by CJ Martín
“Look, thank you for saving me from that man… woman… or whatever it was, but I really think I deserve some answers before I keep following you.”
The old man propped a foot on the second step and pivoted to face Sam. “Mr. Williams, at this point, I’d be quite content to just leave you to Kaileen, but I don’t think you would enjoy her company.” He waited for a response; Sam just stood there dumbfounded. “I’m going up to my flat for a rest in my recliner. If you’d like to join me, I’ll consider explaining some details after you fix me some tea.”
Sam’s eyebrows rose, not sure how to respond. It didn’t matter, the old man had already nudged Sam to the side and was making his way up the stairs slowly, just as an elderly man with arthritis and tired bones would. Hearing some street noises outside, Sam reconsidered his ultimatum and quickly followed.
As strong and quick as he had been during the fight, the old man climbed each step one by one with a hand firmly gripping the handrail. No one else was on the stairs yet the echoes of their cautious footfalls gave the feel of a parade.
“Shouldn’t we hurry? Couldn’t that woman come back?”
“I think not. Her secret is out.”
“Her secret?”
The old man stopped before room 201 and turned to face Sam as he put key to keyhole.
“She isn’t supposed to be alive.” Even though the old man was facing Sam, Sam understood the man spoke more to himself. “She isn’t supposed to be.” He shook his head and faced the apartment.
The door creaked open and the man returned his keys to his pocket. He motioned silently for Sam to enter. Sam slipped inside and the door slammed shut after the man. Sam heard the sliding and clanging of metal as the old man engaged several locks.
But Sam’s mind was elsewhere.
A strange smell flooded his senses. It was not unpleasant, but it had a deep woodsy feel. It made him recall something from his childhood. He couldn’t quite make out what it was, but it was familiar and comforting.
Sam’s attention turned to the decor. There were no fewer than three crucifixes, one for each bare wall. The fourth wall was completely covered with books, hundreds of old leather bound books. Other than a well-worn recliner and a large globe in a corner, there was little else in this small living room. Sam could see two closed doors that led to unknown areas of the apartment.
He wondered if the leather bound books were the source of that nostalgic smell and he took a step toward the bookcase to find out. His father had had a set of leather bound Shakespeare plays with commentary. The ten-year old Sam would often pull one down and pretend to understand what he was reading.
“Do you know who I am?” the man asked after he finished locking the door.
Sam jolted back to face the old man and away from the bookcase and that nostalgic smell.
“I’m terribly sorry, no. Suteko gave me this card,” Sam said while pulling the crumpled card from his pocket. “She didn’t say your name. She only said you were an old... An older gentleman.”
“Yes, I am an old man. A very old man.”
“Older than Suteko?” Sam said carelessly, letting out her secret.
“Let me see that card,” replied a gruff voice ignoring the question.
“If you don’t mind, could you tell me what the name of your business is?” Sam asked before handing him the card. “The other man couldn’t tell me and then he attacked me before becoming a... she.”
“You followed me up into my room—my securely locked room. This means you trust me to some extent and yet you ask the same question that set off that creature, huh?”
Sam realized following a stranger into a room on the second floor of a secluded apartment wasn’t the smartest course of action. But the man had saved his life and he had entered the apartment with the same number as on the card. Something about this man was different—in a good way.
Just then, the old man burst out with jolly laughter. The laughter quickly dispelled any lingering fear Sam may have had. That fear was now simply confusion.
“My son, R.J. Accountants is a front for all this.” His hand waved around the walls of books and crucifixes.
“This?” Sam wondered what kind of secrecy would necessitate manufacturing business cards with an alias. The old man simply nodded as if it required no verbal explanation.
“So, is your name RJ?”
“If you like. Let me be RJ.”
After examining Sam’s puzzled face for a few moments, the old man changed the subject.
“What did the woman want from you?”
“The woman or the old man?”
“She is a most vile serpent—if it is truly her. It looked like her; it felt like her, but I dare not make reckless assumptions. What did she want?”
“I... I don’t know.”
“Think! What did she do? What did she say? Did she ask a question?”
Sam remembered the question she had asked that had made her angry when he couldn’t answer.
“When she was... an old man, she asked about my dreams.”
“What exactly did you tell her?”
“I... I mentioned there was a bomb about to go off. She said she knew but wanted me to tell her where the bomb was—where Suteko would be going. But I didn’t answer—I’m not sure that I could have.”
“I see.” The old man was lost in thought. Concern flooded his face when Sam interrupted him with a question.
“RJ, what is the Temporal?”
“My dear boy, you and I are the Temporal,” he said quickly. “But did she mention the Temporal?”
“Yes. She asked me where the other Temporal were.”
“A strange question to ask someone who didn’t even know that he himself was a Temporal! And a dangerous question for the queen of the Nephloc to pose. Very dangerous.”
Sam had no idea what a Nephloc could be, but he decided it was best to listen.
There was a long silence as RJ moved to one of the bookcases and slid over a few tomes from their place. He then inserted a bony hand into the newly formed space. His hand reappeared holding a long, cherry wood pipe and a small wooden box. With the thumb of his other hand, he flipped the lid up. After stuffing several pinches of tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, he placed the pipe in his mouth and asked, “Do you know what eternity is?”
