Brainstorm (THE BLOOD-DIMMED TIDE Book 1)

by Jeff Siamon

  He turned back to the swordsmen. Real or imagined? He took a step backwards and waited to see what would happen next. The three men advanced one step towards him. He backed up another step. The three matched his move. Seconds passed. The swordsmen’s faces were in shadow but their body language was clear enough. Connie had the feeling that the three were about to charge. Even so, as he tensed for a fight, he thought ─ an ironic thought ─ that it would have been a lot easier to deal with orderlies than this hallucinatory trio.

  The rush came at the end of this thought. The swordsmen yelled their warrior’s cry and jumped over the fire. He retreated. Then he spun around ─ from instinct not from any worked-out plan. Grabbed one of the men on the ground, hurling him into the onrushing charge.

  The man struck the three broadside with such force that they all crashed to the ground. The thrown man rolled into the fire and began yelling. The attackers slowly tried to stand up. Connie stared at the scene. Never once questioning how he had had the strength to hurl the man. Or why, with his own warrior’s cry, he now rushed the attackers when retreat would have been the logical choice.

  He just did it. Meeting the only one of the trio who was now on his feet by sidestepping his thrusting sword and grabbing his neck. Connie’s fingers tightened about the man’s throat. He and the man fell to the ground. They struggled. The man gasped for breath. Connie gripped the man’s neck and seemed determined to crush his windpipe. He was possessed by instinct to survive. Not by anything rational.

  He would have done so. Broken the man’s neck except for a sudden burning sensation in his thigh. One of the other swordsmen had gotten to his feet and had jabbed Connie with his sword. If Connie and the man in his grasp hadn’t been rolling on the ground, the sword would have entered Connie’s back. Reality or dream ─ the result wouldn’t have been good.

  But the blade had struck deep enough to make Connie release his hold. Still, thinking like a warrior and not the Eureka man that he was, he twisted off the man under him just as another sword thrust came his way. This time it struck the man on the ground. While both the injured man and the swordsman contemplated this unintended wound, Connie leapt to his feet. He grabbed the swordsman free hand and twisted it until the bones cracked. With a shriek, the man collapsed in writhing pain.

  By this time, the last swordsman had gotten to his feet. He and Connie eyed each other carefully. Neither paid any attention to the four others on the ground. Each in various states of pain. That’s why Connie didn’t see the hand of one of the men on the ground reach for his foot. It turned awkwardly just as the swordsman brought down his sword on Connie’s shoulder. Instinctively, Connie raised an arm to block the blow. The arm with the cast. When the blade struck the cast, it split it open, but not Connie’s arm.

  Without hesitating, Connie reached for the man’s free hand only to lose his balance because of the hand on his foot. When he hit the ground, the body of the man who had grabbed him rolled on top of him. The man’s hands went for Connie’s throat while the swordsman’s blade was raised like an axe about to descend onto Connie’s head. It would have struck except for a loud cry. Commanding. Shrill. And furious.

  The swordsmen backed off. Connie’s attacker relaxed. But not Connie. He hurled the man into the air and then stood up. Slower this time. Still ready to do battle. But the battle was over. The swordsman lowered his blade. The man Connie had thrown aside rose to his feet, grabbing his back in pain. The voice who had cried out said something else. Angry words in a language he didn’t know.

  Connie turned to the voice. There were still dark shadows everywhere. The fire had gone down to embers. And the sky, though lighter, had yet to awaken to morning blue. But even so, there was no mistaking the voice. It belonged to a woman. A girl, really. Not much older than Vicky. If as old. Her golden hair was alight with color. Her face glowed with fury. The woman on the ledge!

  The two stood facing each other. Eyeing each other while both kept glancing at the bearded men.

  Connie had been losing blood from the gash in his leg. It had soaked his pant leg and was making a dark pool on the ground. As the liquid left his body, so did his warrior self ebb away. He could sense his vision becoming blurry. He tried to blink away the sensation but he couldn’t. With a slow, graceful sag ─ once again after the thought that he would have preferred to deal with orderlies than these wild attackers ─ he fell to the ground. Soon unconscious of all sensations.

