IGMS Issue 36 Page 5

  Laura came back after a moment. "I can't find him."

  A sudden, soft crackling entered their line. ". . . had ripped open again . . ." his father's voice said before drowning in static.

  "Dad?" David said. "Dad, listen to me. You --"

  "-- but I couldn't tell her," his father said.

  "Dad! It's David. Laura, can't you find him?"

  "I'm looking."

  "Dad, where are you?"

  The static hissed and popped around his father's voice, drowning it. He rested his forehead on the steering wheel until Laura came back on the line. "I thought I saw him for a second in the hall, but I don't think he's here anymore. David?"

  "Call me if he comes back."

  "David, what are you going to do?"

  "What do you want me to do, Laura?" he snapped, and immediately regretted his tone. He took a breath and squeezed his temples. "I'm going to wait. I'm just -- I'll wait here. I'll call you later."

  Ten hours later, while walking back from the vending machines, David spotted his father standing in the long grass beside the interstate. His shirt had come open and untucked, and wind stirred his hair. He turned when David called to him, lifting a hand in hesitant greeting.

  It wasn't until David was leading him away from the interstate that he noticed his father's feet were bare.

  "Where are your shoes?"

  Bewildered, David's father looked down. "I left them at the beach."

  They made it as far as the outskirts of Florence before David exited. He needed a comfortable bed, and to eat something not purchased from a vending machine. He wanted to watch television, for which he felt guilty. It had been eleven hours since leaving the hotel that morning; they were barely a hundred miles from where they'd started.

  Immediately after dropping their suitcases on the floor David found the roster advertising local restaurants and ordered enough pizza to feed three people, knowing the abundance would comfort him. He didn't have to rummage in his duffel for the Glenlivet; he'd stowed it on top. Ripping two plastic cups free of their foil sheaths, he poured himself and his father three fingers each, then dropped onto the bed and dialed Laura. As the phone rang he watched his father wrestle his suitcase open. He began drawing out its contents piece by piece. David could see the curtains through him.

  "I don't know how this works," his father said. He was poring over the contents of the suitcase as though disassembling a piece of complex machinery. "They never explained how this works."

  "We're in Florence," David said when Laura answered. "He's getting worse fast. I don't know if we'll make it to Kitty Hawk."

  "There are closer beaches."

  David watched his father stuffing clothes back into the suitcase, then, unsatisfied, remove them again in frustration. "I can't make this work," his father complained. "They never explained this."

  David slept uneasily that night. Once, he woke up thinking he had heard someone calling him. He sat up and put his bare feet on the floor. He listened without turning on the light, but from the volume of the silence knew he was alone.

  Two hours later the phone rang. Knowing who it was and what she would tell him, he didn't bother answering. Instead, he decided -- without fully waking -- that their plans would have to change.

  The doctor smiled for the young lady as she escorted the father out. But the young man he held back. "I respect your father's decision to transition on his own. My concern is that you, as his attendant, understand your role. Some feel that by resisting the process, they can suspend -- even reverse it. They try. This is a natural, albeit emotional act. A harmful act. Sometimes they feel they have succeeded. It is a questionable success, with appalling repercussions."

  The doctor expected -- and waited for -- the young man to nod his understanding. "Your duty is to be watchful, not to interfere. Complications are not uncommon. If he begins to dissociate; if the medium of his communication shifts towards the abnormal; these are warnings. Your father should remain always present. Even when translucency makes him difficult to observe and understand, he should never be elsewhere. You understand?

  "Ignoring the signs can lead to undesirable consequences. Do not wait too long before seeking help." The doctor held the young man's arm. If it becomes too difficult, there is no shame in bringing him back. Though he doesn't wish it now, in the final stages he won't know the difference."

  David couldn't find his father the next morning, but knew he was nearby because his suitcase wouldn't stay zipped and the toilet flushed at irregular intervals. Later, standing at the mirror over the sink, his father wandered into sight behind him. David stopped shaving long enough to look over his shoulder; the room remained empty.

