15) Care

The gang reunites

15) Care

So far Blue hasn’t been wrong… not that she’s been right about much. The more I think about it, the more I realise, this girl knows more than she lets on. That’s what made me say ‘She hasn’t been wrong’, she knows.

Dante and I are just about to leave when Blue decides she wants to come with us, saying that she’s never seen Santa Monica but has head it’s very interesting

As none of us can drive, and we don’t exactly want Shellie escorting us about, we call a taxi.

Blue leans over to me, “Who the hell is this Dante?" She hisses,
"He's a friend?"
"Yeah but where exactly did you pick him up?"
"We grew up together..."
"In Parlor?"
"Yeah." I say,
"What are you both still doing here, why haven’t you gone home?"
"When I woke, someone called Dawn came into my hospital room and said that him and me need to run."
Blue gasps, causing Dante to look over, "Dawn? You kidding me? You sure she said Dawn?" She whispers,
"Yeah, pretty certain, it's not every day you meet someone called Dawn. Why, do you know her?"
"She's part of Eden." She says. "Damn. I haven't seen Dawn in a long time. How was she doing?"
"I don't know, it's not like she hung around for a chat."
"Typical. How'd she look?" Blue asks. I stare at her.
"Really?"
"What?"
"I'm blind."
"You what?" Blue gasps.
"You didn't know?"
"Hell nah. When'd that happen? Why do you act like you can see?"
"After the mall. Cause I can." I pause, trying to think of the best way to explain it, “A ball of light hovers around me, and like, yeah.”  
"As you do." She laughs, then more seriously, “Look outside. What do you see?" She points outside. I look.
"I see... What…?"
"Precisely! Santa Monica has one of the highest monster populations, but no one knows. Incredible. There's sixteen monsters for every human here. It's mad."
"Why aren't they hiding?"
"They are. Like, some people for some reason can see through the disguises. Kinda random but hey ho."
"Can you see them?"
"Yah."
"Dante?" I ask loud enough for him to hear,
"Yeah?" He sounds worried.
"Look outside, what’d’ya see?" My voice reminds me of Chloe. Blue seems to have recognised that as well, she stares at me sadly.
"People. Buildings. What am I looking for?"
"Nothing. Nothing."
"I'm sorry." Blue rests her hand on mine, "I can get rid of the memories if you want." She says. I look at her, her eyes filled with sadness.
"Why would I want that?" I ask pulling my hand away from hers.
"Because they hurt."
"They..." Yeah. They hurt, but is that enough reason to wipe them from my mind? "No. They're my memories. I want to remember them, and I never want to forget."
"Okay."
“We’re here.” The driver says pulling into a car park,
“Keep the car running, please.” Blue orders.

We step out of the car and stare at the building. It’s a mix between hospital and some sort of beach-side house. One side seems to be a beach shop, while the rest is a home for the old.

As we enter the care home, the smell of old people hits me. And a hundred pair of eyes stare at us. Blue looks at Dante.
"Prolly best if you go. I don't exactly look like the kind of person to be visiting her grandparents. And Artemis, is well, looks pretty evil."
“What?" I say looking at her.
"You look like a murderer with a taste for old people."
"How about you go back to whatever hole you crawled out off." That strikes a nerve, and Blue shuts her mouth. Dante takes that as a sign that the discussion is over; he walks to the receptionist. Blue and I stand awkwardly at the door. Dante returns a couple of minutes later.
"Nothing." He says.
"What did you ask?" I ask.
"I asked for Ben Cevolt saying I was his brother James Cevolt."
"Aight. Onto the next." Blue says spinning on her heels. She steps through the door and stops. Dante and I follow. Blue stretches her arm out and stops me.
"What?" I hiss. Blue points at a car, the car had the letter H.S.K written on the side. "And?"
"Satuska." Blue whispers. "Slowly. Act normal. Dante stand on the right. Artemis keep your head facing him." Dante shuffles around us in the door. "And go." We walk out from the door, Dante on the right facing me, Blue in the middle looking forwards, me on the left facing Dante. We make it to the car unnoticed. Blue collapses into the back. "I needa get rid of this blue hair, makes me stand out like a red pigeon"

Blue points at the pavements. Mixed in with the monsters are Satuska soldiers, lots of them. "Two for every monster."
"If they hunt monsters..." I don't even need to finish.
"Luckily Satuska is unaware of where monsters hide or how they hide, so they think everyone here is normal. Dumb asses." She says smiling. "Now we gotta be extra careful. Don't exactly want a fire fight." She says. A thought occurs to me.
"Didn't you say you'd be back on the 30th?"
"I did." It sounds almost like a question.
"Yeah It's the 28th."
"Ahh. Oh well." She says looking away.

We go through six care homes without any luck. None have heard of a Ben Cevolt. By the time we get to the tenth home, we're all quite bored. Blue and I tried playing eye-spy for a bit, but that became increasingly difficult, as we had to duck down more and more to avoid being spotted by Satuska. And eventually the crowds became too thick to choose a person or monster as our spied object.

By the time we get to the fifteenth, I start to wonder if Blue is wrong.

By the twentieth, I’m furious.
"We have spent all day looking in care homes! When he could be on the streets!" I yell. Blue zaps me with some sparks.
"Chill dude." She pauses, "Dante, you got a phone at your Aunts?"
"Yeah..." He says uncertainly.
"Why don't we just call the care homes?"
"You gotta be kidding me." I stammer.
"Hey, you didn't think of it either." Blue says

When we get back to Dante’s Aunt’s, she’s gone out. Dante takes Blue to the house phone.

