Welcome to the Borderlands – Chapter 7

 

 

 

 Name’s Christopher Jax but people call me Jax. It’s been a week since I escaped from Ma n’ Pa’s Borderland by fleeing across a small bridge behind the Styx Diner. I’ve returned on occasion on my Suzuki S83 aka 1400 Intruder but never to cross back over and only to stay long enough parked under some nearby trees to have a bag lunch. It’s hard to believe the stream flowing beneath the bridge once separated the Borderlands from our world and was once part of the river Styx. Today finding a Mark Twain character skinny dipping in one of its pools would be more likely than finding the Borderlands on the other side. Speaking of which, tomorrow I’m riding back and going for a swim. Beyond the bridge is an iron gate; beyond the gate a narrow road. Debris on the road’s surface and the condition of the gate show neither has been used in years. There’s no sign the Styx Diner was ever there; only the ruins of an old adobe mark where it once stood. 

 

Referenced in hard to find maps as the lands adjoining Elysium and visited by most of us in dreams, Borderlands lie between our world and where we go when we die. They can, if you know which ones to look for, be entered near large oaks and sycamores or through out of the way cafes and diners that have jukeboxes that play Doo Wop and waitresses named Alice. Isolated, a Borderland becomes ingrown like a plant left in too small of a container. Unused, entry points are forgotten or remembered only as part of folklore or myth. 

 

Daytime in the Borderlands begins in the soft glow of a Maxfield Parrish painting with sights and sounds conspiring to create surreal encounters. Nighttime’s coldly different starting with the ebbing of color and ending when light and shadow have traded places and everything begins to look and feel like one of Ingmar Bergman’s bizarre black and white movies. 

 

Crossovers are complete when your outlook on life becomes like Buddha’s or Huck Finn’s. Cuz’ when you’re in da Borderlands ya knows everythin’s transpirin’ da way it’s suppose to be transpirin’ n’ dat all the hurryin’ n’ worryin’ ain’t goin’ to change nothin’.

 

 

 Since my escape I’ve heard from no one. Were Ma n’ Pa once they’d purged their Borderland of unwanted visitors trapped like spiders in their own web? What happened after I escaped across the bridge? Were Ma n’ Pa able to upload Elvis from the CD he’d been downloaded to at the Styx Diner and where was Hilts? And while trying to think of a way of finding an answer something broke the surface of a pool under the far side of the bridge sending out ripples as a reminder not to forget I was going swimming the next day. Maybe a day of playing Tom Sawyer would wash away my worries or better yet wash some answers my way. 

 

Larry’s last words before he’d flown off with Andy were he’d contact me. Maybe their plane had engine trouble and had been overtaken and destroyed by the fog Ma n’ Pa sent to purge their Borderland? 

 

You would’ve thought Andy’s WWII fighter could have outrun most anything and yet I’d witnessed how fast the fog accelerated trying to catch the Hayabusa I was riding. Nothing about the Borderlands surprised me anymore.

 

And so with “Believe Me” by The Royal Teens playing in my hearing aid size radio; I put the S83, I’d taken it out of storage since my Harley Wide Glide had been destroyed, in gear and rode home resolved to return tomorrow and pretend I was one of Mark Twain’s favorite swimmin’ hole characters.

 

Tomorrow came quickly following a sleepless night. Riding back it wasn’t until a few miles before the bridge the sun burned the clouds off and chased the chill away. Early morning’s angle of light allowed me to look underneath the bridge to see that if I was going to swim I’d finally have to cross and climb down the opposite bank to get to the pool.

 

Crossing the bridge brought no magical Maxfield Parrish landscape. The gate, the road and the land beyond appeared as when I first saw them. Disappointed but not really surprised I parked my bike next to an old split-rail fence, grabbed the sack lunch I’d made the night before and walked quickly to the edge of the railing. 

 

After climbing over the railing then sliding down a steep bank, my only option considering the other side was a near vertical drop, I was at stream level. This approach would let me get to the pool by hopping from rock to rock, ending with a final jump to the other side. 

 

Hopping from sunlit rock to sunlit rock was easy and got me to the middle of the stream. Getting the rest of the way was going to be harder and meant jumping from shaded rock to shaded rock under the shadow of the bridge ending with a last but not least jump. Just a couple of hops and a skip and then a final jump and I’d be at the swimming hole.

 

The hops went well and it wasn’t until I tried to skip I slipped on the last rock which was covered with moss. I tried to make the final jump anyway knowing I shouldn’t have and fell… and…and this water’s much too cold and the pool too deep for a stream this small.

 

Reminiscent of a surfing wipeout and being pulled down by a large wave, I watched my lunch drift away. Maybe if I waited until I hit bottom I’d be able to push to the surface; but there was no bottom and just when I knew I was going to drown I saw a heavy fishing line in front of me. Hooks were the least of my worry when I grabbed hold and began pulling myself hand over hand upward. If the line broke…but the line didn’t break; and then someone was reaching down and grabbing both of my arms.