  "We're just two hours away, Dad."

  His father turned around twice looking for the source of David's voice.

  "Here, Dad. Here. The mirror."

  David coaxed him out with gas-station coffee and doughnuts.

  It was after ten by the time they checked out. David held his father's arm, but still lost him twice crossing the parking lot. He shouted for him between parked cars, chasing a fleeting image first there, then not. They made it to the car eventually, clinging to one another as though weathering a storm.

  David left the interstate where I-20 met with 95 North. The signs for Myrtle Beach drew him southeast into a tangle of state highways and marshlands. His father's solidity deteriorated to vague outlines and broken conversation coming through in fits of clarity as unexpected as they were short-lived. Mostly he was only an impression.

  David pulled over once when he realized he was alone in the car. For ten minutes he waited on the gravel shoulder of a two-lane highway beside a tobacco field. Finally, he left the car and walked a little ways back the way they'd come. He intended to call Laura, to ask her if he should turn back, push forward, or do nothing at all. When he realized he'd left the phone behind he turned back and saw his father through the rear window, fumbling with his door handle.

  He didn't dare stop again until Myrtle Beach.

  David parked on a short street with beach access. Mostly gone, but still visible, his father had fallen silent next to him. Leaning against the car, David stripped his feet and left his sock-stuffed shoes on the hood. He opened the door for his father, and they trudged up a sandy path through the beachgrass to confront the Atlantic. Together, they went down to where the sandpipers raced up and down the wet sand. They walked for a little ways, then David sat and watched the weak image of his father lift a blissful smile to the sun, which felt so much warmer than it should have for so late in the season.

  It was nearly dark when David checked them into a hotel. He asked for an upper level room with two beds and a view of the ocean. How many days? David didn't know. With the door shut behind them and their bags down, David pulled a hooded sweatshirt and the bottle of Glenlivet from his duffel. He threw wide the drapes and sliding doors, welcoming both the cold air and the crash of surf. He stepped onto the balcony to survey the courtyard below. The pool had been closed for the season, drained and covered with a tarp. Back in the room, he dragged both chairs to the open doors. The rest of the Glenlivet went into flimsy hotel cups, and he set his father's on the bedside table before dropping into one of the chairs.

  For the next hour David huddled in his sweatshirt, nursing his scotch and listening to the Atlantic. He commented on how beautiful was the sound of the waves, and how he loved the ocean air. He said he might have liked living on the beach -- that he might still. Sometimes a blurred version of his father occupied the seat next to him, and sometimes not.

  Despite the cold, David slept with the sliding doors open that night. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up and hid his hands up the sleeves. He woke sometime after 2:00 a.m. to find his father standing on the balcony.

  He stepped back inside when David switched on the bedside light, then gestured outside. "Where are we?"

  When David didn't answer, his father shook his head. "This isn't Kitty Hawk."

  "It
's the beach, Dad."

  "Which beach?"

  "What does it matter which beach? It's the beach. It's sand and water. Same ocean here as in Kitty Hawk."

  "It's not the right beach!" David's father turned hopeless eyes to the ocean. "I'll never find him here."

  "Because he's not here, Dad. And he's not at Kitty Hawk either. That's not how it works."

  "Don't you tell me how things work."

  David looked at his feet, the only part of himself he'd bothered to undress before lying down. He opened his hands, nothing left to offer. "I'm sorry."

  "You don't even change the oil."

  "You're right," David admitted. "I don't."

  His father looked about him, a captive animal seeking escape. He saw the slick placard advertising local restaurants and picked it off the dresser. When he looked up, David looked past him, unable to meet his eyes. "We're not even in the right state, David."

  He dropped the card and stared at his son. "We have to go," he declared.

