The Fates

by Thomas Tessier

  The noise up the street grew worse, and Lutz knew that the blue cloud had appeared again. But instead of growing anxious, or even physically leaving the scene, he almost burst out laughing. The man with his shouted warning had conjured up an absurd memory in Lutz’s mind. In his third year at college Lutz’s roommate was a business major named Howie Dilbert. They used to argue with each other at least once a week about the war in Vietnam. Lutz was against it, whereas Howie believed firmly that America had to be in there fighting. The North Vietnamese were, after all, only doing the dirty work for their power-mad Chicom paymaster (‘Moe-Say Toon’). But it didn’t stop there, because the Kremlin was involved too. Whenever Lutz said America should withdraw its troops, Howie Dilbert would say, ‘Leonard Breshnof would love you.’ The reason the man running down Sundrive Terrace in Millville, obviously in a state of terror, reminded Lutz of Howie, was because his former roommate believed that Vietnam was only the first step. If America didn’t stop them there, the North Vietnamese would overrun Australia and soon be landing on the beaches of California, at which point Howie might well set off like a latter-day Paul Revere, warning, ‘They’re coming!’

  Where was Howie Dilbert now? Lutz wondered. Safe and snug and prosperous somewhere, no doubt Still worrying about ‘them’?

  The blue cloud emerged from the same yard from which the running man had fled. It chewed up grass, branches from trees, flowers, shingles from the side of the house, destroying and spitting out everything it came into contact with. A car came around the bend further up the road, jammed on its brakes and reversed quickly, veering wildly as it did so. The blue cloud drifted down the street, ripping up chunks of asphalt from the road, tearing loose a mailbox and sending it crashing into a nearby house.

  It did make a noise, Lutz thought, wondering why he hadn’t noticed it at Mason’s Mill. Too concerned about that girl. That was a mistake, she had only been polite to him anyhow.

  People came out of their houses and scurried up the street, away from the blue cloud. It just went anywhere, Lutz noticed. It didn’t seek people out — well, it did at the Mill. But now it seemed to move aimlessly, not going out of its way to attack people, not avoiding them, just moving. An aleatoric phenomenon.

  Then it slowed, hovered in front of a house for a few moments. The group of people who had left their houses stopped about a hundred yards up the street, watching. The same terrified fascination, Lutz thought. He felt it too. He should move, get the hell out of there, but he wanted to stay as long as he could, to see if the thing was actually going to come in his direction. It was slow enough to avoid if it did. And if it didn’t, why should he move?

  The cloud took up the picket fence in front of the house and spun it to pieces, shooting off the white-painted boards in all directions. One landed with a clatter on the sidewalk near Lutz’s building. The thing continued to work on the same spot, now prying loose chunks of cement and turf.

  If I imagined one of Rilke’s angels from The Duino Elegies, that is how it would look, Lutz thought. In his impassioned youth, five or six decades ago it seemed, he had learned whole passages by heart. Now the opening lines of the sequence came back to him.

  Who, if I cried, would hear me among the angelic orders? And even if one of them suddenly pressed me against his heart, I should fade in the strength of his stronger existence. For Beauty’s nothing but beginning of Terror we’re still just able to bear, and why we adore it so is because it serenely disdains to destroy us. Every angel is terrible.

  But these angels do destroy, Lutz thought, as the blue light moved down the street in his direction. There is no angelic order. No stronger existence. Of that, Lutz was certain. He had gone through his mystical phase years ago, and recovered completely.

  But this thing was something else. Why had people said it was a burning light? Lutz could see no burning, throbbing fire at the centre of it In fact, the thing hardly even looked blue, more a wash of drab grey, thick and opaque, streaked with reddish brown, the blue virtually gone. Close up it was almost dull, and would be dull if it were not so clearly out of the ordinary. Like the dull grey he saw in the morning, every morning, shifting colour variations on the same theme. Endless dead blah.

