<Start At Chapter 1

<Read the Previous Chapter

With a gentle tap against the curb, Cruise halts his pickup and stops the engine.  Ricki fidgets with her purse while he focuses on the dash.  Finally the jingle of her keys pulling from the purse innards breaks the silence in the cab, and he feels her turn to him.

He points a small smile at her end of the dash.

“You starting back at work tomorrow?” she asks.

He shakes his head, “I’m not sure.”

Outside the door, one of Ricki’s neighbors lets out a long puff of smoke from his balcony.

“It’d help you take your mind of things.  Going back to work.”

The trees are gently bending back and forth in the night breeze.

“I doubt that.”

She lets out a small snort, “yeah, nothing takes your minds off things anymore.”

He crosses his arms over the steering wheel and lays his head on them, “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“And getting fired will help?”

A warm orange ember spots the night outside and more smoke rises.

He drops his arms from the steering wheel and rests his forehead against the rim.  His fingers dangle off the bottom of the wheel loosely.

She pulls the door handle letting a small strip of night push into the cab of the truck, “You should probably take some more time.  Get yourself together.  Maybe we can talk after that.  When you’re ready.”

Three years flash before his eyes, “I’ve tried talking to you.”

The door drops open to the sidewalk.

She slides out quietly with her back to him, and closes the door with a sharp metal clunk.  She waits for a moment on the sidewalk, lets out a pitiful wave and then crosses the little belt of grass between Cruise and her apartment.

He watches her unlock her door, go inside and pull it closed behind her.

The stars draw his attention more than usual lately, and he sits watching them from his steering wheel as the minutes pass.

“Did I make it all up?”  He asks them.

“Did I imagine it all?”  He asks his hand lumped in his lap.

Heavily, he pulls his hands to the ignition and starts the engine.  With as little focus as it takes, he points his truck through town, mindlessly passing in up and down the streets, as if he’s completely lost in the town he grew up.

His attention snaps to his mirror as flashing light fill the darkness around him.  He stops his truck, his heart pounding and throat tight.

Deputy Abrahams peers into the drivers side window and he rolls it down as calmly as his clammy fingers allow.

“Evening Cruise.  Kinda late to be out joyriding.  Everything alright?”

The clock on his dash reads 2:33am.

“Yeah, just…” he doesn’t find words to finish his explaination.

“Have you been drinking tonight Cruise?”

“No mam.”

She waits for a beat, examining him carefully.

“Ronna—Sorry, Deputy Abrahams.  You found me that day, right?  You were the one that found me by the road?”

She adjusts her belt, repositioning her radio, “Yeah.  I did.”

“Am I,” he pauses, “did I make it all up?  Am I nuts?”

She rests her elbows on his window ledge.

“It’s just, they can’t be real.  They just can’t,” He looks up agains at the dark sky.

“It doesn’t seem very likely, does it?” she smiles kindly.

His radio turns on and starts to skip through stations.

“Sorry deputy,” he pounds the dial off quickly, “it hasn’t been working right.”

She eyes the radio for a second, “I don’t think you’re nuts Mr. Whalin.  Just maybe a little shaken up.  By whatever you did—whatever happened that night.”

“Yeah.  Yeah.”

She peeks at the clock on his dashboard, “can I call anyone for you?”

He chuckles, “there’s no one to call.  Thanks deputy.”

She pulls her elbows out of her lean on the open window, “get home safe Mr. Whalin.  Call us if you need anything.”

He slowly moves his truck off down the street.  She watches his taillights as he heads off.  He turns down a road and out of sight and she moves back to her vehicle, the red and blue lights still playing across the dark asphalt.  She opens the door and is surprised to hear her radio sliding through frequencies.  Pulling into the cab, she taps it off, and pulls the door closed behind her.

She drives through the flashing red and yellow stoplights in the empty nighttime street, and finds her familiar way back to the police station.  Sheriff Wayne is working the night shift with her, and Jedidiah is working the front desk, ready to answer phone while focused on his crossword.  She nods to him and passes into the empty room of neon lit desks and rolling chairs, Marcus Wayne sitting in the far corner working on a stack of yellow, white, and pink forms.

Unzipping her coat she drops it over the back of her chair and walks to the filing cabinets, four of the back to back sandwiched between desks in the middle of the room.  Wayne peeks up at her.

She pulls the file out and opens it across the open drawer of envelopes.  She begins re-reading it and pulling her photos from the contents.

“Everything alright?” Wayne asks peeking over the rim of his reading glasses.

She shuffles more papers, “I pulled over Cruise Whalin driving around aimless just a few minutes ago, “she walks the file over the Wayne and sits in the chair across from him.

He pulls off his reading glasses, leans back in his chair and rubs his temples.

“It was raining.  The night before I found him next to the road.  His tires left pretty good marks in the mud next to the highway.”

She starts to spread photos of the scene across the desk.

“There’s a set of two boot prints beside the driver door of his truck, but Sheriff, I found him laying the the grass ten feet from the cab.  There were no other boot prints in the mud.  Leading from his cab.  Leading to where he was laying.  Nothing.  He was just…in one spot, and then another.”

***

The radio started again.  But this time his hazard lights are flashing too.  The light in the cab blinks uncontrollably.  His speedometer shoots up and down, the needles on the dash jumping back and forth.  Instead of feeling scared this time, Cruise feels an intense wave of relief.  Tears trickle down his chin.  He slows his truck and opens the door, he steps out and it continues to slowly blink along away from him down the shoulder.  He opens his arms to the sky, and laughs.

<Start at Chapter 1

<Read the previous Chapter

And on top of the day he’s had, Sherif Wayne got to end it with a shoplifter at the local book store.  Amy, the owner phoned it in, and Marcus Wayne told his deputy he’d swing by on his way home.  The trade off was: Deputy Abrahams got to finish the paperwork from the Cruise Whalin case.  On top of his little abduction story, they had to type up his statement and slap it in the file before they could hope it would vanish into the world of filing cabinets.

