Bringer of Fire

by Jaz Primo

  Whatever happened to Gillian Anderson, anyway?

  She was so hot.

  During my Internet searching, I’d read some information on telekinesis, the ability to move objects with one’s mind. However, I wasn’t certain that I hadn’t been hallucinating versus actually moving inanimate objects.

  Still, I had held the soap in my hand. Hallucinations didn’t usually generate lather.

  In the end, I had no more prospective answers than when I’d started, and I still had no idea about what to do next.

  I glanced at the clock and realized that it was almost eight in the morning. It was Tuesday, and I’d normally be expected into work at the tag agency by nine. While I’d taken Monday off due to illness, my boss had always been kind enough to give me my cancer treatment days off, as well.

  However, I still felt a little puny from having the stomach flu, so I reached for the phone to call in sick.

  The phone unexpectedly propelled into my hand like someone had tossed it to me!

  I sat there feeling stunned as I stared at the phone like it was an alien artifact.

  “I damned sure didn’t hallucinate that,” I said aloud, if only to reassure myself that I was still grounded in reality.

  Then a haunting thought occurred to me.

  Do insane people realize that they’re hallucinating?

  A couple of seconds later, the phone rang and I abruptly dropped it, as if it had burned my hand or something. It rang two more times before I built up the nerve to snatch it up to answer it.

  “Yeah?” I asked gruffly.

  “Mr. Bringer?”

  The woman’s tentative voice sounded familiar to me.

  “Yes, this is Logan Bringer.”

  “This is Maria Edwards from the treatment center.”

  I knew her. Maria was the cute physician’s assistant who periodically met with me during my treatments.

  A hopeful feeling surged through me as I realized that at least one person I knew had survived yesterday’s disaster.

  “Maria! My God, are you okay?”

  I heard what sounded like a sigh of relief.

  “Mr. Bringer, I’m fine, thanks. I can’t really say much right now. The police asked me to contact as many staff and patients associated with our office as I could and then report back to them.”

  “Who else---”

  “You’re the first person that I managed to---”

  Then I heard her start crying.

  “Listen, Maria, I’m so sorry about your co-workers. I-I just don’t know what to say. I thought that I was the only person left for all I knew.”

  I waited as she blew her nose and pulled herself together enough to speak again.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just so overwhelming, Mr.---”

  “No, call me Logan.”

  She blew her nose again.

  “Okay. But I really have to keep calling. There’s still half the list left.”

  “Yeah, I understand.”

  This entire situation was just so unreal.

  “Listen, Maria, what do I do? I mean, should I---”

  “No. The police said that they will meet with anyone who’s associated in any way with the building. The only thing that I can suggest is that you just stay near your phone for now.”

  That didn’t sound particularly hopeful.

  “Okay, thanks, Maria. Listen, are you going to be okay for now?”

  “Yeah. Thanks, Logan. I need to do this.”

  “Take care of yourself, okay?”

  “Sure, I’ll try. You too.”

  After I hung up the phone, I dialed the tag agency to call in sick for the day. Then I turned on the news.

  The reporters were all speculating on a host of possible causes for the office building disaster, including an act of terrorism.

  But if it’s terrorism, who would want to blow up an ordinary office building?

  Chapter 2

  I spent the remainder of the day and that evening half resting at home and half wondering if I was going insane. I called my sister to touch base, but Mom still called to check on me just before dinnertime. Travis called again, as well.

  I almost told Travis about my strange side effects—or hallucinations?—but thought better of it for the time being. He’d probably think that I was crazy.

  But then, maybe I was.

  Perhaps that was why I didn’t dare try to tell either Lexi or my mother; I was hesitant over how they might react, too.

  I ate more soup and crackers and drank more 7Up.

  Damn, I’d almost forgotten how good cola tasted, and despite my health food mantra, I vowed that it would maintain its presence in my future diet.

  Maybe it was merely the sugar, but my mood had quickly improved and my mind felt somewhat more settled. If only my stomach would return to normal as quickly.

  The next day, I actually made it into work. It felt almost strange to be there, but at least it brought me back into more of a normal routine. Each of my coworkers asked how I was feeling and my boss, Larry Anderson, was also really supportive, but everyone acted somewhat tentative toward me, except for Travis.

  “Hey, Dracula, shouldn’t you be back at home in your crypt?” he teased.

  I sneered. “Thanks, buddy, you’re all heart.”

  “Hey, I’m just sayin’ you look a little pale, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, well, stomach flu tends to do that to a person.”

  His facial expression turned serious.

  “Listen, Logan, we were all glued to the TV in the break room yesterday. I’m still pretty shocked about the explosion. You okay?”

  I sighed.

  Good question. Am I okay?

  “As okay as anybody gets under the circumstances, I suppose.”

  “I keep thinking about what might have happened if you’d gone to your treatment yesterday,” he said.

  I looked at him and noted the serious expression on his face.

