by Alexie Aaron
“Yes, I think my drive is shorter than yours. All back roads,” she told him. “Right now I’m looking forward to a glass of wine, a hot bath and a good book.”
“How are you after what Angelo did to you?”
“Honestly, I forgot about it until you just mentioned it,” she said thoughtfully. “I think that the images may provide some help, but until I can sort them out…”
“Don’t think on them tonight. Get some rest and dream of me,” Ted ordered.
Mia stopped herself from laughing. Somehow she thought it would have been cruel. “K,” was all she said before heading for her truck.
Ted felt a pat on his back. He turned to see Cid standing there. “Hell of a few days. I’m bushed. Let’s beat feet to the motel.”
“Wait for me!” Beth called from a few feet away. “I want to follow you to the motel. I get all turned around in the dark,” she explained.
“Cid, walk the lady to her car. I’ve got to get something from Burt first.”
Ted backtracked to the truck and banged on the door. Burt slid the door open, and Ted requested, “The keys?”
Burt dug into his jacket pocket and gave Ted three keycard folders. Ted programed his phone with the address. “Where exactly is this place?”
“East of here, off the state road.”
“Beds lumpy?”
Burt was about to say he didn’t know but caught himself. Mike came to his rescue and called over, “Hey, knucklehead, you’ve got the feeds mixed up.”
“I got to go. See you in the morning.”
Ted looked suspicious but nodded.
Burt lowered the door.
“Phew! That was a close one.” Ted heard Burt say before he walked away.
Beth was talking a mile a minute to Cid when he walked up. “Ready?”
Cid looked at him relieved. “Yes, boss, let’s get on the road.”
“Follow us. Call if we get separated, Bethy,” Ted instructed.
Beth was about to ask if Cid could ride with her, but Ted had already left. She got into her car and backed out of the space and turned her car around so she could head down the drive frontwards. She noticed as her lights swept the other cars that one of them had a major dent by the back wheel. She made a mental note to ask about it tomorrow. She waited, and soon the van passed her. She pulled in behind it and followed. She picked up her phone and saw that it wasn’t too late. She voice dialed one of her girlfriends. When she picked up, Beth said, “You’ll never guess who just walked into my life…”
~
Mia called Whit. He picked up immediately.
“You have reached the phone of a true law enforcement professional. Presently, I am manning a speed trap, leave a message at the tone.” Whit made a sound.
“Whit, damn, if you were there, I was going to offer you an effing good roll in the sack, but since you’re not…”
“Wait, it’s me.”
“I can’t hear you. I’m going through a tunnel…”
“There are no tunnels in Illinois,” Whit said sternly.
“K.”
“Smart ass.”
“You better not be talking dirty to me while you’re on the job,” Mia teased.
“I’m just sitting here watching the drunks weave their way home. Speaking of drunks, where have you been?”
“Investigating.”
“All day?”
“I know I should have banker’s hours, but the ghosties like evenings best. How’s Tom’s uncle?”
“Don’t know. Why don’t you call him?” Whit said surly.
“My my, you sound cranky.”
“It’s the night shift. I never get to see you.”
“I have tomorrow morning off. Why don’t you come over and we can cuddle.”
“Mmmmm, sounds good. Except I have a dentist appointment,” he admitted.
“You’re turning down a morning with me for the dentist?” Mia acted surprised.
“My million dollar smile needs to be cleaned. You’ll have to make do with one of my photos and a…”
“Don’t say it!” Mia winced.
She heard his laughter. She also heard some mechanical sounds. “Hey, I’ve got a speeder. Talk to you tomorrow.” Whit hung up.
“Gee, not even a love you,” she complained to herself. Mia slowed the car to a stop at the intersection and signaled her turn. She thought it was silly to do so as the road was deserted, but she didn’t need a ticket or a scolding from Mister Law Enforcement so she waited and turned.
A mist cloaked the lowlands as she traveled west. The trees seemed to crowd the road. She eased her speed as she traveled over an old bridge. Ice had built up, and she heard it crack and break as she drove the truck carefully over the expanse. Ahead she saw a few deer. Their eyes were reflected by the truck’s lights. She slowed and waited for the doe to get herself and her fawn to safety before continuing. She caught a movement further on down the road. It looked like a group of men walking alongside the road. “Damn, I hope they’re not hunters. Is it still deer season?” she asked herself as she approached the group from behind.
On their buffalo-skin-covered backs bows were strapped. Their feet were wrapped in skins. These were hunters, but the deer weren’t in danger from them. She passed them with her truck. Mia felt a chill as she got a closer look at their faces. Something in the back of her mind broke free, and she heard screams and smelled fire. Mia stopped her truck and waited for the vision to pass. When it did, she was almost too weak to continue the journey. She wanted to call Whit to come get her. She wanted to feel arms around her. Burt? Should she call him? No. Ted? “Damn it! Get your shit together!” she chided herself.
There was a scratching at the window. She didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to see anymore. Mia forced herself to turn her head.
“Murphy?” she said, not believing her eyes.
The farmer nodded and looked at her with concern.
“What are you doing all the way out here?”
He put his hand to his brow.
