The Elders

by Dima Zales

  I inspect all possible hiding places in about a fifty-foot radius before realizing how futile this endeavor is. There are too many places where one can hide in a cemetery. You have crypts with doors, tall trees, large tombstones, bushes, and many other hidey-holes. Hell, she could even be sitting inside her car in the parking lot.

  Wait a second. That’s actually a good place to check.

  I run toward the parking lot, thinking that if I were this Super Pusher, that is where I’d be.

  The parking lot is relatively empty, considering its size. There’s a long line of police cars off to the side, which I check first.

  Two Honda Odyssey minivans catch my eye, probably because they’re parked right next to Lucy’s Crown Victoria, so close that unless they move, we can’t leave the lot.

  I approach the nearest van and experience my third shock of the day.

  Inside it, I see the familiar bald-headed, orange-robed figures.

  The monks from the Temple of the Enlightened.

  I even recognize the Master, the monk whom I fought at the Miami airport.

  Shit. I run to look inside the second van. Besides more monks, I find someone much worse.

  Caleb.

  I’m not sure why I’m so shocked he’s here, since I know he works for the Enlightened. I guess I was hoping he would still be occupied with whatever trouble my aunt had gotten him into at that airport.

  But no, here he is, riding shotgun with grim determination on his face. Whatever happened to him, he’s going to take out that frustration on me if he gets the chance. As Eugene likes to say, trouble doesn’t travel by itself.

  I try to stay calm. They’re most likely here to take me back to the Temple, so that my grandparents and the rest of the Enlightened can continue persuading me to ‘do my duty,’ which they define as screwing Julia, or whoever else they deem worthy of carrying my baby.

  Unless they somehow sniffed out the truth about my new ability. Then they’d want to use me for whatever it is they need my future offspring for.

  No, this latter possibility is less likely.

  Regardless of why they’re here, this development changes everything.

  I barely escaped this crew in Florida, and that was in a crowded airport without some Super Pusher hunting me.

  I debate pulling Caleb in and telling him about this Pusher. If he believes me, he’ll probably get out of here. After all, the Super Pusher could take control of him as easily as she took control of Thomas.

  The thought chills me. I hate the idea of dealing with Caleb in general, but especially so if an unseen enemy is controlling him. Of course he won’t believe me, and the likeliest outcome of me pulling him in would be me becoming Inert, with the tiny chance of me phasing into Level 2 as he brings me close to death. No, thanks. That option just doesn’t work for me. I need to have my powers if I’m to have any hope of getting out of this alive.

  I evaluate my options as I hurry toward my body. It doesn’t take long to realize I have only one: I need to run, thus getting the attention of this Pusher and these monks away from my friends and family. If I’m lucky, the Pusher and the monks might fight over me.

  Then again, I can’t just leave my moms, Thomas, and Mira here. What if the Super Pusher takes control of Caleb and does something to them?

  I return to the burial site and formulate a quick plan.

  The men holding Thomas will get off him, cuff him, and drag him to Cypress Hills Street.

  The ladies holding Mira will take her to Forest Park Drive.

  I Guide my moms to run in the direction of the Jackie Robinson Parkway.

  All of them—the cops holding Mira, my moms, and the Quarterback and co.—are instructed to grab a cab and meet me at what I now think of as Eugene’s new lair, the lab I funded for him in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

  I then Guide every single remaining person, including the priest, to stop the monks and anyone else who’s not part of the current ceremony. Since the majority of these people are cops, I have to make the important decision of whether to allow them to use lethal force. As annoyed as I am by these orange-clad idiots, they’re just tools of the Enlightened, and I’m loath to see them killed. So I Guide the armed officers to empty their guns before the operation starts, but pretend as if they’re armed and dangerous. Seems like a good compromise to me.

  Preparations complete, I decide to finally leave the Quiet.

  I run toward my body, slam into my frozen self, and as the world becomes noisy again, I keep running.

  In my peripheral vision, I see everyone take action, on their way to execute my commands. All this mass Guiding would’ve made my aunt Hillary—the person who usually does it—proud.

  I sprint so fast that after a mere minute at this pace, I feel like my lungs might burst. I ignore the pain and run even faster, vowing to add more cardio to my usual workout routine. Finally, when I feel as though I’m about to have a heart attack, I see the welcome sight of the road at the edge of the cemetery’s green grass. Knowing that it’s the infamous East New York neighborhood beyond those gates doesn’t diminish my elation. The six-foot fence in front of me is all that stands in my way. I climb the fence, trying my best to not get impaled by the leaf-shaped spikes, and carefully jump down.

  When I land safely on the pavement, I look back through the fence. I’m not being immediately pursued, but that’s no reason to relax and do something stupid, such as wait until they catch up with me.

  I phase into the Quiet and examine Jamaica Avenue, the street in front of me. To my right, I see the subway in the far distance and a bus stop a block away. No go. I’m not taking public transportation in this part of town. Plus, I’d be moving slower than if I got a ride. I look across the street and see a drab Honda Civic.

  Much better.

