Blink of an Eye: Beginnings Series Book 8

by Jacqueline Druga

  “Will it get me laid?”

  “No.”

  “Right.” Frank set her down. “Anyhow, I came to see how Henry is doing.”

  Ellen looked around Frank. “He’s ... he’s gone.” She walked to the door. “What happened out there, Frank?”

  “Henry was ...” Quickly Frank’s mind went to Henry and Dean in the hall. “Henry was jumped by a bunch of them. He had a hard time, but ... he did good.”

  “Of course.” Ellen winked at him. “Look who taught him.” She put her arms around him again.

  Frank looked back at the door. He would enjoy the moment of Ellen’s gratitude, but not for long. He’d have to find Henry and do what he came to the examining room to do, check on his friend and see if he was all right.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “And ...” Jenny spoke so chipper before the group of women in her home, a group of women less Bev. “Agriculture has promised us ten chickens for our gala.” She nodded happily at the applause. “Not that we can feed a hundred people with ten chickens, but if we cook them up and cut them up, we can certainly incorporate it into that pasta dish Andrea will make.” She checked over her notes. “I spoke to everyone that I wanted to speak to and everyone looks like they’re coming, not like they have anything else to do. And, Trish?”

  Trish lifted her head and wiped the ketchup dip from her mouth. “Yes?”

  “If you don’t have that baby in the next few days, you won’t be able to attend, so concentrate, concentrate hard.”

  “OK,” Trish said chipper. “I will.”

  “Last, before we head off to the Social Hall for our monthly game of ‘Dart the Big Fart’, Ellen has an announcement to make.”

  Ellen stood up and the room went silent. “Thank you, Jenny.” She cleared her throat. “First of all, I want to say all of your bids were especially great. Danny and I had a hard time with them. Which by the way, Danny is doing splendid, splendid enough to have helped me with my final decision, which I bring to you. I spoke to Blake prior to coming here. He is excited about the change of ownership. I have the papers completely drawn up, and since Andrea is Council, she can officiate them. And now ...” Dramatically Ellen spoke, “With the bid ... drum roll please.” She rolled her tongue in a drum roll then laughed. “With a bid of eight consecutive Fridays laced with her famous Beginnings’ Pizza, coupled with the clincher of one month of filing, filling out, and routing of my stupid reports, Blake is now the property of ... Jenny Matoose.”

  Jenny screamed with excitement. Her fist clenched and she jumped up and down. “I got him I got him. Yes. Yes. Yes. I got him.” She ran around in circles. “Oh my God. Get those papers, Andrea, before Ellen changes her mind.” She began to sing. “I got him. I got him. Oh-oh I got him.” Suddenly her excitement stopped and she stood still. “Uh-oh, how am I gonna tell John?”

  <><><><>

  Dean saw it. It was so evident as he walked back to his house from a final round at the clinic. Henry was sitting on his front porch, his face buried within his hands.

  His mind flashed back to the old world and he remembered a similar scene when he walked home through the base housing on his way back from the lab. Some corporal was sitting the same way as Henry, every light off in his house. Dean remembered looking at that corporal and truly seeing that something was bothering him. Dean also remembered walking right by him and going home. This was not the old world and Henry was his friend. Dean also knew what all was bothering Henry, every aspect of it, and that was probably more than anyone else did.

  “Hey,” Dean called out, trying to sound as if he wasn’t there to ‘lend an ear’, which he was. “I just got done at the clinic.”

  “How’s Danny?” Henry raised his head some, not much.

  “Get this ... may I sit down?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.” Dean scooted next to him. “He’s talking.”

  “What?”

  “Danny. He’s talking and talking and talking. Going off about how he got hit with the arrow and how he had an ancestor who died back in the Cowboy and Indian days by being hit with an abundance of arrows. He thought it was only fitting that he followed the footsteps of this ancestor.”

  Henry looked at Dean with an odd smile. “Were there Chinese immigrants over here back then?”