From the lounge I hear Blue speaking,
"Yes hello, this is Jessica Cevolt, I’m looking for my father Benjamin Cevolt. My brother put him a home a couple of weeks ago without telling me, and I’m worried sick." She says into the phone. "Oh okay. Thank you." She hangs up. “Hello, yes, this is Francesca Cevolt, looking for my brother Benjamin Cevolt. No okay, sorry."

She goes through five other homes, each time the story changes, until eventually, on the twenty-seventh home, she gets something. "Yes, hello, this is Dianna Cevolt; I’m looking for my daddy Benjamin Cevolt. Oh, he is? Wonderful, thank you so much." She hangs up. "Hell yeah.” She shouts, There's a Benjamin Cevolt in that one."

Twenty minutes later, the care home creeps into sight. It would have been ten, but Blue made us stop at a costume shop. She bought herself a blonde wig. "Gotta hide somehow." She pulls the wig on. It looks ridiculous. We pull into the car park. "Aight. Let's go find us a Benjamin Cevolt." She smiles.

We step into the care home; the smell is hideous, kinda like what I’d expect rotting flesh and bleach to smell like. We stroll up to the receptionist. He looks at us confused. He stares at Blue's loose fitting wig.
"May I help you?" He asks.
"Yes, we're looking for Benjamin Cevolt." Blue says making her voice several octaves higher.
"Room nine-three-five." He says looking up from the computer.
"Thanks darling." Blue says before walking away. Me and Dante look at each other, his face says what I’m thinking, 'Is this girl okay?' We follow Blue through the building before finally reaching the door. "I think you two should go in alone." She says. I look at Dante. He looks at me. We open the door. An old man stares at us.

Benjamin Cevolt had completely forgotten about Artemis and Dante, and of his sisters, his father, and his mother. The only people he needed to know were his sister Camille, his mother Stephanie, and his father, Olivia. He'd spent the first year wondering everyday if they'd ever come find him. But as time went on, he gave up hope. By the fifth year, he had forgotten. By the tenth, he didn't care. Thirty years later, he was married with a beautiful baby boy. Forty years later Camille died of cancer, leaving him alone with a child. 86 years later, and he was ninety-six. On deaths door, left to rot in a care home. His child had grown up and dumped him. Not that he blamed him, Ben had been a s**t father, and he knew this. His son became a father, and he was dumped in a care home to die. Ben never had any visitors, apart from the nurses. He isn’t religious, he doesn’t particularly believe in a God, but each night he finds himself praying for something. Anything. Today his prays are answered. As his door swung open slowly, he thinks, 'Who could this be?', as he sees the people stood in the doorway, he almost dies right there and then.

I stare at the man in the bed. Easily recognisable. I will never forget the look on his face. A mix of surprise, relief and pain.
"Artemis. Long-time no see." He wheezes.

Ben sees the children; he recognises them instantly. How could he forget the face of the stranger who had murdered his father?

"What happened?" I ask.
"Old age." Ben croaks.
"But how? You were ten-years old two days ago!"
"I have lived out my life. I married. I had a child. My child had a child."
"I'm sorry." Dante whispers.
"It's not your fault boy."
"How did this happen?" I demand,
"I arrived in nineteen-thirty-two. And that's where I lived." He wheezes, "The bus." He says. The bus. It clicks. Ben wasn't merely transported to Santa Monica, he was also thrown through time, landing in nineteen-thirty-two, where he lived out his life. And then it happened again. He found a set of black metallic doors, silver decorates each door; at the top of each door is a spiral, from the end of each spiral comes a line that leads to a spiral at the bottom, and behind it was a world he no longer recognised �" the future, or more accurately the present. Then he returned to his time nineteen-thirty-two to die of old age in twenty-eighteen.
"I'm sorry." I say, I take his hand, "So sorry."
"It aint your fault either. It's no one’s fault." He smiled, "Funny thing” He coughs, a dry wheezy cough, “My wife looked an awful lot like my grandmother." He coughs. A head of blonde hair peeks around the door.
"Hurry the f**k up. We might be having a problem soon." Then Blue sees the man, "I thought you  said he’s ten?"
"Who's that?" Ben manages through rasping breaths.
"Blue" She says entering the room, "And you are?"
"Benjamin Cevolt."
"Ah. Cool. Artemis a word." She says. I step aside. "I thought you said he was ten!"
"He was! But instead of ending up in 2018 like Dante, he ended up in nineteen-thirty-two."
"Ah, yes as you do. Okay. Cool. We've found him. Now we might have a problem."
"How so?"
"Well basically. A bunch of Satuska guys just went into the room opposite, one was saying something about visiting his mother. So yeah."
"How's that a problem? We'll just wait for them to go."
"One of them saw me and looked at me strangely, I don't know if he recognised me, but he knew something was up." She hisses. Dante appears beside us.
"He wants to say goodbye." He whispers.
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"He's dying Art. He doesn't have long."
"Oh." The thought that a ten-year old kid I met two days ago is now ninety and about to die of old age, is incredible, weird, but at the same time, interesting.
"He fucked his own Granma." Blue blurts out. She sees our confused looks, "He said 'She looked an awful lot like my grandmother.' like what the f**k. He's his own granddad."
"Blue! Have some f*****g compassion! He was trapped in the past!"
"Pft. Fine say goodbye. But we need to leave soon." She looks at Ben. "I can kill him." She says softly, noticing the horror in our faces, "Painlessly, make him remember his favourite memories of his life so he's happy, and send a tiny little spark into his heart. It'll seem like a heart attack. He'll die painlessly and happy." She explains. I look at Dante; he looks at his feet.
"I think that would be for the best." I say. I look at Ben. The kid I held in my arms two days ago is now an old man, soon to die. It was weird, knowing that Ben was his own grandfather, and Ben’s father was also Bens son. Must have been destiny or something.