Time Walker: Episode 2 of The Walker Saga

by Shannan Sinclair

  He didn’t want to stay! He wanted the fuck out of here! And he definitely didn’t want any more meds! He’d never had such crazy dreams in his whole life!

  And where was Sabine? Had she even been here? And what about Troy Kellen? Did he really get Sabine to leave with him?

  Mathis couldn’t tell what was real and what was a hallucination. For all he knew, nothing about the past day had been real. Or…all of it was.

  What if it was real?

  Mathis didn’t completely understand what had happened in the game or where he had gone, and he didn’t understand all that had occurred during his time in dreamland, but if any of that shit was real, the whole world as Mathis knew it…well, he didn’t really know it now, did he?

  And if it was real…that game he’d been playing was up to a lot of nothing good…and Sabine and Aislen were in trouble.

  Mathis was betting on real. He reached for his phone on the table and began dialing Jackson. He didn’t care if he interrupted his video game sesh with the guys. Mathis needed him to send a patrol car to Sabine’s house and check on her and Aislen. If they were there, he wanted extra patrols set up to make sure they were safe through the night. And if they weren’t…Mathis’s heart sank at the thought. If they weren’t, he needed to file a missing person report on them.

  The phone began to ring. Jackson notoriously took forever to answer his phone, and tonight was no exception. With each ring, Mathis felt a lurching in his gut. Possibly because he was starving.

  “Hello!” Jackson finally answered.

  A sharp punch in his stomach made Mathis feel like he was going to shit the bed. He grunted.

  “Mathis? Is that you buddy?”

  Mathis tightened his butthole. Dammit, this was important! “Yeah, uh, hey there, Jackson.” His stomach flipped the other direction, and he felt a sting in his chest. A fraction of the pain he’d felt from the game, but he didn’t want to go there.

  “Man! It’s so good to hear your voice! We were all really worried about you. You gonna be okay? What can I do?”

  Mathis took a deep breath trying to calm his body down and keep control of his bowels. “Yeah, I’m gonna be fine. Just stress they say. So, um, I have a question…were you here at all when they brought me in?”

  “Of course! I was the first one they called! Was there for a couple hours. Why?”

  “Just wondering. I thought I remembered, but it’s all really fuzzy.” Mathis’s stomach grumbled. It felt like an alien was churning around trying to find a way out. It had to be a reaction to the meds.

  “So, when you were here,” Mathis continued. “Did you happen to see that waitress from the diner? Sabine? Or her daughter?”

  Jackson paused for a moment, then laughed. “Buddy, you must really have been out of it!”

  Mathis sighed with relief. She had been there! But if that was true, then she was in trouble.

  “Why would I have seen her?” Jackson continued. “I know you’re lonely and all, but that lady is waaaaaay out of your league. And she’s gotta be 20 years younger than you!”

  Mathis gut sank like a rock, and his heart ached. She hadn’t been there? That was his imagination?

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Mathis said, trying to conceal his confusion and disappointment. “Must’ve been the drugs making me see things.”

  “Damn! Those are some good drugs then! See if you can score some more from your nurse before you leave. She wasn’t that bad-looking, way more your speed, and with those drugs, she could be anyone you want!”

  Mathis’s stomach roiled angrily, and his chest constricted. Really? And this wasn’t a heart attack?

  Mathis took a deep breath. Before he caved in to the pain and made a mad dash for the bathroom, he needed to have Jackson check on them. Even if none of it were real, it wouldn’t hurt.

  “Hey, Jackson would you mind doing me a favor?” He clutched his gut as it screamed in agony.

  “Oops! Sorry to cut you off, buddy. I’m getting another important call. I’ll check in later–” The line disconnected.

  Mathis stared down at the phone in disbelief. Did Jackson really just hang up on him? What the fuck? Immediately, his chest relaxed, like it never hurt in the first place and the pressing need to run to the toilet instantly vanished.

