She once got a letter from Sis and in it she wrote that everything was nostalgia. They were moving backward in time.
A demolition thunderclap splits the momentary silence of the house.
The world was mad.
Like, crazy as shit.
You think for one second there aren’t like government clones everywhere around us?
Think about it, G—if they done it already for those pleasure clones—like the way Brit is—then you know they’ve got them everywhere. Like, if some billionaire can afford to get a blowjob from, like, Young Jenna, or like, Mary Pickford II or whatever—from like Emma Goldman or some shit (because in case you don’t know, they cater to anyone and there’s nothing some proto-fascist motherfucker would like better than to have The Most Dangerous Woman In The World in der Hündchenstellung).
You know the ratio of clones to real people in the world?
My guess? It’s 50-50.
Like, hopefully.
In the morning Brit wakes with a gun to her head.
Shane hadn’t done that sort of thing in a while.
Maybe it was part of their game, but maybe not.
Sometimes he’d strut around the apartment with the barrel of the pistol in his mouth.
Nina called it his Ernest Hemingway routine.
Then he’d like, lay out rhymes with it in his mouth and her and Nina would laugh and laugh.
It was like The Sun Also Rises, told in reverse or some shit.
Or like the Hemingway family tree in rewind or like The Old Man and the Sea, know what I mean? Do you though? Because I’m not even sure I know what I mean, but I guess it’s just some kinda feeling or whatever, right?
Like death or whatever by your own hand.
Sometimes when they got stoned, Nina would read to her and Shane from those books. Brit often felt those were the best days of her life to have someone read to her like that. He was Nina’s favourite writer but Brit always thought it was something Nina didn’t really feel and just kinda inherited from the smart one, the sister, down at Penn State or whatever. The one whose words Nina ripped off to lord it over them sometimes.
And Brit was skeptical about that anyway because wasn’t Nina’s sister some feminist bitch? Like, who wanted to take over the world?
The only food they had in the house back then was an ossified hunk of ginger, and at first, Brit didn’t even know what in the hell it was til Nina told her.
Good for your metabolism, she said.
They threw it in a pot of boiling water and Nina read to them and the whole apartment smelled like ginger. And then they drank the water once it cooled. Brit picking the stringy bits out of her teeth.
Nina’s mouth—God she loved it.
Brit watched her mouth as she read.
Like a bow or some shit. A bouquet.
Words, man—how Brit hated and loved them at once.
Like weapons, man.
Until she’d met Shane and Nina, she hadn’t really given it much thought.
Shane and Nina used words like the way people used clothes or perfume or make-up or money.
The whole world was beautiful and total poison, and weren’t words a big part of it? Like a big big part of it?
But anyway, Brit loved Shane shirtless, like how he was back then.
Shirtless and hairless, a thing they had was the girls would shave every inch of him, just for something to do.
A couple razors, a bar of soap and a hot bath—seems alright to me, Nina would say, and what else is there to do?
Like, I’m not some fucking animal, Shane would say. He had this thing where his nostrils flared all the time. Nina thought his nose was too big at first but then she got used to it.
He’d say, I’m like human. Don’t need no pelt. We got clothes don’t we? Think we need fur? Not me. I say let’s evolve, dawg. Like, seriously.
He looked like a horse, and Brit was kinda in love, I guess, is what she’d say about it.
I’m just playing, Shane says, but his eyes are too hot. She’s looking at his index finger on the trigger and wonders.
Things happen, decisions are made and milliseconds don’t even really describe the quickness or the eternity, you know?
Like, what’s faster? Light or thought? And what’s more certain? Gravity or knowing? Don’t know, man, couldn’t tell you.
Nina and Carter still asleep.
Did she love Shane? Or did she “love” Shane?
Who knows, but she’s terrified.
Silence.
Grey light coming through the windows.
The woodstove cold dead.
Through its open mouth, blackened coals and ash.
She rises up, gently pushes the pistol away.
He sticks the gun back in his waistband.
Outside, they’re throwing their bags into the trunk. Small black birds dart above their heads.
Total quiet now in the far-off distance where, the night before, explosions made the ground tremble.
On the wind and hanging in the grey air, flakes of ash float heavy, drifting down to the dry grass and in the distance where the hills meet, tendrils of black smoke rise up into the sky.
Nobody says shit except for Carter, who’s like, There’s a fire over there.
That’s right, says Nina. It ain’t anywhere close to us.
But it is close, Brit thinks. It’s right around the corner.
So listen, this here’s an education for you. This here’s the Book of Skeet Love, legit—yo, like the moon alright?—like if you believe the moon is just the moon then you’re prolly someone who believes in the moon landing, right? You’re prolly just that type. Like dumb as shit.
Now listen: the moon ain’t real. It ain’t a real thing.
Just open your damn eyes.
It’s a hologram, G.
There’s no like actual hard evidence or scientific proof the thing even exists.
I’ve done a lot of research on this shit.
It ain’t real, I’m telling you.
It’s the truth alright?
There’s two possibilities—spaceship or hologram. So it might exist okay, fine—but not the way you think it does.
