Out of the Shadows

by Timothy Boyd

  He watched as her body dropped to the ground unceremoniously, nothing but dead weight. He stared at her mangled face, and his mind journeyed to a dark place. A place where he was struggling to stay afloat in the middle of an abyss filled with blood, and the heads of every person in the diner, along with this woman’s, bobbed up and down, glaring at him accusatorily.

  As the distant blare of sirens grew nearer, Micah placed a firm hand on Trevor’s shoulder and said softly, “Come on. We have to go.”

  Trevor continued staring at the once-happy woman. “I couldn’t save her.”

  Micah turned him so they were face to face, and he looked pointedly into his eyes. “But you saved everyone else. She would have shot them all, Trevor.”

  Only part of his consciousness heard the words of encouragement coming from Micah. His thoughts were preoccupied as the current face of Luke swirled into his mind’s eye, laughing at him for his failure. “We have to stop him,” he mumbled quietly.

  “What?”

  “I’m going after him,” he said, a newfound conviction overtaking him.

  “Trevor, don’t be foolish. Think before you—.”

  “Luke has to be stopped, Micah!” Trevor ran away from the chaos on California Street. He found an abandoned bicycle on the ground and pulled it upright.

  “Trevor, he’ll kill you!”

  He spun, brimming with a sudden irrational anger. “You marked me, remember?! He can’t hurt me!” He hopped on the bike and sped away, headed north down the hill.

  Micah sighed, no longer certain that Trevor would succeed at his mission. “Yes, Trevor,” he said to no one. “He can.”

  * * *

  Trevor had pedaled furiously, speeding down the streets, not really looking for Luke at all. He had been filled with a strange and intense anger that seemed to come from nowhere, and he had just needed to get away. He hadn’t been sure where he was going until the bicycle had skidded to a halt at the edge of the parking lot past Marina Boulevard next to Pier 2 at Fort Mason.

  Now, he sat on the ground in a patch of prickly weeds, staring out at the dozens of docked fishing boats, the setting sun at his back. His legs ached from the ride, and he felt out of shape. He remembered his more youthful days when his father would invite him aboard the boat to watch him prepare for a job. Truthfully, he had hated the smell of marine life that permeated the deck, but he had ignored it for the few hours it allowed him to spend with his dad.

  Lately, he had realized that the intricate details of his father’s face were beginning to fade from his mind. Every day that passed, he felt that he was able to conjure a little bit less than the day before, and he was afraid that one day soon, he would only have vague memories of the man his father had been. He wished for one more glimpse so he could forever burn the image into his eyes.

  A teardrop splashed off of his forearm nestled on his lap, pulling him out of his depressive reverie. He wiped his face dry and sighed as the water in the bay slowly ebbed and flowed, rocking rhythmically against the pier supports.

  Micah quietly strolled up behind Trevor and lowered himself to the ground next to him. They both stared out into the water, watching the boats slowly sway back and forth. A gull called out, flying through the air as it passed them.

  “These people have no idea what’s coming,” Trevor said quietly.

  Micah shook his head. “No, they don’t.”

  They sat in silence, allowing the undulating waters to lull their bodies into relaxation. Finally, Trevor asked, “What’s it mean to be marked?”

  “It means that he cannot directly take your life as long as your guardian lives.”

  “Directly?”

  “Like with a gun,” he clarified, referencing the incident at the diner. “You’re not invincible, Trevor. Please don’t be stupid,” he requested sincerely.

  Trevor knew he was right, and he also knew he didn’t have to say it out loud. After a moment, he asked, “So, you’re like Luke?”

  Micah slowly nodded. “In a way.”

  Trevor gazed at his guardian angel, eyeing the sculpted torso up and down. “So this,” he motioned toward Micah’s body, “isn’t really you. You took this body from someone.”

  Micah took a minute to gather his thoughts before admitting the truth. “His name was Will. He was in a bad situation and about to overdose, so I stepped in.”

