How the World Ends (23 page)

Michael steps closer, looking older than he did a few minutes ago, somehow, and yet his eyes, twinkling with hidden knowledge, are the same. “I wondered when you’d get here, Jonah. My feet are getting sore. Why don’t you let me ride a while?”

Jonah doesn’t speak; he just reaches back and unties the reins to the second horse, handing them to Michael.

I’ve only know him a couple of days, but as he climbs onto the smaller horse’s back, I feel a pang of regret. He stayed with me while I toiled away at what to do. He never told me what to do. He just stayed and whispered answers to my whispered questions. And now he is leaving. Michael.

“We have to hurry, man,” he says to Jonah. “The others are in a bad way and Gabe ain’t there no more.”

“What’s happened to him?” Jonah asks.

“How should I know, I’m an old blind man from a long way away from here.” Then he winks at me, as Jonah reaches over and ties the long reins of the smaller horse onto the back of his saddle.

“Okay Steven,” he says to me. “You’ve done great so far. Bill and the others are waiting up by the main road. They’ve got directions to my place and I have left stashes of food at every camping spot. There won’t be enough for everyone, but it’ll help keep you going until I can bring help.”

“Where are you going?”

“Susan, Amy, Corporal Rogers – they haven’t shown up yet either.”

“Sorry it took me so long.”

“Steven – you’ve done what nobody else could. People will join you and more and more will follow these.”

“Where are we going?”

“Home, man!” calls Michael in an outburst. “We’re all going home!”

And the cheer is picked up again in the ones behind us as the horses turn and carry their riders off into the sunrise that is now fully captivating the attention of the sky.

The crowd finally presses around me, my brothers and sisters all.

…

Michael

A few hundred yards outside of town, I hold my hand down for Gabe – a small boy of only five or six years old. He’d been running away. He’s a good boy, only he never does what he’s told to do. He goes from being a white robed figure that nobody can even see ‘cause he’s so holy and grand, down to a child that nobody pay’s much mind to anyways.

And all because he don’t want to stand by while people ignore the one thing that has always helped them rise above their oppression.

Hope.

He’s a small boy ‘cause he brings hope and passes it on, and that means he has to pay the price.

“Can I ride with you?” a small, sheepish voice calls up to me, not scared of the horse, but of being left behind.

“I’m not holding my hand here to wave bye-byes, child!” I say, not quite scolding him, but not quite not, either.

“I’ve never been on a horse before, I don’t know what to do.”

I pull him up in front of me and settle him in the front of the saddle. I feel the animal shift a bit under the new weight, but she doesn’t mind too much. We’re both skinny.

“You been on every kind of animal you can imagine, boy,” I tell Gabe. “You just don’t remember it yet. You been up on camels, elephants, a lion once, and other things.”

“That was just a dream, wasn’t it?”

“Well, history is like that, sometimes.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means hold onto that saddle horn, my friend, ‘cause it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”

“I’m afraid, Michael. I’m afraid of the dreams being real.”

“I know, Gabe. I know.”

“If they’re real, then he’s been watching us. I don’t even know what he looks like anymore, but he’s out there.”

“I know.”

“Why would he do that? Why after all this time would he come back now?”

“Did he ever leave?”

“I know he did. I watched him go. He had no choice.”

“Did he not?”

“No. I can’t believe that.”

“Maybe you can’t. Maybe you won’t. I won’t argue about it no more.”

Chapter Three – The Lighthouse

Lucifer

The last rays of sun sink below the line of the horizon on the lake. The final strand of bright red light touches the side of my white-washed tower for a fleeting moment before winking out into non-light. And in the coming darkness I can feel a presence. I, who have felt nothing that was not of my own choosing for as long as I can remember, feel something pulling, tugging at my conscience.

Is it resistance to my will?

I will become a bear and frighten him off.

Is it an attempt to circumvent my intentions and skirt around my objectives?

I will become a wolf and head him off, running quicker than the wind.

