The Beachhead

by Christopher Mari

  “I’ve got that covered too. Maybe the Orangemen—whatever they are—took the survivors, all one hundred forty-four thousand of them—and put them to sleep somehow. Like flies caught in amber, only they weren’t dead, just asleep. Then, for whatever reason, after enough time had passed, they brought them back to Earth.” Sam shook his head and snorted. “Oh and left them a lot of Bibles and told them to be nice to one another for good measure.”

  “Shut up!” Kendra leapt from her crouch and began shoving Sam as hard as she could. The first shove was only a glancing blow, but the second nearly knocked him off his feet. John took hold of her and pinned her arms to her sides. “I am so sick of your self-righteous shit! You don’t know anything. You’re making all this up.”

  “I’m trying to find the truth, McQueen,” he said. “What other explanation could there be for our bronze friend here? This is Earth, period.”

  “Earth? An Earth with freaking woolly mammoths?” This was met with silence. She laughed in his face. “Oh you know so fucking much, don’t you?”

  Sam looked at her with a degree of pity. “We had thousands of years of religious nonsense and then an all-too-brief window of scientific enlightenment, and then—just because some creatures came from space to suck our planet dry like an orange—we reverted to being primitives. If this is the best the species can do, we didn’t deserve to survive.”

  Kendra shoved John away with an elbow to his gut and glared at Sam.

  John turned to Lewis after a time. “You have any idea who he was?” he asked, lifting his chin toward the large bronze head at their feet.

  Lewis looked down and studied the bust in a bewildered way for a moment before speaking. “I can’t rightly say. But there is something familiar about the face, something perhaps literary—”

  He had no chance to say more. A roar came from above them, followed by a blur as a lean, silken form pounced upon Lewis. Sam pulled his rifle from his shoulder as John drew his sidearm and Kendra the bowie knife. Prisha screamed as the saber-tooth fixed its powerful jaws around her father’s shoulder.

  Sam fired two shots in the air, hoping to scare off the enormous cat. But the beast, filled with either hunger or with bloodlust, ignored them. Kendra leapt forward and sunk the knife deep between the creature’s ribs near the lungs. The tiger’s jaws popped open, and Lewis’s head hit the ground with a sickening, hollow thud as the tiger flailed, unable to dislodge the knife sticking out of its back. Kendra and Prisha pulled the wounded man out of the way as Sam and John opened up a volley of fire. The tiger surged forward, then quaked for several seconds before hitting the ground with a last, thick bubbling breath of air.

  The two men raced to where Lewis lay near the tree line. His daughter was trying to stop the blood pouring from his neck and shoulder with the coat she had stripped off her back.

  “It’s okay, Father, no it’s okay—”

  “Forgive me.” He raised a bloody hand and cupped her cheek with it. “I’ve loved you all the best I could without your mother.”

  He coughed and began to spasm as his eyes grew wide. Sam helped to hold him down as gently as he could. Lewis looked at his old friend and smiled in that bemused way of his as he gripped his hand. “Sam, I go to God. I believe that, if nothing else.”

  And with that, Jack Lewis died on what had once been a road.

  CHAPTER 18

  It had been easy to dig a few feet into the hard clay to find the roadbed. It took quite a bit longer to pull out enough of the hard and cold root-riddled earth to lay Jack Lewis to rest in a clearing in the woods. It was growing dark and overcast by the time they were finishing up, so they lit torches before they laid his body in the grave.

  Prisha couldn’t bear to speak. Sam refused to. John looked at Kendra, who nodded encouragement at him. After a moment he began reciting from the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians:

  “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

  “Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

  “When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.

  “So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

  John picked up a clumpy handful of dirt and crumbled it over the grave. “I did not know Jack Lewis long or well. But he saved our lives. I know of no greater love than that. Good-bye, Jack.”

  Kendra sprinkled her own handful of earth. “Semper fidelis, Jack Lewis.” Then she led Prisha away from the raw gully in the ground so John and Sam could fill it back in. Once it was a smooth rectangular mound, John fashioned a cross from two sturdy branches and set it at the top, then glanced up at his father. Sam shook his head as John finished the work, then took the remaining torch into the gloomy woods to meet the others back on the road.

  The very first hints of morning were tracing reddish highlights onto the edge of the mountaintops in the east when they reached Sam’s hilltop cabin. They were cold from the steady hike uphill in the dark, silent and numb. After lighting a large fire in Sam’s hearth, Prisha and Kendra got into their bedrolls on the floor of the cabin and went to sleep. Sam went out to the porch with a blanket and a bottle. John followed him without knowing why.

  Sam settled into a chair with the blanket around his shoulders and turned his lean leathery face to the morning light. He uncorked the bottle and handed it to his son without looking at it or him.

  “One of Jack’s in-laws made this. It’s supposed to be whiskey. It tastes like shit, but it works with the full traditional effects.”

  John took a small swallow and found it not as bad as his father made it out to be. He straddled the bench across from where the older man sat so he could talk to Sam and still feel the morning sun on his face.

