Horace walked into the DeLange home with a wide grin. He greeted Clara—his niece whom he hadn't seen in several years—with a warm hug and asked after her son, Ronnie. "Oh, he's doin' fine," came her soft voice with its mild Southern drawl. "Such a bright boy, he is. He's currently in his room; said he wasn't feeling too great tonight."
If Martha gave off the impression of a gnarled oak tree, her daughter Clara was an Aspen, pale white and narrow. Their home was small as it only housed Clara and Ronnie—the boy's father, a coward by the name of Andrew Tufts, had run off just before Ronnie was born. Clara now regarded her mother. "I wish you would've called ahead to tell me you were bringing food… I've already got chicken in the oven, and it'll be done any second now. What are we gonna do with all this extra?"
As if right on cue, a knock came from the front door. Clara hurried off and found Logan standing at their doorstep. "Hey, ma'am. Is Ronnie here?"
She led him to the kitchen and gestured to the table. "You can have a seat… Ronnie's not feeling so great, but I'll let him know you're here."
Once Logan sat down, Martha immediately began preparing a place setting for him. "Oh, no, you don't have to," Logan said. "I had a late lunch."
"Nonsense, dear," Martha said. "Horace, would you grab one of those serving platters from the top of the cupboard? Clara's reach is better than mine, that's for sure."
Horace removed the platter and set it down on the table, him and Logan exchanging appraising glances. Horace didn't think that the boy had any reason to distrust him, and Horace did his best to hide his own recognition. He introduced himself as an uncle to the family, and Logan, as a friend to Ronnie.
"There's a few more of us coming," Logan said to Martha.
"That's fine, dear; with some help, maybe we'll actually finish all of the food!"
After another knock at the door, Wade and Shaun entered. "Sweet set of wheels in the driveway," Wade said as he entered the home. The two boys were shuttled to the kitchen table as well, taking seats next to Logan. Both seemed surprised, but not ungrateful for the unexpected meal. Wade tucked a napkin into his collar as Clara reappeared, Ronnie in tow. She tended to the oven and removed a tray, the room suddenly filling with the delicious, herbal aroma of a baked chicken breast—rosemary, garlic, and the warm under-notes of butter. Ronnie didn't notice the scent. He instead did all he could to avoid outright gawking at Horace and Logan, now sitting across from each other, right in his kitchen. Dread twisted in his stomach.
"And Parker?" he said weakly, not even at anybody in particular. He hoped beyond hope that the boy would be here, and that his discovery in the photographs was just a horrible misunderstanding. Or, even if he was right, he hoped that it was something in the future, something he could still prevent.
"Not here yet," Wade answered, grabbing the serving spoon in the plate of spaghetti. Ronnie's stomach heaved again, his appetite utterly gone.
"I'm sure he'll be just behind. In the mean time, you boys dig in," Clara said. "Wouldn't want it getting cold."
At that point, Horace seemed to notice that Ronnie had entered the room, and he walked over to shake his hand. "Young man, do you know who I am?" he asked.
Ronnie yanked himself away from his anxiety and tried his best to present a controlled demeanor. "Uncle Horace," he said. "Brother to Grandpa Hank."
"Bright boy indeed," Horace said to Clara. He then turned back to Ronnie. "Your mother told me what a fine young man you are. It's great to finally get to meet you."
As the group sat, Horace requested that the family allow him to say grace, a tradition they happily obliged. They then dug in with gusto, food heaping into mounds on their plates. Horace gave the family his prepared excuses to why he was in town… a short fiction about a new client in a city just down the highway from Boone.
"Where's Parker?" Ronnie asked, interrupting his uncle's story.
"He went to the station, remember?" Logan said. "There was this whole police line at the vet's office… maybe he got caught up in that business."
Horace regarded Logan, and again Logan regarded him in turn. He watched as the boy put down his fork and began to fiddle with something in his pocket. Was that just there the soft hiss noise the letter described?
"Can you believe the gall of them, to drag the boys in for questioning like that?" Martha said, a clear note of anger in her voice. "And then today, after that business at the vet's, they called Clara to see if Ronnie had been there!"
"I explained, in no unclear terms, that he was with family, and that they'd better leave poor Ronnie alone in a time like this or they'd hear from me," Clara added, shaking her head indignantly.
Martha gripped Horace's arm and whispered to him softly. "The boys, they had a friend go missing a couple days back. Still no sign. It's been hard for them," she said.
