Chapter 01-The Decoherence of Kevin

approximately 2100 words

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The Decoherence of Kevin  (18+) The mystery of his lover's death haunts Kevin. He must learn the truth at all costs. #1878019 by Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈

 

Part One
July, 2019


Chapter 1

         Kevin glanced at his wristwatch as he pushed into the air-conditioned interior of the Sycamore Mall.  He brushed sweaty bangs from his eyes, glad to leave behind the oppressive heat of July in Oklahoma.  The line at the Cineplex box office was blessedly short, and he bought two tickets.  He checked his watch again and scanned the entry hall. His mouth hardened. No Khalid. He wasn't exactly late, but he wasn't on time either. Kevin snatched his phone from his shirt pocket and thumbed a quick text.  Where ru?  Movie starts in 15.

         Worry nibbled as he pressed send, a foreboding he couldn't quite put his finger on.  A vision of Khalid injured and bloody bubbled up from nowhere, and his impatience dissolved to concern.  He chewed the side of his mouth.  He was being silly.  Khalid was just late, that was all.  Kevin slipped his phone back in his pocket and peered into the mall.  The braided rainbow bracelet on his right forearm rolled over his wrist and flopped onto the back of his hand. He flicked it in place, and, as he did so, a short, stocky man wearing a bulky sweat shirt pushed through the crowd and jostled against him.  The man muttered, "Don't touch me, you fuckin' faggot."

         Cold anger froze Kevin in place. 

         Jerk-face sweat-shirt-guy plowed into an elderly woman who leaned on a cane and carried an overflowing shopping bag. She stumbled and Kevin grabbed her arm to keep her from falling.  Her fingers clutched at him while her purchases clattered to the floor. 

        Sweat-shirt-guy sneered at them and disappeared in the crowd. 

         The woman steadied herself on Kevin's arm and caught her breath.  "Thank you, young man."

         Kevin knelt and gathered up her belongings before the crowd trampled them.  "Sure, no problem."  He stuffed items into her bag, stood and handed them to her.  "Are you all right?"

         She fluffed at her gray curls and straightened her skirt.  "I think so."  Her gaze probed the crowd.  "What a putz.  He smelled bad, too."

         Kevin gave her an easy grin.  "I noticed.  What kind of idiot wears a sweatshirt in Oklahoma in July, anyway?"

         "A meshuggener, that's what kind."  She peered at Kevin.  "You look familiar.  Have I maybe seen you on campus?"  She held out a blue-veined hand.  "I'm Nadezhda Kaminski, by the way."

         Kevin accepted her hand, surprised at the firmness of her grip.  "Kevin. Kevin Freeman.  Nice to meet you, ma'am."  He thought for a moment. "I suppose we could have met on campus.  I'm an English major. My partner works at at the Quantum Brain Institute.  Maybe you've seen me there?" 

         She shook her head.  "That must be it."  Her face crinkled into a smile.  "My practice is in the Cartier Clinic in the same building as the Institute. I know that nice Dr. de la Cruz. Doesn't he run the Institute?"

         Kevin gaped at the notion that Khalid's dissertation adviser was "nice."  Officious, condescending, overbearing, sure. But nice?  What planet did she live on? 

         But she'd already turned to glare down the mall in the direction sweat-shirt-guy had gone. In a flash, her expression changed and her eyes sparked.  "I heard what that schmuck said to you."  She turned back to Kevin and touched his rainbow bracelet.  "Be proud of who you are.  You're a good person, young man.  Don't let him get you down." 

         "I won't.  Jerks like that can't hurt me."

         "That's a healthy attitude."  A chime sounded and she reached into her handbag.  "Shalom Aleichem.  Peace be with you, my new friend."  She turned away and spoke into her phone.

         Kevin bowed and murmured, "And with you."  He fingered the two movie tickets he'd purchased and checked the time again.  Khalid was usually early.  Where is he?

         His phone buzzed and relief flooded Kevin as he recognized his lover's number.  He tried to keep his voice even, but his irritation escaped anyway.  "Where are you?"

         Khalid's liquid accent answered.  "I'm sorry, Kev.  The brass at the Institute kept me late, the traffic was a bear, and then there was that errand.  When I finally got here,  I had to park at the far end of the mall.  I'll be there in less than two minutes."

