Head Dead West

by Oliver Atlas

  Yaverts strides through the giant room with casual purpose, the crowds intuitively parting before us. We pass a security guard in Roman soldier garb. He glances at the jacket under my arm. My heartbeat swells. He has to see it, the cannon—it must be unmistakable. But then he turns his attention elsewhere and my shoulders sag in relief. I remember to breathe.

  Yaverts winks at me again. “Swords are the weapons people fear here, Mr. Prose. People only see what they’re looking for.”

  Even though I’m distracted with confusion and alarm, trying to act natural, trying to stay calm, I can’t fail to notice how every image we pass lacks a cross. Every knight’s shield, every priest’s vestment—not one emblem bears the symbol. It seems the icon has been stripped out of the city’s sense of history. I indulge in a sardonic shake of the head. Another institutional sized reason for picking fights with my necklace. I can understand how people can doubt what the symbol represents, but how can they ever take their doubts seriously if they don’t take history seriously either?

  At the top of another lavish stair, we enter a new series of round showrooms arranged to interconnect as though a hive. In the center room, Yaverts stops before a painting that wraps around half of the room. The image portrays the inside of a small room—a storage closet really—with something slumped at its center.

  A thing.

  No. Not a thing.

  A child. A girl. At least I think it’s a girl. She is draped in rotten rags, slumped over a drainage grate on the concrete floor. Her tiny, meatless wrists are cuffed with strange silver cords, which trail down into the grate and are streaked with crimson. Her skeletal jaw hangs open and I can imagine her clopping in aimless sounds that may have once been words. Her tongue lolls in the gaps in her blackened teeth and cracked-away lips. A single, lidless lightbulb hums above her, offering enough light to tease out the livid purple of bruises along her scaly gray skin. The image is so vivid I can almost smell the stench, the rot, the refuse.

  I realize my jaw is clenched and I try to relax. “What is this?”

  Yaverts’ look is ice. “The old way. Come on.”

  He grabs my arm and leads me on, leaving no space for questions, as usual.

  Beyond the honeycomb and its grotesque centerpiece, we come to a luxury elevator with doors lit at the edges by soft white light. Yaverts steps up to the polished silver door and produces the iconic black and white card given by the Eternal Agnostics. He winks at me and slides the card through a sensor. The doors sigh open.

  “Here we go,” he whispers, entering.

  I follow, feeling suddenly and strangely oppressed as the doors hiss shut and we begin to climb. The floor indicator needle above the door ticks from left to right . . . 13 . . . 29 . . . 37 . . . . At 43, we stop, and the doors begin to open. They make it an inch before Yaverts slaps the override button and they clamp shut again, cutting off someone’s angry protest. And then we’re climbing again, all the way to 53, the top floor.

  The bell dings. Yaverts adjusts his tie. “You just enjoy the art and stay out of the way, Blake.”

  And the door slides open.

  We emerge into a circular gallery with burnished marble floors and bleached white walls and ceiling. A few dozen people mill about the room, most of them admiring dozens of square-framed black and white photographs that line the walls. A handful, however, stand next to a six foot white ring in the center of the room. At first, I think the object is only a geometric sculpture, but a few more steps dispel my mistake.

  “Hell.” The word sizzles out of my throat. My eyes start to sting. My chest begins to burn. I can barely speak: “That’s a . . . that’s a girl.”

  My whisper must carry, because every head in the room turns toward us. Every head, that is, except for the one belonging to the child strapped spread eagle in the center of the white ring, arms and legs stretched wide by silver cuffs, head shaved and suspended upward by a silver cable and a matching shackle. It’s the girl from the painting, in the flesh—except she’s clean and unbruised, as far as I can see. When Yaverts had explained the painting was ‘the old way,’ I had no idea what he meant. But now I do. Because I must be staring at ‘the new way.’

  Yaverts reaches into his jacket and mutters, “I hate installation art.”

  Sensing his rage, unsure what he might do, I grab his arm from behind.

  Slowly, calmly, he faces me, his eyes stony with warning. He leans in until his whiskers tickle my ear. “Don’t test me, Prose. Trust me. Watch the elevator. If it opens—if it opens at all—fire that cannon.”

