by Landon Wark
Both of them looked like they had more to say, but kept quiet.
"And you—" She motioned to where Jonah stood, his back to the door. "Are going to..." Her words escaped her for a moment, flittering into the darkness at the edges of her vision. A droplet of sweat rolled down into that same darkness. "Get out of that shack and..."
She swallowed. Her head seemed to turn despite her conscious effort to keep it still. Her breathing quickened as she realized that it was the room that was moving and not her head. Her heart thundered in her ears as the floor seemed to tilt up towards her.
"Jesus!"
The word dissolved into the sound of rushing water as the floor loomed ahead.
Jonah McAllister stared at the wall of the bad cliche hospital.
Rocking his shoe on the floor in front of him until it squeaked in complaint he bit on the edge of his tongue until it hurt in a desperate bid to stay awake. The fatigue blunted his anger and he wanted to hold onto it for at least a little longer.
And still he was melancholic that he felt the anger was necessary.
He stood up for the fifth time in thirty minutes and walked along the dark empty hallway to the vending machine, taking a few spare quarters out of his pocket, hopping them around in his palm before putting them back.
For all their talk about not having to worry about money, Sandy had not gotten any goddamn health insurance and he was from too much of a socialist paradise to have even thought about it.
He shook his head, thinking about how all of his high talk about saving the world had almost come to nothing.
Hearing a noise down the hall he spun around thinking that it might be Clayton and Carmen back from their 'errand'. A lone janitor or maintenance staffer closed a stairway door and wandered down the hall in the opposite direction.
He resumed his vigil on the seat and took in what he could of the buzzing of the intercom overhead.
He didn't want to be angry with them. It was as simple a thought as it was true.
He didn't want any of the baggage that had come with bringing in more people, but he couldn't go back. He couldn't go back to that moment of standing before the blasted out wall with the plastic and insulation floating like snow around him, feeling the horrid loneliness flowing in along with the frigid wind. He couldn't do it on his own.
He looked up as an older couple passed down the adjoining hallway a few meters down, the woman dressed in a hospital gown and robe and the man aiding her steps.
Maybe in some alternate universe he had never spoken the words that had blown out that wall and he had managed to limp along without that feeling. Maybe there was some all powerful tyrant Jonah that had decided that had allowed that abandonment to slowly worm its way into his skull until it had become comfortable. He gave a muted snort at the absurdity of the thought all while feeling a tremor run up the ridge of his spine.
He couldn't do it alone, but at the same time he couldn't deal with the others. He couldn't handle the guilt if someone was consumed by the results of his own carelessness. Maybe Paul and Ezra were right. Miracles for the worthy only. For everyone else...
Jonah got up for the sixth time in half an hour and paced out the journey to the vending machine one last time, feeling the weight of his fate of having to stare into the hole of the blasted out wall and turning away in anguish, only to find another, larger hole behind him.
Down the hall he had stood vigil over he could hear the sound of a door opening. A large man and woman waddle out of the room where he knew Sandy Jenkins was lying. Her mother and father, he reasoned, noting the resemblance. Behind their faces, stained red with tears of worry, Ezra Mansfield followed. The mother and father paid him no mind, but Ezra glared at him with some combination of respect, worry and wrath.
Uncertain of how he was supposed to react, Jonah merely froze, trying to recede into the wall or vending machine as they passed.
Once the hallway was clear, he slipped past his waiting spot and into the room where what might be his only friend in the world lay, a thin tube running out of her nose.
Clayton James looked over to where his passenger sat, her elbow against the sliver of glass window poking up through the car door, her palm against her temple. He couldn't tell whether Carmen was bored, worried, or angry. And if she was angry he couldn't tell if she was angry specifically at him. He was hoping to get a few words in during their trip back into the city, but so far she hadn't been very receptive to his attempts to get some sort of conversation started.
"Hey, so... Do you think Sandy's going to be okay?"
"I can't think about it right now."
Almost immediately he gave up and turned the grimy dial controls of the radio. He grimaced as the sound of a steel guitar filled the interior. As quickly as he was able Clay started prodding at the controls.
"Not a fan of country?" Carmen mused.
Not ideal, but I'll take it.
"Country is the music of the bootlickers," he grumbled. "Creates the illusion of dignity in being part of the exploited class."
"Well, I don't think you're going to find any Rage Against the Machine on the radio around here."
"Pffft. Tell me about it."
Static buzzed for a moment and then geriatic rock surge in, mid-song. For a moment Clay tried singing along, botching the words.
"So, Billy Joel is not your strong suit," Carmen said.
"I couldn't hack being a complete cliche," Clay replied. "Dorky guy, Billy Joel."
She was quiet for a moment. "Let me ask you a question: You ever mishear the lyrics of one song and just sort of make up your own song based on that?"
"Okay, I'm about to tell you something that nobody else knows: Up until maybe two years ago I thought the words to 'Pour some sugar on me' were 'Welcome to the pony'."
Carmen blinked. "Okay, put a pin in that, 'cause we're going to circle back to it. But, what about what we're doing? Do you think it's possible to botch a... spell? Are we calling it spells? Botch a spell and end up doing something completely unexpected?"
