InkStains January

by John Urbancik

were, and he had seen one of the old books.

  It was gone now, behind lock and key, safe from public awareness, but Mr. Jones wasn’t interested in saving the world.

  He got into his off-road, high-tech Land Rover, a beauteous and luxurious vehicle he’d acquired in preparation for this day. The roads were still only lightly used. The way was clear. He drove carefully, not hitting other drivers, some of whom must surely have read the same omens. There had been a gathering of crows the night before, floods in three corners of the map, snow in the north, other signs more disturbing. He obeyed every rule of traffic, the lights and speed limits, yielding rights of way, signaling before every lane shift.

  He left the radio off and drove in silence. A copy of Rolling Stone lay in the passenger seat. A bottle of water trembled in the console between.

  Finally, at the appointed place, Mr. Jones pulled off the road. Yes, he was a little early, but still surprised to find himself alone. There had been indications. Anyone could have seen them.

  He didn’t much like the idea of being alone, but he was resigned to it.

  Mr. Jones switched off the engine to conserve fuel. He rolled down the window. A light, moist breeze drifted across the lot. It amazed him, that he was alone here to be part of this, that he may in fact play a role. But there were other places, surely, like this one, where the same sacrifice might be made.

  He glanced often at his watch, but time became putty. He got hungry, but ignored it. He opened the bottle of water, though he knew he should have saved it. Eventually, the time drew nearer. With fifteen minutes remaining, Mr. Jones climbed out of the Land Rover, locked it, armed the alarm, and began the final leg of his journey, the last steps.

  He waited at the entryway until some random teenager with keys showed up and let him in.

  There was no display. Release day, yet they were relegated to a stack of other new releases, one boy band among rock legends, jazz sirens, pop beauties, and movie soundtracks. Five interchangeable kids stared at him from the front of the CD. He took it to the front counter.

  The girl there frowned when she saw what he’d taken to her. Her nametag said Kerri.

  “Are you sure?” Kerri asked.

  “Someone’s got to,” Mr. Jones told her. He paid with cash. He said he didn’t need a bag. He carried the disc to his Land Rover, unwrapped it in the front seat, and popped it in.

  At first, there was silence. Then the first note exploded from the speakers. Then the world blew up, and all life on the planet was lost.

  15 January

  To the very edge of the ocean, the forest burns. To the place where the trees reach the beach, where the sky touches the earth, where the water endlessly, ceaselessly, erodes the land. The smoke is thick, struck through with eddies of barely breathable air, but even that is hot and stark and tainted. The fire crackles and cackles, screams and roars, rages with uncontained fury. It consumes the leaves and the trunks and the bushes and the underbrush.

  From the very edge of the forest, a girl escapes, coughing and choking. Two, three steps onto the sand, and she stumbles. She falters. She falls.

  On the ground, panting, heaving, coated by soot and ash, still she claws at the sand. She pulls herself toward the ocean.

  Her clothes were white, if ochre now, her flesh pale, her hair a deep brown and her eyes a brilliant green. She’s in tatters, barely alive; she’s run a long way. She’s tired. But she’d not defeated.

  Fire reaches the edge of the forest and scorches the sand, but advances no further. In the flames, a woman stands, her hair red and her eyes red, her white clothes much like her sister’s. She stands at the edge of the tree line. She, too, has been running a long way.

  The girl in the sand looks back and smiles.

  “I hate that smile,” her red sister says.

  “You’ve never been fast enough to catch me.”

  “I came close.”

  “No, actually, you didn’t.”

  In this place where fire burns through the forest, where sky and ocean touch the shore, two of their other sisters approach, each wearing white, or variations therefore, one with pearl eyes and flowing blonde hair, the other’s eyes like the sun and hair very nearly blue.

  Always, the four of them, chasing and teasing each other, passing threats but also gifts.

  “We’re not alone.”

  “We were never alone.”

  “There are other powers.”

  “The humans?” Red asks, still standing in the flames. “I can destroy them all.”

  “As can I.”

  “They brought with them four horsemen.”

  “Only four?”

  “Powers.”

  “Powers that will, in the end, lead to their own destruction.”

  “There can’t be only four.”

  “There are only four of us,” Red says.

