January 6, 2001 – 11:15 A.M.

“Look I told you I was trying to help the little boy standing in the road, and he just turned…” Sarah sags her shoulders slowly, realizing how ridiculous she sounds “…evil.”

“I’m not concerned with what you think you saw on that street Mrs. Filch, what I’m concerned with is your broken leg, crushed rib, lacerated pelvis, and fractured collar bone. You are lucky to be in one piece.”

Sarah glances down at the casts, bandages and braces and sarcastically mutters “one piece? Oh and please don’t call me Mrs. Filch it sounds like you’re cussing at me.”

“Well Sarah” the doctor strained, condescendingly “it looks you will be staying here for a short while so we can keep you under observation. Don’t get out of bed under any circumstances. Oh, and someone from psych will be coming in to talk with you.”

“I’m fine doctor,” Sarah gasped, wanting him to leave her alone so she could sleep “I know where the morphine button is.”

The doctor forces a small smirk, and then disappears around the corner.

Sarah slept soundly, if not because she was drugged then because she could leave the awful memory of the small boy behind her. Hours later she awoke slowly to a slender woman dressed in a white lab coat reading something out of the clip board placed at the foot of her bed. Sarah quickly assumed that the woman was the doctor from the Psych. Ward.

“Good afternoon, and how are you feeling this afternoon Mrs. Filch?”

Sarah winced at the sound of her husband’s last name, but said nothing. “I’m doin just super, all the mashed peas I can eat, plenty of Morphine and a view to die for”

The doctor glanced sympathetically out the tiny sixth story window that looked over the air conditioner studded rooftop of the old wards.

“I just wanted to ask you a few questions about what you saw last night that caused you to be in the middle of the busiest street in town, at eight O’clock at night; in the middle of a storm no less. Let me start by asking you where you were coming from.”

“Well I had gotten off work late because we had an early deadline the next day, today” Sarah said, noticeably annoyed “and my car was in the shop being repaired, so I had to walk. I’ve lived on that street my entire life and it was raining so hard I wasn’t even watching where I was walking. By the time I looked up, I realized that I was almost home. I just got that awful feeling that someone was following me. I had to turn around and see if anyone was there. When I finally got up the courage to turn around, all I saw was the little boy. Naturally I wanted to help him, whoever he was, out in the cold, all alone. Then he just got evil, this look in his eyes, it didn’t belong in the eyes of a child.”

“Well Mrs. Filch the witness in the car claims that you were standing in the street by yourself and that he could not see you because you were crouched over, wearing a black coat, and he didn’t see you until you stood up. With all the rain and the stress you were under, you said yourself that it had been a long night, sometimes our mind can play tricks on us.”

Sarah got that growing feeling the doctor was trying to placate her, and Sarah was used to people listening to her. “Look doctor I didn’t imagine that little boy, and I didn’t imagine what he said. Now I have a lot of work to catch up on, when can I be out of this shit-hole?”

The doctor, used to dealing with impatient, overanxious patients, sighed gently, and spoke in a calm voice “we have a few more tests to run, so get some rest, and once the doctor ok's you, THEN you can go.” The doctor walked briskly out of the room, conscious of the fact that Sarah’s eyes directed an annoyed look she had seen in a thousand patient’s eyes.

“Bitch” Sarah mumbled under her breath as the doctor rounded the corner, out of sight. Sarah decided the best course of action for the time being was to just sleep until the doctor decided to release her, “At least this way I don’t have to talk to anymore doctors.” Sarah smiled amused with herself, and with that, slid off to sleep.

Dusk crept on the county hospital, with nightfall, the hallways of the hospital fell more silent, and the quiet hum of the fluorescent lights overhead filled the hallways. The gentle beep of heart monitors echoed down the sterile white corridors. The nurses’ station bustled with sounds of telephones and fax machines, nurses talking softly about patients and the comings and goings of the day. A tall man strides softly down the corridor towards Sarah’s room, his long black trench coat brushing softly against his black slacks. His steel gray eyes hidden under the brim of his fedora, pulled low over his brow. His footsteps echo above all other sound in the virtually deserted hospital. He walks with purpose, with an understanding that few people posses.

