It Would Be So Much Easier to Be Numb

He was used to opening his eyes to different surroundings than had been there when he closed them, but this time he couldn’t see anything. His open orbs were greeted with as much blackness as would have assailed them if his lids were shut. Instead, he felt around him for anything to give him a clue as to who he was. His hand fell upon something cold and metal… it was a chain. He could feel the uncomfortable pinching of high heeled shoes. He leaned his head back against the stone wall behind him. A woman again?
He was seated on the ground and there was no floor. He briefly wondered if he was blind again, but as his eyes began to grow accustomed to the blackness he could make out shapes just beyond where he was seated. He tried to distinguish the shapes, but it was still too dark. It was then he noticed the noise. It was soft and erratic. It sounded like…
A blinding rectangle of light slid down from the wall and a man with dark hair and a shirt covered with abstract shapes in contrasting colors stepped from the light into the darkness. “Sam!”
Al pressed a button and the rectangle slid back up with a soft metallic banging sound. “Al, it’s good to see you. I was beginning to wonder.”
“Sam…”
“So, where am I?” Dr. Sam Beckett smiled brightly at the face of his friend, his only connection to his previous life, his life before the Quantum project.
“Sam…” His friend’s face was grave. “You’ve been kidnapped.”
“What?”
Al held up the flashing calculator shaped device affectionately named, Ziggy. “Your name is Jean Wilson and you’ve been missing for the last 23 hours.”
“So, what? I just have to get out of here?”
Ziggy buzzed unhappily under Al’s fingers. “Not quite. It says here that your body will be found tomorrow morning, and the little one…. She’s never found.”
“The little one?”
Al motioned with his eyes towards the opposite corner of the room where the source of the sound Sam had heard earlier was huddled and pressing herself as far as she could into her corner. “She’s the one you’re here to save. They estimated your time of death as 1 o’clock this morning. You have less than an hour.”
She looked no more than three years old. Her hair was a chocolate shade of brown which was cut just above the eyes in straight bangs. Her green eyes peeked over the tops of her knees. “Her name is Grace Aldon. It says here that Grace and her babysitter Jean disappeared from the Aldon residence on May 15, 1964. Jean’s was found two days later, she had died from multiple stab wounds to the chest. Grace…”
“How… how do you know my name?” Grace’s eyes were wide with fear. Her voice was a high whisper laced with the absolute terror and desperation she must have been feeling at her situation.
Sam looked apprehensively at Al who nodded, reaffirming Sam’s suspicions. “She can see me Sam.”
I hope to God she didn’t understand what Al was saying. “So that means…”
Al nodded, “You too.”
Sam turned his gaze back to the tiny girl who was still whimpering in the same position she had been in before. “Who are you?” Her voice was a high frightened whisper and it broke Sam’s heart to think that she had been put in this situation.
He crawled over to her, still unsure of his surroundings. He offered his hand to her. “Come on, we have to get out of here.”
“No” She whimpered and shrank back from his outstretched arm.
“Sam, she’s scared. She doesn’t know who you are. You can’t expect her to trust you.
Sam opened his mouth to answer, but a click from the door silenced any attempts he would have made to communicate. The heavy door creaked slowly open and light from the other side began to flood the room.
“I told you not to talk to each other.”
His hair was light brown and choppily cut above his shoulders. His facial features were exaggerated, like a cartoon in the real world and his eyes were sharp and darting between his two prisoners. A black ribbed turtleneck clung to his thin frame and a large silver hunting knife glinted in his right hand. “Time to go, little one.”
“Sam you gotta get this guy.” Al glared angrily yet helplessly at the evil being across the room.
The man was looking at the little girl. Sam felt an instinctive hatred for this man rising up from the pit of his stomach. He began to stride towards her. “Don’t touch her.” The sharp eyes turned towards him. Sam stood up, wishing his female frame cut a more impressive figure.
“I would advise you not to go around making orders. I was not going to kill you, but if you make me angry I will hurt you.” He turned his eyes back towards the tiny shuttering figure in front of him. “Come with me. We’re going to have lots of fun together.” His voice became sickeningly soft and playful when he spoke to her.
“Don’t you dare touch her.” Al was standing right next to the oblivious kidnapper. He reached out his hand in a vain attempt to do something.
Sam walked up behind the man and pulled his arm back, ready to strike. The man’s face remained expressionless as he spun around, inherently aware of Sam’s intentions. He grabbed Sam’s hand and, however hard Sam tried to pull away his depleted strength kept him from breaking free. The man raised the hunting knife and with one smooth motion he sliced off the index finger of Sam’s left hand.
