The Last Line Series One

by David Elias Jenkins

  Usher winced before he asked his next question.

  “I see. Ariel, can I ask what effect this bomb has on non-magical matter? Like say, a team of special forces soldiers for example?”

  Ariel spread his hands in apology.

  “I’m sorry Thom, I’m afraid it will also utterly eradicate any life within its blast zone. It’s pretty thorough. I designed it that way. The upper echelons are very excited about this. I uh…yeah…so there is is…sorry.”

  Greystone stepped forward.

  “The bottom line is that this has been decided at an inter-governmental level. No one is willing to risk an attack like the one in London last year. They want to test this device and are taking no chances with this unknown manifestation of Unseelie power. You and your team have a four hour window to complete your mission objectives and get out of there before they nuke the entire zone with this thing. They will not, I repeat will not, move back the deadline. Regardless of your position. We send in the scalpel, but we have no means of communicating with you once you’re in there. If you don’t make it out in time, we send in the hammer. ”

  There was a murmuring of discontent amongst all the soldiers present. Usher turned to his team. “Nothing like feeling valued. Well boys, it’s our usual situation; sendable, expendable, and extremely rendable.”

  Isaac flipped over another card and held it up. It was the Joker. He smiled over at Major Cavell, who’s face now looked as red as his hair.

  “Well Major Cavell, now that you’ve been saturated with information, you feel better about this one?”

  Cavell cast Isaac an icy glare.

  “Not really.”

  The team spent the next ten minutes making the final checks of their equipment and ammunition. There was not as much banter and play fighting as usual, each soldier was pensive, lost in his own thoughts.

  As Usher snapped his Bergen shut and made sure the weight was balanced, Cavell sidled up to him. Usher extended a hand.

  “We have each other’s backs Major. This will be a tight squeeze but we’ve come out from worse than this. It’s good to be working with you.”

  Cavell did not take Usher’s hand.

  “Major I’ve expressed my reservations about you and your team’s attendance on this mission. I know you’ve been decorated for bravery more times than I’ve had hot dinners but I think you have personal reasons for being here that will put us all at risk. My personal opinion is that you’ve burnt yourself out and that you’re now a liability. Can happen to anyone. The professional thing would be to stand down.”

  Usher stood up straight and faced Cavell. He stared hard into his eyes, trying to keep his voice level.

  “Well I respect your honesty Major. But you better hope that you’re wrong, because I am going in there, and it’s me and my team that’s got your six.”

  Cavell stared for a moment then grunted and went back to re-join his team. Usher watched him go and noticed Isaac making a wanker gesture to him behind his back. He winked at Usher.

  “Don’t worry about that tosser boss. We were in Baghdad while he was still in his dad’s bag.”

  He chuckled to himself and then resumed packing his Bergen.

  Usher took a deep breath and calmed his nerves.

  You’ve got some bottle Cavell, dressing me down in earshot of my men and telling me I’m not thinking clearly about this mission. I’ve locked away more bad memories than anyone can count and still got the job done.

  Privately, Usher wondered if Cavell was right.

  13.

  The door to the diner swung open and the little bell tinkled.

  Gina looked up from pouring coffee to see a strange man walk in. He was tall and bandy, with rounded shoulders and a craning neck. In his grubby old fashioned black suit he reminded her of a put-upon overworked clerk from the Dickens novels she used to read before waitressing took over. He stamped his weathered old tramp’s boots on the tiles a couple of times to clear the mud.

  Then he did what Gina thought was a very odd thing. He turned around and reached a long thin arm up above the door, and then pinched the clapper of the bell between finger and thumb to silence its tinkling. Then he turned around like a chastised schoolboy and placed a dirty brown fingernail to his lips as if to shush the whole diner. Gina thought he looked genuinely embarrassed. In a soft almost frightened voice he spoke.

  “Every time a bell rings an Angel gets his wings. Didn’t you hear that?”

