16. Farsight
Don't expect a 'literary' masterpiece here. I'm not writing this for your entertainment, or mine; I'm writing this to save my life, and perhaps yours.
Let me explain first that I don't usually meddle in other folk's business, though potently I can meddle probably better than anybody else. I usually don't meddle because it's usually just too damn hard to change things. Besides, sometimes I make things even worse when I meddle.
But this time I just had to try to save the woman. What I saw him, or rather it, was going to do to her, I couldn't very well let actually happen, could I?
Sorry. I'm confusing you with tenses already, right? Then first I better try to explain that I can 'far-see' things, as the rest of my story won't make any sense at all if you don't first understand the basics of that.
Roughly speaking, I can see the future. Far into the future, if I want to. But that's over simplifying it far too much. It would be more precise to say that I 'normally' see and hear bits and pieces of probable future event timelines, about as easily as normal folk see and hear the present. In fact, if I don't consciously suppress my farsight, I constantly slip in and out of it and my attention drifts all over space-time, which can be a really confusing pain in the ass. Complicating things is the fact that due to such things as randomness and free will, there are always multiple future timelines that I can see using my farsight. One of the timelines is going to happen. Though I can’t simply pick the one I want to happen and have it come true, I can through my actions in the present make timelines change or disappear or become improbable. Sometimes. It ain’t easy, and sometimes my meddling results in worse things happening.
In this particular instance a few decades ago I was just minding my own business, which is/was quite complicated enough, thank you, without going about looking for crazy adventures, when I encountered HER.
I happened in the library. It's a great place to meet women I suppose, if you have any talent for meeting women. I don't, but I was in the library anyway, to actually get books. I was browsing when I noticed movement at the other end of the stack, out of the corner of my eye. I glanced over, and there she was. She looked to be maybe twenty-five, close enough to my own age, and carried an armful of enchanting classics. Great legs and a big heavy load of books! What a combination!
She wasn't looking at me until I did an involuntary double-take, and then she looked up and right into my eyes. I was so startled that my farsight control slipped a bit, and I was suddenly seeing her in some possible future place/time.
She was jogging along a dimly lit path in a wooded area. Evergreen trees, it looked like. It didn't seem to be quite day or night; it must have been either dusk or dawn. There was barely enough light in the more lighted patches for me to recognize her, wearing A different loose white blouse and slacks than she was wearing when I first met her.
I don't normally spy on folks that way. Besides being impolite, if I were to let myself farsee every good looking woman that I ran into, that's about all that I'd ever have time to do. So I was going to cut off the vision, honest I was!
Suddenly, she was snatched by a huge, dark, hulk of a monstrous inhuman brute. He/it reached out from the dark shadows among the trees and just grabbed her, stopping her cold. Then he held her suspended two feet above the path using just one hand on her throat, which had to take a hell-of-a lot of strength. She hit away at him with her feet and hands, but he didn't even seem to notice.
He paused and stared at her for a few moments, then he suddenly hit her hard in the chest with his other hand. In the dim light, I couldn't make out at first what was happening. Dark fluid splashed out from her chest; dark, red liquid that spattered over her white clothes, and then down onto the asphalt path.
Lord, it was blood, a gushing flood of it! The monster’s hand was reaching right into her body, ripping her insides apart! She stopped struggling. Except for a few spasmodic, twitches, her body was hanging limp.
When the damn monster pulled his blood covered hand out of her, it was holding a dark, red, dripping lump of flesh. When I saw it happening, I was at first too shocked to figure out what it was, but then I realized that it was her heart! The thing plunged it into his mouth, and swallowed it whole. Then he tossed her lifeless body to one side like it was weightless trash.
Just my luck, he then turned towards me and took a step or two into better light, and I got my first really good look at him. It had a snarling, gray, ugly-as-hell face, like a normal human face that was made out of gray silly putty and then smooched up and corroded with acid. Maybe it was a mask. I HOPED it was a mask!
Then an ugly smile erupted on the face, showing off rows of obviously real, razor sharp fangs that dripped blood, until a thick, pointed, snake tongue just as red swept them clean. It tilted his head back like a beast and howled! The damn thing was a for real inhuman monster!
The next thing I knew, I was lying on a hard surface, waking up. I heard voices, several of them, talking quietly but excitedly about something. About a young man that had some sort of fit and then collapsed, scaring a young lady half to death in the process. The man is an odd-ball, someone said. Not surprising this would happen, another added. I've seen him talking to himself, while staring blankly into space, said still another.
I suddenly realized that they were talking about me. I must have fainted from the strain and pain, which are some the little inconveniences of farsight.
A hand was feeling for my pulse as I opened my eyes. I found that I was still in the library, lying on the floor, and a man was kneeling over me, a big burly, serious looking guy. From his clothes and actions, I judged him to be a paramedic. Paramedics had just been invented. We introduced ourselves; his name was Fred something. I assured Fred that I was all right, but he made me lie there anyway while he poked and prodded me with questions and medical measuring devices. Meanwhile, frightening memories of my farsight episode assailed me.
"Where is the young lady that was here?" I asked.
"Mike! His pulse just took off!" Fred stated, apparently to his partner, an equally intense fellow whom I now noticed standing behind him.
"Of course it did! Where is she?" I demanded. They must have both been trained to screen out anything non-medical; my question was again ignored.
