The keel of the schooner cut through the choppy gray water in rhythmic slaps while the sails whipped and snapped in the harsh north pacific winds. The sky was murky and gray too, and when Siona squinted she could not tell where the sea ended and the sky began.
She reached her arm over the side in a futile effort to dip her fingers into the bitterly cold water. Salty spray flew into her eyes, nose, and mouth. Siona decided she loved this. It helped her feel less sea sick, less home sick, less traumatized. None of the other survivors paid her much mind. If Siona slipped off the side, she doubted any effort would be made to rescue her. Everyone was too lost in their own thoughts, save for David. Though he rarely spoke, the powerful man was clearly in charge. He had steered the boat through the night and showed no signs of fatigue or weariness. No one had any idea how much he really knew about sailing or navigation, but he projected a grim confidence that Siona hardly felt capable of challenging.
In fact, over the last two years, Siona had felt increasingly useless. Before the fever, when the world had been normal, she had been a sophomore at Purdue University studying literature and English. She hated Indiana though, having grown up near the Rockies. So when her environmental sciences professor mentioned something about a summer internship in Alaska at one of the wildlife centers, she applied. She still wasn’t sure why she had been selected, but she accepted despite having little knowledge of nature or Alaska. She believed it was her duty as a college student to spend a summer somewhere ’exotic’. Summer came, and Siona found herself giving memorized presentations to tourists and visitors about the local flora and fauna. The work proved easy and the northern climate seemed to suit her.
About a month before she was to head back to Purdue, reports of some terrible infection started popping up on the news. At first they were just small items tucked into the national news segment. Then it moved to the later headlines. Then, Mississippi fever as it was dubbed, became the only headline and only thing anyone talked about everywhere. People were dying in the thousands. Then the tens of thousands. Then even more, and that’s when the whole world panicked.
As the news got worse, Siona resolved to skip school for a semester or two until things settled down. Scientists, she decided, would surely find a way to control this thing. Besides, quarantines were being set up everywhere, so it was only a matter of time before this modern plague subsided. She bought her tickets for home, but when she called her parents to tell them, Mom told her to stay in Alaska. Siona’s Dad had developed symptoms, and her mother expected to show signs soon herself. Siona cried a lot that night, pleading with her mother over the phone to let her come home. But Mom stood firm. Everyone knew that once symptoms showed, the infected had maybe three days left to live. And everyone knew that just being near someone who was infected was enough to catch the fever. It incubated for weeks, a lethal assassin lurking in the shadows of the body before springing forth and murdering its host in a few quick strokes. During that silent incubation, it passed itself on to every person the infected touched.
Instead, her mother instructed Siona to quit the nature center and head for Anchorage, where there was supposed to be a ‘safe zone’. A makeshift fortress had been erected there at the airport, since all flights in or out were effectively cancelled. After a month in solitary quarantine, Siona was allowed into the airport terminal, which had been dubbed Anchorpoint by the cluster of survivors gathered there. She tried to call her parents, but no one answered. A few days later, the power went out, and any hope of ever hearing her mother’s voice again vanished.
The airport terminal became a strange little village. Efforts were made to make the stay more palatable for the thousand or so folks who called it home. Stores were converted into one room apartments, wide spaces were curtained off to create a sense of privacy, but the overall space was just too small for so many people to feel normal. The bathrooms became rank, the winters were brutally cold, and hygiene deteriorated more quickly than Siona would ever have feared.
However, Anchorpoint had been well stocked for the long cold months by the forward thinking folk who had erected it. Most folk kept themselves busy cooking, cleaning, organizing and managing. Siona felt more out of place than ever as it dawned on her how little thought she had given to modern convenience. Eventually she found some purpose in watching the children of some of the families there. She read books to them and taught them grammar lessons, though mostly the adults just wanted her to keep the children distracted as they discussed ‘important’ matters. Siona was just happy to feel like a contributor.
Siona had once flirted with reading the first book when she was fifteen. But she prided herself on her smarts, and became afraid that her friends would make fun of her if she read something like that. As she grew older, her interested shifted to French, German, and Japanese literature, and the idea of reading sci fi became personally offensive. Her tastes gravitated to what she called ‘true literature’, not fan boy silliness. She was determined to understand the nature of humanity, and so adopted a snobbish attitude towards plots and contrivances that in anyway distracted the reader from real human struggle. Despite this, the understanding of humanity she desired continued to elude her.
After a nearly two years of isolation at Anchorpoint, and months of dread quiet from the rest of the world, the council of self appointed leaders decided that it was time to leave the safe zone, time to see what had become of the world. Only one of them, David, dissented. The decision made, an exploratory party was formed and soon went out into Anchorage proper. Siona experienced a powerful desperation to hear about the world, to hear about other survivors, but another part of her screamed caution. Mom and Dad had wanted her to stay alive.
Siona found herself agreeing with David. He was so strong, so sure of himself. He kept quiet most of the time, but when he did speak everyone listened. He had a muscular jaw, massive shoulders, and a kind of predatory smoothness to his movements. One got the feeling looking at him with his brown mane of hair and intense gaze that Mississippi fever could never touch him. The night the exploratory party set forth, David calmly went about the airport and selected a small band of folk to follow him out of Anchorpoint and out of Alaska. This time or the next, David insisted, they will catch the fever… and when they do, we’ll all die. He went on, saying he knew of a dry docked schooner nearby and an uninhabited island to the far south that fever could never reach. For some reason, he asked Siona if she wished to come too. He gave her only minutes to decide.
She considered his offer as deeply as she could in those few minutes. She realized in that short time how totally alone she was in the world. Most likely all the people she had known in her old life were dead. It came to her that right now she had but one duty - to live. If Mississippi fever were brought back to Anchorpoint, they would indeed all die. She looked at his gleaming blue eyes and realized how much she trusted David. She agreed.
The next day, Siona, David, and twenty five others broke from the compound. David instructed them to stay as far as possible from any corpses they might see… to avoid anything living or once living as best as possible in fact. He and another man, Will, instructed them on prepping the boat, and a day later they were sailing south.
Siona wondered if they would soon be the last people alive on earth. She wondered if she was wrong to still worry about the fever. She wondered if maybe somehow someone she had once loved was still out there somewhere. However, she was ultimately comfortable with her decision. Life on a small island in the pacific would be better than a life in Anchorpoint. What had increasingly bothered her more and more was how little input and control she felt over the matters of her life.
She was hanging on to the decisions of other, wiser people. She had nothing to offer them except her pretty youthfulness, though she was smart enough to understand that in this changing world such a feature would be in high demand. Of the seventeen women on the boat, fifteen of them were young, athletic, and educated. Siona wondered if all of them were just variations of David’s fantasy bride, but nothing untoward had happened to anyone so far as she knew. It occurred to her that agreeing to come on this final flight may have been nothing more than one last attempt to gain some power over her fate, but that doing so might result in some kind of reproductive subjugation.
How many choices do I have left?
She reached a bit further towards the water, her long blonde hair blowing in her face. Siona had no chance of touching it. Just as she had no chance of ever learning about her fictional namesake. Had she stayed in Anchorpoint, she might have one day found an abandoned bookstore and learned what it was her father had liked so much about Dune. It pained her more deeply than she might ever have imagined to have taken for granted the passions, hobbies, and quirks of those she had loved. She knew now that those were the things that really made a person who they were. All her old life had become a ghost to her, a blur of real memories and made up ones no more distinguishable from one another than the sky and ocean on a blank gray day.
Chapter two: Arrival
Island B rose up out of the foggy north pacific like some blackened and misshapen moon while the mists rolled across the piney mountains like vaporous ghosts. Bitter winds whipped at the sails as massive waves crashed against the rocky slate shores. The collective joy of the survivors at having finally arrived was sucked from the air in an instant as full recognition of the cold isolation of this place took hold on their imaginations.
Save for David.
David felt neither joy nor apprehension. He knew they were just islands, and he also knew, better than any of them, that the test for survival had not ended, just entered a new phase. However, Mississippi fever would never touch this place, which made it perfect for David’s purposes.
Will, the grey haired and grey eyed preacher who had appointed himself as David’s second mate, climbed carefully over the spray shield and slide into the cockpit next to David. The preacher presumed a familiarity he had not yet earned in David’s estimation, and seemed to think that the two of them were in charge of this ‘mission’ as he called it. David did not see it that way.
