THE MONUMENT: 28

Mel rides in the dingy backseat of a cab when her mobile phone rings. She recognizes the heavy breathing before she even says hello.

“Mel,” the low voice says. “I found Stephanie Fairbanks. Followed her from the Monument to a house on the other side of town.”

Mel says, “Well, it’s about time…”

“Now she’s at the home of one of the Preservationist leaders. There is another woman with her.”

Mel strums her fingers on the window of the cab. “Who is the other woman?”

“I don’t know, Mel. I’m trying to ID her, but so far I’ve got nothing, no leads.”

“Okay. But whatever you do, do not lose Fairbanks again,” Mel orders. “I’m on my way down there right now. I’ll check in with you again when I arrive.” She snaps the phone from her ear and sighs with relief. Stupid idiot trackers, she thinks. But at least he found her. She punches in Roger’s number again.

“I thought you were going to call me back,” she squawks when he answers.

Roger huffs into the phone.

“Are you alone?” Mel asks, suddenly realizing that he may still be doing recon.

“I haven’t called because I don’t have much to report yet,” he says, sounding deflated.

“Nothing on Stephanie Fairbanks?”

“Not much, I’m afraid. I spotted her sneaking out of the Monument building, shortly after you called earlier.” He shakes his head at the memory. “I’m positive it was her. But then she just disappeared again.”

“Well,” Mel says, “at least we know she’s still alive and that she’s in the area.” Mel knows better than to hint that another tracker is also working on the case. “For right now, why don’t you shift gears and focus on finding Mr. London’s brother?”

“One step ahead of you,” he says, bucking up. “I’ve done a bit of research and narrowed it down to three locations where he might be being held. You’re sure he said it was a prison?”

“That’s how he described it, yes.”

“Hmm. Well, supposedly there are ruins of two prewar prisons within fifty miles of here, and there is also an old military base that I thought could be a possibility. I could search those first, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to leave Stephanie wide open to ditch town unnoticed.”

“I think it’s safe to assume she won’t be going far,” Mel says. “She’ll need to be there for tomorrow.” A brief pause, then Mel adds, “I’m about to board a plane. I should be there in about three hours. Think you’ll be back by then?”

“Tough to say, Mel. If the first place checks out, then yes. If not, who knows…?”

As the cab slows down on the runway of the small airfield, Mel gathers her things, and she gets out as soon as the vehicle rolls to a stop. “Do you need anything?” she asks. “Do you want help?”

“Well, normally I’d say no. You know that.” Roger snickers. “But, I’ve been thinking. Wally London could be anywhere, really, and everything for two hundred miles around here was obliterated in the war. He could be an old, bombed-out school or in a bank vault… I just don’t have a good feeling about—”

“You’ll find him, Roger.” Mel has her doubts. “He definitely said he was in a prison. We have to go on that first, and if that fails, we can look for other…options.” In a small way, she does want him to fail, if only to further highlight her imminent success in London’s eyes. But then, she reminds herself, it is London’s brother they’re talking about. “We’ve still got time. Just go.”

Roger is glad for some direction, having not known which of his assignments took higher priority. “Aye-aye, captain,” he says.

Mel scowls. “One last thing… You still have that girl, right?”

“Oh yes, she’s right here. She’s just fine.”

“We will need her first thing in the morning.” Mel hangs up before he can argue or question. She switches her phone off and pays the cab driver, then climbs the metal staircase up to the plane. The cabbie hands her bags to the flight steward, and she steps through the wet bar area into a spacious cabin and takes a seat in the cushy armchair, straps herself in. This flight can’t be over soon enough, she thinks, crossing her silk-stockinged legs and closing her eyes, visions of her arrival at London’s hotel room floating in her head.

*

“There’s nothing there,” Roger says over his shoulder, settling back into the driver’s seat. Starlet is sitting in the backseat, swinging her legs and occasionally kicking the seat in front of her. “We have to keep going.” Gazing at her pale blond hair, her wan skin and blue eyes in the rearview mirror, he is reminded again about his sister’s kids, those rug-rats. When they were this age, they wouldn’t sit still for a minute, let alone drive around all day without screaming their heads off. Starlet is really something else, he thinks, shaking his head. But the first prison was a no-go. Not only was Woody London not there, but the so-called “ruins” were nothing more than a few slabs of cracked and crumbling concrete. No discernible remains of the prison were left, let alone standing walls and an iron gate, and Roger had effectively wasted nearly an hour driving out there on pothole-riddled roads through barren wasteland. And it would be another hour or more before they reached the other prison site, backtracking along the same cratered highway through the same desolate landscape.

“Who are we looking for?” Starlet asks from behind him. Perhaps her patience is weaning.

“My boss’s brother,” Roger replies gently. “He’s in trouble.”

She takes a minute to think about this. “And we can help him?” she asks incredulously.

“I think so,” Roger says. “But we have to find him first.”

This seems to pacify her, and she stills her swinging legs, stops fidgeting, and asks no further questions. She watches the flat and craggy scenery whizzing by through her car window for a long while.

Roger switches on the radio, and cranks the dial until he finds some soft choral music, something he hopes will sound pleasant to Starlet’s ears. She shows little reaction to it, though, so Roger continues to flip through the channels but can find nothing he likes. He switches it off and starts to hum the song Starlet had sung to him the night before, and after a round, he sings the words in a gentle tenor:

Life is just beginning
Life is just beginning
Life is just beginning for me

She joins him, and their voices mingle and feed off each other, growing loud and exuberant, until the coastline comes back into view. “See?” Roger says. “I told you it could be a happy song.”

She giggles, but doesn’t say anything. They continue to ride along and after a while, Starlet nods off. Roger looks at her in the mirror and can’t believe that when he first scooped her up and took her with him that he had tied her up, can’t believe that he had reviled her simply because she was a Journeyer. It occurs to him that he should ask her a few questions when she wakes up, general questions about the Journeyers and why they do it, and what the hell was that ritual she was performing at the Monument. It seems harmless, he thinks, and he can’t pinpoint what it is that made him hate the Journeyers in the first place. For now, though, he just lets her sleep. It’s been a long day, he thinks with a yawn.

The odometer registers another thirty-three miles and the sun is getting low in the sky. Roger thumbs the overhead visor, bringing it down to block to bright orange glare in his eyes, and almost misses the turnoff. From the road he can see something, thick vertical lines that can only be walls, tall but sporadically placed, silhouetted against the blazing backdrop. Roger presses the power pedal to the floor, confident he must have found the right place.

*

John retreats into his marble sanctuary, alone with the Monument. He stares up at it, feeling very small, his wonderment stemming not from the rock itself but from other people’s reactions to it. Why does it elicit such an emotional response? It’s been growin’ over time, too, he reflects, running his eyes over its smooth surface, digging into it along the lines of each expertly carved character. Barring the main doors, he withdraws into his apartment belowdecks, descending the ladder more by memory than by feel. He rummages around the parlor until he finds an old notepad and a pencil, and retrieves a hard-backed book as a support, and climbs back up to the main chamber. He opens the heavy wooden doors again, but there is no one waiting to get in, and he takes his seat on the stool in the corner. Balancing the book on his knee, he sets the notepad on top of it and holds the pencil prone, ready to write.

“Before the war, colors were more vivid.” He stares at his fragile script, then scratches the words out and tries again.

“In the rubble of the Aftermath, the Monument was a beacon of light and hope that helped heal our wounded spirits.” No. Scribbles that out right away.

