Hunters: A Trilogy

by Paul A. Rice

  Through his laughter, Ken managed to get a feeble whistle out of his lips. Hearing the sound, both dogs immediately came to heel. Mike leant forward and rested his hands upon the tops of his Levi clad knees, he was breathing heavily and sported a set of large, muddy paw-prints on the thighs of his jeans.

  Looking up, he said, ‘Bleeding animals! It’s so good to see that bugger-all has changed around here, mad bastards, the bloody lot of you!’ Straightening himself, he was just in time to catch Jane as she leapt into his arms and planted a kiss on his cheek. He swung her around and then plonked her back down onto her feet. Ken grabbed him, the two men embraced long and hard and then separated before holding each other at arm’s length.

  Leaning back, Mike said, ‘Let me look at you, ya bloody Pommy!’ His voice was hoarse as he stared at Ken’s face and then, more deeply, into his eyes. ‘How’s the head, all well I hope, or are there bits still rattling around in the big hole they left behind?’ he asked. ‘Mind you, there was plenty of room in there before…’ he said, with a wild grin. Mike leaned against the side window of the red Porsche and stood there staring at his friends.

  Laughing, and using his best toff’s accent, Ken replied: ‘I’m top-hole, old chap, top-hole!’ Then he said, ‘Nah, seriously, I’m good, I’ve never felt better, and this…’ he tapped the metal plate in the back of his head, ‘…this has just made life a bit more interesting, to be honest!’ All three embraced once more and then Ken and Jane helped Mike get his bags from the car. Loaded with his belongings they walked across the driveway and stepped into the interior of the lodge.

  Once inside, Jane put the kettle on whilst Mike and Ken dumped the bags in the spare bedroom before returning to the lounge. Sitting in the comfortable room they sipped on some hot tea and enjoyed the feeling of being together again. As they sat with the fire roaring in the hearth, Ken looked at Mike and grinned, the sense of adventure had begun to rise within him once more.

  He smiled at his wife and then looked at his best friend – the Australian was fiddling with a case that lay on the table in front of him. Mike opened his case and extracted the weirdest looking device they had ever seen, it looked like a laptop computer but somehow seemed to be made of a three-dimensional liquid. It looked like a slab of solid, silvery green jelly. The fact that when he placed the machine down it made a solid metallic clunk, only served to deepen the mystery. Jane leant forward, knuckles white as she tightly cupped the china beaker in her hands.

  Mike stood and, taking the machine with him, walked into the dining room. Once there he placed the device onto the dining room table and then touched some hidden switch, his actions activated a bank of green laser lights, which reached out from the machine and touched every corner of the room. The flickering display made their dining room seem like a mini-nightclub. Turning back to them, he said, ‘Don’t worry too much about it, the lights will stop in a bit, it’s just searching…’ He walked over to sit in the couch opposite them and stretched out his long legs.

  ‘Right,’ Mike said. ‘Who would like to hear how this little story has progressed so far?’ They both nodded vigorously. Turning first to Jane, Mike asked: ‘Has the old fool kept you in the picture?’ He nodded toward Ken in an indication of which old fool he was referring to, but his eyes were focused on Jane, searching, looking for confirmation that she would be able to deal with his soon-to-be-revealed tale.

  Jane paused, looked first at her man and then back to Mike. ‘Yes, I guess he has,’ she said. ‘I think that I pretty much get the picture, Mikey. Well, as much as it’s possible to, you know? It’s still a bit baffling though; George and the Hyenas, all those weird dreams and stuff…’ Mike nodded in understanding. Jane carried on, saying: ‘But, Ken is so clear in his recollections, so vivid in his descriptions that he would either have to be stark raving mad, or he’s actually been there, and I know which one I choose!’ She reached out to grasp her husband’s hand.