“I’m not sure I even want to know how you found out about this place.” The preacher stated. He was a big man, like David, but barrel-chested and stout where David was lean and chiseled. Will’s hands and arms were meaty and red, and his hair oddly kempt considering the circumstances. He had puffy cheeks and a round nose that belied his probing and intelligent eyes.
“It was no big deal learning about these islands.” David replied flatly. He had a deep timbre and tended to look past people when he spoke to them. David had developed the habit during his long years as a trophy hunter and wilderness guide. If his attention got lost looking at people and not the surroundings, he once decided, then he was liable to miss something that really mattered.
It certainly mattered now. David knew about boats, but these waters were unfamiliar, and running aground this far out would be disastrous. “Tell those girls up front to keep an eye out for rocks.” David said.
Will nodded and passed the information on to another man, who wound his way through the ropes and guidelines towards the front of the boat. He then moved in closer, speaking in low, conspiratorially tone. “We should talk about how things will be handled at the island.”
“What do you mean?” David asked. He was not especially concerned about setting up some island society with these people. David’s original intent had been to come here alone, but he needed help managing the boat. So he brought on Will. Will had insisted they bring others.
Will clung to the rigging as the boat began to toss and heave dramatically in the chop, considering his next words carefully. For his part, David wondered if it was time to lower the sails and kick in the motor. He was loathe to do so. They had brought what supplies they could, but gas had been hard to find. He was about to give that order when Will continued with his own thoughts.
“I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been hard to remain a Christian man through all of this.” Will said, his voice trembling. “I thought I’d done something wrong. I couldn’t figure why God had left me back with all of the sinners. Of course I got to know a lot of the folks in Anchorpoint pretty well. After a time I couldn’t really see most of them as sinner’s. So I wondered if the fever was part of God’s plan at all. Once you doubt the plan… the whole thing starts to crumble.”
David kept his eyes focused ahead. Over the many days it had taken to sail to the two islands, he’d taught a few of the men how to handle the rigging. He gestured for one of them to start furling the frontsails, then turned the boat away from the wind and fired up the motor. The gas would not be wasted if the engine got them safely to land. Will just prattled on in the background.
“Then suddenly you came to me with this crazy story of hidden islands and a safe place in the world, and I felt the light come over me again, like when I was young and doing my missionary work in Oaxaca. That’s when I knew the lord had chosen me for a special, truly sacred task… Do you catch my meaning?” Will asked.
“I picked you because you knew about boats, not because of religion.” David said.
“The Lord’s plan was for you to find me, and for us to come here. It’s a second garden.. A chance for renewal. I do not mean to let the serpent bite us this time.” Will explained. “I’m going to build a right kind of society out of this. A world free of sin and full of Christ. I hope you understand what I’m saying.”
David turned his full attention to the preacher. “I don’t care what you plan to do, Will. I brought myself here, and I intend to keep to myself. I recommend you let others do likewise.”
“I respect you, David, so you do what you need to. I’ll leave you be. But as for the others, I can’t do that. This is God’s work now, it’s not up to us.” With that Will stood and clambered onto the main deck so he could help with the remaining sails. David was happy to be rid of him. The man cared too much about what others were up to for his tastes.
Hunting Kodiak bear is the art of patience and distance. A hundred feet is as close as anyone would need to get to kill one, and most of the hunt -which can last days - takes place over far greater expanses. So over the years David had mastered seeing a bigger picture, at least in regards to the needs of the hunt. On the boat, seeking his new home, David had found it most useful to adopt his hunter‘s persona. For that reason, he could possibly be excused for failing to recognize the danger that had stood right next to him.
Chapter three: The Cross
Will Pearson sank his hands into the black, pebbly sand. The air was thick with an icy drizzle and the ground was virtually frozen, but he squirmed his fingers deep into the earth and let the sensation overwhelm him.
Down the beach, Kathryn Harper dragged their yellow further onto shore, it’s hull scrapping unpleasantly across dirt and rock. She then started unloading the first round of supplies and let Will to himself. She was a stocky woman with broad hips, small humor, dark curly hair. She was a person who seemed drawn towards physical labor who paid little mind to how others carried themselves.
Island B, as David called it, was as inhospitable a place as Will could imagine. The mountains shot into the sky before him like massive black arrowheads and the pine forest before them was a cluttered mass of branches and needles that offered no obvious path to its’ heart. David insisted the island was crawling with enough big game to last many lifetimes, but Will saw no signs of any kind of animals, not even a seagull. The tiny harbor they anchored in was the only spot not dominated by sharp cliff walls plunging straight into the gray depths of the ragging north pacific.
It’s no wonder such a place was never settled. Will realized.
The right people knew about it though. Someone once had plans for this place, but the fever had had no interest in those schemes. Will could see a set of steel I-beams arranged like perfect sentinels further down the beach, and segments of rusty aluminum sewer piping lay scattered here and there, most half buried in the sand. A building had been started here, then abandoned once the world began to die.
These scraps will come in handy when we build our permanent shelters.
Permanent shelters. As he dug his hands deeper, the reality of his situation grew more firm. This was Will’s new home. A new home meant the chance for a new start, not just a reboot of his own life, but a fresh beginning for the future of humanity. These islands offered a resurrection - a rebirth utterly blessed by God. Like the crescendo of an opera, the full power of this idea swept over Will and made him weep. He squeezed the bitter black sand between his fingers, then rested his forehead upon one of the smooth stones before him, and then allowed the tears to flow freely.
God had come into Will’s life when was only sixteen. While his friends agonized over which of them would lose their virginity first, young Will had instead discovered the power of a different kind of connection. He still remembered the moment of his calling with total clarity, though he was now thirty six years removed from that day. It was a memory that filled his heart each morning upon rising, and resonated throughout the day like the fading drone of a too loud concert.
Growing up in Anchorage, Will had lived a fairly average life. He had an older sister and stable parents. His father managed a local grocery store and his mother stayed home to raise the children. They maintained a simple three bedroom home near De Long lake just south of the airport that would later become the first step of his true salvation. It was a pleasant enough neighborhood, and as a kid he never minded the brutally short winter daytimes nor the face numbing cold that withered away the resolve of those not from the far north.
His parents believed in God, but hardly lived by the word the way Will someday would. They attended church on Easter, Christmas, and a smattering of random Sundays here and there just to play it safe. His father rarely spoke of religion, quietly assuming he had done his part in merely introducing his children to the institutions of faith, trusting that they would figure it out on their own. In Will's case, this turned out to be true enough.
One time his father summed up his opinion of faith by saying, “I like everything Jesus says about how we should live. My actions make me a Christian. I just can’t figure giving myself over to Him ‘fully and totally‘, as they say. It’s not me. I think my actions will be enough to show me the way to heaven.” And Jarred Pearson had been a good man. He gave to charities, never raised his fist in violence, and helped strangers when he saw they needed help.
None that mattered in the end. Unless his father silently repented on his deathbed, Will knew with a dread certainty that Jarred Pearson was in Hell or at least purgatory. The son had not been able to convince his father to submit to Jesus, and so the father’s soul was lost. This failure constituted Will’s greatest regret.
I will not let that happen to these people. They are God’s chosen lambs, and I his chosen shepherd.
When he turned sixteen, Will took a part time job at Kulkin Fisheries loading boxes of newly processed and packed frozen cod. It was an aimless pursuit. His high school grades were mediocre and Will had given little thought to where he might end up as an adult. Physical labor at a plant was about the only thing he really felt qualified for upon hitting job age.
On June 16th of 1977, following a smoke break, Will wandered into the heart of the plant where the vast hordes of dead fish were ground up and processed. He found the sight of all those glazed over fishes eyes zipping past on the conveyor belts oddly hypnotizing. He often dragged out his breaks and let the thousands of smelly corpses roll by on their way to the great mash up at the end, wondering what that must be like for them… if they could somehow still see him… and what they felt as they spied him on last legs of their last journey.
