The Great Unknowable End

by Kathryn Ormsbee

The ground is trembling. At first I think it is only the rumble of passing cars. Then, as I pull off the road at the Dreamlight entrance and dismount, a crevice forms before my eyes, splitting through the road a mere yard from where I stand.

  I turn toward the drive-in. Up on the large, lit screen, C-3PO stumbles fretfully along a corridor as though he, too, can feel the moving earth.

  “Stella?”

  I start at the sudden life fizzling from the walkie-talkie in my basket. I grab it, waiting for more.

  “Stella, it’s Jill. Over.”

  My sister’s voice is distant and choppy, but it is her.

  “Jill,” I shout into the walkie-talkie, “where are you? I’m coming for you. Over.”

  “I’m looking for . . . sirens . . . know where . . .”

  Jill’s words cut out in longer and longer patches of static.

  “Jill, I can’t hear you!” I shout. “Try again, over.”

  She hasn’t heard me, though. She hasn’t broken her own transmission. She speaks on, her words growing more garbled by the second.

  “. . . problem with . . . don’t . . . going to see . . .”

  I shake my head, desperate, useless. I wait for the transmission to cut entirely before shouting, “Don’t go anywhere! Tell me where you are. Over.”

  I release the button and wait. The speaker crackles and sizzles. No words come through.

  “Jill!” I shout. “Jill!”

  Then it happens. There, right before my eyes. The ground rumbles around me, and the projection of a larger-than-life Darth Vader sinks into the ground. One moment the drive-in screen is there, and the next it is not. It has vanished, folding in on itself and disappearing into the earth. It is gone. Simply gone.

  I don’t know for how long I stand there, motionless, senseless to my breath and heartbeat. However long, it’s enough for the chaos to begin. When I regain my senses, people are shrieking and shouting commands and running past me in unorganized swarms.

  I grip my bike handles hard and mount, pedaling over uneven ground, through the long grass, toward the concessions hut. The fluorescents are on, but there is no sign of Kim or Mr. Cavallo. I skid to the back door and hoist up my bike, taking it in with me; I’m sure that if I leave it outside, it will disappear.

  “Hello?” I shout. “Hell—”

  I spot Kim. She’s tucked under the sink cabinet, knees to her chest, hands over her head.

  She smiles weakly at me. “Duck and cover, right? See, I remember something from school.”

  “Is it the plant?” I crouch beside her. “What’s going on?”

  I ask, even though I know. There is a word for what happened out there: “sinkhole.” I’ve seen pictures in physical-geography class. I want another answer, though. Any other answer.

  “Hell if I know,” says Kim. “The sirens at the plant started ten minutes ago. Some people left, but Mr. Cavallo said the show must go on.”

  “Why did—”

  “Hey, I don’t know anything. I only know I’d rather die from a nuclear blast than get trampled or knifed by one of the crazies out there.”

  What Kim’s saying makes perfect sense. If I were her, I’d do the same thing. But I’m This Stella. I have a sister to find.

  “I’m looking for Jill. Have you seen her?”

  “Your sister? I’ve seen her maybe twice in my life.”

  “She’s around four foot four, dirty-blond hair—”

  “Yeah, sorry, Stella, I’m not going to be any help there.”

  “Okay. Okay.”

  I grab the rucksack from my bike, take out a flashlight, and shoulder the bag.

  “What, you’re heading out there again?” she demands.

  “I have to find her.”

  “Okay, well at least take some kind of weapon. People out there are going insane.”

  I scan the room. We sell food, we don’t prepare it, so there are no knives or heavy dishes around. I know of a trusty weapon, though. I throw open the cabinet beside Kim and lug out the bottle of Clorox.

  “Seriously?” she asks.

  I throw her a dirty look. “Unless you have a gun?”

  She grimaces, shrugs.

  I make for the back door, and as I’m leaving, Kim pipes up. “Hey! Hey, I hope you find her. And thanks for not being a shitty coworker. You made the job not half-bad.”

  Kim isn’t crying; she’s never struck me as a person who can cry. If she could, though, I think now would be the moment.