"We better take him in for observation," Fred said, obviously to his partner Mike; as I certainly wasn't being consulted on the matter. Abruptly I was lifted onto some sort of cot with wheels. I protested and tried to get up, but my saviors were even more insistent that I stay on, and they were bigger and stronger than me.
`"This is a matter of life or death!" I shouted, and once more tried to escape.
They strapped me down securely onto the cart and rolled/carried me out of the library. I caught a last glimpse of Ms. Run, the librarian, as I was whisked out. She wasn't smiling. I had committed mayhem in her library.
Soon I was in the back of a fancy van converted to medical needs, which was, judging from the screaming siren, bellowing horn, heaving swerves, and numerous stops and starts, traveling recklessly through suburban rush-hour traffic. (Teleportation hadn’t been invented yet, let me point out.)
What was the hurry? Was there some sort of time limit on this, like a Pizza delivery? Thoughts of the girl abated for the time being; I was in the hands of the medical establishment, and I now feared for my own well-being.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed at the hospital, and I was free again in a couple of hours. I had the last laugh on them; I knew that in a few decades, health care reform was coming. Farsight has its illuminating aspects.
I got back to the library just as Ms. Run was locking up for the night. "Where is the young lady that was here when I fainted?" I asked her. After her momentary shock of recognition, and assurances from me that the hospital had released me, she was no more helpful than the paramedics. Despite my detailed description of the 'mystery woman', Ms. Run claimed that she had no idea who I was looking for.
As I drove home, I pondered
the situation. A young, literate woman with great legs, etc., was probably going to be horribly murdered, that much I knew. Unfortunately I didn't know who she was, who or what the murderer was, where the murder would happen, or when. I plainly needed more to go on.
By the time I reached my apartment I had considered all of my next possible courses of action. I would confront the librarian again, for sure. I could of course return to the library daily in hopes of seeing the mystery woman again before the murder. But I couldn't very well just sit in that library for days, weeks, months, or even years, simply hoping for her to show up. That would drive me nuts, and the murder could happen before she returned to the library anyway. For all I knew, the murder could already be happening right now!
In the end I came up with only one potentially viable course of immediate action. Of course it was what I knew that I'd have to do all along, but didn't want to face up to. Just thinking of it filled me with terror, but I didn't see that I had any choice. I had to farsee the crime again.
Besides being terrifying, it wouldn't be easy. Though my visions can come as easy and natural to me as breathing, they generally tend to be dull, colorless, muffled, indistinct, confusing, muted, clouded, fragmented, poorly lighted, and out of focus. More like early amateur black and white home movies than a well edited modern Hollywood production.
However, over the years I developed skills to focus and control my farsight. With sufficient concentration, I can actually observe the future in full sound and vibrant color, with lots of detail, almost as good as normal hearing and eyesight. In an unusually good session I can peel away the future like the layers of an onion, read it like a history book, and subsequently slip into the present with the confidence that only knowing the future can bring.
However, generally I use my control capabilities to simply suppress farsight altogether. Why? Unfortunately, there are plenty of reasons. The headaches are a troublesome instance of life's 'you get what you pay for' axiom, or its 'no pain no gain' corollary. Worse, what I usually farsee is exceedingly dull. It can be the branch of a tree, the roof of a house, the inside of an unfamiliar supermarket when it's closed, strangers talking in an incomprehensible foreign language, the top-side of a cloud, the surface of the moon, or empty space. It's similar to the photos I took at the time with my old Kodak 110 mm. Most of them weren't really worth developing. (For you youngsters out there, let me mention that digital photography hadn’t happened yet, though I had farseen it happening in a few decades.) On the other hand, I still took photos anyway, because sometimes I got lucky. It's like that with farsight.
I fortified myself with a cup of hot blackberry herb tea, sweetened with honey. A nice belt of brandy would have made me feel even better, but that would have destroyed some of the control that I would need. I settled back comfortably in my leather recliner, closed my eyes, and started.
I first tried to recall and envision the scene in the library, when I first saw the woman. This was of course normal recollection and not farsight, since I can only farsee the future, and not the past or present. (Now that would be weird!)
As I expected, it wasn't easy. Earlier, the actual physical presence of the woman had somehow provided a coupling to future events along which my subconscious mind had easily traveled. Now I made awkward attempts to consciously rediscover that same path.
I saw the same library isle where my vision had earlier occurred. I was pleased to see that a number of interesting looking books that could be expected sometime in the future, but no light was shed on the mystery woman. I moved down another path.
I was seeing Ms. Run. She seemed to be sitting at a kitchen table eating noodle soup while reading a book. It was a book on psychic phenomena, I noticed. Ms. Run looked older! I zoomed in on a newspaper that was on the table. Sure enough, this scene was ten years in the future, and of course completely extraneous.
I withdrew, but carefully; I didn't want to stray from the library as focal point.
Next I watched a small boy reading a Dr. Seuss book from the library. It was "Green Eggs and Ham"! I've always been a big Dr. Seuss fan, but this was getting me nowhere.
And so it went for several hours. Most things I farsaw were trivial and boring, and all were totally irrelevant. I performed multidimensional gymnastics, leaping from one space-time path to another, straining to see each scene clearly, and then pushing on to the next, always in directions that I felt might be fruitful, but usually against the tides of time and space. Finally, totally exhausted, I had to withdraw back to the here/now.
Returned to my recliner, I had a splitting head ache, though not bad enough to make me pass out. I reached into my pants pocket for my ever present aspirin tablets and swallowed two with the last of my cold tea. Then I closed my eyes and wrapped my head in my big, soft, downy pillow, with the intent of resting for just a few minutes while the pills took effect. Then I'd try again.
