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~ 22 ~

 

Dead Eyes

 

Date: May 22nd, 1999

Place: Philadelphia, Pa (2 days after the emergency landing)

Time: Late afternoon before sunset

 

 

 + Brian +

 

“What do you mean you have no idea where he is? It’s not like this place is huge or anything!”

I looked over at Howie as my cousin paced back and forth. He was steaming mad at all of us. I don’t blame him. None of us had a clue what to say. We had managed to misplace Nick. How does that even happen?

“No offense D, but you were the one with him last.”

Howie looked over at me as if I had just stabbed him in the back. “I was helping out. He was sleeping.”

“And no one saw him go anywhere?”

I shook my head, “No Kevin, it’s like he totally disappeared.”

My heart was beating so fast in my chest that I thought maybe I was going to die. It was unlike Nick to just leave and go somewhere all by himself. This is a kid who would drag me to the bathroom with him. He hated being all alone, especially in a new place. Especially here and now, when everything was so off kilter, something bad had to have happened.

“Is anyone else missing? Maybe he went somewhere and forgot to tell you.”

“I don’t know.” D stammered back.

Charlie came towards us with his brother, “He’s not in here at all. We have searched everywhere.”

“Is anyone else missing?” I asked hopeful only to get a firm shake of Don’s head in return.

“We have some people checking outside now.”

Charlie put his hand on my shoulder. I think he could tell that I needed some kind of consoling. After that he looked at my cousin, “I know this is probably not the best time, but we all need to talk as soon as possible about what is going on here.”

Kevin nodded but then looked over my way and bit his lip. Charlie let go of my shoulder and then walked away, leaving the four of us standing there not knowing what to do next.

“Do you think someone took him?”

“There’s no way AJ. He would have put up a fight and someone would have noticed.”

“Unless everyone was in on it…”

“Why would they do that and where would they take him? There’s apparently nowhere else to go.”

“Fuck, I’m only trying to brain storm here, Rok.”

I felt bad, but now was not the time to come up with stupid solutions. We needed to figure out where the hell this kid went to.

“He had to have gone off by himself.”

Kevin walked over to the front door, “I am going to go out there and look for him!”

He opened the door and started to walk out only to be stopped by Don. “If you leave, then we’ll be missing two of you.”

“I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

“We have people out there looking. If he’s out there and alive, we’ll find him.”

The blasé way he said that almost made me want to walk over and punch him in the face. Why was everyone so ambivalent when it came to people’s lives? The way he said it made me feel like he was hoping we wouldn’t find Nick alive. One less person to worry about that way, I guess. We needed to get out of here.

Kevin stood eye to eye with Don for a few minutes and I thought maybe he was going to do the punching in the face for me, but eventually he turned and walked back towards us, rubbing his neck in frustration.

I looked over at the front door, feeling helpless, hoping that Nick would walk through it at any moment. When he did, I was going to kill him, but I’m sure I’d have to get in line. That’s when Charlie’s words to my cousin came to me like some kind of a movie flashback. There was something that needed to be discussed which meant that something happened at the plane.

“What happened at the plane?”

“A lot.”

“Like?”

“Like, we aren’t…we’re somewhere else…things are messed up here.”

“And you had to go back to the plane to figure that one out?”

Kevin glared at AJ briefly before going on. He told us what Charlie had said ending with the bombshell of us all dying here in this weird alternate universe place. If I had never wanted to drink before, I wanted to right this second. In fact, if there was any rubbing alcohol in this place I was ready to down it.

I’m not exactly sure how one is supposed to take that kind of news, it’s not like he came back and simply said, “The plane wasn’t there.” Which to be honest, I was thinking would happen. Seems weird to say now but considering what he just told us, it would’ve been easier to digest that information than the thought of us being in a different place and time where apparently the end of the world is currently happening.

“Holy shit…”  I think Howie summed it up nicely there.

“And Charlie has the proof of this?”

Kevin nodded at me, “I saw the pictures with my own two eyes.”

“We’re dead here?”

“Yes, very dead.”

“What if he’s just playing with our heads, Kevin? I mean what if this is just…”

“Brian, think about this. I know it sounds like the fucking craziest thing that has ever happened but look around you. Nothing has made sense since we landed here.”

“And this is supposed to make sense?”

He let out a small laugh. “No, I guess not.”

I needed to sit down or else I was pretty sure I was going to faint from all of this new information. I plopped down on the ground for a second, lost for words and not wanting to think about a thing.

