They Call It A Gift
“What's he like?” Randy asked, pretending to be casual. John always knew the difference.
“I don't really know, I didn't talk to him for all that long. He seems pleasant, helpful. Maybe a little quiet on the self-promotion side, which wasn't what I expected. He's a writer and he sometimes sounds like it, but mostly he seemed normal enough. He was quite good at explaining it all to me, I'm not sure that I really understand anyway. If he's helpful that's good. Otherwise I've not lost anything. He hasn't asked for anything and he didn't even seem to be looking forward to trying to help.”
“Probably not looking forward to what he might find out,” said Ted, then glanced up as if wondering who had spoken. John thought he hadn't intended to speak, perhaps he was tired after travelling. Still, it seemed strange that he refused to say either that it could be a good thing, that some people were able to do it, or had scoffed at the very idea. The discussion seemed to make him almost jumpy.
“Maybe he won't find out anything,” said John with a shrug. “I suppose we'll find out tomorrow. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you when you were in the middle of catching up.”
“That's okay,” said Ted with a rather infectious smile that John had to answer - he found that he liked Ted, no matter if he was a little strange. Probably he was just tired and shy and trying to get involved in the conversation without causing offence. “Beer?”
“I suppose one or two won't hurt me,” said John cheerily.
Randy laughed and passed him a beer, doling out another to Ted before claiming one for himself. “So, you were in Bangor? What's that like?”
“Oddly like a Stephen King novel,” said Ted dryly and Randy chuckled. “I wasn't there for long though. Then I went to Chicago for a few months.”
“Always wanted to go there,” said Randy fondly. “Maybe the next time we go away?”
John looked amused. “Maybe, but whenever the topic comes up, you're all about where the sun is.”
“I like to top up my tan--”
“You always were a vain bugger,” interjected Ted casually.
“He still is,” replied John with a chuckle.
“What is this, gang up on Randy day?” Randy faked a pout and folded his arms sulkily.
“You'll get wrinkles,” warned Ted and John laughed again. Ted stretched, putting his beer on the table next to his things. John noticed that he had the latest phone on there, very nice and very expensive, by contrast the wallet looked years old and incredibly battered, the kind that was built to last but had been well used over the years. No keys, the other staple of a man's pockets. Ted stood up. “Excuse me a moment.”
“Three beers and you have to tap a kidney already?” Randy rolled his eyes. “You never change DiBiase.”
“Fuck you.” Ted flipped him off, gave John a slightly apologetic look as if he thought he was about to get in trouble for the language, then headed off to the bathroom.
“He seems cool,” said John. “Maybe a little jumpy.”
“He can get like that around people he doesn't know,” said Randy, tipping a healthy amount of beer into his mouth. “He doesn't want to make a bad impression is all.”
It seemed like an odd way to put it John thought and then cursed himself. He needed to start leaving the police alertness in the office. “He hasn't. I like him, he seems quite interesting. Well travelled. Doesn't he want to stay in one place for a while?”
“I don't think that's an option for him.”
John was about to comment on that when an unfamiliar ring tone interrupted him, the Jaws theme he was amused to note. Ted's phone, left alone, lit up like a Christmas tree and John leaned over to look at the display out of habit. And paused. The phone showed a picture of the caller as well as the name and it was someone he knew. It took him a few seconds to recall who it was, it wasn't someone he knew well but the face was a little familiar and the name brought it all back.
“Huh?”
The phone rang off a few seconds before Ted returned to the room, looking flustered. “Isn't that always the way? You leave the room for a few minutes and the phone rings--”
“The way that phone flashes, I couldn't help but notice who it was,” said John casually and he saw Randy narrow his eyes, recognising the tone John used to put people at their ease before he struck with the difficult questions. “Dwayne Johnson. I know him, a little. We went to a couple of training seminars together, the national ones. Isn't he still a cop?”
“Uh-huh,” mumbled Ted, looking away - he couldn't lie well, that much was obvious. “I met him in the last place I was in, I guess he was just calling to make sure I got here okay.”
John might not know Dwayne all that well but he was pretty sure the man wasn't the kind to call simply to check on the well being of a new friend. But he didn't want to upset Ted by questioning him and Randy seemed to be getting pretty annoyed with the line of questioning. “It's a pretty weird coincidence, huh? Then again, they say that people are connected in unusual ways.”
Ted glanced over at Randy and gave a little shrug. Randy rolled his eyes and made some gesture and it was John's turn to narrow his eyes. They weren't even trying to hide the silent conversation from him and it was starting to piss him off.
“Is there something you two think I should know?”
Ted sighed deeply, dropping into his place on the couch. “I'm quite okay to go back to the hostel.”
“You won't be going--” started Randy.
“Hey, I'm just throwing it out there,” said Ted snappishly. “Before I say anything else, I understand if I can't stay. I'm used to it, it's fine.” He looked over at John. “I asked Dwayne to do me a favour when I was leaving the last place I was at. Find someone for me and give him a message. He probably didn't like it, but he owed me. Not that he liked that either.”
John looked between the two men and shook his head. He didn't have a clue what Ted was talking about.
“You should be the one to tell him,” Ted told Randy. “It's your story and he's your partner.”
“What?” said John sharply. “Tell me what?”
“Don't be like that John, it's nothing sinister.” Randy reached for another beer, a frown on his face. “It's just that this happened a long time ago and I made a promise to Ted that I wouldn't talk about him too much. I needed to clear it with him before I broke that promise.”
Ted gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Come the morning, or the day after, it'd probably be out in the open anyway. Maybe not that part, but the rest of it. I knew that coming here and that's why I said I could stay at the hostel.”