  “I don’t believe so, Henry. However, I do think we learned something about Danny Hoi. Not only does the man recover nicely, but he’s a hell of a storyteller.”

  “He’s a lucky man,” Henry said.

  “I’ll agree with that. So ...” Dean subtly cleared his throat. “I’m looking at you sitting here. I don’t need to be a scientist, even though I am to know something is heavy on your mind. Henry, do you want to talk about today?”

  Henry laughed and shook his head with so much sadness. “Talk about it, Dean? I don’t even want to think about it but that’s all I do every second since it happened.” He closed his eyes tightly in pain. “Tell me something, Dean. He hasn’t said anything and I don’t want to bring it up, but how much does Frank know?”

  “I think Frank knows enough to know what was going on but he was really too busy at that moment to see too much.”

  “Thank God.” Henry’s head dropped.

  “Henry, come on, this is your best friend. Maybe he wants you to talk to him. Maybe you need to talk to him.”

  “I’m talking to you, Dean. Does this make you uncomfortable?”

  “No!” Dean quipped. “No, Henry, it doesn’t. I want to help you, and part of helping someone is directing them to whom or where they can get the most help.”

  “Ellen is where I could get the most help.”

  “Then go to her,” Dean told him strongly.

  “Are you crazy? I went to her today.”

  “Did you tell her what happened?”

  “Did you think I would? I just need her. I just need her comfort, but I want to get it without telling her what happened. I don’t want anyone to know what happened, no one, Dean,” Henry spoke as if he were on the edge.

  “I’m not understanding why. Please explain to me why.”

  “I cannot believe you of all people have to ask me that. You saw me, Dean. If you could see me scratching my head, then you saw everything, did you not?”

  Dean ran his hand down across his mouth then peered out into the street. “Yes.”

  “Then you know how close it was.” Henry’s voice dropped. “I felt him, Dean. I felt him. If Frank was a split second longer I would have felt him more than I could have lived with.”

  “Henry, what happened to you is nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “No, it is not.”

  “Yes, Dean, it is.” Henry’s words were strong. “I am not a small man. I’m six feet tall. I weigh nearly two hundred pounds. I can hold my own and I’m a good fighter. How did I get to that point? How did I allow myself to be placed in that position? That ... degrading, degrading ... position.”

  A lump formed in Dean’s throat. He was so lost as to what to say. He could only try. “You say I saw it and I did. I also saw that there was nothing more you could have done. There were ten men, Henry, ten of them. You fought. I watched you. You fought as well as any man could have.”

  “Even Frank? Would Frank have let it get to that point?”

  “Now see, that is not fair. You can’t ask that. Frank is a much bigger man. And ...” Dean grew frustrated. “And yes. With ten men, I believe so. You ask Frank, because contrary to what his ego would tell him, the man in him and the friend in him would admit to you that he would have been no better off than you at that point.”

  “Even so it doesn’t make it any easier knowing I got to that point. I got to that point and I will never forget what it felt like. It was so humiliating.” Slowly Henry stood up from the steps. “If you’ll excuse me, Dean, I think I would like to go to bed now.”

  “Henry.” Dean stood also. “Go to Ellen. If not to tell her what happened, but just to
try to get her comfort. Don’t tell her the whole truth. Tell her that you’re just upset over the attack. Tell her something, anything. You need her.”

  “I need ... I need to forget about this, but I’m afraid the man in me will never let me forget it.”

  Dean’s hand gripped the porch hand railing as he watched Henry go inside. He had tried, but he felt so helpless. There was nothing more he could do. He couldn’t go to Ellen. He couldn’t break that trust of Henry’s. All Dean could do is go home with Henry heavy on his mind and hope that the next day would breed something, anything that could help get him through the rough times that had him so down.

  The slight breeze through Andrea’s open living room window, brought more to Joe then just a refreshing break from the August heat as he lay there, smoking the last cigarette of the day. It brought to him emotional whispers carried in the late night wind. It brought to him the painful revelation that one of his own, his family—Henry—was in need. As painful as the truth Joe should not have learned was, it was a fact there was nothing, right there, Joe could do about it.

