[Before I start, this is a sequel to my story, 2016. It's not important that you read that one, but you'd be a whole lot cooler if you did. There is one amendment I'd make before 2016 takes over. In the intro, I state a lot of bad things that happened in that year. I'm glad to say that my girlfriend at the time is no longer confined to her bed, that her brain damage turned out to be minimal. We don't speak to each other anymore, but I'm glad that she's not bad in that way anymore.]
It was the last of the heroin. I used it sparingly to make it last and so I didn’t get addicted. I lived in the wilderness, and while I knew how to get more, I was loath to leave my self-imposed hermitage. The heroin eased the pain in my crippled left leg. Tough times ahead. Indeed.
I took the plunger in my teeth and pulled back, filling the “insulin needle” I got at Walgreen’s with dark brown fluid. A nice potent shot. I tied off my arm with Velcro—much better than a rubber strip or a shoe lace—and pumped my fist. Now came the hard part. Even before I started this habit, my veins were shot. I’d been in the hospital many times, and IV’s had all but destroyed my veins. Thankfully I had more on the back of my arm. I pulled my hand to my shoulder as hard as I could. I saw a vein pop up, juicy and ready to be pierced. I used the suck at this—I had to stick it in and dig around until I found what I needed—but practice made perfect. I eased the needle in, and I barely felt it. I pulled the plunger back until I saw blood.
Then I rammed it home and yanked the Velcro away as quickly as I could. The rush came seconds later. My jaw dropped, and the pain faded away. In a buzz I was barely aware of myself removing the needle and setting it aside.
Ever since I killed 2016 the world’s temporal experience has been, well, odd. They said that the Titanic was seen leaving Ireland. A platoon of Nazis stormed Paris. Vikings raided England. Pirates took a millionaire’s yacht in the Caribbean. I myself saw a caveman attacking an elephant at the Brookfield Zoo. And, God help me, CNN reported a T-rex tearing the White House apart.
I’ve always wanted to be a hermit, but I actually became one out of necessity. I had to escape the Time Crazy world. I lived at the tippy-top of a very rough mountain. It would take dedication to find me.
The drawback to heroin is it makes you useless. You can’t do anything productive. But it feels very good. The temptation is usually to sleep. Don’t. It’s a waste of a good—no, the best—drug. Never get greedy. That’s what makes an addict. Respect the drug.
Morphine is good. Dilaudid is better. Fentanyl has the best rush, but it’s over in seconds. With heroin the rush lasts and lasts and lasts.
The front door burst open, letting thick snowflakes into my living room. A man with a thick coat and a gun stumbled in, the wind a beast at his back. He looked left and right, his eyes settling on me.
“John Bruni?” he asked.
I nodded. “Who are you?”
“My name is 2020. You killed my great-great-grandfather. Prepare to die!”
We stared at each other for a moment, and I broke into laughter.
“Why do you laugh at me?!” 2020 shouted.
“That was the best Inigo Montoya speech ever,” I said. I didn’t mention how I missed the perfect opportunity to do the same thing with his great-great grandfather.
2020 stared at me, bewildered. “You don’t fear me?”
I grunted a laugh. “I’ve lost everything. I fear nothing. Do your worst. I won’t even stop you.”
Again, 2020 remained silent. He looked like a dog trying to figure out a math problem.
“What?” I said. “You think I’m living here in the wilderness because I like it?” Well, I did, actually.
“You killed 2016.”
“Only because 2016 killed my dad first. All I wanted was to have my dad back. If only for one fucking minute. Lacking that, I killed the bastard who took his life.”
“You disrupted the natural flow of time. You don’t get to kill a year and live!” 2020 said.
“Oh yeah? Then why didn’t 2017 come for me? Why did it take a runt like you to come after me?”
“Runt?! How dare you call me a runt!”
“I have another name for you if you like. Fair warning, though. It does rhyme with runt.”
2020 laughed, and it sounded genuine. “I get it now. You’re provoking me so I’ll give you a swift death.”
Not really, but I stayed silent. Let him think what he wanted to think.
Then I saw something. “You’re bleeding.”
“Huh?” 2020 asked.
