Then the train accelerated.
Her head pushed back into the seat, her body pressed into the cushions, acceleration like invisible hands pressing down upon her, making it hard to breathe. It felt like one of those rides at an amusement park where they spun you around so fast that you could barely move, everyone screaming all the while to go faster.
Only there was no one screaming, no one minding the ride, no one playing loud music and exciting the passengers—“Raise your hands if you want to go FASTER!” And there was nothing amusing about this ride. There was only
(Jack)
a train speeding headlong through the walls of reality, not stopping until it reached
(your new life)
wherever Jack told it to go.
Lindsay squeezed her eyes tight, trying her best not to be afraid as the train sped up even more, the new momentum crushing down upon her, squeezing the air from her chest, suffocating her—
Jack said I would see the others. He promised. He wouldn’t lie; wouldn’t break his promise. He’s the Caretaker.
And just as suddenly, everything stopped.
Lindsay jerked from her seat as if startled awake, not because the train had ceased moving, but because everything—literally everything—had changed.
The train had vanished altogether to leave her sitting on the neck of an enormous, steel eagle adorning the corner of a skyscraper, a gentle wind brushing her face. Her feet dangled over empty air, the world a mile below. She scooted back a little on the neck, trying to find a more comfortable position, and again looked down between her feet. One of the laces of her sneakers had come untied, she noted. And far below the dangling shoelace, she saw things moving. People, distant and ant-sized, though they didn’t look like ants. Tiny fuzzy specks, they looked more gray than anything; gray specks darting about the base of the monstrous buildings she was perched above. But it was too far to tell for certain. The specks could be people, hot dog carts or even semis.
“Cool.”
A gust of wind pushed her from behind, not enough to make her worry about falling—perhaps it should, but it didn’t—but enough to lift the baseball cap off her head and send it flying away.
“Hey!” she shrieked, snatching after what was already well beyond her grasp.
The hat turned on the wind and angled straight towards the building where it was caught by the Caretaker standing on the ledge between two stone angels. “You have to be careful up here,” he said.
“What are you doing here? Are you coming with me?”
“No, Lindsay. Actually, I came to ask for your help.”
“Okay,” she nodded. “What can I do?” Below her dangling feet, wisps of clouds rocketed on hurricane winds. The gray specks became too tiny to see as the skyscraper grew even taller, a rising colossus. But she didn’t notice; she was listening to Jack.
“I told you that you’d see the others again,” he said, leaning against one of the stone-faced angels, hands fidgeting with the brim of her cap.
“Are Alex and Oversight here?” she asked. “Did they come with you?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “They’re all still back at the Saloon with me—”
“What do you mean? You’re right here.”
“No, I’m more like a message, a… a recording.”
“A recording?”
“Something like that. I’m not really here, so I left this message for you for when you arrived. It’s the best way I can think of to explain it.” He shrugged his shoulders apologetically. “Sorry. There are still a lot of things about the Saloon I don’t fully understand, so I can’t explain them very well.”
“That’s okay, I guess,” Lindsay replied. “When will you guys get here? Am I going to have to wait up here the whole time?”
“No.”
That was a relief. After the initial thrill, there didn’t really seem to be anything to do up here, and nothing much to look at. And she wasn’t exactly sure how she was supposed to get down. What if she had to go to the bathroom?
“The others will be along shortly. That’s where I need your help. I think the others grew up too much. It’s not their fault, I know, but I can’t very well teach them anything until I make them unlearn some things. You see, that’s the problem. They know things, and the things they know aren’t really the right things. I can help; I can make them learn new things that will make them happier. But I have to make them unlearn first. That’s where you can help. I can’t simply break them of their old ways. I need you to help me … explain things to them.”
“What things?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll let you know what they need to hear so they’ll understand. In a way, they already know what I’m going to show them.”
“So why show ‘em?”
He smiled gently. “Because they don’t believe it. They need to be shown that what they already know—really know—is the truth. Will you help me?”
