by Sean Platt
When they first started trying, five years earlier, Dan had a better job, drawing decent scratch at a construction firm. But two years back, the housing market took another dive, and Dan was suddenly unemployed, having to take whatever job he could get — an assistant manager gig at Shoe Emporium for $11.40 an hour. Not exactly the stable foundation to start a family. But when Steph got pregnant, accidentally even though she was on the pill, what could he do? He wasn’t about to tell her to abort their child.
They’d figure a way.
Just like they’d always done before. Just like his own dad had done.
Two months ago, when Dan finally realized that Steph had an excellent chance of going full term, he admitted to his father that he was scared shitless.
“I’m not making nearly enough, insurance will kill us, and I don’t know what we’re gonna do. I’m not ready.”
His father, not usually one for warmth or reflection, surprised him with advice. “If we all waited until we were ‘ready,’ nobody’d ever have kids. That fear will make you a good father. You’re worried, and that means you care; you’ll do whatever you need to.”
Tears welled in his eyes as Dan thought back on their exchange.
“Jesus, Dan, you turning pussy on me,” Gary said, returning from lunch.
“Just thinking about tonight.”
“Yeah, I’d be crying, too, man,” Gary joked. “Your life is over! That’s why I’m never gonna knock any of my chicks up.”
“No, you’re never gonna knock any chicks up because you can’t get laid,” Dan said, laughing.
Gary looked around, “Damn, it’s dead in here. What’s up with that?”
“I dunno,” Dan said. They made commission on shoes sold, down time was never good for employees. “I let Brianna go home early. So it’s you and me until Jeff comes in at 5.”
“Fucking Jeff,” Gary said. “You should hear what he did last night. He was closing and … ”
A woman entered the store, pushing a stroller. Dan made the sign to “cut the bad language, there’s a customer in the store.”
Gary went into the back to clock in.
Dan smiled at the young mother, a cute brunette who looked a bit like Steph. She was pushing a little girl, around 2. “Hi, can I help you?”
“Hi, do you have girl toddler sneakers, preferably in Velcro? Maybe with Dora or something cute?”
The little girl looked up to Dan, big, blue eyes, and an adorable smile. Looking at her, and how cute she was, made him that much happier about his approaching fatherhood.
The little girl said, “Dora?”
“No, I’m sorry, we don’t have Dora,” he said, not wanting to break her heart. “But we do have some Disney Princess shoes.”
Dan looked at the mom and said, “Let me show you,” as he walked around the counter and headed towards the right wall of the store.
Suddenly, an impossible sound thundered over the horrible dance music the store played on a loop — gunshots.
For a moment, Dan thought he must’ve imagined the sound, or that maybe it was something else, like a car backfiring or maybe someone messing with the mall’s public address system.
Then a second sound ripped that notion away: many, many screams.
Dan looked out the glass storefront, across the way to the food court at hundreds of people running in every direction.
He saw the shooter: a man dressed like a cop.
“Oh, my God!” the mom said, eyes wide and darting back and forth, searching for somewhere to run.
Gary came running from the back of the store, saying, “What the fuck?”
His cursing mattered not at all.
Dan’s heartbeat sped up as he grabbed his cell and called 911.
The dispatcher came on, asking for his emergency.
“I’m at Middletown Mall, and there’s a man shooting people!”
The dispatcher asked for details as shoppers raced toward the shoe store.
“Shit, he’s coming!” Dan said, putting the phone in his pocket as he saw the man walking through the mall like he was strolling the park, raising his rifle, and shooting in semi-automatic bursts as if playing Grand Theft Auto.
Don’t come here, don’t come here.
Dan watched in horror as a group of young women raced toward the store as if Dan was handing out bulletproof jackets. The gunman slaughtered all three, killing them yards from the entrance.
The little girl in the stroller screamed, as the mom yanked her from the seat and ran toward the stock room.
