Force

I’m Like a Bird The World Is My Toilet

  I’m dumbfounded staring at the smooth, unpeirced skin of my stomach.

  It felt so real but there isn’t a mark on me.

  My Demron suit is scraped around the midsection and back but isn’t punctured either. The truck gored me, didn’t it? Was I dreaming? How else could I be skewered by a garbage truck in an alley and wake up in another plane?

  Speaking of, I better get a look around.

  Traffic on the road beside me is at a standstill.

  I recognize the bustling roadway, of course. It’s the same one I stood on when those DHS agents chased from my home world. This confuses me even more because not only should I be dead, but Abi-Two’s town was a small community called Woodlake, which lies east of rinky-dink Ivanhoe, near the foot of the Sierras.

  It makes no sense because most of the time I spent in that slow, ancient world, before I met the boy Abi-Two is convinced was a young Daemon, I was walking south. How did I end up northeast of where I started? And even better, how did I die and still make it back, alive in L.A.?

  Is there some sort of tectonic shift differential—like the time differential—that Eli’s unaware of? How else did I survive and wake up in another plane so far from where I should be? Either the stones have brought me here or I’ve lost all sense of direction. Or both.

  Six lanes of traffic stretch for miles in what I want to call the North and South bound lanes. Drivers stare at computer screens in all shapes and sizes. A few have gone old school reading books or magazines, but everybody is occupying themselves during the traffic jam.

  A little round face pops up in the window of an idling minivan a few car lengths ahead. I wave and he stares for a minute before shooting his sippee cup at the glass.

  The fence behind me is the same chain link masked by tall, unkempt trees. Between the drooping branches, I spot the telltale indentions of name plates and headstones in the crisp grass.

  It feels like a life time since I saw this road, walked its’ pavement. It may well have been another life.

  I don’t remember any gateway opening. I don’t think home even entered my mind. Maybe the truck backing into me triggered the stones protective instincts. I clutch the rubber pouch filled with three mysterious rocks and wonder if my instincts are correct—that I really am back in my own dimension—I feel like I am. All instincts tell me that I am.

  My little peak beneath the zipper sends idling engines into an uproar that quiets the second my bag is closed again. It makes me smile.

  I don’t know or why, but I’m damn glad to be home.

  On the other side of the fence, the cemetery grass is wet. The air is as clean as it ever gets in the fall.

  I make my way towards the cannon. Carrie’s marker is there, laden with fresh wild flowers. The familiar ache from that far away day in October brings my whispered apology. Not just for the accident, but for not appreciating her. I try to take comfort in knowing that even though I didn’t save her, I saved someone like her. I pray that it means something.

  Dad’s right beside her and the sight of his simple headstone brings me to my knees.

  I lay my palm on the white, marble rectangle that bears only his initials and the year he died. There’s no photograph like my sisters headstone. No cherubs or poetry for the old man. Just a simple white marker so that anyone who bothers looking—mourners or stray teenagers with nothing better to do than hang out in a cemetery and get high—will know that someone is resting here.

  I sit between them for a moment, leaning on Carrie’s arched stone, and think, I’ll wait for the sickness to fade. But it’s not there.

  I don’t feel like puking. I’m not dizzy or chased by that fog that’s always on my brain after a breach. In fact, I feel fine.

  I wonder what it means and realize I’ll never get any answers if I don’t get to Eli.

  The streets on the other side of the cemetery are exactly as they should be—alive and noisy, reeking of wonderful exhaust and profanity. Everyone is busy and no one wants to be bothered. The clouds lazily hanging overhead are that dull haze, a smear of blue coated in yellow smog.

  And even though the swarms of people are comfortably ignoring me, I have to be careful. When I left there was a neon sign hanging over my head, pointing with a gigantic cartoony finger—Look! A domestic terrorist!

  I wonder how long it’s been since I left; if they’re still running my picture on the nightly news, and take minute to dig out my baseball cap.

