Thy Eternal Summer (7/15)

Chapter Four1

Jack's departure was largely silent. His parents weren't home, of course, but they answered when he called their work consoles. He told his mom, as gently and succinctly as possible. Her eyes bugged for a moment, then she broke the connection. He called his dad. 2

“Dad,” he said. “I'm being taken away to be corrected. You'll probably never see me again, and you'll never hear from me if I can help it.”3

His dad's mouth hung open for a minute, then he began to shout. “Are you fucking with me? You better be fucking with me! I'll kick your ass, you little bitch!” 4

Jack got the satisfaction of seeing the section supervisor come over and reprimand him. It wasn't as good as turning eighteen and punching him out, but it would have to do, he supposed. He turned off the console, and began packing his clothes. He shoved the Eliot book in among his clothes.5

He returned to the two waiting officers. One of them took his bag. “You have an incinerator in your kitchen, I trust?” he said to Jack.6

“Yes,” Jack said, unsure why he was being asked.7

The officer nodded, and took the bag back into the house. He returned without it. He looked at Jack's shocked face. “You've just taken the first step on the road to becoming a new man.” He smirked. “You ride in back.”8

Back was, in fact, where he had been riding before. The officers drove an old pick-up truck, the back outfitted with the sort of chain link cage one associated with a dog catcher's vehicle. The only difference, as far as Jack could tell, was that there were plastic planes resembling benches in which one could sit, and several safety belts. 9

Jack strapped himself in near the cab. The window behind the driver's seat was open, and the driver called over his shoulder, “We have one more truant to pick up. You little bastards won't talk to each other.” 10

He was taken from a home; his hair was scruffy, there were rings under his bloodshot eyes. Druggie.11

The vehicle started up, and they headed for the edge of town and the open highway. The kid leaned over to Jack and said, “What'd they get you for?”12

With a glance at the cab, Jack said, “Reading.” He shrugged. 13

The boy's eyebrows shot up. “Oh, one of those. I was... Well,” he gestured to his face. “You can see.”14

“Yeah,” said Jack.15

“They'll have a harder time correcting you, though,” he said.16

“What do you mean?” said Jack.17

“Well,” said the boy. “I've figured out how they do this shit. They let us have drugs, and completely screw up our lives. But they don't let us have any drugs they can't completely cure. That way, they get us sobered up, correct us, convince us we don't want that stuff any more, and graduate us into well balanced members of society.”18

Jack nodded. “Makes perfect sense to me.” A cold chill ran down his spine.19

“You!” came a voice in the cab. “Shut up!”20

“You shut up,” muttered the boy, but neither of them said anything more. They got out onto the open highway, the snake that slithered between cities and towns. They pulled off after a few miles and silently took the other truant from the back, and he went with them silently.21

They pulled back onto the highway, and Jack realized he was truly alone. His family, what had been left of it, was gone; his girlfriend, the only thing he had ever truly cared about, was gone. His few friends at school, gone. His very school itself, hell hole that it was, gone. His library, Miss Prism, the ashes of a dessicated literature that he had so vividly lived through, all were gone.22

But it was Ava, especially. If there were a way to get to her, to be at her side... he would sell his soul. He looked around, half expecting Mephistopheles to pop into existence. He laughed at himself. Then he had a thought. It was crazy, but thus far the rest of his being was, apparently, completely insane.23

Glancing toward the cab, he hunched down to give the officers as little view of him as possible. He recalled what the knights in the stories about Arthur did; but he would have to do it silently.24

“My... God,” he thought... prayed? “My God, if you are there, please help your servant in this time of trial. Or... I suppose I'm not your servant, but if you really are there, and you are supreme and can hear me... And if you really are kind and gracious, please... please deliver me, from this hardship. Please return me to my love, and set me on the path to be reunited with her. I... If you will, I would be with her forever. I could endure anything, were I at her side. I... I suppose, is it Amen?”25

He had sunk so far into his own head that he was not aware of the officers' alarmed voices until he had mentally spoken this last word.26

“...the missiles?” said one, his voice rising, almost hysterically, at the end of the question.27

“The shield's been in place for fifty years. Nothing can get through.” The other guard sounded a little shaky.28

“That thing was to keep out the big, planet ending stuff!” Shouted the first, now truly hysterical. “Missiles with normal payloads are completely unknown to it!”29

The other officer looked about to reply, then stopped and breathed, “Look at that...!”30

