“Yes, Captain, I did. And my apologies as well. But, you are acting strangely. You sweep me from my home. I told you I wanted to finish my work so I could spend time with Ellen since she’s ill. Thank you very much for telling me last night.”
“Oh.” Hal waved out his hand. “This is more important. She’s fine. Just flakey.”
“Flakey?”
“You’ll see. And you will see something else as well.”
“What would that be?”
The door opened and Joe walked in. “Sgt. Ryder good to see you.”
Elliott, like everyone else, let out a peep of shock.
Hal grinned. “Wasn’t that a manly thing he just did?”
“Fuckin crazy out there.” Frank walked in. “Man, you should have seen Dad put the women in their place. They ran.”
“Do you think they ran because they think they saw a ghost?” Hal asked.
“No. But he looks like he did.” Frank pointed to Elliott.
“I am.” Elliott muttered.
“My line.”
Hal scoffed. “It’s not your line, Frank.”
Finally, Elliott came to his senses, or enough to speak. “Mr. Slagel.” He stood up. “How . . . it’s . . . it’s good to have you back.”
“Always been here, Elliott. Just hiding out. But I’m back, not in full capacity, things are changing. That’s why I needed you here so you can know the structure.”
“I am to assume,” Elliott said. “You faked your death for a reason. That reason would be as we all deducted, to stop the Great War.”
“I don’t think the Great War can be stopped,” Joe replied. “It can be changed. My decisions, as I learned, were not good. I don’t know what they all were; I’ve been told I’ll find out. As for now, we have to let Frank make all military and war decisions.”
“Oh, yeah, I rock.” Frank grinned.
Joe grumbled an ‘hmm’, “I do however need to have a town meeting as soon as possible so I can address everything. Hal will announce my return, and pretty much word of mouth will let people know I am back for real.”
A hard, bang-bang-bang on the door preceded its immediate opening.
Dan from Security rushed in. “Frank! Frank! It’s a mad house out there, everyone is convinced . . .” Upon seeing Joe, Dan screamed. “The brain flu is an epidemic!” and with that, still screaming, Dan flew out.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Hal said rubbing is chin. “I think it may take a bit more than word of mouth to convince them you are back and real.”
<><><><>
“Sweet Jesus!” Andrea slammed the door to Dean’s lab and leaned against it. “I am killing Joe Slagel. If he wasn’t dead before he will be when I’m done with him.”
“What’s going on?” Dean asked.
“Have you seen it out there?” Andrea pointed with her thumb. “The entire female population is convinced they have the brain flu.”
“Why is that?”
“Because Joe made an appearance.”
“Didn’t they buy that he wasn’t dead and he had to fake his death.”
“I’m sure they would have, had Joe explained that. But no, he just made an appearance.”
“You would think he’d learn after what happened to Ellen.”
“You would think. But somewhere in that twisted Slagel mind they're enjoying this. So, I called him. I told him to get down here and handle this. He is leader. He started it. This is a clinic. Not a zoo.”
“You think that’s a good idea? It might make things worse.”
“Really, Dean, if you stepped out there, you’d ask how much worse can it get?”
Screams.
Horrified, loud screams carried into the lab, along with banging, shouting, pandemonium.
Dean cringed. “You were saying.”
“Sweet Jesus, enough is enough.” She took a second to gather her composure, straightened her clothes, and she opened the door. The last of the fleeing people nearly barreled her over and then she saw Joe. She grunted. “Joe Slagel."
“What? You asked me to come down here.”
“I did not ask you to start a ruckus.”
He waved out his hand.
“Oh, do not wave me off. Do not.”
“What is it Andrea, I’m a busy man.”
“Yes, I see that. Being back from the dead and frightening the community is hard work.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“Calm this community down! Speak to them.”
“I am. I will. I have a community meeting planned. Now is that all?”
Andrea huffed. “Oh, you anger me, Joe Slagel.”
“I always have.” Joe said. “Now did you send Ellen home?”
“Not yet.” Andrea’s eye shifted to those present. Frank, Hal, Elliott, Robbie. “She’s . . . waiting for Prince Charming to take her back to the cottage.”
“Who’s prince Charming?”
Andrea nodded at Elliott.
“Oh!” Frank grunted out. “That just sucks.”
Elliott cleared his throat and tried to hide the smirk. “I’ll go perform my duties. Excuse me.” He made this way through the pack.
“Sgt. Ryder,” Hal called out. “Lose the arrogance.”
“What arrogance Captain. I can’t be arrogant. I’m charming.” He smiled.
“I hate him.” Hal mumbled. “Why is he Prince Charming?”
Joe said, “Well, if you think about it, Hal, who else would be? Frank?”
“Yeah.” Frank said.
“Your ass.”
Frank looked behind him.
“Stop that.” Joe back handed him. “We have other things to deal with right now.”
“Like?” Frank asked.
“Like . . . like . . . Christ. Why is Ellen skipping down the hall?”
Everyone looked up, and as Joe described, Ellen holding on to Elliott, Merrily skipped down the hall.
