Title: Lost Luggage and Lost Souls
Author: Nemo the Everbeing
Rating: A light R rating for swearing, violence, and other nasties.
Summary: Because listing bus stations as something you hate just begs writers to put you there. The Seventh Doctor and Ace join an odd cast of characters in time to get held hostage, and the Doctor remembers why he prefers saving worlds to smaller crises.
Disclaimer: Seven and Ace belong to the Beeb and no one but the Beeb. If this is true, then only the Beeb can make money from writing stories about them. Nemo is not the Beeb, so remember your Logic 101 class and do the math.
oOo oOo oOo oOo oOo
Mike Pearson was picking his teeth. The day was hot and humid, and his shirt was sticking to his back where the vinyl of his chair trapped all the sweat. The Greyhound station smelled like too many people and the gasoline stench from outside wafted in every time someone opened the door. He glanced at the computer screen. Five more seats and an hour and forty-five more minutes left for the bus to St. Louis. Then he could go to Hardees on his lunch break and see if that girl working the drive-thru was single.
The station was full up with the usual grab-bag of weirdoes. There were the old bikers who didn't want to travel that far on a motorcycle, the hippies who didn't have cars, the old ladies whose licenses had been revoked. Then, there were the vets, the students, the trailer trash, and one mother with small children. She had a black eye, and Mike didn't doubt she was running from some man. He saw that type two or three times a month. All his weirdoes were people who needed to get somewhere and had no other means by which to do so. Lord only knew that no one would be on a Greyhound out of Iowa City if they had any other alternative.
The station wasn't large. The building itself had probably been built when Greyhound started up and no one had ever bothered with upkeep. They couldn't afford to. Nobody took ground-based, long-range public transit anymore. They either had their own cars or they took a plane. The day of the bus and the train was long past, even with the rising gas costs. Mike stuck around, though, because there were always people who'd be too cheap, too poor, or just wanted that Greyhound experience.
Half an hour to the bus' arrival and another pair entered the station. Mike, who didn't get surprised by just anyone, still felt a lurch of shock somewhere around his gut. He stopped picking his teeth and set his toothpick on the counter to facilitate his staring.
They were just about the weirdest pair of nuts he'd ever seen. The girl, who couldn't be older than twenty, stood there in a tight red tank top, a black pleated skirt, black tights, and black combat boots. He'd call her a Goth, but she wasn't wearing the makeup of a Goth, and the skirt and tights were all wrong. Not enough chains and safety-pins and too much sincerity. More like something he remembered from his own High School days back when all the unpopular, tough girls were wearing things like that with oversize t-shirts. The shirt was maybe something he saw more often in the station these days, but everything from the waist down was older. Maybe the eighties thing was back in fashion. Not like he paid attention to what people were wearing, but she was hard to ignore. Pretty little girl. Probably legal, but maybe not.
The man with her was even stranger. He was wearing plaid pants, a brown suit jacket, and some sort of sweater-vest covered in little red question marks. His umbrella, too, had a red question mark handle, and Mike wondered why he was carrying an umbrella when the sky didn't have a cloud in it. His black hair stuck up in odd angles, and he barely stood taller than the girl.
He'd seen weirdoes before, but there was something that set this guy apart. Something about his eyes. They glimmered steel-blue, and seemed full of life, sparkling with some sort of inner light. At the same time, they seemed flat, like a hawk's eyes, and the way he looked at the other passengers told of differences between them that Mike couldn't even guess at. He felt a gulf stretch out between the little man and everyone else, and the girl was the only person who could cross.
Mike wondered what they were to one another. He'd seen the gamut in his time. Maybe they were relatives, and the little guy was too cheap to spring for gas money. Maybe she was footing the bill and taking her crazy uncle to an asylum somewhere. Then again, it was just as likely that they were eloping or something. He shook his head. If a girl like that could fall for a man like him, there might be hope for Mike yet.
In one of the chairs near the door, a guy in a badly-fitting suit shifted and watched the two, leaning over to the woman sitting next to him. They whispered to one another. Mike felt a flutter of excitement. Definitely cops, those two, and from the way they were looking, they'd jumped straight to Mike's eloping conclusion, and also that she might or might not be legal. If she wasn't legal, well, there was still an hour forty-five to go before the bus arrived, and even the cops were bored.
