The Marus Manuscripts (34 page)

T
he nightmares came not long after he’d fallen asleep. Out of the darkness, the dead came to accuse him of killing them. Their faces were twisted into grotesque masks. Their accusing, skeletal fingers were draped with decaying skin. But Wade didn’t run from them. He stood his ground and listened to their harsh, raspy voices that called him a murderer.

“You’re right,” he replied to them. “And now I’m suffering for what I’ve done. I’m alone in a dead world. Alone.”

He heard the sound of a crypt opening, with rusty hinges and the smell of moss. Hands reached out for him, beckoning him into the casket. He closed his eyes. The hands wrapped around his arms and shoulders and pulled at him. He felt his body being swept away . . . caught like a dead fish on a wave . . . pulling him . . . pulling him . . .

And then he saw a bright light and heard the voice of Arin whispering for him to wake up.

Wade’s heart jumped at the sound of the voice, but he didn’t open his eyes. He feared that he would look up and see nothing more than the closed shelter door. He feared the hope that the voice kindled inside him. He couldn’t bear to have it dashed.

“Are you playing a game with us, boy?” Arin whispered.

Wade slowly opened his eyes. Arin’s face came fully into view. Wade reached up and touched his cheek, wanting to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. The skin was real. Arin was real. Wade looked
around and saw the faces of Muiraq, Oshan, Etham, Pool, Nacob, Riv, and Hesham gazing back at him with worried expressions. He was inside the shelter with them.

Arin smiled at him with relief. “We were worried about you, boy,” he said.

Wade threw himself into Arin’s arms and cried as he’d never cried before.

“We thought we heard someone knocking, but we didn’t want to open the door until we were sure it wasn’t a trick,” Arin explained to Wade. They were all sitting around a large metal table in what they called the “dining room” of the shelter. In the distance, Wade heard the lowing of cattle, the occasional bleating of sheep, and the chirping of many kinds of birds.

“We waited until night fell and then opened the door,” Muiraq continued. “There you were, all curled up, sleeping so deeply. We pulled you in as quickly as we could and then closed the door again.”

“The door is sealed tight from now on,” Arin said. “You are the last to join us, and only because the Unseen One made it clear to me that you were allowed.”

Wade hung his head low. “I don’t deserve to be here,” he said solemnly. “Why did the Unseen One tell you to let me in?”

“Because of your heart,” Arin replied.

“What about it?”

“Did you not pray to the Unseen One and ask for His forgiveness? Didn’t you ask Him to help you?”

Wade remembered his time in the tower. “Yes, I did.”

“It was more than anyone else in this world did,” Arin said gravely. “So He opened the door to you.”

“But how did
you
know that?” Wade asked, mystified once again.

Arin shrugged.

“What will happen to the world now?”

“For 40 days and nights, it will go through a terrible upheaval. All living things will die—not only people, but the animals and plants as well. The world will drown in the illness you brought.”

“The illness
I
brought,” Wade said softly.

“Everything that humanity has trusted in until now will be obliterated: its technology, its knowledge, its lies. After 40 days, my family and I will rise up from the shelter to begin anew. The Unseen One will start pure again what had been corrupted.”

Wade looked puzzled, then asked, “But why aren’t you sick? Why didn’t you catch the disease I brought? You should be afraid now.”

“I told you when you arrived that the Unseen One would protect us. And He has, us and all the animals and other living things here. Whatever illness you brought simply hasn’t affected us.”

Muiraq stood up. “This is enough talk for now,” she announced. “There are chores to do, and then we must eat our dinner. Go on now!” She shooed them all away as if they were birds on a fence.

Later, when Wade was standing near one of the large aquariums, watching the saltwater fish gliding around carelessly, Arin approached him.

“You have something on your mind,” Arin said.

Wade almost asked him how he knew, but he decided it was a mystery he would never understand. So he said directly, “I feel terrible about what happened. I’m responsible for this catastrophe.”

“In what way?” Arin asked.

“I came here and introduced terrible bombs, and worse, I spread a sickness that”—it seemed incredible, but he said it anyway—“that killed everyone. If I hadn’t come, then . . .” He paused and
gently bit his lower lip. He was tired of crying and didn’t want to start again.

“There now, stay strong,” Arin said warmly. “Let’s try to untangle this mess you’re in.”

“How?”

“Well, the first thing you should remember is that you didn’t come here on your own. I believe the Unseen One brought you here for a purpose.”

Wade thought about it for a moment. It was true that he hadn’t asked—or done anything—to come to this world. One minute he was in his coal cellar, and the next minute he was here. “That’s right,” he agreed. “But my purpose was to bring sickness and death.”

“Sickness and death, yes. Just as at another time you could have come and brought life and light to our world. But you didn’t. The Unseen One brought you here to convey His justice to an evil world that demanded it.” Arin picked up a broom and leaned on the handle as though it were a staff. “Sooner or later the Unseen One’s promises are always fulfilled, you see. You happened to be the way He fulfilled this promise.”

“It’s still a terrible promise to fulfill.”

“I agree,” he said. “And I don’t suppose you have to like it any more than I liked preaching a message of doom for so many years. Do you think I enjoyed that? I was cut off from my relatives, ostracized by my neighbors, ridiculed in my community. When they weren’t laughing at me, they were cursing me. But that’s the nature of things in this world. The truth will always set us apart. Sometimes that truth soothes and heals, and sometimes it cuts to the marrow. As a result, our service to the Unseen One will always put us at odds with unbelievers. But we have to take our part and do what He wants us to do.”

