So, Too old to be reading fanfiction (Totbrf) and Thuraya Known, thank you very much for your constructive reviews that last chapter! You're keeping me on track. I should mention how Riley looks, and keep in mind his reaction to light. Sometimes I forget about the characters and just push the story along, thanks for the reminders. Heh, and Totbrf, the fact that I forgot about Riley's shoes and didn't address some of the things you pointed out should be evidence enough I wung that chapter. So I'm going to try and deal with the shoe issue in this chapter. Thank you very much for that reminder. As for how long he's been shut in – yeah, I'm not really sure myself exactly, but I had it in my mind that it was about 2 days. Not very long.
Which at this point I should mention that for the sake of plot, we're speeding up the psychological things that happen during brainwashing. Usually that takes a few weeks or months to do, but I don't want to write about that.
So yes. I wasn't clear about that at all. Riley's been imprisoned for about two days. As for his ability to run, I'm going to attribute that to adrenaline… (which makes little sense, but…)
And the last thing you (Totbrf) mentioned, about the cycle of fear and pain and all – cluster headaches are also called suicide headaches, you've reminded me. I may or may not do something with that… And I'm glad you like this story so much! I'm very encouraged! It's definitely the longest and most involved story I've ever written, by far. It's good to know someone likes it, especially as I've recently decided to head towards an environmental writing major. Not that I'd be doing stuff like this, but still. And so I really appreciate all the constructive reviews people give me!
Oh, and I may be swinging back and forth between it being spring and it being fall… I guess it doesn't really matter for the plot, so pick whichever you want to believe, people. It's cold out.
Chinese Man
The walk back to the car with Crandon flew. Time flies when you're having fun, they say. Time also flies when you're terrified out of your mind. Seems time only crawls when you're bored. I kept asking myself, could I do this? How long had I known Crandon, how faithful had be always been to me? I've known him for a while. He's been one of my most faithful assistants. We weren't best of friends but there was still a tie of trust between us.
We approached their car. Bud lay on the ground, shot through the skull, no doubt a well-placed bullet by Briggs. Crandon had never been much with aim. I noticed he avoided looking at the body as we walked by. Both of the policemen were quite apparently dead, sprawled on the pavement in a bloody heap.
"Let's move the bodies," I said. Next car that came along would no doubt alert even more authorities. The unresponsiveness of the pair of police to their base back in Cleveland would arouse suspicion fast enough. We leaned the two uniformed men against the right side of the police car, and placed Bud next to them. I looked down the road, making sure we were completely out of sight from Briggs.
We turned and headed back to Crandon's car, me keeping a step behind him. As he reached for the door handle I reached for the gun by his waist, trying not to think about what I was about to do - grabbed it, pulled it out of its case, Crandon whirling around, shocked, recoiling. I hadn't been fast enough. Could I still do it?
"Supervisor! What are you doing, put that down!" I grabbed him by the shoulder, tried to turn him around.
"Hands on the car, Crandon. I'm not going to shoot you. Just do it." Did I expect him to trust me now or something? But he did as I asked, glancing around and staring at the gun in my hand, not understanding what was going on.
I brought the butt of the gun down on the back of his head, and it made a very ugly thunking sound, which can be described in any number of cliché ways, most including something about rotten pumpkins. Let me attest that those metaphors are highly accurate. He immediately slumped onto the hood of the car, started sliding off. I caught him and lowered him to the ground. You see these knock-outs happen in movies all the time, but it's a thin line between knocking someone unconscious that way and stopping their other autonomic functions. I hoped against all else that I had done it right.
Checking his pulse and his breathing assured me he would live. Guilt pounding in my ears, I found his keys, pocketed them, and carried him to be in the company of the other three men.
Three innocents dead, one unconscious, hopefully not permanently damaged. Briggs was probably about to bite the dust. I'd have a hard time dealing with him. Was I even doing the right thing? I had just blown the perfect opportunity to change my mind and do what I'd begun doing so many years ago.
Well, it was rather too late now.
Shaking from the cold and adrenaline, I managed to get the keys in the ignition and start the car. Turn on the headlights? Why not. Click.