Back in the day, NASA shot fucking rockets at the moon and it boomed like a church bell. Like, it’s hollow. But I think the rockets just hit the moon’s force-field and that’s what made the sound.
This shit’s all on tape.
The Internet is like freedom, know what I mean? And because of this I know Kubrick faked the moon landing and he also shot Star Wars and I know the moon ain’t real.
And the moon needs a force-field because what the moon really is is a fucking reptilian eye looking through some quantum periscope.
That’s my theory.
First off, it’s too big. The moon is too big for our planet. The moon is fucking bigger than, like, a couple other planets in our solar system, so what’s up with that?
Second, we’ve never been in space.
Third, when you look at it, when the moon’s full, it looks just like a snake’s eye.
It’s like the CEO during the State of the Union address. Motherfucker’s right eye is just like the moon. Just watch the vid, G, seriously what’s wrong with you?
And now shit’s blowing up all over.
Like what’s over those hills?
Is this the end that’s been foretold?
Yo, smoke, motherfucker. Smoke and ash everywhere.
First time it’s a flood, and second it’s fire.
Like a fucking supernova, that’s what’s up.
Book of Revelations, Necronomicon, the Annunaki Chronicles.
My whole damn life I always listened to Dad, and for what?
He’d say shit like, We’ve got the fire inside of us, or whatever. And like, what does that even mean anyway?
He’d say like, Society needs a good purge—like purification or whatever. Like purification by flame, like what you do with souls or steel or cocaine, know what I mean?
You look around at this world and it’s all under someone else’s control. And you think your own mind is yours but it’s not. You’ve got like a thousand years’ hereditary abuse to deal with. You’ve got the structure of society. You’ve got an army of clones watching every move you make and a billionaire class keeping you indebted—like, you can feel the hounds at your heels, know what I mean?
And then, the whole thing ends anyway—a nuke or whatever, a plague—either way it’s like death or whatever that gets you and maybe in the afterlife it’s the same shit, you know? Like God or whatever just keeping his eye on you like non-stop.
But I don’t even believe that shit anyway—the afterlife is for losers.
What’s the point in trading one master for another is what I wanna know.
Like, Dad don’t believe in God, but he believes in the Royal Family so what’s the diff?
Don’t believe in God, but believes in the Invisible Hand.
And here we are in this car, G. The girls don’t know what I had to trade for it and this bitch is like a vault, know what I mean? Like Vault 7 right? Shit goes in—it don’t come out. Except sometimes it does. There’s a crack in everything—and that’s how the shit gets in.
We pull up to the border crossing, the one into The Drive Through Province right? And we know shit’s gotten totally real, because the place is a fucking ghost town. Ain’t no one there. Like, not one guard.
And Nina’s like, WHAT. THE. FUCK.
And the worst thing about it is that there’s this lone combat boot sitting in the middle of the road next to the tollbooth, right? One of those standard-issue jobbies there where the arm or the gate or whatever it’s called bars the road off and dude checks your papers and your retina.
One fucking boot, shiny as fuck, like, gleaming in this lame-ass weak-ass east-coast bullshit sun.
Like pure death forever and ever amen is what I’m thinking.
Shane rolls down the window and listens—nothing.
Out here in the wilderness, he’s becoming something else.
Hair sprouting on every part of his body.
It’s like werewolf styles, but not—but something like that, know what I mean?
It’s like the werewolf got no choice about what he is or whatever, he just is what he is, right?
Nina talks about it all the time—like that Gothic shit, but Shane isn’t getting his dick pierced for nothing. And like, with Brit and the fangs and all that—like monsters and shit like that—Shane doesn’t like it one bit. He’s a sci-fi guy, not horror.
He’s fantasy—he’s made up, but so are they.
He’s what could be, and they’re like what was—but Brit is def the future too and that’s something else he doesn’t like. It’s like hey, bitch, that’s my turf.
At least Nina’s just a regular bitch who’s hot—Brit’s a monster, man, like a Frankenstein.
And Shane’s read that shit, at least he pretends he has—once you begin altering a human’s body you know how long before shit’s not even human anymore? God knows.
Or maybe his dad does.
But anyway there’s nothing out here.
And Carter, yo, the kid’s fucked. Eyes like a couple moon craters. But like, he’s hope, know what I mean? Like, I believe the children are the future.
Like maybe the way I once was but not anymore but maybe still could be.
I’m the future too, and it doesn’t look good for any of you bitches.
There’s not a day goes by where I don’t think how Dad hates me.
What I think about when I think about my Dad are the parts for a nuke rammed up the ass of a dead Pine Marten. Like total extinction, yo—the future.
And anyway, if you wanna know, a good way to keep tight is to practice your hooks, right? Like, power in both hands, like converted-south-paw-peek-a-boo-Mike Tyson-Oscar De La Hoya styles.
You practice your hooks, your pecs tighten up like nothing else and that’s how I do it.
