He lies to get the men to do his work. He promises them that if they work for him for twenty-five years, or complete certain tasks, that he will bring them to live in Lenhoan, where they would be immortal, or near to it. Meanwhile he supplies them with food, and clothing and the like, and, when the twenty-five years is up, he brings them here, has a celebratory dinner with them, serving food laced with poison. As far as the men outside of The Crack are concerned there are hundreds of men from our world living happily in Lenhoan just outside of this compound. The truth of the matter is that there are hundreds, if not thousands of murdered men buried in a pit just outside of this compound.
I of course have not left Lenhoan since the day that I was brought here; I was his prisoner, and after I had been here for fifty years or so, when escape would only mean death to me, or arriving on the other side a decrepit man in his nineties, he began trusting me; as much as a man such as he is can trust anyway, and I eventually became his confidant, his advisor. He himself only left a few more times after he brought me here. Now all business is done through the anteroom where The Crack is located. The room was actually built around The Crack when we were still calling it a rip, and it was several times the size that it is now. I will explain more about The Crack in a moment.
Time went by; the population of our world began to bounce back, towns started popping up, Paulo, Fordham, Payne’s Station, Auburn….commerce was beginning again as well. Paul started having his men collect all firearms, and bring them here. He had become increasingly paranoid; he was afraid that men would arm themselves and overthrow him.
All of the firearms are secured in a vault-room just outside of The Crack and only one man at a time outside of myself and Paul has the combination. No guns have ever been allowed here in Lenhoan, He allows the guards of The Crack and time-rip to have small arms, and occasionally lately, a few men like Trask.
Finally he decided that the only way for him to truly be secure would be to shut the door between the worlds. He believed, and still believes, that if The Crack is closed then his connection to the other world would be severed and he would be safe; even if someone used the time-rip.
One hundred twenty years ago, around the time when he started collecting the firearms and all of that nonsense, he had me start working on a device that would close the rip that we now call The Crack forever. I tried to explain to him that it would be impossible, that I just did not posses the technology to even make an attempt. He only smiled and said that he had faith in me.
Ninety years and thirty one failed attempts later I succeeded, well nearly anyway. I set off the newest version of the device near the ten foot by ten foot rip; it failed to close it completely, but it shrunk the rip to the size and shape that you now see. The end result was that it resembled a crack, and the name simply stuck.
I never really believed that I would succeed; and when I did—nearly anyway—it caused me to take pause and think about what I was doing. For some reason I didn’t want to close The Crack.…so I dragged my feet. Even after I knew why the device had failed to close the rip completely, and knew what I needed to do to make it work, I dragged my feet. I think that maybe I still held the hope of somehow using the time-rip, or having someone else use it rather, to turn back time to before our world was destroyed, to give mankind another chance….to bring back Marjorie. I realize now that those were foolish thoughts, the old days and old ways are over. my delay however had disastrous results.
Paul began a campaign to murder anyone within five hundred miles of the time-rip, something that he did not share with me. I found out late last year when they started bringing the women and young girls here by the score. I started asking questions, and when I found out what he was doing I was nearly suicidal with grief. Then I began thinking of the time-rip again, and of making things right. I, of course, could not make the journey. So I thought about finding someone that I could trust….someone like you Zack, that could go through the time-rip, to before all of the murders and town burnings, then come back here and close The Crack for good. I will commit the final murder of this wretched ordeal, and kill Paul Nesbitt. Then I will free the Lenhoans.”
“I don’t understand why he was bringing the women here,” Zack said.
“There is a two part answer to that question. Paul has a taste for beautiful women and has been bringing them here for a long time. However he tires of them quickly….more quickly all the time, and requires new ones. More importantly, to him at least, is the fact that there are only about twenty thousand Lenhoans, as far as we know, in this whole world. They have a history dating back thousands of years and only twenty thousand people to show for it. Women go their entire lives without becoming pregnant. He tried forcing the Lenhoans to mate more, and that didn’t work, he made the women that he brought here mate with Lenhoan men, there were no pregnancies, now he is getting the women that he brings here pregnant, and plans to re-seed the entire planet in his image.
“You should have put a stop to all of this a long time ago, you are as much to blame as he is,” Zack said angrily.
“You are quite right of course,” Weston Presley said, beginning to weep. “Will you help me right these awful wrongs?”
“I was going to the time-rip anyway,” Zack said, “but I wanted to come after Emily first. There are three women from Payne’s Station on their way there right now. Are they going to be killed?”
Weston nodded, not meeting Zack’s gaze. “I am afraid so.”
“They have guns, and are pretty smart….maybe they will get through,” Zack said.
“Perhaps, but I must tell you that over the past twenty years or so the guards have killed a great many people that have wandered too close to the time-rip. For many years its remote location and the fact that the world’s population was so drastically diminished, made instances where folks came across it rare. But more and more often an unlucky traveler would come, perhaps drawn by the cook fires of the guard’s little village, only to be killed to protect Paul Nesbitt’s kingdom. Curiously, before a man named Ben Grayson, and then Desmond Trask, it had been difficult for Paul, even with the promise of immortality, to get men to kill for him. They would guard things, and capture people, but were reluctant to kill….” he trailed off.
