02, p.18
02, page 18
He took a drink and looked at his wrists by the orange light of the firepit: nor was he shackled, nor fettered in any way. Nor was he bound.
He listened as Fiona cried and Marigold grunted her hurt and frustration.
Szambelan, he thought, draining his glass completely, Why have you forsaken me?
But then Szambelan was there, in the flesh and fur. Then he was standing by the birdcage and staring back—all 7 to 8 feet of him. Staring with his multitude of eyes and his white-furred ram’s head; his spiked, deformed shoulders—which also had eyes; his sinewy arms. Rise and kneel before me, Leif of the Burn and the Blaze, and of the Inferno. Kneel before your savior and your god.
And he did, stumblingly, drunkenly, collapsing at the demon’s feet, rising to his knees even as Szambelan placed a clawed hand on his head and reality itself seemed to melt and become warped, to bleed at the edges, to shimmer and undulate, like a mirage. At which Szambelan vanished into green smoke and he was suddenly alone, suddenly sober, even as the darkling parrots fluttered free of their cage—which had itself melted and become warped—and promptly took wing, promptly disappeared. Even as Fiona fell silent and so did her mother and she appeared shortly after with the baby in her arms—just rocking it gently, her face round and glowing. As Severinsen appeared behind her and crossed himself.
At which Leif only stood, feeling like a new man, feeling completely invigorated, and said, “Indeed, now we will have our celebration—our observance of Burn’s End. Tell Kent to make it happen. But first,” His tone became cold, serpentine. “Bring me Hooper.”
When Nick was finally up and about—after no less than three days in and out of sleep—the first thing he did was to corral Lisa in the RV’s cramped kitchenette and tell her that they had to go, now, just disconnect the truck and leave, and get to Los Angeles —which didn’t go over so well, especially considering she hadn’t even had her first cup of coffee.
“Are you fucking insane? Seriously? Wake up on the crazy side of the bed today, much?”
“Listen, I know it sounds—well, yeah, insane—but I’m telling you; you don’t know what I’ve seen, what I’ve experienced. What I know now. We have to go, and we have to go right now, do you understand?”
She tore away from him and burst out the door, began walking down the beach.
“Lisa—Lisa!”
He caught up to her and turned her around even as the wind surged all around them in a gale. “Okay: okay, okay, so—I’m crazy, fine. Whatever you like,” He held up his freshly-bandaged hand. “But this isn’t crazy, Lisa. This is as real as you or me, or, or Puck. And I’m telling you right now ... we have a chance to fix this, this thing. This Flashback.” He gestured expansively, “This whole fucking thing; this apocalypse, this Big Empty. We go to California—and if we succeed—well, guess what? It all goes away; every last stinking bit of it: the dinosaurs, the lawlessness, the lack of medical care—the hopelessness—all gone, just wiped clean. Just erased from the sands of time, like the untold billions lost in the Flashback, who, by the way, will all be alive again, just as alive as you or me.” He stepped closer and gripped her shoulders, firmly, gently. “We’ll be alive again, and not just surviving, not just—what? What is it?”
And she backed away from him: dizzily, it seemed, horrified.
“I take it you haven’t exactly thought this all the way through,” she said, still seeming to reel, then gathered herself. “Okay; so just say it was possible—I mean, it isn’t, but just say it was—say the time-storm was reversible ... well, what would happen to us? I mean, us now, right here, talking on this beautiful beach ... where would we go?”
He thought about it, the wind buffeting his hair. “We’d ... we’d cease to exist, I suppose. Just sort of fade away to nothing.” He brightened as though he’d just thought of something. “But we’d rematerialize in the past; before the Flashback ever even happened, before ...” He trailed off as though lost in thought.
“It’s still a kind of death, Nick. A kind of total annihilation.” She plopped down and looked out at the sea. “Would you really wish that on anyone? On a child born after the Flashback, say? My God, Nick, it’s been seven years. Doesn’t that child deserve some kind of shot at life, too?”
