Vacation (8 page)

“You don’t have a wedding ring,” the girl with the wooden leg says. “Are you married?”

Before she interrupts my thoughts, various scenarios play through my head.

One, I do what the Sergeant commands, and betray Noh and Odin and all the other Gardeners I haven’t met.

Two, I step into the cave and close the door behind me, and warn the Gardeners of the danger. The Garden can’t be completely self-sustaining, so they’ll have to go out eventually. That means they’d have to fight their way out. That means I’d get stuck in a middle of the battle, and all the deaths would be on my head, because I could have prevented the bloodshed, if only I’d done what the Sergeant commanded.

Maybe the Garden should share their seeds.

But the girl with the wooden leg says what she says, and I open my eyes and reply, “No.”

And she begins to untie me from my cot. “Weis couldn’t tie a decent knot if his life depended on it. I’ve never seen him fire his weapon either. I doubt he’s capable.” She unties my last appendage. “He could ask one of his drill instructors to give him basic training, but if word of it ever got around.” She shakes her head. “He’s a talented strategist at least.” From behind her, she rolls over a dolly with a cloth bag on top. “Get in the bag.”

I don’t.

“Listen, I do their laundry from time to time. I can get you out of here.”

So I climb into the bag and curl myself up, fetal and afraid.

She rolls me out into the camp. Laughter booms and I wonder if there are still torture parties going on in my honor. My body heats and cools as we pass by numerous bonfires. I imagine us passing by Sergeant Weis’ tent. And with his back to us, I flip him off in the dark.

In no time at all, the girl unties my bag, and I’m free, in the forest once again.

She motions for me to follow, then leads me alongside a gentle creek.

“If you could leave like that, why didn’t you escape before tonight?”

She laughs. “You’re the one escaping. I’m leaving. I was never a prisoner there.” She walks in silence for a few moments, maybe reflecting on a memory, then says, “Weis saved my life. For years he’s given me food and shelter. Safety. He said I was like the daughter he could never see.”

Hearing someone talk about Weis like this makes the pain of what I went through with the man lessen. A little.

“It wasn’t a bad life,” she says. “But I promised myself I’d leave if something better came along. You’re that something better.”

“What can I do to help you?”

“Marry me.”

“Marry you? I can’t marry you.”

“The Garden can give me the documents I need. Officially, you’re in a hospital right now, so they can say I’m a nurse there. We fell in love as I cared for you. You want to marry me and take me to America.”

“I’d like to help you, but—”

“Is it my leg? Do you think I’m ugly?”

In truth, she’s one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen, but I’m too afraid to tell her that. For my whole life I’ve been bombarded with images showing me that youthfulness is beautiful and sexy. But I’ve also been taught by the very same society that once I think about how beautiful and sexy youthfulness is, I should feel ashamed of myself. And I do.

“You’re not ugly,” I say. “But I don’t want to marry someone I don’t love.”

She sighs. “Once we get settled in America, I’ll start looking for someone else. Once I find someone, we’ll separate. Honestly, Bernard, this is the least you can do after what I did for you.”

“You’re right,” I say.

“Good.”

“You haven’t told me your name.”

She breathes out puffs of white for a while. “Aubrey.”

“I had a sister named Aubrey.”

“I know. I heard you talking in your sleep.”

“Does that mean your name isn’t Aubrey?”

“It doesn’t matter. Call me Aubrey. It’s a good name.” She stops walking and heads across the stream, jumping from stone to stone. “What happened to your sister?”

I follow. “She died before I was born.”

“You’re lucky. My brother died right in front of me.”

As we continue into the dark forest, I feel better.

We can help each other, like the brother or sister we each lost.

They shine sunrise at us, with multicolored faces, holding hands and folding hands. The artificial doves and flowers block the view of the actual forest behind them. Their frozen stained-glass bodies contrast with the goings-on of the children below. They’re playing and eating and shouting in an area where you’d expect to find pews.

“Are you sure it’s safe here?” I ask.

“They might be able to help us,” so-called Aubrey says.

