The Land Beyond All Dreams (14 page)

My proudest acquisition was an Aztec
macuahuitl
, a two-handed wooden sword with obsidian blades set into grooves on opposite sides of the weapon. I did some practice cutting on rolled-up tatami mats and it ripped through them like an obsidian chainsaw.

Maybe Thain knew what was going on—for whatever reason, he didn’t show his face for the next few days. I got a haircut and a new suit. I stitched pockets under the arms of the jacket to hide the tactical knives without messing up the lines of the suit.

At least we knew Mom’s body hadn’t been messed with. Audrey was riding herd on the mortuary staff and making sure I knew everything was going according to her plans. I did ask Audrey what I could do to help with the funeral, and she told me to get a haircut. I put the rage in a box and saved it for later.

I called Ishmael and filled him in on Thain’s role in ravaging downtown Boulder’s parks and open space. Officially, it was being investigated as an illegal dump of unknown toxic chemicals. All the contaminated earth was being removed and Boulder Creek was being dredged. Arwydd took samples of the dust and river sludge back home for analysis, but she had never seen anything like it before.

Somewhere in all that, I wrote out a eulogy and got some favorite photos emailed to Audrey. After I seemed to give in on the cremation issue, I think she concluded I was beaten and demoralized. She demanded prior approval on my eulogy, so I emailed it to her. She approved it, but put me last on the speaking list and told me I’d have about five minutes. I told her I’d keep it short. Then I threw the whole thing out and started over.

Find out where your enemy is the weakest, and attack there.

At the funeral, Audrey demanded to see my speech again. I refused to turn it over, but Dad backed her up. I gave her the same version she’d already seen.

“This looks fine,” she said. “I’ll just hold on to it until it’s your turn, just to make sure nothing gets changed.”

My response was one normally unheard in a church. I didn’t care. I walked to the front pew and sat, staring at the flower-draped casket. At least Audrey was predictable. The casket was open and Mom was propped up to allow everyone a good view—exactly as I’d hoped she would be.

Five minutes into the service, I wanted to chop the minister’s head off. Or at least body-check him into the empty baptismal pool. He’d never met Mom, knew nothing about her, and spent half an hour praising Jesus before mentioning her name. He gave her three sentences and handed the pulpit over to Dad.

I didn’t begrudge my father his memorial. He talked about Mom, their time together, and how much she meant to him. He made people laugh, and wept while talking about the last couple of years since she’d started getting sick. It was a flattering portrait, but a Human one.

Audrey put Mom on a pedestal, holding her up as a light for all the world to see. I guess it was what she needed to do, or at least what she thought was the proper thing to do, but in the end, I felt I’d never met the woman she was describing.

I stepped past Audrey on my way to the pulpit, but didn’t take the speech she held out to me. I’d memorized what I was going to say.

I said, “Over the past few days, I’ve done a lot of soul-searching about how best to memorialize my mother. Over and over again, I came back to a quote from Voltaire—‘To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.’ The best tribute I can give my mother is to speak truthfully about her.”

I spared the minister a glance. “She didn’t call herself a Christian, and never would have put up with all that crap we sat through. She believed any deity capable of creating a universe full of life would have better things to do than plan out hers. She believed in herself, and her ability to choose her own destiny. She chose not to fight the cancer. That’s not giving up—she never gave up. She chose how she was going to die. More importantly, she chose how she was going to live.

“Mom never believed in following ‘God’s laws’. Not because she didn’t believe in God, but because those laws always seem to benefit whoever is in power. The greatest moral lesson she taught me was that all people are entitled to a fundamental level of respect, even those who disagree with everything you believe in. She taught me the greatest indicator of a person’s morality was how they treated the weakest around them.

“My mother believed in an afterlife, and the existence of paradise. Not for the few, not for the elect, but for all, the evil as well as the holy and upright. How else will the evil and corrupt redeem themselves, except by following good examples?

“That was the greatest lesson I learned from my mother—that forgiveness is infinite. You don’t have to forget. People can, and should, be responsible for their actions and choices. Karma is inevitable. But forgiveness is always available to those honestly seeking to atone and start over.”