“You don't have to be a martyr around me Ted, it gets old. And I owe you more than this Wayne Thompson.”
“Johnson,” corrected John absently.
“Whatever. Are you going to enlighten me or are you gonna keep dropping cryptic clues all night?”
Randy tapped his fingers against the arm of the chair, glancing over at Ted. “It happened a long time ago. When we were kids. The olds went to Florida for a couple of years, you know that. Our dads were tight but I wasn't much like Mike, Ted's brother, he was okay but he wasn't into anything I was and we didn't have much to talk about. And Ted and Brett were just - y'know, snot-nosed kids. Boring.”
“Screw you,” said Ted automatically, without any real heat.
“It was some occasion - might have been Ted's dads birthday but I don't really remember now. Might have been nothing more than a good excuse to get together and hang out. I was just about fourteen and wanting to get into trouble, but I could hardly do that when the adults were everywhere. In the end Mike suggested that we all went to the local park for an hour or so, played some baseball. It sounded boring but better than listening to the adults and we'd done nothing but swim all morning and I was bored of that too. So we headed off down there. It was a good neighbourhood, the park was huge but there was a diamond near the street, away from the skate park and the play area. So we went there and started batting a ball about.”
Randy smirked. “It wasn't bad but it wasn't fun either. Brett whined about being put into outfield none-stop but bowling at him you couldn't put much power behind it. He was kinda little. Mike could hit it and run around and Ted wasn't bad either but my bro stayed behind and there's not much fun when there's only four of you. But then a couple of other kids asked to join in and it wasn't too bad. I would have preferred to be somewhere else though and it didn't help that they were from our school and used Ted's nickname whenever they yelled at him for missing the catch.”
John looked over at Ted, but he wasn't telling what his nickname at school might have been.
“Anyway, it was getting boring and I thought I was way too grown up, too mature and sophisticated to be smacking a ball around trying to entertain a bunch of little kids...”
~:~
Randy was the first one to notice that there was a van pulled up at the side of the curb, a man leaning against it smoking a cigarette. Randy had been sneaking smokes for a whole three months now and thought he might be able to bum one off this guy. He was six foot already and few people considered him a child any longer.
By this time one of the newcomers was taking hits at the ball and Randy was supposed to be in the outfield, but his interest in the game had been waning for a while. He strolled casually over to the man and checked him out, him and the van. It had clearly once had something painted on it and that had been painted over, he couldn't make out the words but they had been in red letters.
The man saw his interest. “I was in a band, we broke up,” he said casually, taking a drag on the cigarette. “You like rock music?”
“Yeah.”
“I played guitar, hard rock y'know? But the other guys ended up with other things to do. My van, I'm not keeping their names on it when they bailed on me.” He looked at the van and laughed. “I suppose I should have done a better job. I'll have to put on another coat, but it's kinda boring. Should get it ready for my next band though.”
“Yeah.” Randy checked out the man himself, who sported what might have been a short haircut that was growing out and looked mildly foolish, a black beanie hat, blue jeans and a shirt with an exploding head on the front. Randy loved the shirt but he wasn't about to tell this guy so. The lessons from his childhood about men in vans with puppies and candy to tempt little boys into trouble occurred to him but he shrugged them off. He was six foot now, he wasn't a kid. He was practically an adult now and he could smoke without coughing up a lung to prove it.
“Can I bum a smoke off you?”
The man looked amused. “Are you old enough?”
“Sure, I'm eighteen,” lied Randy. He always thought his height let him get away with the lie but didn't realise that his mannerisms and his face gave him away.
“Fair enough.” The man passed him the packet and Randy took out the cigarette, for the first time wondering if he should be doing this. Mike could narc him out and if he didn't then Brett was just a kid and would probably delight in it. He glanced over his shoulder to see Brett arguing heatedly with the two new kids, Mike watching with a frown on his face.
“You're stuck babysitting, huh?”
Randy turned his attention back to the man. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
The man watched him playing with the cigarette, trying to work up the courage to smoke it and to hell with what the DiBiase boys might say to his father, then smirked. “Tell you what. If you're worried about the little 'uns telling tales about your nicotine habit, we can sit in the van. Or you can, I don't wanna freak you out or nothing.”
Feeling embarrassed that he was probably giving away his true age and immaturity, Randy shrugged. “Hey, I'm cool right here.”
“Yeah?” The man stared at him, a half-smile on his face. “That's cool. Only what I was about to smoke, I can't exactly do out in the open y'know?”
“You have pot?” Randy was simultaneously filled with excitement and trepidation. He could just see his friends reaction when he went back to school, casually telling them he'd been hanging around with some guitarist who had his own van and supplied him with pot - he'd be the envy of all of them.
“Hush, not so loud.” The guy looked around and the caution made Randy feel like even more of a rebel. “You never know who's listening in! But yeah, I do. You smoke?”
“Sure,” said Randy, as if he smoked pot every morning along with his first coffee.
“Step into my parlour a moment then,” said the man with a throaty chuckle. “The shit I got's gonna blow your mind.”
Randy took a couple of steps after him, too excited by the opportunity to pay much attention to the boys he had arrived with and assuming that they were too busy with their game to be paying attention to him. Or so he thought, until someone grabbed his wrist hard, almost yanking his shoulder from its socket. He turned to see Ted standing there, still close to a foot shorter at that time but with a strength he hadn't displayed any time before. And his eyes were wide and frightened.
“There's another kid in the back of the van,” said Ted anxiously.
