Parallel II - The Gift

by Paul Rice

  With her voice lowered, she told them of how, when Mike had seen the felling of Red, her brother had turned to Jeremiah and swung a blow of his own, his extended knuckles had expertly lanced into the Dragon’s throat, and with the brittle sound of snapping cartilages, Mike’s blow had stopped the man in his tracks. Jeremiah fell to his knees on the wooden floor with his face: “Turning an almighty purple…” Tori said, she told them that she had thought it would be the end to it as nobody could possibly come back from such a crippling blow as the one Mike had delivered to the Beast – no one except the Beast himself, it seems. She said that Mike had grabbed Red, with a jerk of the arms, he hefted the young man to his feet, as he looked into Red’s eyes, Mike failed to see the man behind him stagger to his own feet and then reach unsteadily down to the outside of his left boot.

  Tori said Red had screamed at Mike to move and then pushed him to one side. As his father lunged at Mike, Red had grasped Jeremiah’s arm and swung him violently, the action sent the huge man staggering past them. Jeremiah’s own bulk had made the movement even more effective and he crashed shoulder first into the solid oak banister. They had all heard the two, loud cracking sounds. One came from the shattering wood, whilst the other, more sickening noise, came from the snapping of bones in the Demon’s upper arm as he crashed through the barricade and fell onto his, dangling, broken limb. Tori said the sound of scraping bones was sickening – Jeremiah had uttered a long horrible scream. That was when they had all seen the long knife.

  It twinkled in the sun, sharp blade pointing first at Mike and then at Red, Jeremiah seemingly unable to make up his mind as to who he should attack first? Then… like a giant, injured baboon… Jeremiah had leapt back up the stairs. Tori blinked. “I can’t really think about what happened next, it was so quick?” She stopped again, and sat there in silence for a while trying to remember. They watched as she stared at them, her own mind rolling back the hours. The she said: “Mike stood up to him, I can remember seeing the knife flashing in the sun, Jeremiah’s arm was like a piston… I saw it going into Michael and he screamed!” She looked away and Jane marvelled at Tori’s strength.

  After composing herself slightly, the girl continued. “Then I saw Red, he leapt onto the bastard and the three of them went down in a heap. Mike was on the bottom and I heard him yelling at me to run, he was screaming: ‘Get Ken, Get Ken!’ I tried to run up the stairs to see if I could help, it was then Red turned and he also told me to run, his mouth sprayed blood all over me!” Tori shuddered. “I heard Mike scream again and… and then I did run!” She breathed deeply. “The stupid thing is…” she said and shook her head in acknowledgement of the wicked irony, “Is that I was sitting just inches from your gun, it was right there in the door of the truck, I could have saved him, I could have… I didn’t think – I never knew this was going to happen, I wasn’t ready!” She moaned, just the once, and then stood up. “The rest is history,” she said. ‘Would anyone else like a drink?” Without another word, she turned and walked into the house.

  Fetching some fresh coffees, and another two beers, Tori rejoined them on the veranda where together they sat and watched the night come to them. It brought with it a slight chill and Ken disappeared to get some wood for the brazier. Dragging it over to the porch, he soon had a nice blaze going and the grieving foursome dragged their chairs nearer to its welcoming glow. It warmed their bones and pushed the chill from within their hearts. Jane had made the other women a stiff drink – her personal favourite was chocolate milk, served piping hot with lashings of brandy – stirring another tot into the mixture, she suddenly thought: “What the hell, life’s too short…” and splashed a bit extra of the dark gold liquid into their mugs. She raised her own drink in a toast to Mike: “Cheers Mikey!” she said, and after having a quick sip, carried the drinks outside and rejoined the others on the patio. Ken had pulled some sausages from the fridge and was busy grilling them on the fire.

  He looked at the women and said, “Yeah, I know, I know… but we still have to eat?” What had started off as a horrendous day was now seemingly in the process of becoming slightly more amiable. Alcohol is such a wonderful thing, sometimes. Talking of wonderful things – Mike’s departure was more than merely wonderful, it was truly amazing!

