I felt a needle jab my arm. My head swam groggily. Laying in the ambulance, I could hear her informing Orville of my situation.
“There’s metal shrapnel deep inside his ear canal. I’ve got to get him to Saint Luke’s. My partner better stay put here, so I’ll drive. More ambulances are on the way.”
“I’ll follow you.” His radio buzzed with static. “Harlan, I’m headed to Luke’s with suspect. Send some blue over for security.”
“You got an ID on him?”
“It’s...” Squark... Bizz... Buzz... The radio hissed and faded. “...and out.”
Pumpkin kept up a steady chatter as she negotiated the route to Saint Luke’s.
“So, you sicko. Got yourself into trouble again. Both Barry and I were sacked because of your little stunt in the basement. I heard the pervert nigger’s digging graves somewhere. Ha, I believe in God today. In miracles. You and I, we never finished our business. For years I haven’t been able to look in the mirror without wanting to grind your nuts. My eye developed a bad infection after you slammed it. I ended up losing my eyesight. Right now, I wish you had blinded both goddamn eyes because it sickens me to see you. Think of yourself as dead. You won’t be the first to be DOA.” She held up the knife of bloody chrome, now with a gauze-wrapped handle.
“Pumpkin, fuck you, you forgot to strap me down.”
I pushed myself up, trying to balance myself on my knees and hand-cuffed hands. Falling on my side, I fought the drug-fog in my head and the uselessness of muscles that felt and behaved like jelly. But I had survived ten months on debilitating anti-psychotic meds, two months on mushrooms, and being torn apart in a time tunnel during a dizzying fall through eternity. Just another day in my life. I crawled, swayed, and slipped but found the blur of a door handle and yanked.
Pumpkin slammed on the brakes.
My grip on the door loosened, and I somersaulted back onto the gurney.
“Damn, fucking damn.” Pumpkins face was as orange as her hair. “You little twerp.”
I bumped my way back to the rear. Pumpkin was trying to knock me off my progress by alternating between pumping the gas pedal and stomping on the brakes. The vehicle would jump forward, then jerk to a stop, jump again, then slam to a standstill.
Somehow the momentum worked in my favor, and I bounced against the door, whipped it open, swung out on it, and crash-landed on the hood of a green sedan following close behind.
“Orville, she’s a killer.”
The agent gaped in surprise from behind his steering wheel but recovered quickly, throwing open his door. Pumpkin had gotten out of the ambulance and was moving fast. She grabbed at me, then shoved Orville’s door back in his face.
I rolled off the car and stumbled away.
Down an alley. The scratchings on the wall greeted me warily, like I had intruded.
Monster Alley.
Immediately my mind sharpened, a necessary alertness overcoming my stupor, though my body was still sluggish. Trying to keep myself upright, my fingers stumbled over the formula as I staggered deeper into the dead end’s grip.
I could hear an altercation going on between Orville and Pumpkin.
“Stay back, ma’am. I’ll handle this.”
“Like hell.”
Knowing I was trapped, knowing I no longer could just zap myself out of the situation, hoping my magic symbol would reveal to me a way out, I looked over my shoulder at my pursuers. Orville was doing his best to concentrate on my movements while trying to hold back the persistent Pumpkin. She pushed past him. He grabbed her arm and steered her roughly behind himself.
“Ma’am, this is a serious situation. Get back to your ambulance and call in an emergency for police backup.”
Orville took a few steps forward. Pumpkin stood to one side, slightly to his rear. The lethal chrome dagger was in her raised fist, plunging downwards to the back of his neck.
I screamed, “Watch it, Orville.”
The alarm in my voice registered with him, and he must have sensed Pumpkin’s menace, for he twisted his body away from her. The mad paramedic’s blade missed, but her forearm slammed into Orville’s shoulder.
I ran towards the deadly scuffle. Orville had been thrown off balance by the large woman’s blow. She adjusted her attacks, choking his throat with one hand and raising her weapon with the other. I flung myself through the air, grasping her knife arm as I thumped against her.
