Our War with Molly Nayfack

by Chris Capps

  "I don't know what happened to you," Felix shouted as the wind belted out between them, "I've met Molly Nayfack. She's a sweet girl. She's scared of you."

  "She should be," the Icarin said nudging the book gently on the tree stump, "Go on. Take it."

  Suspiciously pulling the knife from his belt, Felix stepped toward the stump between them and snatched the book off the stump. The book was heavy, but it was no larger than a standard leather bound diary. He held it aloft, opening it up to the first page. It was just a blank notebook. She had written her name on the innermost cover right above the 'Made in China' stamp.

  "Look," she said pointing back at the stump. It was a crackling, a hiss much like hot oil dropped in fire. The fog around them cleared almost immediately in a sphere encompassing the entire hill. That's how Felix was able to see the hole. It led straight down into pitch darkness nearly at the rim.

  "Is that where the duplicates come from?" Felix asked, his heart freezing as he stared into the blackened pit.

  "No," the Icarin said. Felix looked back at her. She was standing next to the tree stump and he saw that the book he had removed had been replaced with an exact copy. She continued, "They come up from the ground. They'll pass through anything and leave it perfectly intact." She rapped her fingers against the base of the stump like a magician, as if to demonstrate how solid it was. The fog was undulating in toward them again now, shrouding the pit once again.

  "Then what is that thing?" Felix asked, pointing toward the hole.

  "We don't know," the Icarin said, "Not yet, anyway. And I suspect we never will. We'll make up what it is. We are the scholars of things more important, more relevant than truth."

  "Why did you do this?" Felix asked as Molly picked up her own copy of the book and held it close to her chest with a wistful sigh and upturned eyes. She was clearly trying to determine where to start, but soon found a place.

  "I don't even know anymore. I never looked into it. Isn't that strange? I wasn't called here by dreams, but they surely must have been a component. I had nightmares long before we came here. I'm certain by now that I would have killed myself eventually if I hadn't gone to Cairo. But here I came, and I brought the dreams with me. And one night, after a particularly bad one, I realized I couldn't stay. I forced myself to leave in the dead of night, wandering and wandering. I ran out of food the same morning I first found the island.

  "The swim over was meant to be my last. I just floated, breathing carefully and putting myself into the deepest state of relaxation I could stay afloat in. The waves carried me along like a little boat on the high seas, rocking me and pulling me in toward the island. I didn't even know there was an island on that trip. I just wanted to be in the water, to float until I sank. And then when I found myself on the opposite shore, I stood up and realized the simple holiness of this place."

  The Icarin looked over her shoulder, leaning in toward Felix as the wind died, like she was sharing a conspiracy.

  "Then the others came," she said, "I watched them grow out of the ground. They looked like me. They talked like me. They remembered everything. The first one saw me and started running. I thought it was a monster wearing my skin. I was terrified of it. But it ran first, and something unnatural took hold of me. I chased it down, pushed its head into the water. I'd never killed before. At that point I never thought I could. But as its life started draining out of it, I realized that I wasn't killing people. They were monsters - imposters. For days I wandered the island looking for the others. There was no way to predict where they would come out. That was before the calendar."

  She traced her finger in the air in a circle, spinning it round and round, before she continued, "It's a carousel. You can keep track of what's coming out if you pay attention and live with it for a while. But then I started growing weak with hunger. I knew the monsters would win if I didn't eat something. I couldn't leave, or else they'd get away. And so I finally chose life. It was revolting at first, but with time I grew to understand the perfect symmetry of the harvest. And as I grew stronger, one night I came to a horrible realization. A particularly difficult one had eluded me for several days. The sport of it was thrilling. As I closed in, bits of cloth for strangling wrapped between my hands, it started saying strange truths. Things not quite real. They were the words of my dreams. She knew them. She could tell me what they meant if I could force her to look deep enough."

