Authors: A. Sparrow
Tags: #fantasy, #paranormal, #contemporary, #afterlife, #liminality
I crawled out and hunkered down under
cover of the weeds. A missing stave in the picket fence separating
the back yard from the neighbor’s garden caught my eye.
The man in the grey suit came around
the side of the house, checking every window and door. His
colleagues came around the other side of the cottage. They met by
the back porch and huddled.
The second man slipped a forked stick
from his daypack, holding the two arms like a divining rod. The end
the stick began to tremble. The man rotated in place, studying its
vibrations. The front door slammed.
The Friends responded immediately,
hustling to the front of the house. I prayed that Jessica had
gotten away clean. Though, I wouldn’t have put it past her to have
slammed the door only to create a diversion. That woman was a smart
cookie.
As soon as they were out of sight, I
scrambled out of the weeds on my hands and knees and made for the
gap in the fence. My moves were far from slick. I tripped on a
brick and scuffed my knee, but I made it through the fence,
crawling and squirming into a strawberry patch. I squished a few
berries before regaining my feet and darting out onto the
street.
I ran headlong down a steep, cobbled
alley towards the waterfront, dodging down random intersections
just to make sure I couldn’t be easily followed. In the flats, I
veered away from the busy piers, following a road that paralleled
the shore and led to a series of warehouses that fronted on the
pebbly beach.
I blew past three buildings before I
found one with its main door ajar and slipped inside. It was dim
inside, but there was a small sailboat boat up on stanchions, its
hull was badly gouged on one side. I thought about climbing into it
to hide, but remembered that was how that Tsarnaev kid—the Boston
Marathon bomber—got caught, so instead I made for a pile of smelly
fish nets in the corner and burrowed several layers
deep.
One advantage of hiding under a bunch
of fishing nets was that I wasn’t easily seen, but I could keep an
eye on the warehouse doors through the mesh. The down side was that
it stank like rotten fish guts.
I’m not even sure why I was bothering
to hide. Between credit cards, phantom arrow shafts and that weird
divining rod thingie, they certainly had many ways of tracking me,
however imprecise. The burning in my shoulder was already starting
to intensify.
We never should have come here. I
should have followed my instincts. I had to get off the island. But
how? The passenger ferry was out of the question. Too many people
and any one of them could be Friends looking to snuff
me.
I had to go someplace wild and far
away from everything. Some place they wouldn’t expect me to go and
where my signal would be faint. That way, when the roots came to
take me, I wouldn’t be so vulnerable. It would take them time to
find me.
Maybe I could steal a boat. It would
have to be something powered because I didn’t have the faintest
idea how to handle a sailboat. I think I knew what direction to go
back to Scotland, though it didn’t matter to me where I ended up as
long as I had room to run. Norway. Iceland. Any large land mass
would do.
It would have been so much easier if
we had stayed on the mainland. Ironic, that the island that
harbored Stromness was actually called Mainland by the
locals.
The electrified icicle that pierced my
shoulder twisted as the door creaked open, bathing the net pile in
a swath of sunlight. I kept still, hoping it was fisherman come to
work on his boat—someone who could be a witness and a deterrent to
any monkey business.
But no. It was Belinda, followed
closely by the guy in the grey suit. So much for getting way. The
other guy was not with them this time. I imagine he was outside
somewhere covering the back exit. These Friends might not be the
most stealthy hunters but they weren’t stupid. They learned from
their mistakes.
Something slithered out of my back
pocket and crawled up my shirt. I slapped at it and snatched it up.
It was a folded up piece of card stock—an origami crab—the calling
card of Belinda Davolo of the Friends of Penult. I had gotten rid
of their Ivory credit card but her calling card—her avatar—had
remained in my wallet. They had more than that phantom shaft to
keep tabs on me. They had backups.
They came straight for the net pile,
fanning out, looking a little wary. I felt like a cornered rat. My
face flushed. My heart drummed like a thrash punker. I threw off
the nets covering me and backed away from my pursuers.
“
It’s no use, James. We
have you,” said Belinda.
“
Have this, you
fucks!”
I didn’t even have to think. None of
this waiting for something to loosen in my belly like some sad
geriatric sitting on the john, praying for his laxative to take
effect.
The nets blew off the warehouse floor
and arranged themselves into a towering monster of mesh. Billy was
back. Reincarnated from wherever wishes and daydreams go to
die.
Belinda and her cronies stopped in
their tracks. Billy was still coming together, drawing in sheet
after sheet of fishing net, twisting them into anatomically correct
layers of sinew and muscle.
Billy even had a face. Those folds and
pockets arranged themselves to look sort of like me—a buff and
big-chinned version of the real James Moody, like those idealized
monuments commissioned by dictators.
“
Kill! Billy.
Kill!”
The man in the grey suit pulled a gun
and fired. The bullets passed right through the netting, knocking
off a bit of nylon but otherwise having no effect.
With his gorilla arms dangling with
menace, Billy lurched after the man with the gun and smacked into
his side with a knotted fist the size of a small suitcase. The man
went flying, skidding across the dingy floor in his nice suit,
coming to rest at the base of a waste bin.
The other guy grabbed a grapple and
jabbed it into Billy’s leg. Billy kicked free and backed away. He
grabbed a fistful of oars from a rack on the wall and tossed them
at his tormentor.
I just stood, there, trembling, my own
fists clenched so tight that my fingernails dug deep into the flesh
of my palms. I didn’t have to move. I just stood there, arms loose
at my sides, while Billy did his thing, which was our thing,
really.