The telephone woke me up. It was my broker. Buy or sell the IBM stocks, he asked? What year and month was this, I asked back, as I reached for my stock market notes. He didn't seem surprised by my inquiry; I had asked him that same question several times in the past or future, that I could recall. After finding out when I was and checking my notes on IBM stock history I told him to buy and said good-bye. I was/will be doing rather well in the stock market.
Looking out a window and continuing to wake up, I noticed that it was daytime; probably late morning. I felt refreshed mentally, but stiff and sore from spending the night on the recliner, and mad as hell at myself for my failure to find out more about the mystery lady. How could I have let myself fall asleep? Already one dusk and one dawn had passed, and either could have meant the woman's death! I looked at my watch. It was afternoon already. Had it already happened?
I turned on my radio and tuned in to the local news station. I would have preferred the interactive VISICOM news internet; but I remembered that it wasn't invented yet.
I just caught the tail end of a news story: "...Terrible murder of a person exercising here in Wilson's Park..." I heard them say! Cursing, I knocked the radio from its shelf, smashing it into silence. But its words still echoed through my mind. I got out my brandy and took a few big gulps, and then slumped back down in my ever faithful recliner. That’s what I get for giving a damn, I figured.
Within minutes my farsight control was lost.
Off my id went plunging and tumbling along some arbitrary stream of space/time. This time I didn't even try to stay fixed in any one time/place, I just let myself be swept along, loose and free, flying in a universe that only I could see and hear. I didn't stay anywhere long enough to figure things out, everything was just a blur. That's the way I wanted it; I didn't want to understand, or get involved. I just let it all wash over me, so that I could lose myself totally in the chaos of sight and sound, lost in space-time.
It didn't work. After an hour I was sitting there in my chair, and the memory of that woman and the thing that killed her was still pounding in my brain. Only now I was drunk, which helped, but not enough. I was brandy-wise enough to reason that if that thing killed once, it would probably kill again; and brandy-foolish enough to reason that I was the one to stop it.
After all, Wilson's Park was only half a mile away; I could walk there. By the time I arrived I would be sober and ready for anything. From the murder location maybe I could farsight the monster; then I would track him down and deal with that unholy bastard! I chugged down the last of the brandy, and set off immediately.
By the time I reached the park, a few things occurred to me, as I sobered up just a bit. First, even though I was in the prime of my life, at 142 pounds, skinny little weapon-less me wouldn't stand a chance in hell against that monster, if I did happen to be unfortunate enough to find it. The whole damned National Guard might not even stand a chance against it. Second, the thing could now be anywhere in the area, and killing again. It could kill me!
Fortunately the park was comfortably overrun with police, reporters, and
onlookers. I was just another lamb in the flock or fish in the school. The odds were on my side, even if it attacked again. Brandy still interfered with my farsight control, and every minute or two extraneous futures flashed by for a few seconds. Under the circumstances that could be dangerous as well as annoying, if it happened while I was crossing a street, for example, or while encountering a homicidal monster. I decided to stay at the park a little while until I sobered up some more.
Police and news vehicles were everywhere. Mildly curious, I headed towards the highest concentration of onlookers. There were perhaps a hundred people, both civilians and news reporters, clustered on my side of a yellow rope that apparently cordoned off the murder area. (Yellow rope was in vogue, but yellow tape hadn’t been invented yet.)
"That's where it happened, over on that path," instructed a gray-haired, sixtyish man holding a pair of binoculars. He pointed across the police barrier towards a second group of people, many of them uniformed, strung along some sort of path. Almost all of them were walking with heads bent; some were taking photos. Once and a while one would bend down to pick some object or other up from the path or the surrounding grass.
The several ignorant people that the gray haired man instructed, which now included myself and a couple of reporters, strained to see the crime scene while being briefed. "With these binoculars, you can see the dark patch of blood on the path." He handed the binoculars to an eager pupil; a pudgy, middle aged woman in hair curlers.
"Are you sure, Bernie?" she asked. "It looks black, not red."
"Sure I'm sure, Kate," responded Bernie. "It's just dried into the dirt path; that's why it looks black from here. Four hours ago when I got here it was still red in places."
Dirt? Dirt path did he say? I grabbed the binoculars out of poor Kate's hands and quickly scanned the scene. Dirt! No asphalt in sight!
"Hey bud, wait your turn!" complained Bernie. The binoculars were snatched away from me, but I had seen what I had to see.
"Dirt!" I shouted in joy. "It's dirt, not asphalt! And grass surrounds it, not evergreen trees! Tell me Bernie, what did the victim look like? Do they know who it was?" I noticed with amusement that my speech sounded a little slurred. Brandy effects, I reasoned. I fought down a sudden compulsion to laugh hysterically; I didn't want to appear completely idiotic.
Bernie looked at me funny; maybe he was wandering how the hell I knew his name. "Dark haired man in his forties, that's all they'll say, pending notification of kin."
I breathed a deep sigh of relief. It wasn't her then! She was still alive! "Thanks Bernie. That's great news!" I patted him on the back and walked away, smiling. "Odd duck," I thought I heard him remark, or did he say "cold drunk"?