  Trevor was filled with a strange sense of pity for the man that no longer existed thanks to Micah. But his thoughts quickly gravitated back to the problem at hand. “Why can’t you just kill Luke and end this?”

  Micah shrugged. “Because it doesn’t work like that. There are rules at play.”

  “What happens if you break them?”

  “Well,” he began, his brow furrowing in thought. “I imagine my boss would be very unhappy.”

  Taking a deep breath, Trevor said quietly, “It has to be me?”

  The angel nodded solemnly.

  “I wish I knew how,” he confessed, feeling his emotions well up inside of him again. “I’m not even strong enough to do right by my dad.”

  Micah placed an unwavering hand on his back. “Everyone must face judgment when the time comes, Trevor. The choices you make with your life should be yours. Not someone else’s.”

  Trevor struggled to hold back his tears, but his exhaustion was getting the best of him. “I wish I could just get on that bike and leave the city. Forget about all of this.”

  “What happens in this city would affect you no matter where you go.”

  “How?”

  Micah stared out at the water in thought before picking up a rock from the ground beside him. He held it up on display for Trevor, and then he tossed it. The splash was minimal, but concentric circles rippled copiously from the point of impact.

  Trevor shrugged, not understanding the point.

  “The rock was small,” Micah explained. “But the ripples were felt far out into the bay.” He waited a moment and then continued, “You may not see it, Trevor, but you are all connected. A man in China had a fight with his wife last year. The fight ended badly, and they ended up separating. The wife was so distraught that she never finished knitting a scarf she intended to send to her daughter, who was living overseas in New York. So, that daughter went to the store and bought a scarf for herself.

  “She came to San Francisco for a trip, and while wearing the scarf, she caught the attention of a young man riding a bicycle. Her beauty was so rapturous that he failed to pay attention to the pothole in the road in front of him, and he fell, damaging his bike.

  “The next day, he took his bike to the shop to have it repaired, but as the repairman started work on it, he became distracted by a phone call from his son, who had called to tell him the good news that he was accepted into Yale. His distraction caused the bike to get repaired improperly, and now the pedals are slightly uneven.”

  Trevor shrugged and shook his head, still not understanding the message.

  Micah pointed behind them at the blue bicycle that Trevor had used to get down to the pier. “That’s the bike.”

  “Really?”

  “Your legs are aching right now because the pedals are uneven, and it’s all because a man in China had a fight with his wife last year.” Micah waited, allowing his words to hang in the air. “It doesn’t matter where you go, Trevor. This will affect you. You are all connected.”

  Trevor sighed, lost deeply in thought, and his eyes wandered down to his hands. He stared, turning them over, examining every crease and wrinkle, every freckle, every imperfection. He spent many minutes in silence gazing at his hands.

  “Are you all right?” Micah asked delicately.

  He softly grinned, his demeanor bittersweet. “I never really stopped and looked at my hands before.”

  Micah waited for him to continue, knowing that he was building toward an epiphany.

  “I wrapped these hands around my mother’s finger when I was a baby. They broke my fall when I ran through the house. They b
led when I scraped them after falling off my bike. They punched the kid that picked on my brother.” Life’s memories seeped from his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, making room for the deeper ones that fluttered to the surface of his mind. “They held my cat when she died. They clutched my first paintbrush. They hugged my father…”

  Micah watched Trevor’s delicate hands as he talked, wondering what it must be like to be able to live a full and rewarding life.

  “There’s so much more I want these hands to accomplish,” Trevor admitted, his voice breaking from regret. He finally realized that his actions last night had been stupid and foolish, and they had led him to this unfortunate moment. He looked up at Micah, eyes puffy and wet, face smeared with streaks of redness. He cried softly and said, “I’m not ready to die yet.”

  Micah placed a consoling arm around him, holding him tightly. “When the time comes, those are the hands that He will take to lead you home.”

  Many minutes passed in peaceful silence as Trevor allowed himself to be comforted by the stranger that had quickly become his friend. He thought about his past, his future, and his present. He felt overwhelmed, like the purpose for his entire existence was about to present itself.

