31: George – No F*ckin’ Cigar

George felt a new emotion, a particular feeling he had no name for. It made itself known when the mob of expectant eyes turned to hear his news, and the only news he had was bad. Maybe it had a name, probably one that wouldn’t do it justice. Like feeling smothered, the word that defined his first relationship with Separation Issues Margot. It was accurate, but lacked translatable impact. Whatever the feeling was, comparisons to an exposed nerve didn’t cut it.

“Okay, everybody, there might have been a slight oversight.” He said. “Apparently someone forgot to take into account all the melted stone would clog these tunnels. I’m won’t name any names, but if anyone has any suggestions, I’m open to hearing them.”

The eyebrows and lips of all before him dropped direction. He tried to shrug off the stares with a halfhearted chuckle, but it only sped up the emotional processes of the mob.

“Are you saying there’s no way into these tunnels?” Cheppard said.

“Well, I’m not saying there’s no way, just not this way.”

“So there is a way?”

George scratched his head. “Maybe? Does anyone know another way down?”

Nobody did. “Hang on, are you trying to tell us we’ve been clambering our way over here, doing work we didn’t have to, and you actually making us believe we had a goddamn hope in hell of getting through this, and all we have to show for it is a gap we can’t even squeeze our heads through?”

George inspected the entrance. “There’s a gap? Where? Oh, down there! Maybe…” He squatted down and tried to crawl in. Then stood again. “No, that’s definitely not an entrance.”

“Damnit.” Zeke said, storming off. “I knew it. I just fuckin’ knew he’d somehow screw this up. Nice fuckin’ try, kid. No fuckin’ cigar.”

Rhea popped her head through the crowd, out between a scowling Ingrid and Norris. They acknowledged her but didn’t step apart to let her through.

“Where’s Holden.” She said. “He was the one who told us he’d get us to safety. That tonto del culo better be delivering on that promise right now.”

George inhaled sharply. “Look, I know the plan didn’t work, but that’s not Holden’s style. He makes shit up as he goes along. He’s probably looking for a different way in as we speak.”

“Well don’t you think you should go find him and ask?”

“Err, yeah.” George said. He shot her a pair of finger guns. Good ol’ Rhea, she always found a way out. “Why don’t I just go do that?”

He ducked down and pardon-me’d through the crowd of hostile glares, leaving them to their grousing while he slipped off in the direction Holden had retreated. He followed the postholes in the Styrofoam ceiling to the vestibule entrance of the City Bank West, and found Holden scribbling on the back of a large poster.

“Buddy, what are you doing?” George said. “I need you out there. I got a pissed off mob waiting to string us up.”

Holden switched position behind a desk he’d righted and wagged a finger. “Don’t worry, my friend. I added your name to this as well. It’ll solve all our problems.”

“What that?”

“Our suicide note. If I stand it over there by the window, we hide, and everyone’ll think we jumped out. Then you and me scoot back across the block we came from and take the bridge with us. Then we’ll be safe.”

George’s face twisted to incredulity. “That’s your plan? Hide from everyone we just let down? We’ll still die in nine days!”

Holden chuckled. “You are always so negative. Those buildings have basements. If we find and reinforce a small corner, we should be fine.”

“Holden, I’m not leaving my wife and sister.”

“Bring them, too. You get a wife, I’ll take your sister.”

“What you’ll take is the next step in finding another way down. Or up. Whatever. To the tracks. Find a tunnel that’ll protect us.”

Holden finished his note and gave George a glance, then his eyes flew wide and he flung the note out the window, pointed past George and ducked out of sight behind a counter. “That might be a little difficult. They don’t look like they’re in a patient mood.”

George spun and found the mob had followed him. They were led by Cheppard, Rhea at his side. The pastor marched to the doorway and grabbed the handle of then bank’s side-rolling shutter with one hand and signaled for his followers to shush with the other.

“Mr. Crayson.” he said. “Holden. We can see you.”

“Yeah, I figured you might have.” Holden called from behind the desk. “But I can’t face you right now. My face isn’t exactly at its best all red and sweaty.”

“You promised you’d get us to safety.”

Holden didn’t rise. “Look, I’ll level with you. That could still happen. I had a solid plan but currently there seems to be a far more solid obstacle filling the space meant for us, and I didn’t want to mislead you.”

“I’m not calling you a liar.”

Holden’s head peaked out from the side of the desk. “You’re not?”

Cheppard smiled, a reveal of teeth that didn’t reach the eyes. “No. I’m calling you a failure. You could argue that’s just as bad, but at least it endears a sense of sympathy to counter the blame you’d otherwise get.”

