Макс Брукс - Devolution - A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

I did, closing my eyes tightly. I felt the dam bursting in my brain.

To be someone else’s food.

You’re a person. You think, you feel. And then it’s all gone, and what used to be you is now a mushy mess in something else’s stomach.

Carnage, blood, smiling yellow fangs. Gnawing flesh. Licking bones.

“Look at me.” The hand on my chin, forcing me to open my eyes.

“I know.” Mostar’s sad smile, the sigh. “It’s a blessing and a curse, the human mind. We’re the only creatures on Earth that can imagine our own death. But”—she held up my spear—“we can also imagine ways to prevent it.”

That was when the doorbell rang.

Palomino stood in the entry, holding a rolled-up yoga mat. “What are you doing here, Little Doll?” Mostar grabbed her and pulled her inside. “You know you’re not supposed to be outside all alone. Do your parents know where you are?”

She shook her head, then pointed, with the mat, to something outside.

Then I got it. The mat was to keep her knees clear of dirt. “Hey, Pal, I’m sorry I don’t have time to garden with you right now. I’ve got to get over to Mr. Reinhardt to…”

Wrong. Pal shook her head at me, then shifted back to Mostar with a second gesture to… what?

I looked but couldn’t see anything. Not a specific house, not the volcano, and (thank God !) no dark forms staring down from the trees.

She was facing southeast, and, to my knowledge, there was nothing in that direction. Again, Mostar seemed perplexed. “I’m sorry, I don’t…”

Then, “Oh,” followed by a quick glance back at her wall clock. “Ohhhhh!” This big, broad smile broke her mouth wide open and I’m pretty sure the corners of her eyes began to sparkle.

“Oh, Lutko Moja, it’s been a long time.” Mostar pinched the bridge of her nose, used it to shake her head, then looked up with a shrugging, “C’mon, let’s see if I remember.”

Ignoring my confusion, Mostar put an arm around the girl, and asked me, “Would you mind running upstairs to fetch a clean towel from the hall closet?”

It was my first time upstairs. I didn’t intend to snoop.

But her house is laid out pretty much like ours. The hall closet is right next to the master bedroom. I didn’t go in. The door was open. And the picture was so big, facing the bed, which you couldn’t miss from my position in the hall.

Mostar looked a lot younger, maybe twenties or thirties. She wasn’t thin, but her hourglass figure stood out in her belted coat. Her hair glistened, raven black under a knit wool cap. The man with his arm around her, he looked about the same age. Goatee. Glasses. The kind of Euro intellectual you always see in movies, the kind of guy I thought I’d marry when I was in high school. They both had their arms around the kids standing in front of them.

Boy and girl. The boy looked about twelve, the girl maybe ten. Big grins, genuine on the boy, silly mugging on the girl.

They were standing on the rocky bank of a frozen river. A bridge rose up behind them. Narrow, no cars. An old stone arch connecting two sides of an equally old stone town. I didn’t recognize the bridge at first, but then it hit me that I was looking at the real version of her glass sculpture!

I couldn’t tell where. Maybe Russia. I’ve only seen pictures of Red Square. I’m also pretty sure it wasn’t Northwest Europe either. The buildings and the clothes seemed too drab, if that’s the right word. Eastern Europe? Poland? Czech Republic—or, if I remember high school history, back then it would have been Czechoslovakia? What’s the southeast called? The part before you get to Turkey. Sounds like Baltics. Balkans.

Yugoslavia, another country I’d read about in school. A war in the ’90s? I would have been about those kids’ age. I didn’t exactly follow current events back then. The ’90s were O.J. and Britney.

Even at Penn, I only took intro to poli-sci and all I remember is the term “ethnic cleansing.” And Professor Tongun, from Sudan, “Like a tree in the forest, America doesn’t hear foreign suffering.”

Shelling. Snipers. Siege fries. Mostar.

“Katie!” from downstairs. “We’re waiting.”

I grabbed the biggest bath towel she had, ran downstairs, and found them in the kitchen. Mostar looked up at me, smirking. She has to know that I saw the picture. All she said was, “Perfect timing.”

They must have just finished washing their hands, and, I think, their feet as well. I could see moisture glistening between their toes. I thought Mostar was going to use the towel to dry them off but when she took it from me, the two of them headed into the living room.

“You can watch,” she said over her shoulder, “I don’t think He’ll mind. Or She. What do I know?” She gave a slight shrug, chuckled, then spread the towel on the floor next to Pal’s yoga mat. They were at an angle from the living room window, facing in the direction Pal had motioned to earlier.

They both stood ramrod straight, placed their hands up a little past their shoulders, palms out, as Mostar chanted, “Allahuackbar.”

I won’t try to describe in detail what I witnessed. I know I’d just mess it up. I want to be respectful, although I’m sure neither Mostar nor Pal would mind. The beauty of their prayer, the fluid, ballet motions. Raised arms, turned heads. Knees bending and rising to Mostar’s sung phrases. And then the name, through a cracking voice:

“Vincent Earnest Boothe.”

Leaving Mostar’s house, I turned left instead of right. I wasn’t supposed to be at Reinhardt’s for another few minutes and I wanted to spend that time in the garden. Not that there’d be much to do. I figured I’d turn on the drip line, maybe shower and change while it ran.

I opened the front door, then the garage door, and gasped.

SPROUTS!

A tiny little arch was poking up near my feet, right at the spot where I’d planted the first large white bean!

“Pal!” I called, then sticking my head out the front door, shouted, “Palomino! The garden is sprouting!”

I bent down to examine the little, upside-down u. It was whitish, about half an inch high, and as I peered closer, I could see that tip of the bean below one end.

The spot next to this arch looked like it was bulging a little, so, using Bobbi’s teapot, I dripped a few drops on it. Sure enough, as the dirt fell away, the first hint of an arch as well. I tried it again with the next one, and the one after that. So many u ’s struggling to free themselves from the soil.

And they weren’t the only ones!

The entire garden! Every inch!

“OhmyGod!” That was Carmen, who’d just come in with Pal. “Did you plant all those?”

“Just these,” I said, referring to the marked beans. Ironically, nothing was coming up where I’d planted the Chinese peas and sweet potatoes. Or maybe they just weren’t coming up yet ! And it really didn’t matter because their seed beds were surrounded by mysterious little shoots. They were everywhere, those shoots, scattered randomly across the entire garden.

“What are they all?” asked Carmen as Pal examined them on hands and knees.

“No idea,” I said. “I don’t even know where they’re coming from.”

“Maybe the earth we brought in?” That was Mostar, who’d just joined us.