Run (20 page)

"Malachi,"  he gasped.  Then he turned to Jason.  Gesturing at the monitor, he snapped,  "Who was this?  Who did we just lose?"

Jason checked his record bank.  "Devorough 42261-6.  That’s who just went down."

"The
bit
?"

Jason nodded, his face ashen.  So he recognized Malachi, too, thought Adam.

"The records maintain that Devorough is offline and in storage," said Jason, "but the console also shows him as the one we just lost."

Confused and worried by this new bit of information, Adam turned back to watch the scene.  It ended when Malachi pointed his gun at the cam and pulled the trigger. 

"Locate them," he said to Jason. 

Jason began working, and Adam began to pray.

Just one break, God.  Just one little break, please.

DOM#67A

LOSTON, COLORADO

AD 1999

6:30 PM MONDAY

The man who had pulled the trigger turned his attention to John.  John cringed.  He had never, in all his life, confronted a gaze more filled with malevolent insanity.  It seared through him like a red-hot poker, burning out courage and security and leaving behind it an ashy trail of fear.  John shuddered.  He knew instantly that Devorough, for all his chaotic action and superhuman strength, was far preferable to this man, this devil in human guise.

"Have to make sure they stay dead," said the man, and John was struck by the incongruously happy voice that came out of the man's mouth.  "It’s how we bring about the end of days."

John tensed, preparing to jump to his feet.  Instantly all four strangers pointed their guns at him, aiming with military precision.  John remained down, kneeling with his hands up.         

"Not so fast," the man said.  "You don’t do anything until you tell us where she is."  And then, insanely, he said something which made no sense whatsoever: "I’m human, by the way."

John looked at the people threatening him.  There was the older man who had spoken, who was so obviously in charge there was no need to ask to whom John must direct his attention.  Behind and to his right stood a younger man, pale blue eyes crackling with an only slightly less intense version of the same insane energy that riddled the older man’s irises.  To their left stood a petite blonde girl.  She held her gun in rock-steady hands, but John noticed her feet shuffling back and forth. 

Nervous, he thought.  She's the weak link. 

He filed away the information for later use. 

The last person in the group was a black woman, dark and dusky as a sunless night over a tropical forest, her clothing seeming both a part of her and of the dark quarters in which they now stood.

John remained silent.  He knew from experience what to do and what not to do in a prisoner situation.  Rule number one was only speak when asked a direct question.

Apparently these people hadn’t studied their hostage etiquette, for the younger man stepped forward, forcing the other three to shuffle sideways and draw a bit closer to keep their guns on John.

The man kicked John, then hit him with his gun.  "Tell us!" he screamed.

John went down again as his already-abused body suffered further damage.  He felt another rib bruise.  The pain was bad, inconvenient, but not unbearable.  He stayed down, though, arms crossed in front of his stomach, and began sobbing as though hysterical.

He could hardly breathe between the tears and the sobs that shook his entire frame like a wind-tossed leaf, and each shudder took its toll on John's bruised neck and chest.  But it was worth it.  The young blonde girl stepped forward, prodding his shoulder with her gun.

"Shut up," said the woman.  Her voice was like steel, but John could detect a tiny quaver around the edges.  "Tell us where she is."

She prodded him again.

Mistake.

John exploded upward, twisting to the side and pushing her gun to the floor as he jumped.  The gun boomed as it went off, and at the same moment John stood, using his powerful momentum to hurl her into the younger man.  They both tripped, arms pinwheeling to maintain balance, then fell backward into the other two.

In the same motion, John heaved himself up and back, through the window behind him.  He fell through in a tinkle of glass and felt a shard pierce his lower back, hopefully nothing serious, and then the breath whooshed out of him yet again as he hit the ground outside.   He sprang to his feet and was running even as he heard his attackers struggling to their feet inside the house.

John ran to the corn field that butted up against the Devoroughs’ yard, plunging head first into the stalks and running.           He could hear muffled grunts at the house as his four assailants came through the window in pursuit of him.  They plunged into the rows of shucks as well, hurrying to catch him as he fled.

