Flashback/The Dinosaur Apocalypse: The Final Trilogy of Stories

Chapter 9

Jamie only frowned—even as Lazaro tittered. “I dunno; it just seems like revealing ourselves right now is a bad idea. You know? Especially with another Tucker train in town. No, there’s got to be another way ...” He gazed at the sky, which was starting to turn yellow, starting to turn orange.

“Yeah?” Eagleton just looked at him, as though he were about to kick his a*s. He always looked at people as though he were about to kick their a*s. “And what way would that be? The f*****g Arthur Neville Chamberlain ‘Let’s just plead our bellies’ French f*****g Surrender Monkey way? Listen, kiddo, the vision, or whatever it was, was clear: and that is that something is coming, coming toward that labyrinth. And if it turns out that that is indeed ‘practically in our backyard,’ then, well, you do the math.”

I watched as Jamie studied the exploration vehicle—studied Gargantua. “Yeah, well. There’s a limited supply of fuel, you know. Not to mention rounds for the .50 cal and missiles for the Apache. No. I mean, I feel for whoever—whatever—needs our help; I really do; but we just can’t risk it. Not when there’s enemies in the wire. Not when—”

“Jamie, listen to me. Look at all we have—everything we’ve been blessed with—and then tell me again that we don’t owe a little something back. And also tell me that you didn’t feel it just as I did—the ponderous weight of the vision and how it seemed anything might be possible; the whisper of something better if we were just brave and true to our hearts. Look at it and tell me again, and consider these words by the late Joseph Campbell, in which I quote, “We have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known ... we have only to follow the thread of the hero path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find God. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Indeed, where we had thought to travel outwards, we shall come to the center of our own existence—”

And then a seventh eye opened, and an eighth, and a ninth, and I was overwhelmed by imagery, by the faces and circumstances of people I had never known but came to know in an instant, by people named Chris and Fred and Linda and Penny, Archie and Bennet, Cooper Black and Tess; by feelings and places and personal items and machines—by spirals drawn in dirt and mud and even snow, and on the dusty hood of a midnight blue Barracuda. By a blue news helicopter circling an Oz-themed garden in the Hollywood Hills and shining its spotlight on a spiral maze.

And where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world ...

And so I was, so I was, and not only with the living but all the dead and disappeared—all those souls crying out from limbo, all the victims of the Flashback, from its inception to the present. So much so that I feared for my sanity itself—and for Lisa and Puck—even as the walls closed in and I questioned everything I had ever done, everything I had ever thought or acted upon. As the images coalesced and the sounds became a cacophony, a deluge, a tidal wave of blood and storm and marching feet—of madness and mayhem, war and death. As the Enemy became aware of me and turned its many-eyed head, and the flames rose up like charnel, like—

I closed my fist.

Silence.

Peace.

I was in control, not them. Me—Nick Callahan. Not the eyes. Not the vision.

I looked at the sky and the setting sun, the green Borealis (which flickered within; as though it were at war with itself); the multi-colored lights which may or may not have been spacecraft.

Not them.

Lisa stirred nearby and Puck whined. “Nick? Nick, are you ...”

“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m all right.”

I took a deep breath and exhaled. And then I slowly extended my arm toward the ocean and opened my hand; opened the eyes.

All of them.

––––––––

So many questions, so many decisions ...

I was in the vision again, moving through the garden maze, navigating its feints and dead ends.

Should I have killed the left hand, should I have spared the right ...

Moving through it and getting closer, closer to whatever lie at its center, even as the wind picked up and the hedgerows rustled; as the sun sank and the land turned slowly red. As Ank and Williams and Luna and Travis sprinted across the rocky plains and Satanta spurred on Blucifer and the kids on their bikes looked at Frisco—and each other—from the Golden Gate Bridge.

But what you realize in the end is that every move you’ve made, every step forward, every step back, every fork in the road, has led precisely to where you need to be; and to where you belong ...

As the tarps were pulled from Gargantua and its engine started—expelling black smoke—and Sarpedon steamed south past a queerly-colored lighthouse (even as plesiosaurs breached and dove—like dolphins—beside her) and Sammy, lost amidst his own thoughts, motored along on his Harley with a rifle lashed to his back.

For we are light itself, the only thing that brightens the dark, finding our way, walking the garden paths, looking for the center of the labyrinth. Feeling our way through the mists and smoke; and navigating—as best we can—this savage and beautiful night ...