“The same intolerance that brought on the cataclysmic war now threatens to destroy one of the precious few prewar relics that remains.” He studies the words, changes “intolerance” to “power struggle” and reads it again. Shaking his head, he scrawls a jagged and loopy line through the words. This is harder than I reckoned it’d be, he thinks, sticking the pencil between his teeth and propping his head on his fist, his elbow on his knee. Lost in dreamy thoughts, John looks at the Monument which appears out of focus, as though he’s peering through a gauzy lens, then he rolls his eyes back in his head and envisions his book, the finished tome, and the tale he wants it to tell. He lifts his eyelids and pens his opening line.

“My story begins with the third Tenet: Think.”

Satisfied, he carries on with the next sentence, and shortly, the words begin to flow like rushing water in stream, the kind of stream he distinctly remembers before the war, when water was clear and clean and he could jump and play among the slippery rocks.

...continues tomorrow...

THE MONUMENT: 27

The two men stop in front of the coffee cart to chat with Trudy, and Roger sets Starlet down, turning and leaning down to speak with her. As he takes her hand in his, he sees something move out of the corner of his eye, his tracker instincts always on alert. Imperceptibly cocking his head, he locks his gaze on the movement: a lithe blonde diving into the bushes. Brown blazer, blue jeans. Though he didn’t catch a glimpse of her face, he can positively identify her: Stephanie Fairbanks.

A remnant of the chilly morning breeze blows in from the coast, even though the sun is warm on his face.

“I’m sorry, folks,” he says, hoisting Starlet back up onto his hip, despite her protestations. “But we really have to run.” He takes long, quick strides away from them and toward his parked car.

With her pouting face against Roger’s shoulder, Starlet waves goodbye to them, and John and Trudy holler, “You take care now.”

Turning onto the sidewalk and passing by several open-air cafes with no one sitting at the white-linened tables, Roger notices a woman sitting in the passenger seat of a small red sports car. At a glance, he can tell the angular cheekbones and flaccid, mouse-brown hair do not belong to his target, and he keeps going until he reaches his rental luxury sedan. He straps Starlet in to the backseat, and gets behind the wheel, speeding off to pick up Stephanie’s trail.

*

The eldest calls for a halt. “We will rest here, and wait for the others to catch up.” They had been walking for hours, having taken only one rest stop so far. It was many hours past their bedtime, and some of the older Journeyers were beginning to wear thin. “We will eat at high noon, and set out again soon after.” He seeks respite under the shady branches of a lone spruce tree, sits down with his legs crossed and his back against the tree trunk, the jagged bark sticking through his thin robe, and closes his eyes.

He is awakened by a gentle hand nudging his forearm and opens his eyes to see Donna, a longtime Journeyer and elder mother. She holds out a steaming bowl of stew, which he lifts from her hands, and sits in the dried pine needles across from him, another bowl in her other hand. The rims of her eyes are red; she had clearly been crying.

“This time tomorrow,” she says, “we will be there.” She smiles meekly at him, curtains of warm brown hair draping either side of her face, then lifts a spoon to her lips and blows on the hot stew before gulping it down.

The eldest looks up to the sky, and though his sight is obstructed by the thick branches, he sees the sun is past its peak. “Yes, we will need to get moving soon.” He slurps his own stew, eyeing her intently.

After a time, he says, “I know this has been difficult for you, Donna.”

She slowly nods her head, tears clogging her honey-colored eyes.

“We will find her.” He looks at the woman gravely, offers an encouraging nod.

“I—I can’t bear to lose another child,” she whispers. “When I left my boys…”

“I know, Donna. I know.” He bows his wizened face and inhales a deep and troubled breath. They finish their stew in silence. Then, he says, “Start gathering everyone. It’s time to go.”

They stand up, exchanging a long look that expresses the sorrow and hope in their hearts, and then Donna turns, walks off to start rounding up the others to leave. The eldest remembers how painful it had been for Donna to leave her family in order to join him and this new family on their Journey, and he knows how much pain she still suffers all these years later. At the time, he had respected and praised her bravery and devotion to the Monument and her beliefs, and now, in the last twenty-odd years, he had come to rely on her as a pillar of strength in the tribe. She is determined and level-headed, and more so than many of the others, he believes she is able to see the bigger picture—that they are all but specks of dust, which, when strewn together, form a bond as strong as rock, and that ultimately, symbolically, they are what comprise the makeup of the Monument, and of all things.

As an elder mother, Donna cares for all of the tribe’s children, but her affection for Starlet is unmatched by the others. She had never had a daughter of her own, and the eldest is afraid of what may happen to her should he fail to find their missing Starlet.

For Donna’s sake, he thinks, if for no other, I must find that child.

*

London checks in to his hotel under a pseudonym. His identity as the leader of the Opposition is not widely known; however, he takes no chances when traveling, preferring to reserve cars, rooms, flights, et cetera, as Dr. Frank Portman.

“The bellboy will show you to your suite, Dr. Portman,” the dapper young man behind the counter says cheerfully. “Please make yourself at home. You can phone me if you need anything. My name is Derek.”

London says thank you and slaps a bill onto the counter, then spins to follow the pimple-faced bellboy to the elevator. They alight on the ninth floor and walk to the end of the hall to a luxury suite, the bellboy opening the door and waiting for his tip. London inspects the room, sees that his luggage has already been brought up, and hands the boy a crisp bell, then dismisses him. Alone in the giant room, all neutral shades of beige and brown, London pulls the curtains open and looks out over the town, locates the Monument building, and turns his attention on the coastline, sparkling in the noonday sun. His toes itch inside his shoes as he imagines walking barefoot along the sandy beach, crackling with broken seashells and driftwood. Removing both cherished shoes, he steps over to the bed, sits down, withdraws his shoe-shine kit, and begins, compulsively, to polish each wingtip with meticulous small circles.

Amazing what a few hours of action out in the world will do to a good pair of shoes, he muses, stroking each one with a loving attention, massaging each crevice out of the pliant leather. When he is satisfied, he stretches out on the bed, hands behind his head, ankles crossed. He relives in his mind what happened to him at the Monument earlier today and curses it for having caused such an outward reaction in him at all. Wiggling his fingers, he tries to recapture the fuzzy sensation he felt when he touched the Monument, but he can’t quite feel it.

Mother…, he thinks somberly. She felt its pull, and yet, she must know its purpose is not this, is not as some religious idolatry bullshit… Dammit! Flexing his abdominal muscles, he crunches up and into a sitting position at the foot of the bed, his feet dangling to the floor. He draws his laptop computer out of his bag and powers on, the machine resting on his thighs, then dials the front desk to request a room-service meal in about an hour.

Placing thoughts of Wally far away, knowing that someone—Mel or Roger—would contact him if there is any development or a breakthrough, he devotes the rest of his afternoon to reading his message boards, following the different threads as people frenetically post with worry and anticipation as they prepare for tomorrow’s big event.

*

Stephanie arcs around the back on the building and creeps along the well-maintained shrubbery, the sweet pepper bushes and white alders. She spies the tall, dark man get into his car and drive off, and waits for the white-haired man to return inside. He chats with the plump woman behind the cart for a few minutes, then heads toward the building. With only the woman to evade, Stephanie is sure she can make it to her car unnoticed. Still, she decides to broaden her arc, sprinting away from the Monument building, until she inches near the oversized garbage bins behind a restaurant, and lurks among them to a narrow alleyway. Crossing between the buildings, she comes out on the street and, with confident strides, walks toward the Monument and her car. Out of the corner of her eye, she looks toward the coffee cart as she passes, but the woman hardly pays attention to her, glancing up fleetingly before dunking her head behind the cart again.