“What?” Randy looked over to the van. The sliding door was open a fraction, which was odd, but he didn't see evidence of anyone else in there and so what if there was?
“Kid, what you talking about?” The man chuckled, radiating honest truth. “There's no one else in there.”
Ted looked over to the van and then back at the man. “There is, you just don't know he's still there. But he is. He stayed there even afterwards.”
“Kid,” said the man kindly. “You're not making any sense. Did the ball hit your head?”
Ted didn't even seem to hear him. Not that he wasn't listening. Years later, when Randy was hesitantly trying to explain how it had been, the best he could do was to say it seemed as if Ted could hear some sound too high-pitched for anyone else but loud enough to him to be almost deafening. He was grimacing slightly and then nodded a couple of times, emphatically, like he was agreeing with someone else rather than just himself.
“His name was Peter,” said Ted rapidly. “He was looking for someone to buy him some whisky, he had some money and he knew if he managed to get hold of that he'd be the big man. He wanted to know what it was like, to be drunk. He was over at the park, not this park - okay! I am! He asked him to go to the shop and buy it for him and he did, he came out with it and offered the van as a ride, where they could split the beer and he had some killer weed and anyway, this guy seemed cool, he was riding in his band van with Trampled Angels written in red on the side. It looked like blood and there was a devils tail and it was just so cool. They drove around for a while, drinking and smoking cigarettes and then they pulled over and got into the back. Peter thought maybe the band wasn't around and hadn't been for a while. He started to get paranoid, he felt sick, he wanted to go home but now he's in the back of the van--”
“SHUT UP!” shouted the man. Randy could see that he had lost all the colour in his face, gone whiter than he would have thought it possible. “You can't know--”
“He had brown hair, except he'd put a streak of red in with spray,” said Ted, shaking visibly and not looking over at the man. He was staring at the van, at the sliding door. “You're wearing his shirt, that's his. He was sick and he couldn't bring his legs to move, or his arms to fight and he was strangled in the back of the van--”
The slap came from nowhere, the man swinging with everything he had. Ted went sprawling into the dirt while the man leaned over him, shouting at him that he was a liar, that he was making it up, that he was a freak and a spy and he couldn't know that. Randy heard a shout from behind him as Mike realised his brother was being attacked but Randy didn't wait for backup, he grabbed the shirt with the exploding head without even thinking about what he was doing, losing his cigarette somewhere, shoving backward with all his might. The man stumbled backward, falling onto his ass and then scrambling away, still shouting hysterically at Ted. But the attention was too much perhaps because he made a break for the van, swinging up into the driver’s seat and gunning the engine.
“HE'S STILL IN THERE!” Ted screamed and then the van drove away, tearing up the street while Randy stared dumbly after it. Mike finally arrived, shoving Randy out of the way to tend to Ted. And only Randy overheard what the elder brother said to the younger.
“You can't keep on doing this,” Mike said in a low voice. “There was nothing in the van, nothing at all. No people, no ghosts, no dead children. Nothing but your imagination. You have to stop this!”
“He was in there,” said Ted in a trembling voice. ”He really was.”
Randy looked back at Ted just as the blonde burst into tears, as the other kids approached and the two newcomers starting mumbling comments about the psycho kid. He looked at Ted and he knew. There had been something in the van, something he hadn't seen but Ted had. He had seen it in Ted's eyes, and in the eyes of the man who had tried to lure him into the back, where the last teenager who had been promised rebellion had met death instead.
He believed that Ted saw what he said he did and had never questioned it ever again. And he knew that he owed Ted a favour he would never be able to repay.
~:~
John blinked a couple of times as Randy finished his story. “How could you be so stupid? Did you really think that just because you're a teenager and tall that an adult couldn't have overpowered you?”
“I don't know that was his intention, exactly,” said Randy, looking shamefaced. “I think though that he might have been y'know. Trying to befriend me. Maybe... I don't know. But I think - no, I know - that at a later date, something would have happened. Something bad.”
John exhaled loudly, wanting to chase down this man who had threatened his lover, even if it had happened years before. “Did he ever show up again?”
“Sure,” replied Randy. “He smashed up the van the same day. Drove right into a lamp post a couple of hours later. The cops thought he was high, he kept telling them there was nobody in the back, he'd checked and there was no one there. They were suspicious and checked it out. They found the kids ID and some other stuff that linked him to the van. The guy matched the DNA on the body of a kid they found a month or so before, strangled and dumped just outside of the city.”
John was silent for a moment. “It was him?”
“Name was Peter. Red streak, just like Ted said, hairspray like he said. Ted knew but there was no way he could have known. Unless he'd seen the guy.” Randy was usually so lighthearted and to see him grave and solemn was a strange experience for John. “That kid, and Ted as well, saved me from something I can't even begin to imagine. I don't even know for sure what it was, only that it would have been bad.”
John's attention went to Ted, who had remained silent throughout. “You're psychic?”
“No.” Ted looked up and shrugged, but the expression in his eyes had changed. He seemed scared, haunted almost. “I don't know anything other than what I'm told. I just see people that most others don't, that's all.”
“And that's why you move around the country, looking for murderers?”
Ted laughed humourlessly. “Hardly. I'd be happy never seeing them at all. But I'm - driven, I suppose. Sometimes I just wake up and know it's time I went somewhere else. Usually I know where, not always. It's like a call and I can't ignore it. I have to go.”
“And you've been called here?”
