Passenger (16 page)

I glanced back once to make sure that you were still there on the bench where I’d left you.

*   *   *

Most of the others were already assembled on the steps. They stayed huddled around their captains like drone bees on receptive queens. Except for the all-male squad; they were lost and hopeless. They tried to separate and mix in with the other fireteams so not to be noticed.

And people speculated, too, about what the thing in the sky was—if it had any significance. Pittman, shirtless, only shook his stupid head, muttering something about bad magic.

I wanted to hit him, but Fent would castrate me if I made our team look undisciplined in front of the others.

Even Preacher was reluctant to theorize on the hole in the sky. I was relieved for that, because I had the feeling that all these coincidences were going to pile up on me and you.

Preacher said, “I don’t know what it is, to be sure. It’s possible that it could be nothing. Just an anomaly.”

“It’s the breath of God,” Pittman said. “Like you said, Preacher.”

I clenched a fist. I wanted to punch that fucker so bad I shook.

Then Fent looked straight at me and said, “The water’s gone down. When it’s dry enough to walk, take the prisoner out and shoot him.”

That was how she gave orders, especially when she was nervous about something. And I could tell she was getting close to being scared.

“Fine,” I said. “One less human being in the fucked-up world.”

I lifted my shotgun and chambered a round.

I started away from her and the others. “I’ll fucking do it right now in the middle of the fucking station, so everyone can see how we take care of business.”

Fent stepped in front of me. She had a look that said everything at once. She was pissed. I had gone as close to the edge as I could possibly go without falling off the planet.

She took in a long breath through her nose.

“That isn’t what I told you to do.” She was very calm, and her voice sounded sweet and thick. “Take him outside and shoot him. And you can do it now, Sergeant Kirk.”

Her eyes locked on mine. I had to look away.

I lowered my gun and went back inside.

*   *   *

I hoped you had snapped out of it, that maybe you’d waken up from wherever we go when we aren’t here. I was wishing you ran away from the drugged-out Fields, but you were still sitting there on the pew, exactly where I left you.

“Fuck this shit.”

I slammed my gun down against the bench. Brian Fields jumped, startled from his empty-eyed staring at you.

“Your fucking fly’s unbuttoned, asshole,” I said.

Fields didn’t move.

I picked up my shirt and put it on. I was so mad, shaking, I could barely steady my hands enough to tuck it in.

Of course Fent would want me in proper uniform when I took my best friend outside to blow his fucking head off.

Marbury.

The other three had just made it back to our team’s little departures lounge when I finished buckling my gun belt. I picked up my shotgun. My brain raced. I knew I wasn’t going to do what she ordered, and I was trying to calculate which of my options would keep my ass alive the longest.

It wasn’t looking too good.

And it got worse when that dickface Pittman said, “I’d like to go with him, Captain.”

Fuck that.

“I’d rather do it alone.”

I didn’t look at them. I checked the breech on my gun and made certain the clip was filled to capacity. I slung the gun over my right shoulder. If I was going to die for you, Jack, they’d remember us.

“Go with him, Pittman.”

And Jay Pittman would be the first asshole to die.

I said, “Don’t forget to bring your dicks.”

I put my hand under your armpit and lifted you to your feet. You felt cold and small, Jack, and you wavered on your feet, but you were coming back around.

You knew what we were being sent outside to do. You had to know. Well, whoever you were, Jack, because you sure weren’t Jack Whitmore from the cross-country team at Glenbrook High School.

So I pulled you along, not so much as glancing at Fent—and to think, maybe just an hour ago she wanted to take me away to some dirty fucking alcove and have a screw.

Fuck that.

I said, “Come on, kid.”

And Pittman hurriedly attempted to get his wet uniform on correctly so he could tag along for the fun.

I had to think.

I was so mad I wanted to scream.

I practically dragged you over the stairs at the front of the station. Sorry, Jack. Halfway down, you stumbled, but I squeezed your armpit so hard you kept on your feet. You kind of yelped a little, too. It hurt. But you still didn’t say a single word.

Pittman kept one step behind us.

