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Her voice crackles softly across the line as she drops the news on you like a bomb: “John Crocker is dead.”
Your hand clenches around the receiver. It’s one of those old-ass landline phones that actually sits in a cradle and has a keypad; the Batterwitch can’t stick her subliminal mindfuck technology in these, so it’s the only kind of phone the four of you ever use. Well…the three of you, now.
“Shit, Rose,” you whisper.
“They’re calling it an accident, but we both know he was too close to the truth. He’s always been too close. It’s a wonder he survived as long as he did.”
You only met him a handful times. He was old, but his eyes never showed it. They laughed, those eyes, and they knew you instantly. None of you ever figured out how you knew certain things. You think it must’ve been Rose, at least partially; she knew more than any of you, and once she made contact with each of you, you all started to know more too, as if her powers of perception were somehow leaking into your brains.
“Why would she kill him now? Why wait until he was a few years and a case of straight-up heart failure from dying naturally?”
“Maybe she couldn’t until now. He was her son, after all, functionally at least. Perhaps she finally overcame whatever vague fondness she might have had for him.”
“That’s implying the bitch had actual feelings for a human other than disgust and disdain.”
“It’s only speculation on my part, Dave. In the end, her reasons hardly matter. John is dead, and we need to know who’s next.”
With a leaden motion, you sit down in the armchair by the fireplace. You feel eons older than you are, eons older than John, who was older in truth than you. “Have you heard from Jade?”
“Just last week, in fact. Though, she’s been a bit preoccupied with her charge, so she couldn’t talk long.”
A stab of familiar pain hits you: sorrow, despair, longing. “Rose…they aren’t coming, are they? We’re gonna be gone by the time they get here.”
“Yes. I suspect we will be.”
“What the hell are we supposed to do, then? If we’re not around to protect them—”
“Dave, we always knew we wouldn’t be able to protect them, even if they arrived while we were still breathing to welcome them. John knew that too; that’s why he left instructions for Jane’s father.”
Impatience and anger surge through your veins, and you’re up out of your chair and pacing before you realize. “I’m going to check on her.”
“That would be ill-advised.”
“That girl is defenseless, goddamnit, and in the heart of enemy territory to boot. I just want to make sure at least one of those kids is all right!”
Her tone is infuriatingly calm. She’s older on the inside even than you, and unlike you, she’s aged gracefully. “I understand your frustration. Our wards haven’t come, and you’re aching for a responsibility that won’t fall to you in this lifetime. But you can’t substitute young Jane for him, Dave. She has a guardian already, and we have our own agendas to attend to.”
The receiver creaks threateningly, and you force yourself to ease your grip a little. “Rose, I can’t—I have to see her. I can’t sit here and do nothing. Jade’s in the middle of the bumfucking ocean where I can’t get to her, and John’s dead and our kids aren’t coming, and I’m gonna lose my fucking mind if I don’t take some kind of action.”
Rose, your dear soul-sister, says nothing, simply waits for you to ramble on, because she knows you intimately and knows when the ends of your sentences are just the prelude to more words. “What we’re doing,” you say, plead almost, “it’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough. You know it, I know it. Taking pot-shots at the Batterwitch in books and movies until she gets pissed enough to come after us; all that shit is just kicking cans, wasting our time until there isn’t any time left to waste. And I’ll go insane, Rose. I really will.”
“Go,” she says, and you’re already nodding, grateful enough that you’d cry if you thought you could these days. She knows what you need, and though it may pain her to do so, she’ll indulge you over and over again. For that, and for a thousand other reasons, you love her.
“I’ll call you when I get back.”
“Hurry home, then.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Jeremiah Crocker is a ghost in suit pants and a crisp, white button up, all pale skin and ice-blue eyes that don’t resemble John’s in the least. But his smile is warm and human enough as he beckons you into the house, and you think it’s strange that he’s so accepting of you, a man who is younger than he is, but who was inexplicably friendly with his aging father.
“It was kind of you to drop by,” the man says as he shows you to the living room. “My father’s passing took us by surprise, and unfortunately, Jane isn’t coping so well.”
The little girl in question is curled up in John’s favorite Lazy-Boy recliner, face tucked in the curve of her arm and tiny shoulders quaking with sobs. Mr. Crocker frowns sadly at her for a moment, before going over and laying a hand gently atop her head. “Jane, darling, your Pop-Pop’s friend is here to see you. Do you want to say hello?”
The child hiccups, sniffles loudly, and lifts her tear-streaked face to look at you. Her button nose wrinkles in confusion, which is understandable. The last time she saw you, she was only two years old. “Pop-Pop’s friend?” she wibbles, blinking big, vibrantly blue eyes.
Your heart aches to see her. She looks so much like a young, female John that it’s almost creepy. “Hey,” you greet her. “I’m Dave Strider. I met you when you were just two, so I don’t figure you’d remember me, but I was good buddies with your Pop-Pop.”
The tyke wipes her face messily on her arm, and you wince internally. You’ve never been very good at dealing with gross bodily fluids. “Hi,” Jane mumbles.