The vehicle swerved dangerously. Jack realized both guards had their heads turned toward the skies. He craned to try to see through the windshield, then stopped and simply looked through the chain link fence at the sky above him. 31

It was subtle, at first. There were gray streaks, soft against the blue sky, like thin clouds. But they occurred with regularity, checkering the sky. The streaks grew longer, broader... and closer. They became huge hurling meteorites, gleaming in the sun. Jack opened his mouth as the world ended around him. Is this what you get for prayer? 32

The missiles hit ground then, and his world erupted in white light. At first, Jack went perfectly numb, his body shocked into not letting him feel anything. Then the sound and the feeling and smell and taste came rushing back in, but sight did not. He heard the roar of earth torn apart and asphalt violated and smelled the smoke and snorted the dust and coughed and coughed and coughed. He was torn from his safety belt and thrown against the ceiling. The metal of the cage bit into his skin, and it was turned white hot and it seared him, seemingly to the bone. He crashed to the earth then, felt the cage dig into the dirt. Then he knew nothing but blackness.33

His first sensation on waking was the taste of blood, trickling through his mouth. It was thick and salty. He coughed and spat blood and dirt, and tried to raise his head. As sensation spread to the rest of his body, he found that he didn't feel severely injured. The truck was lying at an odd angle, the cage partially buried in dirt but partially open, letting in sunlight. 34

“You,” came a voice near his head, soft and strained. “Truant...” He looked up to find the face of one of the officers near his. The man moved his arm jerkily, and held out a packet to him. “Survival packet... Take it, we're pinned in here, we're dead. Get out, and enjoy your new world. Ah...” He grimaced, as if something were paining him. “Follow the setting sun.”35

The officer seemed to lose consciousness then. Jack managed to turn about, and crawled toward the door of the cage. The lock had been shattered, and the door swung freely. He crawled through it, and rolled onto the ground, and lay there a moment to try and regain his sense of equilibrium. 36

He looked up at the sky, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the sun was in a different position. The sky above was blue and cloudless, but it was still streaked with missile trails. The land around him, which he had only dimly viewed before, had changed. No longer was it the green grass and inoffensive trees and low rolling hills; it had been torn apart, and lay in piles of dirt and grass and trees and rubble. The road was completely gone; a series of successive craters marked its former trail. The craters were, he noticed now, concentrated around where the road had been, but they pockmarked the countryside as well.37

Jack saw a pair of craters and, between them, a single tree. It stood as if in defiance of the desolation around it. Jack went to the tree; its roots stuck out into the craters on either side of it, but it stood proud and held its head high. Jack lay prostrate before it.38

The world passed away again. When Jack woke, it was night and the stars were out, and the moon. He found himself curled up, shivering, in a crook of bark made by the tree roots. He uncurled himself and climbed up the gnarled roots and looked out. The sky was clear and the land was laid out before him. He had seen the countryside a few other times in his life, and it was always a paragon of order. The woods were laid out in straight lines, the fields regularly spaced between them, the road (with its own orderly lines and subsets of lines) laid down exactly in the middle of the two horizons. 39

But now the orderliness was smashed to bits. The only thing that occurred with any regularity were the craters, and those varied and wandered throughout the landscape. The road did not exist any more, for it had been the target of the missile strikes, and existed now only as dust and small stones and rubble. The patches of trees were torn apart and strewn over the landscape, thrown into the landscape as if by the hand of a wanton giant, roots slithering toward heaven like petrified snakes.40

Only now did he realize that though it was night, and shadows were cast over the land, he could still see all this with clarity. He looked up, and the breath seemed to have been forcibly removed from his body.41

The stars did not just dot the sky, like the first few patrons before a play. The stars filled the sky, swarming and dancing in brilliant sparks of pure light. Jack turned his face to the moon, and he met the man's gaze, and it was not a man. For though everybody spoke of the man on the moon, she was most certainly female. He looked into her eyes, and she was ancient. She was not as old as time, no, but she was older than aught else on the face of the world. He fancied he heard some of her ancient wisdom, whispered in his ears. She spoke of what she had seen: life upon life, kingdom upon kingdom, age upon age. She had seen great men arise, burning brightly like a candle in a dark theatre; she had seen those men snuffed out, crumble into the dust of death. She had seen kingdoms rise, all livery and fine colors and bright gold; and she had seen these, too, crumble to dust. She had seen ages of men, cycles of existence, come and flare up and go. And behold, all was and all had been and all would be. And all was vanity and vexation of spirit.42

