The Fifth Day Read online

  “That was not a satyr.” Zolzaya’s voice was rough with exasperation. “I know enough mythology to know that. A satyr has goats’ feet.”

  “Details,” Jeff scoffed. “And you know what Isaiah prophesied, in that chapter?” He opened his Bible, and flipped through the pages to a spot well-worn from use. His voice rose, and despite her annoyance, a shudder rippled through her. Here, in this abandoned city, there was something ancient and primal and terrifying about his words.

  “‘From generation to generation it will be desolate. None will pass through it forever and ever. But the pelican and the hedgehog will possess it, and the owl and the raven will dwell in it; and He will stretch over it the line of desolation and the plumb line of emptiness. Its nobles—there is no one there Whom they may proclaim king—And all its princes will be nothing. They shall call its nobles to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing. And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be a habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.’”

  He ended, and glanced around at the faces turned toward him. Lissa looked skeptical, Margo sympathetic, Ben scared. Gary was still stunned, and was sitting on the grass, cradling his left wrist in his right hand.

  For all of her doubt on religious matters, Z couldn’t stop a shudder of fear. In another age, Jeff wouldn’t have been a church custodian. He’d have been an Inquisitor, a judge in the witch trials, a prophet preaching fire and brimstone. And he might get his chance yet.

  “The prophecies are coming true.” Jeff’s voice dropped from the declamatory tone to a near whisper. “And you asked me why I pray.”

  No one had a response to that, and for a while there was nothing but the sound of the wind and the gulls and the ocean.

  “I think, I think I saw this thing last night, outside the house.” Zolzaya gave a brief description of what she’d seen through the bedroom window.

  “Why didn’t you warn us last night that the demon was outside the house?” Jeff asked.

  “I went down and locked the doors. And I didn’t think it was a demon.”

  “It’s not.” Lissa cocked a wry eyebrow at Jeff.

  “Demons have no regard for locked doors. Listen, my good people, Jesus’s name is all they respect.”

  Lissa rolled her eyes. “You didn’t say Jesus anything at it just now, Jeff.”

  “That was a failing on my part.”

  “I don’t give a flying fuck if it was a demon.” Gary took a deep breath and worked his face back into a passable facsimile of his previous swaggering demeanor. He struggled to his feet. “Whatever it was is strong as hell, and dangerous. If the little bro thinks it’s still around, we should stay away from trees, and keep our eye out for it.”

  That was good advice. They shouldered their backpacks and headed back toward the street.

  “Okay, Lissa,” Zolzaya said, as they turned southward along First Street, with the row of storefronts on their right blocking the view of the boardwalk and the ocean. “You and I don’t buy that it was a satyr or a demon, right? So what was it?”

  Lissa picked up her bicycle from where she’d left it, leaning against a wrecked car near the deli. She shrugged.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know.” Her Caribbean lilt stretched the words out, making them languorous, round-edged, soft. “I’ve got no evidence but the proof of my eyes, same as all of us. What I saw isn’t like anything I’ve ever seen. But it was only in our sight for maybe a half a minute, could have been less than that. I don’t know how we could make any guess about it from that.”

  “It was right in front of our eyes. We all saw it. That surely gives us some information.”

  Lissa shrugged again. “Some, but not enough. Eyewitness testimony is the worst form of evidence. We think our senses and our brains are reliable, but they’re not. We humans are built from the start with all kinds of ways of getting it wrong. Already we’re taking what we saw and wrapping it up in our minds with what we think it was, what others said it might be, what we imagined about it, what stories we heard about monsters and forest spirits as children. Such things might be pure memories for a moment, and more reliable, but no memory stays that way for long. Already if we were each to tell our version of what just happened, they would all be different.”

  “So what do you think it was?”

  “I don’t think it was anything. I simply don’t know. If I don’t know, I don’t know. That’s where the conversation stops, in science. Until you have more evidence, you don’t engage in fruitless speculation.” She looked over at Zolzaya, and a bright smile flashed in her dark face. “Sorry, Z, I don’t mean to sound like a hard-ass. It gets drilled into your brain in science. Trust your instruments and your data first, your calculations and your theories second, and your eyes, ears and opinions last.”

  “No. That makes sense. But I’d like to have answers.”

  “So would we all.”

  —

  THEY WANDERED MOST of the rest of the afternoon without meeting anyone else.

  The rocky beach south of town was open, tenanted by no one but a few sea birds whose lonely calls were caught by the wind, thrown up to the sky and lost. The waves slammed themselves onto the shingle, shattering into foam and receding, only to be caught up and thrown forward again. Zolzaya stood on a flat rock, staring out into the Pacific Ocean, feeling herself nearer to tears than she had since the morning she had awakened to find Vincent Gregory, and her whole life, gone.

  Ben came up next to her, and slipped his hand into hers. He, too, was looking out across the waves, toward where the sea and the sky melded into one with hardly a line between.

  “My mom used to read me books on science,” he said, his voice light and high. “I remember a quote by Carl Sagan she said was really important to her. Do you know who Carl Sagan is?”

  Zolzaya smiled and nodded.