“You were watching. Watching the hunting party?”
He nodded. He pointed at her.
“I was going home the back way when I saw them. Something’s wrong with me.”
Murphy rolled his eyes which caused Mia to laugh. She felt the effects of the vision roll off her body. “That’s not fair, Murph,” she said and patted the seat beside her. “You want a ride home?”
He shook his head and pointed at her.
“I’m feeling better. But thanks for asking.”
He pointed to the group and then to himself.
“If you are going to follow them, be careful. They may not be an echo. I get the feeling they aren’t too nice either.”
Murphy saluted Mia and patted the side of the vehicle as if it were a horse. She put it in gear and drove off down the lonely road towards home.
Chapter Fifteen
He moved to the front of the group to find out why the scouts had stopped moving. They were close to home. He felt that they could make it with a concentrated push. Light snow had begun to fall, but they didn’t feel the cold. Those days were long gone. Long gone was the weight of the buffalo robes upon their shoulders. No longer would they smell the cooking fires or kiss their wives. The Fox had taken that away from them. All that remained was their hatred and sorrow to fuel them now.
He arrived at the front of their party to find his scout holding everyone back. He questioned his warrior and followed the outstretched limb to the hard path down the hill. Snow had accumulated on the trail that the people of this time’s wagons rolled on. He could see from the hillside a few tracks of their wheels. He heard a loud noise and saw the impediment to their crossing. A large wagon with a curved tomahawk on the front was eating the snow and tossing it to the side. It moved with unnatural speed. His scout was right to stop the group.
They would wait until it finished its pass before crossing. In the meantime he would draw the others into a circle, and they would talk
about the mission. He would feed his warriors with the memories of what he found when he returned to the village. Make it known the sacrifice he made in order to take revenge upon the Winnebago, Fox, Iroquois and the French.
~
Mia looked in the medicine cabinet and found the antacid. She regretted eating the fast food with Ted and Cid. She popped a few in her mouth and crunched down on the chalky tablets. She started to fill the deep tub with water before heading back into the great room to listen to her messages. Ralph had called wanting an update on her medical tests. The hospital called asking her to make an appointment to talk to the chief surgeon in neurology. That didn’t sound good. The local Jewel grocery store informed her they decided to go with another company to plow their parking lot this year. She wondered who undercut her but was relieved she would no longer have to leave her snug abode to traverse the icy roads whenever mother nature decided to frost the area with snow.
Money was a problem. She would have to cut back on the time she spent with PEEPs and concentrate on her handywoman business for a while. It was either that or dip into Grandma Fred’s legacy. The balance, although impressive, would not last forever if she kept chipping away at it.
Bernard had sat down with her and discussed that she should be charging a consultant’s fee for her services.
“But how dare I charge for something that was given to me for free?”
“Think about it this way. Ralph was given a gift of design. He charges for it. Theodore Martin doesn’t give his designs away.”
Mia stopped him before he listed more. “I get the picture. I’ll think on it, do some soul searching, and then we’ll talk again. I appreciate your counsel. It means a lot to me,” she said and leaned over and hugged her pseudo godfather.
“Since you are listening to me, I would like to talk about your love life.”
“Not without me!” Ralph said from the doorway of their high rise apartment kitchen.
Mia shook her head. “No, nada, never. You two are on opposite sides of the coin, and I will not sit here while you bicker about who’s better for me. Why not let me stumble along and find my own way?”
“Pish. By the time you figure it out, I will be too old to bounce the babes on my knee,” Ralph complained.
“He has a point there,” Bernard pointed out. “He’s old now.”
“Speak for yourself, Mister Greying-at-the-Temples.”
The elegant black man hesitated, but the urge was too great. Bernard got up and sought out a mirror.
“Now that he’s gone, let’s talk about your wardrobe.”
Mia shook away the memory and cleared her machine of messages. She walked back into the bath and poured some fragrant bath salts in the tub. The water was nearing the top as she stirred it until the crystals melted. She pondered why salt didn’t affect the DTDs the way it did the other ghosts. Even Murphy had felt the pain of being blasted with a stray rock salt crystal.
Mia pulled off her clothes and tossed them in the vicinity of the bathroom hamper before easing her sore body into the tub. Her attacker was made of straw, but it had some sinew moving the strong limbs that held her. It wasn’t the enveloping that scared her so much but what she saw when she opened her eyes. There morphing in the straw she saw her face forming before her. At the time she had pushed the image away as hysteria, but as she soaked in the tub she knew it was important.
She lurched over the side of the tub and grabbed her jeans and pulled them towards her. Inside her front pocket she found her battered but functional cell phone. She hesitated working out who should she call about this. Angelo would be interested, but since he played his little game with her this afternoon, she wasn’t happy with him. Burt and Mike would still be awake, but somehow she didn’t feel comfortable talking to them from the tub. She dialed Ted.
“Speak to me,” a groggy voice mumbled.
“Ted, it’s Mia.”
“My Mia?”
She ignored his sleepy slip of the tongue. “I’m sorry, I woke you up. I just wanted to discuss something that happened to me during the straw man fight. We can talk tomorrow.”