Marcus taps the volume on his CB radio down, rubs his temples with an arm resting against the window ledge, and points his steering wheel toward Chester Street.  He waits at the red light for his turn to cross Main Street, across which the Book-Out leans a little ways down the other side of Chester.  He stops his truck in one of the diagonal parking spots just off the road out front, pulls himself out stiffly, and swings the door shut behind him.

Amy has been the book shop owner since she moved here twelve years ago and opened it up.  Somehow she managed to keep in business just off of the occasional lost tourist and the locals.  The book store was basically one large room with shelves lining the four walls and a few standing rows running down the center of the room.  A single register held counter beside the door, and a small room in the back hid a stock room that was more of a closet, a bathroom, and a tiny kitchen/coat room for the four rotating shop staff.  Wooden chairs were crammed wherever they would fit between shelves.

The door dings Sherif Wayne in, and surprises the employee hunched over her cell phone at the register.

She looks up quickly at the door, and is equally surprised to see the sheriff, “Sheriff Wayne, I didn’t know you’d be the one stopping by,” Ricki slides her phone into her back pocket as she climbs off the stool and come around the counter.

“It was on my way home,” he smiles tensely, “you have a shoplifter?” Glancing around the store is empty.

“Oh, yeah.  It was Teddy Russell.  But his mom actually came by and I think that’s punishment enough.  Amy doesn’t want to press charges, she just wanted to scare him.  I called in to Ronna, told her we didn’t need anyone to stop by…”

Marcus smiles to himself, “yeah, I must’ve turned down my CB, so she couldn’t get ahold of me.”

Ricki smile at him awkwardly.  “Can I offer you anything?  We have coffee and tea in the back?”

“No.  Thank you.”

She thumbs her back pocket where her phone rests, “Cruise told me he came in to talk to you today.”

“Yeah.  He did.”

When she looks him in the eyes the puff red remnants of tears spill into view, “Sheriff.  Should…should I be worried about him?  I mean the stuff he’s been saying.  It—it can’t be true.  Right?”

The Sheriff adjusts his belt and pulls keys from his pocket, “The boys a little mixed up right now.  Who knows, it could just be a fever or something.  Even a dream maybe.”

She looks at him, a small smile attempt in the corner of her mouth.

“I don’t think he means badly.  Or that he’s dangerous or anything.  Just a little mixed up.”

She nods at him and he turns to the door.

“Sheriff.  That’s all right.  I mean, aliens.  They’re not real.  I mean there’s no way…”

Marcus turns back around, his back by the door, “No.  There’s no such thing as aliens.”

She nods again at him, “Yeah.”  She laughs at herself, “I know.  Thank you sheriff.”

Sheriff Wayne pushes through the door, Ricki locking it behind him.  She flips the sign in the window over to read Closed and goes to the back to gather her things and leave.

< Start at Chapter 1

<Read the Previous Chapter

It’s not a dark room like you see in the movies.  There’s no giant mirror across the wall with people hidden, watching from behind it.  There’s a window that looks out into the alley behind the police station and lets the afternoon sun stencile itself into an even square in the floor.  There’s a simple wooden table with mismatched four-legged chairs on either of its wide sides.  Cruise waits seated on the side that faces the door, his hands cupped together and waiting on the tabletop.

He has some pretty terrible coffee a little waxed paper cup to his left.  He sipped it to be polite at first, but now he lets it cool out of sight.  One leg still aches a little, but otherwise the sores of four nights ago have vanished.

Twelve minutes after he got there, Sherif Wayne comes into the room where Cruise waits.

“Mr. Whalin.  How are you feeling?”  He slides a tan file folder onto the table and takes the seat across from Cruise.

“Alright.  Better.  Thank you, sir.”

“You sure scared my Deputy.  When she found you next to the road like that…”

“I’m sorry sir.”  Cruise pulls his hands from the table and into his lap.

“Look, son.  Whatever you were up to that night, you can tell me.  Drugs.  Drinking.  Whatever.  We just want to know so we can close this case and move on to more—serious matter.”

Cruise stares at his palms, fingers interlocked, for a moment.

“I got the case report right here.  The report from Deputy Abrahams, medical reports, photos from the scene.  Everything all ready to be filed away and forgotten about.  I just need to fill out one last box,” Wayne flips open the folder, “‘Cause.’  I just need to know why you were found sleeping beside the road.  Maybe you pulled over drunk.  Hell, maybe you were just tired and couldn’t make it home, for all I know you—“

“I wasn’t tired.”

Wayne looks up from the file at Cruise’s bent head.

“And I was’t drunk. Or high.  Or anything like that.”

Wayne flicks the front file flap closed and leans back in his chair, “I’ve seen some pretty crazy things up here as the Sherif.  A lot of people think ‘it’s a small town, nothing interesting really happens in small towns.’  Not for a Sherif anyways.  But, I’ve seen some real crazies up here.  There was the lady who tried to keep a cougar as a pet.  A guy got so drunk he decided to go swimming in January, made a popsicle out of himself.  A couple decided to tear down their house and build themselves a mud hut.  Hit the gas line.  These crazies, they keep me from doing the job I’m supposed to do.  From helping all the normal, good people in our town.”

Wayne flips the folder back open, pulls an ink pen from his breast pocket and clicks it into action, “now, you’re not a crazy, are you Mr. Whalin.”

Cruise feels a burning in his eyes and blinks into his hands.  Outside the window a trash truck moves down the alley, stopping at the dumpster out back.

“Five days ago if someone asked me that, I’d have answered right away.  And I’d’ve been sure.  But now,” Cruise smiles and blinks, “now Sherif, I really don’t know.”

<Read the Previous Chapter 

or, Start at the Beginning>

Cruise feels anxious being in his truck again.  Ricki drives, the hospital content with the conquered dehydration set Cruise loose for home.  The whine of the engine and the blink of a turn signal snaps his mind back two nights, and he shakes his head in an attempt to pulls his consciousness back to the present.

