#you are permitted to run really fast if you stack cans very very tall first. it's just evidence-based practices

[bellshazes]

[smoothly, with confidence] actually, cutting edge trauma-informed care is when you play a series of beeps and make children and staff run really really fast

[yeshawrites]

2.

AGENCY, CHAPTER 2. You can find all other works of mine here. NOTES: This story is not always friendly. It contains some graphic content, brief mentions of non-sexual nudity, murder, death, and plenty of language. Please be advised before you read it.

February. Fifteen years later.

He didn’t have much to load into the passenger van. Honestly, the transport felt like a waste. Someone could have picked him up in a sedan and no doubt the trunk would have room to spare after his meager duffle bag was packed in. All he had to his name were his clothes. They’d assured him that the Agency would set him up with firearms of his own, and just the idea of getting his stash through TSA gave him hives, so he’d just liquidated them.

For a fleeting moment Anthony reconsidered his choices. He wasn’t there yet. He didn’t have to do this. Once he saw the Agency itself, he knew it was too little, too late, but until then… He clenched tight on the bag strap and wondered if he could just sling it over his shoulder and jog back into the airport, hitch the next flight back to Oklahoma and forget this whole death sentence.

The Watcher in the front seat stared back at him.

“Sorry.” He tossed the bag into the van a little too hard. It echoed hollowly. “Coming.”

Their ride was long and silent. His companion didn’t even turn on the radio. Instead Anthony busied himself by watching the curving ridges of Virginia roll past the window, every slope and dip the new stage of an uncertain world.

Forty minutes later they rolled into a large, sprawling shopping center. WESTCHESTER COMMONS read a bright sign at the entrance. Commons to what? He looked further down the road and saw it disappear into a country lane, the all other exits dipping off onto the highway. A large movie theatre, a few craft stores, a dance studio, and a few fast food restaurants (Taco Bell, Chik-Fil-A, Five Guys) surrounded a pretty grass lawn that was meant to be a gathering place.

But the rest of it? The whole southern half of the complex was nigh on empty. Only a ski store (in Virginia?), a gym, and a Buffalo Wild Wings occupied the vast swath of blank storefronts. An entire section had boards stacked over the front windows, a Christmas mural two months overdue for a change painted cheerily over its warped surface. Just as he was wondering who in their right mind thought that was a good idea, the passenger van idled along the back of it.

Oh.

The Watcher punched a button on the dash and part of the building shuddered. A garage door cleverly concealed by siding and a few crates rolled up. Was this it? Anthony checked his expectations. A secretive government group called the Agency--and it lived in a strip mall that couldn’t quite fill its vendor slots?

They rolled inside and he adjusted his opinion again. The garage was clean, with a few black SUVs, sedans, and equipment vans lined up by model. A black Tesla perched in the far corner by a charging station, a tidy mechanic’s workspace not far from there. The Watcher parked, so Anthony hopped out and grabbed his stuff from the back.

“This way,” his escort said.

“You can talk,” Anthony said aloud, realizing in the same breath how rude that sounded. “Sorry. Just wasn’t sure for a bit here, y’know?”

The Watcher looked bemused and said nothing once more. Before they could make any headway, a door out of the garage swung open.

“Smith!”

“Chief Piotrowsky.” The Watcher--Smith, apparently--delved his hand into his pockets and produced a phone. “Just sign, would you?”

Chief Piotrowsky was a handsome man with shoulder-length dark hair, narrow, dark eyes, and black nails. Anthony watched them shine as he signed with his finger on the screen. “Feels like I’m signing for a package. This is a bit inappropriate for people, isn’t it? When you all sent me Barry, he had a good laugh about that one later.”

“They are packages in a way.”

Piotrowsky frowned uncomfortably and shook his head. “I’ll take it from here. Thanks, Smith. Tell them back at the Rock I said ‘Hi’.”

Anthony lingered in the shadows, uncertain of what to do. At long last, the Chief turned his dark gaze on him.

“Hey there. Nice to meet you. Antonio Martin?”

“Just Anthony, Sir,” he managed, offering his hand. “Nice to put a face to the voice.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s been a bit since we talked. I was almost worried you wouldn’t take my offer.” The Chief smiled and appraised him up and down. “Sorry, I almost didn’t believe the dossier. Looks like they were right about you.”

“Thanks for not saying ‘how’s the weather up there?’ or something like that.” Anthony managed a nervous grin. “But I can tell you it’s hell to find pants that fit quite right.”

“Well, that’s true. I’ll have to get our guys to source for your uniform. You’ll have to give me your inseam later. Six-foot-six, yeah?”

“Yessir.”

“Please, it’s Xi. Just Xi. Want the tour?”

It wasn’t like he could refuse. “That’d be awful kind of you.”

The hallways were narrow and labyrinthine. Somehow he’d expected cubicles and halogen lighting, tired interns and forever-empty coffee pots--at least from his experience with the county lockup and courthouses. The walls were a soft copper-brown, white baseboards and chair railing running throughout.

