Allie's War Season Four (20 page)

May 20, 1990

Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

I WRINKLE MY nose, pulling my own piece of pinkish-blue baloney off my mayonnaise-covered bread with delicate fingers. I lay it on the bark next to hers. Normally, the meat is my favorite part. But I want a puppy more. We need to save the meat for him.

My wrinkled nose isn’t for the baloney, anyway.

“You want a baby?” I say to Cassie, my best friend. “Eww. Why?”

“They’re cute!” she declares, flipping back her long, black hair. Hair I really, really wish was mine. Cassie is so pretty, just like someone in a storybook. “...And you can name them, and buy them clothes and dress them up,” she says. “You can push them in carriages...”

“Aren’t they smelly?” I say. My six-year-old nose scrunches up more. “Our neighbor has a baby, and she smells like poo.” I giggle, watching Cassie frown at me. “Just like poo. She makes funny noises...and cries.”

“Well, I would be older,” Cassie explains in her best grown-up voice, her face showing she is older than me already. She smacks my arm. “And my baby won’t smell like
poo.”

“Not me,” I say, shaking my head. “I want to be a space pirate. Like Roger Derm on Space Wars. You can’t have babies in space...they explode.”

Cassie smacks my arm again. “They do
not
explode.”

“Yes, they do. My dad said so.”

I try to think if he really said that. I
think
he did. I remember
something
about people exploding in space. For now, my words stump Cassie, though, who thinks my dad is the coolest dad ever. Which he is.

I look down from our perch in the tree...and laugh.

Jon stands below us, his thin legs splayed where he glares at me from the forest floor. Red-faced and sweaty, he looks about a mile away. Under his feet, the ground is covered in pine needles and crunchy oak leaves, but I can still see the edge of the grass lawn.

Cassie and me sit astride a big branch coming out of the trunk of the old oak tree, the highest one we could reach by climbing in our sneakers. Both of us wear dresses, too, so the bark is kind of itchy under my butt, but otherwise, I feel great.

“We saw the sunrise!” I crow at him happily. “You should have come with us, Jon!”

“Get down from there!” he snaps at me, gesturing sharply towards the dirt. “Right now!”

“Are you coming with us?” I say, clapping my hands. “You can be Cassie’s husband!”

Cassie smacks my bare leg with a fist, but giggles. She likes Jon.

She probably does want him to be her husband. Maybe they’ll get married and have babies when they get older, then we can all live in the same house with Mom and Dad and have lots and lots of puppies. And a horse.

Jon shoves the glasses back on his freckled nose, scowling up at me in that way only he has. His thin, pale arms stick out of a blue and yellow striped T-shirt over too-baggy jeans, like he always wears. He is eleven, and even now, he manages to have a book in his hand. Although knowing him, it’s probably something ‘useful,’ as he says. One of Dad’s field and stream guide books so he could find us, or maybe something about how to climb trees.

“You are in so much trouble!” he shouts at me. “Just wait until you get down here! Mom and Dad have been looking for you everywhere!”

“Come with us, Jon!” I plead. “We’re going to run away,” I add, in case he hasn’t figured out that part yet.

“And get a dog!” Cassie adds gleefully. She points to the section of branch where we’ve pulled the baloney out of our sandwiches.

“We’ll live on the beach!” I tell him.

“And have husbands and babies...” Cassie says.

“And be space pirates!” I say, not to be outdone.

Red-faced, sweaty, and now maybe as mad as I’ve ever seen him, Jon glares up at us––well, really, at me, his hands on his hips.

“They called Cassie’s parents,” he says then, his voice cold.

There is a second of quiet as this sinks in.

“No!” Cassie wails. “No! Why? Why?”

Jon glares only at me. “You’re lucky. They almost called the cops.”

I stare down at him, feeling my hands turn cold where I grip the branch of a tree in Golden Gate Park. My tummy hurts now, I feel scared, but I can only look at my best friend, Cassie. Cassie is crying now, giving great big sniffs as tears run down her round face. She has dirt on her nose and cheek from where she’d wiped it after gripping the branch.

I just sit there, watching her.

We were having so much fun.

We were going to get a puppy.

“Why?” I say to Jon, angrily, whirling on him. “Why would they do that? They
know
Cassie’s dad is mean! Why would they call him?”

“They
had
to, Al!” Jon snaps. “You should have known they would
have
to call them, when you two go missing in the middle of the night! What were you
thinking,
taking her out here? What were you
thinking,
Al? Whatever happens now, it’s
all your fault––”

JON JERKED AWAKE.

