The Weird Travels of Aimee Schmidt: The Curse of the Gifted (55 page)

Aimee tried to get up, but the pain writhing through her shoulder kept her pinned down. In the dark, she watched John walk off. After a few meters he looked back towards her, then turned and left her behind lying in the dirt.

“Jesus Christ, help me!” Aimee whispered. The pain riveted through her body, but she managed
to pull up slowly against the truck.
Yeah, I’m nuts! Certifiably crazy!
She should have gotten back into
that truck like he ordered, and watched the idiot go up in flames, but she couldn’t. She leaned against the truck trying to talk herself out of her next move.

Ignoring the blinding pain, she took off running the same direction John had headed. She couldn’t see John, but she kept her legs pumping like she knew exactly where he headed. John had excellent hearing, and he heard Aimee when she fell into one of the craters they called potholes. Nothing could keep her from wailing out in pain. John abruptly stopped and turned around towards her.

“I told ya to get in the fuckin' truck, didn’t I?” he hollered back from where he stood. “You’re friggin’ getting in my way now. I don’t have any more time to mess with you.” After an eternity of silence, she figured John had left her there to carry out his mission. She waited in the
dead
silence. Her heart beat so loudly she could hear it.

But John didn’t abandon her. Way off in the distance, he suddenly yelled, “You okay?”

The tears welled up as they frequently did.
Did he change his mind? Does he really have a heart left?
She felt a flicker of hope as she looked in the direction of his voice.

“I’m okay,” Aimee shouted back. “You?”

A long minute of silence. “Yeah, couldn’t be better,” he answered. “Okay now, listen up. If you can walk, crawl, or drag your body, get back to the truck and do like I ordered in the first place.”

“Can’t.”

“
Whatthahell
do you mean, you can’t?”

“You’re not the only crazy idiot hurting, or will be hurting.”

“What?” John asked. His voice sounded like he was losing his patience with her.

“Well, you’re a soldier. You’re supposed to be able to kill for your country, right?”

“Damn straight,” he said with a snigger.

“Well, does that include innocent people?”

“Innocent people? What do you mean innocent people?” he asked with an irate voice.

“Yeah, innocent people. Maybe children, women, and…” Aimee paused intentionally.

“…and who else?” he pressed.

“You and…,” she stopped again, swallowed hard so she could finish, “…and…me.”

Quiet. Dead quiet. Either he had walked off and left her there for good, or she strummed the right heartstring. After a couple minutes his voice sounded closer.

He commanded sternly, “You don’t have to die. Get your ass back in the truck.”

“And you don’t have to die, either,” she replied. Her anger was now taking over her sanity.
“You think you’re the only friggin’ soldier who has ever gotten a
Dear John
letter? Huh? Geez, get
over it. You have a job to do for your country, and once you finish you will return and find someone who will love you for an eternity. Hell, if you do this now, Valerie will have won. She will have beaten you. So, soldier, are you a quitter?!” Her voice started out stammering, but by the end it hit a feverish pitch.

“I’m no fuckin'
quitter
!” he snarled back. She
definitely
hit a raw nerve.

“Well, that’s what I call someone who gets kicked in the shin and lies cryin’ in the dirt instead of getting up and dusting themselves off, licking his wound, and carrying on.”

Between gritted teeth, Aimee heard him growl as he gradually got closer and closer to her. “I’m
not a fuckin'
quitter
!” he snarled, then silence again.

Suddenly she heard something hard hit the ground and, at the same time, the sound of crunching. The crunching got closer. He sounded real close; maybe ten or fifteen meters away. She couldn’t see him, but Aimee knew he had returned. Just then she looked up into the dark. A hand stretched out towards her. Slowly, she extended her left arm and placed her hand into his. Effortlessly, he tugged and she pulled up out of the hole into his arms.

Aimee looked at him and he looked at her. His lips turned up slowly into a smile.

“So, John, want to tear up that letter?”

John nodded once, then he wrapped his arm gently under Aimee's armpit to support her while they started to walk back towards the truck. Mindlessly, he slid the phone into his jacket pocket. Aimee immediately felt the armored belt was missing.

“John,” she began with a quivery voice from the pain.

“Hmm?” he answered.

“Your phone. You turned it off, didn’t you?” she asked groaning with each step.