  “I’ve never said this about anybody.” Sam’s eyes were on the reddening peaks in the distance. “But Jack Lewis was a good man. Fair. Honest. Without judgment.”

  “He seemed that way.” John took another drink and passed the bottle back.

  Sam took a swig. “He made me feel at home here. He didn’t deserve to die like that—in front of his daughter.”

  “Would it have been better for him to die alone, with no one to bury him?”

  A long pause. “Suppose not.”

  The sun had risen into the new morning by the time they spoke again. At least a half hour had passed. The bottle continued to meet outstretched hands.

  “Dad,” John began, “why’d you stay here?”

  Sam blinked his creased eyes as if waking from a dream. “What?”

  “Why didn’t you come back?”

  Another long silence. “I had reasons.”

  “Tell me.”

  Another minute passed. “Ah—what does it matter now?”

  “Was it because of Christian?”

  He took another drink and passed the bottle back to John again. The bottle was going on three-quarters empty. It had been nearly full when they started.

  “Mom?” John took a drink. “Me?”

  Sam kept his gaze on the blue-bright horizon, a sky as clear as the previous night had been overcast. “I was crazy at first. And I didn’t know how the portals worked. I had only gotten here through them by accident. I wasn’t sure how to get back to you overland. After a while I came to think it was better to die here with people who didn’t have it in their nature to judge anyone.”
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  “So you stayed.”

  “So I stayed.” He gestured with flicking fingers for the bottle, and John handed it back to him heavily. “So I stayed among people who gave me peace and space. And then after a few years I found the road and the bronze statue and—”

  “And what?”

  Sam looked at him with dead eyes and a slack jaw. “And what? Are you kidding? And I discovered that what was left of human civilization had been built on the compost pile of the Earth. And then I had absolutely no reason to go back.”

  John ignored the edge in his father’s voice. “Why, for God’s sake?”

  Sam scratched his bearded cheek. “Why, you whiny prick? You think I wanted to go back and tell those fools that this really was the Earth and further reinforce their misbegotten belief that they were living through Revelation on a ‘new’ Earth? Please.”

  “That’s your reason?”

  “You better believe it.”

  John leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You know what I think? I think you’re a coward. You couldn’t go back among the living because you couldn’t understand why a piece of shit like you had survived when so many others hadn’t.”

  John stood and went into the cabin. He sat by the fire for a time, then stripped off his outer clothes and crawled into his bedroll next to Kendra. She was awake, an arm tucked under her ear.

  “Hiya,” she mouthed in the firelight.

  “Hi.” He smoothed her dark hair behind her pale ear, loving the simplicity of that contrast.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So um,” she began, “what do we do now?”

  “Now we go home.” He kissed her and rubbed his lips against hers. “Go home and make our report.”

  They slept nearly all of the next day and awoke again at dawn. Prisha had gotten up earlier to tend to the horses and repack the wagon. Kendra and John wouldn’t be going back with her—not to her family’s home, not through the miles of wilderness they had crossed since leaving New Philadelphia. They were instead going to take their chances with Sam through the portal. That being the plan, no one had expected Prisha to stay for breakfast. When they found her sitting there, they wanted to say something, anything. Yet nothing came to them, apart from telling her to help herself to some of the bread and the scrambled eggs. They ate in silence. John wanted to ask if either of them knew where his father had gone but thought better of it. If Prisha had sent him on some errand and was waiting for him to come back, it was none of his business.

  Prisha ripped off and ate plump handfuls of bread while staring into the fire. Her face was still and quiet; under other circumstances someone would’ve called her serene. Kendra and John looked for things to do. Dishes were washed, fires were stoked, bedrolls were tied up, and bags were packed. John even stowed her father’s gear. When Prisha finally saw it piled on a chair by the front door, she dropped the fat hunk of bread from her fingers, took possession of the items, and left the cabin through its front door. She passed Sam on his way in. He removed his wide-brimmed hat as she passed.

  “Johnny. McQueen.” He glanced at the grate over the fire. “Any coffee left?”

  He lifted the pot from the grate, shook it, and tapped the side with his fingertips to see if it was still hot. Satisfied, he took a mug from his cupboard and poured out the bitter dregs. He slurped it with satisfaction for a time before looking at them.

  “It’s time for you two to go.”

  “What about Prisha?” Kendra asked. “She can’t be alone.”

  “I hiked out to see our local tracker, told her what happened to Jack. The tracker’s good. She’ll find Prisha’s husband and bring him home to her.”

  A small breeze picked up. The door had opened in silence. Prisha had come back from outside. “Are you going to the portal now?”

  Sam looked at her over his mug. “I was planning on it, Prish.”

  “I’d like to come with you. I’ll be with the horses until then.”

  She turned and walked out, leaving Sam’s gaze on his now-closed front door.