“What do you want me to do?” Zack asked.
“First we must rid ourselves of Desmond Trask.” Weston said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand and standing. “I will return in a moment. Please do not leave this room.”
Weston walked back down the corridor to the anteroom and took a small red ball out of a large bowl that was filled with them, stepped in between the two Lenhoan sentries and tossed the ball through The Crack. Moments later a man stepped through and faced Weston. “You called sir?”
“Yes, please tell Desmond Trask that I would like to speak with him.” The man nodded slightly, then turned and walked back through The Crack. A few minutes later Trask walked through.
“You sent for me?” Trask inquired.
“Yes, Desmond, after interrogating the boy we have reason to believe that there are others waiting back up the road for him. Please take all but three men, go after them and kill them.” Trask looked doubtful but remembered that there had been others on the plain that had defeated Ben Grayson and his men.
“That will leave The Crack vulnerable,” Trask said.
“Yes Desmond, just have the three men that you leave behind stay in The Crack Room and lock themselves in. between that, and the sentries here I feel that we will be sufficiently protected for the short time that you will be gone.”
Trask stared at Weston almost defiantly, then lowered his eyes, and muttering something that might have been “all for the greater good,” he turned and walked back through The Crack.
“Trask is an extremely intelligent man, which makes him all the more dangerous. He senses that something isn’t right so we must hurry.” Weston said, walking back into the room where Zack was waiting.
He walked past Zack to a cab
inet on the wall and removed a small pack, not unlike Zack’s except that it was constructed of some shiny orange material. “Come over here Zack,” Weston said, walking hurriedly to a high table against the wall. He emptied the contents of the pack onto the table. The things that came out were like nothing Zack had ever seen. “Okay then, this is the device that will close the rips,” Weston said picking up a polished metal object with two buttons on the side and a large knob on one end. It was about the size of a large mason jar. “I would explain to you how this works, but it would take hours, not to mention that I scarcely understand it myself. The reason that it failed to fully close the rip and instead only shrunk it was simply a lack of power. I completely utilized every bit of power that this compound produces and it was still insufficient. You must take this,” he handed Zack a large, folded sheet of paper, “and go to my old lab, where there is a safe….a lockbox, with a tray of nano-nuclear cells in it. They are each about the size of your eyeball and were intended to power a spacecr—ahh, nevermind. You simply turn this knob on the top and if you look inside you will see six little slots. You just slide one cell into each slot, close the top, and turn the knob to lock it back in place. Then you set the device as close to the rip as you can get it, push this red button three times, and the green one once. You will then have seven minutes; ample time to get three hundred feet away, and the device should close the rip. Also, see these colored dots at the bottom?” he asked this while lifting the device so that Zack could see the underside. Zack nodded, “they will light up, one at a time, the closer that you get to a rip; green first, then yellow, then red. How far away from a rip they will begin lighting up I don’t know. I walked five miles away from this compound into the Lenhoan countryside and all but one of the red ones was still lit. Do you know what a compass is?”
“Yes,” Zack replied.
“The needle of a compass will go crazy when you get close as well.
Anyway, be sure that you take all of the cells; there are exactly one hundred twenty of them. The six, once used in the device will be completely depleted, and useless.
On that paper is a map to the lab; it’s about seven hundred miles from here, directions on where to find the safe once you get there, the combination to the safe, and a repeat of the instructions that I just gave you. Any questions?”
“You want me to travel seven hundred miles, and then come all of the way back here and close The Crack? I thought that you said that you were going to kill Paul Nesbitt? If he’s dead then why bother? Besides, I want to go to the time-rip and save Payne’s Station, and all of the other towns too.”
“Oh, my dear boy, I do believe it was fate that brought you here. How, when I am locked inside this world would I have found anyone else both willing and worthy? If you turn back time to before your town was destroyed, Paul Nesbitt will be back right along with all of the people that were killed in Payne’s Station and everywhere else. The only way for him to remain dead is to close The Crack and sever his connection to your… I mean our world rather, before you go through the time-rip.
I also recommend that you close the time-rip as well, directly after you use it to restore your home and all of the people in it.” Zack’s head was spinning, and he felt as though he was missing something important, Weston smiled reassuringly and pushed on however.
“Moreover, I suggest that you make it your life’s work to find the rest of the rips that were most certainly opened when the catastrophe occurred,” he paused, noting Zack’s surprised expression then added, “You can’t possibly think, with all that you have learned, that the time-rip and The Crack could be the only two? Oh no, there could be many more—opening up to heaven knows where, possibly to a world with the most hideous of creatures who, if they stumble onto it, may come through and wreak havoc that Paul Nesbitt could never even dream of. There could be things in our world already that do not belong….or possibly there is a rip where if someone enters and then returns, it may turn time back ten thousand or even a million years. Your world….christ, our world will never truly be safe unless all rips caused by your foolish ancestors are closed. Anyway, the choice is before you and we are running out of time. Here, take this also,” he handed Zack a plain sealed envelope, which he took from his pocket, not from the table, “read it when you are far from here and safe.