  I say, “Thanks for sharing your punk music.”

  “Radio Birdman. Look them up.”

  “I will.”

  Neither of us believes I will.

  Then I step out into the din. More people have fled the premises, and the darkened field is slowly clearing out. Where the thirty-foot movie screen should be, there is only uninterrupted darkness. Terror threatens to freeze me in place there, in the dark, amid shouts and crying and the ever-present wail of sirens. I don’t let it. I push it back and focus on one thing: I must find Jill.

  But I don’t know where to begin. My walkie-talkie is now useless, a constant stream of static, and I don’t know how to search for Jill in a shifting, panicked crowd. I don’t know how she will ever hear my calls for her over dozens of other raised voices. But I have to do something. I search, and I call her name. I shout it again and again as I run toward, not away from, the sinkhole.

  When I feel the grip on my arm, I react on instinct. I realize too late that the bleach bottle lid is screwed on tight, so I use it more primitively, swinging it up in a cramped arc toward my assailant’s cheek.

  “Fuck!” he shouts. “Jeez, Stella, it’s only me.”

  I shine my flashlight straight at his face, breathing hard, adrenaline skittering through my body.

  “Archer?”

  “You shouldn’t be out here,” he yells. “There’s no telling if this whole field is going down or not!”

  I shake my head. “It’s Jill. I can’t find Jill.”

  He starts to answer, but I hear nothing. I am falling, and I register hard pain in my chest and the sight of a man’s elbow and the unforgiving slam of ground at my back. My vision swims. I fight against it.

  I must find Jill.

  I fight, but this time I am losing the battle.

  The darkness swallows me up.

  29

  Galliard

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 19

  “Stella.”

  She whimpers and blinks, dropping incoherent words from her mouth. Archer and I are crouched down, supporting her shoulders as, around us, people scream and run. The muscles in Stella’s back shift under my fingers. Then she slumps again, weightier than ever.

  “We have to get to shelter,” I say.

  It’s not a question of where. Archer and I both know our best bet.

  We swore we weren’t going back.

  Everything inside me rebels against the thought.

  But now, it’s not a matter of inside or Outside. It’s a matter of living or dying.

  We get to our feet, hauling Stella up with us. She’s only half there, and as we walk, she takes labored steps alongside us.

  Archer and I heave toward the cornfield, the shortest route to Red Sun’s front gate. I use Stella’s flashlight to guide our path through the dark, boxed in on both sides by thick rows of cornstalks. Panic keeps building and bursting inside me. My tics are in full force—constant throat clears and frequent jaw jerks. We’re moving way too slow, and I’m getting these creepy flashes of what might be hiding in the corn around us: monsters and killers and alien creatures. Stella stumbles, mumbling more indiscernible words.

  The front gate is open, abandoned. There’s no sign of life in the Moonglow or the parking lot. Everyone here must’ve fled to the shelter a while ago.

  Archer and I walk faster, and Stella moves with us, more in sync, more independent, as we make our way toward the back of Common House. There in the ground, bordered by rows of California poppies, is a large, two-door metal hatc
h.

  One door is still thrown open.

  Maybe, I think, my gods are looking out for me, even behind that veil of black.

  Thank you, I pray. To them. To whoever is listening, and helping.

  I recognize the man standing under the hatch, at the top of the stairs. It’s Charlie, our front-gate keeper. He recognizes us, too. At the sight of us, his eyes bulge and he shouts down, “We got more!”

  Archer and I kneel at the entrance, helping Stella down to where Charlie stands.

  “Take her first,” I say. “Someone needs to look at her; she could have a concuss—”

  There’s movement behind Charlie. Someone’s coming up the stairs.

  “She’s not allowed down.”

  It’s Rod. His eyes are reddened. His chin is littered with gray stubble. He’s blocking Stella’s path to the stairs.

  “There’s no room here for outsiders,” he says, in as calm a way as he would give a community-meeting report. “Those boys chose to leave us. They’ve chosen to be outsiders too.”

  “Fuck that, Rod!” Archer shouts.

