World's End (7 page)

"So why are you so upset?" asked Alfonso.

"Because," said Bilblox wearily, "I got no business makin' a promise like that."

A
FTER CROSSING THE
G
REEK ISLANDS
, the Twin Otter headed up along the western coast of the Black Sea. They skimmed along at a low level to avoid radar and landed for fuel and supplies on the outskirts of the Romanian harbor town of Constantja. The Twin Otter touched down in the early evening in a farmer's field that was encrusted with a thin layer of snow and ice. The ever-resourceful Snej took off on a bicycle that she stored in the Twin Otter. She carried a basket, a rifle, and a bag full of cash. She returned two hours later followed by a heavy truck filled with drums of high-octane airplane fuel. In her basket she had several different types of Romanian cheeses, grapes, warm flat bread that smelled like olive oil and oregano, and several links of pencil-thin smoked sausage. Alfonso, Bilblox, and Snej ate dinner in the airplane. As they ate, Alfonso stared out the window as the two truck operators filled the Twin Otter's extra tanks with fuel.

Before boarding, Bilblox said grimly, "Alfonso and Snej, take a good look around—and do some lookin' for old blind Bilblox as well—cause this is the last peaceful scene we'll be lookin' at for quite a while. The Urals'll be nasty this time-a year."

"But think about Somnos," Alfonso replied. "Imagine what it looks like, now that the Founding Tree is fully grown. It ought to be a paradise."

"Yup, should be nice," said Bilblox grimly. "Assumin' we can make it there. I sure hope that you remember the right coordinates."

"I'd never forget them—64° North latitude by 62° East longitude—they were encoded in Uncle Hill's old watch," declared Alfonso confidently. "Don't you remember? From there it's just a few hours' hike."

"Hmm," said Bilblox. He was visibly worried.

Neither of them spoke for a while and eventually Alfonso opened the rosewood box that he had taken from the crypt in Alexandria. He wanted to check on the floating seeds. The glass vial containing the bluish liquid was intact, but to his dismay, the seeds were lying on the wood, dried out and cracked. One of them had partially disintegrated into gold-colored dust. An hour or so later, Alfonso checked on the seeds again—hoping foolishly that their condition might have improved—but instead he discovered that the seeds and the gold dust were gone and all that remained was a light-colored stain on the wood. It was as if the seeds had simply evaporated or melted into the wood.

"Not good," muttered Alfonso.

"What's the matter?" asked Bilblox.

"Well," said Alfonso, "the seeds that were in the rosewood box seem to have decomposed and then kind of evaporated or something."

"Hmm," said Bilblox with a yawn. "I hope we didn't need 'em fer anything."

Alfonso was about to close the box when he noticed something. The bottom of the box was pockmarked with thousands of minute indentations. At first, the indentations appeared to be arranged randomly, but, upon closer inspection, Alfonso sensed that they formed a pattern. But he couldn't grasp its complexity. It was like a puzzle with too many pieces. It would take a computer to analyze something this complicated. The only other solution was for Alfonso to enter hypnogogia, that magical state of mind in between waking and sleeping in which he was able to tap in to his special powers as a Great Sleeper. But he wasn't ready to do that. Not yet. The last time Alfonso had entered hypnogogia, nearly two years ago, it had almost killed him.

***

It was mid-morning on December 12 when the Twin Otter neared the Urals. December 12! It was Great Wandering Day! At this very moment, the gates of Somnos were ajar and Wanderers were parading out onto the snowy slopes of the Urals. And, in all likelihood, Hill was standing there, just waiting for Alfonso to arrive.

Alfonso's thoughts snapped backed to reality as the Twin Otter began to shake with turbulence. The view out the window of the plane was enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. As far as the eye could see there were dark, billowing clouds, which were illuminated every few seconds by brilliant flashes of lightning.

Bilblox and Alfonso crept up to where Snej was sitting. Her normally cool demeanor was gone. She muttered Persian curses under her breath, and Alfonso could see that her knuckles had turned an angry red from the strain of keeping the Twin Otter on course and level.

"Very bad weather ahead," said Snej in a voice that strained to keep calm.

Bilblox nodded. "Should we turn around?" he asked.