When Stephanie lifts the handle of her car door, Sally Mae jumps at the sudden noise. The door is locked, but when Sally Mae sees her, she reaches over and opens it from the inside. Crawling into the seat, Stephanie peers at herself in the rearview mirror and tugs a dried leaf out of blond hair, and says, “Sorry I was gone so long.”

“That’s awright,” Sally Mae says, with a devilish grin. She closes the computer on her lap. “I guess you didn’t find your little girls?”

“No,” Stephanie says with a sigh. “No, they weren’t there.” She pulls her seat belt across her chest and buckles it. “Now, I need to stop at a friend’s house,” she explains, and rummages in her purse for a slip of paper with an address scribbled on it. Unfolding it, she sticks it in her lap and throws her purse onto the backseat. Then she starts the car and pulls out onto the street. “So, did you learn anything new about sailboats?”

“Oh yeah. I learned a lot actually.” She pauses, then continues in a dreamy voice. “Someday I want to go out on the ocean and sail, feel the wind blowin’ on my face.”

“That’s good, Sally Mae. That’s something you can work toward—”

“Stephanie,” Sally Mae cuts her off. “They are looking for you.” Her eyes protrude like inflating balloons, and laughs.

“Who—who’s looking for me?” Stephanie asks, trying not to sound alarmed. “Neil?”

“Neil!” Sally Mae shrieks, then starts laughing. “No, not Neil. The Village Green Preservation Society…”

Stephanie turns onto a wide boulevard, lined with black gum and magnolia trees.

“And the Opposition.” Sally Mae cackles.

Stephanie tries to process the words she is hearing. Sally Mae squirms in the seat next to her, the computer still on her lap. But how? she wonders.

Sally Mae turns to her, deep hollows in her gaunt cheeks. “You don’t have any kids, do you?”

...continues tomorrow...

THE MONUMENT: 26

Wally has been fighting the urge to urinate for a long time. His whole body feels like a dried out sponge; how could he possibly have to pee? Eventually, he grows too uncomfortable and stands up, walks to what he believes is the easternmost corner of the prison cell, hoping it will not be in the shade as the day wears on, if he is calculating correctly. He pees on the wall, watching the steam rise off it as his stream hits the scorched cement, and the resulting stench hits his nose like a sucker punch.

When he’s done, he walks around in a circle as wide as the cell, looping several times, just to stretch his legs and his sore butt, stiff from sitting on the concrete floor. He had exhausted himself trying to yell for help, even though he knew damn well there was no one and nothing around him for miles. Fantasies about scaling the walls or somehow jimmying open the metal gate are tamped out by thoughts of being stranded in the swampy bayou he can see from inside his cell. Or is it arid desert? He is no longer certain as he continues to circle, panting in the direct sun. His head and eyes throb, but he keeps walking, talking to himself out loud about what he’s going to do when he gets out of here. The first thing on his list, he decides, is to tell Amelia Jenkins, a twenty-year-old student in his Prewar History class, that he’s in love with her, even if it means losing his tenure. Second is finding his mother and, predicated on the success of that, is number three, restoring his relationships with his brother and father. So frustrated he could punch a wall, Wally begins to pace in a straight line, back and forth, and on each return lap, watches his urine stain slowly evaporate and shrink until finally it disappears altogether. That is his only sure means of marking the passage of time.

When he sits down again and stuffs his arm inside his shirt, he notices a sparrow perched on top of the cell wall.

“Hello, little birdie,” Wally says, glad for the company. This creature survives out here, he tells himself. So can I. It swoops down to the floor a few feet from where he sits and whistles a short tune. Wally whistles back at it, and it turns his head inquisitively. This makes him wonder whether he has effectively communicated something to the bird, who takes a few steps closer to him, teetering like a windup toy, and chirps again. Wally returns the whistle, smiling at the soft brown body and beady eyes. Then Wally notices that the bird has a second pair of legs, hanging limply in front of its good legs. He leans in to inspect them, shriveled, mangled, and useless; then the bird takes flight again and soars up over the wall and out of sight. His transient bird friend is gone, and he has a renewed sense of isolation, coupled with the thought of the bird’s extra limb, an increasingly common anomaly due to irradiation. A new fear settles in the back of his mind, a fear greater than that of his flesh burning off or of starving to death in this desolate prison, but of surviving, of being rescued, and having to live out the remainder of his days painfully, brutally suffering the aftermath of radiation poisoning. He feels his brain melting like a chocolate ice cream bar on a hot summer day, and he waits, rocking in the corner.

*

Poking her head into the adjacent room, Stephanie waits a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the low light. She is in what looks like an old-fashioned parlor, with straight-backed sofas and an ornate Oriental rug on the floor. A chandelier hangs from the ceiling, she gropes the wall until she finds the switch, illuminating the room in a burst of artificial light. What is this place? she wonders, cautiously stepping through to a tiny kitchen with an icebox built into the floor and a pipe hanging from the ceiling for a sink. Though it has no modern conveniences, it does appear to be lived in, with one place-setting of dishes drying on a rack on the counter and one cupboard door slightly ajar. She peers into a shadowy alcove that is little more than a spigot on the wall and on the other side, a hole in the floor.

On the wall is another ladder, much like the one she climbed down to get in here. Curious, she grabs hold of a rung and kicks off her high heels, then ascends into the darkness. Enough light shines upward from the parlor to guide her into the blackest space she’s ever been; as though lost in a vacant void, there is nothing apart from the glowing hole in the floor. Flashbacks to her travels through the darkest recesses of her mind swirl around her, as though trapped in another fit, spiraling further and further from reality, except that she’s calm and cognizant. Completely blind, she holds her arms in front of her and slides one bare foot out across the cold, smooth floor, then follows with the hind foot, taking a prudent step forward, and then another. After four arduous paces, her hands meet a cool, rough wall just as her knee knocks into a low piece of furniture. A bed. Of course, this must be the bedroom, Stephanie thinks. She sits on the bed, and grabbles until she finds the end with a pillow, then walks her hands onto the bedside table and up the lamp, twisting it on.

The lamp does little more than shine a spotlight directly on the bed, but she moves it around and can plainly see that she’s inside a small dome, the walls of which are a thick stone. Running her hand along the stone, it feels both cool to the touch and tingly warm, hard and yet somehow soft. The air is close and stale, but the sparse room is tidy, the bed is made. Nothing more than a bed, the table and lamp beside it, and a small wooden chair occupy the room, and the hole to the downstairs apartment looks to be perfectly centered. When Stephanie looks at the floor, she utters a small gasp, realizing that it is the same white and creamy gray marble tile as in the Monument building, and after a moment’s pause, she tries to place exactly where she is. I went down a ladder through the floor of the Monument building, she thinks. I wandered through the storage space and apartment below, then up another ladder, into here. Racking her brain for any other explanation, the only conclusion Stephanie can come up with makes no sense to her at all. She stares at the rough walls, estimating their size and shape; she looks again at the marble tiles. I am inside the Monument!

