Forever Man

by Brian Matthews

  “Why is it always a game with you?” snapped Jack. “Just tell me where you are and—“

  “Don’t talk to me about games,” J.J. yelled back. “You’re the one playing the games. ‘Kevin’s the only one who matters. Fuck the rest of them’. What kind of game is that?”

  Jack bit the inside of his cheek. “I see. And just how long were you listening in on that conversation?”

  “Long enough.”

  Jack closed his eyes. What a pain in the ass this kid was turning out to be. God, he hated making nice, but if he was going to get Kevin back…. “Look, I’m sorry about that. Not one of my better moments. Forget I said it.” He opened his eyes. “I do love you. You’re my son, after all.”

  With tears in his voice, J.J. asked, “Was that so hard to say?”

  “Let me come get you. Then we can talk.”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll meet you back at the house—”

  “No,” Jack interjected. “I don’t want to draw any attention to our home.” At least, no more than there already was.

  “Okay, where?”

  Jack thought for a moment. “My office?”

  “Sorry, no one gets home field advantage. Pick a neutral spot.”

  “There are no neutral spots in town. I don’t know why—” Jack stopped. Old age was getting to him. The answer was simple. “How about somewhere away from town? There’s a place about ten miles east of here, down 28 on the north side. The Hiawatha Trails Motel. I’ll meet you in the parking lot. And don’t forget your brother.”

  “Fine, give me an hour or two.”

  “Why so long?”

  “Because I said so,” his son replied, then hung up before Jack could get another word in.

  From his chair, Webber said, “So your boys were together the whole time.”

  “Yeah,” said Jack. “Looks like we’ll get Kevin, and we’ve eliminated Izzy Morris.” He smiled at Webber. “Not bad.”

  Webber twirled a finger in the air. “Whoop-de-fucking-doo.”

  After hanging up on his father, J.J. checked through his cell’s directory, then hit the call button. When Katie’s best friend, Brittany Parsons, answered, he said, “Hey, it’s me. I’m sorry to call so early, but I need a favor and I can’t find Katie. Can you come over to her house and watch my brother for me? It’s kind of an emergency. I shouldn’t be more than a few hours. You can? Thanks. I appreciate it. See you in a few.”

  He tucked his cell phone into his back pocket and turned to Kevin. His brother sat there, seemingly oblivious to everything around him.

  “Man,” J.J. said. “I hope you’re worth it.”

  Chapter 22

  Izzy woke to the sound of her office door opening. She blinked, and then noticed Gene perched in a chair across from her, fast asleep.

  “Gene,” she whispered, and his eyes snapped open.

  The door finished swinging open, and Katie stepped into the office. Her pale face was wet with tears, and her clothes were rumpled. She held a wad of tissues in her fist.

  “Katie,” Izzy said, yawning. “What time—?” She glanced at her desk clock. “Oh, honey. You didn’t have to stay in there all night by yourself.”

  “It’s okay,” replied Katie. “It was…different.”

  Gene sat up, wincing from the abrupt movement. “We were waiting for you. Figured you would come get us after, well, you know….” He rubbed at his eyes. “Figured we’d continue the search for Jack, but we ended up falling asleep sometime after midnight.”

  “I have to call the coroner again,” said Izzy, dropping her head in her hands. It would be another delay. More time spent not looking for her daughter.

  “You might want to hold off on that,” Katie said. “There’s something you want to see first.”

  Izzy and Gene exchanged puzzled glances.

  “Just follow me,” Katie added mysteriously and left the room, leaving the other two with no choice but to follow.

  In the resource room, they found Bart Owens's body lying amid pieces of the shattered door, the broken remains of the filing cabinet, and the long conference table, which now leaned against the wall like an upended coffin. Under the glow of fluorescent light, Katie sat down cross-legged beside his body.

  “They’re here,” she said.

  Izzy was about to ask Katie who she was talking to when Owens spoke.

  “Thank you,” he said weakly. Then he added, “Could you two come over here? I don’t want to hurt my neck twisting it.”

