Mendez Genesis

by Edward Hancock II

  For Dave Collins, the answer he sought had eluded him for longer than he felt even Fate had a right to escape. For almost five years, he’d suffered the painful stab of ignorance, sorrow and guilt. He wanted to know the answer and yet every trail seemed to lead to yet another dead end. It wasn’t that he felt responsible for his brother’s death directly. More that he felt like he wasn’t doing enough to solve the murder of the truest friend he’d ever known.

  His death had been ruled suicide, but Dave was not buying it. Something was amiss. Dave could feel it in his bones and he was usually right. He wasn’t usually a man of “feelings,” but when it came to his brother, some familial bond had always garnered him more than his share of unexplained, if unwanted emotions. Besides, Gene wasn’t suicidal. They hadn’t really spoken much in the months leading up to his death, but Dave was pretty sure his brother would have told him, told someone, if something had suddenly changed. Dave and his younger brother, Gene, had been best friends all through grade school. Dave was just shy of 16 months older than Gene, which put them one grade apart in school. And when Gene’s intelligence allowed him to skip fourth grade, Dave was more than happy to have his little brother beside him in homeroom. Either way, he would later joke, Dave would still get his diploma first, since the names were called alphabetically, rather than by class rank. Dave was the more athletic one. He always had been. Still, Gene was not without his athletic accolades.

  Likewise, Gene was the brain, but that didn’t stop him from being slightly jealous when it was Dave who won the 8th grade science fair, giving Gene a second place finish. So long as the Collins boys finished ahead of the pack, it didn’t really matter which one led the way. Like any brothers they had their fights, but in the end they were brothers and brothers kept their promises. I am my brother’s keeper, they would often declare, even while attending rival universities. Dave was, and always had been, considerably larger than his brother. He was 6’3 and weighed the same 240 lbs. he weighed since high school. He had surprisingly thick hair for a man of his years, but then all of the Collins men seemed to age very well. All except Gene, who seemed to age long before his time. While Gene had pursued his doctorate in all things science, Dave had gone after a law degree. Having passed the Bar exam, he had elected to enlist in the Navy, where he spent nearly 15 years practicing military justice before being medically discharged. He had broken both of his legs shortly after electing to try SEAL training. He still walked with a slight but noticeable limp. It became most noticeable when he was tired. These days, tired had taken on new meaning. It wasn’t physical exertion that tired Dave Collins’ body, mind, spirit, heart and soul. These days it was mental exertion; the trials faced by his heart and mind. It was ignorance and the unending quest to erase it from existence that seemed to zap every ounce of energy from his formerly tireless universe.

  Nervous energy was his autopilot, but it had served him well for some time now. Dave remembered Gene nagging him for months, after his discharge from the Navy, to start up a law practice. For whatever reason, Dave just never got around to it, although promising his brother to do so. Despite rumors to the contrary, promises, in the mind of the Collins boys, were not made to be broken and this was, to Dave’s best recollection, the only promise he’d ever broken to his dearly departed brother. Now, for what it was worth, he’d promised Gene to get to the bottom of everything. He would keep that promise, even if it meant spending the entire fortune of the Collins family. If Dave had his way, no promise would ever go unbroken again. Nervous energy, or the desire to unbreak a promise. Whatever it took to keep going.

  “You left me your money,” he whispered, holding the Longview News-Journal’s obituary in his hand. “Why didn’t you think to leave me your brain?”

  The telephone startled Dave out of his wistful longing. He checked his digital desk clock and realized it was well after two in the morning. Who on earth would be calling him at this hour?

  “Dave Collins,” he announced.

  “Mr. Collins,” began the raspy voice on the other end, “How badly do you want to know what happened to your brother?” The voice sounded young, like a kid playing some kind of prank. Still, there was an uncanny chill crawling up Dave’s spine as he heard the suggestion of his brother’s true fate being revealed to him.

