Virtual American Gothic - Third Season Episode Sixteen TIME AFTER TIME By Robyn Russell NOT TO BE ARCHIVED TO A WEB PAGE WITHOUT THE AUTHOR'S PRIOR CONSENT. Guest Stars: Polly Holiday as Lucilla Mae Temple Buck Brent Spiner as Jonathan Virgilius Kane Special Guest Star: Andy Griffith as Judge Horatio Buck Music credits: Song lyrics are from "The River of Dreams" by Billy "The Piano Man" Joel ********************************************** Lucas hadn't seen this particular dream in a long time. It was one of the things he had inherited from his father after the old man's death. One of many things. He's a boy, splashing frantically in waters of a lake. From the looming rowboat, a genial face with cold, dead eyes looks down on him. His father? No, the features are wrong, the clothes too old-fashioned. His grandfather then, Horatio Buck, justice of the peace. "Let that be a lesson to you, boy. Don't ever trust anybody," the man in the boat said. Reeds and sand. He staggers up the shore, coughing, calling for his mother. A much younger, red-haired Lucilla appears on the porch like a Valkyrie, holding a shotgun. Strange. Even after all this time, he still can't imagine Lucilla as young. She's always seemed the same to him, ageless and unchanging. "Didn't mean no harm, Lucy Mae. Just teachin' the boy how to swim." The Judge is charming. He's always charming. "You stay the hell away from my son or I'll blow your head off." Lucilla is cold and deadly. The way she's always been. The Judge departs, driving away in his fine Model T, the first one in Fulton County. Burnished black. "Don't worry, honey." Lucilla is comforting him. "When you're in charge of this town, you'll make him pay." Another image appears. The beautiful black Model T has plunged into a lake. As the lake swallows up the burnished body of the car, air bubbles begin to appear on the surface of the water. And then, after a short while, the bubbles stop. There's a reflection in the lake. His father, Christopher Buck, no longer quite so innocent. Or so young. His father says only one thing. "It's my turn now, old man." "Where did you come from?" Caleb asked, startling Lucas out of his reverie. A wave of giddy children, happy to be free, poured out of the school. "From roaming the earth and patrolling it," Lucas replied, covering his surprise. Boy had come up on him quick. Was he getting so old his mind was wandering? "You gonna give me a ride home?" Lucas surpressed a smile. Ain't a boy alive didn't covet that Crown Vic. "Not today. Came to warn ya. You remember Mayor Kane?" "The fella Miss Coombs was gonna marry?" "That's the one." The memory still left a bad taste in Lucas's mouth. "Well, he's back." "But we saw him die..." Caleb said uncertainly. Lucas gave him a knowing look. "Not everything dies, Caleb. I want you to stay alert, watch your back." "What for? He didn't bother me none when he was alive." Something tickled the back of Caleb's mind even as the words came out. Something about water . . . "You just watch your step. I'm not always gonna be around to tell you these things." "Yeah? Where you goin'?" Caleb found he was talking to himself as the Crown Vic shot off like a startled crow. Mist rose up from the Johnson River so thick that the bridge seemed to be suspended in mid-air. Apart from the muted gurgling of the water, the only other sound was Lucas's own footsteps, clicking hollowly on the bridge like the hands of a clock. At the halfway point, he paused, his black duster billowing out around him as if fanned by hot air. Silent, yes, but the night was listening. "No more games, Johnny boy. It's just you and me now," Lucas announced to the night in general. Behind him, his car suddenly burst the silence. The doors opened and slammed shut, the headlights came on, the radio began to play. "In the middle of the night, I go walkin' in my sleep. Through the valley of fear, to a river so deep . . ." The Piano Man wailed mournfully. Lucas snorted. Cheap parlor tricks. Kane appeared from the opposite side of the bridge, his white suit as immaculate as it had been when he had been running for office. The silver-headed walking stick he always affected dangled jauntily from his forearm. "I'm baaa-aack," Kane said. Lucas could feel the power radiating from His Honor. Johnny Boy had been tanking up. "Some people don't have enough sense to stay dead." "Some people don't have enough sense to know that their time is up," Kane riposted. "You can't kill me." "No more than you can kill me. But I can make you wait a long time for your next rebirth." "Caleb is MY son!" Lucas spat the words out. "Then he'll join his father. It's time for a new dynasty, Lucas. A new dynasty to take Trinity into the next millenium." "I'll see you in hell first." Kane laughed. "Been there, done that, bought the souvenir mug." White fire raced down the length of the bridge. Red fire met with white fire at the middle of the bridge in a shower of sparks. Lucas felt like he had been hit by a Mack truck. Might as well get settled in. This was going to take awhile. "I know I'm searching for something, something so undefined. That it can only be seen by the eyes of the blind, in the middle of the night . . ." the Piano Man hollered. Caleb was having the dream again. He was floundering in the middle of a large body of water, a river or a lake. All around him flocked a huge group of crows making wet, croaking sounds like measured drumbeats. Selena floated past him in a rowboat. "I can't help you now, Caleb," she said. "You got your own problems, Miss Coombs." "Yes," Selena said as she floated away, one hand on her abodomen. "Yes, I do." "I tried to warn you, Caleb." Merly was in the rowboat now. "I tried to save you." "I know you did, Merly." Merly held out her hand, but it passed right through him. "I'll always love you, Caleb. Remember that." "You ain't even trying to drown yourself properly. No half measures, boy." Lucas looked down scornfully on his thrashing offspring. "You never was much help to me." "Man's gotta be strong enough to help hisself in this world, son." "Caleb, get in." Judith was sitting in the prow of a rowboat like the Lady