 

“You OK?” Charon said as he lifted me effortlessly up and out of the water..

 

Charon, wearing worn jeans and a leather jacket, was looking down and smiling. The song “Looking for an Echo” by Kenny Vance was ending proving again that my little hearing aid size radio really was waterproof.

 

“I almost drowned,” I replied coughing water.

 

Charon was still smiling when he picked up a thick bamboo fishing pole, “Then you’re lucky I chose this time to come back and check the line’s bait; I just wasn’t expecting to catch you. But no matter, it’s all good; things happen for a reason. I can use your help.”

 

“After the purge,” Charon continued, “Ma n’ Pa didn’t have time to separate back into their original forms; they’ve remained joined together as a huge cloud unable to return into their individual selves. They need to be separate to reboot their Borderland; it has something to do with their Borderland being the product of a catalytic reaction between the two of them when they’re apart.” 

 

Charon paused then pointed towards the horizon and at the largest anvil shaped thunderhead I’d ever seen, “They’ve remained joined and in the form of that huge cloud you see in the distance. The good news is Ma n’ Pa were able to reconstitute me from being just river mist and finish healing Hilts in the Styx before they changed form.” 

 

“Andy,” I interrupted, “told me Hilts was better?”

 

“Healing Hilts was sort of like putting Humpty Dumpty back together in stages. Seconds after it was completed Ma and Pa turned into the cloud. Hilts is now in another Borderland working on a way to split them back. My task has been to assist Larry and Hilts. Using this line we’ve been trying to catch Elvis; he’s the essential element needed to recreating Ma n’ Pa and their Borderland.  

 

“What you saw when you were inside the Styx Diner was Elvis and his counterpart the jukebox. Together they’re the quintessential essence of what’s crucial to what’s needed to turn Ma n’ Pa back into separate beings.”

 

Looking up at the huge thunderhead laced with lightning and taller than any I’d ever seen, I asked, “Why wasn’t the cloud visible from the other side of the bridge; it must be 60,000 feet high and takes up the whole sky?” 

 

“It is actually closer to 70,000 feet,” replied Charon. “After Andy loaned Hilts the Corsair and then returned home Hilts and Larry tried flying into the cloud from the bottom and were nearly torn apart. Corsairs were built for carrier landings and are sturdy planes, which is probably why it wasn’t ripped to pieces but limited in climb to not much more than 30,000 feet. It was, however, high enough for Ma n’ Pa to telepathically tell them they could only fly in from the top and to bring what’s been uploaded from Elvis. They’ve set up some type of firewall in the lower levels for protection until we can take them what they need. Once they’re able to interface with what’s uploaded from Elvis they’ll become separate beings again and reboot their Borderland. 

 

“Until then there’ll be no dreamscapes for a lot of people, no place for them to go to when they dream. And in answer to your second question, the reason you can only see the cloud from this pool is because this pool, when it’s in the shade of the bridge, is part of the river Styx.”

 

“Can’t other Borderlands,” I asked, “provide the needed dreamscapes for people to dream their dreams, maybe the Borderland where Hilts is working?”

 

“Other Borderlands are visited in dreams if they’re open but for some reason not the one where Hilts is staying. The one where Hilts is staying was found only by accident when Hilts and Larry needed to make an emergency landing after their first attempt to enter the cloud. The only way I know to get in and out of there is from the airfield where they landed. There’s got to be a reason it was so hard to find and to get into.”

 

“Sounds a bit like the city on the other side of the Twilight Wave; maybe someone’s doing their best to hide it?”

 

“Or,” Charon answered, “it’s become so strange or unsafe it’s been abandoned. Whatever the reason Hilts and Larry haven’t seen anyone, but neither have they made any attempt to go beyond the airfield and the air museum. 

 

“From what little they’ve seen the nearby city and the neighboring area could pass for a cross between Fritz Lang’s film METROPOLIS and the wastelands in the movie MATRIX. What adds to the mystery is the fact that every Borderland has a tributary linking it to the river Styx. This one doesn’t or it’s been blocked; either way I can’t reach it. Consequently Hilts has had to fly Larry to and from where he’s working. Larry’s at the other end of this line in yet another Borderland helping me fish for Elvis.”

 

 

 While Charon was recounting what’d happened when the Corsair attempted to fly up through the base of the cloud and how it was nearly torn apart, I got to see what’d been making ripples at the surface of the pool.

 

“Was that a hand inside a sequined sleeve that just broke the surface of the water?”

 

Charon laughed, “What’d you think you’d catch in the Styx?”

 

“Fish?”

 

“You’re kidding,” Charon laughed again. “That was Elvis; he’s finally been attracted to the bait. Once he’s taken it you’ll have to swim down and upload him or should I say his essence onto your radio.”