  And with that, Yaverts turns away again, pulls the ray gun from his jacket, and starts firing. Purple pulses zip from its tip, dropping the people in front of the center ring, then one by one the patrons along the walls.

  Stunned, I let my jacket fall away from the cannon under my arm and take hold of it, feeling its weight in both hands.

  Ignoring the elevator doors, I aim it at Yaverts’ back. There is still time. If I fire now, I might save the few people still standing. I might avoid full culpability in this slaughter. But then I hear the elevator doors open and spin around on instinct.

  Nothing. Its little chamber stands empty.

  A light flickers. My eyes are so dry, I blink. A shadow seems to move.

  Behind me, I hear a bestial moan. Yaverts is now beside the chained girl, his dagger’s blade wedged between one of her wrists and its silver cuff. He’s sawing at something, metal grinding on metal. The girl opens her mouth wide and only a rattle of breath escapes. Black blood begins flowing from under the cuff and down her arm. Her jaw begins to smutch as though trying to speak. Yaverts swears. His knife is losing the battle. The girl almost manages to form a word. What did she say? Was it help?

  The bodies littered around the room . . . the frenzied light in Yaverts’ eyes . . . the mad clopping of the chained girl. My trigger finger twitches. I wonder if I should fire at Yaverts even now. My knees twitch. I wonder if I should run.

  And then I’m flying through the air, the cannon flying from my hands, a cry of surprise and pain flying from my mouth.

  Someone has me.

  Something has me. Strong arms—incredibly strong arms—slam me to the marble. I don’t even have time to think about fighting back. A moment later and I’m dangling above the ground by the throat. Through dimming eyes I can see a glimmering outline, the shape of a figure throttling me with one arm. My larynx begins to tighten, to crush shut.

  “Damn it, Prose.”

  Yaverts’ scolding voice is punctuated with a whooshing clap and, once again, I’m flying through the air, crashing against a wall, and collapsing into a tangle with invisible limbs.

  Tangled or not, I’m free. I don’t need to be told to use the moment of freedom to roll blindly away from my assailant.

  The air claps again, this time with the more familiar sound of a purple pulse. Yaverts stands ten feet away, cannon in one hand, ray gun in the other. And suddenly three feet away from me slumps Damon, dark and handsome as ever, dressed in dapper black. Unlike the other casualties in the room, whose bodies still appear whole, his chest is torn open.

  Yaverts shakes his head. “That shot wasn’t set to stun, Mr. Ranger. Come on. You carry Zoe.”

  “Zoe.” I try to say the name but my throat won’t work.

  “Now!” snaps Yaverts. “If that bastard is here, there will probably be more.”

  Damon? More of what? But of course I know better than to ask.

  I find Zoe draped limply over the bottom of the ring, her teeth chittering, her wrists bleeding, her slightly swollen stomach heaving. She weighs next to nothing. Rattled as I am, I could carry her for miles.

  Except for her smell. Her smell weighs more than all the stones paving the city sewers. As I clutch her to my chest, I nearly pass out. It isn’t the sour blend of rot and mold and blood and feces that I imagined when viewing the disturbing painting in the honeycomb gallery. Instead, it’s the subtle perfume of artificial lilacs daubed over the f
leshy gray reek of formaldehyde. The odor oozes from her skin, from her sweat, from the fragile heat wheezing from her throat.

  Zoe.

  The Nameless One.

  I hold her close and follow Yaverts into the elevator where his steady finger hits the button ‘B’ for basement.

  Zoe.

  I feel her smell seeping into me, like an infection sopping into my sweating pores. As we descend, Yaverts pulls open the elevator service panel and fidgets. A few wires spark. I should care to know what he’s doing, but I feel the girl’s soft bones bending in my arms, molding to me. And something in me breaks. Something in me holds her and is glad to do so. I’ll take her reek, damn it. I’ll take her weakness. I’ll take her tragedy and let it be mine too.

  Zoe.

  Installation art in the greatest city in the world. Key to the Cure. Little girl.