of Shalott, her golden hair streaming down her shoulders. Caleb reached out and took the extended oar. Judith drew him into the boat. Startled out of his dream, Caleb sat up to find Judith sitting on the edge of his bed. "What is it, Mama?" he asked, muzzily. "Your father needs your help." "He don't need me. He don't need anybody." Caleb pulled the blankets up over his head. "He needs, Caleb, he needs more than he'll ever admit. And all the love and respect and obedience in the world still isn't enough to fill that need." "I don't need him." "It's our nature to help those who need us. Our nature, Caleb. Yours and mine." Even with his head under the covers, Caleb could sense that his mother had gone. Lucas could take of himself, right? And if he couldn't, well, . . . Caleb didn't like to think about what would happen then. He rolled out of bed and started searching for his clothes. Family was still family even in the middle of the night, he guessed. Beads of sweat formed on Lucas's brow despite the chill of the evening. Kane's white suit had turned pearly grey. The atmosphere was as oppressive and choking as the air before a hurricane. "What's the matter, Lucas? Not feeling quite like yourself?" Lucas could see Kane's lips move, but the movement looked unreal as if Kane was underwater. Lucas snarled back wordlessly. The air around him was trembling with unrestrained power, the very life force of the universe itself. Lucas lashed out and Kane threw the hammer stroke back. Lucas could feel the pulse resonate across their defenses. They were very closely matched. It was all going to come down to endurance, he could tell. Seeing which one could outlast the other. Seeing whose will was strongest. Seeing who wanted this town the most. A sharp clink distracted Lucas momentarily. A bolt had fallen from one of the girders. Lucas didn't have time to register what that meant before the bridge tore itself apart. Screaming like a living thing, the Johnson Bridge exploded. The main bed of the bridge cannonballed into the river below. The girders were thrown out from the center, their twisted steel limbs reaching up to heaven like the arms of the damned. The force of the explosion--or was it an implosion?--knocked Lucas into the side rails and then onto what remained of the Trinity side of the bridge. Scrambling like a rat for a foothold on the slanting slab, Lucas felt rather than saw the stone in his ring shatter. With a gasp, Selena sat up in bed, startling the comatose felines around her. She could feel the wetness coursing down her leg. Recalled to wakefulness, she groped for the phone and dialed 911. Selena didn't need any doctor to know that it was her time. She tried to call Merly, but there was no answer, just an off the hook beeping. "I need you NOW, damn it, one survivor to another. Where are you!" She threw the phone across the room as the pains hit her. Something was wrong with the bridge. Even through the thick mist, Caleb could sense that. The girders were twisted as if by giant fingers. As he got closer, he could see the gaping hole where the bridge had been. There was nothing except an iron precipice on the Trinity side now. Carefully, he peered over the edge into the wide open maw. Lucas looked up at him from his precarious perch on a slanting overhang. "Lucas!" "Don't interfere, Caleb." Caleb's head snapped up. Jonathan Kane stood on the opposite end of the bridge, his two-toned Oxfords poised inches from the awesome drop in front of him. "He'll die!" "It's his time," Kane replied, calmly. "But it doesn't have to be yours. Walk away, Caleb, and you can live." "I can't do that." "Yes, you can. Imagine it, Caleb. A whole new life far away from Trinity. No more being Lucas Buck's son. No more whispers behind your back. No more living down your past." "I'm his son. I'll always be his son. But that ain't all I am." "Well, now, that's too bad." Something about that voice ... A high bridge. A hard shove. A long, long fall. "You tried to kill me," Caleb said suddenly. Kane shrugged. "If at first you don't succeed ...." With one smooth motion, Kane twisted the head of his walking stick. There was a flash of steel. A blade hurtled toward Caleb like lightning bolt. Instinctively, Caleb threw the blow back, putting the force of his will into it. The sword evaporated in a ringing blast, half light and half sound. The resulting concussion knocked Caleb flat. When he staggered to his feet, Kane was gone. The night was clear and still. And Lucas . . . Lucas was ... No, not dead yet. One hand still grimly clung to what was left of the wreckage. "Hang on, I'm comin'." Laying down on his belly, Caleb crawled towards his father. He clutched at Buck's wrist, trying to get some leverage. If he could just pull his father up a little bit more ... Even as Caleb strained, Lucas could feel the boy sliding incrementally toward the ragged edge of the precipice. Lucas's fingers dug into his son's shoulder, trying vainly to get some purchase. Caleb slid a little closer. Damnation, Lucas thought, they were both going to die here at this rate. Trust a Temple boy not to have enough sense to save himself. Caleb was hanging halfway over the edge now. For a moment, two generations of the same line looked each other in the eye. "It's your time now, son," Lucas said, in that same cool voice Caleb had heard a hundred times. Then Buck let go and fell. Fell a long way down. There was a splash and for a brief moment Caleb thought he saw something white bob to the surface. Then the inky waters closed up again and it was gone. "NOOOOOOOO!" Caleb's scream echoed across the river. "We all end in the ocean, we all start in the streams. We're all carried along by the river of dreams. In the middle of the night . . ." sang the Piano Man. FINIS DISCLAIMER: Any story/episode appearing that states it is part of Virtual AG-Season Three is based upon the Television show, "American Gothic", which is the property of Shaun Cassidy, Renaissance Productions, and CBS (apparently). The characters added to support this concept, and the storylines, are the property of the writers acknowledged as such. PLEASE, DON'T SUE US!!