Disclaimer: This one's my sandbox, but all recognizable characters belong to Stephen King – I promise to return them in better shape than they were in when I borrowed them!
A/N: The Stand has always been my all-time favorite book. Specifically, the 1990 re-release with the additional content that the original release didn't have. Yes, I'm also a fan of the movie (which was a made-for-TV miniseries on ABC when I was in sixth grade). Anyway, in the movie, my favorite character was Nick Andros, but in the book, it has always been Harold Lauder. I found myself rereading the book last week and got to the point where Harold dies and thought – for the billionth time, I'm sure – that Harold got the short end of the stick in Mr. King's tale. Yeah, yeah, other characters die, but Harold's death is the one that really pisses me off. He was played like a violin by Nadine, at the behest of Flagg, and after serving his purpose, what was his reward? A cute girl his age who thinks he's awesome? NO. A wreck on a motorcycle and a long, painful spate of dying before he short-circuits it and eats the barrel of his gun.
I hated that. So, I decided to change his fate. Be forewarned, it's borderline meta. Now, maybe, the muses will let me get back to work on my original piece or back to any of my WIPs.
He put the Permacover notebook into the Triumph's saddlebag. He capped the pen and clipped it in his pocket. He put the muzzle of the Colt into his mouth and looked up at the blue sky. He thought of a game they had played when they were children, a game the others had teased him about because he never quite dared to go through with it. There was a gravel pit out on one of the back roads, and you could jump off the edge and fall a heartstopping distance before hitting the sand, rolling over and over, and finally climbing up to do it all over again.
All except Harold. Harold would stand on the lip of the drop and chant, One…Two…Three! just like the others, but the talisman never worked. His legs remained locked. He could not bring himself to jump. And the others sometimes chased him home, shouting at him, calling him Harold the Pansy.
He thought: If I could have brought myself to jump once…just once…I might not be here. Well, last time pays for all.
He thought: One…Two…THREE!
He pulled the trigger.
The gun went off.
Harold jumped.
– Quoted from the end of Chapter 64
of the 1990 re-release.
Saving Hawk Lauder
Wherein Harold is Plucked from Certain Death and Learns how the Multiverse is Run
It was a solid minute before Harold realized that the echoing gunshot he thought he'd heard had been purely the result of his imagination. He had jerked reflexively at the dry snap of the hammer landing on a dud.
He removed the barrel from his mouth and turned the cylinder to the next load, too far gone to even try to curse at the rotten luck. That is, he tried to turn the cylinder, but it wouldn't budge. It was jammed tight, halfway between the dud and the next bullet. He tried to fix it, but he simply hadn't the strength.
Numbly, the pistol fell from his hands and clattered to the pavement.
Harold returned his gaze to the sky and wept helplessly. I can't even suicide right, was the only thought in his head until unconsciousness wrapped him in her dark and dreamless embrace.
The first thing Harold noticed was the achingly nostalgic scent of fresh-baked bread. Every year, right before Thanksgiving, his mother and darling, perfect Amy had baked ten loaves of homemade bread for the church fundraiser. They made one extra loaf, too, and that one was cut into quarters straight out of the oven, slathered with honey-butter, and served with ice-cold milk at the breakfast table in the kitchen. The snack was mostly ritual, cemented by time and tradition into something nearly arcane. The only real rules involved, though, were that it was a family affair, and that nothing unpleasant could be talked about – no complaints, no insults, no unfavorable comparisons to popular, pretty, princess Amy. The memories of those annual family snacks were some of the few truly happy memories he had.
Grief for having lost those pre-Thanksgiving family snacks hit him, making him wish once more for his family, flaws and all. It was a different sort of grief, though. No longer was it cold and numbing, nor was it sharp enough to cut. It merely saddened him and brought up a tinge of pity, like watching summer's last wasp trapped between the window and the storm-pane, thumping and bumping its clear prison walls searching for an escape from its tomb… Perhaps, even from death itself.
He took a moment to marvel at this distance, if that was what it was, before his brain finished checking in with his body and told him, You feel pretty good. A little hungry, and you really need to pee, but otherwise all systems are a 'go'.
Wait.
What?
He had his brain repeat the status report. It remained unchanged. His eyes snapped open and he bolted into a sitting position. He tossed aside an unfamiliar quilt and stared down at his leg.
The last time he'd seen it, it was fractured and swollen and gangrenous. Indeed, most of his body had been pretty beat up from crashing the motorcycle. Now, though, what he could see of himself was perfectly fine. Thinner than he could ever remember, but healthy. There were a couple of pink scars where the deeper cuts had been, but no other trace remained.
A light knocking sound startled him from his stunned daze. Noticing for the first time that not only was he sitting in a fantastically comfortable bed, but he was also completely buck naked, he quickly grabbed the unfamiliar quilt and re-covered himself just as an equally alien door opened with a faint squeak.
A woman wearing an outfit straight out of his high school world history text entered the room. It consisted of an off-white, floor-length dress with long, loose sleeves, worn under a form-fitting, dark green vest, a slightly shorter skirt of a medium green, and an apron of a brightly sunny yellow. The woman herself was about five and a half feet tall, with auburn hair twisted into a bun, sparkling hazel eyes, and a bright smile. "Good," she said. "You're awake." Her voice was low-pitched, with a trace of gravel underscoring her consonants. "Are you hungry?"
Harold nodded. "Who are you? How did I get here?"
The woman didn't respond, and for a fleeting moment, Harold wondered if she was deaf like Andros, but the notion evaporated when she spoke again. "The bathroom's through that door," she pointed off to Harold's left, and her words lacked the distinctive, peculiar quality that was so prevalent in the voices of those who were unable to hear themselves. "And there are clothes in the dresser," she moved her pointing finger to the dresser located against the wall, across from the foot of his bed. She then left Harold to his own devices.
An examination of his surroundings revealed a bedroom with golden hardwood floors dotted with rag rugs, a sturdy double-sized bed built of varnished logs and topped with a feather pad eight inches thick. Two end-tables, each sporting an oil lamp, a dresser, and the checkered quilt completed the picture of 'Classic American Rustic'. Hell, the walls even have floral paper! Closer examination proved the thought to be a lie; the walls were whitewashed plaster, decorated with hand-painted flowers rendered in excruciating detail. No two of the flowers appeared to be identical.
His bladder interrupted his explorations, however, so he got up and headed to the dresser. Opening the top drawer, he found an assortment of blindingly white socks, underwear, t-shirts, and handkerchiefs. Each of the handkerchiefs had an elaborate embroidered hawk in the corner where a monogram usually perched. His pulse quickened, and he tried to convince himself he wasn't freaking out. He grabbed a tee, briefs, and a roll of socks, but chose to ignore the hankies. The next drawer yielded a selection of flannel shirts, and he simply grabbed the top one – black and red checks. The third and final drawer contained jeans. Coiled on the surface of the dresser was a sturdy leather belt, and he purposefully didn't look too closely at what might be decorating the buckle. Under the dresser were a pair of heavy boots in his size.
By now, his bladder was threatening mutiny if he didn't find a toilet – hell, even a potted plant – in the immediate future, so he clutched his bundle of clothing to his chest and ducked into the bathroom. As he had half-suspected, the walls were more whitewashed plaster, though lacking in decorations, with a white tile floor. The tub was a cast-iron claw-foot, the toilet the quaintly archaic design with its reservoir up near the ceiling, and the sink sported a hot tap and a cold tap on either side of the basin.
