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  Love Children: A Novel

  By

  John Walters

  Published by Astaria Books

  Copyright 2011 by John Walters

  All rights reserved. No portion may be copied, other than brief passages for review purposes, without permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons places or events - except those in the public domain - is purely coincidental.

  Contents

  1. The Mountains of Illusion

  2. Flight From Darkness

  3. Asha

  4. Eye of the Dead

  5. The Plan

  6. Interlude in Athens

  7. Interrogation

  8. Awakenings

  9. Further Interrogation

  10. The Call of the Sirens

  11. Coming In

  12. Searchers

  13. Prisons and Other Pain

  14. The Enemy’s Face

  15. Visions

  16. Lost Ones

  17. Christmas Eve

  18. Aftermath

  19. End Notes

  Chapter 1

  The Mountains of Illusion

  For a long time Jason hadn't seen anyone else on the trail. Hours ago a barefoot Nepali farmer carrying a huge bundle of wood had passed him. Though the wood was stacked high above his head and must have weighed much more than he did, the short wiry brown-skinned man dressed in lungi and torn black sports jacket almost skipped down the mountain and was soon out of sight. Then Jason walked alone surrounded by the silent peaks, the gnarled trees, the meadows, the wildflowers. He climbed steep stairways cut into stone cliffs; he crossed rope bridges over deep gorges, with rushing streams flowing over granite boulders far below. The only sounds were the soft crunch of his footsteps on the dirt path, and the breeze whispering in the grass and in the branches of the trees.

  He had long ago lost mental contact with his partner. He had never before felt the sense of isolation of being unable to communicate with the others in his thoughts. It made him feel like a tiny speck traveling through the immensity of the wilderness. It was awesome, almost terrifying. He had a homing device that he could activate in an emergency, but there didn't seem to be any immediate danger.

  He passed through a small village. Naked children stopped their play to watch him. Women beating dirty laundry on rocks beside outdoor public fountains paused, and did not resume their work until he was gone. Pigs snorted and dug their way through stinking piles of garbage. Rats and cockroaches scurried into cracks under the houses. Though Jason had seen holographic clips and had been briefed about conditions here, still it was shocking, astonishing, puzzling, and depressing.

  Once outside town, he followed the path as it meandered past rice fields, water buffalo paddocks, and back into the uninhabited countryside. It continued to get narrower and narrower as it wound upward. In the forests on the nearby hillsides he heard the sounds of woodcutters, and saw wisps of smoke from cooking fires, though nobody was visible. Beyond, where the hills on either side met at the top of the valley, was the icy white edge of the snow line.

  Then Jason saw him. He sat cross-legged on a grassy hillock contemplating the snowy peaks, motionless, as if he were part of a landscape painting.

  Jason climbed up the steep hill and sat a few feet away from him. The man had dark hair flecked with gray. He wore blue jeans, pale blue sneakers, and a brown leather jacket with imitation fur collar.

  "Hi," Jason said.

  No answer.

  "I've been looking for you."

  "Nobody but God knows I'm here," the man replied. "And I'm not so sure about him either." He didn't stop staring at the peaks. "What are you doing way up here, without a backpack, without camping equipment? It's not such a common trekking route."

  "You didn't carry anything with you," Jason said.

  "There's a reason for that. For me it's a one way trip."

  "What does that mean?"

  "I'm going to find out if God's up there, in the bright whiteness, the clean fresh air, the absolute solitude. I'm going to keep walking, and I'm not going to stop. I'm going to leave behind the cities and all that's in them, the confusion, the pain, the disease, the violence, everything I don't understand. When I reach the snow line I'm going to drop a few tabs of acid, and I'm going to walk and walk right into eternity, or into nothing, or whatever is out there, and when I can't walk any more, I'm going to lie down in the snow and go to sleep and not wake up. That's what I'm going to do. What a way to go, huh?"

  Jason wanted to break the silence that followed and say something, but he didn't know what to say.

  Finally the man continued, "And you know what? Nobody will even miss me. Nobody will even know I'm gone."

  "Are you sure?" Jason asked.

  The man stood up. "I don't know how you found me here, or why you stopped. But there's an unwritten rule in the East: never interfere in someone else's trip. You be on your way and I'll be on my way, and we'll just call it chance that we met like this." Then he half slid and half jumped from ledge to ledge down the hill to the trail, and followed it up the valley at a fast pace.