The two got to the ticket window and Mike asked, "What can I do you for?"
"Two tickets, please," the little man said, "for the three o'clock to St. Louis."
The way he talked, he was some sort of British guy. Not like Hugh Grant or those others, though. No, that accent was like the lovechild of Hugh Grant and Braveheart, all rolling r's and polite vowels.
"I don't see why we have to take a bus in the first place, Professor," the girl said. British too, but not the same accent. "The TARDIS could have gotten us there in a fraction of the time it'll take this heap."
"The scenic route, Ace," the Professor said.
Ace rolled her eyes. "This is some scenery I could just as soon do without."
"A hundred-forty-two dollars," Mike said. "And ID."
"What?" Ace asked, disbelief on her face. "Oi, Professor, this is daylight robbery!"
The Professor didn't seem surprised or upset. "Inflation. Prices change." He started digging through numerous pockets in his pants and jacket, flashing a pocket-watch, a white paper bag filled with what Mike assumed to be drugs but, at a second glance, appeared to be gummy-bears or something. Then there was a yo-yo, a pair of spoons, a tennis ball, and at last, right when Mike was beginning to contemplate just kicking the nutty pair out of his bus station, the little man produced a pouch. He dumped it on the counter, scattering currencies from a dozen different countries, most of which Mike couldn't even begin to figure out, plus one weird-looking metal beetle, all over the counter. He grabbed a bundle of bills and Ace got the job of scooping the rest of the coins back into the purse. Maybe she was with him because he was some millionaire, Mike thought. Lots of girls seemed to be doing that nowadays.
The Professor laid out one hundred-dollar bill, two twenties, and two ones, looking very pleased with himself.
"ID," Mike said.
The little guy seemed flustered, and dug through his pockets again. Finally, he pulled out a laminated card. It was old and battered. He slipped it through the ticket window, and Mike got a good look at it.
It was an ID card, all right, for something called UNIT. Stupid name, Mike thought, but then again, a lot of companies nowadays were coming up with stupid names. The picture was right, and the name was Dr. John Smith. If he had wanted, Mike could have pressed about the name. After all, who really names their kids John Smith? But he'd let far less savory types ride his bus, and as long as security was followed, he didn't really care if it was that rigorous. He slid the ID back to Dr. Smith with two tickets.
Ace muttered, "A hundred some dollars for a bus ride? Definitely not worth that."
"Thanks and have a nice ride," Mike said, the litany so familiar that it no longer required thought.
"Thank you," Dr. Smith said. Then he turned to Ace and gestured to two chairs next to the mother with the back eye. There was another weird thing about him: with all the empty seats in the station, why would he volunteer to sit right next to someone? Everyone always put at least a chair between them and anyone else. "Shall we?" he offered.
Ace fought, and failed, to keep a smile off her face. "Whatever you say, Professor," she said. "You're the one with the master plan that involves us riding a bus to St. Louis." He made for the seats and she followed, and as they went, Mike caught her saying, "I thought you told me you hated bus stations, anyway."
oOo oOo oOo oOo
"So, most likely felon," Thomson said, leaning back in the uncomfortable orange vinyl seat. She grunted at him, not buying into this game for a second. As soon as she engaged in conversation with the bastard, he always tried to hit on her. Sometimes it was funny, but she wasn't in the mood. "Come on, Jimenez," he said. "Humor me."
Jimenez didn't glance up from her book. "You forgot your portable TV, didn't you?" she asked.
"Ran out of batteries," he said. "I left it in my desk."
"Stopopolis'll steal it on his shift."
"If he replaces the batteries, he can do whatever he wants with it," he said. "So, come on. Felons."
She glanced up and scanned the room. Finally, she nodded at one of the bikers down their row. "Him," she said. "He moves like he's done time."
"Oh, he's too easy," Thomson said. He nodded across the way and, reluctantly, she followed his nod. There, standing at the ticket window, were an odd pair. "Him," Thomson said.
Jimenez snorted. "What, the tiny little guy with the umbrella? Insanity plea, maybe, but a felon? How do you figure?"
"Statutory rape," Thomson said, sounding smug.
"Even if that's the case, which I doubt—"
"And why is that?"