         Kevin heaved a sigh, annoyed at himself more than at Khalid. He forced his voice to be cheerful. "Okay.  I've got our tickets.  You want to go out for dinner after?"

         "I guess.  You buying?  I'm running kind of short right now, y'know." 

         Kevin's eyebrows went up.  Khalid wasn't rich, but between his GI benefits and his graduate stipend, he usually paid.  The chance to be the one taking care of the check brought a grin to Kevin's face.  "No problemo. I'll run to the ATM and pick up some extra cash.  I'll meet you there."

         "Perfect. I love you."

         Kevin pictured his boyfriend's slow grin, and gratitude for Khalid's easy-going and generous nature swelled in him.  "Love you, too."

         He started to slip the phone back into his shirt pocket, but it spouted a string of syllables too faint to understand.  He lifted the device back to his ear.  "What?  I missed that."

         Khalid's whispered words rushed from the earpiece.  "There's trouble by the bank."  A burst of static interrupted him, and then he said, "...like you warned me...away from the ATM...make it...."  More static.  "...love you..."

         Kevin frowned.  "Trouble?  What kind of trouble?" 

         No answer.

         He stared at the display.  Khalid had hung up.  When he pressed redial, it rolled to voice mail.  Worry again twisted his gut.  He glanced at the line entering the theater, at his watch, and then struck off  down the corridor that held the bank and the ATM. 

         Late-afternoon shoppers crowded the Sycamore Mall and slowed his progress.  Roving bands of teenagers mixed with haggard mothers pushing strollers.  What were all these people doing here?  Then Kevin spotted the protesters singing hymns outside the Planned Parenthood clinic, right across from the bank.  That must be why the place was so jammed up.  Just what he needed.  But the protesters had been hanging out there for weeks.  That couldn't be the trouble Khalid mentioned.

         Where was he, anyway?

         From somewhere in front of him, two faint pops snapped, like balloons bursting.  The babble of the crowd, the lilting voices of the protesters and the soft Muzak from the overhead speakers almost-but-not-quite cloaked the sound. 

         Kevin arched his back and at last spotted Khalid's lithe form.  What was he doing?  He stood rigid outside the bank, in front of the ATM.  His eyes blazed.  Both hands extended in front of him, gripping something black and menacing in two clenched fists.

         A woman shouted.  "He's been shot!"

         For an instant, the crowd fell silent.

         Sudden screams filled the corridor.  The mass of shoppers boiled away from the bank and the clinic.  Kevin struggled against the surging bodies.  He had to get to Khalid!  A fat woman blocked his path, and a burly man shoved him aside.  Kevin stumbled into a shoe store, his arms flailing for balance.  A display rack holding sneakers crashed onto his skull.  Purple splotches flashed and the world disappeared for an instant, only to return seconds later, as horrifying as before.  Screams and shouts of, "He's got a gun" came from the direction he'd last seen Khalid.

         Kevin struggled to his feet.  His head throbbed. The right side of his face burned from where the shoe display had slammed into him.  He fought the tide of panicked shoppers and struggled back toward the direction of the disturbance, toward Khalid. 

         His lover stood alone and isolated, in front of the bank, but his body quaked.  Sweat slicked his brow and soaked the armpits of his crisp, white shirt.  His eyes bulged in their sockets and seemed to spark with an electric fire.

         A gun. Kevin's breath caught in his throat and a black hole chilled his core.  He finally had clear view of what Khalid gripped in his hands.  Where had peaceful, happy-go-lucky Khalid gotten a fucking gun? 

         A uniformed guard stumbled from inside the bank.  He shouted something Kevin couldn't catch.  The man held his own weapon outstretched, in both hands, just like a TV cop.  Its barrel probed the air like a pig's snout grubbing through a barnyard, seeking a target.

         Khalid turned to face the guard.  The gun in Khalid's hands now hung from his arms, as if the weight were too heavy to bear.

         The guard's weapon swiveled to point at Khalid.  The man yelled something incoherent.  Khalid froze.  The weapon in Khalid's hands dangled before him, his arms outstretched and his wrists bent by the mass. 