  31

  Evie’s eyes were brown. He remembered that, he told himself. So much for her always telling him he never paid her any attention. Vicky’s eyes? Well, he wasn’t sure. A dark something. Brown or hazel. But the eyes that were staring at him now. They were blue. Iridescent. The color of the Aegean Sea in a coffee-table book. The eyes of the girl whose cries had stopped the fight.

  He tried to blink away the image. Half convinced he was still hallucinating. Having another episode. But only half convinced. His thigh burned with pain. As did his shoulders and wrist. He stared at the eyes staring at him and waited for the next instalment of whatever was happening to him.

  The face behind the eyes spoke something to him but he didn’t understand what she said. He tried to sit up. His arms shook from the effort. It took only a slight pressure from the hand that belonged to the eyes to push him back down. The girl spoke more words that weren’t English.

  Where was he? Still lying on the ground after the fight? In the hospital cafeteria? He looked to either side of himself. Into the shadows. Too dark to be the cafeteria. As for what he was lying on. It felt soft. Not hospital-tile hard. One of his hands grasped this softness and he realized it was some kind of mattress. His other hand felt a cloth that was over him. It was rough. Like badly woven wool. A cover.

  Once more the face spoke to him. The girl’s hair, which in the dim light had lost its blond sheen, nearly touched his face. She was leaning over him. The shade of her skin flashed from shadow grey to dusky pink. Her words were soft but not her expression. The blue of her eyes was steady and severe. Dark circles under them emphasized this severity. After she straightened up, he could see the flicker of a candle that was beside her on a table. Its flame smoky and steady until she suddenly moved away from his side. Then it flattened as if a gust of wind had struck it. Then shot up straight again.

  Connie lifted his head so he could follow the movement of the girl. She had gone to the end of what he was lying on. Another figure came into his view. A man. He could tell that by the beard. His head was bare, hair to his shoulders with strips of a lighter color that might have been grey. He wore the same long tunic that his attackers had worn. Its color nearly as dim as the shadows behind him. A contrast to what the girl wore. The azure blue of what she had on. A dress of sorts with gold-like patches that resembled leaves. It sleeves long enough to partially cover her hands. And gold, too. Although in the candlelight, the gold color looked tarnished and soiled.

  Both began speaking at once. Loudly. Connie hadn’t had much experience when it came to foreign languages. All he remembered from his university French was how to order coffee. All he was certain was that they were not speaking French. And all he could be sure of was ─ because of the many looks his way ─ he was the object of their argument. Which is what he assumed they were doing ─ arguing.

  “Hey,” he called to them. “You two.” A stupid thing to say, he realized when they paid him no attention. If he couldn’t understand them, they sure as hell couldn’t understand him.

  The argument lasted for several minutes. Along with their words, there were wild hand gestures and ─ at least from the man ─ hostile looks at him. It wasn’t too hard to guess what the man thought of him.

  Connie’s neck and back began to hurt trying to sit up. That with his aching thigh and wrist seemed to take his breath away. He lay down with a heavy thud. Bit his lip in a futile gesture to stop the pain. And thought for the umpteenth time that if this was an episode, it was a damn real one.

  Lying on his back, he ne
ver saw the man leave. Just heard his footsteps and saw the reflection of the candle flicker on what he now realized was the ceiling or wall of a tent. Then there was silence. It was a comfort to his ears but not to all the throbs of his body. His broken wrist vied with his thigh for the championship of pain.

  He closed his eyes on these pains. However, they didn’t cooperate. He moved his injured arm, realizing that the cast no longer felt tight around his wrist. He would have taken his arm out from under the blanket that was on top of him, but he hadn’t the strength. Sleep seemed a better option. Or in his case, unconsciousness was closer to what happened.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Something cold on his forehead suddenly made him sit up. He had been back in the desert ─ dream or reality, he couldn’t be sure. He was lying on the sand. Hurt. The cold on his brow seemed to come out of nowhere. That’s what made him sit up. Wake up. He was sure that this thing was at him again. Sure, also, that he would see the dream girl’s face when he opened his eyes. As well as the blue of the desert sky.