On that day of the calling, one of the cod slipped off the belt and slid across the ground till and stopped at Will’s feet. None of the other men noticed him over in the corner, nor had they seen the fish fall. There should have been nothing at all powerful or poignant about picking the cod up and throwing back upon the conveyor, but there was. As he reached down, Will felt the whole world shift into slow motion. When his fingers touched the slimy scales, a kind of shock surged up his arm and settled in the pit of his stomach. It struck that Will that Christ had been a fisherman and that in a grand and inexplicable fashion, Jesus had decided to reach out to a young man via that very precise connection. A calm flooded Will’s body as he bent upward, and he heard the singing of angels. It was a distant sound but certain. Overwhelmed and frightened, Will walked off the processing floor still carrying the Cod. He thought at first that something was wrong with him. He wondered if that hard hit he’d taken playing hockey the other day might have given him a concussion. Then he saw a small golden fish magnet on the back of a Ford truck and he just knew. He knew right than and there what the entire purpose of his life had been and was to be.
At least he thought he knew his purpose. Mississippi fever had changed that, and sent him on a course he could not have planned for. Now he understood that his landing here had been God’s plan all along. With two strokes God had painted over the world. One stroke was small stroke and virtually insignificant to the wide in which received a message boy through a fish. The other stroke was a one grand gesture that changed everything utterly - the near extermination of human life on earth. Will existed as the intersection point of these two lines, the focal that bound the great and the minor movements of God‘s map. The cross still had meaning in this new world.
“Should we head back?” Kathryn asked suddenly, breaking Will’s trance. He pulled himself from the ground and wobbled to his feet, still dizzy from the days spent aboard the schooner. Kathryn had unloaded the supply crates from the canoe and was waiting for his instruction. Will liked her. He had picked her to come with him to the island first. She seemed to the preacher like someone ready and eager to receive instruction.
“Not yet.” Will said. He marched to the piled crates and pulled them away from each other until he found the one he was looking for. He ripped it open and withdrew a woodsman’s axe. It had been his plan to bring it all along.
“First we’re going to cut down some good branches and build a cross. We’re going to plant it on this beach, so that it is the first thing the others see when they land. In that way, they will know the first and true purpose of this place… And who’s running things.”
Kathryn considered this for only a moment before simply nodding. Will hefted the axe over his shoulder, and lead her into the fringes of the shadowy pine forest of Island B.
Chapter four: Answers and Questions
“This better be for hanging laundry!” Marcus quipped. He’d spent a hard minute staring down the makeshift cross that Will had driven into the black sands before finally leveling his judgment. The preacher was already rowing the canoe back to the schooner, so it was Kathryn - taking a break from chopping down a nearby pine - who scowled at Marcus through ragged breaths.
“Will felt people would be inspired if that was the first thing they saw.” She sniped back. “We need hope.”
“Don’t you think that these sorts of decisions should be left to a vote? Maybe the people that volunteered to come to this place wanted to escape the old world?” Marcus smiled at Kathryn, hoping he might charm her. He knew himself to be a handsome man, though two years in Anchorpoint had done none of them any favors. He did what he could to keep his thin beard trimmed and had committed himself to a routine of simple exercises each morning to keep himself in shape. His dreadlocks had grown too long and unruly, creating a kind of roguish façade, though sometimes that could work for him.
Kathryn saw through the facade. “I’m sure the preacher would agree to a vote.” She replied smugly.
This time Marcus scowled. The odds were against him on this one. People would see the cross as a sign of hope. Marcus knew he could be charming when he tried, but he found himself debating the worth of this fight. Educated, handsome, and confident he might be, Marcus also respected the fact that his keen sense of logic was not always appreciated. Still, he had half a mind to take the cross down right now, before folks got used to it. He’d respect the vote after the vote had happened. But the way Kathryn gripped her axe, her knuckles turning red as she squeezed, gave him pause.
“This is not what I signed on for.” He muttered as he used his shirt to wipe the drizzle from his thin, gold rimmed glasses. Better be careful with these, he thought. Marcus had a back up pair with him, but if both broke, he might spend the rest of his life effectively blind. And I better take care of myself, he added. He was the only black person among the self designated ‘survivors’. He didn’t care for that label, since he felt pretty reasonably certain that people in other parts of the world would find a way to outlast Mississippi fever. Calling themselves ‘the survivors’ also invoked a kind of prophetic tone that bugged Marcus. He was an astronomer, a scientist, and a man of reason. He knew that the forces that governed the universe could be elusive in nature, but they were not mystical nor divine. They simply had not been discovered.
Curiosity more than anything had brought Marcus to the two islands. So far he’d only seen Island B, as David called it, but he was already amazed by the strangeness of this secret place. Why had they never appeared on a map? How were they kept secret? Marcus had spent much of the ride here theorizing about those questions, but had developed few satisfying theories. David had known of the islands, but so far the stoic man had been hesitant to discuss them in any kind of detail. Marcus did not believe this was done maliciously… it appeared the man simply had no real knowledge of the island’s purpose or history.
Remember… Fear played a role too. Marcus had worried that the folks at Anchorpoint were breaching the quarantine too early. Of course they had little choice in the matter. Supplies had mostly vanished and the sanitary conditions at the old terminal were deteriorating rapidly. Those were same issues that had driven him out of the Poker Flat Research Range. Had they been stocked for an apocalyptic event, the researchers and students at that observatory possibly could have shut themselves in and waited out the fever… And many of Marcus’ friends and colleagues might still be alive.
Dwelling on the past will get me nowhere. He was theoretical scientist, not a philosopher. He owned a keen mind and a PHD in astrophysics, and presumed he could deduce things about the island that the others could not. He‘d learned many things about the world in his many years of study. For example, he’d quickly discerned that the black sand was not volcanic rock, but rather a placer deposit. This denser material had simply remained while the lighter quartz common to most beaches eroded away.
That was a relief. The Aluetian islands about a thousand miles north were a hotbed of volcanic activity, as were many of the islands south, like Hawaii. The survivor’s chances of actually surviving improved greatly in Marcus’ opinion if the islands were stable. As small as Island B was, an eruption of any size would probably be fatal to everyone on it.
Marcus walked up to the tree-line. He stopped short of going in though, admitting silently to himself that the thick pine forest had a eerie presence to it. It was very easy to imagine that someone or something was back there, watching… learning… preparing. That was silly. The few signs of human development that lay scattered about the beach suggested that no one had been here for quite some time, certainly not since the outbreak of Mississippi fever. But feelings were feelings, and Marcus decided he’d deal with the deeper woods in the pleasure of company.
Even from the outside Marcus could see the decaying mounds of fallen trees, some fresh, some so old as to be barely recognizable as such. Ferns and mosses covered the undergrowth, competing with the stacked pines for what little light might breach the canopy. He’d need more data, but his initial impression of the forest was that it was old growth… virtually untouched by the presence of man.
That sent Marcus down another path of questioning. The people who had come here had not disturbed the woods. Why not? What lay beyond the shores that had kept them close to the water? The possibilities were too numerous to reckon with easily.
Of course that was the beauty of science and reason. Many people seemed to think research and methodology was all about answers. Maybe to some scientists. For Marcus, research was about questions. The universe was a profoundly intriguing and mysterious place, and each new discovery had a tendency to raise several new questions. Science did not exist to sate the curiosity of man, but rather to stoke it. How many times had Marcus gazed into the heavens through the telescope and wonder about the make up of it all? How satisfying a life he had once lead in which every unlocked bolt opened the way to another perplexing path.
This island presents a hundred lifetimes of questions, especially considering the resources I have with me. I can be happy again.
That was why that cross bothered him so much. It stood there like a monolithic answer to every person’s question, a rebuttal against mystery and inquisitiveness. A person plagued by doubt and hardship might look at that and think, “Why trouble myself anymore? Why worry about the things beyond me? Comfort resides in this symbol. Why look elsewhere or bother to pursue truth?”
The cross had to go, before it become commonplace in this new society. An opportunity for a new kind of social and philosophical firmament had by some freak chance been stumbled upon. Marcus was damned sure not going to let this new world be hijacked by the foolish and the fearful.
Chapter five: The Message on the Window
Min Jung had brought about the end of the world. No one would think that to look upon her, but their perceptions were not beholden to the truth. A petite, sixteen year old, Min’s appearance hardly matched anyone’s idea of the angel of death. She was hard to notice at all actually. She rarely spoke and kept her eyes down when talking to others, and even when she did look up, her long black hair would close about her face and shroud the details of her gaze. When asked questions, she tried to answer them with a simple yes, no, or if needed, a brief declarative statement. Min preferred things this way.
That is why the fever will never catch me… it cannot see me.
