tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53908473743041618512024-03-13T11:39:28.473-05:00Saturday Story-TimeShort fiction every two weeks.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-61332905601382347302014-04-18T15:40:00.000-05:002014-04-18T15:40:39.665-05:00New Site!I have a new site! The stories will be posted on <a href="http://saturdaystory-time.weebly.com/">Saturdaystory-time.weebly.com</a> from now on.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-31609644593455741562014-03-22T12:00:00.000-05:002014-03-22T12:00:00.832-05:00What is Real"Wake up Isaac."<br />
He jumped awake. He didn't recognize his surroundings, and his memory was blank.<br />
In a moment he recognized a hospital bed, in a sterile blue and white room. He had tubes on his arm and head, and a machine next to him beeped loudly. Several nurses stood around him.<br />
<a name='more'></a> "Mr. Lucas, don't get up, please," one of them said. The other nurses checked his pulse and numbers on the machine.<br />
"What's going on?" Isaac asked. His heart pounded. "Why am I here?" He asked the nurse.<br />
"You collapsed in your apartment," another nurse said. <br />
The first nurse smiled brightly, and the hospital's bright lights flashed off her blonde hair. "One of your friends was able to call 911 for you and get you here. That was two nights ago. You've been in a coma since then. How many fingers am I holding up?"<br />
Isaac concentrated. "Three."<br />
"What's your middle name?"<br />
" . . . Thomas."<br />
"Do you know the date?"<br />
"You said two nights, so . . . the twenty-fourth?" Isaac looked up at her. One of the other nurses shined a light in his eyes, frowning.<br />
"That's right. Okay. We aren't sure why you collapsed," the nurse said. The other nurses left. He was left alone with her. "We did a scan after you got in. There were some strange results, but they aren't sure how they'll manifest. I have a few tests here to run through if you feel up to it. I can also bring in some food."<br />
"You said a friend called 911," Isaac said. "Who was it?"<br />
"If I remember correctly, her name was . . . " The nurse paused, thinking. It seemed a very long few seconds. "Missy."<br />
Isaac rubbed his eyes. "Okay. Thanks."<br />
"She asked to be contacted when you woke up." Isaac didn't say anything. "How about those tests?"<br />
Isaac nodded, and the nurse left. A few minutes later, she returned. "My name's Alena. First off, do you remember anything about yesterday?"<br />
"Yeah. I got home from work, and . . . I remember making dinner . . . but not really anything after that."<br />
"We expected you to have some short-term memory loss. It shouldn't be a problem going forward."<br />
Alena began to run through tests. She asked Isaac how to spell simple words, showed him cards of everyday items and asked him to tell her what they were, and had him solve a few simple puzzles, like math problems or brain teasers. He passed them all. "I'll have the doctor come in and examine you when he's free. In the meantime, do you want me to call your friend?"<br />
"I can call her," Isaac said. "Is my cell phone around here?" Alena went to a cabinet and fished out the phone from a bag of his belongings. She handed it to him with a smile, and he took it with the same.<br />
"Isaac!" Missy said as soon as he called. "Are you all right? How long have you been awake?"<br />
"About a half hour. I feel okay, but the doctors still have to check me over. They've run some tests to make sure my brain's working."<br />
"I'm coming over!" Missy said, and she hung up. It was foolish for him to try and tell her no; she would come anyway. Twenty minutes later she appeared around the corner of his room.<br />
"Oh, Isaac!" She said, hugging him. He hugged her back, and got a whiff of the perfume she used. She wiped a long, dark strand of hair away from her eyes and smiled at him. "I'm so glad you're okay!"<br />
"What the heck happened last night?" Isaac asked. "I only remember a little bit."<br />
"Oh my goodness! I called you last night to talk like always, but you didn't answer! I thought maybe you were just busy or something, so I waited for a little while. You didn't call me back, and I started to worry -- you know how I am -- and I called again. You <i>still</i> didn't pick up, but I was going to come over anyway, so I drove over."<br />
"Oh yeah," Isaac said, creasing his brows. "I forgot about that. We were going to watch a movie . . ."<br />
"Terminator," Missy said. "Well when I got to your apartment, the door was unlocked and I didn't hear anything. I-I went in. You were lying on the floor of your kitchen, just . . . staring up at the ceiling." She sniffed. "I thought you were dead at first, but I felt you breathing and your heart beating."<br />
"And you called 911."<br />
"Yes. I was so worried," she said. She patted his hand and smiled at him. "I could hardly get to sleep last night. I told the hospital to tell me as soon as they knew anything."<br />
"The doctor hasn't come in yet," Isaac said. "Hopefully we'll know more once he checks me out." He took in a breath with his eyes closed. <br />
"Mr. Lucas," he heard a male voice say. He opened his eyes and found a white-coated man standing in his doorway. "I'm Doctor Worcraft. It's good to see you've woken up. How do you feel?"<br />
"I'll go now," Missy said. "Let me know anything."<br />
"Okay," Isaac said.<br />
"Have you been having any strange visual or auditory effects?" Worcraft asked as Missy left. "Any trouble with normal tasks?"<br />
"No, nothing like that. One of the nurses went through the puzzles with me already." <br />
Worcraft checked the chart at the end of Isaac's bed. "She must have forgotten to note it. That's good, anyway. Has anything like this happened to you before?" He asked.<br />
Isaac shook his head. "No precedent. I have no idea why it happened."<br />
"That's what confuses us, too. Your heart looks perfectly healthy, and for the most part your brain looks fine, too. We saw some strange results on a scan we did after you came in, but nothing completely out of the ordinary." Isaac nodded. "We'd like to keep you here for a day, to make sure that nothing else happens, alright?"<br />
"That's fine. Uh, is it okay if I use the bathroom?" Isaac asked. The doctor nodded and left.<br />
Isaac looked up at the machines he was attached to, and their beeping, blinking faces. He hit the nurse call button that was on the stand next to his bed. Alena came in.<br />
"What's up, bud?" She asked. <br />
"I need to go to the bathroom. Can you help me detach from these machines?"<br />
"I'll do you one better: I'll teach you how to detach yourself." She pointed at the fluid bag that ran down a tube into his arm. "Don't detach this one, it's just to keep you hydrated. You can take it with you into the bathroom. Take the device off your finger and just put it on the table." She pointed at a long white clip that was set on his left index finger. "That's to check your pulse. After that just take the pads from your forehead off. Make sure to reattach those once you get back, though. They're to measure your brain stuff." She waved a hand around her head.<br />
"And that's all?" Isaac asked. Alena nodded. "Okay, thank you, nurse."<br />
"Oh please," she said, laughing. "My mother is <i>nurse</i>, I'm Alena."<br />
Isaac chuckled. "All right. Thank you, Alena." She waved goodbye to him -- his heart jumped -- and left. Isaac took off the nodes attached to his forehead, and removed the clip from his finger. He swung his stiff legs over the side of the bed and groaned as he stood up.<br />
A different nurse ran in. "Mr. Lucas, everything all right?"<br />
"I'm fine. I'm just going to the bathroom."<br />
"Okay. Remember there's a nurse call button inside if you need help with anything."<br />
"I'm a grown man, for the most part. I'll be fine."<br />
"Of course. Just in case."<br />
"Just in case," Isaac repeated, and the nurse left. Isaac took hold of the wheeled fluid bag stand, and made his way across the cold tile to the bathroom. It was a small room, with little more than a sink and a toilet. Metal bars, for the user's stability, ringed the toilet, and, as the nurse had said, there was a button labeled 'nurse' in the wall.<br />
He closed the door, and hitched up the hospital robe he wore. He experience brief embarrassment that he had been undressed while unconscious, but shrugged and sat down.<br />
The light inside the small room flicked once.<br />
He stared at the floor beneath his feet, letting nature run its course. He looked up, and found a man looking at him. He had streaked paint covering his face, bright multi-colored clothes, and held a bunch of balloons in his right hand.<br />
Isaac leaned back, still sitting on the toilet, as the man held out a solitary balloon for him. Isaac couldn't reach out, and found himself captured by the man's face. The paint ran down, dripping onto the ground, covered by harsh shadows from the solitary light.<br />
"Take the balloon, Isaac," he heard. He thought, perhaps, the man's mouth hadn't moved. "Take the balloon."<br />
"No," Isaac whispered. He watched the man's face drip and sag. "I don't want to."<br />
"<i>Take</i>. <i>The balloon</i>," the man said, and his arm carried the balloon closer. "<i>Take it</i>."<br />
"I won't," Isaac said as spoonfuls of skin dropped to the ground with a splash. He gripped the metal rails on either side in tight grips. "Go away."<br />
"I can't go away," the man said, as his body melted. "I'm always here. I'm always watching you. Take the balloon, Isaac."<br />
"No! No! No no!" Isaac shouted, watching the man become a puddle of mixed paints. The last thing to dissolve was the hand, holding the balloons. It made one last desperate motion toward Isaac, and Isaac screamed, smashing the call nurse button with the heel of his hand. He pounded on it, watching the remains of the man spread out toward his feet. Two nurses ran in and opened the door. <br />
With nothing but an open mouth and a pointing finger, Isaac directed them toward the puddle of man. Both nurses look at the ground, at each other, and then him. "Mr. Lucas, what's wrong?"<br />
"Th-the man!" Lucas shouted, shaking. His fingernails scraped on the metal rail, and both nurses winced. "He's melting! He's melting!"<br />
Even as Isaac could have sworn he saw a face leering at him from out of the puddle, the nurses looked at each other again. "Mr. Lucas, there's nothing there. What man?"<br />
"What do you mean <i>what man</i>, he's-" The floor was clear. The balloons were gone. One of the nurses was calling for a doctor. Isaac looked around him and found no trace of the thing that had demanded he take a balloon.<br />
<br />
"And that's all?" Doctor Worcraft asked. Isaac, in his bed, nodded. "You haven't seen anything else out of the ordinary?"<br />
Isaac shook his head, and the doctor leaned back in his chair. "Hallucination."<br />
"I <i>saw</i> him!" Lucas said angrily. "I know he was there!"<br />
"That's what hallucinations are, Mr. Lucas. All of your senses think that you're seeing, hearing, even smelling or tasting something. Did you touch him?"<br />
"No," Isaac said, looking down at his lap. "I was too scared."<br />
"Some part of you brain could tell that he wasn't real. You didn't want to touch him, or, as I think it was put, take his balloon, because that would have been truly acknowledging that it was real, and your brain couldn't do that. The power of the mind. It's an amazing thing."<br />
"So what do I do?"<br />
"We'll have to keep you here for a few days. Hallucinations are usually not so . . . <i>potent</i> as yours was. We'll run a few scans, see how a few drugs interact with you, and make sure to keep all clowns out of the hospital. Don't want to worry you."<br />
"That's actually kind of comforting," Isaac said.<br />
"We live to serve," Doctor Worcraft said, standing up and pushing the plastic chair against the wall. "I want you to call a nurse if you see something you think is a hallucination," he said, heading for the door.<br />
"How will I know?" Isaac asked. The doctor stopped with his back to him.<br />
"I suppose you'll just have to try your best," Worcraft said, before leaving.<br />
<br />
"That's so scary!" Missy said. She sat on the same chair the doctor had used. It was later that day, during the evening, and Missy wore a long skirt and white blouse. Her hair was done up in a bun, and a few errant strands had escaped their confines since she'd left work. "Nothing else happened?" She asked.<br />
Isaac shook his head. Missy had brought him a few books from his apartment, as well as his laptop, and had listened with a rapt look as he told her about the hallucination. When he finished, she'd shivered.<br />
"So you have no idea they're fake?"<br />
"I was convinced it was real. Of course it wasn't real. Why would there be a clown, without any warning, inside the bathroom? Even when he started melting, I thought it was real."<br />
"Were you scared?"<br />
"Terrified."<br />
"Oh!" She grabbed his hand. "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you." She smiled, and he smiled back.<br />
Just then Alena walked in, carrying a tray of food. "Oh my!" She said. "I don't mean to intrude. I've just brought Isaac's food."<br />
"That's okay, come on in," Isaac said. Alena giggled and strutted inside, and Missy frowned in her direction. <br />
It was with some guilt that Isaac noticed Alena's beauty. She had long shining hair, and wore slim black glasses that made her green eyes sparkle. She set the tray of food in front of him. "M-Missy, this is Alena."<br />
Missy frowned at Alena out of the corner of her eye. "Uh . . . hi, Alena."<br />
"Hi!" Missy said, and then looked at Isaac. "I've brought sliced turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, carrots and peas, milk, and a pudding cup."<br />
"Do you want the pudding?" Isaac asked Missy, who was still frowning.<br />
"Pudding?"<br />
"Yeah, you know I don't like pudding."<br />
"I guess I can . . ." She said. Isaac picked the cup out of the tray and handed held it out for her. She took it and opened it. He handed her the spoon and started eating.<br />
"Have you told her?" Alena asked. She took her glasses off, closed them, and hung them on her scrubs top. "About . . . you know . . ."<br />
Isaac took a deep breath. "Yeah. I told her all about it."<br />
"All about what?" Missy asked.<br />
"The hallucinations. I'll have to stay here for a while. They're going to run some tests and other things."<br />
"Okay. We'll, I'd better go. I have to get ready for work. I hope you feel better," Missy said, squeezing Isaac's shoulder. She stood, and Alena moved to let her pass.<br />
"She's pretty," Alena said, watching Missy walk toward the nurse's station.<br />
"I guess," Isaac said.<br />
"Are you dating?"<br />
Isaac coughed, spraying bits of potato. Some of the pieces landed on Alena's arm, and she laughed. "Oh, nasty!" She grabbed one of his napkins and wiped herself clean. "Looks like you need to have somebody feed you, Mr. Lucas."<br />
"I can take care of myself," Isaac said, feeling his skin burn.<br />
"Fine. So? Are you two dating?"<br />
"No. We've been friends ever since college."<br />
"Oh yeah? And you've never . . ." Alena leaned closer. "Tried things out? I mean, she clearly likes you."<br />
Isaac swallowed. "Not one to mince words, are you?"<br />
She shrugged. "Comes with the job. Sometimes you have to tell someone that they're just too fat, and need to lose weight, or their next heart attack might be their last." She laughed. "I've sort of always been like that." She removed her glasses from her top, and put them on after brushing her hair back. "I think you'd make her <i>very</i> happy."<br />
"I'll have to think about it."<br />
"Right. In the meantime, eat up. Don't forget about your vegetables, either. How are you going to grow big and strong if you don't eat your veggies?" She said, going for the door. "Good night!"<br />
Isaac finished eating, and opened his laptop. He started telling his online friends why he wouldn't be joining that night's gaming session, when a nurse stopped by with a cart of trays. "Dinner!"<br />
"I've already eaten," Isaac said, without looking up. The nurse moved on without another word. He finished on the computer, and picked up the book on top of the stack on his table.<br />
<br />
Another day passed.<br />
He watched the camera move back and forth. It swiveled one way, stopped, and then returned. It could see everything in his room, and could always see him in his bed. He thought it was sort of strange, to have a camera in a hospital room.<br />
It was the next morning, and he knew that he was going to be taken in for an MRI soon. He hadn't eaten breakfast yet, and it felt like his stomach was going to crawl out his throat in search of food. The window in his let in a healthy dose of sun, blocked every once in a while by a cloud.<br />
He watched the camera rotate back and forth until Alena came in with another nurse who pushed a cart.<br />
"Why is there a camera?" Isaac asked.<br />
"What?" Both nurses asked.<br />
Isaac pointed at the corner of the ceiling. "It just seems strange to have a camera like that in a hospital like this."<br />
They looked over their shoulder at where he pointed. "Where?" Alena asked.<br />
"There! In the corner!" Isaac said. A sudden rush of heat passed through him, and he looked at Alena for an instant before looking back at the camera. It was gone.<br />
"Another hallucination," the other nurse said. She took a pad out of her pocket and started writing on it. "Describe everything that you saw."<br />
"It . . . it was just a normal camera, like they have in government offices. It was moving back and forth. I thought that I had seen it before, but . . . I guess . . ."<br />
"Hallucinations can sometimes make you think that what you're seeing is normal, like it's always been there. It's a kind of delusion," Alena said. The other nurse ripped the piece of paper off the pad and put it on the cart. "Let's get you ready for your test, shall we?"<br />
The other nurse proceeded to clean the crook of his elbow and draw some blood out of it. "This is just to make sure that the passage is clear." She attached a short plastic tube to a device, and slipped it into the hole she'd made. "And this is to inject contrast fluid, which helps us see inside your noggin." <br />
"I know about this. A few years ago my dad had an MRI, and I read up on it. You'll have to inject different fluid during the scan, so it has to stay in until it's done."<br />
"Hmm. Cute <i>and</i> smart!" Alena said, smiling, as the other nurse nodded. "That's right. Okay, Clarissa will get you out of here. I'll see you when you get back."<br />
"We're going now?"<br />
"Right now," Clarissa said. "Doctor Worcraft is very interested in seeing what shows up; hopefully something will."<br />
"It might not show anything?"<br />
Clarissa shook her head as she lead Isaac down the hall. Isaac's eyes lingered on the tube that was in his arm. "There are a lot of things that MRIs can't detect. For hallucinations like yours, though, we should at least find <i>something</i>. They're quite powerful."<br />
"Do you know anything about hallucinations?" Isaac asked as they passed through a door with bright yellow magnet warnings. "Do you know what causes them?"<br />
"A lot of things," Clarissa said. "Improper balance of fluids, neurons misfiring . . . anything that has to do with senses, memory, or perception." She stopped outside a door. "Any pieces of metal you need to warn me about? Clearly your mind's a steel trap, but we aren't worried about that."<br />
"No, nothing."<br />
They went inside, and found a large plastic structure, identical to the MRIs Isaac had seen in movies or TV shows. He was instructed to lie on a raised mat, and Clarissa attached a plunger to the plastic tube on his arm. "It's going to be nice and loud. We're also going to attach a stabilizer to your head to keep you from moving too much. You know all about this, I'm sure."<br />
"Yeah."<br />
"Other than that, it's just a noisy nap; nothing should hurt, and if anything does I want you to tell us as soon as possible." She handed him a call button. "You already know how to hammer on these."<br />
"Yeah," Isaac said, and, after a clamp was applied to his head, he was pushed into the bowels of the plastic tube. More than thirty minutes of noisy buzzing came from all around him. Intermittently, Clarissa would appear by his side to inject something into his arm.<br />
Finally, he was released. Clarissa removed the plastic tube from his vein, and they walked back to his room. "We should have the results by tomorrow morning. In the meantime, remember to tell us about hallucinations you think you're seeing. It's going to be difficult, but asking us about something like the camera you saw is exactly what you should do. Hallucinations can mess with your memory, and make you think they've always been there."<br />
"That's what Alena said." They reached his room.<br />
"She knows about hallucinations?" Clarissa asked, surprised.<br />
"Well, sure she does. She's a nurse," Isaac said, getting back into his bed. "She probably knows about all sorts of health stuff. At least, I hope so."<br />
"Right," Clarissa said. Without another word, she turned around and left. Isaac felt like something had been miscommunicated, but he shrugged. He'd only been in his room for ten minutes before Missy called.<br />
"Hi!" She said. The word was turned into a screech in his ear by the phone. "How was your day?"<br />
"Fine," Isaac said. "Nothing much has happened. I had an MRI . . . and another hallucination." He explained what he'd seen to her. "Like one of those cameras that you see in spy movies. Gray boxes with a lens and a wire coming out the back. It was watching my whole room, going back and forth."<br />
"They haven't used cameras like that in years," Missy, who had quietly listened the entire time, said. "I think they phased them out in the eighties. Now they have those black bubbles in the ceiling."<br />
"That should have just tipped me off even more," Isaac said. He slapped his bedsheet, and watched his handprint sink away with his anger. "Anyway, how was your day?" He asked.<br />
"Rough. I just got done with work; Mr. Haerd was on my back all day. I've started handling a bunch of big projects for him, and he really got on my case about getting them dealt with." She took a deep breath and groaned. "It's not really anything too huge, I just have to work them carefully. They're pretty important."<br />
"Well, I hope that it goes okay," Isaac said, who suddenly thought about what Alena had said to him the day before about Missy.<br />
"Is it all right if I stop by and see you tomorrow?" Missy asked, making Isaac jump.<br />
"S-sure. If you want to," he said.<br />
"Want me to bring anything?"<br />
"I could use some more books," he said. "There isn't much else to do here besides read and play around online, but the connection isn't that good, so I can't really raid or anything."<br />
"Okay, I'll see what I can do. See you tomorrow!" She said, happily, and hung up.<br />
Isaac took the phone away from his ear. He looked at it for a few seconds, and then snapped it shut. he looked at the door to his room and found Alena standing there. She smirked at him, and then left.<br />
<br />
Isaac had strange dreams that night. There was the odd clown, always watching him, always holding balloons. Sometimes it was just him in a room with a giant camera. He was particularly distressed to find that Missy and Alena were featured prominently. Sometimes together.<br />
<br />
Another day passed.<br />
"Nothing?" Missy asked, after work.<br />
"No," Isaac said. "They said it isn't that rare. Sometimes things just won't show up on an MRI." He sat on the edge of his bed, stretching his legs. "It could be something else."<br />
"Well, have you had any more hallucinations?" Missy asked.<br />
"Yeah," Isaac said, looking down at the floor. "There was one this morning. Pretty early. I was tired of sitting in bed, and was thinking about getting up and taking a walk around, just to have something to do. I looked out the door." He looked up at it. Just out of view, the nurses' station bustled. He steadied himself with a breath.<br />
"What?" Missy asked, in a low voice. "What did you see?"<br />
"There was . . . nothing. It was completely dark. I couldn't see anything. No matter how hard I looked. I even started yelling. Nobody came."<br />
Missy listened quietly.<br />
"As I looked, I realized there <i>was</i> something. Little dots of light. Stars. I was in space." He looked up at her. He saw fear in her eyes. "Even as I realized it, a bright flash of light tried to cut through the darkness. It passed across the door!" He drew his finger across the opening. "And then was gone. I don't know what it was. A meteor, or something."<br />
Isaac stopped talking. He waited for Missy to say something.<br />
"Wow," she, finally, said. "What was it like?"<br />
"Terrifying," he said. "I thought I would never see you again."<br />
He sat in shock at what he'd just said. Missy gasped, and her eyebrows shot up to hide in her hair. "Thank you for bringing me some more books," Isaac said hurriedly, trying to fill the silence. Missy nodded, smiling. "You probably want to be getting back home," he said.<br />
Missy shrugged. "I don't mind spending some time with you," she said quietly. "We haven't really had a good time to talk in a while. I don't really have anything to do, and I bet you don't either."<br />
Isaac's heart pounded. Missy started talking about her day and playing with her hair. She crossed her long legs and talked about the work she'd been doing, and how her family had been, and told him stories about her childhood, laughing at his comments and playfully touching his arm. He caught her looking at him out of the corner of his eye.<br />
A few hours passed, and she eventually relented and said she should go home. "Why don't I come over tomorrow?" She said, picking up her bag. "We can talk some more. Do you know how much longer you'll be in here?"<br />
"It shouldn't be too much longer. They're still running tests."<br />
"Okay," Missy said. "I'll see you tomorrow."<br />
"Bye," Isaac said, and then she left.<br />
Faster than the blink of an eye, Alena was leaning against the edge of his doorway. "Looks like you've pretty much sealed the deal," she said, one corner of her mouth lifted in a mischievous grin. "I need to get you a key so you can lock this door."<br />
Isaac sputtered. "Oh, don't be such a prude," she said, entering the room. "I heard you say what you said. You want her <i>just as much</i> as she wants you," she said, bending low so their eyes were level. "She knows it but won't say it, you say it but don't know it," she giggled.<br />
"It's not like that!" Isaac finally said. "We're really good friends! I've known her for a long time, and we've helped each other through a lot of stuff!"<br />
"I'm sure you have," Alena said, standing and pacing the room slowly. "And soon, you're going to help her scratch an itch that <i>only you</i> can reach." She stood behind the chair that Missy had been sitting in. "I'm sure she'll be able to help you with something, too. I bet you'd be surprised how well she knows how to handle a big man like you."<br />
"I can't believe you're saying that!" Isaac nearly shouted. He looked out the door, scared, but Alena didn't seem worried. "Don't you ever have days off?"<br />
"Nope!" Alena said, stretching both arms over her head. "I never leave the hospital. I work twenty-four seven, all day and all night."<br />
"Bull."<br />
"Maybe," Alena said, bringing her arms down again. "So? Do you need a key for tomorrow? I can get you protection, too, unless you like to be free and unfettered. She'll probably like that."<br />
"Don't," Isaac said, shocked. "I don't . . . I need some time to think about it!"<br />
"Oh, well." Alena leaned over the chair. Her top revealed the smooth curve of her breasts and beyond. Her eyes sparkled, and her smile was wide and joyful. "If you need help dealing with something, just let me know." She stood, and in one fluid motion was around the chair and next to him. "I'll do anything you want. I'm here to serve," she whispered in his ear. She brought her face away and winked, then stood and walked out of the room without a backward glance.<br />
"What is going on." Isaac asked his empty room. He shook his head and roughed up his hair, trying to get blood back to his brain. "I need to get out of this hospital."<br />
He sighed and picked up the first book that Missy had brought him. He opened to the first page and tried not to lose his mind.<br />
<br />
Another day passed.<br />
Doctor Worcraft was in his room again, sitting in the chair by Isaac's bed. His legs were crossed, and, like all doctors, his pants were just a bit too short, which revealed his dark socks. "The MRI didn't reveal anything. Neither did the scan from yesterday," Worcraft said. For the life of him, Isaac couldn't remember what kind of scan it had been the day before. "We have a few more options to try; the one we're going to do next is called magnetoencephalography. Basically, we're going to take a picture of your brain to see the electrical impulses."<br />
"Sounds kind of like an MRI."<br />
"Yes." Doctor Worcraft leaned back in the chair. "Today we're going to try some stress tests, and then, if we find anything useful from them, we'll do the Magnetoencephalography -- we call it an MEG -- tomorrow. We'll have you run on the treadmill, show you disturbing images, get your heart rate up, see if anything starts to happen. I wouldn't say I'm confident, but we might find something."<br />
"Disturbing images?"<br />
"Scary scenes, car crashes. A video of a tiger running at you. Things like that." He stood up to leave. "Any questions?"<br />
"I've never heard of that as a medical treatment," Isaac said.<br />
"Science marches on," Worcraft said. He turned to leave.<br />
"Uh, doctor? Would it be all right if I got my clothes on and just . . . walked around the hospital? This bed is getting kind of uncomfortable."<br />
"Of course. Nothing wrong with stretching your legs a bit. Just don't leave the hospital."<br />
Soon Isaac had his normal clothes on, the ones he'd been wearing when he collapsed in his apartment. It felt good to wear real clothes again, and not a hospital gown. For the first time since his MRI, he saw what was outside his room. The nurses' station, across from his open door, had a few people behind it. Every few seconds someone would take a folder or talk to one of the nurses. Janitors pushed carts full of assorted cleaning solutions, coated doctors walked up and down the hall, avoiding him without looking up. He reached a window, and leaned against it. It was a cloudy day, and dark. He could barely see out the window.<br />
He kept walking, reaching a bustling cafeteria. He wondered if he had his wallet, but a sign let him know that lunches were free for patients. He got a slice of pizza, soda, and a piece of cake. He felt famished, like he hadn’t eaten in days.<br />
He sat at a quiet table and watched doctors, nurses, and patients eat and talk; it was all indistinct blather to him. He ate his meal and looked out the window at the cloudy sky, happy for somewhere to look besides the bare wall across from him in his room. He felt he recognized the scene outside his window, and decided he must have driven past it once. After ten minutes he dumped his tray and took the long way back to his floor.<br />
An hour later, Doctor Worcraft came into his room and gave him a set of sweat clothes. Isaac changed into them, and then Worcraft led him to a room with several treadmills, and a space with mats. A nurse hooked Isaac up to a heart monitor, and set a treadmill at a plodding speed. Isaac started walking. The screen in front of him was blank. His heart rate increased properly, and a few minutes later the nurse increased the speed to a jog.<br />
Isaac quickly ran out of breath. He wasn't surprised; he <i>had</i> spent the last few days trapped in a bed. The monitor beeped at a fast rate, and it was carefully watched by Worcraft and the nurse. Isaac looked around. Nothing seemed out of place. He didn't think he was hallucinating.<br />
At one point, Worcraft pointed at the monitor connected to the treadmill. The nurse went to a control on the side, and tapped on it. It turned on, and showed a white screen.<br />
"We're going to show you a few things, Isaac, just some things to startle you. The idea is to stress your brain, and hopefully make it show its hand." Isaac nodded, too out of breath to say anything. "Here we go."<br />
Freeze-frame images of a car crash in motion appeared on the screen, coming up and then going away in the blink of an eye. Isaac nearly tripped and fell as the cars collided and smashed, sending shards of glass toward the screen. At once the cars were gone, replaced by a video of a small girl, dressed in rags, sitting by herself in the dark. From behind the camera, a door opened, letting in a square of light, and the shadow of a man holding something long in his hand. The girl shrank away from the light. <br />
The video disappeared, and a blank screen replaced it. Isaac thought it was over. Instead, the white space on the screen lowered itself down to black. Random flashes of color erupted from the corners, leaving splotches in his vision. The flashes grew bright and frantic, fighting through the dark like a slave raging against its master but unable to do anything. Isaac watched it, transfixed, until it reached a crashing zenith of mixed sensations. All at once, it was gone, and Isaac felt the treadmill slowing.<br />
The nurse detached him from the monitor, and Worcraft helped him step down. <br />
"Anything?" The doctor asked.<br />
Isaac braced himself against the treadmill, panting. The strange images he'd been subjected to kept appearing, over and over, layered on each other until they created their own worlds. Isaac looked around, trying to see through to the real world. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. He strained to pick on something, anything, that looked like it didn't belong.<br />
"No. I think everything's fine."<br />
For a moment Isaac thought the doctor was going to hit him, but instead he said: "Okay. Why don't you go back to your room and rest. We'll take the MEG tomorrow . . . are you all right?"<br />
"Just out of breath," Isaac said. He gulped air. The nurse and Doctor Worcraft took him back to his room, where he got back in bed, relieved to be off his feet. He closed his eyes and napped for a few hours.<br />
When he woke up, it was nearly time for Missy to visit him. The events of the night before, with Alena, rushed back into the front of his mind, and he sighed. "I guess I'm going to be thinking about that the entire time she's here," he muttered.<br />
Soon Missy knocked on the doorway. "Hi there," she said. She wore a long black skirt and gray sweater with her hair down.<br />
"Hey," Isaac said. "How was your day?"<br />
"It was fine. Sort of busy, but I don't mind that very much." She came in and pulled the chair over next to his bed. "I'm getting finished with those big projects. It should only be another day or two."<br />
Isaac nodded. He was about to open his mouth, but spotted Alena standing outside his room. She was looking over her shoulder at him, with a smirk on her face. Seeing him look, she winked.<br />
"What are you looking at?" Missy asked, turning her head. Alena had disappeared.<br />
"Nothing. Just listening."<br />
"How was your day?" Missy asked. Isaac told her about the simple joy of taking a walk and eating lunch in the cafeteria, and then about the stress test. She seemed aghast at the images.<br />
"Did it work?"<br />
Isaac shook his head. "The only thing it did was tire me out. I didn't see anything that was a hallucination, I think. It's hard to tell while it's happening, but it's easy to realize something was a hallucination in retrospect, like the clown or the camera."<br />
"Or the pudding cup."<br />
Isaac blinked. He looked over at Missy. "What?"<br />
"The second time I came over, you saw someone that I didn't see, and then handed me a 'pudding cup.'" She made quotes with her fingers. "You talked to the person a lot too. I told the nurses' desk about it when I left, because it looked like it was still going on."<br />
Isaac couldn't say anything. His stomach was a tight ball.<br />
"I didn't know if it was safe," Missy said. "So I just told the nurses."<br />
Isaac yanked the covers off him and jumped out of bed. He was still dressed in his sweat clothes. He ran out of his room and looked around. He didn't see Alena. <i>She's always hanging around my room!</i><br />
He ran to the nurses' station, with Missy calling after him. "A nurse. A pretty, blond nurse. Do you know her?"<br />
The one he spoke to, an Asian woman, thought for a second. "Do you mean Gail?"<br />
"No! Her name's Alena; she's always here!"<br />
"I'm sorry, I don't know her. I'm sort of new, though. Is there something wrong?"<br />
"Mr. Lucas, are you all right?" Another nurse asked. Isaac felt sick. His vision blurred together. "Get him back to his bed," he heard somebody say. Arms guided him back toward his room. He went meekly; his brain was two steps behind, understanding things several moments too late. He was settled down on his bed. "Is he gonna be okay?" He heard someone ask.<br />
It took a few moments for him to come to grips with the information. He looked over at one of the nurses that had helped him in. "I'm all right. Just confused. You can go."<br />
The nurse nodded, patted his arm, and left him with Missy. She leaned close to him. "Are you okay, Isaac?"<br />
"I've seen her so many times!" He said quietly. "I saw her just a few minutes ago!"<br />
"Who?"<br />
"The one I was talking to! Her name's Alena, she's . . . a nurse. Here. I've talked to her a dozen times since I came here. She said hi to you when she came in. She had my dinner. That's why I gave you a pudding cup."<br />
"You don't like pudding, so you gave it to me. But all you did was hold out an empty hand," Missy said. "Are you saying that . . . she's been a hallucination? Over and over?"<br />
Isaac did nothing.<br />
"Do you need me to call a nurse?" Missy asked. She started to stand.<br />
"No, don't. I just . . . need to think about it. I had no idea. Of course she's a hallucination. After you left, a different nurse came by with carts of dinner . . . the nurse that helped me with my MRI thought <i>you</i> were Alena when I talked about her!"<br />
"What?"<br />
"I was the only one that didn't notice!" Isaac said. "I can't believe nobody told me! I must have talked to her six times with other people nearby . . . why didn't they ask me who I was talking to?"<br />
"I don't know," Missy said. Her eyebrows were arched up, and she had her hand on Isaac's. "I'm sorry. It looks like this has hit you pretty hard."<br />
"I saw her so many times. All of my other hallucinations were just once." Isaac sighed. He felt tired. "I just need some time to wrap my head around this."<br />
"I'm right here if you need to talk about it," Missy said. She smiled at him, and he smiled back. "If you need some quiet I can go."<br />
"No, don't go. Let's just talk."<br />
Missy grinned. "Okay. Why don't I tell you all about the projects I'm working on! That'll help you get your mind off things."<br />
It did.<br />
<br />
Sort of.<br />
Missy had been gone for a few hours, after loading his ears with everything she could say about what she'd been working on. When she left, Isaac knew just as much about it as she did.<br />
He was looking at the pages of one of his books -- not reading; that would require comprehension -- and thinking about everything that had happened.<br />
Alena . . .<br />
And she was there, leaning on his doorway with her smirk, shaking her head slowly from side to side. "You just couldn't pull it off, could you? Just too chicken," she said. "All you did was sit and talk. I bet if you hired a prostitute you'd just want a back rub."<br />
Isaac put his book down. "I'm glad you're here, Alena," he said, heart pounding. "I need you to do something for me."<br />
Alena's head tilted, and her smile grew. She entered the room with her hands clasped behind her back. "Yes, Isaac. What is it?"<br />
"Come here," he said.<br />
"I knew you'd ask eventually," she said, crossing the room to his bed. "All I had to do was be patient." She put a knee on his bed. "Tell me what it is you need."<br />
Quickly, he shot his hand at her arm, expecting it to pass through and out the other side. Instead, his fingers curled around her smooth skin, and she chuckled, lowly.<br />
"Careful, cowboy," she breathed, bringing her face closer and pulling herself on top of him. "I bruise easily."<br />
"You aren't real!" Isaac said. "I know you're a hallucination!"<br />
"What does it matter?" The nurse said, inches from him. "Your body doesn't care. It'll think I'm real." She put her hand on his pants. "You'll still feel me bring us together, taste my lips, and hear me moan. And," she said, leaning forward and putting her lips on his ear, "eventually, I'll feel you give me a piece of you to keep. Don't resist, dear," she said. "You'll enjoy it so much more." She softly bit on his ear.<br />
Isaac thrust his hand out to hit the nurse call button, and Alena did nothing to stop him. He pressed it, over and over. "There are so many more buttons you could press, Isaac," she said, taking his hand off the button and placing it on her breast. He could feel the erect nipple under his palm. She sighed.<br />
A nurse entered the room. "Do you need something, Mr. Lucas?"<br />
Isaac swallowed, trying to keep his voice straight. "Am I the only one in this room, nurse?" He asked.<br />
The nurse looked at him strangely. "Of course not, Mr. Lucas. Alena is here, too." She started to leave, then stopped, turned around, grabbed the handle for his door, and shut it.<br />
"Do you understand now?" Alena said in the secluded room, pushing her hips against his. "It doesn't matter. You should <i>enjoy</i> this. Your mind has given you the ability to see your greatest desires."<br />
"You aren't real," Isaac said weakly. "I don't want what isn't real."<br />
She laughed. "You're the only man alive who believes that."<br />
"You're a hallucination," Isaac said, with his eyes shut. "Just like-"<br />
"Like me?" He heard a man's voice say. He opened his eyes, but saw only Alena's face next to his. "Like the camera?" She asked. "Like the vision of empty space that made you realize how much you'd miss your <i>dear friend</i> Missy?" She asked. "You'll never be able to get away from us. We will follow you your entire life -- until you decide to end it, just to get the falsehoods out of your head." She grasped his hand again. "You will live, unable to tell what's real and what isn't." She began to tug on his hand. "The doctors will never understand. The pills will never help. Nothing you do will be able to stop me, or the clown, or the camera, or anything your broken mind can imagine. Do you know what horrors it can create?" She asked. He watched her take his hand close to her body. "It can make you fear the very ground you walk on, the air you breathe. <i>The thoughts in your own head</i>. You might as well . . ." She guided his hand into her pants and between her legs. "Enjoy it . . ." She said, delirious. She bit on her lip and pushed her hips down on him.<br />
"No!" He shouted, whipping his hand away and pushing her off. He pushed too hard, and she tumbled backward, off the end of his bed, shrieking and cracking her head on the wall. The body fell motionless.<br />
Isaac wiped his hand on the bedspread, shivering. He rubbed his eyes with his other hand.<br />
When he opened them, the body was getting its feet. Blood dripped from the skull and ran from the nose.<br />
"I told you I bruise easily." It stepped around his bed, coming closer.<br />
"I want you <i>out of my head!</i>" Isaac said, getting out of the bed. He took a step forward. "I'm not afraid to fight you!" He got close to it, fists balled.<br />
A hand caught his throat. "You want to fight?" It pushed him back with massive force, sending him crashing against the far wall. It was taller now. It had longer nails, wilder hair, and its face was a twisted mockery of humanity. "Try then."<br />
It came at him, wailing.<br />
<br />
Isaac jumped awake, shouting. He fell out of the bed. Pushing himself against the wall, he looked for the body. There was nothing. No blood on the floor, no demented figure. The door was open. Someone at the nurse's station looked in his room worriedly.<br />
He put a shaking hand to his face. It came back with sweat. Before he looked up, he knew what was standing in his doorway.<br />
Instead of the smirk and whimsical expression, she glared at him, eyebrows fused together in anger.<br />
"Mr. Lucas, are you all right?" The nurse asked from the station. "Did you have a nightmare?"<br />
"No," he whispered. "I'm in one." Alena's frown turned to an angry smile, her eyes sparkled, then she was gone.<br />
<br />
Another day passed.<br />
It was difficult to sleep. Alena was gone, maybe forever, but he knew the truth now. The hallucinations ruled him. Every time he blinked, he wondered if he would open his eyes to the same thing, or something new and awful.<br />
He laid in bed, exhausted. He'd been unable to fall asleep again, afraid of what his mind would show him. As far as he could tell, he hadn't seen any hallucinations, but he felt them, just around the corner or out of sight. Once he thought he heard something walking down the hall, in the middle of the night, slowly. From the sound, he imagined a wet trail behind it -- puddles under its feet as it walked.<br />
Finally, it was late enough to be awake. Isaac sat on the edge of his bed, hands on his knees, daring himself to not look up and see something. He tried reading, but couldn't concentrate. He didn't even try to use his computer.<br />
He just stared at the ground.<br />
<br />
The hospital moved past his door. He'd spent ten minutes doing nothing but looking at the ground between his bare feet. He didn't know when somebody -- a nurse, or a doctor -- would stop while passing and ask after him. He didn't know what he would say.<br />
"You'll say the hallucinations have gotten worse," a loving voice said behind him. He shut his eyes. "They'll ask for specifics -- such good nurses -- and you'll say you had <i>nightmares</i>. Long visions of horrible monsters. You won't say you're afraid of the world now, or that you secretly think even the person you're talking to is fake . . . but it will be enough for them. They'll walk away, and leave you with me."<br />
Isaac spun around. The bed behind him was empty, and he heard a chuckle fade. He took a breath to help slow his heart.<br />
"Mr. Lucas?"<br />
He jumped, backing away from the door. It was a nurse. A <i>normal</i> one. Perhaps. "Do you need something?"<br />
"Uh . . . no. Just stretching my legs. Nurse? Do you know when I'll be having my test today? My MEG?"<br />
"Not off-hand, but I can check. I'll be back in a minute," she said, smiling and heading to the nurses' desk. She came back quicker than a minute. "You're scheduled for eleven o'clock. Would you like me to bring up some breakfast?"<br />
<i>That should be real enough</i>. "Yes please."<br />
Soon he was eating. Buttered toast, hot cereal, orange juice and milk. He relished it as a strange tether to what he knew was real. It slipped down his throat, warm and wonderful. He began to feel better.<br />
The tray was taken away, and he sat back in bed, still tired, but at least now he had some strength. He tried reading again, and this time was able to concentrate. Better still, he realized even hallucinations couldn't do much to disrupt reading.<br />
He was pleasantly surprised to find eleven clock came quickly. Two nurses came in to take him to the MEG. He didn't need to change out of the sweat clothes he still had, and he was happy to discover that no injections were needed. They took him to the same section of the building that had the MRI, where he found Doctor Worcraft.<br />
"Hello Isaac. How have you been?"<br />
For a moment, Isaac was going to lie. He was going to say he was fine, and he knew the doctor would hear: <i>I'm still in the hospital, and have been seeing hallucinations. That's how I'm doing</i>. He opened his mouth to say the word, and paused.<br />
"The hallucinations are worse," he said. "Last night, my friend Missy came over. I was telling her about the hallucinations I've had. The clown. The camera. She told me I'd forgotten one. She told me I had been talking to somebody that wasn't there."<br />
"You didn't realize it was a hallucination?" Worcraft asked.<br />
"No. It was a nurse. Alena was her name. At that time I'd talked to her a dozen times, sometimes with other nurses in the room. Nobody mentioned anything."<br />
"You'd just had a coma. Confusion is expected," Worcraft asked. "You're sure she's a hallucination?"<br />
"She showed up last night. I told her she was a hallucination, and she said it didn't matter. She . . . tried to get into bed with me. I pushed her off."<br />
"You . . . pushed her?" Worcraft asked, confused. "You were able to touch her?"<br />
"Yes. She smacked against the wall, and I thought she was gone." Isaac looked at the ground. "She got up. I tried to fight her, but she pushed me back, a-and turned into a monster." He took a shaky breath. "The next thing I know, I was in bed, and she was gone. I don't know if it was a dream or a hallucination, but I've seen, and heard her since." He still looked at the ground. Nobody said anything. Isaac imagined he was alone in the hospital, empty except for him and his hallucinations. He looked up, and found Worcraft thinking, with his chin in his hand.<br />
"That's very disturbing. It's a good thing we're doing a test today. You say you've seen her several times?"<br />
"Many times," Isaac said. "Every day."<br />
"Okay. The next time you see her, call a nurse."<br />
<i>I tried that</i>, Isaac thought, but he nodded.<br />
"Let's get you in here," Worcraft said, leading him to an opening that had several layers of doors. "An MEG has to have good shielding from the natural magnetic energy of the earth. Go on in, and sit down in the chair. Make yourself comfortable."<br />
Isaac went inside. He sat in a chair one would find in a dentist's office; over it was a large tube with a skull-shaped depression on the bottom. "I'll need to attach these to your skull," Worcraft said. He produced wires stuck with tape, and applied them to areas on Isaac's head, as well as one over his heart. He plugged them into the machine. "There. Adjust the chair so you're at a good height with the cap."<br />
Worcraft and the nurses left, and the doors shut behind them. Isaac sat in the chair and raised it up so the top of his head was close to the cap. Off to the side was a screen with a view of a small room. Isaac saw Worcraft and the nurses enter.<br />
"We're going to lower the cap onto your skull," Worcraft said into the camera. "Let us know if it gets uncomfortable."<br />
Isaac nodded, and loud whirring filled the room. He felt the tube press on his head and stop. "We're going to start scanning. This will take some time, up to two hours," Worcraft said. "Try to move your head as little as possible. Let us know if you need a break."<br />
"Okay," Isaac said. The machine began to hum. He settled in for a long few hours. He closed his hours and tried to focus.<br />
When he opened them, he was not surprised to find Alena standing in a corner of the room. He watched her with his eyes.<br />
"What do you think they're going to find?" She asked, stepping into the center of the room. "I'll tell you. Nothing." She started walking around the machine. Isaac followed her until he couldn't move his eyes any farther. "The scans will be clear. They'll let you leave the hospital, unable to do anything. And that will be that." She was directly behind him.<br />
"Isaac, are you seeing anything?" Worcraft asked. "Your heart rate just spiked."<br />
"She's here," Isaac said. "Alena's in here."<br />
"What is she doing?"<br />
"Nothing. Just talking."<br />
"Oh?" Alena said, appearing on his right side suddenly. "Do you want me to do anything else?" She hesitated. She was too far for him to see. "You made it clear what you don't want last night. I could have made you feel wonderful, but no."<br />
Isaac closed his eyes and tried not to listen.<br />
"Isaac Thomas Lucas. That's a nice name, isn't it?" She said. He heard her footsteps. "So many esses. I sound almost like a snake when I say it. Issssaac Thomasssss Lucassss." She laughed. "Go on and look, Isaac. See how I look as a snake." Isaac breathed in and kept his eyes shut. "Ssssssssss."<br />
"Isaac, please try to calm down," Worcraft said. "You're starting to shake."<br />
"Wouldn't want that," Alena said.<br />
"Why are you here?" Isaac asked. "You've said your piece. Go away."<br />
"Isaac, what-"<br />
"I'll tell you why," he heard Alena say. He felt her near him. "You think I'm a hallucination. If that's true, then your broken brain should be showing clearly on the M-E-G. You've been hallucinating this whole time, according to you."<br />
He heard her shift, and felt her finger run down his bare arm. "But what if I'm the realest thing in the world to you?" She asked. "What then? Then the MEG will show nothing other than normal activity. It will say you're a healthy, normal young man with no problems other than one instance of passing out." He heard her tap on the machine. "Don't you think, when this big hunk shows nothing, they'll start to think you've been making it all up? The clown, the camera, black space out your door, me. They'll think you're just making it all up. For attention, maybe."<br />
"I'm not."<br />
"Not what, Isa-"<br />
"I know you aren't. You know you aren't. Do they? They'll say you have hypochondria, or you want your fifteen minutes of fame -- <i>the boy that saw things!</i> -- or something else. I'm going to be a good little girl and sit right here, the entire time. You don't have to look; you know I'm still here."<br />
He knew. He kept his eyes closed the entire time, but he knew she was still there, sitting in the corner of the room and watching him. Two long hours passed, and he did nothing but keep his eyes closed and breathe smooth breaths, trying to keep himself from moving. He could only hope she would be wrong.<br />
<br />
"We're all done, Isaac," Worcraft said through the monitor. "Is . . . Alena still there?"<br />
"I'm still here."<br />
"She's still here."<br />
"We're coming in."<br />
The monitor went dead. A minute passed, and then the doors unsealed. After the third one, he heard footsteps. "Isaac, point to her."<br />
He opened his eyes and looked. She was gone. The white room was too bright for him. Worcraft and the two nurses stood next to him, looking worried. "Can you tell us where she is?"<br />
"She's gone. She was in here the entire time you were scanning, though." Isaac looked up as the nurses started taking the wires off his head. "Did the scan show anything?"<br />
"It has to process. We should know by tomorrow morning. I know you're worried, Isaac, but I'm sure we'll find something."<br />
"What if you don't?" Isaac said. He couldn't stop himself. "What then?"<br />
"Well . . . there are some longer-term solutions that we could try, like seeing if some basic drugs help. Stress reduction has also-"<br />
"Stress reduction!" Isaac said, jumping off the chair once the last wire was gone from his head. "Something I thought was a nurse for half a week tries to rape me, and you think it's because of stress?"<br />
"Isaac, please calm down. I know you're worried," Worcraft said. "It's more effective than you think, but not everything works. You have my word that we'll find something, all right?"<br />
Isaac sighed, and nodded. One of the nurses took him by the arm and led him out of the room. Before leaving, he risked a glance around. It was empty.<br />
<br />
"We'll let you go tomorrow," Worcraft said, "whether or not we find anything. Maybe just getting you out of here will help. I know it can wear down on a person." Isaac nodded. They were back in his room. "Hopefully the MEG will help us find out what's happening. Have a good night."<br />
"Thank you, doctor," Isaac said, and Worcraft left. Isaac reached for a book, then noticed he'd missed a call from Missy. <br />
"Isaac! Hi!" She said when he called back. "How did everything go today?"<br />
"I had an MEG, and they said they'll let me leave the hospital tomorrow one way or the other."<br />
"Really? That's great! Since you don't have your car with you, do you want me to pick you up? I'm going to be free all day."<br />
"Sure, that'd be nice."<br />
"And the hallucinations?" She asked. "Have they changed?"<br />
Isaac didn't know how much he wanted to say. "The nurse hallucination . . . the one you told me about . . . I saw it again last night and today. I even know it's a hallucination and I can't get it to stop." The other line was quiet. "I really hope the MEG shows something."<br />
"I sure it will, Isaac," Missy said. "I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"<br />
"Okay. Bye."<br />
<br />
Another day passed.<br />
He was dressed in his street clothes, sitting on the bed. He felt tired, like he hadn't slept in a long time. Missy was with him. They were waiting for Doctor Worcraft to appear.<br />
"Everything will be all right," Missy said. "You'll be back home in no time." She looked around. "Have you seen Alena at all since yesterday?"<br />
"No," Isaac said, looking at the wall. "But she'll never really be gone. She could be right around the corner, or closer."<br />
"Don't think that!" Missy said. "Don't be so negative!" She got closer to him, and grabbed his shoulders with both hands. "You'll be able to get out of this! You'll be able to escape! Isaac!" He looked at her. "You're going to be okay."<br />
They were inches apart, and as she hugged him he felt her truth. He knew that somehow, someway, he would defeat Alena, and everything she created. He would find a way. He smiled, and put his arms around Missy, breathing in the sweet perfume of her hair.<br />
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," they heard. Their hug broke, and Isaac saw that Doctor Worcraft stood in the doorway. He held a folder in his hand. "I have the results from the MEG."<br />
"Of course," Isaac said.<br />
"I'm afraid we didn't see anything," Worcraft said, looking down. "I'm sorry Isaac. All this time, all these tests, and still nothing."<br />
"It's all right," Isaac said. He stood up. "It's not like you did anything wrong. Thank you for trying anyway." Isaac put his hand out, and Worcraft shook it.<br />
"Here's my number," the doctor said, handing a card to Isaac. "I expect that you'll continue to see hallucinations. I want you to record them as best you can and let us know if anything changes."<br />
"Okay, thank you." Isaac put the card in his pocket. "Can I go now?"<br />
"Once you sign out. You can do it at the front desk."<br />
In no time at all Isaac stood under the sun for the first time in a week. He looked up at the blue sky with something close to surprise. It felt good.<br />
"Shall we?" He heard Missy ask. He rested for a second, then nodded.<br />
They walked through a crowded parking lot to her car, passing nondescript cars and trees and people. Isaac felt himself grinning like a fool.<br />
"You look so happy!" Missy said as she started the car.<br />
"Yeah. Let's not go back to my apartment yet. Let's go to a park."<br />
Missy nodded. "That sounds like a good idea."<br />
She drove until they reached an empty park, and Isaac quickly left the car, heading for the green grass. He got to his knees and put his hands in it, relishing the soft feeling. He stood and found Missy next to him.<br />
Grinning, he held out his hand. With the same, she took it.<br />
<br />
They walked for an hour, stopping at a park bench on a path. Other than a single person a long distance from them, they were alone.<br />
"Are you going to be okay?" Missy asked.<br />
"I think I will," Isaac said, smiling and watching the trees move. "The doctor was right. Getting out of the hospital did make me feel better." He turned his head, marveling at the space around him. "I'm just so glad it's all real. The trees are real, the grass is real." He paused. "You're real."<br />
"Oh, Isaac." She rubbed his back. "I'm not."<br />
His vision darkened, like a cloud across the sun. He looked at her, and found her looking back, head tilted slightly, eyes sparkling.<br />
"Yes," he said. "You're real. I know you are!"<br />
Missy shook her head, still smiling.<br />
"Where is she?" Isaac said, standing suddenly. "Tell me where the real Missy is!"<br />
"There isn't one," came a voice behind him. He looked behind him, sure of what would be there. Alena stood with her arms crossed, her smirk mischievous, and her eyes sparkling like Missy's. "I told you that hallucinations can play with your memory."<br />
Isaac spun and looked at Missy; she was gone. He looked at Alena again and found Missy standing next to her with hands on her hips.<br />
"I tried to tell you," Alena said. "I tried to tell you that you can't get away."<br />
"Doctor Worcraft talked to her! Everybody knew about her! She was real!" Isaac shouted, panicking. "She isn't like you!"<br />
"She <i>is</i> me!" Alena laughed, and Missy laughed with her. Isaac backed up a step.<br />
"But they all talked to her! She can't be a-"<br />
"Hallucination?" Missy said. "I can be. I am.<br />
"Do you know how?" She asked.<br />
Isaac turned and ran. His weak muscles screamed and breath tore at his throat. The women and bench disappeared behind him. The world looked gray. He came to a turn in the path and they stood there, waiting. He tripped and fell, rolling on the ground. They came to stand over him.<br />
"Look around you, Isaac," one of them said. "Accept it."<br />
Color drained out of the sky.<br />
"You've been wandering around your apartment for a week, thinking you've been sitting in a white hospital, with food brought to you on trays and special tests to discover what's wrong with you," the other one said. "You haven't had anything to eat or drink that whole time. You're nearly dead. You've looked out the window, sat in your bed, and talked to yourself for seven days, imagining a nurse that lusts after you and a 'friend' that loves you. Neither are real." It got close. "Wake up Isaac."<br />
<br />
It<br />
Was<br />
Dark.<br />
He was thirsty.<br />
He was hungry.<br />
He stayed on the ground for a second, then rolled over. They sat at his table, watching him. He knew he was in the real world -- how could he have thought there was a hospital? -- and they started to disappear.<br />
"I told you," one of them said. "You'll never be able to get away from us."Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-87190182775172428992014-03-08T12:00:00.000-06:002014-03-10T21:07:42.706-05:00An Average Man"I really think you've made a mistake!"<br />
"That's no way for a hero to talk, Oliver!" The man across from Oliver said, pumping a fist in the air. Above their heads, the helicopter's blades chopped. "Your country needs you! I need you!"<br />
"No, I really think you don't!" Oliver Bascombe, systems administrator for the CIA's Del Pune division, a city in the country of Pangke, said. "This isn't my expertise!"<br />
"Nonsense!" Bradley Tonman responded. "You're exactly the kind of man we need for this job!"<br />
<a name='more'></a> "But . . . you don't understand! This sort of thing isn't for me!" Oliver whimpered. "My middle name is actually Average! It's pronounced Ah-<i>ver</i>-age, though."<br />
"An unassuming exterior!" Bradley pointed out. Certainly this was true. People looking at Oliver could only assume a few things about him, like the number of pies he'd eaten was surely greater than the number of miles he's ran. "Which contains a talented and useful <i>in</i>terior!"<br />
"I just know computers!" <br />
"And what do you think we're going to be dealing with on this mission?" Bradley asked, making himself more comfortable in the stiff-backed seat. He was a man who could recline anywhere. "These men we're going to deal with, their systems are all controlled by computers. Even to our agents in the field, you're the best with computers out of anyone at Del Pune. We're running out of men good with computers, you know!"<br />
"Perhaps I could have held a clinic?"<br />
"No time!" Bradley responded. "This is a matter of international security!"<br />
"Which nations?" Oliver asked.<br />
"What?"<br />
"Which nations are in danger?"<br />
"Oh I don't know . . . all of them," Bradley said with a wave of his hand. "It looks like we're going to be landing soon. Are you ready?"<br />
Oliver looked singularly out of place in his camo suit and ammo vest. Here was a man who needed a white, button-down, short-sleeved shirt and tie to feel comfortable. Instead, he had paint on his face and a knife attached to his hip where his cell phone normally was. Every few minutes he thought he felt it vibrate. "I suppose I am."<br />
Bradley was already standing on the ground fifteen feet away from the helicopter. "Can't hear you!" He shouted. "Come on now! And keep your head down, or it'll get sliced to pieces!"<br />
Oliver regarded the whiring helicopter blades with a pale face. He climbed out of the chopper and it disappeared behind him, flying away before he had a chance to reconsider and strap himself back into the seat. He was left standing in a nearly barren plain. He waddled to where Bradley stood.<br />
"There it is, chum," Bradley said, looking through a pair of binoculars. "Do you see it?"<br />
"No. I have no binoculars."<br />
"Shame. It's a fine sight." Bradley packed the binoculars away somewhere. "Let's get a move on. The safety of the free world is at stake!"<br />
"You still haven't told me why the world-" Bradley was already ten feet away and accelerating. Bradley hiked up his pants and trudged after him.<br />
The ground was made of alternating dirt clods and rocky ridges, every one of which aimed to drop Oliver to the ground in as painful a manner as possible. By the time he caught up to Bradley, who was peering between a few bushes, Oliver was bruised, scratched, and he'd lost his knife.<br />
"There, you see it?" Bradley whispered. Oliver moved a section of a bush to look past. There was a compound beyond, with wire fences, guard dogs, towers with gun snouts poking out of them, and more.<br />
"How are we supposed to get in there?" Oliver asked. He wiped sweat from his chins.<br />
"We ask nicely, chum," Bradley said. "How's your Pangkian?"<br />
"Can't speak it."<br />
"Then you're a mute for this next part, Oliver." Bradley stood and put his hands on his hips. "Let's go around this way," he said, pointing. He left before Oliver could respond.<br />
Oliver caught up to him as he turned the compound's corner and was heading for the heavily-armed front entrance. "I really don't think this is a good idea, Sir," Oliver said.<br />
"That's odd," Bradley said. "I thought you were mute, Oliver." Oliver clamped his mouth shut.<br />
As brave as a pigeon in central park, and as stupid, Bradley walked right up to the guard shack that sat aside the dirt road into the compound. The man in the shack, dressed in fatigues and carrying a rifle, recoiled in shock when Bradley suddenly appeared with Oliver a few feet behind him.<br />
"Juhga nendo tim a da?" The man asked, sticking the end of his gun against Bradley's nose. Oliver ducked, to avoid getting pieces of brain on his clothes, but Bradley calmly responded.<br />
"Een en inhat reffu weoragat," Bradley said, motioning to himself. "Pono yeg wandararu." He pointed behind him at Oliver, who waved.<br />
"Bornen, I? Zommo panawaradin?" The guard laughed, and then Bradley laughed, and then Oliver tried laughing, but as soon as he started laughing the guard and Bradley both glared at him. The guard hit a button and a door in the gate swung open. He jerked his thumb inside. Bradley walked through the gate and Oliver followed him in.<br />
Inside, soldiers bustled past them in all directions. In one corner of the large yard, soldiers were doing jumping jacks, pushups, and situps. Soldiers that tarried would get a slap with a stick in the back. Near the exercisers was a long, bullet-ridden board. A dozen soldiers lined up and aimed a painted silhouettes that looked suspiciously like a short, fat man wearing a short-sleeved shirt and tie.<br />
Both of these things made Oliver want to be away from the yard. He hustled after Bradley, whose long legs carried him away from Oliver.<br />
Bradley made for a fat, flat, gray, unassuming building one one side of the compound. It looked relatively unguarded. They entered the building through a metal door. Bradley took a quick look around, and then turned to Oliver.<br />
"All right Oliver, it's your time to shine. This building has a part of the compounds computer systems in it. It'll be your job to do a few things."<br />
"How did you know this is the right building?" Oliver asked.<br />
"Isn't it obvious? Short, squat, and boring-enough looking on the outside. I knew it had either a computer system or a sewage treatment, and I can tell from the smell it doesn't have a sewage treatment. Here's what I want you to do: We need some information from the computer system here, but I also want you to upload a virus to their system without them knowing that you've done it. Did you bring a virus?"<br />
"What?" Oliver asked. "No!"<br />
"Well, that's all right," Bradley said, taking out a floppy disk. "I brought my own; it should work fine. Here we go." He walked down a hallway away from Oliver, who was getting tired of having to catch up to Bradley.<br />
Bradley went around a hallway's corner, and found himself up against a guarded door. He saluted to the two men, who saluted back to him. He waltzed right up and began to chat in Pangkian, leaving Oliver standing behind him trying to act like he understood.<br />
After a few minutes of talking and laughing, one of the guards unlocked the door and waved the two of them inside. On the other side of the door was a large room filled with servers and computers. It was empty, hot and dark. Just the sort of room Oliver loved.<br />
"This is more my speed," he said. Most of the time his speed was a heavy walk, but sitting at a computer he could be a blaze of lightning. He found a terminal and sat down. After raising the chair to the correct height, he cracked his knuckles and looked at the screen.<br />
He typed the word "password" into the password box and was in. "What sort of information do you need me to get?"<br />
"This group has sent squadrons to attack major areas of commerce in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. I need you to find out all the information you can about their movements, personnel, anything."<br />
"Well, all right," Oliver said. He pulled on the collar of his outfit. "How did you get us in here, anyway?" He asked as he started searching through the system. "It looked like this place was locked down pretty tight."<br />
"I just told them how much I respected their profession. Guards, you know. And I do! My sister was in the Color Guard. I was a guard for a year and a half before I got my break. Yes, guarding. It makes you feel good, protecting. It's what we're doing here, really. Protecting the nations." Bradley swelled with pride.<br />
"Which nations?"<br />
"A bunch. How's it going in there?"<br />
"It's a bit difficult. Their system is all over the place. Plus a lot of the files are encrypted. It'll take some time to break that. You said your sister was in the color guard? Which branch was she in?"<br />
"She was never in any trees. I know she guarded yellow, though. Nice color."<br />
Oliver paused, trying to figure out what it was like living life from Bradley's perspective. He imagined a lot of unicorns.<br />
They heard conversation on the other side of the door. "How much longer will it take?" Bradley whispered.<br />
"I'm not even close to being done yet," Oliver responded. "Can you do anything to keep them from coming in here?"<br />
Just like his credit card limit, Bradley was up to the challenge. He smoothed his hair back and opened the door a crack, finding two more men with the guards on the other side.<br />
"Sorry, what's all the commotion?" He asked in Pangkian. "We're doing a bit of work in here."<br />
"I've never seen you here before," one of the new men said. "Who are you? What are you doing in there?"<br />
"Contractor," Bradley said. "Cleaning the system up. Your files are a mess. They're all scattered around the servers. Cords are tangled, too. My partner measured a twelve percent decrease in productivity because of those. Got to watch out for tangled cords."<br />
"I wasn't told of this," the man said. He looked like a sort of superior to the other men.<br />
"Sir, don't worry, we're doing everything we can to get things in tip-top shape." He leaned in close. "My partner, sort of a wizard with these things, you know. I'd advise you not to disturb him. He knows so much about computers and things that he's forgotten everything else. Barely knows how to feed himself. But get him in front of a screen and he can manipulate your bits in ways you won't see outside of a South Korean gentleman’s club. Ram? I don't know much about rams, sir, but he'll give you more rams than a Tibetan pasture. He puts servers together faster than a psychiatric patient blames his mother. Trust me sir, you'll never know we were here, but your emails will make it to their inboxes just as quick as can be."<br />
The man stayed silent for a moment. All that could be heard was tapping from behind Bradley. Finally, he nodded and walked away, followed by the other extra man. Bradley waved goodbye, and then closed the door again.<br />
He went back to Oliver, who was staring slack-mouthed at the screen, fingers assaulting the keyboard with unerring precision.<br />
"Say Oliver," Bradley said. "What is RAM, exactly?"<br />
"Random Access Memory," Oliver said. "It's how the computer finds information."<br />
Bradley nodded long, smooth strokes up and down. "So, what you're saying, is that it is, in fact, <i>not</i> a kind of animal."<br />
Oliver stopped typing so suddenly that the lack of sound actually hurt Bradley. "No, it isn't an animal." Oliver went back to typing.<br />
"How goes it here?" Bradley asked. "Getting all the information?"<br />
"I've found some things, but it's all in Pangkian," Oliver said. "I can't translate it. I've found a bunch of maps and schematics and things like that, though."<br />
"Good going. Get as much as you can. Ah, oh, and here," Bradley handed Oliver a thumb drive. "Put it all on here, and we can take it back with us." Oliver took the thumb drive and started searching for a USB port. He found one and jammed it in.<br />
"You know, it seems to me like this place isn't too hard to get in to," Oliver said. "Couldn't you just attack this place and keep them from carrying out the attacks?"<br />
"Not a bad idea, but there's a flaw," Bradley said. He picked up a metal box with lights and a few buttons, and turned it over. "There are other compounds like this one all over the world, and capturing this one wouldn't stop the attacks. It'd probably just make them attack sooner." He put the box down. Somehow, all the lights had turned off. "So we needed to be sneaky about it."<br />
"I see. What are we going to do with the information?"<br />
"Oh you know, the normal things. Set up extra guards around the area they've noted, roadblocks, deploy suave super-spies to take down the kingpins, that sort of thing."<br />
"Right."<br />
Oliver continued clicking through the files on the server system. He kept glancing at the door, expecting a multitude of heavily-armed soldiers to break through it and perforate them with special bullets created to inflict maximum pain. Bradley seemed none too worried.<br />
Oliver clicked on a file, and it opened a document. Inside were a few city names he recognized, like Limburg, Emmental, and Madison. "Take a look at this. It's a bigger list of cities. Is it targets?" Bradley swooped down, and scanned the words.<br />
"It looks like it. Copy this one, and anything that seems similar."<br />
Oliver nodded, and copied it to the flash drive he'd inserted. "What are they going to do in these cities?" He asked.<br />
"They're going to attack an international commodity, with the intention of seizing a high amount of the production and monopolizing the sale. They also intend to disrupt production, so that no more can be made. It's a very important trade that has been around for thousands of years. Getting their hand around it would cripple several economies, and likely through the world into chaos."<br />
Oliver stared, mouth slack. <i>What on Earth could it be?</i> He wondered. <i>Wheat? Rice? Oil? Cotton? Lumber?</i> He rubbed his hands together. "What is it?"<br />
"Cheese!"<br />
There was a time of silence in the server room; little more than computers whirring could be heard.<br />
"Cheese."<br />
"Yes, that's right."<br />
"We're risking ourselves for the world cheese market."<br />
"Do <i>you</i> want to eat pizza without any cheese on it?" Bradley asked. "Do you want to have a <i>ham</i>burger instead of a cheeseburger? Have you ever had a grilled nothing sandwich? Right bland."<br />
"It seems like you're overplaying the importance of this."<br />
"Not in the slightest!" Bradley knelt down next to Oliver. "One third of Switzerland's GDP comes from the production, sale, and existence of cheese. Italy's fine chefs would go out of business, not to mention a number of French establishments." He jabbed a finger at Oliver, who recoiled. "Do you have any idea how many Wisconsinites would starve?"<br />
"All of them?"<br />
"At least! Cheese is a beloved food product all over the world. If you never ate anything with cheese, how many items could you still eat in a normal day?"<br />
Oliver sat thinking for a few minutes. The number he came up with was woefully low. Bradley saw the look on his face and smiled. "That look is why we're doing this. If I can save one person from realizing that he has to eat a cheese-free lasagna, then I will call this mission a success." He pointed at Oliver's screen. "Now, get to work!"<br />
"Yes sir!" Oliver said loudly, emboldened. Bradley clapped a hand over his mouth, and they both looked fearfully at the door. Nothing happened.<br />
"We're still on an undercover mission, Oliver," Bradley whispered, keeping his hand over Oliver's mouth. "I like that gung-ho spirit, but don't be too keen. Do you know how Pangkians execute people?" Oliver shook his head. "It isn't pretty. It involves a lot of ropes. Get me?" Oliver nodded. Bradley removed his hand and wiped it on his shirt.<br />
<br />
A few hours passed. Bradley was forced to convince the guards that nothing was the matter, it always took this long, why don't you boys get a bite to eat? We have things handled here for a moment.<br />
Oliver had copied dozens of important-looking files into the thumb drive Bradley had given him. They looked important, but due to his inability to speak Pangkian, they could have been dress code guidelines or information about the upcoming karaoke night. He couldn't tell. He figured some of them at least would be helpful, so he erred on the side of caution and copied almost everything that obviously wasn't something worthless.<br />
But, eventually, he was done. He'd combed through hundreds of files, gazing dully at the Pangkian script. Finally, he ejected the thumb drive and handed it back to Bradley, who then handed him the floppy disk he'd been carrying.<br />
"Right, the virus. I hope that they have a floppy drive, otherwise there's no way for use to upload it," Oliver said.<br />
"I have no idea what you just said," Bradley responded, "so I'll assume you're right. What are we looking for?"<br />
"A hole that is the same size as a floppy disk," Oliver said, holding it up to Bradley's eyes so it looked like a thin piece of paper. "It should have a square button next to it, and a few lights that will be off until I insert the disk."<br />
"Right," Bradley said. "What about this doohickey?" He asked, pointing at a server rack.<br />
"No, I don't see one there. It isn't going to be very big."<br />
"What about that thing over there?" Bradley asked, pointing at the far wall. "That doesn't look very big."<br />
Oliver looked. "That's a microwave."<br />
"So it is."<br />
They searched for ten minutes, finding nothing. Bradley pointed out to Oliver a mouse pad, an air conditioner control, the microwave again, and a laser-disk player.<br />
"They have a laser-disk player but not a floppy drive," Oliver said with his arms crossed. "I know they aren't in heavy use any more, but a lot of places still have them."<br />
"Is there any other way to get the virus to the computer?" Bradley asked. "Can't you just open the disk and type the virus into a document on the computer?"<br />
"Well . . . no. There are a lot of reasons that wouldn't work," Oliver said. "Many, many reasons."<br />
"All right," Bradley said. "What if we rounded the edges of the floppy disk like a CD, and put it in there?"<br />
"Let's just keep looking," Oliver suggested. Bradley nodded, and went back to inspecting a server rack he stood next to. He looked down at the table next to that, and found the box he had been looking at earlier.<br />
"Say Oliver," He said. "This looks sort of like the thing you were talking about. Is this it?"<br />
Oliver came over and took the box from him. "Yes, I think it is!" It didn't seem to have any cords attached. "We need to find a cord. After that we're done, right?"<br />
"Right. We take this information back to base, and we enjoy a nice commendation."<br />
"<i>You</i> do. I don't. I'm just a sys admin," Oliver said. He looked downcast. "I go back to making sure the system works and hiding in my office."<br />
Bradley sighed. "Is that what you want?"<br />
Oliver looked up at him. Bradley was tall, and strong, and handsome, and, in his own peculiar way, smart. Right now he looked down at Oliver with empathy. "I don't know. This has been . . . fun, I suppose. But it's not exactly something I want to do all the time. I guess I'd rather just have a quiet life and a quiet job." He looked around quickly. "I mean, there are people out there who would <i>shoot us</i> if they knew what we were doing!"<br />
"You're right. It's dangerous," Bradley said. "But it's important. Besides, you're <i>certainly</i> going to get a bonus, and your yearly review will certainly reflect your commitment to going above and beyond your job description!"<br />
"I suppose that's true," Oliver said. "That'll be nice."<br />
"Good. Why don't we find a cord for this kachigger so we can get this over with and go home."<br />
It was a long search which resulted in disappointment. There were a staggering number of cords present in the room, but most of them were attached to boxes that were on, and would probably object to being unplugged in some way. The few that weren't attached to anything were the wrong size, or shape. They found one that looked like it might have worked, but Bradley announced it was the wrong color. Oliver suggested they try it anyway, but it didn't work.<br />
"I wonder if those guards are back," Bradley said. "I'll go see if they can scrounge up the right cord for this thing."<br />
"I don't think-" Oliver started, but Bradley already had his hand on the door handle. He swung it open, and started talking to the guards outside, while Oliver tried to keep all of the exasperated noises from getting out. After a few minutes of conversation, Bradley closed the door and went back to Oliver.<br />
"They're going to check around." He looked at Oliver, who was griping handfuls of hair. "You seem upset."<br />
"Don't we want as few people as possible to know that we're here?" Oliver asked, slowly letting his hands relax.<br />
"Oh, don't worry about that. Nobody will worry about somebody going around and asking about a cord for two ITs!" He paused. "What is a group of IT people called?"<br />
"A crowd."<br />
"Right. Should we keep looking?"<br />
"I suppose we can. I don't think we'll find much, though. This room is a look into chaos theory. The mess looks structured. I doubt we'll find much of anything useful."<br />
"Well. Do you want to talk about anything?"<br />
There was a slight pause. "Like what?" Oliver asked.<br />
Bradley shrugged. "Anything. Movies, music. Do you paint?"<br />
"What?"<br />
"I dabble in a bit of painting myself. I study some of the masters to get inspirations. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello. The greats. I like landscapes. Big <i>wide</i> places with ups and downs. Mountains, caverns, great big skies."<br />
"Sounds interesting."<br />
"It is. I don't get to do it very much, of course. Very busy with work you understand, but it's very relaxing. Sometimes I hang over the painting and go top-down!"<br />
"Oh, like Jackson Pollock?"<br />
"What?" Bradley said. "Who's that?"<br />
Before Oliver could answer, they heard a knock at the door. Bradley held a finger to his lips, and went to answer it. Oliver heard snatches of some conversation. Soon Bradley walked toward him with a few cords.<br />
"Here we are. He got us a bunch to test. Let's try this one!" He held up a long black cord, and tried to jam it into the back of the machine they'd found. It didn't fit, no matter what angle he tried it from. Oliver very gently took it from him, and replaced it with a different cord.<br />
The fifth cord they tried seemed to fit, and they were able to connect the floppy drive to the computer Oliver had been working at. After checking to make sure it would work, Oliver instructed Bradley to put the disk inside. A bit of guiding later the disk was in, and information was being transferred to the server.<br />
"It looks like it'll take a few minutes," Oliver said. "Is there anything else we need to do?"<br />
Bradley shook his head. His blond hair flapped from side to side. "It's just that simple. The only thing now is to get back to the extraction point. That's where the helicopter will pick us up."<br />
"I know that. Will we be able to get out the same way we got in?"<br />
"I think we should. I mean, I don't see why not." Soon the computer bliped, and Oliver ejected the floppy disk and handed it back to Bradley. He unplugged the floppy drive as Bradley stashed the disk. "Now, if I remember correctly, we should have about fifteen minutes before all of this-" Bradley motion to the room at large "-starts to be affected. We'll want to be out of there before then. I suspect they'll be able to make the connection between IT guys they've never seen, and a crippling virus. Shall we?"<br />
Oliver was already at the door. "<i>Come on!</i>" He said. He opened the door, expecting to find two guards, and instead found the guards and two extra people, the superior from before and another man. Oliver stared, stricken nearly dumb. Bradley appeared behind him and started talking.<br />
They talked for some time. Oliver's internal timer, set to fifteen minutes, was ticking down slowly but surely. Finally, the two extra men turned around to leave the building. Bradley indicated that they should follow. They exited into the humid, hectic outdoors.<br />
The air was still full of shouting, shooting, and running, though it didn't look like there was any reason for it, it was just what would happen on any normal day.<br />
"What's happening?" Oliver whispered to Bradley, aware that he was supposed to be mute. "Where are we going?"<br />
"Don't worry, everything's under control," Bradley whispered back. "This fine fellow is just going to take us out for a ride."<br />
"That does <i>not</i> sound like 'under control' to me!" Oliver whispered back. One of the men glanced back at him, and he had to pretend he hadn't been talking. He almost started to whistle. The man looked away. "They're going to take us out into the woods and shoot us!"<br />
"Don't be silly, Oliver. As far as they know, we're a couple of helpful technicians doing a bit of maintenance. Ah."<br />
Oliver saw that the two men were getting into a gray jeep. The superior of the two pointed at the seats behind them, and Bradley go into one. Oliver gulped, wiped sweat from his face, and sat next to him. The jeep took off out of the base. Bradley amicably waved at the gate guard, who waved back.<br />
"Why would they take us out on a ride unless they're going to dispose of us?" Oliver said just under the rattle of the jeep. Bradley could barely hear him. "What possible reason?"<br />
Bradley patted him on the shoulder, and then leaned forward.<br />
"Say, what are we going out to do, here?" He asked the man in the passenger seat, the supposed superior of the two, in Pangkian. "We're quite busy, you know. Have a few more places to hit before we finish for the day."<br />
"The Captain has expressed an interest in getting to know some of the people that work with him," the man driving the jeep responded. "He knows you've been very busy, but he wants to let you see the sights for a bit before you get back to work."<br />
"Well, that's quite kind of him -- a paragon of managerial style -- but we have quite a lot to do, you know. He should just let us get off here, and we can get a ride out to the next site. How's that?"<br />
"The Captain is very adamant," the driver explained.<br />
Bradley leaned back. "Apparently, he's just giving us a tour of the countryside. Out of the goodness of his heart, the driver says."<br />
Oliver didn't respond, but the way his expression melted to rest at the bottom of his face told Bradley how he'd handled the news. "We'll be fine, trust me. Nothing bad will happen." He looked around. "In fact, we're quite close to the . . ." He lowered his voice even more. "Extraction point. We'll just slip away and get picked up. Easy as Grandma Alstadt's thyme cakes."<br />
Oliver recoiled at the thought of thyme cakes.<br />
The jeep slowed, and stopped. The Captain and the driver got out, and Bradley and Oliver followed them. They were on a ridge looking over a big, green forest. The Captain said something in Pangkian, spreading his arms wide, as if to point them toward a grandeur that was hidden from them. Oliver and Bradley both looked out, nodded appreciatively, and turned to go back to the jeep.<br />
"Wait!" The driver said, clutching Oliver's arm -- he'd heard the word "Prig!"<br />
"You haven't seen the best part yet!" The driver said to Bradley. He took a pistol out of a side pocket.<br />
Oliver panicked, and tumbled to the ground with his hands over his head, quivering. The driver looked at Bradley with a confused expression. "What's wrong with him?" He asked.<br />
"My friend is no big fan of guns," Bradley said. "Er . . . what exactly do you plan on doing with your piece, if you don't mind telling me?"<br />
"It's just to scare the birds," the driver said. Bradley nodded, as if this was normal, and to be expected.<br />
Bradley made Oliver look up as the driver pointed his pistol out over the forest, into the air. He fired a single, cracking shot -- Oliver shuddered and latched onto Bradley -- and waited.<br />
An instant later, a wave of dark birds erupted from the trees below them, turning into a curtain of black against the sky. The four of them watched in wonder as the cloud turned into shifting shapes, a liquid form of squawking atoms.<br />
Eventually the birds drifted back down to their trees, and the sky was clear again.<br />
"That certainly was something," Bradley said to the Captain. "Thank you for bringing us out here, but we really should be going now."<br />
The Captain opened his mouth to say something, but before he did a jeep roared up next to theirs. Four soldiers jumped out, and ran up to the Captain. They began to shout and exclaim in Pangkian, gesturing wildly around them.<br />
"Uh oh," Bradley said.<br />
"What is it?"<br />
"It's been fifteen minutes."<br />
At first, Oliver didn't fully grasp what he meant. Then, belatedly, the internal alarm clock started clanging and banging, telling Oliver that the virus they'd uploaded had started taking effect. He went pale, his heart started to thunder, and his palms started to drip sweat.<br />
"Okay, be quiet now," Bradley told him, under the shouting. "We take their jeep and make for the extraction point."<br />
The Captain turned and looked at them. "You two! You were working on the computers! did you notice anything strange?"<br />
"No sir, not us!" Bradley said. "Everything looked in tip-top shape when we were checking things, sir! These things happen sometimes, some websites can spread viruses if the protection isn't right-"<br />
"No one ever said viruses," one of the soldiers said.<br />
Nobody moved. Slowly, like a cloud over the sun, the Captain's face turned hideous. "What did you two say your names were?"<br />
"Run!" Bradley shouted, and Oliver didn't need telling twice.<br />
Bradley jumped into the driver seat of the jeep, which luckily still had keys in the ignition. Oliver dove into the back seat, bashing his shins horribly on the side of the vehicle. Bradley turned the ignition and gunned the engine, throwing it into reverse.<br />
The Pangkians shouted vile curses at them, and Oliver was glad he didn't understand them. Bullets whizzed over his head, and he shrieked. He looked out the windshield, and saw all six of the Pangkians aiming various weapons at the retreating jeep.<br />
"Keep your head down!" Bradley shouted. Oliver eagerly obeyed. Bradley risked a glance out the front of the jeep, and saw the soldiers getting into the remaining vehicle, shaking their weapons and shouting at him. "Hold on to your hat, Oliver, it's going to be a rough ride!"<br />
Oliver squeaked.<br />
Bradley swung the steering wheel in a tight circle, twisting the jeep around so that it pointed away from the other vehicle. He shifted to drive and punched forward. Dirt and rocks spun under the tires, and they lurched ahead.<br />
"Do you remember where the extraction point is?" He asked Oliver, who was huddled in a ball at the bottom of the back seat. "Can you guide me there?"<br />
Peeking his head over the edge of the jeep, Oliver took a quick look around. He tried to remember which direction they'd come from, and which direction they'd gone. "Turn to the left!"<br />
Bradley wrenched the jeep again, and Oliver tumbled to the right side of the back seat. They headed through a wooded area, crashing over bumps in the ground. The Pangkian's jeep followed them, filled with all six cursing soldiers. The Captain drove, eyes narrowed ominously and hands wrapped around his jeep's steering wheel.<br />
"You might want to speed up a bit!" Oliver said. Bradley looked behind him, spotted the soldiers, and pushed the jeep faster.<br />
Bullets began to fly by, some of them penetrating the back of the jeep and making small holes. Oliver stretched away from them as best he could. While he did, he noticed something under the seat.<br />
"There's a gun here!" He shouted. "There's a gun in the jeep!"<br />
"Shoot at them, then!" Bradley shouted back.<br />
"I don't know how to fire a gun! I don't even know how to play paintball!"<br />
"It's easy! It's just like riding a bike! But it shoots bullets and has no pedals!"<br />
The jeep slalomed around a few trees, skidding in the dirt. Bradley got them pointed the right way again and sped them forward, but the gap had closed.<br />
"Can't you do it?" Oliver asked. He pulled the gun out from under the seat. It was a rifle. He didn't understand how it had fit.<br />
"I'm driving!" Bradley said.<br />
"How about switching?"<br />
"There's no time! Just do your best!" A bullet took off his driver's side mirror. "Hey!"<br />
"We're going to die!" Oliver wailed!<br />
"No! None of that! We aren't going to die! We aren't going to get captured, which will surely lead to horrible torture <i>and then</i> death!" Bradley said. Oliver gulped. "We're going to escape, get back to base, and we're going to celebrate! You hear me? But we can only do that if you help us get away!" He guided the jeep past a big tree. "Oliver!"<br />
"Yes! Fine!" Oliver looked down at the rifle as the jeep bounced. It was big, and black, and had more buttons than Oliver thought there should be. He pointed the barrel at the other jeep and squeezed the trigger.<br />
Nothing happened. "It's broken!" He yelled over the bullets.<br />
"The safety's probably on!" Bradley shouted back. "Look for a switch near the trigger!"<br />
Oliver found such a switch, and flicked it. It revealed a red area, and Oliver took that to mean it was now unsafe. He aimed again, and fired.<br />
Roaring bullets shot out of the gun, hitting nothing in particular. However, all six of the soldiers ducked their heads, including the Captain. While he wasn't looking, the jeep hit an angled root and tipped over, spilling khaki-clad soldiers all over the floor of the forest. Bradley turned a corner and they were gone.<br />
<br />
The jeep drove toward the waiting helicopter. Oliver was sitting, drained, in the backseat. The pilot waved them aboard as soon as he saw them. They got on the helicopter, and it took off toward the CIA base.<br />
"Well done, Oliver. You'll be a field agent yet."<br />
"I don't think I want to be. In fact, I'm certain I don't want to be. If that's all right."<br />
"You did fine."<br />
"I almost got us killed."<br />
"Nonsense," Bradley said. "You did what any average man would do, and missed. You saved our lives. We have all the information right here-" He patted his pocket "-and the terrorists have a nice new virus. You did fine."<br />
"They now we were there, though," Oliver said.<br />
"It'll be all right. They don't know what kind of information we have, and the virus will keep them from finding out." Bradley reclined in the hard, upright chair. "Now, I believe you said you would buy me a beer if we got out safely. I'm holding you to that."<br />
"What? When did I say that?"<br />
"Earlier, when we were working with the computers."<br />
Oliver was going to protest, but he thought for a second. "I also said I'd only buy you one if you bought me one," he said.<br />
The helicopter rotors chopped for a moment. "That's fair," Bradley replied.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-83312280819445445652014-01-29T20:34:00.000-06:002014-01-29T20:34:01.711-06:00Break time!With the Day-lighter's <a href="http://saturdaystory-time.blogspot.com/2013/12/star-light.html">three</a>-<a href="http://saturdaystory-time.blogspot.com/2014/01/star-bright.html">part</a> <a href="http://saturdaystory-time.blogspot.com/2014/01/first-star-i-see-tonight.html">story</a> wrapped up, it's time for me to take a breather from the blog. I'm going to continue writing during the break, but these are stories that I will try to sell to magazines. Like last time, the break will go for a month, which means that stories should restart on March eighth.<br />
<br />
The first story I'm going to try to write involves a character that has existed for some time. This might explain it:<br />
<br />
He was the Flame of the South, a man that had won women from one end of Andalusia to the other before his eighteenth birthday. Greater Spain welcomed him with open arms -- as did the fine women in every province. He took his special skill abroad, conquering, in no certain order, France, Germany, England, Italy -- ah, Italy -- and beyond. In every country the woman found him; he didn't need to look. His charm, his stature, his voice, all were pieces of the formula that equaled Don Fuego. He visited Asia, Africa, Australia, the Middle East, and the Americas. Everywhere he went, he found he was the bane of men, and the sweet poison of women. <br />
So he told the men of his power, and offered them a deal. <i>The woman you want is another's, you say? Si, Senor, I understand. I will help. They will not be together for long. I will make her love me -- but no, I could never stay with her. She will be sad, weeping . . . and then you will be there to comfort her, with a flower of her favorite color. What's that? You don't know her favorite color?</i><br /> <i>Don Fuego knows.</i><br />
<br />
There are some other ideas, but this one is the one I've been working on for a few days. I really like the character and the idea of a "Lover for Hire." The story seems somewhat loose right now, but it's shaping up.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-10402774180027521052014-01-25T12:00:00.000-06:002014-02-07T21:19:20.735-06:00First Star I See TonightThis concludes the story begun in "<a href="http://saturdaystory-time.blogspot.com/2013/12/star-light.html">Star Light</a>," and continued in "<a href="http://saturdaystory-time.blogspot.com/2014/01/star-bright.html">Star Bright</a>."<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><i>Wonderful rain,</i> Teegan thought as she, Ren, and Onli walked. <i>Make me cooler</i>. She looked up, feeling the drops on her young face. All her life she'd hated the rain, now she needed it, or she felt she would fry.<br />
They'd been waiting for Momono and Tien to get back from the city. Teegan had just woken up that day, and felt tired and sore. The next few events were nothing but jumbled feelings, and then she was being carried by Ren, as he and Onli ran through the forest away from the city. Teegan could hear raindrops boiling on her skin. Onli and Ren were hurrying, their breathing ragged. Onli limped.<br />
She slept.<br />
<br />
The old woman, bundled warmly in her wheelchair near the fire, inspected the man across the table from her as well as she could. She was Councilwoman Gwynda, the woman Momono once called mother. She has, she hoped, safe in her house, deep in the city of Breston. The man across from her was named Roland. It had just been a day since Momono had so brutally taken her from her home and spit the most awful words at her.<br />
"You understand what I say?" She asked. Roland looked like a stupid one.<br />
"Yes, Madam Councilwoman. Kill the other Day-lighters, but bring your son back to you." Roland smiled, his pudgy face splitting in an ugly grin. "Your son decided to hit me over the head with his guitar a few weeks back. I'll enjoy seeing him squirm in irons."<br />
"Don't hurt him," Gwynda said softly. "I want him unharmed when he gets back to me."<br />
"Such grace and forgiveness. Just what I'd expect from a Councilwoman," Roland said.<br />
"Forgiveness?" Gwynda laughed. "No! He will rot for what he said to me! I just want to be the one to hurt him! He should have known better than to go against his dear mother's wishes!" She laughed again, and rubbed her bony fingers over each other.<br />
Roland swallowed. "Yes ma'am, of course."<br />
"Good boy," Councilwoman Gwynda said, sitting back in her chair. She motioned to the man standing behind her. Her old helper, Lecks, had been cruelly injured by her son. "See the good man out. Give him coin for an inn tonight." She looked back to Roland, holding out a rolled scrap of paper. "Bring this to the guardhouse tomorrow morning. Take a half dozen of the best men." Roland took the piece of paper, and Gwynda leaned forward. Her small body trembled. "<i>Find that boy</i>." She sat back. "He'll pay for the things he said to me," she said quietly. "He'll pay."<br />
<br />
Three days had passed since Momono and Tien's escape from the city where Momono's mother held power as a Councilwoman. They had been trying to follow the path that Onli, Ren, and Teegan had taken, but the only things they had to go on were Tien's strong eyesight, finding places that looked traveled. They had some money, but there was no one to buy from and they had no food of their own. They were forced to scavenge from berry bushes, and the odd rabbit that had been forced out of its home by rain.<br />
Their relationship, previously strained, had gotten better after the event in the city. Tien had witnessed the real reason Momono wanted to travel with them -- an escape from his mother -- and Momono could trust Tien not to stab him in the back because of it.<br />
So they forged through the wet woods after -- they hoped -- Ren, Onli, and the young girl that could create heat.<br />
The third night they sat across a small fire from each other. The rain wasn't bad, but would soon get worse. They hadn't talked much, preferring to save their breath for walking or running. They both suspected soldiers, from the Council of One Hundred, were after them, and they didn't want to know what would happen if they were caught. Momono had gagged and kidnapped his mother, a Councilwoman, and dumped her in a puddle.<br />
"What do you think happened to them?" Momono asked.<br />
"Who knows?" Tien responded. "Most likely they were spotted by some guards from the city and had to escape."<br />
"But the ground-"<br />
"I know. The ground," Tien said. At the spot they were supposed to meet the other three they found only a scorched circle. Rain had already started mixing with hot ash, creating black streaks as it ran down the hill. The trees around them were snapped and broken, burnt on the sides that faced the spot. "I don't know. I couldn't see anything. We didn't really have a lot of time to look, either."<br />
Momono nodded. Guards from the city were hot on their heels after they'd left. Momono wasn't sure why they weren't caught; they surely could have been.<br />
The rain worsened and the small fire went out. Momono frowned down at it. "Good a time as any to get to sleep," Tien said. "I'll take the first watch."<br />
<br />
Momono watched the second part of the night. Even wrapped in his cloak he was freezing. It was no surprise; the rain pounded down on him. It had long quenched the warm coals. It was still dark when he heard voices in the forest. At first he thought, and hoped, that it was Teegan and the others, but another moment and he knew they weren't friends. Keeping low, he went to Tien's sleeping form, and shook his shoulder.<br />
Tien didn't wake until Momono pinched his cheek and shook his face. Only then did the man open his eyes, and he was still mostly asleep.<br />
"Voices!" Momono whispered. It took a moment for Tien to realize what he meant, and then he got up and looked around. He pointed in one direction, the direction they'd come from. "Friends?"<br />
Tien shook his head, and put his pack on his shoulders. He jerked his head and moved into the forest as quietly as he could. Momono followed, keeping low. The driving rain hid the noises they made.<br />
They got a few dozen feet away, and Tien stopped. He looked back and frowned. "One of them looks familiar, but I can't place him." He stared. "I feel like I should. They're at our spot right now. I can't hear what they're saying, though." He watched through the dark rain. "They're moving again. Let's go."<br />
They went through the cold rain and dark forest, keeping low to the ground. They could just barely hear the people behind them. They kept coming after them, but they didn't seem to be following, just moving in the same direction. They found a little hollow in the ground and hunkered down in it. Tien squinted through the rain, watching them.<br />
He focused on the one he recognized. He wasn't sure, but he thought he'd seen him before. "They're looking for us,"<br />
"Couldn't agree more," Momono said, and they snuck away.<br />
<br />
A few hours later it was lighter, and the rain was less. The heavier rain had passed south, and they were out of the forest. They walked together on a muddy road, heading towards a small village. Both men dreamed of warm rooms and hot food. Tien had kept a sharp lookout, but had not seen Roland or the guards from Breston again.<br />
"Here's what we do in the village," Tien was explaining, keeping his eyes on the horizon. "Ren is my brother, Teegan is his daughter, and my niece. Onli is your wife. We were traveling, and got separated in heavy rain. We ask around if anybody has seen them. Don't mention the Day-lighters, don't tell them your name. Don't say or do anything memorable."<br />
"Got it," Momono said. "I wish I'd known that before I played in Breston. All of this could have been avoided."<br />
"You didn't want to tell us you were a Councilwoman's son, for good reason. I doubt even Onli would have trusted you if she'd known." Tien hesitated. "I think I demonstrated how I would have acted, at least." Momono nodded. "Will anybody recognize you in this village?"<br />
Momono shook his head. "I don't think I've ever been here. It used to be unconnected to Breston, but things might have changed. Bigger cities sometimes let small nearby villages use their guards and other things, and subject them to taxes. If that's true with this village, they might have my picture. Maybe even yours."<br />
"Is it worth it?" Tien asked nobody in particular.<br />
"Onli and the others wouldn't have known all of that, and they should all be safe. Nobody saw them. If they knew about this village, they'd go to it."<br />
Tien recognized the logic. They kept quiet, walking by the side of the road. It was an old road, and after heavy rains couldn't be used unless you wanted to pull your feet out of your boots with each step. They walked on the shoulder, on drowning grass. The rain went from a heavy mist to a light rain and back again. They reached the village and headed for a bar to warm up and eat.<br />
It was a small and dingy place, words that described the village as a whole rather well. After eating plates of wet fish, they asked around about Teegan, Ren, and Onli. Nobody had seen them. They left the bar.<br />
"Where would they have stopped?" Tien asked. "An inn?"<br />
"The meeting spot had burn marks on it," Momono said. "Teegan might have fallen ill again. They had plenty of money to pay for a doctor, after everything I earned playing and singing."<br />
"Okay. Let's check around. Stick to the story and <i>try</i> not to let anyone recognize you, please?" Tien said. Momono sighed and nodded. They headed in separate directions.<br />
Tien went to an inn, but found no luck. He talked to a council doctor, not believing that Onli would risk it with all the money she had, and was proved correct. He found a non-council doctor and went in. He was struck by a strange sensation, even before Dr. Amesis came around the corner.<br />
The two looked at each other for a moment.<br />
"Well well," Amesis said, removing his paper mask. "You, again. Your daughter, is she still sick?"<br />
Tien smiled. His heart pounded. He had to be careful. "Wouldn't you know it, she got better the same day I came to see you?"<br />
"How lucky," Amesis said. "And here you are, in a different village, again in a non-CD. Who's sick this time?"<br />
"Actually, after we left Breston, our group got separated. My brother, my wife, and our daughter got lost. We thought they might have gone through here."<br />
"And you check in a non-CD? Was somebody else sick?"<br />
Tien quickly licked his lips. "We want to cover all our bases. Our daughter woke up, but she wasn't fully better yet."<br />
Amesis tilted his head back and regarded him.<br />
"Why are you here?" Tien asked, trying to change the subject. "Why did you leave Breston?"<br />
"Maybe you weren't there when it happened, but apparently some Day-lighters broke in Councilwoman Gwynda's house and kidnapped her, threatened her, and left her for dead out in the rain a few nights ago." The doctor sighed and leaned against a table. Tien kept his face as neutral as possible, and simply nodded. "The next day the Councilwoman staged some kind of hunt for people who weren't working under the Council. I usually go around to some of the other villages a few times a year and work, but I decided to make a longer stay this time." Amesis walked behind Tien to a shelf near the door and checked a few vials. He looked at the list next to it and tsked.<br />
"Interesting," was all Tien said.<br />
"Yeah. Sorta sad. I heard one of the Day-lighters was the Councilwoman's son. I heard the other one was you."<br />
The doctor leaned against the door, and his smile lifted up a corner of his lips. Tien stared with his mouth open.<br />
<br />
Soft, warm sensations caressed her. The air was empty, and clear. There was no rain. Above, the clouds shifted and motioned, swaying one way and then the other.<br />
With a soundless crack, they parted, and crushing openness descended on her, bearing down on her with too much freedom for a small mind.<br />
It stopped, and she spied the great fire in the sky. She looked long, drawing in its every feature. The white, stinging light, the corona her eyes made in the blue sky, the pumping heat on her body.<br />
There was a sudden singing sound, and the ground was gone from under her feet. She went past the drawing clouds as the land under her lit up like a room that had suddenly been flooded with firelight. The orb of the planet fell away. She entered the sun, and was warmer than ever before.<br />
Then she was awake.<br />
"Good, you're up," Ren said without turning. He was bent over Onli. "We have to get going again. There's a little bit of breakfast left for you."<br />
Teegan rubbed her eyes as the last pieces of the dream became nothing more than unreal memories. She pulled the blanket off of her and got to her feet unsteadily. A few sausages sizzled over a shielded fire. They might have been hot, once, but they were warm at best when she gobbled them down.<br />
"How do you feel?" Ren asked her.<br />
"Okay," Teegan said. She walked beside him. "How is she?"<br />
Lying on the ground, Onli breathed uneasily, yet smiled at the girl. "I'll be fine. Don't worry about me," the woman said.<br />
"It's too much damage for us to care for here," Ren said. They'd turned Teegan's cloak into long strips to cover the burns, but with no medicine they were bleeding and festering. "We'll need to find someone who can help her."<br />
"Only if it's safe," Onli said through gritted teeth as Ren replaced a bandage. "I won't let you risk Teegan for my skin's benefit."<br />
"Your skin," Ren said. "Your life is in danger. The burns are deep. They'll get infected soon. Either you get help or we lose you. I'm not going to let that happen."<br />
"Me neither!" Teegan said. <i>After all, it's my fault</i>.<br />
The memories came back to her as they went, heading for a safe Day-lighter base. They'd waited for Momono and Tien to come back from the Councilwoman; Teegan knew that one or both of them might not come back, and was trying to avoid thinking about it. But she thought about Momono, and how much he seemed to care for her, and how silly he was even when he didn't mean to be, and she thought about Tien, and how he protected her, and how he freed her from the terrible place the Council had her at, and she started to get upset. She fought to keep the tears back, but they came anyway.<br />
There was a rush of powerful heat, and for a moment Teegan couldn't feel any rain. There was a ringing in her ears. She looked up. It wasn't her dream -- the clouds were still there -- but the rain had stopped.<br />
She looked over at Onli and Ren, smiling. She'd never been out and not been wet, none of them had. Instead of finding the other two gazing in wonder, however, she found Onli on the ground and Ren running to her.<br />
Onli's left leg and arm were baked, covered in burns. Some of her torso was also burned, but her clothes kept the heat off her there. Ren told her later that a bubble of heat and air had come out of her, blasting the rain away and scorching the ground near her. Onli had been close, but Ren had only been saved by walking away a bit and trying to listen to something. Soon guards started pouring out of the city, no doubt heading for them, and they had to run.<br />
Teegan watched Onli sit up and smile at her. <i>They're afraid of me now</i>, Teegan thought. <i>They know if I get upset I'll do something terrible again. They're trying to keep me happy.</i><br />
Onli stood, wincing. She took a few steps and leaned against a tree. The destroyed skin on her left hand made Teegan's stomach turn, and she went to Onli. "Do you need help?"<br />
Onli looked down at her and smiled, shaking her head. "No dear, I'll be fine. I'm just dizzy from lying down too long."<br />
"I can help you," Teegan said, almost touching her hand. She stopped herself at the last moment; it surely would have hurt Onli. "You can lean against me."<br />
"I'm too heavy for you!" Onli said.<br />
"Nuh uh!"<br />
"Okay you two," Ren said. He handed Teegan her pack. "I'll help Onli for now until she can get her legs under her. Don't go too far, Teegan."<br />
Teegan nodded. The standard warning. <i>Don't go too far. Something could leap out of a shadow and grab you, or you could fall in a hole and die with a leg twisted under you, never to be found.</i><br />
They set off from the hilly area they were in, going east, toward other Day-lighters.<br />
<br />
Tien reached for his sword.<br />
"Wait!" Amesis said, putting his hands out. "I don't mean to hurt you, or turn you in. Why do you think I moved out here? I'm no friend to the Council."<br />
Tien clicked the sword back home, slowly. Quickly, he looked around him. He couldn't see evidence of any other people in the building. "You work by yourself?"<br />
"I have a nurse, but she isn't in yet. It is only about seven in the morning."<br />
"I guess it is," Tien said. "So I'm a Day-lighter."<br />
"It wasn't hard to figure out. You had to see a non-CD, didn't have a lot to pay with, and couldn't talk about why. After the events a few days ago in the city, it didn't take any kind of genius."<br />
"Why say this?" Tien asked. He almost wished Momono was around, just to have someone else on his side. "The people I'm looking for aren't here. Why not just let me on my way and forget about it?"<br />
"I know who you're looking for," Amesis said. "A man, a woman, and a child with light hair. She had her hood off, and somehow seemed to be enjoying the rain, even as heavy as it was. The woman had big scars, or burns, on the left side of her body. Her clothing had been destroyed."<br />
Tien reeled back. "That <i>is</i> them! How did you know? What happened to the woman?"<br />
Amesis shrugged. "Don't know. Didn't stop to ask. I was in a carriage heading to this village, and they were walking by the side of the road, looking over their shoulders and appearing generally mistrusting."<br />
"Do you know if they were coming to the village?" Tien asked frantically. <i>What on Earth happened?</i><br />
The doctor shrugged again. "Don't know. I've been here pretty much ever since I got to the village, and they never stopped by."<br />
Head spinning, Tien found a chair and sat. "Are you all right?" Amesis asked. Tien nodded, rubbing his face.<br />
"I need to go," he said, standing. "I need to find them."<br />
"Go, then. If you ever find yourself in the area, come and see me. I'd like to get another look at the girl with the light hair. You don't see that anymore." He laid a hand on Tien's shoulder. "You've got one friend in this town, at least."<br />
"Thank you," Tien said. He reached for the door, then stopped. "Why don't you like the Council?" He asked.<br />
"My reasons are my own, just like yours were," Amesis answered. Tien smirked and nodded. He walked out of the hot building into the rain. For a single moment he stood, letting it wash over him.<br />
He went down the street, searching for Momono. It didn't take him long; he quickly spotted Momono on the main street, talking with a large woman. The woman walked away before Tien got close.<br />
"No luck," Momono said. "How about you?"<br />
Momono's face turned concerned as Tien told him what had happened. "So they didn't come into the city. Why not?"<br />
"I can only guess," Tien said. They stood under a hanging porch and watched the rain sheet off the roof. The village would be fully awake soon. "Maybe they thought it would be too risky. Teegan with light hair, Onli injured . . . maybe Ren thought they'd be too easily remembered. Then <i>why</i>," Tien suddenly shouted, "did they walk <i>right next to the road</i>?"<br />
He put his head against the porch's post, sighing. Momono patted his back.<br />
"What's our next step?" The singer asked.<br />
Tien stood with his head against the post for a few seconds. "We need to figure out which direction they went. There's a lot of other things to figure out, but that's the important one. I think-"<br />
His head snapped up, looking toward the edge of town. "No."<br />
"What?"<br />
"I think they followed us into town."<br />
"Teegan and the others?" Momono said, hopeful.<br />
"No! The people that were looking for us in the forest!" Tien said. "I recognize that person now . . . he's leading them!"<br />
"Who is it?"<br />
"It's Roland!" He turned and looked at Momono, expecting a reaction. Instead, Momono just looked at him quizzically. "You know, from the inn?"<br />
Momono shook his head.<br />
"He's the one you hit with your guitar," Tien said. Momono's face slouched down into a grimace.<br />
"He isn't going to be happy to see me," he said.<br />
"I have a feeling that might be why he's following us. No thanks, probably, to your actions with your mother." A thought occurred to Tien. "Oh no."<br />
"What now?"<br />
"We just went around for the last hour asking everyone we could find about a bunch of people. Now these people are about to go around and ask everyone about <i>us</i>!"<br />
"This is just getting better and better!" Momono said. "What do we do!?"<br />
"We have to get out of here!" Tien said. Even as he said it, Roland and the soldiers -- seven in all -- split up and started banging on doors. "They'll see us for sure if we make a break for it. We need to hide. Come on, I know where." He sank low, and waited until most of the soldiers were looking the other way. He crept around the corner into an alley, and Momono followed him. Tien led them to Amesis' clinic, and pushed the door open.<br />
Again, doctor Amesis came around the corner, again finding Tien. "I assume this is the Councilwoman's son?" He said, pointing at Momono.<br />
"Yes, and it's come back to haunt us. Soldiers are combing the village, looking for us. We just need to hide a little bit, until we get a chance to escape."<br />
"Doctor?" A woman called from around the corner. "Who's there?"<br />
"Just a few old friends," Amesis called back. "My nurse. Am I going to get in trouble with the Council for harboring known fugitives?"<br />
"Momono kidnapped a Councilwoman," Tien said. "Yes."<br />
"Good." Amesis led them into a small, warm wooden room. "This is my waiting room. How long do you think you need to wait."<br />
"I don't know," Tien said.<br />
"Then let's make it a little easier on you."<br />
<br />
"Ren! Stop!" Teegan shouted. "Onli's hurt too bad!"<br />
"No," Onli said, limping horribly. "I can still walk. Don't worry if I fall behind."<br />
"No, you can't walk," Ren said. "Your bandages are caked with filth. I need to change them. You're going to get infected if you keep this up. I told you we should have stopped at that village."<br />
"It was too risky," Onli said, panting. She sat as Ren unwrapped the bandage on her hand. Rain and sweat mixed on her forehead. "We would have been picked out in a moment."<br />
"Onli, that's the whole reason we were on the road! To help Tien and Momono find us if they could! We should have gone straight to a non-council doctor and had him help you! We have the money!" He looked up from his work. "Onli? Onli, wake up!"<br />
"Awake, I'm awake," Onli mumbled.<br />
"Don't fall asleep Onli," Ren said. "I will press down on this burn to keep you awake."<br />
"You wouldn't," Onli said.<br />
"Try me." Ren raised an eyebrow. Onli breathed out a laugh and shook her head.<br />
"Okay, I'll stay awake. I promise." She took in a long breath, and grabbed her left side. "It hurts."<br />
A sudden wind across the plain they were on blew the rain over them. Ren shielded Onli from it and brushed her soaking hair out of her face. "We're going back to the village we passed last night. I don't care what you say," he told Onli. "I've made a decision. You can barely stand, and I won't be enough to protect both of you." He looked at Teegan. "Get her pack. I'll need to carry her." Teegan nodded and slipped Onli's pack next to hers. The coins inside jingled and the straps dug into her shoulders.<br />
Soon Onli was latched onto Ren's back, and he pointed the way they'd come. "We should be able to get back in a few hours." He started forward, clutching Onli's legs. Teegan went after him, trying not to look at the line of bandages that started at Onli's ankle and went up past the knee.<br />
<br />
Momono and Tien were also thinking of bandages, but for a different reason.<br />
Doctor Amesis stood back, surveying his work. His nurse, a woman named Liliana, took the remaining bandages from him and bustled away.<br />
Both Tien's and Momono's face were wrapped in bandages that left only slits for their eyes and mouth. Momono's legs were similarly wrapped under his pants, and both of Tien's arms were covered. Each finger was wrapped individually.<br />
"This should help you get out of the city without attracting too much attention. At least it will keep people from noticing you right away. If you're lucky, people will think you're lepers, and won't come near you."<br />
"Thank you, doctor," Tien said, slightly muffled. He stood, stiffly moving his arms to test the give of the bandages.<br />
"I don't think I've ever heard somebody use the word lucky and leper in the same sentence," Momono said, also muffled. Amesis chuckled.<br />
"Now, which way do we go?" Tien said. "I have a few ideas. They could have gone north toward the mountains, to get away from whatever was chasing them. They also could have gone east, heading towards . . . " Tien found Liliana replacing the bandages in a far cabinet. "a Day-lighter enclave," he finished quietly. He pulled at one of the bandages around his eyes.<br />
"I hope they didn't go north," Amesis said. "If they did, you might as well just go east. You'll never find them, even if they are still alive." Tien looked at him. "I'm sorry to put it that way, but it's true. The mountains are treacherous and deadly. If those three went in there, either they know something I don't, or they're in for a nasty surprise."<br />
The small office was quiet. Momono heard the rain through a window. The candlelight shifted. Tien sighed, and flexed his fingers in their bandages. "We'll go east, then, and pray they did too."<br />
Amesis nodded. "I don't have anything else to give you." He looked at the door. "I expect the soldiers you mentioned will be along soon to ask if I've seen you. It will easier to say no if you aren't here."<br />
Momono and Tien thanked him, and left. Amesis stood in the dark, empty clinic. Liliana came up behind him and coughed delicately. Amesis looked at her over his shoulder.<br />
"Those were Day-lighters, weren't they? Why did you help them, doctor?" She asked, with her hands linked in front of her.<br />
Amesis sighed. "I have my reasons for working against the Council, just as I'm sure you do," he said. "And, just like you, I wish to keep mine a secret."<br />
"You could get us in trouble," the nurse said.<br />
"You're free to get the soldiers and tell them I've been harboring criminals," he said. "It will undoubtedly leave you without a job. Not many non-CDs left around here, and Council Doctors don't count non-CD work as experience, or so I've heard." Amesis walked past her. "You might have a bit of difficulty staying on your feet." He lit a cigarette. "A young woman like you. It's a shame."<br />
The nurse's face stayed neutral, but she quickly walked past him into the operating room.<br />
Doctor Amesis, traitor to the Council and in hot water with his nurse, blew out a funnel of smoke. He knew he shouldn't smoke, of course, but it helped him calm down.<br />
There was a knock at the door. Amesis rubbed the cigarette out and strode to the door, heart pounding. He opened it and found two armor-wrapped soldiers.<br />
"Gentlemen," Amesis said. "Can I help you?"<br />
"You're Doctor Amesis?" One of them asked. Rain spanged off their helmets, splashing Amesis.<br />
"That's right."<br />
"Have you seen either of these men?" The soldier unwrapped a cloth drawing of Tien and Momono. "They're traitors to the Council. Anyone harboring them will also be considered traitors." Amesis pretended to inspect the drawings.<br />
"I don't see your identification. Council rules say you have to have your permit next to the door," the soldier said.<br />
"I'm a non-CD," Amesis said. He was slightly pleased to see the soldier's looks darken.<br />
"May we come inside?" The soldier asked, before pushing past him. The other soldier followed, glaring down at Amesis. The men, big in their armor, filled up the entryway. "Do you have any patients right now?"<br />
"None, in fact," Amesis said. "You boys are the first ones to step foot in here all day, thank goodness."<br />
"You're aware of what happened in Breston four nights ago?" One soldier asked.<br />
"I heard something about the Councilwoman. I was working on a patient at the time and had to concentrate on my work."<br />
"She was kidnapped and abused by Day-lighters." The soldier gestured with the drawing. "These men."<br />
They heard footsteps behind them and turned, putting their hands on their swords. They found a startled Liliana.<br />
One of the soldiers grew a leering smile. "Hello there miss," he said. "How do you do?"<br />
"Fine, sir," Liliana said. Amesis' heart jumped when she spoke. "Are you injured?"<br />
"Yes ma'am. I have a broken heart. Maybe you could help me?" The soldier said. He took off his helmet and put it over his chest.<br />
"I'm afraid I don't know how to fix that," Liliana said.<br />
"Oh, I think you might be able to do something," the soldier said. He took a step closer.<br />
"Excuse me," Amesis said. "May I see the drawing again?"<br />
The lecherous soldier nodded to the other one, and Amesis was handed the drawing. "I don't know about this one," Amesis said, pointing at Tien, "but this one here is kind of familiar. One my way here this morning, as I came in to work. He looked like he was heading north." He handed the drawing back. "Toward the mountains."<br />
"The mountains, are you sure?"<br />
"He looked like he was sizing them up," Amesis said. "To see if he could take them on."<br />
The soldiers smiled at each other. "Thank you, doctor. We'll be out of your way now." The soldier threw one last wink at Liliana, and soon the clinic was empty except for Amesis and his nurse.<br />
"Thank you, doctor," Liliana said after a minute. "I don't know if I would have been able to stop them if they had . . . but why did you tell them the Day-lighters went north?"<br />
"We won't be seeing those soldiers again," Amesis said. Anger surged through his veins. He thought about the step the soldier took toward Liliana and he felt his fist curl.<br />
<br />
"All the rain is making it hard to hear anything," Ren said. He looked down at Teegan. "Let me know if you see anything. I think we're getting close to the village now. It's a bit hard for me to see through the rain."<br />
"Okay," Teegan said over the rain. It was getting much stronger, and stinging drops burned into her skin. Onli tried to hide the damaged areas of her flesh. They'd been walking back toward the village for a few hours, searching for it in the rain. They were on a big empty plain, which Ren seemed to remember was outside of the village.<br />
Teegan was tired, and she felt a strange mixture of heat from her skin and the cold rain. The two packs she carried stung her arms, but had gotten easier as they walked. She even felt a little dizzy, like the air was being sucked out of mouth before she could breath it. "Hey!" She said. "Hold on, I need to rest."<br />
She slipped the packs off her shoulders, and they landed on the ground in heaps. She took in a few deep breaths and rotated her shoulders. "We can't take too long," Ren said. "Onli- What's that?"<br />
Teegan looked behind her. She expected to see soldiers, hoped to see Momono or Tien, but saw neither. She didn't see anything. "There, on the ground," Ren said. Teegan looked.<br />
There was a coin. "Ooh," Teegan said. She picked it up and put it in her pocket. "That's cool." She spotted another on the ground. "Oh, another one." Past it, the way they'd come, was yet another coin. "Uh."<br />
"How much money is left in Onli's pack?" Ren asked. Teegan picked up the pack she'd been carrying at an angle for several hours. It was too light. There was a coin-sized hole in one corner, and nearly all of the money was missing. She looked up at Ren, scared.<br />
"I'm sorry. I didn't know it was happening," she said. She felt small and useless. She'd been given a simple job and failed.<br />
"It's all right. We have more, and we don't have enough time to go back." They turned toward the village again.<br />
<br />
"What is it?" Momono asked.<br />
Tien shifted and looked up at him. He was crouched in the rain and holding a coin. "It's money. I know you've seen it before."<br />
"Well, yeah, but why are you inspecting it?"<br />
"Because we've been following a trail of it for an hour."<br />
"What?" Momono looked. There were coins leading in both directions. "Why is it here?"<br />
"The coins were minted in Breston. These must have come from Ren or Onli."<br />
"So if we follow the coins, we'll find them?"<br />
"We'll find something," Tien said, pocketing the coin and standing. "Let's go."<br />
They headed east.<br />
<br />
"There it is," Teegan said. "I see it!"<br />
The rain had gotten worse, a true storm that threatened to blow them down. The rain soaked them, sticking their clothes to their skin and getting in their eyes, and fierce winds blew at them, tugging them in one direction and then the next. Ren and Teegan had pushed on, hoping that they still pointed the right way.<br />
They reached the first level of buildings and leaned against the walls, resting. The storm dropped a flood around them, turning the dirt under their feet to mud and bending the stilted houses. They went farther in.<br />
Ren headed for the first door he saw, and banged on it.<br />
"What <i>now</i>?" The man yelled when he opened the door. "All day, people coming to my door and bothering my business!" He saw who it was, and who he carried. "What's happened to her?"<br />
"She's badly burned. We need a doctor. Can you tell us where the closest one is?"<br />
The man looked at Ren closely. Finally, he said: "Yes. Doctor Amesis; just a few rows over. He's got the little place with the heavy wooden door."<br />
"Thank you," Ren said. He and Teegan searched for Amesis' place, until they found a door that matched the description. Ren went in.<br />
There was a young woman inside, and she gasped when she saw Onli. She helped her to a raised bed and looked at the burns. "This is too extensive for just me. I'll need to get the doctor. Stay here, please."<br />
Ren watched her go through a doorway and up a set of stairs. She disappeared from view. Soon enough two sets of steps came back down.<br />
Doctor Amesis looked them over when he stood at the bottom of the steps. His eyes were drawn to Teegan's light hair.<br />
"Doctor, thank you for coming," Ren said. "Onli is badly hurt. I'm afraid the burns are infected."<br />
Amesis walked next to Onli and carefully unwound the bandages. The burns dribbled liquid. Cracked, scabby skin molted as the bandages came away. "Yes, they're infected. It's a good thing you came here. Liliana, bring the antibiotics, clean bandages and knives, thread . . ." The doctor continued to list items. The nurse bustled away, grabbing things from shelves and cabinets. "How do you feel?" Amesis asked Onli.<br />
"It doesn't hurt much," Onli said. "I swear."<br />
"Are you sure? You're telling me the truth?" Amesis asked, looking down at her unblinkingly.<br />
"Really," Onli said. She tried to smile.<br />
"Third degree burns," Amesis said. "You should have sought help as soon as possible." The nurse appeared and held out a bottle of liquid. Amesis took it and mixed a portion in a glass of water. "Take this, it's to keep from getting infected." He tipped the liquid into Onli's mouth. Her face crinkled, but she swallowed it. "How did she get these injuries?"<br />
Onli, Ren, and Teegan all froze. Amesis spotted it. "You can't tell? Figures. A lot of that going around." Amesis took a number of damp towels and placed them over burned areas as Liliana cut away Onli's clothing. He gave Onli another liquid. "This will taste foul, but it will dull the pain."<br />
Onli swallowed the liquid and almost gagged. She set her head back down. "I told you I don't feel pain, doctor."<br />
Amesis took a small, sharp knife from Liliana. "You would have. I need to trim off infected tissue. I'll give it a moment to take effect. You'll be pretty hazy until it wears off."<br />
He looked at Ren. "I met Tien and Momono."<br />
"What?" Ren said, eyes going wide. "You know who we are?"<br />
"Yes. Don't worry, I won't turn you in. There were soldiers in the village earlier looking for them. I covered them in bandages and sent them east. They were looking for you."<br />
"Bandages? Were they hurt?"<br />
"No, it was just a disguise. You didn't see them?"<br />
"No," Onli said. It was a single, long breath. Amesis touched her clean skin with the edge of the knife and saw no reaction. <br />
"Soldiers were here? Are they still?"<br />
"No. They're heading north towards the mountains. With the storm outside, they're treacherous until the water drains away." He began to slice away blasted skin with the edge of the small knife. Teegan watched Onli's face and saw no reaction. Onli stared at the ceiling, oblivious.<br />
"Do you need anything, dear?" The nurse asked Teegan. Teegan looked at her, confused.<br />
"What?"<br />
"You have injuries on your face," the nurse said, "and on your hands."<br />
"Oh. They're old," Teegan said. "They don't hurt." The nurse nodded and went back to Amesis' side. Teegan ran a few fingers over the back of her hand. There was a scar that stood raised and red there.<br />
"She'll be all right, won't she?" Ren asked the doctor. The doctor patiently finished with a cut before answering.<br />
"I don't think it's life threatening," he said. "But she'll need treatment. I'd say she shouldn't be allowed to travel-" he looked at Ren "-but I know that you'd rather keep moving."<br />
Ren watched Onli's motionless face.<br />
"The damage will be too extensive for the body to heal itself," Amesis continued. "Frankly I'm amazed she could walk at all."<br />
"She's strong," Ren said.<br />
"I suppose," Amesis said. He dropped a piece of cut skin into a pan. "Even trimming the tissue will take a few hours. You two might as well find a place to rest. I'll keep working."<br />
Ren fell asleep quickly in the small, warm waiting room. Teegan, sitting in a chair, looked at the scar on her hand.<br />
She rolled up her right sleeve. There was a long scar from her wrist to the elbow. This one was a little newer. She could still feel something when she touched it.<br />
<i>"Stop struggling, girl. It will only hurt more."</i><br />
She took off her boot. Each toe had a scar that blended into one long scar that went from the top of her foot to above her ankle.<br />
<i>I will never walk again, she thought, staring down at the mutilated mess that used to be a foot. She did.</i><br />
She rolled up her pant leg. Her knee was a mess of scars.<br />
<i>"The joints regularly produce incredible force. Perhaps there we will find your mysteries, girl. Ouch, you're getting hot again! Quick, fetch doctor Morlin!"</i><br />
She replaced her pants and boot. He hand went under her shirt to feel at the huge, round scar on her stomach.<br />
<i>"Where else but the torso could the heat come from?"<br /> "I agree. We must be careful not to kill the girl."<br /> They did not kill her, but the scooped hole that had been a part of her made her sick and hot. One of the doctors burned his fingers -- they were in her at the time. The metal shackles that held her down burned her as she heated them. She smelled smoke.<br /> "How is she doing it?"<br /> "I don't know!"<br /> "Sedate her, quickly! She's going to melt through the iron!"<br /> The next thing she knew, Tien entered her cold cell . . .</i><br />
"Young miss."<br />
Teegan looked up. Doctor Amesis stood in front of her. "You were asleep. You looked like you were having a nightmare."<br />
Teegan pulled her hand out from under her shirt. Her skin was hot. "I don't remember what I was dreaming about."<br />
Amesis sighed and sat in the chair next to her. Ren snorted in his sleep. "I've been around people a long time, miss. I know when they are lying. You don't want me to know your dreams, that's all right." Amesis looked at her bright hair. "There's strangeness around you. Liliana told me about your scars."<br />
Teegan said nothing.<br />
"Lots of people have scars, of course," Amesis said, leaning back in the chair. "I have a few. Scalpel accidents." He showed her a finger. There was a small dimpled arc at the end of it. "But not as many as you."<br />
Teegan was still silent.<br />
"And I know you won't tell me." Gently, he touched the tip of her hair. "Scars all over, bright hair. You're a strange one, miss. Tell me, what's your name?"<br />
She kept her eyes on the floor. "Teegan."<br />
"Teegan?" Amesis seemed surprised. "That sounds like a name from before the rain."<br />
"What do you mean?" Teegan asked. Nobody had ever commented on her name before. They usually kept their words focused on her hair.<br />
"I'm a bit of a historian in my free time," Amesis said. "I enjoyed learning about what the world was like before the rain came. Back when the sun shined."<br />
"That's why you helped us when you knew we were Day-lighters," Teegan said. "You know what is was like."<br />
Amesis nodded. "I suppose that's true enough. I read about famous people and events. Names like ours -- Onli, Ren, Amesis, Momono -- they weren't heard before the rains came." He regarded her. "But I remember hearing yours."<br />
"Why?"<br />
"There was a Teegan a long time ago. She was a singer."<br />
"Like Momono? Could she play the guitar, too?"<br />
"She could. She was very famous. People from all over the world loved to watch her and her sister perform," Amesis said. Teegan gasped. "You know what else I discovered? I discovered what the name means."<br />
"Teegan? What does it mean?"<br />
"It means 'special thing,'" Amesis said, pointing at Teegan. Teegan imagined hurting Onli so badly that she could hardly walk, and her head sank down.<br />
"I'm not special."<br />
"No?"<br />
Teegan shook her head. Her hair flared in the candlelight as the storm pulsed in the window outside. "I hurt Onli. Everybody's been risking their lives for me."<br />
"You're the one that burned Onli?" Amesis asked, surprised. "How could you have done that?" When Teegan didn't answer, he sighed. "More mysteries. Did you mean to hurt her?" Teegan shook her head. "She can't possibly blame you. I know why they run; they run for <i>you</i>."<br />
Teegan looked up, surprised. This doctor could see much more than she thought. He stood. "I'd better go check on Onli. Why don't you get some rest, Teegan."<br />
Teegan nodded and put her head down when he left.<br />
<br />
"I couldn't find anything," Momono said.<br />
"Neither could I." Tien looked around again. They'd both spent the last hour looking all over the area the trail of coins had stopped. They'd walked for two hours until they found a small pile of iron close to some trees.<br />
The storm had gotten worse as they walked. It was only Tien's strong eyesight that helped them find the next coin. Now the sky had cleared a small amount and the rain had lessened, but it was still a chore walking. They found the pile of coins, and started searching the area, but could find nothing else.<br />
"Maybe they got attacked," Momono said. He watched Tien play with the coins on the ground. "And couldn't drop any more."<br />
"Maybe they didn't realize they were dropping coins, and patched the hole when they got to this point." He thought. "No, they would have picked up the coins that were right here."<br />
Momono, exhausted, sat. "Now what?"<br />
"You ask that question too much," Tien said.<br />
"It's because I don’t-" Momono stopped talking, and reached under him. He pulled up a torn strip of cloth, wet and stained with something. "What's this?"<br />
"It looks like a bandage," Tien said. He took it from Momono. "Ren made this bandage!"<br />
"What? How do you know?"<br />
"He's my brother, I can tell. Are there any more?"<br />
Momono stood up. "A lot more! There's practically enough to mummify a person here!"<br />
"What's that on them?" Tien wondered. "It doesn't look like blood."<br />
"I can't tell, but there's a lot of it," Momono said. "It's on every bandage, and some of them are covered in it." He brought a strip close to his nose and sniffed. "I don't really smell anything. Can you see any difference?" He looked up and found Tien bent close to the ground, staring at something. "Did you find something?"<br />
"A footprint." He traced it with his finger. It was sunk in the mud. "It looks like Ren's . . . but it's too heavy." He moved his head, eyes wide in the rain. "There's another one." He pointed. "It's going back towards the beginning of the coin trail."<br />
"Doctor Amesis said that Onli was hurt. She was covered injuries." Momono held up the bandage. "Ren would have helped her."<br />
"The bandages are soaked in something, but it isn't blood. The meeting spot outside of Breston was burnt."<br />
"She must have had burns!" Momono said. "Bad ones that didn't heal! That's why the bandages have something on them -- pus from the burns!"<br />
"Amesis said she had burns everywhere!" Tien said. His eyes blazed with excitement. "She might have fallen here and Ren had to carry her! Amesis said they didn't stop at the village, so she couldn't have gotten help!"<br />
"That's why the footprint is so deep," Momono said. He was grinning. "But Ren couldn't carry everything, so he gave his pack or Onli's pack to Teegan to carry!"<br />
"She didn't realize coins were dropping out," Tien said. "We aren't at the end of the coins, we're at the beginning!"<br />
<br />
"Is she all right, doctor?" Ren asked, coming into the room. He rubbed sleep from his eyes and looked at Onli. <br />
"As I said, she'll survive. I've had to trim of a lot of tissue, and there's still a lot of damage. She'll be in quite a lot of pain when she wakes up." Amesis inspected a bandage. Liliana stood by her side. "I spent a bit of time talking to Teegan. She's quite the interesting girl."<br />
"We think so."<br />
"I understand that you Day-lighters have your own agenda -- one that, on the surface at least, I support -- but I have to wonder what her place in it is. Something I could hardly guess, I bet. I ended up telling her more about herself than she told me."<br />
"She's like that," Ren said.<br />
"Beware the quiet ones," Amesis said. "That's something my mother told me. They don't talk because they're thinking of ways to destroy you." There was a knock at the door. "Liliana, would you get that please?"<br />
"Teegan wouldn't hurt a fly."<br />
"She hurt Onli," Amesis said, looking up at Ren as Liliana left the room. "I don't believe she meant to, but she did. Am I right?" Ren said nothing. "I take your silence to mean I'm correct. She has a power. You and many others have your ears -- no, don't deny it -- Tien has his eyes, others have speech, or touch. Some have supernatural empathy, some can smell like bloodhounds . . . and then there is Teegan."<br />
They heard a scream, and the collapse of a body. Shouts came from the front of the clinic. Ren looked at Onli, and then darted for the entrance.<br />
He found two drenched and angry soldiers, and another man that Ren placed as someone from an inn some time ago. Then, from a distant memory, Ren heard the sound <i>brrang</i>. <br />
"You?!" The man said, and he pushed to the front, stepping over a cowering Liliana. "You're one of the Day-lighters from the inn!" He turned to the soldiers. "Spread out! Momono is here, I know it!" The two soldiers, both wearing dented and ruined armor, moved into the clinic with swords drawn. Ren's hand reached for his sword hilt, but it wasn't there. He remembered taking it off before resting in the waiting room -- the waiting room that Teegan currently slept in.<br />
<i>He didn't see her at the inn. He doesn't know about her. He's just looking for us and Momono, because of whatever Momono did to get out of Breston.</i><br />
"Don't make any moves!" One of the soldiers shouted in Ren's face. Ren closed his eyes and didn't move. He didn't look toward the waiting room. He hoped Teegan had woken up already. A gust blew across him from the open door, and his skin prickled with the chill of the storm.<br />
"Find the doctor!" Roland, the fat man from the inn, yelled. "If he gets away I'll cut your throats!" He looked at Ren. "I have a lot of questions for you," he said. "You're going to tell me where your friend the Councilwoman's son is."<br />
"I don't know where he is," Ren said. "He separated from us after we left the inn you were in."<br />
