by Jerry Cole
Immediately, Marcia’s lips parted. She busied herself, rolling up another cigarette, mumbling. Win turned back toward his neighbor, his cheeks reddening.
“What in the hell is going on with that, Conrad?” he demanded.
Conrad had turned his eyes toward his cell phone, which cast an ominous glow upon his cheeks. “Says there’s another caravan coming through. Says they’re joining the others, round near Thomas Baxter’s ranch. Funny enough you’re coming here now.”
It was clear to Isaac that the words were meant for him, but he hadn’t a clue what they meant. He glanced from Marcia to Win and back again, waiting. The commercial break surged back into the programming, yanking Conrad’s attention back.
“Don’t know why they’re coming here. Ain’t nothing been here for years and years. All of ‘em are, what? Twenty-five years old?” Marcia said. She popped the cigarette between her lips, her nostrils flared.
“Something romantic to them about a ghost town, I guess?” Win asked, shrugging. “I walked round about last night and they were chanting something wild. All of them had heads turned up toward the sky, their eyes all glowing. It was real eerie, Marcia. I don’t know if it’s the end times, or what it is.”
Isaac cleared his throat, sensing he’d been forgotten. “What is this you’re talking about?” he asked.
“Oh, my goodness. It’s almost not worthy of conversation,” Marcia sighed.
“You said it’s happening at my daddy’s place?” Isaac continued.
“It’s not that your poppa has anything to do with it,” Marcia countered. “It’s just he’s gotten unlucky these days, is all. Fact, he was grumbling about them just last week, before we ain’t seen him again for a bit.”
“Suppose it’s because of the old illness,” Win offered.
They held the silence for a moment. Isaac shifted in his stool, making the feet of it creak beneath him. Marcia again glanced toward him, looking almost rueful.
“Guess you’re probably wondering what it is we’re on about.”
Isaac shrugged, not wanting to seem nosy. This wasn’t his territory. Not his world. But his eyes felt strangely watery, perhaps from the cigarette smoke, and Marcia seemed to sense his neediness.
“Guess it’s better that you come with us to see it,” Marcia sighed, shaking her head violently, letting little gray curly-Qs fall around her jawline and chin. “Jesus me, I never thought I’d see the day that such a thing could happen.”
Marcia looked at Isaac with instructions in her eyes. As a result, he cast his drink across his tongue, finishing it, and stood up while she scooted herself around the bar. Win followed suit. Conrad didn’t fidget whatsoever, as though he had done his duty in telling them about whatever it was that was going on. His gaze remained with the television. Isaac wished that he could be a similar religious zealot, that he could remain as stalwart for anything, even if it was an idiotic television station.
“So, we’re heading to my daddy’s property?” Isaac asked, as they cut out of the saloon doors. He shivered, despite the heat. The rental car remained precisely where he’d parked it. Although why he checked, he wasn’t entirely sure. It wasn’t as though there were many in the town who might steal it.
“That all right with you?” Marcia asked, giving him an up-down. Outside the bar, she looked about two feet shorter than she had inside it. “I thought that was why you came all the way here, huh? To meet with your daddy before he kicks it?”
Isaac felt tossed between several answers. He wished he could explain the complexities, that he ached with fear to see his father again—especially a father who would surely be a decrepit version of the person he’d left behind in Texas so many years before.
Rather than dive into it, though, he just shrugged.
“Whatever,” Marcia sighed, fiddling with her pack of tobacco and rolling up another tight one. “You’ve gotta see this.”
Isaac followed Win and Marcia down the dirt road through town, till it spit them out toward the fields. Win and Marcia spoke with one another in slow, methodical sentences, many of which seemed to dive into a far different lexicon—one that Isaac couldn’t comprehend, despite having grown up in Texas.
“See that? That’s them,” Marcia said, casting her finger toward the open field. “And right behind it, about an acre behind, is your daddy’s ranch. Case you weren’t sure exactly where it was. Suppose that’s your sister’s car, right there yonder?”
It was. It was the same old busted-out car Monica had driven the previous seven or so years, one that Isaac was accustomed to seeing on his various trips to Texas, for holidays, the occasional birthday of one of his nieces and nephews. It was bizarre to see it there, tilting forward, as though it was apologizing to the Texas sun.