"Oh, ma'am, he already knows," Logan said. "After all, he helped us search yesterday."
Horace looked to Logan, surprised. He seemed nonchalant. "Yeah," Horace said, "I got into town last night. Figured I'd wait until I wrapped up my business to come say hello. And when I got in, I heard about the missing boy, so I volunteered to join the search."
"It's so funny that you visit us today," Martha said. "Just earlier today, Ron and I were looking through old photos, and he was asking about you and Jim."
Horace once again tried to hold back his surprise, but his facade was surely cracking. "Oh?" is all he managed, shoveling another forkful of spaghetti into his mouth.
"That old man gave me the heebie-jeebies," Clara said.
"You never knew him like I did," Horace said nearly instantly, a defensive note in his voice.
"Bread, please?" Shaun asked Ronnie, but the boy made no move to grab it. He was staring at Horace with a still-deepening frown, so Shaun made the executive decision to lean over the table and grab it himself.
"What was he like?" Ronnie asked at long last, breaking the spell.
"Well," Horace began, thinking back, "he wasn't the monster people made him out to be. He had a gentle heart, and a mind more brilliant than anyone around him knew. My only regret is it took me so many years to see past the scars he wore… he was a good man, and he would've wanted to see you doing well."
Ronnie wiped at his eyes, grateful that neither his mother nor his grandmother seemed to see. Logan coughed loudly, but Shaun, seated just to his side, heard the telltale hiss of the Empathizer being used discreetly from his pocket disguised under the sound. He cut a hole in his pocket or something? Either way the cough makes sense, Shaun thought. Wouldn't want the grown-ups asking why Logan's pants were hissing. Shaun then started laughing to himself at the mental image. Feeling he'd figured out his friend, he returned to his food. He, of course, couldn't have noticed the Thought-Enunciator that Logan had been pointing at Horace within his pocket, as that device was without sound. And though he could have, if he'd been looking, he didn't notice Logan's change in posture, the way his back straightened and his legs seemed to wind like springs ready to burst him upwards into action.
"You all right?" Logan asked of Ronnie, noting now the wiped-away tears.
"Yeah," Ronnie said, "just allergies I think." He looked to Logan, trying to read his face for answers. What's the connection here? Why is Horace suddenly in town? How does Parker end up where he ends up? Is he already there? Logan's face was, as ever, frustratingly neutral.
Horace regarded Logan and then Ronnie in turn, seeing the moment pass between them. Logan was a charmer and seemed perfectly ordinary, if not slightly arrogant, but Horace knew the Devil was nothing if not a smooth-talker with a silver tongue. This was, undeniably, the spawn of the Devil. He knew he would have to shoot that boy tonight, even if it tore him up inside to do it. After seeing his demeanor at this dinner table and knowing the horrible things he'd just done… Horace's mind was set more certain now than it had ever been before.
Stolen story; please report.
Wade chewed thoughtfully, watching the chain of uncomfortable stares. He saw Logan stare at Horace, and Horace at Logan. Ronnie looked to Logan and then back to Horace, and even he took glances back and forth between the others, as though a horrible and secret conversation were passing back and forth between all three. On top of that, something was niggling in the back of Wade's mind, a detail that was fighting its way to the surface of his consciousness.
Shaun burped loudly. "Excuse me," he said. And just like that, the tension of the moment was momentarily lifted, as Clara gasped in playful indignation and Martha began to serve up an additional portion of chicken to the boys.
The meal gradually wound down, and Martha was the first to stand. "Well, boys, it's been so nice to see you—and Horace, I hope you stop by before you leave—but I've got to get back to Phoebe now… she'll need her evening walk."
"Did you drive here?" Clara asked.
"No, Horace gave me a lift, but I can walk home. The exercise keeps these old legs working," she replied.
"Nonsense, I'll drive you," Clara said. "Give me just a minute."
Martha protested weakly, but, with great feigned reluctance, she eventually acquiesced. As the door closed behind the two and the faint rumble of the garage door hummed through the walls of the home, a fragile stillness settled over the remaining boys and that older man. They all felt that once the women left, something would happen, and the knots of tension told them it wouldn't be pleasant.
The humming stopped, the garage door now open. An engine roared distantly, and a car sputtered away. The rumbling began once again, and then the garage door clicked shut. The four boys and Horace sat in silence, waiting. It was Shaun, of all people, timid and unshure Shaun, who spoke up first.
