by Alexie Aaron
The sound of an approaching car postponed Mia’s explanation. It was followed by a large Euro van with a tall boxed, windowed end in the back.
“What the fuck is this?” Mia asked.
“The question is what is it?” Burt corrected.
“It’s a horse van, Hicks. A custom, two horse van.”
“Oh.”
“Why it’s my new transportation is another question,” Mia said, walking over to the driver.
Burt watched as she was given the keys and shown how to extend the large ramp. The other safety measures were gone over. Soon Mia was walking back to Burt. She was shaking her head in amazement. “Evidently, Angelo told Gerald that I needed something large enough to move a horse. You and I know he was talking about the workbench. Gerald thought he meant…”
“A horse. Well we can make it work. Back it up as close as you can. You and I are the moving crew.”
Mia did as he requested. They had a few comedic moments trying to adjust to carrying something heavy between very short but strong Mia and tall Burt who needed to hit the gym more often. Once they got it in the van. Mia burst out laughing. “Ah, me. What a good time you show a girl, Burt. Most women get flowers. I, however, get straw and oats.”
Burt joined in the laughter. “We better beat feet. I wouldn’t want to be caught horsing around!”
Mia with Burt’s help secured the heaving piece of furniture with the equine net and leads. They shut up the vehicle and got in. Mia drove slowly out of the neighborhood. She tested the brakes. “I think it’s going to be fine,” she decided.
“Where were we when we were interrupted? Oh yes, tell me about your visit with Murphy.”
Mia filled him in on the Iroquois and Fox that inhabited the woods a few miles from Martha’s house. “I ran our thoughts by Murphy, and he wasn’t opposed to the idea of communicating with the ghosts, just dealing with the amount of them by himself.”
“How many are we talking?”
“Fifty.”
“Fifty Iroquois!” Burt whistled. “I don’t blame the man.”
“He wants me there.”
“Oh the two of you, that evens things up,” Burt said sarcastically.
“I will be disguised as something impressive. I have to get with Beth to find out what will get their attention without getting me killed.”
“I thought you were having trouble bilocating?” he asked concerned.
“I am. I also have to go and see the chief of neurology.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. I just want to get this done and dusted before they start cutting up my brain. Will you still love me when I’m a zombie?” Mia asked half in jest.
“Yes, I will,” Burt said and meant it.
“First things first, we have to find the wackos that have Cid,” Mia declared. “I think that Tom’s uncle is involved. So I involved Tom. I figure we better have a cop on our side once the FBI gets involved.”
“Shit, I forgot about that. It’s a federal crime, kidnapping,” Burt mused.
“I don’t recommend it. Jail terms a bitch, or you’d be a bitch in jail, something like that,” Mia teased.
“You’re a bitch, Mia.”
“Yes, I am. I wouldn’t call me one in front of the customers though. Gives them the wrong idea.”
Burt smiled and shook his head. They turned up the drive to Martha’s house. They saw the curtains twitch. Soon Beth was on the front porch waiting for them.
“It’s going to kill her when she finds out we didn’t buy her a pony, Ma,” Burt said.
This cracked Mia up. She snorted. It was good being with the old Burt again. He and she shared the same bad sense of humor. She pulled the van in close to the PEEPs truck. Before they got out of the truck, she impulsively reached for Burt’s hand. “Thank you, bebe. This was the best date I ever had with an ex.”
“No problem,” he said, touched.
Ted popped out of the command center and Beth was circling around back.
“It’s time to explain the horse van to the kiddies, Pa.”
Burt got out of the van. Mia heard him explain the vehicle. Beth was disappointed. Ted pounded on the side for Mia to open up. It was cold out there. Mia took her time. She wanted to store the memory of the last few minutes away before the world came in and demanded more from her.
Chapter Twenty-one
They came out of the forest, running in tandem, their arrival hushed by the blare of the truck’s horn. The men ran hunched over, making them less of a target. The cabin door opened easily, and one after another they slipped inside. On the floor were two men, their eyes wild, trying frantically to get control over their limbs. Two sets of wires were tangled, attaching the men to each other by something each one of them had near their hand.
