Walker

by Michael Langlois

  His trespasser turned out to be a stocky, middle-aged man with a narrow weathered face and a short beard that made him look like one of those home improvement gurus from public television. Faded jeans, large scruffy hiking boots, and a horrible brown flannel shirt drove the image home.

  Daniel came in bellowing, hoping to scare the guy out of his house. “Hey! Get the fuck out of here before I call the cops!” He yanked his cell phone out of his pocket and brandished it in his fist like a tiny club.

  The man grinned at him and shook his head. “Bullshit. If you were going to call the cops, you would have done it before you left your bedroom.”

  His speech was fast and clipped, much more east coast than the mid-west cadence that Daniel was used to. He offered Daniel one of the mugs he was holding in each hand. “Daniel Thorsen, am I right?”

  The man waited patiently with the mug outstretched while Daniel slowly lowered his cell phone in embarrassment.

  “Uh, yes. That’s me.” Not knowing what else to do, he accepted the mug. “How’d you get in here? And how do you know my name?”

  “Went through your mail.” The man gestured to a pile of bills on the counter, most of which he had opened. “And I got in here by picking the lock on your front door. And by pick I mean I used a credit card to jimmy the door, since you didn’t lock the deadbolt.”

  He looked around the kitchen pointedly. “But I can see how the effort of locking it might outweigh the benefits.”

  After selling everything he owned and giving up his apartment, Daniel had moved into his mom’s paid-off condo. Even that hadn’t been enough to keep ahead of the bills, so he sold everything of value in the house, leaving only a few worthless pieces of furniture that he had hauled over from his old place. It looked a lot like a squatter was camping out in a vacant house.

  The man set his mug down on the counter and extended his hand. “Name’s Saul, nice to meet you.”

  Bemused, Daniel shook the man’s hand. It reminded him of another handshake he’d had recently, rough and work hardened. The thought brought memories of yesterday’s fear and confusion. His mood darkened.

  “Charmed. What the fuck are you doing in my house, Saul?”

  “I came to see if you survived your trip. Congrats, by the way. And to make you an offer.” He sat down at Daniel’s kitchen table and gestured at the other seat.

  The table was Daniel’s most prized remaining possession, a massive oak slab that he had scored at a garage sale for twenty bucks because the entire top had been abused past the point of redemption. The surface was gouged and pitted by years of pocketknife penmanship, most of it in the way of initial-filled hearts, phone numbers guaranteed to deliver a good time, and the obligatory smattering of cartoon penises.

  On the plus side, it could seat eight people with room to spare and served as a desk, ironing board, chopping block, and anything else requiring a workspace. Four of his less-than-burly friends had nearly expired wrestling the beast up the stairs, but it had been worth it. Today the table was empty except for a wooden box just large enough to hold a softball.

  Daniel sat down. Despite having broken into his house, Daniel’s first impression was that Saul was a decent guy. That said, there was clearly something in his manner that felt off. He seemed rushed, but trying his best to not to let on. The fact that he kept sneaking glances at the front door just made it more obvious.

  “How do you know what happened to me yesterday?”

  Saul shrugged. “Dumb luck, mostly. Chalk it up to fate if you’re into that kind of thing. We have something like an office close to that park and one of our people spotted you. We know you left, and we even know how you left, which is something I’m betting you’d like to know yourself, but what we don’t know is where you went. That’s one of the things I’m here for. So tell me, where’d you end up?”

  Daniel ignored the question. “How did you find me here? I never went back to the park, so you couldn’t have followed me home.”

  “It’s what I do. I have the same gift you have, some skills that you don’t, and a hell of a lot of people backing me up.” Saul’s expression turned serious. “But I really do need for you to tell me where you went.”

  “I have no idea. All I know is that it was like a nightmare version of the park I started out in, but it was autumn instead of summer and the people were creepy as hell. Nothing but trees and weirdos as far as the eye could see. Why?”

  “So you appeared outside, and not inside a building? You’re sure?”

  “Very.”