But John was no longer fleeing.  He ran about six feet into the thick patch, just far enough to be out of sight from the house, and then dropped to his belly, laying flat in the dirt. 

It was a gamble, but his car was in front of the Devorough place.  Escaping on foot was something he didn’t want to try, especially if it meant running into the nearby mountains.  He wanted someplace populated, so he had to make it to his car.  Once there, he could get into Loston and go see Tal, the sheriff.

Four sets of feet crunched by him, one set - belonging to the young man - coming close enough that he could have seen John had he merely looked down for a moment.  Luckily, for all their apparent facility with guns, John could tell they had no idea how to conduct a thorough sweep of a cornfield. 

John waited until he heard them plow deep into the rows, then stood and ran with all his might.  His legs pumped like the pistons of an angry locomotive as he fairly flew to his car, expecting at every moment to hear the explosion of a shotgun and feel the tearing pain of shot ripping into him.

With that thought, the scar on his shoulder twinged, as though it was remembering its birth.  John had no time to think of that long-forgotten day, however, and dismissed the thought.  But he did not send it far, for he sensed that what had happened that day would prove important; that it might even be crucial to staying alive.

He made it to his car, yanking the door open and throwing himself onto the seat.  A small cry escaped his lips as he sat.  The shard of the window glass that had imbedded itself in his back was still there, and as he sat down it was pushed further inside.  John hoped it wasn’t severing any nerves or causing serious damage, but he didn’t have time to stop and try to get it out. 

He turned his key in the ignition and rolled out, casting one last look at the house.

He had escaped death tonight.  Not once but several times.  But he felt no relief, merely a burgeoning sense of despair.

As though what had happened was only a small taste of things to come.

"The end of days," was what the older man had said.

John hoped they weren’t his.

CONTROL HQ - RUSHM

AD 3999/AE 1999

"How did this happen?" asked Adam.  He wasn’t angry, rather he had ascended all the way to the point those who worked with him described as The Calm.  Beyond anger, beyond fury, beyond rage lay The Calm, and it told the other Controllers the depth of Adam’s fear.

"I don’t know, sir," said Jason.  "As soon as we were aware that John had recognized Devorough we tried to recall him."

"And?"

"He didn’t come.  Kaylie showed up - she’s in the Clinic - but Devorough never did."

"Wonderful.  Didn’t you ask her where Devorough was, and how she came to be his daughter?" 

"Yes, sir, but...."  Jason’s voice trailed off.

"But what?"

"She’d been erased.  Nothing left.  She couldn’t even talk."

"Damn.  That’s the work of someone inside."  Adam turned to the wall, a single enlarged screen there the focus of his attention.  It showed the last thing Devorough had seen: a freeze frame view of the bullet that ended his life.  And behind it, that face that Adam had hoped never to see again.  "Malachi," he whispered.  The name pulled at him like a one ton weight on a swimmer.

"Sir," said Jason.  "What do you want us to do?"

Adam turned to the Controllers and tried desperately to think of an answer to that question.

DOM#67A

LOSTON, COLORADO

AD 1999

6:50 PM MONDAY

Sheriff Tal White cultivated despondency like others raised roses. 

Functional depression wasn’t merely his hobby, it was his way of life.  People laughed at him behind his back.  He knew that, and it served only to sadden him.  He had never married, as that would have contributed too much of a chance of happiness. 

Single, he graduated Loston High, took a correspondence course in forensics and criminology (amazing what you could get for yourself over the computers these days!), and then lobbied - successfully - for the job of Loston’s sole Sheriff.  He told himself he got the job because people secretly admired his fortitude in the face of despair.

In reality, no one else wanted a job that paid slightly over thirty thousand dollars a year and tended to result in lowered sperm counts through exposure to extremely high levels of boredom.  Nothing ever happened in Loston.

At the swearing in, no one came but his parents and his little brother.  "Just a perfect way to start the job," he said directly after the ceremony, and not even his family could tell if he was being sarcastic, self-pitying, or sincere.  "Figures."

