A KEEPER OF RELICS
A Thriller Novel by
Jeff Provine
Chapter 3
Jack stood in the cool night air with his arms crossed tightly in front of him. The other residents of his apartment complex were milling around, some already in the pajamas. A red fire truck stood in the parking lot with hoses extended like the tentacles of a beached squid. Smaller police cars in black and white were scattered randomly. Their flashing lights ignited the darkness with red, blue, and gold.
A huge black gash stood in the wall where Jack’s apartment had once been. It was still there, technically, but everything was reduced to ash soaked with water and fire-retardant foam. His possessions, furniture, clothing, and, worst, his television, were all destroyed. All he had in the world was what he was wearing: ragged jeans and black t-shirt, smoky and chaffing from his crawl out of the apartment building. He also had the crunched up parchment in his pocket, the only thing reminding him it was not merely a bad dream. There were probably some salvageable trinkets like half-melted forks or a smoke-smeared lava lamp, but he would have to spend hours digging through the soot to find them.
“Mr. Gideon,” a voice behind him called.
Jack turned and saw a policeman and a detective in a long brown coat walking toward him. He had already given his statement twice, but nobody seemed to believe him. Jack barely believed himself as he had ranted about monks engulfed in flames and a man in a silk shirt who could start fires with his hands.
Swallowing against the dry scratchiness of his smoke-scarred throat, Jack asked, “Yes?”
“Detective Johnson,” the man in the coat said, introducing himself. “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“Yeah.” Jack stopped to grimace. “I mean, no, I don’t mind. It’s fine, if you’ll believe me.”
The man pulled a notebook out of his coat pocket. Opening it with a flip of his wrist, a pen seemed to materialize in his other hand. “Your statement included descriptions of bright flashes of light and extreme heat before the fire, correct?”
“Yeah, when the man first attacked me,” Jack told him. He kicked himself once again for not just making up some story. He could have said he fell asleep on the couch with the stove on. Anybody would’ve believed that one.
“Are you familiar with the effects of certain hallucinogens?” the detective asked him.
Jack’s eyes widened to the point he thought they would jump from his skull. “What!”
“Have you taken any drugs, son?” the blue-suited policeman asked him.
Jack sputtered. No, he had not taken any drugs, ever. He had not even in college, where the main pastime seemed to be getting wasted to the point one forgot the seeming troubles of a student.
Swallowing again, Jack shook his head at them. “Listen, I’m not an addict. It wasn’t an exploding attempt at a meth lab. I didn’t hallucinate it. It was real, and I saw it. You should be out there looking for the man in the gray suit!”
“Right, just as soon as we find the one-armed man,” the policeman mumbled.
The detective smirked, but did not say anything.
“You don’t believe me?” Jack demanded.
The detective put away his notebook. “It’s a big story to swallow. I think we’ve gotten all we can from you. Looks like a clear case of accident to us.”
Jack gnashed his teeth under his lips, feeling the enamel grind.
“Sorry about your troubles, Mr. Gideon,” the detective said. He nodded to the policeman, and the two walked away.
With a heavy sigh, Jack looked up at the broken window where the monk had somehow flown inside. He might as well make something up to appease them.
Dropping his arms to his sides in defeat, he walked toward the police. They were talking and exchanging rough grumbles of laughter. When he came into earshot, he stopped and strained his ears to listen.
“So, whaddya really think? Some kind of infantile attempt at insurance fraud for drug money?” the policeman asked.
“That was my first guess, but the kid doesn’t have any renter’s insurance registered,” the detective replied. “I called back to the station to check twice.”
“Sure it’s not drugs, then? I saw this kid over on 89th one time…”
“Nah, he’s clean,” the detective replied. “Worst he’s probably tried is a little weed to feel all big and daring against The Man.”
The policeman snorted a laugh. “So, why’s he coming up with this cockamamie story about monks and living blowtorches?”