  I cross the road, approach the frozen Honda, and open the driver’s door. The rotund woman inside must’ve just come out of the deli, given the shopping bag she’s holding. I touch her on the forehead and focus. Once inside her head, I give her some Guidance:

  Look across the street. That strapping young man is your nephew. You decided to lend him your car. You’re going to leave the car running with the keys inside and then locate a cab. Your nephew might keep the car for a few days. You will not worry about your vehicle, nor will you report it stolen. In a couple of days, you’ll remember that you left your car at a Hertz car rental in Bensonhurst. When you get the car, make sure to look in the glove compartment, where your nephew left you a thousand bucks.

  I’m happy with my work and hope that I can use this car to pick up the rest of my crew, which would work out so much better than them looking for cabs.

  I phase out and the earlier exhaustion hits me. I ignore it. I have enough strength for one final sprint across the street. Thus determined, I run toward ‘my’ vehicle.

  Something catches my attention.

  The lady I just Guided is looking at me with wild eyes. She’s gesturing at me and her mouth is moving as though she’s shouting, but the car windows muffle whatever it is she’s saying. I decide she must be happy to see her ‘nephew.’ As a jest, I wave back—and at that moment, I hear the screech of tires and feel a world-ending thump.

  Shit, I think as I fly through the air.

  My head hits something hard, and I black out.

  Chapter 4

  I wake up nauseous.

  Am I hung over?

  I open my eyes.

  The light hurts, so I shut them again. I examine myself and realize a lot more hurts than just my eyes. My body feels like one big bruise.

  The nausea gets worse, and it’s not because I’m drunk. It actually feels like a very bad case of carsickness. Then it hits me: I am in a car, and I’m being driven somewhere.

  I open my eyes and force them to adjust despite the pain. Shoddy Brooklyn streets pass me by. The car I’m in is moving relatively fast, and the ride is very shaky, which is a big contributing factor to my nausea. I’m grateful I’m riding shotgun; wh
en I get motion sickness, it’s usually worse when I ride in the back.

  Bits and pieces of what happened come back to me.

  I was crossing the street; then something happened.

  I decide to phase in to figure things out from the Quiet. Overloaded with adrenaline, I easily enter the Quiet. When the sound of the engine is gone, I notice that the nausea is too.

  Without the sick feeling, my situation becomes clearer. For one, I recognize the woman behind the wheel. I recall Guiding her to give me her car, the very one we’re in. What the heck is she doing driving me? She was supposed to leave her car for me. And where are we going?

  Only one way to tell for sure. I reach out and touch her forehead.

  * * *

  We’re looking across the street. Our nephew is about to cross the road. He looks to his right, but doesn’t look to his left.

  He’s never been a fan of basic safety, our nephew, we think as we see the limo steamrolling his way.

  “The car,” we scream at him and wave. “Watch out!”

  What’s the driver thinking? Is he stoned? We feel our blood pressure rising.

  Our nephew waves at us and doesn’t notice the car that’s about to hit him. The limo attempts to stop. We hear that frightening sound of tires screeching against pavement, but it’s no good. The car hits our nephew.

  He flies into the windshield, shattering the glass.

  We exit our car, screaming.

  A thin, balding man gets out of the limousine.

  “You maniac,” we scream at him. “Are you drunk?”

  “He c-came out of nowhere,” the man stutters. “I swear.”

  “Shut up and help me get him in my car,” we say after examining the boy. Thank goodness he seems intact, with no visible broken bones. “I’ll take him to the hospital. He might have a concussion . . .”

  I, Darren, disassociate. It’s interesting how she saw me, and how she confabulated a whole story about me in order to explain the events she was witnessing. Ironically, I agree with her fictional assessment. I was being an idiot. I didn’t check the road before crossing, though I usually do. If I were to blame something, I’d blame my prior trip into the Quiet. I’d crossed that road a moment earlier while in the Quiet, so when I phased out, I just kind of repeated the same action, almost on autopilot. I was laser-focused on the Honda and on picking up my friends and family. So in a way, it’s the fault of the monks and the Super Pusher.

  Speaking of them, how long has it been since I got hit? Did everyone else get out okay?

  Determined to find out, I exit my ‘aunt’s’ head.

  * * *

  As soon as I’m back in the Quiet, I phase out of it.

  When the nauseating ride resumes, I say, “Stop the car, Aunty.”

  “Oh, thank God you’re conscious,” the woman says. “I feared the worst.”

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” I lie. I may not have broken bones, but I feel more than a little banged-up. “Now stop the car.”

  “Are you crazy? The hospital is a block away.”

  “I don’t have time to argue. Stop.”

  Instead of stopping, she pushes the gas pedal. This make-believe aunt of mine is one stubborn lady.

  I phase into the Quiet and Guide her to see things my way.

  I then exit the car to check my surroundings. I have no clue where I am, but I spot a sign in the distance that says ‘Jamaica Hospital.’ I suppress the temptation to adjust my plans in order to swing by the hospital for a shot of morphine; I’ll just have to tough it out.

  Proud of my restraint, I phase out.

  The world returns to life and my ‘aunt’ makes a U-turn so suddenly that my urge to throw up multiplies a hundredfold.

