The Argus Deceit

by Chuck Grossart

  “More time. I know,” Lead snapped, immediately regretting his shortness with a man who was only trying to do his job and let his boss know when things were about to be screwed up. They were all tired after months of nonstop work. Tempers were starting to flare. Time was getting dangerously short. As Lead, though, he wasn’t allowed to let his temper get the best of him. He put his gloved hand on the tech’s shoulder. “I know. First opportunity.”

  “Copy, sir. Insertion sequence for current environment will start in five minutes. I’ll send the diver at the first opportunity.”

  Lead nodded, then turned toward the Last One. He liked to imagine there was sorrow somewhere in those empty eyes, maybe even a longing for forgiveness, but he wasn’t sure.

  “Recalibration in four minutes,” the tech said, the glow from the screen reflecting on his helmet visor.

  The diver was to his right, suited up and ready to go. The man’s eyes were closed, his mind retracted deep within his own subconscious, spring-loaded, waiting to be released. At this point, he was cut off from the rest of his peers, unable to hear or speak. He was a round, waiting to be fired.

  And by his order to the tech, Lead had already pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 31

  BRODY16

  Joshua, Maine

  Friday, October 25, 1974

  He was back in the house in Joshua, but something was different this time. The bedroom looked exactly as he knew it would, everything in its proper place, but he was different. Brody was viewing the room from an altered vantage point, as if he’d suddenly lost three or four inches in height.

  Brody looked at his hands. They lacked the worn look he’d become accustomed to; rather, they were smooth and clear. He was clad in jeans, a blue-sleeved baseball shirt, and unlaced canvas high-top tennis shoes instead of his usual Italian loafers, dress pants, and button-down silk shirt.

  He was sixteen.

  The Brody Quail from West Glenn was here in Joshua, Maine. He hadn’t returned to his older self after he’d gone through the theater door, apparently a portal between West Glenn and Joshua.

  Brody’s mind spun, trying to wrap itself around what he was seeing, what he was feeling. The knocking at the door began immediately. The two officers were back, exactly as they should be, following their parts in the shadow man’s sick script.

  He’d shot them last time, put a bullet into each of their heads.

  Everything had reset to that penultimate moment, where he would learn of his son’s death, and he would fight the urge to grab a bottle, or his gun, and deal with the pain in different ways, time and time again.

  There would be no pain this time, though. He was here to find Connie, and that’s all that mattered.

  Brody slowly opened the bedroom door and peeked into the hallway. It was empty—no Felix yet—and cloaked in shadow. Just as it should be, except for one thing.

  A bright light emanated from his office, halfway down the hall.

  Much brighter than he would expect it to be.

  The room had an overhead light fixture and a lamp on the desk, but even combined, the lights wouldn’t have produced the amount of brightness he saw flowing from his office door. As far back as he could remember, the desk lamp was all he ever used. Something was odd here, which, as soon as he thought about it, seemed utterly ridiculous to ponder.

  Brody stepped down the hall. He shifted his glance from the office door to the head of the stairway, expecting Felix to emerge at any second from either location.

  In another instance, Felix had wrestled the gun away from him and fired just as Brody tumbled into the darkness in the open doorway.

  He remembered the loud report and his ear stinging from the bullet’s close (too close) encounter with his ear.

  Brody stood just outside the office door, trying to decide whether he should rush in. Maybe Felix was there, which would explain the lights being on (but not the odd brightness). The gun might still be in the desk drawer. Or maybe Felix was already clutching the weapon in his hand, just waiting for Brody to expose himself in the doorway. Downstairs, the knocking continued, unabated. “Sorry, fellas,” Brody whispered to himself. “Not tonight.”

  Brody moved into the doorway and saw another place, another time.

  It wasn’t his office.

  It was his bedroom in Culver, Ohio.

  Before he had a chance to absorb what was before him, Brody heard a creaking sound, weight on the stairway, and turned to see his Reba (not Reba) coming up the stairs. It was Connie, wearing Reba’s dress as she always did in this house, looking much older, too. Felix was directly behind her, following her up the stairs. Brody couldn’t see his hands and wondered if he already had the revolver, pressed against Connie’s back.