 

That Elvis and the jukebox were harmoniously joined in some type of symbiotic relationship explained why when I first met Charon he’d told me I had to give the gold coin to Elvis to play B-3 at the Styx Diner. 

 

“That explains a lot,” I said. “When my old shadow pulled the plug on the jukebox Elvis must’ve been turned off at the same time. It makes you wonder if the jukebox is an effect of Elvis or is Elvis an effect of the jukebox, and just what am I supposed to swim down and do?”

 

“It’ll be dangerous,” answered Charon, ignoring the first part of my question. “Remember the time when you caught the Twilight Wave and rode your surfboard through its curl using it as a portal into another Borderland and Larry warned you wipeouts weren’t an option?”

 

“Yes,” I replied, knowing Larry probably hadn’t the time to explain what would’ve happened if I’d fallen.

 

Charon paused long enough to light a cigar, take a couple of puffs and blow smoke at the line, “Well, I’m giving you the same warning. Once underwater you must never let go of the line, not for any reason, not until you’ve gotten what you need from Elvis and reached the opposite side where Larry’s waiting in another Borderland.”

 

“Does Elvis, know we’re here?”

 

“Maybe, but most likely he’s more attracted to what Larry and I used as bait. With your help we’ll be able to complete the download and then with Hilts’ help take it to Ma n’ Pa.”

 

“Out of curiosity what did you and Larry use as bait, and I thought you said the Corsair couldn’t fly high enough to enter the cloud?”

 

“A peanut butter banana sandwich in answer to the first part of your question; it’s Elvis’ favorite food. The answer to your second question is Hilts found a Republic F-105 Vietnam War fighter-bomber in an air museum next to the airfield in the futuristic Borderland. He’s working on it now to get it flying; the work’s being done in a hanger at the end of the runway. With the right modifications he’s pretty sure he can get it to fly to over 70,000 feet.”

 

“They’ll have to be outrageous modifications,” I replied. “An F-105 was designed for low level bombing; 45,000 feet was its ceiling and that was on its best day.”

 

I was standing on basalt, an ancient rock formed when the earth was as black and as cold as the space between stars. Beyond the bridge’s overhanging shadow sunlight invited me to step into its warmth. Looking down I noticed for the first time another set of wet footprints. 

 

“Are these your footprints?”

 

“Yes,” answered Charon, kneeling down. “You were able to leave the pool because you’re alive; the dead can’t, they’ve normally not the strength. I’m allowed and have been given the power but not beyond sight of the river Styx.”

 

Suddenly the sunlit pasture beyond the bridge seemed the place to be, “Let’s get out of these shadows.”

 

Charon stared wistfully where I was looking, “I’d love to, but as you already know I can never go beyond sight of the river Styx. Now if you can somehow find a way for me to bring part of the river Styx with me maybe I could leave; I never really thought of doing it until the Borderlands started unraveling.”

 

“Are we really in the Borderlands?”

 

“We are,” answered Charon, “but only within the shade of this bridge. As long as I’m within sight of the Styx I’m ok. The stream flowing outside the shadow of this bridge is in your world; within the bridge’s shade it becomes part of the river Styx, an entrance into the Borderlands. Actually there are more shadowy parts of streams, often under bridges, in your world connected to the river Styx than you’d think. 

 

“They have to be special bridges to be sure, and most are in rural settings but a few still run through cities; you just have to know where to look.”

 

“What cities?”  

 

“One is in Brooklyn New York; it’s called Walkabout Creek and it still runs under Walkabout Street. The flow has been pretty much interrupted but at special times you can enter and exit from beneath an old building built in the late 1800s. A circular sewer sixteen feet in diameter and built of brick is on the opposite side of the building’s basement furnace; behind the furnace is a hidden door leading to the creek.” 

 

“Who could use those portals besides you? I asked. 

 

“Charon seemed to hesitate before answering, “There are others, and only under special conditions, that can on rare occasions exit and enter the Styx.”

 

“And so it’s your dirty job, no disrespect intended, to be on the lookout for these ‘others’ trying to cross?”

 

“None taken, and dirty job is probably closer to the truth than you’d think;” laughed Charon, “I’ve even needed help at times on those patrols. I’m not perfect.”

 

“How could that ever happen?” I asked, thinking of how with a flick of his wrist he’d torn an imp’s head off and how with that kind of power there’d be virtually no one that could get past Charon when he was at his full strength.

 

“Thank you for the vote of confidence, but I’m afraid I’ll always be vulnerable to a beautiful face and guile. Those two things are my Achilles Heel. Ma has often protected me from them; Ma can tell if someone’s telling the truth. Hey, I think we just caught Elvis, the pole’s twitching.”

 

“Tell me what I have to do,” I said walking to where the line entered the water.”

 

“Don’t forget, hand over hand; release one hand only when the other has a firm grip. I’ll go first to make sure there’s nothing that interferes with what you’ve got to do. ”

 

Charon’s reminder came at the same time he grabbed the line and waded into the Styx. Ducking beneath the water’s surface punctuated his warning of not letting go of the line with the sound of his cigar sizzling out.