There were other reasons too, but she had not learned the true cause of her survival until a just a few months ago. Min’s mother, father and sister had also avoided the contagion and they had all lived together as a family in the decaying airport terminal. Min was happy at first. But as the first year of isolation gave way to the second, she become increasingly convinced that they had only delayed their deaths. The more she thought about all that had been lost out beyond the fence-line, the more her sorrow grew. It was a heartbreak that slowly morphed into real pain, then changed once more into a weighty shadow clinging to her back day and night. This shadow fed on the fears and anxieties of everyone trapped in the terminal, swelling so that Min felt as though her knees might suddenly buckle from the strain. The burden shattered her spirit. Min often spent entire days tucked within the comfort of her little red sleeping bag, her only sanctuary in the congested nightmare that Anchorpoint had become.
Why lug this shadow around? She thought on those horrid days. If I keep it here in my bed with me, perhaps it will not be able to feed on the sadness anymore. Perhaps it will shrink down and die.
The shadow did not shrink. It just kept nibbling away at little Min Jung, a shy Korean-American girl who possessed none of the life tools needed to combat such a force.
Some days it left her alone, wandering off into the terminal to taste the fears of the other folks trapped there. On one such rainy day in late May, relieved of her awful load, Min summoned enough energy to crawl out from her bed. Her family had erected a private area of sorts by hanging some tarp, but another family was on the other side and their presence just beyond the thin ‘wall’ was still too much for Min to bear. She crept from the makeshift tent and journeyed into the terminal proper.
Two years in, Anchorpoint had transformed from a haven to a land of the walking dead. Dirty hair, the stench of mingled smoke, sweat, trash… a place where moaning and sniffling was more common than speech. Everyone’s clothes needed washing. Or better yet, it all needed to be burned and replaced. The little talk there was focused solely on the need to clean out resupply. Plans for an expedition formed. Her parents whispered of this at night, their eyes alight with hope as they huddled together under blankets in the pitch black of the terminal.
Min Jung knew that if they went into the city they would die. That had once seemed like a good idea. She wanted to see that world again even if it meant an end to her short existence. So on that day, free from the shadow, she shuffled over to one of the big windows overlooking the tarmac. Abandoned planes gazed back at her, one with a collapsed wing and another that had titled onto its side after a particularly brutal storm, it‘s left wing shattered under the weight of the fuselage. The cockpit windows looked like eyes, and she wondered if planes had souls that went to another world after they died.
The sky was thick with steady a rain that pattered against the roof with sharp, rapid thuds. At first Min studied the world beyond the window, at least what could be seen of it on such a gray day. Then slowly her eyes shifted focus, and her attention drifted the pools and rivers of rainwater sliding down the glass. Initially, the dance of the droplets was merely beautiful, a small, private pleasure in a dying world that no longer offered grand entertainments.
But that little enjoyment somehow sparked an inferno of joy. Min sensed that something was happening that was greater than merely being liberated from the shadow. She seized onto this feeling. Hoping she might hold onto it forever, Min directed the entirety of her awareness towards the window water dance. The rest of the world became fuzzy and indistinct, then a gentle pain flickered along the back of her eyes as she strained to not blink. The weight of her body vanished and she was aware that her feet were leaving the ground/ Somehow she was floating sideways even though her eyes remained fixed on the vertical plane of the window.
It hit her like a thunderbolt.
The patterns on the window were not random. They formed pictures and words. Some the words were incomplete, and some were in languages she did not know, but she recognized them clearly as signals, signs, and fragmented parts of a larger message. That was how the spirits revealed themselves to Min, and told her of their origin and purpose. They told they had come to wash away evil, and that they were nearly done. They told her there would soon be a spring time and that the world would be seeded again. They told Min that all of this had happened through her and by her, that they had needed a vessel to carry out their plans and whims, and how all her life she had been beholden to their commands whether she had known it or not.
They went on and told her that now that she knew about them, the spirits could be more than just puppet masters. For all that she had done for them, they would now help and listen to her. They called her mistress, and they showed her their power. No one else saw what was happening, so Min asked why. The spirits explained that their actions could be both great and secret at the same time, and that if they wished it, they could shake the very firmament of the world and chose for the rumbling to not be noticed. “We are just like you in that way.” They said. “Beyond reproach, for our actions are never witnessed unless we deem them worthy of sight.”
When Min finally stepped away from the window, it was because night had fallen. Though now in darkness, she knew she need not concern herself with the shadow any longer. And when the preacher man Will came to her and asked if she would join him and some others on a flight away from this dreadful place, Min simply smiled and nodded. The spirits had prepared this too, and needed her to go forth to reseed the world. She did not wonder how Will had noticed her or decided upon her. The spirits had clearly whispered to him in his dreams to go and fetch her.
They later explained that Min’s parents and sister could not come. She struggled for many days with this. To leave her family she would have to runaway, for they never agree to let her go. Her father had been so happy that they had survived together. How unique an achievement that was in this new cut off and abandoned world. In the end, Min realized this choice was bigger than her needs or her families needs. For how many ages had the spirits plotted and waited to launch their purge? They needed her to finish the work, and this purpose mattered more than all other concerns.
She left a note saying she loved them and would hold them in her heart always, then snuck away in the night with the preacher and the rest of his assembled band. During the week long voyage to the islands, very little effort was made by anyone aboard to talk to Min. A blonde girl named Siona tried the hardest, but as always, Min kept her responses brief and asked no questions of her own. Eventually Siona wandered off. The spirits were all the companions Min felt she needed.
She was the second to last person to be ferried from the schooner to the island. Kathryn seemed almost shocked when Min appeared and climbed down the rope ladder, the two boats rubbing against each other violently and threatening to throw both women into the bitter cold of the ocean. Min suspected that the woman had forgotten Min was even aboard, and had probably believed this to be her last trip. Siona, now the only person left on the schooner, lowered the few remaining supplies into the canoe, then Kathryn pushed off. The older woman did not ask Min to paddle or talk at all in fact. Min knew in her heart that none of the others expected anything from her, or even to be capable of contributing in anyway that mattered. She also knew how completely wrong they were.
For as the canoe approached the island, the voices of the spirits came alive in ways they never had before. Like a flock of disparate birds, they sang to her a celebration for her arrival. She could feel their songs tugging at her body, pulling her forward and lending speed to the canoe. Kathryn paddled harder, grunting with exertion as she unwittingly heeded the spirits commands. Of course she could not consciously hear the songs, but their power shaped her actions anyway.
Her body tingling with anticipation, Min leaped from the canoe as soon as she sensed the water was shallow enough to stand in. She waded through the low surf and emerged from the gray waters like some siren. She was no longer wearing jeans, a coat and life vest, but instead a white dress that somehow both clung to her small frame and swirled freely in the wind at the same time.
Yet still no one noticed Min. The spirits had hidden her as they hid themselves. Without a single backwards glance, Min strode up the beach and walked right into the forest. Within was the place they were summoning her to, and the trials and struggles of those trying to make a new life for themselves here on the beach meant nothing.
What Min had not sensed, since it was small and she was distracted by the strange and haunting beauty of the spirits’ song, was that a little shadow was in the canoe with her. It had climbed in after she had, and settled into the bottom of the boat where black dirt and seawater sloshed together. There it hung onto a supply crate set between the two women. Because she had so focused on the trees and the song, Min had not seen the shadow follow her up the beach, sliding along the ground like a crab made of silky ink, nor could she have noticed it watching her, waiting for her to enter the tree-line. Once she was gone, swallowed up amongst the branches and needles, the shadow looked about and assessed its situation.
The survivor’s worked with grim faces, set to the task of building their shelters. They could not be bothered with a small, dark shape hiding amongst the rocks and stones. They had not seen Min, so why should they see something even less obvious? So the shadow watched and learned as they worked, and sought out their frailties. There was more here than there had been at the other place, it realized. Hope and promise had raised up all their aspirations. At the other place there had been no hope. Here, the hope blazed so brightly that the shadow was overcome with delight, for here there was enough hope to feed for a thousand lifetimes, and here it could swell to a size able to at last cover all the world in its slithering darkness.
Chapter two: Arrival
Island B rose up out of the foggy north pacific like some blackened and misshapen moon while the mists rolled across the piney mountains like vaporous ghosts. Bitter winds whipped at the sails as massive waves crashed against the rocky slate shores. The collective joy of the survivors at having finally arrived was sucked from the air in an instant as full recognition of the cold isolation of this place took hold on their imaginations.