  Ken said, ‘Jane knows as much as I do, obviously there might be some bits and pieces I’ve forgotten, but all the big stuff is out in the open… To be perfectly honest, I still don’t totally get it!’ He paused in order to gather his words, before saying: ‘Like, what happened to Red – is he really dead? He sure looked like he was. And what’s happened with the hydrogen development and things, I mean… did it even happen? You know, just the little stuff like that!’ He couldn’t stop the short laugh that followed. ‘Sorry, but have you heard us?’ he said. ‘Sat here, as calm as you like, talking about this like we’re deciding what package holiday to go on, it’s just crazy!’ He rolled his eyes.

  Mike replied, ‘Yeah, you’re right, but like we said on the night before we went back to the desert – it’s absolutely weird for sure, but I still get it, I understand…’ He thought for a second or two and then said, ‘A lot has happened since we last met, and I’ll tell you about that later, but the main purpose of my visit, apart from seeing you two, is to tell you what’s happened, and much more importantly, to find out if you want to come and play on the next bit.’ He looked at the two of them quizzically, but then cut them off before they were able to answer.

  ‘Before you immediately say ‘yes’,’ he said, ‘I guess you should know that once you’re in…then you’re in! No walking away and no certain outcome to be promised to you, either.’ His eyes glowed. ‘You need to be sure…’

  They saw that he was deadly serious.

  Ken nodded, saying: ‘Okay, let’s see what the score is before we decide on anything. There’s a lot we are gonna need to know about, I would imagine.’ He felt Jane nod in agreement next to him and turned back to Mike. ‘Just crack on and we’ll try and keep up,’ he said, leaning back in the chair.

  Mike agreed. ‘Right, fair enough then,’ he said. ‘First things first, though. Business – Maxima Electronics have made us an offer for the company, an offer that we can’t really refuse, it’s a large amount of money, and as long as we sign the non-competition clause, the deal is as good as done, that’s unless we fancy going back over there…’ He slid a paper file out from one of the pouches in the laptop case, and placed it on the coffee table. Looking back up, he said, ‘It’s all in there and just needs our signatures, check it out later, Ken. By my reckoning it will take us a least another five years to make that type of money, they’re a massive company and we can see the cash within a fortnight.’

  Ken nodded. ‘Yeah, I will do, I don’t really want to go back to Afghanistan, if I’m to be honest, and as long as we are getting a fair deal on the projected turnover and our customer base, then I can’t see why we wouldn’t sell. I wanted out in a few years anyway – this is like all our dreams coming true, isn’t it?’ he said, with some relief.

  Mike agreed. ‘We’re up to speed with the deliveries, I spoke to Martin in Kabul yesterday; he confirms the Yanks have paid the final amount for the cameras and the Ultra-Crystals too, that means we have fulfilled all of the contractual obligations required under the sale agreement, all you need to do is look at the figures, you know what I’m like, there might be a right cock up…’

  He finished by putting some other papers into the file, and then looked up at his friends. Brushing his dark hair back off his forehead, Mike began. ‘Right then, folks, now for the crazy part…’ He leant forward with his elbows wedged on his knees. ‘What’s the last thing you can recall from our little escapade, Kenny?’ he asked.

  Ken mulled that one over for a while, letting the memories come rushing back to him, the emptiness and feeling of despair made him feel light-headed. Taking a breath, he said, ‘I remember you and the Light Maker; you stopped it, I think, but then you caught fire – just lit up like a candle and then fizzled out of existence…’ He still felt uneasy about the whole thing, had it been just a dream and if so, why had Mike been there?

  Ken continued, falteringly: ‘You sort of…well, you just blinked out of existence. I dunno, I remember being on the deck, lying in the dust, trying to get to the light, I knew I was a gonner and to
be honest, I tried to go, but then I saw Jane and, well…that’s about it.’ He sounded confused, looking Jane with a strange expression in his eyes. She clasped his hand and smiled at him before they both turned to Mike again.

  Mike looked very intense as his words confirmed what Ken had said. ‘Yeah, that’s about what I figured you would remember,’ he said. ‘And in the dream that is what actually happened. You had already been hit on the head by the satellite dish and were dying. George took you, the inner you, and used you to complete the task in Red’s parallel. He knew what the outcome would be, he knew that your actions would cause Red to try and return to the base.’

