An End

by Paul Hughes

  “What?”

  “I contain multitudes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Perpetual autumn. It’s coming. A world of gray, silence, nothing. I can hear it.”

  “Jean—”

  “She’s down there right now, planning it all. Planning the extinction. She’ll need both of us for this to work.”

  “Who?”

  “She’ll need me for the arrival, and you for the discovery. The pursuit.”

  “Jean, who?”

  “Notre Mère, mon amie. Elle est prête pour le divinity.”

  “Oui, commandant.”

  Reynald looked up at the young man who was not his son, but who was the closest thing he had ever had to family. He tenderly reached out and took Windham’s left hand, regarding the silver ring.

  “Your Helen?”

  “My Helen.”

  Reynald smiled, patted Windham’s hand and let go.

  “Get out of here. Go home, son.”

  “Jean, I—”

  “Vont, mon fils.”

  “I’ll be back. As soon as I can.”

  Reynald smiled.

  Gray streets. Windham pulled the collar of his overcoat up, protecting his neck from the bitter lick of the wind. His heart was beating in his throat, not from the pace of the walk, but from that distant look in Jean’s eyes... Reynald was looking beyond this world, seeing a time and place that Windham couldn’t begin to comprehend. He was seeing a world through eyes that became more clouded with the silver each time that Windham visited. The old man would be possessed entirely, soon. What then? What information could the creature at the center of the planet reap from his soul upon his total dissolution that she had not yet been able to take already?

  Dead leaves on weathered sidewalks, scritching and scratching wing-man trajectories on either side of Windham’s feet, some crushed underfoot, some leaping into the air on a sudden gust, that last gasp of flight, that final yearning for transcendence.

  It was a long walk from the veteran’s complex to the Windhams’ humble apartment. The wind was biting, bringing tears to eyes, or perhaps simply enabling tears to eyes, begging the knees to buckle, the strong legs to give out, the weary soldier to crumple to park bench as he tried not to sob for his father-figure, old and wasting and silver.

  Windham wiped a tear from his left eye, the cold silver of his ring playfully touching the tip of his nose in the process. He regarded his hand, with its lace of scar, nails once bitten to the quick by adolescent nervousness, white line across the palm where hand-to-hand combat had suddenly and painfully involved a blade of polymer and a hand of flesh, a simple silver ring that symbolized his love for a simple, book-loving girl named Helen, whose nose he loved to kiss, a simple, childish gesture that made her smile, and in the silence of so many nights, that smile was conveyed more through the liquid opening of her lips heard in the black than the actual viewing of the adorable act. He kissed the tip of her nose and knew that she smiled.

  He took the ring off his finger, looked at it closely, so happy that he had finally found the one. Or perhaps she had found him... Silver on silver.

  Leaves clawing a path around the park bench, that shivering noise of dry and decaying organic scraping along concrete. A black car came down the street, pulling into the entrance of the complex on the other side of the road, waiting for the palpable departure of wrought-iron gate and the ineffable snap of the phase shield before passing through the fence. Windham did not know whose house that was, but they were obviously of some importance if phase tech was being wasted on their protection.

  Three identical women came out of the front door of the complex. One opened the car’s back passenger door and bowed subserviently to the salt-and-pepper man who got out. Windham knew that the identical women had to be angels, and the man from the car must be a member of the creature’s newly-created government. Windham squinted and saw the man hand one of the angels a metallic cylinder.

  “Move along.”

  Windham jumped up at the voice, and spun around to see a fourth woman, identical to the three inside of the complex, standing behind the park bench.

  “I’m sorry. I—”

  “Your time to serve her will come, Joseph Windham.” The angel’s eyes tore into his mind, a slow-burning tug. He stumbled back a few steps, dropping his silver ring to the ground, where it started to roll away.

  The angel reached out and the ring gently lifted from the ground into its hand. It walked over to the silent Windham and placed the ring in his hand.

