Why would Richards Turn but a moment? What purpose could that possibly serve?
Sensing that all was not right in this new timeline—fearing that what had just transpired was but a ruse by Richards, to not control time but to buy it—Brikker nodded only once. There would be no more mistakes. No more missed opportunities. The moment was now, the future for the taking. And he would seize it.
Strong took his cue. The lieutenant bolted after the local, but after a few lengths, aborted the chase and positioned himself for the easy shot. Christensen, several yards behind, did the same.
They fired.
~ 45
Mind and muscle breached the breaking point as Kain Richards sank to depths of agony he could never have imagined. The drum of his heart doubled. Tripled. His body seemed to burn from within, as if it might ignite in spontaneous combustion. He shook; he weakened; he faltered. His hand fell limp at his side, as if dragged down by the weight of the world.
The Turn, for all its magic, all its curse, had finally forsaken him. It held a will all its own, a will chaotic and dangerous. He would trade everything, his last breath, his last heartbeat, for one last kick.
Time and space shifted again, and he nearly collapsed. Struggling, he looked up into the blinding lights, and the agony struck deeper in one massive shock. Electricity surged through him. He bled from the ears; from the mouth; from the heart. He tried, oh how he tried, yet he could not scream. He would die. That great darkness would swallow him.
And yet, when he looked down at Lynn, tears streaming down his face, blood dribbling down hers, somehow, God granting, he summoned the will … and brought his fingers to his temple once more.
~ 46
A sharp cut of glass struck Strong again.
It slit into his face in this latest timeline, and now he was on his knees screaming. The shard had lodged itself in his cheek just below his left eye. Blood gushed from the wound. He sliced three fingers trying to remove the glass, sending him into a torrent of obscenities.
Christensen was hit as well, this a new variable for Brikker to ponder. The private was rolling on the ground, trying to put out the flames that were eating his shirt.
The explosion—just the one, despite another “bump” in the way of things—had been far more violent this time round. The farmhouse had collapsed in one swift breath, an awesome and curious sight. Both sides of the place had collapsed in tandem, as if ruled by an unseen force. He could appreciate such magic.
Intriguingly, neither Richards nor the man from the pickup had been threatened by the wealth of flying debris, and in spite of the chaos, he still marveled at the randomness, the way of the Turn. And yet, the Turn (the sensation, more aptly, for he was still uncertain such a Richards-induced event had actually occurred) had been fleeting, almost undetectable, even for him. There had been but an instant of nothingness, not the endlessness, the mindlessness, of an eternity spent in that dark abyss as there normally was. There had been no surging heat, no raging electricity, no tear in the delicate fabric of space and time. No powder … no mist.
So … what was transpiring?
Was Richards losing his ability?
Was the magician succumbing to the magic?
If that were true—and as his mind spun through the possible explanations, discarding all but one—then Time, that old friend, that old menace, was of the essence.
The game must end, Brikker thought, as Richards, clearly beaten, clearly on the edge of breaking, struggled to raise his hand yet again. How pathetic. All for the love of a woman.
“KILL HIM NOW,” he shouted, and when Strong, still howling obscenities, did not react quickly enough, the good Doctor screamed at the faggot to do his bidding. And but a moment later, with Al Hembruff out of breath and out of time, Private Christensen, his shirt finally out, caught the farmer in his sights, and fired.
~ 47
She held no life. Only his heart.
Kain drew her close and cradled her. His hold faltered, and a girlish whimper escaped him as he nearly lost her. Tears bled from his eyes. He kissed her forehead; stroked her fine flowing hair. All around him, hell raged.
He kissed her, tenderly on the lips, and endured a great cold as he felt the last breath of life slip away. He could only tremble.
He looked up. Strong was screaming like a helpless idiot. Brikker shouted the latest order. The other man, Strong’s monkey-mate, was only now getting to his knees and drawing his weapon on Al Hembruff.
It mattered nothing now. The Turn had deserted him. Had tricked him again.
He rocked Lynn against his chest. She was so cold, so distant now.
