“All right.”
He threw himself against me and squeezed so hard I thought he was going to dislocate part of my back.
“I love you, UncGil. You took good care of me. I’m gonna miss you.”
“You’re going to-whoa, there, wait a second.” I pushed him back and looked into his eyes. “You’re not going to miss me, you’re not going anywhere.”
He nodded his head, silver tears spilling down his face. “Long-Lost says it’s time.”
My breath caught in my chest. “Time for what?”
“For you to know the first part of his story.” Carson walked over and bent down, picking up the comic book-which was now whole again.
“Here you go, UncGil. It’s just on the first page this time.”
“How do you know this?”
He shrugged. “The Great Scrim, it… I dunno… it kind of is pulled real tight here-you know, like when you wrap a sandwich too tight in plastic wrap? It kinda tears in places? Well, because this is where the Magic Zoo is, the Great Scrim is real tight like that, and it tears in a couple of places. And Long-Lost, he can make things happen where the tear is.” He opened to the first page and offered the comic to me. “I can’t read what it says, only you can.”
I did not take it from his hands-I wasn’t about to touch the goddamned thing. Instead, I leaned down to read:
DO YOU REMEMBER THE DREAM YOU HAD WHEN YOU CAUGHT PNEUMONIA, GIL? THE RAIN, THE SILVER CLOUD MADE BY THE MIST? YOU WERE SITTING ON A HILLSIDE, WATCHING A BOAT SAIL AWAY, AND YOU KNEW YOU HAD FRIENDS ABOARD THAT BOAT? OF COURSE YOU REMEMBER IT, I SENT IT TO YOU. THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED TO ME, GIL. BUT MAYBE YOU NEED TO A QUICK BIBLE LESSON. TRY THIS: “ AND NOAH WAS SIX HUNDRED YEARS OLD WHEN THE FLOOD OF WATERS WAS UPON THE EARTH.
AND NOAH WENT IN, AND HIS SONS, AND HIS WIFE, AND HIS SONS’ WIVES WITH HIM, INTO THE ARK, BECAUSE OF THE WATERS OF THE FLOOD. “THERE WENT IN TWO AND TWO UNTO NOAH INTO THE ARK, THE MALE AND THE FEMALE, AS GOD HAD COMMANDED NOAH. “OF CLEAN BEASTS, AND OF BEASTS THAT ARE NOT CLEAN, AND OF FOWLS, AND OF EVERY THING THAT CREEPETH UPON THE EARTH, “AND IT CAME TO PASS AFTER SEVEN DAYS, THAT THE WATERS OF THE FLOOD WERE UPON THE EARTH. IN THE SIX HUNDREDTH YEAR OF NOAH’S LIFE, IN THE SECOND MONTH, THE SEVENTEENTH DAY OF THE MONTH, THE SAME DAY WERE ALL THE FOUNTAINS OF THE GREAT DEEP BROKEN UP, AND THE WINDOWS OF HEAVEN WERE OPENED. “AND THE RAIN WAS UPON THE EARTH FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS. “IN THE SELF-SAME DAY ENTERED NOAH, AND SHEM, AND HAM, AND JAPHETH, THE SONS OF NOAH, AND NOAH’S WIFE, AND THE THREE WIVES OF HIS SONS WITH THEM, INTO THE ARK; “THEY, AND EVERY BEAST AFTER HIS KIND, AND ALL THE CATTLE AFTER THEIR KIND, AND EVERY CREEPING THING THAT CREEPETH UPON THE EARTH AFTER HIS KIND, AND EVERY FOWL AFTER HIS KIND, EVERY BIRD OF EVERY SORT. “AND THEY WENT IN UNTO NOAH INTO THE ARK, TWO AND TWO OF ALL FLESH, WHEREIN IS THE BREATH OF LIFE. “AND THEY THAT WENT IN, WENT IN MALE AND FEMALE OF ALL FLESH, AS GOD HAD COMMANDED HIM: AND THE LORD SHUT HIM IN. “AND THE FLOOD WAS FORTY DAYS UPON THE EARTH; AND THE WATERS INCREASED, AND BARE UP THE ARK, AND IT WAS LIFT UP ABOVE THE EARTH.” … EVER TAKE A LOOK AT THAT STORY AND ASK YOURSELF, WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? AFTER ALL, GIL, WEREN’T THERE MORE ANIMALS ABOARD THE ARK THAN HUMAN BEINGS? BUT WE’LL GET BACK TO THAT… ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW IS THAT GOD JUMPED THE GUN A LITTLE BIT. NOT EVERY ANIMAL MADE IT ONTO THE ARK, BECAUSE NOT EVERY ANIMAL HAD A MATE. TAKE ME, FOR INSTANCE. I WAS THE FIRST ANIMAL, ALL OTHERS SPRUNG FROM ME… YET WHEN IT CAME TIME FOR THE RAINY-DAY CRUISE, I WAS LEFT BEHIND! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT HURT MY FEELINGS, GIL? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW ANGRY I WAS? HOW ANGRY I STILL AM? SO I WENT AWAY. WHEN GOD DESTROYED THE WORLD, HE OVERLOOKED SOMETHING… THAT ONLY ONE WORLD AT A TIME CAN BE DESTROYED. HE WAS SO BUSY PISSING ALL OVER THIS ONE, HE DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE THAT I SLIPPED OVER INTO ONE OF THE OTHER ONES, WHICH I MADE MY KINGDOM. I’VE HAD TO START ALL OVER FROM SCRATCH, GIL, BUT THINGS ARE COMING ALONG NICELY. SO NICELY, IN FACT, THAT I’M READY TO ADD AN ADDITION, SO TO SPEAK. AND I THINK YOUR WORLD WILL DO JUST FINE. OF COURSE, I’VE HAD TO HIRE SOME… I GUESS YOU’D CALL THEM MOVERS. OR KEEPERS. A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME, BLAH-BLAHBLAH. I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG THIS WILL TAKE, GIL-RAW MATERIAL BEING SO DIFFICULT TO COME BY-BUT THINGS ARE WELL UNDER WAY. THE TEAR IN THE GREAT SCRIM IS GETTING WIDER EVERY DAY. NICE TO KNOW I STILL HAVE A FEW TRICKS UP MY SLEEVE IN THE MEANTIME. WHICH REMINDS ME-YOU MIGHT WANT TO SAY GOOD-BYE TO YOUR “NEPHEW” NOW.
Carson dropped the comic book.
He was shuddering; from the top of his head to the bottoms of his feet, he was shuddering as if in the grips of a grand-mal seizure.
“Jesus- Carson! What’s wrong? ”
I moved toward him but he screamed and waved me back.
Outside the barn, I could hear the roaring of lions, the trumpeting of elephants, the growling of bears, the barking of dogs, the screams of loons. The walls shook as the animals began pressing against them from outside, clawing at the wood.
In the back of the barn, a massive shadow moved as Carson’s scale model of Long-Lost took its first few tentative steps.
Carson screamed again.
He collapsed to his knees as his face began tearing in half, he felt it- I felt it, felt every sensation chewing through his body and there was nothing I could do-felt the fire burning through his nose as he struggled to his feet and stumbled away from me, hoping that it was all over now, please let it be over, please let this be the last of it, but then his face began swelling around forehead and nose, swelling like a goddamn balloon, so he looked away, looked down at his hand and saw it pulsating through layers of dried mud, felt the cold thing crawling between his shoulders again, eyes twitching, and then his face split apart like someone tearing a biscuit in half, only there was no steam, just blood, spraying, spattering, geysering around, and he tried to look behind him and see the animals as they clawed against the walls of the barn, tried to see me, tried to see if UncGil was still there, but the pain was killing him because the cold thing shuddered down between his shoulders and began to push through, snapping his shoulder blades like they were thin pieces of bark, and he screamed, screamed and whirled and slammed himself into the wall trying to stop the pain, trying to stop the thing from getting out, but he stunned himself for a moment and slid down to the floor, leaving a wide, dark smear behind him, howling as the first thing sawed through his back and fluttered to life, he was on his hands and knees now, waiting, trying to breathe, breathe deep, and now, OHGOD now the second one was tearing through, making a sound like a plastic bag melting on a fire, pushing through, unfurling, and he could see them now because their span must have been at least fifteen feet, and he threw his head back to cry out, but he couldn’t make any more human sounds, so he screamed, screamed so loud and long that his eyes bulged out and his face turned a dark blue and then his scream turned into the wail of an angry bird of prey as his body jerked back into a standing position, his arms locking bent, his hands clenching, every muscle in his body on fire; writhing, shifting, bones snapping, he shrieked in the cage of the barn as his chest puffed out through his shirt and covered in thick layers of brown feathers and the flesh dropped from his body like peelings from an orange and he tried to move his arms, tried to grab something, then he jerked around from the waist and his arms dropped off, brittle branches from a burned tree, and he yowled again, louder than before, wishing that the pain would end and just let him die, then he fell back on his great wings and looked up into my face, into my eyes, and for a moment I thought I heard his voice whispering, I’m as much a part of you as you are of me , and then something snapped below his waist; snapped, wriggled, pushed up.
With one last shriek he jerked back as the spasm took hold of him, pushing the corded claws up through his groin.