Horace,
This shall be the final and most detailed of my letters, to be delivered after my death by Mr. Carlsburg of Raleigh, North Carolina. I have spent most of my life wearing the face and name of Jim Duncan, and that is the name I intend to wear to my death and have written upon my tombstone. However, I beseech you to remember the promise you made to me that night after the movies. Remember well your vow to avenge the murder of the part of me that once bore another name.
On the pages that follow, I will include physical descriptions of myself in my youth and that of my associates. I will include addresses of residence for those I can remember, but these 7 decades have obscured many of the details. Once detail that I am certain of, however, is the timeframe: July 16th, 1981. I held onto this date and repeated it to myself as nearly a mantra in my desperate recovery in your grandparents' guest bedroom. That was the last day I spent in what was formerly my present before it became the distant future.
As I have explained, it is dangerous to meddle in the current of time. One action so simple as throwing a stone, could reroute the very coursing river of history to flood a fertile plain and drown the herds that graze. And then, there is the terrifying notion of paradoxes to consider. We've discussed these at-length, so I trust that you know what is at stake. You absolutely cannot interfere with events that lead to my banishment to 1901. It is for this reason that you must remain unseen until the late afternoon of July 16th, 1981. There will be a police ambush sprung at Best Friends Veterinary Office. At that moment, I leap back in time a single day, and from that point in the past, I travel back an additional few days and finally to the year 1901. Once that vet sting operation is triggered, you may consider yourself 'activated.' From that point, on, time is of the essence, as your quarry will only gain in strength.
After the ambush, he will be near the vet's office, preparing to move our bicycles from a hiding place beneath a large tree. I cannot remember precisely where it was, but I trust that you will be able to locate it. Logan Kessler is to be considered armed and very dangerous. In light of him attacking me, I assume that he also attacked my friend Jackson Trent and likely has his device, which permits him to read minds. Again, these devices will be detailed at length in the pages that follow. Be advised that Logan may be able to read your intentions. You will need to strike without hesitation.
I know that you may find what I ask… theologically challenging. The Lord once commanded "Thou shalt not kill," and I ask you now to do precisely that. And yet, as I have said before, I remind you to recall the winter of '47, where the aggressive grizzly terrorized the woods near your grandparents' cabin. Remember the responsibility that fell on your shoulders as you joined the hunting party, tracking, trapping, and neutralizing the threat it posed. It is no sin to kill a rabid and dangerous wild animal… and make no mistake, Logan Kessler is more aligned to those than he is to humankind. It is an act of protection, and God surely smiles upon those who protect.
You may think I have called you to this task in anger, hoping you will take vengeance for me. You might think that cause unjust. I would counter with this: it doesn't matter what my motivations are. What matters the most, and what the Lord will see, is this: "what does the act mean to you?" If you can see it as a protective act, the neutralization of a threat with tools so nefarious he could outrun the law and hurt untold innocents, then the Lord shall see you as an arbiter of His will. You know I'm not the religious type, but I know enough to recall that the Lord smiles upon those who protect the weak.
And even if you can't justify it theologically, remember well my pain. Remember the winces on my face when I was loaded to and from my chair. Remember the sound of my gasping voice, and the scars that tortured my nerves with electric pain for uncounted years. Remember the soiled bedsheets and clothes… remember my misery I have borne for all these decades. If nothing else, remember that Logan is the reason I have suffered such a fate, and remember that he has chosen to feel no remorse after the fact. Remember that he will inflict such misery upon others. It falls uniquely on your shoulders to be able to stop him.
Thank you for granting this final request of a man now dying, and a boy already dead.
With love,
Jim Duncan. Parker Campbell.
* * *
Horace returned the often-read letter to his glovebox and watched the ambush unfold. And thus, it begins, he thought, setting his car in motion. Time to find the boy with the bicycles.
It didn't take Horace long, as the bikes were originally stashed mere blocks away from the scene, and one boy moving bikes two at a time across several trips was far from subtle. The description in the letter matched him perfectly, leaving little doubt in Horace's mind. He felt the rising tremble of anticipation, but he stilled his own eagerness—or was it anxiety—to begin in favor of cool-headed caution. He had his rifle packed in his trunk, but he knew he couldn't shoot the boy right here in the center of the road… he hoped this would end without Horace locked away in a jail cell. He could follow the boy and wait for an opportune moment to strike, some chance when the boy would be alone or in the woods with only his friends. After neutralizing Logan, Horace could show the letter to the rest of them and let them know what had happened to their friend. Jim hadn't been able to decide if he wanted that ending. "Is it better for them to think they lost yet another dear friend, or to feel the biting betrayal of the monster that lurked beneath in that most vulnerable and tragic time?" the old man had asked ponderously. He had finally left it to Horace to decide.
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In Horace's mind, they deserved the truth.
He stepped from his car and took to the streets, tossing a coin to a homeless man on the corner and making idle conversation. As he spoke, he watched through the corner of his eyes as the Kessler boy walked down the road and made a left turn. Without a parting word to the beggar, Horace was on the move, tailing the Kessler boy as far back as he would dare. Strange, Horace thought. He's moving back towards the vet's office?
