Fook (8 page)

Now, of course he didn’t expect to find food
stored in such an unsanitary place, but its presence might have
helped to explain the rather large rodent currently scurrying
toward Jason’s left foot.

“Jason,” Derek whispered as he tapped his
friend’s shoulder.

Jason showed no signs of acknowledgement,
still focused intently on the two men in the cage.

“Jason,” Derek whispered again, a bit louder
this time as he peeked around the boxes to see if he’d heard
himself.

His counterpart continued to work on the
electrical box as the other Jason set up the machine.

Glancing back toward the quickly scurrying
rat, Derek watched as the small animal disappeared beneath his
crouching friend, but before he could offer another warning, Jason
quickly jumped, almost springing to his feet as the unexpected
rodent brushed against his dangling, nether region.

A warning obviously no longer of any use, he
quickly slapped his hand over Jason’s mouth to muffle the yelp that
he was sure would follow as Jason locked eyes with the rat who’d
paused in his journey to offer up his own ‘what the hell’ look.

“What was that?” the other Derek
questioned.

Jason, Derek and the rat froze, all seeming
to exchange the same, ‘we’re busted’ glance.

“I don’t know,” the others continued.

“Go check it out.”

“Me? Why don’t you go?”

With Derek’s hand still over his mouth,
Jason could only offer up an ‘I told you so’ stare.

The rat, apparently bored with its newly
discovered company, continued on its way, making its way around the
boxes and into plain view of the cage.

Realizing that they were safe again, since
neither of them had investigated the strange noise after seeing the
rat, Derek removed his hand from Jason’s face.

Allowing a moment to pass before moving
again, Derek and Jason again slowly peeked around the boxes,
watching as the others made final preparations and now stood
holding the tiny wired orbs in their hands.

Derek knew what the other him was thinking.
He wanted to stand up and tell him to go for it; to not doubt his
genius roommate and push the button, but he knew he wouldn’t and
moments later the button was pressed and the men in the cage
vanished, their clothes dropping to the floor where they’d
previously stood.

“I guess that explains where our clothes
went,” Derek laughed as he pictured the look of shock on both of
their faces when they’d discovered their nudity. Given all that had
just happened in the last ten minutes however, he’d almost
forgotten that he was naked. Jason on the other hand was
defensively cupping himself, likely in an attempt to preserve what
little dignity he had left, as well as protect himself from anymore
curious scavengers.

“The conductivity was poor,” Jason
mumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“How could I’ve been so stupid?” he
continued. The machine works because of the electrical charge. The
same charge that passes through the core then passes through us,
linking us to the machine at the exact moment of transition.”

“We were good conductors but our clothes
weren’t,” Derek finished Jason’s thought.

“Exactly and since they weren’t good
conductors, while they
were
attached to us, they weren’t
technically connected to the machine and therefore were left
behind.”

“Speaking of behind,” Derek motioned behind
Jason who jumped, expecting to see another rat quickly approaching
for another inspection.

Other than their first, furry visitor, now
chewing at the corner of one of the boxes, they were alone.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here,” Jason
motioned, unamused as he spared one hand from its protective duty
to pick up the briefcase.

The two made their way back into the
cage.

“Give me the wires. I’ll hook ‘em back up,”
Derek held out his hand.

“We don’t need to do that,” Jason responded,
unsure why the reasoning, that was so obvious to him, seemed to
elude his equally intelligent friend. “We’ve already caught up with
time. If we go back to where we started we’ll be going back to the
exact moment that we watched ourselves disappear.”

He could tell that Derek was processing the
information.

“Jello, right?”

“It’s too risky and completely unnecessary
since we’re already here,” Jason reaffirmed his logic.

“Can I at least get dressed then?” Derek
motioned to the pile of clothing on the floor.

“Please do.”