"Liar," Roland said, smiling. "Witnesses at the Titan's Mug say you were there with him when he sang. You and the other one that I fought. You're going to tell me where they are, or-"<br />
"Sir!" One of the soldiers appeared. "We have the doctor and the nurse! There's also a woman here, badly burned! She's unconscious!"<br />
Roland's fat face shifted into an ugly leer. "I remember her, too," he said. "Bring her out here!"<br />
"No!" Ren shouted.<br />
"Do it!" Roland said.<br />
"No! I swear, we don't know where the other two are!" Ren said. "We were going to meet up with them after they escaped Breston, but . . . they took too long! Please, don't touch her, she's very hurt!"<br />
"Bring her out here," Roland said again. "And wake her up. Bring the doctor and the nurse, too." He drew his sword and pointed it at Ren. "Go, I'll make sure this one doesn't move."<br />
Ren and Roland stood very still, hearing the movement from the next room. Amesis protested moving Onli until a sudden stop. He appeared rubbing his jaw, prodded forward by one of the soldiers. The nurse and the other soldier supported a groggy Onli. Ren went to help Onli, and the soldier drew his sword.<br />
"Everybody all right out here?" Amesis said to Ren. Ren took a moment and then nodded.<br />
"I'm fine."<br />
"All of you, outside," Roland said. "You, doctor, have some things to answer for." He looked at Ren and Onli. "And you two are going to tell me everything you know. Outside, now."<br />
He and the soldiers marched them past the waiting room and out the door. Wet wind gusted in the empty waiting room's open window.<br />
<br />
The doctor said he sent Tien and Momono east, so she ran that way. She'd just had time to grab her cloak after slipping through the window, but she didn't have her pack. She didn't know what she would do if she couldn't find Tien or Momono. She knew there were Day-lighters east -- she'd have to find them herself. She wondered if she could find her own red ball.<br />
The storm yanked her in every direction with powerful winds and strong rain. Even with her cloak she was soaked almost before getting to the edge of the village. Her hood was down and her hair flapped behind her like a bright banner. She wondered if she should take the small knife Onli trusted her with and cut it to attract less attention.<br />
She ran until the rain forced her to stop. She fell to her knees and braced herself with her hands, panting.<br />
She didn't want to cry; she wanted to keep going. She placed her head against the ground as the wind and rain attacked. She was their enemy, and they fought her.<br />
<i>Onli's thrown body tumbled in the soaked grass, flesh burning.</i><br />
She felt tears drop from her eyes, disappearing in the running water.<br />
<i>For a brief, silent second, no rain fell. The air was dry.</i><br />
She covered her mouth with her hand, trying not to sob too loudly. The storm crashed overhead, applauding her misery.<br />
<i>The sky opened up, and the sun burst through, showering the plain not with rain, but blessed, beautiful sun, bringing aching light instead of wretched darkness and heat instead of cold. She watched as the clouds went away, scattered by the sun's force. The entire world was open, and Teegan's hair sparkled.</i><br />
<br />
"I think I see something over there," Tien said, peering through the rain. "It's a little lump on the ground." Thunder cracked.<br />
They had been following the trail of coins back toward the village. Momono was having trouble figuring out what time it was. Some of the coins had been washed away by the rain, but Tien would usually be able to spot the next one. "I don't remember seeing anything like that the first time."<br />
"Can you tell what it is?" Momono asked.<br />
Tien shook his head. "It could be a lot of things. The rain is too heavy for me to see it." He stared for a little bit.<br />
Lightning pulsed down, and Tien jumped. He took off, running from the path of coins. Momono stood taken aback, and then ran after him, stumbling in the wet grass. Tien easily outstripped him, running with manic energy. Just as Momono saw a huddled mass on the ground, Tien slid to his knees and collided with it. It came alive, and latched on to him. Momono got closer and found Tien clutching a sodden, miserable, lonely Teegan. He felt a surge of energy and caught up, dropping to his knees like Tien had. Teegan disconnected from Tien and hugged him, pressing her wet face into his shoulder, shuddering and trembling.<br />
<br />
"Then I pushed open the window, grabbed my cloak, and got out the window," Teegan said. "I was so scared. I didn't know what I was going to do."<br />
They were walking back toward the village in the rain. Momono held Teegan's hand. They had pulled off their bandages after finding her, yet she knew it was them anyway. She said she could tell. She'd just finished telling them everything that had happened since leaving Breston. She could barely talk when she told them what had happened when Onli got burned, and they could hardly believe their ears. Teegan found it difficult to describe.<br />
"We'll figure out what to do," Tien said. "Don't worry. Everything will be fine. How do you feel? You aren't sick?"<br />
Teegan shook her head. "No, not sick."<br />
"We'll be at the village in a few minutes," Tien said. "Let's all try to be quiet. Hopefully they're still in Amesis' office, or at least in the village.<br />
Tien was correct, and in a few minutes Momono began to see the village's outer buildings through the rain. They crept up to one of the buildings and started winding their way through the narrow alleys as small streams of water flowed over their feet and under the stilted houses. Tien made Teegan put her hood up, even though she complained about it making her too hot.<br />
They reached Amesis' office, finding it empty and cold. There were no signs of a struggle.<br />
"Teegan, you stay here," Tien said, as he closed the window she'd used to escape. The building started to warm up again. "Momono and I will look around the village. I don't think they'll come back here, but if they do be prepared to hide or escape again."<br />
"I don't wanna hide," Teegan said. "I want to help look for them. Onli's really hurt!"<br />
"We know, but she wouldn't want us risking you. You're more important than any of us. Do you understand what I'm saying?" Teegan frowned and nodded her head sadly. Momono watched Tien walk to the front door. "Coming?" Tien said to Momono. After a pause, Momono followed him back into the rain.<br />
<br />
"I ought to gut you," Roland said to doctor Amesis, as he pulled his head up by the hair. Blood ran from bruises and cuts on the doctor's face. Roland dropped his head, and it landed in a puddle of mud on the outskirts of the village. "Tricking my men like that. And you thought you'd get away with it? You're lucky I'm a forgiving man. A stupid stunt like that would never work."<br />
Amesis coughed and used one arm to lift himself out of the mud. His other arm was attempting to hold together his ribs. "Well then . . . where are the rest of your soldiers?" He said. Ren stiffened as Roland turned back to him; he almost let Onli fall to the ground. "The mountains got them, didn't they?" He laughed, and groaned. "You're lucky to be alive. They could have taken all of you." He spat out blood. "The mountains don't usually let people go."<br />
Roland's boot caught his stomach, and he fell to the ground with a grimace on his face. "Shut up!" Roland shouted. "You'll never heal another person after I tell the Council what you tried to do!" Roland cocked his foot back for another swing, then halted. He put the foot down. "In fact, I'm going to make you wish you had never said a word against us. You," he pointed at the soldier that held Liliana. The nurse was soaked to the bone. "Take her behind a house and do whatever you want to her, but . . . make sure she screams."<br />
"No!" Amesis said. He tried to reach out a hand but brought it back quickly, cupping his stomach.<br />
"No, no," Onli whispered just above the rain. Her wet bandages stuck to her skin. "Stop him."<br />
"Wait!" Ren shouted. "Don't do it!"<br />
Roland made the soldier stop. The soldier looked visibly upset. "You have something to say?"<br />
"We'll tell you where Tien and Momono went, as long as you promise not to hurt her," Ren said. "As long as you leave us in peace."<br />
"Leave you in peace?" Roland laughed. "You lot are traitors! Day-lighters and sympathizers, and you're destined for a cold cell at best!" He stopped laughing. "But I'll promise not to hurt you if you tell me where the Councilwoman's son and the other one went."<br />
Ren looked at Onli. She stared back with glazed-over eyes. "They have us," she said. The pounding rain nearly drowned it out. "We'll figure out a way to get away. We just need to survive until then."<br />
"All right," Ren said. "They went east, in search of us. The only reason we came back to the village was because Onli was too hurt."<br />
"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Roland asked. He nodded to the second soldier, who had a sword trained on Ren. The soldier lifted it and poked Ren in the back. "What if you're just sending us on another wild goose chase?"<br />
Ren failed to find his voice. "I'm waiting, traitor," Roland said. "You'd better come up with something quickly."<br />
<br />
Teegan wandered through the dark, deserted streets of the village, staying in the shadows or under buildings. She couldn't stay inside, even after what Tien had said. Onli was hurt, Ren was in danger, and even nice doctor Amesis was in trouble.<br />
She was looking in an alley at the edge of the village when she saw someone standing looking away from her. It looked like a soldier. She crept closer, staying hidden under a house, and saw that it <i>was</i> a soldier, and he was holding the nurse from doctor Amesis' clinic. She looked wet and scared -- Teegan knew how she felt. She moved a little closer.<br />
She saw a fat man standing over doctor Amesis. He didn't look like a soldier, but he was the one in charge. He was shouting and pointing his sword at something she couldn't see. She got a little closer, and looked around the corner of a building.<br />
She saw the other soldier with his sword pointed at Ren and Onli, and she gasped. For most people, the gasp was too quiet to be heard in the rain, but Ren's head shifted in her direction for just a moment, and the fat man wheeled around, finding her.<br />
Teegan tried to back out from under the house but didn't have enough space. The fat man reached her quicker than she expected and grabbed her hood, dragging her forward on her face. Roland grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. Mud covered her face and shirt. Roland yanked her forward, toward the others.<br />
He felt a strange warm gust.<br />
"Spying, eh?" He shouted at Teegan over the storm. "Watching the fun?" He looked at Ren and Onli. "Tell me where they really went, traitor, or I'll cut this poor innocent girl's <i>throat</i>."<br />
Teegan's eyes went from the blade at her neck to the doctor. He very slowly lifted a finger in front of his lips.<br />
"I'm telling you, they went east!" Ren shouted. "I swear, I'm telling the truth! I have nothing else to tell you!"<br />
"Then I hope you're ready to have innocent blood on your hands," Roland said, and brought his sword around for a strike.<br />
"<i>Stop</i>."<br />
Roland's sword halted, and he glanced behind him. Tien and Momono stood in the rain, weapons drawn. Loose bandages gusted around their necks.<br />
"Uh!" Ren said, surprised. <i>They're back!</i><br />
"There you are, you bastard," Roland said, shoving Teegan forward. He motioned at the two soldiers. They collected Amesis, his nurse, Teegan, Ren and Onli together, immobilized by their swords. "I was hoping I'd get the chance to see you again," Roland said. "I owe you a crack on the head for what you did back to me at that inn." Roland frowned. "But I promised your mother I'd deliver you unharmed."<br />
Momono scowled.<br />
"You though," Roland said, pointing his sword at Tien. "I'm going to gut you right here! I believe I remember you saying that the people you were traveling with were 'no kind of troublemakers.' Just your brother, wife, and-" He stopped, and a wet, ugly grin grew on his face. He twisted his neck to look at Teegan. "Daughter. And here I just thought she was a street urchin. And you!" He gestured at Momono. "A Councilwoman’s son! She thought you knew better! But don't worry, I'll bring you back to her."<br />
"You should talk to the last person who tried to bring me back to her," Momono said, steel in his voice. "I'm afraid it's impossible; I crushed his throat."<br />
Roland sneered. "Childish anger doesn't scare me. I'm a man of actions. I advise you two to keep still, or my blade might just find its way somewhere unseemly."<br />
He looked at Ren. "You lied."<br />
Ren paled. "No. I swear. I thought they went east! Please!"<br />
"Quiet!" Roland snarled, brandishing his sword at the sodden group. "Now, because of you, I have to exact my revenge! I'm going to make you choose, traitor. In this warm rain, pick which one of you will die!"<br />
"Don't do it, Roland!" Tien shouted. "You'll have a fight on your hands against a couple of angry traitors!"<br />
"I said to keep still!" Roland yelled back. "I'm just going to kill one! If you two don't move, the others will go free."<br />
"Don't trust them, Tien!" Ren shouted. Roland moved and cracked him in the jaw with the pommel of his sword.<br />
"Shut up, you! Pick quickly; all this excitement is making me hot!" He pointed his sword at Liliana, the nurse. "This young thing?"<br />
Ren said nothing. Roland moved the sword to point at Amesis. "The good doctor?" He smiled, darting the point closer to Amesis, beaten body. "No, you barely know him." The sword moved to Teegan. "Her? Quite a future ahead of her. I'll cut it down."<br />
Tien's strong eyes saw Ren's clenched lips quiver. He shook his head slightly. Ren said nothing. <br />
"Not her. She's just a niece. Maybe your sister-in-law?" Roland asked. The sword came to rest on Onli's shoulder.<br />
"Me," Ren croaked. "I lied to you, kill me."<br />
"I knew you'd crack eventually," Roland said. He grabbed Onli's hair and pulled her away from Ren.<br />
"No! Kill me!" The soldiers moved in, keeping Ren from moving.<br />
"You're half dead anyway," Roland said to Onli, who had fallen to her knees. Roland shifted the metal grip of his sword around, as if it was too hot to hold. "I'm doing you a service." He lifted the sword.<br />
"Roland!" Momono shouted. "If you kill her, you'll have to kill me, too!"<br />
Roland hesitated for a moment, the sword, held high, gleaming in the low light. "More childish words," Roland said, and he swung down.<br />
Onli's face landed in a puddle. Her blank eyes gazed down at the ground.<br />
There was a sudden, eerie stillness. There was a quiet never experienced before. Roland and the soldiers looked around. Ren took the chance to jump away; he grabbed Liliana and they fell to the ground.<br />
"What's that?" Roland asked. He looked around -- the immediate area was clear. "I don't believe it, the rain's stopped."<br />
Tien and Momono looked at Teegan.<br />
Her mouth was curling into a vicious snarl. Little lifts of her lips made her appear unhinged. Her mud-covered brows bent. Her hands doubled into small, burning fists. The soldiers backed away, feeling prickly heat flow out of her.<br />
<i>It stopped, and she spied the great fire in the sky.</i> She looked at Onli's still body. <i>There was a ringing in her ears. She looked up.</i> Her eyes rose to the clouds. <i>Crushing openness descended on her.<br /> Onli is dead; it is your fault. Everything you did lead to this. You burned her. They didn't stop at the village to protect you. The fat man grabbed you and Onli is dead because of it.</i><br />
"Get down," Tien said to Momono.<br />
Swirling, blistering heat billowed out from her, the endless patter of rain ceased. The village heard blessed stillness.<br />
Teegan's feet lifted off the ground. Her small body was slouched and bent, her fists curled up to her chest.<br />
Her red, furious eyes focused on Roland. He still held the dripping sword.<br />
The world spasmed.<br />
<br />
Even as far as Breston the rain stopped. Guards and civilians alike looked up in awe. Soon the sky would reveal greater wonders.<br />
<br />
Translucent waves of energy poured out, spreading in a hot bubble. It surged away with all the power of an enraged child. Roland and the soldiers were torn away, driven across the ground like rags. Tien and Momono felt shocking power batter them. Teegan rose higher.<br />
<i>Onli is dead.</i><br />
Teegan screamed, and the power shot up. All the multitudes of fires inside her scorched the clouds in the dry quiet.<br />
Like a ravaging horde against a fortress, the clouds ripped. A hole grew.<br />
A small light sat in midnight darkness. It twinkled serenely, unaware of the power that had revealed it. All present looked up at it, struck by its cold beauty and the open space around it.<br />
More power blasted forth and tore the hole wider. A panoply of stars greeted them. Tien and Momono gazed up, silent and wondering. Neither could have guessed such splendor rested just over their heads. No man or woman in hundreds of years had seen them.<br />
And then Teegan released everything she had.<br />
The clouds were pulverized before their eyes, struck to bits in an instant, cleansing even the hard mountains to the north and exposing the whole world to the empty, frightening abyss that had laid hidden on the other side of humanity's gray prison. The world over panicked, and then looked up at what had once been Earth's constant companions. Mars winked down.<br />
Those who could see the sun fell to their knees and cried out in pain and wonder; the rain was gone from their lives for one bright and shining moment. The moon struck mad a multitude, enchanted by its silver gleam.<br />
Teegan hovered there, arms out and head back, roaring. It was the second greatest thing Momono would ever see.<br />
Slowly the near-bottomless chasm of energy was emptied. Teegan floated back down to the ground, pale. Roland was nowhere to be seen. The soldiers had fled, fearing for their lives. Onli's body was untouched.<br />
Teegan touched the ground and crumpled. Ren ran to her and hoisted her in his arms. Tien ran to Onli's body and touched her. She was cold, even after Teegan's heat. Momono helped Amesis to his feet with Liliana and gave him an arm to lean on. The five of them, plus the sleeping Teegan, ran back to Amesis' office and gathered their things. They went east even as the clouds started to return.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-74652031930994556412014-01-11T12:00:00.000-06:002014-02-07T21:19:43.768-06:00Star BrightThis continues the story begun in "<a href="http://saturdaystory-time.blogspot.com/2013/12/star-light.html">Star Light</a>."<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Hidden in the deep shadows cast by the sodden pine, Tien sat watching the road from halfway up. Soldiers from the Council of One Hundred thundered through deep puddles on hardy horses a hundred yards away.<br />
The rain attacked the ground, trying to dent it with constant vertical strikes. From somewhere to the east, lightning cracked. Tien huddled in his wet cloak, watching for any person, soldier or not, that might look in his direction.<br />
Deeper in the brace of trees, Ren sat with his back to the road, listening. Even with the rain dropping around him he could pick out individual horses and loud voices.<br />
Deeper still, Onli was waiting for anything to come charging through the trees and find her, Momono the singer, and Teegan. She had her story planned and rehearsed -- simple travelers, got lost in the woods, girl fell sick.<br />
It had been three days since the five of them had escaped from a village built into huge trees, and three nights since Teegan had fallen ill and set fire to the inn while she slept. She was still hot to the touch and would not wake.<br />
Momono, once a singer in the southern cities, watched the girl as her chest rose and fell. Each of the girl's shivers made him flush with heat; he felt her pain and torment. Drops of rain fell on her face and evaporated.<br />
The Council's soldiers hunted them, believing them to be dangerous criminals, who had brought down a tree and destroyed part of the village with supernatural fire. They were Day-lighters -- Momono more of a tag-along -- and the Council hunted them.<br />
While most of humanity accepted the rain, Day-lighters knew the sun waited behind it. The Council thought that they wanted to burn the land with the sun's power, but they only wanted to bring the light back.<br />
Tien appeared through the rain, dripping. He hunched under the sheet suspended between a few trees. "Nobody's so much as glanced in our direction for three hours," he breathed out, trying to warm himself up. "They all think we went to the town north of here."<br />
"I wouldn't mind if we did that," Momono said. The last three nights, hiding under trees or inside caves, had worn on him more than the others. He wasn't used to such living conditions. Tien looked up at him and sneered.<br />
"You know what will happen if we do that," Onli said. "We'll get captured or killed, and Teegan will get taken back to a Council building for more experiments."<br />
"I know," Momono said.<br />
"Then maybe you shouldn't mention it," Tien said, rubbing his arms. "Unless you have any better ideas than staying out in the cold for days on end, keep your mouth shut."<br />
Momono scowled. "I might have an idea. It's risky."<br />
Onli and Tien looked at him. Momono knew Tien was ready to reject it outright. "To the east of here, there's a bigger city. I've been there before. There will be more soldiers but there's a lot of space. It's ten times bigger than any village we've seen. We can get lost pretty easily there." He looked down at Teegan. "We could even find somebody to take care of her."<br />
"We don't have enough money for that," Tien said. "Cities are more expensive. We barely have enough to buy food."<br />
"I could find a cheap guitar," Momono said, "and raise money singing. I'm not too shabby. Cities are good for performers. More people, and people with more money, than any village." He looked at the two of them.<br />
Tien rose. "I'll ask Ren what he thinks," he said, before walking off into the rain.<br />
Onli watched Momono silently for a few moments, letting the rain fall around them. "You know he holds you responsible for Teegan."<br />
"I know," Momono said. "But I also know that I had nothing to do with it. I don't know how many times I'll have to tell him that."<br />
"He might never trust you. Tien is savagely suspicious."<br />
"I know."<br />
"I hope for your sake you aren't planning on betraying us," Onli said. Momono looked at her, shocked. "If you are, nothing will be able to save you from him. Not me, not Ren, and not Teegan." She locked Momono's eyes with her own, and her silk voice floated across the small clearing to him. "Then again, I don't think any of us will really try to stop him."<br />
"I don't plan on betraying anybody. I what will happen," Momono said. He looked away. "I think the city is a good idea. It has its risks . . . but every place does."<br />
Onli studied him for a bit. She gave a little smile. "It has its own risks for you, doesn't it?"<br />
Momono didn't answer.<br />
"There's something that you don't want us to know." Onli let the words hang. "Whether it's something that will make us lose our trust or not, you don't want us to know. I suspect that Tien has already picked up on this fact, which further explains why he doesn't trust you very much."<br />
"I have a lot of reasons," Momono said. "And I suppose you're right, Tien knows I'm hiding something." He paused. "But I'm not the only one, am I, Onli?"<br />
The tiny fire illuminated Onli's wide eyes. "I might not have the powerful eyesight of Tien, but I see things in a different manner. I've noticed a few things about you. You're the one that cares for Teegan the most. You look after her and fret over her. We're all worried about her right now, but you won't leave her side," Momono said. "At the inn that burned down, the waitress said that the innkeeper had a daughter that caught rain-sick and died. You didn't say a word until we went up to our room. I felt something from you then: a cracking sensation."<br />
The two of them sat quietly. Onli had her head bowed. Long, wet hair hid her face.<br />
Before she could say anything, Tien came back. "Ren thinks it's a good idea. He thinks he'll be able to help Momono out with some of his songs. His ears let him pick out notes or something like that." He knelt near Teegan and checked her. Onli watched him with a face that was covered in something that could have been rain.<br />
<br />
"The first thing we'll have to do is for me to get a guitar," Momono told them as they walked east toward the big city. They'd been traveling for two days. "We might have enough money for a cheap one, but it would drain us."<br />
"We can't spend everything we have on a guitar," Ren said. He carried Teegan on his back with a wet blanket between them, to keep her from burning him. The burns on his arms were just healing. "We'll have to find a different way to earn some money."<br />
Onli looked at Tien. "The ball?"<br />
Tien didn't answer. He was walking with his arms crossed.<br />
"What ball?" Momono asked.<br />
"The Day-lighters have a trick we can use," Onli said. "We each have a small red ball. We handle it or play with it, or talk about it if we think a person that will notice is a Day-lighter or one of our few allies. We don't use it very often, as it can be risky."<br />
"It's how Roland, at the inn where we picked up Momono, knew we were Day-lighters. He knew about the trick. I never got my ball back," Tien said. "We should consider it more risky than before. The Council's picked up on it, somehow."<br />
"I think we should do it," Ren said. "But we'll need to be careful. We're in no position to run right now. We're all tired. That said, Teegan needs help more than we need to stay safe. I say we do it."<br />
Tien sent an angry look at Ren.<br />
"Tien, please consider Teegan," Onli said. "She needs help. This could be a way for us to gain a lot of money, which can assure us safe travel, or security, or food. It's something we need, or we're going to find ourselves starving in the rain one of these days."<br />
"All right! All right!" Tien said, shaking his hands. "We can do it! But <i>I</i> say how! If we have to do this, we're going to do it <i>my</i> way!"<br />
"We'll do it your way," Onli said sweetly, smiling.<br />
A bit later, Momono began telling them about the city they headed to, Breston.<br />
"Before the rains came, it was supposed to be a huge metropolis. Towers so high you had to bend your neck to see their tops, wide parks, long streets. It's on a huge lake, and profits from the shipping. It used to be quite a bit bigger than it is now, but of course the rain." Onli and Ren nodded, Tien just kept walking. "It used to have great statues and sculptures to marvel at; ancient and beautiful architecture was on every road. Now there's only one piece of beauty that most people go to see: The Trapped Titan."<br />
"What's that?"<br />
"Some sculptor was paid by a wealthy sponsor," Momono told Ren, "and -- damn all the rain -- did his part to spread beauty in a dreary world. He took big slabs of rock, attached them together using screws, and chiseled them down to look like a giant human stuck in the ground up to his waist. His hands are missing too, his arms are sunk in up to the wrists. His face is turned up to the sky and rain, screaming a quiet scream. He's nearly faceless."<br />
"I'd like to see it," Onli said. "It sounds very interesting."<br />
Momono thought about the last time he'd seen the statue. Tien, walking behind him, noticed this sudden introspection but said nothing.<br />
"Not many artists working these days," Ren said. He shifted Teegan. "Usually it's just people like you, Momono. Singers and that sort of thing. Not much art for art's sake anymore." He sniffed. "Sort of a shame."<br />
"I suppose it is, but art is always behind it in the end. I sing and play to earn money, but I never would have started if I didn't love what I do," Momono said. "Unfortunately, it comes down to keeping yourself alive. You can't do that on dreams."<br />
"No, I guess you can't," Ren said.<br />
They all walked in silence for a little while. Momono said they would begin to see the city in an hour or so.<br />
"There's a lot of area around it that's clear from it was bigger," Momono said. "There are many areas covered in rubble and half-destroyed buildings. If we needed to, we could rest in one of them. Many are occupied, or were when I was last here, but usually nobody minds when people stop in. They don't really own the buildings, anyway."<br />
It quickly became apparent how big the city of Breston used to be. With the rain and a strong wind pushing them back, the four of them climbed a hill and laid their eyes on desolate areas that were hundreds of acres. Toppled buildings crossed each other on the ground, one fallen over the other. They walked through the sodden fields of weeds that had grown through the stone ground.<br />
It took them a few more hours to get to the city itself; the day's light had disappeared and been replaced with firelight's flickering reflections from the falling rain.<br />
They found an inn and, after Momono and Tien made sure it was safe and out-of-the-way, the five of them got a room. It took nearly the rest of their money; prices were more expensive in the cities, plus they had to tip the servant girl.<br />
They went down to eat in twos. Tien and Onli went first, while Ren and Momono stayed in the room with Teegan, who still had not woken up. The two of them briefly talked about trying to get her to sip water, just to keep her from drying out. Ren guessed that she was getting water just naturally while they were out in the rain. It also helped her to keep cool. They had to drench their cloaks and lay her on them to keep her from burning anything. When Tien and Onli came back, they sent Ren and Momono down.<br />
<br />
For the first time in a month, the Day-lighters experienced no ill effects when they stayed at the inn that night. Nobody came bursting into their room in the dark morning hours, and nothing burned down. For the first time since meeting them, Momono woke up well-rested, in a dry, warm room, with the smell of good food and distant conversation coming down the hallway.<br />
"It's too bad Teegan is out," Ren said. "It would be the perfect ploy to have her play with the ball while we stood nearby. To anybody but Day-lighters, it would look just like a child being watched by the adults." He took out his red ball. It was faded, and didn't have much bounce. "Now somebody will have to be handling this thing and try not to look like a strange man-child."<br />
Onli watched him as he passed the ball from hand to hand. "Maybe not."<br />
<br />
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Momono asked. He and Onli sat on a stone bench by one of the large roads in the city. Teegan was propped up between them. Her breathing was shallow, and the heat from her forehead kept them warm despite the rain.<br />
"No, but it's something we can try, anyway," Onli responded. Teegan had Ren's red ball in her limp hands. Anybody walking by them would see two poor beggars, soaked to the skin, and their sick child between them, clutching her last toy. Somebody who knew the trick would recognize a cry for help from Day-lighters.<br />
An hour passed. The rain wasn't terribly strong that morning, but they both quickly became soaked through. Momono looked at each person passing by warily. As a person would come close, Onli would plead them for a few coins. Most would ignore her, despite her sweet voice, but a few dropped the odd iron into Momono's upturned hat. After a while a city guard came by.<br />
"Here now, what's this?" He said. He scowled down at the three of them. He was a big, round man with a scraggly beard. "Go on out of here."<br />
"Sir," Onli said, big eyes wide with sorrow. "Our daughter. She's sick. We have no money. Please, we only need a little bit for food."<br />
"It's either you go on out of here, you I drag you out and throw you on your bum in a puddle."<br />
"Sir, please! Feel her forehead, you'll know she's sick!"<br />
"It don't matter if she's sick!" The guard said. "I want you to-"<br />
At that moment Ren ran and grabbed the guard's arm. "Guardsman! I saw a murder! Saw it with my own eyes! A woman was stabbed! I got a good look at who done it, too!"<br />
"What?" The guard said. He looked briefly at Momono and Onli, who reacted with the proper shock when hearing about a murder. Onli clutched Teegan close, protectively. "Show me where."<br />
"It was over here, I think," Momono heard Ren say as he took off with the guard it tow. "I got confused by all the alleys. It normally doesn't happen but . . . " They disappeared around a corner. Ren would soon lose the guard or knock him out in a shadow. It was just their luck to encounter a stern guard so quickly, before they even had a chance to see many people, Momono thought.<br />
<br />
"Here's him," the raggedy man said, pointing. He held out his hand. "I'll be takin' my pay now." He smiled at Tien with watery eyes. Tien dropped five iron into his palm. "You better hope to have more than that if you're getting looked at by him."<br />
"That's all I have right now," Tien said. "I'm sorry. My daughter's sick; I need to save money for her."<br />
The raggedy man nodded, pocketed the money, and limped away. Tien looked at the door the man had pointed him to. It looked like any other dreary home. Tien knocked, and entered.<br />
Inside it was warm. He heard steps, and a thin man with muscled arms met him. The man wore an apron, rubber gloves, and had a mask over his face.<br />
"You're the doctor?" Tien asked. The man nodded. He tore the rubber gloves off and tucked them into a pocket on his apron.<br />
"I'm Doctor Amesis," the man said. He removed the mask on his face, revealing a grim face and thin lips. Dour eyes looked out under short hair. "What do you need?"<br />
"My daughter," Tien said, a practiced speech. "She's ill. Feverish, won't wake. It's been a few days."<br />
Amesis' eyes rose. "Days? You'd better get her to me as soon as you can."<br />
Tien didn't move. "I don't have much to pay with."<br />
"Then you need to see a Council doctor," Amesis said. "That's how doctors work around here. You want cheap care, you see a CD. You want good care, you see a private doctor." He looked up. Tien still hadn't moved. "You can't go to a Council doctor, can you?"<br />
Tien shook his head. "And I prefer no more questions on the matter." He and the doctor stared each other down.<br />
"I can't take charity cases," Amesis said. "I'd like to, but I can't. Find the money and I'll look at her."<br />
"How much?" Tien asked. The doctor thought for a few moments, looking Tien over.<br />
"How old is she?"<br />
"Almost nine."<br />
"Six hundred iron should do it. That'll cover a checkup, and any medicine she needs, except for the expensive stuff."<br />
<i>Six hundred!</i> Tien thought when he stood in the cool rain again. <i>How are we supposed to get that much? I hope Onli and the others are having more success than I am.</i> He started trudging through the worsening rain toward where Onli and Momono said they would set up.<br />
<br />
Momono's hat was woefully empty. A paltry sum of iron shined inside. The heavy rain crushed their spirits.<br />
Onli felt Teegan's head and whisked her hand away, making a face. "Is it much worse?" Momono asked. She shook her head.<br />
"Not worse, no, but no better." Onli wiped the rain out of her eyes. "I don't think this is going to work."<br />
"Maybe we need to move," Momono suggested. He kicked the hat; the coins inside clanked together. "We could probably find a better spot."<br />
"No, I think this is a good spot. Other than that unfortunate guard, nobody's bothered us. That's more important," Onli said. She wrung out her hair, then put Teegan's hood down to do the same to her. "I wonder if she can hear us."<br />
"Speak of the devil," Momono said, nodding to their right. The same guard was coming toward them. "We might have to move anyway."<br />
"Give me a chance, first," Onli said. "I'll turn up the power."<br />
They watched the guard get closer. Momono couldn't help looking afraid. "Sir, <i>please</i>," Onli began, but the guard cut her off.<br />
"It's all right. You don't need to go do anything." The guard reached behind him; Momono shrank back. Onli didn't move. "In fact, I've done a bit of asking around for you." He revealed a leather pouch, heavily filled. "Here, take it."<br />
Onli took the offered pouch, and looked inside. "There must be three hundred iron in here!" She said. Her voice cracked at the end, and Momono didn't know if she'd meant it.<br />
"Four hundred," the guard said. "Hopefully, enough to get your daughter some help." He the guard nodded, once, and walked on, whistling in the rain. He disappeared around a corner and was not seen again.<br />
"Was he . . . " Momono began. "He must have been. A Day-lighter?" He whispered.<br />
"Or a friend," Onli said. She was gazing at the dull coins in the pouch. "Either way, we're very lucky. Next chance we get, we meet Tien at the rendezvous spot."<br />
<br />
Back at the inn, Tien entered their room to find the other three already waiting. Teegan was propped up in Onli's lap. Momono wore a big smile. "You'll never guess what happened!"<br />
Tien listened to the story. Thunder began to crackle outside as he listened. When they finished, he scowled. "It isn't enough. The only doctor I've found that isn't a Council doctor wants to charge us six hundred."<br />
The other three gasped. "Six hundred?!" Ren asked. "Does he have gold equipment?"<br />
"I think he understood that going to a Council doctor isn't an option for us, and is charging us for the peace of mind. It's not right, but that's what he said. He wouldn't shift."<br />
"So what do we do?" Momono asked. "It could take us days to raise the rest of the money!"<br />
"How long do you think it would take for you to raise it with a guitar?" Tien asked. His gaze bore into Momono. "How much would it cost us for a serviceable instrument?"<br />
Momono thought about it. "A guitar that costs two hundred would be fine for today but would pretty quickly go out of tune. I still have a bunch of supplies in my pack to help with that, though. I could earn five hundred just today if we hurry. But . . . a guitar might cost more in the city than in the country."<br />
"Where would you do it?" Tien asked.<br />
"On the street corner until the inns fill up, then I ask to play at inns. Most places will charge me a flat fee or a percentage of the earnings, but I should still be able to make enough. We can have Teegan looked at by tomorrow, I'm sure of it."<br />
The others looked at Tien. He sat on the bed with his hands pressed against his mouth. After a moment of thought he nodded. "Okay."<br />
<br />
Momono exited the shop, holding the neck of a pale guitar. "It was cheaper! Only one-hundred and seventy iron!"<br />
"Good. You and Ren get started on the songs at the inn, Onli and I will start looking for places that will let you play," Tien said. "Just let me know the names of some of your more popular songs." Momono nodded, and wrote a few names on a piece of paper. He then headed back to the inn, where Ren waited with Teegan.<br />
Tien and Onli started down one of the big streets of the city, looking for places that would let Momono play. They ended up walking right into a big square that had a towering, dripping statue in the center of it.<br />
"What did he say this was called?" Tien asked, looking up at the structure.<br />
"He called it 'The Trapped Titan,'" Onli said. She gazed up at it. "It looks so angry."<br />
The alabaster figure was stuck to the waist in the ground. Its wrists ended with cut circles, flush with the smooth ground. The face was nearly featureless, with little more than a bump for a nose and shallow hollows for a face. The smooth mouth nevertheless seemed stretched and open, the head tilted back at the sky in a thundering shout. Stone muscles pressed through marble skin, looking warm and smooth to the touch, straining against the ground it was trapped in. It was a hundred feet taller than them; the rain ran from it in deep rivers.<br />
"That place looks like it could be some promise," Tien said, pointing off to the side. Onli tore her eyes away from the statue and looked. She spotted a beer hall that looked big, warm, and inviting. "It looks just like the kind of place that could use a musician."<br />
"Let's try it," Onli said. She felt strangely cowed by the Titan. She glanced at it before following Tien into the beer hall, which had a sign that read "Titan's Mug."<br />
"A guitarist, huh?" The man behind the counter of the beer hall said when they inquired. "What kind of songs?"<br />
"Let's see," Tien said, taking out the piece of paper Momono had written on. "'A Girl's Finest Gift' . . . 'Twice a Man, Never a Boy' . . . 'The Cavalier' . . ."<br />
"Oh, I like that one. Always a pleaser. All right, I accept. What are the terms?"<br />
Tien stood stock still until Onli pushed past him. "He'll give you ten percent."<br />
"Ten? Girl, what sort of scam are you running? <i>Fifty</i>."<br />
"Fifty?!" Onli laughed. "Only a fool would agree to that! Twenty!"<br />
The barman smiled grimly. "Twenty-five."<br />
Onli fell silent. She returned the smile. "Deal." She offered her hand, and the barman shook it. "When do you want him to start?"<br />
"The rush begins at eight. I want him on-stage-" the barman pointed at a slightly raised platform "-at eight thirty, right after the Newsman. What's his name?"<br />
"Momono," Onli said.<br />
"Last name?"<br />
Onli looked back at Tien, who only shrugged. "We don't really know. He might not have one."<br />
"All right then. Make sure he gets here on time."<br />
"Don't worry, we will," Tien said. He and Onli left.<br />
<br />
"Ren and I will be in the beer hall with you -- just two travelers enjoying a drink together to get the taste of rain out of our mouths," Tien said later when they were gathered at the inn. "If nothing happens, we won't be seen. We're only there to make sure nobody gets uppity."<br />
Momono nodded. He and Ren had been spending the rest of the day making sure that his songs sounded good. Ren's sharp ears were able to pick out notes that should or shouldn't belong. Despite a week without practice, Momono felt confident he'd be able to raise enough money. "I'm ready to go."<br />
When the time came, Onli stayed at the inn with Teegan, and the three men left for the Titan's Mug. They showed up just as the rush was beginning; Ren and Tien were able to blend in easily. Momono met with the barman, who requested he play "The Cavalier" as the last song, when everyone was good and drunk. He said it would be quite profitable, and winked. Momono nodded, suddenly nervous. He found a table in the back, next to an old man that looked like a regular, and tuned his guitar.<br />
After a few minutes, the Newsman got up and stood on the raised platform that Momono would soon inhabit. He coughed and shuffled a few papers. He was a younger fellow, and looked uncertain.<br />
"Ahem," he began. The crowd's noise didn't die down much. Tien watched the young man shift from foot to foot. "Excuse me." A few people quieted, and he decided that was good enough. "Our own Councilwoman Gwynda would like to wish everyone a prosperous new year. She and the other Council members have been working hard to support our fair city, and she hopes you understand that she thinks of you, the citizens, always." A few people laughed. "On that note, taxes on vegetables will be raised a half-percent, and all produce-growers must respond to the census by the first of the second month." There were a few angry shouts from, Tien suspected, produce-growers.<br />
The Newsman went on to talk about local things. The Day-lighters weren't mentioned. Tien breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The Newsman rambled on, quickly losing even the small amount of people that had listened to him at the beginning. He wrapped up quickly and ducked off the stage.<br />
Momono took the stage, bringing his new guitar with him. There were a few drunk cheers. Momono raised his hand to stop them. "Thank you, my name is Momono. I'll start with a few good drinking songs! Has anyone here heard 'Never a Drink Too Many'?"<br />
A massive cheer erupted from the crowd, shocking Tien and Ren. They looked at each other, and Ren shrugged. Momono began to strum a few chords, and the crowd cheered again, to a man raising their glasses and clapping their friends on the shoulder. Tien watched with amazement as Momono led them in a lewd, embarrassing song about drinking, wenches, and associated acts. Every person in the beer hall knew the words, and some were able to sing them despite having their noses deep in mugs. The crowd swayed with each word, and the loud singing soon drew in more customers. The final word, one not appropriate for mixed company, was sung long and lustily by the entire crowd, each one with their heads tilted back and roaring, like the Titan outside.<br />
With a mighty crash, the crowd dropped to their chairs, applauding and cheering Momono. The singer started into another song, this one less appealing to the drinking crowd as a whole, but still appreciated. The night went on, and the box that Momono had brought onstage to accept tips filled up rapidly. Tien smiled. <i>Finally, Teegan will be able to get help.</i><br />
Every once in a while a drinker would shout a request, and almost always Momono would begin to play the song. There was never a time he didn't know what song it was, and the crowd showed their appreciation.<br />
Hours passed, and the crowd got drunker. Finally, after some nod from the barman, Momono ended a song. "I'm going to do one last song for everyone. I know you all know it: 'The Cavalier'!"<br />
The building cheered and applauded again, and one man even burst into tears. Momono started to play. It was a slow, sweet song that neither Ren nor Tien had ever heard. It started with a man, the eponymous cavalier, and his fiancee. Momono sang about their love in low tones and slow strums, but soon changed to a faster beat. He sounded a call to battle, and the cavalier left to fight in a war. Momono's fingers warped up and down the guitar's strings, belting out note after note. He played a battle on his instrument, and the crowd clapped along. After a rending note, Momono slowed down, and called out to the fiancee, proclaiming his love in a chilling reprise of the first section. The man started crying again. Momono switched to the fiancee and sang out for the dead cavalier, slowing the song to a stop with a long final phrase.<br />
There was a long pause after he was finished where nobody said anything, then the patrons of the Titan's Mug started clapping and cheering. They stood and stamped their approval. Momono bowed and thanked them, holding the tip box up and shaking it. It was already heavy, but would quickly got heavier.<br />
Just before he could move off the stage, The old man he'd been sitting near stood up and yelled drunkenly. "I thought I rec'nized that man!" He hiccuped. "'S Councilwoman Gwynda's son!"<br />
The beer hall went silent. A coin clinked out of a stunned man's grasp into the tip box.<br />
"I know it's him!" The old man said. "Momono Gwynda! I thought I recognized the name!"<br />
Tien and Ren looked at each other, shocked. Ren tilted his head toward the door, but Tien shook his own head.<br />
"I think you have me confused," Momono said. "I've never been in this city before."<br />
"But you played 'Never a Drink Too Many'!" One patron shouted. "And 'The Cavalier'! Both of them are area classics!"<br />
"They're well-known in the south . . . " Momono started.<br />
"He sort of looks like Councilwoman Gwynda, doesn't 'e?" One man said. "'E's got the same narrow chin!"<br />
"I swear, I have no relation to your Councilwoman!" Momono shouted. "I've been singing in the south towns for many years!" Even as he said this, he holstered the guitar over his shoulder and grabbed the tip box. "I thank each of you for your generosity; this money will go to help a sick child in-"<br />
"Get <i>down</i>!" Tien said, pulling Momono off the stage. The Titan's Mug was in a frenzy.<br />
"Somebody get the guards!" One man shouted. "The Councilwoman's son has returned.!"<br />
"No!" Momono shouted. "He hasn't!"<br />
"Shut up!" Tien shouted, dragging Momono toward the door. Ren pushed through the crowd in front of them. People were cheering and smacking Momono on the shoulders genially.<br />
They got out into the rain and Ren led them around the corner of the beer hall. They kept running, waiting until they couldn't clearly hear the shouts of people that had exited with them. They found a wet shadow and hid in it. Tien turned on Momono.<br />
"What the hell, singer?" He said. "Are they right? Are you the son of a Councilwoman?"<br />
"I-I'm . . . I . . . yes."<br />
Tien smacked his forehead and groaned at the clouds. "Do you know what you've done?" He asked. "You've pretty much just brought every guard in the city down on our heads! We're lucky we could get away!"<br />
"We had to get money!" Momono said, shaking the full box for emphasis. "I didn't think anyone would recognize me!"<br />
"You . . . I . . . augh! We need to get out of this city <i>now</i>," Tien said. "Which way is it to the inn?" Momono pointed. "Come on!"<br />
<br />
They got back to the inn without trouble, but the whole city seemed to be filled with shouting. They took a moment to compose themselves before walking in, as if nothing had happened.<br />
The innkeeper greeted them and they greeted him back, walking slowly and casually. Tien informed him they would be checking out soon, and once they got out of his sight they broke into a run, bursting into the door to their room without knocking. Ren locked it behind them as Tien whipped off his cloak. "Onli, get your stuff together. You're never going to believe this, but-" He looked up. Momono was staring at something.<br />
Teegan raised her hand and gave a weak wave.<br />
<br />
"She woke up an hour or so after you left," Onli explained. "She was hungry, and thirsty, and weak, but alive and, as far as I could tell, well." Teegan nodded and drank from a glass of water. "She's still fairly warm, but not as much as before."<br />
"Finally, some good news," Tien said. "How do you feel, Teegan?"<br />
"Thirsty," she said. Her voice sounded raw and sick.<br />
"Drink up, then." Tien shot a glance at Momono, then back at Onli. "Momono is Councilwoman Gwynda's son."<br />
Onli's mouth dropped open and she looked at Momono for confirmation. He looked away, embarrassed. "Really?" She asked. Momono nodded.<br />
"We need to get out of the city," Tien said. "Somebody at the Titan's Mug recognized him, and people started calling for the guards." He shot Momono another look. "I guess they thought their prodigal son had returned. Are you going to explain what's going on here, or do I have to beat it out of you?"<br />
"Tien!" Onli said.<br />
"Quiet! He's endangered all of us!" Tien shouted. Taking a breath and lowering his voice, he continued. "You'd better have a damn good explanation for what just happened."<br />
Momono sighed. "I lived here until I was twenty-two, with my mother and father. My father died when I was sixteen . . . which left my mother to take care of me.<br />
"There were some others at the house I lived in," he said. Teegan slurped noisily from her glass, keeping her eyes on him. "But they were maids or servants, nobody I could really learn from. I found music when I was given a guitar by my father, who had dabbled and wanted me to enjoy it too. I loved it . . . still do.<br />
"My father was the thing keeping my mother in check. She isn't <i>exactly</i> a cruel woman, but she has a habit of taking extreme roads when simpler ones would work just as well." He shook his head. "I couldn't take it. I was saved from vicious beatings my entire life simply because she thought her status was above them. When I turned twenty-two I decided I'd had enough. She was grooming me for entry into the Council of One Hundred, but I was having none of it. I snuck out of the house and out of the city after midnight. I haven't been back since. Ten years."<br />
"I hate to trivialize everything you've just told us -- clearly, this was something that you didn't want to say -- but I have to ask," Tien said. "If your mother finds out that you're here, what will she do?"<br />
Momono shrugged. "I'm not sure. I'm her only child, and I perceived some empty nest syndrome from here, even before I left. Maybe after all these years she understands why I left, or maybe I'm going to be dragged back to the house and clapped in shackles. I don't matter right now. Teegan's awake and is getting better, which means we don't need to stay in the city anymore, right?"<br />
"It depends on how Teegan feels," Onli said. She looked at the girl. "How about it?"<br />
"I'm tired," Teegan said. "I just wanna stay here."<br />
"Ren could carry her if he had to, but we've all been moving a lot in the past few days," Tien said. "Momono, how likely are the guards to find us here?"<br />
"Breston has hundreds of places for travelers to stay, and hundreds more permanent homes. The guards could search for a year and not find this place, but we aren't that far from the Titan's Mug, and that's where they'll start."<br />
Tien sighed and nodded. "Ren, keep your ears open. I think we're safe right now, but I want to be prepared anyway," Tien said. Ren nodded.<br />
"What . . . if I, uh, went to her first?" Momono said. He was looking at his feet and sitting on one of the beds. "We obviously don't want a Councilwoman's guards finding the four of you, but I'm not a Day-lighter, not really. Nobody would guess. If I don't get back to you, you leave the city without me."<br />
"Would you like that?" Tien said quietly. His tone froze Momono. "Would you like to be dragged back to your mother, away from us?" He walked at Momono, hands doubled into fists. "And then, at the barest mention of punishment, you tell her how the Day-lighters kidnapped you and forced you to travel with them?" His face was broken by angry creases, but his voice stayed smooth. "You tell her all about us: Me, Ren, Onli . . . Teegan. You tell her about our crazy schemes to burn the land and boil the sea."<br />
He gripped Momono's tunic with both hands and hauled him up. "I told you. <i>If you leave us, I will kill you!</i>" He bellowed in Momono's face. Teegan squeaked and Onli gasped. Momono tried to tilt away. Tien threw Momono down; he was about to drop to his knees with one fist cocked back toward the singer when Ren wrapped his arms around his shoulders and hauled him away, throwing him with astounding force against one of the beds. Tien bounced off and struck the floor, scrambling to his feet and pulling out his sword. He found Onli and Ren with their weapons drawn and facing him. Teegan stumbled to Momono and knelt by him.<br />
"Calm yourself, Tien," Onli said. "You had no right to act that way. Momono was only trying to find a way out of this.<br />
"I have a way out of it," Tien spat. "We just need to keep him quiet."<br />
"And are you a monster, that you would do such things yourself?" Onli roared, growing taller in the flickering candlelight. She stepped forward. "Would you cut out his tongue and damn his eyes? Tie him to a rack and carry him along with us, as we run from the guards and soldiers? Are you trying to give the Council another reason to hate us? I see the Newsmen saying it now: 'Day-lighters mutilate Councilwoman's son,'" she growled. She took another step and reached him. He held his sword up and she battered it away with her own. The swords clanked together in a pile.<br />
Bringing her hand around with stunning quickness. She slapped him, and the blow rang in the room. Tien staggered down to a knee, clutching the stinging cheek.<br />
"How-" He began.<br />
"<i>Quiet</i>," Onli said, and the vicious echo of Tien's own word cut him. "Sit there and think about the way you just acted. Not like a human; a monster. We've worked against monsters, do you remember? We freed Teegan from them; we knew they should not be allowed to succeed."<br />
Next to Momono, Teegan watched the two adults. She seemed likely to fall over; she was gripping the bed next to her.<br />
"I remember," Tien said. "I was the one who said we should. And because of it, ten people or more died." He got to his feet. There was a small stream of blood coming out of his mouth. He leaned against the wall. "I told myself I would not let my own foolishness result in the deaths of my friends." He nodded toward Momono. "If he had run to his mother and revealed everything he knows about us, would you have blamed me? Don't deny you would have."<br />
"No!" Onli said. "I would have blamed Momono, because <i>he was the one who had done it!</i>" She bent and picked up her sword. Tien reached for his, but she stomped down on it. "Momono doesn't get a sword, why should you?"<br />
"To protect Teegan!" Tien said. His anger was turning to despair.<br />
"Ren and I can fight just as well as you," Onli said. "We rely on stealth anyway. Give me a better reason."<br />
Tien looked up at her, weak and unable to speak. He leaned back against the wall and didn't answer. Onli picked up his sword and handed it to Ren as Tien collapsed to a sitting position. Onli stepped away.<br />
The encounter seemed to be over. Momono let out a caught breath. He noticed something. "Is it warm in here?"<br />
Onli ran to Teegan. Tien moved to follow her, but Ren stopped him. "Teegan?" Onli asked.<br />
"I'm okay," the girl said. "You were fighting, and yelling . . . "<br />
"And you were upset," Onli said, smoothing the girl's hair. She moved back, surprised. "You're so hot."<br />
Teegan nodded, but gave no explanation. "I'm sorry, Teegan," Onli said. "We're done now." Onli looked at Momono. "You're all right?"<br />
Momono nodded, slightly embarrassed that she would choose to pay attention to him at that moment. The thing she said about blaming him for running off was stuck in his head. He got off the floor.<br />
"Ren, has anybody taken notice of our spat?" Onli asked.<br />
"Not as far as I can tell," Ren said. Onli nodded.<br />
"What do we do?" Ren said. His eyes went from Tien to Teegan to Momono, and finally settled on Onli. Onli sighed and closed her eyes. To Momono she suddenly seemed likely to collapse.<br />
"Let's all just get out of this city," she said finally. "We can figure out what to do after that once we're away." She looked around the room. "Gather up your things."<br />
Momono tried not to look at where Tien sat. The man didn't move; he just sat still and watched the others. Onli spoke a quiet word to Ren, and Ren approached Tien. "Your weapons," Ren said.<br />
Momono and Teegan froze. Tien looked up at Ren and sneered. "My own brother."<br />
"That doesn't matter right now," Ren said. "This is for Teegan, not you. Maybe you'll finally start to realize that."<br />
There was a tense moment, and Tien removed his empty scabbard from his belt. He proceeded to empty his pockets of any and all weapons. There were many more than Momono thought. Throwing knives, small spiky metal balls, poison bombs, the harmonica with the hidden dagger -- the list went on. When he was done, he looked noticeably lighter. He spotted Momono looking, and Momono turned his head back to his pack quickly. <br />
A happy problem he discovered he had was there was too much money from the Titan's Mug for him to carry alone. It was split up between him, Onli, and Ren. Tien watched the money change hands sullenly.<br />
Reluctantly, Tien started to put his pack in order, and in a few minutes they stood outside the door as Ren listened. It was just a moment before he nodded and opened the door. The hallway outside was empty, and they heard nothing except for the drip of rain on the roof. Ren led them to the front door, and paid their bill. The innkeeper said nothing, other then commenting that he was glad Teegan was feeling better.<br />
The clouds had grown and worsened; the rain fell heavily on their raised hoods. Teegan smiled up at the cool rain. She was the only one that didn't have her hood on, she said that she was still hot and the rain made her feel better.<br />
They made for the city's nearest exit, the same one they had entered. Instead of the normal late-night flow of travelers, they found a blockade of soldiers and guards, checking each person that entered or left. Onli looked behind her at Tien. "What are they doing?"<br />
Momono thought for a moment that he would refuse, but he began to concentrate. The gate was more than fifty yards away, but even with the rain it was no problem for him. "They checking people that go in or out," Tien said. "It looks like they have a picture of someone that they're checking against." His eyes moved to Momono. "It isn't difficult to guess who they're looking for."<br />
"That's what I hear, too," Ren said. "I keep hearing 'Councilwoman' and 'son.'"<br />
"I don't think they'll let you through if you're traveling with me," Momono said. "Is there some way for me to sneak past?"<br />
"We can't change your appearance enough to fool them," Onli said. "And it looks like they're checking everyone. Plus, you have a guitar. That's sort of a tip off."<br />
Momono cleared his throat. "I have an idea." Four pairs of eyes looked at him. He began to lay out his plan. Tien started to shoot it down, but when Momono finished explaining it, he was silent. "It falls to whether or not you trust me," he said. "I understand if you don't want to risk it."<br />
Onli looked at Tien. "What do you think?" She asked.<br />
Tien nodded. "I like it." He smiled, and Momono didn't particularly like the way it looked.<br />
<br />
A few minutes later, Momono approached the guarded gate alone, without his guitar. His hood was pulled low, and he could just barely see out from under it. He stood in line behind the small amount of travelers trying to get out of the city at that time of night. The sky was a block of darkness.<br />
He got close enough to spot the picture they were using to find him. It wasn't a very good likeness -- the eyes were too close together, the lips were too big -- but it looked enough like him to be difficult to avoid. The line slowly filtered through the gate, with each person being checked against the picture. A few people joined the line behind him.<br />
The person in front of him was waved through, and Momono stepped up. The guard took one look, quickly checked the picture he held, and then looked back up. "It's him!"<br />
Momono stepped back, bumping into the person behind him. It just so happened to be a large man. The man took hold of him. "Is this guy a criminal?" The large man asked.<br />
The guard that was there shook his head. "He's the Councilwoman's son!" He took Momono's arm. "Your mother's been wanting to have a long talk with you about a few things." He said. "The rest of you can go through," he called to the people waiting in line. He and two other guards bustled Momono down the street, away from the gate. He struggled to get away, but the guards had him too tight.<br />
From atop a building on the main road, Tien watched them drag him toward the center of the city. As soon as they got around the corner, he spoke: "go."<br />
Ren's keen ears heard the word; he, Onli, and Teegan went through the now unguarded gate. Tien found Momono again, and began climbing down the outside of the building. When he got to the ground he pulled his cloak tight and followed after the guards.<br />
<br />
His mother's house looked very much the same. Too much, Momono thought. Lights came from the same windows, the bushes were the same size, the same men guarded the front door. The two men smiled and greeted him, as if he was home for a visit and not being escorted by three city guards. The front door was pushed open, and Momono was hauled into the opulent foyer.<br />
He was struck by terrible déjà vu. The same dusty vases sat on the same fading tables. The same pictures -- old even when Momono was a child -- hung on the same walls, some at the same maddening tilted angle. The sights, the smells, the sounds, and everything else rushed to take him back to when he had been young, and he knew his mother was coming from her study to mete out some punishment. <br />
He shook his head violently, startling the men that half-carried him. He wrenched his arms out of their grasp and stood. Standing in the middle of the entry hall to the big manor, he took a slow, calming breath, denying entry to the bacteria of the past.<br />
"You're taking me to my mother?" Momono asked one of the guards. He said yes. "I'll go there myself. Where is she?" He already knew.<br />
"She's in her study, sir," the guard said.<br />
Anger blazed through him, and he envisioned lashing out at the poor fool. "Do not call me sir," he said through clenched teeth. The guard stepped back. Without another word, Momono started up the steps. He knew the study would be in the same place; everything else seemed to be.<br />
He reached the second floor after climbing the tall staircase, and realized something <i>was</i> different. The thin carpet, which always became bunched and folded after a few people had walked on it, was missing. There was just cold stone floor. Momono looked at it and wondered before moving on.<br />
He saw the doors of the study and nearly succumbed to the past once more. Just as they always had been, the right door was shut, but the left door was open a crack, to be pushed open when someone wanted to enter the room. Momono couldn't remember a time seeing the doors at any position other than that. He stopped outside them. He heard nothing from inside, save the ticking of the clock, and the ticking of rain against the window. He pushed against the left door, just like he had done a hundred, a thousand, times.<br />
She sat behind the long wooden desk. Try as she might, she could not keep herself the same, like she had kept most of the house. She was thin, looking ragged, wearing clothes too big for her. Even sitting, she seemed shorter than he remembered. Her once long, black hair was thinner, shorter, and grayer. Her hands shook with palsy. Her face was a craggy surface of lines.<br />
A man Momono didn't know stood behind her. A new husband, perhaps.<br />
"Momono, darling," Councilwoman Gwynda said, spreading her arms as if for a hug. "Come closer, I want to see you."<br />
Momono's heart thundered as he walked closer. He saw with some surprise that his mother was in a wheelchair. The room was hot; a fireplace blazed behind the long desk.<br />
"You've finally come back to me," Gwynda said. "How I've longed for this day. With some work, you can start ruling the city instead of me. I know the city will accept you."<br />
"No," Momono said. His mother's face fell. "I'm leaving again soon. I only got caught and brought here because I was foolish. It won't happen again."<br />
Gwynda tapped on the arm of her wheelchair, and the man behind her directed her around the table to a few feet in front of Momono.<br />
She looked so small. Momono could have picked her up and carried her like a sack of tomatoes. She looked up at him, thick spectacles enlargening her eyes. There was an elastic wrap on one wrist, and a small cover, like a napkin, on her lap. "Tell me I didn't hear that," she said. "Tell me you're just being silly again, like when you went off with that girl."<br />
<i>That girl's name was Olivia</i>, Momono though. His cheeks flushed. "I'm leaving tonight," he said. There was so much more he could have said, but the words all got caught in his throat.<br />
"Another woman?" His mother scoffed. "You silly boy. Just like your father. A romantic. Leave those foolish thoughts by the way, boy, and do as your mother says."<br />
Momono stood still, mind ablaze with awful actions, and words too harsh for the vilest criminal. Instead, he turned and walked to the door. "Stop him," he heard. The next thing he knew he was falling toward the hard floor. The man behind his mother had wrestled him down with ease and locked the only exit.<br />
Without looking at his mother, Momono picked himself up and brushed himself off. He'd landed on his elbow and it hurt, but he refused to cradle it. He finally looked at her, and found her leaning forward in her chair, a small smile on her face. "Lecks is a good helper. He does as he's told," she said. "Not like some troublesome boys I know." Her smile disappeared. "You hurt me, Mo. I raised you and cared for you, and you repay me by leaving."<br />
"You never cared for me. My father cared for me. You punished me. He told me how I had succeeded, you told me how I had failed. He built me up, and you broke me down." Momono felt almost disconnected from his body, like he was watching the interaction from somewhere else. "It was only by his actions that I realized I would have to leave this place, with or without your blessing. So I did."<br />
"And you went off with a cheap whore, too!" His mother yelled in a shrill voice. "Admit it! Just like that tramp from before!"<br />
Fury boiled out of him. "Her name was Olivia!" Momono screamed. "She wasn't a whore! I loved her, and you banished her just because you wanted to keep me under your boot! And that's all you've ever wanted to do, wasn't it?" Momono's heart leaped at what he was about to say. "My father saw it, and that's why he killed himself! He couldn't stand by and watch you destroy me just like you destroyed him, so he did the only thing he could to show me what happens to be people you get close to!" He sucked in a thin breath. "Tell your thug to unlock the door, or I will find a much more destructive way out of this room!"<br />
"No need for that, luckily," they heard behind them. Momono, his mother, and Lecks all looked at the door. Tien stood, spinning a key around his index finger. "I have made a way."<br />
"Who are you?" Gwynda demanded. "How did you get in here?"<br />
"Nicked it," Tien said, holding up the key, "from a guard. You'd think a Councilwoman would have some more competent guards at her own home." He looked at Momono. "Shall we?"<br />
"Lecks!" The Councilwoman shrieked. "Stop him! Don't let my son leave again!"<br />
Tien rushed forward, striking Lecks from behind and making him stumble forward. Momono ran around him, heading for the open door.<br />
"Alarm, alarm! Villains, murderers, thieves!" Gwynda yelled at the top of her voice. "Stop them, seize them, catch them!" She whacked Lecks, who was struggling to raise himself to his feet. "Get up, you oaf!"<br />
Tien and Momono exited the room, running headlong into two guards that had come when the Councilwoman's screams reached their ears. All four went down, and then Momono was being picked up by Lecks. "Keep my boy, but kill the other one!" He heard his mother say.<br />
Momono stomped his foot down on the hard floor and twisted, wrenching himself out of Lecks' grip. Instead of running, he turned and grabbed Lecks' throat, catching the big man off-balance. With sudden, brutal pressure, he squeezed the guard's throat, crushing his windpipe with both strong thumbs. Lecks fell to the ground, and Momono was left staring at his mother. He had finally shocked her into silence. He approached her, and she shrank back, trying to direct herself back into the room.<br />
Momono grabbed the arm of the chair and pulled her toward him.<br />
He felt a light hand on his arm, and nearly punched Tien in the face. Tien didn't flinch. "Let her go, Momono," Tien said quietly. "It's not about her. It's about Teegan."<br />
Teegan with the light hair, that could burn down an inn even when sick and dying. Teegan, that a dozen people or more risked and lost their lives to free and protect. Teegan, that ran to Momono to help him up after he'd fallen.<br />
He stopped pulling his mother, but didn't let the chair go. He nodded curtly to Tien.<br />
"Who's Teegan?" His mother asked, as Lecks writhed on the floor, gagging. "Another tramp?"<br />
Councilwoman Gwynda watched as her son's eyes moved to find her with utter slowness.<br />
<br />
"Do you think they're all right?" Teegan asked Onli. They were waiting outside the city, at the pre-determined meeting spot. Momono's guitar was on Ren's back.<br />
"I hope so. Tien won't let Momono out of his sight. Unless Momono does defect, I think they'll make their way back to us," Onli answered. "Do you still feel all right?"<br />
Teegan nodded. She still hadn't put her hood up, and the rain was evaporating off her skin. Her face was flushed. "I'm worried about Momono."<br />
"I know honey, me too," Onli said. She didn't want to remind her about what they would have to do if Momono or Tien didn't show after a day -- the amount of time they had all agreed on to wait.<br />
They waited in silence for a bit.<br />
"I want to ask you about something," Ren said quietly, on Onli's other side. "I'm not that worried about Momono, but Tien . . ."<br />
"I know," Onli responded just as softly. "Maybe he finally has it in his head that this isn't a grand adventure that he's leading, but something much greater than him. You've known him the longest: would he really leave us?"<br />
Ren didn't respond immediately. "I hope not. But he has never been one to see other people's perspectives well. Strange that someone with near-supernatural eyesight would have that problem."<br />
"He's never needed to," Onli said. "He can see nearly everything."<br />
Ren smiled. "Yes." He sat quietly for a bit. "We hurt his ego pretty badly back at the inn."<br />
"We did. I hope he'll realize that we did it for the right reasons."<br />
<br />
"Tell me I didn't hear that," Momono said, each muscle in his body clenched and bursting.<br />
"Momono, more guards are coming," Tien said.<br />
"Yes, just give up. Leave your foolish thoughts by the way."<br />
For a moment, Momono thought that he had gone blind. He sucked in a breath, and let it whistle out. His grip on the arm of the wheelchair tightened.<br />
Striking her would vilify him. Yelling at her would do nothing. Walking away would fail to sate the furious anger that flowed through his bones.<br />
She watched him. She had the little smile on that meant she knew you could do nothing.<br />
A thought cascaded through his body, sending shivers in all directions. Momono grew a smile of his own. It stretched and twisted. His eyebrows dug down into his face, creating a harrowing monster. His mother leaned away.<br />
Momono turned to Tien. "Let's get out of this building." Tien started to say something, but Momono turned away. <br />
He ripped the elastic band off his mother's wrist, balled the napkin in her lap, and stuffed it in her mouth. Before she could push it out, He wrapped the band around her head, tying it tight at the back. Councilwoman Gwynda's shouts were reduced to a muffled meow. He picked her up and, as he guessed, could carry her like a small, wet dog. Her limbs beat against him, but it was like a tree beating on a mountain. Momono looked at Tien, who pointed behind him. Momono noticed the two other guards they had collided with lying on the ground, unconscious, but more were getting closer.<br />
Tien led him away from them, around a hall, and toward a deserted back staircase. They went down, and found an open door, with a dazed guard slumped against it. Tien pushed it open and went into the cold, dazzling rain. Momono was instantly soaked, and his mother croaked at the cold. <br />
"What are you going to do?" Tien asked. "If you mean to hurt her-"<br />
"No," Momono said. "Not that. Not physically, at least."<br />
Momono seemed to be leading them somewhere, but Tien didn't know the city well enough to figure out where. "Whatever you're going to do, do it quickly. They'll figure out we aren't in the house soon enough, and then the entire city will be looking for us. I have reason to suspect that they won't just throw us in prison, either," Tien said.<br />
"Then keep an eye out," was all Momono said. He shifted his mother.<br />
They walked for almost an hour. Some of the buildings began to get familiar to Tien. The hour was late, and the streets were empty, except for the odd guard. They crept; Momono had a hand over his mother's mouth just in case. The woman grunted and fought the entire time, but she was too old and feeble to do anything worthwhile. Momono barely had to struggle against her.<br />
"I know where we are," Tien said, after they'd gone a few more blocks. He shielded his eyes against the rain. "We're near the Titan, aren't we?"<br />
Momono said nothing, he simply forged on through the pounding raindrops.<br />
They broke out of an alley, and Tien saw the Titan rising up in the darkness, raging against the ground that held him captive. Momono headed directly for it. Tien took a quick look around, saw nobody, and followed him.<br />
Momono walked directly in front of the tall sculpture, and dropped his mother. She groaned when she hit the hard, soggy ground. "Look at it," Momono ordered. His mother peered up at him, making a disapproving face. "Look at it!" Momono pointed at the Titan. "Look at my father!"<br />
Tien stared. "You told us the Titan was funded by a wealthy sponsor. It was your mother?" Momono nodded.<br />
"Look, mother. Do you see how he pulls against the ground? Screams at the sky?" The singer looked down at his feeble mother. "How strange I thought it was when you had this built. All I could see in it was my father trying to get away from you. He pulls against your constraints but he's stuck to the waist. He'll never get out." He paused. "Now look at me."<br />
Councilwoman Gwynda shifted her gaze from her husband to her son.<br />
"If you really think that, after everything you've done to turn me into a wailing fool, after everything I saw my father suffer through because of the way you acted, I would want to came back to you and take your place on the Council . . . then there is no creature on Earth more demented. And if the Council really does see you as a good leader, still, then I want nothing to do with them. Is that what the entire Council is like? Confused old husks that rattle human lives between their knuckles like dice?" He smiled. "I heard that the Day-lighters want to burn you out of your power and take control. If that's true, than I wish them luck."<br />
The Councilwoman's eyes grew wide. "You will never see me again," Momono said. "If you do, it's because I've either come to kill you, or I am already dead. You might think that you're safe, ruling others with a demented and thin mind, and then there will be nothing but everlasting darkness, because I will finally decide your life needs to be ended." He picked her up easily. Tien could see thin streams of steam rising from him. "Maybe you'll change, and beg my forgiveness, and I'll let you be. But I don't see that happening. That would require you to realize you were <i>wrong</i> for once in your life!"<br />
He dropped her on the ground, and looked at Tien. "Let's go."<br />
"You're a scary man, singer," Tien said. He turned. "Uh oh."<br />
"What?"<br />
"I think we might be surrounded." Tien took a few quick looks around him. "This way!" He led Momono toward an alley, but before they could reach it, a guard stepped around a corner and blocked it. Tien cut left, and Momono slipped in the rain keeping up with him. He got up and chased Tien, who was heading for a different alley. Another guard appeared, and this one Tien confronted.<br />
The guard swung and missed. Tien wrapped his arms around the guard's wrist, and Momono heard a snap. The guard dropped the sword and screamed. Tien picked it up and pushed past the man. Momono followed. Tien splashed through puddles, keeping the sword ready next to him.<br />
Momono suddenly felt tired, and struggled to keep up with him. Tien disappeared around a corner, and Momono followed.<br />
He found Tien cornered by three guards. Tien looked at Momono and shouted. "That's the one that kidnapped the Councilwoman!"<br />
The guard between them turned, and Tien brought the hilt of his sword down on his head. The other two tried to spring on him, but Tien darted under their attacks. Momono picked up the sword the unconscious guard had dropped.<br />
Tien cut another guard through his leather pants, dropping him with a cry. He feinted toward the last one, who stumbled backward to avoid an attack that didn't come. Tien brought his sword around with the guard off-balance, knocking him over. He kicked the guard in the face and looked at Momono. "Coming?"<br />
Momono nodded, and the two ran.<br />
"You're a dirty fighter," Momono said, when they'd gone a few blocks. Tien was checking for people.<br />
"Yeah, well, you do what you can. I can hardly count the number of times I've been surrounded by people that want to kill or capture me. We'd better keep moving. The gates are going to be guarded again if we don't get out of the city soon, and I don't think we can pull the same trick as before."<br />
"I wonder if Teegan and the others got out all right," Momono said.<br />
"I'm sure they did," Tien said, walking down the street with Momono on his heels. "Onli is smart. After the stunt you pulled, there was no reason for them to be stopped. They've probably been waiting for us at the spot for hours now." Tien stopped looking at looked at the sword in Momono's hand. "I thought we agreed no weapons."<br />
Momono looked at the sword. "I suppose we did. Then again, Onli and Ren didn't want you to have a weapon, either."<br />
Tien glared, but Momono didn't relent. "Do you know why I wanted you to be the one to make sure I came back after pulling my stunt at the gate?"<br />
"Because you knew I wouldn't let you get away?"<br />
"Yes. There's another reason, though." Momono looked around them as they walked. Rain was the only other thing in the street. "I wanted to give you a chance to leave."<br />
Tien stopped, skidding in water. "What?!"<br />
"I saw how you looked in the inn, after being browbeaten by Onli. You looked how I felt while I was living with my mother. You were trying to figure out if you could get away. I wanted to let you have that chance. I knew I wasn't going to betray Teegan, so if I got back to them and you left, I could say you were killed protecting me."<br />
"I would never do that to them," Tien said savagely. "They're the only family I have."<br />
"I guess they are. I guess they're the only family I have left, too." Momono looked at the sword again. Rain dripped off its sharp edge. "Want me to get rid of this?"<br />
Tien considered this, then shook his head. "If you want a sword, you can have one. You're part of our group, now. Consider yourself a Day-lighter, for better or worse."<br />
Momono nodded, and smiled.<br />
<br />
They made it out of the gate before it was blocked by guards, but only by hurrying. They went as quickly as they could to the spot pointed out by Momono as the meeting place.<br />
All they found was a scorched circle, devoid of any other evidence that Ren, Onli, or Teegan had been there. The ground was wet ash, drowned in the falling rain. Tien searched for them using his powerful eyesight, but saw nothing. He turned around and tensed.<br />
A minute later several guards came upon the empty spot, after getting reports of an "explosion."<br />
<br />
To be concluded in "<a href="http://saturdaystory-time.blogspot.com/2014/01/first-star-i-see-tonight.html">First Star I See Tonight</a>."Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-6138098376445754142013-12-28T12:00:00.000-06:002014-01-10T19:54:19.987-06:00Star LightThe inn was built to handle the rain, like all other buildings in the area -- in the world. Steep, sloped roofs, diverting gutters, and a raised floor over a huge grill that led underground, to let the rain gather together in a giant reservoir under the village. The heavy, everlasting clouds hung over the roof and poured rain all day, just like the last day, last month, and last year. It had been raining for longer than anyone could remember.<br />
<a name='more'></a> Tien stood outside the door of the inn, rattling the handle. Either it was stuck, or it was locked. He stood back from the door and got a deluge of water on his head. He shook his hood free and shook his head to get rid of the water, and checked the window of the inn. He saw light, and shadows of people moving back and forth. He banged on the door again, huddling close to the wall.<br />
A moment passed, and a small opening in the door slid open. Small eyes peered out. They spotted Tien, a wet and weary traveler.<br />
"You want in?" The eyes asked.<br />
"Yes," Tien said. "Do you have any room?"<br />
The eyes disappeared, and Tien heard bolts and metal being banged together or apart. The door squeaked open loudly, and a beefy arm appeared out the crack. "Your weapons."<br />
"What?"<br />
"If you're coming in here, you're giving up your weapons. Rule. You aren't getting in with weapons still on you."<br />
"What if I can't?" Tien asked.<br />
"You want to try and sleep out in the rain tonight? You're likely to drown. This is the best inn in fifty leagues all around, and that's cause we have rules. Now . . . <i>weapons</i>."<br />
Tien hesitated for a bit, than dragged out the sword that was under his oiled cloak. He handed it over, but the door still didn't open. The hand beckoned for more. "No smart traveler hands over his only weapon that easily."<br />
"What if we get attacked during the night?" Tien asked. "How are we supposed to protect ourselves?"<br />
"Me, and my guards. They're highly-paid and well-trained. How about it?"<br />
"All right, all right, give me a minute," Tien said. He drew the knife from his boot, both daggers from behind his back, the poison bombs from a hidden pocket, and a red ball from a compartment in his sleeve. "Be very gentle with that ball," Tien warned the hand.<br />
All of the weapons were taken in and deposited somewhere. Finally the door opened fully. On the other side was a large man that possessed the small eyes. Behind him was a man wearing armor and holding a sword.<br />
"I don't fully believe that you've given me all of your weapons yet, but I bet you'd have a hard time running out. You have that look on you," he said, glaring at Tien. He jabbed his thumb at the man behind him. "This is Remy. If you cause any trouble, it's going to be him that throws your unconscious body into the rain and mud. And I tell you what." The big man leaned in. "He loves doing it."<br />
Tien looked at Remy, who was smiling. The smile had a few holes in it.<br />
"Fine. I have a few friends coming later. You have enough space for three more?"<br />
"We'll have to squeeze you in a little bit. There are only two rooms left," the doorman said. "What kind of people?"<br />
"My brother, my wife, and our daughter," Tien said. "No kind of trouble makers."<br />
"All right then. It's fifty iron a person. You get a meal tonight and a meal tomorrow."<br />
"Fifty iron?" Tien said. "This place had better be worth it!"<br />
"It is," the innkeeper said. "And if you don't think so, you're welcome to leave." He pointed out the door, where dark rain created deep puddles.<br />
"My daughter's only eight years. Surely she doesn't cost fifty iron for a night."<br />
The innkeeper thought about it. "Thirty-five for her, then." He stuck out his hand. "Agree?"<br />
"Agree," Tien said, shaking the hand. The doorman led Tien into the main area of the inn. It was a big room, with quadrants around a central serving area. Men sat at the bar, drinking and talking; families sat at the tables, eating and enjoying the heat that was funneled out of grates from a furnace in the basement. "Quite a big place."<br />
"It is." The doorman pointed. "That there's the owner, Umen." Tien followed the finger and found a stringy man with a large black moustache. "Pay him. When are your others coming?"<br />
"They're waiting at the edge of town for me to gather them," Tien said. His eyes roved the big room. "I needed to make sure the place was safe, first."<br />
"I told you, this is the safest place in leagues."<br />
Tien didn't respond. Instead, he took in as many details as he could. His eyes, black stones set in cloudy white pools, absorbed everything and forgot nothing.<br />
People were placed in categories. Not dangerous, possibly dangerous, and dangerous. There were dangerous people in the inn, certainly, but nobody that was outright dangerous to them. Just before Roland walked back to the door, Tien stopped him. "Where's the Newsman?"<br />
"That's him in the corner there with the stand," Roland said, motioning into the corner on Tien's right. An old man sat behind a podium with a pile of books and papers. As Tien watched, the old man licked a finger and turned a page. "He's going to make a report in ten minutes or so, but you can ask him about information any time." Roland walked back to the door, leaving Tien standing in the middle of the entrance way.<br />
He found a seat at one of the few empty tables, and called a serving girl over. He ordered a beer and looked around. Nobody took much notice of him, except perhaps the guards that circled the big room. They wouldn't linger on him, though, but instead move on to the next person.<br />
Tien sat silently until the old man rose from his chair and approached the podium. The big room got quieter, but not by much. The Newsman waited until the talking had died down.<br />
"The eighth-hour report, of this the twenty-eighth day of the final month. The new year approaches. The Council of One Hundred has predicted a year of plenty." A few people chuckled. The Council of One Hundred could predict a dozen things for the coming year and have none of them come true. "The rain continues, as it has, with no end in sight." This was par for the course. The rain had been falling since before Tien was born – before even the Newsman. "The Council reports that some Day-lighters have been spotted in the surrounding area, and warns everybody to not give them the time of day, nor the warmth of hearth, nor the taste of bread." Tien frowned. That was troubling. Then again, he suspected every area had the same warning.<br />
The old man went on. "The Sky Watchers say cold is coming, and that we should prepare." This was taken more seriously than the Council's prediction. The Sky Watchers were frequently right. "Ahem . . . some local things . . . " The Newsman read something, adjusting his thick spectacles. "The young boy Fern's dog has gone missing. It is black with brown spots, and not dangerous, though quite likely it is hungry now. It has been missing for three days. If you see it, please tell Fern, his parents, or myself."<br />
Tien zoned out as the Newsman read messages about the area. From a boy's missing dog, all the way down to Mrs. So-and-So has recovered from her bout of illness, the Newsman read. Finally, he finished, and sat behind the podium with his books and papers. The big room's volume started rising again, and quickly it was back to how it had been when Tien had entered.<br />
After a few minutes of waiting, he rose from the table and threaded his way through the crowd to the Newsman. The old man had his own guard, but he let Tien pass.<br />
"Excuse me," Tien said. "I'd like to know more about the Day-lighters that are supposed to be in the area." The Newsman looked up at him. "My family -- my wife, my daughter, my brother -- they're going to be joining me here soon. Do you think the Day-lighters are close?"<br />
"Eh, well, let me see . . . " The Newsman paged through a few loose pieces of paper, trying to find the right one. Finally he picked it out, adjusted his glasses, and squinted down at the message. "Er . . . says it's a bunch of them . . . a bigger group, ten or more. Looks like they were east of here heading north. I doubt they're close. You should be safe."<br />
Tien let out a held breath. "Thank you."<br />
"Of course." The Newsman smiled up at him. "You're very welcome."<br />
Tien made his way back to his empty table and half-full beer, which he drained. After that he went to the center island in the room and paid his fee to the inn's owner, Umen. He handed over the one hundred and eighty-five iron, which Umen accepted without argument. Tien walked back toward the door.<br />
"I'm going to get my family," he told Roland. "May I take my weapons?"<br />
"Yeah, just a minute," Roland responded. He bent and, after producing a key, unlocked a large cabinet. He pulled out a box that was labeled 'Tien.' He handed the weapons to Tien, who was watched closely by Remy as he stowed them. "You'll have to hand them back over when you come back."<br />
"Right," Tien said, and then he opened the door and walked into the cold rain.<br />
<br />
It took him twenty minutes to get to the edge of town. The torrential rain made it harder, but Tien had been walking in the rain for all his life. It was something that didn't bother him any more, even when he thought about it.<br />
From the edge of town it was fifteen more minutes until he got to his three traveling companions, huddled together under an old lean-to.<br />
"I wish I may, I wish I might," Tien said first. "It's safe. The Newsman said that the Day-lighters were east and heading north, in a big group."<br />
"The inn?" The woman asked. "Is it safe?"<br />
"Fairly. They make us give up our weapons, but there are a good number of guards hired by the owner."<br />
"What if we don't want to give our weapons up?" Tien's brother, Ren, asked.<br />
"Then we don't get in. The doorman made sure I understood that. I've already paid for all of us. But," Tien looked at his brother. "The doorman seemed to understand that it would be impossible to rid us of <i>every</i> weapon. Just don't overdo it. Give up the obvious ones." Tien's brother nodded.<br />
"How's the food?" The young girl asked. Her bright blonde hair was dripping and clumped. Tien smiled and knelt down.<br />
"I didn't have any, I just stayed long enough to hear the Newsman. It smelled good, though. We'll be able to have some when we get there. Ready to go?"<br />
It took them another forty minutes to get back to the inn. Tien knocked on the door and Roland let them in after taking 'all' of their weapons. Ren very grumpily handed over the weapons that Roland demanded. They sat at an empty table and were served plates of black beans and wet beef, with glasses of beer for the adults and water for the girl. She looked at it with disgust.<br />
"Drink up," Tien said. "Has to get inside you sometimes."<br />
"He's right, honey," Onli said. She pointed at Tien. "Your father knows how to get big and strong."<br />
"I have to be out in the water all day, and then you get to drink beer. It looks a lot better than drinking water." The girl pouted.<br />
"Teegan," Onli said, leaning in. "Drink your water."<br />
The girl sneered, but sipped at the water.<br />
The four of them ate in silence, trying not to attract attention. Teegan was able to force herself to finish half of the glass, but refused to drink beyond that, stating that the water was 'yucky.' Tien finished eating first, and spent the rest of the meal scanning the crowd, but he could only look in one direction at a time.<br />
"Someone's coming," Ren said, as he ate.<br />
A short, colorfully dressed man appeared between Tien and Onli, holding a guitar. "Greetings, travelers! I am Momono, a humble singer and tale-teller." He bowed, using one hand to keep his damp hat on his head. "I saw your table of sad faces and decided I must stop by for a visit, if only to give you a bit of fun!" His speech, and big smile, was met by two scowling adults. Teegan was playing with her fork, and Ren was still eating. Momono looked around the table and spotted Teegan. "Dear child!" He said. Teegan's head jerked up, and Momono's mouth dropped open. "Such bright hair!"<br />
He looked at Ren, Tien, and Onli. "Is this girl your daughter?"<br />
"Ours," Onli said. She locked the singer with her gaze. She put Tien's hand in her own. "She is our daughter."<br />
"But you both have such dark hair!" Momono said, all too loudly. A few people noticed them, and were looking. "How did she get such lovely golden tresses?"<br />
Onli let a moment of silence pass. "I'll tell you about my mother," she said.<br />
The tables around them fell silent. Momono didn't say anything. Onli shifted and looked around her. "My mother had long hair like the early sun. She never saw the sun, but old women would tell her she had been blessed -- like a drop of fire had landed on her as a child."<br />
Her voice was was low and sweet, and cut under the talking around them. The circle of silent listeners grew. She put her hands under her chin. "My father was like my husband, with hair the color of the coal he mined." She smiled and shot a glance at Tien. "I'll let you interpret that as you wish. My father saw my mother in a big city and, like many men, young and old, was brainwashed by her bright hair. Unlike other men, though, she saw him looking. Here was a man who did not look away, and that attracted her. They told me this many years later," Onli said, taking a small sip of her beer. She put it down slowly. Nearly the entire inn was quiet now.<br />
"They began to court, and were married." She spread her hand on her chest. "I was produced, via normal means." Listeners chuckled. "I take my dark hair from my father, but . . . " She looked at Teegan, who was trying to sit low in her chair. "My own daughter decided to ignore her parents, and took after her grandmother." Onli slipped a few fingers into the fan of Teegan's hair. "It's a bit darker than my mother's, I'm afraid. But it's quite something, isn't it?"<br />
The crowd took a moment to realize she had stopped talking and asked them a question. "Yes ma'am," Momono said. He held his cap in his hands. "It's lovely."<br />
Tien rose. "That's enough for tonight. It's time we get to bed. We have a lot of travel in front of us. Come, Teegan," Tien said, holding out his hand. The girl gripped it and the two of them, followed by Ren and Onli, went up the stairs to their room. They split, with the women in one and the men in the other.<br />
Ren shut the door behind him. "That was close," he said quietly. Tien nodded as he took off his cloak and hung it to dry. "It's a shame this town only has one inn. That was the most crowded room I've ever seen."<br />
"Thank God for Onli," Tien said. "That story has explained us away more times than I can count. It's no mystery why she's so good at telling it. She's got the whole thing memorized, down to the dramatic pauses."<br />
"Even I was drawn into it, and I've heard it before," Ren said.<br />
"Check the hallway," Tien ordered. Ren pressed his ear against the door and nodded to Tien. Tien knocked twice on the wall between their room and Onli's.<br />
Two knocks returned, and then he knocked thrice. Three more knocks came back. He nodded at Ren.<br />
They laid out on the two cold beds. For a while the only sound were their cloaks draining onto the floor.<br />
"Are you sure this place is safe?" Ren whispered. "There were a lot of people down there. Any one of them could have been-"<br />
"I know," Tien said, even quieter than Ren. "We didn't have any other choice. It was this or spend another night out in the cold and wet, or beat the odds and have someone welcome us in for the night. I don't think we need to worry, though. Even if some people were spies, there were too many people for them to look at."<br />
"Onli's story attracted everyone except for the Newsman. If somebody was trying to find us, they would have seen us," Ren responded. He held up a hand in the low light before Tien responded. A voice went by the door, muttering to someone. The voice disappeared, but Ren kept his hand up.<br />
When he lowered it, Tien responded. "We've done this before. It was nothing more than a good story. Onli and Teegan know how to play their parts."<br />
"I'll be glad when we leave here, anyway. While I was eating, I thought I heard something that I didn't like," Ren said.<br />
"What sort of thing?"<br />
Ren didn't respond immediately. "I'm not sure, but it had a tone that made it seem secretive."<br />
"It could have been anything," Tien said.<br />
"You aren't the listener," Ren said. "You're the seer. If I hear something and don't like it, you should be worried."<br />
"I'm worried. I'm always worried. We'll leave early in the morning. Now get some sleep."<br />
<br />
"Wake up. Tien, <i>wake up</i>."<br />
Ren shook Tien until his eyes came open. "We're in trouble."<br />
Tien immediately pulled himself out of bed and took a waking breath. "What do you hear?"<br />
"Far too many boots, and far too heavy, for a place like this at this hour. They've come. Somebody must have tipped them off to our presence."<br />
"Get your weapons ready," Tien said. He banged on the wall three times and ran to his pack. From it he pulled a small harmonica. Hurrying, he banged on the wall three more times. Three tired bangs responded to his. "How's the rain? Can we get out through the window?"<br />
Ren ran and opened the shutter and stuck his head into the rain. He came back dripping. "Wall's too steep; nothing to hold on to. You and I and Onli might be able to make it-"<br />
"But it's not an option for Teegan," Tien finished. Four pounds came from the other room "How many?"<br />
Ren cocked his head. "Too many." Tien pounded twice on the wall. Two pounds came back.<br />
"Let's go," Tien said. Ren nodded. He had small object in his hand. Ren listened for a moment, and opened the door.<br />
There was a great commotion in the main area, down the stairs. Tien heard a jumble of voices but couldn't pick them out. He moved to Onli's room and knocked twice. Onli and Teegan exited, ready to travel.<br />
"How many?" Onli asked. Ren answered the same as before while Tien checked the hallway behind them.<br />
"It looks like this way leads somewhere else. It might just be more rooms, but it could be a back door. After me; Ren, you're in the back." Ren nodded, and Tien started down the dark hallway. He felt his way until his eyes adjusted to the dark.<br />
The made their way silently, listening to the heavy footsteps come up the stairs. They kept moving as the assailants stopped at their rooms and bashed the doors open. Teegan hurried along behind Tien, mouth set and eyes trained on his back.<br />
Tien stopped them, focusing ahead. He perceived some inhuman shift in the hallway's light, and turned to the door on his left. He pushed it open quickly and the other three rushed in. He pointed at the stunned occupants of the double bed; Ren and Onli jumped on them. Tien closed the door slowly without a sound. Teegan knelt next to him.<br />
Tien listened. His hearing didn't match Ren's, but it was still good. He heard the heavy boots in the hallway from the direction they were heading. They stopped, and he started to hear angry voices, all along the vein of "<i>they got away?!</i>" He smiled.<br />
The man under Onli, who's mouth was blocked by her hand, grunted and tried to talk through. Onli brought a menacing finger to her lips, and then recognized the person. "Momono!" She whispered. Momono nodded, and lifted his hands over his head to show he was unarmed. Onli looked at Tien, who nodded after a quick thought.<br />
"You're the woman that told the story!" He said, too loudly. Onli slapped his mouth closed.<br />
"And you're a singer who needs to keep his mouth <i>shut</i>," she said. Momono nodded. She took her hand away and looked at the other person lying on the bed. "Who's your friend?"<br />
"A bed-warmer," Momono said. The woman tried to say something indignant through Ren's hand. Onli ignored her.<br />
"Both of you, stay quiet," she said. She looked over at Tien, who had his ear pressed against the door.<br />
Tien looked back. "They're going to start checking the rooms from the outside in to make sure we don't escape. It sounds like most of them have gone to the exit in the back."<br />
"Then we head for the front entrance as quickly as we can," Ren said. He got off of the woman that had shared Momono's bed. "Get ready to run," he said to Teegan. "You know what to do if one of us falls." Teegan nodded again, and looked worried. Onli jumped off the bed and went to the other side of the door, ready to move.<br />
Ren listened, waiting for the perfect time. "Now," he said, and Tien opened the door. Onli, Teegan, and Ren ran. Tien was moments behind them when Momono stopped him.<br />
"Wait." Tien stopped and looked behind him. He was a dark shape in the doorway. "You four, you're Day-lighters, aren't you?" The singer asked.<br />
Tien stood in the threshold. His strong vision presented him an image of Momono kneeling on the bed, looking with a hungry expression. Tien watched him for a moment, then ran after the other three.<br />
<br />
He met up with Ren, Onli, and Teegan at the top of the stairs that led down to the main area. The Council's soldiers were inspecting every hidden cranny of the large room. Tien could hear the soldiers in the hallway behind them rousting sleeping visitors, looking for them. "Not a lot of time."<br />
"Tien and I go hard and try to make an opening," Ren said. "Onli, you and Teegan go when you see one." Onli nodded. Ren stood and, gripping one end, pulled it the device he held. A long metal tube appeared. "Maybe we'll get lucky, and we can get to our weapons."<br />
"Maybe we'll get lucky, and we can get out of here," Tien responded. He bent down. "Now!"<br />
He and Ren jumped down the steps, making a great noise. In the big room were a half dozen soldiers, plus four guards from the inn, which included Remy, and the doorman. He stood with his fists on his hips, directing the soldiers. They all turned when the two men appeared.<br />
The first soldier Ren hit was too slow, and he got a shaft of metal in the eye. Another appeared, knocking over a table and swinging his sword at Ren. It was blocked, and the soldier got a kick in the stomach for his trouble. Tien was stopped on his way to the weapon locker by Remy, and the big guard leered, raising his sword high.<br />
Tien snapped his harmonica forward and a spring shot a blade out of the side, which shortly met Remy's lung. The man fell with a crash and a shout, and Tien smashed open the locker with their weapons. He pulled his sword out, and blocked an attack.<br />
"Thought there was something odd about you!" The doorman shouted. "All I had to do was call some soldiers, and they picked you out of the pile with your red ball trick!" He swung, but it was slow and clumsy. Tien blocked it easily and let him keep talking. Behind the doorman, Ren was beating a soldier to death with his metal stick. "A simple item to signal potential allies!" He swung again.<br />
Tien pushed the sword aside and used his hilt to knock Roland's temple. He expected an easy end to the fight, but the doorman jumped backwards. "You Day-lighters! Not many of you left, are there!" Roland's face turned into a greedy smile. "And when I kill you, I'll be a rich man! Know my name, scum! I am Roland!"<br />
"It's worthless to try and explain myself, isn't it?" Tien asked. "To tell you that we're trying to <i>save</i> this world?"<br />
"Shut up!" Roland shouted. A soldier was running to help him. Tien wondered where Onli and Teegan were. "I know your lies! The Council knows what you really want to do!"<br />
There was a smash behind Roland, and he looked. Tien took the chance. He punched the doorman in the face and darted past him, finding Ren surrounded by soldiers too clumsy to catch him. He kicked the first one forward, threw Ren his sheathed sword, and engaged the next soldier. He knocked it back with a strong blow to his metal chest piece, and looked at Ren. "Onli?" Ren only shrugged.<br />
One of the inn's guards stepped in front of Tien and attacked. Tien side-stepped and stomped down on the guard's wrist. He heard a wet snap and the guard dropped his sword, screaming. A soldier wrapped his arms around Tien from behind, and another approached from in front. Tien kicked but missed. There was a commotion from the stairs.<br />
Tien looked and saw another ten guards storming down toward them from the hallway. He didn't see Onli or Teegan, and the soldier's sharp swords were clean.<br />
Tien dropped his sword and muscled his way out of the soldier's grip, dropping to the floor and grabbing one of the soldier's ankles. The soldier toppled down and Tien snatched his sword. Ren cut down a guard next to him. More than a dozen soldiers approached them, all armed. Ren and Tien backed away, keeping their swords up and ready. "Don't kill them!" They heard. Tien spotted Roland behind the soldiers and guards. "They need to be alive for the reward!" He seemed to think. "Actually, I want a go at that one!" He pointed at Tien. "He-"<br />
His words were cut off with a loud <i>brrang</i>. The soldiers looked behind them and found Momono standing with a busted guitar over Roland's supine body.<br />
"Er," Momono said. "Don't mind me."<br />
"Get 'im," one soldier said to another. That soldier turned and advanced on the singer.<br />
Before he could reach him, a tiny dart caught him in the neck. He yelped and slapped his hand over it, which led him to being available for a punishing blow from Onli, who leapt down the stairs and upended him onto his head. She kept moving, taking the next soldier with a hit to the small of his back. That soldier fell into another, and suddenly there was a hole for Tien and Ren. They took advantage of it, pressing through and keeping their swords up.<br />
"Teegan?" Tien asked Onli when they reached her. The soldiers were reforming their ranks.<br />
"Later," she said.<br />
Now it was three against fifteen or more, but they had a free path to the door for the moment. Tien made for it first, followed by Onli. One guard tried to get in her way, but she bowled him over. Tien scooped up as many of their weapons as they could and kicked the door.<br />
It didn't open, and he teetered back, off balance. Ren pushed him back up, and kicked at the door. This time it swung open into the wet morning. The three ran out, dashing through deep puddles of mud and filth. The soldiers tried to chase after them, but were too burdened by their armor to keep up. The three ran through the dark streets of the town until they were out of breath. They buckled and hid their numerous weapons as they gulped down air and rain.<br />
"Where's Teegan?" Tien asked.<br />
"She and Momono escaped out the back while the soldiers where busy with us," Onli said. "I told them we'd try to meet them by the north side of town in a half hour. We'd better get going if we want to make it."<br />
They moved on. The town was waking up, mostly because of the din the soldiers and guards were making, searching for them. They had to hide as groups went by, but it was still dark enough to do so easily. Soon they got to the north edge of the town, and Tien spotted Teegan and the singer hiding under a house, hidden from everyone but him.<br />
Teegan ran to them, and they embraced her. The rain was clumping her hair, and even her thick cloak was soaked through due to lying in water almost a half an hour. Momono came to them slower, and as soon as he got close enough, Tien grabbed him.<br />
"Who are you?" He shouted as his hands wrapped around Momono's thin arms. "What do you want?" He shook the singer. Rainwater fell from hollows in his clothes. "Why did you help us?"<br />
"Tien," Onli said, laying a hand on his shoulder. "It's all right. He made sure that Teegan could escape. Without him, you'd probably be dead."<br />
Tien looked over Momono. The singer tried to smile.<br />
Tien dropped him, and he crumpled to the ground in a pile of wet clothes. "Let's go," Tien said. "We don't have a lot of time before it gets light enough. The soldiers are going to be all over here in an hour." He turned around and started to walk away from the town.<br />
"Wait!" Momono said, scrambling to his feet. "I want to come with you!"<br />
"And why would you want to do that?" Ren asked. "Do you really want to help us, or is it for something else? What is it -- personal gain?" Ren moved in a bit closer. "Are you an agent for the Council, just to gain our trust and turn us over later?"<br />
"No! No! N-none of that!" Momono said, waving his hands frantically. "Really!"<br />
"Then tell us why!"<br />
Ren had his hand on the hilt of his sword. Teegan was standing next to Onli, whose hands didn't stray far from the girl. Tien was scanning the area, looking through the rain. Momono took a breath.<br />
"I heard the Newsman, just like you did," he said to Tien. "Before you went and got the others. He said that the Day-lighters were in a big group and heading north, that they weren't in the city." Momono paused. "Why were you there? Where are the rest of your group?"<br />
"Interesting questions," Tien said. "Ones that we don't want to answer. You'd better come up with a good reason for wanting to know, and quick."<br />
Momono swallowed, and brushed rain out of his eyes. "Day-lighters. Enemies of the council and humans. Men and woman-" he looked at Teegan "-and children who want to open the clouds in the sky and burn the Earth with the hot sun. Hunted by the Council's soldiers, and guards, and farmers. Welcome nowhere. Friends of no one. Enemies of everyone." Momono started to get on better ground. "It's a hard dose to swallow. The Council wants us to believe that you would kill us all. But I know; you can't possibly."<br />
Momono nodded. "You aren't crazed. I can see that. You're no fanatics or wild people with disease-addled brains. You." He pointed at Tien. "You made sure the inn was safe before getting the others, and all of you played your parts in the inn when I so foolishly picked you out of the crowd. Even you, little one, I know was acting." He looked at Onli. "You aren't married to this man. She isn't your daughter. I would have called you out in the inn, but your story was too good. It was better than I could come up with. You have a gift of words."<br />
Onli nodded.<br />
"But there was no doubt about your identities when you so rudely intruded in my room just a little while ago. So. You're Day-lighters. Not crazed cultists. The Council wants you dead and gone." Momono pushed his chest out. "I want to know why."<br />
The Day-lighters waited. "Is that all?" Ren asked. Momono shrugged. Ren, Tien, and Onli exchanged glances.<br />
"Stay there and don't move," Tien said. The four of them huddled together and started whispering.<br />
Momono really didn't move, brought about by one part determination, one part desire for knowledge, and one part fear. He stood shivering, warming himself with his hands. He tried to figure out which way the conversation was swinging. Finally they broke apart. Tien approached him.<br />
"You can come with us," he said, glancing back at Onli. "With a few conditions. These are not negotiable. One: you get no weapons."<br />
"Don't have any," Momono said. "The reason I broke my guitar over that man's head is that was the only thing I could use."<br />
"Fine. The second condition is, if you disappear during the night, or when we aren't looking, or anything, we'll assume you've run off to the Council's soldiers and told them where we're traveling. <i>If</i> that happens, and <i>if</i> we happen to see you again, we'll kill you."<br />
The words were said with ultimate emphasis. No part could be misunderstood, or pity the fool. "Okay," Momono said, trying not to display how quickly his heart was pounding.<br />
"Third, and final, condition. This is to make sure that you are absolutely sure that you want to understand us. In exchange for being told what we know, and what we wish to do, you will, on the surface only, lead the Day-lighters."<br />
Momono didn't respond. He didn't fully understand.<br />
"This means that, if you are captured, or several of us are, you will be the one who is pegged as the ring leader of our little group. In addition, you will <i>always</i> go with one of us on scouting missions, such as when I went to the inn to make sure it was safe. You will hold no real power. Do you follow?"<br />
"Yes, I think I do." Maximum danger.<br />
"Do you accept?" Tien asked. A curtain of rain hid him from Momono's view for an instant, and the singer's heart lurched. The rain lessened, and the stern man's face appeared again.<br />
"I accept," Momono said. "I'm ready."<br />
"Then follow."<br />
<br />
The rain didn't stop -- it never did -- as the clouds gained a dim, glowing light, but it did let up a little bit. The Day-lighters and Momono traveled north, crossing a wide river. They emerged just barely wetter than they entered it, and took some time to shake loose the water. It was never worth taking too long, as the rain always gave it right back. While they walked, Onli took the time to explain.<br />
"Everyone knows the stories," she said when Momono asked. "While now it's rain everyday, or snow if it's cold enough, it wasn't like that before. Before there were days when the rain stopped, the clouds pulled apart like a curtain, showing us the greater sky. The sun was not a hidden, deformed creature that fought to warm us, but the most powerful thing humanity could imagine. It was a fire in the sky; the only respite was night. There were sometimes weeks when not a cloud blocked it."<br />
She paused to haul herself over a rotten log. "It happened too long ago for anyone to remember, but the clouds came, and the rain came, and that was anything that could be seen in the sky for hundreds of years. Humanity was greater, once. It controlled the beasts, the elements." She looked up as she walked; rain fell in her eyes. "Even the sky. But no longer."<br />
Momono listened to her solemn voice, held captive. He knew about the sky, and the sun, and humanity's past greatness. Everyone did.<br />
"We forgot the sun's warm love, and began to think that the cold rain was the only sky that had ever been. Imagine: to raise your eyes to the sky and be blinded, not by hard rain but undying warmth." Onli smiled. "It was a dream everyone had, until the first generation all died. Soon those that had lived under the sun were all gone. In my tale, in the inn, I said that old women told my mother about the sun, but even they would have been too young.<br />
"I feel I'm rambling. One thing was remembered -- that the sun was there, still waiting behind the clouds. More, some believed that it could be found again. Many people started to resent the sun for leaving, or being the cause of the rain. They started to hate, and fear it." Onli looked at Momono. "Do you understand so far?"<br />
"Yes," Momono said.<br />
"Our group -- we were called the Day-breakers when we started -- appeared and tried to get people to join us. To bring the sun back." She shook her head. "We were attacked. 'Bringing the sun back will burn us,' they said. 'We will dry up and die!' What silliness."<br />
"I know that. The Council thinks you're going to use the sun to burn them up and gain power for yourself," Momono said.<br />
"The sun couldn't do such a thing any more than a drizzle could drown a man," Onli said. "And gain power?" She looked around. "The four of us?" Throwing her head back, she laughed. "We're no rulers. We just want the sun. We want to clear the clouds and warm tired bones for the first time in ten generations."<br />
"But how?"<br />
"That was a question not even half answered until several years ago. The people who started our group, before you or I were even born, guessed that something could be done with the machines that humans had long abandoned when the sun disappeared. The rain had made them difficult to use. You've heard of electricity?" Momono nodded. "The machines wouldn't work without them. Few things could generate their own electricity, and the things that could needed power from something else, and knowledge that nobody possessed. The earliest Day-lighters were lost, and didn't know what to do." Onli fell silent.<br />
Momono waited for a few minutes. They were walking through a field. After not too long, his curiosity got the better of him. "So what did they do?"<br />
"They looked," Tien said. Momono was surprised to hear him. "They looked for knowledge that someone knew, or had hidden. They found a little bit, and taught themselves, but it wasn't enough. Even then, they didn't know if there was a machine that could do what they wanted."<br />
Onli was nodding. "They looked for machines, information, and people. People to help them join the cause and bring the sun back. As their influence spread, so did the number of people who feared them. They began to be persecuted. They had to travel in smaller numbers."<br />
"We're just one of several groups," Ren interjected.<br />
"It's been difficult for us," Onli said. "We're hated because we want to bring humanity back into the light; because we want to get back to what we had before."<br />
"I have so many questions," Momono said. <br />
"We'll talk more later," Onli said. "Right now let's concentrate on walking. The rain's getting worse."<br />
<br />
They traveled for a long time. Momono was exhausted by the time they stopped for the night. He was used to moving around, but usually it was from one town to the next, to spend a few nights singing and telling stories for coin and food. When they stopped his feet were sore, his back ached, and he was freezing.<br />
Tien and Ren set up a blanket between a few trees to keep the rain off of them. They built a small, smokey, sputtering fire out of wet wood that didn't last long. From their expressions, Momono guessed this was far too normal. They had a little cold food, and they were gracious enough to share some of it with him. He wolfed it down; the rest of them nibbled.<br />
The rain had fluctuated from pouring to misting over the day, right now it was dropping thick, heavy drops that ran down the suspended blanket and turned into mud.<br />
Everyone was tired, and decided to sleep. The three adults picked numbers to keep the first watch. Tien lost.<br />
Ren, Onli, and Teegan feel asleep rather quickly, but Momono wasn't used to the cold. He found himself awake and being stared down by Tien, who sat against a tree.<br />
"Your fingers," Tien said. He was wrapped in his damp cloak. The rain came down around them and made it hard to hear. "They have calluses."<br />
"From playing the guitar," Momono said. "You must press down to make the right sound." He fell silent under Tien's hard scrutiny. He shifted uncomfortably on the hard, cold, wet ground.<br />
"Do you know what I'm called?" Tien asked. Momono looked at him. "I'm the seer. My eyes," he said as he pointed. "They're stronger than normal people's. I see very well." He leaned forward. The minor glow from the fire's embers gave him shadows. "I see there's something about you that you aren't telling us, and I want you to know something."<br />
Momono waited for him to continue. The only sound was the constant rain.<br />
"You said you have to press down hard to make the right sound with a guitar. If I think what you aren't telling us is dangerous, I will press down on you until you make the right sound. And I know how to press."<br />
"I understand," Momono said. Tien leaned back against his tree. "You don't want any trouble to come to you or your friends. I might not be a seer, but I notice things. You were ready to beat me when I came up to your table in the inn and pointed out the girl's hair. You gave most of your weapons away, but I know you had some hidden."<br />
Tien did nothing.<br />
"You're a seer . . . Onli is a speaker, that much is obvious. Ren? Teegan?" Momono asked. "Or perhaps I'm prying."<br />
Tien had a small smile. "Ren is a listener. Teegan is also a speaker, at least we think she might be. We'll know more as the years pass."<br />
"Why is Teegan with you?" Momono asked. Tien looked at him suddenly, with the straight, unwavering vision of a person galvanized by someone else's words. "She's more than just a member?"<br />
Tien didn't answer. He stood. In an instant he stood beside Momono, who scrambled to get out of the way. Tien's hand clamped down around the singer's wrist, and the next thing Momono knew, a dagger's point pressed into the skin on his wrist.<br />
"You're asking a lot of questions for a singer," Tien hissed. Momono saw the anger in his eyes. "You remember our rules?"<br />
"Yes. If I leave, you kill me. I don't plan on leaving anytime soon." The two men stared at each other for a moment. Momono felt the dagger's point dig slightly deeper with each breath. Tien held the weapon still, ready to plunge it deep.<br />
Then he stood. He loomed over Momono and slipped the dagger away. Without a word he went back to his tree and settled down. He looked at Momono for a minute. "Teegan isn't normal." Momono didn't say anything. "We rescued her from a Council facility. They were trying to discover the source of her power."<br />
"Do I get to know the power?" Momono asked.<br />
Tien nodded. He looked at the small lump on the ground where Teegan was. "She can generate heat." He looked at Momono. "Not like you or I generate heat. It's much more, almost like she has a furnace hidden inside her. We heard about her from a drunk man who used to be a guard where she was kept. He'd been fired for drinking." Tien smiled. "We were able to get him drunk and angry enough for him to spill his guts."<br />
Momono picked up on the subtle double-meaning of the words. "What were they doing to her? In the facility?"<br />
Tien shrugged. "We don't know for certain. She doesn't have a good memory of it for one. Two, after we got her out, the Council decided to disband the facility, and everybody who'd worked there up and vanished. You can guess what probably happened to them," Tien said. Momono nodded. "We do know a few things. They examined her body. There are scars-" Tien traced lines across his torso, head, and limbs "-all over her. They tried to find the source of the heat. When we got her out she had bandages on half of her body." He dropped his hands. "We've guessed at some of the other things they did to her, but we don't know. If she knows she isn't telling us."<br />
"And you think that she could have a solution." Momono pointed at the sky. "You know, for the sun."<br />
Tien shrugged. "That was one reason. A lot of us have started to dislike a good number of the Council's practices, just because of the way they've treated us. You have to admit that what they did was cruel." Momono nodded. "If she turns out to have an ability we can use, than so much the better."<br />
The two of them fell silent. Momono was even starting to get tired. He fell asleep shortly after. Tien stayed awake. He kept his strong eyes moving through the darkness, looking for anything -- man or beast -- that would try to sneak up on them. Every once in a while he would snatch a glance at Momono, Ren, Onli, or Teegan.<br />
<br />
It took them another day to reach a town. The rain was a heavy mist that obscured their vision and weighed down their clothes. The clouds were relatively light.<br />
Walking in a forest, they came across a well-worn path that had gutters along the side. A few people were on the path with them, and they all seemed to be heading in the same direction.<br />
At the end of the path they found a partial clearing with a few buildings. As Momono, Teegan, Onli, and Ren looked around, Tien looked up. The others followed his eyes.<br />
Far above them, wrapped around giant trees, were buildings. They looked attached to or even built into the sides of the trees, and were connected by long, strong rope bridges. The bridges went up and down and out farther than most of them could see. The five of them stared in wonder. <br />
"I don't understand," Teegan said. "Wouldn't the wood be too damp to hold something like that?"<br />
"I'm not sure," Onli said. She turned to Tien. "What do you see?"<br />
"Some soldiers," Tien said, scanning the bridges and walkways. "They don't seem to be looking for anything in particular." He studied on of the soldiers. "Than again, we got caught last time and they weren't looking for anything at all. We all need to be very careful," he whispered. "Teegan, keep your hood up. Momono, don't do any-" He stopped and studied the singer. "Actually, why don't you come with me."<br />
<br />
The inn's stained wood door creaked open, and instead of a large, cheery, full crowd like the last inn, this one was rather dank and empty. Momono and Tien entered, and Tien took in the details of the inn quickly. It was a place for rougher characters, but it was smaller, and Tien guessed they would be safer here.<br />
They entered the city and walked along the bridges, astounded at their strength. Even on thin passages they didn't sway or creak. Momono stopped to ask a citizen about it, and the citizen explained with some pride that the anchors went deep into the monstrous trees, which also supplied the wood to make the buildings and walkways.<br />
Tien nudged Momono, and the singer wandered to the counter at the inn. "How much for five people to stay the night?" He asked, trying to put on an air of confidence. He leaned against the counter and began to study his nails, as if looking at the innkeeper would have been too much trouble.<br />
"A hundred iron, drinks extra," the innkeeper responded. He was like many innkeepers: large, hairy, and greasy. Momono half suspected they came with the building.<br />
"What about food?" Momono asked.<br />
"Not included, but it's good and cheap. It'll fill you up, put some meat on your bones. What'll it be?"<br />
Momono looked in the innkeeper's eyes and said exactly what Tien had told him. "One our number is young, just a girl. She won't take up much space. I'll give you ninety-five."<br />
"Still a hundred." The innkeeper poured a drink. "But lemme get a look at her and I won't charge as much for her meal, if what you say's true."<br />
Momono hesitated, still leaning against the counter. Would he make a potentially dangerous decision without asking Tien? Or would he ask Tien, possibly exposing the fact that Momono was just pretending to lead the group?<br />
He settled on a third option. Without a word, he pushed off from the counter and motioned to Tien to follow him. Together they left the inn.<br />
"I asked him about a refund, and he said he'd charge us less for Teegan's meal if he saw her," he said as they walked high above the ground.<br />
"You were right to tell me. I think it will be fine. Most of that people were either there for a cheap drink or to make sure nobody noticed them. It should be safe, but we'll have to take precautions."<br />
"Like?"<br />
"You'll see."<br />
They made their way down to earth, and found where Ren and Onli had stashed themselves. Tien explained the stipulation. "Keep your hair tied back," he said to Teegan. "Keep your hood up. If he does see something, hopefully he'll just think it's a trick of the light. Teegan nodded as she tied a knot around her hair and put it down the back of her cloak.<br />
They went back to the inn. Ren, Onli, and Teegan all walked the same as Momono and Tien had at first, afraid of losing their balance and plummeting down a hundred feet for a messy end. Momono told them what they had found out, about the trees and the pathways. Teegan continued to step carefully, even after being told.<br />
They got back to the inn and found that it fuller. Tien nodded Momono on, and he approached the counter with Teegan.<br />
"Here she is. Like I said, not even ten years," the singer said. The innkeeper looked up.<br />
"I'm gonna be nine next month!" Teegan said, a little upset.<br />
A wide, surprising, grin spread on the innkeeper's face. "Of course you are!" He beamed down. "I'll make a note for the waitress to charge a bit less for the lass," he said to Momono. "What's your name?"<br />
"Momono."<br />
The innkeeper paused and frowned. Momono's stomach squeezed. "Why does that name sound familiar?" The innkeeper said, scrawling on a little square of paper. "I know I've heard it before . . . "<br />
"I-I'm a singer!" Momono said, startled. "I'm somewhat well-known in the south! Perhaps you've heard someone talk about my stunning rendition of 'The Girl of Gerry-Main!'"<br />
"Maybe that's what it was!" The innkeeper said. He pointed his pencil at Momono. "A singer? Why don't you give the boys here a good song? I bet you could make a fair bit of iron! The gents love a rousing song!" He swung his arm at the current patrons. Momono saw more lifted glasses than eyes.<br />
"I . . . can't. I lost my guitar. I don't like singing without it."<br />
"Oh? How'd you lose it?"<br />
Momono blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "A bear ate it!"<br />
He and the innkeeper looked at each other for a moment. "I think he was as surprised as I was," Momono said. "It was dark, and . . . I guess the beast was hungry."<br />
"Ah . . . well . . . all right then," the innkeeper said. "I've got the note all written down. Why don't you bunch take a seat and we'll get your food out to you."<br />
Momono and Teegan left the counter and went back to the other three.<br />
"How'd it go?" Tien asked.<br />
"Fine, mostly," Momono said. He noticed Ren was smiling. "I panicked."<br />
"Clearly," Ren said. They found a table and took their seats. Nobody in the building gave them even a glance. Teegan kept her hair hidden nonetheless.<br />
They sat quietly for a few minutes in the flickering light, listening to the rain outside. Eventually a limping waitress appeared. She set down a platter of bowls. Stew, full of chunks of potatoes and carrots and bits of beef, filled them up. In front of Teegan she set a special plate. On it was white rice, soggy tomatoes, and-<br />
"I don't believe it," Ren said. "Chicken." He looked up at the waitress. "We can't afford this."<br />
The waitress shrugged. "Fenny's got a soft place for younglings. He had a daughter that died of rain-sick, I think. He got his hands on some of this for a cheap price, and he wants her to have it, free of charge. For the rest of you it's forty iron all."<br />
Momono handed over the money. "Tell Fenny thank you, from all of us."<br />
"I surely will," the waitress said, and limped off.<br />
"You enjoy that," Ren said. "You know how rare chicken is around here."<br />
Teegan nodded. Despite herself, she wore a smile. They all began eating.<br />
The food was as described. It was cheap, simple food to fill your belly and warm you up and little more. Teegan described the chicken to Momono, who had never tasted it. She said it was 'weird, but weird in a good way.' Momono nodded thoughtfully, as if the description actually meant anything.<br />
The sat at the table and talked for a few minutes, enjoying the warmth and dryness. The inn never got much busier, and most people were just there for drink, as Tien had guessed. After a little while they went up to their room.<br />
<br />
It was a single room inside the circle of the tree. There were no beds, but large mounds of hay covered with sheets. It looked like there was enough space for eight or more people. There was a covered torch that Tien lit once they got inside, and it was plenty warm and dry. They all picked a mound and bedded down, shaping their pile to be more comfortable. Teegan fell silent quickly, but the adults stayed awake a little longer.<br />
"What are we heading for?" Momono asked. "Is there some conclave that will keep you safe?"<br />
"No, there's nothing like that," Onli said. "There are a few places that have more permanent settlements, but they're well-hidden. We only know of one of them, and it's a great distance from here."<br />
"Right now it's get away from the people chasing us," Tien said. "Whether that takes us a week or ten years, it doesn't matter. After that, we meet up with some others of our group and let them know about Teegan. After that, who knows."<br />
"Back at the inn where we met," Momono began, "the Newsman said that the Day-lighters were in a big group. Was he wrong? Did you break up?"<br />
The other three were quiet. Tien and Ren exchanged glances.<br />
"Neither," Onli said. "He was going partly off of old information. We <i>were</i> a much bigger group, before we got Teegan."<br />
"I told Momono about the facility the first night out," Tien interjected. Onli nodded.<br />
"There were thirteen of us." She smiled. "Bad luck. Only the three of us got out alive, plus Teegan. Our group was unanimous in our desire to free her from the facility, but it was at a great cost. We just hope that the other Day-lighters understand why we did it."<br />
"They'll understand," Ren said. "They have to. It's already done. They aren't going to kick us out or anything. Besides that, when they see what Teegan can do, they'll know we did the right thing."<br />
"That's right," Tien said. "Now I think we'd all better get some sleep. Hopefully we'll be able to get through the night."<br />
<br />
Momono snapped awake. It was still dark out. The room was warm and drowsy; it had a glow. He didn't know what time it was, but everyone else was still asleep.<br />
His heart was hammering, stunning him out of the morning slur and into action. He got off his pile of hay and looked around. The torch had burned out while they slept. He got up. He felt sick and hot. Something was wrong. Was there another person in the room? No, it was just the five of them. He didn't hear anything. There was no stamp of iron boots or cries to seal the exits. Ren had an arm over his eyes and was snoring. Tien slept leaning against the wall with his hay under him. Onli was under her sheet. Teegan-<br />
The glow was coming from Teegan. The torch had burned out. The room was warm. He felt hot.<br />
He ran to her and touched her shoulder. Blistering agony scalded him and he shouted, falling backward. Ren jumped awake and Onli rolled over. Momono pointed his hand -- smoke rose from the fingertips -- at Teegan, and Onli checked her.<br />
"She's burning up," she said.<br />
"Does she make light, too?" Momono asked, clutching his hand.<br />
"No, she -- uh oh."<br />
"Get her off of it!" Ren shouted, wrapping his arms around the girl. He yelled and threw her onto a different pile, revealing a bed of burnt straw and smoldering floor. "It's-" The dead fire on the smoldering straw came to life, spreading heat quickly. The floor caught on fire, and the flames reached to the wall before anyone could react.<br />
"Momono, get Tien up. Ren, see if you can put this out. I'll make sure Teegan is okay," Onli ordered. Momono got up and went to Tien. He shook the man's shoulder.<br />
"Tien! Tien! He's not waking up!" He yelled.<br />
"Try harder!" Ren shouted back.<br />
"Tien, wake up!" Momono shouted, seizing his arm and rattling it. Tien opened his eyes. "We have some problems!"<br />
"What? Is it-" He saw the issue. "Teegan?"<br />
"She did it but we aren't sure how," Onli said. "It's dry straw and she's plenty hot. She isn't waking up. I think she's been poisoned."<br />
She looked over at the flames. Ren was trying to crush them with his foot, but they never stopped. "I can't do anything to them!" He said. "We need water!"<br />
Momono looked around. There was nothing to hold water in. Instead he pulled open the window, scooped up an armful of hay, stuck it outside, and brought it back in when it was drenched, which was moments. He threw it on the fire. There was an explosion of steam that made him step backward.<br />
The fire pushed on, unhindered. The wet hay wasn't catching fire, but the water did nothing to stop the flames. It spread up the wall and across the floor. The fire's heat and light grew, and the draft from the window fueled it.<br />
"We need to get out," Tien said. "Gather your things!" the four of them collected their items quickly. Ren held Teegan's cloak out the window and then wrapped her in it. He hoisted her in his arms and followed the others out of the room.<br />
"Fire! Fire!" Onli bellowed. Her powerful voice split the early morning. "Everyone out! Fire!"<br />
The mostly-empty inn woke up, and a few bleary-eyed patrons stumbled out. "Awake, awake!" Onli cried. "There's a fire!"<br />
They got to the main room and ran into the innkeeper. "Fire?" He said, still mostly asleep.<br />
"In our room," Onli said frantically. "We don't know what happened. It was right near Teegan. She isn't waking up." She looked ready to cry.<br />
"Get outside and get her some fresh air," the innkeeper said. "And call the watch!" Tien stiffened as he said it.<br />
They ran outside while the innkeeper made sure everyone else was out. Tien instructed Momono to grab a guard and point him at the inn. Flames could already be seen spreading through the building and the tree that housed it. Even when the rain that always fell touched it, it didn't shrink back. It seemed to even grow stronger, soon filling the sky with eerie orange glow under the clouds. The tree village woke up and witnessed the first fire in years.<br />
The four of them watched the fire expand and engulf the entire tree. People were cleared free of it and the passages to it were cut to keep the fire from spreading.<br />
It only took ten minutes for the fire to eat the tree alive and send it crashing over, all untold hundreds of feet of it. It smashed through another bridge and off the side of a different tree, destroying a building that sat there. It boomed to the forest's floor with a shattering sound. Ren held his ears and turned away when it did.<br />
Teegan never woke up. Her skin burned hot even with the cold rain. Ren burned himself carrying her. Tien told them they needed to run.<br />
Soon the rudely-awoken village was behind them. The rain sizzled on Teegan's bare face.<br />
<br />
To be continued in "<a href="http://saturdaystory-time.blogspot.com/2014/01/star-bright.html">Star Bright</a>."Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-17606438519004074092013-12-14T12:00:00.000-06:002013-12-14T12:00:00.429-06:00The Princess, the Wizard's Daughter, and the Almost-Right KnightFact: Twelve children under the age of eighteen are killed by bats each year<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>"C'mon, chicken!" Andrew yelled. "It's just a hole!"<br />
"That's why I don't wanna go in!" Becky yelled back. "There's probably bugs and gross stuff in there! What if there's a bear?"<br />
The two children stood among the wet rocks around the Smoke Lake that was near their home. The day before, Andrew had found a deep hole, a cave, built into a cliff, that was too big for him to see the end. He'd found his friend Becky the next day, and now the two of them peered into it.<br />
"There's not going to be a bear in a cave by a lake! He'd drown if he tried to hibernate. Plus it doesn't smell like there's anything in there."<br />
"Why do you know what a bear smells like?" Becky asked. Andrew didn't answer. He took a few cautious steps into the darkness. Becky looked around the corner at him. She was primed to run and get help if something lunged out and snatched him.<br />
Instead, Andrew stood up straight, to his full four foot six height, and waved her in. "Come on, Becky! There's nothing here!" He took out a small flashlight and switched it on; a blue circle of light hit the damp rock wall. A solitary dot of water fell from the ceiling through the light's path. Both children jumped.<br />
"Aw, you scaredy cat!" Andrew shouted. His words bounced back and forth. "You're scared of everything! Now come on!"<br />
Reluctantly, Becky crept in behind Andrew, who pointed his light down the deep distance of the cave. Harsh angles on the wall threw shadows that hid beasts of the imagination that were banished as the two of them moved along and fanned the light over them. They walked through puddles of old lake water, around corners that -- even though Andrew wouldn't admit it -- they expected to conceal a monster, and watched the blue circle of light skate over uneven walls.<br />
Finally they found their way to the biggest room of the cave, a wider area that had a high, bumpy ceiling and rounded walls.<br />
"Wow!" Andrew said. The exclamation came back at them from all angles. "Look at this place! We could build such a cool clubhouse in here!"<br />
"I don't like it," Becky said. "It's too dark. We'd have to have a lot of flashlights."<br />
"Not if we brought, like, candles or something! Then we could have light all the time! No one would be able to find us if we came in here!"<br />
"I don't know. It's dark, and cold, and really far from my house."<br />
"Don't be such a baby! We'd be able to play games and stuff for as long as we want!" Andrew shouted. The circle from his flashlight shot around the room and ran over the ceiling, lighting on dark lumps that covered it.<br />
"I think I want to go home," Becky said. "What if the water level on the lake gets too high? All the candles would go out and we'd get all wet."<br />
"You never want to do anything fun!" Andrew said, placing his hands on his hips. The flashlight settled on a section of the ceiling that didn't seem to appreciate it.<br />
"Yeah I do!" Becky responded. "I just don't want to do it in an icky cave like this!" She inspected the ground at her feet using the dim light. "I think I saw a bug crawl over my shoe!"<br />
Andrew pointed the light at it. "There's nothing there; you're just seeing things!" On the ceiling a red eye opened, and a small body stretched its wings. It was already dusk, it seemed.<br />
"I'm gonna go home!" Becky said, crossing her arms. "You can stay here in this stupid cave until you're blue in the face for all I care! I'm gonna drink a cup of cocoa and watch one of my movies!"<br />
"Oh <i>yeah</i>?! Well, you can just-" a rustle made him stop and turn. "What was that?"<br />
"What was what?"<br />
"I thought I heard something." Andrew started shining his flashlight around the big, circular room. Something that sounded like a tree being blown in the wind came from the ceiling. Slowly, Andrew pointed the flashlight at the ceiling. Dozens or hundreds of eyes reflected the light back at him.<br />
"What are those?" Becky said. Her voice had gotten very quiet.<br />
"I don't know," Andrew said. "I think-"<br />
The bats exploded off the ceiling, turning into a swirling force of brown and black. Andrew and Becky started screaming. The flashlight hit different bats and sent them into confused spirals. The two children ran for the exit of the big room.<br />
Hundreds of bats carried them forward through the system of tunnels, beating them with their wings and feet until the two children spilled out into the fading daylight and the bats funneled up into the sky<br />
<br />
Fact: Americans loose an average of sixteen dollars and thirty-two cents per couch.<br />
<br />
"Oh, no, wait, I think I see them," Ingrid said, standing at the window of her kitchen. "I think they found the cave that the bats roost in. Yes, she'll be home soon, probably crying in fear and covered in little scratches. Get the band-aids ready. No problem. Good bye." She hung up the phone and watched the two children tear across her backyard toward their houses. She chuckled to herself, and got back to the dishes.<br />
When she was done, she found her husband Gert was asleep on the couch with the TV on in front of him. She watched his thin chest rise and fall. Eventually, she walked up to him and whacked him with the towel. He jumped awake and slid down into the cushions of the couch.<br />
"What'd you have to go and do that for?" He asked, trying to free himself.<br />
"I've got dinner ready. Go and wash up."<br />
Gert struggled, but only sank in deeper. His rear was trapped at the bottom of the couch, and he lacked the leverage to hoist himself out. Ingrid re-entered the room, and found his limbs sticking out in all directions.<br />
"Give me a hand, Ingrid, would you? I'm stuck!" Came his voice from the couch. Ingrid sighed and went around to the front. Gert was small enough for nearly his entire body to fall down into the poofy couch, but with one firm pull he was freed.<br />
He took the time to compose himself. "Thank you. Things got away from me rather quickly."<br />
"I'll say. Now come and eat your dinner."<br />
Soon the two of them ate in silence. Their daughter, Liz, was gone with friends that night, so the absence of her constant chatter was felt. The loudest sound was the tick of their heirloom cuckoo clock. They slurped their soup in silence.<br />
When her bowl was empty, Ingrid rubbed her stomach. "Ah, good. Say, I need a ten for the bingo tomorrow night. Do you have it?"<br />
"Eh? Oh, I suppose." Gert reached into his back pocket and stopped. "Hmm. Wallet's gone missing." He stood. "Where'd I put that old thing?"<br />
"On your dresser? Or the TV?"<br />
Gert wandered into the living room, bow legs drawing him along as his head turned in one direction and then the other. "Can't find it in here," She heard him say. "Maybe in my coat." Ingrid heard a thump and a curse. He'd stubbed his toe. "Not here either!" He called. He came back in to the kitchen, limping slightly, and sat down across from Ingrid. "I'll finish dinner, first."<br />
