With and Without Class (10 page)

*

Sheila trailed their group and walked past Elliot as she neared an intersection of passageways. Her blue aura intermingled with Elliot's as she passed, driving curious pangs through her consciousness. The sensation was reminiscent of him and compelling.
Is touching bad here
? she asked him.

I don't know
. Elliot raised his hand to her midsection and ran his fingers through her dancing aura to taste her cobalt. Her aura flickered and increased its dance in its recognition of him. Both ran their fingers over the other until it wasn't enough and he impulsively plunged his hand clear through her white, inner form to discover her ghost-like nature. His fingers flexed and curled as they protruded out her lower back in serendipitous spasms. Their glow reached a brilliance that intermingled their hues.

Vance turned, watching as the two swam hands through each other. He stepped toward them and raised a thin ebony hand to Sheila, then lowered it.

As their hands moved inward, they surpassed the conscious thoughts of their minds at their specter skins and penetrated deep to the core of their figures to achieve a networking of the hearts. Sheila likened the journey of her hands to the exploration of catacombs of which the underground tunnels and immured burials she did not fear to explore. Some memories rested happily; others were dark and broken. Painful experiences provoked investigation and pleasures of backward viewpoints ingrained into them. They each understood what it was to be the other and held all secrets.

Elliot pulled away from her.

Wow
, Sheila told him.

Yes, wow is a good word for that
, Elliot replied.

*

The wind was propelling the silver ash in diffuse drifts now and the black sand was kicked up. Elliot looked ahead to a four-way intersection of sandstone walls. He saw it again, walking behind the edge of the passage that crossed theirs.

Hey
! Elliot pointed at the vanishing figure.

What
? Sheila returned.

How could they not see it
? As they neared the intersection Elliot stopped and turned to follow.

Sheila reached out.
Elliot, what are you doing? The wind's going this way
.

I'll catch up
, Elliot telepathed.

Elliot! You're going to get lost!

I'm going to get unlost
. He did not bother to turn and find they had moved on. The wind was silenced and he was relieved to have it out of his mind. The passage ended a few feet ahead and jutted to the right.

Elliot found it stopped, facing a sandstone wall of the passageway. The solidity of the creature stood out among them. It was huge and bulky, twice as wide as a man with thick, dingy brown hair. Its height was less than Elliot's with a tattered gray tunic wrapped around it as it lurched toward the wall with a hunched back. The tunic looked like it had been passed through a million owners but still held up. It clenched an iron chisel in its hand, pulling it against the rough wall. Elliot looked closer to find it removing carvings from some foreign script as if rewinding time to undo the engraving. Fragments of sandstone appeared and filled the crevices.

What are you doing? What are you doing, DAMNIT. I know you can hear me
.

It turned. A huge single eye strained into Elliot so hard that he felt it. Words came from its lips in gruff, physical sound. “I live here,” It said in defensive earnest. “You won't stay long.”

What are you doing
?

“Have you looked carefully at these walls?” The creature asked, removing more of the script.

No
.

“You should have begun by examining your surroundings more closely. What do you know of these walls?”

They're old. They hold us in. They weren't put here by us
.

“Yes,” it agreed. “Old walls, not put here by us, holding us in—the perfect definition of any great mystery passed from one generation to the next. I have been in this place forever. The last delegates of dying civilizations have always come here, to the edge of physical space to ask me their questions and I have dutifully carved them all over these walls and carved over their carvings with their new questions.”

Why
?

“In the nature of all questions is the answer to any question.”

What's the
—

“What's the meaning of life?

“What's the meaning of death?”

Is there an
—

“Is there an afterlife?

“Is Heaven a place you can visit and loot its treasures like a conquistador? That is why you've come here; isn't it?”

It was an accident. The Illious malfunctioned
.

The creature's huge eye appeared to look into Elliot, knowingly. “You still don't know? Elliot, this place is here for you. Do you see how I tire? Do you see the tatters of my robe? Do you see that I choose to look at you now with this only one, large, pained eye? There are no accidents. Accidents and malfunctions are the products of minds incapable of witnessing their full inner workings. You wanted to come here. You all wanted to come here. Ultimate science is ultimate vanity. Do you know why I live? Do you know why I exist here?”

