Chapter 24

24.

         The door has barely opened when the arrow catches his mother in the throat.
         It happens so fast. One second a light knock, the next second she is toppling before his horrified eyes, her motions locked into the slow motion flash freeze of the thickened air, the point of the arrow emerging from the back of her neck like the birth of something obscene, the tip glistening wet with blood as the fading sunlight strikes it. She never makes a sound, not even a gurgle. There’s no time, of course. Her eyes seek his as she falls to the floor, but it’s too late. She’s gone. There’s nothing to see, to find.
         “. . . see, the first thing we have to do is talk to this, to this, what did you say his name was . . .”
         Through the curtains he can see them dancing, tribal stick figures staining the brown earth, churning the soil and frightening the animals, who can’t seem to stop howling, their screams fighting for dominance against a language that has no gestures and requires no words. It doesn’t matter. No communication is needed. They know what’s coming. Even if no one else does.
         Bold, they press grotesque faces up against the glass, the solid pane warping and stretching their features, palms and fists banging on the window in a primitive symphony, the rhythms falling in time with his pulse, with his breathing, with his life. In the shadows he can see the glint of bared teeth. In the light, he can see faces he knows. But not anymore. He knows them. And he doesn’t. It makes no sense.
         In the fifth hour, they attack.
         “. . . the part I don’t understand is how you really don’t remember when he came, that’s the part that I don’t . . .”
         “. . . helps, what’s so wrong about that . . .”
         “. . . think he’s about to stop helping . . .”
         It’s the man who tells them how it will end. He comes in through the back door, his clenched fist stained with dried blood, all the color removed from his face. The door was locked. He punched through the glass in order to open it. He is sitting in their kitchen when they find him, his blood leaking all over the table, seeping into the old wood, his life slowly leaching out of his body as he sits there.
         And he tells them. His words don’t come from his brain. They are watching him die by degrees before them. The man speaks of surrender and memory, of loss and permanence. His sentences travel in tight circles, weaving an argument they cannot ignore, or concede. He explains what they must do. He describes in grueling detail what will happen to them if they do not comply, searing images into their minds that are not easily accepted, or resolved. Their home will burn, their belongings discarded, their lives disintegrated, their presence forever erased. He can feel it now, the gentle ebbing of existence, a gradual fading, tugging at the edges of his soul, fraying and falling at the parts he thought he would never need. But each segment is essential. Without all the components, the body ceases to function.
         The man says this. He doesn’t use words. He says that it is real and it is true and that it will happen. His face is bone white now, the same color as his teeth, which are visible now that his lips have pulled back into a tight, humorless grin. The man is dying. He knows this. Blood is drying in a crusted pool around his fingers, each beat of his heart sending a small trickle to join the puddle, new ink for a book as old as the world.
         And the person who should not speak for them but does tells the man to go to hell, and tells him that it doesn’t work that way and if it’s him they want why don’t they show themselves. He is yelling in the face of the man’s inevitable calm, and his voice sounds so compressed, flattened and not yet aware of it. They are being ground down where they stand. He can feel it. Why doesn’t anyone else notice? Why are you hiding, this person asks. Why are you doing these things, playing this damnable game? Who are you? Who are you people?
         The man only laughs, a jittery, final sound. I do not know, is all he says and he is crying now. He sways in his chair and someone grabs him and can feel his fragile, erratic pulse through thin, whispery skin. I don’t know, he says again. I wish I did, he tells them. Tears draw moist slime tracks down his cheeks and he looks at each of them in turn. I’m sorry, he says, like it is him who has done something wrong instead of them. I want to help, but you’re all going to die. He’s laughing and crying as he says this. The words are being torn like bloody teeth from his mouth, and each one speeds him that much closer to the end. I’m sorry, he sobs, giggling, but that’s just the way it is.
         Then he falls silent and it is only clear to them a few minutes later that he has stopped breathing.
         “. . . happened how many months ago they would have had at least that much time to . . .”
         “. . . it might be a trap, this whole damn thing might just be a . . .”
         “. . . are you here, what do you want, you stand there and you talk and you don’t say . . .”