So distant—
He held her tight and clung to her for dear life. Then, when he could, set the woman he loved to the ground.
And felt his heart break.
Felt the rage seep inside its cracks.
Kain Richards looked up once more … at Brikker.
NO … NOT AGAIN.
NEVER … AGAIN.
~ 48
All it took was a touch … all it took was his rage.
Still, the Turn teased him, its violent energy creeping through his body, building and building, a sleeping tempest waking within. He feared the magic might abandon him, deceive him again. But then his eyes doubled, darkening like the blackest coal, and suddenly it was there, that glimmer of light, that spark in his heart.
The fine country air, once sweet and fresh, succumbed to that pungent stench of burning matches. Sparks of electricity crackled in every direction, tiny fireworks popping in and out of existence; they swam in wispy contrails that were there and gone. Strange sounds, poised at the very boundary of human hearing—those odd chattering teeth—grew faster and sharper. The world compressed in one great wave, as if some unseen force thrust the air downward, downward, the pressure leaping in step with the blistering heat. Time was slowing rapidly, far more rapidly, than he had ever experienced. The raw power of his mind terrified him.
Behind him, incredibly, the farmhouse stood in a frozen state of collapse. Flames that had been rolling and raging only seconds before were but painted strokes describing the catastrophic event, with just an odd flicker here and there; what had been a deafening roar from the conflagration had become a blunt, elongated groan that held no worldly counterpart. The farmer plodded forward like a man in a slow-motion film, yet even at that there seemed to be missing frames; there was no fluidity to his movement, only jerkiness, as if his Time was marching to a different drum. Strong struggled to his feet like a cripple, and though nothing more than a slurring of unintelligible sound (it too seemed to skip), his cursing was no longer the reaction from his wound, but from the rabid sting in his eyes. For his part in this play, his cohort had dropped his weapon, the .38 falling comically slowly in those same jerky steps. Like Strong, he too, stood with hands to eyes, unable to tame the burning.
The Turn raged, and Kain rocked from the shock. Never had it surged with such force. Not in the dark days of Texas, nor the darker days of Newark, when his power had held court with gods. Another spike rippled through him, far more violent than the last, and he whipped into convulsions. The charge drained from him all at once, weakening him, sapping his will, but like a volcano erupting without warning, it stormed back with ever more vengeance. And when it did, this strange universe, this dark side of now, became a house of horror.
Brikker stood as a stone freak. Not immune to the magic, he too had raised a hand toward his face, yet even in this arrested state he seemed larger than life. The Teacher. The Torturer. That singular eye delivered its charge, still seeing, still calculating, and for an instant, Kain suffered the grip of that familiar terror snare his throat, the same that had always turned against him: even now he could feel the blades slicing into his skull. As for the good Doctor’s henchmen, the lieutenant stood stock still, frozen in time, while his sidekick, mouth gaping, held bulging eyes cast squarely on the handgun stilled just above the ground.
Al Hembruff—oh, God,
Al—stood staring, at him, just as his daughter had once stared. His jaw had fallen, a cry trying to rise from his throat. The man was a cold statue, adrift in the gulf between Then and Now, those normally calm and trusting eyes betraying the darkest terror: like the others, he knew.
Electricity swallowed them. It gripped and shocked their bodies. Another spike struck, and in a heartbeat, the Earth stood still; at least, it did in the here and now in this dreadful place, this place that both was, and was not. Not a sound, not a thought could be heard, for the storm raged about them in utter silence, as if in a dream. No life held claim here, not in this plane, and yet, in the next instant, Brikker’s haunting countenance screamed the naked truth: too late.
The mist emerged as a thin purplish fog, but quickly thickened to an impenetrable haze. Still on his knees, it formed about Kain’s legs, wrapping round as if protecting him. As if its sole existence held but one purpose, as if nothing could hope to breach it. In spite of their condition, the men could see it; of that he was certain. Strong’s partner looked positively insane, and perhaps he was.
