Last Exit to Eden

Jordan always took the long way home after he did his weekly shopping in Hico. It was soothing. Until today, that is. Today he was abducted by three men.

Jordan spotted the first man, about three miles off of the main highway. He was standing in the middle of the road with his right hand up. Jordan stopped. He had to, otherwise, he would be running over the man. Jordan got out of his pickup and two other men appeared behind him.

Without saying anything, the men motioned for Jordan to follow them. He didn’t want to do that, but he felt a strange compulsion to do so. The men seemed quite unintimidating, and Jordan figured that it was because all of them were nude.

“Where are we going, boys? Y’all need help? Someone steal your clothes?” Jordan asked these questions because, well, they needed to be asked.

“Don’t talk, son,” the largest of the three men said.

Jordan didn’t talk. He was sweating, though, and he was getting a little worried. The nude men suddenly seemed scary. They had nice teeth, though.

They arrived at what looked like a village in the middle of clearing, which was in the middle of nowhere. Texas was big. Very big. It was easy to get lost somewhere in it, and it was also easy to hide a village.

People were staring at him when he got out of his truck. None of the looks were friendly, not even from the dozen or so kids trailing the group. Jordan noted, through his fear, that everyone was nude. Except him.

“You done wrong, son. We gonna kill you. Don’t take it personal, now.” The largest of the three kidnapers spoke without rancor.

“But I…” Jordan wailed.

“I reckon we’ll feed you to the animals after that. Don’t know what else to do.”

“Eve! Git yore skinny butt out here!” The man yelled, and a girl promptly appeared.

“My daughter’s gonna identify you first, son. We ain’t animals, you know,” the man spoke.

Jordan lowered his head and shook it. What the hell was happening here? He was just a writer. Not a great writer, he knew, but his writing paid the bills and afforded him a decent life. He had a small house near Evant and five acres to go along with it. He kept a horse and a beef cow, had a dog and a dependable truck. His wants were few. Right now, he added another want: to not be killed and thrown to the animals.

Eve strode out of a small house and right up to Jordan. She looked him over intently as if she were inspecting a painting in a museum. She grabbed his jaw and ordered him to open his mouth. She inspected his teeth. She opened his shirt and gazed his chest. She turned him around and inspected what she wanted to inspect back there. Eve turned to the group of men with the heavy scowls.

“It ain’t him,” she said, striding away.

**************

Jordan sat down, shaken by the experience and ecstatic that he was alive. Although he was still leery of what was to happen to him, he felt like he was not in mortal danger any longer. The steely-eyed men didn’t seem to be disappointed; killing just wasn’t in their blood.

The largest of the men who had kidnaped him was named Levi. He appeared to be in his mid-forties, and he possessed the sort of musculature that most women would swoon over. In fact, all of the men appeared to be well-groomed, clean, and incredibly fit. The women were likewise extremely beautiful and trim without being skinny. All had lustrous black hair and absolutely no modesty, openly displaying their nude bodies for all to see.

“I reckon we got the wrong man, son. Eve tells us that the man’s name was Marcus. Some strange name like that anyway. You don’t know that man do you?”

Jordan’s eyes widened in surprise and consternation. He did know Marcus. Knew him, that is: Marcus was dead.

“Yeah, I know him. He was found dead out in a rancher’s field about a week ago. The police say he died of exposure to the elements and his body had been chewed up by coyotes and wolves.”

“Police? What’s that?”

Jordan looked at Levi quizzically.

“Cops. Law enforcement. The men and women in blue. Wear badges and carry guns?”

Levi shook his head. The group surrounding them all said the word ‘police’ over and over, almost in unison. Jordan didn’t understand this behavior right away.

“Badge and gun?” Levi asked. He was being sincere, Jordan thought.

“A piece of metal that has the police inscription on it. A gun shoots bullets that are meant to kill.”

The crowd murmured the words ‘badge’ and ‘gun’ over and over. They had never heard of these things! The realization hit Jordan like a sack of bricks. He shook his head, trying to clear away the buzzing in his ears.

“And what are bullets?” Levi kept on questioning him.

