World War S 1-2

Chapter 8

[1]Matthew 4:6

3.

John could barely wake up after that difficult night. Especially since he stayed up until dawn. He pestered Pete to get the Heartley crash case; he also promised to invite Pete on a hard homicide case in exchange. The traffic officers loved those special juicy cases, which brought some variety into their everyday routines.

After a coffee, he jumped into his car and ran after his newly acquired, fresh case.

The owner of the gas station pulled up the video footage, which had shown the pumps and the parking lots. The footage rushed until a point where the white Toyota arrived.

“Here it comes. The old Kaminsky,” said the owner, “I know him, he works at the country club as a night warden. He always pops in for cigarettes, it was the same this time, you see? Here is when he gets out of his car …” he pointed to the monitor.

“Let the video roll from this point,” requested John. Kaminsky stepped out of the first camera’s range, but came in to the one above the entrance. He grabbed two bags of candy and a carton of cigarettes. He walked through the store into the next camera’s range. He stared at the papers’ headlines for a while then turned to the owner.

“I remember, he was ranting about our liberal President Rooney, that he’s selling out our energy sources and weakening the economy. He was just raving about it, because his savings and pensions will be merged into some kind of interstate company,” explained the man.

The old man waved on the feed from the third camera, then headed towards the exit on the second. On the first, John saw at the same moment a guy wearing a hood.

“Stop!” said the lieutenant, holding up his hand. “There he is. Can you rewind back a bit to see where this guy comes from?”

The owner rewound the footage by a few seconds.

“He came in from the right, from the street,” pointed John.

“Or from the other side of the street,” added the man. Suddenly, the other case came to John’s mind; the strange death in the opposite building. It was too early to draw any conclusions that the two cases were connected, but the possibility ran through his mind.

“Don’t you have a better picture?”

“This is the best I can do,” said the boss, shaking his head. “I don’t make enough profit in this business to invest in anything better; even this one is second-hand.”

Meanwhile, the man in the hood exchanged a few words with Kaminsky then got into the Toyota’s front right seat. The white car’s headlights flashed into the lens of the camera as it turned out with a slow left turn from the gas station.

“I see. Don’t you have other exterior cameras? Where do they point?”

“I have one showing the highway and one pointing to the pipes, because we regularly have people trying to steal the fuel.”

They could see on the camera, showing towards the highway, as the Toyota accelerated and disappeared from the scene. Unfortunately, its range didn’t cover the junction where the accident had happened.

There were rusted and mended pipes, pointing to the sky, on the other picture. Before, they had stopped below ground, but somebody had welded long extensions to them.

“They used to be hidden underground, but the bad guys dug tunnels to suck out the gas. Now we have the pipes above ground, at least to see if everything’s all right with them, you know …”

John swept the picture of the other camera; it pointed to the house where his other case was waiting for him. He noticed something in the corner, though the frames in slow motion were so exasperatingly pixelated. There was a little flashing light; like a shimmery flame of a fire.

“Please go back to right before the Toyota arrived,” said John. The owner divided the screen; on the left side were the pumps, and on the right side they could see the little flashing light dancing behind the window. The recording rewound until the Toyota appeared on the left side, reversing back to the station; doors were opening and the two men walked backward, away from the car. The lights on the right side were no longer glimmering phantoms; they got stronger, appearing as real tongues of flames.

When the unknown man stood next to the car, the fire was at its most intense. Then the hooded man drew back from the range of the camera, and the fire was gone.

“Now we need to go forward in slow motion,” instructed John. The recording advanced frame by frame. When the man came from the other side of the road, the window was still dark. The stranger pulled his cigarettes from his pocket and picked one from the box. In his other hand there was a lighter, its shiny surface gleaming, and he lifted it to the end of the cigarette. He placed his thumb on the knob of the lighter, and then pushed. The paper and the tobacco glowed. On the other side of the screen there was an intense flash, filling the window.

“So, what the heck is going on here?” the owner looked at John, stupefied. “Is that the guy who overslept while he was smoking? My friend who works in the other shift lives there in that building. He said the alarm in the staircase went off because of the smoke.”

“Yes, he is. I can’t explain what’s going on here yet. Can you go back to that moment when he lights his cigarette, till the first spark? Can you enlarge the end of the smoke? In the other half of the screen, please zoom to the window.”

“Wait, I’ve never done anything like that before,” said the owner and zoomed in on the picture with a joystick. “I got them.”

The fire started at the exact moment on both cameras. If this equipment records fifty frames per second, then these events were synchronized to one-fiftieth of a second, John thought.

