Run (34 page)

"And day three," finished Fran, comprehension dawning on her face, "he goes back in time a third time, to Iraq."

"Which for us happened in between thirty years ago and just last week," acknowledged John with a nod.

"And that's when he gets killed.  So to us he died first, but to him it was the last thing."

"Right," said John.  "And he could even show up again tomorrow.  For all we know he made dozens of trips around time before finally getting killed."

"What if it isn't time travel, though?" asked Fran.  "What if it's just triplets or something?  Or father and son who look really similar?"

John considered the idea.  Then shook his head.  "No, it has to be time travel.  In addition to the fact that Skunk Man changed zero - and even twins change over the years, to some extent - the guy who killed my dad was wearing some kind of glow suit.  I don't know what fabric it was, but it wasn't polyester, and that was about as far as we had gotten when I was a kid.  What he wore was weird.  It had lights all over it, but not like a Christmas tree.  It was more like one of those fiber-optic flashlights you can buy at party shops.  Like the fabric was cut from a skein of photons instead of fabric."  He shook his head again.  "No, it's time travel.  That's the only way to explain the Skunk Man."

"So you think that he came - comes, will come, or whatever - from the future?"

"Yeah."

She mulled over the idea.  He could see she didn't like it, for it clearly turned her idea of right and wrong in the world upside down and shook it like an Etch-A-Sketch, erasing reality and leaving the slate clean for some new creation.  But he could also tell she was accepting it.  "Okay, so that explains the Skunk Dude.  What about Malachi?  What about the crazies who came for Nathan and
especially
what about people getting killed and then standing up and going for a walk to a friend's house for tea and cakes?"

John pursed his lips.  "I'm guessing that the men who killed Nathan and the man who killed my dad are connected with Malachi.  He doesn't have the cross shaved in his head like they did, but their m.o. sure seems similar: bust in a door and start shooting with high-caliber weapons.  I'm guessing that we represent a threat of some kind to them."

"Sure," she said.  "We're caught in a rotten replay of
The Terminator
.  Do you want to be Arnold or Linda Hamilton?"

"Fran –" he started, sensing the anger and fear that were welling up beneath the flippant words. 

She cut him off.  "No, seriously.  For myself, I'm gonna be Robert Patrick.  That way I can both have long metal arms
and
hang out with Scully in
X-Files
.  Good times for all."  Her tone was rising as she spoke, the tone growing higher and more strained as panic gripped her.  He reached out a hand, intending to comfort and steady her, but she swatted it away, the shakiness of her hands revealing the depth of her terror.  "Don't you understand what you're saying?  If these people are from the future, then we can
never stop running
."

John could only respond with silence.

***

Fran could feel the fright bubbling up from a deep well bored through her soul.  It was black and alive, curling through her bones and heart like oily black worms, eating her out from the inside.  None of this night should be happening, but it was.  None of it
could
be happening, but it was.  She wanted to go home and curl up into a ball on her bed and go to sleep until she woke up from this nightmare she had somehow been sucked into.  But she knew that she couldn't do that, because the likelihood was that someone would be waiting there: waiting to kill her like they had already tried to do once before, on the night Nathan died.

She wanted this to be over; wanted it to stop.  But it wasn't over and it wouldn't stop.  She knew that, and knew even more that what John was saying made sense.  That it was likely that the goons after them were from the future.  But that fact brought with it even more fear.

"If they're from the future," she said, "then they will know where we go, they can read the newspapers or watch a tricorder or whatever future thing they do to locate people and show up with guns at our door any time."  Her voice was quavering in a way she did not like to hear.  She was a person who preferred optimism.  She
reveled
in it.  So hearing this fountain of worst-case scenarios flowing from her lips was disturbing both because the scenarios seemed likely and for the fact that she was unable to think of a silver lining.  For the first time in her life, she was scaling a cliff edge that hung out over a deep pit of true despair, and she found she did not like the view at all.

"If they can find us anywhere, anytime," she continued, fighting to keep her voice from breaking, "then we're never going to be able to go home, or get money from our bank, or even write to friends or families for fear that they might use that information to track us down and kill us."