He peed with an audible sigh of relief that turned to a gasp of surprise when not only did the toilet flush when he pulled the chain, but the tank refilled. He turned the handle for the hot-water tap and water gushed forth. Okay, so she's got running water. Maybe it's windmill-driven. Before he could continue the thought that there was no way she actually had hot water, steam began to rise from the stream.
A truly honest smile burst forth on his face, making his eyes bright. He quickly turned off the tap and faced the tub. A cream-colored shower curtain hung from an oblong of pipe suspended from the ceiling, and a column of copper rose from the tub spout to terminate in a saucer-shaped shower head the size of his hand with fingers fully spread. A small wire basket hung from the shower, containing a bottle of shampoo and one of conditioner, with a soft white washcloth strung over a wire runner just below the basket. An equally white and fluffy towel was draped over a bar under the frosted glass window that stood between the tub and the sink.
He wasted no time. He turned on the tub tap, adjusted the temperature to just shy of scalding, and jumped in. It was bliss. It was nirvana. It was heaven. It was better than his playtime with Nadine. It was better than when Frannie had kissed him. It was simply the best thing ever. It was also his first shower in over three months, so he figured he could be forgiven for waxing poetic about it.
The only thing that surprised him, other than the fact that he apparently had lost every last ounce of fat he'd once carried (as he could clearly feel his own ribs), was that the second bottle wasn't conditioner. It was liquid soap that smelled of sawdust and smoke and fresh-cut hay. The shampoo simply smelled clean.
Eventually, the water began to cool, so Harold turned it off and dried his hair on the towel before wrapping it around his hips. A quick check of the medicine cabinet provided him with a razor, shaving cream, aftershave, deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash, and comb. All of it was brand-new. The mirror proved what his fingertips had told him; he was sporting a pathetic attempt at a five-o'clock shadow. There was a line of lonely hairs on his upper lip, a tiny cluster under his lips, and pitiful, ragged elongations to his hairline that no one would be nuts enough to call sideburns.
He shaved awkwardly, but was proud of himself – he hadn't managed to draw blood. The aftershave smelled similar to the soap, but also held tones of leather. It stung like hell, but even though shaving was still a once-every-six-weeks-or-so event, it wasn't his first time and so he was expecting the burn. To take his mind off it, he turned his attention to scrubbing his teeth. After rinsing with peppermint mouthwash, he donned the briefs, socks, and tee. He combed his still-damp hair back and idly wondered if the woman would cut it for him if he asked. He spread a layer of deodorant on his armpits, reaching under the t-shirt to do so. It smelled the same as the aftershave, only without the tang of alcohol.
He threaded the belt through the loops of the jeans and slid them on. He tucked the tee in, then put on the flannel, doing likewise with the red and black checked tails. He zipped his pants, did the button, then buckled the belt. He sat on the toilet lid to pull on the boots. Next, he cleaned up the packaging off of what he'd used and tossed it in the can next to the sink. He hung the washcloth back on its wire holder under the basket, and spread the towel over the shower curtain rod to dry.
Damn it, Harold. Quit stalling. You have to leave this room sometime.
He sighed and exited the bathroom. The woman was standing in the bedroom, looking out the sun-drenched window framed in white sheer and lace. She turned to face him and he noticed that she was older than he'd first assumed. He'd originally thought her to be eighteen or nineteen, but now that he was actually paying attention to her face, he realized she was closer to thirty.
"You must be feeling better," she said. "You're smiling."
Harold had to reach up to check, but the woman was right: the corners of his mouth were quirked up in the smallest of smiles, and he knew it actually reached his eyes, too, unlike the ones he had, once upon a time, practiced in a mirror. He let out a chuckle, the sound alien to his own ears. "I suppose I am, ma'am."
She returned his laugh. "Don't call me ma'am, Hawk. It makes me feel old. My name's Aurilia."
"All right," he agreed. "How do you know they called me Hawk?"
Her smile shifted into something a little secretive. "All in good time, Hawk. I promise. All in good time." She stepped into his personal space, but Harold felt no need to back away. She reached up and unbuttoned his collar, then proceeded to unbutton the cuffs of his flannel and roll the sleeves to just above his elbows. "There," she said. "That's better. I'm gonna teach you how to relax, even if it kills me."
Still sporting his tiny smile, Harold protested, "Hey, I know how to relax!"
Aurilia's smile morphed again, this time to a knowing smirk, complete with one arched eyebrow. "Masturbating until you fall asleep is not relaxation; it's simply release. There is a difference." She slipped her right hand into the crook of his left elbow and lead him out of the bedroom. "Come along. Brunch is served."
Feeling rather like he'd fallen down Alice's rabbit-hole, he allowed the red-headed woman to escort him into a hallway that consisted of more golden yellow floors, similarly-colored doors, whitewashed walls, and tall windows over stairs at either end. The stairs behind them lead up, the ones before them lead down.
The bottom of the stairs opened into a large living room that continued the themes of whitewash and wood, with a large sandstone fireplace. The furniture was the same style as his bed – rough-hewed, varnished logs – and padded with leather cushions. Aurilia didn't give him time to linger, but pulled him through an archway and down another hallway that terminated in a spacious kitchen.
The far wall was more sandstone, and Harold had the sense of certainty that it was a massive wood-fired oven, even though he'd never seen one before. Inset among the stone was another excerpt from his old history text: A cast-iron, wood-burning cookstove. The walls that abutted either side of the stone wall consisted of numerous sheer-and-lace covered windows, while the final wall was simple whitewashed plaster. This last wall held a couple of the same lighting sconces he had spotted upstairs and in the hallway he'd just traversed, as well as a cuckoo clock – which claimed the time as ten forty-five – and a lacquered wooden rectangle sporting four brass-ringed, glass-covered dials. Later, when he got the chance to look closer, he found that it was a weather station that provided the outside temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, and wind speed.
The working area of the kitchen was separated from the dining area by a length of polished wooden cabinets hanging from the ceiling over an equally long counter topped in blue-veined white marble. The majority of the floor space in the dining portion of the kitchen was taken up by a massive butcher-block table that could comfortably seat a dozen people – possibly even more, if they were friendly – but was ringed with only a handful of chairs. One corner of the table was set with a pair of place-settings, white china sporting dark blue country designs rested on top of forest-green placemats. Covered serving trays sat within easy reach of both chairs. Without any prompting, Harold held out one of the chairs for Aurilia before sitting at the other.
He had expected the woman to say grace, but was taken aback when she simply started removing lids. "We got fried honey-ham, fresh bread, asparagus, stewed apples-and-cinnamon, and some fried peppers and onions. Dig in."
Harold needed no further instructions and did just that. Everything was delicious – even the coffee, and Harold had never really been a fan of coffee before. Once the hunger had backed off some, he asked again, "Where am I?"
Aurilia finished chewing a bite of ham and sipped her own coffee before answering. "Well, you're not on the western face of the Rockies anymore. That, I can promise you."
The glimpses he'd seen of bright fall colors through the windows on the way down had told him as much. "I know," he said. "But where is this place? Vermont?"
Aurilia shook her head. "Nope. I've only been through Vermont once – I don't know it well enough. No, you're in south-central Iowa, almost due south of Des Moines. The area where I grew up, to be exact, though I've taken the liberty of changing a few things."
Harold frowned at her confusing phrasing, but shelved the questions she'd managed to raise. Instead he asked, "How did I get here?"
