Saving John

by Gabe Sluis

  Chapter 25- Terrance Golden

  Chris, Donny, and Jake moved at the quickest pace they could all manage, up a trail towards the area on the map marked Owl’s Nest. Before they got too close to the entrance to the area the madman occupied, they turned off on a deer trail heading away from the main dirt path. After a couple hundred feet, they stopped and crouched. After looking around to see that they were unobserved, Donny was the first to speak.

  “I feel good about this, but damn do I wish Ryan was here right about now.”

  “Yeah,” Jake snorted, “Ryan would be a good help right about now. He is great in the woods; great at this kind of fight.”

  “So a plan. What’s the plan?” Chris said. “Draw him out or go in after him?”

  There was a pause, but Jake spoke up. “Draw him out. That way we can always go in after him if we need too, once we have him shaken up. Better to go in after him when he is off balance and on the run.” Then Jake turned to Donny and said some things that no longer sounded crazy. They were no longer in the real world. Here the laws of nature only worked for the most part. Here, you were compelled to do things you would have never considered. Here, you were following a path.

  “Can you play that same tune for the lion again? Can you call him to come join us?”

  Donny nodded and said something else that sounded perfectly reasonable, there in that place. “And I have been thinking about another little song. This one is even better than the lion song. I have this feeling about it. I can hear it in my head and I just know you will like it.”

  Jake nodded and smiled. He couldn’t wait to hear it. He turned to Chris.

  “You can’t move around like Donny and I are going to have to. Having three targets will be hard enough, and the two of us will be moving in on him. So you get to where you can see, and use that key when we need for it. You use the key, Donny will play his song, and I will try to knock his ass out. You kid’s ready?”

  “We are both older than you Jake,” Donny smiled.

  “Yeah, yeah. I don’t know what is about to happen, but if I don’t, see you on the other side.”

  “Thanks for coming with me,” Chris said. He had to stop speaking. He could feel himself becoming choked up.

  “The best two friends I’ll ever have…” Donny slapped the other two on the shoulders, sprung to his feet and started back on the deer trail to where they made their brief detour.

  Golden was back at his camp, muttering to himself about the success of his last attempt to send the unclean away. His mind was clouded. All humanity had left him. He was the husk of a man that has not yet realized he is gone. Terrance Golden was no longer home.

  Sweet notes floated through the trees. Golden’s head shot up and he snatched up his rifle. Wearing camouflage pants and a dark green tank top, the skinny man’s head started to dart from side to side. He could not tell the distance or direction the music was coming from. It was all around him. It had to be stopped.

  Golden snaked his way down the path towards the entrance to his hole in the hill. He hid behind sharp rocks that had been blasted or fallen from the side of the limestone cliffs. Bundles of sticks, arranged in odd patterns by his warped logic, adorned the flat area in front of the opening to the rest of the woods. The music still played. He looked around, up in the trees, along the steep ridgelines that protected him, but still no source could be found.

  In a moment of impulsive decision, Golden shouldered his rifle and shot the Sheriff of Saint Anne through the heart, he stood at the mouth to his sanctuary. Golden blinked and no one stood where he has just fired. Sweat dripped from his eyebrows, close to his eyes. With a dirty arm, he ground the sweat away. His thin hair was plastered to his skull except for the wisps’ around his ears. The music was beginning to drive him mad. And then came the roar.

  It was more like a scream, and it made Golden spin around in place. From up on the ridge, a huge yellow cat stood silhouetted in the sunlight. The music stopped and the beast leaped after the man downhill. The big cat took fast, short strides right for Golden who fired off a stray round in the animal’s general direction and ran for escape.

  The brave man who had shot an unarmed backpacker, burst out of the protection of his hiding place, stumbling backward away from the lion. The big cat let out another loud call, prompting another wild shot from the madman. The cougar appeared at the chokepoint, the entrance to the Owl’s Nest, with sure, heavy footfalls. Golden sloppily manipulated the bolt on his wood-stocked rifle and aimed directly at his attacker. Looking over the scope and down the barrel, he squeezed the trigger.

  The firing pin dropped on an empty chamber.

  Golden let the rifle drift from his shoulder in disbelief. The cat gave a huff and licked its lips. Its eyes were locked on the man in front of him. Golden went for his front breast pocket, clumsily pulling four long bullets. He wrenched the bolt back open and jammed each round individually down into the internal magazine. One round slipped from his trembling fingers, making his count three.

  The ground shook.

  A directed pressure wave rippled through the ground, growing in spread, knocking Golden from his feet. Chris was crouched a short way down the hill from the opening to the Owl’s Nest with the earthquake key pressed to the ground. Dirt and rocks smacked against the madman’s back as he bounced from the undulation of the surface waves.

  Chris pulled the key back, ending the storm. He peeked up higher to see the results of his handiwork. His vision took a second to adjust, as they were still jarred from the teeth-rattling effects he had just unleashed. It was only his third time using the key, but it still felt like using a one of his dad’s very powerful power-tools for the first time. The mountain lion had gone and it looked as if Golden was still off his feet.

