WIPE (A Post-Apocalyptic Story) (41 page)

Chapter 23

When I wake up, Maze is still on top of me, asleep. I turn my head slowly, feeling a dull pain in my neck, the force of steel flattening all of my tissue, and I notice the door. It’s open. More blue light inside. Maze, I say. I do everything I can not to shove her off of me. Finally she’s awake and realizes it too—while we’ve been asleep, somehow, the door has opened.

We rise and walk into the blue light. The room is completely different than the other: to our right stretches an immense window, and in it, a door. There, beyond the window, is a platform. Right outside—a porch in outer space. Maze walks to it and I tell her to stop. But she goes anyway. Part of me worries that if she opens it, we’ll be sucked out. Or that all of our air will be gone. But I can’t react at all to her steps, and the door doesn’t open. We press our faces to the glass and take in the full sight of the world below. The stars. Everything the sliver offered us a hint of, now raw and exposed. The color paralyzes me. Maze turns from the glass to search the rest of the room, but I can’t take my eyes away. It seems such a rich place to die. A perfect last image. That’s when I hear her say it, that she’s found it.

            “The Ark!” she says. Before the absurdness of her remark forces me to refute her, I turn. I know right away—she’s right. It somehow couldn’t be anything else.

We stare at it—a long black cylinder with a long inscription in the common language, all of it inside a glass case. As much as my gut tells me the words will confirm that it’s the Ark, I ask her. What does it say?

            “Preserved by the Committee of Natural Science and History on April 26th, 2213, this unit contains a record of the history and material make-up of the human race, Homo sapiens, and the other life forms that they shared this planet Earth with,” she says. My eyes tune into the blue-lit inscription, then drift below to the thirteen other lines of text, all in letters and symbols I can’t comprehend. There are, below the lines of writing, inscriptions of circles with lines cut through them, rectangular objects, numbers, and more strange objects that I can’t make sense of.

            “It must be the date—2213. That must be when they built this,” she says. And then she asks aloud what the date must be now. How old the Ark is. That we have to find out somehow. How long ago things went wrong. She speaks in a whisper so that I can hardly hear her. And then she starts, over and over, her hands running on the glass case, saying that we have to open it. I stare in disbelief at the black cylinder, wondering how all of history could be contained in such a small block of metal. But the one thing that finally makes me talk, makes me stop her, and put my arms around her and pull her away from it, is the thought that it won’t matter anyway.

            “Wills!” she says, releasing herself and returning to it.

            “It’s useless. If you get it open, so what? We can’t make it work. We don’t know how.” But she doesn’t listen. And as if everything she’s ever lived for rises into her fists, she pounds on the glass. Trying to crack it open. Trying to slit her wrists before we lie down again together one more time. I try to talk to her one more time, but there’s no getting through to her. A frenzy, some insanity, takes hold of her. She scours the perfect cage of glass looking for a clue. But there’s nothing. And then, she’s off to the walls—the blue clean lines of steel, saying that there has to be a computer, something like Wrist knew how to operate, something to make it work. I sigh and turn away, walking for a moment back into the hall to escape her torment. For some strange reason, finding the Ark now doesn’t stop me from returning to the same feeling of acceptance I felt on the floor. That we should just stop and enjoy each other. Enjoy the view. As much as we can before we die. Because that’s the only thing left that makes sense. And then, when I see the hallway, I blink. At first, I think Wrist is risen from the dead, returned as a white ghost. Walking right toward us. But then I know it’s not him because there are two white forms coming. Both of them silently grow bigger. And then I know. Fathers. Not the regular Acadian Fathers, but those of the High Fatherhood, wearing the long flowing robes that pass only once a year through our village. I don’t know whether to scream for joy or fear. Instead of either I tell Maze.

            “Maze.”

            She doesn’t respond. I hear her frantic steps and pounding fists somewhere behind me in the room. For a moment I turn, taking my eyes off of the approaching men. At first I see space and the wide curve of blue through the giant window. Then I see Maze, struggling in a corner. I think I found a computer she says. My voice lowers as I glance back to see how close they’re getting to us now and I realize they’ve surely seen us.

            “Fathers—there are Fathers coming.”

            She looks stupidly at me, like I’ve deteriorated to madness. And when I hold my seriousness, waving my hand for her to come, she races over. Oh my god, she whispers. But hers is a voice of pure fear. No mix of confusion. And as if they sense her fear, one of them calls out. A voice we both recognize.