  “There’s room for us,” I say, crouching close to the earth so that my eyes can meet his. My jaw twitches, and my throat produces a gritty sound. I carry on. “There’s plenty of room, Rod. Just let us down.”

  “You’ve made your decision. Our shelter is for members of this community.” Rod turns to the crowd of people below and out of sight. “I don’t hear any of our members crying out for your inclusion. Do you?”

  Between my throat clears, I listen. Below is only a noisy kind of silence—movement and coughs and children sniffling. No one speaks. Not Ruby, not J. J., not Thunder or any of the other crossers.

  Not Phoenix.

  Rod is the authority, and they will not contradict him. I don’t belong to Ruby and J. J. any more than I do the rest of them. And no one should welcome us back in if we have willingly left. That’s Red Sun regulation. I just didn’t believe it until now. I didn’t think those rules would hold true in this moment, when we’re all screwed anyway.

  There’s a low, long thundering sound above our heads. The wind begins to howl, grabbing at my hair and smacking into my face like a solid thing.

  “What do you want us to do?” I shout, pounding a fist into the grass. “You want us to die out here, Rod? For fuck’s sake, you want us to die?”

  The red in Rod’s eyes spreads to his face. “You made your decision!” he roars, pointing a trembling finger at me and Archer. “You left our protection when tough times came. We raised and nurtured you both. We kept you from corrupting influences, and you abandoned your home for outsiders.” He lowers the accusing finger on Stella, who’s sunk on the metal stairwell, weak and confused. “Outsiders brought this on us, with their wars and hate and misuse of Earth. And I will be damned if I allow them to survive the destruction they’ve brought on their own heads! I’ll be damned if—”

  Rod’s eyes go wide, his face slack. Then, without warning, he crumples forward, onto the stairs. Stella cries out and scrambles away. Where Rod once was, Opal now stands, with an electric lantern held aloft in both hands. Her pale eyes cut quick across me and Archer.

  “Get down here, the three of you,” she says. “Charlie, close that door. We can’t risk it any longer.”

  It takes me longer than it should to move. I’m too stunned, because Opal just took out Rod. She broke the commune rule of nonviolence and knocked him out cold for us.

  Two other members are on the stairs, moving Rod’s unconscious body down below. Archer climbs in ahead of me and helps Stella to her feet. I drop down after, and immediately Charlie lunges for the hatch door, slamming it hard behind me.

  Then I descend into the shelter.

  There are no frills here, only rows of bunks and hard, earthy floor. Kids sit on the top bunks. The three closest to me are playing a game of cards. On a bottom bunk two down, I see Thunder and some other crossers. Some others who said nothing when Rod refused to let us down. And then I spot Ruby and J. J. They’re standing against the wall on the far end of the room, opposite me. Ruby’s arms are wrapped around J. J.’s middle, and I can imagine what she’s been whispering in his ear:

  “We were right. We were right. This is why we came.”

  She meets my gaze for only a second before shaking it off again.

  Because I’m not a kid to be coddled anymore. I’m sixteen, and I’ve made my own choice.

  Another throat clear bursts out of me.

  “Jill. Where’s Jill? She’s not down here.”

  Stella’s now fully alert, and frantic. Though her hair hangs tangled in front of her eyes, she doesn’t make an effort to push it free. She is scanning the faces around us, not lighting on the one she wants to see.

  “Galliard,” she says, turning to me. “She’s up there. She was going to the movie. She’s still up there.”

  “What? I thought she was at your house.”

  “No. Why would I leave her alone? Why would I . . . Get me out of here. She’s up there. I’ve got to get—I’ve got to—”

  “Okay,” I say, nodding, then clearing my demanding throat. “Okay, okay. We’ll find her. I’ll go. Let me.”

  She shakes her head hard. “She was talking to me. She was talking to me, and then the screen went down, and she could be . . . in trouble. Galliard, she’s . . .”

  Stella doesn’t see Phoenix push through the crowd behind her. She doesn’t see his look of bewilderment, of recognition.

  I don’t know what he’s after. I glare at him, warding him off, but he keeps advancing until he’s right behind her, and he places a hand on her shoulder.