  She looked distantly into the fog hovering over the pit at the crest of the hill before looking back up into Felix's eyes,

  "You don't understand, Felix. These dreams were everything I was. They were more real in those days than anything else. And so the thought of unlocking them and learning my own deepest truths was not even a question of will. It was merely a question of time. It took three years to write the first chapter of the red book. After that first year I had the language, the true names. Torture was no longer necessary much of the time. But then he came. Mr. Hades."

  "You cut off his head," Felix said, watching the Icarin nod, "Put the skulls in that temple."

  "He's the one we kill on sight. Or else we render him gentle, which I soon learned to do with surgical precision. Every person is a little different, but their duplicates are precise down to the most basic first thought. Any moment on the island. It can be at any point. That's when you'll come out. And it'll be the same every time. And it will never stop. For Chance Cooper it was the moment right before he took off. For Sherriff Rind it was the moment he set foot on the island. And for Mr. Hades it was immediately after he saw me taking off the Icarin's face. He knows the truth. He knows who the Icarin is. Other than him there's only my interlocutor - the duplicate who died the night my brother died, and you."

  "Are you still Molly Nayfack?"

  The Icarin shook her head, a serene smile on her lips,

  "I'm not that girl anymore. I'm the crow faced man, the keeper of nightmares, the grower of crops. I'm the one that guides the allflesh back into the light, teaches it the beautiful symmetry of the harvest. I was Molly Nayfack, but what I became is so much more."

  "You've killed so many people," Felix said, "How can you honestly still think you're bringing your disciples into the light?"

  "Until Mr. Hades arrived, this place was a paradise. He was the first blood we spilled outside of our own. He forced us to relive that transgression again and again. You need to understand that we never wanted to return to Cairo. But then we realized we would need to make contact eventually. Keep in mind, before Hades we never hurt anyone but ourselves."

  "You called down Chance Cooper's helicopter," Felix said, still uncertain.

  "Yes," she said, "Though it took several years to work. We've been building fires and drawing the H for a long time, but finally just this past week he found it. And when he landed we greeted him. Of course he was terrified, but he had already touched the island. What we hadn't counted on was another duplicate arriving so quickly. Keeping a helicopter from taking off is more difficult than we had envisioned. And so that took a few tries."

  "What about Rind?" Felix asked.

  "Rind must have come across one of our choir years ago. She was exploring the deepest regions of our dreams, tormented until she approached divinity. But as she spoke the sweet words of greater truth that paralyzed us, filled us with awe, we realized that she was escaping from her tether. She ran long until she reached town. When Rind came across her he didn't understand. He was scared, and I don't blame him. He murdered her. But even with the mercy in my heart, realizing a stranger murdered her in cold blood still turned us against him. Soon it became apparent that the Allflesh was not the same as the rest of you. It would remain long after you all were gone. At first we thought we'd kill him once and it would be forgotten. But we didn't forget. And he escalated matters. We did want to help at first, but that Rind tried to apprehend one of us at the meeting. He had such a hate in him. As more of us died, we grew to hate you. With one voice, we decided to exterminate you."

  "How did you g
et Chance Cooper to help you?" Felix asked.

  The Icarin smiled beneath her ivory mask, shaking her head,

  "You're still not thinking of how the allflesh works. He didn't realize we had gone to war. All we had to do was tell him that we were friendly using the right words and he agreed to take us back to town. We even knew of the impending heart attack Rob Howell was going to suffer immediately after takeoff. We took him off the helicopter and tended to him, telling Chance we would take care of him. Of course we didn't have to. We tossed him down the hole. That's where we put the things that get duplicated that we don't need. Visit the island once, that's it. You don't get another snapshot. You're duplicated the first time. That moment becomes the most immortal thing about you. I'm afraid we haven't had much use for Rob Howell since then."

  Felix was standing still, shaking his head. It was pure insanity. This cult of the same person all worshiping their collective dreams, and the murderous leader that had made peace with every last demon inside of her.

  "What's your end game?" Felix asked.

