The Crooked God Machine (26 page)

She picked up her fork and knife and cut up her fish in precise, triangular shapes. She watched her food as if it might attack her.

"Would you like some wine?" Mrs. Fredrick asked me.

I said nothing.

Mrs. Fredrick uncorked a bottle of wine and poured me a glass. I took a sip, but the wine turned rancid once it hit my stomach.

"Aren't you hungry?" Mrs. Fredrick said, "you've barely touched your food."

"I'm fine," I said, “I don’t think I can eat anymore.”

“But we have all this wedding cake,” she said, “it’s a special occasion.”

Mrs. Fredrick’s face slipped down. In her wedding dress she seemed less of a person and more like a dolled up broken light bulb.

“Well, then you must stay the night,” Mrs. Fredrick said, “It’s too dangerous out there for you to leave.”

“Where am I going to sleep?” I asked.

“In my room, of course,” Mrs. Frederick, “it’s too cold to sleep out on the couch.”

I glanced at the electrician.

“Is this why you brought me here?” I asked.

He said nothing.

“Come upstairs,” Mrs. Frederick said, “you can get undressed and I’ll make the bed up for you.”

"I don't think this is necessary," I said, my voice quiet.

Mrs. Fredrick stood up from the table.

"I have everything prepared,” she said.

"I'm sure you don't need me to do this."

"There is no one left," she said.

I stood up abruptly.

“You brought me here so that your daughter could play dress up?” I asked the electrician, “a wedding dinner followed by a wedding night?”

“Mr. Frederick,” Mrs. Frederick said.

“Is that who I am for you?” I asked, “Your dead husband?”

"You're so silly," Mrs. Fredrick said, "come on upstairs. I'll undress you myself."

“This isn’t the first time you’ve done this, is it?” I asked, “And you two, you just help her continue her delusion.”

The electrician and his wife said nothing.

"Listen to me. You still have your father. And your mother. Most people don't even have that. This isn't the first time you've done this, is it? Find someone to play husband for you?"

"I'm leaving," I said.

The electrician stood up.

"Please don't go," he said.

"You are helping to make her sick, you know this?" I told the electrician, "don't you see what you're doing?"

"Why don't we all just calm down," the wife said, "have you tried the jelly? Have another piece of bread."

"We're all making this world worse than it needs to be," I said, "God hates us. He hates even his own prophets. He sends the plague machines to kill us and the shuttles to take us away. And what do we do? We become serial killers and madmen. Make each other into slaves. Cut ourselves off from love. We destroy each other more skillfully than God ever could."

"Mr. Fredrick, you're obviously not feeling well. Come upstairs. You're tired," Mrs. Fredrick said. She clutched the edge of the table so hard I thought it might break off in her fingers.

"That was a nice speech," the electrician said to me, "but what do you intend to do about it? You're as mad as any of us."

"I told you," I said, "I'm going to the ocean. My wife is probably gone forever, but I'm going to keep searching for the way home until I'm dead."

I headed for the front door. Mrs. Fredrick ran after me and grabbed my arm. She pushed her veil out of her face, so that I saw her blank, white face, her electric eyes, her pouting mouth - the perfect bride set in stone.

"Please don't go," she said.

"I can't do this," I said, "can't you see what you're doing to yourself?"

"It's dangerous out there."

"I can't stay here," I said.

I pried her fingers off my arm and went outside. Inside, Mrs. Fredrick cried out, but outside the sound seemed distant, muted. Someone turned on the television in the living room of the house.

"These are the ends times, ladies and gentlemen," I heard Teddy say, "A time when the faith of the people will be tested. Slim Sarah is not the only one who has been put on trial, but her exemplary example should be heeded. Only those who prove their obedience, who purify themselves in God's name, will be spared."

The electrician came outside.

"The blood of the sinners will flow through the streets," I heard come from the television. Not Teddy speaking anymore, but God. "There shall be no mercy for those who oppose me."

"Are you following me?" I asked the electrician.

He slipped money into my hand. "I came to give you this. For bus fare. To get to the ocean."

