by Mark Tufo
“I’ve met men who tell me the way it is and expect me to comply,” Allyson said. “Thank you for not being one of them.”
“Does them include your father?”
“For a start. He thinks he has certain inalienable rights when it comes to my decisions. I’m trying to prove him wrong, but it’s hard to make the break.”
Peter sighed and wondered where to go from there. She would do what she wanted, and frankly, that was the kind of woman he admired and to whom he was attracted.
“Peter?”
“I think you can call me Web again,” he said. “I’ll think about seeing Isabel, but I’ll need some time.”
“Peter, you know this is amazing, right? As an investigator, I’m blown away over this. I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to. If this thing is real, it would be worth my life to document this, to be even a small part of it. Just talking about it gives me wave after wave of goosebumps and I can’t get rid of them. It’s like . . . well, like that first time you make love to someone new, someone you’re really attracted to in body and mind. Bodies touching, so erotic and intense, such electricity, you never want it to end. You know it will never be that intense again, and it’s true.”
“Some parallel,” Peter said. “Are you sure that’s a good example?”
“It’s a perfect example of the excitement I feel about this, but unlike the first time you make love to someone, I don’t think this will ever lose its intensity, Web. The implications are too much for my mind to handle, much less get used to.”
Peter listened to her and knew she was right. It wasn’t that he was taking anything lightly or that he didn’t find the whole thing mind-blowing. “I’m just cautious,” he said. “And the dreams—”
“Are hopefully just dreams, Web. Here’s a little tidbit to think about. You know how your thoughts run at a mile a minute? Bits and pieces of things enter your mind, are discarded, and you think of others?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever stop to consider that if you tried to actually speak every thought that entered your head as it happened, you’d sound insane? You’d never be able to speak that fast in the first place, but if you could, you’d make no sense.”
“Your point?”
A frustrated sigh, but her words were patient. “My point is, the mind is awfully complex and dreams don’t have much to do with anything but how tired you are and what’s been on your mind lately. I hope that remains true even with the other things going on with us. You know where to find me. Call soon, okay?”
“I’ll call you.”
Peter said good-bye, put the phone down, and lay back on his bed, his fingers intertwined behind his head on the pillow. His next call would be to his little brother. He’d been putting it off and he had to speak with him.
He would just close his eyes for a minute or two and then call. Peter sighed, and spread his arms out. Every muscle in his body relaxed, he realized he couldn’t fight the oncoming sleep. The black behind his eyelids grew deeper, and he drifted off.
Within moments, the evening of terror and night sweats began.
* * * * *
After Allyson hung up the phone in the living room of her Newport Beach apartment, the non-promise she had made to Peter echoed in her ears. While she had not made any commitments either way, she felt she owed him her safety. But her love of forensics and the excitement of discovery were too strong; she could not sit idly by while there were answers to be gotten.
She removed the picture from her purse. It was the same one she had ventured into at Emma’s home, the scene outside the church. She would go in again tonight, by herself. Already there once, it was safe enough.
Turning the baggie over, she let the photo slide onto the table in front of her, then took a deep breath. Allyson then drank deeply from a bottle of water, staring at the picture. She thought she was ready.
But was she?
Allyson put down the water bottle and picked up the photo. She barely leaned back on the couch before she felt the world of the past—her new field of discovery—spin toward her again.
CHAPTER FIVE
The sermon was beautiful, and Ellen was aware of Chris’s presence to her left during each moment of it.
Every few minutes, she would turn and smile at him, using something Father Mattingly said as an excuse. Chris always smiled back, and it seemed he had already been looking at her before she turned her head.
“I’ll be back in just a moment,” whispered Lilly. “Little girl’s room, I’m afraid.”
Ellen smiled and watched her retreat down the aisle for a moment, as did far too many of the church members. She returned her gaze to Father Mattingly so she didn’t appear rude. It really was an inspired sermon; his words spoke of balancing happiness with Godliness, family and profession.
As he spoke, Father Mattingly’s eyes met hers and for a few seconds, and it seemed the sermon had been written just for her. He spoke of kindness and understanding your fellow human beings. Suddenly his eyes grew wide with fear and he stopped speaking mid-sentence.
Oh, my! Ellen thought, feeling the entire church staring at her, just as Father Mattingly was. Was it her imagination, or was—
Ellen’s head snapped back suddenly, hitting the back of the hardwood pew with a cracking sound. A huge hand slapped her face and the next thing she knew, her hair felt as though it were being pulled straight out of her head.
Loud murmurs from all around her accompanied the pain.
Ellen’s eyes stung, but she did not need to see in order to know who it was. “I’m sorry, Father! I won’t—”
His thick, gloved hand slapped over her mouth. Silent in his rage, Ferguson Carver, wrapped her hair around his fist once and dragged her from the bench and into the aisle. Walking as though he might be late for an important meeting, her father dragged her along the floor like a sack of flour, straight down between the rows of pews, toward the exit. The other parishioners were silent and clearly flabbergasted. Ellen incoherently watched them look on in horror, feeling their eyes on her now as she cried tears of pain and embarrassment.