  Suddenly Lutz understood what it was that he was looking at. It wasn’t just the strange cloud of energy come down to kill and destroy. He was looking at his own life, his future as he feared it might be. He could see now that other people had failed to grasp this one simple point about the apparition: everyone perceived it as something different, something particular, something tied fatefully to their own individual selves. It was both an attack on, and a mirror to, each person who confronted it, a challenge. Where they had failed was as a group in their perception of the thing.

  First the Marianists, who wanted to see the Virgin Mary come down to earth before man. With a message. Then the people like Marge Calder, who wanted to believe they were seeing another, more advanced civilization, perhaps one that could help man. And the people like the police chief, who saw it as a threat to their own positions, something to be refuted, crushed. Doctor Acevedo, the antique academic who believed it was his mythology come to life. The man from Colorado whose letter appeared in the newspaper today, saying that Millville was one of the few special places on the planet, a ‘favoured zone’ he had called it, where the magnetic, radionic and topographic (whatever they were) forces were most powerful — getaways to another dimension, or from an alternate universe. And all the other people with their own peculiar ideas and explanations — everyone was seeing something of themselves in the blue cloud, some essential cornerstone of their thinking and being.

  Maybe the irony was even greater. Maybe, Lutz, thought, my prime blockhead Nardello wasn’t so far off when he said it was a kind of mass hysteria or hallucination. Real, yes. Independent and autonomous, yes. But also part of the minds of the people of Millville. Something that appeared from who knows where and then began to grow, fed by the collective psyche of the townspeople, a mad, hopeless confusion of warring identities.

  Lutz stood and stared into the heart of the looming monster. It was coming very close now, but he knew he had to stand and face it. He had to see if he was there, in it, and if it was a part of him. As he feared it was. If he saw nothing but the blindness of a vacuum, a void, he could move, turn away, leave. But if he saw…

  The cloud sheared along the pavement into the hedge, sending up a shower of twigs and leaves and bits of concrete. It cut a slow swath along the edge of the yard, but did not come any closer to the porch on which Lutz stood trembling. His eyes widened with awe at the enormity of the thing this close. But it was moving down the street. Yes, it was going to pass the house. It would not touch him, he could see that now, and he felt his heart pounding and his blood racing as he tingled all over with fear and — joy! I’ve won, he thought, I’ve won! I was right, I’ve beaten it!

  He turned to watch it pass, exultant as bits of hedge and pebbles bounced off him. Then the white, pointed picket from the scattered fence up the street was sucked into the cloud and then hurled out at great velocity, impaling Lutz in the centre of his chest.

  Yes! his mind screamed.

  *

  ‘Isn’t that the most pathetic thing you ever saw?’ Ned Hanley stared into the distance for a long minute. He worked up a hefty slob of saliva and phlegm in his mouth and then spat it out. He felt a small flicker of satisfaction as it splattered loudly in the gutter. Seven feet in the air, at least, he reckoned. Haven’t done that since I was a kid, when I used to do it ten or fifteen times a day.

  Chief Sturdevent glanced briefly at Hanley with distaste, then his gaze returned to the farce being acted out a quarter of a mile away in the vast parking lot of the Pioneer Shopping Plaza. ‘It won’t work,’ he muttered.

  ‘They might as well try pissing on it,’ Hanley agreed cheerfully.

  Three trucks — the entire Millville Fire Department — were triangularly positioned at a safe distance around the pillar of fire.
The men had edged as close to the thing as they dared and were spraying hundreds of gallons of water on it. From where Hanley and Sturdevent stood, this action produced an attractive little rainbow, but had no visible effect on the target.