John sighed, then nodded.  "Maybe," he said quietly, and Fran felt some of her fear leave her as he spoke, felt that strange tightening in her bosom that she had only felt with Nathan: that sense of true trust and faith in another person.  "But maybe not.  You asked about the people who stand up and walk after being killed...."

Fran nodded, too worn out by all of the dire possibilities that snarled and howled at her door to be able to vocalize anything further.  She hoped what John was about to say would supply her with a needed lifeline of hope, something long enough and strong enough to scale this cliff she found herself perched on and so get away from the despair-filled void below her.

"Well, near as I can tell they've only done that when the goons are doing the shooting." 

"What?" she asked, relieved to feel a modicum of calm in her voice. 

"The people we've seen get up again are my dad, Gabe, and the sheriff.  And all of them were killed by the goons: by Malachi or people like him."

Fran nodded, seeing where he was going.  "So you think that maybe that's some kind of response; something meant to help us?"

John nodded as well.  "Sure.  If Malachi and his people are from the future, maybe there are other people there, too.  People trying to help us.  Maybe they have some way of reanimating people so that they can protect us from the goons.  So in comes Malachi, blows away the sheriff, and is about to kill me, too.  But Tal resurrects somehow, and that gives me the time I need to get away.  The same thing happened when my dad was killed.  He
saved
me."

"How come Nathan didn't resurrect?" asked Fran, her voice small.  The question was not one for which she wanted an answer, not really.  She much preferred to leave her husband at peace, and discussing his death in this manner seemed akin to digging up his grave so she could jostle his remains around a bit and wake him up. 

"Maybe he did," answered John.  "You were in the bathroom, remember?  And besides, you said the police came within a minute.  Maybe those weren't police.  Maybe those were the good guys –"

"The anti-goons," Fran said, and was pleased that she could make such an attempt at levity, weak though it might be.
"Sure," said John with a smile.  "Maybe the anti-goons were able to send their own people in as police, to help you out, so Nathan didn't even need to be reanimated."

Fran felt relief sweep through her.  She didn't know if this particular bit of speculation was true or not, but it comforted her to think that her Nathan was at peace.  That he was not stuck in a mahogany box, hideously resurrected from the grave like some ghoulish Lazarus, but unable to escape the coffin in which he had been lain to rest.  He's asleep, she told herself.  Asleep, and angels are watching his dreams and making sure he only has good ones. 

The raw edge of her panic had been soothed by the hope John's theory offered.  She felt her body unclench, and nodded.  "Sure.  So it's not just the bad guys.  Not just the goons.  There are anti-goons, too.  Maybe helping us out."

"Right.  And even if there aren't –"

Fran looked up at John sharply, suddenly afraid he was going to snip the line of hope he had been letting down to her, dropping her into that awful chasm of grief and fear.  He must have understood the look she gave him, for he shook his head.

"Relax," he said.  "I was going to tell you that even if we
did
have to go on the run forever, well..."

His voice petered off, and Fran got the strong impression that he wanted to tell her something, but was worried she might take it badly.  Strangely curious at what might cause such boyish reticence, she put a hand on his.  "What?" she gently asked.

The move seemed to have the opposite effect she was hoping for.  John's face grew flushed and his mouth opened and closed like that of a fish trying to work a hook out of its lip.  Fran couldn't help but laugh a bit.  He was so sweet, so obviously concerned about her comfort, and so darn
cute
when he was embarrassed.  She laughed again, and it felt good to laugh.  Laughter was another rope to climb away from despair, and so she laughed even harder, climbing that psychic cable to safety.  Despair dwindled below her, growing ever smaller, and when John joined in her laughter, a full-throated belly laugh that shook his frame like a mirthful earthquake, the despair disappeared entirely. 

She leaned forward and, still laughing, touched her lips to John's.  He blushed again, she could feel his cheeks radiating warmth, but kissed her back.  The contact was quick and light, not a kiss of lovers but one of friends, greeting one another after a long absence.  It was fondness and friendship and hope.  Fran smiled at him, and he smiled back. 

