The Irreversible Reckoning

  ***

  Like Shadows, we crept through the backyards of our neighbors, keeping away from even the dimmest of lights, be they from the embers of dying bonfires, torches on back porches burning low as their owners went to sleep, or even the flicker of the match that one man was using to light a cigarette. Everywhere we went, his people could have been watching. Every person around us might have been one of his spies. We ducked under decks, dove through bushes, and even waded through the man-made bird pond in one woman’s garden, all just to avoid being seen by the light. Back at Eli’s house, we had kept the lights on until about midnight, and then we had gone through the house as though we were going about our bedtime routines: we clicked lights on in the bathrooms, ran the water, flushed the toilets, turned the lights off, clicked on the lights in the bedrooms, got changed and into bed right in front of the windows, and then turned off the lights. Don’s people were about as subtle as door-to-door Bible salesmen; we saw two skulking just at the end of the street, in someone’s bushes, and we saw another leaning against the side of the house across from Eli’s. I made a mental note to tell Eli that his adjacent neighbor was more than likely working for Don, though I had no proof; perhaps the family that lived there didn’t know that Don’s henchman were using their house as a home-base for their surveillance of Eli and me. We had to assume that there were others around the back of the house, so when we changed into our all-black clothes, we snuck out through a tiny window in the side of Eli’s house where the moon’s light didn’t hit until early morning. Trust me, for two pretty muscular dudes, it was quite a feat, squeezing through that window without making any noise.

  When we made it to the morgue, we both piped up our hearing, listening for the sounds of footsteps or breathing either close by or far off. Our enhanced vision showed no signs of movement or any shadowed, human-shaped figures skulking in the dark. It was our last night to solve this, and we couldn’t get caught or killed now. Not when we were so close to proving that Don’s allegiances had changed, that he was no longer playing by his old rules.

  Once we were inside (and getting inside was as easy as squeezing through another tiny window, so not easy at all), we crept through the dark hallways that reeked of rotting bodies. Eli pulled his shirt up over his nose, and though I tried to tough it out, the smell became unbearable the closer we got to the storage rooms. They were kept cold but still, the smell of death pervaded every inch of that building. I worried about the mortician, who was exactly what you would expect of a mortician: pale, dark-eyed, deathly-looking. I worried about anyone who could tolerate that smell for so long.

  The bodies of the attackers (or whatever was left of them) would be either in a storage room or inside the crematorium. The crematorium was where those who had committed terrible crimes were burned so that they would not be given the honor of a burning or burial ceremony. Considering the fact that Don found very few things to be terrible crimes, the crematorium was rarely used. But he would not be able to talk these men up enough to get them a burial or burning ceremony, not when so many of our people had died, not when so many people had lost family members and friends. No one would suffer the sight of those murderers being honored that way.

  “It’s been slow around here,” Eli whispered as we walked in and out of the storage rooms to find them empty.

  “Well, all the burning and burial ceremonies were yesterday. God, I can still smell how they smelled.”

  “I know. Like burnt popcorn.”

  I punched him hard in the arm.

  “Dude!” I whispered, “That is so insensitive!”

  “What?!” He exclaimed, “You brought up the smell! I was just agreeing with you!”

  “It’s still insensitive!”

  “Well, gee, sorry! Sorry, dead people. Sorry, Quinn!”

  “Fuck you, dude. Let’s go to the crematorium.”

  We crept down the hallway, and there behind the door, I could see the light from the furnace glowing. They always kept the furnace burning because it was the only source of heat in the building, so when we pushed open the door, we found that the room was bathed in an eerie orange glow. The door to the furnace was closed, and the flame was on very low, and still, the room was alight.

  On three gurneys, there were dismembered parts of three separate bodies. Again, I worried about the mortician. I worried about anyone who could sort out the parts so easily. We walked over the gurneys and immediately started sifting through chunks, grimacing all the while, but knowing we had to be quick because we were running out of time.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Ew. Fuck.” Eli whispered, “I don’t see anything, man. I mean, I don’t even know what this is.”

  I looked up, and I couldn’t stop the snort through my nose as I tried to stifle my hysterical laughter.

  “Balls!” I gasped out, “You’re holding balls!”