Tal had no real friends, and he preferred it that way.  He knew very few people in the town, aside from immediate family, and didn't particularly
want
to know many folks.  But he
did
know Loston’s most popular high school teacher.  So when John Trent slumped through the front door of Loston’s sheriff’s office/prison, Tal jumped to his feet and said, "John."  It was then that he noticed how unkempt John looked.  Great purple bruises ringed his neck, and his pants looked wet with blood.

"What happened?" asked Tal incredulously.

The computer science teacher looked at him, grinned in a bemused "hellifiknow" way, and then passed out.

***

They walked out of the corn field, shaking loose twigs and angel hairs - the wispy golden threads that hung from the ripe ears of corn - from their clothing.

Without a word, they all agreed that they had been given the slip.  Without a word, they went back to the house.  Without a word they knew what they would do next.         

They would search Devorough’s body for the key to his car, a Ford Expedition that was sitting in the driveway.  Then they would get in and go to the town Sheriff.  The man they had pursued would go there.  He would
have
to.  He would literally have no choice, as that decision would have been inculcated into him through countless years of subtle indoctrination.  So they would go to the Sheriff, as well.  They would find that man.  They would torture him until he told them where Fran was.

And then they would kill him.

***

John wasn’t unconscious for very long.  Maybe a minute and a half.  When he woke, Tal had already laid him down on his stomach on a cot.  Loston was small, so the entire Sheriff’s office consisted of one front office with a door in back that led to a small, three-cell prison.  The cot was in the front room, next to the door to the jail area, wedged between a desk and a folding table that held a percolator.  John moaned.

"Jesus, John," said Tal, interest warming his characteristically phlegmatic voice ever so slightly.  "What happened to you?"

"Glass," answered John. 

"I know."  Tal held out a shard.  Blood caked the clear surface like some evil stained glass window at a satanic church.  "I got it out and bandaged you up.  Not cut too bad, but it’ll bleed more if we don’t get you some stitches.  I’m gonna call a doctor over here."  He paused, then repeated his earlier question.  "What happened?"

"I don’t know."  John sat up.  The wound at his back was a dull throb under a tight bandage.  Of more concern were the jolts he felt at his ribs.  Not broken, but severely bruised for sure.  "I went to a student’s house and when I got there her father went berserk and tried to kill me."

"
What
?  So he’s the one who put a piece of glass in you?"

"No.  But when we were fighting these four lunatics showed up...."  John’s body shook as a violent spasm wracked him, a convulsed shudder that sprang from a newly opened well of fear and disorientation.  Chills racked him for a moment before he was able to get himself under control again.

"It’s okay, John."  Tal gripped his shoulder.  "What happened next?"

"They killed him."  John took a deep breath and continued slowly, pressing out each word as though it cost him.  "Devorough - that's the guy I went to see - he went insane, attacked me, then when he was about to kill me four people showed up and killed him.  Then they tried to kill me, too."

Tal stood.  He went to the percolator and poured a cup of coffee, bringing it back and handing it to John.  John sipped it gratefully.  It was hot - too hot to drink, really - but the heat was welcome, scalding his throat and serving as a proof that he was still alive.

"So these four fellas –"

"Two men and two women.  I can describe them to you."

"In a sec.  They say why they tried to kill you?"

"No.  They asked where she was, and then I got away."

"She?"

John shrugged and took another sip of his coffee.  "Damned if I know."

Tal eyed him for a moment.  "We really ought to get you to the doc."

"I’ll be okay.  I’m more interested in finding out what just happened."

"Why were you at this fella’s house, anyway?"

John stopped drinking.  He looked at Tal, trying to decide what he would tell the droopy-eyed officer.  In the end, respect and faith in the law won out over his desire to avoid sounding crazy, so he told the truth.  "I...I thought I’d seen him before.  Hell, Tal, I
know
I’d seen him before.  Once when I was a kid, once when I was in Iraq.  And he hadn’t changed a bit, not in almost twenty years."