Parallels

By Allen Renfro

When Steve Davis, an ex-cop from Philadelphia, runs into himself on the street, a chain of events is set in motion that places him in the middle of a possible Armageddon. He finds himself compelled to drive cross-country to Los Angeles, distracting him from his failed life and allowing him to clear his head.

In the New Mexico desert, Steve is forced to help a mysterious stranger escape a cataclysmic event. When the stranger displays inhuman physical abilities and describes Steve’s life in graphic details that no one could possibly know, his curiosity grows. The stranger is a man that can’t possibly exist; the world around him is one that doesn’t seem real. As he attempts to unravel the mystery of the stranger, Steve has to accept that not only does he have a past connection with the man, but Steve might also be the key to stopping the world’s imminent destruction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Allen Renfro
• Release date: Mar 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9780463111338

Allen Renfro

Allen Renfro is a native of Tennessee and a graduate of Tusculum College. A published poet and artist in the zine culture of the 1990s he considers himself a "fringe" artist. He is an admitted history buff, horror movie watcher and reader of fiction. He is the author of eleven novels.

Book preview

Chapter One

It was just another day of trying to forget, studying the rows of bottles on the shelves, every flavor and brand of vodka one could ever want. I was just pretending to shop, trying not to be annoyed by the bizarre retro music playing, keeping my face turned away from the security cameras that watched me as the bright fluorescent lights tried to expose me. I knew exactly the brand I wanted. I just didn’t want to look so anxious. I didn’t want to appear to be the alcoholic that everybody already thought that I was.

The familiar cashier offered me the same smile she did every other day as she rang up the sale for a giant bottle of the cheapest vodka they sold. She knew but didn’t judge. She probably could see that I was drunk, but a sale was a sale, right?

I thought she recognized me for a different reason, the reason I drank to forget. It was the same reason I endured the long stares on the streets. It was why I finally stopped going out in the daytime. The dark provided a natural disguise.

I stepped out into the noisy street with the bottle of vodka nestled inside a paper bag. Among the young, hip club-goers and party animals excited to be out on a warm Friday night, it almost felt like the world was finally moving on. Nobody offered me a second glance, nobody pointed and whispered. For the first time in months, I didn’t feel conspicuous.

But then…

A sudden feeling, goosebumps, hair standing up on my arms. An instinct warned me something was wrong.

A man. Standing on the other side of the street, bent over, hands propped on his knees, breathing hard. I couldn’t see him clearly, but something about him forced my eyes to focus on him. The vivid blue button-up shirt he wore stood out among the hoard of people passing by.

In the hue of street light, he darted out into traffic, dodging cars and trucks, horns blaring, people yelling through open windows; flashes of his face captured in the headlights that reflected off of him.

And then he collided into me, bumping chests and shoulders as I stood near the corner holding my bottle of vodka. Face to face, eye to eye, breath to breath, stare to stare.

I remembered the paper bag slipping from my hand, the bottle falling to the sidewalk and shattering. I wasn’t breathing as I stared at a mirror’s reflection, the beads of sweat drifting down the face, the intense eyes, the fear staring at me, smudges of dirt and bruises on his face. I couldn’t feel my heartbeat.

It was me. Looking me in the eye, breathing hard, wanting to say something, needing to say something. It was me. Staring at me.

Don’t believe him, he said.

And then he ran past me.

No one else paid attention to the other me, at first.

I watched him zig-zag down the street, passing curious pedestrians who stopped and stared, looking over their shoulders, probably wondering if he was chasing someone. I shook the shock out of my head and chased after me, following the silhouette, wondering if anyone else was noticing that the person being chased was being chased by the same person.

But he was gone, as if vanishing into thin air.

I walked back to the scene of my broken bottle of vodka just outside the liquor store. I looked at the plate glass windows of the store, the neon red sign that read open. I thought about it, even though I knew better. I thought I was hallucinating. I realized I didn’t need any more vodka. I hoped it was dark enough that nobody recognized me.