Treading past the nurses station one of the women with a phone wedged between her ear and shoulder speaks up “Sir, excuse me sir! Visiting hours are over, you’ll have to come back tomorrow.” The nurse, expecting resistance put the phone call on hold.

The dark man strode silently up to the desk and pulled a small wallet out of his coat pocket, casually flipping it open, revealing a badge the nurse didn’t recognize, his face still shielded from light by the brim of his hat, he grins and says in a smooth, emotionless voice that clearly betrays the fact that he enjoys being in a place of authority “I’ll only be a moment.” Barely breaking stride he continues down the hallway towards Sarah’s room.

Reaching the room, the man quietly opens the door, sliding silently into the room, swiftly closing the door behind him. Seeing Sarah sound asleep he takes the chart from the foot of the bed, reads it, and places it gingerly back in its holder. After checking the contents of the I.V. being fed into Sarah’s arm, he decides to take a seat, silently, in a dark corner of the room.

Sarah awakes, her mind hazed by the painkillers, she glances around wearily. Her eyes pass the dark figure several times before realizing that another person is in the room. Sitting up as quickly as her battered body would allow, simultaneously reaching for the call button, she shouts, “Who the hell are you?”

“Calm down please, I only need to have a brief word with you, then I will go” he whispers in a quiet, but stern voice. “Don’t bother pressing the call button either; I unplugged it.”

Sarah pulls herself the rest of the way up into a sitting position, wincing at the sharp pain in her ribs, and let the call button fall from her hand. Slumping from physical exhaustion, and an unwillingness to fight. “Fine, what do you want?” Sensing the man intended her no harm, at least for the time being.

“I only need to ask you a few questions regarding what you saw last night.”

“Are you here to mock me too, to tell me I’m delusional?” Sarah inquired, not so much angry as frustrated, unsure why this all had to happen to her.

“No, Mrs. Filch” before Sarah could raise a protest “oh I’m sorry, how rude of me, Sarah.”

Hearing this Sarah glanced up at the man, wondering who exactly he was, but said nothing.

“Now, as I was saying I need to ask you some questions. Are you willing to cooperate?”

The man tilted his head inquisitively, knowing what the answer would be. Sarah’s silence confirmed his suspicion that she would cooperate, not because she wanted to, but because she realized that she had no other choice in the matter.

“Good, now I need you to tell me exactly what it is the boy said to you.” The man pulled a small tape recorder out of his pocket and hit record.

“Well” Sarah began hesitantly “first he apologized, he just repeated I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It was very strange, I…I…” Sarah stumbled over the memory burning in her mind. “It’s all right mam, what he said will do for now.” The dark man said coldly from his darkened corner. Sarah glanced at him scornfully, and then continued. “Then he told me he thought it was all a game. He shouted it, like a kid caught doing something wrong; trying to convince his mother he didn’t do it. Then he told me he would never do it again, that is when I started to become afraid. His voice deepened, and I noticed he was,“ on this point she faltered, wondering if it could actually be true. “He was smiling. I felt something was seriously wrong, so I started to back away more quickly. That’s when he just; just seemed to go, evil and he said, ‘come here girl’ in a horrible, deep, sinister voice. I turned to run, and I was blinded by the headlights.” Now having heard herself tell the whole story, she felt even more foolish then before.

“Tell me Sarah, now this point is very important” this was the first time the dark man had shown any semblance of emotion. “Did he touch you, even brush against you?”

“Well…no, I never got closer then a few feet. Why?”

“I only have one other question Sarah,” the man said blankly, avoiding her previous questions. Noticing the man’s avoidance of the question, Sarah took issue with him immediately.

“Hey, I said, why do you want to know if he touched me? What’s going on, who the hell are you anyway?” The man remained calm, barely shifting in his chair.

“Please calm down, I’m really not in a position to speak with you about this, I just need to know one more thing about that evening. That night, when you slept, do you remember what you dreamt about?”

