Black Valley

by Jim Brown

  “What’s so fucking funny?” Dobbs demanded.

  “Dean?” Nathan asked.

  “Sorry, it’s just – well, our friend could use a physics lesson or two.”

  The knuckles on Dobbs’s right hand turned white as his grip on the deadly knife tightened.

  Perhaps to distract him, Nathan asked? “Why, Dobbs? Why do you hate Elijah so much?”

  The night was quiet. Even the wind seemed to have taken pause to listen.

  “Because Elijah is my son.” He looked at Dean. His eyes were smiling. “My and Judy Truman’s.”

  God parted the sky with lightning.

  Two minutes.

  Dean felt something break loose from his heart, a huge iceberg of pure emotion; he felt it move with cold certainty, through his veins, up his body, and into his brain, where it shattered into a thousand icy shards. Whitey Dobbs had just confirmed what Dean had come to suspect less than an hour before.

  But the effect was still devastating.

  When Dobbs had raped Judy the second time, he was already irradiated – meaning the child was born with the same time-hopping affliction as Dobbs.

  Baby bones.

  Elijah.

  Dean now knew with absolute certainty that there was nothing buried under the floorless basement of his home. The blood trail had been caused by Judy’s search for the child, not her efforts to hide it. The infant was neither stillborn nor murdered. He had simply disappeared, warped in time to the future or the past.

  “I see you’re beginning to understand,” Dobbs said. “Wherever he appears, I cannot, and his abilities are not as random as mine. He has greater control, blocking me from so many places I’ve wanted to go. But not from now. This three-day period is rich with time pools, making it difficult for either of us to remain for very long – making it easier for me to do what I need to do to be free and get revenge on you and my damn child.”

  Judy, Mavis, Piper – all murdered because of their association with Dean. He had killed them, all of them, as surely as Dobbs himself.

  Dean wore his shame in his face, his eyes.

  Dobbs saw the sudden slouch of Dean’s shoulders, and he smiled, lips pulled back, revealing a perfect row of ghostly white teeth imbedded in pink gums. Young gums. He saw the pain he was causing and was excited by it, inspired by it. “You know what I regret, Jimmy Dean? I regret that I didn’t get a chance to enjoy Piper the same way I enjoyed Judy.”

  “Don’t listen to him, Dean,” Nathan called, his voice hollow and weak. “He’s afraid of you. He knows you’re the only one smart enough to be a threat. He’s trying to rattle you.”

  “You know,” Dobbs said, tapping his lip with his finger, “it may not be too late. Why, I bet the body is still warm.”

  Piper.

  Dobbs moved fast, too fast. He was at the grave before Dean could react.

  The wood screeched and popped as Dobbs jerked the lid off.

  “Piper!” Dean screamed, rushing to stop Dobbs no matter what it took.

  But Whitey Dobbs had stopped on his own – frozen. His face suddenly as white as his hair.

  Dean reached the grave and peered in.

  The coffin was empty.

  Piper was gone.

  42

  The air snapped with the hiss of a thousand snakes. Skiffs of snow, skimmed from the surrounding banks, wafted across Dean and Whitey Dobbs, settling in the now empty coffin.

  Empty.

  How? Where? Had Piper been whisked away like Dobbs? No. That didn’t make sense. Then, where?

  Dean’s heart now began to race, energized by one thought and one thought only: Piper was alive. Somewhere – somewhen.

  Whitey Dobbs screamed. The color returned to his face like a crashing surf. What civility he had managed to fake was now replaced by a beast, a monster, the true Dobbs that lived beneath his skin. If murder had a face, then this was it.

  One minute and thirty seconds.

  Dean left the grave, racing toward the center of the clearing, dangerously exposing his back to the demonic madman with the magic knife.

  “Where is she?” Dobbs demanded. “Where the hell is she?”

  Dean found the spot he had selected earlier, and stopped. He turned, prepared to accept the full extent of Dobbs’ fury. But Dobbs wasn’t behind him.

  Nathan screamed in pain as the white-haired man jerked him to his feet. He walked toward Dean, dragging the mayor behind him. “You’ve screwed up, Jimmy Dean. It’s amazing, really. I mean, you got so much of it right.”