I felt a familiar twinge of energy from the back of the church. I glanced through the crowd and saw a lot of angry faces—and one triumphant grin. Thain, now dressed as a ponytail-wearing member of Boulder’s ex-hippie senior citizens brigade. He was staring at Mom, and I didn’t like the look on his face at all.

Audrey and Dad were glaring daggers at me and Dad made a
wrap it up
gesture. So be it. I took a deep breath and continued. “Mom was Human. She was flawed. She was the best person she knew how to be, and the best mother I could have asked for. And I cannot imagine God being unsatisfied with that.”

Thain released the energy he had built up. Through Rose’s senses, I felt it rush past me to strike Mom’s body. I watched her, holding my breath…and nothing happened. Thain tried his spell again, and again nothing happened. His smirk vanished and his eyes narrowed. My eyebrow ticked up, but I managed to keep from smiling.

I still had a small list of items to cover in my eulogy, but Thain’s presence trumped my plans. I gave the sanctuary a long look and said, “It’s hard to be honest about someone you love, but it’s how Mom would have wanted it. My mother was honest in her living, and honest in her dying. The only authority she answered to was her own heart. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to live the same way, but I intend to do my best.” I looked over to the casket and added, “Thank you, Mom. Thank you for my life. Thank you for your example. Rest well, until we meet again. And we will meet again, that much I’m sure of.”

I sat down, staring at the minister and mentally daring him to say something. He stuck with doing a call to prayer and kept the benediction short.

Outside the church, Dad gave me a hug, but was shaking his head. He said, “You make me crazy, boy, and your sister may never forgive you. But, your mother would have been proud. Don’t let anyone get you down for it.”

I hugged him back. “Thank you.”

Audrey brushed past us and got into her limo without saying anything. Her boyfriend Steve looked like he was going to say something to me, but he changed his mind and got in the limo too. I shook my head and followed Rose and Arwydd into the limo we had rented. Getting a separate ride had sounded excessive yesterday, but now it was money well spent.

Once we were underway, I asked Arwydd, “Any idea why Thain’s spell didn’t work?”

“Not with any certainty,” she said. “I have a few ideas, but without more information I can’t draw any conclusions.”

“I guess we’ll just have to keep an eye out for anything odd,” I said. “I don’t think he has any qualms about public shows of force.”

“I don’t either,” Arwydd replied. “Hopefully it won’t be necessary.”

There wasn’t much I could add to that.

The crowd at the grave site was smaller. Picking out Thain was easy—he was driving a beat-up VW van covered in New Age bumper stickers. I made a note of his license plate, although the van showed signs of being lived in full-time.

This time, the minister only mentioned Jesus twice and talked more about Mom and her life. I guess he got the message and used the limo ride over to find out something about her. Points to him for the effort.

No grandstanding this time, only quiet remembrances. I’d been angry at the church, but here, standing next to that terrible hole in the ground, all I felt was loss. Even when Thain cast his spell again, sorrow blunted my anger into irritation. Nothing happened, so I assumed the spell failed again.

I leaned forward a bit and glared at Thain. When he looked back, I mouthed, “Stop it.”

Thain gave me a tight smile and nodded. He behaved himself for the rest of the service, but the failure of his spells had to be gnawing at him. I wanted to know what was happening as well—just not right now.

All too soon, Mom’s coffin descended into the earth. Dad and I scattered handfuls of soil into the grave and said our last farewells. We mingled a few minutes while the lid to the grave liner was lowered into place. Dad finally clapped me on the shoulder and we walked to the waiting limousines. For a moment, hugging him and Audrey, I thought we’d survived Mom’s loss intact.

Then Audrey pulled away from me and said, “David, I’m sorry, but I can’t be around you when you’re in open rebellion against God. You’ll always be my brother, but until you accept Jesus, I want you out of my life.”

Rose snorted. “So much for trying to be a better Christian. Selling out your own brother so you can get a date.”

Steve put his arm around Audrey. “I told you they’d persecute you for your faith. It’s fine. ‘If thy right hand offends thee, cut it off.’ You’re just doing God’s will.” He turned around and started pulling her by the elbow.

