That would be my afterlife: trapped, alone, crushed, cold, forever.
No.
I will not quietly endure while my memories are overwritten, my body is maimed and mutated, and my mind deteriorates. I will not suffer as Tedrin has, and I will not become like him. Suddenly, discovering a way for he and I and Ron to die seems less a method of revenge and more an act of love.
But it’s not like, once the method is in my hand or standing before me, it’s not like I’ll kill us immediately. It’s not that I want to die right now; let’s be precise. I want to be able to choose the circumstances of my death. If, a few months down the line, my reason abandons me and I begin to lose track of my identity, perhaps I’ll end the process then. The option is what matters.
I slowly resume sorting.
The supreme irony is that I’ve always been against euthanasia.
Snicker.
I put on a load of laundry and start on my full sink of dirty dishes. By the time the washer buzzes, the sink is empty. I switch the load of wet clothes to the dryer, start a new load in the washer, sweep the kitchen floor, vacuum the living room, set my bed, put away random objects I’ve used in the past few days, wipe down my computer desk, switch out the washer and dryer, carry the dry clothes toward the bedroom to put away—
I stand in the living room, a laundry basket at my hip, and look around at my clean apartment. It looks unlived-in.
This is what it looks like when someone sets their affairs in order.
I place the basket in my room, then go back to the computer. My ‘life story’ document is still open, though in ‘offline’ mode. Whatever changes I make won’t sync until my internet connection is restored.
I edit the paragraph at the beginning.
If you are the bearer of this document, and you’ve been feeling a little confused lately, and your head is made of needles, and you appear to be immortal — let me ask you this: Do you remember the deer stand? If so, keep reading; I’ve detailed as much as I can. Hope it helps. Also, your name is Eden Green.
If you can’t remember, that means Eden Green is dead. You can keep going, if that feels right, but she’ll understand if you’d rather stop.
I sit back and rub my eyes for a while, unable to stop myself from imagining what it would be like to read that as a bewildered National Guardsman, or as myself with amnesia. Then I heave a sigh and keep typing.
I’ve included my parents’ names and current phone numbers and address below. Whoever finds this document, please make sure they read it. I don’t know how much comfort it will be to know what I went through in my final days, but they have a right to know. Mom, Dad, I love you, and I’ve been thinking of you.
I think of what Tedrin said about not being able to remember his parents’ names and faces, and I add:
My one desire is to remain, in mind and body, your daughter.
Alright, that’s enough. I plug in my keychain USB stick and place a copy of the document in its root, titled ‘READ ME FIRST’. I set my dusty desktop printer to generating a copy, too, just to be safe. Then I turn off the monitor before I can start to get morose.
All the solutions — to my revenge-quest, my death-wish, and the invasion — are on the other side of those shimmering portals. I’m sure of it.
This will require planning.
I step outside and turn to lock the door behind me, then pause, then leave it alone.
Halfway down the stairs, I look up and freeze, one foot dangling over the next step.
It’s sunset, and the sky is molten gold cut through with stripes of umber and orange — contrails leading off in every direction. To the north, black smoke towers into the sky from at least five sources.
The air is utterly still; I hear no birds, no cars, no people. It reminds me of the gaping quiet of a pre-dawn snowy morning, except that it’s too warm, and acrid smells carry on the breeze.
My plan involves some driving, but I hesitate at the car door. Walking would leave me more vulnerable to attack but also better able to explore hidden places and avoid the National Guard patrols. I grit my teeth; I need to cover a lot of ground tonight, and the only way is to drive. I get in and toss my backpack and shotgun into the passenger seat.
When the engine roars to life, it’s like a cannon blast in the still air, and I wince. In the corner of my eye, a curtain moves in one of the apartment windows; I glance up, but whoever’s still here has already ducked back into the darkness.
I pull out and start driving — and find myself unable to break 15 MPH. The streets are empty into the distance, but something keeps me slow, the same impulse that makes me whisper while looking at beautiful things.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. I have to concentrate.
