The Silver Ring (4 page)

The two orderlies looked at each other.

“You mean ban him for life?” one of them asked. “Because I don’t think we can—”

“Just get him out of my sight,” Doris Hackman said. “I never want to see his face again.”

13

The orderlies were surprisingly gentle.

They led me down to the first floor and toward the entrance past the front desk where the man was still reading this morning’s paper.

Neither of them spoke until we reached the doors, and one of them said, “How’d you get in here anyway?”

I looked at him, then at his friend, then turned and walked outside.

The morning traffic had picked up. The temperature had risen a couple of degrees. The sun was hot on my head.

I went to the edge of the sidewalk and closed my eyes and clenched my teeth and squeezed my fists and did everything I could not to scream out my frustrations.

After a moment I opened my eyes and looked across the street toward where I’d chained my bike.

A figure stood beside the pole, a short figure wearing a long blue robe and cowl. This figure didn’t have a face, at least not one I could see. Where a face should have been was just darkness. Yet somehow I had the distinct impression the figure was watching me.

I took a step back, pivoted to my left, thinking I’d walk around the block and come back and hopefully that strange figure would be gone.

I went only a couple feet before I stopped again.

Another figure—wearing the same long blue robe, the same cowl, the same darkness where a face should have been—was at the end of the block.

I now pivoted one-hundred and eighty degrees, toward the other end of the block.

A third figure stood there too.

Looking around wildly—at the first figure, at the second and the third—I felt that familiar pinprick and glanced down at the ring glowing on my finger.

I didn’t know what it meant, and when I glanced back up I saw the figures were approaching, all three of them, coming quickly, and without thinking I turned and sprinted back toward the nursing home’s entrance.

The two orderlies were still in the lobby, talking to the man behind the counter. They saw me, started to stand up straight, started to speak.

I ran past them down the corridor.

Now they yelled, telling me to stop, but I barely heard them. Instead I somehow heard the three figures as they gave chase, now in front of the nursing home, now inside, moving in a strange fluid motion as if propelled by something other than their feet.

At the end of the corridor were double doors. I went through them, continued through the back of a kitchen, past the dishwashers, past two women talking with their arms crossed, and then I came to one of the back doors leading into the alleyway behind the building and I crashed through that and kept running.

I paused, looked left, looked right, then started running again, knowing the three figures had somehow overtaken the orderlies, the now confused orderlies, maybe finally calling the police. Any moment now those figures would come out through the same exit door and see me and—

I reached the end of a block just as the man stepped out from around the corner, a shotgun in his hands, aimed right at my face.

14

“Down!” the man shouted, and I dropped to the ground, pushed my face against the macadam, right as the shotgun roared.

My eyes closed, I somehow saw the three figures now out in the alleyway, the one in front being struck down.

The man stepped over me, racked the shotgun, pulled the trigger. The shotgun roared and took the second figure down, then the man did the same thing again—racked the gun, pulled the trigger—and one final
BANG!
echoed in the alleyway and the third figure lay flat on the ground.

For a moment there was silence.

Then the man growled, “Come on, get up,” and when I didn’t move, when I didn’t even open my eyes, he grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled me to my feet.

“Let’s go!” he shouted, pushing me forward.

My feet moved of their own volition, taking me to the end of the alleyway where they stopped, not sure where to take me next.

The man grabbed my arm, tugged me toward an old red Ford pickup.

“Hurry, get in.”

I said, “But what—” and glanced back down the alleyway … where the first figure was now sitting up, followed by the second figure, then the third.

“Goddamn it,” the man shouted, slamming the driver’s door shut, starting the engine, “get in the truck now!”

I sprinted to the passenger door, opened it, jumped inside just as the man slammed his foot down on the gas.

The truck jerked forward. It passed the mouth of the alleyway and I glanced over to see the three figures coming toward us and the man said, “Watch your head,” and pushed me down just as the rear windshield shattered and I cried out and he pushed the gas even harder bringing us to the end of the alley and then slammed on the brakes just as he jerked the wheel taking us out onto the main street.

I was hunched in the passenger seat, my eyes closed, my hands on my head. Seconds passed before I realized I was still alive.

“What—what—what
was
that?”

“Trouble,” the man said, keeping his eyes on the street as he swerved us in and out of traffic.

“But you shot them.”

“That I did.”

“And they—they got back up.”

“You noticed that, did you?”

“And then they … they shot at us?”

“Hey, nothing gets past you.”

At the upcoming intersection the light turned yellow and the man punched the gas, accelerating us through just in time.

I said, “Who are they?”

“You know exactly who they are.”

“I do?”

The man looked at me for the first time, nodding.

“But I … I don’t. I have no idea.”

“Let’s just say they’re not from around here.”

“What does that mean?”

“Come on, you can do it. Just say it. It’ll make this whole thing a hell of a lot easier.”

“They were …” I paused, swallowing. “Aliens?”

“Bingo,” the man said.