“Amazing!” that’s all the owner could say. “Do you think it was a coincidence?”

“If it was, it’s the strangest coincidence I’ve ever seen. Believe me; I’m about fed up with these events. I ran across one or two of these bizarre types of things yesterday. I really started to lose interest in them.”

“Some say there are no coincidences,” the owner said, smiling at John. The lieutenant saw the guy was enjoying this, helping out with the investigation. I made his evening, thought John, otherwise it would have been just another boring shift.

“Right, as you say,” John nodded, and gave the man a memory stick. “Make a copy for me, please. I’ll wait until it’s finished. Is that fresh?” he pointed to a bagel.

“Don’t eat that, sir. I put the old ones in front,” the guy answered with a wink and took one from the back.

The crumbling bagel revived his appetite for the two strange cases. Or rather for the case, because he had already been mulling over the idea that these events were somehow connected.

*

By the next evening, Benet Heartley had crutches and was able to leave his room. The brain scan didn’t show any damage to his skull, so he didn’t need to rest anymore. He first went to see his wife in ICU.

There were countless tubes hanging out of Linda. Her head was covered with a turban-like bandage that nearly covered her face. Her eyes were closed. Her lips were swollen and split open.

Benet touched her as if she were made of china. How strange that I haven’t noticed her fragility for years, he thought. She was so strong, had always been the steady heart of the family, so Benet had grown used to relying on her all the time. He should have taken everybody on his shoulders instead, but he’d failed at being a father. He was crushed by his son’s sickness. He’d taken up drinking instead of facing the problems.

Now he had this porcelain doll lying in front of him, who had never broken even in the heaviest of storms. How was I so blind? he thought. How many years and how many warnings do I need to realize that I couldn’t have a better wife than her?

Where does her power come from?

Benet was ready to die for her at that very moment. He would be ready to die for what Linda did to keep the family together. He felt that this was unfair; Linda was paying now for the years of his hard alcoholism.

He’d woken up too late from the years of intoxication; for a long time he thought Linda a fool. He laughed when she kneeled next to Josh’s bed, with clasped hands, praying to God. To God, in this godless world! Benet had scoffed at that time. She stupidly prayed instead of taking Josh to some popular miraculous healer. “If you want to see a miracle, go to the world!” He’d told her. The miracles are being done by people nowadays, it doesn’t happen in the dark and empty churches anymore. You can buy miracles, and it’ll be done.”

But Linda had chosen another faith; started to believe in the cross, and that man, who had been crucified, despite the fact that she came from a well-known Central American Indian tribe, and her ancestors had been faithful to their native mythical beliefs and opposed the Christians. Linda cut all connections with her family when they wanted to ask the shaman to contact the ancient spirit to help Josh.

Nevertheless, Linda’s ridiculous prayers had paid off; Josh got a donor. Benet didn’t understand how Linda could pray for somebody to die and give a heart to another dying person. But it worked. He didn’t really think that her ridiculous God—who nobody took seriously anymore—finally acted in accordance with their wishes. It’s possible that Jesus has nothing to do with the donor heart, and the spirit of the ancestors interceded for Josh’s life, Benet thought on one of his nights of carousing.

Then Josh lived against all odds and complications. Linda just smiled despite Benet’s drunken state each night after the transplant. Benet had not been far from adultery; he met up with that bartender on the way home from work. He had never crossed the thin line of s****l contact, but he committed adultery in his mind many times.

He was alone with his shame now, that was all he had left. This shame was overwhelming, gnawing at his soul. He had given up drinking one week ago. On the first day, when he came home on time, sober, Linda welcomed him as if the long period of drunkenness had never happened.

So many beautiful nights came afterward, as if they were newlyweds.

And all of this is over now …

“Mr. Heartley, your son is awake and wants to see you,” the nurse told Benet. She set the rhythm of the drooping IV liquid, smiling at Benet. “Everything will be all right. Go, he’s waiting for you!”

Benet leaned close to Linda’s face, giving her a kiss on the only free spot of her skin not covered with bandages. He thought he would catch her fragrance he liked so much; but there was nothing but the ugly odour of chemicals and antiseptic. Pain gripped his heart. He tried to compose himself, he didn’t want Josh to notice his sadness.

He had to limp down two rooms. The nurse placed a pillow behind Josh’s back, to prop him up a bit. Josh wore a special brace to keep his spine stable. His right leg, one of his wrists, and his upper arm were in plaster. Benet almost collapsed from the sight. The other big fighter had also survived the crash.

“Hi, buddy,” Benet stroked his son’s face. “I’m very proud of you and your mommy.”