  “You know that’s not true.”

  ‘We’re the only four that matter.”

  “But I’ve seen the horsemen. They can go nowhere without my knowing, and I tell you, they are five.”

  “And there are other Powers.”

  “You’re not listening to me.”

  ‘Four, five, what difference does it make?”

  “Oh, the four are terrible, each alone and certainly together, but the fifth horseman – he’s something extraordinary.”

  “We’ll outlast them all. We always do.”

  “Do they have names?”

  “Do we?”

  They laugh, a sisterly conspiracy. Against the horizon, the setting sun paints the sky in all their colors.

  “The fifth horseman is dangerous. I fear him.”

  “I don’t,” Red says.

  “You don’t know Fear.”

  “Not true. We drink together.”

  “They bring more than just the horsemen. They bring Muses. Fates. Godlings and shadows and demons.”

  ‘I’ve seen the demons.”

  ‘You’ve seen the demons of the land,” says the pearl-eyed sister. “You should see what lurks in the deep. The size of them.”

  Then Red asks a question that leads to a length of silence. “Have they brought Death?” When she is certain no one wants to answer, Red answers for them: “They have, haven’t they?”

  “Well, there’s the horseman.”

  “They do have names.”

  “And is one of them...?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Yes, damn it all, yes.”

  “Don’t forget the fifth.”

  “Quiet, girl. We have bigger concerns.”

  “Death cannot touch us.”

  “Yet you tremble.”

  “So do you.”

  “I don’t deny it.”

  “Should we do anything this time?”

  “Why?”

  “We could – I don’t know, teach them, maybe?”

  “It’s already too late. They’ve brought these things into existence, and as always, these things will die with them.”

  “You’re heartless.”

  “So are you.”

  “I might take one as a lover.”

  “I might seek their Death.”

  “Nonsense. Death can’t touch any of us, least of all you.”

  “I just realized. You’re afraid.”

  “I admit it. They brought that, too.”

  “What else?”

  “What else is there?”

  “Love. Hope. Courage.”

  “Yes, of course, all those things and more. Every time. Why would it be different now?”

  “The fifth horseman.”

  That exasperates all of the sisters. Their conversations are always short. They say their goodbyes and exchange hugs and promises, but the truth is they can hardly stand each other. Family holds them together, and love, and even trust, but each has her own life to live.

  The Seasons slip over each other as time passes – another four sisters, though they are closer and only rarely interact with their older sisters.

  Th
e girl with the brown eyes walks through her forests, far from the waters, high in the mountains and across plains until she reaches a certain rock.

  There, she feels closest to her mother, though in fact she can be no closer than she ever is. She sits against the rock and says, though there’s no one there to speak to, “I love you, mother, but I am afraid.”

  Her mother doesn’t answer; but if she did, it would be to say, “You should be.”

  As the sisters sits, she closes her eyes. Sleep comes swiftly, and with it dreams. She rarely dreams. She hasn’t in an age. In the dreamscape, she strolls through gray canyons of glass and brick, where the humans have – or will – congregated. Packed together so tightly, they are easy picking for the horsemen, who ride unseen among them, strikingly randomly and wantonly.

  There’s Disease, and its affects are bad. There’s Famine, and it spreads itself widely across the earth. There’s War, bigger and bigger with every passing millennia. There’s Death, ever present, ever grinning, who will live only for as long as they are humans.

  The Fifth Horseman rides alongside her as she watches the human scenes moving past at unnatural speeds, to kill and suffer and die. It makes her weak. Indeed, as the humans grow stronger, she and her sisters will suffer.

  “We don’t suffer,” she says to the Fifth Horseman.

  “That’s an old way of thinking,” he tells her.

  “You’re a new one,” she says.

  “I’m with you now.”

  “You’re a Nightmare.”

  “So I am.”

  “Therefore, none of this is real,” she says. “It’s a manifestation of my fears.”

  “I’m worse than that,” he tells her.

  “How so?”

  “I facilitate the creation of your fears. Everyone’s fears. It’s not enough that you dream them. They must be made real to have any power.”

  “You are a Power.”

  He grins. “One of the great ones.”

  She wakes with a start. Much time has passed, not just nights or months or years. The things in