by JT Dylan
“It’s Jack. He’s dead.”
FORTY-FIVE
Freeman closed his eyes and tried to breathe regularly. This was difficult to do because two orderlies were pounding at the door with what he guessed was a fire-axe. It was almost time. He wasn’t sure if he was strong enough yet, but he had a feeling that this was his best chance to make this work. He only needed to get past the furthest patrol path and the trees at the end of the security fence. If he could get behind the cover of those trees then he’d have a chance.
The room was dark. From his spot under the bed, Freeman could see Brian the nurse’s silhouette perfectly framed in the moonlight. Brian was breathing heavily, and would be for a while, guessing from the sound the bedpan had made on his skull. Freeman took the longest shard of the splintered light bulb and clenched his teeth. He scratched a long line down his left arm, on the upper side. He didn’t want to risk cutting a vein. The blood trickled down gradually and freeman counted the drops as they pooled into his open right hand. When he counted six drops he licked his palm, making sure to get all of it at the same time.
His mind was instantly hazy and his body became a warm, safe place. Then he was violently snatched out of it and was suddenly falling through a terrible darkness.
The orderlies saw none of this and carried on their brutal attack of the steel door, stopping only to check momentarily through the thick square of glass that their prisoner had not moved from his position by the window.
FORTY-SIX
Rogers had walked for most of the morning and had found no trace of the book. The tracks had quickly dried up and he’d best-guessed his way from there, but he was no woodsman, and now he had a feeling that he might also be lost. The sun was high in the sky and filtered through only when the majestic conifers thinned out. He had the world’s meanest hangover, despite being sure he’d had no more than his usual, and his sneakers were no good against the terrain. Rogers had had enough. He slumped to his knees at the base of a splintered tree and took a minute to gather his thoughts. He pushed most of his worries away and tried to categorize the most pressing matters. His wife had left him, he’s had some sort of mental breakdown, he had lost the most important item he owned, and he was lost in the woods. He vaguely remembered speaking to his foster father, but it danced away from him when he tried to think any more about it. His head felt like a buzz saw’s playground.
If only he could remember how the hell he’d gotten here. He had a feeling that his memory was getting fuzzier instead of clearer as the day went on. It was how his hangovers usually worked; he was just a little concerned that this was more than that. As he sat, catching his breath, the gurgling and splashes of running water caught his attention. His fractured mind dragged the background noise back into focus and he pushed himself up and walked toward it. Water was a good thing. He guessed he was more than a little dehydrated, and fixing that would surely help make at least some of his problems disappear.
The sound grew clearer as he walked up the incline, and suddenly he was standing in bright sunlight, with a mountain stream twinkling and splashing down into a natural rock pool. Rogers made his way carefully to the water’s edge, and drank eagerly from his cupped hands. The water was cold and biting, and he was surprised how soft it felt compared to his faucet at home. Home. When would he ever get home? This was ridiculous. He was a city cop, and too old to be lost in the woods like a runaway school kid. If it wasn’t for that damned book.
This last thought was stopped abruptly, because his eyes had wandered with his train of thoughts. He had been scanning the vegetation and the running water, and the contrast between the light near the pool and the shadows only a foot or two past the tree line. It was somewhere between the two that the old man was sitting, holding a gun and a book. Rogers’ breath caught in his throat and he rose slowly to his feet, never taking his eyes off the old man. It wasn’t the fact that the man was armed or that he seemed to be holding his book. He couldn’t take his eyes off the man because he was dressed in full native American regalia that looked about as authentic as you could get, and from the way the shadows played across the scene from this angle, it looked to Rogers just like the man had two faces.
FORTY-SEVEN
The double doors slid open silently, and the two men pushed in. Freeman went first, his chair clacking across the grill as the floor changed from rubber to sterile steel. General Daniels, his head bowed, followed behind, leaning against his old friend’s chair as he walked. They passed a wall of cylindrical cubicles, each one the size and shape of a man.