“He’s just scared,” the detective said, making a dismissing hiss. “Kids don’t know what to do once Mommy and Daddy’s not around these days. Better to make up some story than fess up to burning down the place trying to boil Ramen noodles.”
Jack felt an angry darkness squirm in his stomach. Something seemed to whisper in his mind that he should tackle them both and teach them a thing or two about disbelieving him. Not only did they disbelieve him, but now they were dismissing him and outright mocking him. He could picture himself pounding into their snobby faces with rock-hard fists until blood poured.
Shaking his head to chase away the thought, Jack turned around. He did not want to hurt anybody. He just wanted to go to bed. It was the exhaustion making him grumpy, or so he told himself.
Firefighters in black-and-yellow jackets were letting people back into the building. It was safe enough now for them, though Jack’s apartment was still a mess of broken glass and cooled cinders. At least the cheap construction of cement blocks made for fire-proof structural integrity.
Headlights appeared at the end of the parking lot, shining into Jack’s eyes and interrupting his thoughts about the benefits of cut-rate architecture. He blinked as the lights came close before whipping to the right as brakes squealed. When Jack could see again, he found an ancient Ford truck straddling the yellow line between two parking spaces. Its engine purred, choked, and died with a growl.
The truck sat silently for a moment under the glow of a streetlamp. It had been repainted time and again, but not recently, and Jack could see layers of green and red where the outermost blue paint had gone. Other spots were bare down to the dull steel of the truck’s body. Its bed was piled with what looked like random bags and pieces of machinery under a ruffled tarp. The cabin was topped by stereotypical floodlights and extra-tall radio antenna. Between the two, there was an array of built-in toolboxes making Jack wonder if it belonged to one of the poorer ends of the Clampett clan.
Jack did not seem to be able to look away from the truck. It did not belong to any of the other tenants that he knew. In fact, he had never seen it before, yet it was strangely familiar. Squinting in the shadows under the rear bumper, Jack read the license plate as “Texas.”
The driver’s door opened with a metallic squeak and a thud as it swung as far as it could go. A man a few years older than Jack hopped out, straightened his green John Deere hat, and stretched his legs under grease-stained jeans as if he had been sitting for a long time. When he was finished, he put his hands on his hips and looked up at the apartment building.
Jack narrowed his eyes as he stared, not sure what to make of the man. He wore a white t-shirt tucked into his jeans, which were belted under a shiny buckle bearing a cross. It was almost as if he were the epitome of country life, from the netted trucker’s cap on his close-cut head to his mud-stained black boots. The only way the man could look more like a redneck was if he was wearing cowboy boots instead of steel-toed army surplus. Jack smiled at his imagination.
The smile seemed to set off recognition in the man. He looked down from the building and around until his eyes met Jack’s. Jack blinked and looked away instinctively. Modern society had reverted to a gorilla-like distrust of eye-contact.
When Jack looked up again, the redneck was walking toward him. Jack looked left and right, wondering what the man could want.
“Howdy,” the man called out to him. He waved a hand high at Jack.
Jack blinked. Clearing his throat, he replied, “Um, hi.”
The man nodded and walked until he was two steps away. He stuck out his right hand and said, “Pete Abram. That your place?”
Jack slowly raised his right hand. “Yeah. How’d you guess?”
Pete grabbed Jack’s hand and shook it fiercely. His grip was strong and warm, like a lion’s roar.
“I got what they call the ESP,” Pete told Jack, cocking an eyebrow.
Jack nodded slowly, squinting his eyes and wondering what to think of the man.
The man snorted a deep laugh and squeezed Jack’s hand briefly. “Nah, I’m kidding. I didn’t have a clue. God led me here.”
“God?” Jack asked.
“That’s right,” the man said, finally letting go of Jack’s hand. Jack pulled it back to his side as the man continued. His voice deepened to seriousness. “I was driving up I-81 when my FM radio went out. Semi in front of me kicked up a rock and knocked down the antenna.”