         “. . . going to get worse, unless I miss my . . .”
         In the kitchen he sits and listens to his father and the other man argue over a word, tossing it around like an unwanted carcass, its stink pervading the air even when not in transit. Their voices mingle, connect, dissect each other as they debate, neither understanding the point, neither realizing that what they want is quite simply what they don’t have.
         It’s a name they want, the man and the not-man. But a simple name is nothing on its own, that much anyone should know. Alone, it serves no purpose.
         He’s not who you think he is, the other man says.
         He has helped us, that’s all I care about, his father argues.
         Helped you do what? What has he done for you? the other man sneers. Tell me that.
         Their voices come from the bottom of a distant well, spirits arguing the boundaries of eternity, disembodied tones living in between an echo, leaping from wave to wave in a desperate effort to stay alive. Death is silence, and we are only truly gone when the noise we create disintegrates forever and our voices no longer sing in the memories of others. He sits there and thinks of a girl he might have once loved and the way that sometimes when he concentrates he can hear her whisper to him in words so soft that even silence might drown them out. Her very tone had a texture he can run his hands over and massage to this very day. But for the life of him, he cannot remember what she looked like. Maybe she never existed. He would not be surprised.
         I never used to dream, okay? his father snaps, the equivalent of a man admitting his wife no longer wishes to sleep with him. I never used to and then I did and now I don’t anymore. That’s what he did for me. That’s how he helped.
         You never used to dream? the other man asks incredulously. Until recently? Is that right?
         That’s right, his father says, proudly. And now I’m back to normal. Because of him. Because of what he did.
         You are wrong, I’m afraid, the not-man intones, and his voice is a undulating rumble that strikes him like a thousand soft hammer blows, each one barely felt, each causing a bruise.
         What? is all his father asks.
         You are wrong, the not-man says again, simply. It has not stopped.
         You dream every night, he says.
         You dream.
         And so does your son.
         “. . . don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, don’t even know where the hell you’re . . .”
         “. . . it does not matter . . .”
         “. . . no, it . . .”
         The acrid smell of burning torches is the first sign that it has begun. In the darkening of the day, he can seen them through the window, their faces intangible, the tiny fires a mockery of the night sky, a hundred smoking suns, all brought low, all revealed to be nothing more than minor pits of flame, choking the air and scorching what is left of their hope.
         They stand in a line. It stretches to either side of his vision. He imagines they have surrounded the house. It strikes him as oddly poetic, this gathering, these people arranged so neatly, poised as if to burn out a cancer that has infected their homes and their psyches. He wishes they would say something, argue or cajole or demand. But they do nothing, merely stand. They are waiting, he realizes, with a tremor of excitement. Waiting for their quarry to be delivered. He does not think that will happen.
         Smoke rises in the distance, thick black smoke forging new shapes in the air. He swears it is laughing at him, silently and cruelly. Of course. They are setting the fields afire. Through the window he can hear the animals screaming. With a sudden spasm of thought he suspects that none will survive the night.
         But he doubts they will be burned alive in here. They will come in first and try to capture them. Yes, that makes sense. That is what they will do. The fires, the scourings, are merely an afterthought. Punishment, perhaps. A warning and a message. This is what happens when you disregard what you know. What you are told. They will be allowed to live and rebuild and remember, when all this is over. And the next time this happens, he will be out there, in the line, the heat of a torch reddening his face, the light throwing warped shadows on his skin, with his fellows on either side. And when he steps back to watch the smoke rise, to hear the cracklings and groanings of a structure losing touch with itself, he will be satisfied and know that it couldn’t have gone any other way.
         Not now, though. He cannot reach that point until he passes through this ordeal. There’s a certain contentment in knowing that even as things get worse, they will eventually get better.
         Still, it does not have to occur. They can easily avert this temporary doom and cap their suffering at a bearable level. It will not require much, merely to give the crowd what it wants. After all, it doesn’t need anything from him.
