by Jack Castle
Any minute Hank expected Fonzi from Happy Days to come strolling out of the kitchen double-doors in his leather jacket and say, “Aaaaaaa…,” with two thumbs hooked in the air.
“Hi folks, can I get you something?” came a light and cheery voice.
Hank lifted his heavy gaze from the jukebox and saw Simon standing behind the counter. He was cleaned up, wearing a 50’s white soda jerk costume, complete with white paper fry hat. At the moment he was furiously shining up the counter with a rag. The countertop was so shiny Hank was certain he’d be able to see his reflection in it.
“What the hell?” Jeb asked, as he entered behind Hank. Jeb and Emma appeared equally shocked by the décor as he was. Emma ran to the windows, which caused Hank to check the outside too. They were still in HavenPort; they could see the harbor below, and the ruined town around them.
“Why don’t you folks come on in and have a seat?” Simon said cheerfully, like nothing had happened; like Doc’s mutilated corpse wasn’t laying back at the harbor parking lot, like Odessa’s severed head hadn’t been mounted on a broomstick, like he hadn’t tried to kill them at every opportunity.
But Hank was exhausted. He was beaten, his ribs hurt like hell, and he’d never fully recovered from the fall. Holding the gun anywhere other than by his side wasn’t even an option. He was so tired.
Defeated, he shook his head in disgust. They couldn’t get out the tunnel, it was collapsed. They couldn’t get out the harbor, all the boats were cracked, and the solitary plane at the airport was obviously a trap. With nothing else to try, he shuffled over to the counter and plopped down on one of the stools.
Simon put his elbow on the counter opposite Hank and dropped his chin into his hand. His voice was gentle and condescending when he said, “Hi, Hank.”
Hank hung his head low, and answered with a simple, “Hi, Simon.”
“Cup of coffee?” Simon asked sweetly.
“Sure,” Hank answered back, the exhaustion in his voice.
“Cream?”
“Black,” Hank replied.
“Pie, maybe?” he offered.
“Yeah, okay, Simon.”
“It’s pumpkin, right?”
Hank exploded from his stool, grabbed Simon by his shirt and dragged him across the counter.
“You murdered my friends,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Golly gee sir, I can’t say I know what you’re talking about, but, but,” he said stuttering, “we-we, just got a brand new flavor in”, he switched his gaze to Emma and said evenly, “salmon shark delight, it’s to die for. Isn’t that right, Emma?”
Tears streamed down Emma’s cheeks. “I’m not afraid of you.” As Hank held him by the collar, she raised her face at him in defiance. “I just want to know one thing, Simon. Are we dead?”
“Yes,” Simon answered.
“Where are we?” Emma asked, fighting sobs.
“You said only one question.” Simon replied. Seeing she wasn’t going to play his little game he added, “Awww, sweety, you haven’t figured that out yet?”
Emma shook her head.
“Even after Horatio showed you the totem pole, and everything?” he asked, feigning shock.
“Purgatory?” she asked meekly.
Simon smiled softly, “Just prisoners here.”
The music raised again and Simon spoke over the lyrics, “Oh, this is my favorite part, here.” He hummed along until the last line and then he sang, “You can check out any time you like, but you can never ever leave.”
As the guitar riff played on, Simon flashed his eyes back to Hank. “You really ought to let me go, Hank. My friends won’t like it.”
Hank quickly surveyed the room; there was no one else in the room. “What friends are those Simon?”
The lights dimmed to complete darkness, for only one single second. When they came back on the room was filled wall to wall with Unfortunates. A loud THHWANGGG, and Jeb’s body crumpled to the floor, a four inch gash on his head. Bob the fry cook, holding a heavy cast iron frying pan, stood over Jeb’s lifeless body.
“Jeb!” Hank dropped Simon and took two half steps towards the old sheriff before Emma’s cry of surprise drew him up short.
Emma, who was barely holding together cried, “Ophy!.” She was so happy to see a familiar face, but as she moved closer, she realized Ophelia had the same black soulless salmon shark eyes as the others.
The Unfortunate who wore Ophelia like a second skin rolled her head at Emma and flashed her a sickly sweet smile. Oversized Frankenstein stitches circled her neckline.
Emma took a step backwards and noticed other townsfolk were there too; Bob the fry cook, Ophelia, and even Horatio, all with the same eyes and zipper-scarred faces.
Emma felt a hand on her shoulder as Hank yanked her behind him, backing them up along the bar.
Simon got up off the floor, brushing himself off, “Geez, Hank. Scare a guy why don’t ya? Ya trying to break my arm?”
Simon and his small horde of Unfortunates, pressed in on them until they’d backed them up all the way into the main dining area by the big windows overlooking the bay.
Keeping her behind him, Hank raised his gun and pointed it at Simon’s face.
Simon, if anything, appeared amused, and said calmly, “Hank, you’ve only got two bullets. One … two. We’ve got you outnumbered by…” Simon gazed around and then used his finger and started counting heads. Frustrated when he lost count he asked the Unfortunate standing silently beside him, “Hey, Horatio, how many people do you think we’ve got on our side.”
