by C. F. Waller
Moments later she comes back out, buttoning her slacks. I get a thumb over the shoulder telling me to get a shower. I try and exchange her coffee for a kiss as I pass, but she leans her head away sharply and frowns, letting me know that last night was a onetime hall pass. As I back into the bathroom she wags a finger in my direction and shakes her head.
“I get it,” I shout, and then lower my voice as I slam the door.
The shower feels good, but I find myself in a sullen mood. Why I feel shunned by Rahnee, I cannot say. For me, that kind of intimacy results in emotional attachment almost before finishing the act. As the hot water rolls off my skin, the realization that this is an Arron problem and not a Rahnee problem becomes clear. Now embarrassed by my pathetic attempt to kiss her, I vow to put her out of my mind. This resolution lasts until I come out of the bathroom and see her straddling some guy on the sofa chair next to the patio slider. At that point my cranky mood is pretty much set for the day.
The guy turns out to be Cooper Decker. He’s rough looking, the beginnings of a beard, or possibly the lack of a razor showing on his face. She slides off him and gets back to business when I enter, but even her best poker face shows some regret at the situation. Wearing jeans and some sort of brightly colored cross trainers, he is cordial, but why wouldn’t he be? He has no idea what has transpired. His dark blue shirt proclaims In Heaven, Everyone has a Batmobile.
On the bed is a black duffle bag and between them they begin to unpack an arsenal. While I don’t have a subscription to Guns and Ammo, I have seen my share of firearms. Rahnee takes two handguns over to the small table next to the sofa chair and starts breaking one of them down. It takes her only a few minutes and then she reassembles it and starts on the other one. I walk over and pick up the one she just finished. She flinches, as if she was going to stop me, but pretends not to notice and goes back to her assembly of the second gun.
Turning it over in my hand, it looks mostly normal at first glance, although oversized in my opinion. It’s a semi-auto, probably a .45 caliber, but the grip is twice as thick as it should be. There’s no clip in it, but looking in the hole at the bottom of the grip reveals a huge opening at least two inches square, possibly more. Pushing the safety down I pull back the top slide, but this causes an identical slide on the bottom to roll forward. It’s as if there are two gun barrels, with one under the other. Pulling the slide back and forth I understand the see saw action as one barrel must fire and then the other.
“Is this?” I utter quietly, but receive only a nod from Rahnee.
“Interesting,” I remark, setting it back down.
Turning to see what Decker is doing, I find him shoving bullets in a clip, only it’s not a normal clip. It had a spiral at the bottom where it curls around like a sea shell or fish hook. Stepping over to the bed where he works, I see the dimensions of the top match the hole in the bottom of the double action cannon I observed a moment ago. Picking up a spare that he hasn’t filled yet I understand the reason for the design. It has two rows of bullets, one to feed each barrel. The fish hook bulge at the bottom lets it carry twice as many rounds, while somewhat balancing what must be a wicked kickback when fired.
Returning it to the bed, I pick up a box of rounds that match the one Decker is loading into the monster clip. The rounds are too small to be .45’s, and longer from end to end. Maybe the diameter of a .22, but the long casing must contain three times the powder. The tips aren’t sharp, but more like the small side of an egg. They end in a blue jell instead of metal.
“Can I get those back,” Decker demands, holding his hand up for the box.
“Whatever you say Batman,” I mutter, dropping them on the bed.
“Here,” he mutters, offering me a different box.
“These are for what?”
“The Sig 40’s Rahnee gave you,” he replies, pointing at the two guns from yesterday sitting next to the television.
“Oh, gotcha,” I reply, nodding thanks before turning sarcastically to Rahnee. “I didn’t know they were a gift.”
“Yesterday was your frigging birthday Arron,” she grumbles referring to more than the guns. “Probably your last.”
Unable to muster a reply, I sit down on the floor and start pushing bullets into the clips. Decker tosses down two spares and another box of ammo. I load all four, popping two into the guns and setting the safeties. It isn’t lost on me that other than shooting a friend’s gun in my youth, I have no practical gun experience outside of this morning. Shooting at trees in my friend’s backyard only produced nasty gashes on my hand when the slide cut me as a result of holding the grip too high.
I shudder recalling the moment I pulled the trigger with the business end pointed at the back of Rahnee’s head. Did I really want to hurt her? It was a different feeling than you get with video games.
“Real life Call of Duty,” I say under my breath, thinking that hours logged on video games might finally pay off.
“More like Grand Theft Auto,” Decker jumps in, having heard me. “No uniforms and no good guys.”
“And no pause button,” I point out.
Chapter Fifteen
Dominick Dunn
Blake looks at the car deep in thought. He cranes his neck to one side and peeks in the backseat. Shaking his head, he shrugs and crosses his arms.
“So you just left them in there overnight?” he sighs.
“I have them in my possession,” I declare. “I’m not a hunter, I’m the pickup crew. At this point I make a call and put the quarry on a private jet to no-where.”
“True,” he agrees, walking over to the door and gazing at Beatrix through the glass. “You give them any water?”
“Yes, I did. I rolled down the window and shoved an Egg Mc Muffin through there as well. Now make a call and get these guys out of here.”