  But there was no sky. Just what looked like broad sheets of what seemed to be animal skins above his head and in front of the bed he was lying on. No dream girl, either. But when he turned his head towards a sound he heard, he did see a face. And the color blue. Both stared at him as he stared at her.

  Then the narcotic of sleep evaporated and he remembered. Where he was. Who she was. What had happened to him. Crazy, he thought. Like he probably was. These memories may have seemed dreamlike, lying in this bed. Would have been hard to accept as anything but imagination if it wasn’t for his throbbing thigh.

  The girl said something to him when he turned his head towards her. She gently pressed a hand on his chest, indicating he should lie back down. He didn’t want to lie down but his body felt too heavy to sit up any longer. And he did. She put the cold back on his brow. A damp cloth. She leaned over him and said something to him. Her hair was pulled back into a kind of bun. Its golden color framed her face like a Renaissance painting.

  She spoke again. Repeating some sounds several times. Each time, she pointed to herself. She was trying to tell himself something, he realized. Her name.

  “Connie,” he said, pointing with his uninjured hand at himself.

  “C- nee,” she said. Then again, she pointed to herself. “Hille.”

  “Hey-la,” Connie repeated.

  She shook her head. “Hille.” She spoke quickly so it took him several tries to make the to get close to the correct sounds: “Hey-la.” When he did, she reluctantly smiled. That was the first smile she had given him. “Con-nee,” she said and nodded to him with another smile.

  Of course, he wanted to ask her all sorts of questions, but names would have to do. Instead, he withdrew his other arm from under the blanket. What he wanted to indicate to her was whether she could do anything about his cast. But when he looked at it, he saw that it was now bound up with strips of cloth. He lifted up the arm to her as if to ask if she had done this. “Hey-la?”

  She nodded and the motion wiped the smile from her face. That’s when he noticed the dark circles under her eyes. When she frowned. But before he could consider them ─ where had he seen them before? ─ she moved away. And after a quick glance at him, left him through a flap in the wall.

  He stared at the spot for a long moment. He knew what her smile meant. That she meant him no harm. But the frown worried him. If this whole ordeal was, in fact, really happening to him, was it the frown for the man she had been arguing with? Or was it for him?

  Too many questions for an exhausted man to answer. He lay back and closed his eyes. Fell into a deep sleep that didn’t answer any of his questions. Neither did it provide any solutions for escaping this episode. It was just peaceful. What his body needed.

  Peaceful, that is, until his sleeping self suddenly became alarmed. Not by anything in his sleep. More like a presence near him. Like an angry whisper in his ear. So present it seemed, that it jerked him awake and put the warrior force within in him on alert.

  It was dark again so he couldn’t see much. Just indistinct shadows until his eyes got used to the dark. He strained his ears for any revealing sounds. Took his hands out from under his covers. Readying them. He only relaxed when all the shadows proved to be the walls of this tent structure he was in. And the only sounds were the flapping in the wind of what must be its walls and ceiling.

  Oh, for those hospital orderlies, he thought. And smiled at the thought as well as the craziness of having somehow fallen into this drama. He flexed his muscles and then moved his legs and injured arm. There was pain there, but not unbearable. He threw back the cover and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His feet touched the ground. And ground it was. Dirt. He could feel it because his feet were bare. That realization prompted him to touch his pant leg. Only it wasn’t his pant leg. He was sure of that. It hadn’t the feel of the designer jeans he always wore.

  He stood up. Even before he ran his hand over the rest of his clothes, he knew. Knew what he had on. A tunic like his attackers wore and some coarse cloth pants. In all his episodes, he might have had strange and powerful visions, but he had somehow managed to keep his clothes on.

  So, he thought, that put him barefoot and dressed like some medieval peasant. If there had been any corner left in his brain that believed he was in another hallucinatory episode, it had shrunk to sub-atomic size.