“Only we could end up in an alternate universe where the fucking apocalypse just happened. We couldn’t end up in a time and place where naked Amazon women ruled the planet.” 

We ignored AJ.

“Kevin this is the craziest…”

“I know Bri…believe me, I know.”

“A little help here!”  A man shouted as he opened the door and stepped inside, helping Nick walk.

I stood up and we all ran towards him, thoughts of homicide were running through my head until I actually saw the state he was in. He was covered in blood.

“Jesus Christ…”

“Nick, are you okay buddy?” Kevin asked, grabbing him away from the guy who was helping and leading him towards a chair, guiding him down as gently as possible. “Are you hurt? Who did this to you?”

By now, Charlie’s entire family was surrounding us. Alan bent down and gently moved his hand over Nick’s abdomen where all the blood seemed to be concentrated, “He’s not hurt. This doesn’t appear to be his blood.”

“Nick, what happened?” I asked, bending down beside him.

He didn’t even acknowledge my presence. He seemed to be completely out of it. “Whose blood is that?” I asked softly while still sounding more alarmed than I wanted to, “Nick, you can talk to us, its okay.”

He looked over at me but still didn’t say one word. His eyes almost looked empty, the blue actually dim.

“Tim said he found the kid just walking down a street about three blocks from here. He was all alone.” Don said to his brother but loud enough so that we all heard.

Howie then uncharacteristically stood up and shoved Don, “You probably are responsible for this, you bastard!”

Kevin quickly got himself in between the two men, while the older one laughed, “What the hell are you talking about?”

“He threatened to kick Nicky out if we didn’t tell him the truth about who we were and what we were doing here!”

“Oh please!” Don said rolling his eyes and turning away from Howie as Kevin continued to hold him back. I have never seen D this mad about anything before.

Charlie got involved at that point, “You need to chill the hell out!” He said looking over at Howie, “Both of you!” He warned his brother as well.

“I didn’t kick the kid out.”

“I know that Don, but you shouldn’t have even threatened.”

“They’re blatantly lying about who they are…”

“I know, we have it covered, relax and go for a walk.”

He stood there for a minute and then let out a frustrated sigh, “Fine.” He walked away glaring back at Howie once as he did.

I was still kneeling beside Nick who barely reacted to anything that had just happened. He was in shock. Something really bad must have gone down and no one was there to help him through it.

“I don’t trust him.” Howie said once he calmed himself down a little.

“My brother is very trustworthy and had every right to question you.” Charlie was stern and looked him straight in the eyes when he said that. “All he’s trying to do is keep us safe, the same way you are trying to keep your friends safe.”

Howie nodded, and shook his head, “Sorry, I’m just...I’m not myself.”

“None of you are which is why we have to figure out what to do about it. I think we should head down to the basement where we can talk in private.” 

I looked over at Kevin who for a second looked as lost as Nick did. When he felt my eyes on him he turned towards me and gave me an awkward smile.

“Okay, yeah…good idea.”

“There’s a small cot down there that Nick can rest on while we talk.” He said as I grabbed Nick and helped him to his feet. He was like a dead weight in my arms so Kevin quickly came to my aide.

“It’ll be okay…” I wasn’t sure if he was saying that to me or Nick. We both needed the reassurance at the moment.

Amita, Charlie’s girlfriend came over to us right before we ventured down the steps. She was carrying some clothes, “These are for him. I’m sure he’ll want to get out of those bloody things.”

“Thanks.” I smiled at her and grabbed the shirt and sweats.

We had to start acting like these people were not the enemy, but it was so hard trusting people now. I never felt like that before but something about this place. Trust wasn’t something that was just handed out to everyone who seemed like they wanted to lend a helping hand.

I glanced over at Nick and saw he was staring at me as he firmly held on to Kevin’s shoulder. I smiled at him but all I got back was the same empty stare.

He had dead eyes.

I felt chills.

I’m not sure if Nick was the cause or a simple fear of the unknown or of what was yet to come. I went down every step with a different question pounding in my brain but yet pretty sure that I didn’t want to know half the answers to the questions I had.

They’d be coming soon though, whether I wanted to know or not.

And with that final thought, Charlie sat us all down and laid out what he thought was going on. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter End Notes:

Sorry for the filler chapter, I knew i'd have to throw in a few here and there. Thanks for reading! :O) Hope to be back with a new update next week!