by Jerry Cole
Course, Kenny hadn’t figured this all out until after their arrival in West Texas, when Everett McLean had sliced out of one of the ghost town shacks with a smooth smile across his face, casting his hand toward Kenny and saying, “Welcome, friend. It’s good you came. The fate of the world, of humanity itself, is far greater a thing than whatever happened with Marney and I in the past.”
Wyatt had watched while Kenny’s head had nearly exploded, his cheeks growing bright pink. He’d immediately yanked Marney to the side for a barrage of demands. Namely, “What the hell did you think, bringing me all the way here to FOLLOW your ex-boyfriend’s every goddamn will?”
But more on that later.
Currently, Wyatt was fully and totally occupied with the current scenario, in which some bat-crazy old lady, a member of the ghost town itself, had deigned to demand just what the hell Everett McLean was doing in Rhode’s Pike—and didn’t he have somewhere else to be? She was whip-smart and sassy, staring up at Everett McLean and cranking her jaw back and forth. It was clear she wouldn’t take any shit, not from Everett—despite his handsome demeanor, his cool and easy cult-leader persona. Marcia, as she’d introduced herself, hadn’t the time for it.
After Everett snaked through the crowd, he blinked down upon her, almost seeming to bless her with his gaze. But seconds later, Marcia, being entirely Marcia, yanked her head down and spat her gum out at his feet. Everett balked. The bright piece of blue gum had attached itself to his big toe, making a mockery of his entire hairy-foot, Jesus-like demeanor.
Everett’s face had flung itself downward, like a tent that had fallen in the wind. He yanked his hand back, seemingly about to strike this old woman for her disobeying, for her inability to see the importance of his “message.”
But a split second later, a man with jet-black hair, tight-fitting jeans, and a perfectly cut, white, button-down shirt shot from just to the left of Wyatt, ducking between Everett and Marcia. Marcia stumbled back a bit, coughing. Everett’s hand remained far back, still poised to strike.
The crowd remained hushed. Those who could see the hubbub kept their lips pressed tightly together, some of them turning a ghostly white. Everett formed a tight smile, one that seemed a bit too small for his face. His cheeks bulged up on either side. Wyatt imagined he’d been a rather chunky child, that this had caused the first inner rift of his body and soul.
“Someone willing to stand up for an old lady, hey? How very chivalrous of you,” Everett said. He eased his hand across the top of his head, taking out a bit of the fluff.
“I don’t know what kind of operation you think this is,” the handsome man said back, his voice seemingly trying to hover above a Texan accent, far different than many of the cult members. “But this is a place people live. This is a place people call home. They haven’t received your weird-o Venus call. They just want their lives back.”
Everett blinked doe-like eyes toward him, as though he was a child, and Everett his teacher. “I understand that it’s difficult to hear the truth for the first time. Even many of the members of our group have difficulty understanding the truth, after living alongside me for several days. But I tell them—what do I tell them?”
At this, Everett spread his hands to his followers, stretching his fingers wide.
“HAVE FAITH! KEEP TO THE CALL!” the followers called, a great hive mind.
Even Marney, Clara, and Randy added their voices to it, while Kenny kept his lips pressed tightly together, casting dark eyes toward Wyatt. Wyatt held Kenny’s gaze for a moment, trying to project an air of understanding. How wretched it must have been to follow your super-hot girlfriend all the way to West Texas, only to find out her ex-boyfriend had been the only reason for the long drive.
The man who stood up to Everett remained stalwart, his feet spread wide beneath him. Wyatt was surprised to note that the man wore cowboy boots, despite a seeming city demeanor. His journalistic mind twitched, trying to take stock of him—of the perfect curve of his ass, of the sweet curve of his nose, of the hardness of his eyes. Perhaps he’d grown up in Texas, before moving somewhere big—somewhere sure of itself in culture and flair. Perhaps New York, although Wyatt couldn’t be certain.
Marcia scuttled around to the side of Isaac, seemingly unwilling to give up her status as The One to stand up to the villain. She cackled, lending an evil, witch-like laugh. The man cast her a look, one that seemed to ask, “Do you really think that’s helping anything?”