            “Wills and Maze,” says the Father.

            “Father Gold,” I say, still clinging to the hope that they’re here to rescue us. Bring us back to a peaceful life in Acadia where Maze and I can marry and live at rest, knowing at least that the Ark exists, and wondering forever, unable to unload its contents, about the beautiful world that must have once existed.

            “We do not wish for any resistance. Things will be better if you comply,” he says. And then, the Father I don’t recognize, a cold menacing gaze that expresses none of Father Gold’s recognition, makes a sweeping motion, raising the curtain of his long white robe, his arms working to reveal a long black metal rod—a gun just like Garren’s. The barrel points directly at us. They come forward evenly and without aggression. Maze and I freeze in the doorway.        

            “What do you want with us?” I say. Maze’s hands fidget at my sides. Just like when the wolves approached. I know. She’s ready to run. Back through the forest and onto the beach. An escape into the ocean.  

            “With you,” Father Gold says. And then, I turn to Maze. I feel her readiness to run, right back into the room, our only place to hide. Even she knows that running into them now, into the towering father’s black metal spear, will never work. I whisper to her. Don’t, I say. We have to trust them now. My words are just enough to steady her. Keep her still. Her eyes lock on to me, and then, there’s complete trust. The thing I’ve always looked to her for, there in her eyes. For me. Love for me. And her hands relax, her fingers mixing and spreading into mine.

            “With you, God has a requested a meeting,” Father Gold says, just feet away. And then, alongside him, the metal wielding Father lowers his head to the barrel of his gun and fires. The noise stuns me, so loud I can’t think, reverberating endlessly down the hall. I feel her fingers slip from mine and I look and scream and take in the sight of her blood and then I feel arms around me, too strong to fight against. I use the last of my strength to claw and punch, but I’m wrapped up completely and carried away. The gun changes hands, and it’s Father Gold in the distance, standing over Maze. She doesn’t move her head to look at me, or to make a noise. But Father Gold hovers over her as the hulk drags me away, and I see him aim down and fire again. I bite down into the arm of the Father and he cinches my neck. Lightning rocks through my back and my body fails to fight but my brain cannot fade out. I scream for it to die, but it doesn’t. It stays awake, even when Father Gold returns and the elevator comes to life. The light fills up the tiny room and we descend through the outer layers of the atmosphere, and all I can see is the look in her face. Love for me. And then, even that is gone, and it’s just the voiceless Father pointing and firing. Father Gold standing over her. Shooting again. Again and again the image plays. When I start to scream, as the motion of the elevator speeds up, I feel steel whack white light into my temple and everything ends.

Chapter 24

I wake over and over again, each time thinking it’s a dream. That she’s not dead. But the same images return and dissolve my spirit. The quickness of it. How fast every dream has died, and how there was and will never be another word from her. Another smile or another touch. How great the cruelty of the world is that she should finally love me and then, them—I struggle against them. The gun wielding Father somehow carries me—some kind of inhuman strength in him—as the forest goes by and he subdues me over and over again. We clear the skulls and make our way along a trail under the light of morning. Each attempt to strike away, to run from them is met with the pain of his fists. Enough pain to petrify me so that all I can do is close my eyes again. Attempt to hear her voice. Some ancient part of me says that I knew this is how it had to end. That leaving Acadia meant this. That I knew that. But something older, the voice of a believer, someone I used to be, comes into me. I pray for the first time in years I cannot count. We march in silence and I say the words. Satan, bring your red men, the beasts of these woods, to come and kill them. To prevent us from ever leaving. To sacrifice us all on the stone table.

He had said
God
—that God wanted to see me. And Wrist had said that God was a group—not one single divine entity, but a council of people. But my thoughts return with the sight of the open beach, the line of the tower, the peak that I cannot see through the clouds, Maze’s grave in the sky, to Satan—
Come now. Bring them all. Rip their limbs. Let me be a sacrifice too.
And it’s as the beach widens and we’re in open air that I hear the sounds. They come from a great distance, as if they’d heard my prayers and have come to answer them. And there they appear—an entire band of the Nefandus. Two waves. At first I think I’ve been wrong about even them—that the Fathers are in league with the Nefandus at some highest level of corruption. That Father Gold, elevated now somehow into the robes of a High Father, is ready to deal me to them. But I know I’m wrong when Father Gold speaks:

            “Where are they?” he says.