“Welcome to your new home.” Xi rapped his knuckles against the doorframe. “It’s not much, but I hope you like it alright. I wish I could say you’d get to spend more time outside than you will, but we mostly don’t, given the nature of the job. It’s imperative that people don’t locate us too easily, so there isn’t a lot of coming and going from the base unless it’s for patrol or missions. Fortunately, mostly everything we need is inside here. I’ll take you to your room first. Besides, I’m sure the others will want to meet you.”

Anthony craned his neck to look as they passed open door after open door. A small doctor’s office and what looked like a forensics table, a kitchen, a gym--Xi walked quickly, so he only caught glimpses. A woman hunched over a row of computers in another. Somewhere down the hall came the soft sound of laughter.

“Oh no.” Xi huffed a chuckle. “What in God’s name is she up to?”

They reached the end of the hall, a final door awaiting them. Xi rapped several times with his knuckles and pushed it open, revealing a small common room. A few couches cluttered around a tiny coffee table, all facing a TV with a couple of old gaming consoles. Around the perimeter were other, smaller doors to what looked like bedrooms. Light streamed down through a skylight, augmented by the chunky white Christmas lights strung around the ceiling.

And a short woman was shirtless on the table.

A woman with a brown mohawk whooped and flung jolly ranchers at the other woman’s chest. At the table, a dark skinned man with tight-cut ringlets of hair tried to hide his smile and just buried his face in his hands, another very unenthused older man staring up at her.

“Come on, Desch!” The woman on the table shimmied and got another peal of laughter from the other two. “Give a lady a smile or something!”

“Aishe,” Xi snapped. “God, please get off the table.”

Mercifully she was wearing a bra, because she spun around to face the newcomer with a shameless grin on her lips. Out of respect, Anthony lowered his gaze to the floor.

“Oop, Bossman here to take us down.” The dark man shot up to his feet. “I swear this was a legitimate operation, Sir. We’ve got permits.”

“Yeah!” Aishe laughed aloud before tempering her smirk. “We have permits. I’m a professional. I was just trying to get a smile out of Desch. Thought I might just, you know, do a little dance…”

“Aishe?” Xi groaned. “Your shirt. Please.”

She flung on a tank top and finally Anthony felt free to look her over. She was very short--maybe not even five feet tall--with long, bleached blonde hair and black, thick eyebrows framing golden eyes. Her lips were full and her body--well, he tried not to notice that too much. She had curves to rival the state. Her nose was the only straight thing on her; a sharp, angular line that only served to make every other swirl and dip of her more fascinating in contrast. A tiger’s eye stud glimmered from her eyebrow and a gold one from her nose and a third just under her lip, her ears rimmed with hoops and studs in a thousand patterns.

Anthony wondered if love at first sight was really as far fetched as he’d thought.

“We’ve got a newcomer.” Xi seemed to age a thousand years in the fifteen seconds they’d all been together. “Anthony is going to take the new slot.”

“Oh?” And Aishe flashed him a grin. “Charmed. I’m Aishe. Can you give good piggyback rides, or is all that height just for looks?”

“Aishe,” Xi groaned.

“Err, I haven’t done that in a bit, but I expect I’ll be put through my paces then, ma’am.”

“That wasn’t a no.” She looked triumphantly back at the others. “It’s possible.”

Xi pushed onward, motioning back at the others one at a time. “That’s Barry back there. Desch is the most senior Agent, so he’s an excellent resource. And Verna--”

If Aishe was a handful, it looked like Verna--the woman with the mohawk--might be too. She practically appeared in his face, poking and prodding at him. “Hey, you ain’t a slab of nothin’ and sinew like I got Barry in.”

Barry--the darker man in the back--stared off into the distance like he was seeing a battlefield. “Lucky him. You don’t have to go through the notorious Verna Welcome Warmup then.”

“I’d hope a big boy like him has a little swing in his fists.” Aishe grinned brightly, running her tongue over the ridge of her lip. “Where are you from?”

“Oklahoma. The Agency poached me from Colorado, though.”

“Well damn. You’re good, one hundred percent pure American beef, huh?”

Barry snorted so hard he doubled over, hiding his face even as Aishe grinned at her own joke. Xi sighed and adjusted her shirt to hide her bra straps.

“Will you please show him the run of the place and not scare him off?”

“Yeah, Dad. Don’t worry.” She swatted off his hands and stuck out her tongue at him. “I’ll get him set up nice. You got an appointment with the Rock or something?”

“No. Joshua.”

Every face in the room either grimaced, groaned, or rolled their eyes. Aishe pinned her mouth together to suppress what Anthony now suspected was a trademark grin. “Well you have fun with that! Let me know what else we’re doing wrong now. Figures we got the worst Watcher in the whole damn Agency.”

Xi didn’t answer that, but his face told a story of its own. “Behave. I’ll be back later.”

“Gotcha, gotcha.”

The door clicked shut behind him, leaving him alone with the others. Desch returned to whatever he was reading, but three pairs of eyes zeroed in on him.