Jeremiah offers you a faint smile. “I suppose I ought to give you two some time to talk. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”
You nod, and off he goes, most likely to crank out something cavity-inducing. As long as it’s made from scratch (and not from the Witch’s boxed shit), you might even have some, assuming you’re here that long.
An empty spot on the couch calls to you; you take a seat and wonder what to say to a little girl who’s just lost a beloved grandpa. Thankfully, the silence has only just started to get uncomfortable when she breaks it for you.
“Mister Strider?” she says tentatively.
“Yeah, kiddo?”
She bites her lip indecisively with her adorably oversized front teeth, then wiggles her way down from that recliner that’s like, a billion times too big for her dainty little self, and waddles over to the couch, where she proceeds to clamber up next to you. You wait patiently while she settles in, and wait several minutes longer while she kicks her feet and doesn’t quite manage to look at you.
At last, she continues her earlier thought. “Why is my Pop-Pop gone?”
Christ, right in the feelings. “Sometimes people go away, Janey, and they can’t come back.”
“I know ‘cause Daddy said that too, but why? Why’d he go away?” Big fat tears well up in her eyes again, and now she’s looking at you directly and you almost wish she wouldn’t. “Was I bad? Is that why he’s gone?”
“Oh my god, kid,” you rasp, and without thinking, you wrap your arm around her shoulders and hug her close. “No way this is your fault, okay? Don’t even think shi—stuff like that.”
She burrows against your side, clings onto your shirt and just fucking keens, and it breaks your heart that you don’t have all the answers, and even if you did you probably couldn’t tell her the cold, black truth of it all. You shoosh her as gently as you know how, and pet her riotous black curls while she whimpers and soaks your shirt with her grief. And it’s sad and horrible, but it also soothes the ragged edges of that void in you, the one that insists it should be filled with a tiny human not so different from this one.
You see him in your dreams sometimes, a blond little hell raiser with eyes the color of a sunset. He’s got brown-sugar freckles and an intellect too large for his body, and you love him so much that it’s agony to wake and realize he doesn’t exist yet.
Jane eventually calms down, and the two of you sit and talk about things other than her dead grandpa, like her favorite color, and the sugar cookies she helped her daddy make yesterday. You stay for exactly three hours, fifteen minutes, and forty-eight seconds, and at that point both your bizarrely impressive internal clock and Jane’s yawning tell you it’s time to go. Mr. Crocker sends you off with a covered plate of baked goods and the hope that you’ll return to visit again in the near future.
Two days later, someone blows up your car.
You don’t go visit Jane again.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Ah, Dave,” she says, and she’s smiling out at you from the screen, but there are worry lines around her brilliant green eyes. “It’s good to talk to you again.”
“Careful, Harley, you sound like an old woman when you say that.”
She laughs at you, silver hair falling around her face in a way that strikes you as beautiful, in spite of her years. “You brat, I am an old woman. And I’ve told you a hundred times, it’s English.”
Unease stirs in your gut. “Jade, that name…do you have to?”
“Hah! If it’ll get under that skanky sea-alien’s skin, you bet your ass I do.”
“I know, it’s just, I don’t like it.”
‘The important thing here is that she doesn’t like it. I know it makes you nervous, but it does the same thing to her, and so far her heebie-jeebies are what’s kept us safe, and Jake especially.”
“Speaking of the rugrat, how’s he doing?”
“He’s healthier than any horse that ever was. I think he’s outside climbing trees right now. Come to think of it, I should check on him soon.” She glances off to the side somewhere, and then shrugs. “Eh, the fairybulls will send up an alarm call if anything happens.”
You shake your head incredulously. “Trusting your kid to a bunch of mutant critters. How excellent of babysitters can those pintsized monsters possibly be?”
“They like him,” she replies. “And they’re more or less harmless, but they move in large flocks, which offers him some protection when he’s out there alone.”
Something about the way she says that last bit has you leaning toward the screen anxiously. “Jade. Did something happen?”
“No. Not yet.”
“Not yet? Talk to me, Harley; what’s going on?”
All traces of her smile have faded, and now she really does look her years. “There have been ‘accidents’ surrounding the family business. Some of the factory workers have died. Some who were pretty high up the ladder.”
Ice floods your bones, and you clutch at the sides of your laptop like that will somehow stabilize your world. “She’s coming for you, isn’t she.”
“I think so. Those deaths were a warning, a threat.”
“Jade, you have to stop. Shut down the factories, halt production. If you back off and stop antagonizing her, she might—”
“Knock it off, Dave,” she snaps. “I knew the moment I started manufacturing rival technology that she’d be after me sooner or later. I did it anyway, and I’ll deal with the consequences.”
“Come to the States,” you insist, hating the weakness that pervades your voice. “Bring Jake, and get your asses the hell off that island. I’ll come get you myself if I have to, but you can’t stay there.”
She looks so tired sitting there, thousands of miles out of reach. “It’s too late. I don’t know when the attack will come, but it is coming. My only hope is that the name she hates and fears so much will be enough to protect the boy.”
