Escape From Salado
Book One in the Ancient Ones Series
By Kolby London
Copyright 2011 by Kolby London
Smashwords Edition
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Shane, Chris and Rebecca have always been different from the other kids at school. The three of them find themselves running for their lives when the authorities realize just how different they are. How will they make it through the military roadblocks waiting for them on all the highways out of town?
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Shane peeked through the curtain, into the street. It should have been dark except for the streetlights, but it wasn’t. Helicopters were shining spotlights all over town, while men with guns patrolled the neighborhoods by the headlights on their jeeps. They were looking for him.
Shane could not remember a single moment of his life when he hadn’t felt like someone was watching him. He had always been different, and had known it from a very young age. He took small comfort in knowing that he wasn’t totally alone, but right now, that made it even worse.
Dangerous men were looking for him: men who suspected what he was and by extension, who Chris and Rebecca were. Getting caught meant the end of life as they knew it, but time was running out as they huddled in this small apartment. Shane and Rebecca were looking out windows, while Chris watched the door, ready to defend them if anyone came through.
Shane’s mind raced for a way out, but all he could think of was how they’d gotten into this mess.
Shane and Chris had been walking home from school just over a year ago, during their junior year at Salado High, in the small town of Salado, Texas. Chris was obsessing, as usual, about people watching every move they made.
“I’m telling you, Ms. Carson suspects me. I think she saw me change an answer on the test. We have to leave Salado, go where no one knows us.” This was Chris’s theme song, and the others usually just ignored him.
Shane was humoring him, pretending to care, when a child ran past them, chasing a bright red ball, into the street and right in front of an oncoming car.
Squealing breaks were not enough to keep the little girl from bouncing off the hood of the car and flying through the air, landing on the back of her head. Shane moved forward instinctively, but Chris grabbed him.
“Don’t. We can’t risk it.”
Shane pulled away and ran toward the little girl, muttering to Chris that he couldn’t let her die. Chris, knowing he couldn’t stop him, ran forward and yelled at the frightened driver to back off and call 911. A woman rushed out of her house, screaming. Chris positioned himself so he blocked her sight of Shane for just a few seconds.
With no one watching, Shane placed his hand on the little girl’s bloody head. Within moments her skull repaired itself. Then her cuts were healed, and she picked herself up off the street, instinctively rubbing her head. The woman pushed past Chris and swept the little girl up in her arms.
“Don’t you ever run out like that again, you could have been killed!” she said, as tears streamed down her face. “Your dress is covered in blood, but….you’re not bleeding!”
Chris and Shane started to back quietly away, but the woman zeroed in on them. “You guys helped my daughter, and I can never repay you, but….how did you stop the bleeding?”
Shane just shrugged and said, “I didn’t really do anything. She was about to get up when I got here. I just helped her a bit.”
Chris said, “Yeah, I have no idea. I just yelled at that dude to call 911, and that was it. I guess she wasn’t really hurt.”
In a tiny town like Salado, you knew everyone. The woman was a local attorney named Nikki, and her little princess was Kirsten.
Little Kirsten was around five years old and had little blond curls. She was wearing a pretty little lavender dress with matching shoes that laced with Velcro.
“Hey, you’re the Osbourne’s son right, you have a sister named Rebecca.”
Shane nodded and she continued, “And you’re the Palmer kid. Your dad lives in the trailer park outside of town.”
“He ain’t my dad, and I’m nobody’s kid,” Chris snarled. “But yeah, I live out there, what’s it to ‘ya”.
Chris, with his unkempt red hair and lanky frame, was touchy about where he lived, and who he lived with. When the three of them were found wandering near the Salado Creek Bridge, Shane and Rebecca were adopted by a local businessman and his family, while Chris had been stuck in foster care. He lived with Simon, a mean old man who just wanted him for the foster care checks. Chris had grown up fighting, and saw the enemy everywhere he looked.
Nikki seemed a bit taken aback, but replied, “Nothing at all, I just want to know where to find you when I figure out how to repay you.”
“You wanna repay me?” Chris retorted. “Teach your damn kid that streets are for cars, not brats.”
Nikki was shocked, but tried to stay calm. “I’ll have a talk with her, thanks anyway. What about you?” She said to Shane. “Do you think I’m a horrible mother, too?”
“Of course not,” Shane replied. “Kids just do that stuff sometimes, but Chris is right that you don’t need to repay us.”