"Obviously, I brought you here. As much as you would like to think otherwise, you were not in your right mind after crashing the motorcycle. Your world had shattered with the superflu, shattered again when Frannie chose Redman over you, was ground to dust by your actions with Nadine, and finally melted completely in the fires of fever and delirium."
No longer hungry, Harold dropped his fork onto the blue-patterned plate. "How… How do you know all this?" his voice sounded thick, clogged with repressed emotion.
Her hazel eyes sparkled and she leaned around the corner of the table. Her hand was warm and heavy on his arm. "Because I know you, Harold Emery Lauder, of Ogunquit, Maine. I may not know every little detail about you, but I do know the important things."
"But… How?" Tears were close to the surface, regardless of Harold's wish they simply go away. But these tears were a new sort, not born of desperation or hopelessness. No, they were a subconscious reaction to finally being on the receiving end of an equally subconscious longing for unconditional love and support. Aurilia seemed to project those feelings the same way a fire throws off heat and light.
Aurilia's ever-present smile took on strange overtones that hinted at sadness and obsession, but didn't actually come right out and speak of such things directly. She took a deep breath and held it for a moment before coming to a decision. Nodding to herself, she spoke. "The story of the superflu is a book. A novel. I grew up with it. It's my all-time favorite. There is a copy of it in the library if you want to read it," she gestured to one of the doors they had bypassed on their way to the kitchen. "Where we are right now is a creation of my imagination. I always hated what happened to you in the novel: Just as you discover your mistakes, you die. No chance for redemption, no hope of ever getting it right, just an ignoble suicide next to a ruined motorcycle on a forgotten mountain highway.
"So, I stepped in. I plucked you from that world and brought you here. I healed your injuries, cured your illness, and waited for you to wake. I wanted to give you a choice, and I wanted you to actually be in your right mind when you decided."
A thought flashed through Harold's mind – was it something he'd read? Asimov, perhaps, maybe Heinlein? Authors are God to their characters. If that were true, he hoped to one day meet the author who'd unleashed the superflu, give him a pair of black eyes and a bloody nose. He dragged his attention back to Aurilia's hazel gaze. "What…" he coughed a little, his throat momentarily too dry for speech. "What choice?"
She stood and pulled Harold to his feet. Before he could so much as blink, he found that they were no longer in the kitchen. They were now standing in front of the sofa in the living room. His knees gave out and he sank onto the cushions. Aurilia sat close enough to him that he could feel her warmth radiating down his left side. "To live or die," she finally replied to his question. She reached over and grasped his hands with her own. "I don't promise things I can't give, Hawk, but one thing I will promise you right here and now is that I will never, ever lie to you."
Harold let out a sarcastic little laugh. "Everyone lies."
Aurilia nodded in agreement. "Yeah, they do. But you didn't hear what I said. I promised not to lie to you. I will always tell you the whole, complete truth as I know it."
"What did you mean, you wanted to give me a choice?"
"Exactly what I said, Hawk. I want to know what you want, and I want you to be able to make that decision without physical pain and illness clouding your judgment. Do you honestly want to die? Or do you want to live? And if you want to live, what do you want out of your life?" She let go of his hands and stood. "Come find me when you've made up your mind."
After she left, Harold stared, unseeing, at the cold fireplace. What the hell is going on? Come on, Lauder. Examine it. What are the possibilities? Okay. I'm dead and this is heaven. I'm dead and this is hell. I'm dead and this is some last-ditch attempt by my dying consciousness to absolve me of my poor choices in life. I'm alive and this is a fever-dream. I'm alive and this is actually happening. All those dreams of good and evil aside, I don't think I believe in heaven or hell. This place doesn't really fit the popular descriptions of either, anyway. So… Am I dead? I don't think so. Why would my dying mind conjure this up? Ergo, I believe I must be alive. Is this an hallucination, or is it real? The food tasted real. The shower felt real. I've not seen anything that might be a fever-dream's monster lurking around. Sure, my dreams have always been vivid, but this is way too vivid to be a dream. Unless evidence appears that disproves it, I must be alive and this must be real.
Gooseflesh crept down his spine. If this is real, then Aurilia must be another author. If that's so, then she controls everything about this place, from the weather to my own thoughts. How, then, can I be certain that anything I do or say is the product of my own will in this place? Are even my thoughts my own? And if this is real for me, what happened to the characters I created in those half-finished manuscripts that are probably still sitting in my desk back in Ogunquit? He shook his head and decided to leave the possible fates of characters he'd written untouched for the moment. And what of that choice she gave me? What do I want? Let's assume, for the moment, that my thoughts and choices are truly my own. Do I still want to die?
He stood and walked to the nearest window, his boots thudding down on the wooden floor, echoing a little in the mostly-bare room. The weather outside was absolutely beautiful – a sky the color of faded levis, spotted with fluffy popcorn shapes of clouds arched over low hills of forests done all in shades of gold, orange, red, and brown, interspersed with yellow fields of dry grasses. Closer to the house were a couple of outbuildings and he could see the corner of a barn lurking behind the house if he moved to the extreme left of the window. "I don't think so," he murmured, unaware that he'd voiced the thought. I honestly don't think I still want to die. I mean, most of the decision before was because I was dying anyway, and a bullet is quicker than dehydration or starvation or the relentless march of gangrene. Now that those are no longer factors, I don't think I want to die. And what of the other small percentage of my decision? The penance for my actions in Boulder? Do I deserve death when I don't even know if I was successful or not in my original goal? Hell, for all I know, they decided to have the meeting over at Frannie's, or even out at the power plant, and all I wound up doing was blowing up an empty house.
Outside, a grey tabby-cat crossed the yard, tail held high, a dead mouse clasped in its jaws. What's the worst possible scenario, Lauder? Okay, worst case is that I killed everyone. Andros, Redman, Underwood, Bateman, Stern, Brentner, Frannie – all of them vaporized into the ether. Their visiting speakers of the subcommittees, too. If that happened, would I deserve death? Yes, I built the bomb. Yes, I honestly hated them. But I never would have managed to go through with it at all if Nadine hadn't shown up. I think that day with Redman, just after Mother Abigail disappeared, proved that much to me. I had my chance to kill him and vanish. I didn't take it. So, no. I don't believe I deserve death for what I did.
Aurilia's earlier mention of a copy of the book in which his life was laid out surfaced in his mind. I can check. I'm sure that whoever wrote it wouldn't have failed to mention the exact consequences of that explosion. He shook his head again. No. I don't think I really want to know. And I do not want to die. So… He watched a cloud slowly shift shape over a distant hilltop. What do I want? I don't really know. What are the rules on this? Is it like a genie and I get three wishes? Will I go back to the world I know, but as a completely different person? Will I stay here… alone? What are the rules?
His mind made up, Harold turned and walked down the hallway to the kitchen. Aurilia was busy washing their dishes from earlier at the sink. She looked up at him as he entered and removed her hands from the soapy water, then dried them on her apron. "You made up your mind quicker than I thought you would, Hawk. I figured you'd need at least a full day to think about it."
He shrugged. "Maybe I will. All I know right now is that I don't want death."
"So what do you want?"
He shook his head. "I don't know. What are the rules on this?"
