by S E Anderson
CHAPTER THREE
Imagine Running Over a Dude With Your Car
I don’t think I will ever forget the sound my car made. That awful crunching noise; the initial impact, then the thumping as the car bounced over him, followed by the dull thud as he emerged behind me.
I had just run someone over.
All the way over.
I slammed on the brakes. The car screeched, and I lurched forward, my momentum halted by the seatbelt. The strip dug into my shoulder and would definitely leave a bruise, but with all the adrenaline in my veins, I barely noticed. My hands shook as I gripped the wheel, my heart pounding from shock. I trembled in my seat, staring into the rearview mirror, begging—pleading—for whatever I had hit to get up and wander off.
But nothing moved.
I forced myself out of the car, flinging the door open and tumbling out. I had never seen so much blood before. The street glistened with it, and I refused to believe a human could have spilled so much. I must have hit a bear. I must have hit—
But it wasn't a bear. It looked like a mass of bed sheets someone had used to clean up after a murder—with the body still inside—wrapped like a mummy, face down on the street.
I sighed in relief. Obviously, someone had left the body there to get run over, destroy the evidence, and—wait—no. Why was I relieved? Someone had been murdered, and I was being framed. How had I missed it lying in the road like that anyway? I was sure the street had been empty.
I needed to call 9-1-1.
And then the body did something I had not expected—it moved.
A hand extracted itself from the mess, slapped the ground, and used it to push up the rest of its body. The man underneath it let out a low groan. It was small and muffled and surprisingly calm. I heard the rasp of his breath, like fingers running down a washboard. I could have screamed right there, but no sound came out. It was as if someone had stuck their hand into my back and wrapped a fist around my spine.
Sometimes, Don’t Panic does not apply.
Slowly, he turned his face in my direction: his nose was crooked and probably broken, stones embedded his skin deeper than should have been possible. I saw the bewilderment as his eyes met mine. I took a step back, an involuntary move on my part, but he did not break eye contact. Instead, he stretched out another arm, bracing himself, but could not support himself and fell back with a grunt.
This time, my reflexes kicked in, and I ran to him and kneeled at his side. I didn't want to move, or even touch him. At least, not until I knew the extent of his injuries. I reached for my hip, struggling to pull out my phone from my tiny half-pocket.
“I'm here, I'm here, it's okay,” I tried to say in a soothing voice, but it wasn’t convincing. Actually, it failed to sound anything but completely terrified. “Can you hear me? Can you say something—anything?”
With his face still on the concrete, voice muffled, he let out a string of gibberish in a language I didn't recognize, and then punctuated it with a laugh.
Of course, none of this made sense.
“What on earth?” I muttered, which somehow piqued his curiosity.
“Oh … Earth!”
The stranger rolled onto his back, sprawling on the street like it was his bed. He looked up with a broad smile that lit the night.
I guess I had been wrong: He wasn't as injured as I first thought. Maybe it had been the harsh light from the streetlamp making his nose look broken. With a brush of his hand, most of the stones and blood fell away, revealing a pristine face, no cuts or bruises to speak of.
“I've been here before,” he said, letting out a long breath of relief, as if I hadn't just run him over. Had I? I was starting to doubt my recollection of the events. Though the blood around us told another story.
His voice was accent-less: I couldn't pinpoint where he was from. He pronounced words as if he were reading them from a dictionary. He breathed deeply, staring at the stars. Vibrant, silvery-green eyes reflected the sky above him. His smile became a thin line.
“Dude, are you okay?” I asked, reaching a hand out and then snatching it back as I realized what I was doing. He said nothing.
I finally wrangled my phone out of my pocket to call emergency services. Before I could hit the call button, his hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.
“Blade,” he hissed, his eyes wide in terror. “I need blade.”
The words came out of his mouth like a hymn, or a parched man begging for water. I ripped my arm from his grasp.
“You're fine; it's okay,” I said, quite possibly a lie.
