Helsa grinned. “No one eats meat here.”
“You’re all vegetarians?” I felt like a man who had just been robbed.
“Yes. We don’t kill animals for food.”
I looked at Andi, who seemed fine with the revelation. I glanced at Daniel; he looked distracted by what had just happened and didn’t seem to care about what he ate—and I’ve seen the kid down his fair share of hotdogs and hamburgers. Then there was Brenda. I studied her as she picked at the stuff on her plate. She looked ready to rebel.
“We gotta find a way home,” she said.
Helsa let us eat, then said, “You mentioned a crazy man outside the hotel and the restaurant.”
“Yes, probably just some homeless guy.”
“He was crazier than an outhouse rat.” Brenda didn’t bother looking up from her plate. Her description was a tad cruel, but I couldn’t argue with it.
“And he had an eye patch?”
“Yep. Handmade. Cut it out of a Corn Flakes box and tied it on with a string.”
“Tockity Man,” Daniel said. He hadn’t done much talking of late, especially since we left the hospital ward. He had that distant look in his eyes. Something was working in the kid’s brain.
“Tockity Man?” Helsa asked.
“It was something he said—”
“Ranted,” Andi clarified.
I continued. “Both times we saw him, he said, ‘Tock-tick, tock-tick, tockity, tockity, tick-tick.’ He got some of it backward.”
“He didn’t get it backward,” Helsa said. “That line is from a children’s poem.” She closed her eyes, then spoke as if reading words printed on the inside of her eyelids:
Tock, tock, tock goes the clock,
Tick, tick, tick, the hands make their pick.
Around the face the hands do move;
Our work the heart does prove.
Tock-tick, tock-tick,
Tockity, tockity, tick-tick,
What life will you pick?
Andi looked puzzled. “I see your children’s poems are as confusing and unsettling as ours.”
“It is very old, and I’m translating into your language, so it doesn’t sound the same aloud as it does in my head. It meant more two hundred years ago than it does today. I haven’t heard it since I was a child—I mean, a child in my world.”
“Sick minds are attracted to sick ideas,” Brenda said. “I once did a tat on a guy that was nothing more than the line ‘and down will come baby.’”
“You mean like the line in Rock-a-Bye Baby?” I always hated that lullaby.
“Yes,” Brenda said, explaining it for Helsa. “There are variations of the song, but most describe a baby in a cradle, hung in a tree, and when the wind blows it rocks the cradle, then the bough—the tree limb—breaks, and the baby and cradle fall.”
Helsa leaned back as if Brenda’s word came with a stench. “That’s horrible.”
“No one would argue with you,” Andi said.
“Mothers still sing it to their babies without knowing what they’re singing.” Brenda’s grumpiness had moved up a level.
I decided to get the conversation back on track. “So why would Tockity Man say those words to us?”
Helsa shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s the first I’ve heard of him. . . .” She trailed off, and that made my antennas go up. “Unless . . .”
“Unless what?” I was desperate for answers.
“I need to check on a few things.” Helsa stood. “You should rest. You’ve had a challenging day.”
“Challenging?” Brenda said. “That’s one word for it.”
Helsa patted Brenda on the shoulder. To my relief, she pulled her hand back without a single bite mark. “Brenda, you are very funny.”
Helsa said nothing more but pivoted and walked from the cafeteria.
CHAPTER
11
Useless Hands
Helsa sent someone to show us our rooms, which were in the same building. They reminded me of dorm rooms. My room had a wide bed, a dresser, a small desk, a closet, and a bathroom. I made use of the latter, then stripped down and tried to make use of the bed. The mattress was firm, just the way I liked it. I needed sleep. Nothing is more taxing on mind and body than over-the-top emotions, and my mind and body had had it. The oblivion of sleep was what I wanted.
I was to be deprived. Although the bed was comfortable, my back ached, those gray potatoes weren’t sitting right, and my brain was doing jumping jacks. Every time I closed my eyes, images flashed on the movie screen of my brain: Brenda talking about Batman, Tockity Man standing at the hotel and café windows, and—this was the worst of all—the children dressed in old bodies dying in the hospital wing.