The pain was blinding. He fell to the floor and clutched his injury to his chest, feeling the hot, sticky, pulsing liquid leak slowly onto his chest. The sensation sent a shiver down each individual vertebrae of his back. Sam tried to open his eyes, but his vision was blurred and dark shadows seemed to swim before him. He blinked several times and his eyesight cleared enough for him to watch helplessly as the stranger shut the door behind him, Grace squirming in his arms.
Sam forced himself to his feet and flung himself at the door. There was an empty bang, but it held fast. He slid down to the ground.
“Come on Sam, you gotta get up. You can’t let this guy win, you can’t let him take her.”
“What am I supposed to do?” He mumbled. “How do I get out?”
Al looked around. “There. There’s a crowbar. Pry the hinges off or something.”
Sam slowly lifted himself once more. He gripped the crowbar confidently with his right hand and awkwardly with his left as he threw all his weight into lifting off the hinges. They yielded to his efforts surprisingly well.
He stumbled out of the room. The pain in his hand was growing less and less evident. He wasn’t sure if he wasn’t just growing numb or if it was beginning to heal. He looked around for wherever the man had exited with his victim.
There. A staircase. He tripped over his own feet as he raced up the stairs and up to the door at the top. He threw himself against it even as the knob yielded to his clumsy attempts to turn it. The door violently swung open and he fell face forward into a snow bank just outside the door. The cold hit his face like a slap across his cheek. It was sharp but the suddenness of it removed all blurriness from his vision. The pain kept him awake as he darted his eyes back and forth across the white winter landscape desperately searching for some sign of the man.
There. Barely discernable tracks in the snow. The man had been careful, but not careful enough. Sam staggered onwards. The cold in the air around him was numbing his injured hand, but it was sending shooting knives of pain through his naked feet. He regretted not going back for the high heeled shoes when they first fell off, but it was too late for that now.
There. A black shape in front of him. He could just make out the silhouette of the man against the pristine white background the snow created. He ignored the pleading of his pained frozen feet and pushed onwards. He was almost there.
The man heard the crunching of the snow behind him and turned just in time to duck out of Sam’s clutches. He dropped the girl roughly in the snow and pulled the hunting knife out of his back pocket.
Sam assumed his normal fighting stance and he could see the man’s features take on an amused expression. “You want to fight me little girl?”
“Didn’t say want.” Sam swung at him, but his depleted teenage strength left minimal damage. Still he continued to swing with the controlled and methodic patience which had become instinct.
The man grunted at each successful blow, but the damage was negligible and the man simply bided his time until Sam paused to catch his breath. The sun flashed against the silver blade as it sliced through the air and into Sam’s arm. He cried out in pain and ceased his assault giving the man time to slide the knife into his stomach. Sam doubled over and the man let go of the hilt of the knife and grinned wickedly at the dying girl in front of him. He turned towards Grace again and reached out for her. She cried out. Sam got up. He was aggravating the wound and he knew it. He could already taste the thick irony blood in his mouth. It made him want to retch, but instead he grabbed the knife which was still protruding from his belly and pulled it out. He winced.
The man hadn’t turned around yet and Sam stuck the knife in his back while he wasn’t looking. He didn’t make the mistake of letting go and pulled it violently out of the body as the man screamed and fell to the ground. Sam looked at Grace. “Grace, cover your eyes.”
She did so. Sam drove the knife in again and again until the man stopped flinching. He let all of his anger, all of his pain and aggravation flow through his hands and into each deep thrust of the blade. He let it all out, how he hated this man for wanting to hurt a child, how the pain in his body was slowly creating shadows at the corners of his eyes, and how he longed to return to his own time.
“Sam, he’s dead.” He hadn’t noticed Al come up behind him. Sam tried to hold himself up, but the loss of blood was exhausting and he fell backwards onto the cold ground behind him. The snow wrapped its arms around him and he closed his eyes. He was a doctor, he knew he was going to die.
“I failed. I couldn’t save them.”
Sam felt some thing soft in right hand. It was Grace. She had tears leaking down her face and she had her cheek nuzzled against the front of Sam’s shirt. Sam couldn’t help but smile. If he had to pick a way to die, this would have been it. Even the pain was beginning to subside.
“You didn’t fail Sam.”
“What are you talking about?”
Ziggy beeped under Al’s fingers. “In ten minutes some hikers will walk past here and find the girl. She’s going to be fine.”
“But…”
Al’s face fell. “Sam… you were never supposed to save Jean. Grace goes on to become part of the FBI missing person’s unit and has already saved dozens of children’s lives, and it’s all because of you.”
Sam closed his fingers around Grace’s hand. “You take care of yourself.” A tear rolled down her cheek and she nodded. He smiled at her and closed his eyes.
“It’s time Sam.”
He leaped.