  Chris continued to look, becoming emboldened by lack of visual contact, when out of the left side of his field of vision, he saw Jake streaking across the forest floor towards where he had seen Golden last. Black gloves covered his hands that pumped back and forth as Jake moved.

  The flute began to play, and to Chris’s right he saw Donny come out from behind a tree and march forward with his instrument to his lips, like a drummer boy marching forward with the infantry in the Revolutionary War. The tune was something new, bright and fast; very different from the calming song that helped them befriend the big yellow cat. Chris turned his attention back to center, and that’s when he saw it.

  Their foe was lying prone, just under and behind a fallen log, aiming his rifle down at Chris. For a second he was petrified and his mind was screaming for him to get back behind a tree. And then reality tore open.

  Jake sprinted forward, seeing the former Marine taking up a familiar position in a clearing. Donny’s song changed; Jake could hear it perfectly clear despite the sprint he had just burst into. This is the song he had been saving. Fifty feet in front of him the air cracked in a purple lightning bolt pattern. As the tune progressed, the rip expanded and burst into a cloud of light purple. It looked like a fog, but solid, lighter shades to the center. It was the fog he had walked though to get to this world.

  He reached the cloud and grabbed a handful, still in full leaping sprint, and threw the ball at the man on the ground. The snowball of purple haze hit Golden in the left arm, turning it to stone. Jake landed, still at least ten paces from Golden, as Donny came into view. Golden writhed in pain from the attack, twisting his feet towards Jake, and the rifle’s business end towards Donny.

  Donny was shot.

  Donny felt no pain. He knew he was hit by a bullet, sure, but there was no pain. He missed the beat of the tune and the lack of music was deafening. He looked down and saw no blood or gore, but knew he was slipping. Keeping the time of his tune, he blew the final two notes to complete the measure…

  And he was back in the hospital, looking at John McCourtney lying unconscious in bed, wires and tubes connected to his body. The light was different, as if a filter had been added to his vision. He looked up at Chri
s and Jake standing like statues

  And then…

  Chris limped as fast as he could, the key held in his fist, ready to slam into the ground on a seconds notice. Donny reeled backward, blew into his instrument and was gone before the pan flute hit the dirt. He watched as Jake jumped back to the rapidly shrinking cloud and grab a final handful of the purple with his gloved hand. Jake spun like a hurricane as Golden arched the barrel towards Jake. The ball of pink hit golden in the right leg, turning his upper extremity to solid grey stone like a spreading disease.

  Golden ignored the incapacitating blow and jacked his second round into the chamber. Jake seeing what was coming cocked his right arm back and committed his whole body into a final blow to the face of Terrance Golden. The madman’s eyes gleamed as he pulled the trigger with his one usable arm, sending the round into Jakes chest. By the time Jake reached Golden, there was nothing left but black gloves fluttering down on top of the sweaty, dirty man.

  Chris walked now, forgetting the torn ligaments in his foot. He was the only one left, but was not afraid. This felt like a chess game he was destined to win; loosing pieces to make the final kill was to be expected. The man before him tried to crawl away on his back, but with one arm and one leg now useless stone, it was futile.

  Golden grabbed his gun and fiddled with the bolt. He was much less efficient at loading the next round with the tall boy bearing down on him. Holding the long rifle with one shaking, skinny arm, Golden tried his best to aim his final shot. But, Chris dropped to one knee, touching the key to the ground and sending a circle of a shockwave outward from his position. It hit Golden like a speed bump at thirty miles an hour. The rifle fired off in a random direction. Chris stood and took two steps closer to the man.

  For a moment, they stood there, looking back and forth at each other. Chris had nothing to say, no cheesy catchphrase like in the movies, no final sentiment to pass on. Instead, he did what he knew he must. Taking a final step, Chris jammed the key into the Redwood Reaper’s left eye. Chris squeezed his eyes shut as he heard the agonizing scream of Golden grow like electrical feedback. The woods fell silent.

  The shooter in the woods disintegrated to grains of sand, spilling across the floor of the redwoods. The sand was off white in color, and it stood out against the tan-brown of the needle-covered ground. After a moment frozen in time, Chris stood up and looked around the woods. They were quiet in a way he had not noticed before.

  With black gloves stuffed in his back pocket and a pan flute in his other hand, Chris walked into the Owl’s Nest, leaving the barrel of Golden’s rifle sticking into a patch of ground covered with light colored sand. He walked north, into the warm sunlight, past the dirty camp without stopping, and over the top of the hill.

  On the other side of the redwoods, on the downhill side devoid of big trees and only populated by grey brush, Chris walked to the roaring ocean. The clouds covered the sun and cold sea air replaced the warmth. Following a winding path, Chris reached a cliff overlooking the crashing waves below. This could have been the spot they had pulled off to take a leak months ago, on their way up north to the campground. The only difference was he had never seen that spot in the daylight. Chris pulled the gloves from his back pocket and admired them one last time. They had fit so well the two times he had worn them; completely comfortable and totally insulating from the things he had touched. They were Jake’s, not his, so he tossed them into the sea. The wind caught them on the way down, blowing them in a wild direction. He never saw where they landed.