Her eyes fell on Chris, who stormed down the aisle after her. She wanted to scream at him, “No! Don’t try to help me, Chris!” But the words were caught in her throat, drowned in her tears and the panic in her heart.
Bright sunlight hit her face, followed by the heavy wooden door of the church as it swung back into her. As her world spun in circles, she felt herself being lifted from the dirty block walk to her feet, and then being thrown into the back seat of her father’s limousine.
Chris burst out of the church now, with Lilly at his side. Ellen could only watch them as her father shouted commands to the driver in the front seat.
“Stop! Let her go you tyrant!” Chris shouted, approaching her father.
“Chris, no!” she managed, then fought the wave of dizziness that followed the effort.
“Quiet child!” He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a pistol. Carver held it up toward Chris, pointing it directly at his head.
Ellen looked at her father, a man with no feelings. His gray hair slicked smoothly back on his head like a snake, his eyes steel blue and cold. He wore a handlebar mustache, waxed and twisted on the ends, completing the image of an evil villain. It was exactly what Ellen always believed him to be, even as a very young girl.
“Come forward,” her father said. “I’ll enjoy protecting my family. It’s a man’s right and his duty.”
Others had filed out of the church now, and Father Mattingly charged to the front and stood between Chris and Carver. “Put the gun away, Mr. Carver. This is a place of life, of God. Not of death.” He stared into his eyes for a long moment, then reached out and pushed the gun downward.
Carver pushed him away, but did not raise the weapon again. “To hell with God and all of you.”
Ellen watched as Father Mattingly walked toward the car and pulled the door open.
She looked out at him, feeling how red and pu
ffy her face must be. She turned her eyes down. “I’m all right, Father. Better to leave me.”
“Take care, child,” he whispered, then closed the door. “Time to leave, Mr. Carver. You’ve got what you came for, and I’ll ask that you have mercy on her—”
“You’ll ask nothing of me! You’ll not involve yourself where my daughter is concerned!” He spat on the ground and Father Mattingly stepped back to avoid it. “Tend to your flock of idiots and do not include my daughter among them!”
He turned his attention back toward Chris, jerked the gun up toward his face again. “I won’t waste words or bullets on you. Not now, anyway. Lilly, I'll want to speak to you about this.”
“Gladly,” she said.
Chris stood motionless, his eyes cautious, but not afraid. Tears flowed from Ellen’s eyes. He was a good, brave man, so different from her father.
She whispered the words, as though Chris might hear them if he listened hard enough. “If you knew my father you would be afraid, Chris. If you only knew him.”
Ellen’s father and Chris stared one another down for another half-minute before her father tucked the gun away and turned back toward the car. He pulled open the car door and slid into the seat beside Ellen. She crouched in the corner, moving as far from him as possible as he slammed the limousine door.
“Driver! Put up the divider and take us home! Quickly!”
For Ellen, only silence. Ellen touched her tender scalp and her father slapped her hand away. No sound from his lips. He loved the torture of a wordless beating.
The driver reached behind him and the black divider between the front and back slid into place. As it grew dark in the back seat, Ellen awaited the first impact of her father’s fists.
She did not have to wait long. After three blows, darkness consumed her.
* * * * *
The shrill, electronic ring startled him awake after only his first two hours of decent sleep in a week. Peter rubbed his eyes as he felt for the phone on the nightstand. The clock beside his bed glowed 5:30 in the morning. “Who the hell is this?”
The woman’s voice on the other end of the phone was unfamiliar and nervous. “My name’s Kathleen Sanders, but I’m calling because Emma asked me to. Is this Peter Webster?”
“Yes, what is it?” His nerves tensed.
“It’s Allyson Newland.” She hesitated. “She’s here. At the hospital. I’m supposed to tell you to get here now.”
Peter sat upright. He was suddenly wide awake, his heart rate accelerating, almost pounding visibly in his chest. He put his hand over it and tried for a deep breath that wouldn’t come. “Is she okay? Where’s Em?”
“She told me not to tell you too much—”
“Where the hell is Em?”
“Emma is trying to save her life, Mr. Webster. You should leave now.” She hung up.
Peter, his mind twisting in circles, listened to the dial tone for a split second before dropping the receiver. He sprung from his bed and struggled his way into yesterday’s jeans. He grabbed a clean tee shirt from the drawer, and threw on a cap.
Ally did something with the pictures.
Peter grabbed his keys from the kitchen counter and tore toward the door.
Something went wrong.
The words came to him without warning. He should have been there to protect her. He slammed the door behind him, not bothering to take the time to lock it.
Emma is trying to save her life. Save her life!
Peter thought of his dream and shuddered, feeling clammy and cold. Allyson cut and bleeding. Blaming him. Allyson dying. “No!” he shouted aloud, pressing the accelerator to the floor. “It’s not happening!” he screamed.
But it was happening. How it was happening he didn’t know, but it goddamned sure was happening, and his nightmare was making its way from his mind to reality.
Ten minutes later he pulled into South Coast Medical Center’s parking lot and practically slid the car into a handicapped space. He sprinted toward the trauma center entrance and paused while the slow, automatic doors slid open.
