by Dan McNeill
Chapter 3
It was right after the final game of the season. Beaver Creek beat them but it was close. Really. Close. It sucked. If it wasn't for a screwed up play call during the last drive, hell, they probably would have pulled it off. Ray wanted to go out with his friends to blow off steam and maybe harass some pukes from Beaver Creek. But no, mom came to the game. So mom and Po and Ray were going to Nick's Deli for a hot pastrami. Could have been worse. Dad could have been there too.
So they get there and Ray runs into a pack of players from Beaver Creek. They're wanting to blow off steam too. Only it's Ray they're running into. Ray knew as soon as they walked into Nick's that it sure as shit wasn't going to end well. Nope, it wasn't going to end well at all. It was going to be crazy town.
Of course it was their quarterback that started the inevitable. Goddamned quarterbacks. All they do is throw a ball around and they think they're irreplaceable. So this one decides to throw a can of pop at Po, trying to be funny.
"Think fast!" the prick says. Then when Po drops it and laughs it off because that's what Po does, Joe Quarter-bastard starts laughing too. Only it's not a real laugh. It's a, this-slanty-eyed kid-must-be-a-retard-so-let's-laugh-like-assholes kind of laugh. Po turned red, mom started to cry and Raymond swung a bar stool across Joe Quarterback's backside.
Then things got really crazy.
Crazy town.
Slowly, Raymond opened his eyes. The pungent smell of dog drenched in lake water wafted over his nostrils and his head pounded like a hangover. Next to him, all needy-like, stood Rowdy, nudging Raymond nervously with his wet nose. Lying on his back, staring at the wispy clouds floating past the brightness of the morning sun, he strained to look at Rowdy while his head wanted to do nothing but explode.
“Stupid dog!” Raymond shouted. “Where the hell were you?”
“Quiet!” a woman’s voice whispered shrilly back. “And I'll have you know that stupid dog just saved your life muchacho! Drew away two drones before I showed up to save your sorry ass last night!”
Raymond looked over in astonishment to see a young woman, somewhere close to his age. Wearing a camouflage hoodie with the sleeves pulled up, her olive skin matched the trunk of the sugar maple tree she crouched behind. Specks of forest-hidden sunlight bounced off her shoulder-length jet-black hair, which fell in straight bangs about her face. As she cautiously approached him, Raymond could see a wild yellow daisy tucked behind her ear, a stark contrast to the brooding dark eyes that currently surveyed him. Forgetting his headache, he jumped to his feet.
“Where is he?” Raymond shouted. “Where’d they take him?”
The young woman pushed Raymond back to the ground. “Sit down you idiot!” she whispered assertively. She poked her head around the base of the tree and then stared back at Raymond. “They’re close!” She pulled out a pair of bulky binoculars from a pouch she carried around her waist, quickly scanning the surroundings.
“Damned drones. About a dozen more just showed up this morning, rolled into downtown Lake Geneva and setup a perimeter.”
Raymond was feeling anxious and scared. He reached for Remmy but his old friend was gone. "Where is it?" he said with a snarl.
The woman shook her head, flashing a wry smile. Reaching down into a pile of leaves, she pulled out Raymond’s rifle. “Doesn’t much matter right now, does it handsome?” Examining the rifle, she tossed it to him. “If the drones come back, this ain't gonna do shit.”
Catching the rifle, he cocked it, pointing it straight out at the woman’s face. But instead of backing off, she just smiled at Raymond, stepping away.
"Ooooooh!" she said, taunting him. "A rifle cock! That supposed to scare me Dirty Harry?" Laughing harder, she continued to look back out into the surrounding woods.
Raymond whistled for Rowdy. Holding his still throbbing head, he started off back towards the last thing he remembered. The Laughing Well.
“Just where the hell do you think you’re going?” the woman said, grabbing Raymond by the arm.
Raymond again shook her off. “Back home. I’ll need supplies if I’m going to find him.”
“Home? You got no home!”
“Shut up and leave me alone!” Raymond shoved her back hard. He picked up the pace as Rowdy let out a howl.
It was the only sound he heard before the woman tackled him to the ground, shoving him face first into a pile of leaves surrounding the sugar maple tree. Raymond tried to break away but couldn’t. The woman held him down firm, jabbing him in the side of the gut when he tried to struggle.
“Listen dumb ass!” she whispered fiercely. “You can say adios to your little cottage hombre! It's history! Jehu burned it down!” Slowly, she released him. “Now if you ever want to see your friend again, we need to get out of here, before they come back! I know where they took him!”
Raymond got back up slowly, looking at the woman long and hard to determine what she was and if she were a threat. Feeling his bruised sides, he slowly slung Remmy over his shoulder.
“Smart choice,” she said. “Now, about your, uh, friend.”
"Not my friend," Raymond hissed. "My brother. And his name is Po.
