Marc Zicree - Ghostlands

“Cold time to be out walking,” he observed.

“Sleep and me, we’re only sometimes on speaking terms,” Mama Diamond replied, a cold wind gusting up to ruffle her short hair. Cal wondered idly how many people this reedy, self-reliant woman might be on speaking terms with, as well. She had the feel of someone folded in on herself; if not antisocial exactly, then not needful of society.

“It’s different at night,” Mama Diamond said. “The town, I mean.”

Cal followed her gaze to the big autumn moon, grand as a sailing ship up there in the ebony ocean, its pale face as cool and eternal as the face of God. A silhouette fluttered across it, and was gone. A bat, Cal thought. Or maybe the cold shadow of a dragon.

An eerie sound wafted through the air to them, so distant and forlorn it almost wasn’t a sound but merely a remembrance. Still, it made Cal’s hackles rise.

“It’s not Stern,” Mama Diamond said with assurance. “I know his call.”

“So do I,” said Cal. Or at least, I thought I did. Today’s revelations had shaken his conviction.

Stern had stolen Mama Diamond’s gems, had brought them here, apparently under orders from whatever dwelled at the Source, whatever now held Cal’s sister captive, if indeed she were still alive.

(But she was, Cal’s heart insisted, she must be….)

Stern had traveled from New York to Chicago to Mama Diamond’s shop, and then here to Atherton.

Ahead of them, always ahead.

Stern had drawn Mama Diamond and Shango here. And, Cal thought, wondering about the grunter boy Inigo, perhaps himself and his companions, too.

Whose lives Stern had chosen to save…

Cal was suddenly conscious of the heft of his sword in its scabbard, of the singing ache in his arms and shoulders and legs, of the pathetic limitations of his humanity.

The dark road ahead stretched off to an unknown future…under a shadow from above.

Am I leading anyone, or merely being led?

Cal saw that Mama Diamond was scrutinizing him, far more closely than she had studied the moon. “You look like a man with a question.”

“It’s not one you can answer,” Cal replied.

Mama Diamond walked to the edge of the roof, held her face immobile in the frigid wind.

“I had a man once, Danny,” she said, not looking at Cal. “We kept company, for a time. Then he was gone. I truly cannot say why he did a single thing he did, beginning to end…. I don’t think he could, either.”

She turned to Cal, and her eyes were hard and clear. “Most of what happens just happens, and most everyone’s plans go bust, one way or another.

“And maybe, just maybe,” Mama Diamond said, her cracked voice so quiet it was like the wind rubbing against itself, “every now and then, a bad heart can do good….”

Another cry came on the wind, a different one, close to the ground and high-pitched.

“Coyote,” Mama Diamond said. “He’s just found some pizza in a Dumpster.”

“You say that like you know.”

She gave him a Mona Lisa smile, and rubbed her arms against the cold, like sticks trying to start a fire.

“I ran into that pal of yours,” Mama Diamond said, seemingly changing the subject. “The one with the shirts that are a conversation all by themselves.”

That would be Goldie, of course.

“He told me what’s on the other end of what they’re building…and what you’re gonna try doing with it.”

Cal felt a momentary flash of irritation, then realized that if Goldie had let Mama Diamond into their confidence, it must be for a reason. His wild airs to the contrary, in certain ways Herman Goldman’s actions were the most deliberate and considered of all of them.

“What do you think?” Cal asked.

“That you’re crazy…but it’s a good crazy. Don’t mean it won’t fry you on the griddle, though.”

“True.”

“But I’ll tell you this much-you get your foot in the door, you’d best take me with you.”

Looking at this frail old woman, Cal thought to protest, but the words died in his throat. There was something below the surface in her that belied appearances. Underneath, he sensed, she was hard stone, diamond hard….

And Cal knew in that moment that it was not Shango’s iron will that had brought them here, but hers.

What monstrosities would walk the streets were men’s faces as unfinished as their minds, Stern had once said, quoting the philosopher Hoffer.

But that wasn’t always true. Sometimes the face beneath the mask was finer and stronger than the mask itself.

“Why do you want to come?” he asked Mama Diamond.

“Maybe just because I’d like to see what all this has been for.” She smiled, making the lines in her face crinkle up like a paper fan. “And maybe I’d like to meet that little sister of yours.”

Cal nodded. “I’ll do my best, when the time comes.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.” Mama Diamond yawned hugely, and stretched. “Time this old night owl went to roost.”

“Good night, ma’am.”

Mama Diamond walked slowly and cautiously to the door that led to the stairs. Then abruptly, she turned back.

“Do you think there’s forgiveness in this world, Mr. Griffin, or just atonement?”

The question startled him, but he found the answer readily there. “I think every day’s a new one…and we do what we can.”

She ran back and kissed him on the cheek, surprising them both.

“You go get some sleep now, son,” Mama Diamond said. “And you have yourself some sweet dreams.”

Then she was gone, down the stairs.

Cal peered over the lip of the building, but curfew had come and the streets were dark. He heard Mama Diamond’s steps echo away into the night, and knew she meant for him to hear it, a lullaby and good night.

His eyes lifted again to the moon, bright as God’s serene, eternal gaze.

Proficiency was not everything, Cal realized, nor even readiness. Sometimes, he had seen, compassion and consensus and mutual need won the day.

And sometimes not…

In the distance, in the night beyond, Cal thought he heard, or only imagined, the sound of wings.

Okay, in the old days, the guy with the M-80 leads. It looks like a machine gun and makes a firecracker-type sound that is loud, bright and stuns the senses, basically disorients everyone inside.” Krystee Cott, the former naval munitions expert, had the floor and was educating Cal and the others as to just what “doing things by the book” might mean. “This is a breaching charge and is also used to blast open a window or door, with a train of guys outside waiting to enter.”

There were close to thirty of them gathered in what had been the rec room in Married Student Housing-Cal, Colleen, Doc and Goldie, plus Shango and Mama Diamond, and the fugitive slaves that had accompanied them to Atherton, those judged not too infirm to lend a hand. Guards were posted on the perimeter to make sure no one overheard them.

“The M-80 isn’t meant to kill anyone, just blow open the door and stun the enemy,” Larry Shango chimed in. “Basic Navy SEAL advancement on a building. The shooters go in, Command and Control coordinates the guys invading.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Colleen Brooks said. After all, her dad was Air Force, this was for the most part second nature to her. “But we’ve scouted the town. No heavy firepower at all, just a few reconditioned rifles and handguns.”

“We work with what we’ve got,” Cal said. “The good news is because whatever’s at the Source is so hot to get the Spirit Radio constructed, they’ve been forced to reveal a fair amount of how the new science works-which is why the guns are working.” He addressed Krystee Cott and Shango. “Think you can rig up some munitions using stuff from the college chem lab?”