The Queen of the Dead (11 page)

“They know who I am,” he continued, “and I can guess who will be going with me. Whatever the mission, someone will have to come back alive.”

“And then you’ll run forever?”

“I wonder what I can become. They want to see if I’m too old, or if I’ve become slower. I want to know what I’ll be like after I complete the mission. I wonder if I’ll become the untamed beast. Maybe I’ll start picking my own targets.”

“You’re not one to become predictable.”

He looked at her for a moment, and then began to speak in a confessional tone. “You’ve already read my file, or else you wouldn’t have let me break you into pieces so many times. You know I’ve read yours. This is a time for honesty, right? You know about the woman who taught me how to live. Georgia Cone. Taxpayer money couldn’t keep her in the sanitarium. Lost her son in Vietnam. She only knew he was a special operative—I figured out who he was, later on. A neighborhood woman, lonely old bat, seduced me with a plastic rifle. Told me she saw me playing outside and thought I might like the toy. She broke most of the bones in my hands and feet once. My ribs. Shoulders. Gave me blowjobs and called me Michael. Showed me video footage of Vietnam over and over again. My name was Michael for six years.

“Georgia Cone was a retired teacher, so she loved reading Shakespeare to me. Especially
Titus Andronicus
and
King Lear.
I forgot who my parents were. There was only Georgia. Ms. Cone taught me you can live only when you know how to die. You can live when you master death. We’re all killers, waiting for the excuse. It’s the fatal flaw of our species.”

Rose needed to touch him again, needed to place her hands on his shoulders and massage the tight muscles while moonlight played with the shadows on the floor of their room. Instead, she watched him stare at her body. He was poised like a gargoyle, silently vicious and invincible.

“We’re already dead,” Rose offered. “Killing ourselves with machines. Plugging ourselves in until we’re always plugged in, and the human race dissolves itself for the sake of evolution. More technology until we become the liquid network itself and find immortality, and then there will be no more need to work, because Utopia is the disintegration of the mind into eternal code.”

“Harlan Ellison wrote a story about it,” Jim mused. “We doom ourselves with prophecies because we’re ultimately predictable. What if I can show the species how to live, right before it dies?”

“I want to ask predictable questions,” she said. “I’m still a woman.”

His gaze released her and he looked away. “Questions we never asked until now, the end. A time for honesty, right?”

The questions had formed themselves in the dark. She wanted him to answer honestly, but she was willing to settle for a lie just to believe it. She’d never believed in anything until Jim showed her what she already knew. Her mind had been wiped clean of the past so she could become the monster, a superior human; she understood her responsibility to decide the fates of men by reading dossiers and getting paychecks she would never spend, save for moments of silence in remote places where she could wipe her mind with meditation and solitude.

She didn’t want him to deny her, but she needed him to say it.

She wanted to hear him say “yes.”

“Have you felt love? Do you know what it is, or remember it?”

“If the question’s predictable, then I already have an answer, don’t I?” She could feel him smirk, although it was hidden in the dark.  

“I’ll never see you again. I don’t know if I have the power to kill this memory, because you’re inside of me. You helped make me. I’m your design, your daughter, and your student. I know I’ll wonder, and I can’t. I can’t let it weaken me. Don’t say I’ll get over it. The first time a woman falls in love damages her forever.”

“And you said it,” Jim noted. “The word. The emotion.”

“I didn’t know I was going to say it.”

“More than anything else I could want, I want to kill you. I want to know if I’ll feel anything when it happens. I want to know what I’ll see in your blood. That’s the answer, the only one I can give. The only one that’s honest.”

He knew how to make her aware of her body because he was a tantric god of sensation and pleasure, and her thighs chafed now. Like the arms of an anxious cricket, her thighs rubbed themselves together, her legs moving beneath the blanket. His words entered her and played with her spine, flooding her head and lips with warmth.

“Come back for me,” she said. “I want the same thing. I didn’t know it until now, but I want it. We’ll meet on a beach at sunrise or twilight, or maybe we’ll find a thunderstorm and meet upon a plain, while a tornado haunts the roads around us. Come back for me because I can’t let anyone else try. Come back for me so I can be the one.”