  At first the scene had looked fascinating, but now Sturdevent found it only foolish. Well, it was the Mayor’s idea, and they all should have known better than to think it might work, but of course they were obliged to give it a try. At a tense and heated meeting of town authorities Mayor Sherwin had argued that everything should be tried against the Millville terror. Fair enough. His own theory, which Sturdevent knew to have been lifted whole from a newspaper article, was that the thing might well prove to be a kind of fireball. Everyone said, didn’t they, that it had a burning, glowing centre. Didn’t that one in the parking lot now look just like a huge torch of pale white flame? Wasn’t it possible, then, that the thing could be extinguished as easily as a cigarette? Just turn on the water? Mayor Sherwin had read a book called War of the Worlds, in which Martians are destroyed by the common cold. That was fiction, of course, but the lesson it demonstrated was nonetheless valid, and in the face of Millville’s present circumstances it would be irresponsible not to try any means to overcome this foe. So now Millville firemen were out there risking their lives and looking stupid to boot. Sturdevent was disgusted. The whole town was going crazy. Slowly and even calmly, but crazy all the same.

  The police station foyer was crammed every day now with quacks and fruitcakes from all over the country, each with his or her own prescription for salvation. The Kinetic Displacement theory. The Trencher Society. The Rhomboid Revitalists. Doctor Bender’s theory of Reverse Blindspots. And the occultists who wanted to bring in an army of three hundred. They would sit down on the ground in a huge circle around the monster and concentrate until they had banished the evil presence from Millville’s astral territory, or some such thing. Sturdevent had shuddered with visions of another Mason’s Mill when he heard that suggestion. Besides, he didn’t trust people like that. More than likely they had some ulterior motive. The entire nut brigade.

  Hanley heard the car radio squawk and he went over to answer it.

  Sturdevent shifted his weight on his feet. The damn thing probably likes all that water, he thought blackly. The fire-cloud began to move at its now familiar slow but deliberate pace. The firemen dropped their hoses and scattered quickly, although they weren’t in any danger of being overtaken. The people of Millville had learned a few things about the monster. Sometimes it could be avoided, if you moved away quickly and didn’t panic. The real danger was when it appeared within a room or any enclosed space. Then — forget it. That was what happened most of the time now. The death toll was rising.

  Hanley returned and said that another blue cloud had appeared downtown.

  ‘Corwin says the area’s pretty well cleared, but I’m going to get over there.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sturdevent replied.

  ‘You want to come?’

  ‘No, I’ll stay and keep an eye on this one.’

  ‘You’ll have to walk back to the office.’

  ‘I know,’ Sturdevent snapped.

  ‘Okay.’ Hanley got into the police car and drove away.

  That was another thing. The monster was actually several monsters, or else it was capable of splitting itself into separate units. They were beginning to pop up all over Millville, like mushrooms, some big, some small. Some like clouds, some like fire, some a mixture of both. Sometimes like ghostly figures. And in different colours. As small as a car or as large as a bam. But in whatever form it turned up, it was always deadly.

  He’d had enough. The notion that he and his family might pack up and leave had simmered just below the surface of his consciousness for the past week. Now it had broken through into the open light of day. The light. This was a decent town once, a good place to work and raise kids. Not now, not anymore.

  Sturdevent was standing on the raised ground of the railroad bed. Two tracks wide. Millville was a small town. Below, and in the distance, the fire-cloud rolled into the gaudy front of The Dive Inn, an instant food restaurant, spewing out plastic and chrome. Good enough, Sturdevent nodded, I never did like that place. Knock it down.

  Yes, he would have to talk to Jean about it. He knew she wouldn’t like the idea, but he thought he would be able to persuade her. Millville wasn’t safe anymore. The kids wouldn’t like the idea either, and that was understandable. They had all their friends here, and other attachments, like the Little League, but that was too bad. It’s easier for the young to adjust to change anyhow, he thought. It’ll be harder on Jean and me. Much harder.

  Selling the house was going to be a bitch, that was for sure. Who would want to buy a home in a town with a half-dozen monsters floating around? Maybe a rich crackpot seeking adventure? Anyhow, he had some money set aside for the kids’ college education and he could use that until such time as the house was sold, and if he got a job right away in another police department — in a position below that of chief, probably, unfortunately — then they would be all right. The fact that he had come from Millville might even work to his advantage, in a way. It was an impossible situation, no one would dispute that. He might even be something of a minor celebrity. They had shown part of his press conference on state-wide television, after all; he hadn’t looked too good, but that might earn him a little sympathy.

