The End Came With a Kiss (3 page)

I don't remember what she said that day, but I know what she wants me to do. Her tears were on my shirt, and she was afraid for me. I'm safe now, though. The only tears on my shirt are my own. The dead don't cry.

She points again and a guttural growl begins to hum in her throat, but I don't bother to take it off; I know what happens next. She throws herself to the ground in reaction to an explosion, but there is none. What remains of the car that exploded lays across the street in Harold's yard, charred and shredded. She scrambles to her feet and bolts for the front door. I follow. There are a few things left for me to do. She pushes through and falls into a quick crawl toward the living room. I bolt the door, get down, and crawl with her. It agitates her if I don't.

We sit with our backs to the couch for a long time, until it seems like her body shuts down. She is probably waiting for me to do something, but I haven't figured out what it is. I've found that doing nothing isn't as bad as doing the wrong thing—well, not so much the wrong thing as simply impeding whatever automated process is going on. The greater the importance of the process, the greater the anger. Like Ashlyn and the man who owned the motorcycle. He probably used that motorcycle to get from one section of his loop to the next. By taking the motorcycle, she kept him from completing his loop from home, to the store, to work. It was like she took a piece of his life away.

When this kind of thing happens, the looper's brain must then do something it does not like to do. It must make a decision—and the looper will do a lot of damage before its brain can come to a conclusion. When it does, the results are sometimes comical. I once saw a man sitting in a parking spot on the side of the road. Days later, he was still in the same spot. It finally dawned on me what he was doing. He must have gone to get in his car and found it missing. After what was probably a day long rampage, his brain came to the conclusion that he would sit and wait for the car to return. He’s probably sitting there still.

Most of the time, when a looper’s loop is broken, they will choose to either go to the place that is most familiar, or go to the place that holds the most connection, and give up on trying to get back and forth.

I feel Kate squirm next to me. Her mouth begins to form words again. This is where she makes her daily confession to me in airy whispers. She is sorry she hadn't been braver. She is sorry she hadn't been more vigilant to protect our daughter. As I study the anguish on her face, I can't help but wonder again about the nature of emotion. Her brain reproduces all of the outward signs of guilt and remorse, but is she feeling it? Is she re-living the pain of that day, or is her brain merely sending signals to tighten the muscles?

I snap my fingers in front of her face. Her eyes lock onto them. Jaw slightly slack. Emotion gone. She has no automated response for what I've done. She remains transfixed until I drop my hand. The process she was in isn’t important and can be interrupted, much in the way Harold is able to pause from clipping his hedges. The next one, however, is important and must be done right or it will break her loop. I found this out the hard way.

"
I'll get you something to eat," I say, mechanically.

She looks at me, emotion has returned to her face because my words let her move on from the death of our daughter into a different space. It is the section of her day I call ‘home.’ It can be any variety of smaller motor memories from doing laundry to decorating a Christmas tree. When Kate is in home mode, she acts out any scene from our past in perfect detail with no consideration for sequence or time of year, scenes that hold a significance for her. If she is agitated, she does chores. The familiarity of repetitive tasks have a calming effect on her.

I stand and go into the kitchen. A can sits in the strainer. It is empty. Clean. And only slightly rusted. I plunk a spoon in it and bring it back to my wife. She receives it graciously and begins to eat the air inside, in slow stoic silence. I don't understand how it works. All I know is that the can is important. She can adapt to whatever is inside, but it has to be a can. Otherwise, she growls. Or worse.

I used to put food in the can, but supplies are getting harder to acquire safely. Loopers don't like it when you go into their homes uninvited. And store owners—even dead ones—don't tolerate shoplifting. For a short period, I was able to pretend like I was buying the food, until the cash registers stopped working. Man. There is nothing worse than a looper trying to get into a dead cash register.

Kate sets her hands in her lap and looks at me. She is so beautiful. She has always been beautiful. If she had a flaw, it was the mole on her left cheek. But that is gone now. It is a constant reminder that she has been changed. I reach out and cradle her jaw in my hands and rub my warm thumb on the spot where the mole used to be.

My touch triggers another stored response. Her eyes light and her face warms, even though it is cold against my palms. I’m not sure which scene from our life together is playing out, but it produces a look that reminds me of the way she looked at me on our wedding day. My heart aches as our vows come back into my mind.

For richer. For poorer. In sickness and in health. Till death parts us.

The corners of my mouth tighten. "No," I say. "Not even death."

She stops for a moment, as if she heard what I said, then continues the mental process I started. The series of motions pulls her head free from my hands, and her mouth begins to sound out words again, but I don’t know what they are.

I come in close and whisper in her ear. "I know you’re in there."

She pauses again. Her eyes grow as cold as her skin.

"I will never give up on you, Kate. Do you hear me? I
will
find a cure for this. You just have to hold on."

Her breath begins a shallow flutter, like the sound of a distant helicopter, and for the briefest of moments I wonder if she is responding to my statement. Is she clawing her way back to life? Can she hear me?

No. It won’t be that easy, I remind myself. There is no way to return from where she is without neutralizing the poison in her brain. There are some who believe there is no hope, that, like her body, her brain is dead. I reject that theory. She may not have a pulse, but she is still alive. There are memories in there. If she can access memories, her brain can’t be entirely dead.

She looks at the television and climbs to her feet. This signals that she is about to shift into another process, one that is part of her loop and cannot be interrupted. She lifts her hands and swings them in front of her as she slowly walks toward the corner of the room. I want to help her find what she is looking for, but it is better to stay out of her way. This scene is complicated; she must act it out precisely.