John stopped dead in his tracks. He looked straight at Aimee, and even in the dark she knew the answer. His hand flew inside his jacket, but he was too late. The phone rang one very loud, ominous ring. In the still of the night it carried long into the emptiness.

As suddenly as it started to ring, John’s arm dropped from around Aimee, and she plummeted to the ground. He stared down at her and she stared back. She had seen that look before; the horrific look of someone who realizes their end has come. The young girl from Washington, who got sucked up with her into the dark tunnel, had the same look when Aimee let go of her right before she disappeared.

It only took less than a tiny fraction of a second for it to happen. The belt, lying on the side of the road about fifty meters away, exploded like the bomb that hit Hiroshima. Their bodies blew opposite directions as everything around them lit up as bright and hot as high noon in the Sahara Desert. Instantly, John disappeared.

And Aimee…she left wrapped tight in total darkness. ...

Chapter 20 Timothy

…Fireflies, with green tails blinking wildly, blanketed the big Texas sky. They gave a light
show while everyone stood on the beach and gazed towards the city. The night felt unusually warm. A tepid gulf breeze licked at their backs while they stood admiring the magnificent beauty of such tiny creatures.

Aimee was seven, maybe eight. Her dad and Aunt Lauren stood on both sides of her while they stopped to watch the swarm of fireflies flicker in the northern sky across from the seawall. They were enjoying a leisurely stroll on the beach through the warm surf. Sarah, Aunt Lauren’s daughter, ran past them screaming at the top of her lungs. Aimee's brother, James, and David, Aunt Lauren’s oldest child, were right on Sarah's heels chasing her with a stick. On the stick’s end, dangling perilously, was a dead jellyfish. Both boys laughed hysterically while they raced after her. Aunt Lauren hollered at them to quit tormenting Sarah, but like most young boys, they had deaf ears to any adult when they were having fun.

Aimee sighed and pretended that the fireflies were tiny little fireworks in the sky. If she watched just long enough maybe they would fly high enough to escape the earth and join the millions of other stars in the universe. The sky was busting with green and yellow and white lights shooting every which way. So many lights filled the summer sky the dark backdrop was almost completely blotted out.

Dad’s hand touched Aimee's back and she looked up at him. A big smile covered his face. He lightly squeezed her shoulder. …

...“Holy crap!”
Aimee exploded, and she came up off the bed definitely back into consciousness.
“Whatthahell!”
followed loudly, then Aimee gulped a mouthful of air and stared angrily at the
stranger messing with her shoulder. The acute pain of her shoulder being pulled, stretched, and tucked shot bolts of lightning through her brain and interrupted her wonderful dream. Aimee wasn’t happy.

An old man with white, slightly balding hair, and a bit pudgy around the middle, was busily wrapping Aimee's right arm tightly to her torso so she couldn’t move the shoulder. He sang a pretty Celtic melody while he worked. Aimee's awakening startled him, but then he chuckled. Big dimples pulled up on both sides of his nose as he grinned at Aimee. “See there, now” he started in a thick Irish accent, “I knew ya would be coming around before long.”

Aimee wasn’t sure where she was, but she had a good idea why she was here. She had a bad habit of wrecking cars when she got behind the wheel. She should have listened to Dylan and let him drive.

She quickly surveyed the room. It appeared small but quaint, and warmly lit by the lamps on both sides of the bed. It wasn’t a hospital or hotel room. It was too homey looking, like a mother had been responsible for the decorating. Photos of strangers covered one entire wall. Some looked like they might have been taken in another century; perhaps the early 1900’s. Some were more recent. Some were black and white. Some were in color. Several had groups of people posing stiffly, dressed in their Sunday best. The pictures caught Aimee's attention before she spotted anything else, despite the old man sitting in a chair alongside the bed, who had patiently waited most of the day for this moment.

The old man leaned forward, his large hands on either side of his knees, and peered over his glasses at Aimee. “So, Miss Schmidt,” he asked sitting perfectly still while he studied her face, “how are ye feeling?”