Shane was about three inches shorter than Chris, and a lot calmer. When he and Rebecca were picked up by the Osbourne family, they had walked into a loving home and wonderful parents. Shane’s dirty blond hair and bright green eyes hid a brooding, thoughtful nature that made it easy for him to blend into the crowd.
Chris and Shane slipped away when the ambulance arrived and headed back to Shane’s house as quickly as they could.
As he watched the soldiers search the street, Shane couldn’t help but think, as Chris had reminded him a hundred times since, that a lot of people would have been better off if he had kept walking that day. Nikki slipped into the room, she had long since been aware of their secret, and walked over to Shane.
“I got stopped three times on the way here, but I think I found a way out, if you can get there.”
“As long as Rebecca’s with us, we can make it,” Shane replied. “What have you figured out?”
Rebecca was Shane’s sister. She was tall and voluptuous with chestnut hair that fell lightly over her shoulders. She carried herself with such poise that an outsider would never have guessed at the fear and anger roiling just beneath the surface. Rebecca was the key to getting out of this alive, and everyone in the room knew it. It could only help that the military didn’t know about her.
“You can’t get anywhere near I-35. Every possible way onto the highway is crawling with soldiers from Ft. Hood,” Nikki explained. “But they’re a lot lighter as you get into the farms and fields on the outskirts of town. I think they expect you to try and get lost in the traffic on the highway. I think you should get on old Royal lane and head towards the farmlands. Then just go off-road until you get to Sparks. You can get on 277 from there and then head anywhere you want to go.” Nikki pressed a set of car keys into Shane’s hand. “Use my Navigator. I’ll wait a couple of days to report it stolen.”
This glimmer of opportunity was more than Shane, Chris and Rebecca could have hoped for. They slipped quietly out the front door, while Nikki stayed behind and watched out the window. After they were gone, she walked the five blocks to her house, spent a few moments staring into her daughter’s empty bedroom, and cried herself to sleep.
Rebecca drove, while the boys sat in the back and made plans. She drove out of the apartment parking lot and headed toward Royal lane. She obeyed the speed limit and used her turn signals, careful to avoid drawing attention to them. She had only driven a couple of miles when she ran into a road block. A man wearing combat fatigues and carrying a weapon approached the car. As he saw this beautiful young woman, he did his best to seem less menacing.
“Evenin’, little lady. Sorry to stop you, but I’m looking for some dangerous criminals, and I’ll need to look in your vehicle.”
Rebecca gave the man a seductive nod and said, “Sure, you can do anything you like.”
Chris and Shane sat in the back, not moving. Even though they knew there was nothing to fear, they were still nervous. The military man checked the back of the SUV and then looked directly at Shane in the back seat and said, “Well, I can see that you’re not hiding anything dangerous, except maybe those eyes, darlin’. You can go on about your business.”
“Thank you, sir,” Rebecca said as she drove away.
They drove quietly through the backwoods and farm roads until they reached Sparks. The military would never be able to track them since these dirt roads and grassy fields did not exist on any map. Since the military had locked down Salado, there was no military presence in Sparks, and they could take a chance on stopping for gas and supplies. Rebecca pulled into a convenience store and shut off the engine.
Chris said, “You guys go get what we need. I’ll stay here and keep a look-out. But don’t forget my Dr. Pepper and potato chips.” Chris left it unsaid that heads would roll without his Dr. Pepper and chips. He was an addict and they all knew it.
“You don’t have to worry about the military,” Shane replied. “Those sodas and chips’ll do you in long before the guns do.”
The siblings went inside and wandered up and down the aisles. They nearly panicked when a man in a military uniform walked into the store. They stayed near the back while he bought some gum, a soda and a newspaper.
After he left, they purchased snacks and other supplies for a potentially long trip. They didn’t know where they were going, but they knew it would be a long time before they could go back home.
Shane placed everything they had chosen on the counter. There were drinks, snacks, medicines and even magazines. They didn’t have any money to pay for all this, so Rebecca handed the clerk a blank piece of paper, which he cheerfully accepted and gave her $1.50 change. She smiled at him as she pocketed the money and they walked back to the Navigator.
Shane put most of the groceries in the back of the SUV, and brought one bag with just a few items to the front of the vehicle.
“Where’s my stuff?” Chris demanded. Shane handed over the snacks and climbed into the front passenger seat. Chris had already moved into the driver’s seat. Rebecca stretched out in the back for a short nap. Confusing people took a lot out of her, and she had done it twice in less than an hour.