The heat exploded. It surged far beyond his limit, beyond belief, and nothing alive was spared its wrath. Healthy grass sickened to an unsightly yellow-brown. Patches of dead grass ignited in small fires that simply froze at birth. Wildflowers, already wilted and dying, suffered a similar fate, and the oak, its arms once lush and green, held but dead brown leaves that erupted in flames that arrested in time. A black bird hovered just beyond the reach of the tree, its wings stilled in a failed escape; its wing tips glowed with the first bursts of fire. The stench in the air choked the men, and if that were not enough, the crushing pressure would surely kill them. Blood began to seep, almost imperceptibly in its flow, from the ears and the nose and the eyes. Their hair stiffened and faded to the color of ash. Their skin turned dark and brittle and cracked. Their fingernails split. Lynn was a ghoul.
As always, from nowhere, that alien white powder emerged. It fell as a gentle snowfall and quickly swelled to a thickness that choked. It coated Lynn like a blanket. It coated the grass; coated the roofs of the outbuildings; coated the men. The stuff burned and blinded, whirling in the maelstrom, untouched, untethered, by Time. That same slickness that had once oiled the strays now oiled them, yet this slime was thicker and darker, the fine talcum clinging to it. The idling engines of the flatbed and the Valiant stalled, and their lights went black; their hoods and their windows turned brilliant white. The Chevy wagon, much closer to the eye of the hurricane that was the drifter, sat buried, as if trapped in a snowstorm.
Where shadows should have been (or rather not, given the strangeness of the Turn) flittered dark traces of what once was. They appeared as wraithlike memories of the past, shifting in their own realm, their own time, like black ghosts looking back at one through a mirror. Then they were gone.
Kain faltered as the Turn ripped through him. The charge ebbed, the pain with it, but when another agonizing surge struck him, their world—their bubble—began to slip out of phase with the now. He felt his soul slip with it. He was coming undone, his very essence shifting to another plane of neither substance nor dream. And yet, God be damned, still he could see. Could see it all.
They did not melt. Like the bird, like the guesthouse, like the barn beyond, they burned from within. They bled from the nose and from the ears. Their blood boiled. What remained of their skin slid from their arms and their legs and their faces as a crimson slime, turning instantly from solid to slop. Their eyes ballooned and popped; flames shot up from the hollows. Their clothes and their flesh were consumed, and there they stood, charred bodies as monuments to the once-living, the air reeking of rank burnt meat and smoldering ruin. This gruesome transformation took but a moment, and he could only pray that Lynn and her father had felt nothing—and that he, their Torturer—would not remember them like this. But he would … and so would Lynn.
The current ravaged him. All strength, all will, fled. His body jerked and twisted, a rag doll in a dog’s mouth, and in his next breath, his next thought, they were gone: the world slipped away, the light slipping with it. Only the blackness, the nothingness, remained.
The void swallowed him. He sensed nothing; could feel nothing. After all of this, all their suffering and sacrifice, the Turn had forsaken him. He drifted in the darkness, alone, always alone, blind and deaf and unable to speak, swept by madness that threatened to consume him. He would perish, he knew, and hope would perish with him.
Where is it? For God’s sake, WHERE?
He drifted endlessly, arms reaching for the Wheel, his mind on the breach. This hellish chasm would have him, would take him and twist him and turn him to dust.
?
The voice was not his own; the thought from a phantom.
NO. This was a trick. The final betrayal from God Himself. He had lived the past, had suffered the now; had seen the future. He would not look.
And yet, temptation, desperation, took him.
The vision—surely it was nothing more than that, only the substance of madness—stood before him in the blackness, draped in nightgown and cap. Unshaven and unkempt, its eyes were sparkling jewels of mischief, just as they had been in that cavernous pickup so long ago. And he, still that little dreamer, felt his heart reach.
He knew now, after all these years. He was never really alone.
Without a word, the old man offered a seasoned hand, and as nimble as youth, spread the playing cards wide.
Kain drew one from the middle and turned it.
Nine of diamonds.
