by Sean Platt
The pills and alcohol had finally stopped working. Roman’s life now circled the abyss, inching closer to the bottomless pit by the day. Roman could feel the others, the rest of his unit — Renny, Otis, Will, and Norberg — out in the world, living their happy fucking lives and forgetting all about him.
Roman wondered why none had called him, not ever. If he felt them, they must have felt him, too. They must have known his pain, or at least had some idea. Did they still hold grudges, for shooting at the thing which had blessed their lives and cursed his? Did they feel guilty? Or worse, pity, for him?
Is that why they’re not calling back?
I should just do it. Screw goodbyes. Not like I owe them shit.
For some reason, Roman couldn’t do it, not without letting at least one of his old unit know why. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to explain himself simply to tell someone what he was feeling, or if he wanted the men to feel guilty, as if they were somehow responsible for what had happened to him.
When Roman used logic, rather than the years of bitterness, to think things through, he knew it wasn’t their fault that Jenny left him. It wasn’t their fault that he couldn’t hold a job. It wasn’t their fault that his only friend in the world now was the old man behind the counter at the liquor store, a guy named Joe. Fuck if Roman knew his last name.
No, it was that something’s fault. Whatever it was they found. Or whatever it was that found them.
It had changed everything, without rhyme or reason, or the slightest of cares. It had taken what was once a minor, manageable, depression and turned it into something destructive enough for Roman to burn through nine shrinks and God-knew-how-many antidepressants trying to just make it through the day.
The other guys grew stronger, leaner, smarter. They even had a bit of extrasensory perception, allowing them to see things every so often. Like Will always could, even before. The men saw nothing so grand as winning lottery numbers, but the something had somehow peppered their lives into something better. Yet, whatever they found in the cave hadn’t improved Roman; it ruined him instead. He also sometimes saw glimpses of the future, but only the bad stuff, the worst stuff. Stuff no one should see: murders, rapes, bombings, and the rest of the horrors that haunted the blackness behind his drawn lids.
His visions might have served as a gift to mankind, if Roman were able to identify, find, and stop such atrocities from happening before they did. But alas, the visions were a curse, because he was never given a clear enough picture to stop anything.
Roman was always too late, and the visions constantly grew worse.
He had to tell someone else from his unit, to let them know that he did try to live with it, and had tried to help. He just wasn’t strong enough.
Roman had called all the men except one. Will Bishop was left.
He took a swig of Jack, then set the bottle on the nightstand beside the dim, lighthouse lamp, which cast the room in the shade’s amber glow.
He dialed the number from memory, even though he’d not called Will in a long time, if ever.
The phone rang five times.
No answering machine.
Fuck it. I can’t wait any longer.
Roman decided to hang up and silence his life, before he again chickened out and woke for another miserable day in the morning.
As he went to hang up the phone, he heard a voice on the other end.
“Hello?” Will said, his voice a million miles off, and yet somehow right there.
Tears streamed Roman’s cheeks at the sound of his old friend.
“Will?” he said, barely able to bury emotion as it splintered out from his broken voice.
“Roman?”
“Yeah, buddy, long time no see,” Roman said, trying to work his way from casual to, “I’m going to kill myself and this is why.” He opened with small talk, asking how Will was, what he was up to. Seems Will had finally found someone, which was good. Even though Roman wasn’t keen on queers, he liked Will, and figured he had no reason to give a shit what two people did under their own comforter.
Roman listened to Will for a while, trying to find the right opening to bring up what he was meaning to do. But Will wouldn’t shut up. He kept rambling. First about his boyfriend, then about the book store they owned, and then on and on about current events. It was almost as if Will wanted to talk about anything but Roman.
What the hell, bro?
Roman tried to interrupt, to bring the subject around to the bad times he’d been having, and his ultimate decision.
Will stopped him. “I know what you’re thinking of doing.”
“What?” Roman said, surprised, even though he probably shouldn’t have been. If any of them could see into his thoughts, it would be Will, who had psychic abilities before they found the thing in Alaska.
“Listen, Roman, I don’t know what to say that will make things better. I can feel your pain. I was about to call you, in fact, I felt your pain so intensely that I knew I had to call, but then you called me. You can’t do it, man. You can’t kill yourself.”
Roman tried to respond, but instead cried a pathetic-sounding mewl. He felt like a pussy, shaking his head and wanting to say sorry for crying. He couldn’t make words, though.
“It’s OK,” Will said, his voice soft, comforting, reassuring, like a father, even though they were close in age. “But you’re going to feel better. Trust me.”
“What do you mean?” Roman asked, “Did you see something in my future?”
Will paused, maybe considering his next words carefully in case Roman could smell a line of bullshit delivered. “I didn’t see anything, specifically,” he said. “But I feel it. I feel things will change for you. Soon.”
“I wish I could believe you,” Roman said, squeezing his hand around the gun, bringing it up to his temple.