“So.” Aishe grinned cheekily. “Why’re you in?”

“Huh?” Anthony almost laughed. The flashback to the county lockup was uncanny.

“What’d you do? What almost got you?” Verna bent over a chair, stretching out her hamstrings. “You’ve gotta tangle with something supernatural to get recruited into the Agency. What was yours? I punched out someone that was stalking a friend of mine.”

“Said ‘someone’ was a vampire.” Aishe laughed. “The Rock said they’d never heard of anyone doing that and living before.”

Barry grimaced. “Mine was a doppelganger.”

Anthony nodded and pointed back at the other man. “Same here.”

“Oh shit.” Verna pumped her fist enthusiastically. “These stories are always the trippiest. How’d yours go?”

“Err…” Anthony shuffled the bag off his shoulder and let it onto the ground. “Short version? It jumped my brothers and me. Got the best of them, didn’t manage to get me. Got charged with their deaths.”

“Yeah.” Barry nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, that’s how that one works usually. Usually it’s the Agency that gets people cleared from those ones.”

“Yeah, if Mr. Xi hadn’t gone and gotten me sprung, I’m pretty sure the prosecutor would’a hung me out to dry for murder.”

Aishe said nothing. She just tilted back her head and appraised him with those golden eyes, a half-smile on her face that concealed her every thought. For a moment Anthony wondered if she could see straight through him, through the layers of the button-up shirt and to his tattoos, straight down onto the pores of his skin where all the worst of him lived so close to the surface. But almost as soon as he saw it, her eyes brightened and crinkled again, that permanent laugh bubbling up to her throat.

“Well,” she said, offering him a hand. “I can show you your room. Then I can show you where you’re gonna get the weapons to take some doppelgangers out again. Sound good?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

---

Joshua had never really cared for camping. The only time he’d ever really gone was probably thirty years ago; as best as he could recall it had rained the whole time. His older brother swore they’d all gotten terribly feverish and sick from a combination of the weather and his father’s poor attempts at cooking, a story his father had gone to his grave insisting wasn’t true. Joshua had to admit it sounded very plausible, considering their father. He sighed and pulled his black coat tighter around him, muffling the jostle of bullets. All misgivings about camping aside, the Shenandoah was still pretty. The trees were just now recovering from the winter and tiny buds of green poked their hopeful heads from long branches. The water was clear and the current strong in the river he kept meeting; it glowed crystalline and threw sparkles across the stripped trees, flecks of color across white and grey bark. Sunlight pooled in the flat rocks, and if you sat still for long enough schools of tiny white fish would scurry around the shallows in search of food. The deer were bold here. Already he’d come within arm’s reach of a doe. In his mind he’d named it Eighty-Three, after the bright yellow tags in her ears.   It was magical enough to make him not hate camping as much. But he hated long drives, too, and the drive had been nearly four hours of blistering silence and intermittent arguing between Desch and Christiane in the way only those two could argue, and he crossed a trip back out in his mental ledger of potential family vacations. A stick scraped Joshua’s bald head. He swerved and scowled at it, taking another step down the hill. The trail was very steep and only growing steeper. He wondered just how long it would take until he caught up with his quarry. He fiddled with the earpiece he wore. “Any sight?” “Negateef.” Christiane’s French accent was too strong for his taste. She was good at her job, but Joshua wished her partner would talk instead. “Not’ing yet.” “This trail is getting steep. I might need help bringing it back up.” “We will assist, mais w--” Christiane fell silent. Joshua halted, an instinct born of ages of special training. “Feefty yards.” That was all Joshua needed to hear. He delved into his fleece pocket for the Beretta and peered cautiously down the hillside thick with bramble and dead leaves. Sure enough, a lone figure in what looked like a grey flannel, shaggy blonde hair, and hiking gear moseyed his lonely way toward the falls. Joshua crouched out of sight. “You guys his set up?”