“What’s God got to do with that?” Jack asked.
Pete stared blankly at Jack. Squinting his eyes, Pete replied, “What doesn’t He have to do with that?”
Jack returned the blank stare, not knowing what to say. When his eyes began to burn, he blinked and said, “Um, okay. So your radio’s out?”
“Yeah. Well, I just need to re-hang the antenna,” Pete said. “Anyway, I switched over to my police scanner, and they started talking about an apartment fire. Seemed like God was telling me to go check it out.”
“God spoke to you?” Jack asked, pulling up his eyebrows. It had already been a strange night, and this was not helping things.
“Boy, I wish!” Pete laughed aloud. “Nah, it was just that feeling you get when you know you should do something, even if you’re not sure why.”
Jack nodded, slowly at first and then faster as understanding grew in his mind. He had had that feeling before, as he assumed most people did. Of course, he had never heard of anyone leaving the interstate in the middle of the night and driving across town on a gut feeling.
“What do you say?” Pete asked, snapping Jack from his thoughts.
Jack shivered. “I don’t know. My place just got burned down.”
“Sorry about that,” Pete said. He clapped Jack on the shoulder and squeezed.
Jack’s stomach twitched in nervousness from the touch, but his heart felt strangely warmer.
“You’ll be all right,” Pete assured him. He pushed on Jack’s shoulder, which made him rock back a little.
Jack sighed. “Yeah, I guess.” He paused to look up at the blackened scar on the side of the building. “Still, all my stuff was in there. My TV, my books, everything. I even had some pizza in the fridge.”
“The things of the earth pass away,” Pete told him. “Yours just passed a little sooner.”
Jack looked back at the tractor-hatted man. He was not sure whether to laugh or punch him for dismissing his misery.
Pete just grinned. It was a lop-sided smile, as if only one side of his mouth seemed to find any enjoyment.
There was something very playful about the man’s grin. Jack wanted to be gloomy and depressed about his loss, but the man’s grin would not allow it. Finally rolling his eyes, Jack smiled in return. The smile seemed to warm him in the cool of the night, and the warmth grew into a short laugh.
Jack ended the laugh with a sigh. “It’s been a weird night.”
“What’s that?” Pete asked.
“Weird,” Jack repeated. “All I wanted to do was watch some TV, and then this guy explodes in the window with his robes on fire.”
Pete pushed his hat back so the bill was past his hair. His blue eyes shone. “Robes?”
“Yeah, he was a monk or something,” Jack told him. “He said he was a ‘keeper of relics’ and that somebody was after him.”
Pete interrupted him. “Whoa. Old guy, big gray beard, about yea high?”
Jack looked to where Pete held out a hand measuring the monk’s height. It seemed about right. “Yeah. You know him?”
“Nope,” Pete said, shaking his head.
Jack rolled his eyes until the redneck continued.
“But I’ve heard of him. Brother Matthews. He was on some archeological dig, then he disappeared. The monastery was talking all about him while I was there.”
“Monastery?” Jack asked.
Pete nodded. “Yeah, I just left there, but never mind about that. What happened to Brother Matthews?”
Jack gasped angrily. The redneck knew something. “What do you mean ‘never mind’? What about this monastery?”
“I’ll tell you about it later,” Pete said, holding up his hands defensively and rolling his eyes. “You just tell me what happened here.”
“Nuts to ‘later’,” Jack said, throwing his arms into the air. “Tell me now!”
“You ain’t got much patience,” Pete said. He squinted his eyes. “I’m not known for being very patient myself.”
Jack hissed through his teeth. He did not need to argue with a redneck, not tonight. “Listen, you tell me what’s going on. Somebody just torched my apartment, and I want to know why.”
“Did you just tell me what to do?” Pete asked, his voice dropping lower into a rough growl like the skittering of gravel.