Lindsay shrugged. “Okay.”
“Thank you.”
He stared across the divide of empty air for a moment, and that was when Lindsay first noticed the battered gray overcoat Jack was wearing. It looked like the coat worn by the bad man in the desert, the man with the mask, the man who didn’t speak. She had never seen Jack wear the dusty old coat before and wondered where he found it. She thought she should ask him, but found herself asking instead, “Do I have to unlearn anything, Jack?”
He shook his head. “No. One of the great things about being a kid is that you haven’t really had the opportunity to learn a lot of the wrong things. There’s nothing I could show you that you don’t already understand, and too many things that would do more harm than good.”
She wasn’t sure what Jack meant, but thought if she asked him to explain, it would only become more confusing. “So what do I do?”
Jack rubbed his chin thoughtfully as if trying to come up with a solution that she knew he already had. Adults always thought kids were stupid about things; Jack wasn’t so different, she knew.
Then he nodded as if the answer had suddenly come to him. And, to Lindsay’s complete astonishment, Jack walked straight towards her, moving easily upon the empty air as if stepping across some invisible walkway between the distant ledge and her perch on the eagle’s neck. Clouds passed below Jack’s feet; not dangling like hers, but walking on open air. She felt the hair on the back of her neck prickle and stretch, a shiver crawling up her spine, shaking her chest and head, making her lips start to tremble.
“Remember,” Jack said gently, “It’s not really me here; I can’t fall. I just need to make sure you don’t fall. Understand?”
She nodded uncertainly, not the least bit reassured.
“I need you to give the others a message for me. Alex and Oversight and even Mr. Quince.” He was directly in front of her now, crouched down so they were looking eye to eye, her seated upon the metal neck of the eagle, him balanced upon nothing. His hand was holding out her hat like an offering. “Will you do that?”
“What about Ellen?”
“I’ll take care of Ellen.”
Lindsay felt herself nodding, tendons creaking in her neck as she reached out to take her hat, fingers unable to feel the object she held, her skin cold, numb, the whisper of wind as if through distant treetops, a dark … forest …
Jack, meanwhile, cupped a hand to her ear, whispering secrets.
The sound was like the buzz of hornets in an empty metal can. Then the hornets became the swirl and rattle of B-B’s. And the B-B’s became ball bearings. And the ball bearings became boulders, great rocks crashing against the inside of her skull, smashing it apart.
Blood dripped unnoticed from her nose, warm over her skin before dropping silently on her shirt. Her eyes became pools of white surrounding islands of shrinking color, empty blackness. Then Lindsay’s eyes rolled back in her head, the islands disappearing. Her mouth opened as if to speak, or maybe to scream, but the only thing that came out was a small string of saliva that dr
ained down over her chin and fell upon her shirt by the widening stain of blood.
Like Jack, Lindsay now understood.
THREE: GRAY PILGRIM
Reaching for Oversight’s knife, Alex saw his hand draw out like taffy before his eyes, first fingers then wrist then forearm, all stretching out in turn as the train started to rocket forward, molecule by molecule. One moment the knife lay a foot away from his right sneaker. Then a dozen feet. Then a hundred. Then a thousand. All in the blink of an eye. Had he only thought to close his eyes, even for a second, he would have spared himself the sight of reality tearing itself apart at the seams.
His fingers, miles away and still growing, wrapped around the knife, the polished handle fitting smoothly into his grip, a tie line to reality as the dark train came apart around him. Not some horrific catastrophe of tearing bolts and sheering metal, but the simple unbinding of every seam, every joint, every screw. The great, greasy pieces of steel simply flew apart; flew out in all directions like scattering birds. He was the center of an explosion, immune, witness to the world left behind in its wake.
For one horrifying instant, Alex hurtled alone through the black emptiness, nothing surrounding him, nothing supporting him. Just Alex—no-good, do-nothing directionless Alex—moving at the speed of light.
Then reality found him.