“It’s a goddamned jungle full of monsters, Jade! How’s he going to survive without you?” You’re frantic now; you can’t do this, not again, not with her. “Let me fly out to get you. I can hire a jet or a charter plane or something.”
“A rash action like that is exactly what she’s waiting for. You’d be too vulnerable in the air over uncharted waters; if you went down, no one would even know where or how you disappeared. No, you’ll be safer if you just stay put.”
“Why!? Why won’t you let me at least try to protect you!?”
Jade dredges up a small, pained smile. “You always want to be everybody’s knight, Dave. But you’re not a shield and a sword. You’re a man, and you have work to do right where you are.”
“Fucking movies aren’t worth losing a friend for!”
“They’re not just movies,” Jade retorts. “They’re the truth! Your movies, Rose’s books; they’re slowly but surely opening peoples’ minds to the truth about that witch, and that’s ten times more important than the self-made fate of some old lady on an island.”
“Rebellion isn’t worth this. It’s not worth your life.”
“It’s worth everything, and you know it.”
“Then what about Jake?” you challenge her, and it’s a dirty tactic, but you’re desperate not to lose her like you lost John. “Who’s going to look after him if you kick the fucking bucket? Are you saying you don’t even want me to help you for his sake?”
Jade looks at you like you’ve punched her. “Don’t you think I want him to be safe? Of course I do, I love that boy! But if you take him away from here, even if you both survive the trip here and back, he’ll still be in danger! If he stays here, the Batterwitch will most likely write him off as dead in a week anyway, and she’ll forget about him. He has enough ammo to last him until the last epoch of mankind if necessary, and all the survival training I could give him. He’ll have the fairybulls for companionship, and enough non-perishable foods to get him through, and—and I don’t want to do this!” There are tears falling from her green eyes, the tears of a frightened young girl, not a woman nearing the end of her natural life. “I don’t want to leave him alone! But he’s safer here surrounded by deadly animals and ruthless jungle than he’d ever be with you or Rose! Don’t you take that last hope from me, Dave, don’t you dare! You promise me, whatever happens, you won’t come here!”
“Jade, I can’t—”
“Promise me!”
“Please—”
“I said promise me, fuckass! Or I’ll never forgive you, even if I live a thousand lifetimes!”
“You’re my friend.” It comes out small, helpless. She doesn’t budge, and slowly, her resolve collapses your resistance like an old, broken lawn-chair. “I promise. Whatever happens, I’ll stay away.”
Her look of relief hurts almost more than her tears. “Thank you. Listen, Dave, I need to go see to Jake’s lunch. Little scamp forgets to eat if he gets too caught up in his adventures. I…I’ll call you again tomorrow. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
You cut the feed and log out, and spend the next twenty minutes and thirty-nine seconds staring blankly at the inside of your shades. And when tomorrow comes and goes with no call, you are only miserable, not surprised.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The world went to hell a lot faster than either you or Rose anticipated.
When you made it to your fortieth birthday without being stabbed with a giant fork, you started to think maybe you’d been wrong, that your kid would show up, that you’d turn the tide, that the rebellion would take root and flourish into something strong enough to drive the Batterwitch right the fuck off your planet. But those things never happened, and in the years between your fortieth birthday and your fiftieth, humanity tasted the bitter fruits of their ignorance and complacency.
In that time, you and your sister in spirit resigned yourselves to preparing for a world you’d never see. You both stockpiled weapons, canned goods, anything that wouldn’t degrade or spoil over time. You also hoarded movies, magazines, and books, every kind of book from preschool learners to the encyclopedia Britannica. You still had no idea when your star-children would arrive, so you aimed for somewhere between “a really fucking long time in the future” and “never.” And if they couldn’t have you and Rose, they would sure as shit at least have food, and knowledge, and as much protection as you could provide.
It was a triumphant day for humankind when you ran those disgusting clowns through with your sword. It still wasn’t enough to turn back the tide. Nor was it enough when Rose stabbed out the eyeballs of the Antichrist. You were foolish enough at the time to think that it might be. When you swooped down on your sweet ride, grabbed her blood-slicked hand in yours and pulled her aboard, when the two of you grinned terrible, killers grins at each other and the adrenaline was still pumping through you, you thought it would be enough.
Now, you know better.
You’re facing down the murderer of your world, sword in hand, and your back is straight and your eyes are hard and unafraid. But you know your story ends here. Deep down, you’ve always known it, even before the night Rose came to you and looked you in the eyes, and told you that you were both going to die. Now, your sister lies unmoving in a pool of cooling red, and the bitch that killed her is smiling at you like a fucking shark.
The alien speaks to you, taunting you, but you don’t bother to register what she says. Instead, you breathe in and think of the future. Somewhere on the horizon, in a time far beyond what you will see, a boy is spear-fishing in the ocean. He breaks the surface of the water, blond head and serious face, and orange eyes catch the light of the fading sun. He’ll have snapper for dinner, and afterward, he’ll text his friends while the seagulls preen themselves outside his window. And he’ll be lonely, and he’ll struggle, but he’ll be all right.
He’ll be all right.
You exhale, and go to meet your end.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~