Reckoning ~ Indian Hill 2 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (3 page)

At one hundred and eighty-five pounds, with short hair and in an officer’s uniform, it might as well have been Halloween. I began the descent down to the banks of the pond, while my father just stood there, most likely still not recognizing me. He looked warily at me under the assumption that I would be bringing him bad news about his son. And, to be honest, he didn’t look like he could handle it. This once virile man had been reduced to a shell of his former self. The stress and loss of the past year and a half had visibly taken their toll. Now, I wondered if I had the right person. From a distance, he looked like the man I called “father,” but as I approached, I saw how reality had ravaged him. Tears were welling up in his eyes. Recognition was becoming evident on his face; but he wouldn’t let his guard down until he was completely sure. The pain of false hope would be almost too much to bear. I was now within fifteen feet.

“Mike?” he said, almost as a whisper, so unsure of his sight and mind. “Mike? Is that you?”

“It’s me, Dad.” The voice sealed the deal. He might not have been able to trust his eyes, but his ears certified what his mind longed to hear. He fell to one knee, crying, his face buried in his gloves. Sobs racked his body. I ran the rest of the way.

“Dad! It’s me!” I hugged him as hard as I could; then eased off, afraid that I might break him in two. He grabbed my arm with his. I think he had to touch me just to make sure.

“Is that really you?” He didn’t let me answer. “Your mom…” And he started sobbing anew.

“I know, Dad, I know. I’m sorry that I couldn’t be here for you and the family.” My sister had been watching the whole event unfold from the large picture window that overlooked the pond. She came running out of the cabin, not knowing who I was or why I was there.

“Dad!” she screamed. “Are you alright?” I stood up and turned towards her with my father still clutching my arm, not wanting to let go. She had been running at a full sprint and suddenly stopped dead in her tracks as if she’d just seen a ghost. And who knows? Perhaps she had.

“Mike, is that you?” She seemed more unwilling to accept my appearance than our dad. Perhaps she had already made peace with my passing. My dad had still not been able to let go of me and was more than eager to accept my return. My sister couldn’t move, she was rooted to the spot. She just shook her head back and forth.

“It can’t be you. We buried you.” The general didn’t tell me that little nugget of information. I guess it’s kind of tough to tell someone he is dead and buried, when he’s standing right in front of you.

“It’s me, sis.” She approached cautiously. This was, of course, Stephen King territory and who knows? Maybe I was about to change into a clown outfit and chase her up to the cabin door.  But nothing like that happened. I had to physically extricate myself from my dad’s clutch as I slowly approached my sister. Her head shaking intensified. I grabbed her and laid on one of those bear hugs until she stopped shaking. My dad had come ashore, skates and all. We embraced as one huge mass of family; hell, we even walked up to the cabin that way. It would have made a funny video. Nobody dared let go, lest the dream end. None of us were quite ready to wake up just yet.

“How? How did this happen?” My sister was speechless, which, until this moment, was something I had never encountered. Oh well, I had seen some strange things this year. Why stop now?

“In due time, sis. But for now, I just want to sit here and soak up this moment.”

Anxiety always made my dad cook. He must have been one anxious puppy, because we ate like kings: corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, pork roast, all topped off with pecan pie. I hadn’t eaten this well since before leaving Earth. We ate and my dad just stared at my sister and me like the Mad Hatter. My sister was happy I was home, but she knew something was amiss. “It was in my eyes,” she told me later. I wasn’t sure just how much of my story I wanted to share with my father. I didn’t know if he could take it, number one; and number two, at this point I didn’t really think he’d care. He was just happy I was home.

I called my brother, Ron, after dinner, who first thought I was playing a practical joke, a sick practical joke. That was, of course, until I reminded him that he still owed me one hundred eighteen and one half beers from our bets on the 1982 baseball season. It was our inside joke, nobody knew the final tally except us; so by process of elimination, it had to be me.

