“Yeah,” he agreed. “What are you worried about?”
“Everything. What was Charlie saying? What are we going to do if it comes to fighting? How long ‘til Daddy is back on his feet?”
“Well, I think Charlie was saying he killed those men himself, which solves problems and creates new ones. I have no idea about the fighting. That’s your department, Tough Girl. And, your dad will be fine. He’s been telling me about the Breakdown years. He’s survived a lot worse than our problems.”
Sally turned on her side, facing Terry, and slid her arms around his neck. She gave him a hug. Terry took it as a comfort hug, and returned it gently, then retreated a bit to let her know he was not making a move. She probably didn’t know that simply looking in her eyes from four inches away was more than he had hoped. He was marveling at the power of the sensation when she asked, “What are you worried about?”
“All of that, and the fact that I can only shoot when a weird noise goes off in my head, and then only for a few seconds. Plus, I have to talk to Kirk about it tomorrow. To be honest, that guy scares me.”
Sally laughed softly and said, “Don’t worry about Kirk. He cultivates his killer persona on purpose. When you get to know him, you’ll like him. As for the fighting, all I’ve heard it that it’s every bit as amazing as what Kirk does, and Daddy told me you saved him in Nashville. Maybe that’s what it’s about. Maybe when you see someone in trouble, you go into overdrive.”
“Maybe. It’s really weird. It’s like someone else takes control, and I’m not sure if that someone is me.”
“I wouldn’t worry, Terry. Talk to Kirk and see what he can tell you. Then you can worry about being possessed.”
“Ok, thanks. I do have one other worry...”
“What’s that?”
“What happens if your folks find us like this?”
“Well, since neither one of us is naked, I don’t think it would be too bad. Maybe thirty lashes each.”
“We could fix that... The naked thing.” Terry said with a grin.
“You could try, and find out why everyone is
really
afraid of the Terror of Teeny Town.” Sally’s own smile took the threat away.
“Oh, me so scared!” Terry said, and smothered her giggles with a quick kiss.
Her smile was gone when he pulled back, replaced with something else. The second time, she came to him, and the kissing went on for quite some time.
***
Terry was by himself when the sun came up, for obvious reasons. Nothing beyond kissing had occurred, but he was still tingling from the experience, and he wondered if he would be able to think of anything else that day. He pulled on his clothes, and stepped quietly down the stairs, trying to avoid waking anyone else. Aggie was in the kitchen. He should have known. She was making a combination of breakfast and lunch. The former she set on the counter, and the latter she stuffed into several cloth sacks.
“Morning, Mr. Shelton. Help yourself.”
“Good Morning, Aggie. I see you’re back in your work clothes,” Terry said, grabbing a couple of bacon stuffed biscuits from the plate on the counter.
“I’d hate to disappoint you with my old lady clothes.”
“Well, you look at least two years younger this morning, so that would make you, what? Thirty-one?” Terry said with a glib expression.
“Sit down and eat, you smooth talker. I can’t take that kind of thing at my advanced age, which I’ll have you know is thirty-two.”
“My mistake,” Terry mumbled through a mouthful of biscuit.
Aggie smiled through her lunch packing and finally slid one of the bags across the counter in Terry’s direction. “This one’s for you. You may be at Kirk’s for a while.”
“Thank you.” Terry said.
“No, thank you.”
“What for? I didn’t make you breakfast.”
“Well, just for being a good man. Good for my entire family, especially the redhead I heard singing in the shower this morning.”
Terry felt guilty for last night’s make out session. It must have shown on his face. “Uh, well...”
“Terry, I know nothing bad happened.”
“Uh, ok... That’s right, you know.”
“I know. Mothers know everything. It’s a gift.”
“I think I’ll just eat my breakfast under the table,” Terry said, blushing fiercely.
“No need. I have to head over to Town Hall. I’ll see you tonight.” With that, Aggie walked out of the kitchen with a slightly superior wave, and worked the front door softly as she departed.