"I'm a heretic," I said, "did you know that?"

I gripped the money tightly in my hand. After God finished speaking a great noise like a storm of wind rushed out of the television. I thought my body might obliterate on the spot.

"I hope you get where you need to be," the electrician said, "Nobody does, but I still hope you do."

We stood facing each other outside in the dark, with the great noise rushing past us, filling us with static.

"You were brave in there. With my daughter," the electrician said. "I didn't do what you wanted me to do."

"You were brave. She needed that."

I couldn't hide my shaking any longer. It invaded my entire body. It picked me and rattled me like a storm. I stumbled forward. The electrician caught me by the shoulders.

"I'm so scared," I whispered.

"Let that fear push you forward. Let it take you to the very end."

The electrician released me. I stepped back.

"I am the beginning and the end. I am all powerful and all knowing." God said, "and I will bring destruction to this cursed land."

"where can I find the bus stop?" I asked the electrician.

He told me.

"Thank you," I said.

I left the house and the electrician, and headed in the direction of the bus stop. I became lost in the dark. I ended up roaming the woods for a few hours looking for the way back to the road, back to the small town. In a small clearing, under the glare of the black moon, I found a girl thrashing in the weeds.

"Hello?" I called out, "are you okay?"

The girl said nothing. She continued to thrash on the ground, her body paralyzed in convulsions. I approached her and reached out to touch her, but before I could I realized she wasn't a girl at all.

She was a monster. A small, wiry monster with tusks and ragged black claws. Her protruding teeth dripped with poison. She whined and continued to thrash, oblivious to my presence.

I thought of the mechanical horse toy in the electrician's office. I thought of how it landed on its back but continued to move its legs, turning itself into a circle. Like the monster before me on the ground, twitching and thrashing, making small noises of pain as it trembled in paroxysms.

The dread I felt watching the toy horse returned. Stronger this time, pumping me with its poison. For long moments I couldn't move. I could only watch the monster kicking its legs, turning in circles on the ground. A monster seemingly unharmed except for this internal sickness making it spin in wounded circles around and around and around. Turning as if from the beginning of time, it had been in this clearing, trapped forever in perpetual motion. Unable to touch or be touched.

Then the monster stopped moving, and its limbs crumbled into dust that blew away.

I managed to find my way out of the woods and to the bus stop, but the image of the thrashing monster and the mechanical horse toy stayed with me. I coughed up dust. I coughed and coughed.

Chapter Nine

When I first saw the ocean I thought it was a block of stone, a gray trap waiting to ensnare me. When the bus drove from the desert to the mountains, and down toward the remnants of the coastal town I saw empty buildings lay strewn across the landscape like bleached whale bones. As the bus neared the water, the ocean came to life. The early morning sun stirred the stone into waves and churned the gray into blue.

“I’ve never seen the ocean before,” I told the bus driver. I was the only passenger left on the bus.

“It’s where everyone goes to die,” he said, “My cousin dug himself an oubliette in the sand. Nobody ever did find him.”

When I got out at the bus stop, I couldn’t think of Jeanine or Leda, Sissy or Momma. I thought only of the ocean and the waves.

I headed toward the beach. I took my bloodied shoes off in the sand and peeled the last remnants of my shirt away. As I approached the water I saw objects bobbing in the waves, others half-buried in the sand or encrusted in salt and seaweed.

Deadhead corpses. Even with burst lungs and broken fingers and their nerves turning to glue, the hot wire spiders inside their heads still clicked against their skin.

My head felt like a balloon, my legs electric synapses. I waded out into the ocean and the water drank at my cuts and bruises. The water breathed with me, in and out and in and out. A deadhead child’s hair brushed against my ankles before the current swept her body away.

I was about to turn back when a voice spoke to me. It was barely indistinguishable from the sound of the ocean waves, but when I stopped moving

I heard its whisper. I looked out toward the horizon and saw something wiry and gray sticking out of the water.

I swam out into the water.