  He didn’t know what he was going to do about this realization. But there it was. There’d be no orderlies to the rescue. No concern faces like he had seen in the subway car. He didn’t know whether to feel despair or become his warrior self on alert.

  He settled on despair. Or it settled on him. Suddenly he felt more alone than he ever had in his life. It was like a hollowness inside that was sucking all the hope out of him. What was the use of running away? Escaping. He had no idea where he was or where to run to.

  Then he laughed to himself. A bitter laugh. Had to laugh when he wondered if they had taken his phone. Like he could have used it to call someone! He checked his wrist for his watch. It was gone, too. Not that it mattered. It was drugstore watch. What would they make of that? he wondered. His phone and his watch. And, of course, his wallet was gone, as well as the money inside and his bank cards. These thoughts at least got another chuckle out of him. But it didn’t mask how he really felt.

  He stood up. His legs shook from the effort. They weren’t going to take him far. If there was a far to go to. He looked around for something to put on his feet. Maybe they had left his shoes here or even his clothes. But there seemed to be nothing to see but indistinct shadows.

  “Hell,” he said aloud.

  It was force of habit. Talking to himself. Most geeks like him did that. Especially when they were alone. Which was most of the time since they were all workaholics.

  His voice startled him so in a way he was prepared for what he heard. That whisper in his ear. At first, he thought it was some kind of echo. Then he looked around to see if anyone had entered. But when he heard it again, he remembered its familiarity. It was this thing. Again!

  It grew louder. The whisper. Not so much as anything comprehensible. It was more a gush of emotion than a thought. Yet the stronger it became, the more he was able to make sense of it. Even with no words to describe what this sense was. Like he knew what it was thinking. Without putting it into words. Then he understood. That this was his niggle. What he had discovered on the ledge. What he had been trying to remember. He had broken through a sort of firewall of this thing. So now he not only knew that this thing was afraid of him. He knew what it was thinking!

  With that realization, the whisper ceased. Like the thing had realized that Connie had been eavesdropping on something he wasn’t meant to overhear. For a moment, there was only the quiet of the tent skins moving from the outside breeze.

  Then it happened again. The headache. The nausea. Connie knew instantly what was happening. It was another invasion. Fear! The thing’s fear. It pressed in on him.
Tried to drive away his thoughts. Charging at his sense of despair as if it and he were two warriors fighting. For that’s how Connie reacted to it. Mentally battling against this attack. Even as it doubled him over with pain and nausea. He knew what was happening now. What the thing was trying to do to him. Silence him. Make him forget what he had overheard. Suck him into its blackness.

  Now down on his knees, clutching the side of the bed, he fought against this invasion. He could sense the thing trying to twist his despair into uncontrollable fear. And if it succeeded, as Connie had realized before, he would be no more. Just a black blob in its dark universe.

  And if that wasn’t enough to contend with, Connie felt the sudden grasps of hands jerking him to his feet. He tried to pull away but the headache and nausea had weakened him. As did his mental battle with the thing. All he could do was struggle. And that wasn’t enough to release the hands that had grabbed him.

  Now with two fronts to battle, it seemed that Connie had finally ran out of both mental energy and warrior force. He struggled against whomever was holding him while he concentrated on resisting the thing. But he couldn’t do both at the same time. He felt himself being dragged while the despair he had been feeling now threatened to turn into fear.

  And just before the pain and fear became too much for him and he blacked out, he caught a flicker of a face. The arguing man’s face. Glaring. Belligerent. A mouth twisted into a snarl.

  32

  He was falling. That’s what his senses told him. It was the same sensation he had felt when he and this girl, Hey-la, had plummeted off the ledge. He opened his eyes. The glare that met his vision gave him no hint what was happening. And, anyway, its brightness was too painful for him to keep his eyes open for only a few blinks. His headache was gone. So was the tumult in his insides. As was the pain in his wrist or his thigh. And he was falling. Skydiving into a deep of brightness.