by Aaron Crash
So, what was happening? Maybe the shotgun blast had killed him, and this was the afterlife? Would he float around forever outside of time? That would get boring.
But he hadn’t been hit. He was still alive. Maybe just the bank was affected.
He moved outside. The cars on Plum Creek Boulevard were motionless. Some cyclehead on an expensive bike was heading down the sidewalk, and Jack walked up to him. Again, it was like the world had stopped except for Jack.
The clouds looked painted up there in the blue sky. The sun wasn’t moving. There was no wind, not a bit, and in Colorado, there was always wind. Not on that day, at 4:56 on a Friday afternoon.
He pushed through the doors and walked back into the bank. He remembered the smudge he’d seen in the corner, where they had a tall, tree-like plant in a basin. He wasn’t sure if the plant was real or not, but he had the idea that someone might have watered it at some point. Watering plants was a thing, right?
Jack saw the smudge, like a bad painting in the corner, behind the tree. But the closer he got, the more the smudge turned into something else—streaming light, energy, a rip in the world. And a woman reaching out for him. She was the only thing moving, but she was moving horrendously slow, like a glacier on valium.
The pain in his skull had intensified, and he grimaced. Ouch. Yes, he was going to get a migraine. The woman’s arm brushed the plant, and it started to fall, but in slow motion.
His vision doubled, and he saw the plant, and he saw the woman, a middle-aged woman with hair that was plastered into a blond helmet from too much hairspray. He started toward her, and that’s when he saw the thing holding her, this thing...
It was far taller than the woman. It had a humanish-shape covered with rock-gray skin. Its arms and legs were impossibly thin, as if it only had bones there and no muscle or blood vessels. Or anything else. Its feet were huge with far too many long, thin toes, like spider legs. Its hands were equally long, and they crawled. The thing’s chest was layered with powerful muscles. Its neck was corded and knotted and thick right up to its nightmare head. It had a mouth—open and wet and black. But the rest of the thing’s face was horns, two big horns starting above its mouth to wrap around and around like a ram’s horns.
It had a rank, chemical smell, like if you fried rancid bacon in ammonia at high heat. Whatever that creature was, it both looked and smelled like the most literal of hells.
Hugo Mundi’s words came back to Jack. The horns...and his mother...who had worked in the bank but had disappeared. And there was a nametag on her chest. Evelyn.
This was crazy Hugo’s mother, and she was being held by the Horns.
Jack felt like someone was whacking him between the eyes with a hammer. What was she doing there? And, yes, her clothes looked like they were from the 1980s, or at least what middle-aged female bank tellers were wearing back then. Annie’s description had been good—big blond hair and lots of blue eye makeup.
His first thought was, Maybe this is a little over my pay grade, and his second thought was, Fuck that! He pulled his Beretta and fired at the face of the horned thing because if anything needed to die, it was this monster holding this terrified woman.
He put a circular hole in the demon’s left horn. It hissed at him. “You, human thing, how can you stop the Tempus Influunt? I wasn’t done yet with her...with her...with her.”
Those last two words echoed in the streaming light around the thing.
Jack dashed forward and took hold of the woman’s outstretched hand. He pulled her back with his left hand and fired into the demon with his right...two in the chest and one in the head. Only this time, the bullets hit the skin and sprinkled onto the floor, doing zero damage to the creature.
Evelyn went tumbling onto the tiles behind him. “Oh, dearie me. What is going on? I need to get home and check on my little Hugo.”
“Forty fucking years too late for that shit,” Jack growled.
“You think in years, child of Adam. While the Interim exists between the eons...between the eons...between the eons.” Horns finished up that cryptic shit and shot forward, raising its long claws. It basically had steak knives for hands.
Jack didn’t know why his first shot worked while the others had bounced off the thing. However, he did know if he wasn’t careful, this thing would filet him—unless he got in close and killed the monster first.
