Chapter 8: Killer Clowns

Cathy was screaming.

Persephone screamed.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

Persephone charged ahead of us to the healing chamber and I unceremoniously dumped Cathy on the floor with my canes. She'd apparently hit the artery and I was spurting blood and weakening rapidly. I fell into the chamber and the lid was closed before she stopped yelling. I heard one solid thump on the lid before it sealed. My last thought was 'Good luck, Seph.'

When the lid to the healing chamber opened, Cathy was still yelling on the floor next to us. Persephone had the canes and a welt over her left eye.

"Why did he get to go first? I can't even walk!" Cathy yelled.

"He was bleeding. You've been this way for months," Persephone yelled back. I stepped out of the healing chamber, picked up Cathy, and dumped her in.

"Sweet dreams," I said and closed her last scream in with her. I sank down to the floor and looked up at Persephone. She was standing there rigid, the canes clutched in her hand.

"Where is Lisa?" she demanded. "Please don't tell me she is dead. Please!" I shook my head.

"She refused to come back."

"Refused? You left her on Chaos?" For a moment, I thought it was a bad idea that Persephone had my canes and I was sitting on the floor. Instead of swinging them at me, she threw them at me and stomped out of the room. I was seriously beginning the think being a hero was not worth the hassle. I went into the bedroom, propped the canes in a corner, and stripped. I walked into the shower.

Nothing.

"Give me a little help here, computer," I said. "Some water, please?"

Nothing.

"Seph!" I called.

"Computer, give him a shower," she yelled.

Water.

I spent a good bit of time under the flow. I hadn't had a shower in a year. I'd bathed in tubs of water heated over a fire. Usually, the last of the six people in my family to bathe in tepid, dirty water. I let the spray sluice the accumulated grime and dried blood off my body and relax my taxed muscles. The water began to get cold.

The water never gets cold on Crossroads. The temperature is maintained by the computer. Seph!

"Thanks a lot, computer," I muttered. "In case you are not aware, the responsibility of the Caretaker is to provide for her hero's comfort and needs. Not to torment him." The temperature improved, but fluctuated as computer processed the information. I got out of the shower and dried myself. There were no robes and I wasn't about to put my filthy Chaos clothes on again. Not that they were around. I walked naked into the dining area.

"You left her!" Persephone accused when she saw me. "How could you leave your caretaker behind? I can't believe you did that!" Persephone was barely holding it together. Our entry into Crossroads and the discovery that Lisa was not with me were taking their toll on the girl. I had to remind myself that she was only nineteen and was as desperately in love with Lisa as with me.

"Persephone, I love Lisa with all my heart. She is everything to me. Do you think I wanted to leave her on Chaos?" I pled. "She's safe. Safer than she would be returning to Earth with me. She has a purpose and is determined that she has done the right thing. Do you think I would abandon my love?"

Persephone hesitated and then ran to my arms weeping.

"They never prepared us for this," she cried. "They never said we would love our hero's companion as fiercely as our hero. They didn't even have a category of Earthly Caretaker. Lincoln, I love you so much I can barely stand it when you are gone. And I love Lisa just as much. I know that when you bring Cadence, I will love her, as well. Please help me through this. I feel such loss that she did not return with you!"

I carried Persephone back to the bedroom, undressed her, and showed her in the best way I could how much I loved her.

I basked in the glow of making love to Persephone. I knew that on Earth, fifteen minutes had not yet expired. But I had been without intercourse for over a year. Lisa and Legs had done their best to keep me sexually sated, but there is absolutely nothing like feeling your cock throbbing in the heat of a woman's sex. Simply having an orgasm just isn't the same.

We heard the chime of the healing chamber. I looked at Seph and stroked the entire length of her beautiful body.

"Let us hope her attitude has improved," I said. We went to the chamber and opened it.

Cathy's eyes popped open and she looked at us.

"Is it true? Is this really Crossroads? Do I truly have a hero?" she asked.

"It is true, Cathy Temp," Seph said. "I am Persephone Caretaker and this is Hero Lincoln."

