***
After patrolling the few tunnels I already knew quite well and finding them devoid of souls, we moved out into fresh territory, working our way outward and upward. The passages were the quietest I had ever known them. Barely a rumble disturbed the silence. It felt like the calm before a storm.
Bern and Lille might have only been after Isobel, but I couldn’t help worry about Karla too. Despite all her supposed toughness and scheming and skillful surfing, I could how she might still get overwhelmed by stuff beyond her control.
Even the best of surfers got wiped out now and then by a rogue wave. I mean, it had happened to me when I had backslid, not that I’m saying I’m much of a surfer. But why couldn’t it happen to her? I couldn’t imagine the storm going on in her brain with all those competing tensions. I understood Isobel taking priority. Was it vain, though, thinking Karla might care for me as much as I cared about her?
The image of Karla trapped and helpless in a pod disturbed me immensely, even though I had sought that fate for myself. It got me churning down those tunnels. Bern and Lille could barely keep up.
“Remember,” said Lille, calling out to me. “In case we get separated. Never go left going down.”
“I thought you said never go right.”
“That’s going up. Down is different.”
“So what if I did go left? What would I find?”
“Forget about it. You don’t want to know. It’s too horrible.”
We finally came across our first pod—a singlet in a line of freshly chewed off stalks. I couldn’t tell if it was newly appeared or simply passed over by a Reaper who had had its fill and was saving it for later.
I stood beneath it and tried to make out the shape of its occupant through the mesh, but the gaps were too tight.
“Isobel? Karla?”
There was no response.
As Bern and Lille hurried to catch up with me, I extended my arm and pictured a can of night crawlers being dumped on the ground. That image did the trick and then some. The pod exploded, and its individual strands wriggled off in all directions. The occupant, a bearded young man, landed hard on the tunnel floor.
“Oh my,” said Lille.
“That’s the ticket, boy. Think like a root.”
The young man lay there, trembling, his eyes fearful.
“Are you alright?”
He said nothing. He picked himself up, turned away from us and strode off down the tunnel towards the far off grumbling of the Reapers.
“No! You don’t want to go that way.”
He threw a quick glance back at me and picked up his pace, disappeared around a bend in the tunnel.
“Then again, maybe he does,” said Bern.
“Let him go,” said Lille. “Some souls … are simply beyond charity. It’s a sad truth.”
We doubled back to a connector that attached to a parallel tunnel system. The next passage was empty, devoid even of nubs, but a foul smell and a trail of loose, whitish ooze like snake feces was smeared along the walls. A Reaper had come through recently.
I pried my fingers into a seam in the wall and pushed through the matrix, hoping to locate a more fruitful tunnel. The matrix was thicker and broader than any I had crossed before.
Bern pinched his fingers around a root and made it glow a bright salmon pink. “Be sure and mark your trail son. Every tunnel you cross. Make sure you can find your way back to us.”
As I pushed through the next wall, I could see that I had hit the jackpot.
We had reached the Times Square of tunnels: broad and garishly lit, with lights like stock tickers shuttling down its length. Pods packed the ceiling, making it difficult to walk through without bumping one’s head.
Even Bern and Lille were impressed once they caught up with me.
“Oh my Lord,” said Lille.
“Son … we can’t possibly open every pod. It’s a needle in a haystack proposition. Not to mention, it will drive the Reapers into a frenzy to have so many souls wandering free.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “These people deserve a chance … to reconsider their choices, at least.
Bern leaned heavily on his cane, his face pained. “I’m afraid I can’t go much further in my condition. The aches in my legs … they’re simply too much to bear.”
Lille looked at him, worry creasing her brow. “I’m sorry, James. But I’d better get him back to the cabin. We’ve got more mending to do.”
“Not a problem,” I said. “I can handle this on my own.”
“Well, don’t stray too far afield,” she said.
“And remember to mark your trails,” said Bern as Lille helped him back into the seam. “We’re expecting you for dinner, if not tea time.”
I touched a strand and made it glow the angry orange-red of an iron rod in a smithy’s forge, ready to be hammered into a sword.
“I’m not stopping till I find them,” I whispered to myself.
***
I must have opened a dozen pods of uniformly ungrateful souls before I realized it was not worth the trouble. I found that most souls who make it to Root are strongly committed to their fate. Those who wavered, who could swayed to explore other possibilities—Weavers—were an even rarer breed than I had thought.
So many of them looked drugged—all blank-faced and devoid of will. Some simply curled up in fetal balls beneath their busted open pods and refused to move. One man, all calm, sat in a lotus position, turned his palms up and hummed a kōan.
“A monk asked Ummon: `What is Buddha?' Ummon answered him: `Dried dung.’”
“What the fuck?”
He smiled and winked at me.
“Do you realize what’s going to happen to you if you just sit there?”
“It’s all good,” said the guy. “Lightning flashes. Sparks shower. In one blink of your eyes, you have missed seeing.”
“Good luck fool,” I said, moving on.