Between Isaac, Marcia, Win, and Thomas Baxter’s ranch, however, there was a mighty field. And within that field were stationed perhaps twenty or so vehicles of various makes and models, including several RVs. Isaac had never seen anything like it, certainly not in the midst of the desert, and he paused, gaping, wondering if he was again seeing some sort of mirage. With Marcia and Win by his side, he already felt he was in a sort of walking daydream, or perhaps nightmare. Who were these people? Should he have remained in the relative safety of New York City, far and away from all his demons?
Was he perhaps dead?
In the midst of the field, well over fifty people had gathered, all of them between the ages of twenty and forty, in various stages of undress, of hippie garb, their hair flowing wildly, their laughter erupting to the blue sky above.
It was reminiscent of cult images Isaac had seen years before, from the years of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Isaac tore his eyes toward Marcia, who looked directly back at him, seemingly waiting for his response.
“What is going on?” he demanded.
Marcia shrugged, cutting cigarette smoke across her teeth. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Should we go closer? Ask them?” Isaac asked.
“I don’t know. They seem a bit fuckin’ crazy to me,” Win offered. “I’m a bit scared. But damn, if you have the balls to do it, then by all means. I know us and the rest of the folks in the town would really like to know. And your poppa, I’m sure he’s going crazy in there, if he’s got his wits about him at all.”
The edge of the field was positioned against the very edge of the ghost town, and it seemed that several of the culty twenty-somethings had begun to move into the buildings, carting their various garb in with them, atop their shoulders. They hollered out, claiming various rooms for themselves.
“They’re squatting in our town!” Marcia muttered, seemingly enraged. “I don’t know quite what to say.”
“Except that’s basically what we all did to get here, isn’t it?” Win asked, suddenly the voice of reason.
“You be quiet,” Marcia spurned back. “It’s clear to me those yuppie folks, probably from California or something like that. I mean, look at that big one. The one with the head of hair like Jesus. He’s standing on top of that RV! What on earth is he up to?”
Isaac and the others were a bit out of earshot. He reached into his pocket, tapped his finger hard on the END button of his cell phone, and surged forward.
Marcia hissed, apprehensive, “Isaac! What are you doing? You know they might not be safe!”
Isaac gave her an almost playful grin, one reminiscent of his more youthful days. “Ain’t ya’ll supposed to be cowboys?”
Marcia rolled her eyes back. Win took the bait, rushing after Isaac, before a disgruntled Marcia followed. They marched toward the preaching man, taking up residence along the outskirts of the fifty-some group of people. The group had begun to hush, shushing one another, muttering about the importance of some “mission.” Isaac’s heart pumped with adrenaline. This was a worthy thing to distract himself with. This would ensure he didn’t have to go to his father’s yet.
It wasn’t like the old man was up and about, marching past his window, wondering where the
hell his son was all this time. Trudy and Monica had it covered, as they always did.
Plus, Isaac thought now, this was a worthy story to ultimately tell his friends over in New York, provided he ever did make his “epic” return.
Finally, he forced himself to begin to listen to the Jesus-looking, quite-handsome man atop the RV. The man was shirtless, wearing a brown vest, his hair curling wildly toward his wide, saucer-like, brown nipples. His hands were outstretched, very much like old church paintings, and his feet were spread far apart atop the RV roof. Isaac felt sure the RV must be steaming to the touch, but the man seemed not to notice. Perhaps he was on drugs.
“Which was why I gathered you all here,” the man called, his voice almost echoey, as though he was speaking into a receiver. “For we are the chosen ones. The ones who will be saved, saved by the members of the tribe on Venus who have looked upon this earth and noted the destruction we, as a human race, have created. They spoke to me, only me, their Chosen One, and they have designated me as the Seeing Eye, the Being All, the One to tell you of this truth. And here, in beautiful Western Texas, we will remain until they make contact once more.”
