I. "A Sense of Insufferable Gloom"

Part Eight

Mark LeVine slowly opened his eyes. He stretched, feeling the muscles in his arms and legs tense. He yawned unstoppably then sat up, resting some of his weight on his elbows. He felt like he’d been asleep for hours. Glancing at the clock, he realized it had only been minutes, a dozen at best.

The bathroom door was closed. Yellow-white light ringed the caramel-colored partition. Mark rose out of bed and stood at the door. He touched the handle. He knew it wouldn’t be locked. Zach never locked it. He started to turn the handle, but stopped. His weight was already pushing against the smooth surface of the wooden door. Above the sound of the shower spray on the other side, Mark could hear Zach’s voice ringing sweetly off the walls. He was singing. Mark was smiling as soon as heard him and then felt his smile broaden when he recognized the lyrics. It was their song.

Mark stood against the bathroom door, letting the minutes fade away into the background of his life. All that mattered for the moment was the sound of Zach’s voice, the words he was singing into the shower walls caressing Mark’s heart and putting to rest any remaining anxieties he felt.

Mark walked about the house as if he were floating. A sense of serenity, unlike any other he had ever known, had washed over him. Each step across the soft, sky-blue carpet felt more like a bound from cloud top to cloud top. He was floating on an air of self assurance. He had stared down the mouth of lions and walked away alive. For the moment, nothing else in the world existed beyond their walls, their furniture, their yard, or each other. Mark felt himself suddenly thinking of the bakery and, for the first time in two days, let himself smile about it. Standing on the edge of the cold, kitchen tile, Mark breathed easy. Everything’s going to be okay, he thought then stepped into the darkened room. He tapped a nearby light switch. Even if it isn’t, it still will be.

He was laughing at his thoughts as he quickly began to busy himself. Soon, the whole kitchen was alive. The smell of eggs and batter slowly firming on old, grease-scorched pans circled about him and gradually the rest of the house. Zach took a deep breath when he emerged from the bathroom. He followed his sense of smell, attracted by the hints of his favorite breakfast, and his sense of sound, perked by the hiss and buzz of things cooking, down the narrow hallway.

“What are you doing,” Zach asked. He had been standing against the corner of the wall at the edge of the kitchen. His bright smile grew even brighter when Mark looked up at him.

“Cooking,” he answered smugly, smiling. He had been about to flip another pancake when Zach spoke. Without looking down, he playfully tossed the golden-brown flapjack into the air. It did not end gracefully. Zach laughed. Next to his singing, it was the sweetest sound Mark had ever heard.

They ate standing up, never leaving the kitchen. They laughed like friends on a first date, comparing stories of childhood embarrassments and memories of moments unique to each other. They talked like they hadn’t in years, seeing each other anew, remembering themselves and the things they had once shared. At the sink, with their late dinner of breakfast now only cooling pans stained with batter and egg whites, Zach stacked their plates freckled with pancake crumbs standing like small atolls amongst seas of maple syrup. His attention was directed at the dishes he was rinsing. He didn’t notice Mark stealthily approaching. He wasn’t paying attention to the plate in Mark’s hand or the way he was dipping his fingers into the leftover pool of syrup.

“Guess what,” Mark said, inches from Zach.

“What’s that,” Zach said, barely glancing over his shoulder.

Mark leaned in close to Zach’s ear. “You’re it,” he whispered, trying not to giggle. Mark didn’t have to do anything else. Zach did it for him. Acting in a surprised reflex, he turned his head with a start, causing his ear to drag across Mark’s syrup-laden fingertips.

Mark laughed as Zach recoiled. Zach laughed back, grabbing the small spray nozzle with one hand as he tried to clean his sticky ear lobe with the other. Zach gave no warning to Mark. He squeezed the trigger on the sprayer, sending a rapid burst of warm water splashing against his partner. Mark shouted, still laughing, as he tried to duck out of the way. He scooped more of the maple mess onto his fingers then lunged toward Zach who shifted with a giddy shriek. More water erupted from the small nozzle in Zach’s grip, spraying Mark on the face and neck.

Mark was undeterred. It led to a chase out of the kitchen when Zach ran out of hose for the sprayer. They laughed as they teased each other around the house, jumping over furniture and scurrying around corners. The youthful energy suddenly pumping through their veins seemed unending. Hours seemed to pass before they finally tackled each other breathlessly on the couch.

