by Corey Brown
“Were they rolled back?”
At first, Sawyer doesn’t answer but instead slowly shakes her head no. Then she looks at Suzanne and says, “No, not rolled back. They were gone.”
Behind the third door on the left, in the private waiting room, two women, two strangers whose lives have intersected in a painful and unlikely way, are sharing a conversation. T’biah stands in the room, listening to them. Because he has to make sure of just one thing, T'biah could have waited for Suzanne out in the hall, but he wants to hear what they are saying. Knowing how they feel, knowing what they are thinking, might be helpful later on.
Sawyer Clark had been quite unexpected. T'biah had been watching over Suzanne—watching over all of them, but Sawyer caught him unaware. Who would have thought that David was going to fall in love? T'biah smiles weakly, it is a sad expression, and he thinks, like father like son.
T'biah listens to Suzanne and Sawyer but keeps a close watch on Cody. From here, because they are not his present, the three men in the Walmart food court appear feathery, wisps of black and white, not defined or solid. T'biah can’t hear them, but he knows what they are talking about. And sight is all he needs right now. He will notice anyone who approaches.
«»
“What do you mean he’s dead?” Cody says, staring at the newspaper headline.
“He’s dead. Heart attack, according to the story,” Harris says.
Derek spins the paper around and scans the article. “It says he was admitted at two this morning, pronounced dead at three, but he was pretty much DOA. He was at the Intercontinental hotel but not in his own room. He was with a companion.”
“Who?” Cody said.
Derek looks up. “They don’t say.”
“Female?”
“They don’t say. But it doesn’t matter.” Derek looks at Harris and says. “Glen, I know you guys have had a rough go these last few days but I have to be honest with you, I think you both are on a snipe hunt. I just don’t see a case here. It’s all a little weird, I’ll grant you that. Those women and how their babies were missing DNA, that’s creepy, no question about it. Even the dead husbands strike an odd chord. But I really think all of it— including this movie, is nothing more than coincidence. You guys are way out on a limb and I’m not sure it’s strong enough to hold both of you.” He looks hard at Cody and says, “And I know it won’t hold all three of us. I think you need to forget this whole business.”
“Derek,” Cody says, his tone almost pleading. “I know it sounds like I’m a nut job. When Glen first told me all of this I thought he was a goofball. But there are too many links, too many connections, too many coincidences. They may be strange and seem disjointed, but there are things in play here that are related, that are illegal. What about Nick and Julia’s murders? And the attempt on me? You think those are coincidences?”
Derek shrugs. “Maybe there is something to the drug angle. That could explain Nick and Julia’s deaths as well as the guy who tried to kill you. But the rest of it is just bullshit.”
“You’re wrong. Something….”
«»
“Gone?” Suzanne says. “They couldn’t be gone.”
“His eyes were gone,” Sawyer replies. “Just empty spaces where they should’ve been.”
There is a light knock at the door then it cracks open. “Ms. Carlson? It’s Doctor Robiere. I’m sorry to disturb you, may I come in?”
“Doctor Robiere?” Suzanne says.
Robiere pushes the door open, both Suzanne and Sawyer get to their feet. Robiere is a young woman, perhaps in her late twenties, thirty-one at best, not much more than an intern. Tired looking, her lab coat open, Robiere’s scrubs pull against her hips, but friendly gray eyes soften the haggard appearance. She looks at Sawyer and tips her head in a surreptitious nod. She recognizes Sawyer from the emergency room.
“Ms. Carlson, I’m Doctor Robiere,” she says, taking Suzanne’s hand. “I am so sorry about your brother. I know how hard this must be. I was the attending physician when he arrived this morning. I did everything I could.”
“Thank you for trying and thank you for calling me last night.”
“I wish I could have done more.”
Face pinched, Suzanne shrugs. It is a gesture of gratitude.
Robiere turns to Sawyer and offers her hand. “You were with him, you called the ambulance?”
Sawyer glances at Suzanne as she takes Robiere’s hand. “Sawyer Clark,” she says. “Yes, I was with David.”
“Pleased to meet you, Ms. Clark.
“Can I see him?” Suzanne says. “Can I see David?”
“Yes, of course. But first need I to ask you, ask both of you, a couple of questions.”
T’biah notices movement. It is at the edge, just beyond clear view, but he knows someone is there. He feels a stab of frustration. He wants to hear this, he wants to hear Robiere’s questions, wants to hear the answers. But T’biah cannot ignore what he sees out in the middle land. Sawyer and Suzanne and Rose Robiere will have to wait.
T’biah turns toward the three men in Walmart and steps across one hundred and fifty miles. The rush of compressed space sounds like the roar of a midnight tide and for an instant, his vision stretches, draws out. Looking back at three people in the hospital, they become thin and colorless, hardly more than an outline. Then he is there, in a new present, at the Walmart in Opelousas. Cody, now solid and dimensional, standing a few feet away.
“Something---- ” Cody is saying. He stops talking and frowns. There it is again, that sound, that faint, bright sound of metal on metal, like a chain uncoiling.
“Did you guys hear that?” Cody says, looking expectantly at the two men.