  “Who is this?” Dave asked, trying to mask his sudden nervousness.

  “What’s it worth to you?” the voice asked again.

  “Name your price.”

  “Your life,” the voice hissed.

  The room grew cold around him. Dave’s breathing became labored. What little breath he could manage fogged over in the frigid air. His chest tightened. Heart attack, his mind screamed, but the words would not form in his throat. The computer screen blinked on, though the power strip itself was off.

  Death must come!

  When the words printed out on the screen, Dave’s blood turned to ice.

  Death must come! Death must come! Death must come!

  Dave’s heart pounded in his chest. Around him, the bookshelves began to shake and the books themselves seemed to be rattle-walking out of place. One by one they inexplicably fell to the floor. Dave wanted to alert his personal assistant, but tears were welling up in his eyes, blinding him. Pain fogged his mind and he couldn’t think of the extension to Foster’s bedroom.

  Death must come! Death must come! Death must come! Death must come! Death must come! Death must come! Death must come! Death must come! Death must come! Death must come! Death must come! Death must come! Death must come!

  The letters printed larger and larger on the screen until each word seemed to fill the screen in a running marquee of demonic luminescence. Blurred by tears, his eyes managed to grab hold of the words printing out on the screen. As the computer screen continued to fill with these maddening words, Dave’s head started swimming and his vision clouded over, blinking in and out of blindness. The keyboard and computer monitor sparked, sending small shards of plastic and glass through the puffs of smoke emanating from the melting pile of useless circuits.

  Hit by shards of exploding computer parts, Dave could hardly tell the blood drops dripping down his forehead from the tears, sweat and spit mixing on his face.

  The room spun before him and he could feel himself blacking out. He tried to stand but fell hard toward the floor, unable to steady himself. He could hear maniacal laughter on the other end of the phone, even as a whirring sound vibrated through the receiver. He checked the caller I.D. on the receiver, but his vision was too clouded over to make anything out. He blinked away pain and tears, trying desperately to read the digital caller I.D. display. The phone itself seemed to be growing warm to the touch. His fingers felt as if they were holding onto a potato while it was in the microwave being warmed on the highest setting. Still trying to blink away tears, fighting just to keep from blacking out, Dave finally found the caller I.D. readout and read “Anonymous Caller.”

  The laughter grew louder, the receiver grew unbearably hot. The phone itself seemed to be cooking on his desk. Sizzles, buzzes and, there was no other word for it, ripping inside the phone’s wires and circuits. Blacking out.

  Death must come!

  Blacking OUT!

  Death must come!

  GENE! HELP ME!

  Chapter 3 ~

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Mendez, but—“

  “Sorry?” Lisa snapped, “You stand there telling me my husband will never walk again and the best you can come up with is ‘Sorry’?’” Her face was chapped and red from crying. Her nose was red, raw and running profusely.

  Nervously, she passed a wrinkled Kleenex between her fingers as she fought against rage, despair and doubts. Her hands were still dirty and bearing cuts for which she vehemently refused medical attention.

  She’d long ago given up hope of her legs having the strength to stand. Instead, she’d settled for an uncomfortable plastic and metal emergency room chair. Perhaps the lack of comfort fed her anger. Maybe it was just the fact th
at she hated displaying any signs of weakness to a world already certain that women were the weaker gender. Whatever it was, Lisa was seething. Were she not able to maintain a cop’s level of control, she would have punched the doctor where he sat. His dry, unfeeling assessment of Alex’s spinal injuries left her feeling cold, violated, praying for merciful numbness that might eventually blanket her – almost like a rape victim feels during a doctor’s post-trauma examination.

  “Now you listen to me!” she spat, her teeth grinding together, “I have a husband in there and he has a child at home who has never seen her father with little more than a scratch. You fix him, you hear me? Whatever’s broken, you get in there right now and you fix it! You fix my husband!” Lisa’s voice was becoming increasingly loud. Injured and half-coherent onlookers gaped at Lisa, some with compassion, others with confusion, bewilderment or annoyance.