I stared at the ceiling through the dim light. Something warm and wet trickled down the sides of my face. They were just children. When that realization hit me, I considered it the worst blow I had ever received.
It took me awhile to admit it, but I was wrestling with a different problem, one that embarrasses me. Me, as I said before, I occasionally heal people. I have no control over the when, the why, or the where. It’s a great gift when it works, but since I don’t know when it works it confuses me and that makes me shy away from trying.
Am I afraid to fail? No. Yes. I don’t know. Perhaps this doesn’t make sense. When I was still in college, I had to take a class in basic psychology. The professor told us about a study where two monkeys were given a shock. They shocked one monkey on a regular schedule. Same time of day and same number of times. That monkey didn’t like it, but learned to live with it. The other monkey was shocked at random. That poor thing went nuts.
I don’t admit this often, but with this gift, more and more I feel like the second monkey.
Sleep finally came, but it was loaded with extra-real dreams, not one of which I liked. I didn’t sleep long, maybe a few hours. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. The bed was done with me and I was done with it.
I swung my feet over the side of the bed, then stopped short. The pain in my back had grown sharper, and a new set of pains had set into my knees and one of my feet, the one I injured playing football. It hurt more now than it did then, and trust me, it hurt a lot back then.
It took two tries for me to hoist my bulk off the mattress. I took a few steps and each one hurt, but as I moved along, the joints loosened up some. My first thought was to blame the mattress. That changed when I hobbled into the bathroom and turned on the light. The image in the mirror made me forget why I had gone into the bathroom in the first place. The man in the mirror was me all right, but I had changed. Not greatly, but I’ve been looking at my mug for over two decades, and I could tell that my skin seemed a tad looser and my hair a bit thinner. I leaned closer to the mirror. There were wrinkles around the eyes and my hair was longer.
I had aged. I didn’t need to think that through. Helsa had told us we would, but I didn’t expect it to happen during a short nap. I like to put things in the best possible light, so I told myself how glad I was that I hadn’t slept longer. I also realized whatever it was we were supposed to do, we needed to get to it. Tick-tock, tock-tick, the clock. I now somewhat understood what the Tockity Man meant. And I didn’t like it.
No more wasting time. I doubted I had any time to waste anyway. I dressed again and left my room. I knew my destination, and I was there in short order—maybe a little slower than I would have made the trip when I first got to this place, but I didn’t let any moss grow on me.
I didn’t use the communication panel on the side of the doorway to the hospital ward. I just walked in. Nurses looked at me but said nothing. I had a feeling they were thinking, “He’ll be in here permanently soon enough.”
No lingering for me. I came to work, to lay it all on the line. If I failed, it would be a failure of trying to do something right.
No need to tell the nurses what I intended to do. They wouldn’t understand me anyway. I stopped at the nearest bed. A man who looked to be well north of ninety met my gaze. I doubt he sa
w me. Cataracts covered his eyes. I took one of his hands in mine and laid my other hand on his forehead.
I prayed.
I prayed for all I was worth. Some minutes passed before I could open my eyes. No change. The cataracts were still there, and the old man/kid was still the same as I first saw him. No healing.
I moved to the next bed, then the next. Same result, by which I mean no results. Maybe my gift didn’t work in this universe. Maybe I forgot how to do it right. Maybe I had fallen out of favor with God. My eyes grew wet again. Still, I moved from one patient to the next doing absolutely no good at all. The children were all dying of old age.
Time walked by. Tock-tick, tock-tick, tockity, tockity, tick-tick. With each tick I felt more despair and more anger. I didn’t think I could slip lower. Turns out, I could.
The door to the room burst open and a familiar-looking young man walked in. He wore a robe and was barefoot. His hair hung to his ears and was styled in the I-just-rolled-outta-bed look. I wondered if he was a new patient, then the ceiling collapsed on me. Daniel.