Save for David.
David felt neither joy nor apprehension. He knew they were just islands, and he also knew, better than any of them, that the test for survival had not ended, just entered a new phase. However, Mississippi fever would never touch this place, which made it perfect for David’s purposes.
Will, the grey haired and grey eyed preacher who had appointed himself as David’s second mate, climbed carefully over the spray shield and slide into the cockpit next to David. The preacher presumed a familiarity he had not yet earned in David’s estimation, and seemed to think that the two of them were in charge of this ‘mission’ as he called it. David did not see it that way.
“I’m not sure I even want to know how you found out about this place.” The preacher stated. He was a big man, like David, but barrel-chested and stout where David was lean and chiseled. Will’s hands and arms were meaty and red, and his hair oddly kempt considering the circumstances. He had puffy cheeks and a round nose that belied his probing and intelligent eyes.
“It was no big deal learning about these islands.” David replied flatly. He had a deep timbre and tended to look past people when he spoke to them. David had developed the habit during his long years as a trophy hunter and wilderness guide. If his attention got lost looking at people and not the surroundings, he once decided, then he was liable to miss something that really mattered.
It certainly mattered now. David knew about boats, but these waters were unfamiliar, and running aground this far out would be disastrous. “Tell those girls up front to keep an eye out for rocks.” David said.
Will nodded and passed the information on to another man, who wound his way through the ropes and guidelines towards the front of the boat. He then moved in closer, speaking in low, conspiratorially tone. “We should talk about how things will be handled at the island.”
“What do you mean?” David asked. He was not especially concerned about setting up some island society with these people. David’s original intent had been to come here alone, but he needed help managing the boat. So he brought on Will. Will had insisted they bring others.
Will clung to the rigging as the boat began to toss and heave dramatically in the chop, considering his next words carefully. For his part, David wondered if it was time to lower the sails and kick in the motor. He was loathe to do so. They had brought what supplies they could, but gas had been hard to find. He was about to give that order when Will continued with his own thoughts.
“I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t been hard to remain a Christian man through all of this.” Will said, his voice trembling. “I thought I’d done something wrong. I couldn’t figure why God had left me back with all of the sinners. Of course I got to know a lot of the folks in Anchorpoint pretty well. After a time I couldn’t really see most of them as sinner’s. So I wondered if the fever was part of God’s plan at all. Once you doubt the plan… the whole thing starts to crumble.”
David kept his eyes focused ahead. Over the many days it had taken to sail to the two islands, he’d taught a few of the men how to handle the rigging. He gestured for one of them to start furling the frontsails, then turned the boat away from the wind and fired up the motor. The gas would not be wasted if the engine got them safely to land. Will just prattled on in the background.
“Then suddenly you came to me with this crazy story of hidden islands and a safe place in the world, and I felt the light come over me again, like when I was young and doing my missionary work in Oaxaca. That’s when I knew the lord had chosen me for a special, truly sacred task… Do you catch my meaning?” Will asked.
“I picked you because you knew about boats, not because of religion.” David said.
“The Lord’s plan was for you to find me, and for us to come here. It’s a second garden.. A chance for renewal. I do not mean to let the serpent bite us this time.” Will explained. “I’m going to build a right kind of society out of this. A world free of sin and full of Christ. I hope you understand what I’m saying.”
David turned his full attention to the preacher. “I don’t care what you plan to do, Will. I brought myself here, and I intend to keep to myself. I recommend you let others do likewise.”
“I respect you, David, so you do what you need to. I’ll leave you be. But as for the others, I can’t do that. This is God’s work now, it’s not up to us.” With that Will stood and clambered onto the main deck so he could help with the remaining sails. David was happy to be rid of him. The man cared too much about what others were up to for his tastes.
Hunting Kodiak bear is the art of patience and distance. A hundred feet is as close as anyone would need to get to kill one, and most of the hunt -which can last days - takes place over far greater expanses. So over the years David had mastered seeing a bigger picture, at least in regards to the needs of the hunt. On the boat, seeking his new home, David had found it most useful to adopt his hunter‘s persona. For that reason, he could possibly be excused for failing to recognize the danger that had stood right next to him.
Chapter three: The Cross
Will Pearson sank his hands into the black, pebbly sand. The air was thick with an icy drizzle and the ground was virtually frozen, but he squirmed his fingers deep into the earth and let the sensation overwhelm him.
Down the beach, Kathryn Harper dragged their yellow further onto shore, it’s hull scrapping unpleasantly across dirt and rock. She then started unloading the first round of supplies and let Will to himself. She was a stocky woman with broad hips, small humor, dark curly hair. She was a person who seemed drawn towards physical labor who paid little mind to how others carried themselves.
Island B, as David called it, was as inhospitable a place as Will could imagine. The mountains shot into the sky before him like massive black arrowheads and the pine forest before them was a cluttered mass of branches and needles that offered no obvious path to its’ heart. David insisted the island was crawling with enough big game to last many lifetimes, but Will saw no signs of any kind of animals, not even a seagull. The tiny harbor they anchored in was the only spot not dominated by sharp cliff walls plunging straight into the gray depths of the ragging north pacific.
It’s no wonder such a place was never settled. Will realized.
The right people knew about it though. Someone once had plans for this place, but the fever had had no interest in those schemes. Will could see a set of steel I-beams arranged like perfect sentinels further down the beach, and segments of rusty aluminum sewer piping lay scattered here and there, most half buried in the sand. A building had been started here, then abandoned once the world began to die.
These scraps will come in handy when we build our permanent shelters.
Permanent shelters. As he dug his hands deeper, the reality of his situation grew more firm. This was Will’s new home. A new home meant the chance for a new start, not just a reboot of his own life, but a fresh beginning for the future of humanity. These islands offered a resurrection - a rebirth utterly blessed by God. Like the crescendo of an opera, the full power of this idea swept over Will and made him weep. He squeezed the bitter black sand between his fingers, then rested his forehead upon one of the smooth stones before him, and then allowed the tears to flow freely.
God had come into Will’s life when was only sixteen. While his friends agonized over which of them would lose their virginity first, young Will had instead discovered the power of a different kind of connection. He still remembered the moment of his calling with total clarity, though he was now thirty six years removed from that day. It was a memory that filled his heart each morning upon rising, and resonated throughout the day like the fading drone of a too loud concert.
Growing up in Anchorage, Will had lived a fairly average life. He had an older sister and stable parents. His father managed a local grocery store and his mother stayed home to raise the children. They maintained a simple three bedroom home near De Long lake just south of the airport that would later become the first step of his true salvation. It was a pleasant enough neighborhood, and as a kid he never minded the brutally short winter daytimes nor the face numbing cold that withered away the resolve of those not from the far north.
His parents believed in God, but hardly lived by the word the way Will someday would. They attended church on Easter, Christmas, and a smattering of random Sundays here and there just to play it safe. His father rarely spoke of religion, quietly assuming he had done his part in merely introducing his children to the institutions of faith, trusting that they would figure it out on their own. In Will's case, this turned out to be true enough.
One time his father summed up his opinion of faith by saying, “I like everything Jesus says about how we should live. My actions make me a Christian. I just can’t figure giving myself over to Him ‘fully and totally‘, as they say. It’s not me. I think my actions will be enough to show me the way to heaven.” And Jarred Pearson had been a good man. He gave to charities, never raised his fist in violence, and helped strangers when he saw they needed help.
None that mattered in the end. Unless his father silently repented on his deathbed, Will knew with a dread certainty that Jarred Pearson was in Hell or at least purgatory. The son had not been able to convince his father to submit to Jesus, and so the father’s soul was lost. This failure constituted Will’s greatest regret.
I will not let that happen to these people. They are God’s chosen lambs, and I his chosen shepherd.
When he turned sixteen, Will took a part time job at Kulkin Fisheries loading boxes of newly processed and packed frozen cod. It was an aimless pursuit. His high school grades were mediocre and Will had given little thought to where he might end up as an adult. Physical labor at a plant was about the only thing he really felt qualified for upon hitting job age.