“To the state at least.” Ted managed a small smile. “I know you're probably thinking that I'm insane and I've involved Randy in it all, but it's the truth. The reason I know Dwayne is that I was able to tell him things that he had no idea about, that no one should have known. He locked me up for three days before he accepted that there was no way I could have been there. But I knew because I was told.”
John shook his head slowly. “This is - this is very hard for me to believe.”
“You believed the other guy,” said Randy pointedly.
“That seemed so much more - well, easy. He can just see what happened to something before he held it, nothing more. No dead people.” John took a breath. “And he never saved my lovers life. That part, more than anything, makes it hard for me to get my head around.”
Ted nodded, rather wearily as if he had known that was the answer he would get and John wondered how many times someone trying to be polite had said the same kind of thing. He also wondered how many people accused him of being crazy. “I'll understand if you'd rather I left now--”
“No,” said John immediately. “Just because I have a problem processing this, it doesn't change the facts. Something happened that day that led to you stopping Randy going off with a man who already killed one boy. He believes he owes his life to you and anyone who saves Randy's life is automatically on my Christmas list for life. You can stay Ted. I'd rather you did.”
Ted nodded, not saying anything but looking relieved. John looked over at Randy. “But I have some questions about all of this, I think you'll understand that part. I can understand why you didn't tell me but there's so much I don't get and - huh, not to sound offensive but I listened to all kinds of stories about this Cody and be desperate before I'd even give him the benefit of the doubt. I hope your feelings aren't hurt when I tell you that this one story isn't enough to convince me.” He sighed. “Although with who I heard it from, it carries a lot more weight than what I heard about the other guy.”
~::~
“You didn’t have to come along with me,” John said dryly as he fiddled with the tie around his neck; he didn’t much like ties but since he was no longer of a junior rank bearing a uniform he had to dress semi-smartly at least, “It’s not like the kids gonna turn into an axe wielding maniac when he comes out here.”
“How do you know?” Randy asked, though it was clear he genuinely didn’t think they would have any problem with a threat.
“You just wanted to come and be nosy didn’t you?”
“Little bit.”
“You didn’t have to drag Ted along though…”
“It’s Ok,” Ted quirked a smile, “Randy owes me breakfast for this so…”
“See? He’s the millionaire and I always end up paying for him.”
Ted levelled a kick at Randy that he tried to downplay since there were people walking around and Randy almost tripped over himself trying to avoid it. John couldn’t help but quirk a smile at them; you could see them spending time together as kids, regardless of what Randy had said about thinking that most of the time Ted had been too young to hang out with him.
Turning though he looked up in time to see Cody stepping out of the hotel front doors, “Cody!” he called lightly and extended a hand in a wave. The ravenette had clearly remembered that he would come and get him the following morning because he didn’t seem startled to see John there… though he did look a little leery seeing that he wasn’t alone.
Meanwhile Ted and Randy had looked up upon hearing John calling, and they turned immediately to get a look at the man crossing the road. Randy gave a light whistle, “Not what I was expecting…” he was thinking of some overly dorky and theatrical guy dressed up in some robes who lamented about sensing negative energy in the air or whatever it was the phonies did. Although Ted didn’t respond he wasn’t arguing with Randy as for all he hadn’t entirely known what to expect, this wasn’t it. The young man walking towards them looked maybe a few years younger than himself, with dark hair and deep blue eyes--- and perfectly straight white teeth when he offered a brief and awkward smile of greeting upon reaching them.
“Good morning John.”
“Hey,” John said brightly, “How did you sleep?”
Cody shrugged slightly, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck, “I slept,” his eyes then moved to Randy and Ted, prompting John into making introductions.
“Cody, this is Randy,” he blushed slightly and cleared his throat, “My partner,” if Cody was surprised he didn’t show it, merely quirked another one of those little smiles and shook Randy’s hand firmly, “And this is Randy’s friend Ted.”
It was as though someone had sucker-punched him in the gut, Cody thought hazily, when deep blue met bright blue, cobalt and cornflower meeting, melding and holding. When Ted’s hand enveloped his own he felt a strong jolt of awareness shooting though him, causing the hair of the back of his arms and neck to stand upright. He heard a sharp hiss of breath being taken in and was pretty sure that he wasn’t the only one thinking that something strange had just happened.
“A pleasure.”
John and Randy exchanged looks before Randy then neatly pulled Ted back by the collar of his jacket and offered his best smile, “Well, Ted and I have errands to run so we’ll catch you later. Good luck-“he then looked to John, “Give me a call or something if you need anything.”
“Of course,” John responded but knew that deep down Randy would already know he did his best not to cause Randy any bother, “I’ll see you two later.”
“Nice meeting you,” Ted found himself saying and Cody looked surprised if still a little guarded before nodding his head, “Same to you.”
As they walked away in the opposite direction to John and Cody, Ted found himself looking around his shoulder.
“I know he’s kinda cute but really Teddy? You may have been out of the game a while but surely you remember not to be so obvious?”
“It’s not like that!” Ted protested as his cheeks coloured even more than the wind had already afforded for, though in the back of his mind he was aware that it probably was like that even if it was just a little bit… Cody had been ridiculously attractive. “I just… I feel like I know him,” and yet he was pretty sure he’d never seen Cody before in his life.
A face that gorgeous he was sure he’d remembered.
Randy suddenly looked a bit weary, “He’s not a dead-guy is he?”
“You shook his head, and you and John could both see him… No, he’s not dead.”
“So you’re still concerned he’s a fake?”
“I’m always concerned about fakes,” Ted murmured, unable to shake the feeling of connection he had gained earlier. The hand with which he had shaken Cody’s was tingling slightly, the same sensation he got when he had slept on his arm accidentally and given himself pins and needles.