I should do it right now — let him hear me shoot my brains out. Let him live with that! See how happy his life is after that!
Instead, Roman asked something he didn’t know was inside him, though it bubbled to the surface so fast it had to be there all along.
“Do you ever think about going back?”
“Back where?” Will asked, though Roman figured he was playing dumb.
“To Alaska, to find that thing.”
“No,” Will said. “I think it was good that we couldn’t find it again, and that we didn’t report it.”
“Why?”
“I think you know why. We saw something bad inside it, both of us, buddy, something we couldn’t tell anyone about. Hell, you did shoot at it, and it knocked us clear the hell outta that cave, right?”
Roman laughed, forgetting how good it felt to have lightness inside, even if only for the length of a cough.
Will laughed, too. “Shit, you were crazy as hell back then, man. Remember that time you banged that lieutenant’s wife, then sent him the Polaroids just to rub it in his face? You were an Everest of balls.”
Roman kept laughing, suddenly feeling stupid for holding the gun.
Will said, “It feels good talking to you, buddy.”
“You too, Will.”
They talked into the wee hours, until laughs turned to yawns and Roman’s bottle was empty. He finally let Will go, and after he hung up, stared at the phone, and his gun, which had found its way to the nightstand.
Roman decided not to kill himself.
He had a better plan. He wasn’t sure how he could do it, and it would likely take a while, but Roman knew with a sudden and unflappable certainty: He had to go back to Alaska.
He had to find the something that had ruined his life.
TO BE CONTINUED…
::Episode 21::
(THIRD EPISODE OF SEASON FOUR)
“Victims”
Prologue
Marina Harmon
October 19, 2011
The J.L. Harmon estate
Marina stared at the doorknob to her father’s bedroom, trying to summon enough energy to reach out, grab it, and twist.
Just go inside, shut off the camera and end this nonsense!
He died on Oct. 15, just as he’d predicted years before. A video camera had been stationed in his room the past four days, recording and broadcasting live on the web, where his followers and naysayers alike waited to see if his prophecy would come true.
Marina’s father had sworn he would rise again, two days after his death, with a message from the Great All Seeing. While he may have predicted his death years in advance, which she had to admit was an eerie coincidence, Marina did not think he was some prophet who would rise from the dead. He was only a man, who had manufactured a religion that had fooled too many people … Marina included.
And now she was left with his billion-dollar empire, in charge of leading a religion for which she had no faith. It was as if her father, who knew of her doubts, had claimed the last laugh — he’d saddle her with his legacy, forcing her to fake her way through the rest of her life. He probably figured that even if she didn’t give a damn about his legacy, she was too smart to walk away from millions of people willing to hand over their money, tax-free, and in perpetuity.
As she stood at the door, trying to summon the courage to enter his room and kill the charade once and for all, her rage began to boil.
I don’t need his money. I ought to go in there and turn to the camera and scream the truth. “My father fooled you all. You’ve been duped. All of you. Victims of fraud.”
She could take his estate and set up a fund, pay off anyone who wanted their money back, until his well went dry. Marina didn’t care, she just wanted to finally be finished — done being the daughter of J.L. Harmon. She didn’t want to live her life in the spotlight — her every move, her every romance, her every failure serving as fodder for the press and critics of the Church.
He’s gone, and now I’m finally free.
She reached out for the doorknob when Dr. Phillips suddenly appeared at the end of the hall.
“Marina,” he said, “what are you doing?”
“I’m going to check on Dad. See if he’s back yet.”
“We have monitors on him,” said her father’s longtime personal doctor, “And staff downstairs monitoring 24/7.”
He stared at her like a vulture afraid his prized, golden goose was getting eyed by an eagle. The old man wore dark circles that only made his brown eyes look beadier, and hungrier. She couldn’t wait to close the Church, fire the “good doc” and every one of the sycophants who had leeched off her father for years.
Marina knew she’d be vilified for her plans after her father was finally declared dead, once and for all. The worst part was that nobody would ever recognize her actions as kind, they would see her as a bitter daughter, never understanding the countless sacrifices she had made when returning to California, helping her father when he first fell sick five years ago. Marina could have done anything with her life. She had dreams of using her years of school to manage an ad firm, but shelved those dreams to help her father further his own.
But nobody would ever know.
Hell, he didn’t even realize my sacrifices.
Marina met the doctor’s eyes. “I can’t go in and see my own father?”
He stammered, not used to anybody, let alone Marina, turning his questions back on him. She waited, watching him stew in between the desire to snap at her and the caution … just in case her father did return. Father would not take kindly to reports of Dr. Phillips being abusive to his daughter.
She wondered if he truly believed her dad was coming back. Sure, the others on his payroll probably did, but Dr. Phillips was a man of science, instrumental in many of Father’s scientific and technological breakthroughs with The Current, but not one given to talk of miracles and prophecies.
