Different Seasons
1975
The summer of love had come and gone a long time ago. For some people it had been a lifetime ago. For Billie Boyd, it was a time she hadn't been old enough to appreciate. She was a self claimed 'above average' college freshman. She was a quiet woman who had been an outcast most of her life. She stood very tall and very thin, with a head of long blonde hair and a pale face which she normally hid behind large round, wire rimmed sunglasses. Ordinarily she was a lone wolf in everything she did, but that had changed since she finished high school.
Her first instinct had not been to go to college. No, she had run away to join the circus, but she had quickly found that was not the thrill it was cracked up to be. So she had returned to her hometown and instead spent many of her days hanging around with the hippies and other assorted deadheads. The infamous Summer of Love may have been gone, but the dream of going cross country, tearing up the road on a Harley had not. Unfortunately that had its downside as well. This, she had discovered one night when sleeping out in the open. She and her friends had been jumped by a bunch of hicks who hit them with chains and tried to shoot them. They escaped, their clothes torn and whole parts of hair ripped out of their heads but they were still alive.
Billie had considered trying one more extravagant adventure, but she figured she should quit while she was still alive. So she decided to try and settle down into a nice, peaceful, boring life and that was when she started attending the university. Shortly after enrollment, she had met another student, a man who she guessed to be in his early 20s. At first the two didn't interact with one another at all. But one night they accidentally bumped into each other at a movie and they'd seen quite a bit of each other ever since.
Adam. His name was Adam. Adam Barnes, a 20-something guy who also stuck out like a sore thumb for being tall and lanky and pale, and a student. Anybody who didn't know what Adam did with his days could guess he was a student, and the same could be said for Billie. Unfortunately that was not something she wanted to be known for at first glance, but it seemed she was stuck with it until something more appealing caught her interest. So she hung on at the college and kept going, and within time found out that she and Adam had quite a bit in common.
At the beginning of the semester, she had moved into the girls' dorm, but she had been thrown out of it for helping one of the local fraternities break into the women's rooms for a panty raid. Her actions were deemed worthy of eviction from the dorm but not expulsion from the college itself; and she noted duly if not bitterly, that the same actions committed on the part of the fraternity boys had not been deemed worthy of any kind of discipline.
Billie moved back to her home and considered it a large advantage because the whole house was her property and she didn't have to bother with any roommates cutting into her own space. And it made for much easier late night visits with Adam. On one Saturday in particular he came over to her house to pay a visit. Nobody answered the door so he helped himself in and called out for her.
"I'm in the kitchen," he heard her respond.
Adam followed the voice from the front hall through the dining room and into the large kitchen and found her at the table, sticking a large metal spoon into a jar of strawberry jam.
"What're you doing?" he asked.
"You said that we were going to a movie tonight, right?" Billie asked.
"Yes."
"At the drive in, right?"
"That's correct."
"And it's that one where the big red blob comes down to earth and starts eating people, right?" Billie asked.
"Yes, so?" Adam asked.
"One more thing, your car is a convertible, right?" she asked.
"Yes," he was about laughing now, "Why?"
"Oh it's going to be very warm tonight and I imagine most of the other people will be coming with their tops down too," Billie said, "And if they do, I'm going to have a surprise for them."
"I have no doubt," the man replied with a knowing smirk on his face.
Billie's eyes sparkled behind her glasses. "Why are you staring at me?" she asked him.
"No reason," he smugly answered.
That night the two of them pulled into the drive-in theater for the sci-fi creature double feature. Looking around, they saw that Billie's prediction was right; the warm spring air had most of the other people putting down the tops of their cars. Adam looked at Billie and could tell she was estimating how much throwing distance she would have to cover when the time was right.
"Keep these things up and you won't make it to graduation," he told her, "They're going to throw you out of that college someday for sure."
"I wish they would," Billie said, "Being kicked out is a lot more honorable than dropping out."
"Well if you're looking to get thrown out," Adam told her, "Just ride your motorcycle into the building, that did it for McQueen."
"Yeah…" they spent most of the movie just casually glancing at the screen while they talked. As it neared the film's climax, Billie looked and saw that several of the people along near their car were deeply engrossed in the movie. So much so, that none of them noticed her taking out the jar of strawberry jam she'd cut up earlier that day, unscrewing the lid and throwing the contents out of the jar, and onto the occupants of the next car.
The man and woman in the next car jumped up and started screaming and trying to get whatever had landed on them off of them and they wound up throwing some of it into the open convertible beside them and in front of them. Pretty soon the whole drive-in was full of hysterical people screaming and frantically trying to throw off the strawberry jam that they mistook for flesh eating creatures from outer space.
Adam and Billie were rolling around in the seats of his car, watching the mass hysteria and laughing at it all.
"You are horrible!" Adam told her.
"I know!" she barely got out over her laughing.
Neither of them went to class the next Monday. It was a warm, sunny day, the grass and the trees and the flowers were all alive again after a cold winter of misery, and they decided that being out in the fresh air was more important than anything the professors had in mind for them.
