Dark Matter

by Sheree R. Thomas

Genres: Space Opera

Synopsis

This volume introduces black science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction writers to the generations of readers who have not had the chance to explore the scope and diversity among African-American writers.

Release date: December 2, 2014

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 448

Sample

(2000)

Right that moment when we climbed from the hot mud there was light. There wasn’t any darkness, there was light. All light. And no rib, at least not with me. I don’t even eat meat, even after all of it.

Me and that man were twins, born together, and that’s why he wanted me next to his skin even after I left him, even after I didn’t want him anymore, and him not letting me leave with my own child.

I felt Adam’s heart start to beat at the same time as mine. The dirt was warm, we were swimming with first grace, and then we opened our eyes, let go of each other’s hands. Blinked in the light. We were cold. Didn’t know we were naked, but we knew we were cold. I didn’t know his name, and didn’t know what he had looked like all that time ’cause my eyes were closed. So I opened my eyes for him, and I thought he looked pretty good just to be getting here. Skin darker than our mud and rippling when he moved this way and that. And his eyes lit on me, smiled, and that’s how I knew I was beautiful. I heard, “He is Adam. She is Lilith.” And that’s how I knew my name.

I heard soft rumbling. Sky streaked with red. “You are woman. He is man. You are together. Alone.” And that’s how I knew we were married. And the sun and the moon came up together and there were flowers under a tall tree and we lay down and we came together and we were swimming around each other again and we were finally warm and there was light light light light light light light.

Now all of a sudden, I’m bleached, I’m bone, a Jane-come-lately. All I see on those pages is God and Snake. Adam and his concubine. I just got to say that if a trophy wife was what he wanted, he sure got one. Somebody made him the most beautiful girl in the world, all right. And all that noise about her two sons. That is my blood on Cain’s skin when he came into this world. I got the best of Adam. She got the rib out of an old man, my leavings.

How long? Time flies when you’re young, married, and in love. It’s always that way at first with any man. He’s sweet when you’re new and tight. Can’t do enough for you, pick enough fruit and vegetables for you, stand on his head until his eyeballs roll, just for you. The loving five times a day, talking that sweet way all up in me. Everywhere. In the water, in front of the animals. And it was good. That one hundred (or was it two hundred?) years went by just like that.

He used to talk to me about my size all the time. He would say, “Lili, you just as little and soft and pretty as one of those doves flying ’round this tree.” He would say, “I could pick you up with one of my fingers. You one sweet baby doll.” Sometimes he would scare me a little when he would come in from the animals smelling a little funky and growl in my ear, “Boo, Miss Lili.” Yeah, he scared me because muscles are trouble. They give the mind a sense of what can be taken. I only liked to pretend. I didn’t really want to be an animal, just during season, always from behind.

After them one hundred—or was it two hundred? I can never remember—he still wasn’t used to anything. Still went around grabbing all the time, picking up things for show. It was cute when we were newlyweds, but after a while—please. I could have said, “Adam, you so strong. Let me feel that big ole bump on your arm,” but who has time for that? I’m a plainspoken woman. Always have been from the time my tongue moved. And I had a child to worry about by then. So I just grunt and keep on. And then when he plunk right on top of me for five minutes, I mean, what can you say to that?

They come up to me in a group one day. That bum rush of angels wearing white double-breasted suits. I knew not to trust them then. It wasn’t fourth Sunday, so why all the white?

Of course, Adam was nowhere to be seen. Satan up front looking like a preacher about to pass around the collection plate twice. The man was too pretty. I guess that kind of perfection is supposed to be an asset, but it wasn’t natural. You could tell there wasn’t a mark anywhere on this man’s body, just a smooth gold all over.

Satan took a step forward from his men. “Sister Lilith, We got us a situation here, ” He said. “It seems Brother Adam is a bit discontented, and we all thought you should know.” Now, this is the first I heard that my man was having problems with me. I knew how I was feeling, but didn’t know it was going both ways. It hurt that somebody else was telling me my own business. Hurt more that my man was gone while I was being told. But here I was, pretending that I was walking right along with Satan. I wasn’t going to give that angel the satisfaction of catching me out.