"Ok, why is it starting to feel like everybody knows something here that I don't?"
Horace stood, brushing crumbs from his lap and beginning to collect dishes from the table. He scooped the extra food from the plates into a plastic bag, and then began to tie the bag's neck methodically. "Well, boys, I've got something important to talk about, and I'd like to do it while the women are out. Give me just a second to take out this trash bag," he said, slinging the bag over his shoulder. He then disappeared out the kitchen's side door.
"We should leave, now," Logan said.
Ronnie murmured something, too softly for the group to hear.
"What is going on with you two?" Wade asked.
Again, Ronnie murmured.
"No time to explain," Logan said, "but this morning, at my coffee shop, Parker stopped by and said he thought he was being followed by a bald man with a permanent frown… said he felt unsafe. Like this guy was looking for the devices. And the guy he described sounds a lot like him." Logan was impressed with how easily the lies came to him, but he supposed necessity drove ingenuity. He needed to turn the group against Horace, and he needed to do so immediately or everything would unravel.
"What, you think," Shaun began, trailing off. "Parker too?"
Ronnie finally spoke up, finding his voice clear and in its full strength. "Parker isn't coming back tonight, or ever again."
"What do you mean?" Shaun asked, turning towards his friend. "Is he dead?"
"Not like you think," came Horace's voice, level and grave. None of the boys had heard him slip in through the back door and advance through the household on silent footsteps. In his hands, he now held a wooden hunting rifle, which he gripped tightly as he pointed it towards Logan. His finger flexed near the trigger, ready. In his mind, he recited that prayer he'd given countless hundreds of times before, the words a benediction to the act of protection:
Oh, Father High, I pray to you,
that my one shot shall send out true.
May it strike them without pain,
and send them high to Your domain.
Shaun flickered to invisibility, his empty chair tipping backwards. "Now, boy, stay back… it's not like you think," Horace said. "Logan has been manipulating you all."
Logan frantically raised his hands, his palms empty. "This man killed Parker," he cried in protest, his voice warped by genuine terror.
"Go on," Horace said, looking at Ronnie. "You figured it out, didn't ya? Tell them." His finger slipped over the trigger, appraising its cold metal.
Ronnie stared at his hands in his lap, not even seeming to notice the weapon in Horace's hand. "Parker… I saw photos of him," he began. "From the 1920's."
"From what?" Wade asked, incredulous.
"I think… he was hurt, or attacked, and he fled back in time. Really far. Whether by design, or accidentally… he went too far, and he couldn't come back."
"This boy here tried to kill him," Horace said. "And I have been sent to deliver God's justice unto him."
Wade gripped his protectionizer and stepped slowly between Horace and Logan, hands raised in a placating gesture.
"Step aside, boy," Horace commanded, but Wade merely backed up. He continued to move protectively until Logan was just behind him, effectively shielded.
"One thing I'd like to know," Wade said, "is this: why should we trust you when you've already lied?"
"And which lie was that?" Horace asked.
"You said you got into town last night, but that's your car outside, right? We saw that car stalking the Trent's home earlier that morning. Returning to the scene of a crime?"
Horace blinked. "It's not like that. I was—"
Before Horace could finish explaining that he'd only lied to avoid offending his sister-in-law, who wouldn't approve of his lack of visits, everything changed in a span of heartbeats.
Thub-thump.
In the first heartbeat, Logan's hands darted downwards. One, his left, gripped firmly to Wade's shoulder, while his right reached for his own waistband. Horace recognized the posture and body language of a man reaching for a stashed weapon—he'd seen it plenty of times on the hunt, when a boar or bear wandered closer than the party had realized—and Horace also knew that the innocent Kerrigan boy gripped the protecting device. That meant there was only one thing to do: suppressing fire, to prevent Logan from taking aim. Horace's rifle discharged, casing ejecting from the side as cordite smoke puffed into the small kitchen. Arriving at the speed of judgment, the bullet pounded into Wade, who barely managed to keep hold of the Protectionizer. He thudded backwards, his shirt shredding to tatters as the bullet struck an inpenetrable object and exploded into hot, razor-sharp shrapnel. One small piece tore upwards and dragged a gash in Logan's index finger. Another piece flew out and seemed to deflect against empty air, before a small trickle of red began to spill from open space. It had hit Shaun, still invisible, though it would be another ten seconds before he even noticed the wound.