He looked down at her soberingly, then sat down next to her in the sand.
“Well, what about all the seven-year-olds lost in the Flashback? Or, for that matter, all those born just before? Or still in the womb?” He put his arm around her and gazed out over the ocean. “That’s what happens when someone,” He glanced at the lights in the sky, “something, decides to play God. Others have to play God, too.”
And then neither of them said anything more but just looked at the sea and the lightening clouds—at the sun which was starting to come out—at the pterodactyls swooping and diving for fish.
Father Severinsen tapped the mic, cleared his throat.
“And so, my children, my, ah, my former children of the dark,” he said. “Here we are: gathered on the Fountain Plaza as we did in the days of old ... gathered in the name of the Father, the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and in peace. Let’s start by giving ourselves a round of applause, shall we? For having come so far and in so little time; and for having the courage of our convictions to pick ourselves up from where we once stood so sinful and proud and begin anew, begin like lambs! And for commemorating, at last, Burn’s End. The day we finally ended the Burn and all the destruction it had caused and accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.”
At which everyone whistled and applauded—it would have been rude not to—but the truth of it was it was spiritless and subdued compared to gatherings of the past.
“Now I know who you really want to hear from; I know, I know, and I promise you I will give him the floor momentarily, so fear not. But first, first—in honor of and gratitude for the child Fiona’s miraculous recovery—I’d like to lead us all in a final prayer; so that it may not be said that we were in any way indifferent to His Grace.” He looked out over the crowd. “Are you ready? Let us begin. My dear Lord Jesus, I come to you now to be restored in you, renewed in you, and to receive from you ...”
But Leif wasn’t listening, having found himself drawn to the waterfall mirror nearby even as the lights changed from green to blue and he saw in it—somehow—the encampment in Montana; a camp which was being presided over by three great ships even as its people tried to escape and a ring of flames ignited around its perimeter set by Hooper himself—who watched from atop a fuel truck as the inhabitants huddled in clusters and the ships loosed their fire, loosed death. Who watched indifferently as they were burned alive and curled in upon themselves and turned to smoke and ash—until he himself was set upon by the youths who were with him and beaten and stabbed until he fell dead upon the ground.
“I honor you as my Sovereign, and I surrender every aspect and dimension of my life totally and completely to you. I give to you my spirit, soul, and body, my heart, mind, and will. I cover myself with your blood ...”
Leif looked on as the water rolled down the mirror and the lights changed from blue to yellow; saw Hooper’s men in the guest ward even as the doors were kicked in and open barrels rolled in, put to the match. As they struggled and danced and finally succumbed—writhing like snakes, melting like paste. As a darkling parrot looked on and twitched and blinked its firelit eyes.
“Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me and choosing me before you made the world. For you are indeed my one true Father—my creator, redeemer and sustainer, and the true end of all things, including my life. I love you, I trust you, and I worship you. I give myself over to you fully ...”
As Kent went into a trance while watching from the sky patio and began climbing over the rail—even as another red and black parrot presided—and finally leapt from the top of the tower like a dove, like a blind hatchling, tumbling and cartwheeling his arms as he fell, smashing into the pavement like a cantaloupe full of gore.
“I renounce all other gods, every idol, and I give to you the place in my heart and in my life that you truly deserve. This is all about you, God, and not about me; you are the Hero of this story, and I belong to you. I ask your forgiveness for my every—”
And then Severinsen was choking and gagging and coughing up blood even as Leif jerked the shard and viciously rent his bowels; as he pulled him against himself in order to seat the glass deeper and the man gasped and died and fell sprawling at his feet.
As a silence settled upon the Plaza like a shroud and Leif at last approached the mic.