“Never been without blade,” he choked out. A thin line of blood trickled from his mouth. I wondered if a rib had punctured his lung or his stomach, knowledge that came from too many years of watching hospital shows. How much time did he have left? He laughed gently, and blood oozed out of his mouth, trickling down his chin, staining the street with yet another red puddle. None of this seemed to bother him, though. Instead, his eyes swept back to me, wide and determined.
“Stay with me,” I said. “I'm going to get you some help.”
“Don't … don’t call anyone.” His voice was raspy, but he was definitely pleading. “They can't help.”
“Of course they can. Don't give up now.”
“I'm fine, really.” As if to prove it, he pushed himself up, groggily, and turned his head one way then the next, making his neck bones crack. He looked like a man getting up in the morning, stretching his muscles, a peaceful look on his face. And he wasn’t wearing a sheet, but a toga thingy, a wrap of some kind, like you might see in the desert. The cotton sheet shifted, exposing a bit of skin here and there. I couldn't see any cuts.
“Have you seen Blayde?”
“Um, no,” I said, scanning the ground. “You sure it's not around here?”
I sure hoped not, but for now, I'd play into his delusion; stay on his good side just in case he was a psychopath with a new way of abducting people. While logic told me that something was off, my gut was sure there was nothing to worry about. I stood, extending a hand to help him up. He took it, his legs cracking like his neck when he put his weight on them.
Finally on his feet, he brushed himself down. The bloody wrap stuck to him almost everywhere, and the sand clinging to the patches of blood wasn’t coming off either. He lifted a hand coated with sticky, bloody sand and grimaced before wiping it on his wrap.
“She wouldn't be on the ground,” he explained quickly. “She's about yay tall”—he held his hand to about my eye level—“and tends to get a little intense when she doesn't know where I am. Then again, I never lost her before …”
“This is your blade we're talking about?”
“My Blayde, yes.”
“I haven't seen one around here.”
“Her. Blayde is a her.”
“Your knife's a woman?”
“Oh, no.” He laughed, pointing at me. Had I done something funny? Maybe the look of realization spreading on my face was something different for him. “It’s Blayde. With an ‘ay’ sound. B-l-a-y-d-e. She’s my little sister. She's not here?”
“Oh, Blayde.” I laughed, though in the back of my mind I was still debating whether the man was psychotic. I felt a little relief in the fact that he wasn't a knife-wielding maniac. “I've never heard that name before. What ethnicity is it?”
He ignored me, going to the edge of the road and shouting into the park. “Blayde! Blayde!” He shouted at the sky, the trees, and at anything that would listen, but he must have realized it wasn't getting him anywhere because he stopped.
“You could try calling her,” I suggested.
“That's what I am doing!”
“With a phone, I mean.”
“Blayde has our phone.” He glared at me. “Wait a minute, do you have something to do with this?”
There was a sudden fire behind his eyes that wasn't there before, making me take a step away, shivering. He looked terrifying in that desert garb. At least, I guessed that's what it was, based
on my experience with movies and such. It was soaked with blood, and his face was covered with sweat and twisted with fear.
Holy shit, he was scary.
“No,” I said, stepping away from him. He looked taller now. While he wasn't a giant, he still towered over me like a mountain.
“What have you done with Blayde? Did you run over her too?” the stranger growled, pretty much saying the worst thing he could have said.
“No!” I sputtered, “No, no, no … Oh shit. I hit you with my car. No, I ran you over. I felt it. Heard it. I … but you weren't there, and then … where did you come from?”
“You'll get answers when I get answers,” he snarled, a threat hanging on his lips, “Now, tell me, and tell me quickly. Where. Is. Blayde?”
And that's when it hit me, all at once. The thing I refused to believe, what his jovial smile and quick recovery had pushed to the back of my mind.
I had hit him with my car.
