Flare (19 page)

He breathed in twice, put on his dark glasses and stuffed some cloth in the eyeholes for good measure. The cloth sealed tightly around his eyes, and it was dark. It was dark in the tent before, but now it was so black that Zeke started to see images on the back of his eyelids.

He took a moment to himself, entranced by the colors, and allowed them to take shape so that he could see what they were. They were Foster’s dockyards as he had heard them to be, flat, imperious, angular and corroding.

He shook off the images and focused on the task at hand. He concentrated on the hole and heard that the flaps were getting louder and faster, as if the helicopter were approaching, ready to land on the tent and rip it in two.

Zeke steeled himself and then thrust his hand out. He fumbled for the zipper and got it on the second try. He noticed that light still reached his eyes. Even through the cloth and glasses, his closed eyes still registered a barely muted orange. He pulled the zipper down until it stuck, then used his other hand to grab a thick piece of duct tape off the ground and slide it under the fold of cloth. He compressed it until it held the zipper in place, and the room was dark again. His eyes still held onto a few drops of orange, some of them ovular and pulsing, but it was calm in the tent. It was quiet and soon the images at the back of his eyelids disappeared, and all he could see was blackness. He took off his glasses, and it was still dark. The flap was no longer a threat to them, and they were safe.

/***/

They went to sleep but Zeke tossed and turned that day, fearing that the tent would burst open again and they would be burnt alive. He felt an ache on his forearm where the raw sun had grazed him. It wasn’t painful enough to keep him awake, but it was painful enough to let him know that he was mortal. He had saved Colm and his skin had withstood a glimpse of the flare, but he wasn’t immune to the daylight.

He would sleep restlessly and then awake in a panic, thinking the tent’s flap had opened again; the third time he awoke, he almost knocked the tent over. Colm snored soundly throughout it all.

I need to relax.
If I don’t, I could kill us both.

He took a jar of water from his rucksack and dropped a mushroom inside. He didn’t want the effect to be as strong as that of the tincture he had given Ignacio, so he just put one mushroom in and shook the jar without heating it. It didn’t turn the thick white that it had before, and just held a faintly cloudy hue to let him know that it was more than just water.
I won’t get the full effect
,
I’ll just get the shadow of the effect, and that will be enough.

The weak tea relaxed him and he became tired, so tired that he no longer cared if the tent held. He closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.

/***/

He dreamt of the dockyards, broad and tall and in even sharper detail than before. The sun wasn’t in the sky, and the entire world had been bathed in the orange that had flooded his eyesight earlier. He didn’t feel the danger of being burnt alive, but he did feel unease. He didn’t know where the unease was coming from, but it worried him. Something just wasn’t right, and he didn’t want to be where he was. That was the only feeling he understood.

Men were all around these dockyards, either huddling or milling about like prisoners. There were no women, no children. Just men—grey-bodied men without faces or eyes. There was no sound, just a mass of humanity in front of sunken ships and emptied crates.

Zeke noticed that a large portion of the men had formed a breadline, and he instinctively joined it. As soon as he got in, he knew he had made a mistake. Nothing was physically keeping him there, but he couldn’t leave the line. His feet wouldn’t move, and though he didn’t fear the sun coming up, he felt trapped. He didn’t belong here and hadn’t made the right choice to come to the dockyards.

It was then that he saw the creature again in the distance, with pointy ears and soft red-orange fur, fur that shone brightly, even in the similarly colored light that surrounded it.

What are you?
Come here so that I may see you.

The creature stood where it was, imperious but not large, beyond the reach of the dockyards’ melancholy, yet still humble.

The creature turned around and walked towards the horizon, and Zeke wanted to follow but couldn’t. His feet were bound to the ground by an unexplainable force, invisibly shackled like feet in dreams so often were.

I can’t follow you.
Stop.

The creature turned around and looked at Zeke with a still-shaded face. Its eyes were glowing red, but a soft red and not an ominous one. The animal had sharp features, but other than that its identity remained a mystery. The creature turned its head and pointed its snout to the far distance, towards a forest on the horizon. The animal perked up its ears, and Zeke understood the cue to listen. Zeke heard noises from the forest, not real noises but the din of dreams, ethereal and soundless, but still
there
.

It was the sound of children laughing, and Zeke realized he hadn’t heard that sound since the flare had begun. The animal walked towards the forest, and Zeke wanted to follow, but his feet were still bound to the dockyards’ breadline.

Wait,
I can’t move. Help me.

The animal turned around and looked at Zeke quizzically, as if to ask,
Why?

My feet are stuck.
I can’t move.

The animal still looked at Zeke with curiosity, still wanting to know …
Why?

Zeke looked down at his feet, which were unbound. He then looked at the forest in the distance, which was separated from Zeke by an ocean of rocky dirt.

I guess I can’t go because …
I can’t leave because there is no road for me to follow.

The creature narrowed its glowing eyes and walked away. It didn’t utter a sound, but Zeke understood what it meant to tell him:
Build your own road, then. If there’s no road, build your own.

The creature trotted towards the distant forest, and this time it wouldn’t stop for Zeke. Zeke knew he had to follow and concentrated everything he had on moving his legs. His right foot came, though slowly. He then moved his left foot, which was heavier still. He moved his right foot again, and though it would barely move …

He looked back and he was a hundred yards from the breadline. The creature was still trotting towards the distant forest, and Zeke somehow felt different. His feet had been freed from the heavy gravity around him, and he looked beneath them and saw a road glowing red-orange, soft and warm like the creature’s fur.

Zeke saw that the glowing road ended at his toes, but a piece would be built each time he moved his foot forward, and the din of the children’s laughter got louder with every step. It was still soundless, but somehow it got louder.