         The other man comes into the kitchen then. He goes to the window, peers out into the silent gathering and whistles softly. He does not seem overly concerned, as if this might be an everyday occurrence for him. It would not take much to throw him out, he appears strong but not impossibly so. With a little will, it might be done. And wouldn’t that effort be worth the salvation of home, and the return of a life to normal. Wouldn’t that be worth it?
         The other man looks over and laughs, as if every thought has been vocalized.
         Not a chance, he says, still laughing. But anytime you’re ready, feel free.
         He taps the window with a soot stained finger, a warning to those standing watch outside. Perhaps a warning to others as well. Without another word, he leaves.
         Outside, the crowd has caught one of the animals. Someone touches a torch to it and sets it alight. Immediately it becomes a beast haloed in flame, rolling and thrashing and desperately trying to extinguish itself. Everyone watches, flashes of crackling light thrown up on their faces, the illumination ultimately betraying nothing.
         It screams for a very long time before it dies.
         “. . . everyone’s in it so far they can’t see the edges anymore . . .”
         “. . . what . . .”
         Think they’ll kill us? the other man says to the not-man.
         I would hope not, the not-man replies. We are no good to anyone dead.
         Amen to that, the other man breathes. There is a sword in his hand and he has spent the last two hours polishing it, remembering how quickly it can become stained. There will be blood on it before the night is over. It will not be his.
         Think they know what they’re doing, the other man asks his companion. Think they understand what’s about to happen?
         I do not believe so, the not-man tells him.
         Yeah, me either, the other man says, frowning and testing the edge of his blade. He wonders how many people he will have to kill before the sun rises again. It occurs to him that he has been fighting for a good portion of his life. He wishes he could say he regrets what he fought for. He can’t.
         Think they’ll come to their senses and go? he asks, futilely.
         I do not think so, no, the not-man replies after a long silence. I do not see that happening.
         Looking around the room, the other man realizes he knows better than anyone here how this will end. The only way it can end.
         He stares at his warped reflection in the blade, noting how pale and old it appears, his ghost trapped in a sheet of hammered metal. He frowns again.
         Damn, is all he says.
         Something heavy bangs against the house.
         “. . . careful, careful, you’re going to lose a lot of . . .”
         “. . . all over me, look at it, it’s all over . . .”
         “. . . if we do not leave they are going to . . .”
         It’s his father who saves him when the first arrow comes through the window. In slow motion he watched it come, the tiny spear hurtling right at his face. Seen edge on, it didn’t appear dangerous at all. It had a peaceful grace, in a sense. Part of him felt he could reach out and catch it. Just pluck it from the air, the way one might close their hand around a wayward insect.
         Then something with more force than mass runs into him, throwing him to the floor. His knee bangs painfully against the wall as he goes down and all of his breath departs for safer pastures just as he hits the ground. The view becomes a cluster of disconnected images and altered perspectives, his mind trying to put together a thousand different images at once, unable to take it all in at once.
         Twisting, he looks into his father’s face, and sees the look of a man realizing he is about to lose everything and deciding whether he should try to save something or simply stop caring. With a start he realizes that he does not know his father nearly well enough to know what he will decide.
         Above them glass shatters as a wooden shaft punches through it, sending a shower of glittering fragments to fall on them like a sharp edged snowfall. He blinks, flinches as he feels near invisible shards causing tiny cuts all over his face. His father doesn’t react at all. The outside air leaks in like drifting smoke, tasting of the oncoming night.
         Something strikes the door. Hard. It rattles but does not give. That will not last, he knows, with a surging certainty.
         He looks at his father, disentangles himself. Another arrow whistles overhead, chipping what little of the window is left and impaling itself in a cabinet door.
         Someone kicks at the door. Wood cracks.
         Get to the living room, his father orders, in the voice of a dead man. Get there now.
         “. . . not going to give up, no matter what you . . .”
         “. . . will fail, that’s all, that’s what I’m . . .”