When they finished, Gert went upstairs to hunt. It couldn't be found on the dresser, among the knick-knacks, pocket knife, spare change, picture frames, aftershave, and uneven, handmade bowls from Liz's earlier years. It wasn't on the nightstand next to the lamp, or in the drawer with a box of tissues.<br />
Gert stood in the middle of the bedroom with one hand on his rump and the other massaging his thin hair. Not in his coat, not in the bedroom. The bathroom? No, he shook his head. There was no way it could have gotten in there. When had he had it last? Well, he remembered its comforting weight in his back pocket when he'd gotten back from the hardware store with his paints and things, and he'd used it there with no problem. Perhaps it was in the truck somewhere? He wandered outside into the cool air. Bats flew in the sky, gobbling up insects. He rummaged in the rusty truck, picking through trash and bags, looking for the cracked and faded black square of leather.<br />
But it wasn't there either. He stood in the dark drive, muttering to himself. He was starting to feel sour. It <i>was</i> quite an important item, that wallet. It had his cards and cash, and especially his Denny's loyalty card. Saturday mornings just wouldn't be the same without a plate of hot hash.<br />
He went back inside. Ingrid was on the couch watching Wheel of Fortune, and as he stalked past, he stopped. He turned his head to look at the couch slowly.<br />
"Gert!" Ingrid said, trying to see around him. "I can't see Pat!"<br />
"The couch!" Gert said. "My wallet probably fell into it when I got stuck! Here, stand up!" He pulled his wife off the couch, and removed the cushions, revealing a tan undercover with rips in it that led down into the dusty darkness of the couch's nether regions.<br />
"I don't see it," Ingrid said.<br />
"It probably fell down one of those holes," Gert said. "Why don't you run and fetch me a flashlight? There might be some more things down in here." He stuck his hand in as Ingrid left to hunt for a light.<br />
He felt nothing, at first. He started to feel the bones of the couch, wooden bars that helped it keep its shape. One of them left a splinter in his pinky, and he bit his lip. He kept searching.<br />
Without realizing it, the couch became something more than just something to sit on. It started to have another side, a hidden dimension contained within it, one that contained all manner of deep and untold treasures. Socks without number, piled high until they reached to the stars. Quarters, that glimmered like minerals in rich loam, enough of them to buy a pair of shoes or a book. Hard candies, still wrapped and still fine to eat, perhaps from a distant Halloween. <br />
He hadn't found the wallet yet, so he searched deeper into the fathoms. He envisioned old treasures, keepsakes from a distant age of youth and energy. Maybe he would find an old Twinkie he'd stashed there to keep Ingrid from finding it. She didn't like it when he snacked too much. Would he eat it, if he found it? Maybe. He imagined a lost postcard from a family member, a key to an old shed, and a mouse trap.<br />
Gert extracted his hand, staring in surprise at the iron bar smashed across his fingers. He didn't scream; instead his mouth hung open with the lips peeled back. He figured the pain hadn't hit him yet. Ingrid entered the room, holding an old flashlight that took more power than most refrigerators, finding him standing straight up, holding his wrist, staring at the mouse trap on his fingers.<br />
She started screaming. He looked at her, and he started screaming. She screamed louder. He screamed louder still.<br />
<br />
Fact: Cars don't like people. They will frequently speed when near police officers to get the driver pulled over and, if they're lucky, incarcerated.<br />
<br />
Liz sat in the passenger seat of her friend's sedan, singing along to the radio. It was a dull song with high-strung lyrics about love or some such, but Liz sang along anyway. Elise liked to sing in the car and Liz liked to sing along; it was what they did when they drove. Her house, number eighteen on Smoke Lake Drive, was just around the bend. <br />
Something flew in front of the windshield, and Elise shrieked. The car swerved, nearly running off the road. It struck the edge of an already-tilted mailbox, and the passengers heard a dim screech. Once the car was recentered, Elise started to take in deep gasps that echoed inside her small frame.<br />
"I hit something!" She said, her voice high and tense and uncomfortable. "I think that was Mr. Simon's! There's probably a big scratch on my car now! My parents are going to kill me!"<br />
"It's probably not that bad," Liz said. "Elise, calm down. Pull into my driveway and let's look at it." Elise nodded. Her face had drained of color. Gravel crunched under the car's wheels as it rolled to a stop. Elise ejected herself and ran around to Liz's side. She found a solitary gash.<br />
"See?" Elise said. "There's just one. A little bit of paint and it'll be fine."<br />
Elise sniffed. "My dad . . . "<br />
"Explain what happened." Liz laid a calm hand on Elise's shoulder. "Something flew at you. I saw it; it nearly hit the windshield. Anybody would have swerved out of the way. Plus, Mr. Simon's mailbox was already tilted!" Elise looked at her as sad and victimized as Liz had ever seen. "But most importantly, use that face. You're invincible if you use that face." Elise nodded.<br />
Liz watched her drive away, and felt sorry for her, but there wasn't much she could do now except to call Elise's father before she got home and back her up before she even got in the driveway.<br />
She stood with a finger on her lips. That actually wasn't a bad idea.<br />
She pushed open the front door and heard two voices screaming at each other without ceasing, and ran into the living room, where she found her parents. Her father had a mousetrap over three of the fingers on his right hand, and was yelling in, she supposed, pain. Her mother was holding the emergency flashlight and also screaming. The two went on yelling after Liz walked in, and they only stopped when she shouted.<br />
"Hey!" They turned and looked at her. "What's going on?"<br />
Her father lifted his free hand and pointed with a bony finger. "Mousetrap," he said. "In the couch."<br />
"Well, take it off!" Liz said, running forward. Her mother backed away. Liz lifted the bar off her father's fingers and clipped it back under the trigger. She carefully took it away from his hand and set it down on a table near the remote. The skin that had been clamped between the false cheese and the swinging bar was purple and dented. Her father's lower lip was trembling. Her mother came in with an ice pack wrapped in a towel and pressed it against the fingers. He sighed. "Why did you have you hand stuck inside the couch?" Liz asked.<br />
"I was trying to find my wallet," her father said, looking for a place to sit. He found an empty chair.<br />
"You're all right now?" Liz asked. Gert nodded, and Liz went up the stairs to her bedroom. She had a phone call to make.<br />
"Mr. Davis? Hi, it's Liz. No, she's on her way home, but as she was dropping me off, she swerved out of the way of something and nicked Mr. Simon's mailbox. It's just a scratch, but -- what? Oh, it was a bird or something. No, it's just one scratch. Well, it looked sorta deep, but not that bad. I wanted to call and tell you before she got home. I know she gets kind of hysterical." She listened for a minute. "Okay. Goodbye."<br />
That was dealt with. Mr. Davis had taken the time to explain some of the other troubles they'd been having; they mostly involved Elise's younger sister and a cave full of bats.<br />
Liz opened her backpack and took out a stack of books. Each one yearned for her attention. Would she do math first, worry through chemistry equations, or try and squeeze some enjoyment from the dry novels that always, somehow, she seemed to be given in lit class. Since starting high school she had read The Catcher in the Rye twice already, as well as The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, and Lord of the Flies. Her teacher had decided to give her To Kill a Mockingbird this time, and she didn't know if she would enjoy it.<br />
She tried to read, but she kept thinking about Elise and the car. She was worried that Elise's father would be too hard on her, but she was more worried that Elise would be too hard on herself. The girl had the tendency to punish herself for every little mistake. Every low test grade, every social blunder -- everything she did was just another mistake to labor over until it birthed an additional complex.<br />
Liz shook her head. She'd have to make sure Elise was all right the next day at school.<br />
She read for a little while, until she heard her parents talking about a television show, followed by the unmistakeable snap of a mouse trap on poor fingers. Her father started screaming. Sighing, she closed her book and went downstairs.<br />
<br />
Fact: One out of every twenty quarters made in 1973 contained a drug that made people relaxed. Handling the coins would absorb part of the drug through the skin.<br />
<br />
Mr. Simon's small shop bordered on the eccentric. That is to say, it was on the opposite side of eccentric from normal, and was almost passing all the way around the spectrum, back into mundane. There were springs attached to doo-dads, wheels that spun because of motors for no reason at all, and a stunning collection of hand mirrors. Item upon item attacked the senses. Weaker visitors sometimes had to have a lie down.<br />
It was only Mr. Simon, first name Newt, and his good friend Reed Shernmaker, in the store. The store was never really a crowded place, but it got a few customers a day, it was a fine place to find a niche gift, and every once in a while a collector would enter, straighten his bow tie, and find some lost treasure. Newt Simon loved it.<br />
He was counting coins out of the register. He'd sold a few good items that day, and was finding out how much he'd made. Reed was leaning on the counter, watching him.<br />
The two would wax about this topic or that topic, topping each other with unbelievable facts. Reed aimed an index finger at a coin.<br />
"Is that a '73?" He asked. He picked up the quarter. "By golly! Best be careful with that one, Newt. I hear the gov'ment used a special formula, only during that year! Mixed in a drug with the metal, to make people more relaxed!"<br />
"Seventy-three?" Newt responded, eyeing the coin. "Wasn't that the year of all the car crashes? Most ever in a single calendar, I think!"<br />
"Heavens!" Reed clapped a hand to his forehead. "I think you're right! Well, that explains why they stopped it, then! But watch out, I don't want you taking a snooze in the middle of County Six!"<br />
"Aw, don't worry." Newt tapped his skull, on which sat unkempt gray hair. "I got a mind like a <i>steel trap</i>. Ain't a thing that gets out of there, not while I have my wits!" He paused. "That reminds me, I'm expecting my meds in the mail today."<br />
"Meds?" Reed asked. Newt nodded.<br />
"Yessir. Found out I have a touch of early-onset dementia. Nothing to worry about, I've just been taking a little pill that keeps the ol' thinker in shape! Been doing crosswords and Sudokus, too. I'm as smart as I was when I was a boy."<br />
"So you're a big loon, then?" Reed asked with a smile that peeled his face in half. "I remember you back then! You could hardly keep your shirt buttoned!"<br />
"Like you'd remember!" Newt said, digging out the tens. "You were so busy chasing Mindy Lermen's pigtails you hardly had time for anything else!"<br />
"Maybe true, but they say men who go after woman at a young age are more successful in life!"<br />
"I say that's just because they don't have to worry about finding a lady when they're older, so's they can concentrate on simpler things," Newt responded. He moved on to the twenties. Everybody paid in twenties these days.<br />
"That could be so." Reed took a look around the store. "You aren't closing up early, are you?"<br />
Newt nodded. "Anybody who has the idea to stop in this late on a cold fall night like this will have another chance, that's what I say. Got a few things to take care of at home, not the least of which are those pills I mentioned. I'm supposed to take one a day, and I'm afraid I've been neglecting them. It's not really my fault, I ran out about a week ago."<br />
"It won't hurt you, will it?"<br />
"Naw. I just need to be careful, or I might start forgetting some things." Reed watched as Newt counted the tens. "Don't want that happening, now do we?" Newt said, animated.<br />
"You're sure we don't!" Reed said back with just as much energy. The two men started laughing -- neither was really sure why -- and they kept laughing.<br />
Soon Newt Simon was on his way to his home, working his worn jeep along the empty roads around Smoke Lake. The night seemed active above his head. Newt liked the cold air of autumn, so he normally drove with his jeep open.<br />
He pulled into his driveway, and felt something was odd. He was walking out to his mailbox when he realized what it was. He hadn't seen the old metal thing in the swing of his headlights as he went around the corner. Hunting, he felt it on the ground, ripped out of the dirt.<br />
He opened it frantically. Inside were a few letters, a few advertisements, and a package. He brought it all inside.<br />
In the light of his kitchen, with the vent in the floor gushing warm air, he spread the items out. Unwrapping the package quickly, he feared the worst. It had a big dent in it, and didn't like the way it sounded when he shook it.<br />
The pills, each one secluded from the others by a plastic bubble, looked crushed and smashed. He wondered if he could still save them by just taking the appropriate amount of dust each day. He found a muffin tin and opened the plastic bubbles, gently tipping each portion of dust into a cup in the tin. He quickly ran out of cups. He found a second tin, this one with even more cups, and filled them up. He had just enough space for all of the ruined pills.<br />
He looked at the two metal tins, pleased with himself. He'd salvaged the situation. Now he just needed to find a safe place to put them, and take one of them. He took up both tins, turned around, stumbled on one of his own feet, fell onto his face, and managed to dump both tins face down right over the vent in the floor. Whatever pill powder didn't fall down into the vent was blow up and became part of the air.<br />
He stayed there, with his body stretched out on the floor, staring at the vent. It was all lost. He had no pills.<br />
He picked himself up. He'd have to order more, that was certain. He didn't know if the pharmacy would believe him when he said all the pills had gotten crushed and dumped straight down a vent; it sounded like something a drug maniac would say. He'd have to try, at least.<br />
He looked at the phone attached to the wall, and found he didn't want to go near it. He knew that sometimes phone receivers can steal all of your voice and leave you unable to talk for a day or so.<br />
<br />
Fact: All glass is actually a very slow liquid and will, eventually, turn into a puddle.<br />
<br />
"Stop moving, honey," Mrs. Davis said. "If you let me put this on it'll stop hurting!"<br />
Becky struggled to keep still sitting on the hard wooden stool in the kitchen. Multiple tiny scratches covered her face and arms, some already had bandages on them. "You're sure you weren't bitten anywhere?" Mrs. Davis asked, checking the girl's hair.<br />
"I don't think so. It was just little scratches," Becky said. She'd fled from the bats with Andrew, gaining a multitude of tiny scratches from the bat's whizzing feet and hands. Mrs. Davis had worried about rabies, and Mr. Davis was know frantically googling something called "rabies postexposure prophylaxis."<br />
"How many scratches does she have?" Mr. Davis yelled from the computer.<br />
"A lot. At least a dozen," Mrs. Davis answered. "Do you want me to count them?"<br />
"No!" There was a pause. "We need to get her to the hospital as soon as we can!"<br />
Becky's face started to crinkle. A tear was squeezed out of her eye.<br />
"Oh, honey, don't cry. Everything's going to be okay. David! Get the keys! Elise, you stay here and do your school work," Mrs. Davis said. Elise, sitting at the breakfast table, nodded. "Come on honey, get your coat on. And, uh, tell me if you feel funny, okay? I'm going to call Andrew's parents." Becky said something as she left the room, but Elise didn't catch it.<br />
In a matter of minutes Elise was alone in the house. Her backpack was on the floor by her feet; her head was on the table. Her father hadn't been mad, apparently Liz had called him before she even got home, but Elise knew that her father was upset. She hated herself for thinking it, but this crises with Becky and the bats might push the car out of his mind.<br />
She went over the moment time and again. Something had flown into the windshield and Elise had swerved, thinking that she was going to hit it. It disappeared, and in its place was Mr. Simon's mailbox. It was at an odd tilt, and hung over the road a little bit like it was weighed down by something. She'd just knicked it, but heard the scratch. She'd also heard the smack as the mailbox hit the cold ground.<br />
Mr. Davis had made her promise to call Mr. Simon and tell him that it was her who had hit his mailbox, and offer to replace it for him. It was only right, she thought, that she be the one to repair the damage she'd done. She didn't know if she'd have to pay for the car. Would her car insurance go up? Would her father allow her to drive? Would Liz want her to drive her home?<br />
There was a knock at the door. Elise pulled herself out of the chair and walked through the dark hallway, and checked out the window. The person on the other side of the door was Mr. Simon, and terror shot through her. She unlocked the door and pulled it open slowly, fearfully.<br />
"M-Mr. Simon! I, uh, I was going to-"<br />
"Not now, child, the Mangrels are upon us!" He dove inside, shutting the door behind him and pressing his body against it. Frantically, with little motions of his head, he looked out the window. He didn't seem to find anything. "Safe."<br />
"Mr. Simon, are you okay?" Elise asked. The man looked at her suddenly, and she stepped back.<br />
"I need to make sure this house isn't infected," he said, and then stepped in, looking in the corners. He licked his lips twice.<br />
"Infected?" Elise asked, worried. "Infected by what?"<br />
"Mangrels! Gormins! A Trio of Tiny Terrible Hats!" Mr. Simon went on, naming things or creatures Elise had never heard of. He was looking under cabinets, at the back of closets, and inside cups.<br />
"Mr. Simon, I . . . I think I hit your mailbox," Elise said, as Mr. Simon was checking the dishwasher. He looked up at her and stood to his full height.<br />
"It was you?" He spoke in a small voice. "You did it?"<br />
"Yes sir," Elise said, looking at her feet. "It was an accident. Something flew in front of the windshield when I was driving. I swerved out of the way and . . . I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hit it!" She looked up at his face. He was glaring down at her with his eyes wide. She suddenly didn't like the situation. He stepped closer, and she closed her eyes. A frightened sound squeaked out of her.<br />
She expected a blow, but instead she felt his long arms wrap around her. "You've freed me," he said in the same small voice. "I finally understand things now!" He released her from the hug.<br />
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye; her eyebrows were pressed together. Mr. Simon spotted an empty glass on the counter next to the sink. "Did you know that eventually, all glass will turn into a liquid? It's true! First we drank from it, soon we'll drink it!" He laughed a strange laugh, one that seemed more like a child watching a puppet show than a grown man.<br />
"Really?" Elise said, looking at the glass.<br />
Mr. Simon nodded. "I can tell you so much, Elise, so many things that you might never have known!" He smiled and tapped the side of his head. "But I know them."<br />
<br />
Fact: Hospitals are increasingly found to be staffed by fairies.<br />
<br />
"How do you feel, Becky?" The white-coat man asked her. Becky smiled, showing the gaps in her teeth.<br />
"I feel okay," Becky said. This was mostly because of the mild anesthetic that had been given her. Becky heard the doctor, a figure that existed both in and out of reality, speak to her parents. Her parents, at the time, were pylons for her path back to reality. It wasn't as if she wasn't enjoying the light, weightless sensation that filled her body, but she wouldn't mind getting back to her normal state of mind, i.e. one that made it unable for her to smell colors.<br />
Becky sat in the small examination room between her parents, marveling at the way the light from the ceiling shifted. It hadn't ever done that <i>before</i>, but she accepted it as fact. It was interesting, anyway.<br />
Soon the doctor reentered, and revealed, like a magician's trick, a needle that glimmered in the magic light. The doctor had her father help her up to the padded table in a corner of the room.<br />
The small scratches had already been cleaned and treated, as well as her face. They paid special attention to her eyes and mouth. She felt better. The doctor took her arm in his big, gloved hand -- Becky was mystified by the feel of the material on her skin -- and stabbed her with the needle. <br />
Becky saw the needle enter her arm, but didn't feel much. She <i>knew</i> that shots were supposed to hurt, but this one didn't. Did that mean it hadn't worked? Becky watched the doctor's expression. He didn't seem to worry. He didn't worry, so she decided not to worry.<br />
"That's the rabies immunoglobulin injection," the doctor was saying to Mr. and Mrs. Davis, while their daughter swayed back and forth on the table. "Now I'm going to do the actual vaccine."<br />
Another needle was produced -- Becky wasn't sure where from -- and the shot was administered to her in the same way.<br />
"There. I'm going to have the girls out front schedule subsequent visits three, seven, and fourteen days after today. That would be the seventeenth, and then the twenty-first, and . . . " The doctor talked dates. Becky slowly came to realize that the worst was over for today. Her brain, still enjoying the lack of stress that came with the anesthetic, was inventing brand new ways of enjoying herself.<br />
The small doctor's room transformed into a crowded throne room; the doctor and her parents became courtroom attendants. She sat on a padded golden throne, enjoying the treats of her rule. The walls grew fabulous banners, depicting her slaying dragons, defeating armies, and rescuing handsome knights in distress. The room stretched to accompany more people; they came to bend their knees and pledge allegiance to her wise and gifted rule. <br />
She would accept them, but she first had to bestow a gift on the magician that had saved her life from an evil curse. She sat up in her throne. "Dear sir," she said eloquently. "You've saved me and my kingdom. For you, anything up to half of the kingdom will be yours!"<br />
At least, that's what she thought she said. What she <i>actually</i> said, after wiggling around on the padded table, was "My sure, tumon femem <i>me</i> and nah!" She gestured around the room. The three adults in the room looked at each other and tried not to laugh. "Du smudge hagin ton!"<br />
"That'll wear off in a few hours. You're free to take her home once you talk to the front desk. Be sure to keep an eye on her." The Davis' smiled and thanked him, and Becky basked in the imagined adoration of her subjects.<br />
Queen Becky found herself on a coach ride through the country, something that she believed would rid whatever remained of the curse from her. Trusted retainers guided the horses, and she watched the countryside blur by her window. The coach seemed to be going faster than normal.<br />
They arrived at her winter home, a tall castle next to lake that seemed to be made from pure crystal. Her castle reached to the starry sky, full of turrets and walls and warm rooms with warm beds covered in blankets. She decided she wanted a bowl of her favorite treat, crushed ice with melted cocoa beans on them. Her servants got busy getting it for her, and she took a tour around the castle, making sure everything was in order, but some things seemed strange. At first it was just the fact that one of her servants was trailing her through the castle, but that wasn't so strange.<br />
Then she began to notice stranger things. The rooms -- they were all the same. They weren't identical, but every, say, three rooms she would go into would be the same three rooms as the three before. The same chairs and tables and torches set in the walls. Queen Becky looked around. Was it still the curse? There must have been some explanation.<br />
All at once the servant took her hand and led her into where her treat was waiting, just a room away. The Queen was surprised. She had gone through thirty or more rooms, all in the same direction! How could she be back here so soon?<br />
She ate the crushed ice. Somebody was doing this to her. Was it the magician? He had accepted her generous offer, taking for himself a 'feweaours,' and a 'taflontdkesk,' whatever those were. He might be trying to get more out of her. <br />
She looked up from her bowl. It was a spell, of course! He'd cast a spell on her when asking for the strange items, she should have seen it before! She needed help. <br />
The Queen needed her knight.<br />
<br />
Fact: Leaves are made up of small, indistinct leaves. <i>Those</i> leaves are <i>also</i> made up of smaller leaves, and so on.<br />
<br />
"My parents are going to worry about me!" Elise said frantically as Mr. Simon dragged her along. <br />
"No need to worry about them! I left them a note!" He actually had. It read: "Davis': stopped by to talk to Elise. Took her out to look at the mailbox. Call me for anything. Signed Nathaniel Erebus Simon." His middle name was not Erebus.<br />
"Are you sure you're okay, Mr. Simon?" Elise asked.<br />
"Perfectly, child! I can finally see through the rain!"<br />
Elise looked around. "I don't see any rain."<br />
"Then you cannot see through it!" Mr. Simon said. "What adventures await us when we journey?" He asked nobody as they stepped through piles of leaves on their way to his house. "Careful now! The tree-droppings are dangerous!"<br />
Becky looked down. "They're just leaves, Mr. Simon."<br />
"Just leaves? No!" He swept her out of the pile. "There could be demons!"<br />
"In the leaves?"<br />
"Respect your elders, girl," Mr. Simon said simply, before moving on. Becky hurried to keep up with him. He seemed trapped by frenetic energy. Becky wondered again if going with him right now was really worth it. Well, at least she'd be able to keep him out of trouble. Probably.<br />
"We're just going to your mailbox, right Mr. Simon?"<br />
"Of course! At first, at least. At most, we travel the world over, righting wrongs and solving crimes!"<br />
Becky was starting to doubt how well she'd do keeping him out of trouble. "Or, Mr. Simon, now this is just a suggestion, we go back to your house, you have a nice cup of cocoa, and then take a lie down. How does that sound?"<br />
"When evil rampages over the land? Never!" Mr. Simon loped away, striding in an unknown direction. Becky ran behind him. What was she supposed to do? They weren't even heading toward his house anymore!<br />
She had an idea. She dug out her cell phone and called Liz.<br />
"Hi Liz," she said quietly, afraid that the not-so-with-it Mr. Simon would have an issue with her being on the phone. "I'm with Mr. Simon right now. You're not going to believe what's happened." Elise went on to explain where she was and what she was doing wandering through the dark lakeside. "I don't know what to do! He's not listening to anything I say! I'm afraid he's going to get himself hurt!"<br />
"I can't exactly leave right now," Liz said. "My dad got his hand stuck in a mousetrap <i>three times</i> and he's kind of loopy from the pain right now. My mom gave him some painkillers but I don't know if they've started working yet." Liz paused. "Tell you what. Why don't you come by my house. We can figure something out here."<br />
"Mr. Simon!" Elise said. "Uh . . . I know where we can find someone in need!"<br />
"What? Really?" The old man looked at her expectantly. "Tell me, child!"<br />
"There's uh . . . " Elise thought of the first thing that came to mind when she tried to picture someone in need, and someone who was willing to help. "There's an old wizard in pain! He needs help!"<br />
"Wizard?!" Mr. Simon narrowed his eyes and turned his head. "This is no trick?"<br />
"No!" Elise said. "It's no trick, I promise!"<br />
Mr. Simon stood between two trees, thinking. After a minute, he nodded once, long and slow. "Take me."<br />
<br />
Fact: <i>There's a wizard behind you</i>.<br />
<br />
Liz ran to the door as soon as she heard the knock. She could barely get the door open before Mr. Simon strode in with his chest puffed out. "Your hero is here!" He called.<br />
Ingrid walked in from the kitchen. "Oh hello Mr. Simon! How are you? And . . . " She'd spotted Elise. "Elise is with you. How . . . strange."<br />
"Tell me where the wizard is, and I will help him!"<br />
Liz looked at Elise, who shrugged. "I couldn't think of anything else to say to him."<br />
"The wizard is here!" Said a wavering voice from the living room. Mr. Simon walked past Ingrid into the room. The TV was on, and Gert sat on the couch with a slightly bloody bandage around his fingers. His eyes looked bleary, and he seemed to have difficulty focusing on Mr. Simon, who had struck a pose.<br />
"The pills kicked in after you called," Liz explained to Elise. "It's made him very trusting, to the point of being impressionable."<br />
"That might make things difficult. So far Mr. Simon has told me of five things that have demons in them.<br />
"Honored sir," Mr. Simon said, dropping to one knee. "I'm here to heal your ailments. Send me on a quest, and I shall return victorious!"<br />
The three women in the room looked at each other with worried faces, each one trying to come up with a solution to a problem that was appearing right before their eyes. Liz won.<br />
"His wallet!" She shouted. Mr. Simon looked at her. "He can't find his wallet! It's been missing all night!"<br />
Mr. Simon stood. "It will be my honor, but I ask something in return." He pointed at Liz. "The wizard's daughter, who knows the quest, shall accompany me and my squire! A powerful ally she shall be!"<br />
Liz looked at her mother. "Are you all finished with your homework?" Ingrid asked. Liz nodded. "Make sure you have your cell phone. And, uh, maybe try to convince him to just stay home."<br />
"I've been trying to do that all night," Elise said. "He won't listen." Mr. Simon was already heading for the door. "Mr. Simon, don't you think that maybe his lost wallet is somewhere inside his ho . . . castle?"<br />
Mr. Simon's head appeared around the corner and shook. "My instincts have never let me down before, and right now they say that the wizard's wallet is without!"<br />
"Without?" Liz asked. "I guess that means outside. We'd better keep up with him. He's likely to think he can fly soon."<br />
<br />
Fact: Magicians are well-known for their deplorable desire for personal power.<br />
<br />
The stiff wind blew brave Sir Simon's hair behind him in a fan, providing a remarkable profile to anyone lucky enough to witness it. The sun had dropped, and the moon hid behind the clouds as a coward might. Sir Simon looked at his two companions: a young and unassuming servant girl, and the daughter of a powerful wizard. They both seemed tired, but Sir Simon was used to the peasantry not possessing his legendary endurance.<br />
The wizard had given him an important task. Find his book of spells, the mystical Wal-let. Becoming successful in this task was sure to make him a hero in the eyes of the people. He would be honored at the next tournament, he was certain.<br />
"What do you think he's thinking about?" Liz asked Elise. Elise shrugged.<br />
The journey would not be easy, Sir Simon knew. He'd had past deals with wizards; their presence in a situation made it impossible for things to be simple. There was always some hidden element . . . a piece of the puzzle that was being kept from him. This was why he'd requested the wizard's daughter accompany them. A scion to his power, yes, but also a bargaining chip if the wizard turned out to be less than trustworthy. Sir Simon would never hurt a child, but the wizard didn't know that.<br />
"Come, young ones!" Sir Simon said to the two that trailed after him, talking about childish things. "It looks like there's a light coming from over this hill! Be it travelers, we should ask them if they know anything about the wizard's Wal-let!"<br />
"Mr. Simon, it's just a streetlight," Liz said. She had a poofy jacket and a hat on. Her mother made her take her gloves, but they were jammed into her pockets.<br />
"I've never heard such a word," Sir Simon responded. He crested the hill and stood with his hands on his hips. He would have rested a hand on the hilt of his sword, but he didn't have it. A wench had it. Near a seemingly well-traveled path was a long pole with a light hanging from the end of it. The light didn't seem to come from flame, but instead a smooth globe. "Magic!" Sir Simon exclaimed. "Never in my life have I seen it used!"<br />
"You <i>have</i>, Mr. Simon!" Elise said. "You see it every day!"<br />
"What, you say?" Sir Simon said, turning to look at the servant girl. "I tell you, I've never seen it! No flame, no smoke! From the very air itself does the light come!"<br />
Liz and Elise looked at each other, both trying to figure out the right thing to say at this moment.<br />
"What purpose does it serve?" Sir Simon wondered. He rubbed his chin.<br />
"It's an outpost, so that . . . weary travelers can . . . rest for a moment, made safe by the magic light," Liz offered.<br />
"Ah, of course! It's kind of the magicians to use their power for good, instead of the deplorable desire for personal power!" Sir Simon walked forward through the trees until he stood in the circle of dull orange light afforded by the "streetlight."<br />
"What do we do?" Elise asked Liz. The girl was beginning to panic, Liz saw, and knew she needed to do something about it.<br />
"He's living out some sort of medieval fantasy. We can probably use that to our advantage in some way," Liz said. She looked around trying to figure out where in the wooded area around Smoke Lake they were. "Are we somewhere near your house?"<br />
Elise also looked around, trying to place the road and the trees. "I think we might be. Do we want to go there?"<br />
Liz nodded. "If anything else, it will help us stay inside, which will probably help us stay out of trouble at the very least."<br />
"Okay." Elisa gulped. "Mr. Simon, uh . . . " She looked back at Liz, who nodded her on. "W-we know somewhere where we might find out more information about our quest."<br />
"Truly?" Sir Simon said, turning and glaring at the servant girl gallantly. The girl seemed cowed, as many people are when Sir Simon glares at them.<br />
"Yes. Yes sir. There's a, uh, abode some ways down the road. There we can rest, and perhaps, uh, find out some information. It's a safe place, with no . . ." Elise paused and tried to think of the right word. "Marauders."<br />
Sir Simon considered the option. "No marauders is always a good thing. I don't need to rest, but I understand that you children need more rest than I do." Liz, who ran cross country, rolled her eyes. "I accept! Which direction?"<br />
Elise pointed down the road, and the three of them headed toward Elise's house.<br />
<br />
Fact: Nine out of ten ladies-in-waiting prefer the local section of the paper.<br />
<br />
Queen Becky was not enjoying her night. Something in the air was making the hairs on the back of her neck bristle. There was a charge that followed her as she wandered in the labyrinthine halls of her home. She felt confused and unsettled.<br />
Her servants were worse. When before she'd had scores of menservants and waiting ladies, now she had only two. At least, that was how it seemed. It was possible that all her bevy of helpers just looked the same, changed by the same energy that trailed her as she wandered.<br />
Or perhaps it was the servants doing it! They never left her alone, even when they were ordered to. Queen Becky's words, which before had shifted armies and stunned nations, now had no power. She would speak, assuming that her words would be followed down to the letter, but they came out strained and twisted, and ultimately ignored.<br />
She was in one room at the outside of the castle, staring out the window. The land even seemed changed. Once there were blacksmiths, soldiers, and bakers walking in the court; now there was nothing.<br />
It was dark, that was one. There should have been torches lining the courtyard. Were there no torches, or was there no courtyard?<br />
Queen Becky noticed something. There were people coming to the front entrance of the castle! She risked a look at the servant, a woman, that had been following her. She was languishing in an armchair, reading something. The Queen turned to look again out the window at the approaching people. She thought she recognized one of them, but the darkness made it difficult.<br />
She waited a few seconds, and then bolted for the front hall. The servant squawked at her, but she ignored it. Throwing the door open, she raced into the courtyard.<br />
The sudden sky and cold air shocked her into stillness. More shocking was the revelation that one of the travelers was her sister.<br />
"Hi Becky," Elise said. "Everything go okay at the hospital?"<br />
Queen Becky reeled backward. Her sister, the one passed over in favor of her when the next Queen was decided! Still technically a princess, but she had promised revenge on the true Queen, Becky, and her subjects! Now she returned with a strange band -- a tall man and a woman her age.<br />
And she'd spoken of the place when all this confusion had first began! There was no doubt that she was in league with whatever foul power had placed Queen Becky in her fugue. She needed help! But from whom?<br />
Her servants were against her, that much was certain. These three surely bore her no good will. Who else?<br />
There was but one person she could turn to. Queen Becky stood at the edge of a dangerous decision.<br />
She decided to leap.<br />
She had not her coat, nor her hat, or even her boots, but the cool dark opened with welcoming arms as she tore off, away from the castle and these three attackers, away toward a man that lived in her domain, the Earl of Andrew.<br />
"Becky?" Elise called after her. "Where are you going? You don't even have your shoes on!"<br />
"Becky?" Mrs. Davis shouted, right on the heels of her daughter. "Becky, come back!"<br />
"What the heck?" Liz said. Mr. Simon only silently watched.<br />
"Why did she do that?" Elise asked.<br />
"She had to have a shot at the hospital. It made her a little bit loopy. We've had to follow her around the house all night to make sure she didn't get in trouble. She must have run out here when she saw you coming!"<br />
"As soon as she saw me, she looked scared, and then just ran off!" Elise said.<br />
"You wouldn't believe the sorts of things she's been saying! Mostly it's been just gobbledegook, but sometimes she says things like 'Queen,' or 'castle.' I think she thinks she's in one of her movies!"<br />
"Queen?" Mr. Simon said, coming somewhat out of a deep train of thought.<br />
"Oh no," Liz said.<br />
"Her majesty is in danger!?" Sir Simon shouted, stepping forward, in the direction Becky ran.<br />
"Mr. Simon?" Mrs. Davis said, seemingly just noticing the man.<br />
"It's a long story, Mom," Elise said. <br />
<br />
Fact: The stink of sorcery is a lot like bad tuna. Which is a lot like good tuna.<br />
<br />
The wizard's Wal-let had just been a red herring, a ruse to get him started on this quest. Sir Simon know knew that the real journey would be to bring the young Queen back safely. <br />
"The fates have transpired to make us available to save the Queen!" Sir Simon crowed. "Quickly! We must hurry after her!" Sir Simon shifted his eyes to both sides. "The night is heavy with the stink of sorcery."<br />
The three females looked at Mr. Simon for a moment. Then Mrs. Davis looked at Elise. "Elise, I want you to go find your sister. Your father and I will call around to tell them to look out for her. Mr. Simon, would you mind going with the girls?"<br />
Sir Simon was blanching at Mrs. Davis. He looked at Elise. "Sister!"<br />
"Oohhh . . . " Elise said.<br />
"All this time, I've been traveling with a princess!" Sir Simon sank to his knee, as is proper. "Forgive my rudeness; had I known I was in the presence of royalty, I would have offered you the respect you deserve!"<br />
"Why is he saying that?" Mrs. Davis asked Liz.<br />
"We aren't really sure."<br />
"Come Princess, we must act fast to keep your queen sister safe!" He looked behind him at Liz. "Magic one, please join us! We will need your skills; surely you will be helpful on this quest!"<br />
Liz sighed and walked after Mr. Simon and Elise, leaving a thoroughly confused Mrs. Davis.<br />
<br />
Fact: If you get too cold, You can see through thinner parts of your skin.<br />
<br />
Queen Becky raced through the trees outside her castle. There shouldn't be trees. She didn't remember trees. She remembered wide plains for cattle and horses to graze, and slow trickling brooks, not this chilling forest of confusion and danger.<br />
Her fingers were cold, but her feet were worse. After only running for about a minute she could hardly feel them. Five more minutes and she had to look down to remind herself they were there.<br />
Where would the Earl of Andrew be? Nowhere near, that was for sure. The land around her was unrecognizable.<br />
Yet she felt drawn in one direction. Maybe she was not alone; perhaps something was helping her but remaining hidden. She stopped and looked around. She couldn't see a thing except for the trees that were closest, the cold ground under her feet, and the starry sky.<br />
She heard a rustle behind her, and she turned, frightened. There was nothing there. Another rustle to her right, but that area was empty also. She started to hear it more and more in the space around her; the night was full of sound that came from nothing. A dark shape flew in front of her.<br />
Her brain, as it slowly drained of the confusing chemical cocktail that had sent her running into the woods, felt the grip of fear. The shapes that flew around her, beating their leather wings, were the source of all the mystery. She could not say what they were, but she knew it was their fault that she was cold, alone, afraid, and confused.<br />
The drug was finally beginning to wear off. Queen Becky felt the world slip around her. First it wasn't as it should have been, second it became different even from that. Finally all that was left was cold and fear and sadness; Becky sat down and wrapped her arms around her legs. She didn't know where she was, she didn't know when it was, and she didn't like all the bats that flew over her head, hunting for food. She felt like she'd just awoken from a dream.<br />
<br />
Fact: Mercenaries have been an issue around Smoke Lake in the past, but thankfully no longer.<br />
<br />
"Becky!" Elise called. "Becky, where are you?" Her shout bounced off of the cold trees. "Becky!"<br />
"Queen Becky!" Mr. Simon yelled. "Queen Becky, come back to us! You're in danger!"<br />
"Don't say that!" Liz said. "We don't want to scare her any more than she already is!"<br />
"But she <i>is</i> in danger!" Mr. Simon said. "The night is cold and dark; she could fall and hurt herself or get lost!" He paused and surveyed the area. "Not to mention any mercenary that might take it upon himself to kidnap her!"<br />
"She <i>really</i> doesn't have to worry about that," Liz said. "Just keep calling her name!"<br />
"You can't order me around! I'm a knight!"<br />
"I might not be able to, but my father can certainly find a way to entice you. By, say, not turning you into a newt?" Liz said.<br />
Mr. Simon kept silent, then turned away from Liz. "Queen Becky! Queen Becky come back to us! Your sister wishes for your safe return!"<br />
"This is getting more and more difficult to deal with," Liz said to Elise. Elise nodded. "I'm still not really sure what we're supposed to do with Mr. Simon once we find your sister."<br />
"He doesn't have any of the pills he needs. I think that's why he's acting this way." Elise looked at her feet. "I crushed the pills when I hit his mailbox."<br />
"Maybe we can keep him at your house when we bring Becky back and call someone to help him," Liz said.<br />
"Okay, but we need to find Becky first."<br />
Liz nodded, and cupped her mouth. "Becky! Becky!"<br />
"I think I hear something!" Mr. Simon said. "It's coming from over there!" He pointed to their right, and ran. Liz and Elise hurried to keep up with him; his long legs gave him a great stride.<br />
They went between the trees and through the piles of leaves. Mr. Simon was heading unerringly toward something that neither of the girls could see.<br />
They began to <i>hear</i> things, though. It sounded like a tree full of leaves, but this late in fall there couldn't be such a thing. They followed Mr. Simon deeper and deeper into the wooded area.<br />
"There!" Mr. Simon said quietly, pointing again. He pointed a little off to their left. Liz and Elise could see a shape huddled on the ground. They ran to it.<br />
"Becky!" Elise said. She knelt down next to her sister. "Becky?"<br />
"Elise?" The young girl asked. "I don't know how I got here. I'm cold."<br />
"It's okay, we'll take you back right now."<br />
"My Queen!" Mr. Simon said, bending to one knee next to Becky. "My heart is glad you're safe."<br />
"Mr. Simon?" Becky said. She looked up at Elise and Liz.<br />
"It's sort of complicated," Liz said. "We need to get you back to your house as soon as we can. Mr. Simon, can you carry her?"<br />
"Of course!" Mr. Simon said, stepping forward.<br />
A clatter of wings over their heads stopped them. All four of them looked up. The trees were filled with hanging bats. Little dots of light stared down at them.<br />
Becky squealed and hid her face, twisting and latching to the tree behind her. Instead of picking her up, Mr. Simon looked up at the bats. He took a long breath.<br />
"Evil things!" He said. "Fly from this place! No more will you terrorize this seed of kingdoms, this being of light! Let yourselves know, and let all of your kind know that <i>Sir Simon</i>, he that has traveled with wizards and Princesses, banishes you!" He puffed out his chest and clamped his hips with his hands. "Spread your black radiance no longer, and draw the evil from this place as you have set it down!"<br />
To Elise's surprise, Liz stood next to him. "Just as this brave knight commands, so does the daughter of the wizard! Go!" She shouted. "Leave us!"<br />
The bats still did nothing. Their small heads swiveled to look at each of them. Liz looked down at Elise and gestured with her head. Shakily, Elise got to her feet.<br />
"Th-the Princess, sister to the Queen, says: Go!" She looked at Liz, who nodded her on. "Your dark works have failed; the Kingdom remains safe! Your shadow gives us no fear, and your bright eyes do not banish the light from us! Go back to where your evil kind can play and scheme in the cold and black, away from the light and the warmth!"<br />
The bats remained still.<br />
Mr. Simon picked up a rock and threw it at the closest one; it and all the other bats scattered and flew away, leaving the trees light and bare.<br />
"They're gone, Becky," Elise said. "Ready to go home now?"<br />
Becky looked around. She nodded.<br />
"That was cool," Becky said, as she rode on Mr. Simon's back. "It was like something from one of my movies!"<br />
"It kind of was," Elise said.<br />
<br />
Fact: Gandhi was known as "Sir Gandhi the Thin."<br />
<br />
When they got back to Elise and Becky's house, they found a police car and an ambulance. Mrs. Davis explained she had called the police and told them everything. Liz had to quickly explain that the 'blue-robed monks,' as Mr. Simon called them, were no danger to them.<br />
Becky was bundled up, and the story explained to her. The anesthetic had finally worn off at that point, but she could barely stay awake. She was taken inside by her mother.<br />
The police officer escorted the ambulance away; the girls were told that Mr. Simon had suffered a delusional break but he should get better. Liz and Elise watched the two vehicles pull out of the driveway and head along the road.<br />
"Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn," Liz said.<br />
"What?" Elise said.<br />
"It's a quote by Gandhi. I think it's about how each day is a new opportunity."<br />
"This <i>has</i> been a pretty weird night," Elise said. Liz agreed.<br />
"Oh crap!" Liz said suddenly.<br />
"What? What's wrong?"<br />
"I still don't know where my dad's wallet is!"<br />
Elise started laughing, and after a moment Liz joined her. "As a princess of the realm, I'd be glad to help you find the great wizard's wallet!" Elise said.<br />
"No evil will be able to defeat us!" Liz said, raising her fist in the air with defiance. <br />
"Our journey will be known far and wide!" Elise called. "Sung by bards and whispered by the townsfolk around the fire!"<br />
"The Princess, and the wizard's daughter!" Liz said, laughing. The two started walking back inside.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-19400762054957296402013-11-30T12:00:00.000-06:002013-11-30T12:00:00.041-06:00The Gulf's MysteryBetsy Toog sat at her desk in the Coast Guard station of Destin, Florida, reading a magazine. It was a quiet night, and her duties were few: if the phone rang, she answered it.<br />
She was twiddling a finger in her ear when it rang. She wiped her hands quickly and picked it up. "Destin Coast Guard Station, this is Betsy speaking, how can I help you?"<br />
Nothing but the whisper of the wind came through the receiver.<br />
"Hello? Hello?" Betsy asked. "Is anyone there?" She took a glance at her computer's screen. It showed that the caller was somewhere in the gulf. "Can you hear me? Please respond." Betsy's supervisor noticed, and walked over. "There's nothing on the other end," Betsy said to him.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Chief Petty Officer Mark Lopez felt the spray of the dancing gulf as their boat bounced through the waves. He was leaning on the railing of the ship's starboard side, gripping tightly the picture in his hands.<br />
"CPO Lopez, good morning," the vessel's commanding officer, Chief Warrant Officer Alexander said, leaning against the railing next to Lopez. "Nice day, isn't it?"<br />
With boiling gray clouds over them and a tumultuous Gulf of Mexico under them, few people could say this weather was nice. "I suppose so, Captain," Lopez responded. "For a duck, perhaps."<br />
CWO Alexander laughed and took a sip of coffee. His body rocked back and forth with the boat to keep his cup steady. "I really don't mind it."<br />
Lopez moved to put the picture he held back in his pocket when Alexander stopped him. "Hold on now. Is that your new one?" He asked. Lopez took the picture out again and opened it up.<br />
It showed him with his wife, two girls, and an infant in his wife's arms. "Yes sir. We decided to name him David, after Ana's grandfather. He raised her."<br />
"Good name. Handsome, like his father," Alexander said. He handed the picture back carefully and took another sip. He licked a few drips off his bristly gray moustache. "You ever been this far out in the gulf?"<br />
"No sir. Before I transferred I mostly did duty in the Keys."<br />
"Did you ever go into the Triangle?"<br />
"Yes sir. There's no reason for us to fear it; everything that's happened inside it can be explained away by human error or violent weather. It's all just confirmation bias."<br />
"Remind me what that means, CPO."<br />
"It's when you only notice things that fit with what you think. Boats and planes disappear all over the place, but people started noticing it happening in the Bermuda Triangle, so they thought it was special," Lopez explained. Alexander nodded. "The most interesting thing that could there was something with methane hydrates."<br />
"Oh, I know all about those," Alexander said. "They create low-density pockets of water that sink a ship and crush it up, right?"<br />
"Yes sir, that's it."<br />
Alexander took a long drink. "And the ship we're headed to?"<br />
Lopez hesitated. The ship that had contacted the Destin Station was reported called the <i>Third Coin</i>. The station had reported its communications working exactly as they should, but no answer came when they tried to contact it. Alexander's ship, the <i>Macaroni</i>, was set to investigate.<br />
"Hard to say. Most likely it's an electrical system that shorted out and we can't pick up," Lopez said, rubbing his arms to get the chill out. "Could be a lot of things."<br />
"You don't think it could be something supernatural?" Alexander asked with a sly grin under his moustache.<br />
"No sir, I don't. Not even for something this strange."<br />
Alexander shrugged and finished his coffee. "Then you won't mind being part of the team to investigate?"<br />
"Of course not, sir. Semper Paratus." Alexander chuckled and clapped Lopez on the shoulder before leaving him alone at the railing. Lopez put the picture of his family safely in a pocket and watched the water crash around the hull of the boat.<br />
<br />
Four hours later Lopez and Seaman Ed Verne looked at the dot on the horizon that was the <i>Third Coin</i>.<br />
"Do you know what the name means, Chief?" Verne asked him. Lopez shook his head. "You never saw anything like this when you were in the Keys?"<br />
"You mean Bermuda, don't you Verne?" Verne, after a pause, nodded. "No, none of us ever saw anything like this. Some similar things. One ship had a virus on it that got everybody sick. Countless ships that went off course or had their comms malfunction."<br />
"What do you think this is?"<br />
Lopez shook his head. "I don't know. It's probably nothing. That's why I'm going to be the one leading the crew when we go on board, if we have to."<br />
"Not afraid of anything, are you Chief?" the Seaman asked.<br />
"I've got a new son. I'm afraid of not being able to provide for him, for one. I'm afraid he won't ever get to know his dad until he's in high school because his dad's off on the water all the time." He looked at Verne, still a relatively young man. "Not things that mean much to you, I suppose."<br />
"A little bit, Chief. I have a niece that I love, but I don't get to see her much. My brother and sister-in-law life in Tennessee." Lopez nodded.<br />
A voice from the open bridge called down to them. "Chief! Verne! The CWO is going to brief soon!" They looked up and found Petty Officer Jennifer Reed leaning over the railing. "He requests your presence!"<br />
Lopez looked at the <i>Third Coin</i>, now a bigger and identifiable shape in the water, and followed Verne up the steps to the bridge. They waited until the rest of the crew was there. There were a total of ten Coast Guard on the small ship.<br />
"We've tried to establish contact with the <i>Third Coin</i>, but nobody's responded," Alexander said. "We're going to have to get up close to them. Hopefully we won't have to do any kind of boarding maneuvers, but in that case, CPO Lopez will be leading the team, as well as PO3 Reed, Seamen Verne and Danson, and Seaman Recruit Tammen." A little cheer went up, and the youngest person on the boat was clapped on the back a few times. "You chosen your specialty yet, son?" Alexander asked Bret Tammen.<br />
"No, sir. But . . . I have been considering food service or gunner's mate, sir," Tammen said.<br />
"Good, that's good son. We could always use someone that knows how to sling a meal on these expeditions. Back to the <i>Third Coin</i>, that's pretty much all we know. Are there any questions?"<br />
"Captain, what level of force are we advised to use if we board?" Reed asked.<br />
"That has yet to be determined, Officer. But . . . " Alexander thought for a moment. "If no contact is made, we go in prepared. Sidearms and rifles at least. Reed, you may of course elect to use your favored weapon." The woman nodded. "Anything else?"<br />
Muttered instances of "no sir" were heard. Alexander nodded at the helmsmen, who steered them closer to the motionless ship.<br />
"<i>Third Coin</i>!" Alexander yelled through a megaphone once they got close enough. The two boats bobbed some fifty or a hundred feet away from each other. The <i>Third Coin</i> was a ship maybe two hundred feet long. It looked like a fishing boat. There was a crane trailing in the water. Nobody could be seen. "This is the United States Coast Guard. Please respond."<br />
The other ship was silent. "<i>Third Coin</i>, this is the United States Coast Guard, please respond. If you don't respond, we will board your vessel."<br />
Lopez, standing next to the Captain, watched the ship with his arms crossed. Nothing moved. Alexander turned to him. "Get your team ready, Chief; you're on." Lopez nodded and headed down. The <i>Macaroni</i> started moving closer. The <i>Third Coin</i> towered over the smaller ship, every dimension it possessed was greater. The boat was a large trawler, a ship that operated by dragging a net behind it to catch the fish. Lopez estimated its crew to be around about four dozen.<br />
"Suit up!" He ordered when he entered the crew area. "We're drawing alongside now. Reed, you're bringing your Remington?" <br />
"Yes sir," Reed said.<br />
"Fine. Get your vests and weapons ready."<br />
<br />
"<i>Third Coin</i>!" Alexander yelled with the megaphone. "We are boarding your vessel!"<br />
Lopez heard his Captain shout on the motorized raft as Seaman Danson piloted it along the port side amidships. The wet air and steel sky did nothing to improve the mood of the five sailors that climbed up the ladder there after tethering the raft.<br />
Lopez directed Reed and Danson to check the bow; he, Verne, and Tammen headed toward the bridge. They wore Kevlar vests under life jackets, carried rifles, and had pistols strapped to their hips. Belts held handcuffs, pepper spray, flashlights, and more.<br />
The deck of the boat was empty. Only the lonely spray of the gulf and the creak of the ship as it rolled on the waves could be heard. Lopez led the way up to the bridge.<br />
Before they reached the enclosed area, he heard Reed talk to him through his walkie-talkie. "Chief, we're at the bow. It doesn't look like there's anybody here, over."<br />
"What have you investigated? Over." Lopez spoke into his box. He waited a second.<br />
"The deck's totally empty, and all the storage at the front of the ship is deserted. Can't find a thing. Over."<br />
"Have you found anything that leads below deck yet? Over."<br />
"Yes sir, but-" inaudible words came through. "Seaman Danson says the lights don't seem to be functioning, over."<br />
"Okay. Why don't you check out the rest of the deck and then meet us at the bridge. We'll head below after that. Over and out." Lopez dropped his walkie-talkie to his belt. "Let's head into the bridge. SR, why don't you do the honors," he said to Tammen. Tammen nodded and went around the corner to the door that led into the enclosed bridge. The young man gripped the handle and pushed the door. It creaked open slowly; Tammen had to press with his shoulder to get it open all the way. He stepped in.<br />
Immediately, he cried out and jumped back, bringing his rifle up. Startled, Lopez looked past him.<br />
Lying propped up against the bridge console was a human. Its lips were pulled back, and a leering rictus sat on its face. Teeth and gums showed, stained yellow and red. The eyelids of the face had done something similar, and it looked as if the eyeballs were popping out.<br />
"Don't fire, Tammen," Lopez said. He stepped in. He kept a firm grip on his rifle despite himself, getting closer to the body. It looked like a Cuban or Puerto Rican male. He had short black hair and mottled skin. Lopez crouched down in front of him. Heart pounding, he extended his hand to feel for breath. He touched the neck. "He's dead."<br />
"Jesus," Verne said. He and Tammen stood behind Lopez. "Why does he look like that?"<br />
"No idea. But . . . I'd say be careful. Could be a pathogen or disease or something like that. Don’t touch him. Verne, contact Reed and tell her what we found, I'm going to call the Captain."<br />
"You got it, Chief," Verne said, and reached for his walkie-talkie.<br />
They heard a slump and the door slammed behind them. All three whirled and found another body, an African male, lying in front of the closed door. The wild, unending grin and wide eyes stared at them. The three of them waited for their hearts to start beating again.<br />
"H-he must have been s-sitting on the other side of the door," Verne said, keeping his rifle trained on the body. "He fell over and pushed the door shut. That's all."<br />
"Yeah," Lopez said. "Captain, this is Lopez, over."<br />
"Copy, Chief. What have you found? Over."<br />
"We've found . . . two bodies. On the bridge. One confirmed dead, the other assumed." Lopez jerked his head in the bodies direction while looking at Verne. Verne checked a pulse. "They both have something . . . their lips and eyelids have dried out or something. It's . . . quite the sight. Over."<br />
There was a pause. "Have you found any survivors yet? Over."<br />
"No sir. Other than the bodies it doesn't look like anything's happened here, over."<br />
"That's a pretty big 'other than,' Chief. Over."<br />
"Yes sir, I agree. What's our next step? Over"<br />
The door to the bridge thudded, and all three sailors jumped. Verne and Tammen trained their rifles on it. "Chief? You in there?" They heard Reed shout from the other side.<br />
"Reed and Danson are here, Captain. Over and out." Lopez took a deep breath and walked up to the door. "Verne, see if you can find a blanket or something. I still don't want us touching the bodies." He turned to the door. "Reed, we're here. Don't come in yet, we need to get something out of the way."<br />
Verne found a pile of blankets and a beaten yellow coat, and handed it to Lopez. Lopez wrapped the coat around the body that lay across the door and pulled it aside. All the while the stiff gaze drilled into him.<br />
Reed and Danson stepped in, and the other three explained the bodies.<br />
"Are we still going below?" Reed, white-faced, asked. Lopez paused and then nodded.<br />
"There could be survivors down there. Maybe even something to explain this," Lopez said. "Come in Captain, this is Lopez, over."<br />
"I hear you Chief, over."<br />
"We're going to head below deck now, over."<br />
"Copy Chief. We've relayed what you told us to Destin, over and out."<br />
"All right people," Lopez said, dropping his walkie-talkie to his belt, "let's move out."<br />
"Who has point, Chief?" Reed asked. She held her Remington shotgun in her hands tightly.<br />
"You do, if you want it so badly," said Lopez. Reed nodded and went out the door. The others followed her, with Lopez bringing up the rear. He sent one last glance at the corpse slumped against the console. It smiled back.<br />
<br />
Reed led them to a door that went below deck. It smelled strongly of fish and sour water. They pried it open, revealing a dark ladder down. All five of them brought out their flashlights. Reed clipped hers to the front of her shotgun.<br />
Danson went down first, with the rest of them lighting his path with their flashlights. When they all got down the ladder they were in a small room with a door on the wall in front, and one to their right. Lopez tried the light switch. "Power's off. That must have happened after they tried to contact Destin. Let's try to find the crew quarters first. Any clues?"<br />
"I suspect most of the hold will be space for fish," Reed said. Pointing at the door to their right, she said "probably in that direction."<br />
"Full steam ahead, then," Lopez said, and pushed the door open.<br />
They walked through the belly of the vessel, pointing their bright beams down hallways and into dark corners, until they found the crew quarters: tightly packed rooms that had four beds each. They held personal items like books and magazines, pictures of family and games. Most were empty.<br />
One room had bodies in it. All four beds were taken up. All four of the corpses had the same taut, stretched grin and achingly wide eyes. All four otherwise looked like they were peacefully resting. The creak of the ship as it rocked was the only noise as the five of them looked in at the scene, sharp shadows thrown on the wall from their flashlights.<br />
Lopez went in slowly, and hunched down by one of the bodies. He felt for a pulse and found nothing. Shaking his head, he went to the one above, with the same result. "Dead."<br />
"I don't like this, Chief," Verne said.<br />
"Then you can go wait topside while the rest of us investigate down here," Lopez responded without looking. Verne said nothing, and apparently decided to stay with the group. "No scratches, no bandages, no bruises or wounds," Lopez continued. "Nothing to hint disease except for the mouth and eyes. Does anything here sound familiar to anybody?" He asked. "Anybody have any knowledge of diseases or bacteria?"<br />
"I was a pre-med student in college," Tammen said, shaking his head. "But I don't know anything about this."<br />
"Really?" Danson asked. "A pre-med but you're considering cook as a specialty?"<br />
"I didn't really like it."<br />
"Look at this," Lopez said. He had been looking through some of the items in the room. "A written note. It looks like a letter that hasn't been mailed yet. Can't wait to see you again . . . " Lopez scanned the letter, written in Spanish. "Plan to send this from Miami . . . lots of fish, good harvest."<br />
"Nothing about a sickness?" Verne asked.<br />
"Nothing. There's nothing here but 'work is hard, times are good, and love you all.'" Lopez turned the note over and found nothing on the other side. "That's all." He stood. "Let's see what else we can find."<br />
They went down the hallway past the rest of the crew quarters until they hit a door. Reed pushed it open, and a wave of stench hit them. "Eugh. There must be a million fish in here."<br />
It was a good estimate. They found bins full of fish carcasses and ice from one end of the long, wide room, possibly long enough to reach to the other end of the ship, to the other. The five of them made their way through it, stepping carefully, shining their flashlights everywhere. The smell and the darkness and the roll of the ship dizzied them.<br />
Reed's flashlight caught something, and Lopez heard her breathe out a swear. "Chief . . . " Lopez pointed his flashlight in the same direction. Hundreds of teeth and staring eyes glinted.<br />
"Oh Christ," Verne muttered, as the five of them picked their way to the pile of bodies. They were smashed against the far wall of the hold, dozens or even hundreds of bodies of all ethnicities pressed together, all with the same face.<br />
Lopez looked, feeling a rolling, clenched fist in his stomach. Some of the bodies were pressed with their faces against the wall by the bodies on top of them. Blood from busted noses and battered skulls pooled on the ground.<br />
The boat creaked, a piece of machinery shifted, and five flashlights stabbed in its direction. It was a fine, tangled net, and it shifted back into its original place with the bob of the ship as they watched it.<br />
"Chief," Verne whispered. "What do we do?"<br />
"Okay. Okay. We get topside and get back to the <i>Macaroni</i>. I don't know what happened here, and I don't really want to be the one to find out," Lopez said. "Let's get out of here. Reed, lead the way."<br />
The woman nodded and started to forge her way back to the ladder they had used to descend. The ship's rolling motion increased, and Lopez heard the whistle of wind over his head. When they found the room with the ladder in it Lopez looked at the door at the top of the ladder with some confusion. It was shut. "Did we shut that?"<br />
Reed started climbing the ladder; Lopez and Tammen trained their lights on the top. Verne and Danson chased the shadows away with shaky arms. Reed threw open the door when she got to the top and looked out. "It looks like a storm might be coming in."<br />
"Shouldn't the Captain have contacted us?" Danson asked. Lopez nodded to Tammen and the young man shouldered his weapon to start climbing.<br />
The wind screamed around the damp corners of the ship as they walked back to their raft. Being in the meager light of the threatening clouds helped Lopez's mindset; he could think clearer. The wind and spray washed away evil thoughts.<br />
"Captain, this is Lopez. We found a lot more bodies below deck. They were all pressed against a wall . . . like they were trying to stay away from something. We're heading back to the raft now, over."<br />
No response came. Lopez clicked the button on his walkie-talkie a few times, and failed to hear the tell-tale buzz of transmission. "I think my battery died," he said as the group approached the ladder that led down to their raft. "Someone else contact the Captain."<br />
Danson put his hand on the ladder leading down, then lunged back. He fell gripping his rifle and pointing at the ladder with harsh thrusts of his finger. Lopez ran to it and looked down.<br />
Lying face up in the center of the raft was one of the bodies. Even from thirty feet up he could see the stretched smile. Its limp foot hung over the side, trailing in the water. Reed, Verne, and Tammen came to the side of the boat and looked down, each reacting. Lopez kept silent. Tammen backed away and pressed his body against the wall that was behind him. Lopez saw his chest rise and fall quickly.<br />
"All right, nobody panic," he said. "Reed, try getting the Captain. Tammen, take deep breaths." He went back to the railing. "Hey down there! Can you hear me?" He shouted.<br />
"Chief?" Danson asked.<br />
"He might still be alive. Or something," Lopez responded. He cupped his mouth. "Hello? Can you hear me?"<br />
The body didn't move. Lopez dropped his hands to the railing. "What do we do?" Verne asked. Lopez looked at Reed, who held her walkie-talkie. She shook her head. Lopez looked up at the growling sky, and didn't enjoy the look of it.<br />
"Let's head back to the bridge. We can't reach the Captain on our walkie-talkies, but there might be some way from there. We'll have to get the emergency power running."<br />
The five of them made their way back to the bridge. Lopez felt the other four pull tight like strings as they walked. Even he was nervous. Something had happened on this ship. Perhaps it was happening still. Tammen tried to reach the <i>Macaroni</i> with no luck.<br />
"Chief, why can't we reach the Captain?" He asked Lopez. Lopez shook his head.<br />
"I'm not sure. Maybe something on their side. Maybe all of our walkie-talkies are busted. Maybe something in the atmosphere." They got to the bridge. "Verne, you had an electrician's mate specialty. See if you can hook up the emergency generator." Verne nodded. He had his lips pressed together. "We-"<br />
"Chief," Tammen stammered. "The bodies are gone."<br />
Lopez glanced around the cabin. Both of the corpses were missing. No amount of them remained. Not even the slick rain coat that Lopez used to wrap the body that had fallen against the door. "What . . ."<br />
"Damn it. I want off this boat," Verne said. "There are lifeboats. We can lower one of those and go back to the <i>Macaroni</i>. Those things are zombies or something."<br />
"Stand down, Seaman. Don't go jumping to conclusions."<br />
"<i>Conclusions!?</i> Chief, what do you think is going on around here? A frigging practical joke?"<br />
"Calm down, Verne," Reed said. "If you get the generator running we'll be able to figure out what's going on."<br />
"Chief," Tammen cut in. "Where's Danson?"<br />
<br />
They split into two groups. Lopez and Verne searched aft, Reed and Tammen looked around the fore. Verne found him.<br />
Verne trailed behind Lopez, gun clutched tightly to his chest, calling Danson's name with a weak voice. They walked through a stinking hallway that was some level under the bridge. At times it was dark enough to use their flashlights, and Verne pointed his down a dark passage after Lopez walked past it. "Chief!" He called, sounding almost strangled. Lopez returned and shined his own light. He didn't like what he saw.<br />
As they got closer to the body his fears were confirmed. The prominent white teeth reflected the light back at them. Danson's eyes were peeled wide, nearly popping out of their sockets. "Keep a lookout," he told Verne, and bent down over Danson.<br />
He couldn't find bruises or scratches, not even a puncture wound, as if from a needle filled with poison to kill and distort the victim. Danson could be alive if not for the insane smile, and wide eyes. Lopez felt for a pulse.<br />
"Permission to speak, Chief?" Verne asked. Lopez knew he would regret it, but he nodded. "What. The. Fuck. I think we've officially gone over the edge to crazy. We need to get out of here before we all turn up like this. We take the raft back to the <i>Macaroni</i>. If we can't do that, we take the raft back to the mainland. It won't take us very long, especially now that . . . we have less to carry."<br />
Lopez tilted his head with the tilt of the boat. "Chief, Reed and Tammen could <i>already</i> be dead!" He pointed at Danson's body. "Or whatever this is! I don't think we have the capabilities to figure out what happened here anymore!"<br />
"You're right," Lopez said. He stood. "Let's find Reed and Tammen, and see what we can do about the body in the raft."<br />
They turned around.<br />
In the damp light that managed to get through the clouds, slumped at the end of the hallway, were the two bodies from the bridge, one of them still wrapped in the yellow raincoat. Their heads rested against each other.<br />
Verne clicked the safety of his rifle off. "They can move, Chief. They're following us around. They're zombies or something." His voice had no strength. he was trying to speak above a whisper but couldn't. "Chief."<br />
"We don't know that," Lopez said. His mind churned. He tried to find a logical explanation. "It could be anything." He tried his walkie-talkie; it was still busted. He licked his lips. "Follow me."<br />
He walked at the slumped bodies carefully, keeping his eyes on them despite the ship's rolling. He felt a gentle spray from the sky.<br />
They reached the two bodies with their legs spread across the floor. He stepped over a pair of legs; Verne watched the body through his sights. "Verne, think about how it will look if you shot a body during a routine search."<br />
"Ain't routine," Verne responded, though he did lower his gun. "Nothing about this has been routine."<br />
"Maybe not. It doesn't matter. Come on. I got my eyes on them. They won't get you." Verne nodded and joined Lopez. They walked out of the covered area into greater light; Lopez felt his heart thunder. They got to the main section of the ship and saw something running at them. Verne put his gun up, but Lopez again had him lower it. "It's Tammen."<br />
The Recruit, breathing hard and looking like he'd been hit by lightning, nearly collided with them. He tried to say something, but the words got caught in his throat. Lopez clamped his shoulders. "Bret, take a deep breath. Where's PO Reed?"<br />
Tammen pointed behind him, toward the front of the boat. He kept pointing, jabbing his finger over his shoulder. Lopez looked, seeing nothing. A thought crashed through his head. "Tammen . . . is Reed alive?"<br />
The young man shook his head.<br />
<br />
"We were walking pretty close along the fore," Tammen explained. The three of them sat in the bridge. Verne fiddled with the generator switches. "We were calling Danson's name and shining our flashlights everywhere. We didn't find him," he said, looking up at Lopez with shame.<br />
Lopez shook his head. "We did. And our friends from the bridge."<br />
Tammen nodded. "Well, we were looking everywhere -- there are a lot of little nooks because of all the parts and stuff up there, for the crane -- and at one point I realized that Reed wasn't near me anymore."<br />
"Just like when Danson disappeared," Verne said. "He was just gone."<br />
Tammen nodded. "Yeah. Anyway, I looked around for her, and . . . and I went around a corner." He started shaking. "She was stood up in a dark corner with the smile, and the eyes, looking right at me. The moment I saw her, she fell over onto her face." He sucked in a breath. "It was all I could do to check her pulse. Then I found you."<br />
"How long were you two separated?" Lopez asked.<br />
"I don't know. I didn't notice when she disappeared. It wasn't that long, though. Maybe ten minutes total until I found her."<br />
"That's even less time before we found Danson." Lopez sighed. "Any luck with the generator?" He asked Verne.<br />
"No. We'll probably have to find it and switch it on. After that we'll be able to use the systems from up here." Verne looked at Lopez. "What do we do?"<br />
"As I see it, we have two options. We either turn that generator on, or we head back to the <i>Macaroni</i>." Lopez hesitated. "That will mean pushing the body on the raft into the water. No way we're going to get it back to the ship. Either one."<br />
"Maybe it's moved by now," Tammen said.<br />
Lopez shot his a glance. "I'm not convinced they can move. There's an explanation that we aren't seeing."<br />
"What do we do?" Verne asked again.<br />
"We go back to the <i>Macaroni</i>. Whatever's going on here, it isn't safe."<br />
"No shit," Verne said. "Uh, no shit, <i>sir</i>. So? Are we going?"<br />
"After me," Lopez said. He exited the bridge, with the other two following him. "Stay together. One person has to be in your sight at all times. Stay as close as you can. And Seaman, turn that safety back on." Lopez heard a click.<br />
They got to the raft without event. The body was still lying in the middle with its foot trailing in the water. "I'll deal with that," Lopez said. He climbed down the ladder.<br />
The raft tilted on the accelerating water. He went to the body, moving carefully to keep his balance. The corpse was one of those they'd found in the room with the bunks. Lopez gripped its arm and leg on one side and heaved, spilling it into the water. It sank with a splash, and without struggle. No water rose from its lips. The stony eyes faded as the gulf swallowed it. Lopez waved the other two down.<br />
Either the <i>Macaroni</i> had drifted, or the <i>Third Coin</i> had; their journey was farther than it had been the first time. The raft sputtered them toward their boat. Lopez called a few times, but nobody answered. They climbed up after tying up the raft.<br />
The small deck of the <i>Macaroni</i> was silent. After spending so much time on the comparatively much bigger <i>Third Coin</i>, Lopez felt closed in. He didn't like it.<br />
He liked less the empty bridge and silent deck. The three of them stood looking out over the water, finding nobody and nothing. They all knew what would be below deck.<br />
"We have to look," Lopez said.<br />
"You look," Verne said. "I'm staying up here."<br />
"Not by yourself, you're not," Lopez said fiercely. "None of us are going to be alone for even a second. I'm not giving you a choice, Seaman. You're coming with us."<br />
Verne took a deep breath. He nodded slightly, looking pale. "Tammen? Any objections?" Lopez asked.<br />
"No sir," Tammen said.<br />
"All right," Lopez said. He sat there for a second. Something was moving the bodies, and something was turning his crew mates into dead starers. There was no doubt that whatever it was had gotten onto this boat. They needed to be careful. "Safeties off, boys. Try not to shoot at any of our people."<br />
Tammen and Verne clicked their rifles. Verne looked somewhat reassured.<br />
Their boat didn't have the big crew cabins the <i>Third Coin</i> had, just smaller areas for their equipment and a public area with tables and chairs. They looked there first, finding nothing. Verne tried flicking the switch when they were inside; the lights stayed off. They only had the guts of the ship left to check.<br />
<br />
A little bit later they were back on the bridge. Lopez was leaning against the railing, watching the <i>Third Coin</i> bob. Verne was at the bridge's console, trying to get power to it with dull stabs of his fingers. Tammen floated on the raft.<br />
They'd gone down one more level, to the machines of the engine and the boat. The room was shut off from the light outside and pitch black. All they could hear was the splash of waves through the bulkhead and a slow drip of water. They flicked on their flashlights and searched, quickly finding CWO Alexander and the other crew members.<br />
The drip they heard was blood pooling under one of the crew, a man who had been torn to shreds by the power of the engine. His face, just a few feet from the mangled torso, had smiled back at Lopez through a curtain of dried blood. The other four crew looked clean and untouched, save their stricken faces. Alexander's bushy moustache partially hid his crooked teeth. Lopez started to take a step forward when Verne grabbed his arm.<br />
Lopez looked, and found Verne pointing behind him. Tammen was gone. They found his corpse on the raft, which had come undone from the boat and begun drifting away. Lopez and Verne watched it from the railing under the bridge, nearly the same place they'd been talking about their fears and families before boarding the <i>Third Coin</i>. Neither man talked.<br />
They went to the bridge, and Verne tried to raise the power. Just like the <i>Third Coin</i>, the <i>Macaroni</i> was dead in the water. There was a backup generator, but they would need to go down into the room with the dead crew members to turn it on. Verne said he wanted to try a few things before electing to go back there, but nothing was working.<br />
"What can we do?" Verne asked Lopez. "We're stuck here; we're dead."<br />
"Not yet."<br />
"As soon as whatever's going on here has a chance, we're dead. We'll turn into a puppet or a zombie or something. We have to get away from here."<br />
"Don't you think I know that?" Lopez yelled back. "You think I'm standing here thinking about a crossword?" Verne recoiled, and Lopez sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm just nervous." He looked at the gray sky. "What time do you think it is?"<br />
"I don't know. Maybe fifteen hundred," Verne answered.<br />
"It'll get dark a lot sooner than normal with those clouds. I don't like our odds in the dark."<br />
"So what do we do?"<br />
"How cold do you think the water is right now?"<br />
"I couldn't say. Pretty cold, probably. Why?"<br />
"We might need to swim. The raft still works, probably, but the only way we're going to get to it is if we swim. It's not that far. It looks like it's about a hundred feet out right now, but getting farther all the time."<br />
"We won't be able to take our rifles," Verne said.<br />
"Or our Kevlar. But none of that seemed to help anybody else. What do you think?"<br />
"I think it's a last resort."<br />
"Fine." Lopez looked around the bridge. "What else can we do here?"<br />
"Not much," Verne said. "We'll need the backup generator for anything here. It's dead."<br />
"Let's give that a try first, then," Lopez said. Verne picked up his rifle.<br />
They stood in front of the door that led under the ship. "Keep your hand on my shoulder," Lopez said. "I don't want to feel the pressure let up for anything. Keep your flashlight in your other hand." Verne nodded, and squeezed Lopez's left shoulder in a strong grip. Lopez opened the door and shined his light in. The room hadn't changed. Dank liquid still puddled on the floor; five shocked faces stared at them.<br />
"Where's the generator?" Lopez asked.<br />
"That looked like it over there," Verne responded, shining his light at a plastic box. "Do you know how to turn it on?"<br />
"No. Let's switch." Lopez turned around and squeezed Verne's shoulder. Verne went to the backup generator and stared at it.<br />
"Okay, let's see if I can remember how to do this. Uh, hmm." Verne started fiddling with the box, checking the cords and buttons.<br />
Lopez was left keeping his flashlight moving in the darkness, never letting it stay still for too long. The open door let in white light, and as Lopez stared at it he began to imagine a long, fanged head peering around the side of it, startling him. Every second he came to expect it to appear; every moment it didn't he knew it would be the next. He heard a grunt and a chug, and the little box started roaring.<br />
"Okay!" Verne shouted. "That's got it! Hopefully it'll actually work. I also hope that-"<br />
The box sputtered out, coughing smoke. Verne tsked and looked behind it. "Ah," Verne said. "I thought this was going to happen." He sighed. "Not enough gas."<br />
"What?! Not enough gas in a backup generator?" Lopez asked. "Then what's the point? Can we find more?"<br />
"Look there," Verne said, pointing at the ground. A puddle of what Lopez thought was blood was near the generator. "There was enough, but it either leaked out or was cut.<br />
"So no more," Lopez said. He gripped his flashlight tightly. Verne shook his head. "Come on then." He nearly dragged Verne back into the light and up to the bridge. The storm was getting stronger, but was just wind and water from the sky so far.<br />
"I guess we need to get swimming," Verne said. He put his rifle down and unclipped his belt.<br />
"Yeah," Lopez said. The raft still drifted. It looked like it was heading for the <i>Third Coin</i>. The distance looked about a hundred and fifty feet now. "It's still not too far, but it'll only get harder for us if we wait." Verne dropped his Kevlar vest with a thump and took a deep breath, and then started to fit his life jacket back over his head. Lopez started taking off his armor.<br />
They also got rid of their boots, sidearms, and knee pads. The only thing they kept were their flashlights, thankfully waterproof. Lopez thought about getting rid of his shirt, but decided that he would want it after getting out of the water. Lopez lowered himself down the ladder first, stepping carefully with his bare feet.<br />
The waves jumped up to brush his bare feet.<br />
He leapt in, submerging himself in an instant. A shock of cold staggered him. His jacket brought him back to the surface and he took a deep breath, trying to find the raft. Each small wave obscured his vision. He heard a splash and a gasp next to him. Verne's head appeared. Lopez found the raft and pointed; it was nearly up against the <i>Third Coin</i>. Verne nodded and started swimming with an awkward front crawl. Lopez followed him, fighting the life jacket to propel himself forward. The cold water soaked into his skin.<br />
Thankfully the raft wasn't far. It had floated next to the <i>Third Coin</i>, and the two of them reached it after a few painful minutes. Lopez hooked his arm around the edge of the raft, brushing against Tammen's body. He thought he felt it move, and pushed away, drifting out. He watched the raft as Verne got to the ladder that led up to the deck of the <i>Third Coin</i>. It didn't move again. He swam it to the ladder, and Verne tied it up. They sat and rested, trying to regain their strength.<br />
After a few minutes, Verne said: "Do we just get in and start going?"<br />
Lopez shook his head. "We'll freeze if we do that. I say we go on board and try to find blankets or coats or something to wrap ourselves in."<br />
Verne nodded. "Okay. I'm going up now." Verne made his way up the cold, slick ladder. Lopez started after him when he was ten rungs above the water. When Verne got to the top he watched Lopez climb up after him.<br />
Lopez pulled himself up and felt the sting of the cold floor on his feet. "There were a few blankets in the bridge," Verne said. "I say we try there first." Lopez nodded and they set off. They kept their eyes on each other, shining their flashlights on every dark spot they found. The storm started to intensify.<br />
Rain had started to fall harder when they got to the bridge. Lopez opened it and stepped in; Verne came in behind him.<br />
Around the walls of the bridge was every body from the boat, and the bodies of Danson and Reed, lined shoulder to shoulder. Each person grinned at the body across from them and fought in a staring contest.<br />
"Find the blankets," Lopez said. "Find the blankets and let's get out of here." Verne didn't respond. Lopez used his hand to search behind him and found nothing. He turned around.<br />
Verne stood, nodding. Lopez's heart pounded. Verne walked into the bridge slowly as Lopez shut the door and pressed against it. Verne found the pile of blankets and handed one to Lopez, who started drying himself off, wiping away the extra water and trying to squeeze out his clothes. He threw the sodden blanket on the ground and took another one, wrapping it around himself. He took a look around the room, then up to Verne. "Away we go." Verne, with a blanket wrapped around himself as well, nodded. They left the bridge and shut the door.<br />
Lopez paused. "If I open that door again," he said, "Do you think we'll find them moved?"<br />
Verne paused and looked behind him. He found the Chief staring at the closed door and leaning toward it. "Will I discover something?" Lopez said, one hand drifting out at the door's handle. "Will I understand?"<br />
"Chief," Verne said. Lopez looked at him. "Don't do it. We still have a chance to leave with our lives."<br />
"Yeah, I guess," Lopez said, but he didn't move. Verne grabbed his arm and pulled him. Lopez shook himself out of his stupor and walked with him, over the slick, cold walkway.<br />
A noise from behind them made them stop. They'd heard a step. It was not camouflaged sound, turned into a step by their attacked minds. It was not the clang of something falling off of a shelf. It was not an echo, or a whistle of the wind. It was not the scuff of a suspended rope dragging over a lose piece of metal. It was a step.<br />
It was a low, almost unheard sound. On any other day it could have blended right in and become nothing more than a noise that their brains did away with, so as not to distract them from the things that really mattered, like their next meal or their mounting paperwork. But on this cold and haunted boat the simple, everyday sound pulled on them, and let them know the answer was just behind the door. Their brains, as they do, split, telling them both to run, run as fast as they could to safety and warmth . . . and it told them to open the door and finally know the truth.<br />
Another step landed. The dark pulled in around Verne and Lopez, the wind tugged their blankets, the rain matted their hair. Another step, closer, louder.<br />
Verne squeezed Lopez's arm and dragged him toward the stairs. Lopez went with him, finally freed from the capturing question. They ran for the raft.<br />
They heard a door open.<br />
"Don't look," Lopez panted as they ran. "We can't look." Verne didn't respond.<br />
They got to the ladder going down, and Verne went first, hand over hand and trying not to let his blanket escape him. When he was halfway down, Lopez went, listening for sounds that got closer and made his heart burst. One rung after the other he went until he reached the raft.<br />
His stomach curdled. Verne's limp body was piled over Tammen's, his face a familiar leer. Lopez shot a look above him and found nothing. The rain got in his eyes.<br />
He untied the raft and started the motor; it took off from the boat and headed for the open water. He knew what he was doing was not safe. He didn't care. As soon as he was more than fifty feet from the <i>Third Coin</i>, he dumped the two bodies into the water, taking Verne's blanket for himself. The storm pulsed as he piloted the raft away from the two ghost ships, north toward Florida and safety.<br />
<br />
Shapes and shadows of the storm attacked him more than the rain and the lightning. Water soaked him and the blankets around him. He was lost; north was any direction he wanted it to be. The raft would soon run out of gas; he would soon run out of everything. He was drained. The adrenaline that had raced through his body for the entire day burned his veins.<br />
With numb and hurting fingers he reached into his pocket and brought out the picture of his family.<br />
<br />
"Here we are," the man who was the Captain on board their boat said. "These are the coordinates. No ships though. Are we at the right place?"<br />
"Yes sir," the helmsman said. "The coordinates were relayed to us before we lost contact."<br />
"So there should be <i>two</i> boats here, but instead there are zero."<br />
"Yes sir."<br />
The Captain looked around. It was a week after the storm. "Well, they aren't here now. Perhaps they drifted?"<br />
"Report says that the <i>Macaroni</i> dropped anchor. Even if it had capsized in the storm, it would still be here."<br />
The Captain chewed his lip. "Was that poor fellow lying? I hate to think it, but a man in his state of mind could have made it all up."<br />
"Captain Alexander of the <i>Macaroni</i> reported the same thing that Chief Lopez was talking about when they brought him ashore."<br />
"Well, the boats aren't here now, and we can't just drive all over looking for them. Let's head back."Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-45397726938624075242013-11-16T12:00:00.000-06:002013-11-20T16:20:39.262-06:00The Freedom of Space"Captain, there's something on the sensors," lieutenant Chambers said. He swiveled in his chair and looked over his shoulder at Mohinder Omja, Captain of the <i>Blind Man</i>. "It's big."<br />
"What sort of big?" Omja asked, rising from his chair in the center of the room and joining the lieutenant at his console. "Another ship?"<br />
Chambers shook his head. "Much bigger, sir. I'm trying to calibrate the sensors to pick it up better."<br />
"A planet?"<br />
"No sir. Bigger." The lieutenant tapped on his computer. He squinted at confusing numbers. "Good Lord."<br />
"What is it?"<br />
"According to this, sir," the lieutenant said, "the object in front of the ship is lightyears long."<br />
The command deck of the interstellar ship went quiet. "I'm sorry lieutenant. Did you say <i>lightyears</i>?"<br />
"Yes sir. The sensors can't grasp its full size," the lieutenant said. He pointed at the numbers on his screen. Captain Omja leaned in and studied them.<br />
"Kerrigan, come here," he called. The woman stood next to him. "Look." Omja pointed at the screen and the numbers. Kerrigan looked. Her stony face changed to confusion and mystery.<br />
"I don't believe it," she whispered, standing straight. "Captain, do we send a team?"<br />
"Of course we do! This is incredible! A <i>structure</i> this big! Get our best people ready to go. Lieutenant, how far are we?"<br />
"We'll be within landing distance in a day, Captain."<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>In the <i>Blind Man</i>, the ship sent to explore the area near the edge of the galaxy, head science officer Emanuel London sat with the stacked instruments that would follow him to the surface of the gigantic structure. His body buzzed with excitement. What wonder! When Captain Omja had brought the news to him, he'd nearly shot through the roof!<br />
Was it an alien race's creation from long ago, precursors to humans that had disappeared thousands of years ago, even with their technological marvels? Had they found a bone of the universe, a pillar that kept their dimension from shredding and disintegrating under them? Was it an unlikely natural formation from some titanic, shattered easel of rock from a distant corner of the galaxy that had sent shards shooting through the deep dark of space? They would find out; Emanuel and his small team would discover.<br />
All six of them watched out the window as their ship slipped into orbit around the massive piece of space's geography. It stretched in both directions, filing to points as it continued on unseen. Bleached bone white it reflected the lights of the ship that flashed down on it. Jones whistled; the rest of them just stared. In front of them was the biggest thing ever seen by humans; in front of them was the biggest thing to exist. Numbers failed it. Small human minds stretched trying to comprehend its greatness. Emanuel's fingers itched with desire to touch it through a gloved hand and step on it through a boot. He would always remember the long plain viewed through the helmet of his suit.<br />
His small group -- six people from a crew of barely one hundred -- strapped themselves into their suits and climbed into the interstellar ship's small lander. They pressed themselves around their cargo, the things that would help them measure and understand the structure that was their destination.<br />
Emmanuel felt his mind twist as he tried to comprehend it. The distance they floated away from the main ship was a hair's breadth compared to the overwhelming size of the space structure.<br />
<br />
Emanuel was the first one out. His foot landed on the untouched surface and he stopped. One hand still gripped the ladder. Phomello looked down and asked him what was wrong over the intercom.<br />
The structure, as they could understand it, was an infinitely long tube with a flat top. It had wide sides of several hundred yards.<br />
"The ground. It's strange." Emanuel took a few steps. The gravity was close to Earth or above it; moving in the suit was easy. Phomello, Jones, and Terra joined him.<br />
"It's not dust," Terra said, scuffing her boot on the ground. "It doesn't look organic."<br />
Jones bent down to bring his face and camera closer to the ground. He rubbed it with one hand. "It's smooth. Has anybody done an atmosphere test?"<br />
"Just finished," Phomello said. "There's nothing here. It's big enough to have an atmosphere, but there's nothing except trace elements."<br />
"No star," Emanuel said. "No heat. No chance of chemical reaction. This is just a rock."<br />
"Bigger than any rock I've seen," Ned said as he stepped off the ladder onto the strange dark plain. "This has got to be the largest thing in the galaxy if not the universe." He put a box down and began unpacking it. "Terra, give me a hand with this." He and the woman took out a small drill for harvesting materials and set it up. The drill, suspended on four legs, began to whir. The four of them felt the vibrations through their suits.<br />
"The Captain wants a status report," Alex, the one remaining in the lander, told them. <br />
"Okay Alex, I got it," Emanuel said. "Put me through." He heard the crackle of static as Captain Omja's voice landed in his ear.<br />
"Emanuel? Do you copy?"<br />
"Copy, Captain. We're here safe and sound."<br />
"Good. Anything to report?"<br />
"It's astounding, sir. The size of this thing is enough to make you weak in the knees. I've had to avoid looking down the length of it to keep from getting dizzy." He paused. "And right now it looks like everyone else is doing the same thing. They're setting up the instruments now."<br />
"Any clue on its origin?"<br />
"No sir. So far we've just commented on its strange material and lack of atmosphere. A little bit of time should give us something more."<br />
"How long do you expect to stay down there?"<br />
"A few hours at the least. But who knows? There may be something here that warrants a longer look. We're just now-" Emanuel broke off and looked over at the other three on the ground. One of them was waving at him to come over. "Hold on sir, I'm being flagged down."<br />
He switched back to the team channel. "What is it?"<br />
"The drill," Terra said, pointing. "It busted." Emanuel looked. Instead of the sharp point it was dull and broken.<br />
"What happened?"<br />
"As soon as it hit the ground it snapped," Ned explained. "Didn't even make a scratch." Emanuel looked closer. The ground under the drill's mangled bit was pristine and untouched.<br />
"Let's try something else," he said, straightening. "Do some other scans to see if we can figure out what this thing is."<br />
The four of them started unpacking the other instruments. Emanuel busied himself setting up a machine that would help them figure out if anything was inside the structure.<br />
At one point he took a break and, despite what he'd told Captain Omja, he looked down the staggering length of the thing they stood on as the others worked around him.<br />
Its eternity chilled him. He wished he could rub his eyes, but his hands were trapped on the other side of his helmet. He looked down at his feet, took in a cold breath, and looked again.<br />
Something seemed strange about it. It reached on, forever and more, yes. Yet.<br />
Yet something made him draw his eye along the edge of the wide arm he stood on. It was a large area, large enough for even the Blind Man to land safely. Emanuel shook his head, trying to rid himself of the strange feeling he got when he looked deep into space along the length of what they stood on.<br />
He couldn't shake it off. He set down the unconnected components of the scanner and went back to the lander.<br />
When he climbed in, Alex looked up at him with surprise. "Emanuel? Is something wrong?"<br />
"No, no, I just want to check something. Did we bring an SCMT?"<br />
"I think it's in here somewhere," Alex said, digging about in the boxes that were packed in the back. "What do you need it for?"<br />
"I get a weird feeling every time I look down the length of the . . . structure."<br />
Alex shrugged. "Do you think that it has a curve?"<br />
"I'm not sure. Maybe. I just want to see if I can find anything." Emanuel left the lander, holding the small instrument. "Phomello, give me a hand please."<br />
"What do you need?" Phomello said as he joined Emanuel.<br />
"I'm going to go to the edge and see if I can pick up a curve. Just make sure I don't go spinning off into space, will you?"<br />
Phomello didn't answer, instead he looked down the length of the structure. "Why do you think it's curved?" He asked through the intercom.<br />
"I get a weird feeling whenever I look at it. Like I'm tilting, or I'm off center somehow. Do you get anything like that?"<br />
"I just think it's really long," Phomello said. Emanuel shrugged -- a motion not translated very well through the insulated space suit -- and they walked to the edge.<br />
The SCMT, or surface curvature measurement tool, used three quick beams of light to find the apparent arc between the points. Emanuel, with Phomello anchoring his legs, laid himself down on the edge of the spire, and extended his arms out in front of him with the SCMT pointing back at the edge of the spire. The edge, a gentle curve, felt slippery and loose under Emanuel, and he made sure Phomello's grip on him was secure before getting a reading. He pressed a button, there was a quick beep, and he got back to his feet away from the edge. The readout stated a 0.00% curve on the measured surface.<br />
"I guess that answers that question," Phomello said. "Come and help me with the-"<br />
"No, hold on, I'm going to measure again. Anchor me." Emanuel changed the points on the SCMT to measure a larger distance apart, and got back down to his stomach. Phomello sighed and gripped his legs. Emanuel took another reading. Still 0.00%.<br />
"Are you satisfied?" Phomello asked. "Now come on."<br />
"Come in Captain," Emanuel said into his comm. Phomello groaned but was unheard.<br />
"Yes Emanuel? Is something wrong?"<br />
"I have a hunch that the structure possesses a curve, but the instruments we have with us aren't detailed enough to pick up on it. Do you know of anyway we could do it from the ship.<br />
"A curve, Emanuel?" Captain Omja's staticky voice asked. "It doesn't look like it. Are you sure?"<br />
"No sir, I'm not sure; it's a hunch. That's what a hunch means. This thing is millions of lightyears long you said. It could have the most subtle curve known to man."<br />
"I'll see if any of our sensors can be used in such a way. Keep at it." There was a dead pause. "By the way, Emanuel, your snark has been noted. Omja out."<br />
For the next few hours Emanuel and the others set up the equipment used to measure and discover the spire. Data began to come in. There was nothing inside or under it. It was a solid, unknown material. There was no heat and no radiation besides the normal. They could harvest no sample of the material; anything they tried to use broke or became useless, whether it was a diamond drill, a steel shovel, or a plastic knife. After enough time, they packed the instruments away, got into the lander, and flew back to the ship.<br />
Shortly after that, Emanuel was summoned to the bridge.<br />
"Captain. I apologize for my behavior."<br />
"Apology accepted. As for your request, lieutenant Chambers says he might be able to help you," Omja said, sitting in the Captain's chair. "Lieutenant?"<br />
"What I've been able to do is modify some of our basic instruments to act like a wide-range SCMT," Chambers said. "It will act in the same way, simply sending out three beams of light and waiting for it to return, and then calculating a curvature based on the distance, angle, speed of light, etc. The Captain assumed that the widest range possible would be best."<br />
"Yes, that's right," Emanuel replied.<br />
"In that case, we'll have to back away from the structure. We have quite a range available to us. The Captain has already okay-ed it."<br />
"Thank you. It's possible that I was wrong about it. Seeing it from this angle . . . it looks just as straight as anything else. But when I was standing down there I couldn't help but think it had a curve."<br />
"Get us moving, ensign," Captain Omja ordered. The ensign at the helm began to move the ship away from the structure.<br />
<br />
Quickly it disappeared from view. It orbited no sun; it became a dark barrier found only with the help of the ship's sensors. Emanuel watched as lieutenant Chambers made calibrations to help them scan it and the ensign piloted them away.<br />
The Captain came to stand next to him. "Emanuel," he asked softly. "What are you hoping to find?"<br />
"I'm not sure." Emanuel hesitated. "Just something I guess I'd like to know."<br />
"Why is that?"<br />
"Captain, we're at the farthest reaches of known space. We're exploring areas never before found." Emanuel gestured at the screen, and the hidden structure. "Now we find this thing. Why hadn't we seen it before? The grandest structure ever seen, and we stumble upon it like a hidden treasure."<br />
"It is not very wide," Omja said. "Perhaps five hundred yards. It isn't even that tall. Its length is the only thing that sets it apart as far as structures as far as dimensions go." The Captain stroked the natty beard on his chin. "Especially at the distance we are from Earth, it's possible to think that it simply couldn't be seen."<br />
"I feel like someone would have seen <i>something</i>. Other than that, though . . . what is it for? Is it natural? It looked constructed. It's hard, and smooth. Infinitely smooth, just as it seems to be infinitely long."<br />
"Sir, we're ready," lieutenant Chambers said. "The sensors are pointed at the structure, as wide as possible."<br />
"Shall we?" Captain Omja said. Emanuel nodded. "Do it lieutenant."<br />
Chambers pressed a few buttons, and the computer pinged.<br />
They waited; the air was still. Emanuel didn't breathe.<br />
The computer pinged again. Chambers read the results. "Sir," he said over his shoulder. Omja went to him.<br />
"Emanuel, look at this," he said. Emanuel went to the computer and read what was on the screen.<br />
"A 0.0000373363 degree curvature." Emanuel expelled air. "Are you sure? How wide is the sample?"<br />
"I can run it again. The distance that the three sensors are picking up is about a hundredth of a lightyear. That means over the distance scanned, it curves less than one hundred-thousandth of a degree."<br />
"But how-"<br />
"Listen," the lieutenant said, turning in his chair. "I know you're about to ask me something like 'how do the sensors read something that far away' or 'shouldn't it take a lot longer than that?' Please believe me when I say that it's better just to not ask."<br />
"Okay, well, please run it again, then."<br />
"Will do," Chambers said, typing in the command to repeat the scan. The computer beeped, paused, churned, and beeped again. The same result appeared; the long string of zeros ending with 373363.<br />
"It's a repeating pattern. Those six numbers repeat forever," Chambers said. "Anyway, it looks like you're right."<br />
Emanuel didn't know why, but when he saw those numbers again -- heard that they repeated -- a chill went down his spine. He read the sequence of numbers once, again. Three seven three three six three. Three seven three three six three. He shook his head.<br />
Chambers watched him. "What do we do now?"<br />
"Contact Earth," Omja said. "Tell them everything. Send them the information that Emanuel's crew has gathered, as well as everything that they couldn't, and send this data too." He waved his hand at the computer Chambers sat in front of. "In the meantime, we follow this."<br />
"Follow it, sir?" the ensign at the helm asked.<br />
"Follow the structure and see if we can find an end. How are our fuel cells?" Omja asked after a brief pause.<br />
"Ninety percent, Captain," Kerrigan said from her chair. "We have enough power to go at full speed for months.<br />
Omja nodded. "Get us moving, then."<br />
<br />
Three days passed. Their small ship zoomed -- whisking past lights from distant suns -- a thousand kilometers from the maddeningly straight-but-curved structure. The news of the structure's atomically subtle arc had spread through the ship, eliciting mostly confused questions and unknowing shrugs. Several people asked Emanuel if he knew what it was, but of course he didn't. He asked himself the same question over and over during those interim days as he and his crew did a few experiments on the structure as they flew.<br />
Earth responded with similar questions, saying they would hand the details to their <i>top</i> scientific men. The news was already creating a splash on Earth's news networks, according to Captain Omja when he bumped into Emanuel in the hallway.<br />
Emanuel stood in his cramped lab, shoulder-to-shoulder with Phomello and Alex. He was staring at his hand, on which six numbers were written. One on line: three, seven, three, three. Under those: six, three. Emanuel wasn't sure why, but it felt right to separate the numbers in this way.<br />
"They don't mean anything," Terra said, fiddling a piece of equipment with a pair of pliers across from him. "They're just numbers."<br />
"I know," Emanuel said. He dropped his hand and looked at a long equation on a notepad, some information from a spectrometer's readout. "I can't get rid of that weird feeling, though. It's like the numbers are trying to say something."<br />
The entire room groaned. Emanuel had gone on, talking about the numbers every day, without pause.<br />
"We know. We <i>know</i>," Ned said. "Emanuel, come on over here and help me with this."<br />
"Fine, fine," Emanuel shuffled to where Ned stood in front of two screens. "Why are you using this thing, anyway? We haven't needed this during this entire trip."<br />
Ned stood in front of the logical construction analyzer, a machine that was able to take information fed into it and create a display of the item. "We don't need this thing right now. Turn it off."<br />
"Just a minute," Ned said. "I put all the info we know into it to try and create an image of the structure. It's taken all this time. Once it was done, I calculated where we are in accordance to Earth, and then populated the area inside it. Look." Ned hit a button. A ring appeared. "That's the structure, made so that we can see it.”<br />
"Okay," Emanuel said.<br />
Ned hit another button; dots started appearing, clustered near one section of the ring. "Those are discovered planets, moons -- anywhere humanity has a hold. They also represent the locations of ships we have out, more or less. Still with me?"<br />
"Of course. What next?" Emanuel said. The rest of the room looked over his shoulder.<br />
Ned hit a last button. An image of their galaxy appeared, and laid itself perfectly inside the ring. Ned looked at Emanuel. "The ring circles the entire galaxy. It's the very edge."<br />
Emanuel tilted his head. "How do you know it's a ring?"<br />
"I don't. Not really," Ned said. "I just did that to see how big it would be if it was. As it turns out, just big enough to fit our entire galaxy right inside it." Ned crossed his beefy arms. "I'm a man who believes that coincidences will happen . . . but this . . ."<br />
Emanuel nodded. "Send this up to the Captain. Good work."<br />
<br />
Emanuel got to the bridge as soon as he could. "Captain-"<br />
"We just got the information; Chambers is putting it together now. Why is this so urgent, Emanuel? Is something wrong?"<br />
Emanuel thought of the numbers on his hand. "Probably not, no. It's an incredible coincidence. Ned did some work with the logical construction analyzer. He thinks he found the size of the ring."<br />
"Ring? You think it's a ring?" Omja asked.<br />
"It could be. It will make more sense when you see the data."<br />
Chambers nodded, and Kerrigan put it on the main screen. They watched as the ring appeared. "That's the structure in a full three-hundred and sixty degrees, which it might not even be. Go to the next one." The lights appeared; one of them flashed. "Those are discovered planets and ships. The flashing one is us. See we're adjacent to the ring." Omja nodded. Chambers went on. Emanuel watched the galaxy slide and lock into place inside the ring, lining up with the planets and ships.<br />
The ship's bridge was as quiet as the space outside.<br />
"No," Omja whispered out. "Impossible."<br />
Chambers, whom Emanuel suddenly saw as very young, looked at him with a confused expression. "It surrounds us? How can that be?"<br />
"We don't know," Emanuel said.<br />
"Captain!" Kerrigan said loudly. Emanuel jumped. "We're getting a message from Earth." She looked down at it. "It looks like they've found the same information. They're asking you if we've discovered anything else."<br />
"Open a comm channel to them," Omja said, sitting in his chair. "Emanuel, stay. There may be questions for you."<br />
Shortly a video of a portly man sitting behind a desk appeared. Emanuel recognized him as an admiral from Earth.<br />
"Captain Omja, greetings," the admiral said. "You've read our message?"<br />
"Yes admiral," Omja said. "In fact we'd just been told of the same sort of information. Emanuel London here is our senior science officer, it was his team that visited the structure, and his team that discovered the possibility of the ring." Omja leaned forward in his chair. "We have no information other than that. No hypothesis, no data. We've been following the structure for three days, but have not even gone a hundredth of a degree. It certainly looks as if it could be big enough to swallow our entire galaxy."<br />
"We agree," the admiral said. "Our scientists here are doing their best to try to find more evidence of it, but it's such a thin ring that it's difficult to spot by any means." The admiral sighed. "In the meantime, keep following it. There's a chance that it isn't a ring. By many of your expressions, I don't need to tell you that this would come as a relief to a number of us. We don't really like the idea of being trapped, even at a scale this large. Earth out."<br />
The video disappeared, and the peering stars returned. Omja rose from his chair. "Emanuel, why don't you take a walk with me. Carry on all of you."<br />
Omja and Emanuel exited the bridge and began pacing the hallways. Emanuel waited for Omja to say something, but the Captain just walked with his hands linked behind his back and his head high.<br />
After a few minutes, he spoke.<br />
"Emanuel, I know you have those numbers written on your hand. I spotted them during your presentation. You think they mean something?"<br />
Emotions crashed inside Emanuel. A part of him wanted to shout <i>yes, yes!!!</i> and yet other parts of him fought to beat it back. "I'm not sure, sir."<br />
"Talk freely now," Omja said. "I want to know what you're thinking."<br />
Emanuel took in a breath. "You asked for it.<br />
"I can't shake the numbers out of my mind, just like I couldn't get rid of the feeling that the structure had a curve, a theory that ultimately proved to be right on a scale even I didn't imagine. I have the numbers memorized. Three seven three three six three. I have it written on my hand, yes, but I feel like I had it memorized since the moment I first heard the sequence. Captain, speaking frankly, it's a <i>damn ring around our galaxy!</i> I don't know how I'm supposed to think, I don't know how I supposed to feel; part of me wants to start writing those six numbers on every flat surface I see, and another part of me believes that my mind, something that is now being asked to accept that there's a <i>damn ring around our galaxy</i>, is latching on to something, <i>anything</i>, that might give me an answer. I was there, on it! I saw it! You can't believe how smooth it was! I mean, it broke a diamond drill! We couldn't get a sample the stuff was so hard! Smooth like a cue ball, hard like a diamond, forever reaching like a hand from a dream come to collect me!" He paused to breathe, and Omja blinked, given a respite from the torrent. "It boils down to this question: Is there a giant, super-durable ring around our galaxy just because? Or did someone or something put it there?"<br />
"A philosophical question for people brighter than I," Omja said. "Anything else? Perhaps you'd like to guess as to a function."<br />
Emanuel shook his head. "I have no idea. Not a single thing comes to mind, except for something that the admiral said. He said that they didn't like the idea of being trapped. We're a disc galaxy; the ring just happens to surround us along the length of the disc. Another coincidence?" He shook his head again; his curly black hair whipped back and forth. "Is it really trapping us? No! And yet I, Earth, perhaps you and perhaps others on the bridge equated it with being trapped." He stopped and pondered. His brain churned. "No, not quite. Not trapped. Caught."<br />
"Caught?" Omja asked.<br />
"And struggling to be free. Me, I don't think that we're really trapped." His gaze drilled at the floor.<br />
"Do you think another visit to the surface would gain you any more information? Anything at all? Think of every expensive piece of equipment you could use, every test you could do. Is there anything you could do to help us understand?"<br />
"I'll have to ask my team. At the very least, we'll be able to come up with something that can get us a sample. Even if that does fail, we'll find a way to take a microscope to it and take as good a look as we can."<br />
"Good. Get at it, and tell me if you have enough to warrant us stopping again. I doubt that we'll find anything worthwhile along the length of it," Omja said. They'd walked along the ship until reaching the bridge once more. "This is exactly the sort of thing you're prepared for, Emanuel. It's a perfect opportunity for you to show your skills. I know you won't let me down."<br />
<br />
Emanuel burst into the lab, full of righteous energy. "All right people. What can we do to get more information about the ring?" He asked the stunned workers inside. "Anything and everything. If you think we can find something out by spraying seltzer on its surface, you let me know!"<br />
The other scientists inside looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes.<br />
"Let's shoot it," Terra suggested. "It might have a reaction to a violent stimulus."<br />
"We already tried drilling it," Ned said. "That's violent enough. I think we should try blowing it up."<br />
"Somebody get a white board!" Emanuel shouted, rubbing his hands together.<br />
They talked for hours. The strangest idea by far was when Jones suggested they try to feed it. "And how are you going to find a mouth?" Ned asked.<br />
They came up with a few ideas that held merit. Emanuel got them busy collecting materials to conduct the tests, and loped to the bridge to speak to the Captain.<br />
"Emanuel? You have some ideas?" Omja said when he saw the scientist appear.<br />
"Yes sir. A good number. I doubt more than a few of them will get us anything, but they're all worth trying."<br />
Omja nodded. "Let us know when you're ready to head down."<br />
<br />
"It's all here," Phomello said to Emanuel. "Everything we could possibly need. "We've got the laser-scanning device, a kleptometer . . . " Phomello rattled off the items that were assembled in front of them, which also included an pulse cannon and enough nuclear material to destroy an asteroid. "Can you think of anything else?" Phomello asked Emanuel. Emanuel shook his head.<br />
"Not a thing. Load it up."<br />
Soon, with all of the equipment loaded into the back of the lander and the six of them stuffed in the cockpit, the lander again descended down to the ring. Alex set them down with their nose pointing out of their home galaxy, staring into the untethered emptiness. They all looked, seeing with their brief eyes the shine of galaxies distant and alone. Emanuel wondered if theirs was the only one circled by a ring.<br />
They exited, and began to conduct the experiments, one by one. They inspected it with the laser scanner, finding an unknown element under them. They used the kleptometer to see how quickly the material was decaying, trying to find if it was in any way radioactive or dissolving. What little data they could find they recorded and sent to the main ship as soon as they could. They tried using a few different things to get a sample, but nothing would work.<br />
During some down time, Jones wandered around the surface, offering a banana to the ring. It must have been full.<br />
Emanuel helped Terra set up the pulse cannon, which was sort of a misnomer. Less a weapon of destruction, the pulse cannon was actually a device to transmit a level of electricity at a specific point. It was also able to pulse the energy at many desired frequencies -- hence the name.<br />
None of the other tests had yielded much of anything. The most useful piece of information was that taken from the laser scanner, that the ring was made of a material as of yet unknown to them. The fact that they were unable to get a sample made that information nearly useless, however. Emanuel helped Terra not expecting to get any result from the pulse cannon.<br />
They didn't, but something else did happen.<br />
Terra first set the pulse cannon to a mere one hundred volts and a frequency of 1 hertz. Emanuel rested his hand on the cannon to keep it steady, and Terra started it. The cannon itself did nothing, but Emanuel suddenly felt a stinging pain on his hand. He jerked it away from the machine and began to inspect it for damage. He slapped the button on his arm to shut the passage between his hand and his arm.<br />
"What?" Terra asked, worried. "What happened?"<br />
"I'm not sure! I thought something might have hit me, but . . . " He rotated his hand, looking at each side. "I don't see any damage. It must have just been an ache."<br />
At least, that's what he thought at first. As time went on, the pain fluctuated, coming and going with a frequency of its own. Emanuel still couldn't find any damage in his suit, and had to make do with rubbing his hand to smooth the ache out.<br />
After an hour of trying varying voltages and frequencies and getting nothing in return, they packed up their equipment and carried out the nuclear material. They stacked it up and connected it to a transmitter, then boarded their ship and left.<br />
<br />
Back on the bridge with Captain Omja, Emanuel and his team – hundreds of miles away – looked at a zoomed-in video of the spot where the explosives were piled. Chambers waited for Omja to give the order, then detonated them.<br />
The result was unimpressive. In an instant the material was gone; not even a hint remained that it had ever existed. There was no mark on the ring, no burn or scar from the blast. The only indication that they had done anything were the sensors blaring that a radiation spike had been detected.<br />
"No need to worry about that," Omja said. "Our shields are sufficient. We'll need to go somewhere else anyway, though, to keep you safe. Your suits don't have the same kind of defenses."<br />
"Nothing happened!" Jones said. "It's like we weren't even there!"<br />
"Well, what did you expect?" Ned asked. "We couldn't even make a dent in that thing with our best equipment! Are you so surprised that a nuke wasn't able to do anything?"<br />
"A little bit . . ."<br />
"Do you have any more ideas?" Omja asked Emanuel.<br />
"No," Emanuel said. "Except for variations. Right now it looks like it's going to be ninety-nine percent perspiration with this thing. There are plenty more voltages and frequency combinations we can use with the pulse cannon, and we might be able to get some more information with the laser-scanner."<br />
"Okay. We'll go for a few days and then let you out again. I doubt we're going to find anything on its surface, but we need to get away from the fallout anyway," Omja said.<br />
<br />
Emanuel stretched out on his bed. It was shoved under a curved bulkhead and squeezed between two shelves full of his possessions, and so to rest in it felt as if he was caged on all sides except for one. It was, on the other hand, a feeling you get used to quickly when on a ship, never allowed a look at the great open space. For months after leaving Earth, Emanuel and many of the other passengers had dreams of flying, deep blue skies that shimmered with the glorious heat of the sun, or a great, wide, safe place of unfettered motion.<br />
It got easier to deal with as time went on, and Emanuel quickly found his room a comfortable, livable place. However, on the second night flying away from where they nuked the ring, he also found himself unable to fall asleep. What had been a normal, if small, private area now became a pit he couldn't escape. The walls pressed in on him. He tried closing his eyes, but in the imagined darkness the walls shifted and buried him; he shot out his hand and it clanged against the bulkhead.<br />
He opened his eyes again, finding the room none the smaller. He sat up with his hand still pressed against the bulkhead. He removed it, and gazed at the numbers written there. Three seven three three, six three; he didn't need to see them anymore to know them.<br />
Sleep wouldn't come so he went to his desk. He opened a notebook and got a pen. He wrote the numbers at the top of the page.<br />
He totaled them. They equaled twenty-five. Emanuel wrote "25" next to them at the top. Two and five together made seven, he wrote that next.<br />
He wrote three-seven-three-three on one side, and six-three on the other. So it was then sixteen against nine, with a difference of seven. Emanuel sat back and marveled at the coincidence.<br />
Was it, though? Was he making magic with numbers mundane, solving the mysteries of the galactic ring on his pen and paper? Or was he finding images in the scattered tea leaves of space, seeing patterns where none existed? Was his tired mind reaching out of its cave, searching for a glimpse of true light? Yearning to see the things that had, before, only projected their shadows on his wall?<br />
Was he finding them?<br />
Emanuel bent down to the paper; his nose nearly touched it. He gathered his knowledge of numbers and began to experiment. He built a four-sided object out of the first set of numbers, a trapezoid. He measured the angles, but found nothing interesting. He plugged the numbers into all the formulas he could pull from his head; none of them made any sense when worked out. From algebra to trig to four-dimensional calculus, none of the numbers seemed to have any significance.<br />
He dropped his pen to the paper and sat against the back of his chair. Equations covered ten pages of his notebook, but none of them made sense. The recurring sevens was the most interesting thing he'd found.<br />
He pushed himself away from his chair and curled himself back into bed. He dreamt of a wide space, and a beast finally free.<br />
<br />
"Me?" Alex shouted the moment Emanuel opened the door to their lab the next morning. His head ached. "At least I came up with a few ideas! You just wanted to <i>feed</i> it!"<br />
"We need to think outside the box!" Jones replied. "We tried it, now we don't have to worry about it anymore!" Jones narrowed his eyes at Alex.<br />
"Ex<i>cuse</i> me!" Emanuel shouted, a little too loudly. "Would you both please settle down! What's going on?"<br />
"Jones said I'm not helping," Alex said. "And then-"<br />
"Okay, I get it." Emanuel rubbed his head. "You both had good ideas. Jones is right, we need to think outside the box. Though I admit, trying to give the ring around our galaxy a banana might have been a bit too far outside."<br />
Alex smirked at Jones.<br />
"Remember though -- nothing at all we tried worked, really. In that case, Jones was just as close to figuring it out than Alex." Emanuel sat on a hard stool and stretched his back out. "Now, we're one day out from stopping again. Captain Omja doesn't expect to find anything on the ring's surface, and I don't know any reason not to believe that. I asked you all to try and come up with some things; tell me what you have." Nobody spoke. Emanuel heard a stool scoot. Somebody coughed. "Anything."<br />
"We could try hitting it with different forms of radiation," Terra suggested. "The material might react in some way."<br />
"Okay, good. Anybody else?"<br />
"What if we . . . " Phomello scratched a cheek. "Maybe if we tried . . . rubbing something on it."<br />
"Come again?" Ned asked.<br />
"What happens when it touches water, I mean? What about steam?"<br />
"We can't get steam in space." Alex said.<br />
"Well, okay, what about ice crystals? A small sample of plasma from the engines? Hell-" Phomello looked over at Jones. "Jam."<br />
"Too far outside the box," Alex said.<br />
"What if we covered it with a conducting gel?" Terra asked. "And then tried the pulse cannon again?"<br />
"Acid," Ned spoke up. "Something highly corrosive."<br />
Emanuel nodded through all of this. "There we go, we got some things. Let's get that whiteboard up here again. Say anything that comes to mind. There is no 'too far' outside the box for this thing. I mean, for Pete's sake people, it's a ring around our galaxy."<br />
<br />
They had more tests. They had more equipment. They were on their way to the ring's surface for the third time, huddled in the nose of the lander with all their equipment -- somehow, even a jar of jam and a plastic knife -- stashed in the back. Again, they brought everything that they could think of with them.<br />
Emanuel stood near the edge of the ring, looking in at their galaxy. All the length of it glowed. Stars compounded on other stars to create a band of light that drew the eye. Ignoring the lights from the lander and the ship that orbited around the ring, the core of the galaxy was the brightest thing in the sky. Terra and Phomello set up the pulse cannon and then called him over.<br />
"I've spread the gel out under the cannon," Terra said as he walked to them. "Hopefully something will work."<br />
"We might need to start getting used to the fact that nothing we do will work," Phomello said. "There will be plenty of time for people to get to this and do tests. We don't have access to even one percent of the equipment that someone could use to figure out what this thing is."<br />
That day, before the six of them had traveled down to the ring, Earth had contacted the ship. They relayed that, yes, the ring surrounded the galaxy. Close study and calculations assured them that nothing else could be the truth. Still nobody had a clue to its purpose.<br />
"We have to try everything, though. Think about how far we are from any other ship or settlement," Alex's voice came through the intercom from the lander. "If we don't try everything we possibly can, we'll be wasting a lot of time and resources."<br />
"What should we try first?" Terra asked Emanuel.<br />
"Set it up to cycle through from one to a hundred volts in a continuous stream," he said. "Camera set up and everything?"<br />
"Yep." Phomello laid a hand on the camera, which pointed at the pulse cannon. "And I'm ready to take notes."<br />
"All right, let's go," he said to Terra. She punched in a few numbers as Ned and Jones argued about a different experiment.<br />
"I'm ready. Everybody stand back," Terra said.<br />
"Camera on and ready," Phomello said. He gave her a thumbs up. "All set."<br />
"Here we go," Terra said, and touched the button to start the pulse cannon.<br />
It began to shine, jumping energy to the gel-slick surface of the ring. Waiting for about a second at each level, it slowly moved up from one volt on to a hundred.<br />
By the time it hit twenty-three, Emanuel's hand ached. He held it up for a quick inspection, trying to find a tear or break, and it flashed out in sensation again. He groaned. "You two keep watching this, I need to go back inside for something, just for a minute."<br />
"We'll be fine," Terra said.<br />
Emanuel raced to the lander and closed the door. "Pressurize the cabin. I need to take my glove off," he said to Alex. Alex nodded and hit a few buttons on the front console. Gas hissed as atmosphere returned to the lander. Alex nodded again and Emanuel stripped off his glove, expecting to find it bloody and torn.<br />
It was whole, uninjured. Emanuel stared at the back of it, and turned it over.<br />
There, almost as if they glowed, the numbers showed on his palm. The moment his eyes lit on them, the pain stopped. Instead, there was a constant, buzzing feeling.<br />
"Is something wrong?" He heard through his helmet. Alex had his off. The pilot pointed at his hand, and Emanuel unlatched his helmet.<br />
"It hurt really bad. I thought I was bleeding or something. But . . ." He looked his hand over. "I guess not. Now it feels like there's something under my skin," he said, pointing at his palm, right at the numbers.<br />
"Right where the numbers are?" Alex asked.<br />
"Yeah," Emanuel said. His voice trailed off. His finger touched one of the numbers on his palm.<br />
Blinding, shattering light filled their lander from the ring. Four people, those still on the surface, cried out in their unique voices, a chorus of surprise and shock. Struggling, Emanuel fit his helmet back on his head through a haze of spots in his eyes. Alex made his way back to the control panel clumsily. <br />
"Is everyone all right?" He yelled into the speaker. "What happened out there?"<br />
"There was a light!" They heard Terra's frantic voice. "It started right under the lander and moved out in both directions along the length of the ring!" They heard a thunk. "It was so bright! I couldn't see a thing!" <br />
"I bet they'll be able to see it from Earth!" Jones said. "I can still see it! It's moving so fast! I . . . oh my God."<br />
"What?" Emanuel asked. He pulled his glove back on.<br />
"It's starting to move around the curve! It almost looks like it's slowing down!"<br />
"I think it's because the light is taking longer to get to us," Ned's calm voice intruded. "It's moving around the ring faster than light."<br />
"Emanuel!" Captain Omja's voice penetrated his ear. "What the hell just happened?"<br />
"We aren't sure, Captain," Omja said, wincing. "Everybody seems to be all right. A light started to move down the surface of the ring."<br />
"Trust me, we saw!" Omja said. "Get everybody out of there, on the double! We don't know what that thing will do next, but I want us far away no matter what happens!"<br />
"Yes sir," Emanuel said. "You heard the Captain, everyone. Back inside! Alex, depressurize the cabin!" He clipped his glove onto his suit as Alex hit the buttons to drain the atmosphere from the lander.<br />
"We aren't done with everything yet!" Jones complained. "What about the equipment?"<br />
"Leave it!" Ned said, as the lander's door opened and the other team members started climbing in. "It's not going anywhere!"<br />
"Get us out of here," Emanuel said to Alex. Alex nodded and the lander lifted off the ring, driving through the black, back to the ship.<br />
<br />
Omja turned and shouted as soon as Emanuel burst onto the bridge. "What the hell happened down there? Everyone in here is blinded and our sensors start yelling at us that there's a huge energy spike coming from the ring!" He pointed at the console near him. "We're beginning to get reports from Earth and other installations; the energy is reaching them!"<br />
"The light is still moving around the circumference of the ring," Kerrigan said. "It's going around in both directions. Estimates say it will take about a day for the light to reconnect on the other side."<br />
"A <i>day</i>!" Jones said. Emanuel's team crowded in behind him. "How can something be so fast?"<br />
"Ensign, get us moving away from the ring!" Omja shouted. Then he walked next to Emanuel. "What did you do down there?" He asked in a subdued voice. "The light originated right where the lander was!"<br />
Emanuel showed the Captain his hand. "My hand hurt while we were setting up the pulse cannon. I thought I was bleeding, so I ran into the lander and had Alex pressurize it." Alex, between Terra and Phomello, nodded. "It felt like there was something under my skin. All I did was touch my palm, and then both Alex and I were blinded by the light from outside."<br />
"And that's really all you did?" Omja said, disbelief on his face. He looked at Emanuel's team. "Any of you?"<br />
Most of them shook their heads. "Nothing we did had any affect," Ned said.<br />
"So. You're trying to tell me the ring started glowing because Emanuel touched his hand? Where there were some numbers written?"<br />
"I don't have any other explanation," Emanuel admitted. "It doesn't sound plausible, I know, but . . . "<br />
"But <i>what</i>, Emanuel?" Omja raged. "What am I supposed to believe? Is the ring run by aliens? Goblins?" Omja turned away. "Until we can determine that the ring isn't dangerous, we're keeping away from it. I want the six of you doing what you can to study it from afar. Only then are we going to go back. Whether that takes a day or a year, that's what's going to happen. Do I make myself clear?"<br />
"Yes sir," Emanuel said. His team echoed him.<br />
"Get out of here, all of you. Chambers, is there any radiation that the-" Emanuel walked out of the bridge feeling defeated. His shoulders were slumped and his feet dragged. He felt nothing on his hand, and his eyes still stung slightly from the brilliant light the ring had radiated.<br />
"Come on," Ned said. "Let's get to the lab and start monitoring it. We'll be able to get back there soon, I know it."<br />
"That's uncharacteristically positive of you," Jones said.<br />
"I want to get back on that thing and figure out what makes it tick," Ned said. "Is that so strange?"<br />
"No," Terra said. "I want to go back too. There's something there that we haven't figured out. That's obvious; the light proves it. The light . . . "<br />
"The light felt good," Emanuel said. He stopped in the hall and looked at them. "Didn't it?" He remembered it. It was like the first breath of fresh air, or the first glimpse of the warm sun, after being trapped underground for a lifetime. "That was more than just light."<br />
"I felt it," Phomello spoke up from the back of the group. "I felt happy. I felt like I could keep going forever."<br />
"I just felt like laughing," Jones said. "And like I would never be unhappy again."<br />
"We all felt something," Emanuel said. "Let's get working."<br />
<br />
Their work in the lab gave them nothing. The ring's light and energy was far reaching but seemed to have no consequences. The light wouldn't reach Earth for years, but the energy the ring released had no affect on systems of any kind. Emanuel dragged himself into bed hours later than normal exhausted.<br />
He didn't get to sleep long. After only an hour asleep, his body woke him up and he heard a strange, obscene hum. People could be heard in the hallway muttering back and forth, asking what was happening. Emanuel pulled a shirt over his head and heard a knock at the door. Ned stood on the other side.<br />
"Something's happening to the engines. We're being pulled."<br />
"What? By what?"<br />
"By the ring!" Ned exclaimed. "We're going full bore, but still moving backwards!" He gripped Emanuel's arm. "We need to get to the bridge." Emanuel nodded and retreated into his room to dress.<br />
Minutes later he went onto the bridge. Sleepy crew members talked to one another, trying to get the engines running correctly. Omja's vision latched onto Emanuel as soon as he appeared. "Captain?"<br />
"The ring is pulling us back toward it." Omja said. "We're putting out everything we can and it's still pulling us, and faster than we left. We'll reach it in an hour." He scowled. <br />
"An hour," Emanuel repeated.<br />
"That's what I said. One of a few things might happen." Omja crossed his arms. "We could smash into it, we could be hurled out of the galaxy, or we could start to orbit around it. We've sent a distress signal to Earth, but they aren't able to do anything. We're on our own."<br />
"What do we do?" Emanuel asked. Omja shook his head.<br />
"We try to get the engines running again, and hope that we don't turn into space dust. As long as the ring releases us, we'll be able to get back to Earth. It might take us a while, but we have more than enough supplies. I want you here."<br />
"What? Why?"<br />
"Will you be helpful anywhere else?"<br />
Emanuel opened his mouth to respond, then shut it slowly. "Yes sir."<br />
<br />
They zoomed. Light got out of the way for them. Whatever pulled them had monumental power. At six minutes to the ring, the ensign at the helm shouted out. "Captain! We're slowing down!"<br />
"What?" Omja said. "Chambers, energy readings!"<br />
"We still don't have any control, but it's true! Speed is decreasing!"<br />
A few minutes later the ring appeared, growing from nothing into a line that stretched out to both sides of the ship's front screen. Their ship had slowed to under impulse power, and it came to stop, hovering in front of the ring at a normal orbiting distance. The ring was stuck in the middle of their vision.<br />
"We're stopped, Captain," Kerrigan said. "Engines are still running at full power."<br />
"Cut them," Omja ordered. The loud hum from the end of the ship died.<br />
"Captain," Emanuel said. "Can you zoom in on the spot we're looking at?"<br />
"Ensign," Omja said, waving his hand. The ensign zoomed in. There, in the center of their screen, was the equipment Emanuel's team had left after their retreat.<br />
"It's brought us back to the same place," Emanuel said.<br />
"Why?" Omja asked.<br />
"Maybe we activated it or something like that," Emanuel said. "Maybe it needs us to finish."<br />
"What will that do?" Omja asked. "Something bad? I have to assume that. No, we aren't going to go near that thing. Ensign, contact Earth and have them send ships. There has to be some way to blow this thing apart."<br />
"Yes sir," the ensign said. "Come in Earth. Come in Earth. This is the <i>Blind Man</i>. I repeat, this is the <i>Blind Man</i> calling Earth." For a minute no answer. "Earth, please respond, this is the <i>Blind Man</i>."<br />
Omja sat in his chair and hit a button. "Earth, this is Captain Omja of the <i>Blind Man</i>. Respond please." He waited a minute. "Ensign, run a transmission test."<br />
"Sir," the ensign responded, hitting buttons. The ship started putting off a transmission. They waited the minute for it to get back to them. Nothing happened.<br />
"Run it again," Omja ordered. He rested his elbows on his knees and his linked fingers under his nose. The ensign ran it again.<br />
"No response, sir," the ensign said after enough time had passed. "That means either Earth's systems are down, or ours are."<br />
"I think I know which one," Omja said. He looked up at Emanuel. "Ensign, attempt to fire a torpedo on the ring."<br />
"Sir?"<br />
"Do it."<br />
Omja and Emanuel watched the ensign lock on. "Firing." He hit a button. They waited.<br />
"What happened?" Omja asked. The ensign hit the button again.<br />
"The torpedo isn't firing, sir. Munition reports all systems working properly. It just isn't firing."<br />
Omja's head turned and he slowly looked at Emanuel again. "What do you think the odds are that the ring will allow us to land you and your team on its surface?"<br />
"I'd say there's a chance," Emanuel responded. Omja nodded.<br />
"I'm trying one last thing," he said, and turned to the ensign. "Try to open a channel to the ring. Whatever you can do."<br />
The ensign stared down at his rack of buttons, figuring out how to do what the Captain answered. He hit a few buttons and spun a dial. "Go ahead, Captain."<br />
"This is Captain Omja of the Earth ship the <i>Blind Man</i>. If you are able to respond, please do so." The bridge listened to the empty cackle of space for a few seconds. "I repeat. This is Captain Omja of the <i>Blind Man</i>. Please respond."<br />
Still nothing happened. "Get your team ready," Omja said to Emanuel. "You're going out."<br />
<br />
"We need to figure out a way to release the ship. As soon as we do that, we get into the lander and get out of there," Emanuel said to his drowsy team.<br />
"Emanuel, if I may," Alex said, looking over his shoulder as he piloted the lander down. "How are we going to do that?"<br />
Emanuel looked down at his gloved hands. "I don't know. Maybe if we had more time . . . but no, we have to figure this out. Communications, weapons, engines down. We're just lucky that the life support still works."<br />
His team started muttering. Terra pushed her hair out of her eyes, and Phomello rubbed his bald head. Jones had his face in his hands.<br />
"I know it seems impossible, but there has to be a way." Emanuel looked out the window. "It brought us back here. It didn't do that without a reason. Getting this lander out of the ship has been the only thing we've been able to do since the <i>Blind Man</i> stopped moving."<br />
Alex brought the lander down in nearly the same spot it had been before. The team walked out onto the surface of the ring. There was no way to tell that, only a few hours ago, it had flooded with light. They could only yet see the light that was edging around the curve of the ring; to see the light from the other side of the ring would take a hundred thousand years.<br />
"So . . . what do we do first?" Phomello asked.<br />
Emanuel shook his head. "I don't know." He looked down at the surface of the ring. Dropping to one knee, he pounded on it. "Hey! Let us go!" Nothing happened. "Tell us what you need us to do!"<br />
Still nothing happened, and now his hand hurt. He rubbed it as he followed his team to the equipment still set up. "I guess we can continue with the pulse cannon," Terra said. She wandered off in that direction. Ned, Phomello, and Jones all got back to their experiments. Emanuel watched them.<br />
<i>Is the ring a creature?</i> He asked himself. <i>Maybe a vessel? Or is it something sinister? Maybe activating it will destroy everything inside the ring.</i> He shook his head. <i>First we have to figure out how to work it.</i> He looked around. The surface of the ring was unblemished. There was no control panel, no entrance to a galaxy-long tunnel, no building. Nothing. Emanuel rubbed his hand and walked around.<br />
"Emanuel, what are you doing?" He heard Alex ask from the lander after a few minutes.<br />
"I'm just looking around. Trying to find something that looks different," he answered. He found himself looking in at the galaxy again. It spun in unseen slowness; he wondered if the ring spun with it. He tried to follow the ring with eyes, but the darkness and its size dissolved it after a short distance.<br />
<br />
Seen by nobody, at the other end of the ring from Emanuel and his team, the light that raced around both sides and, even faster than expected, collided in the middle. This light, and its meeting, might never be seen by humanity.<br />
But Emanuel and his team felt the great crush of energy from the other end of the galaxy like a tsunami over them. Terra cried out, Ned dropped to the ground and covered his head, and Phomello raced up to Emanuel. "Let's go!"<br />
"No! I think I know! I know, I know!" Emanuel yelled into his mic. he pushed Phomello away.<br />