I lost control of my breathing as the truth hit me. The morning’s panic came back but stronger, a panic attack of the likes I hadn't felt in years. Everything was so clear now—the body crunching against the impact of my car, the blood in the street. I fell to my knees, clutching my chest and willing myself to calm down, but it was too much to process.
“Oh … no, hey,” he said, his voice soft and reassuring, going from terrifying giant to sweet teddy in five seconds flat. He crouched beside me, putting a warm hand on my shoulder. “It's okay. I'm okay. See? You didn't hurt me. I'm all right. And you're all right. You're going to be fine.”
And somehow, the attack slowly began to subside.
He waited until I had calmed before removing his hand. The stranger sat beside me in the middle of that empty road, staring up at the sky as I composed myself.
Why was this happening?
And why on earth was it happening to me?
“Do you know what it's like to be alone?” he whispered. His voice was so low it felt like it was woven from the frozen air. “With only one person in the entire universe you can count on? Just one?”
I didn't answer, but the truth was, I did. Marcy had been right, even if I couldn’t admit it. But I had a feeling his question ran a little deeper than that.
“Do you have any idea what it's like to lose them?”
It didn't sound like this Blayde person had walked off like I had or taken off somewhere distant. It sounded like she was dead.
“I've had my losses,” I said, unsure if his questions were rhetorical, if he really wanted an answer or just wanted to talk to a wall. “I've felt like I've lost my world before. My universe. But I didn't, not really.”
“Now, I know what that feels like, too.”
And so, we sat and stared at the stars for a little while longer, neither of us knowing what to say. I wanted to take him to a hospital, make sure he was all right, but he had made it seem like that would be the death of him.
“I'm Sally,” I said, finally breaking the silence. “Sally Webber. I don't know who you are or if you believe me, but I am truly sorry. Really, I am. And not just about hitting you with the car.”
“I'm Zander,” he said, his eyes still riveted on the sky.
Did he see something up there? What was he even looking for?
“Zander who?”
“Just Zander.”
A gust of wind blew down the street, chilling my skin. Zander ignored it. He ignored a lot of things, actually. He was an odd sight, for sure. His clothes had an otherworldly feel to them. His tunic slipped over his head then wrapped around his waist; his loose-fitting pants were stuffed into worn leather boots, old and cracked in places, with long strips of cotton wrapping up his calves to keep him from tripping over his clothes.
His face didn’t seem to fit his choice of clothes, however. While the wrap was light, his face seemed chiseled and hard, like that of a Greek statue. Blemish-free and a gentle brown that could have been a dark tan, his skin had sand stuck to it in places, and gravel in others. He scratched the stubble near his ear, dislodging small particles of sand and revealing dirty fingernails. His eyes reflected the stars as he stared up. He ran a hand through his hair, which billowed from the top of his head, defying gravity. And although his arms were bloodied, there were no cuts. No marks. Not even scars.
“I'm glad you're not hurt, Zander, whoever you are,” I said, teeth chattering. “I could never have lived with myself if I had …”
“You don't even know me.”
“Yeah, but still, I'm in shock, right? Actually running someone over…” I shuddered. “It’s the sort of thing that’ll haunt your nightmares forever.”
“Not the worst thing to haunt your nightmares, but I see your point.” The edges of his smile were taut, and the expression didn’t reach his eyes. It was an expression I knew well.
“So, um, how come you're not hurt? If you don't mind me asking? I mean, the blood …”
“Oh, this?” He chuckled. “Costume.”
“But, the street.”
“Costume,” he insisted, brows furrowing. “Nothing happened.”
“Right,” I agreed, knowing he wouldn't let me push it any further while fully aware it was a lie. “So, um, you want to call Blayde?”
“Oh, that would be great. Thanks,” he said, taking the phone I held toward him. “If I can remember her number, of course.”
“Ha, gotta love smartphones,” I joked. “I only know my house number from when I was a kid. I'd be a mess if I were ever stranded.”
“Oh, very true,” he agreed, smiling politely, though he seemed to have no idea what I was talking about.