I glanced out my window, watched the buildings and cars and people streak past.

“Why were they chasing me?”

“You mean that isn’t obvious by now?”

When I looked back at the man he glanced at the ring on my finger.

“Is it theirs?”

The man laughed. “Kid, nobody owns the ring.”

“Then why were they chasing me?”

“Because that’s what bad guys do.”

The man had begun to slow, probably thinking we were now safe. The traffic light ahead turned red and he stopped and turned slightly in his seat.

“The name’s Cashman,” he said, extending his hand. “Alien bounty hunter extraordinaire. Nice to meet you.”

15

Cashman pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his jacket, stuck one in his mouth, went to put the pack away then held it out to me.

“Want one?”

When I didn’t answer he put the pack away, pulled out a lighter, lit the cigarette, took a long drag, then looked at me as he blew smoke out of the side of his mouth.

“See, I might not know everything, but I do know my etiquette. When I hold out my hand, tell you my name, you’re supposed to shake my hand and tell me your name. What—you never learned that?”

I was staring out my window. In a soft voice, I said, “This isn’t happening.”

“Say that again?”

“This whole thing,” I said, looking back at him. “This isn’t real.”

“Is that right? So that thing there on your finger, it hasn’t done weird stuff now, has it? Nothing that would seem—oh, I don’t know—unbelievable?”

I squinted at him, this tall large bald man with a thick goatee. He had large gold earrings in each ear.

“I’ve seen you before,” I said.

“Have you now?”

“Last night. You were across the street from the convenience store. Have you … have you been
following
me?”

“Not you. That.” Cashman using his cigarette to point toward my hand. “See, there’s a kind of … power the thing gives off. You might not be able to sense it. Hell, not many people could. But someone like me, someone who—”

“Hunts aliens?”

He grinned. “Why, yeah, exactly. People like me, our minds have sort of become attuned to the world outside our own. And when I sensed this thing here last night and I tracked it down, I knew trouble would be coming for it as soon as possible.”

We were leaving downtown now, headed toward the expressway.

“Where are we going?”

“Gotta lay low for a while. At least until I can come up with a solid game plan.”

“But won’t they find us?”

“Give them enough time they will.”

I stared back out my window, thinking about the past half hour. “Stop the truck.”

“What’s that?”

“I want to get out. I want to go home.”

“Kid, you go home, those things will follow you. Bad shit will happen, if you get my drift.”

The shotgun was between us on the bucket seat. I could still smell the gunpowder.

I grabbed it, held it up so it was aimed at Cashman’s face. “Stop the fucking truck.”

The cigarette still between his lips, he glanced in his rearview mirror, then slowed and pulled us over to the side of the highway. Slowly putting the truck in park, he said, “Now what, boss?”

I moved back against the door, kept the shotgun aimed with my left hand as I reached down and opened the door with my right.

“Now I’m leaving.”

“Oh yeah? And where are you going? We’re on the highway. The next exit isn’t for a mile and a half. You going to walk the entire way with that shotgun? Don’t you think that might make some people a little skittish?”

The door now open, I placed my right foot flat against the pavement.

“And then what are you going to do once you make it off the highway?” Cashman asked. He kept his hands on the steering wheel; the cigarette still dangled from his lips. “Last time those things came after you, you ran like a little girl. In fact, if I remember correctly—and I should, as it happened only ten minutes ago—it was me who saved your ass back there.”

“What are you saying?”

For the first time Cashman moved his head so he could look at me. “I’m saying stop being stupid. You don’t know what’s going on. I do. So why would you leave? At least stay with me until you find out what this is all about.”

“And what is this all about?”

“Goddamn it, kid, we don’t have time for that right now. In case you forgot, you’ve got a shotgun aimed at my head and we’re on the highway and God knows how many people can see us. So why don’t you put the shotgun down, shut the door, and we’ll get moving again.”

“Where are you going to take me?”

“Someplace safe.”

“And how do I know you’re not going to try to kill me once we get there?”

Here Cashman grinned, had to hold back a laugh. “You’ve been wearing that ring long enough to know by now I can’t do shit to you even if I wanted to. With that thing on you, you’re practically invincible.”

I thought for a moment, then said, “So then I shouldn’t be afraid of those things back there.”

“Look, are we going to play word games all day, or are we going to get moving?”

I thought for another moment, then shut the door and said, “Fine. But I’m keeping this thing aimed at you while you drive.”

Shaking his head, placing the truck back in gear, Cashman said, “Whatever makes you happy, kid.”

16

Just before we crossed over the river, Cashman took the exit for the warehouse district.

Keeping the shotgun leveled on him, I glanced out my window. I’d driven past this section of the city thousands of times, but that had been with my parents in their car as they cruised by on the expressway. Never had I actually come here. Nobody in their right mind would.

Many of the warehouses were abandoned, something I remembered my dad mentioning had to do with city legislation and red tape. Trash littered the streets. Graffiti marked almost every building. Boards covered almost every other window.