On June 16th of 1977, following a smoke break, Will wandered into the heart of the plant where the vast hordes of dead fish were ground up and processed. He found the sight of all those glazed over fishes eyes zipping past on the conveyor belts oddly hypnotizing. He often dragged out his breaks and let the thousands of smelly corpses roll by on their way to the great mash up at the end, wondering what that must be like for them… if they could somehow still see him… and what they felt as they spied him on last legs of their last journey.
On that day of the calling, one of the cod slipped off the belt and slid across the ground till and stopped at Will’s feet. None of the other men noticed him over in the corner, nor had they seen the fish fall. There should have been nothing at all powerful or poignant about picking the cod up and throwing back upon the conveyor, but there was. As he reached down, Will felt the whole world shift into slow motion. When his fingers touched the slimy scales, a kind of shock surged up his arm and settled in the pit of his stomach. It struck that Will that Christ had been a fisherman and that in a grand and inexplicable fashion, Jesus had decided to reach out to a young man via that very precise connection. A calm flooded Will’s body as he bent upward, and he heard the singing of angels. It was a distant sound but certain. Overwhelmed and frightened, Will walked off the processing floor still carrying the Cod. He thought at first that something was wrong with him. He wondered if that hard hit he’d taken playing hockey the other day might have given him a concussion. Then he saw a small golden fish magnet on the back of a Ford truck and he just knew. He knew right than and there what the entire purpose of his life had been and was to be.
At least he thought he knew his purpose. Mississippi fever had changed that, and sent him on a course he could not have planned for. Now he understood that his landing here had been God’s plan all along. With two strokes God had painted over the world. One stroke was small stroke and virtually insignificant to the wide in which received a message boy through a fish. The other stroke was a one grand gesture that changed everything utterly - the near extermination of human life on earth. Will existed as the intersection point of these two lines, the focal that bound the great and the minor movements of God‘s map. The cross still had meaning in this new world.
“Should we head back?” Kathryn asked suddenly, breaking Will’s trance. He pulled himself from the ground and wobbled to his feet, still dizzy from the days spent aboard the schooner. Kathryn had unloaded the supply crates from the canoe and was waiting for his instruction. Will liked her. He had picked her to come with him to the island first. She seemed to the preacher like someone ready and eager to receive instruction.
“Not yet.” Will said. He marched to the piled crates and pulled them away from each other until he found the one he was looking for. He ripped it open and withdrew a woodsman’s axe. It had been his plan to bring it all along.
“First we’re going to cut down some good branches and build a cross. We’re going to plant it on this beach, so that it is the first thing the others see when they land. In that way, they will know the first and true purpose of this place… And who’s running things.”
Kathryn considered this for only a moment before simply nodding. Will hefted the axe over his shoulder, and lead her into the fringes of the shadowy pine forest of Island B.
Chapter four: Answers and Questions
“This better be for hanging laundry!” Marcus quipped. He’d spent a hard minute staring down the makeshift cross that Will had driven into the black sands before finally leveling his judgment. The preacher was already rowing the canoe back to the schooner, so it was Kathryn - taking a break from chopping down a nearby pine - who scowled at Marcus through ragged breaths.
“Will felt people would be inspired if that was the first thing they saw.” She sniped back. “We need hope.”
“Don’t you think that these sorts of decisions should be left to a vote? Maybe the people that volunteered to come to this place wanted to escape the old world?” Marcus smiled at Kathryn, hoping he might charm her. He knew himself to be a handsome man, though two years in Anchorpoint had done none of them any favors. He did what he could to keep his thin beard trimmed and had committed himself to a routine of simple exercises each morning to keep himself in shape. His dreadlocks had grown too long and unruly, creating a kind of roguish façade, though sometimes that could work for him.
Kathryn saw through the facade. “I’m sure the preacher would agree to a vote.” She replied smugly.
This time Marcus scowled. The odds were against him on this one. People would see the cross as a sign of hope. Marcus knew he could be charming when he tried, but he found himself debating the worth of this fight. Educated, handsome, and confident he might be, Marcus also respected the fact that his keen sense of logic was not always appreciated. Still, he had half a mind to take the cross down right now, before folks got used to it. He’d respect the vote after the vote had happened. But the way Kathryn gripped her axe, her knuckles turning red as she squeezed, gave him pause.
“This is not what I signed on for.” He muttered as he used his shirt to wipe the drizzle from his thin, gold rimmed glasses. Better be careful with these, he thought. Marcus had a back up pair with him, but if both broke, he might spend the rest of his life effectively blind. And I better take care of myself, he added. He was the only black person among the self designated ‘survivors’. He didn’t care for that label, since he felt pretty reasonably certain that people in other parts of the world would find a way to outlast Mississippi fever. Calling themselves ‘the survivors’ also invoked a kind of prophetic tone that bugged Marcus. He was an astronomer, a scientist, and a man of reason. He knew that the forces that governed the universe could be elusive in nature, but they were not mystical nor divine. They simply had not been discovered.
Curiosity more than anything had brought Marcus to the two islands. So far he’d only seen Island B, as David called it, but he was already amazed by the strangeness of this secret place. Why had they never appeared on a map? How were they kept secret? Marcus had spent much of the ride here theorizing about those questions, but had developed few satisfying theories. David had known of the islands, but so far the stoic man had been hesitant to discuss them in any kind of detail. Marcus did not believe this was done maliciously… it appeared the man simply had no real knowledge of the island’s purpose or history.
Remember… Fear played a role too. Marcus had worried that the folks at Anchorpoint were breaching the quarantine too early. Of course they had little choice in the matter. Supplies had mostly vanished and the sanitary conditions at the old terminal were deteriorating rapidly. Those were same issues that had driven him out of the Poker Flat Research Range. Had they been stocked for an apocalyptic event, the researchers and students at that observatory possibly could have shut themselves in and waited out the fever… And many of Marcus’ friends and colleagues might still be alive.
Dwelling on the past will get me nowhere. He was theoretical scientist, not a philosopher. He owned a keen mind and a PHD in astrophysics, and presumed he could deduce things about the island that the others could not. He‘d learned many things about the world in his many years of study. For example, he’d quickly discerned that the black sand was not volcanic rock, but rather a placer deposit. This denser material had simply remained while the lighter quartz common to most beaches eroded away.
That was a relief. The Aluetian islands about a thousand miles north were a hotbed of volcanic activity, as were many of the islands south, like Hawaii. The survivor’s chances of actually surviving improved greatly in Marcus’ opinion if the islands were stable. As small as Island B was, an eruption of any size would probably be fatal to everyone on it.
Marcus walked up to the tree-line. He stopped short of going in though, admitting silently to himself that the thick pine forest had a eerie presence to it. It was very easy to imagine that someone or something was back there, watching… learning… preparing. That was silly. The few signs of human development that lay scattered about the beach suggested that no one had been here for quite some time, certainly not since the outbreak of Mississippi fever. But feelings were feelings, and Marcus decided he’d deal with the deeper woods in the pleasure of company.
Even from the outside Marcus could see the decaying mounds of fallen trees, some fresh, some so old as to be barely recognizable as such. Ferns and mosses covered the undergrowth, competing with the stacked pines for what little light might breach the canopy. He’d need more data, but his initial impression of the forest was that it was old growth… virtually untouched by the presence of man.
That sent Marcus down another path of questioning. The people who had come here had not disturbed the woods. Why not? What lay beyond the shores that had kept them close to the water? The possibilities were too numerous to reckon with easily.
Of course that was the beauty of science and reason. Many people seemed to think research and methodology was all about answers. Maybe to some scientists. For Marcus, research was about questions. The universe was a profoundly intriguing and mysterious place, and each new discovery had a tendency to raise several new questions. Science did not exist to sate the curiosity of man, but rather to stoke it. How many times had Marcus gazed into the heavens through the telescope and wonder about the make up of it all? How satisfying a life he had once lead in which every unlocked bolt opened the way to another perplexing path.
This island presents a hundred lifetimes of questions, especially considering the resources I have with me. I can be happy again.
That was why that cross bothered him so much. It stood there like a monolithic answer to every person’s question, a rebuttal against mystery and inquisitiveness. A person plagued by doubt and hardship might look at that and think, “Why trouble myself anymore? Why worry about the things beyond me? Comfort resides in this symbol. Why look elsewhere or bother to pursue truth?”