Zeke walked and walked until he got to the edge of the forest. He looked back and saw that he had constructed an entire glowing pathway, and that the creature was now at his feet.

What are you? And why are you here?

The creature looked up at Zeke with glowing eyes and an unshaded face. It was a fox, and Zeke somehow understood that it was a female one. It didn’t speak, it just ran into the forest and Zeke felt that he should follow. As he did, the sound of the children’s laughter got louder and louder until …

He awoke with a spasm. It was blue-grey inside the tent, and he was alone. The front flap of the tent was wide open, and it was night outside. Brother Colm was nowhere to be seen. Zeke breathed in the cool dark air, glad to be awake. He was in a world that could hurt him now, that could wrap him in barbed wire and cook him to cinders, but Zeke was glad to be awake and alive in the real world.

/***/

Zeke and Colm walked in silence for an hour, and Colm consulted his map again. He looked up at the stars, reoriented himself and changed direction by thirty degrees. Zeke followed, and they walked through the night with nothing but desert and the sound of insects surrounding them.

Zeke’s arm didn’t hurt anymore. The patch that had been touched by the sun was now visibly darker than the rest of his body, something that Zeke hadn’t previously thought possible. He had never known anyone darker than he was, and he had never gotten any darker himself. He had always assumed that he was as dark as one could get.

But the patch on his forearm was a shade blacker now, visible even in the night.
It’s darker but it didn’t burn.
It doesn’t hurt and it’s not blistering over.

He cautioned himself against getting too excited over his survival. He knew the flare could kill him and that he was just as lucky as a man who touched a stove and got away without injury. He knew he wasn’t invincible … but he couldn’t help feeling strong.

I can’t survive the flare entirely,
but perhaps part of me can. Perhaps I’m meant to be strong in the sun, and maybe my destiny is to
—

“We’re here,” said Colm.

Colm pointed to a patch on the ground that was covering a piece of metal. Colm got down on his knees and brushed the covering off until Zeke saw a small latch. The old man tried to turn it but couldn’t. He beckoned Zeke to help him, and Zeke twisted the handle until it slid open with a sharp
clank
. Colm was clutching his back, so Zeke pulled the portal open to see darkness inside. Colm knelt again, and looked into the empty space below.

“Hello?” yelled Colm.

There was no answer. Colm yelled again, and there was only silence in response. Colm turned around, grabbed onto the edge of the hole and put his foot down into the darkness. He landed on a ladder built into the tunnel leading down, and descended three steps before looking up at Zeke.

“This isn’t the Salvation, son. We’re not there, not yet at least,” said Colm. “But you should come down, because this place isn’t bad.”

/***/

It was a bomb shelter, and it was well stocked. Colm lit a kerosene lamp hanging on the wall and then lit candles that had been placed around the room. The place was dim, but everything was visible.

The shelter was dusty and built like a long tube, with a back storage room that extended left and right, making the structure resemble a cylindrical T
.
The place was loaded with food, both canned and powdered, and had medicine, jugs of water and water-purifying pills. There were four beds at the other end of the tube, three folded up onto the wall, and one already laid down. Colm went to that bed and sat on it, his shoulders hunched over and his face blank.

“Excuse me, son,” said Colm. “I’m tired. I never realized how …
tired
I was.”

Colm lay down flat on the bed and put his head to the side. His eyes were open, unblinking and dull, and he chose not to put covers on himself before bringing his night to an early end. Colm was so still that he reminded Zeke of a catatonic mental patient, harmless but forever locked in his own body, unable to speak and unable to move.

/***/

Zeke went to bed soon thereafter. There were still many hours to go until the sunrise, but Zeke couldn’t help nodding off. There was something about the
security
of an underground bunker that made it easy to rest, and Zeke started to drift off as soon as he lay down.

Right before he closed his eyes he took another mushroom from his pocket, peeled off a sliver and put it in his mouth.

He fell asleep with the mushroom on his tongue and dreamt that he was still in the bunker, but it had a golden hue. He looked up and saw that the door to the surface was open, and the flare wasn’t hurting him. He crawled up the tunnel and found that he was in the forest, and the fox was there drinking from a nearby stream.

Zeke realized at that point that the flare might still be active, because he looked up to see a canopy so thick that it was almost completely opaque.

Zeke looked at the fox and chose not to pursue her any further. He knew that he could rest by the stream, and experienced the inner peace that comes from knowing you won’t have to worry about moving to the next place. When he looked at the fox, Zeke felt the profound satisfaction one can only have in a dream.

He awoke soon after and noticed that Colm’s bed was empty. Zeke listened carefully and heard movement from the back storage room, and when he walked in he saw Colm with a half-empty bottle of some sort of alcohol, perhaps vodka. Colm looked up to see Zeke with weary eyes, and Zeke could tell that the old man had been crying.

/***/

“We all have a role to play in the upcoming months,” said Colm. “Some of us are destined to be healers, some heroes, some soldiers for God. Some may even be villains, and that’s okay. Everyone has a role, and most people’s role is only to
die
, as is evidenced by every place we’ve seen on the journey. Death isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Extinction is bad, but death is not.

“I ask you this once again, Ezekiel,” said Colm. “What is your role?”

Zeke didn’t know.

“You have one, you know,” said Colm. “Something big.”

Zeke smiled at the notion but stopped when he saw that Colm wasn’t joking.

“You survived a worldwide
extinction
event, Ezekiel!” yelled Colm. “Do you think this is coincidence? The flood came over our land and you survived with nothing to hold on to,
nothing
! Do you think you haven’t been
chosen
to survive?”