I’m dressed much the same way Ron was on our second hunt — camo pants and black jacket — each with a million pockets, most of which I’ve filled — over a dark shirt and hiking boots. When I leave the car, I’ll be wearing my shotgun across my back on a sling.
My backpack is dark-colored and loaded down with everything I thought I might need — canned ready-to-eat food and a can-opener, a small blanket, a half-roll of toilet paper, several bottles of water, a survival kit I assembled a while back as part of a zombie preparedness event, and a change of clothes and two changes of socks and underwear. I also have the printed-out copy of my ‘memoirs’, just in case my brain is destroyed while I’m on the other side.
I don’t know if this place will be boiling hot or arctic cold. I don’t know if the water will be drinkable — I can only assume the air is breathable because I haven’t observed any thorn-monsters suffocating, and there was no miasma around the portal. There might not be a magnetic north, but I have a keychain compass just in case. I’ll have to map as I go along. I plan to fill my phone with photos.
I have no idea how long the portal will last — I estimate I was unconscious for about two hours last night, during which time the one I’d found disappeared, but who knows how long it had been there before I arrived. I’ve brought a little rope but won’t bother to tether myself; if the portal disappears, I’ll just have to find another way home.
Besides, being trapped in that other world doesn’t sound so bad at the moment. My eyes drift upward with the distant columns of black smoke, and suddenly I’d much rather be anywhere else.
Finally, I don’t know what needle-critters will be waiting for me. A herd of herbivores wouldn’t be so bad; I can move away and then observe how they act in their native habitat, figure out what hazards they avoid. If there’s a giraffe or a swarm of exes, I’ll just come back through and find a way to escape them.
Finding a portal is the first problem. I can’t go too far north and risk meeting a National Guard patrol, so I keep to the warehouses and abandoned blocks on the south side. There’s a ritual to it: Park in a well-lit area, circle the block once looking for monsters, then cut through the center of the block via alleys, side-streets, and a little judicious fence-climbing.
In an alley near the center of the third block, I find a pile of dead needles roughly the size of a giraffe, and a splatter of blood on a nearby wall. Tedrin and Ron might have gone hunting in this area recently, or maybe someone else has decided to fight back. Either way, note to self: Might not be alone in this.
On the sixth block, a lone herbivore grazes in the yard of an abandoned duplex. We watch each other for a few minutes, but I can’t figure out from which direction he’s come. I could try scaring it with the car or my gun, but it might charge, or lead me on a wild goose chase. In the end, I leave it be.
It’s near midnight, and I’m thinking about calling it a night, but I decide to explore an eleventh block — my lucky number. When I step out of the car and shut the door, the noise echoes off empty apartment buildings. I shoulder my backpack, hold my shotgun ready with the safety off, and start forward into an alley.
Less than ten steps from the car, I’m suddenly sure there’s a portal nearby. I can taste it, like strings of cop
per floating in the air. I can smell the other world. I push forward into the darkness, suicidally over-eager.
I turn a corner and pause, aiming my gun-light down a dead end. And there, shimmering inches above an old mattress, is what I’ve been looking for all night. My skin rises in goosebumps as I approach; my throat tightens with anticipation.
I hesitate a few steps from the portal as shudders run up and down my spine. The reptilian core of my brain is screaming warnings, that the air in front of me defies my senses and most likely contains danger. I swallow hard, suck in a deep breath, and begin walking forward.
There’s a half-painful, half-pleasant sensation of rippling throughout my entire body, as if my very being is tightening up to sneeze. I shut my eyes and press on, praying nothing dangerous rises to meet me.
Then the sensation is gone, and the air on my face is mild. I open my eyes a little at a time, hands tightening on my shotgun.
Black clouds row the sky in alien formations, stretching from behind me into the distance ahead of me. Between them is sky the lustrous blue of a robin’s egg. One quarter of the way from the horizon — though whether rising or setting, I can’t tell yet — is a yellow sun, the shape of which is diffused as if through fog. Everything glows as if under intense fluorescent lights.