  ‘But, I killed him, I shot him in the head…that happened, didn’t it? I mean…’ Ken said, staring at his friend in confusion.

  Mike nodded, saying: ‘Yes, in that parallel you did – but don’t forget what George has taught you – about the parallels, we can exist in more than one place, remember.’

  Ken looked at him and then said, with his voice cracking in anger: ‘Red escaped, did he, that slimy bastard, where is he now?’

  Mike took a deep breath and said, ‘The thing that you need to know, the mind-blower, if you like, is that all of the stuff with Red and George, the device, the Spears, everything – it all happened in another parallel…’ he shrugged, a gesture so natural that he may as well have been discussing the aforementioned holidays. ‘It happened in a world that lies just slightly in the future, one that we may never have to go through again, but it is all still a possible future, nonetheless!’

  Hearing their total silence, he tried to elaborate. ‘Listen, what we went through was the possible outcome of prior happenings, things that may make those events an actuality. There’s a strong chance that if certain things are done now, then that future will never occur.’ He looked at them and waited a while, before speaking again. ‘Everything has a parallel,’ Mike said. ‘Everything is linked and the future always depends on what happens here today, always!’ He looked at them, and his face was deadly serious. The long silence between them seemed only to heighten the atmosphere.

  Then, and with his next words barely a whisper, Mike said, ‘They cannot seem to dispense with Red, they have killed him many times over, and yet he pops up elsewhere. George says that they cannot progress without ridding themselves of the Darkness that lies within Red. We…’ He stopped and looked at his friends in despair.

  It was Ken who broke the silence, by saying: ‘No shit! I thought George said it all started just three or four years ago…’ He remembered how he had felt when George had told him, at the time it had shocked him to the core.

  Mike replied: ‘Yeah, he did, but it was just another one of those little white lies he uses, he figured that telling us, on top of everything else, that we were in a parallel future, might well have proved to be a step too far!’ He looked at Ken with a small smile on his handsome features.

  Then he said, ‘The parallel you are currently in bears no resemblance to the one that we were operating in back then – yes, things were similar, but in fact they were different in many ways, places may appear the same, but they’re not – people are different, too.’

  Ken wasn’t as surprised as he might have been, in fact, he wasn’t surprised at all. He thought about how different the men he’d killed in the Funny House had appeared to be. They had been darker, taller, more… At the time he had guessed they were from somewhere other than Afghanistan. But, here he was, calmly being informed they weren’t even from this time.

  Then he had a fuzzy recollection appear, a memory.

  ‘George mentioned something about them, he said they were…’

  The memory blinked out. Ken knew it was there but he couldn’t seem to remember exactly what the old man had said. Now, that should have blown his mind, but it didn’t – it seemed to make sense, somehow it just made sense. And that was in itself completely crazy, but it didn’t surprise him.

  No, the one thing this whole escapade had done was to remove any such feelings, everything was open now, anything might happen, and just as he’d realised when he first discovered the truth about what lay beyond his own world, Ken was aware of one fact – what he thought he knew, was really only his perception of the truth. Everything was up for grabs in this game and reality depended on who you were, and in the way you looked at things.

  Whilst tightening his grip on Jane’s hand, Ken looked back into Mike’s face to give an understanding, if somewhat hesitant, nod.

  Seeing that Ken was ready, Mike continued. ‘That’s the bottom dollar anyway,’ he said. ‘They used us to prevent something that was happening in a possible future, but what they didn’t know was how they would become embroiled in the past, our present, so to speak!’ He laughed, saying: ‘Just slap me if I confuse you, Jane…’ Accepting her smile as confirmation, he continued with the tale. ‘They used Red and they used us, too, that’s the reality, but they used us in a positive way. They knew he would initiate the device, but they were unsure how it would react as they hadn’t done any real-time tests. So, they allowed him to carry out his little charade, safe within the knowledge that whatever it was that I possessed, the magic, would be able to stop the device.’

  ‘They’re just a bit hard-core, aren’t they?’ Ken said. Although he knew it, had seen the lengths they would go to, he was still amazed by how ruthless George and his friends were capable of being.

