M McDonald - March Into Hell

She smiled. “Thank you. I only organized the clean-up crew. Jessie helped and got her sister to pitch in as well. Did you know you had something green and fuzzy growing in your fruit bin in the fridge?"

Mark laughed. “No, I did not know that-not sure I wanted to either.” He plopped down on the sofa with a sigh. “Sit down, Lily. We haven’t had much chance to talk lately.”

Lily settled in her usual chair. “We haven’t, have we?”

Mark sagged against the back of the sofa; his arms limp. Closing his eyes, he relaxed for a few moments then the smell of his lunch made his stomach growl and he stood and followed his nose to the stove. The pan was still hot.

"I can get that, Mark."

"No, I'm good. You stay there. I'm tired of being waited on. I'm not entirely crippled."

Lily had already set out a couple of plates, so he just ladled the mixture onto the buns and saw that the hash browns were staying warm in the oven. In a few minutes he had plates ready. He pushed them to the side of the breakfast bar closest to Lily and called her to eat. He turned back and grabbed them each a can of pop out of his newly-stocked fridge.

“Who do I owe for all the food?”

Lily took a bite then wiped her mouth on a napkin. “It came from the petty cash.”

Mark grinned. "I had a feeling."

They ate in silence, and he thought about the night of his abduction. He couldn’t help it. There were so many unanswered questions. “Hey, Lily, how did anyone find me that night? If you told me already, I don’t remember.”

Lily set her fork down. “No, I didn’t get a chance to tell you. You had so much going on at the hospital, with nurses coming in and out so often, the moment was never right.” She paused, dabbed her mouth with a paper napkin, and said, “Jim had a dream. In his dream, he saw what was happening to you. He tried to ignore it, but when you didn't answer your phone, he came here in the middle of the night."

Mark almost choked on his hash browns. He grabbed his drink and gulped down a large mouthful. “Jim had a dream? Like what I have?”

"Sort of, but it wasn't a future dream. It was in real time, as close as we can figure. We didn't know that then. We hoped we'd get to you before what he saw, and what was in the pictures, could actually occur."

"Pictures?"

Lily nodded. "Yes. From your camera."

A dozen questions flew to the tip of his tongue, but he bit them back to allow Lily to finish. "So, then what happened?"

"Well, as soon as Jim got here, he realized something had happened. The place was a mess. The door was wide open, and he called Jessie. It was the middle of the night, of course, but she came right over. After calling the police, they found the camera, and I developed the film at Gary's camera shop. The pictures led us to the warehouse.”

"If I had developed my film that night…" The implications hit him. If only he had followed his usual routine.

Lily's eyes welled. "Yes. That thought has plagued me since I developed the film and we saw the pictures of you." She picked at her meal, her head bent. A tear splashed onto the countertop.

"Whoa. Wait a second. You don't think this is your fault, do you?"

She shrugged. "What am I supposed to think? If I hadn't talked you out of developing the film, you'd have seen what would happen, and at least had a chance of preventing it."

"You don't know that." Mark tried to think it through. The timing was all wrong. It was always harder to change the outcome when things happened at night or early morning. If 9/11 had happened at five in the evening instead of early in the day, he might have been able to make a difference there too, but it had been out of his control. "Besides, even if I developed the film, I wouldn't have had time to dream about it. They came for me in the middle of the night."

His heart pounded. Even just thinking about it brought back the terror of that night. He rubbed his temples. "What I want to know is how Jim factored into all of this? It doesn’t make sense. How and why would Jim dream about what had happened-"

"No, it wasn't 'had happened', it's what was happening right then, possibly while he was there. At least, that’s the way I understood it. It was the prayers he heard first.”

“Prayers?”

“Yes. Bits and pieces of prayers.” Lily’s gaze dropped to the top of the breakfast bar for an instant before she took a deep breath and nodded. “Your praying woke him up. It wasn’t until after he was awake that he had the dream or vision of you in the warehouse.”

“How is that possible?” It wasn’t at all what happened when he had his future dreams. While they often felt real, he always had the sensation of waking at the end. It never was the other way around.

Lily’s lips compressed as she slowly shook her head and reached for his hand. “I have a theory.” She bit her lip and closed her other hand over the top of Mark’s, sandwiching his between hers. “I think you reached out to him.”

Mark started, caught by surprise at her comment. “Reached out? What do you mean?”

“I think,” she cocked her head to the side, “that your abilities expanded. You prayed for help, and God, as He does so often, didn’t answer directly, but allowed your plea to be heard by someone. Someone who could then come to your aid.” She gave his hand a gentle squeeze and smiled, “You reached out to Jim with your mind.”

He yanked his hand out of her grasp. “No way. You’re saying that I somehow sent a message to… Jim?” Shaking his head, he slid off the stool. “That’s like…like mental telepathy. Nope. No way.” He laughed sarcastically. “Lily, I think you’re right about a lot of things, but not this. I’m not some kind of freak.”

She shrugged. “I never said you were a freak. You have a gift. You should embrace it.”

“Some gift. This is more like a curse.” He raked his hand through his hair. “A new sweater is a gift, Lily. A necktie is a gift, but mental telepathy and seeing the future, that’s something else completely. I don’t know what it is, but it sure as hell is not a gift.”

Lily nodded. “Yes, it is. And Mark, I hope someday you'll realize how truly amazing it is. Whatever or whomever controls how the camera and dreams work, did not want you to die that night. You have someone watching out for you.”

Mark backed away from the breakfast bar, shaken by the thought. He was used to the magic that was the camera, but thinking about its origins and why it worked through him was something he tried not to think about. The idea that there could be more magic heading his way terrified him.

Lily insisted on washing the dishes and put the leftovers away for him to eat later. “Mark, why don’t you rest a bit?”

His bed sported a new navy blue comforter and it looked soft and inviting, but he didn’t feel like lying in bed. It felt weird to do so while Lily still puttered in the kitchen. He noted the new deadbolt on his door and felt a little more secure. After awhile, bored, he put an old Jimmy Stewart movie in the dvd player, and stretched out on the couch. Even though it was one of his favorite movies, he couldn’t concentrate. The commotion outside showed no signs of letting up and he rolled to a sitting position with a sigh, rubbing his stab wound absently.

Shouts and some kind of singing filtered up to his living room, even over the sound of the movie, and he stood and made his way to the window overlooking the street. Down below, in addition to the reporters, a large crowd like the one outside the hospital had formed. A police car was parked out front and its presence instilled a measure of comfort in him. He didn’t know where Kern was or even if he was still after him, but he was at a loss as to why Kern had come after him to begin with.