“No, give me a moment. I was just dreaming of, well nevermind. I’m sitting up and listening.”
“When the straw man had me in its grasp, I opened my eyes and saw me. It was becoming me.”
“Whoa. Why, I wonder?”
“Camouflage perhaps. It was dirt then straw. Before that, grape jelly.”
“It seems impossible.”
“Not really. When I bilocate, I can become different things as long as I have seen them before. I think that the DTD has to touch its mold to become it. I don’t think it meant to hurt me or Martha at all. I think it was trying to become human.”
“You’re giving me chills, Ice Queen.”
“At the house, you saw what Beanie, Bubba and Blast were doing. They were becoming what they touched. They just didn’t know how. They have been trying to become Gwen since her birth. They just hadn’t the ability yet.”
“So we have things all wrong. Angelo is wrong? Maybe these aren’t ATzxe at all?”
“I don’t know if I can overrule his thesis yet. I’m just saying that the entities we have faced so far aren’t trying to kill us. They may accidently do it though, in the course of achieving their goal,” Mia said and shifted her body.
“Why do I hear water?” Ted asked.
“I’m in the tub.”
Mia heard a groan.
“Are you alright?”
“Um yes, where were we?”
“Talking about shape-shifting shadows.”
“I think that we need to discuss it with the group and with Angelo. But that can wait until the morning,” Ted said sagely. “He’s holding a few cards that he hasn’t shown us yet. Why didn’t you call him?”
“I don’t know, I guess it’s a trust issue. He isn’t above sacrificing a lot of pawns in order to win the game.”
“What happened this afternoon?”
Mia thought a moment before replying, “He extracted memories that Gwen had been born with and placed them in my head. Not cool stuff. Bad stuff.”
“Do you want to talk about it now? I could be at your place in a half hour.”
“No, it can wait. Get some sleep, you must be exhausted. I know I am.”
“Mia, a favor.”
“Sure, what?”
“The next time you talk to me naked in a bath tub,” he paused.
“Yes?”
“I’d like to be there to pass the soap, just saying.”
Mia felt a surge of desire move through her. “I hear you.”
“Good. Night, Cooper,” he said formally.
“Goodnight, Teddy Bear,” she said softly and hung up. Mia reached over and ran more hot water into the cooling tub. She felt a brief moment of disloyalty in regards to Whit as she touched her body. As her hands moved over her silky skin, it wasn’t Whit she was thinking of. Tonight, she didn’t want to examine her feelings. She didn’t want to weigh her actions. All she wanted was release.
~
Murphy pushed on, being careful to hang far enough back to not be of notice to the group of spirits that were amassing. He saw tribes that were long gone before he settled his farm. They disappeared before the Americans claimed the land on which he stood. They had names, histories and cultures that had long vanished. The only feelings that seemed to permeate the woods around them were in the nature of calculation, stealth, and revenge.
He felt bad that he didn’t have time for Mia earlier. He sensed her disappointment and loneliness, but she would understand eventually. Mia lived on a different plane of existence, and even though he would like it to be otherwise, their relationship was relegated to friendship, nothing more. Friends understood personal conflicts, where spouses and lovers didn’t. Right now his attention was on the spirits in his woods and the mystery of why they were here.
~
Archie was excited. He received a call from Macy that the PEEPs command vehicle h
ad been located. He now knew where the aliens were being studied. His group could not let this opportunity pass them by. They needed to document the visitation before it was hushed up. Macy was convinced that this was the start of an invasion. If they didn’t act, all would be lost. The time was now, and Archie had to get himself released from the hospital. It meant he would have to get up and walk, back off his pain medication and have a good crap. What was it about hospitals and bowel movements? In the meanwhile he would try to get a good night’s sleep.
~
Ted rolled over and punched his pillow until he could form it into a better cradle for his head. Mia’s interruption had awoken him after only an hour of sleep, but he was wide awake. Thoughts, computations and sexual urges flooded his brain. He had to turn off his mind if he was going to get any sleep tonight. He had to be at his best if he was going to be able to have peak performance. The long drive in from Kansas had left him too tired to anticipate the needs of the team. He felt naked without a keyboard under his fingers. Burt sending him on an investigation without a gadget to fiddle with was just plain torture. Ted understood what Burt was trying to achieve, but it just didn’t work for him. He needed the comforting feel of a device on his person. Mia was his polar opposite, she needed to use her feelings, and the math and machinery didn’t help her as they did Ted. She was his humanity. He was her what?
He turned over and faced the ceiling. What was he to Mia? Friend, yes, coworker, certainly, but was he getting to her? They had so many close calls in Chicago. He held back for her sake, and then Whit came in and took her away. Ted punched the air above him. Also there was Beth mucking up the waters, claiming him as her own. No wonder Mia didn’t look at him as a mate. She wasn’t the type of girl to poach a man off a friend. This was getting him nowhere. He reached for his phone and pressed send.
“Mmmm,” Mia answered.
“Don’t talk, listen,” Ted said and added a soft, “Please.”
“K.”
“You know how I said you had twenty years to make up your mind? Whether you wanted to be with me?” he clarified.