Shock Totem 9 Read online

  The other houses are so far away, but when I stand on the rocks at the top of the ravine I can see them, scattered here and there. We had a father once, so maybe he lives down there. We throw rocks as hard as we can, but they’ll never reach those houses.

  “Buddy,” I say. “Maybe we can go there soon.”

  “We should break their windows,” he says.

  “Yes.”

  Whispers again, and I stand up straighter, shielding my eyes from the wind and dust. “We’ll stop them,” I say. “I can make a bigger fire.”

  “Make all the trees go away, and they’ll die,” he says helpfully, hopefully.

  “Ooo,” I say. I’d need more matches.

  I go back down to drink some creek water. I make a tower out of rocks. I make a picture with leaves and pebbles and beetle shells. I taste all three.

  It’s dark then and I’m at home, and Buddy is on the couch and we’re talking, and Mother is standing at the sink looking down into the drain and talking to someone down there. I eat more peaches and I give Buddy some, pushing them between his leathery lips. They squish back out against his teeth.

  “You’re so good to your brother,” Mother says, and the trees whisper back.

  I’m the best. I know it because she never sees him move, just me. Because he loves me. Because he knows.

  “He wants more peaches,” I say, and I feed him more. They fall out the underside of his jaw onto the table. Gaping pits for eyes and matted wisps of hair, and he’s smiling at me. I can see all his teeth in the bone.

  The cats are mewing again, afraid to be inside but afraid of the cold more, and I push the mouth of the jar over the head of one I catch and stand and watch it struggle.

  Mother talks to the drain and it whispers gurgling up from the depths of somewhere else, where the fingers live, and I think about fire coming from the drain, burning away the monsters. I close my eyes and it’s in my head, smelling like burnt ends of wood and dead leaves. It runs down my bones and through my fingers and lights me up.

  I look at my mother with her big slack face and long hair and wonder if she makes the whispers. She speaks to them, after all, understands.

  “We should go to bed.” She moves away and goes upstairs. Her big feet make the stairs creak.

  I look down in the drain. Rustling whispers. Bugs and ghosts and things, and that tongue coming up.

  I look at Buddy. Big eyes, open jaw, hands resting on the table, bones and leather, and then he’s okay and he says, “Make it stop.”

  I climb on the counter and balance there, the branches banging on the glass, trying to get me. I stare at them. She thinks they’re too high for me, but I get those matches down and open them, touching those round red tips. I want to eat them, make fire inside me, burn inside out and everywhere. I put them under my nose and smell. It’s in me again.

  “It’s so good,” I say.

  “It is,” Buddy says.

  I kiss the top of his head, and go upstairs.

  Whispers.

  Light me up.

  Kathryn Ohnaka is a writer and teacher. After living in Japan, she moved to northern Colorado, where she lives with her husband and daughters. She is a member of the Northern Colorado Writer’s Workshop. Find out more about her at www.kathrynohnaka.com.

  SATURDAY

  by Evan Dicken

  The city slept, unmindful of the doom creeping toward it at 61.38 meters per year. Luke watched the Crawling Thing from the balcony of his top-floor office at the Protectorate tower. The creature rose like a sea cliff among breakers of ash and rubble, its millions of teeth reflecting what little starlight filtered through the pall overhead. Of all the Things, it was the one Luke hated the most—more than the Watching Thing just beyond the fence; more than the Slowly Growing Thing beneath the city, its pale, bloated roots pulsing in the stagnant darkness; even more than the Forgetting Thing that was all anyone could dream of anymore.

  It wasn’t that the Crawling Thing would one day destroy his city as it had countless others—Luke would be long dead by then. It was that it was always there. Its glacial bulk loomed over his life. No matter if he was driving to work, eating lunch, spending Saturday with the twins, making love to his wife, he had only to glance to the horizon to see it, inexorable and unforgettable.

  “I need you to sign these patrol reports, sir.”