His hand burned with indescribable pain. Still feeling the wash of the ring's energy, he touched a button on his wrist to close the seal between his hand and arm. He unlatched his glove from his suit and pulled it off.<br />
He started screaming. Fire and ice collided; his hand felt like it was bubbling. He could feel the blood under his skin beginning to boil. He bent and pressed his bare palm to the surface of the ring.<br />
The pain from his palm stopped but the hurt of space continued. His hand would never be the same.<br />
"You damn idiot!" Phomello yelled in his ear. "Terra, Emanuel's just-"<br />
<br />
Onboard the <i>Blind Man</i>, the wave of energy overtook them, bobbing the ship as if on a sea. "Chambers!" Omja yelled. "Status!"<br />
"The same energy as before, Captain!" Chambers replied. "The ring must have done something else!"<br />
"Get them out of there before it finishes!" Omja shouted, standing.<br />
"Emanuel, this is lieutenant Chambers! The Captain orders you to-"<br />
<br />
The ring burst full of light, all of it at once. No piece of smooth material did not shine. The limitless space inside shot full of light; space itself became white. The rising light from the core of the galaxy peaked, climbing out in both directions away from the ring. Emanuel's fried brain knew that he should not have been able to see the light from so far away, yet he stared. He felt the most beautiful and profound of sensations, stood rapt in awe as the radiant being that the ring had held captive for eons freed itself with the touch of another. Emanuel felt dropped to the most primitive form at the sight of it; it sent its thoughts throughout, thanking him and all the universe for its freedom. No more would its kind be held by the rings of their dark counterparts and made to dwindle. They had been released.<br />
Emanuel, Phomello, and the others on the ring watched the great being rise higher and higher, struck dumb. Emanuel felt the being thank him; he saw the words as numbers, and knew what they meant. He looked at his injured, gloved hand. Three seven three three six three. Free me.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-48904823147163974222013-11-02T12:00:00.000-05:002013-11-02T12:16:23.767-05:00The Water Balloon FightOn a small street, in a small town, two small gas stations sat across the road from each other. The fancy lights and utter convenience of the big city stations were far from there; here only was the dire need for a car's fuel, coffee in the morning, hot dogs at noon, and slushies for the kids at night. The fuel prices were controlled not by the electronic signs that you might see these days, but cards with numbers on them. Whenever the prices would change, each gas station's building would release a man to climb on the ladder and make the numbers correct<br />
<a name='more'></a> In the east station, there was Harold Wimmersmaks, proprietor of Wimmersmaks Gas 'n' Go. His family had been around for generations at this small street, in this small town. His father had worked at the station, as had his father. <i>His</i> father had built the place with his own bare hands, and <i>that</i> man's father had been a farmer. Harold loved the smell of fresh gas in the morning and a clean shop at night, and loved tallying the numbers from each day in the back room as his son swept up.<br />
Across the street in the west station, the Gas Barn, Oscar Bentley claimed much of the same sort. His father's father's father's father and all that. He would go down the rows of merchandise, cupcakes and sodas and beer, straightening here and there and keeping the place clean. His own son would ring up the last customer of the night as Oscar did this and enjoyed the waning day.<br />
These happy men had but one thorn in each of their respective sides -- each other. To both of them, the man in his house of horrors across the street was a charlatan, a man that peddled cheap product for the unwitting customer and plotted his downfall, most likely with the liberal application of tomatoes, shaving cream, or termites. That wicked man that lived 'over there' was no friend, and no member of his family was to fraternize with any member of his family.<br />
Little did they know, of course, that both sons were in the same ball team after school. They knew each other, knew what each other was -- a son of a 'wicked man' -- and didn't much care. The wives sat in the same book club on Saturdays, and would chat like friends if their carts passed each other in the grocery store. They were cut from the same cloth, they'd laugh -- both wives to a gas station owner.<br />
Both men were ready to live their lives pretending the other didn't exist, if not for what the small town came to call . . . the water balloon fight.<br />
<br />
It was a boiling hot July first when Oscar Bentley of the Gas Barn took a step outside to change the price of unleaded. Harold Wimmersmaks happened to be doing just the same thing. The two men saw each other, but neither acknowledged the fact, instead marching with their noses in the air to their equally-high signs. Both men changed their prices to the same thing. Both men marched back inside.<br />
Once in, Oscar Bentley sighed, calmed himself, and straightened his tie. The building was empty and hot. Oscar wasn't worried. The riotous July Fourth weekend was up ahead, and prices would go up to reflect it. The people in their cars would be filling up to visit grandparents or cousins, aunts or uncles. They would all need gas.<br />
Oscar looked around the still-empty building, and hurried into the bathroom.<br />
While he was busy, a delivery truck rumbled up, and two men stepped out with items for both gas station. Unfortunately, these two men didn't know the difference between them. Most of the packages made it the right places, but one crate of potato chips was replaced with another. So, when Oscar stepped out of the restroom and found a nearly-standard delivery on his doorstep, his heart began pounding. Instead of <i>his</i> potato chips, the ones with the perfect mix of salt and seasoning, sliced to perfection for the right size, he found terrible creations of an impersonal machine that made twisted, stunted chips covered in an awful mix of flavors that Oscar would never try hoisting on his customers.<br />
Meanwhile, Harold, across the street, just after checking receipts in the back room, was trying to figure out why, instead of his toe-curlingly flavorful chips, the ones that made your eyes water they tasted so good, he got a box of plain, boring, flat slices of boiled potato that looked like they tasted like dust bunnies. Nobody would buy these!<br />
He, and Oscar across the street, spotted the name on the package. It was him! That <i>man</i>, the one that ran his sham across the street and cut into <i>my</i> business! He must have made a mistake when ordering for this week, and instead of owning up to it like a real man, he switched the items when he wasn't looking! There was no other explanation!<br />
Both men looked out their window at the others' gas station, unable to see that he was looking right back due to the shadows. There's a chance that they looked right in each others' eyes, but even if they did, neither man would admit it. They both had no choice but to stock the chips they'd received, unless they wanted to hitch up their belt, puff up their chest, strut across the street (both would look just like a frog walking on his hind legs), and speak to the man in the other station.<br />
Neither man was willing to sink to that level. The chips went on the shelves, and when a customer would enter, both men would try their hardest to keep their eyes off of the false, fake snacks that hid in their stock like wolves in sheeps' clothing.<br />
This man (it does not matter whether we're talking about Oscar or Harold) was not a violent man, but this sort of tomfoolery <i>would not stand</i>. He wouldn't have any truck with destruction, or injury, no, but something had to be done to get back at him. He was trying to sabotage <i>my</i> business!<br />
While both men pondered on this idea, customers trickled in and out. High school kids roared up in the cars and they bought their energizing drinks and their jerkys and their cans of mountain sauce. <i>The stuff these kids put in their bodies</i>, both men thought. <i>It's disgusting</i>. But their money was good. Eventually their respective sons appeared to help with the afternoon crowd. <br />
Harold's son, Steven, wandered into his pop's station with a wet shirt and a big grin. "Hiya dad!" He said. His father looked at him and stared at the big damp patch, and his dripping hair.<br />
"What's happened to you? Is it raining?" Harold craned his neck and pressed his face against the window, peering up at the sky. "It doesn't look like it's raining."<br />
"It's not raining, dad," Steven said, dropping himself behind the counter. "A bunch of us guys filled up some water balloons after playing baseball and had a fight!" His great big grin caught the sun and blasted Harold with light. "It was a ton of fun!"<br />
"Water balloons, eh?" Harold rubbed his stubbly chin. "Yes . . . I'm sure it <i>was</i> quite a lot of fun. Are they very hard to fill up, water balloons?"<br />
Steven looked up from his cell phone. "What?"<br />
"Are water balloons hard to fill up?" Harold asked. His chin jutted out toward his son.<br />
"No. Not really. You just need to get the end of the balloon over the faucet."<br />
"The faucet you say," Harold repeated, nodding slowly. He wondered if he stocked any water balloons.<br />
<br />
Just across the street, Joey Bentley was having a similar conversation with his own father.<br />
"The end of the balloon, you say," Oscar said, scratching at his face. His own wet son sat behind the counter.<br />
"Yeah. And then you gotta tie them up real careful so that the water doesn't get out," Joey explained, rummaging his fingers around and inside themselves to simulate tying a knot. "And then you just give a good strong throw! Splash!" Joey smiled, revealing a gaped row of teeth.<br />
"Splash indeed," Oscar said. Yes. It would work quite well. A little heave, a little splash, and Harold Wimmersmaks would be all wet. Oscar went wandering down the aisle, pacing back and forth, trying to figure out if he carried any water balloons. He found them, just at about the same time that Harold found the ones he carried. They were, in fact, the same brand. He took a look at the package, reading some of the information on the back as his son dealt with a customer.<br />
"I suppose they do just what they say on the tin," Oscar muttered to himself. "Just a bit of fun, nothing more. A nice, across the street rivalry with water balloons for the Fourth of July. It'll be a nice, hot day. He probably won't even mind." He smiled.<br />
<br />
"Dad? What are you smiling about?" Steven Wimmersmaks asked from the front of the store. "It's kinda creepy looking."<br />
"Eh? Oh." Harold composed himself. "Just thinking about something funny. Did you have a good day besides that?"<br />
His son shrugged. "It was okay. Boring."<br />
"Don't squander your summer off. I haven't had a summer off in twenty years," Harold replied. "I've got to be open all day on the fourth, too. Lots of people will want gas." <i>I also can't let their only option be that charlatan across the street</i>. "I'm going to take a quick check outside," he said to his son, and walked out the front door.<br />
He found a little spill around the windshield-washing fluid, and set to work cleaning it up. After a few minutes he stood, stretching out his cramped back. He spotted Oscar across the road, rummaging around in his ice chest. The man's thin behind stuck out in his direction, and Harold couldn't help but imagine scoring a direct hit on him with a fully-loaded water balloon. He wondered if the chill from the ice would make the water colder when it hit.<br />
Oscar stood, turned around, and spotted Harold looking at him. Harold ducked out of view behind one of the gas station's pylons and finished wiping up the spilled windshield fluid.<br />
Oscar wondered what that fool Wimmersmaks was up to. Odd behavior was something he expected from the gas station across the street, but he'd never witnessed the man duck out of view like that before. He wondered what the man would think if he filled up one of his water balloons, took careful aim, and splashed it right on his clown feet, the ones that peeked past the edge of the pylon. Oscar chuckled to himself as he closed up the ice chest and went inside.<br />
Harold watched him go, narrowing his eyes until Oscar was out of sight. He hurried back into his own shop. He went to the back where the water balloons were, and picked up three packages. A total of about seventy balloons. He went to the cash register and dropped a twenty into the box.<br />
"Dad?" Steven asked. "What are you doing with those?"<br />
"Oh, just planning a little bit of fun for the fourth. Something to keep the heat down," Harold answered. Steven shrugged and went back to his phone.<br />
Oscar's water balloons were fifty cents more expensive, but he also bought three. His son also asked him what he planned with the water balloons, he answered in almost the same way -- that it was just for a bit of fun for the hot summer holiday -- and then Joey went back to his phone.<br />
<br />
The next day at the ballpark Joey and Steven sat next to each other at the bleachers, swapped packed sandwiches, and started talking.<br />
"My dad's going to do something with water balloons for the fourth of July," Joey said. "He saw me wet yesterday and started looking off like he was planning something. Then he bought three packages."<br />
Steven's eyes went wide. "<i>My</i> dad's gonna do something with water balloons for the fourth, too! When I went to his store <i>I</i> was wet, too!"<br />
Joey turned in his seat, lunch forgotten. "What do you think they're going to do?" Mischief had grabbed both boys, and held on tight. Impish thoughts intruded their normal processes. On both of their faces grew a smile that parents know and fear -- the one that has schemes behind it.<br />
You know the one.<br />
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Steven asked.<br />
Joey could hardly speak around the big grin on his face. "I think I might be. When should we do it?"<br />
Steven stroked his chin, something he'd picked up from his father. "We need to figure out when they're going to do it."<br />
"And then we strike," Joey agreed.<br />
If anybody had seen the looks on their faces he would have mentally filed both boys under 'trouble.'<br />
<br />
Later that day, Steven and Joey walked into the stores that their fathers owned. Oscar Bentley was wiping down the counter. Joey wandered up to the counter, hands behind his back. "Dad? Would it be okay if I bought some water balloons?"<br />
"Eh? Well, I suppose. Don't forget to write it down so we can take it out of your allowance." Oscar peered up at his son. "What do you need water balloons for?"<br />
Joey's heart leapt, but he calmed it down. The question had an obvious answer. "My friends and I want to have another fight on the fourth, and I want to make sure I'm stocked up and ready to go."<br />
Oscar nodded. His head tottered up and down slowly. "Okay. You have to be prepared. Don't want them to out-gun you. What friends?"<br />
"Oh, you know, David, the Olsons, Robby, Will . . . Steven Wimmersmaks is going to be there too."<br />
Oscar's eyes went wide. "<i>Is</i> he now? Well you make sure that you get him good, you hear? I don't want Wimmersmaks to be able to come over here and tell me that his son whipped my son in a water balloon fight!"<br />
"Don't worry, he won't be able to tell you that. I'll make sure of it," Joey said. His father began to rant about the Wimmersmaks, but he had to run to bathroom or he was going to pee his pants trying to keep the laughter in.<br />
<br />
"Are you all right in there?" Harold Wimmersmaks asked Steven.<br />
"I'm fine!" The tiled bathroom made Steven's voice echo. "Just needed to make sure that nothing disastrous happened!"<br />
"Well, okay then." Harold stood outside the bathroom awkwardly. "Are you going to have enough water balloons?"<br />
"Two packages will be enough dad."<br />
"Okay. Good. Make sure you hit that Bentley boy with a few good ones for your old dad!"<br />
"Uh, okay dad. I will!"<br />
Harold nodded, linked his hands behind his back, and stalked through the short aisles. What a <i>day</i> the fourth would be. Bentley <i>and</i> his son would wind up all wet at the hands of his family! He'd be so embarrassed, he might even be forced to leave town!<br />
<br />
Two nights later, on July third, Harold bent down by the side of his house, running the tap. Next to him were three cartons, each of which held about two dozen balloons. They were heavy with water, and every time Harold bumped the cartons or placed a fresh water balloon they would slosh and burble. Harold's small grin could hardly be seen in the fading twilight and the shadow of the house. When he was finally done, he squirreled the cartons away in the back of his car, carefully hid them from prying eyes, and wandered back inside.<br />
Across the small town, Oscar did the same. He looked around him, expecting to Harold leaning out from behind a tree with a spyglass. He went inside after assuring himself that he wasn't being spied upon.<br />
As the fathers went inside to drink water or lemonade, the sons crept out from the darkness with their own water balloons, grinning to themselves and to the friend across the small town that was doing the same thing.<br />
<br />
The next day was slow, hot, and bright. One could expect to see a tumbleweed rattle across the small street that separated the two gas stations. Oscar watched the door of Wimmersmaks Gas 'n' Go as he reached up to change the price of gas. The last few days had been busy as families came and went in trucks, SUVs, vans, and campers. Now, finally, things had slowed down to a more normal pace for the small town, which was generally quiet. As Oscar stepped down from the ladder his heart pounded with excitement. It was just past noon, the perfect time for a good soaking. His water balloons were hidden behind the ice chest, in easy reach for the moment he waited for.<br />
But he'd need to get Wimmersmaks outside and off guard. How could he do such a thing, and be ready to let fly at the right time? He went inside.<br />
The answer sat behind the counter. Joey looked up at his dad and found him staring. He looked around, trying to see if he'd done something wrong. "What is it, dad?"<br />
"I need you to go across the street to the Gas 'n' Go and ask Mister Wimmersmaks something."<br />
"Ask him what?" Joey wondered out loud.<br />
"Er . . . " Oscar looked around the room. "I need you . . . to ask him if he has a three-quarters nozzle for the air pump. Ours is cracked. Can you do that?"<br />
"Yeah, I guess so," Joey said, trying not to smile. "Right now?"<br />
"Yes, right now," Oscar said. "I'll mind the store."<br />
Joey got up and walked out the front door. At about the same time, Steven walked out the front door of the Gas 'n' Go. The two children met each other in the middle of the empty street. "What's he got you out for?" Steven asked.<br />
"A three-quarters nozzle for the air pump. You?"<br />
"Five-eighths. Are you ready?"<br />
Joey nodded. "I am <i>so</i> ready."<br />
They parted ways; Steven headed to the Gas Barn, and Joey went to the Gas 'n' Go.<br />
As Joey pushed the door and the bell over it jingled, Harold Wimmersmaks came wheeling around the corner of one of the shelves, found himself face-to-face with his enemy, and skidded to a stop.<br />
"Hi Mr. Wimmersmaks. My dad wants to know if you have a three-quarters nozzle for the air pump that he could borrow."<br />
"Weh? Well, ah, I'm not sure, I'll have to check."<br />
"My dad keeps his extra nozzles right next to the air pump. I'll just go out and see what you have, okay?" Joey turned around and went into the summer heat; Harold was right behind him.<br />
"I'm actually quite busy right now, I have a big shipment coming in . . . lots of cleaning to do . . . have to balance the checkbook . . . " Harold stopped stammering out reasons for business and looked across the street, where Oscar Bentley stood in much of the same manner he did, as someone taken into an unfamiliar element.<br />
They both dove for their hidden balloons at the same time, hoping the catch the other off guard and land the first blow. In a moment the first one sailed from Oscar's hands and landed three feet from Harold.<br />
"Ha!" Harold screeched. "You missed!" He heaved his first, and it went just as far left.<br />
"Old man!" Oscar yelled. "Couldn't hit a dead moose!"<br />
"I'll hit your sorry hide!" They hurled their balloons, dodging and diving to get away from the enemy's attacks.<br />
After a few minutes of this they stopped, panting. Oscar hid behind one of the gas terminals, and Harold was crouched by the wall of his building. Oscar had landed a good hit on the front of Harold's jeans, and Harold had retaliated with a balloon that had arced beautifully and smashed open on the top of Oscar's head, drenching him down to his shoes.<br />
A balloon came in from the side and exploded at Harold's feet. He looked in that direction as a balloon bounced off the asphalt and into Oscar's leg from the same direction. They heard boyish laughter, and found their sons in the middle of the street, hurling water balloons as a unit from an arsenal that outnumbered both of theirs. Quickly both men were soaked. They took better positions to hide from the onslaught.<br />
Oscar looked across the street at Harold as a balloon, thrown by Harold's son, splashed his feet. Harold looked back. He bounced the balloon that was in his hand and made a throwing motion in the boys' direction. Oscar nodded, and narrowed his eyes.<br />
The two men jumped out from behind their cover and hurled their balloons at their sons. The sons had nowhere to go; the middle of the street offered no defense, yet the sons didn't move. Instead, they cheered and laughed, spurred on as all boys are by the chaos they caused.<br />
<br />
Harold Wimmersmaks sat on the curb outside his gas station, letting his drenched and dripping clothes dry in the hot sun. Oscar Bentley sat next to him, squeezing his shirt out. The boys had lost, pelted with balloon after balloon until they squawked out a surrender and went home to dry off. They now sat in the gas stations, minding the counter.<br />
Time ticked on for a few minutes, and the quiet sun dried the men. They both puffed out tired breaths.<br />
Oscar held his hand out. Harold eyed it, and then grasped it in his own to give it a firm shake.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-86804786392802309182013-10-19T12:00:00.000-05:002013-10-19T12:00:00.836-05:00Low NotesA man and his son sat together in a small office at a college, waiting for the woman across the desk to respond. The father wore a button down shirt and slacks, but the boy wore a plain white T-shirt and blue jeans. The boy did not move or speak; in fact he seemed uncomfortable at all times.<br />
<a name='more'></a> "You understand our problem?" The boy's father, Dennis, asked the woman.<br />
"Yes," the woman responded. "We can take care of all accommodations, and he can talk to disability services if he has any problems." She paused, and a small look passed over her face. She didn't even realize she had said it until it was too late.<br />
"Do you have his class schedule?" Dennis asked her. The two adults conversed as if the boy wasn't there. "Have you talked to his professors?"<br />
"I've spoken to them, yes." The woman handed Dennis a piece of paper. "This has locations, class times, and materials that Mike will need."<br />
Dennis handed Mike the sheet. Mike took it with as little motion as possible.<br />
"What about the private rooms?" Dennis asked.<br />
"There are a number of rooms available on the first floor of the Anderson building. They're first come, first serve, but there are enough that Mike should have access to one whenever he wants. Is that everything?"<br />
"Yes, I think so." Dennis looked at his son. "Come on, let's get you moved in."<br />
The adviser followed Dennis and Mike to their feet. She put her hand out, and for the first time spoke directly to Mike. "Welcome, Michael. I hope you enjoy it here." Mike shook the hand without responding.<br />
<br />
A few minutes later Mike and his father entered a small room, empty of everything but a bed frame and a desk, carrying boxes and suitcases. They began to unpack, keeping quiet. <br />
After a few minutes, Dennis spoke. "You can always video us if you're having problems with something." He hesitated. "Try to make friends. Things will go a lot easier if you have pals. Don't think you can't make friends here just because you can't talk." He looked at his son to find him nodding. "Don't do anything hasty. If you have a problem, play some music or call us. Don't lash out at anybody."<br />
When they finished unpacking, Dennis went to the door. The two embraced and separated quickly. "Don't forget you can go to disability services if you need anything," Dennis said. Mike nodded once, and then he was alone.<br />
He began to organize his possessions. Leaning against one wall, behind a suitcase, was a long brown case. It looked clean and well kept, and every so often Mike glanced in its direction.<br />
<br />
"Mr. Richardson?" Mike's math professor asked. "Perhaps you'd like to supply the answer to this one?"<br />
Mike stared back at him with a surprised expression. He knew the answer, but couldn't exactly respond. After a silent moment the professor remembered. <br />
"Oh, er, no, no I'm sorry. Tricia, why don't you give us the answer to this one?"<br />
The girl Tricia shot Mike a dirty look, and Mike sank into his seat. He had given himself the room's corner seat, as far as possible from the front. He did not offer anything to the class, just sat and listened. He could already feel the questions that would be asked between other members of the class – about the weird kid who sat in the back and didn't say anything.<br />
<br />
Later that day he sat against the wall at one of the tables in the college's cafeteria. The table was empty except for him, a fact he did not bemoan. He rested his head against the brick wall and ran his fork through his noodles, pushing them around his plate. The rest of the large room buzzed with the busy chatter of his fellow students. Eventually, Mike dumped his tray and left with his hands stuck deep in the pockets of his blue jeans and his eyes on the ground.<br />
<br />
Alone in his room, Mike worked on math homework. He could have answered the professor's question, no doubt, but he also couldn't. He ran a hand along his throat, massaging it.<br />
The room was dark and quiet; loneliness felt like an opaque shroud around him. The room did not feel or look like home, and Mike was too conscious of that fact. His gaze stole toward the brown case that was set against one wall.<br />
<br />
A few weeks later a group of students sat on a wide lawn between some of the buildings, chatting after class. The warm afternoon sun beat down on them; autumn's chill had not arrived yet. Tricia, the girl forced to stumble through an answer when Mike was unable to, spotted Mike walking back to his dorm and pokes a girl with dirty blond hair next to her, named Anna. Tricia pointed at Mike.<br />
"What? Who's that?" Anna asked, watching Mike walk.<br />
"That's the guy that wouldn't say anything in math! Mr. Hogarth made <i>me</i> answer for him! The kid looked at him like he was crazy when Mr. Hogarth asked him for an answer! I've seen him around, too! He only sits by himself and doesn't talk to anybody!"<br />
"Maybe he's like . . . mute or something," Anna said.<br />
"No way," a boy said. "Every mute person I've ever met has been super friendly!”<br />
"Maybe," Anna said.<br />
Their circle began to dissipate, and Anna walked back to her dorm room. Just as she got inside her phone buzzed. She saw that it was her mother and groaned. She slipped off her shoes and picked it up. She flipped it open and sighed. "What?"<br />
She listened for a few seconds.<br />
"Well, why the hell would he go and do something like that?" She sat at her desk and put her feet up on its surface. She made an exasperated noise. "How much did it cost?"<br />
She winced and listened. After a few more seconds she rolled her eyes. "Maybe you should stay out of my life, Mom. No, look, I don't care. You can ask me to do whatever you want but I'll only tell you the things I want." She listened for a few moments, already knowing what to say next. "Because I can't trust you! Whenever I tell you something you immediately go and blab it to your drunk friends! Hey, why don't you tell me something, huh? When was the last time you took a shower? Or can you no longer fit in the stall? Go to hell!"<br />
Without hanging up, she flung the phone at the wall by her bed. It bounced off with a crack and landed on her bed. An angry voice leaked out of the speaker. She got up and clicked it shut.<br />
She set it on her desk just as her roommate entered. A random draw, Celia was not the kind of person that Anna would have chosen to room with. The tall, slinky girl had long blond hair, tan skin, and white teeth. She seemed utterly uninterested in getting to know the girl she shared her room with.<br />
"Was that you I heard shouting?" She asked, removing her large, round sunglasses.<br />
Anna struggled for a second to talk to Celia, but gave in. "My brother got arrested."<br />
"That's too bad," Celia said, devoid of concern. She sat at her desk facing away from Anna. Anna looked outside, saw the warm shine of the sun, and walked out the door.<br />
<br />
She walked by herself with her hands in her pockets over the wide college lawns. She walked around the buildings, avoiding people. She didn't see anybody that she knew, but she decided being alone felt right. Eventually she found a large tree to sit under. She rested her head against it and closed her eyes.<br />
After a few moments she looked around for other people. She found nobody, and raised her arm. She pulled back the long-sleeved shirt she wore and revealed her wrist.<br />
Faded scars, like train ties, showed on her skin. They were many, but old and healed. The same was on her left arm -- some fresher, some older.<br />
Quickly, she rolled her sleeve back down and clasped her hands together. She took in a deep breath, expanding her chest, and let the air rush out all at once. She stood up and wandered toward a lake where ducks chorused. She picked up a handful of pebbles and started flinging them at the ducks. "Stupid quackers." She stayed there for half an hour.<br />
<br />
Mike, hands flowing through the styled motions of American Sign Language, signed something to his father. His father watched through a web camera attached to Mike's laptop. After finishing the sign, Mike waited for his father to interpret it. Behind Dennis, a brightly-lit kitchen revealed a sink piled with dishes. Finally, Dennis laughed.<br />
"Yeah, I guess you're right. Lisa and I aren't used to having you to do the dishes. We just need to get used to you not being around here anymore."<br />
Mike signed again.<br />
"Not quieter, I suppose. You know. Except for your games and movies, I suppose. It feels a lot emptier, though. Except for the sink, of course." Dennis laughed; Mike didn't.<br />
Mike signed: <i>I feel like I don't belong here</i>.<br />
Dennis blew out air. "It'll take some time for you to fit in. I'm sure you're just struggling with the transition. How are your classes going?"<br />
Mike waited a beat. He quickly signed <i>I want to come home</i>.<br />
"Mike, listen to me. I went through college, and so did your mother. The first month is always awkward. You just need to find your niche. Do you have a roommate?"<br />
Mike shook his head.<br />
"That's too bad." Dennis thought for a second. "It'll take some time, but I'm sure things will work out. I gotta go now; Mom wanted the dishes done by the time she got home. Call us if you have something you need to talk about." Dennis realized what he said, and embarrassment turned his face red. He waved goodbye and shut the camera off on his end. Mike was left alone in his room.<br />
Mike blinked quickly. The room around him appears to have rejected his efforts to make it comfortable. It seemed too empty without a roommate. He picked up the brown case and went outside.<br />
<br />
Anna, back from the lake and standing alone at the top of a small hill, found herself momentarily forgetting about herself as she watched Mike walk. She again wondered about him.<br />
She walked down the hill with her hands in her pockets. A chill had set in, and she wished she had taken her jacket when she left her room. She went in the door Mike exited, under a sign that says 'Henricks Building.' She sat in the lobby for a few minutes until Tricia appeared.<br />
"Hey Anna!"<br />
"Did you know that quiet kid lives in Hendricks?"<br />
Tricia looked surprised. "You mean the kid from my calc?"<br />
"I just saw him leave. Does he ever look happy?"<br />
"No. I've barely seen him do anything other than scowl. Maybe he's a Vulcan!" Trisha giggled.<br />
"I guess he just needs to lighten up."<br />
The two girls walked toward the college's dining hall. "My brother got arrested again," Anna said.<br />
"Oh no! I'm sorry Anna," Tricia said.<br />
"He robbed a convenience store. Why would anybody rob a place like that? All it's got is crap! I can't believe how stupid he is!"<br />
"Yes," Tricia said, "he was very stupid. Is he all right?"<br />
"Yeah, my mom bailed him out. It cost a lot because he's been arrested before."<br />
"That's too bad." Tricia's words echoed Celia's. Anna stopped talking. They walked for a few minutes. "Maybe he'll learn his lesson. It's got to be hard on your mom, too. Does Jed know?" Anna shook her head. "I'm sure he'll want to hear about it," Tricia continued. "When was the last time you saw him?"<br />
"Six days. Last Friday," Anna said reluctantly.<br />
"That's a long time. You should do something this weekend."<br />
"I know," Anna said. Tricia nodded.<br />
"Good."<br />
The two entered the dining hall. A dense crowd of hungry students appeared, and the two waited in lines for their food, slowly shuffling forward until they had enough. They found an empty table and started eating.<br />
At least, Tricia did. She was a bigger girl but not fat; her meal became her focus. Anna found she wasn't hungry, and only picked at her pizza. Sam failed to notice this. Anna stared out a window, peering through her long bangs and leaning on a fist pressed against her cheek. The college's grounds were darker, cones of light revealed empty walking paths or doors into buildings.<br />
Anna looked down with some level of disgust at her meal. It all looked greasy and hot; she didn't want it. She thought about going through again and getting something different, like a salad, but she imagined the tough, stringy feel of lettuce or celery, and decided she didn't want that either. Her hunger disappeared entirely.<br />
"I'm going to the library," She said, standing. "I need to get some reading done." She grabbed her tray and started walking away.<br />
"Are you not hungry? You've hardly eaten anything," Sam said as she left. Anna didn't respond.<br />
She went back to her dorm room and got her coat and backpack, stuffing it with books. Celia ignored her, as if she didn't realize that she'd entered. Anna left, and entered the library's building.<br />
Once inside the library, and surrounded by the sound-dampening books, she climbed up to the second level and found a secluded chair at the end of a row. She sat, and cracked open a chemistry book.<br />
Swinging her legs over the chair's arm, she settled in. Mere moments passed before she fell asleep, breathing in and out with her mouth slightly open. Her heartbeat -- a steady, weak rhythm -- was the only sound she could have heard had she been awake.<br />
For a few minutes the silence endured. Then, from nowhere, low, slow music begins to play. It was not so much heard as felt, vibrations in the chair and the floor carried it. It was the same tempo as Anna's heart.<br />
Then the music began to speed up and chang. Never for too long; it always sinks back into the regular rhythm. Anna's heart reacted to the music, feeling the vibrations.<br />
In the span of an instant the music ramped, turning from slow motions into explosive and evocative tones. Deep, sweet sounds carried through the otherwise silent air. It got louder and stronger; phrases and chords became things of power.<br />
The music slowed down again, wrapping up with a low, nearly unheard chord.<br />
Minutes later, Anna found herself awake. To her surprise, she was smiling. She looked down at her book with some measure of confusion. She hadn't read a single page.<br />
<br />
Two hours later she burst into her dorm room, surprising Celia. "Hi Celia!" She nearly shouted, a big smile on her face.<br />
"Uh . . . hi. You seem happy," Celia said.<br />
"I had a good time reading in the library."<br />
"Did you get a lot done?"<br />
"Yeah! I had a little nap right when I got there, and when I woke up I was so refreshed! I read a ton!" Anna dumped her backpack on her bed and walked out the door. Celia raised a fine eyebrow at the closed door, then shook her head and turned back to her computer.<br />
<br />
Two days later Anna sat in a coffee shop near the college with her boyfriend Jed. She was telling him about the experience in the library, the nap that left her more refreshed and awake than any nap she'd had before.<br />
"When I woke up I felt great! I have no idea how it happened! It's worn off now, but it was so great."<br />
"Hm," Jed said, staring into his coffee. His long arm swung up to bring the cup to his mouth. He was still sweaty from his dance class.<br />
"I kind of wish you could know how it felt," Anna said. She took a big drink of coffee and coughed as she put it down. "What are you thinking about? You're kind of quiet."<br />
Jed pulled his lips back, showing his teeth. "I have a big project for bio."<br />
"What's it about?" Anna asked.<br />
Jed grabbed a packet of sugar and tipped it into his coffee. He took a sip and put more in. Satisfied, he crumpled the empty packets into small balls and pushed them onto the floor. "Genomes."<br />
Anna waited for him to continue, but he didn't. She leaned her head forward. "Is that all?"<br />
"No. It's complicated. I don't think you'd get it. I don't get it. Nobody gets it."<br />
"Do you think I'm stupid?" Anna asked.<br />
"No! I just don't feel like explaining it! I'm dreading having to go back and work on it once we're done here."<br />
"Don't be such a worry wart," Anna said, sighing. "You'll be fine."<br />
"You just say that because you don't have to work on it," Jed said. "If you had this project, you'd be worrying way more than I am."<br />
"I have my own stuff to do, you know!" Anna said, upset.<br />
"I know."<br />
The two lapsed into silence. Jed drank his coffee quickly and stood up to go, leaving Anna scrambling to get her things.<br />
They left the shop and started walking back to the college. Strong wind pushed rain into their faces, and Anna's jacket wasn't strong enough to keep her warm. She shivered, but Jed made no motion to comfort her. <i>Still preoccupied</i>, Anna assumed.<br />
She felt left out of his thoughts as they walked. When they reached Jed's building he hugged her and went inside without another word. Anna stood in the cold, trying to decide what to do.<br />
On a whim, got a book from her dorm and trudged through the rain to the library, depressed and unhappy. She went to the same chair that she had fallen asleep in two nights before and swung her legs over into the same position, but she didn't fall asleep. Instead, the position cramped her legs. She shifted and started reading.<br />
<br />
Except for a solitary lamp, Mike's room was dark. Rain struck the window in a stuttering pattern; it was the only sound in the room. He sat at his desk and stared at a paper open on his computer. The cursor blinked, almost mocking him. He had bags under his eyes and his hair was wild.<br />
He began to type, but stopped often to look around the room or surf the web. At one point he got a book that had a list of electronic parts. He wrote a few of the items on a piece of paper.<br />
He got a page of his project done before he realized that he would need more research materials. He put on his shoes and still-damp coat, and walked through the rain to the library. He went to the second level and started looking for books, and happened to pass the chair Anna was camped in.<br />
As he walked past her row, she came out of a stupor and followed him with her eyes, watching him with some interest due to his special brand of fame in the college. To her surprise he stopped at the rows that are full of biology books.<br />
She got out of her chair and followed him, peering around the corner. She saw him pull out a few books that had genome in the title. She walked up to him. He didn't notice her until she tapped on his arm.<br />
Mike jumped and dropped some of the books. Flustered, he bent down to pick them up.<br />
"I'm sorry!" Anna said, reaching down and grabbing one of the books on the ground. "I just . . . you're in biology, right?"<br />
Mike, still somewhat shocked, nodded his head. His eyebrows was creased and his eyebrows were pressed together.<br />
Anna saw the look on his face and shifted uncertainly. "Uh, sorry, but do you know a boy in your class named Jed?"<br />
Mike did nothing but stare.<br />
"He's, uh, tall, looks half asleep a lot of the time . . . likes to wear plaid . . . "<br />
Mike tried to picture the person she was describing.<br />
"He has a little tattoo of a star on his neck." She touched the place, under her ear.<br />
Mike started nodding slowly, then sped up.<br />
"Sorry, uh, my name's Anna. What's yours?"<br />
Mike stood, struck immobile. His brain feebly shouted at him to shake her hand; he started signing instead. Anna seemed surprised as his hands moved.<br />
"Sign language! Yes, I do know how to sign, I took three years in high school! Your name is M-I-K-E," she said, following the motions of his hands. Mike nodded.<br />
"You know who I'm talking about. J-E-D," Anna said. "Oh, good! You do know him!" Mike nodded. "You have the same project as him? The one about genomes?"<br />
Mike tapped the book she held. The title read "Genomes - An In-Depth Study."<br />
"Oh. Right. Uh . . . do you think you could tell me what it's about?"<br />
Mike stared at her, confused. <br />
"It's kind of complicated. Jed -- he's my boyfriend actually -- won't tell me about it, but it's bothering him. I want to help him."<br />
Mike waited a few seconds, then shrugged. He started signing rapidly, using motions that Anna's paltry three years had no chance of interpreting. If she had known, she would have picked up words like <i>chromosomes</i>, <i>genetic mutations</i>, <i>DNA</i>, and <i>chimpanzees</i>. Anna tried in vain to make use of what she did understand.<br />
"I'm . . . I'm sorry, I didn't understand that."<br />
Mike waited for a second, pulled the book Anna held out of her hands, turned around, and walked away, leaving Anna standing in the row of books, confused.<br />
Mike checked out and walked back to his dorm. When he got there he threw the books on his desk and flopped onto his bed face down. After lying there for a minute he rolled over and put his hands behind his head. He took a deep breath, and mouthed the words "I wish people could hear me."<br />
<br />
The next day Anna and Tricia sat on the floor of Tricia's dorm studying, kicking their feet back and forth and eating out of a bowl of popcorn. Anna was in the midst of explaining her interaction with Mike.<br />
"And he just walked out?" Tricia said.<br />
"Right out of the library," Anna replied. "It's like I hadn't even been talking to him." She turned a page.<br />
"That's very weird. Do you know why?"<br />
"No idea. I hope I didn't insult him."<br />
"Could you tell if he was really mute?" Tricia asked as she wrote something on a notepad.<br />
"He was signing. What other explanation is there?"<br />
Tricia shrugged. "Maybe he was just tricking you. Maybe he just wanted you to think he was mute, but he can actually talk fine."<br />
"Give me a good reason for why he'd do that, and maybe I'll believe you."<br />
"Maybe he can only talk in Japanese?" Tricia offered.<br />
"I am not going to respond to that," Anna responded. They sat in silence for a little bit.<br />
"Maybe he doesn't like girls," Tricia said. Anna didn't say anything. "That's too bad about Jed, though."<br />
"He get's like that every once in a while. He'll call me and apologize eventually," Anna said.<br />
"This is normal?"<br />
"Sort of. When we started going out we were both at a low point, so to speak, and just started to cling together. Kind of gave us something we could talk about. But then we . . . I got better, but he only improved a little. I try to keep a positive attitude around him as much as I can, but it seems like he resents me for it."<br />
"I want to meet him," Tricia said, "and put a face to all these stories."<br />
"I'll see if he wants to meet us somewhere. I also want to get his opinion on M-I-K-E." Anna tapped on her phone, sending a message to her boyfriend. "He'll get back to me soon enough. He depends on that phone. It's his favorite thing in the world. Besides me, of course."<br />
"Of course!" Tricia said, matter-of-factly.<br />
Anna made a face at her and continued studying. They spent some time reading and making notes. Eventually Anna looked at her phone and sighed.<br />
"I guess he's just busy with something," she said.<br />
"He might be taking a nap."<br />
"He probably just doesn't want to meet you. He probably knows how weird you are," Anna said.<br />
"Oh. Right. I'm sure that's the truth," Tricia said, and both girls laughed.<br />
<br />
Mike relaxed in his chair, head tilted toward the ceiling. Letting out a breath, he bent down. Electronic components in a flat case covered his desk. With pliers in hand he worked on the gutted machine.<br />
His hands skated over the parts and possessed a surprising tenderness when he worked on them. With ease he removed a small part and placed it in a small plastic bucket.<br />
A small, unconscious smile was on his lips. As he worked, taking out pieces, his lips began to form things. More and more, his mouth worked to shape unheard sounds. If somebody had been watching him, he would have appeared to be singing. This mental melody continued for hours as he worked. He got some similarly small electronic parts out of a shipping box and attached them with practiced patience.<br />
By the time he finished, it was nearly two in the morning. He went to bed and the smile faded off his face, replaced by the familiar unhappy expression that had been his home for many years.<br />
<br />
The next afternoon Mike sat in the back of his biology class, listening to the professor answer questions about the large project the class struggled with. He scanned the class for the one described by Anna, the one named Jed. He found a boy that seemed to fit the description -- tall, wore plaid -- but he wasn't sure until the boy tilted his head a little bit to look to the side, and Mike saw the edge of a star-shaped tattoo under his ear. Mike turned his attention back to the professor until the class ended.<br />
As the class stumbled out, Anna entered and started speaking to Jed. Mike saw her as he put books into his bag. He looked down for a second and looked up to find Anna standing in front of him.<br />
He jumped, surprised, and Anna grimaced.<br />
"Sorry!" She said. "I don't mean to keep surprising you like this. I just want to know what I did in the library."<br />
As usual, Mike didn't know how to respond. He looked past Anna to Jed, who waited with his arms crossed.<br />
"I didn't mean to insult you. I'm sorry."<br />
Mike signed. <i>You wouldn't understand. I don't feel like explaining it</i>.<br />
Anna barely interpreted him before he stood and started walking toward the exit. She stepped around him and blocked his exit.<br />
"I want to know," she said, crossing her arms.<br />
Mike made a swift, inescapable sign -- <i>no</i> -- then pushed past her and out the door. Anna was left with her arms across her chest and disappointment on her face. Her chin bobbed down to her chest and she went back to Jed.<br />
"Weird kid," Jed said.<br />
The statement struck Anna the wrong way, and she felt a hot, fleeting moment of distrust for Jed.<br />
"He's misunderstood."<br />
"And you want to understand him?" Jed asked.<br />
"Yeah, kind of."<br />
Jed waited a moment. "I still think he's kind of weird"<br />
Anna watched the door that Mike went through, hoping he would reappear.<br />
"You were telling me about when you saw him in the library," Jed said. They left the classroom. "You had just gone and scared him the first time." They exited the building and are struck by a hot wind. Anna use her hands to shield her eyes from the sun and reign in her hair.<br />
"I just went up to him. He was getting books about biology."<br />
"Did you know he was mute?"<br />
"Yeah. I did. Well no, I guess I didn't really, but I knew he was really quiet. I figured he was just shy or something."<br />
"So you . . ." Jed trailed off.<br />
"I'm getting to it! I just went up to him and said hi."<br />
"And he acted like you were an alien."<br />
"Yeah. I just startled him I suppose but he looked really scared for a moment. I just wanted to know if he was in the same class as you, and he was."<br />
"Is," Jed corrected.<br />
"Fine. The point is he knew you."<br />
"Knows me."<br />
"I get it!" Anna said angrily. "He started signing, so I knew we could communicate." Jed stayed silent. "And then he did a big sentence, and I didn't understand it. I told him that I didn't, and he just . . . walked away. Without a word. Nothing. He didn't sign anything or make a face, he just . . . went."<br />
"I guess you need to work on your first impressions."<br />
"I did fine." Anna didn't stop talking, but she wondered if she really did do fine. "It was so confusing and weird"<br />
"What is?" Jed asked. Anna wondered if he was even listening.<br />
"I go into the library one day, fall asleep, and then wake up feeling great. <i>Great</i>. I have no idea how it happens but it does anyway. The next time I go in I can't fall asleep or get any work done, and I don't feel great. I don't feel good at all. Then I see Mike and he basically walks off mid conversation!"<br />
"So? It's just a coincidence," Jed said.<br />
"I guess."<br />
The two of them walked until they found a Greek restaurant. They got greasy gyros full of peppers and onions, and talked as they ate. After they finished, they walked back to Anna's dorm and happened to pass the tree that she sat under as she contemplated her scars.<br />
It was an old, gnarled tree. Some of the limbs were dead, and others lacked many leaves. The wood of the trunk peeled.<br />
"That tree," Jed said. "Check it out."<br />
"I've seen it before. What about it?"<br />
"The leaves. They look like they're dying from the inside out." After closer inspection, Anna found that to be true.<br />
"What could be doing that?"<br />
"Any number of things. Rot. Disease. Pests."<br />
"Pests?"<br />
"Bugs; termites or something. Those emerald boring beetles or whatever they're called."<br />
"I bet it's people. It's always people, somehow. I don't think something this big and strong could be taken down by something as small as bugs."<br />
"So you think people had to have done it," Jed said critically.<br />
"I think they still might be doing it."<br />
Jed walked off and Anna followed. As they left, a few leaves broke away from limbs and fluttered down, landing on the spot that Anna sat on before.<br />
<br />
Watching his screen intently, Mike followed the signs that his friend Chris made. Chris, an Asian boy that was both mute and deaf, refused to succumb to the loneliness that Mike lived with; he instead made friends quickly and went about his day with a smile. The two traded stories about their respective college lives, Chris sometimes helped by his handler.<br />
<i>So whenever the thing got to me</i>, Chris signed, explaining a party game, <i>I would do charades instead of talking. It was so much fun. Cindy had to translate for me, and she was signing so fast her hands were blurry</i>.<br />
<i>It sounds like fun</i>, Mike signed. Behind Chris, his room was brightly lit.<br />
<i>What about you?</i> Chris asked. <i>You have to have something interesting to tell me. You've been there for two months</i>.<br />
<i>I told you not much happens around here</i>. Mike paused. <i>There is one weird thing, though</i>. Chris leaned forward eagerly; in the context of their conversation the motion had no meaning, but he did it anyway. <i>For some reason this girl named Anna keeps bothering me</i>.<br />
Chris rolled his eyes. <i>Only you would call that bothering you. She probably has the hots for you</i>.<br />
Mike blushed. <i>She has a boyfriend. She's always apologizing! She apologizes about everything that she does! The first time we met was in the library. She understood some ASL but she got confused too quickly.</i><br />
Mike hesitated. Chris waited for him to continue. <i>It's just too hard for me to talk to people</i>. He finished the sign and looked at his keyboard. At the top of his vision, Chris started signing something.<br />
<i> She wants to talk to you, though. That's good. And here's something I learned: girls love to be teased</i>. He paused; Mike raised an eyebrow, confused. <i>They apologize all the time. If you just listen in you'll hear it</i>.<br />
<i>So?</i> <i> So the next time she apologizes to you, tease her about it! Say something like . . .</i> Chris thought for a moment.<i> Say 'are you sneaking up on me? Are you trying to kidnap me?'</i><br />
<i>I don't know.</i> <i>When they apologize like that they are</i> asking <i>to be teased. I do it all the time</i>. Chris smiled and bounced his eyebrows up and down.<br />
<i>You tease girls all the time?</i> Mike asked.<br />
<i>Yeah, about little stuff. Nothing that would hurt their feelings or anything like that. It makes them laugh. It's just enough to stand out</i>.<br />
<i>I still think that-</i><br />
Chris signed over Mike. <i>Just try it. Just a little bit. Just once. Be sure to tell me how it works though!</i> On the screen an African-American girl touched Chris' shoulder and signed something. Chris nodded and signed something back.<br />
<i>I have to go Mike. Good luck!</i><br />
<i>Okay, thanks</i>, Mike signed. The connection broke and the screen turned blank. Mike got up to get some books from a shelf and started reading. Every once in a while he stopped to think about Chris' odd advice.<br />
<br />
Mike left his biology class and spotted Jed leaning against a wall and talking to Anna. Mike took a deep breath and pretended to write in a daily planner. He turned and found Anna next to him again. He jumped, even though he expected her to be there. As soon as he recovered he started signing.<br />
<i>Why do you keep sneaking up on me like that? Are you trying to give me a heart attack?</i><br />
Anna's face fell and Mike immediately knew that he had misspoke. Anna's face was a sheet of guilt.<br />
"I-I'm sorry. It just keeps happening." She waited a second, and Mike flooded with shame. "I'll go."<br />
Anna turned and walked back to Jed. Mike sighed and rolled his eyes. He rushed back to his dorm, and as soon as he got there he tried to call Chris. The call went unanswered.<br />
Mike sat on his bed and put his head in his hands. His mind repeated what he had done over and over again until he felt ready to do something terrible to himself, if only to erase the shame that he felt for acting that way toward Anna.<br />
<br />
After walking back to her empty dorm room with Jed, Anna flopped onto her bed. The walk had been a daze of confusing emotions, and it was all she could do not to collapse on her floor when she closed the door behind her.<br />
"What the hell just happened?" She asked the empty room, voice cracking.<br />
She pushed herself up and looked around the room. Afternoon sunlight filtered in through the window, giving the room a golden look. She took a textbook out of her backpack and was about to head to her desk chair, when she slipped on her jacket and headed to the library.<br />
She stood in front of the chair she fell asleep in with her head cocked to one side. "All right chair, let's see what you can do." She got in and swung her legs over the armrest like before.<br />
She didn't feel tired, but she started to hear some music. It was deep, strong music that made her bob her head to the rhythmic sound. She didn't recognize it.<br />
It started out low and slow, but began to jump around, lifting and dropping. Anna tried to identify if it was from a song, but she couldn't place it. At one point it makes a surprising, complicated turn, falling and bouncing with chilling speed.<br />
After this solo the music slowed down again, turning solemn, mournful, and apologetic. Anna smiled, feeling touched by the sound. She started to feel drowsy.<br />
She woke up and couldn't hear the music anymore. Several hours had passed, and she read in the chair until the library closed, trying her hardest to remember the music. When she got back into her room she climbed into bed immediately, still remembering the rush of thoughts and emotions she'd felt before falling asleep. Like all of her senses had kicked into high gear. She could feel the fibers of the chair; smell the old papers in the books; hear her heart beat along with the music.<br />
<br />
Chris, on the screen of Mike's laptop, sighed soundlessly and rubbed his bristly black hair. Flamboyantly smacking his forehead with the flat of his palm, he shook his head. Mike had just finished explaining the previous day's interaction with Anna. Chris started signing.<br />
<i>Here's the first problem: if she doesn't apologize before you tease her, it comes off as mean. You didn't let her explain herself. I guess that you need a little bit more information</i>.<br />
<i>You told me to tease her about it</i>, Mike signed.<br />
<i>Yeah I did. I apologize. Now tease me about it</i>.<br />
Mike stared at the screen, confused. <i>Go ahead. I can take it</i>, Chris signed. Mike shrugged.<br />
<i>Do you always mess up like that?</i> He paused. <i>Can anybody depend on you?</i><br />
Chris shook his head. <i>O-Y</i>, he signed. <i>Too mean. This is where our disabilities make it especially hard on us. It's much easier to sound mean when presenting the words just as they are. You need to pick your words carefully. Got it?</i> Mike nodded. <i>Good. Here's the next thing. It should be something she can shrug off easily, something goofy</i>. Chris thought for a moment. <i>Here's an example. I have a friend that always wears glasses, right? One time, he and I went up to a girl's room to play some games. It was really cold out that night, and his glasses fogged up when we got in. She apologized for it.</i><br />
<i>How was it her fault?</i> Mike asked.<br />
<i> It wasn't, not really. Her room was warmer out than inside, that's all it was. You know what he said when she apologized? "How dare you?" That's what he said. He said it with a smile, though. She laughed.</i><br />
<i>I don't get it</i>, Mike signed.<br />
<i>He knew it wasn't her fault, and so did she, but it's exactly the kind of teasing that girls adore!</i><br />
<i>But . . . why?</i> <i>I'm not exactly sure, but it seems to work. You'll have to try it again.</i><br />
<i>I don't know, Chris.</i> <i> Just one more time. If it doesn't seem to work, lay off. Heck, you might have scared her off already.</i> Chris shrugged.<br />
<i>Okay. I'll try it. Thanks</i>.<br />
A few minutes later, Mike sat at his desk working on his math homework. He realized something, and looked up at the black screen on his laptop. <i>She's the only one who's spoken to me yet</i>, he signed.<br />
<br />
Anna sat under the old, gnarled, dying tree that weekend, working on homework. She would have gone to the library, but it was closed until one on Saturdays. It was a cold day with no clouds or wind. Her hair was untethered.<br />
Jed was supposed to be with her, helping her work out some of the harder problems, but she hadn't seen him yet. She missed him.<br />
Her eyes were drawn to the places on her wrists where she'd cut herself. At one point she'd tried to commit suicide. Her Father had come into her room and found her, fought her to her feet and into the bathroom as he called an ambulance. He refused to leave her, keeping her life inside her with thick towels and strong arms and a voice harder than she'd ever heard. He'd convinced her to get counseling, and it was there that she met Jed, somebody who'd gone through nearly the same thing as her -- parents divorced, depression, self-harm, and finally the decision to take his life.<br />
They'd started a relationship after completing their counseling, helping each other, keeping each other from doing anything that would hurt them or the people that loved them.<br />
Anna had told Tricia that she thought Jed was still having problems, but it was a lie. It was the opposite. At the thought of not having Jed to lean on, Anna's breath would get ragged and her body would seize, unable to cope. She knew his old wounds had healed, but hers felt fresh and ready to bleed again.<br />
Every moment he didn't appear she got more worried. She would have called him but her phone was dead. She groaned and bent her head to study the words of her homework. Eventually, she heard footsteps coming toward her.<br />
<br />
For once, Mike watched Anna instead of the other way around. He asked himself over and over again if it was really something that he wanted to do, but he couldn't ever find a reason for it not to be. She was on her own, sitting under an old tree, staring up into the sky. A book was open on her lap, ignored. <br />
He thought over what he was going to say. He wanted to apologize, but after that, he didn't know. Whatever it was, he needed to remember what Chris had said about choosing the right words. Just as she nearly pressed her face into her book he started walking toward her.<br />
When he got close enough, and the leaves under his feet started to crunch, she whipped her head up, smiling broadly, only to be surprised to find him there; her face turned to confusion and fear.<br />
"Mike!" She said.<br />
Before she could say anything else, Mike signed <i>I'm sorry about being angry at you. I didn't mean to be so mean.</i><br />
A few moments passed as Anna translated his hand motions. "Oh. That's okay. I should have known not to sneak up on you like that again."<br />
Mike stood awkwardly. Anna looked around. "Uh . . . you wouldn't happen to know what time it is, do you?" She lifted up her cell. "My phone's dead."<br />
Mike checked his. <i>One thirty</i>, he signed.<br />
"'Kay. Thanks." She crossed her arms and pressed her back against the tree. "I don't normally sit out here. Usually I sit in the library. There's a chair I always fall asleep in. But it wasn't open yet."<br />
<i>It's open now.</i><br />
"I know, but I'm waiting for someone. He's late, though," she said under her breath.<br />
<i>I'm going to go. I'll see you around</i>, Mike signed. He turned and walked off before Anna could respond, eager for a way to leave the conversation that had started awkward and gotten worse.<br />
He walked into the dining hall, stomach growling. Just after entering, a loud student appeared out of nowhere, and began to be loud directly at Mike. He shied back, surprised, and the student thrust a piece of paper at him. Mike took it quickly and rushed away, trying to get away from the student's yelling as quickly as he could. He glanced at the piece of paper -- it was a list of upcoming campus events -- and stuffed it into his pocket. He ate quickly, only coming up to breathe. At one time he spotted a girl from his math class. Her name was Tricia. She had given him a dirty look a few weeks ago in class. He ducked his head again to make sure she didn't see him.<br />
Once he finished eating he walked back to his dorm, scowling at the chill fall air. He had forgotten his coat.<br />
He glanced over at the tree that Anna had been sitting against, and found her there still. To his surprise, he also saw what appeared to be Tricia kneeling near her and talking. Anna had her head in her hands. Mike rushed on.<br />
As soon as he got back to his room he threw on his coat and picked up the brown case from the corner of his room.<br />
Leaving his room again, he went to the first floor of the Anderson building. He walked past the library and into the row of private practice rooms. He entered his normal room, and opened up his case.<br />
His bass, a precision model, gleamed burnished gold in the dull fluorescent light. He spent some time plunking at the strings to tune them. The air in the practice rooms were hot and humid, and they wreaked havoc on them.<br />
Like John Entwhistle, or Cliff Burton, or John Myung, or Jaco Pastorius, when Mike closed his hand around the neck of his instrument and started to pull the strings, he didn't worry. Practice was easy -- it wasn't work, it was what he'd do to relax. Everything else went away. When he started to play Les Claypool's solo from Tommy the Cat, or ran through a Beatles' song in Paul McCartney's footsteps, or played a Sting song, mouthing the words, or tried to keep up with Geddy Lee, he was not longer Mike the mute boy, the one that sat in the back and didn't speak. He had a voice at last. It had six strings and his parents had used a sizable amount of inheritance from Uncle Mort to buy it for him. Nothing pleased him more.<br />
He ran through chords, gliding his left hand up and down the neck, pressing the tough pads on his fingers against the frets. He played Marillion's Cathedral Wall, hearing the song in full through the unassisted thrum of the strings. He jumped from that halfway into a Victor Wooten solo, and from there slapped his bass along to the frantic Flea.<br />
He paused, worked out a quick phrase, liked it, and built it into a longer series of sound. The room shook with the deep, perfect sound, even though he had no amp. He toyed with the sound he'd built -- a fast, high shifting.<br />
He stopped, finally, and started to play his own songs, the ones that he'd built up through the years. Slower songs, faster songs, songs that soared. He cut one in half with an impromptu solo, reminiscent of Matt Freeman.<br />
He played for another hour, ignoring the other sounds around him, feeling only the empty space that could be filled by him. Eventually he felt the need to work on his homework, but before he did he played one last song. He didn't know of any bass ballads, but whenever he played this song -- nameless, currently -- he found it needing a character. It started out so happy, fell to a rousing military beat and became the crash and thunder of a battle, and finally lifted to become the slow, broken pine of a lost loved one; it carried with it all the emotions he could not help but feel.<br />
Spent, he packed away the bass and put on his coat. It was much later, but the only way he knew that was because of his phone; when he played he noticed the passage of time just as much as he paid attention to things outside his room.<br />
He carried the case past the library; as he did so he nearly ran into Anna. When she saw him she stopped dead. He would have hurried past, pretending not to see her, but when he saw her face he skidded to a halt. Her eyes were red and moist. He looked quickly at her sleeves and found them stained with tears.<br />
He was about to dig in pockets to try to find a tissue, but she hurried away, out of the building and across the yard with her arms around her and head down. It was just as well; he didn't have any tissues. The only thing in his pocket was the crumpled piece of paper the loud student had given him. He looked over it as he headed for a trash can. He stopped before he got there, reading over one of the events. He read it again and checked his phone. It wasn't until tomorrow, but he'd have to hurry if he wanted to make it.<br />
<br />
"He left me, Dad," Anna gushed in her empty room. "He came up to me and said that he didn't think our relationship was going anywhere. And then . . . and then he just walked away!" She sniffed. She'd spent the last hour crying in the library, in the comfortable chair. She'd heard the music again, and she couldn't help but weep.<br />
"I'm sorry honey," her father said over the phone. "Why don't you come home tonight? Miranda and I made some soup and bread. It smells wonderful here. I'll come pick you up."<br />
"No! No," Anna said, frantic. "I don't want to. I'm just . . . I want to be here. I have a lot of homework to do, and . . . I don't really want to be in the house right now."<br />
Nothing came over the phone for a few seconds. "I understand," her father said. "If you need anything . . . <i>anything</i> . . . or if you just want to talk, don't hesitate. And Anna, please don't do anything hasty."<br />
"I won't," she said.<br />
"I want you to promise me."<br />
"Fine. I promise."<br />
"Hang out with friends. Be around people. Don't let yourself be alone for long periods of time. I know you won't want to," he said, cutting her off as she started to talk, "but you need to do what's best."<br />
Anna sat listening to the silence on the other end for a second. "I love you, honey," her father said.<br />
"I love you too, dad. Bye." She hung up. The room's silence surrounded her, and emptiness filled her. She was alone again.<br />
<i>No</i>, she thought, standing and walking in a circle. She couldn't start to think like that again, and feel the overwhelming uselessness of anything she did or thought or felt, to think and believe that no matter what she did the perverse hatred she felt for herself would not change. She had to do something different, something different than hurting herself.<br />
But there still was the controlling grip of her diseased mind, telling her that no, what she did would not matter, that she would die alone, friendless, cold, gray, and hated. That if she went outside others would shun her and spit insults, people that did not know the depths of her and never would.<br />
They were the people that would cheer and celebrate if they found her lifeless. The ones that would urge the blade closer to her skin and press it down, making it bite deep and sever her chord of life. They were the ones that would put the pills in her hand or slip the noose around her neck. They were her mother, her brother, her friends, her roommate, even Jed, the boy that she had loved and loved still, and the one that had dropped her to the floor.<br />
She might have done it, she might not have, but her sleeves were rolled up, exposing the bare flesh on her wrists.<br />
She hated them. She hated them all.<br />
<br />
Mike left the Student Center with his case in hand, pleased. They'd accepted him, and now he had to practice for tomorrow. He walked, still happy, out the door and into the cold wind. Dark clouds shielded the sun from him, and students that ventured out hurried to the next building. In his right hand he carried a slip of paper with all the information he needed. He headed for the door.<br />
Before he got there he went past Tricia. He ducked his head again; the good feelings disappeared. She went past without noticing him, but he stopped. He quickly put his case down and rummaged inside the strings and picks to find a pencil. He quickly scrawled something on the back of the piece of paper and ran back to find her.<br />
Summoning all of his courage, he tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, and made a face. Before she could say anything, he handed her the piece of paper. She looked at it with a grimace and furrowed brows. "You're friends with Anna?" It read.<br />
"Yeah? So what?" Tricia asked in a harsh tone. <br />
Mike snatched the paper back and scribbled on it with pressed-together lips. He felt some anger toward this girl. "I saw Anna 15 minutes ago, she looked upset," the paper read when he handed it back to her.<br />
Tricia scowled. "Her boyfriend was supposed to meet her earlier today."<br />
Mike added an underline. "She looked _really_ upset."<br />
"Well . . . she . . ." Tricia's face changed from annoyance to understanding. "Okay. Thanks. I'll go see her." She turned the paper around and looked at the front, then handed it back to Mike and rushed off. A large part of him wondered if he had done the right thing to intrude on someone else's life the way he just did.<br />
<br />
Anna sat on her bed with her hands linked together. The room was dark, and the wind blew against the window. Even if her phone had a charge, and had received Tricia's hurried text message, she wouldn't have seen it. She dwelled on her mistakes. Over and over they went past her eyes and she felt the sting of each one as she relieved the embarrassment or fury from each of those chunks of her life.<br />
The knock scared her; she bolting to her feet and stood immobile, staring at the door. More knocks came, and she heard Tricia's voice. "Anna? Are you in there? If you're in there I want to talk!"<br />
Anna stood struck motionless. Her mind failed to get her body moving, whether away from or toward the door. The knocks came again. "If you're in there, Anna, and you aren't letting me in, I'm going to be pretty unhappy!"<br />
Tricia stood in the hallway for a minute before the door unlatched and a sliver of Anna's face appeared. The room behind her was black. Tricia put her hand on the door's edge the moment she saw Anna's face. Anna tried to slam the door but Tricia's hand blocked it; Tricia yelped and pushed the door open, entering. Anna backed away as Tricia shut the door and turned the light on.<br />
The light made Anna's face worse. Her eyes were puffy and red, her makeup smeared down her face, and her entire body looked disheveled, as if struck by a strong wind.<br />
Tricia didn't need any explaining. She opened her arms and wrapped Anna in a hug that Anna didn't want. Anna struggled to get away, but the other girl was stronger than she looked. Finally Tricia released her.<br />
"I'm sorry Anna," Tricia said.<br />
"I want to be alone," Anna said. She could barely get the words out.<br />
"You know you shouldn't," Tricia replied. "So do I. Being alone right now isn't good."<br />
Anna turned her gaze on the other girl, nearly nailing her to the wall. "What do you know?" She yelled. "You think you know what to do just because I've told you what happened to me?"<br />
Tricia's eyes narrowed; a fire appeared. "No, I know because <i>of course</i> you shouldn't be alone! What kind of friend -- what kind of <i>person</i> -- would I be if I know how much you are hurting right now and I left you alone?"<br />
Anna didn't respond. Tricia pulled her phone out. "I'm going to order a pizza. We're going to sit here, together, and I'm going to keep you company. What do you want?"<br />
"What?" Anna hadn't really been following her.<br />
"What kind of pizza do you want?" Tricia's voice made Anna think she'd just been asked what the launch codes were.<br />
She sat on her bed and put her head in her hands. How could she think about pizza at a time like this? When her world dissolved around her? When people had stares of barbed wire that cut and judged her? When the howling wind outside didn't come close to the howling inside of her? How could she even remember to breath, think, <i>feel</i> . . . and she was supposed to pick a pizza?<br />
As it turned out, she wanted Hawaiian, and said so.<br />
<br />
It was late; she was tired. Tricia had spent all night in her room with her, and it turned out to be the best possible thing. Anna's roommate had left for the weekend and failed to tell her; she would have been alone all night with the wind pounding on her window and her thoughts rattling inside her head. The greasy pizza was just the sort of thing her body desired: hot, heavy, and filling. It lulled her into a sleepy state of mind and calmed her.<br />
Tricia helped, too. She told jokes, talked about her day, about her week, about her life. She kept Anna engaged and kept her from sinking down into despair. The storm died by the time Anna convinced her she was too tired to stay awake. Tricia made her promise she would go to the talent show the next day, and after that she left.<br />
Anna got into bed; the last traces of the good feelings the pizza gave her left. She was tired. She felt alone, and cold, even under the piles of blankets. She kept going back to the feeling she had when she was with Jed, and they were cuddled under the blanket watching Lord of the Rings or 30 Rock. She remembered the feeling of having someone there, with her, someone that wasn't just a figment of her imagination, or a creation of her dreaming mind. Solid. Real.<br />
She held that feeling tight as she fell asleep, and the storm returned, stronger.<br />
<br />
Sunday night the student body pressed into the college's auditorium, yammering. A great number of them appeared, all trying to deny themselves the thought that another week of school peeked at them from over the horizon. <br />
The acts were to be diverse: singers, dancers, comedians, a magician, and the standard squadron of musicians, mostly they would hold an acoustic guitar and squeal their homemade songs into a microphone.<br />
Anna and Tricia sat far from the front, waiting for the lights to dim. Anna stared ahead at the stage; she felt annoyed at the gaggle of the people around her. She wanted them all to be quiet. Finally the lights went down and the audience shut their yaps. The first person dragged a guitar onto the stage and belted out some feel-good song that Anna could not sympathize with. He was no shabby artist, but she found out guitarists were a dime a dozen that day. The next person sang an aria on her own; her voice shook the roof, and the crowd cheered when she finished.<br />
Two more guitarists took the stage and left after a song each. Anna could barely get her hands up to clap when they were done. A boy got up and told jokes for ten minutes. He seemed surprised at the applause he got when he ended. Two guitarists at the same time next, and then a girl reciting a poem she'd written.<br />
Jed came onto the stage with a pretty girl, and Anna's heart leapt. She heard Tricia gasp. Anna's eyes narrowed. Jed cradled the girl as a spotlight lit them. Music started and they began to twirl, moving their legs and bodies to the music in sync with each other. Their wide eyes and clutching hands told Anna everything she needed to know about Jed. In a few minutes their set ended, and the crowd applauded their heavy efforts wildly.<br />
Anna started to leave her seat as the dancers left the stage. She would talk to Jed, and perhaps blood would be spilled. She saw only red. Just before she got out of reach, Tricia grabbed her arm.<br />
"Anna -- isn't that Mike?" She heard her friend say. Anna looked at the stage again, her blood lust fading. Mike walked to the center of the stage, wheeling an amp out after him and carrying an electric guitar that seemed strange. <i>He can't sing, though</i>. Anna thought. She sat.<br />
Mike hooked the amp up. He looked at the microphone in front of him and pushed it away with derision. He switched on the guitar and fiddled with the knobs on the body. He looked out at the crowd, scanning over them.<br />
He plucked the first note and it fell heavy over them. <i>A bass</i>, Anna knew. The second note stirred her, the third opened her eyes, and the fourth brought her hand to her mouth. Here was the music she'd heard in her chair, the one that had brought her to peace.<br />
Mike played his song. It started slow, with a simple progression of sweet, low notes, then jumped to a rousing call, a sequence that made Anna's heart fly and made her want to leap. After intricate phrases -- he did things on the bass that Anna hadn't imagined hearing or seeing -- he dropped to a quick march, starting high and dropping lower and lower on the scale he could use, until the noise from the amp shook her with its deep, growling noise. She felt fear grow. The music lead her there.<br />
The music changed to clashes of sound, high against dark, passages of notes sounding like the thunder of hooves or the stamp of boots. He made his instrument sing, coaxing such sound out of it. He slowly brought them away from the cacophony, and simulated a heartbeat. The heartbeat slowed, and stopped.<br />
He went into somber chords -- a dirge. He began to replay the notes from the beginning, and Anna's spine tingled. He played them louder, and threw in notes of longing for the music that was already past. He didn't even look at his hands; he didn't need to see them. This was what he did instead of talking.<br />
He reprised the first part, louder now, dynamic and symphonic. Anna felt him wish for the beginning of the song again. He wanted to play it again, to live it again. He'd lost something in the waring sounds of the middle part.<br />
He finished with the four notes from the beginning again, louder, harder . . . they called out.<br />
He stopped. Anna found her cheeks wet as the audience roared, clapping and cheering. They all stood, even Tricia, but Anna couldn't. The music still filled her. By the time they all sat down, Mike was gone off the stage. The next person, a thin little boy with a guitar, slouched in to replace him. He sang a song weakly. None of the other contestants compared. Mike won the contest by miles.<br />
<br />
After the ceremony for his award, Anna ran and caught Mike as he left the stage entrance. They looked at each other for a minute, until Mike signed something.<br />
"No, I wasn't there for him. If I'd known he would be performing, I wouldn't have come," Anna said. "I thought you song was really good. You know, I think I've heard you play before. I heard music like that when I was in the library a few times."<br />
Mike nodded. <i>The practice rooms are right under there</i>, he signed.<br />
She hugged him. His arms, full of his bass and other items, couldn't be used to hug her back. She backed away and wiped an eye. "I . . . really liked your song. I'm glad you won."<br />
<i>Thank you.</i> Anna walked out of the building. It was a clear, cool day. The stars could be seen, and Anna smiled as she looked up at them.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-69397864217834460002013-10-05T12:00:00.000-05:002013-10-05T12:00:00.898-05:00Helpers LTD<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Floyd S. Irving was not the kind of person to worry. His job, such as it was, did not worry him, nor did his simple home life. He lived on his own, in a small, tidy studio apartment where he cooked his soups and made his sandwiches and went to work as a truck driver for the libraries, carting books back and forth. He loved the books and loved the truck and loved the people he worked with. He was not a rich man, but he didn't worry about that. He didn't get out of his apartment very much, and some might have said he was antisocial, but it wouldn't have bothered him if he'd heard them. He was, simply, an uncomplicated man, self-assured that he enjoyed his life.</div>
<a name='more'></a> So to say he was worried when he parked his car in the parking lot of the library that had his truck was something special.<br />
The woman was there, again! For the last three days he'd seen her, standing there outside the library with her arms crossed, her purse dangling from one veiny hand, and a concentrated scowl on her face. The first two days Floyd hadn't given her any thought – people commonly waited for rides outside the library – but the third day he'd noticed her watching him. This itself was not worrisome; Floyd knew that sometimes people looked at other people. He wasn't known for it, but he knew it happened. Yet the old woman bothered him for some reason he couldn't identify. She wasn't looking at him in the manner of <i>collection</i>, like a camera might collect images, or <i>entertainment</i>, like a bored person might watch a bird. No, the woman looked at him in the manner of <i>matching</i>, as a person might find the perfect color paint for a wall.<br />
Floyd dismissed the thought, and worked. It did not reoccur to him as he drove from site to site, picking up and dropping off books. He didn't think about when he went home, cooked himself a grilled cheese, and fell asleep watching Leno.<br />
But there she stood, just the same as always. She might even be wearing the same clothes.<br />
Floyd stepped out of his car, straightening his collared shirt in the morning sun. Again, her eyes tracked him as he walked toward his truck, following him until he was out of view.<br />
Slowly, carefully, his forehead poked out from around the corner, revealing his thinning hair until he could see her. She stared at him with the same tight-lipped, peeved look she'd had for the last four days. His head slinked back.<br />
He pressed himself against the shadowed brick wall of the library. Why was she looking at him? Floyd asked himself. Why was she there every day? Why did she look so angry? Why did it sound like footsteps were coming closer?<br />
Floyd found himself less than five feet away from the old, wrinkled, black woman – with her arms crossed and brows scrunched together – that had stood outside the library for the last four days. Floyd turned and ran to his truck, hands flapping at the ends of flailing arms. He frantically unlocked his truck, clambered in, started it, and drove away without looking in the rear mirror to see if she was still there.<br />
<br />
Working helped to calm him. By the time it was four-thirty and the sun hung low, he drove back to the spot where he kept his truck. The woman was not there; Floyd got into his car and drove home. <br />
Nor did she wait outside the library when he got there the next morning. At ease, he walked to his truck and got in, a big smile on his face.<br />
The fact that the old woman was in the passenger seat of the truck made him a bit concerned.<br />
For a minute, then two, Floyd looked at the woman, who looked back. She had dark, dotted skin, deep creases on her face and hands, and was dressed in a long purple skirt and indigo blouse. Her purse, a classic thing that one could surely get lost in, was on her lap, and her bony hands clasped the straps.<br />
She, looking back, found Floyd Irving dressed in wrinkled khakis and a blue button-down shirt. The shiny dome of his skull could just be perceived, and his receding chin jiggled as his adam's apple bobbed.<br />
He found the courage to talk. "What are you doing in here? You . . . you can't be in here."<br />
"I want to talk to you," the woman said. She sounded old. "I've been meaning to talk to you for a few days, but I haven't had the chance. I <i>almost</i> had the chance yesterday, but you scarpered. You should be more respectful of your elders." She started to dig in her purse.<br />
"But who are you?" Floyd squeaked. The woman didn't respond; she kept rummaging. "What do you want with me?"<br />
"My card," the woman said. She handed Floyd – he recoiled as her hand got close – a business card. He took it, pinching it between thumb and forefinger.<br />
"Emma Degreff," the card read. "A proud member of Helpers LTD since 1991." Under that line read "Formerly FGM Inc."<br />
Floyd peered over the card at the woman. She had a face that reminded him of a displeased school marm. He looked carefully for a ruler. He didn't see one, but the purse looked like it could hold anything.<br />
"Now then. Floyd," the woman – Emma – said. "We think you need help with something."<br />
"But I don't need help with anything!" Floyd stammered. "Everything's fine! Thank you!" He looked out the windshield. Would someone from the library wonder why he hadn't left?<br />
"We think you do," Emma said, with a tint of disgust in her voice. "And we are <i>never</i> wrong."<br />
"Who's we?" He looked at the card. "Helpers LTD?"<br />
She smiled. "That's right." She stuck out her hand. Again, Floyd recoiled, fearful, but the hand only hung in midair, waiting to be grasped and shook. He clutched at it with his eyes squeezed shut. Floyd had never had a stranger introduction. "I'm here to help you out." The woman gave the very first of what Floyd could call a smile.<br />
"But I don't need help with nothing!" Floyd pleaded. "Why do you think I need help?"<br />
"Well for one, you're grammar's atrocious." The woman frowned. "Second, you're going to be late for your first pickup if you don't get going. I hope you don't mind if I tag along."<br />
"What if I do mind?" Floyd asked as he started the engine.<br />
Emma glared at him. "Then you're going to be out of luck."<br />
<br />
As Floyd guided the truck down the many roads of his job, Emma sat next to him with her hands on her purse, not saying anything. He went to the first library and picked up the sorted cartons of books to be sent to other libraries and stored them in the back of the truck. When he got back in the truck Emma had not varied her stony gaze.<br />
"Is it something about my job?" Floyd asked. "I like my job. I'm good at my job."<br />
Emma shook her head with curled lips. "It's not your job, Floyd Irving. Keep your eyes on the road, young man!"<br />
"How do you know my name?" Floyd asked, after twisting the steering wheel to get back into the lane he had swerved out of.<br />
"The same way I knew where you work, and that you needed help!" Emma said, composing herself.<br />
Floyd waited to hear what this was.<br />
"Well I'm not going to tell you!" Emma shouted. "You young ones, always wanting to know this or that! Why can't you just let things be? My employers, and I, know things about you! Is that so hard to accept at face value?"<br />
"Sort of!"<br />
"Well, you best get over that hump, camel, 'cause you ain't getting through the desert without me!" Emma sat back in her seat with a huff. She smoothed her fraying bun with a hand. "Shoot."<br />
"Will you tell me what I <i>do</i> need help with?" Floyd asked. He swirled the steering wheel and guided the truck around a corner. "Because I can't think of anything!"<br />
"You young ones!" Emma nearly hollered. "Can't just let things take their course! Always have to know <i>what's comin'</i> or <i>what's gonna happen next</i>!" She jammed a hand into her purse.<br />
<i>Here it comes!</i> Floyd's mind shouted. <i>The ruler!</i> He pressed his body against the driver's door, but all Emma brought out was a pocket makeup mirror and lip balm.<br />
She tended to herself as Floyd's mind tried to keep up with the events that occurred in the truck's cab. He pulled into the next library, and jumped out of the cab. After loading and unloading the books he found that Emma had not moved, except to return the mirror and lip balm back from whatever pocket it had come. She continued to stare out the windshield as he drove.<br />
"Do I have to guess?" Floyd asked.<br />
"No you do not," Emma said. "When it happens, you'll know what it is. And I'll be right here waiting to help you."<br />
"You're not exactly being very helpful," Floyd muttered.<br />
"Son, don't you take the tone with me!" Emma said. Floyd winced. "This is a trial run to get you acc-li-ma-ted to my presence." Emma bounced her shoulders. "I ain't gonna take a bullet for you, no son, but you'll be glad I'm here when you'll dealin' with it!"<br />
<br />
The day progressed in this manner, making Floyd more and more upset as it went on. She wouldn't give him any hints and refused to tell him any details. Once he asked what people would think if they saw her riding in the truck with him, and all she did was laugh and say 'You young ones never see anything, not even what's right in front of your eyes!'<br />
Finally Floyd pulled the truck into its slot at the main library, and climbed down. The woman stepped down, displaying odd grace for her age, and walked around the front of the truck.<br />
"How do I know this isn't a trick?" Floyd asked. "How do I know you're not just trying to rob me?"<br />
Emma sighed. "Look at that tree behind you, and then you'll find out why." Floyd didn't move. Emma pointed at the tree with a frown and, sighing, Floyd looked over his shoulder. He saw nothing.<br />
He started to ask Emma what she was talking about, he found her gone.<br />
He looked around, behind, and under his truck. He looked around the side of the building, the side that had all the trees. He looked in the parking lot. The woman was gone.<br />
He drove home and sat on his bed and recalled everything about her that he could. Her clothes, her face, the way she talked, what she said. Then he made his supper and relaxed. As much as he could, anyway; one had to admit, his day had been a bit confusing.<br />
<br />
The next day she waited by his truck in the clear sunlight. She wasn't wearing the same clothes, but they were similar except for the color. Instead of purple and indigo, she had a navy blue skirt and light blue blouse. Her purse was the same. Floyd frowned.<br />
"You're not riding with me today," he said. "If anything happens, I can handle it myself." He didn't wait for her to respond, instead getting into the truck's cab and starting it.<br />
"What did I tell you yesterday?" Emma, in the passenger's seat, said. Floyd jumped, briefly honking the horn. "You can't stop me from coming with you."<br />
"How . . . but . . . " Floyd stammered. The door hadn't opened; in fact he'd only unlocked the driver's door. She even had her <i>seat</i> belt on! <br />
"Why don't you get going? You're going to have a lot of deliveries to do today, don't want to keep the people waiting for their books."<br />
Shaking, Floyd started the truck.<br />
They drove in silence for a while, stopping at libraries, and taking on or dropping off books.<br />
Eventually they got to the last library on his route. Floyd jumped out, and began pulling the cartons of books out of the back of the truck.<br />
<br />
Emma sat waiting in the front seat, using her tongue to clean between her teeth. Any minute now . . . <br />
Floyd pulled the door open and climbed up, sitting with the door wide and his hands in his lap. He took in a deep breath and let it out.<br />
Without turning, he said "there's a baby in the truck." Emma nodded slowly. Now Floyd turned and looked at her. "Emma, there's a <i>baby</i> in the back of the <i>truck</i>. In one of the cartons. It was in one of the cartons that I picked up from another library."<br />
Emma continued to nod, not saying anything.<br />
"Emma – what do I <i>do</i>?"<br />
She finally looked at him. "Oh, so <i>now</i> you need my help?" She tsked, shaking her head. "What did I tell you? I told you. I told you you'd need my help."<br />
"Okay! Yes! Fine! You were right!" Floyd said, shaking his hands. "Please, tell me what to do!"<br />
"Do you know which carton the library came from?" Emma asked. Floyd shook his head.<br />
"They're all just the same type of plastic box. The whole county uses them; they're all identical. It could have been any one of the libraries I was already at."<br />
Emma pushed open the passenger door. "We'll, let's have a look at the young one." She climbed down from the truck's cab and walked around to the back. The sliding tailgate was up, and inside where the dozen or so cartons that had been sent to the library they were at. Sitting in one of the cartons, chewing on a paperback, was an infant child with gossamer strands of hair. It wore a bulging pair of pants and a blue striped shirt. It's wide eyes goggled at the pair, a balding truck driver and an old black woman.<br />
"Come here, sweet thing," Emma cooed. The baby gazed, gnawing on the book's corner. Emma sighed, and tapped Floyd's arm. "Give me a hand up. Let's get him out of there." Floyd helped her climb into the truck and she raised the baby out of the carton. She held him at arms length and looked him over. "Looks good enough. Here, take him while I get down."<br />
Floyd took the child; it was heavier than he thought it would be. He supported it with his hands under its arms as Emma got out.<br />
"How do you know it's a he?" Floyd asked. He really couldn't tell.<br />
"You learn things when you've been around young ones as often as I have," Emma said, straightening her skirt. She took the baby back and placed him over her left shoulder. "Now, do you have any ideas?"<br />
"Me? No! I don't know what to do! This hasn't ever happened before!" Floyd said.<br />
Emma sighed. "Police."<br />
Floyd stared before jumping to action. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen. It was an old model, perhaps a half-dozen years old. Emma saw it and tutted.<br />
"Son, don't you have one of those fancy new phones? The ones with the touching?" She asked, poking her finger at a phantom phone for emphasis. "I think that last time I saw a phone like that it was two-thousand and five!"<br />
"I don't upgrade!" Floyd said. "It works fine!" He jabbed at some of the buttons, pressing down hard to get them to work. The screen displayed a dull symbol that indicated no, it was <i>not</i> working fine. Floyd shook the thing; nothing changed. He gingerly looked up at Emma, who was bouncing the baby on her shoulder. She looked at him as if he had been caught with a finger full of frosting from a sibling's birthday cake.<br />
"The library will have somebody with a phone," she said. "I'll take care of junior here, you go ask." Floyd nodded and set off.<br />
He was halfway across the parking lot before he realized it was deserted. There was not a single car. He went to the front door of the library and rattled it; it was locked. He knocked, pounded on the glass, but the interior was dark and empty. He stepped back and stared in disbelief. What was going on?<br />
he looked to his right, at the second set of double doors. He found a sheet of paper taped to the inside, and read it. "Library closed due to power failure," it read. "Will reopen on Monday. Overdue items will be given a grace period."<br />
Floyd tapped on the glass with one finger, lips curled into a grimace.<br />
"You can't get in, can you?" Emma asked when Floyd walked back. He shook his head. "Any other way in? Don't you have to get in to deliver books if the library is closed?" She asked.<br />
Floyd grabbed his ring of keys from the truck and picked out the one for the warehouse entry to this library. He pushed the door open, revealing the library's cluttered warehouse.<br />
Which, Floyd was dismayed to discover, contained a locked door he couldn't get through and no telephone. He'd seen this room a thousand times – maybe more – and pulled angrily on the door that led to the main section of the library. The library had always been open, or at least occupied, when he'd visited. It had never occurred to him to look for a phone.<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Even worse, he realized as he walked back to the truck, this library was in a rather rural area; not many places around him would be open for business and willing to let him use a phone.<br />
"No luck, eh?" Emma asked. The child dozed on her shoulder. "Perhaps you have some other ideas?"<br />
"Aren't you supposed to have ideas?" He asked. "You're the helper!"<br />
"I'm helping, aren't I?" She said, tapping the child's back. It gurgled out a noise. "If I wasn't here, you'd have to take care of the child <i>and</i> try to figure out how to get him back where he belongs! Now apologize!"<br />
Floyd bent his head. "Sorry," he said. "But I don't know what else to do!"<br />
"We passed some houses a little bit ago. Maybe one of them would have someone that would let us use a telephone."<br />
"Don't you have a phone?" Floyd asked. Emma waved a hand and made a dismissing sound.<br />
"I got no use for those contraptions. Let's get in the truck and see if we can't find someone willing to help us." She walked toward the front.<br />
After he loaded and unloaded the books from the warehouse of the library, Floyd got into the driver's seat and found her already buckled, cradling the baby with practiced ease. "Don't drive too fast. Junior doesn't have a belt; we don't want him flying out of my hands now."<br />
The knowledge that a mistake driving could hurt the baby did not help Floyd. He shifted the truck and it jerked forward; sweat broke out on his forehead. He scooted forward onto the road and headed toward the houses that Emma mentioned.<br />
He pulled to a stop in front of the first house. As far as he could tell, there was only one street of houses that ran parallel to the main road.<br />
He walked up to the house, leaving Emma and the baby in the truck. He rang the doorbell, trying not to look threatening. His truck, unmarked, was parked on the street.<br />
An old woman came to the door. She made Emma look like a young, fresh bride. Deep, cavernous lines creased her face, magnifying-glass spectacles turned her eyes into huge circles, and her arthritis-stricken hands clutched unseen handlebars at chest height.<br />
"Ricky?" The woman asked, shaky voice barely making it out of her mouth. "Is that you? I always knew you'd come back for me. Take me into your arms and kiss me." The woman tottered forward, mouth pursing into a stretched smooch. Floyd jumped back.<br />
"Ma'am!" Floyd shouted, startling the woman. "My name is Floyd! I have an emergency! I need to use your phone!"<br />
"Phone?" The woman seemed confused. "Don't talk like that Ricky, you know phones won't be invented for a few more years. Why don't you come in and have some absinthe with me."<br />
"No, ma'am, I have to use your phone! I found a child!"<br />
"Child?" Floyd thought for a moment that he had gotten through to her. His face fell when she said. "No, I don't have any children. Not until you give me some, Ricky."<br />
"I'm sorry to bother you, ma'am," Floyd said, turning around and walking back to the truck.<br />
"But I finally have that car with the Corinthian leather!" The woman yelled as he walked past the truck and across the street to the house on the other side. Nobody was home, or they simply didn't answer when he rang the bell. He went back to the truck.<br />
"No luck, I suspect," Emma said.<br />
"How'd you guess?" Floyd asked, starting the truck.<br />
"I could see you through the window," Emma said, pointing. Floyd sighed and puttered the truck forward until he was in front of the next house.<br />
He rang the doorbell, and immediately heard shouting. He shrank away from the door as it was wrenched open by a man that seemed to made of beef. His face and neck were red and veined, and his massive chest threatened to burst open his white tank top.<br />
"Whattaya want?" The man-bull roared. Floyd felt drops of spit rain down on him.<br />
"I-I-I just need use your phone. Mine's broken you see, and-"<br />
"And why should I let a little punk like you into my house – my castle?!" He pointed behind him, and Floyd caught a glimpse of intense squalor before the man stood in his way again.<br />
"I-I found a child! I don't know where his parents are and I want to tell the police!"<br />
The words had an incredible effect on the man. He went from a raging hyperbole of anger to a withered, weeping soul, leaning on Floyd and dripping tears and snot down the back of his shirt.<br />
"A child!" The man said, sniffing. "Is she a little piece of heaven with strawberry-blonde hair, like her mother? Does she love to grasp your little finger and put it in her mouth? Does she like yellow flowers and cheerios and puppy dogs?"<br />
"Uh . . . er . . . no. It's a boy," Floyd said.<br />
The man reeled back, gripping Floyd's shoulders with ham hands. His face filled with blood. Floyd's eyes sprang wide, feeling himself go helpless and limp. He was nearly lifted off his feet.<br />
"It's . . . a . . . boy?" The man squeezed the words out between rows of yellow teeth. "IT'S . . . A . . . BOY?!" He shook Floyd, and Floyd's head snapped back and forth once.<br />
"Yes?" Floyd whispered.<br />
"Oh, well okay then," the man said, dropping Floyd to his bottom on the walk. "Sorry, I haven't paid my phone bill in six years." He slammed the door with Floyd still sitting.<br />
Floyd limped to the truck, rubbing his behind. The next three houses all seemed to contain a human just as dysfunctional as the two previous. One was filled to the very brim with cats, another held a trio of college students that looked at Floyd with uneven focus through red-rimmed eyes. When he asked about a phone at the first house he was handed a cat toy. At the second house he was given a brick with the word "fone" scrawled on it with a marker.<br />
At the third house he heard something before even ringing the doorbell. It sounded to him like something being sharpened. He decided not to intrude.<br />
And, when he rang the doorbell for the last house on the block, he was greeted by, as far as he could tell, the very same woman as the first house. Without saying a word he turned around and got back in the truck.<br />
<br />
Floyd began to harbor the suspicion that he was cursed. It first appeared when he was trying to change the truck's tire.<br />
They were driving along a lonely county road, devoid of cars. The sun was beginning to set. Floyd realized that the other libraries were probably wondering where he was, and then realized that if he went back along his path of stops he would eventually find where the baby had been left.<br />
"Nothing else seems to be working," Emma said when he asked her if it sounded like a good idea. "Go ahead."<br />
So he started driving the few miles back toward the last library they'd been at. They were halfway when the truck started to bobble and pull, and a loud thumping sound came from the right side. Floyd frantically pulled over, and went to inspect the tire, and found a nail thrust deep into the tire's dark surface. The rubber had shredded and pulled away, partially revealing the outer rim.<br />
Floyd had gone to get a spare from the back of the truck, and was working too replace it.<br />
When the cursed thought hit him, he worked his neck up to look at Emma, who held the child and leaned against the outside of the cab next to him. After a moment she noticed him.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
"Don't you give me that narrow eyeball, boy!" She said. "You'd still be running around like a chicken with your head cut off at that other library if it wasn't for me!"<br />
"I noticed that-" Floyd began.<br />
"And don't give me that 'It's your fault this is happening' flot! All of you young ones say the same thing! 'None of this started happening until you showed up! I think that this is <i>your</i> fault!'" Emma shook her head. "You would have found this babe one way or the other, and you should thank your lucky stars that I was here, otherwise you'd have no clue in heaven what to do! Now get that wheel offa there so we can get going! Humph!" She snorted. "It's getting cold out here! I bet the mister has a nice stew cooked up by now."<br />
Floyd jolted in surprise. "You're married?"<br />
Emma showed off her left hand; Floyd saw a circle of gold glint in the low light. "He liked it so he put a ring on it. You know that song?" Floyd shook his head. "I liked it the first moment I heard it. It's got a <i>beat</i>."<br />
Floyd shook his head and tried to tighten a lug nut on the new tire. "Righty-tighty lefty-loosy," Emma said. Floyd muttered something under his breath that he hoped she wouldn't hear. After a quarter of an hour of grunts and strains, the spare tire was on. Floyd let the jack down and threw the old tire and the tools in the back.<br />
"What do you think his name is?" Emma asked as they drove.<br />
"What?"<br />
"I <i>said</i>, what do you think his name is? He's got to have a name," She balanced the baby on her knees. "I think it's Mandy."<br />
"Mandy? That's a girl's name," Floyd said. Emma – and the baby – looked at him. "I hope he isn't named that. He's going to get teased a lot."<br />
"Are you so sure?" Emma said. "Mandy's a real name. It's short for things like Emmanuel and Armand. You should read more. You're surrounded by books all day and you don't read them."<br />
"I can't read when I'm driving."<br />
"Books on tape then," She said. Shortly, she followed it with "oh dear."<br />
Floyd was about to ask why she had said it when the smell hit. His eyes bleared and watered, making the road in front of him turn into a gray mess. The truck started to swerve on the road, and his tongue launched out of his mouth. He gave a gurgling, coughing cry just as the baby started to whine. "You'll want to pull over," Emma said, unaffected by the weapons-grade chemicals that had been released in the cab. Floyd pulled over – again – and stopped the truck. "Come with me," Emma said when she stepped down and went around to the back. Floyd followed her.<br />
At her indication, he pulled up the tailgate on the truck. Emma laid the baby on the bed and, after pulling off his pants, undid the diaper.<br />
The next thing Floyd knew, he was on the road behind the truck staring at the fading sky. Emma used a magazine to fan him. When she saw him coming around, she slapped him on the cheek in a tender way, and waited for his eyes to come into focus.<br />
"Powerful stuff, isn't it?" She said. "Mom and Dad need to watch his diet a little closer."<br />
"Musmphugnt," Floyd said.<br />
"I had an extra in my purse," Emma said, answering the question that had barely been coherent in Floyd's head, much less when he spoke it. "You'd be surprised how handy a diaper can be in a lot of situations. Not counting it's intended use, it could be a bandage or a tissue, or a hat if things get cold enough." Floyd sat up and saw her pick up the baby. In her hand was the used diaper; the stuff of legends and bedtime stories. "I guess that you don't want this in the cab with you." Emma looked around. They were surrounded by weeds and grass. "Don't know where to put it, though."<br />
"Just throw it somewhere," Floyd said, waving his hand. He stood and wobbled; he could still sense the overwhelming smell that had been released.<br />
"Well, I can't do that, that's littering! Didn't your momma teach you anything?" I'll just keep it in the back of the truck here. Next time we see somewhere it can go, I'll tell you to stop."<br />
"In the back of the truck? It can't go there! It'll . . . " Floyd made a fluttering, fingering motion with his flat hand to display his general displeasure at the thought of the diaper rolling around in the back of the truck. "Think of the books!"<br />
Emma stuck a hand into her purse. "I've got some scotch tape," she said. "That'll keep it wrapped up tight. The outside of the diaper isn't dirty at all; it's just the inside."<br />
Floyd's slack jaw quivered as he watched Emma wrap the old diaper in tape and set it gently on the floor of the truck. Floyd could swear he heard a <i>squish</i>.<br />
Emma turned and saw him leering at the diaper. "It'll be fine."<br />
He followed her back to the truck's cab. The baby, peering over her shoulder with sleepy eyes, inspected Floyd. Floyd made a face at it, a face that let him express how he felt about this whole mess: his lips were a bulbous curve, his tongue was pushed out between his teeth, and his eyes were wide. The child did nothing more than point with an unsteady hand. The other was shoved into his mouth.<br />
They made their way toward their destination. Floyd now had to think about not only the baby and the tire that he would need replaced, but the diaper that was – he swallowed – rolling around inside the back of his truck, most likely smooshing itself up against the books and DVDs that were his cargo. He was sure to take a bucket of soapy water to the truck when this was said and done.<br />
The child turned grumpy as they drove. The sky was darker now, and Floyd switched on the lights.<br />
"Almost done now," Emma said, softly. Floyd looked at her. He couldn't tell if she was talking to him or the baby. She looked up at him. Her eyes held a softness he hadn't seen before, a wish that no one would be alone when they needed help.<br />
And then she yelled. "Keep your eyes on the road, fool!"<br />
The truck swerved and pitched as Floyd wrenched the wheel, keeping it in the correct lane.<br />
"What were you thinking, doing that? You could have gotten us killed! Shoot!" She yelled. Even the baby seemed to be looking at Floyd with an indicting look. He hunched over the wheel and stared down the road.<br />
Soon they reached one of the libraries. Cars filled it and people milled around. Floyd saw flashing lights on some of the cars, and his chest seized.<br />
"They won't think you did anything," Emma said, sitting up. "Oh, they'll have reason to suspect you, but nothing will ever show up. It's just a case of a babe wandering away with arms and legs that have just learned to crawl, and it managing to end up somewhere strange."<br />
"What do I do?" Floyd asked. "What do I say?"<br />
Emma handed him the baby. "You say 'Is anybody looking for this young man?'" She sat back. "That's the last thing I can help you with. Go on now." She smiled at him.<br />
Floyd parked in the back of the lot and got out with the baby held awkwardly. He made his way toward where the people seemed clumped. He spotted several policemen and a family that seemed more emotional than most. <br />
"Uh . . . 'scuse me?" He called. One of the policemen turned and saw him. "Is anyone looking for this young man?"<br />
<br />
After being piled on by the ecstatic family, questioned by the police –<i> yes, I did try to contact you, but my cell phone broke and nobody would let me use a phone and then I had a flat</i> – and interviewed by the press – local man saves baby – he was allowed to go back to his truck. Emma was gone; he hadn't seen her leave.</div>
He drove to one of the libraries that he still needed to deliver to, and got there with an hour to spare before it closed. He got out, and walked around to the back. He slid the tailgate up and reached out in the darkness to take the first carton.<br />
His hand closed on something soft and wet.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-91959468681329836212013-09-21T12:00:00.000-05:002013-09-21T12:00:00.063-05:00Intruder<b>Please note: The following story contains adult elements, and may not be suitable for children.</b><br />
<br />
Mercedes drove a Mercedes; the coincidence tickled her. The new car felt full of possibilities and strength. It was a sleek, small thing with a black exterior and a plush leather interior. Chrome framed it, and flashed in the passing streetlights. She headed down the dark street toward her tall apartment building.<br />
<a name='more'></a> A new business contract had given her such a hefty bonus that she could no longer resist the call of this wonderful machine. Her old car now forgotten, she relished the coolness of the steering wheel and comfort of the seat. When she reached the underground garage of her building she stepped out, high heels clacking on the asphalt.<br />
The fast elevator rose as she stood inside, fingering her new keys. Her purse and coat were under one arm. She watched the number on the display climb.<br />
Exiting the elevator, she walked down the hall and unlocked her apartment. She flicked the lights on and caught her reflection in the mirror as she went past.<br />
Her long, sleek black hair was in danger of become unruly, but her makeup was perfect. Moving into the bedroom, she undressed, replacing the business skirt and blouse with jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. She wrapped her hair in a ponytail and took a deep, calming breath before going into the kitchen to make dinner.<br />
She hit the switch for the light and found a man there. He lunged at her, holding one of her knives, and before she reacted his hand was around her throat. She knew him; he was from a few floors under him. One of the hundreds of people living in the high-rise apartment building here in the city. Now he cut off her air and poised the knife over her chest.<br />
His eyes flared with adrenaline, and his breath came in short, quick blasts. His hand squeezed and Mercedes choked on his strong fingers. Her hands gripped at his wrists, trying to both pry his hand from her throat, and to get the knife away. He started to move.<br />
He walked – pushing her backwards – into the living room. He pushed her down onto a chair and kept the knife aimed at her.<br />
Her vision was locked on the knife. It gleamed in the light as it shook in his hand. She tore away her eyes and looked up into his. She knew the look.<br />
She was about to be raped in her own home.<br />
Even as the thought came to her, he moved in, pressing the knife against her shirt and gently poking the skin underneath. It was happening too fast. She had to do something.<br />
She tried to give the words she said the power they held at her job; she tried to give them strength and an air of superiority. But her fear bled into them and soaked them, turning them into a plea.<br />
"What do you want?" A stupid question; she knew what he wanted. "How did you get in here?"<br />
"Shut up," he said. His free hand shifted and she thought he was going to hit her. To her brief relief, it only came up and brushed at her eye, removing a tear that had shown up without her knowledge. The motion held softness and tenderness; for a moment Mercedes thought she was safe. She took advantage.<br />
"Please don't hurt me." She sounded better that time but he didn't respond. The knife didn't move away from her and so she kept still.<br />
He stood, looking at her. There was no processing, no wondering . . . just observing. He looked at her in a way that felt familiar to her. She realized it was how she had looked at the new car in the garage, like she was a thing to own and use – not a person.<br />
This fact made her tenser. She was in danger. "Please don't hurt me," she repeated, slowly, giving weight to each word. He still didn't move; in fact she thought the knife's pressure grew.<br />
"Do you know my name?" He asked her. His thin lips wrinkled and retreated into his mouth. He licked them and she would have shuddered if she'd allowed herself. She didn't know his name; she'd seen him only a few times, always at a distance, walking. She didn't even think that they'd ridden in the elevator together. <br />
But she knew that if she told him that, the knife would press into her. Or maybe he would scream and slap her. She thought quickly. "I knew once. We met in the elevator one time. I don't . . . I don't remember anymore. I-I'm sorry."<br />
"Liar," he said, and she cringed. "We were ever in the elevator together. I would have remembered!" He shouted, and Mercedes shut her eyes, feeling the knife on her bosom tremble. "I've seen you thirty-two times, but never in an elevator!" He screamed. "Stand up!" He moved away, giving her just enough room to rise to her feet. She felt dizzy. She looked him over. She was fit; she might be able to beat him in a footrace, but he was taller and broader and undoubtedly stronger than she was, and there was the knife.<br />
"Now lie down. On you back," he said, and her heart exploded. Trying to take her time, she got down to her knees and then her back. The man bent over her. His face was obscured from the light by long shadows. He reached forward with the knife.<br />
It's not happening, she thought. Her mind did everything it could to convince her everything was an illusion or a dream. But it was real.<br />
"If you move, you're dead," he said. "If you scream, you're dead." He hooked the knife under her shirt and started to rip it open all the way down to her waist. The shirt ripped loudly, and then her white stomach was revealed. She was glad that she wore a bra, just to give her more time.<br />
He lingered on her torso. With his free hand he reached and rubbed her belly; her entire body seized and shivered as he did. He stepped back.<br />
Mercedes' stomach jumped and her foot launched up between his legs, the heel colliding with the base of his erect penis. It was near enough to his testicles to make him scream and grip his groin and nearly topple over backwards. His grip on the knife loosened and Mercedes sprang to her feet and ran down the hall.<br />
He was behind her, a few steps away. She was faster and he still hobbled, shouting vile words at her. She slipped into her bedroom and clawed the door shut. He slammed into it. She pressed it shut as he banged against it.<br />
"You dirty bitch!" He shouted. She heard the point of the knife drive into the door's wood, and then again. "I'll kill you!"<br />
She couldn't lock the bedroom door; she had to find a way to keep it from opening. She took quick, chopping looks around the bedroom where she had spent her last three years; suddenly it was all alien.<br />
But there was a table next to her bed. On it her purse and coat lay; she reached and yanked it out from under the items. They clattered to the ground and she wedged the table against the door with all her might. A dresser was behind her and she used it to keep the table from moving. She stepped back. The rapist on the other side slammed his body against the door, but it didn't move. She backed off and caught her breath.<br />
She dove at her purse to find her phone. It wasn't there. Where had she left it? In the kitchen, placing it on the table just before the man jumped her? It wasn't in her coat either. Was it somewhere on the floor? Had it fallen out of her purse and slipped into the cracks in her car?<br />
Her car. She caught the glint of the new keys lying on the carpet, and they presented an attractive idea.<br />
If only she could get past the man outside the door – the one who had just called her a slut and stabbed the door hard enough to splinter the wood – out her door, and either down the stairs or to the elevator, she could undoubtedly beat him to her car. He had been . . . following her or stalking her; he knew how many times he had seen her, for God's sake. But that car was new, he shouldn't know about it. Then she could drive somewhere and call the police.<br />
The door boomed, and she shivered. Getting past such a big man, now enraged by a below-the-belt strike, would be hard. How could she do it? Her eyes ranged around the room again, trying to find something else. There was nothing outside her window. No fire escape for her – she was too high up. Her only route out of the building was past her attacker. Was her neighbor home? Could she bang on the wall and ask for help?<br />
Those questions would remain unanswered; at that moment the door was pushed and bent open, revealing the man's red and dripping face. He held the knife in an iron grip, and cupped his balls with his other hand. She'd managed to hurt him badly.<br />
"You've slept with hundreds of men!" He shouted. "I've seen you take them up here and fuck them, one after the other! But you won't fuck me!"<br />
"No!" Mercedes shrunk away. She came to realize that her shirt still hung open, revealing her bra and torso. She ripped it off, forcing a strange look to pass over the rapist's face. She then pulled out a sweater and forced it over her head. It was a small change but she felt safer.<br />
It only made him angrier. He pushed and heaved against the door, trying to push the table and dresser out of the way. It was too heavy for him, but the thin door started to creak, and Mercedes knew it wouldn't last long. The hinge at the top already seemed feeble.<br />
There was no kind of weapon in her room, nothing she could use to defend herself if he got past the barricade.<br />
No, wait, of course there was. She went to her purse. Her heart pounded. She'd have to move fast. She stuck her hand into the bag, gripped the small tube, and stuck it into the rapist's face.<br />
It could have passed as a tube of lipstick; it could have gone unnoticed in a woman's purse, but when she pressed down the button on the can of pepper spray the man noticed.<br />
The foul liquid assaulted him, and he screamed. He reeled back, dropping the knife and trying to rub the liquid out of his eyes, nose, and mouth. Mercedes, with keys in hand, forced her way past him and ran into the main hallway of the apartment building. She was more than twenty floors over her car, and had no shoes on. Her bare feet slapped on the thin carpet in the hallway.<br />
Stairs or elevator? Her mind thundered as she ran. Which one?<br />
She skidded to a stop in front of the elevator and mashed the button to bring the elevator down. The display told her the elevator was on floor ten, and heading in the wrong direction. She heard a slam and a shout and saw the rapist stumble out of her apartment down the hall. Without hesitating she ran at the nearby door to the stairwell and pushed it open. The cold, brittle, bluish light danced off her sleek hair as she started jumping down the first flight of stairs. Her mind was the repetition of a single thing: get away.<br />
She was two floors down when she heard a door above her crash open, followed by sputtering and coughing and gagging. The sound confused her. She had hit the man dead in the face; there was no way he should have been able to even breathe! He started to climb down the stairs and her mind started screaming run! Run!<br />
She stumbled down the concrete stairs, panicking. Her feet were pinched and scratched by the metal stair guards but she felt no pain; there was only the desire to get away. She could hear the man thundering after her, cursing loudly. His steps crashed on the stairs and his yells echoed down to her as a waterfall of horrible threats.<br />
He got closer. She knew if he caught her she would be lucky if all he did was rape her now. Adrenaline surged through her and the flights of stairs began to fly faster.<br />
She didn't know how far down she was when he reached over the railing of the stairs next to her and caught her sweater in a weak grip. She screamed and tore away from his grasp, catching sight of his face. His eyes were red and his nose dripped. She knew what pepper spray was supposed to do to someone and that wasn't it. He should have been choking, gagging, and crying, unable to see or breathe or move. Instead he'd caught up to her, looking bad, but not bad enough.<br />
Mercedes tumbled down the rest of the flight and found a door at the bottom. She pulled it open, letting herself into a hallway just like hers, quiet, thinly carpeted, and harrowingly straight. She took off running. She still held the can of pepper spray and her keys. After she'd gone a few steps she heard the rapist break into the hallway, pause, and then start running after her, slinging more words. She thought maybe somebody – anybody, please – would hear something and call the police.<br />
She still ran, pushed on by fear and knowledge.<br />
The police would find a bloody body in the middle of a hallway, gruesomely cut open with wild slashes of a knife that would be traced back to her own apartment. Of course the man would be found – his prints were everywhere – but that wouldn't matter. What would matter is the body in the middle of the hallway, a dozen floors under the floor it should have been in. The neighbors, others in the building, would say they heard noises but didn't think anything of it. The family next to hers was out, enjoying a night at the movies; they didn't hear either of them scream.<br />
Mercedes did not think these things; she only ran. Air burned in her lungs. She found a corner, the hallway turned right, and she went around it, trying not to slow down. She could still hear him behind her. Ahead there was another stairwell. Her body started to falter as she got close; her legs felt weak. As she wrenched the door open a hard hand closed on her wrist. She screamed and used the pepper spray can to bash him on the head. He released her and she ducked into the stairs.<br />
More stairs down, this time less aided by adrenaline than before. She didn't think about what would happen if it all ran out.<br />
Above her the door slammed open. "I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding, you slut!" She heard him yell. "I'll kill you!"<br />
She finally, chest heaving and legs failing, reached the garage level. She opened the door and worked to orient herself with were her car was. She'd parked in a different spot than normal. Her new car made her want more newness. Now she turned to her right and ran up the ramp toward her new black Mercedes. The ground sounded wet. When she got to the end of the row she turned up it, and glanced behind her. She couldn't see him. Had she gotten away?<br />
She begged a moment for that truth, but was not given it. Her nightmare continued when the rapist stepped out from behind a big van. A cut under his eye dripped blood down his cheek. He still had the knife.<br />
"You went the wrong way," he said, walking at her. Mercedes backed away, keeping her eyes on him. Her eyes leaked wetness and she held her hands in front of her face. "You park over there." He gestured with the knife in the direction of her normal spot. "Why'd you come this way?"<br />
She couldn't answer; no words came up. "Tell me!" He roared, bringing the knife to bear on her, as it had at the beginning. In the dreary underground light its menace grew.<br />
"I-I didn't think. I just ran," she forced out. "I wasn't going for my car."<br />
"Lying bitch," he said, moving to close the distance. She darted out from under him just as he swung, missing her. She ran up the next lane of parked cars, looking for hers. She saw it on her right, over a concrete barrier that she couldn't climb fast enough. She kept running on wooden legs. Her feet hurt and she wanted to limp but couldn't, not if she wanted to get away. She got to the end of the row and went around the wall to the row that held her car. The man was behind her, still trying to catch up.<br />
She got close enough and punched the unlock button on her remote; the Mercedes blinked. She heard the rapist exclaim something, but she didn't hear it as she dove between the cars and pulled open her car door. She opened it too fast and it banged the car next to it. She got in and locked the doors just as the man got to her. He pulled on the driver's handle, and when it wouldn't open he yelled and tried to stab the window. The knife's point slipped away, leaving a deep scratch. Next he turned the knife around and punched down at the scratched area with the end of the handle.<br />
The window smashed, spreading cracks from the impact area. She shoved the key into the starter slot as he brought the knife's handle down again, harder, furious.<br />
More cracks, bigger, spread through the window as she shifted the car into reverse and backed out of the slot. He tried to stab through the hood of her car; the knife bounced off. She couldn't see out of the driver's window. She twisted the steering wheel and reversed away from him, toward the end of the row.<br />
She looked behind her and slammed on the brake. A car came around the row and stopped, just behind her.<br />
Mercedes looked ahead of her and saw the rapist ran toward her window, knife poised to smash through the window with a final blow, leaving her a free target for all his mad hate.<br />
She shifted, and her bare, bloody foot slammed down on the accelerator. The car jumped forward, and for the moment before being struck and thrown against away from the car, the rapist's face was washed in sudden fear and disbelief.<br />
Mercedes sat in her Mercedes. The bridge of her nose, having hit the steering wheel, bled. The front of her car was dented in. The can of pepper spray – found to be five years expired – was by her feet. The would-be rapist was on the ground, immobile. The person in the car behind her was knocking on her destroyed window, asking if she was all right.<br />
The rapist didn't move; he would prove to be dead when the police, called by several people during the furious chase through the building, arrived. <br />
Mercedes found herself staring at the cracked window. She ran her hand on her side of it and shivered. So close. He had almost gotten in.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-10293411834829574382013-08-12T19:53:00.001-05:002013-10-07T20:39:18.279-05:00Brief HiatusHello! <br />
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I hope you've enjoyed reading the stories I've posted here as much as I've enjoyed writing them. There are now "ten" stories online, with more coming.<br />
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However, I've decided to give my self a break from the blog for a few weeks. This hiatus will last until the twenty-first of September, unless I'm bad at math. During this time I will be working to write a story which, due to the finer points of publishing rules, I can't put online.<br />
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You see, most, if not all, literary magazines consider "posted on a personal blog" as previously published, which means at the very least I'd be forced to remove the stories from this blog if I wanted to get recognized for them in a magazine. The sorry fact about this is, if I tell a magazine or publisher I have "ten" short stories on a personal blog, they won't consider this previous publishing experience.<br />
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Which is just . . . so cool.<br />
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Anyway, that's why I'm taking a break. The story I'm writing (in fact I'm almost done!) feels really good. I might have to jigger it around a bit to get it right but <i>man</i> did it sound cool as I planned it.<br />
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Once that's done, I may try and get another story out for possible publication, but I mostly intend to take the rest of the time to work on a whole book! It's already written, and the good people that I had read it have all responded. They gave good feedback and I'm ready to take a good strong look at what I have and what they told me. How strange it would feel to send queries about a short story, much less a book.<br />
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Anyway, I hope you've liked the stories put up so far! I hope you take the time to read any you might have missed -- I know people might not have a lot of time on their hands.<br />
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Regular content will resume on the twenty-first of September.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-54935718516026170822013-08-10T12:00:00.000-05:002013-08-10T12:00:00.819-05:00Beyond the Desired Part TwoThis is the resolution of the story "<a href="http://saturdaystory-time.blogspot.com/2013/07/beyond-desired.html">Beyond the Desired</a>."<br /><br />