         He finds the first dead man on the couch. Someone has laid him there, on his back, his hands folded sedately over his chest, perhaps to cover the wound that has been opened there. His clothes and body are otherwise undisturbed, and he might as well be sleeping or comatose. Except he’s not. Except he won’t get up. It occurs to him now how few differences there are between a living and a dead person, how deceptively easy it is to cross over that thin barrier, just a mere step can take you over and it’s not until you are already there that you realize there is no way back. In moments like this he can feel the gravity of the barrier, it’s ahead but he has no idea how far ahead it is. And if he closes his eyes and continues to walk, he may be over it before he knows he has crossed the line. It’s too easy, he thinks harshly, brutally, cursing out a man who can no longer hear him. It shouldn’t be this easy. We should be able to fight the whole way down and if you fight hard enough and long enough you should be granted another day, another hour, another year. But we’re not given anything. We fight and we struggle and for all our combats and for all battles our loss is always certain, the enemy always dancing just out of reach, sending forth proxies to confuse and obscure and even when you defeat everything in your path, it still ends. There’s no escape, there never is. We have to fight for what little we have, knowing that it’s not enough, that it never will be enough and forced to somehow understand and accept that this is all we get. It’s not fair, it strikes him then, standing over this sleeping dead man, this man who was still breathing and living a week, a day, two hours ago. The line is always there and it is invisible and not all our stagnation and delay can move it one inch further away.
         He was supposed to make love to his wife last night, a voice informs him, as a fragile bulk looms overhead. He does not need to turn to know who it is. The not-man continues, He was supposed to, but he had to come here and so he promised his wife that he would try twice as hard tonight. He had a special name for her that he told no one else, not even her, based on the name of a flower that he thought resembled her in its beauty. He sometimes yelled at his children but wished to find the time and energy to expand his home so they would have more room. He was afraid of forgetting what his mother’s voice sounded like. He thought about growing old and tried to deny it was happening and secretly looked forward to it, because he was tired and wanted to rest.
         The not-man pauses, touches the man on the forehead. He did not know why he was here, but a half-hour ago he tried to kill me and I snapped his neck. Even so, it took five minutes for him to die. His great fear was that he would die alone. I held him until the time was over and then brought him here. He had never seen anything like me, nor will he ever. I will never know his name. My life will continue, his will not.
         This is what life comes down to, the not-man says, kneeling by the man on the couch and holding his head in giant hands, the same hands that not too long ago ended his life. The ones that go on are the ones that desire it the most. Is that right? Is that fair? I cannot say. All I know is that I am alive and he is not and I would not trade my life for his. If he were able to, he would feel the same way.
         Do you know what happens when you die? Eyes the size of his face and bluer than the sky regard him, stripping him apart layer by layer by layer. This is not the first time I have seen death with my own eyes. Your heart stops and your breathing stops and your brain stops and within days your body decays and leaves your bones behind and one day those are gone as well and you are nothing. That is death.
         But that is not what I asked, the not-man says, speaking perhaps to the dead man. Because what makes a man is not simply bones and blood and skin and muscle. It is essence, it is being, it is all the things we do not call instinct, the very same things that cause us to live while simultaneously making us aware that we are going to die. Does this need air and water and life to continue, or is it something more? Does anything truly die? Who is the not-man talking to? It’s not clear anymore. By the laws of the Universe, nothing ever disappears entirely, all that exists is changed and transformed. Why not life? Why not a person? Why should that be any different?
         Then he stands up and his shadow fills the room. There are those of my people who have been slain and have returned. It is a great honor to do so, but the warriors do not speak of what they experience beyond this life. It is said this is because they are instructed to be silent. It is also said that they remain silent because there is nothing to speak of. That there is nothing.
         I believe this, the not-man says simply. But I also believe that to be brought back you must go somewhere first. Is that not strange? To believe such opposing concepts? I do not think so. Because life and death are opposites and I believe in those. They are elemental, they are contradictory and they are both true.
         There are those that will claim there is only one truth, that this great wide Universe has only room for one type of truth, one form of it, as if there is only one form of light and heat and mass. In the face of that I point to life and death, and that is my argument and the end of all arguments. If those are true than nothing else need be true. If those are true, and they are, then anything can be true. And it is. It all is.
         “. . . it won’t end this way, it can’t . . .”
         “. . . going to kill you, dammit, don’t . . .”