The cross had to go, before it become commonplace in this new society. An opportunity for a new kind of social and philosophical firmament had by some freak chance been stumbled upon. Marcus was damned sure not going to let this new world be hijacked by the foolish and the fearful.
Chapter five: The Message on the Window
Min Jung had brought about the end of the world. No one would think that to look upon her, but their perceptions were not beholden to the truth. A petite, sixteen year old, Min’s appearance hardly matched anyone’s idea of the angel of death. She was hard to notice at all actually. She rarely spoke and kept her eyes down when talking to others, and even when she did look up, her long black hair would close about her face and shroud the details of her gaze. When asked questions, she tried to answer them with a simple yes, no, or if needed, a brief declarative statement. Min preferred things this way.
That is why the fever will never catch me… it cannot see me.
There were other reasons too, but she had not learned the true cause of her survival until a just a few months ago. Min’s mother, father and sister had also avoided the contagion and they had all lived together as a family in the decaying airport terminal. Min was happy at first. But as the first year of isolation gave way to the second, she become increasingly convinced that they had only delayed their deaths. The more she thought about all that had been lost out beyond the fence-line, the more her sorrow grew. It was a heartbreak that slowly morphed into real pain, then changed once more into a weighty shadow clinging to her back day and night. This shadow fed on the fears and anxieties of everyone trapped in the terminal, swelling so that Min felt as though her knees might suddenly buckle from the strain. The burden shattered her spirit. Min often spent entire days tucked within the comfort of her little red sleeping bag, her only sanctuary in the congested nightmare that Anchorpoint had become.
Why lug this shadow around? She thought on those horrid days. If I keep it here in my bed with me, perhaps it will not be able to feed on the sadness anymore. Perhaps it will shrink down and die.
The shadow did not shrink. It just kept nibbling away at little Min Jung, a shy Korean-American girl who possessed none of the life tools needed to combat such a force.
Some days it left her alone, wandering off into the terminal to taste the fears of the other folks trapped there. On one such rainy day in late May, relieved of her awful load, Min summoned enough energy to crawl out from her bed. Her family had erected a private area of sorts by hanging some tarp, but another family was on the other side and their presence just beyond the thin ‘wall’ was still too much for Min to bear. She crept from the makeshift tent and journeyed into the terminal proper.
Two years in, Anchorpoint had transformed from a haven to a land of the walking dead. Dirty hair, the stench of mingled smoke, sweat, trash… a place where moaning and sniffling was more common than speech. Everyone’s clothes needed washing. Or better yet, it all needed to be burned and replaced. The little talk there was focused solely on the need to clean out resupply. Plans for an expedition formed. Her parents whispered of this at night, their eyes alight with hope as they huddled together under blankets in the pitch black of the terminal.
Min Jung knew that if they went into the city they would die. That had once seemed like a good idea. She wanted to see that world again even if it meant an end to her short existence. So on that day, free from the shadow, she shuffled over to one of the big windows overlooking the tarmac. Abandoned planes gazed back at her, one with a collapsed wing and another that had titled onto its side after a particularly brutal storm, it‘s left wing shattered under the weight of the fuselage. The cockpit windows looked like eyes, and she wondered if planes had souls that went to another world after they died.
The sky was thick with steady a rain that pattered against the roof with sharp, rapid thuds. At first Min studied the world beyond the window, at least what could be seen of it on such a gray day. Then slowly her eyes shifted focus, and her attention drifted the pools and rivers of rainwater sliding down the glass. Initially, the dance of the droplets was merely beautiful, a small, private pleasure in a dying world that no longer offered grand entertainments.
But that little enjoyment somehow sparked an inferno of joy. Min sensed that something was happening that was greater than merely being liberated from the shadow. She seized onto this feeling. Hoping she might hold onto it forever, Min directed the entirety of her awareness towards the window water dance. The rest of the world became fuzzy and indistinct, then a gentle pain flickered along the back of her eyes as she strained to not blink. The weight of her body vanished and she was aware that her feet were leaving the ground/ Somehow she was floating sideways even though her eyes remained fixed on the vertical plane of the window.
It hit her like a thunderbolt.
The patterns on the window were not random. They formed pictures and words. Some the words were incomplete, and some were in languages she did not know, but she recognized them clearly as signals, signs, and fragmented parts of a larger message. That was how the spirits revealed themselves to Min, and told her of their origin and purpose. They told they had come to wash away evil, and that they were nearly done. They told her there would soon be a spring time and that the world would be seeded again. They told Min that all of this had happened through her and by her, that they had needed a vessel to carry out their plans and whims, and how all her life she had been beholden to their commands whether she had known it or not.
They went on and told her that now that she knew about them, the spirits could be more than just puppet masters. For all that she had done for them, they would now help and listen to her. They called her mistress, and they showed her their power. No one else saw what was happening, so Min asked why. The spirits explained that their actions could be both great and secret at the same time, and that if they wished it, they could shake the very firmament of the world and chose for the rumbling to not be noticed. “We are just like you in that way.” They said. “Beyond reproach, for our actions are never witnessed unless we deem them worthy of sight.”
When Min finally stepped away from the window, it was because night had fallen. Though now in darkness, she knew she need not concern herself with the shadow any longer. And when the preacher man Will came to her and asked if she would join him and some others on a flight away from this dreadful place, Min simply smiled and nodded. The spirits had prepared this too, and needed her to go forth to reseed the world. She did not wonder how Will had noticed her or decided upon her. The spirits had clearly whispered to him in his dreams to go and fetch her.
They later explained that Min’s parents and sister could not come. She struggled for many days with this. To leave her family she would have to runaway, for they never agree to let her go. Her father had been so happy that they had survived together. How unique an achievement that was in this new cut off and abandoned world. In the end, Min realized this choice was bigger than her needs or her families needs. For how many ages had the spirits plotted and waited to launch their purge? They needed her to finish the work, and this purpose mattered more than all other concerns.
She left a note saying she loved them and would hold them in her heart always, then snuck away in the night with the preacher and the rest of his assembled band. During the week long voyage to the islands, very little effort was made by anyone aboard to talk to Min. A blonde girl named Siona tried the hardest, but as always, Min kept her responses brief and asked no questions of her own. Eventually Siona wandered off. The spirits were all the companions Min felt she needed.
She was the second to last person to be ferried from the schooner to the island. Kathryn seemed almost shocked when Min appeared and climbed down the rope ladder, the two boats rubbing against each other violently and threatening to throw both women into the bitter cold of the ocean. Min suspected that the woman had forgotten Min was even aboard, and had probably believed this to be her last trip. Siona, now the only person left on the schooner, lowered the few remaining supplies into the canoe, then Kathryn pushed off. The older woman did not ask Min to paddle or talk at all in fact. Min knew in her heart that none of the others expected anything from her, or even to be capable of contributing in anyway that mattered. She also knew how completely wrong they were.
For as the canoe approached the island, the voices of the spirits came alive in ways they never had before. Like a flock of disparate birds, they sang to her a celebration for her arrival. She could feel their songs tugging at her body, pulling her forward and lending speed to the canoe. Kathryn paddled harder, grunting with exertion as she unwittingly heeded the spirits commands. Of course she could not consciously hear the songs, but their power shaped her actions anyway.
Her body tingling with anticipation, Min leaped from the canoe as soon as she sensed the water was shallow enough to stand in. She waded through the low surf and emerged from the gray waters like some siren. She was no longer wearing jeans, a coat and life vest, but instead a white dress that somehow both clung to her small frame and swirled freely in the wind at the same time.
Yet still no one noticed Min. The spirits had hidden her as they hid themselves. Without a single backwards glance, Min strode up the beach and walked right into the forest. Within was the place they were summoning her to, and the trials and struggles of those trying to make a new life for themselves here on the beach meant nothing.
What Min had not sensed, since it was small and she was distracted by the strange and haunting beauty of the spirits’ song, was that a little shadow was in the canoe with her. It had climbed in after she had, and settled into the bottom of the boat where black dirt and seawater sloshed together. There it hung onto a supply crate set between the two women. Because she had so focused on the trees and the song, Min had not seen the shadow follow her up the beach, sliding along the ground like a crab made of silky ink, nor could she have noticed it watching her, waiting for her to enter the tree-line. Once she was gone, swallowed up amongst the branches and needles, the shadow looked about and assessed its situation.