“Do you hear them?” Everett asked the man before him, his voice raspy. “Do you understand what they’re saying?”
“Are you asking me if I speak English?” the man asked.
Wyatt’s heart surged with adrenaline. He made near-constant mental notes, knowing he needed to incorporate any such situation like this in the many stories he planned to write for the magazine. “How the Ghost Town Fought Back Against the Cult Leader.” “One Ghost Town. One Cult Leader. Who Will Win?”
Already, he imagined himself a year from then, sitting poolside in Los Angeles, perhaps at his own estate, although he wasn’t too fussy about the details talking about his “lucky break” as a journalist. “I saw these wild people running around New Mexico yelling about Venus and the end times, and I knew it was my time to act.”
“I’m asking you if you hear the allegiance the men and women who follow me HAVE for me,” Everett sighed, allowing his shoulders to slant forward. He acted as though he was disappointed on an emotional level. “Of course, you’ve only just arrived in our fold. Won’t you stay a while? Won’t you take stock of the birds, of the earth, of the men and women who’ve arrived from all over this beautiful nation to discover just what it means to be alive?”
“Didn’t you just announce that we’re all going to die?” the man returned. He drew his fingers over the top of his ear, scratching. “I’m afraid I’m growing a bit confused about the nature of this—group.”
“Just stay a bit longer,” Everett said, again lending him a kindergarten smile. He reached forth and tapped his shoulder, causing the man to yank a bit to the left, trying to be out of reach.
“Smack him up, Isaac!” Marcia hollered beside him, smashing her own fist into her other palm.
But the man named Isaac did nothing of the sort. His face gave no air of defeat, but it seemed he comprehended the weight of the hive mind—knowing full-well that a punch across the leader’s face might result in a wretched deformation of his own. Wyatt drew his pen from his pocket, scribbling the man’s name across his palm. Isaac. It wasn’t as though he would forget it.
Suddenly, Everett lurched around and cantered back toward the RV. The spring in his step was bizarre, the stuff of nightmares, as though he assumed he’d just “won” the exchange with Isaac, and therefore had nothing whatsoever to worry about. In a sense, this was fair and accurate.
Marney snaked her arm around Wyatt’s, yanking him toward her. She whispered in his ear.
“Isn’t he absolutely marvelous? He has such a way with people,” she said, her voice syrupy sweet.
Kenny glowered at Wyatt, seemingly sensing him to be “flirting” with his girl. Wyatt dipped his pen behind his ear, scrubbing his fingers through his dirty blond hair. He knew better than to disagree with Marney, however, the woman who’d been his key to the “inner circle” of whatever the hell was going on in West Texas. So, he nodded, his eyes saucer-like.
“It really is cool to see,” he offered.
Marney beamed at him. Suddenly, he felt she linked him with all the others, that he was a part of a greater mission. Just as soon as this feeling rushed his heart, he shoved it back down, reminding himself of the nature of his position. He was a spy, a journalist, a man with nothing in common with the rest of them, besides, perhaps, his age, his looks. Throughout the journey from New Mexico, he’d ruffled himself up quite a bit, found himself speaking about the intricacies of micro-dosing on mushrooms and different strands of weed, just to ensure Kenny and Randy took to him. Six hours into the ride, he’d
become a best friend, the one spitting the most jokes, and the one apt to have the best playlist. “Dude, you absolutely have to hear this track. It’s a deep cut, but I’m telling you, it’s worth it,” had been something he’d heard churn out of his own mouth mid-way through the ride, to intense acclaim. Clara had been at the wheel and she’d smashed her hands across it, drumming along.
Despite the fact that this was his “costume,” Wyatt had felt intense appreciation for all things in this moment. It was simply the nature of the road. It did things to people, cast spells upon them. Occasionally, when Marney spoke about the men and women and non-gender-conforming beings arriving from Venus, her eyes grew so electric, wild, that Wyatt felt himself diving into them, yearning for more.
It was all so entirely false. But it was delicious.