Christiane opened the link; he heard the beginning of a derisive snort and it went dead again. Probably Desch. At long last she replied. “Yes. Eyes on you.” Joshua clicked off the mic and peered over the ledge again. The hiker had nearly reached the falls; the roar of the water would be enough. He seized the opportunity and launched himself down the path,  hurtling through brush and trees and barely keeping his balance over logs supposed to serve as stepsohSHIT. His foot caught the edge of a fallen stick. He felt the fall before it even began and threw his whole body into it, rolling across his shoulder and back onto his feet, but it was too late. The hiker turned, blue eyes wide, staring at the middle aged black man picking himself back up from the leafy path. “Freeze!” Joshua yelled, training the Beretta on the hiker. Naturally, the target ran. Joshua squeezed off three shots before running after his quarry, chilly air whipping across his bald head. Christiane was yelling something in his ear, but the damn accent made it near impossible to understand her and he just kept going. Down, down the path they ran, across stumbling blocks of rocks and leaves. The hiker was fast, but Joshua had training and a couple years of college track under his belt. He lowered his shoulders and launched himself from the high ground, catching the kid around his waist and dragging him down; as one they rolled down the path, their descent stopped only by slamming into a boulder. Pain. There were fingers around his neck now, wild blue eyes like cold fire, a hateful sneer born of desperation and rage boring into his; Joshua tried to put his feet between himself and his attacker but the hands stayed, far too long and strong to be normal, the air throttled in his throat and his lungs burning and stars sparking in his vision. Joshua gathered up the last of his strength and bellowed in the hiker’s face. He flinched just enough and Joshua grabbed a handful of the blonde hair, wrenching him down onto the pathway-- BANG The shot rang clear and true into the hiker’s back; Joshua covered his face just in time to shield himself from the shower of blood. “Zere. Are you okay?” “Just fine,” Joshua grunted, gasping for breath. He worked his way down towards the body and flipped it over with his foot just in time to see the pale face ripple and shift. He’d heard of this before, but never seen it in practice. He watched with sick fascination as the clothes shuddered and grew loose, the backpack straps sliding from its shoulders, boots falling off feet that no longer existed. The kid’s expression warped like the ocean tide, morphing and twisting until an eerie gray blank took its place, eyes sinking into nothing, the nose flattening, cheekbones dissolving until the only thing staring back at him was mirrored reflection of his own face. It was a grisly reminder that it could have been him, lying dead in a ditch, this thing masquerading to his wife, to his sons, slipping into his clothes as easily as he did-- “Ees eet ze doppelganger?” Hands shaking, Joshua touched his mic. “Yeah. This is it.”

“Well, more zan zat.” Christiane paused. “Our sensors are glowing purple.”

[daughterof-chaos]

Ride

Author’s Note: Hello! And welcome to Music Monday #4! (Can you believe it? I can’t) We are kicking off this weeks with a song that had me all up in my nostalgia feels, which just so happens to be sung by one of my favorite bands. This is a Herman Kozik imagine based on Only One by Yellowcard as requested by my darling @justahopeless-dreamer (love you and your taste in music!! seriously, so good!) Hope you all Enjoy! Oh and this imagine is Rated T+ for adult language.

This is my work–originally posted to my old blog @callmemrskozik which is no longer in use. Just wanted to put it out there so people don’t fill up my inbox accusing me of plagiarism.

Not Too Late. Never Too Late.

-XX-

Broken this fragile thing now And I can’t, I can’t pick up the pieces And I’ve thrown my words all around But I can’t, I can’t give you a reason I feel so broken up (so broken up) And I give up (I give up) I just want to tell you so you know Here I go, scream my lungs out and try to get to you You are my only one I let go, there’s just no one that gets me like you do You are my only, my only one

-XX-

“Is it true?” her voice calls from the door way as he shoves clothes into his bag. He can’t bring himself to look at her. “Herman? Herman!” Her voice grows louder as she draws closer and he hates the tone of frustration in her voice. Hates that he’s the cause. “Fucking look at me.”

He lifts his gaze damning himself to hell when he sees the pain etched into her face. Her eyes shimmer watery blue thanks to the tears that threaten to spill over, and because he knows he’s only going to hurt her more, he clenches his jaw and shoves down what he feels.

“Are you leaving?” she demands and in answer he zips his bag closed and slings it over his shoulder. “So that’s it? Were you even going to tell me? Were you? Goddamn it, answer me!” her voice breaks as she shoves him back a step, and then another, and because he worries she’ll hurt herself he snags her wrists but she twists in his hold.

“Cara, stop, you’re going to hurt yourself,” his voice is mild as he stares down at her, and because he’s so tempted to brush the hair from her face he tightens his hold, just slightly.

“Let. Me. Go,” she demands and when he loosens his grip and moves to touch her face she takes a step away from him. “Wh-why, why are you doing this?”

“You know why,” he says ignoring the ball of pain that forms in the pit of his stomach at the sight of the tears rolling down her cheeks.

“I hate you,” the words come out on a rasp, “go! Just go! Fucking leave! It’s what you’re good at!”

::

She hides her puffy and red rimmed eyes with makeup; she’ll be damned if any of Herman’s friends will see her out and about after all this time and report back that she’s falling apart without him, it’s been six months for God’s sake, it’s time she moved on. She had a life without him once upon a time, she sure as fuck was going to have a life without him now.

At least that’s what she told herself.

It’s a mantra she repeated whenever she woke up reaching for him; or when she found the hoodie he left behind and spent two days curled up in it on the bathroom floor.

She didn’t need him. That’s a fact. But God help her, she wanted him. Still.

“Hey,” a voice comes from behind her as she was walking up to her house, hands full with groceries, and turning she finds a man she’s never seen before walking towards her. He’s tall, and built, a dark sweater zipped up to his neck. “You Kozik’s Old Lady?”

“Yeah,” she says wincing when she realizes that she’s said yes. She meant to say no. After all, he’s been gone for six months. She needed to move on the way she’s said she has.

“Oh good, maybe you can get a message to him,” he says as she’s setting her bags on the porch.

“Actually, he hasn’t been…” she’s cut off mid-sentence when the stranger pounces, and when her head bounces off the cement with a sickening thud, everything goes dark.