Terry was at a loss. He settled for another biscuit, trying not to think about the awkward fishbowl situation in the Carter house. When he was done, he drank a couple of glasses of water at the sink, still enjoying the working faucet. He settled his belt and checked his knife and handgun, in case of some kind of inspection from Kirk. He picked up his sack lunch with another thought of thanks for Aggie. Then he walked out the kitchen door and headed towards the lakes. Thanks to the Bertha washing, he knew exactly where Kirk lived, and once he passed the active farm fields, he angled west to intercept the access road near the cabin in the woods.
As he walked up to Kirk’s little house, he half-expected to be ambushed as a test. He stepped slowly and searched every tree for whatever Kirk might have thought up in his devious killer mind. It turned out to be a non-event. Terry could read the note on Kirk’s door before he reached the porch.
“Terry, must check on some things. Back soon. Please wait.”
Terry knew he could probably just walk into Kirk’s cabin and make himself at home. That seemed to be the way of things in the community, but it just didn’t feel appropriate. He sat on the porch steps until his patience ran out. He stepped down and began to circle the house. On the west side, he found a huge old stump, probably the source of the lumber in the cabin. On the stump, a tattered paperback book was flipping in the breeze. It was dead center on the stump, and lined up perfectly with the house. Either Kirk was a neat freak of the highest order, or it was left specifically for Terry to read. Since he was bored with waiting, Terry picked it up and sat on the stump to read.
It was science fiction, which suited Terry just fine. His own grandfather had kept a shelf full of science fiction when Terry was a kid. When the old man had died, Terry’s parents had traded the books for whatever they had needed at the time. It was a sad day for Terry.
This book was the story of a young man from a planet that specialized in soldiers. They raised them and sent them out into the galaxy to fight for whoever hired the soldiers. A particularly successful young soldier had risen through the ranks quickly, knowing that he was a good soldier, but unaware that he was something more. Eventually he had come face to face with a religious leader who told him that his success came from the part of him that was more than a soldier. At the end of the meeting, the religious man told the soldier that if he believed it strongly enough, the soldier could walk on thin air. The soldier did walk on air, once on the power of the religious man’s assertion, and once again on his own absent minded experiment, which failed as soon as he decided to reject the belief in favor of logic and skill. The soldier fell to the floor.
Terry read for hours, and found himself staring at the back cover of the book. The sun had rolled into the afternoon sky, casting dappled patches of shade around Terry’s stump. The temperature was well into the eighties, even in the shade, and Terry was beginning to feel irritation at being left reading all day. He got up and resumed his circuit of the cabin. As he rounded the third corner, he found himself face to face with Kirk. Terry shouted a wordless sound from the shock, and jumped back several feet.
Kirk smiled at him and said, “Practice makes perfect, right?”
“That’s what they say,” Terry replied as he willed his heart to stop racing.
“What do you say?”
“Well, I think generally that’s right, but some people have a knack for things, and don’t need any practice at all,” Terry said, wondering where this was going.
“You read the book,” Kirk said it as a statement.
“Yes.”
“What was it about?”
“I think it was about what it means to be human, and that what it means to be human is what you believe it means,” Terry said without thinking.
“Good answer. Want a beer?”
“Ok... Thanks.” Terry was completely off balance. He didn’t know what he expected, but this wasn’t it.
“Cool. Let’s sit on the porch.” Kirk set off toward the front of the cabin.
Terry followed along, and sat in the rocking chair Kirk indicated as he went inside. He came out with two oversized brown bottles, and handed one to Terry before he slid the other chair around to face the young man.
“So, Terry. I bet you though we were going to do pushups or something, right?”
“Something like that. I thought you were going to ambush me on the way in.”
“I could have, but I find it’s not considered polite.”
“So, the whole day was about the book?” Terry asked.
“No. It’s about this conversation, but I find the book is a good way to start,” Kirk replied.
“That explains why it seems so beat up.”
“That was the book I had in the car when the Breakdown happened. I stuck it in my pack and kept it all these years. For a while I figured it was the last civilized thing I would ever have,” Kirk said.