For the promise of a new question
?

“Yes.” It lost itself in excitement and stepped toward him as if to embrace him but lowered its arms disappointedly as they passed through Elliot's vaporous form. “Yes,” it continued, “Yes, that is why I live. Ask me! Ask me! Ask me something new—a new question. Puzzle me. Make my mind work. Send me someplace new.”

Elliot thought for a moment before it struck him:
Is Sheila in danger
?

“Excellent! A great question!”

No. Honestly, what will happen
—

“Perfect. A glorious question. Glorious.”

Tell me! What will happen if Vance touches her
?

“Yes! I will record it right away. An excellent question. I should have seen it coming. I know the place to engrave it. These walls here are much too full. I know of an excellent place. I should have seen this in advance!” He began walking backwards toward the wall and his body began disappearing into sandstone.

Wait. How
—?

“Your question will be recorded for all of time,” the creature said as its brown, human mouth disappeared beneath the sandstone.

He watched where it had disappeared.
Wait
!

*

We have to go back for him
! Sheila's feet stopped in the black sand.

He said he'd catch up
, Vance replied, still walking.

He turned and hesitated.
I'm not here to nurture your new romance.
He approached her.

It's just… We need to go back and find him. He could be in trouble
.

No. No we don't. We don't need him. But you like Elliot. I saw you two together. The swimming teeth of Vance's black skin changed into spines that spun and swam furiously, brown and swamp green pulsing along them. What was it like? Putting hands through each other like that. I sensed pleasure
. Vance moved within arm's length.
I did catch one word. It wasn't easy. It was jumbled in there between you two… catacombs. Would you like to explore my catacombs, Sheila
?

No
.

No, huh
.

Vance, no
. Sheila stepped back.

No! Sheila, you've had Elliot. Let me show you something more interesting. Before we left the ship I was shy—weak—because I knew you wouldn't take the time to see what I was. Now what I am is here. This is a place for the mind. A great mind! A great mind, Sheila! I'm huge here. You see it. I'm going to taste you
.

Sheila edged around him.
Let's keep going
.

No. No, not yet
.

She walked past.

Fine! You want me to say it. I need you and I'll know you. I'll know you
. Vance followed.

She sensed him sucking in the edges of her aura. The theft nauseated her. She ran, as the wind pushed her forward.

Vance's anger reached out, flooding through sandstone walls like the tolling of a cathedral bell.

Elliot turned from the wall and followed the wind to catch them, moving faster and darting between walls.

Sheila wouldn't look behind as she ran, sensing Vance on the edge of her aura as she rushed over black sand, breaking through wafts of silver ash with the tall sandstone walls trapping her.

You've got boring thoughts, Sheila. Why are you thinking of my green vomit on the floor? Think harder
. Vance's fingers scraped the back of her neck as she felt the pain of spikes pushing through pierced skin.

As they ran through the passageways they neared the escape of the wind. Sheila arched her neck.
Does it escape up or down? Down into empty space? Or up? Up into something more
?

*

Elliot found Vance up ahead.
Another four-way intersection
. He closed in on the distance as Vance scratched his fingers into the surface of Sheila's white, inner form.

Elliot reached out,
Vance stop
!

Vance turned midstride.
You can't understand!
They crossed the intersection and Elliot pushed his hand into him, sinking into Vance's darkness and the weight of everything, every thought, privilege and possession Vance had every wanted was right there at the surface of the black skin for Elliot's experience. The subtleties of the touch, its suction on his hand, the pain of emptiness, betrayed the sequence of events leading back to Vance's mid-twenties when the engine of his mind had collapsed his heart into a black hole of desire.

Vance staggered to his right.

Sheila flowed into the left passageway.

Elliot also propelled to the left as a diverging wind gusted Vance down the right passageway. Elliot turned to find Vance's slender frame suspended against the sandstone wall of the right passageway's dead end. His arms reaching forward,
I can't move! Wait. Help me! I can't be the last one left behind in this, this trap! Everyone from Earth has already passed on, I know it! I can't be the last one. I can't be trapped here forever. Please!

