The Book of Constellations

By W. Keith Tims

A down-to-Earth sci-fi road trip, The Book of Constellations is a story about Rael, who claims to be the sole survivor of an alien race, as told by Simon, the man who went with him. On a quest to save humanity from the same malevolent force that destroyed his own people, Rael believes this “Darkness” resides in the Governor of the state. Rael makes his way west to the Capitol armed with nothing but his uncanny perception and empathy. He gathers allies along the way from the forgotten and lost of America. Rael’s obsession won’t allow him to mourn another world, but how far is he willing to go to save us?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scribl
• Release date: May 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9781633485754

W. Keith Tims

W. Keith Tims is a writer, director, voiceover actor, and audio drama producer. He has three degrees in performance and twenty years experience in academic theatre and film. In addition to novels, he has written and produced audio fiction and audio drama works, and you can hear his voice narrating audiobooks and in many indie audio dramas.

Book preview

The Book of Constellations

W. Keith Tims

For Nancy & Will.

© 2024

Table of Contents

Forward

Chapter 1 - Coffee is a Metaphor

Chapter 2 - We Have to Help Him

Chapter 3 - Moon or Bust

Chapter 4 - Not From Around Here

Chapter 5 - No Lines in the Sky

Chapter 6 - The Wolves Are Coming

Chapter 7 - When Did We Become the Enemy?

Chapter 8 - The Darkness Comes to America

Chapter 9 - Know Evil

Chapter 11 - Tulip Lane

Chapter 13 - The Deluge

Chapter 14 - The Long Walk in the Dark

Chapter 15 - Be the One

Chapter 16 - The Good We Do

Forward

This book began life in 2022 as an audio fiction project. After twenty years in academia, I had decided to make a change and reconnect with my love of storytelling. I was also staring at the news headlines at the time in dismay, despairing at the way that cruelty and tribalism seemed to have won out over compassion and kindness. I felt helpless. I felt like there was nothing I could do. So, I wrote this story. At the encouragement of others, it began life as an audio podcast, complete with music and occasional sound effects. I did everything by myself (except some Creative Commons music) including the voices because I had no resources and was figuring things out as I went along. But that experience brought me into the wider world of audio fiction and gave me another outlet for my creativity for which I’m grateful.

If you enjoy this story, you can find more of my work at https://alienghostrobot.com. Thank you for reading.

Chapter 1 - Coffee is a Metaphor

When people find out that I knew him—Rael—a lot of them want to know what he really looked like. That is, of course, they want to know if he was blue.

Was he really, you know...? they say.

So, let me set the record straight. There was always something a little off about him. He never seemed comfortable in his own body; like it was something he was wearing that didn't really fit him well, but he wasn't all that worried about it. In fact, he spent so much time in his head that it’s a wonder he paid attention to his body at all. I hardly ever saw him eat or drink. Or sleep for that matter. He would bathe but only when he saw other people doing it—like a reminder to him of something he should do. His body was an afterthought, I guess, which makes sense, considering...

Well. That's the debate, right?

Alright. His appearance: Thin. Scrawny even. He had that long black hair that grew past his neck and fell across his face. He almost always wore those cheap, round sunglasses, the kind with the side shields, so you never really got to see his eyes. Hell, I never got to see them until the end.

His face… I don't know, it kind of looked like a mix of all kinds of people. A little of everyone, I guess. But okay, his skin. During the day, if anything, he looked kind of gray. Gray-tan, I guess. You know, like, sort of ashen? Not so much you'd stare, but it was noticeable. Being as thin as he was, his that color made him look kind of sick and added to that feeling that his body wasn't right. But the whole blue thing started after people started seeing him at night.

We traveled a lot at night, especially at first. And there were times, under a clear sky, with the stars shining and the moonlight painting everything around in degrees of shadow, when Rael would stare up at the sky and, yes, his skin would seem to glow a soft blue.

So, I guess after a fashion, he was. But look, he wasn't a Smurf or anything. He wasn't like that girl turning into a blueberry in that Chocolate Factory book. A lot of people have talked about this rare blood condition that makes people blue. You might have heard of it, or the Blue People of Kentucky. Some people have said he might have had a version of that. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. Trying to describe him is like trying to describe a puzzle box; there’s an outside, sure, but the truth is all inside. He was a quiet man, barely tethered to this world, who spoke one word for every thousand that he thought, and sometimes in the darkest and loneliest times of night, he seemed to be made of starlight.

