Wheee! Here you go, guys. I hope you enjoy it and everything. Originally this was going to be divided into two chapters, but I decided to do it in one to avoid making either too short. Besides, I wanted to get back to the 'present' for her story and out of the flashback.
Chapter Four
“Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under it.” Lady Macbeth, Act I, scene v
I’ve been knocked out a few times since then, and I can tell you, it doesn’t get any less disorienting. I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but when I finally woke up, the compelling urge that had brought me here was practically screaming in my head. I felt like telling the feeling to shut up and leave me alone so I could sleep some more, but the second feeling; that of cold metal on my wrists brought me clean awake.
My hands were handcuffed behind my back and I was lying face down on some kind of wooden floor. There was something pretty foul tasting in my mouth preventing me from talking. It felt like a rag of some kind. There also seemed to be some kind of pressure on my back preventing me from rising. It looked like I was in some kind of closet. I was definitely in trouble. Still, at least Aunt Maisie wasn’t in here with me.
I heard a groan then and had a momentary panic that she actually was. Then the pressure moved off my back as the girl I had seen in my dream-vision-whatever fell off me and into view. She was similarly bound, and when her wide eyed stare found mine, she tried to yell a question at me through her gag. I didn’t speak gagese yet, but I got the gist. Mostly because I was thinking the same things she was yelling.
At least with the pressure off my back, I was able to rise into a sitting position. The girl seemed like she was nearly hyperventilating in her panic. I could sympathize, but between her muffled demands and the voiceless urging from the pressure inside my head, I couldn’t think.
Before I could even try to calm her down, the closet door opened and our friendly neighborhood psycho appeared holding an instrument which has led to so much suffering and death, propelling the masses to battle. I mean, of course, a camera. He also possessed a goofy smile that didn’t come close to touching his reptilian eyes.
“Oh. Oh good, both of our friends are awake.” The briefly blinding flash came as he snapped a picture. He sounded delighted. I wondered how delighted he’d sound if I showed him where I wanted to shove his camera.
The girl that I had been imprisoned with, whose fate had been intertwined with mine even before we met, from the moment I saw her predicament, kicked out at the bastard. Oh yeah, I was supposed to be fighting, not pondering anatomical impossibilities. The unknown force inside my mind had sent me to help, not to be a sidelines cheerleader. Which was just as well, since I’d need to borrow a bicycle pump and inflate my bosom to get up to cheerleader standards, and who has that kind of time?
Before I could do much of anything to help, the creep stepped away from the other girl’s kicking legs. He made a clucking sound like he was disappointed and reached beside him. Producing the sawed-off shotgun that I had seen in my vision, he gestured with it. “That’s wrong! That’s totally wrong. There are rules to follow and you have to obey them. Get up.” When both of us remained where we were, his eyes bulged furiously and he yelled. “Get up!”
We were still bound and the confines of the closet were tight. But it is singularly amazing what kind of motivator the ****ing of a shotgun can be. From the moment the ker-klunk reached our ears, it took us approximately .003 seconds to reach a standing position.
I didn’t know exactly what my companion was feeling, but personally, I was terrified. All of this was suddenly so much more real than it had been before I had been personally involved. The gun could kill me, could snuff my life with a single twitch of his finger and nothing I could do would stop it. I could feel the tears of terror welling up even as I kept my gaze on that instrument of death. I was also paying a lot of attention to the weapon he held.
The man stepped away from the door and pointed with his wand of not-so-mystical force. “Come on.” He sounded impatient and childish. “We have to play and we don’t have all day. It’s time for lunch. You know how much Nana hates it when we let the food get cold. We’d have to fetch her off the ceiling with a broom.” He laughed like it was genuinely an amusing thought.
Slowly, two bound and gagged girls looked to each other. I was certain we could both see the fingers twirling in a ‘crazy’ gesture around our heads concerning our captor. Unfortunately, Mr. Nuttier Than A Snickers had the gun, so we walked where he wanted us to.