They had spread a large blanket out on the ground and laid on it, gazing up into the sunlight. As the day passed, the temperature got warmer and the two found themselves stripping off their outer layers of jackets and bell bottom jeans. Billie had surprised Adam by coming with her bathing suit on under her clothes, and she spread out to try and get some of the sun's rays into her borderline albino skin. Adam just removed his jacket and his shirt and rolled onto his side to enjoy the sun and the breeze.
"Adam," she said after about an hour.
He'd just about fallen asleep and responded with a drowsy, "Hmm?"
"Do you believe in God?" she asked him.
Adam turned over onto his back and folded his arms behind his head, "Sometimes. You?"
"I wonder," was Billie's response.
That surprised Adam. He sat up and looked over at her, "About what?"
"If God knew what He was doing, why did He give us each only one life? And why do they have to be so damn short?" she asked, "One life isn't long enough for us to figure out what all we want to do and what all we're good at. Do you ever think about that? This minute, this day, this year is soon to pass and there's no force on earth that can ever turn the clock back to this time."
Adam laid back down and said, not really answering her question, "The Bible tells of people who lived to be 900 years old."
"Well something sure screwed up the process along the way," Billie said, "Trees live for over 200 years, planets forever…why are we given only 60, 70, maybe 80 years to figure everything out? Aren't we of more individual worth than trees? And why is it…why is it that there's only one way to be born into this world, but there must be some five million ways to die? Do you ever think about that?" she asked.
"Quite a bit," Adam remarked.
They went to the movie theater the next night, to see the new hit film that had come out with The Who. It hadn't been out long but already it seemed to be all everybody was talking about.
"I don't get it," Billie said as they headed up to the balcony seats, "The guys can sing, but can they act? That's the question."
"We'll find out," Adam told her.
Sometime during the movie, Billie elbowed Adam and asked him, "Have you ever taken drugs?"
"A few," he answered, "You?"
"Once," she said, "No LSD though, but this movie looks like an acid trip if ever I saw one."
About halfway through the movie, Billie looked over and saw Adam was looking excruciatingly uneasy.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
He pointed at the screen and told her, "Those two relatives, the cousin and the uncle…they remind me of my brothers."
Billie did a double take when she heard that. She looked back at the screen and said to Adam, "I didn't know you had any brothers."
"Three of them," he told her, "And we're not on good terms with one another these days."
"How bad is it?" she asked.
"Well, to be honest, I haven't spoken with any of them for…quite some time now."
"That bad, huh…well where are they?" Billie asked.
Adam shook his head and replied, "It's been so long, I'm not even sure anymore."
After the movie had let out and everybody headed for home, Billie kept pestering Adam the entire drive back to her house.
"So what started this feud between you and your brothers?" she asked him.
"It's not a feud really, we just don't get along very well, and we go long periods of time without seeing one another," he answered.
"Well how long has it been going on this time?" Billie asked.
"Too damn long," Adam answered.
A minute passed before Billie asked him, "What are they like?"
"I told you."
"No you didn't, you said you have three brothers, so if one's like the cousin in that movie and the other's like the uncle, what's the third one like?"
Adam thought about how to answer that for about a minute before finally responding, "Mr. Magoo."
Whoever said you can't escape your past sure knew what he was talking about. It didn't seem to matter where Billie went or what she did, there was always somebody hassling her due to her past spent with the hippies, and she was considered one herself by association and due to how she looked. And she quickly found out the worst incidents to be on the receiving end of it was when the cops were on the other. Almost every day when she walked either to or from the college, there was always some officer coincidentally turning the corner she was approaching. And despite being in public and having several potential eyewitnesses, nothing deterred the men in blue from harassing her.
She could live with the insults easily enough, she'd had to get used to that her whole life. Her problem was that the cops never stopped at just verbal harassment; she always managed to squirm away at the right second before they could grab her but they came closer every time. There was one in particular, a motorcycle cop who for some odd reason was always walking the beat wherever she happened to be going. After the first few times she had told Adam about it and he had offered to walk with her to and from the college as a form of protection. Her response to that was just to laugh.
"You'll protect me," she said mockingly, "That's all good and well but who is going to protect you?"
He hadn't taken kindly to that remark but all the same the next morning he stuck by her side like they were conjoined twins. Nothing happened on the way to school but on the way back they encountered the same motorcycle cop, who met them with his club out and ready to use. Adam stuck his head out enough to read the name tag on the officer's shirt that read: Peterson. The two men exchanged a few words and Adam, this not being one of his smarter moments, told the cop what he could do with his nightstick; instead he just proceeded to beat Adam with it a couple of times before advising him not to show his face around there again.
Billie had wanted nothing more than to steal the gun out of the cop's holster and plug him with all six bullets but instead she grabbed Adam and got him out of there as fast as she could. Once they were a couple of blocks away they stopped and she inquired as to how bad the damage was. He insisted that it was nothing but she grabbed his shirt and lifted it up and was surprised to see that there weren't any marks on him.
"I don't get it," she said, "I saw him hit you."
"I bruise slowly," Adam insisted, "By the time they show up I don't even remember how I got them."