  Gene’s jaw dropped open. “No fucking way.”

  Izzy ran over to the old man. No one could’ve survived the wounds he’d sustained. The blood loss alone was fatal. Yet his eyes shone with a clarity that told her he might still live.

  “Katie,” Izzy said harshly. “You should’ve said something. Gene, we’re going to need that ambulance.”

  Owens lifted a hand in the air, stopping her. “I’ll be all right. That woman. Aggie? How is she?”

  Izzy paused for a moment, wondering if she should get an ambulance anyway. Owens looked strong, remarkably strong. But still, he would need—

  “The woman,” the old man repeated. “Is she all right?”

  “Her husband came for her,” Izzy replied, and thought of Aggie’s near catatonic state. “He took her to the hospital.”

  Owens pulled air in through his nose, his wide nostrils flaring. “What have you told your officers?”

  “Not a whole lot yet,” said Izzy. “We were lucky this happened during the night shift. But keeping ‘the current event’ under wraps is going to get harder. I need to come up with a good explanation for all this.”

  “Hopefully we’ll be done soon and I’ll be gone.” Owens took another deep breath. “Gene, do you need an engraved invitation?”

  “Right. Sorry.” Gene crossed the room. Careful not to aggravate his injured back, he eased himself down across from Katie. He looked at Owens with a mixture of awe and relief. “You should be dead, you know.”

  Owens managed a smile. “Good to see you, too.”

  “Don’t turn this into a joke,” Izzy snapped. “It’s not funny. We were attacked.” She pointed to Owens. “And Gene’s right. You should be dead. Those wounds—” She gripped the blanket covering the man and yanked it down around his waist. When she lifted the shreds of his Predators sweatshirt, she received another shock.

  Owens's wounds, the deep lacerations that had torn his flesh apart, were knitted shut. All that remained of his injuries were pink-brown lines of healing skin and blotches of dried blood.

  “Oh, man,” breathed Gene. “You sure the FBI doesn’t have an X-Files division.”

  Dropping the blood-soaked cloth, Izzy’s voice shook as she said, “You’re healed. That’s impossible. No one can do that. ”

  Katie brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I don’t know how he did it. It just—happened.”

  Owens asked, “Could someone find me some food and water, please? The more the better. This kind of thing always wears me out.”

  Katie got up and left the room. Gene’s eyes were looking a little wild as he stared at Owens.

  Izzy’s mind was spinning with questions. “Who—no, what are you?”

  “I’m a living, breathing person. Same as you.”

  “Hardly. I can’t heal myself the way you did.”

  A hint of bitterness crept into Owens's voice. “It’s not something you’d want.”

  That gave Izzy pause. “Most people would consider it a miracle.”

  “Most people haven’t had to be me,” Owens replied.

  Katie returned with an arm full of snacks and several bottles of water. She set them down next to Owens. He thanked her, opened one of the bottles, and drank until it was empty. He ripped open a bag of cookies. Fig Newtons began disappearing into his mouth, one after another.

  Between bites, Owens said, “I don’t know what to tell you about the healing. I’ve been able to do it for as long as I can remember.”

  “Yo
u mean you were born with it?” Izzy asked.

  “Well, I can’t remember quite that far back,” Owens said. “But yes, that would be a fair assessment.”

  “Then why hasn’t anyone ever heard of you? I mean, you’re a medical miracle. Entire text books would have been written about you.”

  “Yeah,” added Gene, grinning. “You should’ve at least made the cover of the Enquirer.”

  “I’d rather avoid that kind of exposure,” said Owens, opening another water and taking a long drink.

  Izzy wanted to pin him down, try to force a better answer from him, but another thought had occurred to her. One that left her feeling cold. “This healing, does it only work when you’re hurt?”

  Owens's hand stopped midway to his mouth. Izzy thought she saw a hint of caution in his blue eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” Izzy said, “does it cure colds? Stop heart disease? Beat cancer? Prevent aging?”

