Thy Eternal Summer (14/15)

Jack wasn't sure what awakened him. It might have been the shouts, or the uncomfortable proximity of the torches to his face, or the fact that he was in motion. Perhaps it was all three.1

He seemed to be on a stretcher of some kind, being carried above the heads of a group of people he couldn't see. They were carrying long torches, which illuminated the tunnel ahead of them. It seemed to be a broader, wider, and taller tunnel than the one Jack remembered falling asleep in. He looked to his right, and Blake was there too, on a similar stretcher.2

Jack saw the people below them, a bit. They seemed to be the same type of gray malformed creatures that had attacked the two of them and destroyed the four square. Men, Jack realized. These weren't creatures, they were men.3

They were taking them through a long tunnel, but Jack realized it wasn't a tunnel. He felt a cold wind on his face, and heard a gunshot close by. They were being carried between two massive mounds of rubble, that rose up on either side like towers. They were being carried, he realized, toward a third massive mound of rubble, toward an arched doorway that seemed to have been carved into the side of the mound. 4

They were carried through it and Jack found himself in a sort of domed room. There were pillars, made of wood and metal that looked to be former office building beams, holding up the room. It had the look of a massive cave with very straight, completed stalagmites and stalactites. 5

Distributed about the room where more of the gray skinned, sickly people. Some had the look of men, or former men, and the look of women or former women. There were ragged cots about the room, some stacks of canned food and bars of soap, an almost comical prop in this drama of destruction. There was a pool of water at the center of the room, a stagnant thing with a gray tinge to it. There seemed not to be any children. The people gathered around the walls rose and approached them as they entered.6

Jack and Blake were set down, and the people gathered around them. Their sagging, bony faces invariably wore glares and reproachful looks. They wore clothing that was a ragged mockery of what had been standard city wear. Some wore nothing more than loin cloths, fashioned of who knew what Several arms grabbed Jack, and the fingers literally felt like bones closing on his soft, fleshy arm. Jack and Blake were hauled to their feet. 7

A man approached them, the crowd parting deferentially before him. He was tall, and the skull bone that supported his sagging skin seemed larger than most. He wore a haughty, aristocratic look, despite his diminished appearance. He stood before them, at least a head shorter but diminishing them by his stance, his bearing, his very stature. He looked on them as a teacher on misbehaving children, and they shrunk before him as students caught passing dirty magazines in the men's room.8

“You have trespassed,” he said. His voice sounded as if his throat had been split in two and he was trying to speak out of both halves at once; Jack could understand him, but the words were strangely doubled and sometimes they ended twice. “You have trespassed on our territory,” the man continued. “And killed one of our number, and wounded others.” 9

He pointed to a row of cots lined up against the wall. Two of them were occupied, one by a man whose ankle seemed to be snapped in two, another whose arms dangled unnaturally over the side of the bed, limp and apparently useless. 10

“What will you pay us for this great harm you have done, for this crime you have committed, this sin you have perpetrated?” the man asked, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 11

Blake stepped forward, suddenly larger, towering over the shriveled man. He shouted down at the man, “I have a question. Who are you to be giving me orders, demanding things of me?”12

The man stepped back, his head tilting (it wobbled unnaturally) so that he could continue to meet Blake's eyes. “I am the ruler of this clan,” he said. “We have taken over this territory. The old world has been shattered, its people destroyed. We are the children of death, the survivors of destruction, born of fire and this shit-filled filth-clouded air. We are the norm, now, big man, and you are the freak, the inadequacy, the mutant. And you have trespassed upon the territory we claim for ourselves, and it is only natural and right that we demand payment.”13

Jack was aware of a greater threat than the man's empty words. The crowd of people gathered around them was quite large. Even if they were only armed with fists, and Jack and Blake with their guns, a crowd this large would eventually overwhelm them. Jack stepped forward. He held up his gun, pointing it toward the ceiling. He took Blake's gun, from where it was clutched in his hands, forgotten. He held them out to the ruler.14

“We have these two guns, and some ammunition,” he said. “Otherwise, you have wrecked our vehicle, and I don't think our money will do you any good.”15

The ruler stepped forward. “Your flesh would,” he said softly. But he eyed the guns greedily. After a long moment he reached out and took the guns. “Surrender your ammunition,” he said. “And you will be unharmed.”16

Blake gave Jack a poisonous look, but he surrendered his ammunition. The ruler took it and retreated among the crowd. He selected two men, and handed them each a gun and ammunition. 17