  Gina stopped pouring her coffee and stared at the man. Everyone was already pretty shook up with what was going on outside. Carnival wasn’t used to armed stand offs or weird chemical leaks, it threw out people’s routines and the diner was like a haven where folk could just come in for a little bit of normal. Quite a few folk had gathered inside for a coffee or just to peer out the window at the unfolding drama down the main street. The diner was a sanctuary to most folks in town, thought Gina, and as fucked up a soul as she was she did care for them all. It was her job to make sure everyone had coffee and someone interested in their day, especially the old folks. It was them that were most jittery of all just now, poor old bastards, and the last thing they needed was some weird drifter hobo from out of town coming in and spouting his demented evangelical mutterings at them.

  “Mister the bell stops by itself just fine. You’re welcome here but this ain’t the place for talk of angels or any evangelizing. We’re all a little tense just now with stuff that’s happening outside. It’s just a diner. I can rustle you up something nice to eat though if you’d care to take a seat. Anyhow, wouldn’t an angel getting its wings be a good thing mister?”

  Old Eugene had decided to stay and eat his salt beef sandwich in the safety of the diner. He swallowed a mouthful of rye bread and looked over at the newcomer standing at the door.

  “Gina, what he said. It’s a Wonderful Life.”

  The newcomer listened very intently to the old man, his eyes glazing as he seemed to think very hard about the statement for several seconds.

  “Yes. Yes it is.”

  Eugene just shook his head and grinned as he turned back to his sandwich. Gina looked at him and shrugged. Eugene leaned in and spoke quietly to her. “Jimmy Stewart, nineteen forty six, year I was born.”

  Gina had never seen the film and got the obvious impression that neither had the newcomer. She gestured to an empty booth by the window and the man looked slowly from her hand to the seat. Then he smiled broadly at her, displaying a set of rotten brown teeth.

  “Why thank you for your hospitality, most kind. And with a premium view as well. Why this seems like the kind of little place a man could just hang up his boots.”

  Gina watched as the man walked over to his booth, taking great pains to meticulously fold his musty blazer and remove his tie. He folded the tie slowly in two, then again, peering at it intently as he did so. Gina’s asshole of a husband had some form of obsessive compulsive disorder and often behaved like that, going round the house with a finger checking for dust and quoting the bible at her. She wondered if this man had a similar condition. She shook her head and whispered under her breath. “Nah, just got a leak in his think tank is all.”

  The man slowly turned around, grinning his rotten teeth at her as he folded his black tie. For an awful moment she thought that he had somehow heard her and was turning around in offence. She felt terrible at the thought of being so nasty even to a weird old bum like this and prepared to apologize. Then the man flicked the folded tie out with a conjuror’s flourish and to Gina’s horror it was suddenly a writhing black snake that wrapped slowly around his wrist. Gina actually jumped back and loosened her grip on the coffee jug but caught it just before it fell.

  “Jesus Christ Mister you can’t be bringing a reptile in here! This is an eatery we got hygiene laws. Is that real?”

  A few locals had also gotten a shock and backed away from the strange man. Bobby MacKay dropped his gym bag and stepped up close so he was almost nose to nose, though he took pains to angle
himself away from the snake. “Look mister, I’ve seen those shows on TV with the weird bible thumping churches and all that shit they do with snakes. It’s just fucking weird ok? You’re pissing people off. We don’t need evangelizing round here like Gina said. So either order a fucking burger or go hit the road.”

  Bobby was a good six foot and a solid athlete, as well as being at least thirty years younger than the hobo. Yet the drifter did not seem physically intimidated by Bobby at all. On the contrary, he seemed fascinated by him. His bulging jaundiced eyes looked over every inch of Bobby’s face as if he were a renaissance sculpture. He even seemed to peer into Bobby’s mouth as he spoke. Gina wondered if this old drifter was a predatory homosexual and she could tell that Bobby was certainly thinking it since he took a couple of steps back.

