Flare (11 page)

He took a bite out of the fourth mushroom and it tasted bitter, and when he pulled the mushroom out, his heart skipped a beat.

Stupid. Stupid, stupid.

It was a baby parasol mushroom, its outer fronds not yet spread out, and looked like a puffball. Zeke spat it out, and then took some water in and spat that out too. To be sure that he hadn’t ingested any small pieces, he induced vomiting until everything he’d just eaten came out and then some. He waited a moment, caught his breath and tried to wretch again, but nothing came out this time. The die had been cast, and he’d have to deal with the consequences.

/***/

He started to hallucinate thirty minutes later, nothing too intense, just a deep-seated paranoia that someone was after him. He looked into the distance and saw a tent just like his, glowing silver in the moonlight like a shining igloo. He still had the wherewithal to take care of himself, so he prepared for the sunrise, which might come soon …

Or not.
At this point I don’t know if it will.

The tent was set up, so he put everything inside and double-checked that no light was coming through by going inside and shining his light outwards. The beam from his flashlight looked soft and tangible, like a river of golden warmth hitting the inside of the tent and bouncing backwards to meet him.

I’m still lucid, but I see things,
and I’m very, very tired.

More than anything else in the world, he wanted to sleep. He wanted to lay his head down and rest for a year, or even more if it was possible. He wanted to sleep so long that he’d awake and have the flare gone. If it wasn’t gone when he awoke, he’d take another nap and wait it out. He didn’t care if he awoke an old man, his beard turned grey and his back stooped with age. All he wanted to do was rest.

The ground drew him down, down, down with the pull of a thousand tiny strings over his body. When he finally reached the floor of his tent he was unable to move, but didn’t mind. He didn’t even mind if he had left a flap of his tent open. He felt as if he were among the dead, all those who had died in the flare. The billions of men, women and children, the innocent and the guilty, the deserving and the blameless, the animals that had turned to jerky in the sun, and those that had not yet been burnt but would be soon. He was on the other side now, and it wasn’t uncomfortable. Before he fell asleep he had one more thought, as loud as if someone was shouting at him, and at the time it was the truest thing that he’d ever heard.

The sun isn’t cruel
.
It doesn’t enjoy what it does. It kills, but it’s not cruel.

/***/

Zeke had a dream that night, so vivid that it was almost real. He couldn’t control his environment, nor was he completely sure that he was dreaming, but he was conscious and aware. He dreamt the world was dark, but not fearsome, with a purple sky and a clean ground covered with a thousand souls in every direction. Not just the human souls that had been destroyed by the flare, but those that had perished before it, those that were alive today, and even the souls of animals.

He saw men walking with women, not in their human form, but in the form of spirit, which was like smoke covering a capsule of light. He saw the light come from the spirits of animals too, from fleas to whales, from deer to dinosaurs. They all resembled one another of course, just smoke covering light, but Zeke knew what they were. He didn’t know how, but he just knew that they were all the souls that had inhabited the earth, and that they were now safe.

He saw the soul of a young girl walk by with the soul of a thief, hand in hand. He saw next to them the soul of a young pig, and Zeke realized the hypocrisy of judgment. The
thief
was no more a sinner to the pig than the young girl, for the pig was slaughtered for both in equal measure.

Life is the way it is, and neither good nor bad, moral nor evil exist. The flare has washed away everything we’ve accomplished, and our failures too. Only the souls remain, empty and clean.

Zeke saw the soul of a young goat walk with the soul of a bear, their light enmeshing as they strode forth together. He was quite struck by this, seeing prey walk so comfortably with predator, and a feeling of peace washed over him.

Zeke noticed that they were walking
towards
something, and he felt that he needed to join them. He didn’t know what it was, nor did he care to know, and before he could ponder it further, he heard a voice calling him.

It was the creature with glowing eyes, the creature that was half coyote and half cat.

He couldn’t quite see what the animal was, but it stood before him with two ears pointed upwards over a shadowed face, with glowing eyes and gleaming white teeth.
Sharp
teeth.

Have you come to eat me? Have you come to devour us all?

The creature didn’t speak, but somehow made it clear that it was not there to eat Zeke. It wasn’t there to kill anyone.

If you’re not here to kill,
then why are your teeth so sharp?

The creature didn’t answer and simply beckoned Zeke to follow. Zeke did, and a feeling of peace came over him, a soft warmth that left every question answered, and every depravity left in the flare’s wake a distant memory.

The warmth of the land around faded away to the harsh, unforgiving darkness of his tent’s interior. He didn’t know where he was for a moment, but the dream quickly faded away. He was awake, and this was real.

“Hello, sir!” said a voice from outside the tent. “Good morning, or rather,
good evening
! I’d like to speak with you, if only for a moment!”

/***/

The man’s name was Colm, and he was about sixty, with a mustache and kind eyes. He called himself
Brother Colm
and explained to Zeke that he not only had a sunproof tent, but had a map to
the Salvation
, the place where all would be saved. He explained that there were sheets of paper that held riddles, and if you solved them they gave coordinates, and those coordinates led to the Salvation. Colm was going, and he wanted to know if Zeke had been heading there. Zeke shook his head
no
, and Colm asked if Zeke wanted to go along with him. Zeke thought about this for a moment.

“You don’t speak much, or at all, which I respect,” said Colm. “I’ve not met anyone who’s taken a vow of silence, but I knew a
Trappist
monk once, and they are known to save their words. But you do understand what I’m saying, correct?”

Zeke nodded yes.