I still had at least until tonight to find the woman, and I suddenly knew right where to start over again. The library! This time I wouldn't let Ms. Run put me off. Half an hour later I pulled up to the library and strode in, by now relatively sober. Ms. Run was at her post, as I expected. Enlightened by the farsight of her reading a book on psychic phenomena, I decided to take her into my confidence, at least to a degree. This library was still the only link to my mystery woman, and I had to take every advantage of that fact!
"Ms. Run? I need your help!" She didn't smile. But I knew my librarian; she lived to help her patrons. I leaned across her desk, though hopefully not far enough to broadcast my brandy breath to her, and lowered my voice to the proper whisper level. "I know this sounds unbelievable, but I had a psychic experience yesterday!"
Her mouth dropped open in surprise. "You did?" she asked, clearly interested. She herded me into a quiet corner of the library where we could continue undisturbed.
"Yes. A psychic experience. After thinking about it I'm sure that that's what it was. And it scared me so much that I fainted. I'm truly sorry about the disruption that I caused."
"A library isn't the proper place for such things!" she admonished me, with a bony finger held pointed between my eyeballs.
"Oh yes, I agree totally. It was very upsetting. But I did have a terrifying vision. It never happened to me before, and if I'm lucky it won't happen again." I learned the art of justified lying early in life.
"Spontaneous cognitive optical psychosis!" she said, in awe.
"What?" I made the mistake of asking.
There followed an introductory lecture on parapsychology as good as any I had ever received. She knew her stuff all right! I didn't have the heart to tell her that: (1) I had two University degrees on the subject, and, (2) most of the available 'knowledge' on the subject was total hooey, in my opinion.
"You certainly seem to know a lot about this Ms. Run; I'm glad that I came to you for help."
She smiled for just a moment, threatening to resolve the issue of whether or not she had teeth, but then expressed apprehension. "Help? What kind of help?"
"The vision I had. It was of something really terrible that could happen to someone, if something isn't done about it."
"Are you saying that something bad may happen to that young woman you were asking about yesterday?"
"Yes. That's it exactly. You are so perceptive! At first I wanted to find her and tell her myself. But this vision business is just too weird; I don't think that she'd believe me."
"Probably not. Most people aren't very well informed on the subject," agreed Ms. Run.
"Frankly Ms. Run, I'm still not sure that I believe it myself. But on the other hand, is there some chance that it was a true vision? You've studied these things. Do these things come true, at least sometimes?"
"Oh yes!" she exclaimed, "And more often than most people know."
"Then on the chance that it may come true this time Ms. Run, maybe this woman I saw in my vision should change her plans and avoid getting into the situation that I saw. You know, just to be on the safe side?"
"It couldn't hurt. What happened in the vision?" she asked.
"Her murder!" I replied.
Ms. Run gasped and drew back away from me, her eyes bulging wide under her horn-rimmed glasses. "Like in the park?"
"Yes. I think so. In the vision I saw her being murdered while jogging. Now, if you could perhaps just convince her to avoid jogging for a while, it might save her life."
"Me?" Now she looked terrified. "Why not the police?"
"I'm afraid that nothing that I learned would help the police. Besides, I don't think they would believe me. But if she's a patron of this library, she probably respects you, as I do. I really think that you would have more credibility with her than me. And besides, I don't know who or where she is. Maybe if you study the library records from yesterday, you can locate her."
Ms. Run agreed to check her records. She didn't remember who the woman was, but since there were only a few dozen patrons the day before, there was a chance that my plan would work. First though, she had another question. "What is this 'jogging' business you mentioned?" she asked.
"Hah?" I replied in surprise.
"You said she was jogging and that I should convince her not to do it anymore. So what is 'jogging'?"
I then remembered that the term was not yet in use. "Oh! Sorry!" I apologized. "It's a new term. Just tell her not to do any running."
At last she turned to a file cabinet and began sifting through cards. I knew that in a few years computers would make such tasks simple. However, in the here/now this task would probably take Ms. Run several minutes.
As Ms. Run was going through her records, I returned to the stacks for another quick attempt at farseeing the murder scene.
How farsight really works, I don't pretend to know. Driven to try to understand it, in college I took up physics and then parapsychology, but got nowhere beyond forming a highly speculative hypothesis. My hypothesis is that reality is somehow 'spread out' in space and time around an evolving solution, or set of solutions, that only become perceivable through the normal senses when they 'actually' occur. I conceptualize it to be similar to the Schrodinger-type probability density function
s of Quantum mechanics, but on a macroscopic scale. Through some quirk of genetics, I can somehow sense the more probable future solutions. That smacks of determinism and bristles with paradox, but it's the only explanation I have.
In the current circumstances, being at the physical location of my previous farsight experience should increase my chances of again being able to experience the murder. I sat down in the library isle and thought back to the previous day. I thought of what the woman looked like, and about what I had farseen. The physical location must have helped, because in moments, I had found what I was looking for. I was actually very surprised that it was so easy, but didn't then have the opportunity to ponder the implications!
I was watching the same terrible thing happen again! It was all there, the blood, the heart torn from the mystery woman's body, and the monstrous killer! But this time I was better prepared, emotionally.
It was like watching a movie a second time. I began to objectively take in details one at a time, details that I had previously missed. And, I stopped the time flow or zoomed in for closer looks when I wanted to. The first time I was a shocked, captive witness to the gory drama. This time I had taken control.