“Sister, Brother Adam says for the last century or so, things ain’t been like they was.” Then, from underneath one of his wings, he pulled out a white handkerchief and mopped his forehead. It wasn’t a degree over seventy that day. He tucked his hankie out of sight, smoothed back his hair, and then he commenced. I should cook more fancy dishes for Brother Adam. Listen more attentively to Brother Adam’s stories about the animals. Then Satan pushed his nose right into my bedroom. “You know, Sister Lilith, men really appreciate enthusiasm in the romance department. Why, a cooperative mate makes all the difference!” He didn’t even have the decency to be ’shamed of himself. Thought he was being natural.

I looked Satan right in his face, asked him, “Did ‘Brother Adam’ tell you he don’t help around the house none? That he don’t pay no attention to little Cain? That he don’t never ask me about my day or my stories? He tell you he don’t even bother to kiss me before he come in jumping all up on me to ‘cooperate’ with him? I bet he don’t tell you none of that, does he?”

The rest of them started looking around like they ain’t never seen trees and sky before. Looking anywhere but at me. It didn’t take a genius to figure out whose idea this little field trip was. Satan smiled all the wider and licked his perfect teeth so they got shiny. Kind of rolled back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Now, Sister Lilith, a lot is riding on you and Brother Adam. This concern is not only mine, this comes straight from the Top. Do you know what I’m saying here?”

“Yes, I know what you’re saying, and it don’t matter Who this come from. The truth is just what it is and you can take that back on up with you when you go.”

Right then, the rest of Satan’s crew made a noise together and stepped back and left him alone standing right next to me. He clucked his tongue at me the same way I did when Cain was having a tantrum. Like he was calm and I wasn’t. “Sister, sister, I understand. I do. And I want you to know that I’m on your side. We all are. Listen, just meditate on it with me right now is all I ask.” He closed his eyes and bowed his head. After a few moments, he peeped up at me and saw I was looking at him with my neck right where it always was. So he turned around, fluttered his wings all showy, then flew straight up in the air, with the rest of them following right behind.

It gets to the point where you see the path so clearly in front of you. And what and who remains is you and your child. A little piece that’s always going to be yours, a little somebody all you got to do is love, and he gives you every little thing you need. Pretty soon, your womb don’t move for nobody but your child.

The world was so small, I didn’t worry about Adam. Back in those days, you could spit from one end of my universe to the other. I knew I was older than Adam in a lot of ways, but figured he didn’t have nobody but me and Cain, and just how long could a man stay gone? A few months, a few years? Sooner or later he had to come back to me. He had to. And one day he did come back with that scar on his side.

I should have known Satan couldn’t leave nobody’s well enough alone. I guess that’s why I ain’t got a name right now. I been here forever in this place, and I know what I’m talking about. Been to hell and back and know the touch of scales on my finger. Been here longer than Adam and that woman lived. No, she ain’t no wife. I don’t care how long she was around, how many children she had. She ain’t never going to be wife. It was me and I’m still here to prove it. Been here, longer than my child, and that’s hard.

Can’t go nowhere except looking at everybody and this little bit of land I got. A few flowers and a vegetable garden. Even got an apple tree—ha! All I got forever in this world is to be a watcher.

(1920)

He stood a moment on the steps of the bank, watching the human river that swirled down Broadway. Few noticed him. Few ever noticed him save in a way that stung. He was outside the world—“nothing!” as he said bitterly. Bits of the words of the walkers came to him.

“The comet?”

“The comet—”

Everybody was talking of it. Even the president, as he entered, smiled patronizingly at him, and asked: “Well, Jim, are you scared?”

“No,” said the messenger shortly.

“I thought we’d journeyed through the comet’s tail once,” broke in the junior clerk affably.

“Oh, that was Haley’s,” said the president. “This is a new comet, quite a stranger, they say—wonderful, wonderful! I saw it last night. Oh, by the way, Jim,” turning again to the messenger, “I want you to go down into the lower vaults today.”

The messenger followed the president silently. Of course, they wanted him to go down to the lower vaults. It was too dangerous for more valuable men. He smiled grimly and listened.

“Everything of value has been moved out since the water began to seep in,” said the president, “but we miss two volumes of old records. Suppose you nose around down there—it isn’t very pleasant, I suppose.”