“That was too much fun,” Zach said, still giggling.

Mark only nodded.

“What time is it?”

Mark glanced around the living room for a clock. “Late,” he finally said with a chuckle.

“Should we finish cleaning up and go to bed?”

Mark took a slow, deep breath. “Probably.”

Zach blinked sleepily for a moment, feeling the giddy adrenaline drain away. “Okay,” he finally said. “You handle the garbage and I’ll finish the dishes.”

Mark smiled and nodded. He realized how tired he actually felt when he stood up then turned and helped pull Zach off the disheveled cushions of the couch. At the same time though, Mark also never felt more alive. Every heartbeat, every breath seemed to register in his mind with radiant, almost overwhelming clarity. The way the lamp light around the living room splayed across the painted walls seemed strangely new to him. He listened to the low rumble and rattle of the heating vents in the floors as the warmed air was pushed through the house.

In the kitchen, there was the sensation of the cold tile under his feet again, the feel of the old ceramic tiles and the narrow valleys of dirt and water-stained grout that led him toward the back door. Zach was back at the sink, the water running out of the faucet softly distorting another noise. Mark looked up from the garbage bag he was tying closed. Zach was humming again. It was the same song he had been singing in the shower. Mark smiled, happier in that moment, in that night, than he had ever been. Let them come get us, he thought boastfully. Let them come in and smash all our things and take our store away. Zach noticed Mark staring at him with that warm smile that had become such a rare sight the last many months. He smiled back at him, blinking like a silly flirt.

Mark chuckled. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be done here in a minute,” Zach replied, placing the dripping pan clutched in one soaked hand amongst the other dishes already in the dishwasher. “I’ll meet you in the room.”

“I look forward to it,” Mark said with a coy smile, his eyebrows bouncing playfully. He slipped his bare feet into an old pair of sneakers as he unlocked the back door. A fist of cold air was the first thing to greet him when the door creaked open. “It’s still snowing,” Mark said.

Zach leaned forward over the sink, pushing the thin curtain hanging loosely in front of the small, square window overlooking the backyard. Mark turned on the outside light fixed to the wall above the concrete stoop. “Wow,” Zach said. “It’s so beautiful.”

Several inches of snow had already coated everything in sight. Mark closed the door behind him and stepped off the stoop into the freezing powder. He stopped, gazing around the serene winter wonderland that had once been their unimpressive backyard. The dried patches of grass and warped, plastic lawn furniture they never sat in were all covered in snow. Only frosty mounds marked the spot the old chairs stood. Maybe this year he would get rid of those plastic pieces of junk. Maybe he could build them new furniture. Mark didn’t know how to build furniture. He could try, though. He could do that, and maybe-just maybe-he might actually learn a new skill he wouldn’t otherwise have. Mark smiled at himself.

He tilted his head back and looked up into the dark, swollen clouds hovering in the sky. He couldn’t really see them, only the heavy flakes of snow that fell angelically out of the silent shadows of the late night. Mark always loved the snow as a boy. What child doesn’t, really? Even as he got older, Mark always managed to hold a ten year-old’s enthusiasm for the frozen moisture. To him, as with many-including scores of youth-the snow simultaneously meant fun and peace.

This year though, for so many it just added to the heartache and strife so many were already enduring. The winter storms and unpredictable cold snaps had compounded the already troubled movement of essential goods and services. Farmers struggling to keep their crops healthy had their problems exacerbated by the unforgiving winter. Mark took a deep breath. God’s punishment, he thought, still looking up through the falling snow. You aren’t mad at me, are you? Mark blinked into the dark, wintery silence of the sky. The snow fell and fell without end, cold flakes kissing his tingling cheeks and nose.

The dinted, unremarkable, pale metal cans Mark would have to drag to the curb at the end of the week-if the service was running again-were around the side of the house. A layer of snow had collected on the flat lid of the closest barrel-shaped container. Mark brushed it off quickly, the harsh cold of the snow lightly burning his hand. He shivered slightly as he picked up the lid and dropped the sealed bag into the rank confines of the trash can.

