Dust (30 page)

“But
I’m
human again, I’m one of the ones—”

“You ain’t human,” Florian said emphatically. “You got the outer shell, you got the flesh and the breath and a couple of the appetites, but you ain’t any more human than you were the day I met you. Thank Christ.” He grinned. “You’re just a hell of a lot more
living
dead than you were before. The hoofolks that caught this, like your sister, same thing. The true living dead. Some of you, you’ll survive this—not many, not easy, but you will. It’ll burn off like any other disease. You and a bare handful of true humans, the living living, but they ain’t my concern and they ain’t gonna be in a position to tell you anything. You’ll rule the roost. Back to the start, back to the way it was thousands of years ago, when that meteorite that made us what we are first landed. For the first time in forever.”

I gripped the pear, nails sinking into the unripened flesh. “Then it’s true. About a meteor landing and changing everything, the dust or radiation, or something, all those stories—”

“Humans think they’ve always been in charge of the planet, up till now.” He shrugged. “They’re wrong. We used to have hold of it, way back when. Lost our grip. Don’t know how, don’t know why, but we did. Now we’re back. You’re back. The hoos that are left don’t like it, well, that ain’t your problem. The weak don’t get squatter’s rights.”

“But it’ll just be us. I mean, the people who died, hoos, undead, whatever, they’re not rising again, I haven’t seen a single one resurrect. They’re just plain dead.” I clutched the pear harder. “So they’re never coming back. Sam’s not. Joe’s not. And you’re not.”

Florian reached out and stroked my head, not seeming to notice when another clump of hair came off in his fingers. “Can’t say as I want to come back, Jessie. I got a nice life here, in your memories, you made the beach just like I wanted it. And that’s all I ever wanted. You got folks who love you too, so you’ll always have someplace inside them to go.” He appropriated the pear with a reproving glance, like I’d swiped it from him. “So go back now, quit your moaning and wailing and just get ready to die. Or to live.”

“How can any of us live through this? We’ve got no strength left.” I grabbed for his hand like it could hold me upright. “No appetite. No place to go. Nothing.”

Something blazed fiercely from Florian’s eyes, not anger but some breed of almost lethal determination, subsiding quickly as it sparked. “No place to go, Jessie? No place at all? You know better—there’s always one last place for you to go. Underground.”

The beach faded, the woods, Florian himself. I was standing in grass now, overgrown neglected grass thick with weeds; before me were uneven rows of gravestones, behind me a large arching metal sign and the torn-up remains of a barbed wire fence. Calumet County Memorial Park, my “resting” place. I wandered among the broken markers and gaping dug-up graves never filled in; up the aisles, down the aisles and there we were, in a little family plot under a big yew tree stripped of its leaves and lower bark: my mother, my father, my newly added niece and I. A small crooked marker stuck in the middle like an apology: JESSICA ANNE PORTER, MARCH 23, 1986-AUGUST 14, 2001.

I leaned forward and read the inscription over and over again. Such a tiny little hiccup of life. Ridiculously sentimental, giving over a whole precious piece of earth to house the remains of a nobody among billions because you maybe vaguely thought you loved them. I shut my eyes against the hard glare of a strangely harsh sun, and when I opened them again I saw markers for all the Flies in a row next to mine, markers in all the colors of Florian’s lake stones, laid out like the teeth of a great sad smile. WILLIAM NOWAK, 1901-1939. Billy. Stabbed in a bar fight. MARGARET MAY O’SULLIVAN, 1889-1922. Maggie. Diphtheria. SAMUEL JAMES MORRISON, 1925-1970. Razor to the throat. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN JONES, 1942-1968. Bullet to the head. TERESA KENDAL, 1945-1980. Cancer. JOSEPH ANTHONY MORELLI, 1939-1958. Car crash. Copycat. RENEE NICOLE ANDERSON, 1990-2006. Brain aneurysm. AARON DAVID LINCOLN, 1974-1990. Blunt force trauma. FLORIAN BROWN, 1712-1801. Old age, in his sleep. So rare.

