Encounters (2 page)

“
Mind if I join you”, she asked with her hand on the chair in front of her.

“
Please do”, he responded, setting his book down with its cover up, marking his place.

“
You must be Agent McCain”, she said, while taking her seat.

“
Please, just Tommy”, he requested yet again. “Agent McCain retired years ago”.

“
Well Tommy, my name is Helen”, she said as way of introduction. “I’m the town librarian”, she added.

“
Does everyone know who I am”, he asked. “It’s only my second day here.”

“
You know how small towns are”, she replied with a laugh, “Everyone is very curious about anyone new. Since it seems that I’m the first one to sit down with you, you must give me the scoop”, she said. She had a twinkle in her eye that made her seem like a young girl despite the grey in her hair.

So he found himself opening up and sharing parts of his life story that hadn
’t interested anyone for years: his childhood, his years in the army, his first date with Marion. He was surprised at how much he still missed her, so he quickly moved onto his time with the FBI. Occasionally she asked him about little things like if he had ever been undercover.

Chuckling he responded by asking
“do you remember the poor guy in every spy movie who stays in the van”?

She nodded and smiled her soft smile in response.

“Well, when I served in the army I worked with radios and electronics. When I joined the bureau I had such a wealth of experience that I wound up working with radios and electronics. All my dreams of courage and daring do were dashed when I became the guy in the van.”

They both laughed and he realized how long it had been since he laughed so freely. It was her next question smothered his humor.

“Were you really a friend of Stephens?”

Slowly his smile faded from his face, like water from a drain and he nodded. Seeing his expression she quickly apologized, but he tried to reassure her that he was ok.

“Did you know him”, he choked out?

“
Yes, we were friends and that last week he was in the library almost daily. He was researching something but he wouldn’t say what.”

“
I wonder”, he replied, but trailed off before he could complete his thought.

Guessing where he was going she asked
“would you like to come by the library tomorrow? We can see what he checked out. Maybe get an idea of what he was looking for.”

He couldn
’t speak, so he nodded in response. Placing her hand over his she told him to come by when they closed at 6:00 and then she left him to his thoughts. Sad, lonely thoughts they were indeed. Thoughts that followed him home.

The house was dark and empty when he arrived home.
Home? Ha! Not yet, definitely not yet. In an effort to beat back the darkness he turned on every light in the house. The shadows in his mind were far more resilient however, so he put on some music.

He had grabbed the first CD that came to hand and put it in without looking. Soon Mahler filled the room. He had never been a Mahler fan but Marion had loved his music passionately. He reached out his hand to turn off the player but stopped short. He felt so very heavy and just couldn
’t fight it anymore.

For something to do he wandered back into his study and began setting up his Ham radio. It was funny how much radio and its invisible little waves had shaped his life. Stephen and he had actually built this set together out of spare parts. Marion had always laughed when he came home from working with radios all day, only to play with radios on his free time.
Sweet Marion. How they had loved each other. She had laughed and teased, then demanded that he teach her what she needed to know to get her own license.

Despite the endless hours of fun and relaxation it used to bring him he felt no urge to even turn it on. Who would he have to speak to anyway? Suddenly he felt more alone than he had in years. He stood up slowly, holding the desk for support. Staggering, he made his way to his bed and let the great weight of it all pull him down to it. He fell asleep instantly, fully clothed, with all the lights in the house still on.

He dreamed while he slept; dark, lonely dreams of a devastated world. He saw himself drifting over a dry desolate landscape where few living things clung to life. The sun beat down on a cracked land where half seen things scurried from one piece of shade to the next.

Up ahead he saw a bridge spanning a large gulch and he wondered why it looked so familiar. Then it struck him, this was the bridge he took crossing the Mississippi river! What he saw as he passed over was the dry bed of one of the world
’s mightiest rivers. All the water was gone, stolen by the merciless sun. He moved swiftly on, however, changing to a southerly route.

He suddenly felt that he had to see the ocean. Racing!
Past deserted cities and along empty roads. Faster! Till he saw a city he recognized. New Orleans. Where he and Marion on a whim went to Mardi Gras when they were younger. He remembered Marion’s scandalized laughter at the things young women would do for cheap plastic beads.

But, where was the gulf? Where was the warm water that hammered the coast with periodic hurricanes? So he raced on over dry beds of salt and wrecked ships. On the distant horizon he saw a dim swathe of blue that seemed to be all that was left of the world
’s once grand oceans. A burst of static cut through from outside and this dream world started to fade.

“
Tommy!” cut through followed by a loud hiss.

He felt himself being pulled back, but he caught a glimpse at the last of a white sail at the edge of the sea, then he was blinking himself awake. A loud hiss was coming from the study. Staggering, trying to clear his head, he made his way down the hall, clutching the wall for support. He stepped through the door and the static was almost like a roar.

“Tommy” came from his Ham radio.

He reeled back in surprise. It was Stephen
’s voice he heard. He froze in the doorway hearing the static, and then it came again. Disjointed, broken by static, but definitely Stephen calling out to him.

“
Tommy, get…you can………. Town……….. Trap………….. they took me……………… want…… to run.”, then nothing but static.

The spell he was under seemed to lift and he dashed to his microphone calling his friend over and over again, but he was gone. He tried until the sun began to peek over the edge of the world, but he was gone.
Again.

