“A few more feet! Bring that light up!”
Alaia hurried, cutting her hand on the edge of a fallen shelving unit. She ignored it, choking back a cry, and kept on moving.
“I’m here!” Phoenix yelled. “But there’s a shelf or something blocking me! I can’t get up onto my feet!”
Alaia reached Phoenix. She tapped him on the backside with her light and said, “I’m here, Phoenix!”
Phoenix turned around with his eyes closed and he shook his head. He began to twitch, first in his hands, then in his arms. His shoulders convulsed, and then his whole body jerked and danced, marionette-like, hitting the shelf above him. His head, hitting the corner of the shelf’s leg, began to bleed. Then he became still and silent and breathed in a long, deep, sucking breath.
Phoenix Malone opened his eyes.
Alaia gasped in horror.
“You’ve … you’ve got to … g … g … go and lift the sh … shelf,” Phoenix said, as he twitched his head to the right. “L … lift it now.” Blood ran out from the corner of his mouth, thick, black, and dead.
Alaia, tired, weak, and frightened, saddened beyond grief, found the strength to do what Phoenix had asked her to do. She put her flashlight in a pile of unraveled wire, aiming it up towards the wall, and she put her back up against the heavy shelf. She set her feet apart, gripped the metal brackets and screamed, pushing up with a strength she’d gotten from where she did not know. Metal pipes tumbled all around her, and rolls of wire and tools came raining down, crashing and banging brightly. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she watched Phoenix bleeding, struggling to get himself off the ground.
Phoenix looked out through fading eyes, eyes that could no longer sense the glow of Alaia’s flashlight. He remembered seeing the switch up on the wall above him. He knew exactly where it sat and, as he got up on his feet, with metal falling all around him, he raised his left hand up as far as it would reach. He felt the gritty texture of the wall and an indented seam, then a warm, metal box.
His hand felt something rubbery, something soft; and he wrapped his fingers around it, recognizing the rubber grip of the lever. With the last bit of strength left to him, he pushed up with his knees, yelling as he did. The switch clicked upward and the lights returned. He fell back, landing on the floor.
And out of the depths of darkness, a darkness so deep and final, he heard a familiar voice calling his name, a crying voice. And that voice, rich and musical, so full of longing for life, instead of drawing near, caught itself on the edge of a passing breeze, or so it seemed to him, and then it floated away.
Chapter 39
The flower garden, large and vast, filled with mums and asters, was the first thing that caught her eyes. Then she saw the tractor coming up from behind the small, wooden cottage. Next she heard the rustling of leaves, leaves skipping along on the lane, racing away in one of early autumn’s finest breezes, cool and clean.
Tracy Malone, standing on the side of the small, country lane, breathed deeply and smiled.
Her appointment – probably the most important post in New Nashville – to the head the Department of Education, a post assigned to her by the board of the town, came as no surprise to most of the town’s citizens. She’d worked hard for it, lobbying, writing letters, and volunteering; but everyone, from Dr. Carson down to the youngest child, agreed that nobody would ever love the job as much as she.
Phoenix Malone had missed spring entirely, as he had the summer that followed. He had joined New Nashville on September 21st at 10:22 am, on the first official day of fall. Luckily, he’d slept through the first harrowing months of life in the New Nashville Matrix, with its fluctuating power surges and nearly devastating outages, waking up long after the system had been fine tuned. If anybody deserved to sleep through those horrible, nightmarish times, times filled with doubt and uncertainty about whether or not Dr. Carson’s system would ever work, that person was Phoenix Malone.
Tracy waved, jumping up and down, when she saw Phoenix on his 1939, John Deere tractor pulling a cartload full of hay bales behind it. He saw her, and she could just make out his crooked smile. He’d always talked about that tractor, she thought, back when they’d first married; and about land, somewhere in Coffee County, preferably near the foothills and streams of Beech Grove, Tennessee. Funny how he’d finally gotten it all, given to him by a grateful group of citizens, right here in New Nashville.
Phoenix parked the tractor beside the small farm house and climbed down. He walked with briskness in his step, crisply and eagerly, the way Tracy remembered him when they’d first met. His blonde hair was a bit darker, probably because he’d always seen it that way; and who was she to demand he make it lighter, the way she would have liked it?
“Are you ready, Phoenix?” Tracy asked.
“I think I am.”
Tracy smiled and reached out and took his hand. He looked at her, and then down at the ground. She could see him smiling humbly, probably not sure he was good enough for her.
He remembered her, or at least he said he did, and she believed him. Dr. Carson said he would. He insisted that Phoenix was Phoenix, and that the Psyke Virus hadn’t quite finished consuming his mind that day when he and Alaia, together, had tripped the power switch and saved New Nashville. If it hadn’t been for Alaia, Phoenix would not have succeeded; and because she’d forgotten to remove her pack when she followed Phoenix into that metal pile, she’d been able to halo him, take his mind, put it into that small, black hard drive, and send him to join Darkeem. What was left of Phoenix after she’d haloed him turned and mangled her face, biting and clawing her beyond recognition.
And she’d run a metal pipe through his brain, took a piece of his flesh, and that was that.
“Are you ready?” Tracy asked?
“Is he really going to be there?”
