FFM 08 - The Way

Jamal travelled with The Circus of the Blazing Heavens until Denver before continuing west on his own.  They had begged him to come north with them, but he had his own road to walk.  He had The Way.  That was how it appeared in his head, anyway: all capitalized like a very proper noun.  He’d found that if he relaxed and let his feet do the walking, that part of him that called itself The Map did the rest.  He could almost see a line on the ground before him, pointing him endlessly to the west.  

Long portions of the trek, he walked.  When a car passed, he stuck up a thumb.  If they stopped, he took the ride, regardless.  With each passing day and each mile behind him, the urgency grew, until he felt almost as though he should run if he wasn’t in a vehicle.  Besides, even if the driver was crazy, he was fairly sure that the Sword could handle them.

He followed The Way unwaveringly, without question, and it kept him out of trouble.  One night in New Mexico, it narrowly diverted him around a police checkpoint, and on more than one occasion led him to shelter or water, as though he had already been there before.  

And then the line simply ended.  It led him to an abandoned gas station in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in southern Utah, but there was no sign beyond that.  The gas station looked like it hadn’t been used since the fifties, but the bus-stop bench in front of it looked like it might have been a decade or so newer than that.  The boy sitting on the bench was certainly not even conceived in either of those years.

He was a skinny, freckled thing, probably about twelve years old, with an Indiana Jones hat that was two sizes too big for him and a Tom Baker scarf that was about a million sizes too big for anyone.  When Jamal shuffled up, the boy glanced at the LEGO Star Wars watch on his wrist and waved.

“Howdy!”  the boy called.

Jamal raised his hand in a hesitant wave of his own, looking for sign of the boy’s parents, or their car.  He didn’t even see any fresh tracks in the dust layer of the old highway.  

“Is there supposed to be a bus coming through here?”

The boy shrugged, with an uncertain grin.  “Maybe?”

“I see,”  Jamal took a seat on the bench.  “Your town must be right around here, huh?”

“No sir, I’m from NYC.”

Jamal faltered.  “Mind if I ask how you ended up here?

“I--…”  he stopped, tilted his head in thought, and floundered, turning his toes inward.  “I don’t know, you’d probably think I’m crazy.”

Jamal laughed.  Nothing sounded crazy anymore.  Not after the TV started talking to him in Grand Junction.  “Try me.”

“Well…. Okay, so last July, I saw this dude get hit by a car and die.  Like, right in front of me.  I looked right at his face, right before the car hit him, but I can’t remember it.  Except that he had this cool hat.  And when he fell, the hat landed by my feet.”  He gave Jamal a stern look, and the age in his eyes was striking for a moment.  “I mean, I don’t normally think it’s cool to take stuff off dead people, but it was like the hat was calling me.  So I put it on.”  He fidgeted his fingers in his lap.  “And it started talking to me,” he murmured under his breath.  “Told me to get the scarf and the watch, too.  All those people around, and nobody thought it was weird, me grabbing his stuff.  Anyway, the Hat told me to come here.  Told me all kinds of things a hat shouldn’t know.  Told me to follow The Way.”  Jamal froze.  He could hear the capitalization in the boy’s voice.  He squinted up at Jamal.  “Crazy, right?”

Jamal laughed.  “Kid, I just broke out of a nuthouse, where I was being held because I have three souls and some sort of crazy divine mission.  But the road seems to end here.”

“Wow.  Sounds crowded.”

“Yeah, you bet,” Jamal laughed.  

“What if it’s the wrong Utah?”  The boy murmured.

“I’m sorry?”

“Say,” he shifted tones.  “I don’t suppose you’re any good at picking locks?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty decent, why?”

“Y’see, you…”  That headtilt, once again.  “I… need to pee.  There’s a bathroom around back.”  He smiled apologetically.  Clearly fake, but Jamal had to admit he was a decent actor.  “I get shy going outdoors.”

“Sure,”  Jamal replied, warily.  “Let’s go take a look.”

Jamal had the lock popped in about 45 seconds, and the door swung open with a low groan.  The bathroom was as clean as he would’ve expected, but unnaturally dark somehow, as though a sheer screen was hung over the doorway.

“I don’t have to pee anymore,”  the boy intoned behind him.  His voice had dropped to an ominously serious tone, older somehow.  When Jamal looked again, he wasn’t smiling.  “Usually, I’m not supposed to tell secrets, but this is important.  You have to choose willingly.”  

“Choose?”  Jamal tensed for ambush, his soul shifting from Key to Sword instinctively now.  

“That doorway leads to another world.  Another world with another Door.”  Once again, he could hear the emphasis of Proper Noun.

“What do you know about the Door?”  Jamal hissed.  “Where is it?  And how the hell am I supposed to trust you?”

“No more questions.  Don’t trust me, or anyone.  Trust The Way”

Jamal considered him for a moment, and then that bizarre sheet of darkness.  The more he watched, the shadows seemed to ripple before him.  Beyond that, just a filthy bathroom.  Perhaps an ambush waiting behind the door.  Perhaps it was all a trap.  Curious but suspicious, he leaned in towards the door.

Not for the first time, Jamal took a step into the unknown.