“Allyson Newland!” Peter shouted as he squeezed through the partially opened doors and ran inside. “Where?” His eyes pleaded as he looked at the two female attendants at the desk, then searched the halls to the left and right. No signs of Emma.
The older of the attending nurses stood, glancing at the other, younger one. Neither spoke or moved toward him. The younger woman nodded and picked up the phone. Peter realized they were alarmed at his demeanor, and tried to calm himself. He took two deep breaths, his desperate expression still begging for someone to point where he needed to go. “I’m okay,” he said, his hands up in a calming gesture. “I’m Peter Webster . . . a friend of Emma’s. She called me about a good friend of ours who’s been hurt. Please, please, just tell me which room Allyson Newland is in.”
Soft footsteps came from Peter’s left, followed by the appearance of an older woman with short-cropped gray hair wearing a white nameplate on her smock that read ‘I. Basulto.’
“It’s okay,” she assured the nurses. “Follow me, Mr. Webster.”
He did. She walked with short, quick steps down one hall, turned right, and into another long, stark passage. At the very end, she turned left into a room filled with equipment, each machine making its own sound, hissing, beeping, and tending to the life of Allyson Newland.
* * * * * *
The bleary-eyed driver ran down the checklist with the usual disregard, flipping switches, listening to—rather than visually verifying—hydraulic functions like doors, brakes, and other items. Everything sounded all right, anyway.
Matthew Webster’s head pounded. He lowered his sunglasses and checked his eyes in the mirror. The blue irises twitched inside blood red whites. His sandy brown hair had parted itself in the middle, falling to each side like cascading water from a moving tire tread, something it always did when he got up too late to plaster it down with hair spray. His skin was the typical pasty white of most of his friends, people who preferred the dark interior of a bar to the bright days of Southern California.
Though his head throbbed, it wasn’t like some other mornings—this was comparatively mild. He’d made his way home from The Earthquake Bar in Laguna Niguel last night by way of highway braille, letting the raised lane dividers tell him when to adjust left or right. The rest was easy. He could find his way home on autopilot.
“Mornin’ Mr. Webster,” Ron Carlson said, banging on the side of Matt’s bus with a noisy disregard for his headache. “Up bright and early, I see.” Carlson, a wafer-thin man with a gray flat-top, a perpetual khaki jumpsuit, and a never-ending pack of Camel Filters, was the head maintenance mechanic. His job was to keep the buses road worthy, and he did a pretty good job. If they reported anything wrong with a bus, it was removed from service and fixed, usually within a day. Matt’s superiors liked to remind him that the quality repair the buses received was in large part due to the checklist he was currently skipping over.
“Running a little late, but I’ll make my route okay,” Matt said. He glanced around the parking lot. Most of the other drivers had already gone to fuel up and head out, but the majority of them were women who just liked to shoot the shit over a cup of coffee and talk about their pain-in-the-ass kids. He didn’t have any of those problems. Free as a bird and happy to say it.
Ron walked on, waving behind him as he lit another Camel. Matt fired up the diesel engine and let it knock and ping its way to a smooth idle. He wouldn’t need to fill the tank this morning. Matt learned long ago that the smell of raw diesel fuel made him sick when he was hung over. He’d made it a practice to fill up in the afternoons when his shift ended. That way he avoided the sickening, dizzy feeling that came with the fumes.
After a few minutes, he put it in gear and pulled the Bluebird out of the parking lot and off to his first stop. He leaned against the horn to make sure it functioned, having passed by that one on the checklist. Just a quick test.
It blared
. So did his head.
Destined for the throngs of screaming children, Matthew Webster plugged two fresh, new pieces of cotton in his ears and merged into the always heavy traffic of El Toro Road.
* * * * *
“She’s scheduled to have an EEG and an MRI later today.”
“Jesus, Em, what the hell happened to her?”
“She took the picture home with her, Web. The one the two of us went into.”
“How do you know?”
Emma reached into her purse and withdrew the plastic-encased photo. She was holding this when they found her.”
“Shit! I told you both it’s not safe!”
Emma looked down. “It’s not safe alone, Web. She must have thought it was okay because it was such a serene picture when we went in before. Church, friendly people. What could go wrong?”
“I want to find out what did go wrong.”
“You can ask her yourself, or . . . .” She held out the picture.
Peter looked into Emma’s eyes. “You’re joking, right?”
“You don’t have to do it now. I can be there with you. You should want to go in anyway, even if she tells you what happened. We all need to analyze every viewpoint of what occurs in these past lives. You’ll have different thoughts than me or Ally. Perhaps you’ll see something I didn’t.”
“Throw the damned pictures out, Emma!”
Emma stepped forward and put her arms around Peter. He resisted for a moment, then allowed his muscles to relax and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. “I think I already love her, Em.”
“I knew that already. She’ll be okay, Web. I was very worried, but she's already fully coherent and begging to be released. I want the tests because she’s a friend and I want to make sure, extra sure that she’s fine. You go in and see her, and I’ll come around in a bit.”
Peter walked into the room and watched Allyson in the bed, eyes closed, machines breaking the silence with electronic verification that there was indeed a living person lying there. Before he spoke, her eyes opened.