<a name='more'></a><i>It's a good thing she's small,</i> Brent Johnson thought as he walked along the road heading north. He carried Margaret Agost on his back.<br /> The girl hadn't moved for several . . . hours. They weren't really hours -- time wasn't passing. Since noon, time had been trapped -- stuck at an event that he didn't fully understand.<br /> Margaret, the twelve year-old girl on his back, thought that the hidden hour, what she called a period of extra time that only she, the pastor of a Baptist church that carried her now, and a few other people could experience, was caused by the bell Old Lida, which rung high and then low. It was unique. The monster that started to hunt Margaret nearly drove her to insanity, and made her beg Brent to take the bell down.<br /> Well the bell was down now, just before it would have rung in the noon on a clear, hot Saturday.<br /> When clocks hit noon time stopped.<br /> Not really, Brent knew, but close enough. It was just like the hidden hour, but for one difference: time wasn't starting up again.<br /> And, immediately, green figures appeared, the same that had been getting closer and closer to Margaret during the night. Margaret saw one first and seemed to be in a type of coma. She wouldn't speak or move, and didn't respond to any stimulus, no matter how hard Brent tried.<br /> He'd dragged her into the church, surrounded by frozen people and figures that he didn't dare look at, for fear that he would go catatonic as well. He'd locked the doors and taken her into one of the inner offices.<br /> He didn't know what to do. Only the two of them weren't frozen in time. Clouds, electronics, anything that he couldn't move on his own was stuck. The sun hadn't budged. He sat in the office and prayed for Margaret, still bruised from the beating her father had given her a few days earlier, for the people outside the church and -- he didn't know -- perhaps all around the world that were frozen, and finally for himself, for knowledge and courage.<br /> He sat for a while in the locked room as Margaret lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling without comprehension or, Brent noticed, blinking. He thought about the bell, the hidden hour, the strange things that lingered outside the building, perhaps trying to find their way in.<br /> During the hidden hour before, Margaret had seen them -- but her brain never let her remember what they were. All she could say was that they scared her enough to keep her up all night, barricading herself in her closet with a bat. From the first hidden hour she'd seen them, each time seeing and forgetting, but knowing that they frightened her.<br /> Brent had never seen them; no one had. When Margaret came to him and told him about them he believed her, but didn't know what to think. He still didn't, and now he was stuck in a room with a girl that might as well be dead and no one on Earth to help them.<br /> But, no, he realized. There was another person, the only other remaining person that experienced the hidden hour. The granddaughter of the man that had brought Old Lida from Germany still lived. She was in her eighties at least and living in a senior home twenty miles north of the city. Brent hoped that she could still be reached.<br /> But how? Phones didn't work -- electronics on the whole were useless, unless they were already on, and even then their outputs couldn't be changed. Digital clocks displayed twelve zero zero in red or green or blue, but never ticked over. Brent guessed that his car would be just as useless. He thought a pedal bike might work, but he didn't know any way to carry Margaret with him unless he strapped her into a seat somehow.<br /> He dropped the idea. He certainly couldn't leave her lying on the floor in the church, afraid that whatever was outside would find a way in and do whatever it was they intended.<br /> He found a plastic bag and went to the kitchen of the church, glancing around each corner for only a moment before proceeding. He didn't see anything. There were a few people, frozen in a motion, and the first few times he jumped. Eventually he got to the kitchen and loaded the plastic bag with snacks and bottled water. The refrigerator was interesting; the inner bulb didn't come on when he opened the door, but the interior was just as cold. In fact, he could take his hand in the normal temperature of the kitchen, move it an inch inside the fridge, and feel the powered cold. He took the bag back to the room with Margaret.<br /> He took off his belt, looked at the plastic bag, and put it back on. He placed Margaret's wrists together and tied the loops of the bag around them, being careful not to cut off the blood flow. The important part was keeping them together. He picked Margaret up and tried to sit her on the desk in the room, but her loose body wasn't cooperative.<br /> Eventually he got her sitting with her legs off the end, and bent down under her. He turned around and slipped her thin, bruised arms over her head. He stood and gripped her legs. To any observer it would have looked like any other piggy-back ride.<br /> Brent eased open the door and looked. The hall was empty. He made his way to a north exit of the church and went out.<br /> The clouds hovered, motionless. The sun hadn't moved. He could see a few frozen people, but nothing else.<br /> So he set off. Just as the door, unopenable from the outside, closed he remembered his sunglasses. The door clanked shut and he sighed and started walking. He decided that going through open areas was a bad idea, and so he tried to stick to the shadows. The plastic bag tied around Margaret's wrists bounced against his chest, and more than once she threatened to slip off his back. He shifted his grip on her legs and kept moving.<br /><br />He'd walked for over an hour and gone -- he thought -- at least a few miles. The still sun beat down from its position at high noon. <br /> Brent was outside the small town of Green Valley now, in the surrounding plains. He wished he had his sunglasses and a hat. He took drinks from the water bottles he brought to keep from fainting.<br /> He used to run marathons and the like, but he'd stopped doing it with any regularity since getting married and moving to Green Valley. He found the odd fun run to attend every once in a while, but was nowhere as fit as he'd been in seminary. This become painfully clear as he struggled under Margaret's weight in the sun. His legs felt like heated blades and his lungs burned, but he kept moving.<br /> He worried about the girl. She still hadn't moved since seeing the green things emerging from the shadows and their hidden time. The day had begun hot and felt hotter, though the temperature hadn't changed since the Old Lida had dropped to the ground. Like many other things, the weather was stuck. The worst part, Brent realized, was the lack of wind. If there had been any wind at all, even a small breeze, it would have energized him and dried the sweat off his body.<br /> He kept walking, sure that to turn back to the town would result in nothing pleasing. The senior home now some-teen miles north was his best bet, especially since that meant getting the girl away from the things in the town.<br /> He hadn't seen any; for all he knew they were still huddled around the entrance to the church.<br /> <i>What are they?</i> The pastor asked himself as he trudged alongside the road. People? They can't be, not the way Margaret described them. They seared her brain and shot her full of hot terror, forcing her mind to erase them from memory as soon as she saw them, leaving only the knowledge that they existed and the lingering fear of what remained unseen. They glowed a dark, sick green color, had humanity's approximate form, and only existed -- or could be seen -- during the hidden hour.<br /> Which was getting closer to becoming the hidden day, at this point. Brent looked up at the sun as he walked. Could they snap it back into its normal motion? If they couldn't would it sit at the top of the world until he died? Would it burn all of its energy before being allowed to fall over the horizon and release this hot land to cool night?<br /> A verse, out of the final book of the Bible, appeared in the pastor's brain as he walked. <i>And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.</i> Revelation. The verse came just before Jesus' second coming. It was, in fact, the last chapter of the Bible.<br /> "Are they the dead, walking?" Brent asked himself. Margaret failed to answer. "Is this the end times? Not exactly going in the order we read about," he mused. he shook his head. This was not a biblical event.<br /> His brain fell into silent prayer as he bent to his task. Hours passed and he felt himself disturbed by light that refused to change. His mind expected it to blend into red and orange and purple and eventually fade down to speckled black -- but it refused.<br /> But his body began to protest. It was Saturday, the day of rest. He wanted to have his feet up watching a movie or reading or maybe doing chores around the house, eventually sitting at a good meal cooked by his culinary school wife, and then letting the day wind down, heading to bed early to get to the church rested and refreshed, ready to preach.<br /> Instead, he put on foot in front of the other on a perpetually hot day, walking a marathon with a comatose girl on his back.<br /><br />It should have been night by the time he saw the senior home. He wasn't sure what time, perhaps eight or nine. He had eaten all of the protein bars and swallowed down most of the bottles of water. He thought maybe he should try to get Grr to swallow water, but didn't know if it was safe.<br /> The senior home had motion controlled doors, and Brent waved his arms in front of them for an embarrassing amount of time before he realized why they weren't opening. He managed to get his fingers around one of the doors and pry it open; it slid with a moderate amount of resistance. He stepped into the air-conditioned air.<br /> Sweat drenched him. His shirt was soaked through, especially on his back where Margaret's weight pressed against him. It dripped off his hair and down his fingers. He wobbled toward a water fountain and pressed it futilely. The water bottles were empty and he needed to drink something. He felt dizzy and nearly sick.<br /> He found the kitchen and made a beeline for the huge refrigerators. Workers, stuck in a dance, filled the place. He found jugs of water and opened one greedily. He drank a few sips and let it settle in his stomach. A few more swallows and he felt better. He shoveled a handful of jello cups, cold sandwiches, and fruit into the bag around Margaret's wrists, and walked out of the kitchen carrying the jug of water.<br /> He went to the front desk and gingerly moved the attendant, sitting in a rolling chair, away from the counter. He pulled out a book.<br /> "What was her name?" He asked no one. "Something German. Grunder? I know it starts with Grun."<br /> He drew his finger down the list of occupants under G. He found it: Theresa Grünhimmel, third floor.<br /> He looked longingly at the elevators, and headed for the stairs.<br /><br />"Mrs. Grünhimmel?" Brent asked, knocking on the wooden door to her apartment. "Can you hear me? Are you all right?" He waited for a response. None came. He knocked again. "Mrs. Grünhimmel? Hello?"<br /> He tried the handle; it turned. Inside was a small sitting room with a few pieces of furniture and a hallway. It was all empty and devoid of life. The lights were off.<br /> "Mrs. Grünhimmel?" Brent called, looking down the hallway.<br /> The back room's door was open just a crack, and from within he heard a voice. "Mrs. Grünhimmel?" Brent tapped his knuckles on the door.<br /> "Come in," a small voice said. Brent pushed open the door and found an old woman lying in her bed, too weak to even support her head.<br /> Tired as he was, Brent rushed to her side, prying open the jug of water and holding it for Mrs. Grünhimmel to sip from.<br /> "You're the pastor," the woman said, swallowing painfully. She took more water. "What's happened?"<br /> "A petition was made to remove Old Lida. Earlier today, just before noon-" Brent looked out the window at the bright sky "-it was removed. Right at noon, when the bell would have rung, the hidden hour happened and it hasn't stopped."<br /> "The hidden hour?" The woman asked. "You mean <i>Thirteen</i>?"<br /> Brent watched her look out the window. <i>Thirteen</i>, he repeated to himself. <i>After twelve.</i><br /> "That's what I call it, at least. May I have a sandwich?" She pointed at the bag around Margaret's wrists. "The girl?"<br /> "She calls it the hidden hour. The name sounded good to me," Brent said as he brought out a sandwich and ripped open the package. Mrs. Grünhimmel took it and tore off a piece.<br /> She had short, sparse gray hair, thin arms, thin everything. She looked like a few more hours without food and she would have withered away.<br /> "How long have you been in bed?"<br /> "I don't have the energy to get out much anymore." She gestured at a folded wheelchair in the corner. "I use that when I'm not here. The workers help me eat and exercise. They're so nice." Her dim eyes looked at Margaret, and noticed the bruises and scratches on her body. "Poor thing, what happened to her?"<br /> Brent drew a chair next to the bed and eased Margaret into it. Her head thunked back and stared at the ceiling. "Her family. They're brutal to her. Her father beats her for any slight; her sisters assault her. She's the odd one out in their family." Brent reflected on what he knew about the Agosts. "They treat her like she's a disease or a parasite."<br /> "What's her name?" The woman said through her sandwich.<br /> "Margaret Agost. Her family goes to the church only sporadically. On Sunday she came to me and told me she'd experienced the hidden hour." Brent looked at the woman. "She's had it every night since."<br /> "God," Mrs. Grünhimmel said, before realizing who stood next to her. "Sorry Father."<br /> "No Father, Theresa, it's a Baptist church." Theresa nodded. "What's more, she told me she'd seen . . . something. She said that it scared her. She couldn't remember it. Her brain had destroyed the memory of it but left the knowledge that she'd seen it. Every day, just during the hidden hour it got closer and closer to her. Every time she saw it the memory would just destroy itself. Last night she said it was in her room, on the other side of the closet."<br /> "It was in her closet?"<br /> "No, she was. It was outside." Brent peeled open a jello cup and swallowed it in nearly one gulp. He offered one to Theresa. "It wanted her." He looked over at the girl. "When the hidden hour happened after we took Old Lida down, dozens of them appeared." He paused, gazing at Margaret's slack face with pity. "I suppose she remembers them now."<br /> "You didn't see them?"<br /> Brent shook his head. "No. I saw her fall, grabbed her with my eyes closed, and managed not to see any of them. I . . . " He paused. His body convulsed. "I think one got close. Maybe close enough to touch." He remembered the blasting heat and sickening stench that came off it. "But I turned away. I brought her into the church and then came here."<br /> "Why would you come here?"<br /> "You're the only other person alive that can move right now," Brent said. He looked at the small body trapped in the bed. "In a way. Do you know anything about this?"<br /> "Lord no," she said, digging out the last of her jello cup. "My father never told me anything about monsters or anything like this." She waved her hand at the window and the bright sky that should have been black. "I never heard anything like this from my grandfather, either."<br /> The pastor leaned forward. "Peter Jillian. Do you know the name?"<br /> Theresa went pale. "Of course I do. Why bring him into this?"<br /> "Why do you think he went insane?" Brent asked her. His gaze was drawn toward Margaret.<br /> "Lord above us. Do you think it was the same things that attacked the girl?"<br /> "I think it's possible." Brent gave in to his weak legs and dragged another chair next to Margaret's. "Most people who get the hidden hour have something to do with the bell. The only two who didn't are Peter and Margaret. Peter went mad and, his family says, killed himself. What if he didn't?"<br /> "You mean what if he was killed by whatever made Margaret like this? I can't tell you; I don't know." The woman motioned at the jug of water, and Brent found a cup to pour some into. After that he took a drink of his own. "I'm sorry."<br /> "It's all right. I wish I could wake her up," the pastor said quietly. "She came to me, trusted me, and now she seems dead."<br /> "I have nothing to tell you," Theresa said. "I don't know anything about this."<br /> "I suppose Peter is the one we'd want to talk to," Brent said. He rolled his neck. His muscles throbbed.<br /> "Will you stay here?" Theresa asked.<br /> "What?"<br /> "I need someone to help me into the water closet and eat and that sort of thing. You need rest. What did you do, ride a bicycle?"<br /> "Walked," Brent said. Theresa gaped. "Electronics don't work. I had to pull the automatic doors open and go up the stairs just to get to you. I couldn't ride a bicycle with Margaret on my back."<br /> "Then stay here the night." Theresa looked out the window. "You know what I mean. It helps all of us."<br /> Brent nodded. "Okay."<br /> "But before you go, I need to tell you something."<br /> "About what?" Brent asked.<br /> “Old Lida.”<br /><br />Grr woke up a few hours later screaming<br /> Brent had just fallen asleep, after locking every door and window he could and helping Theresa into the bathroom. He laid Margaret out on the couch in the sitting room, ate a little bit of food, and stretched himself from a stuffed armchair to its ottoman. He felt unprepared and undefended, and didn't feel like falling asleep. His body's clock was flipped and spun by the perpetually bright sky. <br /> He didn't like looking out the window and seeing the blue when there should have been black. It made him dizzy.<br /> Then, just as he drifted into sleep, Margaret fell off the couch and began to convulse. Brent jumped up too quickly and nearly blacked out trying to get to her. He grabbed her shoulders.<br /> With speed and fury she spun and lashed out, striking him with a balled fist on the nose. He cried out and dropped her, stumbling backward. She hit the ground and pushed herself against the wall with her feet, tearful eyes searching every dark corner. She rammed against the wall and smacked her head against it, making her yell in pain.<br /> Brent kneeled next to the couch, pinching his nose shut. He watched the girl bring herself under control and look around. She spotted him.<br /> "Mr. Johnson?" She asked weakly. He got up and went next to her.<br /> "Margaret, are you all right? How do you feel?"<br /> "Hungry," she answered. "And thirsty." She saw the window. The shades were closed but sunlight peeked through the cracks. "Where are we? What time is it?"<br /> "It's noon on Saturday," Brent answered. "Time hasn't moved since the bell came down. We're in the senior home that Theresa Grünhimmel lives in."<br /> "Who's she?" Margaret asked, looking around the small room.<br /> "She's the granddaughter of the man that brought Old Lida to America. I told you about her earlier. She's the only other person that isn't frozen right now." Brent sighed. "But she doesn't know anything about what's happening."<br /> Margaret didn't say anything. Brent brought out a sandwich fruit, and jello cups. Margaret ate them slowly. She was thinking about something.<br /> "Margaret." She looked up at him when he spoke. "What happened to you?"<br /> "I saw it," she said. "I still can't remember what it looks like, though. Even . . . " She trailed off. She crossed her arms and looked down at her feet. Curled against the wall, she looked like a broken object to Brent. "I dreamed about it."<br /> "You were in a coma. I couldn't wake you up no matter what I did."<br /> "Are we safe?" She asked.<br /> "What?"<br /> "Are we safe? Can it get in here? How far are we from the bell?"<br /> "Pretty far. About twenty miles. I don't know if we're safe but I haven't seen any of them since I pulled you into the church."<br /> Margaret stared at him. "Any of <i>them?</i>" Brent paused, then nodded. The girl put her head back against the wall. Brent saw tears. "I only saw the one."<br /> Brent didn't know what to do. Margaret rubbed her face up with her hands. Her hands kept moving, smoothing her bangs back. Brent saw the long scratch on her forehead that her sister had given her.<br /> The young girl was coming apart at the seems. Brent could see it even before Margaret bust into tears, wailing.<br /> "I can't see them again! I feel like it's going to eat me! It would have eaten me if you hadn't gotten me away from it! I'd rather kill myself then have to see it again!" She cried. Brent rocked back, shocked. "I think I'm going crazy!"<br /> "Margaret! No!" He knelt down next to her and took her shoulders. At first he thought she was going to hit him again but instead she recoiled, expecting the same thing from him. "Don't say things like that! I promise you, we'll figure out what's going on! One way or the other, we'll fix this!" He poured a cup of water for her and she gulped it down.<br /> "Margaret." She looked at him, and he looked her eyes with his own. "I want you to promise me that you won't think about doing anything like that. Can you do that?" The girl stayed still, then nodded. Her lip trembled. She wiped her eyes. Brent saw with clarity her youth, her frailty, and her fear. He took her hand. "Pray with me." She looked at him, and then nodded again.<br /><br />Morning, as Grr's body told her, came. She woke up, still feeling deathly tired and unwilling to shift. The pastor was awake and preparing a breakfast. He was talking to the old woman in the other room. Grr hadn't met her yet.<br /> After the pastor had promised her, over and over, that he would make sure nothing sneaks in to get her, she'd gone to sleep. It came quickly even with the bright sky, and now her body hated her -- her bruises complained, her stomach shouted, and her brain cried in agony.<br /> She'd dreamed again, of the something that had nearly drawn her into its grasp. She still -- couldn't -- remember -- it. It was like a burn and sear in her brain. Every time she tried to remember it, she felt a headache drill into her head.<br /> But she had dreamed about something else, too. She'd dreamed about it when she was unconscious, but didn't realize it at the time. It only made sense after she slept, and . . . facts were presented to her.<br /> "So you're the one that was screaming last night?" Theresa Grünhimmel said to her when they were introduced.<br /> "Yeah," Grr said. What kind of woman would she be?<br /> The woman smiled with thin, bloodless lips. "Well, you've been through a lot. I'm just glad you're all right."<br /> Grr didn't know how to respond. They ate their jello in silence. When they finished, Grr looked at them. "I think I know what we need to do."<br /><br />They listened first incredulous, then more accepting as Grr explained.<br /> "Are you sure?" Brent asked. Grr shrugged. She wasn't, but . . . well, he <i>had</i> spoken directly to her.<br /> "I can hardly believe it. Do you think we can trust him?" Theresa asked.<br /> "I think if what happened really did, there's no reason not to," Brent said. "How are you sure that's what he meant, Margaret?" He asked.<br /> "I didn't until last night when I said I'd rather kill myself, and that I thought I was going to go crazy." She looked at the two of them.<br /> "Yes. Yes!" Brent said. "Just like what happened to Peter!" Grr nodded. "You're right!<br /> "So you think that you'll be able to find him? But he's dead!" Theresa said.<br /> "I think we can," Grr said. "If it really was him that I dreamed about, then I think he'll be there."<br /> "But where's 'there'?" Theresa asked.<br /> "Where Peter was before he died. That would be the hospital, most likely, or his house," Brent said. "We'd have to go back to the town. I'm still worn out from yesterday."<br /> "Well, Margaret's awake now, why don't you take bicycles?" Theresa said. "I'm sure that you could find some around here."<br /> "That sound like a better idea. If we get backpacks we can take a lot more supplies with us. How does that sound?" Brent asked Grr.<br /> Grr had ridden a bike on only a few occasions, mostly just play dates with her friends. She remembered wobbling back and forth and crashing to the ground a few times, but brushing off attempts to help her. She wanted to do it for herself. She'd eventually been able to ride in a straight line, but not very quickly.<br /> "I don't have a bike but I know how to ride one," she said. "I want to do it."<br /> The pastor smiled. "Good." He looked over at Theresa. "Let's set you up with as much food as we can to make sure you make it through."<br /> They went down to the kitchens, got all the food they could, and brought it up for her. They also brought up jugs of water, buckets for her to relieve herself into, books, extra blankets and pillows, and propped her wheelchair next to her bed for emergencies.<br /> "Is there anything else we can do for you?" Brent asked, after they collected everything. Theresa shook her head.<br /> "This will keep me alive for the time. You two should get going, you have a long distance to go."<br /> "What if time starts working again?" Grr asked. "Won't people find you with all this stuff and wonder where it came from?"<br /> Theresa waved a hand and blew air out of her mouth. "I'll say I don't know where it came from and accuse the staff of playing a trick on me. I'll think of something."<br /> "Okay. Goodbye Mrs. Grünhimmel, pray for us," Brent said.<br /> "I certainly will. Good luck to you, Brent and Margaret."<br /> "Grr."<br /> The pastor and the old woman looked at her. "Excuse me?" Theresa asked.<br /> "Call me Grr. That's what my friends call me."<br /> "And why do they call you that, young lady?" Asked the old woman. She tilted her head.<br /> Grr's heart pounded. "I'm mad."<br /><br />They found two bikes, a small white bike for Grr and a bigger black one for Brent. They took two backpacks from a pair of frozen people, after Brent wrote a note stating why the backpacks were suddenly missing and who to contact to get them back. He did the same thing for the bikes and the food.<br /> "I'd rather you wear a helmet," the pastor said as he swung his leg over the seat of his borrowed bike, "but I suppose we can do without. Do you need to practice?"<br /> Grr nodded. She balanced on her toes, keeping the bike upright. She squeezed her hands around the handlebars tightly. She put a foot on a pedal and pushed, making the bike scoot forward. Sweat sprang out of her forehead and stung the long cut on her forehead, but she kept pedaling. She knew that if she could keep moving she wouldn't fall. The bike swayed and she twisted the handles to keep herself on. It settled under her and she started to move faster. She put pressure on the handle's brakes and squealed to a stop. "I think I'm ready. I haven't done this for a while but I think I remember how."<br /> The pastor nodded. "Here we go then. Remember what we talked about."<br /> "Don't look at anything that's shining green. Turn away from it and go as fast as I can." She didn't need to be warned twice -- or even once -- about the creatures that had rendered her unconscious.<br /> "Right. Be sure to say something if you feel too tired. Right now-" Brent looked around them "-we have plenty of time."<br /> They started pedaling.<br /> The day that lasted forever had the same sun, the same clouds, the same windless sky and the same hot air. Brent had to slow down to let Grr catch up, but she started to get a hang of things after a little while. Soon both sweated in the relentless heat.<br /> They went six miles in the first hour and stopped for a break. Between the town of Green Valley and the area that senior home was in was little more than flat, dry plains, covered in rough, hardy grasses. There were few trees and fewer buildings. They biked along the road that Brent had taken north, and even with time frozen saw a bare few cars. They held people stuck looking forward, or back, or talking to a passenger, or drinking, or picking a nose.<br /> Sitting in the shade of an eighteen-wheeler they drank water and ate a few snacks. The pastor told Grr not to eat too much or she would get sick, and Grr considered eating a lot anyway -- something she would have done if her mom or dad had told her not to. She put the package of crackers she had in her fingers away, though, when she realized that the pastor had nothing but her interest in mind. They got back on their bikes and kept heading south. <br /> The next hour their progress slowed. Grr felt tired and hot, and had trouble keeping up with the pastor. Several times he had to slow down to let her catch up, and they stopped after just a few more miles to rest.<br /> This time they found a gas station off the road to rest at. They were cooling in the cool interior when Grr asked the question that she had been thinking about since starting off.<br /> "What if we can't get time to start again?" The pastor, chugging water from a bottle, looked down at her. "I mean, what if it's stuck like this?" Grr had to hold her breath. She thought she was going to cry, and the pastor saw it.<br /> "There will be a way. There must be. Every maze has an exit."<br /> "But what if there isn't?!" Grr asked forcefully.<br /> Brent paused and tried to imagine how she felt. All her life she'd been the odd child out, the forgotten, living with a family that didn't love her, none of them. She'd made it to age twelve by the skin of her teeth and who knew how many bruises dealt by her father, unable to get away. She'd spent her entire life convinced that there was no way away from it. Her maze had no exit.<br /> All she knew was darkness. How to describe the sun to a girl that had never seen light?<br /> "I'm sorry Grr. I don't know," he said. "I promise you we'll try. I don't want to be stuck like this either. I want to see my wife again. I'll keep trying until I can." He smiled at her. "Will you help me?"<br /> "Yeah," she said. "I don't have a choice."<br /> "You do, Grr. You always have a choice. You can decide to accept an injustice or fight against it."<br /> Yes, there was something. He watched her scowl deepen into -- he hoped -- resolve.<br /> "Okay," she said at last.<br /><br />They looked in the hospital.<br /> The white halls, horror fodder since they'd first been built, echoed with each of their footsteps. They had to weave around the frozen doctors and patients, looking for Peter. They called out his name, feeling foolish and hating the way the name bounced off the walls around them without yielding returns. Brent asked Grr if she was sure they'd be able to find him. Grr was adamant, but didn't know <i>where</i> he would be.<br /> It was then that Brent remembered hearing Peter died while living with his parents, as they tried to keep him from tipping over the edge, into depthless insanity. He knew where they lived, too; he remembered since learning that Peter had the hidden hour. It was on the other side of town, a distance of a few miles.<br /> Still tired from the bike ride back to the town, they stopped and rested at Brent's home. His wife was in the middle of loading the dishwasher, and when he saw her he took in a deep breath. Grr thought he was going to say something but he just went to the refrigerator and pulled out food. They ate and left without saying much.<br /> Grr got better at riding her white bike on their way to town, but it was nothing compared to the skill someone gets after riding for years; she could stay upright and not much more. She took corners slowly and felt nervous about any motion more than going in a straight line.<br /> Within an hour they pulled up to Peter's house. Grr marveled at the size. It was at least twice as big as hers, with a large green lawn shaded by tall trees. They dropped their bikes on the grass and went to the front door.<br /> Brent laid light taps on the door. Grr looked around them. There weren't a lot of people on the streets.<br /> The footsteps on the other side of the door made both of their hearts leap.<br /> It opened, and there was a young man. He was lean and tall, with long white hair that cast vicious shadows on his face. He looked at Grr and Brent for a moment.<br /> "What the hell," he said after a moment. "Who the fuck are you people? How are you here?" He squinted his already thin eyes. "Wait. I know you!" He pointed at Brent. "You're the pastor from the baptist church that has the bell! But . . . you're so old!"<br /> "Brent," Grr said, tugging on his shirt. The pastor looked down at her. "I think that-"<br /> "Damn! Get inside!" Peter yelled, ushering them into the house. He slammed the door and locked it. It was dark and shaded inside. "Them! They're back for me! What else could I possibly give them?"<br /> "What did you see, Grr?" Brent asked.<br /> "I thought I saw green light on a tree," she said. She moved around the pastor. "You're Peter?"<br /> "Yeah! But who are you two? And why is it light out suddenly, after darkness for so long? Is it frozen time?" He peeked through venetian blinds for a second. "And what are you doing here?"<br /> "We came here because you appeared in my dreams!" Grr said. "I thought you'd be waiting for us!"<br /> "Why the hell would I be waiting for you? I don't even know who you are!" The young man shouted. His gaze shifted to Brent. "Pastor, why do you look so old? I saw you less than a year ago!"<br /> Brent frowned and shook his head. "Peter, you've been dead for twelve years!"<br /> Peter froze, balancing on his feet. It looked like he was going to fall over. "You're lying."<br /> Brent looked at Grr, who stood away from the windows. "Grr, what year is it?"<br /> "Two-thousand thirteen," she said. Peter released a small sound.<br /> "No! That can't be! I was born in eighty-one! I can't look like this and be thirty-two! I counted the days! It's been just about six months since . . ." he stopped. "Damn it! Damn it! Of course!" He slammed a fist in the wall. "I'm so stupid!"<br /> "Peter-"<br /> "I've been living in frozen time all this time! It's the only time I have!"<br /> "What are you saying?" Brent asked.<br /> "I know," Grr cut in. "He's only been here one hour of every day since he died!"<br /> "I didn't die! I never died! I'm only here during frozen time! It's only been six months for me! I can't believe I didn't notice it before!"<br /> "Peter, what did you think was happening?" Brent asked.<br /> "I thought I was dead. Or something. I thought that this was Hell. The sky always dark, because it was always midnight, everyone else always frozen, but moving -- they'd be able to move each hour to me." He paused. "And suddenly, who knows how long ago, the sun's in the sky and it's always bright out!" He looked at them. Grr recognized something in his eyes. "It's been six months since I've seen the sun; now it burns me!"<br /> He was mad. Grr recognized her own emotions, the ones that threatened to take over her life as she felt the green beings getting closer and closer each night.<br /> "Peter . . . how did this happen to you?" Brent asked. Grr knew already; she thought that maybe he did too.<br /> "They got me," Peter whispered. "In the night. Old Lida rang, and frozen time took over, and they scooped out my soul!" He cried. "It took more than one night! In between, during the day, my parents found me whimpering and weak! They thought I'd finally gone over, they couldn't make any sense of what I said! Beings? Fear? Desperation?" He stopped. "They were all words from a mind that was lost to the world," he muttered.<br /> "The next night they came again, and I remember it." Grr gasped. "I disappeared to the world and became a creature of frozen time. My parents thought that I had escaped when they were asleep and run off, surely dead. I was worse than dead. Trapped!"<br /> "You remember them?" Grr asked.<br /> "It's all I can see when I close my eyes."<br /> Grr noticed, then, that the young man blinked far less than she did.<br /> "Are you going to tell me what's happened?" Peter asked suddenly. "Why are you here?"<br /> Brent explained how the petition was drawn to have Old Lida removed, and how it was decided that the bell would be brought down just before noon on a sunny Saturday. Grr explained how, a week before, the hidden hour had come to her for the first time, and how every night the green beings got closer and closer to her, until Friday night when it lurked just outside her closet, trying to find some way in. Peter listened with wide unblinking eyes that drilled down on her.<br /> Brent told him about the beings appearing around the church at noon, and his escape to Theresa with the catatonic Grr on his back. Grr then explained how someone had told her to find him, that he was awake, that he could help them.<br /> "I can't help you." Peter laughed. The sudden sound startled Grr. "Help you? I couldn't help myself! Your dreams were only dreams!"<br /> "I had them after I saw the beings. I was unconscious at the time. You don't have dreams when you're unconscious!"<br /> "How do you know? Had you ever been unconscious before?" Peter shouted, hunched over her. "How are you to know?"<br /> "You know what else I saw when I was unconscious?" Grr shouted back, louder. "I saw the green beings! I saw the green beings over and over, trying to get me! The only thing that kept them from getting to me was something that would appear in their way!" She jabbed a finger. "It was <i>you!</i> You kept stopping them! You protected me!" Brent stared. She hadn't told him this. "Every time they got close enough for me to see what they really were you pushed them away! Don't tell me that I could be wrong because I <i>know</i> it was you! And then, just before I woke up, you told me to find you!" Grr crossed her arms. "Here I am! I found you! Now you're telling me that you aren't going to help?! Fuck you! Do you want what happened to you to happen to me?"<br /> Focused, her fury cut across Peter. He stood firm. Smiling, even. "You've seen them. What could I do? They aren't from this world!"<br /> "You're already insane," Grr said. Peter twisted his lips. "They shouldn't be able to do anything to you."<br /> Peter rocked back, laughing, loud and thunderous. "Yes! Of course! I'm already insane so they can't do anything to me! Why didn't I think of it before! Fine! Yes! I am immune! What do you plan to do with that fact? Use me as a shield for the rest of your lives?"<br /> "Put Old Lida back."<br /> Grr had been thinking about it all the way back from the senior home; it made as much sense as she could gather. Taking the bell down caused the hidden hour to stretch forever, putting it back up could stop it. In fact Grr thought that-<br /> "But you wanted it down!" Brent said. "You begged and pleaded!"<br /> "I thought that it was what caused the hidden hour. Now I think that it was the only thing keeping it so short. When it came down it's gone on and could keep going on forever. If we put it back up maybe it will stop."<br /> Brent and Peter looked at her. Brent thought it sounded reasonable but Peter rubbed his tongue along his teeth over and over, spinning the facts in circles, through his twisted mind.<br /> "It doesn't help me," he said finally. "How does this get me my life back?"<br /> "I . . . " Grr didn't have an answer. There was none. Was this man doomed to the life of a hermit -- with nothing but himself? "I don't know."<br /> "And you, pastor?" Peter spat out the last word. "Are you going to try to convince me that God wants me to protect this little girl out of the goodness of my heart?" Under his white hair, his eyelids drew together. "The same God that left me in this purgatory. Yes, him."<br /> Brent's heart pounded. "I would have helped you, Peter. If you had come to me and told me what was happening I could have stayed with you. You knew that the hidden hour happened to me too."<br /> "And what could you have done?" Peter shouted. "Stuck them with a stake? They never came after you! You knew nothing, just like I did!"<br /> "You see Margaret?" Brent said, gesturing at the girl. "Her father beat her without mercy because she skipped school to talk to me about what was happening to her! She stands before you whole and alive, willing to work to repair the world when only a few of us have the opportunity!<br /> "Just the two of you saw the green beings before Old Lida was brought down. I think I know why. Old Lida's distinctive ring; nobody knows why that happens, right?" Peter nodded. "Wrong. Theresa Grünhimmel told me before Grr woke up. She's the granddaughter of the man that brought it from Germany. It's because it's made of iron from two different bells. Extra iron that wasn't used. She said that for some reason nobody can figure that out, but it's true."<br /> The pastor looked at the other two. "It's extra, cast off extra. Just like the two of you."<br /> "What does that mean, <i>Pastor?</i>"<br /> "Peter. You were adopted. Do you know why?"<br /> "My birth parents couldn't take care of me. My mother was just a girl."<br /> "Yes. Grr, your family considers you the lowest of them." Grr said nothing. "I can tell. The way they act, the way you act." Brent reached forward and brushed her bangs up, revealing the long scratch from her sister. "It's obvious."<br /> "They wanted to abort me, but it was dangerous. They had to keep me." Grr looked at the floor. "You're right. I'm extra." <i>The fourth of three children.</i><br /> "The bell wasn't wanted," the pastor said. "It was given to Theresa's grandfather and he brought it here to start a new life. It's drawn to those like it. It's drawn to the extra. How many people, even in a little town like this, find themselves unwanted and put aside because of something out of their control?" The pastor shook his head. "Children unloved, women mistreated, men brought low." The light played over his face. "I have ignored them like everyone else."<br /> "You didn't ignore me!" Grr shouted. "You helped me! You saved my life after the bell was brought down and carried me into the church!" Blood rushed through her veins and she took a chance.<br /> She hugged the pastor, resting her head against his stomach. She felt his hand on her head, warm. She sniffed. She stepped away from him, feeling embarrassed and hot with emotions, trying not to cry but wanting to. She looked at Peter.<br /> This young man, twisted by insanity and long darkness, now saw the truth. That he could restore meaning to others' lives -- and so too his own. He clenched his teeth together and took a quick breath. For a brief moment the curtains of madness parted and light shone through. He smiled, and became the man he had been.<br /> He was not the same man anymore, though, and soon the darkness closed in again. But he remained resolved.<br /> "What is it we do?" He asked.<br /> "Old Lida needs to be put back up into the church's tower. It's still attached to the crane," Grr said. A fact occurred to her and the pastor at the same moment.<br /> "But the crane needs power!" Brent said. "We can't get it back up on its own!"<br /> "What? Oh, I can help with that." The girl and pastor looked at him. "I've been stuck like this for six months. I broke into the library and read all I could find on electric systems. I figured out how to hot wire things." The two others stared at him, stunned. "It's not really the way they're supposed to work, but I manage. Listen-" He held out his wrist. A watch ticked along defiantly, <i>daring</i> anybody to do something about it. "I've been electrocuted a few times, but I figured I was dead, so why should it matter?"<br /> Brent nodded, considering this stream of thought good enough. "Then we know what to do. The church is only a few miles from here. Peter . . . do you have a car?"<br /> The young man shook his head. "Cars are too complicated. Don't worry though, I'll be able to do the crane. I have a bicycle, though. I think that's what you two rolled up in . . ." He looked out the window. After a second he spun and pressed his back against the wall, mouthing <i>get down</i> at them. Brent and Grr knelt down quickly.<br /> "They're outside! All around the house! You brought them here!"<br /> "Are you able to do something about it?"<br /> Peter didn't say anything for a few seconds. Then: "Throw me those sunglasses and hat." Brent followed his pointing finger and found them on the counter. He tossed them to Peter, and the young man donned them. "I haven't seen the sun in months. When it appeared I nearly got fried. Pastor, come over here."<br /> Brent walked, bent low, over to him. "When I go out the door, shut it, lock it, and don't open it unless it's my voice giving the password."<br /> "What's the password going to be?"<br /> Peter thought for a second. "Contraseña."<br /> "Are you scared?" Grr asked from across the foyer.<br /> "No. Why would I be scared?"<br /> "They stole you soul!"<br /> "They can't exactly steal it again, can they?" Then he had reached up, unlocked the door, thrown it wide, and was gone. Brent slammed it shut and clicked the lock as soon as he was through.<br /> Immediately a bright green flash blasted through the windows, making Grr scream. They heard a shout. Another flash. A few dead seconds. A third flash. A long, rambling sentence that neither of them understood, with dips and peaks of volume.<br /> Finally they heard a knock on the door. "Contraseña," a voice from the other side said. Brent unlocked the door and peeked through. He opened it and let Peter in.<br /> "Okay, they're gone. They can steal a guy's soul but they can't take a fist to the face. The coast is clear. But! There might be more. We'd better go quickly. Let me get my bike."<br /> He ran into the attached garage and brought a mountain bike back into the foyer. He looked through the window again. "Still gone."<br /> "Do you know if you killed them?" Grr asked. Peter shook his head.<br /> "Go on out. If I see any I'll try to intercept them."<br /> They went onto the lawn and picked up their bikes. Brent pointed in the direction of the church and they started to head towards it. The pastor went first, with Grr trying to stay right behind him and Peter after her.<br /> Grr felt the pressure of time. They had eternity to get the bell back up, but the green beings wouldn't stay away forever. They needed to get there as quickly as they could.<br /> But she felt slow and tired; her motions stiff and weak. Pedaling the bike seemed more difficult than before. She thought maybe she was just tired.<br /> They took too long. Brent wheeled around a corner and stopped suddenly, making himself skid to the ground, arm covering his eyes. The motion surprised Grr and she lost control of her bike. It went around the corner and she fell. She got up with a scrape on her knee and stepped toward the pastor.<br /> She turned her head from Brent's body, distracted by a light. She saw one of the green beings and had no time to look away before the empty pits it had for eyes locked with her.<br /> The image burned itself forever into her brain. The being shifted and dribbled like goo but shined like a star. The caverns of its eyes became bottomless pits as she stared and they swallowed her, just as the gaping mouth under them grew to nightmare size over her head, and a wind of rushing terror blew over her body, freezing her cold. Her body moved with incredible speed toward the brightest light she could imagine and it overcame her, growing to become all that there was and all that there ever would be. Cacaphonic grinding filled her ears but she could not shut them, nor her eyes as the white light burned them out and turned them into the infinite pits of the green beings.<br /> Her body blurred and started to disappear.<br /> Her head hit something and then she looked up at the blue sky. Brent bent over her with his hands on her shoulders. He shouted something but she only saw his mouth move.<br /> Thunder cracked in her ears; sounds met there and she heard. "Okay? I tried to warn you-"<br /> "I'm okay." Grr sat up. Sparkles remained where the green being had been, and Peter stood near there, coming closer.<br /> She remembered with every chilling detail what had happened to her -- and every moment of her past that she had seen the green beings. The first time under the bell as it rang and the being disappeared, the second time as it rushed at her when she sat on her step, when she had looked into the window and found one staring into her mind, and after the bell was removed and failed to ring and they appeared, all of them, to feast on her -- she could not forget, for all her might.<br /> But she seemed alive and safe. The pastor picked her up and brushed her off and she got back on her bike, rattled but whole. "We aren't far from the church," he said.<br /> They reached the church ten minutes later; around it stood the frozen crowd that had gathered -- to them a mere ten minutes ago -- to watch Old Lida be brought down. The bell was still attached to the crane's end. Grr hadn't been able to see it before -- but now she could tell that the bell was not frozen in time as everything else was, but simply sat motionless on the ground. The distinction was as clear as night and day.<br /> "Peter, are you sure you're able to do this?" Brent asked the young man. Peter nodded small, rapid nods. <br /> "I can't wait. If only I were sane, then I would have been a dynamite electrical engineer. You two get up there-" he pointed at the bell's tower "-and get ready to attach this thing. Being up there should keep you safe from the green beings," he said to Grr. She nodded, and she and Brent went inside the church.<br /> Grr felt that the quiet, empty halls should have disturbed her, but they seemed as natural as her own body. Brent led her to the brick chimney that would lead them up to the bell.<br /> "Why isn't there a rope?" Grr asked. "Shouldn't there be a rope to pull it?"<br /> "No, it's automated. It goes off at the four scheduled times, and we can make it ring from a special control panel in the sanctuary if we need it to. Deaths and fires and such."<br /> "People won't like it that it's back up. What if they want to take it down again?" <br /> The pastor shook his head as they went up the narrow wooden stairs. "I don't know. I'll figure out some way. I won't let them take it down even if it means my life." He stopped for a breath. "If only there could be some way to convince them that this has happened to us. But I can't think of anything."<br /> "Me either," Grr said.<br /> "You're going to go home after everything goes back to normal. Your parents won't know what happened; I know they won't believe you if you tell them. I could get on my knees and tell my wife with crossed heart that what I was telling her is true and she might not believe me." They started going up the steps again. "There is one thing."<br /> "What?" Grr said behind him.<br /> "People will see that the bell is, without warning, back up where it belongs. Combined with me fighting against its removal . . . somebody <i>has</i> to realize that something's happened beyond their notice."<br /> Grr nodded silently.<br /> They got to the top of the tower, and Brent pulled himself into the open belfry. He reached down and helped Grr up.<br /> Only the four white corner pillars supported the slanted roof that protected the area from the elements. It was larger than Grr thought, about ten feet to a side. She kept her eyes covered until they heard Peter yell that it was safe, and then looked.<br /> Peter was in the cab of the crane, plunging his fingers into the electric guts of the machine. He had to work around the frozen body of the worker that was in the cab with him. A chorus of vile words floated up to them as he worked.<br /> It took some time. Peter shouted up that it wasn't the kind of thing he normally worked on; usually it was smaller electronics like his watch. Grr sat on the lip of the belfry, processing the pastor's warnings to be careful with nods.<br /> The green beings did not appear. It didn't matter. She remembered what it looked like. After seeing it it was like there was nothing else that mattered.<br /> Finally Peter yelled up that he got it working. To punctuate the statement, the crane's limb shifted, clanking, and hoisted the bell off the ground a foot. "You're going to have to direct me!" The young man yelled. "I can't mess with this thing and see where it's going at the same time!"<br /> Brent helped him raise the crane up until it was level with the belfry, but they realized that the crane had backed up a number of feet to gain space. Peter angrily got the bell closer and closer to its home by inches at a time, dropping it and extending it to keep it level.<br /> At long last the bell was in the right position. Brent yelled to keep it steady, and he started to attached it.<br /> "I think it's going to ring as soon as it's attached," the pastor said. "It's going to be really loud. It's also going to swing back and forth. It'll be safer if you go down." He looked at Grr and smiled. "We did it."<br /> Grr nodded.<br /> The pastor turned back to attaching it. He grumbled a string of -- compared to Peter -- mild words to himself. <br /> He stepped away. The bell hung on its support, tilting freely. The pastor could hear the mechanics starting to wind up. He plugged his ears and turned.<br /> Grr stood behind him. She hadn't moved.<br /> "Grr!" Brent shouted as the bell started moving. The arc of the bell drifted away from them. "It's not safe!"<br /> She shook her head and the bell started to drift toward them, blocking his vision from her just as she said "it doesn't matter." The first thunderous ring shook the air and forced Brent to close his eyes. It died, he opened his eyes, the bell drifted back.<br /> The second ring sounded and Grr was not there.<br /><br />In the blink of an eye darkness fell. Old Lida swung, detonating Grr's ears with her call. To Grr no time had passed but she knew that twelve hours had gone by in front of her eyes.<br /> She went down the steps of the bell tower slowly, serene. Insanity -- as Peter called it -- took the edge away from dynamic change.<br /> She got to the front entrance of the church and tapped on the door. Brent was there, waiting, with the key. Peter stood behind him with arms crossed. With the door open Grr stepped into the only world she would ever know -- frozen, still, empty.<br /> Peter said it took the green beings two nights, for her it was just two looks. The first just after Old Lida came down, the second time in the street after crashing her bike. Just two moments – but it was enough. The green being's cavernous interior had swallowed her.<br /> The pastor bent down. He was sad. "I'm sorry, Grr. I failed."<br /> Grr didn't respond. Brent bent down until their eyes were level. "I . . . I didn't even think . . ."<br /> "You didn't have a chance. None of us did. They got me like they got Peter," Grr said. "And then they left."<br /> The pastor stared at the ground. "What are you going to do?"<br /> Grr looked at Peter, standing near where the crane had been, earlier that day. "Are they going to leave the bell up?"<br /> The pastor nodded. "Some people thought it was an act of God, other people thought it was a trick. I told them in no uncertain terms that taking the bell down would mean losing something important, as well as me. I guess I should be glad that people think highly enough of me to permit a bell to keep my around. Grr. What are you going to do?"<br /> "Peter can beat them, I can beat them," she said. "We can protect others, just like Peter protected me in my dream." Brent stared. "Tell people, Brent. Tell everyone who has problems, or is dealing with something that they can't handle, to come to you." She looked up at the bell, the thing that had drawn her the first night. "They'll come to you -- like I did. We can protect them."<br /> "Are you sure?" Brent asked. Grr nodded.<br /> "Nothing else matters now. I-" She continued to stare. The bell swayed. "I told you about the first night? How I felt, just for a moment, that I had worth? That I had meaning?" She brought her head down. "This is it. Maybe if we try we can help other people feel that too, and feel it enough to keep this from happening to them.<br /> "So, send them to us. Send the extra, the unwanted. Send those that are beyond the desired. We three will take care of our kind." She smiled. The pastor smiled back. "Can you do me a favor?" She asked, suddenly.<br /> "Of course, yes. What is it?"<br /> "You've seen what my family's done to me. See that they're punished. maybe it will make other people realize you mean business. They won't ever see me again -- it will be like I died."<br /> "You want them to feel responsible?" Brent asked, horrified.<br /> "Yes. I want them to know that if they had treated me fairly, I would be with them. Let everyone know."<br /> The pastor saw the tint of insanity -- not, perhaps, the same as Peter's, but there -- and nodded.<br /><br />The pastor stayed with them, and they devised a way to pass the information of unwanted people to the two defenders, a hidden box on the church grounds with names and addresses. The pastor said goodbye, the bell rang, and he disappeared. Another day had passed.<br /> "Hey kid," Peter asked her. She regarded him. "Why did he call you Grr all the time?"<br /> "Because I'm mad."<br />Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-22107521311882764502013-07-27T12:00:00.000-05:002013-07-27T12:00:00.740-05:00Beyond the DesiredOld Lida, it was called, the strange thing. At the hours of six A.M., noon, six P.M., and midnight, it would ring out in its stuttering, gasping, two-tone sound. Cast hundreds of years ago – some say as far back as the fourteenth century, later brought to America – It had been on top of the Baptist Church on Montgomery Road for as long as Green Valley had been a town. The first ring was as many bells were: clear, distinct, high. The second, though, was lower and heavy. It remains the only church bell that is able to ring two sounds just on its own in the world; nobody is sure how it happens. Its many detractors say that is the only reason it is kept ringing, waking people in the night. There is the odd death-knell, or a fire spotted, but for the most part Lida swings away four times a day, sounding <i>ding-dong . . . ding-dong</i> at the appointed time.<br />
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Margaret Agost, called Grr by her friends, grimaced in the bell's direction as it rang the midnight, the scowl that was always on her face pointed away from the others in the room. The clock on the motel's bed stand ticked under the peals of the bell.<br />
"I'm going home," she told the other two people in the room.<br />
"Why? It's Friday," Reggie said. He tapped ash off the end of his cigarette. <br />
"I'm tired," Grr answered.<br />
"Just sleep here," Tommy said. He patted on one of the dusty single beds that were in the room. "We have it for the night." He took a drink from a can of Pabst and winked.<br />
"I'm going home," the girl said. She slid the chain lock off its berth and stepped into the warm night air of the American southwest. Lida's rings faded away into the starry sky. Grr closed the door behind her, leaving her two friends on their own. She dropped her own cigarette on the dirty asphalt and ground it out with her shoe.<br />
She turned up the street and headed for her home. She tried to get the smell of tar and nicotine out of her mouth before getting back; if her father was awake he would beat her. <i>No smoking until sixteen!</i> He had yelled the first – and only – time he had caught her. If he knew she was drinking it would be even worse, but she didn't drink much.<br />
Tommy and Reggie were just a year older than her and able to get these things. She figured once she was in high school, one year later, she would be able to get those things, but for now they were her source. They always tried to get her to stay, but they never could. She knew that Tommy wanted to have sex with her; it was obvious. She wondered if he knew how. She didn't.<br />
She was tired, but that wasn't why she had left them sitting in the Motor Motel, the seedy place that would rent a room to anyone with thirty-two dollars. The real reason was lately Old Lida had been sounding different. It made her feel like she was doing something wrong.<br />
Which she was at that hour of the day, – smoking and drinking and contemplating sex with Tommy. But it was all the time, even during the cold hours of the morning, and the ring at noon that Grr could only hear over the din of the school lunchroom if she concentrated.<br />
It made her feel unsafe . . . vulnerable. Even warm New Mexico felt cold when she sang in her cracked voice. Once she'd remembered the sound just as she was taking a test and had nearly burst into tears. Once ushered to the nurse's office she'd professed test anxiety.<br />
To get home she had to walk past the Baptist church that held Old Lida. It was not expansive; not many things in Green Valley were. It was a small town with small people and small values. Grr craned her neck back and looked up the height of the bell tower. Short black hair covered her shoulders. She could just see the lip of Old Lida, now still and silent.<br />
<i>Just a stupid bell</i>, she told herself, but in the warm darkness the lie she told herself dribbled down her spine and made her pick up her pace until she nearly ran home.<br />
Her father was asleep on the couch; the TV buzzed, projecting a late-night show. Her mother was gone, working a shift. She went by her father without fear and climbed into her bed. Her two sisters, both older and both intended, slept upstairs, but the basement was hers. She pulled the covers over her head and tried to fall asleep. She heard Old Lida's <i>ding-dong</i> as she fell asleep. The dark and her tired mind made it real.<br />
<br />
The ticking clock next to her woke her up. It always did. The metallic clink of gears inside and the hand that spun around the face held her attention until she threw the covers off. Her sisters were already awake and eating breakfast, and Grr dallied getting dressed. Spending time with her sisters was not an item high on her list of activities.<br />
Finally she padded to the dirty kitchen and stared at the boxes of cereal. She picked one out and poured a bowl as her sisters talked.<br />
"Jeremy's going to be coming home next weekend," Ginger, the older of the two and nearly out of high school, said. "He might bring home that girl that he's been seeing. Mom wants to make sure she isn't some skank and honestly I don't trust Jeremy to realize when a girl's going behind his back."<br />
The middle daughter Bernice, called Bernie, laughed. "She could probably bang three dudes in a room he's in and he wouldn't notice anything." Both of Grr's sisters noticed her, and Bernie cleared her throat. "Didn't hear you come in last night Marge. What were you up to?"<br />
"We went to the drive in," Grr said. "They had a double feature."<br />
Ginger leaned over and stuck her mouth next to Bernie's ear, whispering. Bernie stuck out her tongue and laughed. "What movies did you see?" She asked Margaret.<br />
"Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman and something that had a robot in it but I fell asleep for it. They were both super old and bad." Luckily, she did go to the drive-in enough to know what kind of movies they showed. On the table near where she sat was a newspaper. She pulled it next to her.<br />
"Most old movies are. Just a bunch of crappy actors in rubber suits," Ginger said. She took up a packet of cigarettes and stepped out the door to the porch to smoke.<br />
The door closed and Grr watched the remaining sister, just older than sixteen, turn and look at her. She knew what was coming.<br />
"Did he fuck you yet?" She asked. "Did that little fag finally tie you up and stick all three inches into you?" The words were accompanied by a smile that Grr had learned never contained anything good. "Is your cherry finally popped?"<br />
"Fuck off, bitch," Grr said. The curse words were unfamiliar and sour in her mouth, but it was the only response. She left the table and walked to her parents' room. She went in without knocking. Her mother was asleep on the bed and her father was gone, working. They always worked.<br />
That was her fault. After one son and two daughters – the perfect family for both of them – they had given up child rearing. But then came the knowledge of Margaret. At first they were going to abort, but found out that to abort would be dangerous to her mother, and so she was brought to term.<br />
She was the fourth child of three, younger than the youngest and barely remembered during the best days. On the worst days she could expect a lecture or a beating, or both.<br />
The family didn't have a lot of money to begin with, and now with more children than they both expected, working was a constant event. Jeremy, the oldest child and the single son, worked to put himself through the sham he called a college and get some sort of degree. Grr's mother worked at a dry cleaning service, steaming and pressing all sorts of clothes. Her father was a foreman at the steel mill miles out of town, and worked every day, something that he never failed to remind Grr.<br />
"Mom," Margaret said. Her mother had her face buried in the pillow. straggling, pale hair covered her head. There was no movement. "Mom."<br />
"What?" The voice was filtered by the pillow. "What time is it?"<br />
Margaret looked at the clock on the bedside table. "Ten thirty."<br />
Pamela Agost lifted her head up and looked around with sleep still in her eyes. She focused on her daughter and sat up. "What do you want this early?"<br />
"I want to go to this." Margaret handed the newspaper to her mother, who took it and fit a pair of glasses on her face. She squinted.<br />
"A protest against the bell? Why the hell do you want to go to this?"<br />
"I don't like it."<br />
"It's just a bell."<br />
"It sounds weird. It makes me sick. It makes me cold."<br />
"Fine," Pamela sighed. "I don't care. Be back for dinner or I'll have your hide. You have any homework?"<br />
"No," Grr lied.<br />
"You'd better not be lying," her mother said, taking her glasses off and putting her feet back on the bed.<br />
"I'm not." Margaret had leaned quickly how to lie. In a life like hers it was either lie or lose. She went back to the kitchen. Ginger had come back in and brought the smell of cigarette with her. She was talking on her cell phone. Bernie was gone from the table to who knew where. Grr didn't care. <br />
The protest was at noon, set to start when Old Lida rang. Grr thought that was a stupid idea but guessed that there was some complicated adult reason for doing it. She sat on the couch and watched TV until the cartoons were shut off in favor of car commercials and paid advertising of dishes or gardening tools guaranteed to make life easier. It was eleven thirty.<br />
The house was empty now. She ate a small lunch and went to the parking lot of the church. In the hot shine of the sun the bell was again just that, a bell. No herald of doom, no bringer of darkness, no death-device. She still didn't like it.<br />
A crowd of people surrounded a plastic table covered in shirts and paper. A few dozen people had already arrived and eventually Grr got to the front of the line. The woman on the other side handed her a shirt far too large and told her to sign her name on the piece of paper, which turned out to be a petition to have the bell scrapped. Grr eagerly scrawled her barely-legible name on a line and sat on a curb in the shade to wait for the start of the protest. More people arrived as it closer to noon. The sun hovered over them, hot even in the spring.<br />
Grr looked down at the shirt. It was a light green with a white square in the center. In the square was a silhouette of a bell with a jagged lightning bolt crack down the center, and the words "No More Bell!" She pulled the shirt over the one she was wearing and straightened it out, waiting for the chime that would start the very protesters trying to get rid of it. Grr looked around. She didn't know if there were enough people, and tried to think of something that would draw more. Her brain wouldn't cooperate.<br />
It happened. The bell began to sway. People called out, pointing and shouting. Grr looked up at it just as the first note sounded. She closed her eyes when the second one came, deeper and throbbing. The bell went on, again and again, telling them that it was noon. It seemed to dare them to protest. Grr clamped her hands over her ears and opened her eyes. She felt the crashes of the bell and watched it shudder as it swung. Even with her ears blocked the rings were loud and crashing, making her insides twist. Finally the bell slowed, coming to hang forlorn and quiet once more.<br />
"Okay!" Someone with a megaphone called. "Everyone please put your shirts on and stand in a circle in front of the church! If you didn't bring your own sign you can take one here if you want!" Grr went to the pile of extra signs and picked out one that said "When Something Is Broken We Fix It." She went to stand between a man and a woman, two people that she didn't recognize. Her shirt hung around her knees like a dress. The sun made her sweat.<br />
"Okay everyone, we'll start marching clockwise. We agreed on 'Bring It Down' as the saying," the person holding the megaphone said. Grr couldn't see who it was, but it sounded like a woman. "Here we go!"<br />
They began to march, bobbing their signs up and down, chanting 'Bring It Down, Bring It Down." Every time Grr got to a certain point in the circle, she would glance up at the bell's mostly hidden curve.<br />
More people arrived and joined the march, expanding their circle. It threatened to spill into the street. Policemen arrived and stood by, wiping sweat from their foreheads, watching for anything that could net them an arrest from any of the present groups. On-lookers appeared and watched for minutes at a time, thinking something more exciting would happen. Nothing did.<br />
Grr got bored. She lost count of the revolutions she had made. Her arms tired and her sign's bobbing slowed. She felt the tick of her internal clock.<br />
Eventually she noticed the table that had borne the shirts and papers cleared of and stacked with energy bars and bottles of water. She looked longingly in their direction as she marched.<br />
It was one in the afternoon before they were given a break from the march. Grr ran to the table and snatched a bottle of water, chugging it down quickly. She pushed past the pain of her protesting stomach and took a protein bar from one of the people that had set up the table. It had bits of chocolate and little nuts; Grr picked the nuts out and threw them to the parking lot asphalt. The sun's heat baked, and everywhere was too hot. She felt drenched in sweat.<br />
The march ceased for all of ten minutes, and then they gathered back in a circle and chanted once more. This continued, and Grr began to wish that she hadn't come. She didn't know how much effect her presence would have on the bell put she guessed it wouldn't be very much.<br />
Another half of an hour passed and Grr made the decision to go home. Before she could, though, the front door of the church opened and the church's head pastor stepped out, Brent Johnson, a man with receding blond hair. Grr had seen him hundreds of times, but for some reason she expected him to be wearing a black coat and a white collar. Instead he wore blue jeans and a shirt advertising a fun run ten years too late. The crowd stopped marching its circle and looked at him. The woman raised her megaphone.<br />
"We want you to take Old Lida down!" A straggled cheer picked up some strength as it went through the crowd. Grr cheered.<br />
"But it's just a bell!" The pastor said. "it's been here for over a hundred years!"<br />
"And it shows!" The woman with the megaphone blared, overpowering the poor pastor. "It's a broken old thing that should be removed! It doesn't even sound like a proper bell!"<br />
"It's got character!" The pastor shouted.<br />
"So would a new bell, one that doesn't sound like it's bi-polar!" Sparse laughter came from the crowd. "We want it taken down!"<br />
A cheer rose again and Grr cheered with them. She did want it taken down.<br />
"What if we only rang it for noon?" The pastor said. "Noon and weddings and funerals?"<br />
"No!" The woman shouted. The megaphone squealed. Everyone to a man covered their ears and winced. "It has to go!" The woman took a stack of papers from the man next to her. "This is a petition signed by everyone here who want the bell referred to as Old Lida rung no more and removed from the church. There are . . . " The woman took a quick estimate. "Over two-hundred names listed here, all of them of voting age and willing to repeat the act."<br />
Grr frowned – or, really, her scowl deepened – because <i>she</i> wasn't of voting age. Not for more than four more years. Grr looked around. She was the youngest person in the crowd, that seemed obvious, but there were others that didn't look eighteen there, too. Nobody else looked worried about this fact. The pastor responded.<br />
"All this trouble, just for a bell?" He paused. "The Elders and I will take what you've said into consideration. But we like the bell!" He turned to go back in, then stopped. "I guess don't expect us to do what you want as quick as that." He snapped his fingers and disappeared. Grr decided she'd had enough, and walked away, dumping her sign on the ground as she left. A few people glared at her, and she glared right back, employing a face that was destined for glares like some are destined for beauty. She walked home, kicking stones from the side of the road until she got back to her house. She didn't think that her dad would be back yet, so she entered the house noisily. Bernie sat at the kitchen table with a book open in front of her.<br />
"Where’d you go?" Bernie asked when Grr rounded the corner.<br />
"To protest the bell," Grr answered.<br />
"Is that where you got that huge shirt, too?"<br />
Grr looked down. She still wore the light green shirt. She pulled it off and threw it in Bernie's face. "No, I got it for you. It's the only thing that you'll be able to fit in when some prick knocks you up." She ran out of Bernie's reach, around the table, and down into the basement. <br />
She heard the click of the door to the basement steps being locked from the other side, and Bernie's voice filtered down. "Stay down there, bitch!"<br />
Grr shrugged. Her small room had enough things to do. She decided that she should at least figure out how much work she was expected to do by Monday, and so she cracked open the books from her school.<br />
After an hour or two of copying answers from the back of the book and scratching sentences that would make a computer science major blush into the open spaces of her worksheets she went up the stairs and pounded on the thin wood door.<br />
A few seconds later she heard steps on the linoleum, and the door cracked open, spilling light and the image of Grr's mother.<br />
"Bernie! Did you lock Marge in the basement?"<br />
"She said I was gonna get knocked up!" Came the shouted reply from some unseen place. Pamela looked down at Grr. Grr looked back, unwavering.<br />
"Don't say those things to your sister," her mother said, and then walked away from the door in wide, shuffling steps. Grr noticed that she failed to reprimand her sister for locking her in the basement. It was easy to notice.<br />
Grr pulled herself onto the main floor and sat in front of the TV, trying to ignore her family.<br />
<br />
It was late. The sun was gone. Grr sat on her bed and played a handheld game; her parents thought that she slept.<br />
Disobeying her parents, even without them knowing, gave her a thrill. Her lungs felt filled with electric air, and her heart pulsed in heavy beats. She listened for steps above her even though she knew that no one would think to check on her. The only other things in the basement were a small bathroom, the water heater, and the washer and dryer.<br />
It was later than she thought it was. Without warning the discord of Old Lida's sound penetrated into her bedroom, making her jump and drop her Gameboy. Her tiny man died, crushed by spikes.<br />
Grr turned and looked at the window to her right. The bell's distant ringing had no effect other than the very sound, and she scowled in its direction. Apparently the church had not gotten the hint, or they had and decided that it wasn't worth thinking about it so soon.<br />
The bell rang on and on, ding and then dong. Again and again it sounded, and Grr gave up on counting the rings; they bled together.<br />
Finally it sounded and she felt like she was hearing the last one. Years of hearing the same ring two or more times a day had chiseled a pattern into her brain, and with that ring the pattern was over. She reached for her Gameboy.<br />
One more two-tone ringing, horrible and clear, was heard. Her brain heaved to interpret it, and her game slid between her fingers. The crackling, fizzling energy of the last ring was unforgettable. Then, more so, the perverse slurring of the final second half ring made her cry out and chills run down her spine. It was as if the bell's final ring had been snatched by a hand and stretched across her ears longer than it should have.<br />
Grr's ears burned with quiet. Something was wrong.<br />
The analog clock, constantly ticking, was dead. Grr reached for it and tapped it. It refused to budge. Grr shrugged and looked at her game.<br />
It refused to move. Button presses and smacks yielded no results. She even turned the game's switch off and on and the screen remained frozen, glowing. Grr stared at it in surprise and confusion. She tore off the back cover and pulled the batteries out. Still nothing changed.<br />
Grr put the game face down on her bed to hide the glow. She looked around the room. Her clock was busted and now her game could power itself, but other things felt strange. It was too quiet, too still. Her room felt full of dead air. The sound of the water heater from over her wall, a common and comforting sound, was gone.<br />
Nothing moved.<br />
Grr crept up the stairs, hearing them creak against the unnatural silence of the house they were like a gunshot. She pushed open the door.<br />
The upstairs was just as dead as the basement. The clocks were frozen at twelve double zero. The sounds that she associated with houses – humming refrigerator, ticking clocks, settling wood – were not heard. The only sounds were the ones she made, the only motions were hers. Her ears burned, hungry for noise. She began to hear her heart beating, louder than she ever had before.<br />
She went for the door to the porch and it swung open on a creaky hinge that made Grr grimace in pain. She guessed that the entire street had heard it.<br />
The outdoors took the strange sensation of noiselessness and amplified it into a deafening lack of noise that threatened to shake Grr off her feet. Cars did not run. Birds did not swing. The very wind itself had halted. The world outside her house felt life a still painting that she walked through; no motion or change was allowed. She moved like an intruder that could, if she wished, commit the capital sin: change.<br />
And yet . . . there was a sound. No, she realized, not a sound. A feeling. On the air and in her mind was a feeling of something coming from the direction of the church . . . and the bell. She took a step and the sound echoed around her, off of every surface it could find. Usually for a sound so insignificant there was resistance from greater sounds. Now not so. Every move she made a sound, unique and young and forgotten, appeared. Each was as loud as the next and each seemed like an intrusion on the still world like she was.<br />
She went toward the bell, hearing her steps cascade around her, far louder than she ever thought possible. She reached the church and looked up.<br />
It was no more than a gentle drifting, back and forth, and the barest creak of a supporting rope. But to Grr's movement-starved eyes and straining ears the bell was in a furious dance and a loud song. Her vision was fixated on it. The gentleness of its sway hypnotized her; she began to sway with it, back and forth. It moved as if pushed by the missing breeze.<br />
She stood there for uncounted minutes, unsure of how long. She wondered how she could ever have hated it. It was such a nurturing shape, a caring sound. It was unique and special, like she was.<br />
Yes. For the first time in her life she felt a feeling of appreciation inside her. Her brow lifted, dispelling the scowl that had been etched on her face for years. She smiled, full of joy for the bell that had finally shown her what she was.<br />
A sound – other than her heart's beat and the bell's creak the only sound – came from behind her. She turned.<br />
The bell gave another off-schedule ring, shaking her and making her stumble. She fell down to one knee, scraping it on the sidewalk. As the bell's sound died around her, she looked in the dark alley where she had seen-<br />
No, it must have been her imagination. Only her imagination could create something that would lock her limbs and freeze her brain, turning her very thoughts to static.<br />
She sat in front of the church in the dark of the night, now returned to normal. Sunday morning started for Grr in the dark and the quiet of the night that felt like a blinking carnival. Sounds that would have escaped her notice blared like sirens. Miniscule motions filled her eyes. She remained looking down the dark alley that had held something that her brain would not let her remember. She thought she had seen a face but she couldn't picture it, not for all her might.<br />
She managed to get herself to look up at the bell, now over her head. The feeling she had before was gone, and she didn't get it again. The bell's swaying, once a tether to her world, was reduced to a casual motion that was out of place nowhere. It was nothing but a bell again, and she was nothing again.<br />
She sat in darkness, wondering if something else would happen. Nothing did, and eventually she picked herself up and started the trip back home, surrounded by natural night.<br />
She eased the screen door shut and looked at the glowing clock attached to the microwave. She expected it to be almost two in the morning, but she climbed into bed a few minutes later at twelve forty-five.<br />
<br />
The next morning Grr woke up confused and doubting. She wondered if the events of the last night had all been in her head, until she swung her legs over the side of the bed and saw her skinned knee. Her father was yelling down the stairs for her to get up; they had church. Grr's clock again ticked along, at the correct pace and place. She looked at it, not sure what to expect. It was eight thirty. <br />
All the clocks were in place. Nothing made the day different from any other day.<br />
Soon Grr sat in church, flanked by her sisters. Nearly the entire family dozed in the hot sanctuary. The pastor preached from Ecclesiastes thirteen and talked about life having meaning. Only Grr listened to his words with any attentiveness.<br />
After the service had ended Grr went up to the pastor as he said goodbye to other attendants. "Mr. Johnson," she said. The pastor looked down at her at smiled. She failed to return it. <br />
"Hello Marge. It was good to see your family today. Where are they?" He looked around.<br />
"They already left. I'm walking home. I need to ask you something."<br />
"Well, of course! What is it?"<br />
"Last night I was up late. I heard Old Lida ring at midnight, but something happened after that."<br />
The pastor's face changed. What had been a child's wondering became a serious matter. Grr continued. "It rang an extra time, and . . . I think time stopped."<br />
The pastor didn't answer, just watched her with slowly blinking eyes.<br />
"And . . . do you know anything about that?"<br />
After a pause, he spoke. "It's too hot for you to walk home today. Let me give you a ride back to your house after everyone else has left." He turned away to talk to another family. Grr sat on a bench in the foyer and waited until the building had cleared out. Eventually Pastor Johnson came up to her. "Okay. Let's go."<br />
<br />
"I felt different. Special," Grr said. "I didn't know how I felt. It was weird"<br />
They rode in Pastor Johnson's car toward Grr's house. Grr sat with her arms folded across her chest as they drove, and related the story of last night to the pastor.<br />
"I thought I heard a sound behind me. I looked." Grr paused. Pastor Johnson watched her out of the corner of his eye. "I think . . . I saw somebody but . . . I can't remember who. Or what." She looked out the window. "It scared me. It's like there's a white space in my memory where I saw it. And then the bell rang again and everything went back to normal. I went home and found that it was only forty-five minutes after twelve." She looked at the pastor. "I know I had been walking for more than an hour!"<br />
"You were," the pastor said finally.<br />
"But not very much time had passed! Did time stop?"<br />
"Not really, no," the pastor said. He checked his blind spot and turned a corner. "What you experienced doesn't happen to many people. In fact, only six in the whole world, as far as I know. They all lived in this town. Me included." He gave a sour grin. "Time didn't stop – that's impossible, no matter what the movies say – but you got an extra hour."<br />
"Like daylight savings time?"<br />
"No. This hour always exists, but most of the world forgets about it. They can't remember it at all. They don't have the choice. But you – and I – we're able to experience it." He looked at her. "Do you know why it is?"<br />
"It has something to do with the bell, right?"<br />
"Yes, that's right. Old Lida does it somehow. People who are attached or connected to the bell get it more frequently than those that aren't, but in your case I think an exception has been made. Unless you have a connection and didn't tell me?"<br />
Grr shook her head. "I was at the protest on Saturday to remove it. I don't like it." <i>At least, I didn't</i>.<br />
"Shame." They drove in silence. "You said you saw something. Something strange?"<br />
"I can't describe it. I don't remember anything at all. Just that I saw something and it was scary." The pastor nodded. They pulled in front of Grr's house. "What if it happens again?"<br />
"Of all the people that this . . . extra hour . . . happens to, none of us know what it's for, or why it's been forgotten. Don't try to solve a mystery wiser people than us have tangled with. Use the quiet time to yourself." He gave her a concerned smile. "I know sometimes your family can be a handful. Paint a picture or write a poem, or just get extra rest, if you can. Most people have trouble sleeping when it happens to them."<br />
"Okay," Grr said. She pushed open the car's door and climbed out. "Bye." She closed the door and walked up to the house.<br />
"Why'd you want to talk to the pastor?" Her father asked as soon as she entered the house. "What can he tell you that your mother or I can't?"<br />
"Maggie's pregnant!" Bernie said, leering as she chewed a sandwich. A piece of mashed food tumbled out of her mouth. Their father glanced at her and both girls knew if she had been in reach he would have slapped her.<br />
"Shut up! I'm not pregnant! I just wanted to talk to him!" Grr said.<br />
"The both of you, shut your mouths. Marge, get your own lunch, your mother is on a shift."<br />
Grr went into the kitchen and made a lunch. Ginger was there talking on her phone in a drawling voice with lengthened vowels. As soon as Grr entered she lowered her voice and moved away. Grr ignored her as she made her lunch.<br />
She took her lunch down the steps into her room, and as soon as she got in she heard the chorus of Old Lida.<br />
She looked out the window until the ringing died. She knew she didn't hate the bell, not anymore, but it still gave her a strange feeling when she heard it. Just a drop, just a taste of the feeling she had standing under it the night before.<br />
And the briefest moment passed when she felt at peace.<br />
<br />
That night she lay covered in a light sheet, watching her clock creep closer to midnight. Her parents made her go to bed at nine, so she could be up for school, but sleep wouldn't come.<br />
She usually slept soundly, stewing in a mixture of anger and resentment to the other people in her house. Now though she shuffled and turned, trying to find comfort when there was none. She tried not to look at the clock.<br />
She started to get nervous. Old Lida would ring soon. She wondered if it would happen again. <br />
She didn't know what to call it. 'The Extra Hour' made it seem too much like daylight savings time. Giving it a vague word like 'It' made it seem monstrous and heretical. She didn't have any idea until – just as Old Lida started to ring in the new day – she realized it should be called the hidden hour.<br />
She heard the cry of the bell drain away, and felt the barest pieces of time slip by, listening for the extra ring that would herald the hidden hour.<br />
It came. The second half of the ring, the lower ring, was again spread thin as time stopped for everything around her.<br />
Grr's mouth became a cruel smile, and she reached for a marker. She went up the basement stairs in the dead, dark, sour air, fighting her way through the soundlessness.<br />
Soon she stood in front of Bernie's bed on the upper floor. She uncapped the marker. The sound echoed through the house, and the smell of the ink was far more pungent then it would have been in normal time. Grr pushed Bernie's arm out of the way and bent down.<br />
She stood up and reviewed her work. She liked the moustache but was more proud of the beard. The eyebrow ring had a nice look to it, too.<br />
Grr didn't know how long she had been in the hidden hour, but she knew it had been at least half of it. She hid the marker deep in her closet and sat on the porch, looking up at the frozen sky.<br />
She wondered if light was affected by the hidden hour. She didn't anything about how light worked but she knew it had to move to see things. She could still see things, that was for sure. She waved her hand in front of her face; it didn't look any different from a normal motion. It didn't seem blurred, and phantom images remained, or anything else. Streetlights and glowing clock faces were the same – like her Gameboy. The sky looked like it always did: distant, unreachable, and cold.<br />
She was about to go back in when something caught her eye. Her stomach turned, remembering but not seeing the thing that had appeared last night.<br />
Down her street, hidden behind a house three lots away on the other side of the street. The source of a flickering green light moved. To not notice the light was impossible in the dry and frozen land of the hidden hour.<br />
Grr stood, limbs rigid. Her heart seemed to stop.<br />
A sliver of something came around the corner.<br />
She woke up with a scream and a start, nearly diving out of her bed. Her mind filled with the roars of urgency, telling her to run and hide.<br />
Now lying on the floor beside her bed, Grr took stock. Morning light came through the window in her wall and she could see blue sky through it. Her clock told her it was eight in the morning.<br />
She stood, and the blood rushed out of her head. She wobbled and nearly fell over but recovered. The last thing she remembered was sitting on the porch and seeing . . . she didn't know. Something – down the street, coming straight at her. Old Lida's ring was stuck in her brain. Any time that she tried to think about what had been there she could only think of the bell.<br />
Memories came back to her. She had seen the . . . something . . . coming down the street at her, and her body had gone stiff as if stunned. It got closer, and she heard her mind shrieking for movement, nearly beginning to fry her nervous system with so much energy Grr thought she would explode. It got closer and closer and then Old Lida rang once, like the night before, and the world snapped and crashed back to the noise and the motion, dispelling the something that had been rushing to dismantle her.<br />
Grr sat on her bed. Her pajama bottoms were twisted around, and she righted them. She heard talking above her, and started to get ready for school.<br />
As she went up the stairs she wondered if everything she had seen was a dream. She remembered, after Old Lida rang and the hidden hour ended, running down to her bedroom and diving under the covers, shaking and wet with terror. Sleep had come eventually, and now she paid the debt. She got to the main level of the house yawning and uncomfortable, feeling cramped, unhappy, and still floating on the effects of terror that had pumped through her veins the night before. She pushed open the door with stiff fingers and it creaked. Bright morning light blinded her.<br />
She went to the kitchen where her parents and Ginger already were. She sat at the table and looked at the down at her place mat, unable to get herself to move any more.<br />
"Was that you we heard screaming, Marge?" her father asked. He hid behind the paper, reading sports news.<br />
Grr nodded, expecting to hear her neck creak as she tilted it. She rubbed her eyes.<br />
"Hey!" Her father said, putting his paper down enough to look at her. "I asked you a question!"<br />
Grr realized he wouldn't have been able to see her nod, and nodded again, vigorously, dizzying herself in the process. She pulled herself out of the chair and poured a bowl of cereal.<br />
A scream came from the bathroom and Grr dropped her bowl, feeling the rush of energy and emotion identical to last night. The bowl dropped and smashed on the ground and Grr turned, pressing herself against the counter, expecting to see a <i>something</i> wheel around the corner of the hallway and come screaming at her, to feast. <br />
Instead, a furious Bernie stomped straight at her and, seeing Grr's expression of fear, pointed an accusing finger. "Prepare to get your ass fucked, bitch!"<br />
Grr had forgotten all about it, but it came back now. In the morning light, the permanent marker's work – Grr's work – shone. The little Hitler moustache was greatly overshadowed by the full scholar's beard that started just under Bernie's bulbous bottom lip and ended halfway down her flushed, pudgy neck. The eyebrow ring looked just as good as it had earlier . . . but the scar on the cheek looked much better in the light.<br />
Bernie lunged for her sister but Grr scampered out of the way. Bernie slid along the cheap tile in her socks, ramming into the counter that Grr had been in front of. Grr fell to her hands and knees and ran under the table, knocking Ginger's legs out of the way and making her squeal. Bernie, foolishly, dropped down and tried to copy the path as Grr ran out of the kitchen. Their father finally came to his wits and wrapped his meaty fingers around the collar of Bernie's top, making her choke and fall to the floor.<br />
"MARGARET!" He bellowed. "Get your ass back in here!" Grr peeked around the corner. "Did you do this?"<br />
"Damn right she did! I know it!" Bernie said, wrenching her shirt out of her father's grasp and standing. "Who else would do it? Dad, this is <i>permanent!</i> I can't get it off!"<br />
"Margaret!" <br />
"I didn't do it!" Grr shouted. "I swear!"<br />
"She's lying!" Bernie howled, nearly at tears. "Prom season is coming up! Nobody will ask me now!"<br />
"Nobody was going to ask you anyway, you cow!" Grr shouted, before she realized this wouldn't help her much.<br />
"Marge! Did you do this or not?" Her father demanded.<br />
"No!" Grr repeated. "I went to bed before her! You <i>know</i> I did! You <i>never</i> let me stay up late on school nights! And I didn't do it after waking up, either! You heard me wake up!"<br />
"She could have done it after everybody else went to bed!" Bernie shouted. Behind them, Ginger watched the proceedings with a bored expression.<br />
"I can't do all that without waking you up!" Grr paused. "I bet she did it to herself to get me in trouble!"<br />
"You little-!" Bernie shouted, lunging forward again. Their father wasn't fast enough to catch her this time and she drove into Grr, fists flailing. Enraged, the older sister landed punch after punch on her, making her scream in pain.<br />
In a few seconds Bernie was pulled off of Grr, who had a rapidly growing bruise under her eye, a bleeding lip, and bright red scratches on one cheek. Grr panted, gasping for breath. Bernie had nearly smothered her. Ginger came around and hauled Grr to her feet, holding her tightly. Grr might have been able to fight off Bernie if it was a fair fight, but she wouldn't be able to get away from Ginger.<br />
"There!" Their father shouted. "Now Grr looks just as bad! Pam, can you try and clean Bernie up? Ginger, get Marge to stop crying. You're both still going to school. Both of you consider it punishment for what you did to the other!"<br />
The next thing Grr knew she sat on the toilet as Ginger clumsily applied bandages to her face. They had found another scratch on her forehead that stretched nearly all the way across her face; there was nothing that could be done except placing a band-aid on the deepest spot and keep the rest of it from bleeding. It was no professional job but Grr didn't care.<br />
Ginger was packing up, angry at being forced to clean up a mess she didn't even get to make, when she whirled at Grr and said. "What were you screaming about this morning anyway?"<br />
"A nightmare," Grr said.<br />
<br />
"Jesus Christ Grr, did you get mauled by a tiger?" Her friend Betsy asked as she sat next to her in home room. "And how did you escape?"<br />
"It wasn't a tiger, it was a cow," Grr said sullenly. Her face hurt and she didn't look forward to going through the next week of school looking like an industrial accident. She allowed herself a small smile. "But you should see what she looks like."<br />
"One of your sisters?" Norman, in front of her, asked. Grr nodded. They started to realize that, more than normal, Grr didn't want to talk. She still didn't want to talk when rotund Mrs. Undurf entered and asked her what on Earth had happened.<br />
"I fell off my bike," Grr replied in an emotionless tone. The teacher nodded and turned to the whiteboard. Grr didn't own a bike; her parents never even thought of getting her one.<br />
She went through the school day telling people time and again that it she was either the target of a falsely vindictive sister, or a simple accident. It didn't matter what answer she gave when they asked, they believed her.<br />
She was dozing in math class when a clear noise woke her up. It was the distinct two-tone ring of Old Lida, and she heard it clearer than she ever had stuck in the noisy rooms of the school. It brought with it a still memory of a swirl of green terror coming at her, and for a moment in time, brought into sharp relief by a flush of pain from her face, she glimpsed the thing that her brain had filtered out.<br />
It was forgotten again, just as quickly as it was remembered, but the adrenaline that came from the brief glimpse was enough to keep Grr in a state of cold wakefulness for the rest of the day.<br />
<br />
Wednesday morning, now: hot and weary.<br />
Grr sat up in bed, waiting for it to be late enough for her to get up and not arouse suspicion. She knew even if she did that none of her family would take an interest in what she struggled with. And even if they did, there was no way for them to help her; only one person could help her now, she knew.<br />
Monday night she had gone to bed hoping to avoid being drawn into the hidden hour, or perhaps she could fall asleep before it came, but of course she didn't. Old Lida rang and it began.<br />
Grr stayed in bed instead of getting up and causing trouble or wandering the streets. She's glad she did, because as she felt the hidden hour winding down – drawing to a close – a green light, shrinking and growing in a sick pulse, could be seen around the corner of the next house over through her window, seeming to come closer. With the ring of Old Lida the green light once more disappeared, but even with it gone Grr felt a new fear: <i>it knew how to find her</i>.<br />
That day had not been any better than Monday. She and Bernie avoided each other and went to school. She didn't have to field many questions but people looked at her strange, due the cuts and the bruise. She felt tired, and could not concentrate.<br />
She went to bed that night hoping – praying – that the hidden hour would pass her by, but it did not. By the morning she was resolved to talk to Pastor Johnson again.<br />
Because during the hidden hour that night, Grr hid under her bed, huddled into herself. She closed her eyes at one point, and when she opened them, what she thought was the sweet light of morning came through her window.<br />
She threw the covers off her and gazed up at the window, hope rising inside her.<br />
The next thing she knew she was screaming, high, desperate, and chilling, as Old Lida rang and the thing that pressed itself against her window disappeared.<br />
She didn't sleep, not a wink, but barricaded the window and the door with everything she could find, from her toys to a small stack of wood that was being stored there. She locked both of them and taped the draperies shut over and over. She pulled her blankets and sheets into her closet, closed it, and taped it shut from the inside. She kept the clock with her and a flashlight on the entire time, at least until the batteries died around four in the morning. She sat in cramped darkness until six in the morning, heard Old Lida ring, and finally sank into uncomfortable sleep. Her alarm clock rang and she woke up at eight.<br />
She pushed open the door, tearing the tape. The sun banished the darkness of her closet like a holy word, and she crawled out, dragging along with her the burrow she had assembled. She threw the blankets and pillow on the bed and took down the barricade in case her parents entered. She sat on the bed and waited a few minutes, and then went upstairs.<br />
Her hair, never really docile, tangled into a knot. The wounds on her face stung. She felt tired enough to fall asleep on the steps as she climbed them.<br />
When she finally pushed open the door and walked into the kitchen even her negligent family noticed her appearance. Grr decided she must look worse than she thought, but she only poured a bowl of cold cereal and ate it dry.<br />
After a few minutes of silence, her mother cleared her throat. "Marge. I had a late shift last night, I got in just before midnight." Grr looked up at her mother through bleary eyes. "I heard you yelling."<br />
Grr remembered the scream that had escaped her lips, and to class it as a yell was like calling Mozart's symphonies "ditties."<br />
Grr lowered her head to look at her cereal. For a moment it appeared to look back. "I had a nightmare."<br />
"Again?" Ginger snorted.<br />
She was ignored. "Do you have nightmares a lot?" Her mother asked. <i>I must look really bad</i>, Grr thought.<br />
"No."<br />
"What was the nightmare about?" Bernie asked, grinning. "Go to school without any clothes on?" She recoiled from Grr's look.<br />
Grr dumped her bowl in the sink. "I'm going to school."<br />
"But it's only eight thirty!" Her mother yelled after her as she walked out the door.<br />
<br />
She didn't go to school, but instead she headed for Old Lida's tower and the church. She got there a little before nine and the building was still locked, so she sat on the steps under the dark sky. Soon it began to rain, and she retreated under the short eaves, watching her legs get wetter as time went on.<br />
Before nine-thirty the pastor arrived, not discovering Grr until he was nearly up the steps. He looked at her from under the hood of his jacket.<br />
"I've never seen such a heart-wrenching sight. Come inside."<br />
Grr followed him into his office. He pushed a chair up to his desk and sat on the other side. He laced his fingers together. "Talk whenever you're ready."<br />
It took a few minutes. She didn't know where to start, where to end, or what would be in the middle. She said as much.<br />
"It's the extra hour, isn't it? Something's happening to you. That's why you'd come to me," pastor Johnson said. Grr nodded. She felt like crying. "We last spoke on Sunday. Did anything happen that night?"<br />
Grr nodded, and started to speak. Feeling guilty and ashamed, she talked about drawing on her sister during the hidden hour, and then how she sat on the porch's step thinking about light, when she saw the green glow creep around the house a block down.<br />
"Then suddenly I was in my bed and screaming. It was morning. I remembered seeing <i>something</i> rush at me but I can't remember actually seeing it." She shook her head.<br />
After a few seconds the pastor said "it was the same thing you saw before you talked to me on Sunday?" Grr nodded. "Okay. What happened next?"<br />
She told him about Monday night, and the glow that started to invade her bedroom. Without pausing she went right into Tuesday night, how the something had pressed itself right up to her window and peered in.<br />
The pastor sat, resting his mouth against his hands, not talking nor moving. Finally he pressed his palms against the tabletop. "Margaret, you're one of six people I know about that this happens to. The first one was the man that brought the bell from Germany. The next people were his daughter, and then his granddaughter. She's still alive, living in the senior home twenty miles north of here. The fourth was a young man that was partially insane. Whether that happened before or after what you call the hidden hour can't be determined. He's dead now, I'm afraid.<br />
"I'm the fifth. It happened a year or two after I started working here. Not everyday, not like you – you've had more nights with it already than I did in the first year. But it got more frequent. My wife just thinks I have insomnia."<br />
"She doesn't know about it?"<br />
"I told her, and she says she understands, but I don't really think she does." The pastor took in a breath. "You're the sixth person, by far the youngest.<br />
"But . . . nobody has ever described something inside the hidden hour like you are."<br />
"Are you saying I'm lying?" Grr nearly shouted.<br />
"No, no. Why would you? You already have something nearly no one else does. Why embellish an already fantastic account?" Grr didn't know if she was supposed to answer. The pastor continued. "No, I believe you. I don't like it. They frighten you; they are supposed to. They seem made for it."<br />
"Why?"<br />
"Your brain destroys concrete evidence of them, up to the point that you don't know what they look like. Your brain is not stupid, Margaret. I think that if it's doing that then the memory of whatever is out there will harm you." The pastor tilted his head, as if he'd stumbled upon some answer.<br />
He looked at Grr. "I have to tell you something you won't like. I don't think that I can help you."<br />
"What? Why not?" Grr demanded.<br />
"How could I? The only way would be for us to be together during the hidden hour, and even then it's no guarantee. Putting aside skipping school for the moment, I don't think they'd like us spending a night together, your parents or my wife."<br />
Grr stared with a slack mouth at a distance between her and the desk. Thinking about the next night scared her – but to know that she had a lifetime of terror waiting for her threatened to drive her mad.<br />
"I want Old Lida taken down!" She said, her voice shaking. "I want it taken down! It's the bell doing this, you <i>know</i> it is! If it doesn't ring, the hidden hour won't happen! Please!" Grr sobbed. "Please take it down!" She pounded her fists on the table. Fat tears dropped onto the sparse carpet. "Please!"<br />
"You're getting your wish," Pastor Johnson said when Grr lapsed into silence. She looked at him. "The Elders voted to have it removed. Enough people wanted it gone. And now, how can I tell you it will stay up? It'll be taken down on Saturday." Grr sniffed. "I suppose I'll have to get used to writing my sermons during the day. That extra hour or two a week was quite useful."<br />
"I'm sorry," Grr said. She didn't know what else to say.<br />
"Think nothing of it." The pastor looked at his watch. "Let's get you to school."<br />
<br />
Pastor Johnson led her into the lobby of the middle school and spoke to the receptionist.<br />
"Margaret needed to talk to someone about a problem she's been having. She feels much better now."<br />
"There <i>are</i> councilors at the school," the woman said in a tone that held admonition.<br />
"I'm sure there are," pastor Johnson said. "And if she had wanted to talk to them, she would have. You'll allow her back in?"<br />
The woman nodded and produced a slip of paper. She wrote down the time. "What's your full name, young lady?" She asked Grr.<br />
"Margaret Agost."<br />
The woman looked up at the pastor. "Yours?"<br />
"Brent Johnson."<br />
"Sign here please," the woman said, sliding the piece of paper over the counter. With a small, charming smile, the pastor removed a pen from the nearby cup and signed it.<br />
"We'll be communicating with her parents," the woman said. She put the slip away and glared up at the pastor.<br />
Taking the hint, he moved for the door, but halted as he passed Grr. "If anything . . ." he searched ". . . different happens, call me. Can you find my number?"<br />
"I will," Grr promised.<br />
"Good. If I don't pick up, leave a message." He looked over his shoulder at the woman, who was watching the two of them closely with her mouth caught in a pinched frown, and then leaned down next to Grr's ear. His hot breath tickled. "Phones won't work during the hour. I'm afraid you'll be on your own." Grr nodded to him, and he walked out the door into the rain.<br />
"What did he say to you?" The woman asked Grr as she walked past, heading to the class that was in session. Grr looked up at her and, like the flick of a switch, decided she hated this woman.<br />
"Fuck off, bitch," she said, walking past. The woman stared open-mouthed until she was around the corner.<br />
<br />
He held nothing back.<br />
The punch knocked her off her feet and back against the door, stunning her and raising a bruise on her head. He had hit her right where Bernie had hit her a few days earlier, bringing tears to her eyes and swelling it shut. She whimpered.<br />
"Little bitch! You think you could skip school and get away with it!"<br />
"I needed to-" Grr tried to say.<br />
"SHUT UP!" Her father hit her again, on the chin. "Did you think you didn't need to go to school?! Did you think you were too good for it?"<br />
He hit her in the stomach, standing over her. They were the only two home. Her mother was gone at work, Bernie was at a friend's house, and Ginger was stuck at school working on a project.<br />
And so Grr's father pounded on her, furious. Every hit grew fresh pain in her body, and fresh anger.<br />
They kept coming. Fred Agost knew how to punch and he did it well. Grr had no chance to stop them, not with her small, weak body. She curled her arms around her head to keep the sour flesh from splitting like fruit. Blows rained down on her arms and chest and legs.<br />
With each blow her mind brought up images. They started as white bursts, but with each hammer blow on her tired body the white turned to green. The green got darker.<br />
Fred Agost landed a punch on the top of her head and rattled her. The punch knocked something loose in her memory . . . and just for a moment, Grr remembered what hunted her during the hidden hour.<br />
She released a blasting scream, loud enough to drown out the screaming that was in her head and rock her father back two steps. "Jesus!" He yelled. As soon as the scream died Grr curled into a ball.<br />
Her father took a moment to collect himself. His unwanted daughter had screamed during a beating before, but that was like no other scream. He stepped forward. "If you think that's-"<br />
"Do you know why I skipped school?" Her voice froze him. She sounded deep like a demon. She uncurled her arms and lifted her head up and the wounds, old and new, covered her face. Her one open eye was clear. "It's because every night – every god-damn night! – I have a nightmare that I can't wake up from! It's real, just as real as you or I or all those punches! The first night I didn't realize it! The second night I saw it closer to our home! Every night it comes closer to me!" Her voice thundered through the house. Her father took a step back without realizing it.<br />
"I can't get it out of my head, and I can't remember it! I burns itself out of my brain the moment I see it and all that's left is fact that I know it's coming to kill me! Me! Last night I looked it right in whatever it has for eyes and I didn't sleep again! I might never sleep again! I had to skip school because I had to talk to someone who would understand me!" <br />
Her eye narrowed, and Fred Agost saw the desperation there, the almighty fear that rode his child like a horse. "It's trying to kill me and I know it can!"<br />
Her father was at the other end of the entrance hall. His fists were clenched, and he had forgotten to breathe.<br />
She dropped her head and her eye was hidden; the spell broke. Fred shook himself. "Get yourself cleaned up." He walked away; his heart pounded and jumped. He felt afraid.<br />
<br />
She taped up one of her blankets over the window, and then wedged a piece of cardboard box under the curtain rod, shutting out all the light coming out of the window. Her wounds stung. She took aspirin after dinner but there was only so much it could do. The door to her room was already barricaded, with the bed itself, and the window was clamped as tight as she could get it.<br />
After dinner, as quietly as she could, she searched through old papers set to be thrown out and found a bulletin from the church that included Pastor Johnson's cell phone number, with instructions to call if any church goers needed help or healing. The paper was folded next to her other supplies in the closet. The flashlight, and an extra, a pitcher of water, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a few pillows and blankets, a bunch of books and her Gameboy, and a wood baseball bat. She had also pulled a phone with a long cord into her closet from the outside hall, and turned off the ringer. Her clock was next to it.<br />
Grr stepped back from the window and looked around. She'd done her best; could she do better? There was nothing else to utilize, nothing she could stack against the door or window. She was stuck in the room until the morning.<br />
She brushed her fingers over one of the bruises on her face. Her family knew better than to comment on her injuries. If they said a word, they were likely to be punished or hit themselves. Grr guessed only her mother even knew the reason for them – just as likely she didn't care. She trusted her husband to punish when he thought best.<br />
Grr stripped the sheets off her bed and built them into a comfortable den. She turned off the room's light, settled herself down, and shut the closet.<br />
It made her hot and cramped, but it felt safe. It was ten at night.<br />
The next two hours passed too fast and too slow. Every time she used a flashlight to check the clock – which ticked away resolutely – she was ten minutes closer to the hidden hour. She set the bat over her lap and put her head down on her pillow.<br />
She couldn't sleep. Her body was weary, yes, but the idea of falling asleep and leaving herself a sitting duck to . . . whatever was out there was impossible. She badly wanted to rest but her buzzing brain and thumping heart kept her awake.<br />
She checked the clock. Ten minutes until midnight.<br />
Old Lida would be taken down. Pastor Johnson had said so. She only needed to get through three more nightmare hours and then it would be done. Old Lida would never ring again.<br />
Even as she thought about it, she heard the bell's peal. The first note stopped her cold, and the second note send her heart pumping crazily. The closet suddenly seemed very dark, and very tight.<br />
Old Lida rang on. Again, again, again. She knew there were twelve, and then the special one that only three living people could hear.<br />
It rang with the final slurring sound that told her time had stopped for everything but her, two others, natural light, Old Lida, and something that her brain wouldn't let her see.<br />
The hour passed with the dripping slowness of torture. The clock didn't tick, and the flashlight didn't shine, and so she had no way of knowing how much time passed.<br />
She heard nothing and saw nothing. No garish green light filtered under the closet's door or through the cracks. She held the bat in both hands and spun it, feeling the grain of the wood under her fingers. Her face hurt.<br />
She thought the hour was nearly over; maybe ten minutes remained. Nothing had shown itself in any way. She pressed herself against the wall and kept her eyes on the door inches from her swollen face.<br />
If she had dared to crack open the door and peer out into her room, she would have noticed a green glow illuminating the window, shifting and moving – as if the source was looking for a way in.<br />
But she didn't. She wouldn't have been able to peel her fingers away from the handle of the bat if she wanted to.<br />
Finally she heard the other special ring that Old Lida reserved for her. The hour ended. Grr flicked on the flashlight and it illuminated the clock, stinging her eyes. Yes: the clock read midnight and ticked onward, its second hand descending to the six.<br />
Grr put her head down on the pillow and set the bat next to her. She snuggled next to it as it promised protection. She fell asleep.<br />
<br />
She did the same thing the next night. She'd had to endure more stares that day at school due to her injuries; again she told people she'd fallen off her bike. She knew that some of her friends like Betsy and Norman knew the truth, but they kept it to themselves. She was glad. She didn't know if they noticed that there was another change happening to her, the one brought about by sleepless nights and constant fear. <br />
She felt dry. Weak. Dirty. A shower didn't get rid of the feeling any more than a pounding from her father did. She never wanted to concentrate in school but now she simply couldn't. Her thoughts came and went and she didn't notice them.<br />
But she only had to wait two more days. Tonight – Thursday – and tomorrow. Then she could go and watch Old Lida be brought down, forever silenced. It would be a sweet sight for so many reasons that Grr's body pinged to see it.<br />
But now she had to hide. It was the same as the night before and the same things happened: time skipped by until Old Lida rang in the new day and the hidden hour, ending with the thirteenth ring that made Grr shudder and clamp her mouth shut for fear of having something hear her. Again she held the bat tight enough to force the blood out of her fingers, sitting in the closet next to flashlights and books and a plate that used to hold a sandwich<br />
Again – if she had dared – she could have seen a light searching, searching. This time it saw something she had missed.<br />
Again Old Lida rang and banished whatever it was outside Grr's window, and again Grr fell asleep next to the bat inside her constructed den, sweet relief flooding her.<br />
<br />
Friday at school she was filled with nervous energy. She only had one more night to survive, and then the bell would fall. She ignored her teachers and concentrated on staying still and silent, afraid that thinking about it would jinx the event. After school Reggie and Tommy tried to get her to come with them to smoke and drink behind the store that Reggie's dad owned, but she turned them down. Out in the open? No protection? She would be killed.<br />
She waited through dinner and the slow weekend evening, until her mother ordered her to go to bed. Grr went down the stairs and prepared her room. She had gathered a few more pieces of cardboard, and set about building her defenses. The extra cardboard went up against her door and window, all but shutting out the light from the street lamp.<br />
At ten she climbed into her fort and waited, playing her Gameboy. or trying to read. She didn't feel so afraid anymore; she felt that whatever was outside her room couldn't get in. Tommy told her once that in old books vampires couldn't go in your house unless you invited them. Maybe it was like that.<br />
She watched the clock tick to thirty seconds before midnight, and heard Old Lida, for one of the last times. She drank in the limited sound, glad she wouldn't have to cower under its power for much longer.<br />
For that last time, she heard the extra discordant clang at the end, and all the sensations of the hidden hour became real. Her room was again quiet and still. No sound except that from her own motion.<br />
She waited out the hour, telling herself not to be afraid and failing. Each moment that passed she thought she heard another sound, heralding a monster from the depths of her imagination. She kept the bat close to her.<br />
There was, she guess, fifteen minutes left when her eyes began to deceive her. She thought that she could see inside her closet. She knew she shouldn't be able to; there was no light at all to see with.<br />
But she could just sense the curve of the bat in her hands . . . the closeness of the closet's door . . . the blankets piled around her.<br />
In a moment like a blast of lightning she realized the light was green.<br />
It was so dim at first, like the barest light from the sun's first slice as it rose on a new morning. Yet it grew stronger. Her stomach squeezed around itself. With perhaps ten minutes left the light was strong enough to make out the dim outlines of her fingers in front of her face, and still it grew. Another moment and Grr knew the truth: it was in her room.<br />
Soon it would pull open the closet and doom her to a death tinged with the color of madness. She resolved to try to hit it, but her arms felt weak and tired, too heavy to lift. Her one good eye was squeezed shut and she thought that she could still see the green light infiltrate her brain.<br />
She cracked open her eye and the green flowed under the door, turning the dark closet into a neon sign. Her heart stuttered.<br />
Something touched the closet door on the other side and Grr screamed, smacking the bat against the wood. She shut her mouth and heard the clear, distant, wonderful ring of Old Lida, and the closet was dark again. More time had passed than she thought.<br />
It took minutes to keep her heart from leaping out of her throat. There was a crack in the wood where she had struck it with the bat.<br />
It had almost gotten her. There was no other way to think about it. When her frenzied brain finally dropped to the level of normal thought, she considered herself lucky.<br />
<br />
It was so hot the next day, it felt to Grr that her bruised skin was on fire. Her eye's swelling had receded a great deal, and she could have it open, though in the bright sun it leaked and she kept it closed. There was a big crowd around the church just before noon as a crane prepared to extend toward the heavy bell. Not all of the people wanted to see the bell be disconnected, many were there because it was an icon and an event to remember. The bell was already detached from the ropes that suspended it.<br />
Grr pushed her way through the crowd and up the steps, where Pastor Johnson stood with a few of the other church officials, looking up at the bell. When she got near him he looked down.<br />
"Margaret, you- what happened to you?" he asked, concerned.<br />
"I fell off my bike." She dropped her voice. "Last night it was in my room."<br />
The pastor looked over his shoulder at the other officials. They were indisposed. "Did it hurt you?" He asked quietly.<br />
Grr shook her head. "I've been hiding in my closet since Tuesday night. It tried to get in, though. I don't know how it got into my room. The door and window was locked and I put things in front of them. Can you make them get the bell down quicker?”<br />
"No, but I won't stop them, don't worry. The officials and I are in agreement. Enough people want it taken down, and there's no true reason to keep it up in this day and age."<br />
"How soon are they going to do it?" Grr asked, looking up at the crane that stretched up to the tower.<br />
"I tried to get them to wait until after noon, so we could hear it one more time, but I was overruled. It'll just be a few minutes. Are any of your family here?"<br />
Grr looked at him with a pained expression. Coupled with the bruises old and new, the pastor understood that they weren't, and that Grr was fine with that fact.<br />
Grr willed the crane to grow faster and bring it down. She wouldn't feel good until it was over.<br />
The end of the crane reached the bell's cover, and the man wearing a hard hat and work gloves that had climbed up from the inside attached it to the top of the bell. He gave a signal to a similarly dressed man inside the crane's cab, and the bell lifted into the air. The crane began to beep loudly, and Grr watched it back away from the building. Slowly the bell's shape dropped toward the street.<br />
Grr watched it, expecting something to happen. She thought maybe it would lash out with some energy and hurt her or others. Maybe it would begin to ring on its own, like at the beginning and end of the hidden hour.<br />
But in a moment it rested on the ground without so much as a tremor. At eye level it looked just like so much cast iron. It looked to be just as tall as she was, made like any other bell.<br />
"There," Pastor Johnson said. "You're safe now. It's over." he checked his watch. "It's just about noon. Old Lida won't ever ring again."<br />
Grr said nothing.<br />
The crowd dispersed, heading off to their Saturdays. A few people chatted in the shadow of the church. The sky was a light cyan color, and the clouds that drifted across it dropped dot shadows.<br />
Grr still stood on the steps of the church when one of the shadows passed over the bell and her.<br />
The Pastor's watch beeped.<br />
Grr's heart stopped as time froze.<br />
Birds in flight hovered. Clouds didn't move. The air was still and hot. The people still near the church were halted in mid step or mid word.<br />
Grr looked up at the pastor, who looked down at her with the same expression of surprise.<br />
"What?" He said weakly.<br />
Grr didn't hear him. Her eyes focused on a change in the light, coming out from between the buildings across from the church. <br />
She saw it, finally, – and she – and then – and then –<br />
"Margaret!" Pastor Johnson yelled. "Inside the church, now!" She couldn't move, locked by the figure he refused to look at. He grabbed her and dragged her into the church, pushing open the door with his shoulder.<br />
Outside more figures appeared. They dripped madness, radiated violence, finally free to roam and hunt.<br />
<br />
To be continued.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-27397064762653486872013-07-13T12:00:00.000-05:002013-11-25T18:32:09.041-06:00A FavorDon Harrison wandered in the short aisles of The Finery, a classy shop that featured pots and art and other things he didn't care about. The shop was filled with boring, light music, and the scent of flowers or something lingered in every corner. Waiting for him. He slouched through the rows, fingering with tasteful disdain the works that looked like . . . <br />
<a name='more'></a> Well, he didn't know. He supposed to some snooty person who had his nose in the air and no chin it would look good. It didn't look very good to Don, that was sure. It made him tired.<br />
Everything was brown. Everything was graceful and flowing. Everything looked the same! There was a painting of a river or a stream or something that he didn't like, for reasons that escaped him, except that it was just dumb. All the paintings looked like it. No dragons or spaceships or bikers. Just water and grass and clouds and stuff.<br />
Don scoffed.<br />
Here was a row full -- <i>full</i> -- of pots. Big pots! Little pots. Angular pots which looked perfect for the questing shin when the lights were out. Made for that very purpose, Don suspected. Did the pots have anything in them, as a proper pot should? No! Some of them didn't even have holes in the top! Why have pots that can't hold anything!<br />
Filling the end cap of the row were miniature statues of people that were brown and boring and not interesting in the slightest.<br />
Also, they were very expensive. Don, a nearly destitute high school student, stared at the price with unfeeling surprise for over a minute, only waking from the shock when a young girl tapped him on the shoulder.<br />
He looked down at her, and then realized they wore the same expression. <i>I'm only here because of someone else</i>. Don looked at the woman that stood near the girl, inspecting paints. Already in the cart the woman pushed were brushes and canvas, and other art supplies perfect for the young artist. Don looked at the girl again and gave her a sympathetic smile; the poor girl would soon be forced to paint for her mother's enjoyment. Why couldn't the mother just paint herself? Don didn't know. He moved on.<br />
Don was in The Finery because of a certain someone who had a certain event coming up and he needed a certain something to make sure she was happy. The fact that she liked this sort of thing was not something that Don was sure he was okay with; it made him think that she wouldn't appreciate a gift of a more practical nature. Like Pens. Or socks.<br />
<i>Everybody</i> likes socks.<br />
But this girl, Kelsey, wouldn't want something like that, something like socks or pens or spray cheese. She'd want something <i>fancy</i>. Fancy and <i>expensive</i>. Don pouted in the direction of the price tags on a few items, hoping that they would take pity on him and lower themselves when he wasn't looking. It didn't work.<br />
Also there was the fact that he had no idea if she would like <i>anything</i> in the store. If he brought Kelsey a ceramic disaster identical in all but the smallest detail to every other doo-dad in this store, would she turn up her nose and say "it doesn't fit with the decor"?<br />
Don put the piece he was holding back on the shelf and wiped his hands on his jeans. He would have gone to get her something easy, like a sweater or something like that, but again, he expected her to say something like "I don't like this color" or "this style isn't in right now" or "why did you get a size extra large."<br />
He walked up and down, swinging his legs in front of him over and over, until he parked himself in front of a display and found something that he really thought that Kelsey would like. It managed to blend in with the rest of the items for sale due to its unassuming nature. Aside from that, it managed to stand out.<br />
It was a small statuette of a ballerina, with porcelain skin and blushed cheeks. It had a blue dress, light gold dusting in the hair, and a blue ribbon wrapping around the bun behind her head. Don lowered himself, hands resting on bony knees, until his face was level with the object. Its tiny dot eyes avoided his gaze as he inspected it. It was small, attractive, and possessed just the right amount of sophistication that Kelsey would appreciate.<br />
He picked it up and, after preparing himself, looked at the price.<br />
He <i>continued</i> looking at the price, wondering if he was imagining things.<br />
That much for such a little thing, probably mass-produced in a dingy factory while people with hairnets and aprons made sure that it didn't have any imperfections? Oh, and what would happen if it did have an imperfection? It would cost <i>more</i>.<br />
Don put the little statue back on the shelf. He picked it up again.<br />
He had a few options. He could let the item rest on the shelf until some rich sucker came along, proclaimed it <i>object d'art</i>, and brought it home so it could collect dust next to a carving of an African rain goddess. He could also trudge to the front of the store, expensive thing in hand, and hand over nearly every penny to his name, all for something that would, at best, get him a thank you and a shy smile.<br />
Or.<br />
He could take a quick look over his shoulders (he did), slip the small figurine into a pocket on the inside of his jacket (he did that also), and head for the door with his best innocent face on.<br />
That he just nearly managed to do. If he had been able to make it ten more feet he would have been through the sliding doors and into the air not stale with flowery perfume.<br />
Instead of walking out the door, free as a bird, he heard a voice from behind him.<br />
"Excuse me sir. Could I speak to you?"<br />
Don turned and laid eyes on the woman at the counter, with frizzy brunette hair and wearing a red polo and a blue apron with words stitched on it. He immediately distrusted the woman, with the reasoning that anyone who called him 'sir' was a few tires short of an eighteen-wheeler. After a moment, he stepped closer.<br />
The woman also took a moment before she started talking. "I need a favor."<br />
Don didn't say anything.<br />
"I need someone to follow my husband and make sure that he isn't cheating on me."<br />
"Why should I help you?" Don asked.<br />
"You know why," the woman said. She looked directly at the lump in Don's coat that was his illegal cargo. Don kept himself from looking down at his coat only through intense mental strength. "I don't call the police, and you do me this favor. Maybe I even give you a discount." The woman, at least in her forties, smiled at Don in a way that made him mentally place her in a college bar, hoisting a margarita up and trying to dance with men that she had twenty years on.<br />
"Why do you think your husband needs following?" Don asked, snapping himself out of his imagination. He had not expected this sort of conversation when he got up this morning.<br />
"That doesn't matter," the woman said. "You have two choices." She flicked open her cell phone. "Either you do as I ask or you take a trip in a blue car. What's it going to be, kid?"<br />
The fact that she called him kid made him feel better; the pretense had been dropped. "Fine," Don said.<br />
"I'll keep your little package as collateral while you're watching him. If you see something that's obviously canoodling, bring me evidence and you'll get it back."<br />
Don opened his jacket and took out the statue. He handed it over slowly. The woman shook her head as she took it from him. "Why would a kid like you need to steal something like this?"<br />
"It's for a friend," Don said. "What happens if I don't see anything that looks like he's cheating? Like he's just going out for drinks with the guys?"<br />
"My husband doesn't drink."<br />
"I bet he wants to," Don muttered under his breath as the woman opened a drawer and laid the statue inside.<br />
"What was that?" She asked him.<br />
"Nothing! So, uh, maybe he's not drinking, but what if he's not doing anything?"<br />
"Bring me back pictures of what he does. If nothing happens in a few weeks then you can have your friend's gift." She held out her hand. "My name's Patricia Weitz. My husband's name is Berg Weitz. I don't trust him. He's a little sneak and if I don't keep my eye on him he'll go around doing whatever bad idea gets into his little head." Don shook her hand. "You're starting tonight. According to him, he's got a late meeting. He works at Appleton Industries and you're going to go over there as soon as you can and follow him. Until he gets home. Do you have a camera?"<br />
"There's . . . uh . . . one in my phone."<br />
"Fine. His car is a white sedan with the license WGK-108. Get out of here."<br />
"How do I contact you?" Don asked. The day had taken a strange turn.<br />
Patricia sighed and ripped off a small piece of paper. She scrawled phone numbers on it, and her home address after a moment's thought, and shoved it toward Don. He pocketed it.<br />
<br />
And so Don found himself sitting behind the steering wheel of his beat-up station wagon in the dark shadow of a tree after dinner. He didn't have any lights on and he couldn't see an elephant if it was parked on his hood. But he <i>could</i> see Berg Weitz's car, the white sedan with the license number WGK-108. It was still in the parking lot of Appleton Industries, a company which did any number of things that Don didn't care about. It seemed that, unless Don had failed spectacularly when locating the car, Mr. Weitz really was working late.<br />
Don took a practice picture with the grainy camera included in his cell phone. He aimed it at the car that belonged to Mr. Weitz and clicked the button.<br />
He could have taken a better picture with a potato.<br />
It was seven thirty before Berg Weitz made his appearance. He was a short, round man that rolled more than walked across the parking lot, dressed in a blue button-down shirt and black slacks. It was a cool, dark night, but Don believed that if he could get a good look at the pudgy face that bounced on top of the equally pudgy body, it would have been slick with sweat.<br />
The round Mr. Weitz waddled to the car that Don had picked out, and squeezed himself into the driver's seat. The car tilted noticeably. The engine coughed to a start and the car rolled backwards out of its spot, making a line through the deserted parking lot toward the exit. When Mr. Weitz's car was far enough away, Don started his own car and drove after him. <br />
In no time at all Berg Weitz's car had pulled into the drive of the address that Patricia had given Don with nothing happening on the trip more untrustworthy than a momentary hesitation when passing a McDonald's. Don stayed back as far as he could while making sure he could see where Mr. Weitz was headed, and he was able to trail him all the way until Mr. Weitz rolled his car into the garage and closed the door. Don turned around and drove home.<br />
On the way back he called Patricia. She answered moments into the first ring.<br />
"Well?" The woman's demanding voice came through the phone.<br />
"He left work at seven thirty and drove straight home. I waited there for over two hours. He didn't go anywhere else."<br />
The voice on the other end of the line sighed. "Maybe not this time. You'll need to follow him for a few more days. I still don't trust him."<br />
"But he didn't <i>do</i> anything!" Don shouted. "He went straight home!"<br />
"Yes. <i>This time</i>. I swear, do you have any kind of brain in your skull? Do the same thing tomorrow. He says he has another late meeting."<br />
"What about school?"<br />
"Don't make me laugh. You don't care that much about school." Don had to admit she had a point; if he spent more than an hour a night doing homework his mother would ask him if everything was all right. <br />
"What about my parents? They might start asking me where I am every night!"<br />
"I don't care. Lie. Tell them you're at the library or the bowling alley. You're the one who's in trouble here." She hung up.<br />
Don sighed and dropped the cell phone in the passenger seat. "Nobody goes to bowling alleys anymore, lady."<br />
Don drove home and went to bed, avoiding his parents easily. Both of his parents had decided when he was young that "a education" on the streets would benefit him more than proper schooling. Sometimes Don wondered why they still made him go to school in that case, but he supposed that they didn't have a choice. People would talk.<br />
He drifted to sleep wondering if he could make something up to get his statue back quickly. He didn't enjoy waiting for a fat old man to come bumbling out of his meetings every night.<br />
<br />
Yet, much to his chagrin, again he sat in his car waiting for Berg Weitz to come out of his office. It was five thirty, the time that Patricia described as his normal quitting time. Don settled in for another boring evening of waiting for Mr. Weitz to appear: first the stomach, than the face, and finally the trembling legs with slacks flapping around them.<br />
To Don's surprise, just a few minutes after that Mr. Weitz appeared, heading out to his car. Don's heart jumped. Patricia had told him that he would be staying late for a meeting again! Don fully expected to be led to a back-alley hotel, where he would take a picture of Berg Weitz lying on top of a young pretty thing. Maybe she would have red hair, and Mr. Weitz would bury his face in it as the woman pretended to be satisfied. Or maybe she would have great big breasts, and Mr. Weitz would grip them as he finished in record time.<br />
Don grimaced and shuddered, trying to free the image from his mind.<br />
Berg Weitz's car pulled out of the parking lot and Don followed him at a distance just like before. But, again, Don simply followed Patricia's husband home.<br />
"But I thought he said he was going to be late!" Don said to Patricia later that night. "That's what you told me!"<br />
"He said that it got canceled until tomorrow afternoon. He said he should be home by the normal time tomorrow so you're off the hook until the next day."<br />
"That's good. If he sees me there's no way he won't notice I've been following him home for the last two days."<br />
"If he does catch you, it's on you. If you tell him I'm behind it, you can say goodbye to your statue and hello to the police."<br />
"Well aren't you just a happy little wife! Give it up, he's clearly not doing anything! And if he is, I'm not really surprised!" Don cut himself off. Nothing but cold silence came from the other line. "At least tell me <i>why</i> you think he needs following!"<br />
"You're a cheeky little punk, aren't you?" Patricia growled. "Step light kid, or it's off to the big house."<br />
"You know, I'm pretty sure that I won't be arrested for attempted petty theft, <i>Patricia</i>. I bet you don't even have any evidence! It's just your word against mine."<br />
"What am I, an idiot? There were cameras pointed all over the place! They saw you stuff it in your pocket!"<br />
"I'm no idiot either," Don said, bringing his mouth close to the receiver. "I looked for cameras There weren't any. Are you gonna say you had some looking at me from some of those boring pots? Why don't you just ask your husband if he's cheating on you? I bet a man that size starts to sweat if his heart speeds up an extra beat. Well?"<br />
"I can't ask him, moron! He'll stop whatever he's doing and be the perfect husband for weeks or months! Say what you want about his size -- I'll agree -- but my husband is a careful man. He won't risk it. You know, you're acting like you don't even want your little dancer back. What's her name?"<br />
"What?" Don asked. He had been daydreaming about stuff during Patricia's rant. "Who's 'her'?"<br />
"The girl you tried to steal the statue for, dimwit. She must have low standards if she likes you."<br />
"She . . . doesn't like me yet. We're just friends. I'm going to her birthday party next Saturday, and it was going to be her present. She likes that sort of thing. That's the only reason I'd go into that stupid store. I could barely get ten feet before I felt sleepy."<br />
"There's a reason for that. Sleepy shoppers feel more comfortable. They buy more," Patricia said. Don scowled. Dirty. "Anyway. Her name."<br />
Don hesitated. "Kelsey. We go to the same high school."<br />
"Well, I hear girls aren't that impressed by petty theft. It's a nice piece, though. I'm looking at it right now."<br />
"You have it with you?" Don asked, surprised.<br />
"Well, I wasn't going to just leave it in the store, was I? Good grief you're stupid. I-" Don suddenly heard another voice over the line. "Trish? Who are you talking to?"<br />
"Nobody!" Patricia said back. The sound was muffled.<br />
"What's that you've got? Where did you get that?"<br />
"I bought it from the store," Patricia said. Don heard the obvious lie like it was a slap across the face.<br />
"You don't like any of that crap, I know you don't! That was a gift, wasn't it? Who are you on the phone with?" Don heard a frantic scuffle, complete with low curse words, and a whiny voice that Don pictured coming from Berg Weitz's pudgy form easily emanated from the phone. "Who is this?"<br />
"Why, this is Karl Cannata from Hybrid Motors in Forest Lake! I just called to tell you about some of the great deals that we have going on right now here at Hybrid Motors in Forest Lake. I was talking to your lovely wife, and she was interested in a new-" Don's mind reached for the first thing that sounded like a car "-Ford Pisces! They get over twenty-five miles to the gallon and have more leg room than the leading sedan, as well as a group of <i>spectacular</i> features that will make any car lover squeal!"<br />
"Okay, you can cut the crap. He gave me the phone back and stomped away," Patricia said. "Good work, though."<br />
"And now, we're even," Don said. "I want that statue back."<br />
Again, not a sound came from the other line. It went on for quite a while. Don yawned.<br />
"Let's make a deal," Patricia finally said. "You keep tabs on fatso until your sweetie's birthday party. If nothing rears its ugly head by then, come by The Finery before you go to the party and pick up the statue. You're going to have to pay for it though. You said that the party was on Saturday?"<br />
"Yeah."<br />
"Good. I work most of the day then."<br />
"Fine. Just send me a message the next time you think your husband is going behind your back. I have homework to do," Don said, and he clicked off the call. He did have homework, but he wasn't going to do it.<br />
<br />
After just a day of silence Don got a message from Patricia saying that her husband was going to go bowling after work with a few of his coworkers from Appleton Inc. She said that she expected Don to follow him and make sure that nothing else was going on.<br />
"And," Patricia said before ending the call, "that means, if he does go to a bowling alley, going in after him to make sure that he's only bowling."<br />
"What is it with you and bowling?" Don asked angrily. Patricia hung up without responding.<br />
And so it was that Don watched Berg Weitz enter a place called Leary's Bowl, a place that must have been housing every bowling enthusiast within a hundred miles that night. There were three dozen cars.<br />
Don waited a few minutes and followed the fat man inside. The interior was dense with smoke and the smell of fried food, lit by dim bulbs from holes in the ceiling. Don heard the crash and tumble of pins and the skirl of balls over the greased lanes, as well as the mixed cheers and curses of bowlers and watchers.<br />
The twelve lanes were all in use, each one taken up by a different group. A few of the groups were three or four, and a few of them were five or six, but all of them looked like they were having a good time. Don watched them to make sure that he wasn't seeing things, but yes, they all smiled and laughed.<br />
It was just <i>bowling</i>!<br />
He went to the counter and held out the money required for a game. "Are there any free lanes?" He asked.<br />
The man behind the counter, one who seemed to partake in beer and corn dogs a little too often, shook his head. "But we can see if one of the smaller groups will let you join them. This group in lane seven are good guys; I bet they'll let you in." The man pointed over Don's shoulder, and Don could guess that he knew which group it was that he pointed at. "What's your shoe size?"<br />
"My what?"<br />
"For your shoes."<br />
Don stared at the man in confused terror. "Why do you need that?"<br />
The man leaned forward, knitting his eyebrows. "Have you ever gone bowling before?"<br />
Don shrugged. "I just wanted to try it. I use size eleven and a half."<br />
The man handed over a pair of motley shoes. "Here you go. I'll ask them for you." The man opened a short swinging door in the counter and walked past Don. He went up to a group of three that included Berg Weitz. After chatting for a few moments, the man waved Don over. Don took in a deep breath.<br />
Don stepped up to the group, still carrying the pair of clown shoes in his hand. "Uh . . . hi. I'm Don."<br />
"Hi Don," One of the men that wasn't Mr. Weitz said. He was tall and buck-toothed. "I'm Alan. That's Berg, and that's Gus." Don said hello to each one and they said hello to him. He tried not to linger on Berg too much, instead tried to skate over him like he was just one of a trio of new faces. Berg Weitz had changed out of his business clothes and into a polo and shorts. He had bowling shoes on -- they didn't look like the oft used and abused pair that Don carried, instead well-kept and cared for -- and was cradling a black bowling ball in the crook of his left arm. An odd glove was strapped around his right hand. In fact, Don noticed, all three of them had a glove. The man introduced as Gus had his around his left hand. It looked like Don had just entered a team of people who had all sprained their wrists in an unfortunate water-cooler accident.<br />
"I've never really bowled before," Don said, a truth. "I wanted to try it out."<br />
"Feel free to join us. We don't really play for keeps or anything," Alan explained. "We're just here to unwind. You're in high school?"<br />
"Yeah. Southman High."<br />
"I went there," Gus said. Gus was a scrawny, short, and not entirely trustworthy looking man with black bushy eyebrows and a protruding belly in the middle of a rail-thin body. "Does Mrs. Michaels still teach?"<br />
"Um . . . no. She retired last year."<br />
"Thank God. That bitch made my life hell," Gus said. <br />
"Mine too," Don said, and smiled.<br />
Gus looked over his shoulder. "Berg, why don't you add Don to the roster."<br />
"Fine," Mr. Weitz said. He almost snarled. Out of the three in the group, Berg Weitz looked the least pleased to see Don. Had Don been recognized so quickly? Berg entered in 'Don' to the roster that was on the screen over their lane. Currently, it was Mr. Weitz's turn, followed by Alan. After that Don would go.<br />
Berg threw the ball with more finesse and grace than Don expected from such a fat guy. His right leg was hovering, suspended, as the ball crashed into the pins and knocked them all over. Alan whooped but Berg just sat down.<br />
"That was really good," Don said, trying to pull on the stiff bowling shoes.<br />
"It was easy," Mr. Weitz responded. He wasn't looking at Don.<br />
"Do you have a ball?" Gus asked Don. Don shook his head. "Go to that rack there and find one. A heavier one stays on course more, but a lighter one will be easier to handle.<br />
Don stepped toward the rack, wincing. He seemed to be wearing size tens instead of eleven and a half. He found a moderately heavy ball and minced his steps back to the lane. Alan threw his spare, and was left with only one pin standing. Alan looked over at Don. "You're up."<br />
Don walked up to the lane and tried to remember the way that Mr. Weitz had done it. He stuck his fingers into the holes in the ball and took a few steps forward, swinging the ball under him and nearly knocking out his right knee. The ball managed to get going in the right direction, and even clipped one of the pins on the left side. It wobbled and fell. A sad '1' appeared in the score box for that throw.<br />
"Not bad for your very first time," Gus said. Don waited until the ball was spat back up onto a long metal rack near the lane and scooped it out. He steadied himself along the line of arrows, heart pounding. Again, he threw the ball, but this time it dove straight into the gutter on the left. Don sat down as a dash appeared in the box and his total score -- one -- appeared far over on the right of the screen. He sighed.<br />
He looked over at Mr. Weitz, trying to keep his head pointed toward the lane where Gus was sizing up the pins. The big man seemed to be pointedly ignoring Don, sitting with his arms crossed and looking, unshiftingly, at the floor.<br />
There was obviously something on his mind. Could it be the woman that he was seeing on the side, the one that he was seeing instead of his wife? Don didn't blame him. If he had to live with Patricia Weitz for more than a day he would go mad. There was another option, though: what if he was thinking about the call that Don and Patricia had shared the night before?<br />
Was it possible that Mr. Weitz had recognized Don's voice here in the bowling alley? It was unlikely, but not impossible. Don guessed that at most Mr. Weitz found it oddly familiar but couldn't figure out why he thought so.<br />
Gus sat down as an X appeared on the screen, and it was Weitz's turn. He stood up with a heave, and as he took up his ball Don turned to Gus.<br />
"So do all you guys work together, or . . .?"<br />
"Yup," Gus said. "Appleton. We come down here every few weeks. Except for Berg. He comes over here at least once a week. You can probably tell from the score." Don looked up and, sure enough, Weitz's total was higher than the others', and ahead of Don's by over a hundred and fifty only six frames in.<br />
"Why does he come here so often?"<br />
Gus shrugged, and Alan spoke up. "It's just his thing. We've all got them."<br />
"Does he have a wife?" Don asked.<br />
"Yeah," Alan said. Weitz finally released his ball and it flew off course, prompting a torrent of curses. <br />
"I'm surprised she lets him stay out so often," Don said. There was a chance to get some inside information if he was careful.<br />
"Wives need to learn how to let their husbands have some time to their own. Me, I'm not married, but Berg tells me enough horror stories about his wife to make it seem less than attractive." Don noticed an empty beer bottle next to the one that Alan was currently drinking out of. "You should hear him talk about her. Never lets him do what he wants, always wants to know where he's going, that sort of thing. He's a grown man for chrissakes! He shouldn't have to get that sort of third degree if he wants to go out!"<br />
"Right!" Don said after discussing what to say for an instant. "It sounds kind of silly." Weitz let fly his second ball. He knocked over the remaining pins, earning himself a spare on the board. Without a modicum of celebration, he sat down in his chair, between Don and Alan, and their conversation was cut short.<br />
Alan rose and went to the return rack. Don tried to study Weitz without the other noticing. He seemed upset and distracted, and sat with his arms crossed sullenly. Alan got a strike and pumped his arm, and Don laughed. "Nice!"<br />
Don got up and picked up the ball that he had used earlier. He felt better as he approached the lane, and let the ball fly. It sank into the gutter immediately. "Ah! Bull," Don snarled. "I did that perfectly!"<br />
"No you didn't," Weitz said as Don sat in a huff. "You didn't move your leg out of the way enough. That forced you to move your arm around it in a wider arc and put more of a spin on the ball." Weitz made a hand motion, like a plane tilting on its side. "And sent it right in the gutter."<br />
"You know a lot about bowling?" Don asked. He had an opportunity here.<br />
"You bet I do. I'm the best bowler at Appleton."<br />
"What is it that you do at Appleton? Something with apples?" Don asked.<br />
Weitz glanced at him with a grimace on his face. "Why would you think that? No."<br />
"Well . . . uh . . . you bowl a lot. Why do you like it so much?"<br />
"It's a getaway," Weitz said, taking a sip from his bottle. "Gives me time to concentrate on something that's active and, ultimately, doesn't matter."<br />
"I can understand that," Don said, as Gus sat down and Weitz rose. "You must really enjoy it. You're pretty good."<br />
Weitz gave a thin smile and picked up his ball.<br />
"Don't worry about him," Gus said. "He's hard to get to. The only reason we go with him at all is he's the only other bowler at Appleton."<br />
"Is bowling all he does?"<br />
"Yeah, pretty much." Gus seemed not to be drinking anything except for water, sipping daintily every few seconds. A cheer came from the lane to their left. The place had emptied a bit. "I'm guessing Alan told you a bit but he doesn't have the best home life. His wife's kinda a shrew. Alan's a downer with that sort of thing though."<br />
"Yeah he told me a little bit. I said it didn't sound too great."<br />
"You got that right, kid. He's almost certain that she's cheating on him."<br />
"Uh . . ."<br />
"She's gone all the time, talking on the phone. He says that somebody gave her a present," Gus said. Don figured that these two co-workers of Berg Weitz's did not hold him in great esteem, at least not enough to keep this sort of information private. Don wasn't about to stop them, but he figured he was just going to get knowledge he already knew. "A few days ago she was holding a statue that he hadn't ever seen."<br />
Weitz sat in his seat and Alan got up to bowl. The conversation died.<br />
<br />
The night passed without much else, until the end. They finished their game -- Don got better by inches -- and Alan and Gus went home. Don was going to wait for Weitz to leave so he could follow him to wherever he went next, but instead, Weitz came up to him as Don pulled on his shoes and sighed, having rid himself of the pinching shoes that he had been forced to wear.<br />
"I heard you talking to Gus about my wife," Weitz said abruptly. "Their lips are a bit too loose."<br />
"I won't tell anyone, I swear!" Don said.<br />
"You'd better not," Weitz said. "But I want you to do something for me. I need you to follow my wife."<br />
The surreality of the moment was not lost on Don. He wondered if, perhaps, this was all an elaborate trick being played on him. Perhaps, after an awkward second, a moustachioed TV host would burst from a nearby door and declare that he was being tricked. Also likely was the idea that Kelsey was, in fact, aware of his affections for her, and these two maladjusted, distrustful adults were her parents, and it was a test to determine how strong his affections were for her. Or, maybe, it was just the one in a million alignment of random events that, now, left Don following both sides of a couple that thought the other side was cheating.<br />
Don, now substantially richer, watched Weitz's car speed off in the direction of his home. Don had said that he didn't feel it was proper, but then Berg Weitz, husband and respected office worker of some degree, had offered a completely unknown high school student two hundred dollars to follow his wife, the woman that had blackmailed the same student into following him. Don accepted the money with the thought that it would be more than enough to pay for the statue for Kelsey, as well as a healthy amount left over.<br />
After climbing in his car, Don sat with his hands on the steering wheel, grimacing out the windshield with a curled lip and eyebrows that felt fused together. He was no chessmaster; he didn't know what to do next.<br />
He felt like he was in a sitcom. What would someone in a sitcom do at this point? He would drive to the unexplainably popular coffee shop and sit in the rustic, comfortable seats with his diverse group of friends, explain the problem, gather advice, and sling groan-worthy jokes.<br />
He picked his nose.<br />
He couldn't do those things. He didn't have friends that hung out at a coffee shop all hours of the night. Even if he did, they wouldn't be able to tell that many jokes. In fact, none of his friends were very funny at all.<br />
After following Mr. Weitz back to his house, Don got a cup of coffee and drove home. The most difficult part of the new situation he had just found himself in was that he didn't really have much time to follow both of the Weitzes. As it was, his homework had been getting done even less than normal. He would have to start bringing it with him on his stakeouts. He worked on a little bit and then went to bed still smelling like the smoke and alcohol of the bowling alley. His mother had asked him why he was out so late, and he told her truthfully: he had been bowling. His mother's eyebrow had winched up, and then she had shrugged.<br />
<br />
He was glad that Patricia didn't know what kind of car he had. Don waited for her outside The Finery that Saturday after a day had passed. It was a week until Kelsey's party.<br />
The night before, Friday, Don had watched for any sign of infidelity from Berg Weitz, and found none. Now he was doing the same thing with his wife, during the time she thought he was still watching her husband. He wished that either one of them would just demand to know from the other if there was anything going on; whatever the outcome was, it would result in Don being freed from his obligation to one or both of them, with either money or the statue to show for it.<br />
He now had both of the Weitzes as contacts in his phone, and Don wondered if Berg Weitz had found his voice at all familiar when they had talked that morning. Don tried not to say anything that could remind Mr. Weitz of cars.<br />
A shake of Don's head failed to clear it, and he sank lower into his chair with a book propped on his knees. He could have been watching TV or hanging out with his friends, but instead he was sitting in his car and doing homework, waiting for one half of the worst family in the world to end her shift at The Finery and walk out the doors to her car.<br />
Finally she appeared. Don watched her walk to the car that Mr. Weitz had said was hers. She had on the pulled, pinched expression of one who is always and forever stepping in something distasteful. It was earlier than Mr. Weitz said her shift would end, and Patricia was not going toward her home. Don perked up. Maybe Mr. Weitz was actually right!<br />
She drove into the parking lot of a therapist's office. After she stepped inside Don got out of his car and crept around to the side of the building, looking for the right window. His heart pounded. He had his phone at the ready as he looked inside the windows that he could reach without exposing himself too much.<br />
Finally he peeked his eyes over the window sill and looked through the gaps in the blinds into an office. Patricia was seated on a plush leather armchair and speaking to an older woman dressed in a suit. Emotion flowed on Patricia's face as the therapist nodded.<br />
Don sank down below the window, pressing himself against the building. There was nothing going on here, just the therapy that seemed to be the natural progression of people that didn't have enough problems. You never saw a construction worker going into an office like that and saying things like 'daddy never loved me.' No, it was always the well-off.<br />
Don crawled back to his car, trying to appear, if he was caught, that edging between two office buildings was something he was supposed to do.<br />
He got back to his car and thought about what to do next. He decided he'd had enough, and started his car.<br />
<br />
When Don got home he called Mr. Weitz and told him that Patricia was cheating on him.<br />
"I knew it! Who's it with? Did you see? You took a picture, right?"<br />
"I couldn't take a picture, no. You might find this hard to believe, but she was cheating on you with a woman. An older woman. I only saw the back of the head, so I can't describe her any more than that."<br />