There was a bit of a scuffle to the right of Isaac. His eyes hunted for it, noting a little, hippie-like girl whispering wildly with a much taller man, one who matched her in make and model and seemed, at least to Isaac, to be her boyfriend. His ears grew hungry to hear what they said. He snuck his shoulder to the side of the increasingly packed crowd, slowly inching his way inside. In the back of his mind, he knew he was dallying, that he was meant to appear at the house beyond the cult—in which his father lay, slowly drawing his last breaths.
God, it was too difficult to think about. This was a far better distraction.
“Hey! Hey, kid!” Win hissed.
Isaac spun back, a bit too fast, to catch a moment of sincere fear pass over Win’s face.
“I’m just—” Isaac murmured, gesturing toward the couple, who were fighting in a sort of manic whisper, their arms flailing.
“I tell you that the end of the world is nigh!” the man continued atop the RV, his voice rising. He seemed to sense he’d lost a few of the members of his crowd, was attempting a new, louder tactic. His hands rose higher, toward some sort of otherworldly being. His vest flapped back, showing more of the coarse hairs atop his chest. Isaac was reminded of a centaur.
“The ghost town of Rhode’s Pike is our final destination. We have traveled far and wide, across plains and fields and roads, each of us churning toward this last earthly home. Here, we will use our earthly bodies to the best of our abilities. We will eat. We will sleep. We will dream, and we will dance. When we arrive on Venus, our bodies will be given over for something much more conducive to the particular stratosphere of that ancient planet. Here, at Rhode’s Pike, we will pay homage to our past selves, and make room for the new.”
“You didn’t fucking tell me he was—” these were the words whispered, madly, from the man Isaac approached from the side. The man—who couldn’t have been much older than twenty-five, with a burly beard that seemed caked with grime and ashes of old cigarettes—was quite handsome, yet his face was crinkled tightly, seemingly unlikely to unwind. He gripped the young woman before him with intensity, his fingers glowing white with their grip.
Isaac had the sudden suspicion that he was hurting her.
“Kenny, come on!” she hissed back, seemingly pleading with him. “It’s not like it’s important in the grand scheme of the earth, of our earthly beings…”
“Just shut the fuck up about our earthly beings, Marney!” Kenny returned. He rushed his head to the side and spat on the soil at their feet, causing the similarly dressed man beside him to step heartily to the side. It seemed that men and women from Venus were absolutely kosher, but a bit of spittle was not.
Fair, Isaac thought.
Suddenly, the man atop the RV stopped speaking, mid-sentence. He coughed. Several members of the group exchanged glances, sweeping their hands to their bellies and hearts. Their faces hung heavy with dehydration. In this heat, perhaps they would age ten years in ten minutes—realize their past lives and return to wherever it was they came from. Isaac couldn’t imagine how any cult had any sort of longevity. Wouldn’t someone want to go for tacos?
“I see a hand. Is it—is it a question?” the man asked, seemingly nonplussed.
Isaac’s stomach lurched. He glanced back toward where he’d stood, finding the surly-looking Marcia drawing a flat, nicotine-stained hand into the air. She chewed a piece of gum wildly. Isaac could almost hear the clank of her jaw from where he stood, perhaps ten feet to the right.
“Yeah. I got me a question,” Marcia hollered. In the midst of the beautiful twenty-somethings, she looked strange and soiled and out of place. She also looked hard as shit.
“All right. This is quite unusual,” the RV Jesus offered. “But I will accept. We are in the nature of accepting all of you who take the call, no matter your creed or age or—”
“Why the hell did you pick on my Rhode’s Pike to set up your weirdo camp?” Marcia said, her voice breaking in the middle. “Plenty of other land in Texas, and you gotta pick right here off of Main Street?”
Now, several of the hippie dippy cult members glanced toward her, sensing her making a mockery of their mission. On cue, she dipped her hand into her pocket and drew out a flask. She yanked it back, along with her head, and then slipped it back into her pocket as though nothing had happened.
RV Jesus smirked, looking rather more like a third grade bully than a cult leader, at least in Isaac’s opinion. He bent a bit at the knee, seemingly trying to peer down directly into Marcia’s soul. Of course, Marcia stood her ground, seemed, even, to grow taller, in the midst of the much-taller twenty-somethings. Again, she clacked her gum.
