After and Again

by McLellan, Michael

  “The Man in Charge is a rough translation of what the Lenhoans call me in their language—Wung-Fordic Reen, is how it is said.”

  “Why are you in charge?” Emily asked around a mouthful of food.

  “I am their god,” he said simply. Emily just stared at him unbelievingly.

  “I walked through what is now known as The Crack, three hundred and twenty seven years ago, starving, and half mad. It was like walking through a mirror; I was transported to the same place that I had just left, only….not exactly. Instead of a valley with wild grass there was cultivated fields, and buildings craftily made from quarried stone. The Lenhoans found me in an apple orchard, sleeping. A family took me in and fed me, they removed my tattered clothes and dressed me in their finest silk garments. They nursed my wounds and shaved my hair short as is their fashion. I lived among them for nearly ten years, working fields, learning their ways, their language. They are quite remarkable; kind and peaceful. Nothing at all like the people from where I had come from, from where you come from. There is no word for murder in Lenhoan, nor is there for greed or power. Everything done is for the greater good of all.

  There came a day when I grew curious about the place that I had come from, and walked to the rip…that’s what I had called it back then…” he didn’t see Emily’s expression sharpen at the use of the word. “It was of course against everyone’s wishes. The Lenhoans had avoided the rip with what was nearly a religious awe and begged me to stay away from it. I didn’t listen of course, I had come through once and was interested to find out what would happen when I went through again. I had, along with some others, months before coming to Lenhoan, discovered another rip. This other rip actually moved you through time. If you entered it at one o’clock and stayed for only a minute and then returned, it would actually be an hour before you left. It would now be noon. You just traveled back in time one hour!” So naturally the curiosity finally got the better of me and despite what the Lenhoans thought, I had to go back through the rip.

  It’s unclear to me, what I was expecting to discover that day. I had no way of telling the time on the other side, so I wouldn’t have known if I traveled through time anyway. I believe now that I was destined to go through again, as it shaped everything that happened afterward.

  I walked through the rip. And unlike the first trip through, I had the strangest sensation—almost like my very skin was crawling, then it passed. The place looked no different than when I had trudged through it so many years before. The only thing that I noticed different was that it was a bit earlier in the day, just after dawn actually—a fact that I had missed, probably due to my ragged state, the first time I went through. I walked around for awhile, trying to get a sense of things….anything else different that I might have missed at first glance. There was nothing of course; no prehistoric creatures no futuristic cities in the sky, just a grassy valley surrounded by hills. After a couple of hours I began to feel tired, and somehow defeated….or disappointed rather. As I said, I don’t know what I was expecting, but I was certainly expecting something. So I returned to Lenhoan, finally accepting it as my home, and when I reached the city proper I received the surprise of my life…Excuse me please Emily, Lara darling,” he said, addressing the woman still standing beside the door, “you may pour the wine now.” The woman obeyed and moved behind the bar. She retrieved a bottle and two glasses then walked to the table and poured the wine. Emily glanced at Paul Nesbitt and then took a mock sip. “Thank you Lara,” he said, “would you please tell the kitchen that we would like our dinner in an hour?” The woman bowed and said something brief in her language, then left the room.

  “Is the wine to your liking?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you.” Emily said, dutifully pretending to take another sip.

  “Now where was I….Yes, of course; when I returned to the city, everyone was staring at me with what appeared to be wonder. Soon, Jeantu, the head of the family that I was staying with bid me to go with him to the Bastean, which is a title for the Lenhoan’s religious leader. At that point I knew very little about their religion, and had assumed that it was something that they simply did not wish to share with an outsider. They didn’t perform any rites or worship in any groups that I had seen during the years that I had stayed with them.

  The Bastean lived in a sparsely furnished house set away from the city center. I had only met him once in passing before then and he had looked at me curiously, passed a hand in front of my face and walked away. I was unsure of what to make of it at the time.

