Then he heard it … a distinctive squeaking sound behind him, accompanied by the gentlest rocking motion. He couldn’t move. At the periphery of his senses, he was aware of the sound of air rushing past his ears, aware of his white knuckles, aware of the pulse of his blood flowing through his fingertips, clasped tight on the steering wheel. Squeak … that particular noise, rubber, or flesh, and either way, horrifying. Squeak … His heart hammered through muscle and bone, a repetitive deafening thud, and he knew that if it could, his heart would leap free of its cage and slam onto the accelerator. Then thud, directly behind his head, so loud that David screamed, his right hand grabbing the key, turning it in the ignition, his right foot slamming down hard on the accelerator as his scream became a guttural yell.
He looked at the tree line ahead of him, and he knew that this was impossible. There was no way. He could drive this line a hundred times, and hit a tree every time. Thudding behind him, hammering, the sound of a male voice, yelling bloody murder, wishing hell’s wrath and damnation on him. The van lurched, and David’s chest slammed against the steering wheel, his head snapping forward sharply. Focus. He managed to keep the accelerator floored, his eyes fixing on a gap. He held the wheel with his left hand, and reaching out to his right, he felt for the tool chest. The cool metal handle grasped hard, he heaved the toolkit off the seat, felt its sharp edge scraping down his shin, felt it’s crushing weight tumbling over his foot, but none of that mattered. Focus. He took his eyes off the gap in the trees, and quickly caught site of the dash instruments. Thirty, thirty-two, he knew he had to jump now. The yelling, two voices now in chorus, four fists hammering and pounding the metal behind his head, as his left hand reached for the door handle, and then as he started to pitch his body sideways, he heard the popping, tearing sound of the metal giving way.
It felt like every part of him hit the dirt and grass with equal force. He had broken everything. Definitely everything. He managed to open his eyes in time to see the van clip one of the trees, then tip onto two wheels as it sailed over the edge of the cliffs. Not perfect, and he was damned if he was going anywhere near the edge to check that the thing was sinking.
Nope.
Not a chance.
Fuck.
That.
Then clearer thoughts came to him. He had to move, had to get out of there. Oh God, those sounds. The shouting, and pounding. He’d just killed. Actually killed two men. Then an even darker thought tore through his body, and with that thought, David Beach was on his feet, and he could feel no pain.
The sun had just started to peek over the horizon as West was leaving the capital. He took it steady, trying to relax into the road, taking in the beauty of the silhouetted buildings, the warm morning glow rendered a deep burgundy by the Boss’s tinted windows. He announced his instructions to the entertainment system, “Audio please, Mozart, Die Zauberflöte, full volume.” He held his breath as his mind filled with a world of associations, each measure precious, the entry of ever instrument impacting on his temperament.
It felt appropriate to listen to an opera with such masonic overtones as he left Washington. He had made many lasting and important acquaintances through his involvement with the Freemasons over the years. With a running time of two and a half hours, The Magic Flute, and by extension, the memories of so many people who had come and gone from his life, would accompany West for most of his travel time. With the studious use of his radar scanner, his own rather canny senses, and a top speed of two hundred and fifteen miles per hour, he would reach the outskirts of Wilmington Delaware just as the Queen of the Night sung her aria, “Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen” (“The Vengeance of Hell boils in my heart”).
The Queen of the Night … West thought about Charlene Osterman and what wonders the night may have worked on her. Charlene had been beautiful when he’d first met her, but young, much too young. She had known nothing of the world, yet she was fascinated with everything, and her thirst for knowledge and experience was intoxicating. The decision to remove himself from her life had been an easy one. His respect for life was absolute, and he had understood that his continued presence in her life would have destroyed her.
If he’d learned anything in his lifetime, it was that patience was its own reward. He had checked in on her over the years of course, from a distance, and he had been frequently disturbed to learn of the various hardships that she had undergone, but he felt no desire to intercede. Every acquaintance was for West, a test of patience.
