CHAPTER FORTY FOUR - IN THE RAIN
The moment they stepped out of the base, Brian felt the wind hitting him like a plate of ice. His skin turned cold, so cold that it stung, and everything inside seemed to drain away until he felt almost entirely empty. He screwed his eyes up shut and curled his fingers. It was all over and this was the future he would be left with.
“Are you okay?” Sammy asked, touching his shoulder gently.
Brian opened his eyes and turned towards Sammy. He felt deadened inside. His constant mind’s companion was nowhere to be found and he felt ill. He was cold, but sweat had beaded upon his forehead. He wondered how he looked in comparison to Sammy. The blond’s face was pale and he held himself together with a strong determination but his sunken, red eyes betrayed the toll that recent events had reaped upon him. His leg was also burnt and bleeding making it difficult for him to walk.
“Dad?” Sammy pressed.
Brian had to swallow hard to prevent the tears from spurting. He wasn’t Sammy’s dad in this time. He wasn’t B’s dad either. Their real father had been left behind. He could smell the dust of the cavern still and feel the rope burning his hands. There had to have been a way for him to save him. There had to have been a way of preventing the fall.
Sammy was still staring at him. Brian nodded, but could not even try to smile to reassure him. “I’ll live,” he whispered. “I think everything has just been a bit much recently.” It was a heavy understatement. Brian had spent almost the past two weeks with a man he had begun to treasure as a friend but that was all worthless now.
B was also looking up at him, but Brian didn’t have a smile for him either. He looked at both of them and swallowed again. Slowly he began to walk forward, taking Sammy’s arm to make sure that he didn’t fall over with his bad leg. He only hoped that his elder son couldn’t feel Brian’s body trembling. His mind was constantly reaching out for something that was no longer there. It searched for the link that had kept him secure in this strange time and every time he realised it was gone, it felt like his own mind would crumble away completely. He couldn’t allow B and Sammy to see this. They were being so brave and Brian felt so sickly ashamed of his own behaviour.
B clung onto Sammy’s other arm, helping his brother along but Brian couldn’t help but notice the desperation in the grasp. There was something with B’s face as well. It was almost grey and his eyes were pale and misty. His lips constantly trembled and he had not spoken at all since they left Bri. Sammy had wrapped an arm about him to keep him close.
“What do we do now?” Sammy asked, his voice slightly strained as he stared about the desolate field that concealed the fallen base.
“Howie and his gang should be around somewhere,” Brian replied quietly. “They’re probably looking for us actually. We’ll wait for them and you can sit down.” Gently he helped Sammy to sit down on the damp grass. “How’s the leg?” he asked.
“Hurts,” Sammy said. “But… I can cope.” He looked away from Brian and stared out at the darkening sky. The evening was drawing in and pushing away the last remnants of day.
B still stood and clasped his arms about his chest. “I’d only just remembered,” he whispered.
Brian turned towards him. “What?” he asked.
B opened his mouth to say something but then changed his mind and shook his head. “Nothing,” he murmured. “I just forgot myself for a while.” His eyes closed “I can’t believe this happened.” He swallowed thickly and his face began to crumple as he tried to push everything back.
Softly Brian placed his arms about him and B leaned against his shoulder. Brian felt numb as he held him. Bri would have given anything to be able to do this… He heard B sob and then suddenly tears were sliding down his own face. He wanted to be brave, like a hard rock that B could lean against, but at the same time what he had experienced had been too personal and emotional to be able to ignore. While B sobbed, Brian cried silently. Thoughts sped about his head so quickly that his eyes stung as they tried to keep up with them. He thought of Bri and the way they had somehow, against all reason and expectation, managed to become friends.
His stomach was empty and kept contorting with pain. He hadn’t felt like this since his grandfather had died. He remembered being at a close friend’s funeral. It had hurt, but not like this. Bri had been more than a friend. Bri had literally been a part of him.
“Brian!” a voice called.
Brian looked up. Someone was running over and waving. “Howie,” he whispered. He held B tightly. “It’s okay, they’re here to take us home now.” B didn’t move.
Howie’s dark haired form was only a few metres away before he noticed Sammy on the ground. “Get a med kit!” he called back to someone. “You all right Sammy?”
Sammy nodded. “I’m alive,” he said weakly.
Howie stared at Brian holding B. for a moment his mouth opened in question. Brian stared at him and then looked away and lowered his head against B’s. Howie didn’t ask where Bri was.
“I’m so tired and… I still don’t remember everything,” B whispered, his voice muffled with the embrace.
Suddenly Brian remembered what he had been told about the virus and memory loss. He stared down at his son but now was not the time to ask about what had happened to him. “It’s all right now,” he soothed. “You’ll feel better at home.”