The orange-haired troll knocked me away and slashed at Orville, cutting off a button on the flap of his coveralls. He recovered from the unexpected ambush and punched her in the jaw. She barely staggered before lunging at him again. He sidestepped her attack and whacked her on the back of her neck just as I dove at her knees. The crazed woman tumbled to the ground, bringing Orville down with her, his head ramming into the alley’s dumpster.
The three of us ended up entangled together. Pumpkin grabbed hold of some handles on the the trash container and slowly hauled herself to her feet. Breathing raggedly, she glowered at both of us. The wicked blade lay a few feet away. She started towards it, bent down to pick up the weapon.
A dazed Orville looked at me quizzically. “What the hell?”
Then suddenly I was falling from the open ambulance door, staring at the agent through his windshield, rolling off the hood of his car, yelling at him that the deranged ambulance medic was a killer. I traced my fingers along the brick alley wall as Orville and Pumpkin argued and pushed at each other while chasing behind me. I turned just as the mad woman was about to skewer my old FBI nemesis.
It’s happening again. I’m time-jumping in repeat again.
Like the last time around, I screamed, “Watch it, Orville.”
The makeshift knife plunged towards him. I read the disbelief in his eyes at seeing me down the far end of the alley again, but in a moment of self-preservation, he remembered the fight of moments before, shifted his weight, and flung his arm around to block Pumpkin’s attack.
This time I grabbed her from behind, slinging my handcuffed hands over her head and tugging at her neck. Orville forced the metal skewer from her grasp and pulled his gun.
Pumpkin went wild, backing up rapidly to smash me against the alley wall, then kicking Orville in the groin. We ended up flailing in a pile against the dumpster again. In this new episode of the struggle, Orville’s revolver lay on the pavement and Pumpkin crawled on hands and knees, fumbling with the gun as Orville yelled, “This isn’t happening.”
And then in a flash, I fell through the ambulance door and bounced onto the hood of the FBI sedan. I staggered down the alley. Pumpkin raised her arm to stab at Orville, and the three of us were struggling through a third time-warp with shared looks of disbelief and horror. The whole battle was punctuated with Pumpkin shrieking hysterically, “He’s a demon, he’s the unholy one.” Orville scrambled for his life and sanity, intoning steadily just beneath his breath, “Our father, who art in heaven... forgive us... deliver us from evil.”
This fight was the most fierce of the three time-leap versions as the FBI man and the paramedic now believed they were involved in a struggle for their souls. I desperately tried new kicks or double-fisted punches to bring a different outcome from the previous jumps, but after we all slammed into the dumpster again, it appeared the fates had plotted against Orville and myself. As Pumpkin stood, she held both the blade and Orville’s revolver.
The hairs on my sweat-sopped arms stood on end when I heard the bubbling, retching, and maniacal laughter sounds from within the dumpster. The lid flew open, four mangled human heads appeared at the lip of the container. Long claws reached out of the stink of Beelzebub, ripping at Elsa Pumpkin’s chest, killing her instantly. A large rotten-looking mouth appeared from beneath the muck, gripped her orange-haired head, and voraciously lifted its dead prey into the Monster Alley dumpster.
I dragged Orville’s shaking body away from
the immediate area, sat him up under the section of the formula where the strange cloudy scratchings occupied the space of my old magic dog and star symbol. Paralyzed with fear, we both cringed at the terrifying crunching sounds and the chaotic movements that continued on for a few more minutes from out of the putrid sludge and filth.
Just as I believed silence and stillness had finally come to the alley, Beelzebub spit an eyeball out of the trash. “Ta-ta, Deets.”
Jesus. There’s nothing I can do about my fate. I’m still not calling the shots.
We sat in the FBI sedan, still parked near the end of the alley.
“Orville, go home and have a drink, and tomorrow don’t try to convince yourself that this didn’t happen, because it did.”
