“Where’s Christine?” Robby asked. “She wasn’t with us on the snowmobiles.”
Brad looked down at the floor. He was sitting in the chair over by the big window. “She went in right after you. With all the confusion, I guess we forgot to hold her back. As soon as nobody was looking, she went.”
“That’s too bad,” Robby said.
“She was troubled,” Brad said.
“Where are the others?” Robby asked.
“They’re getting some food together,” Brad said. “I didn’t leave much to eat here.”
“You’d think they’d be tired,” Robby said.
“They were. We all were. We left the snowmobiles out on the highway and Pete carried you over here. Then we slept most of the day. We ate what was left of the food and slept the night through. You never woke up through any of it. You’re finishing up about a twenty-four hour nap.”
“Really?” Robby asked. “That’s hard to believe. I’m still so tired.”
Brad smiled and stood up. He dug in a box and brought Robby a bottle of water and a couple granola bars.
“So what was in there?” Brad asked.
“What? In the ball of light?” Robby asked.
Brad nodded.
Robby chewed a mouth full of granola bar and washed it down before answering. “Was I really in there? I never thought I actually went in.”
“Nobody saw you go in,” Brad said. “I was still coming down the hill and I was looking at the ice when I found your mirror. I picked it up and scanned all around and I didn’t see you anywhere. That’s when I saw Christine go in. She mingled with a bunch of the dead people and slipped right by me. I sat there for a long time waiting to see what would happen. Pete and the others went up to get the snowmobiles ready because we all thought it was all over. Then, right before the last of the eyeless people went in, you came out, yelling ‘No, no, no.’ So what were you yelling at?”
Robby shut his eyes and remembered his time in the big crowd of people.
When he spoke again, his voice was lower and sadder than Brad had ever heard it. “I was yelling at my dad. He was calling me to join him, to join my whole family, but I’m not ready to go yet. To answer your question—everyone was in there. I think everyone who ever lived and died.”
“How is that possible?” Brad asked, his voice just above a whisper.
Robby shook his head.
“I understand why Christine wanted to go back,” Robby said. “It’s lonely to stay out here, knowing they’re all inside. But it’s what I have to do. We owe it to them to do what we can.”
“So you think that’s where people go when they die?” Brad asked. “They get absorbed into some alien creature?”
Robby shook his head and thought for a while before answering—“No. People don’t get absorbed, but maybe that thing comes from where we all go.”
“So it’s a portal or something?” Brad asked.
“Or something,” Robby said.
The door burst open and hadn’t finished its swing before Pete started talking.
“Well it’s a good thing we didn’t go back to the apartments,” Pete said. “Hey! Robby’s awake.”
Pete, Romie, and Lisa came through the door, each carrying plastic bags, full of boxes and cans.
“You guys have to see this,” Pete said. He dropped his bags on the floor and beckoned Brad and Robby over to the door. Robby shook off his blankets and shuffled on stiff legs past Pete and out onto the porch. He shivered at the crisp air and followed Pete’s pointing finger to the northern sky.
“Wow,” Brad said, joining Robby on the porch. “I almost forgot what sky looked like.”
To the north, a big hole had opened in the clouds and for the first time in months they could see clear blue sky.
“It’s been getting bigger all morning,” Pete said. “I think we’ll have clear skies by the end of the day.”
Lisa appeared in the threshold.
“You’re going to catch your death out here,” Lisa said. “At least put some shoes on.”
“We’ll just be a second,” Robby said. The porch was covered and wide enough for a swing, but all the furniture had been removed for the winter. Robby put his hand on the railing and lowered himself to the cold brick steps. He sat on the second step and leaned back to look up at the sky. Brad brushed the dusting of snow from his side of the steps and then sat next to Robby. Behind them, Pete and Lisa went back inside and closed the door.
Brad glanced over at Robby. The young man looked wind-burned and tired.
“So the dead rose and walked through a portal to the afterlife. What crazy things we’ve seen. Do you think it worked? Do you think bringing all the dead bodies up to the light worked?” Brad asked.
“I don’t know,” Robby said. “I guess it depends on what we were trying to do.”
“I thought the point was to drive that thing off the planet,” Brad said. “I thought we would poison it and it would go away.”
“Yeah,” Robby said. “I guess I expected…” Robby squinted as the sun peeked out from behind a scraggly blanket of clouds. He stared at the sun even as it left blue-yellow trails across his retinas. Tears welled up and spilled from the corners of his squinted eyes.
“Come on,” Brad said. He tapped Robby on the shoulder. “Let’s go in and see what they brought back to eat.”
“You go,” Robby said. “I’ll be there in a second.”
“Okay,” Brad said. He stood slowly and followed Robby’s eyes back up to the patch of blue sky. He shielded his eyes from the sun and looked at the edge of the clouds. They were definitely receding—the clouds moved back like they were evaporating away from the patch of blue, rather than blowing away. Brad went inside and closed the door behind him.
Robby sat on the porch and stared at the sky.
He sat motionless until his shivering legs and icy feet drove him inside.
THEY EACH DROVE their own snowmobile, although they could have easily fit on two. Robby and Pete rode side-by-side in the lead and were followed at a reasonable distance by Lisa and Brad. Each sled carried an extra gas can and bag of gear strapped to the back. Lisa insisted on the safety precautions. She’d grown cautious in the weeks since their last trip north. She would say, “No sense in surviving the apocalypse just to die of food poisoning,” or, “… just to die of pneumonia.” The others humored her and each drove their own snowmobile, capable of enduring hundreds of miles and a week of camping with all the supplies she’d packed.
Pete held up a gloved hand and waved to the others before he slowed down. They had travelled about halfway along the tracks north to where they’d seen the ball of light. The sun burned bright in a flawless blue sky above them.
“I think it’s melting,” Pete said, pointing west towards the hills. The perfect white blanket of snow was dirtied off in the distance by the shapes of bare treetops poking through at the crest of a hill.
The group had monitored the snowpack carefully back in Portland. Although the sun was out and it seemed warmer outside, the snow hadn’t receded or melted at all from the roads.
“Seems like it’s a little softer, too,” Brad said. He was stomping his left foot into the grainy snow to the side of packed tracks from the tractors they’d driven through weeks before.
“We’d do best to space ourselves out a bit, in case it gets unstable up ahead. You guys give me about a twenty second lead before you follow. You’ll have enough time to stop if I break through,” Pete said. “I’ll trail a line.” He rifled through the bag Lisa packed and came up with a long rope meant for rock climbers. Pete looped it around his shoulders and produced a harness before he tossed the slack into the snow.
“Now don’t run over my line, or I’m gonna wind up on my ass,” Pete said. When he spun his throttle and left the group behind, his bundle of rope flopped and danced behind him, playing itself out. Robby accelerated too, following the line and staying careful to give it enough distance so he wouldn’t accidentally run over the rope.