In the Season of Killing Bolts

Chapter 9

As for what I was thinking as I gripped the shotgun and stepped through the shattered doors, I couldn’t tell you. Maybe it was just the fact that it felt good to have it in my hands again—the shotgun, I mean, the Remington 870—“Fat Man,” as we called it, our nuclear option—the one Bennet wasn’t ever allowed to use. Or maybe it was Mollie’s newscast with its mentions of President Tucker’s refusal to concede and Steve Dannon’s Daedalus Seven returning to Earth, the connection being—I suppose—that both of them seemed about as possible as a baby suddenly vanishing or a killer ostrich wandering the peninsula.

Or maybe it was something else entirely; the fact that I’d been so focused on grieving Cynthia (and, paradoxically, perhaps, boning Mollie) that I’d lost track of who I was. It’s possible even that, as I raced through Wilber’s house armed to the teeth and—having heard something shatter in his bedroom—paused outside his door, I just felt like myself again.

All I know is that all of that went out the window the moment I stepped out and levelled the shotgun—which also happened to be the moment that anything that wasn’t, well, whatever that was (although, I confess, having seen Jurassic Park, I had a pretty good idea), simply ceased to exist. Rather, it seemed as though something else took over: something primitive, even primal, something deep within my mammalian DNA. A holdover from when we were frightened, possum-like creatures hiding in the trees, perhaps—an ancestral memory. Wilber, for his part, just slept like the dead.

The thing is that I completely froze as it turned; froze to the extent that I saw every detail of its skin even as I glimpsed Bennet aiming his pistol outside and dove for the floor. As he opened fire and the thing began bouncing off the walls and smashing bookcases, as it thrashed about like a deer I saw on the internet once (which had crashed through the window of a city bus and then proceeded to destroy everything in its path) and basically went insane—reminding me of the crazed deer and yet not, for it was—in the end—a thing utterly without comparison in this world.

A thing which nonetheless wound up in my sights and got blown away—even as Wilber yelped and clasped his ears and Bennet hit the dirt. Which, in the end, only impacted against the wall and collapsed, twitching and convulsing, as I looked outside with my ears still ringing, and, despite the fact that we were on an evergreen peninsula in western Washington State, saw the tops of palm trees swaying in the wind.

That’s when I saw them: the people who were left—the shell-shocked survivors of the Flashback (or whatever they call it where you are). That’s when I knew that their friends and loved ones had simply vanished—simply ceased to exist—no less than Cecilia’s baby—or Cynthia’s grave marker; no less than Mollie—who I would come to learn had disappeared during the interview. That’s when I knew that Time had melted and that we (and maybe a few others) were all that were and had ever been; that, indeed, the world had been (at least partially) reset to primordia; and that most of those who’d existed, existed no more.

In short, it was when they looked at me and I looked back, knowing my purpose, knowing my role. And finally it was when I patted Wilber on the shoulder and went out—feeling oddly invigorated, oddly at peace. Feeling as though I might yet make a difference—even as I sucked in the post-storm air.

end.

Other Tales from the Flashback

A REIGN OF THUNDER (2019)

I

It happened pow, like that. One minute he’d been blasting through the Arizona desert and listening to Martha and the Vandellas sing “Heat Wave” on the Mustang’s AM radio, and the next he was pulling over, rumbling to a stop on the shoulder of State Route 87 and idling in place as the good-looking hitchhiker jogged to catch up with him.

“Man, am I glad to see you,” she panted, opening the door—then froze, suddenly, examining the cab, peering into the backseat. “No body parts in that cooler? No murder weapons?”

“Only these,” He held up his hands. “Registered as deadly weapons in fifty states. And Puerto Rico.”

“Is that so?” She laughed, appearing relieved, then climbed in and shut the door. “So where you headed, Deadly Hands?”

“New Mexico. Albuquerque.”

“That’ll do.” She took one of his hands and examined it. “Nah, these are too pretty.” She traced his fingers, studying them. “A dentist’s, maybe. Or a lab technician.” When he didn’t say anything, she added: “No? Something creative, then. Nebulous. An artist, maybe. Or a photographer.”

He shifted in his seat uncomfortably, unsure whether he was getting creeped out by her touch and directness—or a hard-on. He glanced her up and down quickly: the slender figure, the long, dark hair—the brown eyes like a doe in heat. Definitely a hard-on. “Look, I—”

“A writer, I think,” she said, suddenly, and let go of his hand. “Ha! Am I warm?”

He opened his mouth to speak but closed it immediately, seeing only Heller and the office at 123 Wilshire Blvd—the cheap suit, the s**t-eating grin—his hard-on withering like a prune in September.

“No,” he said at last, gripping the gearshift, pushing in the clutch. “You’re cold. Cold as f*****g Pluto.”

And then they were moving, crossing the rumble strip and picking up speed, the engine growling, leaping up, the sweltering sun beating down, as she looked at him, curiously, quizzically, and he tried to ignore her. As the mercury in the little thermometer on the dash topped 90 degrees—and kept climbing.

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