“I don't really know, I didn't talk to him for all that long. He seems pleasant, helpful. Maybe a little quiet on the self-promotion side, which wasn't what I expected. He's a writer and he sometimes sounds like it, but mostly he seemed normal enough. He was quite good at explaining it all to me, I'm not sure that I really understand anyway. If he's helpful that's good. Otherwise I've not lost anything. He hasn't asked for anything and he didn't even seem to be looking forward to trying to help.”
“Probably not looking forward to what he might find out,” said Ted, then glanced up as if wondering who had spoken. John thought he hadn't intended to speak, perhaps he was tired after travelling. Still, it seemed strange that he refused to say either that it could be a good thing, that some people were able to do it, or had scoffed at the very idea. The discussion seemed to make him almost jumpy.
“Maybe he won't find out anything,” said John with a shrug. “I suppose we'll find out tomorrow. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you when you were in the middle of catching up.”
“That's okay,” said Ted with a rather infectious smile that John had to answer - he found that he liked Ted, no matter if he was a little strange. Probably he was just tired and shy and trying to get involved in the conversation without causing offence. “Beer?”
“I suppose one or two won't hurt me,” said John cheerily.
Randy laughed and passed him a beer, doling out another to Ted before claiming one for himself. “So, you were in Bangor? What's that like?”
“Oddly like a Stephen King novel,” said Ted dryly and Randy chuckled. “I wasn't there for long though. Then I went to Chicago for a few months.”
“Always wanted to go there,” said Randy fondly. “Maybe the next time we go away?”
John looked amused. “Maybe, but whenever the topic comes up, you're all about where the sun is.”
“I like to top up my tan--”
“You always were a vain bugger,” interjected Ted casually.
“He still is,” replied John with a chuckle.
“What is this, gang up on Randy day?” Randy faked a pout and folded his arms sulkily.
“You'll get wrinkles,” warned Ted and John laughed again. Ted stretched, putting his beer on the table next to his things. John noticed that he had the latest phone on there, very nice and very expensive, by contrast the wallet looked years old and incredibly battered, the kind that was built to last but had been well used over the years. No keys, the other staple of a man's pockets. Ted stood up. “Excuse me a moment.”
“Three beers and you have to tap a kidney already?” Randy rolled his eyes. “You never change DiBiase.”
“Fuck you.” Ted flipped him off, gave John a slightly apologetic look as if he thought he was about to get in trouble for the language, then headed off to the bathroom.
“He seems cool,” said John. “Maybe a little jumpy.”
“He can get like that around people he doesn't know,” said Randy, tipping a healthy amount of beer into his mouth. “He doesn't want to make a bad impression is all.”
It seemed like an odd way to put it John thought and then cursed himself. He needed to start leaving the police alertness in the office. “He hasn't. I like him, he seems quite interesting. Well travelled. Doesn't he want to stay in one place for a while?”
“I don't think that's an option for him.”
John was about to comment on that when an unfamiliar ring tone interrupted him, the Jaws theme he was amused to note. Ted's phone, left alone, lit up like a Christmas tree and John leaned over to look at the display out of habit. And paused. The phone showed a picture of the caller as well as the name and it was someone he knew. It took him a few seconds to recall who it was, it wasn't someone he knew well but the face was a little familiar and the name brought it all back.
“Huh?”
The phone rang off a few seconds before Ted returned to the room, looking flustered. “Isn't that always the way? You leave the room for a few minutes and the phone rings--”
“The way that phone flashes, I couldn't help but notice who it was,” said John casually and he saw Randy narrow his eyes, recognising the tone John used to put people at their ease before he struck with the difficult questions. “Dwayne Johnson. I know him, a little. We went to a couple of training seminars together, the national ones. Isn't he still a cop?”
“Uh-huh,” mumbled Ted, looking away - he couldn't lie well, that much was obvious. “I met him in the last place I was in, I guess he was just calling to make sure I got here okay.”
John might not know Dwayne all that well but he was pretty sure the man wasn't the kind to call simply to check on the well being of a new friend. But he didn't want to upset Ted by questioning him and Randy seemed to be getting pretty annoyed with the line of questioning. “It's a pretty weird coincidence, huh? Then again, they say that people are connected in unusual ways.”
Ted glanced over at Randy and gave a little shrug. Randy rolled his eyes and made some gesture and it was John's turn to narrow his eyes. They weren't even trying to hide the silent conversation from him and it was starting to piss him off.
“Is there something you two think I should know?”
Ted sighed deeply, dropping into his place on the couch. “I'm quite okay to go back to the hostel.”
“You won't be going--” started Randy.
“Hey, I'm just throwing it out there,” said Ted snappishly. “Before I say anything else, I understand if I can't stay. I'm used to it, it's fine.” He looked over at John. “I asked Dwayne to do me a favour when I was leaving the last place I was at. Find someone for me and give him a message. He probably didn't like it, but he owed me. Not that he liked that either.”
John looked between the two men and shook his head. He didn't have a clue what Ted was talking about.
“You should be the one to tell him,” Ted told Randy. “It's your story and he's your partner.”
“What?” said John sharply. “Tell me what?”
“Don't be like that John, it's nothing sinister.” Randy reached for another beer, a frown on his face. “It's just that this happened a long time ago and I made a promise to Ted that I wouldn't talk about him too much. I needed to clear it with him before I broke that promise.”
Ted gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Come the morning, or the day after, it'd probably be out in the open anyway. Maybe not that part, but the rest of it. I knew that coming here and that's why I said I could stay at the hostel.”