The Unfortunate who was once Horatio, and still missing his mouth and nose, merely stared straight ahead, unresponsive.
Simon sighed, and shook his head and said to himself, “Not exactly the conversationalist.” Tapping his finger with his chin he wondered aloud, “Now where was I?” His face brightened, “Oh, that’s right,” changing his voice to fit the dramatic mood, he said in a deep voice, “Now, Hank, we’ve got ya outnumbered fifty to one.” His voice changed back to its original countenance once more, “Did you like that? Did you like the way I lowered my voice like that?”
Hank was too tired for games. Without anymore hesitation he squeezed the trigger and shot him two times in the chest.
The gunshots jerked Simon back for an instant. The Unfortunates behind him stopped their forward advance.
Simon stood back up. Brushing the bullet holes off him like they were bread crumbs. “Ouch. You know, Hank, that might’ve worked when we first met, but,” he moved his eyes over to Emma, “your friend, the scarecrow man? He taught me a few things before he died a most horrible and gruesome death.” Simon shivered uncontrollably at the thought of it. Hank suspected his revulsion an act. “Anyway, I’m a god now, so you probably should be nice to me.” He hooked his thumb back behind him to the crowd of Unfortunates and added, “That is of course, unless you’d prefer to end up like them.”
There was nowhere to run. Hank flipped his empty gun around in his hand and held it like a club. He’d go down fighting right to the end.
Behind him, Emma’s gaze lingered over Jeb’s seemingly lifeless body. She knew they wouldn’t be far behind.
When she lifted her tired gaze, she spotted the large windows on the back wall overlooking the bay and could see boiling storm clouds rolling over choppy water. The clouds thickened, darkening the entire town.
Then, CLANG-CLANG-CLANG! The loud noise echoed through the diner without source.
Emma and Hank flinched. Simon gripped his head in pain, “Owww. What is that infernal noise!”
Simon doubled over, stumbling around in pain; the Unfortunates seemed frozen solid in his distraction.
A television flashed on overhead. The static cleared for a moment and Emma saw a woman with horn-rimmed glasses wearing a white lab coat. She gazed through the television
as though she were peering into the room through a periscope. When she saw Emma and Hank staring back, she raised a finger to her lips shushing them.
The clanging noise died out, its ringing still echoing off the walls.
A moment of stillness and heavy breathing, and then the storm clouds unleashed their fury and hailstones began pelting the diner. It sounded like someone was throwing rocks against the windows. Dust fell loose from the ceiling fans as the roof rattled under the onslaught.
Hank saw fear in Simon’s eyes and he asked him, “You’re not doing this, are you?”
In answer Simon flinched when the building shook and moaned in the grip of battering winds. Windows suddenly popped out in the front entrance.
Jeb groaned, and Hank and Emma helped him to his feet. When Jeb became fully aware of his surroundings, the Unfortunates looming over them, he broke from their grasp in a panic and bolted for the door. The door handle wouldn’t budge. Jeb gave it another yank, but instead of opening, the whole wall tore outwards and was swallowed by the storm.
“Jeb!” Hank shouted, but it was too late, the old sheriff was sucked out through the gaping hole like a torpedo. Emma screamed and Hank dragged her into a crouch as the pressure tugged at them.
One by one the Unfortunates were suctioned from their spots and into the swirling winds.
Hank stared out the open wall. It was pitch-black outside, he couldn’t see a blasted thing. He heard a rumble, like an oncoming freight train, joined by multiple flashes of thick lightning. In those brief flashes of light he watched as the wind lifted their white SUV and tossed it almost the length of Main Street, and then, as though the car had realized it had left without them, it hung in the air and then bore back down on the diner.
“Get down!” Hank screamed. He dove on Emma and drove her to the ground as the flying SUV crashed over them and took the roof of the diner with it.
Still holding Emma, Hank clutched the counter’s golden railing. Debris flew around the room, slicing into Hank’s back as he shielded Emma’s body with his own. Emma clung to his arm, holding on for her life as the building began crumbling away around them. She knew if she didn’t hold on to him, she’d go away with the storm like Jeb did. Shards of sheetrock razored across Hank’s face and wallboard and parts of the ceiling bounced off his shoulders. The pressure of the storm pushed down on their bodies, relentless in its power.
Simon had latched on to the railing beside them, hanging on beside Hank. “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home,” he chanted wildly at the top of his lungs. He moved closer to Hank and tried to pry Hank’s fingers from the railing.
“Are you crazy?” Hank yelled back, but he already knew that answer.
Simon stopped for a moment, stared at him directly in the eye and said, “C’mon, Hank. Let’s go together. It will be fun!” Then with that same ludicrous grin and wild-eyed stare, he abruptly let go of the railing, shot his arms straight out from his body and was sucked outside into the maelstrom.
“Top of the world, Ma!” he cried as he went.
The diner walls began to disintegrate around them. Hank and Emma heard the splintering of wood and popping of metal as everything but the floor disappeared. Hank glimpsed the mile wide funnel cloud as it raked overhead.
Both he and Emma’s legs lifted from the floor.
“Hank, I can’t hang on!”