A jackrabbit stood in front of the car, a few yards ahead. How dumb could they get? They were worse than deer in the headlights. They were like rocks in the headlights. Surely it would move when I moved. I scooted forward and the rabbit's muscles tensed, but it did not budge. I sat for a moment, not wanting to honk at it. Inch. It didn't move. I opened my door and started to get out, which finally nudged it into movement – slow, nonchalant bounding across to the other side of the road.
Wait a moment.
Driving the car up to meet Briggs would be highly unintelligent. It wouldn't take Briggs long to notice the total lack of Crandon in the passenger seat. I turned off the lights again, and the ignition. Taking up the gun that I had put in the passenger seat in place of Crandon, I got out and started walking up the road. I was lucky there was a small hill in the road between me and Crandon, and as I approached the crest of it I lowered myself to the ground and continued, crawling on my belly. I peeked over the rise.
Briggs stood there, about fifty yards ahead, glaring around into the dark, appearing to mutter to himself. Riley lay in the dirt, clutching his head. Only slightly surprised Briggs wasn't in the act of abusing the kid in some way, I tried to take aim at the man. My hands shook, which I tried to ignore. I'd shot people before. What was my problem, why was I nervous? This was Briggs. His absence would barely be noticed. I closed my eyes for a moment.
Had to do this. No other choice. Right? Opened my eyes.
I took aim. Praying I wouldn't miss, my finger tightened on the trigger. I hated that sensation, that inevitable pressure, precursor to a murder. The resistance from the trigger made me want to give up and drop the gun.
BAM, too late. Bullet was loose, spent a mere sliver of time in the air before embedding itself into Brigg's chest. Cursing, I took aim again. I had been shooting for his head, a quick death. He didn't fall, just careened a few feet from the impact, didn't waste any time staring at his wound in disbelief. Took his own gun and aimed it up at me, that little lump on the horizon of the road.
I shot again, hitting him in the neck. He dropped his weapon and clutched at the wound, wetness spewing out between his fingers. It was a silent drama. I shot to my feet and booked it down the hill, legs flying – I felt like I was going to trip – and reached him as he writhed on the ground. His face was a mania of primal feelings, I perceived no humanity left. Placing the muzzle of the weapon to his temple, I forced my finger to twitch once more and closed my eyes to the sight that would surely follow. After the sharp noise and sudden silence I tuned immediately to Riley.
His pale shirt was now spotted with the blood of Briggs. He had sat up and backed away at the first shot I'd fired, and now simply stared at me, one hand attached to his temple.
"Oh man," he stated.
"I need to go get the car. Stay here, I'll be right back." I got up and started running up the hill, away from the scene. I felt bad leaving Riley sitting there next to an assuredly gruesome corpse and I wanted to ask Riley if he was alright, how he was feeling. Even more, however, I wanted to run away from what I'd done. Too many guilt-provoking things to be found down there. This course of action brought on its own guilt, though – that of selfishness.
I reached the car again, turned the ignition and started down the road. Soon I pulled over next to Riley, had to swerve in order to not further mutilate Briggs. Riley was laying down again, a dark shadow that any passerby would probably mistake for a roadkill muledeer, or small boulder. I got out and walked around the car, and knelt next to him.
"Riley?" I asked, suddenly conscious of my urge to put my hand on his shoulder. Especially given that he was probably just getting over realizing I hadn't, in fact, betrayed him, I didn't want to alarm him. However, he didn't respond to my voice. His eyes were closed.
"Riley! Are you alright?" He groaned quietly. My hand found itself on his shoulder, despite my thoughts. I chewed on things to say for a moment before settling for silent action. Taking a firm grip on his shoulders, I hauled him upright and tried to support his weight for him, as his legs didn't seem to want to do the job.
"Come on, Riley…" He wasn't responding. I put an arm under his knees and lifted him up. I grumbled about how I was too old to be doing this sort of thing as I attempted to place Riley across the backseat with as little stuffing as possible, but the angle was quite awkward. Unfortunately Riley was, at this point, apparently completely unconscious and no help whatsoever in trying to determine whether the position he was in was a comfortable one.
His pulse and breathing seemed normal to me, his pupils the same size. Good enough. Had to get driving. Turned the key, started up the heat. I switched my headlights on and flipped open my cell phone as I drove away, catching a glimpse of the mangled body on the pavement behind me in the rear view window. Hating the guilt I felt, I found Cell 3 again and listened to it dial. It rung once.