“But if I hadn’t come . . .”

Arin looked at Wade like a disapproving teacher. “That’s a useless question, now, isn’t it? Granted, you did some foolish things once you got here. But those things played themselves out as they should have. You allowed wicked men to deceive you, and they ultimately paid the price for it.”

Wade considered that notion. “What price did
I
pay for what I did?” he asked.

“What price do you
think
you should have paid?”

“I don’t know.”

“Should you have paid more?” Arin stroked his chin in consideration. “Well, now, I believe you’ve suffered as much as you needed to suffer to realize your foolishness. You saw where you went wrong, and you asked the Unseen One to forgive you.”

“Yes.”

“Then what else is there to be said? What else is there to be paid?”

Wade struggled to understand what Arin was saying.

Arin put his arm around Wade’s shoulders, and they began to walk. “I know how you feel, Wade,” Arin said softly. “Deep in your heart, you feel guilty because you’re in this shelter and you don’t think you deserve to be. Am I on the right track?”

Wade nodded.

“You think that maybe if you suffered
more
, you might feel less guilty. Is that the idea?”

Wade didn’t reply, but he knew it was so.

“Then listen to me and listen closely,” Arin went on. “There’s no amount of suffering you can do to deserve the love of the Unseen One. He saved you because of your
repentant
heart
—because you realized there was nothing more you could do. You had to give up and ask for His help. That’s as much as any of us can do. The truth
of the matter is that none of us deserve to be saved. We should all be outside, dying with the rest.”

“But you’re all so good and wise and—”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Arin corrected him. “We’re men and women, flesh and blood, as prone to disobedience as anyone. The only thing we did was to listen to the Unseen One when no one else would.”

Wade didn’t know what to say.

Arin smiled. “You think about it for a while. Maybe it’ll make sense one day. Meanwhile . . .” Arin handed Wade a feed pouch. “I want you to go over and see that the horses get their dinner. You can start with Bethel. The feed is in that long box against the wall.”

Wade looked at Arin curiously. It seemed like a strange turn to their conversation.

“Go on,” Arin said. “Just put the pouch over her mouth and the strap over the top of her head. But be careful. She
does
bite.” In the dim light, Wade thought Arin looked a little sad, but he couldn’t imagine why.

Wade went over to the feed box and filled the pouch with oats. He then went to Bethel’s stall, hesitating at the door.

Arin was still watching him. “Go on,” he said again.

Wade shrugged and stepped into the stall. It was dark. “Bethel?” he called out. He spotted her toward the rear. He approached her slowly so as not to scare her, then put the feed pouch up to her mouth. She began to eat. He then reached up to put the strap over the top of her head. “There you go,” he said and turned back to the door.

Something crunched under his feet.

“What is that?” he asked and lifted his foot to look. He lost his balance and fell over on his side. Embarrassed, he laughed to himself and said, “You’re such a clumsy oaf.”

“What did you say?” a woman asked.

Wade replied, “I said I’m such a clumsy oaf.” And then he realized that the woman was his mother and he wasn’t in the stable with Bethel at all. He was lying in his bed—his
own
bed—in his own home in his own world.

W
ade looked at his mother, his face wide open with surprise. “Mom?” he said.

Her eyes were moist. She’d been crying. “Hello, son,” she replied.

“What happened?” he croaked and started to sit up. He felt too weak, though, and decided to stay where he was.

“You’ve had a terrible relapse,” she answered. “A high fever. I was worried sick. I knew I shouldn’t have let you out of bed. You never should have been down in the coal cellar.”

“How long?” His throat was dry; he was dying of thirst.

“Since this morning,” she replied. “I got the telegram and went down to tell you about it, but you were unconscious in the coal cellar. The doctor said you must have fainted from trying to fill the bucket.” She began to cry again. “I shouldn’t have let you do that.”

Wade patted his mother’s hand. “It’s okay, Mom. I feel a little weak, but I’m all right. I had the strangest dream, though.”

“You rest while I get you some soup. Then you can tell me all about it.” She dabbed her eyes with a tissue, then walked to the door.

Wade suddenly realized something she’d said. “Mom—”

“Yes, son?”

“What telegram? Is there news about Dad?”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the folded yellow sheet of paper. “There’s news,” she said and started to cry all over again.

Wade held his breath.

She composed herself and continued, “Your father is alive and well, Wade! He had to parachute out of his plane and wound up breaking his leg in the jungle, miles and miles from anywhere. Some island natives have been sheltering him until they could find help. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Relief washed over him. “Yeah, it’s great.”

She came back over to the bed and hugged her son tight, then made a fuss for crying so much and went out to make him some soup.

“Sheltered,” he said softly to himself and stretched long and hard. “What a dream!”

Only after he’d finished his soup did he remember the top secret atomic bomb plans. He searched his robe and under his pajamas, then noticed that he was wearing a different pair. His mother had changed his clothes.

“You had coal dust all over your other pair of pajamas,” she said when he asked her about it. “And they were soaking wet from your fever.”

“What did you do with the papers I had?” he asked hesitantly.

“What papers?”

“I had some papers tucked under my pajama top, with drawings and a lot of writing.”

“You didn’t have any papers,” she said.

“How about down in the coal cellar?” he persisted.

She looked at him impatiently. “You didn’t have any papers, I’m telling you. I would have seen them. Were they school papers?”

“No.”

“Then you must have left them somewhere else, because they’re not around here.”

Suddenly he remembered the exact moment when he had handed them over to Dr. Lyst.

And he wondered.