A “Chronicles” Story, by Brian C. Mahon
(Author’s note: This is the second story, following “Hero Under Siege”. Looking back, I think Matthew Good Band’s “Under the Influence” is the suggested song pairing.)
Wind gusts coming through the open window freezes your elbow and tosses your hair about, throwing the long mop into a mess you generally tried avoiding. On a day like this, in a week as this has been, you couldn’t care less. You hate the way this new car handles. It wasn’t your first choice, and, given the circumstances behind getting a new car, it was damn difficult to be happy over a new set of wheels. The Celica was great. You loved that car. Taking it out on the interstate was like a good run in the park. With every roadway slug you passed, every pair of semis that you’d cut between, the way the Celica handled and responded to your demands, it was a thrill.
Until three weeks ago, when the incident happened.
The boss promised there’s no way it could happen again and that he’d bet his job and his badge on it. Security systems have been bolstered and all information regarding you, anything regarding you, has been put on computers networked on a closed loop. And to further protect your identity, they decided to get you a whole new car and reshuffle the paperwork so your identity couldn’t be traced to the car or the car to your other identity. A sweet gesture. But they could’ve gotten something that feels less stiff and requires less brake work on the turns. Still, it’s not nearly as bad as other rigs you’ve driven. And this at least feels like it belongs in the north woods of Wisconsin. Or the UP. Years ago you were here, family vacation to Minocqua. Now you’re back, pulling seventy miles per hour on County Road K. Or W. Location isn’t nearly as important as movement. The only care in the world right now is just to keep moving, to try to leave it behind.
Even in late May, the air is crisp and cool enough to make the air conditioner useless and a light jacket necessary. The headlights are not nearly as effective as they should be this time of night. Being so far north, the sky took to pitch black later than back home, but unlike home, here the stars come out. And not just Orion’s belt and the Big Dipper — all of them. You hope that out here, where the traces of civilization are consumed by maples, fir, and pine, you can find some solitude long enough to clear your mind. Maybe if you do that, you can figure out how you want to approach her again, or even if you should approach her.
How could you have done that? You lied to her from the very start, from the very first day your life went from normal to living martyrdom. You had to be an idiot of the highest order to think you could maintain the life you had before and your side life at the same time. The contradiction’s wholly apparent when you whisper through the music, “Two lives, only one man.”
Your attention drifts to the music just long enough to derail your train of thought. A melancholy acoustic guitar’s cascades sad notes in rhythm to the shocks thrusting off every upward contour in the road. Watching the way the brand new 1999 Silverado 1500’s hood bobs gives you a touch of amusement and gives the ride a more rugged feel. The Celica was too slick for such a thing. This Silverado probably wouldn’t have stalled on the street like the Celica did that night. You probably could’ve gotten out of the ice with four-wheel drive and sped off, continued the pursuit until the office sent help. It wouldn’t have solved the matter of exposing your truth to her, not at all. At the very least it could’ve prevented her getting hurt. Shot. How the hell could you let her get shot?
You could’ve stopped it. You could’ve even grabbed the vest from the trunk before running. Or you could’ve stopped running, told her to duck and settled things in a much calmer manner than what you did do. How many was it that you killed? Did you have to kill them?
They shot her, would have killed her, and certainly would have killed you too if they had a chance at it.
So? Who are you to have taken their lives? It’s not like you don’t remember what you were thinking or that you were temporarily insane. You couldn’t have done what you did without a clear perception of your surroundings and yourself, and you need a certain amount of attentive focus to manipulate your abilities like that. You know that your heart was pumping maybe something like 150 beats per minute. You know that there were seventeen members of a hit team surrounding you, and in the picture in your mind, you know exactly where they were all standing.
Her blood was on your hand and on the chest of your shirt. Crimson, human blood; blood of both an innocent and ignorant. She had no idea what was going on when you reached for that pistol back at the house. You were just a history/biology double-major college student with an appetite for chili dogs and the worst shot basketball had ever seen.
It feels like your heart has doubled its weight and halved its size, sitting in your chest like a magnetic rock, pulling at your lungs and ribcage, tightening your breathing and deforming your stomach. You slump down over the wheel, forearms resting on its upper half.
“She shouldn’t have been there… goddamnit, she shouldn’t have been there! FUCK! Why the fuck didn’t I tell her or break up or… rrrr-” Your fingers tighten around the steering wheel as you bear your strength down on it. “Why in God’s name didn’t I get her out of the house earlier? Everything, EVERYTHING COULDA BEEN AVOIDED!” You let go with your right hand and punch the ceiling of the cab, putting a deep dent in it, just as the truck squeals into the left lane from the unrelieved tension of your left, and a pair of eyes reflect into the headlights.