"I thought it was all a ruse," she said. "I lost all hope. I thought I had been sent there to die." I offered her my hand and she pulled forward. Then her face fell. "I cannot move my legs. I thought I was healed. I can't move!" she cried.

"Perhaps it is the muscle atrophy. I was paralyzed for six years and it took months for me to regain all the strength in my legs. Be patient, love," I said as soothingly as I could. I held Cathy's hand as she panted for breath in near panic. Seph looked at the readout on the unit. She shook her head.

"Your broken pelvis was already healed. The chamber only heals unhealed wounds. It didn't touch the injury that caused your legs not to work," Seph whispered.

"No," Cathy wailed. "Lies. All lies. I cannot conceive and raise a child like this. I can't even get out of this stupid box!"

If ever a woman had woken up to hope only to have it dashed to bits, Cathy was that woman. She had denied that any of it was possible and we brought her to a healing chamber with the promise that she would be healed. She clutched my hand and wept, her anger and violence subsumed by her grief. I read the very detailed report displayed on the healing chamber. Persephone had identified every injury that I had when she read the chamber's report on my healing. My bones had knit together just fine. But I had severed nerves that had not reconnected. The chamber repaired that defect. Cathy's pelvis had healed in such a way that she could not move her legs. She had feeling, though, and was in near-constant pain. The chamber had not reconstructed her pelvis so that her legs would work.

I reached into the chamber and gently lifted Cathy out of it. I held her to my chest as she wept.

"I am so sorry, Cathy. I am so sorry for the pain I must cause you," I whispered in her ear.

"Just do it," she responded. "Kill me and let this nightmare end. I beg you. If you are a hero, end this misery."

I gently kissed her lips, then lifted her body as I brought up my right knee. I smashed her body down against my knee with enough force to shatter all the bones of her pelvis and lower spine. She screamed. I pushed her quickly into the chamber and closed the lid.

I leaned over the chamber and wept.

"What did you do?" Seph whispered in horror. "Hero Lincoln, who are you?"

I turned to her with tears running down my face. She stepped away from me in horror.

"It is our only hope," I rasped. "I broke the bones that were damaged before. Now the chamber has to heal them. The chamber only heals things correctly. It has to put her back together the right way." I sank to the floor beside the healing chamber and wept. Persephone sank to my side and we held each other as we waited for hours for the chamber to chime.

"I'm not dead," Cathy said when we opened the chamber. "Or this is the mythological hell and I will continue to suffer my fate over again."

"Let us hope not," I said. "I could not do that again. Can you move your legs?" For a moment, Cathy was silent as she tested her muscles.

"I believe so," she said hesitantly. "They feel weak, but I can feel them move. And there is no pain."

"Let us get you out of there and see if you can make them move," Persephone said. We both helped the damsel from the healing chamber and she tentatively moved her legs forward.

"I can! I can move my legs. But they are so weak."

"The chamber heals you, but it does not necessarily restore your strength. When I came out of the chamber, it took months of physical therapy for me to fully get my legs under me. But Cathy ... You are back. I am Hero Lincoln and you are my damsel."

"Fuck me!" she cried. I believe she meant it literally. Instead, Seph and I helped her to the table where we ate a full meal. "It's real!" Cathy said. "I had let myself believe that it was all a ploy to send me away to die. I am so worthless. I have never been able to keep a job. I have always been prone to accidents. I thought they had sent me to Chaos so I wouldn't hurt anyone again. Will you? Will you really make me pregnant?"

"Well, I will do my best," I said. "But I think we should help you get your strength back before we start planting a baby in your womb."

"Fuck that!" Cathy said. "I promise to work on my rehabilitation every day, but please fuck me now, my hero. Please show me that it is all real!"