  The drifter suddenly whipped the black serpent around his neck and in an instant it was just a tattered old tie again, that he deftly spun into a Windsor knot with surprising dexterity. There was something almost regal about the way he did it. Gina just couldn’t figure him out at all.

  “Young man I apologize. I could sense the tension in the room when I came in, and I thought, d’you know what always breaks the tension in my experience? A good old fashioned magic trick. I been on the road a while and not around good folks too much. I must have just made an absolute ass of myself. So what have we got to eat around here? I could just get my teeth stuck right into a juicy steak.”

  Bobby was a little flustered but managed to re-assert his alpha status. “Look fella, I like all that David Blaine shit much as the next guy, but we got some community problems we’re all dealing with right now, and this is a pretty close town. Why don’t you just sit down and let Gina rustle you up that steak. Long as you got a means to pay, we don’t need no extra dishwashers.”

  The drifter fixed Bobby’s eyes for a long moment, and then he smiled and nodded then walked to his seat.

  Bobby looked over and Gina and nodded, sure that his display of animal dominance had impressed her. She had been cold with him this last half hour since the sheriff left to go deal with that nutjob Billy Larose. Bobby secretly hoped that Billy put up a fight so Daggett was forced to shoot him in his stupid droopy eye. He held Gina’s gaze for a moment and he genuinely hoped that his alpha display had hinted to her just how much he loved her. Bobby knew he was an asshole most of the time, he was brought up on sports fields and had no idea how to explain to Gina how he really felt. Besides, he had a sneaking suspicion that she would never leave that thug husband of hers no matter how much he slapped her around. It was hard to believe she had found herself in such a situation at such a young age. Her face still had its high school bloom and she was as cute as a kitten in a cup, but Bobby thought that sometimes her eyes looked like an old woman’s, weary and frightened. Bobby had been about to leave, but something about this weirdo sat in the corner prompted him to stay. The diner was full of people both old and young but Bobby knew he was the only one in here willing to physically manhandle someone out the door if needs be. Putting his sports bag under the counter, Bobby sat back down on his stool and gestured to the other waitress Kelly, the one with all the stupid metal in her face, to pour him another coffee.

  Gina approached the booth where the drifter sat. He gazed calmly at her as she walked across and he gave her a benign smile. He didn’t move or blink, just sat there like a priest awaiting a confessor and it made Gina feel nervous.

  “Anyway, good morning sir, I’m Gina I’ll be serving you today. We have a salt beef sandwich with homemade fries as our mid-morning special, and a key lime cheesecake that I bake myself. Can I get you a cup of coffee just now?”

  The drifter’s jaundiced eyes scanned Gina’s breasts until they settled on her nametag. He silently mouthed her name back to her then broke into a smile. Gina could smell the tooth decay and damp mouldiness of his clothes.

  “Well, Gina I don’t believe I’ve ever tried either of those things, but they both sound delicious. On your good recommendation I’ll opt for the salted beef sandwich and the lime cheese cake. And why not let’s throw some coffee in there too.”

  The drifter then slowly stretched out his arm in a handshake gesture. Gina looked down. The hand was crisscrossed with a fine map of ingrained dirt and the fingernails were pitted and brown like tree bark.

  “You were kind enough to introduce yourself. I’m Cornelius Fortune.”

  “Mister Fortune. I just introduced myself because I’m your waitress. I don’t mean to be rude but if I shook hands with every customer it just wouldn’t be hygienic. I hope you’ll understand. Let me get you that coffee.”

  Cornelius Fortune didn’t move. He just stayed there with his hand extended for a few awkward moments and then ever so slowly closed his grip and peered over his other shoulder out the window.

  “That’s some kerfuffle going on out there today. All those lawmen running around like nervous debutantes. Have I arrived in the middle of a crisis of sorts?”

  Gina poured a cup of coffee, trying not to let her hand shake.

  “Oh a couple of woodsmen come down out the hills hurt is all. The Sherriff and his boys have just gone to make sure everything’s alright.”

  “And is it Gina? Is everything all right?”