The survivor’s worked with grim faces, set to the task of building their shelters. They could not be bothered with a small, dark shape hiding amongst the rocks and stones. They had not seen Min, so why should they see something even less obvious? So the shadow watched and learned as they worked, and sought out their frailties. There was more here than there had been at the other place, it realized. Hope and promise had raised up all their aspirations. At the other place there had been no hope. Here, the hope blazed so brightly that the shadow was overcome with delight, for here there was enough hope to feed for a thousand lifetimes, and here it could swell to a size able to at last cover all the world in its slithering darkness.
Chapter six: Gutted
The Boundary
had become a ghost ship. Scavenged to the bone, Siona wandered about its once
cluttered main cabin like a spirit haunting an abandoned and derelict home.
Even the doors had been removed and hauled over to the beach, where they might
find new lives as tables or beds. The only thing the survivors had left was the
stale reek of old sweat and unwashed bodies.
She drifted
on, through the midships cabin, up to the galley, and then into the cramped foc’sle,
a small space at the front of the boat that the girls had used to escape from
the posturing men on deck. Everyone knew David was in charge, but beneath that
awareness there existed a silent, barely perceptible scuffle for second in
command. Siona had entertained the idea of throwing her own hat in the ring.
She was educated after all. Beyond her book learning, though, she struggled to
identify what traits she had to offer that any of these people might respect. In the end, she decided, it was better to let
those who knew a thing or two about surviving run things.
Just as well really. I honestly would not
have thought to take the doors to the island. When considering what to
bring, her main concern had been toothpaste. She could not imagine a life
without a clean mouth in the morning, and so had stowed a case of the stuff in
her pack. And during the voyage, one of her most consuming thoughts besides her
lost family had been how to ration the precious paste so it might last the remainder
of her years. Try as she might, she could not figure a way to make twenty tubes
stretch, even if she somehow kept them to herself.
We plunder a deserted Walmart on our way out
of Anchorage, and all I can think to grab is toothpaste, and not even enough
for myself let alone a whole tribe… I am truly and utterly removed from my
element.
So she let others lead the
way, even as a little voice inside told her such passiveness could result only
in terror and disaster for her hopes of what surviving the fever could mean.
The
sanctuary of the foc’sle had been as violated as everywhere else. The bedding and
blankets were gone, the cabinets stripped, and the little wall mirror she’d
used to fix her appearance each morning vanished. Siona had been topside during the ravaging of
the below-deck. She’d helped pull down all the rigging and the sails, and had somehow
failed to imagine the same was happening underneath her. She had even volunteered to depart the
Boundary last, thinking at the time there might be something left or forgotten
she could claim as her own while they set up on the island.
Of
course there was another reason to linger as well. In retrospect it seemed
quite pathetic. Cut off from the world she knew and had expected, Siona
struggled day and night with her place among the survivors. She knew it was
only a matter of time before talk of seeding a new generation of people started
up. The idea of being nothing but a breeding vessel disgusted her. Subconsciously
- or maybe even consciously - Siona had concocted a silly plan to combat that
wretched future. Find some item of value
and claim it as mine, and that object will define me in the months to come as
more than just a talking womb.
The problem
was that there was nothing to claim. The others had been too thorough. Her
silly plan had turned out to be the empty pipedream of a girl not ready for
what had happened and what was coming. Siona and the boat might as well be same
right now… a floating shell gutted of its’ dreams and purpose. Nothing to do now but meet my fate on the
island.
Yet as
she shuffled back through the midships cabin, the boat rolling gently side to
side, Siona heard clunk followed by the
clattering roll of something plastic. She investigated the source of the noise
and discovered a flat head screwdriver resting in the basin of a cabinet.
They did forget something!
Her
body tingled with joy over the find. Though hardly the precious object she originally
imagined, on some symbolic level the screwdriver represented a triumph of her ‘silly
idea’. She had something that they did not, or least one that was totally hers.
The other tools would be shared, but not this one. This standard red and blue
screwdriver was hers and hers alone. I’ll
have to hide it.
She
studied the tool carefully, cherishing its weight and solidity. There was a
touch of rust on the shaft and the words helping hands were scripted into the
side. The end was worn and dented in one spot, and the handle was covered in
small nicks. But in Siona’s mind it was perfect.
A
sudden thud on the outside hull snapped Siona from her trance. Kathryn had returned
with the canoe. She stood up and stuffed the screwdriver into her pocket, and
cast one last sad glance about the cabin.
“So
long boat.” She said, her voice sincere. “In another life I might have enjoyed
being your passenger. Thanks for the parting gift.”
Then
she spun and scampered out from the main cabin and onto the deck. The last few
items to be shipped over were piled in a corner of the cockpit. She gathered
one of the crates into her arms and strode happily to where Kathryn’s white
knuckles clung to the side of the schooner. When Siona peered down, she could
see how weary the older woman looked. Like Siona, Kathryn seemed intent on
establishing an identity for herself and had become the ferrywoman. Siona suspected that Kathryn would be damned
before she’d let someone else use the canoe without her.
“Sorry
I took so long to come back.” Kathryn said as she took one of the crates from
Siona.
“I didn’t
mind.” Siona said simply.
“I’d
have come back sooner but Min Jung passed out on the beach. She was acting
strange the whole way over, then she just fell over.”
Siona
was horrified. Min was a quiet girl, always hiding in the foc’sle, and had barely
said a word the entire week, but there was an intense kind of energy about the
way she looked at people that Siona liked… a mystery worth solving. “Is she ok?”
Was all Siona could think to ask though.
Kathryn
shrugged. “She hit her head on a rock and cut it pretty bad. She was mumbling
something a white dress. Marcus thinks she might be dehydrated.”
“She’ll
need someone when she wakes up. I’ll try to talk to her when she’s better.”
Siona offered.
“I’m
pretty sure Will wants to handle her care. He is a preacher.” Kathryn stated
bluntly. “Let’s just finish this, ok.”
Siona
was taken aback by Kathryn’s tone but found herself quickly obeying the older
woman’s instructions. And as she loaded the remaining supplies, a troubling
thought occurred to her. While I was here
trying to find a little piece of privacy, major events and decisions were unfolding
on the island. This first minor emergency with Min Jung was a founding moment
in the operation of the islands new culture, and Siona had played no role in
that foundation.
Left out again. An auspicious start. Back in the days of the old world, when she
was feeling especially self-absorbed, Siona would lament that she had no place in
modern life. She didn’t care for texting or the internet or having the latest
gadgets. She preferred face to face interaction, old movies to new ones,
classic literature and so on and so on. She
often joked she had an old soul, but this idea also bothered her, because that
was a nice way of saying she was disconnected from the world as it actually was. In her heart, she also knew this disconnect
was not the result of the world leaving her behind, but rather the desired
result of a conscious effort to remain apart. This hunger for loneliness came not
from shyness or passive introversion. It was the culmination of an active
distaste for people. Siona wasn’t the last person on the boat by some accident.
She deliberately arranged it so that she could get time away from all these
strangers she was to be stuck with for the reminder of her life.
Her joy
over finding the screwdriver faded. A tool could not define her place on the
island. Real events were happening, and if Siona lingered in old habits, she’d
be powerless to affect their outcome.
Helping
Kathryn paddle back to shore did nothing to distract her from those doubts. In fact,
with each stroke her uncertainty grew. Shame swelled in her belly. While all
the others had been working to build a new home she’d obsessed over a trinket
and done all that she could to stand apart. And worse, she could think of no
strategy or skill she possessed that might steer her from the course she was
set upon. She was about to become a concubine in the harem of one of these six
men. Her mind could pretend otherwise, but she’d studied enough history to
clearly see the shape of her future.
From now on I have to be first to
everything, even if they try to stop me. That is how I will set the rules. The
prospect of such a bold approach terrified her. Her legs shook as the canoe
scraped against the rocks on the shore, and she wondered if they’d hold up when
she disembarked.
But when she got out of the canoe
her mind drew a blank. She simply did not know how to make herself useful. Nor
did anyone bark a command that she could follow. So instead she just stood
there for a while, plagued with doubts and questions about what she action she
could effectively manage that would put her on the course she desired. When
nothing came, her thoughts returned to the Boundary, and a new well of empathy
formed in her heart for that abandoned and lonely boat. More than anything, she
wanted to go back, to run to it, to join with it in its loneliness.
She
would never set foot on that boat again.