  Jeantu and I entered the dimly lit house; the Bastean was sitting cross-legged on the bare floor, and he stood and approached me as if he had been expecting me. He pulled a mirror from underneath his tunic and held it up to my face. I was completely flabbergasted by what I saw. My hair, which had been solid brown that morning when I’d shaved my face, was completely gray on the sides, and receding at the forehead where eight hours before it had been full. There were wrinkles around my eyes and mouth that had not been there before and the skin was looser around my neck. I had aged nearly a decade since that morning.

  The Bastean had then sat me down an explained to me that I was the one that a two thousand-year-old prophecy had foretold of. The Immortal One, The Wung-Fordic Reen- The Man in Charge. He told me that The Wung-Fordic Reen would come, banished from a universe of death, and look after the Lenhoans for eternity.

  I protested at first, and tried to explain things the way that I interpreted them. That somehow me being in this world had drastically slowed, if not completely stopped the aging process, and that for some reason beyond my ability to comprehend, all of the age that had been ahh….deferred, immediately returned to me when I crossed back to the other side. I was however, still just a man.

  The Lenhoans would have none of it. They started work on an extravagant palace for me to reside in the very next day, and I….well, I decided to become what they required of me. I was now essentially immortal, and suddenly worlds of new ideas and possibilities had opened up to me.”

  “How does any of this explain all of the murder, and burning, and….Trask.”

  “Trask is what we used to call a loose cannon Emily, but he has been necessary to the greater good. He is after all, the embodiment of mankind in your world.”

  “What? Trask? The embodi—how can you say that? People are good and decent and care for each other. Trask is the embodiment of a terrible nightmare.”

  “You are beautiful, Emily, but naïve,” he said reproachfully. “Luckily I was able to rescue you before you were ruined by that awful place—” Two men entered the room wearing white tunics. They stopped just inside the doorway and gave the now familiar short bow. They said something in Lenhoan; Paul Nesbitt glanced over at Emily, and looking irritated said, “I will meet him in the council room.” The two men repeated the short bow before turning and exiting the room. “Please excuse me, Emily, he said standing, duty calls you know.”

  22

  Zack scanned the gray building and the surrounding area. He supposed that there was no use in waiting and took off at a run; crouched low, holding the Winchester two-handed and ready to be raised. In a moment he was in the light and in full view for anyone who might be watching. He reached the door, which was made of some kind of metal and looked around quickly. Still apparently unseen, he reached for the knob. He expected it to be locked, but it turned easily in his hand and he pushed the door inward.

  The Crack was directly in front of him. He stood frozen in awe at the sight; it was in the center of the room, pitch black, and fit its name perfectly. It was almost as tall as the ceiling, maybe ten feet Zack thought, only about three feet across at its widest, and shaped like a jagged crack.

  “Pretty breathtaking the first time you see it huh whelp?” Zack wheeled, raising the rifle; Trask was standing in front of the door that he had just come through, blocking his exit, rifle pointing at him. Several other men stepped out from behind cabinets and furniture on either side of the
room, all armed with pistols. “Why don’t you just put the rifle down son?” Trask said, “For some reason The Man in Charge doesn’t want me to kill you. In fact, you’ve been invited inside where your girl is. There aren’t any guns allowed on the other side though, so if you want to see her I suggest you do as I ask. If you don’t, one of us is accidentally going to shoot you. Your choice.”

  Zack stood where he was for a moment, uncertain. He wanted nothing more than to pull the trigger and rid the world of Trask once and for all, and he didn’t believe for a second that he would be allowed to see Emily. Finally he saw no choice and let the rifle fall. “The pistol too,” Trask said, walking up and pulling the pistol from Zack’s pants. “My pistol….and the pack.” He added, then; “Volstead, go send for Weston Presley, tell him we’ve got the hero.”

  Zack turned just in time to see the man walk into The Crack and disappear.