"Body language is wrong. And she's older than eighteen," she said, went back to her book, and hoped that would be the end of it. Thomson was on a crude kick again, probably just to see if he couldn't get a rise out if her.
"How can you be sure?" he asked. "I look at her and I figure anywhere between sixteen and twenty-one, and two of those years makes whatever they might be doing behind closed doors very, very illegal."
"What if they're related?"
"Do they look anything alike to you?" he asked. "Not a chance. So, older man and younger woman traveling together, alone . . . are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky?"
"If you're trying to take over the world, I'm leading the resistance," she said. "Stupidity must be fought."
"You're just sore because you know they aren't related, and maybe to you that body language says 'we're just friends' but to me it's adding 'until the lights go out.'"
"You've got a sick mind, you know that?"
"I've got a cop's mind."
"A paranoiac's mind."
"A brilliant mind."
"A mind that needs a distraction and is willing to slander two perfectly innocent people all for its own lurid fantasies."
"Ouch."
"And don't you forget it."
"Okay, but if he's not doing her, then why are they together? I mean, I'm not seeing much in common."
Jimenez glanced at them once more. "They move the same way," she said.
"Is this more of that body language thing? Because that's going right over my head."
"Most things do."
"So, if they move alike, wouldn't it make sense if they were—"
"Look, can we leave the shop talk for the office? Or at least until we get to the SLPD?" She glanced at her watch. It wasn't like Thomson was a bad partner, but he was really only fun in small doses, and the prospect of a weekend digging through records and talking to the SLPD about a series of disappearances wasn't exactly her idea of a great time. At least the department was springing for two rooms. She didn't want to imagine a night alone with Thomson trying to catch a glimpse of her panties.
"Maybe he kidnapped her," Thomson said.
Jimenez shut her book with a snap. "Give it a rest, okay?"
"I'm just saying . . ."
"Does she look like she's being held against her will? No. Does she have that shell-shock you sometimes see in kidnap victims? No. Are we Special Victims detectives? No. So, why are you fixating on them?"
"Because they're the weirdest in a weird bunch," Thomson said, "and because I don't have my portable TV."
Jimenez dug into her duffel and pulled out a book. "Look," she said, "it's Tom Clancy. Everybody likes Tom Clancy." She threw it at him. "Read it, and stop obsessing over our fellow passengers before they get the wrong impression and start thinking you're checking them out."
Thomson picked up the book from his lap and opened it. Then, he glanced over the top of the cover and said, "Maybe she kidnapped him."
oOo oOo oOo oOo
Judy McClellen sat in her seat, fidgeting and staring at her children. The baby had just gone to sleep at long last, and Zoe, sitting on the floor, was more or less occupied with a coloring book. The quieter they were, in Judy's opinion, the better.
This wasn't the usual sort of trip for them, so the rules changed. Any noise from any of them might alert someone they were there. Lord only knew that Gary had friends all over the town of Lone Tree, and any one of them could have seen Judy driving away. Even now, Gary might be following in her footsteps. He might find the car in the Wal-Mart parking lot, might track down the Gypsy Cab they'd taken to the station. He might walk through the door at any moment, and she didn't know if she'd have the strength to leave him again. This time was hard enough.
She didn't have any money. She had two kids. She was riding at least to St. Louis and maybe further. All Judy really wanted was some out-of-the-way little town where she could start over, maybe erase some of the past that was dogging her. She reached up and touched her black eye. Yes, indeed, this was a place she needed to leave right away if she wanted to save herself or her kids. When you're some poor white trash woman in a town where your husband is loved by all, then he can slap you around and people will turn a blind eye. They blamed Judy for the marriage anyway. If she hadn't been a slut and gotten herself pregnant, then Gary could have gone on to do great things. Everyone was very eager to remind her of that one. So if he hit her, well, people figured she'd had it coming for a while.
Judy had put up with it for six years. She'd been good and obedient and took everything he dished out, but in the end, Judy McClellen couldn't take another day of getting smacked around and then being told it was her own damn fault. She was running.
If only she knew where she was running to or how long her little cash would last. Most of it got sucked up by the bus tickets already. How they would eat wherever they were going, Judy really didn't know. The only thing that convinced her that life wherever she stopped running would be any better than this was because it had to be. You couldn't fall out of a hole.