So yeah, people often ask me about what he looked like. Or they ask, What was he like? To which I have to say, Look at what he did and that’ll tell you. They ask about sensational stuff, too, which I'm not even going to dignify.

What they don't ask me about often is how he brought me back from the dead.

I have bone cancer. You might have heard. At this point, there's not much to be done about it. It's in my legs and hips and is starting to spread into my spine. A few years ago, might have been able to slow it down but I couldn't afford the treatment. Got no insurance, you know? Didn't go to the doctor like I should have, but doctors cost money. Started getting aches and pains in my legs, but figured it was just getting old, you know? I'm in my sixties now, just part of the deal, stuff starts to break down and hurt. Not as strong and spry as I was in my twenties.

I worked on a fishing boat back then. That was hard work. Spend all day getting tossed around on the water, the sun and spray hitting your chapped skin. Every day came home exhausted, stinking of brine and fish guts, but it made me feel alive. My muscles throbbed and ached, but that kind of pain is the kind that tells you you're alive. That you're a thing with a purpose, working your will on the world. But this cancer...

You know dandelions? When they turn into little spiky puffballs, the kind kids fight over to blow out into a cloud of tiny parachutes? Saw an x-ray of my hip joint, and jagged spikes of bone jutting out from it reminded me of a dandelion. Except these needles won't blow away. This kind of pain is cold and secret. It comes to take away, bit by bit, little pieces of you.

Anyway, the pain started getting worse. Some days, walking was impossible: it hurt so much. Had to quit my part-time job at the warehouse. By the time they figured out what it was, it was a hundred thousand dollars in radiation, chemo, surgery and even then, they weren't sure if I'd ever get better. And it's like no one really cares. I mean, the doctors and nurses and whatever, they were kind and sympathetic. But they don't matter like a hundred thousand dollars matters. And I got pretty low. I’ve been alone a long while now. Never really could make a relationship stick. Being in love means being flexible and I guess I got too set in my ways. Not like I’m much of a prize, either. Never went to college, never had a really good career. Add cancer on top of that, and well. I didn’t think being alone was likely to change. I spent half my days bedridden with pain, the other half without anything to do, and all of it thinking about just ending it all. So, one day I stopped thinking about it and did it.

To be fair, had to build up my courage. The thought of what I wanted to do terrified me. It's a hard thing to stare down the barrel of a gun. But I was also staring down the ragged remains of an agony-filled life. Not a life at all, really, just pain and worry and solitude. That's no way to live. Or so I thought. And I want to interrupt here for just a second to say that if you're thinking about doing these same things to yourself... I understand. I know how the fear creeps in from all directions as it seems every choice is frightening and awful. But before you do anything about it, let me finish my story. Please.

Okay, so, I had this old beat-up RV that I lived in. Still runs! Pretty much all I had left. A guy I know from the warehouse has some property out on the edge of the county. He knows I got problems. There's a camper hookup on it: water, power, septic. He lets me stay rent-free. Says I'm doing him a favor by keeping an eye on the place but I know he's just being kind. Anyway, one day the pain hits me hard. I can't get out of bed for three days. I thought that might be the end. But I survived, and on the other side of it, dehydrated, weak, and scared, I decided that the fear of going through that again was stronger than the fear of ending it.

The property has this old barn at the edge of a field near the tree line. It's lost a few boards, the dark red paint is chipped and peeling, but it's still sturdy enough to stand. I decided to do it in there. I figured I could leave the camper for my buddy from work. I mean, it's not worth much but I didn't want to mess it up. And I guess I felt like the barn would give me some privacy. Didn't leave a note. Didn't seem much of a point. Who would I write it to?

I have a shotgun that I keep in case of aggravated wildlife or wanderers with bad intentions. Double-barreled job. Haven't had to use it, thank God. But I loaded it up and carried it with me out into the night.

I can’t forget that night. It’s clear and cool. The thin crescent moon is below the trees, so you could see the stars clearly. The crickets and frogs are singing all around as I limp slowly through the tall grass. The barn is dark and shadowy, but the stars light up its roof with its missing shingles. I've gone about halfway across the field when these tiny streaks of light start flying across the heavens. It's a meteor shower that's come out of nowhere. I stop and watch. It's like watching fireflies with jet engines half a world away, luminous trails that scratch up the sky and then vanish as if they never were. And after a couple of minutes, they're gone. I take it as some sort of sign, that the Universe wants to give me one last show before I say goodbye. But you know how wishful thinking goes.