  Brody saw a strange look in her eyes, one of fear—and confusion? She was looking at him as if she had no idea who he was. “Connie?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Brody quickly glanced into the office (his Ohio bedroom) and realized there would be no access to his pistol this time if Felix didn’t already have it. He felt strange to be standing in the hallway and looking into a bedroom that he knew as well as he knew his Joshua house.

  In that room, Brody was ten. He had a little brother named Murf. And it was 1975.

  Here, it was 1974. And hundreds of miles away. Or was it?

  Connie was at the top of the stairs now, standing perfectly still, staring at him, with Felix by her side. “Felix,” Brody said, “show me your hands.”

  More knocking downstairs.

  Felix ignored his request. “Do you require me to answer the door, sir?”

  “I require you to show me your hands, Felix.”

  Slowly, Felix brought his left hand up, but his right hand remained hidden behind Connie.

  “Does he have a gun?” Brody asked her. His blood ran cold when she nodded her head. “It’s okay, Connie,” Brody said. “He’s not going to hurt you.”

  “She doesn’t belong here, sir,” Felix said, prodding Connie forward, taking a few steps down the hall, getting closer. Brody noticed his eyes were clear, his voice normal, which worried him. This time, Felix was operating off script and hadn’t turned into some sort of emotionless zombie.

  “She’s not part of this place, Felix. I am. And I don’t belong here, either.”

  “You need to answer the door, Mr. Quail,” Felix said.

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I will remove this woman from this place, Mr. Quail, and we will continue with our evening.”

  Brody watched as Connie squinted at him, as if she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. “Brody?” she said, her voice timid, unsure.

  He nodded. “It’s me, Connie.” This confirmed his earlier suspicions; Connie had no awareness of the fact that she had seen him like this before, as a sixteen-year-old kid in West Glenn, Colorado. This Connie only knew him as a fifty-two-year-old man living in an empty house.

  “I—I don’t understand,” Connie stammered.

  A dark shape, a hole in the twisted reality of this place, began to appear behind Felix, a grayish outline barely visible.

  The shadow man was coming.

  Brody reacted without thinking and rushed Felix, shoving Connie aside, waiting for the gun to go off and fire a bullet into his chest. But the revolver fell from Felix’s hand as Brody slammed into him, sending Felix sprawling backward to land at the feet of the coalescing shadow man.

  Connie was slumped against the wall, her eyes fixed on the shape at the head of the stairs. Brody grabbed her arm and pulled her up. He dragged her down the hall toward the bedroom, then stopped.

  Behind them, the shadow man was there, fully formed, and stepping over Felix, his body lying crumpled on the floor. With glassy eyes, the butler looked up at the black-clad man. “You don’t belong here,” Felix said flatly.

  Brody could feel Connie pulling against his grip, recoiling from the thing walking down the hall toward them. He looked into her terrified eyes. “Trus
t me,” he said, then pulled her into the office, his bedroom in Culver, Ohio.

  The diver stood at the threshold, staring inside the brightly lit bedroom, knowing he couldn’t follow. Not yet.

  He stood still as the scene dissolved around him. He would be retrieved in a few seconds, then the chase would begin again.

  In time.

  Which was a commodity they just didn’t have.

  Chapter 32

  BRODY10

  Culver, Ohio

  Thursday, May 15, 1975

  As he crossed the threshold from the house in Joshua to this place, his bedroom in Culver, Brody felt immense pain rack his body, and his eyesight faded. For a moment, he was suspended in the black, so quiet and alone. He’d had hold of Connie’s arm but didn’t feel her now.

  There was only the darkness, stretching out in all directions.

  But it only lasted for a second.