  He stopped less than three feet from Dean. Pulling Nathan to him, Dobbs pressed the pulsing knife to the mayor’s throat, dimpling the skin. “And that’s the problem.”

  One minute and twenty seconds.

  “What I was going for here was poetic justice,” Dobbs continued. “Your life for mine; you condemned to wander the time stream forever, while I take care of business here in the real world. And unlike me, you would not have the benefit of a Dr. Dean T. Science to help you sort it out, gain control, and understand it all.”

  One minute and ten seconds.

  Dobbs continued. “That’s why I tried to destroy your oh-so-smug beliefs. But you had to go and be so clever, so very damn clever. And a clever Dean Truman who can travel in time” – he shrugged – “well, that’s a state that is just unacceptable.”

  One minute and four seconds.

  “You’ve left me no choice. I’ve got to kill you or fuck you up pretty bad – while your old pal Nathan takes my place in time. I wonder how smart you will be without your arms and legs?

  “Hey, remember the joke about the science experiment and the frog? A scientist says, ‘Jump, frog, jump.’ The frog jumps six feet. The scientist makes a note, then cuts off the frog’s front legs and says, ‘Jump, frog, jump.’ The frog jumps three feet. Scientist makes a note, cuts off the two back legs, and says, ‘Jump, frog, jump.’ Frog just sits there. He says it again, ‘Jump, frog, jump.’ Nothing. The scientist takes his pad and writes: cutting off all its legs makes a frog deaf.”

  Whitey Dobbs cackled, the sound almost as sharp as the knife. “Get it? Deaf. Oh, you scientists kill me.”

  Somewhere in the dark periphery something growled. A tree branch snapped.

  “See, you’ve left me no choice but to conduct my own experiment. To see if Dr. Dean Truman is still as smart after I cut off his arms and legs.”

  Dean’s stomach muscles cramped. Fear sang in his ears.

  Whitey Dobbs leaned closer. He pointed the knife at Dean. “Jump, frog, jump.”

  One second.

  Dean jumped.

  “Down, Nathan!” He grabbed the hand with the knife, jerking it with all his might, pushing the lethal blade away. Dobbs held Nathan firmly with his other hand, but he could bend.

  “Get down – down,” Dean repeated.

  Nathan doubled over at the waist. Dean stepped aside, still holding Dobbs’s knife hand.

  Time.

  There was whistling in the air. Then a thump, as if someone were testing a cantaloupe for ripeness.

  Whitey Dobbs looked down. A long silver tranquilizer dart protruded from the center of his chest. He looked back at Dean, perplexed. He opened his mouth to speak, and his face gave birth to a grin. “A dart? A tranquilizer?”

  “No. We replaced the tranquilizer with a drug to stop your heart. You know, the stuff they use for lethal injections.”

  Dobbs started to say something, but the words became wedged in his throat. He let go of Nathan. Dean released his grip as well. Dobbs stumbled backward, his left hand grabbing his right arm, then his chest. He clawed at the dart but couldn’t remove it. His body was betraying him. He fell to his knees, his muscles in spasms. Spittle bubbled in the corners of his mouth. His eyes rolled back in his head.

  Whitey Dobbs fell backw
ard on the ground, his body twitching as if being repeatedly struck by invisible bolts of lightning.

  “Look out,” Dean warned. “It’s going to snap.”

  Suddenly Dobbs’ body glowed electric white, a blue whirlpool opened up, and the white silhouette that had surrounded the young man snapped inside.

  The body of Whitey Dobbs lay motionless on the ground.

  Dean grabbed the gray box they had taken from sheriff’s department. He dropped the case on the ground next to Dobbs. He removed the dart, then opened Dobbs’ shirt. He put his ear to Dobbs’s chest.

  “Nothing,” he reported to Dean. “He’s dead.”

  “Dead?” Nathan said, as if the word were some exotic fruit that defied description. “You said he couldn’t die.”

  “Not the way you were going to do it.” Dean applied orange liquid to the man’s bare chest. Nathan squatted next to him, both leaning over the body of Whitey Dobbs.

  “What do you mean, not the way I was going to do it? A bullet versus what, poison?”