  The Nameless One no longer.

  I wonder if she’s ever been held before. I wonder if she’s ever known a word of kindness. I study her pasty skin and wasted muscles and wonder if she’ll ever be well enough to understand that her new name is Greek for life.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  The High Road

  The next few hours pass in a blur.

  For one thing, there’s the pungent efflux of the girl in my arms, whose formaldehyde air masks a layer of ammonia. My nose starts burning. My eyes start streaming.

  For another, there’s the surreal rush of fear and questions and motion. Everything is contrast and confusion. First, through the dark corridors of the museum’s basement—How did Yaverts know how to reach Zoe? Why would anyone enshrine a neglected little girl? How did Damon find us and why? Then through the flickering, flashing service tunnels on a handcart—Where are we going? Is Zoe still breathing? What about Enemy? Then down a backstreet that ends with a frightening man on an even more frightening stallion—Lancaster Moon atop Abe. Beside him are four horses, one of them mine. But what is he doing here? Is Skiss alive? How did he find Enemy? And finally galloping the winding road up Pilot Butte to board an air gondola—Where are we going? Can we trust a mode of transport so easily sabotaged? Is Zoe still breathing?

  By 9 a.m. we’re five hundred feet above the black expanses of the Willamette Forest, humming along at an unnerving speed. Yaverts and Moon are in the gondola’s front compartment with the horses. Clara and Jon are asleep in chairs, side by side, leaning up against one another. That leaves me on the other side of the car with Zoe in my arms. Her eyes are closed. Her bloodstained mouth wheezes. I’m beyond suffering at her smell. Whatever sensitivity my nose once had is gone. I could probably set her down across the seats lining the walls, but something in me refuses the temptation. From the looks of her, this girl has only ever been restrained and extracted. She’s probably never been held, never touched with kindness or spoken over with hope.

  All that’s been taken from the girl. All the wrong that’s been done to her. All the evil that’s been poured on her . . .

  I start to cry again, and not from the smell.

  Damn it.

  I suddenly want to scream.

  I think of Astrid, my baby sister. No matter how much we prayed, she still disappeared. We still lost her. I think of a story from my childhood Sunday school class. It was about how Jesus and his disciples come across a man who’d been born blind. The disciples start theologizing about what the man did to deserve his blindness. Had he sinned or had his parents sinned? Jesus tells them neither. He was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in his healing. And then Jesus heals the man. Just like that and he can see. Just like that and a lifetime of blindness is erased in order that the glory of God might be seen in his life.

  As I hold Zoe . . . and as I think about Astrid . . . I’m suddenly furious with questions. I almost wish Pastor Jon was awake so I could blast him.

  What. The. Hell.

  Why does transformation always seem to cost agony? How can true glory ever depend on misery? How can such wicked people get away with such terrible things?

  Zoe’s eyes flick open, meeting mine. They are a blue silver, like still winter water. Their whites are jaundiced, red around the rims, and foggy. They are full of pain and fear. But there is no resentment in them, no spite, no second-guessing. I can tell, plain as day, she knows this will all pass. I can tell she knows without knowing it that everything will be okay. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow . . . but one day. She has no sense of entitlement, no sense of deserving. My anger and sadness flicker. They change into something far fiercer, an amalgam I’ll call hope.

  “Hi, Zoe.”

  Startled, she shuts her eyes, making me disappear. I shut my eyes too, making Oregon disappear. The rocking carriage. The lightening charcoal of gray sky. The neighing of the horses. The murmurs of Yaverts and Lancaster Moon. The numbing smell of soured flesh. The weight of so many questions. After a few minutes, I fall into scattered dreams.

