
"Some things are better off forgotten. Anything that reminds us of death have been wiped out."
It was a strange answer, and before Mark could follow-up, Peyton cut him off. "I can't elaborate on that, so don't even try."
"Well, this is proving to be very informative." Mark thought harder on what to ask next. "What do you expect me to do here?"
"Be social. Talk to your old friends and introduce yourself to the people you didn't know so well when you grew up here. Have fun. Be yourself. Easy, right? Just have fun."
"But for how long?"
"Can't answer that."
"Can't answer that. Can't answer that. That's all you keep saying." Mark squeezed his hands into fists. How he wanted to return the favor and punch his friend's block off. "Is Cassie really in love with me?"
"It's one of the reasons you're here. People in our position who've faced death so closely, the situation puts things in perspective. For her, she thought about you, and how she missed you. Yes, she loves you."
"Sure, she missed me, but does she really love me? She doesn't know me. It's been decades. We're not the same people anymore."
Peyton tried to put it delicately and failed. "Dislodge the fucking pole from your asshole. Christ, man, do you hear yourself? Can you have some fun without turning people's motives into equations? She likes you, man. She wants to bang the shit out of you. Is that such a bad thing? I wanted her, man, and she wanted you instead. So don't take her affections lightly. Don't be a fucking asshole."
Mark's face burned with a blush. He breathed hard, suddenly winded. Mark rolled down the window to the let the crisp breeze roll inside the cab.
Peyton, "You're very luck to be here, pal. You could be dead in months, or even days from now, if we didn't intervene. You were going to let your sickness run its course without treatments. You crashed your ride because of the pain. The cancer is that far along inside you. Think about things. Instead of feeling the need to ask me questions and spelling everything out for you, why don't you go out and figure out some of the shit on your own?"
Peyton pulled the truck over and kept the motor running. "This is what you should do to help yourself. Explore the town on your own. Find out for yourself what this place can offer you. You won't turn it down. You'll love it."
"But a few have turned it down. Richie did."
"It happens, but it's not likely you will. I won't let you."
"Is that a threat?"
Peyton stepped out of the truck and walked down the road in no particular direction. Mark stuck his head out of the car and shouted after him. "Hey, where the hell are you going?"
Peyton turned around for a second before going on his way. "I'm letting you explore. Drive around. When you want to see me, I'll be at Cassie's old house. You know where it's at. We can walk the old drainage ditch path together when it's dark and talk things over. You're on your own until then. See you later, pal."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mark had little energy to take on the situation. He was weak and very confused about what Peyton had told him. That's why he returned to the truck and started to drive. Staying here wasn't going to answer any questions. He didn't make it far up the road when the pinch in his gut transformed into a hand clenching his insides. Just as it had happened before his van crash. More hands were twisting his midsection, playing their fingers through his guts, as if air and gas were trying to free itself, and that's when he pulled over and ran to the public restroom off the road. It was meant for the park in the woods. Crying out in agony, Mark raced into the bathroom. The sharp urge to urinate sent him into the first stall.
"Oh Goddamn it hurts!"
He lifted up the seat and waited to pee, but it wasn't coming out. The warm heat was at the tip of his dick for minutes burning hotter and hotter. His legs wanted to buckle, and they did. Hitting the cold concrete, he was feverishly hot. Mark let out a pent-up breath and stayed on his side, curling up and taking the pain coursing throughout his torso. He wrapped both hands around his belly, and then the pain vanished. He pissed on the floor. The circle surrounded him, but it wasn't the color of urine. It was a strange crimson rust red. Bits of skin were mixed into the mess, though the skin was the color of grayish raw meat. It stank of a bile most foul. He shuffled to get up. Mark was dripping with the rancid stuff.
Mark rushed to the sink, using paper towels to try and soak up the piss from his clothes. No good. He reeked. Stepping back from the sink, he gawked at himself in the mirror in shock.
The piss stink didn't matter anymore.
The piss soaking his clothes didn't matter anymore.
His skin had regained its healthy glow. The sunken bones around his eye and cheekbones were full again. Mark lifted up his shirt to unveil a flat chiseled abdomen. Strong biceps ripped with stand out veins. It was how he used to be when Elizabeth was still alive. She kept him in the best shape. Her words, her motivation, stayed true since their days as teenagers, "You keep up with me on the track, I'll keep up with you in the bed."
The dying olive hue to his eyes were now a brilliant emerald green.
The piss on his clothes evaporated without him knowing it.
The piss on the floor was also missing.