            And the band marches openly toward us, tall Red Horns and spear-wielders, worked to frenzy, increasing their pace over the beach. They jog. They must remember the slaughter on the beach the other night. The thought of it compels me to know yesterday, to know even hours ago, when she was alive. How I took it for granted. And I curse myself for having fallen asleep at the same time as Father Gold curses aloud, scanning over the sea, waiting for some lifeline that isn’t coming.

            “Let them come,” the one holding me says. His voice. The devil.

            “There they are,” says Father Gold. And I look out too, diverting my eyes from the red throng. A rusted slab of steel cuts through the ocean, heading toward us from a great distance, too far to reach us in time.

            “It’s the metal,” I manage to say. “You’ll hang like the rest of them. For all your sins.”

            But it’s as if the scriptures mean nothing to the Fathers any longer. And when the devil puts me down and hands me off to Father Gold, so that he can raise his gun and take aim, I know I have a chance to break free. That Father Gold’s arms will be weaker. But he’s even stronger than the other, his aged arms allowing me no movement.

            We edge toward the beach. I wriggle and feel the slap of Father Gold’s hand across my face. I want to summon my energy one more time, but my body refuses. There is nothing left. He tightens his hold as the first shot blasts off. One of the pack leaders falls to the ground and the others charge forward even faster. A spear launches through the air, driving into the sand at our feet. Great chants carry out to us as sand sprays up at their red feet, their dash to capture and take us to the blood alter. I pray that they do it, but the devil steps forward, shielding us from the first wave. Another spear flies and this time I see it land high, stopped in the front of the devil’s shoulder, hanging high and slapping back and forth. He doesn’t issue a cry of pain and his gun fires again. This time the spray lights on two of the marching Nefandus—their skin and blood fly in specks and they drop to the feet of the leading Red Horn. The Red Horn roars, some forgotten language of fury, stoops for a moment, holding his arm where the metal hail has struck, and then resumes his walk. Father Gold moves us farther back from the approach and cold waves roll against my feet. I turn and see the boat. Almost to us. I try to break free from his arm again, but he wrenches me hard enough that I feel a twist of fire in my elbow and I spill to my knees. The gun erupts again and I look up at the flash. The Red Horn walks right into it without flinching. He reaches out his left arm for the metal barrel but the devil whips it out of reach and steps back. And then the great red hulk falls to the sand and dies, sending up a flurry of dust. The gun erupts again as the second wave swarms in, their calls turned to shrieks. Through the hanging cloud of dust I see several spears cut through the air. They stick one after the other into the devil’s body. Three poles stick out from him as he raises the gun again, alive with new aim, as we retreat deeper into the waves so that the icy wash rises to my knees. Behind us I hear the slow roar of an engine—the boat close enough now that Father Gold calls out. But I can’t hear his words. I watch the devil walk right into the wave. Red bodies swarm him like ants. There’s one more flash and more of the Nefandus crash and raise the sand into dust, but it’s too late—the gun is ripped away. A red body throws it away into the sand and holds the Father, waiting for another to come in and thrust his spear through. Red spots and then streaks soak quickly through the flapping white robe. A gust of wind flies under it, lifting and revealing the red underneath, his skin now the same as his destroyers. But the devil throws his arms out, his fists into the grappling beasts. They all fall into the sand together. A flurry of screams. One of them I’m sure is the voice of the devil. It’s the word martyr, and then he is consumed by the undulation, each red arm sending down, back up again, and down, a spear. A Red Horn from the second wave reaches the mound and the rest scatter away. The devil lies dead but the Red Horn stoops low to pick up the gun from the sand—high in the air the Red Horn bends the barrel and then slams it down. The blows send out cracking sounds and eventually just a soft thudding. The rest already turn their eyes to us. Voices shout behind me, and then it’s Father Gold pushing me through the waves until there’s some kind of rope. The spears launch into the sky and split the foam around us, and the band of red moves into the first laps of the sea. And then, it’s like a great undertow sucks us—my head goes down into the water and everything is green. I’m jerked through the surface and spit water and cough. Father Gold’s arms still hold me. His hood is gone, and there’s just the gray hair running across his lined face. I look at him and then find the red mass, receding. The roar is steady, and I know—the boat is tugging us away. I reach for the rope, to snap it, to set us free so that I can drown, but my hands can’t find a way. And everything darkens as hands pull me onto the boat. The figures that surround me do not wear white. It’s my last thought as my mind fades that they are wearing clothes I’ve seen before.