Or is it my own mind playing tricks with me? Do I still have the capacity for that? It has been such a long time since I was confronted with substantial resistance, that I don’t really have an answer for it.

Aren’t I supposed to be evil? How did this happen without me? I have been getting too lazy, letting things sink into chaos all on their own, but this is getting out of hand. I need to find an ally, an agent, a supporter.

A friend?
No – not possible.

I wasn’t always like this, though. I was the chosen one, the one who was sent ahead, and the one the others watched with envy that they couldn’t betray with their eyes. I was the one who brought this place from the edges of oblivion to what it is today. They call me evil, they look on me with fear, but what am I really? What am I, besides a question that cannot be answered?

They don’t know that I can’t do anything to them or I will be punished in ways that even I cannot imagine. Already I am banished from the human form, and I don’t wish to find out what would happen if I were to sink further from their countenance. I need them as much as they need me.

And I feel one who needs me now – he and the two others, my friend and my brother from the big house. I see them coming from a long way off as I perch in my phoenix form on top of the lighthouse tower. I long to see their faces after so many hard words have driven us apart. I long for them, for something from them, but I don’t know what it is. I only know that what I can give them, they need now, and that will make them grateful.

And in my debt.

I can’t help grinning, knowing what that might mean. This is how it starts, this is how the pattern repeats itself. I flick back to the wolf:
all the better to frighten him with.

And yet... and yet I can’t bring myself to believe it. I feel too much longing for the way things were. For a simpler time.

…

Gabriel

I long ago demanded that all my friends call me Gabe. Too many of them looked at me like I was some sort of perfect being. Not that it makes any difference, but Gabriel always sounds like such a high and mighty name when I am not that kind of angel. I like to get my hands dirty – I need to
do
things. I can’t just sit still and watch people go about the business of living.

And this is where getting my hands dirty has gotten me – reduced to a small child sharing a saddle with a witless blind fool who doesn’t see the world like I do.

And yet we are all that are left, it would seem. None have remained to take up arms with these flailing humans.

Michael jerks the horse’s reins again, and she fights against the bit. Why can’t he just let her follow the other horse that she’s tied to? That’s just like Michael all over again – it always has to be a battle of wills – never can it just be smooth sailing to get to a destination. He has to make everything a
journey.
Sometimes it seems like we should be more “angelic” – whatever that means – and fly away from here.

But the one in front is pulling us on – leading us forward. Toward what, I do not know anymore – I used to think I had a good handle on what was supposed to happen, but the child’s voice echoing in my head is a constant reminder that my failure to pick my spots are what have lead us into this mess.

We’ve ridden for days all the way along the lakeshore, aside from skirting wide around the oak trees that have choked off the old city, and we haven’t seen a soul on the road. Only the sun overhead and the darkness that follows day to remind us that we’re still in God’s realm – I wonder if that still means anything to anyone except us.

Michael turns to me and says, “There’s something ahead – can you tell what it is?”

“I don’t know,” I reply. “Looks like a lighthouse.”

“There aren’t any along this lakeshore – there’s no need,” he says. “Check again.”

“Man,” I say, exasperated. “You’re blind. What difference would it make?”

“Only this body is blind – I can see where I’m going perfectly well.”

“Then why can’t you see the lighthouse?”

“Because it isn’t there,” he says. “There is no lighthouse along this shore.”

“Then what am I looking at?”

“The same thing that Jonah is looking at, I imagine.”

We are both quiet for a few more minutes. The white tower looms closer.

“There’s one lighthouse keeper who brings his tower with him,” Michael says, quietly. We both know whom he refers to.

“That one’s been a beacon of darkness for far too long,” he continues.

I don’t respond to that – I can’t. How can I talk about my brother in such a way? And to the one who was supposed to be his best friend, no less? His absence is like an old wound within me that won’t heal. All of a sudden I wonder about all of the reconciliations I have witnessed over the years – the fathers and sons and mothers and daughters and sisters and brothers and cousins – they all thought there was no chance of seeing eye-to-eye. They thought they were different, when really the only thing that is different is this: my brother is a fallen angel.

