The Participants (5 page)

“You're an immortal Observer for the
Creator.”

Zack took a deep
breath.
How does she know that? It's an
impossible guess. There's no way anyone could know about me. Not
unless . . . .
“I'm not the only one.” He
blinked, then spoke in a rush. “You're an Observer. Are there any
others?”

Bridgette stared at him. “You're not this
convincing of an actor.”

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head. “Never mind. Can we talk
outside?”

“Sure. There's a pavilion off to the
side.”

“I spotted it on my way in.”

Zack laughed. “Of course you noticed it. I
would have.” He abandoned his post at the deli counter, trying to
suppress the giddy excitement within him. Other Observers existed.
It lessened the guilt he felt over his deficits to know that he
didn't bear the entire burden of witnessing creation. It meant
there were others who understood his problems. Others who might
know how to deal with things. It meant there was hope for him.

He asked his first question before they
reached the pavilion. “Do you have any idea how many of us there
are?”

“Eleven,” she said.

“That's awful specific. How do you
know?”

Bridgette sat on the picnic table. “Because
in a hundred and forty-four iterations, I have only met ten others.
In case you hadn't noticed, it's pretty easy to spot our own kind.
Even easier if they get themselves on the national news.”

“Why eleven? It seems an odd number.”

“Well, Zack, that's a very old question.
Everyone has their own theory. Personally, I think the Creator is
messing with us. People always have ten fingers. Twelve is almost
always a holy number. But It makes eleven of us because numerology
is a joke.”

Zack frowned. “It? I always thought of the
Creator as a He.”

Bridgette smacked her knee. “Right. Well, I
say the Creator is a woman.”

He shrugged. “I guess it doesn't matter
either way. Do you really think the Creator jokes with us? Doesn't
that seem a little . . . irreverent?”

Bridgette shrugged. “Why not? We don’t
actually know anything about the Creator. For so many worlds,
everyone thought there was a twelfth Observer in hiding. But some
worlds are much smaller than this one. It would be impossible to
avoid detection by all of us for this long.”

“You talk as if this isn't the first
world.”

“This is number one-four-four, Zack.”

“And all of you are the same age?”

“All of us.”

Zack shook his head. “Not me, Bridgette. I
only go back five years.”

She took his hand in hers. “Hess, it's Elza.
You're safe.”

He retracted his hand as gently as possible.
“I'm telling the truth. Maybe the Creator needed a twelfth
Observer. Maybe I'm supposed to be a joke: a clumsy Observer who
gets caught.”

Bridgette sighed. “If this is your first
life, then we should probably have a long talk. I'm sure you have a
ton of questions. I rented a house just ten minutes from here.” She
pulled out a set of keys.

“I can't go now,” Zack said. “But my shift
ends at two. Does that work?”

She smiled. “Sure thing, honey. I'll be
here.”

The darkness was everything. Hess lay as if dead,
listening to the heartbeat that would not cease counting eternity.
Ragged breaths sawed through his parched throat at irregular
intervals. Hunger gnawed at his middle and weakness wrapped him
like a blanket. A tenuous peace existed in those moments of
passivity. The weary emptiness was the state of least pain and he
embraced its refuge. Hess forced down the memories struggling to
rise within him. There was nothing but the darkness.

Time passed. Whether it
passed quickly or slowly he did not know. Such concepts didn’t
exist in the darkness. There was only
now
, one torturous moment stretching
to infinity. Hess did not contemplate time. He did not contemplate
anything. He simply existed in the darkness.

He existed in the darkness until the echo of
his gasping breath in the tiny space sparked a constellation of
recollections. The violence of the memories triggered a physical
response. Hess swung his fists at the darkness, striking stone
surfaces above his face and to each side. “Elza!” Some part of him
recognized the hoarse voice as his own. Another part reacted to the
sound, imagining rescuers spoke to him. “Help me! Let me out of
here! Please help me!”