I told myself it was just a dream. I was hallucinating. It was the vodka.

~~~

I splashed water in my eyes; allowed the drops to drift down my cheeks, cooling my face, staring at the image in the mirror. My face didn’t look as young as it should look, my bloodshot eyes that used to sparkle baby blue, my dark hair that looked like a wrecked bird’s nest, the stubble that lined my cheeks. I didn’t even have to ask the question when did it all go wrong. I knew exactly when it did. And this was what I deserved.

I turned away, reaching for the towel, bumping my knee into the toilet and nearly falling into the shower. I wiped my face dry and gave myself one last glance in the mirror. I turned off the light and stepped into the living room that had a couch to sit on and a window to stare through. I’d probably care that I didn’t have the small two-bedroom apartment furnished, but I was certain I wasn’t going to stay. What was the point anyway? The ex was never going to let me see my daughters again. The courts made sure of that.

I sat on the couch and stretched out, a spring pushing up against my ass. I looked over at the kitchen that was really just a sink next to a refrigerator and a microwave oven squeezed between cabinets.

I needed to sober up.

I closed my eyes and felt sleep taking me, when the vibration of my phone in my pants pocket woke me up. I wrestled the phone out of my pocket and looked at the face. It was the ex calling.

What is it, Leah?

I expected the usual barrage of insults and accusations, but for a few seconds, there was only silence.

Just as I suspected, she said. You answered.

Yeah, I did, I replied, sitting up, rubbing my eyes, adjusting the phone to my ear. What do you want?

I just got a call from Jacob, she said.

Okay, I replied, trying not to be sarcastic or condescending, even though that was exactly how I sounded.

He was calling from the hospital.

I stood up and walked over to the window, opening the blinds and looking out over the sleeping Philadelphia street. Yeah? So? He’s a doctor.

He called because of you, she said.

Me?

Yeah, you.

What the hell are you talking about? I said, aggravated with her vague conversation.

He said you were hit by a car, she said. He said you were in critical condition. You’re supposed to be in the hospital. I knew you were playing some kind of trick.

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Look, I don’t know what kind of stunt you’re trying to pull, Steve, but using your friends this way. I mean, it’s low, even for you.

The line went dead.

What the hell was she talking about?

I sat back down on the couch and shook the drunken vodka daze from my brain. She said Jacob called and said I was in the hospital. I focused my eyes on the screen of my phone and selected a number and pressed call.

Jacob answered and he sounded really confused. Hello?

Jacob, what the hell is going on?

He stuttered. Who is this?

It’s me, it’s Steve, I replied. What the hell, man?

There was a long silence. I could hear voices, coughs, and screams in the background.

That’s impossible, he finally said.

Why?

Because Steve’s here in the ER, he said. Jesus Christ, he was hit by a car. Both his legs are broken. Who the hell is this? Why do you have Steve’s phone?

Jacob! I was practically shouting. It’s me! It’s Steve!

No you’re not, asshole! he said. Fuck off!

The phone went dead.

What the hell was going on? I must have been dreaming or I had totally gone crazy or maybe the world had gone crazy.

~~~

I hated hospitals. Big surprise. But I had to know what was going on. I struggled to stay out of the way of the come-and-go of gurneys, orderlies, nurses, doctors, sick, injured all around me, just trying to get down the hall to the nearest station to ask for Jacob. Blinded by lights, the smell of disinfectant, I was in a maze. And nobody knew me.

A gray-haired nurse in blue scrubs sat at the station staring at a computer screen while she typed, her eyes locked on to the screen, filtered through glasses that slipped to the edge of her nose. Her New York voice was as bland as oatmeal.

Can I help you?

Yes, I replied with a smile, hoping she would look up at me as I stared down at her. I’m looking for Dr. Alexander?

He’s with a patient, she said, almost mumbled. If it’s an emergency, we can page him.

Yes, please, I replied. If it’s not too much trouble.

Can I have your name?

Steve, I replied. Steve Davis.

Her eyes darted up and she looked at me. She was suspicious but didn’t offer a reason why.

Have a seat in the waiting room, she said, pointing in that direction, and we’ll page him for you.