He didn’t retreat but sped forward. He grabbed the right wrist of the monster. Jack’s flesh crawled at feeling its weird, stony skin. Jack pushed his gun into the thing’s face and pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening. The results were satisfying. It wasn’t like the monster was going to take a high-velocity round in the face without consequences. The thing staggered back and vanished.
The smell of gunpowder hung in the air, the smoke frozen. The sound, however, ripped through Jack’s ears. He had to shut his eyes against the pain.
Evelyn from the 1980s wasn’t helping him with her squawking.
Was the monster gone for good or just taking a break from the fight?
Well, one asshole down, two to go.
Jack stomped over to one of the bank robbers and grabbed his shotgun. The minute he touched the barrel, the entire world went careening back on course, but Jack had the guy’s weapon in his left hand. It was the easiest thing in the world to bash that guy in the face with the stock. The face mask offered zero protection. Jack was pretty sure he’d smashed out some of this fucker’s teeth.
The would-be bandit went down shrieking in pain. That sounded good.
Evelyn threw her hands up above her head and went running right into the other guy. She spoiled his shot, and Jack was glad for that.
Jack still had his Beretta in his right fist. He turned and fired twice, hitting the shotgun guy in the chest and clipping the side of his head. The guy dropped his gun, fell to his knees, and clutched his chest. He looked at his bloody palm and started screaming.
That only lasted a second. Then he went for the gun.
Jack kicked him in the stomach and sent him sprawling backward. “No, this shit is over, asshole. There will be no bank robbing today. Kyle! Call the fucking police.”
The robber was bleeding, and he might die, but Jack didn’t care. Those fuckers came in to rob the bank and kill people. And maybe not in that order. So they deserved whatever pain they were feeling.
Kyle stood blinking in the doorway of his office.
Annie, though, was on the phone. A few minutes later, Jack heard sirens. It felt like ten minutes had passed since he’d almost died—first in a bank robbery, then because the demon thing was going to cut him to ribbons, but literally no time had passed between the robber pulling the trigger and Jack taking both chuckleheads down. The guy who Jack had clocked was still moaning and holding his head. The gunshot victim bled quietly. Good. The people in the bank, the customers, were murmuring, trying to figure things out but not leaving, just standing there, gawking.
Evelyn was sitting against the far wall, trembling. He marched over to her. “Hey, Mrs. Mundi, what the hell happened?”
She was white as a sheet. “I...you all are dressed...so very differently. It’s very strange. You have little portable telephones. Or are they tricorders? Like from Star Trek?”
Annie called to him. “Jack, the police just pulled up. And did you say Mrs. Mundi? She wasn’t here before.”
“Not sure, Annie. I have no idea what the fuck is going on.” Jack let out a breath. He was trembling and he had that migraine eating his brain, but the roar of the adrenaline was abating. He coughed and cleared his throat.
“No cursing,” Kyle the douchebag bank manager warned.
“Is that Mrs. Mundi?” Annie was pale, but her eyes were full of wonder. “Hugo’s mom? Where’s Horns?”
“That’s the question of the hour,” Jack said.
Mrs. Mundi was chewing on her pearls. Probably a nervous habit.
Jack tried to get her attention. “Mrs. Mundi?”
No answer.
>
Jack raised his voice. “Evelyn?”
She blinked and looked at him. She dropped the pearls from her mouth.
“What happened to you?” he asked.
“I was...it was April...my job. This thing. Then nothing.” She wasn’t being helpful.
Jack smelled a spicy perfume in the air, something sweet and strong and sexy. There might’ve been a note or two of cinnamon. A second later, Evelyn Mundi was gone. A strange laughter followed, the throaty laugh of a woman who was both amused and a little full of herself.
Before Jack could really process that, the police burst into the bank. The people who had been holding in their panic lost it to screaming. It was like with the police there, they felt safe enough to lose their minds and start sobbing.
Jack holstered his gun. Already, the cops were interviewing Kyle and the other witnesses, and the EMTs followed to cart off the two masked bank robbers.
Jack walked over to Annie, that spicy perfume still in his nose and the laughter in his ears. It wasn’t Horns—no, that thing had the voice of a haunted gravel truck. He went to Annie, who had retreated to her stool. She was sweating, and he could smell her fear.
