Heritage and Shimmer (4 page)

Beverly frowned. “I sure don’t doubt that
Landry Jones did everything the Starwatch says, but I’ve always
wondered how he brought so many aliens down with nothing more than
a rifle.”

Simon nodded. “That’s a very good question.
Always surprises me that more people don’t think to ask it.”

“You’re both missing the point,” Simon
growled. “Who knows what kind of technology works in those
spacecraft? Maybe Landry’s instincts told him about some weakness
in the flying saucers’ design. What matters is that Landry Jones
shot those invaders out of the sky. What matters is that he showed
us that we have the power to resist the alien menace. What matters
is that Landry showed us that we have the power to survive if we
only pull together.”

Simon nodded. “It might be buried down real
deep, buy maybe there’s some truth in what you say, son.” Simon
strayed to stand beside the hologram of Landry Jones. “But the
truth’s not to be found on the surface out here. The two of you
need to be honest with your answer. You’re not going to hurt my
feelings. Tell me, how do you think they captured my likeness?”

Jayce’s hands balled into fists. “What are
you suggesting?”

“Just look real close at me and the light,
son.”

Beverly squinted at the tall and crooked
caretaker and the shimmering hologram of the cemetery’s hero.
Landry Jones’ face was a handsome one, with a strong chin and dark,
penetrating eyes capable of wooing hearts as well as they could aim
a rifle, with a golden beard that swayed in the cemetery’s breeze.
The rifleman’s face was properly constructed, while the caretaker’s
visage looked pieced together according to a crumpled and crooked
design.

Yet Beverly noticed stronger similarities the
longer she considered that pair of faces. She squinted, and Beverly
noticed how Simon’s nose, crooked as it trailed down the center of
his face, shared the general shape and character of Landry’s. Simon
lifted his hands and saluted just as the holographic rifleman did
the same, and Beverly couldn’t deny that the men shared the same
smile. She stared into the eyes of both men, and she shuddered to
realize they shared the same color and glimmer, no matter that the
caretaker’s eyes sat so crookedly into his visage while those of
the rifleman were properly aligned and centered.

“They’re the same person,” Beverly gasped. “I
don’t know how I know, but that hologram’s based on Simon. The
surface of that light’s been changed, but at the core, all that
shimmer’s based on the caretaker.”

Jayce choked. “That’s a terrible thing to
say. And it’s impossible.”

Beverly shook her head. “You only have to
look a little longer, Jayce.”

“What’s gotten into you, Bev? I thought you
were smarter. I didn’t expect this memorial would make you so
crazy. They don’t even share the same name.”

Simon sighed. “They changed my name. I doubt
my old shotgun would’ve reached any flying, saucer, and I doubt my
buckshot would’ve made a dent in any spacecraft. The Starwatch
composed one heck of a fiction when they created my ghost.”

Jayce stepped towards the caretaker. “I’ve
had enough of your lies. I’m telling you to shut your mouth for the
last time.”

Simon paid no attention to the fists that
formed from Jayce’s hands. “All these shimmering ghosts you summon
at this memorial with a push of a button tell you a fiction, son.
An alien truly did arrive in New Bethany that June night so many
years ago. But it didn’t come in any warship, and it wasn’t any
vanguard craft sent by a space armada bristling with laser guns.
That alien certainly wasn’t any giant, lizard warrior. Far from it.
The actual alien that crashed outside of town hardly came up to my
waist, and it looked like a real weak thing.”

“I mean it, old man. Shut your rotten
mouth.”

“Both of the alien’s arms and both of the
alien’s legs were broken after those boys dragged it behind their
truck all the way into New Bethany. That poor creature didn’t have
anything more than a wrinkle for a mouth, but it cried something
terrible. It just wailed inside our minds. I still hear that sad
thing begging for mercy. That cry haunts me so my bones don’t get
any rest. I tell you the truth, son, what New Bethany did to that
alien was a shame. That alien was a hurt and vulnerable thing, and
New Bethany treated it as if it was some kind of monster.”