Ignoring him, she reached back into her pouch and pulled out a hand drawn map. “Your brother then," she said, "must have been pretty special. The Chosen flew him out of here last night by helicopter. But I know where they took him.”
Rowdy ran to the woman’s side, looking back to Raymond as if to say it was ok. Rowdy lifted his snout to the wind and began sniffing madly. Then he started to howl.
Raymond could smell it too. Sweat. An acidy odor of human perspiration, but different. More concentrated, like the stink of an old high school locker room after a grueling practice.
“The 19 be with us!” the woman said, turning to Raymond with a frightened gasp. Her olive skin suddenly seemed a shade paler. “He’s found me!” she bellowed. “Run!”
She tore off into the woods while Raymond and Rowdy blindly followed. Raymond knew the area here well. It was a favorite hunting spot for him, deer mostly but it also gave him cover to pull down the occasional duck and goose. He turned briefly to see what it was the woman was running from.
It was hard to make out, especially with Raymond trying hard not to lose site of the woman leading the way. Like a strobe lamp in a haunted house, moments of sunlight piercing between red and gold leaves briefly illuminated something. Human. Fast. Wearing some helmet. Wild hair. Smiling. Muscular. It could jump cars. It was no more than twenty yards back. Gaining fast. It didn't tire. If Po was out there, alone, he wouldn’t stand a chance.
And just like that, Raymond went away. He stopped. Time itself seemed to stop. Or slow. Raymond could see everything. Sense every possible outcome. It was Wonderland.
That’s what Po called it anyway, when Raymond tried explaining it to him two years ago. It’s the place down the hole that Alice went to, Po would tell him. A place of talking rabbits and queens and tea parties, and when you came out, no one knew you were ever gone.
It began after the Rapture. Raymond still hadn't figured out why. He thought at times it could be some side effect of the plague or the pressure of protecting Po. Maybe some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder like his Uncle Tommy "Big Whiskey" Walsh had suffered after he came back from Afghanistan. Raymond just didn't know.
Whatever it was, Wonderland was a place he would disappear to during times of danger or distress. Intense times. Situations like this. Dire situations where the odds of death were greater than the hope for survival. Raymond went into the rabbit hole. And he couldn’t control it.
It’s where he found himself now. A place where dangers became shadows. Erasing the face of danger erased the fear. Erasing the fear brought that feeling of punk-ass invincibility. With the danger closing in, Raymond became the real lion of his mother’s stories.
He wished he had this when he played football. A slowing down of time that gave him the chance to see th
e best of all possible outcomes. He stopped and pivoted. Mid-spin he had already slid Remmy from his shoulder. With the vibrations of the creature’s footfalls and the crunching of the branches, he felt his target without even having to see it. He fired. One shot. That’s all he would need.
The semi-automatic rifle recoiled and Raymond made no move. He watched stoically as the bullet ripped through the man’s chest, sending him to the ground. Raymond could see the blood and chunks of flesh blow back like a wet sneeze. The clouds passing by the sun up above cast a bright white glow over the smoke from the shot. The man remained face down in the grasses. Raymond sensed no movement.
But then, ripples. Waves in the dark weeds and grasses. Within seconds, impossibly, the man pushed up from the ground. He stood straight now, his howls of laughter echoing madly between the barren homes as he resumed pursuit.
“No!” Raymond yelled, nearly tripping as he stumbled over a branch. He was out of Wonderland. Hands grabbed him before he fell.
“What's wrong with you! He's one of the fucking Elected you idiot! They don’t die! Now run!”
Years of wind sprints in football practice made Raymond quite the runner. He tailed inches behind the woman now, close enough to hear her rapid exhalations and notice her frantic sideways glances.
“You have no idea where you’re going, do you”, Raymond yelled, running at a crouch to avoid the low-hanging branches. He slowed to glance back at their pursuer. If anything, getting shot in the chest almost seemed to make the man run faster. “Follow me,” Raymond commanded.
He made a sharp turn, into a deeper thicket of trees that hugged the south shore of Lake Como. Lake Como was the shallower of the two lakes in the area, the other being Lake Geneva, which was more popular with the tourists. Because of that, Raymond and his friends were able to do a lot more uninterrupted exploring. Raymond knew where they had to go.
Maher’s Bar. A popular pub and eatery during the tourist season, Maher’s Bar had been a Lake Como landmark since the 1920’s, and it showed. Old and neglected even before the end-times drop-off in tourism, Mother Nature had made herself at home here. Weeds and overgrown shrubbery had all but covered up the place where Raymond had tasted his first beer. It had been so long, he almost couldn’t find what he was looking for.
But then, there it was. The entrance to the wine cellar. The lake-side patio had partially collapsed beside it, but, between the weed-drenched earth and the reams of ivy which had overtaken it was the metal hatch that led down into the earthy wine cellar. The place was like a vault. Built during the Prohibition era to safely hide bootleg booze, the wine cellar became a popular place with in-the-know Lake Como teens looking to avoid being seen.