“So I take it that means you won’t be lynching me?”

Cheppard yanked the shutter closed. It slid across the door, cutting George and Holden off from the rest of the group, who glared at the two men.

“I think maybe you both got a little too heated with your passion for this project.” Cheppard said. “So while we meditate on our next move around the fires your father lit for us, you two can spend the night cooling off in here.”

He led the mob back across the vestibule, and though each footstep sinking thigh deep through an aluminum bracket lacked the usual dignity of a righteous storming off, the gaggle of funny walks did nothing to lighten Holden’s or George’s moods. Rhea stayed while they left, and when her father was out of earshot, called George through the shutters.

“Hey, tonto del culo?” She said to Holden, pirouetting her fingers. “You mind giving us a minute?”

Holden sighed dramatically and threw his hands in the air. “Where’s the sweet nothings for ol’ Holden, eh? Always me who gets the crappo with women.”

He disappeared around a corner, muttering about redheads leaving him for blind lunch dates and chopper pilots. She waited until the ruckus he made kicking papers and furniture was out of earshot before she spoke to George.

“I honestly don’t know what to say to you right now.” She said.

George shrugged. “Stick to the facts. I tried to save you I failed. I proved I love you. And proved that wasn’t enough.”

“Dad’s being calm with you. That usually means he’s right.”

“Then I guess he was always right. If that’s the case, let him take charge of these fools and see how far he gets. He can talk ‘em all into jumping to their deaths like he wanted for all I care, the selfish prick.”

“My father isn’t selfish. He’s trying to save them, just like you were.”

“Getting you and our kid somewhere we wouldn’t get squished was me being selfish. The fact my family and best friend are helping only made me grateful, but their help is selfish because my safety is their interest. It’s selfish because I wanted to be your fucking hero again.”

“What are you talking about?”

George sighed. “Everyone’s selfish. Especially when they pretend they’re not.”

“That’s a pretty shallow worldview.”

“It’s realistic. Even you only wanna be with me ‘cos I’m a provider. Take that away and how interesting would I be? Now I failed, you’re not exactly rushing into my arms, are you?”

Rhea slapped the gate. “How dare you! Qué cabrón. I’m not some shallow bitch whoring myself out to whoever looks after me. I’m here trying to show you support—”

“You didn’t even know what to say to me a second ago. Support, my ass.”

“Vete al demonio, hijo de puta!” she spat at him, and then spat at him.

She stomped off, leaving George to stew alone. He stomped off in the opposite direction and planted himself at the edge of the overhang under the main door, roared incoherently and threw a loose chunk of stone at the reddened sky. Then he picked up a half dozen more and threw them at a casino across the street. The blobs of plaster exploded into puffs of dust on impact.

The casinos framed the strip of Main Street, strips of tangled metal and slops of stone hanging over the flaming sky. The former mimicries of world wonders hung in ruins, running like tracks to the distant mountains across the bridge, surrounding  almost half the island, all the way to the power plant. George kicked the overhang, half hoping it would break, to end his suffering. He screamed at the damn mountain. Before this shituation he found himself in, Chloe’s report in that mountain was when his life had truly turned upside-down. His roar lasted until his breath ran out, and with it, his anger. He dropped to his knees and curled up in the rubble.

The dry, icy wind stung the skin. George didn’t care. He lay there letting it rob him of his body heat. When Wendy called his name through the gate, he ignored her and hid behind his eyelids. When he didn’t respond after a few calls, Holden descended from his hiding spot and went to meet her instead.

“Hey.” Wendy said, grasping the bars. “Where’s George?”

Holden slipped his fingers through hers and rested on his elbows on the bars. “Your emasculated sibling is currently sulking because he feels the need to take on all responsibility of my screw-up. So, hey, yourself.”

“Can you get him for me?”

“I doubt that’s a good idea. I think he needs his alone time. He actually thought we were being selfless heroes for a while.”

“And you?”

“As your brother himself screamed at his bonnie lass not long ago, I wanted to be the hero for entirely selfish reasons.” He stuck his arm through the bars and pulled her close. “All the perks of being the center of a grateful community.”

Wendy smirked and twisted out of his embrace. “Well, at least your honest.”

“Hey, look at the Kinsley Foundation. Why would they save only certain people instead of a random selection? Because they’ve plans for what comes after. A world in their image. Selfish of them not to let the rest of us in on the oncoming apocalypse.”

“That’s what the Pastor’s saying. He also pointed out everything we’ve been through was prophesized and free to read for literally everyone who chose to pick up the book.”