He can hear Ricki’s tense breathes, she slips the steering wheel between her fingers focusing on the road like a fisherman’s worm focuses on the world beyond the hook.

“How’d you get my truck?” He asks finally, fiddling with the I.D. Band around his wrist.

She glances into the rearview mirror between them, “Drew took me out to get it.”  She quickly changes the subject from him, “I had to get gas so I borrowed your card.”

“Good.  That’s good,” out his window he spots Mrs. Weaver raking her front yard, “thanks.”

They pull up to his apartment.  The gray-blue paint peeled in patches to expose dark, grainy wood beneath it, the stairs to his second level unit are dark from an overnight rain.  Ricki pulls into a spot, her red volvo waiting a few spaces down.

“You gonna be okay?  Do you need help inside?”

“I’ll be alright.”

She pulls the keys from the ignition and moves her purse to her lap, “Get some rest, okay?  You were pretty tired when they picked you up.  I think you were still dreaming most of—“

“I wasn’t dreaming.”

His downstairs neighbor’s cat reclines on the ground beside the dumpster, licking its paws tiredly.

“Do you work today?”

She pulls her keys from her purse, “Yeah, I’m in in an hour.”

Cruise ducks out of the vehicle first, and Ricki follows, locking the doors and meeting him by the hood.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

He holds his palm open for his keys, “I’ll be fine.”

“Do you want me to come over tonight?”

“If you want.”

He presses his hospital armband into his jacket pocket with the keys, feeling for the door key with his fingers.  She pulls her purse over her shoulder.

“I’ll call when I get off.  See how you feel.”

She hugs him loosely and gives a light peck to his cheek.  His hands drift absently to her elbows and tiredly drop back to his sides as she goes to her car door, “oh.  Sherif Wayne came by the hospital a few times.  He wanted to talk to you.  When you were feeling up to it.”

Quickly hitting the dip between the lot and the road, she pulls from the parking lot and down the street.  Pulling the door key from the rest on the chain, he slowly clops up the stairs to the second level of his apartment.  He unbolts the locks and stands for a beat in his doorway.  The couch, television, and old stack of mail by the door.  Elements of his life in front of him.  He pulls at the hospital band around his wrist again, steps inside and locks the door behind him.

<Read the Previous Chapter

The repetitive beeps seep into his waking mind, as he begins to open his eyes an intense white light rips against them.  He blinks and squints in an attempt to soften the intensity.  He feels like he’s been asleep for days.

The coarse fabric rubs against his palms as he lightly shifts them from where they rest beside him.  He wiggles his toes and shifts the weight of the back of his body as it presses against bedsores.  The smell of cleaning alcohol draws into his nose and his eyes keep pressing against the light.

“…to Radiology, please, …. to… please…”

“…copy.  Animal services notified… route to… Out.”

His ears pick parts of speech around and he brings a hand to his eyes.

“He’s awake.  Nurse.  I think he’s awake.”

A soft shuffle comes to a stop to his right, “Welcome back Mr. Whalin.  You’re going to be a little groggy.  You took a pretty good bump to the head.  We’ll call your wife and let her know you’re awake.  Then… some people just have some questions for you, when you’re ready.”

“I’m not married,” his throat is dry.

“Oh.  I’m sorry.  A young woman has been here to see you, I just assumed.  Ms. Barr— something.”

“Barrett.  Ricki.  Can I have some water?”

“I’ll go get you some ice chips, okay?”  the shuffling moves to the foot of his bed and beyond.  He peaks his eyes open slowly, the light kinder now as it has probed the lids now.  He’s in a single hospital bed, and old T.V. hangs in the corner above a generic painting of a dusty field of flowers.  A striped privacy curtain hugs the doorframe, a man leaning against one side.

“Sherif Wayne’s on his way.  He has a few questions for you.”

The radio on his belt spills voices into the room, and the gun on his other hip is holds quietly.  The man has a trimmed mustache and neatly parted blonde hair.

He lays his head flat against his pillow and stares at the one fluorescent light beating down on him.  The speckled panels stuck against the ceiling seem oddly uniform to him, and very human.

“…Herman.  Mr. Whalin?  Can you hear me?  My name is Dr. Herman.  How are you feeling today?”

He looks to his left suddenly.  A man in a white coat is pressing a stethoscope against the crease in his arm and a blood pressure cuff constricts him, “What?  When did you…?”

“—he must still be a little groggy, sir.”

“He seems to be doing a little better.”

“Pressure 111 over 70.  That’s good.  Better than when they brought you in, Mr. Whalin,” the nurse smiles at him.

“He’s still a little dehydrated, Hang another bag and keep monitoring him.”

He follows the tube from the back of his hand to the metal pole standing by his side.  The droplets slowly plopping into the pool waiting to slide into his body.  Drop after drop.

“—there? Hey.  They said you were asking for water.  Are you still thirsty?”

“…Ricki.”

“Hey, babe.  I’ve been worried about you,” she squeezes his big toes gently.

“I.  I’m back?”

She looks at him quizzically, “What do you mean?  Yeah.  You’re in the hospital.  You’re alright,” she smiles.

“When did I get back?”

“Back?  Cruise, what happened to you?  They found you in a field by the highway.  Your truck was parked on the shoulder and they say you must’ve passed out.”

“My truck?”

“Babe, were you…drinking?”

“No.  No, I just—I saw it, and then.  I got out of my truck.  I parked it, I don’t think it was working.  And then I saw it.  I got out and then it just…picked me up.  I don’t remember.”

“Picked you up?  What picked you up?”

“The ship, Ricki.  The spaceship.  It took me.  But now I’m, I’m back.  I’m back.  I’m alright.  I’m back.”

The coffee drifts with the movements of the car, sloshing lightly against the underside of the lid as the vehicle rounds corner after corner.  Few other vehicles dot the other lanes, and the sun is just lightly peaking through the jagged wall of pine needles standing alongside the road.