  At bang on five minutes before midnight… 23:55hrs exactly… as they sat watching the sky and sipping on their drinks, a barely discernable whistling noise started to fill the air. The gathered humans never heard it at first as the pitch was far too high. However, what they did hear was every dog, wolf, fox and anything else with even the slightest trace of the canine gene in its blood, suddenly start howling. They didn’t bark or yelp – no yapping or whining, either. No, they howled. Every single one of them howled! The wailing chorus that floated through the night air, echoing across the dark fields like some strange warning siren, was one of the most eerie sounds, which Jane, or any of them, had ever heard. It was almost as though they were singing. And then, at a single stroke, their moaning choir suddenly stopped. The unexpected silence, which it left in its wake, seemed to be almost louder than the noise the beasts had been making. Ken looked in disbelief at the women next to him, then, more jokingly, looked at his beer. The women laughed at him, shaking their heads and using the moment to remove some of the madness from the bizarre situation. Sitting there laughing, they all began to feel the slight vibration that pulsed through the house. It was only a fleeting moment, like imagining the beginning of an earthquake…

  “What was that?” Jane said, and looked at the ground in surprise; Ken had felt it, too, and quickly checked upwards to make sure the roof wasn’t coming down or something?

  Maggie smiled at them and said, “Michael is leaving, look at the sky…” They did as she had said. Mike started with a faint glow, it came from down by the apple tree and its luminescence gradually brightened the air surrounding the tree. The light didn’t really have a colour as such; it was merely a faint glow that sat there, pulsing softly for a while. Jane didn’t think anyone much further away than she was, would have seen it. Then suddenly there was that familiar ‘Rrrrriiiippp’ feeling – its passing wobbled the air around them. They felt it in their heads, it was though they was standing on the platform of an underground railway station and one of the trains had come hurtling past without stopping. The buffeting vacuum of the train’s passing almost feels like it will suck everything along with it into the blackness of the tunnel ahead. With very much the same sensation, the strange, ripping sound seemed to pass straight through them; the feeling almost took away the breath, and certainly blurred the vision. Before any of them had a chance to say a word, Mike’s gentle glow began to lift magically into the air. All trace of passiveness was now long departed and the previous soft orb had now turned into a ball of the most brilliant blue light – it was laser bright and crystal clear. The light was so bright that it very nearly forced the onlookers to turn away, but it was so fascinating that they could not turn away.

  They had to watch, had to…

  Suddenly, as though it was being sucked into an invisible pipe, the light began to stream upwards, slowly at first – dripping aloft in gentle pulses – then it began to quickly accelerate, before turning into a solid upward pouring stream of light, and the speed at which it climbed was almost mind boggling, like a brilliant, blue fireball, the light rocketed into the heavens. As Mike disappeared, the four spellbound onlookers saw that his passing had left behind a faint halo of light, the strange substance hung in the atmosphere like a giant, green smoke ring. They heard a far off rumble, and then the sky darkened. Tori shouted: “I’ll see you later, Michael, my baby – see you Mikey!” Then, no longer able to hold back her terrible emotions, she burst into floods of uncontrollable tears. The others gathered round the girl and let her sob, holding her tightly until the pain had gone.

  When it had disappeared and gone into the night… disappeared like Mike had disappeared… Tori looked up at them and, whilst smiling through reddened eyes, said
, “I’m sorry, I… well, I guess that I don’t really need any words, do I?” They nodded in understanding and hugged her once more. Tori looked at them and then smiled again. Jane kept hold of her hand and remained sitting next to the young woman, their grip intertwined so tightly that it seemed as though they may never let each other go.

  As the foursome sat on the porch, the silence hanging over them broken only by the sound of logs spitting in the brazier, the mood seemed to lift a little, and then as one, they looked up into each others faces and smiled, orange firelight glowing against their pale skin.

  As if jolted by the noise of the spitting logs, Ken got to his feet, threw some more wood on the fire and said, “Well… I don’t know about you guys, but I’m gonna sit here and have a few drinks on Mike. That was one damned fine light show – I’ll bet you all that I don’t get one anywhere near as good?” Laughing at Ken’s sick humour, the women picked up their glasses and together they managed to successfully gate crash his private party, Ken’s last farewell to Mike.