  Luke flinched at the sudden sound, then coughed to hide the reaction. He’d forgotten Samuelson was in the room.

  She was by his desk, report in hand, her uniform buttoned against the cool night air. Idly, Luke wondered what she looked like underneath the shapeless olive drab. Although her face was red and rawboned, and the uniform unflattering, the soft curves of her hips and breasts pressed through the baggy fatigues.

  “Sir, your signature.”

  “Sorry.” Luke cleared his throat, then returned to his desk. “My thoughts were elsewhere.”

  Samuelson gave a sympathetic frown, the same one she’d worn three months ago when Luke’s separation from Helen had become public knowledge. She’d suggested he take some time away from the office, but Luke had laughed it off, saying Helen would come back around.

  His had been a small indiscretion—one night fogged with synthetic gin, pressed into a sweaty corner with a woman whose face Luke couldn’t even recall. Helen had forgiven him more than that, before. It was only a matter of time. Yesterday when he’d dropped off the twins Helen had given him that shy smile, the one that meant that while the wound hadn’t yet healed, it had at least been stitched shut.

  “I know it’s been difficult for you, sir, and I just wanted to say, if you need to talk, off the record, I’d be happy to—”

  “Of course.” Luke handed the reports back, letting his fingers linger on hers. He imagined unbuttoning her heavy coat and slipping his hands inside.

  Samuelson’s frown became something strange, and she left without saluting.

  Luke was too confused to reprimand her. He knew he hadn’t imagined the looks they’d shared over the past weeks. No matter, Saturday was only a week away, and he was running out of ideas.

  There were no new pictures at the cinema, and he couldn’t take the twins to the zoo again. On the way home Emma asked why so many of the cages were empty. Luke had told her the truth—that the animals there were the last, and when they were gone, they were gone. That made the twins cry, and Luke hadn’t known how to stop them.

  He needed to think of something special, something they wouldn’t forget. He could already see the distance in their eyes, the moment’s hesitation when he appeared at the door. The Crawling Thing was the most hateful, but the Forgetting Thing was the cruelest—gnawing away at memories. Everyone suffered the nightly visits, but it was hardest on the children. Luke could almost see the twins forgetting him, and, thanks to the separation, he only had one day a week to remind them.

  He sat at his desk, hands clasped, his back to the balcony. He didn’t close the door, even when a chill wind set his papers rustling across the carpet, even when the office started to grow uncomfortably cold.

  To turn would mean to see the Thing, and he needed a moment alone to think.

  • • •

  Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Luke signed reports, sewed them among the sub-departments, and reaped more paperwork. Underlings came and went, a funeral procession of anxious faces and wringing hands. Once, Samuelson came into his office, stared at him for a while, then left.

  On Saturday, it rained—cold, heavy drops that bled through Luke’s armory coat to trickle down his spine as he waited outside the house he’d bought for his family. He had raincoats, but Helen liked him in uniform.

  “You’re early. The kids aren’t ready.” She was in her green brocade dress, one earring on, the other in her hand.

  “May I come in?”

  She walked away, but didn’t shut the door. Luke started to pull off his shoes when he noticed another pair in the rack. Brown, with reinforced toes and heavy laces. T
he air was festooned with scents of garlic, sausage, and hot oil. Once, it would have made him smile, but now the smells seemed garish.

  He could hear Helen in the bedroom, and went into the kitchen to pour himself a scotch and soda. He grabbed a glass from the cabinet, then paused to regard it in the light. The heavy crystal was etched with the initials of the previous Director of the Protectorate. It took a moment for Luke to recall the elation of stealing this particular souvenir from the desk of his predecessor. He frowned, surprised he’d forgotten it here.

  The bottle of scotch by the sink was almost empty.

  “What are you doing?” Helen stood in the kitchen doorway, silhouetted by the blue-white glow of the television.

  “Trying to fix myself a drink.” Luke shook the bottle.

  “We talked about this.”