I altered my tactic after that, just opening windows into pods, just wide enough to see who was inside. I released only those who showed any semblance of spunk or initiative, any distress or curiosity about what lay beyond their pods. Souls like these turned out to be very scarce, indeed. Who knew? Maybe some of them would go on to be Weavers.
Most of the windows I opened revealed only husks of humanity, long stripped of any life force they might have once had. Even for these lost causes I left behind an opportunity for redemption—a patch of loosened strands that they could readily escape through if the notion inspired them. Not that any did, while I was there. But even the most hopeless deserved a second chance.
I stubbed my toe on something hard, reached down and picked up a hammer. There was so much junk in these tunnels, not trash per se, but useful things, things people might actually miss Things like mismatched socks, sunglasses, car keys, passports, you name it. I got a cell phone to power up, but wouldn’t you know it—no bars. It would have really been something if I picked up a signal, except who would I call?
I wondered if there was any way any of this stuff could be brought back to the other side. I kept my eyes peeled for a side arm. That would sure come back in Inverness Station when I faded, not to mention here, against the Reapers. But who would ever lose track of a handgun? That’s the kind of thing that you remember where you put it.
When I tired of all the ingrates in the pods, I went behind the walls and opened up a little niche in the roots, kind of like the beds that deer tamp down for themselves in the tall weeds. I laid back and wondered how long I had left in this existence and what, if anything, would come next.
After marking my little encampment with some red strands, I pushed through the roots over to the next tunnel system. I broke out into soft purple glow in a dusty and bristly tunnel. The pod stalks here were all shriveled and desiccated. It looked like no Reapers had been through this one in years.
The purple led me, though, to a crossing that was another story altogether. The walls were slick with slime. It was a Rea
per superhighway that led to a complex branching that was like the central nexus of an umbrella.
On a whim, I walked away from the branching, even though it rose to the right. Lille and Bern had told me never to do such a thing, but the tunnels were quiet, and I felt like I had to do my due diligence.
The tunnel was wide and dull here, and thick with the smell of Reapers. I tore off a root and turned it into a glow stick to light my way. There were no pods anywhere, not even traces, but I continued on, drawn by the queer buzzing I could hear emanating down the other end.
The buzzing resolved into a cacophony of snuffling and rasping as I got closer to an opening into what seemed to be a cavern of mammoth proportions. I landed my footfalls as softly as I could. As I came to the opening, sound grew louder and the vastness of the space consumed what little light my glow stick could produce.
So I made it glow brighter, only to gasp at what I had gotten myself into. The floor of the chamber was undulant with mounds, each wave a slumbering Reaper, which apparently formed themselves into perfect globules of blubber in their relaxed state. They were like lumps of yeasty dough, deformed only by gravity, devoid of all appendages and armor. An orifice, like a blow hole of a whale, opened at the top of every mound, and they sneezed out puffs of spray with every snorting breath.
Man, if I had a blade or a grenade about now, what carnage I could reap. But to what end? They were part of the circle of life, no? My charity towards them might be limited, though, if I knew for sure my friends were on their lunch menu.
I just stood there with my glow stick all helpless and mesmerized, watching their bodies heave in delayed synchrony, originating at the center and spreading to the fringes where the smaller of the Reapers had been delegated. Some of the largest even had babies snuggled up to them. I shuddered to think of how they were fed.
There was a ring of openings all around the periphery and when I looked up, I could not find a ceiling. The blackness just seemed to go up and up forever.
The smell was starting to get to me. I started to back away when I spotted something move in one of the other tunnel openings across the way. It hung back cautiously in the shadows before stepping out onto the rim.
I amped up my glow stick. Another soul stood there, staring back at me, lithe and lean, clothed in leggings and a loose shift. Shocks of jet, black hair frizzed out in all directions, with one flap combed low over her left eye.
Karla.
Chapter 45: Awakening
Karla stood at the brink of the pit, her eyes wide with alarm. She tried to signal me with this quick, waving motion, but I was caught up in the thrill of seeing her and couldn’t understand what she was trying to convey. She pointed at me, mouthed a no, and slashed her finger across her throat.
I raised my palms. “What are you saying?” I said, in a half shout, half whisper.
She waved me off and shook her head, before ducking into a tunnel, out of sight.
“No! Karla! Don’t leave!” My heart did a loop de loop.
I retreated from the brink of the pit and hurled myself into the tunnel wall, ripping into the matrix, practically swimming through the roots. They fought with me, almost as if they sensed my desperation and it inspired them to thwart me. They hooked around my neck and coiled around my arm.
My frustration exploded. I obliterated all that touched me with a shrug that made them droop and melt like candle wax.
I pressed forward, bursting out into the next tunnel, crossing it in a single bound and knifing into the opposite wall.
The matrix of roots, was denser here, and again I found my path resisted. Across this jungle, through the gaps I could see whole sheaths and towers of root cleaving and falling. I caught a glimpse of Karla, struggling to get through. When she spotted me, I feared she would reverse her course and slip away.
She diverted her path. But she didn’t flee. She came straight to me.