Except I haven’t been able to much because of the cult or whatever, and you know—how I’m like a renegade motherfucker and the world’s ending and thank fuck for that so there’s no future coming anyhow and anyway there’s no way I can lug a heavy bag around with us, can I?
And what’s worse is I haven’t shaved my balls in three weeks and I’m so itchy it’s like I’ve got crabs or whatever, for real.
But there ain’t nothing out here.
There’s the light.
There’s the hills and the trees beside the road and this mist has come down now, hanging in the air, and weird light making patterns in the mist above us—like from the sun way up there in the heavens or else from the searchlight of a sleek black helicopter—who knows?
The nervous system and the circulatory system—some outside stimulus happens, and a bolt of light streaks through your body. Like, is that how heredity works? Except it’s through time and space?
There’s that experiment where the scientists split some particle in two, and moved the two halves miles apart, and what you did to one particle in the lab would happen to the other at the same time—it’s like a real thing—I looked it up somewhere—and is that like family and history? We’re just these particles reacting to something that’s happening right now a hundred years ago a thousand miles away?
So we’re sitting there in the car, right?
All of us, even little Carter, staring at that discarded boot, right? The windshield so grimy you can hardly see through it, because we ran out of cleaner fluid, and we haven’t passed a gas station for days and days, and have been using the gas from the tanks Shane filled at the last place, but they’re starting to run low.
It’s rough living this way—the dash covered in food wrappers and empty pop cans, chip and cookie crumbs, a pair of Nina’s underwear on there, kept in place by an empty coffee-cup carry tray thingy, you know?
And dust. There’s like, a lot of dust in the air? And it’s settling on everything. It’s hard to breathe. In the sunlight beam through the windshield, there’s like a zillion big-ass motes of dust and dirt in the air.
We’re sitting here, and it’s like dead calm out there in the world, you know?
I feel Shane shiver next to me—he’s got the creeps—and I’m glad when he rolls that window down, man, because I’ve been smelling his dirty feet for like ten days straight now—we’re all losing our minds because nobody’s had a good wash in so long, right?
So Shane gets out his pistol and gets out of the car, and it’s like his head’s doing a 360 soon as he’s out in the open air.
He’s shirtless, just his jeans and his work boots on, and it’s like because he’s out in the light of the bright sun I kinda see how much weight he’s dropped, you know? His abs are like, otherworldly, right? And the muscles in his forearm as he grips the .38 make me a bit, like, ooh la la, right? He’s still a beautiful creature after all.
I don’t know if you’ll know what I mean when I say that sometimes I just hate myself for being this way—like, boy-crazy or whatever—sometimes it’s like I’m not in control of my own body—and other times I think I just pretend to be boy-crazy because that’s what they want from me, you know? But it amounts to the same thing whether I’m pretending or not.
Like, deep philosophical shit, I know.
Shane walks slowly over to that boot, right?
His shadow is black as shit on the pavement, and the two bones of his shoulder blades look like totally elegant.
He tips the boot over with his toe and stands there looking down at it for a sec.
And in the dead quiet, we can’t hear shit because there’s nothing to hear—but then suddenly there is—and it’s at first this distant roar. Then a scream. Then it’s like a fist pounding its way out our ears, and these two fighter jets screech over our heads like super low to the ground. Their big black shadows engulfing us for, like, an instant. Then gone.
Before the pain recedes, Shane’s back in the car, gunning the engine. And I hear someon
e screaming, and it’s me. It’s me and Nina and Carter and Shane all screaming as the car plummets over the empty road.
First time it happened, they’d been drinking non-stop for twelve hours, straight.
There’s a lot you can do in twelve hours, but what they had done was drink.
And the thing about it was that they both hated to eat—like, they hated food and what it did to their bodies—all that gurgling and churning and shit—like yo, they were these kind of gross machines, man—Nina hated it—so they’d get crazy with booze and the whole not eating thing.
They had a room by the bus station—like it was seriously just the smell of diesel and grease and the sound of air brakes compressing and decompressing every second like forever.
This was long before Brit, and Leo finally got bit, know what I mean? And Nina was like, I’m free as a bird yo, and I’m never going back to the shit life I had before. I’m, like, happy.
And anyway she don’t know for sure but she’s pretty sure Shane made the call on poor Leo—just to get him out of the picture.
The thing they did was, legit, just beat the streets, man.
They’d wake up in the late afternoon and fuck and then shower and would walk all over the city together for hours, just like any couple would do, and then they’d go home and drink enough to feel the buzz and then fuck again because what else was there?
That was their problem.
They were bored-ass motherfuckers, and secretly Nina suspected they were boring people, too—and that’s why what happened happened the way it did.
He always seemed to be talking.
He’d put on his giant-ass headphones and listen to beats and nod his head and scratch in a notepad.
Even back then, he had this skull and devil and occult thing going on—like sometimes Nina felt bad for him—how hard he worked on his drawings. Like six hours later, all Shane would have is like a skull with a blunt in its mouth, right?
Nina would laugh, and Shane would get his feelings hurt.
He was always drunk or high, and he always needed to be held like a baby.
Sometimes he’d rant.
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