  And yet, something still wasn’t right. All of Mathis’s instincts were firing off warning signals. He didn’t know what to make of any of this, but he did know one thing. He needed to check on Sabine, even if that meant doing it himself.

  He picked the phone back up and ordered an Uber. Then he held his breath as he yanked the IV out of his arm and ripped the pads off his chest. He slid off the bed carefully, making sure he could stand on his own two feet before he waddled to the door.

  Mathis had no idea where his clothes were and couldn’t have the nurse fetch them if he was making an escape. The Uber driver would just have to suffer seeing Mathis in a hospital gown. He was pretty sure they had seen a lot worse.

  Ignoring the blood dripping down his arm, Mathis scampered barefoot down the hall toward the elevators, bare-naked ass hanging out in the wind.

  REPRISE FOR A DRIVE

  Come Undone ~ Duran Duran

  Thirty-Five

  Aislen and Raziel began by syncing their watches so they could coordinate their frequency shifts. Then he taught her how to steal cars.

  They started with a Prius. Although Raziel seemed more than a little put off by it, there were plenty to choose from in the lot. They stopped at the first one they found just so he could show her what to do.

  “Send a feeler down into the electrical system,” he said as he raised his left palm toward the car. “Once you capture its particular combo, project it back into the system.” Raziel lifted his right hand toward the car, and the engine started. It was so wrong! Yet, so necessary.

  He walked away from the running car. “Now let’s try this on a completely different vehicle,” he said, moving to an exact same model of the first Prius, parked right next to the other. “Your turn.”

  Aislen followed Raziel’s instructions, and the car started instantly.

  Raze nodded, impressed. “Good. Now, you drive. I don’t want to be seen behind the wheel of a Prius.”

  “Seriously? At a time like this?”

  “Hey, I have standards,” he said with a grin. His humor made her relax, even though they were under the pressure of a literal deadline and committing a felony. “When we get out of the city, we’ll find something a little faster, and I’ll drive.”

  He hopped into the passenger side and let her drive them out of the city as the sun set beneath the horizon of the Golden Gate.

  After an hour, he had her drive into a Walmart parking lot where they dumped the car. He went into the store and bought some water, protein bars, and two pairs of leather gloves. “We should wear these now so no one can trace our prints.”

  They ate as they wandered parking lots until Raze found a Tesla that met his standards. He had her start the car for practice and jumped into the driver’s seat once she got it started. They raced through the back roads toward the Central Valley. Aislen could tell this was the way he had brought her to his warehouse: the curves felt familiar.

  Time and again she would glance at Raziel in the seat beside her. He looked as concerned as she felt, although for reasons she didn’t fully understand. There was no reason for him to do this with her. He had no vested interest in her mother. He made that clear when Aislen insisted that she was going to find her. He just wanted to run, or “go dark” as he put it.

  But he’d changed his mind in an instant, bought in to her plan entirely, as soon as she told him about Sigmund being in her brain. He wouldn’t say it, but he was concerned about that. Aislen couldn’t lie; she was concerned about it, too. But she’d been able to fight him off before, and now that she had her own energy back, she felt she was strong enough to fight him off again. And with Raziel beside her, Aislen felt even more confident.

  She kn
ew Raziel was putting his life on the line, and it opened up a bag of mixed emotions within her. She was very clear about the person he had been. She knew he’d had every intention of killing her in the beginning and had done such evil things in his past. But she couldn’t deny the change in him. She felt his overwhelming need to comfort and protect her in everything he had done so far.

  And she had felt something more in that kiss.

  Yes, she had been out of control, and he had used that kiss to cloak her chaotic energy with his. Yes, he was making them look like they were merely passionate lovers to the responding officers. But there was more in the kiss than that. Aislen could feel everything in her being realign, and she could feel everything in his already had. It was all perfectly right, and so completely wrong.

