Jigsaw World (2 page)

Tom sidled over to the television, which was
languishing unloved in the corner, and turned it on. He used the
remote he found nearby to surf for either news or entertainment,
whichever he found first. It was news.

A perky young reporter was acting as an
anchor, and was in the midst of a report about the 7.2 magnitude
earthquake that had just occurred in the middle of Mexico and had
nearly leveled the nearby city of Nayarit. She was remarking on the
random nature of earthquakes, and how nobody really understood what
triggers them. Meanwhile, the video rolling in the background was
showing the reputed epicenter of the earthquake, which was
experiencing continuous aftershocks, probably due to the large
tentacle-like structures that were waving about in the air, and
occasionally destroying nearby buildings. It was quite obvious to
Tom that those limbs, which Tom supposed to be attached to an even
larger subterranean creature, were the cause of the earthquake. It
was equally obvious that neither the reporter, nor any of the
nearby spectators saw those limbs.

In the next half hour, Tom watched as the news
reported on a town cleared of humans by Zombies, a cult that
committed suicide after what appeared to be a mass demonic
possession if one went by the inscriptions left behind, and a
battle between two factions of the Muslim populations in Syria
which was wholly caused by human agencies. At no point did the
newscasters show any indication of reporting on anything
unusual.

As Tom turned the television off, and started
thinking seriously about getting some shut-eye, Bailey started
barking hysterically and staring toward the ceiling. Tom spun
around on his heel, trying to get a panoramic read on the
surroundings.

“
What the hell is the matter with
your dog?” Gilbert asked, after opening his eyes from where he was
resting them on the couch.

Tom was surprised that Gilbert was not
unconscious, let alone aware of the dog’s activities. “I don’t have
a clue, but he knows what is going on better than that reporter
did, so I am prone to pay attention to his reporting
skills.”

“
Fuck that. I’m catching some Zs.”
Gilbert lurched up and made his unsteady way through the door to
the bedroom. Tom heard the door slam and lock.

“
What is it, Bailey?” Tom asked
the dog. “What’s twisting your tail?”

Bailey looked at Tom with a complex mixture of
fear, confusion and patience on his canine face. Tom was pretty
sure that if he was in front of a mirror, he would see just such an
expression on his own face.

“
Hey, it is getting real bright
outside.” Nancy said. She had been looking out of the window, and
Tom had to agree that it was far brighter out there than the full
moon that was out tonight could account for. A pure white light had
chased all the shadows away, a light so bright that the shape of
the nearby tree was blurring, and beyond all that could be seen was
a glare.

“
Tom, this is scaring me!” She
whimpered.

Even Susan had started looking around in a
drunken state of alarm. Bailey took this moment to resume his
barking, low and serious. He also chose to make a strategic retreat
to a location just behind Tom’s legs. Once in position, he ceased
the loud barking, and began a low-throated and continuous
growling.

Tom decided to take a look out of the window
himself, and abandoned the brave canine to take up protective cover
under one of the chairs by the table. Opening the window, he
actually stuck his head out of the window, and looked
up.

As bright as it was, he could just make out a
huge triangular craft floating silently above the house. The light
seemed to be emanating from the edges of the craft. Tom feels Nancy
nestled against his back, as she peers upward toward the craft. He
feels her fingernails dig into his shoulder.

Tom looks back at her face, which is filled
with terror and panic. “Help me. It’s pulling me!” She moans. Her
eyes return to watching the craft floating close and overhead. It
was obviously a compulsion that she could not resist. She stepped
around Tom, so that she was now between him and the window. The
light seemed to be concentrating around her, and her eyes were
locked on the sky until Tom forced her head around to look at
him.

“
It is taking me, Tom!” She
wailed.

Tom let go of her head and reached for her
shoulders, so that he could pull her away from the window. As he
made contact, his fingers went through her shoulder, meeting only a
small bit of the resistance that they should have met. When he
looked at her, he could see that she was slowly fading from view,
becoming more transparent by the second. She was saying something
to him, but it seemed to be a long way away. In a few seconds, she
was gone.

Tom lost track of things for a few seconds
after that, and only really came to himself when Susan raked him
with her fingernails as she screeched and tried to climb out of the
window after Nancy. Nothing she did for the next five minutes made
the least bit of sense, so he said nothing and just held her
tightly.

An hour later saw him, coaxing an additional
couple of whiskies into her system as proxies for tranquilizers. He
had also found some steaks in the freezer, and had thawed one and
fed Bailey. Susan now made a bit more sense than before, and they
had been quietly talking about what they should do next for the
last few minutes. Susan was insistent that they should go to her
house, which was just about a mile down the road, while never once
referencing Nancy, or the fact that Nancy would not be
coming.

A couple hours later the dawn light was just
beginning to stream, and they decided that now was as good a time
as any. Gilbert was sawing logs, and could not be awakened by Tom
or by Susan from the wrong side of a locked door, so they decided
that they would go without him. In a few moments, Susan, Tom and
Bailey were off.

For the first thousand feet or so, they just
strolled down the sidewalk, past the destroyed delivery truck, and
along an interval of stone walling hiding some of the more
expensive homes from view. After that, Susan insisted that the best
short cut led through some sort of scrubby shrub-like plants with
the random sticker on its branches. Soon, Tom had a series of long,
shallow scratches on his arms and a feeling that Susan didn’t have
a clue how to get to her house.

Finally, Susan actually looked like she
recognized the area, which comforted Tom no end, and started to
lead the party more confidently. This interlude lasted all of two
minutes, until two things happened at once. Bailey’s ears came up,
and the hackles on his back rose, and a slow and continuous growl
came from him. In instant response, a low pitched growling sound
seemed to come out of the bushes from all directions at
once.

