AWOL: A Character Lost

by Anthony Renfro

  Mile 2:

  Warming up, and his legs were starting to feel good. Shin pain was going away. He was also starting to pass people, a good sign; maybe his time wouldn’t be so bad.

  Mile 3:

  Still passing people and now on pace for a 25 minute run. His legs and body were warm, and he was feeling great. He could see the end.

  Mile .1:

  Believe it or not, this is the hardest part to run in a 5K. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that you have crossed 3 miles, and you think that should have ended it. Your body and your mind start shutting down, you start running out of steam, and you just don’t think you can go on, but you have to somehow find a way to keep moving forward. That was what Danny did. He pushed hard, passed more people, and crossed the finish line just under 25 minutes. Not a personal best, but close. It was a nice way to leave it, because this would be the last race he would run while the Earth was still clean and green.

  Danny came to a slow jog, stopping long enough to let someone take the chip off his shoe. He made his way over to the concession area, grabbed a piece of bread, a banana, and water since his hand held bottle was empty. From there, he made his way over to the car, ate and stretched then slid behind the wheel. He left the race and headed home.

  SMOKE SIGNALS

  Danny turned into his driveway and pushed the button on the garage door opener. He sat there a moment and let the door roll itself up. He noticed his wife’s car was gone, which was odd because he didn’t know she had anywhere to be this morning.

  He looked at the dashboard clock.

  It was just after 11 A.M.

  He pulled his car into the garage, turned off the engine, and got out. He fumbled for his keys and made his way inside.

  “Hello,” he asked, no one answered.

  The house was empty and silent.

  Danny stripped off some of his running gear (watch, hat) and left them by the door. Then he went up to the master bedroom and took a shower.

  He toweled off, put on a pair of jeans, and a Jimmy Buffett concert shirt. He then went to the kitchen for some food. That’s when he saw the note.

  Danny picked it up and read it.

  Johnny was riding his bike this morning when a car spooked him. He swerved to miss it, but wound up taking out several garbage cans and a mailbox when he did. He’s okay, but I had to rush him to the emergency room, just to be on the safe side. Michael is out with friends and should be back later. Enjoy the silence. – love, me.

  Danny tossed the note and made a sandwich. He popped open a bag of chips, and grabbed a soda.

  “I enjoyed your race.”

  Danny had his food and soda in hand when the voice snuck up on him from behind. He nearly dropped everything, but managed to hold on long enough to get his meal safely onto the counter. Danny turned around, knowing who it was before he made the turn.

  “You have a nice running form. You make it look easy,” the red haired guy replied. He was wearing khaki pants, collared shirt, and sandals. It was sort of an odd mixture of attire, but it seemed to work.

  “First my garage, now you’re in my house.”

  “We just need to talk some more.”

  “I haven’t said anything about our meeting. So why are you bothering me now?”

  “I need to prepare you for the next step.”

  “Next step?”

  “In human evolution.”

  “Can I eat first?”

  “Please do.”

  Danny collected his food and drink and made his way into the dining room. He sat down, and so did the red haired guy.

  “What’s their deal?” Danny asked, pointing towards three others, standing just outside the room. It was like they wanted to be hidden and known at the same time.

  “The shadows,” the red haired guy replied.

  “Original.”

  “We don’t have time to come up with clever names. We just call it like we see it. They are of no importance to you. Just think of them as dark angels, here for only my protection.”

  “Protection?”

  “Let’s just leave it where I left it. Okay.”

  Danny did, and started to eat, quieting the growl in his stomach. “You got me, now speak.”

  “I have to give you credit for not calling the number on the card. It shows tremendous will power.”

  “I kind of just filed it away like a bad dream.”

  “We appreciate that. A lot of the others we’ve contacted already have tried to call the number. They get nothing of course. The number won’t be activated until the proper time.”

  “Wait, what – others?” Danny nearly choked on his sandwich asking this question.

  “We’ve assigned roles and picked out those we think will be worthy of existence in the next life. We’ve had to be selective because we won’t have room for the entire human population. We will only have enough space for a few. It will be up to them to carry on the human race.”

  Danny put down his sandwich. This was just a little much to take while eating his roast beef and cheese. “First off, before you fuck me buy me dinner first; and, second, can you tell me just what in the hell you’re talking about? You come into my home. You invade my life, and then you start rambling on about stuff like this. Maybe I should just ask you to leave? Maybe I should call the cops? How would you like that?”

  The shadows inched forward, ready to protect, the red haired guy motioned them back. They slid back into their non hiding spots.

  “I understand your concern.”

  “Do you?”

  “I know this is a lot to take in, and it will be hard to wrap your mind around all the stuff I have to tell you, but you will have to try,” the red haired guy replied, trying to keep the situation calm. “The important thing is that we get you to the next level with as much knowledge as you will need.”

  Danny sat there and focused on his food, tried to let everything he was just told sink in. Should he believe this guy or shouldn’t he? He didn’t just didn’t know.

  “Who do you work for?”