“You don't have to be a martyr around me Ted, it gets old. And I owe you more than this Wayne Thompson.”
“Johnson,” corrected John absently.
“Whatever. Are you going to enlighten me or are you gonna keep dropping cryptic clues all night?”
Randy tapped his fingers against the arm of the chair, glancing over at Ted. “It happened a long time ago. When we were kids. The olds went to Florida for a couple of years, you know that. Our dads were tight but I wasn't much like Mike, Ted's brother, he was okay but he wasn't into anything I was and we didn't have much to talk about. And Ted and Brett were just - y'know, snot-nosed kids. Boring.”
“Screw you,” said Ted automatically, without any real heat.
“It was some occasion - might have been Ted's dads birthday but I don't really remember now. Might have been nothing more than a good excuse to get together and hang out. I was just about fourteen and wanting to get into trouble, but I could hardly do that when the adults were everywhere. In the end Mike suggested that we all went to the local park for an hour or so, played some baseball. It sounded boring but better than listening to the adults and we'd done nothing but swim all morning and I was bored of that too. So we headed off down there. It was a good neighbourhood, the park was huge but there was a diamond near the street, away from the skate park and the play area. So we went there and started batting a ball about.”
Randy smirked. “It wasn't bad but it wasn't fun either. Brett whined about being put into outfield none-stop but bowling at him you couldn't put much power behind it. He was kinda little. Mike could hit it and run around and Ted wasn't bad either but my bro stayed behind and there's not much fun when there's only four of you. But then a couple of other kids asked to join in and it wasn't too bad. I would have preferred to be somewhere else though and it didn't help that they were from our school and used Ted's nickname whenever they yelled at him for missing the catch.”
John looked over at Ted, but he wasn't telling what his nickname at school might have been.
“Anyway, it was getting boring and I thought I was way too grown up, too mature and sophisticated to be smacking a ball around trying to entertain a bunch of little kids...”
~:~
Randy was the first one to notice that there was a van pulled up at the side of the curb, a man leaning against it smoking a cigarette. Randy had been sneaking smokes for a whole three months now and thought he might be able to bum one off this guy. He was six foot already and few people considered him a child any longer.
By this time one of the newcomers was taking hits at the ball and Randy was supposed to be in the outfield, but his interest in the game had been waning for a while. He strolled casually over to the man and checked him out, him and the van. It had clearly once had something painted on it and that had been painted over, he couldn't make out the words but they had been in red letters.
The man saw his interest. “I was in a band, we broke up,” he said casually, taking a drag on the cigarette. “You like rock music?”
“Yeah.”
“I played guitar, hard rock y'know? But the other guys ended up with other things to do. My van, I'm not keeping their names on it when they bailed on me.” He looked at the van and laughed. “I suppose I should have done a better job. I'll have to put on another coat, but it's kinda boring. Should get it ready for my next band though.”
“Yeah.” Randy checked out the man himself, who sported what might have been a short haircut that was growing out and looked mildly foolish, a black beanie hat, blue jeans and a shirt with an exploding head on the front. Randy loved the shirt but he wasn't about to tell this guy so. The lessons from his childhood about men in vans with puppies and candy to tempt little boys into trouble occurred to him but he shrugged them off. He was six foot now, he wasn't a kid. He was practically an adult now and he could smoke without coughing up a lung to prove it.
“Can I bum a smoke off you?”
The man looked amused. “Are you old enough?”
“Sure, I'm eighteen,” lied Randy. He always thought his height let him get away with the lie but didn't realise that his mannerisms and his face gave him away.
“Fair enough.” The man passed him the packet and Randy took out the cigarette, for the first time wondering if he should be doing this. Mike could narc him out and if he didn't then Brett was just a kid and would probably delight in it. He glanced over his shoulder to see Brett arguing heatedly with the two new kids, Mike watching with a frown on his face.
“You're stuck babysitting, huh?”
Randy turned his attention back to the man. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
The man watched him playing with the cigarette, trying to work up the courage to smoke it and to hell with what the DiBiase boys might say to his father, then smirked. “Tell you what. If you're worried about the little 'uns telling tales about your nicotine habit, we can sit in the van. Or you can, I don't wanna freak you out or nothing.”
Feeling embarrassed that he was probably giving away his true age and immaturity, Randy shrugged. “Hey, I'm cool right here.”
“Yeah?” The man stared at him, a half-smile on his face. “That's cool. Only what I was about to smoke, I can't exactly do out in the open y'know?”
“You have pot?” Randy was simultaneously filled with excitement and trepidation. He could just see his friends reaction when he went back to school, casually telling them he'd been hanging around with some guitarist who had his own van and supplied him with pot - he'd be the envy of all of them.
“Hush, not so loud.” The guy looked around and the caution made Randy feel like even more of a rebel. “You never know who's listening in! But yeah, I do. You smoke?”
“Sure,” said Randy, as if he smoked pot every morning along with his first coffee.
“Step into my parlour a moment then,” said the man with a throaty chuckle. “The shit I got's gonna blow your mind.”
Randy took a couple of steps after him, too excited by the opportunity to pay much attention to the boys he had arrived with and assuming that they were too busy with their game to be paying attention to him. Or so he thought, until someone grabbed his wrist hard, almost yanking his shoulder from its socket. He turned to see Ted standing there, still close to a foot shorter at that time but with a strength he hadn't displayed any time before. And his eyes were wide and frightened.
“There's another kid in the back of the van,” said Ted anxiously.