Tremors rush over her, pinpricking her nerves in a wild zigzag all over her body, as she realizes she can’t possibly get any closer to the Monument than this. But, she thinks, I’m still me. No voices, no uncontrollable convulsions, no waves of nausea sweeping over her. The theories put forth by the Preservationists that the Monument was triggering odd reactions from people begin to melt away, and a latent fear that something might actually be wrong with her awakens deep inside her core and oozes out of her at the seams. She has to get out of here; she has to tell the others—they are amassing in the nearby towns and neighborhoods, preparing for tomorrow. Shooting up, she pulls the blankets taut over the bed, smoothing out any creases from where she’d been sitting, then switches of the lamp and fumbles her way back to the hole in the floor, and descends the ladder. Straps on her high heels then flips off the chandelier. Blinking in the dimness, she roves out of the parlor and through the storage space, and gets a handle on the other ladder to head back up. There appears to be no other way out.

She climbs the ladder and at the top, gently pushes the trapdoor open, just a crack, and tries to look through. But without risking raising the floor too high, she can’t see much of anything, but she can hear men’s distant voices. Listening intently, she discerns that they must be on the other side of the Monument, and there is a slight echo, so the room must be empty. She dares pushing the door up a little farther, just enough to peek out, and sees no one, but then she lowers it again and decides to wait until she can be sure the coast is clear.

She puts her ear right up to the opening and eavesdrops on the men’s conversation. “I have a feelin’ those two’ll be back in the morning,” one man says.

“Well, take it easy,” the other replies. “We’ll be sure to pop in tomorrow, too.” They chuckle. Then, “Come on, Starlet. Time to go.”

“No!” comes a third voice, a child, petulant and demanding.

Footsteps tapping on the marble floor get closer to where Stephanie hides, then more cries from the child. “We’ll be come back tomorrow,” the man says sternly, as the girl pleads and whines to stay. It sounds to Stephanie like the man picks the child up, carrying her away with him.

“I’ll see you out,” the other man says.

Stephanie waits until there is silence, then hazards her escape. Throwing the trapdoor back, she scurries out and drops it back into place with the gentlest of thuds, and, now fully exposed, she sneaks up close to the Monument, and starts to circle around. She feels like a spy, or a child playing hide-and-seek, slinking against the mammoth rock. When she has a clear view of the door, she spots the men outside, their backs to the building as they walk down the wide sidewalk toward the street. One is the stooped old man who had helped her up; the other is an imposing black man. The kicking feet of a child swing out from the larger man’s hold, and Stephanie decides to make a run for it. Darting out the door, she leaps like a gazelle, hoping to take cover in the bushes along the side of the building.

...continues tomorrow...

THE MONUMENT: 25

“Mel, it’s me,” London huffs. “What’s going on?”

“We’re doing turnout right now,” she explains. “Things are looking good. The people are mobilized and are on their way.”

“Fantastic,” he replies, “the plan is working, then.”

Mel detects a somber note in his voice. “Sir? Is everything okay?”

He clears his throat. “It’s just weird, you know, actually being down here.”

Though she can’t see him, she imagines him blotting his forehead on his hankie. She can hear his labored breathing and knows it must be a hot day. “It has that effect on people,” she says in a subdued tone.

“Mel”—all of a sudden his voice is eager, excited—“you’ll have to come. You should be here.” He pauses, thinking through the decision. “Yes, you should see the Monument with your own eyes… before it’s gone.”

Mel starts to protest. “But, sir, there is still so much to do.” She fidgets a finger through her short black hair and twists her face into a knot. “The media has been slow to carry the story from our angle. We need to pressure them—”

“I don’t see why you can’t do that from here.”

“And, sir, there’s been some concern because… Well, because you’re not in the spotlight. My contacts want to speak with you before they unleash this—”

“Make that the story then,” London interrupts. “Where am I? What am I doing? No one knows but it’s going to be huge.” His voice trills with excitement. “Tell them this is going to be the biggest protest, the largest gathering of people this side of the war!” London shouts and hops with excitement, then, realizing that he’s walking down a mellow residential street, regains his composure.

“Y-yes, sir,” Mel quavers. “You want me to tell them you’ve gone underground with this?”

“No, no. Tell them I am missing. Point fingers at the Preservationists.” He is exuberant, bubbly. “You’ll figure it out: Just stir up some controversy.” The possibilities seem limitless, rattling in his brain. “And hint that you secretly suspect that I’ve taken this underground. That perhaps I’m trying to break off from the Opposition to do something really rash. And that is why you have to come down here, to search for me.”

“It might be genius,” Mel says, then holds her breath.

“Might be?” he scoffs. “If we can get this story out, people will come in droves just to witness the spectacle.” He giggles menacingly. “Now, get on it, and then get down here.” He snaps his phone closed with a flourish and slips it into the left pocket of his pants, and continues his brisk walk to the hotel. His limo driver had told him it was just a few more blocks and on the right.

*

Mel hears the click as the phone line disconnects her ear from London’s mouth. Her cheeks flush as she thinks about seeing him tonight. But first there is work to do, she thinks, and sighs. She calls London’s charter airplane service and reserves a flight for four o’clock, charging it to the organization’s account. Then she pinches her arm, the fleshy underside of her biceps, until her eyes fill with tears. She dials the police.

“I’d like to report a missing person,” she cries urgently.

“Has he been missing for more than forty-eight hours?” the officer asks.

“Yes!” Mel exclaims. “No one has heard from him in five days… After that, we—we don’t know what happened to him.” She whimpers into the phone.

The officer asks her to give her as much information as she can. Mel lays it on thick, embellishing all the details.

“And your relationship to Mr. London is?”

Mel sobs. “I—I’m his girlfriend.”

The officer clucks her tongue. “Honey, I hate to ask… But are you sure he didn’t just run off, that maybe…”

“No!” Mel doesn’t even have to fake her impassioned timbre. “No, of course not. He—he was on his way to visit the Six Tenets National Monument, and…” Sniffling into the phone, she tries to think of what would be the best thing to say next. “And…”

The officer enters the information into a computer database and cross checks it with reference to the Monument. “Huh,” she snorts. “Does, uh, the name Stephanie Fairbanks mean anything to you?”

Mel’s brain goes into a tailspin. “No. Why?”

“Well, her name came up when I cross-referenced with the Monument, and, huh. That’s weird—”

“What? What’s weird?”

“She was reported as missing today, too.” The officer sniggers. “Look, honey. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I’d bet that your man ran off with this girl. You know how men are…”

Mel springs up to her feet. “Now, you listen to me. Woody London did not run off with another woman. I know this as a fact because he is the leader of the Opposition. Maybe you’re aware of the massive protest that is going to take place tomorrow? He has a lot of enemies, and I tell you he is missing, dammit!”

The officer gurgles a little, but before she can say anything, Mel yells, “Put your boss on the phone!”

The officer politely obliges, puts her on hold while she transfers the line. Another woman picks up, her voice heavy and severe. “Good morning, ma’am.” She identifies herself as the police captain and crisis manager.

Mel relates the conversation she’d just had with the other officer and the situation involving Woody. Her patience is wearing thin, and she’s gone from a sniveling, broken-hearted girlfriend to an aggrieved victim of police inaction. The captain is attentive and apologetic, and promises to get her best agents working on the case.

“Who do you think would want to harm him?” she asks.

Without hesitation, Mel responds, “The Village Green Preservation Society.”

“Anyone else?”

Mel considers. “Maybe the Journeyers.”

The captain asks for a number to call Mel back when they get any information and promises to be in touch soon. Mel hangs up, hoping they won’t actually find anything. Then she sits down again and hears footsteps approaching from behind her.

“Um, Mel?”

“What is it, Xu?”

“I—I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation… Is Mr. London really missing?” he asks shyly.