  Swinging his legs over the cushion of the couch, he put out his cigarette and leaned forward in silent, deep thought.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  AUGUST 8

  “You wanted to see me, Joe?” Henry peeked his head into Joe’s office before stepping inside.

  “Yes, Henry, come on in.” Joe set his things on his desk aside.

  “What’s up?” Slumping a little in his walk—something Henry did not usually do—he made his way to the chair and sat down.

  “Sorry to pull you away from your work. I needed to talk about a few things with you.”

  “Sure, Joe.”

  “First.” Joe held up his finger. “Robbie went ahead yesterday. I don’t know if you know this, but they pulled a test of that tracking system.”

  “I heard they were doing that. Robbie came to me and asked if when they were finished if he should take it back down. I told him ‘no’ not if it works, it’ll stay. It will eventually be connected to the video monitor.”

  “Well the test went great, picked up animals and such. I can’t wait to get that video monitor so we can actually see how it works. Excellent job.”

  “Thanks, Joe.” Henry nervously fussed in his chair. “I stopped by to see Danny this morning. He said he wants to start on that monitor right away. Tonight maybe I’ll bring some parts to the clinic.”

  “Shame what happened out there.” Joe shook his head. “In fact, that is another reason I asked you here. I need to talk to you about what happened for paperwork and documentation sake.”

  “Joe, I’d really rather not discuss it.”

  “Henry, now it’s only paperwork. I know how you hate to do that. But attacks like these need to be ...”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it!” Henry snapped and stood up. “I ... got jumped, that’s all. Frank saved the day as usual. That’s all. I have work to do.”

  “Henry!” Joe called out to him as Henry moved to the door, “since when have you yelled at me for no reason like that?” Joe watched Henry bounce nervously in debate before going out the door. “Son,” Joe dropped his voice, “I know this has to be bothering you.” He laid his hand on Henry’s shoulder, standing behind him.

  “You don’t know, Joe. You really don’t know.”

  “I do. I remember when I was overseas in deployment with the service, police patrol type of thing. There were eight of us and we were all canvassing this town. I had this one block and I heard a woman scream. I swore I heard this woman scream.” Joe’s voice was so calm and soothing as he talked. “It wouldn’t have been me to ignore it, so I went into this building. My first mistake, hey, I was twenty-two years old, and ... I was a Slagel.” He heard Henry snicker a bit and he continued on. “So I go into this building alone and I see this girl. She’s crying and crying and holding her clothes. I tossed my rifle over my shoulder so I wouldn’t frighten her. I stepped to her, you know, holding out my hand telling her it was all right. I should have known by the way she kept shifting her eyes, but all I kept thinking was what happened to this young woman? I had to help her. No sooner was I five feet from her, I was jumped, jumped and beaten by six men, I think. I don’t recall after they encircled me and started hitting me with sticks, my rifle, and whatever they could get their hands on. I was beaten so badly I was in the hospital for two weeks. I think ... I think a week of that was because of my mental state. Here I was, this big tough guy, and I couldn’t get out of this attack. I couldn’t. That was six guys, Henry. You faced ten.”

  “But, Joe.” Henry’s voice was nearly a whisper as he turned around to face him. “Besides it being ten men, it’s different somehow.”

  “Yeah I know it’s different, because you faced Savages. I know how Savages are. I know. I know what they do and I know what they are like. What I am trying to tell you is there are some things that no matter how many times we play it back in our minds, trying to figure out how we could have made it different, there are some things we just cannot do anything about. They are out of our control. They do not make us weak and they do not for one second diminish any of our honor. Though these things may bother us for a long time, we still should hold our heads high.” Joe spoke deeper to Henry as he laid his fatherly hand on Henry’s cheek, holding firm in a grip that spread to behind his head. “Hold your head high, Henry, because you fought. You tell yourself you are the greatest of warriors because you have seen many battles. Through them all, even this one, broken or not, you emerged victorious. Because you ... you emerged alive.” He gave a slight emotional reassuring shake to Henry as his hand still laid on his cheek. “Hold your head high.”