  David watched his father struggling to close and zip his suitcase. But he was already weakening, already forgetting what a moment ago he'd been so determined to enact. David watched him drag the suitcase off the bed, only to glare at it when it bumped the floor, first angrily, then in mounting confusion. David watched him struggle, watched him forget. He counted to ten, slowly, then went to his father and touched his ethereal shoulder. "Let me help, Dad."

  Mostly by himself, David lifted the suitcase back to the bed.

  They stood looking at one another, each waiting for something from the other. David's father felt his own cheek, then looked at his wet fingers. "Why did I cry?" he asked. "What happened?"

  "We had a fight, Dad. But we're okay now."

  David's father no longer heard him. His emptying gaze had strayed to the sliding doors and the vast blackness of the ocean. "You told me to wait," he murmured. "You wanted to show me something."

  "I did the best I could, Dad. But it wasn't what you wanted. You were angry. I would have been, too. I said I was sorry, and you forgave me."

  "I had to carry you home."

  David hugged his father as best he could, then helped him back to bed. Afterward, he turned off the light and sat in the chair in the corner of the room. Leaning forward, he covered his face with both hands so his father wouldn't hear him crying.

  He was alone the next morning. He looked under both beds, in the closet, the shower, and the hall outside. He found his father's half-finished scotch on top of the television. Downstairs, he sat alone and picked at a meager breakfast of eggs and toast while the weatherman on television droned about cold fronts and hurricanes. Then he walked the beach and thought, on more than one occasion, that his father was with him, barely visible from the corner of his eye. Twice David heard his voice.

  David stayed three more nights at the hotel. In the middle of the first he woke suddenly and turned over to see his father standing over him, smelling of sun and sea spray. His shirt was open, his feet bare and burnt. "We had such a wonderful time," he said. "I saw your mother. And your brother when he was small. And you, too."

  "They're just memories, Dad."

  David's father smiled. "This is just memories, too."

  In the morning his father's cup -- now empty -- had moved from the television to the dresser. After spending the day walking the beach and eating alone in abandoned restaurants, David bought another bottle of Glenlivet and left a full cup out. That night -- the second -- the bathroom light flipped on, and later the television. The scotch remained untouched. On the last night the clock radio came on, but issued only a quiet, persistent static. Buried under layers of obscurity, a hazy voice struggled to be understood.

  . . . boradias . . . it insisted. Title defect . . .

  After forty minutes of trying to hone the signal, David realized that never before had he struggled so hard to understand his father. Disgusted with himself, he pulled the cord from the wall and tried to sleep.

  In the morning he called Laura.

  "How do we know?" he asked her. "When it's over. How do I know?"

  Having no answer, she listened to him talk about the beach and the waves, and how sometimes he couldn't tell where the ocean ended and the sky began. "We could live here," he finally said, which he then realized was what he'd wanted to tell her from the start.

  Gently, Laura asked him to come home.

  "But what if he's not gone? What if he comes back? He'll be alone. I can't . . . he wouldn't know . . . I can't just leave him. Can I?"

  "David," she said. "Come home."

  The doctor breathed deeply, considering how to best answer the young man's question. "I have seen transitions complete in forty-eight hours, others that sustain for weeks. Much depends on the patient: how badly they wish to move on, or to remain; how attached they've become to those things -- and those people -- they must let go. As in all things, there will be good days and bad. Be comforted in knowing that the process, in its entirety, is painless."

  David gathered his few things and carried his duffel and his father's suitcase to the door, where he stood for long moments waiting for something to happen.

  "Dad?" he said into the empty room.

  The curtains stirred in a current, and the light in the bathroom buzzed momentarily. From the courtyard below came the sounds of splashing, the shouts and laughter of children. "Mattie!" a woman called. "Slow down!" Then a child, overjoyed: "Dad!"

  Light Crusader's Dark Dessert

  by James Beamon

  Artwork by Andres Mossa

  * * *

  Things were looking up in the worst way possible when we finally made the Dismal River. Instead of blue gray, now the water flowed yellow-brown. Festering, putrid plants draped the banks on either side. It looked a lot more dismal than I remembered. But the reports had been accurate; these were badlands, remade into the liking of whatever death god claimed dominion nowadays. It meant the long trip to put a bullet into my wife and son's heads hadn't been a waste.

