by Rob Heinze
Charley felt a smile blossom across his face.
She smiled too.
“I missed you,” he whispered.
“Then come on, baby,” she said, motioning him in with a nod of her head.
He went to her. He lay on the bed next to her, feeling her warmth. She smiled warmly at him, touching his face. He touched her face, afraid it might not be real. It was real—certainly felt that way—and he almost cried. Her hands ran up and down his body, each one like a trained animal, and their voyage was bliss.
“Come inside,” she whispered.
She coaxed him so that he was on top of her, looking down, loving her, knowing that in the brief time that would follow all would be right with the world and they—the two of them—would be inside of a pleasure-built box, one that was constructed with the greatest foundation…love, love you Sarah…oh God I don’t ever want to wake up from this…
During some point, Charley had closed his eyes. They came open. He looked down at his love’s face. It was not Sarah’s; it was One of the Dark.
Charley screamed himself awake, his shout dying hauntingly away in the empty stillness. His heart was throbbing in his chest, and the too-clear image of what had been under him haunted him. He glanced to Eve, who was sleeping fitfully too.
No rest for the weary, he thought.
He sat up and walked towards the road. He stood on it, a lone man, and remembered being along on that highway overpass in Queens. It had been on 495. He remembered the feeling of loneliness, of vulnerability, as it came rolling back to him now.
At least I have Eve, he thought, glancing back to her tossing form.
He had no idea when Those of the Light would come to them. At this rate, it didn’t look like they would. How long might they just wander around? Charley thought they might be able to wander forever. He found himself wondering if you could age in this place, and if not, the time they would have left to wander…
He didn’t want to think about it. They’d hold to their current course, and Those of the Light would come. They had left him a message back on 495, when his knowledge of them had not existed.
Follow Those of the Light.
He would; they would. As soon as they showed themselves.
He found himself remembering the other message, the one on that New York City building.
Beware of Be.
Maybe Be had been John? Maybe John’s middle name had been Bob or Billy or Brent? He didn’t know. It seemed almost possible, what with how psychotic John had been. He made a mental note to ask Eve if she knew his middle name.
We killed him, Charley thought. No matter what Eve thinks, we killed him.
He glanced back to the sleeping girl, her body still fretfully tossing about. A low howl went off somewhere in the distance, and Charley felt his testicles rise in response. He glanced wide-eyed down the road, not sure what he expected to see, but certain that something would be staggering up it. It was empty and dark, but who knew what might be lurking in that darkness—
Stop it, he told himself. Just go back and try to sleep.
He went back to the blanket and the dying fire. He placed more kindling on the fire. The light made him feel slightly better. He put his head back and looked at the sky, a brilliant star-lit sky that was both tranquil and disturbing.
The duality of man, Charley thought.
Finally, he slept.
9
The next morning was nothing but a gray gloom. It reminded Charley of that first day he had awoken in this no-world.
The feeling that they were being followed didn’t hit him immediately, but it came some time after they set off.
At one point, the highway had been enclosed by trees. At another point, the trees had grown thicker and thicker along the side of the road as if they were unsuccessfully trying to mash the four lane road down into two. After that, the trees had broken up. It was shortly after that moment when Charley felt as if they were being watched. On either side of the road open fields stretched away into the distance. They passed by random barns, the red façades of which brilliantly punctuated the green fields. At one farm they had spotted a lone cow, grazing in an unending smorgasbord.
“I wonder if it’s happy,” Eve had said. “It has no more competition for food. It probably feels as if it could eat forever.”
Charley had watched the cow fade away; it hadn’t even raised its head from the buffet as they passed. He wondered if it were possible—if he and Eve were in comas—for an animal to be in a coma? And if so, a cow? Furthermore, if a cow wasn’t milked, didn’t it die?
He felt as if they were being paralleled. The grasses on the right side of the highway were incredibly high, so high that Charley suspected a hunched person might go undetected.
He didn’t point it out to Sarah. They rode on in silence, mostly just staring ahead at the western horizon. The landscape didn’t really change. Charley couldn’t remember ever driving down this highway. He suspected he might have. It might simply look different on a bike. However, the ultimate effect of the situation was that he truly felt as if he were in a different world.
A no-world, he added, humorless.
He watched the side of the road, but he didn’t watch it like a hawk. He did it casually. He thought the time might be good now; he hadn’t done it in a while, and so anyone (or -thing) that was there wouldn’t suspect that he, Charley, knew of their presence. He rotated his head, as if admiring the scenery—
Grasses shifted, and he saw the clear shape of something moving along with them.
His initial instinct, that which wanted him to panic, told him that Those of the Dark had come. But no; that wasn’t right. Those of the Dark would not hide. They hadn’t done that since he’d awoken here. If Those of the Dark wanted, they simply took.
That night they camped on the road. There were no trees and no shelter. They did they best they could and nestled in a dented portion of the metal guardrail. Charley built a fire while Eve got out their cereal bars. He was happy they had planned their escape from John, even if it hadn’t worked out as planned. At least they had food.