A man sat down beside her and Judy almost jumped, thinking for a second that it was Gary come to drag her back to Lone Tree. But no. This man was much smaller and more colorful than Gary had ever been. He turned to her and said, "Hello."
"Hi," she said, her voice almost failing. What if Gary sent him? He didn't look like the type Gary would be friends with, but who knew?
Zoe looked up and stared at the man, her eyes wide. "Mommy," she said, "is that Santa Claus?"
The little man laughed, delighted. Next to him, a girl chuckled. She hadn't been there a moment ago, and Judy supposed she must be with the strange little man. Judy tried to understand why her daughter would ask that question. The man didn't have white hair or a beard. He wasn't fat. Still, there was something about his manner that Zoe must have picked up on. She had always been good at that sort of intuition thing.
"I'm afraid not," the man said, and Judy realized he was Scottish. Strange. You didn't see many foreigners in Lone Tree, and in Iowa City the main foreign population were students at the university. This man might teach there, but somehow Judy doubted it. "However," he held out his hand, showed both sides to demonstrate that there was nothing in it, and then flipped it palm up to reveal a small gummy candy, "I think I could manage a jelly baby or two." His eyes, a strange shade of grayish-blue, flashed up to meet hers. "If that's all right with you, of course."
Judy realized she should say no. Accepting candy from strangers, especially strange men like this, was just the sort of thing her parents always used to harp on her about. Yet, she looked at this man and something in her was utterly certain that he wouldn't hurt her or her daughter.
Zoe, too, was convinced, and snagged the candy before Judy could say anything. Zoe remembered to say, "Thank you," then sat down and began to nibble at the so-called jelly baby.
The little man produced a paper bag full of the candies, holding it out to Judy. "Would you like one, as well?" he asked.
Judy took a candy.
Zoe was still staring at the little man, her attention completely diverted from the coloring book. "Are you magic?" she asked.
The little man hopped out of his seat and dropped down in front of Zoe. "That really depends," he said, "on what you think magic is."
"It's tricks and stuff."
"Well, then everyone is magic, because anyone can learn tricks. The secret to doing real magic is doing the formerly impossible." With a flip of his wrist, he produced a pocket handkerchief and proceeded to lengthen it and then make it disappear, all the while talking to Zoe in a very light, yet still serious tone. "After all, nothing's really impossible if you think about it. Somewhere, somewhen, someone must have done it at least once."
"Somewhen?" Zoe asked.
"Oh, yes. You see, time," he turned the handkerchief into a pocket watch, "is all in how you look at it, and is much like space in many matters. You can map time, and for humanity, the future is the greatest unexplored country in existence. It cannot be known until it's experienced."
He continued to prattle and do little magic tricks, keeping Zoe entertained and, even more important, quiet. For a second, the little man flashed Judy a look, and she felt that all of this had been his intention from the beginning. That he had all this planned out from the second he saw her and her children.
And for a second, Judy was certain that, even though his lips didn't move, he said to her, "You made the right decision. You will find the peace you're looking for."
She sat there, shaken, as he went right on producing coins from her daughter's ear and chattering away about time.
The girl who had been sitting next to him shifted over to sit next to Judy. She looked about twenty, and there was something sharp about her. Something that spoke of a lot of hard living in that short amount of time. Yet there was also a sort of happiness and peace that seemed more recent. Judy wondered if maybe she'd look like that when she got where she was going. The girl nodded toward the little man and Zoe. "He's good with kids," she said. "Funny, that, since he doesn't really spend any time around them." The girl offered her hand. "I'm Ace."
Judy liked Ace. She couldn't help it. Ace was the kind of girl she'd been at twenty, but with a little something extra that Judy couldn't put her finger on. "Judy," she said.
"Good to meet you," Ace said.
Zoe laughed and Judy turned just in time to see her daughter produce a coin from her own ear. Her technique was poor, but the little man was excitedly showing her how to hide it better. Across from them, in another line of seats, the little man had drawn an audience of students from the University. None of them looked as though they knew who he was, and a character like this would stand out even in a big college town. So, definitely not with the university, then. If not that, then, Judy wondered, where did he come from?
"Who is he?" she asked.