Yet another part of him
observed everything from a distance, chronicling events even though
nothing new happened, even though nothing new would ever
happen.
Panic attack triggered by
perceived noise.
“Elza? Can you hear me,
Elza? I’m sorry! So sorry! Please forgive me!”
Fragmented thought processes.
“Someone help me! Get me out of here! I will do
anything!”

His fists, invisible in the
dark, were made of pain. He struck harder and harder at surfaces he
could not see, ratcheting the pain higher. Blood began to spatter,
raining down on his face. Hess licked the tangy liquid from his
lips, desperate for moisture.
Animal
responses remain strong, instinctually seeking sources of
comfort.

“Why?” he demanded of the darkness. That
question was everything, but no part of Hess was sure what it
referenced. Why did the others do this to him? Why would the
Creator allow his suffering to continue? Why had he violated the
divine command in such a drastic fashion? Why would the Creator
make a world where such suffering was possible? The question could
be any one of those, or all of them together, or maybe something
beyond words and logic, something born of the darkness that could
only be sensed and never defined.

As Hess continued to pound
his mangled fists, the objective portion of him continued its
narration, repeating a story he told himself often.
The healing response restores as much moisture
and calories to the body as necessary to support life for a short
length of time. It appears likely that the atmosphere is being
scrubbed free of carbon dioxide, but this is impossible to verify.
Likely the products of respiration are reclaimed in the same way as
blood.
Hess snarled wordlessly at the part
of him observing his plight.

The rage that boiled up dwarfed everything
that came before. Hess coiled his entire body and launched himself
forward the eight inches to the stone ceiling, driving his forehead
into it. The rebound struck the back of his head against the stone
floor of his crypt. Hess struck upwards again. The impassive
narrator vanished with the other aspects of his personality, all of
them absorbed into the all-consuming emotion of the moment. Hess
struck again and again with as much force as he could generate in
his tiny prison until he died.

When Hess woke once more in the darkness, he
began to weep, eyes burning but too dry for tears. His body was
whole and undamaged save for a touch of dehydration. “Let me die! I
don’t want to live! Please, Creator, unmake me! I don’t want to
live! I don’t want to live!”

He wept for a time he could not determine
but which felt significant. Then emotional exhaustion brought a
blessed return to the living coma that was the state of least pain.
Memories bubbled beneath the surface, but Hess ignored them.

PART II

The rest of his shift flowed as slow as molasses.
Zack hardly noticed when an inebriated man dropped a gallon of milk
onto the floor, sending a white flood out to wash away the dust.
His mind buzzed with the knowledge that he wasn’t alone. He wasn’t
sure why he hadn’t gone with Bridgette. Lacey needed his paycheck,
but Zack had never let that fact influence his choices in the past.
Otherwise, he would have upgraded to a more profitable career
months ago.

As the day passed, a vague
uneasiness began to bother him. He couldn’t eat anything on his
lunch break.
What am I worried about? That
she won’t come back? That she won’t like me? That I won’t like her
answers?
The more Zack probed at his
uneasiness, the worse it became. The slight shadows throughout the
room seemed to grow deeper as he dug into his suspicions, pooling
together and flowing towards him.

Zack squeezed his eyes shut
and emptied his mind. When he looked again, the shadows were gone.
The darkness rarely threatened him during the day – only when he
let himself become emotional did it become a problem.
Should I mention the darkness to Bridgette? Does
she see it too or is something wrong with me? Am I
insane?

Several years previously, Zack considered
admitting himself into a psychiatric ward on the hope that he was
delusional and doctors could cure him. The prospect of becoming a
medical experiment if he wasn’t crazy hadn’t been enough to deter
him. In the end, the only reason he decided against it was because
he couldn’t be sure the staff of a crazy house would let him have a
nightlight.

When two o’clock arrived, Zack updated his
handwritten timecard and went to the parking lot. He looked around,
but couldn’t see Bridgette anywhere. Zack let out a breath. Maybe
he could just go home and worry about the other Observers another
day.

