Keepers of the Flame

by McFadden III, Edward J.

  “When our grandparents came to Respite not everyone thought it was the right thing to do. My mom told me about the fights her parents had. How helpless they felt,” Randy said. He ducked below a huge green leaf and lifted it for Hazel as she passed.

  “It couldn’t have been an easy thing,” Hazel said. “I remember questioning it all when I was younger.”

  “I still question a lot of it,” Randy said.

  Stone steps appeared, the jungle fell away, and Spyglass Station loomed in the darkness. “Let’s cut down the back way to the beach,” Randy said. “I don’t want anyone to see us.”

  Waves crashed on shore as they broke free of the jungle. A thin line of white sand stretched in both directions, and the torchlights of Citi glowed on the mountainside. Starlight lit the beach, everything dappled in silver.

  Hazel stayed quiet. She looked out on the ocean, the wind tossing her long blonde hair. Laughter floated to them from Citi, the old cement walls of the ancient resort echoing the crowd at Old Days pub.

  A loud snort of laughter rose above the rest, and Randy said, “And that would be Leonard.”

  “My mother still questions whether alcohol should be allowed on Respite.”

  “Let her question. Why would you want to take away our escape?” Randy said. He winced. She’d led him into this trap before.

  “And what is it you need to escape from?” Hazel asked.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No I don’t.”

  A lizard bleeped, and insects hummed.

  “What are we, Randy? You and me?” Hazel said.

  Randy sucked his lips. There it was. The purpose of the verbal sparring revealed. This kind of conversation never ended well for him. “I know we’re not enemies. I know we’re both stubborn as tree roots. What are we? I don’t know. I think I know what I want us to be, but after everything that’s happened, and the way our lives are hammered together, I’m not sure. You have to admit we haven’t exactly been lucky.”

  That got a smile. “Well, you could say we’re the luckiest humans ever.”

  “I suppose you could,” Randy said.

  Waves crashed, and white foam raced toward them and was sucked back into the dark water. Moonlight lit Hazel’s freckled face. She looked a little like a rabbit, but she was no male. Randy’d known from the first moment he met her that his attraction to her would provide her a permanent advantage in the never-ending negotiation of their relationship.

  “Your grandmother goes back to port as planned and you and I wouldn’t exist. Even if everyone on the ship was somehow spared, they wouldn’t have stayed together,” Hazel said.

  “Sounds like bezoomny religious talk to me,” Randy said.

  “Why? That there might be a plan and everything happens for a reason? That makes it religious?” Hazel said.

  “In a way. If some god planned what happened to the gone world, I say piss on him. We know what happened to bring us here, but we didn’t live it. We didn’t have to fight to survive and watch the world die. People who call themselves friends on Respite wouldn’t have even known each other in the old world,” Randy said.

  “So many things had changed for them. People who didn’t know each other were forced to be family,” Hazel said.

  “Just like a real family,” Randy said.

  “You don’t get to choose your family,” Hazel said.

  They sat in silence for a long time as the moon glared down like an accusing eye. They’d talked of these things before, but Randy felt things were different this time, though he didn’t know why.

  Hazel motioned toward the forest. “I remember what it was like after the storm. I still have nightmares.”

  The island had settled in for the night. Sounds of merriment no longer floated down from Citi, and most of the town’s torches had been extinguished. A bird chirped, and insects buzzed and tittered as a steady wind blew down the beach off the ocean.

  “One hundred and eighty-nine people made it through The Day,” Randy said. “And our grandparents and my mother Milly were among them.”

  “Your grandmother certainly took care of some people,” Hazel said.

  He’d loved Hazel from the moment he saw her, but he had no illusions. Her grandfather was Ben Hasten, and their families were so twisted together they couldn’t be separated without breaking someone. “Well, what we believed isn’t exactly true.”

  “So said your mother, who was a young child at the time,” Hazel said. “Like you also said, we didn’t live it.”

