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There Aint No Justice 112
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| There Ain't No Justice |
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| #112 |
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- Flashback -
by Tal Meta
[The story you are about to read is based on actual events... sort of.]
[I've changed alot of the names, to protect the Innocent & the GUILTY.]
I knew something was wrong as soon as I awoke; the ceiling was too
close. I felt odd, too - my feet weren't hitting the foot of the bed, and my
eyes were much clearer than usual. When I stretched out a hand to touch the
ceiling, I drew it back in horror... it wasn't mine.
It was... milk-white, and mostly hairless. And SHORT. And it was
wearing what looked like pajamas?
I rolled out of bed; mistake #1. I plummeted a good five feet to the
floor, landing in a heap. Bunk beds. As I looked around the room, I saw a
variety of familiar and not-so-familiar things, most of which still stuck out
of battered looking cardboard boxes, all of which tugged at the edges of my
memory. Could it be?
I searched the dresser for some clothes; the pajamas I was wearing
were making me ill. (I hadn't worn ANYTHING to bed since I was... 14?) The
clothing I had to choose from wasn't much better. The jeans looked
comfortable, and I found a dark shirt. I made my way to what my memory
insisted was the bathroom, and took a good long look in the mirror.
Okay, I was me. But... I'd lost something on the order of a quarter
century overnight. I barely recognized myself.... it was sad. The hair was
passable, but I'd have to get it all cut off (I hadn't worn my hair combed
that way in over a decade; the only way to cure it of that part was a
buzzcut). The weight could be worked off, of course, but that'd take more
time. But... but... NO BEARD! I almost sobbed. My pride and joy was gone, and
wouldn't return for YEARS!
While I was busy inspecting myself in the mirror and chattering to
myself like a madman, the door to my bedroom opened and Lisa looked in.
"Frankie, are you awake? Breakfast is almost ready." Seeing I was in the
bathroom and already dressed, she came over to the doorway. "Are you feeling
ok? You look like you've seen a ghost?" (Frankie? Nobody had called me THAT in
years either; I'd had my name legally changed when I was 22.) Mulling over her
words, I replied "I'm not feeling... right... this morning. I fell out of
bed."
"Are you okay? Did you hit your head?" she asked.
"No, but I might have had some kind of nightmare. Umm, what year is
it?" I was backpedaling, mentally, trying to deal with being here. Dumb
question, Tal, really dumb.
"What _year_? Its 1975, of course! C'mon out and get your breakfast,
if you're up to it." she said as she was leaving.
I sat down on the john and mulled -that- over. Yeah, '75 would be
about right. I'd be... 10, if I was living with Lisa & my father. Good thing I
was a sci-fi buff; a 'normal' person'd be having the heebie geebies by now.
Like I wasn't.
Breakfast went okay. Dad wasn't about, which was good; I hated him,
and it would've been hard to hide it. Lisa was there though, a little slimmer
than I remembered her, and Tammy (age three) was busily making a mess of her
food. Nick (age 10 months) sat in his high-chair, sucking on a bottle... I
felt a really strong sense of deja vous. I had to get out of here and think.
Luckily it was Saturday... I had all day to think.
A quick glance at the calendar told me the month, September. Hunting
down a newspaper confirmed the date; the 6th. School would be starting this
Monday, which was a relief; while my memory of the names of my friends &
enemies in the 5th grade was reasonably intact, the faces were lost to the
winds of time.
I got my bike out of the garage and took off into the woods behind
base housing. After riding an hour or so, I picked a spot near a stream to
sort things out. For the life of me I couldn't figure out WHY I was here, much
less how. But a few things I did know.
Its 1975, and you're about a week past you're 10th birthday. You're
overweight, out of shape, and in a new, strange place. If you'd paid more
attention to stocks, sports scores, or some similar form of gambling, you'd be
set to make a killing. Well, then again, I did know what the 'big' companies
of the next few years would be... Intel, Adidas, any of the upstart LD
companies, Sega, etc. But my major interests were always computers, sex, and
writing...
Hmm. While I was marginally sure Apple was producing PCs, the price of
one was far beyond a navy brat. Writing was still open (come to think of it, I
could write novels... especially ones the 'original' authors hadn't penned
yet). And sex...
Well, that was another subject. I was bald down there... except for
two little hairs. Something about that phrase rang bells in my mind, although
I couldn't for the life of me attach it to anything. My brain seemed
unimaginably clear otherwise, most likely the result of it not simmering in a
sea of hormones. But I had gathered an awful lot of 'learned reactions' in the
25 'other' years of my life. The women I was likely to be interested in
weren't going to give a fat, prepubescent kid a second look.
