by JT Dylan
Rogers let the hot water wash away the day's craziness. His thoughts turned to his wife. His marriage was done. He had a brief idea that he should fight for it. He remembered the good days vividly. He would have died for her. The early days. But he was only hurting himself by clinging on to those memories. It was best to replace them with this last year's blackness. The eruptions he faced when he came home as she realised that another day had passed and she was still stuck with a man who would never be good enough. He wiped his face absently and from nowhere the tears came. Some of it was relief, some was certainly the three empty beers, but mostly it was just grief. He cried for something that was gone forever. Something that had once been good and pure. He slumped down in the shower and wept quietly for his lost love, with his face in his hands and the water streaming down the wall.
In the kitchen the cat licked its lips and sprang onto the kitchen table. It could smell Rogers' scent in the fruit bowl and purred as it investigated the contents: It sniffed at the bunch of keys, the money clip, and the small leather-bound black book.
TWENTY-FOUR
Jack awoke with a jolt. The sky was still dark, but something was different. The boy was fast asleep. Jack could hear his short, hitching breaths. Jack's eyes adjusted and the glowing embers of the fire became his light. He saw what was missing at once.
'Old man?' he whispered. He got on his feet instantly. He turned around a full 360 degrees but old Sonny was nowhere to be found. 'Boy. Wake up.' Little Sonny stirred and cracked open his eyes.
'Where is he? Where's Pa?' the boy stood up slowly, the cool night making him shiver. Jack held a finger to his mouth and listened. The wind sighed through the long grass and a loon whistled in the distance. No other sounds. Jack saw no signs of a struggle, but no sign that the old man had walked away either. The tall grass remained undisturbed in each direction. Jack played back the previous night's conversation. He didn't know where the old man had gone but he knew where the boy had to be soon. Had been many years ago.
'Son, quickly now, pick up that hat and your Pa's water pouch, we're going home.'
'We have to wait for Pa, we can't just ...' the boy's brow became an angry line.
'Hush now with that worrying. Your Pa told me you need to be home this morning. I guess he meant with or without him. He might already be scouting up ahead. Besides, would you mess with your old Pa if you were a wild coyote or an angry injun?'
The boy smirked at this last and seemed to soften a little. 'Nossir!'
A cloud drifted a little in the East, opening up a small slit of moonlit sky and the boy's face looked so lost that it hurt Jack's heart. Jack placed his own coat over the boy's shoulders and ruffled his hair. 'Well let's go then cowboy. Looks like we have some adventures to be getting on with.' The boy smiled half-heartedly, and Jack tried to smile back. He put his hand on the boy's shoulder and they walked back the way they had come the day before, toward the mountains, and the coming storm.
TWENTY-FIVE
Rogers couldn't sleep. With Maria's bullet proof drapes gone, the orange city lights were having a field day. It was like sleeping in an incubator. His thoughts drifted from Maria to another woman. The only other lady he'd ever lost. His fists clenched involuntarily as he thought about that day for the first time in a long while. Dammit. A cold sweat broke out on his back. He thought about calling old Bob. His oldest friend. The man that had taken him in when he had nothing left. An image of his mother's empty shoe lying on the street flashed through his mind and he blanked it out. He'd become an expert at that recently. He reached for his cell and thumbed on the display. 5:03 a.m. Bob would be up now and cooking breakfast. An old habit. A souvenir from his days on the beat. Rogers' thumb scrolled down and hovered over Bob's landline number. What would he even say? 'Hey, I know it's been a while Bob, I've been too busy with my failing marriage to call, but now that she's left me I could do with the company'? He switched the phone off and dropped it onto the bed. The cell phone's screen lit up, lighting the ceiling. A slight pause and then the ringtone and vibration started up loudly. Rogers had wondered when the gloating would start. He'd expected her to make it through one night at least. He scooped it up and looked at the caller ID; Bob, Home. Shit, had he called him by accident? He clenched his eyes shut and thumbed the green icon.
'Bob? Did I wake you?'
A loud crackle cut across him. '10-13 Connor. I have only 30 seconds here. I see them coming. Do you still have it?' Bob's voice, firm, strong, determined.