I sat down in the crowded room of chairs, tables, and magazines, trying to hold my breath out of fear of catching an unknown plague from the coughs, sneezes, and groans that surrounded me. A boy, probably nine years old, sat across from me, next to his mother, holding white gauze stained red over his right eye. He stared at me in that way kids had that becomes unnerving. His mother was attentive to him, trying to make him comfortable, reassuring him the doctor was going to see him very soon, but he just stared at me, like he knew all of my secrets.

I offered him a smile when the nurse finally came and got him.

I offered a smile when the nurse came and got the coughing old man beside me.

I offered a smile when the nurse came and got the fractured ankle woman across from me.

Another smile.

Another smile.

And it finally occurred to me that I had been offering smiles for more than half an hour.

I walked back to the nurses’ station to the same nurse that was still typing away, staring at the monitor in front of her, the image reflecting in the frames of her glasses.

Excuse me, I said.

She didn’t look up. Yes?

Uh, I almost hesitated, I asked for Dr. Alexander to be paged about thirty minutes ago?

She looked up.

That’s odd.

I’m sorry? I replied, not sure what she meant.

I’ll page him again, she said.

I stood there waiting, anticipating, and so did the nurse sitting behind the counter, no longer preoccupied with her paperwork.

And we waited. And waited.

Something’s not right, the nurse said and spun around in her swivel chair, looking over at another nurse who must have been the same age as she was. Helen, do you know where Dr. Alexander is? He’s not answering his pages.

Last time I noticed, he was with that friend of his that was brought in, she said. The hit and run.

I interrupted them, my heart booming in my chest. He was? Where was that?

Back in trauma, Helen said, pointing, but you can’t…

I didn’t wait to hear them tell me I couldn’t go. I rushed down the hallway with a chorus of sir repeating behind me and a page for security. I was smart enough to be carrying my police badge with me, even though it meant nothing. Well, it meant something for one more week. But they didn’t know that. Flashing it made them back off, but I wound up roaming like a hungry lion anxious to find wounded prey, the two nurses chasing behind me.

The trauma unit was like a large bicycle wheel. Each spoke of it was a bed or gurney with curtains pulled on both sides and I followed the circle around, checking out each patient, unfazed by blood spewing and spraying, mangled faces and broken limbs, affected more by the screams of one man who looked like he was dying. We made the full circle with the nurses telling me I was contaminating the environment and being disrespectful as I zig-zagged around interns, doctors, nurses, bumping shoulders, fighting my way through the commotion like a football player chasing the ball.

We came to an empty space, the curtains disguising the scene; no bed, no gurney. Both nurses were surprised.

Is this where the patient was? I asked in a stern tone, my hands finding my hips as I turned in a circle taking in the whole scene of chaos.

Yes, the nurse said. Maybe he’s already gone into surgery. He was in critical condition.

You should know that, shouldn’t you? I asked sarcastically with irritation mounting.

Let’s go back to the station and I’ll check.

I beat the two nurses back to the station and watched as she typed in information on the keyboard, trying to ignore the hustle and bustle all around us.

Wait a minute, she said, suddenly searching around her desk, rifling through a stack of manila file folders. Where is it?

Where’s what? I asked, becoming more tense by the second.

The other nurse joined her, scouring through stacks of files and checking clipboards; all of us were practically oblivious to the routine pandemonium around us.

The information on the patient, she said, still rummaging through the stacks of paperwork.

She sat down behind the computer screen and began typing, pausing, typing again.

It’s not here, she said. It’s all gone.

That can’t be, the other nurse said, looking over her shoulder, staring at the monitor.

What was the patient’s name? I asked

They ignored me. The one sitting behind the computer screen grabbed a phone receiver, her words a jumble of miscomprehension, uttering passioned phrases like security, we have a missing patient and a missing doctor.