CHAPTER SIX
Because he was somewhere in the chain of command in the providences of Beginnings, Danny Hoi had to be prepared for the meeting. Of course, no matter how many notes one took or brought to the meeting, it was hard to know exactly what you would experience, especially when the Slagel’s were concerned.
Danny had stopped at the clinic as requested.
“It reminds me of the early days of the plague,” Dean told him.
Danny took in the hallways, filled and lined with people, all moaning, complaining, crying. “Can’t you tell them they’re fine?”
“No.” Dean said bluntly.
“Why not? I mean if seeing a floating Joe’s head or seeing Joe’s ghost is the number one reason they think they’re all sick, shouldn’t they catch on they aren’t?”
“No, because they all think it’s an illusion.”
“Tell them it’s not.”
“Uh, Danny, to protect Joe, the brain flu was created. Do you want to be the one to tell these people we have lied to them?”
“No, we’ll leave that to Frank.”
Getting a ‘Good idea’ agreement statement from Dean, Danny went out his way. But not before he received some headache medication from Dean as a precaution. After all, he was going to a Slagel meeting.
<><><><>
Joe had asked for an hour, or just slightly more to get his new office to feel natural.
He had to admit, while the newly remodeled leader office was very much like his old office, there was something he liked about the portable office that was once a small meeting trailer.
Joe got rid of the meeting table, leaving only the chairs.
He placed the desk closer to the wall, and the chairs all in front. File cabinets encircled the room, and it transformed from what once looked like a board room to a larger office.
“Yes,” Joe thought. “This will do.”
A knock came at the door.
“Hold on,” Joe called out, then walked behind the desk. The chair was broken in some, and it felt comfortable. He sank down into it, and
yelled out a ‘Come in.’
As expected, Danny was the first to arrive.
“Hey, Joe, I know I’m . . .” Danny slowed his speech as he walked into the room. “Early.” He closed the door and looked around. “Wow.”
“Looks good, huh?” Joe said, rocking back some in his chair.
“It, uh, looks like your old office.”
“Yep.”
“You have everything set the same way. Desk, chairs, file cabinets.” Danny turned left to right. “If I’m not mistaken you even have them spaced the same amount.”
“I do.”
Danny indicated to the left of the trailer. “But you have all this extra space.”
“I’ll figure out something.”
“So you like it?” Danny asked.
“Yes. I didn’t want to come in a trailer at first, I mean, especially after you replicated my office. But, after thinking about it, after moving in.” Joe nodded. “I like it. Frank said deal with it. I am. And I made the best of it. I made it into my office again.”
“That you did.” Danny paused and sat down. “Say, uh, Joe, where’d you get all the furniture from?”
“Frank.”
“Frank gave it to you?”
“Not exactly.”
“You . . . . Borrowed it?”
“Yep. He said I couldn’t have the office, he said nothing about the furniture.”
“File cabinets too.”
“Yep.”
“And I see you took his photographs, as well.”
“Not on purpose.” Joe showed Danny how the pictures in frames didn’t budge.
Danny laughed. “Oh my God, that’s so funny. You think Frank will be mad.”
“Maybe, who cares? Of course he has to notice it’s gone first.”
“Joe, please, I’m pretty certain, Frank is going to notice.”
Joe only raised his eyes.
“Won’t he?” Danny questioned.
“It’s Frank.”
<><><><>
“I am.” Frank closed and put away his phone. “Man, Andrea won’t let this go,” he said as he walked with Robbie to his office.
“Did you tell her we’ll handle it and figure out what to do.”
“I did. Not like I don’t have enough on my fucking mind.”
“I know.”
“Troops up north. We have to train more men. A future LEP, Killer Pubes”
“Don’t forget Elvis.”
“Fuck. Yeah him too.” Frank shook his head. “Now we have fucking dwarfs making poison pies.”
“They should be easy to spot.” Robbie said.
“You’d think. Have you seen one?”
“Not really.”
“They’re crafty.” Frank kept walking. “Now we have this meeting before our town meeting. All because Dad wants a plan. I hope to God the dragon doesn’t attack today.”
“I doubt it.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you doubt it?”
“Because it’s Thursday and dragons don’t usually attack on Thursday or Saturday.”
“That’s good to know. Thanks.”
Robbie nodded. “No problem.”
Frank stopped in front of his office door. “I’m gonna run in and get my clipboard, I’ll be right out.”
“Sounds good.”
Frank opened his door, and in a rush walked in. He went to the wall, grabbed the first clipboard, lifted a sheet, read it. He turned, stopped, looked around his office. It was completely bare except for the items that hung on the wall and the book shelf that contained only Frank’s book.
He looked, scratched his head, tucked the clipboard under his arm and walked back out, pulling the door closed behind him.
“You ok?” Robbie asked.
“Yeah,” Frank started to walk. “Something was different about my office.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. It was just different. I can’t put my finger on it.”
“You think something was moved or someone took something.”
“I don’t know. Oh, well,” He shrugged. “I’ll figure it out when we get back.” He gave a nod of his head. “Let’s get going little brother. We have a meeting.”
<><><><>
Hal knocked only once, then stepped inside Joe’s office. It was about to be the new reaction until everyone got used to the new look.
