The apartment - such as it was - was the only home Danny'd ever known. Mostly he'd be the only one there though his father did appear at regular if occasionally erratic intervals. Sometimes the old man would appear with company - which might be drinking buddies, might be female ... or might be both - but most often not.
Danny was vaguely aware that he'd had a mother ... but wasn't really sure who or when even although his dad did talk about her. The only problem was ... the old man was never sober when he talked about her - nor was he coherent on such occasions. The end result was that Danny had a vague image of someone - he often imaged she must have looked like an actress ... or maybe a singer - and a still vaguer memory of being cuddled although these memories were mixed with more recent recollections of affections bestowed - if not always welcome - by visiting females.
Danny wasn't really sure whether he welcomed such visitors or not. Besides, some of them were snoopy, asking too many questions and polking around too much ... and Danny had his own secrets.
For one so young - in years, at least - Danny was carefully methodical. Crouching below the sink, he slid his arm inside the wall and, a moment later, extracted a plastic box which had once held bandaids. A second reach produced a lidless peanut butter jar holding a single plastic hypodermic.
Danny remained where he was while he emptied his pockets, producing handfuls of small ziplock bags - each holding a measured quantity of fine powder, off-white in color.
The bandaid box wasn't big enough for more than a fraction of the stash.
Danny looked around, considering, before he selected a crumpled shopping bag and stuffed the remaining baggies inside. The resulting bundle fitted into the wall cavity well enough ... but wouldn't stay.
A few minutes later, a pizza box - torn into rough strips - provided braces, wedging the package into place, safely out of sight. The bandaid box - after two of small bags had been removed - followed the larger stash.
Danny slid out from under the sink, carrying the open jar and hypodermic. A cupboard yielded a bottle of bleach while the boy's jacket produced another needle. The boy poured a quantity of bleach into the jar, then repeatedly filled and emptied the two hypos, finishing by replacing the bleach with water before rinsing the instruments.
In Danny's neighborhood, the instructions for a safe fix were distributed in four-color process comics ... with the consequences of not doing so illustrated more graphicly than accurately. Still, even without the warnings, Danny had seen more than a few of the consequences ... and, even when he had it bad, Danny wasn't stupid.
Both hypos showed the signatures of repeated use, the measuring marks partially worn from the plastic barrels. One of the needles was kinked, showing where it had been bent and badly straightened.
"Bunker'll swap," Danny suggested to himself, "least dozen fresh spikes f'dime bag."
Still, a spike in hand was better'n nothing. Danny wrapped the two hypos in a scrap of plastic before returning them and the emptied jar to his hiding place. Last, he distributed the remaining baggies to opposite pockets.
His necessities arranged, Danny stretched to his full height - which, for an eleven-year-old, was less than it might have been had he eaten better ... and more regularly. But, for once, there was no rush. Bunker wouldn't be out 'til later ... and, for now, he'd eaten ... he'd fixed ... he could relax.
Leaving the kitchen, Danny extracted a couple of tattered comics from under the sofa which doubled as his bed and lay down with his back to the barely transparent window.
Moments later, his lips moving slowly, the Black Arrow set out to battle the forces of evil.
It was dark when Jeremy awoke again. He still felt sick ... and very, very weak ... but he was at least dry. And hot, he realized, struggling to shift the heavy covering. The effort exhausted him further and consciousness departed.
The next time Jeremy's eyes opened, it was still dark but now he felt cold. He struggled to pull the covers tighter before lapsing back to sleep.
The third time Jeremy awoke - or it could have been the thirtieth - he didn't move. Physically, he felt better - neither hot nor cold - but still too weak to move. "Still dark", he thought. "Where am I?" When he tried to repeat the question aloud, his lips cracked stiffly and his voice was inaudible. He didn't attempt to move.
Jeremy remembered the fire ... and, vaguely, the flaming figure ... and attempting to stop the fire as well. "My mistake," he gasped. "But did I survive?" Tears seem to come from somewhere - but tears for what, he wasn't sure.
Finally, the tears stopped. Finished or simply exhausted, he wasn't sure. In either case, he lacked the strength to wipe them away.