“Yeah, come back here,” Gary said, ushering the woman back as if it was his idea to give her and her child sanctuary.
Dan was frozen in place, watching, unable to believe what he was seeing. The gunman was looking around as if searching for his next target. Dan stayed there, half hidden behind a display of sports jackets, not daring to move and attract the man’s attention.
If I stay here, maybe I’ll blend in, and he’ll look for someone else.
The gunman looked straight at the shoe store’s window, not even 90 yards away, staring straight at Dan.
Shit, shit, shit.
More gunshots — a cop on the other end of the food court, taking shots at the attacker.
The gunman turned around to fire at the cop, Dan seized the moment to race into the back of the store.
Dan entered the storage room, slammed the door behind him, and locked it.
He called out, “Gary?”
“Back here!” Gary said from somewhere in the back of the stock room.
Dan couldn’t see him beyond the 20 rows of tall shelving. He was about to call out and ask where they were when gunshots ripped through the door behind him.
The girl and mother screamed. Dan spun on his foot, nearly slipped, then raced along the aisles, ducking into one just as the door burst open.
Dan froze in his spot, near the front of the aisle where he would be easily spotted if the gunman turned right and started walking.
Shit.
Dan’s heart was racing, so loud he was certain it must’ve been echoing throughout the otherwise quiet stock room.
The room was dimly lit, but offered few hiding spots and no back door. The only way they could avoid the gunman was to stay hidden on the other side of the shelving long enough to sneak back to the front of the store, or until the gunman gave up looking for them.
In other words, shit was not looking good.
Dan heard the man’s footsteps, boots, coming towards him.
Fuck!
Dan considered running to the end of the aisle, where he could turn down another one, or hide at the end and stay out of the gunman’s line of sight. The end of the aisle was 40 feet off, and may as well have been a mile. If Dan ran, he would surrender his location.
So, he stayed still as the man continued toward him.
Turn down another aisle. Turn down another aisle.
The man kept coming.
He fired his gun, six quick shots.
In the back of the room, the little girl screamed. It was muffled, probably under the mother’s hand, but loud enough to broadcast location.
The gunman turned down the aisle beside Dan’s and started running toward the back of the store.
Dan froze, not sure what to do. He could probably make it back out into the front of the store and get away. But at the same time, he couldn’t just leave Gary and the mother and little girl back there to die.
But what the hell can I do? I don’t have a gun!
Dan heard running up one of the other aisles, and the little girl screaming. They may as well have painted a target on their backs.
Dan heard the gunman turn and start back up the aisle, looking to head them off.
He had to do something.
He looked at his hands, then at the tall shelf in front of him and ran at it, hands out, hoping he could send it toppling onto the gunman.
Dan heard the mom and girl run from the stock room, and smiled. He saved them. He coul
dn’t believe it.
The shelving had tumbled, taking the next two rows with it. Dan heard the man scream as he was buried under shelving. He wasn’t sure where Gary was, but Dan didn’t care quite as much about his safety as the woman and her child. Gary could handle himself.
He ran, eager to join the woman and her kid, and run as far as they could from the chaos until more cops showed.
Dan reached the doorway and felt an explosion of pain in his back as the gunman fired several rounds into his flesh.
Dan went down in an instant, face down, unable to turn and see the gunman shaking the shelving loose and stepping toward him.
Dan heard the boots approaching, and begged God to spare him so he could see his little girl born.
Please, God, don’t …
God didn’t answer his prayer, though.
The gunman then did his best to make sure Dan could complain to God personally, and shot him dead.
Seventeen
Mary Olson
Mary lowered her foot on the Volvo’s gas pedal, increasing her speed to exactly as fast as she dared without getting stopped. The trip should have taken 15 hours, but she was hoping to make it in fewer.
Mary was exhausted. They would’ve booked a flight, but she would’ve been hard pressed to pass Paola off as a child when she looked to be in her mid-20s. No way she could’ve gotten on a flight without ID. So, they drove through the night and into the next day, eager to hit California and get help from the one person who might be able to help them — Boricio.
