Mike's Story:
Jake, if you're reading this, then I've been gone for seven years. As I mentioned in my note, please don't tell anyone that I am alive. Explaining where I have gone will prove all but impossible. I know as you read this, you will find what I have to say hard to believe, but everything in this story is one hundred percent accurate. Also, how this story is written may seem strange to you, but I will explain why it is so.
You already know the history between your mother, Tuck, and me, so I won't bother going back over it. Suffice to say that when your mother left me for Tuck, I was devastated. To lose your mother to any man would have been catastrophic. But to lose her to a man, I hated more than any other pushed me to the edge of insanity. I went into a very dark place.
I wanted to get revenge on both of them and hurt them worse than they had hurt me. That hatred twisted me in ways that I wasn't even aware of. Ultimately, it caused me to do things that I cannot defend, and I am deeply ashamed of having done them. For the horrible thing I did, I beg you to forgive me. This is the first of the requests that I implore you to grant me. However, if after reading this, you cannot forgive me, I will understand. I will still love you as profoundly as any father can love his son and hope that you still harbor some small love for me.
Although I accept the total blame for my actions, Ashley and Tuck are not blameless. They betrayed me and went out of their way to torment me. Tuck kept on rubbing my face in my devastating loss, and she supported him in this effort at every turn. I think she enjoyed it as much as he did, maybe, because of the divorce settlement. I do not know, and I no longer care. I do have to admit that our divorce battle was not my brightest moment. I should have just let Ashley have the twenty or thirty thousand dollars that she was entitled to. But I wasn't in my right mind. I was filled with total hate for both of them. Yet, despite that, I was still totally in love with your mother. Nevertheless, I yearned for revenge, but what I got was far more than I ever bargained for.
My reason for leaving started about six months before I actually left. In fact, it was the night of that monster storm that knocked the electricity off for about six hours all over town. If you remember, I sent you home to your new wife shortly after the rains started pounding down, and the power went out. Tornado warnings had been issued, and I knew your wife would be frightened. As it turned out, that was also the night that your rented house flooded because of leaks in the roof.
With no electricity, I got out the lanterns and flashlights. Then I poured myself a scotch and settled into my recliner. It was about midnight, and I was still up, sipping on my fifth drink. Yes, I drank too much back then, but once the sun went down, it was the only thing that gave me some peace.
As I sat there listening to a Jazz station on my battery-powered radio, half-dozing, I felt the house shake. At first, I thought maybe it was an earthquake, but that didn't make sense because the shaking only lasted for a second or two. Whatever it was, I decided to ignore it and just continue to doze.
About an hour later, I felt is should go to bed because I wanted to be up early for work as I always did. I was heading for the staircase when I heard something on the front porch. The wind was still blowing pretty good, so I thought perhaps something had been blown down. To my utter shock, I found a woman lying just to the left of the front door. She was cut and bleeding. Also, she was only semi-conscious.
I guess the alcohol had dulled my brain because I only took passing notice of her clothing. She appeared to be wearing an aqua-colored jumpsuit. But my attention was immediately focused on her wounds. She was cut up pretty good, which is why I probably didn't pay too much attention to her appearance. The woman also had a lump on her forehead the size of a golf ball. And because of the limited lighting, I pay much attention to the seemingly strange bronze color to her skin. In the dim light of my flashlight, she appeared to have gray hair. Yet, she seemed to be a young woman.
After helping her into the guest bedroom, I assessed her wounds. At the time, I thought some of them might be serious. In any event, I told her that the cuts needed to be cleaned and bandaged. I motioned what I intended to do and it explained at the same time.
She said, in a strange accent, "I mend."
I didn't recognize the language, but I didn't see how she could tend the cuts by herself if that's what she meant. This mystery woman could barely move. I reexamined her wounds and had to admit that there were only a few on her back, and they were minor. It was just some of the ones on her legs and stomach that seemed severe. Still, it made no sense for her to try and bandage herself.
"I don't think so. You can barely move. I'll do it."
"Nay, I mend," she shook her head.
"You can't do it," I replied with exasperation. "Look, if you don't want me to do it, I'll take you to a hospital or call a doctor."
"Nay doctor," she said as she shook her head. "Please, nay doctor."
"Okay, I understand," I said even though I didn't. "You don't want me to help you, and you don't want a doctor to help. What are we going to do?" I also pointed to her bleeding cuts and raised hands and shrugged my shoulders to indicate my confusion at her refusal.
"Need tool," she said pleading.
"What tool?" I asked, totally perplexed.
She pointed through the window out the front of the house. "Tool there."
"You want me to go out there?" I pointed out the same window she had indicated. "You want me to go out in the rain? I won't be able to find anything in the dark."