The wind pulled the remaining two higher, howling a cry that flooded Elliot's consciousness. They rose above the gray, sandstone walls and he saw the grooved passageways of the labyrinth extending in all directions. Straight above, he found the direction of their travel. The solitary pinprick hole shined violet light. The faint ceiling ended and they traveled up toward this distant light, seeming as a hole in an open black expanse. It grew slowly, then brilliant and enveloping with the wind calming to a faint breeze.

Silence.

Sheila
, he telepathed.

Yes
, she telepathed.

I can't describe it
.

It's beautiful
, she telepathed,
it's—everything!

White Daddies

H
is frail grandmother
had probably been the one to nail the board at a slant across the cellar door in the corner of the kitchen. Casey found a claw hammer and pulled it off. The garbage stench struck as the yellow door swung.

Toward the bottom of the stairs, broken mason jars had rolled across the cellar floor and light from small windows fell over white maggots squirming through the dark goo between the glass shards. He'd have to clean that up. Maggots were the worst.

“Thanks, Grandma.”

Behind shelves, a brick wall with a recessed chimney flue had loose mortar around the hole and some bricks had long since fallen out. Sparse light from the windows revealed the top of a hole in the lower back corner and Casey leaned forward, feeling wind from someplace deep caressing his face. The hole looked like part of a slanted fissure with brick on top and limestone on bottom. He thought he heard water down there somewhere. It seemed big enough to squeeze a trashcan through and he couldn't have possums or bats sneaking up. He'd have to throw some cement in there or something.

A card-shuffling sound like something scuttling came from down there. Casey darted from the hole into the window-light, standing, looking around, feeling ashamed, nervous. Something leathery on the floor near the shelves looked like a brown towel. The possum corpse was dried and deflated like the one he'd seen in the lawn earlier. Its small eyes seemed punctured, sucked out.

He climbed the stairs and let the cellar air. For now, he focused on clearing all the embarrassing backwoods crap out of the house.

Near dusk he started his 911 Carrera, found his sunglasses beneath the visor and headed into town for supplies. As he weaved along the dirt road it occurred to him the house might be harder to sell than he'd thought. His varied interests and engineering degree, however, had always provided fodder for problem solving.

He'd need work clothes, eventually. Something cheap and simple—not designer or tailored.

The water was the only utility working. He'd take cold showers and work hardest in the early mornings and late afternoons. He could make it sell quickly, get sixty grand worth of capital despite the northwestern locale in the woods of Kansas.

The main drag of downtown looked more dried up and forlorn than he'd remembered—so many shades of gray and faint brown. Shukley's Caverns was once a respectable farming town. But the promising youth moved to real cities when the Ogallala Aquifer dried beneath their families' fields.

He was born in a similar town sixty miles south but he had gotten on with his life, joined the Marine Reserves, went to college and moved to Boston. His ex wouldn't have approved of Shukley's but she didn't approve of much. After their son died, their separation was as inevitable as Shukley's decay.

Inside the general store, brown shelves held assorted, outdated items and fluorescent lights hung above booths that might've been stolen from a hamburger place twenty years ago. A thin old man sat behind a wooden desk with an antique cash register and a crossword puzzle, scowling, with pencil poised, as he drifted to sleep. Casey walked around a thin man with gray hair and a t-shirt advertising an ice-cream shop.

The man tapped the back of Casey's shoulder and spoke in a childish voice, “Have you seen… friends?”

Casey walked away.

“Mister,” the man called, scowling and bobbling his head before turning away.

A twenty-something mother and her son browsed the aisle next to his as he found some candles, batteries and spackle. A couple rows over he discovered a set of bed sheets featuring Oscar the Grouch and Big Bird.

“Not your color,” a man in his mid-twenties said over his shoulder. The heavy-set man wore paint-splattered overalls and a sleeveless red t-shirt. His lazy eye made Casey think there was something behind him.

Casey walked away.

“I said,” the man asserted, “not your color.”

Casey stopped, turning. “I know.”

“You too good to talk?”

“Yes.”

The heavy man stepped closer. “You should be nicer.”

He glanced at the candles. “You'd be better off paying the electric bill over at the Mets' place.”

“Fuck off.” Casey turned and walked toward the end of the aisle.

“Not nice.” His breath smelled like hot dogs and he grinned, showing crowded teeth. “You should be nice. Maybe I follow you out to that shiny car.”