  "Nebraska sucks," Alex said from the back of the dinghy, her head panning the landscape as if to find a redeemable patch of turf. I couldn't see her eyes behind the blue tinted goggle lenses, but I wagered they weren't twinkling with wonder.

  "Careful here," I told her, turning up the collar of my leather duster against the clammy damp of river spray. "Even before the Twilight, the Dismal wasn't a leisure river. Make sure you keep an open line with Sweet Potato."

  Alex's goggled eyes regarded me, her mouth tight. "Yam. My god's name is Yam."

  "Whatever."

  "Not whatever, Jake. Next time it's Sweet Potato, someone's gonna drown, cabron."

  "I get it," I said holding my hands up in surrender, "it's been a long trip. West Virginia didn't help. Just make sure your god keeps us afloat."

  Alex smirked, like the thought of us drowning amused her. An azure aura surrounded her body as she communed with her god.

  My friend and fellow paladin was a bit touchy, but three days on the water was enough to strain any relationship. I had tried to keep her out of this, but Alex insisted she go. Waterways remained the safest routes from D.C. through lands whose gods and factions and blessings and curses were always in flux. So it had been a long, twisty journey from the Potomac to the Greenbrier to the New River to the Ohio to the Mississippi to the Missouri to the Platte to the Loup until finally the Dismal and the point where I couldn't tell if Alex's threat to drown me was real.

  I'm the one who should've been moody. The way I figured it, if the Canaanite god of the sea didn't want to be called Sweet Potato, his mama shouldn't have named him Yam. Besides, Alex made me carry all seventy pounds of boat on my back between rivers.

  We moved carefully. A death god, whether it was Thanatos or Izanami-no-Mikoto or Pluto or one of a dozen others, reigned here. That dominion had changed the Dismal into everything short of the River Styx, but kept it as treacherous as it had been before the Twilight of the Gods. The river had a continually winding nature
, with rushing currents and areas of heavy deadfall. Alex guided us through such an area now, moving the boat slowly against the current and around two trees that had fallen into the river. Through her blue aura, I saw sweat trickle down Alex's forehead and run around the rim of her goggles before soaking into the goggle straps.

  As usual, I smelled the zombies before I saw them, an unnatural, overpowering stench of rot. There were literally thirty-one flavors of the Apocalypse out there to choose from, and the zombie variety was my least favorite. Mainly because of the smell. It's a stench that shouldn't be allowed to hit your flaring nostrils to make your mouth gag and your eyes water without first having to get through six feet of hard packed Mother Earth.

  The sight and sound of zombies wasn't exactly Cirque du Soleil either. We saw them on the river bank as the dinghy came around the bend, where turbulent murk-water rushed through the branches of a felled tree. The zombies congregated, if you can call it that, half a dozen raw meat enthusiasts shuffling back and forth without direction. They saw us and let out moans, hoarse guttural wails. They stutter-stepped into the river toward us with new purpose, the purpose being lunch.

  "Your god gonna handle this, amigo?" Alex asked, grinning at her own joke.

  "Just keep the boat from rocking," I said. "I'll let Moses speak." I stood up and brought my 590A1 Mossberg pump action shotgun out of my coat. Moses was a law enforcement model, matte black, issued to me back when I had uniform laws to enforce. I sighted a flesh eater, taking a second to see if I recognized the desiccated face as someone I may have gone to school with. Not that it would've mattered.

  Moses spoke of wrath, his commandments punctuated with fire and brimstone. Heads exploded after each sermon. The air filled with successive booms followed by the ka-clack of Moses being racked. One by one, I dropped zombies for the river to carry away. The soothing sulfuric bite of gunpowder replaced the stench of rot.