  Gina followed his gaze out the window. Most folk had gotten off the streets but a couple of reserve fire fighters hastily donning reflective overcoats were jogging down the street in the direction of the incident.

  “Carnival is usually a pretty quiet town. I’m sure it’ll all blow over by the time you’ve finished brunch.”

  Cornelius took a drink of his coffee and closed his eyes in exaggerated pleasure. “Well, I’m not sure that it will be, so I guess I’ll just have to sip it. Come a long way to get here and I guess I’ll just have to ride the storm.”

  Gina made her best effort to smile at his lame joke. She was about to turn away but her but when she noticed the man’s battered old black boots, like Charlie Chaplin boots, she had to ask.

  “Mister Cornelius I hope you don’t mind me asking, but this is a remote place and it’s none too easy to get to. We’re a long way from tourist’s maps and most folk that live here tend to be survival nuts and outdoorsman. It’s some pretty wild country out there. In truth we don’t get a lot of outsiders passing through. Sure we get the occasional Into the Wild types with their budget hiking books and tattered Jack London novels, but the old woodsman usually manage to talk them out of their foolishness. May I ask you what brings you to our little town? Most folks trying to get away from it.”

  Cornelius took a loud long slurp of his coffee, letting a dribble of it run down his chin.

  “Looking for the big house.”

  “The big house?”

  Fortune steepled his bony fingers under his chin and licked his lips.

  “This town was founded on the wealth of its earth wasn’t it? From digging up all that precious stuff.”

  Gina started to understand.

  “Yes sir, there are some local mines that were owned by the Debruler family. The Spear Creek mine being the biggest. They don’t operate these days but they founded this town. Some of the family still live here though. A mile or so up into the forest west of Carnival.”

  “Yes, I have a long history with the family, but I’d lost touch with them over the years. Was looking to pick up where we left off. See one of their ancestors wrote me into his will for something and I came here to collect what I’m owed.”

  Old Eugene was busy eating the crusts of his salt beef sandwich, turned around in his stool and spoke over to Cornelius Fortune.

  “That old house is a classified Federal Heritage Building, not that it gets much visitors out here in sticks. Build in eighteen thirty seven in the Scottish Baronial style. Nice place in its own way but a little gloomy for my tastes.”

  Gina did a small curtsy and smiled at Eugene. She turned back and rolled her eyes at Cornelius.

  “Well thank you professor McCormack. Eugene is something
of a local historian. Never tires of telling people stuff they don’t know, bless him. So there you go. You say your friends with the Debruler family? I must say they hardly ever come into town these days. There’s been all sorts of coming and goings up at the house over the years but I think they always just fly their posh friends in by helicopter. Oh Mister I’m sorry I didn’t mean nothing by that.”

  Cornelius smiled. “Don’t worry yourself Gina. The family and I haven’t moved in the same social circles for ages.”

  Gina rode the awkward silence for a few long moments.

  “Well then, I’ll go get your sandwich, won’t be long.”

  Gina was starting to wonder if this strange hobo was one of those eccentric millionaires who just abandoned all convention and lived as tramps. She realized that there was enough going on today already and then turned back towards the kitchen.

  As she reached the counter, the diner door swung violently open and nearly shook the bell from its fixture. In his booth, Gina noticed Cornelius Fortune cringe as if chalk had been scraped down a blackboard. An imposing scruffy man in greasy mechanic’s overalls strode in and fixed his eyes on the waitress.

  “Gina, what the fuck are you still doing here? Fucking town’s falling down around our ears and you’re pouring coffee for these bozos?”

  Gina visibly tensed.

  “Garth what are you doing here? I’m… I’m working.”

  The burly man strode through the gathered diners, barging people out the way as he passed. He was clearly drunk and Gina could smell the whisky on him from several feet away. Her husband was one of those drunks that practically sweated booze.

  A few of the older townsfolk didn’t manage to get out of Garth’s way and he shoved them rudely aside with his burly shoulders.