Derek looks at Harris then back at Cody. “Hear what?”
T’biah glances back at the hospital. No strangers there, just Sawyer and Rose Robiere; Suzanne is safe. Unlike the present he has just left, this new present is surrounded by a thick, gray light, which looks like fog but is not. And it is not quite darkness, either. But instead is more like a place absent of real light.
“I know you are there,” T’biah says in a low voice, sounding between a growl and whisper.
Silence.
“I know you’re there, so you may as well come out.”
Still, no sound.
“Coward,” T'biah says. “You slither in here, hoping to take his life and you don’t even have the courage to face me.”
From the foggy darkness a hollow, thin voice says, “Courage is just a word. It means nothing. I will kill him because I want to, not because I am brave.”
T’biah steps toward the voice, putting himself between it and Cody. “Interesting,” he says. “Since when have those who follow the Dark One done anything they want?”
“You should talk, like you’re a free agent? Those of us who serve the real master do as we choose, our lord simply guides us.”
“I see. And what about the Yaw? Do you guys choose the Yaw?”
Silence.
“I thought not,” T’biah says. “Your master chooses that for you, doesn’t he? He decides who joins the Yaw.”
“We gladly enter the service,” the voice says, but it is not quite so self-assured now.
“Uh-huh, sure you do.”
“It is for the weak, but when we are called---- ”
“Yeah, right,” T’biah says, interrupting. “You smile and say thank you sir, may I have another? You’re so full of it. Now leave, you can’t touch Briggs.”
“Oh? And who will stop me. You? Maybe your former self, maybe the one who has slain my people a hundred at a time, maybe that T’biah would concern me. But this one, the T’biah who stands before me now? I don’t think so. You have strayed so far from grace, you will never be able to return. You are practically one of us now.”
The lightless haze stirs. There are others nearby, but not to worry. This kind can only offer words of ill will and humiliation. This creature is nothing more than a rostid, its voice the give-away. Measu
red, anxious, tones that give off a feeling of nervousness, painted over with a wet, slippery coat of patience. Nothing more than a pain-in-the-ass whose sole purpose is to harass and torment humans.
T'biah tries to ignore the rostid’s taunts. Still, T'biah feels the stab of uneasiness, this nasty little thing is right, he has stepped off the path. T’biah closes his eyes. In a way, one rostid or another has hounded him for decades. Some of them were like this one, a living thing pressing the salt of guilt into his wounds, but most were his own making. He had punished himself far more than any of these unpleasant beasts ever could.
Not only has T'biah strayed a long way, he has been gone a long time. How long now, thirty-two years? There was a time when three decades would have passed in the blink of an eye, in an instant. But now his life seems to be measured more in human hours than anything else. Has it really been over thirty years since that fateful afternoon, since that one mistake? T'biah catches himself, not a mistake, a choice. He had chosen this path. T’biah pushes these thoughts away, now is not the time for self-pity.
“I will strike him down if I choose to,” the rostid says smoothly, sensing T’biah’s feelings. “And you cannot stop me.”
T'biah opens his eyes and says, “Really? Besides being spineless, you suck at lying. We both know you can’t strike down anything. All you can do is talk.”
From the non-darkness, the creature makes a snorting sound and spits, a ball of greenish phlegm landing at T’biah’s feet.
“Goddamn you---- ”
T’biah sends his mace flying in the direction of the rostid, the spiked ball disappearing into the darkness then snapping hard against the chain, silencing the creature.
“Once more,” T’biah growls. “Take His name just one more time, and I won’t even give you the chance to run.”
Cody freezes. Why does he keep hearing that sound? He swears someone is coiling or uncoiling a chain. Cody is beginning to think he really is losing his mind.
T’biah glances at Suzanne, still no unexpected visitors. He looks back into the hazy-blackness. Is this a trick to lure him away from her? T'biah tries to hear what Doctor Robiere is saying but her words just crack and hiss, like a verbal static.
«»
“David’s condition,” Doctor Robiere says. “Was a little unusual.”
“You’re talking about his skin?” Sawyer says.
“Well, yes.” Robiere looks at Sawyer, surprise on her face. Robiere looks back at Suzanne and says, “Is there a family history of anything like this? Any kind of epidermal conditions?”
Suzanne shakes her head. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about. Mrs. Clark said David was bleeding, like he was cracking, but I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“David had dozens of epidermal traumas,” Robiere says. “Splits, if you will, covering the upper half of his body. The blood loss wasn’t significant, I don’t think that was a contributing factor to his death, but I cannot explain the presence of this kind of event.” Robiere frowns, rubbing her jaw. “It’s clear,” she says, “That these, uh, cracks were not caused by an external object. David wasn’t cut with a knife or anything like that, but I can’t explain them, either. Does anyone in your family have any kind of chronic skin problems?”
Suzanne wants to mention that everyone in her family is dead, that death is the only chronic problem she knows of. But it does not matter now and that will not help Doctor Robiere understand what happened to David.
“No, nothing that I know of,” Suzanne says, with a sigh. “Nothing like what you describe. But if there was something like that, David couldn’t have inherited it, at least not from my parents. He was adopted.”