The young man stepped to the bedside of the eight-year-old kid who looked eighty. He took her hand and just stood there. A weak giggle rose from the bed, and I stood glued to the floor as Daniel stroked the patient’s hair.
If I had died at that moment, I would have considered it a blessing worthy of the highest praise. One of the nurses wheeled a chair over to Daniel so he could sit vigil. He took it. Sat. Then began to weep as the heart monitor next to the bed flatlined.
I limped to his side and put a hand first on his shoulder, then on the dead woman’s arm. I needed to speak, but I had no words; I needed to grant comfort but had none to give. I was useless.
Daniel laid his head on the side of the bed, resting it on their clasped hands.
We wept together.
Brenda and Andi walked through the doors. I could see gray in Brenda’s hair and wrinkles in Andi’s face. They weren’t old, but they had definitely aged. Daniel hadn’t moved; his head still rested on the bed. The dead girl/woman had been staring at the ceiling until I closed her eyes. I wish I could have done more. All I could do was stand near Daniel until the nurses thought enough time had passed and came to take her away.
Brenda stopped in her tracks. The young man in the robe must have looked familiar to her, but it was still impossible to believe.
Brenda’s eyes shifted from Daniel to the person in the bed, to the heart monitor, to me, then back to Daniel. “Oh, baby boy,” she said. She stepped beside Daniel, bent and hugged him. That’s when the sniffing started. Andi came to my side, took a look at me, then let the tears flow.
“I couldn’t do anything.” I whispered the words, which at the moment was the only volume setting I had. “I tried, Andi, I really tried. I prayed for each one. I tried to heal them, but it didn’t work. I feel useless.”
She took my arm, leaned in, and rested her head on my shoulder. Any other time, any other place, any other universe, I would have been over the moon. I was none of that. I was just heartbroken.
Minutes tock-ticked by, then an idea occurred to me. “We have to get these people back.”
“How?” Andi kept squeezing my arm like she feared her legs would give way.
“I don’t know. I just know we have to do it. I can’t let these kids die one by one, and I can’t let . . . others . . . be brought over—”
“Tank?” Andi let go and turned to face me. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m not sure yet. . . .” A fresh thought arrived. It was like someone was dictating directions to me. “Andi, I need your help. You too, Brenda.”
Daniel finally raised his head. “What about me?” He wiped his eyes dry.
“I always need you, li—buddy.” I started to call him “little buddy,” but that didn’t seem to fit anymore.
“We have to get Daniel back home.” Brenda sounded desperate. “Littlefoot returned to her proper age when she got back to her world; maybe we’ll do the same when we get back to ours.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” My mind was firing on all cylinders. “Andi, talk to the other patients. Ask questions. Find a pattern. We need a pattern.”
A motion to my right drew my attention to a nurse on a phone. A few moments later, Helsa walked in.
CHAPTER
12
Doing Something Even If It’s Wrong
My mother used to say that a watched pot never boils. Of course, she meant the water in the pot, but I never corrected her. She used to say that a lot. In our family, she was the one that had all the patience. I’m pretty good at patience, but not great. Especially if lives are at stake, I get positively antsy.
Andi was my watched pot. Brenda, Daniel, and I went to the cafeteria. It was easier to talk around a cafeteria table. More elbow room.
We did very little talking. I didn’t know where to start. “Hey Daniel, what’s it feel like to go from kid to teenager overnight? Are you diggin’ that?” That would be as stupid as it sounds. So instead, we played with our drinks and I tried to get my brain to be better than it was. It was wearing me out. I had only been up a few hours and I was already wishing for a nap. Growing older ain’t for sissies.
Brenda broke the silence. “You gotta plan, Cowboy?”
“Not really. Just a few thousand questions.”
“Me too.”
“We have to save the kids.” Daniel’s voice was nearly an octave deeper. It was interesting to hear, but I wanted my little buddy to be, well, little again.
“I know.” I rubbed my eyes. My vision wasn’t as sharp as I was used to. No doubt I needed glasses. “I’ll do anything I can.”