I spent some time trying to imagine what lie ahead of me here... Star
Wars was still being filmed. Disco was coming. Telephones still used crossbar
switching... hmm.
I started laughing out loud. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, after all.
If nothing else, the music of this period had always been among my
favorites...
---
The next week dragged its way along about the way you'd expect. I met
'new' friends, and encountered a few 'old' enemies. Some took each others
place; it was unreasonable to expect that the person I was now had the same
interests & attitudes I'd had at the age of ten. Classes were tedious as hell,
as was to be expected. I kept thinking I should just go and take a GED exam,
and get the whole farce behind me, but school at least offered a diversion,
and got me out of the house. I could spend the day musing to myself, as there
were virtually no questions old Mrs. Proudfoot could ask me that I couldn't
answer, often with more detail than they put in measly 5th grade textbooks.
One sort of pleasant surprise was Moira. She was more or less the
'class welcoming committee' (self appointed, of course). She latched onto me
the third day, and proclaimed herself my girlfriend. Okay. I remembered doing
my level best to drive her off the last time I was 10 - I'd had no interest in
girls. This time I had a purely technical interest in her... and just how much
of who I thought I was tied into my hormone level.
After quite a bit of fumbling about, I pretty much decided that maybe
it was all hormone related. I dropped her shortly thereafter. I had better
games to play.
---
The next weekend, my father proposed a trip to the shore. This
promised to be quite interesting, especially since I'd spent nearly half of my
life living there (even if I hadn't lived that half yet). On the way, he
brought up the subject of my allowance - something that I'd remembered from
before. I easily agreed to his 'savings plan', but suggested a new one of my
own, namely that I'd like to get an equal amount of money to purchase stocks
with the provision that I be allowed to choose the stocks. He seemed genuinely
touched that I was thinking 'that far ahead' for my future, and agreed. I
silently mused that he didn't know the half of it.
Once we reached Seaside, I drifted off from the rest of the family and
went wandering. The town had changed a great deal, or failed to change, or
something like that. I visited the lumberyard where I'd worked for eight
years, and the apartment where my wife and I had conceived and raised our
daughter until the divorce had torn us apart. Everything looked so familiar,
yet so strange.
Venturing towards the north end of town, I began to feel more and more
anxious. Something was drawing me forward, something else pulling me back. The
radio in my hand began playing a song I'd heard maybe a dozen times before,
but somehow hadn't really listened too.
The words of the 10cc ballad _I'm not in Love_ hit me full in the face
as I walked to the spot where I'd gotten my first real kiss. It had been 'our'
song, sort of, almost as if in sympathy to the love we'd felt for each other
for so long and had tried to deny. I could almost feel the November night we'd
at last let our passion run free.
Almost as suddenly, I knew why I was here. 1975! Of course! I had...
three months.
---
My father & Lisa probably couldn't help noticing that I was just a
little more than odd; but happily therapy for children had yet to become big
business. I kept to myself as much as possible, avoiding the television (it
was all just re-runs, to me), and playing the radio constantly. The majority
of my toys stayed in their boxes... except the ones Tammy wanted. My toys
became a soldering iron and an assemblage of wires and transistors. My parents
gave me strange looks, but left me alone. What was the harm?
AM radio was still 'the' thing; WABC in NY still played pop, as the
DJs there wouldn't be canned for payola and drug abuse for another 3-4 years.
The music they played seemed to immerse me more and more into this era... I
began to forget little things about my old life, although I fought to retain
some of them. I supplemented my allowance income with petty theft; a small
child could get into the most interesting places if he was canny enough. I
knew that my parent's marriage was already basically over - Lisa would be
leaving him and pulling Tammy & Nick out of the house within another couple of
months - February at the latest.
So I bugged their room. It wasn't exactly difficult, given the right
parts, and I'd become an expert at alleviating people of their small
electronics. Their fights were almost as amusing as their occasional
lovemaking; what kid hasn't wanted to know exactly what is being said about
them? With me, it was a matter of survival.
I joined the Boy Scouts a mere week after the Seaside trip, much
quicker than I remember joining the last time. I made a big show about wanting
all kinds of camping equipment, which my father grudgingly bought for me...
Lisa was pleasantly surprised to find me taking an interest in clothing;
although the camouflage clothing I'd hoped to be able to purchase wasn't yet
in style. I settled for alot of both black and white clothing... and some dye.
