MILES: Chapter Two, pt. 6

She began to draw in the sand above the riverbed; she arced the dowsing rod in a slow spiral. Next to the spiral she carved several characters – symbols in language that Miles found somehow familiar, but he could not imagine why. The language disturbed him; it penetrated deeply through him and nuzzled a tender, uncomfortable part of his mind. The woman continued speaking, seemingly unaware of his growing unease.

“The ground began to swell and shake, and the sea began to boil. And one man rose above the tide, and lashed out with furious anger. ‘I have built a temple of worship; fall to your knees and praise me.’ And as he walked he gathered his flock – those who were not strong enough to fight him – and he poisoned the blood of the earth, and everything in his wake fell to bone and ash.”

The woman continued scratching madly as she rambled on, the shapes and symbols stretching out at her feet. Miles felt the blood drain from his face. A cold chill trembled down his spine.

“This city is unique in many ways. It was built in a still place’, in a place where no currents cross it. It is disconnected, completely free of the web, the network of energy. There are other cities like it, but the phenomenon is rare. This riverbed is the line between two places. It is called the grey, where one may look across the threshold into the light. But you must be cautious. How is the phrase: know that when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back.”

Through this monologue Miles remained silent, stunned by the woman who gracefully balanced the line between madness and sanity. Her color flickered while she spoke, red and orange as her voice rose, and then cold blue and back to white. He tried to calm his own racing mind, tried to bridge the gap between their minds and find out who she was and what she wanted. She was closed off to him, barricaded; either she was a veritable black hole or she was very, very powerful. Miles found he was surprisingly off-balance, uncertain of his own strength. Miles closed off his mind, forcing himself to focus, but the lines on his face betrayed his worried mind.

“Who are you?” he said, his voice almost a whisper.

He felt the smile in her voice before he saw it. “A nomad, like yourself. Someone looking for answers – only I’ve been looking for a very long time.” She paused. “I know you chose this place because it is quiet, because here you can pretend you are free.”

Something inside Miles snapped. He whirled around and faced the woman.

“I am tired of this. What the fuck do you–”

The woman was fast, much faster than Miles expected. She touched his temple and his head snapped back, jolted with a bolt of electric energy. He cried out in pain and stumbled, the wind knocked from him completely. “What... who are you?” he breathed heavily.

“I told you,” the woman said, but she was clearly affected by the exchange as well. She had a distant look about her, as though she was experiencing something neither of them could see. “I am much like you. I am a sensitive.”

“I am an old woman, and I have watched this world for a long time; watched, and waited. It is a cruel world, but it does not have to be. Men make it cruel; of this you are acutely aware. Men, and their greed for power. There is bad blood in the veins of the world, and it must be cut out. I am dying, Miles. I haven’t the strength to fight this battle. I wish I could fight by your side, but those days are long gone. You will not be alone, though. A man – a burly, clumsy man – will join you. He has a good heart.” She smiled at something Miles apparently could not see. “And the woman–” Her smiled widened, and her eyes twinkled.

“The woman?” Miles muttered curiously.

“The woman from your dreams. The pretty one. She is coming. She will find you here.”

“How do you–” he began, but the woman was not stopping. She spoke to him, but spoke as though she was dictating a message, as if Miles was not standing right in front of her. Her eyes lost their focus, and when she spoke she was breathless, as though delivering this message was sapping what energy she had left.

“He is rebuilding the engine, Miles. He is trying again. He cannot succeed. You must go home; you will learn of what you have lost, and what you have gained. Your father – he is waiting for you. And then…"

The woman stopped, her eyes regained their focus and locked onto Miles, paralyzing him. Her mouth dropped open. She was suddenly very visibly afraid.

“He already has you. I am too late. He is watching.” The woman looked near tears, then turned and ran. Her voice trembled as she fled. “You are beyond my help. God be with you, child! God be with us all.”

She scaled the embankment with surprising grace. The driver waited with the door open, and the car swiftly pulled away. Miles watched the two strangers leave, completely unmoving.

Miles was alone on the beach, and for reasons he could not quite explain, he was suddenly very afraid.

MILES: Chapter Two, pt. 5

“You’re quite good at that.” The voice behind him was tinged with a French accent. Miles pretended not to hear her, hoping she would lose interest and leave him alone. She didn’t.

“Do you know what this is?”

He turned, only mildly curious. A thin grey face wrapped in a tightly wound scarf peered up at him. Her tiny frame was bundled in a heavy, multicolored coat and she held a tree branch, a forked rod that jutted from her tiny hands like an arrow. She continued without waiting for him to answer.