  Jason hurried after him, but lost sight of him as the path wound and twisted around the hills, the trees, and the terrain's convolutions.

  At a place where the trail narrowed between rock walls, an obese water buffalo bull with long curved horns lumbered down from a side-path and blocked Jason. With moist flared nostrils, breathing in deep heavy snorts, the bull stood motionless, as if guarding the way.

  Jason scanned the sheer cliffs, but there didn't seem to be any alternative route. Already he was too far behind; he had to catch up. The buffalo stared at him as he approached. Jason stared back. Neither blinked, neither flinched. Jason pressed himself against the rock wall and inched his way past the massive gray body. Once he was in the clear again, he ran.

  Beyond the snow line Jason imagined he'd find him easily, but he was nowhere in sight, and footprints wandered off in several directions. Jason walked slowly, alert for any sign of movement, any hint of recognition.

  He paused, and listened. A cool breeze pressed on his face. The brightness of the snowfield made him squint. Around him the sharp, uneven peaks of the Himalayas gleamed with ice.

  In his mind he felt a flutter of confusion, a dizzy wave of disorientation. Time constricted and expanded in a pulsing rhythm. The words his mind formulated dissolved as soon as they appeared. His legs lengthened until the snow seemed far below him.

  Jason forced himself to continue taking one step after another, though with each step he understood less and less of what he was doing.

  Suddenly he almost tripped over the man. He was lying on his back, breathing short, shallow breaths. He stared straight upward, his face flushed almost pink.

  When Jason was young he'd learned to block his thoughts when he wanted to hide something wrong he'd done. His misdeeds had always been discovered anyway, because even if his companions couldn't see the specifics, they could sense the blockage, and they'd probe until they found out what was behind it. But now, Jason used the blocking technique to try to reassume control. Because the storm of confusion didn't originate from him but from the other, from outside, he was able to distance himself from it somewhat. Still, because of its intensity, it was hard to think clearly enough to analyze the situation.

  Jason had never before communicated mentally with outsiders, though in theory he knew it was possible. Somehow the drug overdose had opened up the channel, but Jason was unprepared for what he saw and heard and felt. The man moment by moment slipped further into a maelstrom of paranoia. The landscape around them expanded and contracted with every breath he took, as if mirroring the movement of his lungs. The mountains grew eyes and mouths, and le
ered at him like conical demons. They smiled with malevolent intent, planning to suck out his life and rip his spirit to pieces.

  In desperation Jason tried to communicate directly to his mind.

  "Paul."

  "What?"

  "Paul, listen to me."

  "No, no! Go away!"

  "Paul, this is real. It's not a hallucination. I'm not one of them." A picture of the sneering demons.

  "Who are you then?"

  "I've come to help you."

  The landscape shattered and dissolved in a whirlpool of colors.

  "Paul. Try to get control."

  A picture of a fetus floating in a pool of blood.

  Paul turned his head and looked into Jason's eyes. The fear threatened to overwhelm Jason.

  A picture of a slim, dark-haired girl lying motionless on a bed, an empty syringe on the table beside her.

  A picture of the demons laughing.

  Everything began to fragment into crazy patterns like a jigsaw puzzle. Paul's thoughts became incoherent.

  Jason pulled Paul up to a sitting position, then grabbed him under his arms and lifted him to his feet. With one of Paul's arms around his neck, and gripping him tightly around the waist, he dragged him to the edge of the snow.

  As soon as he let go, Paul slipped to the ground. Jason rested for a moment, breathing heavily, then hoisted Paul onto his shoulders and back and staggered down the trail carrying him.

  Jason got as far as the base of the hillock where he'd met Paul, then fell down exhausted.

  As the setting sun went below the level of the hills around them, shadows filled the valley. The western sky became a rainbow, which gradually subsided to an orange glow, then lapsed into blackness. Thousands of stars suddenly appeared.

  For hours, as the acid intensified and then peaked, Jason held Paul in his arms. He didn't try to look at what was happening in Paul's mind, he blocked it out; but he could see by the way Paul shivered and sometimes moaned that it was a terrifying experience.

  The cold increased and Jason too began to shiver, but nothing could be done about it and there was nowhere to go; he was too weak to carry Paul any farther.

  Shortly before dawn the chaos within Paul subsided. The moon had risen, and pale silver light reflected on the hills and on the distant snow. Stars were so abundant that they shone like a sparkling mist above them.

