by Landon Wark
"Bill, why don't you go over to the church. See Newman."
He looked up at her with darkened, impatient eyes. "Went there. Newman sent me over to that kid preacher of his."
"And?"
"And now the kid's up there with my wife."
Vern frowned.
"You're going back up there," Bill said, matter-of-factly. He looked like a kid who had gotten just what he asked for for Christmas and realized it wasn't really what he wanted. "Tell her. Okay? If you see her, will you tell her? Tell her I said I was sorry."
"You can tell her yourself, Bill," Vern said. The anticipated close of the conversation was welcome, but at the same time it was terribly sad at the same time.
"I can't," Bill said, his legs looking weak, jelly-like. "I-I-I can't. Not... Not strong enough."
Vern watched as Bill almost staggered into the wall of one of the buildings on the street, two pedestrians only barely managed to dodge around him. They glared at the two deputies with accusation and if there weren't other things that took priority Vern would have hauled him down to the drunk tank. He wasn't drunk, of that she was certain, but there was some damn thing wrong with him. Some real damn thing wrong.
As she and Terry swung themselves into the cruiser Vern gestured for the radio. Terry frowned and refused, but a slap once across the chest was all it took to get him to surrender. He rubbed the mouthpiece on his shirt and then handed it over to him.
"Dispatch, this is A-four. Can you put me through to A-one?"
There were some electronics noises over the radio. Why they were still using this old fashioned centralized dispatch crossed Vern's mind once, with the answer coming instantly. It was the same reason they went up to that cabin in the woods the first time.
"What is it?" the voice of Sheriff Timmons was garbled by whatever late afternoon snack he was currently into.
"We're ready to go here," Vern answered. "Just... This tip didn't come from Bill Wilson, did it?"
There was the smacking of lips. "No. After the last time you think I'd give that crazy sumbitch the time of day?"
Vern clicked her tongue. There was some damn thing going on here. She didn't know what exactly, but it was some damn thing. Alarm bells were going off in her head. Losing his goddamn son had put Bill into a depression, but losing his wife to whatever was going on in the woods had fucking broken him. What the hell was it?
Asking the follow up question meant that Vern's mind had to go back over a memory, not one that she particularly relished going over. The marshals... Well, more the men who were with the marshals when they had come into the department. Vern shuddered at the thought.
"The marshals say where it did come from?"
There was silence on the other edge filled with barely audible static.
"They want to know why you're asking."
"Fuck," Vern muttered. The thought of them sitting there with the Sheriff sharing an afternoon coffee rattled her.
"What the hell are you trying to pull?" Terry asked from the distant driver's seat.
She put up a hand to silence him.
"This kid," she continued. "McAlpine or whatever, they say what we're going after him for? I got grandkids, boss. I'd like to know if this is going to be another Q siege."
"Just do your job, Vern."
"Boss."
This time the silence on the other side lasted twice as long, and by the time Vern was ready to put the radio down and resign herself to going up there blind the radio came to life.
"Domestic terrorism." Timmons' voice was chillingly flat. And when the next words came up Vern thought Christ, we sent only two guys up there last time. "Motherfucker blew up a hotel way up North."
Jonah McAllister Goes to Town
Sandy Jenkins was not feeling quite like herself.
It was not really a bad feeling... or maybe it was the harbinger of something that had gone horribly wrong with the experiment. She hadn't spontaneously combusted or morphed into some kind of monster, but they had mucked around in her DNA. They had mucked around with the contents of her cells as Jonah had explained it to her. She had survived the procedure and so there was little risk afterwards. Her near apoplexy at that little nugget being dropped had been shoved aside by Jonah's promise that the process in the mice was nearly identical to what it should be in humans. It had taken the sharpest edge off of her anxiety, but she still got up to check her complexion in the mirror every half hour. She had noticed the dark rings around her eyes starting to clear and if she squinted hard enough she thought she could see some of the cellulite wrinkles in her cheeks starting to fill in.
And she felt good about it.
She felt energized. Maybe it was the experiment, maybe it was the knowledge that the next step was just on the horizon, but the dizziness and the headaches that had been with her only a couple of days prior were starting to drain away. The tingling in her fingers that came and went had gone and not returned. Maybe there was freedom after all. Maybe anything was possible. She felt good. She felt... reborn.
It was the way the rebirth of Phyrn, Phoenix of the West had been described...
She put the thought away. There was no need for make believe any more. No need to see the world through the prism of another person's descriptions of people and places that had never existed. There was going to be work to do. And she felt strong enough to do it.
Feel like I could take on the entire world, she thought as she pulled the clothes the others had brought to her out of the plastic shopping bag.
The shirt was one of the baggier ones that she preferred, one that would hide exactly how many rolls her stomach had, and it fit well, but they had made a mistake with the pants, they were a little too large.
Why in the hell didn't we buy a better car?
The question lingered for a moment at the old Buick rattled to a stop in the parking space that arguably was two sizes too small. Jonah mulled the matter over in his head for a few moments, coming to the conclusion that either Sandy had some sort of sentimental attachment to it, or she had never considered coming into town often enough to make the purchase of one worthwhile. He imagined her saying to herself that each time in would be the last and then sighing and climbing into the vehicle anyway.
