The Bones Beneath My Skin

by TJ Klune

  He nodded toward the door.

  Nate followed him outside after looking back at Art. She was still asleep.

  Alex walked around the side of the motel, out of sight from the office and the road. It was dark. The stars were twinkling. The comet seemed duller than it’d been before.

  Nate could barely make out Alex in the dark. Crickets chirped and frogs croaked in the woods behind the motel.

  Nate said, “What’s going—”

  “Don’t.”

  Nate stopped and waited.

  It didn’t take long. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “About?”

  “Don’t be an asshole,” Alex growled. “You know what I’m talking about.”

  Yeah, so maybe he did. “I did what I thought was right.”

  “You could have died,” Alex said, taking a step toward him. His hands were in fists at his sides, shoulders stiff. “If I hadn’t—if Randy had—”

  “I’m here,” Nate said quietly. “Now. With you. We’re safe.”

  “You don’t understand,” Alex said, voice hoarse. “You—Nate. What if you’d—” He broke off, chest heaving.

  “Thank you.” Nate moved toward Alex slowly, hands raised as if placating a cornered animal. “For saving me. I know it was—”

  “You don’t know,” Alex snapped. “You don’t know. If I hadn’t seen him, or if he’d moved one second faster, you would be dead. Don’t you get that? You fucking asshole. How dare you. How dare you try and—”

  Nate kissed him.

  Alex didn’t respond, at least not at first. Nate reached up and wrapped his arms around Alex’s neck and kissed him for all he was worth.

  And then Alex essentially collapsed against him, as if his strings had just been cut. He grunted into Nate’s mouth, arms coming up and circling Nate, holding him close as he kissed him back, more teeth than anything else.

  “Stupid,” he muttered as he broke the kiss. “You’re so stupid. You can’t do that. You can’t do that to me. Please. Nate. Please don’t do that to me. I can’t do this. Not without you. Not—”

  Nate hushed him, telling him they were all right, that they were fine, that they had made it, they had made it, and soon, so soon, it would be over and they could move on to whatever came next.

  Alex shuddered against him, and in the dark, they held each other for a long time.

  When they made it back to the room, Artemis was sitting up in the bed.

  “Hello.” She smiled quietly at them. “It’s almost time.”

  Nate and Alex exchanged a look before Alex said, “Are you sure?”

  She nodded but wouldn’t meet their eyes. “I’m going home.”

  They slept that night in the same bed. It was a tight fit, but they made it work. Art lay on top of Alex, curled against him, snoring under his chin.

  When Nate dreamed, it was of numbers and code and flowers blooming in a field.

  The next morning, they ate a lot of bacon.

  They didn’t speak much.

  It came to an end two days later in Dingess, West Virginia.

  It was a nothing place. Not really even a town. A bump in the road. They drove past a post office. A worn-down sign for a place called Jamie’s Family Restaurants. The sign had bullet holes in it.

  It was dusk. The sky was orange. Markham-Tripp was fading. The stars were just starting to come out.

  The trees swayed in the wind.

  They came to an old tunnel. A green-and-white sign stood next to it.

  HISTORIC DINGESS TUNNEL

  CONSTRUCTED 1892

  The road narrowed to a single lane through the tunnel. It was apparently very long, the light at the other end faint. There was no other traffic on the road. The air coming in through the open windows of the truck felt heavy. Staticky. It was getting harder to breathe.

  “Here,” Art said. “Alex, I think it’s here.”

  Alex slowed the truck to a stop.

  Nate noticed that there were no birds singing in the trees.

  His head was filled with flowers.

  His skin felt like it was vibrating.

  He felt them. Alex and Art. Both of them.

  The truck idled, rattling until the wires came apart, stopping the engine.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, staring out the window. His voice was flat. His face was blank. Nate knew what he was doing. Shoring himself up. Cutting himself off. He thought Art knew it too and was trying to cover her hurt.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “I’m pretty sure.”

  Alex nodded tightly, but he didn’t move. His knuckles were white where he gripped the steering wheel.

  Oh yeah. This was heartbreak up close.

  Nate wondered if there would be enough pieces remaining to make a recognizable shape of what they once had been.

  He opened his door.

  Alex jerked his head to glare at him.

  “Are we going on an adventure?” Art asked him, eyes wide.

  Nate nodded. “That we are, hoss. Time to saddle up and hit that old dusty trail.”

  She gave him a trembling smile.

  He climbed out of the truck.

  His knees popped. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

  Yeah. It was here. This was the place. He could feel it. He didn’t know how. He didn’t know why. But he could. It was different here.

  Art followed him out of the truck. She reached for his hand. He squeezed it tightly. They walked toward the front of the truck.

  Alex hadn’t moved.

  “You need each other,” Art said softly. “You see that now, don’t you?”

  There was a buzzing in Nate’s ears. “He needs you more.”

  She looked stricken at that. “I can’t—Nate, I want—you don’t understand. What I am. Who I’m supposed to be.”

  He looked down at her. “Space princess wasn’t too far off, was it?”

