"Simon? Did your friends go for a walk-?"
But he too, was gone. Not unlike a dream that had ended and asked to be forgotten. And so, the girl sat there alone in her banal world, a place devoid of hope and possibility. She would face the wrath of the others again soon and there would be no one to talk to, for her opinions were the unsought ephemeral wisps of complete irrelevance. It was hers to be chastised about her failings to God and the disappointed expectations that others held in her. She was not Rio, she was the Vessel. And her punishments would be particularly brutal this time, for she associated with the false ones, the Drifters. She would need to be lectured harshly about straying from the ordained path to become an avatar for god and so many other things she heard before that held less meaning with each nagging insistence.
Sitting stone faced on the rock, she clutched her dark tome of sacraments and rites, occasionally rubbing her knuckles against the book binding. And then she felt her hair. There was a gap amidst the black strands. Despite the blank mask that was presented for the entire uncaring world to see, she had never been so happy.
Wait for us.
CHAPTER 24
The three boys found themselves awakening gradually in the woods, all of them within a minute of one another. It looked to be roughly the same spot they were in before, although it didn't look exactly the same. Individual trees seemed to be in different spots or were altogether not there. The rock where Rio sat was half buried. And it looked like it had rained recently. Ramone noted the mud on the ground, but there were no footprints that led them to this spot. He nodded dimly to himself.
They sat up from their beds of fallen leaves, grass, and wet earth. Everyone looked like hell. Simon was pale and clutching his ribs under his damaged arm, still bandaged with Rio's sleeves. In his hand, he held onto a small black braid. Ramone was stained heavily with blood and sweat. There was still a familiar tear on his leather jacket, too. Jessie was the best off of everyone, but that wasn't saying much. The lot of them were filthy, dehydrated, and exhausted. A soft warm light peeked through the maples above, felt both relaxing and draining. There was a growing Jersey humidity in the air.
"Looks like we're where we dropped out of the other world… we are back in our Dresden Port, right…?" Jessie both stated and asked.
"Probably…" Simon groaned. He didn't have any proof, but it would have followed the example of his previous journey. The other two didn't care to debate it, let alone think hard on the matter.
"Let's get the hell out of here already. Simon needs to get to a hospital," said Jessie. He helped Simon rise to his feet, taking him by the good shoulder around Jessie's neck, just as before. "Should we go for the car?"
Ramone stared emptily for a moment and then looked to the braid Simon was holding. He made a deep sigh and rubbed his face tiredly. "If it's even there… no man, I'll check later if it's there in the lot by some miracle. Let's just walk out to the main road. I'll call a taxi."
"Not an ambulance?"
"I don't really have insurance," Simon wheezed. "Also, they're insanely expensive. Taxi's fine."
They began to trudge through the wilderness, dragging their heels at a relative snail's pace. All the short hills along the way seemed much steeper. For Simon, it was a painful trip, even though it wasn't longer than ten minutes at the absolute most.
They reached an asphalt paved road that ran west and east, but received generally little traffic. Spotting a nearby red painted outdoor storm shelter and bench, they sat Simon down and Ramone began to call for a ride from a local agency. He found it helped to have them on speed dial during bar hopping sessions. And of course, the phones were working again.
"Yeah… three, please… need a ride to the hospital in Heiowah… that's right. We're at the storm shelter on 528… right. If you could hurry… no, we don't want an ambulance. Just send someone here asap. Okay. Bye." Ramone turned to look at them. "He'll be here in about seven minutes." Simon nodded weakly.
"So where did you get the braid from?" Jessie inquired. "I don't remember seeing you with that." He wasn't aware of when he suddenly left the other world. Ramone realized he wasn't sure when he was recalled either. It seemed Simon was the last to go.
"Rio gave it to me," he responded softly, indicative of his energy level. "Something to remember her and the journey by, you know? And it's a sign of our promise to get her out of there. That said, she mentioned it was also a way for her to be away from that place, even if she couldn't ever join us."
The boys looked on glumly. Rio's Dresden Port was a hellhole and her life was nothing more than a series of prolonged cruel mishaps just for existence.
"What the fuck is wrong with that place?" Ramone snarled, like some old bear. "Did we ever have any equivalent to that bullshit?"
"KKK stuff aside… no, not that I can think of," Jessie murmured. "A floating god sphere, an out of control batshit cult like that one? I mean, there's all kinds of messed up stuff here, but we have to keep in mind that whatever parallel our place has to her world, sometime different happened in the past there to make it that way. Rio accepted it as the only life she would ever know it."
"But don't forget, she also knew it was as banal as it appeared," reminded Simon, as he looked at the braid. "She… didn't have much hope that we'd come back, I think. And, I don't mean to say I used the Gift of the Sea on her- I didn't. It was just my impression from talking to her at the end. But, this braid… this braid proves she could come back here, technically. Even these sleeves used for bandages. She is real, you know? Just like us. She's just trapped in a terrible place. We just have to talk to Ullah about this. Maybe he'll know a way we can save her."