“What did you do to end up here, Three-Seven-Three?” I said.

“Deserter,” you said. “I deserted.”

It was your voice.

Jack.

You lunged forward over the last two steps. Pittman gouged your lower back with the barrel of his rifle.

“Get off him, Pittman. I’ll shove that gun down your fucking throat.”

Pittman eased off.

I needed to get as far away from the station as possible, but the morning hadn’t come yet. There would be Hunters out.

Pittman knew it; I thought he seemed a little bit scared. Maybe he was suspicious about me leading you both so far out.

Fuck him.

I kept a tight grip on your arm, but it wasn’t like you were trying to get away. You just stumbled along, Jack, and we walked through the already-drying dust, kicking up chalky clouds with our feet.

I shook you, like I was mad at you. And I was. Why the fuck did you get me into this shit? Sorry, Jack. I just wanted you to snap out of it and show something on your face that meant you knew me, you remembered how close we were.

“Do you know who I am?”

You looked at me. You had a purple bruise under your left eye and a grape-sized bump on your cheekbone. Both of your nostrils were crusted around with dried black blood.

“Am I supposed to?”

“Mind the gap, Jack.”

Your brows twitched. For just a second, you seemed to register something.

“Isn’t this far enough?” Pittman said.

We stopped in front of an ancient strip of shops. Every one of them had been smashed open, with no glass at all remaining in the blackened storefronts. The roof had caved in.

I kicked one of those old swirled-glass Pepsi bottles. A vending machine lay on its side, with thick black power cables trailing like a bruised umbilical cord back toward one of the shattered storefronts.

The thing in the sky hadn’t changed. It hovered overhead like a rip in a sail. It almost fluttered as the dripping flow of light dusted down from the gash through the sky.

You started breathing hard.

I thought you knew you were about to die.

It made me feel like shit, Jack, because you weren’t going anywhere without me.

“Sit here,” I said. I put you down on the side of the vending machine.

You were shaking pretty bad. I wanted to hug you and tell you it was going to be okay.

Pittman stood away, holding his rifle across his waist.

I glanced back at him. It was the only time I’d looked at that asshole since I led you out of the station. Seeing him with his string of penises around his neck made me feel better about my decision to kill him.

“Don’t move,” I told you. Then, keeping my back to Jay Pittman so he wouldn’t see my mouth, I whispered, “Keep your eyes on me, Jack. Remember this: My name is Conner Kirk. If this doesn’t work, there is an old man who lives in a house on Tamarind Street who helps Odds. Tamarind Street. Remember that. Look at me, Jack.”

Then I backed away from you until I was standing just behind Pittman. I imagined blowing a hole in his guts big enough to play basketball. I pictured Jay Pittman, covered with writhing, clicking harvesters. I could almost hear the sound they’d make chewing into his flesh. I dreamed he might be alive while it happened, so I could hear how he would wail and cry.

I put my hand down inside my pocket and found the Marbury lens.

There were only two plans I had in my head: First, I hoped that the lens might get you and me out of this. If it did, then I could only imagine that it wouldn’t matter what Pittman did to us, because you and I would be somewhere else, and no place in the universe could possibly be worse than the spot we were in. If that didn’t work, then Pittman was going to die, and the Rangers would have to hunt me down.

And I knew what they did to Rangers who killed our own.

But nothing worked out the way I thought it would. That’s how it goes in Marbury, anyway.

Pittman said, “What the hell are you waiting for, Kirk?”

I kept my eyes on yours. “Look at me!”

I pulled the broken lens from my pocket and raised it between us.

The shit that happened next made everything else in Marbury seem like a birthday party with balloon animals.

I went blind. It seemed like as soon as I’d lifted the lens to the height of my chest, there was a flash of deep red light that burned a negative impression of everything around me into my eyes. Then my hand went higher, like some magnetic pull tugged the lens upward.

I could faintly hear Jay Pittman, as he stood in front of me.

He was saying, “What the fuck? What the fuck?”

But I could only make out his silhouette in the blaze of red; and his voice sounded so far away, like a freight train was passing between us.