  The doctor’s face did not change expression. Quietly, he continued, “Mrs. Mendez, I assure you we will do all we can for him but—”

  “But nothing—” Lisa shouted.

  “But,” the doctor continued, removing his gaze from hers. “Time is the only medicine that can cure your husband now, Mrs. Mendez. I did not say he would never walk again. I said the chances are not good. Like I told you, the trauma to his spinal column was severe. His hands and arms are responding somewhat better now, but we’re getting nothing below his belly button. That was a nasty fall, as I understand it. Judging from the bruising and the skeletal damage, I’d say 40 feet at least. I just want to be realistic. I’ve seen injuries like this many times. The swelling around his spine is critical. If we can’t get the swelling down, the chances of your husband regaining any use of his legs is…well, it’s just not very likely he’ll be ambulatory.”

  He sighed, helplessly, as Lisa’s gaze turned from anger to one of resigned disappointment. The doctor’s use of the word “ambulatory” was just another infuriating needle into Lisa’s skull. Why couldn’t he just use modern informal English, small words, to say what he meant. Lisa wasn’t stupid, but this wasn’t a university English class. He didn’t need to prove his worth as an orator – just as a doctor. That stupid thug had gotten away with more than just the insignificant contents of some stranger’s purse. In all the commotion, he had singlehandedly managed to steal half of Lisa’s existence – half of her soul – half of her entire reason for living. He had taken from Alex everything that had made him the strong, confident man he had been and, in the process, taken from Lisa everything that was Alex. Sensing the urgent need to return to his patient, the doctor slipped through the emergency room doors, leaving Lisa alone with her grief. So much for bedside manner, she sighed to herself.

  As she bowed her head, replaying the doctor’s words in her head, desperate, she prayed. “God, please help my daughter’s father. I’ll give anything. Anything, God. Please make him whole again. Please God.”

  * * *

  Echoes of the past surrendered to echoes of voices present. Alex could hear Lisa’s soft voice whispering warm expressions of devotion. Her breath, he thought, tickled his right cheek. His mind tried to adjust to the symphony of sounds that surrounded him. The Heavens resonated a harmonic lullaby.

  His vision remained fogged and then cleared, if only for an instant – Long enough to comprehend that he was looking down upon himself, lying motionless in what he thought was a hospital bed. Lisa, his beloved wife and best friend, sat beside him, crying, whispering, perhaps even praying Alex thought. Suddenly, Alex saw her head shoot up. Her face appeared enervated, sapped of any sign of the vigorous energy that was Lisa. The room in which Alex’s body lay motionless filled with beeping and buzzing sounds. Alex could feel Lisa’s thoughts. She was worried, petrified. Alex wanted to comfort her, but he could not; he wanted to touch her, but the harder he tried, the further from him she seemed to drift. Alex perceived something inside him that felt as if he was being pulled outward by some force that had grabbed hold of his very soul. He fought to stay with Lisa. She needed him, but he was powerless to resist the forces ripping at his soul. Echoes in his thoughts filled with death and maniacal laughter. The yellow eyes danced in front of him, so close he felt as if he could reach out and take them into his grasp. Alex felt himself floating and then, an instant later, felt as if his feet were on solid ground. As he looked toward his feet, Alex found himself surrounded by warmth, as if warmth were something tangible that he could wrap himself in as one might wrap a newborn infant in a blanket. There was no ground as one might define earthen matter. No dirt, soil or grass lay beneath Alex’s feet. Still, whatever held Alex seemed solid as any terra firma. Alex’s legs felt weak and unstable. It was as if the light that bathed him also served to hold him steady until he was ready to continue onward.

  “Where am I?” Alex thought, finding himself as powerless to speak, as he was to walk or even stand. Lucid ambiguity tingled his insides. It was as if every question to ever enter into the mind of Man was being asked, answered and, simultaneously denied clarity.