I confirmed many of my previous observations. It was an asphalt path, and there were evergreen trees, but this time I looked even closer. The trees were white pine, I was sure. Then I noticed an object lying in the puddle of blood. I looked closer. It was an out of focus shadow. I concentrated harder. The object came into focus
It was a book! I couldn't read the TITLE; the whole thing was too awash in blood. So I forced the scene earlier, second by second, a farseeing trick that took tremendous concentration. I watched the blood lift off and away from the book as the episode ran slowly in reverse. However, I was tiring; and while I was able to keep the book in focus, everything else faded away to nothing.
Finally, I could read the title. It was Morning In Paradise by Winston; an unfamiliar title; but there were familiar markings on the book-edge that identified it as a library book.
Yet had the victim dropped it, or was it already there? I ran the scene back still further until I had actually witnessed the mystery woman drop the book. It really was hers! This was potentially very useful information.
My mind was by now reeling and throbbing from the strain, but I wanted still more information, if possible. I ran forward in time quickly and expanded my view, until I was at last watching the murderer moving away from the incident towards the rising or falling sun, through a wooded area. It was running, swiftly and seemingly tirelessly. I thought that we traveled at least a mile! I was tiring fast; I knew I wouldn't be able to hold on much longer!
Suddenly it was climbing into something. I went in too, though my head was pounding. What it was that I had entered, I couldn't tell at first. I focused in this direction and that, trying to find something familiar that would help me figure out what it was; but everything was so odd! There were instruments I think, with flashing lights, odd shaped knobs, and writing that looked a little like Russian but even stranger! Then while I was looking out a round porthole at trees, there was a loud humming sound and the trees started to drop away. Lights sprang to view and fell away rapidly below, scattered in a fashion familiar to any airline traveler, along highways and buildings. We were obviously rising quickly in some sort of flying contrivance!
Finally the fright, pain, and fatigue from the extended use of controlled farsight was too much to endure, and I began to slip away from the vision.
When I woke, I heard the familiar sound of a siren, and felt familiar motion. I opened my eyes to stare into the familiar face of Fred the paramedic. I was lying in the ambulance again, presumably on the way to my favorite hospital.
"Hi Fred. Is that Mike at the wheel?" I decided to stay calm, friendly, and civil this time.
"The patient is conscious, Mike," Fred shouted over the wail of the siren, inadvertently answering my question. In the meantime I was recalling my latest farsight and putting some things together. In particular, I recalled the library book. It was a vital clue, I knew; but only if I was at the library with Ms. Run.
"Why am I here, Fred?" I asked. "I just fainted again, you know!"
"Pulse is up, Mike. Try to remain calm sir. You're in good hands. We'll have you to the hospital in a few minutes. Just try to relax."
"Listen, Fred, I've had these fainting spells all my life, and seen dozens of doctors. It's a harmless congenital defect; nothing for you folks to bother with."
"That's for the doctors in the hospital to decide, sir. Just relax now, and we'll be there in a minute."
I looked out the window. It seemed darker than it should have been. I knew that I had started out my day past noon, and I thought that it was late afternoon when I got to the library. What time was it now?
Fred wasn't paying any attention to me for the moment. He had his head stuck through the curtain that separated the passenger section from the front of the ambulance and was jaw-boning with Mike about last night's football game. Too bad I hadn't told them yesterday what the score would be; that would have really given them something to talk about!
Fortunately my arms weren't strapped down tightly. I slipped my left arm up to my face and looked at my watch. Seven thirty! It would be dusk in half an hour, and the library would also close at eight. My last farsight had been so clear and had come so easily, I knew that the actual event couldn't be very far in the future. This could very well be the evening of the murder!
Which meant I would have to do something rather desperate. More than a little self examination occurred then, I'll admit. I'm not a man of action; I'm usually the quiet little mousy guy who stays in the background with his mouth shut and his nose buried in a book and out of other people's business. But could I be content to just let the murder happen? Or even to spend another day like the previous one? No, I decided; and I committed myself to do whatever it took.
I looked around. There was a small medical instrument case. I opened it. There were several sharp implements inside, and other medical supplies. I helped myself.
Minutes later when we pulled up to the hospital, I had cut myself free from the cart straps and was ready for Fred. I heard Mike climb out of the driver's seat, get out, and close the front door. When Fred turned around towards me, I held a towel soaked with the ether over his face. The effect wasn't quite as instantaneous as I had hoped, but in a few seconds he was out cold, and he collapsed onto my vacated cart.
The next part of my plan required speed. I scrambled frantically into the front of the ambulance and slipped into the driver's seat. As I had hoped, the keys were still in the ignition. Judging from my experience of the day before, Mike would next open the rear doors of the ambulance. I had to be gone before then.
The ambulance started up immediately, but as it started, I heard and felt the rear doors being opened. I heard a startled exclamation from Mike as I floored the accelerator!
It worked out even better than I had hoped. As the ambulance shot forward and out of reach of Mike, Fred shot out the rear doors of the ambulance on the cart! Soon I was speeding back towards the library, minus both Mike and Fred.
Hopefully, the police would look for me at my house first. I figured that I had maybe twenty minutes to get Ms. Run back on track to warn the woman before my arrest. Then I would probably end up serving a couple of years in prison for my trouble. (This all happened before I was a billionaire and could pay-off Fred or hire lawyers.)
When I got back to the library I pulled the ambulance into the evergreens that surrounded the building. They provided excellent cover; they were dense and the branches nearly touched the ground. Maybe the police wouldn't notice the ambulance right away; after all, it was starting to get dark.
Dark? I had to hurry! I ran inside.
