An End

the street itself mostly in shadow from the angle of the sunlight, and he thought about another time and another place, somewhere he had never been but somewhere that he could always remember, a beach, kneeling in the sand, shaking his fist up at some shapeless black thing

He reached up to where the mark should have been, that design of scar and black, and he did not find it. Closed his eyes, struggled to maintain, felt the medics lowering him to the ground, felt his hand touch the puddle of blood emanating from the head of the sniper’s wife. Tacky, viscuous, mixed with brain tissue that very well might have held the love that she had once exhibited to her husband who had killed a truckload of soldier boys.

Reynald sank, feeling his eyes roll back, feeling not bad at all, just falling, just falling from the moment. He had maintained as long as he could on the reserve of rage that this war had given him, and now was his time to sleep for a while. He heard the medics above him, felt but did not feel the touch of bandage, the sting of needle, the injection. And all through his fall, he heard the sobbing of children, the same two children whose mother he had just shot in the face. He fell.

What was her name? Hannah? Hannah.

He fell.

“I’m okay.”

She was, or at least she thought she was okay enough, and she stood on her own, although his arms still held her close. She turned to face those eyes, saw his concern. She smiled weakly. He let go, and she bent to pick up her paperback, which was now crumpled and fluttering, a wounded bird in the street. He followed her gaze and her motion, and grabbed the book for her, turning the cover over in his hands to see what it was.

“The Stillness Between?”

Helen for the first time noticed the soldier’s nametag stitched onto the front of his uniform: Windham. She reached out with leather-clad hand to take the book and instead found her hand ensnared by his. He studied her small digits for a moment, his grasp gentle, for he knew what he would find already. Without a word, he pulled back the leather and found the wrist beneath just now beginning to show the silver. Helen stared resolutely at the sidewalk, her breath coming fast. She appeared to be on the verge of sobbing. Windham let go of her hand.

“I’m sorry.”

“I—I should go, I’m sorry. I have to—”

“Stop. Don’t go.”

She pulled the cuff of her right glove back over the offending dust of metal. This was it. No more chance of hiding.

Windham looked around at the nearby soldiers, looked back into Helen’s eyes.

“Listen. I’m not going to tell anyone. It’s okay. It’s everywhere now. There’s nothing we can do to contain it.”

“You’re just—”

“No. We can’t do anything about it. The war’s over.”

Helen inhaled sharply, looked around in disbelief. “You won’t tell anyone?”

Windham smiled. “The war’s over. You’re safe now.”

She exhaled with a hesitant relief. She did not trust him, although she so wanted to.

“Come on.” He reached out, put his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

Helen frowned. “But won’t you—”

“The war’s over. Fuck it.” His grin was contagious, and they walked away from that street and that life and into a future of silver and stars and black.

It was a time of rain and the coffee was awful on that day that he asked her to marry him after a torrid courtship of six months. The link was blaring footage from the peace accords at the United World building, President Jennings waving enthusiastically to the billions of viewers as he in essence signed away control of the planet to the creature that lurked within.

The noon crowd was sparse in the coffee house, and he saw her sitting near the back, at a window, that battered copy of “The Stillness Between” in her hands. He brushed the rain from his leather sleeves, smoothed back his hair as he navigated through the maze of tables and pseudo-intellectuals reading and discussing and trying to be human in these dying days.

Windham motioned to the young girl behind the counter, and she poured his usual: coffee, black. None of that fancy shit. The coffee was muddy in color, taste, and texture, but it was coffee.

He gently grasped the cup and turned to walk to Helen, still engrossed in that book that held far too many memories of that day when he had gained her but lost Reynald. A newspaper fluttered down from a table before him as someone opened the door to the shop, and an unexpected gust of wind blew in, upsetting anything without enough mass to resist its displacement. Helen looked up then, at the sound of the newspaper lazily redecorating the floor. She smiled at Windham, looked beyond him as a man loudly called out

“Maggie!”

The woman who was in the doorway turned, came back in. They continued talking, but too quietly to distinguish from the background murmur of poets and prophets. Helen smiled because the doorway woman smiled, and she knew everything was going to be all right for them.

“Helen.”

She stood to embrace him, not minding at all the wetness of his jacket, his hair. She kissed him on the cheek, this tall sweet man. His embrace enveloped and reassured and gave her all she needed to keep going for a while. The President babbled on the link about what the future held for the citizens of Planet One, but she didn’t care. She had her Windham. They sat at the window table, the cold northern skies throwing themselves against the surface of their world in the form of tears.

“How was he today?”

Windham shook his head, took another sip of mud. Such sadness in his eyes. She knew that Reynald was a father to him, and the pain of losing him to that which they could never understand must have been unbearable.

“Jean is okay. He’s walking again. They have a room where he can look outside, a big room with windows everywhere. There’s a lawn that stretches down to the river.”

She reached out, her gloved hand gently, painfully resting on top of his. He carefully patted it, and her eyes smiled at him before her lips even attempted the act.

“He still has the dreams.”

Her smile faded, a faint fear clouding her face. She unconsciously withdrew her hands, pulled the gloves a little tighter over the silver that was consuming her. There was laughter from across the shop, the hearty laughter of two people finally getting to know one another, or geting to know one another again, after a long absense. She heard the laughing voice of the doorway woman, an Irish brogue if ever she had heard one: “I’ve had the same dream!” That statement chilled Helen to the bone.

“Helen?”

She smiled for him, and he returned the gesture in kind. He leaned in over the table, and she did the same. They were within kissing distance, eyes locked, the stillness between them electric and horrible and yearning to be breached. He reached out, hand on the side of her face, smoothing back through hair simple hair that she wore down, not tied back, straight, not curled into a tangle, the hand brushing against the silver patterns that were already appearing on her scalp. She inhaled sharply at that contact, so intimate, so impossible. His eyes remained locked on hers until they closed and he swooped in, kissed her cheek.

“And I know it will be a great sacrifice for all of us, but it is something that we as a nation, as a world, as a species, must do.”

She searched for meaning in the silence that hung between them, and found it as Windham pulled back, cheeks flushed with emotion that found clarity in the actions of his hands, large hands, gentle hands, hands that reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a velvet-covered box that could only contain one thing.

“Helen—”

“It will be a time of great sacrifice for our world, but we cannot allow these acts to continue.”

“—will you be mine?”

“We will take this jihad to the stars, and make them suffer the consequences of creating this horrible disease.”