  “This is the quote: ‘In all of our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.’ She told me to remember that one. I told her I would.”

  “Your mom sounds like she was a wonderful person.”

  “She was. I miss her a lot.” His voice cracked. “I’m afraid I’m going to forget her. You forget things, you know? I’ve forgotten lots of things. There are things that are from a long time ago, I can remember them a little, but they don’t seem real. They’re like pictures in a book. Stories I once read. Not part of my life.” He looked at her, cheeks wet with tears. “I don’t want mom to be like that, or my dad, or sister. I love them. I want them to always be more than pictures.”

  “If you want to remember them, you will. You can remember them forever. As deeply as you want.”

  He took a shuddering breath, nodded, and looked back out at the ocean. “Do you have anyone that you remember like that?”

  “Of course.”

  “Who?”

  “My mom’s mother. My grandma. She was from Greece. She came over to the United States when she was about your age. Her family was very poor, and she never went to college or had a lot of formal education, but she was one of the wisest, best people I’ve ever known.”

  “Did she die?”

  Zolzaya nodded. “About five years ago.”

  “You must miss her.”

  “Every day.”

  “Maybe we can tell each other about the people we want to remember. Maybe if other people remember them, too, it will keep us from forgetting.”

  “I think that sounds like a wonderful idea, Ben.” She smiled at him. “We should go back and join the others. We still need to stop at the grocery store before we head back to your house.”

  Stop at the grocery store. That made it sound so ordinary. What they should call it was taking food from a dead world. What would they be in five, ten, twenty years? Perhaps at that point they’d all be gone, and then the world would truly be empty. All memories gone, because there’d be no one there to remember.

  Z
olzaya wasn’t the only one whose spirits were low. Gary was much subdued after his experience with the Tree Creature, as they called it, and his stride lacked some of its cocksure swing. Even ever-cheerful Margo was quiet as they turned back toward town.

  They headed up First Street, and turned toward the little grocery store, crossed the parking lot, and took two carts from the rack in front. The electric door opened with a push, sliding back into the wall and rebounding on its tracks with a hollow thunk. They loaded the carts with more food, and all of the bottled water they could find. Gary added two six-packs of beer.

  “Are you going back to your apartment for the evening?” Lissa asked him.

  Gary shrugged, and didn’t look at her. “Aren’t you going back to your boyfriend’s house?”

  Lissa aimed a questioning glance over to Z.

  “You should stay with us. Both of you should. If we’re it, we need to stick together.”

  Gary shrugged again, probably afraid to admit that he was afraid.

  What had the Tree Creature wanted? It looked at Gary like a human would look at a strangely-shaped bug. But it didn’t hurt him, other than squeezing his wrist. Clearly it could have, if it had wanted to. It had acted more curious than hostile.

  But Gary, even if he wouldn’t articulate his own fear, wasn’t taking any chances. He walked right past his motorcycle. To get on his motorcycle would mean getting there ahead of the rest of them, then waiting by himself for them to catch up.

  Waiting. Among the trees.

  Along the way, Jeff was silent, clutching his Bible to his chest like a shield. Lissa and Ben were engaged in earnest conversation again, this time about stellar life cycles and supernovas. Just having them conversing about something other than the ever-present It was calming, reassuring that some normalcy was still possible.

  Margo interrupted Zolzaya’s thoughts. “Z, do you think that there’s a different way besides logic to get information about what’s going on here?” She pushed one of the grocery carts down the sidewalk along First Street.

  “What other way do we have?”

  “How about Tarot card readings?”

  Zolzaya looked at Margo in some surprise. “Seriously? Do you still believe that I wasn’t making up everything I said?”

  “I think maybe you were. Up until a couple of days ago. Have you already forgotten that you predicted what was going to happen, not only once but several times? Maybe what happened gave you some kind of… I don’t know, some kind of ability.”

  “What I predicted for you wasn’t that unusual.”

  “Yes, and I didn’t disappear.” Margo’s voice took on stubborn tones. “In any case, what could it hurt?”

  “I didn’t bring my cards with me.”

  Margo said nothing, but pointed across the street. Two doors down from Alessandro’s Pizza House, where they’d tried unsuccessfully to get lunch earlier that day, was a sign that said, Namasté Book Store. Books and Gifts For the Spirit.

  “Oh.”

  “We’re in California, Z.” Margo smiled. “You had to know there’d be one around here. That was why I thought of it.”

  “What do you think Jeff will say?”

  “Oh, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,’ probably. But he’ll be one against the rest of us.”

  “What if it doesn’t work?”

  “What if it does?” Margo said. “We need information. For all of Lissa’s physics and skepticism, she’s not coming up with any ideas. We know your readings worked, at least a couple of times. We have nothing to lose.”

  Zolzaya took a deep breath. “Okay.” She turned to the others. “Go on ahead. I’m going to the bookstore.”

  Lissa gave her a curious look. “Need some reading material?”

  “Something like that.”

  The others watched her for a moment, but Margo kept walking, pushing her grocery cart, and the rest followed, Ben looking back at her with a curious expression.

  Zolzaya crossed the street, armed herself with a rock from one of the little sidewalk gardens, and walked up to the store front, testing its weight in her right hand.