Mark splashed his face with water, soaked his dark brown hair—what had once been a graying, dying collection—and tried to stave off the burners of heat that were the muscles under his flesh. He was looking at a younger version of himself. Was this what Peyton meant? If he stuck around, he'd reap the benefits?
"This can't just happen. Something made this happen."
The transformation itself lent him a new vigor. Mark felt how his pulse
thrum stronger. The organs, the blood, the flesh, all of it had been restored. He wasn't taking steps towards death, he was vaulting away from it.
This hadn't happened until he pissed the reeking red turpentine. He released the cancer in his body.
Mark sucked water from the drain to quench his dry throat. Even after eating all of Chuck's barbeque, he was starving. He could eat an entire cow and a crock of baked beans.
It can't be this easy.
There has to be something they want from me.
This can't be real.
The fear of being indebted to something or someone he didn't understand was increased by the scribbling on the wall between the sinks in magic marker. EAT MY SHIT RIGHT FROM THE TOILET BOWL. MY DICK'S BENT IN YOUR TIGHT LITTLE ASS. DWAYNE WUZ HERE. I FISTED JANEY M. IN STALL #2. BUSH CAN SUCK MY BALLS.
And what actually startled Mark: COMMITTING IS FOREVER.
Mark stopped there and repeated it aloud. "Committing is forever."
What does it mean to commit? They keep saying that.
It's a note on a bathroom wall. Calm down.
But look at you, you're younger. You peed out your cancer!
Okay, okay, get a hold of yourself. They'll ask you to commit. Whatever that means, they're going to ask you. That means you'll find out what it means. Peyton and Cassie brought you here to make you better. My sickness is gone. They'll want something from me. And I can't leave. I don't want to be cooked like poor Richie.
Mark walked out of the restroom shaking his head. "It can't be this simple."
What Peyton said earlier was correct.
Mark had to explore the town and figure out things for himself.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Driving on, Mark caught sight of another impossibility. Braking too late, he swerved into the sand where the road changed for no reason and without warning into a beach. He faced an ocean that spanned for hundreds of miles—if not eternity. The impossible blue ocean was a challenge. Yes, it was real. He couldn't deny it. But this was not a natural part of Meadow Woods. They were in the Midwest. No ocean. Im-fucking-possible. The road behind him, the surrounding woods, they were gone. The beach was all around him now. Minutes, he stayed in the truck and tried to understand how the vehicle ended up like a beached whale on the shore.
A beach ball struck the windshield. Then came a woman in a tight body and cinnamon colored hair. She ran up to the vehicle, picked up the ball, and peered into the truck. She knocked on the window, smiling with her pink mouth shining with lip gloss. "Is that you, Mark? Mark Tripdick?"
"Yes, it's me," he said, clearing a nervous frog from his throat. "I can't say I remember you, I-I'm sorry."
Mark was so nervous, wondering if this was a dream or reality. The woman stuck her hand through the window to shake his hand. Her noticed her blue painted nails with stars on them. She had cherry blush for cheeks and blue mascara and heavy black eyelashes. The woman was extra-made up, as if she'd just earned the liberty of using make-up and was taking full advantage of it.
"I'm Melissa Francis. You remember me now, don't you?"
It was her, but it wasn't her. She had lost a hundred pounds, at least. Melissa didn't have the stretch marks of a woman who had lost that kind of weight either. Melissa was the chubby kid in high school. The girl voted most likely not to get laid by senior year via popular conversation.
Melissa laughed at his shocked face. She got that reaction often, and she relished it.
"It's good to see you. You're looking...looking, well, you look—"
"I'm fucking hot! You can say it."
Mark exploded with nervous laughter. "Yes, you're fucking hot, Melissa. It's good to see you. I mean it."
"You should join us on the beach. The water's not cold at all. It's perfect."
Still in the truck, Mark said, "But it's September. We're in Iowa. How's any of this possible? We're in Meadow Woods, right?"
Melissa frolicked back to what she was doing without answering his question. She pounded the beach ball towards the circle of six people who he didn't recognize. They were playing volleyball and having a great time.
Mark tried to drive the truck out of the sand, but he kept spinning his tires. Mark gave up after several attempts.
You're stuck here.
Mark got out of the vehicle and the people nearby seemed to watch him. There were fifty or so people on the beach, many of them he didn't recognize—or they had changed, like Melissa. He stiffened at the sight of Dr. Roy Albert who was laying out on a beach towel and soaking up some sun. The last time he saw Dr. Albert was at the hospital after his wreck.
Dr. Albert had a lot of questions to answer.
You can't charge at him yelling and screaming. You tried that with Peyton, and it got you beat up.