  “Ha ha!” Desmond Trask laughed, “I wish I was standing where I could see your face! It takes some getting used to, no mistake….oh by the way,” he said, walking around where he could face Zack. “You didn’t really think that you were going to get to see Emily did you?” The monster with the ruined face that was Desmond Trask laughed heartily; hard, bellowing laughter that filled the room.

  “He’s waiting in the anteroom, Desmond.” said the man named Volstead when he walked back through The Crack.

  “Time to go, hero.” Trask said, giving Zack a shove toward The Crack. Zack steeled himself; for what he didn’t know, and walked through The Crack. He was momentarily disorientated, but it passed in seconds. He found himself in a brightly lit room that was completely white, there were two men on either side of The Crack—now just behind him—and two more on either side of a door on an adjacent wall. They were all dressed in identical white clothes, that weren’t exactly dresses, and they weren’t exactly robes either. Trask had walked through after him and was standing behind him with a restraining hand on his shoulder.

  “That will be all, Desmond.” a man said from across the room. Trask gave Zack’s shoulder a painful squeeze and then turned and walked back through The Crack.

  The man was sitting in a plain white chair in the far corner of the room. Zack wondered if this was The Man in Charge. He looked to be in his forties or fifties, very thin and was dressed in jeans and a buttonless white collared shirt.

  “My, but aren’t you the resourceful one.” The man said, smiling warmly at Zack, who at once recognized him as the voice from the recording device.

  “You’re the voice….the one on the recording,” Zack said. The man raised an eyebrow and looked at Zack speculatively, then his smiled returned, even wider this time.

  “Clearly I must repeat my first statement then….amazing. You found the cave? Or did you come by my recording in some other fashion?”

  “I found the cave,” Zack answered.

  “When Trask told us the story of how you pursued them, freed the women, and nearly killed him, I scarcely believed it. At first I thought that he was simply trying to make excuses for his failures to Paul—The Man in Charge, but that brute would never make up a tale that caused him to look so inept. So, I surmised that his story could only be the truth, and knew that you were the one that I have been waiting for. Tell me, where is the wolf?”

  “He was shot in the hip with a crossbow in Auburn, he had to stay with my friend.”

  “Oh, I am sorry, hopefully he has a speedy recovery. Now I must dispense with the pleasantries as time is short, please follow me.”

  “What have you done with Emily?” Zack demanded, feeling confused at discovering the voice that he’d believed to be someone good, involved with all of the horrible things that had been done.

  “If you really want the answer to that question you will have to come with me. Otherwise you can step back through that confounded rip in the fabric of the universe and face Desmond Trask; who would certainly kill you the very moment that you appeared on the other side. Choose wisely but quickly.” The man stood and walked through the door, stopping in the hall, his back turned. Again, realizing that his choice was not a choice at all, Zack followed.

  The man walked silently and briskly down the corridor, stealing occasional glances over his shoulder. He stopped, opened a door, and stood aside so Zack could enter. Once inside, he shut the door and turned what was likely a lock. The room was large and furnished with three sofas, and several stuffed chairs, all white. Zack recognized the large black rectangle on the wall as a television, almost identical to the one at Toby Martin’s house. Zack sat in one of the chairs, and the man took a seat on a sofa next to him. Zack noticed one thing immediately that he hadn’t seen in the other room. The man was scared.

  “I apologize sincerely for the ambiguity but there are many sets of ears in this compound and they all belong to Paul Nesbitt, otherwise known as The Man in Charge.” Zack had heard the name previously but it was a moment before he could place it.

  “He was your friend, the one that you worked with….before,” Zack said.

  “Just so, and I am Weston Presley,” The man extended his hand.”

  “Zack McQueen,” said Zack, cautiously shaking the man’s hand.

  “Very pleased to meet you Zack, now I must tell you some things quickly as we don’t have much time. Paul is busy with Emily at dinner and his outside men—men not from this world, but yours, or ours rather—will be loath to disturb him. He will find out however, and probably sooner than later.”

  “He’s with Emily?” Zack asked, anxiously.