 

Once upon a time I talked myself into surfing the north shore of Hawaii. Long wipeouts go with large waves; filling my lungs and submerging below the Styx relived those days of surfing.

 

Descending hand over hand, remembering not to release one until the other had a firm grasp, I pulled myself deeper thinking of long wipeouts. And what did Charon mean when he said he’d protect me from things that would interfere and did I really want to know? Obsessing on ‘things’, I continued downward. Where was he; I should be able to see him? 

 

Thirty seconds later Charon was in front of me. We were in near darkness in some sort of underwater tunnel that sloped upwards. Charon was holding Elvis who in turn was holding on to a peanut butter banana sandwich nearly two feet wide. No hooks, no snare, the sandwich was simply tied to the line. Charon motioned for me to take my hearing aid size radio and hold it against the sandwich. Elvis’ grip was so tight it had squeezed peanut butter out between the two pieces of bread.

 

Downloading the essence of Elvis made more sense than trying to wrestle him to the surface. Reaching past an older thinner version of the Elvis I’d met at the Styx Diner I pressed my radio, which doubled as a recorder, against the sandwich. Elvis opened his eyes; it was as if he understood for the first time what Charon and I were trying to do. There was a tingling in my hand. Seconds later Elvis took a bite of the sandwich, beamed me a big lopsided ‘thank you, thankyouverymuch’ grin, let go of it and drifted away. 

 

Charon had already disappeared leaving me looking at the largest peanut butter banana sandwich I’d ever seen. Suddenly the line began to move and I grabbed it and was dragged upward faster than I could’ve swum. Surfacing just before I ran out of breath brought me face to face with Larry pulling the line and standing at the edge of what was left of a small bridge. This wasn’t the same stream I’d entered; it was smaller and cut between a dry plain and some grassy fields.

 

“I didn’t mean to leave you down there,” said Charon surfacing beside me, “but we had a visitor. I persuaded it to move on, and don’t ask what it was; you don’t want to know.”

 

The glow of a Maxfield Parrish painting surrounded us. Sounds were crystal clear; we were in the Borderlands, not Ma n’ Pa’s, but definitely someone’s Borderland. Far away was the same huge thunderhead I’d seen earlier.

 

“I’ll bring you up to date later,” said Larry, then turning from me to Charon. “We may need your help again.”

 

“I’ll do whatever I can,” said Charon, “to help Ma n’ Pa; I owe them. It’s because they took the time to put me back together they weren’t able to separate.”

 

“What do you mean?” I asked.

 

“After they destroyed the shadow they remained joined as one, as Ma n’ Pa, the giant figure of light you saw at the diner. They should’ve separated, downloaded Elvis and then rebooted their Borderland. Instead they found what was left of me, returned to the river Styx and patched the pieces together. As a result they ran out of time.

 

“Ran out of time?”

 

Charon continued, “There was a window of time in which they could’ve used Elvis as a catalyst to recreate their Borderland. They instead used that time to save me; they sacrificed their Borderland, maybe themselves, so I could live. As a result they’re now locked together in the form of that huge thunderhead in the distance.”

 

Looking out at the surrounding fields, I asked, “Whose Borderland is this?”

 

 

“It belongs to a friend of Hilts,” replied Larry. “He didn’t say much more, ‘cept that he’d known her in childhood. From what we’ve been able to find out the children here range from about five to twelve; we’ve seen no adults. The children always visit us from that town over there.”

 

The town Larry was pointing at was a little less than a mile away and looked more like a movie set used for Hollywood westerns. Behind it was an amusement park topped with a wooden rollercoaster.

 

“They’d always come from town,” continued Larry, pointing at a straight line of unblemished pavement leading from the last building to where we were standing, “right after Hilts lands the Corsair on the road. They even come up and touch the plane but won’t get near the bridge. It was almost as if they were afraid of being seen near it.” 

 

“They’d rarely if ever talk to us, leastways to me. Hilts finally talked to the leader before he left this last time but only because she recognized him. The children never stayed long either, an hour at the very most, and never after the sun starts to go down.”

 

Looking at the seamless stretch of road I was reminded of the uninterrupted fused pavement running through Ma n’ Pa’s Borderland, “It looks to be the same kind of road we found in Ma n’ Pa’s Borderland.”

 

“It is the same,” replied Larry, “and with the same high temperature fusing; Hilts has no problem landing on it. Speaking of landing, he’s overdue.”

 

Charon had walked about hundred and fifty feet out onto the road leading into town, not out of sight of the Styx but far enough for Larry and me to stop talking and walk over to where he was standing.

 

“Did Hilts,” asked Charon, “ever meet his childhood friend, maybe go into town and visit her; did she ever come out here with the other children?”