  Saul looked thoughtful for a minute and then seemed to come to a decision. “Okay. We’ll work on that later. Here’s the deal. You have a rare and valuable talent, and we’re willing to pay for the use of it. The people I work for employ others with similar talents. In fact, you could say that our whole business revolves around the ability to move between different places the way you did yesterday. It’s important work, Daniel. And the pay reflects that.”

  Saul pointed at the bills on the counter. “I know your mother is sick. Cancer, right? Judging by those bills, you need the money, and you need it sooner rather than later. There are certain conditions that you have to agree to before I can be more specific, and you’ll have to meet with my boss for your final offer, but those are just formalities. All you have to do is come with me, and give us a chance. What do you say?”

  Daniel thought about his mom and the assisted living home that she needed, and was about to be kicked out of. He thought about the never-ending tide of medical bills, and the things he would be willing to do in order to make sure they kept getting paid.

  “Drugs?”

  “Not like you’re thinking. No terrorist plots, nothing like that.”

  “Then what?”

  “Come with me and find out. If you don’t like it, I’ll bring you right back. I promise.”

  “How much money are we talking about?”

  He shrugged. “Depends on what you can do, but a shitload more than you make now. More than enough to take care of your mom. Daniel, you need this. And I’m not just talking about the money. I’m talking about doing something important with your life.”

  Saul put his hands on the table and leaned in towards Daniel, face intent. “I used to be just like you. I know how this is going to turn out. I’m offering you a crack at escaping your life, which is going nowhere. You’re going through the motions, waiting for something to happen, right? You have no idea what to do this weekend, much less with the rest of your life. No real plans and no goals outside of helping your mother. What did you do before she got sick? What are you going to do when she’s gone? Nothing, right? Right. Well here it is. Opportunity has knocked. You can have a purpose. No way you’re passing that up. Hell, if it weren’t for your mom, you’d probably come with me just to get out of work today.”

  Daniel was thinking the same thing. Even now in his thirties, he and his friends still spent most of their time talking about movies, video games, and comic books. Who does that? Daniel knew exactly who did that, and why.

  It was the vestigial remnants of the nearly forgotten childhood expectation of living with a purpose, refusing to die out. From when everything was possible, and a flat, safe life wasn’t even on the horizon. Wasn’t interesting or acceptable. One minute the future is about being an astronaut or a fireman, and the next it’s only about finding a safe and comfortable job to shelter in until you die.

  Daniel ran both hands through his hair. His life had already changed, hadn’t it? He’d walked the soil of another world, or dimension, or some damn thing, and made it home. Could he really go back to his cubicle for the rest of his life after that?

  His gut said go, but still he hesitated. He simply didn’t trust the man. “Let me think about it. I’ll give you an answer by tonight.”

  “Sorry, can’t. You’re a bright boy, you can figure out what happens if only a few people have a valuable skill that everyone wants. Some organizations might not take no for an answer.”
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  There was a pregnant silence that raised the hair on the back of Daniel’s neck. The stranger sitting across from him suddenly seemed a lot less like the folksy charmer that he was obviously trying to appear, and more like the dangerous intruder that he actually was.

  Daniel felt trapped sitting at the table. He wanted to stand up and get his feet under him, but he was afraid to make any sudden moves. He started pushing his chair back from the table.

  “Whoa, hang on there. It’s true that some might go that way—calm down, it’s okay—but I don’t work like that. I’m offering you a chance to do good work, for good pay, and get a little protection from the wrong sorts in the bargain.”

  Saul stuck out his left arm and pulled up one flannel sleeve. A fat silver bracelet encircled his wrist. It looked heavy, and was made entirely of a piece, with no seams or hinges.

  “This is called an Arc. It’s our symbol, and one of the tools of my trade. I have one here for you, too, if you want it. This is a real life I’m offering you. You have no idea how few people ever get this chance.”