SEVEN

The lamp post lined entrance to the Turtle Creek
apartments joined the car’s gauges in illuminating the interior of
the Chevy Impala as Ty crept to a stop. Anticipating that the
large, wrought iron barrier would momentarily slide out of the way,
he waited but received no welcome from the automated gate.

“Fucking thing,” he sighed, annoyed at the
still malfunctioning scanner.

For a month now it had been on the fritz,
scanning the resident barcode on his window only half the time.
Setting the car in reverse, he checked behind him and slowly backed
up, again passing the scanner, then put the car in drive and rolled
forward for a second time.

It still didn’t budge.

“Really?”

He was going to have to buzz the apartment
to get inside. Though he knew his Grandmother was eager for an
update, it was nearly one in the morning and at the ripe old age of
83, she was most likely passed out on the couch, having succumbed
to the sandman while awaiting the phone call he’d never made.

Putting the car in reverse again, intending
to use the visitor’s turn out where the call box stood, Ty began to
back up. He considered randomly dialing another apartment, but what
would he say when the groggy voice on the other end answered? He
couldn’t claim to be FedEx making a middle of the night delivery.
On the other hand, Everyone knew that the gate wasn’t working.
Maybe he could just tell them the truth and they’d buzz him through
the damn thing. No. The odds of finding a friendly night owl were
slim. “Fuck off,” would be the likely response. Grandma Ushi was
his only option. Either that or spend the night parked on the side
of the road.

As he rolled passed the scanner and prepared
to pull into the visitor’s lane, a soft, electronic click drew his
attention back to the gate, followed by the sound of the motor
engaging as the metal guard began to slowly step aside.

“Thank you,” he sighed in relief as he
placed the car in drive and slipped through the gate.

Ahead on the left stood the main office
where the mailboxes, fitness center and pool were. He turned left
at the side road just before it, following the road around the
complex. His grandmother’s apartment was toward the back of the
property, just opposite the athletic fields of a middle school,
which stood on the opposite side of an eight foot tall, wooden
fence separating the two properties. Parking was always an issue,
no matter what time of day you came home, but in the middle of the
night, with everyone in the complex home, it was damn near
impossible. To make things even worse, the back of the property had
a tendency to flood in heavy rain, limiting the available spaces
even more.

Slowly rolling along the dimly lit parking
lot, Ty searched for an open space. As difficult as parking was and
as run down as the complex seemed when compared to other apartments
in the area, it was still better than where he’d lived just two
years earlier. Though only five or so miles away from his current
home, he and his mother had resided just off of Florida Avenue. He
didn’t recall parking being an issue and the gate at that apartment
had always worked, but that was about the only upside to those
apartments. The wiring had either been installed incorrectly or the
degenerates living in the complex had harvested so much copper wire
from the building that they’d managed to disable half of the
outlets and even though management was required by law to maintain
the property to the city’s strict building codes, neither the city
nor the police seemed to care. The abundance of drug dealers and
prostitutes prowling the street just beyond the property’s walls
was probably of bigger concern to them, though nothing ever seemed
to get done about that either…except in his mother’s case.

A couple of years back, in a typical display
of poor judgment, she’d brought one of her clients back to the
apartment. Unfortunately, the john had been an undercover cop and
even though it had been her first arrest for prostitution, she was
no stranger to the court. The fact that she’d brought the officer
back to her home while her son slept on the pull out sofa in the
living room had rubbed the judge the wrong way, and in the end,
earned her a six year sentence in the Bradenton Correctional
Facility for Women. Since he was only sixteen at the time, the
state had two options; place him in state run care or allow a
family member to take over as legal guardian. Grandma Ushi, having
already been in essence a parental figure in his life, had
thankfully been awarded custody.

Water splashed against the wheel wells as
the car reached the flooded corner of the property. As expected,
there was plenty of parking in this portion of the lot. Lacking a
pair of waders, he continued on, passing his grandmother’s
apartment on the right.