"Assuming… we can ever get back there, right?" pondered Jessie. "I mean, if we go to a different place every time…"
Simon shook his head. "Let's table that for now. I don't think we know exactly how all of this works yet by any degree. We'll approach this as best as we can. But we're agreed? If we can, we rescue Rio?"
"Yes, goddamnit."
"Of course. We'll make it work somehow. I just…" Ramone frowned, stopping short.
"What?"
"Well… what if, you know… she gets possessed by that god of theirs first? Or they just sacrifice her? Or accidentally beat her to-"
"Ramone. We get it," grumped Jessie. "There's nothing we can do about it right now. Worrying isn't going to be helpful either. We don't even know how the passage of time works between here and there. Speaking of which… what does your cell phone say? How long were we there?"
The long haired Italian blinked and allowed for the distraction, so he took a closer look. "Looks like… three days?! Holy crap, I missed work without a call. Peterson is going to have my head."
Simon shivered for a moment. Three days? He would be lucky to even have a job now. He leaned back in the shelter, casting his gaze skyward to a series of cobwebs, specs of dried grass, and dead mayflies within the simple wooden awning.
The last drifting he and Ramone went on in Red Eyed World was only a few hours at best, he was pretty sure. They went to the carnival at night and it was early morning when they awoke from that place. In Rio's world, they stayed for what seemed to be around a solid day, or perhaps just several hours around that figure. So how did that end up being three days here? Simon wondered if his visit with the Sea and Ramone's interview with Fire had anything to do with it. It was also possible that each Drifting, would have a different diffusion of time from one place to another. Or just as likely (as far as he could tell), it was random and there was no pattern to glean.
He sighed as a dust stained yellow taxi pulled up.
"You guys called for a ride?" asked a Middle Eastern man in a casual well-worn brown and white turban wrap. Somberly, the boys hopped into the back seat.
"Gun shot wound…?" the taxi driver abruptly asked after several minutes of silence.
The boys looked at each other discreetly. No one had discussed a cover story. And the truth would come off as unbeliev
able and suspicious.
"No. Clipped myself bad with the claw of a hammer," Simon quickly moaned out.
"Oh yeah…" Jessie quickly agreed. "We were, uh, working on a duck blind when he stabbed himself with it by accident. Thanks for getting here so quickly."
"Oh my goodness…" the driver uttered in horror. "Shouldn't you have called an ambulance-"
"Can't afford it," they all said in unison by sheer coincidence. They side glanced at each other. Simon grinned.
"I'm so sorry, I hear that," said the driver. "Yes, yes. My entire family, in fact…" He proceeded to rattle on sympathetically the entire twenty minutes it took to get to Heoiwah's hospital. Ramone felt fortunate that he didn't question why he was blood smeared in places, too.
At Heiowah Medical, Simon was taken into receiving at the emergency ward. He lost a respectable amount of blood and the boys were questioned with some suspicion. A nurse and a cop seemed to think Jessie and Ramone had beat on Simon, instead of taking the hammer claw story at face value. Simon managed to clear it up eventually when he was conscious, as he seemed to be going in and out of that state.
Ramone was forced to make up a story of his own, as well, as they didn't overlook his then grimy complexion as the taxi driver did. Since aside from his undershirt, most of it was about his nose and chin, he made up a tale about high blood pressure and a nosebleed caused by the stress of getting Simon to a road in time for someone to pick him up. His leather jacket was clearly ripped in one spot because he ran through briars and thorns. He declined any assistance.
They followed Simon into a patient's room, where he was changed into one of those deeply uncomfortable paper gowns. After which, he was hooked up to an IV and a pulse monitor and he was given a fresh set of bandages for his wounds. "Interesting cloth here…" said a nurse, reflecting on Rio's blood stained sleeves. "You may have saved your friend with this. I'm going to get a doctor and we'll have him look this over. You two… if you don't mind me saying, look like hell. Why don't you two head home for now and we'll give you a call when we know something? He's cleared you both for medical disclosures. Your friend is probably going to need some light surgery, but we're gonna want to look him over up and down to be safe. And he's going to need a lot of rest."
"I don't doubt that for a second," Ramone stated flatly. "Yeah, that's… fine. Jess, c'mon, let's hit the road. You're still crashing at my place until we get things sorted out."
Jessie nodded. "It's appreciated." He still remembered the plan from before, but it was nice to hear Ramone reinforce his generosity. Right now was a very uncertain time. Not only for Simon's sake, but he knew both his friends would be in deep trouble with their jobs. Then there was the whole issue with the Clayforged. And if his hunch was right, Jessie would be having a very specific kind of fever soon. The thought filled him with dread and anticipation, but he was too exhausted to dwell on it now. That same weariness also spared him the emotional pangs this building had to him. This was the very hospital that his parents were pronounced dead on arrival, when they were brought in after their terrible accident at work. He was still all too content to leave.
Signing out, Jessie and Ramone managed to hail a nearby cab, waiting for anyone to pick up a fare from. Jessie paid for this ride and the two leaned back in their seats, growing faint. "I have never wanted a beer and a smoke so badly," Ramone slurred. Jessie had to admit that at least a beer sounded good, but he would have settled for drinking from a backyard water hose like he was a five year old again.