The radio on the dash is silent, the sparse troubles of the small town still asleep for now.  To her left, outside the driver’s side window, the face of a mountain hugs each corner, pushing and pulling the road toward its destination.

Rain from overnight slides from the asphalt and mingles with the dirt and rock.  The morning air is cool, and a few stars still glitter against the light blue sky dotted with gray, wafty clouds.  Fluffy spots of gray and the shiny specks of light all against a flat blue morning.  Sheriff Wayne had phoned her early.  A simple 11-24 called in by an out-of-towner passing through on route 43.  She’d pass it on her way in to the station anyways, she just needed to snap a few pictures and take down the license plate.

She eyes the mile markers as they pass by along the shoulder, and sips the coffee from her cup holder.  Very lightly, Frank plays on the radio through the cab of her pickup.  She taps her thumbs gently on the steering wheel with the rhythm, and glances uninterestedly into her empty rearview mirror.

Ahead of her now as she round another corner, a green pickup truck flashes its hazard taillights at her from the clearing where it sits.  The driver’s side door is open, and she can tell as she slows to park behind it that the cab light is flickering.  She slides into park and pulls her keys from the ignition.  She pulls her camera from its bag on the seat to her right and takes a few picture from inside her car before stepping outside into the morning and taking a few more from the distance.

She slides the camera strap around her neck and makes for the abandoned truck.  As she approaches, the truck’s radio hits her ears on the empty morning air, and she spots footprints in the mud leaving the truck.  She clicks a few more photos, closer up of the license plate and also of the footprints that lead from the abandoned cab, around the back and off the to right.

Beside the open truck door she snaps a few picture of the empty cab.  The dash lights are blinking wildly, with no rhythm or purpose.  The radio switches stations, sliding through static airspace, and lading briefly on a station before moving on again.  Carefully, she reaches in and pulls the keys from the ignition, stopping the lightshow.  A few stray food wrappers, old maps in the side pocket, and worn carpet across the floorboards typical from old vehicles.  She doesn’t see any sign of a struggle.  There’s no blood, broken glass.  No glass bottles or lighters.  No wallet.  Reaching across to the passenger side, she opens the glove box and after a moment pulls vehicle registration and proof of insurance out.  Se takes a couple of photos for later and returns them.  The name is almost familiar.  In a small town the names are all almost familiar.

She takes a few steps back and looks down at the footprints.  Taking pictures as she goes, she follows them around the back of the truck bed, her camera leading the way as they disappear.  Maybe ten feet from the truck, standing prominently in the mud, the footprints just stop.

Beyond her the ground slopes down into grass and trees.  From the top of the hill, the truck waiting behind her, she looks around.  She glances across the meadow from one end to the other.  No sign of anything.  No animals to speak of.  Nothing unnatural.

A chill runs down her back as it hits her that something is wrong, she just needs to put the pieces together.  Someone abandoned their vehicle.  No body.  No drunken man napping in the cold mountain grass.  No morning birds, no wildlife, none of the usual early mountain noises at all.

Almost as if nature abandoned the site too.

Wondering, she returns to the truck and closes the door.  She locks the door and takes the keys in her jacket pocket.  From her truck she pulls her ticket pad.  She writes a ticket for illegal parking and rips it out for the windshield.  At least if whoever left their truck here comes back, they’ll know who has the keys.  They can come to the station, she’ll ask a few questions, probably drop the ticket, and that’ll be that.  Unless they have to tow it to the station before then, in which case she can come back with a couple of the guys and do a full search of the area.

Tucking the ticket under the abandoned windshield wiper, she hears something.  Almost a cough, maybe a groan, maybe a tree branch in the breeze.  She moves around the hood and stares off to her left, listening.  The breeze whips flyaways on her brow and pushes gently on the tip of her ponytail.

Down the hill, half covered in grass, leaves, and dusty with dirt and mud, a man lays across the ground.  His chest rises and lowers slowly, mud is caked to the bottom of his boots.  She stares for a second, testing her eyes before running to her truck.  She grabs a first aid kit out of her truck bed, and pulls the door open, reaching for the radio.

“Deputy Abrahams requesting backup.  At reported 11-24, assistance required for possible 10-53.”

A moment passes as she pulls her jacket off her shoulders and into her arms, and shifts the microphone to her left hand.

“…Copy Abrahams.  10-4.”

It didn’t feel different, and that was the strange part. In the moment, you’d been elated, the sun beating down on your face outdoors, the school football field colonized by a million folding chairs and your parents clapping and beaming as their children and their friends and you processed across the stage one by one but now you felt like you again only now there was even less of you than there had been, a sort of vapid emptiness you couldn’t name or barely perceive except by looking at it with squinted eyes. Even sitting with Benny at the beach didn’t help and that surprised you even more than his fingers did when they began playing on your back and then later beneath the pier.

Benny will be dead in two years, washed up at some expensive college back east and depressed beyond your comprehension. What even makes a person do that, you will think, your own deep spells beneath the surface of the waves looking like puddles before the dive that Benny takes after you lose contact with him. He will bury a bullet in his ocular globe and that makes him a poor shot as well as a dead man, maybe his hand jerked at the last moment, like he didn’t really want to do it, or so you will tell yourself staring at the ceiling in your apartment. Ocular globe is a phrase you will have to look up when the policeman you speak to tells it to you in an unguarded moment, distracted a little bit you think by the low shirt you decide to wear, feeling powerful with your skinny body that you hated so much when you were still lying on that beach watching the implanted rich wives wander by and jiggle and make you wonder fleetingly if you might be a lesbian but no no Benny’s fingers bring you back around.

You see Nancy coming striding down the beach and think that yes, that really does describe how she walks, striding, her long legs like stalks on an insect or some alien invasion machine, the lander of a scouting force, legs that let her be as silly as she likes around boys because she knows as soon as she walks away their eyes will stay glued to her thighs and everything she’s done to annoy them is forgiven, forgiven forever if she’ll just keep walking like that. Of course Benny watches her walk up, waves at her as she passes, and you pray she’s going to keep on walking but no, here she comes to say hi to Benny and you and then those legs are right at your face and you have to look straight up them to even try and see her eyes.

