The Travelers

By Keith Wayne McCoy

In 1947, the Queen Mary transmits a message which is intercepted by extraterrestrial intelligence. This errant radio signal serves as a beacon for a North Atlantic encounter between James and Jess Bennett, a GI and his war bride, and an otherworldly, desperate mother and her two small children.

 

In the present day, Guy Turner, a melancholy, black filmmaker, finds himself at the center of a supernatural mystery after a haunting prelude with the now elderly mother in a corridor aboard the retired liner in Long Beach, California. Standing at the edge of eternity, the old woman and the Bennetts have the complex task of setting certain aspects of the past in order as the doors to their lives are closing.

 

Guy is thrust into an unexpected and unwanted voyage of self-discovery as he is solely enjoined to bring the three together one last time.

 

The Travelers is a journey to the limits of anxiety, despair, grief, and joy that are common to every human experience of suffering and growth. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Champagne Book Group
• Release date: Apr 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781771550611

Book preview

BURST Presents

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The Travelers

By

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Keith Wayne McCoy

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This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

No part of this book may 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 permission in writing from the publisher.

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BURST

www.burstbooks.ca

A Division of Champagne Books

Copyright 2013 by Keith McCoy

ISBN 978-1-77155-061-1

February 2014

Cover Art by Trisha FitzGerald

Produced in Canada

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Champagne Book Group

#2 19-3 Avenue SE

High River, AB T1V 1G3 

Canada 

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This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Champagnebooks.com (or a retailer of your choice) and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

For My Mother and Father.

Prelude

Somewhere in the Pegasus Constellation

Five decades earlier

Long ago and oh, so far away, a skeletal, long-haired young woman walked through the desolation of her collapsed civilization with a toddling, equally skeletal boy on one side and a girl, a bit older but even thinner, on the other. They were naked, along with all their fellow inhabitants as if the shame of body had not permeated their planet.

She looked up at the three moons beginning their splendid glow in the late summer dusk. The heavens were her hope and consolation, and she searched the budding stars for a movement of light that would indicate the arrival of escape from a fallen world for her children. She made her way up into the hills where other mothers with children were migrating. The stench of decay assailed her, and she turned to see an uneaten dog devouring one of its hunters.

Hunger weighed heavily upon her, and she instantly thought of her children. Love was no longer gentle and nurturing, merely a bitter fight for survival. She ached with a maternal instinct she resented and despised. War had taken her lover and the father of her children. Chaos and despair reigned. The inner music of her mind had segued into a dissonant rhythm of adversity.

They trudged through the high, green grass, near to attaining the summit some hundred yards higher, when they stopped, hand-in-hand. Snow-capped mountains in the distance washed pink in the light. She looked up the hill to see the hopeful ones swinging lanterns above their heads to attract their prospective saviors. Like them, she hoped for transportation to a distant world where her beloved children would have no need to fight and cry for sustenance, and the opportunity to grow up in a civilized society.

She still had parents and younger brothers and sisters to care for. She would return after finding sustenance for her own, no matter the heartbreak. She had responsibilities here to those she loved nearly as much as her own. She would not and could not abandon the clan. This was their way.

Suddenly a yelp arose, and the woman looked up to the sky to see a moving point of light, brighter and bigger than the stars far behind it, grow in size as it approached the hilltop. A strong rush of very warm air swept the grass flat, and she felt the pores in her face open. The cheers continued despite the fact that only a handful would gain access to the portal that would appear randomly on the hill.

Miraculously, the shimmering, undulating portal opened less than twenty feet below her. Since she had not climbed the summit, she had an advantage over the multitudes who had. She made straight away for the glowing, rippling opening, dragging her children in tow.

First, the returning mothers emerged, destitute and alone, some weeping, some dazed, all spent, solemn, and heartbroken. They placed their feet back on the land of their birth and proceeded childless to face the ungodly realities waiting below.

The woman and her children watched the procession from a corner of the portal where they could easily slip through. The woman was elated with her luck until another woman, older, with a single child in her arms, broke through the waiting crowd and pushed toward the corner. She shoved the young woman backward just as the embarkation began. All civility evaporated and mothers and offspring trampled each other to reach the portal. The vertical surface rolled and splashed.