  “But can we get past it?”

  “The past and our families aren’t the only things in our way,” Hazel said.

  “Sure doesn’t help.”

  “What happened, happened. Can’t change that,” Hazel said. “I’m not sure I’d even want to.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. Your folks aren’t exactly innocent,” Randy said. He knew he shouldn’t have said that. It would make her angry. It was much easier for her to see his grandmother and mother as villains, people who’d wronged her and those she loved.

  “Your family rules the roost around here, what are you bitching about?”

  “Not bitching, but your father, Sir Peter Hasten, didn’t tell the truth. As long as grandpa Gary lived, Ben controlled my grandmother because of their affair, and that let him unjustly influence things,” Randy said. It was all out there now, but she didn’t react with fury as he’d expected.

  “I think about that sometimes. About how I have that running in my veins. The blood of a man who mentally tortured a woman he said he cared for,” Hazel said.

  “But everyone got on,” Randy said. “Milly married Curso and they stayed together for me.”

  “Ditto for the Hasten family,” she said. “Then, of all the islands in all the oceans your mom draws fire duty with my dad.”

  “The odds were pretty good,” Randy said. The irony wasn’t lost on either of them and they laughed. For an instant it was just the two of them, and their past and Respite’s history didn’t threaten to drag them down. “We should get back.”

  They worked their way back across the island, the night quiet and serene until Randy’s scream broke the calm. “Damn it!”

  “What?”

  “Raked my hand against a pricker vine,” he said. Blood dripped from his index finger, and a deep gash ran across his thumb.

  “Sit,” Hazel said. She wiped the wound with a rag that hung from her waist and poured water on it from her coconut canteen.

  “Ouch, easy,” Randy said.

  “Don’t be such an infant,” Hazel said. “You all right now?” She’d finished cleaning him up. “Hold a leaf on your thumb. We’ll head to the Womb and bandage you up.”

  They continued on through the tree ferns back to the Fire Wood, its stink rising above the salt air. “Must have been awkward after the sea receded on The Day and my grandfather was standing there,” Hazel said.

  Randy laughed. “That’s one way to put it. My grandmother was excited to see him alive. Remember, she cared for him. Then the guilt flooded through her, the shame, all the things that drove them apart,” Randy said. They reached the cupola at the center of the Fire Wood. “She described his face and the hatred she’d seen there. She knew right away he blamed her, but she feared for her husband and would do anything to spare him, and their marriage. They had to find a way to get along. Respite is a small place.”

  “But she treated him like shit,” Hazel said.

  “If Ben believed my grandmother wronged him, why didn’t he raise a ruckus? Publicly call her out,” Randy said.

  “He loved her, Randy, and he knew your grandmother didn’t want your grandpa Gary to find out about what she’d done, and if he revealed their secret, your grandmother would never speak to him again.”

  “So they just screwed and forgot about it?” Randy said.

  Hazel sighed. “Pretty much. It was easy to find time to be together. The motivation was raw and ugly.”

  The weight of i
rony again cast its shadowed gaze across Randy. “My grandmother was saving her marriage and protecting her husband from humiliation,” he said.

  “That’s it?”

  “I think she loved Ben in some strange way,” Randy said. “Question is, what was your grandfather getting out of it?”

  “Sex. Revenge for what he thought she’d done to him. Control over her, and the fear that made her feel and the power it gave him. Maybe he cared for her,” Hazel said. “Like I said, ugly and raw.”

  “Sex and anger do have a way of getting intertwined in strange ways,” Randy said. He looked at the forest floor.

  “Who are we talking about now? Your grandfather, your father, or yourself?” Hazel said.

  “All three.”

  The small work fire smoldered, and tiny flames fought to stay alive above the cinders. Hazel went to the wood pile and handed Randy two logs that he placed on the fire. The noni wood caught like dried beach grass, and the flames roared.

  “Let me push the wood cart up to the Womb, and we’ll bandage your hand,” Hazel said.

