Chapter 12

12.

         If these are bodies then it reeks of death. Suffocating. Smothering. A blanket of infinite darkness. There’s no end to this cloth. I can’t reach the edges to cast it off. You can see it in the eyes, the glass marbles staring sightlessly endlessly. All seeing the same thing, all lost in the same depths. They are all exactly the same age now, regardless of how old they were before.
         The sand crunches underfoot. Blood is the cement. All those bodies, all this life spilled into the soil, holding the planet together. If there was no death, the whole system might just fall apart.
         Tell that to the departed. Tell them the system thanks them for their sacrifice.
         The pristine blue sky is splattered with dark smoke, fingernails scraping across the perfect canvas, despoiling it, changing it. It stinks of burning wood, of burning flesh, of human fat and human skin and things made of man and the stench of dreams spat upon and relegated to the dirt. Once gone, nothing comes back. There is no bridge and the chasm only leads endlessly down. No, nothing is lost. Can’t I tell them that? It has to be true.
         Walking past bodies and bodies and bodies. So many still. So many stilled. There are no hearts here. All the motors have stopped. Past burnt out fires and broken tents strewn about like so many child’s toys. Men and women, women and men. All gone. What did you do? Don’t you see what you’ve done. Lying in puddles of their own fluids, limbs askew, faces contorted. One man has no face. Only the bone-white color of his skull glints in the sunlight. Torn flesh, lacerations, glisten wetly in the sharp light, already fading as the wind dries them out. Agonized lips pulled back tightly from uncaring mouths, screaming a note forever unheard. The final chords of the song no instrument can replace, and its reverberations only forever descend, out of our hearing, away from human perception.
         No one here. Everyone has gone. Fled down that final path. Some face down, hands outstretched for a salvation that would always hang maddeningly out of reach. Dead. As they ran and crawled and stumbled and rolled and staggered. Dead. Screaming for wives and lovers and mothers and children. Dead. Defending and escaping and attacking. Dead. As the blood gurgled in their throats, as their skulls broke open, as their organs were laid open to the stinging air, as it put out their eyes and punctured their ears and perforated their bowels and snapped their bones and ended their lives. Dead.
         What are you trying to tell me? I don’t understand.
         There is no one here alive.
         There are two men walking.
         Faces alike, side by side, strolling without care through a graveyard hastily erected, where the only burial is sand and time. Walking, they make no sound. Talking, nobody hears.
         “. . . sure as hell took a lot of them to pull it off. I have to give them credit for thinking big. They certainly didn’t let feasibility become an obstacle.”
         “It’s a terrible waste, that’s what it is. He knew this was going to happen and yet he let it occur anyway.”
         “Think they knew? These poor bastards here?”
         “Maybe. Maybe not. It doesn’t really matter now, does it? What’s done is done. They served their purpose and now they have no purpose.”
         “Welcome to the new world, I guess. This is probably just a taste. If they win there’s certainly going to be a lot more room , I’ll say, if things keep going the way they are. How many are here, would you say?”
         “At least a hundred. That’s how many it took to maintain the block. That’s how many had to die for the final act to begin. And they didn’t know. So many doomed, right from the start. So many, that never stood a chance.”
         “Yeah, it’s depressing. Think any of them were able to escape? In all the confusion?”
         “If they left right in the beginning, just when she got here and the block hadn’t been put into place, then maybe they would have gotten out. But once it was up he would have tightened his grip on them and nobody would have made it out. Some traps capture both hunter and prey. But sometimes it’s worse for the prey to be locked in with the hunter.”
         “But in this case the hunters got the shaft.”
         “Yes, well, they didn’t realize sometimes you can be both hunter and hunted. And someone might be better at it than you are.”
         “That was an unpleasant surprise. Where the hell did he come from? We both saw him die, why was he running around-“
         ”Sh . . . quiet. There . . .”
         A man who cloaks himself in blood thrives on death. I’ve seen him before. I have. He scratches a signature into a face and spreads his sickness. Laughing, carves a sigil as wide as a galaxy. Inducts members into the world’s largest club. A few more and they might outnumber the dead.
         “He doesn’t see us.”
         “He can’t. Not right now. But it doesn’t matter. In five minutes we’re going to take him away from here and try to find an end to this mess.”
         “And you know this how? Do I not get the memos or something? I think you just enjoy watching me act surprised all the time.”
         “I was just informed not that long ago. There’s more to this than we thought, apparently. It’s a challenge to the fundamental basis of reality itself, as it turns out.”
         “My , they’re getting ambitious. And here I was under the impression that they were merely letting off some genocidal steam. Why don’t we ever think of such grandiose designs?”
         “Look at their track record so far. Do you want to take that chance? Besides, I have little desire to alter the basic rudder of existence. As far as I’m concerned, matters are proceeding just fine without making too many changes.”
         “Amen to that , I suppose. Damn . . . look at him. He looks pretty alive to me. Ah . . . he knows that guy is dead , right?”
         “I would hope by now he knows the difference.”
         “You’d think. Why do we let him live, again?”
         “Because we made an agreement.”
         “And there’s no renegotiating the contract?”
         “I don’t think you’d like the terms.”
         “No, probably not. So . . . given all this around us . . . and multiplying it by a million or more, over and over again, for the foreseeable future . . . you still think we made the right decision?”
         “Yes.”
         “Your self-assuredness is an inspiration to us mere mortals.”
         “We’re working at a level where numbers are absolutely meaningless. He’s the first truly independent and truly neutral force in all of history. He’s unpredictability personified, and his very presence throws a spanner into every plan that has ever been laid out. We may not be able to see the results until the final analysis but in the end, yes, I think we’ll turn out to be right.”
         Walking again, past shattered tatters, over broken debris and bruised hopes, with the dust of dreams and life peppering the air in a stagnant haze.