She offered him a wan grin. “How does it feel to be the hero?”
He shrugged. “I’m glad no one’s hurt. But Hugo’s mom is gone. And there was this demon.” He stopped talking because Annie was looking at him like he was crazy.
“Evelyn Mundi,” Jack said softly. “You saw her, right?”
“What?” Annie asked.
Jack felt his world tilt again. He pointed at the wall near the restrooms. “She was there. Hugo’s mom. You asked about Horns. Don’t you remember?”
Annie shook her head.
Jack stuck a knuckle against his temple. “She appeared, by the plant, and she...”
The bank teller’s curious gaze wasn’t making him feel any less crazy.
He dropped his hand. “You don’t remember anything.”
Annie shook her head. “No, but it all happened so fast. And yet, time seemed to stop.”
That made Jack laugh like a drunk hyena. He was still laughing when one of the cops came over. He was older, with thinning hair and a permanent frown. Jack recognized him.
Officer Mac Satterstrum’s frown seemed like it might make his jaw come unhinged. “We’re going to need you to come down to the station with us, Mr. Masterson, to get your side of things. You okay with that?”
Jack knew the drill. “Sure, Mac. You probably don’t remember me, but I was in the Plum Creek PD cadet program.”
Mac Satterstrum sighed. “I remember you, Jack. And I remember your father was the best kind of cop, as were three of your brothers, but you were always kind of the asshole.”
“Big asshole,” Annie said with a laugh and a wink.
Even though Mac’s words stung, Annie’s wink made him smile. “Okay, Mac, then let’s get this over with. I have to help my mom and my aunt tonight with their bills.” That wasn’t going to help his headache any.
“Aren’t you sweet,” Mac said like he couldn’t care less. “Let’s go.”
“Hold up.” Jack leaned forward, searching Annie’s face. “You didn’t see any kind of strangeness. No sign of the ghost? Evelyn Mundi? Big horned creature? Nothing?”
“Just bank robbery weirdness,” Annie said, meeting his gaze. “Are you feeling okay, Jack?”
He winced. “Bad migraine. Shot a guy. Feeling funky.”
Mac let out a grunt. “Gunshot guy isn’t so bad. Missed all the important bits, which might be a good or a bad thing. You broke the other guy’s face open.”
Jack ignored Officer Mac Satterstrum and spent a second looking into Annie’s eyes, wondering at what happened and if he was going crazy.
He hoped he wasn’t crazy because he and Annie had a definite moment, and with how his life had been lately, Jack needed a long, hot look that promised a future sweating together in bed.
Jack turned. “You don’t happen to have any Advil on you, Mac?”
Mac just laughed.
It didn’t make Jack’s head feel any better. And he was wondering if he’d been crazy until Mac muttered, “That perfume smells like sex itself.”
The perfume. The laughter. Horns was still around. Jack knew he hadn’t killed the thing, not even with that bullet rattling around in his skull. But there was also something else unseen in the air, and Jack had the idea that whatever it was had snatched Evelyn Mundi just when Jack had saved her.
Saved her from what, exactly?
He didn’t know.
But Jack Masterson’s complicated life had just gotten even more complicated.
Chapter Three
JACK DROVE HOME FROM the police station. The headache was getting better. It might’ve been the ibuprofen he’d eventually scored from a nice policewoman, but he thought there was something else going on.
Being at the police station wasn’t easy, not after what had happened during his cadet training program. And Mac Satterstrum was an asshole. It some ways, it made Jack glad that he hadn’t joined the Plum Creek PD. A lot of people remembered him—the disgraced son of a grand police family, a father and three brothers who’d made the Masterson name mean something. Jack’s other two brothers hadn’t gone into law enforcement per se, but both had joined the military. Bart had died in Iraq. Andy had gotten medical training and had become a doctor. He had been working at the Air Force base infirmary in Colorado Springs, but then cancer had taken him in September.