He stopped, looked, did that airy ‘Hal’ chuckled, then closed the door. “It looks like your old office.”
“Yep, just need some duct tape for the chair.”
“I see I’m early.” Hal sat down next to Danny. “I suppose since this is the first official meeting since your return that it will be a long one.”
“Well, depends,” Joe said. “How focused we can keep Frank on the subject without going off.”
“Good luck with that one.”
“Where’s Ryder?” Joe asked.
“Seems he took Missy Jane to the cottage near the hideaway forest. And since he is Prince Charming he is going to stay with her for a spell until we get someone to sit with her.”
Danny crinkled his brow. “Where is this place?”
Joe waved out his hand. “Oh, it’s her home. She hit her head when she saw me, now has partial amnesia and delusions of the children’s book she is writing. She’ll come out of it.”
“If not, it should be interesting.”
“Ah, yes,” Hal said with sarcasm. “Especially with the dwarfs running around.”
At that moment Frank’s voice entered at the same time as he and Robbie. “That’s because they’re crafty little fuckers.”
“Excuse me?” Hal asked, turning to look-over his shoulder.
“The dwarfs. You can’t see them because they’re crafty.”
“Frank.” Joe said firm. “Do you know how to knock?”
“Yes, I do. Thank you for asking.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Why didn’t I what?”
“Knock.” Joe said.
“When?”
“Just now, before you came in here.”
“I did. You didn’t hear me.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I did. Ask Robbie.” Frank pointed.
“He did. I was there.”
“You’re lying,” Joe told him.
Frank gasped. “Why would he lie? You guys were just too busy trying to figure out why you can’t see the dwarves. That’s why you didn’t hear me knock. And I told you why.”
“Why we can’t see the dwarves?” Joe asked for clarification.
“Yeah, they’re crafty.” Frank nodded. “And we’re also safe today and Saturday.”
“Why is that?”
“Because we won’t have to worry about the dragon on those days, they don’t attack on Thursdays and Saturdays. We can concentrate on other things.”
“That be a switch.” Joe mumbled. “And how Frank do you know dragons don’t attack on Thursday and Saturday.”
“Robbie told me.”
“How does he know?”
Frank shrugged. “Maybe he’s the foremost expert on dragons.”
Joe scratched his brow. “How would Robbie be the foremost expert on dragons?”
“Maybe he went dragon slayer school or something.”
“When? When Frank would he go to school to slay dragons.”
“When we weren’t paying attention. I don’t know.”
Hal threw back his head. “Oh my God. Father. Don’t fall into this. You’re arguing about dragons with him and whether or not Robbie knows if they attack and when.”
“Robbie knows.” Frank argued.
“Robbie knows nothing about dragons because dragons don’t exist!” Hal yelled.
“A huh. They do, too. Dad said.”
“Dad said no such thing.”
“He did too, in so many words. Would he argue with me if he didn’t think they existed? Huh? Huh?”
Danny intervened
. “He has a point.”
“Shut . . . up.” Hal snapped. “Robbie, tell our brother there are no such thing as dragons.”
Robbie lifted his shoulders. “Can’t, Hal.”
Hal shook his head. “I can’t believe you encourage this.”
“I encourage and support our brother.”
“Yeah.” Frank said. “He’ a good brother. You on the other hand suck.”
“All right. All right.” Joe held up his hand. “No more dragons.”
“At least not today and Saturday.”
“Thank you, Frank.” Joe nodded. “Now have a seat so we can begin.”
“Ok.” Frank stepped to the chair and stopped. “Hey.” He looked around. “You changed the place.”
“I did.” Joe glanced to Danny as if to say, ‘I told you so’
Danny cleared his throat. “So, uh, how’s it look to you Frank.”
Frank nodded. “Looks good. Familiar.”
“How so?” Danny asked.
Frank rubbed his chin. “Looks like Dad’s old office.”
“And?” Danny probed.
“Danny.” Joe warned.
“And . . . it smells nicer?” Frank questioned.
Joe grumbled. “Sit Frank.”
Frank began to sit, but stopped. “Wait a second.” Hands on hips, he walked a few inches and peered around. “I have file cabinets just like these.”
“Frank . . .” Joe started to speak.
“Oh my God.” Frank reached out. “I have the same desk. And . . .” He peeked around. “The same chair. With the same rip.”
“Frank.”
“Whoa. You must love me.”
“What?” Joe chuckled.
“The pictures.” Frank pointed. “I have the exact same one. Wait.” He looked over. “Yep. My author picture.” He went to lift it, it didn’t move. “Stuck.”
“That’s because it’s super glued to the desk Frank.”
“Man, I did the same thing so I wouldn’t knock them over. Wow, you must have Frank envy.”
Robbie’s laughter burst forth.
Joe gave him a crass look, “Robert.” then turned his attention to Frank. “Frank. I don’t have Frank envy, I have Frank’s furniture.”
“What do you mean?”
Joe rubbed his temples.
“Allow me.” Hal interjected. “Frank. All this stuff. The file cabinets the desk, the chairs. It’s yours.”
On Borrowed Time: Beginnings Series Book 26 Page 6