“Holy shit, the morons tasered each other,” Tom said to Whit.
“Smells like piss in here,” Whit said wrinkling his nose. He bent down and smacked the larger man on either cheek. “Where is Cid Garrett?”
The man whose speech was still impeded by the taser said, “Heb ot way.”
“If he did then why didn’t he take the fucking car?” Whit said, pulling the man’s head up by his comb over.
“Nob asses.”
“Who the fuck are you calling an ass?” he said letting go of his hair, wincing as the man’s head smacked the floor hard and spittle flew.
“Pblease nob asses,” the man whimpered.
“I think he means he didn’t have his glasses,” Tom translated.
“Oh yeah, the kid’s got real bad distance vision. He wears coke-bottle lenses,” Whit told Ted. “The guy’s almost blind without them.”
“Looks like they had him tied to this chair,” Tom said, picking up the cracked back of a wooden kitchen chair. “Then I guess the idiots tasered each other, and the big guy fell on Cid. The chair breaks and the kid gets away.”
“Why didn’t he take the car or the truck?”
“Thought he’d kill himself or someone else trying to drive it.”
“Where’s the keys?”
“Pblocket. Bbblack wacket,” the man instructed.
A moan escaped as the smaller guy sat up assisted by Tom. “Check the coat rack for a black jacket.”
“No jacket. Cid must have taken it. I’ve got a spare set of Mia’s. I’ll turn off the God damn alarm. You watch these fuckheads until I get back,” he instructed.
Tom rolled the little guy on his stomach and cuffed his hands behind him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet. He rolled him on his left side for him to continue to recover from the stun gun. He detached the two probes and winced as the man had been hit near the testicles. He moved on to the big guy. He rolled him over and put a knee on his back and waited for his partner.
The horn stopped, and soon Whit was back in the shelter of the cabin. His shoulders were white with newly fallen snow. “It’s really coming down now,” he said.
“Toss me your cuffs,” Tom ordered. “These guys aren’t going to walk out of here anytime soon. You better call for a bus and find out what happened to our backup.”
Whit nodded and raced off down the road to where they left the sheriff’s car. He picked up the radio and reported into dispatch. Truth was that they were on the fringe of their jurisdiction, but the next county only had a few old guys on payroll and appreciated when they stepped over the county line.
He got in, started the car and began driving towards the cabin while he radioed in. “We have two suspects needing a bus and a babysitter while we search for a blind guy lost in the woods.”
“You need old man Hendricks’s dogs?” the dispatcher asked.
“Not yet. What’s the ETA on our backup?”
“Should be there in a few minutes. Sheriff Ryan wants a word,” the dispatcher said. “He’ll call you on your cell.”
No sooner did the dispatcher sign off then Whit’s cell rang.
“Martin,” Whit answered.
“Catch m
e up. In English so I don’t have to surf the web looking for a jargon translator, son.”
Whit smiled. “Cid Garrett was taken by these clowns. They thought he was a government guy destroying UFO evidence. The kid’s from Kansas and basically blind without his glasses. Still, he managed to get out of the cabin, activate Mia’s alarm and run off. That puts him in the woods near the hollow we think. It’s snowing and we can’t find any footprints, but there is a recent mashing down of some weeds west of the cabin.”
“Find that kid. Right now the fools are faced with kidnapping and auto theft. If the kid bites it, we are going to have to put the mayor’s father-in-law away for a long time. That’s not going to go down well with the missus.”
“What possessed you to assault and kidnap a handyman from Kansas?” Tom said, rolling the large man onto his left side. “There’s playing and there’s doing. You done wrong. Now we have a blind kid lost in the woods heading for the hollow.”
Whit entered the cabin announcing, “Back up’s coming. Here,” he said tossing a pair of boots over to Tom. “We got orders to track the kid. He’s scared and a big strong guy, so we better identify ourselves. I met him at Mia’s so he may recognize my voice.”