“It’s called a dowsing rod, or a diving rod, depending. Something used for seeking precious metals. Often used for seeking underground streams.”

“If you’re looking for water,” he said. “I don’t think you need a magic wand.” The river gurgled and splashed, not fifty feet from where they stood.

“Not magic,” the woman corrected him. “Just a focus. And you should learn to be more respectful. I’m an old woman, and I know when I’m being made fun of.”

“Sorry,” Miles mumbled, narrowing his eyes. The woman was silent a moment, so Miles turned back to the river. Skip, skip, splash.

“So... not many people just stop in Battle Mountain to look at the fucking river. Not exactly a tourist attraction.” The words escaped him before he realized he had started speaking. He immediately regretted saying anything that might encourage her. The whiskey tickled his fingertips and weighed heavily in the back of his head, and he desperately wanted to be left alone.

Though he could feel her color change as he spoke. The white light shifted and shimmered, changed in hue to a cold blue, and then corrected itself. White. Nothing.

“The river is a looking glass, a portrait of the future and the past. It is a precipice over a great chasm, a view from above, a balancing point between two worlds.”

“Look. lady. I’ve been drinking since about noon, so if that was supposed to make any sense–”

“The man builds a machine; it shakes the bowels of the earth. You can feel the tremor, the great earthquake that will swallow the world.”

He stopped skipping rocks. Something bothered him about the woman. He momentarily considered returning to the bottle of whiskey by his side; his buzz was slowly wearing away. There was a funny copper taste in his mouth, and a low thrum began to pound behind his eyes, and was slowly building.

“The bottle will not save you from drowning. Just because you cannot hear the voices does not mean they have ceased to speak.”

Miles glared at the woman. He picked up the bottle and – partly just to spite her – took a long pull. Licking his lips, he edged slowly away from the woman, looking for a polite opportunity to walk away. She stared at him, an uncomfortable, beady stare. He met her eyes a moment, then broke his gaze and stared again at the water.

“I know you have felt him; his eyes are ever watching. That is why you hide. You stand at the water’s edge, watching the sea boil and tumble around you, but you are afraid to swim. You are afraid to drown. But he watches, from the top of tower and from the bottom of his cave, and he would cut open the earth just to hear it scream.”

“Oh fuck, lady. You’re hurting my head.” He took another swing from the bottle. “Is there a reason you’re telling me all this? Or do you make a habit of accosting strangers?”

“Do you know why you are here?”

“Cos I fucking walked here. Is it a trick question? You going to guide me from my evil ways of sin? Bask me in the love of Jesus or some shit?”

“Neither.” Miles felt the smile in her voice, and it disturbed him. “But faith is as much a part of this as anything. Do you know what’s significant about this place? Why you chose this in particular to take your rest?”

“I came here for peace and quiet, not to play twenty goddamn questions.” Whatever had passed for curiosity awe was swiftly evolving into irritation; Miles was growing tired of the old woman and her bold sense of familiarity.

The old woman smiled again. “You came here for absolution; peace is a natural byproduct of that. But you found neither.”

Miles opened his mouth to speak, but found he had no words, and closed it again. He pursed his lips, not sure if he should be more startled or angry.

“When people used the dowsing rod they sought underground streams, not for drink but for fulfillment. They believed that the water a source of power, that currents flowed under the surface of the earth like currents of electricity, and that power could be drawn up from them. Someone with a particular gift, a sensitive, could seek out those underground currents and draw the power into themselves. It was also believed that these currents were connected, like a great net or web, joining the powers of the earth together.”

MILES: Chapter Two, pt. 4

A car pulled up into the small lot above the riverbed; the sound of tires in the gravel drifted down along the wind. Miles sighed and closed his eyes, reaching out with his mind. An older woman, perhaps in her seventies; and a man, younger than her but not by much. Miles reached for more, but came up empty. A married couple on a lazy Sunday drive, perhaps. Something didn’t feel right about that. The woman was unusual; something radiated off her that unsettled Miles, that made the tips of his fingers tingle. There was nothing unusual about the man; Miles could sense very little, especially at this distance, but where the woman should have shimmered in his mind like a firefly she burst with the light and energy of a bonfire. Something gnawed at his mind; something crawled up from his spine and crept up to his temples. He shook his head, pushed the interference aside, tried ignore the intruders on his solitude, and returned his attention to the water. The half-empty bottle of whiskey hung heavily in his hand. Miles took a swig from the bottle, and let his mind relax.