Growling spit, you tug the steering wheel fiercely to the right, pulling the truck out of the maple sapling bed it was starting to tear up and back into the road, swerving left again and right to settle the overcompensation. You feel every beat of your heart throughout your whole body, within the elastic walls of your arteries, but it’s different now, no longer based on anger, but the anxiety of having almost lost control like that. Your breath comes out in heavy loaded gasps of a measured pace, your body screaming for more oxygen that you willingly deny it in order to throttle control over yourself.
Remember control? Do you remember that? “Those,” another deep breath, “Yeah. Those who don’t have any control are no better than animals. Then we’re just fuckin’ demons.”
And if you lose your control absolutely, it’s no longer a matter of what would you become, it’s what would you make of this world.
If you joined ranks with the base creatures you swore to eliminate wherever, whenever, it would make you more than just a monster. It would be a malicious, intentional act if you relinquished control. It just doesn’t slip away. Control is something you consciously let go.
You’ve seen what they can do. You’ve seen the outcomes of incidents you were too late in responding to. The massacres. People ripped to pieces. Blood used to paint walls and ceilings in red, viscous handprints, and complete, total desecration of the bodies. Limbs and heads tossed into piles while the torsos were absolutely demolished for purposes you never wanted to investigate. Imagine what you could do.
Through the glass of the helicopter’s cockpit, you had seen his teeth clenched, but the corners of his mouth edged down. It was a look of panic you capitalized on. You didn’t just incapacitate the helicopter, you tore it down with its crew inside. And you were happy about it.
“So, what bothers you most? The fact you lost the girl or the fact you can’t keep yourself from becoming one of them? What is it, you fuck?” The questions seethe from the cracks between your teeth just as the CD ends. You hit the eject button in the top right corner of the player and switch over to the FM. Your eyes close for just a moment, long enough to take a deep breath and pretend your mind, a raging torrent, is slowly relaxing to light waves, then ripples, to the bare shuddering of a water’s surface in a light breeze.
Maybe what bothers you most is the way she looked at you the last time you saw her. Two was two weeks ago, one week after the incident. Her shoulder was still bandaged, her eyes baggy, with dark circles below. The dead look she gave you when she opened the door said enough, but you refused to have it. Your boot moved into the doorway, and she shut it on you, the metal plated foot of the door slamming into your toes. It hurt, yet most of your brain was focusing on the other sort of pain. She didn’t reopen the door, instead looking at you through the slight opening. Words came out of your mouth, something about being sorry and if she would let you in you could explain everything to her, from the precursor signs to the day it happened and everything leading from then to three weeks ago. If she would just give you one more chance, one chance to try to make amends for the lies and pain, physical and otherwise, you would either walk away from her life forever or remain: her choice. Only if she’d give you a last chance. She looked down from your eyes to the flowers held weakly in your hands. There was such relaxation in her face, no signs of stress or frustration or anything. The perfect mannequin stare. She met your earnestness with a face that appeared to have never seen emotion of any sort at all. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve decided it’s over. I can’t spend my life with someone I never knew.” And then she shut the door, pushing your foot back without the slightest resistance.
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It comes to you now, a flash memory of how soft and warm her hands felt when you held them, how her creamy skin paled in contrast to the caramel color of yours. You’ll probably never again peer over the back of her chair while she’s reading a book, settle your chin on her shoulder and start reading off the dialogue in voices that seemed appropriate. Hell, you won’t get to feel the playfully forceful butt of her palm against the side of your head as she’d tell you to knock it off. Or how soft her kisses could be, especially in the quiet night with the moon casting striped light through the crevices left in the blinds hanging over the bed. You would watch the way her face would relax and move when she slept. How beautiful she was.
You broke that. You set yourself up to losing her, so when the pieces of the board came closing in, the king didn’t have ample defenses to save both him and his queen. The one person who could bring you any joy to your life had closed herself away from you. All that lies before you is a world ripe with human crime and sin, a world besieged by otherworldly forces. You’re just one man pushing back against a brick wall that’s already collapsing, and the comforting hands behind you turned to fists.
It’s 9:45 and darkness has finally sealed its hold on the sky. Once, you found the black sky dotted with the twinkling lights a satisfying sight. Hunching over the steering wheel to peer upward, it’s hard to find anything in the night that’s comforting. All the night brings now is another pair of claws, another battle, some nightmare come through to haunt you, pull you inch-by-inch more into insanity.
“Meh. Least I can get paid for kicking ass,” you churlishly say in self-consolation.
Your eyes shift disconsolately back down to the road, noting another pair of reflective white tail deer’s eyes as you pass by, your attention shifting just in time to a pair of figures darting in front of the truck.
“Shit!” You slam on the brakes, pulling the steering wheel right. The tires lock up and peel a layer of rubber onto the road as you slide into the grass, the Silverado coming to a dead halt as its front bumper slams into the opposite side of the shallow ditch you’ve run into. A pained moan leaves you as remove your face from the airbag.