“Are either of you two hurt?” Howie asked in concern as he approached them.
“Not badly,” Brian replied. “B’s not well though.”
“And you look terrible,” Howie added. “I’ve sent Steven back to fetch the vans. We only sue them in emergencies but I think it’s a good idea to get everyone back as soon as possible.”
“Thanks.” Brian’s mouth was dry. The wind was blowing again and it was cold. It was cold like loneliness. “Howie, will you fetch B…” His voice caught slightly.
The latino nodded. “Sure,” he said quietly. “Just tell me where and I’ll have someone fetch him, okay?”
Brian nodded but didn’t dare speak anymore in case the sobs escaped him. He looked down and saw that Sammy’s leg was being treated, but his face still showed that there was more than an injured joint that was wrong with him.
B pulled away from Brian slightly. He reached out a hand and pressed it against his face. “You took me to the beach, he said suddenly.
Brian nodded dully. “Don’t you remember?” he asked.
Tears streaked down B’s face. “I do now.” He turned away from him and then glanced at Sammy. Slowly he seated himself against Sammy and leaned his head upon his brother. Brian gulped as he stared down at them both. They were alive. He and Bri had managed to get them out alive, but something was gone inside of them. Something had changed.
“They don’t look good,” Howie commented. “B looks awful, almost as bad as you. Don’t worry, the trucks will be here soon.” When Brian didn’t reply he added, “is there anything I can do.”
Brian shook his head. “Sorry Howie. “I think I’d just like to be on my own.”
He saw the sympathy in his friend’s eyes and it made him feel worse. He couldn’t cope with everyone feeling sorry for him. It only made him more aware than ever of what was happening around him. He felt Howie’s dark eyes upon him but he turned away from them and stared up at the cloudy sky. It was grey, rapidly turning into a deep blue as the night drove in. it looked as if it even might rain. Strange how it always seems to rain when you’re sad or maybe you just feel sad when it rains. A reminder of tears.
The wind blew again and Brian was aware of how weak he felt. It was as if a single gust could blow him from his feet. He could hear voices around him. The medic tending to Sammy and the babble as more people seemed to appear. He saw the people Howie and he had first spotted when they arrived at the base, the escaped prisoners. Paul was sitting beside Sammy. All of them were talking, glad to have escaped alive.
Brian knew he hadn’t. Maybe for now he had but years from now he would repeat the experience and he wouldn’t be so lucky. He hadn’t escaped alive. Now he would be haunted forever.
He couldn’t ever seem himself becoming like Bri. He couldn’t see him as himself. When you look in a mirror, you see your reflection and know it is yourself you see. Brian had never seen Bri as a reflection. Bri had been a person, not just a smooth reflection in a mirror. He had been real, alive. Brian couldn’t comprehend any of it.
His mind was empty, like something was missing. He hadn’t even realised that he had been constantly aware of Bri, but he had. Even when he had panicked while with Howie he had known he was alive somehow. Now there was nothing. Nothing at all.
Tears fell, but they did nothing for him. What was the purpose of tears? Sometimes you felt better after crying, but now they did nothing for him.
His mind reached out automatically, as it had always done when he was in pain. He searched for Bri to hold onto him and help him, but he wasn’t there. All gone. Sweat slid down his face to mingle with tears. Tears did nothing for him but he couldn’t stop them.
His head ached with emptiness and with concentration. He couldn’t stop his mind from trying to find what it had lost. He stared at the thickly clouded sky and felt the first light streams of rain beginning to fall.
He was growing colder, very much colder. There seemed to be no warmth to cling onto. He thought of the cavern. He could feel the walls around him, hear the echo of his own voice. There was a dryness in the air. He looked over the edge of the cliff face but there was nothing there to see. There was no one to save, only an empty rope.
His head felt as if it might explode. His heart was suddenly accelerating faster and faster and everything was spinning. He remembered fighting with Bri. He remembered the pain as his twin’s fists had hit him and he remembered what it had felt like as he’d retaliated and sunk his own knuckles into the soft flesh. He could feel it all again, or he thought he could but there as no one there.
He couldn’t breathe anymore and he knew something was wrong. He tried to open his mouth and scream but nothing came out. He saw the empty cavern, the lonely rope. He felt it burning his hands still. He couldn’t cope. He tried to take himself back to the rainy field but his mind wouldn’t let him go. He closed his eyes but he could still see everything. The cavern spun, his mind hurt. He felt himself falling…
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B was still confused. He remembered some things, but he didn’t understand them. He remembered Brian. He remembered who he was and why he loved him. How could there be two though? Was this one really from the past?
