Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams (45 page)

That had been
three years ago. Of course, there had been a few stories here and
there, syndicated news feeds, blog posts and the like, questioning
the unsurpassed safety record. Eventually, it had been necessary
for Julius to fabricate some reports of deaths, accidents and
dismissals. He was proud of the fact that complete containment of
the truth had only taken the deaths of three families, forty six
civilians all told. He didn’t lose sleep over it. He rarely slept
anyway. Julius scanned over the mapping software and carefully drew
three lines on the screen with his index finger … Let the darkness
in.

Stanwick’s estate in
the mountains of central West Virginia sat at the edge of twenty
acres of beautifully landscaped lawns and gardens. It wasn’t
something she would talk about, but she had built the house without
the assistance of contractors or construction workers, lovingly
pouring the concrete, transporting and setting every stone, lifting
and placing each of the enormous oak beams and fitting every pipe
and electrical socket on her own. The result was a thirteen
thousand square foot ranch with spacious rooms and breathtaking
views, and it was an accomplishment she was quietly pleased with.
During a bleak and lonely year, it had taken her mind off West and
that had been the goal; the home was a bonus.

She’d never
entertained guests there, even though she had built four spacious
bedrooms and a guest house. As she had watched the weary travelers
cross the threshold of her domain, she supposed she had always
known it would come to this; not that it was foretold, but she knew
there had been a reason she’d built big.

Walking slowly
into the vast lounge, Stephanie removed her sunglasses and allowed
her eyes to adjust to the fantastic and sometimes disturbing flow
of colors and shapes. She stepped aside for Cobb, who staggered
backwards, visibly shocked at the sight of her eyes, but Stephanie
was too entranced by the ghostly images of Cobb’s other reactions
to even care. She focused on a version of him that knelt in front
of her and tried to brush her hair away from her eyes, clearly
captivated. She wished it wasn’t so difficult to filter out these
visions, but it was overwhelmingly beautiful, being able to see
every facet of a person’s presence, the multitude of ways a person
like Cobb could react to something so simple. She had waited an
hour into the ride from Mechanicsburg before she’d allowed her
father to see her eyes. David had smiled thinly, and told her that
he was just so happy that she was alive, while all about him, his
ghosts belied his feelings.

With Charlene’s
assistance, Stanwick carried a couple of bottles of liquor and a
few packs of sodas over to a large seating area which faced the two
huge glass panels which served as the corner of the house, and as a
glorious viewing wall. The distant lights of a small town in the
valley met with the canopy of stars at a point on the horizon, so
that it was hard to tell where the earth ended and the skies began.
The six travelers each poured drinks and found seats in the comfort
of this spacious living room.

Stanwick took a
slug of coffee liquor and began by addressing Brad Cobb.

“I’m sure the
rest of us are holding up okay, but what about you Brad?”

He sipped at a
small glass of coconut rum and wondered when was the last time he’d
had a sweet liquor. His eyes roamed from the grand staircase which
dominated the rear end of the building’s entrance. He looked out at
the stars and tried to find a constellation he recognized but soon
gave up, admitting to himself that he’d never been all that into
astronomy.

“Brad?”
Stanwick tried again.

He didn’t want
to answer her. He’d listened to her for hours, recounting the
history of a nation called Allim; their wars, their kings, their
religion and science. It was an epic and emotionally charged tale
that Stanwick had spun and he understood that in telling, she was
allowing him into some kind of great mystery, but now she was
coming to it; the big question. What she hadn’t done was try to
press upon him a sense of where she or West really stood in the
grand scheme, who’s side they were on, what they really stood for.
He’d been with the bureau for long enough to know that such
questions were often irrelevant, but right now, he needed some sort
of tether to reality and Stanwick hadn’t provided that.

“Brad!”

He looked at
her across the room, stared into her eyes, wondering the whole
while if she would kill him if he didn’t respond.

“What? What do
you want to know?

Stanwick looked
offended, “Do you need to sleep, or have you had enough time to
figure yourself out?”

Cobb laughed
nervously, “I’m sorry, it’s just a lot to take in.”