A fallen angel and how we have covered it up: it always comes back to that. All of our problems seem to lead us back to it.

Why had we lied? Why had we made up that story of being cast out of our home and his great evil and capacity to bring everlasting darkness? Where has it gotten us? We created those fears, and here we are perpetuating them to ourselves.

It only leads to remind me that we have not been home in eons, literally.

Have we all of this time been wandering in search of this moment, of this confrontation?

“He’s my brother, Michael,” I say, quieter than sound but with the authority of my true rank in the House. “I can’t forsake him again.”

“We’ll see.”

…

Lucifer

They come.

The pounding of hooves stops and I wait in the window with the incandescence of the great lamp behind me, burning and lighting the darkness of my shadow that is cast into the growing fog. I feel the age-old struggle against the bonds that have locked me in the prison of this animal’s body since I can remember. My mind is torn between the need to speak and the need to kill.

I shouldn’t have taken the wolf’s form – I should have stayed as the bear, but he is old, has poor eyes and cannot lumber down these stairs without falling. The wolf has sharper senses, but also a tighter and more strict instinct that I have to fight against to maintain control. It is my second nature now, after such a long sojourn among the wilderness of mankind’s respite. It is almost my only nature, and I am sure that’s what was intended – for me to linger between memory and forgetfulness until such a time as… I cannot fathom when such a time will come to pass, so I don’t finish the thought.

My brother and my best friend slide from the mare’s back and she sighs with relief. I feel my mouth watering and the drool hanging profusely from my chops. She would be a shame to see fallen, but a delight to chase. The stallion is already un-mounted, but I do not see or smell his rider. Funny, that, since those two fools do not travel together unless they have been coerced to do so by a stronger power.

By a stronger presence… And yet I sense nothing – though I feel that I should remember something from only a few minutes ago… something that needed me, that would be indebted to me, that I could control, but the thought is gone from me.

Their voices are amusing, though, and remind me that nothing has changed. They bicker and argue about what to do about me, like they always have.

“
He’s not worth the risk. We don’t have time to be stopping for this.”

That’s Michael. I loved him like a brother, once. I had almost wished I was his brother, and that we could serve together more often, yet he forsook me. He abandoned me when I needed him the most. He doesn’t deserve to have the courage to see me. Therefore he should stay a blind coward forever.

“
He’s my brother. I can’t change that. I can’t turn my back on him now. He’s been gone for so long.”

That’s Gabriel. Oh, my brother!

“
You’re naïve, young one. You always have been. He’s the reason everything went wrong. He’s to blame for every bit of evil that has spread like wildfire across the reaches of time and space. We should ignore him. Maybe then he’ll just leave us alone.”

“
He’s my brother. I love him. I miss him.”

“
He doesn’t know what love is.”

“
Maybe you don’t, Michael.”

And then quiet. I feel my wolf’s body take an involuntary gulp. I wonder, for a minute, which one of them is right. A moment of almost-remorse, a split second of near regret for lost time, but then a curious wonderment at the one whose presence I have forgotten – or overlooked. I shudder at the implications – at the very thought that I may let my defences slip just a little bit, that someone may see the vision of my former self in all the layers of my demise.

“Closing your eyes won’t make me disappear, Lucifer.”

The words tumble over me like the thunder of a waterfall that crashes upon you when you weren’t ready to get wet. They make me cringe, ache to get away, to dissolve into the wolf and to tear out the throat that has so rent the fabric of my illusions. And yet at the same time I feel deep inside me the old desire that has been there all along, only buried, stirring. It shakes me limb from limb and I collapse upon the floor, in a heap of limbs and unbidden tears that cannot flow, in a barrage of crying out that cannot be articulated in anything but a brutal howl.