The Siege (12 page)

In Mia’s mind walk, she chose to keep her pregnant body.  This was to remind her of not only who she was but also that she held more than herself in jeopardy when she took too many risks.  She squatted down and then, with much difficulty, crawled forward, inching her head over the pit, and looked down.

There, residing amongst the collection of barely-remembered comics was Steele.  Mia moved back quickly.  “It can’t be.  He’s long gone,” she assured herself.  She took another peek, and she again saw the man whose skeletal remains Whitney had pulverized.  There was no way this was him.  As if she had called his name, Steele looked up at Mia and smiled.

“Hello, you look familiar. Have we met before?”

Mia quickly got to her feet and managed to fake a blasé stance by the time the man climbed out of the pit.

“What kind of memory are you?” he asked.  His voice was the voice of Steele, the one that taunted her in the hollow.

Mia didn’t trust herself to speak.

He asked again, “What kind of memory are you?”

“I’m not a memory. I’m a thought.”

“What kind of thought are you?”

“One that travels.  What kind of memory are you?”

“One that rules,” Steele bragged.  “I’ve been here for some time. I don’t remember meeting you before,” he said, angling his head.  “Although you do look familiar.”

Mia looked him up and down, and there stuck to his shoe was part of a Batman comic.  “Allow me,” she said and squatted down and tugged the piece of remembered paper off of the sticky shoe of what Mia knew now wasn’t Steele.

“You travel, and I’m actually stuck.  Like that paper,” the Steele impersonator explained.

Mia wrinkled her brow.  “That is a dilemma.  Why don’t you see if you can follow me out of here?

“I’m not sure that’s wise.  I’m just getting established. Why don’t you stay with me?”

Mia turned and started to walk away. “Traveling thoughts don’t have homes,” she said over her shoulder.

“Wait, where are you going?  Hello, I’m talking to you.  Come back here!” he demanded.

Mia kept walking. She moved at a steady pace, retracing her steps back the way she had come.  The circled route was actually more of an ascending corkscrew.  She looked down and caught Steele moving up behind her.  If she stopped, he would catch her.  What would happen to her if he did?

“You there, slow down.  My feet are slow as…”

Molasses in February
, Mia thought. 
I just have to get ahead of him, far enough so I can plan. 
She thanked god when she saw the open mind before her.  With all the counterfeit images of her there, the Steele lookalike would be confused.

Burt’s eyes opened.

“Whoa, you’re not supposed to do that,” Ted said.  He saw that Mia still held on to Burt’s hands.

“Something is triggering lost memories,” Burt whispered before shutting his eyes again.

Ted looked at Murphy.  “Get in there.”

“Where will I be?”

“I suspect Mia’s old house.  The one she burned down.”

“I’ve never been there.”

“Where did you first encounter Burt?” Ted asked.

“At the farm.”

“He went back to Kansas after that. Don’t seek him there.”  Ted’s face lit up.  “The night Mike fell into the well!  The night you fried the electronics in the old truck.”

Murphy nodded.  He first moved into Mia and then used her as a conduit to move into the mind of Burt Hick’s.

Chapter Nine

“Where did you go?” the flitch asked, his voice echoing in the chamber.

Mia flattened herself against a two dimensional prototype of a pink dragon.  Mia, upon first seeing it, remembered the fight between her and the hag.  She had tried to distract the biddy by becoming a fierce dragon, but all she managed was this pink squishy form more suited to a toddler’s bath than fighting a swamp witch.  She got better at dragons, but Burt hadn’t been around when she did.  Forever he would remember her as this cute little thing with big green eyes.

“It occurs to me that thoughts travel from person to person.  But they can become imbedded.  Look at me, I’m all but a bad habit, digging in and changing my environment.  You could do that too.  Hate to say it, but I’m lonely.  I’ve consumed my old friends, and I’m hungry…  Hungry for company that is,” the flitch corrected quickly.

~

Murphy waded through the tide of time.  Where had he taken a wrong turn?  Burt’s mind was full of questions, dreams and Mia.  At least the part he landed in.  He stopped to listen in on a memory when Mia admitted to Burt about being attracted to Murphy.  He stopped and pushed his hat back on his head.  The argument that followed wasn’t pleasant to watch so Murphy quickly moved on and found himself knee deep in water, or was it tears?