They waited until their back up arrived before they started off in the direction of the hollow.
~
“Thank you, Sheriff,” Ted said. He closed his eyes and said a prayer before he kicked the shit out of an empty equipment case.
Mia heard the noise from the driveway where she was examining an odd dent on the Kowalskis’ SUV. It looked like a hand had twisted the fiberglass away from the wheel well. She ran over to the command vehicle, threw open the door and jumped inside. “What’s wrong?”
“They found the kidnappers. You were right, they were cohorts of Archie Braverman. But Cid wasn’t there. They think he got away an hour before and headed away from the cabin. They lost his trail in the woods. It’s snowing harder there. Whit and Tom are tracking him, but the woods are evidently too fucking large for them to have much hope, with the remaining daylight, in finding him.”
Ted slammed his hand on the side of the vehicle. The truck rocked on the shocks.
“I’ll go. Find me a moving picture of an eagle, owl, something large and fast. I’ll see if I can spot him and guide the guys in.”
“No, you’ve already bilocated today.”
“Listen to me.” Mia reached up and cupped Ted’s face in her hands. “This is what I do. I’m not going to sit back and worry if I can use my abilities to help. Don’t tie my hands. I care about Cid too.”
Ted stared at her. He nodded.
She let go of him and rummaged in the back and found the lounge chair. She also pulled on a set of sweats she found in a box of PEEPs paraphernalia. Ted pulled up a video of a Great Horned owl, and she watched it move and then sat down. She was out of her body before her hair settled.
Ted covered her inert form with his blanket and shut the door of the vehicle to hold the heat in. He went over their brief conversation, and he was amazed that Mia didn’t ask about her truck. Her only concern was for his friend Cid. He picked up his phone and called Beth to tell her what he knew.
“They’ll find him. He’s a big guy,” she said dismissively. “You want me to phone-chain the info to Burt, Mike and Angelo?”
“Yes, and tell them Mia’s bilocated in order to aid in the search for Cid.”
“Will do. Hang in there, Ted. I have a good feeling about this,” Beth said and hung up.
Ted knew he could depend on Beth’s calmness and efficiency in getting the information to the right people. He was a little put off by her lack of compassion, but it was hard to tell emotion on the phone. He walked back to check on Mia. He felt her nose and it was cold. He dug in his gear bag and found a balaclava and pulled it over her head. Her hands were gloved, but the leather wouldn’t keep the heat so he pulled a pair of sweat socks over her hands. He clapped his hands together to warm them up before returning to the keyboard. He said out loud as he clapped, “I believe in fairies.”
~
Mia was soaring. The large grey wings had her above the tree tops in no time. She followed the roads until she found the location of the cabin Sheriff Ryan had relayed to Ted. There was her truck, two police cars and another vehicle. She saw the path Whit and Ted made in the newly fallen snow. The small squall had moved on after leaving a few inches of flakes. She blew by Tom and Whit who to their credit had made the county road already. She understood that Cid was moving away from the cabin as fast as he could to stay away from the men to compensate for his blurred vision.
She examined the woods just on the other side of the road, and aside from a few deer, she didn’t see anything large enough to be a man. She turned back and moved north, thinking that Cid got turned around and never made the road.
He stumbled again. The terrain was becoming brutal. He no longer heard the truck’s horn. In the stillness of the forest, all he heard were soft thumps caused by chunks of snow falling off the pines. The snow made the little sight he had diminish. He didn’t stop, determined to at least make a road or a farm or someplace humans had been in the last century.
He heard a woosh overhead, and a large amount of snow dropped as what he assumed was a large bird landed on a branch. “Probably a turkey vulture,” he said to himself.
Mia looked down at the wet, tired man and dropped to the ground, taking on her normal persona before landing beside him. She knew he couldn’t see her. No one but other bilocators and ghosts could, but perhaps he could hear her. “Cid,” she shouted. She saw his head turn her way. She put her hands together and screamed, “CID!”
Cid swore he heard a whisper beside him. The sound happened again, this time louder. “Who’s there? he asked.
