Psychopomp: A Novella Read online

  There was nothing to stop me. I had nothing to lose.

  This was where I’d disappear off the face of the earth.

  Slipping the bag over my back, I stepped forward and passed between the two trees. I walked, my steps sure, the ground firm beneath my feet, the morning sun beating on my back. The wind across the empty flatlands was fierce, flinging dust and dirt against my skin. I was the only thing in its path for miles.

  I reminded myself: No looking back.

  ~

  The sun blistered me through the haze as the day pressed on. I carried myself across the landscape of the map of the world. The rising of ocean waters had changed the shape of this country. Everything was brown and yellow and gray. Green was mostly an artificial shade with no place in nature.

  I walked all through the day, pausing only to eat and sip from the bags of water. There was never anything to see except field after stiff, dry field. No sound but my feet crunching the grass, my inhale and exhale.

  Gradually the ground began to roll in gentle hills that were never high enough to hide the elusive horizon. What few trees I saw were small and shriveled, beaten by wind and decay. There were no people. There was nowhere to live, nowhere to hide. There was nothing to sustain a human life.

  The world was so vast. It stretched away from me in every direction, unbroken nothingness as far as I could see.

  My legs were numb by the time darkness began to encroach at my back. The sun was ahead of me now, a golden smear through dust. I chased a daylight that never seemed to end. It was always just a few steps ahead of me.

  And then the night fell suddenly, a dark blanket that felt both desolate and suffocating.

  The air cooled rapidly. I opened my mouth to take a deep breath but found myself sobbing instead.

  If the journey was already this difficult, I didn’t know how I’d make it much farther.

  I lay on a bare patch of ground and slept deeply in the silent dark.

  25. el polvo

  Wind gusted across the fields, bringing in dust so thick I had to rip a piece of cloth from my hem to tie over my nose and mouth. I walked with my head down and eyes half closed. The sun burned faintly through the brown haze as I cursed myself for attempting this journey.

  Then one day the wind lessened and the dust settled from the air. I took out a bag of water and put my chapped lips to the valve. I drank only a few mouthfuls, not knowing how long I would need to conserve the supplies Pell had given me.

  A shape appeared in the distance. I squinted my eyes, focusing on it.

  The wind turbine was white, its blades spinning swiftly. It rose into the sky, growing taller the closer I walked. And it wasn’t just one but five, a dozen, hundreds. Their tall, slender forms appeared through the thinning haze, mesmerizing me.

  Up close they were gigantic sentinels guarding the land and inviting me into the beyond. They creaked and groaned as the blades wheeled without purpose.

  The land was changing. Green showed up more often, in tangled thickets and moss and in patches by ruined roadsides. Weeds thrived in sporadic clusters. I coughed up lungfuls of dust. I could nearly see the color of the sky, a blue I’d never known outside of dreams.

  Day after day I kept on despite feeling the first stirrings of panic.

  And doubt. So much doubt. Gabriel had never reached the castle. He was already dead. He’d never left Rueville at all.

  The sun burning orange, this damaged land, the primordial darkness at night. These tedious days gone by where I barely spoke, and when I did it was to myself. Such things could have driven anyone mad. And I was half-starved and dehydrated in my attempts to ration my supplies, my mind susceptible to idle whims.

  My thoughts centered on food, water, and Gabriel, and the next step, and the next. The bleakness of the journey wiped my mind blank of purpose. Tears filmed in my eyes.

  My hands felt heavy and swollen at the ends of my arms. My shoulders ached sharply under the weight of my bag. My legs shuddered and burned with each trudging step that took me farther from home and closer to Gabriel.

  I hoped, I hoped.

  I wondered why I chased him so single-mindedly. Why needing him felt like a savage ache in my bones. He’d done horrible things to people dead and alive. He’d shown me common courtesy, but never any affection. Never made me any promises. And yet I clung to him, to the idea of him, like barnacles on a ship.