Tracy nodded and smiled. “Dr. Carson made sure of that – you might remember when---”
“I try not to – but go ahead.”
“Dr. Carson removed Phillip Mercer’s body from his casket – and that’s how he got the DNA. Once New Nashville was up and running, Dr. Carson found him here. He knew that coward didn’t have the guts to die with the rest of the world, so he found him hiding in here – and he locked him up in some kind of application. Well, at least his mind.”
“Funny to think that a jail can hold someone here. Seems like he should be able to just walk through the bars, so-to-speak.”
“I try not to think about it,” Tracy said. “But you’re going to put Phillip Mercer away for a two thousand years – if you can believe that. Then, when the earth comes back, he gets rebuilt using his DNA, and thenhis mind is reinserted back into his body, just like the rest of us will be. If he’s changed, he goes free. If not, we hang him.”
Phoenix grinned and looked out over the flowers swaying in the wind. “Doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance?”
Tracy smiled and hugged Phoenix. “I sure hope so. But people have to create those second chances because they want them.” She let go of Phoenix and looked into his eyes, pausing, noticing the lighter shade of blue. She tilted her head a bit and furrowed her brows, looking deeply into his eyes.
“What?” Phoenix asked.
Tracy, still smiling, brushed a lock of hair away from his face. “Oh, nothing. Just looking. Are you ready?”
“As ready now as I’ll ever be,” Phoenix said. He followed Tracy over to her new, black pickup truck, wondering how she’d ever talked herself into buying one. He looked at her, loving the way she walked in her short, blue dress, loving the way she moved, loving every step she took. He looked down at her legs, all the way down to her red pumps, and he just stared as he walked.
Tracy stopped and turned. She saw Phoenix look up, embarrassed, and he was smiling sheepishly. “What?” she asked, with a knowing grin.
“Oh, nothing,” Phoenix said. “Just looking.”
“Get in the car, lover boy.”
The drive through the countryside, with
the windows open, and the crispness in the air, cool and sweet, made Phoenix’s heart glad. A half hour later, all of it filled with small talk with Tracy, mostly about things they remembered, they pulled up onto the town square of New Nashville. The courthouse, something straight out of the late 1850s, red bricked with tall, intricately-carved limestone columns, rose in front of them. The square, looking equally old and dated, filled with stores of all kinds – hardware, jewelry, and clothing stores, not to mention two law offices – was abuzz with activity. People, young and old, some standing on the sidewalks, others on the streets next to the curb, saw Tracy’s truck coming. They’d been waiting.
“The whole town showed up for this?” Phoenix asked.
“Yes,” Tracy said. “But they showed up for you.”
Tracy parked the truck. It seemed that a special spot had been reserved just for them. When they stopped, reporters and cameramen swarmed the truck with their cameras flashing and their voice recorders rolling. Several police officers stepped forward through the melee, and the reporters gave way.
Alaia Jenkins, Chief of Police, came up to Phoenix’s window. “Now, I know you aren’t parking right here – this is a handicap zone! But seeing as we don’t have any disabled people here in New Nashville, I’m going to let it go.”
“Hey there, Detective Jenkins,” Phoenix said.
“And what did you do to your hair?” Alaia asked. “Tracy told you about tonight, didn’t she? You two are doing dinner with me and Darkeem.” She leaned into the truck and looked at Tracy. “Are we still on?”
“As long as Phoenix---”
“Sounds like a plan,” Phoenix said, as he opened the door.
Tracy and Phoenix, flanked on the left and right by police officers, walked across the sidewalk leading to the steps of the courthouse. Another officer, standing behind a roped-off barrier held up by bronze posts, released a clip, stepped back, and allowed them through. The people cried and cheered.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Tracy asked.
“I’ll never be more ready, Tracy,” Phoenix said. “It’s okay, Tracy – everything’s going to be fine.”
They reached the top of the steps and Phoenix turned to look back. He saw June Buckner and her husband arm in arm, something nobody ever saw back up on the streets of Nashville, and he couldn’t figure out how he’d missed them. He wondered about Dr. Albin Demachi and smiled. He’d see him later, he felt sure of it. He waved to the crowd.
The doors to the courthouse, mahogany, probably twelve feet high, guarded by two officers, swung open.
Phoenix turned to Tracy and smiled.
A large flying insect, a roach, dark brown and in quite a hurry, flew from behind the open doors, passed the police officers, and straight into the face of Tracy Malone.
Tracy screamed and waved her hands frantically in front of her face. She stepped backwards, missing the step behind her, lost her red, spiked-heel shoe, and began to fall backwards.
Phoenix, with not a second to spare, caught her in an embrace. With both of his arms wrapped tightly around her, he pulled her back up onto the top step of the courthouse and to safety.
Tracy hugged Phoenix with everything she had; and she put her lips against her husband’s ear. “I believe in second chances,” she said.
Phoenix smiled. And they both walked into the courthouse together.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading Time Clock Hero as much as I did writing it! Would you please leave me a review where you bought this book? And will you share with a friend?
Be sure to visit www.spikesdonovan.com and check out Spikes upcoming releases; and be sure – won’t you? – to send an email? Yes, Spikes answers his own email!
Be sure to check out Spikes’ new book – The Last Infidel. It is available at Amazon Books
Time Clock Hero Page 27