“Listen, Levi. Sir. What did Marcus do that made you want to kill him?”

The entire crowd gasped and leaned in to hear what Levi would say.

“We don’t talk about it much, son. One of those things that are best left alone, I reckon. But since we brought you here I suppose you should know so you don’t go doin’ the same thing.”

Levi stood up and started walking west. The crowd followed, as did Jordan. After a thirty-minute trek through extremely verdant land, Levi and the crowd stopped as one. Levi pointed at a tree.

“The man pulled an apple off of that tree and ate it,” Levi said darkly, a hint of anger in his voice. The crowd was silent and looked with wonder and fear at the tree in front of them.

“No,” Jordan said with a smile on his face, “we don’t have apple trees around here, Levi. Wrong climate, you see.” Jordan inspected the tree. What he saw just didn’t sit right in his brain.

“How…how could there be an apple tree here?” Jordan was almost yelling. The crowd looked at him as if he were the crazy one, not them.

“Always been here, son.”

“But…but…”

“The Big Feller told us to never eat the apples from this here tree. If we do then He said he would punish us,” Levi said, staring at the tree.

“But…”

“So Eve brought this man from the outside and he ate an apple. We told him not to. He ran away before we could put him to death,” Levi glared at his daughter. As far as he was concerned, she was the cause of all this trouble.

“The man looked lost! And he was wearin’ those strange skins like this man here,” Eve pointed at Jordan, “and those strange things on his feet. He was thirsty so I brought him in to give him some water. I didn’t know he was gonna…”

“Stop talkin’, Eve,” Levis said quietly. Eve stopped talking. Jordan knew how she felt. Levi had a way of speaking that made you want to do exactly what he said.

“Clothes. Shoes,” Jordan said. He was stunned at what he saw and spoke automatically. The crowd intoned ‘clothes’ and ’shoes’ until Levi held up his hand.

“Don’t eat the apples here, son. We’ll have to kill you.”

Jordan looked at Levi and nodded absently. He returned his gaze back to the apple tree. It was, frankly, impossible. The tree was full of red apples – in February. He walked forward a couple of steps and stopped. He wanted one of those apples. Why, he didn’t know, but the desire grew stronger the closer he got. A hand forcibly restrained him from going further. Levi’s hand.

“Don’t let it pull you in, son.”

Jordan understood. It all made sense now.

**************

The journey back was made in silence, but Jordan was thinking furiously about everything that had happened to him during, and it wouldn’t be too strong a statement to say, this life-changing event. Everything that he had believed in, or thought he knew, had exploded into bits and pieces of worthless flotsam and jetsam.

“You can stay with us tonight, son. We’ll take you back to your land tomorrah,” Levi said, poking at the fire.

Jordan nodded, still deep in thought. After Levi’s wife, Sara, had cooked up a big hunk of meat on the fire and they had all eaten, Jordan decided to ask some questions. He couldn’t leave here without some answers.

“Why isn’t it cold here, Levi? This is February and it gets damned cold at night. Is this some sort of micro-climate?”

Levi blinked. Sara frowned. Eve ate some more.

“What is a micro-climate?” Sara asked.

“It’s…uh…never mind. All of these things you don’t know is just stuff from my land. Not worth knowing, probably,” Jordan said. These people are fortunate, Jordan thought.

“It’s always like this, son. We get sunshine and sometimes rain. That’s all there is to it,” Levi said. He leaned back on the ground and put his hands behind his head. Jordan noted that the ground, once hard and unforgiving as they walked, was now soft and warm. He didn’t question this because he simply didn’t want to hear Levi say that this is the way it has always been.

“You’re welcome to stay here as long as you don’t eat an apple, Jordan,” Sara reclined next to her husband. Jordan tried not to look at her nude body, but he did anyway. She was extremely attractive, just like Eve. Just like all of the women, he thought. They all had gravity-defying breasts and curves that conformed to some sort of magic ratio for beauty.

Levi looked at his wife and nodded. She smiled faintly at Levi.

“You can have Eve as a wife, son, if she’s willin’. She needs a strong hand. Eve’s a great girl but she’s one of those curious types. Always wantin’ to know more,” Levi said.

