The Shadow Grove Chronicles - Book II: Dark Artifact

CHAPTER EIGHT

The spigot Sharron used to clean off her knife was filthy, covered in cobwebs and corrosion. The water that came out was tinted reddish brown. It would do though. There was very little blood on her. She was lightly shaking as she ran the rusty water over the blade, scrubbing it off with her finger tips. In her mind, she played back the short, but decicive, fight. Both of the men, she couldn’t even remember their names, were dead. It had only taken mere seconds.

She had ducked their arms, stabbing the smaller man deep in the thigh. The knife twisted as she dropped into a roll, dragging the serrations near the hilt against the edge of the wound and opening it further. She ripped her blade out and wheeled her arm in a slashing strike to the taller man’s Achilles, dropping him to the gravel below. The spray from the arterial bleed had been pointed away from her, painting the weathered privacy fence that lined the alley like a macabre Pollock.

Both of the would-be attackers were now on the ground. Zack was bleary eyed as he watched the little girl straddle Chris’s back, lift his head up off the ground by the hair, and slit his now exposed throat before bouncing off and crouching some distance away. He stared her down before his sight failed him. There wasn’t any regret in her eyes, or sadness, not even fear. She had already known what they had planned for her. Cooperation would not have spared her the torturous “fun” they had in mind. No, it was a look of righteous fury entwined with satisfaction of a job well done. She just stared back and watched as he died.

She folded the knife after drying it with a clean washcloth from her pack then put it back into its belt pouch. She walked back over to the water meter box in the alley and closed the shutoff valve with a small crescent wrench she carried before slipping it back into her pocket and closing the black plastic cover. The house it serviced was run down; all its windows broken, bare wooden plank walls and peeling white paint that looked like it got its last coat back when Nixon was still president, but it suited her purposes.

Sharron scouted out the inside of the building, which didn't take long, it being only a single story house with two bedrooms and a single bathroom. There were signs that other squatters had been there, but not in a few weeks; tracks made in the thick dust and dirt that covered the floors and a small metal fire ring on the floor in the bedroom with boarded up windows. At least she thought it was a few weeks. She pulled out her phone to check the time. It was almost three o’clock. If there wasn’t anybody here now sleeping off a drunken stupor, she doubted that anyone even knew about it right now and should be safe to sleep in. In fact, if she left now, she should be able to walk back to Parkland and get the rest of her stuff and be back here before it got too late.

Sleeping in a “bando,” is a nice come up from a cardboard shanty, she thought to herself.

***

"Tell me, what did you see?"

“Flashing images. Feelings that weren’t mine. It was confusing. Is that how you experience the world?”

“No, I can’t say it’s the same. I mean, it’s not just flashing images and emotions. It’s more like… hrm… This does not translate well when spoken. I see… energy? The quanta, I guess, left behind where a person has been, their own personal line of entropy; their ‘world line.’ I merge into it and see with their eyes, feel as they feel, think as they think. All of this taking fractions of a second, in objective time that is. Subjectively, the experience is as long as I want.”

“What do you mean?”

“I learned when I was a teenager that your perception of time is not absolute. I was working at Lion’s Park operating the go-karts and I was bringing the ones on the track back into the garage. A little girl, maybe ten, was one of the last ones in and she was coming in too fast. Time slowed down for me during the adrenaline rush that kicked in just as I saw it coming towards me. I thought at what seemed to be a normal speed, but everything around me was moving at a crawl.

“‘If I don’t do something, my ankles would be shattered and my feet would probably need to be amputated,’ I thought to myself. I was able to think of a solution, after going through about a half dozen other ideas that weren’t as good, and managed to literally calculate the exact time I had to jump to get out of harm's way without getting anyone else around me hurt. I jumped at just the right time and was caught by the backrest of the girl’s go-kart, catching myself with my hands and positioning myself so I wouldn’t crush her. Ye should’ve seen me boss as she watched the whole thing happen! Thought her eyes were goin’ to bug out o’her head”

The dining area was almost desolate. The only other parties in the joint were an elderly couple with what seemed to be two of their grandchildren, a small boy and a young teenage girl, and a group of about six college students boisterously going over the highlights of their earlier Dungeons and Dragons session. Allie, Becca, and John sat leaning over the table as they held their discussion with soft voices; low enough that they wouldn’t carry throughout the Denny’s with the gamer geeks’ exuberance drowning them out.

They had gotten to the area just south of Children’s Hospital, where John had remembered where the taco stand was, just as sunset caught up with them casting the evening sky in warm colors as Sol slipped below the skyline. The serving window was closed and held secured with a brass padlock. Instead of getting back into the Jeep and casting about for another Mexican restaurant, Becca had pointed out a familiar yellow and red sign that decorated the windows by the entrance to the low brick building.

“I’ve noticed that I do that too,” Allie said shyly.

“Really?” Becca leaned in closer as she gaped at her.

“When?” John’s eyebrows knitted as he joined in with Becca staring at their lover.