  “Move along, Joseph Windham. Go home to your young bride. We will come for you when it is time.”

  He turned away from the angel and walked away, but felt her gaze on his back.

  “Mother?”

  [what is it?]

  “He knows... Or at least suspects.”

  [then perhaps it is time for an immaculate conception. it begins.]

  Nan turned away from Windham, who had just turned the corner and continued walking down the sidewalk. This man would be a focal point of history, and he couldn’t even hold on to his engagement ring tightly. Nan smiled to herself.

  it begins.

  “What?”

  “How does it begin?”

  He laughed in the firelight of Room 4, still stroking Hope’s hair, still snuggling, although there had been no sex, two soulmates brought together by technology and hating every minute of it, now sharing a moment of tender quiet in the plush fireplace bedroom of the university’s alumni house.

  “How does what begin?”

  “The new book. ‘The Stillness Between.’”

  He stroked her hair. “Well, it starts with a sad little girl who loves chocolate milk.”

  She laughed. “Oh yeah? And how does it end?”

  Paul stopped stroking Hope’s hair. she turned and looked into his eyes, which reflected the fire beside the bed.

  “Paul?”

  “It doesn’t end. It’ll never end.”

  “Won’t you run out of paper?”

  A pause, not a pregnant pause, impossibility of pregnant pause because they were just friends, but there it was, pregnant pause, and they both broke out laughing in the firelight. Laughter ebbed, silence again held sway, save crack of knot in firewood.

  Her gaze was tangible as it swept through oranged visibility. He felt but did not look, could not look, wanted to look. That sound of mouth opening, liquid sound of mouth opening, and he looked, saw that smile.

  In the silence of so many nights, that smile was conveyed more through the liquid opening of her lips heard in the black than the actual viewing of the adorable act.

  I will use that line someday. I will remember this night.

  “Thinking too much?”

  “Maybe.”

  “About what?”

  A blush concealed by night. “The new book.”

  “What’s the little girl’s name?”

  “Who?”

  “The chocolate milk girl. What’s her name?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  Hope sat up in bed, playfully shook his shoulders as she leaned over him. “You know, you bastard.” Hair swaying back, hair swaying forth. She took left hand and smoothed hair behind her ear in reflex gesture. “What is it?”

  “Hope.”

  She laughed, snuggled back down beside him. “My mother loves that name.”

  “She has good taste.”

  “I like the name Arianna. Ariel. Erica. Something like that.”

  something like that

  Such stillness in that room... The stillness between them. Sound muted, vision obscured, the only sensation the warmth of her body snuggled down next to him on a bed that was probably more expensive than his car had been, the faint smell of herbal shampoo, peaches? smell of peaches from smooth skin, no guarantee of smooth skin yet but an overwhelming suspicion indeed. Peaches.

  the stillness between

  Hope turned toward him, eyes blinked, faint wetness flickered fr
om iris as if those eyes were made of the fire, of the silver. Glint of silver in a room shimmering crimson.

  He closed his eyes, placed his hands on either side of her face, verifying the smoothness of skin with rough and scarred hands, bridging the terror of the distance. Not a kiss, not yet... A kiss would ruin something so beautiful. A kiss would break a heart, break a possibility. No kiss. Stillness. Forehead to forehead, cheek to cheek, tip of nose to tip of nose. Stillness.

  “Hope...” A whisper into the between.

  That smile, that liquid signal of parted lips, that distance between shattered. Fighting no longer. it’s late night and you’re driving me

  crazy.

  what if you find—

  Reynald?

  Eyes open to white ceiling, nurses, soldiers. Early morning contrast in sterile room. Arms restrained. Chest restrained. Legs

  “Reynald?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve been requested.”

  Nurse unfastening restraints, not meeting resistance. Reynald was too tired to resist, too horrified of his near future. Nurses lifted him out of bed, placed him on stretcher.

  An angel walked into the room, stood over the old man.

  “This is your Reynald?”