Nancy and Benny are friends from way back, forever ago, when they were in elementary school together and met on the first day and then spent every day at recess together on the swings because no one wanted to talk to the fat nerd and the tall skinny girl and certainly not at the same time, making them fast friends throughout the rest of the school year until Nancy moved across town and they didn’t see each other again until freshman year when you had know Benny for longer already but Nancy didn’t see it that way at all and the three of you played a funny game of who’s the third wheel this time for all four years of high school.

Benny leaves his hand on your back as you crane your neck upward and you back falls into this funny little shape where you have a depressing right above your ass, where a tramp stamp was drawn in sharpie on the most incredible sleep over you ever had back in junior year where you confessed to your friends that you and Benny weren’t actually sleeping together like you’d tried to lead everyone on about for the entire semester and everyone told you they hadn’t believed it anyway. It had been a rose with thorns wrapped around it and spreading from one edge of your bony hip to the other and drawn by Maggie who was a senior that year but it was entirely your idea and everyone had liked it so much that they all called you Rose for about a week afterward.

Benny’s fingers roll down your suntanned-lotion-slicked back and come to rest in that little cavern and you tingle all over and wish they’d just keep going down further and further and in fact tell him this later, after Nancy leaves and you both wander off the beach and down to the old piers that block the view from the road and the city to be alone, you amaze yourself as the words tumble out from your mouth, I wanted you to keep going and doing that, please try that again right now, and make a noise that you would later only be able to think of as keeeeeen, over and over and over as you learn something about what fingers can and can’t do, most importantly of all being that they cannot fill that funny little gap that you feel constantly, that emptiness.

It gnaws at you even as you are lying here looking up at Nancy and talking to her about colleges and what ones you’ve heard from and what ones she’s heard from and oh my god maybe you’ll end up at the same college and wouldn’t that be so cool? and you both know as you are saying these things that they are lies, you would hate to see Nancy at college, and she would hate to see you at college, and so when, in two months, you find out that Nancy has agreed to attend your backup school that had already sent you a letter of acceptance you shred it and never tell anyone you heard from them and instead pray that you hear from somewhere anywhere else.

Nancy bends down and pats you on the head and comments on how nice and even your tan looks and you know that she really really wants you to compliment her on her own bronzed skin and so you oblige, thinking there’s no point in lying about how good Nancy’s tan looks on her, and as she does this and you do that another woman walks by and your eyes bounce for a moment in perfect rhythm again, and you quickly roll them and hope that Nancy did not pick up on either movement. If she did, she is giving you no sign of it, and as you share your goodbyes and you and Benny watch her walk away, tracing her perfect glutes with your eyes, you wonder again about the worry you have that isn’t really a worry per se but more a little curiosity at yourself you will never really answer.

In twenty years you will look back on this scene and this entire afternoon and ruminate on paths not taken but right now you don’t even know that ruminate is a word because there is just the sea and the sun and Benny’s fingers drifting along your back and ruining your tan but oh well, who cares, you’ll be wearing a shirt over it for most of the rest of the summer anyway.

You decide right then however on something important and stand up and brush the sand off your own thighs, and smile as Benny stands slowly as well his swim trunks seeming to fit him better than before, or at least a little tighter and you take his hand and jog down the beach toward the shimmering piers where there is plenty of future for the both of you to dig out from beneath them, sand that you will shovel into that empty space in the hopes that although it may always be bottomless at least it will be slightly less not full.

read the previous chapter – “Walk”

El Dorado rains down on Edward.  Flecks of gold stone blown from structures tumble through the sky with the loud silence of nearby explosions.  Flashes of orange pop against the darkness of the city, and mouths shout silent instructions to each other. 

Edward’s focus is on the pyramid in front of him, the high walkway above that once joined with the pyramid is now crumbled in several places where Rex’s men took grenades to the supporting stone arches, cutting off the locals from the city central structure.

Keamy pulls him, firing his gun into the yells and hurtling spears of the dead end walkway above.  Rex, Keamy, and Edward reach the bottom of the pyramid and begin to climb toward the open doorway at the peak.

***

The walkway beneath them began to shake, and the expanse before them had dropped out of view taking a handful of natives with it.  They started throwing spears and bullets were hurtled back.  Tiffany runs, slipping through distracted fingers back the way she came.

***

He stumbles, panting against the upper doorway.  The gunshots are clustered in three different parts of the city, echoing up and down the valley and bouncing off stone walls.  To his left the dry riverbed points back towards camp and the blown walkway that stabs into the belly of the pyramid.  To his right the city merges with the severe valley ridge and the night sky beyond.  Inside is dark.  Keamy presses a glow stick into Edward’s scarred hand.  He breaks it and through his one eye can make out the yellow glow of stairs leading down.

Rex and Keamy both look at Edward for direction.  The expert glances the empty stone walls around them and focuses again on the stairs.

“What goes up…”

***

The Bravo team is held up inside a square stone structure.  Five men left, Ford and four others, they poke their guns out of the various windows and doorways.  They throw grenades and empty clips.  The natives fall back, finally.  And then, almost as if they know the last of the munitions are gone, the drums begin.

“Chut…chut…chut…”  begins in whispers.

***

The camp is silent, a few of them poke through the equipment, overturning lockers and prodding still figures on the ground.

***

“How much do you know about El Dorado?”

Edward continues down the stairs, unresponsive to Rex’s question for a moment.  “More than you do.”

“The power,” Rex continues as if spilling rehearsed interview questions, “what does it do?  What have you heard about it?”

“Some liken it to Midas.  Transforming objects to solid gold.  It’s said that it can also heal sickness and make people live forever.”

“Explains our zombie friends outside,” Keamy nods toward the doorway above them in the darkness.