Dad called out, “James, do not let that young man into the limo. Audrey, anyone who treats you this way is not someone I want to see you with. Step away from him.”

Steve didn’t respond. He yanked on the limo door and found it locked. He looked at the driver and said, “Open it! Open the door or I’ll kick the glass in.”

James, the driver, stepped away from the car and said, “Sorry, sir. Mr. Fraser is the client and he decides who is welcome in the vehicle. Please don’t try to force your way in or I’ll have to subdue you.”

Audrey put her hand on Steve’s chest and started to say something, but Thain threw another spell, this time over a much larger area. It was successful, and all around us dirt fountained into the air. At least a dozen graves were ripped open. Concrete grave liners and coffin lids poked out of the ground or lay on top of heaps of dirt.

And the dead were rising.

They weren’t staggering or shuffling along—they crouched and circled, baring their teeth and making small lunges toward us. They made wet burbling sounds as their jaws moved, and their eyes glowed with feral purpose.

James unlocked the limo and shouted, “Get in!” He took his own advice and dove into the driver’s seat. Steve pulled the door open and pushed Audrey onto the back bench seat. He turned around to say something to me, and desiccated hands shot out from under the limo, grabbing his ankles and pulling him to the ground. More hands grabbed him and pulled him under the car, screaming.

Four corpses pulled him onto the grass on the other side of the limo, ripping open his throat and abdomen in the process. The corpses didn’t eat anything—they just stood up and formed a defensive line on the far side of the limo.

Audrey was collapsed on the floor of the limo screaming for Steve. I shoved Dad toward the limo door and shouted, “Take care of Audrey!” As soon as he was in I slammed the door and James floored it.

Rose, Arwydd, and I fell back toward our limo. The risen corpses had spread out, chasing people toward their cars but not actually attacking anyone. The gravediggers had formed a line in front of a handful of attendees, holding their shovels at the ready. The corpses were maintaining their distance from them as well.

I stopped and did a fast survey of the area. In addition to Steve, the minister and one of Audrey’s coworkers had been killed. The corpses were ringing the other two victims as well. Thain was just leaning up against his van, watching.

Steve’s body twitched. His head lolled to the side, and he staggered to his feet. So did Audrey’s coworker. They didn’t attack anyone, either. They just stood there looking for something to pounce on.

Thain turned his attention to the minister’s body. It hadn’t moved, and was showing no signs of doing so. Thain targeted him with a spell, but it seemed to have no effect. He called out something I couldn’t understand, and one of the corpses began chewing on the minister’s arm.

I reached into my jacket and pulled out one of my ceramic knives. I dropped the jacket on the ground and started toward Thain. “I’ve had enough of this shit, dead man. You want to dance, let’s dance!”

Thain looked at me and held his finger up. All around the area, the walking corpses started advancing on the huddled groups of survivors. “Go ahead, David. Let us dance, as you say. Can you stop my friends from attacking while we embrace?”

I stopped, clenching my fist on the hilt of my knife. “Let me know when you’re tired of hiding behind innocent lives.” I slid the knife back into its sheath and walked back to Rose’s side.

Thain waved his hand and the corpses pulled back. He tried his spell one more time, but the minister’s body remained inert. I heard the first police sirens headed our way, closing from two different directions. Thain heard them coming as well. He shook his head and wrote a line of burning hieroglyphs in the air in front of him. All of the risen corpses collapsed like their strings had been cut.

“Another time, David. I’m not sure how you pulled this off, but my respect for the accomplishment. May your dear mother rest in peace.”

Of course, I hadn’t actually done anything, but I wasn’t going to admit that. “Just wait until the rest of the world starts fighting back. Save yourself a lot of headache and move on.”

“Ah, but where’s the fun in that?” Thain climbed into his van and waved at us before driving off.

We rejoined the survivors to wait for the police. Thankfully, the only injuries to the living were minor scrapes and bruises from falling. I called Dad’s cell phone and found out he and Audrey were at the police station. They were going to finish their statements and head home.