Shadows & Tall Trees (30 page)

Proceeding into the house, Speth tensed as the structure groaned under his shifting weight. For all he knew, the mere opening of the door had started a chain reaction that would end with him being buried. Regardless, he continued forward, wandering from room to room on the first floor, encountering nothing but dust and the usual detritus of a long-abandoned dwelling. The only thing of substance was the fireplace, which still contained three charred logs and an ample layering of ash. As Speth ascended to the second floor, the creaking stairs again put him on edge. By the time he reached the landing, he felt light-headed and wanted nothing more to do with his “inheritance”. Nevertheless, he made a thorough search of each room. Entering the last, he felt dismayed but unsurprised by its emptiness. He shambled to the window overlooking the front of the house and gazed out. The infinite plain of Vrangr spread before him, but his focus shifted to the lone country road and the man who stood before his vehicle, the man shading his eyes from the sun.

Panic swept through Speth, and his only thought was to wonder if the man saw him there in the second-story window. Just as he was about to raise a pale hand in greeting, the man turned and slipped into his vehicle and in no time drove away.

The figure in the window could do little else but watch the rising dust until it dissipated into thin air.

AUGUST 12

E
ntered Nebraska today, crossing the Badlands on our way to Wyoming and the Medicine Bow.

Feeling of great distance everywhere. The space from one point to another feels like the space between stars—you can measure it on maps and charts, even see it on the horizon, but it still takes light years to cross.

Annie read what I just wrote. She said I make this place sound like Mars or some kind of alternate dimension, when it’s all just sand and rock. So is Mars, I told her.

Annie says my imagination was the first thing that attracted her to me: my stories, songs, and poems that I showed her on the first night we met back in college. She said no one had ever done that on a first date—I told her that should have been her first warning.

I want to show Annie that I can be practical too. I can set up, operate, and strip down the propane stove. The tent is still hard and takes too much time. If it’s late and we’re tired (like tonight), we sleep in the car. We could sleep out under the sky if we wanted, but somehow it doesn’t feel safe.

Annie’s mother used to travel with a gun. I saw it once in the glove compartment of her old red pickup when we were on another camping trip years ago. I was looking for a roadmap when my fingers touched something cold and hard. She told me
any woman who travels alone without a gun is a fool.
I remember saying
But you’re not alone; you’ve got me,
partly as a joke. When I saw the look on her face, I was sorry I said it.

When we were packing for this trip, Annie asked if I thought we should bring any protection. I started to make a joke about her choice of words, some lame crack about condoms, but stopped, knowing it probably wouldn’t be funny under the circumstances.

Packed two sleeping bags for this trip and we’re still using both of them. I don’t know why. I thought maybe it would be different for us out here. I think being alone together like this,
really
alone together, makes us more self-conscious and uncomfortable. Maybe it’s too soon. Maybe we just need a little more time.

AUGUST 13

Decided to try one of those roads that looks like a dotted line on the map. It was Annie’s idea. (
The shortest distance between two points
.) Left the main road around dusk to cut across open land. Tires rumbling over nothing but dirt and rocks. Not really a road anymore—more like the memory of a road.

A half-tank of gas left—should be enough to reach Lusk in four hours.

AUGUST 13

Thought we were going to die tonight.

We’d been driving in the dark for a while when I saw headlights behind us. No other cars for miles and it spooked me. When I saw how fast they were closing in on us, I got ready to pull over to let them pass. But the headlights pulled up behind us, right on our tail, filling the mirror and blinding me.

Annie started yelling
what’s this guy’s problem
, but I knew. He wanted to kill us. We’d crossed over into a place where we had no business being; now he was going to run us off the road and kill us.

I took one hand off the wheel and felt for my knife in my jacket pocket, wrapped my fingers around it and tried to imagine what I’d do, whether a three-inch blade could stop a man. Our wheels were banging over rocks and rough terrain at seventy miles per hour with this guy right on our bumper, Annie yelling at me to pull over and let him pass, but I kept my foot down on the gas pedal—I knew if I stopped or slowed down, we’d be dead.

When I heard the truck’s engine roaring louder behind us, saw the lights leaving the rear-view mirror and swelling past us on the right, I gripped the knife in my pocket and turned to face him.