“Yeah, well no one ever talks about side effects.”

“But… what is it exactly?  Where did it–”

Edward stops as a door appears in front of them.  Without hesitation he presses on it and opens the way into a large room with a single walkway running from one side to the other.

“We must be in the center of the pyramid,” Edward cranes his neck at the large room around him.  The other end of the walkway holds a doorway that continues out into the burning night onto what is now crumpled stone arches of the destroyed outer walkway.

“Water?”  Keamy peers over the edge of the stone walkway.  A dark, still pool of water takes up the expanse of the room, the walkway cutting through its middle.

The room glows with the light of the many torches hung along the outer walls of the room.  A giant wooden cog sticks out of the wall to their right, and every inch of stone glows a metallic gold and is etched with murals and foreign writing.

At the center of the room, the stone walk snakes around with sides, a stone pillar holds a single golden brick.  It pulses luminously with the firelight, as steady and hypnotic as a heartbeat.

Mr. Rex shoots Keamy.

Edward yells.  Utter shock and terror splash across Keamy’s face as he falls against the stairwell door behind them, his crumpled body holding the door shut.

“Thank you for volunteering,” Rex motions toward the gold brick with the barrel of his gun.

Tears of fear and surprise blur Edward’s one eye.  Like a disposable lab rat he slowly walks toward the center of the room.  The etching across the room dances and almost seems to move with the pulsing light.

The sun dominates the golden ceiling above them.  It pours glowing drops of rain from its beams, and many cities grow across the walls.  Exotic golden animals dance through the air, across the lands and in the seas.  Tribes grow, sow crops, heal their sick, and sacrifice to their sun.  Then they build armies.  One by one they hold the stone and make themselves strong.  They war for the stones of other tribes.  Armies of gold clash and all perish.  Cities fall into the ocean and collapse out of time itself.

Edward pushes forward as slowly as he dares with the pistol pointed at his back.  He glances his reflection on the pool beside him.  For the first time he sees the torture done to him by Mr. Rex.  A bald, rough line runs across his scalp where his hair has been burned away.  One arm has the burned, crumpled skin of acid exposure.  Bruises poke onto any bit of exposed flesh.

He reaches the platform, the brick pulsing in front of him.

Slowly Edward extends his good hand toward the brick.

A single gunshot echoes through the stone chamber.

***

Slowly, through the chaos, Tiffany made her way to the lake which she was now surprised to see empty.  The gunshots had become confined to just two areas around the city, which meant either most of the men had been eaten, or they had merged from four small groups into two large ones.  She didn’t feel all that optimistic about their odds.  These may be primitive spear throwing zombies, but they were accurate, super strong primitive spear throwing zombies with an insane amount of endurance.

Tiffany paces her small section of cliff side, poking her head over the edge and trying to spot a way to climb down.  He stomach lurches.  It’s a long ways down.

***

Cues and Jacob fall back to camp, holding off the locals as they back against the cliff wall.  They’re teams are all that’s left.  Through all the bullets and all the grenades there still seems to be wave after wave, spear after spear.  The more tribes folk they bring down, the more seem to pour out of seemingly empty buildings with their endless supply of spears, knives, arrows and darts.

***

Keamy slouches to his side, warm pistol scraping against the same stone floor Mr. Rex’s blood now pours over.  Edward runs over to the door where Keamy lies.

“Hey.  HEY!  Wake up.  Come on… Keamy,” he pats his cheeks and the solider’s eyes open slightly, “grenades.  Where are your grenades?”

His front soaked in blood, he lifts an arm and pulls two off the back of his belt.  Edward takes them and stashes them in each of his pants pockets before pulling Keamy to sit upright.

“Come on.  Up.  I need you to stand up.  That’s it…”  Edward slowly helps the dying man to his feet and half drags him toward to glowing brick.

“…what…?”

“I can heal you.  We’re almost there.”

“…don’t want…to be…zombie…”

Edward sets him down with his back propped against the brick stand.  “It doesn’t work that way.  The people of El Dorado,” Edward pulls on the bullet hole in the fabric of Keamy’s shirt exposing his crimson chest, “they used it on themselves.  To grow strong.  To be superhuman.  I’m gonna use it on you to just–make you not die.”

Edward moves without doubt, knowing somehow what he needs to do.  He places one hand over the hole in Keamy’s side, and reaches up with the other to touch his finger tips against the gold brick.

The entire room grows bright, and Edward pulls his fingers away.  Keamy relaxes against the stone behind him, and his eyes close gently.

Edward waits for a moment, then stands and walks down the walkway toward the large wooden cog.  He grabs the grenades from his pockets, pulls their pins and tosses them into the water below.  After a moment the water lurches and the sound of wood splintering against the pressure of water creaks above the surface.

The water begins to roar and spills out of the pyramid toward the empty lake down the valley.

Edward goes back to the brick and its patient.  He grabs the brick again.  As he holds it fully in his hands he can feel the skin on his arm smooth out.  His bruises don’t feel tender.  His hair grows across the gash on his scalp.  Both eyes snap open.  He looks down at his feet and body, they glow gold and pulse like the brick.  Without hesitation, Edward clasps the brick to his chest, and tumbles into the cascading water below him.

***

Somehow the river burst through the city.  They didn’t know how, but the lake behind them was filling and they had hope.  Just hold them off a little longer and then get across the lake to freedom.  The natives seemed panicked, coming ferociously as the lake filled just as adamantly.  Then suddenly they disappeared, literally falling into dust and leaving behind the roar of water.

Tiffany creeps from her refuge behind some rocks, and tearfully asks no one in particular: “Where’s Edward?”

***

Daylight brought Loy a full lake and a handful of sailors.  Tiffany,  Cues, Jacob, and six of their men.  They sit on the far bank gazing at the city.  Parts had already began to crumble.

“So this brick, it’s what the whole thing is about?  El Dorado… Is basically a magical, oversized lego block?”  Tiffany hangs her feet over the ledge and into the lake.