-XX-

Made my mistakes, let you down And I can’t, I can’t hold on for too long Ran my whole life in the ground And I can’t, I can’t get up when you’re gone And something’s breaking up (breaking up) I feel like giving up (like giving up) I won’t walk out until you know Here I go, scream my lungs out and try to get to you You are my only one I let go, there’s just no one who gets me like you do You are my only, my only one

-XX-

“Kozik, phone’s for you,” Gemma’s voice carries through the garage and confusion runs through him. Nobody ever calls him. He pulls the rag from his back pocket and wiping his hands makes his way to the office. He finds Gemma sitting behind her desk, stack of paper scattered in front of her, and for a moment he wonders how she keeps everything straight.

“Here you go,” she says sweetly handing him the phone.

“Hello?” he says and when the voice on the other end starts talking he feels his legs going weak. “What? When? Son of a bitch!” he roars throwing the phone across the room drawing Gemma from her seat.

“Herman, sweetie, what is it?” she asks and turning to look at him he’s vibrating from head to toe, anger and pain rolling off of him.

“That was Tacoma,” he says dropping into the only other chair in the small office, “someone attacked Cara. Almost killed her.”

::

He made the ride, as fast as he could; and he has the speeding tickets to prove it. He didn’t care. All he knew was that the only woman he’s ever really been in love with is laid up in the hospital, and it’s all his fault. He never should have left, no, he should have brought her with him. Why he thought it was ever a good idea to just leave her, he’ll never understand. It wasn’t one of his most thought out plans.

His entire body aches as he takes the elevator to the ICU, Juice and Happy standing behind him. Clay had given express orders that he wasn’t to ride alone, and to be honest he was thankful for the company, but he knew that once the doors slid open he’d be on his own, as they wouldn’t be permitted in the room with him.

“You going to be okay?” Juice asks when the door slides open, and because he doesn’t trust his voice all he can do is nod while Happy slaps a hand on his shoulder.

“We’re here for you brother.”

He takes what little comfort he can from those words as he presses the call button on the wall.

::

“She’s doing well, compared to how bad she was when she was first brought in,” the nurse whispers to him as she leads him down the hall, “she is still on the ventilator, but she has been awake a couple of times. Not for very long, but still it’s something.”

“How uh how long will she be in for?” he asks stopping when she does outside of a set of sliding glass doors.

“That really is going to depend on her. I won’t lie to you Mr. Kozik,” the nurse says tipping her face up to look at him, “Cara’s injuries are significant. You need to prepare yourself.” He takes a deep breath and with a shaky hand slides open the door and steps behind the curtain.

Wires and tubes cover her, and because his legs threaten to buckle on him he drops into the chair beside the bed. There are no flowers in her room; but there are cards. All sorts of brightly written notes, scrawled in the messy handwriting of her students, and his throat grows thick, but the tears spill over when he sees the picture of him staring back at him from the frame on the counter.

Her sister probably brought it for her.

“Cara,” his voice is strained as he says her name, his hand coming to rest over hers. He studies her closely, memorizing every bruise and scrape, noting the white bandages taped in place at the back of her head. Her cheeks are swollen, and every time her chest rises and falls her gown slips a little, exposing the bruises to her chest. He’s sure there isn’t an inch of her that isn’t bruised, and in the silence that falls between them he promises he’ll make it up to her.

-XX-

Here I go so dishonestly Leave a note for you my only one And I know you can see right through me So let me go and you will find someone Here I go, scream my lungs out and try to get to you You are my only one I let go, there’s just no one, no one like you You are my only, my only one

-XX-

“Hey,” his voice is a murmur as he pulls the chair close to the bed, “the nurse says you were awake earlier. I’m sorry I wasn’t here, I had some business to take care of. We found him Cara, the guy who did this to you. Don’t worry, he won’t ever bother you again. Happy’s taking care of everything. He misses you too, you know. He was pretty pissed at me when I showed up in Charming without you.” He searches her face for any sign that she’s listening, but there’s nothing.

“I know it was a mistake, leaving you here. I told myself the whole ride to Charming that I was doing it for your own good, that putting distance between us would ensure your safety,” he confesses rubbing his hands over his face. “There were a million times I wanted to pick up the phone and tell you to pack up, that I was coming to get you, I don’t know why I didn’t. I should have. I was just, scared. Afraid that you would have found a way to move on…that I was too late. Please, Cara, wake up for me. Tell me I’m not too late.”

::

He wakes to the sound of alarms going off, and Cara thrashing in her bed, and his heart jumps into his throat as nurses and doctors pour into the room, and before he can ask what’s going on he’s being pushed from the room.

“What’s going on?” he asks straining to see what they are doing to her but the curtain is pulled shut blocking his view.

“Mr. Kozik, I’m going to need you to calm down,” a nurse speaks to him but he can barely hear her through the buzzing in his head. “Cara is breathing over the ventilator. This is a good thing, okay. Just give them a few minutes to get her calm, they’ll remove the tube, and then you can come back in.”