A bit later, they dragged themselves into Ramone's cottage style house on Jubal Road. He took it over from his father when the old man went to retire with his chippy in Florida. It was a little messy in places, but cleaner than one would have assumed of a macho guy like Ramone. The walls were plastered with Car and Driver magazine pictures of fancy vehicles, American muscle machines, and European tuners.
And of course, there was no particular shortage of sexy women posters, often straddling well-polished vehicles or sitting near a pool with their equally appealing fellow models. To his credit, none of them were naked. At least, not in the hallways and living room. Jessie found it bemusing to note that none of them looked like Aveirasen at all. She was a mysterious woman with long straight dark hair, while these models were bubbly blondes and tanned brunettes, all smiling, all come hither for the camera. Aveirasen probably would have been the kind of woman who haunted the dreams of these models, given the contrast.
Jessie was given the living room couch to crash on, plus anything he wanted from the fridge. There was no charge to be discussed now, perhaps ever. Ramone bent over backwards for people if he was aware that he should. Jessie gave his thanks and slumped down on the brown plush cushions. From across the room, he was pelted with two pillows and two blankets. He allowed himself to be haphazardly buried beneath them; he was just too tired to care.
Ramone bid him a good night and went into his bedroom, closing the door. Jessie could hear him soon talking on the phone, probably to old man Peterson. Peterson was a tolerable fellow, but he had warned Ramone in the past about not calling in, being hung over or using being hung over as a false excuse for ducking out of work. There was no drink on or before the job ever. Simon and Jessie could tell Peterson held Ramone to some standards for all he allowed him to get away with, and Ramone would move heaven and earth not to disappoint the man.
Ignoring his thirst, Jessie idly flicked the television on for background noise. There was a black and white feature playing of Bela Lugosi as the titular Dracula. He'd seen it many times before. Early horror films proved great for sleeping, in his opinion.
This was not his first time on this couch. Sometimes when the whole adventure thing didn't pan out or the weather was really bad, the boys would spent a weekend evening playing poker, watching movies, and ordering take out or delivery. Ramone was an enthusiastic drinker and his fridge was often filled halfway with all sorts of choice craft beers to try out, plus some soda and tonic mixers. He liked to share new drinks with his friends and there were many times that no one could simply keep up with Ramone. So he offered them couch space, typically. It was surprisingly comfortable. Which was odd, since Simon would usually opt for a cab ride home and then walk back the next day to get his crappy Vandura out of the gravel drive way. Failing that, he'd sleep on an old faded rug on the floor in a corner with a blanket, like he was a dog. The again, maybe Simon was more black out drunk during those times then Jessie felt of himself.
Sometime in the following afternoon, Jessie awoke slowly to a vibration in his pants' pocket. He had two voice messages on his phone. One was an unlisted number made late this morning, while the other seemed familiar, but was made the prior night, according to the time. Groaning, his eyes his mainly closed, he listened to the latter first.
"Hello Mr. Aberdeen. This is Doctor Harold Klein at Heiowah Regional Hospital. As per Mr. Simon Rivers signed disclosure, you are amongst those permitted to learn the patient's outcome in regards to his visit yesterday."
"You'll be pleased to know that Simon is doing well. He required several stitches along his lateral side ribs under his shoulder and some mild anesthesia. As for the shoulder injury, it was cleaned and bandaged thoroughly, but should heal normally in time. And to be on the safe side, he has been given a tetanus booster shot, as we found trace fragments of what appears to be iron and other related ferrous residue in the exposed area."
"He should stay in the hospital until tomorrow afternoon for rest and recuperation. He'll be able to make a full recovery before long, but until then, he shouldn't lift any heavy objects for the next week weeks. We're giving him a prescription of mild pain killers. If he has any complications, we'll let you know. You may pick him up first thing tomorrow morning. Visiting hours start at nine thirty a.m. We hope this proves helpful in easing any worries or concerns you may have about your friend. Have a good day." *click*
It was about what Jessie expected. At least Simon was alright. He sat up briefly from his couch
and peeked down the hall to Ramone's room, but it was still closed. He was likely still out cold.
And so, Jessie played the next message from the unlisted number from his phone message menu. It was dated to some ten minutes prior to the hospital call.
It began silently, save for a vague sound of papers shuffling in the background.
"Hello Mr. Aberdeen… we've never spoken before, but… you know who this is, don't you?" Feeling a shiver suddenly shoot down his back, he sat up sharply, straight in posture, fully awake. The voice was crisp, entirely unfamiliar. But Jessie knew exactly who it was. It was the first time he heard the voice. His tone was entirely uneven, just with a few words. It was a mix of playfully mocking and yet professional, with no rhyme or flow to it.
Leonard.
"It seems you and your friends had something of an adventure recently? Work hard, play hard. I won't ask for details. I won't even search for them. But here's a little secret for you. They know. And they're coming for him today."
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