The only thing Billie could think to say in response was, "He's a bastard, the whole lot of them are."
"I know," Adam said.
"I've got half a mind to drop out of college and get the hell out of this place as fast as possible," she said.
"Why don't you?" he asked her as they resumed walking, "You can transfer your credits to another university can't you?"
"I think so," she said, "There's got to be some place we can go without having to put up with these idiots."
That's what she thought anyway. A couple of days later the two students were on their way to an afternoon movie when they got stopped by Officer Peterson again. The vicinity they were in was for some reason very scarcely populated today, so there was no one around to see Peterson pull the gun out of his holster and hold it on them, while keeping it low so as not to draw any extra attention to himself, and he ordered the two to start walking ahead, and he would tell them when to stop.
Neither was able to think of way to retaliate without getting shot, so they did as they were told. They walked for three blocks until they came to the top of the hill that overlooked the city dump. Both had their hands up over their heads and it was starting to hit them why they'd been led out here, but it was too late. Billie was shot first, in the back of the head, and she dropped off the edge and hit a pile of junk below. Before Adam had time to do anything, he felt his back and chest being ripped open by a through and through wound as he too had been shot, and the second blast put him over the edge too, and he fell to his death in a pile of garbled metal.
Billie awoke some time later, her eyesight was blurred and everything was spinning, and her head was killing her. She slowly realized where she was and started to pull herself up and off the assorted metal parts she had fallen on.
"Adam?" she weakly called out as she tried to find him.
She turned and saw him just getting up from where he'd landed about ten feet over.
"What happened?" she asked as she got up, "I thought that pig shot us."
"He did," Adam told her, his voice slightly shaking, the mere sight of him said he was about to boil over in uncontrollable anger.
Billie ran her hands over the back of her head and didn't see any blood. And she looked at the hole in his shirt and saw he wasn't bleeding either.
"Adam, what's going on?" she asked, "Why aren't we dead?"
He helped her out of the garbage and got them both out of the dump and to the nearest church so they'd be out of sight and in a safe place to talk.
"We're what?" she asked when he finished explaining it.
Adam opened his mouth to speak, then stopped, and tried again as he told her, "We are Immortals. We can't die, not unless somebody cuts off our heads."
"You've got to be joking," she said.
"I wish I were," he replied, "But I'm not…I've had too many years of experience to know better than that."
"How…" it hit her what he was saying, "How old are you?"
"A lot older than you think," was all he was willing to say for now.
"So now what happens?" she asked.
"The only one who saw us die is Peterson, we might be safe sticking around here but like you said why take a chance?"
He had unknowingly started the gears turning in Billie's head.
"You said that we can't die?" she said.
"That's right."
She looked at Adam and suddenly had a big grin on her face, "Do you think Peterson believes in ghosts?"
Adam shook his head, "This is no joke, Billie, he knows we're supposed to be dead, you don't want any of his partners finding out about this."
"Who's going to tell them?" she asked, "You know what they say, dead men tell no tales."
And now it was Adam's turn to have things explained to him.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked in a last ditch effort to try and talk Billie out of her plan.
"You got shot too, you don't want to make this son of a bitch pay?" she asked.
"If you're going to live for a long time you have to learn to get used to it, we all do," Adam told her.
"Yeah well assuming I do live a long time, I'll get used to it later, but right now, it's payback time and payback is a bitch."
"So there's nothing I can say that'll make you change your mind?" he asked.
She shook her head.
"You realize what you're going to do, don't you?" he asked.
"I'm going to kill the bastard…if what you say is true that's another thing I'll have to get used to, killing people, why not start now and even the score?"
"Next time it won't be so easy," Adam assured her.
"I'll worry about that then," she said, "Let's go."
It was easy to find out where Peterson would be working that night and they knew that he did not work with partners, so he would be alone, it was perfect. It was dark by now and nobody would see them, but up ahead they were able to see the light from Peterson's motorcycle and knew that soon he would be close enough to see them. Billie reached into her coat and took out the shotgun she had loaded for the occasion and she prepared to take aim. The headlight on the motorcycle hit them and momentarily blinded them, and whether Peterson recognized the two people he had killed, or he was just aware he was about to run down two pedestrians, they didn't know; either way he started to swerve and tried to brake but he was just about to fall over, bike and all, and slide on the asphalt. But Billie never gave him the chance, she aimed the gun so the shot would just hit the gas tank and she pulled the trigger, and watched in mild shock and then sadistic amusement as the flames from the explosion climbed high in the night air. By morning whatever was left of the body would be beyond all known recognition and so would his bike, and Billie sealed their fate in making it impossible to link them to this travesty in any way, by chucking the shotgun into the fire, so that when the flames finally died out, it too would be impossible to identify or link back to its owner.
"Now we'll leave," she told Adam.
He stood there for a moment frozen in awe at how flawlessly it had been pulled off. And all he could do was shake his head in astonishment and comment, "You're a quick learner."
"Yeah, too bad my teachers never saw it," Billie replied, "And now they never will."