“Basically.  It’s tied to the place where the city first sprung.  If anyone ever tries to remove it, the entire civilization collapses.”

“So someone must’ve moved the lego, and that’s why all the creepers vanished.  Cradle and all.”

“Cradle and all,”  Loy smirks slightly.

“Hey!  Keamy!”  Jacob shouts, waving toward the lake.  A figure on a raft slowly paddles toward them, the city sinking more in the background.

He draws closer and the ground starts shaking.  Tiny earthquakes pulsing up and down.

“How do you know all this?  And how would Edward have known?”  Tiffany asks sadly.

“I’ve been here before.  Although we weren’t as lucky last time,” they look around at the ten on shore, and back to the eleventh almost at their side, “as for Edward…we can’t say for sure.”

Keamy disembarks from his raft and is greeted by smiles and questions.  All he says over and over is: “He saved me.  He saved me.”  His torso is completely bare, and to the right on his abdomen he has a permanent golden handprint, etched into his skin.

They make for the caves, deciding to leave before the whole valley flattens.  Beside where Loy sits against the water, a small piece of old looking leather slaps against the shore in the waves.  Loy picks from the water the map to El Dorado.  He stares at it for a moment before crumpling it and tossing it into the lake.

As it sinks a tiny golden fish dances around it, descending into the darkness below.

“Tell me a story.”

“What, another one?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok, hmm. Alright, I know one. It goes like this:

“There once was a very holy man. Everyone agreed on this. They testified to his mystical powers far and wide; they swore that his decisions were enlightened beyond all other men. God himself looked down at this man and smiled.

“Now, in these days, people believed that part of being a holy man was the ability to live the life of renunciation.”

“What’s that?”

“Renunciation? It means ‘giving things up.’ So you could renounce soda, for example, or, more meaningfully, violence. But when these believers thought about renunciation, they meant it in a larger way: the renunciation of all of the demands of the flesh. Holy men all over the country attempted to outdo each other with their denial of the flesh. They starved themselves, sat in meditation for weeks on end, held their breath for ages, and generally tried to refuse to interact with the world as much as possible.

“So among all these ascetics, the holy man was a paragon of renunciation. He never ate more than a few grains of rice at a time; the water he sipped was muddy and disgusting; his breath was so shallow that when he sat in meditation one could barely tell if he was alive or dead.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would someone do that to themselves?”

“Well, the theory went that God was completely separate from the physical world; that the material was a corrupt version of the holy. By liberating their minds from the demands of the body and the world, the renunciate could grow that much closer to God.”

“He must have been very hungry.”

“He stopped noticing after a while. His body, though, grew frailer and frailer; his eyes sank back into his head, his bones became brittle and weak, and his skin was stretched like paper over his skeleton.

“One day, he called his closest disciples to him. ‘My friends,’ he said, ‘I have finally discovered the key to completely renouncing this material world. From this moment on, I will no longer need to eat even those meager grains of rice, or sip that muddy water from the cup. I shall instead draw my sustenance from the vital energies of the air itself, through breath alone.’

“When he said this, his disciples grew alarmed, wondering if he had somehow lost his mind. Various holy men over the years had claimed to have discovered the keys to complete renunciation, and all had given up in shame, or been discovered still sneaking grains of rice on the side.

“But the holy man reassured them. ‘Fear not; I know of your worry for me. Rest assured that I would not make this pronouncement without understanding the gravity of my claim. But I truly have discovered the method; God himself revealed the secret to me in a dream three nights previous, and I have sat in prayer to him for the previous three days, consulting with him, assuring myself that it is indeed the truth.’

“So the disciples were mollified. The holy man continued, ‘I shall use this technique to enter into a state of divine meditation with God. This meditation shall be so deep, I will not require any rest; so perfect, I will need no sustenance at all. I will retire to the inner sanctum of the temple and meditate there until I have attained the truth of the peace of the wisdom of God. Leave me undisturbed there until I summon you.’

“The holy man returned to his meditations at the heart of the temple, and the disciples closed the door behind him, locking it from the inside. The holy man could exit the room, but they could no longer enter.

“The days passed, and the holy man did not exit his inner sanctum. The disciples shared with his other followers what he had told them, and they continued life much as before, venerating God, praying, fasting, welcoming pilgrims, and generally being holy.

“None disturbed the holy man in the center of the temple, and as the weeks turned into months, and the months into years, he became the symbol of the entire sect, a holy relic unto himself, attaining a statue near to that of a god himself.

“Thousands venerated the temple he meditated deep within. The entire structure was closed, sealed to outsiders, and the legends of his miracles grew. A woman who was visiting the temple claimed to have had her wounded leg healed by his grace. A man who had been blind regained his sight. A barren woman conceived her first child after sleeping on the grounds of the temple complex.

But, as these things often do, the sect began to fade as the original disciples began to pass on to the next world. As those who had known the holy man before his ascension into the temple to meditate passed on into the other world, tales of his power and might became superseded by the stories of holy men who the people could see and touch, who were still out in the world.

“The flood of pilgrims to the temple became a trickle, and then ceased altogether. The monks who were there grew old and died, or left to join other, more vibrant holy communities. The jungle regrew into the places it had been cut out of, and now no trace of this holy place remains.”

“But what happened to the holy man?”

“Hmm?”

“The holy man, who announced that he could live without eating? What happened to him? Was he right?”

“Oh, of course. No, he died, like everyone else does. In his case, about a week after the door had been locked, his body starved to death.”

“That’s a horrible story.”

“Is it? I like to think it’s quite beautiful.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Well, go to sleep. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”

“Alright, but I’m not tired. I’m going to stay up all night now.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

read the previous chapter – “Sail”

“This is the last boat sir, we’re setting up a small base camp here and the first team is just about to begin their sweep.”