  ‘Yeah, for sure they are, hard- core and then some, I guess!’ Mike agreed, with a laugh. Then, rising to his feet, he asked them to accompany him into the dining room. Once there, he leaned across and touched some buttons on his strange laptop device. As they watched, a small row of tiny lights flickered across the front of its slender form. Mike leaned forward, touched the case and ordered: ‘Screen display on, please…’

  Jane nearly jumped out of her skin as she saw the tall screen rise above her dining room table without a sound. It hung there, shimmering form illuminating the room. She whispered: ‘Oh my God! How on Earth does it do that?’ Reaching forward, she touched the screen, lurching with shock as her hand passed straight through it. ‘Bloody hell!’ she said, and then hurriedly sat back down, looking at her husband with amazement in her eyes.

  Ken grinned, saying: ‘Yeah, it does take a bit of getting used to…’

  Jane, her voice somewhat unsteady, said, ‘Now, that’s the understatement of the year!’ She made a twirling motion with her finger, pointing it at her own head to indicate the madness, which had decided to expose itself.

  All three of them laughed and then waited whilst Mike tapped some instructions into the device. ‘In the parallel that you are about to witness,’ he said, ‘Red did not miss when he fired at you, Ken. He killed you and left me to battle the Light Maker. The same events occurred, but the outcome was different, altogether different. Look!’

  In frozen disbelief, they turned to stare into the screen.

  6

  Red’s Last Dance

  The rising Afghan dawn bathed the scene in an eerie, rose-coloured light; dark shadows spiked their way across the ground, whilst a small haze of dust still hung in the air in witness to the recent departure of their nemesis, Red. Ken was on his back in the dust with a pool of dark liquid spreading beneath his head. Jane shuddered and clenched his real hand as she watched the image in horrified fascination. The silence of the room clung to her and she couldn’t stop the feeling of sickness that flooded into her stomach. She wanted to jump up and dive into the screen. ‘Reach in there and drag him away, oh, Kenny!’ Jane held onto the sob as it tried to burst its way out of her soul.

  The scene switched and they watched as Red roared across the shattered tarmac, his headlong rush towards the airbase saw no restraint, the huge Spear hurtled across the land at such a pace it seemed almost impossible that he wouldn’t have a mishap.

  Ken murmured, ‘Go on then, crash again, you bastard!’ He gritted his teeth and looked in anger from Jane to the screen and back again.

  She saw him w
ishing for the accident to become a reality.

  Inside the cab of the vehicle, Red reached up, tapped the monitor twice and then shouted angrily at George’s image, which had appeared upon the blue screen. He screamed at the old man. ‘You stoopid old muthafuka, I gon’ and done for your boys, done them up real good too! The big wun…well, he ain’t so big now, huh?’ he snarled. ‘Nosiree, not so big at all, he’s lying there with a goddamn hole in the back of his head. He ain’t so big at all now, is he, Georgie boy?’ Red laughed feverishly as he banged the steering wheel with his huge hands.

  George did no more than gaze serenely back at the irate American. After a pause, they heard his metallic voice floating into the deafening silence of the dining room, listening as it crackled over the Spear’s internal speaker.

  ‘What do you want, Red?’ he asked. ‘Haven’t you caused enough trouble already?’ George sounded tired but somehow guarded.

  Red giggled; when he spoke his voice was thick with malice. ‘You know what I want, and you know that if I don’t geddit it then there’s gonna be a whole heap o’ trouble!’ he said, sneering confidently at the monitor.

  George, with a confused expression upon his face, said, ‘But you no longer have the Light Maker, Michael has stopped it, he gave his own life to heal the Stone, he and it are no more! Your threat of using it is no longer valid, why should we accommodate you?’

  Red laughed up at his windshield and snarled: ‘Well, lemme just see now, my old friend. Just like you, I ain’t been so honest, neither. You never told them good ol’ boys I had been to your world, did ya now?’ he giggled. ‘Yeah well, there ain’t any need to answer that one, now is there? What I didn’t tell you is that I know where the other Light Maker is, the one you all don’t think that anybody knows about. You know, George – the secret one?’