Emma’s fingers slipped from the railing.
“I’ve got you,” Hank said, holding her with one hand, while the other held onto the railing with Herculean effort. If only he could hold on for a few seconds longer. If only…
Hank yelled, willing strength into his grip, but in the end it wasn’t enough. It was never, ever enough.
Chapter 33
Welcome to Mt. Olympus
Time moved slowly, like ketchup pouring from a brand new bottle.
Hank McCarthy felt a strange bed beneath him. He tried forcing his eyes open, but his lids were far too heavy. He convulsed on the sheets as feeling returned to his limbs. With sheer willpower, he pried open his eyes.
“Hank, where are you?” his dead wife pleaded. “Please don’t leave me.”
His wife Sara melted away and was replaced with a familiar pain, in his temples.
The sound of whirring motors filled his ears.
Hank couldn’t see the needles retracting from either side of his temples but he sure felt them.
“Hank. Wake up.”
“Where am I?” he asked groggily, unsure if he wanted to know the answer.
“You’re on Mt. Olympus.”
Bleary eyed, he could see an angelic face hovering over him. He had thought it would have been called Heaven but judging by the angel’s last statement, it seemed the Greeks had it right after all.
His vision finally cleared. The woman who hovered over him, although attractive, was far from a goddess.
She smiled down at him. “Hank, I’m Doctor Paula Burnett. Welcome back to the real world.”
“I saw you in a dream,” Hank said, his mouth swollen, temples throbbing, “You were on the train platform, just outside the town of HavenPort.”
Her tone clinical, she answered, “That was no dream, Hank.”
Struggling to order the questions framing in his mind, he took in the room around him; a modern looking hospital room. A technician who resembled Horatio, only far less attractive than the one he had known in HavenPort, was standing beside Dr. Burnett. In addition to being nerdier, and less fit, his body language seemed anxious about something. “He’s been under for so long I doubt he’ll be able to move.”
Dr. Burnett turned her head over her shoulder and talked to Horatio as though Hank wasn’t even there, “These hibernation beds are the new 112’s, designed for long term coma patients and deep space flight. Besides keeping blood flowing, they exercise the muscle tissue to keep them from atrophying. He could be asleep in one for a year and still get up and walk out of here like he’d only been asleep eight hours.”
Hank’s body trembled uncontrollably. His mind was sluggish. He thought he heard them say something about people hibernating? Tired of being ignored he said, “I’m freezing.”
Burnett didn’t waver. “Don’t worry, your core body temperature will return momentarily.”
“I feel like crap.”
Horatio scoffed. “You’re lucky; the original procedure required cutting off the top of the skull and attaching dime-sized electrodes to the brain.”
Well, that sounds unpleasant.
Burnett must’ve seen his discomfort for she explained further, “Don’t let him scare you, Mr. McCarthy. We haven’t used that prototype for years. The Halo nets are much less invasive.”
Rubbing his temples he asked, “Then what were those needles?”
“Delivery system,” this from Horatio. “We insert nanobots into your blood stream that are able to stimulate all cordial functions.”
“I don’t understand, where am I?”
“You’re on Mt. Olympus,” Dr. Burnett answered and attempted a warm smile; a cyborg probably would’ve had more success.
“Where?” he asked.
Dr. Burnett’s tone sounded as though she had better things to do, but she explained to him anyway. “You were part of a trillion-dollar experimental program. Inserted into a computer generated artificial society where your mind was in a controlled and carefully monitored dreamlike state while your body was kept alive here, in cryonic suspension.”
“Why,” he groped for the words, “Why would you people do this?”
“It’s a rehabilitation process for the criminally insane,” Paula answered.
Hank scoffed. “I am not criminally insane. I am a cop for Pete’s sake.”
Horatio made a face. “Hank, you went on a shooting rampage in Wyoming and murdered five people. I think you qualify.”
Surprisingly, it was the cold and collected Dr. Burnett who came to his aid and retorted, “After Russian mobsters and members of a corrupt sheriff’s department murdered his family.”
So that part was real; my family really is dead. And I shot those responsible. But that still doesn’t explain how I got here.
Hank’s memory of what happened in the simulated reality of HavenPort came flooding back to him. “Emma, Jeb, the doc, are they okay? Were they even real?”
“I’m just fine, Hank. Thanks for asking.”
Hank lifted his gaze as Doc Clemens walked into the room. Unlike Horatio, who had appeared more like a supermodel in the artificial environment, the doc pretty much resembled his old, coffee-talk-buddy self.
“And yes, I’m real,” he picked up a chart at the foot of Hank’s bed and examined it. Satisfied with the results he handed it to Horatio who clipped it back to the bed for him. “Although many of the inhabitants you met in HavenPort were virtual people, others were patients like yourself, like Emma, Jeb, and Odessa. Additionally, clinical psychologists, like Dr. Paula Burnett here, and Horatio, were also inserted into the Grid to offer you guidance, when needed.”
The doc moved over to stand next to his bed and said, “But please remember that, while inside the grid, you were allowed to make your own choices.”
“I still don’t understand,” Hank rasped, thrown by the doc’s explanation.