Linus helps Mr. Rex off the makeshift raft, the last to ferry supplies and personnel across the lake occupying the entire East to West expanse of the valley.  A few small tents are erect along the stony shoreline, they pull wildly against their poles and frames as the wind fights their tethered stances.  The sky is grayed over and flecks of raindrops begin a slow assault on the area.  Men with guns are stationed in a line parallel to the lake, dividing the city and the newly forming camp.

Beyond the camp and the line of men, a grassy field runs up to the city border.  Waist high grass which ripples in the intense wind, the city stoic, still, and silent beside it.  A river spews out of the city and cascades into the lake, the source somewhere to the North.

“Sir, look!” Someone points to the south bank of the lake they just crossed.  On the other side, out of the cave they just passed through, several natives emerge.  They move to the edge of the water and stand in a line facing the strangers outside their city.

“What are they doing?”  Keamy asks no one in particular.  Beside him Edward turns to glance the line of men guarding their camp, then back to the line of natives guarding the severe, rocky lakeside.

“There!  Look!”  Behind them a solider shouts from his line at something in front of him.

A few feet to Edward’s left a man is impaled by a spear.  Thwick!

“They’re attacking!”

“Go! Go! Go!”

“Five marks at eleven o’clock!”

Thwick!  Thwick!

“Gaaaahh!”

Rrrrrttttttttttttttttttttt.  Rrrrrrrrttttttttttttttttt.  Rrrrtttt.  Rrrrrttt.  Rrrrtt.

“Move!  Alpha team, engage!  Bravo/Charlie: take the city!”

Edward is on the ground behind some metal crates.  He looks up and realizes Keamy is there.  The shooting is slightly further away.  Edward’s left eyelid is still seared and swollen, but through his one good eye he stares across the waves.  The shoots and yells behind him echo and fade and the men across the lake stand unflinching.

“Superficies, to me!”  Rex yells from against the shoreline.  Keamy, grabs Edward and drags him toward Rex, his gun still pointed toward the city.  Linus, Ford, Cues, and Jacob stagger from their various points of cover out into the steady rain beside to their boss.

“Ford, you have Bravo, Jacob: Charlie.  Hurry!  Linus, you’re with camp of course.  Cues, go with Alpha.  Keamy you’re with me, bring the boy.”

“AH CHA THAIE!” A voice yells from the city, carried by the wind.  A loud rumble joins the gusts of air.

Ford, Jacob, and Cues sprint in various directions.  Keamy, Rex and Linus eye each other quizzically, the foreign shout sitting uneasy in their ears.  They turn to Edward who is fixed on the lake.

The rush of the river has stopped.  It slows to a trickle before the riverbed is claimed by shallow puddles.

“Oh my God,” Keamy lowers his gun and stares at the lake.

The water level dips.  Within minutes a slick, sheer cliff face appears where the shoreline used to be and lake continues to drain.  Several men, seeing their exit disappearing, leap into the sinking lake and begin to swim frantically toward the South bank.

Mr. Rex lets his gaze run from the draining lake, along the riverbed and to the city, “Come on men, we have a city of gold in need of some new residents.”

“What about the lake?  What about them?”  Edward nods toward the swimmers, the rock face on either side of the lake is clearly too slick and steep to climb up or down.

Mr. Rex takes Keamy’s M16, moves to the edge of the rock and fires several rounds into the water, “AWOL’s as good as dead if you ask me.”  Rex hands the weapon back to Keamy, “now, my young friend, we have some walking to do.”

***

The natives on the South bank finished off the few swimmers who managed to get close enough to the south cliff wall, and then ascended the valley ridge with help others stationed above.  After a few moments, Loy emerges from the cave and glimpses the confusion he’d heard from inside the stony doorway.  The camp is sparse, a smaller group of men erecting tents, lights and generators.  Mussel flashes pop along two ends of the city, and he can tell the goons aren’t having an easy time.  They haven’t progressed as much as Loy would have hoped.  But, Loy may have given them too much credit.

Loy moves to the bushes to the right of the cave entrance for cover.  All he can do now is wait.

***

A small group of men pass through the streets of El Dorado.  They move quietly and slowly; carefully even though the fighting is heard well ahead of them.  The city streets are wide, and everything is made of stone.  The roads, the buildings.  Much of is glitters, but the city is not the golden presence most imagine.  Edward wonders if Rex is disappointed.

The rain has subsided and the wind dropped to a breeze.  Ahead of them torches begin to dot the early evening.  The muzzle fire echoes less frequently, which could be a good or bad sign.  Each time the group rounds a corner it seems like more and more torches pop into view like matches being struck by the fist-full.

Much of the torch activity seems to be at or moving toward the center of the city: the prominent gold pyramid.  A full moon balances atop the crest, and the men weave their way to the golden torch-lit wedge.

***

Three large, ashen men slide through her open doorway, their eyes betraying nothing.  She presses nervously against the open stone tower window she’s been peering out of.  The men silently step aside, motioning toward the door.

“Sounds like you guys have some serious street crime,” Tiffany nods toward the gunshots well below, “I think it’d be better if I stay in tonight.”

Two of the men adjust their spears and indicate the door again.  On cue drumming can be heard in the distance beyond.

“A party?  I’m not really dressed for a party.”

The third man produces a folded white fabric bundle and extends it toward her.  Tiffany looks into his dead, glowing eyes for comprehension.

“White’s not really my color.”

A moment passes.  Tiffany peers toward the window.  The gunfire doesn’t sound close enough.  And she doesn’t think she can take on three crazed zombies with spears.  She takes the dress.  It’s a light cotton, simply sewn with some basic lace around the neckline.  It has short sleeves and hits below the knee.  Something about it seems old fashioned and possibly ceremonial.  Not quite a wedding dress, but something else important.  She holds up the dress and stares at the men for a moment.

“I guess privacy isn’t a zombie etiquette rule.”  She turns her back to them and slips the top on, undoing her muddy pants beneath the dress.  It fits, mostly, with a little room in the shoulders.

“Ok.  Where’s the limo?”