“What?” Randy looked over to the van. The sliding door was open a fraction, which was odd, but he didn't see evidence of anyone else in there and so what if there was?
“Kid, what you talking about?” The man chuckled, radiating honest truth. “There's no one else in there.”
Ted looked over to the van and then back at the man. “There is, you just don't know he's still there. But he is. He stayed there even afterwards.”
“Kid,” said the man kindly. “You're not making any sense. Did the ball hit your head?”
Ted didn't even seem to hear him. Not that he wasn't listening. Years later, when Randy was hesitantly trying to explain how it had been, the best he could do was to say it seemed as if Ted could hear some sound too high-pitched for anyone else but loud enough to him to be almost deafening. He was grimacing slightly and then nodded a couple of times, emphatically, like he was agreeing with someone else rather than just himself.
“His name was Peter,” said Ted rapidly. “He was looking for someone to buy him some whisky, he had some money and he knew if he managed to get hold of that he'd be the big man. He wanted to know what it was like, to be drunk. He was over at the park, not this park - okay! I am! He asked him to go to the shop and buy it for him and he did, he came out with it and offered the van as a ride, where they could split the beer and he had some killer weed and anyway, this guy seemed cool, he was riding in his band van with Trampled Angels written in red on the side. It looked like blood and there was a devils tail and it was just so cool. They drove around for a while, drinking and smoking cigarettes and then they pulled over and got into the back. Peter thought maybe the band wasn't around and hadn't been for a while. He started to get paranoid, he felt sick, he wanted to go home but now he's in the back of the van--”
“SHUT UP!” shouted the man. Randy could see that he had lost all the colour in his face, gone whiter than he would have thought it possible. “You can't know--”
“He had brown hair, except he'd put a streak of red in with spray,” said Ted, shaking visibly and not looking over at the man. He was staring at the van, at the sliding door. “You're wearing his shirt, that's his. He was sick and he couldn't bring his legs to move, or his arms to fight and he was strangled in the back of the van--”
The slap came from nowhere, the man swinging with everything he had. Ted went sprawling into the dirt while the man leaned over him, shouting at him that he was a liar, that he was making it up, that he was a freak and a spy and he couldn't know that. Randy heard a shout from behind him as Mike realised his brother was being attacked but Randy didn't wait for backup, he grabbed the shirt with the exploding head without even thinking about what he was doing, losing his cigarette somewhere, shoving backward with all his might. The man stumbled backward, falling onto his ass and then scrambling away, still shouting hysterically at Ted. But the attention was too much perhaps because he made a break for the van, swinging up into the driver’s seat and gunning the engine.
“HE'S STILL IN THERE!” Ted screamed and then the van drove away, tearing up the street while Randy stared dumbly after it. Mike finally arrived, shoving Randy out of the way to tend to Ted. And only Randy overheard what the elder brother said to the younger.
“You can't keep on doing this,” Mike said in a low voice. “There was nothing in the van, nothing at all. No people, no ghosts, no dead children. Nothing but your imagination. You have to stop this!”
“He was in there,” said Ted in a trembling voice. ”He really was.”
Randy looked back at Ted just as the blonde burst into tears, as the other kids approached and the two newcomers starting mumbling comments about the psycho kid. He looked at Ted and he knew. There had been something in the van, something he hadn't seen but Ted had. He had seen it in Ted's eyes, and in the eyes of the man who had tried to lure him into the back, where the last teenager who had been promised rebellion had met death instead.
He believed that Ted saw what he said he did and had never questioned it ever again. And he knew that he owed Ted a favour he would never be able to repay.
~:~
John blinked a couple of times as Randy finished his story. “How could you be so stupid? Did you really think that just because you're a teenager and tall that an adult couldn't have overpowered you?”
“I don't know that was his intention, exactly,” said Randy, looking shamefaced. “I think though that he might have been y'know. Trying to befriend me. Maybe... I don't know. But I think - no, I know - that at a later date, something would have happened. Something bad.”
John exhaled loudly, wanting to chase down this man who had threatened his lover, even if it had happened years before. “Did he ever show up again?”
“Sure,” replied Randy. “He smashed up the van the same day. Drove right into a lamp post a couple of hours later. The cops thought he was high, he kept telling them there was nobody in the back, he'd checked and there was no one there. They were suspicious and checked it out. They found the kids ID and some other stuff that linked him to the van. The guy matched the DNA on the body of a kid they found a month or so before, strangled and dumped just outside of the city.”
John was silent for a moment. “It was him?”
“Name was Peter. Red streak, just like Ted said, hairspray like he said. Ted knew but there was no way he could have known. Unless he'd seen the guy.” Randy was usually so lighthearted and to see him grave and solemn was a strange experience for John. “That kid, and Ted as well, saved me from something I can't even begin to imagine. I don't even know for sure what it was, only that it would have been bad.”
John's attention went to Ted, who had remained silent throughout. “You're psychic?”
“No.” Ted looked up and shrugged, but the expression in his eyes had changed. He seemed scared, haunted almost. “I don't know anything other than what I'm told. I just see people that most others don't, that's all.”
“And that's why you move around the country, looking for murderers?”
Ted laughed humourlessly. “Hardly. I'd be happy never seeing them at all. But I'm - driven, I suppose. Sometimes I just wake up and know it's time I went somewhere else. Usually I know where, not always. It's like a call and I can't ignore it. I have to go.”
“And you've been called here?”
“To the state at least.” Ted managed a small smile. “I know you're probably thinking that I'm insane and I've involved Randy in it all, but it's the truth. The reason I know Dwayne is that I was able to tell him things that he had no idea about, that no one should have known. He locked me up for three days before he accepted that there was no way I could have been there. But I knew because I was told.”