  He removed a heavy bracelet from the box on the table and set it down in front of Daniel with a solid thunk. Where the finish on Saul’s was hazy with tiny scratches like an old favorite piece of jewelry, this one was sleek and new. It gleamed in the morning light from the window.

  “All you need to do is put it on.”

  Daniel hesitated, then reached out to pick it up. A loud knock on the front door made him snatch his hand back. “Jesus!”

  “Hello?” called a clear, feminine voice from outside. “Anyone home?”

  Saul put his finger to his lips and shook his head.

  The silence stretched out for a long moment, and then the door burst open with a sharp crack. Wooden bits from the shattered doorframe skittered across the floor.

  An unsmiling woman stepped into the kitchen. Her hair was silver-white, making her age hard to pin down at first, and was pulled back into a thick, glossy ponytail. Looking carefully at her face, Daniel figured her for no more than twenty-five.

  She wore heavy boots which appeared military to Daniel, and a scarred leather jacket over a white shirt. There was a patch on one shoulder of the jacket with a crossed fist and dagger insignia on it. Her eyes narrowed as her gaze took in the two men and then the bracelet on the table.

  “Saul,” she said in a flat voice, devoid of inflection. She moved towards the table. Daniel stood up quickly, knocking his chair over.

  She turned to him. “My name is Iyah. I assume this man has already tried to press you into his service?” She had a very faint accent, something Mediterranean perhaps. Greek? “Have you accepted his offer?”

  Daniel began to speak, but she cut him off.

  With a significant glance at the bracelet, she said, “Not yet?”

  She took a step forward, her eyes locked onto Daniel’s face. He took two steps back, bumping into the chair behind him.

  Saul stood up from the table and said in a low voice, “He’s decided. He’s coming with me.”

  “Is he?” The woman radiated hostility and barely contained violence.

  Daniel’s mind was racing, but he didn’t speak, afraid to say the wrong thing. Unfortunately, his silence seemed to be taken as a tacit agreement with Saul’s declaration.

  “Pity.” She reached into one leather sleeve and drew a knife.

  In the movies, when the bad guy has a big scary knife that’s supposed to look dangerous, it’s usually some curvy, hooked thing that’s all shiny and about a foot long. In reality, a scary knife is one that looks used.

  This one had a nondescript, double-edged blade about six inches long. There were patchy remnants of a matte black finish, long since scoured off by use. The grip was well worn, but the edges were flawless and razor bright.

  As she drew the knife, her features went blank, inhuman. It was more terrifying to Daniel than rage because anger implied passion, which was unpredictable and changeable. This null expression spoke of something else, something routine and unavoidable.

  His heart hammered, the force making his fingertips tingle and his breath shudder. The woman reached out with her right hand, the knife held low and away in her left.

  At the same time, Saul grabbed Daniel’s shoulder and jerked him backwards, around the corner of the table, yelling, “Dan, the Arc! Put on the Arc!”

  Daniel made a frantic grab for the bracelet and managed to snag it.

  The woman snatched at his arm, her lips beginning to compress in annoyance. Daniel twisted away while jamming his hand into the bracelet. As soon as the unexpectedly warm metal touched his skin, it spasmed closed around his wrist as if alive.

  In that instant, Daniel’s stomach sank, and he felt something akin to buyer’s remorse, only more precipitous and chilling. It was the kind of remorse that clamps on to you inside the barrel as you fly out over the lip of Niagara Falls, thinking that a life of quiet contemplation wouldn’t have been so bad after all.

  Iyah grabbed the table between them with one hand and threw the two hundred pounds slab of oak effortlessly across the kitchen, exposing Daniel and Saul with an ear-splitting crash as the table lodged itself into the wall.

  Oh, shit. On the one hand, he wasn’t nearly as scared of the knife anymore. On the other, he was pretty sure he was going to die. She lunged forward into the space that the table had occupied moments before, but it was too late.

  Daniel and Saul were gone.

  3

  Daniel threw his arms out to either side to catch himself. He was blind, floating in a vast open space, which was dark but tactile, like the sea. A heartbeat later he was again in the light, stumbling over nothing but his feet.