Aurilia smirked. "Rules? Who said a word about there being rules? This is my sandbox, Hawk. I really like you, so I'm letting you chose, but… Anything you want, it's yours. You want to go back to the superflu world and decide not to listen to Nadine? I can make that happen. You want to go back to Ogunquit, back to the start of the summer, and live in a world where the superflu never happened? It's yours. You want to crawl into the world of Star Trek? I'll make it happen – though I'll warn you that I'm not as well-versed in the original Trek as I am in the Next Gen series. Even if you want to stay here and 'create it on the fly' as it were, I can do that." She walked over to him and laid her hands on his shoulders. "I just want you to be happy."
Harold frowned. "Why me? Is this something you do with all of your… characters, or just me?"
Aurilia laughed. "Hell, no! If I let every one of my characters make these kinds of choices, I'd never write a damn thing worth reading! I mean, who the fuck wants to read about someone who's rich and smart and beautiful and happy and content and… Well, you get the idea. A story without conflict is a story without plot."
"So why me? Why allow me the choice?"
Aurilia's hands dropped and she took a couple of steps to the table. She sank onto a chair and sighed. "I suppose it's because I see a lot of myself in you. I first read the novel in which you feature when I was about thirteen. The school I went to was really small – the high school consisted of seventh through twelfth grades and totaled less than two hundred students, none of whom liked me. The teachers tolerated me simply because they knew I always had my homework done and could give the right answers when called on in class, but… Well, you know how it is. My mom worked nights and my dad worked evenings. I rarely saw them. I wound up raising myself – my sister moved out when I was only seven and had a family of her own by the time I was in high school. I didn't have friends. I didn't really have much in the way of family. All I had were books and TV. I just think you – and me – wound up with a shitty lot in life. I can't do much about my own life, not when it seems like every decision I make is the wrong one, but I can help you." She lapsed into silence that stretched on like warm taffy before finally asking, "So, what do you want?"
Harold leaned against a windowsill and felt chilly air seep through his flannel. It might look absolutely gorgeous outside, but he was certain that it was a lot colder than it appeared. "So, if I wanted enough money to shame King Midas and a supermodel girlfriend with the morals of an alley cat, you'd just hand it over?"
Aurilia looked as though she'd just swallowed a lemon pip, but nodded. "If that's what you really want." Her face relaxed a little. "And you can swear in front of me, you know. I'm not your mother."
"No, just my god," Harold muttered.
"Well, yeah. Like I said, this is my sandbox." Her smile reappeared. "If it's any consolation, I've probably got an author, too, only in my case, I highly doubt he, she, it, or they will go to the trouble of projecting themselves into my life and ask for my opinion on what I want them to do or change."
Harold snorted. "I never figured on it, either."
Aurilia shrugged. "Well, to be honest, I'm not your creating author. I don't think he'd project himself into a story to talk to you, but then again, he has done it for other characters… so anything is possible. Personally, though, I doubt it. I got the feeling he didn't care much for you – almost like you were a distillation of all the 'worst' aspects of himself when he was your age, and by killing you off, he was trying to lay to rest some of his own bad memories. But then again, I don't know him. I can only theorize based on what he's written and what little he's said in his author's notes and during interviews." She sighed. "But he does have a habit of killing off the 'outcast' type characters he creates."
"From my point of view, he has a habit of killing off just about everyone."
Aurilia laughed at that. A full belly-laugh that had her collapse onto the tabletop. Harold simply stared at her, wondering if she wasn't slightly nuts. "Oh, that's good! Of course you'd see it that way. Hell, he created the superflu in your world, so with just a sentence's worth of words, over ninety-nine percent of the population of your world was wiped out. And then, of the survivors, there were all those culture-lag deaths, like Mark's appendicitis and so on. To say nothing of what he winds up doing to Las Vegas at the end of the story."
Something unknotted between Harold's shoulders. "So He loses?"
Aurilia blinked blankly at him for a moment before the penny dropped. "Oh! Sorry. For a second there, my brain went off into another book – well, a series of them – where the main bad guy isn't referred to by name by most of the characters; they call him You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." She chuckled at herself. "To answer your question, though, hmm… I'm not really sure how to answer it. Las Vegas gets vaporized by an atomic bomb, so Boulder is safe, but the end of the book has Flagg survive and escape to some isolated South American tribe of natives. It doesn't say what happened after that."
"But everyone in Boulder is okay?"
She nodded. "For the most part."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that, after you left, there were a handful of prominent deaths. But the rest of the Boulder Free Zone made it though."
"Who?"
"You really should read the book, you know. I know you lived it, at least up until I pulled you here, but I don't want to mis-remember something. It would also let you know why Stuart Redman wound up with Fran – it really was a bit more complicated than what you read in her diary."
Harold took a breath and let it out slowly; he didn't really want to, but he could see Aurilia's point. "I'll be sure to do so," he said. "What's it called?"
Aurilia wrinkled her forehead. "I didn't say already? Odd. Coulda swore I did. Anyway, it's called The Stand, and it's by a guy named Stephen King. The copy I have is a re-release of an older version of the book; it's got over four hundred pages that weren't in the original."
Harold whistled through his teeth. "If that's what got added, how long was it originally?"
Aurilia shrugged. "I'm not really sure, but my guess is around the seven-hundred page mark, since my copy is over eleven-hundred pages long."
"And you've got it here?"
"Yeah. The library's got a copy of every book I've ever read, from Dr. Seuss right on up to the forensic textbooks I reference when I write a mystery. You actually have better access to that than I do – I tied the library to my subconscious memory, and because of that, I can't even touch the books."
"If this is your sandbox, then why not?"
Aurilia looked puzzled. "Because that's the way it is. I can do a whole lot here, but I can't do the impossible. No one can dive into their mind and recall, without error, any book they ever read. Sure, there might be one or two people with a savant-style talent pointing in that direction, but I ain't one of them. My memory on the written word – unless it's something that I find of particular interest – is limited to remembering a plot synopsis (sometimes without even a title or author tagged on) and that thus-and-such was read in either a fiction or nonfiction setting. There are a couple of exceptions to this, but that's the general rule."
"What's one of the exceptions?"
"The textbook we used in my world history class in high school. The teacher was fond of homework, and I wound up studying more for that class than I have for any other, before or since. As a result, a vast majority of it was committed to memory."
Harold recalled his own history class – yet again – with no little amusement. "I would assume we're probably even on that score as well. Was your teacher as boring as mine was? He somehow managed to make the entire class fall asleep while talking about the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima."
Aurilia shook her head, almost violently denying it. "No way! My teacher was awesome. He never asked us to remember more than two dates – the dates of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum and the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens – and he told history, like it was some ongoing, never-ending novel. It was great."
A small grin managed to worm its way onto Harold's face. "I think I'm jealous."
Aurilia shrugged. "Don't be. But we've wandered rather far afield of our original topic." The lemon-pip-face returned. "Do you want that super-whore girlfriend?"
It was Harold's turn to shrug. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't, but I'm sure that's probably just adolescent hormones talking." An idea hit him. "What about those adolescent hormones? You think you can skip me ahead a bit?"
Aurilia nodded. "Yeah. I can, but I'd advise against it, though."
"Why?"
"Because so much of who you will become is laid down while you're a teenager. Yeah, it sucks donkey dick, but I wouldn't want to shortchange your personality or your potential."
Harold sighed and joined Aurilia in sitting at the table. "Yeah. I know that. Intellectually, at least. Emotionally, I still think it seems unnecessary."