I stumbled, walked, ran up and down that whole sad-sack, bad-luck row, feeling the life flowing from the pores of the stone—all that life flaring, pushing furiously against the confines of flesh, bursting outward and upward in a great gorgeous liberating explosion called death. Billy drowning as the blood slowly filled his lungs, Maggie’s throat swelling permanently shut, Joe meeting a metal guardrail at sixty miles per hour, Ben’s skull flying into jigsaw pieces, tumors devouring Teresa’s lungs and liver and bones like us devouring a fresh-killed deer. Sam’s one moment of true happiness, the industrious glee of the suicide as he picked up the razor. The sudden
snap
inside Renee’s head as the swollen artery burst. Linc’s terrible, practiced resignation as the punches and kicks came down harder and harder and then, too late, finally stopped.

The graves yawned open like jaws and I leapt into the space marked for me. I breathed in the dirt, let it fill my nostrils and mouth like solidified air and then the dirt turned gritty and grainy and damp with lake water and it was deep beige sands, singing sands, it was strength and nourishment and happiness, it took the blue tinge from my skin and the last traces of nausea from my gut; I tunneled like a sand crab into the next open grave, the next, the next, the collective release of life flowing straight into my bones. I had the strength of dozens, hundreds inside me, all that death, all that life, which was the same thing, exactly the same thing. I surfaced from the dunes and ran faster and faster across the cemetery, which was the forest which was the lake shore again, relishing the pounding glare of the setting sun, there was so much life-death-life fighting to fit itself back in my bones that this poor body couldn’t contain it, I was coming apart, shattering shaking like Florian disintegrating and I laughed out loud, shouted for joy as I flew into a billion particles of life, death, dust—

“Jessie? Jessie!”

I was back on the prairie preserve, nothing but dry grass and dead bodies. Renee leaned over me, looking apologetic. “You were crying,” she said.

I put my hands to my face, feeling the traces of damp. Lisa was wide awake, sitting expressionless next to a body covered in dirt-stiffened gray blankets. Linc sat up next to me, almost groaning with the effort. “Ron’s dead,” he murmured. “So quick, while you were sleeping. Took this sudden deep breath, and never let it out again.”

Someone else breathing in the dirt, then, no fool he. Dirt nap. I almost laughed, around a rush of true sadness. Thanks for the water, Ron, and I sincerely doubt there’s a hell, though you won’t get Valhalla either. I patted Lisa’s hand, drawing a reluctant smile, then grabbed Linc’s arm and drew him closer.

“We have to start walking,” I said, urgency and agitation making my voice rise high. “North. To the beaches. We have to get there. We’ve got to go now. Our graves are there. We have to get back to our graves, to where we’re all buried.”

I knew from Linc’s expression what I sounded like but I didn’t care, I had to tell everyone before the dream faded and blurred. “That’s how we’re going to get better. That’s how we’ll get well—”

“Jessie,” Renee pleaded, “stop.”

“I’m not gonna stop, dammit! I’m telling you, I saw Florian and he said it, hell, he said it to us back when he was dying, you heard him, we all have to go back, we have to get to the beaches, get underground—”

“Shut up,” someone groaned, and threw a branch at me. It landed about four feet short of the mark. “Crazy bitch.”

“She’s going delirious,” someone else said. “Just like that Ben. Don’t listen.”

“We have to go back—”

“Jessie.” Linc took my face between his hands. His fingers, his arms trembled uncontrollably. “We’re not going anywhere. Ever. For anything. This is it.”

I was shaking with illness and the need to yell at him, explain, drag him there by force, but holding myself upright took too much effort and my outburst had worn me out. I curled up obediently on the ground, Linc stroking what was left of my hair: I needed to rest and gather what strength I had, I needed it because I was going, I was going with or without them and then I could show them, explain, I could bring it all back to them and they’d
know.
Linc rested his cheek against the top of my head. Keep being sweet, Linc, you do that now dying’s made all the caution and doubt in you burn away, but I’m still going no matter what and I’m making you and Renee and Lisa better again if I have to smash all your heads in to do it. You can’t stop me.

“We felt this way too, before,” Renee said, consoling, comforting, as she settled back against my side. “Like we had to be somewhere, had to get somewhere important, like this here was just a way station, and it was right near us but we couldn’t . . . well. We just couldn’t.” She pulled my head onto her shoulder. “I guess this is as good as any place, now.”

“I guess so,” I said.