  She shook her head. “No. It wasn’t. And I—I love him.”

  “I know you do. And he knows that too.”

  “You’ll take care of him for me?”

  “If he’ll let me.”

  The expression on her face hardened. “He’ll try and push you away. He’ll try and say he won’t need you. He’ll be mean. He’ll be cold. You can’t believe him. Nate, he loves you, okay? You can’t let him—”

  “I won’t.” Nate cut her off before she could work herself into a panic. “We’ll… we’ll figure it out, okay? I don’t know—somehow. I know it.”

  “As long as you’re together, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Because when you’re together, you can do anything.”

  “Yeah, Art. Anything.”

  She tugged on his hand, pulling him down. The headlights of the truck were bright as he leaned forward. She took his face in her small hands, studying him. He didn’t close his eyes. He didn’t look away. He took his fill, just as she took hers. Everything hurt.

  She said, “I wondered what you would be like. Humans. What you would be capable of. How your minds would work. How your hearts would beat. You are animals. Fierce and wild. You are harsh and brutal and beautiful. There is no one like you in all the universe. You have the power for such destruction within you. And such joy. It’s a dichotomy that shouldn’t exist, and yet here it is. Within you. Within all of you.” She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. Each cheek. The tip of his nose. “I’m glad we found you. I’m glad he has you. Remember that when you look up at the stars.”

  A tear trickled down Nate’s cheek. There was nothing he could do to stop it.

  She let go of his hand.

  He stood upright.

  Alex stayed in the truck, hands still on the steering wheel.

  Art nodded sadly at him. “It’s okay. I understand. It’s… I—”

  They came then.

  Through all the things that had happened to them, after everything Nate had seen,
he hadn’t really thought ahead to this moment. To what would happen. How the end would be. If pressed, he would have said a ship would descend from the sky, smooth and silver, lights flashing. There would be a beam of blue light that fell upon Artemis, and she would rise into the ship before it shot off into the stars.

  He hadn’t expected this.

  Time passed differently in the Mountain. Time passes differently everywhere here. We don’t… mark the passage of time. Not like you do. Not with anniversaries or parties or balloons or cake. It has a different meaning. It’s… fluid. It can bend. It’s not the straight, rigid line you think it is. Time and space never are.

  At the tunnel’s entrance, electricity was arcing against the smooth stone. Rocks and pebbles on either side of the road slowly began to rise into the air. The hairs on Nate’s arms stood on end. The air smelled like strikes of lightning.

  There was a low rumble, and the air in front of the tunnel began to sizzle. It took Nate a moment to comprehend what he was seeing. It was as if the world in front of him was tearing, shredding into pieces and being swallowed into a hole opening up out of nothing. When it opened, the hole grew until it was almost as large as the tunnel behind it. Nate could no longer see the other end of the tunnel. Instead, he was staring into a gaping maw of white. It felt like he was staring into the sun.

  “We learned a long time ago how to travel without the need for ships,” Artemis said beside him. “It expends a great amount of energy, and it can be very dangerous. But we can reach across time and space, crossing distances never before possible. It’s a gateway.”

  And he could hear them on the other side. They were whispering in his head, unintelligible, soothing noises that caused his chest to hitch. He knew what Art was. He believed her. But here, now, seeing this swirling light in front of him, it hit him, and it hit him hard. They weren’t alone. There were others. And maybe they were far away, and maybe he would never see anything like this again, but they weren’t alone.

  “Never,” Art said fiercely.

  “I thought you said you couldn’t read minds,” he managed to choke out.

  “I can’t. Not really. But you’re broadcasting and we’re connected, you and me.”

  “I love you,” he told her, finally tearing his gaze away from the wonder in front of him. She was smiling at him, eyes wet. “I love you.”

  “I know,” she said, smile widening.

  He laughed. Of course he did. He couldn’t do anything else.

  She took a step toward the light.

  Nate looked back to the truck.

  Alex Weir still sat behind the steering wheel. He was as white as a sheet.

  Nate pushed.

  Big, rough hands braiding hair.

  Rocks skipping on the surface of a lake.

  Mouths full of bacon.

  Reckon we might as well get on, ain’t that right, hoss?

  And love. So much love that Nate felt like he was drowning in it.

  He watched as Alex’s face crumpled.

  Heartbreak. Up close.

  And then Alex was throwing the door to the truck open, shouting, “Wait! Art. Wait.”

  He was running.

  She met him halfway, jumping the last couple of feet.

  He caught her deftly, pulling her close. She wrapped her legs around his waist, arms going around his neck. His hand went to the back of her head, and he held her as she cried, as she told him she didn’t want to go, that she didn’t want to leave him, that she was hurting. “Alex, everything hurts because I never thought it could be like this. I never thought I could feel like this. I never knew it could be you. But it is. It is you.”

  And Alex was saying, “Hush, hush, baby girl, you hush now, you hear me? It’s okay. It’s okay. I need you to listen to me. Can you do that? There. There you go. Listen.”

  He said, “No matter where you go. No matter how far away you’ll be, I’m always going to be with you. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

  He rocked her back and forth.