With some difficulty, Raymond carefully parted through the thick vines of ivy and lifted the hatch. Looking back, he pushed Rowdy and the woman inside.
It was just like Raymond remembered it. Dank smelling and pitch black. A little too dark for Rowdy, who began to whimper when Raymond closed the hatch. At once, thin hands masked in darkness grabbed Raymond’s arm.
“Shut your dog up now!” she said through what he could tell were gritted teeth. “Whatever you do,” she whispered, “don’t make a sound. Jehu is the most powerful of the Elected! He can hear everything.” In the darkness, she crumpled herself into a corner.
And then, almost on cue, he came – making no attempt to hide his arrival. While Raymond couldn’t see a thing he could hear the man dashing swiftly back and forth through the tall brush, like a wolf hunting its prey. Raymond patted Rowdy gently on the head, rubbing his fingers behind his ears, which he could tell just by touching were perked up straight.
Over the years, the old metal hatch had begun to show its age. Specks of sunlight shot through minor rust holes. The man was directly over them now, standing on the ivy-covered hatch. As he stood there, Raymond could hear him breathing heavily, while an unnatural smell drifted into their dark cell. Rowdy began to shuffle nervously, his paws scratching at the ground. Raymond tried to calm him down by stroking his head again while the woman’s panicked grip on his arm began to draw blood.
Without warning, a roar like a thunderclap crashed near them, followed by several harsh metallic echoes as a massive object was bounced forward - the initial force being so strong that the hatch door popped off its hinges. Raymond cast his eyes upwards to see the crumpled bumper of an orange VW Beetle. With the hatch now a few inches off its hinges, the man above was clearly visible.
Raymond grabbed the woman tight and pressed them both up against the side of the wall so hard, the pieces of chipped masonry cut into his skin. Rowdy, usually so brave, was curled up into a ball between them.
Raymond could hear the man swatting low at the brush, attempting to clear it as he made his way back towards them. The man stopped just feet from the hatch. He was looking out into the forest, listening. The man wore a mask crafted in gold that covered his entire head. Flourishes that looked to be serpents twisted up like golden horns on each side. Attached at the base of the mask, silver chainmail wrapped around his neck. A matted mane of fire-orange hair flowed out from underneath the chainmail, running midway down his bare back.
Running vertically along his bare back were three long stripes. Raymond guessed they were tattoos, their colors dampened by the sun. But as he continued his prowl, the tri-colored stripes seemed to shift in color, turning darker and then brighter. Raymond’s heart was pounding so loud he was afraid the monster outside might be able to hear it.
The man launched himself high into the air, landing in a crouching position atop a storage shed, letting out a tremendous roar. Waiting several long moments for a response, he grunted loudly before leaping back down to the ground.
The man sounded frantic now, rushing first towards the spot where the VW had landed, then back towards them. He stopped for a moment directly over the hatch and Raymond thought they were found. After a deep grunt, he headed into Maher’s Bar itself where the crashes continued, peppered increasingly with screaming obscenities that Po surely would have had a problem with.
For several disturbing minutes, they sat silently in darkness as the man above them raged on. Raymond could guess at what was being destroyed - the James Bond pinball machine Po always loved to play, the ancient oak grandfather clock with the hands frozen at 12:06, the corner booth overlooking the lake Raymond and his family always sat at. Raymond was surprised at how much the thought of that booth being smashed to splinters saddened him.
Gradually, the man above stopped. He heard something. Raymond could hear it too. At first he couldn’t place it. But as the dull repeating “whumps” grew louder and louder, Raymond could finally place it. It was a helicopter. And from the sound of it, Raymond judged that it was hovering just off the beach in front of the bar. Though the words the man shouted were drowned out by the din of the rotating blades, they could hear him dashing from the bar, towards the sound.
Cautiously, Raymond crept slowly towards the door, placing his eye against the hairline ray of sun shining though the door’s upper hinge, gazing out at the man as he ran for the chopper. The man was as muscular as one of Po’s strongest superhero action figures and just as curious looking. Even at this distance, Raymond could see the effervescent stripes coursing along his backside. Getting to the edge of the lake, the man crouched, and in an instant, propelled himself higher than the top of the massive willow tree back at his grandpa’s cabin, grabbing hold of the chopper’s landing skids and pulling himself in.
As the chopper flew away, the young woman released her death grip on Raymond’s arm to fumble through her canvas shoulder bag. In the silent darkness, Raymond sat motionless, numb in the understanding that, despite what he had told Po yesterday on the lake, super-heroes were real.
“All right!” the girl said, shining a flashlight into Raymond's face. “Train leaves in an hour. Time to catch it.”