Ms. Run was again very shaken by my sudden reappearance. "You! What are you doing here?" she asked.
"I just fainted again. You must have called for an ambulance?"
; "I didn't know what else to do; I couldn't wake you!"
"That's all right. You did the only thing you could. Ms. Run, I'm afraid I had another vision."
"Of the murder again?"
"Yes. But this time I noticed that the woman was carrying a book. A library book. Morning In Paradise by Winston. I need you to see if someone currently has it checked out."
Ms. Run checked the files. "It's checked out by someone all right, a woman. And it's due today."
I looked at the wall clock. The library would close in ten minutes!
"Unusual," mused Ms. Run, staring at her files. "In seven years, she's never had a late book before."
Could she be rushing to the library even now? To be murdered because she was trying to avoid a five cent fine? There wasn't a moment to lose. "Phone her now Ms. Run! Immediately! Tell her not to return the book tonight!"
But this was all happening a little fast for Ms. Run. It took me another precious minute to persuade her to make the call. I was too excited, I realized; I was starting to terrify the poor woman! But then finally she was making the call.
As she was dialing, I looked out the rear windows of the library. Dusk had arrived! The sun had dropped from sight behind the young evergreens that were thick to the rear of the library also, except for a path that led away through them.
An asphalt path! Through a white pine forest!
My heart seemed to stop! My mind raced! The murder sight was right in back of the library! Probably tonight! No wonder it was so easy to farsee it from here!
Almost unbidden, I was suddenly farseeing along the path. From years experience I knew that I was farseeing only minutes into the future. I went with it; I had to see if tonight was the night. Sure enough, only a short space/time distance from here/now along the path, I came to the bloody murder scene. The murder was just starting.
I snapped back to here/now quickly; far too quickly. My head was splitting again. But this time I stayed awake. As I stood for a minute moaning in pain and holding my poor head in both hands, I looked up and saw Ms. Run staring wide eyed at me, with the phone receiver held up to her ear and mouth. "Yes he's here now!" I heard her say.
Yes, the monster was somewhere behind the library right now, preparing to murder the mystery woman! I looked around desperately for a weapon. "Do you have a gun?" I asked Ms. Run. "They haven't been outlawed yet, right?" Sometimes I get my historical events confused. She just nodded her head no, as if she were too terrified to speak.
Desperate now, I picked up a wooden library chair and smashed it to bits against the floor! I heard a few startled shouts, from several other people scattered throughout the library. A few poked their heads out from behind the stacks, but didn't come any closer. They wouldn't be any help, I realized; it was all up to me! Another smash and I had a crude, chair leg club! I gave it a few practice swings. It would have to do.
Ms. Run still stood frozen and staring at me as if in terror. "Call 9-1-1!" I shouted at her! "Tell them the murderer is in back of the library, along the path!" As I ran past her towards the back door with club in hand, I thought I heard her say "please hurry" into the phone! Only when I reached the outside did I realize that 9-1-1 hadn't been invented yet. I feared that I had confused Ms. Run; what must she think?
Reaching the rear of the library, I started along the asphalt path. As I ran in my thin-soled sneakers my feet ached, and I longed for the well-padded running shoes that would become popular in the future. I wandered if I would live to see Michael Jordan play basketball so that I could cash in on that Nike stock that I planned to buy after the company was invented.
Though I had never been on the path behind the library physically, I had now visited it three times through farsight sight and sound. The smell of the white pine was new, and very refreshing. But it all looked so familiar! Too familiar. The path wound through juvenile white pines for hundreds of yards, and it all looked exactly the same. I wouldn't be able to recognize the place where the monster waited! He/it could be anywhere in these trees!
With that, I suddenly I realized that the monster could just as easily spring out at me, instead of the woman, and I could become its next victim! My feet suddenly seemed to be wearing lead boots; I stopped running, then I stopped even walking! I had been moving blindly, perhaps to my own death. I had to find out more! Despite the danger, I risked another farsight!
Almost immediately, I was seeing the murder start to occur, now just in the future and still someplace ahead of me on the path! This time I noticed that the woman was wearing a watch, and I strained to freeze the scene and zoom in so that I could read the time! I was successful, though it was quite a strain.
Snapping back to the here and now, I gritted my teeth against the pain as I checked my own watch. There were only about two minutes left, if our watches were synchronized! Too bad there were no wristwatches with global satellite position and time yet, or even decent digital watches! I had to move forward with caution!
As I did, I came up with my plan. I would sneak up behind the creature and club it to death with the chair leg before it attacked! I stepped behind the pines that were along the side of the path to my right. I knew that he would grab his victim from that side. Cautiously I moved along parallel to the path, as quietly and quickly as I could.
Suddenly, when I looked around the next white pine, there he/it was, standing in the shadows as motionless as a tree, just a few steps from me! It was facing away from me and towards the path, thank God!
Somehow my farseeing had failed to convey its true proportions. It was huge, whatever it was, well over six feet tall and far more massive than any pro-football tackle. The legs were disproportionally short, but massive in order to carry the oversized torso, long arms, and head that it supported. It stood erect like a man, but its proportions were closer to those of a gorilla! A very big gorilla!
My farsight had also failed to convey how truly alien it was in other ways. What I had earlier mistook for common workman's clothes seemed to be a loose fitting space suit of some kind. What I had thought was dark hair on its head was actually a skullcap of some sort, or maybe it was skin, I couldn't really tell.