It felt like these people were playing games with him. Mark could get mad, sure, but the point Peyton made earlier hit him again. If he was going to understand the changes in his body, the changes in his old home town, he would have to play by their rules and be calm until he found out the information for himself.
Mark plopped down next to Dr. Albert in the sand and watched the white frothing waves lick the shore. "It's nice. This change, I mean. It's like a dream."
"You said it," Dr. Albert purred, enjoying the sun and his relaxation. The man was older, but he had a descent body, a little fat, but he'd be able to get up and run a mile or two without trouble. His gray hair was only a highlight in his black parted cut, as if he'd chosen to keep his look seasoned. "I'm glad you're here, Mark. We all are. We like to share our place with good people, and you're good people. I'm sorry Elizabeth didn't live long enough to be with us. But that's all I can say about that. I'm just so very sorry she isn't with us."
Dr. Albert reached over and opened a small cooler and handed him a bottle of Lark's beer. He twisted off the tab and handed it to Mark. "Have a drink. Enjoy the beach."
Mark accepted the drink and enjoyed a pull. "I'll level with you, Doc, I know I can't ask you questions outright, like why was I brought here, why is this beach here, why are people looking better than they ever did, so I won't ask. But I will ask you this; is there something I should be doing?"
"Yes, most definitely. And you're doing it, by talking to me, and by talking to others. Relax. You've got some time before the big decision has to be made. So drink up. Socialize. Enjoy your surroundings. Most of all, be at peace."
Walking by the swimmers and volleyball players and sunbathers, Mark followed the ocean line and would keep walking the line until it ended. After going on for what seemed a mile, Mark was in the woods again, though the woods served as a cliff that overlooked the ocean from high up. The terrain was unreal.
A hiking trail formed ahead of him. Mark walked for minutes and found himself surrounded by the woods. He was about turn back when he heard the muted crying in the near distance. It was coming from a woman. Mark followed the sounds, simply to be near someone. He wanted to talk to as many people as possible to decode the secrets of Meadow Woods.
The woman crying was at the edge of the woods standing on a rise that overlooked the ocean. She was as old as him, from the same graduating class of 1975. Her golden wheat hair had grayed, the hair itself the texture of rough bristles. Her name was Aimee Webb. Mark didn't know much about her except she was smart. She was in his advanced college algebra class their senior year. Here in Meadow Woods, the new Meadow Woods, she was looking haggard beyond her years. She wore a faded summer dress, her hair about her face as if she'd been released from a lunatic asylum.
Aimee was muttering prayers, "God forgive me...forgive me...I owe you my life."
If Mark wasn't mistaken, her face was full of fear.
Aimee had seen something in the waters that Mark couldn't.
Mark snapped a twig underfoot, and Aimee looked in his direction. Mark expected her to react, but instead, she smiled at him.
"Sit down, Mark. Let's talk. It's been like thirty years."
He did his best to enjoy the mo
ment with this meek person he barely knew from high school. "It's good to see you, Aimee."
"Is it? You never talked to me at school. We were never friends."
"No, I guess not. It doesn't mean we can't be now."
"You came here because you don't want to die."
That startled Mark. "I didn't come here, exactly. I was brought here."
"Oh okay. Sure, you were brought here against your will. Your hands were tied behind your back. They hoodwinked you into coming back to Meadow Woods. They tied you up and drove you here kicking and screaming. Keep telling yourself that, Mark. You won't leave. Not ever. If you thought you were afraid of death before, you'll fear it even more now. Let me put it like this, Mark. I was terrified of the high dive as a kid. I was six, maybe seven, and taking swimming lessons at the public pool. The instructor forced me up on the high dive, and just getting up there was an ordeal. I was shivering. My knees were knocking and my teeth were chattering. It was fear. But standing up there, looking out at the swimmers and the water, the longer I stood there doing nothing, the fear became a new monster altogether. An unmerciful beast. I ended up wetting myself and crying until the instructor carried me away. It's like that with death. The longer you wait for the inevitable to happen, death starts turning into a new creature."
Aimee's gaze drifted back out to the ocean. She was watching it, studying it, perhaps guarding it, before saying one last thing and then walking away, leaving Mark to his own journey.
"The longer you live beyond your expected dying day, the worse your death will ultimately be."
Aimee Webb left Mark to himself and his own problems. She enjoyed being alone. Alone was familiar. Alone was safe. She was in synch with her thoughts. Aimee moved to another part of the cliff to be achieve solitude, leaning over the edge to the point she could spill over into the ocean if the dirt beneath her decided to give to her weight. Scouting the waters with her eyes, Aimee was trying to penetrate the blue surface to the beneath.