Fractals Read online

  I assume if you’re reading this you have read the stuff I wrote before, so you know why I would be so filled with fear, and the rage that comes after it. I’ve lost just about everyone I was ever close with… my parents, my Uncle Mark and Aunt Cindy, their kids, my sister, Ariel, and of course Arnie and Marsh-dog, although both of them are back, Arnie as an angel and Marsh-dog as a ghost. I just realized earlier today that this is the third anniversary of… well, when my parents died. Really, mom killed dad and then killed herself, but she was being controlled by The Others so I don’t think of it that way. She couldn’t help it.

  I have these horrible fantasies of killing The Master and the rest of The Others with my bare hands, ripping them apart limb by limb. I know I have to somehow get these thoughts out of my mind, because they are keeping me from concentrating on our goals and our chances of surviving, however small they may be. Behind the fear and the anger, though, is another feeling… I keep going back to what people have been trying to tell me or hint to me about creativity. Old Leo said it, just before he flew off to the Good Line, and Gabriella has said something similar on a couple of occasions. They both talked about the need to tap into creativity in order to stop The Others, so I’ve been thinking about it almost non-stop. Here’s what I figured out, or at least I think it’s right… the key is, in order to create something unique, you need to be creative, and in order to be creative, you need to feel, and especially give, love. It’s helping me to keep going, giving me energy when I don’t have anything left. I know, that sounds totally corny, and it feels weird coming out of my mouth. It’s the truth, though, and I need it to push out all the pain and fear and anger. So, for us to stop The Others, we are going to need to be creative, and if I’m right, that also means we have to overcome our fear and anger and use the love that we have for one another to power us.

  I feel an overwhelming love for my friends, the people who have joined me in this quest, despite knowing it’s highly unlikely that they’ll get out alive. Not only that, but if what the Time Flies have seen comes true, when we do die, we will be sentenced to hell, or the Bad Line, as we call it. I can’t let that happen, but I don’t know how I’ll stop it. Step one, though, is that we do what we have all agreed on, the strategy we dubbed Pasquale’s Divide and Conquer. At least it’s some action, something to try. The Others do the same thing repeatedly, so there’s a definite pattern to their behavior, although it has escalated, which makes me think that the next time it will be really bad if we don’t stop them first. So we know what they’ll do, but we haven’t figured out the pattern to where and when yet. I bet there is a pattern though, and we just need to see it. I need to talk to Marsh-dog, I bet he can come up with a…what is it called? An algorithm, I think that’s the right word, close enough anyway.

  In the two weeks that have passed since Arnie’s return, we have gotten used to having him around again, and to tell you the truth he doesn’t seem to have changed at all, aside from having different abilities due to his status as an angel instead of a demon. He’s been getting used to this new skill set, and he has it down to where he really seems more at home with his powers than the more experienced angels. He’s just a natural, I guess. His personality remains as dry as the desert around us, and that just feels right to me. He’s kind of like your favorite uncle, the one who saves all his snide remarks and best jokes for you alone, making you feel a kind of special for which there is no adequate description. He’s always cool and calm, but underneath that he’s a man of action, and when the time comes, he knows what to do and he does it. Plus, even as a ghost, Marsh-dog is still a little scared of him, and that helps keep him in line.

  Oh, I almost forgot. When the Time Flies went into my head and did whatever they did to allow me to communicate with them, it opened up some other… I think latent abilities is the right phrase. I’ll describe them later, but I think they are likely to come in very handy.

  Chapter Two

  It’s getting near dinner time on day seven twenty seven, and in a way it kind of feels like our version of the last supper. Tomorrow we go on our Pasquale’s Divide and Conquer mission, and who knows what will happen once that goes off. We really had planned to do it earlier, maybe even the day after the Carloforte massacre, but Arnie’s return caused us to reorganize. In honor of the occasion, I have offered to make dinner for everyone in our little crew, sitting around in folding chairs outside our RV in the middle of the Mojave Desert. As you’ll probably remember, we came out here in a desperate attempt to get away from other people, as they have a tendency to end up dead when we’re around. Anyway, the only problem with my offer to make dinner is that I don’t know how to cook. Still, since we were totally overwhelmed by what has happened so far, and beyond worried about what was to come, I decided to do my best to break the tension.