I pointed to the crimson path down his pants. He looked, then covered it with his coat. “It’s nothing.”
“I got bandages.”
2020 pointed the gun at me again. “I don’t think so. Remember why I’m here?”
“No need to lose any sense of civility. Come on. Sit down. I’ll get you fixed up. Then you can kill me and be on your merry way.”
2020 considered, then sat in an easy chair. I got him some whiskey and went off to get the first aid kit in the bathroom.
“Nothing funny!” he cried out. “Come back with a gun, and you’re dead!”
I came back with the kit held aloft. “Nothing funny.”
2020 opened his coat and lifted both a sweater and a shirt. I saw tiny circles all over his stomach. Closer examination revealed these to be bites. I almost laughed.
“Didn’t think you had piranha in your moat,” 2020 said. “Or a moat, for that matter.”
He took a healthy slug from the whiskey, and I went to work. No stitches needed, thankfully, but a lot of disinfectant and medical tape went into his injuries. When I finished, he relaxed, dropping his shirt and sweater. He took more whiskey.
“This is good,” he said. “Got any pills for pain?”
“I just finished the last of the heroin. Sorry.”
“Ah.” He waved a dismissive hand. “This should do.” Another drink of whiskey. He refilled his own cup.
I still rode the midnight gloom. Past experience shows that heroin and whiskey made for a bad tummy ache. I simply sat and watched my quarry. He looked weak and tipsy. Not good for a killing mood.
“You still want to kill me?” I asked.
2020 glanced at the gun in his hand. Shrugged. “Yeah. I’m just going to need a minute.”
“Take your time.” Settling back. All the more to enjoy the heroin. If he was going to kill me, I hoped he wouldn’t wait until I was sober again.
2020 took another bite from the whiskey. He grimaced, and his eyes turned to me, dull and already bloodshot. “What the fuck do you do out here in the middle of nowhere?”
“Not much,” I said. “Sometimes I write, but I gave up that lifestyle. I’m not a writer anymore. It’s just too . . . too much. I get good wifi, though. Prime and Netflix is how I spend most of my days. That and the whiskey and smack.”
2020 grunted. “That’s fucking pathetic.”
“So’s the fucking world,” I said.
“You have no one to blame but yourself. You killed 2016! You had to know that there would be repercussions.”
“I wasn’t thinking at the time,” I said. “I was running on high octane revenge. As you can imagine, my tank is on empty. Has been for a while now.”
2020 drank again. I watched him carefully, hoping to catch some indication that he could connect the dots I was showing him. Judging from the dull sheen over his eyes, he couldn’t.
“You think you’re special,” he said.
“Nope. Not really. Would I be a hermit if that were the case?”
“No, you think you’re special. What makes you think that you should have killed an entire year? And don’t give me that shit about your dad. Years kill people. That’s what we do. We also bring life to others. It evens out.”
“I didn’t care,” I said. “2016 had it coming.”
2020 sneered. “You’re nobody. You’re nothing.”
“And yet I killed your great-great-whatsis,” I said.
He turned the gun on me and fired. I jumped, surprised, but the bullet missed me by the proverbial mile. It plowed into the wall next to me.
“Whoops,” 2020 said. He laughed, taking another drink.
“Maybe you should take a nap,” I said. “You’re a bit rough around the edges.” I couldn’t help but think that he should have approached from the west instead of the east. If he’d done so, he would have been devoured by the sharks I keep on that side of the moat, and I wouldn’t be stuck in this mess.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” 2020’s grin was lopsided, and I was sure that he wouldn’t be able to stand up straight, much less shoot me. “I wanna watch you squirm.” He fired again, and I involuntarily flinched, even though I expected it. The bullet went wild, and I later found it in my bathroom.
But then his aim straightened, and he aimed the gun at my stomach. Ever have a gun pulled on you? I have. In high school. I’d gone over to a friend’s place for a math project, and he showed me his rifle. He showed me that the weapon was not loaded . . . and then he aimed it at my torso, grinning wildly. Even though I knew for a fact that gun was empty, I still felt my insides oozing unnaturally against each other.
So you can imagine how I felt when 2020 aimed a loaded gun at me.