Everett yanked himself back upon the RV. He righted himself, spread his arms wide, and blurted out, “Now that the majority of us have arrived, it is time for us to set up a more permanent camp. The nature of the messages from Venus are generally unclear—we could have six days, we could have six weeks, we could have six months. Regardless, that gives us plenty of time to bask in the beauty of our human bodies and minds, before being taken into the sky.
“To build camp, my right-hand man, Genesis, has offered a majority of his funds for tents, for water. He knows, as we all do, that these earthly funds will have no power in the sky.”
Wyatt hunted for this man named Genesis, scouring near the front row. Sure enough, Everett seemed to be pointing directly to a sharp-nosed, rich-boy—assuredly the son of some tech billionaire up in San Francisco—who seemed to bask in the glory of being mentioned by the likes of Everett McLean. How very clear it was that Everett was using this boy for his personal gain, and for the gain of his followers. Wyatt made a mental note to try to interview “Genesis” later, perhaps to draw up his real name, and ultimately link him to whoever his rich daddy was.
That would make an excellent story, as well.
Wyatt noticed that Marcia had again drawn her hand toward the sky, in an effort to ask additional questions. But the man called Isaac had reached for it, shaking his head vehemently. “We don’t want to cause any more ruckus, Marcia,” he murmured, just loud enough for Wyatt to hear.
Wyatt’s eyes snaked up to Isaac’s. For whatever reason, Isaac glanced his way, and held his gaze for a long moment. Between his brows, a deep crinkle formed. Wyatt’s lips parted, hungry to tell Isaac that he wasn’t “one of them,” that he had a fully formed, individual brain. But of course, that sort of thing wouldn’t carry through the crowd.
Wyatt tried a separate tactic. He ticked his head to the left, then the right, then mouthed the words, “See me after?” He tapped his pen, still latched behind his ear, as a sort of message. Could this translate that he was trying to write a story about the events? Still, Isaac looked vaguely critical. He kept Marcia’s arm tightly down, as she yanked around like a child beside him. The dumpy-looking ghost town sixty-something year old beside him looked cross, moody, and vaguely hungry. He hugged his chest tightly, seemingly wishing to be dismissed.
Finally, Everett blurted out some, “Go forth! Into the town, across the fields! Build! Create! Talk amongst yourselves and celebrate all that we’ve been and all we will be in the future!”
The crowd dissipated, slowly, casting the hippie children toward the ghost town. Trucks pulled in toward the side of the field, closer to the big, drafty-looking ranch house to the north. The trucks were filled with what seemed to be supplies. Several burly-looking helpers lurched into the back of the trucks, drawing big crates out and passing them along to skinnier assistants, who struggled, dragging and carting the crates back toward camp.
It felt very much like the beginnings of some kind of war. The crew was gathering supplies. They were fighting against or FOR some sort of higher idea. All brains and lips buzzed with it.
Marney tossed herself against Wyatt’s chest, hugging him close. He inhaled the gritty smell of her hair. His stomach clenched. When she drew back, her eyes were filled with tears.
“Isn’t he magnificent?” she whispered.
Behind her, Kenny scoffed. He blinked at Wyatt, seemingly demanding a far different answer. Clara and Randy drew themselves into their circle. Wyatt was grateful that Randy patted Kenny on the back, saying, “Hey, man. You couldn’t have known. But she did it for all of us, you know? You wouldn’t have come if she hadn’t, you know.”
“Lied about who told her about the end of the world?” Kenny scoffed. “Yeah. You bet your ass I wouldn’t have come. I feel like an idiot.”
He frowned at Marney, who’d begun a light little hop-like dance, dotting her toes to and fro across the burnt grass.
“It’s better to just let everything else go, the way Everett said to,” Clara sighed. “Wyatt. Don’t you think so? I could tell you were really jiving with the message.”
God, it was incredible what people thought they could deduce from you. Wyatt’s eyes churned again toward Isaac. To his intense surprise, despite moving a bit further back from the main RV, Isaac remained gazing back at him. He reached up and tapped his nose, a sort of signal that Wyatt didn’t fully understand. He batted his eyelashes, his heart surging in his chest. What the hell was going on? Was it the Texas heat?