“It’s amazing isn’t it?” Freeman paused. His chair clicked and whirred to a stop. “All of these advances in our knowledge, everything we’ve done, all that we have become. And we still can’t cure a damned cold.” He glanced up at the pods, taking his eyes away from Daniels. Each pod was numbered, the numbers here at the end of the line reaching one thousand, and Daniels had personally installed all of them. So many years of work, and for what? Freeman placed a hand on the closest, feeling the hum of life bubbling behind the glass.
“These were going to change everything. Make sure we were back on the right track. Humanity. The funny thing is, I can’t remember what it means to be part of it. You and Jack are all the species I have left...” Freeman’s voice cracked “had left.”
Daniels shook his head, and looked down the corridor. The pods stretched into the darkness as far as he could see, blinking and pulsing with their own lives inside. “Let’s get this over with. Talking about it isn’t going to bring him back. Nothing’s changed. We still have our fallback.” Freeman nodded quietly, his eyes wet and tired. He moved the chair on, away from the cocoons, aiming toward a discreet brushed steel door, standing between two banks of processors. Daniels positioned himself slightly ahead of Freeman reaching up above the doorframe. His fingers felt along the shallow rim until they brushed against and almost dislodge the object sitting there. It’s an old brass key, probably the last of its kind. Daniels unlocked the door. Freeman moved into the gloom, and Daniels followed, closing the door behind him.
The lights took a moment to come on. Then they blinked on twice very briefly, giving them a snapshot of the scene before plunging the place into darkness again, then a click and a ping, and the room was illuminated with natural looking light. On the far side of the small room, a single bed has been bolted to the wall, and a man’s shape lies still beneath the covers. A glass panel joined the room to what looks like an office space next door, and an orderly with the glistening tracks of tears running down her face held up an unsteady hand in greeting. She gave half a smile and walked away, leaving them to their business.
The room seemed colder than usual, and the life support machines embedded in the walls were, for the first time, deathly silent.
Freeman wheeled himself closer to the unit’s only bed, and the General matched the pace quietly alongside him. They had been here many times over the years, yet this was a new experience for both of them. They had come to say their final goodbyes to this room. The old man reached a hand out onto the soft medical linen and gazed at the man in the bed.
Jack. No words were spoken, and none were needed. The old man in the bed was gone now. Freeman looked at Jack’s ancient face, and saw himself there. How did we ever get so damned old? Life had been a blink of the eye. Freeman silently wheeled himself back around and away from the bed, and stopped only to wait for the doors to slide open. General Daniels watched him leave and gathered his own thoughts. Today things would change. The General wondered how this would affect Freeman’s health and how much longer the old soldier had left in him. With that he placed a final goodbye touch on Jack’s arm and left the room with purpose. There was work to be done, and now more than ever, not a single second to waste.
The orderly, having composed herself, walked back into the room to get the package she left behind. The old man had only three items to his name, which had been zipped up in a clear airtight container; a wooden coin, a writing implement an
d a battered dark brown journal. The once-hard cover of the book had softened with years of use and ugly dark blotches only hinted at the book’s original condition. The spine had all but disintegrated. The inside flap, however, revealed that the sun-bleached book’s cover used to be a magnificent deep black.
EPILOGUE: An old man’s journal
I think it's best if I start by telling you about the day I met the Devil outside a saloon in Nebraska. I stepped out of the musty drinking hole, my eyes adjusting to the white midday sky. I clipped my watch shut and dropped it back inside my jacket.
Cupping a splintered match in my hands, I lit up another smoke. I had a three day shadow on my face and I was exhausted. Still sober though, and that was a start for now. I squinted down the high street, left then right. Not a soul. I shivered. My hand fell to my side out of habit and rested on my gun. Across the street, above the store, a shutter slammed shut. There was a time when I'd have done the same. Back when I was just another ordinary man, before I knew the truth of the world. I patted my left chest pocket, felt the bulge and clink of bullets. Comforting. Not as comforting as two pockets full, but there was no more time. There was no fanfare, no cloud of dust, and no clap of thunder. When I first met the Devil himself he was just sitting on the saloon porch behind me. Been there all along I guess, watching me check my gun and ammo. If he saw me flinch at all he was polite enough not to show it. And isn't that just a hoot?
