Metro

by Stephen Romano

  Better than smart-ass bitches like Jollie Meeker.

  He laughs at her, so far beneath him now—just like she always was.

  You won’t kill me, Jollie. You’re not like us. You couldn’t even kill Darian Stanwell when all our lives depended on it. Fuck you, fat girl.

  He turns to follow his people, and she shoots him in the back of his head.

  2 minutes and COUNTING . . .

  The gunshot is the last thing Mark Jones hears in this life.

  He hears it just before he spirals down for the final time.

  He doesn’t know that the powder burn across his face would have scorched his eyes and blinded him forever. He doesn’t see the man who was his best friend for so many years die. He doesn’t see the terrible moment when Jollie finds the strength to murder another human being. He doesn’t even know that the House of JAM was a false house all that time, and that all his friends are now his enemies. No . . . he doesn’t know any of that . . .

  He is home instead.

  Back in the lap of the Kingdom. Back in the laughter of their lives together. His real home. His true home. Because having a place to call home is so very, very important.

  Jollie . . . Andy . . . I love you both so much.

  1 minute and COUNTING . . .

  Jollie doesn’t feel anything when she does it and Andy doesn’t either, even when his brains fly through the front of his skull and he goes instantly blind. The muzzle flash shreds across Mark’s face, but she doesn’t feel that either. She just puts everything she has into firing the shot. Focusing her rage. Going all the way over, just like they all said she never would. Just like the world always dares you to fail. And then you push forward and you do it—you JUST DO IT—and it’s a really lucky shot, isn’t it? Beginner’s luck maybe? The bullet seems to turn Andy’s head inside out in some bizarre lasagna-colored burst, and the sound of it is gobbled up by the ripping wind as Andy’s scarecrow remains stumble forward and collapse on the carpet, splattering and twitching. Jollie spills into the aisle, crawling over Mark’s paralyzed body, his destroyed eyes staring straight ahead . . . and she fires again at Andy, half-dead on the floor.

  45 seconds and COUNTING . . .

  That shot isn’t so lucky, and it misses him, bounces off a metal surface and takes out a window in the cabin, making a bigger storm happen, the sudden extra compression shift blowing back into her face, sucking at her whole body, pulling and pushing and cycloning in her head. The sound and the force is so overwhelming that she can’t even hear her own thoughts now, can’t even hear her own bitter curses as she pulls herself toward Andy’s body, which electro-jerks and flops from side to side like a drowning fish. She wants to spit in what’s left of his face. Wants to add her own primal scream to this awful hell ride of chaos and horror and death and . . . and . . . and she sees them together again on the riverbank, those blank faces, those deceiving eyes, all of her men betrayers and liars . . .

  30 seconds and COUNTING . . .

  And she looks back once at Mark, who still sits there, bleeding eyes straight forward, and she can’t tell if he’s dead or not, but she doesn’t want him to be dead . . . and she hears that awful bitter voice in the dream, and it’s Andy’s voice, all different now, all smarmy and hateful and bad, and she wonders if she’s dreaming now, and she has to be dreaming because this is all so terrible . . . but somehow she pulls herself up, staggers against the seats and uses them to get to her feet . . . and she sees Mark in the airport, sees his hand move for his pocket, sees the shape of the Vestika handgun residing there, the gun only he knows about, and he sees that she sees and he winks at her, and she’s not even aware of what it means at first, and yet somehow she knows, just like she knows not to drink the glass of water they give her later, knows that the faces in the dream are there to guide her to truth, to understanding . . . to the overhead luggage rack, where the end of everything lives . . . and yes, Jollie, I know you can do it, I know you can save us, because this is the moon you’ve been aiming for all your life . . . and her hands reach up, further still . . . YOU CAN DO IT . . . and her fingers click the snap that opens the compartment . . . YES, YOU CAN SAVE US ALL . . .

  19 seconds and COUNTING . . .

  The cockpit door at the far end of the compartment is suddenly opening against the storm and someone is standing there.

  The pilot, aiming a revolver right at her.

  “STOP RIGHT THERE!”

  His shout never really gets to her, but she can see that he’s yelling—almost senses the shape of his words coming through the storm—and he fires at her and the bullet seems to be mocked and swallowed by the wind, and she’s grabbing the carry-on in the luggage rack, and pulling it out hard, and it crashes to the floor as the gun barks silently again and the bullet smashes through another window and the plane shifts wildly, starting to dive-bomb for target zero, and she can tell that there are only seconds left, can tell how low they are, senses the end coming up so fast, and the plane jerks again and they are both thrown to the floor and the gun tumbles away and the pilot stumbles forward, toward them, and Jollie sees the carry-on bag bounce twice ahead of her in the aisle, shaken and rattled by the heavy blast of the wind, and then the carry-on bounces again, and the pilot reaches for it, but it’s already gone, sucked through the air, blown through the open hatch, and the pilot screams as he sees the package go, and he leaps after it, making one desperate grab before it vanishes, the sucking wind grabbing him and destroying him and yanking him right down along with it, and he screams some more, so loud that his lungs burst and he’s suddenly screaming blood, chasing the package all the way down, headed right for the wide, freezing expanse of the Delaware river . . . and . . .