Rogers sat up immediately. 10-13. Officer needing assistance. Then two things happened. Three sharp knocks on the front door, and the phone line went dead on Bob's side, leaving his words hanging in the air. Rogers jumped out of bed, threw open his sock drawer and felt around for his personal weapon. For a crazy second he thought Maria might have taken that too, but his fingers brushed against the cold steel right at the back. He unclipped the empty magazine and dropped it onto the bed. Fished in the drawer beneath, found the two full clips. Butted one into its place, heard the click-click, and shoved the other into his briefs against the small of his back. He made sure the safety was off, ratcheted a round into the chamber and thumbed back the trigger. He unscrewed the bulb in his bedroom. He walked quickly to the living area, unscrewed the main bulb there too. If they were amateurs they would flick on the lights. They would be confused by the darkness for a second or two. Would maybe try the switch again – an automatic human response to a blown lightbulb – try it again. By the time they did, they would be dead. He strode silently to the front door and crouched low and listened. Not a sound came from the other side. He placed both bulbs on the floor - another makeshift distraction. When a person makes a noise when he's trying to be quiet, he freezes for a second. It's the shock of the noise coupled with trying to be absolutely silent to compensate. Again, it's hardwired into the human condition. Can't be unlearned without training. It isn't a long paralysis, but long enough. He walked quickly to the opposite end of the room, picking up the black book from the fruit bowl as he did. He switched off their ancient refrigerator to disable the automatic light mechanism, opened its polished steel door and used it as a shield between him and the front door. Then he waited. And hoped they were amateurs.
They were pros. The knock at the door was nothing but a decoy. They came in through the bedroom window. And they came in fast and hard. Rogers heard a single sharp blow shatter the large pane of toughened glass into a thousand pieces. Rogers had done it himself a hundred times in many situations. A single hard tap in the top-right corner. Then he heard a soft double thud. It sounded to Rogers a lot like a 200lb man in full combat gear landing into a crouch position on his carpeted bedroom floor. Shit. Now his cover was useless. It was only good against a front entry. From the side he might as well be wearing a target on his chest. He quickly left his position and skirted around to the other side of the table and pushed himself low and prone into the corner, facing the bedroom entrance. The window above and behind him would make him invisible at least for an instant, even if they had night vision. The cat mewled with curiosity and joined him on the floor. Not now. He gave her a prod and she fled off into the darkness. Rogers breathed slow and steady. Aimed just below the centre of the bedroom doorknob. Just below waist height. Just below the point a kevlar vest stops being effective. The doorknob turned. Rogers held the gun steady, and fired.
TWENTY-SIX
'So what have we got?' The surgeon yawned and walked through the interior double doors, almost dancing around a bored looking night-porter. The surgeon's colleague, a portly man, jogged to keep up with him. He handed him a report including some injury photographs. The surgeon ignored them. His colleague continued regardless.
'It's not pretty. Found him waist deep in mud. Legs are shot to shit. Looks like some sort of prolonged torture. He's got multiple foreign bodies in his legs, bones are all crushed, skin is flayed. Major arteries ripped to shreds. I don't know how he's still alive. He should have bled out long ago.'
'
Have we stabilised him?'
'We've prepped him. They should be wheeling him into theatre right now.'
'Good.'
Then the lights went out. The ward was thrown into complete darkness. A woman's scream, a few groans and a clattering of a bedpan, then the generators kicked in and the lights came on one by one.
'Well that was fun.' The surgeon barely slowed and pushed on through the corridor. A woman in green coveralls came tumbling around the corner, her sneakers squeaking with every step.
'He's gone.'
'Too bad. Looks like you woke me for nothing then.' The surgeon stopped to take a mouthful of his warm coffee.
'No!' she screamed, making him jump. 'He didn't die. He's just gone!' She blurted out the rest in a continuous train. 'We were strapping his legs in for the procedure and the lights went out. They were out for only a second but when they came back... it's just empty. The bed's just fucking empty!' Then she ran back the way she came. The surgeon walked on quietly after her, studying the pictures in his hand as he went. Looking back at him from the page was an African American male he didn't recognise, just another John Doe, with only the whites of his eyes looking out at him.