“And then there were no more to resist us; none to sway us from our path, no one to make of us lambs for the slaughter; and lo, we did what we will. For we have a new, dangerous enemy in the west—one we must burn as we burn everything; one we must devour like wolves in the night.” He paused and gazed out at the crowd. “And it will be, it will be, for we have a bold new patron to support us ...” He looked at the bodies of Kent and Father Severinsen. “—for which these two corpses shall be an offering.”
And then he raised his arms high and wide, still gripping the shard, and shouted, “Blood and souls for the Burning! Blood and souls for Szambelan!”
And everyone cried at once: “SALUD!” —even as the lights turned red and he looked into the watery mirror; and thought he saw, for the briefest of moments, a bent, winged, ill-formed thing—a broken, pitiful thing, really—which stood in the place of himself.
Miles knew only one thing as they looked on from the Hollywood Freeway in Hollywood Dell, between the Capitol Records building and the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre, and that was that this was it—the place they’d been summoned to; the place where they’d find the Garden of Oz. Right here, beneath the Hollywood sign itself and the sheltering sky—the green and brown California hills—the thin and absurdly tall palms. This was where they were supposed to be; the center of gravity, the middle of the labyrinth.
“It feels sort of weird,” he said, “—actually being here, I mean. Like something from a dream ... or a movie. I can’t quite figure it.”
“Yeah,” said Quint. “It’s like that scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind where they see Devil’s Tower for the first time and feel all, like, I don’t know, mystical and shit.”
Jesse only looked at him. “Has anyone ever told you that you watch too much fucking TV?”
And then they heard a sound—two sounds, actually, as distinct from one another as apples and oranges: the familiar clip clop of a horse’s hooves, and the instantly-recognizable sputter of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle—both of them coming on briskly; both of them almost there.
“What’s this?” said Quint, but the truth of it was that he—they—already knew. It was more dreamers, of course. Just more regular people summoned to this particular place as if by white magic—more soldiers for the cause. More Children of the Vision.
Just two rather interesting figures who dismounted their steeds and approached like old friends, like comrades, one of them dressed like a biker and the other, well, the other like an Indian brave.
Nor was that all, for a helicopter was rapidly coming on as well, a helicopter which glinted blue in the sun even as its pilot seemed to notice them and promptly set the thing down—right there on the freeway. As two men climbed out and walked toward them and the heated air shimmered, beyond which still more horses could be seen—horses, and what Miles could have sworn was the glint of armor.
And he smiled because he knew that still others were coming also, coming even as they stood there, as they greeted each other and shook each other’s hands. As they talked about the vision and everyone turned to face the Hollywood sign, and the sun slowly set in the west—making everything beautiful. Turning everything gold.
THE WAR-TORN HILLS OF EARTH
It had all come down to this, thought Sammy; this, well, whatever it was—this nondescript black and yellow gate in a nondescript neighborhood near Lake Hollywood Park. This lazed-open wrought iron door with golden fog filtering through (the same weird fog that had rolled in as they approached from the Hollywood Freeway) and a heart-shaped placard secured to it which read, simply, Welcome to the Garden of Oz (and Magic Labyrinth).
“This is it,” said Miles from the back of Satanta’s blue roan—which snorted and flicked its tail. “This is the place. Oz. Home.”
He dismounted and approached the gate. “My house is just around the corner.”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Sammy used his feet to move his quieted Harley up alongside him. “Are you telling me that you used to live here?”
Miles nodded. “Uh-huh. Right next to the garden. My—my bedroom opened directly out onto it. So did my parents’ room.”
Quint and Jesse just looked at each other from the backs of their respective horses.
“And I need to know if they’re okay. So, if you don’t mind,” He walked through the gate briskly. “Let’s get this show on the—”
“Hey, wait a minute, kid—!”
And Miles was repelled: just whisked off his feet and thrown backward—as if by an invisible force—just knocked halfway across the street even as a blue barrier shimmered briefly and electricity crackled.
“Miles!” Quint and Jesse piled off their horses and scrambled toward him; slapped his face, sat him up—found him shaken but otherwise okay. “Jesus,” said Quint. “I mean—what in the hell was that?”