  I’m amazed that we didn’t get into another accident. I should’ve used more finesse with my Guiding. I really need to get my shit together. I won’t be of help to anyone with broken bones.

  “Do you have any painkillers?” I ask while we’re stopped at a red light.

  “There’s Motrin in the glove compartment.” She slams on the gas pedal, a stomach-churning maneuver she’s done at every light change.

  I fish out the pills and dry-swallow a triple dose, hoping my stomach can handle it.

  Then I close my eyes and slow my breathing—a ‘how not to throw up’ trick I learned from Lucy as a kid. After a few blocks, I feel more like myself, which is likely from the breathing exercise or from some placebo effect. I doubt Motrin works that quickly. And then the car’s brakes screech, and any semblance of normality is over.

  “This is where it happened,” the woman says when I open my eyes. “Where that monster hit you.”

  “Thank you, Aunty,” I say. “I’ll take it from here.”

  She looks uncomfortable. My directive to ‘do as I say’ is clearly clashing with my equally convincing directive that we’re family. She’s rightfully hesitant to let her hurt nephew get behind the wheel. As I’m about to Guide her once more, I see the ‘do as I say’ instruction win out. She slowly unbuckles her seatbelt.

  “Please take this,” I say, handing the woman all my cash—around four hundred bucks.

  When she refuses to take it, I Guide her again. I know I’m totally abusing my power, but in this case, it’s for a good cause.

  I then have her program her number in my phone. “I’ll call you to tell you when to get the car from Hertz.”

  “Have a blessed day,” she says.

  “Later, Aunty.” I close the car door.

  Okay. What’s next?

  I look at the dashboard clock and scrap my earlier idea of picking up my folks and friends. It took my ‘aunt’ fifteen minutes to drive here from the hospital, which means it’s been at least half an hour since I got hit by the limo. Everyone is probably long gone and on their way to Eugene’s lab.

  That’s where I decide to head, but first, I want to take one last look at the cemetery.

  I phase in and leisurely walk back toward Kyle’s grave. In the safety of the Quiet, I allow myself to register my environment, a luxury I couldn’t afford when I was running. As far as I can tell, this is a very nice cemetery. Then again, this was my very first funeral, so all cemeteries might look like this.

  I’m a hundred feet away from my destination when I notice that something’s gone terribly wrong.

  I come across the body of a cop.

  I break into a run and see another cop on the ground.

  Then another.

  Then two more.

  The closer I get to the burial site, the more cops I find lying about in every direction.

  I approach one at random. This officer’s wrist is twisted at an unnatural angle. His eyes are closed. Is he dead?

  I kneel next to the body and touch the cop’s good hand.

  * * *

  “Raise your hands,” we say to the bald man in the orange robe. “Lie down on the ground and put your hands behind your head. Slowly.”

  Instead of obeying, the man closes the distance in a series of jerky motions and grabs our wrist.

  “Let go of the gun,” our attacker says calmly, almost soothingly.

  “Fuck you,” we say and try to punch the man with our left hand.

  Our punch doesn’t land, and our right arm is on fire. We realize the fucker broke our wrist when he did whatever it was he did; he moved too fast for us to see.

  Ignoring the agony, we reach for our handcuffs, ready to employ a desperate maneuver. Before our hand even reaches the cuffs, there’s an orange blur in the direction of our right temple and the world goes blank.

  * * *

  I exit the officer’s head and look around.

  More cops are in similar unconscious conditions. It takes a quick Read of each one to see the same pattern play out. Though all the men I check are alive, every officer got his ass handed to him by the monks. Most of their memories are a variation of the weapon disarm I saw in the first cop. In a few rare cases, when the cops were above average when it comes to self-defense, wha
t I witness reminds me of a mix between the martial arts training Caleb and I experienced in the Israeli master’s mind, and a Hong Kong kung fu movie about Shaolin monks.

  The cops who faced Caleb have some broken ribs and are in noticeably worse shape, leading me to believe that the monks were trying to inflict as little damage as possible while pursuing their goals. Caleb, however, almost relished the violence. It was Caleb who knocked out the priest—a dickish and unnecessary move, in my opinion.

  Throughout my Reading, I curse myself for being such a shortsighted humanitarian. I made the cops empty their guns. The monks’ lack of respect for the authority of the police force, as well as their apparent disregard for guns, created this mess of a situation. Even with bullets, these cops would still have had it rough, though lots of monks would’ve died. Still, because of my meddling, what could’ve been a tough fight became an easy slaughter of these men and women in uniform. Thinking of women in uniforms gets my heart beating much faster.

  I run in the direction I sent Mira and her handlers in.

  It’s not long before I find the first lady cop on the ground. Then the second. They’re both lying there with various injuries.

  I run in the other direction, to where Thomas was led. Twenty feet in, I see someone I recognize: the Quarterback. He’s the first person beginning to get up. Must be his resilience as a football player at work. Reading him, I learn that he and his larger friends did marginally better against the monks, who probably had to carry a few of their brethren away, but the cops were outnumbered and the monks were swifter, so the eventual outcome was the same.

  I check the direction my moms went in and see nothing at all. I wonder whether that means they escaped. They didn’t have a police escort and maybe that saved them. I sure hope so.