“You may go,” he said to Jack and Blake.18

Jack and Blake turned to leave the room, making for the door into which sunlight poured. Jack could not help thinking they had gotten away very easily from this situation. Before they could reach the door way, however, a small woman, dressed in a severely stained blouse and a tattered skirt that was never meant for the wear it had received, stopped them. She was even more bent and decrepit than the rest of them; it seemed she may already have been an old woman before... before whatever had happened to all of them. 19

She tottered around in front of them, and held out her hands and waved them back and forth in the air, clearly indicating that they should stop. Still not saying anything, she put her chin in her hand and studied each of them very carefully, first Jack and then Blake. When she spoke, it was in a loud, harsh, gravelly voice that grated on the ear yet nevertheless carried throughout the chamber. 20

“This one must be washed,” she said, gesturing to Jack. “He must be cleansed. He has the mark on him.”21

The crowd stirred again, from where they had been returning to their former occupations. They gathered for the second time around Jack and Blake, but were focused this time on Jack. Questions flew toward the old lady, from out of the crowd. 22

“He is the one you had the vision about?” “The one who is marked is the one who hurt and killed some of us?” “What about him has the bearing of one who will lift a finger for us, much less save us?” “Are you crazy, old woman?” “Do you expect us to believe your inanery, your false prophecy?” “He could be any one, for all we know, couldn't he?”23

It was only the final question that the old woman addressed, and she turned on it with a sort of cold fury. “Have you no faith?” she asked, vehemently. “This is an exercise in faith, nothing more. I know what I know. You can turn your back if you wish, but I say this must be done.”24

The leader stepped forward again. “And so it will be done,” he said. “If only for the sake of the old woman here. We owe her that much, don't you think?”25

There was some dissent from the crowd, but not much. General opinion was that they did indeed owe the old woman this much.26

His mind was on other things, mainly the questions which the last few minutes had brought up. These questions were summarized by a single main question: what were they talking about? Who was this “one” that the old lady seemed to have dreamed about? Was he supposed to be Jack? And if so, why? And what was this washing, this cleansing?27

The last question was solved for him soon enough. Bony hands, but still surprisingly strong, grasped him and propelled him toward the pool. They stopped him at the pool's edge, and began stripping him of his clothing. He would not have chosen to do things this way, he supposed, but he supposed also that he didn't really have a choice in the matter. He found he didn't mind being naked in front of these shriveled, broken people, despite the way some of them stared jealously at his crotch.28

They propelled him into the water, then, and Jack found that the hole was deeper than it first appeared. It had shallow edges, but quickly as he moved toward the middle submerged him up to the neck. He turned around to find the old woman had waded in after him. She was still in the shallows, but the water came up to her waist. Her eyes glittered like diamonds, dark and knowing in the low light.29

“You may not understand,” she said. “What is happening to you, or why it is happening like this. But I think, at some level, you really do. I worked for the historical preservation department, in the old society. Yes, we existed. Our purpose was to chronicle what actually happened throughout the ages of the earth, as far as we could tell, and then obscure it so nobody else could find it.30

“This pool, I found out though I was not supposed to, has always been here. It was told of in Indian legends, and the first white men who built here built there town around it. Down to our very age, or rather the one that so recently and spectacularly ended, it was a fountain in the middle of a city known for coldness and lack of aesthetic decoration. 31

“Back to the Indians—they considered this pool sacred. There were many stories about it, many legends. Tales of regeneration and rebirth and renewal. It was not the fabled fountain of youth, by any stretch of the imagination, its use was far too complicated. It was a wiser pool than any fountain named for youth would ever or could ever be.32

“I know, I have faith, that what I have seen is true. And what I have seen is you. I shall tell no more, save that you need not worry about what you have heard this day. I will perform the ceremony, as I have been instructed to and indeed cannot but do, and we shall part and follow our separate ways. And you will do what you are meant to do, and I, having done what I was meant to do, will fade into dust and into the annals of obscurity. And all is as it should be.”33

She reached down then, and, cupping her hands, poured the filthy water over Jack's head. He bowed his head, and the gritty water tasted bad and matted his hair down and ran down into his eyes. He tossed his head back, flinging water from his hair and down his neck.34

“Now, rise, my son,” croaked the old woman. “You have been buried, and now are dug up again.” She turned her head. “Bring him a towel, and return his clothes to him.”35

