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Survivor Part 2 (8/8)
Kay Kelly (wilusa@EARTHLINK.NET)Mon, 2 Apr 2001 00:21:01 -0400
*** I got up and resumed running. But my mind kept playing tricks on me. One second I was pelting through a church-that-never-was, the next, crossing a battle zone in 'Nam with mortar shells exploding on all sides. I knew I had to make it to the jungle...or was it the alley? The wounded weren't just cursing now, they were clutching at my ankles. When I looked down, every one of them had the face of Carlos or Jin or Winston or Cracker Bob. I kicked them away. I reached the jungle, only it really was an alley. And I hid behind a dumpster, which somehow seemed appropriate, and shook like a drunk with the d-t's. Finally, I wept. For Carlos and Jin and Winston and Cracker Bob. Maybe a little, even, for Faith. I knew I couldn't have saved them. I wasn't a coward, never had been. But I wasn't the stuff heroes are made of, either. Just a survivor. *** I was also, at heart, a sane and sensible man. By the time the Quickening lightning ebbed, I'd worked through my hysteria and was thinking clearly. No one but me had come out of the building. So Jacob had gone on to kill Winston and Faith, as I'd assumed. Why had he done such a thing? Not to strengthen himself. Jin was the only one of us whose Quickening was worth squat. No, Jacob had felt betrayed by Carlos, and that had made him question everyone's loyalty. He may well have shared my suspicions about Jin's having dropped his weapon with no assurance Duncan MacLeod would do the same. He came to distrust Jin, Faith, and probably me. From his point of view, killing the three of us was a sound idea. And his murdering that many followers might have alienated Winston and Bob. Also, if the Quickenings he'd taken in the Sanctuary strengthened him as much as he expected, he'd have no more need of a gang. But other, less rational factors played a part. His lifelong fixation on religion. His perception of himself as a harshly judged outcast. His struggle to cope with those Sanctuary Quickenings. His vendetta's seeming rush toward a climax. They all contributed to that warped Last Supper. *** If I got away, others should have been able to. If they ran, Jacob couldn't have pursued them far without being overtaken by Jin's Quickening. Was the wine drugged? Maybe. Was he using hypnosis, with or without the aid of drugs? Almost certainly. But there were other possible explanations for his victims' having let themselves be slaughtered. Cracker Bob undoubtedly thought he was being tested-- and refused, till the last second, to believe his surrogate father would kill *him*. Winston, facing the prospect of death, may have had a vision of it as a grand adventure. Or he may have felt that if he couldn't fight with any chance of success, it would be cowardly to flee. He was very young. Faith? She couldn't have reached an exit without stepping over Jin's and Bobıs dead bodies. Slipping and sliding in blood. On the other hand, she'd never appreciated her Immortality. Hell, sheıd been whining about it for three hundred years. Perhaps she really did choose to die. *** Ten minutes after my escape, it occurred to me that the Police and Fire Departments were taking their sweet time. There'd been a hundred lightning strikes, a half- dozen explosions, and as many small fires. But I had yet to hear a siren. Saturday night. Chaos. And I was standing in an alley, holding a cutlass that had never been properly *baptized*. Jacob Kell had murdered the only real friends I'd ever had. And he wouldn't just forget about me, would he? While he was alive, I was in danger. //An Immortal is as weak as a baby for up to a half hour afterward...// I took a few tentative steps toward the building. Up to a half hour. It varied. What if I went in there and found him fully recovered? //You take a terrible pounding, physical and mental. Sometimes you have to fight to hang onto your identity...// I knew, from Jacob's having hacked into his Watcher's Chronicle, that Duncan MacLeod had once suffered something called a Dark Quickening. He'd actually been possessed by evil entities he'd taken into himself. He'd recovered from the experience, but Dawson had never learned exactly how. Maybe Jacob *would* forget about me, obsessed as he was with the MacLeods. I could get out of New York. It was a big world. And I wasn't a hero. I stuffed the cutlass under my ridiculous satin jacket, and began looking for a clothing store to burglarize. ****************************************************** End of Part 2 Coming soon: Part 3 (the Conclusion)