The barn is dark and has stood empty long enough that there are no animal smells left, but the scents of damp earth and old hay linger. I can just make out the sky through the missing shingles and boards. The inside is empty, just a few stalls, a decaying ladder to the loft, and a few discarded beer cans, cigarette butts, and other signs that teens had been here doing teen things. I find a clear spot at the far end and settle on the dirt.

I'm not going to go into detail about that moment. It's hard for me to even think about now. But there are two things you need to know: one, I have everything ready like it should be and two, I am terrified right up to the moment I pull the triggers.

The hammers fall with a double click. But that's it. No explosion of the shells. No kick of the gun. No smoke, no pain, except the pain in my legs that is always there. Neither of the barrels fire. And I sit there awkwardly on the ground, having just tried to do the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life and failed. This misery just crashes over me, but there's this relief of the tension, too, so a trembling laugh bubbles up from inside me, hollow and awful.

Which is when I see him. He is silhouetted in the open barn door, his shadow cast by starlight. Tall and thin, like I said. His hair hangs in his face, partly over those round sunglasses. He's wearing one of those thin wool ponchos with the V-neck, tan with brown stripes, which hangs over his body like a robe. His gangly bare arms poke out from under the folds of fabric, his left wrist is decorated with what I would later learn were hospital bands. Dark blue scrubs on his legs, like nurses wear. He's barefoot. He stares right at me, head slightly tilted as if he's trying to make sense of what he was looking at.

I have no idea how long he'd been there. I suddenly feel exposed, embarrassed, having been caught this way. I'm having the worst day of my life and someone else is seeing it.

So, I say to him, Uh. Hey buddy. How about a little privacy, here? Like I'm on the toilet. I feel even more foolish.

But he doesn't move at all, just keeps staring at me for what seemed like forever, until he says, Why do you wish to end your life?

I'm not prepared for that question, so I say, Look, it's ... it's complicated. And personal. Can you just leave me alone, please?

He takes five slow, long steps into the barn, his toes sinking into the dirt, until he is close, watching me through those dark lenses. Why? he repeats.

I can't tell you how strange it feels, me sitting on the ground holding my impotent shotgun, him just standing over me, nearly completely invisible in the dark of the barn. He is without alarm, or sadness, or embarrassment on my behalf. Maybe that's what makes me answer him honestly.

Because I have cancer. And there's nothing but pain left for me.

He crouches down to my eye level, the starlight through the holes in the roof reflecting off his lenses.

That is why you have to live. Because you understand the pain.

All the tension and adrenalin from my failed attempt are gone now. I start to shiver. Tears form in my eyes and, ashamed, I look down at the ground.

I'm not strong enough.

He says, No one is, alone. What is your name?

Simon, I say. What's yours?

Rael.

He's quiet for a moment more, and then he stands up. I am heading west, to fight the Darkness. Come with me.

I actually laugh a little around my tears at how absurd that sounds. I say, Can we at least get coffee first?

Alright, he says. And he walks out of the barn.

Even now, I can’t tell you why I went with him. I knew at that moment, though, that I wasn't going to go west and fight the Darkness with this stranger. And I do mean strange. But his appearance in the barn that night unbalanced me. I had already decided my life was over. And if the gun hadn't failed, it would be. And now, here was this man... well. I thought he was crazy. But I followed him out of the barn, so maybe I'm the crazy one.

He is halfway across the field, heading for my RV. Hey! I call to him, my voice rolling across the open field and mixing with the song of the crickets. Where are you going?

He doesn't look back, just keeps walking. It was then that I really got my first glimpse of the blue starlight in his skin. It’s subtle, but unmistakable, a soft radiance from his gangly arms. My breath catches in my throat. I must be seeing things, but I also know I'm not.

Coffee, he says to me as if the answer was self-evident.

I don't know what to say until eventually get out, I'm out of coffee.

That gets him to stop, and he turns around. His face is alight, too, behind his glasses and long hair. It’s ghostly and unnerving and beautiful. I have no idea what to do or say, and he isn’t offering anything either. So, the two of us sort of stare at each other, there in the middle of the damn field like idiots. Fine, I say, after a little while. We'll go get coffee.

