Eighty-Sixed: Chapter 81 - Stalemate

Photo by Serge Kutuzov on Unsplash

“This is who you were searching for?” Jeremy asked.

Charlie was bent over a frail, beaten man who’d looked to have been given a dance with a pipe wrench. His left eye was dark purple and puffy, closed nearly shut, with blood that had dried in a trickle crackling down from the corner of his equally puffy lower lip.

“One half, at least,” Charlie said as he gently helped the man into a sitting position. “Shine that light more here.”

“It’s bright,” the injured man coughed as David redirected the flashlight to shine down from above over the man’s bruised and battered face.

“This is Gordon,” Charlie said. “He’s the good one.”

“How’d…” Gordon coughed again, blood and spit spattering wetly out. “How’d you find me?”

“ENH, right?” Charlie answered. “This was her place.”

“But why?” Gordon asked, trying to prop himself up with his left hand. His elbow trembled and wouldn’t lock, and he fell unexpectedly backward, toppling hard onto his shoulder with a grunt.

“Be careful there,” David said, kneeling down next to Gordon on the opposite side of Charlie. He readjusted the flashlight again. “Don’t we look like a pair? A couple of beat-up dudes here.”

“She’s a tiny thing,” Charlie said. “How’d she manage to do this to you?”

“I think she put something in my water,” Gordon said. “Don’t think she meant for me to get hurt, though. At least, I hope not. She left me at the top of the stairs, and I guess I passed out and fell. I can’t believe you’re here, Charlie. Why are you here?”

“Even still,” Charlie said, seething. In the reflection of the flashlight, his eyes were fully dilated, dark, and angry. “She drugged you. Unbelievable.”

“Who are we talking about again?” Jeremy asked.

“The woman I told you about,” Charlie answered. “Doctor woman. She’s the one who caused the time warp.”

“Seriously?” Jeremy asked.

“Couldn’t be more serious,” Charlie said, then turned back to Gordon. “So she’s here then, Gordon?”

“What’s that?” Gordon asked, struggling to focus his gaze in any one spot. His head rolled backward and side to side, weak and wobbly like a newborn baby.

“Becca,” Charlie said. “She’s here?”

“She drugged me,” Gordon said again. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here for you, son,” Charlie answered. “Can you stand at all?”

“She drugged me,” Gordon repeated, and his head lulled backward once again.

“He’s going to give himself whiplash,” David said. “Let’s lay him back down.”

They slowly eased him backward, Gordon’s torso surprisingly heavy, and lowered his head to the concrete. A deep, rattling snore emitted from his throat the moment his skull touched the ground.

“Well, this ain’t good,” Charlie said. “Can’t leave him here.”

“Listen,” David said. “My wife’s here somewhere, and I haven’t seen her since all this began. It’s complicated, and I don’t know how to explain it, but I need to find her right now.”

“The last time she saw him, he was in a casket,” Jeremy said.

“Were you?” Charlie said to David, grunting and pushing himself up to a standing position again. “You were dead before all this?”

“Just recently so,” David answered. “Kayaking accident just before time went crazy.”

“Well, that’s something else we have in common,” Charlie said with a slight smile. “Two things, actually. I’m a boat man, myself. And apparently, I was dead, too.”

“Well, then maybe you can appreciate why we need to go on ahead,” David said. “If my wife is here and all.”

“Was she a scientist, too?” Charlie asked.

“Scientist? No. No. Not at all. That’s…yeah…I can see why you’d ask that.”

“Then what’s she doing here?”

“I’ll be honest…Charlie, right?” David said.

“That’s right,” Charlie said.

“I’ll be honest, Charlie. I’ve got more questions than answers right now. And for the last couple of weeks, all I’ve been trying to do is get to my wife. Jeremy and I just drove across the country to get here, and I still feel like I’m miles away. If Olivia’s anywhere in this building, I’ve got to get to her, and I’ve got to get there now.”

“Well, what do you know?” Charlie said with a smile. “There’s yet another thing we have in common. I just drove across the country, too. So you see, I have skin in this game, son.”

“I appreciate that, but more than me seeing my wife, I think my wife needs to see me,” David said. “We lost two kids in all this, along with the past forty years. And she’d just put me in the ground. On top of that, with all the telephones down, it wasn’t until a few hours ago that we finally managed to talk on the phone for the first time since all this started.”

“So we’re sorry about your friend, Gordon, on the ground there,” Jeremy interrupted. “But we need to be moving on.”

Charlie crossed his arms and stared down at Gordon, passed out again on the ground.

“Well, hell,” Charlie said. “This ain’t going a thing like I expected.”

“Which was how, exactly?” Jeremy asked.

“I hauled up from Florida, not knowing what I was doing while driving that semi out there. I stole a magnet the size of a wrecking ball, thinking somehow that would help fix all this. For the life of me, I don’t know how it would help. I just know that the woman behind all this needed magnets. So I brought the biggest one I could find.”

“That’s what you’re hauling?” David asked.

“Ayup,” Charlie said. “I finally get up here, and the woman I brought the magnet for has gone and drugged Gordon here to the point he fell down the stairs or something. And I can’t even go looking for the woman to figure out what to do next because I sure as heck ain’t going to leave this fella on the ground like this. He’s a good guy, I tell you, and I’m just not going to do that. In good conscience, I can’t do that.”

“Like I said, we’re sorry about Gordon,” Jeremy said. “But I’m not sure what we can do for him.”

“Maybe we can come back here once we locate my wife?” David suggested.

“Okay, how about this?” Charlie said. “This one here’s looking for his wife. What was your name again?”

“David.”

“David here’s looking for his wife. I’m looking for this other woman. How about you — what was your name?”

“Jeremy.”

“How about you, Jeremy, stay here for just a bit and keep an eye on Gordon?”

“Sorry, but I’m not comfortable with that, either,” Jeremy said. “As I said earlier, we got split up in a pretty bad situation, and even before all this crazy time warp stuff happened, we got split up then, too. David and I need to stay together.”

“Well, crap on a crap cracker, boys,” Charlie said, agitated. “Work with me here.”

Charlie had eaten little and slept less than that for several days now and had pushed ahead like a marathon runner who’d finally run twenty-six miles but still had point-two miles left to go. That last bit of distance required the firmest resolve, trudging up something from deep within areas of himself that had long been depleted.

“Well, fine, then!” Charlie cackled at them, arms flailing like some scrawny wingless bird. “Ain’t had nobody helping me for ages no how, so I don’t know why I’d expect anything from you!”

He stepped forward — faster than David or Jeremy expected — and quickly snatched the flashlight from David’s hand.

“But I ain’t giving you any help then, either,” he said. “Just get away from me if you’re going.”

“We’ll come back,” Jeremy promised.

“Well, we’ll see about that,” Charlie said, kneeling next to Gordon’s limp body again. “I won’t be counting on it, though. In my reckoning, when someone leaves, they never return.”

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