 

Larry shrugged his shoulders, “I’m pretty sure it was the blond girl he talked to before he left but he wouldn’t return to town with her. I asked why just before he took off this last time and all he’d say was that it was part of a plan they’d worked out and that I’d know everything when he returned. Hilts and I normally never stayed here after sunset.” 

 

Charon didn’t reply but continued to stare at the town. Following his gaze allowed me to look closer at the backs of buildings. If they’d been painted it was long ago; the paint was gone or had weathered away. With stairs leading to balconies with no doors and with half the windows opening into walls, there seemed to be no sense to the town’s design. Maybe the town really was an old Hollywood movie set or at the very least it was one built by someone that had only seen towns in paintings or pictures.

 

“The town’s not really a town,” I said. “It’s more like someone’s idea of what a town should look like.”

 

[page break]

 

 

 A cold wind had come up moments ago making the torn shades behind the broken windows move from side to side. At the same time I was looking at the buildings I noticed a large group of children turn at the end of the street and start walking towards us. So clear was the Borderland air I could see they were wearing the perfectly pleated skirts and short pants you’d find in a “Dick and Jane” reading book and that a blond girl was leading them. Already halfway to where we were standing, the children were keeping a steady pace.

 

“It’s the same group,” Larry said, “that’s been coming out here but with quite a few new ones too. Hilts’ friend, the blond girl, is in the lead.” 

 

I asked anxiously, “They’ll know to get off the road when Hilts brings the Corsair in for a landing?”

 

“We’ve never,” answered Larry, “had that problem. Hilts always landed before the children arrived and…”

 

Charon interrupted, as if speaking to himself, “Children create the most beautiful Borderlands; many are much like this one. As you might guess they attract other children, are often amusement parks or carnivals and are run by mentors.” 

 

“What,” I had to ask, “are mentors?”

 

“Mentors are caring adults that were forced to grow up too quickly. The mentors appear as children and help wherever needed. But something’s wrong here; I can feel there’s no mentors. And if I’m right the blond girl, who I suspect is a childhood friend of Hilts, probably knows why.”

 

Space and time are different expressions of the same phenomenon and easily compressed in the Borderlands and so I wasn’t too surprised to look up and find the children only about fifty feet from where we were standing. Uniform short pants for the boys and pleated skirts for the girls confirmed this really was a world created by a child that had a “Dick and Jane” reader introduce them to fashion. Fifteen feet in front of us the children stopped, glanced back in unison, heard the sound of an approaching plane and then ran as a group to gather around Charon.

 

Flaps down, reminiscent of a landing I’d seen a Corsair once make on a road outside Hollister, a B-25 bomber painted its wheels across the road leading from town and then taxied to within a dozen yards of us. Just before coming to a stop the pilot cut the port engine, locked the port brake and spun the plane around until it was pointed back in the direction it had come. Nighttime landed with it.

 

Hilts immediately opened the copilot’s window and started shouting instructions, “Get the children aboard; the starboard engine’s still running so keep them away from that side.” 

 

“Who’s flying that thing?” Larry yelled up at Hilts as he started herding children under the port engine.

 

“Andy;” Hilts yelled back as he opened the bomb bay doors and lowered a ladder, “I landed outside Gilroy, traded the Corsair for the B-25 and picked up Andy.”

 

With the bomb racks removed and the inside refitted with canvas cargo chairs the B-25 could hold perhaps fifteen. There were closer to twice, possibly more, that number of children waiting to climb aboard.

 

Charon, once portrayed as a type of monster in Greek mythology, had become a magnet for the smallest children. With one in each arm and with others clinging to his legs, reminiscent of a scene from the Laurel & Hardy film MARCH OF THE WOODEN SOLDIERS, he effortlessly ferried them to the plane. Larry and I helped. The blond girl was the last to climb through the hatch but only after Hilts pleaded with her. When they were all aboard, Andy signaled he was about to start the port engine. 

 

“Get aboard;” Andy shouted down, “the children are inside. It’ll be close; we’ve quite a few more kids than I counted on taking home.

 

“We’re not going with you.” Hilts shouted back up. “By subtracting our weight it’ll make the difference you need to get airborne. Once you’re airborne fly directly towards the cloud. It’s frightening to look at but it’ll protect you. Your world’s on the other side; you’ll recognize the Hollister airport.”

 

When Hilts said we weren’t leaving I knew we’d be visiting the town, which begged the question. Why were the children fleeing it? And why were two men leaving the last building and running this way in hot pursuit?  

 

At the same time we all turned to look at the two men Andy pushed the B-25 bomber’s engines to full throttle and headed back down the road. The men were in the plane’s path.

Over the noise of the big Pratt and Whitney radials, I shouted, “Those men will be run over; Andy won’t be off the ground before he reaches them!”

 

Charon shouted, “I doubt if they’re men anymore, maybe once. Of more importance,” and Charon looked directly at Hilts, “whatever happens, let me handle things, no conjuring of weapons. Under no circumstances interfere.”

