Reckoning ~ Indian Hill 2 ~ A Michael Talbot Adventure (30 page)

He let his left hand stay where it was, almost in a cradling position with the glove and, like the athlete he was, he knew he’d catch it. A glint of something caught my eye as the grenade started its downward plunge. What was that? It looked like a pin.

“Paul! The pin!” I tried to run, but my legs failed me miserably. Paul just sat there, still looking at me with that devil-may-care grin. The grenade/ball landed in his glove just like we both knew it would. And for a horrible second, nothing happened.

I couldn’t move and Paul wouldn’t. And then everything went white as I watched the grenade detonate. Paul was literally cut in half, I could feel the heat from the shrapnel as it blazed by. Blood was everywhere; the Hobbit Tree was covered with it. It seemed that the tree itself had suffered grievous wounds. Now the world was pitching, no, it was the tree, it began to creak and moan its protests. I watched as it slowly began to fall over. It started to gain momentum and then came to a thunderous crash which momentarily lifted me off my feet. The demise of the tree hurt me on so many levels, I wasn’t sure where to begin. My dream self wasn’t ready to let me off the hook quite yet.

“Mike! Help me! Help me!” It was Paul, but we weren’t by the tree anymore, he was in his car, stuck, like he was the first time. The only difference was that I couldn’t move. I pulled at my legs with my arms, but nothing happened. The little man who controlled those buttons had quit moments earlier. The request was in, there just wasn’t anybody to punch the card. So I stood there helplessly as I watched my best friend slowly burn.

He screamed repeatedly at me, “Why won’t you help me? Please don’t let me burn!” I could do nothing. I couldn’t even lift my arms to wipe away the tears that were free-flowing from my eyes. He stretched out his hand and I began to scream for all I was worth. Black flesh dangled off his arm, sizzling like pan-fried bacon. I screamed as I watched my friend melt. I screamed and then what? Fell asleep? I don’t know. Everything just stopped happening and the world went black. Was I awake and the lights were out? Or were they on and I was blind, courtesy of Doctor Fenoir?

“Where am I?” I yelled. No echo, so I sure wasn’t in my room. As my eyes adjusted, I was able to distinguish small pinholes of lights. There were dozens, no hundreds, millions and they were all around me. They were stars, so now I must be floating out in space. Whatever the doc gave me, I’m going to have to remember to ask for more. I was really starting to enjoy this little mind journey when a small, disconcerted feeling began to form in my belly.

It was then that I noted that some of the stars were beginning to blot out. Suddenly, I began to hurtle through space. I’m not a scientist but I’m pretty sure I was approaching the speed of light, and yet the star-blotting effect was getting larger and still larger, in pace with the churning in my stomach. The object in front of me began to take shape. My view, including peripherally, was completely engulfed. It was the mother ship.

I awoke, purging nearly everything in my system. I fell off the hospital bed from the convulsions. Blood began to spew through my fingers as I attempted to stem the tide. Alarms were going off in my head. Nope, I thought, as I watched tissue worm its way through my interlaced fingers. Those alarms were coming from the machines hooked up to me. People came rushing from what seemed like all directions, but that could possibly be because I was spinning down, towards the ground. Hands grabbed me from everywhere.

I remembered hearing something about “blue carts and crashing” but those things seemed so distant, so foreign. I began to drift slowly. I arose, looking down at the throng of people. I was trying my best to figure out what all the hubbub was about but, to be honest, it didn’t really seem all that important anymore.

Blood was everywhere; I knew that wasn’t a good sign, and I felt a small pang of pity for the person who had spilled it. That truly was about the most emotion I could muster. The weight of the world was literally being torn and shredded from my shoulders. And it felt great, no, not great, magnificent, stupendous, miraculous! I didn’t have a care in the world. But the world of the living wasn’t quite through with me yet. My physical body still had a say, albeit a short one, from the looks of things.

“What about Deb and Beth?” The slab of meat down there suddenly brought up.

“Who?” Honestly, for a tenth of a second, I didn’t have the slightest clue who they were nor who had spoken.

“Deb and Beth!” That thing down there tried to yell the last part but I could tell that it was losing the struggle because the yell was barely above a whisper pitch. The whisper struck home though. A distant thought started to form and take shape. But I wasn’t thinking it. Then I saw them in all their grace and beauty. Were they angels?

“Deb and Beth,” the pink thing on the floor rattled off. And then the angels grabbed me. Sweet grace of God! I was off to heaven and eternal bliss. Their grip was severe, how could an ethereal being feel pain? What were they squeezing? And why weren’t we going up?

They were pulling me down, I tried to kick their hands away, but, unlike them, I could find no purchase, their arms would dissolve as I passed through them. “This isn’t fair. I’m done! Let me be done!” I protested, but they just smiled their angelic smiles and continued to drag me down, closer and closer to that THING that lay on the floor. I redoubled my efforts. “No! I don’t want to touch that thing. That’s not me! This is me!’ I was pleading to die. How often does that happen?

I began to feel the pull from the body, from my body, like a magnet I was being drawn into it. Deb and Beth had finally released their grasp, but it was no use. It was like trying to pull away from a black hole, it wasn’t gonna happen.

“Doctor!” an excited nurse yelled. “We’ve got a pulse!”

“Quick! Get him on the gurney,” Doctor Fenoir said calmly. Wow, I noted as the last vestiges of my spiritual being returned. He sure doesn’t act like a kid when he’s under the gun.

“Get him up to the O.R. We’ve got to get blood into him; he’s lost too much. Way too much,” the doctor said as he looked around the floor of the room. “You don’t lose this much blood supply and keep on living. What is driving this kid on?”