  “He’s your Reynald now.”

  The angel leaned down, pulled Reynald’s eyelids apart.

  “Silver progress on target. Time to descend.”

  Jean Reynald lay motionless, unblinking.

  time to descend

  descending, floating free, ejected from the vessel, crushed and liquid, phased into

  genetic material, trace of humanity in that void, in the only void, blood crystallized and shattering and

  broken globe falling, enemy force barely pausing to investigate contents before striking out at the Teller, chasing it to

  scrape

  Windham’s blood, his flesh, unrecognizable, detectable only as human pattern, ice and black, dissolution

  into the night

  into the

  fighting starlight

  fighting

  against the urge to pick up a piece of that sharp gravel, dig it into her wrists, tear it upward to her elbows, as she would have years ago, a confused, lonely young girl with glasses and frizzy hair.

  The weapon had fully retracted into the ocean, but apparently the threat had not been eliminated. Warships tore through the sky, dainty little blackbirds, single-pilot slithers, great awkward lifting-bodies of the destroyers. Something was coming. Somethings were coming.

  Helen looked at Hunter, who calmly stared into the sky. No tears.

  “Mommy, we need to go.”

  Helen nodded.

  Hunter took his mother’s hand as she stood up. She picked him up, pausing for a brief moment to squeeze him in a weak embrace, frail form embracing frail form.

  “You know where we have to go.”

  “Hunter, I—”

  He looked directly into her eyes, silver eyes of the catalyzed woman, windows into the soul of a race robbed of the ability to create daughters. And now, Helen’s only son had to leave.

  “Don’t cry, Mommy.”

  She nodded, feigned a smile. Holding Hunter tightly, she walked over gravel that lacerated more than her feet. The sky was becoming fire.

  No stars in that expanse, but pinpoints of light nonetheless as the combat began over the planet. The fighting

  starlight always has this effect on me.”

  “Yeah.”

  Complete understanding conveyed in that one word. That was just the kind of relationship they had, the kind of finishing each other’s sentences relationship that was not a relationship but it was, and it was something, for sure, especially under starlight, fighting starlight, trying to make sense of the indescribable nothing, the enormity of their unimportance.

  The sun threatened to taint the horizon with pink, but for now, the ether was black with the white pinpoints of other systems, other stars, other planets. The moon was hiding.

  “Do you believe?”

  “In what?”

  “Other worlds, aliens?”

  “No.”

  Hope regarded him with some disbelief. “You’re a science fiction author who doesn’t believe in aliens?”

  “Nope.”

  “What do you believe in, then?”

  He grinned. “I, dear Ms. Benton, believe I need more wine.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. Resonances. Past lives. We diverge and converge and find them again, like I found you.”

  She exhaled, breath visible in the cold night air. Paul put his arms around her, looked up at the multitudes.

  “We’re out there, somewhere. People just like us. No little green men, no flying saucers. Just us.”

  He bent down, touched forehead to forehead. A dream.

  “Somewhere out there, fighting the starlight... That’s what I believe. Just people like us, thinking too much, trying to figure out why we float through the night. Trying to find that sunrise.”

  A perfect silence, in those moments before dawn. Two people, under stars.

  Two people, under the stairs, or at least what he thought were stairs, or people. Not stairs... And not people, either. Disorienting motion down dimly-lit hallways, sound of airlocks cycling open before and closed behind the stretcher.

  Eyes attempt to focus, but are unable. Choked with silver, swimming with that vision of futures eons dead, the vision of the young woman with the gentle voice and the bitter eyes.

  Static snap of phase shielding deactivating. Air cool, faint breeze from within the

  Detach. Floating free. A stretcher surrounded by angels, falling into the earth, falling down a silver tube. Their faces above him, gentle faces above him, walls of the Seattle Gate sliding away at impossible speeds. The angels remained unruffled, their dun robes hanging languidly in a gravity projected by silver. Reynald’s remaining hair whipped around his face, and he although he could feel that his mouth was open, he was not sure if there was a scream emanating or not.