I came to a giant metal structure lying on its side, half buried in the sand, half jutting out of the ocean. I grasped its side and struggled to keep hold of it while the waves beat against my arms and face. I bent my head down and curled my entire body against the structure.

The voice spoke to me again, louder this time.

"Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? We haven't heard from anyone out there in a long time. We can't access any of the regular communication devices. It seems something has disabled most of the broadcasting towers. We're not even sure if this message will reach anyone. But, if anyone can here this, we want you to know that we're sending help. Don't be afraid. Help is coming soon. Don't be afraid. Hello? Hello? Is anyone there?"

The voice repeated itself over and over again. As I clung to the structure, numb and gasping for breath, being beat on all sides by the waves, I realized the voice was not coming out of the ocean. It was coming out of the metal structure and the structure was a tower. It was another thing forgotten like the temples and the pictograms that had almost been completely swallowed up

"Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? We haven't heard from anyone out there in a long time."

I thought the ocean might unhinge me from the tower and crush me.

"Don't be afraid. Help is coming soon. Don't be afraid."

I didn't want to let go of the tower and the thousand miles voice. I struggled to hold on as long as I could while my limbs ached. I kept my head above the water and kicked the storm underneath me, breathed in when the waves breathed out.

"Help is coming soon. Don't be afraid."
I couldn't hold on any longer. I let go of the tower and the waves carried me away. My body washed up back onto the shore, but I could still hear the echo of the words repeating themselves over and over.

"Don't be afraid."

I lay trembling in the sand. I tried to hold onto the whisper underneath the ocean’s roar, as if I concentrated long enough I could trap the words inside my limbs and never be afraid again.

Someone grabbed my arm and tried to pull me out of the water.

"No," I said, "No! Let go!"

I thrashed in her grip. I wanted to peel the hands off of me and return to the water. I tried to open my eyes but the saltwater stung too badly.

I grabbed fistfuls of woman’s hair. I dragged her down into the sand with me and held her head under the water. Her body convulsed. She grasped at the sand and her body bristled electric. A whisper passed through her hair. Even as I fought I still heard the voice. I heard “don’t be afraid.”

She reared her head back out of the water and busted my lip. The water burned on my busted mouth. She shook me from behind until my head rattled. I tried to reach back and grab her neck. I missed and scratched her exposed collarbone with my fingernails.

"Stop it," she said, still shaking me "please stop. I thought you were dead."

“Okay, I'm stopping,” I said, each word a gasp, “I've stopped.”

She released me. I clambered onto my feet, only to collapse a few feet away from the surf. Deadhead arms reached out to clutch at my hair, and the furious clicking of the hot wire spiders beat against my ears. The woman stood in my long shadow.

“Someone who was dead once asked me where the road goes,” I said, “and I didn’t know. But I know now. It goes here. It never went anywhere else.”

She leaned over and pressed her wet hands against my forehead.

“I know you,” she said.

“I'm sure you do,” I said. I laughed and coughed up water.

“Charles,” she whispered.

I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was the sea of her hair spilling over me, her hair wine dark and frayed at the ends. I touched the thin mouth. I saw the stretched, yellow skin.

“Leda?”

I reached up and parted the dripping hair from her eyes. Her dark eyes were just as I remembered them, heavy with cool water and stars, nearly too big for her head.

“Leda,” I repeated.

I lay there for a long moment, paralyzed as I held her hair away from her eyes. The ocean spray and the sun sent a halo down on her head. Her eyes grew wider and wider until I thought they might break.

“You heard the voice,” she said, “it spoke to you.”

“What is it?” I asked, “where does it come from?”

I kissed her before she could speak. Her mouth was a foreign entity, wet and scorched with heat. She took my head in her hands and I locked her down in my arms. I pressed my lips against her nose, her chin, her throat.

She moved to settle on top of me. Our hips locked together and she rocked against me. I clutched at her frayed hair. She kissed every finger of my hand. She pressed my palm against her face.

“Why did you leave me?” I found myself asking her, “why did you leave me?”

She lowered my hand from her face and her body shook. She was skinnier than before. Her bones pulled against her face and neck and waist like little metallic faces.