 

Andy’s B-25 was nearly on top of the two when with the quickness of matadors they stepped aside. Propeller blades missed their heads by inches.

 

“Their arms are wrapped,” said Larry, I’d forgotten he had superior eyesight and could see them as if describing them from across a room, “on the outside with what looks like black elastic cord, maybe some type of rubber cable.”

 

Cables, cords, whatever, as the men got closer I could see black strands branching out from their shoulders covering the rest of their bodies. Both looked fit.

 

Taking up the entire road back to town the B-25 finally became airborne. Only when Andy retracted its wheels did it gain enough speed to gain enough altitude to skim over the tops of the buildings. After watching it for half a minute the two men turned and walked to where we were standing.

 

“You boys took somethin’ that weren’t yours to…”

 

“May I help you?” interrupted Charon in his best maître d’ voice and as politely as if the men were customers at his fancy upscale restaurant. 

 

Larry stood to the right of Hilts; Hilts was to the right of Charon. I stood behind the three of them holding a rock the size of an orange. 

 

 

Hilts, I was expecting him to change into the gunfighter he’d once become to save us from the Cyclops near the bridge on the Old Ridge Route, said nothing. Was he honoring Charon’s request not to interfere or was his ability to conjure limited to Ma n’ Pa’s Borderland?

 

Speaking of conjuring, Larry had, with a slight of hand movement, taken a knife from the sheath behind his belt and was holding it next to his leg.

 

“You shouldn’t have meddled,” spat the tallest of the men. “Everything was workin’ out. We’d let the kids come out here to keep us informed of what you were doing; it humored them. They’d return to town before dark; we needed them to do chores and they had to work the carnival. Figured we wouldn’t mess with you folks as long as you didn’t mess with us and yet somehow you convinced them to leave. They didn’t even ask permission, didn’t even say goodbye. Whose smart idea was it to get them to leave?”

 

“Mine,” said Hilts without Charon’s maître d’ politeness and at the same time he started to step forward.

 

Charon was suddenly in front of Hilts blocking him with a movement so fast it looked like a strobe light projection. If you’d blinked you would’ve missed it.

 

“The children have been taken home;” Charon’s voice was still polite, “that’s all you need to know. You’ll also be leaving. The child that created this Borderland didn’t invite you. I can help you get back to where you’re supposed to be; there’s no need for violence.”

 

Film director Federico Fellini during the 1950s and ‘60s would scour Italy looking for actors, quintessential extras for his movies, caricatures of archetypes, people that would so embody an emotion their faces could pass for masks. The two men could’ve been wearing masks. With worn sweaters and pants soiled to the point their original color would be a guess, they were dressed identically. Their skin was tight across their faces and in places so translucent you could see bone beneath. Humorless near toothless grins framed their thick split lips and said they didn’t want Charon’s help.

 

“Six more men,” said Larry, “have just left town.”

 

“Stay where you are,” Charon replied, “I’ll handle it.”

 

Faint light from the setting sun showed the shadow of the closest man grab the shadow of Charon. Neither Charon nor his shadow resisted. Black tendons, not cords or cables now that I was close enough to see them, exited through the man’s skin. Like an exoskeleton they rippled out and across his body. Moments later the second man grabbed Charon by overlapping his arms around the first man; their arms melted into each other becoming longer and thicker.

 

Fearing we were about to help him, Charon warned us again, “Don’t move; stay exactly where you are!”

 

At the same time the second man grabbed Charon the six men from town arrived. Clones of the first two, from their turtleneck sweaters, cockeyed baseball caps, and bulging eyes, to the black tendons covering their bodies, they ran past us and closed around Charon. I dropped the…it might as well have been an orange…rock I was holding.

 

“There’s no need for this,” said Charon, “I can help you.” 

 

“Help us, who’s goin’ to help you river man? Yes, we’ve heard of you and that you can appear wherever the river Styx flows,” laughed the first man to grab Charon. “You’re already startin’ to feel like a leaky old water bottle; are you peeing on yourself river man?” 

 

The first man then looked over at us, “You folks should’ve left well enough alone. We had a good thing goin’ with them kids; they’d do most anything we wanted. It doesn’t matter though, it’ll take time but we’ll get more; it ain’t hard to get kids to dream about carnivals. Speaking of time, this is taking too long. Let’s all eight join together, become one, let’s end this, let’s make us some river man jelly. When we’re done,” he said laughing and looking again in our direction, “we’ll make us some bystander jelly.”

 

Charon was completely out of sight covered with interlocking arms and legs, all stretching, distorting, each man’s body melding into the others in the process. 

 

Charon was right, the men may have been human but not now; they’d traded their humanity to become some sort of cyborg. Fighting one, let alone all of them, would be virtually impossible. Charon, the strongest amongst us, was completely covered by what could best be described as a gang of Gumbys that were melting together.