There was a method to my madness, of course...
My next 'crusade' involved my dog, Lady. When I'd moved in with my
father originally, it'd been on the condition that I had to leave her in my
mother's care... where she eventually wound up on death row in some pound
somewhere. Not this time, Clyde. I begged, pleaded, and otherwise emulated the
kid I was supposed to be. After about 3 weeks of this (longer than I'd had the
stamina for previously) they gave in and Lady joined me in my exile.
In a strange sort of way, I'd almost swear Lady knew something was
different about me. She didn't shy away from me or anything, but she did look
at me and whine pitifully alot. She and I spent alot of time after school and
on the weekends roaming the woods on and off base, getting to know one another
all over again. Some nights I'd bundle up and sneak onto the base... I'd pick
one of the abandoned airship landing areas and lie on my back, gazing at the
stars...
And trying to sense HER. There had always been a bond between us,
almost from the first day we'd met in 8th grade; an instant, electric
_knowing_ that no matter how different we were from other people, we were the
same as each other. Call it telepathy, call it soul-mates... we were, in at
least that one way, a single person from that day forward, no matter how hard
we tried to deny it.
But she wasn't there at the back of my mind... except in memory.
---
The next couple of weeks rolled by uneventfully enough. By monitoring
dad & Lisa's conversations after I'd gone to bed at night, I learned what
parts of my room were subject to random parental searches, as well as the
combination to my father's strongbox. The searches didn't bother me much; I'd
had more years of collective paranoia behind me than the two of them had in
parenting put together... they never came close to where I had anything hidden
in that house. The strongbox, however, DID interest me, because it held some
papers that I'd always wanted to see... namely, my original birth certificate,
the one the hospital had completed before I'd been adopted.
'Daniel Meyers'? Ugh. Not that it was any worse than the name mom &
dad had given me, of course... I simply couldn't imagine being a 'Dan'.
Another surprise was a handgun I'd never known my father had owned... this
would save me the trouble of stealing one of the ones our neighbor the SP
owned. The parent's had gone out to dinner and a movie that night, and despite
my protestations had hired the aforementioned neighbor's daughter Natalie to
'baby-sit' my half-siblings and my wayward self....
Natalie was perhaps 14, and just beginning to blossom into womanhood.
I dimly recalled secretly mooning over her the last time I'd passed this way,
but had been too... proud? scared? whatever to admit to it. This time around,
I decided to have some fun with it.
---
"Will you quit looking at me like that Frankie? You're giving me the
creeps." she said, as I settled down across the room from her, partially
blocking her view of a TV show that for me was older than she was.
"But I like looking at you, Nat. It makes me feel good inside." I
quipped back, in the best 'innocent' voice I could muster without laughing out
loud. As I said this, I rose up and crossed the room, sitting down next to her
on the couch.
"Isn't it your bedtime yet?" she asked, somewhat uncomfortable at how
close I was sitting. "Nope," I replied, snuggling up close to her, "don't have
a bedtime on Friday nights."
I sat there for a few moments, letting the tension build up. I could
FEEL her growing uncomfortable, deep in the back of my mind; the mental
gymnastics I'd been engaging in trying to contact my other half hadn't born
the fruit I'd hoped, but they had brought back the empathy I'd always enjoyed
as an adolescent and an adult. Unnerved as she was, there was something, a
tingling at the back of her mind, a single spark that I reached out and fanned
into a flame...
Tentatively, I reached out one of my hands and brushed against her
right breast. The quick suck of air she took told me I was right on target,
and I imagined I could feel the nipple stiffening in response. She slapped my
hand away, naturally, even as I put on a mock-frightened expression and asked
in a decent falsetto voice "Did that hurt? I didn't know that would hurt! I
was just curious!"
I watched her expression change as I drove my will deeper and deeper
into her own subconscious; a feat the adolescent or adult 'me' would never
have had the concentration to accomplish under these circumstances. I was a
bit surprised at my own strength of will; I had always believed before that I
was strong, but with the clarity of this body's brain, I was simply amazing.
"No, it didn't hurt," she replied, softening a little, "in fact, it
felt kind of good. I'm sorry if I frightened you." As she twisted around to
face me, I reached out my hand again. "Can.. can I touch it?" I asked quietly,
holding her eyes with my own. "Sure." I stretched out my hand, and gently
cupped her breast. I swirled my thumb over the nipple I could now feel through
the fabric of her clothes, all the while holding her eyes with mine, and
insinuating myself deeper and deeper into her mind with my own. "Here," she
said, her hands moving as if in a dream, "let me show you."