Now I was seeing the real thing, not farseeing short glimpses in bits and pieces. Even when farseeing this creature I had been frightened; now I was utterly terrified!
Still, I had my plan, and my recent commitment to that plan still continued to carry me forth on legs that shook more with every step. Yes, of course I told myself, I would now simply sneak up on it from behind and bash its head in. Nothing to it! I crept forth slowly, scarcely breathing, with my club raised and ready to strike!
Club? It was a lousy wooden chair leg! A fairly light one, at that! Pine probably, not black locust or even oak! It would probably shatter to bits on that massive skull! Or, before I could strike at all, it would hear me, turn, and rip my bloody heart out! Surely it must hear my heart throbbing away! Could the thing also smell my fear or my underarms, I wandered? When had I last showered, anyway? It had been a couple of days, I was sure! Or was the creature perhaps psychic? Could it sense I was there with some sort of strange space alien senses? Or, maybe it had an extra eyeball or two in back of itself somewhere, and was already watching me!
In short, what the hell was I doing here? I don’t normally risk my life like that. Normally I farsee the next couple days to see if I’m in danger to make sure that I’ll live through them. Now here I was, living moment-to-moment like a normal human being. It was terrifying. The upshot of all the doubt and reflection was that for several precious seconds I stood a meter behind it, preparing to strike! Then preparing to sneak away. Then preparing to strike!
Then just for a second or two, I thought that I heard approaching footsteps. Suddenly, it moved!
It moved so quickly and powerfully that I knew immediately that if it had detected and attacked me, I would already be a dead man! In one fluid movement it stepped towards the path, grabbed the jogging woman around the neck, and lifted her a
bove the ground! It was exactly like in my farsight visions, though viewed now somewhat from the side. The different perspective did nothing to lessen the horror what I was seeing happen! This time it was real!
My primal instinct then, the one that I immediately followed, was to stay frozen to the spot. I didn't even breathe! I felt helpless and vulnerable. This was a real event that I was viewing, not a shadow. A real woman was being murdered! And I myself was real, and could also be murdered! If anything was going to be done about any of it, it was up to me, but I stood frozen in fear.
But the woman wasn't frozen; she hit and kicked at her attacker furiously! She was a fighter! Her eyes also darted about desperately. Then they found mine!
Maybe that's what brought me back to life; I'm not really sure. All that I know is that suddenly I was leaping forward with all the power in my being! It was incredible! In an instant, all my fear changed to cold rage! It was strangely liberating and exhilarating as well; I was committing everything. The feeling was a little like the one I felt when I was stealing the ambulance, but much, much stronger. Society, career, love, past, and future, my very life even, they were now little more than shadows; nothing else was real or mattered at all except me and her, versus IT, here and now!
I whomped it a tremendous blow on the back of the head, shattering the chair leg to bits! In response, it staggered, and the woman was dropped from the creature's monstrous grip onto the ground! But instead of falling also, the creature turned on me with blinding speed, reached out with an inhumanely long arm, and grasped me by the neck with a huge scaly hand!
In another moment, I was suspended helplessly above the path, just like the woman had been! It was uncomfortable, to say the least, but I felt that the creature was holding back. It could have very easily crushed my neck with that huge hand, killing me swiftly, but that wasn't its plan. Apparently it wanted to play with me a little first. It held me in front of its face so that its cold red eyes could stare into mine, as it smiled in triumph, showing me rows of razor sharp fangs that would soon eat my heart!
I obliged it by hitting and kicking it, much as the woman had done, and also with no apparent effect, other than to widen the creature's beastly, gloating smile. Then my wildly flailing arms knocked against something in my pocket and I remembered! A few moments later I broke a half full bottle of ether over the creature's head, right between its red eyeballs!
Almost silent until now, it dropped me to the path as it screamed in pain and rage! I found myself sitting on the path in pain myself, looking through the creature's legs at the woman, who was also sitting on the path and looking back at me, and at it, and screaming for all she was worth! Perhaps she had been screaming even before that and I just hadn't noticed.
Meanwhile the thing was staggering around between us, roaring, coughing, and hooting as it rubbed at its eyes with its hands. In just moments however, it was silent again. The woman and I both looked up at it and she screamed again as the creature again reached out for the woman!
But I had another little surprise from Fred and Mike in my pocket, something that had been painfully cutting into my backside since I had been dropped to the asphalt! I sprang up awkwardly and quickly whipped out a scalpel, leapt onto the creature's back, and started plunging the sharp blade into it again and again!
I would have liked to see the thing fall dead beneath my blade, but it had other ideas. With each blow, my blade sank only an inch or so into the creature’s thick hide, and I realized that despite my best efforts I was only wounding it superficially. It didn't even appear to bleed! Still, its screams of pain and rage after the ether were nothing compared to the piercing wail that now issued forth into the dusk. Completely enraged, it spun around and bucked so violently that I was thrown from its back and violently onto the ground again!
I landed painfully next to the young woman, who had by now had reached her feet and was staggering back slowly away from the creature! She could have run then, but instead she helped me up! I pulled a second scalpel from my pocket and offered it to her. She grasped it firmly, and gamely pointed it towards the creature. She wasn't screaming anymore, or backing away. Somehow I sensed that there was agreement between us, and a bond. She wouldn't be leaving me, and I wouldn't be leaving her. Side by side, we stood facing the monster!
We battered humans that stood there holding tiny surgical knives must have appeared puny and helpless to the apparition that faced us, because suddenly it broke out into what only could have been laughter!