Thub-thump.
Horace's hand hammered downwards for the bolt and began to prime the rifle for its second shot. Logan's right hand flicked upwards from behind his back, thumb clicking the hammer into place. His left hand pulled Wade close as a human shield while he aimed beyond the boy's shoulder, leveling the weapon at Horace. Both triggers clicked in synchronicity, twin booms setting the boys' ears rattling. Horace had adjusted his aim to the right, knowing that Wade was an effective shield—and also acknowledging the folly of seeking a headshot, hard-to-hit targets that they were. He instead sought to shoot Logan's arm or weapon, but his shot had been quickly aimed, and his bullet only grazed along Logan's forearm shallowly before striking Wade yet again. Logan's bullet was better-aimed, striking Horace on the right side of the abdomen. The man felt as though he'd been punched by a great fist—or, perhaps, a tree entire—and he immediately stumbled backwards. Both Ronnie and Shaun began to flee the room, feet dragging them slowly away as though moving through molasses.
Thub-thumb.
Wade, struck by a second bullet, momentarily released the protectionizer, and he stumbled forwards and grabbed at it as it tumbled through the air. Logan watched Horace's hand lever the bolt yet again, saw Wade grab at the tumbling stone, knocking his fist into it but raising his other hand, ready to catch it. Logan saw himself move as though a spectator. He lurched Wade's shoulder backwards, throwing the boy off balance and misaligning his attempt to grab the stone from mid-air. Instead of closing around it, his fist merely struck into it, sending it upwards. Horace, seeing the stone tumbling, lowered his aim—he wouldn't risk shooting with Wade unprotected. But now Logan needed only flex his arm downwards for a point-blank killshot… and aim downwards he did. He fired, and bullet left revolver, racing towards Wade's back. This time, it entered, unimpeded.
Thub-thump.
Wade slumped backwards into Logan, eyes wide. The Protectionizer tumbled and clattered down to the floor, bouncing near Logan's feet, a small trickle of blood alongside. Horace eyed the stone and knew he wouldn't be able to get to it before Logan did… and to shoot at him would risk shooting the Kerrigan boy yet again, something Horace could never live with. After a split second's hesitation, he retreated to the living room, taking cover beyond the room's entryway.
And just like that, time seemed to resume its normal rate of passage.
Wade cracked a pained smile. "Ok… that one hurt," he wheezed, prodding his chest with his hand. His breath was ragged and bubbling, shallow as the grave. He fell to his knees.
"I think he shot me… Is it bad?" he asked Logan. He then collapsed onto the ground, fully prone. Logan reached over and snatched the Protectionizer from just beyond the spreading pool of blood, eyed the doorway where Horace had retreated to, and then finally turned to the dying boy.
"You don't have to answer," he said weakly. "I can tell it is." Logan met his gaze. Ronnie and Shaun had both fled, it seemed… and by the lack of charging attacks from the old man, it seemed Horace had fled as well. It was just Wade and Logan, here in the DeLange kitchen, smell of gunsmoke mixing with the aromatic chicken and italian sauces, stained with the dark iron note of blood.
"I'm scared," Wade choked out. "Can you do me one last solid, with that pen of yours?" He gripped Logan's hand and held it tight. "Take the scared away?"
Logan pulled out the Empathizer from his pocket and looked at it. Outside, he heard the report of gunfire, but the sound could hardly break through the maelstrom of his thoughts in that moment. Wade looked at the Empathizer and his eyes were wide with a desperate form of gratitude. He nodded his head as though saying ready.
Logan gripped the device and breathed deeply. He pressed the Empathizer to his own side, not Wade's, and pushed the button. As the battery filled with sickly, pale blue, he drained himself of the last of the pity he felt for the bleeding thing before him. He pried Wade's trembling hands off of his own and stood, wiping the blood on a napkin from the nearby table. His ears rang from the gunshots, but he could still hear the weak protests from the form on the floor… Logan just didn't care.
Without even a glance over his shoulder at the boy dying fearful and alone, Logan pushed his way out the back door into the rising winds of the night. Crickets chirped and in the distance, a dog howled wildly. Nearby gunfire shattered glass, and there was a primal yell of a shaking, deep rage, but Logan was now a being of singular purpose. He didn't even turn his head towards the commotion; the woods beckoned him. He'd finally acquired the item he needed for the next stage in his plan: it was time to repay an old favor.