Jordan cast a quick glance at Eve. She was unperturbed by this arrangement to the point of helping herself to some berries. She munched them unconcernedly, tossing the pits into the fire and wiping the stray juice from her lips with the back of her hand.

“Reckon he’s as good as any,” she said. Another handful of berries found their way to her mouth.

Jordan shifted uncomfortably.

“Well, I…”

“I reckon she’ll marry Adam if you don’t take her. He’s a good man but a little weak. She’ll boss him around and get him to do whatever she wants doin’.”

Jordan looked at them with a fair amount of incredulousness.

“You can’t just arrange a marriage. It isn’t done,” Jordan said with as much conviction as he could muster.

“That’s how we do it, young man. And Eve’ll do her wifely duties by you. I done taught her all that,” Sara snuggled up next to her husband and kissed his neck.

Jordan watch all of this with amusement. The amusement turned to consternation when they started having sex. He moved away and tried not to watch. Eve watched. She seemed a little bored by her parents’ sexual activities, as if she had seen this many times before.

Levi and Sara finished and dropped off to sleep almost immediately, as did Eve. Jordan returned to the fire, now nothing more than softly-glowing embers, and laid down on the ground. He felt sleepy right away. Pleasant thoughts ran through his head and he was soon snoring. He would not wake up until the sun hit him in the face.

**************

Levi stood at the edge of the trees, loath to go any further. Jordan had taken a few steps away from the trees and felt the cold of a February morning hit him. He shivered and crossed his arms, trying to warm himself. Levi stood where he was, nude and not at all cold.

“I reckon you belong here, son. But you could have my daughter, if she’ll have you. Sara says you’d be the best thing for her. Sara’s never wrong about these things,” Levi said. He looked a little sad.

“Thanks for the…uh…offer, Levi. But I’d miss watching football and drinking beer with my buddies. And a lot of other things that you wouldn’t understand,” Jordan smiled at Levi and waved. He watched Levi turn around and just disappear into the trees.

Still shivering, Jordan ran to his truck and put on his coat. He looked back at where he and Levi had parted, a little disturbed by it all. Something was niggling at his brain, something important…

“Shit!” Jordan yelled and raced back to the opening in the trees. He ran down the path they had taken in a frenzied search for Levi. An hour later, he gave up. Bloody from tree branches and exhausted from running, Jordan sat in his truck and wondered how he had missed it. The really, really important thing.

Eve. Adam. The fucking apple tree!

Jordan returned through the woods, searching for Levi. It was getting dark but he only thought of the tragedies he could prevent, the suffering, the deaths. It was up to him. He tore through the woods like a madman, crashing painfully through thick brush and thrashing around for any kind of sign. Jordan, exhausted after a few hours of this, sat down and cried. The ground was hard and cold, and sleep eluded him for some hours. He finally fell asleep, tears freezing on his face.

He was found three days later, almost dead. The road to recovery was long and painful; he had lost three toes and two fingers to frostbite, and he had a persistent cough. Jordan kept on repeating the same thing over and over, his eyes glazed over and his hands twitching.

“I could have saved the world. I could have saved the world. I could have…”

**************

Lilith looked at the clock on the wall. 7:30. With a sigh she got up, as did the rest of the staff. Break time was over and the routine of taking care of the patients had to be resumed. It was time to serve dinner in the dining room, so Lilith made sure all of the patients that were allowed to eat without help were seated. She sighed. Another long night of taking care of the crazies.

“Don’t!” Lilith ordered a young woman. The youngster looked at Lilith impassively, the plate of apple pie suspended above Jordan’s dinner plate.

“Don’t give him the apple pie. It makes him…excitable,” Lilith said, snatching the pie away and putting it back on the cart. She looked down at Jordan and grimaced. Why didn’t he just die? Been here for fifty years and he just keeps on going. All he does is stare at the trees and cry.

Jordan looked at Lilith, and she involuntarily shuddered. The old man is creepy, she thought.

“I could have saved you,” he muttered. Lilith shook her head and snatched his plate away. Later, she ate his apple pie, wondering why the old coot didn’t like something so tasty.