“It’s hot out,” he continues, still looking at Beatrix. “Shouldn’t you crack a window or something?”
“The air conditioning is on,” I grouse, but then lower my voice. “Make the call.”
There is a long pause while he smiles in the window. For her part, Beatrix grins back seductively, clearly trying to curry favor with Blake. The dry dessert wind blows sand across my shoes. This dirt road far outside of Vegas proper is an excellent place to hide. There isn’t any way to sneak up on us out here. There is nothing but sand running in every direction. Picturesque mountains look hazy in the distance. Blake finally turns to me and shrugs.
“I’ve been calling mate,” he explains. “No one’s answering.”
“Where’s Decker?” I demand, having asked this when he got here and received no reply.
“His phone rang and he told me to pull over at the next exit. When I did, he piled out with all this crap and told me to go ahead without him.”
“You just left him on the side of the road with a duffle bag full of lord knows what?”
“Truck stop actually,” Blake discloses, still looking in the backseat of the car. “Israeli chick must have called him. He couldn’t get out of the car fast enough.”
“Figures,” I grumble, somewhat jealous. “Run off to hide.”
“Still, that leaves us standing here with two people locked in a car. At some point you’re going to have to get gas or let them out? How long since they had a chance to use the loo?” he needles me, putting a hand up to cover his mouth as he yawns.
The answer to that question is too long. I take Blake by the arm and lead him ten yards away from the car. He walks backwards, holding up a finger to Bee indicating he will be right back, before following me to a quiet spot.
“What do you think the chances are that we are on our own with these two?” I beg.
“You’re asking me if the organization has suffered another regime change.”
“Do you think that’s where we stand?”
“If they got to Flynn, then yeah,” he explains, eyes down at the ground. “If not who knows, he went into hiding once before to keep from getting scratched off. I
would not put it past him.”
“That said,” I nod and turn in place, hands in my pockets trying to find the right words. “I need you to tell me what I am dealing with. The two in the car don’t age, but can be killed just like you and I, right?”
“Yes, just ever young,” he nods. “Not necessarily immortal.”
“How old are they?” I ponder, kicking sand. “A hundred, two?”
“The girl,” he says nodding at the car. “At least six. The guy, Dorian, he’s hard to figure.”
“How so?”
“From a documentations stand point it’s had to decipher,” he starts, hands motioning in front of him as if deep in thought. The Calling Tree isn’t organized from oldest to youngest.”
“Then how is it organized?”
“Genetics,” he explains.
“DNA,” I offer, thinking of Flynn mentioning closest genetic marker on the phone.
“Yes,” he nods. “We think there is a combination lock in their DNA somewhere.”
“That leads to immortality?”
“Quite possibly,” he sighs.
“And who set the order in this Calling Tree?”
“Cartographer,” he reveals.
“Why him?”
“A cartographer is a map maker after all. I assume you have heard of DNA mapping?” he offers, widening his eyes.
“I have,” I tell him, somewhat a lie as I only know the term, not the actual science. “What’s this got to do specifically with Dorian?”
“Right, the Cartographer mentioned Dorian during his time with us.”
“Anthony?” I mumble, making sure we are talking about the same person. “The guy from Sweden.”
“Yeah,” he nods. “Mentioned Dorian by name.”
“And that indicates what?”
“I don’t know the context in which he mentioned him,” he admits. “But that’s what set Flynn’s mind on finding him.”
“But you think since the Cartographer set the order of the Tree, him knowing Dorian is curious?”
To this he nods.
“They could have met,” I argue. “Don’t they have a gathering or something?”
“Yes, every hundred years the minor immortals like Dorian gather at a predetermined place.”
“Last gathering was when?”
“Was supposed to be the fall of 1950,” he states, rolling his eyes. “In Berlin.”
“Berlin was still on fire in 1950,” I groan. “Post-war Germany was a nightmare.”
“Close to that,” he agrees, waffling his hand from side to side.
“I doubt they had a fancy dress party for immortals in a rubble pile?”
“The gathering was cancelled,” he shrugs.
“Rescheduled for when?”
“Not rescheduled,” he explains. “Next one is 2050, but we don’t know where. We think it’s like the Olympics. They probably had the 2050 site picked out before the 1950 gathering had to be cancelled. They already know where to be, but there won’t be anyone in attendance.”
“Why’s that?”
“Those two,” he says, pointing to the car. “That’s the guest list.”
“Dorian and Beatrix are the last?”
To this he nods.
“But you can’t possibly be sure. Even if you chased down every name on the Tree, they could have procreated any number of times and the children might not have been on any list. Quite a few of the men I have found were obviously skirt chasers. There could be thousands out there,” I argue, hands on my hips watching him stand there shaking his head slowly.
“Quite a bit you don’t know mate,” he grins. “The females are barren. They cannot have children.”
“Fine, but the men,” I insist.
“Right, just listen,” he says quieter, peeking back at the car. “The women are a dead end, but short-time females can get impregnated by the males.”
“Short-time?”
“Yeah, your mother, sister, regular old mortal women.”