  “Whose shoes are in the hall?”

  Helen’s hair was a wave of shadow pooled about her shoulders, her face an almost perfect oval framed by the doorway. A painting—she looked like a painting.

  “Listen. I understand,” Luke said. “It’s only fair. I’ve had mine, now you get yours.”

  “My what?”

  “Your affair.” Luke took a step towards her, hand raised to cup her chin. “I forgive you.”

  Suddenly, Helen started screaming at him. She slapped his hand down, color rising to her cheeks.

  At first, Luke was confused. Hadn’t he just told her it was okay? But as she shouted, he found his own anger growing. He slammed the glass down on the counter, grunting as it shattered in his hand. The pain whetted the edge of his temper and he drew back his fist, blood dripping onto the tile.

  He’d expected fear, but Helen only glared up at him. Last week’s smile had become something hard and cold. He imagined another trip to the courts, this time with a bruise swelling Helen’s cheek. A danger to her, she would say, eyes puffy from crying; a danger to the children.

  Luke unclenched his fist.

  “I want you to leave,” Helen said.

  “It’s Saturday, the twins are mine.”

  “No.”

  Luke wrapped his hand in a dish towel, and waited. The separation cut both ways; she could deny him his rights only at the risk of losing hers. The world might be unraveling, but he would have his children. He would even have Helen back, eventually. The circle would close, just like it always had. It was a battle of attrition, of waiting, but Luke knew it well— it was one he’d been fighting his whole life.

  When Helen didn’t move, he pushed past her into the TV room. The twins were watching the alphabet program. Before the Forgetting Thing, they would’ve been too old for letters, but the gradual erosion of their minds meant they needed to be constantly reminded.

  On the television, a man in a tweed suit stood before a large chalkboard, opening his mouth wide to slowly enunciate each letter.

  E...Every...Enter...End.

  “C’mon,” Luke said.

  The twins didn’t look up.

  F...Finish...Fog...Forget.

  “Who wants ice cream?”

  That got their attention.

  “Can we go to Bolio’s? They have this new flavor, rose,” Emma said. “I heard Missus Lin talking with Missus Keller about how her husband got a quart for her birthday, and they went to the bedroom and ate it off her—”

  “Bolio’s only has synthetic stuff.” J.J. made a face. “Plastic.”

  “You only say that because you have a crush on Missus Lin.”

  “And you have a crush on Paulo.”

  “Paulo?” Luke started to kneel.

  “They haven’t had breakfast yet,” Helen said from the kitchen.

  “Whose fault is that?” Luke glanced at the pan sizzling on the stove, then ushered the twins out into the hallway.

  “What about our overnight bags?” Emma asked.

  “We’ll stop on the way, buy whatever you need.” Luke said it without thinking, but immediately warmed to the idea. It would be good for the twins to have things at his apartment.

  He heard Helen on the phone as he left—talking to her lawyer, or maybe her lover.

  Luke drove to Bolio’s over J.J’s objections. It was just up the block from the house, and had a large glass front from which he could easily watch the driveway.

  No one came or left.

  After about an hour, he took the twins to the commissary to pick out toiletries and pajamas.

  Luke found himself looking at glassware. He picked a cut crystal whiskey glass off the shelf, turning it so the facets caught the light.

  Emma shrieked one aisle over, and Luke went to see what was wrong. After a few steps, he realized he was still holding the glass, and stopped to put it down, not sure why it had captured his attention.

  He had more than enough glasses already.

  • • •

  The Forgetting Thing scoured his dreams clean. Luke gasped at air gone thick with spores and ash, humid as the inside of a mouth. He was on a shifting plain. There was light, soft and gray even though the night overhead was dark and starless as it had been when the Things had slipped from the sky. He could hear sounds in the distance—old conversations, the speakers’ faces worn smooth by the slow rasp of the Thing. He saw a woman walking with a child, a little boy with J.J.’s eyes and Emma’s chin. She stopped, kneeling as if to pick a flower.