I pulled my cell out of my pants pocket and dialed Jacob’s number and paced as it rang and rang, never rolling over to voicemail. And then I was practically staggering to the parking garage, annoyed by the people in my way; it was all a pointless effort to try and find Jacob’s car in the dark night with only the random spray of illumination from moving cars and the impotent glow that was scattered around the lot. The lights from hospital windows stared at me like unforgiving eyes. I felt lost standing in between rows of cars, spinning around, searching, aimless. It seemed like hours in the dark, until I was walking the hallway to Jacob’s apartment. I rang the doorbell and then knocked, and knocked, yelling out his name, thinking it was a waste of time.

Jacob! Jacob! Man, you in there?

The door flew open and Jacob was standing there naked, snarling like a bull. Dude? What the hell?

I… I didn’t know what to say. What are you doing here?

He scratched his disheveled hair, wiping the sleep from his eyes. I’m trying to sleep.

But you… I paused, not knowing what words to say. You told Leah…

He cut me off. You been droppin’ acid or something? It’s the middle of the night.

He walked inside and I followed his naked ass in and closed the door behind me. I followed him to the kitchen.

You called Leah, I said, practically pleading. You told her I’d been hit by a car.

He opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a bottle of beer. I’ve been asleep. I have to be at the hospital at five in the morning.

But Leah…

He interrupted me again. Is fucking with you. Like she always does.

I went to the hospital, I said as defensively as a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. They said you were there, with me.

Jesus, he smirked, putting the bottle to his lips, how drunk are you?

Goddammit, Jacob, I practically shouted. Do I look drunk to you? Do I sound drunk?

He took in a long, deep sigh that felt condescending, that made me want to punch him in the face. Are you having the dreams again?

The dreams started the day after Rick died. I told myself it was just a reaction to his death; just a reaction to the reasons why he chose to take his life and leave me behind to face the judgment of the world. I didn’t want to call the dreams nightmares. Nightmares are bizarre figments of your imagination. These were like pieces of my life being played in 3D on an Imax movie screen, but only I could see. Like visions. Like a retelling of my life so that I could be crucified over and over again. Doctors told me it was a response to intense guilt and grief. I was starting to think they were wrong.

I found myself unintentionally staring down at Jacob’s cock instead of the floor. I thought about my encounter outside the liquor store, the twin, the me staring at me.

Maybe you’re sleep-walking too.

This is different. It’s not the same, I said. There’s something weird going on.

He took a swig of the beer and I stood there speechless, finally able to look him in the eye.

It’s gonna be okay. He smiled. You’re gonna get through this. It’s just gonna take a while.

I didn’t have a response. I stared into his eyes, my mind racing with a thousand defensive things I wanted to say but decided against it.

Anything else? he asked, the beer bottle in front of his lips. You wanna drink?

No, I replied, shaking my head, feeling groggy.

Well, if you’re not gonna drink and you’re not gonna blow me, can you leave so I can get some sleep?

I grinned. Blow it? I can barely see it.

You’ll feel it if you don’t get outta here, I promise. He smirked.

I turned and headed back to the front door.

I’ll call you after work, he said as I closed the door.

Leah was fucking with me. That made no sense. What good would it do to make a crazy story like that up? I was close to crazy anyway. Maybe this was me finally going over the edge. Seeing myself on the street; a fucked-up call from my ex-wife. The dominoes already were in place. They were finally falling.

I really shouldn’t have been parking outside my daughters’ school to get a glimpse of them every morning and every evening. I shouldn’t monitor their after-school activities to remind them with a wave and a hello-I-love-you that I was still there for them. I shouldn’t be watching with binoculars through windows just to see if they were sleeping okay at night. I shouldn’t keep drinking the way I had been and expect to live a long life. I knew I needed to get away from Philadelphia. I had to find some space at least for a little while. I had always wanted to go to Los Angeles.

A few days later, without telling anyone, I packed up a few things, along with a couple of extra guns and ammunition, and headed out for L.A.

Chapter Two

Do as we say and your family will live.

A text on my phone. Out of the blue. An unknown number. Driving along Interstate 81 near Roanoke, Virginia. Even though it unnerved me, I ignored the text. It was some kind of stupid fishing scheme. Somebody with the wrong number. I kept driving along the endless highways heading west, not really paying attention, going along, occasionally taking in the scenic beauty around me, but mostly, I just stayed inside my head.