"A woman? Shit, that might explain why she's been so cold lately." <i>Yeah, that explains it</i>, Don thought, <i>not because you're both royally screwed up</i>. "What else can you tell me?"<br />
"Not very much. I did hear them making plans to meet next Saturday at The Finery before your wife is done with work. They're going to go somewhere after that."<br />
"Bitch!"<br />
"But that gives you an opportunity to run into them."<br />
"What do you mean?" Weitz asked.<br />
"It's simple. You stop by and tell her that you wanted to take her out for a meal. It's obvious she won't be expecting that. With any sort of luck you'll run into her and her lover as they leave. There is one catch, though."<br />
"What's that?"<br />
"You have to make sure that she tells you when she's actually leaving. What would work best is if she says she's going to leave early. That way, you have a better chance of catching her in the act. If she says she's going to be home at the normal time, or stay late, you might get there too early and she'll get suspicious. She might call it off."<br />
"So what's the best way to handle it?" Weitz asked. Don smiled. This man was so stupid.<br />
"Just ask her how long she's going to be at work one week from today. If she says that she's going to leave early, you're clear."<br />
"Got it. Okay, thanks." Mr. Weitz hung up and Don quickly called Patricia.<br />
"Patricia, it's Don. Your husband is cheating on someone. I saw them together today."<br />
"What? That bastard! Did you take a picture?"<br />
"No, I couldn't. It was a young blond woman."<br />
"Probably one of those bimbos from Appleton. Where were they?"<br />
"They went to dinner and then to an apartment. There was no way for me to get in and take a picture but it's pretty obvious what's happening."<br />
"You're damn right it is! Did you hear her name, or anything?"<br />
Don smiled again. Heat grew in his stomach. If he did this wrong, things would go badly for him. He had gotten the Mister to bend to him, but the Missus would be more difficult.<br />
"You're not going to believe this, but they made plans to meet at The Finery on Saturday."<br />
"They didn't," Patricia said.<br />
"They did, I heard them. He mentioned that you work there and she said she loved that place and she'd been there a hundred times."<br />
"I think I know who it is."<br />
"Well, he said that they should wait until you leave and meet there next Saturday."<br />
Don heard silence as Patricia processed this. There was a clicking; she was tapping her nails on a counter. "So what do I do?"<br />
"It's easy. Tell him that you're going to leave work early, but actually stay late. That way, he'll arrive with the bimbo, thinking you've left, thinking to buy her something to get into her pants. Instead, he finds you, witnessing him waltz into the store that you work at with a bombshell on his arm and in his wallet." Don began to realize he was pretty good at this.<br />
"Yes. Yes, you're right. Okay, I'll do that."<br />
"And remember, you promised to give me the statue back on Saturday before the party," Don said. Kelsey had better appreciate this.<br />
"Right, right. When does the party start?" Patricia asked.<br />
"Six."<br />
"Okay. Why don't you stop by around five? I'll say that you reserved the statue, so even if I'm not there you can buy it from whoever's working. You'll have to pay for it, though."<br />
"Of course," Don said. "What time are you going to try to catch your husband?"<br />
"I usually get off work at four, so I'll say that I'm going to come home at two."<br />
"Perfect," Don said, and they ended the call.<br />
Later that night he was watching a movie when Mr. Weitz called him.<br />
"She's going to be leaving early!" He said, frantic. "Just like you said!"<br />
"Really? Hmm," Don said. "I don't like it. It's too easy. She's lying. She's probably going to stay a little later than normal . . . maybe half an hour. I think you should get there maybe ten minutes after two."<br />
"You think so?" Mr. Weitz said. "Why would she do that?"<br />
Don didn't have an answer ready. "Well . . . she most likely will stay longer anyway and then tell you she decided to stay the normal amount of time anyway, because she didn't have any reason not to. What she'll really be doing is waiting for her lover to arrive. Instead, she'll find you walking in -- to find <i>her</i> -- when she said that she'll be leaving early."<br />
"Why would I go there, though?" Weitz asked. Don shook his head.<br />
"To catch her! You haven't done anything wrong!"<br />
"Yeah. Yeah! You're right! Okay. Two ten. I got it." He hung up. Don closed his phone and turned it off. Everything was perfect. Both halves of this awful relationship would expect to find infidelity, but they would both just find each other. And Don.<br />
<br />
It was interesting, Don realized, that both of the Weitzes thought that he was in their confidence, and that he was working just for him or her, and yet neither of them knew what his car looked like. And so Don sat in his beat up station wagon that Saturday and watched Berg Weitz exit from his car, compose himself, straighten his collar, and march through the sliding glass doors of The Finery. Don exited his car and, after glancing inside the shop, went in after Mr. Weitz.<br />
The first sliding door let him into the small, pungent foyer, and the second gave him access to the shop proper. Patricia, dressed in her apron and polo shirt, stood behind the counter and register with her fists resting on the top, knuckles down. Berg stood on a black mat on the other side of the counter, red in the face and bristling.<br />
"Where is she?" Patricia asked as Don came into earshot. "I know you brought her with!"<br />
"I should ask you the same question!" Mr. Weitz shot back. "When's she going to get here? Is she here already? Maybe you should have her meet <i>your husband!</i>"<br />
Don shook his head and stepped closer. Neither of them noticed him.<br />
"What the hell are you talking about?" Patricia said. "Who's 'she'?"<br />
"Yes, who <i>is</i> she?" Berg shot back, thinking that this was the height of wit. After a silent pause, he went on. "And what do you mean brought her with? I didn't bring anyone with me!"<br />
"Well neither did I!" Patricia said.<br />
"Neither of you did," Don said. Both of the Weitzes noticed him at once.<br />
"Don!" They said in unison. Patricia and Berg looked at each other in shock and confusion. As Berg looked from Don to his wife and back quickly, Patricia's head slowly rotated to gaze at Don.<br />
"You tipped him off, didn't you?" She thundered. The empty store echoed her shout back. "You told him you were following him!"<br />
"What?!" Berg said, finally focusing on Don. "You're following me? She knew you were following her, doesn't she?"<br />
"You're <i>what?!</i>" Patricia said. One of her hands turned into a claw.<br />
"She didn't know?" Berg asked.<br />
"I was following both of you. At the request of both of you. You both thought the other one was cheating, but neither of you were! I followed both of you for a week, and Mr. Weitz, you even longer, because you both wanted to know! And you know what?" Don leaned forward. "Neither of you are cheating!"<br />
"You said that she was!" Mr. Weitz said.<br />
"You said that <i>he</i> was!" Echoed his wife.<br />
Don shook his head. "I lied. I lied to both of you. Mr. Weitz, the woman I described to you is a therapist your wife has been seeing. Patricia, there is no blond bimbo. None at all. Your husband goes to work, goes bowling, and stops at a fast food place on the way home. Maybe."<br />
"You know about the therapist?" Patricia asked.<br />
"I saw through a window. I followed you there last Saturday after you left The Finery. Mr. Weitz asked me to tail you after we went bowling together a few days before that. He thought that you were cheating on him. You aren't!" Don swiveled at Mr. Weitz, who stepped back. "And you aren't cheating on her!"<br />
"No! I'm not!" Mr. Weitz said.<br />
"How are you sure? He could just be lying!" Patricia said.<br />
"I followed him, just like I followed you! Neither of you did anything even remotely adulterous!" Don looked at both of them. "And yet you were both so ready to believe me when I said that the other was cheating! Mr. Weitz, you believed me when I said that your wife was cheating on you <i>with a woman!</i> Patricia, you not only pictured your husband with a blond bimbo, but you thought that you actually knew who she was! Here's something you should know -- she doesn't exist! I made it all up and tricked both of you into coming here, now, thinking that you would run into exactly what you wanted to see!"<br />
Don took his eyes from Patricia's and into Berg's. "Do either of you see what I'm trying to say here? Do either of you understand, at all, what's really going on?"<br />
"She isn't cheating on me?" Mr. Weitz said carefully.<br />
"Of course I'm not cheating on you, you idiot. You're not cheating on me either!"<br />
"You were both ready to accept the other was cheating. You both wanted it. Berg, did you know I was the one on the phone when you took the phone away from Patricia? I was the one that was talking about hybrid cars."<br />
"<i>What?</i>"<br />
"Yes! The statue she had? It was what was making me do this whole thing. I'm about to buy it. With the money that you gave me to follow your wife." Don thrust out a wrapped pack of bills. "Here's one-hundred and forty dollars back. I'm using sixty to buy the statue-" Don looked at Patricia "-legally."<br />
"Why didn't you just tell me that he wasn't cheating?" Patricia said. "We had a deal!"<br />
"I did! I told you! It was like you didn't even hear me!" Don said. "You were so caught up in your fantasy that even when I said nothing was happening, your mind filtered it out! And when I realized that I now had <i>two</i> people who wouldn't believe me on my hands, I set this up." Don moved his hands into a 'here we are' gesture. "Because it would be impossible to tell either of you unless you were confronted, face-to-face. Here's the deal. You both accused the other of cheating; neither of you were. That tells me you need to get help!"<br />
Patricia frowned at Don; Mr. Weitz frowned at the floor. The seconds ticked by. Don refused to back down. He felt like he was going to split. With a motion so slow Don could almost hear her joints creaking, Patricia turned and looked at her husband.<br />
"I can't believe you'd think I'm cheating, you little worm! I'm not some weak-willed sop like you are!" She said, swatting his arm.<br />
"You thought I was cheating too!" Mr. Weitz responded. The two Weitzes crumbled into an argument. Don watched them go back and forth: accusing, yelling, trembling. He watched two people, cocooned in their own lives and unable to see the truth, blame the other person for the misery that was their own fault. If only either of them had stopped and looked through the haze of deception they cast on themselves, this relationship might have a chance. As it was, it spiraled towards destruction in front of his eyes.<br />
"<i>Excuse me</i>," he cut in. Patricia and Berg both turned and looked at him. She had an accusing expression and he simply seemed surprised, as if he had forgotten Don was there. "I'd like my statue now."<br />
"No. You went back on the deal."<br />
"Bullshit I did!" Don shouted, finally pushed far enough. "I followed him! I talked to him! I <i>bowled</i> with him! You either wanted proof of him cheating, or you would give me the statue, you said that yourself! Well, here we are; there is no proof! And now I want to buy that statue!" Don lowered his voice. "Do you want your boss to find out that you refused a sale?"<br />
"We have the right to refuse-"<br />
"Oh just give him his stupid statue, you harpy," Mr. Weitz said. His arms were crossed over his body. Patricia glowered at them both and then brought out the statue. Don expected her to smash it against the counter, but she managed to ring it up.<br />
<br />
"Hi Don!" Kelsey said, as she welcomed him into her foyer. "Thanks for coming! I'm glad you could make it."<br />
"Me too. Here, this is for you," he said, handing her a carefully wrapped box.<br />
"Oh, you shouldn't have! I hope you didn't go through too much trouble for this," Kelsey said as she took the box from his hands.<br />
He'd keep the trouble involved to himself. He took off his shoes and followed her into the living room, where a few other guests stood assembled.<br />
Don sat and chatted, beginning to enjoy himself for the first time in over a week. He had finally pulled himself apart from the Weitzes; may he never see them again.<br />
At one point he looked on a shelf over the fireplace. His stomach flipped, and he stood. There, in between a frolicking pewter kitten and a ceramic sea captain, was an exact copy of the statue he had finally been able to purchase, down to the light golden hair and blue ribbon. He stared at it as an unknown emotion, some mix of anger and hysterical euphoria, filled him. It was unkindly funny.<br />
He didn't deserve it! He'd paid his penance, and the price, and he'd done his best to show that the Weitzes needed to talk to people about their relationship! He hadn't even kept the money that Mr. Weitz had paid him, aside from the sixty dollars! He'd spent more on gas during that period than even that amount of money!<br />
He went through the rest of the party sullen. He kept himself looking cheerful for Kelsey, but it put a strain on him. He finally got himself to go, assured that any chance he had with Kelsey was dead and gone, but she stopped him.<br />
"Don! Uh, about your present . . . "<br />
"Yeah, uh, I didn't know you already had one. I saw it and I thought you'd like it but--"<br />
"I love it! It's my favorite of the pieces my mom collected! I can't believe you found another one!"<br />
Don didn't really believe it either.<br />
"Now I have my very own! You really didn't know about it?"<br />
Don shook his head. "Not a bit. You're welcome."<br />
Kelsey smiled. It held all that he had hoped, and suddenly the trouble was quite worth it.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-46500574589880409152013-06-29T12:00:00.000-05:002013-11-25T18:34:11.718-06:00Good OmensAnother day would only bring more tired weakness, and send her back into herself; there was nothing good outside she could see. People would yell at her, her boss would berate her for a simple mistake, and she would spend the night in her small, hot room waiting for the darkness so she could slip into a dream. She liked her dreams, but they made the world seem dark by comparison.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Christina Peters sat up in her thin bed clothes, turning away in revulsion as the hot air rising off the street into her fifth floor apartment curled in the window. The window, opened to coax cool air in during the night, now betrayed her and let in the morning heat she had grown to hate. Honks and yells from the street under her window woke her up before her alarm.<br />
Her fridge offered some release from the hot air, but didn't much help her growling stomach; it was nearly empty. There were cheese slices, a few pieces of bread, and sporadic condiments.<br />
She ate a disgusting mustard-and-cheese sandwich, got dressed for work, and stepped out of her apartment. The hallway smelled like something had crawled inside its own behind and died, and Christina clamped her nose shut with her free hand. She wanted to go down the elevator, but it was broken, as it always seemed to be. She hurried past the door on the third floor, which contained a man that had once tried to grab her as she went past. She had slapped him with a bundle of celery and run as fast as her skirt would let her.<br />
Now on the ground floor, she pushed open the door and walked into the burning sun. Summer pumped its heat through the city and held back the rain just, it seemed, to torment Christina.<br />
She got on the white city bus a few blocks from her building and sat with her purse on her lap, head down and not looking at anyone. The stories of things people could do on buses -- or after leaving one -- made her shiver and sweat and she was already sweating so much. She tucked an errant strand of frizzy hair away as the bus pulled to her stop.<br />
She just avoided being late, a sin that her boss Mr. Johns took to be the highest. She punched in and looked at her assignment for that day. The restaurant never got too busy until later in the day, but it was a hot and tiring job that left her pits wet with sweat and her shoulders aching. The restaurant served fried food and alcohol, mostly. There were other things as well, but they never seemed to get ordered.<br />
And today ended up being a busier day than normal. More people came in -- not exactly a bad thing, because it usually meant more tips -- but they weren't the easy kind of customer, those that order simple things and don't cause trouble, and laugh off the mistakes she would make and drop a five or a ten down. One of them had allergies that needed to be taken into account, another spilled a drink over the floor and ordered Christina to clean it up, as well as demanding another drink. Most of them only left a few dollars for tips, but Christina was still able to take home twenty dollars by the time evening had reached them and the sun was perched at the edge of the street, drilling hot rays down the street.<br />
After clocking out she counted the money she had. She stuck most of it deep into the pocket of her uniform and put the rest in her purse. The clock said that she had twenty-five minutes until the next bus came.<br />
She went to the grocery store down the block and picked up as much as the remaining money would let her. The teller mumbled a hello as he scanned her items, but Christina didn't respond.<br />
She just caught the bus on the way back, but dropped her bus pass as she stepped on. She felt the burning gazes of the driver and the other passengers as she bent and retrieved it, awkwardly shifting her bundle of groceries to the other hand. After scanning her pass she sat and clutched her groceries.<br />
She got inside her building a few minutes later and went up the stairs, groaning with each step. On the third floor she inched along, wincing as each step creaked.<br />
Her apartment boiled. She stripped off her clothes and packed away her groceries, looking with some relief at the replenished refrigerator. She ate a little bit and counted her money again.<br />
It was a week until the rent was due, and unless a great big moneybags man walked into the restaurant and left a hundred-dollar bill on his table, she would be short.<br />
She went to bed later that night, waiting to dream about a world where she couldn't be kicked out of her home and where every day wasn't the same.<br />
<br />
The next day was not the same. Christina got up at the same time to shut the window and keep the oppressive heat out, ate slightly better than the day before, and left her apartment to catch the bus at the same time.<br />
But she got to the street and something seemed off. Lights seemed brighter, for one thing. It looked like people and things moved slower. They didn't really, not if she concentrated, but there was some new gliding motion attached to the walks of the people that went by her. She would have attributed these things to a headache but she felt fine. Good, in fact. The bus driver smiled at her, and the seats were mostly empty, allowing her to lower her defenses the slightest bit.<br />
The bus driver was muttering something under his breath. "I can't believe it. It's wonderful. It's just what I wanted." Christina peered around to try and get a better look at what he was looking at, but she couldn't see. It must have been on his lap.<br />
The box that he held was brown with a green ribbon.<br />
Box? Ribbon? Christina shook her head. She remembered the bus driving carrying something, a gift. He must have had it with him when she got on, and she didn't notice.<br />
The bus slid to a halt in front of her stop. She got up and paused before exiting.<br />
"What was it you got?" She asked the bus driver. He looked at her with a confused look. She looked back with the same kind.<br />
"I . . . haven't gotten anything," the bus driver said. Christina wrinkled her brow, embarrassed<br />
"I'm sorry, I thought you were holding a present." She didn't wait for his response, instead stepping off the bus and hurrying to the restaurant, refusing to look anywhere but straight ahead, feeling the legion gaze of the bystanders.<br />
She got into the restaurant with a minute to spare, and clocked in quickly. She got to work and managed to forget about the bus driver. It was an uneventful day, aside from the chipped glass that left another server's hand bleeding. Christina bandaged the cut, and while she did the other waitress, whose name was Theresa, talked.<br />
"I just don't know if he'll ever get the hint," Theresa said, about her long-time boyfriend. "What's it been, two years? I don't know if he'll ever ask me to marry him. I wish he would." She scoffed, and her hand bounced up and down, forcing Christina to slow down. "If he doesn't soon, I'm giving him an ultimatum."<br />
"A what?" Christina asked. "I think your hand is the best I can get it."<br />
"An ultimatum. You know! Either he asks me to marry him or I dump him!" Theresa said as she inspected the wrap. "It'll do." <br />
"Don't you think that's kind of mean?" Christina asked, packing away the medical supplies.<br />
"Not to me! I've got a ticking clock here! You might have plenty of time! What, what are you, twenty?"<br />
"Twenty-five."<br />
"I've got six years on you! I won't look this good forever!"<br />
Mr. Johns poked his head around the corner into the break room. "Stitched up? Good! Get out there and get to work! I don't pay you to stand around!"<br />
Christina tucked an escaping hair away and walked back into the customer area with her head down, trying not to draw Mr. Johns' ire. As she went by, she remembered something that Mr. Johns had said earlier, when he was on the phone. Something about a recovery.<br />
"Was somebody in your family sick, Mr. Johns?" She asked as she began to load the dishwasher. It was afternoon.<br />
He turned on her. "What?! How did you find that out?"<br />
She quailed. "You were on the phone! You said something about somebody getting better!"<br />
"My wife! Has! <i>Cancer</i>!" He yelled at her. The customer area seemed too quiet. "And no she <i>isn't</i> better, she could die!"<br />
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I must have misheard!"<br />
"You're goddamn right you did! Get out of here!"<br />
Christina ran from the dishwasher and into the kitchen, where meals appeared ready for serving. She hurried to the table they belonged to and set them down in front of an old couple that were familiar faces in the restaurant.<br />
"You should learn to keep your ears to yourself," the woman, Mrs. Bowerfield, said. She levered up the top piece of bread on her sandwich with her knife. "You know how he gets."<br />
"Erma, now now," Mr. Bowerfield said, tucking his napkin under his chin. "You of all people."<br />
"I thought he would be happy! I thought somebody had gotten better!"<br />
"Can't trust your ears? George knows the feeling," Erma said. "He can't hear a dern thing I say. Isn't that right, George?"<br />
"Eh?"<br />
"Have a nice meal," Christina said. She felt beaten and tired, and went to another table to take drink orders. She still had about four hours left on her shift. Another table was clearing out, and she handed them their checks.<br />
Three hours passed, and she felt better. The restaurant was empty, so she kept herself busy cleaning the place. Theresa left and a young man named Brad took her place. There was only a small segment of an hour left when she went into the break room to find Mr. Johns with his head in his hands. She knew he heard her; she didn't try to disguise her steps, but she knew something had happened that she didn't want to be around for. He would make her a target for his aggression.<br />
"I just got off the phone," he said before she could creep away. "My wife was in for an appointment today. Her cancer's gone into remission."<br />
Christina, not knowing exactly what remission meant, waited for the explosion. Of course that would happen the day that she asked him who had gotten better.<br />
Her boss looked up at her. "Do you know what this means?" She shook her head, eyes wide. "It means she might just be able to see our daughter get married." This confused Christina. "And somehow you knew that she would get better."<br />
Christina relaxed. "No, I must have misheard you when you were talking on the phone earlier."<br />
Mr. Johns studier her. "I've only been on the phone once today. Just now."<br />
They looked at each other and Christina remembered the bus driver. She rubbed her head. "But . . . I remember you talking on the phone. I'm sure I do."<br />
"I don't know what you remember." He paused. "Why don't you clock out early? You look like you could use a little more rest."<br />
"If it's all the same to you Mr. Johns, I need the money more," she said. He shrugged and nodded.<br />
Fifteen minutes later she waited for the bus to pull up. This was a different driver than the one she saw every morning, so she stepped in and sat in a seat by herself. She was tired and slightly confused by what had happened. She knew she saw Mr. Johns talking on the phone in the back before Theresa cut her hand.<br />
But she realized she didn't know when, not exactly. There was a range she could put it in, but no associated time, no surrounding events that she could use to pin it to a time line. It was as if the memory appeared after the fact without her actually seeing it happen.<br />
She felt dizzy.<br />
The bus halted at her stop and she dismounted, taking slow steps toward her building.<br />
Inside were a couple from the floor above her, two younger adults, Mr. and Mrs. Mohand, with a some months old baby held by the mother.<br />
Christina saw it clearly. It was in another place, another time. This mother, black and fresh and happy, holding her arms as the baby left its father's guiding grip, teetering on unsteady legs towards a mother's hug. As if through water the sounds came, echoing and distorted. The mother's mouth opened, unable to contain the smile that threatened to crack open her head. Christina heard, slurred, "Come on! You can do it!" And the baby was at her, toothless mouth wide, copying mother's ecstatic expression. Father joined them and picked the baby up, carrying it high into the air. It emitted a warbling, piercing shriek.<br />
Christina put her hands on her ears and she was back in the lobby of her building. The Mohands climbed the stairs away from her, conversing. Neither of them had noticed her. The baby, on the other hand, was gazing back at her as she gripped her mother's shoulder. Christina smiled and waved, and the baby sent a clumsy wave back just as they rounded the corner.<br />
Christina ran to her room and ate. Her lunch had been a hurried salad from the deli down the block from the restaurant, and her stomach growled at her as she sat down at her table with a bowl of pasta in front of her. She stared at the pasta for a few minutes.<br />
She was seeing things, things that hadn't happened yet. How old was the Mohands' little girl? Almost a year? Christina didn't know when a baby started to walk on its own, but she figured the baby could be near the right age.<br />
And the bus driver. What if she was just imagining things? Had she hit her head recently? No, nothing. <br />
She could believe that she was just imagining things if not for Mr. Johns' wife. He hadn't been on the phone but once, when he found out that his wife had gone into -- Christina concentrated -- remission. Not only did she not know that his wife <i>had</i> cancer, but to get the idea that she was miraculously healed wasn't something she could imagine herself doing.<br />
She went to bed without answers.<br />
<br />
The next night she went to bed with two answers and more questions. The answer was yes: yes she could see things.<br />
When she got on the bus the driver stopped her. "My wife gave me two tickets to Wrigley Saturday night. The Yankees are playing the Mets. I've always wanted to go but never could. How did you know? Did my wife tell you?"<br />
Christina shook her head. "It must have been a lucky guess," she said, and then ran to the seats. Later, in the restaurant, Mr. Johns was happy, elated. Work was easy without his specter breathing down her neck.<br />
And it happened again. This time it was when she was serving the Bowerfields. She saw Erma and George celebrating in their geriatric manner, making slow turns in each others' arms, singing "we got in, we got in, we got in!"<br />
And without hesitation, the question of what they had gotten in to became the second answer she had.<br />
"We're thinking of applying to one of those homes," Erma told Christina as she refilled their coffee. "We don't want to put Marge and her husband out any longer. We found a nice one, not too expensive. It's very nice but-" she lowered her eyes "-It's quite exclusive."<br />
"We aren't sure if we can get in. It takes a deposit, too, which we won't get back if we're denied," George said. "It's not a great sum, a few hundred, but-"<br />
"I wouldn't want to lose a few hundred dollars," Christina cut in, excited and scared. "But I think you should go for it. Would . . . would you still be able to visit here?"<br />
"Well, not as often. But we'd make the trip to see you and the others, dear. On occasion," Erma said.<br />
"It'll be nice to get out and about," George said. "I think this catsup is empty." Just then the red bottle he held spout down dribbled a weak flow onto his pants. "Oh damn!"<br />
"George! Those are your best blues! Could we have some napkins, Christina? Eugh, it's going to look like George's pecker's bleeding!" Christina turned away, blushing. She grabbed a dozen napkins and handed them over, then went on with her duties.<br />
The Bowerfields left twenty minutes later, arguing about the pants. Christina had watched them go with a feeling she couldn't place, one that felt like sad and happy mixed in a bowl.<br />
When she got home from work, she found Mrs. Mohand in the lobby talking on her phone about how Emily had taken her first steps the night before. Christina watched her collect her mail and go up the steps, staring in wonder.<br />
And now Christina lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. The hot, humid air stuck her undershirt to her skin as she lay above the covers. She could see things. They hadn't happened yet, they might not even happen around her, but she knew they would happen. She couldn't see everything, though. She hadn't seen Theresa cut her hand, or George Bowerfield spill catsup. Everything she had seen in a vision had been . . . a good thing.<br />
She felt bumps rise, flushing her already hot skin. She had developed some sort of unknown ability to see things, and fear hit her. Would she see a tragedy occur? <br />
The bus driver getting a present he wanted. Mr. Johns' wife healed. Emily Mohand walking for the first time. The Bowerfields 'getting in.' Not a single thing out of that list could even be called close to a tragedy. They had all been wonderful things that made people smile.<br />
She wondered if the ability would change or shift. Maybe it would stop soon. She didn't know if that was something she wanted. To see the future . . . an incredible power. But only when the people in the vision were happy.<br />
She rolled to her side and fell asleep. <br />
<br />
The next day was mercifully cooler. It had a stiff wind that made headlong travel difficult, but people ignored it, instead taking solace in the lower temperature. Fine clouds covered the sky, diluting the sun's rays.<br />
Christina awoke for the first time in weeks not sweating, rising with the cold air from the window. She shivered, and delighted in it.<br />
The day held strange energy. She got dressed and wondered about the visions that had fallen on her, her new ability. Would she see someone win the lottery? Maybe some small child would find a quarter, and use it to buy a gumball. She smiled to herself as she did up her hair, and wandered to the bus stop, still smiling.<br />
Nothing happened on the bus; no strange memory appeared of someone meeting a lost friend or a new love. She got to the restaurant and started working, full of more cheer than she knew possible. Her happiness was infectious, calming upset patrons and brightening days for those that were already bright, and before she knew it the shift had ended and she counted her tips. Almost forty dollars! She said goodbye to Mr. Johns, who said goodbye back, just as infected as her customers, and walked to the bus stop. The day had retained its cool power, and the sweat Christina had gathered dried in the refreshing wind.<br />
After getting off the bus, just as free of visions as the ride in the morning, she dropped her things, changed into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, and went for a walk in the cool air.<br />
She walked to the bottom of a hill and crossed a railroad, checking to make sure that no kind of thousand-ton beast was barreling down on her. Up the other side was a park, and she roamed in the trees. Soon the sun got lower and she got hungrier. She went back across the railroad and to her apartment. Dinner was a small affair; her groceries were getting fewer in number. She counted the money she had. She still needed more than a hundred dollars to make the rent, and mister moneybags hadn't graced the restaurant with his appearance yet. She had four days left and wondered if she would be able to make it.<br />
She looked around the apartment. She had pawned a few things before: jewelry, shoes, what small electronics she had been able to acquire. She would not be able to buy much food until after the rent was paid, or she might risk not being able to afford the roof over her head. She decided that not eating for a day was better than living on the street.<br />
She sat on top of her bed.<br />
Not a single vision had occurred. Maybe the only connection she would have with what she saw as magic would simply be that brief. She was sad to see it go, but she had been able to convince the Bowerfields to apply for the home, and join in the celebration of others, whether they knew it or not. It was not such a bad thing, but she wasn't sad to see it go.<br />
<br />
Two days later she ran into the Mohands on the bottom floor before she pushed out the door into the sun that had cranked back up to its normal temperature. Mrs. Mohand was just entering, and the two of them did the awkward dance of the door until Mrs. Mohand broke it and walked past Christina. She was talking to Emily, their child, commenting on the heat and promising to visit the park in a few days. Christina went to the bus stop and waited. She fanned her arms to try and cool off, then stopped, feeling foolish.<br />
No vision presented itself to her the day before. She thought perhaps that they truly were gone for good.<br />
The day passed by slowly, stretched thin by the heat. Christina felt tired by the time she got to the restaurant, and only felt worse as the day progressed. It was a light crowd and gave her fewer tips than she thought she would get, putting her just a bit behind the track she had set for herself to pay the rent.<br />
One pleasant thing did happen. The Bowerfields entered, exuberant. They told Christina that they had been accepted to the home, a nice place upstate. They were going to visit on Saturday to look at the facilities, but wanted to thank Christina for getting them to go for it. She smiled and said nothing of it, glad that she could make the vision of happiness she had seen a reality.<br />
"We had to get you a little something, but we didn't know what you would want. We decided that a little bit of money would help a nice girl trying to keep on her feet," Erma said, buoyant. "George, give her a twenty."<br />
"Mrs. Bowerfield, I can't-"<br />
"Of course you can! George!" Erma nearly shouted, startling her husband. "The money?"<br />
"Eh? Oh, yes, uh..." George dragged a battered wallet out of his back pocket. He flipped it open, revealing a bare emptiness. "I'm all out!"<br />
"What?" Erma pullet out the stuffed wallet from her purse. "Shame on you, George!" She flipped open the wallet and layers of plastic sheeting fell, each pocket holding a savings card or picture. She searched in the small bill pocket, and looked at Christina with an embarrassed look. "We'll get you some. You live at the building on ninth, right? We'll give some to you before we go on Saturday. George, be sure to pick up some cash."<br />
George seemed not to notice.<br />
"It was just a suggestion, Mrs. Bowerfield. You wanted to already, right?"<br />
"A little bit. But we weren't sure, were we, George? We were worried about losing the money, and you're the one that convinced us."<br />
"I didn't say much."<br />
"No honey, but maybe it was just someone else saying that we should go for it that made us do it. We'll stop by on the weekend before we head out. Come, George!" Erma walked out the door with her husband at her heels waving goodbye to Christina. Christina waved back and returned to work.<br />
When she got home she counted her money again. Twenty dollars from the Bowerfields would make her life much easier. She only had two days left before the rent was due for the month, and she was cutting it close. If she got a bit lucky with tips she could make it, but still. Saturday was the last day she had, and she only had to hope that George had heard Erma tell him to get cash. She didn't like the idea of taking from the nice couple, but they offered . . . and she did need it.<br />
The next day she got to the restaurant and found it busy, a good thing. She started working and garnered the right amount of tips to put her back on track. It was hectic, tiring work, and she ran back and forth across the restaurant floor until she thought her legs were going to fall off. More than once she got angry shouts aimed her way for some mistake with the food or slow service, no matter how quickly she moved.<br />
The visions returned and hit her twice as she worked. The first one was a person waking up in a hospital bed with concerned family crowded around, each one happier than the next that the person on the bed was waking. Christina couldn't see who it was waking up, and couldn't pick the person out of the crowded restaurant, either. The second one was of a frazzled young woman stuffed into a booth in a corner shaking hands with a well-dressed man, and then handing off a painting of an old woman hunched over a stove, steam rising around the woman’s drooping, ragged hair and downcast eyes, all done in sweet flowing oils. Once Christina went to her table to refill the woman's water, and saw a doodle done on a napkin. After finishing with the water, Christina pointed at the doodle and said that she thought it was nice. The woman smiled up at her and thanked her.<br />
Just as she was about to leave, a round man that had been eating on his own walked out the door. He pushed it open and was hit by a wave of heat that had sat waiting outside, fueled by the buses and taxis and the sun. The man clutched his shoulder and toppled to the ground.<br />
Christina saw it and rushed out the door, pulling the man to his back and yelling at someone to call an ambulance. She knew this was the man that had been in the first vision, and that he was in trouble. People stood around her in a ring, and nobody seemed to be calling anyone.<br />
She pointed at a woman who was holding a phone and told her to call nine one one. The woman flipped open her phone and punched the numbers, looking for a street sign. Christina knelt over the man, unsure of what to do next.<br />
A man ran up, claiming to be a doctor. Christina stepped back as he assessed the man and started CPR. She felt a warm wind blow across the street, and a feeling that made her want to fall to the ground.<br />
The vision of the man waking to find his family standing around him, happy to see him wake up after a massive heart attack, had changed. Like a ghost's hand had reached in and ripped pieces of a memory out, replacing them with a fresh picture. Now the man was awake to see his wife and three children walk into his room. He greeted them as hugs were passed from one to another.<br />
The ambulance arrived a few minutes later and the EMTs loaded the suffering man in. Christina watched it leave, and then realized she missed her bus.<br />
She waited at the stop for the next one. Her action had changed the vision directly. She didn't know how; she hadn't done anything except tell someone to call nine one one, but that must have been something. If she hadn't known -- immediately -- that the man was in trouble, precious minutes would have passed before somebody thought to call for an ambulance.<br />
She got in her apartment and walked past the Mohands. Mr. Mohand was discussing something that was 'hot in the toilet.' Mr. Mohand's grasp of English was negotiable, and Christina wasn't sure what the phrase meant. Mrs. Mohand was holding Emily, and nothing about the situation struck Christina as very hot in the toilet. Emily's sweet dark face peeked over her mother's shoulder. Christina said hello to them before going up the stairs.<br />
As she approached the third floor, a door opened and a voice thundered out. The man that had tried to grab her and, she guessed, do terrible things to her came out of his room. He was coughing and talking on the phone, and a wicked scent hit Christina, a smell she knew. She waited until he went back in and then crept past, heart pounding under her shirt. The smell of weed threatened to bring tears to her eyes, and when she got to her room she threw the window wide and sucked in fresh air, even though it was hot. She coughed.<br />
She should tell the superintendent. There was a no drugs policy in the building. She looked at the phone and reached for it, unsure. If the man found out it was her he would be furious. She would be in danger.<br />
She thought about the Mohands and little Emily with the sweet dark face, and she picked up the phone, dialing the super's number. He should still be in the office.<br />
The phone rang once, and Christina slammed it down. She couldn't do it. She would be killed; she knew she would. Here was a man that already thought she was an item to be felt and used, told on like a bad little child. With drugs in his system he would become a storm.<br />
An hour later a knock came from the other side of the door, and her heart nearly stopped. Dinner was a little bit of cooked chicken and the dishes were just getting washed. She opened the door a crack with the sliding chain lock still attached. On the other side was the super, an ex-cop named Mr. Diaz with balding hair and muscles that he had worked hard to keep.<br />
"Christina. I saw I had a call from you. I must have missed it." He looked at the sliver of her face with concern. "Are you all right? Something troubling you?"<br />
Christina's mouth started to form the word <i>yes</i>.<br />
A vision appeared in the cache of memories. It was of her. She sat on her bed and heard stomps coming up the hall from the stairs. With one mighty crash, her door's locks were blasted open and the man from the third floor stood on the other side. For the second worst moment of her life, Christina felt the perverse thrill of the man laying sight on the woman that he would, in an instant, brutalize. Because she had gotten him kicked out of his home.<br />
"No," Christina forced out of her mouth. "It's nothing." She closed the door in the super's face and pressed against it. She heard the super mutter something, and walk away.<br />
The vision was gone and done; it never happened. She was safe. She washed the dishes, set them to dry, pushed the table in front of the door.<br />
She slept in fear of an event that shouldn't happen.<br />
<br />
The next day she rose, gladness blooming in her heart as the sun banished the darkness from her mind. She went down the stairs and past the third floor, putting each foot down with deliberate silence.<br />
It was the hottest day yet, and just sitting out for the bus brought sweat to Christina's forehead and armpits and feet. By the time the bus came she felt dizzy. Before clocking in she drank a big glass of water and sighed.<br />
The rent was due. The super would be around to collect during the night. If she didn't have enough . . .<br />
But she would be able to get tips. It was payday, and she would run to deposit the check. That was most of the money. Hopefully the tips would be able to make up the rest.<br />
And if not, she hoped that George Bowerfield had remembered to get cash. She again felt the guilt of taking their money . . . but it might be her last option.<br />
She went out to the guest area, and found it nearly deserted. Theresa came up to her.<br />
"What's going on? There's hardly anyone here!"<br />
"The paper," Theresa said, pointing at a page she held. It was a small story detailing the man's collapse outside the restaurant the night before. "Everybody must think that our food did it."<br />
"But . . . it doesn't!"<br />
"No." Theresa sighed. "But what can we do about it?"<br />
"What?" Christina asked.<br />
"Nothing. That's the point. We just do the job we're hired to do."<br />
Christina looked out at the small crowd and pictured herself sitting on the street with her scant materials piled next to her. It wasn't a vision, just the normal imagination of a stressed woman.<br />
She rubbed her head and started working. The new stigma, spoken or unspoken, that the restaurant she worked in should be avoided had pervaded enough people that it was the slowest day in weeks. Only a few people came in before lunch, and even most of them were regulars or those who knew the place. The tips were the normal amount for such a crowd; Christina watched them come in and kept track of the amount. The day went on and it grew too slowly. With an hour left, Christina looked at the nearly deserted seating area and felt a squeeze on her heart.<br />
"Don't worry," she heard behind her. It was Mr. Johns. "This happens. It'll pick back up." He handed her an envelope. "Here's the last two weeks. You've been doing good work recently." He smiled, a rare event. "Keep it up."<br />
Christina squirreled the envelope away in a pocket.<br />
She left work and caught a bus to her bank, making it with only ten minutes before closing time. She deposited her check and received her deposit slip. She got another bus back to the restaurant and walked to her normal stop. It was late now, almost six thirty in the evening. The air was heavy with water and slanting rays of sun.<br />
On the bus she experienced a vision. It was, again, of the Bowerfields.<br />
It was without a doubt the longest vision she would ever see. It began with the two of them squeezed into the back of a dingy cab at the rear of a line four cars long, waiting for a train to pass. It was the train crossing near Christina's apartment, the one at the bottom of the hill. Without warning the taxi was struck from behind and, in turn, struck the car in front of it. Christina experienced the terrible domino effect until the car at the head of the line was pushed forward just enough.<br />
The shattering, screaming metal shredded in a blink. The taxi that had been pressed forward into the passing train disappeared with a terrible cry from Erma and George and a horrible curse from their cab driver. A piece of torn metal crashed to a halt near the car that they were in, showing a bumper sticker with a dirty yellow smiley face. A rip had shot through it and the metal underneath.<br />
The vision continued as the train passed enough for the waiting cars to go through, and Christina was with the shocked Bowerfields. Chemicals passed through their brains, filling them with unbelievable relief. She was with them until they reached the home.<br />
The bus screeched to a halt at her stop, and she fell back into her own life. She rose, wobbling on her shoes. She went off the bus and walked to her building. She went up to her room and gasped, stricken to tears by the horrible event she had witnessed second-hand.<br />
She did not have time to grieve. Before she could even sit, her phone rang. She gulped a deep breath and sputtered it out, then answered.<br />
"Hello? Christina?" Christina recognized the voice of Erma Bowerfield. "We're downstairs. Should we come up?"<br />
Christina glanced around her dingy apartment. "No. I'll . . . uh, I'll come down and meet you." She hung up, splashed her face with water, and rubbed it with a towel. She glanced at herself in the mirror. She felt better.<br />
Frenzied, she went down the stairs and ran into Mrs. Mohand with Emily. Mrs. Mohand explained that they were going to visit the park and feed the ducks once Mr. Mohand arrived. Christina was tempted to ask what hot in the toilet meant but kept it to herself. They got to the lobby, and the moment Mrs. Bowerfield laid eyes on Emily Mohand she was on her like a mosquito on a sleeper.<br />
"What a <i>darling!</i> George, isn't she a darling? What's her name, dearie? Emily? What a lovely name! How old? Oh, has she started walking? Just this week? How wonderful!"<br />
By this time Emily had been transferred to Erma's sure grasp and was smiling at the old woman. Mrs. Bowerfield spotted Christina waiting, still in her work outfit, and let Emily's mother take her back. "Such a cutie-pie! You keep her nice and safe now! I'm sure she'll love the park, it's gorgeous this time of year."<br />
The two women said goodbye and Mrs. Mohand went out the door.<br />
"Here we are, Christina. George, do you have the money?" Erma asked her silent husband. He looked at her.<br />
"The what?"<br />
Erma turned, furious as a gathering storm, and reduced her husband to a cowering husk. "You forgot?"<br />
"Sorry dear," George said, clearly familiar with this type of situation. Erma sighed, blowing a great gust of air and making George's hair flap. Slowly, aware that once again she had nothing to give the woman that she had promised a sum of money, Erma turned and looked at Christina.<br />
"Sorry, Christina. We'll stop at an ATM machine on the way back, but we have an appointment to keep and we need to get going."<br />
Christina got her heart to settle down. "It's all right. I can wait." She ran through the vision that she had received as she rode the bus. "I hope you have a good trip,” she said as they stepped into the open air and felt the sun on their skin.<br />
"Thank you dear. It'll be a nice drive up there. We'll have to take a taxi, though. George's car is in the shop. We walked here," Erma prattled. She waved an arm for a taxi, and instead of one, two came to a stop. "Oh! One too many!"<br />
The Mohands, who had been standing nearby, said they would take the other one to the park.<br />
Christina's eyes were drawn to the bumper of one of the cabs.<br />
"Which one should we take, George?" Erma asked.<br />
"Oh, either one's fine," George answered.<br />
"He can't make a decision to save his life," Erma said to Christina. "Which one looks better to you?"<br />
Christina's mind blazed through every possible thing she could say. It was too late to try and explain anything. They were in a hurry. She thought about the horrid vision from the bus. There was nothing she could do now.<br />
"Take the one in the front," she said at last. Only a moment had passed but it was like the moment had been forever. The calmness of her voice was a miracle.<br />
"That one?" Erma said. "Why?"<br />
Christina's stomach clenched. "It has a smiley face bumper sticker."<br />
Erma smiled at her and nodded. "Good enough as any. Get in George."<br />
With the sudden energy of a bolt of lightning the vision Christina had seen was gone, replaced by a new one. This one was of the Mohands in the park, Emily enjoying the grass and trying in vain to get a duck to eat out of her little hand, the little hand attached to the little body that Mrs. Bowerfield had said to keep nice and safe.<br />
George and Erma got in the taxi and it took off down the road. The Mohands got in the remaining cab and it followed at a slower pace. The two cars passed out of view and Christina stood paralyzed on the sidewalk as people moved around her. She waited.<br />
And waited.<br />
And wai-<br />
A heart-stopping crash came down the road. The screeching and screaming of metal was all the more terrible in real life.<br />
Christina went into her building and wept.<br />
<br />
The Bowerfields never returned. Christina spent the night in a haze of guilt, cursing at herself for deciding who should live and who shouldn't. She felt cold and cut off. No visions had shown themselves; she wished they never would. She nearly didn't hear the knocks on the door.<br />
"Oh my God," the super said when she opened the door. "Are you all right, Christina?"<br />
Christina wiped away the tears on her cheeks and looked at the ground. "You know that train accident a few blocks over?" The super nodded. "Some of my friends were in the taxi that was hit." Her voice trembled.<br />
"Oh. I'm sorry. I'll just, uh, collect your rent and be on my way."<br />
Christina kept her eyes on the ground. "I'm sorry Mr. Diaz, I don't have enough. I just need a little bit of time to pack my things."<br />
"How much do you need?"<br />
Christina looked up at him. "What?"<br />
"How much are you missing?"<br />
"About twenty dollars," she said. Hope spread its warmth.<br />
"Give me what you can, and I'll spot the rest. Pay me back as soon as you have it." Christina didn't answer, stunned into silence. "I know you work hard. I know you won't try to trick me. Even so, it's just twenty. Besides." He leaned in a bit. "If I hadn't come up here last night that reefer on the third floor would still be living here! After I left I was walking past his room and smelled some Mary Jane! Well, I kicked him out without a thought. No damn drugs in my building, and you better believe it! Oh come now Christina, there's no need to cry."Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-28454047582617665792013-06-15T12:00:00.000-05:002013-10-07T21:42:33.827-05:00A Carnival to Remember"It's on. They're doing it,"<br />
Hector's father watched him put his spoon down in his bowl of cereal and glare up at him. "How? How could they possibly do that? After... everything!"<br />
"It's the county's biggest money-making event all year. Of course they're going to do it," Hector's mother said from the stove. Muted sunlight intruded the small kitchen through the dirty window in front of her. "And it's been a small crop this year. Everyone needs to make up their losses."<br />
Hector shook his head once, angrily. His hair, the same color as the corn that flooded the county, flopped over. He pushed away from the table with a crash and stomped to his room. His parents heard the door slam.<br />
"Oh brother. He didn't even finish his breakfast," Mrs. Donnerson said. Mr. Donnerson sighed and sat at the table as his wife placed a plate of pancakes in front of him. He picked up the paper and scanned the front headline: 'County Board Votes Harvest Carnival Will Happen.'<br />
<br />
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Jenna Peers approached Hector's locker and heard him muttering to himself, the sentences peppered with vile curses and harsh motions. When he saw her, he stopped. "What's wrong," she asked him.<br />
Hector stood still with the door of his half-locker in his hand, and then slammed it shut and looked at her. "They're going to have the carnival again. Again!"<br />
Jenna leaned back. Hector's hands squeezed shut. His eyes burrowed down at her.<br />
She smiled. "I'm sorry Hector, but we can't do anything about it. Your dad was at the board meeting, he tried to get them to stop it. My dad told me. But people need to earn money, Hector!" Jenna placed her hand on his shoulder and tried to soothe him. "It was too dry this year. Too many crops died!"<br />
Hector shrugged off her hand and about-faced, heading towards his first classroom. He sat by himself as Mr. Cranst talked about angles and sines, and then as Mrs. Beunner discussed the frog dissection they were going to do in a week. His third class was history, which Jenna also had. Mr. Forge was discussing the political implications of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan at the end of World War II. <br />
Mr. Forge was on the county board. Hector knew that, and he followed the old man back and forth as he paced, waving his arms over his head and bemoaning the atrocities of this country or that country. Mr. Forge failed to notice this animosity, and, with ten minutes remaining in the class, stopped his ranting to catch his breath. He looked cheerily at the class. "Are there any questions?"<br />
Hector raised his hand and leaned forward. "I'd like you to talk about a little bit of local history for me, Mr. Forge. I'd like you to tell us about the Harvest Carnival."<br />
"Well, the carnival, which was started in 1905, had the original name of 'The Wonder of the Harvest,' but some decided that the word 'wonder' made it seem to be more than it was. During the first year-"<br />
"I'd like you to talk about how, each of the last four years during the carnival, something terrible happened," Hector cut in. Mr. Forge hesitated, put off-balance by this interruption. Hector stared at him.<br />
"I'm sorry Hector, but that doesn't seem very-"<br />
"Four years ago?" Hector ignored the look of anger from Mr. Forge. "The spiders?"<br />
Several people in the class shuddered.<br />
"The Langenfields' crops were nothing mysterious. It was just bad luck that all the spiders appeared during the ribbon ceremony. Nobody was hurt by that, simply given a chill."<br />
"What about the next year?" Hector crossed his arms. "A pig went missing. Later, the Harvest Coaster almost crashed because there was a pig mangled in its brake system. If it hadn't been found, dozens would have died. The next year!" Hector continued, ignoring Mr. Forge's protestations. "Lucy McGinnis' dog was up on the catwalk above the stage. It got tangled in a rope and fell, and a hundred children watched a beagle choke to death on a noose on Halloween night." The class was dead silent. Hector gripped his desk with rage. Jenna watched him. "And last year, Charlie's cousin fell off a fence and hit her head." Hector slammed his desk. "She died!"<br />
"Hector! I ask you calm down!" Mr. Forge stuttered. Charlie Inson, in the front row, frowned at Hector. "Unfortunate accidents, all of them! The pig was the work of miscreants hoping for a scare, Lucy's dog should not have been allowed up the catwalk but she was busy watching the play!" Mr. Forge took in a breath. "Charlie's cousin was a terrible event, even now." Mr. Forge swallowed. "I assume you have a point to make, Hector? We're almost out of time."<br />
"The carnival is bad news," Hector forced out. "And you shouldn't have voted to hold it. It's haunted."<br />
Nobody in the class said a word. Hector and Mr. Forge looked each other over. Hector was dizzy with rage.<br />
Mr. Forge clenched his teeth. "Hector, if you have an issue with the way I voted, I ask you take it up with me in private, not blare it to the class. If you wish, we can discuss it after the-"<br />
The bell rang. Hector gathered his books and went out the door without another look at Mr. Forge. Jenna chased after him.<br />
"Hector!" He spun and glared at her. She held up her hands defensively. "Don't give me that look! I understand! You don't want any memory of last year! What else are people going to do this time of year? Houses are too far apart for trick-or-treating!"<br />
"Nobody has to <i>do</i> anything!" Hector said. It was lunch time, and they entered the noisy cafeteria. "They should all just stay home!"<br />
"The carnival is important!" Jenna said, finding an empty table in a corner. "Taking your anger out on Mr. Forge isn't the way to do things! You have to talk to the board!"<br />
"You really think that they're going to take the word of a kid who thinks the carnival is haunted?" Hector shouted.<br />
"Well what exactly was your plan back in class? Shame Mr. Forge into thinking that he had voted incorrectly, after the fact? You don't have to go to the carnival! You can stay home and sulk if you want!" Jenna said baring her teeth. "But good luck getting the carnival shut down! It's less than a month away and people have been preparing all year, without even knowing if it was going to happen!"<br />
Hector ate his lunch without looking at her. She inspected his long nose and heavy brows for emotion. "Why do you want it shut down so badly, anyway?" He stopped eating and stared at the wall.<br />
"Ever since last year, whenever I think of the Carnival I get chills," Hector said quietly. "Every year I can remember something bad has happened, getting worse and worse. What's going to happen this year? Will the whole damn thing burn down? Will more people die?" He shook his head. "I can't get it out of my head." He sighed. "Of course I have to go, my parents are making me go at least once."<br />
Jenna sighed and rubbed his back.<br />
<br />
Hector's bus dropped him off a half-mile from his house, and he walked home along a seldom-used path flanked on both sides by towering ranks of golden corn stalks. The Donnerson's closest neighbor, Frank Olson, drove his harvester in endless loops, scooping up the corn and dumping it into the bin that trailed after him. The sun peeked out from behind sparse clouds.<br />
It was early October, and the Harvest Carnival was being held. For four days, ending on Halloween, the large county of Haletown, a sprawling farming community, would gather its many pieces of humanity and come together for nights and days of frippery and masquerade. Stage shows, petting zoos featuring the comeliest of animals, a giant corn maze -- different each year -- and elections for high school students to become Harvest Royalty. Games of skill and chance: spin the wheel, toss the ring, pop the balloon. There were games that city folk would find unseemly, like Catch the Pig, the big mud fight, or corn eating contests. Endless costumes and candy would enter and leave, Haletown too spread out for traditional door-to-door treat gathering. There would be judging for flora and fauna, stands selling pies and cookies, rides bought and maintained just for the Carnival. Everywhere pumpkin scarecrows and garish cardboard witches stood to take pictures against. The smell of fried foods and livestock invaded every corner. Young lovers would walk hand in hand, dressed in boots and jeans and matching flannel, eating chili dogs or cotton candy. Children would pull parents to this or that stand, and ask to go on the roller coaster one more time. Old farmers would stand in circles and spit tobacco at the ground or smoke and become euphoric with friendship and fun. For four days teachers avoided giving homework and employers turned a blind eye when people snuck out at two or three in the afternoon.<br />
And every year Hector would feel the sick, slick terror of something he couldn't see. The spiders that had erupted from the Langenfield's blue-ribbon crops and swarmed toward the applauding audience. The pig dead and shoved into the coaster, found during a routine check. Lucy's two-year old beagle that had stumbled and fallen to its neck-snapping doom in front of children of all ages who had only wanted to see the story of the ghost who'd lost his boots. A year ago, Becky Inson, pretty and twenty-one, fell off the fence between the corn fence and the petting zoo, striking her head on a metal feed bucket and dying without so much as a cry for help.<br />
Hector stopped and stood by the side of the quiet road, watching the receding form of Frank Olson's harvester wind back and forth. His backpack hung on one shoulder.<br />
And as Hector stood in the wind and the hot sun, he remembered the feeling of a watcher on him. He felt it like a hot breath on his neck, a presence that hid just at the edge of the plane of his senses. Since last year, the thought of the Harvest Carnival made his stomach twist in defiance of rational thought. <br />
<i>Accidents</i>, Hector thought, turning toward home. <i>Miscreants. Bad Luck</i>. Words that Mr. Forge had used, and words that, no matter how he tried, Hector could not apply to the feeling he got when he heard that the Carnival was happening again.<br />
He stepped into the foyer of his house and shucked the shoes from his feet. He went into the kitchen and was greeted by his mother.<br />
"Miss Anderson called. She said that you yelled at Mr. Forge," Hector's mother, a stout and hardy woman, placed her hands on her hips. She blocked the exit. "Explain yourself."<br />
"I was angry at him," Hector said. "He voted for the Carnival to continue." Time, even so much as half a day, had dulled Hector's anger. Jenna had been right; he simply didn't want to remember the feeling of the thing. "I'm going to apologize to him tomorrow. I just..." Hector trailed off, searching the ground at his feet with his eyes.<br />
"You don't like the Carnival. I know." Mrs. Donnerson crossed her arms. "You've told us enough times. But it's an important event. It'll help a lot of people."<br />
"I know," Hector said.<br />
"Do you have much homework?" Hector shrugged. "Go do it then. Once you're done your father wanted you to feed the chickens."<br />
After bending his nose to the paper of his math and Spanish books, Hector got on his boots and trudged across the yard to the chicken coop. A chill had settled in as the sun sagged down and changed color; the clouds that had survived shone with autumn brilliance and kaleidoscopic color.<br />
The four chickens that occupied the coop clucked sleepily. The Donnersons used them for eggs, a small amount of breeding and, if the need was great enough, a feather or two. Hector filled the cups in front of the plump birds with feed and water, and, just as Hector had bent over his books, the chickens bent to eat and drink. He stood in the entry of the small coop, watching the contented animals.<br />
Just as he was about to leave, the door slammed shut behind him. The coop went dark. The small window near the roof was blocked by something, and Hector struggled to find the latch to get himself out.<br />
His hand hit the door in front of him and, as it opened, he could feel a presence next to him.<br />
Light entered the coop again, and he was alone inside except for the chickens, who continued to eat unworried. He stepped outside and looked up at where the window was. An old piece of wood had fallen from the building, swung on one nail, and covered over the window. Hector shook his head, closed the coop door, and went back to the house.<br />
<br />
That Saturday Hector stood outside the entrance to the Carnival, still in its infant stages. He stood with his arms crossed, his feet planted, and his lip wrinkled.<br />
The entrance was a fake barn outline, taller than any man, flanked by pumpkins and bound hay bales. Hanging from the top part of the barn was a grinning pumpkin-head scarecrow with lengthy arms, spanning the width of the entrance. Its legs hung down the middle, dangling in free air. Its head hung at the tilted angle of a hanged man.<br />
The roller coaster's skeleton rose higher with each day. The scaffolding of the stage was being constructed with the banging of hammers and intermittent curses. <br />
Mr. Bena's harvester diagrammed the path of the maze, as of yet an unknown quality. Students at the high school waged bets on what the design would be. One of them, Larry Hilger, asked Hector what he thought it would be, and Hector responded with "gravestones." Nobody asked him after that.<br />
Jenna walked through the entrance toward Hector. "Come on, my dad wants us to help with the Fuzz-Toss booth."<br />
"Why did you make me come here?" Hector demanded.<br />
"Because I think it will help you realize something. There's nothing <i>wrong</i> here. It's like Mr. Forge said. Everything that happened the last few years..." Jenna knew that she needed to be careful. "It wasn't the Carnival. They happen, and they're terrible... but it isn't the Carnival doing it. This place isn't bad."<br />
Hector motioned up at the hanging scarecrow with a hand. "That thing is bad." <br />
Jenna looked up at the scarecrow. Its genial face looked down at them, its long arms almost asking for a hug. "Okay, maybe. That thing is a little creepy. But is the cotton candy machine creepy? Is the petting zoo creepy?"<br />
"Becky Inson died in the petting zoo." Hector pointed out.<br />
Jenna's eyes narrowed to slits among her black braided hair. "But the petting zoo did not kill her. Come on, my dad's probably wondering where we are." She took the sleeve of his jacket and pulled him. He let himself get carried through the threshold of the Carnival and shook his arm free, preferring to walk under his own power. They made their way in between the partially-constructed booths of this game or that treat, and found the Fuzz-Toss.<br />
Brandon Peers, a bear of a man that had given his daughter his jet hair, waved them over and slapped Hector on the back so hard that Hector lost feeling in his hand. "There you two are! I was wondering if you two had gone behind the shed or something like that!"<br />
"Dad!" Jenna protested, but Mr. Peers drove on.<br />
"Anyway, Jenna, why don't you get the prizes and things from the truck, Hector and I will get the roof up. Jenna grumbled something and moved off. Her dad waved his hand and Hector followed him.<br />
They were guiding the metal poles of the booth into their housings when Brandon began to ask questions. "How are you, Hector? Jen told us about Tuesday in Mr. Forge's room."<br />
Hector didn't respond right away. The apology to Mr. Forge had been received with grace; Mr. Forge said he understood why Hector was upset, but wished he would find a rather more appropriate outlet. Hector agreed, and left.<br />
"I know you probably don't want to be here, but I agree with Jenna," Brandon continued. "It's good to see that this place isn't bad. It's not haunted." He grunted, and a pole clicked into place. "Plus, sweating a bit always makes me feel better."<br />
Brandon Peers was a big, fine man that liked to talk and help people. Hector couldn't help but feel calmer around him, even with the added stigma of being his daughter's boyfriend.<br />
"I... It feels like there's something here that's looking at me." Hector shook his head. "And now it's the only thing I can think about."<br />
Brandon wiped his hands on his pants. "Why don't you go help with the stage in that case? get away from this area?"<br />
Hector saw, for a hot instant, Lucy's beagle strangling at the end of a cord, eyes bulging and paws wheeling wildly as children screamed. "No, I'll stay here. Maybe if I get my mind on something else it won't be so bad."<br />
Brandon slapped him on the back again. "That's the way. Give me help with the sign for this."<br />
So Hector helped Brandon and Jenna get the Fuzz-Toss booth together, and then moved on to the next one. This was a dart-throwing game, with balloons to aim at and prizes to win. There were T-shirts and stuffed dolls and posters, and Hector carried them in boxes by the armload, sweating in the dry air. Clouds moved in but yielded no rain as noon passed and the two teens stopped for a break of water and hot dogs, provided by Mrs. Lund's stand, which would dole out hot links of beef with or without chili frantically during the Carnival proper. Hector choked his down, eager to either find something else to do or leave and watch the entrance to the Carnival dwindle in the rear-view mirror.<br />
He got his wish. Jenna had school work to attend to, and Hector was her ride home.<br />
The scarecrow over the entrance, with a jagged smile and triangular eyes, watched them drive away from the banging hammers and talking workers.<br />
<br />
Hector kept track of the days as they blew off the calendar, watching in dread as the first day of the Carnival crept up with its claws out.<br />
Jenna and her two young siblings wanted to go the first day to see the opening. Jenna convinced Hector to take them, because they did like him so much. Her brother, Sam, was eight. Her sister Julie was eleven, and both reveled in the cold air as Hector parked.<br />
The roller coaster was a blur of motion in the dark air, lit by spotlights in the center of the sprawling grounds. Hundreds of people could be seen already, milling inside the grounds and around the entrance.<br />
There was no fee to enter, but people rarely left with their pocketbooks intact. Games were fifty cents, rides were the same or more, shows, the hay ride, and the petting zoo were free. The corn maze, now revealed to be an intricate carving of a haunted house, was a dollar for as many times as you wanted to go during the Carnival; Hector remembered a year he had gone a dozen times, but couldn't quite remember what the design had been.<br />
Sam rode on Hector's back as they went first to the Fuzz-Toss both that Brandon Peers stood behind, dressed in a pinstriped carnie's outfit. He had a fedora on his head and a cane in one hand. A fake moustache was on his lip, and all four of the children laughed when they saw him.<br />
Julie took a turn and landed a fuzz in one of the bowls, winning herself a big sheet of harvest stickers. After that they went to the petting zoo. The three Peers went in, and Hector stood outside, leaning against the fence.<br />
He watched the children play with the goats and sheep and pigs, and carefully pet the baby cow and llama.<br />
Once Sam stumbled and nearly fell, only inches from a feed bucket. Hector stiffened then relaxed when Sam righted himself and gave a little goat a big hug, smiling happily as Jenna snapped a picture.<br />
After the petting zoo they went to the corn maze. They paid the dollar fee and were waved in by the teenaged ticket taker. They wandered among the golden stalks, talking and finding the numbered posts to prove they had made it through. Hector and Jenna met a few of their friends inside, and stopped for a chat as the younger Peers grew antsy.<br />
They made it to the exit and had their slips of paper stamped, which allowed them to take a piece of candy. Julie asked to go on the hay ride. They found the idling tractor with a flatbed trailer behind it, and a sign stating rides every half-hour. The trailer was already occupied by a few families, and the four of them clambered up, squeezing in to one side. The tractor started rolling forward, and Sam whooped.<br />
The dark path was lit with bright lights pointing out over the fields to either side. The bouncing motion was both soothing and frightening.<br />
Dark, bony trees reached down for them as the tractor turned into an old forest, kept standing for just such a purpose. The skeletal trees cast long shadows, thrown by the lights along the path, and Julie grabbed hold of Hector's arm as a sharp branch went over her head.<br />
"Jenna, isn't that the scarecrow that was over the entrance?" Sam asked, pointing over the edge of the trailer. They all looked. The long-armed scarecrow lounged against a tree with one leg crossed over the other, holding a long tube arm in a silent wave.<br />
"They must have made another one," Jenna said. "They're brothers!" Sam laughed and waved at the scarecrow.<br />
Hector's vision stayed locked on it. All the bouncing and rolling of the flat trailer made it hard to see.<br />
<br />
The hay ride ended and they walked around the rest of the Carnival, looking at the different treats for sale and the games that surrounded the roller coaster. Hector, an old pro at the dart toss, won a poster of Tony Romo for Sam and a stuffed alligator for Julie. He went again and missed a few times, netting only a cheap novelty lighter. They bought cookies from Mr. Hunter and listened to the barn music coming from the stage. Sam and Julie were getting sleepy, but couldn't bear to leave the Carnival just yet. They wanted to go on rides and play games and go in the petting zoo again. Jenna said they could play one more game.<br />
After they had spent their quarters and tried to argue once more, they went to Hector's car and settled in for the drive back. The moon was a beautiful bright glow, and Hector released the pent breath he had been keeping in the entire time.<br />
Jenna looked in the back seat. Sam's eyes drooped, and Julie was already asleep, clutching her alligator tightly.<br />
"See? Nothing happened."<br />
"It's only been one day. It's not even over yet!" Hector said, not looking away from the road. "Something could happen before it closes for the night!"<br />
"Hector! You're being silly, stop it!"<br />
"I'm not being silly!" Hector forced through clenched teeth. "I'm not! I can't explain it, I just..." He was silent for a few seconds. "When I'm in there, it's like my nerves are burning. I keep looking for something that I feel like I should see. It's never there, but if I just look around the corner, or in the shadows, or the crowd parts, I'll be able to see it."<br />
He shook his head in short waves. "The scarecrow that Sam saw. When I looked over my shoulder I could swear it was looking right at me. Like it was looking for me."<br />
"Don't be ridiculous," Jenna said.<br />
"When we left, and went out to the car, I looked up at the scarecrow that was over the entrance. Its 'brother.' The pumpkin is hollow, right?"<br />
"Of course it is. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to carve it."<br />
"I swear I saw something inside it."<br />
Jenna stared at him as he drove. "Hector, you need to settle down. There's nothing going on. We were all over that place. Did you see anything? A dead pig?"<br />
"Stop it!" Hector said. He snapped his mouth shut and looked behind him. The two children were dead to the world. "Maybe there's really nothing, but I <i>feel</i> like there is. It's... it's... ugh." Hector sighed.<br />
"Well now you've gone once, you don't have to go again," Jenna said. "You can hide in your room and do homework."<br />
"No." Hector sighed again. "My parents want to go on the thirtieth and they want me to come with."<br />
"You can say no."<br />
"I tried. They think that it will help me put everything in perspective." He glanced at her quickly. "They're making me."<br />
They drove for a few more minutes. Jenna's house was approaching.<br />
"I'm going to suggest something," Jenna said. "It's fine if you don't want to. Let's go tomorrow."<br />
"<i>What?!</i>"<br />
"Just you and me. My dad isn't working, Julie and Sam only get to go two days so they don't get cranky, and they want to go on Halloween. It'll be fun. Just us. We don't have to stay very long, just enough to eat some greasy food and lose money trying to win a stupid prize." Her voice lowered. "We can get good and lost in the corn maze." She smiled and leaned back in her seat. "What do you say?"<br />
Hector counted ten passing dash marks on the country road to calm his beating heart. "I guess. I'm just going to be happy when it's all over." Hector sighed, and his shoulders drooped. He was so tired. He pulled into Jenna's house, and they roused the sleeping children. Hector waved goodbye and pulled out of the drive.<br />
When he got home he wearily pulled himself out of the car and stumbled to the house. His parents would already be asleep. He felt around the lighter he had won and pulled the keys out his coat pocket. With a last look at the dark autumn sky, full of the scent of dead leaves, he went in.<br />
<br />
"I'm glad you wanted to do this," Jenna said when Hector picked her up the next day. She slid into the passenger seat and hugged him. "I think it will help you."<br />
"I don't know about that," Hector said as he backed out of the driveway. "But it <i>is</i> nice to get some time to ourselves."<br />
"Right!" Jenna smiled and rummaged in her hair, mussing it. They talked until the roller coaster could be seen over the trees. Hector pulled into the parking lot. The moon was haloed by thin clouds, adding misty darkness to the grounds. They passed under the hanging scarecrow. As they did, the wind blew its legs, and the entrance creaked. Hector jumped away from it, startled, pulling Jenna with him. When nothing happened he sighed. Jenna shook her head with a smile and pulled him along.<br />
They went to the judging pens first, full of the stink of animals. Neither of their families had any animals competing, so they walked through the large building gazing at the beasts. There were staggering horses, so tall you had to crane your neck to see their faces; large, docile cows that lowed in the hot building and munched on grass; and others: goats, pigs, llamas. They would be judged on the last day by county board members and elected 'officials', the Harvest King and Queen.<br />
They left the pens and wandered through the rows of crops to be judged, leaning in and inspecting the squashes and corn and other vegetables. Many families entered this contest, saving their best, but only the finest examples of farming went home with the coveted blue ribbon.<br />
The Langenfield's crops were hidden in a corner, forgotten by most of the on-lookers.<br />
Hector and Jenna then wandered through the midway. Jenna asked if he wanted to ride the roller coaster, but he shook his head. They played a few games and walked away with two novelty cowboy hats. Hand-in-hand, they watched others play games. Hector couldn't get comfortable; too many sounds came at him too quickly. Popping balloons, ringing bells, happily screaming children and the slap of many shoes on the dirt ground. The cries of people riding the roller coaster and the other, smaller rides reached fever pitches. Jenna saw Hector begin to look overloaded, so they left.<br />
"How about the hay ride again?" Jenna asked. "We can relax on that."<br />
"Well... I guess so. At least we'll be able to cool down there." They went to the hay ride and climbed on. The flat trailer added a few more passengers and then started to rumble down the same path it had taken the night before. Hector laid his head back against the railing on the trailer and closed his eyes, soothed by the cool breeze. Jenna sat next to him and they rode in silence, enjoying the peace. Not much was said during the ride by either; the only utterance was a moment when Jenna said something to herself, softly. She must not have thought it bore repeating, because she was silent for the rest of the trip.<br />
The trailer pulled to a halt once it had made its circle, and they climbed off. Hector felt refreshed. Jenna pointed toward the entrance to the corn maze and smiled. She winked, and Hector blushed. The attendant waved them in, and they started to wander through the brown lanes. They took lefts and rights at random, getting themselves, as Jenna had put it the day before, good and lost.<br />
"Here," Jenna said. The closest person was a distant voice. Jenna pointed around a corner. "This should do."<br />
"I don't really know about this," Hector said. "If we found a dead end, other people can too."<br />
Jenna pouted. "We won't be here <i>too</i> long," she said. "Just enough to catch our breath after walking through this big corn maze for a while. I've gotten all tired walking, and it's so hot in this maze, too." She yawned, and ran a hand down her stomach. Hector lingered, and she giggled. "Come on, scaredy cat." She hugged Hector to herself and then led him around the corner.<br />
Hector shouted. Jenna looked and jumped back, then put her hand on her chest and sighed. "It's just another one of those scarecrows."<br />
This scarecrow, identical to the one on the path of the hay ride and the one suspended over the entrance, sat with its legs crossed in the dead center of the wall, long arms drooping to the ground before coming to rest behind its head. The empty pumpkin eyes leered at them. The mouth was in a crooked grin.<br />
"Jesus," Hector said. "This damn thing scared the shit out of me," he said. He looked around, then walked up to it. He kicked it over onto its side, tangling the long limbs in loose knots.<br />
"Oh, don't do that! That's just vandalism!" Jenna said. She picked the scarecrow up and put it back in its earlier position. "You know, the one that was on the hay ride was missing. Maybe they took it out and put it here. There are probably a few that they're moving around the Carnival."<br />
"Right," Hector said. He stared at the pumpkin head, which in turn seemed to be staring at Jenna as she stared at Hector.<br />
"Come on, let's find a different spot. I don't think I can get comfortable with this guy right next to us."<br />
Hector shivered and agreed. They had gone a few turns when Hector cleared his throat. "I think we should just leave. As much as I want to be alone with you for a little while, I think maybe we should just go somewhere that's actually private."<br />
"Oh brother," Jenna said, rolling her eyes. "You never want to do anything interesting."<br />
"I came here, didn't I? Come on." Jenna sighed and followed after him. The attendant at the exit was a friend of Jenna's, Tracy Goodman.<br />
"Jenna! How did you do?" She looked at the slip of paper they had been given. "You didn't find them all?"<br />
Jenna shrugged. "No. Hector got scared and wanted to leave. We went on it yesterday, too, so it doesn't matter too much to us." Tracy nodded with a vapid smile on her face.<br />
"I guess it <i>is</i> sort of scary."<br />
"Pff." Jenna rolled her eyes again. "Not really."<br />
Mr. Leon, an old, short man carrying a black walkie-talkie, appeared. "Tracy, do you remember seeing anybody move the scarecrow that's over the entrance?"<br />
Hector went cold.<br />
"No, why?" Tracy asked, taking slips from a few children and stamping them.<br />
"It went missing a little while ago. Nobody saw who did it. Same as last night."<br />
"How many are there?" Hector asked.<br />
"What? What do you mean how many?" Mr. Leon said, just noticing Hector and Jenna.<br />
"Is there more than one?"<br />
"No! Just the one over the entrance! Why?"<br />
"We saw it," Jenna said. "In a dead-end in the corn maze. I don't think we could tell you how to get there. It's in pretty deep."<br />
Mr. Leon nodded. "Alright. Thanks." He held a walkie-talkie to his mouth. "Frank. Brandon's daughter says she saw it in the corn maze." A voice crackled out from the walkie-talkie. "No, nobody saw the one who did it." The voice asked something else. "Well, I don't know! People probably didn't notice!" He sighed and slipped the box into his pocket. "Some miscreant's been moving it around. It disappeared yesterday, too."<br />
"We saw it," Hector said. He swallowed with a dry mouth. "It was in the forest on the hay ride. About half way."<br />
Mr. Leon peered at him. "You sure?" Hector nodded. After another look, Mr. Leon turned and entered the exit to the corn maze.<br />
"Now he thinks I did it," Hector said. "Great."<br />
"Don't get all strange on me now. You were just starting to get better."<br />
"We saw it. Both days!" Hector said. They stood a distance away from Tracy, who was busy stamping slips of paper. "Nobody saw who did it or who carried it, but we see it both times it goes missing? That's not a coincidence!"<br />
"It has to be. It's just a scarecrow." She squeezed his shoulder. "What possible motive could somebody have for moving it around? It's a victimless crime."<br />
Hector stared at the ground, picturing the scarecrow, grotesquely long arms spilling over the ground, as it sat under the reaching trees in the dead grove that the hay ride rolled through. "I don't like it. I think I've spent about as much time as I want to here tonight."<br />
Jenna sighed and crossed her arms. "Fine. Let's go."<br />
They went through the crowd outside the corn maze and entered the midway. The screams of the riders on the roller coaster reached them and made Hector look toward them. They got through the denser crowds there, and went for the exit.<br />
Hector saw something that froze him. "No." He ran through the exit and looked up. "How?"<br />
The scarecrow hung there, long arms poised to receive a hug. The pumpkin head gazed down at Hector, grimacing through jagged teeth.<br />
"We just saw it. Minutes ago! Mr. Leon went in looking for it, how..." he looked at Jenna. "How did it get here?"<br />
"I don't know." Jenna's scowl had changed when she saw it. Now she looked confused and worried. She shivered. The crowd swirled around them, unnoticing, making them feel like the eye of a storm as the scarecrow's cold, empty gaze drilled down at them. "Let's go," Jenna squeaked. "I don't like this. I feel dizzy."<br />
"Yeah. Yeah," Hector said. He took her arm and they went to the car at a fast walk.<br />
<br />
<br />
"What are you going to do?" Jenna asked Hector the next day at school. It was Thursday, and only two days remained for the Carnival. They stood in the hall of the school with one class left.<br />
Hector shut his locker. "They're making me go, they won't hear any argument against it. You should have heard me try to explain the scarecrow after I got home last night. They looked at me like I was crazy. I know I'm not." Hector shook his head. "I'm just going to keep my eyes open for anything that looks strange or out of place. You aren't going?"<br />
"No," Jenna said. "I'm keeping track of Sam and Julie while my parents are at the Carnival. We're all going tomorrow, though." Hector nodded. The bell buzzed a piercing warning in their ears. "I've gotta go. I'll see you tomorrow." She looked around her for a moment, then leaned in. "I don't know what might happen, but... be careful, okay?"<br />
"Okay," Hector said, and they parted ways.<br />
After the bus ride, and the short walk to his house, he walked into the house sweating like a roasted pig. He drew a glass of water from the sink and sat in the empty kitchen.<br />
He thought about the scarecrow. It seemed to be following him and Jenna; there was no other way to see it. Unless, by some great coincidence, they just happened to be observers of a well-planned trick. That was not something that Hector was going to allow himself to believe. The last four years made sure of that.<br />
He thought of something at that point. When he was twelve -- five years ago -- he remembered being driven home from the Harvest Carnival on Halloween. His parents were arguing about something, and both were clearly unhappy. He remembered being scared about something.<br />
He went into the barn and found his father, Leonard. He was hauling piles of wood inside to dry. "Hi Hector. How was school?"<br />
"Dad. Did something happen at the Carnival five years ago? I would have been twelve. You would have been... forty-one."<br />
"Well, doesn't that make me feel old. But not this again! I told you, we're going tonight and that's-"<br />
"Dad." Hector whispered. "Please. Try to remember if anything happened. I remember you and mom arguing in the car about something. I remember being scared."<br />
Mr. Donnerson threw the cord of wood on the pile and leaned against it, thinking back. "I don't remember anything. Son, I barely remember the pig thing that happened back then. You-" Leonard's face drooped with shock. "By God. Something <i>did</i> happen!"<br />
"What? What happened Dad?" Hector said, wishing he could shake his father and jostle the memories free.<br />
"It was... oh, Jesus..." Mr. Donnerson rubbed his face. "The Ernams' little boy! How could I forget!" He sat on the wood pile. "He was run over by the hay ride!"<br />
Hector gasped.<br />
"He got away... nobody was sure how... Mrs. Ernam lost him for a second and he was gone. They'd just come out of the maze. That was the year it was a rocket ship, you remember? You went on it a dozen times!" Hector nodded. He felt icy fingers run down his spine. "He was two. She set him down for a bit and he ran right over, like he was chasin' a thing. The driver didn't see him, and struck him dead. Doctors couldn't do nothin'." Hector's father stared into the past. "Your mother's so distraught it was all I could do to get her in the car. I don't think that you knew what was going on, but you felt it."<br />
Hector watched his father sit still on the wood. Then Mr. Donnerson looked up.<br />
"You got me all upset now. We're still goin' tonight. You're helpin' me with this wood now too, fer makin' me think about that."<br />
Hector helped his father stack the bundled wood in the barn, his mind deep in the story that his father had just told him. He made up his mind about something he needed to do when they went to the Carnival.<br />
<br />
It was just about dark when they pulled into a slot in the parking lot and exited the car. Hector kept his eye on the suspended scarecrow as they walked under the faux barn entrance. Hector's mother wanted to look at the crops before the judges got to them. Hector said that he'd already seen the crops, so he was going to get a slice of pizza and meet them when they were done.<br />
Hector walked through the grounds with his hands in his pockets, looking around him. He got a soda and a slice of pizza piled high with pepperoni and onion, and ate it on a bench near the midway. He heard the bellow of Jenna's father and, after wiping his hands on his pants, wandered over to the Apple Bob booth, where Brandon was working.<br />
"Hector! Here with your parents? Where are they?"<br />
"They're looking at the crops that are up for judging. Good crowd so far?"<br />
"Oh, not bad. Want to take a chance?"<br />
"Maybe later. Have you seen Mr. or Mrs. Ernam around?"<br />
"Eh? Well, not Mrs. Ernam, that's for sure. She and Brian divorced a few years ago and she moved south. But you know, I did see Brian wandering toward Catch the Pig a little bit ago. He might still be over there. Why are you looking for him?"<br />
"I want to know if he remembers something." Hector walked away from the booth as a half-dozen children swarmed near, and Brandon was caught up in his showmanship. <br />
Catch the Pig was a large arena with stands and a long line of people waiting to get in. There were games for adults, teens, and children, as long as their parents were alright with it. The game was simple: catch the pig. The first one to carry it back to the handler won a piece of paper saying he had caught the pig and a cash prize based on the age group.<br />
Hector climbed to the back of the stands and looked for Mr. Ernam, finding him eating from a carton of popcorn on a bench in the middle section of the stands by himself, laughing with the other spectators as the children chasing the pig climbed over each other. Hector focused on what he was about to do, then went over to him and sat down.<br />
"Hello Mr. Ernam," Hector said.<br />
"Hector! This is a surprise! How are you doing?"<br />
Hector smiled. "I'm fine sir. I have a question I want you to answer as truthfully as you can. It may upset you, and I'm prepared to accept the blame for it if that happens."<br />
Mr. Ernam raised an eyebrow. "What sort of question?"<br />
"Do you remember what happened five years ago? Here?"<br />
Mr. Ernam put a piece of popcorn in his mouth. "Not really. Did something happen?"<br />
Hector's stomach turned cold, clenching around the pizza that he had eaten. This man didn't remember his own son being struck and killed exactly five years ago.<br />
Hector lowered his voice to keep from anyone hearing him. "Mr. Ernam, don't you remember your son?"<br />
Hector watched as Mr. Ernam's face, cheerful from the food and laughter and physical comedy that played out in front of him, curdled. His eyebrows rose up into the mass of hair that fell over his forehead, and his lips parted. His skin went white. The carton of popcorn fell to the ground and spilled, slipping from his still hand.<br />
"My boy," Mr. Ernam squeezed out, his pale hand curling into a fist. "He died. Oh dear Lord in heaven."<br />
"Mr. Ernam, I'm sorry," Hector said. He felt the grip of loss on his heart. "I needed to know if you remembered."<br />
"Hector... why?" Ernam asked, a strangled word. First Hector thought he wanted to know why Hector needed to know. But he continued. "Why did I forget? My boy. My Eli!" Mr. Ernam's eyes got wide. "That was why Susan left me! God Almighty!" Mr. Ernam stood and rushed away from the stands, colliding with a couple that was just entering. Hector chased after him, apologizing to the couple as he passed them.<br />
"Mr. Ernam!" Hector called, as the man stumbled into a crowd of people, stricken with grief. "Mr. Ernam, stop, please!"<br />
The man whirled and grabbed Hector's shirt front. "How did you remember, Hector, when even I couldn't? How?"<br />
People took notice, moving away in a circle, giving Mr. Ernam room to rage. One of the workers from a booth stepped in to peel him away from Hector, but Hector stopped him.<br />
"You'd forgotten too, hadn't you?" Mr. Ernam said, squeezing Hector's shirt. He looked around at the crowd. "Did everyone forget? Did everyone forget my little Eli five years ago?"<br />
There was a pause.<br />
And then a wave of gasps swept out from the middle of the crowd where Hector and Mr. Ernam stood. "Everyone forgot, Hector! Everyone!" Mr. Ernam's face changed. "And you, Hector? Did you forget six years ago? Did you forget your brother?"<br />
Hector nearly said he didn't have a brother, and then his world crumbled around him.<br />
He saw the tiny, grainy image of a boy two years older than him chasing him through the corn field, giggling.<br />
"Hector! Brian!" Hector's father ran up and broke the grip Mr. Ernam had on Hector's shirt. "What's going on here?!"<br />
"My boy, Donnerson! I forgot about my boy!" Brian Ernam said. "I'd forgotten the worst thing to ever happen to me, my own son being struck and killed five years ago tomorrow! How could I have forgotten such a thing?"<br />
"Hector, did you-"<br />
"<i>Did I have a brother</i>," was all Hector said to his father that moment, and Hector saw the same thing happen to his father that he felt from the inside, a cracking and shattering of the life image he once had.<br />
"Jonathan," Hector's father whispered, and Hector felt the blood drain from his head. He dropped to his knees, trying to stay conscious. His brother's name had been Jonathon.<br />
"Leonard!" Hector heard a voice shriek. "Hector!" It was his mother. "What happened?" Hector heard Mr. Ernam mutter something to her, and she wailed after a pause. "Jonathan!"<br />
More people were gathering. People were telling the information to new people that showed up. Gasps and cries of shock rang. The Carnival had slammed to a halt.<br />
Hector got to his feet with limbs that tingled and ached violently. "What happened to Jonathan, mom?" He demanded. "What happened to my brother?"<br />
"He- he-" Hector's mom sobbed. "He went missing, on the second last day of the Carnival wh-when you were eleven."<br />
<i>Six years ago today</i>, Hector thought, reeling. "You never found him?" Hector's mother shook her head and wept. "<i>He's still missing?</i>" She bobbed her head up and down and fell into Hector's arms. <br />
"He would be nineteen now," Mr. Donnerson said as he sat on the ground. The crowd around them, unseen, was dispersing at the behest of Mr. Leon and some others, all of them muttering to each other about their forgetfulness.<br />
"Donnersons," Mr. Leon said. "I know you're having a difficult time, but if we can get you inside..." he trailed off, and Hector led his mother toward a building with a few offices in it on the other side of the midway. His father followed, scraping his feet on the ground.<br />
<br />
They sat in the room together, and Hector felt the memories burst through a dam. His brother had gotten lost. At first his parents had looked, calling his name. A few friends started to help, going in the corn maze and the midway. More people began to notice the boy's absence. The police were called, reports were filled, and Hector felt the unimaginable feeling of loss. The carnival had turned into a parade of well-wishers.<br />
And he had forgotten all of it until now. His parents, too. Everyone. They had all forgotten Eli Ernam. Hector's heart thudded. Would they forget about Lucy's dog, and Becky Inson?<br />
How many more events had been forgotten, lost in the rotten wood behind the Carnival? How many more children had gotten lost, or struck their head, or been run down by a tractor? How many parents went through their life without realizing they missed a child?<br />
After an hour of sitting in the office and trying to decipher the night, Mr. Donnerson said they were going home. Hector and his mother agreed and left the offices, heading out to the car.<br />
As they passed under the barn facade of the carnival's entrance, Hector felt something was missing.<br />
He turned and looked behind him, looking back at the entity that took more and more with each revealed memory.<br />
And, through a moment's break in the crowd, he saw the pumpkin head and long arms of the scarecrow standing against a wall, looking straight at him.<br />
The crowd closed the gap and it was gone.<br />
<br />
The next day Jenna Peers listened to Hector's story, growing in fear. She'd heard some of it from her father, but the details were muddled. Hector told it laced with fear and free of inflection. Her heart pounded as he spoke.<br />
When he finished, he watched her. Her fingers tried to cover her mouth but they were too limp to make a barrier. Her eyes were distant and unfocused.<br />
She plunged herself into his chest, hugging him and gasping. She stood that way for too long; Hector expected her to do something.<br />
Finally she separated. Her eyes looked moist, and she wiped at them with a sleeve. He couldn't bring himself to say anything. It had all been said already.<br />
"I'm sorry, Hector," she said, her voice cracking. "I didn't remember it either." He looked over her head, down the school's hallway. "But... why?"<br />
"We don't know," Hector whispered. It was the most energy he could manage. "Nobody remembered him. Or Eli Ernam."<br />
It was as if something had gone in and tampered with their memories. How could thousands of people forget an event that had swept the county into a furious manhunt one year, and then a period of awestruck mourning the next? And for what purpose?<br />
Not a single person present at the Carnival had any memory of Eli save for Hector, or Jonathon Donnerson until Brian Ernam uttered the phrase <i>Did you forget your brother?</i> Hector's father had been up all night fielding calls from sorrowful neighbors and friends, all saying they had no memory of Jonathon's disappearance until that night. They all remembered the same thing: the young boy went missing, the Carnival turned itself over looking for him... and he was never found. No account differed.<br />
"I need a pen," Hector said, patting his pockets. "Now! Quick!"<br />
Jenna, flustered, reached into her backpack and handed Hector a black pen. He pulled the cap off with his teeth and made long, hard strokes on his palm. When he was done, he put the cap back on and showed what he wrote.<br />
"'Jonathon.' Why?" Jenna asked, taking the pen back.<br />
"I already forgot once. What's to stop me -- everybody! -- from forgetting again?"<br />
"Something made everybody forget about two painful events that happened at the Carnival, Hector!" Jenna said. "What's to stop that something from erasing the ink on your hands!"<br />
"Today. Today <i>I'm</i> going to stop it! It's the scarecrow, we know it is! I told you what I saw last night! It was looking at me!"<br />
For once, Jenna didn't argue. "What are you going to do? Hector, what if it's something that you can't kill?"<br />
"Then I guess things will stay the same!" Hector shot back. "How long until people forget Lucy's puppy or Becky Inson? Two years? Three?" Hector's eyes looked glossy. "How long until someone else dies at the Carnival, and that person is forgotten? And people will keep going, year after year... because nothing bad ever happened at the Harvest Carnival!"<br />
Jenna watched, scared. "How many people do you think have died at the Carnival without anyone to mourn them?" Hector whispered. "Hundreds?"<br />
Jenna opened her mouth to answer, but couldn't speak. She closed it. The bell rang for first hour, and she hugged him again, then turned and walked away.<br />
Hector sat through school trying to figure out what he could do. He had never hunted a monster before.<br />
When he got home he told his mother that he was going to the Carnival. She looked up at him, and he saw a deep fear in her eyes. <i>I don't want to lose you, too.</i><br />
"Why?" She asked him. She saw the ink word on his hand and then looked back at him.<br />
"It's something that I need to do." She didn't answer, and he went back towards the door.<br />
"Please take your coat, Hector," Mrs. Donnerson said. "It's going to be a cold night."<br />
Hector stood in the foyer with his back to his mother. He reached out and took his coat from the rack and pushed out the door.<br />
<br />
It was only four in the afternoon when he reached the Carnival, but there were already throngs of people inside, visiting the crops and animals for one last look before the ribbons were given, or running the roller coaster once more before it was packed away to keep it safe from the snow and cold. As Hector walked to the entrance he found Jenna leaning against it under the hanging scarecrow. She frowned at him, arms folded and eyes narrowed to small slits, and she had never looked so lovely.<br />
He stopped a foot away from her. "Why did you come here?"<br />
"It's the last day of the Carnival. Everybody's going to be here," she said. She pushed away from the wall. "And I wanted to help."<br />
"I don't know what I'm going to do." Hector looked up at the scarecrow, standing out against the swift gray sky. "It's not human. But I might have an idea." He told it to her as they went inside.<br />
<br />
They couldn't start just yet, so they tried to enjoy the Carnival as they could. They walked slowly, watching it take place around them. They played a few games and enjoyed hot fried food, and usually when the person working the booth saw that it was Hector, they'd let him play for free, or upgrade his order to a large without being asked. They all had the same look on their face. <i>I can't imagine what you're thinking</i>.<br />
Hector knew they couldn't. The memories of his brother had exploded in his head the night before and were still settling. Playing games in Frank Olson's corn field, eating at the table, working on homework with the TV on, asking their mother for a dog and getting chickens instead.<br />
Hector looked at his hand and read the word there, sighing with the new memories that had landed on him with all the suddenness of a crack of lightning.<br />
It was getting darker, but they still had to wait. Hector fumbled inside his coat pocket and thought about what he was going to do. They stood arm-in-arm, breathing the cool autumn air and feeling the Halloween excitement.<br />
Finally it was the right time.<br />
They went to the corn field and walked through the entrance. The teen running the maze called out to them before they got far. "Hey! They're going to announce who wins the contests in about fifteen minutes! You're gonna miss it!"<br />
"I don't really want to see it," Hector said. Jenna nodded. The teen shrugged and left his post at the front of the maze, wandering away towards the stage where the awards would be given.<br />
"I'll stay here and make sure that nobody goes inside," Jenna said.<br />
"Also make sure to-"<br />
"Warn everybody. I know." She kissed him. "Good luck."<br />
Hector went into the haunted house corn maze and started to get lost, heading up and around, past corners and pathways. He wondered if he could find the dead-end that he and Jenna had gone to two days ago. His hands clenched inside his jacket, one hand wrapped around his prize.<br />
He took ten minutes, treading through the dry corn stalks and walking over the stomped-flat floor, covered in baked leaves and aborted corn plants. The lights cast stringy shadows as he walked through them. Finally he felt the heat of fear and excitement grow in him as he recognized the place that he and Jenna had tried to get good and lost in.<br />
He stopped before going around the corner, taking in a deep breath and whistling it out.<br />
Closing his eyes, he stepped around the corner and stood with his feet apart.<br />
The scarecrow leaned against the dead-end, just like it had before. Its long, patchwork arms were splayed out to either side, its round pumpkin head was hidden in the shadows, and its appearance filled Hector with fury.<br />
He ran at it and kicked its head, plunging his foot into it and knocking it off the straw-filled body. "Fucker!" He yelled. "Wake up! I know you can hear me! Get on your feet and pay for the lives you took!"<br />
He backed off. The scarecrow remained still. He watched it for a minute, looking for any tiny speck of motion. He waited long enough, and charged at it again.<br />
His foot aimed for the chest, but something solid stopped it from connecting. His foot was caught in something, and he looked down.<br />
One of the scarecrow's straw arms picked itself up and trapped his foot in five straw fingers. Hector tried to pull his foot away, but the hand held it still. The scarecrow began to rise. Hector felt cold as it drew itself up, still holding his foot.<br />
It towered over him by six inches. It threw him backwards and he landed on his arm painfully. It loped to where its head had rolled and put it back on its shoulders, spinning it so the smashed part was used as the face. It turned and looked at him. <br />
Hector got to his feet, clutching his elbow. "I knew you could hear me." The specter that faced him said nothing. "Well? Come <i>on</i>, you sow whore! Do you have anything to say?"<br />
The scarecrow's voice left the pumpkin in front of him and entered his ears as a drilling, freezing sensation that prickled his skin and made his stomach clench.<br />
"You remembered," it said. The words echoed in Hector's brain until he noticed it had stopped talking. "Your brother."<br />
"Yeah, I did," Hector said. "I want him back."<br />
The scarecrow chuckled, or at least Hector called it a chuckle. It sounded more like the cawing of crows. The scarecrow took a long step toward him and Hector stepped back. It chuckled more.<br />
"What I take, I keep. Becky Inson. Linus the puppy. Eli Ernam. Your brother. They become me. You will become me next."<br />
"I won't," Hector said, taking his hand out of his coat pocket. He held the disposable lighter he won on the first day of the Carnival in his outstretched arm. He flicked it on. The tiny flame provided little light and no warmth. "A bit of light," Hector said. "So we can see each other."<br />
"I see everything," The scarecrow intoned.<br />
"And yet you came here, even though you knew I wanted to kill you. What are you?"<br />
"A spirit from a world you would go mad to see," the scarecrow said. Its long arms were pooled around it, ready to lash out and bind Hector. "I have existed on this land for centuries, gaining strength."<br />
"You kill, and then people forget them," Hector said. The scarecrow did nothing. "But I noticed. I remembered enough. You couldn't trick me." He thrust his free hand at the scarecrow, where Jonathon was written. "I won't forget."<br />
"Ink fades like memory. And you <i>will</i> forget! Do you want to see what awaits you when I take you, Hector? When I erase you forever?" The scarecrow's tube arms plucked the pumpkin away from the body, and instead of nothingness that should have been, there was a head. "Bring the light closer, brother."<br />
Dread like a wave struck Hector, and he took a step. He held the lighter up toward the head that had appeared under the pumpkin, and the flickering flame caught a decayed visage of rotting skin and exposed tendons. "Do you see me? It's me, Hector." The rotted mouth pulled into a smile. "It's Jonathon."<br />
Hector stepped back, mind overcome by the memories the face brought back. Christmases and Easters and Halloweens at the Carnival that would take Jonathon's life and give him over to this thing.<br />
"Do you want to know where my body is?" The scarecrow creeped closer. "It's under your feet somewhere, swallowed two feet down by my body, the body of this Carnival." The head tilted to one side. "You went over the country looking, when I was right here. I kill pigs and leave them to crash your machine. I fill crops with spiders. I drop puppies to their deaths. I kill young pretties with uneven footing and a metal bucket, boy. I have babies run to their deaths." It paused and swelled. "What possible thing could you do to hurt me?"<br />
The lighter in Hector's hand died, pulling the flame into the plastic body, which was substantially hotter now than when he had started it. It made a small <i>zoop</i> noise as it flickered out, turning the lighter into a grenade.<br />
"Burn you," Hector said, and hurled the lighter with all his might as it burst at the figure.<br />
Flaming fluid coated the scarecrow and turned it into a blazing effigy. The fire dropped to the ground and quickly swept the dry crops into a frenzy, sending the flames whirling. As the Scarecrow screamed, Hector scampered back, running ahead of the spreading flames. The Scarecrow's howling chased him too, making him sprint faster.<br />
The fire eagerly consumed the dry corn stalks, growing bigger and hotter. The discarded leaves and husks on the ground sped its growth, sending the flame to all corners of the corn maze without hesitation, and sending Hector running as fast as he could.<br />
The flames chased him, and he tried to get away. He took corners and raced down bare stretches of path as the walls of corn burned down, leaving only the fire. It ate away at the crops that had been planted and cultivated for the maze.<br />
Hector reached a dead end. The fire surrounded him, filling the air with hot smoke and making it hard to breathe. He turned to go back.<br />
The immolated Scarecrow blocked his exit, a moving pillar of flame and burnt straw. One burning hand stretched out on a long arm to clutch at Hector, and he moved back. The Scarecrow without speaking dragged itself closer, bringing its heat close enough to singe Hector's skin.<br />
The burning head that rested atop the Scarecrow's straw body leered down at Hector as the flames ate at its decrepit skin. Jonathon Donnerson's burning eyes locked Hector with a deep stare that Hector could not escape.<br />
And then the Scarecrow turned to ash and fell to the ground, losing whatever hold it had on Hector. Hector couldn't find any sort of head in the smoldering remains, and jumped over it to run ahead, away from the fire.<br />
<br />
He got to the exit a few minutes later and found a crowd around the exit watching the dancing flames. His mother was there, and she grabbed him in a frantic hug, then just as suddenly stepped back; his body was hot. He had burns on his arms and legs and ash covered his clothes. Finding Jenna, he hugged her quickly and, in response to her questioning look, gave her a small smile. Firetrucks were fighting to contain the blaze.<br />
"Hector!" Mr. Leon yelled, coming over to him. He was followed by another board member, Mrs. Horwitz. "Are you all right? Was there anyone else inside?" He paused. "Did you do this?"<br />
"Yes, no, and no. At least, I didn't mean to. I had a lighter in my pocket from the first night of the Carnival. I was sitting in a dead end and wanted some light to see.I guess I left it on too long, and dropped it; it was too hot." He showed them a burn on his hand where he had held on to the lighter until it burst. "I think it exploded. I don't know why."<br />
"Damn cheap lighters! I told Mr. Foley to buy American! Are you sure no one else was in there with you?"<br />
"Well... I did see that scarecrow again. I think somebody's still moving it around. It's probably nothing but a pile of ash now."<br />
"Good. You should get those burns looked at," Mr. Leon said, before turning away, followed by Mrs. Horwitz.<br />
"What was in there?" Jenna asked Hector under her breath.<br />
Hector swallowed. "Maybe later." Jenna nodded as her parents came over to them. Mrs. Peers expressed how happy she was that Hector was okay, and Brandon slapped Hector on his smoking back. Jenna's siblings hugged his legs.<br />
<br />
An hour later the fire was dead, contained and deprived of fuel by the fire department. Hector sat on a bench and watched the glowing embers for any motion.<br />
Jenna came up behind him and rubbed his back. He had been given lotion and patches to soothe the burns on his skin. "A Harvest Carnival to remember," she said. Hector grinned.<br />
"I hope so." He looked at the hand with the pen word on it, and saw in his mind the dripping face of his brother on the Scarecrow's body. He shivered. "Come on, let's get out of here. I'm going to let our parents know I'm taking you back."<br />
After telling the Donnersons and the Peers, they walked with their fingers linked through the empty midway and past the deserted stage, under the barn entrance, and into the parking lot. They got into his car and he began to pull out of the lot.<br />
He drove down the road away from the dark Carnival. When he turned down a connecting street, he might have been able to see something hanging over the Carnival's entrance in his mirror.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-11859484004879457432013-06-01T12:00:00.000-05:002013-06-01T12:00:00.570-05:00Find the ExitSteven Napoleon drove on in the night. The black sky had no lights dotting it, no circle of the moon. Steven did not wonder why. The tires of his car passed over the smooth, darkly reflective asphalt without sound. His headlights showed him circles of freedom beyond the windshield, and the streetlights illuminating the highway dribbled orange over his car. He was alone on the road. Neither tail lights nor headlights could be seen as he drove down the highway. It seemed to be going on for quite a while, and he wasn't very sure why he drove, but he drove.<br />
<a name='more'></a> A car appeared and passed him. Steven hadn't seen it approach in his mirrors. It sped around him.<br /> It went too fast, and Steven swerved out of the way. It cut across his lane and smashed through the barrier on his right, plummeting down the slope on the other side. Steven stomped on the brake and then he was out the car and running down the slope, imagining a dirty crash, with torn bits of car, shredded tire, flames licking at the metal underside of the car that rested on its roof, the driver mangled and bleeding.<br /> Instead there was nothing. The gentle slope of the ditch became a pleasing field full of silent grass, waving to him in the night.<br /> "What?" Steven said, looking around him. He remembered the blur of lights across his vision from the car and the tear and screech of metal as it punctured the barrier, splitting it like wet paper.<br /> He felt hot and cramped. He wandered through the grass, trying to find something to assure him that he had really seen the car float across his, but there was nothing. The grass, waist-high and soft, tickled him. He looked around, and up at the dark sky, but it told him nothing.<br /> He walked up the slope back to his car, looking back every few steps. The barrier was still bent and broken, tire burns on the asphalt of the deserted highway still nearly glowed. Steven knelt down and inspected them. They smelled strong and cruel and he followed them, guiding him to the barrier.<br /> Giving up, he got back into his car and got back on the highway. His skin prickled with heat and his neck felt strange. He felt dizzy, like he had just twirled around.<br /> The glassy stillness of the road under him soothed him.<br /> And in the grisly mask of a face he saw in his windshield he was moved into a new space. He fell onto his stomach and groaned. Pains erupted on his skin and inside, and he flailed, cursing. <br /> The pain ended and he got up to his knees, glancing around in shock and rocking back to land on his butt. He pushed himself backwards until he ran into something from behind. He looked up and saw a thing.<br /> He could not call it human. It had no mouth, and blue skin. It had arms and legs, and everything a human has, except for a mouth, and nothing that a human did not have, except for the blue skin. Steven screamed and scrambled forward. His arms and legs felt tethered together and they moved only through conscious will. He ran up against another barrier, a wall, and looked behind him. The blue human had moved with him without sound, and stood no more than a foot from him. He cringed away. Nothing happened.<br /> He looked up at the human, watching it as it watched him. It had white pants and shirt, and pockets of fearsome instruments; their use Steven could not fathom.<br /> "What are you?" Steven asked fearfully.<br /> "I'm a helper." Steven heard the voice, but the creature had no mouth, so how could it talk? It wasn't a voice in his mind, nothing but a normal voice.<br /> "How can you talk? You don't have a mouth."<br /> "My mouth is hidden," the blue human said. It bent down and looked at Steven in the eyes. "You have questions."<br /> "Questions!" Steven hauled himself to his feet. "Of course I have questions! Where am I? Who are you? Where did my car go? Where did the other car go?"<br /> The helper responded without even the smallest of motions. "The magician's device bears you toward the mountain. I keep you here. Your car is behind us."<br /> Steven looked behind his shoulder and saw a clean wall. He looked around the helper's body and saw the same thing. He looked at the helper -- who always seemed to loom. "What? What does any of that mean? What is this place? And you never told me what happened to the other car?"<br /> "Look around you," the helper ordered. Steven turned his head.<br /> He and the helper stood on a large cliff overlooking an unnaturally level field. Similar cliffs ringed the field. There were no trees or animals, nothing that looked familiar of any kind. Steven looked up. A bright light shone down, but there wasn't any sky. In fact...<br /> "Are we inside something? Where's that light coming from?"<br /> "You are inside. I keep you here."<br /> Steven took a step away from the helper, holding his hands out. "Why? Where are you keeping me? Why can't I leave?" He looked up at the light again. "This structure must be miles high! There's nothing like this on Earth!" He looked at the helper. It didn't move. Steven sat, feeling tired, and looked at the ground. "This is metal!" The helper didn't respond. "Okay, I'm clearly inside something. You're a helper, aren't you? Well help! How do I get out?"<br /> "You have to find the exit."<br /> "What? Well... okay, that doesn't sound too hard. You're not being very helpful, though." Steven scuffed his foot on the metal under him and looked around. There didn't seem to be any way down from the metal ledge he was on. "Is it... near here?" The helper only watched. "Is it a door or something like that?" He dropped to his knees and knocked on the ground. It didn't sound hollow. "Can you tell me anything else?"<br /> The helper didn't. Steven sighed and pushed himself up. "Is there a way down, at least?"<br /> It didn't look like there was. Steven walked to the edge and looked down. Strange marks and bumps in the cliff face under him turned the strange smooth surface into something else. The other cliffs around the field had marks of the same nature, slightly different in each version. "I should be able to get to the ground if I'm careful," Steven said to himself. He looked over at the helper, and found him standing right next to him. Steven jumped back and stifled a curse. <br /> "Please stop doing that!" The helper said nothing. "Can you at least answer one question? How did I get here?"<br /> "You've always been here," the helper said. Lights flashed out of its eyes for an instant, and Steven was blinded in first one eye and then the other. Then the light was gone.<br /> "What was that?" The helper didn't answer. "What did you do to me?"<br /> Steven turned away, again with no answer, and got to his stomach. He reached down and grasped the first small ledge. It was just too small to stand on, so he put his feet first. The staggering distance down the smooth field didn't dizzy him. He hooked his feet on the first ledge and slowly lowered his weight down. The same distance below that ledge was a silver ledge with a rectangular hole in the middle. He dropped down to it, landing effortlessly in the cup of the hole. He was now in a small dark cavern. He felt the concave floor. It was plastic.<br /> Shaking his head, he clambered over the lip of the bowl and judged the distance to the next one. It was too far to drop without hurting himself, so he shimmied to the right side of the bowl. There was a vertical lip he clung to as he let himself drop slowly. Soon he was in the next plastic bowl and a fourth of the way to the ground. "This is too easy."<br /> He looked to his left and the helper was there, six inches from his arm. Steven jumped and growled. "<i>Please</i> stop doing that! How are you able to get around like that?" The helper didn't answer, so Steven climbed over the lip of the bowl. The next bowl was even farther than before, so he looked around. Off to his left there was a similar bowl a small distance above a gray ledge. On the way to that bowl he worked his way over a vertical gap that lacked any sort of hand hold, but managed to drop in without problem. From there it looked like ten feet down to the gray ledge.<br /> He landed on it, and was met with another surprise. When his feet touched the surface, it caved a small amount, sending him tumbling onto his back. He got up and pressed on the gray material. "And this is a cushion." He slapped his hand on it, and then punched it for good measure. "Why is there a ledge made of cushion here? I'm getting sick of this nonsense."<br /> He had traveled about two-thirds of the way to the ground, and started looking around for a path down. To his left there was a sort of metal ladder extending from the wall, only a few rungs. He used it, and then latched on to a small handhold under the gray cushion ledge. He monkeyed across it and landed in another plastic cup. From there to the ground was a slide down a vertical handhold next to the cup, and then a short drop to the ground.<br /> He was finally down, and felt the ground. More plastic. He looked to his right. The helper stood there, but Steven had prepared himself for the soundless teleportation.<br /> "I want you to tell me where I am," Steven asked him flatly. The helper didn't respond. "You called yourself the helper. Why won't you help me?" It still didn't answer.<br /> He looked up at the ledge he'd started from. It seemed to be hundreds of feet above him, yet he had scaled the cliff without worry. He couldn't ever remember going rock climbing, but not only had he moved with the surety of a goat in its home, he knew which way was the fastest and safest. Steven looked back at the helper.<br /> "I've done this before, haven't I."<br /> "Yes," the helper said, and Steven felt good from getting even that word out.<br /> "Why don't I remember it?" The helper had no answer for that. "Where do I go now?" He looked around.<br /> "We'll get there soon," Steven heard the helper say.<br /> "What?" Steven whipped his head at the creature.<br /> "It doesn't look good. Make sure they're ready." The lights dimmed and blinked, flashing like passing cars. The helper turned into a smear in the air and disappeared. Steven looked around him frantically.<br /> There was a long, loud beeping. He ground his hands down on his ears, but the noise persisted. His legs faltered and he fell to his knees, gritting his teeth as the sound drilled into his bones. A shock ripped his left arm and he screamed. What little he could see filled with endless copies of the helper, who shifted and split into hundreds of identical translucent versions.<br /> Steven blinked and the lights were normal, the beeping gone. The helper stood nearby as motionless as always. His arm hurt no longer. <br /> He picked himself up from the ground and rubbed his head. The lights seemed the same, but the light around him was different in a way he couldn't discern. He saw that the helper was looking past him instead of at him. He turned.<br /> Behind him there was a peaceful field of gentle grass that ruffled with an unfelt breeze. "The exit," Steven said, turning toward it. He took a step into the dirt and open sky and his nose was filled with the scent of pine, his ears heard with the sweet murmur of the tall grass, his eyes drew in the chilling waves and symbols the flowing grass drew with their rising and dipping bodies. His hand brushed a stalk and let it strain through his fingers. The air was thick with the joy of freedom and serenity. He took another step.<br /> The serenity and joy and sweetness switched to caustic chaos of hectic noise and screaming lights that he could not avoid. His arms and legs were bound to his sides and his heart exploded in terror. He heard a voice scream something from all sides at once. The calm sway of the grass turned to muddled, pain-filled darkness. He fell back.<br /> It ended. He pushed himself away from the grain field. His arms and legs could move freely again. He heard nothing except the breeze. He got to his feet and stepped back from the field, step by step. With each step the field got hazier, and when he was ten feet away it was just a wall. He walked up to the wall and pressed his hand against it. It stayed put. He was back in the immense structure with an unknown light over his head and a helper who was no help. <br /> He looked over his shoulder at the helper. He spun and strode at it, reaching out to grab its white shirt with a hand. Somehow, he missed. He found himself looking the wrong way, as if he had stepped on a spinning tile in the floor. He stepped back. "What was that?" He raged. "Do you know anything? About what just happened to me?" The helper, evidently, did not.<br /> But it did speak. "You won't be here for much longer."<br /> Steven stared at it, eyebrows pressed together. "Why not? Where am I going? Earlier you said 'we'll get there soon.' Where's there? How can we get somewhere when we aren't moving?" The helper didn't answer.<br /> Steven ran his hand through his hair, and looked around the area he was in. It was a large open space covered in uniform material and surrounded by the same unnatural cliffs. Only two of the four sides had ledges like he had climbed down from. The other two were massive, perfectly smooth walls, though one of them did have a large gray crack down the center. He went to that wall, a trip that took him several minutes, and pressed on the crack. Nothing changed. No field of grass mysteriously appeared, no hell assaulted his senses. He looked up at the light. It had the cold, unfeeling look of light that strained down over a cubicle. Steven listened carefully and heard a hum, but from where he couldn't tell; it seemed to be all around him.<br /> He stretched his head and looked around all of the interior. From his new position near the wall with the gray crack, he couldn't help but feel like he new what he looked at. The helper, who stood next to him without moving an inch, watched him look.<br /> "I've asked you where we are, and you haven't answered me," he said. "But I feel like I've been here before." He eyed the helper. "Can you help me understand that, at least?" The helper could not. "It's like deja vu on a physical scale," Steven said to himself.<br /> "We're nearly there," the helper said quietly, as if from far away. Steven looked at it, thinking maybe it would speak more. It didn't.<br /> He got up to its face. "Where's there? Where am I now? Who are you? Who am I? What happened to me? How did I get here? Who made this place?" In this assault of questions the helper didn't flinch. "Tell me something! Anything!"<br /><br />Time passed in a strange stream, and to Steven it felt like an hour disappeared as he walked around the area he was in, inspecting everything he could find. The helper followed him without motion or sound, saying nothing.<br /> Slowly the structure he was in began to change. The light took on a cooler, darker quality. The air started to drop in temperature. Angular shadows passed over the light and covered the area in darkness for split-seconds, and when Steven looked up at the light, it burned as it always had, giving no hints to where the shadows had come from. The hum persisted.<br /> Steven sat and thought. He had been driving alone, without worry, and the other car had gone through the barrier in front of him. Then it had disappeared. He had taken steps out into the field of grass -- the same that had appeared in this building.<br /> He had gotten back in the car, and the face had appeared in his windshield. Could it have been the helper?<br /> Steven looked up at it, which stood next to him. It could have been. Steven didn't remember it all that well but what he could remember seemed familiar, in a way. Its mouth had been covered by a mask, but all he could see was the face. He could recall no other details.<br /> And now he was here, in some hellish building that never stayed the same, and seemed built out of random materials, and contained passages to fields of grass that gave him feelings both good and bad.<br /> He looked up at the helper again. It was looking away from him, up at two holes that had appeared in the wall with the gray crack down the middle. Steven stood and stared. They hadn't been there before. Dark sky peppered with blue stars could be seen. And towering over them, rising toward space-<br /> A mountain, white and cold and brutal, struck through with glowing red lines horizontal and vertical. It rose as a solitary peak with no mountain range or siblings to combat its ascent.<br /> A freezing breeze swept over Steven, who found himself no longer confined by the giant building. He was alone and unconfined on a circle of earth that floated free, except for a bridge that spanned a bottomless, stomach-turning chasm. Not even the helper was with him, and did not appear. He peered over the edge and saw nothing at all -- ground, sky, space. He was on the only thing in a land made of nothing, facing down what could only be his destination.<br /> He crossed the bridge. There were no hand rails, but the path was wide and motionless, without even a sway in the wind that ruffled his hair. He watched the mountain grow in his vision. Only the sound of the wind disturbed him. After the harsh glow from the building before, this cool sight was welcome.<br /> The mountain's starkness contrasted the dark depths of the sky behind it. Steven was no astrologer, but he didn't recognize the constellations that framed the mountain, and guessed that he wasn't on Earth any longer -- perhaps he hadn't been for some time.<br /> He stepped off the bridge onto solid ground. The path widened to lead him to the red-highlit mountain, opening out to span farther than he could see.<br /> When he got closer to the mountain, a flicker in the edge of his vision made him turn.<br /> There, to the right of him, was the field of swaying grass that had greeted him twice before already. Steven halted and watched, hypnotized by the movement. He heard sounds that wanted to draw him in.<br /> <i>break out of it, but then</i><br /> Steven looked back to the mountain, and suddenly it seemed a harsh place, of pain and suffering. A place he would not escape. The grass looked to welcome in and care for him. He took a step into the field.<br /> Glaring light after glaring light passed in front of his eyes. He could not move. A chorus of voices alarmed him and a rising motion made him want to look above his head, but none of his muscles responded. A figure, from the left of his vision, put its head near his. It was the face that appeared, just before he had been transported to the first place, the building. It touched his face, and spoke.<br /> "Hse litls peissvorunen," Steven heard, and then he stood in the field again, still just one step in, the golden grain beckoning and urging. Steven looked over his shoulder at the mountain as wind blew from its direction. He took another step.<br /> Pain shocked him. "Dab car shcar," he heard as his senses overloaded and blew, plunging him into dark silence. Terror rose in him as his flailing limbs and screaming voice brought him nothing.<br /> He saw in a stuttering flash the other car pass in front of him, the face in the windshield, the giant building from before, the mountain, and the field of grass.<br /> Once more he stood in the field, hands caressed. He looked over his shoulder and found the mountain faded somehow, just as the field had faded before, as he stepped away from it. He looked back into the field and found low rising hills beyond it, and beyond that, lights that twinkled and asked him to embrace them. He heard the stirring of glass.<br /> Another step could bring him beautiful pleasure, or endless pain.<br /> He stepped back from the field, watching it dissolve into nothing, just as it had before. It became nothing more than more nothingness that fell away from the edge of the floating earth he stood on. If he had taken that last step, would he have fallen forever?<br /> Steven looked at the mountain again. It was the only thing he had left to look at. Lines of red drew across it in no pattern.<br /> Bright light came from its base. Steven walked nearer to it, finding a set of glass double doors that cracked open and waited for him to enter. Only white haze could be seen.<br /> With no alternative presenting itself, Steven stepped inside the mountain.<br /><br /> He found himself in a long white hallway. He looked behind himself and found the doors to the outside gone. The hallway ended abruptly inches behind him. Lights from the ceiling blared down at him, and a low murmur, like a crowd, came from before him. He concentrated, but no words could be picked out. He ran his hands over the plaster walls and felt nothing out of place. The air stank of age.<br /> There was no direction to walk but forward, and so Steven went. His feet whispered over the tiled floor. He felt cold. <br /> The hallway went on, never ending or changing direction. He listened to the crowd that was ahead of him but never seemed to get any closer and, as he walked, began to hear it from behind him. He looked behind him and saw only the long hallway, which seemed to eventually file to a point. There had been nothing there, nowhere for a crowd to hide. Were there speakers in the ceiling? Steven looked, but couldn't find any. Trying to ignore the noise from behind him, he kept walking.<br /> He walked for longer than he could tell. The noises continued to stem from behind and in front, but he never met anyone, and the sound never changed.<br /> With grateful eyes he saw an intersection in the hallway with one path that went left and one that went right. Steven looked down each path; they were identical. He went left.<br /> He found himself in a honeycomb of rooms, with more hallways splitting away forever. The murmur of voices started to sound like the buzz of bees as he looked in the first room. It was a square place with no decoration, white as the hallway. He stepped out and looked in the one across from it, which looked the same. All the rooms looked the same. All the hallways split off in the same way, doubling with each iteration, leading him to more and more white empty rooms and more and more blank hallways, always filled with the distant speaking of phantoms.<br /> Steven saw no end to the breaking hallways, and so he reversed his path and went back to the original rooms and past them, to the T intersection. The long, endless hallway he had started in was on his right, and he passed it by, going straight ahead into unknown territory, putting himself into a new hell.<br /> Like before he found rooms building off from the hallway, but this time without any splits in the hallway.<br /> And in each room a masked face peered out at him. They looked like the helper, in that he could not see their mouths, but their eyes gleamed out at him with wicked desire. He identified them as related to the face that had flashed in his windshield, but they were not the same. Each body was the same, and each watched him with a turn of their head. He walked past each room, trying to find something, anything, that he was being led to.<br /> He found it, after a while. Past hundreds of rooms containing silent, masked men, Steven hit the end of the hallway. There was a white door and Steven, quite ready to figure out what he had been going through, pushed it open.<br /> The man from the windshield was inside. Steven immediately reversed and tried to back out of the room but the door was gone and only bare wall remained. He pounded on the wall but the action yielded nothing. He turned and looked at the man that he had seen in his car's windshield. Like all the others, he was white as death and had his mouth covered. A white robe covered his shoulders, and white clothing like the helper had was under it.<br /> The room Steven had entered was bigger than the cells he had seen in the hallway, but just as empty. The man stood in the very center of the room.<br /> "Who are you?" Steven asked, pressed against the wall where the door had been. He remembered the questions he had asked the helper, and wondered if asking this figure would be just as foolish.<br /> "The magician," the figure said. Steven relaxed a small amount.<br /> "Where am I?"<br /> To this the magician didn't answer. Steven sighed and crossed his arms. "How did I get here?" Again, no answer. "Are there any questions you can answer?"<br /> "Yes," the magician said, and fell silent. Steven waited without much hope.<br /> "Can you tell me what questions you can answer?"<br /> "Only you can."<br /> As he had with the helper, Steven considered violence. He discarded the notion, guessing that it would work no better than it had before.<br /> "Why are you here?" Steven asked finally, after pondering his next question.<br /> "I'm here to help you."<br /> "I thought that was what the helper was for."<br /> The magician shook his head. "The helper is to help me."<br /> "How do I leave this room?"<br /> "You can leave now." Steven looked at the wall behind him and saw that the door had returned. He opened it and looked out. It was the hallway just as he had left it. He turned back to the magician. <br /> "How are you supposed to help me?"<br /> "By helping you find the exit."<br /> "The exit!" Steven yelled. "The helper talked about the exit too! But there's no way out of here! There was no way out of the building from before! I've just been taken from place to place on the whim of some force! Was it you?" Steven stepped up to the magician. "Have you been taking me all over the place with nothing but enigmatic figures and nightmare fields?"<br /> The magician didn't answer. "I'm in a mountain that has endless hallways and voices that I can't ever find! Before, I was on an island in the middle of nowhere, and before that I was in a huge building that had seemingly no purpose at all! You have to give me something! Please!"<br /> Steven watched the magician peer at him, waiting and hoping. Nothing came.<br /> Steven wrenched the door open and strode outside, slamming it behind him. The magician stood next to him in the silent manner of the helper, and Steven jumped.<br /> They stood now in the hallway with the countless small rooms that contained the magician's near-clones. At least, they had contained them. They stood empty and forlorn, each one now dark and, seemingly, endless. Were they changed now? Steven ignored them and walked down the hallway, back again to the infinite hallways that broke again and again. There was nowhere else to go.<br /> Steven failed to notice that the voices he had heard were now silent, leaving the hallway filled only with the echo of his foot. Just like the helper, the magician made no noise.<br /> He did, though, notice the smell. Before these hallways had smelled of age and chemical, now the fragrance of outdoors floated along with him, spurring him to a faster pace. He couldn't place the smell, but it seemed horribly familiar to him.<br /> Of course, when he reached the intersection, the original path now on his left, he understood. The original path had transformed into a quaint wooden gate, and beyond was the field of grass that had haunted his footsteps to no end.<br /> Steven looked out over it. The hallway was gone, now just the field could be seen. He placed his hand on the wooden gate and looked back at the magician.<br /> "What is the meaning of this?" Steven asked without emotion.<br /> The magician's head bobbed to look at him. "You see two paths before you. One of these paths must be taken, for better or worse."<br /> The last time Steven had stepped in the field, there had been sounds and sensations too numerous, so many that his body had rejected them. He had gone from feeling and smelling the grass to hearing terror and tasting fear.<br /> But what waited in the other path?<br /> The hallway that went out before him, the one that would eventually begin to split, and split again, and again and again, so that soon there were thousands of paths and thousands more being born every time he went left or right. There had been nothing there before, but perhaps no it would be different.<br /> "Is there a right path?" Steven asked. The magician watched him, and Steven expected no answer.<br /> And yet: "I do not know."<br /> Steven mulled the words in his head. He didn't want to go back into the field, which seemed, time and again, to contain only harsh realities and confusion. So too did he not want to go down the white hallway that seemed to contain nothing but other paths. Would either return him to a world he understood? Did they both contain passages to hell and torture? Or did one of them give way to heaven's serenity?<br /> "Which one would you pick?" Steven asked.<br /> "I do not know," the magician replied.<br /> "Why not?"<br /> "Because you do not know." Steven looked at the magician, feeling the breeze from the field blow his clothing.<br /> Looking across the field, Steven saw again the lights over the solemn rise of the hill, and heard the tinkling of the shards of glass that told him <i>yes, come... this is the world you are drawn to for a reason.</i><br /> The long white hallway to his right said nothing of the sort.<br /> Steven opened the gate and took a step in. His breathing became difficult, his muscles weak. His eyelids grew heavy, his stomach roiled, and his tongue lolled. Strange sensations of floating and twisting came to him, and his stomach heaved. He pitched backwards against the gate, clawing at it, as the feelings of the field threatened to snap him in half in every manner and meaning. He pulled the gate open and fell through to the cold hallway, and the feelings resided. He drew in a shaky breath.<br /> The magician still stood next to him, not moving, as Steven got to his feet and looked away from the field.<br /> He walked down the hallway that would, soon, split one way and the other, but never differing. It would grow to more and more, become an infinite number of identical passages that could bear nothing but empty thought as Steven walked. This was not the right path.<br /> Steven realized too late, and tried to turn back, tried to return to the field and its sensations, but the labyrinth of hallways trapped him and sucked him in until he was lost once more, so that the blank passage dulled and darkened, and the magician disappeared, until there was nothing but the smooth passage of black ground under him and the flicker of the orange lights overhead.<br /><br />Alia Napoleon turned the corner into the hospital room and hugged her mother, who was just rising from the chair. Steven Napoleon lay motionless in the hospital bed.<br /> The wounds from the car crash created a patchwork look on his tan skin. The tubes stuck down his throat made it look like he had become a machine. His left arm was wrapped in long white bandages.<br /> "He's in a coma," Mrs. Napoleon said. "The doctor... Jadugara, I think his name was, said he might wake up... but we just have to wait. The nurses have to move his limbs and turn him so he doesn't wither." The mother sniffed. "I can't bear to see him wither."<br /> "He'll be okay, mom." Alia looked at her little brother, usually so big and strong, now feeble, and kept back her own tears. "I'm sure that he'll be able to wake up."<br /><br />Steven Napoleon drove on in the night. The black sky had no lights dotting it, no circle of the moon. Steven did not wonder why.<br />Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-79567189764916359082013-05-18T12:00:00.000-05:002013-08-18T13:19:31.278-05:00The Hungry RiverIt was a hot, dry summer. Crops withered. The rain did not come. The sun baked down on the people that tilled in the fields as they prayed for water. The land around the Capital was cooled only by the river that flowed next to it. The tall palace, made of such pretty white stone, stood on the eastern side of the sprawling metropolis. The hungry river, too weak to support many crops, gurgled past its base.