Ace didn't take her eyes from the little man. "He's the Doctor," she said, as though that explained it all.
"He doesn't teach at the University, does he?"
Ace shook her head.
"Is he your father?"
Ace laughed. "The Professor?" she asked. "God, no! He's . . . he's my best mate. I travel with him."
"Travel?" Judy asked. "Where?"
"Oh, everywhere," Ace said. "All over the place, really."
"How'd you end up at Iowa City?"
"Passing through, same as you," Ace said, and nodded to the suitcases huddled together near Judy's seat.
Zoe succeeded in producing the coin without showing the trick. The little man clapped, then took the coin, made it disappear, made it come back as three, and then began to juggle them. Ace's face split into a wide, surprisingly young, grin. "Oi, Professor," she called, "just don't pull out the spoons, right?"
Still juggling, the Doctor looked over his shoulder and said, "You've no ear for music, Ace."
"Yes, I do. That's the problem." There was a strange, assured kind of teasing between them, as though they'd had variations on this conversation a thousand times, and anymore, it was mostly repeated for entertainment value. "My musical ears bleed every time you feel the urge to play."
He tossed the coins higher, their arc sailing perfectly, despite the fact he hadn't even glanced at them for the entire conversation. "How, precisely, do you intend to stop me?" he asked, all prim determination.
"Oh, I'll fight you," she said. "I remember which pocket they went into."
"Ah, but are they still there? They might have moved. Space is relative, and I might have transdimensional pockets."
Ace rolled her eyes, but there was no real frustration there. "Professor . . ." she said.
"All right," he said. "No spoons, I promise."
One of the coins went wide of its normal arc, and Zoe squealed. Quick as a snake, the Doctor had turned around, shot his hand out, and caught the coin, sending it back into the correct orbit. There was scattered applause from the students.
Ace settled back.
Judy watched her and worked up the courage to ask, "Is he your boyfriend?" It was an odd question to ask. Sensitive, probably. The age difference alone would make for a controversial relationship. Then again, what did she know about love, anyway? A black eye and a few suitcases, that's what.
Ace snorted, but the sound was almost wistful. There was a great deal unsaid in that snort, and Judy couldn't tell what half of it was. "No," Ace said. "Never happen." Judy waited and after a second, Ace continued quietly, almost more to herself. "He's so brilliant in some ways, so clever, but in others . . . he's the great innocent of the universe. It'd be some huge wrong, you know, to shatter something like that." Her eyes were distant—different places, different times. "Maybe it's him, how he is. Then again, maybe they're all like that. Maybe they're built to last, and one of those basic things that makes you burn out too quick is falling in love, so that part's gone. Woven out, or however they do it."
Judy didn't understand, but then again, she didn't feel that she was supposed to.
On the floor, Judy heard the little man say, "I'm the Doctor."
"I'm Zoe," the little girl said, flipping a single coin through the air in a stuttered imitation of the Doctor's artful juggling.
A sudden, almost shocking spasm of sorrow passed over the Doctor's face, but it seemed just as at home there as the joy had been. Maybe more so. Maybe, even while he was happy, his eyes held the remnant of that sorrow. It was a sorrow so old it made Judy shiver and wonder, again, just who this Doctor was. "I used to know a Zoe," he said. "Brilliant girl . . ." Then, as suddenly as it had come, the sorrow was gone and he grinned. "She was an astronaut, you know."
Zoe's eyes were wide and serious. She looked at the Doctor with those eyes and said, "You're not Santa Claus. You're Father Time."
And for the first time since Judy had met him, the Doctor fell utterly silent. She wanted to explain that Zoe had just watched a little too much "Charlotte's Web," but the words stuck in her throat as she heard Ace's surprised little breath.
Across the way, the students seemed to wonder what had happened.
oOo oOo oOo oOo
Jessica Moritz sat huddled in her seat, picking idly at the edge of her spike-studded dog collar. Her dyed black hair hung lank in her face and her thick black eyeliner made her eyes seem bigger and darker than they already were. Her lips were a deep blood red, as were her fingernails, and a leather corset was laced snugly up above her ratty jeans and Converse All Stars. She was tough and hard as nails, and she'd tell anyone who crossed her just that. She'd worked too hard to get into college and out of her former life to get intimidated by all the upperclassmen now, so her clothes, her makeup, her hair, they were her armor.