There, just a few inches outside my window I saw two stick-thin, talon-like hands clinging to the steering wheel, two dead eyes like black stones, a withered, hollow-cheeked face and a toothless gaping mouth that looked like the desert wind was howling through it. I watched this shrunken, ancient vision rattle past us, red taillights fading out like two sparks far ahead.

Took my foot off the gas pedal, we rolled to a stop and sat there, not saying anything. Then a star fell right in front of us. I saw it cross from left to right across the sky right in front of our windshield. It felt like it meant something. Even though I couldn’t say what it was, I knew it meant
something
.

Decided to sleep in the car again. Locked all the doors before going to sleep, my knife still here in my pocket where I can reach it.

AUGUST 14

Can’t find the road. Woke up this morning and realized we’re on open range. A few faint lines or indentations visible on the landscape—can’t tell if they’re old cattle trails or something else, like those canal-markings on the surface of Mars.

Tried looking at the map to find the nearest road, the closest town. All I could see was the jumble of names, the spider-scrawl of highways and roads that go everywhere and nowhere at once; like paint spilled on a flat surface, my mind wanted to run in all directions at once, and I could feel it freezing to keep from coming apart.

Annie asked,
What are we going to do?
I should know the answer to this question, but I don’t. Whatever gene other men possess that allows them to see into the future and figure things out, I don’t have. I want to tell Annie this. I want to tell her she’d be better off without me.

Annie says we should keep driving west. I tell her we should turn around and go back where we came from and try to find the main road. She says that’s crazy, that if we just keep driving we’ll be sure to find a road or a town or something. I’m too tired to argue.

Last night when I thought we were going to die, I started to forgive Annie. The things we do to each other that seem so big and terrible at the time don’t really matter that much in the end. Not sure if that’s supposed to be a comforting thought or something else.

The earth is changing, like everything is falling away, receding farther and farther into the distance. That’s how it looks, but the truth is, nothing is moving away from us—we’re the ones who are moving away from everything.

Should have reached Lusk by now. I haven’t said anything but I’m guessing Annie must know. I can tell by the sound of her voice,
This doesn’t make sense...
The only thing she’s said for miles.

The surface of the earth here is cracked, millions of cracks as far as the eye can see, spreading outward in all directions like a spider web or a bullet hole in a sheet of glass. The horizon is a flat line. Not a single telephone pole or power line, not a single tree or bush. Nothing but a flat line all around us in every direction, nothing for the eye to hold onto. Hard to tell the difference between the earth and the sky. Maybe there is no difference.

That’s stupid, of course. Everyone knows the earth is the earth and the sky is the sky. Though sometimes, things change places. Like a long time ago, millions of years ago, maybe billions, this whole area used to be covered by an ocean. Miles of saltwater over our heads, vast and terrible creatures moving all around us through the cold and dark.

The fucking car has died. We’re stuck here. We should have just kept going. We should have never stopped.

It all started when we spotted something on the horizon four hours ago, some kind of outcropping of rock, miles away. It looked small, like one of those plastic mountains at the bottom of a fishbowl. The closer we got, the bigger it grew, until we saw how big it really was.

It looked like a giant had broken off a piece of mountain range from the surface of the moon and dropped it right at the center of all this flatness. Scalloped ridges and peaks rising into the sky, strange lunar shapes blasted by wind and sand.

Annie and I got out of the car to explore. Strange faded reddish-colored rock, coarse and grainy underfoot. Tried to climb high enough to look around but the rock was too steep, so came back down and got in the car to leave. Turned the key, a few clicks, then nothing.

I should have learned how to fix a car. I should have brought food and water. I should have brought a gun. I should have stayed on the main road. There are hundreds of things I should have done. And I haven’t done any of them.

AUGUST 15

Slept in the car last night. Rough sleep full of strange dreams I can’t remember now. Annie and I ate some crackers we had in the car and talked about what we should do. Annie thinks we should start walking. Walk where? In what direction?

Tried to climb the rock again this morning to get a better view of what’s around us, maybe a building or a fencepost or some sign of people. Climbed as far as we could, but it was too steep; our feet kept slipping out from under us and there was nothing to hold onto.

On a ridge about twenty feet up, found names and dates carved on the rock.
BILLY AND THELMA 1970. MARK AND REBECCA 1968. JOHN AND LINDA, 1962.

Argued with Annie about trying to walk out of here, but something about all those names carved on the rock made me change my mind.

