Hunters: A Trilogy (38 page)

Jane seemed to manage quite well with the stream of crazy information he gave her, remaining fairly stoical about the whole thing. His story was beyond bizarre, yet she weathered it without complaint. Jane became his rock, and many times, when the tale became too stormy, Ken clung to her.

One sunny, yet icy-cold, winter’s day, whilst they were walking down the slope behind the house, Ken saw the glow of brake lights coming from a car that had obviously turned off the track and onto their driveway.

‘Looks like we have visitors,’ he said, raising his eyebrows and turning to glance at Jane. Before she was able to reply, both the dogs barked and tore off down the hill. ‘Bugger, here we go!’ Ken murmured, starting to jog down the hill after them. He had a sudden vision of the local Policeman being savaged by the Ridgebacks, not a good welcome for someone on a courtesy visit.

As the thoughts rushed through his head, Jane came bounding past him. ‘Come on, slow-coach, last one there’s a loser!’ she said, black hair flying as she half-ran and half-slipped down the hill, laughing crazily as she went.

Ken shook his head and ran after her, murmuring: ‘First one there does the medical treatment, you mean. Those bloody dogs will have whoever that is for breakfast!’ He let the momentum of the slope carry him and raced past his wife, shouting out as he went.

‘Hello the lodge, watch out for the dogs, they’re on the way down, be careful, they’re not very friendly with strangers!’ As the sound of his voice rolled across the valley, Ken saw Leon leap the tall back gate as though it wasn’t there. Jessica, the somewhat smaller bitch, was hot on his heels.

The visitor’s sarcastic reply rolled up the slope. ‘Yeah, I know…but I have chocolate and these pooches are as soft as…Oh shit!’ This was followed by a chorus of deep barks from their so-called guard dogs. The voice rang out again. ‘Hey, ya canine bastards, watch the bloody paintwork!’

The Australian’s twang was unmistakeable to Ken, whose free-falling plummet from the slope had just sent him crashing into the dry stone wall at the bottom of the garden. One-handed, he leapt the gate and raced around the side of the lodge. Two steps behind him, Jane let out a shriek. ‘Mikey!’

Sure enough, there upon their cobbled driveway stood the tall Australian. He had his hands full and was busily fighting off both the dogs, who, now that they were up on their back legs, stood nearly as tall as he did. The Ridgebacks were both desperately trying to lick Mike’s face.

‘Get off me, ya damn mutts!’ he implored, whilst glancing helplessly at Ken. ‘You can bloody help any time you feel ready, I’m losing this one, help me out here, man!’ he growled. Two, untouched, chocolate bars lay discarded at his feet.

Through his laughter, Ken managed to get a feeble whistle out of his lips. Hearing the sound, both dogs immediately came to heel. Mike leant forward and rested his hands upon the tops of his Levi clad knees, he was breathing heavily and sported a set of large, muddy paw-prints on the thighs of his jeans.

Looking up, he said, ‘Bleeding animals! It’s so good to see that bugger-all has changed around here, mad bastards, the bloody lot of you!’ Straightening himself, he was just in time to catch Jane as she leapt into his arms and planted a kiss on his cheek. He swung her around and then plonked her back down onto her feet. Ken grabbed him, the two men embraced long and hard and then separated before holding each other at arm’s length.

Leaning back, Mike said, ‘Let me look at you, ya bloody Pommy!’ His voice was hoarse as he stared at Ken’s face and then, more deeply, into his eyes. ‘How’s the head, all well I hope, or are there bits still rattling around in the big hole they left behind?’ he asked. ‘Mind you, there was plenty of room in there before…’ he said, with a wild grin. Mike leaned against the side window of the red Porsche and stood there staring at his friends.

Laughing, and using his best toff’s accent, Ken replied: ‘I’m top-hole, old chap, top-hole!’ Then he said, ‘Nah, seriously, I’m good, I’ve never felt better, and this…’ he tapped the metal plate in the back of his head, ‘…this has just made life a bit more interesting, to be honest!’ All three embraced once more and then Ken and Jane helped Mike get his bags from the car. Loaded with his belongings they walked across the driveway and stepped into the interior of the lodge.

Once inside, Jane put the kettle on whilst Mike and Ken dumped the bags in the spare bedroom before returning to the lounge. Sitting in the comfortable room they sipped on some hot tea and enjoyed the feeling of being together again. As they sat with the fire roaring in the hearth, Ken looked at Mike and grinned, the sense of adventure had begun to rise within him once more.