“Prophesied. And yes, I’ve heard that, but your dear pastor believes it’s our destiny to die in it while the Foundation used the it to propel themselves to safety. See, they understood that in an infinitely huge universe, with all those worlds out there ready to colonize, the end of this world isn’t that big a deal. They got it.”

“Then help me get it, because right now, that preacher’s making the sky look pretty tempting. He’s been saying apparently this is the Rapture and the final test is a leap of faith into Heaven.”

“I thought he stopped talking about that shit.”

“He’s started again.”

Holden sighed and yanked the gate open wearily. “Take me to him.”

Wendy recoiled at the gate opening. “Was that not locked?”

“The only lock it needed was shame, but you interrupted that.”

He followed her back to Cheppard’s growing crowd, a gathering casting confused frowns at each other while he raged against the futility of survival.

“So,” Holden said, barging onto the makeshift stage of a righted table. “You called us failures, locked us away and made me feel an actual negative emotion for what I did, and then I find you capitalizing on having us out of the way by lying through your teeth.”

Cheppard did a double take. “What? Why aren’t you locked up? What do you mean, lying?”

“You told us you didn’t remember anything before this morning, padre. That you didn’t remember saying any of the crap you’re spouting again now.”

“I don’t remember any of it.” Cheppard said. “But look around. I think concussed me might have been right.”

“Concussed you was a would-be murderous asshole.”

Cheppard raised his hands to the floor. “Or a prophet. No, don’t bother debating it. Look around you. See that upside-down apocalypse going on outside the door? The good book has come closest to predicting all of this than any of your other sources. You talk about needing proof instead of faith, it’s right outside. It’s right there. Tell me you doubt it, all you’ll succeed in doing is making a fool of yourself and everyone who follows you.”

Holden grabbed the pastor’s collar. “I’ll deny it a thousand goddamn times over! All you’re doing is telling us to give up and accept our fate.”

“Exactly. Fate. Forget your beliefs for a second. Forget mine. Look at our options. Your plan failed. We aren’t going to be saved. There’s no safe haven anywhere. All we have to look forward to is dying of exposure and starvation, if dehydration doesn’t kill us first. Even if you don’t believe in Heaven and Hell, staying here means suffering a slow, agonizing death while the alternative is, if you’ll excuse the pun, a once in a lifetime experience.”

Holden sighed. “Joe, even if I believed, aiming for heaven just because of something as trivial as the end of the world is still just plain old giving up. And I’ll be damned if I let you do that after everything we’ve been through.”

Cheppard shook his head. “You’ll be damned if you don’t.”

The silent crowd watched the two men argue. One of the more enterprising individuals passed out the last packets of popcorn. Holden smoothed his hair back.

“Why do guys like you,” he said. “Men who have the ability to gather people to your cause, always think about salvation in the hereafter instead of trying to fix the problems here and now?”

Cheppard stood Holden down. “Because I believe life is simply the proving ground, a test to see which souls join the hosts of heaven or the damned of hell.”

“You know what I think?” Holden said. “Your quest for heaven is the most evil of dreams, because no paradise is sustained without the toil of those below.”

Cheppard nodded. “Exactly! That’s why I take my job so seriously. I have to make sure you all become the people who get into that paradise and not the unclean masses spending eternity in service to them.”

“And in your humble opinion, would I be one of the chosen?”

Cheppard blanched. “I wouldn’t presume to judge you, but given your history and track record, I wouldn’t recommend someone like you getting your hopes up.”

Holden scoffed at the Cheppard’s remark. “Look around you, Pastor. Look at everyone here. They’re all like me. That’s why we were left behind. And so were you.”

. . .

While Holden argued theology with Cheppard, George tried and failed miserably to tune them out. He lay flat on the overhang, fishing tools from his belt between two fingers, and dropped them over the edge one by one.

Screwdrivers? Didn’t need them.

Wrenches? Whatever, Holden had a whole set.

Pipe cleaners? Why did he even have those?

He held each one up before discarding them overboard, gazing at the tools of a trade he no longer plied. Only when he reached the last tool in the belt did he stop to really look.

O’Toole’s spanner, an iridescent glass paperweight, a discarded award for services to a city the man had abandoned along with its mayor. George peered through it, through the swirls of color suspended inside, letting the play of light steal his focus. He looked at the world through its frame of prismatic smoke, the view shifting from red to green as it altered hues and inverted details completely.