“I take it you’re a member of this fine town?” the man asked, almost leering.
“Been a proud member of Rhode’s Pike since you was in diapers,” Marcia returned. This woman simply wouldn’t take any shit.
The man was unfazed. “What’s your name?”
“Marcia,” Marcia returned. “And might I ask what yours is? Or should I take it up with the gods of Venus, or whoever the hell it is you’re talking to?”
RV Jesus drew himself tall, looking, now, like a thick, stoic pole, his chest burly and thick—the very stuff of trash romance novels, the man spread out across the bed, the woman’s blonde mane spread across his stomach.
“My name is Everett McLean,” he announced.
“Everett McLean? You sound like you should be served up hot and ready at the local fast food shop,” Marcia said. “And I’m here to tell you—and all ya’ll—that there ain’t a single thing to believe about this whole Venus bullshit. I been raised in the Christian faith my entire life. Know the Bible back and forth and sideways. And I tell ya, there ain’t a single thing the Bible says about being taken up to Venus just because you believe in free love.”
Anger beamed off of Everett McLean. It was clear he was unaccustomed to being spoken to like this—as though his every teaching, his very core of life meant nothing. He clicked his tongue. Several members of the cult had begun to draw further away from Marcia, leaving a large, circular gap where she stood. Win remained beside her, bumping his elbow where it fell on her body—round about her shoulder. The color fled from his face.
Everett McLean took tentative motions. He swept down, allowing his feet to dance from the side of the RV, then Tarzan-ed himself from the side mirror, lassoing himself toward the ground with a firm motion of his arm. His bare feet padded atop the burnt grass. He flashed a smile to the waifish women in the front row, whose freckles danced atop their cheeks in recognition of his agility. No words needed to be said.
Tension escalated as Everett McLean bucked through the crowd, surging past several of his followers and casting them right, left, right, left. None of them made a single sound.
Such was the power of this cult leader.
Suddenl
y, Everett strutted directly toward Marcia, so that his nose was cast downward, angling itself directly toward her little sun-wrinkled face. Isaac’s stomach clenched. He took a brief moment to glance toward Kenny and Marney, the young couple who’d been bickering, and noted that they, too, had quit, and were now gazing, seemingly stupefied, toward Marcia and Everett.
Whatever was about to happen—whatever an arrogant, wildfire of a man named Everett McLean could possibly do to Marcia—Isaac sensed it wasn’t good. He shifted his weight, feeling sweat bead up along his neckline. The Texan sun was a separate being, perhaps as wild and volatile as these men and women of Venus. Out there in the fields of West Texas, it felt incredibly real, incredibly believable that one day, altogether too soon, the world would snip itself to an uneasy end.
Certainly, Isaac felt the end of the world like a wave, crashing across his chest, making it difficult to breathe.
Chapter Four
Wyatt
Wyatt found himself stuffed in the midst of some sort of mid-day religious sermon beneath the blisteringly hot, Texan sun. The crowd was fifty-plus, circled around a decrepit-looking RV, just to the side of the main road of Rhode’s Pike, a seemingly classic-looking ghost town, although Wyatt wasn’t necessarily accustomed to the way of the ghost town. Doors, cast open with the eerie desert breeze, creaked, and their busted-out windows gleamed. Ghosts seemed to lurk amongst them.
But that wasn’t the scariest part of all of this.
Somehow, he’d lodged himself in the midst of a cult scenario, one that, naturally enough, didn’t believe itself to be a cult.
He supposed the term itself, “cult,” left quite a bit to be desired. One immediately thought of, like, murders, of hive minds, of living out some sort of 1960s fantasy.
In the midst of the crowd, he stood directly alongside Clara and Randy, with Kenny and Marney at-odds with one another just behind him. The reason for their cat-like hissing and near-constant fighting? Apparently, this whole “Venus is coming, the end of the world is nigh!” bullshit HADN’T been Marney’s wild, provocative dream, after all, but rather had surged out of a stream of phone calls from an ex-boyfriend named Everett McLean, whom she’d met while studying philosophy at Berkeley.