  Luke moved toward them, the faint memory of that autumn day gasping in the stuffy confines of his dream. He could smell dry leaves on the wind, the minty scent of her toothpaste as she kissed the boy on the cheek. The light shone through them, gold and red, their bodies like stained glass. Through the pair Luke saw Helen. She was in a hospital bed, two small bundles in her arms.

  Luke pushed past the woman and her boy, already crumbling to dust. He touched Helen’s cheek and she looked up at him.

  “I’m here,” he said.

  Her gaze slid from the babies to Luke, then over his shoulder to the window beyond.

  “Don’t look. Not now, please,” he said.

  “What have we done?” she asked, her face haggard with exhaustion and regret.

  He threw himself at Helen even as wind tore through the hospital room. It tugged at his clothes, filled his eyes with burning grit and his mouth with ashes, but he didn’t let Helen and the twins slip through the circle of his arms.

  When the storm subsided he looked to his wife only to see her frown in confusion. He reached for her and she drew back, shielding the babies as if from a stranger.

  Luke awoke with a start. He was in his office, sweating through his armory coat despite the coldness of the room. All the windows were open, heavy drapes trembling in the breeze. The room looked wrong, all angles and flat planes, unnatural in its symmetry. He stumbled onto the balcony, the railing cold enough to pluck at the skin of his palms. His gaze raked the horizon, searching for the rotten touchstone of his existence. At first he didn’t see it, blinded as he was by the city lights, but even in the haze, its terrible bulk was unmistakable.

  He sighed, the breeze making phantoms of his breath.

  “Director.”

  Luke turned to see Samuelson framed in the shadows of his office door. There were two security officers with her, the upper halves of their bodies hidden by darkness.

  “I didn’t call for you.” His voice sounded weak, old.

  “I’ve spoken with the other Superintendents.” She stepped into the light, that strange look on her face. “And we think it might be best if you took a leave of absence.”

  “I don’t want to—”

  “It’s not a request.”

  • • •

  Luke took the twins to the fence—not because he had nowhere else to go, but because he knew they would never forget it. Whenever Emily and J.J. remembered this day, he would be there, branded into their memory, inescapable as the Crawling Thing.

  He’d told Helen he was taking them to the zoo again, asked if she wanted to come along. She’d refused, but only after staring at him for a moment. Baby
steps.

  “Becky Tran brought a real apple to school last Wednesday. She said I could have a piece if I gave her my animal cards,” J.J. said.

  “No, she didn’t, liar.”

  “Ouch! Emma pinched me. Dad, she pinched me!”

  “Liar!”

  Luke’s seat rocked to the beat of the scuffle in the back. He glanced into the rearview mirror. “Emma, keep your hands to yourself.”

  “But I didn’t—”

  Luke slowed the car.

  Emma shuffled away at the implied threat, glaring at J.J. “I’m gonna stab you.”

  “You can’t. I’m wearing armor.”

  “Then I’ll shoot you.”

  “It protects me from everything.”

  “Then I’ll kill you with nothing.”

  “That wouldn’t work.”

  “Yeah it would, stupid. Nothing always beats everything, ask Dad.”

  “Dad—?”

  “Enough, we’re here.” Luke pulled off the road onto the strip of gravel that fronted the few hundred meters between the city and the fence. A ragged woman walked tight circles in the field beyond, hands clasped, her face a mask of concentration. She didn’t look up as Luke stepped from the car, only continued to mutter as she went round and round. The twins watched her, not moving.

  Luke opened the door. “Don’t be scared.”

  Emma took his hand. After a moment, J.J. did as well.

  They walked into the field. Grass rasped across Luke’s pants, and he made sure to drag his feet to tramp it down for the twins. They drew closer to him as they passed the woman, and Luke was happy to let them. It made him feel good his children thought he could protect them.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Emma whispered after the woman’s muttering had faded into the wind.