"The right term is that it sucks." She bit her lip for a moment, then added, "Or you could say it bites. Or even blows. Or, to borrow a phrase from someone I used to know, you could say 'it sucks, bites, blows, chews, and swallows' if you feel particularly strongly about it." Harold stared at her. "What?" she asked. "There ain't nothing wrong with slang. Or cussing, though I don't personally count 'sucks' as cussing."
"Slang is an inferior method of communication and an insult to the English language."
One eyebrow crept halfway to Aurilia's hairline. "You've got to be kidding me."
Harold tried. He really did. But the aghast look on her face was simply too much and he broke down first. He laughed. "Yeah. I am. However that is what my mother used to say. I didn't believe her when she said it, either." Another previously-unknown knot loosened itself in his shoulders. "And I suppose that answers that question."
"What question?"
"You might have the power a god here, but you can't see my thoughts."
Aurilia made a 'so-so' motion with her right hand. "Sorta. If I want to look, I can, but if I'm here with you, then I usually won't bother – I'm pretty fanatical about allowing someone the privacy of their own thoughts. However, if I'm not here in person, I just might peek from time to time – readers can only take so much description of the surroundings, after all, and if I look at what you're thinking, it usually winds up edited to its basic components before getting added to a story. But I'm not all-knowing. I can't count the number of times I started writing a story only to have it take a left turn at Albuquerque and wind up in a place I hadn't anticipated."
"'A left turn at Albuquerque'?"
"Yep. It's from a Bugs Bunny cartoon I saw as a kid. I have no idea why, but it stuck in my head and gained a meaning of 'taking a weird direction' or 'going off-track'," Aurilia explained.
Harold nodded a little. "You know what? I think I like that. Mind if I steal it?"
"Go ahead," she replied, making an 'it's all yours' gesture. "But, wrenching this back around to where we were, what do you want? Do you have any ideas?"
"I have a couple of proto-thoughts on it, but nothing concrete yet. How long do I have to decide?"
"Take as long as you need. Time is a little weird here. It's only been," her eyes flicked over to the cuckoo clock, "a little over an hour and a half since you got here, at least from your point of view, but for me, it's been four days. But that's because we've had a lot to go over and I wanted it to sound right. I can, if need be, 'stop' time here and go watch a movie. What would be around two hours for me could wind up being a dozen years for you if you need it that way."
Harold reached up and rubbed lightly at his temples. "This… This is a lot to try to wrap my brain around."
"It shouldn't be all that difficult. You're a writer, too. You already understand most of this."
"Most of what I've written has been nonfiction. Reports for school, essays, opinion-pieces."
"Your journal," Aurilia added it before he could.
Harold nodded. "Yeah. I only really dabbled in stories. I could never get them to sound right, so I usually gave up on them before they were anywhere near a publishable level."
"I could talk about the process of writing fiction until the end of eternity, so maybe we ought to steer this away from that topic before I get carried away."
"Some other time, then," Harold said, unknowingly mirroring Aurilia's cockeyed smirk. "Could you give me a week to think over what I want? And if I still can't decide, we'll negotiate on more time then."
Aurilia nodded and stood. "Certainly."
A touch of panic flashed across Harold's features. He didn't want to be left alone yet. He'd had his fill of being alone. "Where are you going?" he couldn't keep his emotions out of his voice.
"Don't worry, Hawk. I'm just going to finish up the dishes. We can still chat, long as you want, promise." She patted his shoulder in a comforting manner before heading back to the sink.
Harold watched in silence for a few minutes. "Can I ask a couple of random questions?"
Aurilia nodded. "You can always ask me anything you want. If it's personal, though, I reserve the right to refuse to answer."
"Fair enough. First question I have is if this is all a product of your imagination, then how come there isn't any electricity?"
She laughed and rinsed off the platter which had held the ham. "Of everything you could have possibly asked, I wasn't expecting that. Well… My original idea had been to get you here and provide you with a setting which was livable despite the circumstances in the world from which I took you. I had vague notions of keeping you in the superflu world, but making you the leader of a faction of people who didn't want to get caught up in the whole good-versus-evil shtick that was represented by Boulder and Las Vegas. Plans have a nasty habit of changing, though, but by then I'd already gotten this place all ready. Seemed a shame to waste a perfectly good setting. I'll warn you right now, however, this place is smaller than it seems. I hadn't gotten around to figuring out if there was anyone left in the area or if any of the small towns around here were still in relatively good condition, so you won't be able to wander too far if you go outside."
"So the horizon I'm seeing is a… a matte-painting?"
"Pretty much," Aurilia agreed. "Does that bother you?"
Harold shook his head. "Not as much as I thought it might. Second question: Why are you dressed like something out of a Shakespearian play?"
Aurilia blinked at him. "Well, I guess you did say these were random questions." She shook her head a little and returned to scrubbing the dishes. "It's just a visual reminder for myself. If I dress like I'm going to a ren-faire, then I won't be searching for light-switches. What else have you got for me?"
"Do you really look like this?"
Aurilia laughed. "Basically. Outside of my head –"
"You can call it 'the real world' you know. I won't mind."
"But this world and that one are both equally real," Aurilia cast a hard look in Harold's direction. "Don't start thinking you're not real. That way lies madness." She returned to finishing up the last of the silverware. "Anyway, I pretty much look like this outside my head, with a couple of notable exceptions. My natural hair color is pasty, pale blonde. I've always hated it, so I always change it. Out there, I keep it hacked off pretty short, and dyed bright pink; in here, as you can see, I prefer dark red. I also wear glasses – I'm horribly nearsighted – and have a total of twelve piercings and two tattoos."
"What, like ear-piercings?"
"Mostly. I have five in each ear, for a total of ten. I also have an eyebrow ring and a lebret."
"What's that?"
"A lebret?" Harold nodded. "It's the name of the muscle just under your lips and doubles as the name for a piercing that's located in the same place," Aurilia explained. "I've written myself into stories before, even though they've all just been for my own amusement, and I've found that the closer I keep my appearance to how I really am, the less likely I am to fuck up with descriptions, particularly if it's a long story."
"That makes sense, I suppose."
"Anything else you want to know?" She asked the question while pulling the plugs in both halves of the sink. Apparently, the dishes were done. The full drainer sitting beside the sink supported the assumption.
"I can't think of any more questions, not right now."
"In that case," Aurilia replied, "I'll leave you to think. Just give a shout if you need me for anything." Before Harold could reply, Aurilia faded from view, leaving him alone in the kitchen.
Harold ran a hand though his hair and sighed. He hadn't really wanted solitude, but as amusing as conversation with his… author could be, it wasn't getting him around to picking out what he really wanted out of life. Deciding to let the majority of his brain mull over his options without unnecessary input from his consciousness, he started exploring, beginning with the contents of the kitchen cupboards. Though the house as a whole wasn't particularly detailed – his bedroom being the main exception to that – the kitchen was fully-stocked, but not with much he could recognize. There were three cupboards packed full of clear glass canning jars, of which Harold could only identify a couple of the contents (notably peas and corn) as none of them were labeled. Another cupboard held screw-top jars filled with an assortment of what looked to be baking supplies: chocolate chips, walnuts, almonds, brown sugar, and so on. The end of the cabinet/counter divider that didn't abut the wall held a massive spice rack. He had a little better luck with identification here, though he didn't recognize the brand name for the majority of the seasonings the rack held. The cupboard over the sink held dishes, and the under-sink area was where the larger serving trays, bowls, and platters were stored. All of the pots and pans were hung on a wrought-iron rack suspended from the ceiling between the cupboards and the oven. Also lurking in the under-counter spaces were a couple of drawers that didn't hold silverware or cooking utensils or dish-towels and washrags like the rest of them did. Instead, one held what had to be fifty pounds of flour, and the second held an equally massive amount of granulated sugar.