  I was going to die for him.

  I was half dead already.

  Several days passed this way, interchangeable, interminable. Sometimes I walked without realizing it, my mind entering a fugue. I would come back to myself, legs moving of their own accord, unable to tell how far I’d gone.

  The sky cleared. And it was so blue.

  Days and nights bled into one another. I walked.

  My supplies started to run low before there was ever a hint of a mountain on the far too distant horizon. I kept going, increasingly worried. My eyes swept back and forth, searching for something. For anything.

  I didn’t dare stop. I refused to lie down and die, though I knew I walked to my own grave.

  Time was endless, an abyss. I walked, shaking and sobbing when I was too weak to help myself. I walked until I’d forgotten my own name.

  One day I found a little pond and hoped to gather water. But I knelt at the edge and knew the water, dark green with unnerving hints of red, was poison. Black pipes ran just underneath the surface.

  I was so thirsty.

  In despair, I turned to the nauseating little shoots sprouting near the pond. My hands plunged into the cold, damp soil. Baring my teeth with effort, I tugged until I’d freed a clump of thick, yellowish roots. They were loathsome, like skin that had never seen the sun. I wiped off clods of black dirt before biting into the mass. It tasted like the earth. Stringy, moist fibers stuck in my teeth. I thought I might faint from a sick combination of pleasure and revulsion.

  Each dusk, glowing wisps of light led me into ghost towns slowly being swallowed up by nature. The ruins crumbled, coated in grime and fossilized lichens, strangled in long-dead vines. Silvered in moonlight, the half-fallen walls took on a magical quality, protecting me from unseen terror.

  I slept on the hard ground, shivering, haunted and hounded by phantasmagoric visions of the people I’d left in Marshwick. They appeared in my dreams as a gray chorus of disembodied heads. “Marlo,” they whispered and rasped, “it’s been so long since we’ve seen your face.” Their dream voices leapt over each other, forming an odd harmony that echoed in my sleeping mind.

  I slept beneath the trees that cropped up more often now. Mushrooms crowded in the dank soil at my feet. I dreamed of filthy hands and beautiful mouths. I dreamed of the ambassador sucking down marrow and picking his teeth with the splinters of bones. He cracked a human spine like a whip, spattering blood on the pile of corpses he’d desecrated. I dreamed of Verm, pouring cyanide into my heart to stun me, to capture me like a fish from a coral reef. I always woke up crying.

  Until now I’d never seen the actual moon. It was heavy and yellow, pocked with grayish seas. I watched it change shape and move across the black sky, closer and farther, round and crescent.

  Stars glittered above me in unfathomable multitudes. Miles and miles from artificial light, they were all I could see. Sometimes they didn’t even look like stars but veils, or sparkling dust. They mapped the sky. My skin looked blue in their light.

  I didn’t know where I was on earth. I didn’t know where I was.

  I didn’t know.

  I didn’t…

  26. la fiebre

  I’d begun to see decrepit houses. Abandoned farms. Row after row of withered crops. Weather modification had hit this area hard, years ago. Chunks of cement sat in the middle of the fields, relics of cloud-seeding experiments gone wrong. Planes had flown through clouds over these crops, releasing a mixture of chemicals intended to make it rain. The cement powder in the mixture hadn’t broken apart during the release, and these blocks had f
allen from the sky.

  The weathered shutters of the farmhouse I approached swung lazily in the wind, barely hanging on by their hinges. All the windows were broken. The front porch had splintered away from the outer walls and had become a useless pile of wood. My vision blurred as I circled to the back of the house. I found another door, the steps leading to it more or less intact. I climbed up and knocked loudly, even though I knew no one would answer.

  I leaned against the screen door, waiting. My eyes kept drifting closed.

  As my body started listing to one side, I roused myself and flung a hand at the latch. It broke off at my clumsy touch and the door swung open. I stumbled into a musty, dingy kitchen, feet echoing on unstable floorboards. Colorless flowers were printed on the walls.