  “Yes yes, she is unharmed, and fine for the moment. Which is more than I can say for you or I if we don’t move quickly. I am going to arrange for you to free Emily, and then I have a task for you….a quest if you will, that will repair the damage done and save your world from the likes of Paul Nesbitt forever.”

  “How can you still be alive?” Did you just put that stuff in the cave for someone to find recently? Was it all a trick?”

  “I will try to answer as many of your questions as I can….beginning with this; I am over three hundred and fifty years old, and everything that I said on the recording was the absolute truth.

  I left the cave that day shortly after making the recording; to this day it’s not really clear what compelled me to leave it in the first place. Perhaps, on some level, I knew that I was bound to fail at turning back the clock. I suppose I wished for the discoverer of the treasures that Marjorie and I had saved to have some sort of a history.

  I never succeeded in going back through the time-rip, so I suppose my presentiment was accurate. There were men guarding it, and I was held there until Paul Nesbitt, my old friend whom I had presumed dead, showed up in a jeep with more men.

  Paul had found a second rip; the one right here, that we now call The Crack. He walked through it starving and sick, and was taken care of by the people of this world. The Lenhoans; a people of peace, a people naïve to the ways of deception, and wickedness. He has paid back their kindness with corruption and slavery.

  Paul discovered that in this world, the laws of time for people from our world no longer applied, and that here time virtually stops for us. Somehow though, we are still attached to our world because if we return there, the decay of time that we have eluded here in Lenhoan will catch up to us. If I were to walk through The Crack this very minute, I would be so much dust the moment that I arrived on the other side. I do not pretend to even vaguely understand the mechanics of all of this. I can only tell you that the knowledge we had as humans, at the height of our intellectualism, with our computers, our satellites, and all of our dreadfully shallow comforts, never even came close to unlocking one tenth of one percent of the universe’s secrets.

  When Paul discovered this umm….effect of the rip, the fact that he could be nearly immortal, he proclaimed himself a god and called himself Wung-Fordic Reen, The Man in Charge. He tricked and manipulated the Lenhoans into believing him, worshipping him. They began building him a palace—which he eventually aban
doned for this compound—and they obeyed his bidding without question.

  Paul however, completely and utterly mad now, began to grow paranoid about the time-rip that we had originally discovered together. He was worried that if someone ran across it, entered it, and then returned after an extended stay—thus turning back time in our world—that it would affect Paul as well—even here in Lenhoan—turning back his clock and so undoing everything that he had begun. Paul could not bear risking his newly found divinity, so he embarked on a mission to protect the time-rip.

  He convinced some men to follow him, promising them immortality if they would only serve him. I imagine it was fairly easy to do at that time, people were lost and confused, and he portrayed himself their savior. He provided them with food and water, he even took some of them on a tour of Lenhoan to help prove his claims.

  The Lenhoans cannot live in our world. Paul took a small group of them through; it would have made things easier for him as he would not have had to recruit men from our world, but every single one of them sickened and died within days.

  He had the men begin guarding the time-rip. They shot animals that wandered too close, but I was the first person that they found. I rode up on my motorcycle and was promptly surrounded by men at gunpoint.

  Paul showed up—much to my shock—and forced me to return to Lenhoan with him. He told me of his plans; grand plans, and how I fit so neatly into them. I was an engineer you see, and Paul, well Paul had been a manager, and now he wanted to begin managing things again.

  He started recruiting more men, he was sending them to all points of the compass, to collect things; building materials, electrical wire, solar panels, computers, crockery, furniture, all kinds of machinery, generators, manufacturing equipment and more. Eventually there was no more gasoline to be found and he had them on wagons drawn by horses. All of it was brought to the rip here—which we now call The Crack, and used to build this very compound that you now sit in. I supplied the brain, and the Lenhoans, already great craftsmen, supplied the brawn. The men from our world are not allowed here for any length of time. Paul said he feared that they would infect the Lenhoans with things like greed, hate….murder, but in reality he feared that they would learn of his lies.