  "We don't die, Felix," she said, reaching up to the mask and pushing it to the side of her head, "For us there is no end game. Each of us might drop out, but we'll come back. We'll keep coming back forever. You can't stop it. I've tried so many times. And so we're cleaning up. The ones that can die must do so during the cleansing. After that, the rest of us live forever. You too, Felix. That bit of chaff you've been walking around with. You like her?"

  "We've grown closer," Felix said, "Yes."

  "She loves you. I know those eyes. But now you can live forever together. A million of you can live and die and hate and love forever and ever. Can you imagine anything more beautiful than that? No jealousy, no loss, just two lovers living forever in one another's embrace. My god, you'll worship me for giving this gift to you."

  "I'll end up like you. Tortured and - did you say unlocked?"

  "Nothing in your heart will be secret," the Icarin said, her eyes filling with awe, "You will unravel at our hands and we at yours over a thousand lifetimes. There will be a long period of pain, a traumatic inquisition. But what will follow cannot even be described. You will embrace it even as I have once you touch the god within yourself."

  "Someone thought up Hell, and then told someone else," Felix said, remembering the words Mike had said in that distant happy past, "But you heard about it. You built it."

  "Who decides what Hell is?" the Icarin said as she walked up to the edge of the hole, "You, one of you, will understand. As for me, soon there will be nothing left to do. The cards are on the table already. The last piece on the chessboard is in motion. Every possibility, every calculation is set. Even if you win, how long do you think you can contain this place? Eventually we'll organize again. That's what we do. That's our most natural way. And when that happens, your town will suffer the fate of a stone in water. It will simply disappear."

  And with that the elder Molly, the Icarin, turned and looked through the duplicated book. She flipped it open, looking down at one of the pages and smiled again, before a troubling thought passed through her mind, and she shook her head.

  "I wish," she said, "That I hadn't had to do some of this."

  And she fell backward down the hole, a song of nothing on her lips. Felix didn't try to stop her, but watched her disappear. After a moment, he slowly crept toward the edge of the hole looking down. It was dark, soundless. He shuddered and began to walk back, aware of a gnawing thirst in his throat.

  Chapter 20

  "Hey!" Mike McCarthy heard from the lake as he sat with Molly and Chance Cooper on the bank near the dock. It had been nearly an hour and a half waiting in terror for his brother to return. They hadn't seen any sign of the Mollys, and it was eerily silent - devoid of even the most cautious conversation. Everyone looked up and saw Felix slowly rowing out from the island with the book propped up in his lap. The three moved to the dock and greeted him as he rowed up.

  "What happened?" Molly asked as he pushed the oars up and drifted in.

  "The Icarin killed herself. She says everything's already in motion. But she put this book down on a tree stump. A copy was made almost immediately. I guess these secrets won't be secret much longer."

  "Did you see anyone else on the island?" Chance Cooper asked, "Did you see me?"

  Felix shook his head, avoiding eye contact. And he lied. He remembered back fifteen minutes dragging Chance Cooper's dead and rigid duplicate from the helicopter and stowing him behind a tree trunk.

  "No, but I saw a helicopter on the island. No one was inside it. If we go there, we might be able to take off and get back to town. Molly, Chance, and I can go back to the island without worrying about further duplication. Mike, if you come with us when we take off, you'll be like the rest of us. The island doesn't have your picture, but it will if you go there."

  "I can't say I'm too keen on the alternative," Mike said, "Being left here alone. Can't Chance drop down a ladder or land on this side of the bank?"

  "No space," Chance said, "I don't know this area, and I might crash into one of these trees. I can't do that. You'll have to stay here."

  "Alone?" Mike asked.

  "Alone," Chance said.

  "Fantastic," Mike said in a tired, beaten voice, "And no one else can stay behind?"

  "Every one of us is needed for what comes next," Felix said, "I've got an idea, but I'm not sure it'll work. We'll come back here as soon as possible after we're done."

  "I'm keeping the gun," Mike said, cradling the .22 in his hands.

  "Keep it," Felix said nodding, "It might be a couple days. And there's a flask of one winged fly in my jacket. Keep that too."