Memories swirled about his head in a fat cloud of puzzlement. They were coming back now but his head hurt so much and most of the images he didn’t understand. Some of them seemed to be fading away from him. He tried to think back to what had happened in the Gerai base but it was all distorted and hidden, like he had seen the whole thing through clouded glass. The clearest memory he had was of leaning down beside Bri and watching him…
Tears fell. He had tried to hold them back but as the memories returned so did the pain, love and realisation. He had lost someone he loved.
He leaned against Sammy, reassured by his slow breathing. He still had someone to cling onto. He needed someone like Sammy to help him make sense of the memories that had suddenly flooded his brain.
He tilted his head slightly so that he could see Brian standing by himself a little way off. He was staring up at the clouds. B raised his own head to copy him. The light of day was almost gone now and everything was coated in oppressive greyness. It was even beginning to rain, light and soothing.
He watched Brian, wondering what he was thinking and feeling. He was still watching when Brian slumped heavily to the ground. “Dad!” he cried. His chest almost exploded. He was jumping to his fete and running over to him. “Dad, dad!” he wailed.
Howie was already at Brian’s side and checking for a pulse. “It’s okay,” he told B. “He’s just unconscious.”
B was staring at him. Brian’s face was pale and suddenly he was standing in the open field, but back in the Gerai base. His mind gave Brian a deep chest wound of a laser and erased the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.
Sorrowful pain was hitting him. He had only just remembered Bri when he died. The moment he regained something, he lost something else. He realised he was sobbing, his hands covering his face.
“It’s all right,” Howie said as he placed a hand upon him. “It’s going to be okay.
But it wasn’t okay. B’s head hurt and too many memories of Brian were crowding in around him until his could hardly breathe. Sobs clotted his mouth and throat and he was aware that he was screaming. He remembered Marlowe tying him down. He remembered screaming for help. He remembered attacking Bri…
“B - ” Howie tried to soothe him.
“No!” B screamed suddenly as he backed away. “It’s not okay, it’s not okay! You don’t know what happened to me!” He held his hands to his head. Bri was dead. His father was dead and he was remembering what Bri had meant to him. He was remembering all the arguments they’d had recently. “This is all my fault!” he yelled hysterically.
He could see Marlowe laughing. He could see Bri dying and he could feel his own mind slipping away from him. “It’s my fault,” he wept. The base had destroyed him. He knew his memories would never be the same and he knew that the guilt would press down upon him until it killed him.
He was still crying and screaming, even though Sammy was suddenly beside him and holding him. He continued to scream. Tears flew from his face as contortions hit his body with physical pain.
“Calm down,” Sammy soothed. “I’m here.”
“It’s my fault!” B screamed again. Memories collided with one another inside of his skull. Memories of childhood, loss, pain and happiness… and then there was the memories of Marlowe. Everything came flooding back to him and it hurt. He remembered screaming again. He couldn’t cope with the explosion of memory in his mind.
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Sammy caught B as he fell forwards. “B?” he whispered. Gently he gathered the unconscious body into his arms and slowly sat down before his leg could collapse and make him drop him.
“Is he okay?” Howie asked. “What happened?”
“I think he just freaked out a little. The Gerai basically erased his memories and he was so confused. He still is. I don’t know what he remembers anymore.” A tear slid down Sammy’s face. He remembered Kevin and the way B had attacked him. He hadn’t known who he was. B had responded to Sammy but how much did he really remember? “I want to get him home. I want to get them both home. What’s wrong with… dad?”
“No idea,” Howie replied. “Shock, I’m guessing. I think he was somehow linked with our Bri. We need a doctor to look at them.”
Sammy cradled B in his arms. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “You don’t have to worry about it anymore. I’ll help you remember.” He glanced over at Brian. He could help B, but could he help Brian? What did Howie mean by linked? So many questions and worries were spiralling about him that they gave him a headache.
He looked back at B and gently kissed him on the head. He had begun to worry that he would not be able to take him home but he was here now and Sammy would make sure that he recovered.
The rain fell lightly but it was already rapidly soaking into B’s skin and hair. Sammy did his best to shield his little brother but he couldn’t reach Brian to do anything for him. Howie gently placed his own coat over the fallen figure and Sammy watched as the rain slid down Brian’s pale face.
‘Please be okay…’
He couldn’t cope with losing Brian again. It had happened too many times to Sammy. Once when he was taken away as a child, again when Brian was buried, then when he came through time, the explosion in Darren’s base, back in the Gerai base… and if anything happened to this Brian… Sammy wasn’t sure how much more he could take. He felt like he might faint collapse along with his father and brother.
A bright gleam was suddenly cutting through the light rain and the evening dimness. Sammy raised his damp face. There was the rumble of engines. The trucks had arrived to take them home at last.