“Excuse me, I don’t think that is any of your goddamn business.” Sarah had just reached the end of her ability to humor this man’s questions and prodding. With this outburst however, the man stood up from his chair in the corner, Sarah could now see the man’s huge stature, standing at least six feet seven inches. For the first time since she noticed the man, she was intimidated by his presence.

“Look miss, I gave you the chance to cooperate and I tried to be nice, if you what to play this the hard way, believe me I can. So I will ask you one last time, do you remember what you dreamed the night following the incident?” Sarah sensing the man was losing control of his emotions attempts to take control of the situation.

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but first I want to know who you are, and what you’re doing here.” Upon hearing this ultimatum the man stands fully erect, calming, realizing that he had in fact lost control for a brief moment. The man knows that it is his duty to remain detached, un-emotional but that has already failed.

Immediately an internal struggle begins, “can I tell her who we are, and at what cost. I could lose my job, but if she really saw him, and she’s the next one.” The man thought for what seemed to him to be an eternity. Sarah saw on his face that he was contemplating what she had asked, which was more then she expected to get from him. Realizing that Sarah gained the upper hand again, even if just for the moment, perhaps if she kept pushing she could find out what was really going on. Internally the man’s mind was still racing, questions, and possibilities. How much could he tell her? Finally she spoke up again, this time with a soft, smooth voice.

The voice of a woman who knew how to manipulate a man’s mind, “Why don’t you just tell me what you are here for, tell me why you need to know that, and I’ll tell you what I dreamt.” When Sarah spoke the man cursed him self, realizing he had lost the upper hand again, and saw Sarah’s angle. The man’s thoughts took control of him and Sarah’s tender voice faded out as he weighed the possibilities again and again in his mind. Finally without a word he reached into his pocket and turned off the tape recorder.

“OK, I will tell you what I can, but then you will tell me what I want to know.” Sarah knew her trick hadn’t worked as intended, but it had worked nonetheless, so she agreed. The man slowly pulled the chair up from the corner of the room where he had been sitting, removed his coat and draped it gently over the back of the chair, his shoulders were broad and muscular, even in the darkness Sarah could see the man was in impeccable shape. Removing his hat, he reveals a slightly receding hairline, virtually masked by the closely trimmed hair. Sarah immediately recognized him as what he was, a thirty-year-old man born to be in the military. He slowly lowered himself into the chair, resting forward on his elbows as if the weight of hundreds of years rested squarely on his shoulders. He took a heavy sigh before beginning his explanation. He was now exposed to her, Sarah felt she had penetrated his defenses, but yet still felt weariness, this man did not reach this position of apparent power easily, and Sarah feared that he might be playing with her mind. When Sarah glanced up she met eyes with the man for the first time, catching his cold gaze, out of those steel gray eyes she realizes she has under estimated the man. With that exchange of glances the man reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, and tossed it onto her lap. Reaching down to read the badge she assumed was nestled inside its folds he began speaking in the same cold voice he had begun in. My organization is responsible for something extremely important, something the public does not know about, and doesn't need to know about, it has been kept secret in the interest of national, and world security. Sarah assuming this was some kind of self-assuring song and dancing rolled her eyes slightly to show the man she was not impressed. Seeing this the man was not disturbed, because he realized she would be soon enough. Being off the record put the man’s mind slightly more at ease. He wondered where to begin, there was so much to tell, and so much he couldn’t tell because, while the recorder was off, he was still being watched. He chooses to be as vague as possible, while still attaining the desired reaction.

“Basically what my organization does is to track a single individual and to understand its role in important historical actions.” Sarah looked puzzled, “good” he thought, and so he continued. Throughout history there have been individual men who have shaped the courses of history. I’m sure you’ve heard of some of them in your history courses Peter the great, Alexander the Conqueror Hitler, Napoleon, etc. etc. These are the famous names, the men who shaped history, at least according to the history books. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying ‘history is written by the victors’, this is truer then you could possibly know. In the accounts throughout history there have been individuals left out of history, ignored by the public eye. We are responsible for identifying those individuals, and understanding their motives. This may sound both impossible and foolish because the very nature of these individuals is that they are seemingly unimportant, they could be anybody.” The man recites the speech as if he had been longing to tell to the world, but had never gotten the chance. “When our organization was started we started to notice a trend in all of the cases, virtually unknown to the rest of the world each of these men had something in common. Nothing as common or honestly trivial as nationality or bloodline binds them. The thing they all shared was that before the event, whatever it may have been, a small boy visited them. When they met this boy he touched them and spoke to them, read their thoughts, and in virtually every case came to them in a dream and spoke of the future. When the boy read their minds he saw what they most wanted, the future they most cherished and longed for;” with this he paused, as if mourning the past “and told them how they could attain that future. From that point on they were apparently under the control of the boy, and eventually carried out whatever task he told them would accomplish their end goal.” With this last comment,