Replacing the lid, Mark began to turn back the way he had come. His ears perked and he stopped before really having started. A noise beyond the falling snow landing quietly against the settling layers already enveloping the ground suddenly seemed to consume the peaceful night. It didn’t take Mark more than a second to recognize the din of an idling truck. With a single step toward the tall, dense hedges running a straight line between their yard and the next one, Mark peered through the silent storm. He gazed past the side of their house and toward the street beyond their front yard. He couldn’t see anything. There was only the snow and the darkened shape of the house across the street. Mark listened for another moment then shrugged his shoulders. Must be the neighbors, he thought, turning around.

He had rounded the corner into the backyard when a twig snapped somewhere in the snow-draped hedges. Mark stopped in mid-step. His breath caught in a quiet gasp. He watched the leafy, dark masses partitioning the two yards for a long moment. He let his eyes shift and glance up at the darkened windows of the house beyond the bushes. It belonged to an old woman. Mark couldn’t remember her name. He completed his step, walking slowly sideways toward the back door. It’s an animal, Mark figured.

The night had become still once more, save the falling snow covering the ground under another layer of cold, wet flakes. Mark glanced at the back door, still closed and only a half dozen steps away. He turned his head back toward the yard. The darkness beyond the snow shifted suddenly. Movement in the hedges seemed to echo with frightening ferocity though the silent winter storm. Mark’s breath caught again. He watched the shadows take shape as black-dressed figures advancing swiftly out of the fringes of the yard. Mark’s heart began to race. Closer they drew and suddenly he understood, suddenly he knew instantly who these midnight-cloaked soldiers were.

“No,” he shouted into the thinning space of snow and night that separated him from them. The incandescent, yellow-white glow of the porch light ringed the polished barrels of their guns, drawn and ready to fire and the end of their thick, outstretched arms.

“No!” Mark turned with urgency and bolted the remaining steps toward the door. He heard the movement in the snow behind him, the violent kick in the powder that told him they weren’t about to let him get away.

Mark only turned around again when he was in the house and closing the door. One of them was already on the stoop. He lunged forward as Mark swung the door toward the frame. Wood and padded armor collided loudly. A thrust of weight Mark wasn’t ready for knocked him slightly off balance. He quickly found his footing again, bracing against the force opposing him. He shoved the door back against his foe who slipped backward. There was a moment of surprised hesitation Mark instantly regretted. He rebalanced again and tried to slam the door the rest of the way shut. A gloved hand appeared in the last second before the door was in place. A muffled shout of hot pain coursed through the wood and glass to Mark’s ears. Mark would have smiled in victory then. But there was no victory to be had.

A sharp pop exploded through the cold beyond the back door. Mark felt it before he heard it. More precisely. He felt the searing shell of the racing bullet that punched a scorched hole through the wooden door graze painfully off his side. He felt his flesh tear open in the moment after the bullet had already past. It cracked against a wall somewhere behind him. Mark’s strength suddenly lagged and he backed off the door a half step.

The piercing scream of glass violently shattering filled their little house. Wood splintered as both the front and back doors were suddenly kicked open. Mark wasn’t done fighting though. He moved with anger beyond any rational thought he could recognize. He wasn’t trying to protect the house, only himself and then Zach. The nearest object he could grab was a broom. One of the faceless figures stormed past the wrecked doorframe nearby. Mark charged forward, swinging the yellow handle in a wide arch that caught the black-clad foe off guard. The figure adapted swiftly, catching hold of the thin, fiberglass pole that had slapped his cloaked face and padded helmet.

The situation was spiraling rapidly out of control for Mark and he knew it. In the rest of the house, more of the faceless soldiers tore through the last shreds of their personal space, invading their lives like tendrils of a cancer that cannot be stopped. Mark could hear Zach shouting. He could hear the heartbreaking thuds of furniture, or a body, being thrown and broken. Still, he wrestled with the foe before him, staring into the black, soulless goggles obscuring the eyes he knew were glaring back at him. Mark wasn’t going to win. He knew he wasn’t going to win. He had to try. He could, at least, do that much.

The broom handle, gripped by both men, swung wildly left and right then up and down as they danced a warriors dance of strength and death around the kitchen. There was a swift crack against one end of the broom that sent shudders down the length of the long handle. Razor sharp glass rained down from the broken light fixture attached to the ceiling. In the sudden darkness that wrapped tightly around them, Mark felt the splintered shards glance off his neck and arms, the small rivulets of blood hot on his skin. He felt the sting of sweat in the new wounds for only an instant. Then, there was only a blinding pain that erupted from the back of his skull.