Amazingly, there appeared to be a space just
up ahead, that is until he got closer and realized that it was
being occupied by a tiny Ford Fiesta, hidden between a pickup truck
and a van. Maybe he could push the car out of the way, he thought
as he passed the half open space. It couldn’t weigh that much. If
he had a friend with him they could probably just pick the tiny car
up and carry it to the lake at the other end of the parking lot.
Lucky for him though, and the Fiesta, the parking gods were smiling
down on them that night and just another twenty feet ahead on the
left was an open spot between a Ford Escort and an out of place,
brand new BMW convertible…likely an overnight visitor. More
interested in getting some much needed sleep than pondering a
neighbor’s out of place company, Ty swung the Impala into the open
space, placed it in park and swung open the driver’s side door.

“Ty,” a faint voice struggled to compete
with nature’s dominating sonnet of frogs and insects.

Stepping from the car, Grandma Ushi came
into view, standing on the sidewalk just beyond the front door of
the first floor apartment. She must have been watching for him
through the front window, miraculously fighting off sleep for the
past two hours while waiting for the update that had never come. It
was also possible that she’d been sitting on the plastic patio
chair beside the door where she could be seen most mornings sipping
tea and waving to random neighbors as they came and went on their
daily routines.

“Why didn’t you call?” she continued as he
crossed the parking lot.

“It’s late grandma, I thought you’d be
asleep.”

“You know I can’t sleep at time like
this.”

“I’m sorry. I just thought—”

“—Sooo,” Ushi interrupted, not interested in
his excuses.

“It’s fine,” he responded as he slipped
between the parked vehicles and joined his grandmother on the
sidewalk.

“Fine? What you mean, it’s fine?”

“I mean there’s no problem.”

“So you know who he is?”

“Well...”

“We can’t take any chances here, Ty,” the
old woman went into her familiar, lecturing tone.

“I know Grandma. I took care of it.”

“So he dead.”

Surprised and not sure how to respond to
that, “No, I lost him at the airport. I couldn’t get past security,
but the only flights leaving that terminal were to Denver, Chicago,
Atlanta and Boston. He’s far away from here.”

“Ty, we cannot have strangers getting in
way. Too much at risk. This your child…our blood and now somebody
might know.”

“He doesn’t know who I am.”

“How you know?”

“He can’t know. You said it yourself. No one
knows anything about us. I’ll get my son and we’ll get out of here
before he can come back. He won’t be a problem.”

“You don’t know that. He knows something or
he wouldn’t been there.”

“It doesn’t matter. I know what he looks
like now so I can be on guard while watching the Nesbit’s for my
opportunity.

“We might not be able to wait for right
opportunity. This getting too dangerous. We need to act soon.”

“I’ll bring him home, Grandma. Please, don’t
worry. It’s late. Now let’s get you inside and in bed.”

“That boy is the last of our blood. Our name
must live on and it’s up to you to make happen.”

“I know Grandma,” Ty agreed as he urged his
grandmother back toward the open door of the apartment.

“That boy is very important,” the elderly
woman once again eluded to his son’s mysterious importance.

He’d asked her why on numerous occasions,
but every time had been greeted with the same vague explanation
about the blood line and every other generation or something like
that. All he knew was that his grandmother was a wise woman and
that, since she’d taken him in, his life had improved tenfold. He
owed her everything and would do anything for her, even if he
didn’t fully understand why.

“You a good boy, Ty,” she paused in the
doorway. “I love you very much.”

“I love you too, Grandma,” he kissed the old
woman on the cheek before shuffling her into the apartment and
closing the door.

EIGHT

“Katie!? What’s burning!?” Phil Bishop yelled to his
daughter as he made his way to the bottom of the stairs, trying to
refold the morning paper.

No answer.

Rounding the banister he began down the
hall. A faint cloud of smoke clung to the ceiling overhead. He was
certain that any minute the nearby smoke detector would also awaken
with the new day.