There was a current pulling at him.  He decided to ride it out and found that the water rapidly moved through turbulent canyons of indecision and over small falls of regret.

The water started to move round and round.  An eddy was pulling him downward as he circled.  He was caught in a depressive state, and it was taking him to heaven knows where.  Murphy looked for anything that could pull him out.  He spotted it on his second time around.  It was a thread.  He lunged for it, hoping it wasn’t the loose thread of a conversation.  But the thread held, and Murphy pulled himself out of the water and found himself at the entrance of an immense cavern.  He had found Burt’s open mind.

“The thing about being me is that I’m my own worst enemy,” the flitch confided.  “I can’t simply be happy with imbedding and ride out eternity in some mind.  I have to devour it, play with it, and frequently this brings on the demise of the mind holder.  Once again, I have to wander the dark world.  Why do all my victims end up in the dark world?”

Mia wished this solipsistic flitch would just stop talking.  Even though the constant chatter helped Mia to locate it, she found the nonstop exploration of self to be nauseating.  Surely she could use this against him?  She needed information.  As far as Gerald knew, a flitch could be lured out of a mind, but how do you contain it?  With a demon, a pig was useful, but unkind.  Mia pushed the thoughts of pigs and demons out of her mind.  She needed space in which to work.

She decided on a course of action.  She moved towards the flitch, ignoring him as she moved past.

“There you are!” it said excitedly.

“I’m sorry, were you addressing me?” Mia asked as if she’d just noticed him.

The flitch pouted a bit.  “You don’t remember me?  We met in the discard pit?”

“Oh sorry, so deep in thought, I can’t be taking on hitchhikers.”

“I beg your pardon, but you’re in my mind.  You’re the parasite here,” the flitch declared.

Mia stopped and looked, trying to remember that it wasn’t Morris Steele she was talking to but a common dark world parasite.  “Sorry, I thought you needed help to cross out of minds, my bad.”  Mia started to walk away.

“Wait!  Let’s get something clear.  I can move out of a mind anytime I want to.”

“Nonsense, things like you perish outside in the organic world.”

“Perish?  I’ve been around for centuries,” it bragged.

“Oh, so you’re one of those,” Mia said with condescension.

“Don’t take that tone with me.  One of what?”

Mia sighed as she circled the inventive platform of Burt’s open mind.  “What challenge can it be, being a… well… a being with no chance of death.  I can’t think of a more boring thought.”

“I can be killed.”

“Nonsense, if you’ve lived for centuries, then you’re just lying.”

“I am not lying!” the flitch spat.  “I can be slowed in cold but never really frozen.”

“Slowed is not dead.  Slowing down for a thought is a way to completely deal with all the variables.  Again, no challenge,” Mia scoffed and continued to inch closer to the platform.

The flitch would not be stifled by this
thought.
He blurted out, “I’m like a molasses slug.  Freeze me and then salt me, and I’m gone.”

“I see why you’ve survived.  If you put salt on ice, it thaws it.”

“Yes it does.  Part of me will be lost in the muck, and I will simply slide by detection.”

“Genius.  Are you sure you’re not a thought?” Mia asked, sitting down on the platform.  She patted the spot beside her.  She waited until the flitch settled before she voiced her idea.  “So if a person wanted to catch you, they would have to put a trap between the host’s bodies, flash-freeze you and contain you in salt until all the water is gone.”

“Yes, so you do see how impossible it is to kill me yet a challenge for me to stay alive.”

Mia stopped rubbing the platform and got up.  “Time for me to move on.  I’ve decided to challenge myself too and become a transient thought.”

“Isn’t that the same thing as a traveling thought?”

“There are subtle differences,” Mia said, walking away.

“Hey, you can’t leave!  You have to stay here now.”

“Why?  Mia asked, picking up her pace.

“Because you know how to kill me!”

“Consider it a challenge,” Mia said and started running towards where she entered the chamber the first time.

~

Burt’s heart rate increased.  His eyes popped open.  “I’ve had a thought.  Put a trap between Mia and me.  Flash-freeze the black ooze in my hand and contain it in salt.”  His eyes snapped shut again.