That Charlene Osterman had survived to the age of eighty-five was impressive, considering the car crash, the financial ruination, the tornadoes and floods she’d experienced in Louisiana and Florida. He thought about how she’d looked the night before, her body a manuscript of misadventure and hardship, but beyond all of that, experience, real experience. Had he stayed in her life, she would have barely known more than the tragic loss of her parents; everything else would have been a hedonistic whirlwind … probably. Probably was enough for West. Charlene Osterman was a woman who had survived life without any unfair advantages and that was far more intoxicating to West than the curiosity and excitement of a young girl growing up in New York.
Charlene sat on the edge of her bed, towel tucked in on itself around her chest, thin gray hair hanging damp over her shoulders. She gazed at the tall dresser. The mirror there almost full length, bore the image of something awesome. What had she become? She stood, allowed the towel to fall away, and tears came quickly. She couldn’t take it in. She staggered forward, the wind taken out of her body by the shock of what she saw. Her hand punched forward as she tried to steady herself, the mirror cobwebbing out in fracture lines beneath her knuckles. She gasped, wincing in anticipation, but there was no blood, and only a mild twinge of pain. She felt the adrenaline rush, felt it in her face, a rising heat, a stinging warmth, and she moved, still unsteady, arms shaking. She stood up straight, and faced the mirror. No, this was wrong, worse … what in damnation was she seeing? Her face was shrinking back, sagging, cheeks puckering, shriveling like a rotten fruit. “No!” She sobbed, hands grasping, pinching the skin of her cheeks, “No, god damnit!” She screamed, and sobbed, fists hammering the mirror, “Change!” She screamed in exasperated fury, “Change!”
And it was that simple. The heat, the prickling, the subtle pulling of muscles, the sickening popping sound in her ears. The skin filled out, tightened, returned to that beautiful, youthful form. She was suddenly giddy, incredulous at how easy it was. What had West given her? She laughed, smacking the shattered mirror, offering a high five to the girl in the mirror. Girl. She laughed out loud at the absurdity, shaking the glass shrapnel from her palm. The only thing wrong with that girl was her hair, limp and gray. She could do something about her hair though, and she knew she would have to. Not possible yet … he’d told her she couldn’t leave, and although she had boxes of hair dye somewhere about the apartment, she knew that the tint would be oxidized and useless.
Behind the girl in the mirror, there was a wardrobe full of clothes that had served Charlene well over the years. She’d kept many of her dresses, blouses and skirts from her younger days, some due to nostalgia and others due to laziness. She stood up from the bed and walked over to the wardrobe, where she quickly put her hand on a knee length bright turquoise chiffon dress. She had last worn the dress when she’d been in her forties and she was certain that she could pull it off now. She closed the door, allowed the towel to fall and pulled the dress on over her head. She ran her fingers thoughtfully over the lace trimmed neckline and smiled at the young woman in the mirror. The woman smiled back.
Underwear and stockings turned out to be a little more problematic. Nostalgia and laziness only went so far when it came to the preservation of clothes. She opened her lingerie drawer and pulled out a large pair of white satin panties, which were as close to flattering as she could hope for. The drawer beneath the lingerie held her winter accoutrements, hats, scarfs, shawls and gloves. She pulled out a cream wool ha
t and walked back over to the wardrobe, pulling it on and checking her reflection to make sure she had tucked her hair under the thick crocheted rim. With her gray hair hidden, if she’d been asked to guess the age of the woman who looked back at her now from the mirror, she would have guessed thirty, thirty-five tops
She sat on the velvet cushioned chair in front of her dresser and placed her makeup bag on the table beside her, ready for her ritual of makeup application. She couldn’t help but laugh a little as she looked through the bag, realizing that all she would need was a little eyeliner and a touch of lipstick.