'Marvellous day for a matrimony. Wouldn't you say chief?' He wore a white fitted tuxedo, and dabbed at his moist forehead with a black silken rag.
I grimaced at the sound of his voice. It wasn't raspy or evil like you'd expect, and the tone was pleasant enough, but it was wrong all the way to the end of the dial.
'Pearse Slake. Delighted to meet you.' He snaked out a long thin hand, and I noticed yellow dirty nails, tuxedo or not. When Old Handsome spoke for the second time I had cleared the fog enough to at least answer him. Incredible how quickly we can adapt.
'You may have the wrong impression of me even before we start.' I said calmly. There was no way in hell that I would voluntarily shake that hand. He didn't pause even for a second, and his hand was back in his lap as if it had never left. A town sheriff back in those days had very little in the way of perks, but refusing to shake the hand of a stranger was one of them, and thank the good Lord for that. I looked away and over the dusty horizon for a merciful couple of seconds. Anything but those eyes.
'Apologies for the unannounced intrusion chief, but I come seeking only a little water for myself and perhaps a bed for the evening. Then I shall get on with my business.' His skin rippled as he spoke.
'As I said, you may have me mistaken for someone else. I'll be polite right back to you, and there's no harm in that. But I'm not your friend stranger, and you certainly aren't welcome here.'
For a moment I thought he would end it right there. Just cut the pretence, string me up, and try and make me drink my own wine. But he stood up quietly, quite the gentleman, adjusted his hat, and gave me a wink.
'Nevertheless , it has been my pleasure to finally meet you Chief.' and with that he walked away, smiling.
My head throbbed. I stood my ground until he was well over the rise and out of sight and then I sat down hard onto the wooden stoop.
'Jesus wept.' I exhaled hoarsely, beads of sweat drew icy fingers down my back. I dabbed a shirt sleeve onto my forehead and it came away darker. I felt the nausea almost pass, but before I knew it, I had spilled my breakfast all over my boots. My head pounded as if nails had been driven through it, and at that moment I would have killed a man for his whisky.
When I was eight years old I spent the summer at old uncle Ned's farm in Ohio. He called me to the sty one morning and asked me to help him lift out one of the pigs. I could see one of its hind legs had been gnawed down to the bone by something, another stronger pig maybe, or a wild dog, he didn't know. What he did know, he winked at me, was that we were going to eat well that week. Being eight years old and a man of the world, I knew full well what good old uncle Ned meant to do, and my stomach dropped down a few floors.
Nevertheless, we hauled the doomed pig to the yard, and strung him up by his hind legs. (Maybe if I had ever learned to call a pig it instead of he , I wouldn't have baulked so badly at what was coming.) Anyway, when Ned carved up that poor pig's throat he bled out quietly, without any of that squealing they do. What he did do however was feverishly lick up that pool of blood that was gushing out of him. He did that right until the end came. I guess it could be that pigs will simply eat when they're hungry, and he didn't know enough to worry that it was his own blood. But in my heart I knew he was trying to keep that blood inside himself where it belonged.
When I heard the Devil talk to me, that's what came to my mind. That desperate strung up animal, clutching at the very last chance of life. The damned, lapping up its own blood.
You may think that I imagined a strange man to be something that he wasn't. I only wish it were so. There's no doubt as to who he was because I have met him many times since.
Besides, on that dark day in Nebraska, what the Devil didn't know was that it was I and not he who had orchestrated our little meeting, and had planned it for well over a year at that.