“Shit!” Ted cursed as he looked around him.  He picked up the mic and called, “Dave, get in here!”  He heard his voice echo outside the office.  He prayed Dave was close.

The young man came skidding inside the door from the barn.  “What?”

“I need…” Ted stopped.  “You stay here with these two. I need to get some things, pronto.”

Dave dove out of the way as Ted ran full speed out the door and into the workshop.  “What’s the rush?”

Jake, who decided he didn’t like Dave much, announced using nine radio transmissions, “Shut the fuck up, son, and sit yourself down!”

~

Mia felt the heat from the flitch at her back.  It must have pulled the warm thoughts of hearth and home out of Burt’s mind to ease the hold the place had on its sticky feet.  He moved like a flashflood toward Mia.  In this form, it would be seconds before the flitch found her, and a few more before it consumed her.  Heedless of the terrain, she ran full out.  Mia tripped on a thought and flew forward.  She instinctually put her arms over her stomach and rolled upon impact.  She found herself mired in financial worries and was sinking fast.

A hand came out of nowhere and yanked her upwards.  She clung to the all-too-familiar arm as Murphy pulled her in towards him and held her protectively.  With his free hand, he moved his menacing axe back and forth in front of what looked to him like Morris Steele.

The flitch stopped in his tracks, identifying the farmer from the remnants of his former host’s mind that the flitch had devoured long ago.

“Hello, Stephen, you have something of mine,” the flitch indicated Mia.

“It’s not Steele. It’s a parasite,” Mia hissed as Murphy set her down behind him.

“Finders keepers,” Murphy growled.

“She’s my thought. You go away.
You
don’t belong here.”

Murphy moved a hand behind his back.  He extended a finger and pointed the way out to Mia.

Mia didn’t want to leave Murphy, but she was at a disadvantage.  Both Murph and the flitch could move faster than she.  She ran.

Murphy twirled his axe in front of him, taking the attention of Mia’s escape away from the flitch.

“My former host enjoyed watching you die, farmer.  And now I’ll finish the job.”

The flitch bubbled until it was more ooze than man.

Murphy didn’t like the odds of trying to fight a liquid and took off running.

Mia waited for Murphy at the overgrown lot.  She whistled when he almost passed her.  He moved to her and encouraged her to cross over.  She shook her head and insisted, “You first.”

Murphy didn’t hesitate, confident that Mia had things well in hand.

The ooze seeped into the grass of the lot.  It took human shape.  Instead of Steele, it chose its present host, Burt Hicks.

“Well hello, handsome,” Mia flirted.  “Would you like to go traveling with me?”

“Where’s the farmer?”

“Sorry, who?” she asked.

Puzzled but not displeased that the thought had discarded the farmer, the flitch moved towards her.  Mia reached out her hand and as the flitch drew near she backed out of the thought.

Mia traveled across her own palm and waited until she saw the flitch enter the trap before she disconnected with Burt.

She opened her eyes to see Ted snatch a plastic tube she had been holding and cork it on both ends.  He dropped it into a small vat of liquid nitrogen.  Dave opened the lid of a cookie tin where salt lined the bottom.  Ted used tongs and picked the tube out of the hissing water and deposited the frozen mass of tube, cork and ooze in the tin.  Dave poured salt over the mass until the tin could hold no more.  He then put the lid on it.

Ted took the tin and wrapped yards of duct tape around it to seal the container and, hopefully, the flitch inside.

Burt opened his eyes and looked at Mia.  “Are we done?”

Mia looked around her and saw Murphy leaning against the doorjamb with his hat pulled low over his forehead.  He winked at Mia.

“We’re done.  How do you feel?”

“Confused mentally and overwhelmed emotionally.  I’m having trouble concentrating.  All this past baggage is filling my mind.”

Mia put on her gloves, taking a moment to gather her thoughts.  “I may have stirred some things up while I was in there.  I guess the best thing would be to put your attention on something else.  Read a book or watch some television, a DVD.  In short, get your mind off of things for a while.  Cid and Murphy have a great collection of classics,” she suggested.  “Dave and I watched a corker last week, James Cagney…”

“Not
The Public Enemy
.  No, nope, nada.  That’s not allowed to be seen here anymore,” Ted warned.