The Cabin at the End of the World(63)
The flies leave Wen’s body and disperse like released spores. Eric is relieved they are leaving Wen, but their forming an indoor storm cloud is an awful sight. They swirl and they land and they creep over the walls, tables, chairs, and they crawl on Sabrina and Leonard, on their hands and their mouths and over their eyes. Their unremitting buzzing sounds like it’s crackling through the muted television speakers, and theirs is an ancient message of immutable decay, rot, and of ultimate defeat.
Sabrina and Leonard
“I don’t feel right—I need a few minutes. Just a few minutes. Then we’ll go. Together, I promise.”
“That’s okay, take some time, but we have to go as soon as you can. We can’t stay here.” Andrew puts a hand on Eric’s shoulder and rubs his back. Eric mumbles something they cannot hear and he leans into Andrew’s hip.
Leonard is battered, a diminished and broken King Kong after the swan dive off the Empire State Building. Sabrina is pressed against the wall as though standing on the crumbling ledge of a cliff face. They share a look. They wonder what the other is thinking, what the other believes, and what the other is going to do. They wonder if they’ve truly shared the same visions, the same commands. They wonder if the other is who they say they are. They wonder if the other is what they would consider to be a good person before they were called here. They share a protracted, probing look. They realize they do not know each other, not in the slightest. They realize in this darkest hour of the darkest day they are alone, fundamentally alone.
Sabrina says, “This should be over, Leonard.”
“But it isn’t.”
“I know, I know. But what happened should be enough. Why isn’t it enough?”
“She wasn’t a willing—”
“I don’t care. It’s not right. They’ve already lost too much. It’s so not right I can’t even say how not right it is.”
“I agree but it’s not up to us.”
Andrew halfheartedly tells them to be quiet.
Sabrina says, “I don’t care what you do, but I’m going to fight it. I fought it before—I did, I swear I did. But now—no more of this. I’m done. We should’ve—I don’t know—done something more to resist this. To reject it. There’s no way—”
“There will come a point when you won’t be able to. You know that.” He isn’t mocking or threatening. He’s being commiserative.
“Why us? Why are we being made to do this, Leonard? Why is this even happening at all? This is barbaric and vile and evil shit. And we’re a part of it, all of it.”
“I don’t know, Sabrina. I really don’t. I don’t understand and we’re not supposed to understand.”
“That’s such bullshit.”
“We’re trying to save billions of lives. The suffering of a few for—”
“It’s still not right. It’s all capricious and cruel. What kind of god or universe or whatever wants this, demands this?”
Leonard sighs and doesn’t answer. He stares at Sabrina and blinks.
“No, no. You have to answer. I know what my answer is. I need to know yours. I want to hear what Leonard—” She pauses and laughs. “I was gonna say your last name but I don’t know what it is. Isn’t that fucked?”
He says, “It’s—”
“I don’t care about your last name! I want your answer. Tell me. What kind of god is making all this happen?”
“The one we have.”
They share another look. Leonard is misshapen, grotesque, an unfinished monster. Sabrina stands at the disintegrating edge of a lava flow and the air she breathes is poisonous. They wonder if one or both or neither of them is crazy and they wonder if it even matters. They wonder if the other has always been as weak as they are now. They share another long look. This one is reserved for ill-fated observers in the moments before impending, inescapable calamity, whether it be natural disaster or the violent failure of humanity; a look of resigned melancholy and awe, unblinking in the face of a revealed, horrific, sacred truth. And they realize again, in this darkest hour of the darkest day, they remain alone, fundamentally alone.
Sabrina nods and she drops her staff and it lies on the floor like a borderline. “I never believed in it. But this is fucking hell.”
Andrew
It’s clear Eric’s concussion has left him more compromised than Andrew originally thought. He can’t possibly give Eric the rest needed to recover enough for him to be able to walk any sort of distance, even if it’s only to the others’ car parked presumably somewhere nearby. Does he leave Eric here and go for help on his own? No, that is not an option. He will never leave Eric or Wen alone again.
Andrew looks at Wen’s sheet-covered body and he can still feel Leonard squeezing his hands, his finger folding in, collapsing on the trigger, and the hitch and the click, and the gun kicking back. He didn’t know where the bullet went and then Eric screamed and scrambled on all fours to Wen. She was lying on her back with her knees and legs bent under her. Andrew saw her shattered face and he dropped to the floor next to Eric. His eyes flooded with tears he did not wipe or blink away so his view would remain distorted, refracted as though looking up from the bottom of a well. A blur of seconds later Eric was passed out against the door and Andrew stood alone in front of a tied-up Leonard, his gun empty of bullets but his finger pulling the trigger. Eventually he stuffed the gun in his back pocket and then checked Leonard’s empty ones for keys. He checked Adriane’s pockets, too. He dragged her body to the deck because he didn’t know what else to do. He was going to check O’Bannon’s pockets, but he didn’t want to leave Eric alone inside the cabin while he was unconscious and he didn’t want to leave Wen lying on the floor. He went into their bedroom and gathered the flannel sheets. As he carefully wrapped her body, everything was under water again, and he said her name. He lifted her off the floor and sat with her on the couch, and he said her name. He didn’t know what else he could possibly say. He rested his forehead against hers, gently kissed the tip of her nose through the sheet, and he whispered he was sorry. He wanted to tell her the gun going off was an accident, wasn’t his fault, but he couldn’t. Instead, he said her name again and again. He said her name like he was afraid she would never hear anyone say it again. He said her name like it was a solemn oath to take her away from this place and bring her home.