“Blayde, hey, it's me,” he said, after a whole minute of fumbling around. Judging by the response time, he had managed to reach an answering machine. “Jump got interrupted. Not my fault and not yours either, but we'll talk about that later. I'm in—hey,” he shouted to me. “Where are we?”
“Franklin.”
“No.” He shook his head. “What country?”
“Country? Um, the US.”
“Yeah,” he said, returning to the call. “The US, on Earth. Franklin. There’re lots of trees. I'll be waiting. And Blayde? Be safe, okay?”
Zander hung up the phone, handing it back with a tip of his head.
“Is there anything else I can do for you?” I asked, still shaken. “Anything you need? Can I offer you a ride somewhere?”
He laughed. “That's kind, but no thanks. I'm fine, really. I'll be on my way.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yup.” Zander nodded. “But, hey, thanks. Here.”
He reached into his pocket, pulling out a handful of coins in different shapes and sizes. Some were hexagonal—I couldn’t think of any countries that had hexagonal coins—while some looked more like poker chips, only smaller. Finally, he selected six small coins that I didn't recognize. They looked like something out of an old movie, old fashioned but in perfect condition, as if they minted only yesterday.
“For all the trouble I've caused,” he explained. “Thanks again!”
With that, he tore off into the park, disappearing between the trees before I could call him back, leaving nothing but bloody sand in his wake.
I stared at the coins in my hand. What on earth had just happened?
And where had all that sand come from?
CHAPTER FOUR
In Which I Gain a Healthy Distrust of Parks
You know that moment you wake up and everything is good with the world? When you snuggle in the sheets and think that life might just be perfect? And then wonder why you need to get up, and if you could stay like this forever, or if anybody would even notice if you were gone?
I guess I didn't deserve that kind of comfort. When my eyes flew open the next morning, I felt the weight of everything on my chest. I had lost my job. I had gotten into a fight with Marcy. And, to top it off, I had run a man over with my car—or something. That part wasn't so clear.
Luckily, one of those problems could be rectified r
ight now. I fought against the bright light from the sun as I struggled to find my phone, which wasn't on my nightstand where I usually left it. Nothing was where I usually left it. I was still entirely dressed, well, except for my shoes, which were nowhere to be found.
I guess yesterday was rougher than I remember.
I got up, shuffling out of my room, trying to find my purse through the blur of morning vision. I found it in the sink. One of my shoes was balanced on the drying rack beside it; the other one was unaccounted for. Luckily, the water hadn’t touched my purse, so my phone was safe.
Everything on the phone's screen punched my anxiety button. For starters, the clock announced it was already 11:30 A.M. On top of that, there were dozens of missed calls, all from the same number. Marcy, of course. She was probably peeved I hadn't called her back, and the guilt for how I had acted last night hit me again tenfold.
My stomach knotted itself at the memory of the things I had said, or wanted to say. I had been stupid and rude, to the only person who was even trying to help. There would be a lot of apologizing to do, even if I did feel slightly offended at how easily Marcy thought she could change me. I didn't need any pity from her or anyone. But I loved her, and I couldn’t believe I had stormed off like that.
I pressed the call button and hopped on the sofa, sinking into the softness of the seat. I needed to buy new cushions, I remembered. Rosemary's absence lingered in the air, weighing me down.
“… Out of your mind?” Marcy squawked. “Because I've been out of mine. I've been trying to call you all morning. How are you feeling, by the way? Any better? I'm sorry about last night. I thought I was helping, but, my gosh, Sally, I've been worried sick. I wanted to … I tried to …”
I couldn't help but laugh. “Relax, Marcy. I overslept.”
“Overslept?” Marcy sputtered. “It's almost noon. Are you okay?”
“A little stressed,” I replied, which was true, but it wasn’t the whole story. I would tell her about that Zander guy when we met in person; it wasn't telephone talk. “I needed to sleep it off. It just took a little longer than I expected.”