“Gettin’ nervous?” he asked.
“You ever kill anyone?” I asked.
2020 took another drink of whiskey. “Nah. Not really, I mean.”
“It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man,” I said. “Taking away all he has, all he’s ever gonna have.”
2020 laughed. “Yeah, I saw Unforgiven, too.”
Drats. “Ah, fuck it then. What are you waiting for?”
2020 pulled the trigger. This time I did not flinch, but I felt the bullet rip into my guts. I looked down to see a hole in my stomach already spouting blood. I lifted my shirt and saw my intestines through the bullet hole. I reached behind me and felt the exit wound, which was a lot bigger. Blood saturated the chair.
2020 giggled. “I did it. I killed the year-killer.”
I thought about my ruptured organs leaking poison into my body and knew that he was right. I was as good as dead. But I still had coherent thoughts. I still had that going for me, if nothing else.
“What do you think are the odds that you’re going to get medical help all the way up here? At the top of the mountain and far away from civilization?”
“Not good,” I croaked.
“So I’m going to leave you here to suffer until your body finally dies on you. How do you like that?”
It sucked, but I kept my mouth shut. I had a finite amount of breaths to take now, and I didn’t want to waste a single one.
2020 wrapped his coat around himself. He grimaced slightly at the pain from his piranha bites, but he took another drink from the bottle, and it seemed to settle him down. He then went to the door and yanked it open. Giant flakes of snow washed over the floor, and he squinted into the wind. “So long, asshole. I hope you live a good long time before you die from that gunshot.” Grinning, he stepped outside.
I yanked off my shirt and ripped it in two. The first I put in the entry wound, the second at the exit. I picked up a dirty shirt off the floor and tied it around my bulk, hoping it would buy me enough time. I probably wouldn’t have made it if I wasn’t wearing my leg brace. But I stood despite the dizziness and staggered to the door. The icy wind cut into my eyes, making them water so badly that I almost turned back. Then I saw 2020 looking down the mountain, trying to judge the best path to take. He turned to the west and started on his way down.
I pushed myself as hard as I could, and I could feel myself stumbling against the ice and rocks. I made it around to the other side of the cabin. Just beyond 2020 I could see the moat. Just where I wanted him. Using the last of my strength, I launched myself at him, meaning to check him in the back of the head. My aim was off, and I got him in the small of the back instead.
He gave a shocked yelp as he fell forwards and down the mountain. I watched his body flail on the way down, trying to grab anything that would stop his descent. Then he took a ten-foot drop and landed on his ass. I heard him scream and could only assume that he’d broken his tail bone. I knew what that was like. It happened to me twice. I felt no sympathy for him.
He still rolled and bounced until he hit the lip of the moat, which sent him sailing over half of it until he splashed down into the murky waters. He managed to tread water pretty well, though.
“You think you can kill me?!” 2020 roared. “You did jack shit, Bruni! Jack fucking shit!”
And then the first shark fin surfaced. And then a second. And a third.
“What the fuck?!” 2020 yelled. “This is bullshit. Sharks need saltwater!”
I wanted to tell him that I’d had the saltwater imported for the express purpose of getting sharks for my moat, but my throat felt clogged, and I gagged up maybe a pint of blood. I propped myself up so I could watch.
I almost missed it. One of the fins ducked down, and suddenly 2020 wasn’t there anymore. The moat turned crimson, and 2020 splashed back to the surface. “Help!” he screamed. “Don’t do this to me!”
I chuckled, which was about all I could do at this point. The other two fins ducked down, and 2020 vanished yet again. This time, when he broke the surface again, it was only his decapitated head. And then one of the sharks gobbled that down, too.
I fell onto my back, satisfied that if I was going to die here, at least 2020 got what he deserved. I remembered that I had a secret stash of Vicodin behind the medicine cabinet over my bathroom sink. My mouth watered, thinking of the ten pills I had in there. I spat, and it wasn’t saliva.
I turned my head. My house seemed so far away. I tried to stand, but lightheadedness shoved me back down to the ground. I let my head fall back. I felt so tired. All I wanted to do was rest.
Yes. Rest.
I closed my eyes, not knowing if I would ever open them again.
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