The landscape is hilly in all directions, coated in a fine layer of short, tan grass. Every few hundred feet sprouts a grove of spindly black trees covered in giant thorns. The air is impossibly fresh and fills my lungs with a mostly-pleasant, slightly-painful sensation, like airborne menthol.
Half the forward horizon — what I decide to call ‘north’, based on my keychain compass — is blocked by a distant mountain range, like black, jagged teeth jutting up out of the lowlands. At their western tip is a startlingly immense mountain, incongruous in the terrain. It seems as good a landmark as any to explore, so I start that way. Behind me, the portal still shivers in midair.
Gravity is negligibly reduced; I feel a noticeable spring in my step as I descend the first hill, and climbing the next is easy. The air temperature fluctuates very quickly, and after a few minutes of moving back and forth over the same ground, I realize that the air currents are defined and narrow, rising and falling as much as ten degrees from one step to the next. It’s enjoyable, but also distracting.
I pause at the top to squint forward. Judging from the distance I’ve covered, the mountain’s foothills are about two hours away. There are a few groves in my path, but no thorn-creatures of any variety. On the one hand, I have nowhere to which I can escape if a giraffe or swarm of exes appears; on the other, at least I’d be able to see them coming from the tops of the hills. I contemplate carrying my shotgun at the ready, but decide to leave it hanging at my back.
I change direction slightly to investigate the nearest grove. I stop at the edge and take a few pictures. It’s about fifty feet across and roughly circular; the ground inside the tree line is bare, dark soil. The trees have no leaves; their bare branches stretch about fifty feet into the striped robin’s egg sky. Their thorns are the size of my hand and look razor-sharp. I approach one and place a hand against its bark; it’s ebony and smooth as glass.
There’s a subtle shift beneath my feet. Still contemplating the possibility that this world is currently in winter, hence the lack of leaves, I look down distractedly. The soil is moving in furrows as if disturbed by moles, or the roots—
I’m slammed forward into the tree trunk so hard, I hear a crunch in my face. Right as I manage to open my mouth in a gargling cry, piercing agony spears through my back, on the left side.
Then I’m wrenched backward, and whatever stabbed me is torn free. I stumble backward a step and then collapse on top of my backpack, blood pouring down my face.
The tree towers over me, and its branches whip through the air. My ears ring as they whirrrrrrrrr. The tip of a branch slashes by, inches from my nose, throwing drops of blood off one of its wicked thorns.
I can’t breathe; I think it’s punctured my left lung. I sneeze and feel blood spout down my wow this feels familiar.
With all my strength, I roll onto my side and crawl backward, putting precious feet between myself and the Whomping Willow. Its branches continue to swing, but slower by the minute. By the time I’m out of range and stop to rest, the grove is still.
Crazily, my brain is shrieking that such a massive stationary predator is impossible, it wouldn’t be able to hunt enough to sustain itself, and most animals would avoid it because natural selection, and and and but maybe it’s a defensive mechanism, except as far as I know the only herbivores in this world are the porcupine-horses, but there’s no way they’re actually the only herbivores on the planet, biomes don’t work that way, and—
When I wake up, the sun is at high noon and my back aches fiercely. I sit up and feel tenderly at my nose; it’s healed, but jagged and purple with bruises. There’s a big hole in the back of my jacket and the top part of my backpack, but my flesh is healed and tender.
The grove is utterly still. The tree that attacked me looks innocent — or mocking. The tan grass at my feet is decorated with a wide arc of speckled red.
Acid burns in the back of my throat. Stiffly, I shrug out of my backpack’s straps and open it. The fabric is soaked through with blood, ruining the clothes and blanket and a few pages of my memoirs, but my ammo is clean inside its case, and everything else just needs to be rinsed.
I pull out my survival kit — a water-tester, needle and thread, Swiss army knife — and most importantly, a pack of five unused lighters and a strip of bar matches.