<br />
<a name='more'></a> The city gasped in the heat, and the people within murmured dissent. Their King, Gantalin the Second, languished in his palace, surrounded by guards, as the poor folk starved. Even now blades rang out from a melee in his honor, on this the anniversary of his crowning and marriage. <br />
There was whispered talk of rebels, armies from the even hotter southlands that quietly took control of supplies heading to the King, to distribute them among those more needy. He had never been a popular king, a cruel, paranoid man who spat on those under him, and cared not for anybody but himself. His father, Gantalin the First, had spared the rod.<br />
Palen Littleson, with cut black hair and tan skin, the youngest member of the Castle Guard, watched the melee from his place in the stands, to keep anyone from jumping into the fight. The King's orders. The King himself fought with laughs and shouts, wielding a sword that was too heavy for him, against opponents that knew if they struck him they would be punished.<br />
There were strong knights in plate and chain, carrying swords, tridents, maces, or hammers. Outriders come to the city for festivities, wearing leather, bearing wicked scars on their body, and thrusting at enemies with notched swords and knives. There was a young man barely able to hold his sword up, a squire searching for a name and honor. Champions of noble ladies hoping for a favor smiled to the crowd. Two women, one with dual short swords, the other with a curved saber, stood back-to-back against the other fighters. <br />
Palen watched, keeping his eyes on the fighters and the crowd around him. They cheered and groaned as fighters were struck. They knew the King would be the last standing, and they knew to cheer when he proclaimed himself the winner. If they didn't he would throw a tantrum.<br />
He could have them all killed. He could have them put in torture chambers. He could have one after the other attack him in the large dusty ring that he stood in now. Palen's heart thudded, praying that he wouldn't be forced to carry out one of his atrocities.<br />
Palen had silvery mail on, under a chest plate. His black cloak puddled behind him. He shifted his weight, and the armored pieces on his body clanked. His arms were crossed, never too far from the sword attached to his belt or the dagger behind his back. His helmet, with the shining parapet symbol of the king, kept his face in the shade. He scanned the crowd, looking as he was ordered for anyone who might try and hurt the king. Palen's swordsmanship was good, he felt. Good enough to take any of the poor folk that gathered for a piece of fun in a tiring summer.<br />
The crowd roared and Palen glanced toward the ring. The twin women had fallen, taken from both sides by knights just as they attacked the young squire. The squire had dived out of the way, landing awkwardly and dropping his sword. He scrambled for it as two knights disarmed the women and gave them flesh wounds. The two knights both looked at the squire, who was rising to his feet with a helmet covering his vision, and turned on each other.<br />
The crowd cheered as these knights fought valiantly. The taller one, the knight Palen knew as Sir Wren, dodged the sword of the other and smashed him with his shield as the women were helped out the exits. The other knight, Sir Yolena, recovered and struck again. Palen rested his hands on the ladder that led down to the ring, absorbing the fight. Sir Wren was an accomplished fighter, but Sir Yolena had terrific strength.<br />
The King, dressed in gold armor and carrying a round shield, disarmed an outrider after a weak attack and kicked him in the face. The outrider pleaded for mercy, and the King <i>graciously</i> gave it. Now it was just the dueling knights, the King, and squire. The knights fought still, trading strong blows and bawdy taunts to the delight of the crowd.<br />
But, finally, Sir Wren beat out the other knight with a flashy display and sent his sword flying. Sir Yolena admitted defeat and exited. <i>A bloodless melee</i>, Palen thought. <i>Because the King does not like the sight of blood</i>.<br />
Sir Wren looked at the squire, who shrunk back against the wall. The knight turned from him and approached the king. He saluted and raised his sword. The King saluted back with a grin on his face, and approached. <br />
It was nowhere as dazzling a fight as the last. Sir Wren could have killed the King in a moment; he simply went through the motions as the King tried to batter away at his armor. The King, a man in his forties with little muscle and a fair pouch of fat, had no hope to win in a fair fight, but Sir Wren knew the punishment for injuring the king. Dishonor, if he was lucky.<br />
King Gantalin brought his sword down on Wren's, knocking it out of the way. Palen knew a weak strike such as that would do no more than take up Sir Wren's time, but even so there was a large opening that the King took advantage of, jabbing his sword into Wren's chest. His armor turned it away, but Wren fell backwards anyway, pleading for mercy as the outrider had.<br />
Palen shook his head in disgust.<br />
Now it was the King and the nameless squire. The young man had close cut blond hair, thin arms, and a trembling jaw. His chain mail looked too long, and he had no plate. Leather gloves wrapped around his sword, and leather boots kicked up dust as he came out from the side of the ring, sword wavering as he stepped closer to the King. Palen thought that even the King would have no trouble with this man. The King took a long step forward and the squire took steps back. The King and the crowd laughed.<br />
The squire started to circle around the King, ranging again toward the wall of the ring, and another ladder. The man bumped into it, and it rattled. A guard at the top of the ladder ordered him away from it.<br />
Instead, the young man placed his free hand on one of the rungs of the ladder. The Guard shouted at him and started to climb down.<br />
The man wrenched, and the ladder fell. The guard's cry was silenced as he crumpled on the ground. The King turned back to the young man with a shout on his lips, and found the man's sword whipping toward his head with uncommon speed. The King ducked behind his shield and the arena rang. The King stepped back, but the man had dashed around him with speed Palen didn't believe. He struck at the King's flank, at a break in the armor above the knee. He missed, but kept the cut going, turning it around into another attack. This one crashed against the King's sword, swatting it aside like a branch.<br />
"He's trying to kill me!" The King shouted, as he swung. The man stepped into the attack, caught the King's wrist, shook the sword out of his weak grip, and kicked violently, sending the King sprawling. The man was on him immediately, bringing his sword down with a flash where the King's head had been a moment before.<br />
Palen walked himself down the rungs of the ladder, holding his sword away from his feet. Archers on the roof of the stands aimed down at the man, but couldn't fire for fear of hitting the King. Palen and two other guards ran toward the center, where the King had scurried away from the young man who was clearly out for blood.<br />
The man's face had changed from fear to fury, his stance from novice to master. The sword he'd hardly been able to hold with both hands he now swung with one hand hard enough to crack against the King's battered shield. Palen and the two other guards stepped closer, and the man took notice. He glanced up at the archers on the roof, and sprang.<br />
Palen watched with wide eyes as this young man jumped over his head and rang his helmet from behind with the flat of his blade. Palen fell to his face and heard shouts and crashes. He looked up two seconds later, and found one of the other guards bleeding on the ground. The last dueled with the young man but his skill was nothing compared to the furious assassin. Palen got to his feet and attacked from behind.<br />
The man spun and deflected Palen's strike, used his foot to knock back Palen's kick that was just rising off the ground, and grabbed the parapet emblem on his helmet. Palen's neck screamed as he was thrown to the ground. He heard more clashes, and the King screaming for his death. Palen wrenched the helmet off his head, and spun, trying to find the man. The last guard lay dying. King Gantalin shrieked and the man appeared, as if from nowhere, dropping down with his sword pointed at the King's heart.<br />
Palen leaped, and struck the man in midair. They landed in a pile of armor and weapons, and Palen was hoisted onto his back as the man jumped to his feet toward the King. More Guards were entering the arena now, holding shields and swords between the King and the assassin. <br />
It didn't stop him. The first man was jumped over as Palen had been, the second dropped to the ground with cut calves. The third nearly landed a hit but the man flowed around it with a snarl on his face. Palen, once again, got to his feet and stumbled into the fray. Another guard had been cut, and blood gushed from his thigh in a thick stream. Nothing separated the King and the man.<br />
The King backed away from him, shouting. "Stop him! Stop him!" Palen surged forward as a familiar form stepped in front of the King. Sir Wren's sword met the man's, and they fought. Even Sir Wren could not keep up his guard, though, and suffered a cut on his forehead that became a blinding curtain of blood. He backed away as Palen attacked from behind.<br />
Somehow, the man knew. He spun and slapped Palen's sword away and rolled under a punch, coming up behind Palen with unearthly agility. Something pushed Palen forward and then back, and the man dashed for the King. Palen ran after him as more guards poured into the arena.<br />
Palen was finally able to get the upper hand, and locked his arm around the man's sword arm. The King saw and aimed a thrust at the man's stomach. For an instant Palen realized the sword would go straight through the man's body into his, before the man kicked at Palen's ankle and rolled him over his shoulder at the King's strike. Palen rolled and knocked the King off his feet, serving him up on a platter in front of the assassin.<br />
There was a silent moment as the King stopped rolling and looked up into the young man's eyes. The man looked down on him and then raised his sword over his head.<br />
Palen's sword cartwheeled through the air and stabbed into his left shoulder, spraying blood on the King. The man stumbled backwards and looked down at the wound. The chain mail had shattered and the sword had pierced flesh and muscle. The man looked around at the circle of guards closing in on him, weapons ready.<br />
Face screwed with pain, he lunged at one of the guards and flashed around. There was an open door out of the arena there, and he whistled as he ran forward.<br />
The two women fighters appeared with their weapons raised at the man. Palen breathed out, assured that these two accomplished fighters would be able to stop him.<br />
He ran past them and they didn't blink. They kept their swords up at the guards that neared them.<br />
The crowd in the stands had gathered for a fight, and they saw one. Two guards fell, and more after that. The women had obviously been keeping themselves in check during the melee, but now they unleashed their skill. The guard's swords couldn't touch them, and four were dead before Palen reached them.<br />
He didn't have his sword, and that took one of them off balance. She had shoulder-length brown hair and the curved saber. She swung it when Palen appeared unarmed. He dodged around it and pushed past her, shoving her into the other woman.<br />
He entered the foyer to the arena and caught the eye of one of the armorers. The armorer pointed toward one hallway that led to the stables. Palen ran down the hallway as a mighty din came from behind him, the guards piling on the two women.<br />
The stables were nearly empty and filled with the powerful stench of beast. Palen saw the young man jump on a horse and smack its flank with the sword he carried in his uninjured arm. The horse reared and raced out of the stables.<br />
Palen ran to the nearest saddled horse, and threw himself up onto it as he unsheathed his dagger. He slashed at the horse's reins that kept it tethered to a post and snatched up the cut remains in each hand. He dug his boot heels into the horse and it ran outside.<br />
The sun blinded him in the open. He no longer had his helmet to shield him, and he squinted. He saw a closing lane and urged his horse in that direction. The city stank of piss and the poor fare the citizens ate. The dust swirled into his face, and he blinked it out painfully.<br />
"Make way! Make way!" He called, sticking his spurs into the horse again and forcing it into a gallop. The peasants scrambled to reopen the lane, and Palen saw the retreating horse bearing the assassin. His horse pounded after it; Palen's cape snapped behind him. He gripped the bare ends of the rein tightly.<br />
It looked like the assassin was heading for the south gate. There was no way to get them to close it in time. He bent low over his steed and guided it around a child almost too late.<br />
The assassin turned a corner, following the main road toward the south gate. Palen knew a better way. He went straight through, diving his horse into a narrow alley and slowing. He pulled it around a corner and got it running again. A washerwoman nearly got in his way, but she saw him in time and fell backwards into a puddle of slop as he galloped past.<br />
He broke into the sun on the main road and wheeled his horse toward the edge of the city. He didn't see the other horse. He could close the gate before he escaped!<br />
Just as he raced past a wide intersection the assassin's horse turned up next to his. Both of the riders did double-takes, and then bent over their respective steeds. There was now no way to close the gate in time. Palen would have to stop him directly.<br />
A minute later they burst out of the city. The assassin's horse was fast and nimble. It was, Palen realized, the King's horse. The crowd thinned once they were free of the gates, and the assassin's horse gained ground on Palen. He sunk his spurs into the horse again, and froth spilled from its mouth as it pushed its legs to catch up. Incredibly, it did, and inch by inch he got closer.<br />
They were on the main road heading south now, paved with broken stones and littered with people. These same people made way as soon as they saw the two horses, leaving the sun-baked road free for the chase. Palen's horse had gained more ground, but both horses tired. Either could easily break an ankle on the disrepaired path.<br />
It curved around a low hill, and Palen saw his chance. As the assassin's horse followed the road, Palen's charged up the hill and jumped into the road in front of the other horse. The assassin slowed and looked around.<br />
"Just the two of us. And you have no sword."<br />
"No." Palen drew his dagger. "But I don't need one. You know more guards followed me. Surrender."<br />
"And put myself at the mercy of the King?" The young man laughed. "Kill me now; at least you could have compassion." He jumped off his horse and slid his sword from its scabbard. "I have an injury, you have a baby's sword. On even terms I defeated you. Maybe this will be different."<br />
"Why did you do it?" Palen asked, not confident about his chances against this man. "What has the King done to you?"<br />
The young man laughed again. "Starved the kingdom! Murdered countless hundreds! He sits in his castle as we go hungry and thirsty!"<br />
"The King does not control the rains!" Palen shouted. He saw dust rising from the road. It would be a few minutes, at least.<br />
"And if it was a wet season of plenty, no doubt he would claim the credit!"<br />
The truth of the statement struck Palen, but his face didn't change. "Perhaps."<br />
"Get out of my way!" The Assassin shouted, stepping toward Palen. Palen took a step back, and the man grinned. "You know even though I have an injury, I can beat you. I've trained all my life for a chance to kill the King." His eyes narrowed. "And you ruined it!"<br />
He charged, bringing his sword down on Palen's neck. Palen jumped back, nearly knocking into his horse. The man swung again, and Palen jumped forward, past the strike. His horse's leg was cut, and it reared with a scream. It turned and charged back toward the city, and suddenly the way was free for the assassin. "And again you fail to stop me." The assassin said. He rushed at Palen and Palen deflected a strike with his dagger. The assassin pushed, thrusting and striking, driving Palen away from the road, and away from the King's horse. Palen's foot clipped against a stone and he stumbled; the assassin knocked him in the head with his sword's hilt, and he fell with blood streaming from his temple. "That's for my shoulder."<br />
The assassin turned and looked at the approaching dust. "I hope the King is good enough to forgive a guard that let an assassin escape with his favorite horse." The assassin smiled. "With barely a scratch on him." He vaulted onto the horse and galloped south.<br />
Palen lay on the road. He'd failed miserably. The would-be assassin's words had stung him. His head felt shaken. If only he'd had his helmet. In another minute he heard approaching horses, and he lifted himself to his feet with trouble. "He followed the road! His horse should be tired! Go!" He waved on the first group of guards, and the second group slowed and dismounted. This group included Sir Yolena and several of Palen's brothers in the guard.<br />
"Are you all right, Littleson?" Yolena asked, helping Palen toward the horses.<br />
"Yes Sir." Palen wiped blood off his forehead. "This was my only injury."<br />
"Then you were lucky. Everyone could see how skilled he was. Here, get on my horse. I can walk."<br />
"But you're injured," Palen said. "From the melee."<br />
"Just a scratch from a friendly spar. You fought an enemy. You saved the King! More than once! His Highness will surely reward you!"<br />
Palen considered this as the horses plodded back to the city. The King might honor him, but he didn't expect a parade. If the poor folk heard he had saved the King from an assassin, he expected rotten fruit and mud balls before cheers.<br />
"The two women were captured," Sir Yolena was saying. "The King suspects them to be part of a rebel faction, and the boy as well. He's furious that the boy even got close enough to hurt him."<br />
"What did he expect?" Palen said. "His Highness shouldn't be participating in melees."<br />
"I agree, but keep those sentiments to yourself. You know how the King takes those that speak against him."<br />
Palen sighed and shook his head slightly. A good ruler would consider the criticism against him. If he had stayed out of the melee, a half dozen men would still be alive and his life would have been safe the entire time.<br />
"Your job isn't to tell the King what to do. Your job is to keep the castle safe," Yolena continued. "You did your job today."<br />
"I know," Palen said. The horse swayed as it walked, and the motion was calming to Palen. He felt sleepy. Blood from his head dripped to the ground.<br />
They entered the city and met more guards. Double patrols walked the walls and the area around the city, and inside as well. The city was on high alert. They stopped inside the south gate and Palen's wound was wrapped tightly. More guards followed them to the castle, on the east side of the city by the river. When they got inside the tall inner walls they found Sir Wren and other knights. Sir Wren saluted, and Palen returned the gesture. The outer courtyard was a flurry of activity, with battalions of soldiers dressed to fight. Nobody was going to get into the castle without someone seeing.<br />
In the main courtyard, surrounded by the monstrous outer towers of the nine-ring court, Palen dismounted and was shown into the main section of the castle by the new castellan. The old one had been thrown out of the city -- banished -- by the king after some perceived slight several months ago. This new castellan, a man by the name of Quincy Robel, was mean and cruel. He sneered when Palen came near.<br />
"The King will see you immediately," Robel said. Palen smelled wine on his breath. "No waiting. At once."<br />
Palen would have cleaned and dressed, but keeping the King waiting was its own offense, so he followed the castellan up the stairs and into the King's council room. <br />
The room was flooded with light from a ceiling made of windows. Banners, marked with the King's parapet, hung from the walls. The sides of the room were crowded by knights, guards, and lords. The King, shadowed by the Captain of the Guard, the Queen, and their Prince -- a boy following too close in his father's steps -- stood at the end of the room. The King sat in his gold throne, an opulence he instated mere days after becoming King.<br />
Palen sank to one knee and bowed his head. "Sire."<br />
"Rise, Palen..." Palen heard a whisper. "Littleson." Palen got up to his feet. He clasped his hands behind his back. His black cloak was dusty from the race and the fight. He stank of sweat, and his wound burned.<br />
The King rose from his gold seat and came closer. He stood a few feet away from Palen. He was shorter than Palen, and thinner. He too clasped his hands behind his back. "On this, the anniversary of my wedding and crowning, I was attacked. Attacked by someone you thought was weak, and inexperienced!" The King shouted. "And he nearly killed me. But! Guard Littleson jumped in and saved me! More than once he kept the assassin from landing a blow on me!" The King smiled at him, and Palen's stomach clenched. His instincts told him more was to come.<br />
"And then," the King said, in a quieter voice. "The assassin ran. He took MY HORSE!" He bellowed the last two words. "And escaped! And still guard Littleson gave chase! He chased him out of the city, and stopped him on the main south road, less than a league from the city!"<br />
The blow was unexpected. It made Palen stagger to one side and fall to his knees. "And you let him escape!" The King shouted at him. Another blow, from a fist, dropped Palen to the ground. "You idiot!"<br />
"Sire!" Palen heard someone say. Hands circled his arms and pulled him up. Sir Yolena stood next to him. "This man saved your life!"<br />
"Silence!" The Kings' voice cracked with fury. "I see it all! I see what your little minds scheme! You, and your young friend, and the women in the dungeon! You pretend to save my life from the assassin, he escapes, you receive nothing more than a cut on your head, and suddenly I take you into my confidence as my savior!"<br />
Palen stared.<br />
"And then when all is quiet, you murder me in my sleep!"<br />
"No Sire!" Palen shouted. He dropped to his knee. "I swore an oath to protect you!"<br />
"Words are nothing, Littleson! A man breaks an oath as easily as he breaks a twig! Guards!" The King shouted at a duo to his right. "Take this traitor to the dungeon and strip him of everything but the skin his mother made him!"<br />
After just a moment's hesitation, the guards took Palen by his arms and dragged him out of the council room. "Wait!" Palen called as his boots scraped on the ground. "Sire, please! I mean you no harm!"<br />
The doors slammed shut, and the guards let him get to his feet. They each kept a hand firmly on an arm, and Palen was brought across the giant central courtyard to the prison tower. He was brought into a cramped cell with a small window and a wooden door.<br />
"I'll spare you the indignity of being undressed by another, but do it quickly. I have the feeling our liege isn't finished with you yet," one of the guards said. Both of them turned their backs as Palen stripped out of his armor and clothing. A ragged blanket was thrown into the cell, and he wrapped himself in it. The guards removed his other things, and Palen sat against the back wall under the window.<br />
<br />
A tray of stew and bread was placed in the door by a guard, with two more guards holding their weapons at the the ready in case Palen tried to do anything. He knew both of them, both of the men with their swords pointed at him like was a murderer.<br />
"Arin! Paul! Please! You know I'd never do anything to hurt the King! I was protecting him! You know that!"<br />
"I'm sorry Palen," Arin said. "But if we let you out the King will know. He'll kill us without a sorry thought." The three of them closed his door and locked it, and opened the cell across from his.<br />
Palen ate the food. He hadn't been given utensils, but he sopped the stew with the bread and drank it when the bread was gone. Soon the bowl was empty and he threw it into the corner. It crashed against the wall and a crack appeared in the wood.<br />
"Say sister," he heard a voice say, "it looks like the King's defender isn't all that happy."<br />
"Isn't he now?" A similar voice asked. "Do you think that's because the King's a loon?" Two voices cackled laughter. "Oy! Guard!"<br />
Palen pulled the sheet around him and went to the window in the door. One of the women from the melee was looking through the door across from his, wrapped in a sheet of her own. She had droopy, pale brown hair, and a stubby nose. Palen remembered her; she was the one who wielded the saber. She and her sister must have been thrown into the cells after Palen pushed them down.<br />
"You're the reason we're in here," the woman said with a sneer.<br />
"Come get me, then," Palen said, looking through the window. "I don't talk with traitors."<br />
"Oho!" The hidden voice said. Another face, the one of the woman that had held the two swords, pushed next to her sister. "Aren't you one as well?"<br />
"No Utena, that can't be!" The first woman said, outraged. "He saved the King's life, and then gave chase to our brave brother!"<br />
"I suppose you're right, Soma," Utena said. She had dirty blond hair wrapped in a fraying braid. She didn't seem to have a sheet; Palen only saw bare shoulders. "But then why's he here?"<br />
"Like I said, I think it's 'cause the King's a loon so off his rocker he thinks that fish fly!" Both women laughed.<br />
"Quiet!" Palen shouted. "It's just a mistake! You tried to kill the King!"<br />
"Did we? No, I don't think we did!" Soma said. "We just got in the way of some of your friends. And, I'm afraid, some of them ran into our weapons!"<br />
"We were cleaning them, you see," Utena jumped in. "Silly fools hurt themselves!"<br />
"Liars!" Palen shouted, then stomped away from the door. There wasn't any place to stomp <i>to</i>, unfortunately. He heard the laughter from the other cell.<br />
"What's your name, boy?" One of them asked. Palen couldn't see.<br />
"I don't talk to traitors."<br />
"Well it's a good thing we do, otherwise you wouldn't have anyone to talk to! Tell us... did you get him?"<br />
Palen waited for the mockery, but none came. It was a serious question.<br />
"Why do you want to know?"<br />
"Because he was our friend. Did he escape?"<br />
Palen went to the door and looked through. Both of the faces looked back at him, waiting.<br />
Palen sighed and sat against the far wall. "He got away."<br />
Both of the women breathed sighs of relief. "That's why you're in here, isn't it? You let him get away?"<br />
Palen hesitated. "Yes."<br />
"You have to admit your King's being a bugger."<br />
"He's your King too!"<br />
"Like shit he is!" One of them shouted. "He stopped being my King when our parents starved to death! He doesn't care about us! He doesn't care about you! Without you, his miserable life would have ended three times over, and what does he do? Throws you into a cell so you can sit on your bare ass!" The unseen woman cackled. "And then what? Torture? Banishment? Will he have the executioner chop your head off before you can kiss his foot one more time?"<br />
"That won't happen!" Palen shouted. He didn't believe it.<br />
"He's mad! A spoiled rotten ruler that should still be sitting on his mother's knee! I can only imagine what his poor wife goes through each day, he probably demands sick acts from her nightly!"<br />
"And his son!" This was the other one. "He's going to be worse, I tell you! His father lets him do exactly as he wants, and when our current fool on the throne quits, this one will take his place and blow whatever sinking ship is left to hell! And boy, you mark my words, that'll happen!"<br />
Palen snatched the cracked wooden bowl, stuck his arm out the bars of the window in his door, and flung the bowl at the other door. It struck a hand clenching one of their bars, and Soma pulled her hand away. "Ah! Bastard!"<br />
"You're not going to get any more stew, now," Utena tsked. "Pity. It wasn't bad stew. It's too bad the only way to get it in this kingdom is to try and kill the King!" She laughed, but Soma sucked on her knuckle and didn't join in. "Go on!" Utena said, seeing Palen's furious expression. "Throw your cloth at me, too! That'll leave you nice and warm come the night!"<br />
Palen went back to the wall and pulled the sheet around him tightly. He looked up at the small window in the wall and tried to figure out what time of day it was. The light looked late.<br />
<br />
Palen didn't sleep much; he never could. He laid on the cold stone with the sheet over him. The piss bucket, which he'd taken advantage of earlier, stank. He couldn't see the stars or the moon through the window, and the cell was dark except for the torch down the hall that cast long shadows through the window of his door.<br />
He heard low muttering. Soundless, he crept next to his door. The women in the cell across from his talked.<br />
"...they would!" One of them said tensely. "Bena failed; we know what the backup is!"<br />
The other one responded, in a quieter tone. "We expected Bena to at least hurt the king. He barely even touched him. We can't expect Amonid to follow the plan if the situation changes."<br />
Palen didn't know who those names were, but Bena could be the assassin, perhaps?<br />
"We'll know in a few days. We just need to last until then to know for certain."<br />
"What if we don't last until then? We both know the stories. The King may take us into a dirty shed and cut us into bits, or any other horrible death."<br />
"He'll try to get information out of us first. He knows we're rebels; even an idiot like him can't miss an opportunity like this." There was a pause. "We have to be strong. We can't let anything slip that could give the others away."<br />
Both of them seemed to realize that the cell next to theirs was quiet.<br />
"That poor boy. He did his duty and saved the king, and he's thrown into a cell stark naked for it."<br />
"He's not our friend. He's the enemy," the other responded.<br />
"We need to sleep," The first said, and the cell was quiet.<br />
<br />
The sun's light was just getting into the cell when a half dozen guards marched into the hallway. Palen jumped awake, hoping his cell would open and the King would enter, apologetic. Instead, he heard the rattle of keys as they entered the door across from him.<br />
"You," Palen heard a guard order. "Up. The King wants to speak with you."<br />
"I'm not dressed for it," Palen heard. Then a smack, and a feminine cry.<br />
"<i>Up</i>. The King doesn't mind a bruise here... or there... on a prisoner," the guard said. Palen heard a muffled moan. He imagined mailed fingers pinching soft flesh, and grimaced. The guards moved around, and Palen looked out his door's window. The blonde one, Utena, was being led down the hallway, flanked and followed by the guards, covered in nothing but the dirty brown sheet.<br />
Soma saw him looking. "She's a beauty, isn't she? You should see her after she gets cleaned up. She'd make any man rebel." She snickered. "What's your name, boy?"<br />
"I'm not a boy!"<br />
"Oh? What are you... eighteen? Nineteen?" Palen didn't respond. "You ever had a woman? Married? Held land?"<br />
"...No."<br />
"None of them? Oh, the terrible things our king does. Come, tell me your name. You know mine. It's only polite."<br />
Palen hesitated. "Palen Littleson."<br />
Soma, he think, curtsied.<br />
"Tell me... what are they going to do to her?" She asked him. He looked at her. She looked through the bars, hiding all but her eyes and the top of her head from view. Utena must have taken the only sheet.<br />
Palen's stomach roiled. He'd heard the stories, told only in whispers. He didn't know how many were true... but he knew some would be.<br />
"He'll rape her," Palen began, quietly. "He'll beat her, sometimes while raping her."<br />
Soma's eyebrows raised in horror.<br />
"He might pin her up to a board and take a knife, and make cuts on her skin. He could cut off nipples or an ear."<br />
Palen had seen it only once, when the King was convinced that an old man was trying to kill him. "He might whip her, or boil her." The things the King had done... no woman needed to hear them. "He has crueler tortures. He will try to break her."<br />
Soma took a breath. "She's strong. What if he doesn't break her?"<br />
"He'll kill her. Or give her to his guards to use as they will." That had happened, too. A woman, stricken pale by fear, tied to a post. Palen had left and walked through the city, sickened by it. "Or he'll throw her back in with you, bleeding. He may take you and make her watch as he does the same things to you, until she begs and pleads him to stop for your sake."<br />
"She won't. We knew what would happen if we were caught." She waited for him to continue. "Why do you serve him?"<br />
"He's my King. It's my duty."<br />
"He's a <i>monster</i>!"<br />
"He might... be." Palen said. The words, from his own mouth, shook him. "But it's my job to keep him alive."<br />
"Your job!" Soma laughed mockingly. "Your job is to take orders like a dog, while my friend is raped and killed! While people starve!"<br />
"And what do I do instead?" Palen shouted.<br />
"Join me!" Soma said, pressing her face against the bars. "A man like you, someone who could nearly beat Bena in a sword fight! He's trained all his life to kill the King, and you stopped him! You'd be such a strong ally!"<br />
"I'm not going to join rebels!" Palen threw back. "I know your stories! You steal and kill, and blame the King!"<br />
"We steal because it's impossible to get food otherwise! The only way to get food is to steal! But the King eats well every day! <i>He</i> never goes hungry!"<br />
"He's one man! If he gave up his food, who wouldn't starve?"<br />
"You can't argue me this! He's hoarding the food, ignoring the poor, and killing anyone that dares mention it to him!" <br />
Palen and Soma stared at each other. Palen wished he could reach out and smack her.<br />
"My father," she said, grimacing, "and mother. They were farmers. They were ordered to give up their food to the King's men as they marched. My father refused; he said there wouldn't be any left for me. For them. The soldiers left.<br />
"And then, two weeks later, the King himself appeared with fifty troops, slaughtered my parents, and burned everything I had to the ground." Her mouth trembled. "You can guess what they did to me. I was seventeen."<br />
She turned away. "I wandered after that, cold, hungry, tired, beaten. The road is never a safe place for a woman alone, even when the King kept the laws. Now?" She laughed once. "I was lucky I wasn't murdered the moment I took my first step." She looked at Palen again. "That was three years ago. Have things improved? The King does what he wants, even though he's a madman."<br />
"It isn't our place to judge. We know nothing of the weight of rule."<br />
"Don't we?" Soma's eyes narrowed. "If I were a ruler, I wouldn't force my citizens to give up their everything, and then burn and kill them if they decided not to. I wouldn't throw my defender-" she jabbed a finger at him "-into a cell because I thought he was a rebel!"<br />
Palen imagined the things that, even now, Utena suffered through. But she was a rebel! The King may take it too far in some cases, but she had aided an assassin! What was happening to her was her own fault.<br />
The thought made Palen feel sick. How could he wish horrors on someone who was trying to help others? If he had let the boy -- Bena -- kill the King . . . his madness, his tyranny . . . it would have ended.<br />
<br />
The day went. Utena didn't return. Soma tried talking to him, but he was too deep in his own thoughts, and as the sun moved she gave up. Dinner was brought, and a sheet, for Soma. Palen heard her throw it in the corner of her cell with a scream and a curse. When it hit the wall it sounded wet.<br />
Palen knew the paths for this part of the castle; he'd walked it himself before, listening to the cries and pleas of the prisoners. He waited until the guard walked by and then hissed at Soma. She didn't respond.<br />
"Soma!" He said quietly. He heard a shuffling, and her eyes appeared in the shadows thrown by the torch.<br />
"What?" She whispered. Palen could just make out tear streaks on her face.<br />
"I heard you and your sister last night. Talking."<br />
Soma hesitated. Then: "She wasn't my sister."<br />
"What?"<br />
"She wasn't my sister!" Soma screamed under her breath. "We lied, to keep each other safe. I met her on the road after my home was burned. We joined the rebels together, and just told everyone we were related." She sniffed. "It seemed easiest." Palen waited for her to continue. "You said you heard us talking."<br />
"What are the rebels planning?"<br />
"You think I'll tell you?" She chuckled. "You're stupider than I thought. Why the hell should I tell you?"<br />
"I won't tell anyone." Palen paused. "I swear."<br />
"Oh? You swear, do you? Which one?"<br />
"What?"<br />
"Your words mean nothing to me, guard. You say you protect the King. If I tell you, you have to break one of your promises. Which one would it be? The one to me? Or the one to him? I think I know."<br />
"I've been thinking about it," Palen said. "You're right. I don't think the King and I are going to get along much longer." He pressed his face against the bars in the door's window. "I'm sick of it. I've had to see so much more than you!" He whispered. "How do you think I knew what they would do to Utena?" The other cell was silent. "Even during the melee, it was disgusting to watch him. His actions mock us. Everyone."<br />
Her face appeared in her door's window. "How do I know I can trust you?"<br />
Palen didn't know. He had nothing to give her, no information that could be of use to her. His heart pounded. <i>He wanted to help</i>.<br />
"I don't know. I'm open to suggestions."<br />
The other cell was quiet. Palen sighed and sat down. Then he heard her voice. "Give me your sheet, and we can call it a start. Mine is... dirty."<br />
Palen got up and balled the sheet in his fist. He stuck his hand out the window and flicked the sheet at Soma. She caught it and pulled it in. She quickly wrapped it around herself. "Thank you."<br />
He nodded. "Anything else?"<br />
"Do you have anything else in there?" She asked.<br />
"Nothing but my bucket."<br />
There was a pause. "You may keep that." Palen, despite the cold and circumstances, laughed.<br />
"Do you promise?" He heard her ask, in a voice that one could call sultry, had it not come from a cold girl in a prison cell. "Do you promise to keep it a secret?"<br />
Palen breathed out. "I do."<br />
"Then consider this a warning. If you tell the King what I'm about to tell you... the fact that you've given me a blanket will not save your miserable life."<br />
<br />
The next morning, they came for him. They found him cold and naked, and gave him a rough tunic with long ragged sleeves and a pair of breeches. "The King would like to speak to you," the guard, another one that Palen knew, said.<br />
Palen stood and let them walk him away from the cell. Soma watched him leave.<br />
He was again brought before the King in his council room. The queen and their son weren't present. It was the King, Palen, and a dozen guards. Palen dropped to his knees, pushed by the guard that clasped his arms.<br />
"Palen Littleson," the King said. "You are accused of treason and attempted harm on my royal person. How do you plead?"<br />
"Innocent," Palen said, looking the King in the eye. "On all counts."<br />
"And now you're a liar, too!" The King shouted. He danced forward, and Palen prepared for the blow.<br />
It never came. He looked up at the King, who rubbed his chin with his fingers. "You are no stranger to pain, having made it through to be a guard. You will need something more." The King looked at the castellan. "Make ready the ladder."<br />
Palen didn't know what the ladder was. He was pulled to his feet with a puzzled expression. It must be new, and it must be bad – or a secret. The King and the guards led him to the back of the castle, and climbed down a long circular staircase.<br />
The stairs emptied into a giant cavern under the castle, suspended high over the swift water of the river far below them. The cavern was ringed by a railinged walkway, and in the center...<br />
"Here is where you will spend your days," The King muttered. "Unless you confess your crimes, and reveal all that you know about the rebels." The King looked at one of the guards. "Bring it down."<br />
The guard nodded and started to crank on a lever.<br />
A massive ladder, suspended in the center of the cavern, rattled. It began to approach those standing on the ledge on metal runners. It must have been a hundred feet long from top to bottom, ten or twenty feet wide. The rungs varied from thin twigs to stout pieces of wood, varied in their distance from each other. It hung from attachments built into the ceiling, and the bottom swayed far over the rushing water, which was punctuated by sharp stalagmites. Palen watched it come closer with an open mouth.<br />
"You will cling to this ladder," the King said conversationally, with his hands clasped behind his cloak. "You will be given nothing. You will stay hanging until you call out that you are ready to talk. Usually I have guards take shots at those hanging on." He thought for a moment. "But we can skip that. Call it repayment for saving my life in the melee." The King sniggered, then waved his hand. "Go on! Or I'll have my guards push you off." Two guards moved forward with their weapons pointed at Palen, urging him toward the swinging ladder and the edge of the walkway. He backed away.<br />
"My liege, please," Palen begged. He clamped his hands together. "I know nothing!"<br />
"As did the whore yesterday!" The King laughed. "Go on! Jump!" The two guards came nearer, pressing Palen toward the ladder. He turned and looked at it.<br />
It was stained and perilous, but it looked like new wood. Palen shuffled toward the hole in the fence, and jumped.<br />
He hit the ladder three rungs from the bottom, but his hand missed. He slid down the ladder and latched on to the last rung with one hand. His other hand wrapped around it quickly, and Palen couldn't avoid looking down. As the ladder was winched away from the walkway he watched the river pound through the path it had chiseled.<br />
The ladder got to the center of the massive cavern and stopped, swaying back and forth. Palen's stomach jumped. He reached up for the second rung, hauling himself higher as his feet dangled. On the sixth rung he was able to hook his feet on the bottom, and stood, clenched against the ladder. He glanced back.<br />
The King watched him. Palen couldn't see his expression but he imagined it was a mad grin.<br />
Palen looked below him again. <i>Four days</i>, he thought to himself. <i>If I can make four days</i>.<br />
<br />
An hour passed. Palen had hauled himself higher, dizzied from the ceaseless swaying. The King had left with most of the guards, after ordering to be told if Palen either fell or called to speak with the King.<br />
Palen took stock. There were no windows or way to tell the light of day; the meager light came from torches set in the wall and ceiling. Water dripped from stalactites above him. He caught a drop in his mouth once. It was gritty, but he would need it. He wished he had been able to eat before being pushed out over oblivion, and already his stomach growled. He prayed it silent. He was a dozen rungs above the bottom now, holding tightly to the strong rung. He took a deep breath. His tunic and breeches, light things, didn't stop the cold.<br />
Every look down made him shut his eyes and groan. Heights had never been a problem for him before, but this was different. It was a height that could very quickly turn into a short distance. Palen set his head against the ladder.<br />
<br />
More hours passed. He felt tired, but he knew if he fell asleep he could fall. He caught a few drops of dirty water and took his shirt off.<br />
The guards had changed just once since he'd arrived. He knew the shifts were eight hours; he would be able to use their movements as a timepiece.<br />
He climbed a few rungs until he was able to slip his legs in between two rungs that were close together. He locked his ankles around another rung and wrapped his shirt around his waist. He tied the sleeves around himself and a rung at stomach height, and tested the knot. It held, and he slowly leaned back, keeping his hands on the rungs. When he was back as far as the shirt would go he let his hands go. He stayed suspended in air, the knot pulled tight.<br />
And so, hanging high over the rushing water and sharp rocks by only a shirt, he fell asleep.<br />
<br />
When he woke up, he stretched, looked over at the guards, and then looked down.<br />
He grabbed the ladder, terrified by the sight, and then his brain took control again. The events of the last few days wound through his mind in a flash. How long had he slept? He looked over at the guards again. They were the same two that had been there when he fell asleep, which meant it had been less than six hours since then, as long as he had kept track of time correctly.<br />
He shivered, and tried to undo the knot he had worked the tunic into. It stayed put, and Palen sighed.<br />
He found himself looking at the river. The gurgling noises that reached him sounded sweet and fresh, and the distance between them became hypnotic. He watched the streams that curved between the stalagmites flash with fire from the torches. He shook his head and forced himself to concentrate on what Soma had told him. Four days... or now three? He didn't know.<br />
In less than an hour the guard changed again. Palen watched them switch out and stand stock-still at the room's exit. He had been hanging there for more than ten hours if the guards switched at the times he remembered. It was still four days until... he shook his head.<br />
He looked down at the swirling river drawn in by the layers of water that washed over one another. He hung there, stopped from falling by the shirt, watching and listening to the water.<br />
Ten minutes later he felt his body moving, and then his vision was filled by the water. He snapped out of it and grabbed a rung of the ladder as the shirt fell away from him. He snatched it with his other hand and pulled himself back up. He must have loosened the shirt more than he thought when he tried to undo it.<br />
He looked down at the river once more, and dragged his eyes away, telling himself not to look.<br />
Four days.<br />
<br />
And they passed.<br />
His body clenched with hunger, nearly delirious. He kept the shirt knotted about his torso, to keep him from plummeting, to stop him from falling, to keep him away.<br />
The river.<br />
It snarled with rocky teeth for his body, roaring and crushing pain in his ears. Every time he looked down at it, and he could not stop, it ate at his mind, the distance and the pressure and sound and light. He though he saw figures rising from it once, but they were figments of his twisting mind. The river spoke to him when he watched it, telling him sweet secrets of the deep, begging him to join it and play. To release from his prison and fall that length of air and be free.<br />
The torches on the walls flickered and danced, playing like children on the craggy surfaces. How he wished he could join them.<br />
His mind was curled around one fact. One facet that he ran over and over as he hung and as his mind was twisted by the height.<br />
And finally the four days had passed. The guard changed; they had become no more than hateful statues as the hours trickled by, and he called out to them with a raspy voice. He called to see the King with as much strength as he could manage. He pleaded and begged, weeping tears more real than he had ever wept. One of the guards ran away as the other started to winch Palen toward the ledge.<br />
He cut away Palen's shirt and pulled him off the ladder, a struggle. Palen held on to the ladder with all the strength he had, not wanting to be exposed to the welcoming fall below.<br />
More guards entered, and three more helped the first in pulling Palen off onto the ledge. Palen clawed at the ground until he was flat against the wall. His eyes locked shut and he begged for food. Two guards picked him up by his arms and dragged him up the stairs, each step scraping his legs.<br />
He was dropped in a room, and even the short fall from their arms to the floor made Palen cry in terror, believing he had finally fallen into the river. He hit the ground and moaned. He heard noises close to him, and found a plate of bread and a cup of water. He ate noisily, stuffing as much bread as he could in his mouth and using the water to slide it down. He spilled much.<br />
It felt like the world was flipping. He gripped the floor with his hands, unwilling to rise. He was dragged into another room, and he watched the floor flow under him. Just like the river.<br />
The next destination was a place he recognized. He slowly lifted his head and looked around. It was the council room, with the gold throne and the glass ceiling. He looked up at the bright sky and trembled. It threatened to swallow him.<br />
The King stepped into the room. The footfalls rebounded on the chasm inside Palen. He looked up.<br />
The King stood, just as he always had. Short and light and mad. Palen saw him for the first time. <i>This</i> was the person that had ordered him broken.<br />
"Are you ready to talk?" The King asked, sitting on his throne.<br />
Palen studied him as his mind threatened to snap. Then there was clarity. Palen nodded, and tried pushing himself off the floor to his knees. He nearly toppled over, but managed to rise that far.<br />
"Good! Now. You are a rebel?"<br />
Palen wondered if what he was doing was right. Then he nodded.<br />
"<i>Really</i>." The King stood. "And you were in league with the assassin at the melee?"<br />
Palen nodded again.<br />
"Tell me your plan!" The King went up to him, and Palen cowered back. "Go on."<br />
"We... I-I... He was supposed to kill you, my l-liege. It was to look like I tried to stop him. If he f-failed, I would c-chase him."<br />
"Stop stuttering like a little child!" The King ordered, and Palen flinched.<br />
"F-forgive me, highness." Palen took a breath. "If you were killed, I would... be there to help the transition."<br />
"Deep in their ranks, were you?" The King snarled. "And because I lived?"<br />
"Remain an inactive agent, ready to assist them." Palen was feeling better. "And to... help the next step."<br />
"Next step. Next step!" The King said. "What next step? Tell me or I will kill you here!"<br />
"Please, my liege! I was deluded and confused, but now I know I was wrong! It's today. Today, my liege! I had to tell you! Agents will become active in the city at sundown, and come in from the north in a strong band! They're going to catch the guards unaware and then march on the castle."<br />
"We can shut the gates! Nothing gets into this castle!" The King shouted.<br />
"My liege! There are other agents besides myself inside! Our identities were kept secret to protect each other." Palen quailed when the King turned on him.<br />
"There are more of you? G-" The King looked at the men that had escorted Palen from the ladder. "It could be any of you. Knights! ROBEL!"<br />
"Your Highness!" One of the guards shouted. "I am no traitor! My father served your father, and so I serve you!"<br />
"We stand with you, my liege," another shouted.<br />
"Of course you would say that!" The King bellowed as two knights and the castellan rushed in. "Take all of these men and all of the guards and throw them in the dungeon! Send trusted knights into the city and tell them that rebels will strike at sundown today, and march from the north!" The King suddenly turned on Palen, and Palen tensed, anticipating a blow. "You said from the north. But the assassin rode south! On <i>my</i> horse!" <br />
"A trick, my liege! To throw you off the trail!"<br />
"Of course. Of course!" The King said. "Robel! Knights! Do as I command! My life is in danger now! Throw this stinking rebel back in his cell!" The King pointed at Palen. "I'll deal with him after the night is finished!"<br />
"Gracious King, no!" Palen shouted. "Please! I am your man!"<br />
"You are a traitor and a rebel!" The King spat in Palen's face. "And your death will be too good for you! Take him <i>away</i>!" A knight brought Palen up to his feet and kept him from falling over, dragging him to the cells as Palen kicked and screamed. The news of the impending attack washed over the castle, and knights and servants took the place of the palace guard as they were rounded up and imprisoned. A great din took the place of the castle's ordinary bustle, and dry dust was kicked up as people ran to attack, or escape... or die.<br />
Palen was dropped into his cell weeping. He clutched the ground like a child holding his mother.<br />
"Palen!" He heard a voice. "What the hell is happening? What did you do? You told them, didn't you!" Soma snarled. "You bastard! I never should have trusted you!"<br />
Palen's heart raced, but he took longer and longer breaths to slow it. Finally he felt calmer, even as Soma raged at him. "Now you're going to die, and I'm going to die! Everyone's going to die, and it will be your fault!" It sounded like she was crying. "You'll be responsible for their deaths!"<br />
Palen looked up from the dirty stone floor, dizzy. He got to his knees and used the small window in the door to pull himself up. "No, no. No." He said. "I told them a lie. I told them rebels would start killing guards in the city at sundown, and a band would come from the north."<br />
Soma watched his disheveled face for a few seconds, then gave a small relieved laugh. "Whatever the King did to you, it must not have worked all that well!"<br />
Palen thought of the endless distance between him and the river, and nearly collapsed to the ground. "No!" He cried out, shocking Soma. "I can't... I can't help you! I can't go back into that room again!" He howled. "I don't care if I die, I just can't go back!"<br />
"Palen, what are you talking about? Where did he take you?"<br />
<i>Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh</i><br />
"No! I have to stay here! I can't look at it again!"<br />
"Palen, calm down! What happened?"<br />
<i>Ssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh</i><br />
"The river!" Palen screamed through the window. Soma flinched back. "He made me hang over the river, hang for my life, for days! The very place that the rebels are going to climb up! I can't go back there and see it! Can't you see Soma? I can barely stand! Whenever I close my eyes-"<br />
<i>Cshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh</i><br />
"-I can see the river! Hear it! Feel it!" Palen sobbed. "I got the knights and the guards out of the castle; they're killing and throwing guards in jail because I told them there are other rebels in the castle, but I can't go back to that room or I will fall in the river!"<br />
<i>Sssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh</i><br />
"Just like it wants," Palen muttered, weak and wet.<br />
"Other rebels? There aren't any other rebels! Palen!" There was no response. "At least they'll be able to climb up without any one hardly in the castle," Soma said. "Palen! Palen wake up! You did it, Palen! There won't be anyone left in the castle to stop us! Palen!"<br />
The other cell was quiet.<br />
"Dammit! Palen! Wake up!" Soma called. There was still nothing from the other cell, but Soma heard running feet coming down the hallway. Two guards appeared, apparently fleeing from something. "Guards! Ho, guards!" One of them skidded to a stop, and the other kept running. The guard's helmet was tilted, and sweat dripped down his face. "I haven't been fed yet, the man in that cell needs help, and what is going on outside?" She asked, feigning fear and confusion.<br />
"They think we're rebels!" The guard said, sticking his face into the bars. "They're killing us!" Suddenly his eyes took notice of Soma's body. He leered, and looked down the hallway. "Ain't nobody coming this way." His buck teeth showed in a grin. "Here, girl."<br />
It wasn't the way Soma had intended to free herself, but it worked nonetheless. As soon as the guard unlocked the cell and stepped in, still grinning, she twisted his arm around his back and dislocated his shoulder. He screamed in pain and Soma drove his knees to the ground. "Your clothes. Give them to me!" She yelled as the guard whimpered. "You were going to take your pants off anyway!" She let the arm go, and, still whimpering, the guard removed his pants and tunic. Soma slipped them on. "And your boots!"<br />
When she had those on, she threw the sheet Palen had given her on him. "Act pathetic and the King might not kill you," she said as she slammed the cell shut. She unlocked Palen's door and found him curled in a ball. He wasn't asleep, but nearly catatonic.<br />
"Palen." Soma shook his shoulder, and he jumped, enveloping her thin wrist in a lightning-fast grab. He saw it was her, and then goggled at her clothing. "A guard tried some funny business," she said. "I want you to stand. You're in danger here."<br />
Palen stood without saying a word. "Are you all right?" Soma asked him.<br />
"For now," Palen managed. He took a few tentative steps, and separated from Soma. He took deep breaths. His eyes flicked from object to object. Soma led him into the hallway.<br />
"Okay, first thing. We need to get you something better to wear. After that, I'm going to try and help the rebels come up through the cave." Palen stiffened. "You don't have to come with me. You can stand guard outside the room. Come on, if somebody sees us trying to escape, they'll attack." Palen nodded and followed Soma down the hallway. Terrible cries came from the other levels of the prison tower, as well as weapons ringing together. "Is there an armory near here?" She asked.<br />
"Yes, this way," Palen said, and Soma followed his finger down another hallway. They came to a room with armor and weapons, in mad disarray. "Find something you can use."<br />
Palen put together tougher pants, a chain shirt over his tunic, a sword that he belted to his waist, and a dagger. He slipped on boots and gloves and sighed, feeling better.<br />
"Okay. It's about an hour to sundown. The rebels should be getting to the cavern right about now, but they'll need time to get up. Can you take me there?"<br />
Palen nodded.<br />
But before they could even leave the prison tower they ran into a duo of knights. The knights at first went for them only because they looked like guards, but then realized Soma was a woman. Soma raised the longsword she'd taken from the armory and shook her head. "Trust me, you don't want to come any closer."<br />
"Oh yeh?" The knight sneered. "And you, boy? Are you a demon in a man's skin as well?"<br />
Three seconds later Soma stood with her hands covering her mouth and the sword at her feet, the other knight backing away with the point of his sword quivering as he stepped toward the door. The knight that had talked to Palen was dead.<br />
Palen had charged, moving with such speed that the knight didn't have time to even move his sword in the way. Palen stabbed him through the face, tearing off the top half of his head and spraying blood over the walls. He turned his head and looked at the other knight, who turned and ran.<br />
"Gods," Soma whispered. Palen looked at her, and she took a quick step back. "Easy, Palen. It's me." Palen jammed his sword into its scabbard and started walking toward the stairs. Soma scooped up her sword and followed him warily. She followed Palen around a corner and found him leaning against the wall.<br />
"Palen!"<br />
"I'm all right," he said. "I just... I need to stop for a bit. That knight..."<br />
"He was going to die. He wasn't going to back down. You probably saved the other knight's life." <i>But what brutality</i>! Soma thought. <i>What anger</i>!<br />
"I don't know why I did that," Palen said.<br />
"It's all right. Come on." Soma put a hand on his arm. "Which way?"<br />
"It's under the main keep. We'll need to be quiet to avoid anyone else."<br />
"All right. You lead the way, I'll watch behind us."<br />
They went around one side of the big courtyard, which was empty. New stains of blood were on the ground. Palen kicked open a door to the keep that was normally guarded, and stepped in. There were stairs up to the council room, and more down to the kitchens. He went up.<br />
The council room was empty. Palen went through a door at the back, and found himself at a spiral staircase after going down a hallway.<br />
"Is it down there?" Soma asked.<br />
"I think so," Palen said. He looked down the stairs. Yes... he could hear the river.<br />
"Okay. I'm going down there. Will you stay here and make sure no one gets past?"<br />
Palen nodded, and Soma ran down the stairs. He sat against the wall away from the stairs.<br />
Soma would be entering the cavern about now, and seeing the ladder, and understanding, perhaps, what Palen had been subjected to. She would gasp, or ignore it and try and find the rebels that were climbing up the rocky interior of the cavern, having been taken there by boats. The old castellan had told the rebels about the secret entrance after being exiled by the King.<br />
Palen shifted. The King was adept at making his own enemies. He wondered if Bena would be in that group, or if he was in the group down the south road, waiting for the signal. He wondered how long it would take the rebels to climb-<br />
<i>Sssssssshhhhhh</i><br />
-up from the river.<br />
<i>Ssshhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaa</i><br />
Palen turned his head away from the staircase.<br />
The castle's noises were fewer now. He heard distant running and shouts. He didn't hear any sounds of battle. <br />
But soon the only thing he could hear was the river, desiring him.<br />
<i>Sssssssssssssshhhh</i><br />
Palen clamped his hands over his ears and concentrated on something, anything, but the water drowned it. The room spun and stretched, turning into the cavern, and suddenly he hung from the ladder once more.<br />
He screamed and snapped out of the nightmare, hearing boots strike the corridor outside the room. Someone was coming toward him. Palen got to his feet slowly, nearly experiencing vertigo. He dragged his sword free.<br />
Quincy Robel walked in with a sword, spotting Palen and staying clear. "You! The traitor! What are you doing down here? Why aren't you in your cell?"<br />
Palen didn't answer, but just then they heard voices from the staircase behind Palen -- shouts -- and the castellan's eyes turned to slits. "So. You've got friends coming up from the river. You know, I'd just found that passage under the walls. Only a few days before you were put in there. Guards!" Robel shouted behind him.<br />
"There are no guards," Palen slurred. Robel's eyes widened. He stepped back.<br />
Palen raised his sword, but it shook. He could still hear the river. Robel smiled.<br />
"Look at you, a broken man." He laughed, and sent Palen's sword flying wide with a strike from his. Palen's grip couldn't hold the hilt and it dropped to the ground. Robel advanced, small black eyes gleaming with cruelty. Palen took a step back. The river got louder.<br />
<i>Just the two of us, and you have no sword</i>.<br />
Palen drew his dagger. Robel sneered. "What do you hope to do with that?" Palen almost didn't hear him; the river splashed so loudly in his ears.<br />
Voices came from down the staircase, and Palen looked back, just for a second. Robel took the opportunity to turn and run, and Palen chased once he realized it.<br />
He was on Robel in a second, crashing into him and stunning him. He fell to the ground and his sword went skidding away. Robel chased it on his hands and knees as Palen advanced. Robel got to it and gripped it in both hands. "Stay back. Stay back!" He yelled. Palen had the dagger in front of him. "I say stay back!" Robel swung his sword.<br />
Palen blocked it with the dagger, kicked the man in the stomach, brought the hilt of the dagger across his face, spun the dagger around with one hand, and plunged it into Robel's heart. Robel's stunned face turned white as his lifeblood sprayed the wall, and he fell backwards with the knife still buried in his chest.<br />
Palen bent to retrieve it. Just as he pulled the knife out and more blood fountained up, he heard a voice from down the hallway, the way Robel had run.<br />
"Robel, what is that racket? I told you to-" King Gantalin the Second stopped dead when he saw the gruesome scene. He saw Robel, and his abandoned sword, and the blood-stained Palen holding his dagger. "How did you get out of your cell?" The King shouted.<br />
"Why should I tell you?" Palen said. The King pulled his sword out.<br />
"Because I am your King, and you are loyal to me!"<br />
"You rule me no longer," Palen said, and stepped forward.<br />
The King snarled. "I will when you are buried in the ground!" He charged with his sword up. Palen avoided the attack easily and kicked at the King, who jumped backwards. "You have no sword! I can beat you easily!"<br />
"That's what Robel thought, too." The King hesitated, and then rushed again. Palen moved around the strike and pushed the King down from behind, knocking him to the floor. Palen turned and blocked his escape. The King noticed this, and yet he smiled.<br />
"You can't get me. If I go down to the ladder, will you be able to follow me?" The King laughed. "It broke you. <i>I</i> broke you! Will you be able to see flowing water ever again?"<br />
Palen grit his teeth. "And what about the rebels coming up from the cavern right now?" He shouted, and the King's face fell. "The ones led by your old castellan? I lied to you, but you're too stupid to see that! I was a loyal subject who only tried to protect your life, but your madness turned me into an enemy! And then I lied about the rebel's attack! There are no rebels in the city, they're all coming up right behind you!" Palen shouted, taking a step at the King. "You did this! You've doomed yourself even more than you already were!" The King got to his feet and looked behind him, suddenly hearing the steps of dozens of boots coming up the twisting staircase. <br />
He realized the same thing Palen did, and charged, swinging his sword in front of him madly. Palen blocked two strikes and made the King stumble backwards. The steps from the staircase sounded closer. He ran again, trying to get past Palen to freedom, but Palen would not be avoided. He slammed the King backwards and stepped closer, closing the space that the King had. Palen expected another attack, but instead the King turned and ran toward the staircase, just as the first rebel, dripping wet, came up the stairs.<br />
Before the soldier could react, the King thrust his sword into his stomach and pushed past him, taking wild swings at other rebels as he saw them. Palen raced to the first rebel and found him nearly dead already, the victim of a tearing cut. A few more rebels had been hurt, and they filed out of the staircase as Palen went down it, the sound of the river growing in his mind. He saw Soma, and she gaped at him as he went past. He ignored it.<br />
He got to the bottom of the staircase, and could just see into the cavern beyond. There was nowhere for the King to go.<br />
Palen trembled. He had only just been freed from the cavern that day. He did not want to go back in.<br />
Soma approached from behind. "Palen-"<br />
"I'm going in after him," Palen said. "I just need to... get ready." He could hear the river calling. "Take your soldiers and take the castle. There's nowhere for him to go in there. I know that for a fact."<br />
"There is one way," Soma said, before turning and going up the steps.<br />
Palen heard the unceasing roar of the river, and saw the crashing water on the teeth of its open mouth. He gripped his dagger until his fingers turned white, and then went in.<br />
<br />
The King was at the end of the walkway. The ladder hung in the center of the room like a creature, swaying slightly. Palen heard the distant water, and his vision nearly filled with the river and the spires of rock. The torches around the massive room were lit. Ropes trailed down into the darkness.<br />
"Can you hear it calling?" The King asked. "I know what the ladder does. The river aches for you. It wants to taste your body!" He laughed as Palen inched toward him, nearly unable to look at the space beyond the railings. "And you know you wanted to throw yourself down! They all do, or they get out before it takes control!"<br />
Palen's eyes were nearly clenched shut. He couldn't move any closer to the edge. He was more than ten feet from the King and immobile.<br />
"How did you survive so long?" The King wondered out loud. "Most give up within two days, or fall in." The King traced a falling body in front of him. "Splash. But you made four days. Four days swinging above your doom with no food and barely any water! How?!"<br />
Palen stepped back and breathed deep. He focused on the King. The ladder swung directly behind him, a hundred feet away. "I only had to last four days," Palen said. "Because then I could warn you about the rebels in the city. The fake rebels. That would leave your castle unprotected... and easily taken."<br />
The King snarled.<br />
"As to how I kept from going crazy-" Palen smiled, and the flickering light from the torches played on his face. "How do you know I didn't?"<br />
"You can't resist it! Nobody can!"<br />
"I did. For just one reason." Palen pointed at the King with his dagger. "To see you pay."<br />
He took a step, and the river went to the front of his mind, crashing and churning. It whispered thoughts to him, made him wish for peace.<br />
"Don't come any closer!" The King looked behind him at the open walkway. Out of pure spite, Palen took another step. "No! G-guards! Guards!"<br />
"No guards this time, Gantalin," Palen muttered. "The last time you yelled that, I came to save your <i>miserable</i> life. And now..." Palen took another step. He was ten feet away.<br />
"Stop! I'll honor you if you stop! Make you a lord! A knight! Whatever you want! <i>Come no closer</i>!" The King shouted, shaking his sword. Palen took another step. The King whimpered.<br />
"Do you feel anything?" Palen asked. "Any guilt for the horrors you put on me? On anyone?" The King didn't answer. "No, of course not. A man like you should not live. A man like you!" Palen took another step. The river pounded in his ears. "Shouldn't be allowed! To do the things you've done!" He took another step. The King swung his sword, and Palen blocked it without thought.<br />
He deflected it and smashed it out of the King's hand, sending it spinning over the edge of the walkway, and down into the hungry river. Palen believed he could hear a splash, and the river roared. He grabbed the front of the King's shirt, and the King started to weep.<br />
"Please! I just wanted what everyone did! A comfortable life! The rains will come again, and the food will grow! This won't last! If you kill me, my son will avenge me! You will be killed next, by whoever you anger! A King has to make enemies to serve the people!"<br />
"Quiet," Palen said, and the King turned his head away.<br />
"You swore an oath!" The King said under his breath. "Will you break that oath and become a traitor? A murderer? A man nobody will trust?"<br />
Palen's face softened. His grip became weaker, but Gantalin still couldn't escape. "Yes. I did, didn't I," Palen said. "I swore to let no man harm you."<br />
"Ha! Yes! Now, let me go, and kneel before your King!" Gantalin smiled with triumph. Palen shook his head.<br />
"But the river... is not a man... is it?" Palen asked. Gantalin gaped.<br />
"No."<br />
Palen pushed the King until the heels of his boots drifted over the gap. "Don't!" He grabbed Palen's wrists. "I'll take you with me!"<br />
Palen hesitated.<br />
Then he released the King. He spun his arms and grabbed the King's wrists, flinging them wide. He pushed on the King's chest with both hands.<br />
King Gantalin the Second cried out as he grabbed for Palen, but already he was falling beyond his own reach. Palen watched him drop out of sight of the torches into the roaring river. He heard no splash. He went back to the staircase leading up, and rested against the wall. He still felt the river. It wanted him, now.<br />
"You've had enough for one day," Palen said, and went up the stairs shaking.<br />
<br />
Soma met him at the top. She told him that the rebel force from the south had cut off the escape of the soldiers, who nearly to a man dropped their weapons when surrounded. Word spread quickly that the King was dead, killed by a man he had broken. The castle was taken without much bloodshed.<br />
Palen sat in a chair in a non-descript room. Some councilor's room. He sat with Soma, Bena, the old castellan, and the leader of the rebellion. He was a young man compared to the castellan, with stark black hair and bright blue eyes. He had greeted Palen with a handshake and a congratulations. Palen accepted it mutely and took a seat.<br />
"The King's wife and son are to be in protective custody. Nobody is to hurt them for the King's crimes," the rebel leader, whose name was Dherra Amonid, said. "The Queen was in tears when we found her, and, apparently, grateful to be free of her husband. Of course there is reason to believe she's trying to fool us. Her son didn't know what was happening, but he will. We have to hope that he does not see us as his enemies when he gets older."<br />
"Don't let him get older," Bena said. When the young man learned that Palen had killed the King, a joyless laugh escaped him. His left arm was bound in a sling from the injury Palen had given him. "Kill him, and be done with it. Nobody will think you ill."<br />
"<i>I</i> will," Amonid said. "If we kill him, we're no better than Gantalin." He looked around the room. "Succession isn't an issue right now but it will be soon. Who will rule?"<br />
"The rebels will want you, Dherra," the old castellan said. He was a man in his fifties, named Ren Vonna. "It's yours if you want it."<br />
"I cannot say that I do, much. But I will take it if no one else will. And you, Ren? Did you ever wish to rule?"<br />
Ren shifted. "Not after seeing Gantalin's atrocities."<br />
"Quite." Amonid looked at the four people in front of him. "We may not murder citizens in the streets, but if the crops don't improve, we may not have enough time to establish a ruler."<br />
"The rains will come again, and the food will grow. This won't last," Palen said. The words chilled him, but of course no one else in the room knew who had said them first. "But whatever you do, I want no part of it."<br />
"What do you mean?" Vonna asked. "You're practically a hero!"<br />
"I need to get out of the castle," Palen said. The others knew; they knew he was broken. "I don't care if you don't understand. Maybe I'll come back or maybe I won't. You may never hear from me again."<br />
"I understand. Gantalin had many crimes. You'll be welcome here if you decide to return," Amonid said. Palen nodded, and rose. Bena and Soma both rose with him.<br />
"You owe me a duel," Bena said outside the room. "A fair one this time."<br />
Palen eyed him. He wasn't much older than himself. "I do. Maybe if I return."<br />
"No. No <i>if</i>. You're going to come back eventually," Bena said. Palen paused, and then turned to leave.<br />
"I'm going to come with you," Soma said. Palen shook his head.<br />
"I need to be alone."<br />
"Shit you do. My family's been avenged, and Utena, and I'm no ruler. You don't have to like it, but I'm going with you."<br />
Palen looked from her to Bena, two people without sway. "Why?"<br />
"Because I know how it feels. I know what it's like to be tormented, and to have hate. Do you feel better now? Now that Gantalin's dead?"<br />
Palen turned away. "I'm leaving."<br />
"Utena was there for me. She kept me from doing something stupid. You wanted the King dead before. He's dead. But you still feel something." Palen waited for her to continue with his back turned. "I know what you feel. I want to help."<br />
He wanted to just walk out, and leave them all, so he could have peace in his life. But he knew that it would leave him in even more pieces. "Ask Amonid if we can have some horses, and meet me in the stables in an hour."<br />
<br />
"Where are we going?" Soma asked him. She was dressed in tan pants and skirt, chain mail and tabard. She had a sword and a shield and packs of supplies on her horse. Palen had his weapons -- sword and dagger -- and supplies as well, but had turned down the gifts of jewels or gold. He said to give them to people who could help the kingdom.<br />
They sat on their horses outside the city, looking at the dark sky where the sun had been. Night came. Palen got his horse trotting wordlessly, and Soma followed him. He was a hero, but nearly no one knew it. <br />
He heard the river distantly as he rode. He knew he would always hear it.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-92159048928323342892013-05-04T12:00:00.000-05:002013-06-23T12:56:28.496-05:00An AdventureShe'd never felt quite like this. When she saw him, when she felt him, her heart fluttered and jumped. She was in love.<br />
His swept blond hair, almost white, and his square jaw that broke into a dazzling grin, and the strong arms that wrapped around her and made her feel safer than she ever had before. He smelled right, felt right, sounded right. Without him she would feel empty.<br />
If he went too long between visits, or was too busy at work to spend time with her, she would sulk in her room or on the couch as her two roommates lived out their lives around her.<br />
But then he would appear again, and breathe life back into her. <br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Jean ran to the door after it rang, delirious with joy that Tony was finally visiting after an entire week away. A whole week!<br />
Erin, sitting on the couch, heard as the door opened and Tony's greeting was cut short by a sloppy kiss. Erin rolled her eyes. "It's been so long!" Erin heard Jean complain as the door shut and Jean pulled Tony into view. "Look who's here!" <br />
"Hi Erin," Tony said. "How've you been?"<br />
"Wonderful. Very good. And y-"<br />
Erin's question was cut short by Jean. "Come on! Let's bake brownies! And I want to see that show you've been talking about, the one about cards!" Jean dragged him toward the kitchen.<br />
"It isn't really about cards, that's just in the name," Tony started explaining as they disappeared around the corner. "Also, I don't think we need six bags of flour for brownies."<br />
"I wanted to make sure that we don't run out!"<br />
Erin sighed and went down to her room. She heard a strange noise – which itself was too common – coming from Jennifer's room. She knocked and went in.<br />
"Please wait until I say come in to come in," Jennifer said, her voice never wavering as she drilled into a piece of wood. Her black hair was pinned up and she wore safety goggles. "Tony's here, I heard. What does Jean have planed today?"<br />
"They're going to bake brownies and watch House of Cards."<br />
"Does she know it doesn't actually have any card in it?"<br />
Erin shrugged. Jennifer also shrugged, and started the drill again. Jean waited patiently for her to finish. "What are you doing?"<br />
"Drilling wood," Jennifer answered. She blew on the hole and inspected it.<br />
"Yes but... why?"<br />
"Because I want a hole in the wood." Jennifer looked up as she threw her goggles somewhere in the critically messy room. "Is there some reason for you to come in here besides bothering me?"<br />
"No, I guess not. I just didn't want to be around the love birds all the time. Jean is like an addict."<br />
"What do you think she would do if he broke up with her?" Jennifer asked, going to a bright table and sitting. She pulled a pad of paper toward her and drew a few things.<br />
"Ugh. I don't even want to think about that. We'd have to deal with it, for one thing. We'd have to load up on tissues and ice cream."<br />
"She'd probably be in here all the time demanding to know why we keep running out of bananas."<br />
Erin tried to figure out why such a question would be asked, then shook her head. Jennifer could keep them anyway. "She'd be a mess, that's for sure." Erin picked up a cross made out of six inch bolts.<br />
"Don't touch that," Jennifer said without looking. Erin set the cross back down.<br />
"So what are you working on now?"<br />
"A piece of wood with a lot of holes in it." Jennifer remained fixed on the piece of paper.<br />
"How many holes?" Erin asked. Jennifer stopped writing.<br />
"That's the question, isn't it?" She started writing again. "When do you think those brownies are going to be ready?"<br />
"Well, knowing Jean," Erin said as she sat on the oft-neglected bed, "She'll burn the first batch because she's too busy staring at Tony. Tony won't notice until it's too late, and then they'll have to start over."<br />
"Maybe an hour from now?" Jennifer asked.<br />
"That seems about right. I'll go down and check in a little bit."<br />
"Okay. Unless you have your own pair of safety goggles to wear, you should probably go now." Jennifer stood and found the goggles. "Do you?"<br />
"No."<br />
"Okay then. Off you go." Erin exited the room, and a moment later she heard the drill fire up. She went into her comparatively clean room and read.<br />
Thirty minutes later she smelled something burning, and thirty minutes after that she went upstairs. She heard Jean and Tony talking in hushed voices, and she listened.<br />
"But you never see me anymore! I get so lonely!" Jean said, speaking quietly. "Can't you ask your boss for a little less work? You're working late almost <i>every day</i>!"<br />
"I know, I'm sorry! I want to spend time with you too, but it's not exactly an office job. It's a lot of work in a restaurant, and people rely on me to cook things properly. I can't just leave marinara simmering on the stove and go home when it's five in the afternoon!"<br />
There was no response from Jean for a moment. Then: "Why can't they hire someone to help you?"<br />
"You've been there; it's a small restaurant. I'm the first person to work there who's been trained at a culinary school, everyone else has just learned with experience and on-the-job training. They don't have enough funding to do that."<br />
"I'm starting to think that there's something else in your life more important than me," Jean said. Erin heard something scrape. She retreated to the stairs and went down a few steps, then clumped up them as noisily as she could. When she rounded the corner into the kitchen Jean was smiling and happy again, chattering away to Tony as he cut the brownies into squares.<br />
"Hi Erin. Do you want a brownie?" He offered, holding out a plate.<br />
"I'd love one!" She took the plate and drew a glass of water.<br />
"Erin, do you know what Jennifer has been doing with all the bananas?" Jean asked.<br />
"No idea." Erin took a bite of the brownie, and for a small moment knew how Jean felt when she saw Tony. "Holy crap this is good." It felt like a puppy was nuzzling her tongue! "I don't feel worthy."<br />
"Tony made them!" Jean said with a smile. <br />
"I couldn't guess!"<br />
"We burned the first batch though. I wasn't paying attention," Jean said, digging out a few more brownies. Erin nodded, smiling, as if this was new information.<br />
Jennifer appeared with wood chips in her hair. She had a small cut on her cheek.<br />
"Hi Jennifer. You've got some red on you. Do you want a brownie?" Tony asked.<br />
"Thank you." Jennifer took a bite, and the barest glimmer of emotion covered her face. "It's good."<br />
"How have you been Jennifer?" Tony asked.<br />
"Fine. I can't stay and talk; I have to get ready for work." Jennifer put the mostly-uneaten brownie down on the counter and left the kitchen. Erin heard her go down the stairs to her room.<br />
"Come on Tony, let's watch!" Jean pulled her addiction into the living room, and Tony managed a wave goodbye before he disappeared. Erin heard her start to ask him about how he can pay so much attention to her housemates when she's right there, and Erin went down the stairs.<br />
She brushed her light red hair and settled into bed, hearing muffled sounds from the TV a floor above. The two watching were silent.<br />
<br />
The next morning Jennifer sat at the table in the dining room, trying to find something interesting to read as the coffee brewed. Erin came up the stairs.<br />
"How was work?" She asked Jennifer. Jennifer shrugged. The dark-haired women still had her scrubs on. She didn't look tired, even after working all night. Every once in a while Erin wondered if she put something "extra" in her coffee.<br />
"Had to hold a drug addict down while a doctor gave him gas. I almost got some blood on me."<br />
"That keeps your clean streak active," Erin mumbled through sleep-thick lips. She rubbed her face. The coffee maker dinged and she got up to pour a cup. She handed one to Jennifer, who took it down to her room.<br />
When Erin was on her second cup of coffee and finally waking up, Jean came out of the only bedroom on the main floor of the small house. Her perkiness annoyed Erin. This enamored woman, who had a darker shade of red hair and was substantially taller than both Erin and Jennifer, got her own cup of coffee and sat at the table across from Erin.<br />
A minute later, Erin realized Jean was staring at her. "What?"<br />
"Did Tony seem strange to you yesterday? Like he was acting weird?"<br />
Erin thought about it. Tony had been quiet, conversational, friendly, attentive, understanding, and well-mannered. "Nope. He seemed pretty normal to me."<br />
"Because last night, after we watched that show, he seemed really distant. He didn't respond to things I say as quickly as he normally does."<br />
"Maybe he has something on his mind."<br />
"No, I asked him. If he did, he'd tell me. At least, he'd better."<br />
Erin took a drink of coffee to hide her rolling eyes.<br />
"Anyway, I was wondering if you noticed anything strange."<br />
"Nope."<br />
"Okay." Jean looked at her watch. "I'd better get to work. Have a good day."<br />
"Bye," Erin said. Jean left. Erin rummaged through the paper until she found an article about twin brothers that married twin sisters, and then both families had twins. She shivered at the thought, and then eagerly read.<br />
<br />
A week later Tony came over again.<br />
Erin answered the door, since Jean was struggling into her clothes. Tony looked at her for a moment too long, and then said "Hi Erin. How are you?"<br />
"Good. I see you've been given a break from work to keep my housemate from falling into hysterics."<br />
"Haha, yeah. It was pretty busy this week but we aren't expecting a big crowd tonight. It should be fine. How are the studies going?"<br />
"Good. I have a couple of papers to read this week so I won't be around much." At that moment Jean danced around the corner, right into Tony's unprepared arms. He fumbled, and then got her in a hug. She sighed and laid her head on his chest.<br />
Erin turned away. Jean had been talking about how Tony was coming over for the last two days, but luckily this sort of behavior got easier to ignore over time. Jean started to talk in the excited way that she did whenever Tony was around, began showing off, almost parading for him. She said something – something not exactly funny, which was exactly how Jean told jokes – and he laughed. He must be trying especially hard today. She went on to tell him about their lack of bananas.<br />
Erin went to her room and read for some of her classes, but something bothered her. Something about Tony. He hadn't looked different. His bright hair was the same, he towered over Jean just as Jean seemed to tower over her. She couldn't place it. She shrugged and kept reading.<br />
A few hours later she surfaced, and went upstairs. Jennifer's room was quiet, and Erin suspected that she had succumbed to her humanity and gone to bed after her last shift at the hospital. Tony and Jean sat at the dining room table and drank tea. Jean talked endlessly and Tony listened with a small smile on his face. The remnants of a board game were off to the side of the square table, and sunlight came in through the west windows.<br />
Erin went in the kitchen, and listened to Jean talk away at Tony. There was still something there that Erin thought strange, but she couldn't place it. She shook it from her mind and got her meal together; she didn't know Tony well enough to put her finger on something like that. Jean knew him much better, and she seemed to have no problems. As always, she glowed in his presence, radiating happiness from every pore. Erin knew that wasn't possible, but if it was Jean did it.<br />
Erin was spreading butter on toast when she figured it out. Tony seemed to be laughing more than he usually did. It wasn't much more, but it was more than, as she thought, the standard deviation of laughter given a specific stimulus. Tony didn't laugh very much; he normally gave a deep chuckle. Every once in a while he would laugh, but today he gave a little laugh when Jean would tell one of her jokes.<br />
But it was just laughing. That's all it was! She chastised herself for being so interested in the lives of others, something she did too frequently. She took the bowl of ramen out of the microwave and retreated to her room. She would hear sporadic laughing from above her, and she tried to ignore it. But she just couldn't.<br />
<br />
Erin considered telling Jean what she had thought, but it didn't seem important the next day. Jean didn't discuss anything else about Tony with her, and eventually Erin forgot about it. The week went on. Erin read papers endlessly, and worked at the graduate school she attended grading undergrad papers. Jennifer worked at the hospital and worked away in her room during her spare time. Jean dreamed about Tony and worked at an office a few blocks away. In a few days the weekend reared its lovely head.<br />
And Tony was coming over again! Jean nearly went into hysterics when she found out. It had only been five days since the last time he'd visited, and this level of frequency was uncommon for him. Erin again remembered her strange thought from the last time he'd visited, and watched him carefully from her vantage point on the couch, next to a blanket-wrapped Jennifer.<br />
He seemed almost exactly the same. <i>Almost exactly.</i><br />
<i> </i> He wasn't laughing more than normal anymore. That must have been a temporary thing. There was something else now that she didn't see because she was looking for the laughing. Jean and Tony went into her room and closed the door.<br />
"Did Tony seem strange at all to you?" Erin asked Jennifer as they watched Scrubs.<br />
"Yes."<br />
"He did? Why?" Erin looked at the door to Jean's bedroom. Low talking could be heard from inside.<br />
"He didn't greet us when he came in," Jennifer said. "He's done that every other time he's seen us except for today."<br />
"Maybe there was something on his mind. Maybe he didn't notice us."<br />
"He's had things on his mind before, and for him to not notice two women sitting on a couch watching TV presents a level of inattentiveness uncommon towards grown humans, especially one such as Tony, who in the past has demonstrated a high attention span and attention to detail."<br />
"Okay," Erin said. "Anything else?"<br />
"No." Jennifer's focus was fully on the screen.<br />
"Must have been my imagination."<br />
The silence ticked along, until:<br />
"Fine. <i>What</i> was your imagination?"<br />
Erin smiled. "The last time Tony came over it seemed like he was laughing a lot. It seemed strange."<br />
"I remember," Jennifer said. Erin looked at her.<br />
"You were asleep!"<br />
Jennifer looked at Erin with a face so emotionless it was chilling. Slowly, she pursed her lips and scrunched her face. "Yes, you're right. I was."<br />
Erin edged away from the other woman slightly.<br />
"But now that you point it out, there did seem to be something different about him today," Jennifer said. "His occipitofrontalis muscles, specifically the corrugator supercilii, seemed significantly more active than previous visits, which could indicate a physical or mental barrier he is attempting to circumvent. This could also be an unforeseen character trait that appears when he is subjected to certain stimuli that were are unaware of.<br />
"Those muscles..."<br />
"The face and forehead. He was frowning."<br />
"Right."<br />
"However, your notice of increased stimulation of the diaphragm and abdominal muscles, coupled with what Jean might call 'jokes' creates the vision of paradoxical laughter, which is used as a way to disarm another human or, if the situation arises, signify that one is experiencing discomfort, this especially in eastern Asian cultures. I've noticed no eastern Asian influence on Tony as of yet, though that also could be hidden. These facts, combined with the talk that you and Jean had thirteen days ago regarding whether or not you thought Tony was acting 'strange' the night before, could indicate that-"<br />
"Tony's up to-!" Jennifer's hand clamped over Erin's mouth. They looked at the door to Jean's room with held breath. After a second, they heard talking.<br />
"He's up to something!" Erin said, this time much quieter. Jennifer hesitated, then nodded. "Do you think he's going to propose?"<br />
"No. She hasn't met his family yet, and it's understood that the parent's approval of a mate is critical to the idea of wedlock."<br />
"Not all the time."<br />
"If I may assume, Tony would like his parents to like Jean."<br />
"Okay. I guess they've only been dating for a few months."<br />
"One hundred and thirty days."<br />
"So then what's he doing?"<br />
"I am unaware. There are a few possibilities that can be guessed at, such as unfaithfulness, monetary issues, and sickness, which itself can be diluted into areas such as food poisoning, allergies, infectious diseases, and more."<br />
"Do you think we should tell Jean?"<br />
Jennifer was silent, motionless, for a minute. Then she shook her head. "Jean's stance would be to assume unfaithfulness, which is traditionally the stance taken by women who are given information they do not fully understand."<br />
"Traditionally?"<br />
Jennifer pointed at the TV. "I think that we should keep this information from Jean until we understand more about Tony's situation. My suggestion would be to tactfully inquire with Tony if 'anything is the matter,' a task I will delegate to you if need arises. Another option is to wait and collect more data during subsequent visits that Tony makes. What is your choice?"<br />
"I think we should follow him!" Erin said. "Tomorrow's Saturday. I have some free time, you don't have work until Sunday, and Tony's restaurant doesn't open until later."<br />
"To follow him we'd have to know where he's going to be, what time, and if there is actually going to be a reason to follow him. If I take your meaning, eavesdropping would work better. But I'd still prefer-"<br />
Jean's door opened with a rush of sound, and to the untrained ear Jennifer had never been talking at all. Now that Tony was back where she could see him, Erin did notice little creases on his forehead appeared and disappeared quickly.<br />
"We're going for a walk!" Jean said. "You two bores have fun here!"<br />
"We will!" Erin shouted as the door to the porch closed.<br />
"We will?" Jennifer asked.<br />
"Yes! Because we're going to figure out a way to find out what Tony's up to. What have I always said?"<br />
"If the room's a-rockin, don't come a-knockin," Jennifer parroted.<br />
"No, the other thing."<br />
"Drink orange juice when you're sick and you'll be better by the next day?"<br />
"No, no! People aren't always what they seem! Like your Aunt Joey!" Erin said. Jennifer nodded, eyes glassy with remembrance. "There's something going on there, and we need to figure it out."<br />
"The chances of--"<br />
"No time for your facts!" Erin said. "What should we do?" She stood and started to pace. "Trick him into telling us? No, that won't work. Pull a Reverse Jennifer?"<br />
"We don't have any peanut butter."<br />
"Shame. Getting it from him seems like the easiest path, then. How do we do it?"<br />
"Ask him."<br />
"He's too savvy for that. We'll need to overhear it. Does he have his phone with him?"<br />
"I heard him say that he left it at home while he and Jean were in her room."<br />
"How convenient. Does Jean go through his phone?"<br />
"I believe she has in the past, but does not consider him capable of infidelity. Her reason for looking was to check something she had messaged to him."<br />
"Hmm. Okay. But that was a while ago?"<br />
"Yes."<br />
"Then there's still reason to believe he's hiding something." Erin stood in front of a window and looked down the street. "The easiest thing would be to get him talking to somebody that he trusts while we're listening. Do you still have that tiny microphone?"<br />
Jennifer shook her head but didn't explain why.<br />
"Then we're going to do it the old fashioned way. Think of all the things you heard from them while we were talking and try and think of something that we can use to follow him."<br />
"I've already considered the possibilities. There are no good options that they spoke of. Though they mostly spoke about her regarding how her day was, how she's been, what she did, et cetera."<br />
"Okay, well, what now?"<br />
"We ask him."<br />
"He'll never tell us! If he doesn't want Jean to know why would he want us to know?"<br />
"Because we aren't Jean."<br />
"That doesn't make any sense. No, we'll have to sit on this for a bit until something better comes up. Let's keep it to ourselves."<br />
When Jean and Tony entered, they were talking about the shoes that Jean had bought the day before. Jean spotted the two of them, sitting on the couch together. "Look at you two! You didn't move at all!"<br />
"You were gone for twenty-one minutes," Jennifer said. "Less than the regulation length of a television program."<br />
"Tony's going to meet his brothers at a cafe tomorrow, why can't you two do something like that? Get out of the house for once!"<br />
"I work fifty hours a week," Jennifer said.<br />
"I'm trying to get a <i>masters</i>," Erin added.<br />
Jean shook her head. "You buncha bores. What was the name of the coffee place you're going?" She asked Tony as they went into the room. Erin didn't hear his response, and she looked at Jennifer.<br />
"A place called 'A Cuppa Couple.' I have not heard of it."<br />
"Neither have I." Erin stood to get her computer.<br />
"I assume that we're going to attend their meeting."<br />
"Of course! It's perfect! Except we don't know when they're going to meet."<br />
"Something Tony said moments ago indicated it would be before noon."<br />
"<i>Perfect</i>."<br />
<br />
The next day the two of them sat in A Cuppa Couple, sipping coffee. At least, Erin was. Jennifer had not touched hers, stating that it was too hot. They sat near the entrance, in a spot described by Jennifer as "optimum."<br />
They had been there for a half-hour, waiting for Tony to arrive. They talked or read, Erin studying papers and Jennifer with an old book that looked like it was written in french. They sat on either side of a table, able to see both entrances. When somebody would enter, one of them would inspect the newcomer.<br />
Finally, the bell dinged and Erin looked up. "There he is," she said under her breath.<br />
"How did you know?" Jennifer said, looking over Erin's shoulder.<br />
"He's coming in the door behind you."<br />
"No, he's coming in the door behind <i>you</i>."<br />
Both of them looked over their own shoulder and spotted the person that the other had believed to be Tony. They looked at each other and hid behind their books as one of the Tonys came near. The two Tonys greeted each other and sat at a table in the corner, talking.<br />
"Twins. Of course. But why?" Erin asked. <br />
"Not twins," Jennifer said, nodding over Erin's shoulder. "Triplets."<br />
Another Tony climbed out of the car in the parking lot and entered. The other Tonys waved him down and he joined them.<br />
"Okay. What the hell."<br />
"What the hell indeed," Jennifer said. "The one in the center was with Jean last night. The one that just joined visited a week ago. The one on the right is the original. Seeing them now makes it obvious that each copy of the original has only visited once.<br />
"Yeah, I was about to say that too," Erin said. "Come on."<br />
Jennifer watched her rise from her chair and start in the direction of the table with the three Tonys. She looked back at the still seated Jennifer and waved her hand.<br />
The three Tonys were also rising, talking about what they were going to order. They found Erin standing in front of them with her arms akimbo.<br />
"What exactly are you three up to?" She asked in a whisper. The mostly-empty building took no notice.<br />
"I don't know what you're talking about," Middle Tony said.<br />
"You were with Jean last night," Jennifer said. She pointed at the one that had arrived late. "You were with her six days ago." Finally she pointed at the Tony on the right. "You are Tony, the man that Jean believes she has been seeing more frequently these past few days, and until a week ago, the only member of your family that we'd met."<br />
"Is this one of Jean's housemates, Ton?" Late Tony said. "She's a riot."<br />
"Don't bother Geoff. She can see right through us. She probably knows our fingerprints." The Tonys and Erin looked at Jennifer, who gave the barest of shrugs. "We can't fool her." The two copies studied Jennifer. "I guess we'll have to explain what's going on." He pointed at the table they had just left. "Join us. It'll make sense."<br />
They sat. The original Tony was in the middle across from them, the one he'd called Geoff was on his left, and the other on his right. "Introductions," Tony said. He pointed to the one on his left. "This is Vince, my older brother by three minutes." He pointed at the other. "And this is Geoff, my younger brother by five minutes."<br />
"Are there any more of you?" Erin asked with her arms crossed. Tony shook his head.<br />
"This is all of us. We all three went to the same culinary school, and all work at different restaurants."<br />
"The best part about that is when people see us at two different restaurants. Or three!" Vince said. Tony nodded, and Geoff smiled.<br />
"But the thing is, my restaurant is the smallest and the busiest by comparison. Fewer cooks, more customers." Jennifer and Erin nodded. "So, to appease Jean, I asked my brothers, both of whom aren't as busy, to help out."<br />
"For a price," Geoff said. "Twenty dollars a day, plus expenses."<br />
"For both of you? That seems like it would get expensive pretty quickly," Erin said.<br />
Vince waved his hand. "It's just on the days that we see Jean."<br />
"But what about kissing and..." Erin spun her hands at the wrists. "Things?"<br />
"Since about a week and a half ago, 'I've' had a chest cold. With my allergies right now, it's not such a stretch. It's just enough to keep her away," Tony explained.<br />
"But... why?" Erin asked. "Why go through all this? Your busy, she understands! She might <i>seem</i> crazy, but she's usually pretty normal."<br />
"Right now isn't the problem," Tony said. "The past few weeks have been a trial run. But soon my restaurant will change its hours, just for a few weeks. We're doing an 'aggressive ad campaign.'" Tony made quotes with his fingers. "There will be whole weeks were I will get out of bed, go to work, get home twelve hours or more later, and go to sleep. I might not be able to even take a look at my phone, to say nothing of actually spending time with Jean. You know Jean. If that sort of thing happened, how do you think she would take it?"<br />
"With protest," Jennifer said. Erin nodded.<br />
"I tried to explain to her that I would be getting really busy, but she seemed to think that I would still have time to visit her no matter how long I tried."<br />
"She can be that way," Jennifer said.<br />
"Don't I know it. Anyway, Geoff came up with this idea. All three of us took theater in high school, and we're triplets besides, so it wasn't hard for them to adjust what little difference there was in their actions." He looked at Jennifer. "You must have already noticed small differences that are harder to hide."<br />
"Yes. Geoff's laughter is more frequent, while Vince frowns more often." Tony nodded.<br />
"Yes, right. Anyway, this is what you've been noticing. I should have known better than to try and get it past Jennifer."<br />
"The truth is it was Erin who first noticed Geoff's laughter. She pointed it out to me as odd, and the rest of the pieces fell into place."<br />
"And then yesterday we heard you say that you were meeting here, and we wanted to figure out what was going on. We thought there was something much more nefarious going on."<br />
"Which is exactly why I wanted to do this in the first place," Tony said, leaning back in his chair. "I believe I know Jean well enough to think she'll assume something similar when I'm not able to see her for weeks at a time."<br />
"But why not just let her think that? If you aren't cuckolding her-" Erin's eyes narrowed "-why can't you just let her think what she thinks? There can't be that much harm to it."<br />
Tony didn't say anything. He leaned forward, and clasped his hands under his chin, with his elbows resting on the table. "I know we've only been dating a few months-"<br />
"One hundred and thirty-one days."<br />
"-But I care for Jean. Very much. Aside from what some people would call an unhealthy attraction to me, she's a perfectly normal, smart woman who works hard, likes the same kinds of things I like, has the same sense of humor, even though she doesn't tell very good jokes. I don't want to lose her, and I feel that spending too much time away from her would stress out relationship overmuch."<br />
Erin and Jennifer stayed silent.<br />
"Maybe I'm just being silly, or thinking about it too much, but I think this will make things easier in the long run. It's only for a few weeks, then it can get back to normal." He paused. "But I need you two to keep this from Jean. For reasons we've already discussed."<br />
"Because we won't be able to convince her nothing nefarious is taking place, and she will assume that you are cheating on her," Jennifer said. Tony nodded once, emphatically.<br />
"We will discuss this," Jennifer said. She stood and beckoned Erin to come with her. They went back to the table they had been at before Tony and his brothers entered. "You first."<br />
"I mean... it seems like a good enough idea if it's just for a little bit of time, maybe a few days, but it will get harder as time goes on. How long was it? Several weeks? I think we can handle that. Can we handle that?" Erin asked.<br />
"We have to take the sociological aspects into account. If, either on purpose or accidentally, we ruin the relationship that Tony and Jean have built together, we must understand that we will have to deal with the consequences from Jean's side and, after today, likely from Tony's side as well, at least for a small amount."<br />
"So if we screw this up, we're going to be in royal trouble?"<br />
"Yes."<br />
"I agree. Okay." Erin and Jennifer went back to the three brothers. They sat, and Erin folded her hands.<br />
"Okay. We're on your side," She said.<br />
"Thanks a lot, I appreciate it," Tony said. "I start being really busy at work in a little more than a week. I, myself, am planning on seeing Jean in a few days. If she says anything that indicates she thinks something is up, we drop it, and what happens happens."<br />
"The risks are immediately inherent," Jennifer said. Vince... or Geoff... looked at her quizzically. <br />
"She means we know what will happen if something goes wrong," Erin said.<br />
"Yes, that's what I said."<br />
Erin looked critically at the three brothers. "Anything else you think you should tell us?"<br />
Tony thought for a second, and then shook his head. "No, there's nothing. Also, I'd appreciate it as if this conversation never happened."<br />
"Naturally," Erin said.<br />
<br />
The next day Erin went in to Jennifer's room after knocking. Jennifer rolled a metal ball about the size of a pool cue across her desk and watching it with interest.<br />
"What do you think about Tony's plan?" Erin asked.<br />
"I told you what I thought of it yesterday."<br />
"No, you said that we should go along with it. Now I'm asking you what you think of it."<br />
Jennifer looked up. "It's needlessly complicated, hardly required, and failure is all but a certainty. I predict that within two weeks Jean will noticed something, and within three the plan will have failed, with either the destruction of their relationship, or the revelation that such a plan was not required. I also think that you love it."<br />
"I do love it! It's romantic! Tony's trying to make sure that their relationship survives!"<br />
"Have you ever considered that Tony was lying to us?" Jennifer asked. Erin froze.<br />
"He wouldn't do that! We figured out why Geoff and Vince were posing as him!"<br />
"Wouldn't he? We left the coffee shop as soon as we agreed to play along, he and his brothers could have discussed the real reason as soon as we were gone. As I've said multiple times, this plan of his isn't necessary. Jean would understand. I calculate a nine percent chance that he is hiding something from us that will place us in a bad position with Jean."<br />
"What does 'a bad position' mean?"<br />
"It means when all is said and done, Jean lays some of the blame of the tattered ruins of her heart on us. I for one would choose to avoid that guilt, deserved or not."<br />
"Well... okay. What are you saying?"<br />
Jennifer rolled the ball on her desk. "We go along with it for now, but we keep our eyes and ears open. Do you agree?"<br />
"I guess so. I still think that it's sort of cynical for you to assume that."<br />
"I'll accept the title of 'cynic' if it turns out this is nothing more than what Tony explained."<br />
<br />
Three days after that Tony – the real one – visited. Erin and Jennifer acted as normal as they could, and if they hadn't been in the meeting themselves they would have said that Tony hadn't done anything out of the ordinary. Tony took Jean out to dinner and left the two of them alone.<br />
When they returned, full and happy, Jean was no less talkative than she had been when they'd left. They hung around for a little bit, and then Tony said he needed to get ready for work the next day.<br />
For a brief sliver of time Jean was out of the room, though they could still hear her talking. Erin was sitting on the couch with her laptop and a pile of books, and she looked up at Tony. Tony was looking straight at her, and he gave a nod. Erin quickly returned it before Jean came back into the room. Tony left and Jean went into her room to go to sleep. Excitement bubbled inside Erin, tempered just a fraction by what Jennifer had said.<br />
Then she forgot about it and fell asleep on the couch.<br />
<br />
Jennifer quickly dubbed the copies G-Tony and V-Tony, and referred to them as such. The first one that visited, G-Tony, came three days after the last time the original Tony was seen. G-Tony arrived, and the first thing that Erin heard from the kitchen was a complaint about his allergies. Jean followed it quickly with a sympathetic noise, and Erin heard a small peck on skin.<br />
It seemed like everything was going fine. Jennifer came down when she smelled the aroma of frozen pizza, and observed Jean and the ersatz Tony spending time together on the couch, watching TV. Jean huddled against what she perceived to be her boyfriend happily, and Jennifer made no indication that something was amiss with the duo. She took her pizza and went back to her room. Shortly after that Erin heard a grinding sound.<br />
Erin had to remove herself to keep from staring at the two on the couch. Anyway, she needed to do a fair amount of work, and lab reports don't write themselves. A few hours later the Tony left, and Erin ventured back up the steps she found Jennifer at the dining room table, nursing a cup of strange-looking coffee, and Jean on the couch reading a book. Erin set up her computer and books on an armchair across from the couch.<br />
She burned to talk to Jean about Tony, but knew that she shouldn't. Jean bounced one leg over the other and hummed under her breath as Erin worked, wrapped in blankets. Every once in a while she would sneak a look at Jean, but she wouldn't move. She sat there reading and not worrying.<br />
Once Erin looked across the room at Jennifer, but she just seemed to be reading. It was as if nobody cared that there was a conspiracy going on right in front of them! That sort of thing would have drilled itself into Erin's brain whether somebody told her about it or not!<br />
<br />
Less than a week later V-Tony visited, and it almost became a disaster. He and Jean sat at the kitchen table and talked about the past few days, Jean talking about what had happened at the office she worked at, and V-Tony relating a few stories from what Erin assumed was the real Tony's restaurant, given to Vince to pretend they were his. Jean listened with interest, but eventually she said something that sent a feeling of worry down Erin's spine.<br />
"Is something bothering you? It looks like you're frowning a lot." She looked at the current Tony with big eyes, waiting for bad news.<br />
V-Tony didn't respond immediately, and Erin detected a palpable hang in the outcome of the day. V-Tony stuttered a tiny amount. "Well-"<br />
"I assume it's the increased pollen count," Erin heard from the kitchen. Jennifer stepped out. "I have also been experiencing some adverse effects." Nobody else in the room could figure out what these effects could have been, she looked just the same as always. "Am I correct?"<br />
"Yeah. It's making my allergies worse. I'm trying not to cough on your face," V-Tony said.<br />
"Aww, you're so sweet!" Jean said. "I suppose we shouldn't go for a walk if that's the case then. How about a movie? I think we should watch Avatar!"<br />
"Nah, I've already seen it." V-Tony froze. Jean looked at him strangely.<br />
"I thought you said you hadn't seen it yet. Am I thinking of somebody else?"<br />
"Which Avatar?" V-Tony asked.<br />
"What?"<br />
"There's the James Cameron one, and the Shyamalan one that nobody liked."<br />
"Shyamalan made a remake of Avatar? But it's so new!"<br />
"No, it..." V-Tony shook his head. "Never mind. I've seen the bad Avatar, so we can go ahead and watch."<br />
"Oh. Uh... okay," Jean said, more than mildly confused. She and V-Tony retreated into her bedroom and closed the door. Once it was shut Erin released the breath that she had been trapping inside her lungs.<br />
"That could have gone better," Erin heard Jennifer say. <br />
"Is this going to work?" Erin said, going into the kitchen where Jennifer stood looking at the calendar.<br />
"It could. It depends on what your definition of working is."<br />
"My definition of it working is Tony gets through his tough schedule without Jean finding out, and neither of us gets torn to bits."<br />
"Then I doubt it." Jennifer went to a steeping cup of tea and swirled it with a spoon. "The chance of either of us getting out of this unscathed is minor."<br />
"There's got to be a better way to go about this!" Erin said, waving her arms over her head and then bringing them down on the counter where Jennifer's cup had rested just a moment ago. Jennifer hugged the cup to her.<br />
"There is a way." Jennifer took a thoughtful drink of tea. "But it will require me to observe them – Jean especially – for an as-of-yet unknown period of time. There could be a way to make this work to our advantage." Erin was not sure what 'to our advantage' was supposed to mean. "It should not be difficult. As soon as I get some more information we can start." She looked at Erin. "Is that sufficient?"<br />
"How soon?" Jennifer sighed, and took another drink.<br />
"One more visit should be enough. In the meantime, we should continue to assist the Tonys the way that Tony Prime asked of us. Do we have any thyme?"<br />
"We have plenty of time. Tony said that he's going to be busy for a few weeks."<br />
"Not the fourth dimension. The spice," Jennifer said.<br />
"Oh. I suppose that makes more sense. I think we have some somewhere around here." Erin found a bottle marked correctly and handed it to Jennifer. "Are you going to try it in your tea? I hear some people do that."<br />
Jennifer looked from the small bottle in one hand, to the tea in the other, and then back up to Erin. "Yes. That is what I'm going to do. I am going to put it in my tea." She went down the stairs. Erin had good reason to believe that she wasn't telling the truth, but there wasn't much she could do about it. She shrugged and went to her own room and her waiting pile of student papers to grade.<br />
<br />
The next time a Tony visited it was G-Tony. Neither he nor Jean noticed, but Jennifer watched them like a hawk. Erin saw it only because she knew that Jennifer needed one more visit. The strange young woman hid it well, but Erin knew that every word spoken, every motion made, every pause in the conversation, was noticed, analyzed, and stored in the way that made Jennifer... unique. <br />
And again, the Tony nearly tipped Jean off to the charade. This time however, he recovered with much more ease than the first one did. This G-Tony – Geoff – was laughing just the small bit more, like he did, than Tony. He and Jean were sitting on the couch, talking. Jennifer sat at the kitchen table, doing something on her laptop, and Erin was in the kitchen after trying to read papers for several hours. Jean said something that she meant to be funny, and G-Tony laughed. She said something else, something that made Erin groan under her breath in the kitchen, but G-Tony laughed again. There was a sudden silence. Then:<br />
"You're laughing a lot today." This from Jean.<br />
"Is that okay?" G-Tony asked.<br />
"Well yeah. You just seem so happy right now!"<br />
"What can I say? I'm having a good day." A masterful deflection by the fake Tony. But Jean didn't let it down. Erin, still in the kitchen, started to think of a way to draw her attention away from the laughter.<br />
"What happened that made it so good? Something at work?" There was silence for a few seconds. <br />
"Oh you know. It's just one of those days where things seem like they're all going to turn out okay. Woke up nice and rested, work went well, it's a nice day out... that kind of thing."<br />
"Okay. That's good. I'm glad you had a nice day!" <br />
Their conversation moved on, and Erin relaxed. Jean had pushed the issue further than normal, but this Tony seemed a little more at ease going off script. He must have been the one to step forward when volunteers for improv where needed.<br />
G-Tony left, and Jean went to bed. Erin sat with Jennifer at the table.<br />
"I know what to do. It'll be pretty easy, but we need to make sure that we do it the right way," Jennifer said. "We'll do the first step in three days. What is your schedule for that day?" Erin got her planner, and looked.<br />
"I have something in the morning, but the rest of the day is free."<br />
"Good. In that case, let's go out for dinner," Jennifer said. Erin stared at her.<br />
"You've never gone out for dinner with us! You barely eat anything unless you prepare it!"<br />
"I'll make a special exception in this case."<br />
"Where are we going to go. Do you want to try a--" Erin looked at the other woman. "This is going to be Tony's restaurant, isn't it?"<br />
Jennifer smiled. It was a smile that Erin would choose to forget, if she could, though it would come back to her in the dark of the night. Jennifer was lit from underneath by her laptop, and the light cast long shadows on her face, which was pulling into an untrained smile by forgotten muscles.<br />
"Which one?"<br />
Jennifer explained what was going to occur in three days, but as Jean got ready for bed – with Jennifer's smile etched into the backs of her eyeballs – she could not shake the feeling that Jennifer had left something out. Not forgotten something. No, Jennifer didn't do that. She had neglected to tell Erin some piece of information, or two, or three, that Erin would rather have known. Sadly, there was no way to get information out of Jennifer without her wanting to release it.<br />
<br />
Three days later the housemates were in a well-lit restaurant with tasteful french decor and pleasant music floating down from unseen speakers. Tantalizing smells came from the gleaming double doors on one wall of the big seating area, which would periodically swing back and release a tray bearing good, steaming food. The weekday crowd was light, and there was no more than a low buzz of conversation as Erin, Jean, and Jennifer sat in a booth.<br />
"I'm surprised you suggested this, Jennifer," Jean said. "It's not like you."<br />
Jennifer shrugged. "I've been worked hard for some time. We all have. A change of scenery increases mental focus and creativity, as well. There are many positive benefits." Jennifer poked the napkin that was rolled around her silverware. "No matter how much more comfortable a normal set of circumstances may seem."<br />
A moment later their waiter appeared, handed them their menus, and took their drink orders. Jean demanded a wine list, and the three of them took water. They chatted, looking over the menus. When the waiter returned, Jean ordered a salade aveyronnaise with wine, Erin got kig ha farz, and Jennifer ordered oeufs en meurette. Erin and Jean both had to struggle through the unfamiliar french words, but Jennifer pronounced them perfectly.<br />
A little while later the food came, and the three women talked amongst themselves. The food was strong and hot, and they enjoyed trying each other's dishes. Jennifer's dish was the best, they agreed; poached eggs in a red wine and pepper reduction sauce.<br />
Their meal was winding down, and they were all feeling the effects of the food, when Jean spoke up.<br />
"Tony's up to something." Erin and Jennifer said nothing, but both put on expressions of concern. "You two probably haven't noticed, but... A few times in the past few weeks, it hasn't been Tony who came over."<br />
"What?!" Erin said. She looked over at Jennifer, who had her brows furrowed.<br />
"Yes! You see, they're triplets! One is named Geoff, and the other one is Vince. I'm not sure which one is which because I haven't formally met them."<br />
"So... how do you know?" Erin asked.<br />
"Oh, simple. There're pictures of all three of them on Facebook. Also, there were tiny things. Just... small differences. I didn't notice it for a little bit, but the last time one of them came over he said he was having a good day for a bunch of reasons, and one of the reasons was that it was a nice day out."<br />
"It was a fairly sunny day with attractive clouds and seventy degree temperatures," Jennifer said. "So it was a nice day."<br />
"A few months ago, Tony told me that he didn't like days where the sun kept going behind the clouds. He likes it when it's either sunny or cloudy."<br />
"A strange position to take," Jennifer said.<br />
"There's more than that that I noticed, but that's when it all started to make sense."<br />
"So... why do you think he's doing it?" Erin asked. She was pushing the food around on her plate.<br />
"He said he was busy at work, but I think it's more than that. If he was just busy at work, he should have just been able to tell me about it and leave it at that. I would have accepted that. But to have... <i>confederates</i>... help him keep the wool over my eyes, something more is going on."<br />
"Do you have a conjecture?" Jean looked at Jennifer with one eyebrow up. "A hypothesis. A guess."<br />
"Oh. Well, no, not really. I don't think he's doing anything untrustworthy. So I'm not sure what it could be," Jean sat back in her chair. "It's a mystery, and it's kind of ticking me off that this is happening."<br />
Jennifer flagged down the waiter. "I very much enjoyed my oeufs en meurette. The sauce was particularly good. Is there any chance I could give my compliments to the saucier in person?"<br />
"Certainly," The waiter said. "I'll see if he has a free minute." The waiter plunged into the kitchen. Erin busied herself cleaning her plate to keep from looking at Jean.<br />
Five minutes later the saucier appeared, coming around the corner of the booth's wall. It was, as Jennifer explained three nights before, V-Tony.<br />
All four of them looked at each other with varying amounts of surprise. Vince looked from Jean to Erin to Jennifer and then back around with confusion and fear on his face. Jean looked from Vince to the other two girls with an open mouth. Jennifer and Erin both had feigned expressions of surprise on their faces. Finally Vince cleared his throat<br />
"I was told you enjoyed the sauce on your oeufs en meurette sauce. I'm glad. I thought it was a good batch." At this point his head swiveled over to Jean. "I'm sorry, I can't help but think I know who you are. Have we met?"<br />
"I... I think I'm dating your brother. Tony?"<br />
Vince's face split into a smile. "So that's why I recognized you! Tony goes on about you whenever we talk! You look just like he described! I'm Vince, his older brother. It's good to finally meet you! It's a strange coincidence, surely."<br />
Jean looked over at Jennifer. "Did you know about this?" Jennifer hunched her shoulders and shook her head. Erin almost believed it. "Wow! This is so strange!"<br />
"It is," Jennifer said. "How long have you worked here?"<br />
"A few years," Vince said. "Worked my way up to saucier. I might make sous chef in another few if I keep at it."<br />
"Tony's a sous chef!" Jean said.<br />
"He is. Most restaurants have more than one, but his is smaller than this restaurant. Our other brother is a meat chef at a different restaurant, too." Vince looked over his shoulder at the kitchen doors. "Well, I should be getting back. I have a cheese sauce to tend. It was nice to get to meet all of you finally." He retreated back into the gleaming kitchen.<br />
"I'm sure of it now," Jean said. "He's posed as Tony for at least two visits. I can't believe we just happened to run into him!" She paused and rotated her head to look at Jennifer. "You're sure you had nothing to do with this?"<br />
"With what?" Jennifer said. "I didn't know anything about this until just now!"<br />
Again, Erin almost believed her. "You have to help me figure out why Tony and his brothers are doing this!" Jean said, leaning in like a conspirator. "I know we'll be able to get to the bottom of this if you two help me out!"<br />
"We don't-" Erin began.<br />
"Of course we will," Jennifer said, cutting her off. Had Jennifer been expecting this? No doubt. "We'd be happy to help. Do you have any ideas?"<br />
Jean furrowed her brow, and twiddled with her fork on her spotless plate. "I don't know what we could do to get Tony to tell me, and I don't know what restaurant his other brother works at. Should I just confront Tony?"<br />
"I wouldn't," Jennifer said. "If there was some way to get Vince or his other brother to let something slip, that would probably be the best. Then you could confirm your suspicions without tipping Tony off to anything."<br />
"But his brothers are in on it! I'd be tipping them off!"<br />
"But they have to act as if they've seen you once, or never. They won't be able to use the interactions they've had with you before to their advantage, but you can."<br />
"Yeah, you're right! So if I trick Vince or the other one into saying something that they'd only know if they'd been posing as Tony with me, then I can corner one of them and make him confess!" Jennifer smiled. "Oh my god I'm so smart! But how do we do that? If We show up here again and try to talk to Vince, he'll be on his guard!"<br />
"We'll have to do it at the other restaurant, to the brother that's a meat chef. But Vince may tip off Tony and the other brother so we can't do this the same way as tonight, no matter how well it worked without meaning to."<br />
"Right, right. Ugh. What do we do, then?" Jean braced herself on her palms. "First we need to find out what restaurant he works at."<br />
"With the internet anything is possible," Jennifer said.<br />
"Okay. What if we--" Jean went on to explain her plan, which was the exact same plan that Jennifer had expected her to suggest. Jennifer and Erin agreed to the plan, and Jean left the table to go to the bathroom.<br />
"You chess master you."<br />
"'Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.' Do you know who said that?"<br />
"No."<br />
"General Patton said it." Jennifer crossed her arms and set her head back against the wall of the booth. "It makes me feel good to think about what he had to do, and what I have to do, and how much harder he had it."<br />
"And how easy you have it?" Erin asked, flagging the waiter for their checks.<br />
"What? No. I think bout how much better I'd be able to do what he did."<br />
<br />
Jennifer was getting ready for their next trip to a restaurant, the one that Geoff worked at, when Erin stepped in. Jennifer hid something quickly and looked at her critically. "I didn't hear you knock."<br />
"I didn't knock. Look, I know you know more about this Tony thing than me and Jean combined. You're planning something. Something bigger than what you tricked Jean into planning. I want you to tell me."<br />
"I can't. It wouldn't work right."<br />
"I can pretend to be surprised just as well as you can, trust me. At least tell me what you just hid under there."<br />
"Not for this you can't, and that would give it away, so I'm not going to tell you."<br />
"It's not dangerous, is it?" Erin asked, with all sincerity.<br />
"Dangerous?" Jennifer thought for a few seconds, and started to say something. She stopped, and thought for a few more seconds. "No, not necessarily."<br />
Erin scowled at her, and Jennifer withered a small amount. "It won't be dangerous for you. Trust me on that."<br />
"Are you sure?"<br />
"Mostly," Jennifer said.<br />
Erin sighed. "I guess that's the best I'm going to get out of you."<br />
<br />
Six days later Jennifer handed a cup of coffee to Erin as she came up the stairs. "Are you ready for tonight?"<br />
"I don't know what I'm going to be ready for!" Erin said as she took a drink. She smacked her lips, and peered into the coffee. "Did you make this?"<br />
"It's my own recipe," Jennifer explained. "It's good for digestion."<br />
Erin set the cup down on the counter. "I hope whatever's going on in that crazy brain of yours works. I've been worrying about this too long."<br />
The three of them had used the might of the internet to their favor, searching for Tony's brother Vince and finding him at a restaurant on the other side of town. They made a reservation for that night, and the plan, or plans, were going to happen – as she thought – whether or not Erin did anything about it.<br />
Jean came out of her room with her hair a mess. "I couldn't sleep a wink last night. I'm too excited about tonight. Let me have some coffee." She reached for the cup that Erin had set down.<br />
"No, not that one. That's Erin's cup," Jennifer said. She reached behind her and produced a different cup. "Here, have this. It's my own recipe."<br />
The cup stopped halfway to Jean's open mouth.<br />
"It's fine," Erin said. "It just tastes a little strange." Jean took a tentative sip. She smacked her lips and took a second sip.<br />
"It's good! Kind of strange, you're right, but not bad." Jennifer smiled. "Is this what you've been doing with all our bananas?"<br />
"No. I told you to stop asking about that." Jean shrugged and took another, deeper, sip. She left the kitchen tugging on her hair.<br />
"I need to get to work," Jennifer said. "Remember to be ready to go by five thirty."<br />
"I know, I know," Erin said as Jennifer left the kitchen.<br />
<br />
At six fifteen the three women entered the restaurant, and were seated five minutes later. Erin was nervous and apprehensive as to what Jennifer was going to spring on them, and she didn't feel very good, but she tried not to let it show. Jean switched from quiet nervousness to talkative energy and back. Jennifer read the menu with ease.<br />
This restaurant had a bright openness to it, a bustling, cheery American feeling accompanied by the smell of fried foods. There were expansive meat dishes, burgers, shakes, smiles and cheerful talking all around them. It was such a different atmosphere from the french restaurant that Vince worked at Erin felt slightly put off. She half-expected a clown to come busting out of a side door with a cake topped with a score of blazing candles, followed by half a dozen singing waiters for some embarrassed patron.<br />
They placed their order with the cheerful waitress. Jean got a turkey burger, Jennifer got a bacon burger, and Erin got a steak salad. She didn't know if she would be able to eat the entire thing, and after she ordered she excused herself to use the restroom.<br />
Even <i>that</i> made her feel uneasy, for some reason. There was a clean smell that was too powerful.<br />
She took her time in the bathroom, and when she came out not feeling much better their food had arrived. The smell of the food made her feel slightly better, and Jennifer and Jean were already enjoying their burgers.<br />
The plan was for Jean to start yelling about how her burger was diseased, or something like that, and demand to see the chef to have him explain himself. This would be Geoff, who couldn't risk not going out to see what the matter was even if he did suspect that the woman demanding him was one of them. Then, Jean would pressure him, pretending to assume it was Tony and not one of his brothers. The interaction would be rife with chances for Geoff to screw up and say the wrong thing.<br />
Erin started to eat. The salad tasted good, with a spice that she couldn't place immediately. Jean was talking through her burger, and Erin was worried that she was acting to cheerful to be taken seriously when she started to--<br />
Erin's stomach lurched. She placed one hand over it as an explosion of pain shook her. Her fork fell from her hand and clattered into the bowl. The pain beat like a heart and she threw her head over the table, afraid she was going to vomit. Her tongue felt swollen.<br />
"Erin? What's wrong? You're so pale!"<br />
"Something's wrong!" Jennifer said, and suddenly Erin knew.<br />
"You're going to pay for this," Erin squeezed out at Jennifer right before another wave of pain rippled through her. She fell out of her chair and braced herself on the ground as her vision dimmed. Jennifer was shouting for help as Jean let little screams escaped the hands that had clamped over her mouth. Erin heard voices, not just those of Erin and Jean, and she rose to her feet, lifted by sure hands. She was taken blindly away from the table and through mysterious doors. The pain pounded and she nearly blacked out. She heard shouting and another person took her other side. She was borne along with her feet hovering over the ground<br />
The next thing she knew somebody's fingers were down her throat, and she pitched forward, vomiting into a sudden bucket. In an instant she felt better. Her vision started to return, and she began to hear voices. She was in an office, with a putrid bucket in front of her. There was Jennifer, looking frantic and scared – another lie, Erin knew – a man sitting next to Erin wearing a shirt and tie and looking very much like a worried manager. Against one wall was Jean talking with Geoff, who seemed to be trying very hard to explain that he wasn't Tony. Jean pressed him. There was another person in the room, another manager, and a few people looked in the doorway with concern. Beyond the doorway was the kitchen, in an uproar.<br />
"Can you hear me?" The man by her side said. "An ambulance is on its way." Erin was already feeling better.<br />
"I think I'm okay. It must have just been... something I ate." <br />
"Sorry, it's our policy. Our insurance covers it, don't worry. What did you eat?"<br />
"The steak salad," Erin said. The manager looked up at Geoff.<br />
"Other people'd eaten from the same cut before her!" He said. "Nobody else had any trouble!"<br />
"Are you allergic to anything?" The manager asked. "Perhaps a seasoning, or-"<br />
"Nothing except for bananas," Erin explained. "And I haven't had any in-" She looked up at Jennifer. "The tea. This morning."<br />
"I didn't know!" Jennifer said, wringing her hands. But of course she did. "I thought you could eat them!"<br />
"I thought-" Geoff began. He clamped his mouth shut, but it was too late. Jean whirled on him. In a moment tinged with pain, Erin remembered Jean telling Geoff, the first time he'd posed as Tony, that they didn't have any bananas. But that had been <i>weeks</i> ago!<br />
"I knew it!" She hissed. "You and you're brother are posing for Tony to spend time with me! Why?"<br />
"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!" Jennifer was saying to Erin. "I wouldn't have given it to you if I'd known!"<br />
Erin felt like chewing her face off.<br />
A waiter stuck his head on the door. "The ambulance is here." An EMT bustled in.<br />
"I'm fine," Erin tried saying, but the EMT was having none of it. She produced a rod of some unknown function. Erin snatched it out of her hand. "If you stick this into <i>any</i> of my holes, I'm going to murder you. Leave me alone." She shook it in the EMT's face, who scowled.<br />
"I'm calling Tony right now!" Jean was saying on the other side of the room.<br />
"But he's at work!" Geoff said.<br />
"Is he? How do I know that? Was he at work the last time you were pretending to be him?"<br />
"<i>Yes</i>! He was!"<br />
"Geoff, get out of here and take her with you!" The manager shouted at them. He turned back to Erin. "Are you sure you feel better?"<br />
"Yes, I'll be fine."<br />
"You said that you were allergic to bananas, in tea that you had this morning. Why didn't you feel sick then? Why now?"<br />
"I think I know that," Jennifer said. Of course she knew. "There were a lot of uncommon spices in the tea. One of them probably counteracted the banana. Perhaps it got out of her system just now. Or, maybe, a spice that was on the steak salad counteracted the first spice."<br />
"Are there spices like that on the steak salad?" The manager asked the other man, still in the room. That man shrugged.<br />
"There could be."<br />
"Okay. Fine." He looked again at Erin. "I'm really sorry this happened. We'll pay for your meal and give you a voucher."<br />
"It wasn't your fault." Erin rubbed her face. Her stomach still had some pain in it, but it was nothing that pepto-bismol and sleep couldn't fix. "I think I'd like to go home."<br />
"Jean's still talking to Geoff," Jennifer said. "And it appears she managed to get on the phone with Tony. Come on, let's go around the back way." The EMT demanded forms to be signed, and Erin did so with quick, angry scribbles. A waiter handed Erin her coat and purse, and they were led out a side door where Jean was on the phone.<br />
"Fine! Fine! I just want to know why you've been hiding all of this from me!" Jean hung up in a huff. "Tony's going to meet us at home. Do you feel any better, Erin?"<br />
"A little." Erin was hunched over herself, not enjoying the pain that ebbed from her stomach. "Let's just get home."<br />
They got to Jean's car, and Erin settled into the back as Jean drove.<br />
"What did you do to me?" Erin asked Jennifer. "You'd better tell me."<br />
"The tea this morning did have banana in it, as well as a compound of my own devising which nullified the bananas effects on you. It also had a timing compound which would, at about six forty-five, cause you to use the restroom."<br />
"Why?"<br />
"So you wouldn't be present when I put yet another chemical on whatever you ordered. It, as I explained earlier, released the bananas adverse side-effects onto you in one fell swoop."<br />
"And if I had died?" Erin demanded angrily.<br />
"Impossible. You would have vomited the food in your stomach long before that, removing the chemical I added to your food. You notice that as soon as vomiting was induced, you began to feel better?"<br />
"I... guess so."<br />
"Besides." Jennifer showed Erin a small vial of clear liquid. "This would have broken down the entire contents of your digestive track in a few moments, leaving you with nothing more than a lengthy trip in the restroom and, probably, a burning hatred for myself." Jennifer looked back at her. "It was a last resort."<br />
"I never want you touching my food again."<br />
"Agreed."<br />
They arrived at their house and found Tony already there, waiting outside the front door.<br />
"What the hell happened?"<br />
"Let's not get into it," Erin pleaded. "You need to tell Jean the truth. Tell her everything that you told us."<br />
"Told you? When did he talk to you?" Jean plunged her key into the door and threw it open. "Are all five of you conspiring behind my back?" She dropped her purse on the ground. "What is going on?"<br />
Tony explained. He explained that Jennifer and Erin had tracked him to the small coffee place and met his brothers, demanding to be told why Vince and Geoff were posing as him. He told her what he had told them.<br />
"So all of this is just because you were busy? You didn't think I'd understand that?"<br />
"Well, you didn't seem to understand it in the past. You'd say things like 'why can't they hire someone else,' or things like that."<br />
"What? Those were just jokes!" Erin said. "I thought you knew that!"<br />
"Your jokes are not always easily identifiable," Jennifer said.<br />
"All this because you don't get my jokes?" Jean said.<br />
Erin, from the couch, heard the silence, and looked up at the three of them, still standing in the entryway.<br />
"No, not exactly. My family can be kind of critical, you see. When I told my parents about you for the first time, my mom and dad both thought there were things wrong with you. Too talkative, too girly, not girly enough..."<br />
"They haven't even met me yet!"<br />
"I know. I knew that if they met you, they'd think better, but... They've scared dates away before, and I wanted to make sure that everything went smoothly. My brothers and I all mostly escaped the critical gene that both of my parents have, so I needed to have them meet you, so I could call on them before you met my parents."<br />
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Jean said.<br />
"I know, I know, but it was the only thing I could think of. So, I told them, and your housemates, that it was because I was busy at work. It just so happened that I was, and am, very busy at work, so it worked there, at least."<br />
"And you couldn't tell us the real reason at the coffee shop because you didn't want your brothers knowing," Jennifer said.<br />
"Exactly. I bet you figured out it was more than what I'd told you."<br />
"I did. Purely on the basis that the reason for the plan was infantile."<br />
"That's what I thought." Tony looked at Jean. "That's the whole story. Now the jig is up, I suppose."<br />
"Is it?" Jennifer asked. Tony looked at her. "Think about this. Vince and Geoff both spent time with Jean, interacting with her as you would. Unless I missed something, which I doubt, she acted just the same as she acts with you: loving, caring, and nearly obsessed with you and your happiness."<br />
"I'd say that's true," Jean said.<br />
"The only other times she interacted with them was when Vince came out to meet us at his restaurant, and when Erin had her... episode... at Geoff's restaurant, during which Jean acted exactly as one should when she finds out that her boyfriend's brothers had been posing as her boyfriend: upset, distrustful, and wishing to understand why. With a brief period of explanation, I'm sure they'll be able to see that Jean is a good addition to their family."<br />
Tony squinted at her, digesting what she'd said. "I guess so." He turned to Jean. "Do you forgive me for all of this?" He asked. "I just wanted to make sure that my family liked you!"<br />
"It's okay," Jean said. "No harm done."<br />
"Says you!" Erin shouted from the couch.<br />
"Anyway," Jean continued. "I think that I should just meet your parents. I know how parents can be. Don't worry." She smiled. "It'll just be another adventure."<br />
Erin groaned.Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-5318843550073181022013-04-20T12:21:00.000-05:002013-04-20T12:21:03.482-05:00The Flight, the Hunt"January twelfth, Linda Staren reporting.<br />
Police were summoned to the home of Dr. and Brenda Jacobson yesterday morning after a concerned neighbor reported strange sounds before sunrise. The police found the house unlocked and in a state of disarray, eventually discovering the brutally slaughtered body of Brenda Jacobson in her bedroom.<br />
Paul Jacobson, a scientist with multiple degrees, works in a nearby lab, but the police were unable to get in touch with him. Later in the day, an assistant at the lab made a call to 911 to report another body, that of Kyle Den. Den was also an assistant, working under Dr. Jacobson. <br />
Dr. Jacobson still has not been found, and he is currently the prime suspect for the murders. He is five feet and ten inches tall, approximately two hundred and thirty pounds, with thinning black hair, glasses, and a graying beard. He has minute scars on his hands, and a small acid scar on his right cheek. The authorities want to warn the public that if Dr. Jacobson is seen, do not approach him. He should be considered dangerous.<br />
Dr. Jacobson was in the process of working on a revolutionary system of mirrors and lenses that..."<br />
<br />
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<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969);">"...Could give us the secret to time travel!" Dr. Jacobson said, grinning. "We've almost got it!" He looked at his assistant, Kyle. "Is the camera set up?"</span><br />
"Just about," Kyle said. He grunted, screwing in the dial to hold the camera steady. He looked through the lens. "Okay. It's in focus."<br />
Jacobson wrote in his log: "January the tenth. We are ready for our first serious tests. Of course, the previous tests have been serious, but this is the first one that we feel has even the remotest chance of succeeding. The Zenith has been calibrated with such minute precision by the talented hands of Kyle that I harbor no diffidence that something will not happen to change our lives. The time now is twelve minutes past nine in the evening." Jacobson paused and stuck the eraser end of the mechanical pencil in his mouth. He continued: "It is snowy and cold here. The hills around us are like a wonderland. But the heater in the lab is working at full capacity, and we frequently sweat heavily while working. We are beginning the first test now, and will be capturing video evidence."<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875);"> Jacobson looked over at Kyle. The young man leaned against a table with his arms crossed. He looked tired and tattered. Just out of graduate school, he was tall and thin and walked with an uncommon confidence that Jacobson envied. He possessed degrees in physics, engineering, and mathematics, a paltry amount that Jacobson scoffed at.</span><br />
He himself had doctorates in physics: quantum, astro, and pedestrian, mathematics, engineering, and chemistry. He'd written papers on gravity, light, string theory, general relativity, and more.<br />
And he would be forever known for what he was about to do, he knew. He looked at the Zenith, an octagonal pillar, measuring more than two feet high, filled with lenses, mirrors, and panels. He almost didn't enjoy looking at it. A piece of him kept saying that if he looked at it, there would be some mistake because he had observed it. His training in quantum physics. But then again, that was part of the device's functioning.<br />
Light would shine from a small red laser, and interact with the mirrors in such a mind-bending way that only Dr. Jacobson could comprehend. Kyle said it made his head hurt, as did Jacobson's wife Brenda. But to Jacobson, it was art. Beauty. Perfection.<br />
The light would funnel down, coming to a point, squeezing tighter and tighter. Then it would hit the panel. This panel would split the beam of focused light and the light would, as had been recorded in thousands of tests before, disappear.<br />
Time, somehow, could not understand the light's actions, and would shunt it off to some else-when. the angle, and color of the beam, or the angle or distance of the Zenith, could affect where and when the beam of light appeared. Realizing this, Jacobson and Kyle had made furious calculations to interpret the spin of the Earth, its tilt, and its motion around the sun. The smallest error in their figuring would shine the beam a million years into the future or a million miles away.<br />
"Where do we put it?" Kyle asked. This test, their first serious test, was to send the simple beam of light somewhere else, and go to make sure it appeared when and where it should.<br />
"We don't want to frighten anybody," Jacobson said. He picked his nose thoughtfully. "Put it out somewhere in the woods behind the lab. The chance of someone seeing it there is miniscule. Here, I have the distances. Just a moment."<br />
Jacobson went to a file in the laptop next to him. After a few minutes of searching, he came up with the right file. "Ah, yes. We want it sent six hundred and twelve meters east by northeast, eighty-one point six six degrees clockwise from north. There's a small clearing there where I measured."<br />
Kyle began to put the numbers into a mathematical function they had created to compensate for the spin, tilt, and travel of the Earth. This function took some time. Kyle tapped away at his laptop as Jacobson studied the device. It looked heavy, but it wasn't. The glass inside was thin, and brittle. It could be carried by one man easily, but any unnecessary motion might break it. <br />
It had been years in the making. The science behind it, and the calculations involved, and the blind digging into particles and quantum, all had taken years away from him. Kyle was not the first assistant, and he might not be the last. There was another assistant, Emily, but she only worked during the day. She also wasn't much of a scientist. Oh, she could certainly understand the concepts, but she really shined with record keeping and organization. Before she had arrived, Jacobson's desk was a disturbing and disoriented array of papers and parts. Now it looked proper and organized.<br />
"Nearly there," Kyle said. Kyle had worked without tire on the distance calculation, learning more about the software he used than Jacobson thought possible. It was a long function with places to plug in numbers, which first required other sums to be calculated to get those numbers, and two more levels deep. Once the calculation completed, a computer-controlled motor would spin or move the panel as required. The motions made were sometimes so small they could not be noticed by human eyes.<br />
"What time?" Kyle asked. This calculation was no easier to figure, and took the use of multiple mirrors and lenses inside the device. They were all connected to the motor, and could be spun or shifted gently.<br />
Jacobson thought. "Put it two hours from now, at..." he looked at the clock on his laptop. "Eleven fifteen. We should be able to get out there and set up enough equipment to capture it, if it appears. Kyle nodded and tapped his keyboard.<br />
"Last question doctor," Kyle said. "I just need to program the type of beam and how long it lasts." <br />
The possibilities boggled the doctor. Messages in Morse code, even data, could be sent back in time with the use of flashes of light. Would they be able to warn people of disasters? Perhaps tell certain people the correct lottery numbers?<br />
No, no. That would be immoral and wrong. To decide who should have more money than another was not a power Jacobson would accept with ease, especially in such a way as letting one win the lottery.<br />
And then there was... it was almost impossible to think. If light could be sent back in this way, could then objects, even humans? Jacobson shivered. He had an inkling. The size of the beam wouldn't have to change... but that was for another time.<br />
"Just a simple beam for now. We can experiment with messages or code later. Make it last for ten... no, twenty seconds. That way we should have enough time to focus a camera on it." Kyle nodded and entered in the right numbers.<br />
Jacobson's heart jumped. This was it. They were really going to try. Maybe, just maybe, all of his hard work, and Kyle's work, and Emily's work, and Brenda's work, would pay off.<br />
Brenda, yes. She wasn't a scientist, and she didn't work in the lab, but without her by his side Jacobson would not have made it this far into his research. On the days when he found the time to travel the five miles home from the lab she was there, waiting. The house was clean and there was food for him to eat. It might not be hot, but there was a microwave and a stove. He could handle quantum measurements, an oven was no matter.<br />
They had met when Paul was in graduate school. She worked as a secretary in a law office, and a few years later they were married. Paul worked away at his doctorates, and Brenda worked to support them both. Eventually Paul got into a few big projects and their funds increased. Brenda kept working, more to pass the time than to earn money, but certainly the money helped. She had always been there for him. When the experiments failed, when the funding ran out, when the assistants quit. Now she was to be repaid.<br />
"Okay, it's ready," Kyle said. He smiled. "It's going to work, I know it is."<br />
"As do I. Is the door locked? No intrusions." Kyle nodded. "We need to record everything. Do your copy-paste," Jacobson said, waving a hand. Kyle saved the data to a file on his laptop.<br />
"Saved."<br />
"Stupendous. Now, is there anything else?" Jacobson wondered, looking around their lab. It was on the first floor of the building; above them was a production company, and a server storage company above that. Their lab was mostly the big room they occupied now, containing a big table strewn with lens-crafting tools, various equipment, the device, and Kyle's laptop. Kyle, Jacobson, and Emily all had their own small offices to work in, as well. "No. I think we're ready to proceed. Can you think of anything?"<br />
Kyle paused for a moment. "No. Nothing."<br />
Jacobson nodded. "Good. Ready when you are."<br />
Kyle hit record on the video camera and went to his computer.<br />
"Aligning the panel." Kyle hit enter on the formula, and his computer started to whir. The motor spun the small slitted panel. It stopped moving after a moment, and the two men stared at it. Kyle took in a breath. "Shining laser in three, two, one, mark."<br />
The small red light shot out of the blinker attached to the device. It bounced and rebounded off of mirrors, broke and was reformed by lenses, and struck the slit in the panel. It did not appear out the other side. Jacobson leaned his head around the device and looked through the other side of the panel. It was as if no light was being shined.<br />
"There is no light," Jacobson said clearly. His heart crashed inside his chest, and he hoped he wasn't going to have a heart attack. "The light should appear in the clearing in the forest at eleven fifteen tonight, the tenth of January, 2013."<br />
They waited until the light stopped shining twenty seconds later. Kyle looked at Jacobson, and Jacobson nodded. Kyle shut the camera off. He stood by it with his hand poised to turn it back on, perhaps thinking that something else might happen. Then he smiled.<br />
"It worked!"<br />
Jacobson nodded. "It's worked before. The important part is going the light reappearing where and when it should." He pushed his glasses up. They had fallen as he watched the laser trace its lightning path.<br />
"We<i> know</i> it's going to work! We should celebrate!" Kyle said. "I'll order us a pizza. What do you want?"<br />
Jacobson sighed. At least a pizza was practical. They were due to stay at the lab for at least two more hours, and maybe more, making sure everything still worked. "Sausage and onion."<br />
"You're a dangerous man, doc," Kyle said. He stepped into the hall, out of the lab. Cell phone reception was negligible inside<br />
The lab was quiet. Only the hum of Kyle's laptop was there to disturb the silence. Jacobson looked at the device.<br />
It could have been a piece of art. It was, to him. Graceful, flowing glass and light. It was the greatest thing mankind had ever done, and he did it with just two assistants.<br />
He stood and stretched his back out. What joy! What <i>elation</i> it was to know it worked! Jacobson almost felt like dancing.<br />
Something caught his eye then. It invaded his vision, and he turned to look at it. There, on the wall of the lab near his desk, was a blinking red light. His heart skipped and he looked around for a source. He found none, and his hypothesis was proved true. He bellowed for his assistant, and Kyle ran in with the phone in his hand.<br />
"What? What is it?" Jacobson pointed at the blinking light. Kyle did the same search for a source, and looked again at it.<br />
"We're getting a message from the future," Jacobson said, his face a wild grin.<br />
Kyle nearly dove at his computer and pulled up a Morse code translation. "It's a congratulation, it has to be!" He shouted. "We sent it back in time to thank ourselves!"<br />
"Stop blabbing and figure out what it says!" Jacobson said, yet he was too happy to be angry. He studied the pattern on the wall. He started after the longest pause: dit dah dit, short pause, dit dit dah, short pause, dah dit. A long pause, several seconds, and the pattern repeated. Dit dah dit, dit dit dah, dah dit. Dit dah dit, dit dit dah, dah dit.<br />
"It isn't a very long message," Jacobson said. Surely there should be more. "What does it say?"<br />
Kyle wrote down the pattern and translated it, looking from the paper to his computer a few times. Then he looked at the light. Abruptly, it stopped. "Was there any more to the pattern?" He asked Jacobson.<br />
"Not that I could see. It seemed to be the same thing over and over. There was no differentiation from the pattern. What did it say?" Kyle didn't answer. He stared at the paper in front of him, frowning. "Kyle."<br />
"It said 'run.' Over and over, that's all that it said."<br />
"It can't have," Jacobson said. He snatched the paper away from Kyle. Written there was the same pattern he had seen: dit dah dit, dit dit dah, dah dit. Under the dots or dashes were letters. R U N. That's all there was.<br />
A buzzer sounded in the lab, somebody ringing the bell. "That's the pizza," Kyle said, and he exited. Jacobson looked up from the paper just as he left the room.<br />
"Wait!"<br />
Kyle was already out the door. Jacobson wheeled around the center table and hauled the door open. Kyle's form was down the hallway, right hand dragging out his wallet. Kyle turned a corner and disappeared. Jacobson carried his overweight body after him.<br />
Just as he rounded the corner he heard a terrible cry. "What the he– Arrrr!" He saw Kyle's body fall, throat ripped open and gushing life over the floor. Jacobson looked up at the thing on the other side of the door.<br />
It was thin, and about his height. It looked like a person seen in a mirage, dark and blistered and shimmering. A chill covered the doctor. He backed away. The figure lurched toward him, clutching its right hand, tapered like a claw, to its chest.<br />
Jacobson looked at its head. It ran to a sick point like its hands. Pus... or blood... dripped down its cheeks and onto its decaying chest. It had remnants of clothes on, but they were ripped and torn into fine shreds.<br />
It stared at Kyle, then with aching slowness lifted its head to look at Jacobson. It found him with its eyes – it seemed to have some difficulty – and roared. <br />
Jacobson turned and rushed into the lab. He slammed the door behind him. A few seconds later the door was hit by a tremendous force, and Jacobson was thrown away from it and into the center table as he heard tortured howling. The Zenith teetered, and Jacobson watched it.<br />
It righted itself and, after a moment of swaying, kept still. Jacobson's heart started beating again and he went to it. It was undamaged, and Kyle's computer purred. The door thudded again, and more roaring came from the other side. Jacobson looked at it and his brain shouted at him to run.<br />
Run where? There was another door, on the other side of the lab, which led to a staircase and an alarmed exit. Jacobson took two steps toward the door, and then stopped. He looked at the machine and the attached laptop. That... thing... could cause untold damage to the equipment. Kyle's computer held all of the calculations... all of the data from previous trials. It was backed up elsewhere, but scattered. And what might be lost could set him back years.<br />
Jacobson went to the table and closed the laptop. He unplugged the cord connecting the laptop to the device and stuck it into his pocket. The door thudded another time, and Jacobson saw clearly that splinters were sticking from the wood. One more hit might shatter it. He took the laptop in one hand and the device in the other; thank goodness it wasn't too big.<br />
Would the monster chase him? It was clearly after him. It must have come through time. Was it a being from beyond the solar system? Something from so far in the future that human numbers lose meaning? <br />
Jacobson moved toward the other door, burdened by the device and laptop. He went past Kyle's backpack and halted. He looked at the door. He hadn't heard anything for a few seconds. He dumped out the papers in the backpack and stuffed the laptop in, zipping it up and pulling it onto his back.<br />
The door cracked and a gap appeared. Jacobson stared through it in horror as the monster reached a claw toward him. They were twenty feet apart, but the monster was not deterred. He started pulling away at the pieces of the door, widening the hole. Jacobson ran out the other door, this one metal, cradling the device to him. He found himself in a stairwell with an emergency exit that would sound an alarm but – he knew – not alert authorities. Outside? Or up the stairs?<br />
The monster was surely faster than he. It looked built for speed. If he got in a footrace with it, there was no doubt he would lose.<br />
He heard a crashing noise from the door behind him and then silence. <br />
The monster was in the lab. Jacobson waited to hear the sounds of tearing or breaking, but nothing came. Could it track him? Smell him? <i>See through walls?</i><br />
Jacobson pushed open the alarmed door just enough to set it off, and then hauled his fat ass up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He was on the second floor, the deserted production company, when he heard the monster get through the metal door. <br />
Jacobson listened to the wailing alarm and the monster. Its feet clumped on the ground and its claws scratched over the wall. He heard them clatter on the glass door. <i>Yes!</i> He thought. He would be able to go down the other stairs and get to his car!<br />
Then he heard the sound of the monster start to climb the stairs, and his pulse jumped. His vision seemed to narrow.<i> No!</i> Jacobson turned and went up the next flight of stairs as silently as he could. He hoped the monster would enter into the production company instead of following him up to the server storage space.<br />
He got out of the stairwell and leaned against the door. The lights in this room were off, but hundreds of small LEDs blinked, enough for him to see down the rows of servers. He put his ear to the metal door behind him and heard nothing. <br />
He went down the first row of servers, looking for the exit. This floor of the building was mostly these large rooms and a few offices, mostly filled with more components. <br />
He hoped that the building had been empty, aside from him and Kyle. He made his way down the server aisle, turning at one point to fit through a tight squeeze. His heart pounded, and again he suspected if he was going to have a heart attack.<br />
He made it to a more natural hallway, and looked around for the main exit. He went down the hallway in one direction, and found it turned to the left just like his hallway had. He got to the main staircase and looked down. There was nothing. He looked behind him to the server storage, and heard nothing. <br />
Heartbeat falling a little, he went down the stairs. He shifted the device carefully, all too knowledgeable about its frailty. He got to the second landing, the production company, and listened. He heard nothing from above him, or from the floor he was on. He went down the last flight and hit the main floor. He looked back at the door that led to his lab and saw that there was a smear of blood on it. He turned his eyes away and pulled the front door, heading for his car.<br />
He tasted blood and his heartbeat doubled. He ducked back into the building and the door swung shut. It was there! Waiting for him at his car! How could it know? There were two cars there, his and Kyle's. It stood without moving in front of his driver side door! He couldn't get past!<br />
Jacobson took breaths. What now? What?<br />
The emergency exit again. The alarm was already going off, the monster wouldn't realize he'd gone through the door again. He would head off into the woods and try to find a hospitable building, or a road, or anything! If he found someone else he would be safe!<br />
What if he found someone and they thought he was crazy? A man wandering in the forest late at night, carrying a big glass pillar, screaming about a monster?<br />
There was no other way. He needed to go fast. He pushed open the door to his lab, and cringed away from Kyle's still body. He felt gorge rise in his throat, and quickly moved the Zenith aside as he vomited next to the body of his assistant.<br />
After a moment of shock and disgust, Jacobson looked behind him at the front door. He heard nothing. He wiped the sleeve of his shirt across his mouth and recoiled at the smell. He hadn't eaten much in the past hours, but there always managed to be something to bring up. Jacobson rounded the corner away from the body and sick and took in a deep breath.<br />
He saw the door to the main lab. It was cracked and broken, with a big hole in the middle. Gouges surrounded the handle, and when Jacobson twisted it the door nearly fell off the frame. The lab inside looked almost the same. There was little different than the last time he had seen it, aside from a few scratches on the tables or walls, and a few things knocked around. The monster didn't seek destruction. What did he seek?<br />
Jacobson knew. His life. It'd killed Kyle without hesitation, and it would do the same to him. Jacobson put a sweaty hand to his throat and rubbed. <br />
He could still get away. The monster... knew about him, he must. He knew he'd gone upstairs instead of out the door, he knew to stand at the car.<br />
But if Jacobson could get lost in the forest behind the building, even the monster wouldn't know where he was. Jacobson rounded the big center table – again – and opened the metal door there. The monster had been able to pull this one open, though with some damage to the hinges. The alarm still blared. There was a deep scratch on the glass, and glinting splinters covered the floor. As Jacobson pushed the door open he wished he'd taken his jacket. Especially since, he realized as the door clapped behind him, it had his cell phone in it.<br />
Now, where to? Jacobson stood for a second. There was no handle on the outside of the door. A chain-link fence surrounded the building, and Jacobson plunged through the snow to it.<br />
He looked around, searching for any decayed shape, listening for any growl. He got to the fence and, very carefully, lowered the Zenith on the other side. He hoped it would still work... if he escaped. He pulled his body over the fence near it and cursed his sagging flesh.<i> If I get out of this</i>, he promised,<i> I'm going to lose a lot of weight</i>.<br />
He stumbled through the snow to the device. He was cold, but he couldn't stop. He picked it up and looked at the trees around him. Without a better idea, he moved to the closest set. The more trees he could put between himself and the monster, the better. It certainly didn't have a lot of fine motor control. He had it beat there. He left the building behind him.<br />
<br />
"'The lab was destroyed!' Ms. Emily Manasse said. 'Everything! Every book! Every device! Even the computers! The hard drives and the notebooks were gone if they weren't shredded! Whoever did this knew what he was doing! He took everything and hid it! I just can't believe Dr. Jacobson would want to do that to his research.'"<br />
<br />
He didn't know how long he wandered. Left, right, north, south... he lost direction, and got colder. It was dark, and the moon was covered by clouds. The air carried scents of nature. It was nearly to dark to see, and he bumped into his share of trees. One time he almost ran headlong into an oak, which would have smashed the Zenith and sliced him to pieces with glass.<br />