We were both directed to the kitchen, where a ginger cat sat on the table, which was set with four places of china and silverware. Absurdly, the cat sat before the fourth place setting.
“Nana.” The man’s voice interrupted my line of thought. “I found Betty and Sarah playing hide and seek.” He laughed once more, pointing with the gun for us to each take a seat. Apparently the cat was Nana. I wasn’t sure yet which of us got to be Betty.
We had just sat down when a high pitched whistling sound made us both jump almost out of our seats. I briefly and wishfully thought it might be a police whistle. Unfortunately, we hadn’t gone back eighty years to when such things were actually used, and it was only the kettle on the stove. The man simply stepped over and turned the burner off before picking up the kettle to pour the boiling water into four mugs that sat to the side. While he poured, the man smiled at the three of us as though expecting praise for his pouring skills. I can’t speak for the cat, but I can say neither of his human guests was impressed.
After filling the four mugs, the man carefully placed one before each of the place settings while holding the gun in his other hand. If I’d had any thought of jumping him even with my hands secured, the sight of that barrel casually swinging in my direction erased it.
The contents of the mug appeared to be hot chocolate. I love cocoa, but I had no desire to taste anything this creep made. As delicious as it looked, the concoction had to be tainted by the evil he exuded like the cloud that fills the perfume section of a store, populated by crazed women squirting their scented nerve gas on anyone who trespasses within their domain. Surely partaking of anything prepared by this fruitcake would taint the very soul.
Besides, even if I had been interested in quenching my thirst and need for chocolate, the urging inside my mind chose that moment to ramp itself up tenfold as it screamed that the time was now. What I had seen in my vision was going to happen right now, regardless of whether I was ready or not. There was no time out. There was no delay of game. I would succeed or fail at this moment, and all moments beyond it would be measured by my actions here.
Somewhere nearby, I heard a door thunk closed. It had to be the apartment next door. Carter Tavelli, my old unmet friend, was leaving. In less than five seconds, he’d walk beyond the range of hearing and neither myself nor my unwilling companion was capable of raising a shout. The gags saw to that quite well.
Norman Bates Sans-Motel was slightly turned as though he too had heard the man next door start to leave. I had no time to think about what I was doing. I could say that I was terrified, but in that second, what I felt even more was the pressing need to do something. My eyes settled on the place setting in front of the man and the answer came to me. Of those of us capable of speech, only one was ungagged. Though he was unwilling to raise a cry of alarm of his own volition, I could ensure that he did.
With fear and motivation as my side by side companions, I rammed myself up and forward into the table. There was a sudden pain in my stomach and side since I couldn’t use my arms to shove, and I nearly knocked the wind out of myself. But I was rewarded by the table slamming up and partly back. Even as our demented neighborhood lunatic began to turn his attention my way, his plate fell to the floor and shattered. More importantly, the mug of freshly poured boiling hot chocolate careened off the table and splashed directly into his lap. The shout that he raised as his beloved man-parts were soaked by the scalding liquid was more beautiful music than I had heard in my life to that point.
I was on my feet, but I was still bound and my imprisoned comrade had yet to recover from her own surprise. Our captor was also on his feet, having lunged backwards and knocked his own chair over in his frantic need to get away from the liquid that still burned his crotch. He screamed several obscenities while raising that gun in my direction. For a brief moment I thought I saw my own death. Then I remembered that my legs still worked and dove to the side just as, in his blind rage induced by his pain, the man forgot the sound of the shotgun and what it would draw.
The explosive boom of the gun partially deafened me and I screamed in muffled terror, convinced that I had been hit. I’m fairly sure it was only a happy side effect of not having partaken of the cocoa that spared me from wetting myself. I landed hard on my left side while the shotgun tore the hell out of the wall and cabinets behind me.
Out in the main room, as the sound of the shotgun echoed around the walls, I could hear the door come open as one Carter Tavelli forced his way inside. He shouted something about the police, and the crotch-scalded kidnapper spun toward the doorway, momentarily forgetting my existence.
