Off in the distance, he saw a house. The path ran right past it, but maybe there was a turn into it. He broke into a run, and Crab nearly fell off him.
“Hey! Watch it!”
The house sat fifty yards behind the fence. No driveway. No gap in the fence to walk through. It was just there, in the middle of the grass, with no surrounding infrastructure. It was two stories high (three if you counted the basement poking out from below), made of faded white-painted brick, with a red front door. Ben recognized the fuzzy brown couch peeking out above the living-room windowsill.
“That’s my house, Crab.”
“It is?”
It was very much Ben’s house, down to the last detail: the shoddy black rails on the concrete stoop, the black shutters, the small section of the chimney that had to be knocked out and patched back up with fresh red brick, and the neatly trimmed bushes dotting the front—just the way Teresa’s mom liked trimming them when she would come over and do some landscaping for kicks. It was all there.
And then the door swung open and there was his youngest child, Peter, in his little crocodile pajama pants and a red T-shirt with a rocket on it. He never changed out of his pajamas. Normal clothing was worthless to him. He would have worn pajamas to a funeral. Every effort that Teresa and Ben made to get him to dress properly was an exercise in wasted energy.
The boy looked like he had just been napping, his face all marked up from the creases in the sheets. His cheeks were red. He looked so warm and soft to hold. Peter grabbed a nearby garden hose and began to water the grass. The boy loved doing that. He could stand outside the house with a hose for hours, drenching the concrete. Now he walked around the airlifted residence, blasting away at the small front lawn and the flowers and the walkway, until everything was saturated and his feet were muddy all over. Then he turned the hose on himself and got drenched. He saw Ben and waved.
“Hi, Dad!”
Ben put his hand to his mouth, aghast. It was really his son.
“Peter?”
“Hi!”
Ben walked to the fence and leaned into it. Peter remained in the doorway.
“Can you come here?” Ben asked him.
“No, Dad. I can’t go there. I have to stay here.”
“Is anyone else in the house? Rudy? Flora? Mom?”
“No, Dad. I have to go back inside now. I’m alllllllll wet. You do work, Dad.”
“Just come here for a second. Let me hug you.”
Ben was standing on the lower rail of the fence now, leaning over. Oh, why won’t this fucking fence just go away? He swung a leg over the top rail and now he was sitting on it, staring at his youngest child.
Crab whispered into Ben’s ear, “Don’t do it.”
“Shut up, Crab.”
“It’s not real. It’s bait.”
“Shut up.”
Peter smiled and waved to Ben. “I have to go, Dad!”
Ben was falling apart now. “Okay. Okay.”
“Love you, Dad!”
“I love you, too.”
Peter shut the red front door. Ben could see the top of his son’s head bouncing across the bottom of the living-room window. He ran to the other side of the path and leapt onto the fence rail, screaming.
“FUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!! God damn you, you fucking asshole shithead path! FUCK!”
“It’s not real, man,” Crab said.
“This isn’t real!” Ben cried. “Every bit of this is an insane fiction, and now you’re telling me I can’t go and hold my son, MY SON, because he’s somehow the only bullshit thing in it? What is this? Is it God doing this, Crab? I didn’t even believe in God before this. I just figured if God existed, then He was an asshole. This only clinches it. This is cruel and vile, and I did nothing to deserve it. I never betrayed a friend, Crab. I never committed a violent crime. I loved my wife and family the way a man is supposed to love his wife and family. I waded through enough shit jusssssst to get where I was before I stumbled upon this godforsaken road. And even then, life was still brutal. I had bills and children and a sick mother. I don’t even know how I’ve survived it. I don’t know how anyone does. It was already a trial by fire. And now I can’t even walk across that field and have one moment with my son? What kind of fucking animal God lets that happen? What exactly does He want me to prove? I’ll kill Him myself, Crab. I will find this God . . . this Producer, and I will drive a knife right through His fucking brain.”
He grabbed his bag and trudged down the road, still steaming. Crab followed along silently. After a time, Ben’s house grew smaller on the horizon, until it vanished entirely. When he turned around and saw it was now gone, he took out the plush fox toy from his bag and clutched it to his chest.
“Are you all right?” Crab asked.
“No.”
“Listen, there’s . . .” Crab hesitated.
“What?” Ben asked.
“There’s something up ahead.”
“How do you know?”
“Just keep walking and I’ll show you.”
Eventually, they came to a grand split in the path, nothing but fences and prairies and horses either way. Crab jumped off Ben’s shoulder and walked up to the edge of the fork.
“Which way do we go?” Ben asked him.
Crab turned to him. There was something different in his expression now. Crab was not his usual, well, crabby self.
“You have to go to the right,” Crab said.
“Why is that?” Ben asked.
“Because I have to go to the left.”
“Why do you have to go left?”