  “We should steal a different car,” she said to Raziel when they started driving through the farmlands she was familiar with.

  He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “What? Have I created a proper felon out of you? You enjoy the rush now?”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “This car is too nice for my neighborhood. It will stand out.”

  “Damn! Maybe you don’t need me around after all.”

  Aislen didn’t respond. Not only did she need him around, she wanted him around.

  She directed him into a residential neighborhood where she knew they could find another car and the Tesla wouldn’t be so out of place.

  When he started the next Prius and hopped in the driver seat, Aislen couldn’t help herself.

  “Damn, the things you will do for me,” she said as she slid into the passenger seat.

  “No shit,” he said dryly, as he put the car in gear and drove off.

  He didn’t seem to need directions. He knew where she lived and how to get there. He’d been there before, in the Viewing.

  When they pulled into her neighborhood, Raziel slowed down. There were lights up ahead, and although they seemed to be just a standard set of headlights to Aislen, Raziel seemed to know better. Aislen shouldn’t have been surprised to see a patrol car pull down a street–her street.

  “We need to go in on foot,” he said. “Is there a back way?”

  She nodded and directed him past her street half a mile and into a nearby orchard. “We can take the train tracks to my house from here,” she said, pointing through the trees toward the Santa Fe.

  “That was smart,” Raziel said. “How did your mom know to do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Buy a house near the tracks. Railways carry all the residual energy of travelers. It is hard to zone in on any particular energy. It helped protect you all these years.”

  “You found me,” she said flatly.

  “Technically, you found me,” he said. “Or else, no one would have known you existed. And I found you at a nightclub, dancing alone in a crowd.”

  A flash of the memory came into Aislen’s mind. Of course! The energy she’d felt on that dance floor, the invisible presence: it was him. The resonance had been there all along.

  “I snagged your signature there, which is how I found you here.” Aislen couldn’t be sure, but he looked a bit ashamed now.

  “My dad may have told her to buy a house near the tracks. He’d sent a letter and money.”

  “Well, it was a good idea.” He looked back through the orchard toward her house. “We should get in there. We don’t have much time.”

  They took cover amongst the barren peach trees, following the side of the tracks until they reached the back gate of Aislen’s house. Raziel motioned for her to get down while he left to scout the perimeter and see if the officer was still there.

  “He just left,” Raze said when he came back. He seemed confused and concerned. “Is this city? Or county?”

  “County…why?”

  “Because it was the Modesto Police, not a sheriff’s deputy. And it couldn’t be Sergeant Mathis.”

  “Wait! You know him?” Aislen didn’t know why she was surprised.

  “I do. But he’s probably dead by now.”

  “What? How would you know that?” Aislen said, genuinely shocked now.

  “It’s a long story, Aislen…”

  “Well, then tell me the short version.”

  Raziel sighed. “The short version? Well, he got himself a game console and a unique set of visors and got into The Stratum…and Demesne.”

  Aislen recoiled, horrified. “So you killed him?”

  Raze looked as though he’d been struck. “No! It wasn’t like that. He was an innocent bystander, like you. Somehow he suspected that the game had something to do with Blake and Scott Parrish. So he investigated…and he stole the game console and visors from the crime scene and got in the game. Then he met up with two people who helped him get into my area.”

  He stopped, shaking his head at the huge mess it was. He looked back at Aislen. “Troy. And Sigmund Lange.”

  “And you killed him?! Why not Troy? Or Sigmund?”

  “I didn’t kill him, Aislen,” Raze snapped. “Troy did.”

  Aislen gasped, once again disgusted by the maniac that Troy had turned out to be.

  “I actually tried to stop the damage before I sent him out of Demesne. I just don’t think it was enough. He took a heart stopping blow to the chest.”

  Aislen felt ashamed for assuming that Raziel had hurt Sergeant Mathis and for being surprised he had tried to save him. He’d changed even before Aislen thought.