Beverly didn’t have time to wink before
Jayce’s fists flashed into Simon’s face. It was no secret that the
Starwatch academy trained each of its officers in a style of
hand-to-hand combat specifically developed to combat the alien,
lizard invaders. Beverly feared Jayce would murder Simon, for she
doubted an old man could survive the first blow a graduate of the
Starwatch delivered him. Yet that caretaker’s expression didn’t
change. He didn’t even wince. Jayce’s punches, though precisely
aimed, failed to have any impact at all. Jayce grunted, and his
hands reached for Simon’s neck. Only Jayce could take no hold on
that old man who was guilty of making such rude comments concerning
the dead. It was as if Jayce attacked nothing more than air.

“Take a breath, son.” Simon laughed. “You’ve
got a lot of life ahead of you, and it’s going to get rough if you
keep getting so upset about everything. How much good did taking
that swing at me do you? I bet you wish you could take those
punches back and keep on thinking I’m nothing more than an old man
suffering from dementia. I bet you wish you never met me at all.
Only, you’re looking at me, and your mind’s going to have to deal
with it. So just take a breath, son. There’s nothing out here that
can hurt you.”

Jayce’s eyes searched the surrounding trees.
“You’re some kind of hologram like all the other figures projected
out from these tombstones. You’re some kind of trick planted by an
alien apologist; or worse, you’re some kind of trick the aliens
left behind to undermine this memorial. Some quiet drone humming
over our heads is probably projecting your figure.”

Simon shook his head. “I’m none of those
things.”

“What else could you be?” Jayce scowled.

Simon pointed to Beverly. “Maybe you should
ask her.”

“Don’t make me say it,” Beverly trembled.

“Go ahead,” responded Simon. “Trust your
instincts. You know. Tell him what I am.”

Beverly closed her eyes. Would Jayce forgive
her after she told him what she believed that caretaker to be?
Would he turn his back on her and call off their marriage? Would he
abandon her to those stones? How many times had Jayce told her that
the world no longer had the space for superstition following the
arrival of the aliens? Beverly knew Jayce could forgive her of so
many trespasses and faults, but she was afraid that Jayce couldn’t
forgive her fear. Beverly knew that loathing, instead of love,
would grow within Jayce if she failed to be courageous and strong.
But she could not keep the answer to Simon’s nature bottled inside
of her.

“That man is a ghost, Jayce.”

Anger twisted Jayce’s face. “Don’t be
ridiculous.”

Beverly pointed at Simon’s boots. “His feet
don’t touch the ground. The grass doesn’t move when he stomps
across it. He hasn’t cut a single weed no matter how many times
he’s swung that sickle blade. He’s a haunt. He’s a shade. He’s a
ghost, Jayce.”

“There are no such things, Bev.”

Simon shook his head. “I wish you were right,
son. You can’t know how tired I am. I’m not even in that tomb. I’m
not even buried in this cemetery. My body rests far away from this
place. They didn’t want to give anyone the chance to find the truth
by digging down deep. I was no rifleman, no tall-tale folk hero. I
never shot any flying saucer. The only thing I shot was a
defensive, helpless thing, and I haven’t slept since.”

Beverly turned away from Jayce rather than
look into his face and realize that he would never be convinced
another world might exist beyond the one represented by his
Starwatch uniform. She wished she could show Jayce the error of his
conviction, wished she could show him that not all the
superstitions humankind clutched before the coming of the aliens
deserved to be cast aside like empty tin cans and crumpled, plastic
water bottles. Perhaps what remained of her world was too barren,
too brown, too old and too decrepit to ever satisfy Beverly’s
spirit, and so maybe her soul yearned for the presence of graveyard
ghosts, for floating haunts to remind her of a better time when, as
a girl, she was allowed the comfort of such fantasies.

