The Cabin at the End of the World(78)

“I have no doubt you saw and felt something, just as I have no doubt they were concussion induced—”

“Stop saying that.”

“I won’t, because I love you and I won’t let you do this.”

“I—I know. I love you, too, more than you know. But I’m sorry; one of us must.”

“Is the light thing here now?”

“No.” Eric wishes it was here. He hopes it will show up and take him over like the others were taken over and lead him by the hand. But it’s not here. He feels its lack of presence. There’s only woods, darkness, rain, thunder, and us.

Andrew drops his gun to the wet road. He limps into the woods without his walking stick and stops within arm’s reach of Eric. “So which one of us is it going to be, then?”

We stare at each other’s beat-up, red-eyed, blood-streaked, beard-stubbled, still-beautiful faces waiting for an answer, waiting for the answer.

“Please don’t try to take the gun away from me.” Eric pivots and lifts his forearm so that the gun is pointed under his chin.

“I won’t touch the gun. I promise I won’t.” Andrew inches closer. “Look at me, okay? Maybe you won’t see anything you don’t want to see if you look at me.”

“Stay away, please.” Eric steps back and his heels bump into Sabrina’s legs.

“That I can’t do. It’s all right. I’m not taking the gun. I’m taking your other hand. That’s all. That’s okay, right?” Andrew reaches out and his fingertips make tentative first contact. The back of Eric’s hand is cool and damp. Eric’s fingers clench into a fist as Andrew’s touch springs them shut. “Are you’re going to leave me all alone then?”

Eric unclenches his fist. Andrew closes his hand around Eric’s.

“You’re too close. You should back up. I don’t want you to get hurt,” Eric says.

“Would you shoot me instead? I’d rather not be here alone, without you. Not for one second.”

Eric gazes into Andrew’s face, an ever-evolving landscape more familiar than his own. He doesn’t pray, not to the light or to God. He whispers, “I don’t want you to be alone,” and then he gasps as Andrew gently places a hand on his wrist just below the gun.

“It’s all right. I’m not taking the gun from you. I said I wouldn’t.” Andrew pulls the gun out from under Eric’s chin. He leads Eric’s arm until the gun is turned on Andrew, the muzzle pinned against his chest. “Shooting me would be your ultimate sacrifice, wouldn’t it? Because then you’d be the one stuck here alone.”

“Unless I shoot you and then myself. I don’t think that’s against the rules.”

Andrew doesn’t say anything. He drops his hand away from Eric’s wrist. The gun remains pointed, adhered to his sternum.

Eric says, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Yes, you do. You’ll throw the gun away, Eric. It’ll be hard, but we’ll pick up the truck keys and we’ll walk down the road.”

Our faces are only inches apart. We breathe each other’s breaths, blink each other’s blinks. We squeeze our hands together. The rain traces the lines of our expressions, those characters of the most complex language.

Eric asks, “What if it’s all real?”

“But it’s not, I—”

“Andrew!” Eric yells and Andrew jerks his head in surprise. Eric wants to pull the gun away from Andrew’s chest and nestle it back under his own chin. But the gun stays where it is, and Eric implores, repeating his question. “What if it’s all real?”

Andrew inhales, and his defiant answer is in the exhale. “If it is. Then it is. We’re still not going to hurt each other.”

“What will we do? We can’t go on.”

“We’ll go on.”

We stare, and we watch the rain and we watch our faces, and we don’t say anything, and we say everything.

Eric pulls the gun off Andrew’s chest, lowers his arm, and drops the gun to the forest floor. He leans into Andrew. Andrew leans into Eric.

We lean into each other and our heads are side by side, cheek to cheek. Our arms hang at our sides like lowered flags, but our fingers find each other’s fingers, and we hold on.

The sky is a depthless black, impossible to not attribute malignancy and malice to it as strobing flashes of lightning split it open. Wind and thunder rattle through the forest, sounding like the earth dying screaming. The storm swirls directly over us. But we’ve been through countless other storms. Maybe this one is different. Maybe it isn’t.

We will pick the truck keys out of the mud. We will lift Wen into our arms and we will carry her and we will remember her and we will love her as we will love ourselves. We will walk down the road even if it is flooded by raging waters or blocked by fallen trees or if greedy fissures open beneath our feet. And we will walk the perilous roads after that one.

We will go on.