I could not resist. Like all Cassandran women, now that she was rescued and essentially healed, all Cathy could think about was her libido. She needed sex and lots of it. I carried her to the bed as soon as we had finished eating enough to give us strength. Her legs were weak, and I was actually thankful for that. I barely managed to pull my face from between her thighs when she came the first time. When I tentatively placed my cock at the entrance to her vagina, she pulled me violently forward and into her pussy. She had no interest in making love. She wanted to be fucked and fucked right goddamned now. I did my best to satisfy her wishes, but there is little that a man can do to improve the experience that a Cassandran woman can have all on her own. Simply having my cock in her was enough to send Cathy into the stratosphere. In a strange way, that made me miss Cadence all the more.

I knew that with Cadence, it wasn't having a cock that turned her on. It was having me.

"My love," I said to Persephone over Cathy's unconscious form. "How can I tell you how much I love you?"

"I find I scarcely know you, my hero," she replied. She looked at me over our sleeping damsel. "How could you know that you needed to break her bones again?"

"It was in Hero Seth's journals," I said. "He once rescued a damsel who had broken her arm. It had not been set properly and she was in constant pain. They determined that she needed to rebreak her arm in order to have it healed properly. Lisa was prepared to do the same thing with my back if it had not worked when I went into the healing chamber. But my bones had knitted together correctly. There were simply nerves that had been severed that never got reattached. The chamber was able to do that."

"But to ... to break her body ... how could you ... even think... ?"

"I did not think, my love. I knew what had to be done and simply did it."

"You left Lisa Caretaker on Chaos. You brought back a wretched woman, and then you broke her body against your knee. I hardly know who you are, Hero Lincoln."

"I am the sad and uncertain boy with whom you fell in love," I said.

"I will do my best to remember that."

"Seph, is it possible to get in touch with other caretakers? Or former caretakers?"

"Yes. If there is a reason."

"I would like to reach former Caretaker Mei-Xing."

"That name sounds familiar. She must have been well-known."

"She was Danny Sun's caretaker."

"Oh, my! Why do you wish to reach her?"

"Because of what you said. You said you were not prepared to love a companion as much as you loved your hero. Mei-Xing deserves to know that Danny's companion, Chang, loved her and is safe on Chaos."

No matter how much Cathy wanted to conceive and return to Cassandra, the path was arduous. She still held bitterness toward the system and what she had been through on Chaos. She also held onto some antagonism toward me for having not rescued her more quickly and then having delayed bringing her back to Crossroads, and finally for reinjuring her. No matter how much I explained my responsibilities to others, she still believed a hero only had to rescue a damsel and leave. Damn all others.

And she needed daily physical therapy to regain the muscles in her legs. She was lucky that it had been only a little over a year since her accident. Her muscles had deteriorated, but had not completely atrophied. Daily exercise helped her get stronger. And nightly romance helped heal her soul. I wined and dined her, sang to her, caressed and kissed her, and finally seduced and made love to her.

After three months, though, both Cathy and Persephone began to worry about whether she was fully healed and could bear children. Cathy went into the healing chamber and almost instantly I felt a pang of nausea in my stomach. I grabbed a pair of sweats and my canes and headed toward the portal. Cathy and Seph came from the healing chamber.

"Hero Lincoln, I can never thank you enough for saving me. I will endeavor to be the kind of mother that your child will be proud of. I am pregnant," Cathy said. She turned and walked through an open portal and out of my life into her own world. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for my own adventure.

"No!" Persephone cried as I stepped forward. "I love you!" She threw herself toward me and the impact took me off my feet and sent me through the portal.

I came through the portal in a roll as an axe swept over my head and into the side of the wardrobe. I knocked the wielder off his feet as I tumbled back to mine, both canes raised for battle. To my relief, Seph had not come through the portal with me.

"You said he was a cripple," a voice said to my left. I spun and swung a cane down on the gun hand of one of Wilson's goons. He screamed and rolled backward out the bedroom door. Beneath me, Wilson was scrambling backward and grabbing for his pistol.

"I don't know who you are, but you've just bought the farm, buddy," he yelled at me.

"I'm your brother, you stupid fucker," I screamed back at him. It made no difference to Wilson. He had his gun out and I swatted it with one of my canes. The gun went flying into the hallway.

"Where is Lisa?" he demanded.

"Where you can't get her," I said. "Same as Cadence."