“Yes,” she snaps. “And I’m in charge now. We must carry on with the plan. This is an outrage.”

Her phone rings; she answers it frantically. It’s a reporter from a major television station, asking her for quotes about London’s disappearance. Knowing Xu still stands behind her, she confirms that London is the Opposition leader and gives the reporter the full account of the story, including a smattering of reasons that the Village Green Preservation Society would want him out of the picture. Turning to look at Xu, who appears fozen with shock, she adds in a quieter voice, “But, if you ask me, I have another theory…” The reporter is all ears. “I think he’s taken the operation underground. I think he wants to do something more explosive.” At this Xu balks, physically backing away from her. Then alarmed, Mel bursts, “Uh, that was off the record, right?”

The reporter quickly mumbles, “No, sorry. I’ve got to go,” and hangs up.

Mel smiles at her acumen.

“How—how could you?” Xu demands, his face crumpling. “Mel?”

“Get back to work,” she retorts. “If you want this protest to happen tomorrow, you’ll do as I say.” Then she adds cryptically, “There’s a lot more going on here than you realize, Xu. And this is how Mr. London would’ve wanted it. Now leave me alone.”

Xu turns and shuffles back down the hall. Mel can only hope he gossips to everyone about what he’s just learned. She checks her watch; she has less than four hours before she’ll have to leave. Returning to her computer, she checks the newswire for the missing person story, but there’s nothing yet. She decides to write up an official press release for mass distribution, but gets sidetracked looking at the Opposition Is Mounting message board. She creates a new thread and types a high-priority post from the administrator: “The leader of the Opposition is reported missing. More soon…”

Then she enters the Village Green Preservation Society message board, awash with importunate posts about Stephanie Fairbanks’ disappearance, brief reappearance and a few sightings of her at the Monument today, and then her vanishing into thin air earlier that day and the conspiracies potentially involved. She is momentarily caught up in a description of a man at the Monument who seems to match Mr. London, but shirks it off after reading the details of the man reverently kneeling and touching the rock. Bizarre, she thinks, but not London.

Then Mel posts the same message verbatim about London. Without waiting for the onslaught of rapid responders, she gets to work on writing the press release, hoping to announce it publicly within the next ten minutes. She begins: “In an unprecedented attack on personal freedom, the leader of the Opposition has been reported missing just hours before what is expected to be the largest mass protest in modern history. There is reason to believe the Village Green Preservation Society, a rogue coalition of activists and religious fanatics, has abducted him in an attempt to prevent the imminent destruction of the Six Tenets National Monument, a move overwhelmingly popular among the citizens and patriots of our great country.”

She tastes bile under her tongue, so strong is the sensation that she gets up from her chair to get a can of Koola from the mini fridge. Swallowing the sweet, sticky drink, she returns to her desk and resumes writing, ending with an exhaustive physical description of London and fabricated details of his last known location. After a quick reread, she saves and sends the press release to her mailing list of a hundred or so news and media outlets. Now, the wheels will start turning, she thinks. Fast.

Taking a brief break, she leans back in her chair and gulps more of her soft drink, then decides to call Roger for an update. He answers on the third ring with a cheerful “Halloo?” She asks about Stephanie first.

“I’ll have to phone you in a bit, love,” he says happily.

“What about Mr. London’s brother?” she demands hotly.

“Oh, she’s happy as a lark.” Then he laughs. “OK, speak to you soon.”

As he’s lowering the phone, Mel hears him explain to someone else, “The wife,” then it clicks off.

Annoyed that she has to wait for an update let alone that Roger is trying to pass her off as his wife, Mel taps her fingers one by one on the desktop and considers her next move.

...continues tomorrow...

THE MONUMENT: 24

Stephanie nudges through a group of teenage boys, visiting the Monument on a school trip, all wearing identical yellow T-shirts. Snickering, one of the boys shoves his buddy into her with an elevated “Yowza!” Blushing, the boy mutters an apology and smacks his friend in the arm. Stephanie smiles politely and edges her way closer to the Monument, before a twinge of wooziness hits her. Having been jostled by the boys, she wonders if she knocked her head, but can’t recall. One boy crashed into her arm, and then… Beginning with tunnel vision, she loses her thought and the only thing coming into focus is the words inscribed on the Monument, the rest of the falls away. Riding a magnificent spiral, she slides closer to the surface, so near the grayish rock that it’s as though she’s on a lookout high above the bombed-out wasteland she’d had to travel through to get here, each minor pock mark in the Monument a vast chasm blown out of the earth by missiles during the war. Examining the rock face from two or three inches away is like flying over the desolate lands lost between the coasts, like scavenging for lifeless fossils to make sense of history.

A booming voice enters her mind, enunciating each of the Six Tenets in turn, as though announcing the arrival and departure times of buses at the bus station, and she’s circling downward again. Another voice competes for her attention, a commanding, authoritarian voice that clashes with the monotone announcer, battling for broadcast over her brainwaves. With what feels like a rupture at the base of her spine, Stephanie shrieks, her vocal chords rough and raw, as tyranny wins and the dark dictator takes over, using her body, her mouth as its megaphone.

She feels like a puppet, an outside force controlling her, and as her lips move in uncomfortable contortions and garbled sounds spill out, she throws her body to the floor. I’m possessed! she thinks, thrashing against the marble floor. She feels like a fish without water, trapped in a fishbowl without any air, with a dozen round and bulging eyes floating around her face. Zooming toward them, the voice fights her, but she concentrates on a bright yellow spot above her head. The sun! Zooming her way up the spiral in her mind, she slams doors on the mean voice that is chasing her and comes up gasping, pulled to safety by an urgent wrench of her arm. The yellow blur is a sea of boys in sunny T-shirts surrounding her, and one set of pale blue eyes, with deep crinkles around the edges, studies her intently. Her eyes roll haphazardly but she feels euphoric, like she just escaped death, and she smiles at him.

“Gave us quite a scare, little lady,” he says, very grandpa-like. He rises and offers her his gnarled hand, small brown spots stuck to the flesh of its backside like leeches. Gingerly, she slips her hand into his and allows him to help her to her feet. The crowd of onlookers disperses a little, gives her some room to breathe. As she looks around at the faces, though, some worried, some amused, she has an eerie sense of déjà vu, a looming sense of danger. Like stepping on a live wire in a rainstorm, she is overwhelmed by the a zing of electricity speeding from her feet to the top of her head, the intensity of the sensation propelling her into another freak-out, and she grips the old man’s hand and feels that familiar tickle in the back of her throat as she starts to shout.

“Get the fuck out!” The echo bounces off the high ceiling. Dropping the man’s hand to bring both of hers up to her face, Stephanie cups her mouth and screams, louder, fiercer, “Get the fuck out! Everybody! Get the fuck out!” And the crowd begins to swell and surge, everyone pushing, panicking, making their way for the door.

In the ensuing commotion, Stephanie falls back, and hunkers down behind the far side of the Monument. Squatting, she places her hands on the floor, unsure of what she’s waiting for or who she’s hiding from. But then she feels a smooth groove in the marble slabs on the floor and traces it with her fingertips until she feels a raised nub, just enough to get two fingers under. She pulls and, much to her surprise, lifts a hidden trapdoor, crawls into it, and shimmies down a ladder, bringing the trapdoor closed behind her. A small nightlight illuminates a vacuous storage space, and begins to look around.