"Hello?"
"Ben."
"What's going on?"
"We ran into some trouble, I'll explain when we get to Price. Riley's not doing very good but I think he'll live. We're-"
"Was he shot?"
"No, he's just unconscious. We're driving to Price now. We'll probably be there in about five minutes. Are you still in the auto insurance center?"
"No, I didn't want to loiter there. I'm in the LoPrice Mall. The arcade. It's the only place open right now," he added, as if an explanation was necessary.
"Ok, I know where that is. Six minutes, meet us in the parking lot. And Ben-"
"What?"
"Don't call anyone on us."
"The police are after me, not you. Don't worry, I'll be there." I kept silent about our police situation. After shutting the phone and tossing it onto the passenger seat, I glanced over my shoulder at Riley. Still seemed to be out cold. I trained my eyes on the road ahead, wondering if I should be trying to think about something. There were so many things to think about. My future, my guilt, Riley's condition, where the Blackwells were, what Finn and the rest would do, where Tomas was, if the rest of the group back in Cleveland were going to start up emergency procedures. If I cared if they did that.
The glow on the horizon that had been the light pollution of Price manifested itself as individual buildings. I navigated the complex overpasses around the city, finding the eastern entrance to main pretty quickly, keeping my mind from thinking anything at all.
Before I knew it I was before the LoPrice Mall parking lot, staring at the 24 hr arcade. I hadn't even been watching out for police, and there was one approaching form the other side of the street. Driving slowly, however. I had to assume it wasn't after me, or my head might explode. I slowly navigated my way into the parking lot, looking around for Ben. A woman was strutting self-righteously to her car, tan briefcase matching her knee-length tube skirt, stiletto heals stabbing the pavement. A small child loitered, staring, at the base of a bare cherry tree planted among the wood chips of a lot island, mother doing a double-take and backtracking in order to fetch him. A man in an obnoxiously bright sun-hat was seated on a wooden bench, reading a brochure. Next to him sat another man who took up a good portion of the bench, consuming what looked like a ham and cheese croissant sandwich. I had to wonder what these people were doing up so ridiculously early. And why the man was eating a sandwich instead of a muffin.
The man with the hat glanced up at the sound of my approaching car, and stood. I had been wrong, that was Ben. I suppressed a chuckle. That would warrant a story. He strode up to the car and opened the passenger side door, glancing from side to side in what he probably thought was a rather sneaky manner. I was watching out for anything weird myself, and once the door slammed I took my foot off the brakes, trying to make my driving look calm as my mind screamed for my nerves to seize up.
Before anything else, Ben craned his head around in his seat and stared at Riley.
"Riley!" He reached out with his left hand and gently shook Riley's wrist, which hung over the edge of the backseat.
"It's Ben! Riley!" I could tell by the tone of his voice and the look on his face that Ben, despite his previous caution, had probably dismissed all other worries for the moment.
"He's out, Ben."
"How long has he been like this?"
"Maybe ten, fifteen minutes. It's hard to say."
"Why?" I told him what had happened in the past few hours, from our quite undramatic escape to our encounter with a load of drunks, to the police, to Crandon and the late Briggs. I must have sounded quite monotonous, as I was concentrating not on my story but on our surroundings. Apparently there were two sets of police out for us, as well as any number of my own people, most terrifyingly Tomas, and Finn's group. It seemed improbable that no-one knew of our whereabouts. Ben listened in what I would call slightly horrified fascination, frequently turning around to stare at Riley. When I got to the end of my story and the end of this particular road, I turned left, and asked Ben what, exactly, had happened.
Ben
"Well, I was thrown in a cell for some immeasurable amount of time, fed liquid hell, sat there, worried, slept some, and then the police came and busted me out. Blackwells and their car were gone by the time the police got there. They arrested your guys, I stole a kid's bike, and I escaped. Pretty simple." The Chinese man didn't respond to my short narrative and I didn't really expect him to. There was nothing to respond to. I looked at the clock – it was early morning and the sun should be up soon.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Not sure."
"Have any plans at all?"
"No."
"What about the rest of you people, what are they doing?"
"I don't know."
"Do you think they're going to start that backup act?"
"I don't know."
"Well, we should find out. How can we prevent it? What is the backup movement?"