“I’m exhausted. I need to rest a bit, in case you need me to make Chris look halfway decent or something later.”
“Hey, we can’t all be Sleeping Beauty, but at least I got the smarts,” Chris replied.
“Smarts? You mean like the chimps at the zoo that they train to do tricks for bananas?” Shane chimed in.
“Ha ha, very funny. Shut up and get buckled in. Now that we’re out of Salado, I’m not slowing down for anything.” Chris backed quickly out of the parking spot and took a few back roads until he got to highway 277 and headed north. As they drove, Shane couldn’t help but think back to how he had gotten them into this mess.
The small town was buzzing about how Kirsten had been hit by a car and walked away without even a bruise to show for it. The police were asking lots of awkward questions, but they could handle that. Nikki was a much bigger problem.
“She’s cornered me three times this week,” Shane said while he, Chris and Rebecca were eating hamburgers and sharing a large order of cheese fries at the local hangout. “She’s not going to stop until she figures it out. We have to do something, and the way I see it, we have two choices. Tell her, or try to avoid her. But avoiding her will be tough around here.”
“We could just kill her,” Chris replied. “Cut her brake lines or blow up her house. Something subtle like that.”
Rebecca glared at Chris and said, “I vote we don’t tell her anything. If she finds out, we’ll deal with it then.”
“I second that,” Chris said. “And that’s two votes to one.”
Nikki made a point to spend as much time around the kids as she could. This was especially true of Shane. Chris usually gave her the cold shoulder, but Shane and Rebecca actually started to like her. Little Kirsten became more and more like a little sister to them. Shane enjoyed playing with Kristen and telling her stories whenever Nikki popped up.
A few weeks later, Chris got in a fight with a loudmouth at the trailer park where he lived. Shane, as he did every time Chris fought a loudmouth, healed Chris’s cuts and bruises in the alley behind the local diner. He didn’t realize that Nikki had been following them, and witnessed the whole thing.
“What on Earth!” Nikki exclaimed, as she watched Chris’s bruises disappear before her eyes. “I knew something fishy was going on, but I had no idea you could…” her voice trailed off as she struggled for the right words.
Shane struggled with how much he should tell her. In the end, he decided that saving Kirsten’s life would earn her loyalty, and they could use a friend right now. Besides, he didn’t see any choice in the matter.
“Heal,” Shane finished for her. “That’s what I did for Kirsten and I do it for Chris when he needs it. I try to keep it a secret because I don’t know how people will react, and I don’t want to end up as someone’s lab experiment. The question now is can we trust you?”
Nikki struggled to regain her composure. “Well…you saved my daughter’s life. I’ll never betray you, but I don’t understand. How can you do this?”
“I don’t really know. I’ve always been able to heal people. You may not be ready to hear this, but there’s more.” Shane paused a moment while he fought himself over how much to tell her She already knew so much that he wanted to tell her everything, knowing that it would feel good to have it all out in the open. On the other hand, he knew that Rebecca and Chris would be against her knowing any more than necessary.
Nikki felt anything but ready. She felt confused and a little dizzy. “What else?”
Chris jumped in, “You already know too much. The rest is none of your damn business.”
Shane countered, “We have to trust her with everything, or she’ll just keep asking questions. Besides, we need someone we can trust, especially with the cops still nosing around.”
“Fine,” Chris replied with more than a hint of sarcasm.
“I’m not the only one who’s special around here. Chris can manipulate things with his mind, and my sister can confuse people,” Shane said.
“Confuse people?” Nikki replied. “I do that on my own. What’s so special about her?”
“She can make people see what she wants them to see,” Chris interjected. “And I can do things just by thinking about them. It’s really pretty cool. Not to mention dangerous, for people who double cross us.” The threat was veiled, but it was there.
Nikki was starting to find her feet again. “Chris, I think you’re about as dangerous as a vicious kitty. But, I do see why you don’t spread it around. You’d be a target for every nut with a cause, plus our own government would love to study all of you. Let me know if the police keep pestering you. I’ll file an injunction to get them off your back.”
Shane
couldn’t help but think about how much pain arose from that
conversation. The police finally backed off, but the local chief
reported the unusual circumstances of the case to the FBI. Shane
found this out when he was babysitting Kirsten while Nikki ran
errands.