“The only commitment we can make to anyone,” Jim nodded. “One of us will kill the other. You want me to promise. To swear by… the inconstant moon?”

“I read Shakespeare, too,” she sat up. “Yes. Swear it. Swear by chaos and pain, change and torture, mortality and emotion.”

“Remove my limbs and set me on fire,” he said.

“Crack open my neck and drink me while I’m still warm.”

“Listen to the tears of the innocent for the sound of my voice.”

“You’ll be back for me,” she said. “I’ll keep this memory alive so I can wait for death. I can wait for you.”

“After I come back from Egypt,” his hands traced the outline of her legs beneath the silk, “I’ll come back for you. You’re the only one who can save me.”

JACK

Comforting the weak. Stopping the speculative voices. Listening to the madness of those who’d witnessed death. Clint Eastwood nodded his head and smiled, or held people close and let them weep onto his shoulder. Soldiers stared at their guns while questioning what they’d seen. Children slept on the laps of strangers, their hair matted with blood that wasn’t theirs. The cowboy listened to those who needed someone to talk to, someone to comfort them. The cowboy wasn’t telling anyone that things would go back to normal; he never said, “It will be okay.”

Jack walked with him and listened. He felt the pangs of shame; he’d been out there spilling blood as if it was a game. These people had lost everything they had, everything they’d known. He had nothing to live for, no career, no girlfriend, and no future.

Deep down, he knew he would change his mind about everything if Jerry showed up.

You fat turd, get yer big ass going and start busting brains out their ears. You’re not worth a damn, because these fuckers have been laughing at you. Pointing and laughing because you smell and you’re fat. F-A-T.

Hundreds of people scattered on the floor.

None of the victims wanted to talk to him, or make eye contact. They focused on the cowboy; most of them were still checking their cell phones for a signal, which was the hottest topic among the survivors. Why weren’t the phones working? Were the networks jammed? If the networks were jammed, was the violence spreading everywhere?

Most of the survivors looked at the cowboy with wary glances. He might be a savage, a murderer, or a hero.

No matter how much he and his band mates used to dream about getting their revenge upon the world for committing the crime of being musically and politically ignorant puppets, his desire to inflict serious damage was gone.

There were long stretches of silence in the hangar. They shared a nightmare together, and none could believe the power it wielded over their souls. They whispered their experiences and their fears, while wondering what the future might hold. There would be rescue, of course. The government always had a plan.

Jack and the cowboy sat down after wandering through the maze of farts, sweat, and tears.

People were starting to ask about using the bathroom and finding something to eat. At some point, they would have to go back out there. A few soldiers who sat among them protested on the grounds that the base was evacuated, and by now, the dead things ruled the base.

“Wonder how long we’re gonna wait here,” Jack tried to make small talk, just to remind himself he was still alive.

“Don’t hear those things banging on the doors,” Clint Eastwood said. “We’ll leave when we’re ready to move on, when we’ve figured it out. It don’t matter what I said earlier—someone will step up and start making decisions nobody will like.”

Exhaustion was setting in. The total adrenaline crash and the emotional letdown. The party was over and someone had to pick up the pieces, but who?

“I didn’t know if you were one of them,” Clint Eastwood said.

“What?”

“Out there. I didn’t know you were alive. Your movements weren’t as jerky. That’s how I figured it out. Right out of the corner of my eye. I took a chance.”

Jack bowed his head, his cheeks growing warm from the embarrassment. He’d looked like nothing more than a hungry corpse, attacking everything in sight.

“What’re you worried about?” the cowboy asked.

“I’m just thinking. You did everything. I don’t know…” he couldn’t finish his sentence. His hands were shaking.

“Guilt,” the cowboy said. “Survivor’s guilt.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Jack couldn’t look at him. He chewed his bottom lip and stared at his feet.

“You’re right and you’re wrong. When things go wrong, people want someone to blame, and someone to save them. They expect a superhero to throw money at their feet and bail them out, someone with all the answers.”