"What, you're just assuming I'm going to tell you everything all of a sudden?" I paused for a moment.
"Well… yes, I do. If you're going to be wishy-washy about this, things may not run very smoothly and I think given the current situation and the fact that we're all three in pretty big trouble, it would work best for us if we cooperated."
"Hat."
"What did you say?"
"I didn't say anything." I turned in my seat.
"Riley!" His eyes were open, albeit cracked. He was staring dazedly at the top of my head. I was still wearing my ridiculous hat. It seemed rather funny that I'd been trying to make a serious argument while donning such a ghastly article of clothing. I ripped it off.
"How are you feeling?"
"I'm good." His voice was weak, as was his tone, his face dripped misery and unhappiness, and clearly he was lying.
"You lying punk," I said, an involuntary smile manifesting itself across my face.
"I'm glad to see you awake. I wish this reunion could be more dramatic and tearful but we may be being chased by about six groups of people that want us dead or in jail."
"Ben?"
"What?"
"Hat?" He was utterly confused.
"It was my disguise." He had a puzzled look on his face.
"I know, I know, tie-dye floppy hat with cartoon bears, not exactly inconspicuous." A smile appeared stealthily on his face, if slight and temporary, but it was an amazing solace to know that he could still smile. I didn't know what had been done to him but it can't have been anything less than disturbing.
"That's a Rastafarian Hippie Hat with Grateful Dead Dancing Bears on it," he said.
"Is it really?" The true identity of my hat was, although mildly interesting, dwarfed by my happiness that Riley still had enough of a mind to remember these things. Maybe things hadn't been so bad for him. I'd have to ask the Chinese man about what had happened. I didn't think asking Riley would be quite the smartest thing to do.
"What?" grumped Riley. Had I been staring? Yes. Oh well. I turned serious.
"It's good to see you, Riley. Really. I'm… thankful." I held his gaze, trying to communicate my sentiments.
"Oh."
That was all he said.
I watched his expression. Had I not noticed before? His eyes seemed shifty, downcast, afraid to look up. His mouth drooped in an almost imperceptible snarl of unhappiness that I would have thought, given the circumstances, would have been replaced by a relieved, or at least somewhat more happy, smile type thing.
He closed his eyes again, turning slightly away from my gaze. After a moment I turned back around in my chair. How was I going to deal with this one? I should have been asking myself, how was Riley going to deal with this one? In the past I'd been able to help him with whatever problem he had deemed worthy of sharing with me, but his Rilyisms had all been the same. This time his very personality was different… worse.
I wondered if he'd let me help him. I wondered if I was even able. As clueless as I was at the moment, I doubted my abilities and that made me feel a bit like I'd let him down.
There was a break in the clouds on the eastern horizon, and the Earth was finally turning Utah towards the sunrise. The bottoms of the overhead clouds were becoming stained with giant splashes of pink, the color carefree wonder roses take on in twilight. Or the color of my grandmother's sewing room, that secretive mauve tainted with sunlight coming through the venetian blinds.
We were out of Price. Driving East, through a gap in the low stretch of confused foothills, heading towards nothing that I could see.
"What about the Blackwells?" I muttered, wondering if I should say it out loud. The Chinese man didn't reply for a moment and I wondered if he'd been too wrapped up in his own thoughts, of which I'm sure there were many, to have heard me.
"Either they were against you two all along or Finn and his men moved them somewhere while you were locked away." Those options had been wandering around in my mind but I hadn't acknowledged them until I heard them. Having acknowledged them, my mind seemed to take this as a cue to not think about it anymore. There was somewhere else it wished to alight. Riley – wherever my mind went, it always seemed to return to that particular worry. I turned and watched him, still curled on the seat. Bright, tawny sunlight was coming through the windshield and hitting his side.
I could see dark spots on his grey shirt, some tiny and a few larger ones. My heart leapt into my throat for a second, but I ordered it to back down. Riley may be hurt. I would have been stupid to think that he wasn't hurt. Something about the sight of blood on his shirt made my own blood start to boil, made me unnecessarily angry. But it was only blood. It didn't mean anything near as dire as my automatic response told me it meant.
I couldn't, however, keep my mouth shut.
"Riley, are you bleeding?" He turned his head slightly towards me.
"What?"
"Are you bleeding? There's blood on your shirt." He looked down at his shirt curiously.