Jeremy moved his hands, feeling the fabric around him. The texture was slick but padded. "Sleeping bag," he realized. "I'm in the cave." Of course it was dark. The lantern would be hanging by the door. Jeremy started to ignite it from where he lay, then hesitated - was there any kerosene left?
"Should be", he decided, "and there's more in the can. But I don't have the energy to fill it." Maybe it could wait until he felt better.
Outside, the rains had returned.
While hunger and thirst ran a close second and third, more than anything else, Jeremy felt stiff.
He tried to move, feeling as if the weight of ages hung on every limb. His legs, especially, felt clumsy and immobile. Finally disengaging himself from the mummy bag, he discovered that his boots were half the problem. The other half was the heavy load of mud - now dried and cracking - which encased each.
Shakily erect, he fumbled for the lantern, finding it by touch before, hesitantly, igniting the wick. The wick flickered, then settled to a strong yellow flame, illuminating and warming the chamber. Jeremy leaned against the door for a long moment, savoring the change from darkness to light.
"Food," he croaked, then wavered as he shook his head. "No, drink something," he decided and knelt to fumble through one of the plastic cartons supporting his makeshift bed. His hand reappeared with a pop-top can. "Root beer?" He hesitated, then sat on the bench and popped the opener.
The soda pop tasted too sweet, too warm and too wonderful. Jeremy forced himself to drink slowly - a caution which repaid itself when his stomach lurched at the sudden arrival of carbonated nutrients.
Ten minutes later, he finished the can and fumbled for another, this time producing, first, a cola and then a half-finished jar of peanut butter and a bag of crackers. The crackers were stale ... and delicious. Jeremy munched slowly, gratefully dipping globs from the peanut butter between crackers and washing both down with the second and then a third soda pop.
The third soda - another root beer, which he really didn't like - was only half-finished when a new need asserted itself.
Outside, the rain had weakened to a scant drizzle - scarcely stronger than Jeremy felt. He crouched behind the blackberry brambles to relieve himself.
It was night still - or again - and overcast. Further, a fog had rolled up the river, muffling the already dark night and silencing both the river and the occasional vehicle below, identifiable only by the passing glow of their headlights.
For the first time, Jeremy looked at his watch. 8 PM. The date display suggested he'd been unconscious for the better part of a day and a half. "Wonderful," he muttered. "Now what." Suddenly the memory of the rubble, seen by moon light the night before, returned, bringing with it a flood of tears.
Inside again, tears gave way to sleep.
When Jeremy awoke next, the lantern was out, fuel exhausted. He fumbled for the kerosene, then refilled the lantern by touch. The return of the yellow glow brought a feeling of relief, a return to a normalcy of sorts.
"Can't stay here," he decided the obvious, then had to choke back another spate of tears.
He spent several long minutes taking inventory. The 'pantry' yielded another cola and a bag that was more crumbs than cookies. He ate them anyway, grateful even for the burnt gumdrops. One of the ammo chests yielded his life savings - a respectable forty-three dollars in US currency and a scattering of coins from a half-dozen nations.
"Later," he decided, returning the coins to the box before tucking the bills into his wallet along with his ATM card - a necessity for shopping, considering Mrs. Gerrity's memory. The leather card folder also held a worn picture of his mother, a more recent snapshot of Dad and a social security card - legacy of his occasional summer employment and the vagaries of the U. S. Government. The wallet was returned to one hip pocket while his passport, bearing stamps and imprints in multiple languages filled the other.
An entry error in the passport office had added two years to Jeremy's age - a mistake which Jeremy had not called to anyone's attention and which, therefore, remained uncorrected. To the young, two years of maturity - even on paper - are no small gift. In school, Jeremy was still 14 but, once abroad, maturity was judged by other standards and Jeremy, acting mature, passed accordingly - the passport was simply his talisman.
The second ammo box was heavier if less important. Inside was an assortment of minutae; souvenirs from various travels, momentos of friends, a valentine from a girl he'd had a crush on in the sixth grade, another from the seventh - they'd both broken his heart when they'd moved away - a flaked arrowhead with a broken tip, a curious birds nest woven from fishing line ... as relics, they covered a lifetime but none were important enough to carry. They'd be safe here.
