And
everything else was just fury.
Pure
fury, no before and no after, no development or evolution, something
more intense than any human being had ever experienced. There was no
will or awareness behind it; that was just what Zig Zag
was.
His
appearance and his essence were one and the same.
Elisa
had never seen anything like it, never
imagined
anything
like it, except in her nightmares, where evil and fear took shape and
came to life.
Mr.
White Eyes.
No
wonder Jacqueline had called him the Devil. She was incapable of
defining, comprehending, or tolerating the almost symbolic air of
perversion, the hatred and insanity that emanated from every inch of
him, the inhuman cruelty that oozed from his whole being.
David
was right: he's trapped in a pure sentiment. It destroys, and that's
all it does. That's all it
can
do.
As
for his sickening physical appearance, Elisa knew that it was just a
result of the same phenomenon that had created those chasms in the
sea and the "leprosy" on the Jerusalem Woman's face.
Displaced matter made him look mutilated, tore off his facial
features, turned his pupils into gaping white sockets, amputated a
forearm and part of his torso as if he'd been chewed up and spit out
by a predator. His position— arms and legs askew, slightly
bent—was no doubt the one he'd landed in when Ric pushed him
onto the rocks.
As
she watched him—and despite feeling she'd lose her mind if she
didn't
stop
watching
him—she realized something else, too.
She
thought of Victor. How terribly he'd suffered when he came upon the
girl he thought he was in love with (his childhood sweetheart) in his
best friend's arms; all the awful things that must have crossed his
little boy's mind in just fractions of a second, as his brain sank
into unconsciousness. Rage, desire, vengeance, sadism, jealousy,
impotence. The world crashing down around him for the first time.
Ric
wanted to draw from some "innocent" event from the past,
but this was what he'd come up with.
She
realized that stripped of all that horror, Zig Zag would be reduced
to what he really was, what he had been and what he would have been,
if time had not confined him to that one sickening, isolated instant.
Now, looking at him up close, she could see his true nature beneath
the substantial layers of paralyzed rage.
Zig
Zag was an eleven-year-old boy.
.0005
seconds.
Victor
ran down the riverbed that summer morning in Ollero. Ric and Kelly
had disappeared, but he thought he knew where he'd find them: on that
mound of rocks, in a place he and Ric called the Refuge. They'd
talked about building a fort there.
Suddenly,
he stopped.
Where
was he running to? What had he just been doing? He vaguely recalled
being with Elisa, looking at something. He also recalled Kelly
Graham's black hair, and how much she and Elisa looked alike in his
mind. And how he'd felt when he found Ric and Kelly, naked, under the
pine tree, right where
he
and
Ric had planned to build their fort. And what he felt when he saw
her, kneeling before him,
touching
him
(he knew what she was doing: he'd seen it in Ric's magazines), and
when Ric said to him,
What's
wrong? Don't want to play, Vicky? Don't want her to do it to you,
Vicky?
Ric's
look. And, worse, Kelly's. Kelly Graham's look, those catlike eyes.
All
girls, every single one without fail, look like that.
Those
same lips that had so often smiled at him now wrapped around Ric's
member. That deserved every insult he could think of and more.
Insults (he discovered then) were like a vice. You screamed and
shouted yourself hoarse, you cried, you wanted to destroy the world,
and that just egged you on, made you want to keep insulting even
more. Oh, if the whole world were a girl's body, or Ric's crotch! If
rage could last forever! You'd scream until the screaming drained
those smiles and those glances, shout forever, until the end of your
last day on earth, your mouth open wide, teeth bared...
But
he wasn't in Ollero and he wasn't running anywhere. He was in a big,
stuffy, hot room. Where was he? Hell? And why was he
{him
of
all people) in that awful place?
It's
not fair.
He
was blinded by rage. He wanted to explain to whoever had put him
there how unfair it was. True, he'd overstepped the mark. For a
fraction of a second, or maybe a little longer—but not long
enough to change nature—he'd wished, he'd wanted with every
fiber of his being,
to
eat them alive, screw them, cut off their heads, and fuck their neck
holes, as Ric used to say, especially her, her more than him, because
she'd betrayed him, it was despicable,
she
was
despicable, and so beautiful, so much like those waxed models in
Ric's magazines, who wore black lingerie and knelt before men like
little doggies.