  “Ok, guys, I’m taking orders, ladies first. How about you, Ling?”

  “Oh, so much thank you, Ferdie. I would like anything you can fix, please.”

  Ha! I’ll never get over being tickled by the way Ling talks. “Very well, Madame. Ms. Gabriella, how about you?”

  Gabriella adopted her well-worn Mona Lisa smile, and said, “I’ll have what Ling is having, thank you.”

  This brought a chuckle from the group. “Yes, very good. Ms. Denise, what would suit you tonight?”

  She was obviously enjoying my mock posh waiter routine, and said, “I’d like to see a menu, please.” I pantomimed handing her a menu, and she said, “Oh, I guess I’ll have the chef’s special, thank you.”

  “Wonderful choice. And for you, Ms. Aunt Martha?”

  There were more snickers from the group as Aunt Martha spoke: “Hey waiter, you got any booze back there in the kitchen?”

  “I’m sorry, Madame, we only have Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, and water.”

  “Oh, alright, I’ll have Pepsi, but make it the diet kind. A girl’s got to watch her calories.”

  “Right away, Madame. Mr. Rafael?”

  His laugh boomed, deep and low. “Mr. Ferdie, we had no idea of this new talent. This is a surprise most pleasant. I would also like the chef’s special, thank you.”

  “Very wise. Mr. Pasquale, how may I help you?”

  Giggling, Pasquale asked, “Does this restaurant offer any Italian food?”

  “Oh, yes, only the finest.”

  “Ah, molto buono! This is what I would like.”

  “Certainly, right away. Finally, Mr. Arnie. What would suit you tonight? Anything you like.”

  Arnie displayed an uncharacteristic full grin. “Well, let’s see… I would like to start with a steak sandwich on ciabatta… make it ribeye, well-seasoned and aged. A mix of seasonal vegetables, a small Caesar salad, and maybe some fries… let’s make it sweet potato fries, that sounds nice. For dessert, I think cheesecake would hit the spot. Got all that?”

  I pantomimed scribbling his order on an imaginary ticket, and said “Very well, sir. So let me see… that’s peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat, all around, coming right up!”

  The group started throwing things at me, so I high-tailed it into the kitchen of the RV and got to work. The RV is very large and comfortable, but smaller than a normal house, so the kitchen area is cramped and really only accommodates one person at a time. I whipped up a mess of sandwiches, cut them into triangles to make them fancy, put them all on a plate, got out two jumbo bags of chips, and six-packs of Pepsi and Diet Pepsi, trying to balance the whole pile as I exited the RV.

  As I came down the steps Rafael exclaimed, “Ah, Mr. Ferdie, you truly are a gourmet, and I am the gourmand who shall sample your wares!”

  Things got quiet for a moment as everyone started eating, and I took the time to look at each one, marveling at how all this happened. If it wasn’t for these people, I would have been dead long ago. That goes both ways, though… at least a couple of them would probably be dead by now if it wasn’t for me, and that’s a special kind of bond… another thing that seems out of the ordinary is that it’s a very attr
active group, I mean aside from Marsh-dog and me… we’re kind of like mangy mutts in a show with a bunch of purebreds…

  As we were munching, I noticed Denise peering my way. I glanced over, and she said, “Hey, Ferdie. Do you have colored eyes?”

  “Well, yeah, everyone has colored eyes.”

  “No, you know what I mean.”

  “Uh, yeah, they’re blue, I guess… I honestly don’t think about stuff like that too much.”

  “I don’t know why I never noticed before, maybe it’s the light or something. They’re pretty.”