Nikki let Shane watch Kirsten often. He was a steady, intelligent kid and Kirsten loved him. Nikki loved to watch her face when Shane came to the door.
Nikki came home to find Shane sitting in the middle of the living room floor, rocking back and forth, mumbling about being sorry and about how he couldn’t stop them.
“Shane. Shane! What’s going on, where’s Kirsten.”
“They took her. I tried to stop them, but they said she’s evidence,” Shane muttered.
“Who took her?” Nikki replied, trying to sound calm.
“The FBI, with the military,” Shane replied, while still rocking back and forth. “They said something about taking her to the base.”
“You mean Ft. Hood? Why would they take her there…Oh God. They want to study her to find out how she was healed!” Nikki started to panic, but knew she had to remain calm to get her daughter back. “We’re going to Ft. Hood, Shane. We’re getting Kirsten, and we’ll protect you at the same time.”
They drove thirty minutes and pulled into Ft. Hood and walked into the visitor reception center. The center was devoid of decoration or color. It was obviously not intended to welcome uninvited guests.
Nikki, fighting back tears of anger and fear, approached the enlisted man at the front desk. “You bring my daughter to me right now, or you get me the person who is holding her, or so help me, I’ll file a million different lawsuits against this base, and a paternity suit against you for good measure.”
“Ma’am, I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but if you don’t calm down, I’ll have you escorted from the premises.”
“Have me escorted? Did you hear what I said? You stupid, olive-drab drenched fool! I want my daughter, and I want her now!”
The man behind the desk pressed a button and two more soldiers appeared within seconds. One man appeared to be in his mid-forties and wore a handful of ribbons on his uniform. He stepped forward and said, “I’m Captain Lawrence. I understand you have some kind of complaint, but I’ll need you to calm down before we can help you.”
Nikki began screaming, “I don’t have a complaint. I want my daughter!”
The captain decided that this woman must be unstable. The men moved towards her and Shane stepped between them. As the men advanced, a scuffle broke out. Shane and the guards began pushing and jostling for position, while Nikki backed away from the skirmish. The older officer was pushed to the ground in the scuffle. When reinforcements arrived and restored order, the man lay dead on the floor, the apparent victim of a heart attack.
In the ensuing confusion, Shane grabbed Nikki by the arm and dragged her to her car. He figured the last thing they needed was to be implicated in the death of an Army officer. Shane drove back home while Nikki sobbed uncontrollably in the passenger seat at leaving without her precious daughter.
The next day, the base commander ordered his men to find and arrest Shane. “He’s been involved in too many strange things, from whatever happened to that little girl to the death of one of my men. I want him brought in, no matter how you do it.”
When they didn’t find him at his parent’s house, they initiated a house to house search, and that led them to the here and now.
Shane’s train of thought was completely broken by the sound of Chris’s voice. “I’ve been driving for three hours. I think you should take a turn. Besides, there’s something I want to do.”
Chris eased the vehicle off the road and into a rest stop. He pulled into a spot as far away from other people as he could and got out. Shane slipped over to the driver’s seat.
Chris walked around to the back of the Navigator and leaned down to the license plate. He concentrated and the raised letters on the license plate flattened out to form a blank piece of metal. He concentrated more and the raised letters reappeared, but this time a different set of letters and numbers occupied the license plate. Chris followed the same procedure on the front plate and looked around to see if anyone was looking.
When he was sure the coast was clear, he placed his hand on the hood. The green paint disappeared, leaving only the gray metallic shell. After a moment, it was replaced with an unobtrusive dark blue color. With these changes, they would be much harder to find.
Chris climbed into the passenger seat and buckled his seatbelt. “I don’t know why I’m putting this on. You drive like an old woman anyway.”
“At least the police don’t pull me over for drunk driving when I’m sober,” Shane countered.
“Shut up and drive,” Chris suggested.
Shane pulled the repainted Navigator back onto the highway and continued north. He had no idea where they were going, except as far away from Salado as they could get.
He tried to stay at the speed limit, choosing to travel with groups of cars to avoid standing out. He kept a wary eye on his surroundings, to make sure no one spotted them.
***
Nikki got up early the next morning. She had barely slept between worrying about Shane and the others, and wondering if she’d ever see Kirsten again. Nikki decided that she may as well do something constructive, instead of just moping around the house in her nightgown. She put on a pair of old sweats and a T-shirt and walked through the living room where Kirsten had last been seen and into the garage. She thought, “I’ve been meaning to straighten this up for months, might as well get started on it.”