  “I don’t know what to do next,” he admitted to his guide.

  “Yes, you do.”

  “What?”

  “Just think,” Micah encouraged.

  Trevor took a breath and allowed his mind to wander. He thought about his parents and his childhood, his job at the diner, his Sundays at the cathedral. He thought about Patti and Mr. Miyoto, his quaint apartment, his suicide letter. He thought about last night on the bridge and the abstract paintings he didn’t remember creating…

  The paintings.

  The first one of Patti’s gruesome death had ended up coming to fruition. The second one of the burning cable car, too. The third painting was a severe abstraction of the Golden Gate Bridge, looking as if made of stone, spitting fire from its two spires…

  He leapt to his feet and looked at Micah with wide eyes. “The bridge!” he gasped, and he hopped on the bike, racing toward the subject of his third painting.

  * * *

  Trevor leaned against the railing on the Golden Gate Bridge, not far away from where he almost had jumped the night before. The setting sun warmed his face as he looked down at the undulating water below. Pedestrians passed and cars whizzed by. He looked up toward the top of the nearby spire, looking for anything out of the ordinary that may be some abstraction of fire, like in his premonitory painting.

  The day was beginning to wane, and the air grew chilly and damp. Micah had appeared by his side, observing his thought process. Trevor watched every person that passed, waiting for one of them to act strangely, lunging for him or even jumping off the bridge. No one did. Everything seemed normal, and yet he couldn’t shake the unease he felt, knowing that something would happen at any moment.

  In the distance, he could faintly hear the familiar chiming of the English bells tolling the new hour in the tower at Grace Cathedral on top of the hill. As they quietly rang in the distance, he observed the cars and the tourists and the bicyclists. He observed the gulls flying low on the bay. The bells’ song was finished now, moving on to ringing the hour’s number. He closed his eyes to think once more, hearing each gong shift his mind to a new memory. His mother, his father, Patti, suicide, painting… Gong, gong, gong, gong… He imagined the bells swaying up in their stone tower as the cathedral’s twin spires reached majestically into the…

  Trevor’s eyes snapped open upon his horrific realization. His third painting… It wasn’t an abstraction of the Golden Gate Bridge. Two stone spires towering over the city, spewing an inferno from hell!

  It was Grace Cathedral!

  “Bishop Andrews!” Trevor gasped. He turned to Micah, panic fueling his passion. “Luke is at the church!” He felt stupid and ashamed; he had been exactly where he needed to be all along, but he had fled after the cable car exploded.

  Micah’s eyes grew wide, the realization dawning on him too late, like he should have seen it coming.

  “I have to go, Micah!”

  “That’s four and a half miles away!”

  “Then I’ll have to ride fast!” And before Micah could open his mouth to object, Trevor was on the bike, speeding haphazardly through the congested pedestrian walkway, hollering for them to move.

  He pedaled fiercely, his lungs searing from the exertion. He weaved in and out of traffic, horns blaring at the offense. Most of the trip was uphill, and it was quite steep in spots, but he never allowed himself to rest. He pushed, chilly sweat dripping down his face, his calves burning from the abuse. He began to grow light-headed, not sure if he would be able to sustain his pace, but he felt that he had no choice. As soon as the image of the church had appeared in his head, he had known in his gut that that was where he needed to be.

  Once he made it to the base of the steepest hill, his strength waned and his endurance crumbled. Irritated with his bodily limitations, he leapt off the bike and proceeded to run up the sidewalk steps to the top of the hill. He turned onto California Street, seeing the emergency crews still dealing with the cable car wreckage, white sheets draped over the exposed corpses. He flew passed the law enforcement and halted on the steps leading to the cathedral entrance.

  He looked up at the looming concrete towers, and when he saw no inferno spilling forth, he allowed himself to collapse to the ground, desperately gasping for the air he had been denying his lungs. Content that he wasn’t yet too late, he focused on lowering his racing heart rate.

