Chapter 2

The motion-activated lights in the newsroom blinked to life as I pushed through the metal door and began to thread my way through the maze that led to my cubicle. As was often the case, I was the first employee to arrive. It had nothing to do with my devotion to journalism or my work ethic. Rather, it was my desire not to be navigating the sidewalks of downtown Charleston during rush hour.

I logged onto my computer and reviewed the wire service reports of who had died over the weekend. There was a one-hit wonder from the '60s whom I thought had been long dead. There was a retired Congressman from California and a man who had obtained the first patent for packaging pistachios. It was going to be a slow day.

When I had dreamed about being a newspaper reporter as a kid, it hadn't involved obituaries. Although the accident had left me unable to chase down the chief of police as he ducked through a back door in order to question him about the latest homicide, I had doggedly studied the craft in college and served two internships. At the time, it hadn't occurred to me that I might simply be a good-looking statistic.

After I had been hired, the fire chief had made it fairly clear that he didn't want me near a fire scene. And the courthouse was only now in the process of being made accessible to wheelchairs. So when Rachel had offered me the obit beat, I felt I had little choice.

It turned out, however, that I was pretty damn good at it. One of my first obits was about a guy who had rescued a little girl who had fallen down a well and spent the rest of his life trying to cope with the fame of that one incident: "Arthur Compton, whose moment in the sun started in total darkness before it withered in the harsh klieg lights of modern media coverage, died last week." My prose became a little less purple after that, but people loved it nonetheless. The paper's editors were stunned to get letters and e-mails about an obituary. I had found a place after all.

Today's obituaries were likely to be far more pedestrian unless I could find something to jazz them up. I turned to the Internet. Maybe there was a story in this pistachio thing.

"Hey, buddy!"

I looked up from my work. Alison Cole, the usual bright smile on her face, was striding down the aisle toward the cubicle next to mine.

"Mornin' Al. Good weekend?"

"Eh. Eric had to work all weekend. So I rented some movies and kissed the diet goodbye."

"This was the... ?"

"Cabbage diet."

"Ick."

"Yeah, I didn't like it much, either. No loss. It wasn't working that well. So how 'bout yours. Get any?"

"No, I didn't get any," I answered, just as I had every Monday for the past year.

"You're smiling, though. Date?"

"No." I shook my head, conscious that I was still smiling.

"Tell me," Alison urged.

"Just a really good dream," I admitted.

"Buddy, we have got to get you a girl," she said.

"I keep waiting for you to see the light and dump Eric."

This banter was another usual part of our Monday mornings.

"You're funny," she said quickly before turning thoughtful. "You know, I've got a sorority sister coming into town this weekend. You wanna double with us on Saturday?"

"Hey, if she's willing to date a cripple, who am I to say no?"

"God, Rick. You have such a bad attitude. But this will just be a practice date. She's getting married next month and needs to escape for a bit. Give you a chance to work on that attitude. Ah well, back to the grindstone."

Bad attitude. You spend nine years in a wheelchair — your junior prom, your graduation, and all of college — and you see what kind of attitude you have. Bitch.

I could feel my face reddening. Alison was my best friend at the paper, and I couldn't believe I had even thought that about her. Fortunately, she had moved on to her own cubicle to tackle today's police and courthouse beat.

The rest of the staff quickly followed.

"Hando."

I didn't look up. Dan Edwards, who covered city hall, was a jerk.

"Dan the man."

The next set of footsteps approached, the high heels clacking on the linoleum floor. That would be Shawn Michaels, the statehouse.

"G'morning, Shawn," I said.

I heard her usual exasperated sigh, the noise that said she couldn't believe the New York Times still hadn't called, and that she was still working here with these cretins. She mumbled something that might have been "good morning" but that could just as easily have been "go fuck yourself."

I didn't look up for her either, although I did lean back and inhale that glorious scent that followed in her wake. I was tempted to take a peek after she had passed me, to see that perfect little butt in whatever short little skirt she'd painted on this morning, but I knew that as soon as I did, Allie would lean back in her chair and catch me. And then she'd start laughing.

"Good morning, Richard. Hello, Alison. Shawn. Hi, Dan."

"Rachel."

We acknowledged her in unison as if we were greeting our teacher instead of our editor, a blend of my ennui, Alison's cheeriness, and Shawn's resentment. Only Dan's usual effusiveness was missing, replaced by the aural equivalent of a leer.

An IM sprang up on my monitor almost before I could form the thought.

"DE + RL????"

I stared at it for a while. Rachel Langhorn and Dan Edwards? That couldn't be right, could it? Rachel was the paper's glamour girl: assistant editor at the age of thirty; management darling; and the arm candy of what passed for glitterati in Charleston. Dan was only two years out of college and not exactly the most literate book in the library. The best dust jacket maybe and the most checked-out, yes, but Dan Edwards and Rachel Langhorn? That was depressing.

"Well?" Alison's hiss was accompanied by a breathy giggle.

"Ew," I answered, knowing it was what she wanted to hear. She laughed.

The morning passed in lonely work. Alison was meeting Eric for lunch, so lunchtime passed in eating alone at the deli on the corner. The afternoon was broken only by a staff meeting, at which I tried hard not to stare at Rachel's legs as she perched on a credenza in the conference room. And then it was home, dinner, the nightly news, and a novel.

"Hello, I am Inigo Montoya; you killed my father; prepare to die."

"Excuse me?"

"Draw your sword, dog."

I stared at the man only a little longer, at his mop of black hair, his dark complexion, his mustache, the long sword he was pointing at my face. I was dreaming again.

"I will kill you whether you draw or not," he said in a confident and surprisingly friendly tone of voice.

"I know you," I said. "Give me a minute. You're —"

"Inigo Montoya," he interrupted me. "The son of Domingo Montoya. Now draw your weapon!"

I looked down and found a sword at my waist. I slowly pulled it out and held it in what I took to be the appropriate stance.

"You know, I really don't think —"

He knocked my blade aside and I stared in horror as the point of his own returned to my chest. As if time had slowed down, I could see every detail of his lunge toward me, the flex of his thigh, the tightening of the muscles in his upper arms, the murderous intent in his eyes. And then the blade itself, tearing easily through the vest and thin shirt that I was wearing, slicing into my skin, and sliding between my ribs. The pain was unbelievable, far worse even than the pain when I had awoken in the hospital after the accident. This was the pain of death, a prolonged agony of life-ending shock. I stared at him, my eyes wide and my mouth open in mute horror as I felt the blood gushing out of my chest and running down my stomach.

"So what did you learn?"

The lights came up gradually this time. Wizen was there again at the foot of the bed, poised to hear my answer. It took me a while to catch my breath, to let my heart stop pounding from the nightmarish pain. When I finally answered him, I laced my voice with as much sarcasm as I possessed.

"Don't get killed."

He waited for more, in vain.

"That's it?" he finally asked.

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What Feats He Did That Day

Marsh Alien

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