  He came to on the floor beside his bed, and the first thing he did was look at his hands. They weren’t the hands of a teenager but rather those of a ten-year-old boy. This time, Brody was who he was supposed to be in this world. He looked at his door, and beyond the door frame lay not the hallway in Joshua, but the upstairs hall he was used to seeing here. The portal, or whatever it was, was gone. And so was the shadow man.

  “Connie?” Brody said, his voice higher, not yet deepened by puberty. He whipped his head around as he struggled to his feet, grabbing the bedspread as he pulled himself up, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  Brody was dizzy, weak, and had trouble keeping his balance as he quickly stepped around the bed. And then he saw her.

  Connie was still unconscious, facedown on the floor, hair spilling about her shoulders. She wasn’t wearing Reba’s dress anymore. She was a kid again, too. Brody knelt down and gently shook her shoulder. “Connie? Wake up. Come on, Connie.”

  She took a gasp of breath and sat upright, turning herself over and kicking her legs, jumping away from him. Her eyes were bright with shock and fear.

  Brody raised his hands and leaned back, sitting on his heels. “It’s okay! It’s just me, Brody!”

  Quickly the terror in Connie’s eyes faded, and she rushed to him, hugging him tightly. “He was there. He was there, wasn’t he?” she sobbed.

  “He was, but he didn’t follow us through.” Brody hugged her, remembering how it felt to hold her just like this in the janitor’s closet, her body trembling before she disappeared into the dark. “We’re safe for now, okay?”

  Connie pushed herself away and looked at her hands. She turned them over in front of her face, then studied her dress, her shoes. “I—I remember, Brody. I remember who I was there, in that house.”

  “It’s the same for me, Connie. In the other house, I’m a fifty-two-year-old man.”

  “But, you were younger, a teenager,” Connie said.

  Brody nodded and said, “I can’t explain how that happened, but you’re right. When I’m sixteen, I’m in a place called West—”

  “West Glenn!” Connie said. “I remember!” Brody watched as she stared off into space for a moment, clearly recalling even more. “And I’ve been there, too. With you.” She looked down at her dress. “And I’m not like this, am I?”

  “No, you’re a teenager, just like I am.” Brody wasn’t sure how quickly he should dump the rest on her, about how she was also a grown woman in Garland Trail (who sure knows how to use a pipe to defend herself). He decided he would wait and see if she remembered the details on her own.

  “You knew this already?”

  “I did, but it hasn’t been for long. Before I was in the house in Joshua, this last time, I was in the darkness. It came to me, Connie. I don’t know how, or why, but I saw each of the places I live and who I am in each one.”

  Connie looked around the room. “I don’t know this place.”

  “It’s my bedroom. Right outside that door,” he said, pointing, “and down the hall is my little brother’s room. His name is Murf. My mom is probably downstairs right now, in the kitchen. At least that’s the way it usually is when I’m in my room here.” Brody stood, still a little weak and wobbly, and held his hand out to Connie. She took it, and he helped her stand.

  Connie’s eyes locked on a shelf, a few feet away. “I’ve seen that before.”

  On the shelf, right next to his Avenger model, was the yellow T. rex, sitting right where it should be. Brody’s hand reflexively went to his pocket, as he remembered he had stuffed the toy there before. “I’ll be damned,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It was in my pocket, before. When we were in the warehouse, I had it with me.”

  “The warehouse in Garland Trail,” Connie said, recalling that place as well. “I remember. There were people there, three guys, who were beating you up. And a bartender with a gun, and we were running.” Connie abruptly covered her face with her hands.

  “What’s wrong?”

  When she dropped her hands, Brody saw tears welling up in her eyes. “How many, Brody?” she asked, her voice cracking.

  At first he wasn’t sure what she meant but soon figured it out. She’d just realized that there were more than two versions of her. “There’s four, Connie. Four places. Four of you and four of me.”

  The sadness and confusion evident in Connie’s eyes slowly drained away, replaced with an acceptance of sorts. And determination. Odd, for a ten-year-old girl to exhibit that sort of emotional strength, but then again, Brody realized he didn’t feel much like a kid anymore.

  “And I’ve been with you in each of those places?” Connie asked.