  He heard a stirring kaleidoscope of voices speaking directly to whatever souled body lay inside him. All at once, Alex felt sure where he was. A fine white mist surrounded him, growing denser, rising like billowing smoke of a towering inferno. Still, Alex had no trouble breathing and felt in no danger of whatever phantasm heat might be building. It was as if the misty vapor itself was the answer to questions Alex had yet to perceive.

  Past, present and future melted together in a vision of opportunities, chances taken and paths misleading. The vapors themselves reflected images as if they were the backdrops for a common movie theater. His distressed mind flashed images of Lisa. He saw her as she had been, as she was and as she could be, all in the same instant. His life flashed before his mind’s eye, not as a movie he could see, but as a dream playing out in the deepest realms of sleep where reality itself played an all too candid starring role. In front of him, behind him and all around, images of things past intermingled with visions of a future yet to come. Visual images cascading from the vaporous walls surrounding him, blended together with the confused cacophony of pictures playing in his mind.

  He could see his brother, Ted, lying in a pool of exploded intestines and oozing blood, the victim of eight shotgun blasts. He could see the blood, even feel it warming the cold concrete floor of the warehouse that saw Ted’s last moments of life.

  Reaching toward Ted’s remains provided no sensation. Alex could not touch him, only reach through him. He could not affect his will upon the situation. He could not change anything, though every fiber of his being wanted more than anything to take back the horrible violence to which he had just been witness. No sensation of physical touch was allowed him and yet, somehow, his mind digested sensations as clearly as if he were standing in the midst of the past chaos to which he bore witness.

  Though his hands made no contact with the concrete or the blood that bathed it, Alex could feel every drop as it oozed from Ted’s lifeless body. He felt the blood itself cooling, Ted’s body temperature dropping, and the cool night air doing nothing to warm the bone-chilling circumstance. Alex found himself privy to miniscule details, feelings and sensations that Ted himself had mercifully been denied, post-mortem.

  Alex had been a young man when Ted had been killed. He had not been in the warehouse so the entire scene, Alex thought, seemed made up. And yet something inside Alex conjured up assurance that what he was witnessing was an all too real journey into imagery of regrets past. Helplessly, Alex watched the life slowly leaking from his brother’s body. He watched as the crazed madman that shot him ran into the shadows, dropping the gun behind some boxes, as if daring the police to overlook it. Alex felt how cocky the killer was. Felt it as if he were inside the killer’s very soul, reading more than just his thoughts and his feelings, but his very intention – his life’s mission. Alex made repeated futile attempts to touch Ted’s dead body, to rouse him, to shake him, to give back the life that had been stolen from him. Suddenly given to the power of
speech, he shouted his brother’s name until his voice became too strained to shout beyond the tears that had begun to flow. Alex considered chasing after his brother’s murderer, but his legs would not obey command. He could not run, because he was not supposed to run. Though he didn’t know why, Alex knew that there was a reason he had been brought here to view this moment. A reason no Charles Dickens tale would ever easily explain.

  These were not just the ghosts of Alex past. These were regrets. These were things undone. This was, had long been, Alex’s one reason to remain a cop – to find his brother’s killer. For so long, before becoming the family man his mother had always dreamed for him, solving Ted’s murder had become Alex’s sole reason for living.

  Lisa had changed all of that.

  The moment he thought of her face, Alex found himself swimming in an impenetrable darkness. The cold concrete floor where Ted had been murdered was gone, replaced by the far more sinister cold of nothingness. But then something. Alex heard music, like the sound of a brass band, with each instrument playing a different movement of the same song. His head ached at the confusing darkness that felt to be spinning him uncontrollably. Alex was everywhere at once, but could make sense of none of it. He was in his past, his present and his future. In every stage of his life from the day Lisa walked into it right into a future that seemed to be continuing with and without his participation. His daughter grew up right before his eyes.