“Enough!”

Mark blinked. He was on the kitchen floor. He felt the cold tile and grout under the glass pieces pinching his cheek. Black boots caked with snow filled his spinning line of sight. “Get him up,” a muffled voice shouted from above him. “Let’s stop wasting time!”

Unforgiving hands hoisted Mark off the darkened kitchen floor. “You boys are in so much trouble,” another muffled voice said. Mark couldn’t tell who was talking. He couldn’t tell how many of them there were. His vision was swimming in a hazy fog. He was certain he had a concussion. “Look at all the pretty things,” came another voice. “Look at all the pretty, illegal things.”

“Wha...What do you want,” Mark tried to ask. He was out of breath and out of strength.

His answer came in the form of a fist across his face. Through the overwhelming fire of pain, he hears one of the figures shout, “Shut your mouth! You’re under arrest!” A figure walked into view in front of him. “Get them outside,” he barked from behind is mask and goggles.

Mark was dragged outside into the cold and snow. Behind him he heard Zach’s soft moans. They were dropped like sacks into the freezing powder beside one another in the middle of the yard. It felt good to lay down, even if the cold burned as much as fire. The feeling of respite was not to last. Gloved fingers gripped Mark’s blood-matted hair, yanking him backwards and up onto his knees.

“Get up!”

Zach yelped, pulled upright the same way. His frightened moans became panicked, racing sobs as the sound of a dozen heavy boots shuffling into the snow was suddenly muted by the cocking of pistols. Bullets were being readied to fire. A strange feeling suddenly washed over Mark. Somewhere beyond him, Zach was trying to say something. But Mark couldn’t hear him. He felt his mind drifting, floating between this world and something far more dream like. Through the haze he was the faces of his mother and father. He hadn’t thought about them in years.

“Mark!”

A gloved hand slapped the backs of both their heads. Mark hissed in pain, feeling his scalp and skull throb together in overwhelming waves. “Shut up,” a voice commanded sternly.

“Mark LeVine and Zach Goyer...” another voice rattled off behind them. At least he got my name right, Mark thought. “You both are under arrest for crimes against the country. And, my goodness, are you two ever-so-guilty.”

The faceless figure Mark began to assume was the leader continued speaking as he paced somewhere behind them. He called them names and laced their supposed charges with as many foul remarks and curses as possible. Mark could barely listen to him. His mind was still turning, still floating in and out of consciousness. In the haze of his mind’s eye, he saw his parents again. They seemed to be waiting for him. He felt ten years-old again, stepping off the school bus and seeing them smiling at him. They were waiting for him to come home.

“I’m scared,” Mark suddenly heard Zach whisper between the racing sobs. He was trembling from head to toe.

“Pray,” Mark whispered back. He didn’t know where word had come from. He didn’t remember it forming in his throat or slipping past his lips. But, he had said it. He said it again. “Pray, baby.”

“I’m scared,” Zach said again.

“Shut up,” the soldiers directly behind them barked as the leader continued to speak.

“Don’t be scared. It’s all okay.” Mark didn’t know how or why, he just absolutely felt he was speaking the truth. “There’s nothing to be scared of. It’s all okay.”

“Shut up!”

“Just pray, Zach. Don’t be frightened any more.”

“What?!” The leader was at Mark’s right ear. Mark felt his ear drum try to explode when the figure, a man, screamed his question through his mask. “Don’t be frightened?! You should be! You should be! Look at you! You’re worthless!”

“Pray, Zach,” Mark said again. His voice was even. He kept his eyes closed. He could still feel snow on his cheeks even as the vision inside his mind was a different place and a different time. His parents nodded to him.

“Don’t pray! Who are you going to pray to?! Look at what you’ve done! Look at the damage and destruction you’ve caused! Do you think we want to be here?” The leader’s gloved hand pressed hard against the back of Mark’s head, forcing his eye line toward snow. “LOOK AT IT!”

“Pray,” Mark whispered. “Don’t be scared.”

“The Earth isn’t going to listen,” the figure screamed. “No one is going to listen to you. You’re so stupid!” But under his voice, his squealing tones, Zach had begun to pray. He didn’t pray to the Earth. He prayed to God. He didn’t even consider the alternative. Why would he?