         “So . . . you think what’s his name, the guy who took her and was supposed to be in charge of all of this . . . think he had any idea what was going to happen. To them? To himself?”
         “I doubt it. He probably saw himself as in control, as having the ear of the gods, so to speak, and being privy to their plans. After all they’d done for him, he had no reason not to trust them.”
         “Hm, poor bastard. I almost feel sorry for him. Almost. It’s just . . . all these folks, they thought something important was going to happen and . . .”
         “It is. It just won’t involve them.”
         “Yeah. Ever again. Remind me, why do we let them live?”
         “I don’t know.”
         Silent voices never stop screaming. Asking why you? Asking what gives you the right to live when so many others do not. There is no escape valve. There is no release. But you can sidestep. No destiny here. Just death. They are no longer the same thing. There has been an understanding.
         “It’s almost time, I think. We should get back, I’m not sure if we can still forfeit or not.”
         “Yeah, let’s go put the kid through yet another trauma. Yippee. He’s going to kill her, you know. She doesn’t stand a chance.”
         “No, she doesn’t.”
         “Doesn’t that bother you?”
         “It would, if I was relying on chance.”
         “That’s just the thing. I’m not sure if I’m more surprised that so much of what goes on is totally random, or that just as much is planned right down to the hand gestures.”
         “It’s probably best to not think about it too much.”
         “Some days I think ignorance is all that gets me through the day. Makes me wonder how people can sleep . . . times like this all the nightmares must be acres of interesting . . . which reminds me, actually, have you had the feeling that we’re being watched?”
         “Of course we are. He’s been here the entire time.”
         “Well that answers that. Any idea what he’s doing there? If you feel up to divulging it, that is. Heaven forbid I stay informed, gracious me, no!”
         “He’s just watching, from what I can tell. I don’t think he understands what’s happened here, the full import. Ninety nine percent of the Universe is completely oblivious to these assaults on the nature of reality itself, and yet even if you sat them down and showed them . . . it wouldn’t matter. It’s not for everyone to grasp. Perhaps that’s best.”
         “Hm, whatever you say. Where is he, again?”
         “Right there . . .”
         “Ah . . . yes, oh right . . .”
         Fingers pointing at you perpendicular to the sky, to the air, sideways to everything. Eyes without sight look right through you. There is no cause for alarm here. There is nothing to be afraid of. Nothing you can touch.
         “He’s probably waiting for us to say something . . . want to say anything to the camera?”
         “Just this . . . they’re all dead.” Wind turns to snow. Stars burn out. Darkness only appears in contrast. These are all facts. But facts are not true things. “This was arranged from the start. They will all die. Telling them this will not make a difference. Or it may. I don’t really care.” A pause. “There. That’s all I have to say.”
         Turning away. Revolutions are not rotations. It’s so cold here. Mother. Is it true? Are they all-
         “Come on, he’s over here . . . and aw, geez, look at what he’s doing now . . . hey, buddy, just because he’s dead doesn’t mean it doesn’t belong to him anymore . . .”
         “It’s time . . .”
         Are they-
         “Great . . . you know, half the stuff you said was really only vague generalities. I hope they don’t take you seriously . . .”
         Are-
         “Why not, it might come true, at that. Or it might not. What’s wrong with those odds?”
         all
         “You see now, that’s the-“
         ”-trouble! Dad, what’s the problem? Dad? Dad!”
         Baress opened bleary eyes and picked his head off the table, where it had been resting on his arms. A thin layer of saliva coated his skin where his mouth had been. The room fell into abstract shapes, everything breaking down into its components. His nostrils writhed under the fresh scent of dust.
         They’re all-
         His son was shaking him. The room was darker than it should be. Baress blinked again, trying to clear his head. Had he fallen asleep again?
         He shifted his weight back on the chair and was rewarded with the kitchen table tilted crazily toward him. At that moment he saw the large crack running down the center of it and the fact that it was missing two of its legs. They’re. Jaymes was still touching him. Baress turned to his son to see that his boy’s eyes were wild and there was an angry bruise          forming on the side of his head. All.
         “Dad, did you see what happened?” Jaymes asked, nearly breathless. He looked slightly unsteady on his feet. Baress’ head felt far away, his body nothing more than a distant appendage that had somehow fallen numb. Looking around, he noticed with detached surprise that two of the kitchen windows were broken. A chair was shattered and lay propped up against the wall, where it threatened to fall apart at any second. Handprints on the wall might have been dirt or might have been blood. Some were too large for a man’s. A door on a cabinet was hanging by one hinge. A crack ran like a fault line down a wall. Something had punched several holes in the wall itself nearby. The floor was littered with dust and glass. “Did you see him, Dad?”
         Dead. Baress shook his head again, tossing off echoes, sensing the motion causing ripples in the air around him. Grunting to himself, he began to stand up.
         Jaymes tried to push him down. “The guy, Dad. The giant man. Who was he? What were they doing here? Did you let them in? What did they do to you?” They’re all.
         Baress muttered something that even he didn’t understand, weakly shoving his son out of the way. The boy pressed harder, giving up the fight to get him back in the chair, but not slackening his grip all the same.
         “Dad!” the boy nearly shouted. “What the hell happened here? Don’t you know?”
         Baress tore the boy’s grip off his clothes, pushing the boy to arm’s length and then yanking him forward so that their faces were nearly touching. Jaymes’ eyes went wide and his face blanched at the veiled ferocity in his father’s grasp.
         “They’re. All. Dead,” Baress hissed distinctly.
         His son’s face only registered confusion.
         “Dad . . . what . . .” was all he said.
         With an offhand motion, Baress shoved his son into a nearby wall and then, kicking a broken shard of furniture out of his way, calmly turned and left the room.