He smiled at his wife and then looked at his best friend – the Australian was fiddling with a case that lay on the table in front of him. Mike opened his case and extracted the weirdest looking device they had ever seen, it looked like a laptop computer but somehow seemed to be made of a three-dimensional liquid. It looked like a slab of solid, silvery green jelly. The fact that when he placed the machine down it made a solid metallic clunk, only served to deepen the mystery. Jane leant forward, knuckles white as she tightly cupped the china beaker in her hands.

Mike stood and, taking the machine with him, walked into the dining room. Once there he placed the device onto the dining room table and then touched some hidden switch, his actions activated a bank of green laser lights, which reached out from the machine and touched every corner of the room. The flickering display made their dining room seem like a mini-nightclub. Turning back to them, he said, ‘Don’t worry too much about it, the lights will stop in a bit, it’s just searching…’ He walked over to sit in the couch opposite them and stretched out his long legs.

‘Right,’ Mike said. ‘Who would like to hear how this little story has progressed so far?’ They both nodded vigorously. Turning first to Jane, Mike asked: ‘Has the old fool kept you in the picture?’ He nodded toward Ken in an indication of which old fool he was referring to, but his eyes were focused on Jane, searching, looking for confirmation that she would be able to deal with his soon-to-be-revealed tale.

Jane paused, looked first at her man and then back to Mike. ‘Yes, I guess he has,’ she said. ‘I think that I pretty much get the picture, Mikey. Well, as much as it’s possible to, you know? It’s still a bit baffling though; George and the Hyenas, all those weird dreams and stuff…’ Mike nodded in understanding. Jane carried on, saying: ‘But, Ken is so clear in his recollections, so vivid in his descriptions that he would either have to be stark raving mad, or he’s actually been there, and I know which one I choose!’ She reached out to grasp her husband’s hand.

Ken said, ‘Jane knows as much as I do, obviously there might be some bits and pieces I’ve forgotten, but all the big stuff is out in the open… To be perfectly honest, I still don’t totally get it!’ He paused in order to gather his words, before saying: ‘Like, what happened to Red – is he really dead? He sure looked like he was. And what’s happened with the hydrogen development and things, I mean… did it even happen? You know, just the little stuff like that!’ He couldn’t stop the short laugh that followed. ‘Sorry, but have you heard us?’ he said. ‘Sat here, as calm as you like, talking about this like we’re deciding what package holiday to go on, it’s just crazy!’ He rolled his eyes.

Mike replied, ‘Yeah, you’re right, but like we said on the night before we went back to the desert – it’s absolutely weird for sure, but I still get it, I understand…’ He thought for a second or two and then said, ‘A lot has happened since we last met, and I’ll tell you about that later, but the main purpose of my visit, apart from seeing you two, is to tell you what’s happened, and much more importantly, to find out if you want to come and play on the next bit.’ He looked at the two of them quizzically, but then cut them off before they were able to answer.

‘Before you immediately say ‘yes’,’ he said, ‘I guess you should know that once you’re in…then you’re in! No walking away and no certain outcome to be promised to you, either.’ His eyes glowed. ‘You need to be sure…’

They saw that he was deadly serious.

Ken nodded, saying: ‘Okay, let’s see what the score is before we decide on anything. There’s a lot we are gonna need to know about, I would imagine.’ He felt Jane nod in agreement next to him and turned back to Mike. ‘Just crack on and we’ll try and keep up,’ he said, leaning back in the chair.

Mike agreed. ‘Right, fair enough then,’ he said. ‘First things first, though. Business – Maxima Electronics have made us an offer for the company, an offer that we can’t really refuse, it’s a large amount of money, and as long as we sign the non-competition clause, the deal is as good as done, that’s unless we fancy going back over there…’ He slid a paper file out from one of the pouches in the laptop case, and placed it on the coffee table. Looking back up, he said, ‘It’s all in there and just needs our signatures, check it out later, Ken. By my reckoning it will take us a least another five years to make that type of money, they’re a massive company and we can see the cash within a fortnight.’