“He’s praying to God,” one of the figures standing directly behind them said.

“God? God?! You are going to ask forgiveness from some ancient form in the sky? It’s the Earth you live on, stupid! The Earth!” He slapped Zach again and again across his scalp as he spoke.

Zach cried out but did not cease. His prayer continued as if all existence beyond his own depended on it. Mark kept his eyes shut. He clamped them tighter, not wanting to see any of this. A sudden vision flashed before him, replacing the sight of his parents for only a moment. Maybe it was all his imagination, his mind hiding from the terror and violence. But, maybe it wasn’t. Mark didn’t know. He didn’t fight against it. He saw people, crowds thousands and thousands thick. He saw friends and strangers alike. He sensed something about them. It was a feeling of resistance.

“...And you have damaged the Earth,” the figure was saying. “You and people like you. Filthy dregs. I hate you! We all hate you. And you will pay for your crimes.”

“We’re not frightened,” Mark said.

“One-Zero-Seven,” the leader shouted, ignoring Mark. Another of the black-clad soldiers snapped to attention. He was standing under the porch light. The soft yellow radiance was the only light in the yard. “Is that an incandescent bulb in that light,” the leader asked.

The one he had called One-Zero-Seven looked up at the warm light emanating from a dusty bulb. “Yes.”

“I don’t understand it,” the leader sighed, shaking his downturned head. “Something so simple. Maybe you could have saved yourselves. But so much contraband...including that little bulb. The feather on the stack crumbling now.” He turned his head toward the soldier under the light. “Destroy it.”

The one called One-Zero-Seven stared into the light for a long moment before reaching upward. His thick glove embraced the hot glass of the bulb as he carefully unscrewed it from the dirty socket. At the same time, the leader of the dark-armored band turned back toward Mark and Zach. “By the powers fully vested in me as a protector of our Earth and nation, I find you both guilty of all charges.”

“We are not afraid,” Mark whispered. Beside him, Zach’s praying grew just a little louder.

“The punishment is death...”

“We are not afraid.”

“To be carried out with even swiftness in order to preserve the system of justice.”

“We are not afraid.”

“Well, you should be!” There was a snarl in his voice that surprised everyone. Hidden eyes all turned to him at once. “There’s only two of you.”

“There will be more.”

A thousand racing heartbeats seemed to span the sudden silence that followed Mark’s quiet challenge. The leader stood in the snow, staring at the back of Mark’s head. There was something definite in Mark’s voice that he could not explain which rattled his core. And, the long pause was becoming evidence of the event. So he took a long, loud, deep breath. “One-One-Zero...One-One-Two, I hereby authorize you to carry out the sentence on my command.”

The two figures behind Mark and Zach readied themselves. Zach’s voice, trembling almost hysterically, was still softly echoing his prayer into the falling snow. Mark let himself smile. He saw his parents. He saw old friends and strangers. He felt the confidence they all shared. “There will be more.”

“Ready!"

The hand on the bulb still turned. The connection to the socket was beginning to break. The yellow light flickered.

“Aim!”

Mark watched his parents nod to him once more. He was going home again. The hand on the bulb felt the connection break, the light within the fragile, dusty glass disappearing. Darkness swept across the yard. In the frozen shadows of the late night, Mark finally opened his eyes. He still felt the snow on his face as he turned to look at Zach.

“I love you,” he said.

Zach turned his head sharply. He felt Mark’s fingers take his trembling hand and smiled.

“Fire!”

For a moment there was only darkness. Even the snow seemed to vanish in the cloak of the night. Then, the darkness shrank away once, then twice. It happened as quick as lightning. Air blistering cracks from the emptying pistol chambers echoed long after the brilliant, twin muzzle flares that made the white snow sparkle like a field of diamonds for an instant. Then, there was only silence. Two nameless bodies lay lifeless in the snow turning from white, to pink, to red. The black-clad soldiers turned and began to disperse without a word whispered or gestured. The job was done, though one lingered for just a moment.

He stood staring beside the stood at the light bulb in his hand. A snowflake landed without any noise on its warm surface. He looked up into the night, at the house next door beyond the shrubs. He almost didn’t see the old woman moved suddenly deeper into the darkness of her bedroom. With a soft, longing sigh, the one called One-Zero-Seven joined the others as they returned to their idling black truck. The job was done.