*

Trudy scrubs at a dried spill of heavy cream on the silver steel counter of the cart. Late morning is always slow, so she does her best to get cleaned up before the lunch crowd comes, for their afternoon caffeine pick-me-ups and “dieter’s lunch” of blueberry muffins or plain bagels—the women who skip breakfast because they think they’re helping their waistlines and who end up eating breakfast food for lunch, but who, by late afternoon, are hitting the vending machines for something sweet. She knows because she’s the same way. Once noon rolls around, the day gets much harder to endure, and she knows, if she’s able to clean now, she’ll be on her way that much sooner in the evening. When a large black man approaches her cart, she nods at him, but continues working her rag on the crusted spill.

“Good morning,” he booms. “I’ll have a cuppa joe, please. Cream and sugar.”

“Oh, she’s precious!” Trudy gushes when she spots the pixie at his side. She drops her cloth and smiles at the girl, keeping her eyes fixed on her pale, little head as she begins to pump hot coffee into a disposable cup. “She is just precious.”

Roger gently pats Starlet’s blond hair. “Yeah, she’s a cutie.” He smiles at the woman, and Starlet beams her a small, square mouthful of teeth from around Roger’s side. She bounces next to him, but Roger keeps a strong grasp on her hand because she keeps turning to look expectantly at the big building. He extends a bill to the woman and she accepts it, after setting his cup on the narrow ledge in front of the register.

As she counts out his change, Roger says, “Nice day today.”

“Strange day today,” Trudy chirps at him, handing him a few coins.

“Beg your pardon?” He closes a fist around the money.

“Oh, it’s just there were some folks here earlier this mornin’. Caused a scene and scared everyone off, I guess.” She sighs and resumes her methodic wipe-down of the cart. “And I’ve been slow ever since.” She looks up and smiles at him. “Till you, of course.”

Roger dumps the coins in a jar labeled “tips” beside the register. “What happened?”

“Not really sure. Some lady just started screamin’,” she explains. “You’d have to talk to John. He was there.” She motions her head toward the building.

“John?” He brings the steaming cup of coffee up to his face and blows on it.

“Yeah, he’s curator of the place. Real nice guy. Said it was truly somethin’ to see.” She wipes her hands on the front of her apron, then starts to sort through a basket of muffins.

“Maybe I’ll speak to him,” Roger says. “He’s inside?”

“Yep.” Trudy finds the one she wants—chocolate chip. “Here you go, sweetie.” She holds it out for the girl. “On me.” She gives a wink to Roger.

Starlet’s eyes open wide and her mouth drops, but then she smiles and takes it from her. Roger nudges her lightly on the shoulder. “Thank you,” she says softly, biting her lower lip.

“She’s a shy one, isn’t she?” Trudy laughs. “You go on. Have a nice day!” She shoos them off, then calls out, “You’ll need to get your tickets first,” and points to the ticket window across the street.

“Thanks!” Roger hollers, and steers Starlet in the right direction, with a hand on her back. She cups the muffin both hands and bites into the top of it, without removing the foil wrapper. He purchases two tickets and they head for the building, giving Trudy a wave as they walk by.

Climbing the steps to the massive doors, propped open on spindly doorstops, Starlet drops her half-eaten muffin and worms her hand out of Roger’s and rushes inside, pattering across the marble floor and stops six feet in front of the Monument.

Roger follows her, his footsteps echoing softly in the empty chamber.

“Well, hello,” calls a voice from behind him. John gets up from his stool stationed in the inside corner of the room and steps over to greet Roger. They shake hands.

“Looks like we’ve got the place to ourselves,” Rogers jokes, eyeing the uninhabited room. Starlet stands transfixed in front of the Monument; he had taken one quick glance at the hulking hunk of rock as he walked in and shrugged. Looks exactly like it does in pictures, he thinks.

“Yes, sir. They told me you were coming.” John’s eyes twinkle between the folds of aged skin.

Roger quirks his head, arches an eyebrow at the old man.

“Just kiddin’,” John says with a chuckle. “We’re having a slow day.”

“Number one: Know Your Rights,” Starlet says in a voice that seems too big for her diminutive
form. Now John gives Roger a quizzical look. “Number two: Live and Let Live.”

Roger forces a hearty laugh. “Oh,” he says matter-of-factly, “she wants to be a Journeyer.” Adds a dash of derision to the last word, then puts on his best proud father face and mentally reprimands himself for his oversight. “Next week, she’ll want to be an astronaut.”

John bobs his head knowingly.

“Figured I could take her here…” He sips his coffee. “But it’s not like I can just take her to the moon.”

At that, John guffaws and puts a hand on his belly. A moment later, he drags a heavy hand across his eye and says, “Phew, I needed that!” He puffs out a long breath and gives Roger an easy slap on the back. “I needed a good laugh after a morning like mine.”

“Oh yeah?”

They watch Starlet as she begins a series of bows and knee bends, then she kneels down and touches the floor.

“Yeah, it was damnedest thing, really,” and John starts in on the story of the strange man and the strange woman, and how Roger is the first to come by in almost an hour.

...continues tomorrow...

THE MONUMENT: 23

When Stephanie pulls up to the curb, she sees the line forming at the ticket window. Her palms begin to sweat and she has a hot ball of anticipation churning in her stomach. Reaching into her purse, she withdraws a small compact and looks at her face in the mini mirror, assessing the damage. Several long nights, driving with no sleep; many long days without a shower. Smearing the sponge covered in beige powder over the darkening bags up her eyes, she blots the makeup on her nose and forehead to dull the sheen, and with a titter, she snaps the case closed, giving up on her face. Tossing it back into her bag, she plucks a tube of lipstick and paints her lips a daring shade of red, then makes a pouty face at Sally Mae.

“I have to go inside. Do you want to wait here?”

Sally Mae looks crestfallen. “You—you look so pretty,” she whimpers. “Are the girls inside?” She turns a hopeful glance toward the building, looming in the distance like a pantheon to the great Monument. Its mammoth doors unfriendly, despite the well-maintained gardens lining the broad walkway from the street.

“I have to go see,” Stephanie says. “I’m not sure.” She speaks haltingly, as another person steps in queue.

“I would love to see the Monument,” Sally Mae mewls. “We—I mean, I am a preservationist, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” Stephanie says, momentarily sidetracked by the mousy woman. “So am I.” She smiles and Sally Mae returns it warmly. “Here,” she says, shooting an arm into the backseat to lift the laptop computer. She places it in Sally Mae’s lap, explaining, “You can use this while I’m away.” Plugging it into the car’s console, Stephanie waits for the screen to light up, but is taken aback by Sally Mae’s expression.

“What? It’s just a computer,” she says.

Sally Mae hesitates, then says, “I’ve never used a computer before.”

Stephanie suppresses a giggle, begins to explain how it works, but Sally Mae is clueless. “Well, so tell me… What do you want to read about?”

“Horses,” she says without pause, then, “No, no, no. Sailboats!”

“Okay, sailboats it is, then.” Stephanie types the word sailboat into the computer and clicks on one of the options that appears. A website devoted entirely to sailboats with large vibrant photographs appears, and Sally Mae gasps. Stephanie grins and hands the computer to Sally Mae. “Use the arrows to scroll down,” she says, showing her how to do it. “And click”—she demonstrates on the touchpad—“to go to different pages.”

Sally Mae seems overwhelmed, but Stephanie figures no harm can come of it, and lets her play with the computer. “I’ll be back in an hour, maybe two.”