  The window, clean and shiny, reflected her image back at her. Was that the face of someone who could break someone else’s stuff? She remembered some of her classmates in high school who had been caught by the police one night, breaking the windows of an abandoned house.

  Vandals and hooligans, her mother had called them, her voice sounding as if the words tasted bad.

  “That’s me, now,” Zolzaya whispered to no one.

  She threw the rock through the window in the front door.

  She winced at the sound of shattering glass, and some visceral part of her waited for alarms and sirens to start, for people to come out demanding what the hell she thought she was doing. Of course, nothing of the sort happened, so she stepped forward, reached through the broken frame as she’d seen Gary do earlier with much greater nonchalance, unlocked the door, and opened it. She walked around the shards of glass that littered the claret-colored carpet, and pointedly ignored the rock that had rolled a few feet into the store, fetching up against a display of brass bells that were still swinging gently.

  The inside was dim, lit only by the diffuse sunlight coming in through the windows. Near at hand were shelves of books on everything from astrology to organic gardening. On a table near the register was a sign that said Featured This Month, and a glossy hardbound book titled Pictorial Guide to Journeys Through the Sephirot. Whatever that was.

  There were instruction books on Wiccan rituals, spell-casting, runes, the I Ching, numerology, homeopathy, and a slim paperback called Choosing Your Diet by Blood Type.

  The whole place reeked of incense.

  Near the back, she found what she was looking for—a rack with boxes of Tarot cards, along with various instruction manuals. There was the classic Waite deck, but she turned the rack around, and to her delight she found the Art Nouveau deck that she used, her copy of which was still on the rickety table in the sitting room in her rental house in Oldenburg.

  Which there was a good chance she’d never see again.

  She stood, holding the deck of cards, not really looking at anything. Why had she thought that? It had popped into her mind unbidden, as if from outside, but it felt like an unquestionable fact.

  She could get in her car and drive back to Oldenburg, if she wanted to. Her mental voice sounded defiant.

  “I could if I wanted to,” she said aloud, as if testing the words out, seeing if the actions they suggested were possible.

  But she knew she wouldn’t. She knew, with a fierce certainty that had nothing to do with logic or rationality, that she would never again see that run-down house on Castle Street.

  There was little emotion attached to this. Now that it came down to it, there was nothing much to draw her back to that house. Her life there was done. The finality of it was mystifying, but not frightening.

  She looked down at the deck of cards again, and suddenly came back to herself. She took off her backpack, tossed the cards inside, then walked back across the carpeted floor. She pushed open what remained of the front door, and headed back up First Street. The others had already turned the corner up Denton, toward Ben’s house, and were out of sight.

  She stopped, looking at the emptiness around her, and a cold lump settled in her stomach. This was what the whole world looked like now. Everywhere. And if that was weird, think about what it looked like in San Francisco, New York City, Hong Kong, Paris—All those skyscrapers, apartment complexes, malls, dead and abandoned. Nothing left but a few dazed survivors among the relics of humans, relics that would slowly decay into dust.

  And then she looked up First Street, and had a horrifying thought—What if the others had vanished, too? Disappeared while she was in the bookstore?

  No, if they had, she’d see the grocery carts. They were still heading toward Ben’s house, and when she got to the corner, she’d see them.

  But even so, she broke in
to a run, jogging around a little Mazda convertible sitting with its front end pressed up against a streetlight pole, in the front seat a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and sunglasses. She reached the corner, turned around a low building with sandy-colored stone walls and a sign that said Ocean View Spa and Massage Center, and almost ran headlong into a figure standing still on the sidewalk.

  Zolzaya screamed and took an awkward step to the side, nearly falling off the sidewalk and into the street.

  The person in front of her was an old woman with a baleful expression. Her body was blocking the way. She was a good head shorter, with sallow, wrinkled skin, a large nose, and wispy white hair peeking out from underneath a red-and-white checkered headscarf. Her dress was a dingy gray, and it hung over a body as lumpy and formless as a bag of dough. She leaned on a carved wooden cane shaped like a scaly chicken leg that ended in a claw foot with long talons.

  The woman opened a toothless mouth, and hissed like a cat.

  Zolzaya screamed again and closed her eyes. When she opened them, the old woman was gone.

  She stood there, panting, heart hammering against her ribcage. She felt like her brain had shaken loose from its moorings. Something about the old woman was feral, wild, and completely antagonistic to humans, in a way that the Tree Creature was not. This woman meant them harm, there was no doubt in her mind.

  She was frozen. She stared up the street, and saw the others turned and running toward her, the grocery carts for the moment abandoned.

  The first one to reach her was Ben. He threw his arms around Zolzaya in a tight, protective embrace. “Z! Are you okay?”

  Margo arrived a moment later, worry clouding her round face. “What happened? What did you see?”

  She swallowed, and then opened her mouth. She was not sure if she still had a voice. “It was an old woman,” she finally was able to say. “Something evil. She wanted to hurt me.”

  “She didn’t, though?” Ben looked up at her, his eyes wide and frightened.

  She shook her head. “She—she was only there for a second. Then she just—vanished.”