“I noticed it first happened soon after I remet you at the reunion, John, after Bruce was killed and those Red Hand thugs broke into our home. Well, ‘our home’ now, Just yours at the time. It was just as I was lifting the nine millimeter into line as the second attacker was about to kill you. Everything moved slow and I remember the shocked look on your face when you heard the gunshot and turned around to see him crumple to the floor.”

“I remember, I was shocked. I thought I had been shot, but I couldn’t feel where it got me. I couldn’t’ve been prouder of you, you gorgeous little shield maiden, you. Excuse me, shield mother. You saved my life, hon. Of course I would remember that.”

“It happened again when we stormed the warehouse to save my girls. I had wanted to talk to you about it then, but I got a little distracted after and then it completely slipped my mind as you were… Ahem,” she cleared her throat and blushed as she remembered the after party that seh, Becca, and John had when they got back to the farmhouse.

“Right,” John said with a smile. “I wish you had remembered to mention it then. I wonder,” he trailed off, already deep in thought and staring out into empty space.

“I think it’s kinda cool,” Becca said enthusiastically. “When I was in those kinds of situations, I just acted. There isn’t time to think for me, everything going all Helter Skelter and bullets zipping past my ears. Hells, there isn’t even time to be afraid.”

“I wish I could say the same. I was so scared that night, for my girls and the three of us, that I felt like chewing my nails almost the whole night. I wanted to ‘do’ something though, and I did. When Jessi and Tammi were safe, it was like a weight was lifted off my chest.”

“Well, it was your first time, chica. You get use to it over time. When that adrenaline spike hits you…”

“I never got inured,” interrupted John, returning from his mental reverie. “I suggest you don’t either. Fear and courage aren’t mutually exclusive. Fear keeps you alert, quick, and hopefully alive. Having courage just means that you don’t let fear control you.”

“Well put, Ro-baby,” Becca was smiling. “Couldn’t say it better. But you really can’t be scared durin’ an op, can you Ro? Not a big bad Rigfenníd like you.”

“Every time. I always get the shakes just before ‘go’ time, twitchy.”

“Huh. I never noticed it.”

“You weren’t meant to, sweet minx. It’s bad for morale if your own men can see you sweatin’.” John turned back to Allie. “Would you be willing to experiment?”

“Huh?”

“Experiment. You know that your sense of time can change, and now you are able to tap into what I see while I’m doing a read. To say that it’s rare is an understatement. As far as I know, there is no reported case of an ovate ‘awakening’ at our age. For me, it was something I was just always able to do, but my ability got stronger with training and experience. Then I died, and it kicked into overdrive; in ways I’m not sure you’re quite ready to understand.”

“Really?” The women looked at the red-headed giant incredulously. He just shrugged at them with a matter-of-fact look.

“Sorry. You have to take the primer course before entering into advanced theory. Kinda like math. You’re just now realizing that her name might be on the roster.”

“You think I could ‘awaken’ as you call it?”

“Can’t say, hon. This isn’t something that’s happened before. I will say that considering impossibilities is pointless. In an infinite Omniverse, and it is infinite, anything is possible even if astronomically improbable.”

“How do we go about it, the experiments?”

“Good question. I have an idea about that starting to form, but it’s early stages. I’ll let you know when I have a plan.”

The server came up to the table carrying a loaded serving tray. She shifted it to her hip as she handed out the plates then unobtrusively left.

“Ro-baby. I’ll trade you half a steak for half of your burger.”

“What’s wrong? Buyer’s remorse? Sure.”

They ate in relative quiet. “Relative” because even though there were only two tables occupied now that the family had left, the group of teenagers were still at it and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon. Not that the trio was bothered by them. In fact, John and Becca both started laughing as they overheard some of the funnier anecdotes from their game.

John was first to finish and he waited patiently as Becca and Allie soon followed. He left a sizable tip on the table as they got up and made their way to the front.

“Go on, I’ll be right there.”

Becca held the door open for Allie and they made their way to the Jeep. Allie looked around, the area cast in the sickly orange of street lights. She watched as a very young, very small, beautiful, dark-skinned girl walked by carrying a backpack and a very overstuffed duffel bag. John ducked through the door and quickly joined his two loves. He stopped suddenly as he was putting the key into the door lock and spun about wildly. The same feeling he had when he first found the psychic disturbance earlier that day was back and it unnerved him, only this time it was moving.

“What is it, John?”

Allie looked worried as she walked around the front of the vehicle to get closer to him. It was as if he hadn’t heard her. He had found what he was looking for and was focused on it. She took his hand and gasped, her heart rate speeding up drastically. Time seemed to slow down.

She was able to see John’s aura, bright and variegated. She traced his gaze and was also able to see the strange field that surrounded the young girl as it moved about her like the swirling clouds that make up the eyewall of a hurricane. She was able to “feel” it. It made her feel hollow. She let go of John’s hand.

“John, my love? What in the nineteen damnable hells is that?”

“I wish I knew…”