The small door set into the inner wall – the one on which the cuckoo clock and weather station was hung – that he had assumed lead to a mudroom or laundry, actually opened into a cold storage area. It wasn't an icebox, nor was it a walk-in refrigerator. What it appeared to be was a simple pantry that somehow was managing to maintain a consistent temperature of just above freezing. Another identical wood-slat door set in the left-hand wall lead to another identical room, but this one was well below freezing. After searching for, and failing to find, any obvious cooling mechanisms, Harold decided not to think too hard on it and stuck to checking the inventory. The 'freezer' held innumerable plastic-wrapped meats. Unlike the jars in the cupboards, these were labeled, and he spotted everything from 'ground venison' to 'steak' to 'catfish fillets' to 'lamb chops'. There were also two unlabeled barrels in the room. The first held what he was pretty sure was popcorn. The second held what looked like bird seed. The 'fridge' was mostly-empty, containing only three bushel-baskets on the floor. One was full of apples, one held onions, and the last held potatoes.
Thoroughly chilled, Harold retreated from the cold-storage back into the sunny warmth of the kitchen. This is going to be a long week, he thought. I don't know how to cook a whole lot, sure, but I didn't see the stuff I know how to fix. The main things Harold knew how to make – that didn't consist of TV dinners or the like – were macaroni and cheese and scrambled eggs. He hadn't spied a single box of pasta of any sort, to say nothing of any of the distinctive blue boxes with which he was familiar, nor had there been any evidence of eggs.
He crossed the kitchen to the glass-paned door in the corner next to the stone wall, nearly indistinguishable from the bank of windows, save for a brass doorknob. This door was the one which lead onto a 'back porch' area. Three wooden stairs separated the door from the terracotta tile of the mudroom's floor. The room itself wasn't as cold as Harold expected, but since it curled around approximately half of the stone oven-wall, it didn't surprise him any. The mudroom walls were more of the same plaster, and sported rows of windows just like the kitchen, even though it was obvious that the room itself wasn't supporting anything above it.
A row of iron hooks were set into the mortar between the stones of the oven, the one closest to the back door was occupied by a faded denim jacket. In the corner closest to the door to the kitchen, a laundry area was set up with a triple-sink that was nearly large enough to bathe in, hand-crank wringers mounted to the dividers between the sink segments, and a shelf hanging over it containing boxes of borax and baking soda, brushes and bar soap, and other implements of which Harold could only name a few. The laundry theme continued on the stone wall, as well, with a drop-down ironing board, and a small inset on which an actual iron sat on a tiny metal plate. Apparently, regardless of how she 'powers' the fridge, she believes in not wasting any heat-energy. And I need to remember to ask her how the fridge actually works the next time I see her.
Deciding not to bother with the outside yet – the only important bit was a clothesline, and he could clearly see it through the windows – Harold headed back into the kitchen. This time, he didn't stop, but continued to the first door along the rather lengthy hallway that lead back to the stairs to the second floor. The first door opened on a staircase to a basement or cellar. The second door proved to be for the library, which seemed as though it was larger than could fit in the house. It extended up into the second story, and possessed a pair of tall, thin windows, with a small stone fireplace between them, but otherwise the walls seemed to be built of nothing more than leather-bound books. There was a two-seat sofa just in front of the fireplace, and what appeared to be oil-lamp chandeliers hung from the ceiling, but the room lacked any other furniture. The third and last door in the hall opened on a closet that contained only a stick-broom, metal dustpan, copper bucket, and a new-looking rag mop, though it could hold quite a lot more if need be.
Upstairs, the only door he could open was his own bedroom, as all the rest were locked. The staircase at the opposite end of the hall opened onto a large attic that covered the whole of the house. Giving up on the 'tour', Harold headed back down to the living room. A tinderbox next to the fireplace provided him with the materials necessary to start a fire in the hearth, but doing so emptied the box. Deciding to see if there was any more firewood outside, he went back through the hallway and kitchen and grabbed the jacket from its iron hook in the mudroom. Just outside the mudroom doors, stacked neatly against the stone wall of the oven, was a mass of additional firewood. A large cross-section of a tree stood not too far away, with a heavy, double-bladed axe wedged in its surface. He helped himself to a mound of split logs and took them inside, depositing them in the living room tinderbox before flopping onto the sofa.
Well, that's better, but it's still too quiet. The fire took the last vestige of chill out of the air, and crackled merrily, but didn't provide him with anything even remotely close to conversation. He wasn't altogether too sure how long he sat there, staring at the flames, occasionally adding another log, and thinking, but by the time he dragged his attention back to his surroundings, the light outside was the odd shade of grey that happened solely during twilight hours.
He checked in with the portion of his mind that was supposed to be figuring out what to ask Aurilia for, only to find that absolutely no progress had been made. Sighing, he climbed to his feet. Noticing he was still wearing the jacket, he stripped it off and laid it on the arm of the sofa. Taking a bronze candlestick from the mantle of the fireplace, he lit the taper it contained with a brand from the fire and headed to the library. Once there, he studied the chandelier for several minutes, but was unsure of how to light it, and wound up ignoring it. It was easier to see how the library's contents were organized – fiction was by the author's last name, followed by the title of the book, while nonfiction was alphabetical by topic, then title. The only exceptions he could see were in the cases of fiction series, which were shelved in the proper order for the series itself, regardless of the actual title of the book. All told, it only took twenty minutes to locate the book he was looking for before returning to the living room.
He took a moment to light an oil lamp that stood on an end table next to the sofa before extinguishing the candle and returning it to its place on the mantle. I don't really want to know, but I think I need to know. He opened the book to the first page and began to read.
"Sally."
A mutter.
"Wake up now, Sally."
He managed to make it to the end of chapter thirty-five, on page 312, before his eyelids grew too heavy to hold themselves open any longer. He woke from disturbing dreams to bright sunlight streaming through the living room's eastern windows. Yawning, he noticed four things nearly simultaneously: Firstly, the oil lamp had burned dry and gone out. Secondly, the fireplace was equally cold. Thirdly, it was far colder in the room than it had been the day before. Lastly, he was ravenously hungry and needed a bathroom rather urgently.
Harold ran upstairs and tended to his most pressing need first, then headed to the kitchen with the book. It wasn't as chilly in the kitchen as it had been in the living room, but a tentative hand on the oven wall was enough to tell him that the fire there had gone out, too. He was about to shout for Aurilia when he reconsidered. It's not like I don't know how to start a fire. Did it enough times this summer, after all. He sighed and retrieved his jacket and the box of fireplace matches he'd used the day before from the living room. Once the tinderboxes in both the kitchen and living room were refilled, with additional wood in the stove, oven, and fireplace, he returned the jacket to its hook in the mudroom. Since he couldn't locate any paper not already bound in a book, he used some of the oil from one of the many hurricane lamps spread throughout the house as tinder. Before long, the kitchen was toasty-warm.