  “Hello?” I called over the rhythmic banging of the shutters. My voice sounded hoarse and weak. I wasn’t sure when I’d last used it.

  The chipped porcelain sink caught my eye, and I hobbled toward it. Miraculously, there were a few gulps of brown water left in the pipes. My burning body longed for more, but I could hardly walk. With my hands out to feel for walls and furniture, I forced myself into the next room. Vision blacking in and out, I found a couch that let up a cloud of dust when I fell face first onto it.

  Sleep came quickly, like a light gone out. At first it was restful. Then I began to shiver and sweat, drifting in and out of dreams. The night whirled around my spinning head.

  In my delirium I realized I was not just the only person for miles, but the very last person on earth.

  interim: inocencia

  The nights were almost as warm as the days. Cooling units hidden in metal plants and vents in the sidewalk spurted soft breezes into the air, but sweat beaded on Dominique’s brow anyway.

  Wearing a shiny black dress that had been delivered to her room earlier in the day—thankfully while Delia had been out on an errand—Dominique walked through Cizel to the address Hiram had given her. The dress left her shoulders bare and felt like water on her thighs. She looked plainer than anyone she saw—one woman wore a top made of clamshells and beads and another had on an elaborate skirt of what looked like fish scales—and she felt all the more exposed because of it, though no one seemed to pay her much attention.

  She arrived at the address, which wasn’t far from home at all. The building was a convention center of some kind, only one story but tall and sprawling. A false garden filled with luminescent ferns and glowing orange flowers surrounded it, edging the path leading to the entrance. Dominique’s steps slowed on the path as she stared, wondering if real plants were anything like the hard, cold replicas before her.

  Others passed by her and headed inside, arm in arm and entirely at ease. She kept glancing around for Hiram and wondered if his invitation had been some elaborate joke. Or maybe something had happened to him, given his line of work. Maybe she would never see him again and never know what had become of the man, the murderer.

  If a terrorist were going to bomb the city, she thought, a party would be the perfect place. It had happened before, and recently. The parties were always full of people who supported the war and benefitted from it. Delia had been right—no one would bother with a row of modest businesses. A place like this was the real target.

  And yet she kept waiting for Hiram instead of leaving. She chided herself miserably each moment she continued to stand there.

  Just as she was beginning to feel lightheaded from the oxygen the plants emanated at regular intervals, she heard deliberate, easy footsteps. Whirling, she caught sight of him coming up the path toward her, all shiny hair and understated clothes that perfectly skimmed his tall, well-built body.

  “Good evening, Dominique,” Hiram said. “You look lovely.”

  “Thanks for the dress.” She attempted a smile. “It’s, uh… different.”

  Smiling without a hint of superiority, he held out his arm for hers. She took it, disturbed at the close proximity of their bodies. His solid warmth was comforting and pleasant. A murderer shouldn’t have felt so nice. And she shouldn’t have enjoyed herself so much.

  Her guilt temporarily fled when they passed through the arched entrance. It was one large room lit up with pale lights and made to look like a courtyard of sorts. Tropical trees had been painted in silver along the walls. Golden, flickering holograms roamed the room in the shape of animals from long ago: cheetahs, horned impalas, ostriches.

  The ceiling stretched high above, and it had been designed to look like a clear blue sky with the sun shining down. Some machine had even been used to simulate light, frothy clouds. She wondered if the world had once looked like this.

  “How did they do this?” Dominique asked, her lips parted in wonder. “How did they know?”

  “Books,” Hiram answered. “As for the rest, this is old technology. But it’s still impressive when used in interesting ways.”

  She cut a glance at him to see if he was secretly laughing at her, but his gaze roved admiringly over the room. Food and drink tables had been set up in each corner. Music streamed all around from hidden speakers, the songs interspersed with realistic animal sounds. Most of the guests wore beige or green, though some had opted for animal prints. Dominique’s black dress seemed stark, but she felt suddenly lovely in it. She was distinct in the softness of the room.