The same went for a dozen or more paperbacks, a gutted telephone, miscellaneous parts from a clock, an adding machine and a battery radio - not that radio worked very well here anyway. The book, Jeremy wrapped in a scrap of plastic before sealing the bundle in a zip lock bag and tucking the bag inside his shirt. That was important.
Huck Finn went in the backpack together with two school books and his notebooks and his pen and compass set. This done, there wasn't much left. The folded blankets and mud-smeared sleeping bag could stay. The lantern he'd need to get down to the road.
He could catch a ride back into Guerneville, he decided, and check on Mrs. Gerrity. Then, if the phones weren't out, he'd try to call Dad's company and get a message through.
Ready, he extinguished the lantern, refilled it by touch and then lit it again.
Outside the shelter of the cave, the lantern turned the brambles into a mass of shadows. Jeremy worked his way along the hidden path until he reached the usual opening ... except that there wasn't any. The forked pole was still on the ground along the wall where he'd placed it before discovering the fire. Jeremy halted, frustrated, looking for the right comment. Finally, he settled for a piece of Arabic more appropriate to camels than brambles.
Of course, even in Arabic, it was only words and had no more effect on the brambles than it had had years earlier - when he'd first heard it - on the camels. It was, however, as Twain had described, "mighty relieving of the feelings."
Curses done, he pulled the forked support further into the thorny passage, then used the stick to force the brambles up until he could slip past. Getting the support down again - from the new angle - was harder than usual but, finally, the pole lay concealed in its customary place.
Working his way down the slippery path, Jeremy paused where he had before, by the old, fire-burned stump. This time, the fog lay thick below and clouds above with nothing visible. "That's okay," he decided. "I don't think I want to see." Jeremy resumed his trek, reaching the dirt road where it started down hill, bypassing the house - or its remains - entirely.
The sloping track was rougher than usual. "Fire trucks again," he decided and moved to the up-hill side of the road, picking his way carefully.
The trip from the house to the main road was only a quarter mile but darkness and damp made slow going. Or, perhaps, Jeremy's debility also contributed. In either case, the trip seemed to take forever and, several times, Jeremy had stopped to peer owlishly into the darkness behind him. Each time, there was nothing there ... at least, nothing that could be seen. Still, the feeling remained ... of something following.
Descending the rutted track, the fog - thick to begin with - thickened further as if to emulate a damp, woolly blanket, muffling sight, sound and touch. Jeremy's feet recognized pavement but the kerosene lantern showed only mists while a vague yellow glow bespoke the presence of a single street lamp.
Next to the lamp pole, as Jeremy knew, a school bus shelter offered a place to sit. Still tired, Jeremy shrugged off his pack, placing it at the end of the shelf where it would serve as a cushion. The lantern - Jeremy extinguished it manually, the memory of his earlier attempt was still fresh in his mind - went under the bench.
Settling back against the pack, Jeremy watched the road - or the fog - and hoped it wouldn't be a long wait to catch a ride. The fog, of course, would keep traffic light but River Road was the main route - very nearly, the only route - from Santa Rosa and the Interstate out to the coast.
Uncomfortable as his position was, Jeremy kept finding himself nodding off. Finally, he shoved himself off the bench, stomping out to lean against the lamp post.
After what seemed like an eternity - Jeremy had never had to wait long for a ride before - without a single vehicle, he peered at his watch. The fog seemed to swallow even the faint light behind the digital display. The time was nearly three in the morning - five hours since he'd last checked! Then he remembered - he'd slept again.
Finally, a glow appeared through the fog ... except it was coming from Guerneville, not going toward it.
Jeremy made a fast decision, reaching for the lantern as it ignited in response to his unvoiced command, and then stepping out into the fog. Guerneville wasn't very big and, by three AM would be shut and asleep. He'd hitch a ride toward town instead. There was an all-night truckstop where he could get some food - real food. In the morning, he could catch the bus and return.
Obligingly, the lights slowed, revealing a truck / trailer rig braking to a halt. "What's the problem," the driver called, leaning out of the cab.
"No problem, sir." Jeremy responded. "But I'd appreciate a lift in to Santa Rosa."
"Humph," the trucker considered for a moment. "Sure, climb in - but you'll have to douse the lantern, okay?"