Crab sighed. “Because I’ve already been down that road.”
And then it dawned on Ben. He felt like a complete fool. It should have been so obvious.
“Wait a second,” Ben said. “You’ve been on this path before.”
“I have.”
“You’re not just a crab, are you?”
“Very perceptive. The fact that I can fucking talk maybe clued you in.”
“You were a person.”
“Yes.”
“What was your human name?”
“You don’t wanna know.”
Ben took out the gun and aimed it at Crab.
“I’m faster than that gun, muchacho,” Crab said.
“Tell me what your human name was.”
“Hang on. This is not easy for me . . .”
“SAY IT.”
Crab quivered. After a long time, he looked down and said softly, “It’s Ben.”
“What?”
“Ben. My name is Ben.”
Ben dropped the gun. He couldn’t feel his hands anymore. He couldn’t feel anything. His body began to wobble.
“It’s not possible.”
Crab reared up and traced his pincer down a faint, virtually invisible line under his eye. Ben had never noticed it until now.
“Ninety-seven stitches. We got ninety-seven stitches from that dog.”
“Oh, God.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
Ben felt as if he had just been sentenced to life in prison. He was going into shock. Knew it, really. This was going to be the least painful part of finding out Crab’s identity. The pain and despair would soon coalesce and then mushroom.
“What happens to me?” he asked Crab quietly.
“This.”
“How long have you been on this path?”
Crab turned his back to Ben. “I can’t say.”
“Has it been a month?”
Crab wouldn’t answer.
“A year?”
No answer.
“Five years? Ten years?”
Crab turned back around and looked at him with a pity that bordered on unbearable.
“No,” said Ben, shaking his head. “Ten years???
?
“More or less. I lost count.”
Ben crumpled to the ground, flopping onto his back. The sky above was utterly empty. He was empty. His body, his mind, his whole history: All of it felt vacated.
“What happens to me for ten years, Crab?”
“I’ve probably told you too much already. And you promised to keep going.”
“I can’t. Ten years, Crab. Ten years and you can’t even tell me if I get home.”
“There’s no point in doubting. It’ll only slow you down.”
“Did you find the Producer?”
“Still looking, kid.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”
“Because you wouldn’t have made it this far if I had.”
“How can you know we won’t be on this path forever?”
“Does it matter? How long would you walk to see them again?”
“Forever.”
“Exactly. There’s no other way.”
Ben stood up. “I’m coming with you. I’m going to the left.”
“No. No, you’re not. I didn’t put in over a decade of suffering just to watch you short-circuit all of it.”
“You can’t stop me.”
Ben charged to the left and bashed against an invisible barrier that kept him from continuing down the path. He smashed against the wall again and again but it wouldn’t budge. And there was no going around it either, unless he wanted to leave the path and get himself killed. Now he was slamming against it out of anger, trying to hurt the bubble.
“It isn’t easy to accept,” said Crab. “I know that.”
“You go to hell.”
“This is where Crab left me back when I was your age. There’s a certain way this has to play out, which means you can’t take any shortcuts. Whatever you find down that road will prepare you for what’s next.”
Ben grew angry. “How do you know that at all?” he spat. “How do you know that following this little infinite loop serves me well? For all I know, you did this all fucking wrong. Look at you! You’re a crab!”
“It’s not all bad.”
“How the fuck can you say that?”
“There are things I can do that other crabs can’t.”
“Like what?”
“You see me talking here, right? Ben, I believe in the path because I have no other choice. Like you told me, right? Remember, on the beach? You said the same thing. I have to have faith in it, even though I am now very much its prisoner, Ben. I have doubts every second but all I can do is move forward. And now you have to believe in the path, even more than you did before.”
“What if I just run back to that house and hug our son and let death come? Why wouldn’t I do that?”
“Because it’s not real, and you know it. When I get to the end of this thing—and I will get to the end of it—I will see Peter again. Flora, Rudy, Peter, Teresa: I’ll see them all. And it’ll be real. I won’t have to go looking over my shoulder, waiting for the hammer to fall. That will be my eternal salvation, and yours.”
Ben began to cry. “Please don’t leave me here. Don’t leave me all alone. I have no one.”
“You won’t always be alone. You’ll have company.”
“Who?”
“You’ll find out. But the first thing you’ll need to do is go back to the giant.”
“What? Why?”
“She can help you.”
“She tried to kill us.”
“Eh, you learn to forgive. Besides, there are ways of dealing with her. Take out the seed bag.”
Ben did as he was told. Two hard brown seeds remained.
“Throw one of them down the next time you see Fermona,” ordered Crab. “It won’t grow if you do it now.”
“What does it turn into?”
“That’s a surprise. It’ll make managing the giant a bit easier for you. You can always use the gun on her, too, if you have to do her in for good.”
“I won’t go back to her.”