  10 seconds and COUNTING . . .

  Back inside the plane, Jollie is almost sucked out after him, pulled by bands of invisible steel that howl like blowback in a dream . . . and she’s reaching for Andy . . .

  Andy . . . my secret love . . . my beautiful Boy Prince . . .

  Pulling his body through the storm . . .

  You lying, treacherous, evil motherfucker . . .

  Looking back once at Mark, and she can’t see him anymore . . .

  . . . YOU CAN SAVE US ALL . . .

  And she pushes Andy through the open hatch.

  And throws her arms around him, latching on tight.

  And the wind rips them apart as they fall together.

  7 seconds and COUNTING . . .

  Falling and falling.

  Razors and ice.

  Tumbling though space.

  The ground comes up fast.

  Her hand pulls the silver ring of the ripcord on Andy’s chest just five hundred feet above splashdown, seven seconds before her icy death.

  The Delaware River.

  Something smashes into her.

  And just before she goes under the water . . .

  . . . she hears an explosion like the wrath of god.

  . . . 0:00

  20

  zero hour, revisited

  On the morning of November 12, 2015, the Philadelphia air traffic controllers monitoring Flight 36 out of Austin, Texas, have no idea what’s happening when the plane veers off course at the last minute and cuts a new trajectory along the Delaware River, moving at six-hundred-and-forty-five miles per hour southwest toward the busiest downtown nexus of the city. Everyone panics. There is no time to prevent the tragedy that occurs. At exactly 6:15, the pilotless 747 comes to earth like a meteorite. Fire and debris rain down for more than twelve blocks, across three miles of civilization. The death toll will later be estimated at nearly seven hundred. It is a catastrophic event that alters the course of human history.

  But the plane falls short of its intended target.

  The poison gas cloud never happens.

  The apocalypse that was planned—just one more great step in a twenty-year series of dangerous s
ocial experiments and controlled media-hyped happenings, all designed to bring the entire world under a ruling hand of chaos, fear, and deception—is stopped.

  By Jollie Malian Meeker.

  • • •

  Many miles from the crash site, Jollie floats near the riverbank, her right leg broken in three places. Andy’s body is halfway at the bottom of the river, tangled up in the heavy cording attached to the parachute, which mostly floats on the surface.

  Rode him all the way down, she thinks crazily, frantically. All the way down, baby.

  All the way DOWN, baby BABY . . .

  BOOYAH.

  Jollie goes under the terrible chaos of her scrambled brain, feels the cruel lap of the freezing water sting her face the and the cold bursting ache of her shattered bones washing up in waves. And she tests her arms, feels that they are not broken. Tries to dog paddle to the bank, which seems so goddamn far away. She sinks several times and swallows water and gags it up, choking. She cries and wonders if she’s still dreaming. She feels the cold curse of a million dead souls—souls she might have saved. But all these things come in so fast, so jumbled, like a mirror blowing up in her eyes . . .

  And still she struggles for the shore. Like she always has.

  Poor Jollie, she hears Andy say. Poor, fat, angry Jollie.

  Fuck you fuck you FUCK YOU!

  She goes under one last time, and almost drowns.

  But she doesn’t.

  • • •

  She finds her way to the shore.

  She pulls herself across a bank of freezing mud.

  And when she tries to get up, she realizes that the ache in her leg is shattered bones and destroyed flesh. She allows the pain to needle her just once. She almost starts crying again. Then she collapses on the shoreline, sensing the shapes of trees and civilization around her. Fire in the sky, just miles away. The sound of thunder rolling across creation. Very soon there will be sirens and screams. An ocean of tears for many ended lives. And for the lives left behind in the wake of it .

  But this is how the world changes, she thinks. This is how we go down in history.

  She lies on her back and fights to stay in the moment, not giving in to oblivion. Because if she does give in, that will mean they really did break her, that Andy was right, that Darian was right. Mark would have been here to save her, been here to love her. To repent of his sins and kill the bad guys. To clear the way for her to say anything she wanted in the faces of the fat cats. But they are all gone now.

  She has only her own breath to comfort her.

  Only her own heartbeat, jumping steadily in her breast.

  She feels defeated. But she can’t be.

  She pulls herself up and looks around. It’s so dark. The murky, overcast morning sky is filled with that ominous rumbling. She thinks it’s like a dream. One of those maddening nightmares where you know something amazing, something humbling, something life-altering, something world-shattering . . . is happening just over the rise.

  Just out of reach of your senses.

  But it’s happening.

  And you are the only person on earth who knows what it is.

  She shakes her head, realizing she is freezing. Looking around for unfriendly faces. The others who parachuted out of the plane.

  Nothing. Nobody.

  She’ll have to crawl to the road from here. She can see a series of main streets and bridges. She can get to a phone. Call an ambulance. Call her people.

  She pulls herself up and drags herself toward the rumbling.

