From the Fire V (3 page)

(Here there remains a later, unattributed notation within the
recovered record:

~

‘What all we know

Of the Gray Rain Exodus,

The journey of Saint Sophia

From the High Shelter, from the fire

Unto Kersey-Land,

In the unerring afterglow

Of Her own words,

Is chronicled hereafter.’)

V-3

THE DIARY
OF THE EXODUS

(
For the consideration of the Archivist-Legatus,
note bene
:
 
Sophie’s original diary-chronicle entries, numbered by her as 1 through 531
[with numerous internal conflicts of organization], have all been researched
and expanded upon by myself, A. S.G.-C., to form the speculative narrative
which comprises the preceding papers which I have entitled for serial journal
publication as
I – End of Days, II – The
Cage,
III – The Hollow Men,
and
IV – Archangel
[with Sophie
noting the “Hollow Men” herself, apparently being a reference to a surviving
poem once beloved by her Tom, a poem eerily prescient to the Burning, written
by one Thomas Steams Eliot sometime in the early 20th century.  Refer to
Appendix E.])

(Due to the circumstances of her travel through the wasteland, there
is at this crucial juncture not sufficient detail to the primary material — especially
regarding Sophie’s own thoughts and musings — to continue to form a narrative representative
of the several days following.  And, it is clear, she inserted these pages into
the diary later and only intermittently updated entries 532-719 throughout her
later survival at the Geyser Basin.  Much of this woman’s mysterious and
fragile life, a sliver of hope encased in amber, remains to us unknown.)

(Therefore, to continue the story of Sophie and Silas and to
provide the reader with an understanding of the nature of the diary itself, the
following section has been taken verbatim from Sophie’s shorthand, beginning
with entry 532. – A. S.G.-C.)

~

(As shall be seen, Sophie’s writings became far more terse and
cryptic during her drive toward Kersey.  She kept a scribbled compendium after
leaving the High Shelter, continuing her numbering sequence from the earlier
chronicle, somehow writing while she was driving.)

(We must conclude that such entries were written during the brief
and exhausted sleep stops along the way.  When we consider her care of Silas,
the needs for fuel and debris removal and considerations of camouflage, this is
likely all that she had time for.  From these “bursts of revelation,” it
appears to me that several sequential entries were written by her at any one
time, a cascade of thoughts, in the hours or perhaps days following the
original culmination of events.)

(It is sad and yet somehow immaculate, I believe, to say that the
true moments and secrets she spent with Silas in these hours are forever lost
to us, soul-filled ashes upon the wind. — A.)

~

(Assuming their earlier drive from the shelter down Fairburn
Mountain as requiring nearly the entirety of Day 1, the chronicle resumes on
what is likely Day 2 with entry 532.)

~

[Chronicle
Entry 532.]

Timeless season, endless darkness.  There now remain only blindness,
wind, wreckage all in unison, the black and tumultuous Shadow of the Fire ever
after.  It may be almost May now, “spring,” but Silas and I can only guess.

Tom, I wish so much you were here to guide me.  I do not
understand how I can ever be forgiven for only loving you, a fool, for never
fully believing in your dream or in your fears for Lacie and myself.

And without you, I can say this only in the silence of the page,
we are nearly without hope of ever finding your brother Mitch and our sweet
Lacie.

But I will die in trying.

Following the descent from Fairburn Mountain, I somehow headed
south
(how?) and
west
(why?) along frail and skeletal thicket-roads which I
had never known, leading me far too near to the ruins of Central City.  It was
the stench of dead bodies, of festering and acrid decay leaking up through the
air vents like some vaporous and rancid milk, which warned us further on into
exile.

We realized my miscalculation, thank Fate.  And at once, beholding
next to nothing and fearing everything, we drove away.

(Later, a feebler hand)

Having been forced to backtrack once again, we are going north now
on 119.  The conditions are indescribably wretched.  Fifteen miles an hour is
high speed, fifty feet entail a straightaway.  I can never see the slopes or
cliffs of mountains toward the horizon, only cinder-blackened sky and
occasionally, the fiery whorls in the clouds, the inverted whirlwinds devouring
away the air, the un-presence forever burning in the clouds which we have come
to christen:  the Archangel.

Very wary of survivors, if any shall dare to be seen.  Thinking
always of Pete.

Pete.  I hate myself for not having the backbone to try and save
him.  By necessity, I am a different person now.

My love, I don’t think you would recognize me.

There are no friends now beyond my Silas, nor even strangers.  We
hear and see hints of survivors, like the engine, but little else to betray
their presence.

I believe that we are hunted.

It is as if the world is filled with the walking dead, and —
lacking their prey of obligation, the living — they have begun to feed upon
their own kind.  Zombie myths are nothing compared to some of the horrors I
have seen, the way people died in the ditches and SUVs, the things men did to
women and women did to themselves to escape the agony.

No imagined horror could ever compare to the wasteland surround of
Black Hawk.  And yes, diary, even if I were to recognize
someone
… some
strider of the nothing … I fear I would not stop for them.

(Later)

The world is filled with black shapes out of the blacker dark,
silhouettes and spines.  A few pathetic stumps of pine and aspens cluster here to
the north of town, the only signs of life that Silas and I have seen.

Last hour, I slowed down alongside a two-truck wreck surrounded by
dead burned deer, does and a stag, arrayed in misbegotten piles.  Not even the
flies, if they exist, would show themselves to feed from them.  The indecipherable
crash had been between a FedEx truck and a feed semi, and the semi had run straight
over a compact, a Volkswagen I think, crushing the driver and spilling small hills
of seed across the road.