He fell upon his back, the wind knocked out of him, vision reduced to sheets of black and red dotted with bursts of white light as he sucked painfully at the air, each breath hard-won and agonizing. He was dimly aware of lying upside-down upon a slope, the back of his head aching and wet. He still clung tightly to Oversight’s knife, his hands normal, familiar if a little shaky …
… but his clothes were different. He was wearing a battered, gray overcoat—he was certain he hadn’t been wearing it when he boarded the train!
“Hang on, hang on!”
Alex turned, wincing at the sharp stab of pain in the back of his skull, and saw a curly-haired man with wire-rimmed glasses crawling carefully down the crumbling embankment he was sprawled at the bottom of. Wearing a friar’s robe and cassock that barely contained his ample proportions, the man scrambled to his side, an assortment of crosses and beads and saint’s medallions jangling from his neck. He huffed and wheezed, a sheen of sweat on his neck and forehead, but smiled broadly. “That was quite the tumble you took there, my friend. Let me help you.”
Alex took the man’s hand with his left—the one not holding the knife—and allowed himself to be eased to a seated position. “Thanks.”
The man in the friar’s robe only smiled good-naturedly. “I’m just glad I happened by and was able to help. No one’s kept up the roads since the signs first appeared.”
Alex rubbed gingerly at the back of his head, feeling a small, painful knot, but nothing serious. The wetness he felt was mud; he had fallen down some kind of a run-off gully, the back of his hair now plastered with stagnant water.
“Sometimes I wish it would just begin,” the other continued. “More than anything, I hate the waiting.”
Alex gave him a puzzled look, and the man waved it down, misunderstanding his confusion. “I know, I know. All things in their own time. But through God’s greatness, we will stand against this evil and not falter. Evil is meant to test us—strengthen us—but it can never win unless we fail in our faith.”
No part of that helped Alex learn where he was, or what he was doing here. He had hoped Jack would have given him some kind of understanding, an intuitive knowledge of what was expected of him in his new life. But so far, this was no different than before; he was still clueless. As for the Good Samaritan who believed God held all the answers, if that was true, He wasn’t sharing.
The friar went quiet, studying Alex with all seriousness. “Are you all right, young man? You seem fit enough, but you look … confused. That bang on the head didn’t jar anything loose did it? How many fingers do you see?”
“Three,” Alex answered correctly. “I just don’t understand anything that you’ve been telling me. You mentioned signs. And evil. What evil?”
The friar arched his eyebrows, mouth pursed in a silent whistle. Then his hands caught Alex’s face, pulling his eyelids down with his thumbs and staring directly into Alex’s pupils, refusing to let go. “Forgive me. I’m jabbering like a bird when you probably have a concussion. Possibly a subdural hematoma.” The offered diagnoses, like much of the friar’s conversation, seemed solely for his own benefit. “You don’t tumble twenty feet down a gully on your head, and get up and say ‘how d’ya do?’ ”
Alex grabbed the large man’s wrists firmly, knife momentarily forgotten in his lap, and pulled the man’s hands away. “I’m fine, really. I just stumbled is all.”
“But you know nothing of the signs? Of the rising storm of evil?”
“I’m … not from around here.”
“Well, that’s clear enough. But where could you be from that you haven’t been affected by the signs?”
“Look, my name’s Alex. I come from…” He hesitated, wondering if the valley was an appropriate answer to a friar on a roadside? Probably not. But then the Sanity’s Edge Saloon was an even worse one, wasn’t it? He settled on a half-truth. “From beyond the wasteland.”
The other sat back heavily, thumping down in the clay and broken shale of the gully, and staring at Alex with mouth open, eyes agog. The man raised a hand to his face, meaty fingers patting trembling lips like a child working through a profound dilemma particular only to children. He tried to say something, managed only a startled squeak, then cleared his throat and tried again. “Beyond the wasteland?”
Alex immediately wished he had said something else. Was being from beyond the wasteland significant here, or was it simply insensible, an indication that he was a lunatic? “Yes. Why?”