Nearly dying again has given me an appetite. I dine on a can of ravioli and half a bottle of water. When done, I set the empty can between my legs and use the knife to pry open the lighters one-by-one, emptying their fluid into the can. When all five lighters are broken apart on the ground at my feet, the can has about a finger of butane in the bottom.
I stand up and slowly approach the tree, keeping my eyes on the branches. They don’t move at all until I’m within arm’s reach of the trunk, and even then they only sway a little, tasting the wind, and I pull back my arm—
—roar of fire behind me. Hot air licks at my back, and there’s a glow across the grass. I reach my backpack and grab it up, carry it with me a few more steps away. Then I turn.
The tree is a conflagration; it might not even have needed the butane, its flesh lights so easily. Already the flames are spreading up into the highest branches, leaping to its neighbors. Somewhere on those tall thorns, my blood starts to sizzle.
I drink it in, reveling in my revenge. And some sick part of me begs Tedrin to be watching, shuddering, praying he can reason with me even as I throw us both on the pyre—
The thought of self-immolation wrenches me back into the present. The grove is a bonfire, and its heat on my face is becoming unbearable. I back away, watching the grass at the tree line, but it doesn’t catch. Trapped in their circle of bare earth, the trees crackle and writhe. I turn my back on the tableau as satisfaction thrills up and down my throat like a purr.
Another hour of walking passes without incident. I stop to take a pebble out of my boot, and compulsively make sure my gun is fully loaded and that the safety is on. I look back once, and the grove is a mess of collapsed, blackened wood. Its smoke drifts off to the south, rising diagonally through stripes of wind.
Lonely Mountain is close, dominating the horizon. I stare at it as I walk, and more and more I’m baffled by its shape. It doesn’t fit in the landscape; it’s too tall and pointed compared to the other mountains stretching out to the north. My eyes rove across its high ridges and try to convince me I’m seeing walkways, paths, even window-holes.
For the first time, I wonder if this world might contain — or have once contained — an advanced civilization. Of course, there’s no sign that I can see, no distant cities or remains of settlement. Besides, if there were still sapient creatures running around, wouldn’t they have been the first through the portals
?
Speaking of which, I notice a sparkle at the top of a hill to the south. After a few minutes of squinting as I walk, I’m sure it’s a portal, a way home. Part of me is already tired of the nature hike and wants a shower, but I haven’t found what I came here for. I keep walking. At least the sight of another portal is reassuring; I could most likely find an escape route if I needed it.
I come up over the top of a hill and suck in a shocked breath; there’s a herd of herbivores spread out in the valley before me. I stay where I am and estimate there are about seventy of them. A few nearby cows raise their heads to watch me, but most continue grazing in the brown grass and pay me no mind.
Going around them will be a pain, especially if a bull decides to give me trouble, but it’s not like I can cut through the middle of the herd. I heave a sigh and start down the side of the hill, already adjusting course.
I hear a few of the critters lowing ominously and look up to the north, on my right. At the far end of the valley, a few stragglers are bolting toward the herd. And behind them, three— no, four giraffes and a swarm—
“Shit!” I blurt as my legs start running on their own.
At that moment, the herd bursts into chaos. I’m trying to look over their frenzied haunches and kicked-up dust to confirm what I saw, but even if I leap as I run, I can’t see.
A lamprey mouth swings out over the edge of the herd, tethered only by its spindly neck. I swear between clenched teeth and pound my feet against the ground as hard as I can, praying I can outrun just one delicious bear-hedgehog-horse. I look back over my shoulder, and there are two exes coming up behind the giraffe. If I wasn’t convinced that all involved species were dumb animals, I would swear the predators were working together.
The herd is in full stampede mode now, and to my mixed horror and fascination, the herbivores’ legs elongate as they run. Needles pour down from the main part of their bodies and lengthen their stubby legs into slender horse-haunches. Their speed increases instantly, and suddenly the herd is outrunning me. Judging from the thundering under my feet, the predators’ stabbing legs and hook-fanged maw are only a few yards behind me, and there are more around somewhere.
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