Moving on; this is a percussion grenade, of my own devising.” He handed Zack a round metal object; it had a ring attached to a thin metal rod sticking out of the top of it. “And these contain a tranquilizing gas, I derived it from an herb that the Lenhoan equivalent to doctors use on injured patients.” He handed Zack two more round objects identical to the first one except that they were colored black.
“When you and Emily reach the anteroom, pull the pin on one of these black ones and toss it in and then back away from the room—you do not want to breath in any of this—and count to two hundred. It spreads quickly and dissipates quickly, you don’t have to worry about the sentries as they will absolutely not leave the anteroom. They are brainwashed by Paul.
Unlike the Lenhoan sentries, the men in The Crack Room at the other side of The Crack are not brainwashed, and if you tossed one of these in there they would be out the door in seconds. That’s where the percussion grenade comes in. After you count to two hundred, go into the anteroom, pull the pin on the grenade and toss it through The Crack, wait just a moment…say five seconds and then throw in the other tranquilizer grenade. Again you will count to two hundred, then walk through The Crack. Once inside The Crack Room you will turn left and go to the far wall where there is a metal door with a keypad on it….umm….a square about as big as your hand with ten numbered buttons on it. The combination is five, seven, five, two, five….you press each button in that order, do you understand?” Zack nodded. “Very good, you will go inside, select whatever firearms….guns, that you wish along with the proper ammunition, then you take this device” he handed Zack a box the size of a large book and appeared to be made of plastic. “Push this lever in and turn it to the right until it stops, set it on the floor of the vault room, shut the door and get out of there as fast as you can.”
“Any questions?”
“What’s going to happen to you?” Zack asked.
“That is not for you to worry about. Now Trask, and probably better than twenty men, are out on the road looking for people that are aiding you—"
“No one is aiding me, I came alone.”
“Of course you did, but they don’t know that. Anyway it will make your escape difficult if you use the road, so you should travel overland for awhile.”
“What if the women from Payne’s Station get past the guards and into the time-rip?” Zack asked.
“Then you will have to start all over.”
“And how am I supposed to get past the guards at the time-rip?”
Weston Presley just smiled. “I have faith in you. Now let’s pack this stuff up and go.”
23
Desmond Trask smelled something rotten, and he intended to find out what it was. “Jameson, take the men and travel the road ten miles or so, then come back. I don’t think that you’ll find anything but be ready anyway.” He walked back from the horse corral and went back to The Crack Room. “You men keep your eyes open for anything out of the ordinary….and keep the door locked.”
He walked through The Crack and into the anteroom, he spared the statue like sentries a look and then walked out to the corridor. “Damn spooks,” he said to himself.
The end of the corridor was as far as Trask and the other trusted men were allowed to go. “I need to see The Man in Charge…. NOW!” snapped Trask to the two Lenhoan men standing on either side of the doorway at the end of the corridor. The pair gave Trask a short bow then turned and walked through the doorway. Trask waited impatiently, pacing the floor. Soon the two returned and walked past him; Trask knew the routine and followed them to what was called the council room.
Paul Nesbitt was nearly purple with rage. He bit it off an
d sat for a moment quietly. He really wasn’t feeling well and this was the very last thing he needed. Weston? Betraying him? There must be some explanation.
“Find them both and bring them here. I will return in an hour.” Trask nodded and got up to leave.
“Desmond?”
“Yes sir?”
“Don’t harm them yet. You can have the boy….after.” Trask smiled and left the room.
“I apologize Emily, it seems that some rather unfortunate events have transpired” Paul Nesbitt said striding back to the table.
“Unfortunate indeed, Paul.” Weston Presley said from where he and Zack stood on either side of the doorway. Emily, who had barely been able to control her emotions at the site of Zack leapt from the table and ran to him, throwing her arms around him.
“Weston, I am disappointed in you. How could you betray me after all that we have been through together.” Paul Nesbitt said, taking his seat.
“I have been nothing more than another slave to you, but since we have been together for over three hundred years I decided to stay and comfort you at your end.”
“What do you mean?” Paul asked, eyes narrowed.
“It means that I poisoned your wine, and depending on how long ago you drank it I would estimate that you will be dead within the hour. Incidentally Paul, it’s the same poison that you have used on so many others.”
All of the color drained from Paul Nesbitt’s face, he looked at the half-empty wineglass and then back at Weston.
“You and Emily had better go now, Zack,” Weston said, his eyes not leaving Paul’s. “I do wish you the best of luck on your quest, and I trust that you will make the correct decisions. I am truly sorry for my part in all of this.”
After and Again Page 21