"I'm afraid not," said Snej. "I've been listening to military cargo planes a couple hundred miles behind us, and they're in much worse shape than we are. They report hail and hundred-mile-an-hour winds. We really have no choice but to continue on. If we find a place to put down near the coordinates you gave me, I'll do it, because we are quite close actually. Otherwise, I'll just keep going east to Nizhnevartovsk. We've been there before."

"All right," said Bilblox. "Do you need anything?"

The plane fell abruptly and then evened out. "Just sit down," said Snej.

Bilblox smiled and clapped Snej on the shoulders. "You bet-cha," he replied.

They made their way back to the main cabin and strapped themselves in.

"I'm always getting you into trouble," said Alfonso quietly. "This is my fault."

"We both made the decision," replied Bilblox with a shake of his head. "We're in this together."

The plane rattled fiercely and both of them fell into a prolonged silence. Alfonso looked out the window and watched the storm clouds draw closer. He imagined the ferocity of the blizzard that was raging below. The blizzard made him think of all the times that he had used the sight of swirling snowflakes as a means of entering hypnogogia.

The last time Alfonso had tried to enter hypnogogia, he had ended up in a coma. The memory of this awful episode still gave him the heebie-jeebies. It all started with Alfonso catching a bad flu. That night, his mother sent him to bed early, put a humidifier in his room, and covered him with blankets. As hard as he tried, however, Alfonso couldn't fall asleep. Eventually, out of pure boredom, he decided to enter hypnogogia. He focused on the mist that was coming out of the humidifier until he could see each individual particle of moisture. The particles flowed and swirled around him and Alfonso studied the intricate patterns that they made. Every time he reached out to them, he was overcome with a delightful feeling of weightlessness. And then suddenly, without warning, everything went black.

Alfonso woke up several weeks later in the hospital in St. Paul. He had been in a coma the whole time and had fractured his collarbone. His mother told him that he had fallen out of bed and hit his head on the floor. The impact of this blow to the head had put him into a coma. But this made no sense because his bed was only two feet off the ground. Besides, it wasn't Judy who had found him. It was Pappy. According to Pappy, he had walked into Alfonso's room and seen his grandson "floating" near the ceiling.

Afterward, Alfonso was rushed to the hospital. Pappy repeated the story of what he had seen, but Judy and the doctors dismissed this as a figment of his imagination, saying his mind wasn't as sharp as it used to be.

One morning in the hospital, toward the end of his stay, Alfonso awoke to the sound of the chief neurologist whispering to his mother. Alfonso was tempted to open his eyes, but for some reason he didn't. The neurologist was whispering, "...And so your son is very lucky to be alive. It was a very severe coma. We use something called the Glasgow Coma Scale, which rates comas in severity on a scale from three to fifteen, with three being the worst. Alfonso experienced a level-five coma. Most patients experience considerable brain damage at that point. Alfonso's chances of partial recovery were less than twenty percent and his chances of full recovery—which he somehow managed—were barely two percent. What I can't figure out is how a mere fall from his bed could have caused such a severe coma."

"I don't know what to tell you," whispered his mother, exasperatedly.

At this point, Alfonso opened his eyes. His mother and doctor rushed over to his side and gushed over how well he was doing. There was no more discussion of what had caused the coma and Alfonso decided that, for now at least, this was for the best. It was all too scary to think about.

Quite suddenly, Alfonso's mind snapped back to the present, as the seaplane began to plunge. Loose items flew around the cabin. A book hit Bilblox in the head and he let out a shout. The plane tilted downward at an ever steeper angle. The sound of screaming engines filled the air. Lightning flashed in the windows. Alarms blared. Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. The overhead lights blinked off and were replaced by harsh red emergency lights. Alfonso felt weightless and then nauseous. Snej was yelling something, but it was impossible to hear her. Bilblox's seeing eye dog, Kõrgu, had apparently woken up and was now barking furiously from her kennel in the back of the plane. The plane tore downward through the clouds. The force of gravity had pinned Alfonso into his seat, but he was still able to turn his head to look out the window. It was pure white. Then, for a moment, the storm relented and he could see the rocky, snow-covered ground. It was close—perilously close—and Alfonso knew at that moment that they were going to crash.