"Thanks," Jeremy agreed, extinguishing the flame. "I'd rather leave it here anyway." He placed the lantern inside the shelter, then crossed and climbed in the far side of the cab. Inside, a country-western tape was wailing about how somebody had done someone wrong. "Got to meet someone at the truckstop," Jeremy temporized.
"Good enough," the driver agreed without curiosity. "Make yourself comfortable. But keep those muddy shoes off the seat, okay?" He reached for the gear shift, sending the truck into motion again.
Jeremy shifted his pack and settled back, wedged between the door and the seat. While trying to decide whether to make sense of the music or just ignore it, he fell asleep again, lulled by the warmth and rocked by the gentle motion of the eighteen wheeler.
Danny wasn't sure where he was ... mostly everything seemed confused ... nothing was quite right but neither was there anything exactly wrong either. Slowly bits and pieces were returning but it didn't make sense.
He wasn't even sure where he was. It looked familiar ... but different as well.
He remembered scoring - scoring big. It had felt good! That much he remembered.
And he'd stashed - inside the wall behind the sink ... but where had it come from? He must have ripped someone, he'd never seen that much power flower even when he'd been muling. He'd scored a real bundle - his whenever he wanted.
Yeah ... and he'd gone to trade for new spikes ... who? Bunker? Had he seen Bunker? He couldn't remember ... but he remembered where he'd scored. Remembered part of it anyway. He'd ripped the Flash Boys ... Yeah, that was a real high - rippin' t' Flash Boys. And then he'd ...
Yeah, that was it ... he'd headed home. It had been the day the checks came - knowing his 'old man' would be out on the tiles, he'd headed home. So where was he now?
It looked kind of like home. The room looked familiar ... but not quite right. Man, was this some weird junk he'd scored? Was that it?
Then he remembered the Flash Boys again. Yeah, that was right. He'd found them ... or they'd found him. Didn't matter. Man, they must have worked on him something fierce. Maybe that was it.
Funny, he'd figured if they caught him, they'd probably kill him. Flash Boys didn't take being ripped lightly. Now how the hell had he gotten away? Couldn't remember. Damn, what a lousy thing to forget. Maybe it was the junk ...
That was funny too ... he didn't feel high ... and he didn't feel down - not like when the jones was climbing him. He felt ... he didn't feel much of anything. No down side? Well, that was good smack.
"How much 'ave I got," he wondered, muttering to himself. He felt for his pockets and found nothing. "Must have dropped it," he turned around, looking.
That was when he saw the body ... his body ... crumpled just inside the door.
"Wake up, kid." The voice was soft and a hand was caressing him.
"Huh?" Jeremy came awake, peering around. "Where are we? This isn't ..." Outside, the world was that special dark which suggests that dawn will follow shortly. But, wherever it was, it wasn't the truckstop.
"Gave you an extra lift, kid. See'n as you're running away and all. Now, let's get friendly, okay?" A hand was fumbling at Jeremy's jacket.
"Stop that," Jeremy came awake suddenly. "Look, thanks for the lift but I can walk from here, okay?" He twisted to reach for the door handle.
"Not so fast, kid," the man's grip tightened. "First we have fun. Then you can go. You owe me."
The words sent a chill through Jeremy as images and lectures at school coalesced into a hard lump of bitter knowledge. "No way," he shouted. "Let me go."
"Rough or easy, doesn't matter," the trucker continued. "I like it both ways ... maybe you will too." His grip pulled Jeremy further into the cab.
"NO!" Jeremy shouted louder, punctuating the words with a non-physical twist of something that wasn't there - just as he had done to Tully two days and a lifetime ago. In the silence that followed, coins and miscellany could be heard clattering to the floor in the cab.
"I don't know what," the man's voice was slow and menacing, "or how you did that but now you owe me double ... and rough-trade it is."
"No!" Jeremy's protest wasn't as loud this time - he was concentrating harder on something else.
Somewhere inside the man - inside his chest - a tiny fragment of a half-dozen fibers vanished in a brief bubble only to be dissipated by the turbulent fluids surrounding. The remainder of the fibers - under constant and flexing tension for four decades - suddenly whipped freely, lashing with residual energy against others still valiantly working at their ceaseless tasks. If the missing fragments would have weighed in micrograms, the results were none the less impressive.
