Eventide Read online

  Eventide

  J. Scott Coatsworth

  Published by

  Other Worlds Ink

  PO Box 19341, Sacramento, CA 95819

  Cover art © 2020 by J. Scott Coatsworth. Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

  Eventide © 2020 by J. Scott Coatsworth and Other Worlds Ink. Second Edition. This story first appeared in Galaxy’s Edge Magazine in March 2020.

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution by any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Other Worlds Ink, PO Box 19341, Sacramento, CA 95819, or https://www.otherworldsink.com.

  Created with Vellum

  I dedicate “Eventide” to one of my biggest fans, Shelley Hescock, an angel who never missed an event, and who left us this Spring after a long fight with cancer.

  Contents

  Foreword

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  About the Author

  Also by J. Scott Coatsworth

  Foreword

  “Eventide” was one of the stories I wrote in my attempt to become a SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) member in early 2018 by selling a story to a SFWA-qualifying magazine. It was purchased for Galaxy’s Edge Magazine by the late Mike Resnick, an all around nice guy who singlehandedly propelled me into SFWA membership with this story, fulfilling a lifelong dream.

  The title came from a church service—Eventide is one of those old-timey words that just sounds better, more interesting than the pedestrian “evening.” It sparked an idea for this story, which also owes a nod of gratitude to Milliways, Douglas Adam’s restaurant at the end of the universe.

  I hope you enjoy it… a little light and hope in a dark time.

  One

  I felt a little sick. Okay, a lot sick—like something had wrenched my stomach out of my gut and pulled it halfway to Mars.

  Not far from the truth, as it turned out.

  I reached for my stomach. My furry belly was a little thicker than I would have liked—too much processed sugar, Peter said. That and the whole no exercise thing.

  What did I eat this time? My memories were a bit fuzzy.

  I remembered bright lights and a sharp antiseptic smell. And a keening whine.

  I opened my eyes. The light above dimmed of its own accord.

  That’s weird. And the smell…kind of antiseptic?

  I sat up, and my fingers sank into the soft blue mat beneath me, leaving an impression when I lifted them up which just as quickly disappeared.

  I was naked. What the hell?

  Alarmed, I looked around as my eyesight cleared.

  I was alone in a plain white room. White walls curved into a white floor and ceiling, and only the “bed” had any color—a bright blue pad on a raised pedestal. There were no doors or windows.

  I pushed myself up and my head spun. My stomach clenched, and I felt sick.

  The room swam around me, darkening, changing.

  I’ve been sick. I was certain of that, but the details were vague. I fell back, cushioning my fall with my left hand. “Hello? Peter?”

  “Hello, Tanner Black.” The reply was warm, cordial. Feminine, maybe? Hard to tell.

  “Hello.” My head ached. “Where am I? Who is this?” The walls continued to flow.

  “I am Sera. You are in an awakening room. Welcome to the Seeker.”

  “Welcome to where?” None of this made any sense. Where’s Peter? He must be looking for me. I tried to get up again and a searing pain clenched my gut.

  “Please lie down, Mr. Black. You have not fully recovered yet, and your room is not ready.”

  Recovered from what? I wanted to argue, but suddenly resting seemed like an eminently sensible idea. I was tired, and my head hurt.

  Maybe just a short nap.

  I pulled my feet up and lay down, wishing for my comfy feather pillow.

  The foam conformed to my body, hugging me. So comfortable.

  That thought faded as sleep took me, and the light went out.

  Two

  I woke slowly.

  I lay still for a while, hoping not to alert whoever or whatever had brought me here to the fact that I was awake.

  The last thing I remembered was being in bed, in our little bungalow near the river. With Peter. A strange keening sound rang through my mind, mixed with the smell of hospital disinfectant.

  Is this heaven?

  I opened one eye, looking at the ceiling.

  It was no longer white. Instead, it was coffered, the stained oak paneling that Peter and I had chosen when we’d renovated my den.

  I was dressed in khakis and a polo tee.

  “Good morning.”

  I sat bolt-upright, looking around for the source of the voice.

  The voice from before. Sera?

  She was on the far side of the room, a woman so perfect that I found myself aching at the sight of her in all the wrong places. It was strange. I was pretty much a Kinsey six, a gold-star gay.

  Peter and I had joked about the whole “gay men liking hot female celebrities” thing more than once. “I’d switch teams for Ariana Grande. Voice like an angel.”

  That was Peter, ten years younger than me. Always up on the latest thing. Me, I was more of a classic type. Angelina Jolie, any day. But this woman? I would have let her have her way with me. Is that weird?

  Then it struck me. This was my den. How did she get here? How did I? Why can’t I remember?

  Sera stood by the window, running her tapered fingers over the books on my bookshelf. She was tall, her skin tawny, her face smooth and unlined, and her eyes were golden and almost too big.