Sam watched as the old man’s hand slipped into his pocket and reappeared a second later with a match. With a fluid motion, the match went up from his pocket to striking the bookcase and becoming a flame.
Sam realized that the smell which had invoked the nostalgic memories was not from the old books but the pipe. His father would sneak a smoke in his study now and again. Young Sam had associated the sweet smell with the row of Shakespeare on his father’s bookshelves.
“Yeah,” Sam said after snapping his attention back. “Eternity is a very long time.”
After a few long draws, the old man said, “Wrong. Just the opposite, in point of fact. It is the absence of time.” The old man’s voice was crusty but calm. “Just as a potter exists outside the pot, God created time and space and He exists outside of both. This existence is called ‘eternity.’”
Sam sat silently. If it had been a few weeks back, Sam would have argued the old man to the floor just for the hell of it. But things were different now.
“I’m blessed with the ability to witness time and space from God’s viewpoint. You can too. Isn’t that right, Sam Williams?”
“How do you know my name?”
Sam remembered RJ had called him by name earlier. But so had the attacker...
“You don’t know by now?” the man said while settling into his oversized recliner—the only major piece of furniture in the room. “And yet, I find it peculiar you don’t know my name. Suteko wouldn’t have sent you to me unprepared.”
“There... was a problem at the airport. Uh, your name isn’t RJ?”
“RJ it is. Go on.”
Sam cleared his throat and continued, “Security pull
ed her aside. Shortly before landing, she told me to go to you should something happen.”
“Most unfortunate.” After a few puffs of smoke and glazed eyes of reflection, the old man continued, “In the history of the universe, there have been only a handful of moments when time and eternity has come to share space, colliding. This causes a great deal of confusion from our point of view, but there exists total order from eternity’s viewpoint. That union of order and confusion is what gives us our gifts.”
The old man paused to let his words sink in.
“Sir, if I may ask, how old are you?”
The question seemed to startle him. He pulled the pipe from his mouth and repositioned his body to face Sam more directly.
“How old am I, you ask? Well, son, I’m old like Tithonus, whom the Greeks said was granted eternal life but not eternal youth. At least, that is how I’ve felt for the past millennium.”
Sam would have thought the man a loon had it not been for the past few days and... Suteko.
“What do we do? Suteko is gone.”
“She will be here soon.”
“How do you know? They might deport her.”
“Have patience and... faith. She will come, my son.”
Sam remembered Suteko’s note and somehow suspected the old man was right. Sam suspected, but he did not wholeheartedly believe.
Chapter 20
Over the next few days, Sam stayed with the old man, learning and waiting. He discovered much about a type of reality he hadn’t known even to exist a month before.
The old man’s skin was pale as if he rarely—if ever—got any sun. But by his knowledge of obscure places around the world, Sam knew he was no hermit. And yet, Sam never saw him leave the apartment. Twice, someone came to the door and the man had Sam hide in a closet in the back. As soon as he was allowed to come out of hiding, Sam saw groceries on the kitchen floor, but the old man was alone.
“I know,” Sam said one evening after a light meal, “that you and Suteko are incredibly strong and we can hear these echoes and all that, but what other super powers do you, we, have?”
The old man laughed. “Super powers, eh?” He began flapping his hands like a bird. “Do you expect me to fly and have X-Ray vision?” He squinted his eyes, pretending to see through Sam.
“No, I mean…”
“Of course. From a human perspective it may seem to be super power, all this. But it is simply the influence—a side effect—of contact with eternity, timelessness.”
“What… can we do besides hearing the echoes? Will I also become strong and not need sleep?”
“In time.” He laughed at his own joke eliciting a polite smile from Sam’s confused face. “Yes, as time slows its ravaging of your body, you will become strong. And I believe you have noticed your need for sleep has diminished greatly during the few days you have been here.”
“Yes, I think I am almost normal—I mean, what used to be normal. Last night, I slept eight hours and I feel great. It seemed only a few days ago that I needed twenty-five hours.”
Sam told the old man of his experiences in that Japanese hospital. The horrific experience of a man with a face upon which he could not focus. How he was attacked by several of these men outside the hospital. How the old man who changed into an agile woman attacked him.
“What were these creatures? Suteko just guessed they were ‘angels of darkness’ whatever that means.”
“They are Nephloc. The woman who attacked you, however, is different. She is a leader over the Nephloc.”
“Nephloc?”
“Nephloc are creatures who cannot abide light.”
Images of RJ fighting the red-headed woman came back to Sam’s mind. RJ had defeated his attacker with an awesomely bright light.
“I remember now—you used light to repel the creature who attacked me.”
“If it had been a Nephloc, she would have screamed from the pain. We were lucky that it was enough to startle her, to reveal who she really is,” the old man said while reaching into his pocket. “Take this.” He tossed his cigarette lighter to Sam.
“This? This is what you used?”
“A little light dispels great darkness. Insurance and a mighty weapon, it is.”