 

Tree roots lift sidewalks, crush steel pipes and concrete, and are limited in the damage they can do only by a stronger force. That Charon was still standing and that the men were suddenly crying for mercy meant they’d encountered such a force. Charon, I was to find out later, had allowed part of his body to be squeezed into their bodies and was now pushing back but with the near infinite power of the river Styx. 

 

An instant before the eight men exploded the memory of my eleventh grade physics teacher demonstrating what the hydraulic pressure of fluids can do flashed before my eyes. Mr. Deutschle made our class watch as he placed a small jack beneath the shop’s forklift and proceeded to effortlessly lift the forklift’s wheels off the floor using just his right hand.

 

What happened next happened quickly. An explosion looking like a ruptured water main, followed by what sounded like an echo of all eight voices receding into the distance, was then followed by droplets propelled so fast they stung when they hit our exposed flesh. The droplets smelled of roadkill mixed with hot tar, mixed with stale popcorn, mixed with burnt rubber. 

 

Almost immediately we were enveloped in a cardboard colored mist. No one moved. For over a minute the mist blocked everything from sight and then about fifty feet away Charon began to take shape. Were we beginning to see him because a light wind was blowing the mist away or was it because Charon, an embodiment of the Styx, was actually forming out of water droplets? 

 

“I’m sorry it had to end like that,” said Charon, now completely visible and walking towards us. “I could’ve freed them; I could’ve helped them get home.”

 

Hilts was the first to speak, “You offered but they wouldn’t listen. Marnie said they wouldn’t listen to her either. She asked the men to go when they first came, told them she’d created the Borderland for herself and other children, but they insisted on staying. The leader, the tall one, was the first to arrive. They found him asleep at the bottom of the rollercoaster. When he awakened he said he’d always wanted to visit a carnival and that he’d just look around and then leave, but he lied. Men that looked exactly like him began to follow and were always found asleep and in the same place. The bottom of the rollercoaster must be an entrance into Marnie’s Borderland. None of the children were physically harmed; they were often threatened, but they were never harmed. It wasn’t long before they were forced to work the carnival from sundown to sunrise.” 

 

“From sundown to sunrise adults dressed in clothing she’d seen only in history books would ride the rides. They’d appear at the entrance to the carnival, ride until just before sunrise, and then leave. They’d never speak to Marnie or the other children; it was if they couldn’t see them. During the day she and the other children were kept as prisoners in a large building in the center of town.

 

“Marnie said the first man conjured up the town after he arrived, but it wasn’t really a town; it was more like a mockup of a town, like maybe he’d seen a picture of one and tried to copy it. Except for the building where they slept, the stores were just fronts with windows and doors that wouldn’t work. She said the children slept together in a common room huddled together for warmth. She said once when it was cold she gathered some flat stones and built a crude fireplace that vented out a window; the leader found out and said he’d take the little ones away if it happened again.”

 

“It wasn’t until Larry and I landed and started fishing the river Styx for Elvis they were allowed to leave. They were told to spy on us but to never speak with us. Marnie said the leader crushed a rock with his hand when he said ‘never’.”

 

“I recognized Marnie right off, she was the towhead; we’d gone to grade school together. In her own Borderland she hadn’t aged. She recognized me too, but thought if Larry and I knew what was happening we’d try to save them and become captives ourselves. It was only on the trip just before this last one she finally got up the nerve to tell me everything and agreed to let me rescue them. That’s when I came up with the plan of returning with the B-25 instead of the Corsair and flying her and the other children to safety. I just didn’t figure on there being so many of them. Andy’s a good pilot; he’ll get ‘em all back home.”

 

Rap-Crap, an in your face moronic chant recorded by and for the inbred and passed off as music, started coming through my little hearing aid radio; I started to reach up to remove it from my ear.

 

Charon grabbed my arm, “Don’t! We may need to follow its signal.”

 

“…to where those eight nightmares entered Marnie’s Borderland,” added Hilts finishing Charon’s sentence. “Our job isn’t finished until we’ve closed the entrance off.”

 

Charon sighed when he paraphrased Hilts’ last words, “What you mean is when I’ve followed the entrance to its origin and close it off. And you’re right; those eight came from someone’s dark dream.”

 

The mist had disappeared and with it the stench of tar mixed with popcorn. Dusk had also disappeared leaving a canopy of stars in its place. We now faced the task of finding out where the uninvited nightmares were entering Marnie’s Borderland. Charon had destroyed eight of them but it would only be a matter of time before Marnie dreamed again of this Borderland and return. Were there more in town? He was the only one in our group powerful enough to deal with them and he couldn’t go beyond sight of the river Styx.

 

“So how are you going into town,” I had to ask Charon the obvious, “let alone into the carnival; you can’t go beyond sight of the river Styx?”