  The squeal he let out startled me because a) I had no idea that a guy’s voice could ever get that high, and b) I knew that if there was anyone in the building, they would have heard it. That we would get caught on account of a girlish squeal was kind of hilarious, and coupled with the squeal itself, was a guaranteed recipe for hysterical laughter.

  “Keep looking,” I finally managed to say, even though now, he was standing away from the gurney, looking terribly scandalized.

  “Wait, never mind.” I whispered, and all signs of my laughter disappeared when I held up a disembodied arm and turned it over. There, in the crook of the arm, close to the elbow, was the symbol we had come there to look for. The One God, inverted. All Unallied bore the symbol to show how they had renounced the two tribes, Adam’s and Tyre’s, so it was difficult to say which tribe these men had come from. There was one tribe that was particularly brutal: Their men and women were cannibalistic brutes, and the slaves that the men didn’t immediately impregnate were eaten like cattle. There were many tribes of Unallied, and I couldn’t imagine that Don would ever be able to negotiate with the Sawnies. That’s what we called them, because they had no name. No Unallied tribe had a name.

  “Do you think they’re Sawnies?” I asked.

  “No. They won’t ever join up. They’re the worst of them all, and they won’t join up with us or them.”

  “They’re the biggest tribe, though. You know if Don was going to commit treason, he would go big or go home.”

  “So if Don promised them bodies to eat and women to fuck in exchange for an army…”

  “But they would never let him be leader. He would have to know that. He would have to…”

  We both jumped when the door to the furnace banged open. The squeaking of the gurney moving towards us, out of the flames, was almost deafening because we had become so used to the silence, and despite how we had grown used to the smell of burning and of death, when the body on the gurney was fully exposed, we fell back several steps, covering our noses and mouths. That was how we knew it was newly burnt.

  “How did that get out here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Someone had to have pushed the button. Someone is in here.”

  “Then why are we whispering?” I raised my voice, “Alright, you caught us. Now come on out and take us to your leader, asshole.”

  “Quinn.” Eli said.

  “What?” I asked, “They already know we’re here. We might as well own it now, Eli.”

  “Quinn.” I looked at him, and his eyes were wide, and worse than that, they were held fast to the body on the gurney. My stomach plummeted. I couldn’t look. I couldn’t look. I couldn’t bear to see what was making him look at the body like that, but I saw it already. It was glinting in the firelight, there in the corner of my eye, and once my mind acknowledged what I knew it had to be, I looked, and I fell to my knees.

  There on the charred body’s finger was Alice’s wedding ring.

  Violet

  It would so happen that Lucy would return to consciousness while I was the one sitting up with her. After I had gotten two hours of sleep, Trist
an and I had traded places; I sat by Lucy’s side, and he went into my room to sleep. Just before dawn, Lucy came back to us, and why wouldn’t she come back when it was me beside her, when I had absolutely no idea what to say to her?

  She looked at me, and in her gaze, I could see that she knew I knew. I expected her to order me not to judge her and not to complain that I hadn’t been included in her dastardly plan, but it seemed that she didn’t know quite what to say to me, either.

  “Do you want some water?” I asked, and she nodded, not looking at me. I stood up, went into the kitchen, got her a cold glass of water, and brought it back to her. She drank it slowly, even though I could tell that she was severely dehydrated by the waxiness of her skin. I could tell she wanted to drink it quickly, but she knew better than to overload her stomach with water. That was Lucy. Always the top physician, even when her own body was desperate for nourishment.

  “How long?” She asked, and her voice was very raspy and barely above a whisper.

  “A day or so. The plague went through the jail. Tristan hasn’t said how many people died. You know Tristan. Your secret boyfriend.”

  “Violet,” She said softly, “Don’t.”

  “Your secret boyfriend of sixteen years, apparently. Christ, how did you pull that off? It’s not like I’m gone all the time.”

  “It is none of your business.” She snipped at me with not even a fraction of her usual iciness, “While I am sorry that I do not clear decisions I make about my romantic life with you before I make them, I… Well, I am not sorry.”

  “Well, maybe you should have cleared your decision to start a goddamn plague with me before you did it! Or was that none of my business, too?”

  “No, ma’am. Not your business, either.”

  “Bullshit, Lucy!” I snapped, and she shushed me, though she was still not looking at me. “Bullshit.” I said, a little quieter. “Why do you shut me out of your life like this? Why do you do everything without telling me?”