Horace slunk even further back as the boy drew near to the buzzing of police outside the vet's. He didn't want to risk being seen by the policewoman he'd met, as he'd surely be a memorable face… so instead, from far back across the street, he climbed into his car and watched in stillness. He saw Logan be led inside the building. Then, after a few minutes, he emerged with Nora Campbell, the two speaking back and forth. She stepped into her car, and spoke into her radio while Logan stood idly just outside the squad car. She then seemingly instructed him to sit down, and there he sat, right on the curbside. After four or five minutes of waiting, Nora answered her radio once again and began to speak with Logan, who was now standing up. After a brief exchange, she patted him on the shoulder and sent him on his way.
Horace raised his eyebrows at the brazen cleverness of whatever stunt had just unfolded, wishing he could've heard the exchange. Somehow, in a span of ten minutes, Logan had gone from suspicious to exonerated, and all it had taken was a radio call back to the station. So he's certainly competent, Horace thought, once again stepping out onto the sidewalk. With how easily he just handled the police, I really need to make sure I'm careful.
He was back on the chase, following on-foot at a safe distance as Logan wound his way through town. Horace would slow whenever he approached some convenient form of cover, be it a sizeable roadside tree or an alley between structures, and he quickly found the practice useful when Logan momentarily paused to survey his surroundings. Suspicious type, it seems. Guilty ones usually are.
Horace ducked into an alley as Logan spun and surveyed his surroundings, eyes flitting from road to foot traffic to windows. He had been quick enough to dodge the boy's glance, but it had been a close thing. Once in the alleyway, Horace realized he didn't know when would be safe to return to the street… what if the boy was still facing his way?
You can be seen once, he thought. It's twice where the problems begin. He gathered his courage and stepped back out onto the road, relieved to see Logan's back as the boy advanced back down the road. He made another turn ahead, and Horace began to remove possible destinations from his mental map of the town. With another left turn, one location jumped to the top of the list of possibilities, and Horace couldn't help but laugh at the irony. I suppose I deserve this, oh Lord, as no worthy work is ever easy… just please, though far be it from my station to ask anything of you, let it not be so. And if it is to be so, let Your judgment not harm the innocent. Let me be Your hand, but aim that hand only at the wicked.
He watched Logan make the final turn onto the residential road that solidified the certainty in his mind. He was heading there, of course… that place in town he'd wanted to avoid the most, as it came with its own set of difficult questions and complications: it was the DeLange residence, the sleepy mountain home of his own relatives.
Horace turned around and began walking back downtown at a brisk pace, scrambling for his car. Logan would get to the DeLange home in about fifteen minutes, and Horace could arrive in similar time if he reached his car in the next five. He would need his car, as it was both his weapon locker and escape route, but as he ran he felt a dilemma take hold. He was, in that moment, momentarily torn between two courses of action. He could stick with his plan and stake out the DeLange house, waiting for the boy to leave and attack him then. He didn't like option one because the risk of being spotted by a family member who might recognize him was uncomfortably high. Option two was that he could simply return to his motel room and try to pick up the trail again tomorrow. He didn't like option two either, as it went against Jim's instructions… the old man had told him he needed to strike fast, or Logan could gain more and more powers that would make him impossible to stop.
Oh, Lord, give me a sign… what am I to do? Am I to march upon my own family's home with destruction in my heart, like the angel of death? Is their door marked with lamb's blood? He knew that it was fear that drove him away from option one. He also knew that fear and righteousness were entirely separate spectrums, and that he couldn't delude himself into believing avoiding fear was chasing the more righteous of the two paths. Is Jim's vengeance worth risking my own family? But then his mind argued against its own conclusions. No, not vengeance—stopping someone with a wicked heart.
He was so focused on this internal argument that he nearly bowled straight past the woman who was staring at him. "Horace? Is that you?" she asked, standing there with a paper bag in her hands clutched to her chest. Recognition settled across her face and it lit up in a warm smile. "I thought it was!" she said, moving in for a hug.
"Martha, what a pleasant surprise," said Horace, bringing her in for an embrace.
"What are you doing here?" she asked. "Didn't even tell us you were stopping by?"
"Actually, I was hoping to surprise," Horace said. "Was heading to the DeLange residence as we speak."
"Oh! Me too," Martha said, gesturing to her bag of food. "I was planning to bring over some dinner… Italian, which is young Ron's favorite. He seemed to have some kind of fright today, so I thought I'd bring this to cheer him up. Would you like some? There's plenty extra."
The Lord oft puts us on unexpected paths, Horace thought. It seemed option three was opening up, and though he felt uneasy, he had enough faith to know things would work out as they were meant to. "That would be lovely," he said. "My car is just there up the road. Would you like a ride?"
He took the bag of takeout from her hand and opened the passenger door. Once she was seated, he opened the trunk and placed the bag on top of the hunting rifle still in his trunk, just beside the box of extra ammunition and his briefcase of correspondences between himself and Jim Duncan. He then slammed shut the trunk, started the car, and set off on the road towards the DeLange estate, uncertain of what future he would bring with him.