Paola slept in the passenger seat, looking so little like her 13-year-old daughter that Mary couldn’t stop crying. Her little girl was gone. In fact, Paola was wearing Mary’s favorite blue dress and black shoes. Mary didn’t expect to be sharing clothes with her daughter for at least another three years.
But just like that, her little girl was gone, and Paola’s childhood was snuffed to nothing.
At first, Mary didn’t know what to do after Paola had come home and told her what happened at the hospital. It wasn’t as if she could call the doctor and say, “Hey, my daughter just aged 10 or more years after magically healing some kid.”
While Mary wasn’t a cynical person, usually, she was just suspicious enough of the government not to go waving a red flag and alert them to supernatural changes in her daughter. She could picture Paola spending years in a lab, probably on this world’s version of Black Island.
No way in hell Mary was going to let that happen.
She had cried for most of the night after Paola fell asleep, scared and praying her daughter wouldn’t age another day in fewer than 24 hours. Mary told her to sleep in bed beside her, so she could keep an eye on her, not that Mary had any clue what in the hell she would do if the poor thing started aging in front of her. It wasn’t like she would be able to wake her and stop it.
But it was far better than the alternative — going to sleep and risking the possibility that Mary would wake in the morning to see a woman her age, or older, laying beside her. If that happened, Mary would lose her mind. She was barely able to maintain her scant sanity as it was, trying her best to act like everything was OK ever since their return from the other (dead) world, if only for Paola’s sake.
This sudden, unexpected horror made everything worse. Mary tried not to let her fear or tears show; Paola was already scared. No reason to decay the girl’s already fragile state. Mary said she’d make some calls. She’d call Sullivan, maybe try to find Luca, or something, to see what they should do.
Paola suggested they call Boricio. “He’ll know what to do.”
Mary laughed at first, but as she watched Paola sleeping beside her and considered her scant options, Boricio started making sense.
So, with Paola snoring in her bed, Mary crept back downstairs and called him for advice.
“Don’t you dare take her to a doctor, or those pill-pushing butchers’ll throw her in a lab quicker than you can flush your civil rights down the shitter,” Boricio said. “And don’t tell Sullivan either. Least not yet.”
“Then what the hell do I do?” she had asked. “I’m scared.”
Boricio, as usual, was unflappable, telling Mary to relax, just bring Paola there; they’d “figure shit out.”
Mary was never the type to lean on a man for support. She never asked, nor expected, much from Ryan, especially during their separation. The closest she had ever come to needing someone’s help, male or female, was Desmond, but when she needed him most, even he was unable to save her or Paola from the freaks at The Prophet’s compound. She was murdered, then saved only because Luca and Boricio intervened and saved them.
So calling Boricio, a murdering psychopath who had made Mary’s skin crawl from the moment she met him, was difficult. But he’d proven himself in the heat of battle. And besides, Luca had also fixed something inside him, changing Boricio, changing him into something that sort of resembled an almost nice guy; a nice guy who seemed to care deeply about her daughter.
Mary had called Boricio a few months back when the cops could do nothing about the sexual predator who had been creeping on Paola. Boricio was pissed, practically begging Mary to let him at the fucker.
Mary was shocked by how protective Boricio had been of her baby girl. It was touching, a feeling she never thought she’d associate with a man like him. She had to beg Boricio not to do anything. She wanted to handle things the “right way,” without any risk of getting him in trouble. Mary was glad that she told Boricio to stay out of it, because a week or so later, the pervert was murdered. The cops had come to her house, asking questions. Fortunately, she had an alibi.
She asked Boricio about it that night, right after the cops left, wondering out loud if he had come to Colorado and paid the man a visit.