Charley didn’t tell Eve about the pursuer(s). He didn’t want to worry her. He knew they were out there. Watching them.
Eve was asleep almost immediately after she finished the cereal bar. She took a swing of water, yawned, said good-night, and lay back. A small burp escaped her, and she giggled, apologizing. Charley laughed and said he could care less if she farted. Soon, it was only her light snoring that he heard. He heard that all night; it keeping him company on his watch. Once—okay, maybe twice—his eyes had drooped stubbornly shut and he had awoken in a hot panic. After that, he sat with his butt on the guardrail. He watched the darkness and waited. Eve seemed to be free of nightmares that night; her breathing was light and persistent.
Charley was happy that he hadn’t told her about the pursuer.
10
When dawn came, Eve awoke to find Charley sitting on the guardrail and sleepily gazing off into the open grasses. The morning mist, which had briefly obstructed his view (he swore that he had heard voices in that mist), had cleared and the fields were visible for miles. Charley, half asleep, startled as she put her hand on his shoulder.
She yawned. “Didn’t you sleep?”
“No,” he said. He figured now was a good as time as any to tell her. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t jealous by the sight of the eye-boogers that sleep had accumulated at the corners of her eyes. “Someone’s been following us.”
“Huh?”
“Someone’s been following us. Since the trees broke up” –Eve had no idea when that was; it felt like they had been walking between fields forever— “I watched all night. I saw them yesterday, and I heard voices this morning.”
For a brief moment, Eve had a horrible thought: Charley had gone crazy. A neuron in his mind had snapped and was now leaking out a mad flood of neurotransmitters; now, oh now he would suddenly grab her and throw her to the ground and take her i
n that awful way, that way in which John had taken her…
She took a hesitated step back. Charley had gone back to gazing out at the field. He wanted their followers to know he knew about them now. He glanced to Eve, and Eve saw sanity in his tired brown eyes, above the purple U’s of exhaustion.
He’s not crazy, she told herself. He’s not crazy.
“How do you know?” She asked, standing next to him. She gazed out at the high grass.
“I felt…spied on,” he said quietly. “Then I caught movement. And this morning I heard voices.”
Eve looked nervously out to the field, searching for some hint as to what Charley saw. She saw nothing but idle grass.
“Let’s get going,” Charley said, standing from the guardrail. His ass had gone numb and his legs were tingling with sleep-needles. He winced and walked them out.
They packed up quickly and left. They peddled slowly, Charley weaving slightly. His eyes actually hurt; he had never known your eyes could actually hurt.
I should have told her last night, he thought, so I could have slept. We could have rotated watches.
“You should have told me,” Eve said.
Charley blinked to coherence (or what passed for it) at the sound of her voice. “Huh?”
“You should have told me.”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
They said nothing more and peddled lazily.
Eve was the first one to see it, way off in the distance. She watched it approach for a long time, unsure what it was. Finally, she slowed down and stopped. It took Charley a moment to notice she had stopped. In his sleep-deprived state, he didn’t notice what Eve saw. He looked back at her, propping his bike up with his legs.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look at that,” she said, pointing.
Charley turned and followed her finger to the distant right. Off in the distance there was a mountain that looked like a miniature plateau. On that plateau there was an odd structure that seemed to spread out maliciously to the left and right, and there was a brief spot where it looked as if that structure were bearing down into the rocks with claw-like architecture. The plateau was a cold brown-red rock like the sort of rock you might see in the desert areas of the United States.
Eve had come up besides him. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It…it looks almost like a hospital or apartment building. I can’t tell; it’s too far away.”
The building wasn’t tall. It looked as if there were about four or five stories off the ground. But for what the building lacked in height it made for in width. It was a huge place. Maybe it was a hospital of some sort.
“Maybe it is a hospital,” Charley said again, gaining confidence in his thought.
They stood looking at it for a long time. They didn’t hear or notice the figure approach. It had come up behind them. It stood, waiting for them to turn; it had been waiting for a day and a half to reveal itself. Now the time had come.
“We better keep going—” Charley began, turning around.
There was a small boy standing behind them. His hair was a wild whip of blonde that hung in tatters around his face, completely covering his ears. His eyes were a vibrant blue, so vibrant, so vivid against his white skin that they—Charley and Eve—felt as if his eyes were the vanishing point in some painting, the spot on which your eyes instinctively focused.
“Hi,” he said.
Charley knew that this was the person who had been following them. He felt foolish. His initial fear was ill-founded; here was a boy too afraid to reveal himself—and a smart boy, for he had taken the time to gauge Charley and Eve before showing himself.
“You’ve been following us,” Charley said.
The boy nodded. His blue eyes shimmered. His hair shifted and hung around them now.
“Since when?” Eve asked.
“I saw you coming from up there,” the boy said, pointing to the structure in the distance that might be hospital.
“You’ve…you’ve been up there?” Charley asked.
The boy nodded.
“What’s your name?”
“Samuel. Sam, though.”
“Sam.”
The boy nodded.