Even before I finished objecting, she reached into her pocket and pulled out something the shape of a woman's compact. "This tool help," The mystery woman offered it to me.
I took the object and realized it had a red light running from the center of the device out toward the edge. The direction that the lights flowed was toward that front window. I figured it must be some kind of GPS, but I had never seen anything like it.
"Please, find tool," she was pleading now. "Blue, find blue."
The woman began to lose consciousness at that point, but the pleading in her eyes penetrated deep within me. Yet, despite her protestations to the contrary, I decided to call for an ambulance instead. But my cell phone provided no service. I would learn in the morning that several cell towers had been damaged by the storm. Next, I picked up the landline, but it was also useless.
I was about to load her into my truck and haul her to the hospital. But a thought suddenly struck me. What if there were other injured people out there? She didn't appear to be in imminent danger, so put towels over the worst wounds to stem the bleeding and tucked a blanket around her. Taking her device, I headed out.
The wind was dying down by this point, and the rain had turned to a light drizzle. I let the device guide me. It led me down the drive, out the front gate, to the main road. I turned left and traveled for less than a couple of minutes before I could barely see something smoldering off the road about five hundred feet off the road. In truth, if I hadn't had the GPS, I would have missed it completely. At first, I thought maybe a small airplane had crashed. But the debris field was too small even for a single-engine plane. It must have been a car crash.
When I got closer, it didn't seem like fires were burning, it was more like the debris was evaporating in shimmering red light. Of course, I had had the better part of five stiff drinks, so I took everything I saw with a grain of salt. In truth, I probably shouldn't have been driving in my condition.
As I got out of the truck, the "fires" began to die out. Still, there was the shell of something. I assumed it was, perhaps, a car. And from the size, I thought it was probably a sports car. But I wasn't there to check out the wreckage. I was looking for survivors and her "blue tool." I quickly combed the area for any other survivor of this crash. From the vehicle's size, I knew there could only be one other potential victim.
After a quick search, I was convinced there was no one else. Then I turned my attention to finding the "tool." It only took about a minute of hunting when I saw the first blue object. It seemed to be glowing, but when I picked it up, whatever lighting there was disappeared. It was roughly the size and shape of a baseball. Then I saw another blue object. This one had the dimensions similar to a hard-bound dictionary. A few feet away was another, the size of a small paperback book. The fourth blue object, I found, looked like a laptop computer. The fifth and final one was about the size of a golf ball. With all of them, the blue light faded as soon as I touched them. I gathered up all five and took one last look around before heading back to the house.
When I entered the bedroom, where I had left the woman, she was awake. However, she looked considerably weaker. And the towels I had placed on her showed a considerable amount of blood. I showed her the five objects I had found. "This is what I found, but I think I should take you to the hospital."
"Nay," she said with a weak but panicked voice. Then she pointed to the object about the size of a golf ball. I handed it to her. She twisted for a few times, and it flashed green, once. When the ball went dark, my mysterious guest put it to her mouth and swallowed the liquid that had started oozing from a small opening. After a few minutes, her wounds stopped bleeding. Then she smeared some of the yellow fluid on her injuries directly, and they seemed to close slightly. In five minutes, she appeared much revived, and even the lump on her forehead had gone down considerably. I wasn't sure what I should do, but at least the bleeding had stopped.
"Much thanks," she said as she bowed slightly to me from her sitting position. Then the woman said wearily, "must rest."
I nodded and repositioned the blankets to settle her into the bed. She smiled at me and fell asleep immediately. I closed the door and slept on the couch that night in case she needed anything. Despite the few hours of sleep, I was up at five. I poked my head in the bedroom, and my mysterious guest was still asleep. I left her there and started my day. A half-hour later, I got a call from you, Jake. A leak in the roof of the house you and his wife were renting had flooded the living room and one bedroom. I told you to not bother coming in and to take care of the damage. I asked if you needed any help, but you didn't, so I went about my usual chores.
I popped back to the house every hour or so, just to check on her, and she was still sound asleep. However, when I returned to make myself some lunch, I found my mystery guest sitting in the den flicking through the television stations.
She wasn't wearing her jumpsuit anymore. She had found one of the dresses Ashley had left behind. They both were about the same size, and I had to admit my surprise guest looked pretty good in the outfit. She wasn't nearly as beautiful as Ashley, but still very easy on the eyes.
Her hair that appeared to be silver last night was merely blonde today. The strange bronze color of her skin last night was now just a deep tan. That's what five drinks will do to you. However, then the most surprising thing happened.
My guest turned with a start as soon as she became aware of my presence, and she smiled.