“How?”

She doesn’t reply.

This is when the priests notice us. They approach in a black herd of gaunt bodies and glassy eyes. On the way, one of them vomits into a metal pot on the floor. These pots are everywhere.

“Hello there, young man,” says a priest, about my age.

“Hello,” I say. “My name’s Bernard. This is Aubrey.”

“Are you feeling ill?” the same priest says.

“No. Why do you ask?”

The priests glance at each other.

“We can use him,” says one.

“It’s wrong to use the children anyway,” says another.

“They know as much pain as anyone,” says a third. “They’re not innocent.”

“He’s perfect.”

“He’s closer to God.”

“What are you talking about?” I say.

But they go on like this, mumbling to each other.

I turn to Aubrey, who stands a few feet behind me. “Do you understand any of this?”

She shakes her head. “No clue.”

“Come with us,” says the first priest, and reaches out his hand. “We need your help.”

I look at Aubrey again.

She shrugs. “They might be able to help us.”

So I take his hand, and follow him to the confessional, where he tells me to sit.

But I’m sitting in the wrong section.

The first priest shuts himself into the other tiny chamber, and sits in silence for a while. Finally, he says, “It started because we wanted to keep one church alive and bright. A beacon of God. Even with our resources pooled together, it wasn’t enough. So we made a deal. At first, we didn’t even know what we were transporting. The Agency didn’t tell us, and we didn’t ask. But eventually, we searched out the truth—perhaps because of guilt, or curiosity, or a little bit of both. When we learned the truth, we should’ve refused to continue. The Agency might’ve killed us all, but this shouldn’t be a problem for people like us. But instead of quitting, we sunk deeper. We have more than enough to keep up the church. Now, we have our…habits to pay for. In this life, and the next. Please forgive me, young man.”

“I don’t know why you’re telling me this,” I say.

The priest leaves, and another enters.

He’s an older man, with a skeleton for a face. He tells me about the Agency, and about his addiction, and then he says, “God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end. No one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being. But what if the act is indirect? Sometimes I think we’re wrong to collect these children here. They are orphans. They would most likely die without our aid. But is this life we give them a preferred alternative to death? I negotiated the treaties between the church and the power players of this region. When the children are old enough, they’re taken by Weis or Blackbeard or the others. We call this adoption. Ha! I hope God can hear my words through your ears. I have faith that he can.”

Priest after priest, this goes on for hours.

Afterward, the sindoor opens, and I step out of the confessional. Nearby children point at me and shout, “Monster!” and run off laughing.

The priests shake my hand and thank me, and they vomit in their pots.

All the time we’re in this place, the priests ignore Aubrey completely. They don’t talk to her. They don’t even look at her. I wonder if they’re doing this because they don’t want to be more tempted than they already are.

The sound of planes shakes the glass, but the priests remain as calm as the stained-glass figures.

When the noise subsides, the priests and children head outside, and we follow. Crates dot the forest clearing. Before long, horses and wagons are brought from behind the church, and the priests and children load the cargo.

Aubrey and I don’t help.

After the preparations are complete, most of the priests climb into the wagons, and all of the children return to the church.

The first priest who spoke to me, speaks to me again, from atop a wagon, reins in hand. “We’re crossing the border. We can’t promise you safe passage, but it is safer with us than alone. Are you heading in that direction?”

I turn to Aubrey.

She’s already climbing into the wagon.

Within minutes the priests among us are asleep, twitching and shivering, and Aubrey and I are left alone in wakefulness. But it doesn’t feel that way. This Vacation must be a dream. Instead of obtaining souvenirs, I leave parts of myself behind.

Blood and shit and tears.

This can’t be right.

Part 11

“You should sleep,” Aubrey says. “We probably won’t get another opportunity for a while. You need the rest, after what happened to you.”

“I can’t sleep,” I say.

“Is it the pain?”

“No, that’s the strange thing.”

She takes my hand, and rests it in a bowl of fingers on her lap. “My mother and my grandmother were fortune tellers. I would’ve been too.”