Something was out there. The voice hummed; not a discernible word but a noise, a vibration. The feeling spread, the vibration took his entire body; small tremors shook his hands. He had to fight to stay balanced. Images flashed by, snapshots behind his closed eyes. A hospital room. A dying woman. A fire. A man dressed in nurse’s scrubs, eyeing Miles from behind a clipboard, his mouth peeling back into a cruel laugh.

Miles exhaled suddenly, as though he had been punched in the gut. The slideshow was over; Miles was back on the beach. He took a step back, his head spinning. He regained his composure, dizzy and frustrated. He put the bottle down and blinked his heavy eyelids. Something ominous hung on the horizon, some residue from the fleeting images.

The river was a borderland for Miles, not just a physical separation of land of water, but a threshold between worlds. There was something about the water’s edge – something he had never felt anywhere else – like staring through a window at a thunderstorm from the safety of the indoors. Everywhere else in the city the voice was quiet; he only felt the rush from individuals, and small town folk were easy to understand and easy to ignore. The river was the gateway, and on his strong days he would walk to the edge of the water and stare out while the tides washed past him, feel the energy ebb and flow, and try to understand what was out there, and what made him feel so distant, so different, so alone.

Miles walked a few more steps and the unease in the back of his mind settled. Distracted, Miles picked a few flat stones from the waterfront and threw them out into the water. They skipped: two, three, fours times before splashing under the surface.

He felt her as she approached; the woman joined him on the beach. She glowed, sparking like a flaming torch in the back of his mind, and he was annoyed to realize he felt nothing else. For most people he could feel something more on the emotional horizon, some kind of intent or purpose but her landscape was pure white and completely indecipherable. He ignored her, irritated, and continued throwing stones out into the water. Four, five skips, and splash. The man remained by the car, on the pavement above the beachhead, watching them.

MILES: Chapter Two, pt. 3

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I I I

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The motorcycle was named Molly. She was a 1974 Harley Sportster with a faded aquamarine body and chrome hardware. She sat in the back of the garage, having remained there, untouched, for weeks. The rest of the garage was cluttered, a disheveled mess of parts and tools, but the bike stood alone on a battered wooden pallet like a shrine, a memento of the long journey ahead, and the painful journey behind.

Beyond the clothes on his back and the money in his pocket, Molly was the only thing Miles brought with him when he arrived in Battle Mountain five years before.

For a while, Miles suspected he had already died, and the road was his own personal hell. The drinking helped a little, pushing the voice back, but the dreams still haunted him – dreams of death and dreams of failure, dreams of defeat and of horrible pain, dreams of everyone he had ever lost. Faces haunted him, just outside his peripheral vision, sorrow-filled faces that filled him regret.

The city was quiet; quiet to his ears and quiet to his mind. Miles had not chosen the city as much as he had just fallen into it; after months of hard riding, desperate to escape and start again, Miles had stumbled through northern Nevada, desperate and hopeless, and was startled to find that the farther he rode, the quieter the voice became, until it faded to almost nothing.

Miles landed, softly, in a small town where the people were quiet and left him alone. Miles drank; he settled in and tried to get comfortable. As a trade, his hands quickly remembered their way around an automobile; he found his father’s passion for fixing cars came naturally to him as well, and worked for Dick Maybury’s Auto. Dick Maybury was a veteran and an eccentric, a introverted widower who lived above the shop and who would not talk about his wife, would not talk about his time in the service, would not talk about his childhood – any questions not about automobiles would be met only with a dismissive wave of his hand. Miles kept quiet and did what he was told, and Miles and Dick Maybury forged what could not quite be called a friendship, instead perhaps a healthy respect for each other until Dick died peacefully in his sleep a year later, and – having no heirs – left the shop to Miles.

For years Miles continued to operate the shop, and spent the leftover hours in the day drinking. The voice faded into the background, the feelings of paranoia subsided and his breakdowns came less and less often. He drank, he waited for something he did not quite understand, and for another year he lived alone and lonely, haunted but no longer tortured. Miles waited, he drank, and the voice faded into near obscurity.

Until the woman, came – the dark-haired woman with the husband and two boys – and the cycle began again. The woman came – with her dark hair and eyes that sparkled like diamonds – and Miles watched her die in the road, her head crushed against a concrete pylon, her husband staring blankly at her, helpless and immobile. The headaches, the fear and paranoia, the overwhelming sense of failure; Miles was struggling to breathe, flailing and grasping at nothing, slipping under the surface: a man, drowning in the open air.