“It may just be the years of being told to question everything or maybe it’s because this sounds like a strange Heinlein novel except it’s not on Mars and there is less polygamy. So let me just make sure I’ll get this strait you trying to tell me that you guys track a little devil on people’s shoulders that tells them to bad stuff, and you’re trying to stop him.” The sarcastic tone in Sarah’s voice coupled with the slight chuckle at the thought of this giant of a man chasing after a little red devil sitting on her shoulder enraged the man, and again he bolted from his chair, towering over the woman.

“No” he boomed, “it is nothing quite so delightful as a children’s story. This being is not some little red man with horns and a pitchfork who dances around making naughty suggestions, fighting it out with some stupid little angel sitting on your other shoulder. This thing is not as simple as good or evil; it is something humanity doesn’t even realize exists. Because of this thing” Sarah noticed that the man had stopped referring to it as a boy and now as a thing, for some reason this startled her, and she began to fear what the man was saying. “Thousands perhaps millions have died in part because of this thing’s actions, and we are responsible for making sure that it never happens, again.” The man sat heavily in the chair again, but this time Sarah understood why he stooped with such a burden “and we are here, well I am here because I believe that boy you saw last night was the very thing we hunt.” These words came out not as an announcement, but as a confession, almost apologetic.

“Let me get this strait, you are here because you want to know if this age old, evil, or whatever you want to call it, is out to get me?” Sarah laughed gently thinking the idea was absolutely absurd. The man however did not laugh, his face instead, grew sterner at the mockery, and he did not appreciate being laughed at by a civilian.

“I assure you this is no joke, it is quite serious and now I would appreciate it if you told me what you saw." With this he pressed the small, red button on his tape recorder and continued, “If you would please Mrs. Filch.” Resting the tape recorder on the bed next to Sarah he leaned back, narrowing his eyes, glaring at Sarah as if to make a threat if she were not compliant. Sarah saw this threat and that combined with the fear of what would happen if she talked anymore forced her reply.

“I dreamt about nothing, shit even if I did dream about something the amount of morphine I’m on, I wouldn’t remember anyway. I was just really curious who the hell you are.” Sarah chuckled softly, pretending to be content, but inside, she was terrified, assuming he would not harm her as long as he needed the information.

“Very well, I just hope you understand the importance of this.” The tall man replied calmly. Cursing himself for letting on so much information, and partially losing his cool because of Sarah’s mockery, he took a deep breath and sighed. Knowing that Sarah was lying to him, he decided to approach her later, any pushing now would cause her to completely clam up, he had dealt with hard cases like this before and knew that not all was lost. Standing up calmly, he puts on his coat and hat without a word. Looking to Sarah like he was donning some kind of corny disguise, and now feeling as though she had won, mocked him silently.

Reaching the door the man paused, tilting his head in Sarah’s direction, “we’ll be in touch,” he said cryptically, a small smirk creeping across his face. Sarah kept her eyes fixed on the man long after he disappeared around the corner out of sight. Leaning back against the bed she feels the call button press into her back, pulling it out from behind her she realizes that it was in fact still plugged in. Realizing that she really was, at least partially, in control of the situation the entire time, smiles softly and sinks down into the soft bedding.

Closing her eyes and wondering what to make of the mysterious dark man she murmurs “what have you gotten your self into now Sarah.” With this thought in mind she fades to sleep, resolving not to fear what she knows she can’t possibly understand, yet.