“So, there could be any number of half immortals out there?” I argue.
“Bad side effect of trying to carry their babies,” he sighs. “Mortality rate for the mothers is a hundred percent. Even then, only a minute percentage of the babies survive. The mothers often die before they reach full term. At least that’s the best we can figure.”
There is a pause while I take this in. Turning to glance at the car, I see Beatrix watching us. Upon seeing me looking she scowls. As I watch, she flips me the bird and presses the finger to the glass.
“And no half breeds,” he goes on. “If they manage to survive, they are full on semi-immortals.”
“Still, you can’t know for sure if any of the offspring have survived.”
“Strict reporting rules,” he asserts sharply. “It’s reported up the tree to the Cartographer, who adds them. From the information I have, there hasn’t been anyone added in the last hundred and fifty years. It’s become very uncommon.”
“And these are the last two?” I groan, turning away from the car.
“Yes.”
“What about those other things?” I blurt out. “Where do Nasty Ones come in?”
“A religious man by chance?” he inquires, the tone of the conversation turning uncomfortably personal.
“I grew up in church,” I admit. “Been sort of busy. Haven’t been in a long time.”
“Familiar with the bible at all?”
“I guess,” frowning, “Why?”
“Methuselah,” he says. “You have heard the line “As old as Methuselah, right?”
“Sure.”
“Bible says he lived to be 969 years old,” he informs me. “It’s very specific.”
“It’s a story,” I say defensively.
“It’s the world’s greatest historical document,” he corrects me.
“Now you’re what?” I blurt out. “A Jehovah’s Witness?”
“Let me explain what I’m getting at,” he interrupts me and pauses to collect himself. “From Adam to Noah, a period ending around 3,000 BC, the average age of men in the text was 900 years. Adam 930, his son, Seth, 912, and so on and so on. Follow?”
I nod.
“When Noah enters the picture and builds the Ark, things change. From the Great Flood forward the average life expectancy drops slowly over the next thousand years to Abraham, who lived to be 175. Two centuries after Abraham, people are living about the same length of time as we are today. The far end being about 122 years. Give or take a month.”
“Fine, is there a point in here anywhere?”
“What we propose,” he says indicating this is the prevailing theory of my employers. “Is simply this, from the start, humanity were as Dorian and Beatrix are today. We lived as long as we could or until some accident befell us and we died. There was no internal clock or DNA fraying to cause old age.”
“The start being?” I inquire, trying to follow him.
“The Garden,” he tells me and pauses, seeing my confusion. “Of Eden, 4,000 BC or before. That date is hotly debated.”
“This is about the snake, the tree and an apple?” I joke, poking fun at his premise.
To this he frowns and glares at me. Moments pass in silence.
“But life expectancies have dropped off?” I offer, trying to jump start the conversation.
“After the flood,” he nods. “After the flood there seems to be two versions of humans strewn about the planet. Those from before the flood, minor immortals like Dorian, the new group.”
“Mortals,” I mutter.
“As God intended,” he nods, pausing to stare at me, indicating an important distinction. “The likes of Beatrix and Dorian were supposed to be replaced, but it seems a few survived the cleansing.”
“Cleansing?”
“The flood,” he sighs, seeming to be annoyed with my inability to follow along.
“How many?” I groan, wondering what percentage I turned in.
“Originally? There isn’t any way to
know. Around six hundred were listed on The Calling Tree.”
“That many,” I mutter, thinking my number is far less than that.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he offers, shaking his head. But we aren’t responsible for wiping them out. Over the last five years the Nasty Ones as you call them, have been cleaning house for some reason.”
“Cleaning house?” I remark. “But before that, they left the semi-immortals alone?”
“Yeah, as far as we can tell.”
“Interesting, but it doesn’t answer the original question,” I sigh, rubbing my forehead. “Where do the Nasty Ones come from?”
“Pre-history,” he suggests, taking a few steps back, glancing over his shoulder at the car. “6,000 BC or older, but again, no one really knows. We don’t have so much as a skin cell or hair follicle to test. What we do know is, prior to five years ago something changed.”
“And now the hunt is on?” I ask, recalling he mentioned the Nasty Ones were cleaning house. “They are just working down the tree?”
“Yes, this appears to be the case.”
“Why?”
“You’d have to ask them. We only know for sure about the recent incidents as any reports more than a decade old are basically reduced to myth. You’re the only person I have talked to who has actually seen one with his own eyes.”
“If only that weren’t true,” I grumble.
Blake shrugs.
“So what are we dealing with here?” I complain. “Angels?”
“Possibly,” he nods and then tilts his head to one side.
“Demons?” I utter, wanting to take it back the minute it comes out of my mouth.
“Doubtful, but if they predate the Old Testament, that argument can be made.”
“You’re crazy,” I scoff, finding myself defending the Bible now.
“Could be,” he shrugs. “Three days ago you would have laughed at all of this. Don’t assume three days from now you won’t consider almost anything.”
“Three days from now I will most likely be dead.”
“Now who’s being dramatic?” he chuckles.
“What do you believe?” I question him, hands in my pockets, kicking at a rock in the sand.