Eve glanced to the structure, and then to the boy Sam. “Why were you up there?”
“We stay there. It’s very nice. We have food and heat all of the time. The Mesha has people build contained fires in the basement every morning. She had people set up ducts that carry the heat all through the building; they did that when we first…what’s the word? Ka-Ka-Kalonized?
“Colonized?” Charley helped.
“Yeah, colonized. There’s not a room there that’s not warm. Well, that’s not really true. There’s a cafeteria on the second floor that stays cold. It’s too big to heat, and The Mesha thinks the vents are obstructed or broken. She’s really smart.”
The Mesha? Eve found herself wondering. Did he say The Mesha? What the hell is that?
“There are other people up there?” Charley asked.
The boy nodded.
“How many?”
The boy shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. A good amount. There’s a lot of people in comas. A lot of them come there. It’s a half-way house.”
Half-way house for what? Charley wondered.
Then, delayed, his mind flashed on what the boy Sam had first said: There’s a lot of people in comas.
“Did you say there are a lot of people in comas?” Charley asked. He glanced to Eve and saw that she had been thinking that too.
“Yeah. The Mesha’s made the deduction that we’re in comas.”
Charley glanced to Eve. They looked back to the boy Sam. They were about to press him further when he said:
“You were heading to the Special Place, the place you’ve dreamed of?”
“How’d you know?” Eve asked, eyes wide.
“This is a half-way house,” Sam said, smiling.
Charley glanced to Eve, suddenly suspicious. He didn’t like this. There was a society of people living in that hospital or whatever, and there was clearly someone in charge, someone whom the boy Sam called The Mesha. And it was a half-way house? For the Special Place? The whole thing sounded absurd, and in its absurdity, Charley didn’t trust it. He suddenly felt as if the boy Sam might have rehearsed this speech, practiced it somehow.
“Do you know where…where the Special Place is?”
The boy nodded. “The Mesha does, but I can’t remember.”
The Mesha knows, Charley thought. The Mesha knows, therefore, the people with him or her know. And they don’t go there? If it’s a way out, why wouldn’t they?
There was something missing, something that either Charley didn’t know or couldn’t understand. A thousand questions were suddenly in his mind. He wanted to meet this Mesha.
“Would you like to come up?” The boy Sam asked.
Charley asked the boy Sam if he might speak with Eve in private. He nodded and smiled, and then bounced off down the road a bit. He looked like he was eleven, maybe.
“Something’s not right,” Eve said immediately, as soon as he was out of ear range.
Her eyes were wide and alert.
“I know,” Charley said. He glanced back to the boy Sam, who appeared to be playing with pebbles. “If they know the way to that place, why wouldn’t they go?”
“I don’t know,” Eve said.
They glanced back to the boy.
“He knows we’ll go,” Eve said.
“We will?”
“Won’t we?”
Charley put his head down. He did want to go up there. His curiosity had been stirred, and that only made him more suspicious.
“What do you think we should do?” He asked her.
“There might be something we could learn about, about how to get out of here. If The…The Mesha knows about that place, maybe she knows how to get home? How to find Those of the Light?”
“I thought that too,” Charley said.
“Okay,” Eve replied. “So what do we do?”
“We go,” Charley said.
They turned to the boy Sam. He was already walking over to them, as if he had known their decision beforehand. His boyish face was somehow placating as he waited for them to speak.
“We’ll go with you,” Charley said.
The boy smiled. “The Mesha’s going to be happy I found you. Let’s go!”
He left the road, cutting a swath into the grasses. Charley and Eve hesitated, looking to their bikes. The boy Sam sensed that they weren’t following. He glanced back and saw the indecision in their eyes and that which caused their indecision.
“You won’t need them,” he said. “We have a bunch of extras.”
He turned and started to walk again. Charley and Eve looked at each other, their faces humorless and unsure. Charley shrugged and took her hand. Together they followed the boy Sam through the tickling high grass, towards the imposing structure up on the plateau.
11
The structure drew closer. Charley inadvertently reached into his pocket and took out the Dentyne. He chewed two pieces, listening to the crunching-crinkle of the hard outer-shell. For some reason, he hadn’t chewed gum since he had found Eve and John. It felt like ages. Now the old habit was on him again.
The structure was almost hidden above and behind the cliff. The closer they got, the less they saw of it. The walk through the high grass lasted over an hour, and soon they found themselves directly under the rock. Sam moved along ahead of them, saying little to them; his countenance was always happy and light. When they reached the rock, Sam reached out his hand and touched the rock, as if out of respect.
“How do we get up?” Eve asked.
“It’s ahead.”
Sam smiled and went back to moving along the rock, which loomed far above them. The entrance was up ahead, carved into the rock wall on their right. Two people—guards, from the look of them—stood outside of it. There were torches perched on the walls, flickering low in the daylight and casting translucent smoke into the air. One of the guards was middle-aged with a pot belly drooping down from his mid-section. The other looked like a younger guy, Charley’s age, and had a sleepy, inattentive look to him. Charley didn’t think they made good guards.