The approaching footsteps told me that the man was coming. But this **** covered the entrance to the kitchen perfectly with his weapon of choice. The moment our savior showed himself, he would have his face blown off. I couldn’t let that happen. Beyond my own will to live, the girl who had been imprisoned with me had to go on to be the inspiring teacher she was destined to be.
I was bound and almost helpless on the floor, unable to rise in the scant seconds available before Tavelli became hero or corpse. Once again, my eyes fell upon the unhindered being within the room. In this case, it was the cat. It crouched near my legs, lapping at something on the floor.
The shouted warning of police came again. I heard the man’s approaching footsteps. The lunatic blocked the doorway. The cat lapped at the puddle. My hands remained bound.
I have never held any sort of animosity toward animals. The human capacity for cruelty to nature is not unknown to me, but it is not a part of my daily life. In other words, if you are a cat lover, please release your anger at what I am about to describe and understand that it was not out of a mad desire for feline pain that drove my next action.
As I lay on my side, I brought my foot back and kicked that cat as hard as I could. The animal was flung partway into the air with an unholy screech. Its cry brought the man’s attention toward it even as Tavelli stepped around the corner with his gun raised. Realizing his mistake at the last moment, the weapon wielding crackpot tried to rectify it. Tavelli was ready however, and even as the barrel of the shotgun rose in his direction, the cop discharged his own pistol and the freak was spun around from the force of the shot and knocked to the floor.
Carter was over me a moment later, shouting a question of whether I was all right. I tried to tell him to check on the other girl, but I’m afraid that even if I hadn’t been gagged, the only thing that would have come out was a terrified blubbering. The beautiful, beautiful gun toting policeman tugged the gag out of my mouth and reached into his pocket to produce a tiny silver key, which he used to unlock the cuffs around my wrists. All the while, he reassured both of us that he was there to help.
My hands were free and he turned to the other girl. I made it to my feet and rubbed the circulation back into them. I felt my body settle into a state of shock, before noticing a slight blue glow begin to spread across the man who had saved us. Curiously, and feeling like it was a dream or perhaps my own brain losing control, I reached out to feel the brightening aura that surrounded him. My hand made contact with his leg and my entire world spun once more.
Suddenly, I was seeing things through the eyes of Tavelli once more. I unlocked the pretty black girl’s handcuffs and was just pulling her up when movement from the corner of my eye drew my attention. The kidnapper, the man I had just shot was rising to his feet with the shotgun clutched in one hand while he bled profusely from his opposite shoulder. I had just begun to turn when the explosion of the shotgun’s round filled the air once more and my world erupted in pain. Then all sense of feeling left me as I fell to the floor.
I was shocked back to myself with a gasp. My hands clutched the counter, holding me upright. Even as Tavelli looked to me to question if I was all right, I could see that movement as our violent kook began to lift himself up. A shouted warning left my lips even as I grabbed the nearest thing I could find, a bottle of Palmolive dish soap, and hurtled it at the shotgun-wielding reptile. The bottle collided with the man as he pulled the trigger, throwing off his aim.
The deafening roar made me flinch, but I sighed in relief as Tavelli, apparently unhurt, hit the man hard and knocked him down. He was handling it, and the already injured evil man was handily dispatched. However, before I could get too excited at our victory, my eyes fell on the other girl, and I couldn’t restrain the cry of dismay. Though I had saved Tavelli with my airborn bottle attack, the blast of the shotgun had hit her instead.
I shouted a denial as well as a curse even as I fell to my knees beside the woman I had been trying to save. Her eyes found mine as she lay in a puddle of her own blood, trying in vain to mouth something while her life leaked out of her in buckets. I felt my own tears finally explode to blur my vision as my failure filled my soul.