Jack suddenly realized he was hungry. The vision which had so recently been one of oddness and sagacity, was now one of barrenness and cold dearth. He began to walk, and walked faster because he was cold. His shirt was working overtime to heat his upper body; the circuits in his pants seemed to have blown.43

He walked on, and on. He began stumbling; he seemed unable to feel his legs. He made himself go another step, then another and another and another. Then he fell. His face hit the edge of the crater, and the stones rubbed it raw. He rolled over the lip and rolled a little ways down its edge, and simply lay there. He saw a regiment of smoke trails streak through the sky. Then the cold overcame him and he prepared himself for the sleep from which there would be no waking. 44

The sound of voices betrayed his expectations. 45

“Is he dead?” said a female voice, older. Jack tried to raise his head or open his eyes, but failed at both.46

“Nah,” said another female voice, younger sounding. “He just stirred.”47

Jack felt a weight settle on him, warm and heavy and enormously comforting. He curled underneath it, and felt himself smile.48

“Aw, that's cute,” said the younger female.49

“I wish he wasn't laying like that,” said the older one. “All the blood's going to go to his head, and he's going to die.”50

The younger one laughed. “No he's not,” she said.51

Jack smiled again, and reluctantly did he let himself drift off to sleep.52

He woke with the sun beating into his eyes. He was able to sit up this time, though it was difficult at this angle on this slope. He rearranged himself so that his legs were pointing downwards, a more natural position. The blanket he found himself covered in was made of some kind of fur, not processed at all. 53

A shadow fell across him. He looked up, to find that a tall man was standing at the edge of the crater looking down on him. The sun was behind his head, and it threw his face into darkness. He was a big man, broad shouldered and with a large pot belly. His face seemed to sport a long beard, and that was all Jack saw of it.54

“Sleeping beauty has awakened,” said the man in a deep, gravelly voice, and laughed.55

Two women appeared beside him. One was middle aged, slightly younger than his mom had been. She had a haggard, tired face and dark hair. The other was a thin slip of a girl, perhaps Jack's age, perhaps older, perhaps slightly younger. She too had dark hair, which fell in waves to her shoulders. She had wide eyes, and was smiling brilliantly down at Jack.56

“Do you want to come up here?” she called, still grinning.57

The man turned to her. “The boy's not up to snuff, Jezebel. Why don't you go help him?”58

She rolled her eyes, and climbed over the crater edge. She balanced and stumbled—very gracefully, Jack thought—down to him, picked the blanket up and threw it over her shoulder. She offered him a hand, and he took it. Hers was soft, but she had an unexpected wiry strength that hauled him easily to his feet.59

“Thanks,” Jack grunted. She smiled, and turned her back to him. He followed her, climbing the crater edge. She and the man and woman began walking, and Jack found himself following them. They strode purposefully, and quickly. Jack soon fell behind.60

His clothes were stiff with cold and overuse. His hair was wet and ragged and cold. His very bones seemed to ache, to be tearing his sensations apart. It was amazing that he could walk without stumbling. 61

He caught up to the three, huffing a little, but soon fell behind again. The girl, Jezebel, slowed her pace to walk with him.62

“What's your name?” she said.63

“Jack,” he said, grimacing as a sudden pain shot through his leg.64

“You heard my name, I guess.”65

“Yeah... Why?” Jack felt too awful to be very lucid.66

“Why the name?” said the girl.67

“Yeah,” said Jack.68

She grinned. “Ours was to be the generation that drove the spike through the king's head.” She frowned, then. “But you wouldn't get that, I suppose.69

Jack smiled, a pained smile. “I do, actually. Maybe we'll be that generation yet.”70

She grinned at his recognition. “Maybe we will.” 71

They walked on in silence for several minutes. The landscape continually shifted around them. It was hilly one minute, the destructive chaos of the newly destroyed. The next minute, they walked through flat green fields, and the field would give way to a sudden deep crater. There were a few acres of woods still largely undamaged, and the towering greenery provided short lived relief from the brightness of the sun.72

“Where are you from?” she said suddenly.73

He gestured vaguely in the direction he thought his town lay in. “Over... there. A... a town. I'm not sure the name.”74