“Where shall we set up camp, then?” Marney asked, her voice bright, fairy-like. It was as though she didn’t sense Kenny’s anger at all. “I dare say we can have an entire townhouse, if we want it. What with my connection to Everett, and all.”
Clara beamed at her. She twirled her hair with a rapid swirl of her finger. “Tell us more about it, will you? You were only a kid?”
“Just twenty-two,” Marney sighed. “And we fell madly in love. It was a sort of—of soul connection. One that you can only understand if you’ve had it before, you know? Anyway, the minute he started calling me again, I knew something was amiss. He always had a way with the universe. One morning, he woke up and poked me in the back, his eyes big. And he told me—Marney, baby, don’t you dare take the turnpike this afternoon. And you know what? That afternoon, a girl DIED on the turnpike. Like, that could have been me, you know? I stayed up all night sobbing to him, thanking him. So, like. I owe him everything. I would follow him to the ends of the earth.”
“Why don’t you tell them why you broke up?” Kenny demanded. His lips were pinched tightly together, looking as though he’d just swallowed an entire lemon.
Marney ignored this. Again, Wyatt spun his head round to glimpse Isaac, in the midst of conversation with Marcia. Around him, the cult members swirled, seemingly not noticing him. They carted tents, baskets of fruit, boxes of cereal, bottles of water. How funny, never to think about the specifics of keeping an entire cult alive in the middle of the desert. Perhaps it was Genesis himself—a project manager at a startup, in a previous life? Was there a spreadsheet somewhere with specific information—how to time out the water, where to buy it, who would drive the trucks?
“Why don’t you guys find us a place to sleep, huh?” Wyatt offered, speaking for what felt like the first time in ages. “I gotta run back to our RV, grab something out of my bag. I’ll pick up some bottles of water on the way back.”
Clara nodded, seemingly resolute. Marney looked akin to a space cadet, her eyes hungry for Everett, who seemed lost in the sea of raucous, beautiful cult followers. Everyone erupted with laughter, with song. Slowly, Wyatt cut away from them, drawing himself toward the ghost town’s Main Street, just a street away from the chaos of the cult. He fell into the shadow of the line of busted-out buildings, finding the temperature perhaps twenty degrees less. It was a miraculous discovery, one that immediately cooled the sweat that billowed along his neck. For a moment, he forgot why he’d shifted from the crowd.
But it seemed that Isaac had watched him. He drew himself around the corner, tapping his cowboy boots across the hard, sunburnt dirt. He stood, his eyes heavy, gazing at Wyatt. Wyatt wondered if there was something wrong with him,
if Isaac wanted to attack him for attending this meeting of the cult at all. But there was something somber, soft about his cheeks, as though he’d spent the majority of the previous few days spinning through anxious thoughts.
Wyatt understood that view of the world all too well.
“You saved the older lady,” Wyatt offered, trying to link this strange interaction to something quasi-reasonable. “He would have smacked her, right there in front of everyone. I couldn’t believe it.”
“Neither could I,” Isaac returned. He snaked his fingers through his black hair, shaking his head. His nails were clean, trimmed tight. Not the sort of worker’s fingernails Wyatt expected out in the boonies. Perhaps he was correct in his assumption; Isaac had just come in from far away.
“Especially since this is her world. This is her town,” Isaac continued. “It’s absolutely insane to me. This Everett McLean. It’s clear he comes from some kind of money, right? He’s got some sort of complex. He was told he was special, over and over as a kid. And now, he’s gotten it in his head that he’ll just—what the fuck—build a cult? Tell everyone they’re going to Mars?”
“Venus,” Wyatt corrected. He gave Isaac a quick smile, showing just how silly he really thought it to be.
“Whatever,” Isaac offered.
There was a silence. In the distance, the cult members began to sing a ‘90s pop song, something Wyatt had grown up listening to during his youth. His cheek twitched. “I can’t say I imagined many cults to sing radio hits,” he said.
“They aren’t terribly original, are they?” Isaac returned.
“Where are you coming from?” Wyatt finally blurted, his eyebrows stitching together. “Your accent. It flits between southern and—something else. I can’t really tell. And normally, I have an ear for this sort of stuff.”