A Day for Damnation

FORTY-SEVEN

I REMEMBER the screaming.

All that screaming. Everyone. And running too. I remember the running. All of us. Why? Melted canyons. Broken pavements. Scattering. Gunshots, Sirens. Roaring sounds. Purple sounds.

I remember hiding.

I remember a dirty place, bad smelling. Brackish water, gathered in pools. I remember hunger. Wandering. Searching. Looking for the herd again.

I remember someone screaming at me. Making loud sounds in my ear. Slapping my face. Hurts! Piled-on hurts! Don't slap me! I remember crying--

And slaps-more slaps--

Until finally, I screamed- "Goddammit! Stop that!"

"Oh, thank God! He's coming back."

I remember

"Jim! Look at me!" Someone grabbed my chin, tilted my face up. A--female. Dark hair. Grim face.

"Jim! Say my name!"

"Wha-? Wha-?" Make sounds. Drown out meaning. "Wah-?"

Slap! Tears in my eyes.

"Wah-?" I try again.

"Wah-?" Another slap!

I remember screaming.

She holds my face and screams right back at me.

If I can only find the right scream-I had it once- "Goddammit, Fletcher! Stop it already! You're hurting me!"

"Who am I?"

"You're--Fletcher! Now leave me alone!" I want to climb back under and pull the covers over my head again.

"And who are you-?"

"Uh-"

"Come on, James! Who are you?"

"I-I... name?"

"Come on, you're doing fine! Who are you?"

"I was ... Jame-"

"Who?"

"Jame-no, James. Edward."

"James Edward who ... ?"

"Who?"

"That's right. Who?"

"Who? Who?" It's soft and warm down here. "Hoo? Hoo. Hooo-"

Slap! My face rings, stings-

"Who are you?"

"James Edward McCarthy, Lieutenant United States Army, Special Forces Warrant Agency, on special assignment! Sir!" Maybe that will satisfy her. Maybe now she'll leave me alone.

"Good! Come on back, Jim. Keep coming back!"

"No, goddammit! I don't want to come back! I want to finish my dream!"

"It's over, Jim! You're awake! You can't go back to sleep!"

"Why-?"

"Because it's Saturday."

"Saturday?!! You were supposed to pick me up on Thursday."

"We couldn't find you!"

"But the collar-?" I looked at her. Confused.

"Yes, the collar. Where is it, Jim? Do you remember?"

I reach for my neck. The collar is gone. I'm naked. Shivering. Cold. "Um-" More confused now.

Fletcher is wrapping a blanket around me. I'm starting to fade again. I have to say something, quickly. "I-uh-how did ... you find me?"

"We've been watching the herd. We've been hoping you'd find your way back. Luckily, you did."

"Find ... my way back?"

"Some yahoos from down the coast came in looking for some cheap and dirty sex. They ended up stampeding the whole herd. We've had deaths and injuries. It's the worst. Are you following this?"

"Yes!" I say quickly.

She lowers her hand. Lowered her hand. My time sense is-was-coming back.

Somebody put a mug in my hand. It was hot. I drank automatically. Bitter. Coffee? No. I made a face. "What is this shit?"

"It's ersatz."

"Ersatz what?"

"Ersatz shit. We couldn't afford the real stuff."

"This is offal," I said. And grinned suddenly, "Hey-I'm alive again. I made a pun. This is offal. Get it? O-F-F-A-L?"

Somebody behind me groaned. Fletcher grinned. She said, "I never thought I'd be happy to hear someone make a pun that bad. It's a good sign. You're coming back into the language again."

I looked into Fletcher's eyes. As if I'd never seen her before. They were bright and deep. I spoke directly to her. I said, "Fletch. I understand what's going on here. I don't know if you can understand it without experiencing it, but I know what it is now because I've been through it. It's terrifying-and it's wonderful-and I want to go back-and I want you to keep me from going back. It-" I pointed at the milling bodies behind us. "That-could be the end of the human race. That could get out of control. Very easily. It's got to be broken up, Fletcher. I don't know how, but it's got to be broken up."

"What is it? Can you explain it?"

I took a breath, I looked at the herd, then looked back to Fletcher. "No. I can't. I can make some guesses. I can describe what happened to me. But-any explanation would only be a tiny slice of the truth, not even a cross section of it. But-somehow, when you're in the herd, you know that words don't have any meaning any more. They're just sounds. All the meaning falls away. It gets detached. You can find the meanings if you have to, but-no-" I shook my head and waved my hand as if to erase everything I'd said. I took another drink of the terrible ersatz. "That's not right either."

I looked back up into her eyes. She was beautiful. I could mate with her. Now why did that thought come up? "It's-it's a kind of primal humanity, out there. Listen-there's a ... space that's been created and defined over there. And in that space, you stop being a human being like we know human beings and start being a human being like they know human beings. Over there, the apes have the agreement.

"It's like-humanity has decided that thinking doesn't work and has abandoned it. To try something else instead. It's like a kind of telepathy, Fletcher-it envelops you. The closer you go, the easier it is to escape from the language. It's like letting go of a particular madness. Like language is a mental disease that we all agreed to share. Over there, they've created a new agreement-that they can be a species without thinking, without language, without concept. They exist totally in a moment-to-moment state. It's-I'm explaining it again, aren't I? We keep getting trapped in our explanations. That's our minds."

She stopped me with a finger on my lips. "Shh," she said. "Catch your breath. Take your time."

I ran a hand through my hair. It was matted. God knew what I looked like.

"What did it feel like, Jim?"

"It felt like... this is weird. . . ." I looked at her and I could feel the tears coming into my eyes. "It felt like ... freedom. As if my mind were a parasite in my body, somehow. And for a while, I'd gotten free of it. And now, that it's recaptured me, I have this ... terrible grief, this ... profound sadness." I looked back to the herd again. "They're so... happy over there." The tears burst from my eyes again.

She hugged me to her. I was oblivious to everything else except the warmth and the smell of her. She smelled like flowers. There were men standing around us. I didn't care. I let the tears flow. I buried my head against her breasts and sobbed. Why? Why the tears?

She stroked my hair. I could feel how greasy I was, but she didn't seem to mind. She said, "You want the official explanation?"

"What's the official explanation?" I asked.

She wrapped her arms around me and said, "The official explanation is that we haven't finished grieving for the world we've lost. The pre-plague years. How do you deal with the death of a whole planet?" She left the question echoing in the silence.

I found the mug again. The ersatz was cool enough to drink now, cool enough to taste. I could almost get used to the taste of it. In another hundred years or so. I pulled the blanket around me.

"How are you feeling now?" Fletcher asked.

"Fine," I said. "Really." I looked at the sky, I looked at the herd. They were starting to head into what was left of Brooks Hall, their stable for the night. "I should be going to bed too...... " I looked to Fletcher, hopefully.

"Yes," she agreed. "But not with them. Not any more."

She nodded to someone and they helped me into the ambulance and we headed back to Oakland.