Rivals

Chapter 46

The interior of the cylinder was even colder than Maggie remembered. The air still sucked away every sound, until her footfalls sounded like whispers and then stopped making any sound whatsoever. The puddles on the floor still hadn't dried up, and there were birds roosting inside in silent, watchful flocks. The place creeped her out, just as it had the first time she'd seen it.
This time around she could observe more details, but very few of them made any sense to her. The cylinder seemed very large inside. In fact, it seemed bigger on the inside than it had looked from up in the ravine. Its interior was not smooth at all but lined with pipes and tubes, some thicker across than her waist. Many of them were broken open and she could see they were hollow inside. Others were still intact. Some had water condensed on them, and when she touched one of these she could feel a faint vibration travel up her arm. Whatever had happened to the cylinder, whether it had crashed on Earth thousands of years ago or if it had just rotted away over time, clearly parts of it were still in perfect working order.
Like the well full of green fire, for instance.
There was, she supposed, a certain amount of danger involved in going back inside. She had survived the green fire once, and in fact it had made her stronger. There was no guarantee that it wouldn't kill her though if she remained too long inside the cylinder. It had killed her father without any trouble, after all.
She'd come to find his body. As villainous as she may have become, regardless of how much the darkness inside her had eroded the good little girl she'd once been, she still owed Dad this much. He shouldn't have to rot away inside some weird alien artifact. Yet when she actually found the body - or rather, his bones, which were all that remained of him - she found herself so repulsed she had to turn away rather than be sick.
His remains were curled around the well that was the home of the green fire. His hands were still clenched around the manhole cover-sized lid as if he were still trying, from beyond his own death, to close the well and save his children.
That meant something to Maggie. It meant something so horrible she couldn't stand it, and this time she was sick, and had to pause to throw up on the floor. It meant he hadn't died instantly.
It meant there had been a chance, even if it was just a small one, to save him. To pull him out of there, just as she had dragged out Brent.
He could have survived.
She could have saved him.
She dropped down beside him, unable to help herself. She pressed up against the bones as if curling up with him on a couch back in their house, and put her arm around his rib cage, just wanting to hold him. It was morbid of her, she supposed, but in her head it was just a way to say goodbye to him.
While she lay there green flames came peeking over the edge of the well like snakes looking for something to bite. She didn't run away. They came down and ran over her skin for a while. She thought they were probing her, or maybe checking to see if she'd already been changed. Eventually they withdrew once more into their well and their green light flickered out of the dim space.
She didn't have a lot of time, Maggie decided. She needed to get moving. She got up and brushed herself off, then set about picking up the bones, even the little finger bones she had to pry away from the lid. There was no way to carry them all in her arms, so she took off her hoodie and tied it into a kind of sack she could use to hold the various pieces. The bones were scorched and covered with a black residue that stained her hands, but the work didn't make her feel ill. This was her father. A man she had truly loved, even if she never really showed it.
When she had all of the bones she went back outside, stepping into desert heat that made sweat stand out instantly on her skin. Dad had loved the desert, more than anyplace else in the world. Maybe he would have wanted to be buried in the cemetery next to Mom, but Maggie thought that the desert would make a perfectly acceptable alternative resting place. She hiked out into the scrub trees and creosote bushes a ways and then set down the bag of his bones. With her fingernails she dug a hole in the ground deep enough that coyotes wouldn't be able to dig him back up, and then she placed the bones inside with much love and care. She tried to arrange them in the right order, with the skull at the top and the leg bones at bottom, but some of the bones were shapes she didn't recognize. She did the best she could.
When she'd filled the hole back up, she looked around for a suitable large stone. She found a flat broad piece of shale three feet long and two feet wide. With another rock she carved his full name on the stone and underneath it she put the years he was born and died. Then she put the stone across his grave and knelt down beside it.
And had no idea what to do next.
She supposed she should say some words. Maybe make a vow to reform, or to not hurt Brent. The darkness wouldn't allow that, though. In the end all she could think to say was goodbye.
She headed back toward the cylinder then, feeling very calm and at peace. The darkness inside her had settled down for a moment but she knew it wouldn't last. Something would happen. Some horrible thing would set her off again and the anger would take control. But for the moment she could simply walk in the desert and notice for once how sublimely beautiful it really was. How unspoiled, how alive.
She realized with a shock then that for these few fragile seconds, she wasn't actively unhappy. It was a weird feeling, and one she was unaccustomed to. She actually cracked a smile, and reached down to pick a pink flower and put it in her hair.
Then she heard the sound of a car engine, very far away. Her ears had become as sensitive as her eyes and she knew the car had to be miles away still. She knew as well that Brent would be inside of it.
She had expected him to follow when she kidnapped Lucy.
She had looked forward to it. And now it had come to pass.
She just had time to prepare for his arrival.