         The guard's gun flashed. Once, twice, three times, in rapid succession. 

         Kevin's world slowed to a silent nightmare. 

         Khalid stood rigid.  An instant later, like a freeze-frame in a movie, the back of his head disappeared.  In less than a second, a chunk of skull, with curly black hair, skittered, spider-like, across the polished Terrazzo floor, leaving behind a crimson trail.

         Another instant blinked by.  White goop splattered like spaghetti behind Khalid. Brains. That goop had to be his brains.  As if no time passed, his body suddenly lay twisted on the floor in a boneless heap.  A dark pool of blood seeped around his motionless form. 

         Time, continuous and relentless, started to flow once again.  An ocean roared in Kevin's ears, muffling the shrieks from the shoppers.  His knees transformed to liquid. He leaned against the doorway to the shoe store and the cool metal chilled his trembling fingers.  His bones turned hollow and his mind jittered. 

         This couldn't be happening. 

         Khalid, athletic, handsome Khalid, lay motionless in front of the bank.  Red splatters marred his white shirt.  Dark, wine-colored blood muddled the perfect crease of his khaki slacks. The crease Kevin had put there just last night.

         Less than a dozen feet away, another body sprawled on the Terrazzo, a companion in horror.  This one flopped and gasped.  Pink foam sprayed from a silent mouth.  Ruddy liquid seeped from two wounds in the torso, soaking a bulky sweatshirt and staining faded blue jeans.  Kevin gasped: this was the creep who'd called him a faggot just minutes before.  The man's arm jerked and flopped over the surface of his sweatshirt, as if seeking something urgent.

         The man twitched.  His back arched.  A shuddering breath wheezed from his gaping mouth.  His eyes turned glassy and rolled upward.  His arm stopped moving and his body fell still.

         The bank guard circled around Khalid, his weapon pointed at the floor.  His voice shook. "He had a gun.  I had to shoot him."  He looked up and locked eyes with Kevin. Horror pooled in their depths.  "I had to do it."

         From nowhere, from somewhere, from elsewhere, Khalid's soft tenor murmured to Kevin, "I love you."  Then silence closed in.

         The mall spun about him in an insane kaleidoscopic whirl, and Kevin slid to the floor.  Sobs escaped his throat and his stomach roiled.  His belly clenched and spewed vomit.  Tears blurred his vision. He struggled to stand, but his limbs wouldn't obey. His head throbbed, and his thoughts slogged in slow motion.  He crawled toward Khalid, the floor hard and cold against his palms.  If only he could touch him, staunch the bleeding, give him CPR.  Khalid couldn't die.  Kevin had to save him.

         But gentle hands stopped him.  A fat woman squeezed his hand. Was it the same woman who had pushed past him earlier?  She cradled his head in her lap.  "I'm sorry," she whispered.  "It's going to be all right.  You rest yourself, you hear?  They've called us an ambulance." 

         She caressed his cheek and fire followed her touch.  "You took quite a jolt when you fell, hon. Don't you worry none.  It's gonna be all right."  Her voice was just like his mother's, except compassion filled her words instead of judgment. She glanced across the mall at the two bodies and her face hardened.  "Satan's been here today, but I won't let him touch you.  You're safe now.  Elmira won't let nothin' happen to you."  When she flipped stringy, blonde hair from her face she left a trail of red on her forehead.  She fingered the cross that hung on a chain about her neck and whispered, "Help him, Jesus." 

         Agony pulsed through Kevin's skull and he groaned.  He licked his lips and tasted blood.  Where did that come from?  Was it Khalid's?  Or was it from the motionless figure on the floor?  It couldn't be. They were both too far away.  Awareness fluttered as he fought against darkness.  "Khalid.  I have to go to him." 

         The woman--Elmira?-- tsked.  "Don't you worry your head none, hon.  Me and my husband, we'll take care of you.  You're safe."

         Kevin struggled to sit up, but her gentle arms held him tight.  He tasted blood.  His blood?  He had to get to Khalid, to touch him.  A wave of dizziness made the mall whirl about him. The scent of Elmira's perfume and tacos commingled. Distant voices clamored. A siren keened.  His vision dimmed and blackness closed in.