“Yes, you may see your father,” he said, as if granting permission. Marina didn’t bother to remind him that she didn’t need it.
No, there’ll be a time to get forceful, and probably in five minutes or so. But right now, I need to get through this as argument free as I can.
She turned from the doctor, and her hand finally found the doorknob. She turned it, then stepped inside. The doctor tried to follow, but Marina stopped in the doorway, blocking his entrance, met his eyes, and said, “Yes?”
He looked back and forth nervously, realizing he’d overstepped his bounds.
Marina waited for him to leave.
With the doctor gone, she entered her father’s bedroom, closed the door, and softly turned the lock to keep the man from her intentions.
Father’s bedroom seemed about as cold as it could get without refrigeration. The room was all white — a pristine ode to cleanliness, order, and minimalism, and took the entire third floor. The room had no furniture, except for the California King and the large chair beside it.
A sprawling window ran along the western wall, opening to the sea, a cliff below.
Marina glanced at the tripod-mounted camera to her left as she entered his room, wanting to turn off the video feed and cut prying eyes from her father’s deathbed. But first, Marina wanted to spend a few minutes at his side, before his minions stormed the room and tried yanking her away. Once she set the wheels in motion there was no going back from her plan. They’d probably call the police, not that she thought she’d be breaking any actual laws by killing a broadcast and giving her father’s death a shred of dignity; if it wasn’t too late. But who knew what her father’s men were capable of?
She sat in the chair to his right, grateful that her back was to the camera. She didn’t want the vultures seeing her tears as she looked at her father. Other than his skin’s ashen appearance, he looked sleeping more than dead. She reached out and touched his hand as it rested at his side, above the white comforter.
His skin was icy to the touch, another indication giving truth to the lie that he was only sleeping.
As Marina stared at his face, she felt her anger dissipate, replaced with regret — regret for things she’d never have the chance to tell him. Not just the things she was angry about regarding the Church, but also kind things: thanking him for being a loving father despite his busy schedule; thanking him for rising to the job when her mother died on her 5th birthday; and thanking him for not forcing his beliefs upon her and letting her choose her faith, even if he did pull on her guilt strings to get her to help him at the end. There were so many horror stories of powerful fathers who abused their children through either actions or neglect; her father may have been a confused man, blinded by warped beliefs, but he was also a loving dad who allowed Marina to fumble and find her way.
He’d been better in recent months, thanks to the machine, which had cured the illness that left him perpetually tired. She never thought he would actually die on Oct. 15. Had she truly believed the prophecy, Marina would’ve said all the things she’d meant to — would never have held back. Even now, as he lay dead, she didn’t believe the prophecy. If anything, Marina figured one of two things happened — either faith that he would die killed him, a self-fulfilling prophecy, or he killed himself to turn prophecy true. Perhaps the “good doctor” had even helped, a matter that Marina would be looking into soon enough.
Either way, her father was gone, and he would never hear the words she longed to say.
Marina squeezed his hand and whispered so the cameras wouldn’t hear her, “Thank you, Daddy.”
His fingers tightened around hers.
Marina jumped up from the chair, startled, staring down at her father’s inert fingers. She looked at his hand, motionless on the bed, thinking for sure she must have imagined his grip tightening around her fingers. She told herself that it had to be some sort of muscle spasm. She wasn’t sure how long people still moved after they passed away, but four days seemed unlikely.
As Marina stared at her father, leaning closer, searching for any sign of movement at all, she felt suddenly foolish, like everyone watching the feed’s live stream was seeing her and laughing. She imagined the Internet haters making mash-ups of her j
umping back, inserting all sorts of stupid stuff into the video to make her, and her family, look even crazier than their public image already suggested.
She turned to the camera, and locked her gaze, deciding once and for all that she’d had enough. It was time to pull the plug.
Marina walked toward the camera and leaned in, looking for the button to stop the recording. Then she heard a voice behind her: her father.
“Marina?” he said, his voice raspy, dry.
No, it can’t be.
She turned, slowly, certain she was imagining her father’s voice as sure as she’d imagined him squeezing her hand.
But she wasn’t.
His eyes were open, and he was staring right at Marina, repeating her name.
“Daddy?” she asked, voice quivering as her heart found new ways to hammer.
Sixteen
Dan Konig
Chicago, Illinois
September 2013
Dan eyed the clock at the front of the Shoe Emporium thinking that it wasn’t possible for time to move slower. He had two hours left on his shift, then life would change forever.
Tonight, Steph would have a C-Section, and their daughter would be brought into the world. Steph had wanted to have their baby the “old-fashioned way” — though not so traditional that she went without medicine — but the doctor convinced her that the C-section was the way to go because of prior complications. This was their third attempt to have a child, and the furthest Steph had made it — eight months and two weeks.
His stomach churned in anticipation and dread.
They were hours from change that would last forever. He tried telling himself he was ready, though he had no idea how true that was.