“I’m sorry.”

“They taught me a little before they died.” She closes her eyes. Her fingers curl a little around my palm. “Everyone has an animal spirit inside them. Yours is a bird. This is a problematic spirit to have. Some animals are content staying where they are, but not yours. It’s not just a matter of wanting to fly free. You have to.”

“What should I do?”

“I don’t know. What I can tell you is that you’re a lot stronger than you think you are.”

For a while, we’re sitting there, bouncing, hand in hands.

That is, until one of the priests explodes.

The first dead body I ever saw was Uncle Timothy lying arms at his sides with makeup on. Death didn’t sneak up on me. I snuck up on it, as slow as and careful as I wanted. And when I did finally make my way to the casket, you held me up, Mom, after my tippy-toes failed me. Everything was so slow and quiet.

Now, Aubrey yanks me out of the wagon, both of us splattered with blood. Gunshots roar. Priests scramble and flail. Horses buck and grumble. We’re in an open clearing, and men in black fire at us, bits and pieces of them visible among the trees. We duck down behind a wheel, next to the old priest with a skeleton face.

Our wagon doesn’t move, because our horse is already dead. The other horses drag their burdens around with all their horsepower. I want to free them from their harnesses, but I can’t.

I look away.

Beside me, white powder trickles out the bullet holes in a fallen crate, like an hour glass that can never be reset.

“Fucking Tics,” the priest says. “They will know God’s wrath.”

As if triggered by the old man’s words, gunfire and battle cries thunder from behind us.

We spin around, and there’s Weis and his bald soldiers, firing at the men in black.

“Let’s go,” Aubrey says. She takes my hand, and we head right, away from the men in black and away from Weis.

We risk being hit from both sides.

As we make a run for it, I look over and see Weis. He fires his weapon like a pro. I guess Aubrey was wrong.

There’s a girl standing beside the Sergeant, firing her own weapon. Her face isn’t a face at all. It’s a massive, gnarled burn mark.

Soon, we’re out of the clearing, back in the thick of trees. The battle sounds fade from our ears. In time, it’s nothing but a memory. But I shouldn’t say that. Nothing and memory don’t belong in the same sentence.

We stop running only when we both collapse out of exhaustion.

I notice that I’m holding my nose closed with my fingers. I let go.

“Who were those people?” I say, my words broken up by heavy breaths. Somehow, I think this information is important. As if it would make me feel better.

“I don’t know,” she says. “The priest called them Tics, whatever that means.” She struggles to stand again. “We have to keep moving. It’s not safe here.”

“Is it safe anywhere?”

“Safer.” She helps me up, and we continue. “I’m sorry I almost got you killed. I thought saving you was the right thing to do. I could go to America and you wouldn’t have to betray your friends in the Garden.”

“They’re not my friends.”

“You may not think of yourself as their friend, but they think of you that way. Noh cares about you. You know that.”

“I don’t know anything,” I say. “But…I do appreciate what you’ve done for me. I’ve never met anyone quite like you before.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Yes.”

She grins.

Would it really be so bad marrying this girl?

I’ve never trusted anyone the way I trust her now. As a couple, I could let her make all the decisions. I could soar through life on her wings.

No, that wouldn’t be bad at all.

I take her hand, and she doesn’t move it away, and that’s all the fortune telling I need.

Aubrey steps out onto the beach, and I’m lagging behind, still concealed among the trees. In the water, there’s a long black ship without any sails. The sort Tolkien’s orcs would take out to sea. A line of still tanker trucks moan on a paved zone, hoses trailing from their backsides into the water. I see the back of Aubrey’s hair, and I don’t know this the last time I’ll ever see her.

This moment, right now.

After this moment, a group of men and women dressed in white hike from the right, and create a wall of bodies between me and Aubrey. They have guns, and they face the sea, and they have to see Aubrey. But they haven’t spotted me.

“Run!” Aubrey says.

And I do run. But I don’t want to. My legs feel like they’re moving on their own, like Noh is controlling me again. But that doesn’t make sense. I’m not asleep.