  Chapter 34 - Michael

  It was a long time later, two whole years, maybe even longer, before they began to recover from the terrible loss of Mike. Months of coming to terms with all the things that had passed. Two long years of looking at the sky and wondering… It also took several months of helping Red to try and understand; helping him to deal in his own way with the man he had become so fond of, perhaps even loved. Red had been returned to them in one piece, sporting only some nice neat scars on his barrel-chested body, but it was his mind that needed far more healing, he didn’t know, nor would ever fully understand, the complete picture.

  Tori spent every waking hour with him and gradually she drew him up from the pit of despair, the terrible black hole that Red seemed to have lodged himself at the bottom of. The young couple spent hours down by the lake and sitting under Mike’s Tree, as it became known. Red wasn’t a really boy any more, he hadn’t been for a while now, but it was simply the way in which Ken thought of him, he would always be a boy to Ken – the boy who changed everything for he and Jane – Red, the boy who unwittingly changed the lives of many people and, most of all, changed things for Mikey. Ken reckoned that Red was learning to be a man in some other ways as well.

  It was obvious that he and Tori were very close. Ken and Jane saw the flower of the couple’s youth begin to bloom. It didn’t take Red long before he began to feel better, who wouldn’t with such a woman by their side? Tori had also blossomed and beauty seemed to radiate from her every pore. She was truly a beautiful creature.

  The apple tree, Mike’s Tree, had also bloomed magnificently. The boughs of which now provided an almost endless bounty of the sweet fruit for nearly the whole year round. The juicy green apples were without doubt the finest that Ken had ever tasted, every time he ate one it was as though it was his first, and he never tired of their taste. Jane had taken to delivering baskets of the fruit to Maggie in the store, and between them they had accrued a fairly decent nest egg. Maggie would never let on to Ken exactly how much she was talking about and instead, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye, simply said: “It’ll be enough when the time comes to use it, Kenneth my dear!” When Ken asked her one time about how long this time was going to last, if they really were going to be here forever? Maggie had said, “Nothing lasts forever you know, and when you are both ready, well then that will be the time! Are you missing your old world, my dear, I could perhaps see if I can get hold of George – would like me to?” She looked at him with her eyes sparkling in that cheeky way she had.

  Ken had thought about that one for a minute, he had the crazy, mental image of Maggie picking up some strange telephone… shaped like Ayers rock, or something… and dialling the old guy. Maggie smiling at the screen and saying: ‘Umm… tickets for two please George, my dear?’ No, Ken wasn’t in any hurry, he loved life on the farm and felt years younger. He rose early and worked the place for most of the day, when he felt like it that is. Other times he simply lounged about or did some odd jobs, maybe went fishing or chopped some wood, perhaps? He had also taken to helping out Frank on some of the delivery runs for the hardware store. He had even made a few cents doing a bit of DIY for various people here and there. It kept him completely happy and, if he was honest, he felt no need to be moving on. Not just yet anyway. He had never really discussed any of the other things with Maggie or Tori, either. Only once, when they had all been sitting under the tree watching Tori and Red messing about on the lake in the dinghy, which Ken had made for them, he had quietly asked Maggie: “How are things going, you know, Maggie… upstairs?” The old woman had laughed.

  “Oh, they are fine and dandy my dear, just fine and dandy, indeed! Everybody seems to be much more at ease than they were before.” She looked at them, and said, “They have you two to thank for that!” She hadn’t elaborated any further, and to be honest, neither Ken nor Jane had felt the need to ask, the whole scenario was beginning to feel as though it had happened to someone else.

  Things were just the way they were supposed to be.

  Then, one day over breakfast, as they sat in the kitchen with the log burner crackling away behind them, Tori broke some news to them. Looking up from her toast, she had cleared her throat, before saying, “Umm, Ken … Jane?” She looked at Red as he sat next to her; face beaming like a kid at Easter. Turning back to the waiting couple, Tori continued: “We were wondering if you would mind terribly if we decided to get married – you know, man and wife.” Realising what she had said, Tori blushed magnificently, the flush of blood colouring her cheeks like a peach. “Sorry, that’s obvious! But, well, you know what I mean?” She laughed and reached for her future husband’s hand.

