Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism

The last drops of rainfall steamed off Sam Green’s bent back. Jason could just see it from the front doors of the hospital: Green had made it a good way down the roadway to Eliada. His shirt was badly singed, and the flesh of his right hand, which clutched the jar, was slick, an awful mix of bright red and black.

“You see,” said Ruth, who stood beside him, “it is Sam Green. Not your father. Your father’s dead.”

“I see that now,” said Jason. He held Ruth’s hand, and looked at her. The flesh of her brow was slick too, even though she hadn’t yet stood in the rain. That might be fever, maybe exertion, maybe just all that time kept in that hot, airless room. With Sam Green gone, carrying the Cave Germ, there was less need to keep her there, and when she’d insisted on coming with him to follow, Jason couldn’t make an argument otherwise.

Jason squeezed Ruth’s hand, and let it drop. “Hush,” he whispered, and ran down the steps. It wasn’t a long distance, and until he was just a step away, Jason thought he might have gotten the jump on the Pinkerton.

But in that instant, Sam Green spun around, his free hand clenched in a fist.

“Jason!” cried Ruth.

“It ain’t your business anymore, boy,” said Green.

And then Jason was on his back in the mud. His jaw felt like it might never close properly again.

Green stood over him. In the light of day, it was sure clear that Jason’s father hadn’t come up from Hell; but Green looked like he hadn’t been anywhere too different. Half his face was red and peeling, and bloody meat hung in tatters from his right cheekbone. His hair was patched on his scalp. What flesh was intact was sooty and black. He winced as he reached to his belt and drew his revolver. He aimed it at Jason with a steady hand.

Jason kept steady too—steady as his ma would have, as she had…

“You’re aiming to let the germ out—ain’t you?” asked Jason.

“It’s the only way.”

“You know what it does, and you’re still goin’ to do that?”

Green narrowed his eyes. “I know,” he said, and gestured over his shoulder with his head. “I know what they do. The Jukes. I’ve seen it, Jason. You have too. They take men’s souls away. Take them away.”

“There’s a thousand folk yonder. You open that jar, they’re all going to die.”

“That they are,” he said. “But you saw what those things—that Mister Juke—what it can do. Just one of them, not too old… drives a fellow to think he’s seen God. And then it gets bigger—and what do you think happens then?”

“I expect…”

“Everyone thinks they’ve seen God. Everyone,” said Green. “They’ll do anything for that monster. Their souls—the ones entrusted to the True God. And eventually—they’ll run like a plague themselves over the land, mad with that thing.” He drew a ragged breath. “The Devil will rule the Earth.”

“Mr. Green,” said Ruth. She’d come up while they spoke, slowly, teetering in the mud. “What’s happened to you?”

Sam Green squinted at her. The gun faltered. “Miss Harper,” he said. “There’s been a fire… and a fight. I’m sorry to tell you—your father, your mother… They all died in it.”

“And yet you did not.” Ruth’s voice took a brittle quality. “You survived.”

“I fought them off. Best I could. Miss Harper—men from up the hill. Burned the place down—murdered as many as—”

Jason didn’t let him finish. He pivoted on his hip, and kicked out and Green shouted out as his knee buckled to one side. The gun flew from his hand, and landed quietly in the mud.

Jason dove at Sam Green’s middle. “I’m sorry,” he said as he connected, sending the bigger man sprawling under him. The stink of cooked flesh was overpowering, and Green was slippery underneath his shirt, like he’d been skinned. “I know you’re hurt.”

Jason grabbed for the jar, but Green moved it out of his reach with one hand, grabbed Jason by the hair with the other and yanked him back. Jason cried out, and he felt ashamed: Green hadn’t so much as whimpered.

Jason pulled away hard enough that he left a fistful of his hair with Green, and drove his fist crosswise into the other man’s gut. Green coughed and bent, and Jason got the upper hand for an instant—just enough to get high and come down hard on Green’s shoulders, so he pinned him in the mud. He reached up to where Green’s burned-up fist held the jar. He closed his own hand around it and tugged. But Green wouldn’t let go.

“You can’t kill a thousand folk,” said Jason. “I seen less than that killed and it was awful. You can’t kill a thousand. Not like that.” He yanked again at the jar, but Green’s fist tightened.

“Boy, that jar’s a gift from God. If what your aunt says’s true, it’ll be enough to stop this.”

“You can’t kill a thousand.”

Jason realized he was crying, his eyes soaking up with tears. His voice was weak, a child’s voice. Some damn hero he was being for Ruth Harper and his mama and everyone else.

And Green—that bastard—he saw it too.