“Doctor?” the excited nurse looked up.

“Nothing, nothing. Get this kid going!” The doctor lost a little composure. He wasn’t prone to believing in miracles, but even he knew enough to recognize one when he saw it. And he wasn’t about to just let it slip through his fingers.

Chapter 33 - Massachusetts Line – Mass Pike

Deb had been driving for about two hours, now cruising at a comfortable seventy-five miles per hour. She was amazed at how little traffic there was; especially as she began to cross over the New York line.  It was almost as if people were avoiding the highway, she thought. Sure, traffic had been light almost their entire trip but now it was almost eerie. Then, the reason became evidently clear as she crested a rise. Down the slope of the highway, no more than a quarter of a mile away, was a roadblock It appeared to be a military checkpoint with at least two tanks and a five-ton troop transport.

“Uh, Beth? You might want to wake up for this one,” Deb said as she nudged her companion. Beth stirred and awoke relatively fast. She had barely fallen asleep more than ten minutes before.

“What’s up?” were her only words as she wiped her eyes.

Deb had brought the car to a near standstill in the middle of the roadway.

A huge lit-up construction sign glowed to their left:
Massachusetts is in a state of emergency. All personnel not on official military business will be detained and their property seized
.
Proceed Forward Cautiously!

“What now, Beth?” Deb asked with the slightest bit of panic interlaced in her voice.

“Well, we can’t just sit in the middle of the road. They’ll either get suspicious and shoot at us, or somebody is going to plow into the back of us. Either way, we need to do something.”

“What about turning around?”

“That would be a great idea, except for the median divider.”

“Dammit!” Deb said as she slammed her fist down on the steering wheel and then placed her head on it.

“One of the Jeeps is moving, Deb. It’s coming towards us,” Beth said as she pushed on Deb’s shoulder to get her head up off the wheel.

“Beth, get the guns ready.”

“Do you think that’s such a good idea?”

“Right now, I don’t think anything is a good idea, but we have no way of knowing if these guys are military at all. Maybe they ransacked a military post or maybe they are just acting on their own. You and I both know the military, as we once knew it, no longer exists. So, best case scenario, is that they are a National Guard unit that still adheres to their credo. I’d still like to be prepared though.”

“I sure hope they don’t know how to use that tank,” Beth said, more under her breath as she reached around to the back of the cab and pulled out a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver for Deb. She grabbed the Remington 30-06. She hated the kick it gave but right now, it was all about making a statement. She wasn’t going to give up without a fight. The Jeep approached cautiously; the gunner manned at his mounted machine gun was expecting the worst.

“Do you think they’re scared?” Deb asked to no one in particular.

“As scared as us?” Beth asked as Deb gave her a sideways glance. Beth began to heft the rifle up in preparation to put the muzzle out of the window.

“Beth, I wouldn’t do that. When he sees that barrel, he’s likely to fire. And scared or not, with that many rounds coming in our direction, we’d be sitting ducks.

“Deb, spin this around and let’s get out of here!”

The Jeep was about three hundred yards away when Deb made her choice. She threw the truck in reverse and let the tires squeal as she began to back up. Beth was caught unawares by the blue smoke that rose from one of the tanks. She had little time to wonder what it meant as she watched a dozen or so trees splinter into toothpicks not more than fifty yards to their left.

“I guess that answers the question whether or not they know how to use the tanks! I would imagine that was their version of a warning shot!” Beth said excitedly. Deb’s driving had been something less than perfect and going backwards was not improving her skills. The Jeep was rapidly making progress; it was a mere hundred yards away now.

“Deb, you should probably turn this thing around!” Beth yelled as she watched the gunner cock back on his weapon. “Uh, now! Deb! Please!”

“Stop screaming at me!” Deb yelled as the muscles in her neck began to throb from the quandary they were in. Deb wanted more than anything to spin the truck around like she had seen in so many action movies, but she was afraid she would, more than likely, lay the top-heavy truck on its side, or worse yet, flip it over completely. Neither she nor Beth were wearing their seatbelts and they’d be flung out the doors like rag dolls.

This plan of action wasn’t going to work either; the Jeep would be up on them in moments. The tank fired again but this shot was well clear, more likely so they wouldn’t suffer any friendly fire casualties as opposed to not knowing how to aim the mighty gun.

“Beth, put my seatbelt on and then get yours on!” Deb screamed over the fracturing of trees. Beth looked like she had been slapped, she was stunned and red-faced. “Now Beth!” That got Beth moving. She reached over Deb’s waist and fumbled with the shoulder harness. Trying desperately to put slot A in receptacle B.

“Hurry Beth!”

“I am hurrying!” Beth yelled as she desperately tried to make the two ends meet amidst the bouncing and swerving of the truck. The audible clicking noise was unmistakable, Deb was harnessed in.

“Now you, Beth. Move!” Beth had much more ease getting her belt on in the more familiar fashion.

“Are you ready!”

“Ready for what, Beth?”

Their Dodge Ram had just climbed over the hill as Deb slammed on the brakes. The tires howled in protest. Beth nearly suffered whiplash from the severity of the stop. As it was, she knew she was going to be sore for days to come. Deb threw the truck into drive without completely coming to a stop. The transmission made an audible clunking as it did what it was told, but not without some severe complaining.

“Deb, what are you doing?” Beth said as she grabbed hold of the dashboard. The truck first inched over the hill and then began to gain momentum. All the passengers in the Jeep had been caught unawares as the bigger Dodge truck now began to descend upon them and fast.