Miles paced around the attached garage of his house, unsettled and impatient. A battered sign hung above his head, swaying in the low breeze: Maybury Auto, Repair and Maintenance. Miles wore dirty overalls and a wrench stuck from his pocket. He had intended on servicing his bike, oiling her gaskets and topping off her fluids, but something weighed on the back of his mind, and he could not focus. The weather report predicted clear skies the following morning, perfect for a ride out into the mountains, perfect for Miles to clear his head, but he continued to pace. Something ate away at his thoughts; he was unable to center himself, unable to settle down.

The morning sun blossomed over the horizon, a great orange fireball against the low mountains.

Miles had disappeared into the bottle for three days, not leaving the house, hallucinating about the dark-haired woman and her two children. She was smiling at him; she was so kind, she had such light, until she was thrown from her vehicle and died in the road.

On the fourth day Miles woke, his head pounding, echoes of memories slipping through cracks in his conscious mind like water through his fingers.

Miles left the house at dawn, walking down the long dirt road to the river. He stood, overlooking the water, his mind awash with regret, feeling more alone than he had in years. He could connect at the river; the water was a conduit to the world he’d left behind.

MILES: Chapter Two, pt. 2

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I I

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Miles sat alone in his house. His house was cold, sparsely decorated, but clean. On his good days Miles was a talented carpenter and mechanic; he had built the ornate bookshelf and had repaired the furniture he found at the second-hand store. On his good days he was very good with his hands. The house had nearly fallen apart when Miles purchased it. Work helped him focus, helped keep the voice at bay and the feelings of fear at a low roar. On his good days he didn’t need to drink, didn’t have the headaches or the gnawing paranoia.

There hadn’t been many good days of late.

Miles sat alone in his house, lost in his thoughts, awash amidst the waves of regret, feelings of loss and emptiness. He saw her eyes, beautiful brown eyes, looking him over as she sat next to him at the pub. He saw them glaze over and roll back in her head; he saw her face relax, her features fall, like a marionette whose strings had just been cut. He saw blood slowly drip across her face, across her beautiful brown eyes, but she didn’t notice, she didn’t respond, she didn’t move.

His eyes fell on the bookshelf across the room; every book was neatly shelved save one. He crossed the room and he saw the book, the battered cover, the well-read pages of the Holy Bible. This belonged to his mother; she had sent it with him the last time they spoke. He didn’t remember pulling it out – he felt he should remember – but everything recently was a haze, a painfully disorienting gray. He reached out, picked up the bible and returned it to the shelf. It hurt him to touch it, it burned his hand and he felt the memories bubbling up in the back of his head. She revered the book, feared the book, loved the book with awe and wonder and terror. The momentary touch of her bible took him back to that place – that place he did not want to go – that place in the hospital, and the last time he saw his mother.

She left it with him, as if leaving a part of herself, as if leaving the book would leave him in the hands of God and He would somehow help heal Miles, somehow help ease the pain and quiet the trembling voice. She left him, then, and Miles knew it was the last he would see her, he somehow knew as a terrified fifteen-year-old boy, that his mother would not come back.

He shook his head, clearing it of the memory. The right side of his head hurt; sobriety brought him acute awareness to the aches and twinges of his body. The cut on his head was still tender, and a purple welt had swollen on his cheek where the man had struck him. Scratches on his arms burned as well, like acid under his skin, but they were a point of focus, an accumulation of pain. These wounds drew his attention from the book, and he shook his head, dazed. He slid the book back onto the shelf without a sound, his eyes wide open and his face perfectly still. His skin cooled, his mouth went dry, and the voice was momentarily still, like the electric calm before a breaking storm. His lip quivered a moment, a cascade of memories balanced precariously, waiting to collapse upon him.

Miles walked silently into the kitchen, turned on the sink and splashed cold water on his face. It was dark outside, and he could see his reflection in the kitchen window. His pale eyes glowed, his heavy brow furrowed and his cheeks looked sunken and hollow. His dark hair was greasy and matted against his head. His dark shirt brought contrast to his pale skin; he looked ashen, almost skeletal against the dark backdrop.

