Billy Donahue plucked an enormous leech off his thigh. It was attached dangerously close to his family jewels, which Billy was not all too happy about. In fact, Billy was very, very unhappy about the whole situation he found himself in, and as befitting a small-town cop, suspected foul play by unknown parties. He always reasoned that when bad things happened to good people, and sure as fuck he was one, it was the fault of someone else.
A small voice at the back of his head argued that at least a tiny part of this was his fault. Not a day ago, Billy had chased a suspect down someone else's yard, for no reason but the fact that the suspect was not as white as the rest of the neighborhood, and wore an oversized hoodie, which in Billy’s estimation was reason enough to frisk someone. Now, Billy never considered himself racist, or prejudiced at all. He had nothing against Blacks, Hispanics, or occasional Polacks he met on his patrols. Hell, he did not even hold anything against the rare Queer, even if they gave him a funny feeling. The way he saw it, anyone out on the street after dark for no apparent reason was up to no good, and it was for him to determine if that ‘no good’ was bad enough. That's what good policemen do, keep honest folks safe by suspecting everyone of everything, and checking twice.
Though maybe, he should not have spooked the dumb kid like that. Freaking out a suspect that might be armed is never a good idea, and in this case, the suspect actually was packing heat, to Billy’s terminal surprise. The fact that the panicking kid pulled the gun out and shot Billy in the face instead of running, was again a surprise to everyone, the kid included.
But for Billy, this was not the part when the shit creek ended, and somehow life forced him to paddle forward. Not only was he not dead, and shaking hands with Jesus, but inexplicably alive again, in what he suspected must be some bumfuck-nowhere in Northern Minnesota, or worse, maybe even Canada!
The rest of the day rolled forward in an absurd manner that Billy was not trained for, but still forced his husky body to endure.
First, he had to crawl through some miles of cold swamp.
Then he was chased by an angry elk the size of a goddamn dinosaur, which forced him to jump back into the swamp to escape its enormous antlers and plate-sized hooves.
When he finally reached a dry spot in the marshes and sat down for a minute of respite, he heard a terrified cry, and his training kicked in. Again he trudged through the swamp, only to see a teenage Asian boy menaced by some four-feet-long unholy creature that must have been the granddaddy of all possums.
The boy had his back against a giant oak, and tried to fend off the beast with a stick.
Billy lunged forward, his slab of a body cutting through water like an angry iceberg, and bellowing random obscenities under his muck-soaked mustache. The monster possum flipped around to face him, and tried to bite his thigh, but Billy would have none of it. He knew how to deal with the fuckers, from the hundred times some terrified idiot called him about a home invasion that turned to be a possum or a racoon rifling through their trash.
As the creature lunged at him, he grabbed it by the scruff and the tail, and flung it away like a sack of potatoes.
The possum slammed into a knoll of moss with enough force to make a crater, and regarded Billy with a bewildered expression in its beady, black eyes.
“Shoo! Fuck off you fucking fuck of…fucks!” Billy was not a man of many words, and the trip to this absurd place knocked most of them out of his brain.
But the message crossed the language barrier between species, and the possum slunk away.
Billy immediately kneeled next to the terrified boy, who in the meantime managed to fall to the grass with a dazed expression. He checked him for any sign of injury, but except for numerous small cuts and bruises, the kid seemed fine.
“Hey. Hey!” Billy snapped his fingers in front of his face. “Look at me, kid.” The boy’s eyes were unfocused, but the pupils were normal and even. Still, no response at all was a bad sign.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“Ya hear me, boy? Eh? Are you in there?” he stabbed the kid’s forehead with his finger. A stream of vaguely Asian gibberish flew out of the kid’s mouth at motorboat speeds.
“Hey! Slow down! Do you speak English?” No response. “Uh, Spanish? You, uh, Habla Espanol?” No response either, and possibly for the better, because that exhausted Billy’s knowledge of Spanish. Unable to communicate in English, he decided to try his usual trick when talking to foreigners, speak Moronic.
“Heeey. Me Billy.” he pointed at himself. “Me, policeman. PO-LEECE-MAAN. uhhh…” he tried to point at his missing badge, and instead opted to draw a shield-shape above his heart. “You. Are. Safe. Calm Down!” He tried to encircle the kid in his arms, to mime a protective gesture. To his astonishment, the boy leaped into his arms, hugged him fiercely, and started sobbing. Another stream of words poured into Billy’s ear.
“Uff-da!,...huh. Okay then. Huggin’ time it is.” This was not something Empathy Training prepared Billy for. He was never a people person, a trait that hurt his career in the Force more than once, and he was not a parent, so kids were simply annoying half-humans to him, occupying a place above pets and below rookies straight out of the Academy. He gently but firmly pushed the boy away.
“Let’s start again. Me, Billy.” Pointed at self. “You?” he pointed at the kid’s chest expectantly.
Another stream of gibberish, but this time Billy caught one word that seemed like a name.
“Keito?” he queried. “You. Your name. Keito?”
“Yes…” answered the kid in a hollow, small voice.
“Wait! You fucker, you do speak English! Why didn’t-” he saw the boy shrink under the assault of his words. “Sorry kiddo. This was already a stressful day, even before I met you. So, Keito?”
“Keito Nakamura, sir.”
“Wait, you Japanese?”
“Yes sir.” Keito nodded.
“Uh, nice to meet you Mr Nakamura”. Billy bowed awkwardly, which did not work all that well as he was looming over the sitting boy by good two feet. “I'm Officer William Donahue, MPD, that is, Minneapolis Police Department.” He looked around theatrically, trying to look confident. “You are perfectly safe now, I will protect you,” he lied so outrageously that even the terrified boy cocked an incredulous eyebrow.
“Now, uh… do you maybe know where we are? What is going on here? And… Why are we naked?”
“Mister Officer, sir. I do not know.” The kid focused, as if trying to remember something obscured from his memory. “I was in a prane, uhh sorry, a plane. I think plane crashed. I think… I think I, not possible but…”
“You think you died?” Billy asked. He was asking himself the same question the last few hours, except when he was running from danger.
“Yes…And Mother. And Father, and Yuiko…they were on the plane too…” Keito seemed to be falling back into his own head.
“Hey. Hey! Your family is safe. It’s alright. Focus on the here and now.” he gently shook Keito. “Look. Your plane crashed and yet you are alive. I was shot in the face, with a gun, and yet, I'm alive. We were dead, but now we are not, lucky us! Betcha they’re fine as well. Same thing. I'm sure of it.”
“is this Yomi… Hell?” Keito looked around.
Now, that question stumped Billy. He always assumed himself to be a lapsed Protestant, but his faith basically consisted of celebrating Christmas and occasionally taking the Lord’s name in vain when he stubbed his little toe. Hell brought an image of red devils with pitchforks, not giant possums and leech-infested, sulfury marshes.
“Nah, this is, uh. Hmm. Yellowstone Park. Nah, probably not America, maybe uh… British Columbia. Or maybe Alberta. Fuck’I’know, somewhere in Canada. Yeah, Canada sounds just about right.” He nodded to himself, almost convinced. “Any time now, Mounties will show up and escort us to safety. We’ll be drinking hot cocoa and munching on Tim Horton’s pastries in no time.”
Keito did not look convinced, but as long as Billy was talking, the kid was not falling back into trauma-induced catatonia, which was a win by Billy’s estimation.
“We need to, uhh, start a fire. Yeah. A signal fire so folks could see it and send rescue. Suppose you don’t have any matches on ya?”