  Sturdevent was almost certain he would leave. Even if these things went away tomorrow, he no longer wanted to remain in Millville. Too much shit, shit, shit, with every two-bit creep in town, from Hanley to Sherwin to the people of the Millville News. They were sticking it to him from every direction. At a time like this you’d think they’d all be pulling together to try to make it through the trouble. But no, they were falling apart, each man trying to cover his own ass and do in his neighbour at the same time. He at least had made his plea. He had stood up in front of all those people and asked them to work together, to help rather than hinder their efforts to survive this nightmare. He didn’t have to put himself on the line like that, but he did. What for? All he got was more shit. Sherwin screaming like a baby that Sturdevent had attacked the free press and made Millville sound like a funny farm. He had said just the opposite, but Sherwin was so far gone he couldn’t see that. He just wanted to ram another blade in Sturdevent.

  The fire-cloud had drifted out of the Plaza now and was floating along the street into town. It would pass under the railroad trestle if it stayed on its present course. If it swerves up here, I’m done, Sturdevent thought. He still had the heavy Ace bandage wrapped around his ankle and he had to walk carefully, although the small fracture was healing nicely and causing no pain. But I won’t be able to run if I have to, he thought. It didn’t bother him, however, as some instinct told him the thing would roll on by.

  In the street below, the fire-cloud moved along slowly, bending a tall metal street-light in its way. Nobody has noticed that it never seems to tear down the electricity wires, Sturdevent thought. Is that significant? Maybe it doesn’t like electricity. I ought to drop that little titbit in Sherwin’s ear and watch him try to figure out ways of electrocuting the monster. That was his kind of idea. Bastard.

  That was another thing. Sturdevent noticed that his language was getting rougher. He had prided himself on not talking garbage. A police chief wasn’t supposed to talk that way, and he had been good at watching his words. But now, since this business started up, he was thinking and talking more and more in the foul language of people like Hanley. That annoyed him a great deal, because it was one more example of how they were breaking him down, working on him. The next thing, he’d go home and say shit or fuck in front of the kids. He would leave Millville before things got to that point.

  The blue cloud rolled under the trestle, exactly as Sturdevent had expected. It just touched the railroad ties through the open lattice-work of the steel structure. Sturdevent watched as the girders buckled ever so slightly under the enormous stress. The t
hick wooden ties were pulled and then snapped downwards. Jesus, that thing is strong. There was no immediate danger of a train crash; the few trains that did call in to, or pass through, Millville had already been re-routed, voluntarily, by Conrail.

  The damn thing is going to mosey right down the street, Sturdevent thought, as the fire-cloud continued along on its way. He hopped, on his good foot, down the path along the side of the railroad embankment and made his way cautiously into Brunswick Street. There it was, large as life. Larger. Sturdevent stood about half a block behind the menace as it moved away from him. He walked along, keeping pace with it — about twenty yards a minute, he judged, faster than he had ever seen it before. It was steering a course down the middle of the street, not touching the buildings or even the parked cars on either side. As if it were out for a walk, on its best behaviour. Does it have a mind? Sturdevent had to watch his step, as the roadway was gouged and cut. He didn’t want to twist or fall on his mending ankle.

  Nobody around, nobody at all, he noticed. People were faster now at getting out of the way. Way out of the way. Where did they all go he wondered? Maybe into the ground, into those old fall-out shelters that had been all the rage back twenty years ago or so. Plenty of Sturdevent’s friends had spent a lot of money having their back gardens dug out and fall-out shelters installed. Every day back then it seemed there was going to be a nuclear war. The canned-food business must have cleaned up. He had never given in to the temptation to buy one of those shelters. Screw it, if that kind of war comes, who’d want to live? Who’d want to live in a steel box ten feet under the petunia patch anyhow? Maybe the people in Millville who had fall-out shelters were using them now, finally getting their return on investment, finally opening up those cans of beans. And maybe they’ll die of food poisoning while hiding from the monster. What a world, Sturdevent sighed.