  I’m on a train that’s afloat on a stormy sea of broken bodies. My hands and feet are chained down. The train car around me is crowded with other passengers. Zombies. They’re chained as well, moaning and gnashing at anything. Lightning flashes through the windows. Thunder crashes on us all. The zombies shriek. Are they afraid? Can they still feel fear? Suddenly, I’m aback Enemy, crossing the black grass in the valley of Sumpter Dredge. Milly rides along beside me, taking notes with a pencil and pad. To my horror, the grass is peeling the skin off of our horses’ legs, groping up after more and more. The horses tromp ahead, though, as if nothing is happening. Before long the lower half of their legs are gleaming skeletons and I’m yelling, trying to get Milly’s attention. But she can’t hear me. Or she’s not listening. She’s too busy scribbling and erasing, frowning as she tries to put some idea to paper. Then, before I can stop her, she swings down and starts walking through the grass. Writhing wildly, it begins ripping away her pants, her skin. I can smell blood.

  Blood . . .

  In a blur, I’m back in the bright streets of Bentlam, surrounded by the living dead. I look down and find the AbraCannon in my hands. And since the zombies are about to swarm over me, I pull the cannon’s trigger. Only, instead of a powerful air blast that knocks them aside, a violent shock wave cuts through the air, disintegrating hundreds at once. A mist covers my face. Freezing cold. Blood. I know it must be blood. The wave of zombies crashes around me once more and I fire the cannon again. The mist thickens. It becomes colder. My cheeks feel numb, frozen, vanishing. I can’t tell if I’m weeping or, like my dead companions, disintegrating . . .

  “Blake?” Pastor Jon is shaking my shoulder. “I think you’re having a nightmare.”

  “Tell me about it,” I say, opening my eyes.

  “How about letting me hold her for a while,” he says, reaching for Zoe.

  “Okay.” I begin to lift her into his arms, but her bony fingers clamp around my sleeves. She doesn’t open her eyes. We give the pass another try and she clamps harder.

  “Looks like she wants to stay put,” says Pastor Jon, smiling.

  “Jon,” I whisper. “Who is she?”

  I’m not sure why I’m whispering, except that maybe I fear Yaverts will barge in and bark about how that’s need-to-know information. Part of me thinks the man still gets sadistic pleasure in testing how wide and high my long-suffering will stretch. Part of me thinks all of Oregon does.

  “Who is Zoe?” Jon frowns. “Well, she was the Nameless One.”

  “Exactly. But I have no idea what that means.”

  “Really?” He chuckles gently. “I guess you’re not the type who watches shows on how aliens built the pyramids.”

  “No,” I agree. “I’m not.”

  Jon shakes his head wryly. “I’m not either. But if you lived in Giza, you’d soon become an expert in Alien Egyptology, whether you wanted to or not. Living in Bentlam, you can’t help but know about the Nameless One. Basically, there is a legend—well, a legend enshrined through institutions as a real custom—that requires a single child
who is just at the cusp of adolescence to live without love or the dignity of community. The custom holds that this child’s suffering upholds all the glory and happiness of Bentlam. The child’s dehumanization, in other words, somehow makes the wonders of the perfect city possible. She is a living sacrifice.”

  “What?” I sit with that for a second, beyond outraged. “That’s absurd. That’s perverse. That’s atrocious. That’s completely idiotic. Who knows about this?”

  Pastor Jon winces. “I told you, Blake. Everyone knows. That’s why they had her in the museum: so parents could choose, at their convenience, whether or not to show their own children on a family outing. Everyone sees her or hears about her eventually. Some people interpret her suffering as a symbolic necessity. Others believe it has metaphysical necessity. Whichever the case, it has always been taught that if the Nameless One did not dwell in Bentlam, the city would crumble and become like the rest of the world: dark, dirty, and at risk of being overrun by the living dead.”

  Listening to Jon, my heart has launched its own cannonade. My jaw has clenched. I realize I’m probably gripping Zoe too tightly and I take a deep breath, trying to relax. “I can’t believe it,” I fume. “How could anyone honor such a pernicious, idiotic, wicked superstition?” I exhale, wishing I could brush a strand of straw-colored hair from Zoe’s brow. But of course I can’t. All I can do is touch the cold sheen of her shaved skull. “How, Jon? How could anyone see what had been done to her and do nothing?”

  And then I realize I’ve probably done more than ask self-righteous rhetorical questions. I’ve probably thrown a gauntlet of accusation right in the Pastor’s face. After all, he has known about Zoe for years and done nothing until now.