Day 3: Friday

Hours later he wandered into the kitchen for coffee. He sat at the table questioning if he really had heard something. Maybe it was a dream, but he was sure that the radio had been off when he fell asleep.

"No! I didn't imagine it."

Whatever was happening was real. He moved back to the study, this time to his desk, and took out a blank notebook. Quickly he wrote down every word that he had heard. Then, as an afterthought, he wrote out his dream. He wasn’t sure what it meant but intuition said it was important, maybe very important indeed.

He spent the day working inside. He unpacked the last few boxes, placed pictures on furniture and on the walls. He organized his entertainment center. All this was busy work while his mind raced. He could draw no conclusions because he had too little information.

The hours till he was to meet Helen seemed to drag by. He catnapped, watched movies, ate sparingly, and tried to read. None of these things made the time pass any quicker. Finally as the sun began to set he prepared to leave.

He felt anxious on the drive into town and had to force himself to drive the speed limit. He was so focused on the road that he almost didn
’t notice the man from the day before sitting beside the road again. Startled, he couldn’t help but to laugh out loud when he saw him. Today he was dressed like a clown, complete with wig, make up, and costume. He had a beer in one hand and was giving his signature wave to passing drivers. Smiling he waved back and found some of the stress and anxiety had fallen away.

It was at that moment that realized that he didn
’t know where the library was. Helen had never said and he hadn’t thought to ask. He was still chuckling when he pulled into the drive through at MacDonald’s for a large fry and directions.

It was 5:45 when he pulled into the parking lot. There was a pretty teenage girl coming through the door with an armload of books as he walked to the entrance. It was a small, tan, brick building with a sliding glass door and several large picture windows lining the front. Inside he saw that it was essentially one large L shaped room and was loosely divided into children and adult sections, with each further broken down into fiction and nonfiction.

Directly in front of the door was a large wooden counter for a check out station with offices behind it. To the right were three computers for public use that looked to be hand me downs, probably from the local school.

He saw Helen behind the counter checking out books to a small line of people, including a teenage boy with lanky hair hanging in his eyes and dark clothing. Behind him was a father holding hands with his daughter. The daughter was blond, about five and openly staring at the teenager in front of them. Helen glanced up and spotted him.
She gave him the same smile that he remembered from the night before, and then turned back to her work.

He meandered down the aisles taking books down at random to read the book covers or leaf through the pages. He found several books that he might enjoy and made a mental note to get a library card. He was making a list when the lights began to go out. He was startled for a split second, but then he remembered where he was. He started walking towards the front desk and was halfway there when he heard a melodious female voice call his name. He was surprised to feel a small skip in his heartbeat at the sound of Helen
’s voice. She looked up at him, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and smiled as he approached her desk.

“
Good evening”, he said. “I’ve been looking through your selection here while I waited.”

She
blushed a little and said, “I’m sure it seems quaint compared to most places.”

“
Actually, you have a nice selection here. I could spend many a happy hour here.”

She smiled again and asked
“would you like to get started?”

He said yes and she nodded once in return, her expression becoming more somber, she turned to her computer and began working.

“Hmm, it looks like he checked out three books the week he disappeared: one on Norse mythology, one on Native American myths and cultures from this region, and New Astronomy by Johannes Kepler.”

“
Well, that’s certainly an eclectic mix of books”, he said.

“
Well, Stephen was very interested in Native American lore, particularly some mounds not far from here. Why he’d be interested in the other two I couldn’t say. I can tell you that the Kepler book was on the Catholic Church’s list of forbidden books at one point.”

“
Were the books checked back in before he went missing?”

Helen quickly checked and responded,
“It looks like they weren’t returned. I imagine that Chief Hughes has them in a locker somewhere. I can call him in the morning and ask about them.”

Glancing back up she could see the weary slump of his shoulders and his downcast eyes. She placed her hand over his causing him to look back up. She smiled when she met his gaze.

“It’s been a long day and we’re both disappointed. How about you come home with me for dinner? We can discuss our next step and most definitely start the rumor mill grinding.”

He laughed in surprise and nodded. Less than ten minutes later he found himself pulling up behind Helen, in front of 903 Ash Street, a modest, but attractive house. It was green with white trim and a neat flower garden off to one side. There was a giant rose bush growing across an arch with a low wrought iron gate opening onto a rock path underneath. By the light of the falling sun he saw a bench in the back that he could see himself spending nights on gazing at the stars. You could say what you want about small towns, but the sky never seems as wide and clear in the big city.

He walked to Helen’s car where she was still gathering her bags and politely opened her door for her. He offered to carry several of her things, which she gladly handed over, and gallantly held the front door for her. He followed her into a small, but neat foyer that had cut glass windows on either side of the door. Helen led the way down the hall and into the kitchen. Setting her belongings on the table she immediately turned to the cabinets and began pulling down cooking supplies.

“
How does pork chops, biscuits, and veggies sound to you”, she called to him.

“
More than ok”, he responded from his seat at the table.

They continued to make small talk and he found himself relaxing again around her. It struck him how easily they had developed a relationship. An instant friendship tinged with an undercurrent of flirtation that reminded him of when he first met Marion. The time flew by as they talked and before he knew it there was a steaming plate of food in front of him. They both wasted no time before digging in and it was awhile before they both pushed back their plates and let out sighs of contentment.