And now to figure out something to eat. From his explorations of the day before, he knew that there wasn't a whole lot available that he knew how to prepare, but one of the few things he was pretty sure he could make was stew; he'd watched his mom make it often enough while growing up, after all. He entered the 'freezer' and found a package he'd spied the day before, labeled as 'beef – stew meat'. While passing through the 'refrigerator', he also grabbed a couple of potatoes, an onion, and two apples. The apples, of course, were for breakfast, not the stew.
Setting his 'groceries' on the kitchen counter, he reached up and unhooked a large pan from the 'storm chimes'. He filled it about half-full of water, then sat it on the stove's cooktop. He chopped the onion and potatoes into bite-sized chunks and added them to the pot, then turned his attention to the package of meat cubes. Though they were frozen solid, once he got the plastic off, he didn't figure it would make much difference, and plopped them into the pan, too. "Mom usually added carrots and celery, too," he mumbled, then ransacked the cupboards. He was able to find a pint jar of carrot slices, but no celery. He drained the carrots and added them to his eventual supper. While looking over the spice rack for salt and pepper, he found 'celery flakes', but was leery of adding them, unsure of how much to add, so he simply stuck with salt and pepper. He further knew his mom had used seasonings, too, but he simply couldn't recall which ones, and decided to risk a bland meal rather than one that was totally inedible.
With dinner taken care of, Harold filled a glass with water from the kitchen sink and sat at the table with his book and apples. He paused in his reading every fifty pages or so to stir the pot and check the fire, and eventually got used to hearing the cuckoo clock chime the hour. At four o'clock that afternoon, he refilled the tinderbox and tossed his apple-cores into the yard. The stew looked done, but surely didn't smell that way. He tasted a sip of broth and found that it was nearly tasteless. Frowning, he decided to risk some of the seasonings. He added about a teaspoon of the 'celery flakes', some more salt, more black pepper, and tasted it again. A little better, but not much. What the hell did Mom use? He went back to the rack of spices and systematically went through them, jar by jar.
Allspice is what Mom used in Christmas cookies. Think it's like cinnamon and nutmeg. Don't think it'll help out here. Never heard of alum before. Isn't anise licorice? What the hell is annatto? Almond extract is definitely not what I want. Basil sounds familiar. He took the jar and sat it on the counter before continuing. So does bay. It joined the basil. Black pepper, check. Caraway seed? Why does that sound familiar? He knew it had nothing to do with his stew and decided to come back to it later. Cardamom's a new one to me. Cayenne pepper isn't what I want. Celery flakes, check. Celery seed. Hmm… do I need both? I don't think so. Huh, think I need to ask Aurilia for some cooking lessons. Whatever, Lauder, get back to work. Chili powder isn't needed, nor are chives or cinnamon. What's cilantro? Cloves aren't what I'm looking for. Coriander? Cream of tartar? Cumin? The hell? I swear some of these can't possibly exist! Coconut extract. Dill. Finally, something I recognize. Have to remember it's here if I ever get some cream cheese and canned shrimp to mix with it. Fennel sounds familiar, but damned if I know why. Ah-ha! Garlic joined the basil and bay on the counter. No to the ground ginger, horseradish powder, lemon peel powder, and lemon pepper. I thought mace was a medieval weapon. Marjoram sounds right, though. Onto the counter it went. Aside from making real mustard, what the hell would mustard powder be used for? Know I don't want nutmeg. Used real onions, so powdered is unnecessary. Orange extract, orange peel powder… Well, if I start showing signs of scurvy, I know where to come! I don't think Mom used oregano. I'll skip it for now. Mom only used paprika on deviled eggs. Parsley sounds good, though. It, too, was placed on the counter. Peppermint extract and poppy seeds I think I'll skip. Red pepper, too. Rosemary was placed next to the other jars on the counter. Wonder what saffron's used for. I've heard of it, but don't think I've ever seen it used for anything. Sage sounds like one Mom used. It joined the others he'd sat aside. Salt, check. Seasoned salt, seasoned pepper – wonder what they're seasoned with? Sesame seeds, spearmint extract, no. Summer savory? Tarragon sounds familiar, but why do I associate it with mushroom omelets? Thyme made its way onto the counter. What is tumeric? I think that's the biggest bottle of vanilla extract I've ever seen. What do you use white pepper for? And last, yeast. Wonder why it's in a jar and not the little packets Mom and Amy used to use?
Harold looked at the eight jars he'd removed from the spice rack. Somehow, it seemed excessive. The only one he was positive on the amounts for was bay, so a single, whole leaf was placed in the pot and the jar returned to its place on the rack. Now what? He tried to mentally compute the difference in mass between a whole clove of garlic and a dried one, and the volume that dried clove would take, but got lost in the process. "To hell with it," he muttered, then sprinkled about as much into the pot as he had the black pepper earlier. He stirred the pot and sampled some of the broth again. Though he couldn't detect the bay he'd added, the garlic was definitely making its presence known. I was probably lucky with that. Much more than what I put in would have made it inedible.
Opening the rosemary, Harold was surprised by how strong it smelled. He decided to use very little; he tipped a tiny mound of the powder into the palm of his hand, selected a tiny pinch and added that to the pot, before returning the unused powder to the jar. What little wouldn't go back into its container was brushed off onto his jeans. In contrast, the parsley didn't have much odor, and so he used more, nearly a tablespoon's worth. He paused and stirred his dinner again. Another taste-test and he figured it was good enough. Certainly, it wasn't as good as his mom's had been, but no longer was it the bland parody he'd started with. He returned the rest of the seasonings to the rack.
Harold got out a stew-plate from the cupboard above the sink, layered the bottom with a slice of the half-loaf of bread that remained from breakfast yesterday, and topped it with the stew.
In all honesty, it wasn't half-bad. It wasn't half-good, either, though. But it did fill the hollow spot quite admirably, and so Harold felt he'd done well. The leftovers he covered with the pot's lid (located under the sink with the serving trays) and sat on a shelf in the fridge. Dessert was another apple. After he'd washed up his dishes and refilled his water glass, he returned his attention to the book.
He managed to get through the majority of it by nine that night. He left off at the break which was titled Book III, at the end of chapter sixty. Harold now knew what the consequences of the dynamite had been, and it was better than he'd feared, but worse than he'd hoped – he'd been partially successful in his original goal of destroying what, in essence, was Boulder's town council. Nick Andros, Susan Stern, and Chad Norris had died from the blast, and Chad hadn't even been on the Permanent Committee, just in charge of the Burial Committee. Outside, four others had been killed by flying debris, but Harold only vaguely recognized Patsy's name as a pretty girl about his age that he might have pursued if Nadine hadn't shown up – none of the others were people he knew.
Chad's death hit him pretty hard. Norris had been a good guy, a good man doing a shitty job with little to no complaining, at least not where Harold could hear him. Hell, Chad had been the one to start calling Harold 'Hawk'; that small detail had slipped his mind until he'd read it in the book.
As to the book itself, while reading it, Harold's emotions ranged over the map – grief and anger and sadness were most common, but an uncomfortable sense of embarrassment over his own actions and thoughts dusted everything else, coating them in a lacquer-like varnish that managed to put a little distance between the words on the page and his own memories. He sat it aside to finish in the morning and went upstairs.
Harold ran himself a bath and soaked in the luxurious heat. If it matters any to you, wherever you are, if I could do it over again, Chad, I don't think I would. Not knowing what I know now. I don't think I want to go back, though. I think it would be too easy for me to fall back into hate. Even without Nadine there, even if Aurilia could wipe everyone else's memory of me, it would still be too easy to hate them for having what I want. But… Do I really want what they have? All the responsibility of having to get Boulder up and running again, of worrying about the Dark Man and his plans, of having to condemn spies to certain death?