"Um… I don't know…"
"More than likely," said the Chinese man, "it's not his. I'm afraid he may have been hit with someone else's though." I stared at the blood stains. I saw some splattering patterns, but I thought I could also make out some spreading shapes.
"Some of them, maybe. Some of that looks like his. Can we pull over?"
"Pull…?"
"I want to know if he's bleeding. Pull over." Riley tried to sit up.
"Ben, we can't, we're being chased. I'm fine."
"Lay back down." My tone of voice was a bit harsher than I would have liked it to sound, but it echoed perfectly my sentiments. Riley lay back down, confused and a bit annoyed. The Chinese man glanced at me.
"Ben, we can't pull over. Riley's right, we need to keep moving." I sighed, exasperated. The truth of the matter was that if we stopped we'd be found for sure. Sometime. We couldn't afford to pull over, they were both right.
"Riley, move over."
"What?"
"I'm climbing in back."
"Why?"
"Just do it."
"I can't, I'm too sore." I unbuckled my seatbelt and turned completely in my seat.
"Move."
"You just said to lie back down!"
"Riley?"
"Fine." His arguments weren't their usual whining, mock-annoyance; these were genuine grumpy, antisocial feelings coming through. He painstakingly shifted himself to occupy as little of the backseat as possible, a process which he made look very authentically painful. I awkwardly maneuvered myself into the backseat and was met with a reproachful gaze from Riley. A bit shocked, I stared back at him for a moment. I wanted to ask him, what was wrong, why was he so irritated, why didn't he seem glad to see me? Personally I was relieved as all hell to see him alive and his current behavior was a bit more than alarming.
"Alright, Riley, I understand this is awkward, but tell me where it hurts."
"Everywhere."
"Anywhere especially?" He thought before answering, although I doubt he was thinking about my question.
"My head, my elbow, my feet…Lord, I don't know. Everything." He shut his eyes for a moment, leaning his forehead against he window. For the first time, I noticed he wasn't wearing any shoes, just a pair of socks, which appeared to be stained with blood.
"What happened to your feet?"
"I don't know, I was running through the desert in the dark with numb feet, I probably stepped on a few cactuses."
"It's cacti. Lift up your shirt."
"No!" His eyes sprung open and he glared at me, a look I'd never seen issue from his face before, especially not at me. I stared back at him.
"I just want to know the extent of your injuries."
"They're not bad. I'd be dead if they were. I'm fine."
"That's a lot of blood."
"Not really."
"Yes, really, God dammit, and you're making me nervous, it's like you're hiding something."
"I… It's just a cut. I swear, I'm fine." To push or not to push? What did it matter in the long run? What difference would it make if I knew the extent of his injuries? I wasn't Blackwell, I wouldn't have some magical way to disinfect it or stop whatever bleeding may be going on, or set any bones that may be broken. However, not to know would make me feel ignorant. My concern for him demanded to discover what was wrong. My respect for him wanted to hold back.
Maybe he just had low blood sugar, I mused hopefully.
"Well… Have you eaten lately?" I asked. He scoffed.
"Last time I ate was back at the clinic." I leaned forward, sticking my head between the passenger and the driver's seat.
"You didn't feed him?"
"Don't question me about past actions. You think I haven't thought about that enough myself?"
"What were you thinking?"
"What are you thinking, Ben, you don't even understand what our reasons were-"
"Reasons to kidnap, starve, and torture someone?"
"Three days without food is hardly starvation."
"So you admit you did torture him?"
"I didn't lay a hand on him." My grip on the back of the seat in front of me was turning my knuckles white.
"Well someone did, obviously, and even though you may not have taken part, it was all your idea, you set it into motion-"
"You deviate, Ben," he stated, slamming his hand on the steering wheel. "Again, you can't possibly understand right now why we did what we did."
"Tell me then!"
"Right now? You won't listen, you're too clouded with your own perceptions-"
"Hey guys?" Riley's voice stopped our mounting argument cold.
"Can we stop?" I turned to Riley.
"Why, what's wrong?"
"I want to get out." I felt I owed it to him to at least let him out if he wanted out, even if it was more than likely a bad idea. Besides, his face was so draped in misery I couldn't quite bring myself to voice the practical argument against it. It was as if he suddenly wanted to cry, but didn't have the energy to.