“Not very,” said the messenger, as he walked out.

“Well, Jim, the tail of the new comet hits us at noon this time,” said the vault clerk, as he passed over the keys; but the messenger passed silently down the stairs. Down he went beneath Broadway, where the dim light filtered through the feet of hurrying men; down to the dark basement beneath; down into the blackness and silence beneath that lowest cavern. Here with his dark lantern he groped in the bowels of the earth, under the world.

He drew a long breath as he threw back the last great iron door and stepped into the fetid slime within. Here at last was peace, and he groped moodily forward. A great rat leaped past him and cobwebs crept across his face. He felt carefully around the room, shelf by shelf, on the muddied floor, and in crevice and corner. Nothing. Then he went back to the far end, where somehow the wall felt different. He pounded and pushed and pried. Nothing. He started away. Then something brought him back. He was pounding and working again when suddenly the whole black wall swung as on mighty hinges, and blackness yawned beyond. He peered in; it was evidently a secret vault—some hiding place of the old bank unknown in newer times. He entered hesitatingly. It was a long, narrow room with shelves, and at the far end, an old iron chest. On a high shelf lay two volumes of records, and others. He put them carefully aside and stepped to the chest. It was old, strong, and rusty. He looked at the vast and old-fashioned lock and flashed his light on the hinges. They were deeply incrusted with rust. Looking about, he found a bit of iron and began to pry. The rust had eaten a hundred years, and it had gone deep. Slowly, wearily, the old lid lifted, and with a last, low groan lay bare its treasure—and he saw the dull sheen of gold!

“Boom!”

A low, grinding, reverberating crash struck upon his ear. He started up and looked about. All was black and still. He groped for his light and swung it about him. Then he knew! The great stone door had swung to. He forgot the gold and looked death squarely in the face. Then with a sigh he went methodically to work. The cold sweat stood on his forehead; but he searched, pounded, pushed, and worked until after what seemed endless hours his hand struck a cold bit of metal and the great door swung again harshly on its hinges, and then, striking against something soft and heavy, stopped. He had just room to squeeze through. There lay the body of the vault clerk, cold and stiff. He stared at it, and then felt sick and nauseated. The air seemed unaccountably foul, with a strong, peculiar odor. He stepped forward, clutched at the air, and fell fainting across the corpse.

* * *

He awoke with a sense of horror, leaped from the body, and groped up the stairs, calling to the guard. The watchman sat as if asleep, with the gate swinging free. With one glance at him the messenger hurried up to the sub-vault. In vain he called to the guards. His voice echoed and re-echoed weirdly. Up into the great basement he rushed. Here another guard lay prostrate on his face, cold and still. A fear arose in the messenger’s heart. He dashed up to the cellar floor, up into the bank. The stillness of death lay everywhere and everywhere bowed, bent, and stretched the silent forms of men. The messenger paused and glanced about. He was not a man easily moved; but the sight was appalling! “Robbery and murder,” he whispered slowly to himself as he saw the twisted, oozing mouth of the president where he lay half-buried on his desk. Then a new thought seized him: If they found him here alone—with all this money and all these dead men—what would his life be worth? He glanced about, tiptoed cautiously to a side door, and again looked behind. Quietly he turned the latch and stepped out into Wall Street.

How silent the street was! Not a soul was stirring, and yet it was high noon—Wall Street? Broadway? He glanced almost wildly up and down, then across the street, and as he looked, a sickening horror froze in his limbs. With a choking cry of utter fright he lunged, leaned giddily against the cold building, and stared helplessly at the sight.

In the great stone doorway a hundred men and women and children lay crushed and twisted and jammed, forced into that great, gaping doorway like refuse in a can—as if in one wild, frantic rush to safety, they had crushed and ground themselves to death. Slowly the messenger crept along the walls, trying to comprehend, stilling the tremor in his limbs and the rising terror in his heart. He met a business man, silk-hatted and frock-coated, who had crept, too, along that smooth wall and stood now stone dead with wonder written on his lips.