  They ate, watching the room and not speaking to each other. Everyone seemed to stream around them, as if there were an invisible bubble closing them off from the rest of the room. Dominique looked at Hiram, wondering if he noticed. But if he did, he didn’t seem bothered. His gaze was serene and contemplative.

  He glanced down at her and held out his hand. Dominique put hers in it and allowed him to lead her out among the other dancers. The fast-paced song changed to something slower as they faced each other, almost as if he’d timed it.

  They whirled together, hand in hand. Dominique didn’t know the steps, but she managed to move more or less in time with Hiram. She detected a glint in his eyes and the faintest of smiles on his lips, perhaps indicating his amusement at her lack of practice. But she thought maybe, just maybe, he might have grown fond of her. Men like him didn’t make permanent companions of girls like her, but maybe she would be the exception.

  The man was obviously rich. As long as she didn’t have to actually watch him kill people, spending her life with him wouldn’t be so terrible.

  Dominique blinked as he whirled her in another direction. What was she thinking?

  “You try to hold your feelings in reserve,” he said, “but you aren’t very good at it. It’s no secret to me how you feel, Dominique. However, nothing can ever result from those feelings. Your affections flatter me, but I am that man you fear. Do you understand?”

  Steeling herself, she tilted her head and arched her eyebrows proudly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He gave a small shake of his head, the light in his eyes dimming. “Never forget who you are, Dominique.”

  “Why would I—”

  As the words left her mouth, an explosion sounded and the room shook. People screamed, and Dominique gasped in fright. Hiram’s hand tightened around hers. Her gaze snapped to his and she fell instantly into the depths of his dark, fathomless eyes. His face was no longer that of the remote, quiet stranger whose mansion she had cleaned. It was not that of the calm, kind man who had accompanied her to the dance. He had become the cold-blooded killer she’d known him for from the very beginning. Understanding flooded her.

  “No,” she whispered. “No.”

  “Yes,” he said, and there was perhaps a touch of sadness in his voice.

  “The girls—”

  “All home safe, at this hour. And you are here with me.”

  The other guests clutched at each other and pushed toward the door, voices rising with panic. Dominique’s heart threatened to beat right out of her chest. “Delia—my mother—”

  Hiram shook his head, eyes closing briefly. He said nothing.

  A sob caught
in her throat and she stared at him, willing this not to be true. “Why did you do it?”

  “I didn’t, Dominique. I only knew it was going to happen.”

  “Who are you?” she asked accusingly.

  “No one.”

  Enraged and afraid and filled with despair that burned at the base of her throat, she pushed away from him and stumbled through the flickering holograms toward the door. There was still a crowd, but Dominique managed to elbow her way through it. Outside, she shoved past people lingering in frightened clusters on the sidewalk and ran across the street. The ground fell away beneath her feet as she drew closer to the agency, her dread weighing more heavily with each step.

  She could smell the smoke and singed bricks now. Even before she turned the last corner, she knew what she’d see.

  The agency was destroyed. The outer walls had collapsed, crushing the interior. Bricks and shattered glass lay scattered in the street. The adjacent buildings had taken some damage as well, their blackened walls beginning to crumble and their windows broken.

  Tears stung Dominique’s eyes as she picked her way closer among the rubble. “Delia?” she called, coughing. Her stomach roiled with fear and worry. What had her mother done to warrant this?

  There was no answer but the wail of a siren several streets away. Then someone called out from one of the neighboring buildings, begging for her help.

  Carefully, Dominique headed toward the faint voice, peering into the dark wreckage. She saw a woman’s pale face turned toward her. The woman held one hand out, and Dominique hesitated before reaching in to grab it. But when she pulled, the woman didn’t move. Beams and sections of wall held her in place, all of it too heavy for Dominique to lift.