“I don’t... I can’t...” He looked terrified of me. I had just spent fifteen minutes trying to reassure him that I wasn’t going to hurt him as he shook and blubbered.
“Look, man, this is all you need to know. It’s dangerous to know more. Ever since you’ve been bugging me with accusations, I haven’t had anything to do with your suspicions. The terrorist commie thing—that’s completely bogus. What you saw in this alley is what I’ve been dealing with. Understand? Gods, demons, and their petty, but deadly, problems. So write a book about it, flip out over it, or drink yourself into oblivion, but leave me alone. I’ve had a lot of real worries other than your bullshit commie plots, okay? Go to church, meditate, see a psychiatrist, treat yourself and your family to a vacation, smoke some weed to calm down and come to terms with it, or drop by in ten years and we’ll talk about it over a beer. But leave me alone.”
“Parker, what was that thing?” Beads of perspiration covered his face.
“Look, you’re strong. You handled it well. You’ve witnessed something terrible that nobody ever needs to see. This was the real evil. Leave it to the gods to deal with. You see enough shit everyday. Okay?”
“It knew you.”
“Right, but we’re lucky it didn’t grab us too.”
He picked and ripped at his fake beard, absentmindedly handing it to me after the final tug.
“The Bible, it’s true, isn’t it? I kept seeing you reappear as if... Christ, I need a drink.”
“Listen good, Orville. Leave me and this cursed alley alone. You can’t do anything about that creature, okay. It’s from another universe or existence or whatever. Just let it be and shut up about this. Cut me out of your ridiculous criminal and political assumptions and plots. I’ve got other problems. Deal?”
“Okay. Dear god. Yeah, Parker. Deal.” He nodded, finally composing himself.
“So we’re cool on this. I don’t think Hoover would dig the truth about what went down here.” I placed his gun and the handcuffs on the seat and got out of the green sedan.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand. I’ll probably have nightmares for the rest of my life, but I’m indebted. Whatever you did to help, I thank you.” He paused, scrubbed at the glue and sweat of his face. “Parker?”
“Don’t ask me who I am. I’m nobody, a passerby, like you. It’s just I’ve seen that thing before.”
“Does prayer help?”
“It’s your best bet, Orville.”
Doctor Steel fell into step with me about three blocks away.
“Very impressive, mister mystery.”
“You know all you need to know about me by now, I’m sure.”
“Enough. Pan has never seen the unexpected, multiple time-jumps you’re having, but he is positive on why it happens.”
“Why does it?”
“It’s your gift of god residue.”
I remembered Amelia’s explanation of how tunnel travelers picked up characteristics of the gods. I must have inherited some damaged aspect of the ruined tunnel I had spent so much time in while repairing it. I was probably stuck with this curse forever.
“Is this it, Steel? I don’t know why Beelzebub’s hanging around your portal, but I’m done. Cooked. Powerless. Can I live in peace in this version of the universe?”
His distinctive mocking chuckle still sounded like grinding gears. “Pan sends his blessings. Welcome.”
As the holidays approached and the end of the turbulent 1960’s drew nearer, the shootout between the Village revolutionaries and the FBI dominated the news. Lola had been the lone survivor of the armed rebels. Three of her companions had been killed. Around one hundred shots were fired in less than a minute until the battle ended when a stick of dynamite from a homemade bomb exploded.
Orville kept his word. Minor news reports mentioned a man, originally thought to be a suspect, had been treated at the scene for injuries and released. The coincidental story of a missing paramedic and her ambulance was buried by coverage of the war and the revolutionary Lola, who was the daughter of a top executive at Dow Chemical.
Piddles and I would take long walks, crunching through the forest leaves along the Delaware River. In the evenings I would draw, then fall asleep in the studio with my black dog curled up next to me.
My dreams would be mixed-up flashes of myself repeating the same actions over and over, always with different results. Fantastic gods accompanied me. As they repeated themselves, though, new universes were born. When I awoke, I would wonder if another universe had been created overnight, and if so, did Teresa remember the one we had lived in together? Then Piddles would bark at me and jump up and down excitedly by the door until I opened it.