  “Trevor Kincaid?!” he heard someone shout from the street.

  He looked up and saw a female police officer quickly remove her gun from its holster and train it on him.

  “Kincaid!” she hollered again, alerting the rest of the force that had been dealing with the wreckage. They all spun on their heels, their weapons aimed at the helpless Trevor on the steps of the cathedral. “Put your hands in the air!” she ordered.

  Trevor was deeply conflicted. His mind raced through his options, thinking far too quickly for rational thought to prevail. If he were to run into the church, he would be riddled with bullet holes before his foot touched the second step. If he complied and went with them, Luke would likely kill everyone and win.

  White clouds rolled through the blue sky, blocking the sun and creating ominous shadows that flowed across the front of the gothic cathedral, sending an eerie tingle down the length of Trevor’s spine. He shivered.

  Grace Cathedral no longer made him feel safe.

  11:24

  VI

  The waning sun ducked in and out of rolling cloud coverage, and the warmth from the day quickly faded. Trevor Kincaid stared down the barrels of the police force’s weapons, trained on his weak, mortal body, their fingers taut on the triggers. In this moment, he felt more vulnerable than he had the night before when he had stood over the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge, seconds away from leaping to his death.

  His body trembled, and he closed his eyes. He thought back to barely a day ago. Everything had felt so hopeless for him, like his purpose in life had ended. He imagined the majestic red-orange bridge that filled him with an odd sense of comfort, as if its two peaks wrapped themselves around his tortured soul. And just when his mind had silently pleaded for a reason to avoid jumping into the black, freezing water, Micah had spoken up behind him.

  He thought about his uplifting conversation with Bishop Andrews and about Micah’s wise words. He thought about his own shame at turning his back on the religion that had carried his hope so far through his life. He wished Micah would appear now and tell him what to do, but he knew that that wasn’t how it worked. For now, he was on his own.

  “Trevor Kincaid!” the female officer shouted. “Put your hands in the air, or we will open fire!”

  His heart thundered within, but just when he thought it might explode from his chest, its raging contractions began to subside. It felt as thoug
h the cathedral itself had laid its comforting hands across his shoulders, standing with him in his time of need. He knew he needed to get inside to see the bishop, and nothing would stop him from doing so.

  “Mr. Kincaid, this is your last—.”

  “Sanctuary!” Trevor yelled into the sky, feeling an overflow of emotion surge through his veins.

  The female officer’s brow furrowed slightly, and she said, “Excuse me?”

  “I claim sanctuary!” Trevor yelled once more, so all of the officers could hear him.

  The woman lowered her gun slightly, flabbergasted by the turn of events.

  The man next to her leaned in and asked, “Can he do that?”

  The officer stared at Trevor, trying to figure out how to proceed. “Mr. Kincaid, will you repeat yourself one more time?”

  “I claim sanctuary, and I need to talk to the bishop!” he confirmed.

  The cops all began to falter, lowering their weapons, dumbfounded by the unusual situation.

  “I’m unarmed!” Trevor added loudly, slowly raising his clothing so the officers could see his waistband.

  “I’m not sure he can do that in this country,” the male cop said to the woman.

  She turned to him and shrugged. “Are you going to be the cop that shoots a man who just wanted to pray with the bishop?” She turned to the rest of the police force. “Set up a perimeter around the church,” she ordered. “We don’t enter with any kind of force. We do nothing disrespectful. When he comes out, we take him into custody.”

  The cops nodded and fanned out around the cathedral grounds, moving into position to guard all potential exits.

  Trevor locked gazes with the officer in charge as he slowly stood from his prone position on the steps. He was careful not to make any sudden movements, and though he was loathe to turn his back on them, he headed for the door.

  As he reached for the handle, he heard the clatter of dozens of metal guns dropping to the pavement. He glanced over his shoulder, and everyone on the street was hauntingly still, staring directly at him with expressionless faces. He waited, the feeling of bile rising to his throat. After a moment, everyone turned and began walking north, down the hill.