  There was a moment when no one moved. Then, sighing, Owens plopped the Fig Newton into his mouth. He chewed slowly, deliberately, like a man in need of time. After washing the cookie down with more water, he said, “I see where you’re going with this. The man heals fast. Amazingly fast. So you have to run it to extremes. Now you think I don’t get sick. Or age.” He shook his head. “That’s why I don’t like involving others in my work. Too much rampant speculation.”

  “Not amazingly fast,” Izzy countered. “Impossibly fast. And it’s more than speculation. You told me you were older than you looked. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with this healing.”

  Owens shrugged. “Believe what you will.”

  “The creature,” Gene cut in. All eyes turned to him. “It’s more than the healing. It’s the creature, too. You’d said something, like you’d recognized it.”

  Owens regarded them for a moment, his expression shifting from cautious to concerned—maybe even a little irritated—all within the span of a heartbeat. Izzy suddenly realized they could be playing a dangerous game. Bart Owens was a man with no known past. No means of identification. A man who can heal himself and apparently has run-ins with monsters. If he were provoked enough, what else might he be capable of?

  “You don’t understand,” Owens said. His words were clipped. “I’m trying to keep you alive. It’s been a priority of mine since I arrived. These questions…all you’re doing is running toward the danger. Why can’t we focus on finding the missing kids? After that, I’ll be on my way. And you three can go on living long and happy lives.”

  Izzy picked up a piece of broken door and brandished it like a contradiction. “How much closer to the danger can we get? We’re not like you. If that thing had gotten to us, we’d be dead now.”

  “Yes, I know. But—”

  Katie piped in. “A thick metal door didn’t stop that thing. Mrs. Morris’s gun didn’t stop it either. But you did. Without a weapon or anything, you beat it. You hurt it. We all heard it screaming. And if it hadn’t managed to get away, I think you might have killed it—killed it by doing nothing more than grabbing it.” She left the obvious question unspoken, hanging in the air like a pall.

  Owens lowered his eyes. Working his way into a sitting position, he opened his third water bottle and took a drink. He started fingering the folds of the blanket.

  “I see you’re not going to let this go.” He kept his eyes downcast. “After what you’ve been through, I suppose I wouldn’t, either. But what you’re asking of me….” He finally raised his head. Izzy thought the color of his eyes had darkened; they now resembled the hard blue of a glacier. The bold lines of his face seemed to accentuate the starkness of his gaze.

  “There are struggles going on around us,” Owens continued. “Wars. Acts of terrorism. You see them every day on the news. But there’s another battle being fought. One you don’t see.” He tore the top off a bag of chips and dug in. “I’m on one side of that fight. Darryl Webber’s on the other.”

  “So we’re back to the CIA theory?” said Izzy. “Black ops stuff. Spy versus spy.”

  Owens shook his head. “No, no governments. Nothing like that. But it’s a war nonetheless. One I’ve been fighting for a long time.”

  Izzy heard an odd inflection in Owens’s voice. Gene must have caught it too, because he asked, “How long?”

  “Long enough that I’ve met some interesting people in my day.” Owens hesitated, using the opportunity to stuff more chips into his mouth. When he was done chewing, he said, “The Beatles were nice, the one time I’d met them. What a jam session that was. George played guitar a lot better than people gave him credit for.” Another handful of chips, this time followed by a mouthful of water. “The Second World War was rough. I was a tank commander back then.”

  Katie frowned. “But that was—what?—seventy years ago? You’d have to be over ninety by now.”

  Owens nodded. “If the Second World War was rough, the first one was ten times worse. That time I was a medic. When you’re out there in the trenches, patching up people in the mud and the blood, there’s no separation from the violence. No emotional distance, like the kind you get from sitting in a tank. The destruction’s right here.” He held his hand up, inches from his face. “Right in front of you.” He lowered his hand. “I’ve lost a lot of friends over the years.”

  Nobody spoke for a moment, and then Gene started singing, “Da da da dum, da da da dum. Daaa—da da da dum!”