I just stood there, agape, as she slammed into me, her body melting into mine. She dug her chin into my chest, and draped her arms around my back. I held her close to me, kneading my fingers in her hair.
The moment felt so surreal. It seemed impossible. I shuddered and started to quake. What was happening? My tears broke out in big, heaving sobs.
Karla stayed calm, sinking deeper into me, the two of us congealing into one.
“Karla … I don’t understand … in Inverness, you said—”
“It was the only way,” she said. “The only way for us to be together.”
“You … planned this? You knew you would find me here?”
She looked down. “I did not know for sure, but I had a hope ... and I dashed its brains out. It was the only way … that we could be … together.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that was what you were doing?”
She scrunched her nose. “Then it wouldn’t have worked. Only accepting the worst, possible case makes it work. I told you. That is what we call the surfing. Riding the storm. You need a strong mind to stay free in Root. To escape the bad things … not just here, but on the other side.”
She tilted her head and looked up at me. “You still don’t get it, do you?” She sighed deeply and patted my shoulder. “But maybe you are learning, because I see at least you are not in a pod.”
Something very large coughed and rustled in the pit. It sounded very close, despite the tunnel walls and layers of root that separated us.
“Did you hear that? That one is restless. What were you thinking, shouting to me? And that light you carried. It was far too bright. You were standing by a nest of Reapers. What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know. I saw you and … I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to lose you … again.”
“Lose me? What you think, I would run away?”
“Well … yeah. I—”
“Stupid boy. You don’t know anything. And you learn so slow.”
She pulled free of my embrace, her eyes grim and determined. She had yet to shed a single tear, and yet I was a total gloppy mess. “Come. We need to find Isobel. She is here. I am sure of it.”
***
We waited for the Reapers to settle back into their snuffling slumber. Karla grabbed my hand and yanked me back towards the ragged hole she had ripped in the tunnel wall. Free roots waved across the tear like the antennae of wary cockroaches, knitting together when they touched. She ripped through them again with a slash of her hand and we passed into the lumen.
“How do you know she’s here … Isobel?”
Karla studied the pattern of nubs on the roof of the tunnel.
“You think by now I don’t know the look of someone who is destined for Root? Believe me, I know this when I see it. The total surrender. The dark relief of giving up. You should know, too, the wall that goes up between the mind and the senses.”
She turned and laid her hands on the opposite wall, working her fingers between the tightly packed roots.
“And besides … I find the pills she has collected … under her mattress. And I saw that she takes some. Not enough, I don’t think, thank God she doesn’t know yet how much it takes to die.”
I tried to imagine what it was like for Karla to have a sister going through this crap. I never had a sibling, so I didn’t know what that whole deal was like, but I would never wish Root on anyone. It was a refuge only for the most desperate of souls. At least Isobel had someone looking out for her here. Unless, it was already too late.
We crossed the interspaces to the next tunnel, whose surfaces were slick and bare and just as devoid of pods as the others this close to the Reapers’ lair.
“Maybe we’re better off up-tunnel?” I said.
“We check here, first,” said Karla. “We must, just in case. Pods will be made even this close to the Reaper’s nest, but they do not last very long. We would have less time to save Isobel if she came to this place.”
We wrestled our way through to yet another tunnel. The roots in this particularly matrix were extra orne
ry. Weird, how each patch seemed to have its own disposition and personality. Maybe the proximity of the Reapers was making this batch cocky. I missed dealing with the more passive, compliant roots we knew from the ‘Burg.
Again, the tunnel was stripped of pods.
“Karla. I think they’re all gonna be this way down here.”
“We do not know this for sure.”
“It’s pretty clear to me. Every single one so far—“
“We will check them all!” she snapped. “This is my sister we are talking about.”
I hushed up, and went through the motions with her as we worked our way farther and farther around the ring of tunnels. Karla would not be satisfied until we had made the complete circuit.
She took my hand and squeezed it when I wasn’t expecting. That little act sent chills down my back. She looked at me funny.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just … thank you,” she said. “I am so glad that you are here ... with me. That I do not have to do this alone.”
Ripples roiled my stomach. “Um … there’s something I should have told you. I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but … I got issues on the other side.”
She looked at me perplexed. “Issues? What you mean, issues?”
“Remember those drug dealers I got messed up with? I think they tracked me down at Inverness Station and I ... uh … I think there’s a bounty on my head.”
“Bounty?”
“Yeah. You know, money for bringing me in? So I’m just saying … don’t be surprised if I blink out.”
“Blink out? You mean … die?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying.”
“You go to a train station to come to Root? Are you crazy? It should be for private.”
“I didn’t know I was gonna come here. I was just trying to get out of Inverness. And I saw him, but I wasn’t sure that’s who he was. I’m still not sure. Just … don’t be surprised if something happens to me.”
“What do you think they will do to you?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “But I guarantee they’re not happy.”
“Why didn’t you run?”
“I was going under just as I realized what was going on. I couldn’t get away.”
She sighed and glanced away, her brow all crinkly. She wouldn’t let go of my hand.
“I’m sorry, Karla.”