Apotheosis: Stories of Human Survival After the Rise of the Elder Gods (15 page)

"We're not alone," Shelly said. "Remnants of the old U.S. Army went north of the border. They've fortified Toronto and are looking to strike back."

I frowned. We'd all heard the rumors, but that's all they were. If there'd been any resistance left, The King would've turned out the Yellow Guard to grind them to dust.

"It's true." Brian refilled my glass. "I've been talking to them. They can get us out, but we need to prove we can be trusted."

"You'll be killed, or worse." The room was too hot. I pulled at my collar, the liquor making my head swim.

"We're
already
being killed," Shelly said.

"Death by inches," Brian added. "They call it conscription, but taking ten percent of us every five years – Long, they're
decimating
us."

I wiped a sweaty hand across my forehead. Decimating – trust Brian to whip out ten-cent words to make his point.

"The King made a slave of you, of all of us," Beth said.

"The Byakhee will be here soon," Brian said. "We need your help."

I glanced to Shelly for support, but she was watching Brian, they all were.

"I need time to think."

"We've got a day, maybe," Brian said, hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Long, I really am, but this is the only way clear of this mess."

It felt like a dream. My friends and family – would-be rebels with no idea what they were up against. I could see there was no stopping them, not that I would've tried.

"A day, then." It was less than I'd hoped for, but it would have to be enough. There were nods around the table, some hopeful, some skeptical, but no one disagreed. Just like me, just like everyone, they had no choice.

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*

Wind stirred the meadow below Parson's hill, breakers of shadow rippling the tall grass into symbols of imminent doom. I helped Shelly spread a ratty checkered blanket by the crabapple tree where we'd shared our first kiss. Remembering the night made me smile – the smell of her hair, not quite knowing where to put my hands. Necking beneath the tree had been something of a rite of passage for New Brighton teens, and its scabby bark was etched with a tapestry of awkward declarations of love.

Strange, how long I'd looked forward to coming home, but after one night, the walls had already started to crowd around me. I'd tried to go for a walk, but the forest kept whispering. Thankfully, the apple tree was quiet.

I set the picnic basket down to search the tangle of scars for where I’d carved an equation of Shelly and my names. Something had left long claw marks on the trunk, abrading scores of lopsided hearts and ragged "4evers," ours included. I unfolded my penknife, intending to rectify the loss, but a soft moan from Ronny stopped me. He watched the tiny blade, lips twisted into an expression partway between a sneer and a snarl.

"Give it here." Ronny's reedy voice belied the intensity of the command.

"Put that away." Shelly stepped between us, then knelt to press her hands to Ronny's cheeks. "Look at me.
Look at me
."

He gave a little whine, but Shelly held his face, forcing him to meet her eyes.

"It's okay, honey. Go play while Daddy and I get lunch ready."

"But, the Splinter Man—"

"Go play." She gave Ronny a little push. He ran a few steps before glancing back, watching until I folded the knife and slipped it into my pocket. This seemed to break whatever spell held Ronny, and he took off down the hill with a burst of singsong nonsense.

"What was that?" I asked.

Shelly ran a hand through her hair. "He has dreams—some man tells him to do things. Mostly it's okay, but I had to lock the knife drawer in the kitchen and put all the scissors up. Sorry I forgot to tell you, but—"

"It's fine." I reached for her hand. "Five years is a lot to unpack."

Her fingers were cold and stiff in mine, but she gave a little smile.

Down in the field Ronny tromped through the grass, scattering flights of crickets and mayflies. Their tiny, terrified screams reminded me of the calls of hunting horrors, and for a moment it was all I could do not to scuttle into the gnarled shadow of the apple tree.

Shelly gave a low hiss.

I realized I'd been crushing her hand, and let go. "Sorry, I—"

"S'okay." She massaged the blood back into her fingers. "Five years is a lot to unpack."

There was chicken salad in the basket, along with a thermos full of fresh sweet tea, oatmeal cookies, and fried bologna sandwiches in little plastic baggies. We laid it all out, then laid ourselves out, sipping tea while the afternoon sun seeped into our bones.

"I haven't been here for years." Shelly brushed an errant leaf from the blanket.

"I hope not," I glanced at the tree. "I'd hate to have to thrash any of the other boys for getting fresh with my wife."

"I've only had time for one boy," Shelly snorted, a bit of the girl I remembered peeking through. "And he says he's getting too old for kisses."

"More for me, then." It was a lame line, but when I leaned over she didn't pull away. The kiss was just like the first time, tentative and awkward, but I still got that little tingle down my neck at the smell of her hair, and I still had no idea where to put my hands.

"I used to think about this all the time," I said when we came up for air.

"What?"

"How it would be when I got back."

"Is it all you hoped?" Her question came rimed with wary caution.

"Dunno." I said just before the silence became uncomfortable. "It still doesn't feel quite real."

She slipped an arm around my shoulder. "Well, it is. You're back, and—"

Overhead, a flight of Byakhee broke through the clouds. Ungainly outside of the void of space, they tumbled through the air in a riot of membranous wings. We watched as they circled the hill, gargling and hooting to one another in playful tones.

I took another sip of tea, feeling the anxiety drain from me. "Ready for lunch?"

"I
hate
them," Shelly said.

"What, the Byakhee?" I turned, surprised by the anger in her voice. "They're the good guys."

She stared at me, a strange expression on her face.

"I mean, they're not
good
, but they keep Mi-Go and Nightgaunts away. I can't tell you how many times those ugly bastards saved my life."