Blood had started to gather and congeal at the cuffs of David’s shirt sleeves, both hands bleeding sufficiently that David felt sure he would die before he reached civilization. To be sure, Calvert Cliffs state park was not entirely uncivilized, but what of it? David hadn’t laid eyes on a forest trail, car park, or a power plant, and every time he fell (which was happening a lot,) his knees, hands, shins, elbows, or more often than not, all four would scrape agonizingly into a sharp edge. He had cried for some time, breath rasping in his throat, manly groans and grunts terrifying any nearby wildlife. When his self-pity had subsided, it had quickly dawned on David that mind numbing panic had been a more situationally appropriate reaction, and on cue, punctuated by a full bodily fall, panic had returned, and now seemed to hold a permanent sway over his mental state. He was convinced that agents Carmichael and McMahon must be giving chase now. West had made it clear that the van needed to sink, and that the men needed to drown in salt water. Which was another thing. David wasn’t convinced that the Chesapeake even had salt water this far inland. No, if that’s what it took to kill these men, David knew that he was unequivocally screwed.
His only solace was that he was confident of his directional sense. No matter how many times this confidence had proved to be entirely misplaced, be it in malls, city centers, amusement parks, or his workplace, his internal compass remained nevertheless, an unwavering bastion of hope for David. He always knew where he was going, no matter how wrong he was. He was clinging to that very thought, looking up and trying to calculate the angles of trajectory of the shafts of light which were now piercing through the trees, when he caught his ankle in a knotted tree root, and fell sideways, pain screaming out from his ankle before he’d even hit the floor. He screamed an expletive, his voice so torn, chest so tight, that what came out was an incomprehensible shriek of vowels and consonants, ending unusually on a plosive as his lungs seized up and his lips closed fast. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he was vaguely aware of the notion that some time had passed.
He jolted into action, teeth gritted in anticipation of pain as he clambered to his feet. He pressed the ball of his left foot to the floor, tentatively, felt the warmth of pain wrapped around his ankle, those embers catching light as he applied more pressure. Behind him, somewhere close by, he heard a twig snapping, and a rustle of leaves. The sound of the second, larger limb cracking might just as well have been a starter pistol. David was running now, every step an agony, but eyes fixed on the forest floor, there was a determined clarity to his movements. Branches or twigs would whip at his skin, and he’d push forward, unflinching. His feet skimming close to his backside, hands pulsing forward and back, pistons forcing forward an unlikely, and shambling machine. He could hear footsteps pounding the dirt, not his, but right on top of him, thudding in his head, and every breath he took was a gasping plea for mercy. He couldn’t look back, he knew that if he did, he’d fall again. He had learned that much about himself this morning. He imagined his epitaph after they scraped his mangled corpse from the leaves and detritus of the forest floor, David Beach: Not a gazelle.
He listened to the thumping, never losing distance, never gaining on him. Why were they toying with him? He was sure that if they wanted to, they could pounce at any moment. He could do this. He could keep running until they decided to kill him. Then a switch flipped in David’s mind, and like an acquaintance who had been reaming off facts, waiting for the recognition to dawn, the fear became suddenly mundane in its familiarity. He’d felt it before, this panic … very specifically this exact state of panic, when he was twelve. The circumstances had been different only in the minutia of detail. This was how he would die. On the playground, twelve years old, exhausted after thirty solid minutes of being chased by a thug, David would die beaten to a bloody, pissing, pulp. From the list of anecdotal evidence, the running, the pounding sound, the fear, the determination, it was the urination that had finally clicked everything into place in David’s repressed memories.
In the distance, there, a break in the tree line, and a clean horizontal plank, no jagged edges, no limbs or twigs. A fence, which meant humanity. Surely the FBI, even a demented homicidal agent of darkness acting under the guise of the FBI wouldn’t kill him in front of early bird campers? And now he was a gazelle, for sure, graceful, limbs acting in synchronous beauty, chin forward, body light as the air. Far from the fence, he leapt, safe in the knowledge that he was this creature of the woods, this testament to the human form, and speed. Over the fence to safety. In the periphery of this steely beast like vision, there was a car, no, a camper van. Yes, safety. Then his foot caught. Then the world spun, and David died.