We talked for an hour. He wanted to know my plans because he was coming up first thing in the morning. I told him fine as long as he brought beer. After the phone call, my sister, father and I sat around the table until midnight, talking about the old times. More than once, my dad had to wipe a tear away from his eyes and he would discreetly leave to use the bathroom.

“He didn’t take Mom’s death all that well,” my sister reflected on the obvious.

“How long has he been like this?” I asked with concern in my voice.

“This is one of his good days. Most of the time, I have to remind him to eat. But now that you’re back, I hope he’ll snap out of it. I come up here every other weekend just to keep tabs on him. I’ve asked him repeatedly to come live with us. But he says this place gives him peace.”

“What about Ronny and Gary, do they come up?”

“Every so often, Nancy comes up with the kids on the weekends that I don’t come up. Thank God for that, because I just can’t get up here anymore than I already do.”

“Does he go back to Massachusetts at all?”

“He goes every once in a while just to see Mom’s and your graves.” She looked at me sideways, maybe to see my response at that one. I didn’t have one for her. “He spends the night at Ron and Nancy’s and then heads back up here. I make sure those are the weekends I come up, because that’s when he’s at his worst.”

“My wake wasn’t an open coffin was it?” I laughed as my sister punched my arm.

“God no! I think we would have known something was wrong. Although whoever it was, I’m sure they would have been better looking.” I grabbed my sister’s head and put her in a headlock. 

“You better be nice to me,” she mumbled from underneath my grasp. “You know I can still kick your ass.” I let go and put my hands in the air, as if in compliance. “What happened Mike?”

“How much do you want to know?” I sat back down. It seemed appropriate for the mood that was rapidly approaching.

“All of it. The government told us there was a terrorist attack on Red Rocks and they were only able to partially identify remains, using DNA tests. They sent what we thought was your body two months after your disappearance. Obviously, it was a sealed coffin. We had a ceremony and we buried you. Although I don’t think dad ever thought you were truly gone.” She put her hands in her face as she wept. I caressed her shoulder to comfort her as best I could.

“I’m sorry that you went through that, but I wouldn’t wish what happened to me on anyone. You might want to refill that glass of wine before I begin. I’m going to need your mind open for this little tale.” And for the next five hours, I related everything that happened to me during the past eighteen months or so.

She killed her bottle of wine and began on my stash of beers. Ronny had better get up here early with those replacements, I thought. My sister could have caught flies the way her mouth hung open. If she hadn’t been looking directly at me, I doubt that she would have believed me. As it was, I think she was having great difficulty coming to terms with the whole thing. My sister was a person who believed everything has a place and there’s a place for everything. There was no shelf big enough for this whopper though.

“When?” she asked, taking a big drag of beer to get her mouth parts wet again. She had completely dried them out while her mouth gaped open. “How long do you think that we have before they come… here?”  She swallowed another big swig. That was a hard piece to get down the gullet in one swallow.

“Three weeks, a month. Two months at best.” Her eyes grew to the size of saucers.

“What time did Ronny say he was getting here?” She got up and went to the fridge after discovering that our alcohol supply was running dangerously low, which had to be remedied under these conditions. I laughed.

“Sis, I don’t think you need any more anyway.”

“Where should we go? What should we do?” my sister said anxiously. I could tell that she was nervous because she began to clean absent-mindedly.

“First off, you can sit down. Nothing’s going to happen tonight.” I crossed my fingers behind my back. She threw her hand towel into the sink and plopped back down with an audible sigh. “My advice would be to stay away from all large urban centers; that’s where they are going to make their presence known.”

“Are they planning to wipe us out?” she asked almost like a five year old asking if she could stay up late, quivering lip and all.

“Worse, sis. Much worse; they plan to enslave us.” She almost fell out of her seat.

“What are we going to do?”