         “. . . no, they’re right, I know they are . . .”
         “. . . talking about . . .”
         Walking down the street, he has no idea how he got here. Down the village streets, past lit empty houses stuffed full of memories, under a sky crowded with daylight stars, he’s walking and the dust collects at his feet. Dark, there’s nothing to see. Tripping, he’ll never fall. Up the road and by the way and the only path is the one he’s taking. To one place it goes. The only place he can be. Where is this? Where is he?
         At the home he meets him. Standing in the doorway, arms across his chest, leaning on the frame. It’s dark inside. Dark outside. He has a face shrouded in loss and his eyes are stars. In the brain lies coils of dreams. It has to mean something.
         Smoke flies from the distance. Burning. Something is. Burning. Light scars the night. There are claws all over the sky. This can only end one way. But it never ends. It doesn’t. It can’t.
         I can’t tell, this man says, standing sideways in his doorway, his face half in shadow, half in dark. I can’t tell if your dreams predict the world or remake it. And it matters, it does.
         Because, this man continues, if your dreams affect the world and you’re dreaming now and dreaming tomorrow and dreaming everyday, then I can’t kill you. Because your dreams will stop. And maybe the world with it. That would not be good for me. For you either, I suppose. But you’d be dead and wouldn’t care.
         I don’t think I can stop your dreams, this man tells him, fidgeting gracefully. They could for a walk but there’s nowhere to go. No place to run. No room to move. And I don’t know if I want to, because if you stop the engine then the whole system might just fall apart. I didn’t come here to break the world, merely reshape it into a more comforting form. Because that’s the point, isn’t it, to adapt the environment to your needs? Isn’t that what separates us from the beasts? The release from adapting ourselves?
         This man sighs. It’s the ghost of a brush of a breeze of a wind. There’s nothing to feel anymore. He says, You know that I’m trying to stop your dreams now. You know, or I wouldn’t be here. But the thing is, you won’t know, you’ll have no idea because if you stop dreaming is that because you’ve actually stopped or because you’re dreaming of your death? Of being dead?
         What can be said to that? That’s the question and the proposition. This man isn’t speaking so well now, with the blood from the neatly drilled hole in his forehead seeping into his mouth. It runs down his face like a spiderweb’s claws, a river escaping the creek. Watching it is seeing a man implode. His end is clear enough, while everything else is merely probable desolation. That’s the price though. The touch can wilt. The rot will destroy. See. Everything you.
         It’s going to go away.
         Yes.
         And as the knife is stabbed into his chest, this man looks over and says sadly,
         What am I going to do with you?
         “. . . take this and when he comes through the door, just raise it over your head and . . .”
         Every orifice of the house vomits invaders. Some are screaming, more are silent. There is no way to hold them back. Their torches bleed red and orange all over the ways, their shadows frozen templates thrown up upon the walls and floor, forming negative space the eye cannot follow. The sounds of running and stomping feet are everywhere, the noises expanding and taking up space where the air used to be. It’s hard to breath. Smoke is in his eye. A man runs up to him, arms outstretched and he ducks past, letting the man go by. He never notices.
         At the window the other man and the not-man are throwing people out. They were crouching under the window and when the first men steps in, they leap up. Beyond the house he can see the shrieking stars of torches masquerading as men. The not-man grabs one and flings him away, into the smothering darkness surrounding the house, and his scream is a descending thing, followed by the shouts of several others. The other man is not so kind and blood splatters his face almost immediately as he cuts upward and out, gutting a man from chest to hip, stepping back to let the fluids pour out like a demented waterfall. The man just stares at him as if expecting it all to go sloughing back, gravity working in reverse. But the other man has already turned away, his sword passing through someone’s neck in one clean blow, although the head merely falls off instead of achieving flight. For some reason, he expects the latter.
         On every side there are people. None of them seem to notice him. All are shouting in different languages, or that is how it seems. He can hear the sound of wood breaking in the next room as someone takes apart the kitchen. A moment later there is the sound of breaking glass and a man comes running into the room with blood streaming down both his arms. His father follows at a leisurely pace, a jagged shard of glass in each hand. One appears to be stained red. It is very quiet in the kitchen now.