Her pupils were dilated all the way, making her eyes shine like a
cat's. All of her movements had taken on a distinctly dreamlike quality.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she was beginning to sense how wrong this
was, that she shouldn't be unbuttoning her blouse and unhooking her bra... but
my eyes and mind held her tightly, soothing away and qualms she had about her
actions. Part of me wished that I had the level of physical maturity to put
this to good use, but the lack of any activity in my loins reminded me that
sex is not always a function of mental maturity. Oh well. The test had been
enlightening.
When she had finished removing her blouse and bra, I reached out with
both hands and tweaked her breasts like a pair of squeeze toys. "Honk! Honk!"
I cried, as I released her mind and emotions from my thrall and jumped back on
the couch, watching with interest as she came back to herself, and realized
her predicament. The look on her face was priceless; the sound she made
inarticulate. She fled from the couch crying, desperately trying to cover
herself and reassert her authority. "What? How? GO TO YOUR ROOM YOU LITTLE
BASTARD!"
As I skipped off to my room, I realized that my sole regret was that
I'd neglected to take some photos.
---
November came quicker than I'd expected; I guess even living in a
child's body did nothing to slow my sense of time rushing by. By the time my
father's birthday came around on the 24th, I knew that time was growing
shorter and shorter for me - my other half had the same birthday... she was
eleven now, and when the first snows fell, it might already be too late.
I gave my father a copy of Heinlein's _Stranger in a Strange Land_. For
his birthday. I thought it somehow appropriate.
I'd developed quite a storehouse of stolen and purchased goods in the
back of our garage, and the time was coming when I'd have to decide what went
and what stayed. I added some fishing gear to the mix, and dropped the
dogfood. I began filching spices and such; I had no idea how long of a wait I
had ahead of me. I grabbed my father's .38 the next chance I got, and added it
to my stash.
December 1st was a Monday. I made like I was going off to school like
any other day, but snuck back to the garage and gathered my equipment. It
being a school day, I knew I was running a gauntlet... but then again, I
already knew the terrain. Gathering up Lady and my bike, I headed towards the
back gate of Lakehurst NAS and rode across the airship fields to the front
gate; so far so good. I dodged the front gate, however, and headed towards the
stream that flowed along the north side; there was a gap in the fence there. I
had no objections to them knowing I'd gone ON the base, I just didn't want
anyone knowing where or if I'd LEFT the base.
Once onto the road was the most dangerous part; a kid and a dog riding
along the highway at this time of day would probably get noticed, but I
wouldn't be there for long. A few hundred yards brought me across the county
road into Jackson, and I quickly turned down a street I knew well, having
lived on it for close to five years 'before'. Lady panted as she tried to keep
up, and when at last we passed the house I 'used' to live in and burrowed into
the woods I finally let up the pace.
I got off the trail I knew oh-so-well and went about 30 feet into the
brush, and turned over a forgotten piece of plywood lying there. Mice had
gotten to the oiled canvas sack I'd hidden some food in, but they couldn't get
inside the cans. I rode along the trail until it crossed the railroad tracks,
then set off along the tracks into the sand pits. I could have gotten to the
point I was seeking by an easier route on foot, but the sand would have
required me to walk the bike.
It took almost an hour to traverse the sand pits; some of the trails I
'remembered' hadn't been made yet. But the back gate to the place was usually
open, and I lost no time crossing the street again and hitting more trails.
Technically, this was a more dangerous trek than the Base had been; the
Jackson middle & high schools lay between me and my goal, as did the police
department. Hunting down a phone booth, I grabbed the page I needed, and slunk
back down an embankment to check the data against my map.
She had moved to Jackson after I had; she'd lived in New Egypt prior
to that. While I'd passed through New Egypt a hundred times, and had a general
idea where she'd lived, exact data was lacking. However, the phone book was
most informative, listing not only a number but an address for her father's
construction business.
Over the next several hours and miles, I disassembled my bike and
buried the pieces as best I could. I wouldn't be needing it anymore, and just
leaving it somewhere would tell them where to start searching. Old skills,
learned while I was in the Air Force, came back into focus.
It was Escape & Evasion time.
---
I spent most of the next day slowly making my way into New Egypt. If
it had been summer, or even spring, I could have used the myriad streams as my
trails, but in the chill December air, I wasn't so foolish. Lady caught a
rabbit that afternoon, and after a couple of false starts I successfully got
it skinned and cooked it over the small fire I allowed myself that night.
