*Beepbeepbeepbeepbeep!*
Reaching for the phone in his pocket, Daniel noticed a picture of Dr. Albert Stromberg before he put the device to his ear.
“Hello, Albert.”
A pleasant, grandfatherly voice piped in.
“Daniel! Good to hear your voice.”
“Sorry. I’ve been deep in my research.”
“Oh, Daniel. Have you been eating or sleeping at all?”
“Yes, mother.” Albert could not see the smirk on Daniel’s face.
“I mean… I know with all that you have been through…”.
“Albert! It’s O.K.. Really. Thank you.”
Daniel wanted to cut him off before Albert said anything that may trigger more uncontrolled emotion spewing out of his system. More and more, Daniel felt as if he was just on the edge of a complete and total break with reality. Actually, with the new reality that was now his life, there were moments he felt that such a break would be a release.
“I got through all the ship’s logs at the Archives. Did you get my email this morning? About meeting up and comparing notes?”
“Yes, I did.” It almost sounded like he said that with a little chuckle.
“Good. Look, before you come over I’ve got to tell you something.”
“Oh really?” He really did sound a little too cheerful, given the circumstances. Daniel found that a touch annoying.
“Yes! I really don’t know how to say this, so its best to just come out with it. I’m a little paranoid right now because I think I saw someone looking right at me on the train platform, yesterday.
“Oh…”. Good that sobered him up, a bit.
“Yeah. I’m not a hundred percent sure, mind you. I’ve been so strung out! But, I didn’t want to not tell you and have you come over here when your life may be in danger. Your a good friend, Albert, and I really want to see you, but if anything happened, you see, I’d…”
“Daniel.”
“I… yes?”
“Daniel. Your too late.”
The room went cold and all the blood seemed to drain out of Daniel’s face. He was a statue. His mouth hung open.
“Daniel?”
“Ah… Albert. What did you say?”
In the next instant, he felt that hand grabbing his scalp, and heard the creature in his nightmare say…
“I said, your too late. I’m downstairs. Nice try, ‘ol bean, but you won’t scare me off that easy. I thought this through, Daniel. I can’t say I understand what is happening to you, but I want to help. No matter what.”
Air escaped from Daniel’s lungs and made a kind of “ugh ha” sound as he tried to recover.
“Thank… thank you, so much. My friend.”
“So…”
“So?”
“How long?” Albert’s chuckle was back. “How long will you leave me waiting, then?”
“Oh! Right! Yes, I’ll be right there. I’m starving, and I ate the last of the food in my apartment. Let’s go to the mall, across the street. I’ll be right down.”
“Sounds good. No rush.”
“Thanks. Bye!”
“Bye! (bye).” For as long as Daniel had known him, Albert always ended a phone conversation with that strange echo - a second, more silent “bye.” It was one of the quirks that Daniel cherished. His next thought, as he hung up the phone, was that one cherishes the strangest of things when one could die at any minute. Maybe it was the same for someone with a fatal diagnosis? His father was told he had seven months to live. Was this what it was like to have death travel around with you?
These thoughts lingered for a moment as Daniel selected the notes he was going to show Albert.
“Just so you know, Mr. Death,” he said, out loud, “if you will be traveling around with me, don’t sleep too close. I flail around quite a bit in my sleep.”
In his imagination, there was a dark cloaked and hooded figure nodding and waving a bony hand as if to say “no problem, man.”
“Yeah. I’m loosing it,” he said, shutting down his computer and gathering the last of his notes.
“Loosing it… loosing it, and loosing it, agai… Ah!”
With that exclamation, Daniel whipped his phone out of his pocket. As he stared at it, he remembered what he told Agent Moran. He had a feeling that she wanted more advance notice than a phone call right before he went out the door. Still, what was he going to do? Keep Albert waiting and stay in the apartment until his bodyguard arrived.
“Right then,” he said. “Text message, it is.”
He thumb typed his message quickly, grabbed his leather coat, and went out the door. Halfway through the door, he stopped himself and went back to grab his notes. At the door again, he read his message: “A friend just arrivd. Going across the street for brunch.” He fixed the typo and added, “Sorry its not more notice.” He clicked “send” before going out the door, again.
Halfway across the country, eyebrows were raised outside of Agent Moran’s temporary headquarters. In a Motel off of route 21 in Boxwood, Illinois, two agents in black suits who were standing outside one of the bright red Motel doors were startled to hear several words shouted fiercely in a language they did not understand. If they could understand, these hard bitten agents who had seen much of the world would have blanched at the kind of curse being uttered by their supervisor, who was taught how to swear in Gaelic by her grandfather, a sailor for the Merchant Marines, back in the day. He was a very mischievous sort, you understand, and he delighted to teach such sinful things to his good, Catholic granddaughter. She was always a good student.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This excerpt is from the (very)rough draft of my entry in the National Novel Writing Month... thing. Comments and feedback is most welcome.
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