Rage boiled up in Jack’s mind. He had refrained from attacking the cops, but this man had no power to stop him. Gritting his teeth, Jack squeezed his right hand into a fist.
Pete narrowed his eyes, looked at Jack’s fist, then back up in Jack’s eyes. Pete opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. Blowing out a sharp rush of air, he shook his head. “Lord, control our anger.”
Jack paused, his rage disappearing in confusion. He let his fists drop and looked down at his hands. It was almost as if he were ready to pound the redneck into hamburger. The stress of the night must have been getting to him.
“Sorry,” Pete said, sighing deeply. “I got carried away there.”
Jack nodded. “No, it’s been a long night. Don’t worry about it. Listen, I should explain.” He paused to look back at the apartment, picturing the events of the past hours. “This monk bursts in through the windows, I gave him some water, and he gave me this map to hold onto.” Jack winced. He should have kept that part secret.
Pete stood innocently. “Map?”
“Yeah, a map,” Jack said. “I promised to guard it with my life.”
“Must be something important then,” Pete told him.
Jack eyed the redneck. “Can I trust you?”
“I hope so,” Pete said with a shrug. “I’m only human, but I try to do what’s right.”
Jack blinked in confusion at the answer. The term “weird” seemed exhausted to describe the night. “Anyway, the monk left, and then this guy bursts in and sets fire to the place.”
“Huh,” was all Pete said.
“Yeah,” Jack told him, “but, he didn’t have any matches or anything. Things just seemed to burst into flames all of a sudden. I don’t know how to explain it.”
Pete had gone stiff. He stared at Jack with wide, blue eyes.
Jack shivered again and backed away involuntarily from the man. It was as if Jack had told him that the president and half of Congress had been assassinated.
Stammering, Jack asked, “Are you okay?”
The words seemed to jar Pete from his frozen state. He blinked several times and looked down at the black pavement. After a breath or two, he looked back up at Jack. His eyes were still wide.
“Maybe we should get out of here for a while,” Pete suggested. “You want some coffee or something?”
“What’s the matter?” Jack asked.
Pete sighed slowly. “I’d say you’re in danger, but that’s always true. Now it’s just a little more immediate.”
The hairs on the back of Jack’s neck stood up. “Danger?”
“Yeah,” Pete said. He looked around the parking lot. “You got a car?”
“No,” Jack said, shaking his head. “I’d been saving up for a new one, but, well, I guess I’m going to need to buy a new couch instead.”
“Okay, we’ll take my truck,” Pete said. “They watch for me, but we’re in God’s hands.”
“Wait, ‘they’?” Jack asked. The monk had said the same eerie, vague word. “Who’s they?”
“I’ll tell you,” Pete said, “but let’s get out of the open. You know any place good?”
Jack squinted confusedly. “Um, yeah, there’s a pancake place just down the street.”
Pete suddenly grinned. “Mm, pancakes! Let’s go!”
Without another word, the redneck turned and trotted toward his truck.
Jack stood still. This was all too strange. A man in a gray suit had blown up his apartment, and now he was going to get coffee with a redneck he had just met in a parking lot. He shook his head. He was not going anywhere. The firemen and police were packing up, but he still had questions and needed to sort out a place to sleep tonight. The last thing he needed to do was to discuss conspiracy theories with an obviously insane Texan.
Jack turned to head back toward his apartment. Maybe his closet had shielded enough clothes just to make them reek of smoke. He put his hands in his pockets, and the parchment crinkled against his right hand. He stopped.
Pete’s voice called from behind him. “You coming, or ain’t ya?”
Jack turned halfway around, stuck between returning to his burned-out apartment or going to join the redneck. Both options seemed like madness. What he really wanted to do was sit down in the middle of the parking lot and cry like a spurned toddler for about an hour. As stupid as it sounded, something in his mind told him it was the right thing to do.
The parchment crinkled in Jack’s pocket again. It was crazy, but so was everything else that had happened tonight. Jack made his decision and walked toward the truck.