Stephanie
watched Cobb with growing interest. Of everyone in the room, he was
the greatest source of entertainment for her. Although she knew he
was sitting on the couch beside West, she could see different
colors flash across the surface of his body, areas of red around
his armpits and crotch, flashes of red across his face and knuckles
and dancing through these areas of red there would be sudden pulses
of blues and grays. When these storms of color were at their
strongest, a ghostly image of Cobb would get up from the couch and
walk towards the door, or else it would fall prostrate at
Stanwick’s feet or walk to the side table to pour another drink.
Indecisiveness was beauty to her now, each moral quandary and
weakness of character opening up a myriad of vaguely human shaped
portals to alternate futures.

Cobb sipped the
rum and coughed, the sugar and alcohol producing catarrh in his
throat.

“When I was a
kid,” he looked at Stephanie, “Probably ‘bout your age, my uncle,
Norman … he was a violinist and a carpenter, beautiful man, gentle
and kind to a fault; He used to take me out to his shop and show me
how to work wood. Mostly it was slow and careful work with chisels,
rasps and sandpaper. We made some real simple things together, toy
cars and the like.”

He took another
sip of coconut rum and continued, staring at the glass, “When he
developed cancer, my parents tried to explain to me that Norman was
going to go away, that he didn’t want to, but he would have to.
They told me that when he went, he would still be able to see me
and he’d look out for me, but I wouldn’t see him ever again and I
spent a lot of time thinking about that, forever … you know?
Watching people you’d loved and cared for, forever, not being able
to do anything for them but watch. I grew used to the smell of his
place when he got worse; he had a catheter and the place always
kind of stunk of urine, but I found it comforting because it meant
he was still ticking, you know?”

“When he
couldn’t walk anymore, he lay in bed and read all of my comics and
he’d greet me every time I walked in, ‘Hello Asterix’ and I’d say,
‘Hello Obelix’ and I’d be proud that he’d shared something I
loved.”

“Last time I
saw him, he was on a hospital bed and he still smiled at me. He was
dying … only a few hours away from dying and God knows the pain he
was going through, but he smiled for me … Jesus.” Cobb sniffed and
wiped his face with his sleeve, “He smiled ‘cos he knew that I
needed to see him smiling. He could barely move his lips, they were
all dry and cracked, but still something, you know … colors like
mother of pearl, all blues, pinks, yellows. I told him that I loved
him and when I was walking out of the room, he said, ‘goodbye
Asetrix’ and I said ‘goodbye Obelix’.” Cobb looked up from the
glass and looked at everyone in the room with his reddened and tear
filled eyes, “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.” He
blinked, wiping his eyes again as he tried to fight back the
tears.

“When he died,
I couldn’t believe that he was gone. I talked to him every day,
just lying there on my bed, talking like he was in the room with me
because that’s what I’d been told. I was full of that idea, full to
the brim with it; that he could see me, that he watched out for me
and heard me, heard my prayers.”

He drank the
last of his glass and as he did so, Stephanie bit her lip in
anticipation, entranced by the change in him; the colors settled,
the ghosting images all coalesced and solidified into one true and
calm man, treasuring his earliest memory of pain.

“That’s what I
don’t understand right now …”

Stanwick looked
confused, “What?”

“How could you
let him die? How could you let anyone die?”

West got up
from the couch and walked over to the large windows. He leaned
against the glass and looked at the thousands of street lamps and
stars, clusters of lights surrounded by pools of darkness,
“Stanwick, you did tell Brad our history?”

Stanwick
sighed, “West, I did the best anyone could do while dividing their
attentions between driving and eating an obscene amount of jerky
and potato chips. I think the grandeur of history is somewhat
butchered when the orator is attempting to suck chunks of beef out
of their gums.” She looked at Brad and seeing his reddened and tear
stained face, thought better of voicing her doubts about whether or
not he had even believed any of what she’d told him.