The man’s fingers thrummed nervously upon his lips, eyes distant, concentrating and half-focused. He seemed to be looking at Alex and at nothing, both at once. Finally, he murmured. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
“One of whom?” Alex asked, hand edging towards the knife in his lap. This friar could be anyone or anything: friend, foe, fanatic. The fervent stare and creeping smile reminded him of the expression he saw on some of the vagrants in the city, the ones pushing shopping carts filled with returnable cans and headless mannequin torsos while spouting on about salvation.
“You’re one of them! One of the warriors from beyond the wasteland!” The man now bubbled with excitement, hands clapping his temples, eyes ecstatic. “Of course, of course! You’re one of the warriors whose coming was promised by God. ‘There will come from beyond the wasteland prophets of God, gray warriors that shall engage the Destroyer and his minions in the final battle. And they shall gather in the city of gateways, and this shall be a sign unto you that the time of the Red Knight is at hand, and Armageddon shall follow. And you will know these warriors by their devotion to goodness, for they are innocent to the ways of wickedness and evil.’ Third Book of Revised Prophets and Revelations, Chapter 7, verses 12 through 15. You are one of the gray warriors—or is it ‘grim’ warriors; the revisionists are still debating the translation of that passage.”
Alex only shook his head, of no opinion on the matter whatsoever and still more than a little confused. He started to his feet, and the other was immediately there, hoisting him up with a grunt.
“You must be one of the warriors,” the man persisted, speaking as if Alex was deaf or elsewhere, some strange primitive with no understanding of the language. “Why else carry so many weapons?”
Looking down, Alex was startled to discover the friar was correct. Under the long, gray coat he did not remember wearing was an assembly of weapons he had never seen before. On his hips, a pair of six-shooters with smooth, sandalwood stocks. Holsters below his arms concealed a Glock and a .45. On his left wrist, a brace of steel throwing daggers. A pair of knives in his right boot. On his belt, a Kukri blade and a long sword. Across his back, a long, thick bar of steel sh
eathed alongside a heavy-headed war hammer with a three-foot haft. He drew it easily, inspecting it, startled less by the weapons than the knowledge that accompanied them. As he felt each weapon, studied them each in turn, he knew exactly what each one was and how to use it—how to make each perform their own deadly trick, though he’d never known anything like this before.
“This must be yours also, then,” the friar said, picking up a leather satchel that lay upon the ground. It might have been a photographer’s equipment bag, only Alex knew it didn’t contain film or spare lenses. Amidst the spartan contents—of which he could not even guess—the bag contained one thing of which Alex was absolutely certain: ammunition, and lots of it.
“What’s your name?” Alex asked, shouldering the heavy satchel.
“I’m … uh.” It was the friar’s turn to hesitate, as if, in his amazement, he might have forgotten. “I call myself Brother Bartholomew.” Then he cleared his throat uncertainly, as if his answer might not be entirely true, and quickly changed the subject, “You are one of them, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I’m one of them.” Whether it was true or not, Alex neither knew nor cared; it would work for now. His understanding of this world extended only as far as the weapons he carried, everything else a mystery. Brother Bartholomew—he called himself that; what did everyone else call him? —seemed to understand this place, and while a bit overzealous, he did seem willing to help.
Bartholomew’s smile broadened, shifting from one foot to the other like a child that needed to pee, and shaking a finger at Alex. “I knew it. I knew it. My parents said I should be a phrenologist, but I knew I was destined for bigger things. The Almighty needed me, and I answered because I knew He had a role for me. That must be why we met. You are on your way to meet the others in the city of gateways.”
“I’m not really sure where I was going,” Alex confessed.
“No, no, no. That’s all right. That’s why I’m here, don’t you understand? I’m your guide. I’ve found my purpose in life, my reason for answering His call. It is you. I am to lead you into the city of gateways.”
The Sanity's Edge Saloon (The Sea and the Wasteland Book 1) Page 36