«»
T’biah is certain Doctor Robiere has not discussed the autopsy, but he knows the subject will come up soon enough. T’biah looks in the direction of the rostid, he can feel the presence of others. This will not take long. He will dispatch the lot of them and slip back into the hospital.
Now the rostid steps into view. It is dark and turbulent, with an indiscernible face, like a living storm, living chaos. But this one seems blacker, darker than most and better at what it does. And less afraid. And oilier.
“You were there,” T’biah says, recognizing him as the one who tried to convince Cody to kill himself. T’biah had returned to the parking lot just in time chase the rostid away. “You barely escaped me yesterday.”
“Today will be different,” the rostid says, a wicked grin spreading across his featureless face. “Today you will be the one to flee.”
“I doubt it.”
Two more figures step forward, tall and solid and lizard-like. They are impeccably dressed, like gentlemen attending a formal occasion. Except these are not rostids, they are interceptors; they are killers.
T’biah steals another look at Suzanne. He has to get back to her, but he needs to keep Cody safe. How to do both? He draws a deep breath trying to buy a few seconds.
“Perhaps, you are right,” T’biah says, putting away his mace and stepping back. “Maybe, this is not my time.”
“Such a pity,” the rostid says, “I would have enjoyed watching the slaughter. But making this policeman suffer will be pleasurable, just the same.” The creature glances at his escorts. “It’s unfortunate that my friends, here, cannot kill him.”
“A pity, to be sure.” T’biah says. “But they will kill someone.”
For a moment, the rostid’s loathsome smile remains plastered across its face but then the grin fades, replaced by a puzzled look.
“What---- ?”
With greater speed than he had expected to summon, T’biah draws his mace and swings it. But before the chain can pay out its length, before the spiked ball finds the mark, T’biah snaps it back and runs. Two clubs pound the space near where his head used to be.
T’biah steps back into the hospital waiting room, the slip of dimensional geography happening much too fast. It rips at him, the sound tearing at his ears like a saw blade on metal.
“Adopted?” Doctor Robiere is saying.
The Interceptors follow T’biah into the waiting room but he is not there. They stop, staring at the three women.
“I didn’t know David had been adopted,” Robiere says. “Do you know anything about his biological parents?”
Looking toward Cody, the Interceptors watch as T’biah swings his mace at the rostid. They lunge back across the one hundred and fifty-three miles of earth between the Saint Charles Hospital and the Walmart in Opelousas, their arms outstretched, clubs poised. T’biah sees them coming, pulls his mace up short again and drops to his hands and knees.
Only a heartbeat behind T’biah’s own blazing celerity, the two interceptors propel two enormous clubs at T’biah, who is no longer where he should have been. The rostid sees what is coming and starts to scream, but his cry is too late. Two enormous clubs, with unstoppable momentum, simultaneously smash into the rostid’s face. The interceptors strike with such force that the rostid’s entire head is instantly ripped from its body, tumbling off into the gray-black outer area.
In a frozen moment, T’biah looks up at the headless figure. The rostid’s body stands for a moment, wobbling slightly, then it collapses into a pile of dust in front of T’biah, a small cloud puffing up around the interceptor’s ankles.
The interceptors stare down at the dust pile. They look at T’biah then at each other. Interceptors are incredibly fast, amazingly strong. They are impeccable dressers, highly trained, very smooth. And they are as dumb as a sack of rocks. The scene is so cartoon-like that a short laugh escapes T'biah’s mouth.
A laugh? How long had it been since he’d done that? How long since he’d felt the pleasure of a genuine smile? T'biah knows how long. Thirty years, make that, thirty-two years. Sure, he had spent his life of service being serious—and for good reason, there was much work to do, lives hung in the balance. But thirty-three years ago he still knew how to laugh.
In that frozen moment, T’biah enjoys the
look of realization that is slowly dawning across the interceptor’s faces. They had screwed up, they were dead. Worse, their deaths would be fantastically slow and painful.
But they will not go after T’biah. Down on his knees, only a few feet away, he should be at their mercy. If they knew how to go about it, they could club him into oblivion. But an interceptor’s lot is to defend and protect; nothing more, nothing less. They are big and fast and almost scientific in their defensive talents, but they have no idea how to strike first.
T’biah stands up, brushing himself off. He pats his tattered long coat, puffs of rostid dust rising into the air. T'biah can tell these two are wondering what to do next.
“Thanks, boys,” T’biah says, with a puerile grin. He wants to laugh, but holds back. “You really came through for me.”
The bigger one, frowns, tries to speak but stops. What can he say? They had killed their charge.
“You piece of shit,” the second interceptor says. “You fucked us.”
Still grinning, T’biah put up his hands. “Sorry guys, I can’t take the credit. You did that to yourselves.”
T’biah glances back at Suzanne. She is saying something to Doctor Robiere.
Without taking his eyes off her, T’biah says, “Thanks again. Gotta run.”
T’biah steps toward the hospital, the familiar rushing sound of the in-between space of physical geography begins to fill his ears, but he pulls back, staying with Cody, Harris and Derek. The two interceptors are gone now, presumably to hide.