And when my hand rose higher than my head, the broken edge of the lens lined up perfectly, matching like a puzzle piece with the gash in the sky.

Everything went black.

Jay Pittman began screaming. It was insane shit. He sounded like someone who’d been set on fire. His screaming went on and on, so loud and terrifying. I’d never heard anyone who sounded like that.

He began firing his rifle, and I felt certain he was going to shoot me. Round after round fired off. I could hear the bullets whizzing past me, inches from my face at times, and Pittman’s cries began to weaken.

I closed my hand around the lens.

The sky went pale gray again.

I could see.

The hole in the sky closed up, and then opened again, like a mouth, as soon as I tucked the broken lens back inside my pants.

“Fuck that shit.”

I rubbed my eyes, and tried to blink away the stain of red that made everything seem to blur and vanish.

It felt like all the air had been sucked from my lungs, and I gasped, struggling to clear my head and make sense of where I was.

You were gone.

Vanished.

The vending machine where you’d been sitting lay there in the dust.

The sky was getting lighter; morning was coming.

And, in front of my feet, Jay Pittman twitched and burbled small painful whimpers. He had shot himself through the side of his jaw. It looked like his head, from his nose down, was lying near the front of one of the strip-mall storefronts, ten feet away, and he had flung his rifle down behind us.

Jay Pittman was still breathing.

But he was black with the glossy shells of quivering harvesters.

They were eating him alive.

Just like I wished for.

Fucking Marbury.

twelve

I had the glasses in my lap. I didn’t realize how long I’d been sitting there, listening to Conner’s story. I was wet with sweat all over, and I never even once thought to put the windows down.

We had to find the others; had to fix things once and for all.

Fuck that cop.

Sitting with Conner in my truck, we stared at the rip in the sky.

The sun was coming up in the east; the night paled ahead of us.

“This isn’t Glenbrook,” I said.

Conner yawned and rubbed his face. “I don’t think it is, either, dude.”

“But that other place is a different Marbury.”

“I don’t think it’s different,” Conner said. “I think it’s maybe a different
time
.”

“What happened after I left?”

“To you? I have no idea. What you told me, about Ben kicking you out of his house, and you finding the old man’s place on Tamarind.”

“No,” I said. “What happened to you, Con?”

“You must have been hiding out for a while,” he said. “I didn’t get to the old man’s for a couple days, and he was alive then, when I wrote that shit on his wall.”

“Did you see a little kid there?”

“The old man was always helping Odds, like I said. The Rangers didn’t bother him. They thought he was crazy, running around naked, all tatted up like he was, from here down.”

Conner held his hands flat, like he was showing the depth of a swimming pool, just below his rib cage. “But I didn’t know what to do. I was too scared to go back to the station after what happened—what I did—to Jay Pittman, even if he was a dick. I kept thinking about what he said about ‘bad magic,’ and how that Preacher—Uncle Teddy, I swear it—had been talking about this Jumping Man crap, and he seemed especially freaked out about all the stuff that started happening as soon as you showed up.”

“But you said it wasn’t me.”

“It
wasn’t
you, Jack. I could tell. But I don’t know. Somehow, the insane shit started tuning in when you and I showed up together. Things started getting all fucking crazy. So, after I sat there and watched Pittman die, I decided I wasn’t going to go back.”

“Where did you go?”

“You need to remember this, when we go back, Jack. It’s what needs to happen so we can put things back together.”

Conner was scaring me.

“Okay, Con. What do I need to do?”

“I know where you can get some horses. There’s lots of them being kept by the Rangers at the ag school, and there’s not enough of us to keep an eye on them. You’ll have to get some horses. You need to take Ben and Griffin and get out of there. Go southeast. Go before everything runs out and falls apart. Everyone’s going to die, Jack. There’s too many Hunters now. You know where you’re going. I don’t need to tell you. The settlement. I’m going there, too. We will find each other. We can put things back the way they’re supposed to be, and then maybe we’ll be done with this shit and we won’t fuck with it anymore.”