She laughed, then looked at his face. “You're serious?”75

He nodded. “Do I look like I'm joking?76

“I suppose not,” she said, looking a bit hurt.77

“Sorry...” he grunted.78

“What?” she said, looking at him and arching her delicate eyebrows.79

“I said I'm sorry,” he said, louder than before. “I'm sorry I was snappish.”80

She nodded, not saying anything. She looked mollified.81

“So how did you come to be out here?” she said.82

“I...” he sighed. “I was being taken to be corrected. Reading books, apparently it's a great offense.”83

She laughed. “Yes, yes it is.” Her voice was like a tinkling brook, or at least sounded like what a tinkling brook always sounded like in movies.84

“Our truck was hit,” Jack felt the need to elaborate. “The guys who were guarding me died.”85

Jezebel nodded. “How poetic.”86

A sudden roaring came from above and behind them, splitting the sky in two and beating against the ear drums. It built for quite a while, then seemed to break over them. Jezebel looked toward the sky, and Jack followed her gaze. There were five airplanes, moving quickly out of sight, flying in formation like birds. Jack remembered airplanes from history; according to his parents, they used to fly overhead all the time during the war for the colonies. But after, when all the trouble was settled, there would need be no more planes.87

The older man and woman had stopped and stared up at the planes, were still staring after them as they retreated. This gave Jack and Jezebel the chance to catch up. 88

“You see that?” said the old man. Jack could see now that his hair and beard were gray, and he had close set, small eyes which gleamed with a hidden intelligence. “That was the war comin' to the land. They were off to drop paratroops on some city, probably Bismarck.”89

“Weren't they going too fast to drop men from them?” asked Jack.90

The big man touched the side of his nose. “You'd think so, wouldn't you?”91

Jack found this a perfectly infuriating answer.92

“You see the streaks in the sky before you went down last night?” asked the big man of Jack.93

“Yeah,” said Jack. “Barely.”94

The big man nodded. “That was our counterattack. Pretty pathetic counterattack, considering the first attack, but it was more symbolic than anything.”95

“Symbolic?” said Jack.96

“Yeah,” said the man. He gestured around them. “Whole damn country looks like this, I'm guessing. Those were the sum total of our remaining missiles, though I wouldn't be surprised if they'd launched whatever nukes they had left, albeit they will of course get destroyed by the international missile shield. But... look at this place. We just fired one salvo, into the international maelstrom. Whoever did this—and it doesn't matter who it was, any more—just took us out. They won't try to occupy, at least not the whole thing. We're too big. But, like I said, it doesn't matter any more.” He walked in silence for a few minutes. “They couldn't have picked a better time,” he muttered.97

“What do you mean?” said Jack, fascinated to hear this man speak. 98

“Well, look at this place. Our power's failing—has been, slowly, for years, but recently it's been failing in earnest, going black all over the place, and more and more permanently. Then, you've got the most internal unrest you've seen in years—that sham I'm sure you saw on WV was just a desperate attempt to control it—the hurricanes down south, the earthquake out west... We're in the most desperate straits we've ever been in. The timing of this was... was beautiful, actually.”99

Jack nodded, thinking that was true in many many ways. 100

They were farmers, apparently. Everybody knew about farmers; there was some slight doubt whether they actually existed. They were strange, independent, backward people, who were nevertheless necessary to certain aspects of a functional society. They were their own little islands, whole unto themselves, with many supply lines to the outside world.101

“Where are we going?” asked Jack at one point. “I didn't think there were many farms around here.”102

“There aren't,” said the wife, Angelica. “We're from clear up north a ways. But we've been out for days, looking for survivors. Uncle Will's got the Jeep waiting at base camp.”103

“Oh,” said Jack, as if most of that made any sense to him.104

They stopped to rest shortly after that. Jack was mildly alarmed to see the sun beginning to go down to their right, rather than directly in front of them. He didn't know why he was alarmed.105

As the sun went down, Jack noticed something on the horizon. A thin plume of smoke wended its way skyward, shattering the light of the sunset and making it dance and weave. 106

The man laughed and pointed. “That's uncle Will.” He turned to look at Jack. “Can you make it a little farther?”107

Jack stumbled a little, but managed to recover himself without it showing much. Unexpectedly, Jezebel took his hand. 108

“We'll be fine, father,” she said. “I'll help him.”109

The man smiled, perhaps smirked, and his beard moved upward with his mouth. “Okay then, children.”110

Jack managed to wiggle his hand out of her grip without making it too obvious, but the electric tingle that had gone through him didn't go away. He shivered.