The woman and I just stood quietly staring at our adversary, shaking, but otherwise not moving a muscle.
Abruptly, it stopped laughing, and regarded us quietly with its two glowing red eyes. Obviously, despite the laughter, it now respected our fighting skills, at least a little. From a vest pocket it pulled out a knife of its own of some sort, a monstrous one with a jagged blade at least a foot long! The fang filled smile appeared once again, for just a moment. Then the mouth opened still wider as the creature roared loudly at us!
It was easily as deep and deafening as a lion's roar. Perhaps it was supposed to scare us, but we were both already beyond that. I was prepared for death, or whatever else might now come. Running, the only logical course of action, never even occurred to me. I think that I even shouted "come on, you space bastard," or something stupid like that. I was pretty sure that I'd be dead in moments!
Then, just as the beast seemed to be tensing to leap upon us both, I heard voices nearby! Someone was coming towards us along the path! Not only that, I recognized two of the voices.
"Fred, Mike, over here!" I shouted. This was answered by responding shouts and the sound of footsteps more rapidly approaching. The creature paused in its attack, and was obviously considering what to do. "Fred and Mike are on our special anti-alien defense team,” I stated. “I'd get back to that spaceship, if I were you! They're looking for it, you know! A mile or so West of here, isn't it? Through the woods?"
I thought I saw surprise register in those cold red eyes, as they looked into mine. Then the creature surprised me. "I'll be back for you, humans!" it said simply, in a raspy but clear voice!
Then it stepped into the pines and was gone!
I caught a glimpse of Fred, Mike, and a couple of police rounding a bend in the path ahead. Fred was pointing at me and shouting something. He looked a little hostile. Then I seemed to be spinning, and falling, into blackness.
I awoke to the familiar sound of a siren, and familiar motion, along with unfamiliar pain. When I opened my eyes I wasn't surprised to see Fred bending over me. Yes, I was of course lying in the ambulance once again, presumably on the way to my favorite hospital. Or, perhaps this time it would be jail. Glancing around, I noticed that the ambulance was more crowded than usual; the mystery woman was lying on the cot across from mine, and a big, stern looking policeman was crunched in behind Fred.
"Hi Fred," I said.
"Sir," he replied. "This time we insist that you actually go to the hospital. You have several cracked ribs, a bruised neck, a fractured arm, lacerations to certain portions of your anatomy, and possibly a concussion and internal injuries."
Experimentally, I tried to move. It hurt like hell; it even hurt just to lie still, which is really all I could do anyway. I was securely strapped down, including arms. Fred was taking no chances this time; not that I could blame him.
I looked at the cop. "Am I going to be arrested?" I asked.
"Not too damn likely, son," he answered, smiling. "Ms. Gramm already gave us a statement. And we caught a glimpse of the assailant and found its tracks. Big bastard! Big, weird damn tracks! You're a damn hero, looks like to me. Just try to keep from stealing any more ambulances, OK?"
"Fine by me," I replied. "Did you say that Ms. Gramm is her name? How is she?"
"She's bruised and shook up, but otherwise seems to be in pretty good shape," said Fred.
"Thanks to you," said a very female voice. "And it's Julie Gramm; Miss Julie Gramm." Fred
moved aside so I could see her. She was smiling at me. I felt better already. And yes, her shape looked better than pretty good! Perhaps for that reason, my farsight control slipped for a few seconds, and I caught glimpses of her future, and mine, and they coincided! But that's another story.
After snapping back to here/now I turned my attention briefly to the policeman. "Did they catch him?" I asked, hopefully.
The policeman looked grim. "Not yet" he replied. "They followed the tracks for about a mile, then they simply disappeared! Dogs, trackers, everybody came up empty! Now Ms. Run says you're a psychic, and that's how you knew the attack would happen. Is that about right?"
"Yes, I guess that about sums it up."
"You know where the attacker went then, do you? Since you're a psychic?"
"Sorry officer, I haven't any idea."
"Ms. Run said you didn't tell the police that you knew anything because you thought they wouldn't believe you. It that right?"
"That's right."
"Well this cop might, after tonight, so if you happen across anything else about the attacker you are going to tell me aren't you? Especially when you consider what that thing said to you just before it lit off, according to Ms. Gramm?"
"Absolutely!" I answered. And I meant it!
So now after the above background we finally come to the message of this story. As you have probably gathered, the above episode happened some decades ago. For many years now the murders stopped, but now I’ve farseen that they're going to start up again soon. That creature is coming back to murder innocent people, and to look for me and my wife Julie in particular. And he’s bringing millions of his friends with him this time. In other words, an Apocalypse is coming to humanity soon. Maybe what I did decades ago brought on the coming invasion by space aliens. Oops; sorry about that. In any case, please disregard all the anti-gun rhetoric I’ve publicly spouted over the last several decades (Oops again!) and rearm immediately.
I know there is going to be some nasty fallout about my coming ‘out of the closet’ as far as my farsight ability goes, largely with respect to the billions of dollars I’ve made on the stock market and in other business dealings. True, I’ve done nothing illegal and I’ve donated most of my wealth to charity, but lots of folks are bound to be upset. Hopefully though, my efforts to save humanity in the coming alien invasion will help make up for that. At least that’s one possible timeline.
I'll let you know if I 'see' anything else helpful.
Good luck to us all.
****
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There Goes the Neighborhood Page 18