  Yuck, I don’t know if I like being described by the word pretty. I mean, look at me… fifteen years old, with a crazy bush of reddish brown hair, and growing so tall that my one pair of jeans are now officially “high waters”… I don’t have any money to get new ones, and I am not about to ask anyone to get me any, so maybe I’ll just cut them off and make shorts out of them… It’s pretty hot out here in the desert anyway… but then everyone will see the huge scar on the back of my left calf from when Marsh-dog’s Uncle Freddy sliced me… I still have a little bit of a limp from that; I guess maybe I always will… of course, always is really only seven hundred twenty seven days, at least according to the Book of Names … thinking about all this stuff makes me realize that I have not taken a good look at the rest of our group in a long time…

  I turned to the left to see Gabriella in profile as she ate. You would think, based on her petite stature and general formal nature, that she would be a delicate eater, but she tore into the PB & J like a veteran, and had wads of peanut butter on both sides of her mouth. Hair so blond it almost appears white, cut in a short pixie style that is just her. She’s the first supernatural type I came in contact with, and she’s been watching over me all my life… her appearance is deceptive; at times she seems very young, even vulnerable, but she is the emotional rock that has kept the group from spinning out of control… kept me from losing it too many times to count… sometimes I look at her and think of my own mom, how they both could stay centered in the toughest of times… no, don’t tap your head, stay in control, like her…

  Next, out of the corner of my eye, I gazed at Ling; she caught me looking and gave me a wink. Ling was the first member of The Seven Marsh-dog and I located, and I came in contact with her when I projected myself through the in-between to her college apartment in Hong Kong. For some crazy reason she decided to join in our mission, although for sure she would call it a quest. She’s all energy and positivity, smart and innocent at the same time… she makes you feel like protecting her is the most important thing in the world, but the truth is she’s tough and powerful, and doesn’t need protection… she can protect herself, thank you…

  Sitting just to my right was Rafael. He’s both a great guy and a bit of a mystery. Maybe the tallest person I ever met, with tattoos snaking up his arms and chest onto his neck, totally bald head gleaming in the fading evening light. Always polite to a fault, with that infectious Jamaican lilt to his voice, he is always ready to help no matter the cost. He is Ling’s “guardian angel”, although that’s a human phrase, and not one that the real supernatural types would use. Quick with a booming laugh, a joke, and especially a compliment, he is fun to be around. Now if I could just see him in action…

  Directly across from me in our little circle is Denise, an angel we first came in contact with during our attempt to locate another member of The Seven. She is watching me like a hawk, as usual. She has taken it upon herself to be my personal bodyguard, and to be honest I can’t think of anyone else I would want in that position more than her. She would give Arnie a run for his money in the toughness department. It’s almost as if she was chipped out of tan-colored granite, she is so toned and hardened to perfection… She’s like a female version of one of those ancient Greek statues of the physical ideal… I’ve seen her in action twice, and let me tell you, if you want to tangle with her, you better bring all your friends, and that still won’t be enough… Plus, she’s sharp, and very easy to talk to. I like her. Ok, not like that, she’s too old for me, but still… Aww, everybody likes her, and who could blame them…

  Speaking of that, sitting right next to Denise like a love-sick puppy dog is Pasquale. One of two non-supernaturals in our group, he is tall and lean, with his long, dark hair always threatening to cover his eyes. You could easily see him on the cover of a fashion magazine. He joined us under tragic circumstances, but he’s smart and clever and we are lucky to have him with us. In fact, the mission we are about to undertake was almost totally his idea, and he worked up most of the details, too. Denise and I first contacted him when we were trying to locate his grandfather, Leonardo Sanna, one of The Seven we were hoping to bring to our side in the coming war. Leo was very aged, and while Denise battled his angel, who had been “turned” by The Others, Old Leo had a heart attack and died. We knew we couldn’t leave Pasquale there, so we brought him with us to Bakersfield, and he decided to stay and help us, I think at least in part because of a crush on Denise. Like I said, who could blame him…