The children, knocked from the woman’s grasp, lay crying. In a moment of instinct, she jerked them up into her arms and leaned far over, opened her mouth wide, and bit down hard on the arm of the older mother. There was a scream of pain as she fell backward. The woman dived into the portal with her children, her big toe barely passing through as the rippling ceased. The portal abruptly closed.

High above on the vessel, winded but triumphant, she meandered through the milling mothers and children to a luminous, clear bulkhead and looked down. This would be the last glimpse of her world until her god deemed she should return alone. A single tear fell as she watched the crowd below disperse in heavy despair and trek back down the hill to a living nightmare.

One

Long Beach, California, 2004

The corpse of the Queen Mary lay mammoth and reposed at her berth, while the California sun blazed lazily on her superstructure. No smoke issued from her towering stacks. In another time, the water surrounding her would have churned with heaving tugs and curious pleasure craft, the hustle and bustle of departure or arrival full upon her.

Today, she was too perfect. No encrustations of brine at her shining waterline or streaks of rust trailing from her anchors. She was waxen and immaculate, like a loved one in a casket. In life, the bridge windows high above were her eyes, ever wary of the North Atlantic. Still, the ghost of alertness hung about them though they stared dead ahead at waterfront hotels.

The cliff-like rise of her bow from placid waters gave no hint of the monstrous waves that thundered past her stem when she charged across the Atlantic in a frantic fury. Once a living entity on the high seas, now permanently tethered to land, long since disemboweled of her engines and power plants.

Inside, stillness stalked the aging corridors, pressing hard against the gloss of paneling and columns, whispering down the staircases, rippling over the empty pool. Even the occasional sound of a footstep or snatch of conversation seemed more memory than reality.

To the casual observer, the older woman who stepped from the taxi seemed inconspicuous from the legions of former passengers and crew who often came to revisit a chapter in their rapidly closing personal histories. Jessica Bennett stood tall, elegantly dressed in a navy blue suit and pearls. Still an attractive woman in her seventies, she did not defy her years. Eddies of wrinkles pooled under her eyes and at the corners of her mouth. Silver glistened through her faded sandy hair and her back surely was not as straight as it had once been.

She stood with a suitcase in one hand, shielded her eyes with the other and lifted her head in a long moment of communion with the ship. The Queen Mary’s old, unmistakable profile loomed against the brilliant blue sky. It was utterly unlike Jess’s first glimpse of destiny when the fog and drizzle of an overcast Southampton obliterated all but the sharp prow and a bridge wing.

Another taxi broke her reverie, and she moved toward the entrance, where a man directed her to a wide gangway of enclosed glass, not at all like the narrow, open one from decades past.

When she stepped aboard the promenade deck, fifty-seven years rushed around her. The same teak decking lay underfoot. The confident march of windows paraded down the portside overlooking a parking lot rather than the restless Atlantic. The ship’s plaza was still the busiest place aboard, buzzing with visitors, their suitcases and trams scattered haphazardly.

The girl at the purser’s desk was impossibly sweet and comfortable with older visitors. She spoke a bit too loudly and explained things in a deliberate cadence some visitors must have found patronizing. Mrs. Bennett, after you’ve settled in your cabin, Mr. Turner and the production crew are expecting you in the Grand Salon. That’s the former first class dining room, as you may recall, on R deck. she smiled and pointed toward the elevators. Will you need any assistance? A wheelchair or walking aid?

Mrs. Bennett turned without answering.

Disappointment awaited her in the cabin. Although original in paneling and décor, a television and modern telephone sang in disharmony with the art deco surroundings. The throb of the engines, once as palpable as a heartbeat, no longer lived in the slight chatter of paneling. There was no sense of thrill or immediacy since departure was not imminent.

After unpacking, Jess didn’t go to meet the production crew as instructed. Instead, she followed a tour group that filed past a T in the corridor outside her cabin. Children in shorts popped their gum and gawked at displays, then pulled at their parents with cries of hunger and impatience.

She wandered from the group when they moved to an escalator going below deck and went slowly through first class corridors that were largely unchanged from sailing days. She remembered the precise location of the lounge and found it closed; the large formal doors locked. But she saw a smaller door farther down that was evidently a service entrance. It was unlocked and she stepped into the hushed gloom of a room that possessed far, unseen reaches.

