//------------------------------// // Interlude... // Story: A Man out of Place // by Thanatoaster //------------------------------// It was hot. Like really, really hot. Hotter than it's been in Florida for years, they were saying. And boy was I feeling it. Hottest week of the year, highest recorded temperature in decades, and of course it had to be the week that the air conditioning breaks. I would be cursing God, or the universe, or Murphy's Law if I could, but it was just too damn hot to do anything at all except lay about. "Kind of like a reverse cryostasis," I slurred to the pile of fur next to me. "Hibernating through the summer." "Rawrf..." Strider answered in a groan that could maybe be construed as a bear impression. "You said it, buddy," I mumbled to the doggy-shaped puddle. Black fur coats and Florida heat do not a happy dog make. I had opened almost every door and window available, turned every fan in the house up as high as they would go, and taken refuge with my dog on the cool tile floor of the kitchen. Even still, he looked like a half-melted lump of misery, so I shored up his sides with freezer blocks and baggies of ice to keep him from completely liquefying and getting stuck under the fridge. I was feeling a bit like a semisolid myself, under my own bags of ice and frozen vegetables, but I didn't have a heavy coat to deal with like Strider did, so I had no room (or energy) to complain. I realized there were sounds coming from the living room. Must've left the TV on. No point in wasting the effort to turn it off. It gave me something to listen to while I counted the dots on the ceiling, at least. "What did Forensics say?" I heard a raspy, youngish voice ask. "Is that Steve Blum? Judas Priest, the guy's in everything." "Vic's under sedation," an older voice answered. "Lost a lot of blood. Luckily, one of the officers on-site had medical training, and they weren't too far from the hospital." "Huh. Old Cop sounds like Commissioner Gordon. Who voiced him, again?" "Any ideas about the motive yet?" Young Cop asked. "Oh, right, Bob Hastings. Wait, didn't he...?" "I don't think there was a motive," Old Cop said. "Don't think there was- you goin' blind, bub?" Young Cop's voice sounded indignant. "Yeah, Bob Hastings died last year. Was it last year? Ugh, too hot to think." "You saw everything I saw, kid." Old Cop's tone made me think this was a familiar sort of argument between them. "Victim was startled, the morphine drip tore loose, the painkillers did their job and the jacket hid the blood until the situation got out of hand. It was all an accident." "Those freaks assaulted him," Young Cop growled. "Wow, racist much?" "Those people are the reason he's still breathing," Old Cop stressed, and I could hear the glare he was leveling. "And I wouldn't exactly call what that girl did 'assault'." Young Cop tried to say something but Old Cop cut him off. "Aw come on, kid. Was there really anything about that girl that screamed 'dangerous assailant' to you? Honestly? "Well no, but-" "But nothing," Old Cop cut in again. "Hell, the girl looked like she needed a copy of Social Interaction for Dummies." "Okay, smart guy," Young Cop said. "Fine. If this is an accident, then how do you explain those mind games or whatever the hell they were?" "I've been thinking about that," Old Cop said. "Of course you have," Young Cop drawled. "First off," Old Cop said harshly, "I'm thinking the Lady did us a favor, knocking Victim out like that-" Young Cop scoffed. "Favor my pasty, white-" "And if you took that chip off your shoulder and actually used your head for once, you'd see where I was coming from," Old Cop finished. "Think about it. With the state Victim was in, heart rate up in the triple digits, there's no way they could have gotten him to a doctor before he bled out. But the Lady knocks him out, his mind stops stressing his body, his heart rate lowers, and he's that much more likely to survive." "Since when is 'victim' a proper noun?" "Right, okay, so maybe bein' unconscious saved Victim's life," Young Cop said. "Maybe. But they coulda' put him to sleep easier than that. No way it was intentional." "My point exactly," Old Cop said evenly. "Whatcha talkin' bout, Willis?" "Mind dumbing it down for the audience, hoss?" Young Cop said. "Man, Steve Blum's a real jerk in this show." "Am not." "Wait whu?-" "Look," Old Cop said. "According to record, Victim experienced something like the incidents in question once before, to a lesser extent. On his first day in the hospital." "...So?" Young Cop might have shrugged. "So, that's three different times that something like this has happened. Now, of the things that each incident had in common to explain how or why they happened, only one is making much sense right now: Victim's exposure to our hosts'... 'unusual abilities'." "And suddenly whatever I'm listening to switches genres from Starsky & Hutch to Supernatural." "Right, so, where does that leave us?" Young Cop asked. "In the dark with a wet match," Old Cop sighed. "And a lot of questions. We don't have enough information to act on. There are too many things that are still unclear here. We need to start getting some answers, one way or another, before we can-" ~)O(~ "Wait. What was that?" Young Cop said. "What was wh-" ~)O(~ "That!" Young Cop shouted. "Something's coming. Go, wake the kid up! We have to get him out of here," Old Cop was starting to sound pretty nervous. "Hurry, we don't have much-ksssshhhh--- Whatever Old Cop didn't have much of was swallowed up by static. "Aw. It was just getting good, too." Someone shouted at me from less than a foot away. "Get up!" "Glah!" I sat up quickly, sending a half-open bag of peas rolling across the tile. I whipped my head around, looking for whoever had walked into my house, but the only ones there were me and Strider. Who was looking me in the eye. And talking. "You have to get up," Strider said. "Now!" I laughed. I laughed right in his furry face. "Ruh-roh, Raggy!" I giggled, "Looks like I'm havin' me some fever visions." "This isn't a hallucination," Strider said, "it's a dream. And you need to wake up!" "Like, Zoinks, Man!" I chuckled. "Maybe I should lay off the Scooby Snacks before bed." "What, are you dense?" Said the very same animal I had seen lick carpets for fun. "Are you retarded or something? There is something bad out there that wants to do bad things to you. GET. UP. AND. LEAVE!" "Hey, this is my dream," I said with narrowed eyes. "I don't have to sit here and be insulted with an All Star Batman reference, by my own freaking dog no less." "It's almost here, you don't have time for this!" Strider barked. (Ha, get it?) "WAKE--" "My, My..." The sound of static dropped away, replaced by a woman's smooth, terribly fascinating voice. I suddenly felt very small and alone. I looked around; my talking not-dog was nowhere to be found. "S-strider? Here, boy..." No answer. One by one the light from each window was suddenly, almost violently, rendered absent. It was as if some giant, nebulous hand had covered my entire house, ready to crush it like a robin's egg. I was left in the darkness; cold, alone, and too scared to even breathe. "... What an interesting little creature you are," the voice purred... an inch from my left ear.