But,
come on, that was over twenty years ago, and all it had led to was a
big bump on the head, a few hours passed out in the hospital, a scar
on his scalp, some worry for his parents, and a happy ending. Ric
hadn't left his side the whole time he was there, and when he woke
up, Ric had even
cried,
and
begged for forgiveness. And as for Kelly, he'd forgotten all about
her. It was just kid's stuff. How old were they? Eleven ... twelve?
It's
not fair...
Life
is all wrong if things like that could become, with
the
passage of time
(was
that the expression?) such wells of evil. Where was the justice, if
nature couldn't forgive? He'd forgiven Kelly, and every other girl in
the world. He'd forgiven all women. So there was a little trauma.
He'd learned to live with it years ago. He lived alone, and despite
his feelings for Elisa, and how he yearned for her, he didn't dare
let another woman into his heart. He and Ric had drifted apart. What
else did he have to do to atone for his guilt? Did God really think
each and every word and thought ever said or considered during a few
seconds of rage was that important?
And
in a flash, he realized what the answer was. Yes.
A
pebble tossed into still water makes waves. Wasn't that the root of
Original Sin, the first mistake, the Only Mistake? An error made a
long time ago, a stain from the beginning that muddies the waters of
paradise and drags innocent people down with it. He suspected that
very few people had realized that. He was privileged. God was showing
him how his mistakes had rippled and transformed the face of the
earth.
Really,
far from being in hell, he was in heaven. He'd have to go through
purgatory first and get shot in the forehead, but that was going to
happen very, very soon: he could see the bullet approaching. And only
his death, Victor realized, could stop it all. The key was to die
before Blanes, Elisa, and Carter.
Die.
Suddenly,
he was overcome with joy. This was a dream come true, and it was his
most cherished, intimate dream. Giving his life to save Elisa's.
That
was it.
What
other heaven could he hope for?
Ric
pushed him and he smiled, fell onto the rocks, felt the blow—and
then came peace.
0
seconds.
The
light was blinding. She turned away from the sun, blinking.
I'm
alive.
She
saw clouds like the smoke of distant fires, the crashing sea, the
ground beneath her, her T-shirt covering her. The sharp pain in her
thigh became more intense and she noticed a warm liquid seeping
through the wound. She was bleeding. She'd die soon. But all of those
feelings were proof enough for now that she was still alive.
I'm
alive.
Elisa
welcomed the blood.
EPILOGUE
IT
was
neither foggy nor dark.
But
in their minds, everything was different.
They
were surrounded by utter devastation. The barracks were a tangle of
metal, glass, wood, and plastic, including SUSAN, whose metal frame
was so dented and mangled that it looked like an oversized child had
tired of playing and smashed her on the ground repeatedly in a
tantrum. Outside, it looked like a bomb had gone off; the helicopters
were completely wrecked. And though nothing looked too burned,
everything smelled like smoke, everything was broken and unusable, as
though an enemy army had passed through and laid waste to everything
in sight. Luckily, some of the soldiers' provisions were still OK.
Mostly cans, and they had no can opener, but there was a way to
puncture them and get the lids off. One serious problem was what to
do about liquids: they found only two bottles of drinking water. But
that afternoon the skies opened up and unleashed an almighty shower,
allowing them to collect several buckets of rainwater. They washed,
and then decided not to go off anywhere to sleep. Neither of them
wanted to admit it, but they were afraid to split up.
When
night fell, it was hard to do anything. They had no electricity, no
functioning batteries, and at first they didn't want to start a fire.
So they sat outside by the wall of the third barracks and tried
fruitlessly to get some rest.
Once
their most basic needs were met, she asked about the dead bodies.
They'd found several, both in and outside the station. Harrison and
the soldiers could only be identified by their clothes: they were
just flat, fabric silhouettes laid out on the ground. But she wanted
to know what they'd do with the rest of the bodies. Victor, Blanes,
the soldier from the hallway— and there were Jacqueline's
remains to consider, too.
They
both agreed they should bury everyone, but disagreed about
when
it
should be done. He wanted to wait (they were absolutely exhausted,
was his excuse, and someone would come for all of them the next day);
she didn't. That was their first argument. Not a big one, but it sank
them into silence.
Later
he asked, "How's the wound?" He sounded contrite.
She
looked at the bandage he'd cobbled together. Her thigh still hurt
dreadfully, but she wasn't about to whine. She was sure she'd have
scars that lasted the rest of her life, no matter how long—or
short—"the rest of her life" was.