The crowd watched avidly, eyes glittering in the dim light, as Jack toweled off and put his clothes back on. For all the dirtiness of the water, he felt as though he were stepping from a bliss of purity back into filth encrusted rags that could do nothing for him save weigh on his heart, weigh on his mind, and weigh on his body.36

“Now,” said the leader from behind Jack but Jack recognized his voice. “You can go.” 37

At that moment, a series of gunshots sounded directly outside the doorway. Three of the crooked men raced through the doorway; a series of automatic rifle bursts and they fell, shot in the back. 38

The room became a cavalcade of swirling motion. People ran about, fell to the earth with heads covered, screamed, tried for the other exits. Only six men—the ruler, who was armed, the two so recently armed, and three others who were also armed—kept their countenance about them. They marched calmly, stoically almost, through the crowd toward the entry way. As the Coalition troops poured through, their blue uniforms bright against the drab darkness that predominated the destruction, the six men raised their weapons and fired. The recoil shivered through their entire bodies, but they did not slow. Some Coalition troops went down; others returned fire.39

The six defenders went down like grain before the scythe, melted like butter under the hot sun. 40

Jack watched this, transfixed, unable to move in the surging crowd around him. As the crowd began to thin and the gun fire spread to cover the whole room, Blake appeared at Jack's side and pulled him toward an exit, a dark hole in the side of the cave that seemed to lead to more tunnels.41

Jack plunged down the hole ahead of Blake, who shoved Jack in front of him. Jack found himself bumping into a man in front of him, feeling the bones clatter against each other. He caught the man, before he went down, and set him back on his feet.42

“Sorry!” he yelled. “Keep moving!”43

There were shouts behind them, and then automatic gun fire echoed off the tunnel walls, deafening in the small space. He made the mistake of looking back; he caught a glimpse of flying gray body parts coinciding with a scream and the rattle of gun fire as someone went down. 44

Blake saw him looking. “Keep going, damn it!” he shouted, but just then the rattle of the guns sounded. Blake launched himself at Jack, tackling him even as the bullets thudded into his flesh. Jack hit the ground with his whole body and Blake pressing him down, his face rubbed raw by the grit of the floor. Blake's whole weight settled on Jack, and Blake ceased to breath.45

Jack looked up, and saw the feet of the man ahead of him escaping down the tunnel. He realized that between the two of them, they were blocking the small narrow passage way. He heard the feet of their pursuers clatter to a halt behind them. There was a moment's silence.46

“Damn it,” said one of them. He spoke English, but strangely skewed, with a weird accent. “Oh!” he exclaimed suddenly. “And look at this! What is this?”47

Another soldier's voice came in, hesitantly. “It's... it's a body. A body... a kid's body!” he exclaimed the last part suddenly. “Damn it! And with good flesh still on him too!” Jack heard the sound of him kicking something. “We're screwed, man, we're just screwed.”48

“Yeah,” said the first soldier's voice. “We are.”49

“Do you think...” the second's voice trailed off, hesitant again. “Do you think he could use a dead one of them?”50

There was the scrape of someone's boot on the dirt, as if the one soldier were rounding on the other. “Do you,” came the voice of the first soldier to speak, “Want to bring him this kid's dead carcass and ask him? Do you? Because I don't.”51

There was silence. Then the voice of the second soldier, “Yeah, you're right, I don't either.”52

The footsteps retreated, and very soon silence settled on the tunnel. The stench of death became overpowering. He pushed Blake's body off him, got up, and walked away. He did not turn to look at the body, he did not attempt to move it, to give it a proper burial. For if he turned to look, he would be consumed with grief, and if he attempted to move the body, it would end in yet another of his failures.53

He emerged from the tunnel, after a while. He wandered around the ruins of his civilization, some of them, he noticed, still smoking. He found a beam, perhaps the corner of some building, still standing proudly, its head held high out of the rubble. He found a blackened stick on the ground, its end crumbling to charcoal. He stared at the pillar for a while, this relic of the old world. Then he approached it and wrote with his charcoal stick. 54

...But that world is gone now, he wrote, the tip of his stick scratching weirdly against the metal. It is buried in the rubble below me, it is the maze of ruin I call my home. It lies on the trash heap of history, along with the Thousand Year Reich and Gloriana and Hannibal and his thousand steaming elephants. I can't say I mourn its passing...55

He stared at his words for a moment, taking in their full meaning. I rise, and set to my purpose. They were inspiring words, and meant to be inspiring, to himself and to anyone who read them. But could he carry out their import? Where did he go from here? Was there anything he could do? Or was he simply to be Prince Hamlet, vacillating and waffling until circumstances brought his world crashing down around him? Well, he had already played that role. Some words came back to him, old words, written down long ago, calling to him from their dusty moldy grave across the centuries. 56