Carter was behind me, saying something. But I couldn’t hear him. My focus was on the girl that I had failed. Her eyes locked on mine and once more I everything that her life would accomplish, and all that would suffer if she didn’t survive. I locked my hands in hers and stared down at her while a feeling of complete desperation filled me.
If she would live, there would be untold benefits throughout the succeeding years. If she died here and now, then hope would die with her for hundreds of people that her teaching of one boy would eventually save, not counting the countless others that she would affect. This particular butterfly had to flap good and hard.
I squeezed the suffering girl’s hands and begged some unknown entity with all of my soul to save her, to restore some measure of hope to this world. Even as I knelt there, I felt something unknown flicker to life within me. A soothing, soundless voice seemed to direct me to hold the girl even tighter. A flame of something that was not fire, yet warmed me to my core rose within as I clutched the dying young woman while ignoring Tavelli’s shouts. The heat rose to an almost unbearable level while the soundless feeling that directed my actions prompted me to hold the wounded young woman even tighter.
I could feel the warmth and caring within my own body gradually pour itself into the bleeding girl. I gradually grew colder even as the heat filled my companion’s body. Abruptly, her eyes, which had drifted closed, snapped open with an audible gasp of life.
Drawing back with my own yelp of surprise, I stared down at the girl. She breathed once more and looked confused. We both looked toward her chest where her shirt had been torn by the shotgun. It was still shredded, but no wound remained. Though blood liberally coated the floor around her, she looked as though she had never been hit. She had been healed, brought back from the edge of death.
I was on my feet, staring at the suddenly uninjured girl as though she was the one that had pulled some kind of mystical healing mumbo jumbo out of her butt to save my life. I can honestly say that I don’t know which of us was more shocked.
Tavelli, who was on his radio calling for help, stopped talking as his own eyes fell upon the girl who moments before had been seconds from death. Incredulously, he looked to me with a thousand questions on his lips. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any answers for him. I was as confused and freaked out as either of them.
After I stared mutely in the face of his confusion, the man turned back to the girl to check on her in disbelief. Once he had turned his back to me, I felt that urge within tell me to leave this place. I didn’t belong here any more. The girl was saved, and anything I tried to say about why I had been in this location, what I had been doing, or how I had saved the girl would only land me in some rubber walled room. I had to get out while I could.
I took a step backwards. Neither of them noticed. Another step and then I turned and ran to the door. I heard Tavelli yell out for me to stop, but he had to stay with the girl and his prisoner. He couldn’t give chase.
At the door, I could see neighbors wandering the halls as they tried to figure out what had happened. I heard sirens drawing closer, and even as a few questions were shouted my way, I ran to the stairs.
Minutes later, I stood across the street, watching as the lot filled with police cars and other emergency vehicles. Tavelli and the black girl both emerged from the building, as well as the psychopath who had tried to kill us. The latter was escorted by several uniformed officers. Carter tried to look around for me, but I ducked away behind the building I was next to.
It was over. I began to walk away, not realizing at that moment that what I had just done was only a warm-up. Over the next two years, I learned more of my own abilities and shortcomings than anything college would have taught me. I dropped out, having found it impossible to attend classes when the urge to run a thousand miles to prevent a murder-suicide would overwhelm me. My parents shouted and ranted, but I couldn’t explain to them what I was doing. I couldn’t explain it to anyone.
I still can’t explain where these feelings, or where my strange abilities come from. I can’t tell you if I am some kind of mutant, an alien, or if I was bitten by a radioactive band-aid. Whatever force that drives me, has seen fit not to explain itself.
Now, two years later, I stood from the McDonalds booth where I had just finished my small meal using almost the last of my money. I had to find the morgue and figure out what I was supposed to do now that the man I was supposed to save this time died before I could get to him.
However, even as I turned, a voice spoke up. “It’s you.” Those two words, and the voice behind them, brought my eyes up in shock and I stared across a span of three feet, where the man who stared back at me repeated himself. “It’s you.”
Two years and more than fourteen hundred miles apart, I stared at Carter Tavelli once more.