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Within a couple of hours, I’d fallen into a pleasant workday rhythm and life began to feel a little more like normal. For a while, it felt good to distract myself with the mundane world of driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations. But eventually, I thought back to my conversation with Maria, and I felt morose all over again.

  Honestly, I felt like a bit of a wreck emotionally.

  Still, I made it through the day without losing either my mind or my lunch. By the time I made it home that evening, I felt physically exhausted. I made a light supper of more soup and crackers with a mug of hot tea, which made me chuckle.

  I would receive such a world of shit from my army buddies if they saw me sitting here savoring a mug of hot tea.

  But then a lot had changed since those days.

  I’d given a lot of thought to what I had experienced with the soap in the shower and later with the telephone, and arrived at a decision: In the absence of normal logic, explore the outlandish.

  After I finished eating, I cleared the small dining room table of everything except the salt and pepper shakers, a pencil, and an ink pen. I placed everything in the center of the table so the items weren’t touching one another.

  Then I sat down in one of the chairs and stared at each item while concentrating on making one of them move. If I could inadvertently cause soap bars, telephone handsets, and TV remotes to leap into my hand, perhaps I could deliberately manipulate one of the items before me.

  However, after nearly an hour, during which time I felt like some hack magician, all that I managed to do was hold my breath and coax a vein to pop out on my forehead. It really pissed me off.

  What was I missing?

  I placed my palm face up on the table and concentrated on making the pencil or ink pen go to my hand.

  Nothing.

  “Figures.” I held my hand palm outward to each of the writing utensils and imagined one of them leaping into my palm.

  No response.

  I tried for another twenty minutes.
/>   Nothing.

  I slammed my palm onto the tabletop in aggravation. The pen and pencil both rolled around a little bit.

  “Yeah, that’s successful. It’s called the magic of vibration.”

  The entire evening had given me a pounding headache, so I got up to take a couple of Tylenol capsules with some 7Up.

  Minutes later, and to my surprise, I could feel my head beginning to clear.

  “Damn, if that Tylenol isn’t great stuff.”

  I wandered over to the TV remote control and tuned into the news. I’d become used to checking for periodic updates on the explosion.

  Placing the remote control atop the coffee table, or rather on top of all the junk stacked on it, I turned to look back at the items on the dining room table. I held out my hand and concentrated on bringing any one of the items to me.

  Nothing.

  “What a load of crap! I must’ve been hallucinating after all.”

  However, rather than reassuring me, that only scared me. What if I’m losing my marbles after everything I’ve been through?

  It succeeded in making me feel angry.

  I pointed an accusing finger at the items on the dining room table, wishing that I could cast them across the room.

  “Move, damn you!”

  A sudden series of loud knocks against the front door startled me, and the pencil, paper, and salt and pepper shakers flew off the table, impacting the far wall as if they had been thrown.

  I stared across the room in awe.

  “No way.”

  The knocking on the front door startled me back to reality again.

  I was torn between rushing to the dining room to pick up the items and going to answer the door, but propriety won, and I headed to the door.

  I was greeted by a man and a woman, each wearing dark suits.

  “Mr. Logan Bringer?” asked the man.

  “Yes.”

  Both of them flipped open black leather wallets that revealed badges and ID cards.

  “We’re with the FBI. I’m Special Agent Ted Burroughs, and this is Special Agent Megan Sanders. We’d like to visit with you if you have a few minutes to spare.”

  I was somewhat surprised. I’d expected to be contacted by the local police, but not the FBI.

  But there they stood in my doorway. It was the sort of thing that I had only seen on television. Maybe like on…The X-Files.

  “Sounds reasonable,” I said.

  The lady agent—did he say her name was Sanders?—looked at me with a curious expression.

  “May we come in?” she asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” I replied and held the door open for them to enter.

  It was then that I cast a disparaging look at the state of my living room. After closing the door, I awkwardly cleared off the pillows, comforter, and laundry from the couch and piled them on the floor at one end of the couch.

  “Please, have a seat.”

  Agent Burroughs looked like the poster child for FBI agents with his closely cropped haircut, athletic build, and neatly pressed suit. He appeared to be sizing me up, as well, and part of me got the impression that he was resisting the urge to shake his head.

  Meanwhile, Agent Sanders also seemed to be assessing me, though with a bit more amusement. Her hazel eyes seemed to twinkle slightly and she appeared to be trying to suppress her amusement.

  “You’ll have to pardon the mess,” I said.

  “Not a problem,” Sanders offered. “We don’t assess you on your housekeeping.”

  However, Agent Burroughs appeared to be intently focused on the items lying across the room on the floor, not far from the dining room table.

  I bet that guy catches everything.

  “Can I get either of you something to drink? I have juice and bottled water,” I said. “Oh, and 7Up.”

  They both declined, so I perched on the edge of the reading chair that was relatively devoid of laundry.

  I really should try to clean this place up.

  Not that I’d expected to entertain the FBI anytime soon. And it wasn’t like I’d been having dinner parties, either. I’d discovered that not knowing if you’re going to be among the living in the near future or not tended to put a damper on one’s social activities.