The deer had died there, feeding.  Feeding on what little they
could find even as their burned flesh failed all around them.

I cannot stop thinking about that.

I slowed, to understand how they had died, I needed to
see
. 
Silas yelled at me.

And diary, they were ringed, ringed by beautiful dead birds, once
ruby and cerulean and gold, feathers all blackened and covered by the greasy
sheets of ash.  Birds lying in heaps, sheltered only by the wreckage from the
wind.

Shorter entries from now on.  I cannot shelter-write like this,
the way I used to.  I cannot bear this.

~

[533.]

Past Maryland Mountain, her bulk unseen, and back beneath the
slopes of Fairburn once again.  We crawled and four-wheeled over half-burned
fallen trees, passing a clutter of wrecks and embracing corpses — men, women,
children — outside the Cold Springs Lookout.

We are just passing East 46 and Golden Gate Canyon now (a deathtrap,
Silas says, a way we will not ever take), despite its potential descent out
from the mountains, because it could all too easily be a dead end.  A tomb
reach of collided cars.  Too many dead to be down in there, said Silas.  I
agree.  We cannot get down that way.  No good way to die:  crashing through
smog, 30-foot visibility, straight into a corpse-thickened wall of wrecked cars,
cars with all the rotting bodies poured out from their every shattered window.

No.  Highways, this close to Denver, will not be the answer.  We
go on, north must be the passage.

(Later)

The mountains, here my beloved mountains are all burned and laid
waste by the gray and poison rain.  Mudslides uncountable, massive slime-peaks
dried to crackled pyramids of waste.

Sludge.

Ashes.

Dust.

Amen.

~

[534.]

So tired, Silas trying to help himself and he cannot.  He insists
on building braces for the guns, while he can’t even eat without me holding his
head up.  It’s as if he thinks I —

~

I ripped out a page.  It was weak, it was shameful of me.

Can’t look back at whatever I’ve written.  No more of Dory, the
engine, the doll, Patrice, no more of mother.  Can’t ever look back.

~

Did I write of the airport, the Athanasiou?

Runways were melted sheets of asphalt, buildings were all fused
mounds of crumbled cinderblock, translucent jewels of glass.  Once-wildflowers
were all white fingers, dead and finch-pecked extremities sticking out of
dirt-piles.  At least some few of the birds survived, and even a badly-scarred
gaunt and snuffling fox (!), I saw him, a fox whose creeping across the road
caused me to brake and to almost scream.

But there are no living flowers here, no seeds.

Every bird and beast is now a carnivore.

I looked out there for survivors, only because of Silas’ longing
for the girl.  Amelia, the one who had offered herself to him, in return for solace
from the airport ruin.  The girl he had refused to violate, the one who had
died along the rising way to the shelter.

I could tell, it pained him, whatever the secret, whatever truly happened
to her.

I could ask it of him now.  But no.

When we looped past the ruin of the airport, bodies blown about. 
There was no one left alive.  And if there were, Sophie, what would you do?

What would you have done?

~

The guns are restless now beside me.  Silas and I, we’ve reached a
compromise.  Silas has only the pistol; the rifle is down between us, the
submachine gun is on the passenger’s seat.

He is asleep, cradling the pistol.  He left the window down an
inch again.

I could end this now.  It would be so easy.

Patrice is goading, coaxing, luring and laughing at me.

Lacie, if I were to —

(A portion of a page has here been excised.)

(Later)

Stronger now.  My turn to sleep is coming soon.

Braecher Lake on the meadow boiled off, only a gray puddle is left
there, coils of mist rising off its rind.  Even the meager vision of that faded
away as the Archangel burned once more above us, cinder-black before she veiled
again her eyes.

The grit in the vents, the smell of piss, the utter stink of
bodies and defecation.  Cannot roll the windows down.  Pelting sands of glass,
the stink of rot, the endless howling of the wind.  A tire rolling from out of
nowhere with a gust, strange mounds of moths and butterflies blowing apart in
the evil wind.

(Later?)

Rudolph Ranch, and then the tombs of the drilling companies. 
Molten wreckage.  No survivors.

~

[535.]

I believe it may be twilight.  I thought I saw the setting sun to
what was once “west.”

Silas says it was the reflection of a wildfire.  Perhaps he’s
right.  He’s quick, alert once the morphine is fringed away, he’s only old in
some ways.  His eyes are proving to be far better than mine.  Sometimes, as I
drive very slowly, he even lets me close my eyes, rest for some few feet before
I need to turn the wheel.

So exhausted.

And what else “today” have I seen?

Hints of corpses, silhouettes in the edges of the smog.  Barbed-wire
fences with shirts and pant legs hanging off of them in greasy tatters, arms
with fingers still outspread, scraps of once-people and their pathetic husks
all blowing on the wind.  Dead blackened and bloated cows in burned-out fields,
and then the town of Gilpin.

Oh.

Sped through, mostly ruins but piles of bodies that had been
burned
,
not by the White Fire, perhaps with gasoline.

By whom?

There are people out there.  They do not want to be seen.

(Later)

Sour in my mouth.  Sick to my stomach.

Siphoned gas from a wreck, Silas watching, coaching.  The suit
resisted spills, but I ruined a shirt and both gloves before I understood what
I was doing.  Helpless!

We didn’t need the fuel, not yet, but I needed to know how.

(Again later?)

First survivors seen.

Fired at by someone, no hits.  Possibly warning shots.  I almost wanted
to fire back out the window, but at what?  Oh, godless, Patrice.  How dearly I
wanted to.

Shouting something.  I dared not roll the window down.

We fled away immediately, pushing vehicles aside.