  Jason unblocked and opened his mind. Though Paul was still weak, though he occasionally caught flashing glimpses of evil cartoon-like faces on the hills, though pangs of fear continued to surge through him like waves rolling towards shore on a shallow beach, still he had partially regained control of his thoughts. Jason sensed that he could speak directly to Paul's mind, but because he felt it might further frighten him, he decided to use his mouth and his vocal chords.

  "Maybe we should get moving. It'll help warm us up. Do you think you can walk?"

  Paul found it difficult to formulate words. "Why? Why did you pull me off the snow? Who are you?"

  "I'm a friend. A friend. Come on, let me help you get up."

  Once Paul was upright, he managed to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Slowly they hiked down the trail together. The sun rose and warmed them. They walked steadily, without stopping, speaking seldom. By late afternoon they reached the town of Pokhara.

  * * *

  "Jasmine?"

  "Jason! It's good to hear you."

  "It's a strange feeling to be so isolated from the people around, to only be able to communicate vocally."

  "I miss you too. How are things going?"

  "I found him. But I didn't realize what a bad state he was in. He was about to kill himself. I got to him just in time."

  "Is he all right now?"

  "He's asleep. He's still weak, and afraid. He's unstable. I don't know what he'll do when he wakes up."

  "What do you want to do?"

  "Where are you?"

  "Just walking around. The lake is beautiful."

  "Come back and we'll figure out our next step."

  * * *

  She wore blue jeans, a white blouse, and carried a brown leather shoulder bag trimmed with red, yellow, and white beads.

  When they met, their minds and bodies embraced silently for several minutes. They remembered another place, a place of rippling streams through lush gardens, of forests and grasslands, of graceful white colonnades, fountains, patios, pathways studded with gleaming multicolored stones. They held hands, closed their eyes, and Jason reviewed the highlights of his search for Paul. He showed her the visions he'd seen during Paul's drug trip; he recounted the conversations they'd had together.

  "I've never been in an outsider's mind before," Jason said. "Under the surface there's a pain I don't understand. It's kind of like the loneliness I felt when I was out of touch with you, but much worse, much more intense."

  "What can we do for him?" Jasmine asked.

  "I don't know. I feel like I want to help them all, but I can't." Jason paused, then said, "The pain has to do with their isolation from one another. It isn't natural. It's like a part of them is broken."

  "We need to make Paul feel like he's one of us," Jasmine said.

  * * *

  His face was flushed and slightly swollen; tiny crimson tracks of veins could be seen on his temples, eyelids, and neck.

  "Paul."

  He opened his bloodshot eyes, then closed them again. "I have a hell of a headache. How long have I been sleeping?"

  "About twelve hours."

  "Whew. I feel like I could sleep another twelve." He opened his eyes again and looked at Jasmine. "Who's she?"

  "She's a friend of mine. Her name's Jasmine."

  She smiled. "Hi, Paul."

  He closed his eyes again. "Sorry. It's not that I don't like looking at you, but the light makes my head hurt."

  Jason turned off the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, and closed the wooden shutters. Dust particles danced in the sun's rays coming through gaps in the slats.

  "Listen," Jason said. "I need to go out. Can Jasmine stay here for awhile?"

  "Sure. Why not?"

  "Thanks. I'll be back in a couple of hours. See you."

  After Jason left and shut the door behind him, Paul lay in the bed with his eyes closed, and Jasmine sat motionless in a chair beside him. Neither spoke. The only sound was the hum of the overhead fan.

  Finally Jasmine said, "Jason told me how you two met."

  Paul remained silent.

  "Why did you want to walk up into the snow and die?"

  Paul didn't answer.

  "I don't understand. Is it because you were lonely?"

  "Some things go beyond loneliness," Paul said.

  "Do you feel broken inside?" Jasmine asked. "Jason said that maybe people are isolated from each other because a part of them is broken."

  Paul opened his eyes. Jasmine watched different emotions play over his face: anger, then bitterness, then a sense of loss, of fragility, of vulnerability. Then his expression calmed, and deep sadness settled upon him. "Maybe that's it," he said. "Maybe something's broken inside. Maybe something's missing."

  There was a long silence again. Then Jasmine asked, "Can I get in bed with you?"

  "Why?"

  "Because I want to."

  "How old are you?"

  "Twenty-two, same as Jason. Does it matter?"

  "You look younger. Do you know how old I am?"

  "I don't care."