  “No, nothing for us, thanks,” Agent Sanders replied.

  I couldn’t help thinking that she had striking eyes, and I liked the way that her short, auburn hair framed her features. Of course, the fact that such things came to my attention punctuated the fact that I hadn’t been on a date in a long time, either.

  “What can I do for you this evening?” I asked.

  “Mr. Bringer, we’re investigating the expl---” Sanders began.

  “Mr. Bringer, can you tell me your whereabouts this past Monday evening and until Tuesday morning?” Agent Burroughs abruptly cut her off.

  To her credit, Agent Sanders glared daggers at him.

  Despite my unexpected circumstances, I’d been carefully observing my visitors in much the same manner that they appeared to be assessing me.

  I determined that while they were close to my age, Burroughs was definitely the senior. For that reason and more, I also estimated that Sanders was not only the junior partner, but none too pleased about that fact, either.

  “Here at home. I was ill with a stomach virus,” I smoothly replied.

  Burroughs scribbled on a notepad that he had extracted from his jacket pocket. It appeared in his hand like such a classic FBI prop that I almost laughed aloud. I remembered when my Dad used to watch old Dragnet episodes on TV when I was growing up.

  “Can you name any witnesses who can corroborate that?”

  So the guy was going all “Joe Friday” from Dragnet on me, after all.

  Just the facts.

  “I took part in a number of phone calls during that time, and my sister came over Tuesday morning after she called to tell me about the building explosion.”

  I had no illusions as to why the FBI was visiting me. Hell, I was a patient in that building, after all.

  “Is it correct that you were receiving treatments at the Nuclegene cancer treatment center in the Wallace Building?”

  “Yes.”

  “What type of cancer were you being treated for?” Sanders asked.

  “Terminal brain cancer.”

  I added terminal for dramatic effect. Sanders’ expression softened but Burroughs seemed unimpressed.

  “When did you last visit the Wallace Building?” Burroughs asked.

  “A week ago Tuesday.”

  “When were you due to go there again?” Sanders asked.

  “Tuesday morning of this week.”

  Sanders stared at me and her lips parted slightly with the undeniable recognition that I had dodged one of fate’s biggest bullets.

  “Why didn’t you go to the Wallace Building on Tuesday morning as scheduled?” Burroughs pressed.

  I stared back at him.

  “Because I had a stomach virus.”

  Somebody’s not paying attention.

  “Mr. Burroughs, your army personnel file indicates that one of your specialties was in demolitions. Is that correct?”

  I quickly realized where the direction the conversation was headed.

  “Yes.”

  “Describe that in more detail for us,” he said.

  “I was on a fire team during two tours in Afghanistan and one of my specialties was in demolitions. I helped to render useless a variety of weapons caches, as well as fight Islamic insurgents.”

  “Only two? A lot of soldiers have served more than just two tours overseas,” Burroughs said.

  I frowned, unsure where he was going with that.

  “I served six years, and then returned to civilian life only to discover that I had brain cancer.”

  “Tough break,” Burroughs said, though without any convincing sense of sympathy. “I’m sure that you felt a little resentful about that.”

  “It’s worth pointing out that Nuclegene center was the
key solution standing between me and oblivion. I had three more treatments left to take, not to mention that some of my fellow patients grew to feel like friends of mine, so one might imagine that I wasn’t happy to see the building go up in flames with them in it.”

  “Mm-hm,” he murmured.

  It’s said that first impressions are everything. Agent Burroughs seemed to be a bit of an asshole.

  “Mr. Bringer, do you have any idea who would want to destroy the Wallace Building or kill any of its occupants?” Sanders asked.

  “No idea at all,” I said.

  What a waste of so many innocent lives.

  What’s more, none of the other offices seemed like a typical target for terrorists in my opinion. Why would someone want to blow up the building in the first place?

  It didn’t make sense.

  Sanders started to ask something but Burroughs cut her off.

  “Where are you currently employed, or perhaps I should ask, are you currently employed?”

  My first impression that the guy seemed like an asshole was confirmed. So, now he’s asking if I might be a freeloader or drain on society, too?

  My former army discipline kicked in at just the right time and I politely answered his questions. He continued with additional questions about my family, friends, and co-workers. There were also additional queries into my background that were either relatively public knowledge or fully covered in my army personnel records.

  I looked at Agent Sanders, who had remained quiet throughout the interview, occasionally nodding and scribbling on her own notepad or observing me with a thoughtful expression.

  “Mr. Bringer, I recommend that you don’t leave town anytime soon. We may want to interview you further,” Burroughs announced.

  He stood and Sanders followed his lead. They walked to the front door to leave, but Sanders turned at the last moment and handed me a business card.

  “My contact information is on that card if you remember anything that you’d like to add or think of something further that might be helpful in our investigation.”

  I took the card and looked at her. At least she’d been polite. Meanwhile, Burroughs was already halfway back to their car.

  I watched Sanders hurry to catch up with her partner, and I couldn’t help but notice that even in her formal slacks she had a cute butt.