The messenger turned his eyes hastily away and sought the curb. A woman leaned wearily against the signpost, her head bowed motionless on her lace and silken bosom. Before her stood a streetcar, silent, and within—but the messenger but glanced and hurried on. A grimy newsboy sat in the gutter with the “last edition” in his uplifted hand: “Danger!” screamed its black headlines. “Warnings wired around the world. The Comet’s tail sweeps past us at noon. Deadly gases expected. Close doors and windows. Seek the cellar.” The messenger read and staggered on. Far out from a window above, a girl lay with gasping face and sleevelets on her arms. On a store step sat a little, sweet-faced girl looking upward toward the skies, and in the carriage by her lay—but the messenger looked no longer. The cords gave way—the terror burst in his veins, and with one great, gasping cry he sprang desperately forward and ran—ran as only the frightened run, shrieking and fighting the air until with one last wail of pain he sank on the grass of Madison Square and lay prone and still.

When he arose, he gave no glance at the still and silent forms on the benches, but, going to a fountain, bathed his face; then hiding himself in a corner away from the drama of death, he quietly gripped himself and thought the thing through: The comet had swept the earth and this was the end. Was everybody dead? He must search and see.

He knew that he must steady himself and keep calm, or he would go insane. First he must go to a restaurant. He walked up Fifth Avenue to a famous hostelry and entered its gorgeous, ghost-haunted halls. He beat back the nausea, and, seizing a tray from dead hands, hurried into the street and ate ravenously, hiding to keep out the sights.

“Yesterday, they would not have served me,” he whispered, as he forced the food down.

Then he started up the street—looking, peering, telephoning, ringing alarms; silent, silent all. Was nobody—nobody—he dared not think the thought and hurried on.

Suddenly he stopped still. He had forgotten. My God! How could he have forgotten? He must rush to the subway—then he almost laughed. No—a car; if he could find a Ford. He saw one. Gently he lifted off its burden, and took his place on the seat. He tested the throttle. There was gas. He glided off, shivering, and drove up the street. Everywhere stood, leaned, lounged, and lay the dead, in grim and awful silence. On he ran past an automobile, wrecked and overturned; past another, filled with a gay party whose smiles yet lingered on their death-struck lips; on, past crowds and groups of cars, pausing by dead policemen; at 42nd Street he had to detour to Park Avenue to avoid the dead congestion. He came back on Fifth Avenue at 57th and flew past the Plaza and by the park with its hushed babies and silent throng, until as he was rushing past 72nd Street he heard a sharp cry, and saw a living form leaning wildly out an upper window. He gasped. The human voice sounded in his ears like the voice of God.

“Hello—hello—help, in God’s name!” wailed the woman. “There’s a dead girl in here and a man and—and see yonder dead men lying in the street and dead horses—for the love of God go and bring the officers—” the words trailed off into hysterical tears.

He wheeled the car in a sudden circle, running over the still body of a child and leaping on the curb. Then he rushed up the steps and tried the door and rang violently. There was a long pause, but at last the heavy door swung back. They stared a moment in silence. She had not noticed before that he was a Negro. He had not thought of her as white. She was a woman of perhaps twenty-five—rarely beautiful and richly gowned, with darkly-golden hair, and jewels. Yesterday, he thought with bitterness, she would scarcely have looked at him twice. He would have been dirt beneath her silken feet. She stared at him. Of all the sorts of men she had pictured as coming to her rescue she had not dreamed of one like him. Not that he was not human, but he dwelt in a world so far from hers, so infinitely far, that he seldom even entered her thought. Yet as she looked at him curiously he seemed quite commonplace and usual. He was a tall, dark workingman of the better class, with a sensitive face trained to stolidity and a poor man’s clothes and hands. His face was soft and slow and his manner at once cold and nervous, like fires long banked, but not out. So a moment each paused and gauged the other; then the thought of the dead world without rushed in and they started toward each other.

“What has happened?” she cried. “Tell me! Nothing stirs. All is silence! I see the dead strewn before my window as winnowed by the breath of God—and see—”

She dragged him through great, silken hangings to where, beneath the sheen of mahogany and silver, a little French maid lay stretched in quiet, everlasting sleep, and near her a butler lay prone in his livery.

The tears streamed down the woman’s cheeks, and she clung to his arm until the perfume of her breath swept his face and he felt the tremors racing through her body.