  Jane and Ken thought about it, Red was coming on for nineteen years of age, and they had never even asked how old Tori happened to be. It was something that Ken had deliberately steered clear of. “What shall we do if the she tells us that she’s four hundred years old… or maybe even older?” he’d said, when Jane mentioned it once.

  Jane had slapped his arm and shook her head at him. “Kenneth Robinson, you are such an unromantic! Honestly, you men just have no idea!”

  Sitting there in the present it didn’t look as though Jane had any doubts about the proposed marital ideas of the young couple. Her face lit with a bright smile. “Now that sounds like a fantastic idea; Ken, what do you think?” Without waiting for an answer she continued: “When’s the big day, who are you inviting, there’s enough room here for the whole town – have you made a plan?”

  In fact, they had made a bit more than just a ‘plan’.

  Red, joining Tori in her red faced blush, looked at them and said: “Umm… ma’am, Jane, I mean… Ken. Actually, the both o’ you! Damn it, I’m stuttering like a fool here! Well, you see, it’s like this: Tori and I are gonna have a baby and we thought that maybe’s we should be getting ourselves decent beforehand?”

  It was at that precise moment when Jane had kicked into overdrive, to say she was ecstatic would have been, in the very least, an understatement. She ran around the kitchen like a wild thing, whooping and shrieking as though her pants were on fire. Her happiness was so undisguised that the others simply sat there open mouthed. After a few minutes, when the blood rush had subsided, she sat back down and laughed at them. “I am so very happy, how long you have known, does Maggie know, does…”

  As the questions rained from her mouth, Ken sat back and looked at his wife and thought. “That’s why I married her, I guess – because, she’s ever so slightly mad, just like me?” He laughed and joined in the celebrations. The final words belonged to Tori.

  When they had settled down a bit she looked at them and said: “I haven’t been to the hospital yet, just the doctor’s, and at the moment old Doc Peterson says it all looks fine. He says that I’ll find out the sex of the baby later – but I know it’s a boy. I know it is and I can feel him. It’s a boy and he’s going to be a big tall boy, too, one with black hair and blue eyes! Grandma says that she a
nd Jane have made a nest egg for us – she’s already started getting lots of clothes, blue clothes!” She turned to her future husband and he smiled proudly at her. Tori picked up his hand and turned back to them. With her blue eyes doing that flaring thing again, she took a deep breath and said:

  “Red and I have already decided upon a name for the baby…”

  The End

  Author’s Note

  Ken and Jane stayed on the farm for a long time; it was a good place to be and with the prospect of a new baby on the way… well, Jane just couldn’t wait! They still never figured out exactly where they were and didn’t really care, either. Life was good and they lived it whilst they could, safe within the knowledge that it may change at any moment. In many ways they had achieved their goal, the one of changing things a bit – they had definitely changed Red.

  He and Tori raised their son and turned the farm into an art school for children. Red is an excellent teacher, and to this day he can be found surrounded by kids. They’ll be gathered around him, goggle-eyed, watching in awe whilst the big guy lets his own particular magic loose upon on the blank canvas. The old mill is his favourite spot, there and underneath Mike’s Tree are the two places where Red gets the kids to do their best work. His only child, a boy named Michael, turned out to be quite something else. Tori had been almost completely right about her son as the boy was definitely tall and did possess a pair of fearsome blue eyes. However, she didn’t quite have the colour of his hair correct. It was black just like she’d said, but unlike Tori’s, Michael’s own hair shone with a deep, bronze hue. The colour of his hair, very much like him, was extremely unusual.

  I’ll tell you all about him later.

  In the meantime, I’m going to let them be for a while, allow them to have some time to themselves, you know, get a bit older, raise young Michael and eat some green apples. Let them live their lives without me and my big ideas. They’ll be back later because their tale isn’t finished yet, not by a long shot.