Sam marveled that the powerfully bright light he had witnessed had simply been the flickering flame of a tiny lighter. He slipped it into his pocket with a nod of thanks to RJ.
“Tell me more about these Nephloc. Where do they come from? Why did they draw my blood—what do they want from me?”
“Dark, vile creatures. They are damned, cruel, and twisted. Lost, they are and their only purpose is to keep men lost, to enslave them. They roam the earth and the temporal universe in search of a way to sate their thirst and lusts. As for their interest in your blood… I do not know, but you have piqued my curiosity. I will research and meditate on this.”
“And that smell. The Nephloc that attacked me had a stench that started very slight, but quickly became unbearable.”
“Yes. The smell of rotting flesh. These are spiritual creatures locked in a dying physical world.”
“But the woman, she had no foul smell—at least, none that I noticed.”
“Yes,” the old man said, turning to the bookcase for his pipe. “This was a different sort.”
“Is that why she could appear as you and then as that young woman?”
“Yes. She is very dangerous. The Nephloc are servants of darkness—they do not think for themselves, only for their masters and their lusts. Young Nephloc with flesh still to rot are easily startled and tend to go out in groups. But mature Nephloc and others such as the one we encountered are different. Be careful. The creature had great interest in you.”
Sam thought back to that night when a few of the weaker Nephloc overpowered him with ease.
Seeing the concern wrinkle Sam’s face, the old man said, “There are always options for the good guys.” He had a twinkle in his eyes. “Even the Nephloc know they will lose.”
The old man turned to his bookcase again and finished stuffing his pipe.
“It is, however, very disturbing how bold these creatures have become. To come out in the open and risk so much to get to you. Perhaps they know time grows short.” The old man turned back to Sam, looking him over as if inspecting a high-priced item and wondering by what measure its worth was determined. “There is something about you that they want. I’m blind to it now, but take care of yourself, Sam. You are a wanted man. And you are wanted by the most vile creatures imaginable.” Seeing Sam’s face fill with concern, he added, “Do not worry too deeply, Sam. You are among friends. Suteko and I will protect you. And soon, you will be more than able to protect yourself.”
Suteko. How can this old man know for sure she will come? Sam moved over to the corner that contained the stand-alone globe. It was set on a four foot metallic stand.
“How many of the Temporal are there?” Sam asked while fingering Spain. Waiting for an answer, he let the globe spin, blurring countries and oceans into a bluish gray hue.
“There are very few. It seems one of us appears about once or twice every hundred years. You, my son, are our newest member. It is always quite exciting when we find a new member.”
“Are there others here in the States?” He stopped the globe and the tip of his index finger covered New York City. Sam’s eyes widened as he saw what appeared to be the old man’s face materializing over the dot that represented the City.
“Other than me, there are four that I know of.”
“No.” Sam spoke with conviction and kept his eyes locked on the green colored land mass representing the United States on the globe. His mouth opened and shut while wordlessly counting.
“No?”
“Sorry... I don’t understand it, but looking at this globe, I see faces. I see your face here and another face nearby. There are four other faces. Wisconsin, Florida, California, and in Texas. And I know their names, their addresses, their... I know their favorite color.”
>
“Most extraordinary.” The old man flew to Sam’s side with the eagerness of a schoolboy having discovered a new way to torment girls. “Yes. Yes. I know of the ones in Wisconsin, California, and in Texas, but I was not aware of anyone in Florida.”
Sam’s face showed a mix of horror and confusion. “What is happening to me? What does this mean?”
“It means, my boy, that you have a special gift, a very special gift.”
“Is this what the Nephloc wanted of me?”
“There is no doubt this information would be most desirable to them. The woman demon must have known. But you told her nothing, right?”
Sam nodded in the affirmative.
The old man relaxed slightly. “Perhaps she isn’t certain that you have this gift. But I doubt she will give up. They would be very interested in you even if they only suspected you possessed such a gift. That blood. They may have ways of confirming your abilities with a blood sample.” The old man paused to light his pipe. After a few puffs, he continued. “A list of the Temporal in their hands would be devastating. I think it would be wise for you to keep this gift to yourself. Don’t even tell Suteko unless you feel you need to. The fewer who know, the less likely the knowledge will seep out.”
Sam nodded that he understood.
“Can the Temporal—can we be killed?”
“Most assuredly. We are not immortal and we do age. I was in my thirties when I was initiated into the Temporal, but by my wrinkles and wizened features, one would assume I am in my seventies. However, instead of killing us, I suspect that they would try to turn us.”
“Turn us... into one of them?”
“Yes. Evil seeks more evil partly to validate themselves, partly to become stronger as a group. In the end, it will be of no matter. They will lose. But much unnecessary death and destruction would result should your talents be discovered. Much death.”
They spoke no more that day. Sam read—at least attempted to read—while the old man seemed content to sit against a wall for hours at a time meditating or perhaps sleeping. RJ would often close his eyes like that. Sam wasn’t sure if he was just thinking or if his aged body simply needed more sleep even if he was one of the Temporal.