“Wow. Bill’s been telling me about the beginning.” Terry said.
“Yeah, he told me. You should count it as a privilege.”
“I do. I look forward to each new piece.” Terry replied.
“Good. He also tells me you ask good questions.”
“I just ask whatever comes to mind.”
“That was kinda my point.” Kirk said. “I bet the way he tells it, I was a monster child from beyond the grave.”
“A little bit, but every time he does, he also says that your family would never have made it without you.” Terry agreed.
“That’s nice to hear, because there were plenty of times I wished I could be someone else.” Kirk said with a wistful tone. He took a long swig of his beer.
“What? Everyone thinks you’re a hero. They speak your name in whispers.”
“Seems like you’re heading that way, yourself. You should have heard Rob’s version of Nashville.” Kirk grinned and took another sip.
“Yeah, they’ve been comparing me to you since that day.” Terry said respectfully.
“Well, don’t be me.”
“Ok. Why not? You seem like a good guy to have around.”
“Oh, I have my uses, but I gave up a lot to be me.” Kirk kicked his chair into a steady rocking motion.
“Now you’ll have to explain,” Terry said, settling in for a story.
“I was a weird kid who seemed normal. I did all the stuff that cool kids do but I spent my time reading all kinds of science fiction. The one thing I learned from reading all those wild stories was what you learned in one day. Being human is what you believe it is. Once the Breakdown had us living in the woods, I took all those stories and came up with my own version of our new reality. In my reality, we were in deep shit. I didn’t know the details. Dad came up with those. I did know that people had become the biggest threat, and as a kid, I didn’t have any subtlety. I believed that anyone who came too close was probably out to get us. Once I got that far, the idea of killing those people wasn’t too hard.
Over time, I got a little smarter and realized that if I cultivated the reputation of being a killer, then I could do less killing. The hard part was to pretend that it didn’t affect me. It did. I remember every last life I took, and I’d bet that you will too.”
“Yeah,” Terry said. “I do.”
“From what I hear, you probably remember each face changing as the bullet hits, and every spent round coming out of your gun, every falling body. You go into high speed, and it looks like everyone else has slowed down.”
“That’s it. What does it mean?” Terry asked.
“I’ll get to that. As people joined us, I found deeper ways to build my reputation. I live alone. I never took a wife. In fact, you’ll never see me with a woman. I speak in very short sentences in front of people to make myself more mysterious. I always stepped up first when there was killing to be done, so here I am, a lonely old man with a deadly legend. It’s not worth it, Terry.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I’m telling you because I’m going to tell you everything I know about controlling your special gift, and I don’t want you to let it ruin your life.”
“Then why teach me anything at all?”
“You are a resource. We don’t waste anything around here, and wasting your talents would be a loss to the community. It looks like we’re going to need every resource we can get. I’m being honest with you. Bill would love nothing more than to turn you into him, so he can feel comfortable with retiring. I’d love nothing more than to turn you into me, so that I can stop being the community death machine. The truth is, if we survive the summer, you may need to be a better version of both of us.”
“No pressure, huh?” Terry said, and drank about half his beer.
Kirk laughed and said, “No, because you are already everything you need to be. All you lack is the belief.”
“What? How do you know?” Terry’s voice was climbing higher with his alarm.
“Listen, you already know that Dusty’s main job is to keep an eye on Manchester, right?”
“Yeah, I picked that up somewhere along the way” Terry replied, settling down just a bit.
“Well the most important part of his job, short of raising the alarm, is watching for kids who show promise. In your case, he knew you were a good student and a good communicator just by talking to some friends of his. He knew you were strong and fit from watching you come and go during the summer work season. But the thing that threw it over the top was when he saw you get into a fight with that bully, Joe Slidell, and his cronies, out behind the grain elevator.”
“Ah, those jerks. They were on me for months,” Terry said with a note of disgust.
“Yep, you tried to ignore them. Then you tried to deal with them, which just makes bullies more obnoxious. Finally, one of those boys waited until you were in a corner, and threw a rock at you.”
“Yeah. He hit me in the head.”