One headache (Ishmael)
I woke up somewhere dark and quite the opposite of warm. My head did not appreciate the bashing it had gotten the last time I was aware of anything. It was time to start being aware again.
So, I became aware of the darkness, the chill, a general dampness, and a smell I really didn’t like. It was the smell of a room that sometimes, but not quite often enough, has a chamber pot in it. And there was the sound of a groan. It might have come from myself. The throbbing in my head was making everything seem louder and closer than it possibly could be.
I tested my senses and groaned once on purpose. I knew that was me for certain.
Another groan answered. Not me this time. I was sure of it.
I looked to where it came from and found myself able to distinguish shapes and silhouettes and the distinctly feral form of the man I’d hoped to inquire about.
“Cooper?” I called out.
“Hey ho!,” he said. “Call him Ishmael, for here he is, far from sea, far, far from the sea, and so close to the fire.”
“I heard you were to be guest of honor at the Christmas Burning.”
“I’ve heard that, too,” said Cooper, his voice trailing.
“I’ve also heard,” I said, “that the Storemasters of Wal have always forbidden the Burnings that other, less civilized towns indulge in.”
“There’s been murder, call-him-Ishmael. Murder. Foreclosure. Clusterfuckery. A usurper sits upon the Reckoning Chair in the Vault of Wal.”
“Who would dare?” I said. “The Storemasters have run Wal well and justly ever since the Crash.” A few sentences with Cooper and I couldn’t help slip into the stilted vernacular customary to the time and place.
“Freight company man from beyond Hank Harbor,” said Cooper. “A murderer and a strongman. The dogs, my dogs, they’re my pack now, the dogs, running and barking and so loyal to themselves alone, and me now, because they made me one. I’m part dog now, I suppose. Perhaps I’m married to the bitch, now? I don’t know. The dogs only tell me so much. And it’s purely symbolic. Not a physical thing. Don’t think that. That’s not a thing I do. Saving myself for the human kind of wife. Too much information. She’s a good companion, though. Good family. Don’t think wrong things about her. But the dogs only tell me so much. But the dogs acted in the woods. They foreclosed upon the murderer, but there’s still the strongman. Stokes, usurper, and his strongman, stepped in as the Storemaster choked on his pudding.”
That Cooper. His tangled mind. What was he trying to tell me?
“You left, call-him-Ishmael!” said Cooper. “I brought you to Wal. I brought your ‘prentice. I ate your taco. Then, shits! You left. Gone, bereft, alost. You were gone, even though I told you murder was coming to town.”
“Settle down, Coop,” I said. “It wasn’t intentional. A glitch. My ‘prentice dragged me into winter and here we are now.”
“The Storemaster was not honestly choked,” said Cooper. “I’m sure it was Stokes’s fuckery that laid him low. And on a night you should have been here.”
“I should have,” I said. “My ‘prentice is the root of some fuckery in his own right. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry’s not keeping Stokes from shoving a Christmas tree up my ass and lighting it.”
“No,” I said. “But maybe I can make something happen.”
“Make it happen quick,” said Cooper. “Christmas is coming.”
The headache was making it hard to plan on the fly. I had to think of what allies I might be able to count on. There was Larry, I suppose, but after that taco grease incident, it was obvious he was still more of a liability than an asset. Hannie was always good in a fight, but she was also the kind who always kept her best interest first and foremost in mind. It had been years since I’d been in Wal, maybe a decade their time. I had very little idea what the micropolitics were like lately beyond what I could decode from Cooper’s ravings. But, as a rule, the people of Wal knew how fairly they’ve always been treated. They tended to be very loyal to the hereditary line of Storekeepers. There could be someone to rally the townspeople. If only the headache would quiet down I could remember. Then, there it was, the memory I needed:
“Didn’t the Storemaster have a daughter?” I asked.
“Indeed,” said another voice. “I’m in here, too.”
The Storemaster's daughter’s voice. Young, bitter, with an underlying hint of pleasantness that would have show more strongly if the situation were not that of an ersatz dungeon. That is to say, she would have had a pretty voice if she wasn't locked in a room that smelled like a toilet.
“Well, shits," I said. "Back to the old dry erase board.”
I had to think, but it was so hard. Probably concussed, which was bad because, in almost every case like this, it was by brainpower alone that I had any shot of survival. Brainpower, and the emergency default setting on my time machine.
Unconsciously, my hand dipped into the pocket where I kept my method, great-great grandpa’s time traveling watch. Unconsciously, my hand found nothing there.
“Double shits.”
* * *
Another headache (Larry)
I was thirsty. Oh, hell, was I thirsty. Cottonmouth didn’t even begin to describe it. More like there was a whole sheep in there, and he was kicking at the inside of my skull just for the hell of it.
Plus, my pillow was totally bogus. Frickin’ diamond saw blades. I know these things aren’t worth whatever trouble I was in now, because... because... well, I couldn’t come up with any specific reasons at the time, but I was pretty sure that, by that point, the whole deal was bullshit.
This, however, and I have to admit, is pretty much how I feel about mornings in general. Only this morning, I wasn’t just hungover, I was hung at a steep incline with large, scavenger birds tapping at my skull and crapping down my shirt.
Plus, I had this stack of diamond saw blades leaving the impression of the chuck-hole on my face. I don’t even know if chuck-hole’s what it’s called, but just imagine your flesh pressed through the hole in the middle of a circular saw blade and becoming a bright red super-zit that is surely not going to impress any of the local lady action, and you’ve got a good idea why I might be pissed about it.
The worst part, though, was someone was shaking me. Some son of a B was trying to wake my ass up. This was an especially harsh realm because the more awake I got, the more I felt it in my bones that I was sleeping on the cold hard floor of the pub I passed out in the night before.
“C’mon, slacker,” said this voice that was like an older crustier version of someone I had met before. I couldn’t quite place it, though, what with all of holy hell ringing through my skull.
“It’s time to get your pissant self up off the pavement,” he said.
“erunnnh,” was about all I could manage as I peeled my face off the saw blades and turned my bleary head in his direction.
“Here,” he said. “Drink this.”
Something was up against my face, something hot that smelled kind of like flowers and dirt.
“What is this?”
“It’s what passes for coffee around here,” he said.
“It’ll have to do, I guess.”
I took a drink and hell if that shit didn’t open my eyes. I finally could get a look at the dude who woke me up.
He was an older guy, but a tough older guy. One of those codgers you wouldn’t want to mess with. Like equal parts Frank Sinatra and hobo king. I know that’s kind of a contradiction, but you’d know what I mean if you saw this guy’s blue eyes plus his thrift store bargain bin outfit. His trench coat itself looked like it might have spent all of World War I in an actual trench. Everything else was tatters, patches, and grease stains, but, somehow, in a way that set his clothes apart from the sack cloth and furs attire of the locals.
“All right, sunshine,” said the guy. “We’ve got to get moving if we’re going to save our friend Ishmael from the fire.”
“Hold on,” I said. “You’re obviously not from around here. You’re also obviously not a time cop. Who the eff are you?”
The codger laughed. “Ishmael’s been on your ass to clean up your language, hasn’t he?”
“Sure,” I said, “but who the eff are you?”
“I’m the guy with the watch,” he said.
Lo and behold, he had the thing right there, dangling by a braided leather fob: Ishmael’s mother trucking time travel watch. Who the eff was this guy?