His fingers and toes began to look less like flesh-and-blood and more like white raisins, so Harold pulled the plug and dried off. He bundled his dirty clothes into a makeshift pack, wrapped in his flannel shirt, and sat it by his bedroom door as a reminder to take them down to the laundry in the morning. He put on a clean t-shirt and underwear, then climbed into bed. He blew out the oil lamp on the night stand, then stared up through the darkness to a stripe of moonlight on the ceiling. No, I don't think so. I don't want that sort of burden on my shoulders. I mean, I'm sixteen. Sixteen. I don't think I'd be able to handle being responsible for a thousand people, not even with that weight distributed onto six other pairs of shoulders. And what of the rest of it? Sure, it'd be nice to have the respect, but is respect worth that kind of price? He shook his head and rolled onto his side. No. I don't think so. Not for me.
So, what do I want? Do I want to go back to Boulder at all? Maybe as someone else? The thought had appeal. Harold examined the thought from all angles before concluding, No. I don't want to go back to Boulder. Not even with a new name and a different face. It would be too hard to see Fran with Redman, even though I know what Aurilia meant when she said it was more complicated than I knew. So, do I want to go back to that world at all? I don't think so. Not even if it was like Aurilia said she'd wanted it to be – a faction uninterested in either Mother Abigail or Flagg. It's simply too depressing to live in a world populated mainly by the dead. How about that other option she offered, the one where she could send me back to the start of summer and live in a world untouched by the superflu?
Harold shifted to a slightly more comfortable position. No. As much as I loved my family, I don't think I liked them very much, and I know the feeling was mutual. And I'd rather not have to deal with the inevitable cretins inherent to public, and presumably private, schooling. I also don't want to have to deal with a world too different from what I know, though. As much fun as watching old reruns of sci-fi shows is, I think I'd be out of my depth if I tried living in any of those worlds. Just like I'd be lost trying to live someplace like Middle Earth.
He fell asleep still going over his options, unaware that he'd already made up his mind.
The shrill ringing of an old-fashioned alarm clock startled Hawk out of his dreams. He felt Beth shift and the ringing ceased. "Come on, hon, you told me not to let you sleep in today. You've got that piece due today about the body they found out at Lake MacNulty a few days ago."
Hawk pried his eyes open and rolled over. Beth's dark hair was messy, tangled from sleep, and her nightgown was wrinkled. Hawk didn't much care. He yawned and stretched. "Yeah," he said, once the yawn had run its course. "I know. I'm up. What's for breakfast?"
Beth laughed. "Coffee. Aside from that, I'm not sure. Chad's got football practice this morning, so probably eggs and sausage, too."
Hawk let out a snort. "How the hell did I wind up with a football player for a son?" he grumbled good-naturedly. The closest he'd ever gotten to sports had been when he'd joined track in high school as a last-ditch attempt to lose the baby-fat. It had been successful, but he'd not continued it into college – practice would have cut into his studying. Since he managed to wind up with a degree in journalism in less than three years, he figured he had been justified in his choices.
"Honestly, I don't know," Beth replied, pushing the comforter off and climbing to her feet. "I think it has to come from somewhere on your side of the family, though. None of my family is at all sports-inclined."
Hawk nodded in agreement. Since his parents and older sister had been killed in a car accident when he was all but five years old, he really didn't know one way or the other what might be lurking in his genetics. He'd lacked additional family, and so after the accident, he'd been fostered to Sandra and Michael Jefferson, right here in Dual Rivers. At the end of the year, he'd been adopted by them. It was during that first year with the Jeffersons that he'd earned his nickname of 'Hawk' – his uncommonly keen eyesight had him constantly asking things which Michael and Sandra had trouble answering. "Probably," he said, following his wife's example and getting up. "Doesn't Sue have something coming up shortly?"
Beth paused in pulling on a dark blue sweater. "Uh… I think so. The regional science fair, if I remember the calendar correctly." She finished pulling on the sweater and wriggled into a pair of jeans. "And Nicky's been hinting about wanting to go to Montgomery Academy, starting with ninth grade."
"Thank god the others are too young yet for drama," Hawk muttered, searching for a clean pair of socks.
Chad was their eldest at fifteen, and barely legitimate according to the traditionalists in town – Hawk and Beth had only been married six months when he was born. Susan was next, a clumsy and coltish thirteen. Nicolas was very much his father's son, a chubby and overly-intelligent eleven. Andrea was their changeling, a blonde with blue eyes, and nine years old. Dale was seven and looked enough like his mother for strangers to often confuse him for a girl. Dean was five and still stuck on dinosaurs; Hawk was pretty sure it was a phase, but he'd thought that of Chad's football obsession, too, and he'd been wrong. Next came the twins, Joe and Leo, at a mischief-making and toilet-obsessed three. Their youngest was Patsy, who was a year old, and constantly bugging both he and Beth about wanting a 'ba-ee bro'er'.
Hawk gave up trying to locate socks and simply stared at his wife while she brushed her hair. Wearing just his boxers and a smile, he slipped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He nuzzled her neck. "Don't you have to meet with your editor this morning?" Beth asked, tipping her head to the side to make more room for her husband.
"Jerry'll understand," he murmured against her neck.
Beth giggled, but turned in his arms and smacked his ass with the back of her hairbrush. "Love you, too, sweetheart, but you're not the only one with shit to do today."
Hawk pouted and loosened his hold on Beth a little. "What do you have on your plate today, o rose of roses?"
Beth wrinkled her nose at the bad poetry. "That one's worse than the one last night. Give up, Hawk – poetry is not your forte," the complaint had been issued before and would be issued again, that was what made it fun. "But I have to go grocery shopping; pick up the dry-cleaning; return the DVDs we rented; Joe, Leo, and Patsy all have their annual check-ups today; and Sue's orthodontist appointment is this afternoon at three. She's upset that she'll be missing the last hour of school."
"Glad to see that one so serious about her education," Hawk replied.
Beth chuckled. "Hardly. She just doesn't want to miss Penny Harper's birthday in eighth period."
"Ah, stale cupcakes. Something I definitely haven't missed from school." He leaned in and kissed Beth.
By the time it wound to a close, Beth had dropped her hairbrush. "What were we talking about?"
"Trying for kid number ten," Hawk replied, maneuvering her around so that all he'd need do is push and land her squarely on their bed. A loud wail of 'Moooooooooooooooom!' interrupted his efforts, however. Sighing, he resigned himself to the inevitable. He released Beth. "Better see what that's about before someone winds up needing stitches." He blinked and added, "Again."
Beth nodded, scooped up her brush, and dashed from the room, leaving Hawk to dress without her distracting presence. He smiled as he heard her start up on the standard lecture even before she got fully down the hall.
Gotta say, life is good. He pulled on a pair of chinos, his odd dream of the night before completely forgotten.
A/N2: This is complete as it stands. I have no intention of ever coming back to it. And yeah, I actually believe in the 'World as Myth' concept first put forth by Heinlein. Aurilia, after all, is a projection of myself. The world wherein I finally placed Hawk is the world wherein one of my original fiction pieces takes place. With luck, sometime in the next few years, you might see it come up as a category here on ffnet – if so, this'll wind up in the crossovers section!
Review if you like, but I'm honestly not expecting much feedback on this.