II
I had read many reports describing evil aftershocks following visits from the devil. Countless witness testimonials in many different languages over hundreds of years. People from vastly different cultures and geographical and chronological locations recounted similar stories of unspeakable horror. Suicidal pet dogs running into white-hot fireplaces, babies gouging their own eyes out. They all began the same way; A well dressed stranger crossing their paths. A polite man with a scratchy, scaly voice and filthy yellow claws.
For me, the aftershocks began with a distant rumble. I brushed the slick strip of hair from my brow and winced past the sunlight toward the horizon. I could see no thunderclouds, but on heaving myself up, I could see a cloud of a different kind. Dust approaching from the West. Maybe seven men on horseback, coming at us like the wind.
As if in reaction to this train of thought a woman's scream pierced through the saloon doors behind me. That didn't sound too good. I pushed briskly through the doors and stepped into the gloom, turning my back for a moment on the approaching omen.
My eyes took a second to focus, and the first thing I saw in the gloom was the quick butt of a rifle. I flinched and dropped down half a second too late, and caught the worst of it above the bridge of my nose. I didn't feel a thing but a bright white star flashed in front of my eyes. I landed hard on my side and the sawdust floor tried to envelop me in darkness.
'Are you one of them?' the silhouetted man's spittle stank of bad whisky. He'd used his Winchester as a crutch and was leaning heavily on it to get real close. He was close enough to kiss me. Kiss me or kill me. I wasn't in the mood for either. I brought my left hand defensively up toward the gash on my forehead. The movement of a man in shock, checking his injuries. It's a universal gesture and is the total opposite of threatening. Which is why he neither expected or saw my other hand shooting palm out, punching his rifle out from under him. It popped out of place, and he fell hard, face first onto my chest. Still blinded by the bright flashbulbs in my head and the contrasting darkness of the room, I grabbed for his nape with my left. I wrenched a thick fistful of long greasy hair and spun him round on his back like a snared fish. Before he even had the voice to complain I crashed my right hand down on his larynx, hard. He howled and squealed, his hands clawing at his throat. I pushed his face into the dirt and got up onto my feet.
'One of who?' I growled at him, thumbing back on my revolver. A thin line of blood snaked into my left eye, giving the world a terrible red hue. I must have looked like hell, because the woman screamed again. My eyes almost got their act together and I could make out five other faces apart from the loon on the floor.
A woman of pleasure, her dress torn at the neck, was cowering behind the stair bannister. She had a
palm shaped mark on her face that was still throbbing a bright red. A sleepy old man who looked around a hundred and eight peered at me over wire frame spectacles. In his gnarled hands he had two dusty black aces and two black eights. Not a bad hand. Shame he'd never get to play them. His gambling partner, a young boy no older than twenty, had pissed in his boots and was desperately trying to avoid any eye contact. By the bar, a large Ox of a man was twisted around and grinning at me, still sipping his whisky. He wore a long grey coat and had a faceful of whiskers beneath the muddy brim of his hat. His huge frame was making his wooden stool screech every time he moved. One of the stool's legs had already splintered. Years of humid saloon air had maybe started it, this big Ox had finished it off.
The empty glass and empty seat beside his own told me he was the lunatic's drinking pal. Behind him, with the bar between them, the barkeep was staring at me intently. Not as old as the full-house holder, but getting there steadily. He had one eye shut tightly and his other was blinking down a long Remington rifle barrel, which was pointed straight at my head.
I spat blood and tried my best to ignore the gun. With any luck, the old timer would miss if he got excited enough to shoot. Besides, I needed an answer from the coughing idiot on the floor.
'I'll ask again,' I nudged him in the ribs with my boot, 'and since there's a big cloud of hooves headed this way right now, I suggest you be quick in finding your tongue.'
He let out a long rasping cough. 'Fudging broke my throat!' he wailed thinly. 'You're one of 'em. You've come here to fudge my shit up. He tole me you were coming. He fudging tole...' The rest was lost as he rasped into another coughing fit.