Susan began to run in what Tom hoped was the
right direction, but having no better plan, he and Bailey ran along
behind her. In a few minutes, they were standing in an unkempt yard
trying to catch their breath. Susan fumbled her keys out of her
pocket and finally got the door to the house open. Luckily, Susan
had transferred her keys to her pocket from her purse at the
beginning of this trip. Luckily, because she had abandoned her
purse in terror in the bushes when the growling had
begun.

******

Susan turned on the Living Room lights and
locked the front door. Tom scanned the room for anything
interesting or dangerous, and only saw the old lady in the rocking
chair that was smoking in the corner. He started to turn around to
ask Susan about her, but decided to look back at her to see what
sort of description he could use to ask about her. She wasn’t there
anymore. Even the smell of her cigarette and the old mothball smell
that seems to be the defining smell of all old ladies were barely
detectable anymore.

Tom had a twinge of a memory about seeing her
rocking in the corner. He vaguely recalled that he had seen her
before in other places, like some sort of Archetype. She was always
in a corner, always rocking, and if she wasn’t shelling peas or
husking corn, she would be smoking. Take your eyes off of her for
an instant, and when you looked again, she would always be
gone.

Susan collapsed onto the couch, and started
sobbing into her hands. Tom felt like he should do something to
console her, but he couldn’t think of anything that would do that,
without leading to huge complications. When he left this place, he
certainly didn’t want a sidekick (Bailey excluded), he didn’t want
the complication of a drunken woman that used sex for a consolation
act, and he didn’t need any more drama in his life.

On the other hand, Nancy was gone, abducted by
whatever controlled that craft and that light, and he really
couldn’t blame her for falling apart with her daughter vanished
like that. He was almost ready to engage in a consolation process
that he would regret, when Bailey went over and stuck his cold nose
against her face between her cupped hands. She hugged him, and
increased the water-works.

After a little exploring, Tom located Susan’s
stash of Canadian Mist and a baggy of marijuana with a book of
papers inside. He carried these items to Susan, and she dislodged
the dog from her embrace and rolled a joint. A few moments later,
after she had offered Tom a toke or two, and been refused, she had
smoked most of the joint, and was half-way through the first glass
of whiskey.

The next couple of hours found Susan slumped
in a drunken snooze on the couch, calmer than Tom had ever seen
her. He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, tucked her
in and closed the door. For the first time in days, he was in quiet
surroundings by himself, and could think about what he wanted to do
next.

One thought that kept popping up was that he
was tired of the desert. It was time to go somewhere with trees,
and rain. Having a bit of ocean nearby wouldn’t be such a bad
thing, either. After he got some sleep, and said his goodbyes to
Susan, he would be on his way with Bailey in tow. Maybe he would
leave tonight, if it was quiet. More likely it would be tomorrow
morning, though.

Tom made a bed on the couch, using a pillow
and blanket he found lying on an easy chair in the bedroom. He
stretched out on his bed, and Bailey hopped up and stretched out
beside him. Ten minutes saw them snoring in unison.

He is walking down a dirt path
under trees in what seems to be a nice spring twilight, or what the
old Celts used to call the gloaming. He is drinking a peppermint
tea as he strolls along, and Bailey is walking beside him. Up
ahead, he sees a very tall, thin man, wearing a wide brimmed and
tall hat, and wearing a long coat that is in no style that Tom was
familiar with. Tom could not make out his face, but the tall man is
busy blowing darts at a tree full of monkeys from the blow gun that
he was holding. As Tom watches, the man blows a half dozen darts
toward their targets, and three times, a small monkey tumbles out
of the tree. Each time, the Tall Man would pick the monkey up and
place him in a small cloth sack.

The Tall Man stops and looks at
Tom, and Tom could see that the man had no face; under the shadow
of the hat’s brim was more shadow, which served as the Tall Man’s
face. He gestures Tom over.

“
If ye be goin down this trail, ye
be needing these tokens.” The Tall Man said. He reaches into his
pocket, and produces a mercury dime with a bit of feather glued to
it, and the dried up body of a medium sized earthworm. He hands
these ‘tokens’ to Tom, and picks up his sack of monkeys. Whistling
a jaunty tune, he starts off down the forbidden path.

Tom woke up, and realized that it was only a
dream, a dream that Bailey was apparently still having, if the
little dog sounds, and trotting foot movements were any indication.
Tom spent a couple of moments contemplating the sheer incongruity
of the dream components, and then he returned to sleep.

When he woke up, it was after 4 PM, and Susan
was still sleeping in the bedroom. Bailey was pretending to be
asleep, but Tom could see him open his eyes briefly from time to
time, hoping to find that Tom had miraculously produced a fine dog
dinner. After finding the makings for an egg, pancake and bacon
breakfast, and starting a pot of coffee to perk, Tom proceeded to
do exactly that.

When the pancakes and the omelets were done,
Tom forcefully shook Susan awake, and once she was seated at the
table, filled her and Bailey’s plates with the egg and bread
concoctions, sided with strips of dead pig. Soon enough, all
parties were engaged with the comforting task of filling their
empty stomachs.

When they were finally done eating, it was
about 5:30, and the shadows were starting to get longer, sliding
down toward the dark of night. As they sat with their coffees in
hand, Susan started discussing her potential plans. She had decided
that she wanted to go to her sister’s in Dilbert, New Mexico. She
didn’t explicitly say so, but her plans seemed to include Tom
coming along on the trip. Tom didn’t want to go with her, but he
didn’t see a good opening for saying so.

Susan said that she had an old Caravan Voyager
in the garage, and that her last boyfriend had fancied himself a
mechanic, so he had stocked the garage with tools and supplies.
Would Tom check the van out, and see if it was up to the trip? Of
course he would.