  “Good morning….Sera? What are you doing in my house?” Maybe the white room had just been a weird dream.

  “Yes. And this is not your house. Not exactly.” She set the leather-bound book she’d been leafing through back on the shelf and sat down in the russet-red Tom Ford leather chair in the corner.

  I laughed nervously. “Not my house?” What the hell was she talking about?

  “It will all make sense soon.”

  Sure it would.

  It was fall outside—the maple leaves outside were red and gold. Is it November already? The antiseptic smell was gone, replaced with something like lavender.

  “So if this isn’t my house…what is this place? Heaven?” Maybe she meant they’d foreclosed on our place, though I didn’t remember that. Was she a Realtor? I frowned.

  She looked at me strangely for a second, and then smiled. “No. This is neither heaven nor hell. You have some strange concepts.”

  I didn’t know if that you meant me, or maybe humankind? Or…? “Where are we, then?” If this wasn’t my study, the resemblance was uncanny, right down to the scuff in the bamboo floor where I’d dropped one of my granite bookends.

  “We’ll get to that. First, let’s talk about where you are from.”

  “Dammit, this is hell.” Heaven wouldn’t keep me waiting like this. Maybe hell is a waiting room. Weird how she talked so formally, no contractions.

  Sera laughed again. “Really, it is not. Suffice it to say that it’s a long time away
from your own.”

  In a galaxy far, far away… That sounded a lot like sci fi. “Is this Milliways? If so, I wanna meet the meat.”

  Her eyes unfocused again, and then she laughed even harder than before, but her laugh sounded a bit odd. “A surprisingly apt guess.”

  I hadn’t expected that. Douglass Adams would be proud. “So am I dead?”

  She smiled. It looked like maybe she was trying to reassure me, but it was more like a grimace. “Tell me about where you came from.” She seemed eager to press ahead—if she’d had a watch, she would have been glancing at it furiously. “I promise all will be explained.”

  I sighed. Now this was sounding like therapy. I rubbed my chin, thinking. “My husband and I live in a little yellow house in Sacramento.” Peter, where are you?

  Three

  “What’s Sacramento like?” She sounded genuinely interested, her fine eyebrow arched.

  “It was kind of a cow town. Not as bad now as it was twenty years ago.”

  Her eyes unfocused, a gesture I was coming to realize meant she was accessing information. “Ah, I understand. Do you like it?” She was taking notes. I could feel it.

  I nodded. “More than I thought I would. I came from San Francisco—that’s a big city by the ocean. Sacramento is…was?…calmer. Less crazy.”

  Sera rubbed her chin, looking lost in thought. “And your husband?”

  “Peter?” I laughed. “He’s a pain in the ass.” I couldn’t bring myself to talk about him in the past tense.

  She started to unfocus.

  “It means he’s difficult, in an endearing way.” Peter was my everything, even if I wanted to kill him at least twice a week.

  “I understand.”

  I looked around again at the den, feeling closed in. Just before this—there’d been a white room like the one I woke up in the first time. Clean, slick, soulless. “I think I was sick.”

  It was a statement, not a question. There’d been chemo. Weeks of nausea, followed by weeks of recovery.

  Sitting in The Chair. The Cancer Club.

  Memory washed over me.

  “What you in for?” The skinny woman had a purple bandana wrapped around her head, her freckles vivid on pale cheeks.

  I stared at the tube pumping poison into my veins, wishing I were anywhere else. “Prostate. You?”

  “Breast.” She touched her flat chest, flashing me a mischievous smile. “What do you think of my rack?”

  My face flushed. “I don’t know…”

  “It’s all right. Just messing with you. I’m Anna Kirkpatrick.”

  I nodded, relieved. “I’m Tanner. You have a nice Irish name.”

  She grinned. “Yes, from my father’s side. You?”

  “Good British stock. Long time back.”

  “Welcome to the Cancer Club.” She was sweet. We talked about books we’d read, our families, our cancers.

  Three weeks later she was gone.

  I opened my eyes and looked down at my hands. Cancer.

  Sera nodded, like a therapist. “Cancer sounds like a terrible thing.”

  “You don’t have it…here?” How did she know? Where am I? When am I? Is any of this real?

  “No. We did once. Something similar—a cellular malfunction. It was a long time ago.”

  I looked up, hopeful. “Figured out the secret?” Maybe they cured me after all.

  Sera looked down at her hands, not meeting my gaze.

  “I…I died, didn’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  I bit my lip. “So. This is heaven.” Sera was an angel. Not that I was particularly religious. And yet, here I was.

  “Let me show you something.” She stood and touched the window. It shimmered and changed, the trees and golden afternoon sunlight vanishing.

  It was an almost indescribably beautiful vision, hard to render in words.

  It was a play of colors, every one of them in the Pantone chart. Or an explosion, sparklers of light playing across the screen. Or maybe a bursting of bubbles.