  “Yeah, something like that.” He sat back and looked at Dobbs. “How’s he look?”

  Nathan shrugged. “He’s in perfect health, except for, you know, being dead. But where did the dart . . .”

  “Come from?” Dean finished. “Remember when I fired prematurely? I actually shot it into one of the time holes. Once I fired the dart, I had ten minutes and thirteen seconds before it would reappear and strike its target. I had to keep Dobbs talking for that long. And in the right spot.”

  “So it’s over?” Nathan said, his voice sagging with relief. Then his eyes widened. “Oh, no! You feel that?”

  Dean nodded. “Incoming,” he whispered, then looked over his shoulder as the air rippled less than ten feet away and a smiling Whitey Dobbs winked into existence.

  43

  His emotions were stripped like the gears of an old stick shift jerked one time too many. Panic had given way to surprise, then relief, confusion, and now fear. Just seconds before, Nathan thought he was more afraid than he ever had been or ever could be. But as Whitey Dobbs took a step toward the them he realized he had been wrong.

  Dean stood up, stepping in front of Nathan and the body.

  Dobbs looked at the ground, at the boots, jeans, jacket – at his own dead body – and shook his head. His face burned with anger. He closed his eyes for a moment, as if seeking control. “Don’t you know it’s impolite to kill someone? And for the second time?”

  “How can he be here?” Nathan mumbled. “He’s dead. He’s dead on the ground and he’s here.”

  “Protected field theory,” Dean said.

  “Screw that. Dead is dead.”

  Whitey Dobbs cocked his head. “Yes, I must admit I’m wondering the same thing. And what happened to the mayor? How did he cut his leg?”

  Nathan was confused. Dobbs was the one who had cut him.

  “It’s like this,” Dean said, his voice falling into the relaxed, authoritative cadence of a natural teacher, as if explaining the presence of a man and his corpse were the same as explaining an calculus problem. “If I were to shoot you on Tuesday, would that affect something you had done on Monday?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. “Of course not. But let’s assume that what you did on Monday was go into the future to Wednesday. Since you did that on Monday, killing you on Tuesday would not affect your appearing on Wednesday.”

  Nathan shook his head. “If this is Dobbs from an earlier time, then why didn’t the later Dobbs remember?”

  “Because the loop wasn’t closed. Dobbs is part of the time flux – that’s his dominant state. When he drops out of flux, he has to return to the protected field for the circuit to be complete. Think about it. To begin with, Dobbs was appearing randomly. For that matter, so was Elijah as a baby. How many times do you think he appeared in the middle of a rock or partially fused with a tree? How many times did he appear and die?”

  “I don’t remember any of that happening,” Dobbs said.

  “Of course not, because the loop wasn’t finished. Once you die, the neorads leave your body. You drop out of the protected field. You become normal, like the rest of us, but because the rads didn’t complete the loop and because you’re part of the flux, then it’s as if you never appeared.”

  Dobbs smiled. “So I’m immortal?”

  “Almost.”

  “Cool,” he said, looking at his own body. “Damn cool.”

  “There is one catch, however” Dean turned, talking to Nathan now – his face showing that he desperately wanted Nathan to understand what he said next.

  “Remember that radiation is attached to the body’s living bioelectric field. So when the radiation is presented with two identical bodies, it will try to attach to both. As a result, it will pull both bodies apart, cell by cell, and create a cascade effect within the protected field.”

  “Two bodies,” Nathan whispered. That was why Dean had prevented him from blowing the son of bitch’s head off. He gave Dean a nod, then crawled over to the body and the gray case. They had brought the medical supplies for themselves. Now their greatest defensive weapon had become their greatest offensive weapon.

  Nathan removed a syringe and drew a light amber liquid from a vial labeled EPINEPHRINE, a heart-stimulating drug.

  “What’s that?” Dobbs demanded.

  Nathan plunged the needle into the chest of the newly departed Whitey Dobbs.

  “What’s he doing?”

  Nathan removed two tan paddles, then pressed a pair of buttons on the control unit of the defibrillator. He removed one of the gel packs from the box, tore off the end, and applied the gel to two paddles.

  “I said, what is he doing?”