“You didn’t even tell me his name. How would I have done that? If I had,” Boricio laughed, “I sure as hell wouldn’t bury my pride. I’d declare it to the cops, say yes siree, it was me with a yee-haw, now where do I go to collect my medal and vanilla milkshake?”
Mary laughed, though a small part of her wondered if Boricio was lying. “Are you sure?” she asked. “I won’t tell anyone if you did do something. Hell, I won’t tell Rose, will buy you a milkshake, and might give you a medal.”
“I had nothing to do with it, Mary, I swear,” Boricio said. “But from what you said about the guy, it sounds like he probably made himself a thicket of enemies. You said he did time in prison? You know guys in prison don’t like kiddy diddlers, right? They probably put a hit on him or something the minute he was cut from the bars; what I would’a done.”
It was because of that honesty and dedication to her and Paola that Mary had called Boricio rather than Sullivan. While Sullivan had the scientists at Black Island at his disposal, Mary couldn’t be certain they wouldn’t want to shove Paola in some cell and study her for the next 20 years.
So, she went with her gut, which Mary always trusted more than logic, and knew Boricio was the right man to confide in. She wasn’t sure if he could actually help, but simply speaking to him, someone with the confidence of 10 men, if not 10 times that, made her feel immediately better.
Boricio invited them to “hurry their asses,” and “get the fuck out to ‘Fornia,’” since they were staying an extra few days. Mary was sure seeing Boricio would help Paola, and maybe, she hoped, he could help her find Luca.
They hadn’t heard from the boy since before their return. Mary wasn’t even sure he’d made it back, or what he would look like if he did since he was an old man the last time she’d seen him and could even be dead by now two years after that. She’d asked Sullivan about Luca, but he said he couldn’t tell her anything — state secrets and all that.
But if Luca had made it back, perhaps he could heal Paola again, or at least help her manage whatever it was she was doing, since they seemed to suffer from a similar affliction.
Mary looked at her speedometer, saw she was going 15 over the speed limit and lightened her pace, checking the rea
rview to make sure no cops were flashing lights behind her.
She was good. She looked over at Paola, eyes moving fast beneath her lids. Mary wondered if she still dreamed the dreams of children, of if her daughter was now consigned to the nightmares that came once childhood fled without looking back.
Eighteen
Boricio Wolfe
“Well, don’t you look like Colorado’s been your sugar daddy!” Boricio said, whistling as he looked Mary over, head to toe.
He stepped back from the hotel room door. Mary glanced over to Rose, then back at Boricio. “You have no manners, Boricio Wolfe. Your girlfriend is standing right there!”
Boricio turned to Rose, winked, then looked back at Mary. “That she is, and thanks for reminding me, not that I needed the memo, but it’s not like you can ever be told the sun is shining too many times. And you don’t have to worry about Rose seeing me admiring another good-looking woman — she knows I’m not blind and is damned appreciative I’m not. My eyes work well enough to know when my lady’s in need of a smile.”
Mary and Rose laughed together, then Paola, who shouldn’t have looked like a woman at all but certainly did, stepped through the doorway and smiled at Boricio.
“Well, Paola Olson!” Boricio cried out, unable to hide his stupid grin. “That can’t really be you!”
Paola stepped inside their room behind her mom, tentative.
Boricio yelled, “None of that timid shit, you come over here and give Boricio a hug!”
Paola smiled, almost as if she couldn’t help it, then eased by her mom — standing like a statue in the way — and fell into Boricio’s welcome.
“Well, grins and tits, Sister, how in the long hallways of hell are you doing?”
“You mean besides getting a full scholarship to the Luca School of Premature Aging?” Paola tried to smile but couldn’t quite make it. “I guess I’m fine.”
“Aw, that ain’t nothing.” Boricio waved his hand. “We’ve seen crap that didn’t make a dingle berry of sense and escaped odds smaller than the drip off a dick tip. This is shit to be flushed, Sister, Boricio gives you his scout’s honor your little Freaky Friday’s just temporary.”