Shelly stood and cupped her hands around her mouth. "Ronny! Get back here!"

"Calm down, it's fine." I reached for her, but she hurried off down the hill, dividing anxious looks between the sky and where Ronny was just coming out of the grass.

The Byakhee wheeled once, then flapped off toward town.

"See, nothing to worry about." I jogged up to her. "I know back home it's easy to forget about—"

"I haven’t forgotten. I
can't
forget."

"That's not what I meant."

"I can't pretend everything is okay. Ronny, the dreams, those
things
, you have no idea how hard—"

"No idea?" It was my turn to stare. I used to shake when I got angry, but now the fury came cold, coiling tighter and tighter inside my chest until I thought my heart would burst from the pressure.

"I'm sorry." She wilted under my glare.

I flicked a hand at the Byakhee, now no more than distant blotches on the horizon. "A few bad dreams, the occasional flyover – New Brighton has it easy. Let me tell you about Boston: the Deep Ones
took
the men and women. They've got a use for us. The children though, we had to go house to house with flamethrowers. Once the damp took hold it was
kinder
to burn them. There was this shelter in Hyde Park, must've been a few thousand kids inside. Luckily, someone thought to seal the doors or they'd have torn into us like—"

"Stop."

I noticed her hands had curled into fists. Good. She was getting the point.

"Humans aren't in charge anymore." I forced myself to breath, long and slow. "It's their world, now."

She shook her head. "Is this what you want?"

"What I want doesn't figure into it. It's about survival, Shelly."

"Things are falling apart.
We're
falling apart. What's the use of surviving if we're not human anymore?"

I didn't have an answer for that.

"They
took
you." She knuckled an eye with a scowl – crying always made Shelly mad, it was one of the things I loved about her.

"I came back."

"What about when they come for Ronny?"

"They won't—"

"Yeah, I know. They've got no use for children, right?"

I rubbed a hand across the stubble on my chin. She was right, but it didn't matter.

Ronny came running up, cheeks flushed with excitement, hands clasped around something.

"Mom, Dad, look!"

I knelt to inspect Ronny's prize, feeling a swell of relief when he didn't shy away. He opened his hands to reveal a beetle with a tiny human face.

Shelly made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. "Kill it."

Ronny took a step back.

"It's okay, honey." I held out my hand. "I won't hurt it."

Ronny looked to Shelly, who gave a tight-lipped nod.

I took the beetle from him, then let it scuttle off. It glanced back just before disappearing into the brush, and I grimaced, mouth unaccountably dry.

We walked back to the apple tree in silence.

"Can I have a sammich?” Ronny asked.

"When we get home." Shelly started packing up the basket.

I regarded my wife and son, wondering what it would be like to watch them die. The world was changing, logic and meaning stretched tight as a drumhead across the warped skeleton of reality. We'd already fought and lost, spectacularly. The Old Ones did as they pleased while we crouched in the margins, telling ourselves it wasn't too late.

It's surprising what people will believe when they've got no choice. 

"I'll do it," I said.

"I'm almost finished." Shelly didn't look up.

"No, the Lieutenant. Tell Brian I'm in."

She let out a long, slow breath, eyes closed, then stood to face me. The relief on her face was palpable. For the first time, I noticed the dark smudges under her eyes, the hollowness of her cheeks, the worry lines bunching the corners of her lips – all the things I'd overlooked as a matter of habit.

Shelly stepped in, threading her arms through mine. "I love you."

I looked at Ronny, laughing as he kicked crabapples down the hill, seemingly unconcerned by Byakhee or human-faced beetles. And why should he be? He'd never known a time before the Old Ones. This was normal for him.

"I love you, too," I said. "Both of you."

Strangely enough, I was surprised to find I did.

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*

The Lieutenant stood at the edge of the forest, head tilted, his lips peeled back from teeth the color of wet concrete. I could feel the others behind him, flashes of bloody skin against the muted green, murmurs slipping into the cracks between my thoughts. I ignored the calls – they weren't my responsibility anymore.

"Sergeant Long." He straightened as I approached, dried skin stretching with a sound like overtaxed rope. "Come to re-enlist?"

"No." I avoided the Lieutenant's eyes, knowing I wouldn't be able to go through with it under the hopeless agony of his gaze. "Are the Byakhee here?"

"They never left. Why do you ask?"

The plan was for me to lure the Lieutenant away from the Byakhee, into town where Brian and the others could capture him. There were Jeeps waiting, speckled with the riot of primary colors that would confused the senses of pursuer used to hunting in the featureless expanse of space. Then it was a mad dash to the lake and the dubious safety of Brian's northern contacts.

The Lieutenant cupped my chin in one of his leathery hands. I could smell the mildewed damp of his robes, the iron and blood of his breath, and below that the strange, almost smoky incense that infused his weathered flesh.

He raised my face. Tear tracks glittered on the cracked hardpan of his cheeks, but his eyes brimmed with accusation. I'd thought Brykalski had run from the Byakhee out of fear, but I realized now his cowardice had been a species of bravery, born of a desire to deny the inevitable, to rob the Old Ones of their due.

My resolve almost cracked. Brian, Deacon, Beth, all of them were my friends. How many times had I thought of them in the midst of battle, hissing prayers to a god I knew to be false, promising life, love, anything if he would just see me home. I imagined Shelly's eyes staring out from the Lieutenant's ravaged face, wild with hate and terror. No, I couldn't watch her die.