  Or a grand symphony the likes of which Beethoven might have conceived, if he’d worked for Pixar.

  It was all of those things, and none of them at all.

  I stumbled toward it, reaching my hand out to touch the cool, clear surface. “It’s breathtaking.” I tried to take it all in.

  She nodded. “The screen filters out the escaping radiation. Otherwise you’d be dead.”

  I already am. I didn’t say it. I should be grateful for whatever this is.

  Mom would have shaken me by the scruff of my neck—Do you realize how lucky you are?

  Then again, maybe this was all just a dream.

  Four

  “What is it?” I stared at the strange interplay of colors, the fog and shifting light.

  “It’s the end of all things.” Her lips were set in a grim line.

  I stared at her. She looked serious, and also a little broken.

  I wasn’t good at reading women. I wanted to comfort her, but I held back.

  This is Milliways. Without the fine dining and self-introductory cows. But the end of the Universe, nevertheless. Or maybe some chemo fever-dream. “Why am I here?”

  My stomach rumbled.

  Traitor. It didn’t matter. I don’t need food. I’m already dead. Though for some reason, I suddenly had a massive craving for a burger and fries.

  Sera touched the window, and autumn returned, though somehow its beauty seemed washed out now. “I’ll make you a deal. Let’s share a meal. And for every question of mine you answer, I’ll answer one from you.”

  Answers from an angel? Who wouldn’t want that? I wished Peter were here to see this. “Deal.”

  She waved her hand. The alien bed sank into the floor, and in its place, another Tom Ford chair and a small wooden table arose, matched to the stained maple paneling on the walls.

  “Fancy.” I knelt to examine the table. It was beautiful, hand-crafted. Shaker construction, if I guessed right.

  She shrugged. “I suppose. Replication is quite mundane to me. What should we eat?” Move this along, her posture said.

  There was an aura of sadness around her. I had caught a glimpse of it at the window, but now it was as clear as the autumn leaves.

  Outside it was moving from late afternoon into evening.

  “What are my choices?”

  “Anything you want.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You must have quite the kitchen.”

  She laughed, a little of the sadness lifting. “No, just a good replication system.”

  “Okay.” If this was heaven, it was the strangest version I’d ever heard of. “A McDonalds cheeseburger, fries, and chocolate shake.” Everyone knew Mickey Dees had the best fries, even if I didn’t eat them anymore. I am already dead, after all.

  Her gaze went faraway again, and then she touched the bookshelf. After about ten seconds, it split apart, and there was a nook with an orange tray, complete with paper liner and the items I’d asked for. Two of each. “You’re joining me?”

  She nodded. “When at Rome…”

  I laughed, but didn’t correct her. Prepositions were a bitch in any language.

  I took a bite. Oh my God. The cheeseburger was amazing, fake cheese and pickle juice dripping down the side of my mouth. I’d forgotten how good processed food could be.

  Sera took a bite and frowned.

  “Don’t like it?”

  “It’s…interesting.” She pulled off the bun and stared inside. “What’s that?”

  I squinted. “That is a pickle. One of humankind’s finest inventions.” It took me a second to realize she’d used a contraction.

  Sera picked up the pickle and sniffed it. “I’ll take your words for it.”

  I smiled. She was still a little rough on idioms.

  I popped one of the fries into my mouth. They were perfect—hot, crispy, salty. And underneath the carton… I stared. “Is that…the Hamburgler?”

  Another data check. “Yes, it is.”


  I laughed. It was patently absurd.

  Here I was, vaunted sci fi writer and climate change scientist from the early decades of the twenty-first century, sitting in my den at the end of the Universe, talking pickles with some future human/alien goddess, while a cartoon drawing in a jailhouse jumpsuit grinned at me from a plastic orange tray.

  Sera laughed too, and soon we were doubled over squeezing our sides.

  “The…the…Hamburglar. And holy shit, Grimace?”

  Tears were coming from her eyes. “Why are we laughing?”

  “This whole thing…it’s just so weird.”

  The laughter trailed off, and we stared at each other in companionable silence.

  However different we were, we had just shared a moment. A human moment.

  I took a sip of the chocolate shake. It was already starting to melt.

  Five

  “So…assuming I believe what you’ve told me, what do we do now?”

  “Ask me a question.” She sat back, her arms resting on the arms of the chair. “Then I’ll ask you one.”

  This was like having a genie. Do I get more than three questions? I had to make each one count, just in case. “Can you read my mind?”

  Sera shook her head. “Not exactly. I can access a copy of your memories—the one we used to replicate you. It helps me answer some of your questions, and to know what to ask next.”

  Let’s test that. I want to kill you with my bare hands.

  I waited to see if she reacted. But she seemed as serene and calm as before. She was either telling the truth, or she was a better actor than me. “Your turn.”

  “What do your people think about life after death?”