Jack sat down and crossed his legs beneath him. It was his turn. He was the last to hear these words, and they were meant for him alone.

“I’m homeless,” the cowboy said. “Was a philosophy professor about twenty years ago. Worked at U of M. I cracked. I didn’t know how to deal with knowledge. I was suicidal. I’ve had some odd jobs, spent some time sleeping in tunnels, in shelters, and in garbage. Slept in an asylum. I needed the disconnect. I appreciate life because I know what it’s like to live.”

He continued. “All these things you see and feel make you want to live. You have to decide. But I didn’t have to decide. I really am a cowboy, you see. The American knight in shining armor. I don’t look real because people don’t want me to be real, unless they need me.”

Clint Eastwood sat next to him and sighed. Both men listened to people in the hangar cough and talk.

“We’re already living in tomorrow,” the cowboy said as if discovering something new. “The sun always rises and it doesn’t care what we think or how we live. I think that’s amazing. Something so important to us, something that sustains us; our mother, the sun. Watches over us. Defeats the dark. Reveals truths. It’s just a thing we don’t think about. Like the air we breathe.”

The cowboy provided the comfort of a voice that didn’t want to berate or command, a voice that was so human that Jack realized he’d never understood what being a man was.

“Do you know why these people came here? To the base?” the cowboy asked. “They were desperate for hope. Nobody knows what hope is, but they know they want it. They crave it. It’s like falling in love for the first time. Time stops. We want that feeling every day.”

Jack had no idea what he was talking about. He thought he knew what love was, but he knew it was confused with his sense of loyalty. Jerry was all he needed.

Living in Jerry’s shadow provides this snapshot of life: jerk off and play video games. Smoke weed and pretend to look for a job. Hit the drum kit and play the beats Jerry wanted him to play; play different beats when Jerry wasn’t around. Listen to music he really didn’t like. Hang out in clubs and watch his brother say awful things to women. Spitting in their faces. Knocking drinks out of their hands.

“What do we do now?” Jack asked.

The cowboy smiled. “What we do every day. We struggle. We breathe.”

Jack watched a little boy rest his head on a soldier’s thigh. There were streaks through the dried blood on his face where he’d cried. The soldier rubbed the kid’s back, hardly aware of what he was doing, staring at the ceiling and wondering why he failed.

“Every day we’re waiting to die,” Jack said. “My brother used to say that. I didn’t know what it meant. All I know is, I never wanted to hurt anybody. Not really. I’m not a mean guy. I’m not a bad person, y’know? I play the drums, but I’m not a killer. I’m not mad… not really… just…”

His eyes blurred with fresh tears. He tried to watch his hands shake.

***

Maybe he could sit and dream; everything would go away. He’d be back in his basement beneath a cloud of marijuana smoke, waiting for Jerry to hand the joint to him, even though his lungs were on fire and he didn’t want to smoke. He would hear Beanie laughing while oiling his katana. Upstairs, Mom would be sitting on the couch watching a re-run of a reality show while dirty dishes waited in the sink; dishes from a year ago, a feast for flies. Before Dad succumbed to lung cancer, Mom used to drive them to school every day; buy them clothes, make dinner, work a full-time job at a bakery. Her depression had earned the right to disability benefits and years of convalescence.

And now the worst memory of them all.

Running upstairs when Jerry and Beanie finally showed up. He’d been waiting ever since the riots started in Detroit; waiting for his brother’s reaction. They gathered in the kitchen while Mom stood over the sink, scrubbing away at the grime. The television in the living room played an episode of
Survivor
as if nothing could be going wrong.

Jerry rambled on about destiny. He thought about their “chance” to get back at the scum-suckers who beat them down. Jack watched their mother scrub away with a smile on her face. For the first time in years, he thought she might respond if he asked what was bothering her.

The band descended into the basement and watched the Detroit riots on TV. Jack wanted to ask questions, but he knew better than to look like a coward to Jerry; it would just piss him off. Beanie swung his sword around the basement while Jerry paced, speaking with broad hand gestures and spittle flying from his lips.