John shook his head slowly. “This is - this is very hard for me to believe.”
“You believed the other guy,” said Randy pointedly.
“That seemed so much more - well, easy. He can just see what happened to something before he held it, nothing more. No dead people.” John took a breath. “And he never saved my lovers life. That part, more than anything, makes it hard for me to get my head around.”
Ted nodded, rather wearily as if he had known that was the answer he would get and John wondered how many times someone trying to be polite had said the same kind of thing. He also wondered how many people accused him of being crazy. “I'll understand if you'd rather I left now--”
“No,” said John immediately. “Just because I have a problem processing this, it doesn't change the facts. Something happened that day that led to you stopping Randy going off with a man who already killed one boy. He believes he owes his life to you and anyone who saves Randy's life is automatically on my Christmas list for life. You can stay Ted. I'd rather you did.”
Ted nodded, not saying anything but looking relieved. John looked over at Randy. “But I have some questions about all of this, I think you'll understand that part. I can understand why you didn't tell me but there's so much I don't get and - huh, not to sound offensive but I listened to all kinds of stories about this Cody and be desperate before I'd even give him the benefit of the doubt. I hope your feelings aren't hurt when I tell you that this one story isn't enough to convince me.” He sighed. “Although with who I heard it from, it carries a lot more weight than what I heard about the other guy.”
~::~
“You didn’t have to come along with me,” John said dryly as he fiddled with the tie around his neck; he didn’t much like ties but since he was no longer of a junior rank bearing a uniform he had to dress semi-smartly at least, “It’s not like the kids gonna turn into an axe wielding maniac when he comes out here.”
“How do you know?” Randy asked, though it was clear he genuinely didn’t think they would have any problem with a threat.
“You just wanted to come and be nosy didn’t you?”
“Little bit.”
“You didn’t have to drag Ted along though…”
“It’s Ok,” Ted quirked a smile, “Randy owes me breakfast for this so…”
“See? He’s the millionaire and I always end up paying for him.”
Ted levelled a kick at Randy that he tried to downplay since there were people walking around and Randy almost tripped over himself trying to avoid it. John couldn’t help but quirk a smile at them; you could see them spending time together as kids, regardless of what Randy had said about thinking that most of the time Ted had been too young to hang out with him.
Turning though he looked up in time to see Cody stepping out of the hotel front doors, “Cody!” he called lightly and extended a hand in a wave. The ravenette had clearly remembered that he would come and get him the following morning because he didn’t seem startled to see John there… though he did look a little leery seeing that he wasn’t alone.
Meanwhile Ted and Randy had looked up upon hearing John calling, and they turned immediately to get a look at the man crossing the road. Randy gave a light whistle, “Not what I was expecting…” he was thinking of some overly dorky and theatrical guy dressed up in some robes who lamented about sensing negative energy in the air or whatever it was the phonies did. Although Ted didn’t respond he wasn’t arguing with Randy as for all he hadn’t entirely known what to expect, this wasn’t it. The young man walking towards them looked maybe a few years younger than himself, with dark hair and deep blue eyes--- and perfectly straight white teeth when he offered a brief and awkward smile of greeting upon reaching them.
“Good morning John.”
“Hey,” John said brightly, “How did you sleep?”
Cody shrugged slightly, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck, “I slept,” his eyes then moved to Randy and Ted, prompting John into making introductions.
“Cody, this is Randy,” he blushed slightly and cleared his throat, “My partner,” if Cody was surprised he didn’t show it, merely quirked another one of those little smiles and shook Randy’s hand firmly, “And this is Randy’s friend Ted.”
It was as though someone had sucker-punched him in the gut, Cody thought hazily, when deep blue met bright blue, cobalt and cornflower meeting, melding and holding. When Ted’s hand enveloped his own he felt a strong jolt of awareness shooting though him, causing the hair of the back of his arms and neck to stand upright. He heard a sharp hiss of breath being taken in and was pretty sure that he wasn’t the only one thinking that something strange had just happened.
“A pleasure.”
John and Randy exchanged looks before Randy then neatly pulled Ted back by the collar of his jacket and offered his best smile, “Well, Ted and I have errands to run so we’ll catch you later. Good luck-“he then looked to John, “Give me a call or something if you need anything.”
“Of course,” John responded but knew that deep down Randy would already know he did his best not to cause Randy any bother, “I’ll see you two later.”
“Nice meeting you,” Ted found himself saying and Cody looked surprised if still a little guarded before nodding his head, “Same to you.”
As they walked away in the opposite direction to John and Cody, Ted found himself looking around his shoulder.
“I know he’s kinda cute but really Teddy? You may have been out of the game a while but surely you remember not to be so obvious?”
“It’s not like that!” Ted protested as his cheeks coloured even more than the wind had already afforded for, though in the back of his mind he was aware that it probably was like that even if it was just a little bit… Cody had been ridiculously attractive. “I just… I feel like I know him,” and yet he was pretty sure he’d never seen Cody before in his life.
A face that gorgeous he was sure he’d remembered.
Randy suddenly looked a bit weary, “He’s not a dead-guy is he?”
“You shook his head, and you and John could both see him… No, he’s not dead.”
“So you’re still concerned he’s a fake?”
“I’m always concerned about fakes,” Ted murmured, unable to shake the feeling of connection he had gained earlier. The hand with which he had shaken Cody’s was tingling slightly, the same sensation he got when he had slept on his arm accidentally and given himself pins and needles.