He was sure he’d died.
Why did the footsteps still thud in his ears?
He opened his eyes, and there, looming above him, silhouetted against the morning sky, David could make out curly hair, spilling out from the hem of a beanie, then as his irises contracted, more detail emerged from the darkness, the stubbly cheeks, full beard, the shoulder straps.
“Fuck dude, you took a tumble. You lost?”
Still the pounding, relentless footsteps filling his head, David looked about, panicked, glancing back to the trees, trying to pick out the men in the shadows there. Nothing. Then the thumping slowed. Nothing? He shielded his eyes with his arm, squinting. Nothing. Just his heartbeat.
The stranger had helped David to his feet, asked him if he needed a ride, and was clearly crestfallen when David insisted that he only drive him to the nearest main street. He was desperate to help, the good Samaritan in him, itching for a fix, but this was all he was going to get. He wanted to be able to post before and after pictures, showing the amazing transformation, from torn up tramp to upstanding citizen, but David was going to deprive him that joy. A little begrudgingly, the stranger pulled over, then he jumped out eagerly, and ran around to the passenger side of the van to help David with the door.
“It’s Phil, and you’re more than welcome. I just wish there was more that I could do for you.”
David thanked Phil again. He had lost his phone somewhere on the run, but miraculously, somehow, he’d managed not to lose his wallet. It had only been a two-minute drive to the main road, but David couldn’t quite express how thankful he was to the stranger, and he went to offer him money.
“Please, put that away, it’s nothing.” He reached into his jacket pocket and handed David his phone.
David leaned up against the side of the van, and glanced at the screen, which currently displayed a photo of a golden lab puppy with a daisy hanging from the corner of its mouth.
“Oh shit, sorry, here,” Phil took the phone back off him, “Let me unlock that.”
David smiled gratefully, “You mind if I look up the number for a taxi?”
“I’ve got Uber, and Lyft on there.”
David shook his head, “I’d rather not.”
Phil shrugged, “Double tap man, I’ve got most of the local companies on speed dial.”
David nodded, impressed with his own turn of fortune more than Phil’s disaster preparedness plan.
“You never know right?” Phil’s eyebrows raised in slightly smug pride.
David agreed, you really didn’t. He told the operator for Delta Cabba that he’d be walking towards the city on, he looked at Phil, who whispered, “Saint Leonard Road.”
“Saint Leonard Road,” David repeated. The operator asked
where he would be heading, and David was about to offer his home address when he thought better of it, “Yeah, just to the town center at Prince Frederick.”
He handed the phone back to Phil, “You’re a brick man, seriously. Lifesaver.”
“I could drive you to Prince Frederick!”
“I’ve got to make this trip on my own Phil. I really appreciate the offer though.”
Phil put a hand on David’s shoulder, and withdrew it quickly when David let out an involuntary groan. “Any time bro.” He grimaced as his eyes poured over the devastation that was David’s state of dress, “Seriously though, what the heck happened to you?”
David raised his head, but the muscles of his neck, warm and angry as they were, brought his eyes back to the roadside, “I’d tell you Phil, but then someone would probably make me kill you.” Phil laughed, then looking at the dark patch surrounding David’s crotch, he stopped laughing, and started coughing.
“Look, Simon was it?”
David nodded.
“Look Simon, I’ve got a ton of clothes in the back here,” he patted the van twice, “Let me fix you up.”
David sighed, not sure he could trust reality any longer, “No, no, I’m fine.”
Phil punched the side of the van, “Simon, man, you are so not alright. You’re the most badly fucked up sight I’ve seen in a long time, and I do a lot of really stupid things, I mean … I’ve seen some really twisted individuals. Take some clothes. It is the very least I can do.”
Histories of the Void Garden, Book 1: Pyre of Dreams Page 9