Casey set down his items. “What'd you say?”

The heavy man looked over to his gray-haired friend and a tall slender man with a baseball cap. “Maybe you'd like all of us outside with you.”

Casey folded his sunglasses, looking into his eyes. “That's acceptable.” He glanced to the grey-haired man. “Bring your retarded friend. I'll knock him up a peg.”

They looked at each other as Casey sneered, the heavy man stepping forward.

The old man roused, “Hey! Leave this man alone!” He looked to the other two. “Get out.” He stood and shooed them. “Leave here!” Nearing the heavy-set one, he pointing an arthritic finger. “Not again! Or you're cut-off.”

The heavy man brushed Casey's shoulder.

Casey fought the urge to punch him since he needed the supplies, then put on his sunglasses and followed the old man to the register.

Casey walked out to the parking lot with his bags, hoping to find them. They had left a gravel-streaked dent in his passenger-side door. He didn't say anything—just soaked it in with the sun beating down on the back of his neck. The store's door opened and Casey spun to the mother leading her son by the hand toward their car. His heart sank. It was Jacob—how he would have looked had he grown a few years older. His blue shorts looked just like the nylon swim trunks Jacob drowned in. And the kid's curly brown hair—just how he'd pictured it would be.

The boy pointed at him, grinning. “That's a bad man. He's gonna get the White-Daddies.”

His mother jerked him toward her. “Hush.”

Casey smirked. “Smart kid, ma'am,” but she wouldn't look at him.

He was tired by the time he got back to the house and put everything away. It was hot as fire on the second floor so he opened his bedroom window, left the door open and took off his gray t-shirt. The flashlight worked once he put the batteries in and he made his way to the bathroom, brushing his teeth with questionable water.

The Sesame Street bed sheets were for a twin so he could only pull them over two-thirds of the bed. He lay on his back and thought he heard a dripping sound but it stopped, then he fell asleep quickly, dreaming of doing the books at the new business he would start from the house sale. It was somewhere in Iowa. Everyone was impressed with him. He had an out-of-body dream, looking down on himself sleeping in the bedroom. His son walked through the door, only he was crawling like a giant spider with his adorable three-year-old head, innocent expressions and his wife's hot curling irons at the tips of each of eight legs; blue nylon swim trunks caught around one of his hind legs as a curling iron burned the bubbling fabric and black smoke tendrils rose and he crawled up, sinking eight legs over bed sheets.

“I'm sorry, Jacob. I'm sorry.”

Something strong and wiry clasped him. Its thorn-like claws pierced the thin sheet. His eyes opened, burning as his head swam through the dream, reaching for pieces of reality. Jacob's innocent eyes superimposed over the looming white figure. The face of his son faded. His mind froze, denying its white translucent head. It sprawled over his body, the size of a bag of luggage. Wet black eyes spread in a smiling crescent with the huge outer pair casting a human visage. Its white bristled legs flexed with hairy palps buzzing around its unfolding fangs.

Blood rushed to his head, his hand slapping at one of its legs—thick-bristled, like scuffed plastic but wet—feverish. Casey screamed and kicked as it dug in its legs, piercing him like knives. He pushed back into the corner of the bedroom where bed met wall, “JESUS CHRIST!”

It flicked the sheet off with its legs before arching its belly and flailing its legs into the air.

He scraped his ankle, planting his foot beneath the metal bed frame and overturning the mattress as he yelled.

It retreated in a flurry of spindly legs, turned almost all the way round, then turned back and bolted through the door.

Casey stood in the corner of the room, panting. “Son of a…” He ran to the hallway door and peered to the left as it darted behind a corner of the hallway. Casey went back and got the flashlight, whipping it round corners of the hallway and ceiling.

It wasn't downstairs in the family room or in the closet. He scanned the dining room and den; its legs made the card-shuffling sound. He burst through the kitchen doorway and flashed his beam over its unnaturally still body, legs folded in close; dreaming. It skittered to life with tapping claws as it spun and moved backward, toward the cellar door, flailing legs at him before slinking down the stairs. Casey ran forward, slamming the door, pulling the knob to ensure it had latched. “Damn.”