The next day I finally reached my 'goal'. Her family's house wasn't
large, but it was set back off the road far enough for me to scout it out
without much fear of discovery. After locating her place, it was simple enough
to find her uncle's house; its proximity to the other road and the barn were
clear giveaways. I didn't waste any time that night sneaking inside that barn
and placing the first of my bugs... cold as it was it could snow any day now.
I also bugged her uncle's porch, and her own living room (by crawling under
the house and boring a small hole in one of the heating ducts.)
Snow didn't come quickly, not for nearly 2 weeks. I spent those two
weeks setting up 'housekeeping'. I had had alot of angst over what sort of
shelter I should create... one on the ground would be prone to moisture, but
one built up in a tree would be harder to hide and more subject to drafts.
Eventually I opted for one on the ground, after I'd found the almost perfect
spot. Any fires I built I built far away from my hiding place; secrecy was
more important now than convenience.
The light dusting of that first snowfall left me anxious as hell. I
couldn't very well tie Lady up anyplace, because she'd bark. I sat in a tree
about a hundred yards away from her uncle's porch, listening to the bug I'd
placed there, waiting for the exchange I knew was eventually coming. But it
never came. The first time my binoculars picked up her face, I nearly fell out
of my tree, though. Her dog and Lady were chasing each other around the yard,
a problem I couldn't fix without revealing myself.
According to the radio, I was given up for lost. The police and the
National Guard had searched the base and the woods all around it, but had yet
to reveal any hint of where I'd gone. I hadn't left any notes explaining where
I was going, so the police were treating it as a kidnapping. If they'd noticed
my camping gear missing, nobody on the radio was talking about it, nor had
they mentioned the missing gun.
Eventually, the snow melted, and I began to wonder what the hell I was
doing out here. Maybe it never happened? Would she have lied to me about that?
I didn't believe it. I knuckled down and endured the dreary routine of
checking my snares, hunting for rabbits and foxes with Lady, and enduring the
bitter nights with Lady curled up inside my sleeping bag for warmth.
---
Four days later, I had a new problem. My supply of batteries was
running out, and looking the way I did, going to the store to buy more was out
of the question. I hadn't bathed in weeks; I had a layer of general mud and
soot all over my exposed flesh, and my clothes weren't in much better shape.
Oh, I had several changes of clothes, but air drying them took alot of time so
I usually didn't bother. After all, I'd stopped noticing the smell long ago.
One quiet afternoon I was fishing at a small pond where the fish were
nearly always biting, and was just pulling the third one out of my hole in the
ice when I heard Lady barking. She'd wandered off about an hour before, so I
was expecting her return. When I heard another dog barking, I didn't attach
much to it; Lady was a sociable dog, and had befriended most of the local dogs
over the past few weeks. But when I heard a half-familiar voice say "Hi!" I
almost shot out of my skin.
It was a moment of truth, sort of. I considered running for it, but my
legs weren't with me for that one. I turned around slowly, almost fearfully.
We stood there, neither of us speaking, as we examined one another. She was
pink almost to the color of white chocolate, with long golden hair spilling
down her back. A pair of black earmuffs sat on her head. Lady and her dog
chased one another in circles between us, and she must have seen the
trepidation on my face as I tried to think of something to say. In the
reflection from her glasses I could see myself, swaddled in a bleached white
fatigue jacket four sizes to large, with both it and myself covered with
grime. Not a pretty sight.
"I see you've caught some fish. This is the best place for it," she
said, making her way down the bank towards me. "Can't you talk?" she asked, as
the tension in my own throat grew stronger and stronger.
"Sure, I can talk." I managed to say, while trying to gather up my
catch. "I just wasn't expecting to see anyone out here." "Why not?" she asked,
"I just live a half-mile down the trail. Do you live around here?" "No," I
evaded, "I'm just passing through on my way to Canada."
In the back of my mind, I could feel it forming... the link that had
bound us together in that previous life. As much as I craved it, I fought
against it, trying to block her from seeing the lies I was telling. "Canada?
That's a long ways away. Why do you want to go to Canada?" "My Grandpa lives
there. I have to get moving." As I made my way back up the bank, I tried to
get Lady to heel, but she was having too much fun with the other dog to pay
any attention to me. I whipped around and decided that the damage was done.
"Look, you can't tell anyone you've seen me here." I pleaded, "Some very bad
people are after me, and I have to stay hidden. Promise me you'll tell nobody
about seeing me?"