Still blushing, he said, "If we
do
have to run, well...there are ways to hide and stay hidden forever.  And I know them all."

Sobered, she said, "Well, that takes care of you, but I don't know any of them."

His face grew completely serious, all traces of laughter flown.  "I would take care of you."  He hesitated, and his mouth did the fish move again.  Fran smiled, waiting for whatever was coming.  "I..."

"Yes?"

His jaw stopped pumping.  He took a deep breath as though to draw in strength from the dusty air around them, then simply said, "I love you."

She felt her smile deepen, and said in return, "Good.  Because I love you, too."

This time he kissed her, and again it was sweet.  But more lingering this time.  Still friendship and hope, but also love and passion was in this kiss, as though both of them knew that the world was ending and this was all that remained and all that really mattered.

And perhaps it was.

DOM#67A

LOSTON, COLORADO

AD 1999

7:50 AM TUESDAY

***ALERT MODE***

Light speared into the shaft as Malachi threw open the wooden door that marked the entrance to the mine.  Jenna and Deirdre looked on, fingering their weapons anxiously, clearly nervous at what they might discover within the mountain's belly.  Already the night had proven more difficult than anticipated, and with the town now on full Alert, and Malachi knew they could only expect things to get worse.

He looked at them.  They looked like hell.  Burnt, bruised, or both.  He knew that he must look a fright himself, but there was no time to remedy that.  There would be time after they killed John and then Fran. 

There would be time.

There would be an eternity.

Beyond their injuries, the two women also looked tired; worn down.  Malachi knew that he should feel the same, but he didn’t.  He felt aware, alert.  Alive.  But it was a mad kind of life that glittered in his eyes, like a single photon trapped in glass ball of darkness, dancing back and forth in a manic hope for release.

Jenna stepped into the tunnel and Malachi covered her, though he didn’t expect either John or Fran to be so close.  They would not wait in the tunnel's mouth, he knew.  Ambush was not in John's nature.  Rather, he would try to run, to hide.  Above all, to protect Fran.  But always running, because it would be ingrained in his nature to run.  So he would be deep within the mountain, trying to escape notice in the murky blackness of a million tons of dirt and stone.

"Nothing," said Jenna.  Malachi’s admiration grew for her just a bit.  She hadn’t complained at all about her shattered mouth, and during the last few hours had started acting a bit more like Deirdre: silent, self-contained, with the quiet confidence of a tiger with the scent of blood in her nostrils.  Perhaps she would turn out to be useful, after all, and not the liability that she had thus far proven herself to be.

Malachi and Deirdre stepped into the tunnel, leaving the door open behind them.

Deirdre pointed wordlessly at a shelf with hats on it and a row of hooks with jackets hanging off them.  It looked as though two of the jackets and two of the hats were missing.  Malachi nodded.

"Which way?" asked Deirdre.

Malachi pulled a tracker from his pocket.  The size of his hand, it glowed a deep green, like an emerald, only larger and brighter than any natural gem could ever be.  This was one of the trinkets he had taken with him when he ceased being a Controller and ran away to join the group he now called his family.  It would home in on the beacon implanted on Fran's bracelet, and would lead them to her.  The beacon had only a short range, but he thought it likely that they were within that limited area.

He pointed the tracker down the tunnel, and it changed hue slightly, shifting to a light shade of pink.

"She's in here," he said, and moved down the tunnel.

***

The pale rose hues and blue casts of the morning sky over Loston broke suddenly in half. 

Or at least, an observer would have thought so at first.  Of course there were no observers; all those below were busy searching for John and Fran, under orders that they didn’t know about but had no choice but to obey.

The sky, a peaceful blue with several clouds floating serenely through the air, seemed to crack open.  A doorway appeared, allowing a view of a strange and disquieting sky beyond it: burnt red, the color of amber and flame.  Then the sky beyond the sky was obscured as a ship dropped through the doorway between worlds.