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two
Advise the Prince, no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Poetic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.57

Jack bowed his head, and prayed. He could not form words to speak to the Creator, the way his dead family had been able to; but he let the silent thoughts, the needs and desires and his hopelessness and regrets and sadness, all take shape in his head, and he lifted them toward heaven to let Him do with as He pleased. He had, he realized, faith.58

He heard, far off among the ruins, but growing closer, the tramp of boots and the clatter of weapons. A harsh voice barked curt orders in a tongue Jack didn't understand. He saw the tops of their heads, now, as they wended their way through the ruins, coming directly toward him. Jack looked around quickly, desperately, but he realized there was no escape. 59

The soldiers came into view. The captain, or whatever the leader was called these days, was looking at the ground when he came into view of Jack, and so did not see Jack for a moment. He looked up then, startled, bringing his gun up. He barked a word in the foreign tongue, and his squad stopped and spread out and brought up their weapons.60

The two sides stared at each other for several long moments, Jack on one side, perfectly relaxed with hands in pockets, the squad of soldiers on the other, tense, weapons ready and trigger fingers twitching a little, waiting for orders.61

The squad leader broke the silence. He spoke loudly, authoritatively, in English that was messed up somewhat and accented strangely, but still understandable. “You know, you will have to come with us,” he said. He and the others were still looking at Jack strangely. Perhaps they were used to people resisting them. 62

Suddenly, Jack knew that the man spoke truth. He looked the squad leader in the eye, and nodded. “I know I will,” he said. “Do you have any handcuffs, or are you just going to tie me up?”63

The squad leader seemed shocked by this as well. Nobody spoke this way to him, it seemed. He was not used to it. Then he laughed. “No, we are not scared of you. You will simply walk in the midst of us. Have you any weapons?”64

Jack laughed. “No,” he said. “I don't have any weapons. In fact, I really have nothing.”65

The soldiers gathered silently around him, and silently he went with them to his destination.66

They wended through the land of desolation for a while, in and out of the piles and the garbage and the bodies, down corridors forged through the destruction, up alleys remarkably and miraculously preserved from the destruction. They seemed to have a destination in mind, Jack observed after a while. They seemed to be aiming for a tall tower that rose, proudly, towards the sky, its head high in the midst of the barren slouches around it. When Jack looked hard enough, he could see people moving about through the windows. 67

The soldiers all looked at him curiously, casting sidelong glances at his face, his skin, his clothes, his bearing. Their skin sagged, too, Jack noticed, but it was not nearly so pronounced as that of the people in the cave. One would not have noticed it unless one were nearby and looking closely and knew what they were looking for.68

The squad leader, in particular, stared hard at Jack. Jack found this annoying after a while, and stared hard back at him. After a while they were walking parallel to each other, still staring, mostly meeting each other's eyes but sometimes glancing at other things—belt, shoes, weapons. The squad leader opened his mouth after a long time, but Jack was the first to speak.69

“Who are you?” he asked, putting as much harshness and directness into his voice as he knew how, but it still came out more curious than anything.70

The man blinked, raised his eyebrows, surprised. “Who...?”71

“Are you,” Jack said, more forcefully this time.72

“I am...” the squad leader started, then stopped. He furrowed his brow, as if considering.73

“Let me help you,” said Jack, coldly. “Who are you? Where do you come from? Why are you here? Who are you people?”74

The squad leader nodded, his mouth opening, grinning in comprehension. “Ah,” he said. “Who are we.”75

Jack considered a moment. “Yes, that will do.”76

The squad leader grinned more widely. “Who are we? You know of us. You speak and act too well for one who knows nothing of these things. We are, well, your government would have us be the barbarians. And I suppose we are. We are an ancient people, transcending race and culture, era and aeon. All people of all time know us.77

“It is we who plunged Greece into her dark age, which then brought about the Plato and Aristotle and Socrates who began the whole thing again. We tried for China, we sacked Rome, tearing down the old rotten empire so that a new one could grow in her place. We plunged Europe into her Dark Age, so that the base for the world that was just destroyed could emerge. Now we are here, tearing down the sad remains of that world, like vultures tearing at the remains of a carcass. 78

“And you, boy, you may have a place in this new world too. For you were certainly not a child of the old one.”