An African-American man with hair in
cornrows stepped out of a pickup truck and walked towards him. “You
want to see Bridgette?” the man asked him. Zack backed away from
the man in the direction of the store. The man raised his hands to
show he wasn’t a threat. “I’m just here to give you a ride, friend.
Let’s go see Bridgette now.”

Someone clamped a hand on his shoulder from
behind and pressed something into his back. A deep woman’s voice
whispered in his ear. “Just walk forward, Hess. We have the girl.
If you don’t come talk to us, she’s going to spend some more time
underground. You don’t want that, do you?”

“I’m not who you think I am,” he said.

“We’ll talk later. Now walk.” When the woman
prodded him in the back, Zack moved forward. The black man grabbed
his arm and the two escorted him to the pickup. When they opened
the passenger door, the woman jabbed something into his neck and
Zack’s entire body convulsed. When he stopped shaking, his arms
were already twisted behind his back and shackled. They loaded him
inside and were on the road before Zack managed to speak.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

The black man shook his head. “Playing
stupid won’t help you, Hess. We’re going to do a replay of last
Iteration. Two hundred years in a stone box just wasn’t enough
punishment for the stunt you pulled. And you didn’t learn a damned
thing. I turn on the news and see an Observer flaunting the Divine
Command and you know what I think? I think we didn’t do Hess good
enough last time. That’s what I think.”

“I’m not Hess.”

Zack jumped when the taser crackled in the
woman’s hand. She waved it in front of his face. “Might want to
keep your mouth shut. Once we get to the farm, the fun is going to
last for a long time. Just sit back and enjoy your last moments
without pain.”

“Put the taser away while I’m driving,
Laura,” the black man said.

“I have had enough of your paranoia.”

“Have you noticed I’m a black man in a white
country? People notice minorities. If anyone gets busted when Hess
disappears, it will be me. So put the damn taser away.”

“I’m a woman and I still have bigger balls
than you, Drake.”

The man slammed his fist on the steering
wheel. “I’m going by Weston!”

“Sorry, chica, but Hess will know who did
this to him. He’s Drake; I’m Erik. Griff and Ingrid are waiting for
us at the farmhouse.”

Drake shook his head. “We should lock you up
with him, Erik.”

The woman named Erik snickered at that.
“Don't let the tits fool you, Drake. I'm still more than you can
handle. Even if you found the balls to make a move against me, the
others wouldn't back you. No one wants me as an enemy.”

“You are a psychopath,” Drake said.

Erik laughed. “We're all psychopaths. When
one of us starts caring for people is when the trouble starts. Just
ask our bleeding heart here about how he wants to change the
world.”

“What I meant to say was serial killer,”
Drake said.

“You have no idea what kinds of things I
discover for the Creator,” Erik said. “The way people react to
extreme situations reveals a lot about them. You wouldn't believe
the things they will do to avoid a little pain. I can break the
strongest in forty-eight hours. Some people crack without a single
touch.” Erik scraped her nails over Zack's face hard enough to draw
blood. “I didn't get enough time with this one last Iteration. We
had to be quick that time. But you're a nobody in this world. I can
have all the time I want.”

Drake shook his head. “You get twenty-four
hours and then he goes in the ground. That's it.”

“I'm calling the shots, Mr. Minority.”

“We've been considering an intervention for
you. Murder counts as participation if anything does.”

Erik leaned forward to look across Zack's
body. “You want to make this personal?”

“None of this is personal.”

“Oh no, Drake, this is nothing but
personal.”

Drake didn't respond. After a minute, Erik
grunted. “Just remember what I'm capable of and you won't be
tempted to do something stupid.”

The truck pulled off the road onto a long
dirt drive. Drake spoke quietly. “For the record, Hess, this isn't
personal for me. This is just driving your lesson home.”

Zack stared out the window without thinking,
forcing his mind to stillness. Whatever was about to happen to him
was going to be bad.