“I had been shut up in my dark room developing pictures of the comet which I took last night; when I came out—I saw the dead!

“What has happened?” she cried again.

He answered slowly:

“Something—comet or devil—swept across the earth this morning and—many are dead!”

“Many? Very many?”

“I have searched and I have seen no other living soul but you.”

She gasped and they stared at each other.

“My—father!” she whispered.

“Where is he?”

“He started for the office.”

“Where is it?”

“In the Metropolitan Tower.”

“Leave a note for him here and come.” Then he stopped. “No,” he said firmly, “first, we must go—to Harlem.”

“Harlem!” she cried. Then she understood. She tapped her foot at first impatiently. She looked back and shuddered. Then she came resolutely down the steps.

“There’s a swifter car in the garage in the court,” she said.

“I don’t know how to drive it,” he said.

“I do,” she answered.

In ten minutes they were flying to Harlem on the wind. The Stutz rose and raced like an airplane. They took the turn at 110th Street on two wheels and slipped with a shriek into 135th. He was gone but a moment. Then he returned, and his face was gray. She did not look, but said:

“You have lost—somebody?”

“I have lost—everybody,” he said simply, “unless—”

He ran back and was gone several minutes—hours they seemed to her.

“Everybody,” he said, and he walked slowly back with something film-like in his hand, which he stuffed into his pocket.

“I’m afraid I was selfish,” he said. But already the car was moving toward the park among the dark and lined dead of Harlem—the brown, still faces, the knotted hands, the homely garments, and the silence—the wild and haunting silence. Out of the park, and down Fifth Avenue they whirled. In and out among the dead they slipped and quivered, needing no sound of bell or horn, until the great, square Metropolitan Tower hovered in sight.

Gently he laid the dead elevator boy aside; the car shot upward. The door of the office stood open. On the threshold lay the stenographer, and, staring at her, sat the dead clerk. The inner office was empty, but a note lay on the desk, folded and addressed but unsent:

Dear Daughter:

I’ve gone for a hundred-mile spin in Fred’s new Mercedes. Shall not be back before dinner. I’ll bring Fred with me.

J. B. H.

“Come,” she cried nervously. “We must search the city.”

Up and down, over and across, back again—on went that ghostly search. Everywhere was silence and death—death and silence! They hunted from Madison Square to Spuyten Duyvel; they rushed across the Williamsburg Bridge; they swept over Brooklyn; from the Battery and Morningside Heights they scanned the river. Silence, silence everywhere, and no human sign. Haggard and bedraggled they puffed a third time slowly down Broadway, under the broiling sun, and at last stopped. He sniffed the air. An odor—a smell—and with the shifting breeze a sickening stench filled their nostrils and brought its awful warning. The girl settled back helplessly in her seat.

“What can we do?” she cried.

It was his turn now to take the lead, and he did it quickly.

“The long distance telephone—the telegraph and the cable—night rockets and then flight!”

She looked at him now with strength and confidence. He did not look like men, as she had always pictured men; but he acted like one and she was content. In fifteen minutes they were at the central telephone exchange. As they came to the door he stepped quickly before her and pressed her gently back as he closed it. She heard him moving to and fro, and knew his burdens—the poor, little burdens he bore. When she entered, he was alone in the room. The grim switchboard flashed its metallic face in cryptic, sphinx-like immobility. She seated herself on a stool and donned the bright earpiece. She looked at the mouthpiece. She had never looked at one so closely before. It was wide and black, pimpled with usage; inert; dead; almost sarcastic in its unfeeling curves. It looked—she beat back the thought—but it looked—it persisted in looking like—she turned her head and found herself alone. One moment she was terrified; then she thanked him silently for his delicacy and turned resolutely, with a quick intaking of breath.

“Hello!” she called in low tones. She was calling to the world. The world must answer. Would the world answer? Was the world Silence!

She had spoken too low.

“Hello!” she cried, full-voiced.

She listened. Silence! Her heart beat quickly. She cried in clear, distinct, loud tones: “Hello—hello—hello!”

What was that whirring? Surely—no—was it the click of a receiver?