“All that we can. We live, we fight. I’m not going down like a sheep. I’ve seen these bastards; they have no regard for our lives whatsoever. They’d just as soon eat us as pet us.” My sister was shivering visibly. “I don’t mean to scare you, but this is going to happen whether you want it to or not.”

“Why isn’t the president doing something about it? Why haven’t we been told anything?”

“He is doing things. But he can’t tell the general population just yet. What do you think would happen? There’d be mass hysteria, rioting, looting and worse. And just at a time when we need the entire country locked together, we would be tearing each other apart. That’s just what the Progerians want. Although, to be honest with you, I don’t think they are all that concerned about us as a species anyway. But who knows? Maybe that hole we ripped in their side might just make them think things over for a bit." My sister and I just sat there, both deep in our own separate but reflective thoughts. We both turned to watch as the sun began its ascent over the pond.

Ronny must have slept for an hour before he hopped in the car. I blurrily watched as his little red Beemer screamed up Dad’s dirt drive. Fifty years old and he still drove like he was seventeen! No wonder he had totaled so many of his cars. I walked out onto the porch to greet him; the winter air was electrifying. My mind went from dullness to crispness in mere seconds. I was tired and wired all at the same time. My body was ready for sleep but my mind could go on forever, or so it seemed.

Ronny slipped while getting out of the car, barely catching himself. He looked like something out of a Three Stooges matinee. Legs going a mile a minute, but getting no traction. If he actually got some tread, I thought, he probably couldn’t stop until he was halfway through the side of the house.

“Mike, just because you’re back, does that mean that I still owe you the beer? You know there is a statute of limitations on all debts, public and private.”

“Have you been thinking up that excuse the entire time you spent driving up here?” I shouted from the porch.

“Well, yeah,” he said. He had finally made progress with his battle for footing and joined Lyn and me on the porch. I soon found myself in a bear hug that threatened to break bones. “God, I missed you,” he said, muffled because his mouth was buried in my sweater. He proceeded to wipe away a tear. “So what was it, community service?” he asked, trying to lighten the moment.

“Yeah, something like that. I’ll tell you all about it, provided that you have enough beer to wet my whistle.”

“Mike, I’m paying my debt in full, plus some extra.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I bought five cases, two Buds, two Coors and a Labatts blue.”

“Are you kidding me? I said, truly shocked. We never actually paid up on our debts.

“Yeah, well this time was a little different. Most people don’t come back from the dead.”

“True.” I wasn’t going to argue; I just wanted the beer, and knowing Ronny, I knew it would be cold, not because he bought it that way, but because he was too cheap to fix the heater in his car.

“Dennis will be up later. I called him the minute I got off the phone with you.”

“Awesome, I can’t wait to see him. What about Paulie? Any news from him?” Ron’s face turned serious.

“Mike, he pretty much went underground after you disappeared.”

“Underground?”

“Yeah, radical, militia type. Last I heard, he was training up in the mountains of Colorado.”

“That doesn’t sound like Paul at all.”

“Yeah, well there’s other things going on too. When Dennis comes up here we need to talk.”

“That’s a definite.” I gave my brother another big hug, and drained the beer I had just opened. “Ron, we’ll talk more but Lyn and I have been up all night and I was up all the night before. I’m pretty much done for now. How long ‘til Dennis gets here?”

“He said he’d be up here around noon. So probably oneish or two.”

“Even better.” I said stifling a yawn. “Wake me then.”

Dennis arrived around three that afternoon, but they didn’t wake me. Apparently, I looked like I needed more sleep. What roused me were the smells wafting from the kitchen. My dad was well into preparing day two’s feast. And if I wasn’t mistaken, I smelled turkey and his world-renowned stuffing. I was tempted to run down the stairs and dig in when I realized that I was crying. I wouldn’t have even noticed had I not watched a teardrop hit my father’s wooden floor. Even then, I thought it may have been sleep drool. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. It came back dry. Not until I wiped my eye with my finger did I realize from where the offending liquid was leaking. Moments passed before recognition dawned.