  A man in gray slacks and a cardigan sweater looked up from the book he was reading and gave Daniel a condescending smile. He was seated behind a massive wooden desk, black with age and polish, with a large journal on top and several tidy stacks of papers in plastic trays to one side. He put his book down, picked up a pen, and pulled the large journal across the desk towards him.

  “You can’t log this arrival, Perry. Mr. Keldon’s orders,” said Saul.

  “Ah, one of those, is it? No problem, sir, but I will have to verbally report it to my duty captain. He’ll verify the orders and take it from there.”

  “Understood, thanks.”

  They were standing in a white circle painted on the smartly polished wooden floor on one side of a gymnasium-sized room. Several desks identical to Perry’s formed neat rows throughout the space, each one facing its own painted circle on the ground in front of it. A few dozen people were in the room, manning desks or walking across the open floor. None of them paid Daniel and Saul any notice.

  Saul led them out of a door on the opposite side of the room and into a wide, richly appointed hallway. The place had a palpable gravity that only age and wealth can bestow, with dark paneling on the walls and fine, heavy carpets gracing the gleaming wooden floors. A short walk found them at an ornate mahogany door, which Saul opened and ushered Daniel through.

  Inside, Daniel found a spacious office with a vaulted ceiling and a wide arched window that let in plenty of late afternoon sunlight. A cluttered desk sat against one wall, opposite a tan leather sofa which was completely out of place amid the general opulence, frayed and lumpy as it was.

  Daniel waited for Saul to close the door before he started yelling. “What the hell was that?”

  “What, the girl?”

  “Yes, the girl! She tried to kill me! As in, actually stab me to death with a knife.”

  Saul scratched his beard thoughtfully. “To be fair, I think she was just trying to grab you. If she wanted to kill you, she probably would have stuck that knife into you instead of just waving it around like that. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t worry about it. Are you shitting me?”

  “Look, I got you out of there, didn’t I? She’s gone, literally a world away. You’re not even hurt. Man up for Christ’s sake.”r />
  Daniel threw his hands up. “Fine, whatever. Thanks for the save.”

  “You’re welcome.” Saul waved an arm vaguely around the room. “So, this is my office, what do you think?”

  Daniel let Saul change the subject and looked around slowly, trying to get his composure back. “Cool sofa, but your desk looks like shit.”

  “My grandfather was a New York cop his whole life, and he used to tell me, ‘Never trust a man with a clean desk or a dirty gun.’ Words to live by.”

  Saul settled in behind his desk and then pointed at the sofa, so Daniel dropped down onto it.

  “Okay,” said Saul, “now that you’re all joined up, I want to talk to you about your trip yesterday before I bring you to see Mr. Keldon. He’s not a big one for mysteries, if you get my drift, so I figure we should talk it out first.”

  “Who’s Mr. Keldon?”

  “He’s my boss. Or rather, our boss. The Guild itself is run by a council of three factions, one of which he leads. He’s also the current head of the council as a whole.”

  “I have to meet the guy in charge of the whole operation to get hired? Like the CEO? Seems kind of weird.”

  “New Walkers don’t show up every day, so it’s kind of a big deal when we get a new recruit. Besides, they’re the backbone of the whole operation, so Mr. Keldon insists on meeting each one. Try not to screw it up. Without his approval, you don’t get in.”

  Daniel nodded, suddenly nervous. He needed this.

  “So,” said Saul, “tell me about yesterday.”

  There was a long pause as Daniel tried to wrap his head around what had happened, to sum it up into something that made sense.

  Saul spoke up gently, “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Yeah, sorry. First I thought that maybe I had passed out, because one second it was noon, and the next the sun was setting. But then the season was wrong, too. And then the candlemaker, and the things that looked like people …”

  He stopped talking abruptly, feeling his heart race as he thought about what had happened. Everything was coming out wrong, jumbled up impressions fighting for attention as his brain tried to wrap itself around the whole picture.