  Whitey Dobbs was coming toward them. Dean stepped in his way. Nathan saw the flash of Dobbs’s knife. The defibrillator hummed to a high pitch. A needle on a small yellow indicator bounced. “Clear,” Nathan screamed, pressing the paddles against the dead man’s chest.

  On the ground the body jumped but remained lifeless.

  The living Dobbs was still coming. Nathan pulled the knife from the dead man’s hand.

  “Dean.”

  He turned.

  “Catch.”

  Dean caught the knife in his left hand and quickly transferred it to his right. In his fist the blade, which had become dull, almost gray, suddenly came alive, flaring into living silver. It hummed, sending tiny reverberations up his arm and throughout his skeleton. The knife is somehow connected to its user, Dean noted. It was both frightening and exhilarating.

  Whitey Dobbs stopped and spread his hands. “You? You’re going to best me in a knife fight?”

  Dean held the knife out like a crucifix, as if warding off a vampire. His hands were trembling.

  “Okay, you’ve got a knife, my knife. Now what are you going to do with it, Jimmy Dean?”

  Dobbs feinted to the right. Dean turned to follow. Dobbs moved to the left. He lashed out. His blade caught Dean’s shirt, slashing through cloth and into skin.

  Whitey Dobbs laughed, the sound of cracking electricity.

  Behind him Dean heard Nathan cry out, “Clear!” Again the body on the ground jerked. Dean dared not look, but he saw Dobbs hazard a glance. He lunged forward, blade first. But the white-haired man, twenty years younger and far more experienced, dodged the strike with a simple turn of the body. He hit Dean with the back of his hand.

  Dean stumbled. The taste of blood and bile mixed in his mouth.

  “You really suck at this,” Dobbs jeered.

  “Clear!” Again Dean was aware of movement behind him. A jerking body? Had it worked? Would it work?

  “Time to have some fun.” Whitey Dobbs took a step forward. In desperation, Dean did the last thing expected. He threw the knife, tossing the only weapon that stood between him and certain death. The move caught D
obbs by surprise. He tried to dodge, but the spinning blade slashed through his coat and cut a deep, red swath across his side before tumbling harmlessly to the ground.

  Dobbs reached down and touched the wound. His hand came away soaked in blood. “You son of a bitch. You cut me. You cut me.”

  The pain of the fresh wound was lost to anger. Dobbs’ face pulsed red, accentuated by the milk-white hair.

  He charged.

  Behind him Dean heard the sound of someone suddenly gasping for breath. He looked over his shoulder. Nathan was holding what had been a corpse by the arms, pulling him to his feet. The revived and now radiation-free Whitey Dobbs blinked, his mouth opening and closing like fish in an aquarium, trying to orient himself.

  Dean’s attacker stopped, careful not to get too close. “My, my, my – he is a handsome fellow, ain’t he? You know what your problem is, Jimmy Dean? You talk too much. Thanks to you, I know that the only way I can be killed is if this good-looking fellow and I come into physical contact. And that ain’t going to happen.”

  Dobbs laughed. “You screwed up, boy, screwed up big time. Now you’ve got two of us to deal with.”

  “Think again, asshole.” The voice came from behind him. Whitey Dobbs turned. “Jump, frog, jump.” Piper Blackmoore struck him full in the face with the shovel.

  “Piper?” Dean gasped.

  She was covered in dirt and scratches, but she was alive. And pissed.

  “I passed out. Snapped out of it when . . . when you cracked opened the coffin.” She was clearly short of breath. “Climbed out,” she gasped, “while Dobbs was busy with you. Hid in the woods . . . till now.”

  “You!” Dobbs exhaled.

  She hit him again. Dobbs stumbled backward.

  “Now!” Dean screamed.

  Nathan hurled the revived Whitey Dobbs into the stumbling Whitey Dobbs. Death had cleansed the first Whitey of the neorads, but the other was still radiated. In the second before they collided Dean saw a look of complete awareness and fear flash in both faces.

  They struck like exploding flares. A sunburst of light and energy erupted in the spot where there had once been two. The sound of their screams echoed eerily even as the neorads tore flesh apart, cell by cell. Tiny particles like brilliant phosphorescent flares spewed into the night, arcing and winking out of existence before falling to earth.