  Stella jolts, spins around.

  Silence fills my ears like cotton the moment Stella and Phoenix stand face-to-face. And it stays there as I watch her tense her right hand into a fist and swing it up, into his jaw.

  30

  Stella

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 19

  It is the first time I have seen my brother’s face in two years. It has changed. It is older.

  It is beneath my fists.

  They make contact with the soft of his cheek and the bone of his jaw, again and again and again.

  I know now. I know the meaning of my countdown. Even if those numbers mean nothing, even if they’re only a fluke, I know what they mean to me. My brother stands before me. After all this time, I am seeing him. And I am fighting him with everything that is in me.

  He does not fight back. He does not cry out. Or it may be that I am insensible to touch and sound until fingers dig deep into my arms and pull me away, thrashing. I wrench around to see who has done the pulling. It is an older woman, in her sixties, at least. She is yelling something at me, and like her grip, her voice is surprisingly strong.

  “That’s enough!” she says. “We’ll have none of this here. If you wish to stay in the shelter, you must act peaceably.”

  Stares drive into my back. Everyone in the shelter is silent, looking at me and Craig.

  I glare at my brother, chest heaving, pulse thumping loud in my ears. I’ve drawn blood at the left corner of his lip. It’s not the blood that captures my attention, though. It is the look in Craig’s pale blue eyes—a look of unspeakable sadness.

  I don’t understand. Craig isn’t supposed to be sad; he’s not allowed. He’s supposed to be awful in this moment. He’s supposed to look at me with utter disinterest and dismiss me as dead to him, forevermore. He’s supposed to be the Craig who left me, who never answered a single one of my letters. And he is that Craig, but he is another Craig I didn’t expect. A Craig I don’t understand. A Craig with sad eyes.

  “Why are you looking at me that way?” I demand.

  “I thought it was you.” My brother’s voice is soft as he speaks through bloodstained lips. “I had to be sure.”

  “Why?” I ask, still hot with rage. “Why’d you have to be sure? You clearly haven’t wanted to see me the last two years.”

  “That’s not true,” Craig says, still soft. �
��It not that I didn’t want to see you. I couldn’t. If I saw you, I’d go back out there. And I can’t do that, Stell. It will kill me.”

  I flinch at the use of his nickname for me. It feels wrong, coming from the mouth of this man in a Red Sun tunic.

  I want to yell. I want to hit him again. I want to spew out two years’ worth of hurt. I find that I can’t, though, now that I’m looking into my brother’s eyes. They contain not only sadness, but pain, and fear, too. There is so much fear swimming in all that blue.

  I cannot hurt him anymore. I can only say the words that have been burning in my heart.

  “You’re selfish,” I tell him. “You left the wrong way, and I’m mad at you for that.”

  “I know,” he replies simply. He makes no excuse.

  Instead I make the excuse for him.

  “That’s how you had to be, isn’t it?” I say slowly. “You were selfish because you were afraid. Because you weren’t strong enough. Maybe you’ll never be.”

  Craig doesn’t answer. He only looks at me with those pained, pale eyes. There is something in that expression I recognize. I have seen it before, painted on canvas. I’ve seen it in one of Craig’s portraits—the one of my mother, on her wedding day.

  I know that what I’ve said is true as surely as I know what I have to say next:

  “You were a good brother to me, for a very long time. I’ll remember you that way. I’ll remember our backyard Olympics.”

  Around us, people have begun to shift and talk. Though the older woman has softened her grip on my arm, I’m aware that I only have a little more time.

  “Good-bye, Craig,” I say, looking straight into those eyes. “Good-bye for good.”

  Then, without hesitation, I turn away.

  The older woman strengthens her hold on me once more. “You listen, young lady,” she says into my ear. “These people are panicked enough, and I will not take any more excitement. Either you behave yourself, or you take your chances on the Outside.”

  This is not a decision that requires thought. I cannot stay in this place with him and not do violence. I did not know that until now, but it is suddenly fact, as sure and intractable as Newton’s laws. I tell the old woman, “I understand.”