  The mile-long hike felt to Kendra like a short and brisk morning stroll. The clear sky made the day feel warmer than it usually was at this time of year. When they reached the site, they flung off their packs and drank deeply from their canteens. The portal looked as inert as when they had first seen it. Nothing seemed disturbed since they had last been there, apart from the digging they themselves had done freeing it from the tangled overgrowth. Sam ran his hand along its orange-tinged metallic edge almost as if he were feeling around for some kind of on switch.

  The truth was not far from the first impression. Each touch was purposeful and specific. Each seemed as if Sam were turning on a device or mechanism—not asking the divine permission for passage. This was something far subtler than the parting of the Red Sea. The idea ran through Kendra’s mind and disturbed her. She blocked it out and concentrated on getting through the next few minutes.

  Sam stepped back from the portal. The void in the center of the orange frame changed from black to an almost-milky white. Almost was the only accurate way to describe it. Milk had substance, and that substance affected its color. This was still a place without substance, only now it was nearly white.

  Sam turned to them, as if he sensed their questions. “It has some kind of memory, made through physical contact. If you touch it with the place you want to go in mind, it sort of ‘routes’ you there. It’s ready for us now.”

  “So what was it before?” John wondered. “When it was black?”

  He scratched his neck. “Not ready for us.”

  Kendra smirked. “Try again, chief.”

  “Still a portal. But a portal to no place in particular.” Sam turned back to it. “I’ve always wondered if it was black when I fell through that first one. Did it somehow sense where I needed to go and sent me here? Other times I think the black just goes to another dimension entirely—someplace living men aren’t allowed to go.”

  “Like heaven,” Kendra suggested with a cockeyed grin.

  “Or hell,” Sam answered without one. “Me, I don’t care to find out either way. You ready? Best way is for me to hold your hands and take you through.”

  “Sam.”

  “Prish?”

  She stepped forward. “I’d like a word before you go.”

  “Prisha.” Kendra saw her face and couldn’t say anything more.

  “You changed all of our lives by coming here,” Prisha said, not really looking at either of them but at a point just over their shoulders. “I don’t mean because your being here got my father killed. I blame you for that, and I don’t blame you. I am sickened by the sight of you and understand it wasn’t really your fault. I never want to see you again and yet hope there’s an afterlife where we will meet and all of this pain will then make sense. It’s as John said when we buried Father: we understand things only partially. Yet somehow knowing so little makes everything seem so clear to me. And that’s why I know that I’m right in telling you that what you learned here will change your society irrevocably. So I must ask you this: Does truth trump peace? Think about that before you carelessly destroy your people’s world.”

  And with that she walked down the hill, the tips of her long black hair flapping in the breeze. They watched her until she disappeared from view.

  “Well,” Sam said, head down, kicking at a loose stone. “Guess we should get going.”

  “You said you needed to guide us through.” John jerked a thumb at the portal. “How can you know how to bring us through there?”

  “It’s hard to explain, so there’s not much point in explaining it.”

  John started to speak, then let his father continue.

  “Let’s just say that this thing . . . recognizes me on account of my having traveled through it, so—”

  “When you say you traveled through it,” Kendra said, “where exactly have you been?”

  Sam looked at her for a long while before answering. �
�All over this planet, looking for things. Why, I don’t know. Maybe more proof that we’re on Earth. Maybe just to find other people. I dunno.”

  John shook his head, eyebrows raised. “You’ve been all over this planet?”

  “Yup. They’ve got these things everywhere.”

  “And the one you mentioned before?” Kendra demanded. “Is it very near the city?”

  Sam gave her a grin. “There’s several near your city, McQueen. All in the hills and mountains nearby.”

  “And you’ve been to them?” John asked. “You’ve been to the city?”

  Sam opened his mouth and closed it, fishlike. “It’s time to get you home.”

  John sent a right hook into his jaw, knocking him down before Kendra could react. She bent to help Sam to his feet, then stopped. She stepped back from both of them.

  Father looked at son with a mocking stare. “We even now?”

  John clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. The adrenaline was shaking through him. “How can we be?”

  Sam got on his knees and pulled himself upright without assistance. “Suppose you’re right. Now both of you grab your gear and hold on to my wrists as we walk through.”

  They were blank. They were white. Their world was colorless and endless and without form, and each of them felt it had always been like this and at the same time somehow they knew and believed that they had lived lives somewhere else at some other point but couldn’t remember them apart from an odd nagging feeling that this was not all that there was to existence. They weren’t moving or floating or going anywhere. If time was passing, they didn’t know it. If they had bodies, they didn’t know them. If they were individuals, they did not care. For all they knew, they were in utero—but they were still human enough to realize in that animal part of themselves that no mother’s womb had ever been white and bright, nor had it ever been cold and barren. Human love was felt, even in the womb.

  But here there was no love, no warmth.

  No womb.

  And then—a moment later or a lifetime—they found themselves tumbling out onto a drenched field on a mountaintop in the pouring rain. The rain came down angled and hard from stone-gray skies. As thunder flashed around them, the freezing rain matted their hair and seeped through their clothes. The biting cold told them it was winter and that they were still alive.