He felt lightheaded as he walked upstairs to put on clothes. It had really happened; he was sure of it. He wasn't just under stress. But weird things happened. Drill Sergeant Mavers from Basic had killed himself two years ago in a hotel and nobody knew why. Maybe this was how it started. You think you see things. He looked down at the scratches on his legs and a tear in his boxers. That thing did it. It was a spider. A White-Daddy? That kid said something like that. Was there some local folklore surrounding that thing? He put on his t-shirt and jeans and shoes. He didn't know anyone in town who could help him and telling others might not be a good idea if he ever expected to sell the house.

He grabbed a shotgun and shells out of his bedroom closet. The box of shells looked like it had been wet and the paper of the .410 cartridges were a variety of dark reds. He unlatched the breach and stared down barrels with the help of the flashlight. Sergeant Mavers always shouted during rifle inspections, “Your weapon is your life, Mets! Guard your life!” He inspected the hammers and triggers before loading each barrel.

It wasn't just the scratches on his legs. There had been signs all over if he'd only put it together. Those deflated possum corpses. That's how spiders ate; they paralyzed you with their fangs, dissolved your insides and sucked you out. That hole near the back of the flue in the basement: that was where it came from. It came from the caves in those bluffs behind the house. Casey stuffed his pocket with shells, grabbed his laptop. He'd wait the thing out in the kitchen. His Gladiator DVD would keep his mind busy, even if he had to wait all night. It probably only came out at night.

He ran the DVD with the sound off and poured a coffee mug half-full with Grey Goose, wishing he had vermouth. It was all right to drink now that this had happened. The two other kitchen doors were closed so it couldn't get past. He opened the cellar door slowly, peering inside with the flashlight and the shotgun. Nothing.

The chair was hard with the drink sharp and pungent in the dirty mug and the shotgun resting over the wooden table with hammers cocked. The flashlight pointed at the black doorway and his finger rested against the trigger guard. He divided attention between the screen and the doorway, sipping vodka. He could figure this out. Figure out what he was up against. It was fast. And when he touched it, it was hot. He didn't expect spiders to be hot. But this was an enormous spider.

In his engineering classes, systems didn't always work as well when you scaled them up. Especially thermal systems. It was a surface-area to volume thing. Bigger things weren't always as thermally efficient. And spiders didn't have sweat glands or tongues to pant with to cool themselves. So maybe they'd lived in the caves before. Nobody knew how extensive and deep those caves were. Maybe they lived down there to regulate their temperatures.

He used the glow from the computer screen to read his watch: 2:18. It was quiet outside; no crickets, no owls. The kitchen window had been broken and nailed over with particle board, letting moonlight slivers streak across his back onto the counter and cupboards to his right. The card shuffling sound came from somewhere down there.

It seemed too coincidental that he'd seen one of these things and nobody else really knew of them. Something must have changed recently. Like the farmers drained the aquifer that fed streams in their caves. Screwed up their ecosystem. Starved them out of their natural habitat. Made them come out into the heat.

On the computer, Casey watched Russell Crowe and Richard Harris discuss the future of Rome as his eyes grew heavy. He looked to the doorway. Maybe the light scared it. He turned off the flashlight and waited for his eyes to adjust. He could just see the doorframe and the floor. It was enough. He looked to the screen and whispered, “And what is Rome, Maximus?”

He checked his watch again. Thirty minutes had passed. He thought maybe he had dozed off for a minute or two so he slapped his cheek and blinked. It seemed the spider's white legs pawed the lower ledge of the doorway, but they weren't.

It had attacked him earlier. Totally unprovoked. Spiders didn't do that. Did they? Animal lovers on nature shows talked about how snakes and tarantulas were noble creatures, only attacking when provoked. But that was bullshit. Spiders were carnivores; hunters. Every animal on this planet had developed an understanding, a suite of instincts toward every other animal, based on one thing: size. This spider didn't just pop-up on the scene overnight. It evolved over millions of years, side-by-side with humans, testing its limits, apparently, successfully since no one seemed to know of them.

It knew it was on equal footing. It would come upstairs.

He thought about how hard he had worked during the day. Now he couldn't sleep because of this. It seemed unreal. He wished he was in a nice soft hotel bed in Boston. The Hilton. A king-sized bed at the Hilton. He smiled as he eyed the black doorway.