She started sorting through the junk, including two old recliners she’d meant to get rid of for months and a bunch of Kirsten’s old toys. As she worked through the tears that these old memories brought, she started looking through the large black trash bags that she had put old clothes in and stuck in a corner. She was deciding what to give away, and what was only fit for the garbage.
The last bag was a lot heavier than the others, but she moved it to a clear spot in the garage and untied the strap that held it closed. She nearly became ill as the smell from the opening reached her. She quickly backed up several steps and took a deep breath.
“Something must have crawled in that bag and died,” she thought. “Well, I’ve gotta deal with it sometime, might as well be now.” Nikki steeled herself to deal with whatever dead animal she was about to find. What she saw when she opened the bag was more horrifying than she could have imagined. Her entire body went limp and she fell to the ground in tears at what was obviously the decaying body of her beautiful daughter, Kirsten.
***
Shane pulled into another gas station and woke Rebecca up. She went inside and paid for fuel with another piece of blank paper, and they got back on the road again. He figured if they kept moving, they would be safe, especially if they changed colors and license plates every so often.
Shane checked a map before they got back on the road and zeroed in on the Chickasaw National Recreation area. They could get an out of the way lot, away from prying eyes and take some time to figure out their next move.
With Chris navigating, Shane found the park and Rebecca paid for a spot with more paper. They found their campsite and parked. The sun was just coming up over the trees. Once stores were open, Chris would find a sporting goods store and pick up the things they’d need for the next few days, Rebecca would go with him to “pay” for anything they purchased. Shane would stay behind because he thought it would be safer if they were not seen together too much.
They got out of the Navigator to stretch their legs and Chris changed the color of the Navigator to an ugly orange and transformed the license plate to a new set of numbers and mirrored the design of an Oklahoma plate instead of a Texas one.
For the first time since leaving Salado, they were able to relax. They sat at a picnic table and enjoyed the scenery, watched as squirrels ran through the trees and felt the cool breeze in their faces.
***
Kirsten’s head looked like it had hit something hard. Her face was scratched and cut and the back of her head was badly bruised and cut. Her blond hair looked almost black from the blood that was caked in it. Her pretty curls were matted to her head.
Nikki sat devastated on the floor of her garage. Her tears turned from shock, to grief, to anger. Finally, she just went numb. Her mind went into lawyer mode, processing information, instead of dealing with the pain of losing her daughter.
She couldn’t fathom how Kristen’s body had gotten here. If the Army had taken her, why would they dump the body in her garage? They wouldn’t. Only one answer made any sense.
“Shane.” She muttered under her breath. “But, why?”
Nikki picked herself up off the floor and wiped the tears from her eyes. She couldn’t decide what to do with Kirsten’s body. If she called the coroner or an undertaker, then the police would want to know how her daughter’s dead body came to be in her garage and she wasn’t prepared to answer those questions yet. She couldn’t bear to stuff the body back into the garbage bag, so she carried the body into the backyard and buried it under the swing that was Kirsten’s favorite hangout.
Nikki changed out of her blood, dirt and sweat stained clothes, put on one of her best business suits and picked up the phone to request a rental car be delivered to her home. Once that was finished, she went to her closet, retrieved a black Smith & Wesson Centennial 442 .38 special snub nosed revolver. She loaded the weapon and placed it in the pocket of her suit jacket.
***
Chris and Rebecca returned to the campsite with two tents, blow up mattresses, lanterns and other supplies, as well as a package of printer paper to use as more currency. They had enough food to last a week, and everything they needed to build a fire to cook on. Shane’s parents had taken him and Rebecca camping often as children, so they knew exactly how to handle the current living arrangements.
They set up camp and set up the fire for later in the evening. They had sandwiches and chips for lunch, with water for the siblings and Dr. Pepper for Chris. They looked just like any other camper out for a relaxing vacation.
Shane figured they could stay here for as long as they had to until things settled down and they could find a better place to stay.
Rebecca, Chris and Shane tended to the campsite and lounged around until the sun started to drop lower in the sky. Shane started building a fire and getting the grill ready to cook.
A nondescript gray car pulled in behind the Navigator and parked. The three teenagers gathered quickly and prepared to confront whomever was in the car.
The driver’s door opened and Nikki stepped out of her rental car. She kept one hand in her coat pocket, wrapped around the grip of her .38 special.