  They walked the rest of the way to the Womb and unloaded the wood as Fire Master Aragron watched. He looked preoccupied and didn’t ask them to do anything. When the Perpetual Flame was blazing, and the wood pile stacked, Aragorn nodded and Randy and Hazel made their way to the Hampton Infirmary. As they entered, Hazel lit two torches, and shadows danced in the recesses of the rough stone walls.

  Cots made of dried vines sat along one wall, and water dripped into a stone pool in the corner, the plop and splash of each drop echoing through the cave. A table made from old world metal salvaged from the cruise ship sat in the center of the space, and beneath it a bamboo grate covered the hole that led to the tunnels below the Perpetual Flame. Bottles containing liquids and herbs filled the pocks and natural shelves in the cave walls. Doc Hampton’s anatomy and remedies books rested on the tabletop, as did the stethoscope and other instruments he’d brought.

  “Sit here,” Hazel said, motioning toward a cut piece of lumber that served as a stool. She went about cleaning and bandaging Randy’s wound.

  “I always feel a little weird in here,” Randy said. Their shadows danced and writhed on the cave walls.

  She gave him her you’re strange look. “Why, because you were born here?”

  “That and I almost died here,” Randy said. “I remember laying on that cot right there, so afraid I would never see…”

  “What?”

  “I was scared I’d never see you again,” Randy said. “Damn tree left this to remind me.” Randy lifted his shirt revealing a long scar that ran horizontally across his abdomen.

  “Yes, the legendary tree incident,” Hazel said, ignoring his reference to her. “The entire island came running.” He heard the sarcasm in her voice loud and clear, and she looked away. “My parents were both born here and so was your dad, but not everyone on Respite is equal.”

  “Shit don’t mean shit,” Randy said.

  “But that’s not true, and the character that said that knew it better than most, though he wouldn’t admit it to himself. Sounds like someone I know.”

  Randy sighed and got up. “Can you imagine what it must have been like the first night? They had no light and Doc Hampton stitched people up by moonlight. They had nothing.”

  “Sarah and Gary had your mother Milly to take care of. Ben met Sylvia, and they had my father, Peter. They carried on for us. Built all this for us so we might live normal lives, whatever that means. Come on, let me show you something you’ve probably never noticed before.” She led him to the Foundation, where “So we may remember the world that is gone, understand our purpose, and the world that may be again” was chiseled above the cave mouth.

  Coconut oil candles lit the Foundation, though they weren’t used often because they were difficult to make. Nightly readings were held in the Womb where the Perpetual Flame drove away all darkness. Hazel led him past the murals that depicted the early days of Respite; a painting of the Oceanic Eco upside-down on the beach next to a list of names, passages of verse written by survivors, and testimonials of Respite’s earliest days. There were artifacts from the lost world, like a cell phone, a battery, a watch, and other items that had no practical use any longer.

  When they entered the book chamber, Hazel stopped.

  A box made of glass, a substance so rare the case before them was the only unbroken example Randy and Hazel had ever seen, contained the nineteen sacred texts. The Lord of the Rings, Robinson Cursoe, Watership Down, Foundation, Divergent, and fourteen others represented the gone world, their culture, and all their race had achieved distilled into this small library. It was how they taught their children and how they entertained themselves.

  “You ever wondered what things would have been like if your dad and my mom just did their duty?” Randy said.

  “Being a keeper of the flame is a great responsibility, at least it used to be,” Hazel said.

  “Why do you talk like that?”

  “Because I can’t forget what’s changed. Do you believe your mother or my father gave a shit when they sailed off to Neverland? You think they cared about what we thought? Are they searching for a better life for us? Or for themselves? Look,” Hazel said.

  Behind the glass box holding the books, a mural depicting a tiny green island sticking from a churning sea covered the wall. Dark clouds covered the sky, and black lines of rain fell. Hazel said, “I remembered it a few months ago when I was cleaning.”

