Bob caught the Frisbee and with a fluid spin, whipped it back toward Jim, a brilliant grin on his face. The throw was flawless. Jim shot out a hand to grab it, but the violet disc bounced off and careened into the bushes. Laughing at his blunder, Jim jogged after the errant projectile, his brothers’ good-natured boos and raspberries echoing in his ears.
It was a perfect day. The sun gleamed brightly high above, embedded in an ocean of azure sky. Here and there, puffs of white dotted the expanse.
Al, Jim’s other brother, had picked up a couple of buckets of chicken, with sides of cole slaw and mashed potatoes and gravy. Dad wasn’t here yet; he had some paperwork to finish up at the station, but was expected soon.
The Beardsley family – all firefighters. Bob was a driver/paramedic on a pumper truck; Al, a hose man on the very same truck. Dad, also known as Robert Beardsley, Sr., was the captain of their company and a well-respected senior firefighter for the City of
Jim took a different path. Never one to do something just because he was “supposed to” or “expected to,” Jim studied criminology at NYU and joined the New York Police Department as a beat cop.
Spotting the Frisbee a few feet further into the underbrush, Jim forced his way through and reached down for it. When he stood up, disc in hand, a snowflake drifted down from the blue sky and lighted gently on his right hand.
“What the…” Jim began. “Hey, look at this!” Spinning around to show his brothers this miraculous snowflake, Jim realized that the snowflake wasn’t cold. Glancing down once more, he touched it with the index finger of his left hand. A smear of ash smeared his skin.
Looking up in horror, he saw that his family wasn’t there after all. It was September 11th again, his uniform was splattered with blood, and everything he loved was dying far to the south.
Jim started out of his dream. His surroundings were momentarily unfamiliar and he thrashed until the blanket was on the floor of his RV. Remembering, he slowly relaxed onto the foam mattress, sobs racking his chest. Another night, another bad dream. Jim lay there for 15 minutes fighting the urge to move.
Eventually he slid down from the bunk into the RV’s small kitchen and turned on the heat under the kettle. Spreading the curtains open on the side window, he peered out at the Wal-Mart parking lot. So this was
Thumbing the touch pad on his laptop, he brought up the email and read over it again.
Dear Mr. Beardsley, I have some information which may be of interested to you regarding the Nosferatu. Please reply if interested.
The unsigned email, delivered from an lsymonds45@hotmail.com, had sparked a series of back-and-forth messages which culminated in Jim’s decision to travel to
The kettle whistled and Jim pushed the laptop closed, got up, and made himself a cup of Folger’s coffee, black.
-----
That's about it on Jim Beardsley. Next post: We delve into the Hyborian realms with a character for the Conan d20 RPG.
No comments:
Post a Comment