She looked his way for a short second, then glanced towards the door for the only person she really wanted to see right now. “Fine. I have a miserable headache, but I’m used to miserable headaches. Otherwise, I’m feeling okay, a bit sore, but at least alive,” she answered. Aimee started to get up out of bed. She spit out, “Omigod…” and fell back onto her left side. The doctor stifled a little snicker.
She winced and choked out all in one breath, “What the
heck
happened to me, and who are you, and
where’s Dylan?”

The old man chortled loudly this time, sat back and twisted his long, white beard between his fingertips like he needed to ponder what he wanted to say next. “Well, Mr. Townsend, er…Dylan…is outside helping Timothy. I’m Dr. Payne, Timothy’s neighbor, next farm over. And you’re one lucky young lady, Miss Schmidt.”

“Lucky? I don’t feel so lucky,” she grumbled as she pulled the quilt up over her waist and sank back into the large mound of feathery, soft pillows behind her. Every inch of her body ached miserably.

“Well, ye are. You had quite a
wreck in that little bitty excuse of a car ye were driving. Some
how ya nearly took down that giant oak tree at the end of Timothy’s lane. Scared his flock so badly they might never be leaving the barn again to graze.” He stopped and laughed to himself. Obviously he found some weird humor in her predicament. She certainly didn’t.

Picking up on her huffy mood, he stopped chuckling, cleared his throat and continued, “Well, now. Let’s see. Your tire blew and by the looks of the car ye must have flipped at least once before leaving the road and sliding into the tree. Lucky for you, you had your bloody seat belt on otherwise I wouldn’t be patching just a bum shoulder and icing a rather nasty, swollen ankle. I would probably have sent for an ambulance by now, and taken ye on to Cambridge for surgery…or worse.” He stopped and stared at Aimee with one eyebrow dramatically raised while he waited for her reaction. She said nothing, just stared at him, so he continued, “But, thank goodness Timothy was on his way to town and spotted the sheep tearing through the pasture like a pack of wolves was fast on their heels. Your young gentleman friend is bruised a tad bit here and there - he pointed to various areas on his body - but otherwise, faired the accident a great bit better than ye did.”

At the mention of Dylan’s injuries, she reached over, grabbed his forearm, and interrupted com
pletely frightened, “Dylan, he’s
hurt
? Omigod, what did I do?” She suddenly realized this
time her accident and journey didn’t happen while she was alone. What she had dreaded most had happened. She had traveled with Dylan in the car, and even worse, she wasn’t the only one hurt this time!
He could have been seriously hurt,
Aimee thought,
or he could have…
She stopped and gasped as reality sunk in…
he could have been sucked into the tunnel with me!

“Can I see him?” she asked Dr. Payne. “Please, can you get Dylan?”

“Sure, young lady. He’s been waiting here by your side since this morning fretting terribly over ya. I assured him you would wake up when you were good and ready, and other than, most likely, a fractured clavicle, a sprained ankle, and a few bumps and bruises, you’d be good enough to go back to London tomorrow. He promised he would get you in to see a doctor as soon as you get back to Oregon, but for now I fixed ye the best I could.” He shook his head and started to gather some of his medical supplies and equipment, and stuff everything piece by piece back into the big, black leather bag sitting at the foot of the bed. The doctor continued chatting while he prepared to leave.

“Patched a lot of broken arms and stitched a load of cuts in my day. Why, I’ve delivered most of the folks in this area, too. Delivered little Timothy, myself, right here in this room some twenty-five…no, no, twenty-six years ago. He was the only child his Ma and Da had, God rest their souls, good people, his parents they were.” He stopped and crossed himself, kissed the silver cross hanging around his neck, then continued, “They died tragically last year in a horrible car accident outside of London. Left quite an empty hole for Timothy to fill since he’s an only child. He had just finished getting his doctorate in anthropology at Oxford. Had to return home suddenly when he got the news. Been here ever since…” Dr. Payne finally paused to catch his breath from his story about Timothy, the man they obviously owed their lives to for saving them. Aimee wanted to be hospitable and listen patiently to Dr. Payne’s story about Timothy, the anthropologist turned gentleman farmer, the man who had fortunately found them and gathered Dr. Payne immediately after the accident. She didn’t really want to be an ungrateful, ugly American. She truly was appreciative of everything Timothy and the good doctor had done for them, but right now, right this very minute, all Aimee wanted was to see Dylan to make sure for herself he was still in one piece…and to make sure he didn’t hate her.