She bent close, moved the pegs in the holes, and called and called, until her voice rose almost to a shriek, and her heart hammered. It was as if she had heard the last flicker of creation, and the evil was silence. Her voice dropped to a sob. She sat stupidly staring into the black and sarcastic mouthpiece, and the thought came again. Hope lay dead within her. Yes, the cable and the rockets remained; but the world—she could not frame the thought or say the word. It was too mighty—too terrible! She turned toward the door with a new fear in her heart. For the first time she seemed to realize that she was alone in the world with a stranger, with something more than a stranger—with a man alien in blood and culture—unknown, perhaps unknowable. It was awful! She must escape—she must fly; he must not see her again. Who knew what awful thoughts he had?

She gathered her silken skirts deftly about her young, smooth limbs—listened, and glided into a sidehall. A moment she shrank back: the hall lay filled with dead women; then she leaped to the door and tore at it, with bleeding fingers, until it swung wide. She looked out. He was standing at the top of the alley—silhouetted, tall and black, motionless. Was he looking at her or away? She did not know—she did not care. She simply leaped and ran—ran until she found herself alone amid the dead and the tall ramparts of towering buildings.

She stopped. She was alone. Alone! Alone on the streets—alone in the city—perhaps alone in the world! There crept in upon her the sense of deception—of creeping hands behind her back—of silent, moving things she could not see—of voices hushed in fearsome conspiracy. She looked behind and sideways, started at strange sounds and heard still stranger, until every nerve within her stood sharp and quivering, stretched to scream at the barest touch. She whirled and flew back, whimpering like a child, until she found that narrow alley again and the dark, silent figure silhouetted at the top. She stopped and rested; then she walked silently toward him, looked at him timidly; but he said nothing as he handed her into the car. Her voice caught as she whispered:

“Not—that.”

And he answered slowly: “No—not that!”

They climbed into the car. She bent forward on the wheel and sobbed, with great, dry, quivering sobs, as they flew toward the cable office on the east side, leaving the world of wealth and prosperity for the world of poverty and work. In the world behind them were death and silence, grave and grim, almost cynical, but always decent; here it was hideous. It clothed itself in every ghastly form of terror, struggle, hate, and suffering. It lay wreathed in crime and squalor, greed and lust. Only in its dread and awful silence was it like to death everywhere.

Yet as the two, flying and alone, looked upon the horror of the world, slowly, gradually, the sense of all-enveloping death deserted them. They seemed to move in a world silent and asleep—not dead. They moved in quiet reverence, lest somehow they wake these sleeping forms who had, at last, found peace. They moved in some solemn, world-wide Friedho above which some mighty arm had waved its magic wand. All nature slept until—until, and quick with the same startling thought, they looked into each other’s eyes—he, ashen, and she, crimson, with unspoken thought. To both, the vision of a mighty beauty—of vast, unspoken things, swelled in their souls; but they put it away.

Great, dark coils of wire came up from the earth and down from the sun and entered this low lair of witchery. The gathered lightnings of the world centered here, binding with beams of light the ends of the earth. The doors gaped on the gloom within. He paused on the threshold.

“Do you know the code?” she asked.

“I know the call for help—we used it formerly at the bank.”

She hardly heard. She heard the lapping of the waters far below—the dark and restless waters—the cold and luring waters, as they called. He stepped within. Slowly she walked to the wall, where the water called below, and stood and waited. Long she waited, and he did not come. Then with a start she saw him, too, standing beside the black waters. Slowly he removed his coat and stood there silently. She walked quickly to him and laid her hand on his arm. He did not start or look. The waters lapped on in luring, deadly rhythm. He pointed down to the waters, and said quietly:

“The world lies beneath the waters now—may I go?”

She looked into his stricken, tired face, and a great pity surged within her heart. She answered in a voice clear and calm, “No.”

Upward they turned toward life again, and he seized the wheel. The world was darkening to twilight, and a great, gray pall was falling mercifully and gently on the sleeping dead. The ghastly glare of reality seemed replaced with the dream of some vast romance. The girl lay silently back, as the motor whizzed along, and looked half-consciously for the elf-queen to wave life into this dead world again. She forgot to wonder at the quickness with which he had learned to drive her car. It seemed natural. And then as they whirled and swung into Madison Square and at the door of the Metropolitan Tower she gav