Her hand slaps the armoire and slides down the doors to find the handle of the top drawer. Her head remains cocked to the side, eyes staring blindly. Objects clunk around inside the drawer, and her lips start frantically sounding out words.

"It’s to the left," I say. Whether or not I speak is irrelevant. When she is in one of these scenes—the ones that are required for her loop—she is unresponsive. She yanks a flashlight from the drawer, hunches over to press down on the switch, and lifts it to scan the room. It doesn't matter that there is light in the room, or that the flashlight is broken. Her body is simply playing out the sequence.

If I could remember where I was standing or what I was doing, I could join her, because I was there that day. But loop scenes do not allow for adaptability, like the random processes do.

I walk to the center of the living room and wait for the one part I do remember, the part that I must see every day. It is what keeps me going. If it were not for this, I would have ended it. I swear I would have.

After several minutes she returns to the living room. For her it’s as if I have been with her the whole time. The flashlight is now gone. In her mind, I now have it. In reality it is on the dining room floor. I heard the thump when she handed it to thin air.

Her hand is in front of her as she walks slowly. Watching her fingers scrunch into a half fist. I can almost remember the feel of her clutching my shirt in the dark. We were so terrified. I watch the hand as it swings around and bumps into my side. We are now in sync. I have not moved, but to her I have come to a stop and turned around.

Her other hand comes up onto my chest, but she does not draw in close for fear that she may contaminate me. There is a mix of emotions in her eyes. Fear, uncertainty, sorrow. But a stronger emotion forces these away. Her full red lips tighten as her light brows lift. In this moment, I feel I could drown in her crystal green eyes and never find air. It isn't just her beauty that so enraptures me. It is her vulnerability. No matter how deep, no matter how private, she always had a way of laying the innermost parts of her heart naked before me.

Her lips move and I sound out the words in my head. "Tell me this is going to be all right."

"We're going to find a cure," I say.

"What if I don't want to be cured? What if I don't want to live with this pain?"

"We will find beauty in these ashes," I say.

Her eyes smile and her lips form the words, "How do you do that?" But the next sentence is too quick for me to read. I wait patiently for her to slow down. She always does. Her chin tightens, but no tears trickle from her dry eyes. "It hurts so bad, Ben."

"We will get through this. Just promise me you'll fight."

"I'll fight," she mouths. Her eyes come up and lock on mine. "For us, I'll fight."

"Even if this takes you," I say. "Don't you dare stop fighting."

"I'll fight," she says again, with airy emphasis.

"No matter how deep. No matter how far. If you hear me calling, you come back to me."

Her body is trembling now.

I grip her arms. "Promise me, Kate!"

I feel the familiar tingle as the hair on the back of my neck stands on end. It has come at last. The part that matters most. The part that reminds me all things are possible.

Kate's face and body tighten, as though she is giving birth. Words force their way through her lips. Not a whisper. Not a hiss. Real words. "I PROOOOOOMISSSSssssssE!" she groans.

I shudder a breath. Though she has done this several times, it has not lost its impact on me. Not simply because the dead don't speak, but because on the day when this conversation took place, she didn't make that promise.

It might be wishful thinking on my part. I realize this. But I believe she can hear me. I believe that somewhere deep inside this dead flesh, my wife is still alive. She stays bent over, staring wide eyed, as if she too can’t believe what just happened, but this stage won’t last long. I step away and look through the kitchen at the door to the cellar. It is still open. Good.

With a twist, Kate looks at the front window of the living room that is now haphazardly boarded over. Knowing what will happen next, I seal my ears with my fingers.

Kate lets out an ear-splitting scream and runs into the kitchen toward the knives on the counter, but before she can slide one free of the wooden holder, she spins and looks to where I was standing in the kitchen on that horrible day. She nods furiously, races through the kitchen, and disappears into the cellar.

4

Katherine is safe. I am no longer needed. The rest of her evening will be spent in lower level processes. And, though I want to spend this time with her, I know I must check on my new companion. Perhaps I will return before bedtime and spend a few more minutes, if I am able.

The street is quiet. That's good. Nothing wants to kill me.

Along the way I see Mrs. Peeler jogging with her dog. It is her nightly routine. Most dogs turn on their owner when they reanimate, but not this one. He seems content, even well fed. I don't want to be around when that changes.

"Hello?" I say, as I enter the safe house.

"I'm in the living room," says a hidden voice.

I walk down the short entrance hall and look into the living room. Ashlyn is sitting on the end of the couch, hugging her knees. The room is almost completely dark.

"I should have told you," I say, passing by. "There’s a battery-powered lamp in the garage. But I'll go turn the power on."

Her voice follows after me. "You have power?"

"Hold on," I tell her as I open the door to the garage and flick on the lamp on a TV tray to the right. There is no vehicle in the two car garage, only a generator with a white plastic tube running up and out the back window. The walls are covered with chunks of soft, hard-edged material, like egg cartons, boxes and old styrofoam, to break up the sound. I tacked all this up before I realized sound isn’t what makes the loopers lose their minds. Still, it helps to keep unwanted visitors from stopping by. I check the tank and pull the ripcord. An oppressive sound fills the space and the light above flickers to life.

Ashlyn has the television on when I return. I can’t help but laugh.

"What?" she huffs. "There could have been something."

"It’s been nothing but blue for days."

The hand pointing the remote falls limp to her side. "They can’t even run a television station. That’s just pathetic."