Belinda had retreated back to the door
of the warehouse and was frantically fishing through the contents
of her purse. Her colleagues tangled with Billy, dodging his wild,
ham-fisted blows. One jabbed tried to hook his mesh with a grapple,
while the other dove at his floppy feet with a length of rope,
aiming I suppose to tether him in place. I just kept all my
attention on Billy and let him fight however he saw fit.
With a little too much confidence,
Belinda strode to the middle of the open bay where the battle
raged, carrying a dagger much too large to have fit in her purse.
As I watched, her dagger grew ever longer and thicker until it
became a veritable two-fisted Claymore.
I should have made Billy back off, but
it was just a sword. A full magazine from a semi-automatic pistol
hadn’t fazed Billy. What could a mere blade do?
Both men saw Belinda and they
maneuvered Billy around to her, jabbing and feinting at him until
his back was to Belinda. She held onto the hilt with two hands and
swept it back like a cricket bat, ready to swing with all her
might.
“
Billy! Watch
out!”
Belinda swung. Billy dodged aside like
a boxer, and I swear she just barely nicked him. The tip of her
sword bit through one slender link of knotted cord in a single
square of mesh behind Billy’s ankle. But once the cut was made,
Billy began to unravel. He stumbled back, losing all shape, turning
into nothing but a heap of nets animated only by gravity and the
usual laws of physics.
The heap that had been Billy fell on
top of me and dragged me down. The men rushed over, peeling off
nets until there was but one layer between us. The man in the grey
suit reached into his coat pocket and removed a transparent plastic
cylinder that looked something like an Epi-pen. He jabbed the thing
against my arm. Something popped. I felt a mild sting, the quick
and shallow jab of a needle.
“
Ow! What the fuck was
that?”
“
Your penalty,” said
Belinda. “The pellet that Frederick injected into you will
eventually stop your breathing. No doctor can diagnose it in time
to make a difference. There is no antidote. So do not bother
seeking help. Your death will be relatively painless, though, I’m
sorry to say, not necessarily pleasant. You have some hours before
the symptoms start. You are free to go now. Maybe you will want to
say goodbye to the girl in the house. No worries. We did not harm
her. We did suggest it might be in her best interests to stay
inside. I am so sorry that we had to eliminate you, Mr. Moody, but
I tried to warn you.”
“
It was never my idea to go
back. I wanted nothing to do with them.”
“
And yet you did return and
you did participate in the fighting. I warned you—explicitly—what
would happen.” She shrugged and sighed. “What’s done is done. But
such a waste. You might have been a good candidate for Penult
someday.”
“
How much time do I have
left?”
“
I can’t say. It varies
from person to person,” she said. “More than twelve hours. But less
than two days, most likely. Do not bother involving the
authorities. Those who matter know of us. We have … immunity … so
to speak.”
She turned abruptly and strode off
towards the door, the men close behind. She lingered by the door
and took one last glance before continuing on her way. The men
exited and pulled the door closed behind them.
I got up and brushed myself off. Other
than a mild burning where they had injected the pellet, I felt
fine.
I stepped out of the shed and into the
bright sunlight. Everything felt so surreal. Ordinary things—sea
gulls, fence posts—looked alien to me, as if I were seeing them for
the first time. Was this the last morning I would witness on this
planet?
I didn’t know what to do first. Even
though I knew firsthand that this whole finality of death thing was
over-rated, it did not lessen my panic one iota. I was not ready to
die.
***
I wandered the streets of Stromness,
searching for an NHS clinic. I wanted to make absolutely sure that
what Belinda said was true, that there was no antidote for whatever
ricin, and that the stuff they had injected into my arm really
could not be identified. I had no reason to disbelieve her, but who
knows? Maybe they were shitting me.
I had the hardest time concentrating,
but I’m pretty sure it was anxiety clouding my mind, not yet the
poison. When I finally spotted a red cross on a building and made
my way towards it, a fancy car pulled up behind me. The driver
charged out and slammed into me. He grabbed me and dragged me over
to the passenger side and stuffed me into the front
seat.
He got in and peeled out, heading for
the meadowlands beyond the town center.
“
Jeez kid! What the heck
are you thinking walking around out here in the open?”
“
Wendell?”
”
They’re onto you. The
Pennies. They’re here … right now … on the island.”
“
I know. They already found
me.”
“
They did?”
“
Yeah. They cornered me in
this warehouse and injected me with this stuff they said is gonna
kill me in two days or less.”
“
Oh shit!”
“
I was … I was just heading
for that clinic back there. To get checked out.”
Wendell glanced over, his eyes
lingering a little too long.
“
Kid. If they gave you what
I think they gave you, no doc is gonna be able to help
you.”
“
That’s what they said. But
… what is it you think they gave me?”
“
Nothing fancy. That’s not
their style. They’re old school. They keep away from magic thought
I’m sure they’d be damned good. If I had to guess, it’s most likely
ricin. They don’t like to be around when their victims die. They
call that mercy. They’re cowards that way.”
“
So what do I
do?”
Wendell pulled the car over beside a
hayfield on the outskirts of the village. He looked at me with a
softness in his gaze, a level of kindliness that I had never
thought him capable.
“
It’s a damned waste. I
know you didn’t like working with us, kid. But … I think you might
have come around once you realized what we were dealing with.” His
eyes wandered. “What you do next is up to you. I’ll take wherever
you want to go. You’ve got one day, basically, that you’re still
gonna be able to do anything. Whatever that is, is up to
you.”
The way he is talking to me had a way
of making the truth sink in. This was it for me. This was really
the end. The bottom fell out of my stomach.
“
No. This can’t be
real.”
The world turned wavy through a sudden
gush of tears.