  Next to Pasquale is Aunt Martha. When they coined the term “life of the party” they were definitely thinking of her. I have heard of some women being described as “handsome”, which seems weird because it’s usually applied to men, but I think it’s a good description for her. Tall and slim, but she would probably be called shapely (well, not by me, because she’s my aunt, don’t be gross). She is pretty in a very natural way, maybe partly because of her glowing personality. Like Ariel said once, “She doesn’t know how to not have fun.” Uh, oh, don’t think about Ariel, you’ll leak… Behind her fun-loving exterior, though, is a mind as sharp as a Ginsu knife, and if you’ve ever seen one of those infomercials, you know that’s sharp.

  And then, just to my right, there’s Arnie. He appears average in every visible way. Average height, weight, build, medium brown hair, almost as if someone called central casting and said, “Get me the most average guy you have”. Underneath that exterior, though… he has the strongest will of anyone I’ve ever known, and I don’t know what he did to end up a demon in his former life, but whatever it was, it’s gone. He’s like a mighty redwood, strong enough to withstand winds that would turn and toss other trees, faithful and immovable. Whoa, got a little poetic there, but he inspires that in me... he makes me want to be better, to be like him…

  And, of course, the one missing from our little get together, at least physically, is my best friend, Marsh-dog, the short, skinny, skateboard riding, computer genius ghost with a giant ‘fro. You’ll probably remember that he and Arnie both got killed protecting Ling and me from some guys who were being controlled by The Others. Arnie made it to the Good Line, but Marsh… he wasn’t ready to go, so he’s using his will to resist the pull of the Good Line and is staying in the in-between. Ghosts are really just people who weren’t prepared to go, so they stay in the in-between until they are ready. Some ghosts with exceptionally strong will, like Marsh-dog, are able to make limited contacts here in the real world… for example, Marsh-dog can type on a computer keyboard; in fact, that’s how we eventually found Old Leo and Pasquale. It was a crazy thing to see… you couldn’t see him, but you could see the keys go down, kind of on their own, like some old science fiction movie or something. No matter what happens, Marsh and I are in it together, right through to the end. That’s just how it is.

  Speaking of science fiction, by the way, I can’t think of Marsh-dog and the in-between without thinking about the Time Flies. Of all the unbelievable stuff that has happened, they are the most amazing by a mile. They appear to be tiny flashes of light, and so far we have only seen them in the in-between. Marsh-dog saw them first from a distance, and thought that they looked a little like fire flies, but then when he discovered what they really are… well, let’s just say that they are the most advanced things in the universe as far as we know. They used to have bodies of some kind a few million years ago, but they advanced so far that they decided to ditch their physical bo
dies and just travel through time and space either on, or as, these tiny flashes of light. That’s how Marsh-dog came to call them the Time Flies. They can exist totally outside of the time stream, so they can be in any time they want, or in no time at all. Here’s the wildest part: they became interested in humans for some reason, and especially The Seven, and they noticed that we die, and when we do, our energy changes to non-conscious forms. They can’t relate to dying, because they are basically immortal at this point, so they decided to create the Good Line for people who have exhibited mostly positive energy during their lives, and the Bad Line for the negative energy crowd. We call them Heaven and Hell, but that’s a construct humans came up with. So Heaven and Hell are maintained by technology created by the Time Flies, and to us it’s so advanced that we can’t tell the difference between their tech and what we could call the supernatural. The same is true of angels and demons. They are created by the Time Flies technology, but the angels and demons don’t know it; they think they are supernatural. In fact, no one knows the truth except Marsh-dog, Arnie and me. We are the only ones in the world, or in the universe for all we know, who know it was all created by the Time Flies. We’re not telling, either. That’s a little secret that may just save us one of these days. Here’s the final amazing thing about the Time Flies: they didn’t create The Seven, and they don’t know how we are able to do what we can do. They think we must have been created by some other, even more advanced technology, and that the creators have disappeared without a trace. It could be, but it might also be that we are the only ones who are truly supernatural.