Clay paused. "I mean... the internet joke is that the reason Rome fell was that people couldn't have conversations in Latin without summoning demons. I mean... who the hell knows?"
"'Cause, I think I did it."
"What do you mean?"
"When the cops came to the house, I tried to burn my spare... stuff. I ended up nearly obliterating the bathroom sink."
Biting his lip Clay turned the car wheel to head down into the core of the tiny city where the warehouses sheltered the people she was looking for.
"I bet the kid knows," he said. "Just one more thing they're not going to tell us."
"He said he was trying to be safe."
"With fine tuning, not that the spell to cause a nuclear explosion might be a syllable—"
"Phoneme."
"Phoneme different from one to... change the colour of your fingernails."
"Can you not make a federal case about this?"
"No. This is the essence of science. Transparent and peer review. The kid doesn't have any peers, so he doesn't think he has to be transparent."
"Yeah, I get it, but—"
"That shit that Paul and Ezra are talking about is the road to making sure that some Fascist elite, some... magical Nazi party are the permanent overlords of the world."
"Christ, man."
"You're a journalist—"
"Essayist."
"Whatever. You know the sayings: Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Corruption breeds in darkness."
"And you're a scientist. You know Marie Curie died of radiation poisoning."
Clay exhaled and turned down the radio as they arrived at the overpass Carmen had directed him to.
"I'm worried that if we don't move ahead, those assholes are going to stumble on this and then there's going to be trouble."
"Who says they haven't already?" Carmen asked whistfully.
Clay exhaled again, more sharply. "Do me a favour? Tell the kid about what happened
. Transparency and all."
"Yeah. Do me a favour, stay here while I go meet with these turds."
"Why?"
"Because they're going to think you're a cop. Frankly, I don't blame them."
"Even with the Rage Against the Machine? What if they try—"
"Don't come charging in to save me, big guy."
"Okay, just... be safe."
"It could have been a stroke," Jonah said quietly.
"Yeah." A short breath propelled the groan out of Sandy's mouth.
Her black rimmed eyes trembled as she tried to focus on his lanky form standing in the long window. "Could've been."
"Did they say what caused it?"
"My circulation is shitty." Sandy grasped for the control that inclined the bed, managing to get a finger on it before Jonah pushed it into her hand. "And..." She weakly wriggled up on the mattress. "Apparently stress is not good for it."
"Are you stressed?"
Sandy blinked weakly. "Sorry, I think they packed my ears with gauze. I must have misheard."
"You're unhappy?"
"I'm not unhappy or stressed, but looking after an entire house of people, trying to keep things under wraps... Running a... business I guess. And then—I don't know, what the hell were you all yelling about?"
"It doesn't matter." Jonah kicked at the wheel on the corner of the bed once, and then immediately stopped when he saw Sandy shaking in the bed. "I mean, we can change things up, maybe have Jenny or Paul do more. I mean, I don't really think Paul has..." He trailed off.
"Jenny's not in the right place to do any managing. And... I don't want to do less."
"But—"
"Jonah, I don't know if you know this," she croaked, "but, THERE'S ACTUAL MAGIC!"
She tried to shout this, but it came out as little more than a half yelp.
"I'm not going to walk out on that, or even scale back my part even if it kills me."
"I can't let you do that," he said.
"You know..." she tried to readjust her place on the bed again. "Of all the books I've read about the heroic girls... not one of them had to deal with weird medical shit. Like... you would think, statistically, one of them would have irritable bowels or something."
"I don't think you're—"
"There was a whole bunch of nerve wracking shit that those girls went through."
"Sandy—"
"Not one of them farted during a dragon attack. Not even Jorja, and that was a big fucking dragon. Erdhorn the Shadow of Consumption. The disease, not the concept. Could eat an elephant in one bite. Well, two bites. You don't want a live elephant sliding down your throat."
"You're just going to keep rambling until I get fed up and leave the room, aren't you?"
"Especially when you have an organ that makes fire in there."
"Did they give you a whole bunch of drugs?"
"Maybe it's like some kind of pilot light?"
"Because it's going to get worse, Sandy."
"Huhn?"
"It's going to get worse. Between Paul and Ezra, Clayton and Jenny I don't know what's going to happen. The group could schism. And I don't know what to do about it."
"You don't."
"I... I don't want anyone to get hurt, we need more work, but... the longer I hold on, I... It’s too big for me. I've started getting these ideas. I hear people shouting my name. I see oceans of them gathered below me and I feel this intense… flash that the world was made for me to… I don't know exactly. The only way to stop it is to give it all away, but it may be too big even for that. It’s not meant for mortal hands.”
She blinked. He had never spoken like this before. The words had an almost religious quality to them. It was nearly painful to see him like this.
"That Order of Convenience sure would be helpful right about now."
"It would."
"They'd show up here and say, 'You can't share all of this with the Mortals. It is against our ways. Things can never change. Not for the Mortals.'"
He shook his head.