“What in the hell?” You moan. “Oh, the agency’s not gonna believe this shit. Unh, I’m gonna break those kids in half,” you mutter, then sigh. “Temper, temper, asshole.” You give the door’s latch a light pull and kick it open with a quick left boot, stepping out of the cab. Two children, a boy and girl, run to you, neither appearing any older than fifteen, although all kids seemed to be looking younger and younger than they should these days. The taillights’ glow show you that much, but it’s hard to make out their expressions. Figuring it would be of good use right now, you turn back around to get your flashlight from the bed-mounted toolbox, until the girl starts yelling, frantically.
“Please please you gotta help us! There’s something out by our house we don’t know what but we think it killed our dad he went to go check it out, and we heard screaming and so we called 911 but they probably can’t find our house from the road and so we came out here and-”
“Whoa, whoa. Hold on, slow down now! Something or someone, I need to know the distinction. And if it’s something, is it an animal?”
The boy, probably eight or so years, trembles at the question and grabs the girl’s shirt, clutches onto it to steady himself. He can barely contain his fear. You frown and turn your back on them, opening up the driver’s side door.
“No! No, don’t leave I’m not making this up I swear I’m not!” She pleas through tears.
You reach into the glove compartment and retrieve a utilitarian-looking cell phone, not looking back at the girl. Stored speed dial number 3 is dialed, then you climb out of the truck, watching the LCD screen to see that the other party had hung up. A pair of hands grips the stomach of your shirt and pull on it so hard they bring you a step closer. Looking down you see it’s the boy, and he whimpers, saying with a cold, edged tone, “It’s not an animal. It’s not. It sorta looks like a bear but hasn’t got fur. Dad shot it a coupl’a times but didn’ kill it. It hit him an-and I ran away. He told me to run away! Dad told me…,” he trails off, sobbing now into your shirt.
You nod and place your hands softly over the boys, gently removing his fingers from your shirt. Kneeling you stare into his eyes and offer him all the assurance a tranquil smile can give. “Kid, you don’t have to say any more. The proper authorities have been notified with the phone I just put in my pocket. They’ll do all they can to fix everything. Before they get here, I’m gonna check out the area and see what I can do. But first you have to tell me, is there anyone else at home? Other siblings, mom, pets?”
“Uh-uh,” he mouths, shaking his head.
“No mother?”
The answer comes from behind, from the girl, “She’s in Minneapolis. They divorced.”
“Ok, alright. Here, take these keys, and get in the truck. Lock the doors. Do you know anything about driving?” You say to the girl.
“A little. I’ve been practicing to get my license.”
“Well, I don’t need you to do anything fancy. Get the engine started, pop it into four-wheel and keep your foot on the brake. If you see something coming outta the woodline that’s not a deer or me, you put that truck into reverse and get the hell outta here. There’s a GPS unit built in there, and someone will be able to find you guys if things get out of control. Kid, you only saw one of these things?”
“Jus’, just one,” he says.
“Ok. Is your house down that road over there?”
“Uh-huh. There’s a gate. Second one on the right, our house is there.”
“Got it. Now both of you get in that truck. I’ll be back as soon as I’m done.” You smile again at the little boy and pat him on the shoulder, hoisting him to the passenger seat. You explain to her which knob works the lights, the four-wheel drive, and how to work the radio, if it’s possible for them to find any solace in music right now. She nervously nods at everything you say but offers no verbal replies. Slapping the lock down and shutting the door, you open the toolbox and dig around for the necessary items: Remington 870P tactical shotgun, a crammed Imperator IIIA type body armor, your gun belt with two HK Mark 23 pistols, and of course, the 4D Maglite.
Once suited, you tap on the glass of the driver’s side window and wave goodbye to the two, and you see, with some feeling of relief, the look of hope on the girl’s face, the surprise of a stranger in seeing an armored knight off to wage war. Tonight the nightmare that sprung up to consume the life of her and her brother will be put down. And you must put it down — not just for the foundational reason of keeping this thing from killing more human beings. There is always another creature. No, you have to put it down for one sole reason: two years ago, on your twenty-first birthday, you were given a present that no mortal could have ever given you. The gift of Power woke in you that afternoon and changed your life forever. By virtue of being the lone person on the face of the planet to have this Power, you must defend humanity from the sudden start and rise of demonic forces openly attacking Earth. The humdrum life of a college student that bored you and the woman you loved, and fear you’ll ever love, have both been lost to you. But as you pump the grip on the shotgun and turn on its light, you remember one particular fact that you overlooked the entire drive: You are Samuel Hidalgo, sworn agent of the Office of Paranormal Defense, NSA, and this is your duty.