Still gazing
out at the lights of the town, West stretched his arm up over his
head, drumming the side of his almost empty glass with his fingers,
“Brad, what you’re suggesting is that we have some sort of moral
obligation to lift humankind out of the despair and anguish that is
associated with mortality. Certainly, we need numbers and we need
them quickly. Hell, if there was an ethically sound way of bringing
the entire population of West Virginia into our ranks overnight,
I’d do it. This isn’t about elitism or protecting some grand secret
society.”

Stanwick lifted
her index finger from the side of her own glass, pointing at Cobb,
“We can do something about you for a start, if you want it.”

Cobb was taken
aback by what appeared to be a casual proposal, “It’s that
simple?”

“It’s that
simple Brad. You and I can go downstairs, and it will all be over
in minutes.”

“Will it
hurt?”

“It’s really
gross.” Stephanie volunteered, “I puked, but it didn’t hurt.”

Stanwick got up
from her seat and addressed the others, “Make yourselves at home.
My room is the double doors at the top of the stairs, but
everything else is up for grabs.”

Taking his hand
in hers, she led Cobb to the grand staircase.

David had thrown what
few belongings they had with them in the corner of the room and
slumped onto the bed, motioning for Stephanie to join him.

“I’m not
tired.”

David sighed,
“Spiff, I understand that, but we all need to take some time away
from each other.”

Stephanie sat
on the edge of the bed and stared at the interweaving patterns of
the fibers which made up the cotton comforter. It didn’t help that
she could see a version of herself standing by the window, another
skipping out of the room, not to mention all of the variant forms
of her father’s image. Staring at the comforter grounded her in
something static and that was, well … comforting.

“Do your eyes
bother you?”

She didn’t
chance looking up at her David, “No. A little maybe, but only a
very little.”

David wondered
if he could somehow force himself to see what Stephanie saw, but he
wasn’t sure how to take control of such fine changes. So far, he
had played a passive role in his relationship with the leeches,
mostly because he was scared of getting things wrong. He had a
sudden vision of trying to master their skills, only to find the
skin of his eyelids knit shut completely. Such thoughts panicked
him sufficiently that he couldn’t bring herself to try anything.
Distracted, she listened he wandered into the bathroom and splashed
water on his face, whistling to himself tunelessly as he went about
his nightly grooming rituals.

Stephanie lay
face down, mushing her face into the cotton. But the darkness
wouldn’t come, because she was everywhere.

Cobb stood by the
emperor sized bed which was dwarfed by the large open spaces of the
master bedroom. He didn’t feel any different … a little ill
perhaps. From everything Stanwick had told him, he had a vague
understanding of what was happening inside his body, and he had
expected it to feel … He thought of all the superhero movies he’d
watched growing up, until he eventually found the word that he was
looking for; special. As he had watched the leeches burrow into the
flesh of his arms and chest, he had expected a blinding epiphany, a
surge of power, a rebirth, but instead, he’d felt kind of
queasy.

Stanwick tapped
his shin with her outstretched foot, smiling seductively, “It’s
better than this Brad, don’t worry about it.”

He frowned,
puzzled as to how she had put her finger on exactly what he was
feeling. He asked the question apprehensively, almost embarrassed
at the words which came out, “Can you read my thoughts?”

Stanwick’s hand
went to his hip, pulling him closer to her, “No,” she lied, “but
I’ve been here a thousand times before. You aren’t bouncing off the
walls with excitement, so it figures that it’s the other.”

“Other what?”
Cobb asked.

“The other
reaction. It’s always the same, either elation and discovery or
mild frustration and impatience; a sense of anticlimax.”

Cobb returned
her smile, “I suppose it’s comforting to know that I’m not
different.”

Stanwick’s
other hand brushed his shoulder, then stroked the curve of his
neck, running down his spine, “I suppose I can see how that would
be comforting … I am sure we could figure out a way to make you
even more comfortable.”

Her raised
eyebrows. The softness of her voice and the closeness of her body
each conspired to melt his tension to the extent that he almost
fell over his own feet as he moved stepped backwards. Stanwick’s
lips parted as she smiled, her hand supporting his back easily and
pulling him towards her again.