She laughed weakly. "It's so weird. The world turns out to be so much stranger and amazing than any of us thought and—" She paused, sucking in a breath around the tube. "We all still get to argue over the same damn things. And I have to lie in this damn bed. Carmen's still an addict. We all... we all still get to be losers. Nothing really does change for the mortals. And... it doesn't even take some shadowy organization in some dark backroom. We just... do it to ourselves. Huhn."
Jonah felt his fists clench as the ample fat around her eyes and mouth went slack with the thought. He took in the tragic scene of her laying on the adjustable bed with transparent plastic tendrils snaking out of her skin and nose.
"Then maybe we need to be more than mortals," he said quietly.
"What?"
"You wanted to be that girl on the cover of the book, Sandy. There's a new world coming. I'm going to make sure you're standing on the hill to see it dawn before anyone else."
"Huhn? Jonah, I..."
Her voice faded into the din in his mind and his fists balled up too tight that the tendons stood out on the field of white flesh veined with blue ropes, Jonah McAllister marched out of the hospital room, fumbling for his wallet stuffed full of cash.
Clayton and Carmen, the latter a little unwieldy on her feet and more than a little paranoid about walking into a hospital with the thin baggy slipped in her hip pocket, entered the floor more than an hour later. A step and a half behind them was the large form of Ezra who had run into them in the lobby. Worry and redness ringed his face.
Jonah barely noticed him. The darkened hallway was illuminated by the small device sitting on his lap, a cord winding from the outlet next to him, crossing the cellophane and box that had once encased it and lounging lazily in the charger port. In its light his face was a scowl of concentration as his bony finger flicked around the screen.
The speed of American enterprise had startled him at first, settling into a state of worry about the accidents waiting to happen in such an unregulated environment. But for the moment that lack of oversight was working for him, so he gave it a pass.
"How are things going?" Clayton asked as Carmen looked around nervously.
"Good. I've managed to get a hold of three mouse models of human obesity in triplicate and three control mice. They'll be delivered in two days," he said without looking up, his voice a mix of mania and determination. "They're even willing to overlook the lack of ethics approval if you give them enough money." He paused for a moment. "The irony is palpable."
"I meant how are things with Sandy. Why are you ordering lab mice?" Clay's eyebrows arched.
"Sandy needs help and I aim to help her."
"Ah, okay. And when you say help, you mean—"
Jonah's eyes, rimmed in black shadows from the tablet screen met with first his and then Carmen's, barely taking time to register their concern. They didn't really know him, aside from his two forays into the confines of the house from his tiny lab. They looked at him like they would look at a derelict raving about moonmen on the sidewalk.
"We can rebuild her. We have—will have—the... whatever. Better. Stronger. Faster. All that stuff."
"Holy shit." Clay nearly staggered into the wall. "You can't just—"
"I know I can't just. Hence, the lab mice. I'm going to need your help. Jenny and Paul too. It's an all hands situation. You'll all need to know everything."
"What is he talking about?" Ezra tried to insert himself into the exchange. Clay put up a hand to silence the older man, but Carmen managed to get in around him.
"So, all that talk about safety and not showing us too much that we're not ready for?"
The wild look in Jonah's eyes redoubled as he returned to the dim white screen of the airport vending machine tablet. His lips pulled back into a sneer as the memory of standing before the hole in his apartment wall slipped away from him for the first time in nearly forever.
"Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead."
A Ritual in the Night
There was something odd going on in the house in the woods. About that all the neighbours had agreed since the property had been bought and people had started disappearing inside. No good could come from so many people living under one roof, as history had a way of pointing out. Speculation came from all sides about the things that went on there: Devil worship, human sacrifice, public nudity, polygamy, homosexual orgies. The list got longer as the weeks rolled on. When strange flashes of light began breaking through the tree cover and drawing the attention of the distant neighbours one week in early June things began to reach a fevered pitch.
There were rumours that one of the inhabitants was holed up in the local hospital with severe burns covering most of her body. The staff at the hospital, no matter how many drinks they were plied with, could not (or would not) confirm those commonly agreed on facts. Delivery and mail carriers were set upon and insisted that they only ever saw the outside of the house, or sometimes maybe a small group outside trying to do some routine maintenance on the grounds.
A few Sheriff's deputies, on conditions of anonymity, talked to the local paper about a drug raid, settling many minds that it was some sort of neo-hippie commune.
Bill Hernandez's vague ramblings about witchcraft up there were folded into the rumour mills, homogenized and ultimately their source lost. He enjoyed a brief resurgence in popularity during that week in June, but by then he had all but withdrawn from any sort of public life, wandering around the paid off house and going out in the dark of night for food at a series of convenience stores.
He had called a bomb threat in to the hospital from a derelict payphone, but it accomplished nothing.
A trio of teenagers, each barely fifteen had managed to penetrate into the trees circling the house in the light of dusk, but ventured no farther after seeing a fat man nearly spot them as he walked to the main house from the cabin with the flashing lights that was their target. Though they had seen nothing, they claimed a UFO in the form of a hovering wedge had hung over their heads as they ran across the field separating them from the ATVs they had used to get within walking distance.