The Didymus Contingency

TWENTY TWO
Confrontations
2005

Arizona

David’s nose burned from the smell of month-old, gray paint that coated the stairwell walls and railings. With each breath, he became more aware how odd the smells of the future were. In the past, smell made sense. It was animal, dirt, grass, flowers or food. Never anything as toxic smelling as latex paint laid down once a year to keep things looking new.

As David neared the bottom floor, he could hear several men screaming orders in English. The words were repeated over and over as though the recipient of the verbal barrage was not complying. But David knew it was simply because Lazarus could not understand the words being shouted at him. And soon the guards’ patience would wear thin.

David reached the stairwell exit and cracked open the door. He peeked out into the hallway, which was white and covered with long red and green painted arrows, pointing to various technical areas. Lazarus was against the wall, surrounded by Daniels and two other guards. All three had their weapons drawn and trained on Lazarus’s head.

“Hands behind your head, damnit! Now!” Daniels shouted.

David saw no way for this to end peacefully. But what could he do against three armed guards? David put his hand on his waist and felt something cold and solid. He looked down. Of course! After Jake was knocked unconscious by Lazarus, David had picked up his gun. At the time, he had no intention of using it, but this new situation called for extreme action.

David pulled the gun from under his robe. It was heavy in his hand. He felt dangerous, like James Bond, only he didn’t have a license to kill and hoped he could completely avoid any violence at all. But he’d do whatever he had to do to make sure Lazarus was returned to the past intact.

David raised the weapon next to his head like they do in the movies and crept silently into the hallway behind the guards. His face reddened as he closed in. His blood was pumping fast; his heart beat like a nervous hamster’s.

As David moved across the floor, he heard his footsteps like anvils falling and clanging. He was positive his approach would be discovered and that any moment now, a bullet would pierce his body. He took a slow deep breath as he came to within a foot of Daniels. He reached out slowly, and then like a striking viper David had his arm around Daniel’s neck and the muzzle of his gun firm against the man’s head. “Don’t move! Nobody move! Or…or he gets it!”

Well that sounded dumb, David thought. He didn’t plan his words as well as his actions, but the outcome was no less effective. Both guards trained their weapons away from Lazarus and onto David.

David pushed his lips close to Daniels’s ear. “Drop your weapon, now, or I’ll pull this trigger.”

The gun hit the floor and rattled next to David’s foot. David turned his attention to the other guards. “You guys don’t want to see…” David read the guard’s name badge, “…Daniels die, do you?”

One guard remained solid, unflinching. The other began to blink nervously.

Daniels started to shake. “Jim, Clark, c’mon guys…do what he says.”

Jim took a step forward and aimed as best he could at David’s head. “Put the gun down, now.”

Daniels’s face twisted as though he was being stabbed in the back. “Jim! What are you doing?”

“My job,” Jim said.

Clark began to lower his weapon. “Jim, man, I don’t know. I think we should do what he says. I don’t want anyone to get killed.”

“Listen to Clark,” David said, as he attempted to keep his head hidden behind Daniels’s. “We can all walk away from this in one piece.”

Clark bent down and placed his weapon on the floor.

“Thank you, Clark,” David said.

“You’re welcome, sir.”

Jim’s hand began to shake and his eyes darted back and forth between David and Lazarus. “NO! Pick your weapon up, Clark, right now!”

David could see Jim’s hand shaking, panic overtaking his senses, tunneling his vision. If he didn’t shoot someone on purpose, he might do so by accident. David slowly moved his gun away from Daniels’s head an aimed it at Jim. He hadn’t ever shot a gun before, but he had played Duck Hunt on the original Nintendo system when it was a novelty so many years ago. David figured it couldn’t be too different.

Jim lowered the gun and then in a split second of indecision he raised it up again, determination reviving in his eyes, a burst of red exploded through his arm and his ears rang with the sound of an explosion. Jim’s gun fell from his limp hand and clacked on to the floor. He held his hand to his arm and then took it away. It was covered in blood. “You shot me!”

David smiled. He’d shot him! David pushed Daniels toward Clark and Jim, and then he raised his gun at all three of them. “Don’t move, not one of you.”

David looked at Lazarus, whose eye were wide and lips were pursed. “Are you all right?”

Lazarus nodded slowly, rubbing his ears.