  “Not now, Violet. I am tired and still in quite a bit of pain. I am no longer contagious which is why I am allowing you to sit here with me…”

  “Well, that and so I can get you water and whatever else you need, right? Heaven forbid you let me sit here with you just for the pleasure of my company. Just to have someone to sit up with you.”

  I turned to place my back against the couch and crossed my arms over my chest, knowing my anger was out of proportion and that it was so not what she needed right then, but still, I was so angry. Behind me, I heard a noise that sounded like a snort, and I whipped around, thinking that she was suffering from the ill effects of the plague, but as it turns out, she was laughing. Really laughing. She sounded like a forty-year smoker when she laughed, what with the raspy breaths and the coughs that followed, but still, she was laughing.

  “What is wrong with you?!” I snapped at her irritably.

  “Oh, Violet…” She whispered, as her laughter began to die down, “To this day, you still take everything so personally. You still get so angry.”

  “Are you testing me?” I barked at her, “Is that why you’re so mean all the time? You’re trying to see if you can make me mad?”

  “No.” She shook her head, “Of course not. You are still so theatrical. You still feel so deeply. It is beautiful, my dear. It is so refreshing.”

  “Well, gee, I am glad that when you upset me like this, it makes you so happy. You are so mean!”

  “I am, aren’t I?” She asked with a proud smile, “I mean, I would hardly say that I am mean all the time, but yes, I am mean. I am hard on you. But you need it. By the One God, do you need it.”

  “I do not! I am a grown woman. I don’t need you to be mean to me to teach me lessons, Lucy!”

  “Alright. You are fully grown. Of course you are.” She began to sit up, “Would the grown woman please help me sit up so that I may jumpstart the circulation of my blood by walking around the room?”

  “Would you like me to carry you?” I asked sarcastically.

  “No. I would like you to help me walk, though. Is the grown woman’s anger so strong that she cannot help her frail and sick guardian walk around the room?”

  “You are so annoying.” I told her, but I wrapped her arm around my neck and lifted her into a sitting position. “Is the grown woman helping you walk to your liking?”

  “Yes. The grown woman is quite skilled at functioning as a human cane.” She replied, as she took her first shuffling step. “Oh, by the One God…” She groaned softly, “How ironic that the creation would turn on the creator. I am suffering only what I deserve.”

  “How did you even make that strain of the virus? You just sat down there in your little death cave making an apocalypse plague while we were all up here sleeping?”

  “Yes.” She replied simply.

  “How?!”

  “I am very good at what I do.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because we are amongst terrible people, Violet. I had to thin the herds some way, didn’t I?” She asked, as though it should have been obvious, “What were my other options? Charge into one of their countless church meetings and shoot them through with holes using all the guns I have in my possession? Acquire some Light Bombs and take them out that way? I used the skills that I was given by the One God, and I began to change our sad circumstances for the better. You must admit that it was a good idea.”

  “Well, yes, until it almost killed you.”

  “But it did not kill me, did it? I had you and Tristan upon whom I could rely to save me if I got myself into trouble. You do realize I set off the virus in the jail myself? I infected myself shortly before we went to City Hall, because I suspected that Paul would have me imprisoned. When Caspar’s henchmen came in to settle me into my cell, if you will, I knew that the slightest touch between us, and they would be infected. Tristan has had the antidote in his blood since this began, as have you. As have Macie, Akio, and Millie. I cover all the bases, as they say.”

  “Did you just make a baseball reference? Have you ever even watched baseball?”

  “Yes. Earthean baseball, not the sad imitation of the game that we have here.” She replied, “I was very partial to the team from Boston, in the province of New England, but I was even more partial to the team from the city called Baltimore in the province of Maryland.”

  I chuckled, shocked not only that she liked baseball (because I could not picture her watching it or attending a game) but that she also happened to love the team that Quinn and Alice had loved. It made me think of them, and when I thought of them, I cried, every time. I wiped my eyes, and though she didn’t look at me, she quickly squeezed my side where her hand was rested.

  “I am sorry. Quinn and Alice were from there, were they not? From the province of Maryland?”

  “They were.” I replied.

  “I am sorry.” She said again.

  “It’s okay.” I said, and I chuckled again, “I am just picturing you watching baseball.”