He pulled a small box from atop the refrigerator. He brought the box to the kitchen table and sat, the box in front of him. The voice was a low drone, more sounds than any discernible words. He withdrew a razor blade from the box and stared at it for a long time. He set the razor down and stripped off his shirt. Across his left right shoulder and down his back was a deep burn; something long ago had torn across his back, searing flesh and leaving battered and tortured skin in its wake. Across his left arm were scars, a dozen precise horizontal wounds cut across his bicep. He picked up the razor and drew a line across his arm just below the last wound. Miles closed his eyes, the pain was deep and sharp and he winced momentarily, and then the pain took him. Blood welled up on his arm, and Miles focused on the ritual; he buried himself in the pain, escaped into the pain. The voice was quiet; the voice could not overtake the deep and satisfying sting that started in his arm and flooded through him. He dug the blade in deep, deeper into his arm until he could feel nothing else. The blade enveloped him, encompassed him, embodied him, became him. Tears sprung up in his eyes, and he disappeared.

MILES: Chapter Two, pt. 1

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I

* * * * *

MILES WAS OUTSIDE, on the edge of a highway he didn’t recognize. The sun beat down, an orange orb low in the horizon. He squinted in the blinding light. He walked along the shoulder, kicking up dust on the lonely road, peering into the distance.

His head was pounding.

He heard the car’s engine before he saw it, a grey van approaching in the hazy low distance. With the glare of the low sunset the van was almost invisible, the metallic sheen of the vehicle off the metallic sheen of the road after a hard rain.

Then he was inside the van, sitting in the passenger seat, and there was a Man to his left, and he heard voices behind him – children’s voices – and there was a feeling of dread, of sickly anticipation.

He was aware of a woman’s voice, speaking to him from what seemed like a great deal away. “These are my boys,” she said.

He was sitting at the end of the bar in Doc Brown’s Pub and Eatery, and the brunette woman next to him, drinking a cup of coffee. She was happy, content, eagerly awaiting something. Then suddenly she was uncomfortable, alone, looking desperately around the bar for her husband. Doc was asking her a question; he stared down at her, a stern look on his face. Miles was taking money from his pocket, laying a few dollars down. Relief, gratitude washed over him. She smiled and he felt her smile and it eased his fears and the voice was quiet, but something was wrong something was wrong something was wrong.

He was standing on the desert highway watching the van, watching the approach of the Long Bed Semi-Ton, and everything began to slow.

She reached at and touched his arm.

“Well, aren’t you just the sweetest–” she began.

The voice screamed out, but it was too late. Before he could pull his arm away she had touched him, touched the bare part of his forearm between his wrist and his sleeve. He shrieked and jumped back; a white light flashed before his eyes like he’d been struck, and then there was blood, so much so much so much blood. The woman sat next to him at the bar, face curious and fearful, but her saw her also facedown in the road, bleeding from a gash across her face, her neck twisted too far. The blood soaked through her long dark hair, soaked and matted it, and her eyes were glazed over, staring into nothing.

But the woman was still there, still across from him in the bar and he pulled away from her, but the voice screamed out and the whiskey slowed his mind and he called to her but she didn’t understand. He knew he had to tell her had to warn her please just listen – the voice was screaming at him to run, get away but he didn’t listen, he couldn’t listen. He had to warn her; there was so much blood. He reached out grab hold please grab hold please hold on; he called to her and through a great distance he saw the word: Paradise.

“I think he’s having a seizure,” said the woman’s voice, but Miles did not know to whom she spoke. “We’ve got to hold his arms–”

He screamed and tried to back away – the woman closed in and tried to grab him – he stumbled and fell. His mind was racing, the voice was screaming – he felt himself screaming – but his arms flailed as though no longer connected to his body; great surges of pain and fear pounded him, struck through him like a hammer. He felt her pain: he felt the impact of the truck spin him around; he heard the scream of twisted metal; he felt the glass cut his face; he heard the terrified screams of Gabriel and Michael behind him; then the impact of something solid against the side of his head. Then he felt a great warmth wash over him followed by silence, vast and terrible silence.

And in the distance the word: Paradise.

But she was still there, in front of him but someone was holding him back, great arms were wrapped around him and he lunged out – her face was pale, and slowly turning blue as her lifeblood spilled out onto the road – but someone was there, a Man – a Man whom Miles did not see in his head, a Man whom Miles did not see die – and the Man struck Miles and Miles fell and there was a flash of pain and a soft wet collapse and Miles felt nothing else.

And Miles was alone in the desert. He walked along the gravel road, a near-empty bottle in his hand. Miles swayed and wavered and nearly fell, and Miles stumbled to his front porch and collapsed into the broken porch swing and the last of the alcohol finally swept the away the few remaining pieces. Miles slipped into unconsciousness, into bleak, dark, dreamless sleep.