“I’m sorry about this, guys, I really am. But I wouldn’t do this unless I had to, unless it was important.” David pointed his gun at Clark. “Can I have your radio, please?”

Clark took his radio from his belt. “Of course, sir.” Clark handed the radio to David warily and then retreated back behind Jim and Daniels, eyes blinking rapidly.

David depressed the button on the radio, “Uh, this is Clark, over.”

“Copy that, what’s your situation?” came a voice from the radio.

Lazarus took a step back, eyeing the radio incredulously.

“We have apprehended the suspects…uh, we’re bringing them in now. Feel free to call off the alarm…over.”

“Copy, how many suspects do you have in custody? Over.”

“Four, over.”

“Copy that. Good work. Over.”

“Thanks, we’re bringing them in, over and out.”

David switched off the radio and dropped it on the ground. He looked at the three guards. “Your radios. Put them on the floor.”

Daniels and Jim took their radios from their belts and dropped them on the floor.

David looked around the hallway. Now what? His eyes locked on an emergency fire hose attached to the wall. He looked back at the three petrified guards. “Face each other, get close.”

When David had finished tying the fire hose around the men he realized the hose was too loose to hold the men for more than a few seconds. Even Lazarus had failed to get the thick material to tie tightly.

Clark fidgeted nervously for a moment and then found a smidge of bravery. “Sir, you could just leave us here like this and we won’t move.”

David smiled. These poor kids were having the worst day of their life. “Sorry Clark, I can’t take the chance. There are lives at stake.”

David followed the hose back to its glass case where a red valve was labeled: Turn for water. David walked to the valve and twisted it. Water rushed into the hose, blowing it up like a balloon. The three guards were pulled close together by the expanding hose, which resembled an anaconda constricting its prey. When David was satisfied that the men were secured, he turned the valve off, so as not to crush the men to death. “Can you breathe?”

“Yes sir…barely though,” Clark said.

“Have a knife?”

“My belt, on the right side, sir.”

David pushed his way through the tight fire hose and retrieved Clark’s small jackknife. He opened it up and poked a small hole in the hose, which sprayed a mist of water into the air. “There,” David said, “You should be able to get free in…twenty minutes or so.”

“Thank you, sir,” Clark said.

“You’re most welcome.”

David turned to Lazarus. “Ready?”

Lazarus held up a rag tied in a bundle, full of very heavy items. “Their weapons and talking boxes are in here.”

David took the bundle and placed it on the floor next to the bound guards. “Your guns and radios are in this. Try not to shoot anyone today, guys, okay?”

“Yes, sir,” Clark said.

David opened the door to the stairwell and looked at Lazarus. “Let’s go.”

Lazarus and David disappeared into the stairwell and the door closed behind them with a clunk. David led the way swiftly down the stairs. With the heightened security and the watches not working, they were running out of time and might have to attempt an escape on foot. If that turned out to be true, David knew they would all die.

Tom sailed across the control room and crashed onto a computer console. He had forgotten how strong this Legion, this whatever it was, could make a man. He rolled off the console, onto the hard, cold floor and looked up.

The thick foam dangling from Spencer’s mouth was enough to make Sally back away, but what concerned her most was that he was pursuing her. Sally’s face revealed she had never seen something so horrible, so evil. Her normally controlled expression had vanished, replaced by a furrowed brow, crinkled nose and a bit lip brought on by the freshly experienced terror.

After pushing himself onto his hands and knees, Tom heard the clunk of metal hitting cement. He knew what it was. He knew he had it from the beginning, but he wanted to beat the beast into the ground with his bare fists. He wanted to feel the blood of Megan’s murderer on his tender knuckles. But Tom knew he could never win a fistfight with this supernatural creature.

He wrapped his hand around the gun and placed his finger firmly against the trigger. He stood to his feet. “Legion!”

Spencer stopped, his crushing hand only inches from Sally’s throat. He looked at Tom, holding the gun, and grinned. “Kill us again, Tom. Yes, kill us! Kill like you did the Zambian men who murdered your wife.”

“I’m planning to,” Tom said as he walked forward, gun raised.

Spencer craned his neck like a thinking dog. “Do you remember Samuel, disciple?”

Tom pulled the gun’s hammer back with a click.