The three rushed forward to greet her, but she stopped them.
“Stay away from me, all of you. I found her, Shane. I found Kirsten. How could you?” Nikki’s face was contorted in tears of sadness and rage. “She loved you.”
“What does she mean, she ‘found Kirsten’, Shane?” Rebecca asked.
“Nikki, how did you find us?” Chris asked.
“I had a GPS tracker installed in that thing when I bought it. Finding you guys was easy. This is the hard part.”
Nikki pulled the gun from her coat pocket and pointed it at Shane.
“You murdered my little girl, you scum! I trusted you, and you killed her.” Nikki could barely see through the tears. “Why? How?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Nikki. I told you the Army took her.” Shane replied. His voice cracked as he spoke.
“Then why did I find her body stuffed in a garbage bag in my garage, with the same kind of injuries she would have gotten from being hit by a car!” Nikki’s hand was shaking with anger and grief. She could barely keep the gun pointed in Shane’s direction. She had cared for him like a kid brother, and this betrayal was unimaginable.
All three teenagers looked stunned at the accusation, and the description of the fate of a little girl they’d grown to like very much.
“Shane. What is she talking about?” Chris asked. The defiant tone of the question masked his confusion and fear.
“No idea.”
“I don’t think she’s making this up, Shane,” Rebecca said. “She really thinks you did it.”
“I know.” Shane replied, “But I’m telling you, I don’t know what she’s talking about. I remember the Army people coming for Kirsten. I don’t know how her body ended up in a trash bag.” Shane looked utterly horrified at the thought that he would ever harm Kirsten.
“Nobody else would have had the time or the access to put her body with my old clothes. No one else would have known that I rarely mess with that corner of the garage.” Nikki was steadier now, and her aim was focused directly on Shane.
“Maybe it’s time to try that trick you’ve been working on, ‘Becca.” Chris whispered.
Rebecca had long thought about how her ability worked. She surmised that if she could put images and thoughts into people’s heads, that she could draw them out, as well. She’d never tried it before, but it might be the only way to clear Shane of this horrible accusation.
Rebecca sat at the picnic table because she wasn’t sure what this attempt would do to her. While Shane and Nikki argued, Rebecca concentrated. She wasn’t sure how to unlock Shane’s mind, and it didn’t work the first time she tried.
After a few tries she saw his memory of the accident that started them down this path. She saw him heal Kirsten and watched as he talked to Nikki for the first time. She saw their relationship grow, and she saw how much Shane cared for Kirsten, how much he loved playing with her.
It didn’t take long for her to figure out how to sift through his memories. She moved forward to the day at Nikki’s house. She saw Kirsten and Shane playing on the living room floor. She saw Shane tickling her and tossing her in the air.
She ‘heard’ him thinking that Kirsten was the only link to the three of them. Without her, the government would have to drop their investigation. Then she saw him put his hands on her and saw cuts form on Kirsten’s head.
Kirsten started screaming. Within a few moments she was covered in blood. Shane performed a reverse healing that caused every illness and injury she had ever suffered to attack her little body at once. Her death was quick, but extremely painful.
She saw the fracas at Ft. Hood, and realized that Shane performed the same trick on the Army officer just before he collapsed. The man must have had a heart condition that accelerated into a massive heart attack.
Shane felt these memories as Rebecca saw them and went pale. “I didn’t remember any of this until just now. How could I do such horrible things and not remember. I don’t even know how to do what I did.”
Rebecca, stunned and horrified by what she had just seen, stared blankly at Shane. She had no words that could describe what she had seen. She just managed to get out, “He did it.” Before she succumbed to exhaustion and her head slumped onto the picnic table.
Nikki, her last hope in Shane destroyed, aimed her gun through tear-filled eyes. Shane, with tears to match hers, simply said, “Do it.”
Nikki’s finger began to tighten on the trigger. Chris could have easily stopped her, by forcing her finger off the trigger, or causing the cylinder to open. He was too stunned by these events to do anything but watch.
Nikki pulled back the hammer and steadied her aim.
“Stop!” said a voice none of them had heard before. A man walked purposefully from the clump of trees to a spot between Nikki and Shane.
“I am the Baron of Peaceful Valley. I have come to take these children home.” The man was tall and slim with dark hair and brown eyes. He was clean-shaven and had a sweet old man aura about him.
“Home?” Nikki exclaimed. “You’re not taking them anywhere. Shane has to pay for what he did, and I’m not sure the other two weren’t involved as well.”