  And she concentrates on not dying, not breaking. Not wavering from this most important task.

  She finally notices her right hand.

  Mark’s ring isn’t there anymore.

  She lost it somewhere in the sky.

  Or beneath the water.

  And as she realizes that, all the lights go out.

  • • •

  She dreams still.

  Years later, the dream is always the same.

  In it, she has come back to the house on Montclaire Street, tucked in the darkest, happiest corner of South Austin. She’s there to move in again, because she’s been away far too long. She has a suitcase in her hand and a load of stuff in the car outside. Her room is exactly as she left it. She needs nothing but the things that are already here. Nothing has changed, and yet everything is different. The beautiful walls radiate every color and ideal in the universe. Pam Grier and Luke Skywalker and Tyler Durden are her hosts. Art and beauty enfold her in the warmest, most awesomest cocoon of safety. She is convinced that her return will stick this time. She checks reality every way she knows how. She feels in her heart that the home she comes to is true. Because this has always been her home and it always will be.

  Because home is so very, very important.

  Her cheeks are flushed and warm. Her heart is full to bursting with happiness. This will be a great new era in her life. There are so many of her old friends here. All of them have come back to play and dance. Jackie is here too, among the faces . . . and it’s like he never left. Like there was never anything bad to separate them. She is so happy to see him.

  Even Andy is here, with his fake smile. Pretending and getting away with it. She knows he’s such a scamp and she doesn’t care—because all is forgiven in this moment. Everything is good again.

  And Mark.

  He is waiting on her waterbed.

  Waiting to share his new story with her.

  The story of their life together.

  The story of METRO.

  Here in the House of JAM, which is her home.

  And then she wakes up.

  In just eight hours, a kingdom will fall.

  There will be mayhem and death.

  A battlefield washed in blood.

  Those who survive will never forget this triumphant day.

  Because they have already learned the awful truth about everything.

  “I was thinking about blood.”

  “There’s been a lot of talk about blood these days, my love.”

  “I don’t mean like that. I mean, like family blood. I was thinking about my father, and about you.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you really?”

  “Yes. You have many questions. And tonight is the night I will answer all of them.”

  “I know that. You promised a long time ago. But I was just thinking. We’ve known so many people in our lives. There’s been so much fighting. I’ve looked in the eyes of a lot of men and woman and called them family. I dunno . . . I was just thinking about that. Thinking about how much blood really matters. In the end.”

  “Blood always matters. But in different ways.”

  “When Peanut died, I was very sad. It was like losing my father. I never knew any other father. But there was Gretchen and Harry and all the rest of us. I wasn’t blood-related to any of them, but they were our family still. We’ve come through so much together.”

  “And here we are.”

  “Yes. Here we are.”

  “Twenty years, my love. Twenty years since I crawled from the bank of that river. Since the morning of November twelfth. That was the moment. That was the start of a story that would change my life and the life of the whole world. It all seems so goddamn melodramatic. But the world is goddamn melodramatic. And everything is about to change again.”

  “Yes. It’s beautiful.”

  “I look into your face, my love. And I see the shape of many things there. I see our future. You have listened patiently. Now it’s time for you to ask questions. Ask me anything, my love. And I will tell you everything.”

  “Thank you. I have a lot of things I want to ask. And not just about blood.”

  “Of course.”

  “The thing I want to know first is simple, I guess.”

/>   “Nothing is simple.”

  “Maybe. But I still wonder.”

  “Yes?”

  “Did you love Peanut Williams like you loved . . . my real father?”

  “I loved your real father from the moment we met. He was the most important man in my life. But love is never simple either. You have to work very hard at it. And there were so many things that were so much bigger than both of us.”

  “Like the war?”

  “Yes. Your real father did terrible things. But he also made all of this possible. What we’ve been doing, all this time. He made it possible for Peanut and all the others to be our family. To bring us here. To be our blood.”

  “What did my real father look like?”

  “I know I said I would tell you everything tonight, but that’s one question I’ll never have to answer. Because you are him. His spitting image. I think you got all my brains and his good looks.”

  “I’m good-looking?”

  “You’re the most beautiful young man on earth. You are the reincarnation of my one true love.”

  “That’s pretty melodramatic, Mother.”

  “Don’t laugh. Life is melodramatic.”

  “My father . . . my real father . . . did he die because he wasn’t strong?”

  “He died because he loved. Because he trusted. He was trained hard and told not to do those things, but he did them anyway. I almost died too, because of that. But love and trust are not bad things. We were deceived by the machine. He was a soldier for the bad guys. He even murdered one of his best friends in the name of them. But in the end, he made amends. We helped to change the world. Just exactly the way we are about to change the world tomorrow morning.”

  “I wish I could have known him.”

  “Those were the good old days.”

  “Are you . . . crying, Mother?”

  “I’m happy.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t regret anything, my love. You are the future that must be strong. You are the future he helped to create when he made love to me that night. That was the one and only time I’ve ever made love to a man. And it made you. That will be our happy ending, finally. At the end of so much. Even Gretchen knew that.”