Albright refused to listen.
Running mad. He pumped his fists from his hips to his cheeks.
The weight of his body bounced.
But I’m not that fat!
Toes pointed. Heels kicked against the thorns behind him.
The power of the sprinting shadow reached at him with giant hands.
The air chilled.
The hands grabbed Albright’s left forearm.
Albright screamed, but kept running.
The black beast, the murderer, the dark assassin had him, but didn’t.
His head swam with a white mist.
Albright didn’t stop screaming.
He turned the corner, ignoring the claws, the knives, stabbing his arm.
The shadow commanded the ground.
The curb lowered beneath Albright’s feet, then rose abruptly.
Concrete hooked Albright’s right toe.
The dark sky disappeared. white lightning flashed inside his eyes.
Albright rolled on his back, dropping into the gutter. His head roared with pain as if run over by a truck. He felt cold wetness in his hair.
The shadow stooped over him, breathless.
The streetlight behind the being created a halo of fire around the black hole in man shape. An alien. A spirit. An executioner. Death himself!
Talons tore at Albright’s left arm.
Albright grabbed his chest with his right hand, opened his mouth more widely than his watering eyes…and never closed it again.
April 18
8:33 p.m. PST
“Thanks for coming, Porter,” said Kinnard, looking out of his drapeless window into solid blackness. “I’ve gotta meeting I’m already late for, but I had to talk to you before you went home today.”
“If I had a phone in my office, you’d be to that meeting right now,” Porter said, casually taking a seat. The white walls of Kinnard’s room and the soft color of the bookshelves contrasted the window and the cherry wood desk. “I think you need an interior designer.”
“To make my office looked as stripped as your own?” Kinnard said, forcing a small smile. He moved to his chair, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. “You won’t need a phone, Porter.”
“Well, I figure-”
“You won’t be in the office long enough.”
Porter’s playful grin froze. His eyes went dead.
Kinnard looked at him for a moment with sobriety in his telepathic words. But, of course, Porter couldn’t understand. “I suggest you simplify your dissertation. Cut all the corners you can.”
“I thought I was already doing that. I only have a month left,” said Porter, sensing an unrevealed weight in the room.
Kinnard felt a immense surge of emotion. He could see Porter’s predicament better than anyone else. Including Porter. He knew how much this doctoral candidate needed him. But what could Kinnard do? He didn’t have the strength to say what needed to be said, and he didn’t have the power to alter the situation.
Porter let his eyes drop as he waited. He scanned the scattered papers and books on Kinnard’s desk, as Kinnard shot him short glances. A bent copy of American Archaeology with a female figurine on the cover, rested on top of a number of other magazines. Stacks of unread research papers choked one corner of the table, threatening to topple and roll off. A copy of Newsweek, hidden just under Truman H. Campbell’s, The Atlantis Bridge: The Egyptian/ Mayan Family.
Porter picked up the book. “Not your regular reading,” he said to the professor of Near Eastern Studies.
“How is it going with Ms. Alred?” said Kinnard, straightening his briefcase in preparation to leave. In reality, he was just hiding the nervousness in his hands.
“You actually taking this seriously, Dr. Kinnard?” Porter said, lifting The Atlantis Bridge and flashing the glossed cover at his supervising professor.
“I don’t know what to take seriously anymore.”
With a shrug, Porter said, “As well as you probably would have guessed. I know it wasn’t your idea to put me with a partner. No one’s ever liked working with me!”
“That’s how it is?” Kinnard said.
Porter, who had pushed his way to a grin, let it slip away. He nodded.
“I’ve enjoyed working with you.” Kinnard pulled a stubborn file from his leather bag, tearing the card and warping the pages in the process.
“You know, you’ll subconsciously give those papers a lower grade because they’re hashed?” Porter said, eyeing the manila folder.
“Alred’s a great lady. Top of her class. Excellent woman,” said Kinnard, letting the folder hit the floor to his right. “You should marry her; tell her your middle name.”
“Always looking out for me,” Porter said.
Kinnard looked at him with sober eyes. His eyebrows high, his eyelids drawn together, he bit the inside of his bottom lip and said, “I don’t like this.”
“Still fighting with your wife.”
Kinnard sat and leaned back in his chair.
Porter lifted himself to the desk. “I’m kidding with you. Who wouldn’t feel the tension in this room?! It’s like cigar smoke from six card players trapped in an office the size of mine without a vent.”
Kinnard nodded and gazed at the edge of his desk.
“Don’t worry,” Porter said through the silence as heavy as iron. “I’ll get my dissertation done.”
“I’ve already left a message on Alred’s answering machine,” Kinnard said.
“I’ve heard of those contraptions! Setting up a date for me?” Porter said, sitting back again. The chair groaned beneath his weight. He put his hands behind his head and tried to close his eyes, which were laced with red streaks in a shattered glass pattern. “I’m really not interested in Erma Alred. I just wished she’d like me a little. The D in my name is starting to mean Discord, I think.”
“I’ve told her everything, so she won’t yell at you when you spill the news.”
“Good!” Porter said. “Whatever it is, I don’t think I can stand looking into her cold green eyes again. Albeit, they are kinda nice-”
“They’ve changed the date for dissertations. All papers are due on the fifth of May,” said Kinnard.
“I was baptized on that day,” Porter said.
“You and Alred will also argue your material on the fifth.”
The air chilled.
“But…you said…I have till…the twenty-first,” said Porter.
“They’ve moved it up,” Kinnard said without looking up.
“It says so in the schedule,” Porter continued, “I read it! I have five weeks!”
“I’m sorry, Porter.” Kinnard put his dark-rimmed glassed back on.
“That’s an implied contract! They can’t change it!”
Kinnard stood, the light gleaming off the top of his head. He kept his face hard. There was nothing he could do. There was no point in wasting breath and any more emotion over it.
Porter got to his feet, realizing he was wailing at the wrong person.
Kinnard walked him to the door. “You have a little more than two weeks. Don’t waste your time making formal complaints. They’ll only add to your ruin.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
April 21
10:36 p.m. PST
“Where’ve you been?” Porter said with his best smile. He had pistachio bits in his teeth, which he tried to clean away quickly with his tongue. The result was an unplanned comedic grin.
“Thought I’d find you at Bruno’s,” said Alred leaning against the library table. “You came to a place more conducive to study.”
The library overflowed with books. The volumes, piled high and jammed in the rows, waited under layers of dust for a new building to hold them. A maze of tight shelves, reaching for the ceiling, choked all four floors, promising students an adventure if they dared to enter.
The sun had disappeared and darkness spilled across Porter’s back from the large window overlooking the employee parking lot in the rear of the building. Cold air blew freely through the vents as if someone had turned it on to freeze the students out. Porter worked under the brightness of a florescent lamp. He had spread his books beneath the single light, pulled others from the shelves, opened them and started stacking. Only for a moment did Alred think the pages of one of the books might catch fire if it got too close to the light. Porter had scribbled his thoughts and flipped through indexes. According to Bruno, many of these books he’d either read or poked through before. That’s what made him a good scholar; he’d studied all or nearly all the books of his interest the library held.