Before Sally Mae musters a goodbye, Stephanie is out the door and walking away, the sharp crack of the door slamming back into place behind her. She steps into line, tossing her hair behind her shoulder, and waits patiently, hand on her hip. Immediately in front of her is a family of five, and in front of them a few straggling tourists, eager to be the first ones inside. They curl guidebooks and brochures in their nervous hands, occasionally lifting the paper tube to their mouths or their eyes, just waiting. She taps her foot. She runs her fingers through her hair. She tries to reconcile the sinking feeling of dread in her gut with the hope and optimism in her heart, but her head just tells her to wait and see.

Taking notice of a sharply dressed man waiting in line behind her, she checks out his shoes: fine leather, high gloss black and meticulously polished. Her gaze travels up his well-fitting slacks to the tailored suit jacket, the charcoal gray set off by a pale blue tie and white handkerchief in the breast pocket. Turning her head to look him in the eye, she watches him dip his perfectly straight nose into a coffee cup, the steam billowing up over his defined jaw and smoothly shaven cheeks. She kinks her lip into a crooked smile and waits for him to notice her. When his eyes meet hers, they lock in a spiraling time warp, she fixates on his deep browns, he focuses on her ocean blues.

“Excuse me,” a round child says, nudging London’s arm. “The line…” He gestures to the gap between Stephanie and the now-open ticket window. Embarrassed, Stephanie steps up to the window and purchases one ticket. Without looking back, she strides purposefully across the street and past the dinky coffee cart, down the sidewalk and through the tall, thick doors into the building. Inside, it is dimmer than she had expected it to be, dust particles reflected and refracted in the beams of light streaming in from small overhead windows. The Monument is before her, and a flurry in her heart leads her to it. She circles it, slowly like a wildcat around it prey, and stops on the far side where the Tenets are written in English. Tracing letters with her eyes, each carved deeply into the rock face, she imagines a man, a mortal man, with a chisel in one hand, a hammer or mallet in the other, carefully constructing the words, crafting them in nearly equal proportions, and translating them into hundreds of other languages. The level and skill of the craftsmanship baffles her mind, and she loses herself in thoughts of the determination of the artisan who constructed this great work of art, the motto of the Village Green Preservation Society jingling in the back of her mind: “Preserving the old ways from being abused; protecting the new ways for me and for you.”

*

Mere steps behind the attractive blonde, London keeps his distance, wary of the connection he’d felt with her. He wipes his forehead, glistening from the heat and the tension. As soon as he crosses the threshold, he is enveloped by the cool dankness of the stone walls and marble floor; he immediately feels the pull of the Monument’s power on his soul, he hears the calm siren song of the Great Carver in his ears and lowers himself to his knees. Suddenly aware that everyone in the room is gaping at him, he rises awkwardly and dusts himself off, then approaches the Monument with his head lowered in reverence, with labored steps, with arms outstretched in front of him. The room is slowly filling up with people, people who seem blind and thoughtless, who stand directly in his way, who separate him from the Monument and form a human obstacle course. He negotiates his way through the baby strollers and clusters of people, all seemingly gathering in front of him, reciting the Tenets in either German or Swahili, he is not sure.

As he advances, flashbacks of his first visit rush over him and, like an overlay of then covering right now, settle into his experience. He feels the guard’s eyes boring into his back and into the back of his head, but he doesn’t know if it’s because he’s about to knock over the velvet ropes or worse, press his grubby fingers against the pristine surface of the Monument. Dizzyingly, London feels the Monument beckon to him, like ripples in a glassy pool, growing stronger the closer he gets to it, the epicenter. Resisting the urge to run to it, he battens down the hatch on his rising fury, choking off the hatred in his bones. If he had a gun, he would shoot it dead, rock be damned. And still, he is drawn to it, wants more than anything to touch it with a compulsion stronger than any he has ever felt. Two more steps and there is nothing, no one between him and it, and he charges, arms out, body lurching, until his hands make contact with the gelid surface. Under his touch, the Monument seems to pulsate and breathe, simultaneously solid and gelatinous—his dainty hands rest firmly on the callous outside, but his fingertips are rapidly ingested into a million shivering, furry holes. London is not afraid; on the contrary, the gentle lapping sensing on his fingers lulls all of the aches inside him, immerses him in nirvana.

“Please don’t touch,” says a low, stern voice behind his right shoulder.

London quakes, a violent and searing cleaver wedging itself between him and the Monument, and he falls back, shaken. Turning to face the interloper, he spits, “You!” Then, he glances down, expecting to see himself as a boy but sees the body of a grown man, wearing the suit he had laid out last night, and he realizes that the time is now, and that this is, indeed, the same man, yelling at him all these years later. His hairline drips with a dewy-fresh sweat and his stomach convulses as he peers at the man’s drooping eyes, the waddle hanging under his chin. Placing a hand on his hip, the guard attempts a face-off, challenging London to defy his order, but London knows there is too much at stake and backs down.

He breathes until his lungs reach maximum capacity, then stifles the exhalation into short, choppy pants, longing to squat right here and buff his shoes. Instead, he seethes at the man in a voice soft as cotton, newly picked from the plant with a burr buried within the white fluff, “The Opposition Is Mounting.”

Gazing at the old man’s face just long enough, London sees his eyes flicker with fear, then spins on a lustrous wingtip and swaggers toward the door. For an instant he believes that if he turned, Wally would be right on his heels, racing to get back out to the safety of their parents’ car. Reverberations of the brass rope stand clanging against the marble floor send his eardrums into a state of red alert, his malleus beating his incus in a frenzied passion, before he realizes the sound is a woman’s shrill voice, screaming in bursts of terror. The noise burns his ears, and he runs, hands cupped on either side of his head, out the door without as much as an “excuse me” to the people he thrusts out of his way. Out in the hot, humid air, he bends over, gasping for breath, and then reaches for his kerchief, swipes his brow, and carries on to the street in as natural a posture and pose as he can manage. The chubby woman tending to her coffee cart does not even look up as he passes by.

...continues tomorrow...

THE MONUMENT: 22

Stephanie drives in silence for a long while. Her first thought was to head straight to the Monument, but now she is having misgivings. She missed the rendezvous, and the Village Green Preservation Society meet-up as well; she had been out of contact for days. Most importantly, though, she needs to find a computer and check her message board for any new posts. Damn, she thinks, chewing on a sculpted fingernail. Returning to her car would be out of the way, but she decides it’s worth it, and follows the signs for Highway 9. Sally Mae slouches in the seat next to her, and every once in a while, Stephanie holds her hand in front of her face to double check that she is still breathing. She is.

Trying to stay focused on the road, Stephanie is shooting into a black void, with nothing in her line of vision but a faint line painted on the road that is well worn and in places missing entirely. The radio in the old car no longer works, and the engine rattles and hums with an occasional clunk just to keep Stephanie awake. The thirty-five miles back into town pass quickly, and she circles the quaint downtown until she spots the bakery, and from there finds her car. At this time of night, the street is desolate; she parks directly behind her car and gets out. Slamming the door doesn’t disturb Sally Mae, and Stephanie walks up to her car, snatches the parking ticket off the windshield, and unlocks the door. Her laptop computer is stowed under the front seat, and she pulls it out and turns it on, then plugs into in the dashboard console and keys in the site for the Village Green Preservation Society. She sits in the driver’s seat with the car door open and her legs turned out, feet on the street and laptop on her knees, and starts to read the messages that had piled up. At first, the messages were only about the change in location for the meet-up for what was only described as security reasons, but then they were coming in more frequently, dire descriptions of strange things that were happening to people: visions, blackouts, feats of impossible strength, disappearances, and various other unusual occurrences. Stephanie scours them thoroughly, reading so many of her own experiences in their words, feeling their fright and confusion, until the sight of her own name on the screen jars her attention so severely, she can do nothing but stare at the screen, perplexed.