::

The few minutes stretched into fifteen, and he felt like he was going to jump out of his skin before he was called back into the room.

Cara stares at him, the back of her bed raised, sheets smoothed over her. She looks more like herself without the tubes and wires, and he smiles when her eyes meet his.

“Hi,” he says and when she opens her mouth to talk she winces, her hand coming up to her throat. He crosses to her, settling onto the side of the bed, but he’s too afraid to touch her, so he settles on placing a hand on either side of her legs. “Hey, don’t try to talk. The doctor said you’ll be sore for a while.” She nods sitting back against the pillows.

“Cara, I am so sorry,” he says but she shakes her head at him, her hand finding his and gripping tight.

::

She holds onto his hand, gripping so tight her knuckles burn white. He has nothing to be sorry for. God, the last thing she wanted was for him to feel any sort of guilt.

“Not,” the word is a rasp and she groans in frustration at the way her throat burns and protests.

“Cara seriously, you can’t talk, the doctor said it’s going to take a few days to heal,” he says and she shakes her head. Tears forming in her eyes. Her chest tightens, fingers gripping the sheets before balling in a fist that bounces off of the bed. “Okay, look here, a pen and some paper.”

“Not,” he reads as she writes, “your fault. Cara…” she narrows her eyes at him and he lets out a sigh turning his attention back to the paper. “Heard you. Not too late. Never too late.” His voice shakes as he reads the words and she lets out a wavering breath when he comes to rest his forehead against hers.

“I won’t leave you, ever again, I promise. I promise.”

-XX-

My only one My only one My only one You are my only, my only one

-XX-

[jacewilliams1]

Flying in the Iditarod Air Force

It was Friday, March 13, 2009 and I was just starting to feel comfortable with the Iditarod Air Force, this being my first year as a volunteer pilot. I would be flying to Ophir today with Marty Carlson as my experienced partner. The chief pilot will usually assign an experienced pilot to fly alongside a newbie on his first trip into a checkpoint. I kind of understood that I would be flying into Ophir all day, so in the back of my mind I thought I could make two trips in the morning and then two in the afternoon, weather permitting. I think I remember we got a late start due to weather but were still able to get two trips in before a late lunch.

After a quick lunch at the Iditarod Trail Café/Bunkhouse, where we were all staying in McGrath, Alaska, I made a trip and then thought it possible to get one more in before fueling the airplane, which was scheduled for the group at 5:30 every evening. At that time the fuel attendant would come out and fuel all of the IAF airplanes before we parked them for the night. I had heard about weather coming in later that day, but it wasn’t supposed to arrive until much later in the evening.

The Iditarod Air Force is a serious operation.

I must have departed McGrath about 4:30pm or maybe a little earlier, towards the west and Ohpir. There’s a 1,400+ foot mountain ridge to climb over not far west of McGrath and then you can start descending into Ophir, about 35 miles from McGrath. As soon as I had flown over the ridge and started my descent, I heard chatter on the radio about snow to the west but I cautiously continued on for a few more minutes until I saw the snow: it was like a gigantic white wall, angling from me to the ground, from a westerly direction.

I immediately made a 180-degree turn back towards the ridgeline (that was now between McGrath and me) and said to nobody and to anyone that could be listening to the radio, “This N180KE, I’m returning to McGrath.” I heard only silence on the radio. The guys that I heard previously must have been beyond the ridgeline and out of radio contact.

I realized that I would have to climb back up to get above the mountain ridge to get to McGrath, so I began my climb and started looking for a low spot to cross the ridgeline, west to east. The only problem was there was no ridgeline, only more of the white wall all around me that became denser as I climbed. I continued the 180-degree turn and extended it to 360 degrees and at the same time dove the airplane to get out of the snow towards the direction of Ophir. Ophir is in a small, narrow valley and in a very mountainous area, not extremely high but since all the mountain and ridgeline tops were now totally obscured by heavy, thick snow, it didn’t matter how high they were. It was time to get down in a hurry because the ceiling was coming down almost as fast as my airplane.

I checked my GPS to make sure I was in the area of the pre-programmed route (thank you, Wes) and was headed in the right direction. It seemed that I was diving towards Ophir, which I could now see off in the distance, at about the same angle as the wall of snow before me. I could see that the snow curtain was to the ground just beyond Ophir and it angled up towards my altitude, which was about 400-500 feet. I flew abbreviated legs of downwind, then base and final to the strip and then was gratefully on the ground. I rolled out and taxied to the off-load area, stopped the airplane, hopped out, and stacked my load on the ground.

The local miner that goes by the moniker of “The Loafer from Ophir” arrived on a snow machine and together we loaded up the frozen dog food and supplies onto a snow machine trailer. He hauled them away towards his cabins, where he was storing the items as it was still a week before the start of the race in Anchorage.