“You’ve a kind face, and a demeanor I’ve not seen before,” said Colm. “I’m normally a trusting fellow, but just by looking at you I feel that there’s
no way
you could be untruthful. Has anyone paid you this compliment before?”

Zeke nodded
yes
.

“In any case, I’m walking towards the Salvation and will deliver you to its doorstep, or at least try to, I promise you that,” said Colm. “You’re of course free to go at any time, but I’m walking there now and would love it if you’d join me, one day at a time.”

Zeke trusted Brother Colm. He agreed to go with him.

/***/

Zeke’s limbs were a little sore from the poisonous experience of the night before, but he felt okay. He knew that it was only a dream mixed with a hallucination, and that he’d been lucky. He had regurgitated the toxins, and he was alive now. If he had eaten the whole mushroom he surely would have died, but as it stood he’d somehow gotten away with nothing but a strange and pleasant dream.

I should throw away the rest of the mushrooms I collected
.
But something is telling me to save them.

Zeke was happy because he was alive, and was glad to be marching on with Brother Colm through the clear night. The man seemed to be genuine and didn’t appear to care that Zeke was silent. If anything, Colm was glad to have a permanent audience.

“People seem to think that this flare is evidence of God’s cruelty, but they’re mistaken,” said Colm. “And I understand where they’re coming from, because the Bible’s filled with harsh passages: ‘
And the Lord said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.
’ But these people who say the sun now comes from God’s wrath are missing the forest for the trees, as it were.

“The Bible isn’t filled with cruelty, but rather unforgiving
reality
. Human history is full of violence, war and mass killings. The ideal is to put down our swords and get away from that, but sometimes we fail to do this, and the Bible doesn’t shy away from these truths. Humanity’s story is filled with our failings, and God loves us through it all. The sun is currently shining too brightly for us to handle, but make no mistake, son, God’s love for us hasn’t wavered one bit.”

Colm furrowed his brow and then looked up at the stars.

“Something big is happening, and there’s a plan that binds it all together,” he said. “It’s something akin to the asteroid that hit this earth in the time of the dinosaurs and paved the way for us. The Lord brought Armageddon in the form of a rock from space, and it cleared the path for humanity millions of years hence. The Lord is doing something once again, and I know we’re still part of His plan. I just know it.”

Zeke squinted his eyes, and Colm picked up that he hadn’t quite made his argument clear.

“I speak of contradictions, and I must sound like a contradiction myself, an itinerant preacher speaking of the Holy Ghost and the dinosaurs in the same breath,” said Colm. “And I’m aware that my philosophy is unique. I believe in both the Bible and the dinosaurs, both God and evolution, the whole nine yards. The Bible’s truth is as clear as the night sky we have above us, and the facts of evolution are as real as the sun is now deadly.”

Brother Colm took out a small, worn bible from the side pocket of his knapsack, kissed it and then put it back.

“Science reveals facts, God reveals
truths
,” said Colm. “There’s a difference. The Bible isn’t meant to be a history book, but it has tremendous value, perhaps never more important than in these times. It reveals truths that science cannot, truths that will deliver us from the sun above our heads.”

Colm looked up at the stars and then consulted his map. He took out a jug of water and first offered it to Zeke. Zeke took a swig, and the water was the cleanest he’d had since the flare began. Zeke handed the water back to Colm, who drank from the bottle before screwing the cap back on, putting it back in his backpack and resuming his journey at a slightly different angle.

“I don’t know what the source of this flare is, for its origins lie not in the Good Book, nor in any other canon,” said Brother Colm. “In fact, I believe the answers to these questions lie in a scientist’s head somewhere, perhaps a scientist yet to be born. But until that scientist figures this out, God’s truth will keep us safe, because God’s truth answers what science cannot, namely:
what now
?

“When the flood has breached your walls, when the enemy has won the war, when the sun has
already
killed everything you’ve ever loved, what do you do? Can you rely on science to bring your family back? To rebuild a nation? To keep your neighbor from murdering you in your sleep?”

Zeke thought upon this, and nodded in agreement.

“Science has no answer to the sun, at least not right now,” said Colm. “We need more than just scientific solutions, so what do we do … I’m sorry, what’s your name, son?”

Zeke stopped and spelled his name in the dirt: Z-E-K-E. Colm nodded in response.

“So what now, Brother Ezekiel?” asked Colm. “What do we
do
now when we have no answers, because there are no answers to have? Where do we go?”

Zeke considered this question for a moment and then tapped Colm’s backpack, where his map was.

“I was trying to lead your train of thought to the Bible, but yes, this map is a start,” said Colm with a laugh. “We must go to the Salvation, a hidden, mysterious location that might not even exist in the first place. We go there because our faith compels us to do so, and this map gives us direction. But beyond that, I believe God’s truth of compassion will truly protect us from the sun above. When the asteroid hit the earth so many years ago, there wasn’t enough compassion to save the dinosaurs from the clouded sky, and they perished.”

Brother Colm walked in silence for a moment and then laughed.

“I know I must sound like a doddering old fool, and if not for the flare I might be on a street corner preaching my theories to an audience of pigeons and dust,” said Colm. “But I assure you that my philosophy is sound and straightforward. My point is that though the Salvation will give us immediate respite,
compassion
will save humanity as a whole. I’m not speaking of a scientific compassion mind you, an altruism that extends to my next of kin and then deteriorates as my social web fans out, but a
biblical
,
unforgiving
compassion that extends to all, without fail, even at the expense of one’s own life and very soul. Brother Ezekiel, do you love humanity so much that you’d sacrifice your own
soul
for it?”