 

“We’re bringing, the operative word being we,” answered Charon with a smile that said he didn’t really know if his plan would work, “the river with us or at least what we can carry. That should give us enough time to get to the rollercoaster and find the portal leading to whoever’s been sending these nightmares. The exit and entrance will be the same. I need only pass through the portal and stay for a moment; but first I need you all to take off your pants.”

 

“What?”

 

“I need the three of you,” repeated Charon, “to take off your pants, tie knots in the bottom of the legs and fill them with water from the river Styx. Each leg will hold water like a canvas canteen long enough for what we’ve got to do. You’ll be able to carry them by draping them over your neck, one leg on each side, like a yoke. Next, I need you to fill your boots with water. While we’re doing that I’m going to drink as much of the river Styx as I can. I’ll probably slosh when I walk but it’s gotta be done.”

 

“What,” said Hilts, as he removed his boots, “do you think you’ll find on the portal’s other side?”

 

“Nothing too dramatic, dreams that intrude into other dreams are nearly all accidental encounters,” replied Charon between gulps. “Most likely, and I’ve followed more than I’d like to remember to their source, nightmares like these usually begin with an old man or woman that hates kids. They probably snore and have bad breath. I’ll make sure they stop dreaming about Marnie’s Borderland.”

 

“…by putting a pillow over their head?” laughed Hilts.

 

“Hardly,” Charon laughed in return. “When I’m done our dreamer will be limited to their own dreams or ones they’re invited to visit; it’s a trick Morpheus taught me. Although I doubt our dreamer of nightmares is normally invited into other dreamer’s dreams.”

 

“You’ve met Morpheus?” I asked.

 

“Actually, we’re often mistaken for one another,” replied Charon.

 

Charon was an enigma, a paradox that would tear an imp’s head off for not telling the truth and then sincerely offer to be of assistance to eight nightmares trying to crush him. He finished drinking from the river Styx almost at the same time we finished filling our pants and boots.

 

“My guess is,” said Charon, while filling his own boots with water, “our trip into town then to the nightmare’s source will go without a hitch. Many times people aren’t even aware their dreams have crossed over into other Borderlands; they still believe they’re in their own dream.”

 

Our walk to the edge of town was uneventful except for the sloshing sounds coming from around our necks; it was a reminder that water’s heavy and gets heaver the further you have to carry it. Kipling’s poem “Gunga Din” best describes the experience. 

 

Where the road ended the street leading into town began, a silver ribbon in the distance marked the river Styx. When we turned the corner the river would be out of sight. Charon, a picture of confidence, seemed to hesitate.

 

“I’ve enough river water inside me to slosh as much as your pants so I should be OK as far as the carnival. Once we’ve found the entrance into Marnie’s Borderland you must do exactly what I tell you.”

 

“Tell us what we have to do,” said Larry.

 

“When we locate the entrance underneath the rollercoaster I want you to pour all of the water except for what’s in the boots down the portal, every drop.”

 

“Too risky, what if it’s not enough?” said Hilts.

 

“All the water,” said Charon, “you must pour all the water into the portal if I’m to flow to the other side. Once there I’ll be able to do what I’ve got to do and return; it shouldn’t take but a second.” 

 

“Once I’ve returned,” Charon continued as he turned the corner, “I’ll drink all of the water in the boots; it should be enough for me to get back to the river. I have a window of time I can be out of sight of the Styx, but not long.”

 

Except for wisps of steam rising from the top of his head Charon showed no other ill effects after leaving sight of the river. Four abreast like in an old western movie, we walked through town to the entrance to the carnival and then on to the bottom of the rollercoaster. Nothing attacked, nothing more frightening happened than me having a vision of fighting a bunch of rubber Gumby looking nightmares without the benefit of my pants.

 

“Marnie said they’d find those men at the bottom of the rollercoaster’s longest drop, which should be,” said Hilts pointing to a spot beneath the rails about fifty feet away, “that spot over there.”

 

It was too easy; the portal was where Charon said it would be and where Hilts was pointing. Directly inline with the rails and where the rollercoaster cars would be after their first and longest drop, the portal opened into nothingness. If the rails had ended there and not climbed upwards again the cars would’ve plunged into it. Large enough to swallow the tracks as well as the cars, the entrance was about six feet in diameter and flat black. No light reflected back, no neon, no moon, no stars, nothing. If asked, I would’ve sworn I could hear sounds more like the hum of machinery than those of someone snoring coming out of it.

 

“Are you sure there’s no other way we can do this?” asked Larry. “What if we just all yell down the hole for him to stop dreaming about Marnie’s carnival?”

 

Charon’s answer was to direct us to pour the water from our pants down the hole at the same time he jumped.

 

“Pour when I jump,” said Charon at the same time, and without hesitation or further comment, he jumped headlong into the portal.

 

Even as he was in the air the three of us emptied the water from our pants around him. There was a shimmer from both Charon and the shower of water as they fell and then they became one and were gone. A second later the humming I’d heard stopped and the hole began to grow smaller. 

 

 

CHAPTER EIGHT COMING SOON!