At the police station, there had been glares and whispers, and everyone had been saying the same thing—out of the six Masterson sons, five were glowing members of society and one was a fuck up.
That would be Jack. It hadn’t always been that way...
Jack parked his car on the street just below his apartment. His place was next door to the Burrito King, just down Plum Creek Boulevard from the bank and that shopping mall. Most of the time, he’d walk to his gym for a workout or down to the RMB if he had to cover a shift.
His little apartment complex was rundown, sure—nine cheap units stacked on top of one another, three floors, three narrow apartments on each side. He lived on the second floor, with steps up to his front door, but he also had a fire escape that he used sometimes. It brought him right to the street.
It wasn’t the best place to live, though he was only a few feet away from a chorizo breakfast burrito. Also, the Burrito King had really good green chili.
He’d driven to work that Friday because he thought he’d be seeing his mom and aunt to help them pay their bills. You knew your parents were getting old when they lost the ability to deal with money. His mother and aunt would either spend too much money or not enough, and they’d miss bills, and it was a shit show.
After the night he’d had, he’d told his mom and aunt he’d come by the next night to help them. Yeah, Saturday night—his idea of a wild party was hanging out with his aging mother and her even older sister. Fuck his life.
He did have a few casual friends with benefits he could call. Mindy had weekends off, unlike Liz who only worked weekends. He and Mindy might be able to hook up in the afternoon. Mindy worked at the local King Soopers and he’d have to suffer through her complaining about her boss, but there were worse things. They wouldn’t talk for long because Mindy understood that the benefits of having a friend with benefits didn’t involve that much talking.
Jack just wanted to get inside his place, pour himself a drink, and figure out what the hell had happened to him that evening. He could call his buddy Pinetree, who ran a bar off the highway called—you guessed it—the Pinetree Bar and Grill. His name was Paul Pine, but no one called him that. It was either Pinetree, or PT for short.
Jack didn’t want his friend thinking he’d lost his mind, but Pinetree was a good guy. He might understand, and running a mountain bar gave you a certain perspective on the human condition—it either opened your mind or closed it forever.
Jack might talk about the shit he’d see
n eventually, but first, he wanted to try to figure it out on his own. On a Friday night, the Burrito King had some pretty good traffic and there’d be a line. Jack would just eat leftovers. He wasn’t much interested in food, but he sure could use a drink. He pulled a bottle of gin from the freezer. The booze was from a local distiller, and Jack loved it. Fiftytwo-80’s gin was the best around.
Jack stood in his kitchen and took a slug of gin from the bottle. He surveyed his place. The kitchen was the dining room was the living room was his office. It was a one-bedroom apartment with bare walls and only enough shutters to keep out the sunrise when he wanted to sleep late. Which was rare, working security, working side jobs, helping Pinetree, and taking care of his family.
Jack’s desk across the way was crowded with bills, papers, and computer parts. He had a sofa, a TV, and, in the bedroom, a bed and a dresser. That was it. He wasn’t into decorating, and he wasn’t in his apartment all that much.
He got out a Styrofoam container from last night’s burrito run and microwaved the last half of a smothered steak burrito. He then grabbed a Budweiser from the fridge before clinking ice into a glass and pouring himself some gin. He ate at the kitchen table, which faced the window and the street below. He sometimes took a chair outside and put it on the landing of the fire escape. Mostly, he sat inside watching the cars come and go as people took care of their burrito needs.
Okay. The bank had been hit by two no-name bandits, little better than meth heads with visions of Grand Theft Auto dancing in their heads. Mac Satterstrum had said as much, and so Jack didn’t think those two dirtbags had anything to do with stopping time.
Yes, he’d stopped time. That was when the headache began. The real villain of the evening seemed to be this Horns thing, who said a bunch of cryptic shit and was relatively bulletproof. That first shot had hit, though. He remembered how it created that hole in the horns. Evelyn Mundi had been the ghost they’d seen and heard, but she wasn’t a ghost—she was there, but it seems she’d been trapped somehow, stuck in time. And Horns seemed to be holding her hostage.