Slowly, he looked up; fell deeply into the old man’s eyes. They spoke not of lessons to be learned, not of warning, but of a passing, of understanding … and then the old wizard brought a hand to his temple. He tapped it, and then he smiled one last time.
Grampa—
But the vision faded. Slipped into the abyss.
The card glimmered in his hand, pulsing with energy. It tingled to a tease, fingers numbing, tips glowing. The charge swam down his digits, into his palm, up his arm and into his chest; it swarmed through him. He looked down at his hands. They were young and vibrant, flowing with strength, and when he looked up again, it was there, waiting for him, just as the old man had always told him. It seemed a frail thing, thin and fragile, as if a touch might tear it in two. And yet, it could move worlds.
His palm opened, and the card, now radiant, hovered in the void; his guiding light. He took the string in his hand, and a jolt of energy surged through him. It burned to the touch, yet he would not let go. It felt strangely thick, unwavering in strength, and when he began to draw it, hand over hand, toward him, it came alive, an instrument of power yielding to his will. Faster he pulled, faster his hands moved, faster and farther did Time turn. The charge swelled through his chest and into his brain, driving him to the depths of pain, and when he could take no more, when his hands let go the string and the blinding light came, a light more brilliant than a billion suns, the world—the world that was—began anew.
~ 1
Ben Caldwell turned up a lonely side road that took him past a small cemetery, a hilly deathbed filled with three generations of Stoneman’s, Hill’s, and Brayfield’s (Billy Kingston was buried there, too, that is to say, what the fish hadn’t eaten and the river hadn’t taken), and after driving a stone’s throw past the boneyard, he passed Clara Brayfield’s place. It was a shack if ever there was one, an ancient tomb, what with the tar-black roof caved on the right, the wide windows broken and boarded. The old bird herself had to be a hundred and ninety-eight, give or take, as old as the house for sure, maybe older. She was out on her veranda, rocking the evening away to her Gene Autry on her wood-grained Philco, her snoozing shepherds huddled round her like sheep. She looked like she was snoring up a thunderboomer the way her head was thrown back (her mouth was splayed wide, a good trap for gnats and mosquitoes), and most times, when he passed by at this hour, she was. It occurred to him (and not for the first time) that maybe she was dead, and of
course, there was only one way to know. He laid hard and long into the horn, scaring the bejesus out of her and her dogs (just the four now, but it was just as funny), and he had to laugh out loud as the barking beasties did what they always did when he honked on by, serving an honest chase before giving it up.
He rubbed his eyes again. The itchiness was driving him crazy. He drove for a spell, tapping to the radio. He drew a mouthful of cola and instantly spat it out the window. He regarded the bottle with mild interest. It was half full, still fairly cold, and while the soft drink had tasted perfectly refreshing when he had opened it, that last swig had tasted like shit. He sniffed the mouth of the bottle and grimaced. The stuff even smelled bad. Like swamp water. He ditched it.
Cruising at a solid sixty-five, he carried on for a mile or so when he suddenly hit the brakes. He skirted sideways, just enough to whirl up some dust, and managed to stay on the road before coming to a full stop. He idled there a minute, perhaps two, and then lumbered the quarter mile up to the stop sign at the intersection. His heart was racing almost as fast as his thoughts.
He killed the radio. One of his favorites from Del Shannon was playing, but that didn’t matter. Something had been preying on him, something odd, and he hadn’t been able to finger what it was. Until now.
It was dark. Countless stars dotted the sky.
But that couldn’t be.
He didn’t own a wristwatch, but when he’d left the house it wasn’t even nine-thirty; the sky had been blue and bright. He hadn’t been on the road more than twenty minutes. He would have sworn it was sundown just a moment ago.
Checking the mirror, he found his eyes a little bloodshot. Kinda glossy. He blinked hard a few times, but that didn’t help. In the reflection, he saw Old Clara’s place up on the hill. He felt cold and numb, a little disoriented (with a touch of a headache), and now that he thought about it, he’d felt like this since he’d handed her that horn-induced heart attack. Worse still, his arms and legs ached like a bugger. And—
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