Sammy looked over at Satanta and Galaren—both of whom appeared grave—then reached into his breast pocket and took out a box of Marlboro Reds. “Well,” he said. He shook the remaining cigarettes out and slid them into his pocket. “I’d say that what we have here is ...” He tossed the box through the gate and it was repelled in a shower of sparks, even as the blue wall reappeared. “—some kind of force field.” He gazed beyond the treetops and powerlines as the blue barrier faded. “A dome, to be exact. A big one.”
“Gramercy,” cursed Galaren, fighting to keep his horse steady. “Witchcraft!”
“Well, now what?” said one of his knights. “Have we come all this distance just to be shut out?” He cupped the mouth-grill of his helm. “What, ho! Whoever—whatever thou art: Pray thee, open this door!”
Satanta glanced around—at the hazy, fortress-like adobe house across the street and up and down Ledgerwood Drive, which was choked in mist. “An ancestor of mine once said: when you see a new trail or a footprint you do not know, follow it to the point of knowing.” He took a deep breath. “I say we wait. If anyone needs something to do, they can map the perimeter.” He looked at Sammy and Galaren. “Patience—is what I’m saying. The situation could be, shall we say, more acute.”
And then there was a grumbling and a groaning—and a kind of snarling—as something shifted in the golden mist. Something elephantine, inelegant, massive. Something that was rapidly drawing near.
“It’s more acute,” said Sammy, even as he unshouldered his rifle and the knights drew their broadswords. As Quint raised the Magnum and Miles and Jesse brandished their wooden spears.
As the snarl became a rumble which became a thunder which became a roar—and the fog glowed white and red until two great lights coalesced abruptly and a massive machine materialized—and promptly slowed; its engine winding down, its brakes hissing. Until it had ground to a complete halt and they were all facing each other; after which a hatch popped open and a man appeared, who called down to them, “You have no quarrel with us, Dreamers of the Dream. Nor we, with you. We are all in this together.”
Which of course would have gone over better if the .50 caliber machine gun (which was mounted directly beside him) hadn’t whirred about suddenly and aimed directly at them; no, not at them, Sammy realized, at it. The thing now standing in the doorway. The 8-foot-tall thing that was neither fully human nor (prehistoric) beast—nor even nub-horned demon—but rather an unlikely hybrid of all three. The creature, he suspected, that had been at the very center of the vision.
“Fucking Livingston, I presume,” he said, marveling, and spat.
∆My apologies for the mist; and for the shield, but they were—they are—completely necessary, as you will see.∆ The creature shook its head. ∆Alas, there is no time. Miles, Quint, Jesse, come with me. As for the rest of you: guard this door, this place, this garden—with your lives. And mind the sky. Because something is about to happen. And when it does—you must know what to do.∆
Sammy dismounted his bike and stepped forward. “What? What’s about to happen?”
∆For you, Sam of Zemlja; of Dharatee, and of Earth—nothing, or very little. For others, Everything.∆
After which Sammy could just look on—disoriented, confused—as both the kids and the creature vanished into the mist, into the maze.
Leif didn’t know how long they’d been there (‘there’ being the crossroads of Interstate 15 and State Highway 58, just outside Barstow—as a strange, gold fog rolled in), maybe five minutes, maybe an hour. All he knew for certain was that nobody had done much of anything yet; not he and his people (with all their idling, tricked-out Hondas and trunks full of fuel for the fire), and not them; with their pickups and chromed exhaust-stacks and blue Tucker flags drooped in the gloom. All he knew for certain was that no one had yet made their move—not since they’d faced off like mechanized infantries (although at a reasonably safe distance of approximately 100 meters); and also that his people were growing increasingly impatient, increasingly belligerent—revving their engines, blasting their stereos—which meant he needed to get them focused, needed to dial them in. Needed to kindle and fan the flames so that when the time finally came, they could burn.