The Chinese man turned left onto a Bear Creek Road, and rumbled down the gravel for a mile or two. I wanted to yell at him still - my anger at him wasn't diminishing – if it was doing anything at all it was growing. I didn't understand what he was, why he did what he did. He was playing opposite sides of the same game and it was confusing me. But for the sake of Riley and my own sanity I kept my mouth shut until the Chinese man pulled over in a grove of midget pine trees, gathered in the valley of an almost-dry streambed.
Riley wasted no time exiting the vehicle – his quick movements surprised me and I wondered if he was going to be sick or something. But from the moment his feet hit the ground, his eyes were fastened in one direction, and as I sprung out the side door and approached him he waved me away. The Chinese man turned off the car and got out, but made no move to help Riley. Did he even need helping? He was walking towards a small hill purposefully, the gnarled roots of a stunted pine snaking over, around, and into a sandstone slab at the top.
"Riley," I called, "Where are you going?"
"Just want to sit." I turned to the Chinese man. His eyes were following Riley's path up to the top of the hill. It disturbed me that this man would be so concerned about Riley and yet, not a day ago, he'd been ruining the kid.
"So, care to explain what's going on?" I asked. He turned to me, looking contemplative.
"Are you willing to hear my words as I mean them and not twist them into your own perception?" What the hell did that mean? I stared for a moment. I felt like getting really pissed at him – apparently this guy thought I didn't have a reason to be mad at him. I nodded, though.
"Just tell me what happened."
"Ben…" He looked at the ground, then up at the clearing sky.
"What happened… back there in Cleveland, it's all so confusing to me. Telling you isn't going to help anything, I think. There are two visions inside of me right now and one doesn't regret what happened. That one wishes I hadn't helped Riley escape. More generally that one still wants a New Earth. But… Riley has… he broke my resolve. Instilled doubt, I guess. And now I don't know what to believe."
"So, there's still a part of you in there that wants to lock Riley back up and kill everybody?"
"Yes, Ben, there is. Locking Riley up isn't something I'd want to do, though – I simply want Riley's help in achieving my goal. Or part of me does."
I didn't know what to say. That part of him that wanted mass death was so against my values that I had trouble thinking that there was even a shred of truth to that vision.
"You realize that that makes it very hard for me to trust you?" I asked. He nodded. My eyes darted up the hill. I couldn't see Riley.
"Where did he go?" I asked. The Chinese man turned around, scanned. We both started up the hill, worrying Riley had found some cliff to fall off of. But it quickly became apparent that Riley had simply sat down against the piñon pine, gazing east. I crouched down next to him.
"How are you doing?"
"I don't know." His face still looked miserable, like he wanted to cry. I noticed, for the first time in the cold morning light, the bruises – a few angry looking purple and blue shapes were scattered across his features, and both his arms had evidence of rough treatment. Feeling slightly sick to my stomach, I lowered myself next to him and took a seat. The Chinese man stood to the side. I wondered how awkward this was for him.
Riley was holding his elbow, I noticed. What if it was broken?
"Give me your arm," I said, holding out my hands. He simply looked at me in question.
"I want to see if it's broken."
"It's not."
"How do you know?"
"Ben, it's not broken."
"Could be dislocated, twisted, fractured, you may have your ulnar nerve trapped, a muscle could have ripped, there are a lot of-"
"Yes, Ben, I get it, thank you. I'm sure there's something wrong with my elbow, but you sure as hell can't do anything about it." His face turned back to the east. I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say. Standing up, I wandered a little to the left. What was wrong with him? Why was he being so bitter? I turned and eyed him. His face was being lit up by the bright light of a sunrise.
The Chinese man carefully, slowly lowered himself onto the ground that I'd just vacated. I couldn't believe his nerve. Obviously Riley didn't want company, he wanted to sit and brood by himself. He'd get over it in time. He certainly didn't need his previous captor sitting there trying to make him feel better. Did Riley even know that that man still kind of wanted to throw him back in a cell and torture him into helping them kill everyone?
Scoffing to myself, I watched Riley, hoping, waiting for him to sneer, glare, maybe even get up and move somewhere else.
But instead, Riley finally, finally shed a tear. The only reason I could see it from where I stood was because the reflection of the new born sun was winking off the moisture, creating a little shimmering star on my friend's cheek. It fell down his skin, got tangled in his three-day shadow, and disappeared. What was he wishing?