'Gotta love the night shift.' He smiled at his colleague and handed back the now unnecessary report. His colleague shivered and glanced down at the front page. He looked at the eyes in particular. He shivered. Spooky. He didn't know it but he was looking into the eyes of the future President of the USA, Captain Benjamin Freeman.
TWENTY-SEVEN
The ancient man sat silently, his eyes closed. Thinking. Akuti's heart thumped in her chest. She had spoken for several minutes, telling the Grey Wolf every detail of what she had seen by the ocean. He had listened to her without interruption, with only the momentarily widening of his eyes any indication at all that he was hearing her words. After she had finished he blew out a long, deep breath and closed his eyes. His second face had remained impassive throughout her visit but now it watched her with a curious glint in its malformed eye. Akuti wondered if Grey Wolf believed her. Certainly, she had begun to doubt herself. She had been certain at the time that what she had seen was indeed the great prophecy of her childhood - the Great Buffalo's arrival. She had seen the powerful warriors overcome by the spirit God and finally had watched as he had made himself invisible and reappeared a moment later from the spirit world, speaking with an unearthly tongue. She had used this last event as a distraction to make her retreat unseen. She did not know what became of the Buffalo after that, but her faithful horse had been fleet of foot and she knew Grey Wolf would know how to track him down. She remembered well the old legend and hoped that now, their own spirit god, the great Coyote, could soon return to the stars and reward them well.
The ancient man's eyes opened, and he smiled. He held out his hand to Akuti, and spoke firmly.
“You have done well but there is much to do now. Let us gather the elders.”
The old man rose unsteadily and winced. He gripped his bad arm, clenching his eyes shut while the pain took hold. Akuti had never known the old man to be free of pain. It seemed to be an affliction that had always ailed him. He had strong medicines, crushed powders of many plants, that helped keep the painful demons away, but they never truly left him alone. His second face seemed to be his blessing and his curse. Akuti watched as he shook off the spasm and for the first time she saw him smile.
“I have lived for so long with this agony that it has become my closest friend. But even the closest companions can sometimes become enemies. Now, come, we must prepare.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
The gunshot was deafening in the darkness. The muzzle flash left a freeze-frame of the kitchen in Rogers's mind. He saw the bedroom door splinter about half way down as his bullet tore through. He threw himself as far as he could to the right. If he had missed, the return fire would be immediate. There was nothing. No sound except the whistling in his ears. He forced his breathing to slow, and waited, his gun held steadily with both hands in front of him, his right finger tense on the trigger. He waited. Thin slivers of orange light pierced through the gaps in the bedroom door. The strips of dim light were unwavering and constant. Nothing moved on the other side. He slowly got up to a standing position when a dark shape burst from the shadows on his left and filled his field of vision. He jerked the gun clumsily toward the intruder and his finger squeezed the trigger to within a fraction of releasing the hammer. He exhaled quickly as he realised how close he had come to shooting George. George hissed and fled toward his usual safety zone of the bedroom. Georgina, no. The cat's nose had barely touched the gap between door and frame when the whole door erupted into blue-white flames, disintegrating the animal and the thick wooden panel into white-hot dust.
What the hell?
Rogers crouched down hard, and emptied the entire clip through the black doorway. The gun's thunder roaring over and over in the small room. He heard a ricochet and a shout accompany his third shot, but it was quickly drowned out by his fourth and fifth. He let the empty clip clatter onto the kitchen floor, clicking the second magazine home immediately in its place. Thick grey smoke made visibility impossible. Rogers skirted the oak table by memory alone, never taking his eyes away from the black hole of the bedroom doorway. What had happened to the street lights? With the door gone, the room should have been brighter now, not darker. What the hell had they used? That was like no explosion he'd ever seen. He pushed the thoughts of his wife's cat to the back of the queue. There would be a time for that later. A breeze blew in from the bedroom, clearing the smoke a little. Rogers blinked and tensed as he saw some movement in the far corner. He approached with caution, pausing in-between steps to re-aim and re-evaluate. His hand went automatically to a radio that wasn't there. Backup was a luxury he didn't have this time. His hand brushed instead against the black book shoved into his brief's waistband. The damned book. The book had been his comfort blanket for many years. It was the only thing he had left of her. Now it looked like it was going to get him killed. Whoever wanted it and for whatever reason, they didn't seem to be fucking about. Bob had always warned him about today. And together they had prepared as best as they could about what they would need to do. Connor thought their plan might still work too, if only he got through the next thirty seconds without being turned into a human firecracker.