  “We used to get Earthean television. Months after it had passed, of course. Only when our people from Earth returned. I had a sister there. Last I heard, she was caring for children who were showing signs of what your lot call ‘the evolution.’ But I presume she is dead now.”

  It was strange to think of Lucy on Earth. It was strange to know that we had breathed the same toxic air before I had come to Pangaea. It was strange to know that all my life on Earth, when I had believed that there was only one inhabitable planet, there were people from another habitable planet walking among our people.

  “I would visit, and we both enjoyed baseball very much.” She continued, “You know how much I despise fun, but with her, I was less rigid.”

  “I don’t believe you.” I replied teasingly, “I mean, I believe you when you say you despise fun. I’ve seen that with my own eyes. You would eat all fun and happy things if you could.”

  “That is correct. I would eat birthday parties, hoedowns, proms, amusement parks,
and Christmas if I could.”

  I laughed at that so hard that in my room, I heard Tristan begin to stir.

  “See? Do you see what fun does?” She asked me, “It awakens very tired men and women from their much-needed slumber. We should be ashamed of ourselves.”

  Tristan came out of the room just as I turned Lucy to me and hugged her tightly. As she always did when I hugged her, she wrapped one arm around me and squeezed back, and then gently nestled her head against mine.

  “I’m glad you’re okay.” I told her softly, “Now hang out with your secret boyfriend and plot more terrifying government overthrows, you lunatic.”

  She laughed and kissed my forehead.

  “We will, and you get some sleep and pretend that you know nothing of this. I did not tell you, because when they inevitably find out that I have started this, they cannot implicate you in it.”

  “I won’t let them find out.” I told her, “Okay? I promise.”

  She smiled and kissed my forehead again.

  “Alright. Now go get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day.”

  “Yes.” I touched her stomach gently, remembering the terrible carving he had put on her, and she startled. Tristan rushed to her in a blur and took her waist in his hands to keep her upright. “I’m sorry.”

  I had touched the symbol on her stomach, not realizing how it would hurt her. It was not so much the physical pain as it was the sickening remembrance.

  “It’s alright.” She told me, but I could see her trembling, and I knew to leave her with Tristan then. As I changed into my pajamas and began to get into bed, I heard the shower turn on, and because I had forgotten my glass of water, I left the room. As I passed the bathroom door, I stopped, because through the crack, I could see them, and the sight broke my heart, truly. She was doubled over, both hands pressed over her stomach, only able to sob when her deep, painful sounding breaths slowed down enough for her to make a sound. The tears were pouring from her eyes, dropping onto the floor, and he was behind her, holding her tightly, keeping her upright, running his hand down the back of her hair, telling her he was so sorry, that he would heal her, that he would ensure that it did not leave a scar, that he loved her so much, that she was not what that symbol implied, she could never be that, they were animals, they were sick, they were evil, and she was perfect, and he loved her, he loved her, he loved her…

  I could have cried. Every supposedly overly emotional part of me wanted to cry when I looked in and saw that. I had never seen her so devastated, so affected by the cruelty they inflicted upon her. We gave that symbol its devastating power, I knew. I wanted to cry when I saw how they had wielded the power of that symbol over her, but instead, I felt the fire rising up inside of me, and in that fire, I saw Caspar Elohimson, burning. As I poured water from the tap into a glass, I looked out the window, at the indigo light of dawn beginning to break over the world, and I knew that it was the last morning I would see before I became a cold-blooded killer. I had killed in combat, when I was fighting for my life, and really, that had only been once. I had never calculatedly scoped out my target, gone to see him, and taken his life.

  What scared me was not that I had to do it. What scared me was how much I wanted to do it. What scared me was how I knew, with all of my heart, how good it would feel.

  “Please get it off of me.” I heard Lucy beg Tristan through her sobs, “Please get it off of me. Please.”

  I looked up, out the window, and there in the distance, I could see the flickering light of a candle burning in Paul’s window.

  Alright, Paul, I thought, as thunder began to rumble overhead, You want him dead, and so do I. So he is dead.

  The thunder cracked, sending a deafening boom of sound through our village that rattled the windows in their panes. Until it was done, the storm would hover, and it would only break over us once the knife was in his throat, and it would only end once his head was in my hands.