They were both gazing to the east now, together, as if they were friends going through a hard time, trying to appreciate a moment of beauty. It wasn't even that spectacular of a sunrise. There were no longer any fantastic pinks and reds lighting the overhead clouds on fire. The sun was merely rising from between some shallow mountain peaks, a white spot of pure light waking up slowly.
Or waking the desert up slowly. It was odd how the white sun cast yellow light. It hit the needles and tiny pinecones of the trees and made everything look warmer. The long shadows it cast off the mountains were crawling back up to meet their makers, revealing the tan and red rock and sand, small desert plants scattered and spotted across the expanses. There were other streambeds between us and the mountains, one of which had a shining, silver rivulet of water running through it. That one was especially crowded with plant life, the yellow beeflower Riley had pointed out to me so long ago at the gas station, before we'd met Laudes, proliferating among what I guessed was either Cheatgrass or Foxtail Chess, the red fuzz covering the bacteria-laden soil.
The clouds were retreating. Blue sky was pushing away the grey, pushing them west, which I found highly unusual. Bright blue against the alarmingly vibrant green of the pines, with a backdrop of orange desert; the colors seemed so fresh.
Everything seemed fresh. The air was pure and crisp and I felt as if I'd never breathed air quite like it before. Maybe it was the new sunlight everywhere.
"This," Riley said, breaking the silence. The way he said it told me it was directed at the Chinese man, though. Did he know I could hear him? What was he going to say to the Chinese man that he wouldn't say to me?
"This makes me think you were right." The Chinese man didn't reply for a moment, but when he did, it was thoughtful, quiet.
"It is why I did what I did."
"I think I understand better now." Another silence. The wind blew past through the trees, rattling the needles and swaying the bushes. What were they talking about? I felt so left out of the loop. Why did Riley think he could say things like this to this Chinese man, who'd done so many weird things to him? It almost sounded as if they were talking about why the Chinese man had done those terrible things, and Riley seemed to be agreeing with him.
"But then…" The man's eyes finally left the sunrise and traveled to the golden ground he sat upon.
"You made me think about things… Some part of me thinks there is hope for humanity. A very small part of me and a very small hope. It's there."
"That's kind of weird…" Riley muttered. "The more I think about things the more I lose hope for us. But then I think, maybe it's not so bad. If nothing is done… we'll continue like this and eventually we'll meet our end by our own hands… Sooner or later we'll be gone, and the Earth will still be here."
"We do seem to underestimate its resilience." Another silence stretched. What, when had Riley and the Chinese man become philosophy buddies? The Chinese man was probably trying to lure Riley into a false sense of trust, and soon he'd take advantage of that. No, I was jumping to conclusions. From what Riley had just said I could at least conclude that something that had happened to him back in Cleveland had convinced him that humanity was doomed, whatever anyone decided to do. That in itself was very sad.
What brought me down the most was the fact that I'd apparently been replaced by the Chinese man to Riley. I could see no reason for that and it concerned me and made me very upset. What had I done? What was he thinking? Hopefully I'd be able to pry it out of Riley later on when we were out of this mess.
"Sooooo… I don't mean to break this beautiful moment, but we need to get moving. I at least think Riley needs some food, we all need warmer clothes, and there are things to be done." The Chinese man rose to his feet and then, and here I made a conscious effort to keep my mouth shut, helped Riley up. Would Riley have accepted my help? Probably not.
It's psychological, I told myself furiously as we headed down the hill. There's a psychological reason this is happening. Everything will be back to normal soon enough.
He's obviously traumatized. I got to the front door and opened it, wondering if I was the one that was about to start crying now. I sat down, and caught Riley's eyes on me in the rear view mirror. I turned around but he was looking out the window.
Does he even remember who I am?
Lots of schtuff! I've been trying to finish this one for the past week but I couldn't find a good stopping spot. As it is I'm not happy with the ending, but hey, it's not going to an editor so I don't mind…
I know this isn't the place to complain about real life, but… complain. It's hard to write this stuff when your mind is elsewhere! I don't need the death of the whole human race to put me in a bitter mood. But it's sunny out at least! And 42 degrees! I should be outside enjoying the day!