T
HE
T
WIN
O
TTER
slammed into the snow with tremendous force. The plane tore apart—glass exploded into thousands of shards, the windows blew out, sections of the roof peeled away, and vast amounts of powdery snow engulfed the cabin. Finally the plane shuddered to a stop, and the loud noises of the crash were replaced by the groan of rapidly cooling metal.

Some time later, Bilblox came to. Perhaps just a few minutes had passed, or perhaps it had been hours. It was impossible to know. At first, Bilblox wondered if he had died, but then the biting cold brought him back to his senses. He tried to move his toes, and after some effort he could feel them brushing against the inside of his boots. Something trickled down his neck, and he discovered a bad gouge there. He unbuckled his seat belt and stood up gingerly. He sniffed the air for the telltale signs of smoke and fire, but felt only the sting of a bitterly cold wind.

"Alfonso?! Snej?!"

No response.

Bilblox groped his way forward. It was at moments like this one, in the thick of a crisis, that he most hated being blind. He felt so helpless. Even without his eyesight, Bilblox could sense that the plane was basically level. Inside the remains of the plane's cabin, chunks of foam, sheared-off metal, shards of glass, and other detritus from the crash littered the floor. Of course, being blind, Bilblox couldn't see any of this. He simply felt his way around the cabin and, every few seconds, shouted the names of his friends. Eventually, he heard a low moan from several feet away. He stumbled toward the sound and discovered it was Alfonso. Bilblox ran his fingers across Alfonso's face. The boy's eyes were closed and his hair was sticky and wet.

"Alfonso?" Bilblox whispered, voice shaking. "Come on now, open your eyes. Y-You're fine." He grabbed a handful of snow and used it to dab Alfonso's face.

Alfonso's first thought was that he was back home in World's End, and his mom was trying to wipe dirt from his face. For some reason, though, he found it almost impossible to move. It took a great deal of focus to open his eyes and weakly utter Bilblox's name.

When he heard Alfonso, Bilblox yelled gleefully. "Hurrah!" he exclaimed. "Ya just got the wind knocked outta ya!"

Alfonso coughed weakly and managed to gasp, "I'm okay." He saw Bilblox peering down at him, his white eyes gleaming like frosted ice. The longshoreman gently grabbed hold of Alfonso and lifted him to his feet. They both sighed with relief.

"You're all right then?" Bilblox asked.

Alfonso said nothing. He stood there for a few seconds and felt his body and head throb with pain. However, he soon realized that nothing was broken, and that the wounds on his head—and the one on Bilblox's head as well—were superficial. They were both okay.

"Where's Snej?" asked Alfonso. "Is she still in the cockpit?"

"Dunno," replied Bilblox. "You're the first one I came across."

Alfonso staggered to a large hole in the wall of the plane where a window once existed. He peered outside, but could see nothing but snow and ice. It was as if the world had turned white.

"Snej!" yelled Bilblox. Alfonso ducked back inside. There was no response.

"You better go check on 'er," said Bilblox.

Alfonso nodded and began to make his way to the front of the plane. He entered the cockpit cautiously. Most of the dials, buttons, and levers were either smashed or burnt. Snej sat slumped over in her seat. Her head looked strange, almost doll-like. It hung loosely from her torso. Alfonso touched her shoulder.

"Snej, are you okay?" he whispered. "Snej?"

Bilblox's pilot lay there motionless. Alfonso drew closer and tried to ignore what he knew had happened, but there was no denying it: Snej's neck was broken. A cold tingling sensation crawled up Alfonso's spine and he felt sick. This was the second dead body in just three days, and in both cases he'd played a role in the deaths. The taxi driver he had killed. Murdered. Even if it was in self-defense. And Snej, well, if Alfonso hadn't insisted on going to the Urals in the depths of winter...

"What's going on?" asked Bilblox.

"She didn't make it," replied Alfonso. He was dimly conscious of his heart pounding. Panic began to take hold of him, and his hands started to shake.

"What?"

"Snej is ... she's dead."

"Dead?"

Alfonso just stood there.

"Oh fer the love of Magrewski," said Bilblox. His voice cracked. "Of all the stinkin' rat luck. Poor Snej. Poor Snej."

"It's my fault," said Alfonso weakly.

"
No it ain't!
" snapped Bilblox. There was a ferocity in his voice that Alfonso had rarely heard before. "I'm the one who made the call. I didn't have to listen to ya. I was the boss."