We drive into town through the pine-shrouded back roads in my RV to the only place nearby that serves coffee at 3am: Lulu's Diner. The overnight shift waitress and cook were the only others in the place, watching the TV hanging from the ceiling, turned to one of those news and talk stations. They'd seen me before, but Rael draws a few stares, especially with his dirty, bare feet. But the waitress doesn't say anything as she put down the two mugs of coffee in front of us. I start making mine up just like I like, lots of cream and sugar. Rael watches me from behind those side-shielded shades.

What are you doing? he asks.

Fixing my coffee, I say. He's silent and motionless at that, so I ask. How do you take yours?

Take? he says.

Yeah. How do you drink it? Black? Sugar?

He examines the mug and says, I've never had it.

Isn’t that one of the saddest things you’ve ever heard? Then he asks, pointing to the sugar packets, Why are you adding these things to it?

Well, uh. Personally, I think it's too bitter to drink without them.

He says, You drink something so unpleasant that you have to add other things to it to make it taste good?

Yeah, I say. I suppose. I mean, that's kind of like life, isn't it? It's a bitter drink, but you add the sugar and cream when you can.

Coffee is a metaphor. Coffee is life?

I guess so, I say.

And you like coffee?

I know what he’s doing. Yeah, well, sometimes there ain’t enough cream and sugar in the world to make it better.

He lifts his hands from his lap, and that's when I notice the three plastic hospital bracelets around his wrist. Looks like they've been through a lot, the letters are smudged, and I can't make anything out from across the booth. He wraps both hands around the mug and takes a sip. His lips purse in a small grimace and I have to grin a little.

You want some sugar, maybe?

No, thank you, he says. I will learn to take it as it comes. He sets down the mug and there’s this stillness in him. It’s just what he’s like. When he doesn’t move, he’s like a statue. And when he does, it’s all careful and efficient. But he lifts his face to mine and says, again, Simon, come west with me.

I rub my temples as I stare at him. Look, I um. I know what you saw, back there in the barn, might have been ... I don't know, strange or upsetting or something. But you don't understand what I'm living with. I'm sorry for what you walked in on. But I'm not going to be going anywhere. I can't.

His hands rest lightly on the tabletop as he watches me. His fingernails are grimy. You will try to end your life again.

Yeah. I say, looking down at my own mug of coffee. The dull ache in my legs and hips is a little easier for the moment, but it's a reminder of what will come.

Rael says, What will convince you to come with me?

I smirk at him then. Can you cure cancer?

And then he looks out of the plate glass window of the diner up at the night sky. Not yet, he says. Just like that. ‘Not yet.’ And damn it if part of me doesn't believe him, that's how desperate I am.

Look, Rael, you look like you could use some help. I don't know what you're on the run from, so I maybe I can give you a lift to a bus station, even buy you a ticket somewhere, but...

He cuts me off, turning away from the window. Why are you sick?

I told you, because I have cancer.

Yes, but there are treatments. Surgery. Chemotherapy. Radiation Therapy.

He knows about cancer treatments all of a sudden but has never had coffee? Well, I couldn't afford all that when there was a chance they would do any good.

He says, The caretakers, they will not heal you without money?

That's the way the world works, isn't it? I think most doctors and nurses and such want to make people better. But everything is so expensive at the hospitals. And health insurance can help, but you got to have a full-time job to get anything decent. If I had bought insurance myself, it would have left me hardly anything to live on. Get bad sick, and you go into debt for the rest of your life. Unless you're rich.

He thinks about this a long moment, and then he says, Why do your leaders hate sick people?

I don't have an answer for him, really, so I shrug my shoulders.

He then folds his hands into his lap nodding to himself with a kind of absolute certainty. It is the Darkness.

The Darkness, I say. You keep mentioning it. That sounds kind of, uh, you know. Dramatic.

He doesn’t react, really. If anything, he seems tired, looking at the coffee cup in front of him without really seeing it. Finally, with a small, resigned shrug, he says, quite softly, The Darkness has taken so many. I cannot let it take root here. He lifts his chin, then, to look at me. If the Darkness is here then...

He trails off, and his gaze shifts past me, over my shoulder. I can see the image of the TV screen reflected in his sunglasses. He points. There. You see? It is there.

I turn around to look at the screen. It's