  “Yes,” he answered. “In each place.”

  “Why didn’t I realize that until now?”

  “I’m not sure,” Brody said. He walked over to his shelf and picked up the T. rex. “But I think I have an idea.”

  Connie walked over beside him and stared at the toy. “That’s part of it, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve had this same toy with me in more than one place,” Brody said, “and there’ve been other things, too. Things that have crossed from one place to another. Not to mention this room. There’s some sort of portal in Reba’s room, in the house in Joshua, which lets us cross from one place to another. The theater door, remember?”

  She didn’t, at first.

  “We were running from the shadow man, in West Glenn,” Brody explained, “and you ducked inside a theater. I followed you, but you were already gone. There was a door there, and it opened into Reba’s room. I used it again right before you appeared in the house, except I was still sixteen, and you were much older. Just like you had always been when I’d seen you in that house.”

  “Why didn’t you change that time? We’re both ten now, right?” Connie asked.

  “I don’t know why. But tell me this. Do you feel ten?”

  She thought for a second. “No, I suppose I don’t.”

  “Neither do I. Not anymore.” Brody put the T. rex back in his pocket. “I think things are starting to fall apart, Connie. I don’t know how I know, but none of this has ever happened before. I just played my part, did what I was supposed to do, and then moved on to the next place. The next show for the shadow man.” What he didn’t want to say was how everything began to fall apart, go off script, when Connie started to appear. She very well might be the cause of all this madness.

  “You think he’s behind all this?”

  Brody had to clear his mind before he answered, and he pushed his suspicions away. For now. “He’s the common factor, isn’t he? We’ve both seen him, and you even saw him in your own place.” Brody didn’t want to bring up her family in the Ark, again feeling it was probably better to let her remember that part on her own. And it didn’t take long.

  “He killed my parents.”

  Brody nodded slightly, searching her eyes for the emotions he hoped wouldn’t come. He needed her to stay strong, mostly so she could help him stay strong.

  “We need to kill him, Brody,” Connie said, and Brody
was surprised to hear the coldness that had slipped from the lips of such a little girl—little in body, anyway. Inside, though, the Connie he’d seen fight the three thugs was churning behind those green eyes, just as brave and capable as he knew she could be.

  “That might be a little tough here,” he said, looking around his room. “We don’t have any weapons, and I’m not too sure how a ten-year-old kid could get his hands on an M16. The rifle is still in Garland Trail, at least I think it is, and the pistol is somewhere in the house in Joshua.” He remembered how Felix had held the gun to Connie’s back and had dropped it when Brody had slammed into him. “Unless Felix is going to keep it now. God, this is so confusing.”

  “Do your parents have any guns? Here?”

  “No. Not that I’ve ever seen.”

  Connie thought for a second, then her eyes lit up. “This house has a kitchen, right?”

  “Yeah, of course it does. Why?”

  “Kitchens have knives, Brody.”

  And there she was. Connie was definitely inside that little, innocent-looking body. “You’re damn right there is,” Brody said.

  “You shouldn’t curse. You’re ten, remember?”

  “Oh shit. You’re right.”

  “Nice. So do we just waltz downstairs and grab one? If your mother is down there, she’ll know I’m not supposed to be here,” Connie said. “And we both know what happens then.”

  “I’ll get one. Hopefully she won’t notice what I’m doing. Then we’ll leave.”

  “While you’re down there, could you maybe grab me something to eat? I don’t know why, but I’m starving.”

  She’s hungry, too? For some reason, that was important, but Brody didn’t know why. In each of the four places, Brody had felt weak and incredibly ravenous, as if he hadn’t eaten for days. Even when he had eaten, the food still didn’t completely silence the tiger growling in his gut. He tucked the thought away for now, because he had the sudden feeling that they would have to move. And soon.

  “I’ll see what I can find. Stay here, and I’ll be right back. We’ll crawl out the window so you don’t have to go downstairs.”

  Connie hugged herself. “Hurry, okay? I think we have to get moving.”