  “Well, he was alive still when we got to the hospital. So maybe he’s okay.”

  “Maybe,” he said, but he looked doubtful. “We should get in and get that passport. If Infinium has patrols set up, we need to get in and out of here as quick as possible.”

  Aislen nodded and followed Raziel as he entered the back gate. They moved through the shadows of the yard, passing her mom’s beloved rose bushes. Aislen felt a stabbing pain in her chest. Her mom…God, she missed her so much. Aislen would do anything for her calm reassurance right now; anything to hug her again and tell her she loved her.

  Raze must have felt her energy shift. He reached back and grabbed her hand, guiding her closer to him and towards the back door. Do you have an alarm?

  Aislen shook her head.

  He tried the handle, and it opened. It was unlocked. He looked back at Aislen, eyes narrowed.

  Did you guys make a habit of that?

  No. Never.

  Stay close to me, he said as he stepped into the house.

  They crept into the kitchen, Raziel scanning the house for any possible intruders. Aislen felt another painful wave of sadness. This was home. She had always felt safe here. Now that it wasn’t safe, even if her mother survived, they could never come back.

  The downstairs was clear, so they headed upstairs toward her room. It was dark except for the green glow from her clock. She bent to the floor and felt her way toward the end of her bed. She reached under, feeling around for her shoebox. It was gone.

  “It’s not here,” she whispered to Raziel.

  “What’s not?”

  “My shoe box with our passports.”

  “Is this it?”

  She sat up and looked on the bed. The shoebox was there, opened.

  Her mom knew about the passport Aislen had gotten her! She’d found it and was definitely on her way to Australia to find Aislen.

  Aislen picked up the shoebox and dumped it on the bed, rummaging through the travel brochures in search of her passport.

  “It isn’t here. Why would my mom take my passport?”

  Aislen began to panic, shuffling through the papers again. No luck. It was gone.

  Raze caught hold of her shoulders. “Stop, Aislen. Take a breath. She may have put it somewhere else.”

  Aislen started to protest, but Raze stopped her. “Close your eyes, and tap into the energy of the passport. Remember holding it, and try to feel its connection. Then let it go so it can tell you where it is.”

  Aislen took a deep breath and closed her
eyes. She thought of the last time she’d held it, sitting on her bed daydreaming about tropical beaches. Then she threw it out of her head. Immediately, a picture of a teacup popped into her mind.

  She opened her eyes in surprise. “Really?” she said to Raziel.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Nice trick, eh?”

  She ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. Sitting on the teacup shelves under the dim glow of a nightlight was Aislen’s passport. It was sitting next to another teacup, one that Aislen had never seen before.

  It was burnt orange with tiny black and white dots painted in concentric circles. It looked nearly identical to the painted map her father had made.

  There was a handwritten note lying on top of a sealed envelope. Aislen picked it up and read it under the nightlight.

  My dearest daughter,

  If you are reading this, Troy lied to me.

  I have a feeling he is a liar and a snake, but this has to do with you and I can’t take my chances.

  If you get this letter, please, I beg you: DO NOT FOLLOW ME TO AUSTRALIA.

  I am leaving your passport here so you can run. Run like your father. There was a good reason he ran. I don’t know all of it; he didn’t tell me. But he ran to protect us.

  I also lied to you, Aislen. I told you the cups stopped coming two years ago. But they didn’t. They stopped one year ago. Last year your father sent this teacup and a letter for you. In his note to me, he told me only to leave it for you if this day came. And unfortunately, it has.

  Dear, sweet Aislen. I love you more than words could ever express. You are and have always been my greatest treasure. Please, forget about me and save yourself.

  Like your father said,

  Love travels a straight line, from my heart to yours.

  Distance, time, death cannot disrupt the connection.

  Every drop of my love belongs to you.

  From across eternity.

  Mom

  Aislen burst into tears, “Mooooom!” she wailed uncontrollably, clutching the letter to her heart.