Fear hit him first. He felt heavy, full of smoke, weighed down by a tar-like taste in his lungs, his mouth, his nose... coating his tongue.

For a moment he could only lay there, unsure if he’d really woken up at all. His mind shifted towards movement. He fought to pull himself up, out of that heaviness. He fought to breathe, to be awake, maybe even get out of bed altogether so he could find a toilet... but it all felt like too much. He already knew if moved he would feel worse. He was still lying there, fighting to breathe, when he realized something else.

Another light was there, with him.

That other light felt so familiar it brought a sharp pain to the middle of Jon’s chest.

“No.” The word startled him, even from his own lips. The other light grew stronger as Jon shook his head, fighting to push it away. “No... go away. Please...”

He felt pain, maybe from the other man, but Jon couldn’t hold onto that, either. He couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t bear the thought of him being there, lost in this shit and filth with him. He didn’t want him here. He wanted him to go away. Forever. To never come back.

Fingers grasped his arm, painfully tight.

“Fuck you, little brother,” a voice said, thick and low. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Jon blinked against the swinging light, feeling nauseous, his head exploding in pain. But the other seer wouldn’t leave, not even when Jon shoved at his arm.

“I’m not going anywhere,” that voice murmured, right in his ear. “I’m not going anywhere, brother... so just let go. Let go, let me take care of you.”

Jon fought a sob, still trying to move his limbs. He heard another voice, then another. Their words filled his head, echoing there, and Jon felt a shiver of terror when he realized he recognized most of those voices, as well.

“How is he?” Revik said, his voice quieter, somehow more audible than the rest. “Is he conscious, Wreg?”

“Just enough to tell me to piss off,” that familiar voice muttered.

“Stay with him,” Revik said.

“Fuck off,” the familiar voice said, his voice coarse with anger. “...Sir.”

“Stay with him, brother... please. Whatever he says.”

Unlike Wreg, Revik didn’t sound angry.

His words also didn’t sound like a request.

Jon tried to hold onto that faint whisper of understanding. It was too much, too many words, too many thoughts... more than he could ever pass through his deadened lips. He couldn’t see past that sheen of light and morphing dark, didn’t know he was crying until he blinked and felt the tears running down the skin of his face.

Those hurt, too, burning hot trails through his flesh.

They wanted him dead. They all wanted him dead.

Before he could see them, before he could make sense of the faces of his accusers, the black smoke filled his head yet again, dragging Jon back to that tar-filled grave.

“JON.” THE VOICE sharpened, tugging at his light, pulling on him. “Jon,” it repeated. “You’re going to eat now. Do you hear me? You’re going to wake up and eat...”

Jon fought with his eyes.

The light seared his corneas, as soon as he opened his eyelids even a crack. He tried to answer, but could only let out a moan. He threw up a hand, fighting to ward off the blow he half-expected to follow. The pain in his gut worsened, even as gentle fingers brushed his face, making him wince and flinch away, cowering more.

“I’m not going to hurt you, goddamn it,” the voice said.

That voice rumbled against Jon’s back, rising up from a muscular chest. Jon realized he was leaning against the other man, so far into his light that he was having trouble seeing through it. The pain worsened as he felt skin against his bare sides and arms, along with muscles and bone, clothing and hair. The man’s thighs flexed as he twisted his upper body, reaching sideways to grab something from a table... the same table from where the light originated.

Pain blinded Jon. Pain that nearly made him groan.

“Fuck,” Jon’s voice came out involuntarily, dense sounding, hoarse.

“Not right now, brother,” the other man muttered, a faint attempt at humor.

Jon lay there, gasping, confused at first. Then he realized some part of him wanted that. He wanted sex. He wanted the other man to fuck him.

The pain in the other man’s light worsened sharply, enough that Jon gasped.

Jon found himself struggling, trying to get away from that light, but a hand gripped his arm, even as a warning pulse of light entered his skin, making him groan again. He felt it almost as a threat... but it made that other pain worse too, confusing him. Adrenaline shot into his blood. The sickness worsened, and he was coughing then, coughing hard enough that it worsened the pain, bringing a sharp yet somehow deadened feeling to his chest.

“God.” He leaned over one of those muscular legs, coughing harder. He felt a hand on his back, massaging him there, and choked. “Stop... stop it...”

The man ignored him, sending more light through his fingers.

After Jon had been hacking a few minutes more, he didn’t have the strength to fight him. He hung over the other man’s leg, groaning between coughs, feeling like he was going to die.

“You’re not fucking dying,” the voice said, angry that time. “It’s light poisoning, brother. It’s better if you cough. It’s better if you get it out, any way you can.”