  “The government, of course, but we aren’t known. You wouldn’t be able to find us even if we had a name.” The red haired guy cleared his throat and without Danny noticing, he motioned to one of the shadow people. The shadow guy began to creep forward, undetected. “One other thing before I go. It is important. I’ve told the others, to keep an eye on the situation in the Middle East. This is your clock and the alarm you will wake up to.”

  The shadow man moved up behind Danny and gave him a little jolt to the neck, just a little prick of something, strong enough to knock him out. Danny fell forward into his plate. The red haired guy turned Danny’s head so he could breath, his head resting on the sandwich like a pillow.

  That’s the way Barbara found him about an hour later.

  She helped him lift his head off the plate, a head which had a slice of bread sticking to it – mayo exposed to the world. She took off the bread and placed it back onto the half-eaten sandwich. Barbara looked down at Johnny, who had a small bandage over his right eye and a couple of bruises on his face. Other than that, Johnny seemed to be okay. “Why don’t you go and play.”

  “Is dad okay?”

  “I’m okay. Listen to your mom and go play.”

  “Fine.” Johnny left in a huff, hating to be excluded from whatever it was his parents were going to talk about.

  Barbara waited till the front door slammed shut. When she was sure they were alone, she looked down at Danny, still groggy, still waking up. “Two times I’ve found you like this.” Barbara sat down at the table beside him. She stroked his hair while she talked. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  Danny thought about the red haired guy, the card, and everything else he had learned from this strange stranger. Should he tell her anything or just play it up? He wasn’t sure, but he knew he had to say something, so he could calm her worried mind. “I think it was just the run today. It got me kind of tired.”

&
nbsp; “So tired you fell asleep on your roast beef and cheese?”

  “The week’s been kind of long too, a lot on my mind.”

  Barbara got up and went into the kitchen. Danny could hear the water running and waited for her to come back. On her way back, she started to talk to him. “Have you been keeping up with this stuff in the Middle East?” She took a seat at the table.

  Danny looked at his sandwich and decided to skip it. Having his face planted in it killed that part of his appetite. He munched on the chips and drank the soda while he talked to Barbara. “It sounds kind of scary.”

  “What if you’re right this time? That maybe this one is for real. That maybe this group actually will set the world on fire,” Barbara replied, stealing a few chips.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing, just another group trying to earn some respect with idle threats,” Danny replied, the red haired guy flashed across his mind, the information he just learned slamming hard into his brain.

  “So, how was the run?” Barbara asked, switching to a more pleasant subject.

  Danny was glad she shifted gears. He loved talking about running, and it allowed him to focus on something else. “It was good, almost got a personal best.”

  “Really, that’s great!”

  “I was more than happy with it.”

  Silence for a moment as Danny finished his chips and drink. “At least Johnny is okay,” Danny chimed in, breaking the silence.

  “He had me scared, real scared. I heard the crash from inside the house.”

  “Really?”

  “I was in the kitchen when I heard this loud bang. Johnny came running into the house with a stream of blood running down his face. I dropped everything. I wrote the note quick and rushed him off to the emergency room.”

  “Didn’t you say a car spooked him?”

  “Johnny said it was a big black government looking car.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “This car came from out of nowhere, it spooked him, and he tried to avoid it. That’s when he wiped out. ”

  “How would he know what one of those cars look like?”

  “Video games, TV shows, kids know,” Barbara replied.

  Danny thought about it for a moment. Red haired guy in his house, strange government kind of car lurking about, Johnny’s accident, was it all a coincidence or part of a bigger plan? He just wasn’t sure.

  “I need to go and get some stuff done. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine Barb. Go do what you got to do. I just need some rest.”

  She took his dish and trash, kissed him, and then left the dining room. Danny sat there a moment longer before getting up and leaving himself.

  The day drifted forward in a lazy way.

  Evening arrived and folded itself into night.

  *

  Danny woke up the next morning around 5 A.M. He looked over at the window and the darkness, which was still stretched across it like a thick fabric. He lay there a moment and listened to the ticking clock. He could feel the effects of the 5K, lingering in his body, as he rolled over and sat up.

  Barbara stirred beside him and then fell back asleep.

  Danny sat there a moment, and thought about the run he had planned with Barry later on that morning. He really wasn’t feeling it today, but Barry had just started running so it should be a rather easy outing for him. It would probably be a lot of stopping and starting.

  Danny got out of bed, dressed in his pajama pants and nothing else. He walked across the room, grabbed his shirt, and slipped out into the hallway.

  He pulled his shirt over his head as he descended the stairs. He wasn’t quite ready to eat, so he slipped into his favorite chair and turned on his computer – a small tablet that was perfect for searching the internet. He logged into his blog and checked to see if he had any comments or likes on last night’s post, nothing much, which was typical. His blog wasn’t all that popular.

  He had written about his run the previous day and he had hoped for a little more interaction. To say he was a little disappointed would be an understatement. He left his blog and moved on to the other blogs he followed. One of them had posted something that looked like a kid had put it together in two minutes, and it had 60 likes and 100 comments. The post showed a cartoon stick figure of a guy sitting on a toilet and the caption below it read – “Sit Happens!”