AUGUST 16

How the fuck could this happen? I don’t understand.

Started walking around 10 o’clock, trying to keep the sun at our backs. Annie said that if we kept walking west we’d find something. Annie walking five feet ahead of me, just like the first time we went hiking in the woods. After three hours the sky above was a white blur and I couldn’t find the sun. Annie said just keep moving. So I did, scanning the horizon for any kind of object. Three hours later I saw something, a dark blur against the sky that I thought was a storm cloud, but turned solid as we got closer. Another mountainous outcropping of rock, a smaller object on the ground near it. When we got closer we saw it was a car and started running toward it. We stopped running when we saw it was our car.

Don’t know how long Annie and I stood there shouting at each other. Annie wanted to blame me. How could she blame me when she was the one leading the way? That was my fault too, according to her. If I’d just stepped up and led the way first, she wouldn’t have to.

After a while, Annie stopped shouting and looked like she wanted to cry. I should have tried to hold her and comfort her, but for some reason I couldn’t and we went to sleep in the car again without touching.

Strange dreams again. The same one I’ve been having since I was a little kid. I’m in a big group of people, hundreds of us, men, women, and children camping on the ground, huddled around fires, wrapped in blankets. Some kind of mass migration or evacuation; we’re trying to get away from something that’s coming—we can’t see it but it’s very close. There are soldiers with swords and helmets telling us we have to get up and get our things and keep moving if we want to stay alive. I never see the thing that’s coming for us, but I know it’s there, right behind us, maybe just over the next hill, and I know we have to keep moving.

AUGUST 17

Not many crackers left, not much water either. Hard to tell what time it is—my watch stopped working today.

AUGUST 18

Found something strange. A small building made of sod, about ten by twelve feet, near the base of the rock. We found it circling around the rock, looking for a better way to climb up to the top. A rectangular opening where a door used to be, no windows, dark and empty, cool inside. Very old and crudely made; must have been built by settlers, though why any human beings would ever want to live here, I can’t imagine.

Annie says we should sleep inside this thing tonight, but I don’t want to. There’s something about it. It doesn’t feel safe. How can I tell her that?

Annie says she’s sick of sleeping in the car and waking up cramped and stiff.
At least we can stretch out here,
she says. I can’t explain to her how much I don’t want to do this. I think it’s the door. Maybe I’d feel better if there was a door we could close. Or maybe not. Maybe that would make it worse.

AUGUST 18

Slept in the sod house last night. Strange dreams again, the old one about trying to get away from some approaching army. In the dream we need to move fast but there are so many of us and we’re weighted down with so many things, clothes, pots and pans, food, small children. Some of us have started leaving these things behind so we can move faster. We leave them on the ground where the enemy will find them tomorrow, like offerings, but even as we do, we know these things will not slow them down. They are gaining and we can’t get away from them fast enough.

Woke up from this dream before dawn, light coming from the night sky outside the door, a perfect rectangle of sky and stars.

No more food left, and only a little water. If we tried to walk out of here now we’d die. Our only choice is to wait here till someone finds us.

It’s not too late. I really believe that. It’s not too late for us.

AUGUST 19

Found more carvings on the rock today, higher up, older than the last ones.
JAMES AND NORA GREEN, 1945. NATE AND KELLY JACKSON, 1939. ZACHARY AND BEULAH CARTER, 1898
. What brought these people here? What happened to them?

Heard Annie cry out, a short, muffled sound like the ones she makes in her sleep. Found her staring at something on the side of the cliff. Two words carved in the rock among all the dates and names.
HELP US
.

AUGUST 20

Two days without food. The hunger pains are getting worse—I can only imagine how bad they are for Annie.

I think about what a small thing it takes to throw us off-course. Choosing one line on a map instead of another. Deciding to stop the car instead of keeping going. One wrong move. One wrong word.

Now I think I know what that falling star meant.

AUGUST 21

Three days without food. Looked around for some kind of grass or weeds to eat but the ground is nothing but hard-baked dirt. Remembered seeing dried grass in the walls of the sod house, broke off a piece with a rock and found dried grass running through the baked clay like veins and arteries. Rubbed the chunk of dirt between my hands till most of it crumbled away, then put the grass in my mouth and spit out the mud when it got wet. Tough and hard to chew but stopped the hunger for a while.