Simon sighed as his eyes drifted upwards
towards his statue perched atop that tomb’s column. “I wish I
looked as handsome as that rifleman for one day of my lifetime. I
wish I was ever as healthy and handsome. The folks responsible for
this memorial created such a story when they planted all these
stones and installed all these light projectors. This place has
never been a cemetery, because they never buried anyone from New
Bethany beneath this soil. They couldn’t risk the chance of any of
those bones rising to the surface to whisper about what really
happened the night that alien fell out of the sky. So they buried
the residents of New Bethany elsewhere, and they didn’t think there
would be anyone or anything left to tell it like it really
was.”

Jayce’s eyes burned at Simon. “Why would
Starwatch lie? You lived in the time before the aliens tried taking
our planet. You must remember how it was. You have to remember how
hate crowded the world. You can’t deny what Starwatch has done for
us. It’s unfair and ungrateful to accuse Starwatch of deception
after they’ve worked so hard to bring us together.”

Simon agreed. “The Starwatch certainly united
us in their conspiracy. They tied us together with myth. Don’t
think that I don’t know how it really was. I lived my entire life
in New Bethany, and I knew all the people owning the names on these
stones before the holograms came to tell new tales. I watched that
alien fall from the sky in a plume of fire. I watched the woods
burn. I saw how no one lifted a finger to help that alien after
those boys dragged it behind their truck bumper al the way to town.
Oh, I know how the world really was.

“And I remember most how that creature cried.
It didn’t just cry because of its pain. It cried to get through our
thick skulls and plant something in our brains. That alien’s big,
black eyes stared at us, and I looked back at them when everyone
else turned away. I looked too long, and that alien entered my
head. It didn’t take it a moment to find the words it needed to
explain to me why it came to our wretched world. It breaks my heart
to think what it told me. It showed me how we might cleanse our
skies and clean our waters. It showed me how we might replenish the
fields. Only I knew it could never be. Everyone else in New Bethany
refused to return that alien’s gaze because they couldn’t accept
the truth of what fell out of the stars, because the truth wasn’t
like anything they learned in Sunday school.”

Tears watered in the caretaker’s crooked, old
eyes. “I didn’t turn away, though I wish I had. I couldn’t turn my
back on the creature while it wailed in my head. I looked into that
alien’s eyes and saw how we could build starships of our own and
how we too could step into the stars. Though it suffered in the
street, that alien still reached out to offer us salvation.”

Jayce hissed. “They came to choke us, old
man! They came to steal from us! They came to destroy us!”

Simon’s crooked shoulders slumped. “They did
not. The alien showed me such wonders while at the same time it
cried within my head. But I knew none of those things would ever
come to be because none of my neighbors could face what the heavens
truly held. I knew they would never look into that alien’s eyes as
I had, just as I knew they would never lift a finger to ease that
creature’s suffering. I like to think that I did what I did to
release that alien from its pain, but I often worry I did what I
did because I couldn’t accept that the alien in the street was so
smart that it made all our problems seem so simple. I never lifted
my shotgun’s barrel into the sky, never raised my weapon like that
hologram claims. I only painted my weapon at the chest of that poor
creature suffering in the street before I pulled the trigger to
chase the wailing out of my head. I still hear that wailing all the
same.”

“You’re a liar! You’re nothing more than some
alien agent projected into this cemetery, old man!” Jayce gripped
Beverly’s hand and pulled her away from the caretaker.

Simon took a breath. “We left the alien in
the street. No one wanted to touch it. Everyone was too afraid of
catching some extraterrestrial sickness, and so we all hurried to
hide in our homes, leaving that alien to whatever vultures and
coyotes were brave enough to nibble at that carrion.

“So that alien wasn’t at all hidden from the
scientists and the soldiers who arrived soon after we locked
ourselves into our homes. I wonder what they must’ve thought when
they came upon that creature’s broken body in our street. Did the
scientists instantly hate us for murdering that alien before they
had a chance to learn anything from it? Did the soldiers
immediately despise us for so foolishly killing our planet’s first
alien emissary? Did they fear we might’ve started a war none of
their generals would know how to fight by killing that star
creature?