He put the gear shift into park. And rolled his head back onto the seat. It had been a long time since he had driven and he had been terrified of being pulled over and submitted to some sort of identity check. So he had crept along the highway at a fraction of the speed limit.
He congratulated himself on being a decent friend and delegating preparations to the others, but he had an ulterior motive in returning to the hospital. The last time he had been there he had entered through a side door, narrowly but consciously avoiding some of the lacklustre surveillance equipment lining the hallways. This time, in addition to being a good friend, he meant to charge right at security and surveillance devices that hadn't been upgraded in a decade. His countermeasures would likely work regardless of the system’s quality, but better to have ideal conditions for a field test.
Giving the sharp tug necessary to pop open the driver's door he warily set a foot out into the parking lot, immediately certain that everyone was looking at him.
The incident back home at the dingy motel with the two dingy cops seemed like forever ago, and he had hidden himself well, but there were undoubtedly still alerts being issued. If they were going to move on to the next step he was going to need counter measures. He drummed his fingers on the car door and pulled himself into the cool breeze outside, already whispering.
The visible world shifted above Jonah as he began the short walk from the rusted car to the hospital door. Nearly two dimensional the plane should be more than enough to scatter the light from anything below it. Making them invisible to any camera overhead, but going unnoticed by the people around, unless anyone decided to look up. Then they would see a tinge to the air above.
Automatic doors slid open and he walked inside cautiously, staking out a chair
on the periphery of the entrance. Not seeing Sandy waiting he wondered if maybe he should have asked for her at the desk. The camera above the transparent plastic window leered at him as he moved around the small lobby. He thought back to the first time he had brought Sandy here with her terminal case of orange thumb and chuckled a little. Despite the length of time only having been a couple of months it had seemed like a lifetime ago.
He doubted any of the staff recognized him as he sat down and slumped against the back of the chair. They seemed a little busy to take any sort of notice of the shimmer that existed just above him. A small child wandering around the play area with its wires and beads and assorted budget toy cars, stared over at him, clearly wondering at the shining air above him, but the couple that watched over her remained glued to their phones.
He was in the process of wondering if it would be necessary to recharge the field and how durable he would be able to make it when Sandy Jenkins appeared around the corner of the hallway.
Her spirits seemed high as he stood in greeting, noticing the lightning circles around her eyes and the deepening hue in her cheeks as a nurse awkwardly wheeled her large body into the entrance in a wheelchair.
"Hooray for liability laws," she said upon seeing Jonah's arched eyebrow.
The little girl in the play area was staring at them, her attention drawn away from the glimmering air to the wheelchair. Jonah's protege/science experiment smiled at her and then her face went slack as the child ran behind her father's leg. The skin around her eyebrows tightened slightly and the corner of her mouth turned down.
As her designated pusher abandoned her to pursue some paperwork with the clerk sitting behind some dingy germ shielding, Sandy's fingers curled tightly around the armrests of the wheelchair.
"Something wrong?" he asked, his attention still mostly focused on the translucence above him.
"I-is there something wrong with my face?"
"Can't you just look in the mirror?"
"It's not like there's one around here. Just... Everything went okay right? I'm not going to grow—like—whiskers, am I?"
"I..." Jonah swallowed, his sparse experience in reassuring women about their appearances severely lacking. He thought back to more than a dozen television shows half absorbed while reading in his parents' living room. "You look... nice." Was all he could manage.
"Ma'am," the clerk interrupted. "You still have some out of pocket expenses that need to be taken care of."
"I—yeah. Everything came back okay, right?"
"All of your tests look good," the nurse explained with the best assuaging voice that her long shift would allow. "Bad cholesterol is down. Good is up. You have to stick with the diets."
"Okay. Okay. Jonah?"
His brow furrowed. "I... I don't think that—"
"Could you be a little more certain? I'm kinda freaking out." Her right hand released the steering wheel and began clutching at his hand on the seat.
"I don't see how me saying..." he trailed off as a well of moisture became visible around the corner of her eye. "It's going to be fine," he said, unconcerned about the truth of what he was saying.
"Okay. Okay." She exhaled.
Jonah stepped a few paces down the hospital hallway, his shoes squeaking against the ancient, but recently polished linoleum. When he was out of grasping range he turned to look up at the old surveillance cameras through the veil of the glimmer above him. He took note of the grayish tinge the field above him gave to the air. With a little practice he might be able to make it one way, completely invisible.
He was about to reach out to help with the card terminal when he paused. Given the right set of circumstances he might even be able to scatter light around an object. For all intents and purposes he might be able to make something entirely invisible to anyone outside the field. And if he could make the field one way...
At once the small notebook he kept in his right pocket was in his hand, the pen sliding out of the left. He began to jot.
He managed to pull out of the physical world and into his head in time to miss the figure out in the hospital parking lot dart from one car to another, taking a moment to glance through the window at him.