"I promise." she said. "Do you need anything? I could bring you some
food, if I knew where you were staying..." "That's alright, I can catch enough
food to get by... there is something that I need though." I said, remembering
my one predicament. "What's that?" she asked, snapping a leash around her
dog's neck. "Batteries. I have money, I just can't risk going into a store."
I said, pushing a wad of bills at her.
"What kind of batteries?" she asked. "Eight C-cells and six 9-volts.
This should be plenty... keep the change." I replied. "Okay. It might take me
a day or two though. Where can I find you?" "Right here." I fished a plastic
bag out of one of my pockets, and handed it to her. "Just put the batteries
in this bag, and leave them under this log here. I'll find them."
"You sure are secretive." she said, smiling. "I have to be, if I want
to remain free." I replied, touching her hand briefly. Both of us shivered
with that, but not from the cold. {You're like me} I heard her thinking, so I
replied out loud "exactly like you. But you can't tell ANYONE about me,
understand?"
Two days later, the batteries appeared, along with a short note, and
some cookies. She'd baked them herself. Feeling particularly wary, I took the
long way around back to my shelter, for no other reason than obstinence. Later
that night I spent time replacing all of the batteries in my bugs. And in my
tape recorder.
---
The next day, (January 28th), it snowed. Schools were closed, and
everyone was at home. I sat in my chosen tree, about 100 yards from her
uncle's barn. She was there, with her brother, and her cousin Roger. I could
feel a tension growing in my chest, as flashes of memory not even my own
replayed the events I was sure would happen today. I pressed my altered walkie
talkie against my ear, waiting for the exchange of words I was sure was
coming. "Hamburger is hurt, Michele. He's bleeding to death in the barn..."
Roger was talking, trying to get Michele to go to the barn, alone, with him.
(Hamburger was a cow, I should mention.)
As I heard the words crackle over the radio, I was already descending
the tree. By the time I reached the barn, her little brother Louis was already
dropping the padlock into its latch, sealing them inside. He never heard me
coming... the stout tree branch I'd grabbed along the way caught him on the
left side of his head and he went down hard. I didn't care if he ever got up.
Not bothering to search Louis for the key, I crawled through the very
window I'd been told he'd originally used to join Roger inside for the
"special game" he was going to teach him. Michele was already screaming inside
the storage room at the back of the barn, giving Roger the fight of his life.
I slipped the pistol I'd carried for so long out of my pocket, and stepped into
the light streaming from the doorway.
Roger was on top of Michele, struggling to get her pants off as she
twisted, bit, and clawed him with all her might. I cocked the hammer of the
pistol back as I stood there watching, knowing that without Louis's help, all
of this might turn out differently, whether I fired or not. But Roger must
have noticed me standing there, and when his eyes met mine, I thrust every
ounce of hatred and contempt I had right into his forebrain. I poured it on...
and as i watched, his face went from furious, violent lust to stark, raving
madness, and fear.
He made a sound I can only describe as a howl. He practically
levitated off of Michele's body, and as soon as she rolled free of him, I
began firing.
The first shot I put just above his groin; my hands were shaking.
The next one caught him right where I wanted it, and turned his
reproductive organs into mush.
I tried to put the third one into his open mouth, but I missed again.
The fourth shot missed as well.
The next two shots caught him in the forehead and right cheek. Bone
and brain tissue sprayed the wall behind him, and he slowly slumped to the
floor.
I must have stood there, still trying to fire the empty pistol for a
minute or two. Finally Michele put her hand on my arm and pushed it down. I
think I began crying, then. My whole body was shaking like it wanted to fly
apart.
I felt her presence in my mind, like a butterfly landing on a leaf.
The rage all seemed to drain away, then, as I gazed upon the broken body of
the man (or boy, really; he was only 16) who had raped her, in the life I'd
left behind. He'd failed. He'd never gotten the chance to use the knife I saw
hanging on the wall a few feet away, the knife whose wound had left Michele
incapable of ever bearing children. Even if we didn't find the love we'd found
in that other life, I'd won a victory more precious than any I could imagine.
Sirens were beginning to sound in the distance. The police would be
here soon, and I supposed I'd have to tell them something. Funny - in all the
weeks I'd had to reach this point, I'd never given any thought to THAT
problem. I had the whole sequence of events in this room on tape; I'd covered
THAT base, at least. If I'd failed, I'd have used that to make him pay.
Oh well. Something would come to me. It always did.
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