  Next, he blew an unsuccessful note on Donny’s flute. It sounded hollow and weak compared to the command its former owner had. He tossed it into the sea as well, listening to it cry a final goodbye as the wind hit it just right. An incoming wave passed right into the flute as it reached the water, taking it to the soundless depths.

  Finally, he held his key in his hand, not looking at it. He felt the smooth texture of the metal in his hands. Before he could stop himself, he wound up and launched the powerful key solidly into the air so hard he could feel a twinge in the back of his shoulder. Chris tracked his throw as far as the horizon, but as soon as it passed above the dark sea, it was gone. A moment later, a faint vibration tickled Chris’s feet.

  Chris stood for his final moments on the edge of the windy cliff, looking out at sea. He knew the task was complete and he felt relieved. He had done what he had needed to do, with the help of his friends. Content with not knowing what was next, Chris let out a deep breath, and was gone.

  Epilogue

  Chris opened his eyes and looked at his friends. Both had tears streaming from their eyes as they stood around the hospital bed. Chris reached up and found his eyes were wet as well. Jake nodded to Chris, who had just came back a second after he had, and Chris nodded back. Donny smiled, despite the tears. The clock on the wall read 2:22 P.M.

  The three friends filed out of the hospital room, Chris last, lingering a moment longer to look at his father and close the door behind him. They walked through the white walls and generic paintings, unobserved, though automatic sliding doors and into the night. It was a dark night, but none seemed to mind. The three boys split, Donny walking off to the right toward his nearby apartment, Chris to his truck in the visitor parking lot, and Jake to his motorcycle parked in a regular patient spot. Each took off in their own directions to find their beds, to deal with the mental exhaustion they all felt. The three-minute visit left them feeling like they had crossed an ocean.

  Three months later, Jake was on his motorcycle again. It was getting cooler out now with the changing of the seasons, and he rode with a hoodie over a long sleeve shirt. He glided into the parking lot for a large park and parked his bike. After locking his helmet next to the seat, he walked across the green grass to a path that circled a pond. Ducks swam in armadas around an island dominated by a weeping willow. It was not long until he happened upon the group he was there to meet.

  Two picnic tables were full of food and drinks and a handful of people buzzing around to set things up. Jake walked up and got a bright smile from Chris, who was helping load drinks into a cooler for his mother and sister. After saying hello, Jake was shocked to see Donny walk up right behind him carrying balloons, also early for the event.

  “Who is this dapper fellow? On time and with a sensible gift? You’re making me look bad, man!” Jake said to Donny. He punched Donny in the arm and offered him a beer he had snagged from the cooler Chris was filling.

  “Well, the new job requires me to be on time, every time. I guess its just creeping into the rest of my life!”

  “Oh, yeah, Donny,” Chris said, “Your timecard was off this last week by two hours. I adjusted it so that you will see it in your next paycheck.”

  “Yeah, Clyde has been really stressed lately with his contractors exam coming up. I asked him if he wanted to take over timesheets, but he said no.”

  “I’ll talk to my Dad about that,” Chris said.

  At that moment, Jake turned, hearing something from behind him. And there he was big John, walking up the slight hill to his celebration. He had seen John several times before this moment: a day after they took the breathing tube out and John continued to breath on his own, a week after he had woken up, and Jake was there the day John McCourtney went home from the hospital. His recovery had been nothing short of a miracle. Only ten percent of patients had any positive recovery after a stroke of John’s kind. And here he was, walking on his own and back to a modified work schedule after only a few months.

  John had lost weight and kept his head shaved, the way they had done for him at the hospital. Overall he looked healthy, if not a couple years older. Upon awaking from his medical induced coma, John had been a slightly different person. He had a talk with his son, Donny and his long time worker Clyde the day he went home from the hospital. John was no longer the young man he had been and decided to start planning his future in a different way. He had hired his son to take control of the financial side of the famil
y business. With Chris’s formal schooling on the subject, he was able to correct past flawed practices and guide his father’s hard work in a stronger direction.

  To Donny, he offered a job. He could start from the bottom while he went to school and earn real money. Should he like the work, John was going to need licensed foremen in the future. Even more, the opportunity was better than working in the food industry. Donny accepted on the spot.

  Clyde was given an ultimatum. Get your contractors license in six months or get a new job. He had been a valuable worker for John for too many years to waste his experience on slinging individual bricks. It was time to step up.

  John stepped back from his role as foreman, designer, and moneyman. The stress was too much. He had worked hard enough in his life, and after his recent medical problems, it was time to take it easy. He had earned it.

  And now, three months later, Chris had a rewarding job that he deeply cared about and Donny had a new sense of drive in his life and goals he wished to reach. Big John was back on his feet and the whole big family could not be more content. The ominous air of coming hard times had passed faster than fog dissolving under the bright sun. All was well in the world as the extended McCourtney family celebrated with their friends that November day in the park.

  The End