A way station. That’s exactly what this is, Renee. But you don’t want to understand, maybe you’re just too worn out now to understand, so I’ll have to leave off explaining it. I need to rest. I need strength, if I can ever muster it up again. Useless goddamned body, useless undecayed invincibly strong body eating itself up from the inside out.

“Good as any place,” Linc repeated. He sounded so tired it made me want to cry. An old cat weary of life, trying to hide in a closet or under a table away from pain and death, no fear anymore of the vet or his needle. “Good as any.”

There was something about that sand,
Florian said, back in the woods, back when we were both undead, an eternity ago.
Something about it.

“My stomach hurts,” Renee mumbled, quiet and resigned. “It’s burning.”

“Drink some water,” I said, reaching a hand out and resting it on Renee’s hollow, tensed-up gut. Rubbing. “Is there any left?”

“We gave the last to Ron,” Lisa said. Expressionless still. “Sorry.”

“I can’t keep it down anyway,” Renee whispered. “Never mind.”

I reached out for the pouch of stones I’d untied from my waist, pulled it to me, rested my cheek on it like a sharp, unforgiving pillow.
No matter where I been, if I had these with me I always felt like I was safe. Them bits and pieces made us what we are.
My face hurt pressed against it but that old feeling was back too, the prickly pins-and-needles skin-itch traveling from the stones through the leather to me like a quiet, reassuring electricity, like the stones were alive, aware, sympathetic, offering up a bit of their own immutable life to the dying.
Get my beach. My lake stones. I’ll live.

Crazy. This was completely crazy. But it had to be true. Somehow. Florian wouldn’t lie.

Renee pulled my head onto her shoulder again. Lisa lay down, an arm around that pile of dirty blankets. Valhalla.
I’m inside your mind, where else would I go?
I tried to imagine Ron’s beach, what he’d want to have around him for eternity, clearing a little space inside my skull for him like I had for Florian, like I hoped Linc or Renee or even Lisa would do for me. Motorcycles and electric guitars roaring day and night, air hazy with hashish smoke and barbecue, naked blondes, oceans of beer. Lots of enemies, he was never happy without a fight. Ron’s beach was easy. When that was through, though, I had to make a world for Sam and for Ben, poor wretched Ben, and for Joe, my fucked-up unhappy Joe, and for Billy and Mags dying somewhere far away, and for Lisa and Linc and Renee in case they died before I did, I couldn’t leave my own loved ones with no place of retreat. Miles to go before I slept. Ten miles, Ron said, maybe less, maybe more. I’d soon find out.

Gardens. Sam’s beach was an easy one too, flowers upon flowers. He loved flowers, more than people. More than himself. I lay there thinking of half-stripped lilac bushes, funeral wreaths, great fistlike clusters of small, wild roses. Beach roses.

The stones in my pockets tingled and sparked and burned so my legs twitched, almost jumped with the sensation. Good. Give me some more of that life inside you, you little bastards, just a sliver, just enough to go ten miles and back, maybe less, maybe more. I’m onto you now. The bits and pieces that woke us up from death, that keep us safe. Alive. Florian wouldn’t lie.

Lisa wept in her sleep. We pretended not to hear her.

Linc and Renee lay there moaning in exhaustion, pain, sadness, and finally after minutes stretched to hours they dropped off. I waited until their strange humanlike breathing was deep and steady, then I eased myself away and reached quietly into the stone pouch, taking a few more to fill my pockets. I left the half-emptied bag resting between them both, then forced myself to my feet by slow degrees: up on my knees, let the spinning dizziness subside, now on one knee like I was proposing to Ron’s corpse, straighten my shaking buckling legs and
make
them pull me up, slow, up—

The one who’d called me a crazy bitch was watching me now, curious. He leaned on one elbow, salt-and-pepper hair falling into his eyes, the jacket thrown over his shivering shoulders caked in dirt and blood. His mouth twisted up and puckered as I held out my arms like a toddler, took a few vertiginous steps.

“So where’re you going?” he mumbled, his voice thick with hostility and disease.

A transformed hoo, not a former undead like me: I could tell, I didn’t know how but it was like a smell he and Lisa and the others like them gave off; if they weren’t family I didn’t have any more time for them now than I ever did back in the woods. Where am I going? Where’re
you
going, hoos? Straight into the evolutionary crapper, looks like, don’t call, don’t write. What a crying shame.