The bedroom was still. No movement, no light, nothing. Only a steady breeze that filled the room with a strange combined aroma of burned cinders and pine trees. He grabbed an empty beer bottle from the counter and lobbed it with an underarm swing into the bedroom. It disappeared into the blackness and he heard nothing but a muted thud as it landed. There was no gunfire, no explosions, no spontaneous combustion. Things were looking up. Perhaps one of his bullets had hit their target after all. He grabbed another, threw it harder, hoping to break it against the bedroom's back wall. Maybe wake up any stunned assailants on the other side, make them jump, make a sound, anything. The bottle didn't break. It only travelled further and made the same thud, just further away. Which was impossible. Rogers knew how deep the room was. He knew the bottle should have hit that wall a full two seconds before it had actually landed. Just what in the hell was going on here? Had they blown through the far wall too with that explosion? He shook his head and blinked the smoke away. He couldn't rule out the possibility that he was concussed. He could still hear the ringing in his ears. He tried to breath a little slower, calm himself down. His palms were slick, and his trigger finger trembled a little too much. Whoever was in his house was no ordinary intruder, but they were still intruders, and was damned if he'd let any man just walk into his home and leave without letting Rogers introduce himself properly. George had always been a pain in the ass, but she had still been a faithful pain in the ass. This last thought fired up his adrenaline again, and his anger overpowered his fear. He strode deliberately into the bedroom and fired four covering shots, moving from high to low, left to right, and finishing in a low crouch, with the next two bullets primed
for the first visible movement. There was nothing. Rogers blinked as the smoke cleared. His bare feet touched not carpet, but something cooler. It reminded him of an early morning visit to the Hamptons as a child. The sand had been cool underfoot. The breeze seemed stronger now, and he glanced at the window instinctively, looking for the city lights. Rogers mouth dropped open, and he dropped his guard, the intruder forgotten. The window wasn't there. the wall wasn't there either. There were no walls. He craned his neck back and looked up to a ceiling that wasn't there either. He could see moonlight creeping through thin gaps in a patch of cloudy sky. Jesus, what the hell was this. It wasn't just as if the walls had been destroyed, it was more like he had walked out of the building. All around him trees and shrubbery grew. If there had been more light he was sure that he would see the same for miles around.
There were no city lights, only darkness outside. But wasn't he already outside? He looked down at his feet, and saw that he was standing on dark earth. Blades of grass sprouted through the soil here and there, tickling his toes. It was if he had stepped into an open woodland instead of a six foot box room. Never mind that he was on the second floor. He had a flash of vertigo and wheeled around to grab hold of the doorframe. The unreal sight of his kitchen illuminated by moonlight only added to the nausea and he closed his eyes to steady himself. The door frame was ice cold to the touch, and he wondered again about the explosion. He heard something crack out in the distance and he regained his composure, the threat of the intruder crashing back to the front of his mind. He moved quickly. He ran back into the kitchen, grabbed and stepped into his old jogging pants from George's bed, snatched an old NYPD hooded sweater from the counter, and took his belt from the chair. He slipped on a pair of black sneakers and took a moment to tie them properly, keeping one eye on the bedroom doorway as he did so. It would do no good to trip over his own laces in there for the sake of getting a two second head start. He took out his service revolver, loaded it, then checked the safety. The weight felt good in his hand. He shoved the black book into the empty holster, and jammed his personal piece in behind it. He rooted behind the pantry door, and found two more full clips of ammo. Shoved them into a spare pouch on the belt, and headed for the door. He clicked on his maglite and twisted the beam to spotlight mode. Then he clicked it off and held it as a brace for his gun hand. Torch and weapon facing ahead as standard procedure, left hand ready to switch on the light, right hand ready to fire the gun. Then without looking back, he stepped through what had once been the bedroom door, into the unknown.