  The angel who could have been Nan leaned over Reynald, peered into his eyes. He was unresponsive, yet still alive. Respiratory rate was nearly undetectable. Eyes were unblinking, unmoving, locked in some dream that Maire would hopefully be able to unravel.

  sand

  falling to knees

  shadow of that shard, that accusatory claw sticking into the sky, the symbol of her end

  his fist outstretched, clenched in a rage beyond expression, body shaking

  maggie don’t—

  —leave me, Hunter. I can’t do this without you.”

  The sky was a torrent of sound: the city alert, the static scream of phase engines as the defense forces flew from the atmosphere to engage the incoming enemy fleet, the human tumult of hundreds of mothers who had brought their sons to the evacuation point outside of the city’s Complex.

  Hunter watched the sky, holding that tattered bear, hands clutching velveteen. A child within the beginning of the war that had killed his father and would eventually kill him.

  Helen wanted to break, felt herself breaking, knew her heart would soon tear itself apart in fear and in the depth of her loss.

  Angels were swarming, emotionlessly tearing children

  sons

  from the arms of their mothers. A great crack like thunder filled the sky above the complex as the wreckage of a slither lost phase containment and erased a sizeable amount of the lower atmosphere from existence. Flaming shards of black metallish rained down upon the crowd gathered before the complex gate, and many families were spared the pain of separation by the certainty of an end.

  Helen threw herself over Hunter, who cried out as the full weight of his mother slammed him to the ground. Helen was a small woman, but Hunter was a smaller boy. He heard the angels shouting in that voice that lingered between the ears and tickled behind the eyes hurry, hurry, little soldiers and he wanted to answer, he wanted to obey, but Mommy wasn’t getting up,
and Mommy was pinning him to the ground.

  Hunter panicked.

  Helen was coughing, it sounded like coughing, it had to be coughing, not gasping, anything but gasping. He wriggled from underneath his mother as another wave of phased flak struck the city. He pushed his mother onto her back, and it was only then that he saw the perfectly-cauterized hole in her chest, stretching all the way to the sidewalk underneath.

  “Mommy?”

  Two tears slid from Helen’s silver eyes, and she tried to smile, tried to reassure her son that things would be all right, but the air was gone, and no matter how hard she tried to inhale, to catch her breath, to form a word with lips slick with something, something copper, something silver, every time she tried to speak, she drowned a little more.

  “Mommy!”

  The angel picked him up from behind, held him tightly as the little boy struggled against her holometallic grasp. The angel embraced him with that screen door sensation that was not and never could be human, walked away from the fading body of Helen Windham, whose arm reached out to touch her son, hand outstretched, fingers yearning for the touch of all she had left in this world. The angel walked away without a glance back, but Hunter fought, screaming, sobbing, watching his mother’s arm fall to the ground, seeing her body go limp, feeling that silver return to the eternal silence.

  Helen felt her arm hit the ground, felt her heart stop, felt blood flood into the remains of her lungs, her muscles relax, her bladder release. Her eyes dried, and she tried to blink, but control had gone, and her body was no longer hers. She could see them, the men of the war, fighting the invaders in the sky above Maire’s City. How many had fought with her husband? How many had seen the worlds of the void set to the flame of the Jihad?

  She felt the touch of their minds as the silver began to dissemble, heard the screams of the young men of the war as their vessels shattered.

  Is this what you want?

  Flickering of static within synapse

  Helen’s head lolled to the side, and she saw Honeybear Brown in the dust beside her, silently staring back with his one eye. A plume of smoke drifted from his hide, where a microscopic sliver of slither had mortally wounded the toy. Another cloud of piercing shrapnel fell on the city. One shard struck close enough to Helen to crater the pavement, scattering dust all around, clouding her unresponsive eyes, stealing her vision, stippling her flesh with bloody craters of its own.