“We got here,” Daniel said. “We can get back.”
He lifted his eyes and looked around. From time to time Daniel sees angels, and I’ve been with the kid long enough to know he was looking for his friends. His expression told me he was disappointed.
Through the open door to the cafeteria I saw Andi and Helsa approaching. I was just getting used to seeing Helsa as an adult; it would take longer for me to get used to seeing an older Andi. She still looked pretty.
Andi walked with her head down as if following a line on the floor. Others might look at her and think, “Uh oh, she has bad news.” They’d be wrong. Her brain was burning rubber, and I took that to mean something good.
Andi sat across the table and next to Brenda; Helsa sat next to me.
We waited for Andi to speak. I knew she would when she got her thoughts in order. I didn’t have to wait long.
Andi said, “Okay, I’m gonna spew.”
“Eww,” Daniel said.
“I don’t mean that. I’m gonna spew what I’ve learned and then we can try to sort it out. Okay?”
No one objected.
“I’ve talked to as many of the patients as could speak. A few were showing signs of senility, but even then, I got a few things. Tank, you were right, they are children. The youngest is six and the oldest is twelve. There is no pattern to their ages. It’s a mix of those ages and all of the ones in between. There is roughly an even ratio of males to females, but there are a few more girls than guys. Again, no real pattern there. It’s what we’d expect if we visited any hospital: girls outnumber boys by a slight margin. So whoever or whatever is doing this is no respecter of persons or genders.”
“Is it only children who are dragged into this world?” I felt silly the moment I asked it.
“Think about it, Tank. You, Brenda, and I are adults and we came over the same as Daniel. The adults have died off already.”
“Right. We established that yesterday.” I remembered. I just wanted her to know I was listening. Either that or my memory was getting a little wobbly.
Andi went on, her eyes looking around the table but never really seeing us. She was immersed in thought. “All of the children are from Newland. That realization is important. If we had people here from different towns, states, even other parallel universes, it would mean the problem is too
large for us to handle. Of course, it might still be too much for us, but at least we’re dealing with just one place that is somehow tied to this reality.”
She paused. “Remember the mousy hotel manager we met when we came into town?”
“I do,” Brenda said. “She needed a good backhand to the face, if you ask me.”
“Because . . .” Andi prompted.
“Because she tried to run us off, that’s why,” Brenda said. “You were there. If she could have shoved us out the door, she would have done it.”
“And Tiffany at the café?” Andi said.
“Same thing. She tried to get us to head out of town.”
“They don’t like strangers,” I said.
“Sorry, Tank. You’re wrong. So are you, Brenda. And as much as I hate to admit it, so was I. They weren’t trying to get us to move on because they didn’t like tourists. They were trying to save us—to keep us from becoming the next set of victims.”
That was a punch to the gut.
“They could have been clearer about that.” Brenda was not ready to give up a perfectly good bad mood.
“Not really, Brenda. They couldn’t say, ‘Enjoy your stay in Newland, North Carolina—oh, and don’t let anyone make you disappear.’” Andi took a deep breath, as if revealing this information was wearing her out. “They have lost family members and probably even their own children without the slightest hint of what happened to them. We have the advantage of knowing a little about where we are.”
“I misjudged them,” I said.
Andi agreed. “We all did.”
Helsa said, “When all this began a few months ago, I did some checking. To our knowledge, people from your world only show up here and no place else in our world.”
Her eyes turned yellow. That was a new one.
“Not many days ago,” Andi said, “we sat in a university auditorium to listen to the professor talk about alternate dimensions and parallel universes. As you know, I made the PowerPoint slides and helped organize his material just like I’ve done for the professor over the last few years. He initially planned to include some controversial material but took it out about a week before we went to Tampa. He couldn’t provide enough evidence that the events he planned to describe were in fact real and not pure fiction. I helped with that research. Very interesting, but not substantial.”
The Probing: Leviathan, The Mind Pirates, Hybrids, The Village Page 27