I was somewhere in Texas, maybe near Amarillo, at least I thought it was Texas; it was hot as hell and all I could see was desert, so maybe it was hell and not Texas. It was probably what hell looked like. The swigs of vodka I was taking from the bottle tucked between my legs probably weren’t helping.

I received another text from the same unknown number. No words, just a picture taken from my old Facebook account; I’d forgotten I even had it. A picture of my ex-wife and two daughters from the last summer vacation that we were actually happy.

Now they, whoever they were, had my full attention. I called the ex-wife and she answered. Everything’s fine. The girls are fine. Stop calling here or I’ll call the police and my attorney, you sorry-ass son of a bitch.

Everything was normal back home.

I didn’t respond to the text, even though I wanted to. I decided to let them think they had a wrong number, or the number belonged to somebody that didn’t give a shit and wasn’t intimidated by text messages.

They texted again. Turn back.

It was bullshit I knew. I wasn’t going to turn back.

Don’t go to Los Angeles.

All my instincts, or was it paranoia, took over. How did they know I was going to L.A.? I was being followed. They were watching me. Tracking me with my phone. They had to be.

I could just turn off the phone. Nobody cared where I was or what I was doing anyway. Nobody was missing me. But I couldn’t resist wanting to know who they were and what they wanted. It was the cop in me. The instinct to get to the bottom of a mystery.

It had to be a sick joke. Some kind of crazy hack that was affecting all cell phones. It would be on the news with the number of people affected in the millions. Surely that was what this was.

The texts went silent. I told myself it was obviously a bunch of talented teenage geeks messing with me. It was nice to be back inside my own head, alone inside my car on an empty paved highway that cut an endless straight line through the desert around me. Nothing to do but think about running away, beat myself up over everything that wasn’t my fault; being the drama queen that everyone knew and hated.

But I spent the next few hours on the dark highway glancing in the rear-view mirror, nervously watching every pair of headlights that came up swiftly behind me. Preparing myself for an approaching vehicle to cut me off and force me to stop or for a car behind me to ram the back bumper and force me off the road. After night came and went and then came again and I had a few hours of sleep at a roadside rest area, I mistakenly felt more at ease. I felt alone and safe on the highway, focusing on the headlights of my car carving two bright wounds into the dark night in front of me.

It was almost twenty-four more hours and the phone dinged with a text message and I thought, Here we go again.

Maintain present course. 3.6 kilometers to the Lone Star Gas Station. Wait in parking area for further instructions.

Weird. Whoever it was knew exactly where I was. They were definitely tracking me. And they were using my phone to do it. But I wasn’t stupid, no matter what many people thought. I was not going to do what a pussy hiding behind a cell phone ordered me.

I casually glanced over at the well-lit gas station that glowed like a bright star in the middle of the dark desert. The gas station was the first business leading into a small town complete with a diner sandwiched between a motel and a liquor store on the side of the highway. I offered a sarcastic middle finger as I blinked my eyes and the desert town was already behind me. It didn’t occur to me to think I should be worried just because the texted instructions were accurate and the gas station was real.

This is your last warning.

Bluff called. I didn’t run from threats. I kept driving.

My phone went silent. I was lost again in my head, listening to the music playing on the radio between bursts of static and mingled voices as the straight highway became a curvy road winding through a mountain range. I half-heartedly read a highway sign as it reflected in the headlights: Jemez Springs. But all I could see was the thickness of the night and the stars in the sky overhead. It almost felt like I was driving through a canyon. I couldn’t see the moon and the suffocating darkness was like walls closing in on me.

I felt like I had been driving for hours on the winding road that drifted south until I saw a sign that read five-five-zero and I was once again heading northwest with a giant moon and a canvas of stars keeping me company.

The highway was never-ending and I became more concerned every time I looked at the fuel gauge on the dash and I watched the needle moving closer to the E. A little over a quarter of a tank left. Not to mention I was