“MIA!”
“Mia? But how?”
“STAY HERE!” she screamed before morphing into the owl again and heading back to Ted.
The door was closed so Mia landed on the roof of the command vehicle and oozed downward through an open rivet into the body. “Ted!” Mia shouted, forgetting that she didn’t need to. She was puzzled by the attire she had on but dismissed it as the worried tech bounded over. “He’s alive. Tell Whit and Tom he is in the Oberman gulch, northeast of them, three football fields worth. I’m going back to stay with him.”
Ted watched as her eyes closed, and she was gone again. He got on the phone and got through to the Sheriff’s Department. The operator assured him she would contact the deputies. He hung up the phone and paced the truck.
Mia returned to Cid, circling the woods before landing. She noticed the Iroquois encampment was not too far from where Cid was floundering in the snow. She worried that if they heard him and investigated, Cid would be in trouble. If these spirits could cut into a live tree, a human was going to be like butter to them. She caught sight of something else. He was being stealthy, but Mia’s owl eyes saw him. Murphy sat in a gnarl of bushes crouched down, watching the Iroquois. She dropped down from her perch and landed beside him.
“Whatcha doing?”
Murphy was caught off guard and lost his balance and fell over. He blushed as much as a dead man could and shook his finger at her.
“Sorry, there is a man lost in the woods a hundred yards from here. He can’t see very well. Whit and Tom will soon be with him. I’m worried that the tribesmen will hear him and, well, do what they did to the trees to him.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Murphy said quietly. “You go look after him, and I’ll watch the tribe. If I see them headed his way, I’ll signal you with the axe.”
“Thanks, Murph,” Mia said quietly as she morphed into the owl and headed away. Above the tree tops she spotted Whit and Tom running up the road. She hoped they would cut into the forest soon or they were going to run into the Iroquois. She needn’t have worried as Whit and Tom both played football in high school. All those passing drills gave them a rote ability to know how many yards they had passed.
“Cid!” Whit
called.
“Here!” Cid answered.
Mia saw the deputies greet the lost man. They enveloped him in their arms and helped him towards the road.
CRACK!
Murphy’s warning. Mia flew in his direction. She saw a small group of men, alerted by the exchange between Whit and Cid, headed their way. Murphy was in danger too. She needed to get between the scouts and Murphy. Give him a chance to find cover.
Mia thought back to the island with Kamal and morphed into a winged dragon. She dived towards the Iroquois, stopped above them and flapped her wings hard. The displacement of the air moved them back a little. They looked up at her with a mixture of awe and fright. They backed up. She moved forward, keeping an eye on their hands. Had they gotten to their bows she would have a problem on her hands.
She herded them away from Murphy and the men. One of the braves took it upon himself to pick up a spear and send it sailing her way. Mia morphed into a humming bird and watched as the spectral spear passed safely by her. She was getting tired but kept on morphing until she heard a siren pierce the air. She resumed her owl persona and flew above the camp. She watched as the EMT loaded Cid into the vehicle. Tom climbed in the back with him while Whit got in the front.
Mia didn’t look for Murphy. She knew if she found him, she may possibly give away his hiding space. Instead she caught an updraft and moved higher to survey the camp’s relation to the farmhouse. It wasn’t far as the owl flies, she mused. But it would take a few hours on foot, even for a ghost. She pointed herself towards the farm and cruised back to her body.
Ted’s phone rang. He answered it, and the young woman from the Sheriff’s Department gave him the news that they found Cid, and he was on the way to the hospital. He called Beth with the news and opened the truck’s back door for Mia to fly in. He had to get to the hospital. He hoped she would return soon.
“Whatcha doing, Teddy Bear?” Mia said opening her eyes. “What the fuck am I wearing? If you have me decked out as Darth Vader I’m going to kick your butt.” Mia tried to lift off the balaclava but was hampered by the socks on her hands. She bit one and pulled it off with her teeth. “I give up,” she said when she failed to raise the ski mask the second time.