Sometimes, though, she'd look into the mirror and realize just how horribly young it all made her look. Little girl dressed up for a war she'd left years ago, a war she'd ended by selling her friends to the enemy. Cindy, Delilah, Monique, Ambrosia, they were all dead now. She'd talked, and they'd died, and somewhere along the line most of her had learned not to care. If she didn't look out for Jessica, there wasn't a soul out there who would.
She peered at the man sitting on the floor. He seemed like everything she wasn't. A bright, shiny, garish light to her darkness. Maybe she was flattering herself. There was something so much brighter about him, something that made her darkness feel superficial. She generally considered herself wise beyond her years, an old soul, but this man . . . he was ancient. For a second (she couldn't hear the conversation, so she didn't know why), he'd stopped shining quite so bright, his Scottish prattle falling silent and a tight, worried look shuddering across his face. The light seemed to collapse, revealing something so deep and so black about him that Jessica drew up her knees to her chest and hugged the worn denim tightly.
Then, the darkness was gone, and the man was showing the little girl sitting opposite him how to juggle.
Maybe he was a circus act. Maybe he was some kind of nut. Maybe he was a mad scientist or a comic book villain or maybe he was just an eccentric man who traveled around with college girls and Jessica had spent too much time waiting for the bus to take her back to St. Louis for the last time.
Jessica pulled her eyes away from the little man, feigning disinterest. She picked up her book of poetry and began to read:
'Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.'
Her eyes skipped once more over to the little man.
oOo oOo oOo oOo
Tim Ross could care less about the little man or his daughter. Just another pair on another ride. He was sure he'd seen stranger across the years.
The cops had already spotted him. They sat down his row a ways, but their attention passed on soon enough. He was getting too old to hold their interest for more than a passing once-over. That self-assured cop deduction told them he'd been in jail at least once, but it was a while ago, and he was all used up now.
He hated being trapped with so many people in one space, especially a bus. There was something about buses, something degrading, that told Tim that, when he rode on one, he was lessened. Tim felt like an eagle with its wings clipped. Evocative image, that. If he were younger, he might even get it tattooed on his arm. Nowadays, though, his skin was wrinkling and the ink didn't take right. The world was spinning forward and dragging Tim along with it and there wasn't a damn thing he could do.
Out on the highway, with the wind whipping through his long gray hair and plaited beard, Tim was still young. He could still fly on the road, and all the scars he bore showed that he wasn't some cowering little old man holed up in some Godforsaken nursing home. Tim Ross would ride until the day he died, and then if there was a Heaven, he'd keep on riding there if they'd let him in.
Not many delusions about that, though. Tim was no saint. Over the years, he'd been in more than one fight, even killed a man here and there. He had his own set of ethics, though, and they were as rigid as any religion. He'd never raised his hand to a woman, never even raised his voice. He wouldn't kill a man unless that man left him no other alternative or if that man deserved to die.
He'd spent fifteen years in prison for killing a man who deserved to die. The man molested a girl, a friend of his daughter's. Things had to be done. Evil had to be fought, and Tim Ross was such a man as to be able to fight evil.
Fifteen years later and his little girl was all grown up and married to some insurance salesman in St. Louis. Her mother's doing, no doubt. Still, his daughter grew up clean: no drugs, no booze, no sleeping around, so he couldn't blame Bonnie for much. She'd done what she'd had to do. They all had.
Now he was finally going to see his baby girl, to wish her well and bring her the wedding present he'd waited to give. He was bringing her his own grandmother's diamond ring. Such an old, fragile thing it looked, lying in his big, callused palm, but it was the only and best thing he could give his daughter. The only real blessing he had left in him.
There he sat in a room full of people, going to take a bus. His goddamn hip had gone out a few days ago, and he couldn't ride. For the first time, his age was finally catching up to him, clipping his wings, forcing him to travel like other men instead of flying along on his chopper, the Avenging Angel returned to protect those who needed it.
oOo oOo oOo oOo
It was roughly at this time, as various people sat and talked and thought various things, that the door opened and five men carrying hunting rifles and handguns walked in.
"Well, Hell," Mike said, right before he got shot.