I don’t remember if Marty was there already or if he arrived behind me, but I know Rich arrived after we did. We helped unload his airplane and the three of us stood there looking at each other in the developing blizzard, until finally Rich said, “I’m not spending the night here.” He jumped back into his airplane, fired it up and took off. He was out of our sight about 100 feet above the ground; we heard him turn around back towards us, flying the length of the runway very low, and then turned base and final and landed in the same direction that he had just taken off. It only took a couple of minutes for him to do the circuit and by the time he landed it was near zero-zero. The ceiling was at about the top of your head and visibility very limited by heavily falling snow and a strong wind. The temperature must have been single digits at that time and night was quickly approaching.

After we all put our engine covers on, the “Loafer” suggested we hop on the snow-machine trailer and he would transport us to his cabin. We grabbed what survival gear we thought we would need and then gladly took him up on his invitation and rode on the trailer in what was now a full blown blizzard with a very strong wind blowing the snow and a very, very, cold wind chill.

Not exactly the Four Seasons, but in a blizzard anything will do.

In the safety of the cabin, the three of us discussed our predicament and thought that we should try to get the word out to the outside world that we were ok, had not crashed, and were healthy.

Ophir is like a lot of places in Alaska, only worse: there is no electrical power, no running water, no toilet to flush, no gas heating, and no phone service of any kind. In fact, there is nothing in Ophir other than what the “Loafer” had on hand, or what we took in with us in our airplanes. Ophir is not even a town, just a few mining cabins. The only way we could get the word out was to try to reach someone with one of the airplane radios. Rich stated that his radio had gone intermittently on the blink earlier in the day and Marty said that his radio worked but had been very weak lately. So they suggested that we all go back out to the strip on the snow machine, in the darkness, in a raging blizzard, and call on my radio to try to reach anybody on my line of sight VHF radio, while surrounded by tall mountains.

I wasn’t too wild about going back out into the night in that storm to drain my battery and told them so. Rich was adamant that we had to try to get the word out and so I half-heartedly agreed to give it a try. We all bundled up, found the snow machine in the dark and made our way back to the airstrip where the airplanes were parked. I opened the door of my Cessna 180, turned on my radio and realized that I had taken my headset in with my sleeping bag and other stuff, so, back on the snow machine trailer to the cabin, in the dark to get my headset. If there was any skin on your body that was uncovered, it didn’t take you long to protect it from the wind.

After warming up by the wood stove for a few minutes, I asked Rich if he really thought it would be worth freezing our butts off again by going out and trying to get my radio to work. Again, he said that we had to make the effort to contact someone and let them know we were safe. Being a rookie at this Iditarod flying, I figured it wasn’t in my best interest to argue with someone with a lot more experience about making the radio call; anyway, it made good sense. So back out into the dark night in the raging blizzard we went, to try draining my airplane battery some more. Back out for a leisure-filled, moonlight snow-machine trailer ride, not!

This time I plugged the headset in and started calling the frequencies that I had memorized, the IAF frequency that we all monitor when we fly for the race, and I also tried the generics (122.9/122.8). I tried the McGrath CTAF and when I failed to hear any response, I dug out the Alaska Supplement and looked up the Anchorage ATC frequencies, thinking that I might be able to talk to an airliner flying between Western Alaska or Asia and Anchorage. I tried all the ATC frequencies and any others that I thought someone might be listening to, but again, nothing but silence.

By this time we were getting pretty cold and discouraged about this radio effort stuff but I thought I would try one more thing—the emergency aviation frequency of 121.5. I called for anyone listening that this was “November one eight zero Kilo Echo calling on one-two-one-point-five.” Immediately and almost blowing the headset off my head, someone came on the radio and said, “N180KE, this is Top Rocks, Go Ahead.” The guy sounded like he was sitting in the cockpit, right next to me, very clear and loud.

As surprised as I was, I don’t know what I must have sounded like on the radio but I asked him who “Top Rocks” was and his location. He told me that he was from the Elmendorf Air Force Base, National Defense System, and how could he help me. I explained our predicament to him and asked him to call the bunkhouse in McGrath and to give the Iditarod Air Force Chief Pilot, John Norris, the message that the three of us and our airplanes were OK and had no problems other than the weather. He replied by taking down the phone number and our names and said he would do exactly as I asked. (Contact was, in fact, made by the military with Iditarod officials at the McGrath Bunkhouse. We learned later that there had been a high level of concern for three missing pilots).

That was a big relief and in afterthought, I’m very glad that Rich was emphatic that we should try to contact someone on the radio. So back onto that lovely snow-machine trailer for the scenic ride back to the “Loafer’s” cabin. Mission accomplished!

Warmth, a precious commodity in Ophir, but not much food to share.

At last we headed to the cabin for good and for some much needed warmth by the roaring wood stove that the Loafer had in the middle of his bedroom. The Loafer’s cabin looked to me as if it had evolved from one room to two until it gave birth to a third room. The cabin consists of the kitchen, which is probably the original cabin that has an added bedroom on the north side and a library, yes, a library as the south addition.