  She sobbed into his neck.

  Alex looked helplessly at Nate, face wet.

  And there was nothing Nate could do.

  Eventually, she quieted down.

  Eventually, he set her back on her feet.

  He reached over and wiped her cheeks.

  She sniffled as she looked up at him.

  “Go on, now,” he said roughly. “You gotta get going.”

  She nodded slowly. “Adventure, right?”

  “Yeah, baby girl. An adventure.”

  She took a step back.

  And another.

  And another.

  She looked at Nate. Then back at Alex.

  She turned around.

  Artemis Darth Vader took a deep breath.

  She squared her shoulders.

  She walked toward the gateway shining in front of her.

  And she—

  She stopped.

  Cocked her head.

  The whispers grew louder. Nate didn’t understand what he was seeing in his head. What he was feeling. It felt like spindly fingers running along the surface of his mind, pulling at memories. They didn’t seem to care about… before. They went back far enough to when Nate felt a gun pressed to the back of his head as he stood in front of the generator in the shed. When they found it, when they found that image, the whispers sharpened, the fingers wrapping around it and pulling. Nate felt as if he were electrified, his head rocking back, fingers spread wide on his hands, toes curling. It was like he was seizing, but there was no pain, and he could still feel everything, could still hear everything, and those fingers pulled. They caressed over the flowers blooming in a field. They pinched at a helicopter being knocked from the sky. They curled in anger at men standing with guns. And they were soft, so fucking soft when Artemis and Alex sat across from him, both of them laughing, Art’s mouth full of bacon.

  They poked.

  They prodded.

  And when they came to Alex standing behind him, teeth in his neck, flesh hot and body hard, Nate thought, No, that’s not yours, that’s not for you to see, and they listened to him. They left it alone and pulled away.

  Above it all, he heard Art say, “Yes. Both of them. They’re mine. And I’m theirs. Why?”

  There was a response, but Nate couldn’t understand it.

  “They have faults. They make mistakes. But they love me. And I love them.”

  The whispers were louder. Harsher, like the buzzing of bees.

  “That may be so, but I would do it again. And again. And again. You may not understand them. You may not see their purpose, but I have seen their hearts. I have seen their souls. They are stars. They are dust. And I will remember them. Always.”

  A single voice answered. It sounded like bells ringing.

  Artemis said, “I—I can? But what about—”

  The bells rang louder.

  She looked back at them, a strange expression on her face. She turned back toward the light. “Then yes. Oh yes. More than anything in all the worlds.”

  The light exploded around them, and Nate was knocked off his feet. He was out cold even before he hit the ground.

  When they woke, it was dark.

  The stars were blinking overhead.

  The comet looked stuck in the sky.

  The tunnel was just a tunnel.

  They pushed themselves up slowly.

  They were alone.

  Alex took Nate by the hand, and they turned toward the truck.

  Something moved behind them. They both whirled around and—

  epilogue

  He sang along with the radio.

  Something about taking a sad song and making it better.

  After, he laughed until he could barely breathe.

  Coincidence, right? It had to be a coincidence.

  Funny thing was, he didn’t believe in coincidences.

  Not anymore.

 
; He wondered if today would be the day.

  He was halfway home when his old friend Steven Cooper came on the radio. His voice was rougher, and maybe he meandered more than he did before, but not much else had changed.

  He was saying, “…and why wouldn’t they think we would just believe them? Folks, you were around when we broke the story on chem trails. You were there when the government tried to convince us that Y2K was going to bring about the end of civilization. And yes, my friends, we were all there when those towers fell in New York. And we all know what that’s about, don’t we? How those towers weren’t knocked down by a damn plane, no. It was a controlled demolition, friends. It was done on purpose. And the reason was clear as the nose on my face. Blame it on the Arabs! On the Muslims! The Iraqis and Afghanis! That way, when we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, we would have the might of the people behind the war, when in fact, all we actually wanted was to clear a way for oil pipelines! Friends, there have been hundreds of such instances, both big and small, all these little pieces of a puzzle that once put together, show a grand picture of where our world is headed. You have Katrina. The Indonesian Tsunami. Virginia Tech. Hell, you have that little town in Oregon. Roseland. It was destroyed by a storm that only seemed to circulate above that one specific region? And you are expecting me to believe that? It was a test, friends. The government was performing experiments. Longtime listeners will know that I’ve proven time and time again that we are test subjects and have been since the fifties. Ever since we had contact. Truman made a deal. You know he did. How else can you explain the technological revolution that followed his presidency? In the last sixty years, we advanced more than we have in the entire existence of the human race. And you really expect us to believe that wasn’t done without guidance? What do we owe them when the bill comes due, friends? In six months, this year will come to an end. And the Mayans knew. They knew. It’s why their calendar ends this year. They knew that nothing came after. Friends, it’s my belief that here, this year, in 2012, we will see everything I’ve told you come to fruition. For whatever reason, they chose not to come back in ’95 with the damn comet. Or maybe they did and Peter Williams and his friends are now far, far away from here—”