The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy (digital ebook reader txt) 📕

“It was more of a lake, we discovered. After his death.”

“It says that you murdered him.”

“But how, Blair? I’d like to know how. I’ve heard hundreds of theories—poisoning, strangling, gunshot, knife to the chest.”

The letter didn’t specify how she had killed him, only that he was murdered and Sasha had covered it up. No body was found. No autopsy performed. “Pretty convenient,” Blair said.

“You call that convenient? That’s the least convenient thing that could happen. I’d rather put this behind us. I’d love to clear this up. I’d love to bury my oldest friend.” She dabbed her eyes. “Try knowing the person you love most in the world is stuck in the bowels of a lake decomposing. There’s no dignity in a death like that.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“People’s lives are so empty of meaning and purpose. They waste their days concocting elaborate stories. Conspiracies. I should be used to it—but it hurts every time I hear some new story about how I killed my oldest friend.” She flattened her hands together in front of her mouth. She inhaled slowly to collect herself. “Do you have it?”

“I left it in Oregon,” he said, a senseless lie.

“You’re sure it’s not in your bag?” She lifted his backpack from behind her desk and dropped it onto the surface. “If I look in here I won’t find it?”

“I’m so scattered,” he said. “I barely remember what I brought.”

“Take a look.”

Blair reached immediately for the compartment inside where he’d stored the letter. It was empty. He dug around elsewhere, pushing aside cameras and wires and socks, grasping and grunting, increasingly frantic. He dipped his head in the bag.

“Blair-Blair-Blair,” said Sasha. She fanned her face with the letter. “I don’t need another death to clean up.” She laughed. So he laughed. She read the letter aloud: “Dear Blair Hastings.” She inflected obnoxiously, widened her eyes, gasped—she loved gasping—at the vague assertions put forth. Her tone gave the letter a farcical quality.

He tensed with shame. “Please stop,” he muttered.

She held up the letter. “Who do you think wrote it?”

“I don’t think it matters,” he said.

“It’s the key to everything, Blair,” she said. “Do you think it’s someone you know?”

“I don’t know many people.”

“But you insert yourself into people’s lives. You infiltrate and sabotage groups for your own financial benefit. Maybe they’d want you to embarrass yourself.”

“I hardly make any money.”

“Not yet,” she said. She pointed her thumb at her chest. “We’re your big break.”

He apologized again. “I won’t tell anyone I was here.”

“Surely there must’ve been thousands of other truths to uncover. Thousands of letters. We never did anything to you.”

“I wanted money. You’re right. But I don’t want it anymore.”

“Blair—money is one thing. This is about more than money. Be honest with me.”

“Forget I ever came here,” he said. He held his hands up, leaned away from her. “Forget I ever asked about Dyson.”

“Forget, Blair? I’ll never forget you. I like you. I really do, Blair. And because I like you I think you deserve to hear the story you came here to get. Dyson would want you to know. Hell, I want you to know. I want you to thrive—get the cash. I know you need it right now.”

“I’ll find other work,” he said.

“Aren’t you curious to know what happened to Dyson?” She leaned over her desk. “How I killllllled him?”

“I don’t need to know anything.”

“Well, I need to tell you. Because I need to tell someone. And it may as well be you. Consider it my favor to you: your big break. I spend my days with these earnest, naïve men who guzzle down whatever spills from my mouth. Don’t get me wrong. It’s important. It changes lives. I’m saving the world. But what I tell them isn’t true. Not in any meaningful sense.”

“He drowned. It was an accident. I’ll tell everyone whatever you want me to tell them.”

“I can’t sleep. I hardly eat. I hide my drinking from everyone here—I get it delivered in discreet pink packaging the men are too nervous to touch. This is no way to live, Blair. I’ll die if I keep living this way. I need to tell someone the truth.” She stood and beckoned for him to follow her. They settled on opposite couches facing each other in the center of the room, close to the fountain. She placed her clasped hands in her lap and started to speak: “The men were outside my building,” she said. “Four of them, ruddy, dressed in camouflage shorts.”

thirty-nine

“TWO WEEKS AFTER his suicide,” Sasha said, “Dyson’s body resurfaced on the northern shore of the pond, close to where I made phone calls. Randy helped me bury him that afternoon. None of the other men knew.”

The revelation knotted Blair’s thoughts. Sasha had been talking for nearly six hours, and he was exhausted in ways he had never known. He felt like a dishrag being wrung out. “Why would you hide it from them?” he asked.

Sasha took a sip of bourbon—her fourth glass. “The remaining Atmospherians stayed on to rebuild a few sheds to sleep in as they looked for ways to return to their lives. I stayed because I had nowhere else to go. It was supposed to be temporary, and without the pressure of transforming these men, I found them hospitable and even kind. But one morning, a few days before Dyson’s body resurfaced, two gruff men in their fifties emerged from the woods wearing hiking backpacks. The Atmospherian men and I were lounging in the grass, eating breakfast. They immediately stood and surrounded me, creating a wall of protection, but I made them sit back down. The men from the woods didn’t scare me. I sensed, immediately, why they were here, and I waited for them to come to me.

“Are you Sasha? one of them asked. I nodded. We need your help, said the other. I welcomed them to The Atmosphere. When I found Dyson’s body