  “Thank you, Joe.” Henry’s eyes lowered. “Thank you very much.”

  “You’re welcome very much. And ...” Joe stepped back and changed his demeanor, “there is one more thing I have to talk to you about.”

  “Can it wait, Joe? I really have work to do before ...”

  “I think you may want to hear this.” Joe walked back to his desk.

  “What’s that?”

  Joe sat down. “I had a nice little breakfast with my daughter this morning. She told me that after their dart game at the Social Hall, she headed off to your house to talk to you. But ...” Joe tossed his hands up. “In an unusual occurrence you were in bed.”

  “Really, Joe? She came to my house?” Henry smiled as he watched Joe nod. “Why?”

  “She said she was feeling bad about all you went through yesterday and wanted to check on you.”

  “You’re lying. She didn’t say that.”

  “Yeah, she did and ...” Joe’s head sprang up to the loud steady beeping. “Is that?”

  “The tracking system.” Henry sprang up.

  “Son of a bitch!” Joe slammed his hand down, grabbed his cigarette and stood up. “It started.”

  <><><><>

  Racing, M-16 in hand from his back perimeter gate, Frank hurried toward town. “Tower, come in. How many do you see?”

  “Got about fifty coming in east and another fifty fast approaching the front gate, not to mention what we have coming from south. There are too many to count.”

  “Hit the horn!” At that second, loud and blaring the sirens went off in Beginnings, ringing through. “Robbie, come in.”

  “I’m on my way to the hangar, Frank.”

  “You’re in charge. Get our bird team in the air and commence to hit them from the air.” Frank jumped in his jeep and switched channels on his radio as he drove. “Cole.”

  “Yeah, Frank,” Cole came back.

  “Get me my back gate and northwest squads armored

  up and in position. They know they should go to you for dispensary. They’re on their way.”

  “Got it, Frank.”

  Frank screeched around toward Armory. “Dad, are you ...”

  “I’ve been in touch with the squad leaders 2 through 6. I have them heading toward the other dispensaries and I just ra
dioed our links for every available man center town for evacuation.”

  “I should be there in ...”

  “I spot you, Frank.”

  Frank screeched to a halt near the Armory. About thirty men were coming out, men that not only were active Security but from other divisions as well. Frank jumped from the jeep heading to them, barking out orders over the loud blasting horn. “Dan! Take your squad and hold tight in the UD Section. Squad 7, 8, and 9, I need you as back-up at the front gate. Squads 10 and 11, back gate. The rest of you spread out! We have to clean this place up then hit outpost. Now!” Frank looked down at his watch. “Come on, Robbie, lift them goddamn birds.” Frank looked up at the sky first then charged forth into Beginnings’ heart of town.

  <><><><>

  Charging down the empty hall of the clinic, Dean flew into the lab. “El, come on.”

  “No that’s OK, I’ll stay here.” She sat on a stool, her legs crossed.

  “Do you hear the sirens? Come on! The clinic’s been evacuated.”

  “No, Dean. This is stupid. I’m staying here.”

  “Fine!” He smacked his hand off the archway. “I’m going to our kids.”

  Ellen rolled her eyes, waited until she heard the pitter-patter of his little feet fade, slid slowly from the stool, and walked out of the lab. Down the corridor, the closer to the glass doors that she got, she could see the running up and down the street. The noise level at that moment to her was unbelievable, annoying. Within a minute, as she stood at the glass doors looking out, the sirens stopped and the helicopter noise faded. She peered through the glass, up and down the street then shuddered. “Spooky.” Shrugging her shoulder she returned to the lab, re-took her stool, and picked up her nail file.

  The peace and eerie quiet did not last long. Heavy stomping of boots happened only a split second before Frank’s loud. “El!”

  Ellen lifted her head and went back to doing her nails.