  Mike glanced over at Felix's jacket with an uncertain smirk,

  "You think I need whiskey to steady my nerves?"

  "Be careful, Mike," Chance said reaching over to the younger McCarthy brother and patting him on the back as he made his way up the dock back to the boat, "I'll come back when I can. And you never know who might come fresh off the island."

  Mike watched the canoe drift off into the fog, staring at the lapping and bobbing waves for nearly an hour as he sat picking up tiny bits of stone and tossing them into the lake. He watched each one hit, dropping down into the void beneath and disappear.

  His mind wandered far as he sat there. And when he heard the flapping whine of a helicopter taking off in the distance and soaring overhead, he tried to look up to see it. But there was too much fog. All around him the flapping of the rotors filled his ears. And when it died, he just sat on the dock staring out at the island. Within moments, he was wishing someone would swim out from it. He stared at the massive shadow with his finger on the trigger of his hunting rifle and waited.

  "Mike McCarthy," he heard a voice say from behind him. It had a grin in its voice, a bared teeth sort of grin. Startled, Mike's finger squeezed the trigger, sending a bullet into the lake. The crack of the rifle shot echoed across the nearby trees, as loud to them as a man screaming. But Mike didn't scream. He turned to face Mark Newmann.

  "We've made it," Mark said, "And now it's just you, me, and Mr. Hades."

  "Hello!" a voice rose from the island, mournful and distant. It was echoing across the water, spilling out to them from the mist, "Is someone out there?"

  "Yes," Mark said, quiet enough that it could have been intended only for Mike. The grin seemed permanently plastered across his face, twisted and grey. And his dark eyes looked nearly black, button-like in the dim light of the foggy shaded dock. Mark stepped up the dock toward Mike, causing the younger McCarthy brother to quickly scramble to his feet and walk backwards. Soon his heel was touching the dock's end, drifting over it as Mark Newmann closed in.

  "What are you doing here?" Mike asked. He stopped Mark from walking into him by pressing the rifle against Mark's muddy white shirt. The strange man looked down at the hot barrel, still spilling smoke, pressed into him, then back up at Mike, tearing into his heart with eyes like barbed wire. All paranoia, all apprehe
nsion in Mike's mind vanished.

  And he realized then that the part of him that had grown accustomed to fear, relished it, had just died of an overdose. The void left behind as that swathe of his mind curled in on itself and disappeared, was filled only with the sound of a beating heart. It drummed, colliding lethargically with itself in simple mechanistic terror. His heart wasn't thumping. It was clicking.

  Click-click. Click-click.

  He pressed the gun harder against Newmann's chest, causing him to take the slightest fraction of a step back. And the grinning man turned his gaze from Mike to the island shadow beyond.

  "Is someone there?" the mournful voice called out with extended syllables. They seemed closer now, mixing idly with an arrhythmic sloshing sound.

  "Call back to him," Mark said. Mike didn't. Mark opened his mouth and let out a single sustained shriek. It was high pitched - the sound of a bird's death. The sloshing was approaching closer. Much closer. If Mike could only tear his eyes away from Mark's as he watched the unidentified voice approach, he might have seen a bespectacled man in a trench coat and pin-striped suit holding an empty canvas bag. But he did hear laughter from the boat - wild untamed laughter.

  "Mark Newmann," the voice said as he the boat sloshed up to the shore, "You're Mark Newmann, right?"

  "Yes, Mr. Hades," Mark said leaning down and gripping the sleeve of the man's trench coat, "And I know you. You're Mr. Hades."

  Mike watched the man pull his long legs up from the boat onto the dock, mud spilling in long trails down his shoes. He gripped Mark's wrist and emerged from the boat, and he reached down to pick up the canvas bag, weighing it in his hand and peering inside with a shocked,

  "It's gone." Mr. Hades cursed, gripping the bag in his fist before letting it drift from his hand into the boat below. After a moment he looked up, glancing between Mike and Mark before motioning with his head back toward the shore, "Doesn't matter. Let's get moving. We've got to get out of here."