Muffled light hovered from large circular windows near the ceiling, and the massive veneered columns rose in silent majesty before her, suggesting an Egyptian palace. She had the vivid feeling that the room reared from slumber to wakefulness with her entrance, aware of her presence after so many years. Perhaps surprised and ready to meditate over the past with her. Not wishing to break the spell, she walked slowly and soundlessly to a chair in a recessed part of the room and sat in the shadows.

~ * ~

You’re forty years old. Lynn eyed him as a mother would a child she was scolding.

Guy scooped vegetables into the wok but didn’t turn to face her.

We can’t forever be ‘the kids living in sin on the fourth floor.’ There comes a time in life when you just have to be decisive. I don’t feel alive anymore, Guy. I feel as if we’ve somehow stalled.

He hadn’t expected the argument. Lynn had been restless for a few months, he knew, but he hadn’t known how deeply, nor the nature of her unease.

Where in hell is this coming from? He didn’t look up as he seasoned the stir-fry. Society expects every woman in her thirties to wrestle with this, and now you think it’s your turn. You’re just playing the stereotyped part. Why?

Playing the part? Do you think I saw this coming? Lynn’s voice sounded dry, irritated.

He sensed her trying to engage his eyes, but he would not raise his head.

This is new to me, but it may be as natural as a first period. Do you know I wake up in the night, every night, scared to death of lost time? That ticking clock is real.

A ticking clock? For God’s sake, he said, shaking his head. A ticking clock. Well, since we’re arguing in clichés, here’s mine. It’s a shitty, rotten world, and I’m not selfish enough to bring another life into it. How’s that?

She slammed a cabinet door and triumphantly captured his stare. "Do you think you’re the only one to have been called ‘nigger?’ The only one who had an unhappy childhood? Don’t you think everyone looks back with some amount of resentment? You’re not hiding behind those lies, Guy. I won’t let you. You are selfish, pure and simple."

The room grew quiet as both gathered their wits, then Lynn asked softly, What is it about children? It is so selfish I want to have your children?

He tried appeasement. We’ll marry, if that’s what you want. You know that’s what I want. How can you not know that?

Of course I want that. But only if it’s a precursor to becoming parents.

What?

Marriage isn’t as essential to me as being a mother. Her tone carried an unmistakable note of finality, and the ugly head of stalemate rose between them. The hum of the refrigerator insulted the sudden quiet.

Essential, he repeated dully.

At this time, yes. Her eyes were moist, but her expression remained steadfast.

How essential?

She didn’t reply.

He lay in bed that night and worried just how essential, which had perhaps been her intention. The next morning he rose while she slept with her naked, brown back turned to him. In the bathroom, he found the round, pink container for birth control pills. He opened what seemed an exotic pocket watch with tiny pills at odd time marks and no hands. He was searching for some sort of schedule in the archaic design when he became aware of her watching him in the mirror. Having vilified himself, he calmly replaced the container and brushed his teeth.

Now aboard the Queen Mary, Guy pushed away the memory of his argument with Lynn. His fingers half-gripped, half-caressed the camera, the lens that protected him from the world, allowed him to watch, to see, without participating. This professional voyeurism gave him the authority to capture moments in time, freeze them, replay them. Gave him power to control life around him.

Push for the emotional, he said to Rebecca, his young intern. Don’t discourage tears or anger. A historical documentary should be more like a living zoo, rather than a musty library. If the final result seems sentimental, so be it. It’s their story. We’re just along for the ride. He smiled and added, Of course, if it’s too cornball, we can always leave it on the editing floor.

Again his fight with Lynn surfaced. Leave it on the editing floor.

Rebecca laughed and nodded, her smooth low ponytail bobbing over her shoulder, but Guy noticed her gaze lingering over his facial features as he flipped through a list of interviewees. Her admiring stares didn’t elicit self-esteem in him, but rather despair. Unfortunately, his good looks and perceived curse of skin color intertwined inextricably. You are one good-looking nigger. The words of his high school basketball coach came back to him, as clearly as if the man stood beside him now, his slow, guttural voice frighteningly animal-like in Guy’s ear.

The coach had walked to Guy and softly stroked his jaw line