  Danny threw up his hands in disgust. He had taken so much time to orchestrate his running post that he thought it would shine, but that’s the way it went in the blogging world most days. The best posts sometimes got swallowed up by pure drivel.

  5:45 A.M. and Danny was done with blogging. He logged off and thought about turning on the TV, but decided against it. There was nothing much on at this time of day. Instead, he went into the kitchen and made a small breakfast – good hot oats – getting him ready for his run. The body responded to this healthy fuel and started to wake up.

  6:04 A.M. and his stomach was full, he was ready for his run, plenty of time to stretch, let his food digest, and get ready to go. It was going to be another cool morning, so he dressed in the appropriate attire, long sleeve wick away shirt, shorts, hat, and a few other basic accessories.

  6:30 A.M. and the Subaru was running, waiting for Danny to leave. He backed the car out of the driveway and off to the Tobacco Trail he went.

  *

  In case you don’t live in the Raleigh/Durham area, the Tobacco Trail is a nature trail carved out of an abandoned rail line. They took up the rail road tracks, so now it is a nice soft surface to exercise on. Most runners like it because it is good on the knees, and it gets you off the hard surfaces, which permeate most neighborhoods and cities these days. The trail winds across roads, through woods, and swamps. It is full of nature’s beauty, and it is somewhat peaceful, if it isn’t too crowded with people. However, if you are out there by yourself and no one is around, then it can get kind of spooky. The isolation can and will let your imagination run wild. It’s hard not to look through the canopy of trees and see something foul and evil coming after you. Maybe that’s just me. Now let’s get on back to the story.

  *

  Danny pulled up to the traffic light and stopped the car when the light turned red. He banged his head to a heavy beat as Municipal Waste poured out of the speakers, a new band, and one he was starting to get hooked on, because they sounded a lot like old school Anthrax. While he was jamming, something caught his eye, just to his right. It was that strange old man again, the one he saw a few days ago, the one who was at least eighty, with the scraggly beard, and unkempt and unwashed hair.

  Danny’s eyes went from the man to the sign on his chest. This time the sign didn’t just say something about the end of times. This time the sign had Danny’s name written on it, and below his name were the words:

  Your Time Is Up,

  Prepare For The End

  Danny looked from the sign to the guy’s face, and it changed while he looked at it. The guy’s face blurred out, and then three faces formed in its place.

  On one side there was a dark and demonic face with two piercing red eyes. On the other side was a light brown and angelic face with eyes a sharp piercing blue. In the middle was the face of the red haired guy. He winked at Danny, and the three faces flashed out.

  The light changed.

  Danny looked up at the green ball and then back at the man. The old guy was back to normal, and the sign no longer had his name on it. It just said “The End Is Near.”

  Danny drove on, glancing in the mirror several times, until the old guy was no longer in sight.

  He arrived at the Tobacco Trail promptly at 7 that morning; and, for a Sunday, it was packed. “Guess nobody goes to church these days,” Danny thought, as he found a place to park.

  In case you didn’t know, probably don’t because I haven’t told you yet, Danny is a church goer, and his family rarely misses a Sunday service. Today, Danny knew he had just enough time to get a run in, get home, get cleaned u
p, and get out the door by 10:30 so they could get to church on time. Barry, on the other hand, didn’t have this kind of time frame so he pulled his beat up pick up truck into the parking lot about ten minutes later than he should have. By this point in time, Danny had already stretched, found the GPS signal on his watch, and paced enough that he probably already covered three miles.

  He tried not to seem upset when Barry got out of his truck, drinking coffee.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Barry replied, sipping away.

  Danny gave him a once over. Sweat pants, tee shirt, and old tennis shoes, not exactly a seasoned runner’s apparel, but good enough to get started with. “It’s okay. We just need to get done by 8 so I can get home, church this morning.”

  “Crap. I forgot about that. It’s been so long for us that Sunday just seems like another day.”

  Barry stretched, and Danny joined him, the joints already tightening up with the longer than expected wait time.

  “I figured since we were trying to get you started that we would do what works for me when I’ve been away for a while.”

  “Such as,” Barry asked, really showing an interest.

  “I try to walk for five minutes – warm up the muscles. Then I try to run for five minutes.”

  “Sounds tough,” Barry replied, finishing up with his stretches.

  “If we do that three times, it will give us fifteen minutes of walking and fifteen minutes of running.”

  “Then what?”

  Danny finished stretching while the country music station played on in the cab of Barry’s truck.

  “You do that for a few runs; and then, when you feel up to it, you start to shift the times. Maybe walk for four minutes and run for six, then walk for three and run for seven, so forth and so on from there. That’s how you build stamina and eventually get up to running continuous miles.”

  “It sounds simple enough,” Barry replied, tossing the coffee in the bed of the truck. He grabbed a bottle of water and chugged it down, as the music turned off, and the local news came on the radio.

  “It’s worked for me.”

  “Where did you learn it?”

  “I actually kind of just made it up, but I’m sure there are a lot of couch to 5K programs that work on a similar principle.”