  She pointed at the drawing of a small enclosed boat sailing toward the mural’s expansive horizon. The boat rode the face of a wave, half hidden in its curl.

  “I remember,” Randy said. “Things were good for a time, weren’t they?”

  “Then our parents went and mucked everything up,” Hazel said.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Year 2075 - Alabama

  The sound of rushing water filled the woods and dappled sunlight pierced the dense tree canopy. Thick honey locust trees with large black spikes all along their limbs and trunks made cutting through the forest treacherous. Milly had never seen anything like it. It looked as though huge black sea urchins grew from every bough and trunk. Small oval leaves fanned off thin branches and swayed in the gentle breeze. The deer trail they followed turned steeply downward as the land fell away to a river.

  Milly and company followed the remnants of interstate sixty-five north toward Talladega and Mount Cheaha. It was slow going, and it took over a month to escape the thick vegetation and swamp infested lowlands of Mississippi and enter the tangled, subtropical forests of Alabama. Many of the old bridges were impassable, and the company was forced to travel miles off their path. Axe’s map was significantly better than the one they had prior, and it helped them find new crossing points and stay clear of the remnants of towns and cities.

  It was hot, the air thick with humidity, and perspiration soaked Milly through. Even though they’d escaped weeks ago the effects of her captivity still wore on her. Her ribs had mostly healed, but her nose was infected. Tester flayed open the wound and cut off some infected skin, which left Milly with a small chunk of flesh missing from her left nostril. Her arm still hung in a sling, but in a week it would be fully healed. Tester and Tye’s military training saved her again.

  “Oy,” Tye yelled from on point. Pepper and Helga were with him. Turnip trailed behind watching their backs and wouldn’t be seen again until they made camp.

  Tye stood before a giant rendition of the turtle painted on a crumbling retaining wall. Weeds and patches of dirt pocked the escarpment except where the turtle was drawn, its neck outstretched and pointing northeast.

  “Pointing right at the mountain I’d wager,” Tester said.

  Signs of the turtle appeared regularly; etched into crumbled road, painted on dilapidated structures and metal utility poles, and carved into tree trunks. “Why are the symbols leading us to the guidestone? What of the path of understanding?” Robin said.

  �
��Knowing the location of the guidestone is a trivial piece of information. How to use it and when, now that’s why you walk the path,” Tester said.

  “Or you could do what you did. Use other people’s hard work,” Milly said.

  “You didn’t seem to have a problem cutting corners and using the information,” Ingo said.

  She didn’t know what that meant, but she knew it couldn’t be good. “I didn’t cut anything.”

  “No,” Tye said. “It means when you take a shortcut.”

  “Did we seek you out?” Milly said. She stepped in front of Tester and squared off.

  He laughed and pushed past her.

  Larry banked over the trees, his shrill cry drawing everyone’s gaze upward. Pepper barked, and the white crow cut through the forest like an arrow and crash-landed at Milly’s feet. The one-eyed bird shook off dirt and cawed.

  “Take cover,” Tye said. The party scattered off of the path and hid in the underbrush. They’d had no confrontations since leaving the armory mainly due to Larry. With the help of Pepper and Turnip, Larry scouted the terrain around them and warned them of potential dangers. This reconnaissance coupled with staying away from towns and villages and only traveling by day, helped them avoid unwanted attention. There didn’t seem to be many virals out in the thick forests, and it had been two weeks since they’d seen one or another person.

  A line of people passed, and Milly peered through the bushes and recoiled, her eyes growing wide as Helga growled. “Sssh,” Milly said.

  The people were clean and wore bright colored clothes and sported red hats with tall peaks. They carried bows and long knives, but she saw no guns. When she turned to Tye, he was already shaking his head no. She wanted to meet these people, get news, find out what was going on in the gone world, but she understood Tye’s reluctance. Things were hard and people didn’t take kindly to strangers.