“When we first met and Jesus sent us into the herd of swine? The pigs. We don’t like pigs. Do you remember Samuel after we left his body?”

Tom paused, he remembered Samuel. He remembered thinking he was a different man. He remembered Samuel couldn’t recall anything that had happened.

“We took him, Tom. He didn’t willingly accept our presence. Nobody ever says yes if we ask them. Never. He didn’t willingly do the wonderful things we made him do. He was innocent-by earthly standards anyway.” Tom’s eyes widened slightly.

“And you remember the men in Africa. The men you killed. You killed us! We loved it when you did that!”

“Shut up.”

“They were innocent of your wife’s murder, just like Samuel.”

“Shut up!”

“And you killed them! Are you going to kill Spencer too?”

Mounting pressure filled Tom’s skull so that his face felt swollen and red with heat. He hadn’t felt the desire to kill a man since Megan had been murdered, and here was the being responsible for her death, and he could kill it again. Or could he? Tom aimed the gun and fired twice. Spencer’s body spun and fell to the floor in a heap.

Spencer looked up, smiling, “A futile effort.”

“I disagree,” Tom said as he looked down at Spencer, who now had a bloody bullet wound in each thigh.

Tom looked back at Sally, whose petrified eyes were locked on Spencer. “Sally… Sally!”

Sally snapped her attention to Tom.

“Get the device,” Tom urged.

Sally nodded quickly and hustled toward the opposite side of the room, where Spencer had placed the device.

“You think this body is affected by pain while I control it?” the voices of fifty men said.

Tom whipped his attention back to Spencer, who was already on his feet and winding up. “Sally, look-”

Whump! Tom crumpled onto the floor, gasping for air.

Froth flew through the room as Spencer turned to look at Sally and growled. He jumped across the room like a gazelle. Sally stopped and slipped backwards onto her hands as Spencer landed between her and the device. She crawled away as he stormed toward her.

“How much does this woman mean to you, disciple?” Spencer said reaching out for Sally’s struggling feet.

Tom pulled himself up, struggling to shout, but there was no air in his lungs to create the sound. He couldn’t let David experience the same loss he did. He couldn’t let David feel that pain. But he couldn’t do anything to stop it. Tom fell back to the floor. His ribs were on fire and his legs were temporarily useless.

Spencer took hold of Sally’s ankle and pulled her toward him. Her squirming did nothing to loosen his merciless grip.

“Please…please…” Tom said.

Spencer held Sally up in the air by her ankle. He looked at Tom.

“Take me instead. Kill me,” Tom pleaded.

“All you Christians are the same. Kill me. Take me. Martyr me. We hate Christians! So do we! We would much rather kill this woman and have you live to be tortured again and again. Ad infinitum! Forever!”

Tom took a deep breath. “I’m not a Christian!”

Spencer bit his smiling bottom lip until it bled. “That’s right! We nearly forgot! How could all of us forget that? If we kill you now, you’ll be ours to torture for all eternity!”

After dropping Sally to the hard floor, Spencer leapt into the air and landed on top of a computer console in front of Tom, crushing the equipment below his feet as though he weighed five hundred pounds. Tom pushed away, but found his back against the cold concrete wall of the control center.

“I have bad news for you… You can’t kill me,” Tom said, attempting to act as confident as possible.

Spencer hopped off the mangled computer console and onto the floor. “And why is that?”

“The time-travel equipment… I sent it here…from the future. If I died now, how could I send it back in time?”

“Let’s see, maybe if David sent it back in time without your help? He is a smart one after all, that David. We hate that name! Stop saying it then!”

Tom had no reply. He hadn’t considered that.

“News flash, Didymus, we’ve been to the future, and you weren’t there! He wasn’t! We didn’t see him. Neither did we!”

“You’re lying,” Tom said, as he squinted his eyes in an effort to mask his surprise.

“Are we? We suppose we’re about to find out.”

Spencer reached out for Tom’s throat with his right hand, while his left twitched with excitement. Spencer paused an inch from Tom’s throat like he heard something or sensed a presence. But his reaction would be too slow.

Whack! Spencer fell to the side and slid across the floor. He shook his head and looked up; above him stood a tower of a man with sledgehammer fists.

Lazarus cracked his knuckles and motioned for Spencer to stand up.