         The other man is yelling something to his companion, as men coming in from the door begin to crowd around the window, seeking to block their escape. It occurs to him that he should do something but he is oddly content to watch. None are carrying weapons, but they move like a jointed organism, each movement in time with the others. One jerks as a sword emerges from his back. The not-man holds his arms out and pushes them away but they force him back against the wall. The sword is a gleaming blur in the heat soaked air, and each slice sends another man spinning away, face choked with pain, hands clenched around a portion of their body, often with blood leaking from in between their fingers, if they still retain the digits. It’s obvious that the other man is trying to push them away as much as cut them down. Very few are fighting back, but the weight of their numbers is smothering him, giving him less and less room to swing. He’s shouting words that are impossible to make out, the gravity of the invaders forcing his speech to bend in on itself, grinding with the effort of escape.
         His attention is distracted as arrows thud into the wall over his head, with a wash of heat settling over his face. An acrid stench becomes apparent soon afterwards and he looks up to see the wall gradually catching fire, tendrils of smoke and flame eating their way around in a vague circle. He cannot stay here, it occurs to him suddenly, with a calm detachment. Of course. They have to leave. It’s no longer safe.
         From the kitchen a man spots him and launches into the air, briefly floating, his face twisted into a mask of screaming. At the apex a giant hand grabs him and casually tosses him into the far wall. Part of him touches the edge of the fire on the way down and almost instantly his clothes are alight. Unconscious, he lays there, the flames creeping up his shirt. Nobody moves to help him.
         Standing up, he moves toward the kitchen door, men streaming all around him like he has stopped existing. Perhaps he’s not worth it. The air is becoming jet black, someone has tipped over a pot of ink and it’s clogging the air, blinding their sight. Inside the kitchen he can see that the table has been broken into a thousand pieces, some of which are protruding out of men lying on the floor, their hands wrapped around the fragments like they went to the trouble of staking themselves. It’s not clear who did that. Maybe they did it to themselves. More men are climbing in over bodies that are stacked in the outside doorway, many more caught against the doorframe, slowly crushed as their fellows refuse to stop to give them a chance to get it. He watches one man suffocate under the weight of intruders, his arms weakly moving before finally falling still. No one sees. No one cares.
         A cloud of smoke passes in front of him, and he is bent in two by a spasm of coughing. There’s nothing to see around him, just rolling, noxious smoke, creeping into his lungs and making it impossible to breath. This can’t be happening. This isn’t right. Somehow he is forced to his knees, next to a dead man with eyes like glass and line of blood trickling out of the side of his mouth. Unrecognizable feet stampede on all sides, just narrowly avoiding trampling him. It hurts to breath. It hurts to cough. If he could only evict all this poison from his lungs, he might be fine. But there’s no chance. Every inch of breath is merely a opening for more smoke and he can’t expel it fast enough. It’s not working. He’s not here. This isn’t real. It can’t be.
         A deafening crash from somewhere in front of him focuses his rapidly fading consciousness. From nowhere he catches the scent of fresh air, striking him like an ephemeral hand and the smoke seems to boil and dissipate around him.
         Two hands grab him roughly and he can’t care enough to resist. Or help. Limply he lets himself be dragged to his feet, nearly falling twice. Someone is shouting in his ear. He can’t hear anymore. It’s all just gibberish. This is madness. He’s being propelled, half on his knees, half stumbling forward, toward the fresh air, and each step smells sweeter than the last. But he can’t bring himself to care. Finally he just falls over, momentum causing him to emerge from the cloud of smoke.
         Looking up, he sees a giant hole in the side of his house, snatches of flame still biting at the ragged edges. The not-man is silhouetted in the opening, the starlight giving him a pale, wavery glow. He thinks he can see his father beyond.
         Hands grab him again, yank him to his feet. He turns, finally to see who it is.
         Come on, the other man says. He’s covered in blood, staining his body like an obscure form of paint.
         Behind them a group of men rush from the smoke. All are covered in soot. All are screaming.