Finally, he stopped. He was in an area with fewer trees, and he took the time to rest. The adrenaline he'd felt escaping from the building was gone, and his body drooped. Hot breath escaped him in white plumes, barely seen in the darkness. The laptop in the backpack, which was still on, warmed him slightly.<br />
He sat. His butt was wet with melted snow, but he didn't care. He hadn't heard anything. Neither had he seen anything, but there was no light to see with, so of course he wouldn't.<br />
What now? He needed to rest; that much was obvious. The monster. It looked almost human, but twisted and stretched. Its head was the most disturbing, like a tallow candle that had been melted. Jacobson shivered at the memory.<br />
Something happened to the left of him that flooded his body with flight chemicals, and he turned his head.<br />
It was a small, red dot trained on a tree. Jacobson looked for a source, and felt a particular sense of deja vu. He realized with a shock that he was in the clearing he'd measured.<br />
"I'll be damned," he said, looking at the Zenith. "It works. Just like we wanted." He set his head against the tree behind him. "We did it Kyle."<br />
He watched the red light until it shut off. What was it... twenty seconds. He remembered a time, seemingly long ago, when he'd told Kyle to keep the light on for twenty seconds.<br />
It disappeared, and green blotches appeared in his vision. Green and darkness. He rubbed his eyes. He wanted to take a look at the spot the laser hit. He didn't have a flashlight.<br />
But he did have Kyle's computer. He drew it out of the bag and opened it, sending a wide beam of light into the air. Jacobson closed it until it was just a sliver, listened carefully for crashing trees, and then went to the tree that had been the laser's target. The white light put off by the screen gave him just enough atmosphere to see the point.<br />
It looked like a small burn mark. But other than that, it looked like nothing. The tree would certainly survive. Jacobson smiled. Kyle's horrendous formula had worked perfectly. <br />
It had, hadn't it. Jacobson looked down at the laptop, and at the Zenith, lying next to it. He could do something. He <i>had</i> to! He could warn them, send them a– <br />
They had been warned. There had been a red dot on the wall telling them to run over and over, blinking in the same pattern until it disappeared. They had ignored the warning, and now Jacobson was running for his life.<br />
No... he had accepted the warning, but Kyle had ignored it! He'd gone to the door, thinking it was the pizza delivery (and where was that man now?) and then he died. It was the warning that had made Jacobson flee, turning and running as soon as he saw the monster in the door.<br />
He had to warn... well, himself. He made another look around to assure himself that he was alone. He heard and saw nothing, but decided quick work would make him feel better.<br />
He opened the formula that Kyle had created out of mind and math and genius. The first step was to figure out where to put it. Old information still lingered in the formula. Six hundred and twelve meters to the east northeast. He reversed it, making it west southwest, same distance. Next step was when. He knew when: nine fifteen in the evening. <br />
But... no. That would land it before they... we... had conducted the first test. It had to be after. Jacobson changed the data slightly to make it nine twenty in the evening, this January the tenth of 2013.<br />
Now the last part. He looked at the one piece of the formula that was mostly ignored, what to transmit. He still knew the code for <i>run</i>: dit dah dit, dit dit dah, dah dit. <br />
How many times had he seen it? He cursed under his breath, and looked around, fear increasing his vision. There was still nothing. Maybe it had given up?<br />
No, he couldn't count on that. And still, he needed to warn himself, or he might not get away in the first place. He put in the formula to transmit the message seven times. That would be enough. For a moment he wondered about alternate time lines, divergent universes... and then shook his head. Time for that later. <br />
He plugged the Zenith into the computer. Thank goodness the device itself had its own batteries. The laptop drained quickly. He looked at the formulas again, scanning them to make sure they were correct. Kyle would know. If only there was a way to warn him, too.<br />
He set the Zenith in the center of the clearing and hit the button on the laptop. It chugged, spitting hot air out the side as it ran through the formula. The panel on the Zenith started to spin, and it sounded far too loud. He thought he heard something in the forest, and turned his head. The light on the Zenith started to blink, put through the Morse pattern he'd laid out for it. He'd just be noticing it now, in the lab. A few blinks later he would be calling for Kyle hoarsely, and now Kyle would enter holding his phone.<br />
They'd converse for a bit, and Kyle would dig out a Morse code translator. The past Jacobson watched it run through its pattern as Kyle translated. Now he was demanding what it said, and Kyle wasn't answering. He demanded again, and Kyle had said <i>run</i>.<br />
Now they stood in silence, watching the pattern run over and over. And after the seventh time–<br />
The Zenith shut off. Jacobson looked at it, marveling.<i> Time</i>, he thought. <i>The final frontier</i>.<br />
He'd warned them, now it was time to keep moving. He wouldn't feel safe until he was back in civilization, and maybe not even then. He needed to be behind a wall or in a car. Head back to the parking lot? He knew the way now that he was in the clearing.<br />
But... which direction? They were all the same. Jacobson was no outdoorsman. Even if he was, the moon was small and hidden, no stars penetrated the cloud cover. Every tree looked the same. He felt no wind. His tiny arsenal of tools for the world outside the lab was depleted, and he was lost.<br />
He picked a direction. It was the closest thing to west he could figure. If he found the lab he could, hopefully, get in his car. What if the monster was still there, waiting by the car? Then he'd creep off in some other direction until he found a way to contact someone, anyone, and point them to the lab. With any luck the monster would wait there until someone shot it dead and he would be freed from suspicion.<br />
With the laptop packed away he started walking. One way or the other, if he found a building he'd be safer. He looked around him, listening for the crunch of snow anywhere but under his own feet.<br />
The trees got thicker, and he pushed his way through tight squeezes, holding the Zenith like a child. Should he leave it, to allow him greater mobility? No, it could too easily be damaged. And if he didn't know where it lay hidden, he might never find it.<br />
But on the other hand... if he was killed and left to rot in the forest but the Zenith survived, then there would be something left of him on Earth. Surely they would understand that he hadn't killed Kyle and then himself. People had to understand that it was an outside – a <i>very</i> outside – force that had acted upon them.<br />
He heard something on his right and froze. Not a muscle twitched. It had been a... twig, snapping? Snow, breaking under a heavy foot? Some woodland creature squeaking at him?<br />
He didn't move. Didn't breath. Didn't think. A minute passed and he felt his leg cramping. Another thirty seconds and the pain made him grit his teeth.<br />
Tenderly, lovingly, he eased onto the other foot, making as little noise as he could. He sighed quietly as his calf muscle relaxed.<br />
He leaned against a tree and took in deep, slow breaths. He felt tired and sore. There were scratches in his clothing where tree limbs had snagged him, and snot ran out of his nose. He wiped it away.<br />
He'd heard nothing for five minutes. He started moving again, heading in the same direction. It would be his death sentence to wander in circles until he froze, so he tried to keep on as straight a path as he could.<br />
An hour passed... or so he thought. There was no real way to keep time with the clouds and the darkness, but it felt like an hour. He found a big tree to lean against and catch his breath. The snow was thick and hard here, and each footstep broke through with a gut-churning crunch.<br />
How far did the trees go? Miles? Maybe. He'd certainly never investigated them. There had to be a highway or an interstate somewhere or, he hoped, a town. A town with a police station that he could explain himself to. He reiterated to himself the need to stay alive. If he was alive he could prove he was innocent.<br />
Then he thought about Kyle. The poor man. He wondered if maybe he could send a message that only Kyle would see, but turned it down. There was no way to calculate the time, the distance. Besides, Kyle had ignored his first warning, what use would a second have? Little.<br />
Unless... it would take some thought, but... if he could send something besides light back, then maybe Kyle would take notice. What? An item? A note? Impossible.<br />
It came to him in a shaking bolt. If he want back, himself, he could warn them. Kyle might not die, and they could run out of the lab before the monster appeared. If he, Jacobson, saw himself, Jacobson, knock on the door and warn them about a monster, he would have certainly believed himself. He was an intelligent man. Kyle would be alive, and the monster could be avoided.<br />
He wondered what talking to himself would be like. Easy, he figured. Two heads are better than one.<br />
But how to do it? The special panel, the one with the slit, that was the key to sending the light back, but how could one send something else?<br />
He heard a noise behind him, and looked. The monster was there, reaching out a claw to him. It had crept up on him without a sound. When Jacobson spun away the claw was inches from his shoulder, sharp and ready. His heart nearly stopped as he dashed away from the tree. The monster roared, high and loud in Jacobson's ears. His brain propped up the fact about worse motor skills and Jacobson dashed around a tree. The monster went after him and crashed straight into it, loosing a roar that burned Jacobson's ears.<br />
He moved around another tree and took off, churning the snow under him. The adrenaline was back and it filled him with energy. He heard smashes and snaps behind him and he cut around a tree again. He kept moving, heaving himself around corners and in circles.<br />
The monster roared repeatedly, thundering behind him. Once he went around a tree and risked a look, and saw it floundering in a dense pocket of sharp branches, skin torn by the frozen fingers of the trees. Jacobson took another turn and sped away until he was out of sight.<br />
Now he had no idea where he was. The monster still made noise, and so he was able to evade it. The ground started to slope down, and get rockier. He thought he heard water.<br />
It was water... but he couldn't see it. The darkness beat him again, and he could only hear the burbling water.<br />
One questing foot found nothing as it dropped, and Jacobson lunged backwards, grabbing onto the nearest tree to prevent himself from falling into the invisible gorge. The Zenith fell from his grasp and landed in soft snow. Jacobson thought he heard the clinking and breaking of glass, but he picked it up with careful slowness and heard nothing as he righted it. Sounds of flowing water came from below him, down the gorge. There were maybe four feet of separation between him and the drop. He could not tell how far down he would fall if he decided to go forward those four feet<br />
The monster was silent now. Jacobson didn't hear a thing. He didn't like that. But at least now he had a sort of natural defense. The monster was in the forest so he would come from the forest, not from the gorge.<br />
He got his mind working on the task of sending more than just light back in time. He looked at the Zenith, or at least in its direction, and tried to think of something, <i>anything</i>, that could give him a hint to the possibility. He was a smart man, but this was something that no human had ever achieved, or even come close to achieving.<br />
But it worked. He knew it did. He'd seen it from both ends twice, the sending and the receiving. How wildly different the circumstances had been for each of them. The laser and its repeated blinking the first time, and then its steady gaze into the trunk of the tree. The scientific, cautious single laser the first time, and then the frenzied, hurried communication the second time.<br />
He had to do it. He needed to send himself back in time. But there were rules. The universe had rules, and surely this would break them! Surely sending a person back in time would shatter the thin pane of reality and madness, and destroy the universe, or himself!<br />
But the laser had survived, so to speak. Twice. Just that simple fact meant that it was possible. But that had been <i>light</i>, and light played by its own rules.<br />
So why couldn't he? He would become something out of time, a fiction, a fragment of a world that had never lived. Would his mind accept the fact that his wife would be married to... in his eyes... a different man? Would he find himself homeless and hated?<br />
It was necessary. Kyle would live, and whatever tragedy the monster could cause would be avoided. Maybe, then, with the three of them working on it, a solution to his own time could be found.<br />
He opened the laptop. He'd need to work fast, the battery wouldn't last long. <br />
There was no way to make the positioning useful, except to update the formula to assure that he didn't end up floating in space. He would appear a little over six hundred yards to the west southwest. He lingered over what time to send himself to. If he was only sent six hundred yards, he'd need enough time to get to the lab before the monster. The monster had appeared at about... nine twenty three. A few minutes after the Morse code warning. He didn't know where he was, or how far he was from the lab, but he needed to make sure that he had enough time. More time was better. He set it for seven in the evening.<br />
Now was the hard part. He needed to figure out how to get himself back there at all. <br />
He thought about the theories and ideas working to send the laser back at all, and if he could adjust them. It was foolish to try and adjust the mirrors or lenses, he would surely break the device so that it couldn't be used at all. If that was the solution, he would need to think of something else.<br />
He wondered if he should continue getting to safety. He decided no; there was no safety to get to, unless he found a way over the river. Behind was a forest and a monster, in front of him an impassable barrier. Better to focus on the task.<br />
<br />
"'I rang the buzzer on the front door, which is what they'd told me to do earlier,' Pizza Hut delivery driver Darren Utunemay said. Darren came forward yesterday, after we asked for any information about the lab or Dr. Jacobson. According to Darren, a little before nine thirty in the evening Kyle Den ordered a pizza. Darren said the lab was a regular customer. 'They ordered pizza all the time, but they didn't like to be bothered too much, so they have me ring the front door instead of the one to their lab. So I rang, and nobody came. I rang again, because I can't call them when they're in the lab. I didn't see anything. Then I went back with the pizza.'"<br />
<br />
An hour passed, and concepts floated around his mind until he felt a headache. He had been awake for more than eighteen hours now. It must be almost one in the morning. The sky looked no different, the clouds still blocked all light, and Jacobson had heard nothing at all from behind him, and nothing but the gurgle of water in front of him.<br />
Changing the beam would do nothing, the beam itself was the ink and the panel at the end was the pen to write with. Power wasn't an issue, aside from the fact that the batteries in the Zenith might not appreciate so many uses between a charge.<br />
The only thing that Jacobson considered was the panel. That was how the light was sent back: through the panel, and that was the thought he had toyed with before. Quantum theory and energy and relativity, and on and on until the formulas and data stacked onto itself in a mind bending circle of information. Jacobson himself practically stumbled on the important bits without realizing it, years ago. Kyle, with his three degrees, found it painful to understand. Brenda didn't want to know anything about it.<br />
So maybe Jacobson, the one person alive who seemed to be able to understand it, could figure out a way to improve on the already complicated idea.<br />
The laptop was closed and off, to save power. Jacobson sat in the wet darkness and pondered. His memory was good enough to know many of the concepts by heart, and he turned them in his mind, searching for a way that would reveal a new, exciting pattern. They remained still, silent, and cold.<br />
He felt himself slipping in a drowse. He shook himself and pressed snow to his face. After wiping the water away he concentrated. <br />
One piece of information stuck out. It was the panel. Its formation had been a turning point in his research. It inhabited quantum states, both seen and unseen, and made just one of the possibilities real – the one that went away. The laser hit it from a certain point, on a certain side. Only one laser appeared out the other side, but it would appear in a different place and a different time.<br />
Jacobson wondered what would occur if he turned the panel around. It was so simple it seemed juvenile, but the science made sense. A panel that let one through from one side and sent the laser on that side back, turned around, would let through one laser to the other side. Anything that laser might hit could be affected in the same way.<br />
He needed to test it. The first thing he'd need to do is reverse the panel. Luckily, this was easier than he thought it was. All he had to do was unscrew it from the motor and flip it around. He carefully screwed it back in, wary of not dropping the nut that had secured it. Next, he set up the device and pointed it away from himself. There were a number of fist sized rocks near the edge of he gorge, and he set them up in a sort of shooting range. He knew that only one beam of light would get through the panel, and he wasn't sure in which direction it would be sent.<br />
He got the laptop running and pointed the Zenith at the rocks. With the light of the laptop blinding him, he started the machine. <br />
It whirred, and the red light cascaded down through the mirrors and lenses. It struck the panel and fanned out. There was a flash of light and heat, and when next Jacobson looked, one of the rocks was gone.<br />
He went to where it had been. Smoke curled away from the ground and the other rocks, but not a trace remained in the gap.<br />
He rejoiced! Not only had he figured out the secret to time travel, he was about to do it himself! He reset the Zenith and prepared it for another go. He would be unable to take the laptop or Zenith with him, but if he was lucky it wouldn't be needed.<br />
If he was lucky, he'd get to the lab, warn Kyle and himself, and get away. As long as he got there before the monster, it would be hard to fail. He knew that, if he saw himself warn himself about something, he'd probably believe himself.<br />
The device was ready to go. Elation rose in him. He'd be the first man to travel in time! Perhaps not the last... but yes, the first.<i> The monster has no way to stop me,</i> he thought.<br />
It didn't, at least until Jacobson saw it appear a hundred feet away from him, peering left and right along the gorge until it saw him illuminated in the light from the dying laptop. Jacobson smashed go and ran into place, where the stone was no more. The monster roared and rushed at him as the computer ran through the formula, until it stopped and the panel steadied. The laser split out of its housing. <br />
The monster was only ten feet away, reaching out a pleading claw toward him and screaming in a high, unintelligible voice when the laser split out from the panel and washed over Jacobson. Jacobson raised his right hand and extended the middle finger as the scene disappeared from in front of his eyes.<br />
<br />
Like falling, but standing still. Great heat and wind rushed through him, pulling, warping his body. He could only see red, and he knew it was because that was the color of the light. He started to hurt, his skin started singeing with the great release of energy and quantum forces. In an instant his body was only pain, and he screamed himself into a hoarse symphony of sound. On and on it went until his mind felt like it broke, images and memories became real and he lived them out.<br />
And, finally, it stopped.<br />
<br />
His body felt as if heat was its natural state, that to cool off would be to die. His flesh tingled. His clothes seemed to be in some disarray.<br />
His vision wavered and flowed. The trees around him were colored in strange light, which seemed to come from nowhere. The clouds still covered the moon and stars, and the light of the sun had already passed away. It was seven in the evening of that day, and Jacobson knew that he and Kyle should still be in the lab, making adjustments to the formula, preparing for the final test that would occur less than one hundred and forty minutes from now.<br />
He needed to go. He took a step forward, and smashed straight into a tree. <br />
Something had happened to his muscles. The flow of time had turned them taught and strong, so strong he had no way to control their motion. <br />
And his mind was warped. He did not notice at first, but as he struggled through the snow, he realized thoughts slogged in and out of his brain instead of popping and speaking. He found a rock that looked oddly familiar, and stared for a minute before realizing that it was the rock he'd sent back in time. The fact that it was at a different spot than he had appeared did not occur to him as pertinent. He wandered, his body a coiled spring.<br />
Which way to wander? He knew; he should have known. If he had gone in the direction to his right – because that was the direction he had traveled through time and space... toward the lab – he would have gotten there much sooner. But he did not know, so drained were the thoughts from his brain. A fog was there, keeping him from seeing him taking two steps but just the single step. And, then, the next. He hurried, moving with such speed and ferocity that he was shocked. He couldn't see his body very well, his vision was distorted and painful. Trees shook in the still air, lights flashed in the darkness. He wanted Brenda. But he knew that what he was doing was the right thing – to save a life.<br />
After too long, he felt he was getting into familiar territory. The trees began to look more like the trees he'd seen every day walking in to the lab. He felt close, and his skin prickled. He wiped moisture off his face. He walked, sped, through the trees, feeling the pass of time now more than he thought possible. For now he felt a traitor, an intruder in this time.<br />
He broke through the trees and found the back of the building. He ran into the chain link fence with a painful crash, and the fence rattled as he fell to the ground. Growling, he climbed over the fence and tumbled to the other side. At least it was easier than the first time. He looked at the back of the building. The emergency door was over on the right, but it had no handle to open it, something he should have known. He wandered up to it and looked it. The scratches on the inside glass were gone – or had simply not happened yet. The alarm was silent. Good. He might still have time.<br />
He went around the building to the front, and saw there were only two cars remaining. His and Kyle's. That meant the night janitor was already gone. He left at eight thirty. Time was short. He barked a laugh to himself at his own joke. He went up to the front door and pushed it open. He stood in the entrance, the landing of the main stairs to the building. The door to his lab was clean of blood, and all was silent. He tried the handle, banging his hand on the metal, but it was locked. Of course it was, they had locked it hours ago to keep from being disturbed. He rang the bell and waited. Kyle was probably going to yell something, and he had to be ready.<br />
The door opened, and Kyle was there, hand hanging onto his wallet. His eyes went wide when he saw Jacobson.<br />
"What the he–" Jacobson shot his hand out to clamp over Kyle's mouth, brain screaming at him as he did. Blood sprayed out. He hand sank into warm flesh and blood, and Kyle's curse turned into a dying cry. Blood coated the wall next to Kyle, and splattered on the door that he had opened.<br />
Jacobson watched Kyle's body, wavering in his demented vision, fall to the ground without any other motion. Jacobson stumbled forward and looked at his hand.<br />
How had he not seen? He'd looked, after moving through time. His hand was long, thin, drained of fat, lined like corduroy. His fingers were long, narrowing to sharp nails.<br />
He heard a noise and looked up. Jacobson – himself – stood pressed against the wall of the hallway, looking at his future self in horror. "Jacobson!" The fat man turned and ran back down the hallway, slamming the door behind him.<br />
Jacobson's brain broke through the haze. He rose a hand to his head and felt the angled slope of his skull, the charred and tapering flesh that... so long ago... had looked like a melted candle to him. His flesh was charred and burnt from the heat of the travel. His clothes were destroyed. He felt his cheeks and wiped away the pus or the blood that dripped there.<br />
His mind cranked and burned. He put his hands on it and mumbled. He was the monster. He had spent the last three... four... five... hours running from himself.<br />
And the clarity disappeared. The thoughts dropped out of his brain again, never to return.<br />
One thought remained. The smallest remnant of his genius brilliance lingered, to tell him one thing:<i> destroy the Zenith</i>.<br />
Yes. If he destroyed the zenith he would be unable to go back in time, and in some way become this thing he was now. Kyle would live. This would never have happened at all. Divergent universes and alternate time lines bothered him not, for he had no brain to consider them any longer.<br />
Only seconds had passed since his former self had fled, and he ran down the hallway, muscles snapping. He flew down the hall and smashed into the door, yelling.<br />
"Jacobson! Jacobson open the door! It's me! You! You're future self!" He reached for the handle, but found it impossible to use. He kept missing, or his hand kept slipping away from the brass handle. His fingers could not hold. He stumbled away from the wood door and saw that there was a crack down the center because of his forceful greeting. He could bust the door. If he broke it down, he'd be able to get in and destroy the device.<br />
He ran to the end of the hall and charged. His feet flew under him, skimming over the tile until he smashed into the door again, creating new cracks. "Jacobson!" How long had it taken him the first time? He didn't remember. He retreated to the end of the hall and attacked again.<br />
He impacted the door and could nearly see a hole. Another might break through. He ran back, sliding on slick blood, and hit the hall. He fell and groaned. A sharp memory of the rushing, burning heat from the travel blitzed him. He stood, and shook his head. His vision spun and he felt dizzy. <br />
The door!<br />
He rushed, thrusting his left hand forward through the wood, puncturing it and letting him see through to the lab. His former self was hunched over Kyle's backpack, dumping papers out of it and shoving the laptop in. Jacobson tore at the splinters of wood hanging to the wood, trying with desperate strength to widen the hole and get through. He watched the fat man in the lab gather the Zenith in his arms and get through the metal door on the other side of the room. Jacobson tore at the door with frenzied strength, rending it until he could slip through. He fell to the floor on the other side, limbs bleeding from the hole's sharp points. A second later an alarm started shrieking, and he covered his ears. Even they felt longer. He missed his ears and cut gouges in his head with his long nails.<br />
He stumbled to his feet and knocked a few books off the table with an uncontrolled swing of his hand. He tripped over his feet and nearly fell into the wall. He caught himself.<br />
In front of his eyes, staring at him, was a small point, burned into the wall. The message he'd sent back, telling himself to run. He curled his hand into a fist and pounded. <br />
If he hadn't sent the message, he might have been able to destroy the Zenith! If he'd seen this burn, strong enough to even burn into the stone walls of the lab, he might not have traveled back. <br />
For a moment too brief he thought <i>but of course I didn't notice</i>.<br />
He ran for the metal door. He wouldn't be able to get through the metal, but the handle was a lever, he'd be able to claw it open. He pushed through.<br />
The alarm blazed in his ears. The alarm only went off when somebody went out, so he must have run out through the door into the forest. He placed a hand on the inside window, and his nails cut divots in the glass. Fragments of glass, burning starlight in his sick mind, fell on the ground.<br />
The noise touched his mind and revealed a covered memory. He was crouched one floor up, hearing the skitter of sharp claws on glass. He still had the Zenith.<br />
Jacobson turned and took a step up the stairs, and the memory collapsed. He kept climbing stairs, aware that the person he looked for was up, but unsure how he knew. It took him too long to get up the first flight of stairs, so untrained were his reflexes. He cracked a glistening wrist on the wall to his right and heard a crack that sent a shock of pain up his arm. He pulled the hand in to his chest. He shook his head and went up the next flight, arriving at the second floor. <br />
Where had he gone? This door? Up to the next level? He went up, for some reason he did not know – neurons firing told him so. He met a metal door like the one on the first floor and pulled it open as quietly as he could. Cramped rows of blinking lights shone out at him, and he took one step before hitting the first metal object. He rebounded and struck the next one, knocking it nearly over. It came back and struck him, and he went right back out the door and down the stairs, landing on his knee at the bottom of the landing. He sat for a minute without speaking. His fuzzy brain decided that the long rows of lit objects wouldn't allow him through. Where had he gone next, after escaping up the stairs?<br />
His brain provided no answer. He got to his feet and went down the stairs until he ended at the glass door again. He pushed it open as the alarm bounced in his head, and he stood in the snow for a moment. Did he go out into the forest?<br />
No! No. No... he had gone down the stairs, past the blood-stained door of the first floor, and pulled the door to the parking lot – he was trying to get to the car!<br />
He turned and sprayed snow up as he wheeled around the building, following his tracks from the first trip in the darkness. He got to the asphalt and looked at the two cars for a moment. He went to the car he identified as his and stood next to it.<br />
What was going to happen next? He stared down at his feet. He knew that the earlier Jacobson tried to get out to his car, but couldn't. Something would stop him from getting out of the building... and then what?<br />
He heard a noise, and his head snapped up. He saw the front door to the building swing shut. He looked around. Where was he? Had he left the building? He looked around, at the dark, snowy grass surrounding the parking lot, and the similar buildings next to his. He couldn't see anything move.<br />
No, wait. He'd gone back inside because he'd seen something. Jacobson looked around. What was it he'd seen?<br />
He couldn't remember. But he did remember seeing Kyle's torn throat, and feeling the rise of hot gorge up his esophagus. He'd gone through the lab next, heading out the back door and into the forest, with the thought that the alarm... no, the door wouldn't... something. Jacobson headed in to the front door, but stopped.<br />
He couldn't see Kyle again. If he saw the body again he would lose what function remained. He'd need to go around the building, try and cut himself off. Why didn't he understand himself? He'd yelled, in perfectly understandable English, to stop, to come back, that it was <i>him</i>, not some monster out to get him. His brain itched and he reached a sharp hand up to scratch it. All he succeeded in doing was cutting the top of his head. Blood dripped off him.<br />
His wrist still hurt, and his knees were in pain from the fall down the stairs. He felt loose, almost like he was coming apart.<br />
He rounded the building at a walk, sloshing through the snow. There were a lot of footprints. Had there been other people? He hadn't seen them.<br />
He got around the building and reached the chain link fence. He pulled himself over it and flew high into the air, the unnatural strength of his muscles again taking him by surprise. He collided with a thick branch ten feet off the ground and crashed into a drift under the tree, making him cry out. He rolled onto his back and looked up at the twinkling sky.<br />
As he pushed himself up and wandered into the forest, in search of the device that had turned him into this monster, he did not question why he'd been able to see the stars. The question did not even occur to him.<br />
<br />
"Ms. Kowalski, the neighbor that called the police, looked stricken when Detective Fessum told her the details, and declined to comment."<br />
<br />
The forest was endless, tree after tree filtered past him. At one point it occurred to him that he should be looking for the clearing where the test light had been sent, where he would see it and have the idea planted to send a message back to himself to run. If he could stop that from happening, he'd be able to destroy the device, and time would be healed. But in a minute the thought was gone, and he wandered.<br />
The light was too bright. Sometimes he had to shade his eyes from it, the everlasting burn in his brain, but it didn't help. Did it come from his hands? He hid them behind his back. It shone still. He clamped his eyelids shut, but there must have been holes in them because he was still blinded.<br />
He stumbled through blinding snow and through pitch-black shade. He sat down, covering his face in his hands and burying his face in his snow, trying to stop the blinding light.<br />
He might have slept. He certainly dreamed. Images of the past attacked him, made him see double. He saw an image of the bob and stream of trees and snow in blessed darkness, snow crunching under each footstep.<br />
And he heard it too. Slowly he raised his head, peering out from behind a pile of snow. His shift in weight made a pillow of snow under him slip and crunch.<br />
He saw the past Jacobson freeze mid step, one leg extended and the other supporting his full weight. Both of the Jacobsons kept still and quiet. The Jacobson from the future saw the clench of the other's jaw as his calf muscle tightened and strained. After a minute, the past Jacobson eased back and leaned against a tree, somehow assured that he was safe. <br />
<i>I'm right here!</i> Jacobson thought. <i>How can he not see me? It's so bright out! </i><br />
The Zenith glittered in the other's arms as the fat man breathed and rested. Jacobson wanted to sprint out and destroy it in a single swipe, put his life back on track and get back the wasted time.<br />
Then the other started walking, straight as an arrow the way he came. Jacobson rose from the pile of snow, flakes drifting off him, and followed as silent as he could. If the other Jacobson turned and looked, just peered behind him, he would lay his eyes on the monster that was chasing him... but he never did. Jacobson was glad.<br />
They moved through the forest twenty or thirty feet apart. If the old fat man carrying the infernal device stopped, the other Jacobson would move slowly and silently up on him, gaining over the course of an hour. Eventually the other stopped under a tree to catch his breath. Jacobson's heart thundered in his chest, and blood seeped out through the wounds on his body. The other Jacobson had the device in his right arm. If he could just reach over his shoulder and pluck it out, he could hurl it through the forest with his monumental strength and shatter it into a billion flashing pieces. He was twenty feet away.<br />
The other was trapped in his thoughts. Jacobson crept forward with a blank mind. He moved around the crusty patches of snow and brittle tree branches to keep from making any noise. For once Jacobson felt in control of his body, and he slithered forward, one foot after the other.<br />
He got closer. His heart pounded in his chest as he quietly extended his arm toward the shoulder of the previous Jacobson. He was still ten feet away.<br />
One foot after the other. He flowed over the ground behind the tree until he was a foot away. The top of the Zenith was visible over the other Jacobson's shoulder, and it flashed with light. Almost, almost.<br />
He stretched his body. He'd just have to grab hold of the top and smash it. If he could just touch it, he would be free; never to exist.<br />
The ends of his long nails were six inches from the other Jacob's shoulder when he brushed against the rough hide of the tree, and the other Jacobson looked. He ran, and Jacobson shouted. "No! Come back!" <br />
He gave chase, and the fat man twisted around a tree. Jacobson smashed into the tree, feeling a rib break. He cried out in terrible pain as he watched his previous self dash through the woods. He crawled to his feet and lurched – faster than his old body had ever run – after the retreating figure. The other Jacobson was zig-zagging through and around and under trees. The past him could move quicker than he could; he had better control. The incredible strength granted to the future's Jacobson only hindered him in tight spaces, and after trying to mimic the quick motion of the other Jacobson he found himself stuck in a grip of branches. He shouted at the other Jacobson to stop, come back, but he was ignored.<br />
He pulled himself free and ran in the direction the other had gone, calling for him.<br />
"Jacobson! Jacobson! Don't use the device! Destroy it!" He wandered and called, trying to get out the right words. Why didn't the other Jacobson listen? He should have been able to tell he spoke English! Why didn't he <i>stop</i>!<br />
Jacobson walked through the snowy forest, blinded by the light. His skin dripped with blood from the hard fingers of the tree, and more and more of him hurt. <br />
What now? Where had he gone, where had he hid? For that matter, <i>why</i> had he hid? There was no reason to run from himself. Jacobson looked down at the burnt and flayed body, with wiry muscles and long nails. Why was he afraid? What was so strange about this appearance that he had run?<br />
He called out more: "Jacobson! Jacobson! Don't be afraid of me! I came back from the future! I'm <i>you</i>!" Nothing responded. "If you use the device Kyle will die! Don't go back in time! Just listen to me, and everything will go away!"<br />
He stopped to catch his breath. He scratched at his chest, and peeled away layers of skin without realizing. He continued moving, unsure of the correct direction. How big was this forest? He felt as if he'd spent the last year inside it. <br />
He looked into the bright sky. He couldn't find the sun, but he knew it was there. Nothing else could put off that much light.<br />
He was so hot. He dove into a pile of snow and sighed as the snow cooled him off.<br />
<br />
"Alicia Den simply stated that she refused to believe Jacobson had committed these acts. She called him a 'good, if strange, man,' and she knew they were getting close to a breakthrough."<br />
<br />
He woke up, and rolled out of the snow. His skin was chilled and his ragged breath came in waves of white steam, clear in the light. How long had he been asleep? Too long?<br />
He looked at the sky. No, the sun had hardly moved. The shadows were the same. He must have only been asleep for a few minutes. It was enough to clear his head. He needed to find himself. If he just talked to him, it would surely be enough to convince him not to go back in time. <br />
Something twanged in his brain, telling him that he needed to hurry. Why? It had something to do with light. He stepped over his makeshift bed and wandered through the bright forest, going where he felt like it. He ran into an area that seemed familiar... or perhaps he was wrong.<br />
No, no. There was something distinct about it. He must have been here.<br />
There was a period of alignment in his brain, and he looked for the burn on the trees that would tell him it was the clearing he and Kyle had set apart to test. He didn't find it. It wasn't the area he'd just been in, trying to take the Zenith from his old self. What could it be?<br />
He saw a rock that made him ponder. Had he seen it before? He must have. It looked familiar, and felt familiar. It didn't taste familiar, but that must have been because he'd never tasted it.<br />
<i> Now hold on</i>, his feeble brain said.<i> If this is the rock you sent back as a test, you should know where you are.</i><br />
And he did. He was six hundred... and... twenty? Six hundred and twenty meters north. If he just went south, he would find himself. He still had time.<br />
He looked up at the sky, but the sun still hid, so he couldn't discern the direction from that. There was no wind.<br />
He looked around himself with foolish complacency. Perhaps that way? No, that was silly. <i>That </i>way looked much easier. Yes, this way was the right way. It would be gentle on his aching body.<br />
He was about to start walking when something from the left of him caught his eye. It was a fan of light, a red sweeping aura that cast contrasting shadows from the bright light over him.<br />
His mind broke through and screamed hellfire at him. He surged in the direction he thought the light had come from, heat and energy pulsing in his body. It was far, farther than he thought it was, and as he ran he heard noise, impossible to determine.<br />
He skated over the ground, barely touching, arms flailing back and forth. He went through and around trees, concentrating on moving fast and not the direction.<br />
He broke through the trees and stopped just in time to avoid falling into a gorge a few hundred feet deep. A river ran at the bottom, burbling over sharp rocks. He looked to his right. There was nothing there, and his mind bellowed at him in a language he could hardly understand. He looked the other way, and saw the old him, the fat him, standing stock still with terror.<br />
Jacobson turned toward him. "Don't do it! Don't touch the laptop!"<br />
And yet he hit the button anyway. Jacobson charged. The wind rushed in his ears. He saw the red light erupt from the emitter on the Zenith and speed through the structure as Jacobson sped at the device. The other Jacobson stood, petrified, as the light reached the panel at the front and split into a wide beam, mimicking the light Jacobson had seen just moments before.<br />
"Stop! Don't do it!" Jacobson shouted. The light fanned over the the rotund man. "No! NO!" He was twenty feet away. He reached out a hand to smash the device, or the computer, or himself, and saw, for the second and last time, him give himself the finger.<br />
The light disappeared, not just from the machine. The bright light overhead was gone too. Jacobson's body felt cool for the first time in hours.<br />
And his mind worked. His head was the same demented shape, but the mind inside ran with unexpected efficiency.<br />
And his momentum carried him into the Zenith, crushing it into thousands of glass slivers. The slivers embedded in his skin, cutting it and slicing his skin into strips. He screamed and fell, also crushing the laptop. The hard plastic bruised him and ripped open several cuts into gaping wounds that spat blood.<br />
The night was quiet, and peaceful. The river down in the gorge bubbled and flowed. The sky was dark, and though no breeze blew, the air was cool.<br />
Jacobson laid on his stomach, not feeling anything. He probed the wounds, and felt hot blood and muscle under them. The blood melted the snow.<br />
His mind worked, just as it had before he'd gone back. His memory was full and complete now, and he raged at his stupidity. If only he had done something different... but there was nothing he could do now.<br />
He didn't know why he had lost his mental faculties, or where the bright light in the sky had come from. It hadn't been the sun, certainly not the moon... there was no explanation.<br />
He sat up. He could see, just barely, the shredded remains of the Zenith and the laptop. He stood, picked up all the pieces he could find, and hurled them into the river. He stood and listened for a splash, but nothing reached him. It must be too high. He had seen it before the other Jacobson had gone back... how high had it been? Several hundred feet.<br />
Wind came, rising over the gorge to blow the tatters of his clothes and skin away from him, hurting him.<br />
He wavered on his feet; the wind was nearly enough to knock him over. So it was over. He had lost.<br />
<br />
"'There was an awful amount of blood, everywhere in the house,' Senior Detective Fessum said. 'Some of it was Brenda's but a lot of it was Dr. Jacobson's. It looked like it had been dripped around. The blood leads out of the house but we don't know where it goes. The evidence is there, though. If it wasn't Jacobson that did this, it was somebody trying really hard to make it look like it was. But whoever it was, we're going to find him.'<br />
<br />
He went back to the lab. He knew what direction it was, now. It took him only a few minutes with his speed. He couldn't do anything about Kyle's body. Had he really killed him? Yes.<br />
He got into the lab, the alarm still blaring, and proceeded to trash the place. He ripped notebooks, smashed equipment, and demolished the computers. He wanted nothing left of the research he'd done. His story had ended, but he wasn't going to let others destroy themselves. Mankind had enough dimensions to travel in, the fourth could keep to its own.<br />
The lab was a mess, but Jacobson carried pulped paper and the hard drives to the river and threw it in after the Zenith, not trusting himself now, after this twice-lived night. The river would help him.<br />
He went back to the parking lot, and looked at his car. He didn't want to take it. In the side mirror he saw his putrid reflection, and recoiled from the bloody, twisted, deformed beast. His reflexes would never handle a car. He started to walk home, wrist and ribs and skin burning.<br />
Home! He could go home! Brenda would surely be able to understand him. He would be careful, not do anything unless he needed to. He would sit on his hands and talk to her, make her understand what had happened. If he couldn't speak, he would write, or type. One way or the other he would be able to get his story out. Would he be punished? Perhaps for the protection of others, or his own. People would find him a monster, a freak. A small cell would be just the place.<br />
Blood dripped from him as he went home.<br />
His speed let him get there in only a few minutes, and soon the buildings and houses became familiar. He raced into his neighborhood, and up to his house. He still had his keys, and he managed to fit the key into the lock, leaving a smear of blood on the door. If he could open the door, he should be able to communicate with Brenda.<br />
He went in the door to the hall. The house was quiet, and the stairs to the upper level were dark. He went up the stairs, listening to the creak of the old wood and the <i>plik</i> of blood on carpet. He found the door to his bedroom and, after a few tries, turned the knob. Perhaps his control was getting better.<br />
He heard a murmur from the bed, and the rustle of sheets. "Paul?"<br />
Brenda Jacobson turned the bedside light on just as Jacobson said "it's me." She saw him and screamed, jumping over the bed to the other side. "Brenda, no! It's me!" Jacobson said. All she heard were frothy grunts and growls from the twisted, zombie figure in front of her.<br />
He took a step at her, and she pressed herself against the wall, hands ranging for something to use as a weapon.<br />
He had to tell her! He had to do something! <br />
There was paper in the bedside table, and he went to it. Brenda kept across the bed from him. He pulled the drawer open, and it flew out of the night table, spilling the contents. A pad of paper, a pencil with a dull nub, a book of matches, and a small box of tissues flew across the room. He dropped the drawer and ran to the paper and pencil. He might have to scratch it on the walls, but he would get through to her!<br />
He hadn't been watching her. She'd found a table, this one with a broken lamp. As Jacobson picked up the pencil she ran at him, swinging the lamp around from his left.<br />
His hand shot out to stop it, and smashed through the lamp, sending shards of china into him. One of his eyes was hit, and his vision turned flat. He felt the dribble of fluid on his cheek.<br />
Large chunks of the lamp sliced through Brenda, into her face and chest. She lay on the floor, blood pooling out of her. Jacobson got to his feet and crawled over to her, and picked the chunks out. One of them was stuck in her skull, and after a moment of tugging, he let his hand drop.<br />
The light had already gone out from her eyes. The china must have... hit something. He didn't know anatomy; he'd never studied it. There was a lot of blood. A vein, in her neck. He felt his own body. Besides his eye, nothing had changed.<br />
But...<br />
Brenda was dead. His blood was all over the house, dripped onto the carpet and drive. Nobody would believe him. If they saw him they would kill him as soon as they could. Maybe they would chalk it up to a lab accident. Would they know it was him?<br />
He ran out of the house. He saw a light on in Mrs. Kowalski's house. She'd heard. He ran away, back to the lab, speeding down the road and diving out of the way when cars approached. He couldn't be seen, not now. They might be able to follow his ever-present blood trail, but by then...<br />
He got to the lab, and ignored it. Instead he ranged around it, streaking off into the forest, tearing through the trees, leaving sprays of blood on the trunks and snow, the crisp air startled into swirls by his rushing form.<br />
Then he was at the gorge, and didn't let himself stop. It was easy, falling.<br />
<br />
"With the lab destroyed, only a small amount of Jacobson's research remained, in hand-written notes. There is also some information saved on his personal computer, and once it has been accessed, Ms. Manasse intends to continue research with the help of several other scientists.<br />
'I'm confident that something can be salvaged,' Ms. Manasse said. 'This research won't go to waste.'<br />
This has been Linda Staren reporting."Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5390847374304161851.post-35847732098438889182013-04-06T12:00:00.000-05:002013-04-06T12:07:15.491-05:00Strange HeavenEli stared deep into the screen, and the screen stared back. He felt great: painless, rested, worry-free.<br />
"Your whole family is coming to graduation, right?" Greg asked, zipping up a suitcase full of shirts and socks.<br />
"Yup," Elijah answered, not taking his eyes off the screen. His hands pressed against his temples and came together at the top of his head, sending his blonde hair shooting out in all directions. His right hand dropped down to his computer's mouse and he rotated the 3D model a tiny bit. "Perfect."<br />
"Got it?" Greg asked, taking a look. "Awesome. That's your last thing right?"<br />
"Yup. Just have to send it to Mr. Raphael."<br />
"Yeah, and then we get to party! Wooooo!" Greg hoisted a phantom beer in one hand and pumped the other. "Hey guys!" He shouted down the hall. "Eli's done working! Get your drinking shoes on!" Celebratory cries reached them from the other side of the six person suite.<br />
"Not just yet. I have to call my parents and double-check some things," Elijah said, sending the final email to his professor.<br />
"Elijah Derek Sean!" Greg said, making up a middle name on the fly. "Give it a break for one night! We have two days until graduation! You can call them tomorrow! We have five glorious hours before the bars close and I say we make the most of it."<br />
Eli thought about it for a moment. He had been working hard, trying to put enough work into his numerous final projects to keep his grade right where it was, at cum laude level. There was plenty of time to call his parents the next day. "Okay. Let me text them and tell them I'll call tomorrow."<br />
"Yes! It's good to know that you aren't entirely workaholic," Greg said as he put on a jacket. "It's raining out, and we're not going to stop at just ONE bar, no! Not even TWO bars!" He said, grinning. "So get a coat on if you don't want to be soaked by the end of the night!"<br />
Eli sent the text and snapped shut his phone. "Sorry, what were you saying?" <br />
Greg's kept his previous pose for a second, then scowled. "Dick."<br />
Eli laughed. "Come on, let's get going. I do want to get some sleep tonight, if it's possible."<br />
"Yeah, yeah," Greg said, following Eli out the door where their roommates waited. "I know."<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
The next day at noon Eli was staring into the mirror in the dorm's bathroom, dressed only in his boxers and his head pounding. He liked to think he hadn't drunk as much as the others, but he still got pleasantly buzzed during their trip around the New York bar scene. Another roommate, John, stumbled in behind him, doing his best Leaning Tower of Pisa impression. "Almost done in here?"<br />
"Yup. Sleep well?"<br />
"I'm not sure," John said as he closed the door behind Eli. "I don't remember most of it."<br />
Eli rubbed his head as he walked back to his room, glad he had no responsibilities that day, Tuesday. Graduation wasn't until the next day and his work was finished. Then a memory, appearing in his hungover brain suddenly enough to hurt a little, surfaced. He did have one responsibility.<br />
He got his phone out of the room where Greg was dead sleeping and sat on the couch in the main room. He called Mom. No answer. That's strange, he thought. He shrugged and tried Dad at work. Also no answer. Not as strange, but still weird. He figured it was just happenstance, and that they would call back. His little brothers were both in school so calling them wouldn't work. He scrolled through the messages on his phone absently, and re-read the last message he had received from his mom, in response to his text about calling the next day. In perfect Mrs. Sean fashion, it was simply "k." His mother had fully embraced the idea of texting as a minimalist practice. <br />
He got up and donned a pair of running shorts and a light t-shirt. Soon he was jogging in the warm city air, doing his best to avoid traffic and other occupants of the sidewalk. The run made his headache recede and woke him up fully. When he found his way back onto the Columbia campus, he found a friend of his nearly dancing in anticipation to being let into the building. <br />
"Eli!" She yelled as he got close. He stank of sweat and fumes but she didn't notice. "Can you let me in pleeeeeeease?"<br />
"All right, all right. Keep your shirt on," he said as he beeped open the door. "Why don't you have your card?"<br />
The girl, named Gaby, was short, with light blonde curls. She groaned. "I forgot it. I had to run to a professor's office to turn a thing in, and didn't realize I didn't have it until I was almost back and I REALLY need to go to the bathroom so bye!" She said, heading for her side of the building.<br />
"Uh... bye," Eli said as she disappeared. He began climbing the stairs. When he got back to his room he checked his phone. His parents hadn't called him back, but there was a missed call from a number he didn't recognize. Probably just one of those stupid fake loan collection calls, he thought. He tried calling his mom, again with no response. He didn't think much of it, but he tried to imagine some reason why she wouldn't answer or call back after so long. He didn't think that she had gone anywhere. She could have been working in the yard, or taking a nap. He tried his Dad again, who worked as a small-claims judge in a nearby county. Also no response. That he thought nothing of, as his Dad was much busier and didn't always have his phone on. It was still a few hours until his twin brothers got done with school.<br />
Sighing, Eli got in the shower to get rid of the stink he had accumulated. Ten minutes later he was dressed in khaki pants and a collared shirt. He was looking at his phone. Again there was the number that had called earlier, but this time there was a message left on the voicemail. He dialed it. Another roommate, Samuel, had started playing Xbox while Eli was in the shower, so he stepped into the main hallway of the building, which was deserted. He wandered into the lobby of the building as the automated message played asking him for his four-digit PIN. He entered it.<br />
He listened in silence, each word he heard felt like a slamming door pushed by the wind: no malice behind it, yet it frightened.<br />
Gaby came around the corner into the lobby and found him sitting on a low table, phone on the ground, face covered in his hands.<br />
<br />
The sheets pulled back.<br />
And there they were, the four of them. He saw first his father, the biggest of them. The mortician had warned him that the accident had left them quite torn and mangled, but this was worse. When he saw the thing that had been his father, a judge in small-claims court, he felt something. It was sudden... pow<br />
The drunk taxi driver that had hit the family van with his own had directed right at his father. His arm was nearly gone. It was hanging by sinews and tendon and bandage. His beer belly, which Eli knew he would acquire one way or the other, a simple matter of genetics, had scoops missing. The balding head that his father had not fretted over but instead embraced, rubbing it like a lamp and making a wish or letting other people touch for good luck like Big Buddha's belly, or maybe having a friend breathe hot breath on it and pretend it was a mirror... that bald head had long cuts that made it look like Edward Sean had finally caved and swept gruesome red hairs into a chilling come-over.<br />
And his finger was broken again.<br />
Eli had broken that finger. One of the first times they had raked up the leaves that fell from the oak tree in the backyard and tied them up in black bags and then his father had brought out a brand new football and they... he and Eli... had tossed it back and forth, pretending to be Dave Brown or Brett Favre. And then Eli's mom had called out the window asking his father about some errand or something, and his father had turned his head with his hands outstretched, waiting to catch the throw Eli was about to make and Eli didn't notice that his head was turned and he couldn't see what was coming, and he threw it as hard as he could, a little kid like him shouldn't have been able to break a finger with a throw, but it had caught his father's middle finger at some perfect point and bent it up and in.<br />
His father had howled in pain and gone crashing to his knees, cradling his bent finger, yelling Judy get out here as loud as he could, and Eli had cried and said he was sorry over and over, and his mom had come running and saw the twisted wreck that his father was holding, and ran to get her keys and coat, and all the while Eli had cried and said he was sorry and kept crying.<br />
He felt a nudge on his arm and looked down to see the mortician holding a box of tissues. Moving on it's own, Eli's hand picked a tissue and wiped his face with it. <br />
"You recognize him?" The mortician asked.<br />
Head stiff on his neck, Eli angled his chin down and then back up; it was all he could do. The mortician nodded and slowly covered up Edward Sean.<br />
Next came his mother, Judy. The mortician turned back the sheet to reveal her head.<br />
She had prominent cheekbones, short blond hair, and a prim nose. Lying on the table she looked so thin, Eli thought. She hated to eat too much. She worked out too much. She fretted over every extra pound that the bathroom scale reported. Eli's father had always been trying to get her to give up her silly ways of watching her weight and have a thick steak, but the simple idea of eating that much made her want to vomit. She had type two diabetes, and had to have an injection every day. She was committed to her personal health, and sometimes Eli thought that she would take it too far. Had she?<br />
She worried about her health, she was a germaphobe and had other strange phobias, such as maskaphobia, specifically gas masks, and a crippling fear of tests, which she had her entire life. But about nearly everything else she could have been called negligent. She didn't know how to take care of cars and didn't care, she didn't know anything about technology and if it were up to her it would stay that way.<br />
Which it would.<br />
She could hardly remember the names of famous people; Brad Pitt and Matt Damon were the same person to her. She wasn't creative, couldn't work with her hands to save her life, couldn't fly planes or knit or snowshoe.<br />
But Eli wasn't thinking about those things. He was thinking about the times he would come home from school tired and she would be there with a loving hug and an open ear, or the time Stewie Holt beat him up in the first grade and she patched him up without a thought, or when he had a problem with an assignment for high school or college and he could talk to her about it. She wouldn't be able to solve the problem for him, but she would be there so he could talk about it to somebody, to anybody. She liked to garden.<br />
"Judy," Eli said. Only a moment had passed since the mortician revealed her pale face. "My mother."<br />
The mortician nodded and covered her again. "You'll need to tell us which is which for the twins."<br />
Yes, the twins. The mortician revealed them both. One of them had a big pad on his face to cover where the skin had been torn away. Eli went up to the closer of the two. His footsteps echoed even after he had stopped walking.<br />
"This one is William," He said, pointing to the one he was standing over. He knew because there was a colony of dimples on his forehead. That had been Eli's fault too. <br />
The three of them had been wrestling on the carpeted basement floor. Eli had been thirteen, the two of them had been six. They teamed up to bring him to the ground and he had gleefully held them off until they came up with the idea of each grabbing a leg and putting him off-balance. He had fallen to the floor. They had climbed up his body until they were nearly lying on him. He couldn't get the leverage to buck them off, so he got to his stomach and hefted himself off the ground, pitching his strength against their weight. The one that was on his left side, William, had thrown himself at Eli's head, and Eli had simply ducked out of the way, turning in towards the other. William went past and smacked his forehead into a corner. He had yelled until Judy appeared and rushed him to the hospital, where he had needed three stitches to close the wound.<br />
"So the other one is Brian?"<br />
"Yup." This one seemed untouched, except for the wound in his side. The mortician had told him that Brian had survived the crash for over an hour until succumbing to his injuries. He had asked for his mother, cried for her, and the doctor trying to keep him alive had said nothing.<br />
"Thank you. That's all we need," the mortician said. "The front desk can call you a cab if you need one." Eli shook his head; he had driven.<br />
He sat in the front seat of his father's old Lincoln, unable to start the engine. The interior smelled like socks, but Eli had been using the car for years and so didn't notice the smell. He was looking down at his hands, not thinking about anything. He clenched them. As if on their own accord, they relaxed and took hold of the key in the ignition.<br />
<br />
The next day he marched across the stage in front of friends and family and classmates with a wooden smile taped to his face. He took the diploma from the Dean, shook hands with the President, and stepped off the stage as the next person was called. As soon as he was out from under the hot lights directed on the stage his face settled to the emotionless form it had fallen to since getting back to his dorm the day before. He posed in a picture with the others from his major, Graphic Design, and then left. The idea of going to the reception disgusted him.<br />
<br />
Three hours later he was in his family's quiet house. The shades were drawn and the lights were off. It was empty and unwelcoming.<br />
The day before he had returned to his dorm, dazed and confused and barely remembering the drive back from the hospital. Greg had asked him, in a tone of mock outrage, where he had been, and listened in shock as Eli told. Samuel, John, and Peter found out and expressed their sympathies, stating they would do anything Eli asked them too. Eli had nodded, wondering silently if he could ask them all to leave him alone.<br />
Now he stood in the foyer of his home, wondering what the hell he was going to do. His possessions filled his car, waiting to be unloaded. He listened to the house, trying to figure out what to do next.<br />
It was silent. No radio from the kitchen as his mom made dinner, no TV from the family room as his dad watched sports, and no booms or crashes as his brothers played Gamecube in their room. The furnace was off, the washer and dryer were silent, the dishwasher wasn't running, not even the grandfather clock ticked. Eli heard nothing.<br />
And so he sat down and made no noise.<br />
<br />
A week later he was in the office of his house. It was, officially, his house. As the last surviving member of the family, all the possessions went to him... including the house, two more cars, all the bills, all the mail, and all of the numerous financial accounts that Edward Sean had set up.<br />
Which meant that suddenly Eli had hundreds of thousands of dollars to his name. He had met with his family's lawyer and it was suggested to him that he leave most of it in a savings account. He had been fully prepared to survive on minimal funding, being a graphic design student, but now had so much money he felt almost guilty about it.<br />
His computer's monitor, which displayed the graphic design suite he had used at school, lit the room behind him. Normally working his craft helped to calm him and put things in perspective -- what could bother him when he could design? But now not even shapes and colors and patterns helped him. The house was still quiet and forlorn. With all the lights on it was empty and morose, with the lights off it felt like he was haunting a crypt, floating from room to room, moaning and rattling his chains.<br />
He had cried the first night, sleeping in his old room, in a bed that was a little bit too small for him, until his pillow case was soaked and he had been forced to get a new one. The next night he had cried, unable to fathom an alternative. The third night he had stared up at the ceiling for two hours before falling into sleep. The fourth night, after meeting with the lawyer, he had sat up in bed, shocked by the sudden windfall.<br />
The nights after that he had fallen asleep thinking of his family, and all that they entailed. His father's everlasting desire for beer, his mother's fears, his brothers' rambunctious squabbles, and on and on.<br />
Eli idly zoomed an image in and out on his screen, cheek resting on a hand. He didn't know what his next step was supposed to be. Freelance, he guessed.<br />
His phone buzzed, throwing blue light up the wall. He looked at it and found a text from Gaby. She asked him how he was doing. He put the phone back down and wondered how in the hell he was going to answer her. Eventually he picked the phone up again.<br />
"Not sure. A lots happened."<br />
After a few more minutes of zooming, the phone buzzed again. "Want to meet?" It read.<br />
<br />
The next day Eli found himself sitting across from Gaby in a Starbucks, watching as she gingerly sipped her drink. She looked up at him and gave him a deep, creased smile. He smiled back despite himself.<br />
He had explained what had happened, telling her about the silence, and the fear, and the sudden money. She listened while nodding and stirring the liquid in her cup.<br />
"It's so quiet," Eli said at the end. "I feel like I'm going to go nuts. Nothing happens. I hardly have anything to do. Sometimes I just wander around the house, hoping to find things to work on."<br />
"Do you ever just... relax?" Gaby asked. "You know... watch TV or play video games or something?"<br />
"There's only so much relaxing I can do before it turns into work."<br />
"Don't give me that," Gaby said, waving her hand.<br />
"It's true. I don't have enough to do. Everything starts to feel like work. I feel best when I'm doing something productive. Like making dinner or cleaning." Eli leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms. Gaby screwed up her lips and stared into her drink. "I've looked for work, a little bit. Not a lot of people want to trust a kid just out of college." She nodded. "But I don't need jobs that pay a lot. I have enough money."<br />
"Okay, good. That's good." Gaby played with her cup. "Is there anything else you do?"<br />
Eli shifted. "I do some designing just to take my mind off things. There are also a lot of things to deal with." Gaby nodded immediately. "Accounts and things. I'm thinking of selling two of the older cars we... I have." He hesitated. "The funerals." Gaby sighed and looked at him with kind eyes. "But it doesn't feel good working on those things. They only remind me over and over."<br />
"You need to get out and do things. Visit some friends. Have Michael and Ariel gotten married yet?"<br />
"No."<br />
"Go hang out with Michael then. He was your roommate, he'll help you."<br />
"He wasn't in the room very much. He and Ariel were always doing something. I think he was afraid she would forget about him."<br />
"Well, okay... what about a pet?"<br />
"What?"<br />
"A pet. An animal." He stared at her. "You know, something that you will not only be forced to take care of, but figuratively something that will reward you with companionship."<br />
He eyed her. "Animals die."<br />
Gaby growled. "Yes, but they're quite happy while they're alive. A lot of people find animals like dogs to be helpful therapy animals. Not... that... you need therapy. It's just they can help, is all." <br />
"I don't know if I want that sort of pressure."<br />
"But that's what you need. You need something to work with! It doesn't have to be a dog or a cat... or-" She waved her hand vaguely. "-A komodo dragon! It could be a bird or some fish."<br />
"Fish don't remember anything. How could they give me companionship?"<br />
Gaby sighed and rubbed her face. "Okay, not a fish. Think about it, at least. At least by thinking about it you'll be getting your mind off things."<br />
"Yeah. I guess so."<br />
"Okay. Good. I got a ride here, want to get me home?" Gaby said, standing. Eli followed her out the door and later found himself sitting alone in the darkness of the garage after turning the car off. His hand rested on the ignition for a long moment, and then he climbed out.<br />
<br />
Ten days later Eli watched his family lower into the ground. He had spoken at the funeral the day before, talking about their steps into the next world, and how much he would miss them, and his father's adopted brother Juan spoke about the sadness he felt when his last surviving family member had passed away. Later, Juan told Eli to get in touch with him if he needed anything. Eli thanked him and now thought about it as he drove home.<br />
His starched black suit stifled him and cut into his skin. The sky was bright and clear and Eli did not appreciate having to squint his way home from his family's funeral. Was there anything that he could ask Juan for? No, there was nothing.<br />
He didn't consider until later some of the more uncommon things to ask for. He didn't need money, or transportation, or help with school, but Juan's family did have two dogs.<br />
<br />
"Come on in," the woman said after Eli knocked. The house smelled like a zoo. "Juan called ahead and said you would be stopping by. My name's Muriel. Nice to meet you." She extended a thick hand and Eli shook it, introducing himself. "I heard about what happened. I'm very sorry. And I think you're going about this the right way. It isn't good to dwell." She drew herself up. Muriel was a billowing woman that looked like she belonged in an opera. "Shall we? They're always eager to meet new people."<br />
She led Eli down a hallway, past framed slips of paper stating and restating her permission to furnish pets. She led him into a solarium that just barely contained the accumulated energies of over twenty puppies, big and small.<br />
"Do you know what you're looking for?" Muriel asked him. He shook his head.<br />
"I'm not even sure if I want to adopt a dog."<br />
"Of course. No shame in just looking. This is not a decision to take lightly."<br />
Eli went to the closest enclosure, which had an adult german shepard lying on its side as a litter of five puppies suckled. She regarded Eli critically and then laid her head back down. "We'll come back in a bit," Muriel said. "They need to feed."<br />
Eli nodded as she led him to the next space, set against a sunny window. This one had three speckled beagles playing and yapping. Muriel called them over and they came running, putting their front legs on the plastic fence of the enclosure. Muriel picked one of them up and turned toward Eli.<br />
"A bit older, these bunch. Pretty popular. They've had all their shots and they're good with kids."<br />
"I don't have any kids."<br />
"No, but who says you won't?" Muriel gave Eli the one she was holding, a boy. It squirmed and whined in his arms until Eli scratched him between the years. Then he gazed at Eli with rapt attention and huge brown eyes.<br />
Eli sighed. "I don't know. They're a little too energetic." Muriel took the puppy back and placed it down with his siblings.<br />
"I'll let you think about it. Ah, looks like they're done eating." She led him back to the first group, the german shepards. "These are also pretty energetic -- very strong and protective. They're good guard dogs." She picked one up and handed it to Eli. "They're a younger litter than the beagles, but they'll get bigger of course." The dog in Eli's hand started licking his face with gusto. "I think she likes you. This bunch haven't had all their shots yet so I won't be able to sell you one for a month or two. I have to warn you, they get pretty big and they eat a lot, so you'll need to have the right funding." Eli didn't say anything. "Here we are, girl."<br />
She put the puppy back and steered Eli to the next group, a breed he didn't recognize. "These are a strange bunch, and not a common crossbreed. The mother was a white giant german spitz, and the father was a rather casanova golden retriever." The puppies, four in all, gamboled and played in their space. "A good pedigree, though. And you aren't going to find a friendlier mix than a spitz and a golden." The four puppies milled around next to Muriel as she stepped in. Three of them were shock white, but one of them was a golden color. "I see you've noticed the odd girl out. She got the most of her father's coloring." Muriel picked the dog up. "She's a cuddly one."<br />
The dog was placed in Eli's hands and it immediately began to nuzzle him. It's thick fur was the color of a lightly toasted marshmallow. It had a wolfish face and a curved, stubby tail. It's tongue was hanging from its mouth in an absurdly cheerful grin. <br />
"This one likes you too," Muriel said. "What do you think?"<br />
"I like her," Eli said. He was holding the dog like a baby, unsure if there was a better way. It was looking up at him, still smiling and panting. "Does she have a name?"<br />
"Not yet. I usually leave that to the owners. What do you think?"<br />
Eli let the dog be taken from his hands and placed back with her family. "I don't know yet. A lot has happened recently. I don't know if I'm ready for this."<br />
"I understand. Let me give you some info about keeping dogs, as well as some contact info. You read up about it and make sure you're ready."<br />
Eli walked back to his car with his hands full of papers and pamphlets. He dumped them in the passenger seat and started the engine.<br />
<br />
With all the lights on in his parent's room, Eli felt like an intruder. He half expected one or both parents to jump out of the closet and order him back to his own room. He had changed the sheets on the olympic queen bed that they had slept on for ten years, and now he stared at it. <br />
It felt wrong. It wasn't his bed; it was his parent's bed. It was were they slept and napped and -- Eli shivered subconsciously -- made love. He shouldn't be the one to sleep in it. He considered throwing it out and getting a new one.<br />
But that was stupid. Stupid. Why waste money getting a bed when there was a perfectly functional, if second-hand, bed sitting right in front of him? He switched the lights off, stripped down, and slid in. Light from the moon filtered in through the shades on the far wall and cast ghostly auras on the carpet. Eli tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable. He was on the side that his dad had taken, and found that there was a dip in the mattress there. He sidled over and looked at the ceiling. There was a thin crack winding its way from the corner to directly over his head. He remembered his dad talking about it once, hoping that it didn't damage the house.<br />
An hour later Eli rolled from one side to the other, trying not to interpret the shadows on the walls as anything other than reality. He had gravitated to the center of the bed, finding that he desired symmetry. He wasn't any closer to sleep.<br />
After another half-hour, he got out of the bed and dropped into the one in his old room. It was smaller, but as soon as his head touched the pillow he felt better. He listened to the house make its noises as his mind rummaged through the day. <br />
It took him a while, but he fell asleep. When he woke up he had made up his mind to give Muriel a call. In fact, it was as if his mind had decided what was best, and then told him so.<br />
<br />
"I'm sure that Juan will be willing to provide a character reference. Just the fact that he had you come see me is nearly reference enough, but some things have to be official." Eli nodded as Muriel led him to the solarium filled with puppies. It was sunny, and the midday sun blasted in through the windows. When the two of them entered the room, the puppies began barking rapidly, all clamoring for her attention. "Are you thinking the spitz-golden that you held?"<br />
"Yup."<br />
"Wonderful. Why don't you spend some time with her while I get the papers ready." She left Eli in the solarium, and he wandered to the puppy's enclosure with his hands in his pockets. When it saw him it padded over and looked up at him, tongue lolling. He squatted down and put his hand out. She sniffed his fingers and gave them a single lick. Then she sat and watched him.<br />
"Are you ready for this?" Eli asked the dog. the dog didn't respond. "Am I ready for this?"<br />
The dog yapped, and put its paws on the wire wall, stretching its face toward Eli's. He picked her out of the enclosure and held her up to eye level. She licked him, and Eli shuddered out of shock. The dog was only a dozen pounds, but thick hair covered it already.<br />
Muriel entered, carrying papers. "You won't be able to take her home tonight, I'm afraid. I'll give Juan a call later on and talk to him, and you'll need to fill these out." She handed Eli a packet. "These are papers stating that you agree to treat the dog humanely, contact information, and more information about the breed. Spitzs need to be groomed more often than most other breeds, but usually don't smell very bad and don't need many baths. They'll shed twice a year, but won't drop much hair other than those times."<br />
Eli nodded through it all. He and the dog watched each other. "They don't need a very big area, and like every dog you're going to need to take her out for a walk. Every day is a good rule of thumb, but missing a day won't hurt much. You have a yard?" Eli nodded. "That's fine then. Go out and throw a ball around for an exercise alternative. Male spitz giants are sometimes unwelcoming to other male dogs, but of course that isn't an issue here. They sometimes have problems with unfamiliar dogs or people, so I'd recommend frequenting a dog park and letting her meet new faces... so to speak. Sound good so far?"<br />
Eli looked up at her. "Yup."<br />
"Good. Here are a list of items to have before the dog arrives." She handed him a list that included food, bowls, a dog bed, diverse toys, leashes, collars, and grooming supplies. "There's a pet store just a few blocks over. Now, common medical problems include dental issues, retinal atrophy, tracheal collapse, and luxating patellas."<br />
"What does that mean?"<br />
"It's when the kneecap starts to move around. It's more common in the smaller breeds, and while the spitz giant isn't your biggest, we're talking toy-size." Eli nodded. "Some giants also present excessive barking. It's common for some owners to have them de-barked."<br />
"You can do that?"<br />
"That's right. Breeders are trying to get that trait out of the mix, though, and I think you have a fair chance of avoiding it, since the sire's a golden. They're relatively quiet dogs, you know." Eli didn't know, but he nodded anyway. "Anything else that you want to know?"<br />
"No. I don't think so."<br />
"Do you want to spend some more time with her? We have some space behind the house. I'll put her on a leash."<br />
The dog was tethered, and the two of them trailed around the small yard that was being threatened by giant bushes. The dog frolicked in the grass and Eli watched her with a smile. He tossed a ball and she tried clamping her small jaws over it, with no luck. Eli laughed as she growled at it. After an hour, Eli let the puppy be taken away, and he drove to the pet store with a foolish grin on his face.<br />
The next day he returned and signed his name on the dotted line as Muriel talked his ear off about proper care. They shook hands and Muriel said goodbye to the dog. "What do you think you're going to call her?" She asked.<br />
Eli didn't know. He drove home with her secured in a carrier in the back seat. She barked and whined as he drove home, but quieted down after a while. <br />
He carried her into the quiet house, and at that point didn't know what he was supposed to do. Had Muriel talked about letting her loose? Would the dog know not to do her business on carpet? Muriel had let them out into the yard to squat, but perhaps a new situation would confuse the dog.<br />
It barked at Eli as his hand hovered over the latch. He eased it open and brought her out. There was a bit of dog food in her bowl, next to the pantry in the kitchen, and she ran to it, scarfing it down. When she finished, she looked up at Eli with an expectant expression.<br />
Does she want more? Eli pulled the dog away and plunked her on the dog bed he had bought. It was a padded surface surrounded with a pillowy bunker. As soon as he paws landed, she jumped out and ran back to her bowl, looking up at Eli with shock when she found it empty.<br />
"You'll get more food later," Eli said. He sat next to the bed and watched the dog investigate the general area with her wolfish nose. Eventually she came back over to him and, to Eli's surprise, rested on her bottom like he was sitting. They looked at each other until the dog's eyes started roving around the room, taking in the new sights.<br />
Eli got up and went to a bag, and the dog followed him closely. He pulled out a small green ball, and gave it a squeeze. It squeaked, and the dog's eyes latched on to it. Eli rolled it across the ground and the dog gave chase. She got her jaws around enough to lift it off the ground and walked back proudly with it protruding from her snout. When she got to Eli she dropped it at his feet and looked up, tense. Eli took it and tossed it against the far wall with the dog right behind it.<br />
The next time the ball returned Eli took it outside. The dog went about sniffing the trees and bushes, and decided to mark its territory on the big oak in the corner of the yard. Once it was done it went to Eli and gazed at the ball in his hand, one paw just barely off the ground. Eli threw the ball and the dog ran after it.<br />
An hour later the dog stood next to Eli's ankle as he stirred a pot of macaroni and cheese. The ball was clamped in her mouth and she squeezed it desperately.<br />
Moving, watching his feet carefully, Eli stepped to the sink to drain the noodles. As he went back to the stove, he tipped the pot too far and a few noodles fell to the floor, where the dog quickly pounced on them, the ball forgotten. In a flash they had been eaten, and the dog looked up at Eli with her tongue hanging out.<br />
"That's all you get," Eli said.<br />
<br />
"I guess you're going to need a name." The dog's ears perked. It was late at night and Eli sat on his bed with the dog next to him. It was exploring the area, sniffing and even licking at the odd object. Eli went through names in his head. It was a girl dog, so they had to be girl names. The first one that he thought of, Judy, was quickly turned down. "Don't want that kind of reminder."<br />
The dog jumped on the bed and curled into a golden ball. Eli went through common names like Brittany or Jessica, thought of others like Mary or Isabel, and clawed at the edges of his knowledge with names like Naomi or Gladys or Nadia or Janyka. He looked at the puff of fur cuddled next to him. Was there a gem that had that color? Not really. Amber, maybe. Not a bad name but it didn't sound right. What did she look like?<br />
"A marshmallow," Eli said aloud. The dog peered up at him. "A piece of burnt popcorn. Toast." The dog put its head down again. "Kind of like the color of leaves. After they've fallen off the tree." Eli paused. "Autumn."<br />
Incredibly, the dog gave a short growl, without even lifting its head. "Maybe not."<br />
Sighing, Eli got off the bed and started changing. When he was ready for bed he lifted the nameless dog off and set her on the ground. By the time he had turned the light off she was already on the bed again, watching him and yawning. Again he picked her up and set her down, but again she jumped up. Grumbling, Eli tucked the dog under one arm and, after climbing the stairs to the main level, set her in the bed he had bought for her.<br />
<br />
And when he opened his door the next morning, the dog was lying against it, looking up at him with bleary eyes. It hopped to its feet and nearly smacked into the bathroom door when he closed it. She was waiting outside when he exited. Her tail was wagging and her tongue was hanging out.<br />
In the kitchen, he gave her a scoop of food and got his own breakfast. Within minutes she had placed her paws on his chair. He looked at her, spoonful of cereal half-raised to his mouth. "You have too much energy."<br />
The dog barked, and ran off. For a second Eli considered following her, but she returned with the green ball in her mouth. He sighed. "No. Too early." The dog sat and watched Eli eat, all the while holding the ball in her mouth. When he stood, she followed him into the kitchen as he put his dishes in the dishwasher, making miniscule grunting noises as he walked.<br />
Eli got to working and the dog soon proved to be a distraction, pining for his attention. But he worked, looking for freelance design jobs and twiddling with a few designs he had begun. <br />
The work was difficult. He was tired and distracted, unable to concentrate on the screen in front of him. It wasn't the dog; eventually she settled into a ball near his feet. He couldn't get the few days after finding out about his family out of his head. The way he felt weighed on him and kept him still. <br />
He'd worked for longer than he'd intended, and looked up at the clock to find he had been sitting for almost four hours. It was now one in the afternoon. He looked down to find the dog sleeping on its back, but she woke up when he went into the kitchen. He ate, dazed from the passage of time. It had been a common occurrence for him to work past meals or late into the night when he was in college, but his roommates could normally be relied on to remind him of such things. As he ate, he could almost hear Greg pretending to fly a french fry into his mouth like he was a child at a high chair.<br />
After he was finished, he looked out the window it was a warm, clear day with gusting winds. The dog sat by his feet. "Walk?"<br />
<br />
He snapped the dog's leash to the collar and stuffed a few plastic bags in his pocket. As soon as fresh air hit the dog's nose she was tugging him forward. She had a surprising amount of force, and Eli pulled on the leash to slow her down. She heeded and began to trot beside him.<br />
She would sniff at everything: flowers, signs, people, the curb, parked cars, and Eli had to stop her from going after moving cars. She did her business in a parched yard and Eli, trying not to get it near him in anyway, picked it up with the plastic bag. He tied the bag gently as the dog waited, tail swinging back and forth.<br />
The sun felt good to Eli. It shone from above him and warmed his skin. The wind kept him from getting too hot, but he started to sweat anyway. The dog pulled him along fast enough to get his heart pumping. Still the dog seemed to have bottomless amounts of energy.<br />
At one point they jogged around a corner and saw another dog-and-human pair coming toward them. Eli's dog barked and began pumping at her restraints. Eli kept her back as much as he could. The other dog was a jowly, drooly St. Bernard, whose whiplike tail started to slap back and forth when he saw Eli's dog.<br />
The two dogs pulled their owners together and started exchanging smells. Eli and the other owner, a balding man with a stretched-tight polo shirt, said hello.<br />
"Interesting breed you have," the man said. "Looks like a spitz and a..."<br />
"Golden retriever. That's where she gets the color," Eli supplied.<br />
"What's her name?"<br />
"I don't know yet. I've only had her for a day." Eli looked down at his dog. "I haven't come up with the right name yet.<br />
"A name doesn't mean much," the man said. "As long as you talk to them with a happy voice, they don't give a rip. Watch this." The man bent towards his Bernard, and a big smile spread over his face. "Hey Chong! Hey Chong!" The dog turned towards the man, every fold of skin flapping. "You big idiot! Who's my big idiot? You are! You are!" the dog pranced from foot to foot and it's tail chopped the air. Drool puddled under its big tongue. "See?" The man said, standing up straight. "They just want the right sounds." Chong barked. []<br />
Eli looked at his dog, who was watching him with her head tilted. "Still don't like the name Autumn?"<br />
The dog growled again. The man laughed. "I guess she really doesn't like it! Ah well, good luck!" He walked on. <br />
Eli looked down at his dog. "You be sure to tell me when I think of a name you do like." The dog seemed to ignore him and started sniffing the ground. "Come on."<br />
They resumed their walk with the dog out in front. Eli went through more names. Whenever he'd think of one that sounded okay, he'd say it out loud. The dog never responded, but kept pulling her leash.<br />
They got home and the dog made a bee-line to her water bowl, from which messy gulps soon emanated. Eli got himself a glass of water and wiped sweat from his forehead.<br />
He checked his email and found nothing worthwhile. A portfolio he'd created on a graphic design community site had a few more views, but he had no messages on the site. He messed around with the colors on a simple design for an hour before deciding he was going to have a nap.<br />
He flopped on his bed and the dog nosed his door open. All Eli saw before she jumped on him was the top of her tail peeking over the bed. Then she stood on his stomach and he got a full dose of dog breath. "Go on, get off," Eli said, pushing the dog towards the edge of the bed. Instead of climbing down, it dug itself into the space between the wall and his left arm. Eli thrust his arm under the dog and lifted it up. "No." He twisted around and dumped it off. He rolled onto his back.<br />
In an instant she had jumped back up and snuggled next to him, nearly pushing him off his bed. He sat up and rubbed his face. Turning and looking behind him, he found the dog already almost asleep. "You have your own bed."<br />
No longer tired, Eli stood and left. He went to the computer and browsed, idly clicking and scrolling. An hour later the dog appeared, slowly walking and sitting next to Eli's feet. She curled into a ball and settled down.<br />
<br />
That night Eli heard small noises from outside his bedroom door. When he opened the door the dog darted in and jumped on his bed. Too tired to refuse, Eli pushed the dog to one side and climbed in. The dog gravitated down to the end and settled down, placing her head on his feet. He didn't have a lot of room to move and was unable to fall asleep for some time.<br />
<br />
The next day Eli glumly sat at his computer and looked at the things on-screen. He had a browser open with his email, and his design program on the other screen. Nothing was happening. The dog, still without a name, sat by his feet. The blank screen held all possibilities, but Eli could see none of them. He cradled his head in his hands, feeling the first twinges of a headache. Outside it was raining, and the rain pattered against the window in a distracting beat.<br />
Soon the headache grew into a buzz, and the noise from the rain drilled into his eyes. He looked at the clock and found it to be almost noon. Groaning, he pushed himself away from the desk and stood, a bit unsteady.<br />
As he walked through the hall toward the kitchen, he stopped next to a family picture, taken years before. He stared at it, eventually losing sight of it for the images that ran through his head. He reached out and took it down, unable to let himself see it any longer. He put it face down on the kitchen table and got himself lunch.<br />
When he was done eating, the dog came out and stood by the sliding glass door, looking forlornly from Eli to the wet outdoors. She whined when Eli went over to her. <br />
"I can't sit at that computer anymore," Eli said. "Let's take a walk."<br />
The walk was a dreary, sodden affair. The dog made it her priority to jump through every puddle she could. Eli had a jacket and hood on, and still felt drenched when they had finished. He was cold and wet when they went inside; the dog dripped on the foyer floor. And yet his headache had cleared and his brain seemed to be working properly again. When he sat at the computer he found, to his surprise, a message from a small company looking for a graphic. They had looked at his portfolio and liked what they saw, and wanted him to submit sample designs based on their desires.<br />
"Yes!" He said, and the dog barked. He looked at her, but she just looked back with a grin on her face. He smiled and got to work. By the time dinner came around he had nearly put the finishing touches on one design and had basic ideas for two others. He ate dinner quickly and kept working.<br />
<br />
After another night of cramped sleep, Eli submitted the designs and sat back. It was late in the afternoon, and he had stopped working only to eat and walk the dog. He went to the backyard with his dog and played catch, happy to have had something to set his mind to. The dog eagerly ran after the ball when Eli tossed it into the air, and the two wound down the afternoon together.<br />
<br />
It took a week for the company to respond to Eli, during which he received one other request for work. This second company, a plumber, liked what he had down with pipes in a few of his samples.<br />
The first company sent him an email: "Mr. Sean: Thank you for the designs, but we have decided to go with a different submission. Thank you for your time and energy, and good luck."<br />
Eli sat back in his chair. The happiness and excitement had drained out of him as he read the words. All that work, all that hope, had been for nothing. He put his head in his hands and sighed.<br />
He felt worthless. He felt tired, and unable to see the reason for working on. Why should he? It would just result in rejection.<br />
He reached down and scratched the dog on the neck, and it made a happy sound. He had still not thought of a good name for her. After a minute he got his hand back, and rubbed his face. The plumbing company wanted his submissions in the next three days, and he was halfway done with one of them. The other two that he had in mind seemed to be weaker versions of the same idea. Growling and startling the dog, he pushed away from his desk and stood too quickly, forcing himself to lean against a wall until the blood flowed back in to his head.<br />
He needed to do something. He needed to get out of the house. As Eli thought these things he looked down at the dog. She had grown a little bit in the last week, but still looked to be about the same size. He could tell she had gotten bigger because she felt heavier when she stood on his stomach while he tried to sleep. They had gone on daily walks, sometimes runs, and they were brief, glorious escapes from the confines of the house. <br />
He took down the pictures, leaving bare walls. His parent's and brothers' clothes had been boxed away, and Eli was trying to decide where to donate them. Hundreds of small items that he'd never need, like his father's law journals or his mothers gardening tools were put away where he'd hoped he would never see them again. The place felt even emptier because of these actions, but it seemed to be the only thing Eli could do. It was that or leave the painful reminders all over the house. <br />
Deciding on a solution, Eli picked up the phone and texted his old roommates. A few of them responded, and Eli asked them if they'd like to get together and do something. They said yes, and Eli drove to the store to buy pizzas.<br />
A few hours later they showed up. Greg, Samuel, and Peter arrived and, much to Eli's surprise, so did Michael. This erstwhile roommate spent most of his time with his fiancee, and so Eli hadn't bothered to even ask him.<br />
"Sam called me and told me what happened," Michael said, handing a case of beer to Eli. "I figured I would do what I can to help."<br />
"Eli!" Greg yelled from the kitchen. "Do you have a dog?"<br />
"Yup. I just got her a little more than a week ago."<br />
"Where is it?"<br />
"She's in the office," Eli said, leading the way. "I didn't want her getting too excited. She's still pretty young."<br />
"Why'd you get a dog?" Peter asked, loosening the top of a beer. <br />
"I've kind of wanted one for a while, but... my mom thought they were too dirty. And then now, the house is so empty..."<br />
Peter waved his hand. "Say no more. What's her name?"<br />
"I haven't thought of a good one yet. You guys want to meet her?" He was met with a unanimous yes, and he led the way to the office. "She's a giant spitz golden retriever cross." He opened the door, and the dog rolled off her back and got to her feet.<br />
"What the hell!" Greg said, laughing. "I've never seen a dog that color!"<br />
"Yup. It's pretty strange."<br />
"She looks like a toasted marshmallow," Samuel said.<br />
"That's what I said."<br />
"Like lightly done toast," Greg put in.<br />
"Like old leaves in autumn," Michael said without looking up from his phone. The dog growled, and the four roommates jumped. Peter slopped beer on himself. Greg laughed again, and the dog's face turned into a wide, panting grin. She trotted up to Greg and he bent down to scratch her.<br />
"She's pretty friendly, and I'm supposed to let her meet a lot of new people. The woman I got her from said spitzs tend to be nervous around new people or dogs."<br />
"If she is, she doesn't know how to show it!" Greg said. His hand had moved down to the dog's chin, and her tail was chopping the air. "Why haven't you thought of a name?"<br />
"I don't know. I just can't think of anything that works." Eli went back into the kitchen, and the others followed him. "I'm not very desperate at this point. I'll think of something." He opened the oven and looked at the pizza inside.<br />
They got to talking about other things: Michael's impending wedding, Greg's job at an accounting firm, and Peter's desire to get a master's degree. They told jokes, played Sam's Xbox, ate pizza, and watched a movie. Eli got pleasantly buzzed on the beer provided to him, and laughed as his dog jumped and caught small dots of pizza crust thrown by the five of them.<br />
Then they were gone, and the house was quiet once more.<br />
The beer wore off bit by bit, and the cooked pizza smell started to become burnt, almost rancid. The dog snored on her back with crumbs around her mouth.<br />
Eli threw the empties in the recycle and the trash in the bin. The house returned to its pre-guest state. It was almost midnight at that time. He wanted to vacuum the floor. He just didn't want to go to bed.<br />
<br />
The next morning he woke up at ten. He had laid in bed for over an hour, tossing and turning until he simply became too tired to function. The dog had snored at the foot of his bed with animal oblivion. Now it walked behind him as he went into the office.<br />
Any lingering happiness that had come from the night before was long gone. The clock on the desk ticked with a deep, thrumming click, one that bounced around the room. He felt hot and tired.<br />
"I can't go through another night like that," he said out loud. He started working on his designs until noon, and after lunch he and the dog got ready for their walk. <br />
It looked like it was trying to rain, but the air was dry and crisp. Eli directed the dog down a different path than the one they usually took, and she stopped frequently to enjoy the new smells. After fifteen minutes of walking Eli went up to a corner gas station and opened the door.<br />
"Hey! No dogs!" The man behind the gas station yelled. Eli cursed, backed out, and tied the dog to the bike rack just outside. <br />
"Stay," he ordered, and the dog plopped down. He made sure the leash was tied securely and then went in.<br />
He wandered through the aisles until he found what he was looking for. He dropped it into his basket and then went about grabbing a few other things. Doritos, soda, beer: basic amenities. He also picked up toothpaste and toilet paper, and waited patiently as the man that yelled at him bagged it up. <br />
When he pushed the door open he found a small girl squatting, with her arms wrapped around her knees, a foot from the end of his dog's leash. She and the dog watched each other without blinking. Eli looked around for possible parents, and found one gassing a big van fifteen feet away, watching her daughter just as closely as the daughter watched his dog.<br />
"Is this your dog?" The girl asked Eli, without turning her head. Before he could respond, she continued. "What's his name?"<br />
"It's a her. She doesn't have a name yet," Eli said. He untied the dog from the bike rack and she stood, shaking her fur.<br />
"Can I pet her?" The daughter asked. Eli looked over his shoulder at the mother, who stood with one hand on the gas pump and the other hand on her hip. <br />
"I suppose you can. Let her smell your hand first." The girl held her hand out to the dog and the dog sniffed. Then the girl smoothed her hand down the dog's back a few times. The dog's tail wagged.<br />
"Cassie!" The mother yelled. "Let's go!" The girl stood, waved goodbye to Eli and the dog, and ran back to her mother. The mother acted in a way he immediately recognized: don't you touch anything with hands that could have germs on them. It was something that Eli had heard many times from his mother. She wouldn't let him touch anything but his pants until he got home and washed his hands, or scrubbed viciously at them with a bottle of foul sanitizer that she kept with her at all times. He knelt next to the dog as the van drove off. <br />
"Don't worry. You aren't dirty," he said to the dog. She continued looking at him with a blank smile. "Come on."<br />
They went back home, and halfway there it started drizzling. It was a refreshing mist, so when they got back home Eli unpacked his purchases -- setting aside the special one -- and got to work with a clearer head and the barest smile.<br />
<br />
By the time he finished working, the smile was gone. The mother at the gas station reminded him of his own. He kept seeing her face. He kept hearing her make him wash his hands. When he was done working, putting the finishing touches on the second design of three, he went to the sink in the kitchen and scrubbed until his hands hurt from the friction and hot water. The clouds had gone, and the sun was being dragged down. The shadows grew. Eli stood, leaning against the edge of the sink. He looked out the window and saw the yard that he had raked over and over, or mowed. He saw the very spot where he had stood as he threw the football that would break his father's finger. He saw it broken again, in the morgue.<br />
He shook his head and pushed off from the counter. The dog walked after him closely. He cooked a pan of frozen lasagna, ate two portions, and stuck the rest of it in the fridge. After dinner he went into the den and watched TV with the dog at his feet. The pictures on the screen went past; he hardly knew what he watched.<br />
It was time for bed. He suddenly felt nervous. He got ready: stripped down to his boxers, brushed his teeth, and locked the house down. Then he went back upstairs with the dog at his heels. He took out the bottle of sleeping pills out of its box, and opened the seal.<br />
The dog whined as he looked at the small bottle. He hadn't ever needed sleeping pills before, and he decided they couldn't hurt. They weren't really pills. More of sleep aids. He took one and swallowed it with a glass of water. The brief period of sensation telling him he was going to choke passed in an instant, and then he went back to his room.<br />
Sleep came easier that night. His muscles felt more relaxed, and he woke up refreshed the next morning.<br />
<br />
The third design was finished and sent; Eli leaned back in his chair. It had been a good day so far, but he had put off walking the dog because he wanted to get the design done. Now it was later than normal, about two in the afternoon, and the dog sat on her haunches next to him. He stood and went into the foyer. The dog vibrated with happiness as he clipped the leash to her collar. <br />
Again they went in a different direction than normal. Eli had found a nearby dog park, and decided to take her there. She would stay on the leash, he'd decided. Not only was he not sure what she would do if released, but he didn't even have a way of calling her back. If he yelled "dog" he'd probably get a hundred of them all around him.<br />
The sun shined, and fluffy clouds drifted west. There was no wind but it was cool enough. They stepped into the dog park and Eli gave the dog more leash to use. He expected her to go about doing her dog thing, sniffing trees or grass or barking at butterflies.<br />
Instead the dog pulled Eli over toward a group of people that were standing and talking as their dogs played around them. To Eli they looked like parents at a playground, chatting as their children played on the monkey bars. Every few moments they would shoot their dogs a look to make sure they knew where they were. And then he was upon them.<br />
His dog saw another Spitz, this one smaller. It was fully black, and had longer hair and a similarly wolfish face. The two dogs sniffed at each other, and Eli watched nervously. One of the people from the group was coming over to him. It was a woman about his age of Asian descent. She had long black hair and a pretty face. She wore a white knee-length skirt and a yellow pullover.<br />
"Hi! You must be new he... I've never seen that color on a Spitz before!"<br />
"She's part Golden Retriever," Eli explained. "And I am new here. I only got her a week and a half ago." He knew what she would ask next.<br />
"What's her name?" The girl kneeled down and put out her hand for his dog to sniff.<br />
"I don't know yet. I haven't thought of any good ones."<br />
"Really." She stood. "My name's Tennin. Tennin Sato."<br />
"Elijah Sean." They shook hands. "It's our first time. I thought she might want to meet some other dogs."<br />
"Yeah. Spitzs need that early on. How old is she? Enjeru here is three. You must have a Spitz Giant."<br />
"Yup. She's only a few months. What kind do you have?"<br />
"A miniature. He's never going to get as big as yours, no matter how old he gets." She smiled. He nodded. She started nodding too. They stayed that way for a few seconds, in which Eli felt mute embarrassment flowing in his veins.<br />
Finally: "Why don't you meet some of the other regulars here?" Tennin said, pointing at the group she had detached from. Several of them looked over with curious faces. Eli was introduced to several people, and struggled to keep their names with their faces. They chatted around him as his dog rolled in the grass at his feet. A few of them picked up a conversation with him, commenting on the dog's color. They pet her, and her curled tail swished back and forth. Eventually the group began to break apart, and Eli said good night and left. He felt grimy and tired when he got back, and took a shower as the dog emptied her water dish. He ate more lasagna and spent the evening playing games online before taking another sleeping pill and drifting off with the dog at his feet.<br />
<br />
Three days passed. Eli was watching a movie on TV during the evening when he got a frantic phone call from Michael. One of the groomsmen in his wedding had dropped out a month before the wedding, for some reason that Michael was not at liberty to divulge. He said that Ariel was demanding an equal number of groomsmen and bridesmaids. He begged Eli to stand for him, and Eli agreed.<br />
"Oh thank God. You'll need to get fitted for a suit. We have black coats and pants and dark green ties, white shirts and black shoes," Michael said breathlessly. "You'll be first down the aisle with Ariel's cousin, but you'll be farthest from the altar." Eli heard papers being shuffled frantically. "Do you know where the church is?"<br />
"Hold on. I have your invitation here somewhere." Eli went to his computer and rummaged through the papers there. "About twenty miles south of Albany?"<br />
"That's right, in Catskill," Michael said. His voice had a familiar, frantic quality in it, one that Eli recognized from their first year of college, during which Michael crushed hard on Ariel. Eli grinned to himself. "Ariel's grandparents live there. They're both getting up there in age so they wanted her to get married close. I'm really sorry to drop this on you so close to the wedding--" It was a month away "--but when Dan backed out I didn't know who else to call."<br />
"It's fine. Don't worry about it," Eli said. "I was going anyway."<br />
"Okay, okay. Thanks again. I need to call Ariel. Thanks." Michael hung up, and Eli was left with his cell phone in his hand at his computer.<br />
"Should I get fitted for a new suit or use an old one?" Eli asked out loud. The dog, standing next to him and panting, didn't answer. The last time Eli had worn his black suit was at his family's funeral. He decided to get a new one.<br />
After a restful night of sleep and a morning looking for design work, Eli went to a shop and got fitted. He had lost muscle weight since leaving college; he used to work out regularly. He'd gained some weight in fat, and resolved to take longer walks now that the dog was getting bigger.<br />
And she had. There was nothing strange about her growth Eli knew, but it seemed every day she weighed a little more when she stood on his stomach in the morning. He had still been unable to get her to sleep on her own bed, though she had dragged it into the office to nap while Eli worked at his computer.<br />
"It's like you have separation anxiety," Eli said to her that night with his mouth full. The dog lunged at a mite of food that flew from his mouth. "I guess I can live with that," he said to himself. He looked down at her again. She stood at attention waiting for more scraps. "What to call you?"<br />
He hadn't thought about it very much. It was becoming more and more printed into his mind that she was just Dog and wouldn't ever need a name. "That won't do. There has to be something I can call you. Mary-Ann. Jasmine. Princess Guggenheim?" The dog decided not to deign the last option with a response. "Why don't you write down what you want to be called, and I'll just call you that."<br />
She ran off. Eli watched in disbelief. Then she returned with the fuzzy green ball he had thrown to her countless times, and dropped it by his chair.<br />
Eli cleaned up dinner and they went into the backyard. The trees rustled with a slight wind and the sun lit them up with orange evening rays. He spent his time throwing the ball to the dog and thinking of names. Every time he thought of one that he liked, he would say it out loud. The dog never responded to him, she just kept chasing down the ball and bringing it back to him.<br />
<br />
"Elijah Sean?" The woman called. Eli stood and walked after her, into the doctor's office. He was left by himself for a few minutes, and then doctor Dara entered. <br />
"Elijah, good to see you. Here for a checkup? Or something in specific?"<br />
"It's... I can't sleep." A week had passed. The pills Eli had bought were gone. He tried falling asleep on his own but it left him lying awake at one or two in the morning with the dog snoring at the foot of his bed. "I got some relaxants. They helped for a while, but I tried going without them and couldn't fall asleep for a long time." Through all of this the doctor nodded. "I don't know if it's something I can fix on my own or not."<br />
"How long has this been going on?" Dara asked.<br />
"It's getting close to a month now."<br />
"Any big changes in your life at about that time?"<br />
Eli didn't know how to respond. He hesitated for a few seconds. "The rest of my family was killed in a car crash the day before I graduated from college."<br />
The doctor didn't hesitate. "I'm sorry Eli. That will certainly mess things up. Is there anything else?"<br />
"I got a dog," Eli said. "To help. It's probably done more good than bad, though. It gives me something else to focus on."<br />
"Right. You aren't overworked?" <br />
Eli almost laughed. "I'm looking for graphic design work and designing when I find some. The closest thing I have to a steady job is walking the dog every day."<br />
The doctor nodded and listened. When Eli finished he spoke. "Well, sleeping pills may help, but it's always better to go without them. I'll tell you what I can do. I can write a prescription for you, but it will only be valid at the pharmacy here, and there will be a note attached to it saying it isn't valid until a week from now. I want you to try and sleep on your own for a week. Don't drink caffeine less than four hours before you go to sleep, try to get as comfortable as you can while sleeping. Does your dog sleep on the bed with you?" <br />
"Yup. I barely have a say in the matter."<br />
"Don't let it. Stick it outside if you have to. I'm sure you know plenty of ways you're supposed to fall asleep. Anything else?"<br />
There wasn't. Eli thanked the doctor and left, clutching the prescription. He drove home, and that night was unable to do anything but think to himself as the dog made noises outside his bedroom door.<br />
<br />
Two weeks later Eli went up to a neighbor's house and knocked on the door.<br />
The plumbing company had responded to him, saying that they were going with someone else's design. The email said it was better by a slim margin. Eli read the email twice and felt like crying. More time wasted, more hours burned doing something that got him nowhere. He had flown to the bank site and checked the amount of money he had remaining, and calmed down when he found it remaining far above five hundred thousand dollars. He read the email again. A slim margin, it said. He just needed to try harder.<br />
He'd had no luck coming up with a name for the dog. She seemed to defy branding. He thought of old names, mythological names, Italian names, German names, Scottish names, Irish names, and more and more. Nothing stuck. The fact might complicate things, but he figured it would be all right.<br />
The week without pills went by slowly, and every night Eli dreaded getting into bed. All night he would think about his family and their absence, toss and turn until he thought he was going to drill into his mattress. When the week was up, he went to the pharmacy attached to the doctor's office, and went home with a bottle of pills.<br />
He didn't know if he wanted to keep taking them. He'd certainly not been sleeping well, especially since the plumbing company got back to him. He thought about what his mother would say. Those pills will mess with your head. She'd even been disgusted at Eli's father for taking vicodin after his finger broke. She said that it wasn't right for humans to have pills like that. Eli had shaken his head and taken a pill, as some post-mortem act of defiance.<br />
In the present, a man about ten years older than him came to the door. His wife, holding a child, looked down the hall at them.<br />
"Hi Malik. Do you like dogs at all?"<br />
Malik, an Arabian man that had moved in while Eli was in high school, shrugged. "Who doesn't?"<br />
"I'm going to a wedding in a week. I'm standing in it so I'll need to stay for a few nights. It's a little south of Albany. Would you mind feeding and taking my dog for a walk on the days I'm gone? I'll pay you."<br />
"Of course. I'd be glad to. What's his name?"<br />
"It's a her, and she doesn't have a name yet. I'm having trouble thinking of a good one. I've only had her about a month."<br />
Malik nodded and drifted a bit closer. "Listen, Eli, we know what happened with... you know." Eli nodded. "If there's anything you need, you tell us. You're welcome here anytime. How have you been?"<br />
"Well... better," Eli lied. "The first few days were difficult." Eli looked back at the house. "The dog helped."<br />
"They're God's creatures, surely," Malik said, nodding. "Don't worry about paying me. Call it a favor."<br />
A rush of gratitude hit Eli. He swallowed. "Thanks. I'll stop by again when I'm about to head out."<br />
As Eli crossed the street he wondered about the feeling he'd had. He wasn't poor; he could certainly afford to give Malik, who was raising two children, ten bucks a day to walk a dog. He felt blessed by Malik's goodness. <br />
<br />
Eli drove to the wedding on Friday, two days before. He'd given Malik a key and instructions and introduced him to the still-nameless dog. She'd played in the yard a bit with his children, and then Eli brought her back to his house.<br />
He drove north, singing along to the radio at times, until he reached Catskill. It was a small town, just over ten thousand in population, and fairly quiet as far as Eli could see. Eli found the church the wedding was going to be held in, and then found a hotel. He'd need to be at the church at one in the afternoon the next day for the rehearsal.<br />
He was unpacking when he found that the sleeping pills were still at home. He had forgotten them. He sat on the edge of his bed and wondered if he could get anything to help him sleep in Catskill. Then he shook his head and figured he could go one night -- or two nights -- without them.<br />
And yet when he got into his bed, the strange smells, sounds, sights, and all other kinds of surroundings disturbed his mind and kept him from falling asleep. To his surprise he found he missed the weight of the dog on his bed, and wondered how she was doing without him. Was she destroying the house? He shouldn't have left her alone. What if Malik let her out without putting the leash on her and she ran off? Would Eli return home to an apologetic neighbor and an empty house?<br />
Thinking these kinds of thoughts, the night wrapped around Eli. His head hurt.<br />
<br />
"You look a bit smashed there, buddy," Greg said. He was acting as an usher in the wedding, and Eli looked at him with a drooping face and sagging eyes. "Late night partying?"<br />
Eli shook his head and it nearly made him dizzy. "I haven't been able to fall asleep lately. I have a prescription for sleeping pills but I left them at home." He rubbed his face. "Sleeping in a hotel didn't help."<br />
"I guess not. Here comes Michael. Try not to look like you could mess things up."<br />
Normally a standard level of nervous, Michael had gone into overdrive during the preparations for the wedding. "Eli! You have everything for the wedding? Suit? Shirt? Tie?" Eli nodded. "Okay, good. Eli, why don't you help Ariel's sister with the decorations, Greg I need you to count out the servings in the fridges in the kitchen. The church is letting us use them until tomorrow and we need to make sure there are enough."<br />
Greg frowned. "Are you serious? Why don't the caterers do that?"<br />
"One of them burned himself earlier or something and had a major freakout." Michael bustled away before Greg could continue arguing. <br />
Greg shot Eli a look, grumbled something about counting meals, and stalked off. <br />
The rehearsal went smoothly, with nothing more than minor timing mishaps with the sound system and the procession. Eli managed to go at the right time and at about the right speed, though Ariel's cousin, a girl five years his younger, helped him out. Eli dreaded the fact that people thought he was sick or drunk, and tried his hardest to work well. The day progressed, and Eli found himself at the rehearsal dinner with the rest of the wedding party. He felt better. The dinner, wheat noodles in the richest sauce Eli had ever seen, smelled, or tasted, was being served and people introduced themselves. The parents of the bride, Michael's father, aunts and uncles involved in the wedding, the bridesmaids and groomsmen, and so on. Eli introduced himself as a last minute addition, and one of Michael's oft-neglected roommates. He got a laugh, the biggest of which was from Ariel. After the introductions finished, they began eating.<br />
The food was good, and it banished any remaining traces of Eli's exhaustion. Now he was simply tired. Michael's friends wanted to take him out drinking but he denied, saying he didn't want to mess up his vows. He took an early night, as soon as he could, and Eli went out with several others. <br />
He was afraid of going to bed. He thought that maybe if he stayed up later he would be able to fall asleep, that if he had enough to drink he would stagger into his hotel room and fall asleep as soon as he touched his bed. But he knew that Michael wouldn't like that, especially if he was supposed to walk in the morning, so he had a few beers and got dropped off by Michael's best man, his older brother Zac.<br />
It was torture. He felt the alcohol inside him, sloshing and deadening his senses, but he was still awake. Noises came from nowhere and pounded at his ears. He was too hot.<br />
His father had been too hot frequently. Eli had the suspicion that it was because of the fat that accumulated around his belly, the same belly that would eventually grow on Eli, if he kept drinking beer and lying stagnant. His parents tried many things to help him sleep more comfortably, but it went down to wearing little or nothing in bed and leaving the windows open wide, or the air conditioner on at full blast. <br />
Eli saw his father's face. A face that so many times meted punishment down on the guilty from his small claims court, and one that did not hesitate to punish any of his sons. But there was love, and mercy, too. Edward Sean knew what to say, and he knew what to do. He was smart and strong. Eli missed him. He wished he had been able to see him one last time, because the only thing he could remember of his father was the way his finger was broken on the table in the morgue, and the way his big belly had bloody chunks missing.<br />
<br />
He slept maybe three hours. The clock drilled a bright red reminder of his wakefulness, so he tried not to look at it. Breakfast was nothing more than a memory of toast and orange juice. He wasn't drunk, but he wished he could have a drink. Coffee helped a little, but he swallowed it too fast and burned his tongue.<br />
He wanted a pill. He wanted to take a sleeping pill and fall right asleep, like the wonderful days before leaving for the wedding. It had been a mistake to come here, he knew. In his exhaustion he would commit some fool error, some terrible mistake.<br />
After checking out of the hotel he ate lunch at a Burger King and the fish sandwich almost made him sick. He could smell it too well.<br />
The wedding was at three in the afternoon, and he reported to the church by with time to spare. He sat in a hard wooden pew as other people arrived. A few people looked at him with expressions he didn't like. Did they again think he was drunk? Did anybody recognize two nearly-sleepless nights in a row? Did anybody know he had eaten a fish sandwich for lunch, and feel for him? Eventually he got up to see if he could help. He was given a boutonniere and stared in fear at the sharp pin before asking one of the bridesmaids to help him with it. She said she would and mutely went to work. Eli stood stock still. He thanked her when she was done, and she said "you're welcome" with a tone that said spruce yourself up, buddy.<br />
There was a tray of coffee for the people in the wedding and Eli had a cup. It was burned and nearly tasteless, and his tongue still hurt from that morning, but at least it was hot. He went to the bathroom and carefully scrubbed his face with water. He came out looking and feeling better, though still not his best by a long shot. <br />
The wedding was an hour away. Eli stood where he could and helped where he could with decorations. At one point Zac came over to him. <br />
"Eli, Michael's worried about--"<br />
"I'm fine," Eli cut him off. "Just tired."<br />
Zac shook his head. "Well, okay, that's good, but not what I was talking to you about. Ariel's grandparents are going to show up soon to meet everybody, and he wanted to ask you to help them out of the car. They're both kind of old, and Ariel's grandmother has had hip surgery twice. And she's blind."<br />
"Oh. Yeah. I can do that." Zac looked at Eli for a moment before turning away. Five minutes later an old gray Cadillac pulled up to the church and Eli went down to it. He opened the passenger door and helped a miniscule, decrepit woman from the seat.<br />
"Bath? Is that you?" Ariel's grandmother asked. <br />
"No ma'am. My name's Eli. I'm one of Michael's groomsmen," Eli said as the car drove into the parking lot. "Michael asked me to help you into the church."<br />
"Oh! Well, it's nice to meet you!" The woman's grip was firm but he steps were slow and low. Eli decided that taking her up the ramp would be the better decision. "My name's Muriel. It seems you're taking me toward the ramp. That's fine. My hips've been giving me a bit of trouble this morning. I don't mind going it slow. How do you know Michael?"<br />
Muriel. "We were roommates for four years. Before he even started dating your granddaughter."<br />
"She took him away, eh?" Muriel nodded. "That's what happens." She laughed, a low laugh that was growly and fatigued from life-long use. "You'll see him still, I know you will. My husband, driving the car, spent his Fridays with his mates at the pub. He'd always come home on time though. I could always trust him to -- what was that?"<br />
A sob had escaped Eli. Muriel's talk made him think about his father again. As a judge he would work late, but he was never so late that he couldn't give Eli a big hug before bed. Sometimes he was tired, and sometimes he was mad, but Eli waited on the stairs reading a book or playing Gameboy or doing his homework until he heard the garage open and the car slide in. Then, as his father entered, Eli would hug him as tight as he could and tell him about his day.<br />
"It was me, Muriel," Eli said. "I almost sneezed. I know someone else named Muriel. She sold me my dog."<br />
Muriel grunted. "Had him long?"<br />
"It's a her. Actually I've only had her about a month." They had reached the top of the ramp, and Eli pushed open the door to the church vestibule. "Here we are. Let me get the other door."<br />
She followed him into the sanctuary, and suddenly Ariel was there, dressed in most of her gown. "Nani!" She squealed, hugging the old woman gently.<br />
"Ariel, dear. I wish I could see you. I bet you almost look lovelier than I did on my wedding day." She waited a beat, then burst out laughing. "How are you? Smiling as always, I bet. Oh, I bet you're radiant right now too."<br />
"Mm-hm!" Ariel said. "Thank you Eli. Do you think you could take her down to the front row? I need to finish getting ready."<br />
Eli nodded and Ariel ran off. He took Muriel's arm in his again and started to lead her down the aisle. They started running into people who knew Muriel, and they greeted her with the same happiness that Ariel had. Eventually Eli brought her to the front row and let her fall gently into the seat. Her husband had joined them, and sat next to her.<br />
"Thank you Eli. It was nice talking with you. I bet you're ready for the wedding to be done so you can go back to your dog, right?"<br />
His dog, shaggy golden coat and pointed nose, appeared just for a moment in his head. Then his bed and a pill in hand replaced it.<br />
"Yes ma'am, I am." He walked back to the lobby. More guests were arriving and being escorted down the aisle by Greg and the other ushers. Eli went to the side room where the other members of the wedding party stood. They stood and waited there while the ushers and got everyone seated, and then the processional started.<br />
Eli was first out the door, with Ariel's cousin on his arm. They made it to the front of the church without any mistakes. Slowly the other groups joined them, and eventually Michael came down the aisle on his own, his mother years dead. Then the music changed to the traditional wedding march and Ariel appeared with her father.<br />
She was beautiful, Eli could see that. Her dress was long and white with silver pills that shimmered as she slowly walked the aisle. She had a white veil over her, but Eli could see she was smiling. It looked like she couldn't stop. Eli smiled for her, and for her joy.<br />
Then she was past, and the spell ended. Eli watched the pastor speak about love, and marriage. He was a bony, thin, tall man, and he spoke at length. <br />
The last time Eli had been in a church it had been to wish his family farewell. There he had lost family; here Michael and Ariel gained.<br />
Eli felt very hot; his suit stifled. He was still tired. He hoped and prayed that he wouldn't pass out. <br />
The pastor talked about the groom's mother, so dearly departed. He talked about his father, here to witness his son's bonding with a godly woman. He then went to the bride's family. The parents, able to see their daughter at her most beautiful. Her grandmother, a staunch member of this church, able to witness if not see her granddaughter be wed in the same church she was. Muriel was crying to herself in the first pew.<br />
Eli stood stoic through it all, unable to heed the images he brought up. His father would never see him married. His brothers would never be able to act as groomsmen. His mother would never see him with his wife, most beautiful.<br />
Eli felt drained and weak by the time the couple said their vows. Eli barely heard them. They were words just over the waters of his mind. He thought of his family. He clapped when everyone else did, he at least could do that, and, once everyone else left the sanctuary, he and Ariel's cousin walked out, arms linked. She pressed close to him for some reason.<br />
After greetings, and congratulations, the guests left for the reception in a connected building. The reception was loud and boisterous. There was good, hot food, and Eli gladly ate it while talking to Samuel on his right. There was no one to his left, as they sat at the long head table, looking out toward the eating guests. He drank champagne along with the toasts, and laughed at the embarrassing stories told about the happy couple. After eating, the tables were moved and the dance floor opened. Eli watched the father-daughter dance with an impassive face as his thoughts roiled. More and more people joined the dance as the songs changed, and Eli harbored thoughts of only watching. But then one of the bridesmaids, another one of Ariel's cousins, asked him if he wanted to dance, and he gave in.<br />
An hour passed and the day grew late. The older guests had all gone home, and the families were leaving. All that remained when the couple left for their honeymoon was the young crowd. By the time the hall emptied it was eight in the evening. Eli helped tear down the decorations until nine, said goodbye to everyone, and burned rubber for home.<br />
It started raining as he drove. He flew down 97 in the left lane. It took him a few hours to get home, and they ticked by. His energy dropped. It was after midnight when he finally pulled into his garage. The rain came down like he was in a drum. He hauled his suitcase into the foyer of his house and was greeted by a ball of hyper fur.<br />
"Hey you," Eli said as the dog got to its hind legs and pressed its front feet against his leg. "Miss me?" It seemed she did. He threw his suitcase into his room and started getting ready for bed. The dog sniffed his clothes as he undressed, and she followed him into the kitchen. <br />
Eli dumped a pill into his hand. He was so tired. His mind raced with the after-effects of the wedding. The drink. The heat. The motion. Talking with Ariel's grandmother. Thinking about his missing family.<br />
He felt alone. The dog sniffed his pant leg, but it wasn't a person; he couldn't talk to it. It couldn't respond, at least. He wished that somebody knew what he went through. He wished that he knew what he went through. He wanted to sleep.<br />
He shook out another pill and swallowed them both.<br />
<br />
He woke at almost eleven in the morning. The pills had done their work; he had slept without waking. His mind felt clear and cool for the first time in almost two days. He set to work on a few new designs, and solicited for work. After lunch he went out with the dog and had a nice run.<br />
When night fell he went next door to talk to Malik.<br />
"She was right little darling," Malik said. "She got along great with the kids -- except when Parisa shook a rattle, she didn't like that at all, but she didn't cause any trouble. We had nice long walks. It was good to get some exercise. How was the wedding?"<br />
"It was good," Eli said. "I was a bit tired during it. I left my sleeping pills at home, and sleeping in a hotel didn't help that at all. But it was fine."<br />
"Good, good. Say, Lailah and I would like to have you over for dinner sometime. It's a rather hectic week for me at work right now, but how about next weekend?" Malik asked. "We'll serve some authentic Indian food. Good for what ails you."<br />
"Well... okay," Eli said. "That'll be nice. Thank you."<br />
"Of course. Have a good week. I'll remind you a day before," Malik said before saying goodbye and closing the door. <br />
Back in his own home, Eli patted the dog. "Malik thinks you're a little darling. I think that deserves a treat." Eli went to where the bag of dog snacks was stashed, in a cupboard, and found the bag ripped and empty. Slowly he turned to look at the dog, who tried not to look guilty. "I guess that puts that on hold." He sighed. "Come on, you little angel. No treat for you." The dog followed him downstairs, where they sat on the couch and watched TV. She only became interested when a dog barked at the protagonists of the show that was on.<br />
<br />
The next day, after a chemically-induced sleep, Eli got together with Gaby again. He brought his dog with him to show her.<br />
"She's so cute! And her fur is such a cool color! It's like it's celestial or something!" Gaby kneeled and rubbed the dog's fur. The dog panted with a big smile on her face. They were at a wide, green park in the afternoon. The sun shined good, fresh light down on them, and the dog cooled off in the grass. Eli had done a small amount of work trying to find work, but nothing had changed since the day before. The lists he frequented remained still, so he packed the dog into the car and drove to the park. They sat on a bench next to a rustling tree.<br />
"How was the wedding?" Gaby asked. "I saw that you were a groomsman."<br />
"Yup. One of them dropped out at the last moment, so Michael asked me to cover. He was a wreck the entire time. He gets so nervous about things. One time he went to a job interview. Not only did he have a tie pre-tied, but he had a backup tie too. In case the first one didn't work." Gaby laughed.<br />
"The pictures that were online made you look a bit strange," Gaby said. "You looked a little out of it."<br />
Eli sighed. "I haven't been sleeping well. Ever since... I graduated. I got a prescription for sleeping pills a week ago, but I forgot to bring them with me. I had to stay a few nights. Because of the rehearsal wedding. I could hardly fall asleep." Eli paused. He looked between his feet at the grass. "By the time the wedding came around it looked like I had been hit by a bus. It was a bit difficult. With all the family and happiness." He felt stupid for saying so.<br />
"I'm sure it must have been," Gaby said. She was sitting by the dog, scratching. "But I'm also sure that Michael appreciated you being there." She looked up at him. The wind pulled back her yellow hair. "Would you rather have not gone?"<br />
"No. It was fun being there. Just difficult."<br />
"Then you did the right thing." Gaby stood and sat next to him on the bench. "Have you been able to find any work?"<br />
"Almost. A few companies asked me to submit designs, but they were never picked. I look every day." Eli shrugged, and took a ball out of his pocket. The dog got to her feet and focused on it. "I work on designing every day, but I'm not sure what else to do." He threw the ball, and the dog took off after it. "I don't know of any other ways to use it. I just like to design."<br />
"A lot of big companies employ artists and designers for manuals and things like that. It wouldn't exactly be what you do, but it would be design," Gaby said. Eli nodded as the dog spat the ball out on his pants. He threw it again.<br />
"I feel like if I do that I'll feel like I've sold out. Lost my artistic integrity or something like that. But it's an idea."<br />
"Don't you have to be an artist to have artistic integrity?" Gaby asked. Eli scowled at her and she laughed. "Maybe you're right, but you'd have something to take up your time. Heck, maybe you won't need pills once you get a job. It might tire you out."<br />
"That... would be nice."<br />
"And you can keep looking for design work that you like, too." The dog dropped the ball on Gaby, and it left drool stains on her lap. "Eugh." She flung the ball with two fingers. "Anyway, you said that you had enough money, so maybe you shouldn't worry about working for a little while. Maybe you look for design work, and if you find some you take it," she said, wiping her pants.<br />
"Maybe. But like I told you last time we met, I just feel like I need to work. I don't like wasting time."<br />
"If you don't have anything that needs doing, it isn't really wasting time," Gaby said. Eli figured she had a point. "But I know what you mean. My dad's like that too. He doesn't ever stop working. Things have to be perfect." She saw his look. "He isn't bad. I love him. He just feels the need to always be active." The dog trotted back to them, and Gaby crossed her legs.<br />
The dog went to Eli and spat the ball out again. He threw it, and a spinning trail of drool sprayed out in an arc. They watched the dog chase after it. After a few throws that went in silence Gaby asked Eli why he didn't have a name for the dog yet.<br />
"I haven't thought of a good one yet. It seems like nothing I suggest I like." Eli watched the dog track through the grass toward them with the ball in her mouth.<br />
"That's silly. Just give her a name. Here." She took the ball from the dog carefully, and looked it in the eye. "Your name is Lucy."<br />
The dog growled, and her tail stopped moving. Gaby sat back quickly. The tail started up again, and the dog's eyes latched onto the ball. Gaby threw it.<br />
"See what I mean?" Eli said. "It's either the name doesn't sound right to me, or the dog doesn't like it. She also doesn't like the name 'Autumn.'"<br />
"Shame," Gaby said. She yawned. "I should be getting back. One of my roommates is cooking dinner tonight, and I don't really want to miss it. She's training to be a chef."<br />
"Okay. I think I'm going to stay here a bit with the dog. She was cooped up for a few days."<br />
"Okay. Bye." Gaby walked to her car and drove off, leaving Eli on the bench by himself. The dog trotted up to him and dropped the soggy ball on the grass. She looked unhappily in the direction of Gaby's retreating car. Eli picked the ball up and threw it across the lawn, and after one last forlorn look, the dog took off after it. "Lucy?" Eli shook his head. There seemed to be something almost... evil about the name. He didn't know what. Sarah? Crystal? Cindy? Yelena? <br />
Eli sighed and leaned back against the bench. He'll come up with something. The dog came back to him and sat. Her sides heaved, and her mouth dripped with perspiration. "Ready to go home?" Eli asked. The dog kept panting. He stood and they went to the car.<br />
At home he felt hot and grimy, so he showered and shaved what blond fuzz had been able to grow on his cheeks and chin. He started laundry and paid bills. He decided he wanted to work on a few designs. After a few hours of that, he felt his focus slipping. He found it was almost midnight. The dog was asleep in her bed, but she woke up when he rose. She followed him to the kitchen, where he took a pill and washed it down with water, and then to the bedroom.<br />
<br />
The next day the garage door broke. Eli didn't discover it until the afternoon, when he and the dog went on their walk. He went into the garage to grab a few plastic baggies, and when he hit the button to let himself out, the door opener ground and shrieked. The dog cowered and Eli groaned. The shrieking went on until he climbed up a ladder and disconnected it from the power. <br />
"I don't know how to fix this," he said. He let his head fall until it rested on the top of the ladder. "Do I call somebody?"<br />
After a morning that he wasted trying to find somebody willing to accept his work, whether freelance or solid employment, fixing a garage door opener was not something he wanted to spend his time on. He felt hot, almost as if he was in a crowd of people that jostled him. He went back inside and took his shoes off. The dog looked from him to the front door in confusion. <br />
Eli sat on the top step down to the basement and put his head in his hands.<br />
He had woken up during the dark, silly hours of the night to a thunderstorm, and had not been able to fall asleep for a few hours. The dog hid in fear from the booms and flashes. Eli watched the lights dance in through the barely-open shades and cursed them.<br />
The dog went up to Eli as he sat and hovered just behind him. She whined, just a bit, yet Eli felt it drill into his ears. He turned on the dog, and just for a moment considered shouting at it. She backed away and watched him.<br />
He sighed, put a hand through his hair, and stood. He took a few deep breaths, grabbed the end of the leash, and headed out the door. The jogging made him feel a little better, but when he got back the only thing he could think about was the broken garage door. He sat at his computer and considered his options. He could look through the manuals his family had kept and try to find the right one, and perhaps fix it himself. He could look online for something that could help him, whether a tutorial, or an online version of the manual. He could contact someone who would know what the hell he was doing to fix it for him.<br />
He sat at the computer, unable to decide or take action for several long minutes. Finally he started to search for something online that would help him. He didn't find anything specific, but he did find general information about garage door openers that looked useful. If he was lucky he could see that a part was broken, identify it, and get a replacement. He started to feel a bit better. It gave him something to do besides look for work. It would feel good to tinker with his hands; perhaps even get them dirty. He went to the garage to get his dad's old tools.<br />
Not very well kept, not very well organized. There were tools that Eli recognized, such as wrenches and hammers and pliers, and tools he did not. Strange contraptions with twists, or angles, or joints, or edges.<br />
He opened the door by hand, which was harder and more complicated than he at first thought, and backed one of the extra cars out. It was the car his mother had used to do her errands, and he remembered all the time he had spent in the backseat, being taken to and from baseball practice or guitar lessons, two hobbies that he had since dropped. He set up the ladder again and took a good look at the motor that opened the door.<br />
He stared at the motor for a few minutes before unscrewing the screws that held the case in place, exposing the guts of the machine. There were gears and boxes untold, and he suddenly felt even more out of his depth than before.<br />
With the case removed, he went to the button and, after pressing it, ran to watch the motors spin. He saw clearly that one of the gears was splintering and unable to catch. The grinding sound was the gear rubbing against a chain futilely. Well, there was no way Eli would be able to fix it without taking the whole thing apart, and at the thought of starting such a chore at this time made him weary, and it grew late.<br />
He repositioned his mother's old car out of the way and went inside. He still thought he should sell the old car but hadn't got around to it. Like so many other things, he barely knew how to start. <br />
The dog was waiting by the door when he entered, and took to her standard routine: following him around the house. Eli led her into the kitchen and started a pot of water boiling. He threw a ball for the dog in the yard with the glass door open until he heard the lid rattling. He dumped a box of noodles into the water and continued throwing the ball. After turning the heat down he waited inside, getting hungrier by the minute.<br />
Finally the noodles were ready. He rose to carry the pot to the sink, to strain, and took two hot pads. One of the pads was thinner than the other, and Eli squeezed his eyes shut, as if to avoid the pain, as he poured into the strainer.<br />
With his eyes closed he didn't notice his other hand was slipping. The pot fell from his grasp and bounced against the counter, spilling boiling water on his right knee. He cried out in pain as the dog yelped and the pot clattered to floor, empty. Eli followed it, unable to support himself on his leg.<br />
He hit the ground hard. "Shit! God damn it!" Hot water soaked into his clothes. He ripped off his jeans and exposed the burnt leg to air, the skin already red and puckering. Pain flashed up and down his leg and he cursed under his breath. Leaving his jeans on the kitchen floor, he hoped to the bathroom and got found a bottle of aspirin. He swallowed three, and then hobbled back into the kitchen. His jeans soaked through with the water, and steam rose from the floor like a sauna.<br />
He went to the sink and grabbed the washcloth. He soaked it under the cold water and then squeezed it out over his leg. The pain jumped and then fell away slowly until the washcloth was dry. The cold water ran off his leg to mix with the hot already on the floor. The dog watched him from the safety of the foyer. Eli grabbed the pot and dropped it into the sink. He rested against the counter, clenching his jaw against the pain that radiated from his leg.<br />
He looked down at the leg again. The skin was red and cracking, and blood seeped through the cracks. Eli couldn't tell what degree the burn was, but it certainly wasn't first. The burn wrapped around most of his knee and down the right side of his leg. It almost smelled cooked, and he turned his head away from the scent. His stomach heaved but stayed where it was. He took a step into a still-hot puddle and cursed again, loudly. Now his left foot complained as he walked into the bathroom. He threw the bottle of pills back into the cabinet and slammed the door. He heard a whine and saw the dog poking her head around the corner of the bathroom door.<br />
Eli sighed and let himself fall onto the toilet. He rubbed his face and looked down at the burn again. Every time he moved it felt like it was frying anew. Yet another time he didn't know what to do!<br />
The dog padded into the tiled room on silent feet and sat by the toilet, looking up at Eli. He looked down at her. His right leg was stretched out away from him, and his left foot was up on its toes. "What am I supposed to do?" He asked. His voice sounded strained.<br />
The dog did nothing but tilt her head. Eli sighed. Were the pills beginning to take effect? He couldn't tell. He wondered if he should take more. Once more, he looked at his leg. It didn't seem to be a third degree, but it hurt. He sat in the bathroom and felt his leg howl at him, until he realized he'd left the oven on.<br />
"Shit!" He got up too quickly and his leg screamed louder. He growled and limped into the kitchen, over the puddles of water to the oven. He switched it off, and looked around. The water had spilled down the length of the kitchen, toward the den. The dog lapped at the edge of it. Water-logged noodles floated.<br />
What do I deal with first? Eli asked himself. His leg answered the question without hesitation, and Eli went back to the bathroom. He found a bottle of lotion and very carefully spread it on some of the worst parts of the burn. It hurt, and tears came to Eli's eyes. He found a mostly used roll of cloth, and wrapped it in a few places. The lotion was helping, but he had used too much. It spilled over the edges of the cloth. It was a powerful smell, but one that Eli would rather smell than cooked flesh.<br />
He went down the stairs and got a mop and bucket. The trip up the stairs took longer and hurt more, but eventually he stood in the kitchen and pushed the water around with the sponge head of the mop. After a few minutes the floor was drier, and Eli sat on a chair to rest his leg.<br />
He realized, then, that he still hadn't eaten. "Not noodles," he said to himself as he opened the pantry. He took out a can of refried beans and a few tortillas and made tacos. There was a small portion of rice in the refrigerator. He ate the meal as fast as he could without burning his mouth; that would be just the thing.<br />
After eating he finished with the kitchen. The lotion could only do so much and his leg was constantly fighting for his attention. When he was finished with the kitchen he went to the den and turned the TV on. He sat in the center of the couch with shorts on. The pant leg was rolled up as far as it would go. The dog sat to the left of him, with her head on his uninjured leg. She looked up at him with sad eyes, and he scratched the fur around her neck. He took in deep breaths to calm himself. He was tired.<br />
The dog watched him watch the television, understanding that the man was in pain. The dog knew that the man was having a tough time with things in general, and that any happiness she could inject into his life would be welcome. So, the dog got up and went out the door, got one of the green balls, and went back into the den. He sat in front of the man and started rolling on the ground with it. The man took notice, and laughed as the dog was just unable to keep the ball clamped in her mouth. She kept dropping it and making it roll under things. She whined as she tried to get it out with the knowledge that she could get it out any time she wanted. The man kept laughing.<br />
Eventually the man took the ball from her and went outside, sitting so that his injured leg didn't move. Eli threw the ball over and over. The sun was gone and the sky was dark by the time they went in.<br />
Later Eli took more painkillers, and a sleeping pill. He got into bed carefully, with his injured leg exposed, and drifted to sleep.<br />
<br />
Two days later Malik stopped by. He heard clanking and grunting from the garage, and knocked on it. Eli lifted the door by hand carefully. He had taken the motor down and was taking it apart. The nameless dog went to greet Malik with a wagging tail.<br />
"Hello Eli. I thought I'd remind you about dinner. Are you free tomorrow?" He saw the bandage on Eli's leg. Eli had reapplied it that morning after waking to find dried lotion all over his bed sheets. He had laboriously stripped his bed and washed the sheets before getting on to the computer. "What happened to your leg?"<br />
"I spilled boiling water on it last night," Eli explained. "I was trying to make dinner. I'm surprised you didn't hear me cursing. I was pretty angry about it."<br />
"Did you see a doctor?" Malik asked. He knew the answer already. He knew Eli.<br />
"No. If it was any worse than this I would have. I took care of myself." Of course you did, Malik thought. <br />
"I want you to promise me to see a doctor if it gets any worse. Dead skin like burns can get infected."<br />
"Okay." Eli lowered himself onto the garage floor. He pointed at the motor. "This broke yesterday, too."<br />
"I'm sorry, I don't know anything about garage doors," Malik said. "So, are you free tomorrow?"<br />
"Yup. At least, I should be. I don't do much anyway." Eli looked up at Malik. "Do you want me to bring anything?"<br />
Malik shrugged. "If you want to bring something that's fine, but everything's being provided. Lailah has a few good dishes lined up. I think you'll like them." <br />
Eli nodded. "Can't wait. What time?"<br />
"Why don't you come around about six."<br />
"Okay. I'll be there. Thanks."<br />
"My pleasure. Bring the dog, too. The kids like her," Malik said, and smiled. He scratched the dog between her ears and walked out of the garage and across the street.<br />
A few minutes later Eli hoisted the motor back to the ceiling and screwed it in place. He skipped to the button on the wall and pressed it. The motor whirred, and the door started to lower. A familiar screeching and grinding came from the motor when the door was a foot above the ground, and it refused to move again. "Well, damn it." Eli looked at the motor. Had he forgotten a part? There was nothing on the floor where he was sitting. Could the dog have done something with a part? No, he would have noticed.<br />
"I guess it's staying there for now," Eli said. The dog squeezed under the door and then squeezed right back into the garage. She seemed pleased with herself. "Good job girl, you can go through a door." Eli went inside, accidentally brushing against the doorway with part of his burn. He nearly fell over it hurt so much. He bit down on his tongue to keep from swearing and thought he tasted blood. I'm tearing myself apart, he thought as he went into the kitchen. He fed the dog, got out a cold beer and savored it as the dog ate. His shoulders hurt, but they were nothing compared to the pain from his leg. He figured he should change the bandages again, but he wanted to wait until the next morning. <br />
He put the shower on an ice-cold temperature and low pressure, and stood so that no water directly hit his burns. The shower stall wasn't the biggest, so it was a difficult and time-consuming activity. His burns murmured low-level pain at him as he toweled off.<br />
Another night, more pills. He took two painkillers and a sleeping pill with the rest of the beer. He felt drowsy immediately, and settled down on his bed. <br />
He didn't notice that the dog wasn't with him. She was still in the kitchen, glaring at the bottle of pills that the man had taken from every day for weeks. His hand went to it quicker and quicker, it seemed. She turned away from it and went down the stairs into the man's room, and laid down on his bed, careful to avoid the wounded leg. She enjoyed being near him. <br />
He smelled good. He didn't smell healthy, not to her, but he smelled good. Here was somebody that she could help, the smell told her. Every once in a while the smell would get even worse, and the dog would worry. These periods of worse smell were always right before the man took one of the pills.<br />
In fact, the smell was changing, day-by-day. Smelling more and more... fake. The dog didn't know why. <br />
The man was snoring now, as he did. The dog turned her face away from the pungent scent of the chemical he covered his leg in, and fell asleep herself.<br />
<br />
"Be good now," Eli said, clipping the leash to the dog's collar. "Be gentle with the kids, and try not to break anything." He didn't know why he was speaking to the dog in this way; she couldn't understand him. He straightened up and adjusted his own collar. He had a yellow polo shirt and white shorts on. The burn looked a little better, but it still hurt more than enough.<br />
He had found what could be called a possible job this morning, and applied. He'd worked on the garage door opener with no luck, it remained stuck at the position it had been yesterday. He wasn't sure what to do next with the motor.<br />
They went across the street, the leash limp in Eli's hand. He rang the doorbell at Malik's house and listened to growing steps.<br />
Malik's older child, the girl named Parisa, opened the door. "Puppy!" She yelled, and gave the dog a hug. The dog smiled back with an open mouth, and started sniffing her leg. Malik appeared behind his daughter.<br />
"Come on in, we're almost ready to eat. Lailah just has a few things to pull out of the oven and we'll be ready."<br />
Malik gave Eli a short tour, leading him through the kitchen, living room, and family room. They spent a few minutes throwing a ball for the dog as the rest of the foods were taken out of the oven or off the stove. Malik held the smaller child in his hands as Parisa ran with the dog in the yard. There was a cool breeze, and it lightly shivered over his burned leg. Parisa stared at it every once in a while, but apparently knew that she wasn't supposed to.<br />
Lailah called them into the dining room, and Eli joined them at the table that was covered in unrecognizable dishes and, sometimes, colors. Lailah began introducing the food. There was khichdi, appam, vindaloo, tandoori chicken, chana masala, asparagus with spices, beer to drink, "and chhenagaja for dessert!" Lailah finished. "Please, eat!"<br />
"It looks great," Eli said. "I don't know what to eat first." <br />
"Try the tandoori chicken," Malik said. "That's what we'd call the main dish if we had to pick one. Then move on to the khichdi or the vindaloo. Don't forget the asparagus though! It has ginger and ajwain. Both spices have the interesting effect of..."<br />
Eli got lost in the food and talk. He hadn't had a home cooked meal of this size and quality in a long time... probably the last time he had visited home before graduating.<br />
After that realization, the food became smaller in his eyes. It still tasted good, and smelled good, and looked good, but it became worth less. There were so many times that he had sat down at the table in the house just across the street to a meal cooked by his mother on white segmented plates. Chicken, turkey, hamburgers, pizza, pasta, tacos, and on. This wasn't the food his mother would cook; this wasn't any food that she could even eat. <br />
His father would eat it in a heartbeat, though. The vindaloo was caustic in its spice, the chana masala also spicy but hearty, too. The Asparagus and its spices, the ones that had some effect that Eli had ignored, tasted fantastic and Eli had seconds. His father would have loved all of it, just as Eli loved it.<br />
Without becoming aware, he sank into a spiral of depression. His father would have loved it, and his brothers would have eaten it without qualm. they would have fought over the good pieces of chicken, poo-pooed the asparagus, and wolfed down the sweet chhenagaja, the dish that Lailah brought out after they had finished with the other dishes. It tasted similar to fried doughnuts to Eli, and they were covered in sweet syrup. His family would have all loved the little rolls of dough as if they were the last thing to eat in the world.<br />
He stopped eating. He felt sick. He was tired and his leg hurt. He wondered if he could thank them and leave this early. He'd already been there for an hour, but Eli guessed that they would have liked him to stay for a while. The dog was lying on the porch's bench, just outside the window from the kitchen. She looked asleep.<br />
Malik's family talked around him; it was as if he couldn't speak. There failed to be much reason to. Most of the talk was about how the baby had spilled mashed food down his front. Eli, down at the far corner from the baby and Lailah, watched as these four people lived out the family roles that they had been given: mother, father, older sister, baby. Eli yearned for his old role, the oldest brother. He would have eventually told his brothers about how to date, helped his aging parents until they grew too old to take care of themselves, perhaps moved them into a home or an apartment, taken his kids over to see them as his mother's hair turned gray and his father's scalp wrinkled, spent holidays with them, opening presents containing tools or fruitcake or cheesy sweaters, celebrated the birthdays of their growing family together, as aunts and uncles and cousins and nephews were added, and then, finally, when the time was right, send them away into the next life with this one well-lived. Not cut short by a driver who'd had too many to drink that night. Not.<br />
He realized that the table was quiet. Malik was looking at him. Eli had been staring at his empty plate, focused so intently on it that it was invisible, that everything was invisible. Even the baby was looking at him, just because everyone else at the table was. Eli couldn't meet their eyes.<br />
"Eli?" Malik said softy. "Are you all right?"<br />
"Is the food disagreeing with you?" Lailah asked.<br />
"No. It's fine." So tired. He wanted to sleep. "I... thank you. It was a wonderful meal. But I think I need to go." He started to rise.<br />
"Are you sure?" Lailah asked. "There's no need. Have another chhenagaja!"<br />
"No!" Eli shouted, and the family jumped. The baby puckered his face. "No, I'm, I'm sorry, I need to... go." He rose awkwardly, and ended up scraping his burn on the table leg. His knee buckled as pain snapped his body into a convulsion, and he smacked his hand down on the corner of the table to keep from falling. Malik rose.<br />
"Eli!"<br />
Eli stood and put his hand out. Malik stopped. Tears were in his eyes. Eli went to the porch door and let the dog in. She looked up at him knowingly. He went to the entryway and buckled the leash on her collar. Malik hovered.<br />
"I'm sorry if we did something to offend you," he was saying. The baby cried in the dining room. "Do you need help? Your leg is bleeding again."<br />
It was. Blood seeped from around the bandages where Eli had hit the table leg. He could hardly see the blood for the pain that he felt. He stood.<br />
He wavered, seeming about to fall. Malik stepped forward to catch him.<br />
He put his hand on the door and steadied himself. He looked at Malik.<br />
"I just... I have a lot on my mind." He looked down at the dog, and then back at the man. "Thank you for dinner."<br />
<br />
He was out the door and across the street, nearly dragging the dog along with him. He put minimal pressure on his leg and still it cried out in fury at his stupidity. His eyes drooped and he thought he could feel his heartbeat more than he should have.<br />
He got inside and dropped the leash on the ground, not bothering to unhook it from the dog's collar. <br />
His leg hurt. He limped to the bathroom and took four pain pills. His head swam. The dog barked at him. Did she always make so much noise?<br />
His head hurt. His stomach hurt. He was so tired. He felt like crying.<br />
Why did he have to lose his family? Why did that tragedy have to land on him? Did he deserve it? The dog barked. There was so much noise. His head pounded. He couldn't see for some reason. He stumbled to the kitchen. He could almost hear his mother asking him why he had taken so many painkillers. He pushed it away. His hand hit something on the counter. Now his hand hurt and he wanted to pound the counter, but that would just hurt more.<br />
He found the bottle of sleeping pills, shook it, and opened it up. The dog barked. They would help him sleep; they would let him feel nothing. He tilted the bottle toward his mouth and heard sweet clattering noises as the pills tumbled towards it, ready to do their work.<br />
Something collided with him, in the chest, and he fell to the ground. Skittering noises came from all around him. He opened his eyes and saw, in the dim evening light of the kitchen, the dog standing by him, barking. All in a rush his hearing caught up and the barks exploded in his ears. A pill was near Eli's hand, and he reached for it.<br />
The dog gobbled it up before he could grab it. The dog coughed and growled. Eli looked at it in surprise. "What's wrong with you?" He shouted, standing. Pills littered the tile. He went for the closest one. The dog jumped in front of him. "Get out of my way!" He reached.<br />
The dog swiftly clamped her jaws on his hand and released, so the interaction added nothing more than a quick pain. Eli stumbled back, holding the hand to his chest. His foot crunched something, and he looked. There was a smashed pill. He looked around the kitchen. Pills were everywhere. I almost took these. All of these. How many were there? Twenty? Thirty? Enough to kill him, or put him in the hospital. There had been beer at Malik's house too. He had just swallowed four painkillers.<br />
"I almost killed myself," Eli said out loud. "I was going to." he looked at his hand, then at the dog. She stood still. "You just... saved my life."<br />
He sat at the table there. He couldn't look anywhere without seeing the pills. He looked at the dog. "Come here."<br />
The dog walked forward. She put her front paws on his knees and licked his face. "How did you know?" Eli asked. "How could you tell?" <br />
The dog tilted her head. <br />
"And you don't even have a name," Eli said. The dog got down, and Eli kicked a pill away from his feet. "How could I have been so stupid?" He got to his knees and started gathering the pills. The dog watched him. He gathered them and put them back in their bottle. He felt dizzy and weak. There were so many strange chemicals in his body he knew that if all those pills had entered him it would have been the end. <br />
"Good girl," he said to the dog. Her tail wagged.<br />
<br />
The next day Eli sat on the front step of his house and threw the ball for the dog. She chased it happily. She had gotten more sleep than normal the night before, thanks to the pill she swallowed. Eli hadn't slept well, but he had slept. He made the decision to move to his parent's old bed, and that seemed to help. There was more space for him and the dog.<br />
Malik wandered over with his hands in his pockets. He saw Eli smiling as Eli watched the dog.<br />
"Sorry about yesterday," Eli said. "I made a fool of myself."<br />
"It's alright," Malik said.<br />
"I almost killed myself." Malik looked in shock at Eli. He sputtered. "I didn't mean to. I was about to swallow a dozen or more sleeping pills when she," Eli motioned at the dog, who had come to sit next to him, "stopped me. She knew, somehow."<br />
"Well, thank God she did!" Malik said. "You might have died!"<br />
"I didn't take a pill last night. I didn't sleep very well. But I think I can do without them."<br />
"That's good. And Eli, if you ever have thoughts like those again--"<br />
Eli waved him off. "I know, I know. I didn't want to kill myself. It just sort of almost happened." Eli sighed, and rubbed the dog. "But I will. I promise."<br />
He still hurt with the memories of his family. His leg still pained him. Those things wouldn't leave, not for some time. "It will be tough for me," he said. Malik said nothing. Eli sat and rubbed the dog for a few minutes, until Malik turned to leave.<br />
"Did I tell you I figured out her name?"<br />
Malik stopped. "No, what is it?"<br />
Eli smiled. "Angel."Danny Deisingerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12658111719410284150noreply@blogger.com0