From an anonymous poster: “Where is Stephanie Fairbanks?” Posted over and over, with no reaction for several minutes, but then the responses flooded in, repeated messages from the names she had come recognize as frequent posters on the site. Then more replies, and still more, from screen names she didn’t know. She feels like the kid who kicks the ball into her own team’s goal and whose teammates start to yell at her, their friendly faces distorting into angry mouths and white-hot eyes, into Hydras that grew back and multiplied each time she tried to strike one down. Choking on a guttural screech, she almost throws the computer from her laptop in a fit of startled rage and fear.

“Stephanie Fairbanks fled her home in the middle of the night, heading east.”

“Stephanie Fairbanks drove all night and all day, never stopping to sleep.”

“Stephanie Fairbanks never showed up for the rendezvous.”

“Stephanie Fairbanks is a bear in the morning before she has her coffee.”

“Stephanie Fairbanks played Orphan Number Two in her fifth-grade production of Oliver.”

“Stephanie Fairbanks never calls her mother.”

“Stephanie Fairbanks must come to the meet-up.”

“Stephanie Fairbanks ran two red lights last month.”

“Stephanie Fairbanks will save the Monument.”

“Stephanie Fairbanks has disappeared.”

As Stephanie reads, her eyes bulge from her head, she spouts recurring slurs between gasps of utter shock. What the fuck? she thinks. Skimming through the rest of the posts, she is baffled by their accuracy, their seeming omnipotence. She had had the feeling she was being followed, that someone had been in her apartment, but she just can’t get her head around the scope of their knowledge. The messages continue and grow more esoteric, with information about her most recent boyfriend and their ugly breakup, the last dozen or so casting calls she’d gone on, even her most recent menstrual period—these people know everything about her, starting from about two years ago until the moment she stepped foot in the bakery and appeared to vanish from their radars. Then they began to post photos of her, and horrified, Stephanie screams an ear-piercing, blood-curdling scream that could probably wake the dead. In fact, her scream does rip Sally Mae from the depths of her slumber.

Sally Mae wails with fear from inside the other car, forgetting what happened and not knowing where she is, and crazily flails, knocking her hands and arms into the windshield. Stephanie looks over at her, suddenly aware that she is back in the same spot where she disappeared, that the last time anyone else saw her she was right here and that there is a very good chance they are watching her now. She refreshes her computer screen, afraid of what new posts may appear, but there is nothing new. Closing the laptop, she stashes it on the backseat and returns to the car where Sally Mae is uproarious, opens the door and places a hand on her shoulder.

“Sally Mae,” she begins. At the first sound of her voice, the lanky woman stills but her gaunt cheeks continue to puff in and out, trying to recover her breath. Stephanie extends a hand to her frail back, rubbing in small, soothing circles, bumping over the woman’s protruding spine. “Sally Mae, we left the house, do you remember?”

Sally Mae blinks, but doesn’t respond.

“You walked outside. You did it. Because you wanted to come away… with me.” Her voice is soft, but Sally Mae’s face remains expressionless, blank. “Remember? I have to find my little girls.”

With a sudden jilt of her head, Sally Mae turns to Stephanie and nods. She remembers the sparkling blond little girls. “I came back here to get my car. You don’t have to go the rest of the way with me—” Before Stephanie finishes the sentence, Sally Mae is vehemently thrusting her skull up and down. “Okay, then I need you to get into the other car.” She reaches for Sally Mae’s arm, but she jumps a little at the unexpected movement.

“I—I don’t want to leave the car…”

Stephanie pushes a lock of Sally Mae’s hair behind her ear. Considers driving this heap the rest of the way, but decides against it. If they’re watching me, they’ll watch me no matter what car I’m driving, she thinks. And my car has a radio. Cooing to Sally Mae, she encourages her to get out of the car. “C’mon, sweetie. The hard part is over—you left the house. There is absolutely nothing holding you inside Neil’s car.”

And that’s the magic word. “Neil?” Sally Mae sputters. “Neil’s car?” She looks around with her mouth agape, recognition creeping slowly across her features, then whirls to face Stephanie. “Okay, let’s go.” Planting her feet on the street, she wobbles into a standing position. Stephanie hangs her arm out to escort Sally Mae to the other door. Many measured single-step paces and several pep talks later, they reach Stephanie’s sporty coupe and Sally Mae drops into the passenger seat, exhausted from her effort. Rushing around the back of the car, Stephanie rolls her eyes simply at the folly of the ordeal, and then gets struck by the idea to swap the identification tags on the two cars. It won’t hurt, she thinks, plucking hers from the rear bumper. The tag on Neil’s car is rusted, but she manages to pry it off and pop hers in its place. Then she snaps the corroded one onto her car and hops into the driver’s seat.

For fifteen minutes they ride in silence, Stephanie constantly checking her rearview mirror. She hasn’t seen another car all night, and feels confident that right now, at least, no one is following her. Sally Mae has curled her legs under her on the seat, and bites her lip, gazing longingly out the window. Flipping on the radio, Stephanie surfs through the channels.

“Increased chatter warns that the Opposition Is Mounting,” says one, and she keeps turning.

“The Monument controversy gets personal for one small-town family after a reported disappearance…” Switch.

“Excavation experts predict the Monument could be dismantled and removed without total destruction.” Next.

“Monument expert Dr. Wally London has allegedly renounced his contentious theories and gone into hiding…” Ugh!

Exasperated, Stephanie roughly twists the radio dial, hoping to find a music station. Or anything not discussing the Monument, she thinks.

“In other news, scientists released new data suggesting that postwar radiation contamination is significantly higher than previously believed.” The woman’s voice is controlled and objective. “Red flags were raised after a smattering of inexplicable occurrences were reported, and studies show that in each instance the people lived in areas with excessive contamination from the bombs used during the war.” Stephanie throws her fists against the steering wheel and cries out a string of epithets into the air. “Radiation contamination is believed to be the leading factor causing many ailments, from memory loss and hallucinations to an array of cancers and diseases. Some evidence links radiation to a host of paranormal activities, though scientists have been unable to pinpoint which cases are fabrications—or byproducts of mental illness—and which, if any, are true.” Stephanie continues to drive, stunned, dazed. “Levels of radiation are so high in some areas that government officials are considering a mandatory evacuation, but for now, these areas remain hotly contested.” She hangs her head, deflated and hopeless, and flips off the radio, preferring to drive in silence.

“Explains a thing or two, eh?” Sally Mae says eerily. “I heard it’s in the water and the ground and the air.” She cackles a grotesque and hacking noise. “You can’t excape it. You can lock yerself up and you still can’t excape it.” She laughs some more.

Stephanie steers with one hand, the elbow of her other arm rests on the lip of the car window and she runs that hand through her lovely blond hair. She is speechless.

“You just can’t excape it. It’s everywhere.” Sally Mae’s flesh stretches even tighter over her skull, maniacal laughter oozing from her lips.With a sigh, Stephanie grips the steering wheel and notices the first tendrils of color weaving themselves into the black tapestry of night as her headlights flash across a blue street sign: SIX TENETS NATIONAL MONUMENT, 80 MILES.

...continues tomorrow...