And so another day would begin.
Chapter 56
Pennsylvania,1970 - 1972
I became a recluse, living in my parents’ studio. The god-residue time-jumps would happen every few months with Piddles being the only witness. Now grown, she would stand on her hind legs and place her large paws on my chest to lick my face after the incidents subsided. I came to believe she was telling me she enjoyed the adventure of being with me when it happened and not to worry.
Doctor Steel, Beelzebub, Pan, and the rest of the quest’s menagerie never showed themselves. Whether they were watching, I don’t know.
The years undertaking the mission back to the beginning of time had cost me more than just leaving me with physical and emotional scars. I had lived a miracle. That most of society’s priorities lacked even a modicum of spiritual acknowledgement was a crushing disillusionment. But I suffered worse disenchantment from my inability to bring about a solution to the world’s problems. I had healed the sick in L.A. and a god at the dawn of the universe, witnessed the first appearance of the Creator and the main crew of the first gods, but couldn’t wave my hand to wipe away any of the planet’s suffering. Nor my own.
And then whatever was left of me sunk lower. While working on a drawing one gray morning, I turned on the radio. Rolly’s newest song was playing...
“Don’t you think
It could be a lot better
Now that you’re back
From wherever you thought you’d been”
...And when the music ended, the disc jockey announced he would be playing Rolly’s music all day as the plane the musician had been on had plunged into the English Channel. There were no survivors.
I prayed to some indistinct god residue that I jump back, land in England, and change the moments leading up to his trip into death. After I finally admitted I couldn’t make a difference, I had to force myself to remember the ghosts I’d met and hope all was well with him.
Losing Greg and Rolly about a year apart wearied me, made me feel fragile.
Uneasy about New York after the shootout, and with the lingering fear of the resurrection of Monster Alley in my life, I kept to the woods and riverside walks of Pennsylvania. Smoking an occasional joint while staring at the Delaware gliding by, I spent hours wondering about time travel, mainly relating to my god-residue events and the creation of the mural billions of years ago.
Back in the studio, my creativ
e energies kept me alive. Inspired by my memory of the Mansion’s time tunnel panorama, I drew pictures or manufactured large plywood cutouts of creatures and landscapes that were imprinted on my soul. I would finish a drawing or cutout and stack it in a corner, then start another. I convinced myself I didn’t need anything else but work to heal the wounds to my soul. My trips to New York trickled down to none, and my relationship with Daisy faded. One day in April of ‘72, my dad and I had a long talk about getting my art into the public eye again. He told me Daisy had called and suggested I show a piece in a gallery or boutique in the nearby town of New Hope.
“You know the galleries there. The town has always had a strong affiliation with the arts. Give it a shot. You want to be alone, fine, but people deserve to see your art. You’re good, son. I think, great. Let the world see your vision.”
“Yeah, maybe. Makes sense.”
“It’s lower key than New York. It’s country. You’ll be fine. Here’s a name Daisy gave me for you to look up.”
So it was on a sunny day Piddles and I drove upriver to New Hope. After negotiating a deal to hang one drawing with Daisy’s contact, I was sitting on a wooden merry-go-round near the community’s playhouse, looking out at the river, listening to the rush of a strong springtime flow.
Piddles had wandered away, following her nose, but we were surrounded by a large, nearly empty parking lot, and she was streetwise, independent, and a tunnel jumper, so I wasn’t too concerned. When I saw her enter a nearby store, I laughed to myself. I’d better go get her. Finish this cigarette first. Goofy dog.
I took a few drags, then flipped the cigarette away just as Piddles came excitedly up to me, showing me a big cookie bone in her mouth which she proceeded to crunch apart.
I sensed someone approaching behind me. Immediately I knew it was a woman, and when she paused, my heart did too. The sharp intake of her breath was audible. We were dying together, with my heartbeat gone and her not breathing.
Miracles (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 3) Page 36