“You have suffered a great loss. Your reaction is to be expected. However, you may not harm the one you call Shane.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Chris asked. “I don’t know where this ‘home’ you’re babbling about is, but if you think you can drag us back to Salado, you’re even nuttier than you look.”
“Salado is not your home, Chris. I come from a place where everyone is like you. You will not be feared or hunted there. You will be home and at peace.”
“If it’s so great, then why’d you dump us here?”
“I regret that you were an experiment that went awry. Our civilization spans eons, and we once roamed the earth freely. When homo sapiens began to assert dominance, they initially saw us as gods. Eventually, worship gave way to fear and mistrust. Even with our abilities, the inevitable battles with man proved costly. We eventually decided to retreat to Peaceful Valley in a desolate part of the area you call Colorado. We used our abilities to hide it from prying eyes and we have lived there in peace and harmony for centuries.”
“That sounds nice and all,” Chris replied, “But what do you mean about us being an experiment that blew up?”
“After spending so many years sequestered, some of our number believed that man had advanced enough that it would be possible to co-exist with them in peace. Rather than risk our entire civilization, we chose three children for a test. We sent you here to see how the world would react to your presence.”
“Yeah, that worked out great for you didn’t it, creep?” Chris fumed.
“We watched as you instinctively learned to keep your abilities a secret from the distrustful people around you. We saw the fear that arose when you used your abilities, even though your only goal was to help a child.”
“What did you do to me?” Shane cried. “You made me a monster!”
“You, as the de facto leader of your group, were under the most strain from the start. You felt guilty for putting your compatriots at risk, even though you did it to save a life. Your mind split from the strain. One, the Shane most people knew, was kind and courageous. The other, calculating and concerned only with his continued survival. Your subconscious created the kidnapping story to prevent you from dealing with the pain and guilt of your actions.
Rebecca stopped him. “The Shane I know could never do what I saw. He didn’t even have that ability.”
“He cultivated the reverse healing process during times of great emotional turmoil, when his other personality came into play. None of this is relevant anymore, since I am taking you home. Shane will be healed and you will all be with your own kind, with no more fear.”
“You dropped us here, as children, just for an experiment? Then you let me kill a little girl?” Shane exclaimed. “I’ll kill you!”
Shane moved toward the Baron with his hands outstretched, but he could not get within a few feet of him. “I have abilities that have been practiced and honed for decades. You cannot harm me. You are coming home.”
“The hell he is!” Nikki sobbed. “He’s staying right here, where I can kill him.”
“That is not possible. An autopsy would reveal the differences between him and your people and raise questions. We cannot allow this. He is coming home. He will be punished according to our laws for his actions.”
“I couldn’t care less about your laws. My little girl is dead!”
“She would have been dead a year ago, if Shane had not healed her. He gave you more time than you had a right to expect. You will remember none of this. You, and the rest of your town, will remember that Kirsten was killed when she ran in front of a car. You will not remember any of these three, or anything that has occurred. You will be transported back to your home, along with your vehicle and you will resume your life.”
Rebecca, her strength beginning to return, asked, “What if we don’t want to go with you? I don’t think I can trust a man who used me for some vile experiment. You’re just as bad as the Army.”
“My child, you have no choice. You will be reunited with the society that spawned you, and you need never step foot in the world of man again.”
Chris, still overwhelmed with everything he had just heard, walked over to Nikki. For the first time in his adult life, tears were streaming down his face. He hugged Nikki and said, “I know I was hard on you. I was trying to protect myself, but I never wanted this to happen. I’m so, so sorry. I wish I could fix it.”
With that, he quietly walked back across the campsite to his friends, and they were gone.
***
Nikki got out of bed as the sun came up. She hadn’t enjoyed a good night’s sleep since the accident. She decided today would be a good day to clean out the garage. She’d been meaning to do it for a long time and today was as good a day as any. She walked out to the garage and looked around. There was a lot of junk out here. She decided to start with the garbage bags full of old clothes in the corner.
As she began sifting through the bags, an uncontrollable wave of grief came over her and she sank to her knees in tears. For the briefest of moments, she could see Kirsten, covered in blood, sealed in one of these bags. She decided that the lack of sleep was really messing with her mind. She wiped her tears, got back to her feet and went back inside to get some rest. This didn’t seem like such a great time to clean out the garage anyway.
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