         The other man draws his sword again, and faces them.
         I think it’s time to go, he says, with the sedate calm of a man unexpectedly returned to his element. Let’s get the hell out of here, shall we?
         “. . . going to do, send an army . . .”
         “. . . can’t believe you didn’t see anyone . . .”
         And what do I do with this? the not-man asks, holding the heavy piece of wood that used to be part of their living room table.
         It’s quite simple, the other man replies. You hit people with it. Hard.
         Oh? That seems relatively simple. The not-man hefts the blunt fragment in his hand. The other man ducks as he swings it in a low, experimental arc. And what do they call it?
         Fighting, the other man retorts bluntly. Because if you need a fancy name for grabbing the biggest damn thing you can find and beating the hell out of the nearest guy with it, then you should really stay far away from any battle. Just a word of advice.
         It just seems so easy, the not-man notes.
         I think that’s the point, the other man says with a grin.
         It just seems odd that this is all there is to it, says the not-man, holding the object with two hands.
         Well, if it was more complex than that, the other man replies, why the hell would anyone do it?
         “. . . the longer we stand around and do . . .”
         From a place that is far enough away and not close enough to escape memory he watches the pyre that is his home, the flames leaping into the sky in an attempt to reach the stars. He thinks he can hear the groaning and popping as the fire consumes the house. Sometimes he thinks he can hear distant shouting, but it might be a mere trick of the wind. There’s no one around. No one left. Even the animals have fallen quiet. Perhaps they are all dead. He wonders if he is. He wonders if he would even know. There are cold track lines running down his face that might be tears. He doesn’t care anymore. It’s all gone. Leaves tickle the sides of his face from his hiding position. Where does he go now? What does he do? It’s all been taken, and he has nothing left.
         Behind him, the branches rustle and a deep voice says, This is not good, am I right?
         No, the other man says, his voice unreadable, no it’s not. Not by a long shot.
         “. . . can you hear . . .”
         “. . . I said, can you hear me . . .”
         “. . . hey, kid, are you . . .”
         Jaymes woke with a start, nearly falling off the couch he was laying on. Rubbing his head, he blinked, trying to clear his mind and figure out what the hell was going on. Briefly, he thought he smelled smoke, but that dissipated quickly. It must have been his imagination. But why was his heart beating so fast? And why did his entire body ache, like he had been running and jumping for the past hour?
         Prescotte was standing over him. “Geez, for a young guy, you sure take a lot of naps,” he said, stepping back from the couch. “Your parents know you don’t get enough sleep?”
         He shot Prescotte a glare, still not really trusting the man, and wishing fervently that the man and his frightening friend would leave their home, but outloud he merely said, “I’m fine . . . I must have just dozed off.”
         “Ah, hey, whatever, happens to the best of us,” Prescotte said cheerfully. “Have any decent dreams while you were out?”
         Jaymes thought for a second. “No,” he replied, frowning, “nothing really good at all.” Shadows and light were dancing on the inside of his head, a show that he hadn’t bought tickets for. He wished he knew what it all meant.
         “Well now that you’re up, you might want to get involved in the discussions we’ve having in the kitchen. There’s some weird stuff that’s been going on around here lately, and I think this Valreck guy you all speak so highly of has something to do with it. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of it.” He put his hands on his hips and arched his back, grimacing as he stretched. “Someone has to. Might as well be us.”
         Jaymes swung his legs so that his feet were on the floor. “Sure, sure,” he said, wincing as the blood rushed from his head and infused the rest of his body. “I’ll be there in a minute.”
         “Glad to hear it,” Prescotte said, turning back toward the kitchen, stepping back so Jaymes’ mother could breeze in, barely giving the man a second glance. Jaymes bowed his head and put his hands on his neck, feeling a strange pressure, like his brain was expanding. Like there was too much inside and it wanted to get out. It needed a release.
         At the door, there was a light knock.
         Sharply, he looked up, his eyes widening. Prescotte stopped and gave the door a curious look, his face suspicious.
         “I’ll get it,” said his mother, and moved to answer the door.