Ken nodded. ‘Yeah, I will do, I don’t really want to go back to Afghanistan, if I’m to be honest, and as long as we are getting a fair deal on the projected turnover and our customer base, then I can’t see why we wouldn’t sell. I wanted out in a few years anyway – this is like all our dreams coming true, isn’t it?’ he said, with some relief.

Mike agreed. ‘We’re up to speed with the deliveries, I spoke to Martin in Kabul yesterday; he confirms the Yanks have paid the final amount for the cameras and the Ultra-Crystals too, that means we have fulfilled all of the contractual obligations required under the sale agreement, all you need to do is look at the figures, you know what I’m like, there might be a right cock up…’

He finished by putting some other papers into the file, and then looked up at his friends. Brushing his dark hair back off his forehead, Mike began. ‘Right then, folks, now for the crazy part…’ He leant forward with his elbows wedged on his knees. ‘What’s the last thing you can recall from our little escapade, Kenny?’ he asked.

Ken mulled that one over for a while, letting the memories come rushing back to him, the emptiness and feeling of despair made him feel light-headed. Taking a breath, he said, ‘I remember you and the Light Maker; you stopped it, I think, but then you caught fire – just lit up like a candle and then fizzled out of existence…’ He still felt uneasy about the whole thing, had it been just a dream and if so, why had Mike been there?

Ken continued, falteringly: ‘You sort of…well, you just blinked out of existence. I dunno, I remember being on the deck, lying in the dust, trying to get to the light, I knew I was a gonner and to be honest, I tried to go, but then I saw Jane and, well…that’s about it.’ He sounded confused, looking Jane with a strange expression in his eyes. She clasped his hand and smiled at him before they both turned to Mike again.

Mike looked very intense as his words confirmed what Ken had said. ‘Yeah, that’s about what I figured you would remember,’ he said. ‘And in the dream that is what actually happened. You had already been hit on the head by the satellite dish and were dying. George took you, the inner you, and used you to complete the task in Red’s parallel. He knew what the outcome would be, he knew that your actions would cause Red to try and return to the base.’

‘But, I killed him, I shot him in the head…that happened, didn’t it? I mean…’ Ken said, staring at his friend in confusion.

Mike nodded, saying: ‘Yes, in that parallel you did – but don’t forget what George has taught you – about the parallels, we can exist in more than one place, remember.’

Ken looked at him and then said, with his voice cracking in anger: ‘Red escaped, did he, that slimy bastard, where is he now?’

Mike took a deep breath and said, ‘The thing that you need to know, the mind-blower, if you like, is that all of the stuff with Red and George, the device, the Spears, everything – it all happened in another parallel…’ he shrugged, a gesture so natural that he may as well have been discussing the aforementioned holidays. ‘It happened in a world that lies just slightly in the future, one that we may never have to go through again, but it is all still a possible future, nonetheless!’

Hearing their total silence, he tried to elaborate. ‘Listen, what we went through was the possible outcome of prior happenings, things that may make those events an actuality. There’s a strong chance that if certain things are done now, then that future will never occur.’ He looked at them and waited a while, before speaking again. ‘Everything has a parallel,’ Mike said. ‘Everything is linked and the future always depends on what happens here today, always!’ He looked at them, and his face was deadly serious. The long silence between them seemed only to heighten the atmosphere.

Then, and with his next words barely a whisper, Mike said, ‘They cannot seem to dispense with Red, they have killed him many times over, and yet he pops up elsewhere. George says that they cannot progress without ridding themselves of the Darkness that lies within Red. We…’ He stopped and looked at his friends in despair.

It was Ken who broke the silence, by saying: ‘No shit! I thought George said it all started just three or four years ago…’ He remembered how he had felt when George had told him, at the time it had shocked him to the core.

Mike replied: ‘Yeah, he did, but it was just another one of those little white lies he uses, he figured that telling us, on top of everything else, that we were in a parallel future, might well have proved to be a step too far!’ He looked at Ken with a small smile on his handsome features.

Then he said, ‘The parallel you are currently in bears no resemblance to the one that we were operating in back then – yes, things were similar, but in fact they were different in many ways, places may appear the same, but they’re not – people are different, too.’

Ken wasn’t as surprised as he might have been, in fact, he wasn’t surprised at all. He thought about how different the men he’d killed in the Funny House had appeared to be. They had been darker, taller, more… At the time he had guessed they were from somewhere other than Afghanistan. But, here he was, calmly being informed they weren’t even from this time.