  Eli’s neighborhood is quiet. Hardly any cars on the road and not a single black SUV parked anywhere. Of the few compact cars that pass, the drivers are keeping their eyes on the road, hands on the wheel at ten and two, exactly like they’re supposed to—stuffy, cultured people with popped collars and designer educations obeying all traffic laws.

  Other than the fact that I’m at the top of America’s Most Wanted list, I’m not sure why I feel so self-conscious. Abi-Two cleaned up my hair and beard so I don’t stand out. Maybe it’s because I don’t like the looks of the people in the cars. They look like the kind of jerks I would’ve teased in high school—the type of assholes I’ve spent most of my adult life working for.

  Eli should fit that category, but he doesn’t. Our reunion might have revolved around the three rocks but beyond that necessary partnership, there’s friendship. He’s got this rocket ship high IQ, but he doesn’t make me feel stupid. I do that on my own.

  I’ve only been outside Eli’s house three times, only one of those times took place in the day. Staring into passing yards, I recall the time I spent there. How I hated it, I felt like a prisoner, trying to prepare for something I was sure I’d never live through and grieving for my dad. Neither chore is finished yet, but worlds later, I’ve seen and done so many things, and now I’m heading up his street.

  Every day since that first accident I’ve struggled with why. And there are millions—why me, why now, why here? Why do the Threestone exist? Why did Damon kill my father? Why did he try to kill me? Why does Abi-Two think I need to knock off every version of him?

  Is that what it’s going to take to stop him? And if it is, how do I find him again?

  And what is so special about my alternate that he got Abi to marry him?

  I have to pause on the last question.

  I know the answer. It’s because of how stupid I was and how bad I treated her. I asked her to marry me so I could have a place to stay. She said yes, and twelve hours later she’d figured me out. I spent the next night in my car, parked in front of her house, pretending like I didn’t care.

  That’s what it is right there, I think with sudden and perfect clarity. Her issues are my problem. My problem has always been lying to her. Repeatedly. My intention was never to fool or trick her, though I did plenty of that towards the end. My motives were deeper; probably rooted in the dysfunctional estrangement from my mother. Lying was protection from the hurt that I knew Abi would ultimately inflict. Lying kept her at a distance.

  She’s the greatest thing that has ever happened to me and I’m an idiot. I always pushed her away and then regretted it later on. The more I wanted to be with her, the further she went. And then I blamed her.

  I’ve had a lot of girlfriends. Actually, girlfriend is a loose interpretation. Most were just girls I spent time with, ones that never really stuck. Abi is singular. There’s something about the way she pushes her hair back from her face, how she smiles to herself when she doesn’t know I’m looking. The way she tries to hide her habit of popping her knuckles. That silly grin whenever she has something to tell me. The way that she knows exactly what I need without having to ask.

  I never give her enough credit. All she ever wanted from me was honesty. And for some reason, that is the one hurdle I could never clear. Because of it, she won’t allow herself to trust me and I can’t blame her. She’s stuck by me through so much, has always been willing to help me, to help my dad. She burrowed her way inside and it’s ta
ken me going through all of this shit to realize how badly I screwed us up.

  There hasn’t been a car on the street in what feels like 10 minutes, then again, it seems the sun has moved from mid-sky to dusk in the time it’s taken me to go five miles, so what the hell do I know about measuring time.

  As I reflected my way through the neighborhood, I searched each window I came across. As well as I could, without raising suspicion. I mean, I don’t want to look like a stalker or some sort of weirdo creeper. So, I had to look around without really looking like I was. But from what I could tell, everybody was busy or gone.

  I stop at the edge of the white picket fence surrounding Eli’s house. Climbing ivy on the trellis is overgrown. Yellow roses along the fence line look immaculate in full bloom. The grass is green, not as green as it could be, but it still looks nice. Excitement pushes me through the gate, over the grass, across the cobblestone path that divides the lawn, and onto the front porch.