He looked back to where Sandy was trying to reach up to the edge of the counter, fumbling for the credit card and frowned.
Stay focused. Be a good friend.
"It says 'declined'," the clerk said.
"Let me try it again." Sandy's voice was enough to make him look up.
"Something wrong?" he asked from the corner.
"No. Just... The credit card isn't working."
"Oh? It's in your name."
She glared at him. "Yeah, and I paid the hell out of it."
A flickering of motion caught Jonah's attention and he turned back towards the window in time to see a figure running from behind one car to another, his back hunched so as to keep low. At first he thought it might be a child playing some sort of game out in the hot evening sun, but the appearance of a tie and jacket gave away the figure of an adult merely acting out what a child might be doing.
He placed his notebook back into his pocket and watched as the man disappeared behind a van closer to the main entrance, his face peeking out from behind the vehicle for long enough to get a glimpse of the large Buick in the parking lot. Jonah started backing towards the counter.
"I'm going to have to call the card company," the clerk started stammering.
"This one's new. Just... use the tap."
"We need to go," Jonah said.
"That one's declined too. And I still have to call the credit card company."
"Let's go!"
Jonah grasped the handle of the wheelchair and nearly tore his arm off trying to move Sandy. The chair rocked once before swivelling behind him as he dragged it behind him. Sandy shouted as the chair rattled and bucked.
"Stop!"
Jonah grit his teeth and waited for her to climb out of the chair. His eyes darted over the parking lot, trying to single out the shape he had seen. An acidic taste came to him along with a ratcheting up of the worry that had been low key around the surveillance cameras.
"You still have to pay!" the clerk shouted after them.
"What the hell are—" Sandy's words were stifled when Jonah continued pulling on her arm, her bulk preventing him from pulling her very far, but staggering along after him out of the door anyway. "What's happening?" she demanded.
As they stepped quickly towards the car the figure broke from the side of the van and clomped heavily towards them. Jonah skitted and nearly fell to the sidewalk, pulling Sandy with him. The man pointed a long, accusing finger from within his yellowing sleeve. His wild, malicious eyes glared over a quivering lip and bared teeth set in skin that was decorated with painted Christian crosses of various sizes. The smell of body odour and ground in despair nearly overcame Jonah as he shifted his weight to prevent falling completely.
"They're gonna come for you!" he shouted. "They're gonna come, you fucking witches!"
"Bill?" Aegera shouted incredulously. "Bill Wilson?"
"Fat fucking witch!?" he shouted.
The man's body looked ready to beat them both senseless, his hands clenching tightly, but his eyes suddenly shifted from murderous to terrified as he advanced a step. His face blurred and his face took on a discoloured tinge. Rattled, he took a step backward.
Jonah frowned as the field above them lost integrity, plunging the world around them into a blurry discoloured snow globe. His first instinct was to retrieve his notebook from his pocket and record the result, but now it was Sandy who was pulling him towards the car as a couple of people paused on the opposite side of the parking lot.
"Witches!" Bill screamed, his finger waving at the discolouration that was now melting into the street. Now the clerk from inside the hospital was approaching the door, her face slack as she looked at the blurring street.
The two of them pulled away from the scene the man was making and yanked open the creaking car d
oors and slid inside. The blur of the air followed them inside and became so oppressive that the people outside became little more than smudges of light outside of the windows.
"Get us out of here," Jonah said. "Something's happening."
"I can't see shit!" Sandy shouted as the distinct imprint of an index finger pressed up against the window along with the accompanying shouts.
As the field continued its dissipation more fine details became clear outside as the engine of the car fired. A group of nearly half a dozen people had gathered along the sidewalks. Stopped by Bill Wilson's scene in the street they were now all enthralled by the glimmer that was bleeding out of the car and into the world around. Jonah wracked his brain to think of a way to speed up the dissolution, but with all that was going on around him he came up with little.
There was a loud cracking thud against the driver's side window and Sandy screamed as a long split appeared along the glass. The outline of a loose hunk of concrete was visible for a moment and then it was drawn back.
"Fuck it!" Sandy shouted and the car lurched backward into the blur of colour that was a truck, stopped in the middle of the street by the commotion. Bill's rock pounded impotently against the hood and with the shearing sound of metal the car began the slow acceleration that it was built for. Prepared for another swing Bill instead sidestepped the arc of the side mirror and lost the leverage to do much more than to strike a glancing blow that left little more than a chip in the yellowish, blurry glass.
By the time he recovered the car was out of his arm's reach. The rock sailed through the air, landing with a thud on the trunk and skittered off the tail light.
The blurs clarified into actual people jumping out of the way along the sidewalk as the Buick's hubcaps scraped the edge of the concrete before the forward momentum carried it into the street.
"They're gonna want us for a hit and run," Sandy moaned as she glanced through the rear windshield at (what was assumed to be) the owner of the truck shouting after them before turning his wrath on Bill.
The tension in the car from the incident dispersed along with the last of the blurring filed as they rambled down the street, now far out of range of any projectiles and still three or four blocks from a stoplight in the distance.