The loafer has a library of nutrition books, whose size would match most families’ collection of books. I was very surprised that someone of his intellect would choose the lifestyle he lives, at least for part of the year. He and Marty got into a deep discussion about metabolism at the cellular level. When I realized they weren’t talking about phones, I shrunk back into the shadows of the cabin. There was nothing about nutrition that he couldn’t answer; I’m still amazed by that man’s knowledge, a very interesting, well-educated and intelligent, person.

When the Loafer started to fix supper, the three of us expected that he would offer to feed us but, he never mentioned it, maybe he thought we had our own food, I never asked and never figured it out. Rich, Marty and I dug into our survival food and had a small, meager meal, but at least we did have hot water for hot chocolate or coffee.

The Loafer, whose real name is Roger Roberts and lives in Ophir part of the year, mines gold on the property where his claim, cabins, and a large storage/workshop are located. Apparently, he was in Vietnam, as he had an American flag mounted on the wall of his kitchen with a hand written memorial dedicated to soldiers in a specific location and organization, which I can’t recall, in that country.

Flying into an unknown storm and getting stuck in Ophir was not as much of a rude slap in the face as it was a super adventure. Flying with the Iditarod Air Force is a great adventure in itself. It was like flying into a different time zone or a space/time fluke where the only world that existed was right here in that cabin in Ophir, Alaska. Jack London mentions Ophir and the Innoko Gold Country in one of his books (The Innoko River runs by it). It was as if we were trapped in a dome of our own time, maybe Jack London’s time. Only the four of us existed in this world; if you looked out the window, there was only a hostile, unlivable, white world out there where we didn’t belong. We only belonged and could survive inside this cabin/time dome where we were encased. Back at McGrath we could have had lots of warmth and comfort, great food, great company, and companionship at the Bunkhouse. Here we also had good friends and a warm place to stay until the storm blew itself out, but I felt imprisoned. Fortunately, we weren’t made permanent inmates of the Ophir Time Dome.

Rich, Marty and I slept on the floor of the library in our sleeping bags. As I remember, there was a small wood heater in one of the corners that we fired up before we went to bed. Whoever happened to get up during the night, stoked the fire to keep it going. We spent the night nice and cozy in our bags with a major storm blowing just outside.

I had previously read about this cabin being haunted and that spooky things that go bump in the night, awakening people spending the night here. I kept a sharp eye out when I had to get up a couple of times during the night to visit the blizzard but have to admit that I didn’t see a single spirit or ghost. Other events have described ghostly lights and beings floating down the road in the dark of night. I was glad that when nature called in the wee hours and I had to go stand on the porch, the visibility was nil and it was probably too stormy for ghosts to be out anyway.

We woke up the next morning about 7am and the storm had abated somewhat, but it was still dark and would be for another couple of hours. The Loafer fixed the four of us, probably, the single best breakfast that I have ever tasted. It consisted of delicious, sliced bacon, perfectly fried potatoes, angelic fried eggs and steaming, hot coffee. It all tasted heavenly that morning.

Those teams take a lot of support.

About the time we finished breakfast, washing the dishes and packing up, beautiful dawn arrived without a single cloud in the bright, blue sky, not a breath of wind. It was gorgeous but cold enough to freeze the fingers off a brass monkey.

When we couldn’t put it off any longer, we stepped out into the beautiful but cold day and hopped onto the snow machine trailer for the short ride out to the airstrip to try to start our airplanes. There were no warm, pre-heated engines today due to the non-existence of a working generator to power our oil pan heaters. I know that my airplane is a hard starter in cold weather so I rigged up my MSR stove with a piece of stovepipe (both from my survival gear) through the cowl flap to preheat my engine, even though it might be a practice of futility as the temp was minus ten degrees that morning. In Alaska winter flying, we always carry an insulated engine cover that helps with the pre-heating.

Rich and Marty, knowing their fuel injected Cessna 185 starting characteristics, decided that they would remove the engine covers, start and run the engines for about 10 minutes, then shut them down and put the cover back on—the theory being that the heat that had been generated by the running engine would then be distributed and absorbed by all of the engine compartment, confined by the insulated engine cover. Both theories worked, theirs and mine, because within about 45 minutes we were all fired up and blasted off for beautiful downtown McGrath.

What an adventure! I wouldn’t say it was a life-changing event, but it definitely was a unique experience that one could never duplicate by paying a guide for an adventurous trip. I learned a lot. I had never experienced weather changing that radically in such a short time, minutes. It went from mellow, partly sunny weather in McGrath, to a savage, violent, life-threatening monster in just a few miles and over the hill.

“Top Rock, or Top Rocks,” who I spoke with on the radio, was probably a remoted radio at Tatalina LRRS, a USAF radar site, about 20 miles southwest of McGrath and about the same distance southeast of Ophir. These sites are located throughout the state of Alaska and apparently they continuously monitor the emergency frequency, 121.5. Probably the single most important thing to learn from this experience is that should you ever have an emergency in the wilds of Alaska, one of these USAF radar sites may be within the range of your radio.

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from Engineering Blog https://airfactsjournal.com/2020/03/flying-in-the-iditarod-air-force/