The man's grip loosened suddenly, an abrupt and pained expression twisting his face into a mask of sheer terror. Even as the trucker clutched desperately and futilely at his chest, Jeremy was out the door, his knapsack half-off and slapping against his side.
Outside, the dark was not as complete as it had seemed. The sky was more gray than black and the location appeared to be a trucker's pull-off. A scattering of other trucks were present, several with engines idling and running lights offering a festive air to an otherwise desolate patch of byway. Off to the left, traffic was light but steady - a freeway, maybe I-5. Off to the right, at some distance, a fence separated the rest stop from a narrower, two-lane highway. Probably a local access road.
Jeremy settled his pack in place and trotted toward the barrier and road beyond.
He was clear of the trucks, running cautiously across the brushy strip toward the fence when a voice spoke behind him: "Hey, you one ice honky, bro!" He faltered in midstep as he turned to look but there was no-one there. Jeremy ran faster.
He was almost over the far fence when, behind him, a flash and roar of flames lit the sky.
In the Golden Nugget, Las Vegas, the town that never sleeps, Steve was up early. The Computer Imaging Conference wouldn't start for a couple of hours yet - in the mean time, he might as well have breakfast. First, however, curiosity had carried him through the casino where a mixture of die-hards and early birds were keeping a few tables active.
He still had twenty or so chips in his pocket from the night before but it was impulse which stopped him by the roulette wheel. Roulette was for suckers - the house had an automatic 5.3% cut built-in, he estimated.
Suddenly he extracted the chips from his pocket, spilling them on 00, motioning with a complex and curious gesture. The croupier released the ball.
Moments later, Steve was more than seven hundred dollars to the good but the puzzled expression remained on his face for hours and recurred, at intervals, for weeks afterwards.
In Hawaii, where it was still late night, a convenience store clerk paused, laying her newspaper aside and pulling a gun from a box beneath the counter. As she checked the cylinder, the man outside paused, then turned and walked quickly away.
Closing the cylinder, the clerk replaced the gun and returned to reading about the latest miracle diet and the doings of Britain's 'royals', forgetting the interruption without a further thought.
In a small village in the Sudan, Mufsta Selene paused, then reached for a different spice box, adding a generous amount to the batter with a special twist. The fry bread was the best her family had ever tasted.
As weeks passed, her breads became the talk of villages and camps for scores of miles in all directions and her kitchen expanded to become a bake shop with a singular specialty.
Later, when she was denounced for witchcraft - by a jealous neighbor who had tried, unsuccessfully, to steal her secret - she was defended by the Iman himself who spoke of her as a generous and devout woman well known for her charitable generosity. And why not? Was not the Iman himself one of her regular customers? Or perhaps the Iman knew far more of human secrets than was good for any save a saint.
Still, it was true and, as time passed and she grew older, Allah was good to her. Even when the arthritis was bad, that special gesture that made such a difference did not fail her. But it was also hers alone - no one else seemed to be able to learn, not even her daughters ... because, no matter how hard she tried to explain, there simply were no words.
In London, a woman suddenly remembered where the missing silver tea pot had been buried ... nearly three centuries before.
In Tel Aviv, Rabbi Shalmi quickly sketched the outline for a story which might well have earned recognition as the greatest Jewish novel of all time ... had he not left the notes buried on his desk while hurrying to the market on an errand for his wife. Twelve years later, on his death, the desk was finally cleaned but the notes were swept, unread, into the wastebasket.
Elsewhere, others reacted in less significant fashions.
Across the fence, Jeremy stopped, looking back. The truck he had ridden in ... at least, he thought it was the one ... was engulfed in flames. In the midst of the flames, a shape danced, capering, arms waving as if one flame were fanning the rest. Something about the figure was familiar ... but it was not the trucker ... definitely not.
Nor was the fire any of Jeremy's doing.
He stood for a long instant, watching, rooted in his tracks until, at last, a cold shudder restored volition. Jeremy turned again and ran ... and ran ... and ran as if the hounds of hell themselves were on his trail.