“Well, you don’t have to do it now. You can have a snack first, if you really want.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.”
“You can bargain with Fermona. Fun fact: She’s only ever eaten humans.”
“So?”
“Just think about it, and then you’ll have your strategy.”
Ben looked to the fork in the road. “Do I have to kill more people up ahead?” he asked Crab.
“Yes.”
“I can’t do that,” said Ben.
“Yes, you can. You’ve already killed one man. You’ll kill again. It’s a slow burn.”
He crawled up on Ben’s shoulder a final time.
“Like I said, it’s not all bad,” he whispered.
“How can you say that?” Ben asked.
“I adjusted. You can adjust to anything if you’re willing to live on. There’s a tent lying to the side of the road a mile down or so. You’ll see a castle past that, but you won’t be able to get in it without going back to the giant first. When you need a break, just spend the night in the tent. You’ll have your work cut out for you, but you can beat him.”
“Who’s him?”
“That’s another surprise. But you can beat anything. I promise you.”
He hopped down and waved a pincer at Ben.
“Do you want to take anything?” Ben asked him.
“I don’t need anything. One day, you won’t need anything either.”
And then Crab passed through the invisible barrier like it was nothing, and scurried down the road that Ben would hopefully travel down himself a decade from now.
II.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TONY WATTS
Ben sat on the path and watched Crab fade into the soft waves of buffalo grass. What does it feel like to be a crab? Does it hurt? Will my brain get shrunk down to nothing? Will I stay a crab forever after that? I don’t wanna stay a crab forever. Don’t do that to me, God. Don’t leave me that way.
He was draining. He could stay there on the road until all the blood and fluid leaked out of his body, until he was flat as a pancake, and then his skin would slowly biodegrade, and he would become like shreds of an old paper towel: little bits that the wind could pick up and scatter about.
The peak of Fermona’s mountain was still visible behind him. The walk back would take hours. And what about the house? What if Peter was outside again, playing on the stoop? If Ben saw Peter again, he would jump over that fence and be ready to die. He couldn’t bear to go back. Not yet.
So he decided to sleep on it. Like Crab told him, there was no need to rush.
It took twenty minutes to walk down the gentle slope to the right and see the red tent collapsed on the side of the path. To the right of the tent was a small duck pond. In the distance, Ben saw the forked path carve out great big loops up a second mountain (another one?), across a series of natural arches, to a tall, black castle. The sun was setting now, and in the purple twilight, the castle’s façade took on a menacing appearance: all sharp spires and peaked arches, as if it were made entirely out of fangs.
Suddenly, he heard a piercing scream come from the castle, like the sound of a man tortured. He looked up and saw the wings of a great and terrible creature unfurl from atop one of the sinister, barbed turrets. It was too far to make out its face or body. All he could see were those devilish black wings, stretching out wider than a house. They began to flap, kicking up a cyclonic wind behind them. Soon the creature, carrying something large in its hands, vanished behind the castle.
He felt an immediate need for shelter.
Once Ben had the tent staked and zipped open, he ducked past the loose flap and discovered that it opened into a library with cathedral ceilings reaching twenty feet high. Thousands of leather-bound volumes lined the dark-stained oak shelves.
There was a small desk over in the corner, with a stained-glass lamp and a gold pen and legal pad arranged neatly on top of a green felt desk pad. Next to the desk was a king-sized sleigh bed with a white duvet. The duvet was fat and poofy, like a dollop of marshmallow fluff. The whole chamber looked like the library of an 1890s robber baron. Ben could smell the glue from the old book bindings lingering in the air.
He walked over to the desk and grabbed the yellow legal pad. His handwriting was garbage. Teresa always wrote the thank-you notes in the house, because his handwriting made everything look like a ransom note. But there were no laptops or tablets to use in this library, as far as he could tell. He took one of the pens from the slot in the desk pad and began writing as neatly as he could:
Dear Teresa,
I don’t know if you got my last note, but all I can tell you is that I’ve been imprisoned and I may stay imprisoned for a very long time. I don’t quite know how to explain what has happened.
Ben paused in the draft. What would you think if you got a letter like that? You would think your husband ran off. He threw the pen against the wall. Then he went back and retrieved it. Ben did this a lot with inanimate objects: throwing them or kicking them, and then trying to make it up to the object by fixing it or picking it back up and setting it gently back down. He was a serial object beater.
Dear Teresa,
You aren’t going to get this letter, but I’m going to write this to you anyway for the sake of my own sanity because something awful has happened. Just know that I love you. This terrible thing that’s keeping us apart may keep us apart for a very long time. I know that you know, deep in your heart, it’s not something I chose. I haven’t fled. I haven’t lost my mind. The path I stumbled onto accidentally is now holding me hostage in a faraway land. But I would never be away from you if I could help it. Never. Not for a day. Not for an hour.