American Gods

“Up there?” asked Shadow, wishing that one of his questions would be answered. “I’m supposed to go up there?”

The dream took him then, the idea becoming the thing itself, and Shadow was crushed into the rock and earth. He was like a mole, trying to push through the earth, like a badger, climbing through the earth, like a groundhog, pushing the earth out of his way, like a bear, but the earth was too hard, too dense, and his breath was coming in gasps, and soon he could go no further, dig and climb no more, and he knew then that he would die, somewhere in the deep place beneath the world.

His own strength was not enough. His efforts became weaker. He knew that though his body was riding in a hot bus through cold woods if he stopped breathing here, beneath the world, he would stop breathing there as well, that even now his breath was coming in shallow panting gasps.

He struggled and he pushed, ever more weakly, each movement using precious air. He was trapped: could go no further, and could not return the way that he had come.

“Now bargain,” said a voice in his mind. It might have been his own voice. He could not tell.

“What do I have to bargain with?” Shadow asked. “I have nothing.”

He could taste the clay now, thick and mud-gritty in his mouth; he could taste the sharp mineral tang of the rocks that surrounded him.

And then Shadow said, “Except myself. I have myself, don’t I?”

It seemed as if everything was holding its breath—not just Shadow, but the whole world under the earth, every worm, every crevice, every cavern, holding its breath.

“I offer myself,” he said.

The response was immediate. The rocks and the earth that had surrounded him began to push down on Shadow, squeezed him so hard that the last ounce of air in his lungs was crushed out of him. The pressure became pain, pushing him on every side, and he felt he was being mashed, a fern becoming coal. He reached the zenith of pain and hung there, cresting, knowing that he could take no more, that no one could take more than this, and at that moment the spasm eased and Shadow could breathe again. The light above him had grown larger.

He was being pushed toward the surface.

As the next earth-spasm hit, Shadow tried to ride with it. This time he felt himself being pushed upward, the pressure of the earth pushing him out, expelling him, pushing him closer to the light. And then a moment for a breath.

The spasms took him and rocked him, each harder, each more painful than the one before it.

He rolled and writhed through the earth, and now his face was pushed against the opening, a gap in the rock scarcely larger than the span of his hand, through which a muted gray light came, and air, blessed air.

The pain, on that last awful contraction, was impossible to believe as he felt himself being squeezed, crushed and pushed through that unyielding rock gap, his bones shattering, his flesh becoming something shapeless and snakelike, and as his mouth and ruined head cleared the hole he began to scream, in fear and pain.

He wondered, as he screamed, whether, back in the waking world, he was also screaming—if he were screaming in his sleep back on the darkened bus.

And as that final spasm ended Shadow was on the ground, his fingers clutching the red earth, grateful only that the pain was over and he could breathe once more, deep lungfuls of warm, evening air.

He pulled himself into a sitting position, wiped the earth from his face with his hand and looked up at the sky. It was twilight, a long, purple twilight, and the stars were coming out, one by one, stars so much brighter and more vivid than any stars he had ever seen or imagined.

“Soon,” said the crackling voice of the flame, coming from behind him, “they will fall. Soon they will fall and the star people will meet the earth people. There will be heroes among them, and men who will slay monsters and bring knowledge, but none of them will be gods. This is a poor place for gods.”

A blast of air, shocking in its coldness, touched his face. It was like being doused in ice water. He could hear the driver’s voice saying that they were in Pinewood, anyone who needs a cigarette or wants to stretch their legs, we’ll be stopping here for ten minutes then we’ll be back on the road.

Shadow stumbled off the bus. They were parked outside another rural gas station, almost identical to the one they had left. The driver was helping a couple of teenage girls onto the bus, putting their suitcases away in the luggage compartment.

“Hey,” the driver said, when she saw Shadow. “You’re getting off at Lakeside, right?”

Shadow agreed, sleepily, that he was.

“Heck, that’s a good town,” said the bus-driver. “I think sometimes that if I were just going to pack it all in, I’d move to Lakeside. Prettiest town I’ve ever seen. You’ve lived there long?”

“My first visit.”

“You have a pasty at Mabel’s for me, you hear?”

Shadow decided not to ask for clarification. “Tell me,” said Shadow, “was I talking in my sleep?”