“Services to Shipyard Island City and its citizens.” He murmured, reading the gold leaf imprint. “Services to the Junior Rehabilitation Committee, to improving the lives of young offenders, so we don’t offend no more. Making us work your shitty jobs so you didn’t have to fork out paychecks. Getting the city to pay us instead, you sneaky bastard. Almost five years learning from you, reinforcing this, securing all that. Making it last for…”

George sat up, slowly, keeping the glass spanner to his eyes as he stared down the horizon at the end of the street, past it and the bridge. The panoramic window of the city’s latest money maker, the restaurant above the power plant, glinted in the twilight. It hadn’t melted. Neither had the stone of the mountains. George lowered the spanner from his face and looked back at the distance they’d travelled since the disaster began.

“It took us less than two days to get here.”

He shot to his feet and ran back through the bank, leaping across the vestibule and the crowd, and dove between Cheppard and Holden, pushing them apart hard enough they hit the floor above before falling back to the ceiling with a crash and a tangle of limbs in brackets.

“You two,” George said. “Shut up. Guys, we can still reach somewhere safe. The power plant’s still standing.”

The room just stared at him.

“How would that be any safer than here?” someone eventually said.

George pointed to the station stairs. “Tunnels. It has tunnels, just like the ones we were trying to reach.”

“Which are filled with stone.”

George shot the man a finger. “Right, but this time, the entire tunnel network was reinforced with steel. Even if the whole mountain melted around them, the tunnels would still be there. You all saw how all the metal went back to its original shape.”

“More or less.”

“More than less.”

“Yeah, but would it be strong enough to protect us?” another voice said. “If the mountain’s melted off it?”

“The mountain’s still there.” George said. “And even if it wasn’t, the station we built was designed to take the weight of a whole other mountain falling on top of it. That’s word for word what it’s chief engineer said.”

Cheppard disentangled himself from the aluminum and confronted George. “Don’t give us false hope again, little boy. Look where you led us on that same promise.”

“It’s still the same promise, padre. The exact same one, and I’m still leading it. Not led, but in progress. The tracks run along the underside of West to East Main. The bridge is climbable. We can get to the tunnel entrance just by walking on the underside of it. We can get to the bridge the same way we got here. We’ll build scaffold bridges and clear out buildings—”

“You told us clearing out buildings was a lie.” Someone else said.

“You made us feel like idiots.”

George pinched between his eyes. “Yes, okay, we lied. The weight of everything in a building probably isn’t enough to offset anything in this low gravity. But, look, all the glass in the city melted into the tunnels. The concrete did, too, which is good because that’s really cemented the buildings to the Earth. Metal seems to have mostly held its shape, if it did get a little squatter, but that’s making the gaps between blocks a little smaller. The station we built was almost all steel under completely natural rock, and from what I saw, mud and all that was unaffected. I think there’s a good chance the Power Station’s train tunnel is still open.”

“A chance? We squandered our last remaining days on one of your chances!”

A crack whipped through the air from outside, lightless thunder from inside the storm. The boom hurt the ears and teased screams from throats. George bit his tongue as everyone turned to see what was coming.

“We might need to empty buildings after all.” Holden said from his tangle near a window. “I knew there was a subconscious reason I got you all to perform that specific act of bullshit.”

George and the crowd stumbled over to the bank again. A few blocks behind the casino he’d smashed plaster on, a building dangled from the Earth on threads of rebar and cables. They snapped one at a time, each snap cutting through the rending squeal of metal until the last three broke together, and in front of the onlookers, the building fell in two crumbling chunks.

“I am not following you across that.” someone said.

“Yeah, that’s suicide.”

“We’re safe in here.” Eddie said beside him.

George slapped him. “What is wrong with you people? You’re standing on the inside of a flimsy roof. The whole point of us was to get to the most secure spot, not the nearest point to it.”

“We’re fucking exhausted!” Eddie said, rubbing his cheek. “We just ate all the food left in here. Now you expect us to keep up that same pace of work across the whole island? You’re crazy.”

“Then I’m crazy.” George said. “And I’m gonna go build me some crazy-assed bridge across the back alley and I’m heading to that mountain. Anyone wants to join me, pitch in. If the rest of you don’t wanna, go fuck yourselves.”

“I’m with you.” Holden said, finally disentangling himself.

“Same.” Wendy said.

Rhea looked torn between her dad and George. Cheppard called her over. George stepped into her way.

“If it was just you,” George said. “I’d keep quiet and stay here and let your insane dad play lemmings with us. But if there’s any chance our baby’s going to get to live, I want you to take it.”

“But…” she said. “I…”

“I’ll carry you over my shoulder like a caveman if I have to. I’m selfish that way.”

He kissed her, leaving her stuttering, and clicked his fingers. Holden and Wendy joined his side, followed by an enthusiastic Jamie. Cynthia and Zeke trailed after him, and the survivors confronted the decision they’d have to make.

Over half of them followed.