  “You may not be that far off,” she said, recognizing the theme from the Twilight Zone. “If he’s not making this up, he’s over a hundred years old.” She rubbed at her temples. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  Then Katie said, “I think it’s amazing.”

  The words drew Izzy’s attention. “What do you mean?”

  “Look at him,” Katie said, her voice full of wonder. “Look at what he’s done. He has to be part of something big—bigger than us. I guess it kind of gives me hope.” She looked away, as if she were embarrassed by her words. “Hope that there’s something more to this world than misery.”

  Owens's gaze lingered on Katie for a moment. He opened his mouth, and Izzy thought he was going to say something to the girl. But he must have thought better of it. With a brief shake of his head, he returned his attention to Izzy.

  “Let’s not forget why we’re here. We need to find Kevin. If Webber gets to the boy first, they’ll disappear. We’ll never see Kevin, or your daughter, again.”

  Izzy’s stomach cramped at the mention of Natalie. How many hours had passed since she’d seen her daughter’s photos? She grated at the delay, but there was still more she needed to understand before she could decide how to save her daughter.

  “You say Webber’s behind this,” Izzy said. “That he’s on the other side of this war you’re fighting. Is he like you, then? Did he have something to do with the creature that attacked us?”

  Owens nodded. “He sent it. He must have. Remember what I said about his temper? Well, you just saw how bad it can be.” He began twisting the water bottle in his hands. “And, no. He’s not ‘like me.’ But he’s still a very dangerous man. I wouldn’t underestimate him.”

  “Didn’t you say you gave him the scar on his jaw?” asked Gene.

  “Twice he’s set traps for me,” Owens said. “Twice he’s failed. That scar was from our last meeting.”

  “And the creature?” Gene continued.

  Owens blew air out his pursed lips. “Yes, the creature. Let’s just say that Webber has access to certain—oh, call them allies—that he uses to fight for him. What attacked us was one of them. I’d never seen that particular one before.”

  “Come on,” Gene persisted. “You can do better than that.”

  “Fine. You’ll never see one on Animal Planet.”

  “Yeah, we got that already.” Gene leaned forward. “Where did it come from?”

  Owens ran a hand over the top of his head. The conflict within him could be seen in the set of his jaw, the tightness aroun
d his eyes. He went for another drink, but set the water bottle down before it reached his mouth. When he finally spoke, his voice was apologetic but firm. “Sorry, Gene. We’re running out of time. And explaining that would take too long.”

  “But—”

  “You want to risk those two kids’ lives just to satisfy your curiosity? I’ve told you enough already. More than I should have.” Owens slowly got to his feet. “We need to get moving.”

  “He’s right on that point,” Izzy said. “We’ve wasted too much time already. But there’s one more thing I’m going to insist on knowing.” She gave Owens a level look. “I want to know how you stopped that creature. I didn’t see you doing any kind of damage, but still you drove it away. So, if I’m going to rely on you in a fight, I need to know what it is you can do.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Owens said, shaking his head. “If explaining the creature would take a while, explaining that would take a lot longer.”

  “Then you’d better start,” Izzy said firmly.

  “Seriously, I’d rather not—”

  “And I’d rather not have had my daughter taken from me, or be attacked by a monster, or argue with a man older than my great-grandfather.” With the shock of Owens’s revelations wearing off, his evasiveness was getting to her—again. “I’ve been patient with you, but if Natalie’s still alive, then Webber isn’t going to let me simply walk in and take her. You have a way to help me. I need to know what that is.”

  “Don’t go there,” Owens said softly. “Please.”

  “Enough with the mystery man bullshit.” Izzy voice cut through the air. “This could mean my daughter’s life. Now tell me!”

  Owens actually flinched. At his sides, his hands worked, opening and closing like a man groping for a reason to stay in control. Then his expression grew hard, even defiant.

  “No,” he said flatly.

  ‘What?” Izzy wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.

  “No,” Owens repeated. “I’ll keep whatever secrets I want. I don’t answer to you.”

  “But Natalie?” Her surprise at Owens’s attitude gave way to a burgeoning anger. “She could die if—”